Bryn Mawr College

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Tours

1. Prospective Student Tour

   Join us for a tour of campus!

   Stops

   1. Benham Gateway

      Welcome to Bryn Mawr College! 
      
      Benham Gateway is the home to Undergraduate Admissions, Graduate Admissions, Financial Aid, and Communications. Constructed in 1883, Benham Gateway was originally home to the Bryn Mawr Bookstore and is named for Isabel Benham '31.
      
      Please see our website for information about interviews, campus visits, overnight stays, transfer students, college fairs, and the entire application process.

   2. New Dorm

      New Dorm opened in the Fall of 2015 and consists of single rooms for upperclass and first year students.  New Dorm houses one of two dining halls on campus.

   3. Enid Cook '31 Center

      The Enid Cook '31 Center (ECC) opened in the Fall of 2015. Named after the first African American woman to obtain her degree from Bryn Mawr College, the ECC serves as the Black Cultural Center and residence. The ECC is open to students of the African diaspora.

   4. Erdman Hall

      Opened in 1965, Erdman was designed as a modern Scottish castle by renowned architect Louis Kahn. Composed of three connecting units (or "diamonds"), it houses the College's largest dining hall and several meeting spaces. The majority of Erdman bedroom spaces are singles. Upperclass students have the option of drawing into two-person suites, which consist of two bedrooms and a shared common area.

   5. Student Life and Wellness Building

      Check out what staff and students have to say about our new building, "The Well"!
      
      The new Student Life and Wellness Building that opened its doors in early 2022, has created a welcoming space for students that brings together three key centers to create a synergy that redefines wellness for the community.
      
      

      “This project began with the need to build a Health and Wellness Center that is inviting and accessible,” says Dean of the Undergraduate College Jennifer Walters. “The new building makes it possible for us to advance a concept of wellness that includes learning how to care for yourself and communities that are important to you. Locating the Pensby Center for Community Development and Inclusion and the Career & Civic Engagement Center with health and wellness services and programs creates opportunities for innovation and collaboration in student life.”
      
      Visitors to the 21,000-square-foot building are first met with a glass enclosed entryway that leads to the main lobby and a calming “water wall” as they make their way to a central information desk that’s flanked by a common area of sofas and chairs on one side and offices on the other. Past the information desk is the elevator and wide, inviting stairs leading to the second-floor home of the Health and Wellness Center. The first floor is home to the Career & Civic Engagement Center and the Pensby Center for Community Development and Inclusion.
      
      Among the highlights of the new space for the Career & Civic Engagement Center are three dedicated interview/meeting rooms and a community room that will be outfitted with all the necessary technology for students to meet with employers and community partners and to engage with guests from around the world. The space also brings together the Center’s entire 16-person staff, which had previously been dispersed in four different locations across campus.
      
      

      For the Pensby Center, the new space means a much more central location on campus and brings a dramatic increase in common areas for student programming and support. The building is home to both a halal and kosher kitchen, a prayer room with a foot-washing station, and a multicultural living room.
      
      

      Upstairs, the new Health Center has six new exam rooms and the Counseling Center has 10 rooms for students to meet with counselors.
      
      

      “The new center will include a wide variety of student support services including medical and counseling services, religious life, and our Pensby Center for Community Development and Inclusion," said President Kim Cassidy. "This co-location will enable a greater focus on the whole student and support for new synergies across departments."

      
      The  Student Life and Wellness building was made possible in part through the generous gifts made to the College during the Defy Expectation Campaign. To enhance student life, the College invested more than $103 million in buildings and infrastructure over the course of the campaign, with the campaign raising more than $25 million for new capital projects such as the Bryn Mawr College broke ground on a new Student Health and Wellness Center in early 2020 and opened the doors in January 2022. The Center consolidates services that were previously provided across different areas of the campus, thus giving students a centralized place to receive counseling and medical attention, career and civic engagement programming, and many other services that bolster the quality of a student's life. 

       

       

       

   6. Pembroke Arch

      One of the most recognizable images on Bryn Mawr's campus, the Pembroke Arch was the first college archway in America. 
      
      

   7. Guild Hall

      Eugenia Chase Guild Hall is a student-centered space that brings together several advising and student-services offices under one roof, including the Dean of the Undergraduate College, the advising deans, the Office of the Registrar, Student Engagement and New Student Programs, Access Services, Student Life, and Residential Life. Guild also houses informal work spaces and student lounges.

   8. Taylor Hall

      Constructed in 1879-1884, Taylor Hall is the original administrative/academic building of the College and is essentially intact including a 130 foot high bell tower which is still operational. Still serving both academics and administrative offices, it houses the Office of the President. President Cassidy welcomes visits from individual students and student groups during her office hours to discuss various aspects of the campus experience.
      

   9. Campus Center

      As the hub of non-academic life, the Marie Salant Neuberger Centennial Campus Center houses the Bookshop, the College Mailroom, student mailboxes, lounge areas, meeting rooms, Uncommon Grounds Café and Conferences and Events. Students, faculty, and staff use the campus center for informal meetings and discussion groups as well as campus-wide social events and activities.

   10. Park Science Center

       The Park Science Center is the core of the academic and research community for mathematics and the sciences at Bryn Mawr College. The facility is a collection of interconnected buildings that has been built over time. In 2017, Bryn Mawr College began the first phase of a two part renovation of the Park Science complex to ensure that Bryn Mawr students and faculty remain at the forefront in STEM fields. Phase One was completed in September, 2018.  The renovation transforms the facility to better meet current and future needs of core academic programs.

       
       
       Park Science Center houses faculty offices, science classrooms, laboratories, lecture halls, and the Collier Science Library. In the summer of 2015, a new, state-of-the-art Optics Lab was completed in the Physics wing.
       
       
       

   11. Bern Schwartz Fitness and Athletic Center

       The Bern Schwartz Fitness and Athletic Center has become the place to be since reopening in September 2010. The 11,500 sq. ft. fitness center provides over 100 different workout options, including over 50 pieces of cardio equipment, 15 selectorized weight machines, and a multi-purpose room that houses everything from Indoor Cycling to Zumba Fitness! The building hosts two-courts in the Class of 1958 Gymnasium, an eight lane pool, a fitness center with a varsity weight training area, an athletic training room, locker rooms, a conference smart room, and the Department of Athletics & Physical Education offices. This building is home to the College's basketball, badminton, swimming and volleyball teams.
       
       The second floor houses the fitness center with three distinct areas: one for cardio and weigh machines, a second for classes and group activities and a third focusing on free weights and functional training. The cardio section features three HD plasma televisions with integrated audio listening abilities and treadmills with individual televisions on each machine.  All three areas boast large windows with natural light.
       
       Augmenting the facility are two playing fields (field hockey, lacrosse and soccer), a practice field and seven tennis courts.

   12. Pensby Center for Community Development and Inclusion

       The Pensby Center for Community Development and Inclusion recently moved from the Pensby building to their new home in the Student Life and Wellness Center.  The new space means a much more central location on campus and brings a dramatic increase in common areas for student programming and support. The building is home to both a halal and kosher kitchen, a prayer room with a foot-washing station, and a multicultural living room.
       
       
       The Pensby Center for Community Development and Inclusion implements programs and activities that address issues of diversity, power and privilege, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, country of origin, class, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation and disability, with a goal of improving the campus climate and enhancing community life at Bryn Mawr College.
       
       The Pensby Center staff develops and coordinates leadership development and training programs, organizes key campus cultural events, guides student affinity groups, coordinates College programs to mentor and support students from underrepresented groups, supervises the Community Diversity Assistants and provides informal advising to all students interested in issues of social justice and multiculturalism.

   13. Senior Row

       Through the middle of Bryn Mawr's campus is a double row of trees known as Senior Row. It is the site of the May Day hoop race. The rumor is, if you walk all the way down Senior Row in between the rows of trees before you're a senior, you won't graduate.  At the end of Senior Row is the Moon Bench, which has its own associated traditional value.

   14. Canaday Library

       Canaday Library houses the humanities and social sciences collections, Special Collections, the College Archives, the Help Desk, many library and information technology staff offices, and a writing center with student tutors.
       
       Bryn Mawr College has three libraries offering diverse, technology-enabled learning spaces and programs, including computer labs with a breadth of discipline-specific software, individual and group study areas, and laptop and multimedia device lending. Artwork from the collection is displayed throughout the campus, with numerous faculty-, staff-, and student-curated exhibits on view every year.

   15. Old Library

       Old Library served as the College's library until 1970 and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1991. Today, it is used for public gatherings, lectures, and performances. The spacious Great Hall, which was the reading room in the old library, was inspired by buildings at Oxford University. The enclosed courtyard, called the Cloisters, is the site of Lantern Night, a Bryn Mawr tradition.

   16. Cloisters

       The Cloisters is an open, outdoor courtyard in the center of Old Library. In the fall semester, the first-year students gather in the Cloisters where the sophomores present them with lanterns in their class color or the McBride color of purple. The sentiment behind Lantern Night is that the light of knowledge is being passed from one class to the other.

   17. Goodhart Hall

       Goodhart Hall was constructed in 1926-28 and underwent a major renovation in 2009. It is an important campus resource housing the McPherson Auditorium, Hepburn Teaching Theater, and Goodhart Music Room. Goodhart is used for ceremonial events, official academic year events, student productions, and visiting performers.