About
During the last 30 years the College’s regular teaching faculty has been supplemented annually by a number of scholars, artists, scientists and outstanding representatives of many fields who are invited as part of Haverford’s Distinguished Visitors Program. Some may stay only a few hours, but most remain for a few days or, in some cases, may even conduct courses for an entire semester.
Whatever the schedule may be, its purpose is to bring the visitor into close contact with faculty and students. A typical visitor might give one or more public lectures, participate in a seminar, lunch with student majors from Haverford and Bryn Mawr or dine with colleagues on the faculty.
The visitors program was greatly strengthened by a generous bequest from William Pyle Philips, of the Class of 1902, who in 1950 left much of his estate to Haverford, a portion of which was specified to underwrite the expenses of bringing “distinguished scientists and statesmen’’ to Haverford. The Philips Fund is the largest of several currently supporting the entire Distinguished Visitors Program; others are the Emily Judson Baugh and John Marshall Gest Fund, the Scholars in the Humanities Fund, the Mary Farnum Brown Fund, the William Gibbons Rhoads Fund, the Thomas Shipley Fund administered by the English Department, the J. F. Lincoln Family Foundation Fund, the David Levin Memorial Fund, the Alan R. Morse Fund, the Ellis T. Williams Memorial Fund, the Tilney Memorial Fund, the Moore Fund for the Arts and the Humanities, Bruce Hartung French Fund in Economics and American History, the Agnes Chen fund, and a special fund for African history.