Report of Gifts 2009

I'm pleased to thank the many generous donors who supported Haverford last year. Your gifts to the College during the 2008-2009 fiscal year allowed us, in spite of a fragile economy, to support our broad and deep curricular offerings, including our signature student-faculty research collaborations, to design intellectually stimulating campus programming, and to offer financial assistance to any students in need.

What is remarkable is that the Annual Fund, current unrestricted dollars, grew by 13% over last year. More than $4.5 million in unrestricted funds provided a vital revenue stream that supplemented endowment income and tuition revenues, both of which were under great pressure.    Read More >

Frasat Ahmad '11 and Scott Schnur '10 got a crash course in the aesthetics of Islam this summer, when they worked as research assistants for Assistant Professor of Religion Travis Zadeh. The two students were charged with finding images for Zadeh to include in his Haverford classes and in a book he has just finished writing. The pictures can also be found on Tripix, a searchable tri-college image database.

Ahmad located 50 books and manuscripts containing pictures of mosques, palaces, tombs, the geographic locations of these structures, and representations of Islamic holy figures. He scanned more than 600 images for Zadeh to use in his course "Imagining Islam: Icon, Object and Image." Read More >

Amirah Nash '11, and Ben Amendolara, Bobby Danforth and Rebecca Burger-Caplan, all class of 2010, gained valuable experience in the field of medicine this summer thanks to primary care physician Steve Jaharis '82. Since 2000, Jaharis has sponsored internships for Haverford students in facilities that treat underserved populations.

Steve Jaharis '82 finds his career as a primary care physician in Winnetka, Ill., infinitely rewarding. "I've often seen several generations of the same family, and I'm the first contact for any problems that arise," he says. "I like the idea of being a medical 'home' for my patients."     Read More >

When the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship put out a call to faculty three years ago, asking for ideas on locales for summer student internships, Associate Professor of History James Krippner immediately thought of Casa de los Amigos in Mexico City. The hostel, founded as a Center for Peace and International Understanding by the Quaker community in 1956, is well known, Krippner says, as a home away from home for U.S. students and academics doing research in Mexico City. His own long association with the Casa began when he was still a grad student. "I stayed there on my very first trip to Mexico in 1985," says Krippner, who specializes in Mexican and Latin American history.    Read More >

Philadelphia residents Dominique De Leon and Rachel Edmonds, both class of '12, had their own reasons for wanting to attend Haverford. "What sold me," says De Leon, "was the laid-back, trusting, and respectful atmosphere that the school owes both to the Honor Code and its Quaker roots." Meanwhile, Edmonds says she liked the idea of "taking any class I wanted before having to make a decision on a major."

Both women are attending Haverford courtesy of the Philadelphia Scholarship, which was established by Jackie (Davis) Brady '89 in 2008. The scholarship provides financial assistance to underrepresented students from Philadelphia who qualify for need-based aid.    Read More >

Seniors Amy Labar and Laura VanArendonk spent three weeks in the African country working with Associate Professor of Biology Iruka Okeke and her collaborators at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife. In addition to assisting in the university's Medical Microbiology and Parasitology Laboratory, the two contributed to an intensive workshop focused on molecular biology for undergraduates, graduate students and faculty. Their trip was sponsored by the Koshland Integrated Natural Sciences Center (KINSC) through its programming funds and Labar's Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) interdisciplinary scholarship.    Read More >