According to Leonard Maltin, “Timing in life is everything.” Especially in the life of an institution. Which is precisely why Thomas R. Tritton, the characteristically contemplative twelfth president of Haverford College, spent a year thinking about the implications of his decision to complete his decade of service to the College this coming summer. “I’m a firm believer that both institutions and individuals need change and renewal,” the fifty-eight-year-old cancer biologist smiles. “I also didn’t want to wait a year too long. It’s better to leave when things are going well.”

Although Tritton would be the first to warn against the complacency implicit in “resting on one’s laurels,” few would disagree that he is leaving Haverford at one of the high points in its 173-year history. In terms of the College’s financial stability, academic excellence, state-of-the-art facilities and enhanced visibility, things are indeed going quite well. “In the past 10 years, with Tom as president, we’ve moved away from being a ‘best-kept secret’ to a position where our institutional accomplishments, profile and fund-raising reflect our academic stature and tradition,” reflects Barry L. Zubrow ’75, co-chair of the College’s Board of Managers. “Few presidents have accomplished as much for their institutions as Tom has for Haverford.”

In June 2004, Haverford completed the largest fund-raising effort in its history. The “Educating to Lead, Educating to Serve” campaign, raised more than $200 million and gave rise to the most visible legacies of the Tritton years: the Marian E. Koshland Integrated Natural Science Center, the Douglas B. Gardner ’83 Integrated Athletic Center, the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship, and the John B. Hurford ’60 Humanities Center. These Centers, which epitomize Tritton’s belief in the education of the whole person—mind, body and spirit—underscore Haverford’s commitment to an intense and rigorous academic program located in a culturally diverse community, influenced by Quaker values and character. The comprehensive campaign supported that mission, increasing the College’s endowment from $200 million in 1997 to over $450 million currently and more than doubling annual giving during the same time. “The ‘Educating to Lead, Educating to Serve’ campaign provided the financial resources for what were, at the outset of Tom’s presidency, mere ideas he helped transform into tangible and intangible expressions of that creativity,” elaborates Jill Sherman, vice president for institutional advancement.

As successful as Haverford’s campaign was, its real purpose, Tritton argues, was “to connect people possessed of fresh ideas with people restless with the status quo; to liberate the creativity embedded in the human spirit; to strive for that most difficult of possible attainments—to be original.” It is this goal that is central to Tritton’s concept of integrated education and implies the dissolution of boundaries across and between academic disciplines as well as among the various constituencies of the College. “I think Tom’s sense of integration extended beyond program and into the campus community as he worked diligently to connect faculty, staff, students, alumni, parents, and board members through various initiatives,” says Sherman. “His thinking here was by no means insular as the College made great strides in diversifying the campus to welcome, include, and engage more people from diverse socioeconomic, ethnic, and geographic backgrounds.”

Tritton concedes, “All college presidents want to be original.” Few, however, have done so with such consistency of purpose and respect for the process as well as the participants. As Sherman puts it, “He is a very even personality. I often told him that he earns the trust of alumni with a handshake.” Provost David Dawson finds Tritton’s ability to balance respect for the proverbial forest with concern for the trees, “impressive.” “His decisions, while always looking foremost to the College’s interests, also manifest genuine care for the individuals involved,” Dawson elaborates. “It is not easy to achieve the right relationship between institutional interests and concern for individuals, and there are many temptations to reduce one side of the relationship to the other, but Tom consistently keeps both values at play in the exercise of his judgment.”

A consummate scholar and teacher, dedicated, skilled and inspired leader, devoted husband, father, and Quaker, Tritton possesses the enviable gift of being able to talk to anybody, at almost any time, about things that matter to them. It is a talent most clearly on display during the first two weeks of the fall semester when his date book resembles a marathon of obligations that reflect the myriad scope of his responsibilities: to the students, to the faculty, to the staff, to the institution, and to himself. That he is able to combine them all with skill, grace, humor, and a genuine appreciation for everyone and everything he encounters is the essence of being Tom Tritton.

It is 1 p.m., on the afternoon of freshman move-in day, and the reality of the life-transition that is taking place is evident on the faces of the parents gathered in Sharpless Auditorium for a pep talk from members of the Haverford administration. Tritton is first up and he does not disappoint. “I’m here to ensure you that your sons and daughters are in good hands,” he tells the standing-room-only crowd. “Thank you for entrusting them to us. I know they will do well here because they come with astounding credentials and unlimited potential. I must warn you, however, we have no intention of returning them to you in the same shape.”

A ripple of laughter runs through the room as Tritton elaborates on the atmosphere of free inquiry, rational discourse, and spirited debate that pervades Haverford. “We want them to learn not to fear a challenge but to relish it,” he continues. “We want them not only to master a body of knowledge but to communicate across and between disciplines. And we want them to do it in an environment that values integrity, compassion, and moral courage.” As Tritton goes on to describe the research opportunities available to Haverford students (“The great privilege of joining together with faculty to push the boundaries of human knowledge”), the room’s palpable aura of concern gives way to expectation. Collectively at least, the group begins to let go.

“What can they expect?” Tritton asks facetiously. “I don’t know but in many ways going to college is a lot like going on a 1,000-mile car trip at night. There are many times when you can only see about 50 feet in front of you. When you leave your sons and daughters today, tell them you love them, and tell them to turn on their headlights.”

For another half hour, Tritton takes questions from the audience, tackling topics from the Honor Code (“It works here because we expect it to work,” he say simply. “You get back what you give.”), to his life after Haverford (“For a while there was a rumor floating around that I was going to teach at Swarthmore,” he smiles. “It was so good I didn’t do anything to dispel it.”). To the challenges that face the institution (“The biggest challenge we face is complacency,” he acknowledges). At 1:45, he turns the program over to “the people who know more than me,” and bounds from the stage to resounding applause.

“I love doing that program,” he confides, before the first of many parents stops him to introduce herself. “There is such expectation. It’s like when I meet with my advisees. I sometimes have a hard time telling them which courses to take because they all sound so interesting.”

For the past decade Tritton has served as an advisor for four incoming freshmen. “If your kids tell you that they have the president as their advisor, don’t worry. They didn’t do anything wrong,” he jokes with parents. He has also taught Biology 359, Molecular Oncology to 15 seniors every fall semester of his presidency. Both are jobs that he relishes. “I really will miss doing both,” he ruminates. “Teaching keeps me up to date with my field and I love the students here because they are so smart and the discussions are very challenging. Also it connects me to what Haverford is all about: education.”

Tritton takes his responsibilities as a professor very seriously. Although he admits to rarely having “stretches of time” during his appointment-filled days, he often uses half-hour lulls to rework the material for his course. He requires his students, in groups of three, to conduct five of the seven two-and-a-half-hour seminars, around a topic in current cancer research. Every summer he revises the list of topics and articles from which students may choose (a task he admits to finding a bit easier since he began downloading relevant podcasts to his iPod).

Perhaps the only aspect of his professorial gig that he doesn’t adore is the evening hour to which it is relegated. An early riser (5:30 a.m.), he admits that the 7:30-10:00 p.m. Tuesday stretch fits nicely into his schedule but works especially well for students. “I was once told that all college classes should be at night because that’s when the students are awake,” he wrote in the Fall 2002 “View From Founders” column in the Haverford Alumni Magazine. “Alas, it may not always be so for the professor.”

The hour aside, the fact that he teaches the course in his home at 1 College Circle makes it convenient as well as conducive to creative interpretations of the material. There was the time that students organized themselves into a visual representation of the molecular structure cisplatin, a common anticancer drug. “This was accomplished by having several members of the class align themselves as the two strands of the DNA double helix; another group served as the interaction domain of a particular protein that bound to DNA, and the instructor (yours truly) played the role of the cisplatin crosslink between the two entities,” he wrote. Not only did Tritton appreciate his students’ creativity and enthusiasm, he is sure that “none of them will ever forget how cisplatin works.”

It is precisely this willingness to stretch across boundaries that Tritton envisions happening, albeit perhaps less graphically, in the Koshland Integrated Natural Sciences Center. Since the KINSC opened in the fall of 2001, students have been able to take classes in a state-of-the-art science facility rarely found outside of large research institutions. Locating the departments of astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, computer science, and psychology together in one facility, it promotes a unique, integrated research and educational experience for students.

“This facility is a perfect example of the interdisciplinary approach Haverford takes to learning,” says Cathy P. Koshland ’72, co-chair of the College’s Board of Managers, and vice provost for academic planning and facilities at UC Berkeley. “The synergy resulting from this kind of intentionally collaborative community-minded approach to learning is what really sets it apart. It is a model for how science is being handled now.” Jerry Gollub, professor of physics and former provost, seconds Koshland’s opinions. “The science center has been a remarkable success,” he comments. “It has facilitated the kinds of cross-disciplinary interactions that we hoped for, and has become a magnet for prospective students. Most importantly, it was built while simultaneously achieving important goals for other academic divisions of the College.”

One day after arriving on the Haverford campus, the 316 members of this year’s freshmen class file into the Haverford Meeting House to learn about the Honor Code. The fresh scrubbed faces of yesterday show evidence of the first of many late college nights, but Customs Week energy remains high. After a substantial moment of silent reflection, Tritton explains why they are here. “We are one of only fourteen colleges in the country founded by the Religious Society of Friends,” he says. “And while we are a non-religious institution, our Quaker roots are an essential part of who we are and how we do business. The Honor Code at Haverford is part of that tradition. The embodiment of trust, concern, and respect, the Honor Code belongs to the students who make it, create it and live it. The faculty is committed to it, and one reason why it works is that we expect it to.”

Tritton is comfortable talking about such high concepts as respect and trust because they are an integral part of his being. Sherman notes, “He strives to live by the lofty Quaker principles of fairness, tolerance, peaceful conflict resolution, and honorable daily interactions with everyone.” A member of the Haverford Monthly Meeting who has also served on the board and personnel committee of the American Friends Service Committee for the New England region, Tritton is a member of the Society of Friends. He and his wife Louise sponsor an annual tea for Quaker students, faculty, and staff so that they can get to know each other. “There was a time when you knew a Quaker by the way he or she dressed,” Louise elaborates, donning a Quaker bonnet for effect. “But these days we’re a bit harder to recognize.”

Tritton is a firm believer that you get what you give, even as he admits that the Honor Code at Haverford is not perfect. “I think it works with very few academic violations,” he tells the students. “People treat each other with civility. The campus is very safe for persons and possessions. And while it is not nirvana, we are always striving to close the gap between our ideals and reality.”

Certainly one test of that challenge occurred on September 11, 2001. Tritton called a meeting for worship for 4:00 that afternoon and notes today that it was one of only two times in his 10-year tenure (the other being when John Edwards made a campaign stop at Haverford in 2004), when the entire community came together. Kimberly Benston, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English, remembers gathering in Alumni Fieldhouse as “painfully competing emotions—alarm, bewilderment, anger, anguish, dread—surged among us. I don’t think many faculty were any less disoriented and frightened than the students must have been.” For Benston, Tritton’s true grace under pressure made him feel “that Haverford was the best place to commence our continuing effort” to make sense of the day.

“Obviously unaided by the typical props of preparation or experience, Tom addressed us in a manner deeply in tune with who we are as individuals and as a collective, summoning our shared obligation to seek peace, justice, and compassion without condescendingly assuming any singular vision about how or why that day had so violently tested such commitment,” Benston recounts. “Then, with the true touch of Quakerly wisdom, at once frank and respectful, he guided us through our necessarily searing first conversation about that fateful event. For me, this was undoubtedly his finest hour.”

Ironically, Tritton confides, he came awfully close to not being on campus to lead that meeting. Doug Gardner ’83, had made a large pledge toward what is now known as the Gardner Integrated Athletic Center, and Jill Sherman, vice president for institutional advancement, was outside the World Trade Center at 9:00 a.m., waiting to go up and see him. (She was actually in a cab outside the North Tower when the first plane hit!) “If I didn’t teach my class on Tuesday evenings, I would have been with her,” Tritton says slowly, reprocessing the moment. “In fact, that morning at 8:30, we had our first meeting with the architects of the building here on campus…”

Designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, the architecturally acclaimed Gardner Integrated Athletic Center stands today as a memorial to three former Haverford College student-athletes: Gardner (men’s basketball), Thomas Glasser ’82 (men’s track and field), and Calvin Gooding ’84 (men’s basketball), who died tragically on September 11, 2001. The lead gift for the building was made by Howard Lutnick ’83, Gardner’s classmate and best friend. One of only seven sports facilities in the country today to be certified at the gold level by the U.S. Green Building Council for sustainable design and the only one at a college or university anywhere, the “Doug” is the centerpiece of the Tritton-enacted campus-wide building policy requiring all new construction to be environmentally friendly. “I believe educational institutions can be among the leaders in creating energy-efficient, environmentally friendly and beautiful buildings on our campus,” Tritton told USA Today in May.

In addition to representing good stewardship of the planet, the Gardner Center underscores the theme of integration central to Tritton’s vision. Not only does the structure blend with the College’s simple, Quaker aesthetic, its location on the quadrangle adjacent to the Whitehead Campus Center invigorates the South Campus with new traffic flow patterns. Athletic programs and wellness endeavors are literally part of daily campus ebb and flow, integrating athletic competition, education, and recreation under one roof as well as into the larger educational community. “Even the Gardner Athletic Center has the term “integrated” in its title and the philosophy of that place extends far beyond that of a typical college gymnasium,” notes Sherman.

The Center for Peace and Global Citizenship is the third prong in Tritton’s legacy of integrated learning. The program involves students in experiential learning, service, diversity, peacemaking, social change, and international education—all key issues during the Tritton years. Originating from faculty and student interests expressed during the College’s accreditation process in 1999, the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship encourages interdisciplinary collaboration and curricular innovation on campus and beyond, in keeping with Haverford’s long-standing commitment to social justice.

Interns in this program have traveled to Ghana, Guatemala, Pakistan, Rwanda, El Salvador, and many other countries to learn about communities throughout the world and to contribute to solutions to global challenges. They have helped address a wide array of pressing social issues, including post-conflict peace building, transitional justice, public health, education, gender inequality, education, fair trade, environmental degradation, sustainable development, cultural preservation, and the arts.

Tritton’s vision of the future of the College, delivered on the occasion of Haverford’s Academic Convocation in 2004, stresses three concepts that are central to the mission of the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship: global, arts and integration. “I am confident that a community that takes joy in human variety, is also a community finding its way to solutions to the world’s problems through a more profound engagement with understanding of cultural difference,” he said. Continuing to expand the boundaries of the Haverford community while supporting a diverse cultural environment on campus will bring the lessons of the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship full circle.
One of Tritton’s strengths is his ability to see beyond the big picture even while focusing and respecting the smaller elements that make up that vision. To him, that is what makes his job “challenging and inspiring.” “The trick is to find ways to become more effective without losing your soul,” he says. The fact that Tritton so clearly understands, respects and lives the ethical dimensions of Haverford’s mission makes his job a natural extension of his life. Sherman speaks of the long walks she and Tritton often had to discuss the state of the ’Ford. “When I reflect on these times henceforth, I shall always remember how deeply he cared about Haverford, about its mission, and its people,” she says. “Of the seven presidents for whom I have worked in my 20-year tenure in higher education, he has been the one who most reflects a true concern for others.”

That concern is echoed in Tritton’s remarks when he addresses students assembled for the initial “First Thursday” gathering of the year. “This is a forum where we get together to talk about what is going on,” he explains. “Our communal work is important for the vibrancy of the community. Nothing that you want to discuss is ‘off topic.’” Dawson underscores the strength of Tritton’s commitment to open dialogue. “Tom has worked hard to make decisions that are always in the College’s interest as a single organization, while also attending carefully to the perspectives and concerns of various campus groups,” the provost says. “Tom has steadfastly sought to bring multiple perspectives of all campus groups to bear on important decisions of institution-wide import.”

This climate of free speech becomes even more apparent as Tritton continues his remarks. As he touches on some of the issues currently being explored by working committees (curriculum review and enrichment, student space including those pertaining to the arts, diversity, and Quaker values), he diagrams the decision-making process between groups. When he is finished, he laughs at the pattern of intersecting lines that cover the large pad on his easel. “This is the Haverford model for getting things done,” he jokes.

Conceding that the process of “asking everyone what he or she thinks, reiterating it and then revising it,” moves at “glacier speed,” Tritton stresses that the process is worth the effort, especially when the topic turns to his successor. “Here’s the kind of president we don’t want,” he responds to a student question about the presidential search. “Someone who wants to come in here and preside. The next president is not going to come in here and reinvent everything, but may reshape it.”

It is no coincidence that Tritton’s successor will arrive as the College prepares for its Middle States review for accreditation. This is the same scenario Tritton encountered a decade ago and according to him, “is exactly what a new president wants.” “The intense self-study presents a wonderful learning opportunity, not only for the new president but for everyone in the institution,” he elaborates. “Fifteen months of transition also allows us to bring some projects to a level of conclusion.”

There is a full range of emotions associated with his impending departure, yet Tritton is confident that the timing is right on all levels. “I’ve completely given my life to this place for 10 years and my fingerprints are all over it,” he smiles. He is proud that the new president will inherit a “thriving, stable, lively place in an advanced set of planning, that has been knitted together.” He makes no secret of the fact that another capital campaign is inevitable and that it will encompass such projects as the renovation of Ryan Gymnasium, increased funding for diversity, academic programming, and endowment.

The future of Haverford College, according to Tritton, will also include the issue of increased enrollment, a topic that he threw into the mix of conversation last year, only to withdraw it after considerable discussion. According to Gollub, “Tom insisted on being a strong leader but also demonstrated a willingness to listen. When he found that others were not persuaded that growth in the size of the student body would be good for Haverford, he gracefully withdrew the idea a step. That impressed me greatly.” Tritton predicts the idea will resurface in the next capital campaign and when it does, “It won’t be the question, it will be the answer.”

As for his personal plans, he will say only that his decade of teaching makes him eligible for a sabbatical, which he plans to take. “I feel I have one more great adventure left in my life,” he smiles. “In many ways I feel like a college senior; everything is possible and nothing is certain.”

Kathryn Levy Feldman is a freelance writer living in Bryn Mawr.

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