Tom Tritton, President

The Haverford Code

By now everybody on the planet has read, or at least read about, Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code. Unlike in the book, Haverford doesn’t have a Professor of Symbology, works of art containing clues to deadly murders, or secret societies protecting sacred relics. We do, however, have our own impenetrable codes, labyrinthine enigmas, and ingeniously disguised language, all wrapped together in what might be called Haverspeak. For the uninitiated, herein follows a condensed guide for the perplexed:
“I have a CoD meeting at the DC but afterwards I’ll meet you at the Coop in the WCC so we can talk about trico initiatives for 8D before it gets discussed on the GO Boards.”

Most people on campus could decipher this seeming gibberish, but the string of acronyms and phrases would be unintelligible to “normal people,” including many alums, prospective students, or anyone not intimate with our daily rhythms. All groups of people have their own lingo, of course, and this is generally useful for communicating succinctly and efficiently using a shared and commonly understood vocabulary. It can be a little hazardous, though, when language casts a veil of exclusivity that, intentionally or not, prevents those outside the chosen to be in the know. Thus in the spirit of keeping everyone in the loop, I invite you to read on.

For starters, committees are especially adept at using acronyms that seem mind-numbingly opaque, but when expanded reveal all. From above, CoD is the Com-mittee on Diversity, which works to build and sustain a successfully diverse community of learners. Likewise EPC (Educational Policy Committee), CPC (College Planning Committee), and AAEC (Alumni Association Executive Committee) all reveal their assignment and purpose once the words are divulged. Some committees are less transparent even when non-acronymic, for example AC and ILC (Academic Council and Integrated Learning Council). Perhaps “Councils” are inherently misunderstood, but then SC (Students’ Council) is pretty clearly the governing body for students. If you are curious, AC advises the president on faculty appointments and promotions, and the ILC coordinates the work of our three integrated learning centers, each, of course, with mysterious-sounding acronyms: HHC (Hurford Humanities Center), CPGC (Center for Peace and Global Citizenship) and the KINSC (Koshland Integrated Natural Sciences Center).

Buildings and places are all subject to our peculiar shorthand. From my egregious sentence above, DC is the Dining Center, not the nation’s capital, and WCC the Whitehead Campus Center, not the Washington Convention Center or Westchester Community College. There is also the burgeoning GIAC (Gardner Integrated Athletic Center), made doubly mystical by being both a building and a center, and because in common parlance we are calling it “The Doug,” after the late Douglas B. Gardner ’83. This will help to distinguish the new complex from “general inquiry access code” and “global incident analysis center,” in common use, respectively, in the data communications and military spheres.
My favorite namesake, of course, is HC. Nobody here will mistake this abbreviation for anything other than Haverford College, but it may be mildly distressing to learn that in other contexts it also commonly refers to Haley’s Comet, Hague Convention, and Hard Copy. That last one may be hard to take for Fords, but perhaps better than “hanging chad.” A clearly inferior misuse of our cherished identity would be Harvard College, Hamilton College, or Hampshire College. Personally, I’ve always thought we are missing an opportunity for an excellent branding device since the marking HC exists in virtually every place of residence or business in the English- speaking world. Just look in your bathroom at the faucet and you’ll see the prominently displayed HC enumerating the water temperature choices. Any ideas out there about how we could capitalize on this prominent display of our choice logo?

And then we have “Quakerese.” My favorite acronym is QST (Quaker Standard Time), meaning “any old time I happen to show up.” Other polite Quaker-inspired phraseology is also evident in our discourse: “That Friend speaks my mind,” and “I would not have thought to do it that way myself” (translations: “I thought of it first” and “a terrible mistake”).
There are also certain terms that seem completely unique to Haverford. The Haverbubble denotes the entire campus, and is usually used to inspire someone to get away and see the rest of the world. The above-referenced GO Boards have seemingly replaced another Haverford original, the Comment Board. Both are community forums for discussion of any and all subjects, with the newer version being an electronic replacement for paper on a bulletin board. Luddite I am not, but this does not seem like progress to me. 8D, or Eighth Dimension, has nothing to do with time/space warps, but instead is the College’s community service program (the other seven dimensions originally referred to the academic curriculum but have now mysteriously disappeared, leaving only the eighth wafting free on its own). Not to forget Customs, having nothing at all to do with habits or conventions, but instead signifying our orientation program for first-year students. And in a similar vein, who could possibly guess that Rhinie was a synonym for freshman? Sounds more like some kind of large beast that wanders around in jungles making bellowing noises (although this might not be too inaccurate a description of certain students).

No doubt more could be made of this subject. Alas, space limits my meanderings for now, but I'll leave you with one last offering in honor of Valentine's Day, which as I write is fast approaching. What do you call the offspring of a Haverford and Bryn Mawr couple? A BrynFord, of course (or is it a HaverMawrter...). Perhaps this could form an intriguing plotline for a book to compete with Dan Brown's next offering.