President’s Reunion Remarks

Saturday, June 7, 2025
by Elizabeth H. Bradley, President

I am so happy to be here with you all in this oasis with people who are believers in higher education, who believe in the pivotal role that education can play in students’ and alums’ lives, and who believe in the potential for a better collective future when we work together on education. Thank you so much for your support.

So, let’s first begin by understanding where we are in higher education vis-a-vis our federal government. It began on February 14 with the “Dear Colleague” letter that asked us to stop doing anything that had to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion. And it had fine print that said you can’t do these programs if they discriminate based on race, color, or national origin.

After that, the threats continued putting at risk NIH-funded research and federal college loan subsidies, and also considering taxing our endowment. These are all financial threats. But further, for some institutions, there became direct regulations of curricula, faculty freedom of inquiry, and governance structures usually delegated to the institution itself. And now, most recently, banning students and faculty from 19 countries and threatening the immigration status of students and faculty and administrators. We have not had any revocations on any basis thus far. We haven’t had anybody who has been turned away from Vassar based on these threats, but we are on high alert, and we are supporting our international students—which is about 10% of the student body—as much as we possibly can.

In this context, I want to be clear about our values: Vassar endorses diversity, inclusion, and equity. These words are in our mission statement, and we are glad that they are at the heart of the education that is given at Vassar. We do not discriminate—ever—in terms of race, color, national origin, or any protected class.

Here, we do “engaged pluralism.” This means that we see difference as part of our own holism. We see difference as an opportunity to learn, as an opportunity to create something new, as an opportunity to serve broader populations, and to solve global problems in a way that includes all of us as human beings here. And, we embrace peaceful protests. We cannot incite violence with protests. We cannot undertake any discriminatory harassment with protests, and we can’t disrupt the educational mission of the College with protests.

How many of you have ever protested? When it’s peaceful, when it’s meaningful, it is a part of inclusion. That’s how we understand what the voices are saying. Voices that have been left out—sometimes manifest themselves by protest, and that’s important. And at the same time, the boundaries of protests are important as well. Having been founded as a college for women at a time when women were largely excluded from institutions of higher education, the Vassar education has always asked: Whose voices are missing? Why are they missing? What are the implications of their missingness on the way we are framing our reality? And is that okay or not? We still do that every day here at Vassar, and I bet you’re doing that now wherever you are, and those kinds of practices are truly what inclusion is and truly strengthen our humanity.

I wanted to tell you a little bit about our strategy at this point and what we’re doing to deal with this kind of concerning environment. The first thing we’re doing is strengthening our presence in Washington, DC. I have spent about 10 days there in the last 40 days—and it is incredibly complicated. Many of you are involved with Washington, DC right now, and most important is to be able to make relationships with elected officials who are Republicans. This is very, very important for us. So often we think we know everybody in Washington, but the truth is, we have a blind spot in knowing Republican elected officials in Congress. In fact, when I ask alums, everyone’s so excited about writing to their members, which I so appreciate, and then they’re all Democrats. We are now working with a government relations firm that is helping us make connections with Representatives and Senators in Congress on the Republican side to be able to explain who Vassar is and how Vassar serves the public interest. I will tell you that in these meetings–I just got back this week, Wednesday, from meetings with members of the Senate Finance Committee who are looking at the taxation bills or higher education now—and I will tell you that our data and our story was riveting for them. In fact, I went with one of our alums who’s a veteran, and these senators and staff couldn’t have been more impressed with Vassar. And at the end of several meetings they would say, “Wow, I had no idea. That’s such a good thing. We don’t want to hurt you,” meaning Vassar. Now, that’s what they say one-on-one. We’re keeping our eyes open because, of course, there are political dynamics that nonetheless result in potential harm to higher education, as we have seen.

The second part of our strategy—beyond strengthening our relationships in DC—is to get real-time intelligence about what’s going on. So, three or four times a week, I get direct emails from our government relations firm with exactly what is in the executive orders and so forth. I often have the information before I read it in the news about what is coming down the pike, and that, of course, helps us prepare.

The third part of our strategy is to try not to overreact. It’s a roller coaster. We get threatened every day, and then by the morning, something has changed. Sometimes if we overreact, it can actually be worse than if we just wait and breathe for a minute. But at the same time, we’re trying not to underreact. So, it’s a true balance, on the razor’s edge, as they say.

We’re trying hard to proceed strategically, so I was part of putting together a letter that the AAC&U wrote, which had about 600 presidents of universities and colleges and calls for constructive engagement with our federal government. We also are working with our professional associations ACE and NAICU, telling our story and being part of their lawsuits, of which there are many, by the way, touching on almost everything I talked about so far.

And our last strategy is trying to keep the end in mind. From my perspective, this can’t last. It’s impossible. We’re too diverse an environment. Nobody here wants a king, no one, no matter who they voted for. We have too many different languages, we have too many different practices. We have too much pride in actual diversity. And I just do not think this can last. So knowing that this is not the way we will live forever, our strategy is to come out of this with momentum, not a shrunken version of ourselves. And I think of what happened during COVID. Many colleges came out from COVID with low admissions; many had gone online, and they had a lot of trouble coming back. Vassar actually came out of COVID running with momentum. We actually launched our campaign on the eve of COVID and stayed with it. And that was because we tried very hard to think of the end that we wanted. We thought, in the end, don’t let this kind of particular struggle collapse your institutional values or mission. I think that’s what we have to do here–stick to our values and continue to be strategic. I think we can get through this and get through it well.

So, telling our story is the key, and I want to incorporate all of you into telling our story–when you meet with people that are across the aisle, or whatever fields they’re in. I want to give a few talking points and pride points for what has been happening on campus and information we might want to repeat to others as well.

So, first, we are need blind, and we plan on staying need blind.

This means when people apply to come to Vassar, we do not look at their income before we decide whether they’re qualified to come. We’re not influenced by their income. We accept the most qualified; then we assess how much financial aid they will need (and therefore receive) in order to come to Vassar. And we promise to meet full demonstrated financial need for everyone. Can you believe this business model? But it works. It works because we have a robust endowment, and this has been important to explain this to people. Our endowment puts off about $70 million dollars a year. We raise through the annual fund—thank you so much—another $10 million a year, and our bill for financial aid is about $80 million a year. So, to explain that, our endowment is largely used to enable access to Vassar for middle and low-income students. It makes a huge difference because that is how we are delivering to America accessibility in higher education, and I don’t see this changing. The board, the senior staff, and of course, our alums are very supportive of this, and it makes our campus truly accessible.

Another pride point is that our applications are way up. We have had a 50% increase in our applications since 2018. It is really hard to get in. People have heard me joke about this before, but I’m telling you, none of us here would get into Vassar today! It’s tough. We get 12,000 applications for 675 slots.

The other thing is our graduation rates are very high. So, across the country, the average college graduates only half of its students. There are about 3,000 colleges in the country. On average, half of the people who start ultimately graduate. At Vassar, 92% of our students graduate. And our low income, first generation students graduate at the exact same rate.

Our students also have very low debt. We hear a lot and read a lot in the news: “Oh, people are going to college, they are having a hard time graduating, they have huge debt, and then they can’t get a job.” Not true at Vassar! At Vassar, our average debt is $5,000 a year.

And our placement rates after college are very high. Ninety-four percent of our students are either in a job, graduate school, or a competitive fellowship—like a Fulbright—within six months of graduation.

These statistics help a lot. I talk with an elected official and say, “Well, I know you’re reading that college students aren’t getting jobs, or they’re having this debt, but it just isn’t the story at Vassar. That’s because of the alum giving, the endowment, and the foresight Matthew Vassar had that this place was going to be accessible and was going to sustain forever.”

We also work very hard at balance. That’s another criticism that higher education is now getting: “It’s too far left. There are attacks based on race and ethnicity. There is antisemitism, etc, etc.” A key part of this, and avoiding all of this, is keeping balance. So, for instance, we have a strong veterans program. We have about 25-30 veterans who are here with us, and they are adults who have been through a lot. To have them in class, thinking through what’s really going on in our globe and looking at the world a little differently, it makes the classroom environment just more nuanced, more diverse in its conversation.

We also have a very strong Exploring Transfer program where 30-35 community college students come to Vassar in the summer for free, funded 100% by philanthropy, and they take two classes for college credit. We’ve had this program for 35 years, but no one had previously evaluated it. So we evaluated it. We found out that generally, 85% of the students who go through that program ultimately get their four-year degree. Community college students not only get what Vassar has to offer with that summer program, but then they feel confident afterwards that they can access higher education in the elite institutions where there is a lot of financial aid and support, so they finish. I think Vassar has a really excellent role to play in that link for community college students to get to four-year colleges.

And last, in terms of balance, about 50% of our students do community-engaged learning sometime during their time here. You might have called it “fieldwork” when you were here, or maybe it didn’t exist, but our students are going into Poughkeepsie and getting some kind of educational opportunity credit with a community-based organization—half of our students do that, and it just brings balance. So, people learn from their faculty, but they also learn from lots of other experiences as well.

We continue to have regular engagement politically at the local and state level. The representatives from the Republican and Democratic parties come to Vassar twice a year to just talk about what they want to accomplish and we talk about what we want to accomplish. Recently, a few of them I’ve been seen over at the Salt Line, and they seem to like the bar and the new restaurant, which is making Vassar more present in the community in Dutchess county.

Our academic mission, of course, is always first, above all things and lots of new things are happening. Artificial Intelligence is completely changing what’s happening, and I think we’re just at the beginning of that transformation. Our faculty—as you would expect Vassar faculty to be—are all over it. They have pedagogy in action to get themselves thinking: What are the rules? What are the different ways to do it? I have seen some of the most creative uses of AI in the classroom that one can imagine. I think the one that blew my mind the most was a professor of music who used AI to create a hologram cello player and did a duet with the hologram. That really put me over the edge. But others in cognitive science are using it to prepare students for class by talking to an AI bot that’s been educated on two sides of a very controversial issue, and they talk to the bot so when you go in the classroom, it’s a little easier to talk to the humans about a complicated issue. I think we’re going to be just fine with AI, but for sure we will have change.

We have experiences with a Data Science & Society correlate now that helps us keep up with the times. Neuroscience and Behavior is incredibly strong with a new lab. We have a quantum computer on campus. In fact, we are the only liberal arts college with a quantum computer. We have created two correlates in dance, and they’re very interested in having a major in dance. We have started digital arts courses as well, and our multidisciplinary studies are really booming. About 25% of our students now pursue majors or correlate (minor) that are multidisciplinary. And of course, we have the Institute for the LIberal Arts, which is bringing about so much–so many ideas people have with the community and with our own faculty. And I think I’m on my ninth pride point here. But, by the way, our athletes are winning. We have 29 varsity teams and seven of them made their national championships! And a club team that’s eager to be a varsity sport–the men’s crew team won the New York State Championships.

And we’re investing in campus maintenance, the buildings. I know it’s a disappointment that Main is scaffolded right now. Every summer, the minute students graduate, the scaffolding goes up. We spend about $2 million a year on Main, and it should take another 10 years to get it fully renovated. But it is very safe, beautiful, and the rooms are much better than they used to be. We literally work from the day after graduation until the day of Move-In—scaffolding often isn’t even off as students move in. So, apologies for the entrance, but it is worth it because we will get that building back to its glory again.

In addition, you’ve seen the arboretum. I don’t know if you know this, but it is the 100th anniversary of the arboretum. It’s a big deal and we now have classes specifically on the Vassar landscape and landscape architecture.

I’m close to done—I know it’s hot in here—but I did want to tell you that we are in a capital campaign, and it’s called Fearlessly Consequential: A Campaign for our Collective Future. And as I said before, Matthew Vassar launched the College at the beginning of the Civil War, and so we launched the campaign at the beginning of COVID. We are doing really well. And thank you so much. You have been staunch supporters of the campaign. I can’t wait to hear about it later this morning. We are, as of now, at about $419 million out of $500 million. We’re so close. The parts of the campaign that are still left—of course, the annual fund always, always, and it’s harder and harder to get annual fund gifts. It’s not as much of a tradition as it once was. But, in addition, we’re raising money for financial aid. We are still looking for $40 million for financial aid. And we want this to make us as independent from the federal government as we possibly can be.

We also are working on the Old Laundry Building, which is behind Main. Some of you might have known it as the computer center. It will be a center for multidisciplinary study, and it will be a wonderful academic building. We are going to do something with Walker Field House. We’re not sure what yet. We may just shore it up, or we may actually replace it. It all depends on what we can find in terms of transformational gifts for that. So, that’s where we are with the campaign. We are very, very grateful to all of you.

Let me end with this. Sometimes people ask me what they can do for us, so I’m going to end there, and I’m happy to take questions that you might have for me. The most important thing that you can do for Vassar is to stay informed and don’t catastrophize things because that leads to overreaction, which leads to not the most strategic thinking. Really stay informed. And when people tell you something that is just not true, correct them. It is so important for us all to keep the facts on the table. Like the congresspeople and those senators who were sure that I was just another president that graduated 50% of our students, left students millions of dollars in debt, and without jobs. But you can sit and actually say no, here are the data. So please, we all need to do that. Keep to the facts.

The second thing is, if you hear something that doesn’t sound right, that makes you suspicious, please reach out to a primary source. I can start you off. I can be a primary source, and I will connect you with other people; my email is ebradley@vassar.edu, and if you write to me when you hear things or have concerns, we will be in touch, and I will really appreciate hearing from you.

My third request is that you stay connected to each other. When you bolster the fabric between each other, we feel it here. When you are feeling good, getting together with each other, and talking about Vassar, something goes through the air and it comes to campus, and we feel it. We feel that there is support. Together, we are a positive force. So stay in touch with each other.

And, my last request: give what you can. John, my husband, and I give to Vassar every year. And we talk a lot about it: how much we give, why we give when there are so many other needs, and we just think it’s a great investment. The future generation being educated and inclusive and wise, that is something worth buying. That is something worth investing in. And I get to see these students every day, and they have dreams. They have incredible dreams. They’re such optimists, considering how they’re growing up. And for their dreams, their aspirations, they need us to help them achieve those dreams. And if they are successful and achieve those dreams, we will all be much better off. Thank you so very much. I appreciate your support for Vassar.