A More Inclusive Model

By Lini Kadaba

Five years ago, David Wertheimer ’77 made a rather bold suggestion to Haverford College’s Corporation, a group that he joined soon after graduating and that works to strengthen the school’s Quaker character. Wertheimer, who at the time worked as director of community and civic engagement for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, wanted the body to consider breaking with tradition and opening its ranks to non-Quakers.

Wertheimer says he had noticed, and valued, the increasing diversity of the student body. Without this change, he wrote in a memo to the Standing Nominating Committee, the Corporation would be “at risk of becoming a membership body that is not reflective of the true constituency of the College and its graduates.”

At the time, Wertheimer says, he didn’t expect the notion to gain much traction. But his cause found allies, and in April, the 200-member Corporation, which owns Haverford College, approved an amendment to its bylaws that allows any interested party—Quaker or not—to be eligible for membership. The bylaws go on to say that nominees must be “grounded in and led by values aligned with the faith and practice of the Religious Society of Friends.”

In addition, the 33-member Board of Managers, which oversees Haverford’s day-to-day operations and whose members are approved by the Corporation, will no longer be required to seat a specific number of Quakers—it was 11 in the past—but rather include “meaningful representation” from the Religious Society of Friends.

The decision has come with its share of controversy.

Most considered the changes, much-debated among Corporation members, historic for the College—and in keeping with its goal of being an antiracist institution, according to Walter Hjelt Sullivan ’82, Haverford’s director of Quaker Affairs and staff support for the Corporation. But while Corporation members were unified in support of inviting non-Quakers into their midst, a few voiced concerns over the change to Board membership. They worried that the lack of a specific number and what some considered the vagueness of the term “meaningful representation” would ultimately dilute the College’s Quaker character.

In the final consideration of the amendment at April’s annual Corporation meeting, which more than 110 members attended, three stood in opposition and four stood aside, meaning they raised concerns but did not prevent the amendment from moving forward, according to the draft minutes. (While unity is always the goal, it is not required in the bylaws.)

Jonathan “Jack” Rhoads ’60 was one of the opponents. The retired thoracic surgeon has served on the Corporation for nearly 60 years. “I’ve watched the number of Quakers diminish over the decades,” he says. “What’s considered meaningful is a smaller and smaller number of Quakers.”

His concerns, he says, boil down to two questions: “Does Haverford want to continue to be a Quaker institution? And if it does, how many Quakers do you have to have around to be a Quaker college?”

Over time, Rhoads says, “I think these bylaws are going to transition what I consider to be a Quaker college to a ‘historically Quaker college.’”

More, however, have applauded the changes.

“I am both surprised and really pleased that Haverford has stepped up to this challenge,” says Wertheimer, who became the clerk of the Standing Nominating Committee in 2021. “In some ways, five years is lightning speed for Quakers. For me, Haverford is living up to its own expectations.”

Sullivan notes that the amendment is both a small change and a big deal. “It’s small because we haven’t changed the number of Corporation members on the Board,” he says. “We haven’t changed the work that the Corporation does.” The Corporation will continue to nominate 12 people plus two of the three ex-officio members to the Board. (The Alumni Association and the Board itself make nominations for the rest of the spots. The President of the College is the third ex-officio member.)

“But it’s also a subtly big thing,” he continues. He points to the diverse student body. According to the Admissions Office, the Class of 2026 comprises 55 percent students of color, including nearly 11 percent domestic Black and 12 percent domestic Latinx. Additionally, students who are the first generation in their family to attend college make up 14 percent of the class, and 13 percent are foreign nationals.

The amendment, Sullivan says, “is a sign of structural change that is consistent with the expressed commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion work that is at the core of the College today. … A certain door has been opened to a wider group of people, and really, institutional antiracism is about opening doors.”

In many respects, the debate over the bylaw changes was generational and reflective of Haverford’s evolution from a Quaker college to a nonsectarian institution that has nevertheless made a point of maintaining a connection to its Quaker values.

Corporation member Maurice Rippel ’19 has served as the young alumni representative to the Board of Managers since 2021. Even though he isn’t a Quaker, the Yale University doctoral student in anthropology and African American studies was able to join the Corporation under the old bylaws’ “exceptional cases” rule.

He argues that too few recent graduates are card-carrying Quakers, which previously would have left them out of the pool even though they care deeply about the College. “I think we should have fewer barriers to entry,” he says, adding that he is hopeful that the new bylaws will allow the Corporation to better reflect the school’s increasingly diverse student body and alumni base.

But even as he voices optimism for the future, Rippel says the process has left him emotionally drained. “It was a bittersweet change at the end of the day,” he says. “I thought there would be more positive support. It’s not just about bylaw changes, but it’s the change of the heart that needs to occur. That happens within individuals.”

Though the amendment is a done deal, discussion continues on the sticking points. An ad hoc group will develop a document on how to achieve meaningful representation of Board members who have “lived experience of Quaker governance” and “can represent the kinds of issues and causes that are important to Friends, and conduct business consistent with the manner of Friends,” says Corporation Advisory Committee clerk John Morse ’73, a retired lexicographer.

While Wertheimer’s memo instigated the current changes, the Corporation has long grappled with how to acknowledge non-Quakers’ contributions to the character of the school, leading to stopgap measures such as “exceptional cases” and the reduction in the required number of Quakers on the Board.

This time, the discussion reached a tipping point.

“If we’re saying only Quakers can serve on the Corporation, then we’re saying Haverford is run for the benefit of this now rather small sect of Christianity,” Morse says. “The only way you give legitimacy to the entire governance structure is if we reflect all parts of the community we’re serving.”

Now that the bylaws have been changed, many have high expectations.

Terry Nance P’08 is a longtime Corporation member and a member of the Board of Managers since 2020. She says she welcomes the potential for diversity of thought, confident that the Corporation will produce strong nominees through its process. “Ultimately,” says Nance, also vice president and chief diversity officer at Villanova University, “differences of opinions will lead us to a better decision.”

Lawyer Amy Taylor Brooks ’92 was tasked with discerning the “sense of the meeting” in her role as Corporation clerk. “I really felt the presence of a collective spirit moving us in a certain direction,” she says of the April gathering. But, she allows, it is hard to predict how the Corporation and Board will evolve. Only time will tell. Still, she says, the years of discussion, even with disagreement, have made a tangible difference.

“Already,” Brooks says, “it’s made the conversation deeper about values that Haverford wants to have, and the inclusive model Haverford wants to be and making people conscious of the language and getting to know each other. That’s been the case, most definitely.”