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D. Scott Birney died on Aug. 15, 2021, at age 95. Scott joined the astronomy department in 1968, and throughout his 23 years at the College, his good cheer, wry wit, and self-effacing demeanor made the Whitin Observatory a congenial and supportive home to both students and faculty.

Miriam Butt ’87, a professor of general and computational linguistics at the University of Konstanz in Germany, chose to attend Wellesley in part because it was one of the only American colleges at the time where she could study both Latin and computer science.

In 2010, Anne Shen Chao ’74 founded the Houston Asian American Archive at Rice University, an oral history collection about the lives of Asian Americans living in the Houston area. “We want to make sure that Asian American contributions are included in the narrative of Texas history,” Anne says.

“We’re all in one big stream. Everyone is trying to find a way to be heard,” says Lois Roach, senior lecturer in theatre studies. In Roach’s course THST 106: Speaking Truth to Power, her students learn to speak up while hearing out other perspectives.

For the last year and a half, Christopher Arumainayagam, professor of chemistry, has sought to understand one of the most fundamental questions of all: How did life begin?

Last fall, empty red dresses swayed from tree limbs around campus. They were impossible to miss, or ignore. The installation, part of the REDress Project created by Jaime Black, a Canadian artist of mixed Anishinaabe and Finnish descent, was brought to campus by Wellesley’s Native American Student Association (NASA).

A lithograph of Empress Adelina, a member of the Haitian royal family, is part of the “Album Imperial d’Haiti,” dated 1852. This set of 12 pages is part of the Elbert Collection in Special Collections in the Margaret Clapp Library, which contains some 800 volumes on slavery, emancipation, and Reconstruction.

Working with College Chaplain and Rabbi Dena Bodian, Jewish students have edited and produced a Passover prayer book especially for Wellesley.

At the end of the fall 2021 semester, a short punch list remained, but the completion of the Science Complex—the largest construction project the College has undertaken in more than a century—was in sight