Articles

There’s such pleasure in diving into a novel set in a remote locale, especially a lush, tropical one. The reading experience can be akin to actual travel.

Lessons in Privilege A huge mazel tov from my heart to Peggy McIntosh (“ Unpacker of Privilege ,” spring 2023). In 1987, I was a new teacher at Groton School, where there was one other...

This year, sitting at the media table in the big white tent on Severance Green, I was especially nostalgic. My classmate Jocelyn Benson ’99, secretary of state of Michigan, delivered the commencement address to the class of 2023—another yellow class, serendipitously.

After a surprisingly rigorous application process through Mainely Rat Rescue, a flurry of online ordering, and a Sunday drive to Connecticut, Catherine Caruso ’10 and her wife are officially rat moms to three pet rats.

Ann Velenchik, associate professor of economics and writing, drew on her own experience as a working mother to teach a first-year writing class, Having It All? The Problem of Women and Work. In it, her students grappled with questions about the economic and social roles they will face as they move into the world and decide how, when, or whether to start families of their own.

“When you start to recognize plants, I think you really start to feel like there’s family around,” says Jenn Yang ’12, associate director of the Wellesley College Botanic Gardens and Friends of Botanic Gardens. “You start to feel like a place is home.”

Wellesley’s third TEDx featured alum, student, and faculty speakers, including Kellie Carter Jackson, Michael and Denise Kellen ’68 Associate Professor of Africana Studies (above), whose talk, “Why Black Abolitionists Matter.” focused on the overlooked role of Black abolitionists in the Civil War era.

If you’ve heard of the old May Day festivities, it’s probably because Hooprolling and, later, Stepsinging, took place as part of the celebrations. But over the decades, May Day fell away, along with one of its quirkier traditions: scrubbing campus statues and steps.

In January, Peggy McIntosh, a senior research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) and its former associate director, received an exciting call from Jean Kilbourne ’64. “Welcome to the National Women’s Hall of Fame,” Kilbourne told McIntosh, notifying her that she would be inducted in September.