Articles

What had begun as a set of urgent repairs to the Margaret Clapp Library grew into a reimagining of how the building might function—not just structurally, but academically and as a more accessible community hub for the campus.

Ruth J. Simmons’s experience as a Guest Junior at Wellesley helped shape the trajectory of her distinguished career, which has included her roles as the first Black president of Smith College; the first Black president of an Ivy League school, when she took on that role at Brown University; and the first female president of Prairie View A&M University.

Lulu Chow Wang’s experiences in the Jewett Arts Center helped fuel her lifelong passion for the arts. Now, Wang and her husband, Tony, have made a $25 million gift to the College to help enable the renewal of the masterpiece of modernism.

Reports from Around Campus

On May 15, some 5,000 people, including 560 members of Wellesley’s purple class of 2026, gathered under the tent on Severance Green to celebrate commencement.

It felt “surreal,” Riley McNair ’26 told the Wellesley News after capturing the College’s annual Hooprolling race title on April 25, winning in under a minute.

Almost the moment she arrived on campus from Hyderabad, Shreeya Lakkapragada ’26 felt a connection between India and Wellesley.

What do whaling dories, Longfellow, Bizet’s opera Carmen, and the Whitin Observatory have in common? They are all part of the story of Float Night. The story began in 1875, when Wellesley co-founder Henry Fowle Durant purchased three ungainly boats for the College.

When Janina Shivdasani ’26, Julia Kuang ’26, Lily Deutscher ’27, and Ella Kim ’26 entered the Wellesley College Business Case Competition last fall, they didn’t expect it would lead to presenting in a room packed with alumnae business leaders.