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"Unchartered: How One Public High School Transformed First-Generation College Success" by Erika M. Kitzmiller ’00 is the culmination of an ambitious research-to-practice partnership that aimed to increase college persistence for students at an urban public high school, most of them first-generation students from low-income families.

After 18 busy, muddy, noisy months of construction, Clapp Library reopened its doors in time for the first day of classes in September 2025. It was an exciting time for staff, who had been displaced to temporary offices and came back to new and improved spaces. It was perhaps even more exciting for students, who had been without the library for three semesters.

Mónica Ballesteros Arias ’11, who hails from Mexico City, was tapped as one of the institute’s first student-scholars in 2010. serves as deputy chief of staff for David Kershenobich, Mexico’s secretary of health. Before taking the position, Mónica had focused her career on the study of economic inequality; she worked at both Mexico’s Ministry of Finance and the Economist Group in the U.S. A job offer arrived in 2024 from the Ministry of Health at a time when she felt U.S. political winds shifting. “I was living in DC and saw myself more as an immigrant—even as someone who is privileged, I felt that ‘otherness.’”

Lauren Gedney ’21 landed their first job on Capitol Hill the fall after graduation. They found their place amid the 10,000 or more congressional staffers within the LGBT Congressional Staff Association. In February, they were elected to a one-year term as its president. “The CSA was one of the first places where I was able to make deep friendships in the workplace,” they say. As president, they hope to continue that legacy of inclusion and belonging

The Wellesley College Botanic Gardens, celebrating 100 years, foster both scientific and humanistic engagement with plants.