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For 50 years, researchers at what is now the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) have conducted groundbreaking interdisciplinary studies on social issues such as the effects of placing children in child care, gender equity in education, and the role of social media in adolescents’ lives. From the beginning, its mission has been to deploy rigorous academic research to address real-world problems.

Do plants “belong” in a particular place? Why are some considered “native” and others “invasive”? Why do they have Latin names? Are they really “male” and “female”? These are some of the wide-ranging questions at the heart of the new book Botany of Empire: Plant Worlds and the Scientific Legacies of Colonialism by Banu Subramaniam, the Luella LaMer Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies.

The Blue golf team ranked as high as eighth in the NCAA Division III national rankings during a record-setting spring. Bolstered by a talented class of first-years, including 2024 Wellesley Athletics Rookie of the Year Audrey Wang ’27 (above), the Blue earned team victories at the Jekyll Island Invitational, the two Vassar Invitationals, the Ann S. Batchelder Invitational at Nehoiden Golf Club, and the Jack Leaman Invitational. The Blue ended the year in a tie for second at the Liberty League Championships, narrowly missing this year’s NCAA championship.

In June, Andrew Shennan moved out of an office he had been occupying since 1999. During send-off events in the spring, colleagues remarked on Shennan’s brilliance, kindness, optimism, ability to see arguments from many angles, level-headedness, devotion to the College, and his continuing commitment to neckties in a business-casual era.

Thumbnail reviews of new publications from the Wellesley community

The popular course ENG/HIST 221: The Renaissance interrogates the idea of the thing that historians and literary scholars have called the Renaissance.

Samara Pearlstein touches a “little bit of almost every part” of the Wellesley College Art Department. She is the program coordinator for the department, the building manager for the Jewett Arts Center and Pendleton West, and a drawing instructor for the studio program in the summer. She is also the gallery director for Jewett Art Gallery.

A beloved member of the Wellesley community, Joy Renjilian-Burgy, associate professor emerita of Spanish, died on Jan. 14 at the age of 81.

A successful working artist in New York, Juyon Lee ’18 credits the film classes she took with Prof. Eve Zimmerman for her Japanese minor and a first-year drawing class with professor of art Daniela Rivera with leading her where she is now.