Articles

This is an especially meaningful moment to reconnect with my Wellesley classmates. According to the Chinese lunisolar calendar, many of us were born in the last Year of the Fire Horse (between Jan. 21, 1966, and Feb. 8, 1967) and are observing a milestone birthday.

I had the dream again. I’ve been having it for years, about once a week. It goes something like this: I’m about to start my senior year at Wellesley. I’m always incredulous about it, like I woke up on the starting line of an Olympic sprint as the official is raising the pistol. Wait! How did three years go by so quickly? Why didn’t I appreciate them sufficiently? Why did I waste my time?

The Friday of reunion weekend, while friends were boarding flights and getting in cars to make their way to Wellesley, I was also heading to campus—but I was wrestling my 16-month-old into his car seat before rushing to the Wellesley Community Children’s Center and then my office in Green Hall. For me, May 2025 marked two Wellesley milestones: my 15th reunion as an alum and my four-year anniversary as an employee.

Historians' obsession with facts can make it difficult to enjoy even the most engaging historical fiction, like the dazzling Broadway show Suffs.

Eighteen years ago, I became a grandmother, opening depths of emotion I had never experienced before. A year later, when I saw the announcement of a 10,000-step-a-day challenge in the Portland [Maine] Press Herald, I decided to apply, writing an essay explaining that I wanted to extend my life so that I could see my grandson grow up.

For a while, I knew where they were. The flags, three of them, that were received when my parents and my older brother became naturalized citizens. I don’t know where they are now. I never had one, because I was born here.

At our 1973 commencement, 426 seniors listened as Shirley Chisholm wove her hard-fought “firsts” into a message for us about activism, laced with bold truths. That day, her powerful words propelled me into our generation’s revolutionary times. How would I live up to her charge?

At 24, it seems like a lot of overt “Picture Ahead!” signs are right behind me. Like a road trip, college has a beginning and a destination. After has a beginning, too. But then it’s a series of vaguely defined experiences that make me feel like a tourist taking a photo I could get a better version of on a postcard.

Super-recognizers are able to identify people, often out of context, even if they haven’t seen them for 10, 20, or even 30 years. Some uber-super-recognizers can recognize a face after having seen it only once, or when seeing only part of a face. Carolyn Kott Washburne ’65 says she’s good, but not that good.