Earlier this year, I was fortunate to reconnect with my Wellesley little sister. We were matched in Pomeroy Hall in 2001 when I was a junior and she was a first-year. We had exchanged emails about a Wellesley-related connection a few years ago, but otherwise had not been in touch in close to 20 years. I reached out when I had an open evening while traveling for the College to Seattle, and was delighted that she was game to meet me downtown.

Like most of us, she is a “regular alum”—and she is extraordinary. Over dinner, I heard about how she has grown her career and made family decisions; her commitment to seeing her Wellesley friends annually, or as often as families and jobs and health and finances and other life demands allow; and how her path has wound in unexpected ways since graduation. We talked about how we both have grown closer to and apart from a litany of people we knew in college, and how life has shifted our priorities over time since our college days (really not that long ago—we are both in our 40s!).

As we caught up, I also learned that she had recently led her organization through a merger. She shared the challenges, new opportunities, and lessons learned through that work. Some of the elements were vastly different from the circumstances of the WCAA/College merger that I was working through, but it was so helpful to hear her perspective from the “other side.”

We are now on the other side of our WCAA merger with the College. The WCAA Board, led by Laura Wood Cantopher ’84, and College leadership worked for two years to ensure that the merger terms would set us up for success far into the future. In May 2024, over 3,500 alumnae participated in the voting process, with 86% voting to approve the merger. Unanimous ratification by voice vote at a standing-room-only Annual Meeting in Alumnae Hall on May 25 was the final endorsement before filing the merger agreement and supporting materials with the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, who approved the merger, effective June 30.

As I have shared before, this work was about modernizing an outdated structure and creating strategic organizational alignment. The “everyday” alum experience will not change based on our organization’s tax status.

Will there be changes? Of course. Alumnae programs, policies, and practices have evolved over 144 years as the needs of alumnae, the College, and the world around us have changed. That will continue. We grow and evolve as people, and our relationships—with the College and with one another—may ebb and flow over time. Our job in alumnae relations is to create pathways to connection and support of the College, and entry points onto those paths for alums at a wide range of stages in their post-graduate lives.

Spending time with my Wellesley little sister was a gift—professionally and personally. Her insights into merger considerations and impacts were valuable, and seeing her was a reminder that Wellesley’s impact continues in our lives long after we graduate. The integrated WCAA structure is a positive organizational improvement. What does not change on this “other side” is the core of our Wellesley alumnae experience—the strength of our connections to one another, our dedication to Wellesley, and our aspiration to “answer to her evr’y call.”