From the President - For Homepage Use

From the President
A photo portrait of Peggy McIntosh in Cheever House
In January, Peggy McIntosh, a senior research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) and its former associate director, received an exciting call from Jean Kilbourne ’64. “Welcome to the National Women’s Hall of Fame,” Kilbourne told McIntosh, notifying her that she would be inducted in September.More
Jenn Yang '12 stands among plants in the Global Flora greenhouse.
“When you start to recognize plants, I think you really start to feel like there’s family around,” says Jenn Yang ’12, associate director of the Wellesley College Botanic Gardens and Friends of Botanic Gardens. “You start to feel like a place is home.”More
Wellesley seniors scrub the library steps during a May Day celebration after the College Hall fire, date unknown.
If you’ve heard of the old May Day festivities, it’s probably because Hooprolling and, later, Stepsinging, took place as part of the celebrations. But over the decades, May Day fell away, along with one of its quirkier traditions: scrubbing campus statues and steps.More
The cover of The Sweet Spot is an  illustration showing legs of a woman seated on the steps of a brownstone with a baby in a carrier at her side and glass of wine in front her her.
What do you find when you cross one calculating entrepreneur, an overworked ceramist, a vengeful ex-wife, and an enterprising young woman in New York City? That would be The Sweet Spot —the eponymous bar where many paths cross in this sweet and funny look at the village it takes not only to raise a child, but also to navigate the pitfalls of success and failure.More
An all-text cover of this book by Jennifer Caplan '01 reads Funny, You Don't Look Funny: Judaism and Humor from the Silent Generation to Millennials
The relationship between Judaism and humor has been analyzed extensively over the years, including by none other than Sigmund Freud. In the years since then, of course, Jewish humor has evolved dramatically. Just imagine what Freud would have made of Seinfeld or Broad City .More
The cover of Alzheimer’s Fantasy in the Key of G by Kirsten Critz Levy ’74 shows a hazy photo of the backs of  four children who are looking into the distance.
Alzheimer’s Fantasy in the Key of G by Kirsten Critz Levy ’74 is no traditional medical memoir. Levy embraces past, present, and future, mixing reality and imagination, to explore the confusing nature of her mother’s illness.More
 Kathryn Harvey Mackintosh ’03
“The best thing you can bring on this trip is your flexibility,” our tour manager announced on our first day together. I sat on a bus in Buenos Aires with 21 Wellesley alumnae, their guests, and Rachel Stanley, associate professor of chemistry and the Frost Associate Professor in Environmental Science at Wellesley.More
A photo of the amphitheater behind Diana Chapman Walsh '66 Alumnae Hall
The slate of officers to be elected will be presented at the annual meeting of the Wellesley College Alumnae Association in May.More
A photo of Judy Harte '68 outside the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California.
For more than half a century, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) in California have dreamed of harnessing nuclear fusion to reproduce the process that powers our sun. Computational physicist Judy Harte ’68 has been there almost from the beginning.More
A multi-story mural on the side of a building in New York City depicts Shani Evans '96 having her hair braided.
The image towers over a street in East Harlem, New York, invoking an intimate and peaceful moment—a Black woman having her hair braided. Shani Evans ’96 is the subject, though she says the artwork is meant to represent a universal, rather than a personal, moment of peace and connection.More
A photo shows Edie Hu '97 on a beach in Hong Kong, wearing a bright red swim cap.
Edie Hu ’97 swam the English Channel in 2018 as a two-woman relay, completing the 21 miles in just under 15 hours. After the grueling effort, the lifelong swimmer tinkered with the idea of attempting the feat on her own.More
A photo portrait of Abby Gardner Athanasopoulos ’02,
When you’re an art history major deeply immersed in 19th-century painting, it might seem unlikely that assessing the value of Coney Island memorabilia is in your future. But that’s what happened for Abby Gardner Athanasopoulos ’02, the founder of Spectrum Appraisals.More
Photograph of pink heart-shaped sunglasses
I could point out the shy glances across the room that signaled a match in the making. Knew the right words to send in a text to make one sound both aloof and interested. In my mind’s eye, I was a coach of sorts. A coach with no real-life experience.More
Black and white portrait of Elizabeth “Betty” J. Rock
Betty, professor of chemistry until her retirement in 1992, was a formidable individual, but she was a warm and caring person. In 1969, when some faculty were outraged by student rebellion and Vietnam protests, Betty saw hope. She said of the protesters, “They want to change the world, and it is our business to help them find the ways.”More
Photography of a Wellesley lantern with Alumnae Hall in the background
Tributes to Wellesley alumnae by family and friendsMore