Spring 2023

After Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, “I basically just didn’t sleep,” says Nancy Stearns ’61. She vividly remembers what she has called “the bad old days” before Roe, when she was on the front lines of the fight to make abortion legal.

W e have been walking through the Mississippi swamp for hours when someone, a child, I think, finally spots the first heron, its silhouette unmistakable: an inky S-shaped brushstroke set against an ombre sky. “There!”...

Wellesley’s venerable tradition of rowing—and winning—from Float Night to national championships

Ann Velenchik, associate professor of economics and writing, drew on her own experience as a working mother to teach a first-year writing class, Having It All? The Problem of Women and Work. In it, her students grappled with questions about the economic and social roles they will face as they move into the world and decide how, when, or whether to start families of their own.

“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.”

Wellesley’s third TEDx featured alum, student, and faculty speakers, including Kellie Carter Jackson, Michael and Denise Kellen ’68 Associate Professor of Africana Studies (above), whose talk, “Why Black Abolitionists Matter.” focused on the overlooked role of Black abolitionists in the Civil War era.

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.

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.

Tekla Carlén ’24, a medieval and renaissance studies and French major, spent her junior year in France through the College’s Wellesley-in-Aix program. “I chose this program because I wanted a language immersion program and to be able to take classes at a French university alongside French students,” she says.

After a national search, Wellesley selected Crystal Daugherty to join the College as vice president for development. “As a senior officer of the College, Crystal will be a strategic partner and contributor to developing and achieving institutional priorities,” said President Paula Johnson.

Perhaps Nina McKee ’16 was fated to be involved with the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs. “Madeleine Albright was always this figure in my life because I was a young redhead who liked negotiating and wanted to be a diplomat,” says McKee, who became the Albright Institute’s program director in December 2022.

Sophomore economics major Tenzin Yangchen ’25 is exploring career options. “Investment banking caught my eye,” she says, but there was a lot the first-gen student didn’t know.

“Sometimes, fundamental concepts such as connection, boundaries, respect, the gracious resolution of conflicts, and a sense of community have to be learned.”

Recent publications by Wellesley authors

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.

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 .

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.

The slate of officers to be elected will be presented at the annual meeting of the Wellesley College Alumnae Association in May.

In January, 22 Wellesley alumnae and their guests attended what were most likely the southernmost faculty lectures ever, in Antarctica.

“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.

Brilliance and Bravery I am never prouder to be a Wellesley alum than when I learn about the brilliance and bravery of those among us who face and conquer racism ( “Delivering Care & Justice,”...

The Wellesley community is full of nationally recognized changemakers and people who are just trying to get by, taking care of themselves and their loved ones as best they can under challenging circumstances. Often, those alums are one and the same.

Tributes to Wellesley alumnae by family and friends

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.