The award-winning Wellesley landscape is a laboratory, a source of inspiration, a place to build community, and a jumping-off point for students who go on to support sustainable practices around the world.
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The white oak on the hill overlooking Severance Green—one of 1,217 oaks on campus—is older than the College. It stands 75 feet tall, and its crown is approximately 150 feet in diameter at its broadest. (Photo of an onlooker observing Tree Day in 1968 from a limb of the Severance Oak courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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Lake Waban is over 10,000 years old and 40 feet deep, and it’s a popular local fishing spot. On summer evenings you can find Tom Hodge, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and professor of Russian, on its banks reeling in largemouth bass, black crappie, bluegill sunfish, and chain pickerel. (Photo of alums relaxing on Green Beach at reunion 2019 by Stacy Chansky)
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Nehoiden Golf Course, established in 1893, is one of the oldest college golf courses in the U.S. (Photo of students taking practice shots in front of the clubhouse in 1967 courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., whose vision shaped the campus, described Wellesley in 1902 as “not merely beautiful, but with a marked individual character not represented so far as I know on the ground of any other col-lege in the country.” (Photo of landscaping the area around newly constructed Green Hall in 1931 courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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In spring 2000, the College transformed the courtyard behind Green Hall from a crowded parking lot to a quiet garden named in honor of Jane Freund Harris ’41. The restoration was one of the first steps in removing cars from the center of campus. (Photo by Richard Howard.)
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Alumnae Valley is the breathtaking result of an award-winning 13.5-acre ecological and landscape restoration project in the early 2000s. What was once a parking lot over a brownfield is now a series of wet meadows and shallow marshes, featuring walking paths and a recreation field. (Photo by Richard Howard.)
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The Edible Ecosystem Teaching Garden, established in 2011, mimics the properties of a natural ecosystem but produces food and other useful products for humans, including pawpaws, the largest edible fruit native to North America. (Photo by Lisa Abitbol.)
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During winter storms, Wellesley’s grounds crew works around the clock to clear 15 miles of walkways and campus roads, joined by a shoveling crew of food service and custodial staff. Motor Pool keeps plows and snowblowers running, while the Nehoiden Golf Course crew operates sidewalk plows. (Photo by Richard Howard.)
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