Leaders in their fields and deeply committed teachers, Wellesley’s faculty have shaped generations of students and the College itself.
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Wellesley’s faculty at its inception in 1875 included seven professors who were heads of departments, 11 teachers of academic subjects, and several nonacademic teachers—all women but one. Today, over 60% of the faculty are women. (Photograph of faculty in College Hall courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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In Wellesley’s early years, there were no majors. Henry Durant designed a curriculum that incorporated “the broadest culture,” requiring students to study Latin, either French or German, mathematics, history, essay writing, literature, elocution, chemistry, physics, and philosophy. Students also studied scripture daily and were expected to take drawing and vocal music instruction. (1891 photo of Professor Elizabeth Kendall’s class in British constitutional history courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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Today, Wellesley offers more than 1,000 courses and 55 majors, including many that are interdepartmental. The five most popular majors among the class of 2025 were economics (82), computer science (62), political science (46), psychology (38), and media arts and sciences (37). (2025 commencement photo by Joel Haskell.)
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Since 1900, Whitin Observatory’s telescopes have prepared scholars who have gone on to do groundbreaking work—such as the 2024 discovery by Anicia Arredondo ’16 of the first water molecules on the surface of an asteroid—and inspired generations of curious students to learn about the night sky. (Illustration by Chris Wormell.)
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Wellesley established the second undergraduate physics lab in the U.S. in 1878, after MIT. It was first to which women had access. (Image Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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Instructor in Psychology Mary Whiton Calkins founded Wellesley’s psychological lab in 1891, the first at a liberal arts college. Calkins had completed all the requirements for a Ph.D. at Harvard with distinction, but she was denied a degree because of her gender. She later became the first female president of the American Psychological Association. (Image Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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Artist-educator Alice Van Vechten Brown, hired as Wellesley’s museum director and head of the art department in 1897, pioneered the “Wellesley Method”—teaching art through direct observation and studio practice—and established the nation’s first art history major at Wellesley in 1900. (Photo of students examining a sculpture in the Jewett Arts Center in 1962 courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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Literary legend Vladimir Nabokov founded Wellesley’s Russian department in 1945. Some of Nabokov’s preserved butterfly specimens are still in residence in Founders Hall. (Photo of Vladimir and Vera Nabokov, at left, with two members of the Phi Sigma society at the Phi Sigma House, courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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Victorian periodicals, long overlooked by scholars, were brought to light by English professor Walter Houghton and his wife, Esther. They edited the celebrated Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824–1900, uncovering the identities of anonymous authors published in the most influential British periodicals. “We use a small flashlight in an immense Victorian darkness,” Houghton wrote in 1958 of the monumental bibliographic undertaking. (Photo of Walter and Esther in 1972 examining the exhibition at Clapp Library marking the second volume of the Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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Summer research for students began in 1962 with a National Science Foundation grant that paid for six students to assist three chemistry professors for eight weeks. Today, supported by foundations, institutes, and generous alums, more than 100 students conduct research each summer with Wellesley faculty and researchers, on campus and around the world. (Photo of a student presenting their summer research poster in 2024 by Joel Haskell.)
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Wellesley dropped its required Bible course in 1968, but it lives on in a Stepsinging song: “Where, oh where are the gay young soph’mores … they’ve gone out from the kings of Israel.” (Photo of Herbert Gale, professor of biblical history, teaching a class courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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Professor Helen T. Lin founded Wellesley’s Chinese department in 1970 and built it into one of the nation’s top undergraduate Chinese programs. As a scholar and U.S. Department of Education representative, she also lectured and consulted in China. (Image Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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Carolyn Shaw Bell, Katharine Coman Professor of Economics, was known for supporting the careers of her students, and of female economists everywhere. She was one of the founders of the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession in 1971, and its annual award is named for her.
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In 1992, Susan McGee Bailey ’63, former executive direc-tor of the Wellesley Centers for Women, authored a ground-breaking report that found teachers pay less attention to girls than boys. The report influenced federal legislation on girls’ science and math programs, shaped public discourse on gen-der and education, and sparked new community-based initiatives nationwide. (Photo by Richard Howard.)
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Wellesley’s poetic pedigree is undeniable. Notable poets who have served on the faculty include Marjorie Agosín, Katharine Lee Bates, Frank Bidart, David Ferry, Jorge Guillén, Ifeanyi Menkiti, Josephine Preston Peabody, Robert Pinsky, and Claude Vigée. (Photo of Frank Bidart by Justin Knight.)
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Founded in 2001, the Knapp Social Science Center fosters interdisciplinary research across the social sciences. Recent faculty projects include studying COVID-19 and anti-Asian sentiment, and exploring how Africa’s first ladies have shaped national policies across the continent. (Photo of Professor Olga Shurchkov ’01 and three students in the Social Science Summer Research Program courtesy of Wellesley College Communications and Public Affairs.)
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In 2010, the U.S. government apologized for deliberately infecting hundreds of Guatemalans with sexually transmitted diseases for a 1946–48 study, which was uncovered through the research of Susan M. Reverby, Marion Butler McLean Professor Emerita in the History of Ideas and professor emerita of women’s and gender studies. (Photo by Richard Howard.)
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David Lindauer, Stanford Calderwood Professor of Economics Emeritus at Wellesley, launched the Calderwood Seminars in 2013 to teach students how to write about complex topics for a general audience. More than a dozen institutions now offer Calderwood Seminars. (Photo by Richard Howard.)
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A group of five faculty members received $1.5 million from the 2023 Mellon Foundation “Humanities for All Times” competition. The grant funds a 3½-year project that is uniting the College’s humanities departments through themes of democracy, environmental justice, and identity. (Photo of grant recipients Yoon Sun Lee, Dan Chiasson, Martha McNamara, Eve Zimmerman, and Cord Whitaker by Joel Haskell.)
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