Residential and deeply community-based, student life at Wellesley may have changed a great deal over 150 years (parietals? what are those?) but a constant is the blend of academic rigor with a supportive, close-knit environment. Students identify strongly with their residence halls and form lifelong bonds with their dormmates.
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The Wellesley College Shakespeare Society, aka “Shakes,” founded in 1877, was a crucial outlet for students interested in theater in the College’s early years, as they were forbidden from attending the theater during the school year. (Image of Shakespeare Society members performing A Midsummer Night's Dream in the woods in 1893 courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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Before the Senate Bus and the Exchange Bus, students traveled between the College and the Wellesley train station on Tom Griffin’s “barge,” a horse-drawn carriage, and, in later years, in his taxi. (Image Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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The College’s only newspaper, the Wellesley News, founded in 1901, publishes a print edition every other Wednesday and currently features a satire column called “The Wellesley Snooze.” (Image Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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Physical activity has always been part of the student experience. The founders insisted on an hour each day to help students withstand the academic rigors of College life. Today, classes that count toward the P.E. requirement include pickleball and classical Indian (Kathak) dance. (Image of students in the old Mary Hemenway Gymnasium, taken in 1910, courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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The Student Government Association was formally established on June 7, 1901 , at a joint meeting of the faculty and the student body in the chapel. That fall, the first issue of College News proudly declared that “ the great student body of Wellesley College is today self- governing,” and the judicial seat is “in the breast of every girl in Wellesley. ” (Image Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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WZLY (originally WBS, Wellesley Broadcasting Station) aired its first program on April 20, 1942, after a father donated $1,000 so that his daughter could pursue her interest in start-ing a campus radio station. (Image Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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As a student, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Korbel Albright ’59 worked at El Table; when she visited campus in January 2012, she signed her name on the wall in the café’s current location in Founders Hall. (Image Courtesy of Wellesley College Communications and Public Affairs.)
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The Schneider Center has evolved from a student center to a home for multiple student-serving offices, but the Schneider Board of Governors, created in 1970, and the SBOG Frog, its mascot introduced in the 2000s, still plan campus events, from headphone discos to a last day of classes concert. (Photo by Lisa Abitbol.)
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The College abolished parietals—rules governing curfews, visitation hours, and gender mixing in dorm rooms—in 1971. Before that, men were only allowed in students’ dorm rooms for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoons. (Image Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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Each fall, the Wellesley College Botanic Gardens staff give easy-care plants to new students. Maria Siciliano ’83 still has the snake plant she received in 1979—it is healthy and thriving after multiple splits. (Photo by Richard Howard.)
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Café Hoop, originally located in the basement of Billings Hall and now in the basement of the Lulu Chow Wang Campus Center, has been serving “nachos, love, and vibes” since 1981. (Photo by Richard Howard.)
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Claflin Bakery, in the basement of Claflin Hall, produces about 1,300 cookies and 1,000 brownies a day.
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Wellesley has more than 180 student organizations, including Aiko (the only collegiate Japanese drumming group in the Boston area), Wushu (a form of traditional Chinese martial arts), and the Hydration Enthusiasts Club (whose members compare water bottles and debate the best campus water fountains). (Photo of members of the WC HEC standing by the first the floor Keohane Sports Center water fountain, which inspired the creation of the group as it approached a notable milestone: 100,000 water bottles filled. Photo from the group's Facebook page.)
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Email and electronic bulletin boards were part of campus culture by the early 1990s, with students logging on to servers named Lucy, Sallie, and Marcie. “The current bulletin board topic is the confirmation of Judge Thomas. I hope (and I suspect not in vain) that this year will also bring the kind of enlightening and entertaining dialogue that we shared last year,” a senior wrote in this magazine in 1991. (Image Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives.)
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Wellesley’s first student organization for LGBTQ+ students, Wellesley Lesbians and Friends, was founded in the early 1980s. Today, there are seven such organizations, and the director of LGBTQ+ programs and services, along with student workers, creates programs and events for queer students, as well as training and workshops for the broader campus community.
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The Lulu Chow Wang ’66 Center for Career Education funds more than 250 internships each summer around the world through grants or placements with employer partners. (Photo by Richard Howard.)
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Kimimilasha James ’21 was the first person to read a land acknowledgment at commencement, in 2021. The founder and then-president of Wellesley’s Native American Student Association, James is an enrolled member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and Oglala Lakota. (Photo of James by Kayana Szymczak.)
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The Office of Student Success, launched in 2022, has become a hub for first-generation, low-income students at Wellesley. It was made possible by a gift from the Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Foundation and Anne Shen Chao ’74, who came to Wellesley as an international student on a full scholarship. (Photo of Jamie D. Motley, Anne Shen Chao ’74 Director of Student Success, by Shannon O'Brien.)
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