College Road

Honoring an Ancestor Oak

On a sunny April afternoon, artist Mika Taga ’22, in collaboration with College horticulturist Anne Beckley, created an ephemeral sculpture from slices of an ancient oak that had to be cut down, suspending the rounds in the surrounding pines. Those gathered for the event also hung gratitude flags on the nearby trees, made charcoal, and used botanical inks to decorate the oak slices.

Unearthing 150 Years of LGBTQ+ Life

While in Wellesley College Archives, Kaya Perce ’26 discovered that the earliest administrative folders on queer life at Wellesley (from the 1970s) were labeled “lesbian issues” and “upsetting issues: lesbian.” Speaking at the February launch for Our Queer Stories: A Digital Timeline of LGBTQ+ History at Wellesley—a project funded by a 150th Community Fund grant and supported by LGBTQ+ Programs and Services—Perce noted, “This teaches us that in those years, queerness at Wellesley was talked about as a problem to be managed.”

For the project, Perce and oral history interviewer Avery Finley ’28 documented a wide range of experiences going back to the College’s earliest days. While noting challenges, Perce highlighted a concurrent theme of allyship: “For all of Wellesley history, there have always been staff members and professors fighting for queer and trans students to be able to exist fully at Wellesley, and fighting for themselves as well.”

Explore the digital timeline, which includes video clips of alum interviews, at bit.ly/OurQueerStories.

In the Room Where It Happens

Pendleton East became a hotbed of high-stakes diplomatic activity on April 11 as 20 students moved among rooms assigned to the U.S. National Security Council, the Norwegian Cabinet, NATO, and the U.N. Security Council. The Diplomat’s Toolbox Crisis Simulation, presented by the Wagner Centers for Wellesley in the World, challenged students to navigate international tensions in real time. For the simulation, participants were assigned profiles, which included the prime minister of Norway, the U.S. national security advisor, and the secretary general of the North Atlantic Council of NATO. Ambassador Wendy Sherman, an actual former U.S. deputy secretary of state—and a friend and colleague of former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Korbel Albright ’59 as well as a past visitor to the Albright Institute’s Wintersession events—served as president of the United States. Inspired by the Georgetown University course “American National Security Toolbox,” created by Albright, the event honored her legacy while giving students hands-on experience in diplomacy, negotiation, and crisis management.

Faculty Farewells

Eight retiring members of the faculty were honored at the College’s 148th commencement on May 15. The longest-serving among them was Jim Kodera, professor of religious studies, who taught for 50 years, from 1976 to 2026. Also departing after many years of dedicated service were: Daniela Bartalesi-Graf, associate teaching professor in Italian studies, 2011–26; Yue Hu, professor of physics, 1989–2025; Joseph Joyce, M. Margaret Ball Professor of International Relations and professor of economics, 1981–2026; Kathryn “Cappy” Lynch, Katharine Lee Bates and Sophie Chantal Hart Professor of English, 1983–2026; Kaye Peterman, Susan M. Hallowell and Ruby Frances Howe Farwell Professor of Biological Sciences, 1988–2026; Neelima Shukla-Bhatt, professor of religious studies, 2004–26; and Ann Velenchik, associate professor of economics and writing, 1989–2026.