More than Marching

This year’s alumnae parade was among the rainiest and coldest—52 degrees at start time—of the 19 parades I’ve participated in as an Alumnae Association staff member. I jogged down the parade route alongside photographer Kelly Davidson, alerting her to class banners, inventive T-shirts, and former Wellesley faculty members and presidents. I wore a rain-resistant jacket, Alumnae Association-issued blue staff vest, and a plastic poncho, and yet I was still soaked through by the end. (That may have been sweat, though. Thank you, perimenopause.)

Most people would assume the inclement weather would be a deterrent. Wellesley alumnae know that assumption is wrong. College Road was lined with energetic alums sporting colorful insignia, waving and cheering to each other. The classes marched in a joyous, unbroken line, honoring each other for everything they’ve done and will do, but mostly, I think, just celebrating each other for existing. Here we are! Back at this place that means so much to us, together.

Traditions like the alumnae parade bind us to each other and to our beloved campus. As historian Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz ’63 wrote in Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women’s Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s, “Through ritual, students symbolically claimed college ground. Whatever the intentions of the founders and builders, in the minds of the students—and thus of future alumnae—the buildings and landscapes of women’s colleges became the material embodiment of college life.”

The first alumnae parade appears to have been part of Wellesley’s semicentennial celebrations in 1925. Its lineage goes back to both the academic procession at commencement and fondly remembered student-created traditions like Tree Day. In 1925 (and for decades after), the Alumnae Association offered a prize to the class making the “best appearance” in the procession. “Marching and set up are considered as well as costume,” the program stated. After the event, the Wellesley College News reported, “The award of fifty dollars in gold, to be used in purchasing some article for Alumnae Hall, went to the class of ’86 for the beauty of its dress, its insignia, and the excellence of its marching.”

The WCAA no longer gives awards, but if it were up to me, this year's would go to the class of 1976 for their sparkly red vests and dance moves and to the intrepid reunion workers from the class of 2026—including the magazine’s own student assistant Hanna Matsukawa ’26, whose name appears on the masthead for the last time after four years. (She is also on the cover of this issue!) We are thrilled that she will continue working with us as 2026 magazine correspondent.

We’ll see you at your next reunion. And remember: It’s never too early to start thinking about insignia.