When Joanne Berger-Sweeney ’79, president of Trinity College in Connecticut, applied to college in 1975, the Ivy League had finally started opening its doors to women, and much of her family had proudly gone to historically black colleges and universities. But her mother had a different vision for her.

“I was this little Black kid growing up in L.A., and my mother just thought going to one of the Seven Sisters would be the most incredible thing for her daughter,” Berger-Sweeney recalls. Her mother understood that as a West Coaster and a Black woman, Berger-Sweeney would have come to any elite East Coast college as a bit of an outsider. Her advice: “Why don’t you take one of those things off the table?”

A young, dynamic Wellesley alumna in Los Angeles interviewed Berger-Sweeney, and that sealed the deal. (The College’s proximity to a favorite sports team—the Boston Celtics—didn’t hurt, either.)

She still remembers the day she arrived at Wellesley, sight unseen, and was greeted by a sophomore who said “Hello, Joanne! Welcome from Los Angeles.”

“I thought, ‘This is where I’m supposed to be,’” she says.

Berger-Sweeney earned her Ph.D. in neurotoxicology at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and went on to become an accomplished neuroscientist, then a transformational leader in higher education. As a scientist, she worked on a drug that is still widely used to treat Alzheimer’s, has authored more than 60 papers, and holds several patents. In 1991, she returned to Wellesley, eventually becoming the College’s first female African American to rise through the ranks to become a full professor. She served Wellesley for nearly 20 years as director of the neuroscience program and as associate dean before leaving to become dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University. For the past decade, she has served as president of Trinity, the first woman and first African American to do so.

Berger-Sweeney has received several awards for her scientific work, leadership, and mentoring, including the Lifetime Mentoring Award from the Society for Neuroscience and a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society.

She acknowledges that her journey didn’t follow a straight line, and that her success didn’t come without some setbacks. In November of her first year at Wellesley, for example, her mother died suddenly of an aneurysm; Berger-Sweeney rushed back home to Los Angeles. But the tragedy didn’t derail her Wellesley trajectory—instead, she says, Wellesley is what got her through.

“I don’t ever remember for a second not thinking I would come back to Wellesley,” she says. “When I got back, it was as though the whole campus surrounded me like a mother. The professors wrote me notes saying, ‘We’re going to help you—what do you need from us?’”

Berger-Sweeney had come from an inner-city school, and she struggled to keep up with her classwork and to feel confident that she belonged at Wellesley. But she says forming her own deep bonds at the College helped, and attending a liberal arts college was both a mind-expanding and nurturing experience. When she left, she was often the first one to speak up about certain things—such as how few women taught at other universities, like Johns Hopkins.

Berger-Sweeney has continued to notice what could be improved and to take action. She brought that drive with her to Trinity, a close-knit, small liberal arts college.

“I’m not sure I would have had the same energy to break barriers like this had it not been for my sensitivity around issues,” she says. Her Wellesley experience “gave me a sense of confidence at the time when I needed it.”

One of her first tasks in her role as president was to ensure Trinity was responding equitably and promptly to all reports of sexual misconduct and fostering a safer environment for all its students.

She also quickly determined that Trinity had fewer female full professors than any of its peers. She tackled that problem as well, and the split is now 50/50, Berger-Sweeney says. During her tenure she has greatly increased the number of tenure-track faculty of color, and the college has increased financial aid for its students by 50%. She completed an ambitious strategic plan, created a mentoring program for first-years, and reimagined the schools’ liberal arts program for the 21st century. Retention rates have gone up and post-graduation career outcomes for Trinity alumni have improved.

Berger-Sweeney says throughout her career, she has always loved her work. She loved being a scientist, conducting experiments in the lab. And she moved into administration because she wanted to be able to reach a wider range of students. “If you truly love what you’re doing, you’re going to be better at it. If you don’t like it, it’s probably a sign it’s not a perfect match,” she says.

“You’re going to most likely have to work very hard to get ahead,” she says. “There aren’t super-easy paths; I absolutely paid my dues.” And there is always value in holding true to who you are and why you’re doing the work, and in respecting the work of others. “Don’t treat people like trash on the way up, because it’s going to come back to you,” she says.

Berger-Sweeney recently announced that she will retire in June 2025, after 11 years at the helm of Trinity. “You want to go when people still want you to stay,” she says.

After having an impact on so many students throughout her career, her retirement dream is to return to the classroom herself—she plans to take some college writing courses in the hopes of writing fiction.