To: The Wellesley Community
From: Paula A. Johnson, President; and Andy Shennan, Provost and Lia Gelin Poorvu ’56 Dean of the College
Re: Welcome to the First Day of Remote Classes
Date: March 30, 2020

As this most unusual spring break in our College’s history comes to a close and we prepare to resume classes remotely, we are writing with a simple and heartfelt message of gratitude.

We applaud all of you, our faculty, staff, and students, for the resilience, resourcefulness, and ingenuity you have brought to the great challenge of adjusting to these most unprecedented circumstances.

Faculty have worked tirelessly over spring break and, in just two weeks, have prepared for this unanticipated and abrupt transition by rethinking syllabi and assignments for remote instruction. You can read about how they are reorienting coursework and exploring new methods of reaffirming classroom community here.

We extend special thanks to Ravi Ravishanker, Wellesley’s chief information officer, and everyone in LTS, and to Oscar Fernandez and the team at the PLTC, who have provided us all with magnificent support, training, and remote learning resources. We know they will continue to do so for the rest of the semester.

Amid all the dislocations and stresses of this pandemic, students have been busy adjusting to life in their communities across the country and around the world. We have heard from many students (as well as faculty and staff) who have been looking forward to resuming academic work as a welcome element of normalcy.

Of course, no part of this transition has been—or will be—easy. While there will be challenges in the weeks ahead as we shift to a new kind of teaching and learning, we have full confidence in our community’s ability to make the academic experience as stimulating and vital as ever. We have full confidence that faculty and administration will collaborate effectively in the interests of Wellesley students. We have full confidence that we will complete the semester successfully, and that we will learn valuable lessons in the process.

Learning and teaching remotely, without the personal and residential elements that are crucial to our College, will require us to be more deliberate than ever in our attention to one another. We are grateful to the staff members of the Division of Student Life and to our student leaders—and so many more—who are working to maintain community in the midst of separation and social distancing. We have already heard of plans for virtual teas, book groups, and so much more.

Please let us know if anything—technical or otherwise, large or small—isn’t working for you, if someone is missing the Zoom sessions or not responding to emails, or if you have ideas for ways we can better connect with each other and to the College. The Office of the Provost, the Office of the Dean of Students, and the Help Desk are available to help provide individual assistance. We must listen carefully to each other, help one another, and learn from each other as we all navigate these uncharted waters.

We are so happy to be, at least in this one important sense, back together again. We are excited to get started.