To: The Wellesley College Community
From: President Paula A. Johnson
Re: Update on Massachusetts Re-Opening
Date: May 18, 2020

Earlier today, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker shared more details about his plan for reopening the Commonwealth’s economy. I am pleased to serve on the 14-member Higher Education Working Group, which has developed a framework to help guide the Commonwealth’s colleges and universities as they plan to repopulate their campuses at the appropriate time. This framework was shared with the Governor’s Reopening Advisory Board and is briefly reflected in the state’s reopening plans. The full re-population framework for higher education has not yet been published.

At Wellesley, we are closely following Gov. Baker’s guidance as the College is preparing its own four-phase process for repopulating the campus. The members of our Fall Planning Working Group have been hard at work since our most recent fall planning update, and I want to thank them for their work as they consider academic planning for the upcoming fall semester. In addition, we have also formed an Operations Re-entry Team, made up of myself, Andrew Shennan, Sheilah Shaw Horton, Piper Orton, Carolyn Slaboden, Karen Petrulakis, Dave Chakraborty, and Marianne Cooley, who are working with different offices and groups at the College to plan our gradual return to campus.

We plan to share more details about that planning process with you all tomorrow in a follow-up communication.