To: The Wellesley College Community
From: Andrew Shennan, Provost and Lia Gelin Poorvu ’56 Dean of the College, and Elizabeth Mandeville ’04, Director, Exploration & Experiential Learning
Re: Tanner 2020
Date: September 29, 2020
Each year in October, our community gathers to participate in the Tanner Conference, a campus-wide celebration of students’ off-campus experiential learning. Enabled by a visionary gift from Estelle “Nicki” Newman Tanner ’57, the event presents a meaningful and joyful opportunity to learn about the transformative study abroad experiences, internships, civic engagement, research, and fellowships many of our students have pursued in the past year. While the experiences they present vary enormously—from a publishing internship at Slate magazine to a summer spent performing research at Boston Children’s Hospital to studying abroad in Senegal to an Alternative Break trip to a farm in North Carolina—Tanner always allows presenters to reflect on what they’ve learned and attendees to imagine their own off-campus adventures.
This past year has been like no other. Many students’ off-campus experiences have been canceled, disrupted, or transformed, and all of us have engaged in powerful, daily experiential learning in the context of the pandemic, the concern for racial justice, the political issues associated with the 2020 election, and the realities of environmental change. We propose to use this year’s Tanner Conference—the 20th—to recognize and reflect on this year, as individuals and as a community.
During the break between terms 1 and 2 (October 19–23), we will hold a Tanner Summit, featuring four panels of students describing their recent experiential learning related to the pandemic, racial justice, the upcoming election, and the environment. While some panelists might describe traditional experiential learning (interning, studying abroad, or volunteering, for example), others might talk about their lived experience of these four themes. The virtual panels will be presented live, allowing students from all over the world to participate and engage. We are now seeking student panelists to participate in these faculty-facilitated conversations. Students can express their interest using the Tanner Summit Application form. If you would like to nominate a panelist, please email tanner@wellesley.edu.
That same week, we will launch an exciting partnership with StoryCorps, inviting all students, faculty, and staff to record an interview with another member of our community reflecting on this past year and our individual experiences relating to one of the four themes. As always, StoryCorps interviews are archived in the Library of Congress as intimate markers of history accessible to future generations. These conversations, which we will save, with participant permission, in the College Archives, uphold the spirit and goals of the Tanner Conference: to reflect upon powerful personal experiences, to share those reflections with others, and to give our peers the gift of listening. They will also capture, for the future, snapshots of a remarkable historical moment for us as individuals, for our institution, and for our world.
Details are forthcoming and will be shared in future announcements and on the Tanner website. Please direct any questions to tanner@wellesley.edu. We hope you will join us.
