To: Wellesley College Faculty, Staff, and Students
From: President Paula A. Johnson
Re: Strategic Planning Update
Date: January 26, 2023
Welcome to the first week of spring semester at Wellesley! I hope you all enjoyed a peaceful holiday break, and for those who participated, a rewarding Wintersession.
As I report to you on the implementation of our strategic plan, I want to start by acknowledging the work of the Implementation Advisory Committee, which met through last spring and fall to support the goals of the strategic plan and to advise Senior Leadership. The committee has suggested community-building activities and initiatives as well as shared many of the ways the strategic plan is inspiring change and new thinking throughout our community.
In the spirit of a new beginning, which the start of the semester provides, I want to update you on some of the progress we made over the fall and what will happen this spring.
Inclusive excellence
This is a guiding principle of the strategic plan, and it is central to all its goals and priorities. To bolster our work in this area, we have developed a new team-based model that advances inclusive excellence across the College by using a more holistic approach that supports faculty, staff, and students. These are some of the people who are leading this important work and complementing the efforts of faculty-led committees:
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Justin Bell: As director of nondiscrimination initiatives: Title IX coordinator and ADA/Section 504 coordinator, Justin offers training to our community; manages the College’s response to any type of harassment or discrimination experienced by students, faculty, or staff; and oversees the College’s response to sexual misconduct.
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Amy Marks: As associate provost, Amy works with faculty to advance inclusive pedagogies across the academic curriculum and is working with colleagues in the Office of the Provost to develop policies to recruit and retain a diverse faculty.
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Claudia Rodriquez: In her role as the director of talent management and development, Claudia oversees the recruitment, retention, and development of a diverse staff. She will also focus on staff career development and engagement. Additionally, other functional areas in Human Resources have an inclusive excellence focus, including compensation, benefits, and employee relations.
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Inés Maturana Sendoya: As the associate dean of students for inclusion and engagement, Inés oversees the Office of Intercultural Education, including the cultural houses and Slater International Center, LGBTQ+ Services, and oversees the Office of Student Success with Dean of Academic Affairs Michael Jeffries. She is responsible for developing and leading intercultural competency education for students, and also works across the College to create a more consistently welcoming and inclusive climate for students of different backgrounds, experiences, and social identities.
Academic transformation
In his role as chair of the Committee on Curriculum and Academic Policy (CCAP), Dean of Academic Affairs Michael Jeffries is leading a process to explore changes to our degree requirements, building on the approval last spring of core objectives of a Wellesley education.
Last fall, CCAP hosted several conversations with faculty at Academic Council during which many expressed a need to simplify our degree requirements and showed enthusiasm for more inquiry-based learning and for encouraging intellectual exploration both inside and outside the classroom. CCAP also called attention to a 2020 memo from the Commission on Ethnicity, Race, and Equity that provides guidance for rethinking the multicultural requirement and the curriculum more broadly. These conversations will continue this spring, with the goal of having CCAP submit a proposal for updating the College’s degree requirements by the end of this academic year.
Efforts are also underway to strengthen our advising system. Michael is heading up our new approach to supporting first-year students, which will address questions concerning who does the advising, the role of advisors, and timing and the frequency of advising.
Refocusing the work of the class deans has been intertwined with the changes to the advising structure. Class deans under their new leadership are currently considering new models of advising.
Building community
We have conducted several surveys regarding community members’ experiences at the College and community dynamics. The Office of Institutional Research will help us interpret the major themes and findings these surveys have yielded, which will inform new initiatives. We plan to share a summary of key findings with the community later this year.
Finally, residence hall renovations are on track, with Severance Hall expected to be completed and the first phase of construction on Tower Hall beginning this summer. We are also undertaking extensive construction and renovation projects in many of our academic and administrative buildings.
While work continues on these key priorities, it is tremendously gratifying to see the many ways the strategic plan is inspiring creative thinking and collaboration across our campus community. The following are two examples of initiatives that are designed to elevate the voices and scholarship of the Wellesley community in new and powerful ways:
Expanding and optimizing our digital archives
LTS is expanding the digital collections of the Archives and Special Collections to make important cultural heritage and scholarly work available on campus and globally. Improvements include hiring a new staff member, Abi Stark ’90, who is helping to manage the archive; expanding in-house digitization capacity by adding a book scanner and dedicated software for optical character recognition; and using software to improve interoperability of the content. This is the 10th year LTS has accepted all-digital honors theses to the archives, and it now has 866 fully open access theses available for download around the world.
Bringing TEDx to Wellesley
On February 25, Wellesley will be hosting TEDxWellesleyCollege: Coalescence. This event will bring together faculty, staff, and students to celebrate the transformative power of curiosity, learning, and teaching. This exciting initiative, the result of a collaboration between the Office of Residential Life and Student Life, is designed to build community and spark imagination. To find out more please visit the event page, and mark your calendars.
At the suggestion of the Implementation Advisory Committee, we have made it easier to learn more about key goals, projects, and progress on the strategic planning webpage. We will be updating the information on this page several times a year to highlight both the progress that is being made and the people, teams, and committees behind it.
Thanks to all who are contributing to this very important work advancing the strategic plan.
