I want to welcome our Wellesley community, both on campus and around the world, to the first day of classes for the spring terms.
You have all worked so hard to get us here. I am grateful to our faculty for their continued creativity and dedication; our LTS staff, who keep us connected; our facilities team, which keeps our campus safe and running; our dining and custodial employees for their commitment to our students; our Health Services and Stone Center teams; our Residential Life and Housing staff, RAs, and house presidents, who support our students and build community on campus and off; and the many other staff members who are bringing the Wellesley experience to life during this challenging time. Finally, I am grateful to our students, who inspire us all with their fierce love of learning and undaunted spirits, and especially to our seniors, who are experiencing a final year like no other in the College’s history.
The pandemic is still very much with us. The COVID-19 numbers are higher than they were last fall, but the good news is that we know what to do to protect our Wellesley bubble. We were able to keep Wellesley healthy in the fall because we followed the rules and, together, we put the health of our community first. I have every confidence that we will be able to do the same this spring if we remain focused and vigilant. Also I am pleased to share that Wellesley has been awarded additional funding for emergency grants to students through the federal CARES Act, and we plan to share additional information with students and parents later this week
While we continue to face challenges, there is light ahead. The start of classes and the news that the vaccine rollout is gaining momentum in Massachusetts and other states fill me with a sense of hope. It feels like we are starting a new chapter together, and in that spirit I would like to share some updates about the spring terms ahead of us.
Health and safety
Over the last two weeks, we have welcomed approximately 1,100 students to campus, and just over 1,100 will be attending remotely. In-person classes will be offered mainly to juniors and seniors, and all other classes will be remote, which is possible thanks to the innovation and dedication of our faculty.
The students who moved to campus have followed extensive testing and quarantine protocols, and we have had a minimal number of positive cases so far. We have strong health and safety practices in place that Karen Petrulakis, our general counsel, and Sheilah Shaw Horton, dean of students, have shared with faculty and staff as well as students. We will continue to post the most recent information to the Keeping Wellesley Healthy website and update the COVID-19 dashboard daily. We also will be asking on-campus faculty, staff, and students to fill out the Community Compliance Survey on a weekly basis this spring. In a change from the fall, we will be sharing the data from the surveys in the Spring 2021Toolbox, which is now live on the top menu of the MyWellesley Portal.
As I shared last week, we are working with Newton-Wellesley Collegiate Health, our higher education colleagues, and the Massachusetts Department of Health and Human Services to develop a plan that we hope will allow the College to offer vaccines to all members of our faculty and staff, in addition to students, while respecting the state’s phased plan. This is a service we would very much like to bring to our community, and we will share additional updates as they become available.
Student life
While the first two weeks of school will not allow in person programs, the Student Involvement office has planned a number of virtual programs that both remote and in person students can enjoy. The clubs and organizations may also begin to plan their events, working with Student Involvement to ensure compliance with our health and safety protocols. The RAs and HPs are of course ready to engage with students and will creatively bring our residential curriculum to life to promote student connection and support.
We are eager to work with you to shape the student experience and make it as rich as possible. If you have questions or ideas that can help us improve it, please bring them to the Office of Student Involvement, to College Government, the dean of students, or to me during my virtual office hours.
Coming together to find solutions
While we are navigating this pandemic, our community also is coming together to address pressing challenges such as how the College can combat climate change, approach public safety on campus, and build a strategic plan for Wellesley’s future.
Last week, Debby Kuenstner, chief investment officer, shared an update on our work to respond to climate change, now and in the future. I am very proud of the way our community is working in the spirit of shared purpose and sacrifice to find a comprehensive solution to this urgent challenge. I look forward to these efforts coming together in late April, when the board will consider recommendations from students, faculty, and staff, for ways to reduce Wellesley’s carbon footprint, as well as review the endowment actions students from Renew Wellesley and a group of faculty members requested last spring.
I am also seeing real progress on public safety at Wellesley. Community members are helping shape a new vision for how we keep our community safe while finding ways to make immediate changes in response to concerns raised by our Black students and some faculty and staff of color. This work will continue through the spring as we search for a new leader of public safety for our campus.
Our community is deeply engaged in strategic planning for the College’s future as well. The working groups in our key priority areas including: the liberal arts; organization and governance; Wellesley in the world; and community, have nearly completed their work and the steering committee is now synthesizing their input into the first draft of a plan that it will share with the community for feedback in March. Despite the challenges of the pandemic and the fall semester, the co-chairs and members of the working groups persevered, and I am grateful both to them and to the many members of our community who participated in the engagement sessions they hosted.
This spring, let us continue to act in the spirit of shared purpose and responsibility. Let us draw strength from the success of last fall and of the innovative January Project. Let us relish the light that is visible at the end of the tunnel, while staying focused on what we need to do now to help protect our community’s health and safety.
This has been an unprecedented year—both for the pandemic and the events we have witnessed in our country, and for the ways we have come together to meet these challenges. Let us continue to move forward together toward the hope and joy of spring.
