Short Description of Wellesley College: As the world’s preeminent college for women, Wellesley College is known for intellectual rigor, its belief in the enduring importance of service and its cultivation in students of an inclusive, pragmatic approach to leadership. Wellesley College, outside of Boston, Massachusetts, boasts one of the most beautiful campuses in North America, with over 2 million square feet of buildings built on 500 acres.
Wellesley College Graduates and Research: Wellesley College is a highly competitive, undergraduate women’s college with a long-standing commitment to excellence in research. According to NSF’s Survey of Earned Doctorates (2017), Wellesley College is among the top 10 institutions within its Carnegie classification (Baccaulareate Colleges) for graduates going on to earn research doctorates. Additionally, NSF’s survey of Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering (2019), ranks Wellesley College among the top 50 institutions in the US (regardless of Carnegie Classification) for female graduates going on to earn doctoral degrees. This success stems largely from Wellesley’s institutional commitment to superb research facilities, cutting-edge instrumentation, a high level of extramurally funded faculty research, and active student participation throughout the research program.
Science Facilities and Resources: Wellesley recently completed an ambitious renovation and addition to our integrated science center. A major renovation of the laboratory building converted 19,000 square feet of underutilized library stacks to a vibrant computational and data sciences lab encompassing a wide range of classrooms designed for active learning, research labs for faculty and students in computer science, a physical science studio lab, and student gathering and study spaces of a variety of sizes and layouts. A comprehensive infrastructure renovation was completed on the upper floors to provide improved mechanical, electrical and plumbing facilities throughout the teaching and research laboratories, enhancing both access to natural daylight and the quality of the artificial lighting, providing RODI water to all laboratory spaces and replacing many of the ducted fume hoods in teaching labs with modern filtered hoods. We added climate-controlled rooms and a state of the art vivarium, which enhance our already strong support for research in the life sciences. Our focus on shared instrumentation allows us to make excellent use of our resources for both teaching and research. The reconstruction of Sage Hall (the oldest section of the science center) includes a number of new teaching and research facilities, including a field studies lab, a food science lab, a new neuroscience teaching lab, a wet lab, a BSL2 lab facility, an Atomic Force Microscope, and a 1400 square foot faculty environmental science research lab. Research facilities for faculty and students in psychology and the new Center for the Environment anchor the space, which also contains new classrooms designed for active learning, a large lecture hall, and more than 100 faculty offices. In addition, the completed project includes construction of an award-winning new greenhouse, called Global Flora, designed to support interdisciplinary study of environmental influences on plant form, and the installation of a new 0.7m telescope and dome in our observatory.
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