Women Who Will: A Celebration of Wellesley College Alumnae and Their Life Paths
April 20-21, 2001
Panelists:
Religion | Writing | Law | Science/Medicine | Education | The Arts | The Road Less Traveled | High Tech | Business | Broadcast Journalism | Print Journalism | Social Responsibility | International Affairs
Moderators: T. James Kodera, Professor of Religion, Anna Rios, Class of 2001
The Reverend Nancy E. Gossling '74, an Episcopal priest, serves as curate at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Riverside, CT. She left her earlier career in retailing and banking to focus on being a mother and a volunteer. She has served in leadership roles with the Connecticut Prison Association, a local housing partnership, and a transitional living facility for homeless families. She is co-founder of Justice & Mercy, an interfaith agency that focuses on prisons and the criminal justice system. She entered Berkeley Divinity School at Yale in 1997 and received her Master of Divinity last year.
Carol Meyers '64, is professor of biblical studies and archaeology in the Department of Religion at Duke University. She is co-director of Duke's archaeological field school in Israel, where she has been working on digs since her undergraduate days at Wellesley. A prominent scholar in the study of women in the biblical world, she is well known for her book, Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context, and most recently, for Women in Scripture, a reference book of the named and unnamed women in the Bible. A biblical history and literature major at Wellesley, she has been a consultant for popular media presentations dealing with the Bible.
Ji Hyang Sunim '91 received ordination from Zen Master Seung Sahn in Korea in 1993. She has served as advisor to Buddhist students at Wellesley and Boston University and as Buddhist chaplain at Harvard. Through her work with Wellesley's Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life Victor Kazanjian, she has developed a strong interest in religious pluralism. She now serves as abbess of Cambridge Zen Center and coordinates a local group for interfaith dialogue.
Renita Weems '76, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt Divinity School, is one of the country's most prominent and respected preachers. Her research interests are in prophetic literature, hermeneutics, biblical theology, and feminist/womanist theory. In her most recent book, Listening for God: A Minister's Journey Through Silence and Doubt (Touchstone, 2000), she explores her personal experience of hitting a spiritual brick wall and emerging with a deeper understanding of her faith and relationship with God. She earned her M.Div. and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary.
Moderators: Margaret Cezair-Thompson, Senior Lecturer in English
Student moderator TBD
Rosario Ferré '60 has been called "Puerto Rico's leading woman of letters." A professor of Latin American literature at the University of Puerto Rico and contributing editor for the San Juan Star, she has written poetry, criticism and biography, in addition to the fiction for which she is best known. Some of her most recognized works include Sweet Diamond Dust, The House on the Lagoon, and The Youngest Doll. Her most recent book, Flight of the Swan, will be published in June 2001 (Farrar Straus & Giroux). She studied at Wellesley for two years before graduating from Manhattanville College and earning her doctorate at the University of Maryland.
Shirlee Taylor Haizlip '59 is an author, journalist, and essayist. A broad background, including acadmia, communications, politics, public service, and writing, has provided her a unique perch. Her editorials, essays, and articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, and American Heritage, among others. She has published two books, the now-classic The Sweeter The Juice, and co-authored with her husband, In the Garden of Our Dreams. She is now working on her third book.
Patricia Powell '88 is Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in Fiction at Harvard University. She is the author of Me Dying Trial, A Small Gathering of Bones, and most recently, The Pagoda. Her awards include the PEN New England Discovery Award, the Bruce Rossley Literary Award and a Lila-Wallace Readers Digest Writers' Award. A graduate of the MFA program at Brown University, Powell is at work on a fourth novel.
Reetika Vazirani '84 has been the Margaret Banister Writer-in-Residence at Sweet Briar College since 1998. Born in India and raised in Maryland, she majored in economics at Wellesley. Her first book, White Elephants, was selected for the 1995 Barnard New Women's Poet's Prize. Her poems have appeared in such publications as Angi, Antioch Review, Callaloo, The Kenyon Review, Parnassus, Partisan Review, Ploughshares, and Triquarterly. Her second book of poems, World Hotel, is set to be released in 2002.
Moderators: Alan Schechter, Professor of Political Science, Marisa Van Saanen, Class of 2001
Estelle T. Lau '87, is vice president of business development for 51Job.com, an online recruiting company based in Shanghai and Beijing. A philosophy and sociology double-major at Wellesley, she earned a masters and doctorate in Sociology from the University of Chicago and, in between, a JD from Harvard Law School. A former associate professor of law at the SUNY-Buffalo School of Law, she has worked as general counsel and a venture capitalist for a Pacific Rim technology fund.
The Honorable Sandy Lynch '68, has been a judge of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit since 1995. After graduation from Boston University Law School, she clerked for a US District Court Judge and then practiced law as an assistant attorney general of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and as general counsel to the Massachusetts Department of Education. She also was the head of the litigation department for a major Boston law firm before her appointment to the federal bench.
Reena Raggi '73 was the first woman appointed to the Eastern District of New York, a position she has held for 14 years. Judge Raggi presided over the first capital trial in New York State under modern federal death penalty law. Before joining the bench, she served as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, as an associate and partner in New York law firms, and as a law clerk. At Wellesley, she studied early American legal history under Professor Kathryn Preyer, was chair of her Junior Show, and performed in various Shakespeare Society productions.
Marion Fremont-Smith '48 is an attorney with a long career in non-profit law. She served as an Assistant Attorney General and director of the Division of Public Charities in Massachusetts in the early 1960s after a brief stint as an assistant to Wellesley Professor of Political Science Margaret Ball. In 1964, she joined the Boston law firm of Choate, Hall and Stewart, where she was elected partner in 1971 and continues to practice part-time as senior counsel. She has continued to write and lecture on non-profit law and is also a senior research fellow at the newly established Hauser Center for Non-profit Organizations at Harvard, where she is working on a book on the legal accountability of non-profit organizations.
Judith Scott '71 has been a union lawyer and activist for more than 25 years. She currently serves as the general counsel of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the largest union in the AFL-CIO, and is a partner in a Washington, DC law firm. She previously has worked for several major unions, including the United Auto Workers and the Teamsters, and co-authored Organizing and the Law, a labor law manual for union organizers. While an Urban Studies major, she chaired the campus-wide meeting in 1970 at which Wellesley students voted to join the multi-college strike against the Vietnam War.
Patricia J. Williams '73 is the John Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia University and author of the column, "Diary of a Mad Law Professor" for the Nation magazine. She is a recent recipient of a five-year MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. After Wellesley, she graduated from Harvard Law School and worked as a consumer advocator for the city of Los Angeles. Her books include The Alchemy of Race and Rights, The Rooster's Egg, and Seeing a Color Blind Future.
Moderators: Nancy H. Kolodny '64, Professor of Chemistry, Nellie Zuckerman Cohen and Anne Cohen Heller Professor of Health Sciences, Maliha Farooq, Class of 2002
Janet Fay Desforges '42, a hematologist, is Distinguished Professor Emerita at the Tufts Medical School, which dedicated the Jane F. Desforges Chair in Medicine in her honor. She devoted her career to patient care, clinical research, and teaching. She also served as editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. She is a member of several medical organizations, including the Institute of Medicine, served as president of the American Society of Hematology, and has received numerous honors for her teaching.
Andrea Dupree '60, is a senior astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA. Her scientific interests include stars and stellar evolution using techniques of high resolution spectroscopy from ground and in space. She recently obtained the first ultraviolet image of the surface of a star using the Hubble Space Telescope. An astronomy lecturer at Harvard, she was the first woman and the youngest person to be named Associate Director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a position she held from 1980-87.
E. Story Cleland Landis '67 is scientific director of the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the National Institutes of Health, a position she has held since 1995. After receiving a Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard in 1973, she conducted research in neuropathology and neurobiology and then taught neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. She later taught at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine where she also served as director of the Center for Neurosciences. She is a fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Martha K. McClintock '69, is the David Lee Shillinglaw Distinguished Service Professor in the department of psychology and director of The Institute for Mind and Biology at the University of Chicago. She first gained fame when the journal Nature published her now famous report on the synchronization of the menstrual cycle in 1971. She collected her research data while a psychology major at Wellesley, using the 135 women in her dormitory for the study. She continues her exploration of how the mind and body interact by studying the effects that social groups, emotions, and attitudes have on human body functions.
Moderators: Barbara Beatty, Associate Professor of Education, Abigail Bishop, Class of 2001
Lynn Riddle Barton '81, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate with a double major in psychology and religion, home schools her two children. After several jobs in the financial sector, she jumped off the corporate ladder in 1991 and moved to Oregon. There she and her husband bought a small farm and learned to raise livestock and produce for fun but not much profit. A season as a court appointed special advocate for a foster child led to two years as full-time foster parents, before adopting son Corey and daughter Audrey, now six and three. The freedom and diverse opportunities possible with home schooling were her original inspiration; today she says, "the benefits and joys have exceeded all expectations."
Joy Dickson '92, teaches Japanese at the Thomas Edison Middle School in Boston. She came to Wellesley with the intention of becoming an electrical engineer who spoke Japanese and left with a major in Japanese Studies and a minor in economics. After a brief stint in management training, she tried substitute teaching in Chicago and found that she loved it. She began teaching full-time in 1995 and later received her masters of education and Japanese certification in 1998.
Elisabeth Griffith ‘69 is an historian, educator, and author. Since 1988, she has been headmistress of The Madeira School, an independent residential and day school for girls in grades 9-12, located in McLean, VA. Her first book, In Her Own Right, (Oxford University Press, 1984) is a comprehensive biography of suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She served as a consultant for Ken Burns' PBS documentary, "Not for Ourselves Alone," about Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
Barbara L. Jackson '50 is professor and chair of the division of administration, policy, and urban education at the Fordham University Graduate School of Education and a nationally-known expert on urban schools and leadership. A political science major at Wellesley, she previously served as professor and dean of the School of Education at Morgan State University and as associate professor and associate dean at Atlanta University's School of Education. Her publications include writings on African American women school superintendents and the political ecology of and leadership in urban school systems. She was a member of the research team at Wellesley's Center for Research on Women for the 1992 study, "How Schools Shortchange Girls."
Deborah Saintil '96, teaches seventh grade US history at Roxbury Preparatory Charter School in Roxbury, Massachusetts. After graduating from Wellesley with a major in history and her teaching certification, she earned a master's degree in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1997. She began her teaching career as a world history teacher at the Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Currently she has been exploring issues related to critical pedagogy, literacy and action research.
Moderators: Nora Hussey, Director, Wellesley Theatre, Katrina Connor, Class of 2001
Lorna Cooke deVaron '42, conductor emerita of the New England Conservatory Chorus, is an internationally acclaimed choral conductor. She studied conducting with Robert Shaw at Tanglewood, and in 1953 was appointed to the Tanglewood Faculty, where for many years she trained the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and choral conductors from all over the world who came there to study. In 1967 she received the Boston Medal for Distinguished Achievement for the Conservatory chorus' concert tour of the Soviet Union. Since then, she has led the chorus through many concert tours in the US, Israel, China, and throughout Europe. She now conducts the Longy Chamber Singers and the New England Conservatory Camerata.
Nora Ephron '62, writer, film director, and producer, first revealed her wry and perceptive observations of relationships between women and men in her early writings for publications such as The New York Post, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine. Her screenplays "Sleepless in Seattle," "When Harry Met Sally," and "Silkwood," all received Academy Award nominations. A political science major at Wellesley, she is the author of two books of essays, "Crazy Salad," and "Scribble, Scribble."
Nancy Hayes Van de Vate Smith '52, one of the most recorded composers in the world, has composed more than 130 works in virtually all forms, from composition for solo instrument based on only one note to grand opera. Born in the United States, she now lives in Vienna, Austria, and holds dual Austrian and American citizenship. She received the master's degree in music composition from the University of Mississippi and the doctorate in composition from Florida State University. She is now president and artistic director of Vienna Modern Masters, an international recording company specializing primarily in new music for orchestra.
Desiree Urquhart DS '99 is a National Urban Fellow and masters degree candidate in public administration at the City University of New York. She is currently completing an assignment with the city manager of Beverly Hills, CA, working with the city's new Division of Art and Culture. Upon graduation from Wellesley, she was the executive director fellow at Arena Stage in Washington, DC. Her work with Arena's Board of Trustees on the theatre's $50 million facility renovation plan won her the theatre's prestigious Thomas Fichandler Award for "excellence and exceptional promise in theatre administration.
Moderators: William F. Coleman, Professor of Chemistry, Elizabeth Ferrenz, Class of 2001
Jane Condon ‘73 is a comedian who has been called "an upper-crust Roseanne" by the Associated Press and "the J. Crew mother of two" by the New York Daily News. The New York Times reported, "Condon had the audience cackling, guffawing and in hysterics as she sliced through marriage, divorce, husbands, kids, getting sick, nursery schools, churches, politics, and other topics." She wants to apologize to the political science department for not going into government or law, but she does occasionally use what she was taught by Linda Miller in her political humor.
Heidi Howkins '89, a professional mountain climber and expeditioner, says her "motivation for climbing mountains is a spiritual one." She has led expeditions on Mount Everest and last summer led a team attempting the North Ridge of K2, the world's second highest mountain. She is one of only a handful of women in the world who have summited on an 8,000 meter peak without the aid of supplemental oxygen or high-altitude porters.
Wendy Liebman '83, a stand-up comedian, graduated from Wellesley with a degree in psychology and went right into therapy. In addition to having her own specials on HBO and Comedy Central, she has appeared on Letterman, The Tonight Show, and Hollywood Squares, and has been performing in clubs around the country for 17 years. She plans on recording a comedy CD, "Standing Myself," in the spring, and has just completed her first book, Swear on Lily, a collection of her humor and philosophies. Her mother, Toni Ann Holland Liebman '56, insists that nothing Wendy says in her act about the family is true.
Jenni McHugh '89, lives in a rural land co-operative in southeastern Minnesota where she, her husband, and their partner grow 30 acres of organic fruits and vegetables. The co-op, which she founded in 1994 with three others, now has 12 adult members and ten children. She also works as a professional birth assistant, empowering women during pregnancy and birth by providing physical, emotional, and informational support to mothers who birth at home or in the hospital.
Lt. Col. Pamela Melroy, USAF, '83, recently returned from her first NASA space mission where she piloted the space shuttle Discovery on its mission to assemble the International Space Station. She is the third woman to pilot the space shuttle. A double major in physics and astronomy, she completed a master's degree in planetary science from MIT and then entered active duty Air Force and became a pilot. After several years of flying, she became a test pilot and flew developmental test in the Air Force's C-17. She was selected as an astronaut in 1994.
Lura Allen Mountford '55 is a certified US Tennis Association and ATP professional-level tennis official and a SeniorNet Coach. Always physically active, she was the two-time winner of the Equitable Mother-Son National Ski Championship and has served as a tennis coach and health educator. She has been married for 43 years and has three children and eight grandchildren. She likes to think that if she can squeeze one more activity into a crowded day, she can finally be the Renaissance woman that Wellesley groomed her to be.
Margaret Falotico Sibbitt '79 graduated from Wellesley with honors in political science and later received her Masters from the London School of Economics. She later worked as a teacher of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong, a consultant and entrepreneur in Washington, DC, and vice president of operations in a Paris-based international trade financing firm. In 1995 she inherited her family's 115 year old ranch and, in the course of becoming a rancher, met her husband, John Sibbitt, a fellow rancher who advised and counseled her in ranch management.
Moderators: Panagiotis T. Metaxas, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Emily Braunstein, Class of 2001
Linda S. Alger '60 is division leader of software engineering at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, MA., where she is responsible for the development of aviation and space-flight software. Recent responsibilities include the development of the fault tolerant system services software for the prototype of the NASA crew return vehicle and design and implementation of the applications controller for the backup computer for the Space Shuttle.
Alison Li Chung is the founder and president of TeamWerks, Inc., a Chicago-based technology consulting firm. She worked for 10 years as chief information officer at one of Chicago's largest law firms, where she created and built the firm's technology services department. A native of Hong Kong and a math major at Wellesley, she is active in numerous professional and community associations in Chicago and is committed to organizations that promote educational and cultural growth.
Laurie Geronimo '92 and Michele Geronimo '97 are co-founders of Secure Sponsorship, an online service firm that enables nonprofit organizations, donors and participants in fundraising events to build and maintain lasting relationships and to work together to maximize education and outreach about important social causes. The company recently was awarded $250,000 in funding and services as the winner of Cambridge Incubator's Get ORGanized 2000, the world's first nonprofit Internet business plan competition. Both sister left senior-level positions to launch their nonprofit e-business. Laurie has spent more than eight years working with such institutions as the Children's Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where she managed several cancer and HIV research labs. Michele left a position as a senior credit analyst with BankBoston, where she research and analyzed emerging companies in the telecommunications industry.
Lucy P. Marcus '93, is the founder and managing director of Marcus Venture Consulting, Ltd., a London-based advisory helping funding organizations to develop and implement a competitive strategy for investing in technology and telecommunications. She also is the founder and managing director of HighTech Women, an off- and online mentoring and meeting place for women in technology and technology-related sectors. Listed as a "face to watch" among Britain's 50 Most Powerful Women and Business Age magazine's "Net 10-The 10 Women Changing the Direction of British Business," she is a member of Wellesley's Business Leadership Council.
Beverly Sobelman '86 has enjoyed a wide-ranging career in the computer industry since she graduated with a degree in math and computer science. At the MITRE Corporation, she worked on military software engineering and artificial intelligence projects. She earned a master's in computer science at UC-Berkeley. She heeded the siren song of Microsoft in 1995, where she spent six years in the Office division, starting as a software developer and most recently serving as development manager for a team of 25. She is now the technical strategist for the Natural Language Group, whose mission is to make interaction with computers possible using human language.
Moderators: Karl Case, Katharine Coman and A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics, Jennifer Warren, Class of 2002
Claire B. Benenson '38 was one of the first women to hold a substantive position in the financial sector, beginning her career in 1941 as a securities analyst at Merrill Lynch. In 1967, she created and moderated the NBC series, "Wall Street for Everyone." She worked for many years at the New School for Social Research as chair of the department of business and financial affairs and as director of the conference on futures and options. She is a director of the mutual funds, Phoenix-Zweig and Burnham Investor Trust. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate and an economics major, she is a member of Wellesley's Business Leadership Council and of the board of the Wellesley Centers for Women.
Ellen Marram '68 is a top-level business executive and newly named general partner at North Castle Partners, a private equity firm focused on investing in the healthy living and aging sectors. Before joining North Castle Partners, she served briefly as president and CEO of efdex, a B2B food and drink exchange. From 1993-1998, she was president and CEO of Tropicana Beverage Company. She began her marketing career at Lever Brothers and then Johnson & Johnson and in 1988 was named president and CEO of Nabisco. A director of the Ford Motor Company and The New York Times, she also is a member of Wellesley's Business Leadership Council.
Alicia Munnell '64 is the Peter F. Drucker Professor in Management Sciences at Boston Collegeıs Carroll School of Management and director of BCıs Center for Retirement Research. She was a member of the Presidentıs Council of Economic Advisors (1995-97) and served as assistant secretary of the US Treasury for economic policy (1993-95). She has spent most of her professional career at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and has written extensively on tax policy, social security, public and private pensions, and productivity. She earned masterıs degrees from Boston University and Harvard University and her doctorate from Harvard.
Sheila Wellington '52 is the president of Catalyst, the nation's premier nonprofit research and advisory organization on women's private sector leadership. Having broken new ground in her own career, she identifies strongly with women's efforts to advance in business. She was one of the first women officers of Yale University and previously worked in the public health arena for more than 20 years, serving on the faculty of Yale Medical School and as director of two major mental health facilities. She is the author of Be Your Own Mentor (Random House, 2001) and is a trustee of several nonprofit organizations.
Shirley Young '55 is president of Shirley Young Associates, LLC, a business advisory company, and serves as senior adviser to General Motors-Asia Pacific and consultant to Interpublic Group of Companies for Asia. Until last year, she served as corporate vice president of General Motors Corporation. She is Governor of the Committee of 100, a Chinese American leadership resource and chairman of the Committee of 100 Cultural Institute, dedicated to cultural and educational linkages between the U.S. and China. A former trustee of Wellesley College, she is recipient of the Wellesley College Alumnae Achievement Award and a member of the Business Leadership Council. She has three sons and divides her time between Shanghai, China, and New York City.
Moderators: Marion R. Just, Professor of Political Science, Raasheja Page, Class of 2001
Michelle Caruso-Cabrera '91, has been a reporter and market analyst on the financial news network CNBC since 1998. As "Sector Senorita," her on-air nickname, Caruso-Cabrera examines the bigger market picture for investors, highlighting best- and worst-performing sectors. Before joining CNBC, she was a reporter for a Florida television station. Earlier in her career, she worked as a producer for Univision, where she won an Emmy Award for her series on children with AIDS, and as a stringer for The New York Times, reporting on education issues. An economics major, she worked for The Wellesley News for four years, serving as editor during her junior year.
Yolette García '77 is assistant station manager and director of news and public affairs for KERA 90.1, the Dallas affiliate of National Public Radio. In addition to her management duties, she provides editorial guidance and oversight of her department and supervises joint radio and TV journalism projects for national broadcast. Her television executive producer credits include an Emmy Award-winning documentary and two weekly news analysis programs.
Ann Medina '65, is one of the most well-known television journalists in Canada, having been a correspondent and producer for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) for more than 20 years. She started her career in the US working for NBC and ABC News and then moved to Canada. In 1981, she became CBC's senior foreign correspondent, doing topical documentaries in the Mideast, China, Africa, Nicaragua, and throughout the world. She currently hosts History Television's "History on Film" and is a regular moderator for the federal leaders' election debates. Her programs have won many awards in Canada and the US, including an Emmy.
Lynn Sherr '63 is a correspondent on the ABC News magazine, "20/20." A Greek major at Wellesley, she is the author of Tall Blondes: A Book About Giraffes and Failure is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words. A member of the Wellesley College Board of Trustees, she is working on a book about the song, "America the Beautiful," by Katharine Lee Bates, Class of 1888.
Linda Wertheimer '65 is a senior host of "All Things Considered," an award-winning daily news program of National Public Radio. Having joined NPR in 1971, she has been with the organization almost since its inception. She served as NPR's congressional correspondent and, in 1976, was named political correspondent -- a position she held until 1989, when she became an All Things Considered host. The recipient of numerous industry and professional awards, she is the author of Listening to America: Twenty-five Years in the Life of a Nation as Heard on National Public Radio (1995, Houghton Mifflin)
Moderators: Tom Burke, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Jesse Corlew-Haines, Class of 2002
Teri Agins '75 is a senior special writer in the New York bureau of The Wall Street Journal, where she covers the retailing and fashion industries. She began her journalism career in 1977 as a reporter/editor for the Daily News Record in Chicago. Before joining the Journal in 1984, she worked in Brazil as a correspondent for several local and international publications. An English and political science major, she has received numerous journalism awards and is the author of The End of Fashion: The Mass Marketing of the Clothing Business (William Morrow & Co., 1999).
Marian Fox Burros '54 is a food writer for The New York Times. She began her writing career as a cookbook author, then became a cooking teachers, and later a food columnist for local weekly newspapers. Features and recipe stories are now a small part of her work. Over the years she has branched out and now writes hard news and hard news features, most of them dealing with the politics of food.
Elsie Gutiérrez '85 is currently making a transition in her career — from journalist to corporate communications official at Banco Popular, the leading bank in Puerto Rico and in US Hispanic markets. Until recently, she was a business reporter at the San Juan Star, Puerto Rico's oldest and only English- language daily newspaper. During my career at the Star, she received several accolades, including The Overseas Press Club Award for in-depth business reporting, the Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce Journalist of the Year Award, and The United Retailers' Association Journalist of the Year Award.
Moderators: Lawrence A. Rosenwald, Anne Pierce Rogers Professor of English, Katharine Freeman, Class of 2002
Florence A. Davis '76 is the president and a director of The Starr Foundation, established in 1955 by Cornelius Vander Starr, the founder and first chairman of American International Group, an international insurance and financial services firm. The foundation currently has assets in excess of $5.5 billion, making it one of the ten largest private foundations in the United States. A philosophy and political science major at Wellesley, she began her legal career in 1979 at a private firm and then joined the investment banking firm of Morgan Stanley. Before joining the foundation, she was vice president and general counsel at AIG. She serves on the boards of the New York University School of the Law, the Institute of Judicial Administration, and the Practicing Law Institute.
Carrie Portis '89 is managing director of LEAP (Local Economic Assistance Program Inc.), a community development venture catalyst group based in Oakland, CA. LEAP provides seed capital and related business services to social ventures that provide high quality employment and wealth opportunities for residents of low-income neighborhoods. She has worked for nearly 10 years in community development and has development and managed nationally recognized housing and employment programs and social enterprises. She holds an MBA from Stanford University.
Hilda Crosby Standish '24 is a pioneer in the field of birth control and family planning. In 1932, she traveled to Shanghai, China, where for three years she taught obstetrics and medicine at The Women's Christian Medical College. Upon her return to the United States in 1935, she was named medical director of the first birth control clinic in Connecticut, despite a state law at the time banning the use of contraceptives. Until her retirement from medicine in 1969, she lectured widely on sex education and family planning. In 1983 she was honored by the Hartford Planned Parenthood Clinic, which renamed itself the Hilda Standish Clinic. She majored in zoology at Wellesley and went on to earn her M.D. at Cornell University Medical College in 1928.
Isabel Carter Stewart '61 is executive director of the Chicago Foundation for Women, which works on behalf of the women and girls of Chicago through fundraising, grantmaking, and advocacy. She joined the CFW after a nine-year tenure as chief executive officer of Girls Incorporated, a not-for-profit organization that inspires all girls to be "strong, smart, and bold." She is a member of the college's Business Leadership Council and is the candidate for alumnae trustee.
Joan Wallace-Benjamin '75 served until recently as the president and CEO of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, a non-profit, community-based organization providing programs of service and advocacy in the areas of education, employment and training. She is now a consultant with Whitehead Mann Pendleton James, an international executive recruiting firm. She holds a Ph.D. from the Florence Heller School at Brandeis University. Her many honors and awards include Mayor Thomas Menino's African American Achievement Award in Community Service, the New England Women's Leadership Award, an honorary doctorate from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the Lee F. Jackson Achievement Award from the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts.
Lori Wallach '86 has been described by The Wall Street Journal as "Ralph Nader with a sense of humor" and dubbed "the trade debate's guerrilla warrior" by the National Journal. As director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, she has made a tremendous impact on US international trade and investment policy. She spearheaded the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization and was instrumental in the defeat of "fast track" authority for the North American Free Trade Act. A graduate of Harvard Law School, she began at Public Citizen as an attorney and a food safety lobbyist and was named director when Global Trade Watch was created in 1993.
Moderators: William A. Joseph, M. Margaret Ball Professor of International Relations and Political Science, Caroline McGregor, Class of 2001
Colette Flesch ‘60 is director general of the translation service of the European Commission, the entity responsible for translating all communications (written, spoken, and online) from the European Union into the many languages of its member countries. She previously served as foreign secretary for Luxembourg;
In-ho Lee '60, majored in history at Wellesley and then did graduate work in Radcliffe's Soviet Union Regional Studies program and history department. After teaching at Barnard and Rutgers, she returned to Korea in 1972, where she taught Russian and European history at Korea University and Seoul National University for more than two decades. In 1996 she was named Korea's ambassador to Finland and later became ambassador to Russia. She is now president of the Korea Foundation, Korea's main agency for the promotion of international cultural exchange.
Jan Piercy '69 is the outgoing US executive director of the World Bank. Appointed by President Clinton in 1994, she represents the US on the Board of the Bank and has chaired the Board Committee on Development Effectiveness. She was previously senior vice president of Shorebank Corporation in Chicago, a diversified bank holding company focused on community economic development. Earlier in her career, she lived and worked in international economic development in Asia, directed the public management programs at Cornell and Stanford University's Graduate Schools of Business, and was a founder of the National Women's Education Fund. She hopes that Wellesley may figure in the future of her 12-year-old daughter Lissa.