Convocation remarks
Andrew Shennan, Dean of the College
September 4, 2007 

Andrew Shennan, President Bottomly and Shelly Anand at Convocation 2007

Welcome to the Senior Class and to students in the Classes of 2009, 2010 and 2011.  Welcome also to faculty members and administrative colleagues here this afternoon.

Of the 19 summers that I have spent at Wellesley, this past one is the one I may remember the longest.  It began with a series of farewells – to the Class of 2007, to “Dean Kim” and other outstanding colleagues, above all to the woman who had led Wellesley for 14 memorable and successful years, Diana Chapman Walsh.  Those were proud and poignant moments for all of us.  They were followed, in July, by a month that was nerve-wracking for a different reason: my brief tenure as acting president of the college. 

As some of you may know, only once before in our long history has the college had a male acting president.  On that occasion, as my colleagues repeatedly and very gleefully reminded me, Galen Stone Tower was struck by lightning and large chunks of masonry fell to the ground.  So my main goal as acting president was to break the curse by presiding over a lightning-free month, and I am pleased to report that I succeeded. 

Finally at the beginning of August, the arrival of our new president, Kim Bottomly, completed a transition in the college’s leadership that had begun 16 months before.  I immediately felt the energy of a new beginning, as, I’m sure, many of you did, too.

Presidential transitions, like all transitions – I imagine like the transition that the members of the Class of 2011 have been going through during this past week of Orientation – induce both high hopes and unspoken anxieties.  Anxiety comes from an apprehension that the future may not be the same as the past.  Hope stems from the certainty that the future will not be the same as the past.  And at a moment like this the hopes are as varied as the members of this community.  For those who believe that the college has changed too much in recent years or has moved in the wrong direction, suddenly there is the possibility that it will revert to the way it was; for others, transition revives the hope that the college will become something we have never been or something we have wanted to be but have never quite attained.  For all of us, as individuals and as members of groups or departments or constituencies, there is the very human inclination to imagine that under a different administration we will be more fully understood and more adequately appreciated.  

That said, it does seem to me that the inescapable reality of transition has energized the college and has created a new sense of possibility.  In the many conversations that I have had over the course of the past year (with alumnae, with faculty and staff, with students and with trustees), I have heard a consistent optimism about the college’s position – our academic strength, our resources, our exceptional sense of purpose and identity.  But I’ve also heard many express the desire to do better. 

We have rich resources, but we could make fuller use of them by more effective coordination of our programs or by better academic planning.  Perhaps if we were less tied to the notion of “a Wellesley way” of teaching and learning, we could stimulate more creativity in our classroom and across the campus.  We take too much for granted our location in this culturally rich and cosmopolitan area, which is a rare comparative advantage for a small liberal arts college.  We could be a more vibrant, physically active, less stressed-out community.  We could be more candid and decisive in identifying and counteracting prejudice.  As faculty members, we could hold one another accountable to high professional and academic standards without succumbing to a corporate model. 

At last year’s convocation, I expressed the hope that we would not put aspirations such as these on hold while we awaited the start of a new presidency.  I don’t think we did.  Last year was a very productive one.  As a result, many of the changes that we aspired to make are already under discussion or even under way.

I could cite a number of such changes, but let me focus on two that are currently under consideration.   I cite them because each may have a long-term impact on the college and because neither originated solely as a consequence of conversations within the administration.  Both, in fact, reflect priorities of the larger Wellesley community. 

The first relates to our athletic, fitness and sporting programs.  For the past six months, a small group of student leaders and colleagues from the student life division have been meeting with the leaders of the Physical Education, Athletics and Recreation Department to lay the groundwork for what many of us hope will be a significant increase in the level of participation in organized physical activity on campus.  Our goal is that by the time the entering class of 2011 graduates, participation in the various kinds of organized activity (intercollegiate and club sports, intramural and recreational programs) will exceed 60% of all students.  To make that possible, the college will need to review all of our existing programs and develop a plan for their enhancement and expansion.  Of course, a goal is not a promise, and the implementation of these changes will be a complicated matter.  But in the work of this small Club Sports, Intramurals and Recreational Programs Planning Group, I see a dynamic collaboration between the PERA department, the student life division and student leadership, and an overarching vision that did not exist in the past.  If we can achieve that 60% participation, the college will be a significantly different place.

My second example concerns the arts at Wellesley.  Here again, a small group (in this case, a group of faculty members, alumnae and administrators) has been working to develop a vision and strategic plan for the arts at Wellesley.  In their many conversations with individuals and groups on campus, this Task Force on the Arts has considered the special place of artistic production, interpretation and creativity within the college’s liberal arts tradition.  They have explored ways in which our arts and cultural programming could play a larger role in the cultural life of the Boston area and in the communal life of the Wellesley campus. 

In their work, they have identified what they call “the two Wellesleys.”  On the one hand, there is the impressive commitment that the college has always made to the arts – in our facilities, in our curriculum, in our academic and cultural programs, in our faculty and staff – not to mention the impressive contribution that our alumnae and faculty have made to the arts throughout the college’s history.  And yet, these colleagues feel, Wellesley is not “always perceived as a strong arts institution, either internally or externally.”  They cite a number of reasons for this perception.  Some of the reasons are resource-based.  But many stem from our organizational structures, in particular our reluctance to coordinate arts programming, which we should be able to change if we have the will to do so.  Again, as with the sports and athletics group, what is most impressive and heartening about the task force’s work is that they are striving to create an overarching vision of the arts, a vision that could enhance the experience of students, faculty and staff across the college.  When the group completes its work later this fall, I expect that they will deliver a bold report, and I am confident that it will give us an opportunity – if we wish to take it – to redefine ourselves and to shift others’ perception of us. 

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