Inauguration

Inauguration Video

• Welcome
  
  Laura Daignault Gates '72

  Chair of the Board of Trustees

  On behalf of the Board of Trustees, it is my honor and great pleasure to welcome all of you to Wellesley today.

  Welcome faculty, faculty emeriti, staff, union members, students and alumnae – I’m loving all those colors! –

  Welcome former Presidents of the College, trustees, trustees emeriti and former trustees,

  Welcome official delegates from other institutions, distinguished speakers, friends of the College, and family and friends of the President ---

  Welcome all to the official installation of Paula Adina Johnson as the 14th president of Wellesley College.

  The installation of a new president is always an historic moment in the life of the College.

  The words of Bishop William Lawrence looking back over 25 years at the inauguration of Caroline Hazard, Wellesley’s fifth president, are as true today with the perspective of 140 years.

  “The standard of the scholarship, culture, and character of the students has steadily risen.

  At the inauguration of each of her presidents, Wellesley has stood higher in the world of letters and the esteem of the American people.

  Grateful as we are for the worthy record of each president, we look forward with even fuller confidence and higher hope to the administration of our (new) president.”

  That confidence and hope brings each of us here today –

  To this grand tent on Severance Green on the shores of Lake Waban.

  In this next part of the program, formal greetings will be brought to the President by various representatives.

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• Elizabeth Warren
  
  ELIZABETH WARREN

  U.S. Senator for Massachusetts

  Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, faculty, staff, alumnae, students, and guests. I am delighted to join you today to celebrate Paula Johnson’s inauguration as President of Wellesley College. This is as good as it gets. Yes.

  Now, I am also particularly happy to join you on this occasion because being on a college campus again feels a little like coming home for me. It makes me want to whip out a seating chart and call on someone—preferably in the back row.

  But being here also gives me a chance to acknowledge all the Wellesley women who fought so hard four years ago to make me the first woman elected to the United States Senate from Massachusetts. Thank you. Thank you, Wellesley Women! You were amazing. And you know, by the way, that very intense experience with the Wellesley Women causes me to bring a very personal message to Dr. Johnson, and that is, get ready for the adventure of your life. You are about to lead a university of some of the smartest, toughest, most passionate women on earth! I love it.

  Today is also a particular pleasure for me because I've had the opportunity to work with Dr. Johnson, and I have come to know her as a woman of great vision who pursues excellence with sharp intelligence and unwavering determination.

  She has many strengths, but the innovative leadership and focus on community that President Johnson brings to Wellesley is especially important as the College prepares a new generation of women to be leaders in the Commonwealth, in the country, and in the world.

  This is a time of both incredible promise and immense challenge in America. In many ways, our country has made significant progress over the past several decades when it comes to breaking down barriers to opportunities. Key civil rights protections have been passed. Marriage equality is now law of the land. Millions more Americans now have access to health care coverage. There is growing racial and gender diversity in positions of leadership — including, as some of you may have heard, one Wellesley alumna who is on the cusp of shattering the highest glass ceiling of all.

  But it is no secret that this also is a time of deep uncertainty for millions of people. Social and political divisions are sharp. Verbal attacks on Latinos, Muslims, women, immigrants, have created a constant refrain of barely-submerged bigotry and hate. Black men have been killed by those sworn to protect them. America’s incarceration rate is higher than any other country on the face of this earth. And millions of young people graduating from college, millions more long-time workers, and millions of seniors face the same harsh reality: An economy that isn’t working for them and a future in which basic economic security is slipping out of reach. Government increasingly works for those at the top, while more and more Americans are left behind.

  We face extraordinary challenges if we are going to build an America where all of our children have a fighting chance to succeed. To do this, our country needs college graduates who understand the difficulties we face, who believe in the importance of service, and who are ready to roll up their sleeves and get the job done. We need young people who will bring these values to their careers, whether in public service, the private sector, or nonprofits.

  Wellesley is an institution with a proud tradition of educating and empowering women to be exactly those kinds of leaders. In celebrating President Johnson’s inauguration this afternoon, we recognize this College’s impressive history and commend the College as it builds on its rich legacy.

  So to President Johnson: on behalf of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, congratulations as you step into this position and best of luck as you steer the direction of Wellesley College in the years ahead. I look forward to continuing our work together.

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• Drew Gilpin Faust
  
  DREW GILPIN FAUST

  President of Harvard University

  Thank you faculty, students, staff, distinguished guests, and friends.

  What an honor and a personal pleasure it is to be here today, to extend to Dr. Paula Johnson the greetings of her fellow college and university presidents. When Paula Johnson was a girl in Brooklyn dreaming of becoming a doctor, she could not have envisioned this day. And yet there are times and places when the stars align, and for all of us who care about higher education, today is such a time and place. For my small part in today’s events, that alignment is especially meaningful. You see, I am not the first Harvard president to welcome an extraordinary woman to the helm of this remarkable institution. In fact, I believe Wellesley was brave enough to invite me only because you have had 117 years to recover from the first time. 

  Imagine, for a moment, the very first inaugural ceremony of this kind at Wellesley. It is 1899, a clear day in October. And standing just across the way inside brand-new Houghton Chapel is Harvard President Charles William Eliot, who for 30 years had been shaping the evolution of the modern research university, a model that would transform higher education. And on this day President Eliot is speaking to a crowd full of dignitaries in dark robes, including representatives of more than 30 colleges and universities, welcoming Caroline Hazard, the college’s fifth president, to the company of educational leaders. 

  The crowd that day does not have all of the Wellesley touchstones so familiar to us today: They have never heard Nora Ephron skewer a platitude, or watched Diane Sawyer interview 38 rival gang members on Chicago’s South Side, or seen Madeleine Albright face off with Vladimir Putin, using jewelry as a tool of foreign diplomacy. No alumna had yet appeared on the ballot for president of the United States. And no African-American girl with a dream from Brooklyn had vaulted through medical school to help transform women’s health care and now take up this podium. But, even in 1899, there is an atmosphere of hope — a movement, vibrating with the promise of higher education for women. 

  Then President Eliot begins to speak. “Be of good courage,” he tells the new president, because your work is an experiment, viewed by most, and I quote him there, as a “luxur[y],” a “superfluit[y],” with no clear goal in sight, and by the way, he observes, the tradition of male education is irrelevant to you — including most professional training, and what he calls the “strenuous exertion” of “grades … prizes, and competitive scholarships.” He wonders out loud if women’s “intellectual capacities,” in his words, are “as unlike those of men” as their “bodily capacities.” Colleges for women, he continues, could perhaps excel at teaching manners — and, as he puts it, “show the men’s colleges how to do it.” But, he continues, “It remains to prove that the higher education of women … will be as profitable to society as the higher education of men.”

  Now, in the audience that day among the dark-robed dignitaries was another powerful figure, who is not unrelated to my being here today — M. Carey Thomas, the Charles William Eliot of Bryn Mawr, a women’s college that would one day become my alma mater. She believed, in the words of Wellesley co-founder Henry Fowle Durant, that “[t]he higher education of women is the assertion of absolute equality.” It was no secret that this news had not quite reached Harvard, where Radcliffe was established as an “annex” and a Harvard medical school professor had advised that higher education for women diverted too much energy to their brains, ruining them Henry Fowle Durant, as he put it, by “blight[ing] their vital organs.” On that cold day in October, President M. Carey Thomas of Bryn Mawr found Eliot’s speech, and I quote her, “so brutal,” she wrote to a friend, that “it made me hot from head to foot.” In a blistering rebuttal the next week at Bryn Mawr she said a “gauntlet” had been “thrown deliberately by the president of one of the greatest … American universities … in the face of an immense audience … directly interested in the education of women.” And she then referred to that “dark spot of mediaevalism, in President Eliot’s otherwise luminous intelligence.”

  I hope you won’t mind if I offer my remarks today as a kind of “do-over.” 

  Wellesley took up that gauntlet with a combination of grace and ferocity. It took up that gauntlet when Simone de Beauvoir, author of The Second Sex, visited Wellesley students in 1947 — and found them, as she said, “preoccupied,” not with thoughts of marriage, but in her words, “with the ardor of their good intentions … [to address] economic and social problems … to do work that serves some purpose.” Wellesley continues that work in a world where girls still get shot or kidnapped for trying to go to school, where much female talent still remains untapped from laboratories to boardrooms, where equal work still chases equal pay. And today, brilliantly, it renews that commitment to make a difference in the world, with this inauguration. I would like nothing more than to introduce to President Eliot, President Paula Johnson.

  And I’ll just point out that she is wearing Harvard robes.

  Paula Johnson, the Harvard-Radcliffe student in the first class to admit men and women in equal numbers from a single pool of applicants. It was there, as an undergraduate, that her early mentor, Harvard’s first tenured female biology professor, introduced her to the new field of women’s health, encouraging her to ask new questions from new points of view.

  Paula Johnson, the young, clinically trained cardiologist who became the first female chief resident at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and dared to explore how gender affects the expression of diseases.

  Paula Johnson, a leader in health care, inspired by a higher degree in public health, and by physicians who aided Civil Rights workers on the long march to Selma. In that same undaunted spirit, she created paths to better health for women and the underserved, in Boston and around the world.

  Sandra Day O’Connor once quipped that many of the toughest challenges in her legal career came from what she called the “debilitating medical condition” of having two X chromosomes. Paula Johnson has shown us that having two X chromosomes actually can be a debilitating medical condition, if you have a heart attack and your doctors don’t know that women’s heart disease is different from men’s. She has shown us that treating people equally sometimes means paying close attention to their differences. And she has done so using the evidence-based scientific approach that Charles William Eliot, in his more enlightened moments, strove to establish as the hallmark of American higher education. 

  Welcome, Dr. Paula Johnson. What a gift you and your presidency are to all of higher education. What a happy fusion day this is — a reply to the past, a call to the future. President Caroline Hazard said in her own inauguration speech: “To bear fruit, learning must pass into life.” Today, we sometimes call it “The Wellesley Effect” — the capacity of higher education to touch the world. Congratulations, Wellesley — brava! — for once again “showing us how to do it.”

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• Kathleen McCartney
  
  KATHLEEN MCCARTNEY

  President of Smith College

  Well thank you for the warm welcome.

  It's a special privilege to be here today to welcome President Paula Johnson to the ranks of college presidents.

  As we have heard, she's a pathbreaking scholar, dedicated physician, and inspiring teacher.

  Paula, I am particularly delighted to bring greetings on behalf of your sisters.

  No, I don’t mean Leah, who is here today to celebrate with you. I mean your six other sisters: Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Radcliffe, Smith and Vassar.  Now I think it's only right to acknowledge our healthy sibling rivalry.

  For one thing, you’re the oldest. But only by a year.

  Those of you here today with older siblings know that having a really impressive, really competent older sister is mostly a good thing.

  But it can sometimes be…well, let’s face it…a bit annoying.

  So let’s talk about our rivalry. Smith was the first women's college to acquire an "atom smasher"; Wellesley was the first liberal arts college to open a physics lab.

  Smith was the first women's college to join the NCAA; Wellesley was the first to have a women’s intercollegiate rowing team – a team that this year made Wellesley the first women’s college to win a national championship. At Smith we have Sylvia Plath and Betty Friedan. Pretty good, right? At Wellesley you have Nora Ephron and Diane Sawyer.

  We’ve got Gloria Steinem; you’ve got Madeleine Albright.

  We’ve got Thelma Golden, director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem; you’ve got Maria Morris Hambourg, founding curator of the department of photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Okay, but this is big. We claim Charlotte York, from Sex and the City. You’ve got Dr. Miranda Bailey, from Grey’s Anatomy. (And I know from The Boston Globe that Paula is a fan – me too.)  

  I really thought we had you beat when our fictional graduate Selena Meyer, vice president on the show Veep, was appointed President of the United States this season. Thought we had you beat. But then it was brought to my attention that you have a real life alumna who said something about breaking that highest, hardest glass ceiling.

  * * * * *

  So no question: impressive older siblings can be a challenge. But they can also be tremendous teachers. And what Wellesley taught us all, from its very beginnings, is the world-changing impact of asking a simple, powerful question: Why not? “Why not?” is a brave question – maybe even a radical question. It suggests a challenge to the status quo.

  It’s what Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked, in a world where women couldn’t vote.

  It is what Rosa Parks asked, when told she couldn’t sit at the front of the bus.

  It is what countless other women and men, who were prepared to question the social or political or cultural order of the day, asked: Why not me? Why not us? Why not now?

  * * * * *

  In 1915, Wellesley joined with Smith and two of our other sisters -- Mount Holyoke and Vassar – to examine education in the United States. That conversation led to what was called the “four college conference” and the official recognition of our strong sisterhood.

  A decade or so later we welcomed our other three sisters into the fold.  A hundred years later, Paula Johnson is the perfect 14th president for Wellesley. She embodies its commitment to excellence across disciplines, to creating opportunity for women, to balancing the traditional with the progressive.

  A look at Paula’s remarkable career tells us that she, like Wellesley, has constantly looked at the way things are, and dared to ask: Why not? Prior to 1990, Brigham and Women’s Hospital had never had a woman as its chief resident.

  Paula Johnson asked: Why not?

  She stepped into one of the most demanding posts in medical training at one of the best hospitals in the world.

  She forged a path for others to follow.

  As she advanced the field of cardiology, she noticed that there were very few facilities focused on heart disease in women. Again she asked: Why not?, and created the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology, one of the first such facilities in the country. As a research scientist, Paula studied the ways in which heart disease presents differently – sometimes very differently – in women than in men.

  Yet she noted that there weren’t different screening protocols, drug trials, or treatment regimens focused on women.

  Again she asked: Why not?, and became a tireless advocate for women’s health. In a 2013 TED Talk, titled “His and Her Healthcare,” she made the case that women’s health is an equal rights issue as important as equal pay.

  * * * * *

  At their best, colleges like Wellesley and Smith not only teach women leadership, they model it.

  Leadership can be global, Paula has said, or just across the hall.

  Whether welcoming Mellon Mays Fellows, meeting faculty colleagues, or connecting with folks at the Lulu, Paula is already drawing people together and building community.

  She will model leadership at its best – for the Wellesley community and beyond.

  * * * * *

  As educators, we know that watching and working with others is one of the most transformative ways that residential liberal arts colleges nurture the habits of discovery, of rigor, of teamwork.

  Each of your sister institutions will learn from having you here, Paula, learning and leading alongside us.

  On behalf of your sisters, let me offer this: we are not only glad you are here, we are here for you.

  On those days when you ask “why not?” and the answer doesn’t come easily, climb the Galen Stone Tower and look West and South.

  If you squint hard enough you’ll see us sisters – your sisters – urging you on.

  And as night falls and the bells of the tower toll for the last time, look up.

  There in the night sky you will find Pleiades, a cluster of stars named for the seven daughters of Pleione, seven sisters who – according to legend – changed into stars.

  That’s what colleges and universities do, at their best.

  They shape us.

  They change us. 

  They transform us and allow us to brighten the night sky and shine a light for others to steer by.

  Paula, your sisters are privileged to have you among us.

  Welcome to the family.

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• Vivian W. Pinn ’62
  
  Vivian W. Pinn ’62

  Senior Scientist Emerita, National Institutes of Health

  Thank you. And on behalf of the community of scientists who are dedicated to women's health, I bring remarks of great pride and honor, that a distinguished and much admired member of our field is being inaugurated as the Fourteenth President of Wellesley College. What a milestone this is! Since the announcement, the excitement has just been palpable throughout the medical and research communities, and I am thrilled to represent that community today. You have selected a woman who is highly respected as an academician, an educator, a researcher, a mentor, an executive and, especially as a dynamic leader in women’s health care and women's health research. Because of her stellar reputation and well recognized achievements, many of which I have personally witnessed, this is a very easy task for me today.

  I have watched Paula Johnson emerge as an exemplary model of a committed, successful physician, scientist and administrator. And often when I'm asked, who would I recommend for top positions, I have stated over and over that I really thought Paula Johnson was one of the best qualified for whatever position there might be. But I doubted that anyone would be able to move her from Harvard. Little did I know that that would bring her here to Wellesley! And I'm pleased. Her far-reaching influence has intensified and expanded over the years, only because of our proven abilities and her growing reputation that has been so well deserved.

  Now I have known Paula from the time when she was a medical student, and she may refer to me as one of her mentors. But, actually, I am the one who has learned so much from witnessing and experiencing her energy, her informed perceptions about women and their health and family experiences, and her exceptional talents as a mentor and supportive counselor to so many girls and women.

  During the recent renaissance of women’s health, and finally the growing appreciation which she helped to promote of the importance of sex differences in the health and both women and men, Paula has been, as you have heard already this afternoon, right at the forefront, taking the lead in the evolution of women’s health as a unique scientific and health care endeavor. How do I know this? How can I attest to this? Because, as the founding director of the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health, this has been my career and life’s focus now for over 25 years. And Paula has been integral to those efforts, serving not only on our strategic planning committee, but as a wonderful member of our NIH Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health. Paula has the unique ability to synthesize complicated thoughts into precise and clear mandates. She is a thought leader among senior and accomplished scientists, which we benefited from and which all of us will benefit from, from her past work, and from her future work here at Wellesley.

  But her efforts and leadership in women’s health research are recognized far beyond just the NIH: today she has an international reputation—in both the scientific and public domain. And let me emphasize that her voice has helped to ensure that the diversity of women and their communities are significantly represented in any policy and programmatic design.

  As a graduate of Wellesley myself, yes, class of '62, I take great pride in the fact that Paula is the new President of our beloved College. As a student here at that time, one of few students of color on campus, I wanted to know that I was being provided with both the education and the full psychosocial support so that I would be able to reach my desired goals in life. Based on what I've seen and what I know of Paula, I am sure that she will be foremost in assuring that today, all students will have that confidence in Wellesley.

  I have witnessed Paula, as an African American woman from a modest background, demonstrate a respect for the importance of the very diversity that enriches the Wellesley experience. What excitement there has been in all communities, but especially in the minority community, about our new President and what this milestone for Wellesley means to the nation!

  Now, the theme of her inauguration is ‘Intersections’. And some may ask, how does a woman physician get to be president and be a successful president of a liberal arts college? But Paula has the experience in women's health research that can strongly translate to advance intersections in the Wellesley academic environment. Medicine and science require academic excellence and a lifelong desire for learning. Isn’t that the essence of a Wellesley education, with creativity of thought and critical examination of evolving knowledge? Women’s health research, or women's health care, require a humanistic approach to be effective. And isn’t a passionate but humanistic approach to the individuality of each and every student critically important in this educational endeavor? Women’s health research relies on an interdisciplinary collaboration among various and many social and scientific disciplines; isn’t the essence of a liberal arts education here one of respect and interaction between the multiplicity of departments and courses?

  Today my journey has come almost full circle. I hope I've got a little few years to take it broader. But from having been a student to now seeing someone that I knew as a student assume the position of president. Today, I offer remarks on behalf of a woman I have enjoyed knowing as a mentee, as a friend, as a colleague, and now as the President of my college, of our college, a woman who will instill hope and inspire the students of today and tomorrow. The women’s health scientific community joins all of us in celebrating this wonderful event, and I extend on their behalf our Congratulations to Paula, and our congratulations to Wellesley for its wisdom in selecting her as the Fourteenth President. Thank you.

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• Georgia Murphy Johnson ’75
  
  Georgia Murphy Johnson ’75

  President of the Wellesley College Alumnae Association

  President Johnson.

  Greetings from Wellesley’s alumnae, which boasts of more than 35,000 active members and is considered the world’s strongest network of women. It is my honor to be representing this amazing alumnae body.

  As you may surmise from the nearly 1,000 alumnae who are here celebrating with you today, we are all very enthusiastic about getting to meet and to know you. I know your first obligations are to the students, faculty and staff on campus, but I also know that you are planning many trips to visit alumnae across the country and around the world. They will be delighted to meet you!

  Since your mother-in-law, Phyllis Sands, is from the class of 1946, you may already know something about our Wellesley alumnae. We are a very committed bunch who always want to make things better… for the college, for each other and for the world. As you embark on your journey, I thought I would take this time to tell you a little bit more about the alumnae body as a whole. We live in every state in the country and in 10 US territories. We live in 103 countries, ranging from the UK to Bangladesh, from Montenegro to Botswana, from Brazil to the Philippines. Currently, our oldest class is the class of 1934. And our oldest alum is 104. One of the living members of the class of 1934 is Elizabeth Neill Banton, one of Wellesley’s first African American students.

  Our database indicates that Wellesley alumnae have 182 different occupations. When you dig into those numbers further, you find that many are lawyers, there are many doctors, but you also find that the highest number are teachers, in colleges and universities, and in primary and secondary schools all over the world, teaching and preparing future generations. No matter what the occupation, however, the one common thread among all alumnae is that we live by Wellesley’s motto of ‘non ministrari, sed ministrare’, not to be served, but to serve. As I said earlier, Wellesley women want to make things better.

  When your selection was announced, the Wellesley alumnae Twitter world lit up with enthusiasm and anticipation of getting to meet you. As one of our alums wrote in response to your profile in Wellesley magazine, “I continue to be astonished and grateful for Wellesley’s continuum of magnificent presidents. Each is unique, and in step with and ahead of her times.” You are indeed the right president at the right time. The Wellesley alumnae and I welcome you.

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• Greetings from the College
  
  Andrew Shennan

  Provost and Dean of the College on behalf of the faculty

  President Johnson, it is my honor to bring you greetings from the Wellesley College faculty – from 356 writers, researchers, scientists, artists, theorists, practitioners, scholars, performers, and deeply committed teachers.

  Each of us strives to create and transmit knowledge at the cutting edge of our individual fields. Collectively, we are heirs to a proud tradition of faculty engagement in the life of this institution. Over the decades, we have played a vital role in shaping Wellesley. After the College Hall fire a century ago, we mobilized to preserve the low-lying valleys on our campus, like this one, and to build the soaring academic quad on the hill at its center. In the early 1970s, as the wave of coeducation crested, it was a faculty member and a president who took the critical stand in favor of our remaining a women’s college. In more recent years, we have stepped up in support of environmental sustainability; we have expanded access to Wellesley by sharing our courses with the world through WellesleyX; we have redoubled our commitment to women, and to the opening up of our definition of womanhood itself. And we have spoken out forcefully about Wellesley’s responsibility to support academic freedom elsewhere in the world.

  We have always been passionately devoted to Wellesley's mission, to our students' education, and to their lifelong flourishing after Wellesley. And we are eager now to join with you in tackling this College's unfinished work.

  The unfinished work of equity. We have become a diverse, in some respects a highly diverse, community; now we must create a college in which our collective culture shifts along with our membership, in which all our groups succeed equitably, and disparities in our students’ educational experience disappear. The unfinished work of interdisciplinarity. We have created a department-centered curriculum that for a college of our size is incomparably rich; now we must put our citizenship of the College on a par with our departmental affiliations and support a new generation of collaborations across disciplinary boundaries. Finally, the unfinished work of becoming a research college. We have assembled a faculty of first-rate researchers, creators, and scholars; now we must build an infrastructure that fully supports our work and enhances its connection to our core mission of undergraduate education.

  
  

  Catherine Summa ’83

  Director of the Science Center on behalf of the administrative staff

  It’s an honor for me to be here representing the administrative staff today. My colleague, Veronica Brandstrader, and I were privileged to serve on the search committee that brings us to this day today. As we began that search process, we heard a great deal from fellow staff, both administrative and union, about their hopes and dreams. We could see their faces light up when they talked about what they loved about being part of this incredible community, and what they envisioned for its future. Now that the search is completed, and even though you've been here only a short time, Dr. Johnson, I think my staff colleagues would agree that we feel like we've hit the jackpot.

  To say that we are excited to work with you would be an understatement. Administrative staff are in many ways the "worker bees" of this campus.  Our jobs have us located from one end of campus to the other, and everywhere in between. We are your departmental administrative assistants, your instructional technologists, and librarians, your technical and professional staff, all of whom provide support for faculty in their important work.  Likewise, we support students in myriad ways. Administrative staff and Admissions, Career Education, Counseling and Health Services, Residence Life, Religious and Spiritual Life, the Class Deans, and our cultural advisors, and many, many others across the campus, all put students at the center of their work every day. Elsewhere on campus, we are the people responsible for raising money for this college, and for managing money and for investing the money of this college.  Administrative staff in the Alumnae office and beyond build and steward our relationships with our graduates. Many of us are alums, and more of us are not.  It might be hard to tell the difference because every one of us, wherever we're located and whatever our role, is dedicated to the success of this campus and its mission.  We share a common purpose – we work tirelessly, and often behind the scenes, in service of the success of our students and faculty.  When they succeed, we succeed.

  And today, Dr. Johnson, we stand ready to partner with you to help ensure your success as our new President.  We look forward to bringing our expertise, our commitment, and our caring to our work together in the years to come.

  Thank you.

  
  

  Jack A. Trabucco

  Campus Police Sergeant on behalf of the union staff

  Thank you, Laura, and good afternoon. It is my distinct honor to welcome all of you on this historic day.

  President Paula Johnson, on behalf of both unions at Wellesley College, the campus police union and the maintenance and service employee's union, I extend my warmest greeting.

  Aside from representing the two College unions, I am also the proud father of a 2016 alumna, so today I wear two hats. No wonder this is so uncomfortable!

  The people that I happily represent keep our campus safe, clean, beautiful, and running smoothly. We are police officers, landscapers, custodians, plumbers and food service workers. We aid the sick and mend the injured. We are carpenters, metal mechanics, and painters. We are arborists, horticulturists, and locksmiths. We maintain athletics facilities. We repair boats and sporting equipment. We are automobile and small engine mechanics. We are animal care technicians. We maintain phone systems and data networks. We transport people. We generate electricity that cool and heat our buildings.

  Yes, it is obvious that our jobs are diverse, but we unite in our great understanding and pride in the duties we provide to the Wellesley campus at large. We are dedicated to maintaining the highest satisfaction from all our community, colleagues, students, visitors, and friends.

  My first contact with President Johnson was through an email that I sent her the first day she arrived on campus. I sent her words of welcome. She replied promptly the following day with a kind email thanking me for my message. Not only did she respond to me, she responded to every single email she received on campus. Very, very impressive. In the email she sent to me, she told me her door will always be open for any concern, big or small. For this, I thank her, and know that the College is being held in capable and caring hands.

  Wellesley College students are extraordinary. The cream of the crop. Even though they arrive in their teens, they immediately stand out as incredibly intelligent, caring, and polite people. Let's fast forward a few years, and they graduate. When they return to campus for reunions, etc, they frequently stop by to visit us. They come bearing joyful stories of adulthood and updates on their incredibly successful futures we knew they were bound for. But even as grown adults, they always find time to thank us for all that we did for them during their formative college years. Admittedly, most of the time we are being thanked for keeping their beta fish alive over the summer or making sure their plants actually got watered during winter break. We never forget the students even after they've been gone from Wellesley 5, 10, 15 plus years. These, President Johnson, are the people whom you will have the honor and pleasure of leading.

  These are times of great challenge and opportunity. Speaking on behalf of my union colleagues, we look forward to working together with our new President through moments of difficulty and moments of celebration. With her on our team, we know that Wellesley's standard in providing a second-to-none educational experience will undoubtedly be ensured.

  Thank you and good luck, President Johnson.

  
  

  Zainab Younus ’17

  College Government President on behalf of the students

  I would like to ask all of you to think back to the time when you were applying to college. Think back to not only what you sought out in each institution, but also to recall what you wanted from your college experience, the first phase of your young adult journey. In my conversations with friends, peers, alumnae and faculty, it seems that we all looked for a sense of “community” at our new homes. Though we all came to Wellesley for different reasons, the community we find here is arguably one that made us stay.

  The Wellesley community is one that we all take great pride in. It is comprised of students not only from across the nation, but from across the world. The rich, diverse range of experiences, backgrounds and views represented in our student body make for four years of constant learning and personal growth. We are all motivated to pursue our individual goals, while at the same time, are united by this common goal and desire to improve our community—be it the Wellesley community or the global.

  President Johnson, you have your reasons for why you chose Wellesley, but it is evident to us students that you are committed to the betterment of this community. Now, many of us first interacted with President Johnson back in February, when it was announced that she was named the 14th President of this College. The excitement felt on that day was palpable—the optimism we all felt—a feeling that has not subdued, but has strengthened. As as we see her walk around campus and interact with us, ask us about our days and what we do at Wellesley, we all jump at the chance to get a selfie—a request that she kindly obliges each time. Her enthusiasm and love for Wellesley radiates. I thank you for not only what you have done for Wellesley thus far, but for what you will accomplish and do during your presidency. On behalf of the students, President Johnson, I am delighted to welcome you to Wellesley. Welcome home!

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• Induction of the President
  
  Laura Daignault Gates '72 and Debora de Hoyos ’75

  Chair and Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees

  I would like to thank the Wellesley College Choir for bringing their gift of song to us today.

  Now we turn to the moment in the program when we formally induct Paula Adina Johnson as President of Wellesley College and transfer to her the charter, seal, and keys to the College. With me is Deborah de Hoyos, the Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees, and I'd like to ask Andy Shennan to join us at the podium. And now, Paula, could you please join us?

  First, I give you the charter of the College, dated March 17, 1870 as enacted by the Massachusetts General Court.

  This charter is your basic authority to direct and supervise the instruction of the young women who come to Wellesley seeking higher education.

  Next is the corporate seal.

  The seal includes the motto of the College, and you will cause it to be imprinted upon official documents, and particularly upon the diplomas of graduating students. You will wear it as a component of the formal regalia of the president as a constant reminder of the higher purpose of the education received here: ‘non ministrari, sed ministrare’.

  Finally, I entrust to you these three keys.

  These keys were designated at Caroline Hazard’s inauguration in 1899 as the keys to the chapel, the library, and College hall.

  And they were designated by Mildred McAfee Horton at her inauguration as symbolic of the means of opening the doors of higher spiritual, intellectual, and community life.

  And, with the formal transfer of the charter, the seals, and the keys completed, it is my great privilege and pleasure to congratulate President Paula Adina Johnson. So I salute President Johnson, and I hear all of you, and I welcome you to the podium for your remarks.

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• Paula A. Johnson
  
  Paula A. Johnson

  President

  Here on this podium, I may appear to be alone. But that is not the case. With me—within me—are so many who have carried me to this moment.

  I am here today because of a 30-year career in women’s health, and my deep commitment to women’s education. I stand before you on the shoulders and hard-won wisdom of so many women who laid the groundwork and pointed the way: my Brooklyn-born mother, Grayce Adina Johnson’s fierce belief in the power of education; my grandmother, Louise Young, who struggled with depression, which inspired me to enter medicine, with the ultimate mission of discovering how women’s and men’s biology differ in ways that go far beyond our reproductive functions.

  I stand on the shoulders of my most important mentors and role models: Ruth Hubbard, Harvard University’s first tenured woman biology professor—a scholar who broke with tradition to explore the deep connections between women’s biology and social inequities. Women such as Shirley Chisholm, my “unbought and unbossed” Brooklyn congresswoman who burst on the scene at the crossroads of the civil rights and women’s movements in the 1970s.

  In these women, I see the power of education to change women’s lives and create a better world. I see the power of shared experience, shared ideas, shared commitments, across time and space, across cultures and identities. I give gratitude to them and for them. I give gratitude to be here and now, looking at our future, together.

  I was drawn to Wellesley by many things—for its extraordinary past and its hopeful future, by its position at the apex of liberal-arts education, by the breadth and depth of its distinguished faculty, by the readiness and relevance of its student body, by the defining, indelible beauty of its campus, by the powerful sisterhood that is the Wellesley alumnae network.

  But the most compelling draw was my conviction that the surest way to change our fast- moving and complex world is through empowering women. There is no better place to accelerate and maximize the full potential of women than Wellesley College.

  It's often assumed that Wellesley College came into being simply because women lacked opportunities for higher education in the late 1800s, but in fact, there was another reason: it was the compelling vision for democracy and equal opportunity.

  Wellesley had its beginnings in Pauline and Henry Durant’s Back Bay living room, where Pauline and some 30 other women came together to tackle the urgent social challenges of post-Civil War industrialization. Their particular concern was the droves of vulnerable young women flooding into cities to work in factories or as domestic servants, with unsafe working and living conditions, fueling the movement known as Progressivism. In response to the fast-growing needs of these young women, Pauline Durant and her allies founded the Boston YWCA—the first YWCA in the nation, now celebrating its 150th anniversary. The YWCA provided young women room and board along with courses in clerical work.

  Four years later, in 1870, Wellesley College was founded. As Pauline and Henry Durant saw it, the nation’s future could only be secured through vastly expanded access to childhood education. The future would require teachers, a profession just opening up to women on a large scale.

  The Durants’ commitment to socio-economic diversity and expanded opportunity extended to Wellesley College itself, which welcomed students from across the economic spectrum. Indeed, the Durants had a special affection for the less-well-off students, referred to as “calico girls,” whom they saw as every bit the equal of their wealthy “velvet girl” peers.

  Today, the vision of the founders of Wellesley carries renewed urgency. We live in an era when the very notion of fact-based knowledge is under fire—in what an Economist cover story chillingly termed a “post-truth world.”

  As we prepare for an historic election—one that has a Wellesley alumna on the ballot, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the first woman ever nominated for the U.S. presidency by a major party—we are brought face to face with the gravity of our choices.

  The need for a liberal education shines forth brightly—perhaps more brightly—than ever before. Like Henry and Pauline Durant, we live in a time of accelerated change, and the planet-threatening challenges we face have only grown. Climate change, global pandemics, terrorism and violence, widening disparities between rich and poor, globalization—these are just a few of the urgent issues that we now confront. Our future, the world’s future, will hinge on our ability to put aside differences for the common good—to join forces across political parties, across cultures, across belief systems, and across every boundary, virtual and physical, that you can imagine.

  But to do so requires a basic grasp of facts—the capacity to distinguish fact from fiction—a core value that is at the heart of a liberal education. In the words of my predecessor Kim Bottomly, liberal education “was designed to be the education truly necessary to ensure good decisions and thus a good society.” In sum, it's the lifeblood of a healthy democracy.

  As part of my Wellesley education, I recently came upon a speech by Wellesley’s second president, the charismatic Alice Freeman Palmer—only 27 when she assumed this role in 1882. Amazing. The title is “Why Go to College?” and I was struck by its ongoing and modern relevance, by how clearly I could trace the line between then and now.

  Freeman Palmer’s focus was what she termed the “larger gifts of college life.” Interestingly, she opted to spend little time on the benefits of gaining new knowledge—these, she said, “may be assumed.” Instead, her focus was looking far downstream—on the array of lifelong benefits conferred by a college education.

  Topping her list were happiness and physical health, which came as a delightful surprise to me. As a physician who has spent my career in women’s health—and as a new college president with a deep commitment to students’ well-being—I was inspired to see how very deep these commitments run.

  I was also struck by Freeman Palmer’s focus on the gifts of friendship with people very different from ourselves—foreshadowing our own commitments to inclusion and diversity— and by her view of college as a place where students connect with a larger sense of possibility, a larger vision. To be sure, she deploys religious language that would be out of place today. But her broader vision, her deeper message—her core values—feel very much alive.

  Taken as a whole, this early address anticipates what I view as the single most important question for liberal-arts colleges today: How do we unleash the riches embedded in crucial intersections—among people, among ideas, across communities and cultures, through time and space?

  Over these past three months, I’ve turned to many of you to listen, to begin to build our vision. I've asked: Where will our efforts yield the greatest possible impact? What are the hallmarks of a great liberal-arts college in the 21st century?

  I’ve given these questions much thought, and I want to share three answers—all of which reflect my belief that great transformational change occurs at intersections. I want to speak, in particular, to three key concepts:

  • Intersections of academic disciplines;

  • Intersections of the liberal-arts college with the larger world;

  • And the most important intersection of all: How do we unlock the full potential of these synergies?

  1. Let’s start with academic disciplines. I believe that the great liberal-arts college must be ambitious and creative in its efforts to leverage these increasingly important intersections.

  Our esteemed faculty is replete with world-class scholars, researcher-teachers who push forward the frontiers of knowledge. But as remarkable as they are individually, they are infinitely more so together, connecting in community, exchanging ideas, and advancing pedagogy. Indeed, it is more apparent with every passing year that no single academic discipline can hope to address the world’s greatest challenges.

  To the contrary, our times demand what is often called “T-shaped” expertise—a deep grounding in one area combined with a capacity to think, and work, on a far broader stage.

  This message has been coming from all directions. Some years back, a committee of distinguished engineers set out to establish a list of the Grand Challenges for Engineering. The final list of 14 was wide-ranging—from making solar energy economical to providing access to clean water and better medicines. As diverse as they are, each of these Grand Challenges shares one thing: All will require work across disciplines. To work together at the intersection of shared knowledge and pasts to look to the future.

  I've also seen this firsthand in my own academic work on women’s health. Biology, sociology, anthropology, history, and literature—all of these have shaped and informed my work in fundamental ways: how I think, how I problem solve, how I view both science and the world. The contributions I have been privileged to make can be directly traced to the power of a liberal education—to the awareness that the way forward lies in the potent synergies that live in intersections.

  The arts and humanities merit special attention here. It is through the study of art, literature, history, music, languages, philosophy, and religion that we explore what it means to be fully human. We find our place within traditions that ignite our imaginations. More than any other fields of study, the arts and the humanities fortify us to do the work that we are called to do. If the sciences tell us how, the humanities and arts remind us why.

  Which is not to say that the arts and humanities do not also have their practical applications—and far more often than many assume.

  One stand-out example at Wellesley is a cross-disciplinary course focused on Siberia’s Lake Baikal, often called the soul of Siberia. The course begins on campus with the study of Siberian literature, religion, and history. Students then travel to Lake Baikal, where they examine disruptions to the lake’s ecology. They come to see how the humanities and sciences build on and enrich each other, all while making real contributions to the science of climate change.

  Such marriages across disciplines are the way of the future—and the potential I see at Wellesley is extraordinary.

  2. Second, the great liberal-arts college must expand and cultivate its intersections with the larger world.

  One of the things that has most struck me about Wellesley students is their yearning to make a difference. To paraphrase the theologian Frederick Buechner, they are in search of that place where their own deep gladness meets the world’s deep hunger.

  This yearning for meaning, for purpose, goes far beyond the anecdotal—and far beyond a transitory youthful idealism. Rather, it is at the heart of what it means to be human.

  Recent research points to lifelong benefits from integrating learning with service. While most studies of college graduates have focused on near-term outcomes, researchers from Gallup and Purdue University have sought to get a handle on what happens in the years after graduation. Do certain college experiences correlate with a happy and engaged adulthood?

  Their answer: A resounding yes. Two kinds of college experiences in particular stand out: emotional support and deep experiential learning. And the impact is far from minor. Graduates who check both boxes are twice as likely to be engaged in their work and otherwise thriving in adulthood.

  Now for some, this may come as a wake-up call. For Wellesley, it’s a clear affirmation of our priorities, of our core values—of our view that service is integral to a liberal-arts education, as embodied in the Wellesley College motto: Not to be ministered unto, but to minister.

  One stellar example is the Madeline Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs, named for the former Secretary of State and Wellesley alumna. Each year, a group of Wellesley students become Albright Fellows. They work in teams to tackle pressing global challenges—from the refugee crisis to the threats to our democratic institutions. Summer internships take students around the world, while visiting experts—including Secretary Albright herself—bring the real-world practice to Wellesley.

  Another excellent example is the We-Lab—and that’s short for the Wellesley Engineering Laboratory—where students devise engineering solutions to real human problems. Here again, learning takes place both on campus and around the world, as students test-drive and implement their innovations. Among recent successes is the installation of an improved rain- catchment system in a Nicaraguan village where water is often in dangerously short supply.

  So powerful are these initiatives that they have sparked excitement across our current and prospective student body and among our faculty. More and more, these initiatives and others like them are influencing pedagogy.

  Looking ahead, one of my primary goals in leading Wellesley is to build on our current intersections with the larger world. Inner institution-wide transformation tends to start with looking outward.

  3. Third, the great liberal-arts college must celebrate and nurture interconnections, with the goal of unleashing the full power of their synergies.

  I believe that this starts with a culture of belonging.

  In recent years, many have questioned the notion that the colleges should prioritize being warm and welcoming places—the idea being that this is at odds with rigorous learning.

  I reject that wholeheartedly. We can—and I believe we must—have a rigorous learning community that is also a true home in the best sense of that word. Regardless of our race, ethnicity, age, religion, physical capacities; regardless of what we believe, where we come from, or who we love—all of us, all of you, deserve to be seen and appreciated for exactly who you are.

  This is true of all liberal-arts colleges, but it has a special significance at a school that has as its exclusive mission the education of women to make a positive difference in the world.

  For all their many and wonderful differences, Wellesley students arrive with a shared awareness of what it means to be a woman at this historical moment.

  They know that, for all the progress women have made since Wellesley’s founding, women face distinctive challenges.

  They know that, for all the shattered and cracked glass ceilings, women are still vastly under-represented at the highest levels across professions and industries.

  They know that women face a unique set of challenges, including persistent efforts to curtail reproductive rights, inadequate family-leave policies that hit women hardest, and the widespread persistence of unequal pay for equal work.

  They also know that the world is far better off with women at the table—or leading the meeting—whether in government, business, academia, or any field where Wellesley women make their mark.

  For all of these reasons—and so many more—Wellesley students understand the transformative power of a place where “women’s leadership” is synonymous with “leadership.” A place where their gender will never bar them from reaching their full potential. A place where they will never feel out of place because they are a woman. A place where they are at home.

  That said, the liberal-arts college must be a certain kind of home: one where truth and knowledge are seen as primary values, at the core of who we are and what we do. One where it’s understood that growth comes from surmounting challenges—those that exist within us as well as around the world.

  The human mind has a tendency to simplify—to reflexively adopt what Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie calls the “single story.” This is a story that flattens and reduces. This type of singular story is never true. By contrast, the great liberal-arts college pushes us beyond this—to replace the impoverished single story with a far larger narrative that enriches and illuminates. It recognizes that empathy flourishes on friendship and respect, on exposure to new ways of seeing and thinking. In the words of writer Toni Morrison, we must “visualize, imagine, dream up, and enter the other before we presume to solve their problems or ours.”

  So how do we go about this? How do we ensure that we make the most of our many interconnections? How do we fulfill the enormous promise of Wellesley in the 21st century?

  We must apply the same spirit of innovation that we bring to science and other academic disciplines to the work of building a community that both provides a sense of belonging and supports the highest standards for liberal-arts education. This isn’t going to happen simply because we want it to. It must be a major initiative—intentional, data-driven, focused on impact.

  ** *

  Wellesley has come a long way from those early conversations in Pauline Durant’s 19th- century living room. At the same time, our original commitments run strong and deep. Happiness, health, friendship, service to a vision far larger than ourselves—these were among the gifts of college cited by Alice Freeman Palmer more than 100 years ago. They remain at the heart of what we do, a touchstone for the ages. Then as now, Wellesley holds a singular vision: To educate whole women to make the world whole.

  While time hasn’t changed our core mission, it requires us to evolve—to shape our efforts to fit the needs of the 21st century.

  Never in our recorded history has the complexity and speed of change been faster than our ability to keep up with it. Educating the next generation to face this pace of change, this complexity, is the consummate challenge for the liberal-arts college of the 21st century.

  This challenge must be met with all the force we have, the force that can be found at the intersections of disciplines, the force of looking outward—whether just outside our doors or to the other side of the globe, the force that occurs when we can, as Toni Morrison put it, “enter the other.”

  Now is the time to harness this sense of urgency, and no one is better poised to meet, lead, and indeed minister this challenge, than women—and women with a Wellesley education.

  To act on these imperatives will be our responsibility—and our joy.

  I as your President hear this call and pledge to mobilize our human and capital resources to live into Wellesley’s greatest possibilities.

  This moment is our moment.

  Thank you.

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