- Welcome to Wellesley's first ever virtual
convocation.
Convocation marks the formal start of our
academic year.
And although we cannot gather together in
person to mark this moment this year, I hope
we will all feel joined in spirit.
Whether you are watching from somewhere on
campus, or somewhere else in the world,
I welcome you.
- Welcome to convocation.
When I think about my hopes for this new academic
year, I first think about our Wellesley family
united in one spirit and heart that crosses
distances and screens.
Wherever we may be, let us remember that we
are in the presence of our creator, in the
presence of our ancestors, and among friends
bound together in a caring community.
And so this afternoon, let us pause for a
brief moment of reflection and prayer.
Each in our own way for the world, the Wellesley
community, and for ourselves.
Sacred source of all that is good, and beautiful and true.
We pause to give thanks for all that you have guided us through.
We are grateful that we do not stand alone
today, that we are united by our common humanity.
We ask your presence to be with us as we walk
into this new season, unsure of what lies
ahead, yet trusting that you go before us.
In this strange and unpredictable time that
our world, this nation, our college, and our
families are navigating.
We ask that you remind us that we are still
in your care.
That while the world seems to move, and endlessly
shift under our feet, you remain steadfast,
and your promises to us remain so as well.
Help us speak words of life, and inspiration
to one another in the days ahead.
May we support each other with compassion,
and gentleness as the weeks go by.
May we encourage and lift one another as we
journey together through this academic year.
As we gather in peace, we remember those near
and far for whom peace is an illusive hope,
and we entrust them to you.
Speak to us we ask from our many religious,
spiritual and philosophical traditions, remind
us of the ancient guidance you have entrusted us with.
In order that we may be agents of healing,
and restoration in the world.
God, of all time and all places, be with us
now, as we gather in joyful celebration, amen.
Thank you, Dean Marquez, good afternoon.
Welcome to all of you at the start of this
most unusual year, Wellesley's 146th.
Many of you are here on campus, many others
are scattered around the world.
Wherever you are, please know this.
All of you have an equal place in our community.
A special welcome to the incoming red class
of 2024, to our seven new Davis Scholars,
and to our six new transfer students.
We are thrilled to have you among us.
Welcome too to our new faculty, to our new
administrative and union members, and a big
welcome back to all of our returning students.
To the yellow class of 2023, to the purple
class of 2022, and last but far from least
to the great, green class of 2021.
Convocation is always an exciting time.
The energy is palpable.
We revel in our community and in everything to come.
All that is true now, but there's also something more.
The simple fact that we are here today is
itself a triumph.
So many have worked tirelessly to bring us
to this point.
Faculty, staff, alumnae, students, and countless
friends and allies.
You have my gratitude and deepest admiration.
We start this year as a blended community.
Some of us are remote and some of us 
are here on campus.
I speak to you today from Alumnae Hall.
While you may not be here physically, you
are very much here in spirit.
Now this is a moment of great loss and challenge.
I don't need to tell you that.
At the same time, it's been a time of inspiration
and opportunity.
It's been a time of innovation.
Now these may be less obvious, but they are
no less real.
The Indian writer Arundhati Roy, has this
to say, "Historically, pandemics have forced
humans to break with the past, and imagine
their world a new, this one is no different.
It's a portal, a gateway between one world
and the next.
We can choose to walk through it, dragging
the carcasses of our prejudice, and hatred,
our avarice, our data banks, and dead ideas,
our dead rivers, and smoky skies behind us.
Or we can walk through lightly with little
luggage, ready to imagine another world, and
ready to fight for it."
Ready to imagine another world, and ready
to fight for it.
That's where we are today.
Over the summer, I heard so many inspiring
stories about Wellesley students and alumnae.
Faced with hardships and disappointments,
you found new ways to serve, and double down
on your commitments.
In many ways, finding purpose through chaos.
Spurred by the continued police violence against
Black men and women, millions of people, including
many of you took to the streets to affirm
that Black Lives Matter.
Just last week, thousands marched on 
Washington, D.C., while protests raged in
Kenosha, Wisconsin, after the tragic shooting 
of Jacob Blake.
While none of us would support violence.
These protests are unprecedented, both in
scope and scale.
And this year their spirit will infuse our
work towards enhanced diversity, equity and
inclusion and eradication of structural racism
and bias on the Wellesley campus.
And just last month, Kamala Harris, became
the first woman of color who was Black and
South Asian, a daughter of immigrants, on
a major party's presidential ticket.
In her acceptance speech she paid tribute
to those who paved the way.
"Women and men who believe so fiercely in the
promise of equality, liberty, and justice
for all."
In all of this, I find so much hope.
Of course there's darkness. But there is also light.
And our job now is to extend that light.
In a wonderful essay collection called "The
Book of Delights", author, Ross Gay, poses
this compelling question:
"What if we joined our sorrows...
What if that is joy?"
There's so much wisdom in this in a time when
joy may feel in short supply, we are called
on to get creative.
To mine our shared humanity for its hidden riches.
Last spring, when everything hung in doubt,
I wrote that hope is an action.
And what I meant by this is that
to move from hope to reality, we must do the footwork.
Today, I challenge all of us to unite in that effort.
And two words come to mind: 
flexibility and grace.
So many people are hurting, and now is the
time to go that extra mile to say, "I love
you" or "thank you."
Let's commit to doing all we can to champion
and to support each other.
Only together, can we become who the world
needs us to be.
Now this year marks the centennial of the
19th Amendment, which removed barriers to
voting for some, though not all, women.
Black women—and men—would wait decades more.
And the job is still unfinished.
We are now at a grave risk of losing ground.
The U.S. elections take place in just two
months, and a day from now.
If you are eligible to vote, now is the time
to be sure to have a plan in place.
Now is the time to check with friends to ensure
they have one too.
Last year, I learned that just over half of
eligible Wellesley students, about 52.3% voted
in the consequential 2018 elections.
Yes, Wellesley students usually vote in numbers
higher than our peers, but we can do better.
We must do better.
So please make this a personal mission.
Do your part, get active in the #WellesleyVotes
campaign, which you'll hear more about soon.
So this'll be a year unlike any other,
but for all the challenges that lie ahead,
I could not be more hopeful about the power
of our community.
Physical distance is no match for the power
of our bonds, whether we're six feet, or many
miles apart, we are ever, always Wellesley.
I know that you will rise to the moment as
you always do.
Together, we can build a better world.
And this is what hope looks like, thank you.
- Good afternoon, everyone.
My name is Andy Shennan, I hope you can hear
me through this mask.
And I hope my glasses don't fog up.
This is the 18th convocation that I've participated
in as dean or as provost.
Today's ceremony is in so many ways, like
no other.
Convocation is literally the calling together
of our community.
But today, sadly, we're not able to gather
face-to-face.
I wish I could greet my colleagues in person.
I wish I could welcome in person the entering
red class of 2024, and welcome back the classes
of 2022 and 2023.
Above all, how I wish I could look out on
the extraordinary green class of 2021.
Resplendent in the gowns that you will wear
at commencement next spring.
Convocation marks the dawn of a new academic year.
Today, doesn't feel like the start of something though.
It feels like the middle of something.
The middle of a momentous effort by our entire
community to live out our educational mission
in the midst of pandemic.
Just to be here, we have already had to overcome
so many challenges.
We've already had to plan and prepare like
never before.
We have already each of us had to do so much
thinking, and soul searching.
On Zoom calls, around kitchen tables, with
our colleagues, with our families, with our
friends in the quiet of our own thoughts.
The faculty has had to reimagine, and reorganize
our curriculum.
The administration has had to reconfigure
our campus spaces, rethink the routines and
practices of our residential life, and support
students and faculty all around the world.
Wellesley students, whether you're studying
remotely, or on campus have had to adapt to
change in every aspect of your college experience.
We wouldn't be here today if we hadn't already persevered,
If we hadn't already—collectively—shown our commitment to the work
of discovery and empowerment we do together.
Convocation has often been a moment to look
to the history of our college for inspiration
in meeting the challenges of the present.
But in our history, there is no analog to
the challenges that we face now.
We experienced a different pandemic a century
ago, but we have never experienced a year
in which half the College is here, and half
is with us remotely.
At this convocation then I draw more inspiration
from the present, than from the past.
I draw inspiration from the sense of community
that we have witnessed among faculty and staff,
these past six months.
When we have met in meetings and webinars
this spring and summer, we have gathered virtually
in far larger numbers than we've ever gathered
in person.
Like any group of dedicated colleagues, we
critique one another and sometimes frustrate,
and disappoint one another, but we have expressed
appreciation and solidarity more wholeheartedly
than ever before.
We have shared sacrifices.
And in responding to this emergency, we have
worked collaboratively in a way that I at
least have never experienced.
In the process we have discovered a deeper
sense of our interdependence, and we will
not be able to unlearn it.
I draw inspiration from the intensity, with
which in this summer of national reckoning
students have raised again, the College's
responsibility to advance the goals of racial
justice, equity, and inclusion.
I draw inspiration from the urgency with which
our faculty and staff have responded.
In conversations sponsored by Dean Núñez,
and Dean Jeffries, dozens and dozens of colleagues
from across the College have expressed new
determination to bring structural change to
our teaching, and to our curriculum, and campus life.
I draw inspiration from the resourcefulness,
with which we have changed the way we work,
the way we teach, and the way we learn.
The switch to remote instruction has necessitated
experimentation on a scale, and at a pace
that we have never witnessed.
Our faculty have been superbly supported in that effort by Library and Technology Services,
and by the leadership of the PLTC.
And have spent the past month sharing, and
refining their ideas about teaching in this
new mode.
We have dissolved the boundaries between campus
and world.
And our academic program will be permanently
transformed for the better.
And I draw inspiration from the other kind
of teaching and learning.
The kind that began here on campus this week.
Why are more than 100 Wellesley faculty learning
to lecture through masks,
adapting to all kinds of inconveniences in
their classrooms?
Why are more than a thousand students here
on campus studying with those faculty, dealing
with those same discomforts?
Because that is the education that Wellesley
has practiced for 150 years, and that is the
education we believe in.
Face-to-face, personalized, residential, attentive
to each individual's interests and voice.
My message at the start of this year is simple.
We know how to do this.
We know how to do this by collaborating, and
by counteracting the isolation that pandemic
causes.
By seizing the opportunity that this moment
affords to make progress towards our profoundest
goals.
By being unafraid of innovation, by standing
up for the educational model that is currently
challenged by COVID, but to which we remain
committed for the long haul.
Yes, we are in uncharted territory, but let's
not be daunted by that.
The Wellesley classes that are here now have
an opportunity to set an example for all the
classes that come after you.
We, the faculty and staff, have that same
opportunity.
Uncertainty is the essence of living through
pandemic.
None of us can predict the course of the year ahead.
But if we continue to navigate that uncertain
course, as we have been doing, then we can
be certain that this academic year will be
an inspiration to those who come after us,
thank you.
- Good afternoon, members of senior leadership,
and administration, and to our incredible
faculty and staff. Welcome to our new and
returning students.
Hello to my loving family and friends, and
a special hi, to my fellow classmates of 2021.
Thank you all for being here today.
Again, my name is Tatiana Ivy Moise, and I
am honored to be this year's Wellesley College
Government President.
I would like to first acknowledge that we
are all here today as a part of Wellesley
College, which is located on the ancestral
and unceded lands of the Massachusetts and
Wampanoag peoples.
I recognize the continuing presence of these
Indigenous peoples, and I pay respect to past
and present Indigenous elders as well.
In addition, I'm taking this moment to acknowledge
the history of slavery, and the exploitation
of Black people in the United States, and
their connections to the building and maintaining
of institutions of higher education, including
our own.
To publicly recognize these things is imperative
as only the first step in understanding that
colonialism and exploitation have not been
left in our past.
Rather they are ongoing processes, and we
must be mindful in actively working against
our participation in them.
We are fortunate enough to be here today to
celebrate the beginning of a new academic
year, but allow me to take a moment to reflect
on what I've learned in these last five months,
since we were all here together on campus.
My hope is that sharing these thoughts will
inspire you and maybe offer you some things
to consider as we move into the fall.
So in 1972, the 139th meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science
took place.
And scientist Edward Norton Lorenz proposed
a question.
He asked, "Does the flap of a butterfly's
wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?".
Now, Doctor Lorenz was a renowned mathematician
and meteorologist, and I on the other hand,
took my lab distribution requirement first
year, first semester, specifically because
of shadow grading.
And I consider myself to probably be the furthest
thing from a STEM major.
But his butterfly effect still fascinates
me, nonetheless.
Applying the butterfly effect more broadly
than to mathematically predict weather patterns
like Doctor Lorenz intended allows us to recognize
the impact of each of our individual actions,
and the butterfly effect puts into perspective
just how meaningful everything we do
can truly be.
Wellesley's mission is to provide an excellent
liberal arts education, to students who will
make a difference in the world.
And to be honest with you, I used to be really
afraid of that mission statement.
Like most 18-year-old first year students,
I entered Wellesley, unsure of my role in
this huge world full of possibilities, unlike
most other 21 year old seniors with only one
year left to graduate, I'm still unsure. What
differences will I make in this world?
What will my impact be?
Some of us will be the first in our families
to attend, or graduate from college.
Some of us will follow creative passions,
expressing ourselves through the arts, and
inspiring another to do the same.
Some of us will teach the next generation
how to love learning and how to love themselves,
and how to love each other.
Some of us will create and develop the cures
to the world's most devastating diseases.
Some of us will protest, organize, and some
of us will spark revolutions.
So I've come to realize that these differences
in the world, that all Wellesley students
are destined to make, they'll range in size,
but none will be any more or less significant,
because all of us are butterflies, with our
own magnificent and one of a kind set of wings.
So what will the flap of yours set off?
This summer, I've ultimately realized that
everything we've seen in the year of 2020,
has revolved around just one central theme.
The only constant is change.
And coming to that realization has brought
me so much peace.
Because if things never really stopped changing,
then I, and you, and all of us have yet to
see our darkest hours, sure.
But we have also yet to see our brightest days.
The sun will keep rising over "East Side,
Beast Side," and it will keep setting over
"West Side, Best Side."
Wellesley will have in-person LDOC concerts,
and Senates, and Marmons, and convocations,
and commencements again.
Together, we will laugh again, and cry again.
And one day, we will hug again.
So tell people you love them today because
you may not be able to tell them tomorrow.
And if you're able to tell them that you love
them tomorrow, then simply tell them again.
Like noticing the cracks in our old Tower
steps, find the beauty in the broken.
Like making the perfect cup of coffee that gets
you through writing your last final paper
of the semester, find the magic in the mundane.
The discovery of both that beauty and that
magic can be the inspiration you need for
your wings to set off your tornado.
Thank you so much for listening, and for joining
me in this next year.
It can only be what we make of it.
- Good afternoon, my name is Hope D'Erasmo,
and I'm your Chief Justice of the Honor Code
for the 2020-2021 academic year.
I want to start off by thanking you all for
the opportunity to be here and speak, especially
at the start of such a strange academic year.
The word unprecedented has been used to the
point of cliche over the past six months.
And while it may be sigh-inducing to hear
it again now, I do want to acknowledge that
this is not the start of the academic year
that we were looking for.
First-years and fellow seniors especially,
I know that this is not how any of us wanted
to begin, or end our time at Wellesley.
The Honor Code here is comprised of three
values: honesty, integrity, and respect.
In a normal academic year, we'd like to say
that the Honor Code, is at the heart of all
academic and social life at Wellesley.
While this has been true in the past, it has
certainly never been more literally true than
it is this year.
We have an obligation to each other, not just
to show integrity by being academically honest
in classes, but also through following public
health and safety guidelines, to ensure that
we can live safely.
Respect through one another, looks like not
just being able to leave your bag for five
minutes in Sci, but working to make sure that
Wellesley is as accessible as it can be.
But from the short-term, by wearing masks
in public spaces, and in the long-term, by
working to dismantle structural inequities.
Thank you for your time.
Please join me wherever you are in the ceremonial
recitation of the Honor Code.
"As a Wellesley College student, I will act
with honesty, integrity, and respect.
In making this commitment, I'm accountable
to the community, and dedicate myself to a
life of honor."
And now the program will turn to Dean Marquez,
for the benediction.
- Dear friends, as we live into this new academic season, may we do so
releasing fear and embracing hope.
May we work together for a more just and peaceful world.
May we live each day rooted in gratitude and kindness.
May this be so for me, for us, for all, amen.
♪ To Alma Mater Wellesley's daughters  ♪ ♪
♪ ♪All together join and sing ♪ ♪
♪ ♪ Thro' all her wealth of wood and waters ♪ ♪
♪ ♪ Let your happy voices ring ♪ ♪
♪ ♪ In every changing mood we love her ♪ ♪
♪ ♪ Love her tow'rs an
woods and lake ♪ ♪
♪ ♪ Oh, changeful sky, bend blue above her ♪ ♪
♪ ♪ Wake ye birds, your chorus wake ♪ ♪
♪ ♪ We'll sing her praises now and ever, ♪ ♪
♪ ♪ Blessed fount of truth
and love ♪ ♪
♪ ♪ Our hearts devotion may it never ♪ ♪
♪ ♪ Faithless or unworthy prove ♪ ♪
♪ ♪ We'll give our lives and hopes to serve her ♪ ♪
♪ ♪ Humblest, highest, noblest all ♪ ♪
♪ ♪ A stainless name we will preserve her ♪ ♪
♪ ♪ Answer to her every call ♪
