The Student Bursar’s Office allocated a total of $674,877.38 amongst fully-funded organizations, Grant Clubs, Club Sports, Guaranteed Percentage Events, Class Councils, and House Councils for the 2024-25 school year. This is compared to a total of $932,812.49 for the 2023-24 school year, with both sums excluding the amount pulled for the Emergency Funding Pool, Recreation Grant, Conference Award Fund, and stipends for the College Government and Bursar’s Office.

The Wellesley Review is one of the many clubs who received a big drop in funding, with only $648.81 this year compared to last year’s $1,743.48.  

“It’s so difficult to decide what's worth spending money on, and I feel like everyone fights about money … I feel like it is something that's going to cause strife between management and/or it has the potential to cause strife between management and the club,” ​​Co-President of The Wellesley Review Emma McNulty ’26 said.

The Wellesley Review is not alone in this. Several clubs and organization leaders were left frustrated when their final approved funding for the 2024-25 school year was much less than anticipated. 

Members of the Bursar’s Office understand such sentiments, but they explain that the stark decrease occurred not because of an intentional funding cut but because the Bursar’s Office gave student organizations an unusually large amount of funding last year.

Consequence of no Bursar last year

The Bursar heads the Bursar’s Office and acts as a liaison between Student Organization Funding Committee (SOFC), College Government (CG) Cabinet, and the administration’s Budgetary Advisory committee. The role and the Bursar's Office is to inform each group on college-wide financial issues, the lack of a Bursar last year caused a deficit in funding expertise.

“Last year, the [Bursar’s] Office did not know how to properly distribute the funds because there was no Student Bursar, no memory of funding distribution, and because we lost the Bursar so quickly ... Orgs were asking ‘what's our budgets’ [so] members of the Office — Penelope and I were not involved in that decision I should clarify — made the decision to take out of Contingency and just give everyone what they asked,” Deane said. 

Contingency is the pool of leftover money at the end of a year. Members of the Office refer to Contingency as a sort of bank to pull money from in emergency situations. Last year, the Office acted out of the ordinary, pulling about $300,000 out of Contingency to grant organizations the amount of funding they requested. 

Excluding the 2023-24 school year, the average Student Activity Fund from 2017-18 to 2024-25 is $730,468.85. Last year’s Student Activity Fund was $999,312.49.

Notably, SOFC decides on which organizations receive how much money, and the Bursar’s Office only allocates the money.

“None of the normal formulas or distribution policies that we have in order to distribute the funds fairly and appropriately were able to be executed last year, so the budgets that people got last year were very, very abnormal,” Deane said.

Office pulls from Contingency again for 2024-25 school year

This year, the administration lowered the student activity fee, which each student pays in their tuition, from $320 to $296. The Board of Trustees approved this decision as part of the College’s annual budget process.

“The Student Activity Fee was reduced because of significant carryover in that budget line. At the end of last year, SOFC had approximately $530,000 in unspent funds. When a department has unspent funds, the College’s standard practice is to moderate further budget increases,” said Director of Media Relations Stacey Schmeidel. 

Since there was no Bursar serving as immediate contact last year, the Office was unable to explain to the administration the circumstances — mainly residual impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic where no physical events took space, such as a fewer number of clubs and events — that led to unspent funds last year.

“In a normal year, [the Office] gets to at least be a part of those conversations or influence them a little bit, and we did not have that specific voice last year,” Head Bookkeeper Penelope Gordon ’25 said.

Members of the Office expressed their sympathy in how organizations expected to receive more funding than they did.

“I really feel sad for the orgs because it’s not any student’s fault [that orgs received less funding this year]. It’s an administrative level thing that students do not have control over,” said Bookkeeper Ruth Jaiyeola ’27.

Together with the drop of enrolled students, it appeared that the Student Activity Fund would be significantly lower. However, the Office chose to once again pull money from contingency to return the Fund to a standard amount.

“They did decrease the Student Activity Fee, yes, however that has not affected the overall organization budgets, at least for this year, because we’ve artificially inflated it with Contingency money to get it up to that $800,000,” Deane said.

The Bursar’s Office was able to do so due to a large amount of money being reverted into Contingency due to COVID-19. Between last year and this year, however, the Office has distributed this surplus sum, leaving there “less wiggle room to borrow” for future years.

As such, the Bursar’s Office is working with the administration to “sustain a healthy amount of Student Activity Funding” for future years.

“I don't want to promise something, but we definitely, on our end, are looking to increase the Student Activity Fee. We're doing all this data to see what a healthy amount [is],” Deane said.

Nonetheless, the Bursar’s Office stresses that organizations should not apply for more than needed to prevent unspent money.

“When orgs apply for a lot of money and then don't use all that, that negatively impacts the student activity fee because admin sees how much money is reverted, and they're like, ‘oh, so we don't need this amount of money,’ which might not be true. Other orgs could use that money,” Deane said.

What impacts funding distribution?

The Office follows a dollar-per-student model, where it considers how many people will attend each event and how much money per student the event will cost. 

“We prioritize those events that are cheaper per student, for example, huge events that benefit a lot of students. [This is] because that means the Student Activity Fee that they’re paying, they’re benefiting from. Those events get funded before more expensive events,” Deane said.

This year, the Office is strict in prioritizing event money and funding that is necessary for an organization to run (coaches, sports equipment, etc.) over food money. 

“A lot of the cuts that were made if organizations got their approved budgets cut was in food … we have in our Constitution that we can only fund 35% of the total budget toward food,” Deane said.

However, many organizations, particularly cultural organizations, are heavily impacted by funding cuts for food. Co-President of the Wellesley Taiwanese Cultural Organization (TCO) Michelle Lee ’25 expressed that funding is tight between event and food money. 

“It’s really difficult, almost impossible, to use event money for food money … As a cultural org, food is really important to us,” Lee said.

Despite its consequences, the funding hierarchy answers a circulating question of why some organizations receive more funding than others. When asked why the Nordic Ski Team, for example, received a large sum of money in the past few years, Deane explained that Club sports must require more funding to legally exist: these teams must attend a certain number of races or tournaments in order to be recognized by their National Governing Body, i.e. USA Nordic. 

“It’s a lot [of money], but …we actively worked with Physical Education, Recreation, & Athletics (PERA) last year to cut Club Sports to the bare minimum that they can in order to function … Club sports collectively cannot take more than 17% of the Student Activity Fund,” Deane said.

SOFC procedures likely to change in forthcoming years

The Wellesley News obtained data from the Bursar’s Office that for the 2024-25 school year, organizations applied for a total of 116 more events than they did last year. Organizations are also more active, hosting more events, as the College bounces back from the pandemic. 

“Even taking inflation into account, there's still an increase in how much orgs want to do. There have also been significant changes within the past year … people are hiring different workers … before the pandemic [CG Cabinet] did not have stipends. The stipends that come out of the student activity,” she said.

While numbers continue to fluctuate, members of the Office remind the student body that their current process for fund distribution has only been in place since the 2019-20 year. As such, SOFC, the Bursar’s Office, and CG Cabinet is looking to see how they can change the policy process to “fairly and appropriately” distribute funds.

Ultimately, Deane sees the Bursar’s Office as an underutilized resource and encourages students who have questions about the funding distribution process to visit the Bursar’s Office when she or Penelope hold Office Hours. 

“Our entire job is to help student organizations get as much money as they need, and to help them to spend that money in the correct way … There have been times where people have negative ideas of the Bursar’s Office because of decisions we don’t make, and that is something we have been working on: to rebuild community ties,” Gordon said.

**Correction: An earlier version of this story indicated that the total allocated by SOFC for the 2024-25 school year was $681,902.70, this number represents the amount allocated only for organizations in the 2024-25 school year, the total allocation was $790,000.00.

Christina Ding contributed to reporting.

Contact the editors responsible for this story: Valida Pau, Sazma Sarwar, Galeta Sandercock

Each year, the President addresses faculty, staff, and students on the first day of class to celebrate the commencement of a new academic year. Convocation speeches generally welcome the incoming class, remind them of Wellesley’s vibrant community, and revel in students’ efforts to make it to where they are today. This year, however, Johnson referenced nation-wide issues regarding the 2024 election and conflicts in the Middle East.

She opened her speech with praise for Simone Biles in how she overcame obstacles and succeeded in the 2024 Paris Olympics and proceeded to highlight Vice President Kamala Harris as another “soaring” woman.

“Whatever your political leanings, it’s impossible not to delight in another soaring woman, the unprecedented presidential candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris, a Black and South Asian woman, a daughter of immigrants, as the nominee of a major party. It is something to celebrate,” Johnson said.

Wellesley students similarly expressed an appreciation for how Harris’s role in the nation uplifts women, regardless of one’s political belief.  

“It’s really exciting for me to see a woman of color running for president. I think it will make a huge impact on the BIPOC community within the United States as a whole, and things feel especially exciting at Wellesley as a historically women’s college,” said Claire Talmon ’27.

At the onset of the 2024 election, Johnson urged the College community to exercise the right to vote, especially in light of the Jan. 6 Capitol violence. Notably, she announced that Wellesley joined 76 other colleges and universities in an effort sponsored by the Institute for Citizens and Scholars to connect classroom education with societal challenges.

“It’s more important than ever that we exercise our right to vote in order to allow for the peaceful transfer of power,” Johnson said. “In such a politically polarized time, young people can sway the course of the future.”

At that moment, an individual in the lower area of the theater interrupted her speech and shouted, “Free Palestine.” Johnson continued her speech after a single cheer and a brief pause. 

“Voting is an expression of hope, and there’s no progress without the hope that things can be better, that life can be freer and fairer in the future,” she said.

Past protests over Clinton Center spark continued debate on campus dialogue

Johnson noted that the start of a new year presents a fresh opportunity to hold conversations “characterized by mutual respect” on the “devastating and fraught” situation in the Middle East. 

This comes as the Israel-Gaza conflict spurred protests and encampments across U.S. universities and colleges. Although there was never an encampment at Wellesley, students organized numerous Pro-Palestinian demonstrations targeted toward the newly created Hillary Rodham Clinton Center. The largest protest occurred on Saturday, April 6, the day Hillary Clinton visited Wellesley to celebrate the new center’s inaugural summit.

In the days leading up to Clinton’s arrival, a pamphlet titled “Dearest Hillary” was circulated around campus. The pamphlet called Clinton “Wellesley’s most beloved war-criminal” and quoted Clinton’s past declarations of support for Israel.

When Clinton arrived on campus on April 6, she was met with a Pro-Palestinian protest. The crowd chanted phrases such as “Hillary, Hillary, you’re a liar; we demand a cease-fire.” 

On April 5, the day before the summit, Vice President and Dean of Students Sheilah Shaw Horton sent a campus-wide email titled “Dear Wellesley Students” that outlined demonstration policies, stating that any student who violates the code of student conduct will be required to leave the summit and receive honor code charges.

The demonstration policy detailed that students must notify the College at least two days in advance of the demonstration. Several students feel that this rule counteracts the very nature of a protest.

“The timing [of the email] was definitely intentional … Protest is supposed to be disruptive, and if you’re trying to make a demonstration policy, essentially its only goal is to make the protest the least disruptive as it possibly can be, and then the spirit of the protest is gone,” said Raines Seeley ’25. “When we’re constantly being told how to protest and how to conduct ourselves, it feels like every statement we try to make is dampened out by the rules of protest.”

Frustration over perceived administrative barriers to student activism

Certain individuals agree that the administration’s actions last year suggest a desire to suppress students’ ability to hold true open dialogue.

“I just think it’s interesting that President Johnson says they want to hear us and want to have open dialogue with us about what is going on but then immediately shuts us down when we start to have those conversations on campus,” said Fabiola Ramirez ’26. 

Furthermore, there is a sense that the administration should support Wellesley students’ involvement in political activism.

“If anything, Wellesley College should be proud of its students for engaging in protest in nonviolent ways,” said Anna Li ’25. 

Nearly all students The News interviewed believed the last academic year was marked by contentious tension between the student body and the administration.

“They [the administration] sometimes appeared to make students quiet instead of letting them express what they truly believed, and I think that created a lot more tension and a very polarized ecosystem,” Talmon said.

From having conversations with upperclassmen, Anya Moore ’28 picked up on the emphasis on conversations over any form of activism.  

“It already feels like there’s more of a focus on ‘let’s just talk it through’ and ‘let’s be civil about it,’ [as if] protests and activism is a lesser form or worse approach to these big issues,” said Moore.

As the campus is marred with polarizing issues such as the Middle East conflicts and the election,  the College reiterates its demonstration policy at the start of the first of the school year while implementing more seminars and workshops on meanings and perspectives on Zionism and Israel/Palestine, starting on the week of Sept. 16. 

Johnson emphasizes open-mindedness in fostering campus unity

In her convocation speech, Johnson further posed questions that prompted individuals to consider how to avoid “targeting and excluding individuals due to their ideas or beliefs or backgrounds.” She discussed the significance of a community open to new ideas that can be contradictory.

Students agree that open-mindedness is integral in sustaining a positive college community.

“I really hope students can have more of an open mind on campus because since it’s such a far-left school, everyone who is in the in-between or on the other side [politically] doesn’t feel safe or as if they have a place here. Even if you don’t agree with what someone believes, just listening to them and open discussion is the most important thing because if you just get mad at someone that’s not going to do anything,” said Talmon.

Johnson ultimately addressed students directly and pledged the College’s commitment to increasing understanding.

“The commitment that I make to you, our students, at this moment of renewal is that as a community, we will work very hard to increase understanding all the way around. Of course, community is at its essence a collaborative effort,” said Johnson. 

Contact the editors responsible for this story: Valida Pau and Sazma Sarwar

Johnson opened her speech with praise for Simone Biles for how she overcame obstacles and succeeded in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Johnson proceeded to highlight Vice President Kamala Harris as another “soaring” woman, celebrating the importance of a woman of color taking on a significant role in the nation.

“Whatever your political leanings, it’s impossible not to delight in another soaring woman, the unprecedented presidential candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris, a Black and South Asian woman, a daughter of immigrants, as the nominee of a major party. It is something to celebrate,” Johnson said.

At the onset of the 2024 election, Johnson urged the College community to exercise the right to vote, especially in light of the Jan. 6 Capitol violence. Notably, she announced that Wellesley joined 76 other colleges and universities in an effort sponsored by the Institute for Citizens and Scholars to connect classroom education with societal challenges.

“It’s more important than ever that we exercise our right to vote in order to allow for the peaceful transfer of power,” Johnson said. “In such a politically polarized time, young people can sway the course of the future.”

At that moment, an individual in the lower area of the theater interrupted her speech and shouted, “Free Palestine.” Johnson continued her speech after a single cheer and a brief pause. 

“Voting is an expression of hope, and there’s no progress without the hope that things can be better, that life can be freer and fairer in the future,” she said.

As convocation marks the commencement of a new academic year, Johnson noted this time as a fresh opportunity to hold conversations “characterized by mutual respect” on the “devastating and fraught” situation in the Middle East. 

This comes as the Israel-Gaza conflict spurred protests and encampments across U.S. universities and colleges. Although students never erected an encampment at Wellesley, they have organized protests against the newly created Hillary Rodham Clinton Center, aimed at “bringing the Wellesley community together with scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to advance democracy.” 

On Sept. 2, Johnson, alongside Provost Courtney Coile and Dean Sheilah Horton, sent an email to the College community titled “Supporting free expression while maintaining a safe and inclusive campus” which detailed the policies on freedom of expression and non-discrimination. 

“ …Think deeply about how we can sustain a culture of mutual regard, particularly in times of disagreement and discord as we witness the tragic ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and so many other places, and amid a very divisive U.S. election campaign,” Johnson said in the email. 

In her convocation speech, Johnson further posed questions that prompted individuals to consider how to avoid “targeting and excluding individuals due to their ideas or beliefs or backgrounds.” She discussed the significance of a community open to new ideas that can be contradictory.

She ultimately addressed students directly and pledged the College’s commitment to increasing understanding.

“The commitment that I make to you, our students, at this moment of renewal is that as a community, we will work very hard to increase understanding all the way around. Of course, community is at its essence a collaborative effort,” Johnson said.

Image Credit: Sazma Sarwar

Contact the editors responsible for this story: Valida Pau and Sazma Sarwar

Updated with a correct spelling of Dean Sheilah Horton’s name.

President Johnson first announced the “original” Clapp renovation plan in April 2023, which largely addressed urgent infrastructural needs of the library.

“The primary goal for the Clapp renovation is to address critical repairs of the failing building infrastructure: heating, cooling, plumbing, electrical systems, roof repairs and accessibility upgrades. Clapp Library was constructed in 1910, with additions in 1915, 1956 and 1975, and most of the infrastructure is dated. The majority of the cost and scope is allocated for these costly upgrades,” Director of Planning, Design & Construction in the Facilities Department Michelle Maheu said.

The original Clapp renovation plan also included improvements in the Archives and Special collections’ teaching spaces, the restoration of the historic Reading Room, the creation of a new testing center for accommodations, an upgraded Maker Space and a new café. Construction of this project began in late December 2023 and was expected to be completed in January 2025. 

However, the March 6, 2024 college announcement informed that the Clapp project will now be completed in late summer of 2025 — in time for the beginning of the 2025-26 academic year — because major donations opened up the possibility to implement programmatic changes beyond structural fixes. 

The updated Clapp renovation plan includes three additional enhancements: the relocation of the Pforzheimer Learning and Teaching Center (PLTC) and Accessibility and Disability Resources (ADR) to a more central location, a new staircase and the modernization of the library’s lobby and service desk.

“Moving the PLTC and ADR … from the third floor to the large area on the second floor adjacent to the presidential portraits reading room … will allow us to design spaces for these important student-facing programs that meet today’s and tomorrow’s needs,” Maheu said.

Those involved in the planning process of the Clapp Project hope that the new staircase will become the centerpiece for the library, encouraging movement between floors and bringing in natural light from the atrium to the ground floor. 

“There’s going to be substantially more space and openness … The stairway going down and opening up and perhaps makes more visible and more accessible the makerspace and the café, which we see increasing interest and desire. We want to promote broad student use of those spaces as a gathering space with Clapp as a central part of our community,” member of Advisory Committee on Library and Technology Policy (ACLTP) Jonathan Kemp said.

Despite these benefits, some students express frustration over the extended closure of the library on top of the tuition increase.

“I think the library is central to a college experience, and while I do enjoy the mods, it sucks that the library is closed and at the same time they are raising tuition. I don’t know how much student voice was in this decision. It’s a long time for [the library to be closed], and I also don’t know how many people would like to choose this to be where their tuition is going,” first-year Hadley Roberts said.

Various faculty members share a disappointment over the extension of the project but feel that its long-term benefits for the institution outweighs this drawback.

“One does not close a facility or relocate a facility like the library without substantial thought on both the impact that’s going to happen and the benefit that you’re going to get from that closure,” Kemp said. “It is really important to say it does pain me that the library will not be available for those extra six months. That is something we did not take lightly in our support of this plan to further extend the library renovation plan. But on the balance with the addition of this newer bold vision for how we want our library to be with the addition of the two longtime college donors who are willing to help support this bolder vision, we felt that on balance, it was something that would best serve many generations of Wellesley.”

The current Clapp Project plan is a result of discussions over multiple years from various parties, including students. Members from ACLTP, Library and Technology Services (LTS), the Provost’s and Deans’ office, Facilities Design and Construction, the Student Leadership Advisory Group, the Capital Renewal Executive Committee (senior-level administrators), the Board of Trustees have been meeting and other affected parties have been meeting since 2022 to evaluate the needs of the Clapp Library. 

The decision to expand the Clapp Project was collective across all these groups.

“We had a lot of consultation … The unanimous feedback was that with the level of the donation, the types of changes that we can make to Clapp [are] changes that we will otherwise not be able to do in the short run, and therefore, it was deemed important to do it even if it means Clapp will be close some additional number of months,” CIO and Associate Provost Ravi Ravishanker said.

Looking long-term, it is expected that there will not be any further renovations to the library for a few decades.

“Any time you touch a building, it’s not cheap … My understanding is that this should see us through for another 20, 30 years,” Ravishanker said.

People involved with the Clapp Project ultimately emphasize that the renovations are a step forward in redefining the library space as an integral part of learning and community on campus.

“I think we can express our academic priorities and values through the space use and design of the library. I think by improving and modernizing Clapp, we’re able to provide a better library for future generations of students. While the initial vision was to think about things perfunctory, perhaps out of sight of the average library user, this improvement of expansion modernization will really be a substantial benefit to our community and its ability to deliver its resources, its services, fantastic staff and collections,” Kemp said.

 Patty Birch, assistant dean for intercultural education, and the Harambee House hosted the annual Black Excellence Gala on Friday, Feb. 16 in the Alumnae Ballroom. The Harambee Singers commenced the event by performing various harmonies, and a dinner catered by Nzuko — a Caribbean and Mediterranean fusion restaurant — followed. The main event of the night was the keynote speech from Aziza Yasin Esq. ’94. The 2022 recipient of WCAA Sed Ministrare Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service and 2023 alumna recipient of the Black Excellence Award delivered a speech on black excellence that revolved around Maya Angelou’s poem “Phenomenal Woman.” Dean Birch then announced three awardees of the event, with one being Linda Brown-San Martin ’70, director of the Harambee Singers. The event concluded with singing and dancing among the choir and audience.

Jordan Lecture – Michael Abels

The Jordan Lecture featuring composer and arranger Michael Abels took place on Thursday, Feb. 15 in Tishman Commons. Titled “Finding Miracles: One Artist’s Social Justice Journey in a Capitalistic World,” the lecture illuminated how Abels has navigated his life as an artist, educator and learner. Abels talked about how his queer and biracial identity has influenced his multi-genre music, how to combine art with entrepreneurship, and above all, how to take calculated risks while following one’s desires. At the end of the lecture, audience members had a chance to ask Abels about his process of composing the soundtracks for Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Nope, his relationship with inspiration, and his advice for young artists.

“There was a whiteboard in Tower Court that had been used to advertise the Tupelos concert that was happening on Friday [Dec. 8, 2023]. The whiteboard stayed in Great Hall all day Saturday, and it was noted that there was nothing written on Saturday as late as after CE hours ended, so sometime between 10 that evening and the next morning someone wrote the N-word on the board,” Tower Hall Community Director Don Leach said.

Early Sunday morning a student alerted Alex Cahn ’24, Tower’s house president, of what was written on the whiteboard. Cahn subsequently reported the incident to Leach and took the board away at around 10:00-11:00 a.m.

“I was setting up for the Tower yard sale with a couple of other people that [Sunday] morning … The whiteboard that the N-word was written on was by one of the booths in Great Hall facing the Tower West Entrance, so none of us setting up for the yard sale could see it … then Alex came in and announced ‘I’m gonna have to clean off this whiteboard’ and took it,” Tower East ASC Eliza White ’26 said.

Once Leach was notified of what occurred, he reported it to his supervisor, met with the student who first alerted the Office of Residential Life, and contacted the Title IX office. Campus Police was also notified. 

The case is still under investigation, as it is difficult to discover who wrote the N-word and why. Notably, there is no evidence as to whether the individual who wrote it was a Wellesley student or someone who visited campus over the weekend.

“We don’t really have any sense who did this, why they did it, out of what mindset or with what intention. It’s sort of a mystery. We don’t even know that it was a Wellesley resident who did it,” Leach said. “The Title IX office did not respond … They would have responded to an affected party. The person who discovered it was not a targeted party, so I don’t think there was much to investigate, or you wouldn’t know who to investigate. With whom would you investigate when there wasn’t a person who was directly impacted in a way that they were singled out that others weren’t?”

Regardless, students and staff recognize the harm that such incidents can evoke, especially for Black students on campus.

“I was wondering [about] the context of who wrote it. It makes me think that the population of Black students on campus is already kind of small … [and] this kind of event, given whatever the context was, can be potentially very isolating to Black students on campus,” Grace Rigsby ’26 said. “It’s scary because you don’t know who around campus has those potentially negative feelings about Black students.”

Several Black students also acknowledge that racist acts occur frequently outside of Wellesley and are not altogether surprising.

“I come from a very conservative state where worse did happen, so this seems like a minor incident to me … I think what a lot of students at Wellesley kind of missed though is that we are in a bubble of people who are very supportive and will not tolerate anything like this, but once we leave this bubble and go out into the real world, there are people who are going to say things that make you want to rip out your hair … Just holding your head up high and having pride within who you are as a person is the best thing you can do for yourself,” Rama Ceesay ’27 said.

In an email sent to the Wellesley College Community on Dec. 11, 2023, President Paula Johnson condemned any sort of hateful expression on campus.

“Let me be as direct and emphatic as I can: There is no place for expressions of hate on our campus. As I have said repeatedly in different contexts, we are committed to creating an inclusive campus environment where all students feel safe and welcomed. We will not allow incidents of hate to slow our work of building and sustaining a community that treats everyone with dignity and respect,” Johnson said. 

Many people continue to call for more action on behalf of the administration in actively protecting marginalized students.

“I think admin should not be afraid to say we are in solidarity with our Black students … Like going forward, say there is an incident involving a Black student. Would the administration [have] the outrage that is needed? Or would it kind of just subside and people forget about it because it’s uncomfortable to talk about?” Rigsby said.

For now, Black student groups on campus offer spaces of solidarity.

“I’ve spoken to other Black students on campus about how they might be feeling isolated in certain academic settings or just on campus and so I think that’s why it’s so important to have places like Harambee House and Ethos and organizations that can allow for Black students to feel in solidarity with one another especially if admin isn’t always in that position for them,” Rigsby said.

Ultimately, members of the student body hope that this incident does not dismantle the trust that exists within the Wellesley community.

“I think it is important to realize that people who do this are such a small fraction in Massachusetts or just the Wellesley area in general, and I think it’d be really unfortunate if people use this as an excuse to start targeting other races and spread hate towards them,” Ceesay said.

There is hope that continued conversations, whether at the individual or dorm-level, will provide progress in better understanding the people around us.

“First and foremost, it’s important to talk to Black students and people of color within the dorm community and understand how they feel about it. I think we can’t really make a plan to move forward until we understand what members of our community most impacted by this event feel about it and how they feel it would be best to move forward. I think without that we could do more harm by just moving on without addressing it. It’s important to make a connection with these impacted members of our community first,” White said.

Campus Police invites students to share any information regarding what happened on Dec. 9, 2023, with the Police Department.

“With the rest of the College, the Public Safety & Police Department treats these cases very seriously. We strongly condemn such hateful expression. The case remains under investigation by the Public Safety & Police Department, and anyone with any information is asked to notify Officer Brendan Cairney at bcairney@wellesley.edu or call 781-283-2121,” Director of Public Safety and Chief of Police Kenneth M. Walsh said.

The majority of students who participated in the Special Election on Oct. 17 chose to abstain from voting, leaving the Bursar’s Office, the College Government (CG) Cabinet, and the Student Organization Funding Committee (SOFC) without a Student Bursar to fulfill the position’s usual duties.

Although any junior or senior is eligible to run for the position, the path to becoming the Student Bursar has historically been as follows: one becomes a bookkeeper their sophomore year, the Head Bookkeeper their junior year, and the Bursar their senior year. This trajectory did not actualize for the 2023-24 school year, as the student originally elected to be Bursar chose to step down in August before the academic year began, and the current Head Bookkeeper decided not to step into the role. 

Members of the Bursar’s Office and CG explain that so few students desire the Student Bursar position because of three main problems: the immense workload, the pay drop in comparison to being a bookkeeper and the social consequences that come with the role.

“Being a bookkeeper can be stressful … when you’re dealing with financials about orgs that students are really passionate about … Then, the Student Bursar has a whole lot more stress because they are the face of the Bursar’s Office and SOFC, so when anyone has a problem, they’re the fall guy, they’re the person to blame. They’re supposed to be in charge of everything. And not only that, they have so many committees that they’re on: Academic Council, Cabinet, SOFC, Budgetary Advisory Committee,” bookkeeper Katherine Deane ’25 said. 

The rigorous nature of the position demands experienced candidates, which is why the Bursar position usually falls to someone who has spent multiple years in the Bursar’s Office.

“It’s a bookkeeper and SOFC’s job to follow the rules, but it’s the Student Bursar’s job to bend and break those rules. However, a Student Bursar can only do that when they understand what the rules are, and unfortunately, [the person who ran for bursar] just didn’t have enough experience … We have no one authoritative leader … and if we were to elect someone who knows nothing about SOFC, we would still have this problem,” Deane said.

The Bursar’s Office usually consists of five bookkeepers, one Head Bookkeeper and the Student Bursar. Bookkeepers primarily act as liaisons between SOFC and student organizations, processing payments for orgs and advocating for orgs in meetings. The Head Bookkeeper works closely with the Bursar, making purchases, sending out emails and helping bookkeepers with questions and tasks.

The current Head Bookkeeper — who asked not to be named in the article — elaborated that the Bursar’s Office is still functioning without a Student Bursar.

“With the lack of a bursar, we’re operating pretty similarly as we used to. We don’t have a link to CG or admin, but personally I’m trying to sit in on as many meetings as I can to keep everyone in the loop. The bookies have been amazing and are taking on more responsibilities than they used to so that things can get done on time. Sure, it’s difficult keeping track of things because it’s a structure we’re not used to, but on the student org level, it shouldn’t be impacting them in a big way … [However,] I think CG is quite impacted because communication is less streamlined when there’s no bursar,” the Head Bookkeeper ’25 said.

Since the Bursar sits on SOFC, CG Cabinet, and the administration’s Budgetary Advisory Committee, they act as a liaison between the various groups to inform on college-wide financial issues. 

“They have the biggest picture understanding of how all the little pieces are fitting together. They’re able to … come to Senate [and] go to other students to provide context on how our various financial processes work … They’re the person who can look at a situation and be like, ‘Listen, there are some special circumstances here. The regular policies shouldn’t necessarily apply the way we usually apply them. We either need to change a policy or make an exception’ … so we’re missing that wide angle lens to student finance,” CG President Ingrid Bell ’24 said.

However, part of the problem with the Student Bursar position is exactly how many commitments it entails: it takes a tremendous amount of time to attend all the aforementioned meetings and manage the numerical side of finances. Furthermore, if a student has been a bookkeeper for multiple years, becoming the Bursar would mean taking a pay cut.

“I won’t lie and say that at one point I didn’t want to be Student Bursar, but at this point, I just can’t afford to take the pay cut … [As a bookkeeper,] you start out with a baseline salary of $15 an hour, but every year I keep the job I get a pay raise … but the Student Bursar doesn’t have that luxury. They just get paid a stipend, and it’s a stipend of [about] $3,000 a year … If you do the math of how much the Student Bursar is working, it’s way more, so they’re making sub-minimum wage for a job that is way more stressful than my job,” Deane said.

Students in CG emphasize that a large part of this stress lies in the social animosity directed towards the Bursar.

“That person [the Bursar] is often just absolutely enemy number one on campus. It’s a job that gets a lot of hate every time an org doesn’t like their funding decision, every time a reimbursement is slow, every time something like that happens, people will say vile things. Bursars have had angry notes left on their doors, bursars have had people email them like call them slurs and emails, like people will be just awful,” Bell said. “I’ve heard the bookies say that part of it is a culture issue, like if folks felt less like taking that job was like signing up to be hated, they might be more inclined to take the job.”

Although bookkeepers understand there are emotional tensions surrounding the delegation of money, they share that they also hope to help organizations receive their desired funding. However, to do so, organizations must follow a specific set of procedures.

“When it comes to the Bursar’s Office … we even get a lot of hate, and I’ll be honest, most of the time, it isn’t our fault … We as bookkeepers have to follow college policy. It is our job, and we are also students, and this is our on-campus job. We’re not out to get you. If anything, we all want to help orgs get funded. It’s just we have to follow certain procedures and certain policies, and a lot of times, orgs don’t understand those procedures … but we’re here ultimately to help,” Deane said.

At the moment, no bookkeeper nor Head Bookkeeper wants to be the Student Bursar. There will be another Special Election in the spring, but there are doubts that anyone will get elected without changes made to the position.

“I think that someone who was a bookkeeper could definitely say, ‘Yeah, I want to be Bursar next year,’ but for this year, I can’t confidently say that anyone within the office would want to do it, especially knowing that they would have to do catch up for all of the fall semester’s workload in the spring as well. At this point it would be better for someone to come in, do the upkeep for this year, and then next year, it can go back to being like a student position,” bookkeeper Alex Dennis ’24 said.

While the absence of a bursar this fall semester has left a large hole to fill, the workload of the Bursar has been piling up long before this school year started.

“Last spring, a lot of the work that needed to get done by the Bursar’s office didn’t because there were external things [going on with] last year’s Bursar … Additionally, it’s such a big job that there have been problems with the role forever that have slowly stacked on top of each other. Last spring just pushed us over this critical point where it became such a big job and there was so much extra to do at the beginning of the year and everything was sort of falling apart that the person who had been elected just didn’t feel like they could handle all of that on top of regular school,” Bell said.

To address the issue of the Bursar’s workload, Bell, Jessica Grady and Dean Horton have been looking to hire a staff person to perform some of the administrative tasks that the Bursar handles.

“We’ve been approved to hire a casual-wage person, so somebody who would work a maximum of 15 hours a week, which makes it a non-benefited position … [They would help with how] every time you buy something for an org, you have to submit a reimbursement, or [when] a whole bunch of complicated formulas need to be run through Excel to spit out the final budget. Numbers and everything. There’s all this accounting, sort of clerical work, that it would be really great to have a person supporting. Their title would be something like administrative assistant to the Student Bursar’s Office,” Bell said.

The job has been posted since September, but there have been no qualified applicants.

“No one qualified has applied for it because it’s 15 hours a week without benefits and what grown-adult can take a job that’s 15 hours a week without benefits? … [We] are all talking about how much it would cost to hire a part-time staff person as a part-time benefited position,” Bell said.

The other way to incentivize the Student Bursar position is by raising pay. Before 2017, CG Cabinet positions — including the Bursar — were entirely unpaid. However, when Rose Whitlock ’18 realized this, she brought the issue to Senate and got a constitutional amendment passed, granting each CG Cabinet member a stipend of 3.5% of the Student Activities Fee.

Any student can propose a ballot initiative to increase the stipend for the Student Bursar. If proposed, the decision would be made in March during the CG election cycle. 

“Until the pay issue is fixed, like the school comes together to increase the Student Bursar’s stipend, or the [harsh] climate when it comes to the Bursar’s office and SOFC is changed … I don’t think there’s going to be a Student Bursar anytime soon,” Deane said. “This issue of the Student Bursar not being paid enough and there being no Student Bursar has happened before, but it is a problem that will keep popping up until something is fixed … I’d like to see one of the senators from SOFC or general members of the student body bring up [this discussion].”

For now, the bookkeepers and Head Bookkeeper are sharing the responsibilities of the Bursar, and the Bursar’s Office is still functioning, albeit less efficiently than usual. The main concerns are the lack of communication between CG, SOFC and the Bursar’s Office, and the fact that orgs currently cannot hire student workers, as the Bursar usually processes the hires. Still, students have hope that the situation will change.

“I think the role needs a lot of restructuring and reorganizing, but I’m hoping that the workload will be reduced and made more manageable for someone to consider running in the future without it taking over their lives,” the Head Bookkeeper said.

Ultimately, members of the Bursar’s Office call for changes rooted in the student body.

“Again, if there was a pay increase, and Wellesley dealt with some of its student negativity especially towards the Bursar’s Office and the Student Bursar, I think that definitely, there will be Student Bursars in the future. It’s just that now, this culmination of events and factors make it so that there’s no Student Bursar. But I believe in Wellesley. We’ve had this problem before, and we fixed it,” Deane said.

The Wellesley News interviewed two dining hall workers, Claudia Gonzalez and Roselle (Rosie) Andre, to shed light on the humans behind the counters.

Claudia Gonzalez (GSW Worker)

Claudia Gonzalez has worked at Wellesley College for nearly five years. She spent her first two years at the College Club, providing for functions and reunions, before moving to the Stone-Davis kitchen amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I used to work there [the College Club], and then they moved me because they closed that place, so I had to choose which kitchen [to move to], and I chose to come here [to Stone-Davis],” Gonzalez said.

As a General Service Worker (GSW), Gonzalez washes pots and pans and sometimes takes on the role of general cook.

“I’m very happy with the job. Seriously. I mean, the pots and pans are very hard and it’s not an easy job, but I mean, I like it. I came here happy, and that’s what I tell my coworkers. You have to like what you do, and so far I like it,” Gonzalez said.

A large source of Gonzalez’s contentment comes from her daily interactions with students. She specifically notes her pride in connecting with students from El Salvador, her home country, from which she came 21 years ago at age 16.

“I have many [students], who you know, are my friends. I get to know this one especially because she’s from my country, the only Salvadorian I know that comes to this college. Her name is Elizabeth. I’m very proud that she’s here,” Gonzalez said.

Outside of work, Gonzalez enjoys spending time with her two daughters, Zoe and Giselle, aged six and 16. Gonzalez’s sister and mother help take care of Zoe and Giselle when she is working from Tuesday through Saturday.

“I like to go out with my daughters to the restaurants, to the mall … Giselle’s very mature. She’s a very good girl, very, very smart … I’m very comfortable working because I know my daughters are good and somebody is with them,” Gonzalez said.

Moving forward, Gonzalez has hopes of earning a display cook qualification to achieve a new position in the kitchen.

“You have to take a test, you have to study, you need to know a lot of cooking stuff, so that way you can go to a different position … For example, to work at the pizza station, you need to have the display cook qualification, you’re not gonna see a GSW cooking over there, so that’s what I’m trying to do,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez’s aspirations stem from her desire to do her best work along with her optimistic outlook on life. Ultimately, Gonzales emphasizes that her goal is to provide for students and to be there for them.

“We all try hard here to have all the food ready and good, you know? Hopefully you guys enjoy it because we’re here for you guys. Seriously, we are, and we try our best for you. That’s what we do,” Gonzalez said.

Roselle Andre (Head Cook)

Roselle, or Rosie, Andre is the head cook of the Stone-Davis kitchen. In a little over a month, on Nov. 25, she will have worked at the college for 18 years. She has worked in the Stone-Davis kitchen for the past six years.

“I came here [to America] in 2001. I started at Ruby Tuesday … then moved to another job, Roche Bros, here in Wellesley. Then I heard about Wellesley College … and then I started as third cook [in 2005] … and now I am a head cook here [at Stone-Davis],” Andre said.

When Andre first moved to America from Brazil, she had a difficult time learning English. However, she held faith in herself and persisted through the challenges of living in a foreign country.

“To be honest, English for me when I started was very difficult. I learn, I study, I know I have a lot more to learn. So I know I do not have a perfect English … This is very difficult for me … I was thinking about giving up on my first month working here and then I talked to myself and said, ‘No, I’m not gonna give up. I can do it. A lot of people can do it, why I cannot do it?’ And then I did it. I did. 18 years,” Andre said.

Now, Andre finds immense joy in her job, especially in working with the people — whom she refers to as friends — in the Stone-Davis kitchen.

“I love it here, especially the people, the coworkers. We like each other. We work as a team. We help each other,” Andre said.

Furthermore, working at a historically women’s college is an enriching experience that fills Andre with a sense of duty.

“Being at a women’s college is very important. I’m a feminist. I fight for our rights. It’s very important for everyone to have rights and to treat us with respect … It’s important for men and women to have the same level, as a job, as a human being,” Andre said. “When I got this job it made me so happy, so happy, because especially I believe in us. I believe in women and our power.”

Looking back at her time at Wellesley, Andre reflects proudly on the progress she has made, both personally and professionally.

“See[ing] how I became the woman that I became since I started working here, I changed a lot for good. Especially because I’m feeding people. It is important for me … In my last kitchen, Bates, I was a second cook, and I started at Caz[enove] … as a third cook, so the one thing that makes me so proud is how I grow here. It makes me so proud,” Andre said.

Her love for feeding students is evident in her ability to recall specific moments when students enjoyed her food. Andre especially takes pride in cooking traditional Brazilian meals such as feijoada, frango com quiabo, and fish stew.

“The first time I cooked feijoada here, I saw girls came and checked the sign. It makes me so happy … They came up with a small plate, and they put a little bit and then later on they came back and have a big plate!” Andre said.

In her free time, she stays home, or spends the day at the movie theater, going from movie to movie, or watches sports.

“If I was staying in Brazil today, I would like to … write about sports … I used to play soccer in college, [and] I was very good in volleyball. I watch every, all kinds of sports,” Andre said. 

Andre’s passion for  life extends well beyond the Stone-Davis kitchen, and she expresses a particular devotion to the women in her life. In referring to Claudia Gonzalez, Andre deems her ‘her best friend.’

“She’s my best friend. She’s my best friend. We help each other. Especially for the girls. Yeah, we don’t do it for us. This is very important. This is very important. We do it for you girls,” Andre said.

“There were rather disturbing amounts of dust … and other kinds of debris all over the place, particularly on shelves and in books,” Chair of the English department Prof. Yoon Lee said. 

This was largely due to a mishap during construction when a tarp meant to block off parts of a first-floor office fell down.

“[The workers] had removed books from half the office, and then they put up a plastic tarp or drop cloth to block off the other half of the office. Unfortunately, that drop cloth was hanging down from the ceiling, so there was concern regarding not only the section where the books have been removed, but the section that was supposed to have been blocked off … It was alarming,” English Prof. Yu Jin Ko said. 

In a Zoom meeting between the English department and administrators, Ko demonstrated the buildup of debris on his windowsill.

“I took my finger over the shelves, and used a piece of paper, and gray smudges came off very, very visible … but I think the people doing the cleaning just didn’t have the time. They were under such a rush that they couldn’t do the cleaning that was promised,” Ko said. 

Since the construction started on the fourth floor and progressed downward, it was primarily first-floor rooms and the basement that remained partially uncleaned. At sight of this, Lee and other English faculty contacted administration, requesting a professional cleaning. Before the cleaning occurred, Ko used a lead testing kit in Founders on Sept. 7.

“I was worried … because it was clearly construction dust … There was a combination of things that were worked on [during construction] … that clearly had old paint on it, and the windows had asbestos on the outside of [it], so I decided to test the dust for lead,” Ko said.

The test revealed there was lead present in the areas swabbed. Ko knew his results were preliminary and did not definitively communicate whether the lead levels were sufficiently dangerous. Still, he had conducted the test because much of the first-floor faculty and staff wanted more information.

“We also learned in a meeting … that lead testing was not part of their [the administration’s] original plan. They were not planning to do it at all,” Lee said. “[This] has been an ongoing source of tension with our department that we have to consistently just keep asking and asking for information and feel as though it is not really being given to us.”

According to the Office of Media Relations, Environmental Health and Engineering (EH&E), the environmental consultant company Wellesley hired to conduct representative air and surface lead testing in the building, published its full report on Oct. 3. It concluded that indoor lead conditions in Founders do not pose a health risk, largely based on detection of no lead in the air.

“This is important because airborne lead is the primary pathway for exposure to lead in workplaces,” EH&E stated in the report.

Regarding surface lead levels, the report relayed an average level of surface lead of 120 mg/ft2 and, comparing it to a 1,000 mg/ft2 limit for “commercial buildings” recommended by an isolated study from 2001, determined it nonthreatening.

However, four outlier measurements (out of 50 total data points) were well above 1,000 mg/ft2, ranging from 2,430 to 6,130 mg/ft2. Furthermore, Prof. Dan Brabander of the Geoscience department said this benchmark was based off of the CDC’s acceptable limit for blood lead concentration at the time of the study – and that this figure has been lowered considerably since 2001.

“Since then … the CDC has lowered twice the amount that is acceptable in lead before it’s considered poisoning … [and] it’s worth noting that the World Health Organization also has a very strong statement that articulates that no lead exposure has been shown to be safe,” he said.

The variation in these limits, Brabander explained, are partially due to the difference between the amount of lead likely to be ingested and amount of lead which becomes biochemically available – i.e. that actually enters the bloodstream. He emphasizes that there are many factors that affect how lead incorporates itself into the bloodstream, which makes risk difficult to evaluate. This is why Brabander finds the implications of the EH&E’s data to be much more complicated than what is presented in the report’s executive summary.

“Understanding exposure risks … goes beyond just the concentrations that are recorded in a document. One also has to take into account behaviors that might minimize [or] potentially increase incident exposures to that,” Brabander said.

Furthermore, Brabander notes that the small sample size of this study, though understandable in practice, makes it difficult to know how extraneous these outliers truly are.

“When you have a small sample size … whether you choose a 95th percentile or a 90th percentile [has] much bigger ramifications in terms of your risk modeling. This was particularly exacerbated in this case with several samples that were … 10 to 100 times higher than some of the other samples… [In these cases] it becomes necessary to make assumptions about what is representative. And that’s where I have some differences of opinion in terms of the choices that were made.”

Meanwhile, professors have been making their own decisions about how to operate under these uncertainties.

“I’m not confident that the building is safe. Any lead dust on the surfaces could become airborne if hit with a gust of wind and then easily inhaled … [so] I am teaching outside in the tent and holding office hours there as well,” English Prof. Susan Meyer said.

Students, too, underscore the desire for better communication.

“I don’t know how much of a risk [the lead] was to us or our class. I really would like to know more because it is definitely something that impacts people’s health. I think always just honesty … having some kind of an announcement of why and what exactly was going on would be nice,” Hadley Roberts‘27 said.

Moreover, faculty emphasize that lead is not the only issue. High humidity and water leakage – potentially a result of windows left open during and after construction –  have created other problems.

“Books were wet to the touch and many of them had … significant mildew … There was also mildew all over the furniture in the English common room,” Lee said of her encounter with the building on Sept. 4, prior to the start of the semester. Without a clean common room, the department has still been unable to host their usual “Welcome Back” events for majors and prospective students.

Water damage, too, has infiltrated some rooms – most severely affecting English department administrator Lisa Easley’s office, who has been working remotely as a result since the start of the semester. The cause of this is unclear, though the English faculty noted upon their arrival that their windows had been left open.

“We don’t know when [the windows] were open,” Lee said, though she hypothesizes it was early-to-mid summer when the construction company was doing asbestos removal. “We later learned that the hardware had broken on these windows, when they were opening them.”

Another potential cause of the damage is humidity. An employee from a company hired to clean the damaged books (after the English faculty’s initial communication with admin) showed Lee that his humidity meter, when placed on the desk in her classroom, read 71%. 

“The books were all just getting wet from the air. Everything was feeling wet,” she said.

They have since received air filters and dehumidifiers, which have improved conditions. But Lee expresses her concern that, with climate change, things will only get worse – perhaps far beyond the capacity of an old building like Founders.

“The question that I would like to know is: why is there no plan to renovate Founders when …  the building … as it currently exists, is not able to meet the changing climate?”