When a student brought this issue up in the April 19 Senate meeting, President Paula Johnson responded, “The word ‘woman’ or ‘women’ will not be erased from the plan because that is a major board decision that would need to be made, but we’ve heard you and we will go through the plan.”

This should not be a board decision. The Board of Trustees has shown time and time again that they will not make progressive decisions because of their interest in attracting donors, as evidenced by the proposal this year to divest from fossil fuels — which the board is only paying attention to in its smaller, defanged iteration, after several years of nearly constant student pressure. The board has demonstrated repeatedly that it lags behind in embracing Wellesley’s progressive values. This also applies to the continued conversations around the place of transgender students at Wellesley. 

This lack of gender-affirming language is one of the many continued affronts to the transgender community at Wellesley. The school’s Missions and Values page states that “Wellesley’s mission is to provide an excellent liberal arts education to women who will make a difference in the world.” This is followed by a list of values, including diversity, inclusion and gender equality. This claim of valuing inclusivity and gender equality is contradictory to the language they use and the ways in which Wellesley may confirm applicants’ gender status, such as requesting letters from healthcare providers, clergies, parents and/or teachers. To this extent, it comes across not as a way to openly accept non-men, but a mode to continue the erasure of transgender and non-binary students at Wellesley. 

In order to fulfil the College’s original stated goal of making the world better, that mission must change. And in order to do so, we must update the mission statement and start acknowledging in public what we’ve known on-campus for years: we are not all “Wellesley Women” anymore. (Not that we ever were, really—as reported in the News, Wellesley class of 1936 alum N.E.B. Ostermann was one of many students at this school who challenged normative ideas of gender decades before much of the world began to catch up). 

The experiences of transgender students at Wellesley are not well-documented. The News has published fewer than ten articles that include “transgender” in their headlines since 2015, when Wellesley began its policy of accepting applications from transgender women. And the College’s official publications, such as the alumnae magazine, mention transgender students even less; there is one, single article with the word “transgender” in a headline in Wellesley’s alumae magazine’s online archives, and only 17 that mention the word “transgender” at all.

In Wellesley’s official data regarding demographics of the student body, transgender students are not mentioned, either. Anecdotally, it is clear that trans students exist at Wellesley, but we aren’t given the numbers needed to prove that to the outside world. The only dataset our editors were able to encounter that even stated the number of trans students on campus was the NCHA-II schoolwide health survey from Spring 2018.This survey placed trans and nonbinary students at 7.8% of the student body: so, roughly 200 students, give or take — and this was  three years ago.

As explained in Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein’s Data Feminism, the selection of which datasets are collected and published is not without bias: the numbers that we choose to observe and interpret always say something about which things — and which groups of people — we value. So, the lack of accessible data on trans students at Wellesley is either a deliberate administrative choice or a form of neglect on their part. 

But despite this archival silence and continual, active administrative silencing, transgender students at Wellesley are not going  away. Those of us on the Editorial Board of this newspaper certainly won’t be staying silent. 

Trans students are not a small, insignificant part of Wellesley; they lead and contribute to this College’s community in every way possible. They are your student leaders, RAs, tutors, organizers and student government members. Simply put, Wellesley would not be the same without the contributions of trans students. 

While the Editorial Board understands that using “women-only” language might appeal to elderly donors, those of us at the College now must consider withholding our future donations if this continues. Why would students donate to the preservation of a place that doesn’t want to acknowledge that transgender and non-binary students exist?

What makes Wellesley special is its student body, and trans students are a necessary part of that. By embracing that, Wellesley can become a much more beautiful and meaningful community for all of us, trans and cis students alike. Our diversity is what makes us strong, after all. So, to the Board of Trustees: acknowledging and uplifting transgender students’ contributions to Wellesley isn’t something to fear, but something to celebrate.

Wellesley College’s administration must stop lagging so shamefully behind its student body in its conception of what gender means. This school must recognize that transgender and non-binary students make Wellesley better, and start putting in more effort to become a supportive environment for those students, too. 

Here at the Wellesley News, we welcome dialogue, especially responses to our staff editorials. For this reason, we thank you for your letter regarding our piece on funding sources. In the interest of productive discourse, we would like to take the time to respond to some of the issues you raised in your submission.

First, we would like to reply to what you called an “error of fact”, that is, that “the Wellesley student community voiced aggravation and dissatisfaction.” While the original piece did not include direct quotations, such sentiments did exist on campus. In fact, WCTV Boobtube, in their first episode of season 10, “Koch-ed Up,” lampooned the donations. A thread on Wellesley Women for Hillary, an alumnae and student facebook group, included a number of thoughtful comments which expressed both support and criticism alike. These are a few examples which indicate that there was a marked response to this announcement. Our editorial did not intend to “insinuate a homogeneity of community” as you claim. Our diverse staff is acutely aware of the variety of perspectives that exist on the Wellesley College campus.

While your announcement was made in Academic Council, this event is closed to the student body at large. The original assertion of the editorial was that funding sources should be disclosed to students specifically. You argue that making an announcement in this forum is akin to doing just that, due to the presence of student government representatives. Multicultural Affairs Coordinator Sydney Stewart ’18, stated that, in her own practices, she would “strongly disagree with that statement.” She continued by noting that “as College Government Cabinet, we’ve never shared anything with the student body through Senate that was discussed in Academic Council.” Members of the student body are not often provided with updates from these proceedings. Therefore, making an announcement in that setting is not the same as addressing the entire student body.

We agree with you that student representation in committees needs to clearly embody a responsibility of advocacy. However, we disagree with your assertion that the practice of not conveying messages is a “failure.” Multicultural Affairs Coordinator Sydney Stewart ’18 believes “that this statement is quite polarized as it was never explicitly indicated to members of Cabinet by any member of the Academic Council, to [her] knowledge, that the conversations discussed in Academic Council should be discussed with the student body.”

With regards to our news article, you were entirely forthcoming and transparent. However, the lead for that article did not come from the Freedom Project. Rather, a student reporter reached out to you for comment. That is a significantly different series of events, in our opinion, than your assertion that you sought to inform students.

On balance, the editorial, to be clear, did not focus on the Freedom Project. The thoughts were not leveraged against this particular organization in any way. The statement regarding the response to Koch Brothers’ funding served as a transition from permeating student concern in our forums to a larger institutional issue. The thesis of the editorial, in fact, was that “the reaction to this news is indicative of a larger issue: students are not made aware of how campus events are financed.” The following line was “This sentiment is not exclusive to the Freedom Project.”

We would like to emphasize again that the editorial in no way was dedicated to the Freedom Project. Your allegation that we are accusing the organization of hosting biased speakers is misguided. In fact, the editorial clearly noted that you enjoy “absolute academic freedom and autonomy.” Because the piece was not directed at the Freedom Project, there was no need to explore the background or to give the campus an account of its activities. It was unrelated to the overall point, which was to discuss funding. We discussed a variety of examples, and noted especially renovation projects on campus.Our dialogue focused on potential issues, misconceptions and questions that might arise when donors are not disclosed.

In closing, we thank you for your letter and willingness to participate in this discussion. However, we stand by our original editorial for these reasons: There was not an error of fact in our assertion that members of the community were dissatisfied by this funding. Secondly, reports made in Academic Council are not widely circulated to the student body. Finally, the editorial was not a calculated assault on the Freedom Project.

Regards,

The Editorial Board of

the Wellesley News

Wellesley Swim & Dive has competed in two meets so far this season. The team was ranked third in the NEWMAC Preseason Poll and took on the top two NEWMAC teams, MIT and Springfield, on Sunday Nov. 6. Wellesley swimmers posted eleven top five finishes during the meet, and Cathy Chen and Lindsey Wu both earned first place finishes in the 100M back and 100M breast respectively. The team finished in third overall with 169 points on the weekend. This weekend, Wellesley Swim and Dive faced Simmons in Wellesley’s Chandler Pool. Wellesley won seven of the sixteen events while Simmons won nine. Wellesley swimmers finished in the first, second, and third spots in the 200M Fly, 100M Fly, and 200M IM. The team ended the day with 139.5 points to tie Simmons. Next Saturday November 19, Wellesley Swim & Dive will face Seven Sister rivals Mount Holyoke. Mount Holyoke enters the event with a record of 1-2. The meet will take place at Wellesley’s Chandler Pool at 1:00 p.m.

Wellesley Fencing opened up their 2016-2017 season this past Sunday afternoon for the annual Vassar Invitational. The Blue were 4-4 on the day, defeating Queens, Hunter, Yeshiva and Haverford, while losing to Stevens, Drew, Northwestern, and Cornell. First year Brie Maurer (Fredericksburg, VA) and junior Taylor Hood (Lexington, KY) combined for 35 wins. Maurer led the team with a record of 18-6. In saber, sophomore Meg Harney (Wilmette, IL) and junior Madeleine Barowsky (Framingham, MA) led with a 15-9 records and Cassandra Cronin (John Creek, GA) led the team with a 13-11 mark in epee. The Wellesley Fencing team will compete again next weekend in the first Northeast Fencing Conference meet of the season on Saturday, Nov. 19, at 8:30 a.m. at MIT.

This week, Wellesley athletes Yasmine Reece and first-year Carley Phillips earned All-NEWMAC Conference Honors. Sophomore Reece earned first team honors for the second time in her collegiate career. She led the Blue in blocks and kills this season and helped the team to a sixth place finish in the NEWMAC tournament. First-year Phillips finished an impressive first season with seven goals, two assists, and sixteen points to lead the team. Phillips also helped lead her team to a quarterfinal finish in the NEWMAC tournament this fall.   

The Blue Tennis team advanced to the NEWMAC finals this past weekend after beating Babson in the semi-finals. The two-seeded Wellesley tennis team held a 2-1 lead on the first-seeded MIT following doubles play. MIT would come back to win 5-3, in the championship match to take the 2016 NEWMAC Championship and guarantee an automatic bid to the 2017 NCAA Division III Tennis Championship in the spring.

Wellesley opened up strong with two double victories in the No.1 and No. 2 matches. Wellesley senior Carina Chen (Hong Kong) and sophomore Justine Huang (Coto de Caza, CA) won the No. 1 match 8-2 defeating MIT’s Kelly Zhu and Lara Rakocevic. While senior

Andjela Stojkovic (Victoria, British Columbia) and first year Sarah Yan (Holmdel, NJ) defeated their MIT competition 8-5, to finish the NEWMAC season undefeated. The singles portion of the competition favored MIT with 5 of the 6 matches ending in an Engineer’s victory, leading to a final overall score of 5-3 and making MIT the NEWMAC Champions.

The Blue put up notable effort resulting in seven players receiving NEWMAC all-conference honors and first year Yan receiving the Rookie of the Year award. The team ended their impressive fall campaign 10-2 and will return to the court’s next semester for their spring season.

Crew

The 2016 National Champion Blue crew team was back in action this past weekend at the Head of Charles Regatta. The Blue opened up their fall season on Saturday, Oct. 8 at the Head of Housatonic Regatta in Shelton, CT placing 14th out of 34. This past weekend the Blue competed at the historic

Head of the Charles on Sunday, Oct. 23 placing sixth and 18th overall. This was the seventh-consecutive year that the Blue Crew placed top-ten. The Blue sent two Varsity 8 boats to compete. Varsity 8 recorded a time of 18.51.212 to earn the sixth place, while Second Varsity 8 recorded a time of 19:49.924 to take 18th place. The Crew team will close out their fall season Sunday, Oct. 30, when they compete for the 2016 Seven Sisters Championship. This year Smith College will host the race on the Connecticut River in Northampton, MA.

Field Hockey

On Saturday, Oct. 22, the field hockey team won in another close conference game against Clark University. Once again, first year Hannah Maisano (Gambrills, MD) found that back of the net 3:31 into the first overtime period. With the victory, the Blue improved to 9-7 on the season and 5-3 in the NEWMAC conference. Despite impressive offensive efforts from the offense in the first half, with two goals, one from sophomore Arielle Mitropoulos (Cambridge, MA) and one from sophomore Rachel Hwang (Campbell, CA) assisted by sophomore Haley Chrobock (Branchville, NJ), the Blue found themselves tied 2-2 for the last 20 minutes of the game. Maisano, scored her third overtime goal of the season, to end the game. The Blue will finish regular season with a home game Thursday Sept. 27 when they host UMASS Dartmouth at 4:00 p.m.

Soccer

Wellesley Soccer has had a big week against NEWMAC rivals Clark and Smith. On Tuesday October 18, Soccer broke a three game losing streak with a 1-0 win against Clark University after a goal from first year Julia Jung (Oakland, CA) in the second half. The Blue defense defended Clark’s last chance corner kick to preserve the win, and first year goaltender Olivia Reckley (Grosse Ile, MI) earned her second shutout of the year with six saves. Next, soccer travelled to Seven Sister rival, Smith College, on Saturday. The Blue led 1-0 at the end of the first half after senior Kyla Petrie’s (Denton, TX) goal, but Smith tied the score midway through the second half. Blue senior Maddie Carlborg (Burbank, CA) scored two minutes later, and Smith answered in the 81st minute to tie the score at 2-2. The teams battled in double overtime periods, but neither team could score again and the match ended in a tie. This Saturday, Oct. 29, Wellesley will face another NEWMAC rival Springfield College at 12 p.m. for their senior day. Before the game, the team will celebrate their three senior players, Petrie, Carlborg, and Gabby Hartman (San Diego, CA) before the game.

This past weekend the Wellesley Golf team was led by first year Ryan MacVicar (Tuscaloosa, AK) to finish ninth in the Williams Fall Classic. MacVicar opened up on Saturday with a score of 82 but was able to drop five strokes on Sunday to shoot 77 finishing 13th overall in the tournament. MacVicar was awarded the Liberty League Rookie Golfer of the Week for the second consecutive week. MacVicar was followed by first year classmate Kalau Tanaka-Pesamino (Ewa Beach, Hawai’i) who was the second lowest finisher for the Blue. The golf team will close their fall season on Saturday, Oct. 15 at Johnson & Wales.

Take the later bus but think twice about sleeping over on a mice-scoured floor or finding yourself in some cis-boy’s bed. There’s nothing more awkward than the 9:40 a.m. Peter from Harvard or the 10 from my side of town, when all the churchgoers are starting their days and you’re wondering where special friend put your sweater. But, by all means, strut past me if you do take that bus from 77 Mass Avenue. Own the night. Or your hangover.

You see, Wellesley students have sat by me and confessed their life stories to their friends while I eavesdropped. Asian tourists have taken pictures of me without my permission, children have failed to climb me, frat boys have peed on me, and the rats of the sky have, well, taken their liberties. Being a number statue is especially hard when people only see you as numbers. Also, when people aim their projectile vomit at me. I get it. I’m a landmark. That doesn’t give you an excuse to throw up on me. Throw up on yourself. Throw up on the Peter. Oh wait, you probably did. Do it when sober. That’s when you learn not to read on any empty stomach in a moving vehicle.

Wellesley, your international students have smoked near me and first-years have retreated to me in shame after failing to navigate the 1 MBTA Bus. Most importantly, I have seen you irresponsibly finish an Anna’s burrito, thinking it would be your lunch tomorrow, before Peter, your terrible, figurative boyfriend, leaves the stop. I’ve also seen your real-life, temporary partners awkwardly count their dollar bills, only to look like deer in headlights when asked for tokens. So, yeah, I get you and I know you get me to. So, if Peter is your unreliable boyfriend, I am your father: surprisingly unsophisticated and constantly watching you. It was cute when you were a baby, but stop throwing up on me. 

In other news, the Wellesley field hockey team had another victorious weekend as they hosted NEWMAC rival the Lyons of Mount Holyoke College. The match-up between these teams has been tightly contested over the past few years. Of the past eight games between the Blue and the Lyons, every game was decided by one goal and six of the past seven match-ups have gone into overtime. The Blue put on an impressive performance this past Saturday when they were able to score 5:23 into the first overtime period to win the game 1-0 and improve to a record of 5-2 overall. First year Hannah Maisano (Gambrills, MD) put in the sole goal of the game, off of a tip from senior Nikki Sharkin (Summit, N.J.). The impressive effort by the Blue’s offense was matched equally by the defense, specifically sophomore goalkeeper Maggie Connelly (Duxbury, MA) who, in her first career start at home, had 14 saves. Connelly was recognized by the NEWMAC for her outstanding play being honored with the Field Hockey Defensive Athlete of the Week award. The explosive effort Saturday came off an equally impressive performance Tuesday Sept. 20th when the Blue fell to No. 7 ranked Tufts University 1-0. Connelly posted 12 saves in the match against Tufts, bringing her to a total of 26 saves last week and finishing with a .963 save percentage. The No.14 ranked Blue take to the field again when they take on No.1 ranked Bowdoin College Wednesday Sept. 27 in Brunswick, Maine.   

The public affairs office has provided a sneak peek for The Wellesley News:

“How do we unleash the riches embedded in crucial intersections-among people, among ideas, across communities and cultures, through time and space?”

With this speech, Johnson will usher in her tenure as President of Wellesley College. It marks a new and progressive new era in the timeline of the institution.

We, the editors-in-chief and members of the editorial board of The Wellesley News, are writing to summarize the changes we’ve made to the paper this past semester and the plans we have for the coming year.

This semester we have successfully introduced a multicultural column to give minority students on campus a voice and a space dedicated to their thoughts. Multiculturalism in an issue the Wellesley News is dedicated to and hopes to improve both on campus and within our staff. In addition, we have started a monthly letter from the current Dean of Students, Dean Wolfson. We believe the newspaper is an excellent tool of communication between the administration and the student body. This column helps the Dean of Students communicate their intent and initiatives to the students as well as engage the students with administrative decisions.

In addition, we have added an extra section on the last page of our paper. This section is titled “Miscellanea”, where we feature satire pieces, photojournalism, crossword puzzles and other pieces that will showcase our writers’ many talents. This will give The Wellesley News a chance to engage our students in a different and entertaining way.

Our campus experienced many new developments this semester, and The News had the privilege of covering all of them. A few of these major changes include the election of a new president and the compensation of residential life staff. One issue, however, particularly engaged our staff. In light of the recent debate regarding payment for College Government positions, we at the Wellesley News are fully aware that students need to start being compensated for the immense amount of work they put into their organization. Organizations with guaranteed percentage funding have that funding because they are integral to the school. The executive boards of those organizations put anywhere from 6-20 hours a week into making this school a better place and thus, should be compensated. Editors-In-Chief at the Wellesley News each put in 15-20 hours a week, completely uncompensated. There is a precedent at other universities to pay their student journalists either through work study, funding or with a lump sum. By choosing not to pay students involved with such organizations, the college puts these individuals at a disadvantage — many are financially unable to dedicate so many hours to unpaid positions. We’ve seen this problem affect many students on campus this semester, and luckily, have begun a dialogue to address these concerns. We hope to see progress in the near future.

Lastly, The Wellesley News has created a new column for mental health in our Sports & Wellness section. As our incoming President Johnson has pledged to address mental health, so has our campus’ publication. We believe that a column will increase mental health awareness within our student body, and we will be making concerted efforts to do so.

We, the editorial board at The Wellesley News, have had the privilege of serving the campus for the 2016-2017 school year, and look forward to improve our reporting in the coming year.

In fact, the general tone on campus centers on bending the rules in order to fulfill this requirement rather than actually taking the class. It is no mystery that fulfilling the distribution requirements in addition to a major is difficult. Moreover, it seems nearly impossible to both graduate on time and take a few “fun” classes for which liberal arts schools are famous. However, despite that, multiculturalism should be a more significant, rigorous obligation in our Wellesley education.

The implication of the requirement is that students’ worldviews and opinions change as a result of this class. In our increasingly diverse global climate, this seems like an important stipulation that should be advocated for and protected by the school. A common criticism of Wellesley is the inherent focus on “white feminism,” suggesting that the philosophy the college advocates is not intersectional. For instance, the institution will be content as long as it is churning out women who will eventually be bankers, lawyers, doctors, C.E.O’s and occupants of otherwise traditionally high-earning jobs. There is inadequate emphasis on jobs in equally valuable sectors, like social service or justice. Having merely a single unit dedicated to multiculturalism and diversity seems consistent with this reputation. There is an indication that because a credit on multiculturalism doesn’t look impressive to Goldman Sachs or Harvard Law School, it doesn’t have merit. From a liberal arts school whose objective is to give students an overall education on a variety of topics, including cultures of the entire world, this viewpoint is unacceptable.

In addition, this requirement seems to simply be a token for the school. Does Wellesley truly believe that one class alone is enough to further a student’s multicultural knowledge? Given that this class is seen by the community as a throwaway, and that the bounds of the requirement are vague at best, the college needs to improve and emphasize its commitment to pluralism. Wellesley should dedicate itself to the diversity of the world and its own student body. International students and students of color have long seen the history of their people as irrelevant. The history of women, people of color and LGBTQIA+ students are often separate panels in textbooks, a separate and comparatively unimportant topic. Our single unit of multiculturalism is doing the same thing. It is a negligible course to appease the student body, but is separate from the overall requirements of a serious liberal arts curriculum. As a community, we must evolve our distribution requirements to better fit the needs of our students. That is, we must expand the provision to be more than just a single unit of vague multiculturalism. Rather, we must encourage departmental majors to ensure that they are offering courses that too promote diversity.