WELLESLEY, Mass. -- President Diana Chapman
Walsh today presented Bachelor of Arts degrees to 609
women, including 24 Davis Scholars, non-traditional aged
students. Senior Class Dean Pamela Daniels addressed the
Class of 2000 -- the class she helped steward through
three of its four years at Wellesley -- at the College's
122nd Commencement exercises.
Daniels graduated from Wellesley in 1959, receiving
her degree with honors in political science. She was a
Durant Scholar and had been elected Phi Beta Kappa. After
a year of study and travel in India and Southeast Asia,
Daniels went on to earn an M.A. in political science from
Harvard University in 1963. From 1962-70, she was a
teaching fellow at Harvard, first in the Government
Department and then in Erik Erikson's undergraduate
social science course on the human life cycle.
Before becoming a Class Dean in 1981, Daniels was a
Research Associate at the Center for Research on Women
for five years; in 1979-80, she was a Lecturer in the
Department of Psychology. In 1983 and '84, she taught a
course on the life cycle in the Writing Program. She is
co-editor of a feminist anthology of personal essays on
work and women's identity titled "Working It Out"
(Pantheon, 1977) and co-authored a book on family and
career timing patterns, "Sooner or Later: The Timing of
Parenthood in Adult Lives" (Norton, 1982). Daniels will
be retiring this summer after 24 years of service to the
College.
Robyn Alison Sklaren, from Brooklyn, New York,
delivered the student commencement address, a tradition
started in 1969 when Hillary Rodham was selected by her
classmates to deliver the first student speech. A film
studies major, Sklaren was film critic for the College
paper The Wellesley News and for her senior thesis wrote
a screenplay set in Brooklyn that was based on Sherwood
Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. She spent her junior year
studying at Sussex University in England and St. Andrews
University in Scotland. The 21-year old graduate plans to
return to her native New York City and seek her fortune
in the creative end of the entertainment industry.
Two
winners of the 2000 Pinanski Prize for Excellence in
Teaching, Wellesley's highest teaching honor, were
announced. They are: Martin Brody, the Catherine
Mills Davis Professor of Music, and Professor Mary Coyne,
Biological Sciences.
President Walsh also announced the establishment of
the the Stanford Calderwood Professorship in Economics,
funded by Stanford Calderwood who was a visiting faculty
member in Wellesley's economics department from 1972
until 1985. David Lindauer, current co-chair of the
economics department, will be the first to hold the new
professorial chair.
The following faculty retirements were announced:
- Blythe Clinchy, Professor of Psychology, 35 years
of service
- Paul Cohen, Edith Stix Wasserman Professor of
History, 35 years
- Jim Loehlin, Professor of Chemistry, 34 years
- Ingrid Stadler, Professor of Philosophy, 43
years
- Linda Vaughan, Professor of Physical Education,
Recreation and Athletics, 38 years
The following board of trustee retirements were
announced:
- Georgia Sue Black, Wellesley Class of '58
- Lois Juliber, Wellesley Class of '71
- Walter Cabot, who served a dual role as member of
the board of trustees and as treasurer of the College
for 20 years
SUMMARY
Number of degrees conferred: 609
Davis Scholars: 24
Traditional-age Students: 585
Honors in major: 104 honors
(done by 103 students, one student completed
honors in two majors. To earn honors, a student must
complete and successfully defend an original thesis in
her major field of study.)
GRADUATING SENIORS WHO WON NATIONAL AWARDS:
British
Marshall Scholarship
Chavi Nana
Fulbright Scholars
Katherine Elisabeth Graf, Fulbright Travel
Grant to Germany
Theresa Anne Lund, Fulbright Travel Grant to
Germany
Elizabeth Son, Fulbright Grant to Korea
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships in Humanistic
Studies
Monique-Adelle Callahan, Comparative
Literature
Brigid Cohen, Music History and Theory
Harry
S. Truman Scholarship
Bridget K. Smith
Thomas
J. Watson Fellowship
Kathryn B. Carlson, Fiddling Traditions:
United Kingdom, Norway, Poland
Laura R. Murray, The Emergence of Sex Worker Rights
Organizations: Dominican Republic, Ecuador, South
Africa, Australia, Venezuela
Lia Shimada, Cultural Geography of Reforestation:
Ireland, Nepal and Madagascar
Institute for International Public Policy (1998
competition)
Huda Abdi Farah Aden
Public Policy and International Affairs (1998-1999
competition)
Bridget K. Smith
The Commencement speeches can be accessed online at
the following URL:
Commencement/speeches.html
Wellesley College is a prominent liberal arts college
and has been a leader in the education of women for
nearly 125 years. The College's 500-acre campus near
Boston is home to about 2,300 undergraduate students,
close to 600 of whom will graduate in the May ceremonies.
Wellesley's distinguished alumnae include First Lady
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine K.
Albright, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, and journalists Cokie
Roberts, Lynn Sherr, and Linda Wertheimer.
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