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My husband broke into our first house—that’s how we moved in. The new house was empty, and we didn’t want to waste money on overlapping rental and mortgage payments, so all our belongings were in the front yard. Our own real estate agent texted us: “A little bird told me there are keys in the mailbox. Never met a mailbox lock I couldn’t pick.” Fourteen hours later, we stopped unpacking.

Kellie Carter Jackson, the Knafel Assistant Professor of the Humanities and an assistant professor of Africana studies at Wellesley, offers her perspective on protests that erupted across the country this year.

Rana Zoe Mungin ’11 had always planned to be known—as a writer. She had not expected to become nationally famous as the face of the pandemic that has devastated New York and that continues to rampage around much of the globe.

More than a century ago, Wellesley faculty, alumnae, and student activists fought to gain women the vote, but in the early days, they faced campus opposition.

A small embroidery I made hangs in my bedroom. It depicts a two-masted ship soaring straight into the heavens, sails unfurled. When I study my ship now, I think less of travel and adventure and more about long-term isolation in small quarters.

In lieu of a commencement address for the class of ’20, we offer the following words of comfort, support, and solidarity from five members of the Wellesley community. We hope that they find solace in the knowledge that wherever they are in the world and wherever their lives take them, Wellesley will be there.

Back in November, long before our world was overturned, I sent an email to Dan Chiasson, Lorraine C. Wang Professor of English at Wellesley. The subject line read: “I’m Nobody.” I was writing to ask if I could audit ENG 357: The World of Emily Dickinson in the spring.