Huffington Post Calls Wellesley’s Albright Institute Fellows “Future Leaders”

This year’s Albright Institute Wintersesssion concluded on January 20 with a closing ceremony in which former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Korbel Albright ’59 offered the students feedback on their capstone presentations and congratulated them on their achievement. On the same day, the Huffington Post reported on Albright’s presence on campus, noting that she spent the day “with America’s future leaders” and that “the future is most definitely female.”

The closing ceremony on Friday was just one of several interactions Albright had with students while on campus last week. “I was delighted to spend last week with the Albright Institute Fellows. These bright young women are precisely the kinds of leaders we need in this complex and interconnected world,” Albright said in an email. “They will shatter glass ceilings and break down barriers in their respective fields, from politics to physics. I am proud that Wellesley and the Albright Institute will have been an integral part of their preparation.”

The Huffington Post article said Albright “has long been an inspiration to women everywhere,” and reported that “the first woman to be U.S. secretary of state spent the day speaking to 40 young women who hope to become global leaders someday.” The Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs trains and educates future women leaders in a variety of disciplines. It offers fellowships to 40 promising college students every year and asks them to work together to address significant global challenges. This year, the theme of the Wintersession was “Globalization: Promises, Challenges and a Path Forward.” Students crafted sustainable development goals on topics ranging from technology in health across borders; gender inequalities; and war, refugees, immigrants and resettlement.

“The Albright Institute pushed each of us to develop our own voices and be able to articulate and defend our opinions—but never at the cost of another fellow’s growth,” said Shreya Thatai ’17, one of this year’s fellows. “The atmosphere was so uniquely supportive and allowed us to foster one another’s development in an organic and genuine way, recognizing how much more impactful we can be as a group.”

“The interdisciplinary nature of the Institute was transformative, broadening my horizons and forcing me to think critically about the world we live in,” said Linda Zhou ’18, adding that the Wintersession opened her eyes to “how much there is to learn.”

Noa Weinstein ’18 valued the “dozens of powerful and inspirational experts” who spoke about global change from the perspectives of their diverse fields. She said the experts told the fellows “how we can make our voices heard even as college students.”