College Community Gathers to Celebrate Launch of Paulson Ecology of Place Initiative
Students, faculty and staff are invited to join President Paula Johnson at a community reception today, September 11, Sustainability Day, to inaugurate the Wendy Judge Paulson ’69 Ecology of Place Initiative and simultaneously kick off the Year of Sustainability at Wellesley. The reception will take place from 4:30-6 pm in the Alumnae Hall Ballroom. Locally sourced foods and cider will be available.
Special guests Wendy Paulson ’69 and author, conservationist, and activist Terry Tempest Williams will be on hand and will speak. President Johnson will also introduce Suzanne Langridge, the inaugural director of the Paulson Initiative.
Myriad activities are also planned for the day, all of which take place in the landscape and offer the community ways to engage with the campus and experience it in new ways. Some of the events are scheduled at set times, while others can be experienced in just a few minutes or in passing.
“The Paulson Initiative will help us better understand and relate to our natural environment, transforming our campus into a ‘living laboratory’ of key ecosystems for cross-disciplinary research, art, reflection, and a range of curricular and co-curricular activities,” President Johnson said in an announcement to the College community.
“Connection to landscape, place, and nature was a central, and unique, founding principle of Wellesley College—to build community, promote well-being, and strengthen intellectual aspirations,” said Langridge. “The Paulson Ecology of Place Initiative will re-engage these connections to provide students with the tools they need to make a positive change in the world.”
The event will also kick off the 2017–18 academic year as the Year of Sustainability, which will start “a campus-wide conversation about what sustainability means to us as individuals and as an academic and residential community,” President Johnson said. More information on the events, talks, and campaigns planned for the year will be shared in the weeks ahead.
