how liberal is campus?

WendyMouse
Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:27:34 +0000

I would say Wellesley is fairly liberal. Mostly we get questions asking whether conservative people can survive at Wellesley, and I tell them yes they can. It’s not an extremely liberal school, but the conservatives are more likely to feel maligned.

Wellesley has gotten noticeably greener throughout my four years here, but there’s still room for improvement. The college has worked to make campus wide events greener. Instead of passing out bottled water during reunion, alums got reusable nalgene-like bottles that they could refill. There have been campaigns for shorter showers, less food waste and energy reduction that have had moderate success. Within the last semester, motion sensor lights have been installed in stairwells of academic buildings, and “misers” turn the vending machines on only when someone goes to one. The college was a recipient of multimillion dollar grant, a lot of which is being used to replace the windows in the Science center, and make them more environmentally friendly, as well as revamp the heating systems.

Wellesley is extremely glbt friendly. Someone compiled a list of glbt friendly schools, and the thing no one understood was why Smith wasn’t on it (Wellesley was). Not qualifying as glbt myself, I can’t give you a rundown of the real glbt experience at Wellesley, but I leave the Wellesley bubble and I don’t quite understand how the rest of the world is so intolerant.

Despite the snooty town with million dollar homes and the no men thing, Wellesley is the most diverse school on the east coast. There are all types of people there.

Anyway, one person’s “too liberal” is another person’s “too preppy”, so I would come visit