The following list of people have served as president of Wellesley College, a private women's liberal arts college located in Wellesley, Massachusetts. The current president is Paula A. Johnson. Over the past 140 years of Wellesley College's operation, there have been fourteen presidents. All of the previous presidents have been women.
+ List of presidents of Wellesley CollegeImagePresidentTerm startTerm end1Ada Howard187518812Alice Freeman Palmer188118873Helen Shafer188718944Julia Irvine189418995Caroline Hazard189919106Ellen Fitz Pendleton191119367Mildred McAfee Horton193619498Margaret Clapp194919669Ruth Adams1966197210Barbara W. NewellSeptember 1, 1972December 31, 1980actingCarol Johnson JohnsJuly 1979December 31, 1980actingMaud ChaplinJanuary 1, 1981June 30, 198111Nannerl Overholser KeohaneJuly 1, 1981June 30, 199312Diana Chapman WalshOctober 1, 1993June 30, 2007actingAndrew ShennanJuly 1, 2007July 30, 200713H. Kim BottomlyAugust 1, 2007June 30, 201614Paula A. JohnsonJuly 1, 2016current
Table notes:
About the Presidents
Paula A. Johnson, inaugurated 2016 Paula A. Johnson is the fourteenth president of Wellesley and the first Black president of Wellesley College. Since July 2016, her efforts have gone into the college's mission to educate the world, create new opportunities, challenge assumptions, and embrace differences. As a cardiologist, researcher, and expert in public health and health policy, President Johnson has devoted her career to transforming the health and well-being of the communities. She was also the founding executive director of the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology, chief of the Division of Women’s Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her research has focused on understanding the difference in how disease is expressed for different genders and its implications on health policy.
H. Kim Bottomly, inaugurated 2007 H. Kim Bottomly is the thirteenth president of Wellesley College, and she was the first scientist to be the president of the college. During her time at Wellesley, she restructured the college's finances after the 2008 recession, and the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs was created. Under her leadership, she began collaborative efforts with Olin College and Babson College. Other efforts she pushed for were to renovate and maintain the upkeep of the historic buildings on campus.
Diana Chapman Walsh '66, 1993-2007 Diana Chapman Walsh was the 12th president of Wellesley and the fourth alumna to head the college. An English major at Wellesley, she went on to earn a master’s degree in Journalism and a Ph.D. in health policy from Boston University, where she subsequently served on the faculty. Named a Kellogg National Fellow in 1987, Walsh traveled throughout the United States and abroad studying workplace democracy and principles of leadership, as well as writing poetry. Immediately before returning to Wellesley in 1993, she was the Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, where she chaired the Department of Health and Social Behavior.
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