I believe in the importance of women as part of the solution to the problems facing our world today. Feminine priorities and problem solving styles are as different from those of men as night from day and too long have women's contributions been suppressed or relegated to areas where the difference we can make is local and limited. The world needs women who are educated, empowered, driven, and networked to others of like spirit to go out and make a global difference and we need them now. Now think a moment and list the places in the world where such women are produced. Wellesley isn't the only place, but its one of a dismaying short list and though some may think of it as a wealthy institution its longterm fate is always under siege partly because it is a single-sex school.

Wellesley is committed to ensuring that the education is affordable to every young woman who is accepted,regardless of her financial circumstances. Wellesley promises to give her an education that is constantly sculpted to be relevant to the world around her, teaches her how to process and integrate the firehose of data pouring into the consciousness daily and sends her out with a dream, no - an expectation - to look around and make a difference wherever and whenever she can.

This is not the Wellesley of my era. I was there at the tail end of times when women were expected to be wives, mothers and garden clubbers, so I might not make much of the Wellesley effect of those times (although there is no overlooking the friends I made - some of whom introduced me and my classmates to our spouses and our jobs, and stood by us through now a half century of lifetime milestones). The Wellesley of today has risen to the needs of this era. Every young woman we send out with a Wellesley education will create a crack in the barrier that confronts us so that one day women will be able to go up and out to make the difference that is needed in this world today. I love this slogan chosen by the Wellesley Centers for Women: a world that is better for women is a better world.