Paulson Ecology of Place Initiative at Wellesley College

10/26/2025

09/26/2025

The Art Department, together with the Architecture program and the Grace Slack McNeil Program in American Art, are pleased to present a symposium in celebration of Wellesley's sesquicentennial, titled To Make a Difference in the World: the Wellesley Landscape at 150. This very special event will take place in Collins Cinema, with art and landscape tours venturing across campus. Guests may alternatively attend the talk portions of the symposium via Zoom webinar.

As a preeminent example in North America of world-class landscape design, and an expression of a 150-year commitment to prepare women to be transformational leaders, the Wellesley College campus is inseparable from a Wellesley education. In the decades after Henry Fowle Durant articulated his vision for the College, landscape architects, students, faculty, and alumnae shaped a campus that supported individual growth and the forging of a distinctive, powerful, intergenerational community bound by its connection to the campus and commitments to realize the ideals it nurtured. As Wellesley celebrates its founding, and with challenges of our time in view - from climate change to resurgent systemic misogyny - through the lens of landscape architecture, this symposium considers what it means to shape a different world. It brings together historians, landscape architects, and members of the Wellesley College community to consider the relationships between landscape, learning, and stewardship.

Panelists and speakers include Wellesley faculty, staff, and alums working in the fields of landscape and architecture:
• Gina Ford '97, Agency Landscape + Planning
• Isabella Frontada '15, City of Boston
• Emily Mueller De Celis '91, Michael Von Valkenburgh Associates Inc.
• Stephanie Pierce '98, Reed Hilderbrand
• Mayrah Udvardi '14, MASS Design Group
• Rebecca Bedell '80, Margaret Clapp '30 Distinguished Alumna Professor of Art
• Justin Armstrong, Associate Teaching Professor in Writing and Anthropology
• Vanja Klepac-Ceraj, Theresa Mall Mullarkey Associate Professor of Biological Sciences
• Suzanne Langridge, Director, Wendy J. Paulson '69 Ecology of Place Initiative
• Andrew Mowbray, Director of 3D Arts, Associate Teaching Professor in Art
• Daniela Rivera, Luella LaMer Slander Professor of Latin American Studies, Professor of Art
• Katherine Ruffin, Director of the Book Studies Program, Senior Lecturer in Art

In addition to the talks and panel discussions in Collins Cinema, the following are included in symposium events:

pop-up exhibition:
•Art of the Paulson Ecology of Place Initiative, on view in the Jewett Sculpture Court

tours:
•The Wellesley College Landscape
•Wild Spots: Outdoor Sculpture at Wellesley
•Digging Into History: The Wellesley College Hall Archaeology Project, on view at the Davis Museum

Sat. Oct. 4
9:00 am - 4:30 pm
Collins Cinema (and tours around campus) or via webinar (advance registration required to attend the webinar: https://wellesley.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_a9AWS1vZTAqp8EgnmE9AcA #/registration )

This event is free to attend and open to the public. Visitors driving to campus should plan to park in the campus parking garage and walk to Jewett (see campus map here).
For questions about this event, please contact Meghan Murray, [email protected]

11/04/2022

Slip into the shadows and get a new perspective on campus under the light of the full moon 🌝✨Join Paulson intern Eva Knaggs '23 and Community Director Don Leach for Nightwalk II: Full Moon Walk on Tuesday, November 8. Meet at Tower Great Hall at 9:30pm for a hot cup of mint tea harvested from the landscape before heading out into the moonlight🫖🌿🌝

Dress warmly and wear comfortable shoes, we will be walking on some uneven paths. Accessibility and disability resources: [email protected]. Questions: [email protected]



📍Wellesley College is located on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary unceded lands of the Massachusett tribe.

10/31/2022

There's something ghostly along the Lake Waban path...👻 unfurling from a patch of leaf litter with white translucent scales, stalk, and flower, and fungus-like texture 🎃👻💀 This hauntingly beautiful plant is Ghost Pipe (Monotropa uniflora)👻!

Ghost pipe bloom through the fall in cool and moist places, haunting the forest floor with their ghostly white stalks and flowers. But underground, something surprising is happening. Ghost pipes are heterotrophic plants, which means they lack chlorophyll and don’t require sunlight or photosynthesis to produce energy. Instead they steal their energy by feasting on mycorrhizal networks hidden in the soil. By tricking (not treating...🎃) fungi into providing sugars and nutrients to them, they emerge in rich areas of forest where a lot of plant food flows between trees and their fungus partners. So next time you meet a ghost pipe emerging from soil, let it remind you of the intricate and unseen ghostly magic taking place beneath your feet.👻👻👻

📸: .loui



📍Wellesley College is located on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary unceded lands of the Massachusett tribe.

10/28/2022

Magical fairies have moved into Tower Court! ✨🧚🏽‍♀️You can spot their six tiny houses hidden throughout the courtyard. In fact, if you’re one of the first to take a picture of all six houses and dm to the Paulson Initiative Instagram, the fairies will give you a fantastical prize: 2 bus tokens and some Paulson swag! Keep your eyes peeled and you might even see the fairies themselves.🧚‍♀️🧚🏽‍♀️🧚🏿‍♀️✨

Here are some clues for each of the six fairy houses to get you started on your search:

🧚🏿‍♀️Here the fairies live in peace, on the path to Tower East.
🧚🏾‍♀️This magic cottage looks its best, on the path to Tower West.
🧚🏽‍♀️Fairies fly and kiss the leaves; this home is under a small tree.
🧚🏼‍♀️These fairies love to party, yes, they built their home close to The Steps.
🧚🏻‍♀️Jolly fairies, always laughin', this fairy house is next to Claflin.
🧚‍♀️This fairy house is safe and sound, under a cozy bush it's found.

And leave a little nature-based offering for the fairies if you get a chance as you visit their homes🌿🍁🌺



📍Wellesley College is located on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary unceded lands of the Massachusett tribe.

10/27/2022

Have you ever wondered what causes the gorgeous fall leaf colors? The answer is pigments!

People may recall learning about chlorophyll and the crucial role it plays in making food for trees. This pigment gives us the classic green leaves🍃 we see in the spring and summer, but once cooler weather ❄️ and shorter days 🌙 come along, chlorophyll production drastically decreases. This is when the secondary pigments get their time to shine ✨

🍁 Red, orange, and yellow 🍂 are each produced by individual pigments. Different trees have different amounts of each pigment, which causes the variety of colors seen in a fall landscape. For example, sugar maples have an abundance of carotenoids, the orange pigment (slide 2). On the other hand, birch trees produce yellow leaves, meaning there is xanthophyll present (slide 4).

If you’ve ever felt like one fall is more vibrant than another, that is totally possible. The color-changing process is highly sensitive to weather and temperature. For example, sunny days but cooler nights lead to brighter colors. Even the weather several months in advance will impact the colors we see. A late start to spring or long summer drought could move the fall color peak back several weeks.

If you haven’t gotten to yet, make sure to spend some time outside with the leaves before they fall off for the winter!

🍂Photo 1: three trees with green, yellow, and red leaves respectively, taken by the boardwalk
🍁Photo 2: sugar maple with brilliant orange leaves outside Beebe
🍂Photo 3: bright orange tree along path towards Health Services
🍁Photo 4: yellow birch leaves taken along the lake path
🍂Photo 5: maple leaves partially red and partially green by the boardwalk

10/24/2022

A ghostly eye? A UFO? 👻🛸👽These spooky prints are actually the result of microscopic mushroom spores dropping onto paper in beautiful, haunting patterns. The caps of mature mushrooms release spores, which function like “seeds” for fungi, and produce mesmerizing art. Want to make your own?

The Step-By-Step Guide to Making Mushroom Spore Prints:

🍄Find and pick a mushroom that you like ~

🍄Gather some paper ~ it can be black or white paper, depending on how light or dark the underside of the mushroom cap appears. You’ll want to use a paper color opposite to the spore color, so that the spores will be visible in contrast.

🍄Remove the cap at the base of the stem ~ so that the underside of the mushroom’s head rests comfortably on the paper (spore-side down). Place on a flat surface in an undisturbed area.

🍄Now just wait 12-24 hours for the spores to drop in a pattern ~ and voilà! You have a *spooky spore print*

🍄Preserve this treasure by placing clear tape over the paper. Long exposure to unprotected spores may be potentially harmful.

Swipe through to see how diverse mushroom structures on campus can be. The shape of the prints depends on if the undersides have “gills” or “pores” — a fundamental difference in mushroom classification. Scientists and amateur mushroom pickers use spore prints to help identify the species of fungus in question. Check out the linked iNaturalist site for more resources ✨

And don’t miss the mushroom foray happening on Today! (Monday) with Professor Tom Hodge—12:45pm at the Edible Ecosystem! Happy hunting 🍂

All fungi observations at Wellesley can be viewed on our the Fungi+Lichens iNaturalist project page - see link in bio🍄✨

Note: Please only collect a small amount of what you find, leave some for other creatures and for future mushroom propogation and be sure to wash hands after handling mushrooms.

📸1-3,5-7: .loui
📸4:



📍Wellesley College is located on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary unceded lands of the Massachusett tribe.

10/22/2022

Happy 146th Tree Day Class of 2025!🌳💚✨Tree Day can be traced back to 1877, when Wellesley College’s first graduating class (Class of 1879) planted a Norway spruce (Picea avies) next to Severance Green. Ever since, each class has planted their own tree with a ceremonial Tree Day spade. Stones placed under the trees proudly display the year of each class tree.

For many years, students observed Tree Day by wearing costumes according to each year’s theme and celebrated with dancing, staging plays, forming a large “W’ with the entire student body, and crowning a Tree Day Mistress. Although these fun traditions have faded with time, students now tie papers with messages onto their new class tree in the hopes that it will grow into a strong, everlasting tree. While we all leave Wellesley College eventually, our love for campus will forever be held within our class trees.

Curious to learn more about the location and types of class trees across campus? View the map “The Value of Trees at Wellesley College” created by Paulson Initiative Post-bac Fellow Kristine Meader ‘21 (created while she was a Paulson Intern in 2019), featuring 96 class trees from the years 1879 to 2021. Link in bio. Can you find any class trees that didn't make it onto the map? DM us a photo and location to help complete it!✨

To celebrate this long-lasting Wellesley Tradition, meet us at the Swing next to the Chapel at 2 pm on Saturday, October 22nd to plant the Class of 2025 tree💚We can’t wait to celebrate with everyone!

Images 1-8: Wellesley College Archives
📸1: Tree Day 1921
📸2: Tree Day 1973
📸3: Tree Day Play 1906
📸4: Tree Day Costumes 1920
📸5: Tree Day Play 1926
📸6: Tree Day Play 1932
📸7: Tree Day 1947 Classes form the Wellesley "W" on Severance Green
📸8: Tree Day 1925 Doris Miller '28 being crowned Tree Day Mistress
📸9 and 10: Information on Tree Day 2022 from the Class of 2025 Class Council



📍Wellesley College is located on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary unceded lands of the Massachusett tribe.

10/21/2022

Explore the wonderful world of fungi 🍄and hear about Russian cultural connections to mushrooms with professor Tom Hodge this Monday (10/24) from 12:45-1:45pm. We will meet at the Edible Ecosystem Garden Classroom. Snacks provided!✨🍄

📸: Eva Knaggs '23



📍Wellesley College is located on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary unceded lands of the Massachusett tribe.

10/18/2022

Start your day with a Nature Awe Walk through campus🍂✨🍄🐦🍃 Friday, October 21 at 8:30am, meeting at the Lulu Firepit. Studies show that experiencing awe and taking a morning walk in nature can improve focus, happiness, and well-being, so come join us to start your day! We will look for plants, birds and other animals and notice the fall colors that blanket the campus 🐦🍁🍄🍂

You never know what we may find and what may inspire you, and we are sure you will leave restored. 🍂✨🍃

Walk will be facilitated by , Paulson-Frost Practitioner Fellow, and founder of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin. Since the first days of the pandemic Pam has been posting a "daily positive photo" from her nature walks. Come a few minutes early for morning snacks.

Our next walk in our Fall Walk Series is a Mushroom Wander with Professor Tom Hodge on Monday, October 24 from 12:45-1:45. We will look for mushrooms and hear from Professor Hodge about Russian cultural connections to mushrooms! Snacks will be provided!

Accessibility and disability resources: [email protected]. Questions? [email protected]



📍Wellesley College is located on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary unceded lands of the Massachusett tribe.

10/10/2022

Happy Indigenous People’s Day✨To celebrate today we are highlighting an incredible nut native to areas across the globe, as well as on Wellesley’s landscape, and a staple food for generations of Indigenous people…acorns!🦚

Acorns are fruits from oak trees that will, given the right conditions, create a new oak tree. There are over 400 species of oak trees around the world, and 90 species in North America. Acorns are found on the ground during fall and seen tucked into holes made by squirrels or woodpeckers as a source of sustenance through the winter. Indigenous people across North America have also tended the landscape to encourage oak tree growth and acorn harvest. What have you noticed about acorns on the ground or in the trees around you?

Navajo Chef Freddie Bitsoie shares that “Food is an extension of culture” and “Taste memory is important because foods are the carrier of ancestral knowledge.” The gathering and drying of acorns have been a significant part of Indigenous people's daily life for generations, one that is intimately tied to place, and also to the struggle to reclaim ancestral lands and Indigenous foodways.

On Indigenous People’s Day, take a moment to notice the acorns scattered on the ground near you and consider how this small nut is linked to Indigenous ancestral knowledge and culture, and how you might contribute to the reclamation, cultivation and celebration of Indigenous communities. See links in bio for ideas, including reading NASA educational materials by Kisha James ‘21, finding out whose land you are on, and supporting , led by Courtney Streett ‘09.

Sources: The Age of Acorns, by Lee Allen in Indian Country Today, 2018; Indigenous Youth Reboot Acorns to Revive Food Sovereignty, by Stephen Nett in Civil Eats 2019

📸1: Acorns collected from Wellesley College landscape, by Annie Zhang '25
📸2: Ancient oak tree in the Botanic Gardens, one of many ancient oaks on campus pre-dating the college.
📸3: Ancient oak in Edible Ecosystem



📍Wellesley College is located on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary unceded lands of the Massachusett tribe.