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STATEMENT BY WELLESLEY COLLEGE PRESIDENT IN RESPONSE TO ROLLING STONE ARTICLE

WELLESLEY, Mass., Feb­ru­ary 23, 2001 — Welles­ley Col­lege Pres­i­dent Diana Chap­man Walsh today made the fol­low­ing state­ment: “The recent arti­cle about Welles­ley Col­lege in Rolling Stone mag­a­zine is an exam­ple of irre­spon­si­ble and sen­sa­tion­al­ist jour­nal­ism, designed to sell mag­a­zines rather than inform read­ers. The depic­tions of Welles­ley Col­lege stu­dents, fac­ulty, and staff are grossly dis­torted and are an appalling affront to the intel­li­gent, hard-working, and tal­ented indi­vid­u­als who make up this cam­pus community.

Since the arti­cle has appeared, our stu­dents have reacted with appro­pri­ate out­rage at the pruri­ent depic­tion of the col­lege, which in fact places the high­est value on mutual respect and the per­sonal dig­nity of every mem­ber of our com­mu­nity. Although the arti­cle notes in a foot­note that “many names have been changed,” the reporter does not dis­tin­guish between pseu­do­nyms and real names, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to assess the valid­ity of any of the state­ments. More trou­bling still is his ten­dency to mask the iden­tity of fac­ulty and staff while he uses stu­dents’ real names, expos­ing them to pub­lic ridicule.

To pur­port to cap­ture ‘Col­lege Life 2001′ (as the mag­a­zine claimed on its cover) through sala­cious sto­ries about the alleged sex­ual adven­tures of a hand­ful of stu­dents is ludi­crous, as is the impli­ca­tion that these kinds of behav­iors are some­how endemic or unique to women’s colleges.Unfortunately, this kind of stereo­typic report­ing is noth­ing new for women’s col­leges. It is another exam­ple of the back­lash against suc­cess­ful female stu­dents who choose to attend a women’s col­lege because of the aca­d­e­mic excel­lence of its stu­dents and fac­ulty and the empow­er­ment and life­long oppor­tu­ni­ties that such an edu­ca­tion opens for them.

I am con­fi­dent that read­ers of this deplorable arti­cle will rec­og­nize it for the imma­ture and offen­sive piece of reck­less jour­nal­ism that it is. Mean­while, Welles­ley Col­lege stands proudly and securely on more than 125 years of remark­able suc­cess pro­vid­ing an excel­lent edu­ca­tion for women who make a dif­fer­ence in the world.” Office for Pub­lic Infor­ma­tion. Last mod­i­fied: March 12, 2001.