Colleges in Wellesley announce commencement speakers line-up

April 18, 2018 by Deborah Brown Leave a Comment

Wellesley College and MassBay have joined Babson College in making public their 2018 commencement speakers. Drum roll please…

Wellesley College, Commencement — Tracy K. Smith, Poet Laureate of the Unted States, will deliver remarks at Wellesley College’s Commencement exercises. Photo credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths / Blue Flower Arts

Tracy K. Smith, poet laureate of the United States and the Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor in the Humanities and director of the creative writing program at Princeton University, will speak at Wellesley’s 140th Commencement Exercises on Friday, June 1, at 10:30am.

Smith’s work explores a diverse range of topics, from faith, grief, and loss, to dystopia and Afrofuturism, to deep space and life on other planets, to America’s troubled racial history and the legacy of slavery. In her role as poet laureate, Smith aims to expand the audience for poetry through rural outreach, traveling to communities writers might not usually visit.

As we reported in an earlier post, Babson’s speakers at the College’s May 19 ceremonies will be president and CEO of UNICEF USA, Caryl M. Stern; and co-founder and CEO of Endeavor Linda Rottenberg. Stern will receive an honorary Doctorate of Laws degree and will deliver the commencement address at the undergraduate ceremony at 10am. Rottenberg will be receive an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degree and will give the commencement address at the graduate ceremony at 3pm.

Attorney General Maura Healey will speak at MassBay’s Commencement ceremony. Photo credit: Healey’s office

MassBay will welcome Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey as the keynote speaker for the College’s 56^th Commencement ceremony on Thursday, May 17 on the Wellesley Hills campus. “I’m honored to have the opportunity to address graduates at a school with such a strong commitment to preparing students for lives of active citizenship and cutting-edge careers,” Healey said.

In addition, MassBay will honor the Attorney General with the Distinguished Service Award. The MassBay Distinguished Service Award is given out to individuals for their advocacy and service to MassBay and the communities we serve.

Sworn in as Attorney General in January 2015, Healey has tackled issues touching the lives of residents across Massachusetts including the heroin and prescription drug abuse epidemic, escalating health care costs, workers’ rights and student loan costs.

Babson Globe makes its move

March 23, 2018 by bbrown Leave a Comment

Temporary home of Babson Globe, Trim parking lot, March 2018 — New temporary home for the Babson Globe — a parking lot

Babson College on Friday morning moved its 25-ton globe to a parking lot on its Wellesley campus, where the landmark will be refurbished before settling into a newly created park across from the student center. Centennial Park, to be opened next year, will help Babson celebrate its 100th anniversary and will be another piece of a major campus transformation involving the sports/recreation complex, the library and a new innovation hub

Babson dedicated the globe back in 1955 and the 28-feet-in-diameter sphere has since fallen into disrepair even after at least one makeover.

The school hopes to get the historic globe spinning again — something the orb hasn’t done since the 1990s.

Here’s what the space next to Coleman Hall, former home of the Globe, looks like now:

Former home of Babson Globe, Coleman

The globe is one of the largest of its kind, so its move on Friday made for some great video. News crews took to the sky to grab footage of the globe’s cross-campus trip.

Though perhaps even cooler than that footage is this video shared earlier in the week by Babson about what the inside and underside of the Globe looks like:

Babson to celebrate 20 years of Sorenson Center with free performing arts show

February 22, 2018 by bbrown 1 Comment

Sorenson at Babson

Anthony Rapp, best known for his role in the play and movie versions of Rent, will be among those performing during the 20^th Anniversary celebration of Babson College’s Sorenson Center for the Arts from 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm on Feb. 26..

Student and alumni performances featured will include those by AMAN, Babson Dance Ensemble (BDE), Babson Music Collective, Babson Players, Matthew Barte, Alum Alex Markovitz and his band Satellite Mode, Rocket Pitches, Students Against Gravity, The Empty Space Theater (TEST).

Doors will open at 5:00 pm, performance from 5:30–6:30 pm, followed by a cocktail reception.

Details and RSVP

Activist who removed Confederate flag from S.C. State House in Wellesley on Wednesday

February 21, 2018 by bbrown Leave a Comment

Babson College has invited Bree Newsome, the community organizer and activist who removed the Confederate Battle Flag from the South Carolina State House in 2015, to speak at the school tonight, Wednesday, Feb. 21, at 5:00PM in the Carling-Sorenson Theatre.

Newsome, also a filmmaker and musician, is expected to talk about the relationship between activism and art, as well as the opportunities for ordinary people to make a difference as activists.

Newsome is speaking at Babson’s annual 15h annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Legacy Day event.

Babson to move the Earth: Giant globe to become centerpiece of new park

February 20, 2018 by bbrown 2 Comments

Babson Globe 2017 — Local runners pose in front of the Babson Globe

Visitors to Babson College’s campus in Wellesley have come away disappointed in recent years upon seeing the 28-ft. diameter, 25-ton globe, a landmark that has not spun on its axis since the early 1990s and whose once colorful surface has faded and peeled away in sections.

But Babson says the globe is about to undergo a serious makeover that will once again make it a serious attraction, not to mention a great holiday card background (i.e., Peace on Earth).

The globe will be moved in March to begin a yearlong refurbishment that will result in the landmark becoming a centerpiece of a new Centennial Park to be located across from the main student center on campus beginning in May of 2019. Research will go into getting the globe to spin again, and students will be invited to take part in this effort.

Centennial Park will be another piece of a major Babson campus transformation involving the sports/recreation complex, the library and a new innovation hub.

The globe, once coupled with a 65-foot plaster relief map of the lower 48 states, highlighted the Map and Globe Museum in Coleman Hall when the sphere was dedicated in 1955.

babson globe wellesley — Babson College founder Roger Babson commissioned the globe in the 1950s (photo courtesy of Babson College)

The globe once was the largest of its kind, but barely avoided the wrecking ball in the 1980s after falling into disrepair. At one point covered in enamel tiles, the globe underwent a facelift in the early 1990s and Babson rededicated it in 1993 with fresh vinyl tiles and new satellite imagery.

Babson says the new Centennial Park (not to be confused with Wellesley’s Centennial Reservation) will showcase the school’s history and entrepreneurial accomplishments over the past 100 years. It will also boast a statue of school founder Roger Babson as well as a reworked edition of the Fountain of Flags now seen in front of the Horn Library.

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