The end of summer brought me on an enlightening visit to Wheaton College – that’s Wheaton College in Massachusetts, of course, not the one in Illinois.
Wheaton is the home of President Michaele Whelan, whom we were fortunate to have assume the role of Chair of the New England Commission on July 1. An experienced and energetic leader in higher education and a scholar of English literature, Michaele took office as the ninth president of Wheaton College on January 1, 2022. She came to Wheaton after serving as Provost at Emerson College, where she played a critical role in advancing the new Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies and helped develop a portfolio of global programs offered in partnership with institutions in Australia, China, France, Spain and Switzerland.
Her previous posts include Brandeis University as Vice Provost, Tufts University as Associate Dean, and Harvard University (where she also earned her Ph.D.) — all institutions that NECHE is proud to accredit. That’s quite a resume but additionally Michaele is a delight to work with, and her colleagues at the Commission are quite eager to serve alongside her in her new role as Chair.
This was my first trip to Wheaton’s 400-acre campus in Norton, located 35 miles south of Boston, and I was fortunate to be there on a beautifully clear and sunny day. Wheaton was founded in 1834 as a female seminary (three years before Mount Holyoke, the oldest of the Seven Sisters colleges) and was chartered as a four-year liberal arts college in 1912.
The college became co-educational in 1988 and today has 80-plus lovely buildings. Yet perhaps most impressive is the school’s deep commitment to student outcomes and success.
They call it The Wheaton Edge, and statistics are pretty darn convincing: 95% of Wheaton graduates are either working, in graduate school, or in professional school; or serving in fellowships, internships or national service within six months of matriculation. President Whelan proudly shared that of Wheaton’s 1700 students, 96% live on campus, 45% work on campus, and since 2000, the school has produced 3 Rhodes Scholars and 122 U.S. Fulbrights.
Wheaton is ranked #75 by U.S.News & World Reports among national liberal arts colleges, and offers its students 200+ funded internships each year. Its top ten majors upon admission paint a perfect portrait of a thriving liberal arts college, with studies in Psychology, Business and Management, Nursing, Education, Biology, Computer Science, Creative Writing, English, History, and Pre-med.
The day I visited was move-in day for first-year students–which was always one of my favorite days when I served as president. Among the new students arriving on campus were forty students destined for the college’s new B.S. in Nursing program (officially launched in 2022). Michaele showed me the impressive simulation lab and facility that houses that program in the Diana Davis Spencer Discovery Center Dedicated to Free Speech and Innovation.
In addition to Nursing, Wheaton’s plan for growth includes new majors in Marketing, Finance, and Digital Media & Communications, and a new Life and Career Design Institute added in 2024. I was also fascinated to learn (after obsessively watching almost every sport in the Olympics) that Wheaton has a nationally-lauded program in Artistic Swimming, as well as five new sports, including Men’s and Women’s Water Polo.
My final stop of the day was at President Whelan’s office as she prepared to address more than 550 new students and their families in one of the most beloved spaces on campus. Originally planned as a second pond (who needs two?), the empty hole in the center of the campus’s quad was never filled, gradually became covered over with grass, and is today known affectionately only as “The Dimple.”
Now, who says academics have no sense of humor?