Chronicle of Higher Education rates Wells #1 in alumnae giving

The rating is based on 1995-96 fundraising information gathered from a wide variety of colleges and universities. For the 1995-96 academic year, Wells received $12,004 per student from alumnae. Wells is also ranked seventh among colleges and universities in the nation for total support per student; the college provided $33,477 per student during the 1995-96 academic year, according to the Almanac.

"We are exceedingly pleased by these rankings," said Arthur J. Bellinzoni, director of planned and leadership giving at Wells. "They reflect the wonderful generosity of the alumnae and friends of the college."

Also included among the top 20 institutions for alumnae support per student are Bowdoin College, Princeton University, Smith College, Stanford University and Williams College. The Almanac is an annual compendium of facts about higher education in the United States.

Wells is currently in a comprehensive campaign to raise $50,000,000 by June 30 in the year 2000. To date, the college has raised approximately $37,000,000 in gifts and pledges toward the goal.

September, 1997

Television program features investment strategies class

The segment will examine how a Wells education prepares women for leadership in the business world and, in particular, the college's Corporate Affiliates program. The crew will conduct interviews with Lisa Marsh Ryerson, president of the college; Alfred Ntoko, lecturer in economics; and his students in the investment strategies class.

Spotlight on Industry celebrated its inaugural airing August 2, 1997, in 15 of the top 20 national markets including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Seattle and Chicago. The show features accomplished executives and figures from top colleges and companies across the United States to lend definition and to share the latest trends and innovations within their fields. The Wells segment will air sometime this fall.

The Wells Corporate Affiliates program was founded in 1986 by the college to prepare women for leadership in the corporate world and provides unique opportunities for pre-professional training. The program has three components: upper-level internships in America's top corporations, an investment strategies class in which students manage a real financial portfolio currently valued at over $670,000 and a corporate guest lecturer series.

Corporate Affiliates sponsors who currently provide internships for Wells students are American International Group, The Bank of New York, Citibank, Executive Female magazine, Fidelity Investments, Merck & Co., Inc., Wells Fargo Bank History Department and Xerox Corporation. The internships are offered annually, and students are selected through a competitive process.

The Corporate Affiliates financial portfolio is managed by students in the investment strategies class under the supervision of Professor Ntoko. Students research investments and make buy, sell or hold recommendations. Funds generated by the portfolio are used to fund Corporate Affiliates internships.

Spotlight on Industry is co-hosted by Sara Lee Kessler and Alan Mendelson. Kessler is an Emmy Award winning television journalist and currently the health and medical correspondent for NJN News, the New Jersey network affiliated with PBS. For many years she was a popular news anchorwoman on New York's WWOR-TV. She received an Emmy Award in 1993 for anchoring the coverage of the World Trade Center bombing. She developed and taught a course entitled Ethics of Broadcast Journalism for Montclair State University.

Alan Mendelson currently writes, produces and anchors Mendelson's Best Buys on KCAL-TV in Los Angeles. In 1992, he received a Golden Mic Award for Best Economic Reporting and for Best Newscast Writing. His articles have been published in Washington Journalism Review, Columbia Journalism Review and Barron's.

September, 1997

Wells College receives high marks in U.S. News college rankings

Additionally, Wells has climbed to the second tier of national liberal arts colleges in the rankings which first appeared in the September 1 (1997) issue of U.S. News & World Report magazine. Last year, the college was ranked in the fourth tier. These rankings are also published in the America's Best Colleges guide.

Wells College President Lisa Marsh Ryerson comments, "This recognition is an indication of the extraordinary work done by our community in recent years as well as the quality of our students. At Wells, students learn the best that has been thought and said in the past while at the same time experiencing the technological revolution that is changing the world. Society needs women who can meaningfully interpret information, find solutions to complex problems and express these solutions effectively orally and in writing. A Wells education is more relevant than ever before."

The U.S. News best values rankings relate the cost of attending an institution to its quality. The best values are calculated in relation to a school's discounted price (tuition plus room, board, fees, books, and estimated personal expenses, minus the average of need-based grants.)

Because U.S. News believes that the best values are found among colleges that are above average academically, only the top half of national institutions in the quality rankings are considered.

"It is thrilling to have earned this ranking, but in many ways not surprising," says Professor of Physics Scott Heinekamp. "Wells' mission is now, and has always been, to provide an excellent education in the liberal arts. There is no finer credential - whether for a career, or for post-graduate training, or indeed for lifelong participation in human affairs - than a degree from Wells College."

Grinnell College received the #1 ranking in the best value liberal arts category. Another women's college, Mount Holyoke, was rated #3. Other institutions on the top 25 list for best values are Amherst College, Colgate University, Middlebury College and Swarthmore College.

September, 1997

Wells enhances exchange program with Japanese women's college

On Friday, September 12, Dr. Sanehide Kodama, the president of Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts in Japan visited Wells. He was accompanied by Mr. Kenichi Takemura, professor of English and director of Doshisha's International Exchange Center, and Mr. Yoshihiro Kuroda, administrative coordinator of the International Exchange Center.

Their visit included meetings with Lisa Marsh Ryerson, Wells' president; Ellen W. Hall, dean of the college; Nancy Gil, lecturer in French and advisor to Doshisha students and representatives from the Admissions Office.

Wells' Director of Career Development Services Nancy Karpinski visited the Doshisha campus in May. "Doshisha is a new campus with impressive modern architecture. They are known in particular for a very strong music program," she said. In Japan, Karpinski met with Doshisha student Eriko Iguchi who is studying at Wells this year.

For nearly a decade, two or three Doshisha Women's College students have studied on the Wells campus each year. The recent meetings were held to further develop an exchange program. "We want to have more Japanese students at Wells, and we want to encourage our students to study in Japan," said Karpinski.

Doshisha has developed classes and programs to accommodate students who have not studied the Japanese language, and there is a strong interest in American culture, Karpinski reported.

Doshisha Women's College is part of a large, private institution named Doshisha which was established in 1875. A kindergarten, four junior high schools, four senior high schools, a junior college, two universities and two graduate schools comprise the organization.

The women's college has two campuses: the Imadegawa Campus for the faculty of human and life science in the city of Kyoto and the Tanabe Campus for the faculty of the Liberal Arts in the southern part of Kyoto Prefecture.

Japan has 64 colleges and universities for women, according to information compiled by Nara Women's University.

"It was important for representatives from Doshisha to see Wells," said Karpinski. "They were impressed with the natural beauty on and around the campus and came away from the visit knowing this is a wonderful place to send their students."

September, 1997

Funds will support genetic studies conducted by a faculty member and students

The one-year grant awarded to Candace Collmer, associate professor of biology, will fund her ongoing research that seeks to understand the interactions between a particular group of plant viruses, called potyviruses, and the bean plant they can infect. Potyviruses are the largest group of plant viruses and cause serious economic losses on a global scale through crop destruction.

Wells students have collaborated with Collmer on the research from the beginning. "So far we've had one paper published in an international journal from that work, and five Wells students have presented their findings at the annual meetings of the National Conference for Undergraduate Research since 1992," she says.

This current grant will support Collmer's research during a sabbatical leave and will allow her to explore new directions, learn new techniques and then bring them back to Wells and her classes. She will pursue her new studies in the laboratory of Dr. Molly Kyle at Cornell University this fall and then at the laboratory of Dr. Andrew Maule at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, England in the spring.

A particular cultivar of the bean plant contains a single gene, called the I gene, that confers resistance to the bean plant against infection by some of the different potyviruses. This gene is used in beans grown commercially and is very important in protecting beans from viral infection and thus crop loss. However, the I gene does not stop all of the different potyviruses from infecting bean plants.

"We have been studying the various viruses that are affected by the I gene, trying to find common features of the viruses that allow them to be recognized by the plant - thus stopping infection. We have cloned and sequenced the coat protein from three of these different viruses, trying to find common structural features," says Collmer.

The grant comes from the USDA's Strengthening program which is targeted to support research in agriculture at smaller institutions. Collmer received a three-year research grant from that program in 1992 that allowed her to begin the potyvirus studies.

Candace Collmer received her B.S. degree from Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia and her M.S. and Ph.D. from Cornell University. She joined the Wells faculty in 1990.

September, 1997

Christie's Auction House vice president is Leader-in-Residence

Sartori, who joined the international auction house in 1984, will speak on "The Pleasures of Collecting 19th-Century European Painting: One of the Best Kept Secrets in the Art World." Under her direction, Christie's 19th-century painting sales have received greater recognition with sales tripling in recent years.

Sartori has cultivated widespread interest in Barbizon, realist and French landscape painting by introducing an annual auction devoted solely to the genre. The sale, held every May since 1989, has established Christie's as the premier source for works by the great French masters such as Corot, Rousseau, Millet and Courbet.

Prior to joining Christie's, Sartori was a member of the European paintings department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1977 to 1983.

A frequent guest lecturer, Sartori has spoken at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Taft Museum in Cincinnati, the Flagler Art Museum in Palm Beach, New York University and throughout South America. She is a regular contributor to Christie's International Magazine and Auction News from Christie's.

Sartori received her B.A. from Wells College and an M.A. from New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. She is visiting Wells as a leader-in-residence. Sponsored by the college's Leadership Connection group, the leader-in-residence program brings outstanding women who are recognized leaders in their fields to campus each semester to teach, meet with students informally and present public lectures.

September, 1997