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- Sport:
- Woman of Inspiration
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- Inducted:
- 2014
Bio
As President, Nan is credited with vastly improving facilities such as the building of the Keohane Sports Center which opened in 1985 as well as the Davis Museum and Cultural Center. During her 1984 Convocation address, President Keohane eloquently spoke about the “practical, strategic and theoretical case” for why a Sports Center was important for Wellesley College. She believed that a sound mind in a sound body was more than a piece of rhetoric and, the self-knowledge and mental acumen that comes through athletics are not totally separate from the realms of intellect where they become most valuable in use.
Nan worked with alumnae, parents and friends to ensure funding to provide the facilities and spaces for athletics and scholar-athletes to grow and flourish from that point until today.
My first memories of athletics at Wellesley—broadly construed—are of Mary Hemenway Gymnasium. The Class of 1961 assembled there for “Fundies”: Freshman Fundamentals of Movement, the required Physical Education course for first semester Wellesley women.
We learned how to walk in a stately fashion carrying a suitcase with a book balanced on our heads; how to get out of a car in a ladylike fashion without showing too much leg; how to relax by lying down on the gym floor and closing our eyes without going to sleep; and other very useful skills that would serve us well for a lifetime, we were told. I enjoyed basketball; or rather, I would have enjoyed it had we not been required to stop at the half-court line, playing either offense or defense but never trespassing over that line. Who knows what permanent damage might have been done to our delicate innards if we had actually run all the way down the court?
Fast-forward 20 years to my return to Wellesley as the new president. Lots of things at Wellesley had changed in the interim, and I had surely changed a great deal. But Mary Hemenway had not changed a bit, except to get mustier and more museum-like than ever. Some forward-looking trustees immediately urged on us the crucial importance of bringing athletics at Wellesley into the modern world.
We toured magnificent new sports complexes at other campuses, returning with chagrin to the familiar sights and smells of our ancient Mary Hem. With the wonderful support of Dorothy Johnston Towne, Mia Chandler Frost, and other generous alumnae, we embarked on building a new Field House, swimming pool, renovated Recreation Center, and refurbished sports fields.
I will never forget the joy of breaking ground and touring the building regularly. When the building opened in 1985, for the first time Wellesley College had facilities that matched the vigor, skill and dedication of the athletes that used these facilities.
I became a much more committed athlete myself as President, swimming and running around the track, occasionally playing tennis. My family and I attended basketball games whenever we could, joining Chip Case and other regulars in cheering on the team. I was very touched and deeply honored when I was told, upon my retirement as President, that the Sports Center—by then a decade old, but still very new compared to Mary Hem—would be named for me. And now I am equally touched and honored to be included in the inaugural group of members of the Wellesley Athletics Hall of Fame.