How The Wellesley News Website Is Organized

The Wellesley News (thewellesleynews.com) is the student newspaper of Wellesley College, published since 1901. Its homepage is organized as a section-based news feed: stories are grouped under standing desks such as News & Investigations, Opinions, Features, and Arts & Culture, and each item is labeled with a headline, one or more author names, and a date. A "Read More" link leads to additional stories beyond those shown on the front page.

The main sections on the homepage

The visible navigation is built around editorial desks rather than a single chronological stream. Based on the homepage, the recurring sections are:

Each section surfaces a small number of recent items on the front page, so the homepage works as a summary of the latest output from every desk at once.

How individual stories are labeled

Every entry follows the same pattern, which makes scanning predictable:

• Headline — the story title, sometimes phrased as a question or a claim
• Author byline — one or more names; some are listed with roles such as Contributing Writer, Features Contributing Writer, Arts Managing Editor, Features Managing Editor, or Features Junior Editor
• Date — a full date, for example October 1, 2026 or September 28, 2026
• Section tag — the desk the story belongs to

A representative example from the homepage: "Wellesley pauses off-campus work authorization for international students," by Lyanne Wang, Jessica Chen, and Anika Sridhar, dated September 28, 2026, filed under News & Investigations.

What the sections actually cover

The homepage gives a concrete sense of each desk's range:

News & Investigations carries institutional reporting. Recent items include the pause of Curricular Practical Training (CPT) authorization for international students on F-1 visas, following a letter President Paula Johnson sent to international students on Sept. 28; international students arriving three weeks late due to visa policy changes; Wellesley's U.S. News ranking; invasive lanternflies on campus; and the reopening of Green Hall after a year-long closure. Note that The Wellesley News states it granted anonymity to international students in the CPT story to protect them from potential immigration-related repercussions — a reminder that some sourcing on this site is deliberately shielded.

Opinions runs argument-driven pieces, such as "Woke for what?", "Wellesley's environmental hypocrisy," and "A higher threshold and broader question of affordability."

Features covers campus life and identity, including a piece on the end of a home at Wellesley, an archive feature on Flower Sunday stories, community-building through creativity, and two trans students on the Title IX complaint against Wellesley.

Arts & Culture publishes reviews and music coverage, such as a HEARTSTEEL release review and a piece on the Residents.

Reading the site efficiently

If you want the newest material across all desks, scan the homepage top to bottom — sections are stacked, and the most recent items sit at the top of each block. If you are following one topic, use the section tag to filter visually rather than reading every headline. The "Read More" link at the end of the feed expands the list when the front page has been exhausted.

Two practical notes for interpreting what you find: dates on the homepage run into late September and early October 2026, so the front page reflects a specific publishing window rather than a full archive; and bylines distinguish staff editors from contributing writers, which is a useful signal for how much editorial weight a piece carries.