Wellesley College Senate bus
{{Short description|Shuttle bus in Massachusetts}}
The Wellesley College Senate bus is a shuttle bus service that connects Wellesley College to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.
History
Until November 1966, transportation at Wellesley consisted of a shuttle to the Woodland MBTA Green Line stop in the nearby city of Newton. At this point, college president Ruth Adams approved expansion of the transportation system and the Senate bus began operations. The shuttle service was originally named for the Wellesley College Student Government Senate, which lobbied in favor of such a route.{{cite journal |url=http://counterpoint.mit.edu/archives/Counterpoint_V23_I3_2002_Nov.pdf |title=Keep On Truckin': A brief history of the Senate Bus |first=Karen |last=Seo |journal=Counterpoint |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |date=November 2002 }} Author Susan Orlean noted that the weekend bus was viewed by some students as a sign of liberation, in that there was a time earlier in that century when students were confined to campus on weekends unless they had a note from home.{{cite book |title=Saturday Night |author=Susan Orlean |author-link=Susan Orlean |pages=21–22 |year=2011 |orig-year=1990 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=9781451661019 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bRpRFNvgp0wC&pg=PA21 }}
Service
The Senate bus is operated by the Wellesley College Department of Housing and Transportation, running Friday through Sunday every week. After leaving Wellesley, stops are made at Harvard Square, MIT's Kresge Auditorium, and Commonwealth Avenue in Boston.{{cite web|url=http://www.wellesley.edu/housingtransp/transportation/shuttlebuses#senate |title=Senate Bus |work=Wellesley.edu |date=2012-03-15 |access-date=2013-09-04}}
The service is not to be confused with the "exchange bus", which transfers employees, faculty, and cross-registered students between MIT and Wellesley during the week.{{cite web|url=http://www.wellesley.edu/housingtransp/transportation/shuttlebuses#mitx |title=MIT Exchange Bus |work=Wellesley.edu |date=2012-03-15 |access-date=2013-09-04}}
Media coverage as the "Fuck Truck"
Students at MIT, Harvard, and Wellesley have sometimes referred to the shuttle service as the "Fuck Truck". The term gained national notoriety when it was mentioned in a 2001 Rolling Stone article entitled "The Highly Charged Erotic Life of the Wellesley Girl",{{cite magazine |first=Jay |last=Dixit |url=http://jaydixit.com/writing/wellesley.htm |title=The Highly Charged Erotic Life of the Wellesley Girl: Behind the Green Doors of America's Most Elite Women's College |date=15 March 2001 |magazine=Rolling Stone |publisher=Jay Dixit}} Copy archived on the writer's Web site. which also discussed the supposed sexual eagerness of Wellesley students. This article and other media attention given to the bus and Wellesley's party scene in general caused concern among the college's administration.{{cite web |title=Wellesley College Government minutes |url=http://www.wellesley.edu/Activities/homepage/cg/Archives/030705.html |publisher=Wellesley College Government |date=7 March 2005}}
A 1995 Boston Herald article also discussed the Senate Bus in terms that many Wellesley students found sensationalistic. An article in Counterpoint magazine criticized both the Herald article and the Wellesley student government response to it:
:"In actuality, the bus is the only affordable means of transportation into the Boston area for many Wellesley students during the weekends. Many women riding the Senate Bus have more critical concerns than Saturday evening socializing."{{cite journal |first1=Richard |last1=Lee |first2=Sarah |last2=Patrick |title=Wellesley's Weekend Bus |journal=Counterpoint |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |date=October 1995|url=http://counterpoint.mit.edu/archives/Counterpoint_V09_I3_1995_Oct.pdf }}
At least one survey suggests that the sexually promiscuous image of Wellesley students that these articles put forth may be exaggerated. In its November 2001 sex survey, Counterpoint reported that 14% of Wellesley students who had had sex claimed to have engaged in sex with an MIT student, and 19% of MIT students who had had sex claimed to have engaged in sex with a Wellesley student.{{cite journal |first1=Ashley |last1=Johnson |title=The Sex Survey |journal=Counterpoint |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |date=November 2001 |url=http://counterpoint.mit.edu/archives/Counterpoint_V21_I3_2001_Nov.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060905085008/http://counterpoint.mit.edu/archives/Counterpoint_V21_I3_2001_Nov.pdf |archive-date=2006-09-05 }} It also reported that 60% of Wellesley students were virgins, as were 47% of MIT students; in addition, 31% of Wellesley students and 43% of MIT students reported having had sex while in college.
An article discussing the bus and its role in Wellesley's social life appeared in the February 22, 2006 issue of The Harvard Crimson. This article referred to the bus as the "Cuddle Shuttle" and "Fuck Truck" and did not use the shuttle's official name.{{cite news |last1=Gutierrez |first1=Alexandra M. |title= The Girls Next Door: A Night on the Town at Wellesley College |work=The Harvard Crimson |date=22 February 2006 |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=511494 | access-date=2006-04-25}}