The Gaudino Option
Enabling students to enroll in courses they really want to take—but that seem risky. Learning is limb-walking. There’s a unique thrill in stepping out on a branch, in following your curiosity. The view may be unfamiliar, even discomfiting, but a great education is full of leaps, small and large. At Williams, effective this semester, a…
Commencement 2010
“Creating an authentic identity, or finding out who you are, involves experimentation and role playing and even outright fraud. It involves pretending to be smarter and more secure and worldly than you are in the hope that you will eventually grow into the part. “But in my experience self-invention is only half of the goal…
The Doctor is in the Studio
Richard Besser ’81 straddles the worlds of medicine and journalism When new doctors take the Hippocratic Oath, they pledge to treat the sick, prevent disease, share medical knowledge with peers and serve the firm and infirm alike. In a way that few docs do, Richard Besser ’81—pediatrician, medical researcher and public health administrator—has done all…
Public Art: A Social Work
Finding individual meaning in class, culture and community Pepón Osorio is the antithesis of the isolated artist laboring alone in his studio to realize a masterpiece. For Osorio, a MacArthur Fellow and professor at Temple’s Tyler School of Art, creation is an act of social work, a communal affair. His latest installation, Drowned in a…
Observe the Mighty Falling
“When the Eliot [Spitzer] thing exploded, I was there, I experienced it all, but I didn’t really feel like I understood what had just happened. I figured if I reviewed the sequence of events, I would understand what happened.” In the fall of 2003, Lloyd Constantine ’69 wrapped up the largest federal antitrust suit in…
Doctoring Freedom
“Black soldiers during the Civil War wrote about their own medical experiences. They were wounded or sick or they saw white soldiers getting better care. Sickness is one of those things that puts them on the page a bit.” Before she attended graduate school at the University of Chicago, Associate Professor of History Gretchen Long…
From the Bookshelf
Crime and Culpability: A Theory of Criminal Law By Larry Alexander ’65 et al. Cambridge University Press, 2009. An overview of what criminal law would look like if punishment were commensurate with but not greater than deserved. The Life of Herbert Hoover: Imperfect Visionary, 1918-1928 By Kendrick A. Clements ’60. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. A…
Now Coaching for Williams
“I’ve been preparing for this for a long time,” says Aaron Kelton, who, after spending a dozen years as a college assistant and five more coaching high school, is now head football coach at Williams. His last job, as defensive coordinator at Columbia University, was perfect preparation, Kelton says. “Columbia was a great place for…
Sculptor’s Archives Arrive at Chapin
The archival collections of Chesterwood, the Stockbridge, Mass., home of Daniel Chester French (1850-1931) and his family, have been transferred to the Chapin Library by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. French, whose best known pieces include the seated “Abraham Lincoln” (1922) at the Lincoln Memorial and “Minute Man” (1875) in Concord, Mass., resided for…
Bassett, Cochran and Mandjes Named Trustees
In July, the Board of Trustees welcomed new term trustees Patrick F. Bassett ’70 and Eric L. Cochran ’82 and alumni-elected trustee Robin Powell Mandjes ’82. Bassett has been president of the National Association of Independent Schools since 2001. Previously, he was a teacher at Woodberry Forest and head at both Stuart Hall and Pomfret….
Williams Wins 14th Directors’ Cup
According to ESPN commentator Bob Ryan, Williams “is the greatest small college program in America.” He offered this assessment after Williams’ scholar-athletes once again won the Directors’ Cup awarded by the U.S. Sports Academy. The cup is given annually to the best all-around athletics program in NCAA Division III competition for team performance in 18…
Professor and Author on Autism Clara Park Dies
Clara Claiborne Park, senior lecturer in English, emerita, at the College and an internationally recognized voice on autism, died in Williamstown on July 3. She was 86. In the Williams classroom, Park was noted for her early work on female authors and characters; in the larger world, her reputation was based on two books she…
Williams Student Dies in Swiss Alps
Henry Lo, a 20-year-old junior at Williams, died on a hiking trip near Frutigen, Switzerland, on June 6. A student in the Williams-Exeter Programme at Oxford University, he was swept off a 100-meter cliff by an avalanche of snow, ice and rocks. According to Bern police, the avalanche appeared to have been caused by a…
New Majors Offered
Under the auspices of the Center for Environmental Studies, Williams now offers majors in environmental policy and environmental science. A third new major, Arabic Studies, was also approved in April. According to the program description, the environmental policy major “combines scientific literacy with an understanding of the economic, political and cultural structures involved in institutional…
CDE 50th Anniversary
The Center for Development Economics (CDE) will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its master’s degree program with “A Half Century of Searching and Learning,” a series of public panels and lectures to be held Oct. 12-15 on the Williams campus. The principal speakers will be Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate and University Professor at Columbia University,…
Inch by Inch, Row by Row
Just outside Parsons House, a garden grows. The work of Williams Sustainable Growers (WSG), a student organization formed last spring and now totaling more than 100 members, the 12 raised beds are a continuing source of vegetables, ranging from lettuces and tomatoes to culinary herbs, kale, squashes, beans and heritage wheat. The project has provided…
They Said:
“What I’ll miss about Williams is the people. Bricks and mortar are great, but the real value of this place is the folks who work here. I’ll also miss Cole Field on a beautiful fall morning well before either soccer team kicks off. Weston Field late fall afternoon after the football game is over and…
Why? Oh, Why?
Why would you put a picture of a dorm with an Amherst College sticker on the cover of the June Alumni Review? —Diana del Valle ’95, Boca Raton, Fla
Court Limits
In June’s Alumni Review, James MacGregor Burns ’39 answers questions about Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s impending confirmation hearings. He notes, “There will also be the usual red herring about ‘original intent.’ It is important to remember that the original framers of the Constitution disagreed about the meaning of the Constitution they had just drafted.”…
Jumping-Off Point
I wanted to let you know how much my wife Heather and I (both proud members of the Class of 1981) enjoyed the latest issue of the Williams Alumni Review (June 2010), in particular the piece by Denise DiFulco on Jennifer French and the Center for Environmental Studies. In fact, I enjoyed it so much…
Spaces for Teaching and Learning
In the last Review, I wrote of my conviction that, despite centuries of technological change, education remains a social activity, and I promised to talk this time about the important role that physical spaces play in fulfilling that mission. The purpose of Williams is to bring students together with faculty, in a space that supports and…
September 2010 Letters
LETTERS troupe effort I wanted to let you know how much my wife Heather and I (both proud members of the Class of 1981) enjoyed the latest issue of the Williams Alumni Review (June 2010), in particular the piece by Denise DiFulco on Jennifer French and the Center for Environmental Studies. In fact, I enjoyed…
Megamenu Social