Spring 2012

Asco: Claiming Power with Art

“Chicanos make graffiti, not art.” That’s essentially the answer a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) gave Harry Gamboa Jr. in 1972, when Gamboa asked why there wasn’t a single example of Chicano art on the walls. Gamboa returned to the museum that same night with fellow artists Gronk and Willie…

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Level 4 Study Area

Room to Learn

When vast amounts of human scholarship are as close as the nearest smartphone, what’s the future for libraries at Williams? A great college needs a great library. But the definition of a great library is constantly evolving. Gone are the days of monuments to books. Today libraries are designed around the learning experience: increasingly collaborative,…

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Exposure

At 4 o’clock on a January morning, Chris M. Chandler embraced the cold weather (along with the hand warmers in the pockets of his coat) and walked from his room in Currier Quad to the track, carrying his digital camera and a tripod. “I’ve always loved to take star pictures,” says Chandler, a sophomore from…

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Jon Bakija

Beyond the One Percent

Three economics professors at Williams are contributing to the national conversation on income inequality in insightful, relevant ways. “We are the 99 percent.” The rallying cry of the Occupy Movement—which began in Zuccotti Park in New York’s financial district in the fall and spread quickly across the country—captured the nation’s attention by trying to draw…

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Decoding Earth’s History

Geosciences professor Rónadh Cox has spent her life deciphering rocks in faraway places— from gullies in Madagascar to reef sediments in the Caribbean and even as far away as Jupiter’s moon, Europa. Working with student co-authors, she recently made a breakthrough in understanding boulder movements atop the cliffs of Ireland’s Aran Islands. By painstakingly comparing…

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Re-imagining Voice

With his professional vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, Brad Wells has re-imagined the very nature of singing in the 21st century. The group brings renowned artists and composers from all over the world to the Berkshires to create brand new sounds together. While the voice itself—humanity’s oldest instrument—has not changed in eons, different cultures have…

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Arresting Sports Fiction

“The goal was to write an accurate book about elite athletes and give an empowering message to girls.” —Beth (Schmidt) Choat ’86, author of Soccerland As a journalist with Sports Illustrated and ABC Sports in the 1990s, Beth (Schmidt) Choat ’86 had an epiphany. Interviewing Olympians like figure skater Michelle Kwan and gymnast Shannon Miller, Choat says,…

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Loepp Wins National Teaching Award

In January professor Susan Loepp was awarded the 2012 Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. The award, given by the Mathematical Association of America, honors extraordinary professors whose teaching effectiveness has been shown to have influence beyond their own institutions. Specializing in commutative algebra, Loepp has published…

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Remembering David Park

David Park, the college’s Webster Atwell-Class of 1921 Professor of Physics, emeritus, passed away Jan. 19 at the age of 92. In addition to teaching generations of students during his 40 years at Williams, he was the author of dozens of scientific papers as well as eight books, the last of which, The Grand Contraption,…

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Museum Welcomes New Director

Christina Olsen will become the Williams College Museum of Art’s (WCMA) new director on May 1. A Renaissance scholar, she is currently director of education and public programming at the Portland Art Museum and previously worked at the Getty Foundation and Getty Museum. In announcing her appointment in February, Williams President Adam Falk said, “The…

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Great Reviews for Prof. Johnson’s “Return”

Return, a film by Williams art professor and American studies chair Liza Johnson ’92, tells the story of a servicewoman struggling to resume her life after a tour of duty in the Middle East. With openings in New York City and Los Angeles on Feb. 10, the film (whose credits include director of photography Anne…

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Check Out This Book

Ever talk to a book? More than 240 members of the Williams community had that chance at the Human Library in the Paresky Center Feb. 10-11. A living library in which the “books” were students, faculty and community members that readers could “check out” for 30-minute conversations, the Human Library included titles like Fat Woman,…

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Community Claims Williams

It’s hard to convey the power and emotion of Claiming Williams Day. With the aim of building an inclusive community on campus, the day involves discussions and explorations ranging from frank and painful to uplifting and eye-opening. Among the events packed into the schedule Feb. 2 were (pictured above, clockwise from left) Coming Out Muslim:…

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Mark Your Calendars

The spring semester is incredibly full at Williams, with dozens and dozens of events planned over the next three months. Stay on top of it all with the campus calendar, where you can sign up for an RSS feed of the various exhibitions, performances, sporting events and other activities open to the public. Visit https://events.williams.edu…

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Get a Jump on Your Summer Reading

Following the success of this year’s Williams Reads, in which faculty, staff and students spent Winter Study exploring Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home together, the program will be expanded next year. Prior to the start of the fall semester, the college plans to send students e-book copies of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On…

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Fellowship Season is Upon Us!

Congratulations to seniors Evelyn Denham and Erin McGonagle, recipients of a Gates Cambridge Scholarship and a Luce Fellowship, respectively. Denham, a history and German major, will pursue an M.Phil in European literature and culture, concentrating in early modern Germany, while at Cambridge. McGonagle, a chemistry and studio art major, plans to work in Asia with…

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On Our Devotion to Teaching

Here’s a quiz. If, walking down a corridor, you pass two Williams faculty members in conversation, they’re mostly likely to be discussing: A.     Their most recent grant proposals B.     The U.S. presidential race C.     The state of parking on campus D.     Teaching Believe me, the answer at some places would be C. At many it’d…

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Racing to Victory

The women’s alpine ski team finished an impressive regular season at Williams Winter Carnival in February. In celebration of their success, we asked three of the team’s top skiers to explain what it’s like to go down a mountain really fast… At the starting gate: “I have done everything I can to prepare. My skis…

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Genealogy

I was very interested in “The Red Jacket” (January 2012) as it pertained to the family of Ephraim Williams, founder of our college. Within the last year or two, as a result of genealogical research in concert with my sister, who is writing a book on the history of the Porters, we discovered that one…

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Poetry

I loved Professor Raab’s analysis of Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (January 2012). I was able to get a quick dose of non-finance learning in for the day when reading my mail late at night. Please continue this educational format in the future. —Tara Kazak ’86, Huntington, N.Y. One of the…

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Legacy

Those who knew Jack Sawyer ’39 are very glad to have the portrait of him given by Michael Beschloss ’77 and John Chandler (“A Defining Decade,” January 2012). I knew Jack at Harvard (1947-52), kept in touch with him when I taught abroad and had a very good view of his presidency from a neighboring…

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