A World-Class Mayor
He was audacious and outspoken. But the big dreams of Boston Mayor Kevin White ’52, who passed away in January, helped rebuild the city of Boston. As America’s Bicentennial celebration reached its height in the summer of 1976, millions of tourists in Boston cheered the Tall Ships as they circled the harbor. The newly opened…
Alabama Calling
It’s no surprise that a group of Williams students spent their spring break in Tuscaloosa, Ala., helping to rebuild homes in the wake of devastating tornadoes that rolled through the city the previous April. What made this trip different— perhaps unique—is that the students also spent their time engaged in deeply personal conversations about faith….
10 in 2012
Commencement is just one stop on a journey that has brought students from all over the globe to Williams, only to scatter them again. Each of this year’s 513 graduating seniors (along with 12 graduate art history students and 30 development economics fellows) has an amazing story to tell. We chose to focus on 10—among…
What You Need to Know About Election 2012
“Historic White House Win!” “Voters Embrace Call for Change.” “New Dawn.” So proclaimed newspapers across the country the day after Obama swept the 2008 elections, garnering more votes than any other candidate in U.S. history. Pundits and pollsters alike heralded the victory as the start of a new progressive era. Meanwhile, Williams political scientist Nicole…
Real History
“People of all ages find history prior to the mid-19th century, when photography became available, difficult to connect with. Technology changes that in a really profound way.” —History and Leadership Studies Professor Patrick Spero It’s 2:45 on a Thursday afternoon, and students in Patrick Spero’s “Politics of the Presidency” class are evaluating the campaign ad…
A Life of (Writing) Crime
“If one more literary person says in that oh-so-condescending tone, ‘I don’t read … mysteries,’ I’m going to take a novel by Peter Abrahams and smack him on his smug little head.” —Critic Michele Ross, writing for the Cleveland Plain Dealer He’s been dubbed by Stephen King “my favorite American suspense novelist.” And critics at…
Taking the Long View
When it comes to building a winning team, Pittsburgh Pirates owner Robert Nutting ’84 is opting to play small ball. And it’s starting to pay off. Once the legendary team of Roberto Clemente, Bill Mazeroski and “Pops” Willie Stargell, the Pirates in recent years have come to achieve a different sort of celebrity. In 2011…
In Memoriam
The college last spring noted the passing of two influential community members—music professor Ernest Brown and former alumni secretary John English ’32. Brown “broadened culturally the college’s engagement with music,” stated President Adam Falk in a letter to the Williams community announcing the ethnomusicologist’s death, at the age of 64, after a three-year struggle with…
Ephs Place Third in Directors’ Cup
With NCAA championship titles for women’s crew and tennis—which each set records with seven and five consecutive NCAA wins, respectively— Williams took third in the race for the Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup, given each year to the best all-around athletics program for performance in 18 sports. It’s the first time in 14 years—and the second…
Wanted
Ever check out “The Exchange”—Williams students’ online classifieds? We got a chuckle out of these want-ads, which were posted last semester: A cage for a small animal Want a drawing tablet? Bryant/Mark Hopkins Single Swap with REWARD! Wanted: Cello for one day Make $50 by moving 3 boxes a few feet Selling super fast and…
Student Entrepreneurs Win Seed Capital
Katy Gathright and Imran Khoja, both Class of 2012, are staying in Williamstown this summer, working to launch their “socially conscious flash sales web business,” Designed Good. In a business plan competition judged by a panel of alumni, the students received a $15,000 seed grant, office space and free legal advice. The competition capped…
Sawyer Library: A Bird’s-Eye View
A peek out a fourth-floor window of Stetson Hall offers a great view of construction of the new Sawyer Library, on schedule to open for fall 2014. Visit http://bit.ly/KKYWLh for the latest construction updates.
Goldstein, Nugent Receive Nat’l Recognition for their Publications
Language professors Darra Goldstein and Christopher Nugent received national awards this spring for their published work. Goldstein, the Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Russian, received the 2012 James Beard Foundation Journalism Award for Publication of the Year for her quarterly journal Gastronómica. Nugent, professor of Chinese, received the Association of Asian Studies’ Joseph…
Math Scores High Marks
Williams’ student math teams earned accolades during the 2011-12 academic year, first by placing in the top 10 and receiving an honorable mention out of 460 teams in the prestigious William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition in December. Another group then took first prize in the Regional Undergraduate Mathematics Competition at Central Connecticut State University in…
Emeritus Status Awarded to Eight
On May 10, more than 60 alumni from across the country and as far away as Germany surprised Robert Dalzell at his last class before his retirement as the Fred Rudolph Professor of American Culture. Dalzell was granted emeritus status at the end of the year along with the late Ernest Brown, professor of…
Changes to the Board of Trustees Announced
The college’s Board of Trustees welcomed five new members on July 1: Brian D. Carpenter ’86, James B. Lee Jr. ’75, Caron Garcia Martinez ’81, Clarence Otis Jr. ’77 and Martha Williamson ’77. Martinez was elected by the Society of Alumni in the spring, and Carpenter was appointed to replace Gregory H. Woods ’91, who…
Williams to Honor Five Bicentennial Medalists
During Fall Convocation on Sept. 8, the college will award five alumni with Bicentennial Medals for “significant achievement in any field of endeavor.” This year’s medalists are: Erin I. Burnett ’98, a TV journalist and the host of CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront; Kathleen A. Merrigan ’82, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and…
Learning: 2500 Miles from Home
We’ve probably all experienced how leaving home can help us to see it more clearly. That’s what happened when my travel schedule enabled me to join part of a spring break service trip, one of several around the country organized by the college. This one was to the bottom of the Grand Canyon with eight…
A Defining Decade
A conversation about Jack Sawyer’s Williams presidency with his successor and friend, John Chandler. When my classmates and I arrived in Williamstown in September 1973, we took for granted certain aspects of college life. Fraternities were no longer the center of residential life. Williams was coeducational. Its curriculum was cutting edge. I don’t think any…
Beyond the 1 Percent
Common sense makes it impossible to understand how economics professor David Zimmerman could possibly say that the idea of “redirecting income from the top 1 percent” is mutually exclusive with “targeted, community-based programs” (“Beyond the 1 Percent,” March 2012). The point of the Occupy Movement is that income must be more equally distributed in this…
Library Love
As a lifelong lover of libraries, I was very much interested in “Room to Learn” (March 2012)—a look at the future for libraries at Williams. While a great deal of attention has been paid to how bookstores and publishing companies are reacting to the digital age, there has been considerably less focus on libraries. Clearly,…