Nature and Nurture
The Science of Who We Are The first thing that struck Nathan Fox ’70 was the silence. In the drab room of an orphanage in Bucharest, Romania, the developmental psychologist saw dozens of infants lying awake in their cribs. Not a single one was crying. “They were on their backs, doing nothing except maybe looking…
On The Wall
When the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) asked studio art majors Rachel Lee ’16 and Clover Powell ’16 to assist with the installation of a Sol LeWitt wall drawing in the museum’s atrium, it seemed a pretty straightforward task. LeWitt, who famously stated, “The idea becomes a machine that makes the art,” was…
Financial Aid at Williams
It’s hard to ignore the headlines about soaring college tuition and mounting student debt. Misconceptions persist about the merits of “need-blind” admission, “no-loan” financial aid and other policies that shape who gets into college and how much they pay for it. But at Williams, the outlook is far more positive—and the picture much clearer. Provost…
Gaius C. Bolin, Class of 1889
Many Williams alumni know that Gaius C. Bolin, Class of 1889, was Williams’ first black graduate. He was, of course, a great deal more. When Lauren Hobby ’10 visited Williams with her family in 1998, it was the first time she could recall setting foot on a college campus. “Afterwards,” she says, “that was how…
The Art and Economics of Acquisition
The 19th-century landscape Keene Valley, Adirondacks, on view in the Williams College Museum of Art’s (WCMA) Prendergast Gallery, is notable for many reasons. It’s a classic example of a high-quality painting by a Hudson River School artist who’s not widely known. Its subject matter, an expansive valley, evokes the promise of America in the Reconstruction era. And…
Environmental Planning
As it runs through North Adams, the Hoosic River flows through a concrete chute built decades ago for flood control. The chute obscures the view of the river, it is inhospitable to river organisms, and parts of it are starting to crumble. So for their Environmental Planning class last fall, four students designed a revitalized…
Ivona’s Second Act
After successfully staging Princess Ivona at Williams last March, associate professor of theater Omar Sangare created a Winter Study course that took the student cast and crew to New York City to remount the play at Theatre Row on 42nd Street. The play, by Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz, is a tragicomedy that challenges societal expectations….
New Heights
Professor of English Alison Case has made a career of analyzing Victorian literature, but it wasn’t until recently that she started writing in the genre herself. Her first work of fiction, Nelly Dean (Pegasus, 2015), retells Wuthering Heights in the voice of one of Emily Brontë’s minor characters, Nelly Dean, the Earnshaw family’s servant and a lifelong resident…
Language Learning: Renovated
With recent events in both Germany and Russia fueling student interest in those countries, and with the retirement of two longtime professors prompting two new hires, the Department of German and Russian is undergoing what its chair calls “a renovation.” Julie Cassiday, professor of Russian, says language education has expanded beyond memorization to include skills students…
Culture and Climate in National Parks
You might expect to learn about climate change or Native American history and culture during a visit to a national park. In researching her senior thesis, sociology major Elena Zifkin ’16 found that these topics present challenges for interpretive rangers who lead educational programs at parks across the U.S. With a research grant from Williams’ Center…
The Cost of Remembering
Some of the students in Documenting Stories of Escape and Survival took the Winter Study course to hone their filmmaking skills. Others wanted to learn more about conducting oral histories. Still others wanted to better understand the World War II era. They got all that and something they weren’t expecting: a deep connection to the small…
Opera Workshop
Derek Galvin ’18 stands on Chapin Hall’s stage in his stocking feet, furiously conducting an arrangement of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. The singers’ voices fill the newly renovated space, but Galvin’s trained ear detects a gap in the vocals. He abruptly stops the performance. Keith Kibler, co-director of the Williams Opera Workshop, who’s singing…
In Memoriam
“The words most associated with Anne … are ‘dignity’ and ‘grace.’ Not a bad way to be remembered.” —President Adam Falk in a letter to the campus community about the passing of Anne Sawyer on Feb. 16. She was 97. Anne Sawyer came to Williams in 1961, when her husband, Jack Sawyer ’39, was named…
Four Faculty Receive Tenure
Four Williams faculty members have been promoted to associate professor with tenure, effective July 1. They are: Jacqueline Hidalgo, Latina/o studies and religion. Hidalgo’s research focuses on Latina/o religious traditions as they shape race and gender relations in the American West. She teaches courses including Latina/o Identities: Constructions, Contestations and Expressions; Utopias and Americas; Scriptures…
Examining the Williams Way
On Feb. 4, the campus community took part in Claiming Williams, a day of conversations and questions around the topic “Examining the Williams Way.” The event, now in its seventh year, grew out of the student-led Stand With Us movement. This year, New Yorker staff writer Jelani Cobb delivered the keynote address, “The Half…
246 Admitted to Class of ’20 via Early Decision
Williams offered admission to 246 students under its early decision plan. The 121 women and 125 men make up 44.7 percent of the incoming Class of 2020. The class has a target size of 550. The students come from 35 states and eight countries. U.S. students of color make up 26 percent of the cohort, which…
Cohan named Schwarzman Scholar
Teddy Cohan ’16 is among the first cohort of students to be named a Schwarzman Scholar, a scholarship program created by Blackstone Group founder Steven A. Schwarzman. The scholarship will fund a one-year master’s degree program at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Cohan, a political science major, is one of 111 students from 32 countries chosen…
Sandstrom Named Dean of the College
Hales Professor of Psychology Marlene Sandstrom has been named dean of the college, effective July 1. Sandstrom, who served last year as director of the Williams-Exeter Programme at Oxford, has been at Williams since 1999. She’s served on and chaired several committees, including the Honor Committee, the Committee on Academic Standing, the Committee on Undergraduate…
Bolton, Dudley Appointed to Presidencies
Williams will bid farewell to two senior staff members in the next year. Dean of the College Sarah Bolton has been named president of the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, effective July 1. And Provost Will Dudley ’89 will begin as president of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., on Jan. 1, 2017….
Responsibility and Promise
The bleak and prevailing narrative about college costs is that they’re out of control, and that the best education is reserved for the wealthy elite. If you’re a parent or prospective student, it’s scary. Everywhere you turn, you hear stories of college students graduating with mountains of debt, defaulting on loans and struggling to find…
Editor’s Note
Recognizing Williams’ Work Last spring Williams Magazine published the article “Standing Strong,” about the college’s community- driven approach to ending sexual assault. In January, we learned that this important story won a Gold Award for Best Article of the Year from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, District I. We are proud…
Around the Kitchen Table
I had a special interest in Michael Curtin’s ’86 thoughtful piece on D.C. Central Kitchen (“Around the Kitchen Table,” fall 2015). Several years ago, concerned about the homeless in Charlottesville, Va., I got an earnest little movement going called Compass to establish a daytime shelter. The public library where I worked was a daily home…
The ’62 Center’s Second Act
“Act II” (fall 2015) was well played for this alum. I had wondered just what went on at the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance. Obviously it was more than what my former roommate John Calhoun ’62 did at the Adams Memorial Theatre. At our 50th reunion it was a more or less open space,…
Progress Through Struggle
On April 4, 1969, 34 students from Williams’ Afro-American Society took over Hopkins Hall. They sought action from the college on 15 demands, including adding African-American studies to the curriculum, diversifying the faculty and creating a cultural center. The campus community, black and white, rallied in support. Discussions between the administration and society members took place by…
Welcome to the “Real World”
The question is: Do we prepare students to accept the world as it is, or do we prepare them to change it? “The imaginary college student is a character born of someone else’s pessimism. It is an easy target, a perverse distillation of all the self-regard and self-absorption ascribed to what’s often called the millennial generation. But perhaps it goes both ways, and…
Megamenu Social