Spring 2017

Woman’s Work

In The Carrying Stones Project, Katie Sawyer Rose ’96 explores the “double burden” of women’s work inside and outside the home—and how little time women have left for themselves. Katie Sawyer Rose ’96 aims to make the invisible visible with her artwork. Her multimedia sculptures represent the work women do both inside and outside the…

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Diala Issam Al Masri, CDE ’15, is the first graduate of Williams’ development economics program to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship.

Developing Economies

Graduate fellows of the Center for Development Economics bring the world to Williams—and return home to have an outsized effect on the world.  Growing up in the tiny mountain town of Salima, Lebanon, Diala Issam Al Masri experienced a life of uncertainty. A 15-year civil war destroyed the country’s infrastructure. A string of political assassinations…

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An illustration of many lightbulbs hanging from a ceiling.

Impact Worthy

Shedding light on the college’s substantial endowment and why it needs to grow even more. Williams and its peers have come under fire for their large endowments. Ours stands at $2.3 billion—a large sum by any measure. There are calls for the college to spend down the endowment to reduce costs, pressure to divest from…

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Hunger Games

Psychology of Eating Research suggests that we make more than 200 food-related choices each day, including what, when, where, with whom and how much to eat. In a new Winter Study course, Psychology of Eating, Assistant Professor of Psychology Jeremy Cone asked his students to consider how behavioral science informs our understanding of why we…

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From Solid Earth to the Universe

In June, the college will commemorate the 200th anniversary of the first geology class ever taught at Williams. Bud Wobus, the Edna McConnell Clark Professor of Geology, has been here for 50 of those 200 years. With these milestones in mind, Williams Magazine talked with Wobus, who received the National Association of Geosciences Teachers Neil…

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The Political as Scripture

  The first time Jacqueline Hidalgo read The Spiritual Manifesto of Aztlán, she was an undergraduate at Columbia University taking an introductory course in Latino/a studies. The document was used to demonstrate a pivotal moment in the history of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, which sought to achieve Mexican-American empowerment. Yet, as a religion major, she…

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Reading List

How does the family function as an economic unit? And how do individuals allocate time between the labor market and the household? Students grappled with these questions last fall in Lucie Schmidt’s course Gender and Economics. The syllabus included readings from the books Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide, by Linda Babcock and…

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Photograph of a letter recently acquired by Chapin Library. It is from 1745, written in script, with wear and tear showing around the edges.

A Fuller Picture of Theyanoguin

The Chapin Library is adding to the ongoing campus conversation about historical representation with a newly acquired 18th-century letter referencing Theyanoguin, the Mohawk leader depicted with college founder Ephraim Williams in a controversial mural in the Log. In the Feb. 15, 1745, letter, translator and interpreter Arendt Stevens reported to George Clinton, governor of the…

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Living Memory

History professor Alexandra Garbarini ’94 brings new life to a mysterious set of diaries sent to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Sixteen years after encountering the diaries of Lucien Dreyfus, a French Jewish man who perished in the Holocaust, history professor Alexandra Garbarini ’94 is about to have them published in France. Garbarini came across…

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A Closer Look: WIlliams-Mystic

Though they’re based on the seacoast of Connecticut, students participating in the Williams-Mystic maritime studies program are more likely to be on a boat, at the beach or in a port, enhancing their interdisciplinary study of the history, literature, policy and science of the sea with hands-on experience. Last semester, 20 students from colleges around…

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In Memoriam

Williams said goodbye to Professor Robert M. Kozelka, who died in December at the age of 90. Kozelka taught in the math department from 1957 to 1988 and served as its chair for five years. His specialty was statistics, and the department honored him in 2001 by establishing the Robert M. Kozelka Prize in Statistics,…

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257 Students Selected in Early Decision

In December, Williams offered admission to 257 students under its early decision plan. The group of students makes up nearly 47 percent of the incoming Class of 2021, whose ultimate target size is 550. Thirty-four states are represented, and the 12 international students admitted come from 10 countries. American students of color are 30 percent…

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Williams Welcomes New Staff Members

Two new staff members recently joined the campus community—Shawna Patterson-Stephens as director of the Davis Center and Jim Reische as chief communications officer. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Creighton ’01 was named to the newly created position of dean of admission and financial aid. Patterson-Stephens most recently served as a house dean at the University of Pennsylvania and…

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At a Glance

Six months after graduation, most members of the Class of 2016 report that they’re employed full time or in graduate school and they’re happy with what they’re doing—and they say Williams helped them get there, according to the Career Center’s first-ever First Destinations Survey. “This speaks directly to the hireability of the Williams liberal arts…

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In the News

When it comes to providing access to high-achieving, low-income students, Williams is a “blueprint” for other elite colleges, according to a Hechinger Report story that appeared on PBS NewsHour’s website in January. “Generally, despite their prosperity, rich colleges don’t give many students of lesser means a shot at an elite, private education,” education writer Mikhail…

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Four Professors Receive Tenure

Four Williams faculty members have been promoted to associate professor with tenure, effective July 1, 2017. They are Rashida Braggs, Africana studies; Nicolas Howe, environmental studies; Tim Lebestky, biology; and Catherine Stroud, psychology. Braggs introduces a performative lens to African diasporic cultural expressions including jazz, mass media and sports. She teaches courses on graphic novels,…

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Grant Helps Address Food Insecurity

Two Williams student groups working collaboratively to address food insecurity in northern Berkshire County have won a $5,000 grant from the Campus Kitchens Project. Williams Recovery of All Perishable Surplus (WRAPS) has long partnered with Dining Services to gather, prepare and distribute free, healthy meals to area housing communities and organizations. Last year, using Dining…

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Moral Courage

“It is critical that those who are most targeted by oppression get to define the agenda,” author and activist Barbara Smith told a packed Chapin Hall during her keynote address for Claiming Williams on Feb. 2. Now in its eighth year, the student-led day of conversations and questions was organized around the theme of “Moral…

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Lifting Us Up

There’s no shortage of issues to keep a college president awake at night. From the safety of our students to the strength of our academic programs, I’ve done a lot of worrying and lost much sleep in my eight years here. It’s part of my job. Among these issues, the responsibility for stewarding our financial…

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Comment

Join the conversation on social media about the ideas in the spring issue. Or start a discussion of your own using #williamsmag. LETTER:  Remembering Victor Hill Professor Hill had a great influence on me (“In Memoriam,” fall 2016). He was a freshman advisor like no other. For the eight or 10 of us he advised,…

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Eyewitness to History

Two of John Chandler’s achievements, the creation of Winter Study and, as Williams’ president, the partnership with Exeter College at the University of Oxford, came together this past January when six students from Exeter College joined seven from Williams in the Winter Study course Eyewitnesses to History: American Treasures in the Chapin Library. This was…

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From Humble Beginnings

The foundation of one of the most distinguished careers in higher education was built in an unlikely place and time. John Chandler served as president of Hamilton for five years and Williams for 12. He was president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, chairman of the board of Duke and adviser to some…

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