A Change of Pace
Why you should teach Winter Study.
Winter Study at Williams. A time to deepen your expertise in something familiar or try something new. To spend time on campus with intellectually curious and creative people who share your passions.
And we’re not just talking about the student experience.
Throughout Winter Study’s nearly 60-year history, alumni have lent their time and talents to the three-and-a-half week program as guest speakers, internship advisers and course instructors, teaching everything from medical ethics to the politics of international intelligence to how to live life after college. The number of alumni involved is growing. This past January, nearly 75% of Winter Study courses were taught by alumni, local community members and others who serve as adjunct instructors, sharing their expertise with Williams students.
That growth can be attributed in part to a shift in faculty responsibilities. In recent years, more and more Williams professors are serving as thesis and independent-study project advisers or supervising active research labs. That leaves less time for developing and teaching a monthlong course, says Winter Study Director Katie Malanson.
At the same time, Williams wants to broaden the scope of courses available to students. In particular, there’s increased focus on experiential, hands-on learning, self-expression, exploration and wellness.
“We want to provide students with a wide range of options led by experts in those fields,” Malanson says. Who better to teach these subjects than Williams alumni?
Alumni, at the same time, enjoy the opportunity to return to campus, interact with students and fellow instructors, and stretch their intellectual muscles.
“Many alums return to teach in Winter Study because they found the term transformative and want to offer a similar opportunity for our current students,” Malanson says. “Or they want to teach a course that was foundational for them, but the faculty member who offered it has retired.”
Here, four alumni share in their own words what keeps them coming back—and why you might want to join them.
Leadership and The Good Life: Your First Decade After Williams
INSTRUCTOR: Lauren Anstey ’11
ABOUT THE COURSE: Anstey’s career has taken her to Goldman Sachs, Harvard Law School and a nonprofit aimed at building a better government. She draws on her experiences—and commutes from D.C.—to help students figure out their own “good life.”
ANSTEY SAYS: “In the class, students thoughtfully explore the skills that would help them become effective leaders and live a good life, however they define that. What’s fascinating is there’s a fair amount of common ground between those two goals. They both take curiosity, active listening, empathy and compassion, creative problem solving, strategic decision making, adaptability, and innovation.
“I wanted to come back and honor some of the amazing classes that I took, like Chip Chandler ’72 and [the late] Michele Moeller Chandler’s ’72 Winter Study course ‘Composing a Life.’ It’s hard to create space to ask big questions like, ‘What is my purpose?’ or ‘How do I want to be more intentional about my life?’
“Winter Study creates the opportunity to ask those questions alongside professors and alumni and students. There’s a huge amount of joy in that.”
Writers’ and Artists’ Notebooks
INSTRUCTOR: Lara Meintjes ’22
ABOUT THE COURSE: In spring 2020, Meintjes took an English class with lecturer Bethany Hicok in which she had to complete a daily writing notebook. The result was a two-volume journal capturing the earliest days of the pandemic. In Meintjes’ Winter Study course, students explore various archives to find their own method of personal expression and documentation.
MEINTJES SAYS: “My archive gave me a way to connect my growth and my experiences as a person with the work I was doing in the classroom. I wanted to give students an opportunity to journal their Winter Study experience and create a record that they could look back on.
“I’m now doing a Ph.D. in English at University of California, Berkeley, studying the intersections of lyric poetry and painting. Liberal arts colleges don’t have Ph.D. students, which means there’s no real way for graduate students to get experience teaching in [the liberal arts] space. Teaching a Winter Study class is an opportunity to get that exposure.”
Maps: Past, Present and Future
INSTRUCTOR: Tom Paper ’84
ABOUT THE COURSE: As a management consultant, Paper helps companies make sense of complex information using geospatial analytics. But he’s equally fascinated by old maps and the stories they tell. The relationship between the old and the new was the basis of his Winter Study course.
PAPER SAYS: “I want my students to become critical consumers of maps and information visualizations. All maps are wrong; it’s just, how wrong are they?
“I get a lot out of my class because I get to play around in this subject that I love. I have speakers come talk about it. The students ask questions I hadn’t thought of. It advances my own knowledge. “I helped organize a weekly gathering of Winter Study instructors at the Purple Pub. I’ve also had coffee with each of my students every year, and it’s been worth it. There are ways to connect, and the community embraces you.”
How to Grow a Band: Collaborative Writing and Performance with Darlingside
INSTRUCTORS: Don Mitchell ’06, Auyon Mukharji ’07, Harris Paseltiner ’09
ABOUT THE COURSE: The indie folk band Darlingside emerged from a community of students who took Bernice Lewis’s Winter Study course “Songwriting.” Three members of the quartet returned to Williams to teach a new iteration focused on writing music collaboratively.
MITCHELL SAYS: “If every song were owned by one person, that doesn’t create a community spirit. Our band writes songs by brainstorming in the room together.
“Being in a room with people and writing songs was new for some of the students. A lot of them had experience tinkering on their laptop in their dorm room. Workshopping in real time is very powerful after you’ve been producing songs electronically.
“Teaching took me back to that optimistic time when anything is possible, when no roads are closed. Seeing the students so hyped to learn something new reminded me just how special it is that I’m still doing it.”