Letters to the Editor

I just reviewed the fall edition of Williams Magazine and wanted to share how great I thought it was!  The articles showed the diversity of academic pursuits of the school in sufficient detail and clarity to get a good picture of what was going on. The forest article, for example, showed all the different disciplines that tap into the complexity of forests, knowledge of which has changed dramatically since I graduated.

Regards,

Jan van Eck ’85
Williams College Board of Trustees

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Thank you so much for the excellent article on Hopkins Forest! I have it perched on my bookshelf, so I can see its spectacular cover with our native plants. You did a great job of capturing the key features of HMF and how it contributes to new discoveries and to the education of our students.

You also made clear the importance of the natural world in conserving our environment−such a critical message to send to all. Thank you.

Joan Edwards
Samuel Fessenden Clarke Professor of Biology

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What an attractive edition of Williams Magazine (Fall, 2024) that I just encountered this week.  The front cover should be made into a poster! (hopefully with labels so the public knows what they are looking at). It might even combine the cover artwork with the inside illustrations−all very evocative on the black background.

Greg’s article is a really nice survey of what the current faculty are involved in and the opportunities for faculty and students to explore the environment and the important issues that confront not just the region, but the rest of the globe. The article stimulated me to think that in 10 years, 2034-35, the Hopkins Forest will be celebrating its Centennial. Sometime in the future, just before then(?), might it be possible to have a retrospective that looks back on the HMF, its perhaps longest-enduring forest monitoring system on the planet coupled with the Williams College-US Forest Service hydrological/meteorological network? The stories of people who have had a relationship to this landscape, from indigenous people to colonists to farmers and loggers to US Forest Service and now the Williams College community is a rich tapestry that would be wonderful to share.

Just a thought to be folded in with my gratitude for and congratulations on Greg’s writing and Luca Molnar’s “magical” renderings of the natural world.

Excelsior!

Hank Art
Rosenburg Professor of Environmental Studies and Biology, Emeritus