Twenty-seven student organizations have co-signed this letter. You can view the full list of co-signatories at the bottom of this piece.
For years, students, faculty, and staff have complained about the College’s inability to retain faculty and staff of color. It’s time that the Board of Trustees and Williams administration make concrete changes beyond mere acknowledgement or discussion of this issue.
Williams places unique demands on all incoming faculty of color. Since the College is a primarily undergraduate institution, professors expressly seek positions for the opportunity to teach students in an intimate academic environment. Yet disproportionate demands from department roles, research obligations, social responsibilities on campus, and the isolation of Williamstown coalesce into an untenable work and living environment for faculty of color.
In addition to its rural location, the overwhelmingly white student, faculty, and Town populations isolate minoritized professors. Our remote campus poses logistical challenges for young professors moving to the Berkshires. Between insufficient public transportation, a housing shortage, and the limited regional job market for spouses, being able to work at Williams requires an immense amount of privilege that is often not available to BIPOC faculty.
Whether BIPOC faculty leave after not receiving tenure or seek tenure track positions at more accommodating universities, we still feel the loss. When professors leave our institution, students often lose the relationships with faculty members that lie at the heart of a Williams education. Without the “intimacy of scale [that] fosters close personal and intellectual relationships” cherished in the College’s mission statement, maintaining these connections is challenging. For those of us who come from backgrounds that are historically underrepresented in academia, the letters of recommendation and references that are so important to securing research positions and career opportunities become harder to obtain. We lose our mentors, our academic advisors, and our confidants. We lose access to the courses that these professors taught, which often gave us the ability to learn about our communities and our own histories. This loss harms us all, stifling the diversity of experiences that allow the College to fulfill its lofty mission of “elevat[ing] the sights and standards of every member of the community.”
Tenure, the process of gaining job security at the College, is essential for a diverse faculty to be able to explore academically and push the boundaries of what is possible. Unfortunately, tenure is a complex political process that relies upon interpersonal relationships within departments, where departments set expectations semi-independently, leading to concerns about transparency, clarity, and equity across departments and administrative units.
Beyond disempowerment and inequity across departments, the structural demands of academia — mentorship, administration, teaching, and research — are unequally distributed across faculty, with female and minority faculty being left with larger administrative and emotional burdens. As recognized in the 2020 Faculty and Staff Development Report, there is a concern among the faculty about “variability in what kinds of service are expected and how faculty service is recognized and counted.” Differences in the expectations for service and emotional labor for diverse faculty mean that the faculty in general are placed in unequal positions, limiting their time and energy to pursue the research and teaching excellence that are required for tenure.
Undoubtedly, institutional racism within academia means that retention of faculty and staff of color is a systemic issue that transcends Williams. Studies from peer institutions show similar issues in other ivory towers. For instance, a 2021 study at the University of Michigan found that BIPOC faculty’s work was undervalued, unnoticed, and uncompensated; they took on more labor relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion work; they faced more financial barriers; and they were not viewed as leaders or considered for promotion, among other problems. These issues are present and amplified at the College due to our unique setting.
Nonetheless, the College has resources that few institutions in this country, or the world, can rival. It claims to be among the best institutions in the country, and yet, on the matter of retaining faculty and staff of color, status and resources have not equated to deepened care for the priorities of community members of color. For years, the work of making this institution more inclusive has relied on uncompensated student, faculty, and alumni labor, instead of coming directly from the institution. Students occupied Hopkins Hall in order to advocate for Africana studies. Students held hunger strikes before the College decided to implement Latinx studies. Students, alumni, and faculty collaborated for over three decades to realize Asian American studies.
The push to increase retention of faculty and staff of color is not new. Before the pandemic, students launched the Williams College Coalition Against Racist Education, which called for increased hiring and pay for staff of color and networks and community spaces for faculty of color. If the Board of Trustees and the Williams administration are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, then they should be the ones from which new policies originate, instead of only reacting to extremes — such as this letter. We, as students, are here to learn and to build community; it is not our job to communicate, document, organize, and advocate around our struggles caused by our College’s failures.
It is time that the administration and departments step up: We demand a Board and administration that respects the priorities of our community members of color. The College’s struggle to hire and retain staff and faculty of color have left too many students without mentors, people who understand them, and classes they wish to take. In a small school, with an even smaller BIPOC population, we feel the loss of BIPOC faculty acutely. We call upon the trustees to hear our voices, learn from the decades of activism, and do their jobs of responding to the dire needs experienced daily by Williams community members.
The Gargoyle Society is an organization of student leaders from diverse backgrounds on campus, who discuss and coordinate on college issues. If you wish to contact the group, email [email protected]
This op-ed has been cosigned by the following student organizations: Asian American Students in Action, Beyond the Binary, Black in STEM+ Student Association, Black Student Union, Coalition for Immigrant Student Advancement, Disabled Student Union, Feminist Collective, Firsts Student Union, Gaius C. Bolin Coalition, Gospel Choir, Hindu Student Association, International Student Association, Minority Coalition Steering Board, Mosaics, Muslim Student Union, Native American & Indigenous Student Association, Nihonjin American Student Union, Queer Student Union, Sisterhood, Society of the Griffins, South Asian Student Association, Students of Caribbean Ancestry, VISTA, Williams African Student Organization, Williams College Jewish Association, and the Williams Student Union.
An organization’s decision to co-sign is determined by the procedures laid out by its respective Board.
