A lack of silverware, longer dining hall lines, and a shortage of caps and gowns for seniors participating in Convocation: The first few weeks of the academic year have been marked by logistical challenges, caused by shipping delays, the national labor shortage, and an especially large on-campus student population.

Eric Sullivan will replace Dave Boyer as director of Campus Safety Services starting Sept. 27. Sullivan’s hiring comes as the College community grapples with questions surrounding racism and police misconduct in Williamstown and nationally.

The College's COVID dashboard has been updated to include more granular data on positivity rates, visualizations of long-term trends, and information on the local public health context.

As colleges nationwide reopen for the fall semester, some peer institutions have implemented public health restrictions notably stricter than the College’s COVID-19 rules. Others have had to change their policies in response to sharp upticks in student COVID cases.

Wednesday 9-1-21 7:00 a.m.: A resident in College housing on Southworth Street reported an odor of gas around the building. Campus Safety Services (CSS) officers found the odor coming from an exhaust vent.

The College welcomed students back this month for the first fully in-person semester since before the pandemic, entering a moment that President Maud S. Mandel called “precious and also precarious” in her Sept. 9 letter to the community.

More than 500 students lived on campus this summer and many expressed frustration with the College’s approach to summer meal plans, saying that they were too expensive and did not provide enough food — issues that disproportionately affected low-income students.

The College marked the start of the 2021-2022 academic year on Saturday in the annual fall Convocation ceremony, which was held in Chapin Hall with over 400 members of the classes of 2022 and 2022.5 and final-year candidates in the College’s graduate programs in attendance. 

Over the summer, the Select Board hosted Berkshire County District Attorney Andrea Harrington to answer Town residents’ questions about policies concerning police officers who have committed or been accused of committing misconduct. The board also confirmed new members to the DIRE committee and announced plans to release the findings of an investigation into WPD misconduct.

The prevalence of the Delta variant has led the College to reimplement an indoor mask mandate and a weekly testing requirement. And if the campus sees an outbreak, the College could implement more stringent restrictions.

Masks will be required in all academic and administrative buildings as of tomorrow, regardless of vaccination status, President Maud S. Mandel announced on Tuesday, Aug. 10. There is still no mask requirement outdoors, in private offices, or in residence halls.

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a national civil rights organization that focuses on racial justice, published a letter on Monday calling for the removal of Officer Craig Eichhammer from the WPD for the officer’s display of a photograph of Adolf Hitler in his station locker.