Ninety-six percent of students living on campus have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, a Record survey sent to the entire student body on Saturday estimates. Only 9.6 percent of the 751 on-campus students who responded, however, are fully vaccinated, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines as occurring two weeks after the final required dose.

Goodrich, the popular student-run coffee bar, has reopened for takeout orders during the first three weekends of May after being closed since the pandemic began. Demand for the Goodrich offerings was so high that on the coffee bar’s second day back in business — Sunday, May 2 — the online ordering software crashed.

The College will mandate that students get vaccinated for COVID-19 by Aug. 1 unless they receive a medical or religious exemption.

On April 12, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Christine Wormuth ’91 to serve as Secretary of the Army. If confirmed, she would be the first woman to serve in this role. 

In November of last year, the College began construction of the Williams College community garden, located on the field behind Poker Flats. Now, at the end of March, after five months, the construction process has finished, and students, staff, and faculty who signed up have been assigned plots to begin planting. 

On April 14, President Maud S. Mandel conferred the Bicentennial Medal, awarded to alumni each year “for distinguished achievement in any field of endeavor,” to Dr. Craig Smith ’70, Chair of the Department of Surgery at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

On April 14, President Maud S. Mandel announced in an email that the College’s comprehensive fee for the 2021-22 academic year would be $74,660.

The Record sent a survey to every staff member at the College, and spoke with seven of them about their experiences since the pandemic began. The stories they told speak to the challenges staff have confronted in the past year, the ways staff feel they do and don’t fit in at Williams, and the hopes many staff have for a post-COVID future.

Beginning April 19, the College will provide transportation to COVID-19 vaccination sites at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Parish Center in North Adams and Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield for students, faculty, and staff without personal transportation. In the meantime, some students who are already eligible have been able to get vaccines.

The College will not become a COVID-19 vaccination site. Instead, the College will provide shuttles to vaccination sites in North Adams and Pittsfield for all students, as well as for any faculty or staff without personal transportation.

During spring 2020, despite widespread calls for support from term-limited faculty members, the College declined to offer a blanket extension of all term-limited faculty members’ contracts, citing financial uncertainty. Instead, it provided term-limited faculty members the option to take an unpaid research associate position to aid in the job search. While some term-limited professors were ultimately offered extensions on a case-by-case basis, others were left to face a beleaguered job market.

The College used WiFi data as part of its investigation of the Feb. 26 Wood House party, Dean Sandstrom and Director of CSS Dave Boyer told the Record. Boyer also said that the College has increased CSS patrols in students’ residential spaces following the party.