Members of the Black Student Union (BSU); Vista, the College’s Latinx and Allies Student Organization; and Asian American Students in Action (AASiA) hosted an annual teach-in at Goodrich Hall on the history and future of ethnic studies at the College.
Students, faculty, and staff will be able to receive the new, Omicron-specific booster shot for COVID-19 at the Towne Field House from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Oct. 21, in partnership with Berk- shire Health Systems (BHS). Vaccines will be administered at no charge.
On Sept. 7, a magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted the College’s motion for summary judgment in a Title IX-related lawsuit originally filed on Feb. 18, 2020. The decision dismissed the claims of a former student who brought the lawsuit under the pseudonym John Doe, whom the College previously found responsible for sexual misconduct.
Last week, the student body elected 12 members to the Williams Student Union (WSU) for the fall semester and six members to the Honor and Discipline Committee for the academic year. Two seats on the Honor and Discipline Committee remain unfilled.
The College has launched the Joseph L. Rice III 1954 Center for Teaching, the first center at Williams dedicated to helping faculty develop their pedagogies and providing them with resources for their development as teachers.
Student opinions of the College’s COVID-19 policies are divided, a Record survey found. Almost a third of students expressed neutrality about the College’s protocols, while the remainder were almost evenly split between approval and disapproval, slightly weighted towards the former. Survey responses were also divided on whether the College should escalate its COVID protocols to include mandatory weekly testing and an additional booster shot that would protect against Omicron variants. As of Sept. 17, 12.2 percent of respondents reported having contracted COVID while on campus this semester.
The College has adopted an amendment to its employee health insurance plans that will cover transportation and lodging costs for plan members who seek abortion services and reside in a state in which such services are restricted, Chief Human Resources Officer Danielle Gonzalez announced in the Daily Messages on Monday.
For the first time in the College’s history, all four academic members of the senior staff — the president, provost, and deans of the faculty and the college — are women.
The College held its annual convocation for the Classes of 2023, 2022.5, and graduate students in the final year of their programs on Sept. 10 in Chapin Hall, marking the official start to the 2022-23 school year.
When the Supreme Court hears concurrent cases Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina this fall, the respondents will count the College among their supporters.
The Class of 2020 finally celebrated its in-person commencement on July 23, more than two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic upended typical graduation plans. Roughly 430 graduates and 1200 guests attended the ceremony, which graduates said was overdue closure on their time at the College.
