A Chabad religious center is opening in Williamstown this fall, providing Orthodox religious services for Jewish students and other community members. The center’s leaders Rabbi Mendel Volovik and his wife Tzivia Volovik will conduct services separately from the Williams College Jewish Association (WCJA) in the new center.
The Office of the Dean of the College will handle all social misconduct violations starting in the 2025–26 academic year. “Social misconduct” refers to a set of behavioral violations of the Code of Conduct, such as hazing, harassment, and prohibited use of drugs and alcohol. Previously under the purview of the Honor and Discipline Committee, an elected body of students and faculty, social misconduct will now be adjudicated without student input.
Chaplain to the College and Protestant Chaplain Reverend Valerie Bailey will leave the College this month. After her departure, Bailey will begin a position as priest-in-charge at two churches in the Lehigh Valley region of her native Pennsylvania. Her last day at the College will be Oct. 10, although she will return to take part in several events following her departure.
After several weeks of uncertainty, the Facilitators for Allocating Student Taxes received its annual budget — $310,818.49 — from the College’s Finance Office on Tuesday. The organization will receive another allocation of approximately $100,000 this spring.
Renovations to Mission Park Dining Hall and Eco Cafe over the summer added more seats and increased the number of menu items. The college also made changes to Whitmans’ Dining Hall, where to-go containers are now exclusively available at weekday lunches.
The student body elected three representatives of each class to the Williams Student Union on Saturday through an online ranked-choice voting system facilitated by the Student Faculty Committee Board.
Oberlin College announced 2025–26 as the “Year of AI Exploration,” providing all faculty and staff access to enterprise versions of ChatGPT and Google Gemini. This initiative follows Duke’s similar summer pilot with OpenAI, which provided all undergraduate students with unlimited access to GPT-4o as well as DukeGPT, an internal platform offering AI tools developed by Duke using GPT-5.
The College’s health insurance offering for students switched providers from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts to UnitedHealthcare Student Resources this academic year.
The American flag on Chapin Lawn was cut down on Friday morning after it was lowered to half-staff. The flag was lowered in accordance with a gubernatorial order marking the death of Charlie Kirk, a right-wing political activist.
