Featured in Category

Pay disparities among Dining and Facilities workers remain after 2010 pay restructuring

Disparities in staff wages have resulted from the July 2010 discontinuation of a pay system that provided seniority-based raises for hourly staff in Dining and Facilities. Staff hired under the market-driven system instituted after the change have earned less than employees hired under the former system, although they work the same job. 

The five-year step plan previously in place had allowed staff to receive scheduled raises in their early years on the job, as well as a yearly cost-of-living increase.

News

Staff members reflect on 2009 report, unresolved issues of equity, inclusion

Staff, including administrators, have said that while the College has made improvements regarding well-being and retention of faculty and staff of color since the release of a grassroots report from 2009, work needs to be done to make the College a more inclusive and welcoming space. 

The formation of the Faculty-Staff Initiative (FSI), the group that released the 2009 FSI Report, was prompted by departures of faculty of color in 2007. 

Assistant Professor of English Kimberly Love’s and Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Kai Green’s leaves prompted renewed interest in the College’s relationship with its faculty and staff of color, and faculty members told the Record in February that many problems presented in the report were still relevant, referencing problems that minority faculty face. 

As Professor of American Studies Dorothy Wang noted, however, staff also face similar issues regarding diversity and inclusion. “It soon became clear that minority staff were also having issues,” Wang said.

Featured in Category

Staff members balance multiple jobs

Ada Moreno, a cook at Whitmans’, also cares for elderly people in their homes and cleans apartments. ANIAH PRICE/PHOTO EDITOR

One fifth of College staff who responded to the 2017 Williams Staff Committee (WSC) staff survey said that they worked another job in addition to their job at the College.

News

Mary-Claire King to deliver commencement address

This year’s commencement speaker, Mary-Claire King (left), discovered BRCA1, and baccalaureate speaker, Ophelia Dahl (right), co-founded Partners In Health. PHOTOS COURTESY OF MARY-CLAIRE KING AND OPHELIA DAHL.

News

Facilities staff addresses heating plant shutdown

The College’s central heating plant, which provides heat and hot water, experienced a temporary shutdown on Thursday afternoon, affecting many buildings across campus. By 8:26 p.m., Facilities staff had completed repairs, and the power plant had resumed its operation, Chief Communications Officer Jim Reische stated in an email to the student body.

News

Stop & Shop workers vote to authorize strike

United Food and Commercial Workers, which voted to authorize a strike, represents the North Adams Stop & Shop. NICHOLAS GOLDROSEN/MANAGING EDITOR

Hundreds of members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1459, the union representing approximately 2000 Stop & Shop workers in western Massachusetts, voted on Sunday to authorize a strike against the grocery store chain.

News

In Other Ivory Towers

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) charged 50 parents, athletic coaches and college exam administrators yesterday in a nationwide fraud scheme that assisted students in gaining admission to elite universities. The College and its employees have not been publicly implicated in these criminal proceedings, which, according to The New York Times, constitute the DOJ’s largest-ever college admission prosecution.

News

Student gamers respond to Jesup ban

After the office for information technology (OIT) placed a ban on gaming in Jesup last month, addressing concerns surrounding the interference of student gaming in computer labs with those spaces’ academic function, student gamers drafted a proposal for using the labs in a way that would not hinder academic work. 

Only a select number of computers on campus support Geographic Information System (GIS), which is used for courses in the geosciences department. The GIS labs had not allowed gaming in the past and were available to students only for coursework.

News

College unaffected as three schools find admission files breached

The College’s admission database remains secure, according to the office of admission and the office for information technology (OIT), after three liberal arts colleges saw their databases hacked last week. Some applicants to Grinnell, Hamilton and Oberlin received emails on Thursday morning offering them to purchase their admission files at the cost of one bitcoin, approximately $3890.