Aiden Clarke ’28 is a prospective math and history major from Queens, NY. He is the Executive Editor for Investigations and previously served as a College News Editor and staff writer for the news section.
Calls to reform the Facilitators for Allocating Student Taxes (FAST) have intensified as a group of elected FAST facilitators are pushing for a referendum proposing several changes to FAST’s constitution, in an effort to make the funding allocation system more equitable. This academic year, the Williams College Debating Union received over $42,000 from FAST, thousands more than the Williams Outing Club and nearly as much as all campus performance groups combined.
Assistant Vice President for Campus Engagement and Director of the Davis Center Bilal Ansari will leave the College in May and return to his previous role as a chaplain at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Danbury, in Connecticut, he said in an interview with the Record. Ansari is the second administrator from the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to recently announce a departure from the College, following the departure of Vice President for Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Leticia S.E. Haynes ’99, who will leave the College on June 30.
Vice President for Institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Leticia S.E. Haynes ’99 will leave the College on June 30, President Maud S. Mandel announced in an all-campus email on March 18. Associate Dean for Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Professor of Geosciences José Constantine will serve as interim vice president starting July 1.
Posters criticizing recent changes to the Theme, Affinity, Program, and Special Interest (TAPSI) housing selection process appeared across campus on Feb. 23. The posters, distributed by the Minority Coalition (MinCo), express frustration shared by TAPSI Community Coordinators (CCs) over the College’s recent adjustments in how the program will function next year, arguing that these changes undermine the purpose of affinity housing.
Each week, the Record (using a script in R) randomly selects a student at the College for our One in Two Thousand feature, excluding current Record board members. This week, Julia Dun Rappaport ’29 discussed her job as a Goodrich barista, her community activism in high school, and her favorite parts of the College so far. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The College issued a one-time payment of $1,000 to staff earning up to $60,000 in base salary or its part-time equivalent to offset rising health care costs on Jan. 16. The payment follows months of criticism from staff and students on recent changes to employee benefits.
The College will not offer the long-running “Williams in Georgia” Winter Study Program (WSP) this year. The program is an internship-based course in which students travel to the Republic of Georgia. The change follows a new law passed by the Georgian government that limits the operations of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the country.
Each week, the Record (using a script in R) randomly selects a student at the College for our One in Two Thousand feature, excluding current Record board members. This week, Amirjon Ulmasov ’28 spoke about his transition from the nation’s biggest high school to the notoriously small College, Winter Study computer science research, and his love for learning languages.
The Black Student Union (BSU) hosted a community conversation at the Davis Center on Nov. 12 in response to recent bias incidents on campus. This semester, five students have made reports to Campus Safety Services (CSS) of individuals in passing cars shouting racial slurs at Black students. More students told the Record that they experienced similar harassment but did not make an official CSS report.
Lyceum — the formal student-faculty dinner typically hosted several times each year in the Faculty House — will not take place this semester due to staffing shortages and a recent major administrative restructuring.
The faculty at Amherst recently voted to adopt a resolution in defense of democracy, according to The Amherst Student. The resolution was accepted in a 102-96 vote at the Oct. 24 Amherst faculty meeting.
The Office of Campus Life (OCL) is modifying the housing accommodations process, beginning with room selection for next academic year. Students with accommodations will choose the room they live in, rather than receive a housing assignment from the Housing Accommodation Review Team (HART). Additionally, students with housing accommodations will no longer be able to “pull in” two other students to live in the same residence hall as part of their accommodation placement.
With Homecoming and Halloween back-to-back, this “Hocolloweekend” was a unique opportunity for students to showcase their most innovative and unforgettable outfits. From ChatGPT to a student ID card, students pushed the boundaries of fashion this spooky season. Read on to take a look at some of this year’s standout costumes.
The posters are signed by the Staff Faculty Initiative, also known as SFIOC, a group of College employees organizing to protest the changes. Their grievances include increased health insurance costs, cuts to some lunch breaks, a cap on tuition benefits for dependents of new employees, and changes to how employees accrue vacation time.
The College will not alter its policy on lowering the American flag at this time, despite considering a change last week. In an Oct. 1 all-campus email, President of the College Maud S. Mandel wrote that the College will continue to follow all gubernatorial orders to lower the flag.
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.
Shana Dixon and Jane Patton will vie for a spot on the Williamstown Select Board in the annual Town election on May 13. Either Dixon, who chairs the Town’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Racial Equity Committee (DIRE), or Patton, who has served on the Board for the last 12 years, will serve one year of a three-year term, filling the seat that was vacated by Andy Hogeland ’76 after his resignation last year.
The Junior Advisor (JA) Program Working Group publicly released its final report last Friday, outlining a series of recommendations for the JA program, including a target JA to first-year ratio, expanding eligibility for the JA position, and creating opportunities for former and current JAs to give recommendations that will inform future changes to the JA program.
“This Week in Williams History” is a column that looks back at memorable moments in the College’s past through articles in the Record. This week in history, the Record covered the College’s absence from a national anti-war strike, its exchange program with women’s colleges, the Record’s 100-year anniversary, and the beginnings of Factrak.
The Ad Hoc Committee on Academic Integrity published its draft report proposing changes to the College’s Honor system in March and presented its proposals at the April 9 faculty meeting. The committee proposed renaming the Honor and Discipline Committee as the Committee on Academic Integrity (CAI).
The College launched the CARE Team, a committee that directs students identified through referrals as needing additional support to available campus resources, this academic year.
International Student Services (ISS) hosted its ninth annual “Know Your Rights” workshop on March 5, in partnership with the Berkshire Immigrant Center (BIC). During the workshop, BIC staff spoke with students and community members about immigrants’ rights. This year’s workshop was held amid an increasingly adverse environment for immigrants following President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Campus Safety Services publicly published a surveillance camera policy for the first time on Feb. 6. The policy sets official guidelines for the use of security footage, stipulates that footage from cameras in most locations can be stored for no more than 30 days, and requires senior staff at the College to approve the installation of any new cameras.
Middlebury has adopted a new policy in which students planning to study away for a single semester are assigned a term by the Office of International Programs, according to the Middlebury Campus. Students will be able to express a preference of whether to study away in the spring or fall semester but will ultimately be assigned.
Lyceum dinner — a tradition in which students and faculty members share a formal meal — has been delayed amid ongoing staffing shortages in the Office of Campus Life (OCL).
Assistant Director...
