Bellamy Richardson ’23 is an English major and Jewish studies concentrator from New York, N.Y. She is now a senior writer and served as a managing editor for the spring and fall of 2022. She previously served as the executive editor for features and as a section editor for the features section.
Director of Medical Services Deb Flynn will retire at the end of March, and following her departure, the College will appoint a new director from Berkshire Health Services (BHS) to lead the Health Center. The College’s partnership with BHS will begin as a two-year pilot program.
This week, Theo Cohen ’23 discussed singing for the president of Iceland, learning Hebrew for his bar mitzvah, and practicing meditation. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Students discovered racial slurs written in the dust on the windshields of approximately six cars parked in the garage on Whitman Street, near the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance, and reported the incident to Campus Safety Services (CSS) on Saturday evening.
This week, Simon Huffman-Gottschling ’25 discussed living in a flex double, working at Sawyer, and listening to jazz. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
On Thursday, President Maud S. Mandel sent a campus-wide email updating the College community on the findings of Campus Safety Services’ (CSS) investigation into the bias incident that occurred the weekend of Oct. 8-9.
This week, Oliver Cohen ’23 discussed listening to Taylor Swift’s new album, playing on the club volleyball team, and moving to New York City after graduation. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
When Jonathan Dely ’15 started his first year at the College, he had no idea that he would one day be a professional jazz musician or that he would come back to Williamstown to perform at the Clark Art Institute with a band of musicians from all over the world.
On Sunday morning, a local resident reported racist graffiti on the Soldiers Monument outside Griffin Hall to Campus Safety Services (CSS), President Maud S. Mandel wrote in a campus-wide email on Monday which alerted the College community to the bias incident.
The target size for an incoming class is 550 students, according to Dean of Admissions Liz Creighton ’01 — but the Class of 2026 is currently composed of 577 students, making it the largest first-year class in the College’s history. This increase in first-year students has inevitably affected many aspects of student life, including the entry system, dorm allocation, and EphVentures.
Olivia Dabinett ’25 loves sports — whether it’s playing on the soccer field or capturing action shots of athletes during a game. After deciding to stop playing on the women’s soccer team...
For the last regular issue of the spring semester, current managing editor Bellamy Richardson ’23 sat down the former Record management team — with Fox on Zoom — to discuss their experiences leading the Record online-only last spring and returning to print last fall.
The College will eliminate all loans, required work study, and summer earnings contributions from all students’ financial aid packages effective fall 2022, becoming the first institution of higher education in the United States to do so, excluding military and work colleges.
The College didn’t fully welcome women until 1971, when the institution officially became coed. Yet there’s a lesser-known history of women learning at the College long before co-education was ever on the horizon — women who studied alongside male students but did not receive degrees until years or decades later, if they received a degree at all
At the end of this month, Sasha Cayward ’22 and co-founder Alexis Abayomi will launch their new app, “Hormonious Flo,” which provides an AI menstrual health coach.
Copies of an antisemitic and racist flyer were found in history books in Sawyer Library on Feb. 15. After consulting the Libraries leadership team as well as Campus Safety Services (CSS) and the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (OIDEI), Director of Libraries Jonathan Miller posted a sign in the Sawyer Library entrance condemning the flyers, which were made to look like Confederate States of America currency, and asking members of the College community to bring them to the library’s Access Services Desk if found.
In honor of Valentine’s Day, the Record brings you its annual profile of a campus couple. This year, the Record interviewed Lemmy Evans ’23 and Petros Markopoulos ’23. I caught up with them to discuss how they appreciate each other’s cultures, their memories of cooking together, and their advice for fellow Ephs on Valentine’s Day.
This week in history, the College appointed its first female dean, removed the infamous Rock Fan from in front of Chapin Hall, and debuted the Paresky Center.
If you live in Massachusetts for at least 50 percent of the year, you are eligible for jury duty, which means most students at the College are eligible and required to serve in response to a summons. But what happens when a busy college student actually gets summoned for jury duty?
The first week of classes and events during Winter Study will be held remotely, and students will quarantine in their dorm rooms upon arrival to campus until they receive one negative COVID-19 test result, President Maud S. Mandel announced in an all-campus email this morning.
Winter Study will be held on campus with tighter COVID-19 restrictions, Dean of the College Marlene Sandstrom announced in an all-campus email this afternoon.
This week in history, the College suspended a student for stealing a computer, launched its new PeopleSoft system, and received support for its own bookstore.
The Class of 2020 had its senior spring cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, but this weekend, many members of the class came back to campus for Homecoming. Members of the Class of 2020 were able to enjoy a day back in the place they called home pre-pandemic.
The first Theme/Affinity/Program/Special Interest (TAPSI) house for upperclass students is the Sustainable Living Lab in Hubbell House. Despite difficulties in applying for and implementing affinity housing, members of the community are hopeful for a future where affinity housing becomes more prevalent and accessible.
This week, the computer (using a script in R) chose Tajis Lyn ’25, who talked about his family’s farm, playing on an intramural soccer team, and competing in “Super Smash Bros” tournaments.
“This Week in Williams History” is a column dedicated to looking back at memorable moments in the College’s past through articles in the Record. This week in history, the College dealt with an act of arson in the Mission parking lot, celebrated National Coming Out Week, and cleaned up a series of bio-crimes.
Students parted ways with their tea kettles, rice cookers, hot plates, and heating lamps on Sept. 22 as members of CSS entered dorms to perform routine room checks.
“This Week in Williams History” is a column dedicated to looking back at memorable moments in the College’s past through articles in the Record. This week in history, Phi Delta Theta became the last fraternity on campus to end overtly racist and antisemitic fraternity rushing practices, an alleged flasher was chased by police outside Sawyer library, and Noam Chomsky visited the College.
Mike Furlanetto ’93, Kirsten Rose ’94, and Zach Safford ’09 have all shown off their trivia skills on Jeopardy! — Safford twice, almost a decade apart. These three alums spoke to the Record about their time on the show.
Due to this year’s pod system, some JAs chose to pull in non-JA, non-first-year friends to live in their pods. Additionally, other non-JA upperclass students — who were remote in the fall like Karla Mercedes '23 — were able to pick into some unoccupied rooms in Mission.
One year ago this week, students received an email from President Maud S. Mandel that announced the campus closure and the transition to remote learning. That week, students wept, partied, spent time with friends, and said many goodbyes.
Over the extended winter break, 45 students participated in the Remote Support Program, an entirely online community service project organized by Lehman Community Engagement Vice President Allison Li ’22.5.
Founded in the 1980s, the Free University Winter Study program organizes classes taught by students for students. This year, the program offers 48 unique courses — a 41 percent increase from last year’s 34 courses — which are being attended by over 600 people in the College community.
On Friday at 7:30 p.m., the I/O ensemble performed four works of classical contemporary music in a program titled Away for a small invited audience in Chapin Hall, while almost 40 viewers watched on a YouTube live-stream.
With COVID-19 changing and formalizing so many aspects of campus life, Chief Communications Officer Jim Reische decided he wanted to make the administration’s all-campus emails sound a bit more human this year. His first step: making us laugh.
Every October, students start hypothesizing about which of the first three Fridays of the month will be Mountain Day, but this year, many were unsure if Mountain Day would even happen due to COVID-19. However, after months of planning for a pandemic-safe day of hiking and getting outdoors, many Mountain Day traditions live on, with a few key changes.
New this year, Frosh Quad entries are organized by floor. These five entries are now called Sage 1-2, Sage 3-4, Williams 0-1, Williams 2 and Williams 3-4.
In a normal year, only one or two Junior Advisors (JAs) choose to step down from their role after accepting it. But due to campus restrictions and the option to study remotely or take time off, eight students decided to step down in July, days after the deadline to enroll on campus.
As the College prepares for an in-person fall semester, a large majority of Junior Advisors (JAs) is pressing the College administration to implement changes to the entry system for the 2020-21 academic...
With the College’s decision to welcome students back for an in-person but socially distanced fall semester will inevitably come changes to first-year student traditions, including EphVentures, the entry...
While an in-person commencement for the class of 2020 has officially been pushed to an unknown future date, some seniors, including Ennis and his friends, are making their own plans to celebrate their graduation off-campus in the weeks to come.
Through all of her 28 years at the College, Professor of Political Science Cathy Johnson knows the ins and outs of the sabbatical. She, like many seasoned professors, has gone on more than she can count. But Johnson’s current sabbatical has proven to be different from the rest.
Since the campus closure, many student couples have had to trade dates at Images and Blue Mango for virtual Netflix parties and FaceTime baking. From first-years who have just begun dating, to seniors who are planning their post-college lives together, all Williams couples — even those in quarantine together — are adapting their relationships to find the best ways to be together while apart.
At this point in the school year, Junior Advisors (JAs) to the next year’s freshman class would typically be in the midst of JA excursions, or “dates,” with the goal of determining who they want to work with in a co-group next year. JA dates usually entail meeting up with a group of three to six JAs and doing an activity on campus together. However, due to most students being off campus as a result of COVID-19, these excursions look very different this year.
We randomly select unixes from a list of all current students at the College for our weekly One in Two Thousand. So long as the owner of a selected unix is willing to be interviewed and not a member of the Record board, that person becomes the subject of our interview. For this week, the computer (using a script in R) chose Will McCormick ’23, who is at home in Brookline, Mass.
With President of the College Maud S. Mandel’s March 11 decision to bring normal College operations to a halt, staff at the College faced one of the biggest tasks in their entire careers: shutting down an in-person college campus and moving 2,000 students off campus, all while keeping the College running. And it has been a task that the College had been planning far in advance of Mandel’s email.
Whether we realize it or not, we are all currently living through a potentially transformational historical event. While it is difficult to gauge the future significance of the COVID-19 pandemic, a few history professors at the College are already thinking about how it will change the course of history.
Tuesday, Feb. 4, at 4:21 p.m.: President of the College Maud S. Mandel sends an email to the entire campus community, titled, “Update: Williams prevention and preparedness measures for coronavirus.”
At...
Andrew Quinn ’13 did not plan on becoming a speechwriter to one of the country’s most powerful and controversial politicians when he graduated from the College seven years ago with a degree in political science. But today, he works for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as chief speechwriter and strategic communications director.
BELLAMY RICHARDSON/THE WILLIAMS RECORDNoah Savage ’21, founder of the Cult, draws a rune using charcoal from the club’s first meeting.
A new club at the College that calls itself “the Cult”...
Each week, we randomly select a unix from a list of all current students at the College. So long as the owner of the selected unix is on campus, willing to be interviewed and not a member of the Record board,...
ETHAN DINÇER/THE WILLIAMS RECORD
Each week, we randomly select a unix from a list of all current students at the College. So long as the owner of the selected unix is on campus, willing to be interviewed...
The Armstrong-Pratt 4 entry poses for a photo before their formal. The theme was “a 4tnite in Paris.” PHOTO COURTESY OF PETROS MARKOPOULOS.
A Fortnite-themed backdrop adorned the wall of...
Williamstown native Niku Darafshi ’21 works at Lickety Split, a job she has held since before college. (Photo courtesy of Niku Darafshi)
Williamstown native Niku Darafshi ’21 does whatever she...
“If your pencil stops moving, the room is gonna blow up. Just keep writing,” Peter Elbow ’57 said, describing the practice of “freewriting.”
Elbow pioneered freewriting in the early...
As part of Food Justice Week and Beyond, students participated in a sustainable cooking workshop. (Ethan Dinçer/The Williams Record)
Many environmentally focused events have popped up around campus...
PHOTO COURTESY OF NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Kristen Anderson-Lopez ’94 and her husband Robert Lopez won the Best Original Song Academy Award for “Let It Go,” from the Frozen soundtrack.
With Frozen...
Gaston Aime ’23, Matias Enriquez ’23 and Yuichi Fukunaga ’23 prepare ramen for a club meeting. (Photo courtesy of @williamschessboxing.)
This fall, Gaston Aime ’23 and Matias Enriquez ’23...
In the 2019-2020 housing lottery, which began last week with the co-op lottery, all groups with at least one Junior Advisor (JA) will receive two pick numbers and use only the better of the two. The benefit,...
Many juniors choose to take breaks from the Purple Bubble to study away and return refreshed for their senior years. But each year, a handful of seniors decide that their penultimate semester is instead...
Photo courtesy of Tali Natter.
Lour Yasin ’23 is an international musician from Palestine. A guitarist, singer and composer, Lour mixes Arabic and English as well as Eastern and Western music styles.
How...
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