Students are not being given the transparency we need to feel comfortable in the environment in which we live and work. The administration’s lack of clear communication has forced students to hunt for information needed to make appropriate decisions for our health, to understand how the College conducts investigations into public health guideline violations, and to navigate the increased presence of CSS in our living spaces.
We need action now. While hiring two professors is a commendable start, the editorial board calls on the College to commit to establishing a concentration in Asian American studies.
The party at Wood House was a grave and potentially harmful mistake that has had massive implications for student life and College policy. For the sake of the College community, the Record asks students to hold both themselves and each other accountable; the administration to send a strong, consistent message about the consequences of COVID-19 guideline infractions; and CSS and the deans to provide greater transparency in their investigations and disciplinary actions.
The Record is taking the unusual step of publishing an editorial now, rather than with our weekly issue on Wednesday, in recognition of the extraordinary risks that our community is facing after Friday night’s party at Wood House. We call on the College to act now by suspending athletic practices, recognizing the transmission risk they pose. We ask professors to make their classes temporarily remote. And we urge the students who attended the party to do the right thing.
As we reflect on all of the ways that the semester was successful and express gratitude to those who made it so, we also want to point to one area in which the College can do better.
Editor’s note: This editorial mentions instances of sexual assault, sexual harassment, racism and anti-Semitism.
The racial harassment of a Black student. A photograph of Hitler hung in a station...
As the 2020 presidential election approaches, many College students, faculty and staff who are eligible to vote are preparing to cast their ballots in person. In future years, the College should make...
Though it may still feel a lifetime away, the spring semester is fast approaching — and with it come many momentous decisions about how the College will operate. The first of those decisions came last...
120 unmasked students gathered near Poker Flats on Sept. 8.
No distancing. No masks.
While community-spreading within our campus has not yet happened, our networks of friends, families...
In our June 6 statement “In solidarity with Black Lives Matter,” our editorial board expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement and called on the College, its students and its alumni to...
In recent days, a growing number of colleges and universities have halted their original plans to bring students back to campus this fall in what one Middlebury student-journalist has termed “The Great...
Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. Tony McDade. Ahmaud Arbery. Tamir Rice. Oscar Grant. These are the names of only a few of the Black people who have become victims of state-sanctioned police brutality. The...
They didn’t ask the students.
In our editorial last week, we urged the College to reach out purposefully to students before making decisions about next year. We affirmed that safety concerns and...
As a tumultuous spring semester concludes, our scattered community has started shifting its attention to the fall. Will students be able to return to campus in September? If so, under what conditions?...
Yesterday, President Maud S. Mandel announced that the College would follow peer institutions such as Bowdoin, Columbia, Dartmouth, Smith and Wellesley by instituting a system in which all classes will...
In what direction is our community headed over the next 10 and 15 years? How will the College improve to become more equitable, inclusive, sustainable and transparent?
On Feb. 12, President of the...
Voting on a referendum that offers the choice between two distinct paths forward for student governance at the College opened last Sunday and will close on Friday night. A Yes vote would abolish College...
Last week, students circulated a petition calling for a boycott of classes taught by the English department that do not “engage critically with minority issues.” The petition came directly following...
Given the substantive lack of composting options in and around the College and Williamstown as a whole, we at the Record believe that the College and town should develop a more holistic solution to managing...
Friday’s climate strike at the College and the broader Global Climate Strike movement call attention to the necessity for leaders to take meaningful action on the climate crisis. We thank the organizers...
In 2014, Yoonsang Bae ’17 sexually assaulted another student while on campus. After lengthy legal proceedings, the Berkshire Superior Court found him guilty of rape on Sept. 6, and has since sentenced...
Recent campus events and activism have highlighted a history of fraught relations between Campus Safety and Security (CSS) and minoritized students, particularly Black and Brown students, at the College....
Last Tuesday, College Council (CC) denied Williams Initiative for Israel’s (WIFI) request to become a registered student organization. CC members voted anonymously, and only three council members participated...
When students from the Afro-American Society occupied Hopkins Hall on April 4, 1969, the Record published an editorial that day responding to the students’ demands for, among other things, the formation...
Creating space for minoritized students
On Friday, the Coalition Against Racist Education (CARE) Now released an open letter to the Board of Trustees with a list of 12 demands calling upon the College’s...
Williams College claims as its mission, “to provide the finest possible liberal arts education.” Achieving this lofty goal depends not just upon the students and faculty, but – crucially –...
In its recent report on the status of Asian American studies (AAS) at the College, a Curricular Planning Committee (CPC) working group recommended that the College make two tenure-track appointments for...
With the recent leaves of Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Kai Green ’07 and Assistant Professor of English Kimberly Love, the College’s need to foster an inclusive environment...
In addition to our main editorial this week, the Record’s editorial board wishes to recognize the College’s Board of Trustees for allowing students to replace any one summer earnings contribution...
In recent weeks, a faculty petition has circulated, recommending that the College adopt the Chicago Statement, a series of policies regarding disinvitation of speakers penned by the University of Chicago....
Last week, the College’s theatre department cancelled its fall show, Beast Thing, in response to students’ concerns about the play’s potentially traumatizing content and their experiences in the...
On Nov. 6, Massachusetts voters will decide on three ballot initiatives, the third of which aims to repeal anti-discrimination protections under the Commonwealth’s law for transgender and gender non-conforming...
Recently, students have brought up concerns over the College’s summer earnings requirement – the part of a student’s expected family contribution each year to be paid from money earned over the summer....
Last week, Storyboard, the student-run group that puts on Storytime, announced that it will be suspending Storytime in order to consider the purpose it serves in the College community and how Storytime...
As part of a wider restructuring of the College’s disciplinary policies, Dean of the College Marlene Sandstrom recently announced updated guidelines on infractions considered to be “reportable,”...
