In recent months, several colleges and universities — including Bates, Dartmouth, and Duke — have been placed on lockdown in response to rising cases on campus. In all three of these cases, administrators cited illicit gatherings as a main source of infections.

All classes at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) have transitioned to remote format as of April 5 and residence halls closed on April 11. President James Birge announced the move to remote learning in an email to the MCLA community on April 1, after 28 on-campus students at MCLA tested positive for COVID-19.

President Mandel announced in a March 22 email that the College will now allow two in-person guests per graduating senior at the 2021 commencement ceremony. This year, “Senior Days” will take place over only a day and a half immediately following final exams — a decision by the administration that prompted push back from many seniors.

The College shifted to Phase 2 of campus reopening on Monday, March 15. The lifting of restrictions comes two weeks later than anticipated, after President Maud S. Mandel announced that, in response to the Wood House party, Phase 2 would begin on March 15 rather than the initially expected March 1.

One hundred twenty-seven students have been removed from campus as part of the College’s response to the Feb. 26 party at Wood. For the purposes of deciding whom to remove from campus, the College has defined involvement in the Wood party as any unauthorized presence in the building during the night of the party. The Record interviewed four students who were at Wood that night. They said that large indoor parties were common throughout the fall.

Following the illicit gathering of an estimated 80 to 100 students at Wood House on Friday, Campus Safety and Security has begun to identify students who were involved. A number of students have come forward to the administration to admit that they attended the party, according to Dean of the College Marlene Sandstrom. Some Wood residents said that Friday’s party was one instance in an ongoing pattern of illicit gatherings at Wood House, to which they believed the College’s response has been inadequate.

The College will put in place two major initiatives for residential life starting fall 2021: hiring live-in residential staff and providing affinity and special-interest housing.

Michelle Alexander, civil rights lawyer and author of the New York Times bestseller The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, presented the evening keynote address for Claiming Williams Day on Thursday to an audience of 605 viewers.

Though hybrid learning in the fall brought along academic challenges like no other semester, it was also accompanied by students at the College seemingly earning higher grades on average, some professors say. 

The spring semester will start as previously scheduled, with students returning to campus beginning Feb. 10, President of the College Maud S. Mandel and Dean of the College Marlene Sandstrom announced today in an email to students, staff, and faculty. Additionally, the College plans to hold an in-person commencement for seniors, albeit with no off-campus guests.

In response to the Learning Beyond the Classroom strategic planning working group’s recommendations for improving student life on campus, the College recently formed a Residential Life Working Group....

On Nov. 12, The Advisory Board for Lobbying and Elections (TABLE) hosted an open virtual forum for each committee, consisting of students and faculty making decisions for their particular area, to update...

(Taryn McLaughlin/The Williams Record) In 2015, the President and Board of Trustees determined the following five goals to reduce the College’s impact on climate change by 2020: Significantly reducing...

(Graphic by Lulu Whitmore/The Williams Record.) With the uncertainty surrounding one of the College’s most unconventional semesters in memory, the Three Pillars, the College’s three branches of...