Nigel Jaffe ’22 is a psychology major from Jersey City, NJ. He is a senior writer. He previously served as the executive editor for news and data. Before that, he was a staff writer, features editor, and then executive editor for digital content.
Podcast editor Genevieve Randazzo (an artist) and senior writer Nigel Jaffe (a Jew) recount their experience of Professor of Art History at UMass Boston David S. Areford's lecture on Jewishness in Sol LeWitt's art.
Amid a nationwide crisis in student mental health, a Record survey found that students at the College are facing significant mental health challenges this semester, while the College has struggled to keep up with unprecedented demand for mental health services.
The faculty voted at the Oct. 20 faculty meeting to extend the fall semester deadline for all students to designate courses as Pass/Fail to Jan. 3, a week after grades are set to be released. The spring semester deadline will be extended until June 6.
The College's COVID dashboard has been updated to include more granular data on positivity rates, visualizations of long-term trends, and information on the local public health context.
The College welcomed students back this month for the first fully in-person semester since before the pandemic, entering a moment that President Maud S. Mandel called “precious and also precarious” in her Sept. 9 letter to the community.
Last month, Mike Wagner arrived at the College as the new vice president for finance and operations and treasurer. He recently sat down with the Record to discuss his new job; his transition to Williamstown; and his dog, Zealand.
The Record sent a survey to every staff member at the College, and spoke with seven of them about their experiences since the pandemic began. The stories they told speak to the challenges staff have confronted in the past year, the ways staff feel they do and don’t fit in at Williams, and the hopes many staff have for a post-COVID future.
The College has updated its visual identity, expanding the official standards governing all aspects of its brand.
The announcement sparked a swift and largely critical response from students and alumni, who flooded Williams-related Facebook pages with memes and other posts.
I don’t recall exactly how my view of Helene Ryu ’22 changed when she started painting distorted portraits of her own mutilated face. For most of her friends and family, though, Ryu said her more vivid pieces tend to come as a bit of a shock. “It surprises them that a lot of the stuff that I make ends up being kind of dark and violent,” she said. “That’s not really how my personality usually comes across — or at least, my performed personality — so sometimes there’s some dissonance.”
Tonight, the theatre department will present Radio Dramas, a series of short pre-recorded radio plays selected from Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365 Days / 365 Plays. The show was recorded, edited, and produced this fall by a cast and crew spread across the country and beyond, and the format represents “a way out of—or through—the pandemic,” according to Creative Producer Nicolle Mac Williams ’21.5.
Harvard announced last week that Preceptor David Kane ’88 will continue his teaching duties at the university following allegations by his students that he authored racist posts on the Williams-themed website EphBlog under the pseudonym “David Dudley Field ’25.”
After more than two weeks of pressure from students, alums and other members of the College community, President Maud S. Mandel released on Friday an outline of actionable steps the College will take to fight racial and social injustice.
At a time when predominantly white institutions across the nation are responding to widespread protests denouncing police brutality and anti-Black racism, members of the Williams community — particularly students and alums — are placing increased pressure on the College administration to hold itself accountable for what they see as its delayed and limited support of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
When Brian Wecht ’97 lost his high school class ring while living in Gladden his junior year, he didn’t think much of it. The ring was bulky and ornately carved, with a hefty green gemstone embedded in the center — “definitely not my vibe,” Wecht said — and he was content to forget about it.
With less than a month until classes end, students may be wondering how they’ll pass the time without lectures to fast-forward through and Zoom seminars to attend. If you’re one of them, you’re...
This week, the Record asked faculty to send us pictures of their home working environments, including feline, canine and small human coworkers when applicable. Though face-to-face office hours are becoming a distant memory, professors have adapted well to the world of remote teaching, substituting kitchen islands for desks and keeping close to natural light.
The psychology department will change its curricular affiliation from Division II to Division III beginning in the fall of the 2021-22 academic year, at which point most psychology courses will be reclassified accordingly. The motion to make the switch was approved at the virtual faculty meeting on April 15 following discussion of the proposal at the March 11 faculty meeting.
In light of the disruptions to academic life posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, untenured faculty now have the option to defer their reappointment or tenure review process by one year. The choice has been...
Classes resumed remotely on Monday, plunging students and faculty into the unfamiliar world of online learning. While students resettled into new environments in the wake of the closure of much of campus, professors used the extended spring break to make significant changes to their syllabi and arrange new platforms for bringing their classes together, either asynchronously or in real time.
Adam Schlesinger ’89, an award-winning songwriter who co-founded the power pop band Fountains of Wayne with Williams classmate Chris Collingwood ’89, died on Wednesday in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He was 52. The cause of death was complications from COVID-19, according to The New York Times.
Just hours had passed since the deadline for most students to pack up their belongings and leave campus when Nate Orluk ’22 took to the student group chat titled “the greatest food in the world,” which then comprised more than 300 avowed salmon fans, and put forward a bold message.
“This might be controversial, but I don’t even really like salmon,” he wrote. “However, I do like clash of clans, and you should all join our clan, mauds marauders.”
Beginning April 6, Integrative Wellbeing Services (IWS) will provide remote transition planning sessions in which students can work with therapists to assess their current or anticipated need for mental health care moving forward and develop a plan for accessing support, through either providers in their home community or teletherapy platforms offered by the College.
We’ve all heard the famous statistic: since the College became coed in 1972, more than one in five married or partnered alums are in an all-Eph couple, according to Williams Magazine. But less well-known is a rival figure, supplied by the Provost’s Office: 11 percent of the College’s employees are married to another Williams employee, a group that spans both sides of the faculty and staff divide, from high school sweethearts to undergraduate cycling companions to the lucky few who met here on the job.
Anthony Jack, assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students, gave one of two keynote addresses for Claiming Williams Day last Wednesday in Chapin Hall.
President Maud S. Mandel announced last Tuesday that Professor of Psychology Safa Zaki will become the next dean of the faculty. Zaki will assume the deanship in July, succeeding Professor of Religion Denise Buell, who announced in October that she will step down after five years in the role.
Earlier this month, Vice President for Institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Leticia S.E. Haynes ’99 announced that the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (OIDEI) has decided to restructure the Davis Center such that three new roles will be created and others will be eliminated. Three Davis Center staff members have left the College in recent weeks, leaving the Center staffed on a largely interim basis until the new positions have been filled.
Integrative Wellbeing Services (IWS) will no longer offer weekly 45-minute counseling sessions, instead giving students seeking one-on-one therapy the choice between 30-minute sessions once per week and 45-minute sessions once every other week. The policy change, which went into effect at the start of Winter Study, is intended to free up space for students who are currently on a waitlist for one-on-one counseling, but it has drawn scrutiny from students who feel the quality of the College’s mental health services will suffer as a result.
Since 2015, Professor of Anthropology David Edwards and journalist Christopher Marcisz have co-taught “Town and Gown: Investigating the Relationship of College and Community.”
We sat down to discuss past projects, development on Spring Street and the differences between anthropology and journalism.
For Morty Schapiro, the best part of being president of the College was entry Snacks.
“I did Snacks every Sunday night for nine years,” he said. “My favorite part of being president at Williams was Sunday nights, doing Snacks, sitting there for two hours and chatting with everybody, hanging out afterward, listening to what’s going on in their lives.”
At its Nov. 19 meeting, College Council (CC) passed an amendment to the resolution from Nov. 12 that established the Student Government Task Force, a committee charged with drafting a proposal over Winter...
At its Nov. 12 meeting, College Council (CC) passed a resolution to form a committee charged with drafting a proposal for a new student government. The resolution, authored by CC co-presidents Ellie Sherman ’20 and Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí ’20, passed by a vote of 11-9.
It wasn’t hard to pick out the sound of someone singing as I made my way through the empty halls of Spencer Art Building. Poking my head into the printmaking studio, I found Studio Art Assistant...
At a weekly College Council (CC) meeting last night, two resolutions for the abolition of CC were discussed; voting on both resolutions has been tabled for next week. At the Oct. 29 meeting, a non-binding...
“Guess where I’m going to be buried,” said Professor of Philosophy Joe Cruz ’91 to his cognitive science class as the last few students filed into the classroom. “The cemetery next to Mission.”
The Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association (ALDHA) held its 38th annual Gathering at the College from Oct. 11–14, marking the third time the College has hosted the Gathering, which was sponsored this year by the Williams Outing Club (WOC).
The financial aid cap for Winter Study 99s, thesis projects and SPEC courses will increase from $500 to $1000 this coming Winter Study, amid other changes in the financial aid process for Winter Study.
It took no more than a glance to realize that the National Arab Orchestra (NAO) bears little resemblance to the orchestras that usually draw crowds of locals to Brooks Rogers Recital Hall.
One of Wendy Adam’s main goals since becoming director of IWS in 2016 has been to diversify her team of clinicians to match the demographics of the student body. Staff Therapist Michael Grinnell, who came to the College in August 2018 through its two-year fellow program, said those efforts reflect similar trends nationwide.
In October 2016, Vice President for Campus Life Steve Klass announced that Wendy Adam would be appointed director of Psychological Counseling Services (PCS). That same week, Erin Hanson ’19 launched a petition on change.org titled “Williams College: sell 4–5 marble slabs to pay for a new therapist at the Health Center.”
Jason (left) and Lara (center) Meintjes ’22, pictured with daughter Jamie (right), transferred this fall from Long Beach City College./Photo courtesy of Jason Meintjes.
“Imagine yourself in a...
For almost two decades, Sean Saifa M. Wall ’01 has worked as an intersex rights activist, fighting to end medically unnecessary surgeries. (Photo courtesy of Sean Saifa M. Wall)
Looking back after...
WCMA will relocate the auditory exhibit to Hopkins Observatory. (Ethan Dinçer/The Williams Record)
In response to student noise complaints, the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) will relocate...
Before she came to the College 28 years ago, Lisa Armstrong worked in the Berkshires as a licensed nurse. NIGEL JAFFE/FEATURES EDITOR
Universally loved for her warm presence and friendly, upbeat attitude...
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION.
In 2010, Adam Falk, then dean of the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins, had his video interview with Williams’ presidential...
NIGEL JAFFE/FEATURES EDITOR
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...
After a semester-long search process, Temesgen Araya has been appointed the College’s next Director of Dining Services, replacing Bob Volpi, who retired earlier this year. Araya will officially step...
Gleason attends a commemoration for Paul Revere, who was Mass. Grand Master from 1795–1797. PHOTO COURTESY OF JAMES ORGETTAS.
Though students at the College have been banned from participating in...
The Great Ideas Committee “Novels & Noms” book swap kicked off in Dodd Living Room last Thursday. SABRINE BRISMEUR/PHOTO EDITOR
It is a truth universally acknowledged that students at the College...
A plaque commemorates the service of Barton Carter ex-’37, who volunteered for anti-fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War. NIGEL JAFFE/FEATURES EDITOR
The walls of Thompson Memorial Chapel...
PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE.
Minutes after news of the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France started to gain international attention, Professor of Art Michael Lewis sat down to write....
SABRINE BRISMEUR/PHOTO EDITOR
Belle and I went to the same high school, and even though we never crossed paths there, she managed to spot me in Frosh Quad within my first week at the College. Such...
Before alarms were installed in the College's steam tunnels, students would use the tunnels to sneak around campus late at night. PHOTO COURTESY OF BOB WRIGHT.
Beneath campus, stretching from Hopkins...
Critically acclaimed jazz guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel delivered an exciting and original performance at Brooks-Rogers on Monday night. Photo courtesy of NPR.
“That’s the first time this has happened...
Patricia Malanga received a Kudos award for February 2018. Todd Noyes in OIT received a Kudos award for January 2019. PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE WILLIAMS STAFF COMMITTEE.
From corralling escaped horses...
SABRINE BRISMEUR/PHOTO EDITOR
I first met Victoria when I was sitting with a friend on the swing set behind Mission. She said the two of us looked like Romeo and Juliet, and even though it was weeks...
On salt shakers and staircases, computer mouses and hot chocolate machines, spread from Driscoll to Hollander and in plenty of spots in between, a legion of faces has arisen on campus. Googly eyes are...
Because of their unconventional backgrounds, many veterans share a heightened appreciation for their time at the College. PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE.
For the first time in recent history, there...
Several Winter Study courses affiliated with the '68 Center for Career Exploration offered opportunities involving startups. Sabrine Brismeur/Photo Editor
In Winter Study classrooms spread across the...
Francis "Frenchie" Fredette, a cook at Driscoll, is well known for his exuberant sense of humor. Sabrine Brismeur/Photo Editor
Francis E. Fredette Jr. – better known as Frenchie – has worked in...
E.J. Johnson and Michael Lewis co-authored a new, witty guidebook, Williams College: The Campus Guide. Katie Brule/Photo Editor
Which “architectural jamboree” is actually the only building on campus...
The Stanley Kaplan Program held a conference at the College for the centennial anniversary of the CPUSA. Photo courtesy of Glenn Gebhard.
As a student-organized event, “Peace Party,” celebrated...
Cyrus Beschloss ’19 founded College Reaction, a site where college students can share their thoughts on current events. Katie Brule/Photo Editor
The last few years have ushered in a political landscape...
God Quad is home to four first-years and features thought-provoking decorations like a cigarette ad from a vintage Playboy issue. Sam Gollob/Contributing Photographer
When we arrived at Sage B301, what...
If you’ve taken an evening stroll past Paresky recently, you may recall experiencing a moment of déjà vu upon hearing a few lines of Harry Potter blasted through a speaker on the front steps. These...
Apple, Google, Facebook – some of the most recognizable companies are also prime targets for graduating college students hoping to transition into a career in tech. Many publications offer accounts...
The ironic columns were part of an expansion project from 1983 to 1986 and bring a creative twist to a hallmark trait for many modern buildings. Sophia Shin/Photo Editor
During his 25-year career at...
