The Record Editorial Board argues that the College and the campus community must be proactive in preventing racist incidents and addressing racism in our community.
The College promises to support students who have felt targeted in any way. However, it must first focus on building transparency and accessibility into the reporting process.
Divestment is not just about pulling money out of fossil fuel companies; it is also about sending a message that monetary gain acquired through fossil fuel extraction is unethical, the editorial board writes. Until the College signals this to the broader public, it will not have truly divested.
The College prides itself on providing students a rigorous and exemplary liberal arts education. That is part of why all of us — students and faculty alike — choose to come here. But a narrow emphasis on so-called rigor often has adverse effects on students’ mental health and, subsequently, academic experience.
CSS officers should not be in student dorms unprompted, the Record board writes. Monitoring students in their living spaces violates the only real sphere of privacy they have on a small, residential campus.
Pointing to the low risk of outdoor COVID transmission and the increasing safety of campus, the editorial board calls on the College to let students gather outdoors in groups of up to 25 for the remainder of the semester.
On Tuesday, May 11, Williamstown voters will determine the Town's approach to racial justice for years to come, the Record board writes. With two Select Board seats being contested, the Town election offers an opportunity to make the Select Board more progressive.
By requiring students to get vaccinated, the College would send a clear message: We care about the health of our community. We care about the pursuit of knowledge. And we care about acting on that knowledge to do what is right.
In the days and weeks following the gatherings at Wood and Gladden Houses, students have too often been left scrambling to understand the current public health situation on campus. 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 Campus Safety and Security (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.
Somewhere between 80 and 100 students demonstrated their disregard for the health of our community on Friday night. As President Maud S. Mandel noted in an email to students the following day, these students converged on Wood House for a party with little masking and less distancing. “This report is deeply disappointing to me,” Mandel wrote.
To us too.
We can’t change the past, but we as a College community must work over the next few days to make sure this event does not become a catastrophe.
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.
WPD Chief Kyle Johnson and officers under his command face allegations of racial harassment, anti-Semitism and sexual assault in a federal lawsuit against the department.
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...
We applaud the decision that was ultimately made, and we appreciate that student preferences — which were strongly in favor of the continuous model — were in the end taken into account. But the adoption of the continuous model also presents new challenges which we hope faculty and administration will consider as they look toward the spring.
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...
During the hardest of times and facing insurmountable challenges, those who keep Williams running have risen to the occasion. That having been said, no plan is perfect.
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 deaths of these people are directly tied to the anti-Black violence that first brought enslaved people to Jamestown in 1619, and that has permeated this country ever since. This violence — a system directly enabled by white supremacy — is embedded in our nation’s institutional structures through mass incarceration, hyper-surveillance of Black bodies, economic inequities and inequitable distribution of wealth.
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 directives from the government come before all else, but we asked that the administration systematically collect our opinions as well. Based on the all-campus email that President Maud S. Mandel sent on Tuesday regarding her plan for next year’s academic model, it is clear that the College made no such concerted effort.
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? If not, what alternative learning environment will be provided?
We commend the College’s decision to move to a universal pass/fail system, which we believe is the best way to account for the unevenly distributed challenges to students’ lives posed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
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,”...
![Excited moviegoers queue up for tickets and popcorn. (Photo courtesy of Juan Baena [Osito Mountain Photos]).](https://williamsrecord.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2025-02-18-at-10.34.24 PM-1200x733.png)
