Jóhannesson, Iceland’s sixth and current president, came to Williamstown on Nov. 9 and gave a talk titled “Cool Iceland: The Fascinating Challenges and Opportunities of Being a Small State.”
The College will cut managers’ budgets by approximately 15 percent and the student employment budget by 33 percent for the 2024 fiscal year, following last year’s 15 percent increase in managers’ budgets. These cuts, representing approximately $8 million and $1 million, respectively, constitute less than 3 percent of the College’s 2022 fiscal year $252 million budget.
Vista, the College’s Latinx and Allies student organization, hosted a panel on Friday where six alums who participated in the 1993 hunger strike protesting the College’s lack of a Latino/a studies department spoke about their experiences and reflected on the changes the College has made and what can still be done.
The College’s endowment fell by roughly $635 million as the fiscal year came to a close on June 30, according to Deputy Chief Investment Officer Abigail Wattley ’05. Now the College must contend with its lowest endowment return since 2009 — which, in conjunction with the more immediate challenge of inflation, may prompt budget cuts for the 2023-2024 fiscal year.
The Williamstown Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee has released its Existing Conditions Analysis, a report that will aid the committee’s development of Envisioning Williamstown 2035, a comprehensive plan set to outline a community-driven vision of the Town’s physical development.
Members of the Black Student Union (BSU); Vista, the College’s Latinx and Allies Student Organization; and Asian American Students in Action (AASiA) hosted an annual teach-in at Goodrich Hall on the history and future of ethnic studies at the College.
Student opinions of the College’s COVID-19 policies are divided, a Record survey found. Almost a third of students expressed neutrality about the College’s protocols, while the remainder were almost evenly split between approval and disapproval, slightly weighted towards the former. Survey responses were also divided on whether the College should escalate its COVID protocols to include mandatory weekly testing and an additional booster shot that would protect against Omicron variants. As of Sept. 17, 12.2 percent of respondents reported having contracted COVID while on campus this semester.
On June 24, the Supreme Court overturned the precedent it set in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1973 and 1992 cases that guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion. Student and local organizers, alums who work in abortion access, and College administrators must now reckon with a new political reality.
Randal Fippinger and Jane Patton were elected yesterday to serve three-year terms on the Williamstown Select Board, defeating Bilal Ansari to win their seats. Patton was elected to the board with 921 votes, according to unofficial results released last night by the town clerk. Fippinger garnered 881 votes, and Ansari amassed 677.
Effective for the next academic year, the College will raise the limit on the number of hours students can work on campus to 20 hours per week from the previous 10 hour limit, convert teaching assistant (TA) jobs to hourly positions, and allow paid residential leadership position holders, including Junior Advisors (JAs), House Coordinators (HCs), and Residential Directors (RDs) to hold other paid on-campus positions.
The College has earned a gold rating — the second-highest possible rating — from The Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS). Operated by The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), STARS is a self-reporting framework for colleges to measure the environmental sustainability of their campuses.
On Wednesday, the College reported 21 new student cases and five new faculty and staff positive cases. 1104 new tests were added to the COVID dashboard on Wednesday, bringing the number of positive tests since the start of last week to 92. Today’s cases bring the College’s weekly positivity rate to 2.7%.
