Thanks to Professor Chris Waters for sending me a copy of the Report on The Williams in New York Program. I have pasted an html version of the report below. Comments:

1) I have not had time to read the whole report. What do others think? We would especially be interested in hearing from WNY alumni.

2) Kudos to Professor Waters for sharing this document (which has been sent to all faculty members) with the wider Williams community. Too many College officials and faculty decline to conduct themselves in a transparent manner. Professor Waters (like Professor McDonald, chair of the Committee on Varsity Athletics) upholds the best traditions of the Williams faculty by allowing alumni and students to read this report. Why don’t other faculty members (e.g., Professor Wendy Raymond) act this way? I predict that the College itself will never post this report nor officially notify alumni about its contents.

3) We discussed the WNY program here. (And let me again apologize to Professor Jackall for not providing an accurate description of the program.) Some of the concerns raised there, especially costs and popularity, are raised again in this report.

4) The next step in the process is a vote at the faculty meeting on May 7th on the following motion:

Should the Williams in New York Program be discontinued?

If I were a faculty member, I would vote No on resolution. Yet, at the same time, I would demand some fairly serious changes over the next year, mainly to reduce expenses. If those changes did not materialize, I would get rid of the program.

THE WILLIAMS IN NEW
YORK PROGRAM

A
REPORT

Submitted to the Faculty
of Williams College

on
Friday 25th April, 2008

by the Williams in
New York Program Review Committee

Chris Waters
(Professor of History; Chair of the WNY Review Committee)

Rónadh Cox
(Associate Professor of Geosciences; Div III representative)

Will Dudley
(Associate Professor of Philosophy;

Committee on Educational
Policy representative)

Keith Finan
(Associate Provost; Provost’s representative)

John Gerry

(Associate Dean of the Faculty; Dean of the Faculty’s representative)

Laurie Heatherington
(Professor of Psychology; Division II representative)

Mike Lewis
(Professor of Art History; Division I representative)

Laura McKeon
(Associate Dean; Dean of the College’s representative)

Safa Zaki
(Associate Professor of Psychology;

Committee on Priorities
& Resources representative)

Executive Summary and Motion

While the nine members
of the Williams in New York Program Review Committee are unanimous in
their conviction that the Program should not be continued in its present
form, they are divided as to whether it should be completely discontinued
after the pilot phase ends. Six members of the committee believe that
the Program should be terminated following the 2008-09 academic year
due to insurmountable problems with its intellectual coherence, long-term
viability, and expense. Three members of the committee believe that
the investment should be made to expand the Program and build on its
strengths. Given this lack of consensus, the committee as a whole proposes
the following motion, posed in the form of a question, for debate and
a vote at the May 2008 faculty meeting:

Should
the Williams in New York Program be
discontinued?

A “YES” vote means that the Program
will be terminated at the end of the 2008-09 academic year.

A “NO” vote means that the College,
informed by the findings of this committee, will take all necessary
steps to modify the Williams in New York Program to promote its viability.

1. Background

The Williams in New York
Program Review Committee was convened by the Dean of the Faculty in
April 2007 to undertake a comprehensive review of the Williams in New
York (WNY) Program. The review committee was charged with examining
all aspects of the Program, from its early incarnation as a Winter Study
Project in 2004 through its first four semesters of existence (Fall
2005, Fall 2006, Spring 2007, and Fall 2007). The committee was asked
to assess the “distinctive educational qualities” of the Program
and its importance to the Williams curriculum, as well as to explore
the educational impact of the Program on the students enrolled in it.
Given that in its present configuration the Program was not established
on a permanent basis, the committee was also charged with assessing
its long-term viability and making recommendations with respect to the
future. The committee’s work is summarized in appendix one.

2.
The Williams in New York Program: History, Curricular Philosophy, and
Current Practice

In July 1995 a proposal
for a Williams program in New York was made to then President Harry
Payne and Dean of the Faculty Michael McPherson by Robert Jackall. The
proposal was tabled until the Fall of 2000 when Jackall submitted a
slightly altered version of the original proposal to the CEP, chaired
by Laurie Heatherington. The focus on experiential learning was central
to the new curricular initiatives put forward by the CEP and debated
by the faculty at two meetings in 2001. At its May meeting that year,
the faculty voted on those initiatives, including the establishment
of a Williams in New York Program. The legislation envisioned a one-semester
program for some twenty students, to be offered both semesters every
year and focusing on experiential education grounded in fieldwork. To
pass, the curricular initiatives required approval by 60% of the voting
faculty; the WNY Program proposal was approved by 67% of those voting.

In the wake of the terrorist
attacks of 9/11 and of the College’s fiscal restraint in the early
years of the new millennium, the Program as envisioned was not immediately
implemented. A scaled down version was announced at the February 2004
faculty meeting by Wendy Raymond (CEP chair). In May 2004, Peter Just
(CPR chair), reported to the Steering Committee: “An imaginative proposal
to make use of space in the Williams Club for a pilot project at a very
reasonable cost gained enthusiastic support from the CPR, which recommends
its approval.” Meanwhile, the Gaudino Fund had supported a prototype
program for five students during Winter Study 2004. In the Summer of
2004 Jackall was asked to implement the pilot program. The WNY Program
is now in its fifth semester, directed by Jackall in Fall 2005, Fall
2006, and Fall 2007, and by E.J. Johnson in Spring 2007 and Spring 2008.
Next year, during the final year of the pilot program’s operation,
Williams in New York will be directed by Liza Johnson (see appendix
two).

The goal of the Williams
in New York Program has been to foster innovative experiential learning
through a combination of fieldwork and traditional scholarship, all
taking place in a city that serves both as its site and often as the
object of its investigations. It is a one-semester program, housed in
the Williams Club and limited to eight students. The Program has several
pedagogical goals. Through fieldwork it seeks to develop students’
observational skills, to enhance their ability to understand the dynamics
of the complex occupational worlds in which they are immersed, and to
strengthen their ability to convey their fieldwork observations to others.
In addition, it seeks to cultivate self-confident, critical habits of
mind, to encourage students to discover and more profoundly understand
the social, religious, and ethnic diversity of the city, to introduce
them to the world of cultural production in the city, and, more generally,
to help them develop a road map for a deeper and more nuanced understanding
of the operations of urban modernity.

Fieldwork is at the core
of the Program and directors work closely with students to select fieldwork
sites appropriate to their interests (see appendix three). In addition
to the intensive fieldwork they undertake (fifteen hours per week),
students enroll in a tutorial, focused on their fieldwork experience,
along with three other seminar classes. These vary by semester (see
appendix two) but always focus on some aspect of the city. For example,
Robert Jackall’s “Craft and Consciousness” explores “the functionally
interconnected but experientially disparate occupational worlds of New
York City” by hosting individuals from a wide range of professions
to discuss their work worlds with students; former Williams sociologist
Philip Kasinitz introduces students to “The Social Worlds of New York”
in his course; and next Spring Ondine Chavoya will offer “Art, Space,
and the City,” an exploration of the ways in which artworks and artists
engage with urban space in New York. (Information about all of the Program’s curricular
offerings since its inception can be found on the Program’s superb
website: http://www.williams.edu/go/newyork/.)

3.
Williams in New York: An Assessment

The Williams in New York
Program has generated a great deal of enthusiasm from students, faculty,
alumni/ae, and fieldwork supervisors. The pilot program has achieved
notable success in providing an exciting and meaningful experience for
the thirty-eight students who have so far completed a semester in the
city. The committee recognizes these successes and has identified a
number of Program strengths which complement the curricular goals of
the College. Those strengths are outlined below, after which the committee’s
reservations about the Program will also be discussed.

  • The value of experiential
    learning.     The committee firmly believes in the value of experiential
    education as a means to broaden the curricular strengths of the College.
    Knowledge gained through observation and experience in the real world,
    when skillfully encouraged, monitored, and directed, is of “no inferior
    intellectual merit” to classroom learning, as one recent graduate
    of the Program, Anouk Dey, recently put it in “Education for Real
    Life” (Williams Record, 16 April 2008, p. 3). At its best,
    and when most successful, the Program has demonstrated the importance
    of experiential learning, even if this needs to be enhanced and explained
    more carefully to students (who still occasionally speak of “internships”
    and “career paths,” rather than fieldwork and the experience of
    new frameworks for intellectual growth).

  • Overcoming rural isolation.
    The Williams in New York Program has clearly demonstrated the ways in
    which a major metropolitan center can provide students with the kinds
    of educational experiences that are not available in an isolated, rural
    community. The Program has taught them how to engage with urban space
    in a practical, hands-on way that moves beyond book learning; it has
    overcome the age homogeneity that characterizes most student experience
    in Williamstown; it has expanded the horizons of those students from
    remote areas – and there is evidence from a few of them that their
    personal experience of the remoteness of Williamstown has been profitably
    countered by their engagement with the city, where they have mastered
    tools that have assisted them in their education when they have returned
    to Williamstown. (As we note below, however, many graduates of the Program
    have complained about the small number of Williams in New York students
    and the extent to which they have often spent too much time with the
    same few people). Finally, for a number of younger faculty members –
    and perhaps an increasing number, given the demographic shifts taking
    place in the teaching staff – the Program might be seen as an advantage
    to urban-oriented faculty and promoted as such.

  • 2020 and issues of diversity.
    Recently, the faculty voted to implement the Exploring Diversity Initiative,
    highlighting the importance of giving students the tools with which
    to understand and navigate diversity in their own lives and to prepare
    them for a life-long engagement with diversity. Moreover, the work of
    the 2020 Committee has also stressed the changes taking place in the
    Williams student body and the need for the College to be prepared for,
    and engage with, those important social changes that are taking place
    in the very fabric of the College community. New York City affords students
    the opportunity to experience and study one of the most diverse urban
    centers imaginable, contributing to the education the College increasingly
    considers desirable. An emphasis on learning how to navigate the diversity
    of the city looks to be increasingly central to the WNY curricular offerings
    next year and we would stress the importance of what the Program can
    continue to offer in this regard.

  • Abundance of cultural opportunities.
    New York affords an almost unparalleled richness of possibilities for
    student learning in both the visual and the performing arts. The faculty
    engaged in the Program to date have very successfully tapped into the
    cultural offerings of the city for the curriculum, and the students
    have taken advantage of the city’s cultural resources during their
    extracurricular time as well.

  • Location. The
    Program is housed in the Williams Club on 39th Street in
    mid-town Manhattan. This has been an important location for a number
    of reasons, not least being the facilitation of productive exchanges
    between Williams students in New York and a number of former graduates
    of the College living and working in the city. One or two students have
    complained that the area around the Club is “dead” at night, but
    virtually all of them have expressed the belief that the Club affords
    an ideal location for the Program. Committee members share this belief
    unanimously. Were the Program to be continued, they would encourage
    the College to explore the Club’s offer of devoting the upper floors
    of the premises to the needs of the Program. It is clear that space
    needs at the moment are barely adequate (an office for the current director,
    for example, is rented elsewhere) and those needs would only grow were
    it to be deemed feasible to expand the Program to sixteen students each
    semester. Such an expansion would also require a full-time administrator
    in New York, not to mention housing for a director, all of which can
    – after major renovations – be provided in the Williams Club building.

Despite these strengths,
the committee has also identified a number of both programmatic and
logistical problems that threaten the long-term viability of the Program.
As noted in the executive summary of this report, the committee is divided
as to the seriousness of these problems and whether or not they fatally
compromise the Program. We outline the key issues below.

  • Difficulty of
    integrating the fieldwork with academic coursework.
    The emphasis on fieldwork is central to the WNY Program and we applaud
    the dedication and hard work of the Program’s directors in finding
    appropriate sites for student fieldwork, in maintaining good relationships
    with site managers, and in exercising constant vigilance to ensure valuable
    experiences for all our students. Nevertheless, members of the committee
    share a number of reservations about the fieldwork component of the
    Program.

    Central to our anxieties
    is that while at the heart of the Program is the integration of experiential
    learning and observation with academic coursework and reflection, we
    are concerned about how successful that integration always is. The placements
    are as varied as Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, the Metropolitan Museum
    of Art, the District Attorney's office, and ABC News Special Events,
    and the unifying element of the students' experiences – the common
    element to be read about, studied, and discussed in the tutorial –
    is the concept of the workplace. In short, the glue that binds these
    diverse and disparate experiences together is an emphasis on the observation
    of how organizations work; students are expected to set aside preconceived
    assumptions and enter diverse occupational and professional worlds and
    observe how they operate. Pedagogically, this is an intellectual approach
    to institutions in general and workplaces in particular that has both
    emerged from and is central to specific social science disciplines,
    sociology in particular. While the Program has benefited from faculty
    directors whose talents lend themselves to this pedagogy, we worry about
    whether it is realistic to expect from among the Williams faculty the
    regular availability of future directors with similar training or skills.

    In addition, faculty
    interest in directing the Program appears not to be very high. While
    some faculty members are keenly interested in Williams in New York,
    it is unclear whether there will be enough to sustain the Program over
    time. Increased longevity and a growing awareness of the Program might
    spur more faculty members toward making a commitment to it, but the
    committee does not know if there will always be a regular supply of
    directors with the appropriate skills to optimize the fieldwork component
    of the Program.

  • Lack of curricular coherence.
    Fieldwork is the central, defining characteristic of the Program and
    members of the committee do not challenge this centrality. However,
    fieldwork is just one component of the Program. Students take three
    other courses, aside from their fieldwork and the related tutorial.
    These courses have varied depending on both the director and the semester
    (see appendix two) and sometimes have been a tremendous success. But
    members of the committee wonder how well they are integrated with the
    fieldwork students undertake, and are anxious about whether the whole
    is always greater than the sum of the parts or if there are just parts.
    At times, the justification for the WNY Program’s non-fieldwork curricular
    components doesn’t seem that clear or well-developed intellectually.
    Certainly students interested in the Program have often been confused
    about its overall curricular purpose and have found it difficult –
    as have members of the committee – to see an overarching unity, beyond
    the simple fact of its New York locational focus. On the one hand, it
    is very important to encourage different directors to experiment with
    the curricular aspects of the Program. But on the other, constant change
    undermines or inhibits the on-going intellectual coherence that is necessary
    for the Program to be understood by, and to attract, a healthy number
    of students.

  • Uneven quality of fieldwork
    placements.     We worry about the fostering and maintenance of high-quality
    placements over time, largely because the Program changes directors
    on a regular basis, but also in light of the committee's belief that
    were the Program to continue it would need to double its student –
    and hence placement – numbers. Good placements are those in which
    the embedded student has the opportunity to observe, listen, and learn
    about the structure, ethos, and management of the work environment.
    To date, some placements have worked spectacularly well, but others
    have not been so successful. In failed placements, the student is often
    incapable of inserting him or herself into the very fabric of the workplace,
    or unimaginative about creating opportunities therein. On other occasions,
    the site supervision has been less than ideal; in these cases, the students
    keep busy only with workaday tasks, rather than being admitted to the
    inner workings of the environment where they can make the observations
    central to the pedagogic goals of Williams in New York. Program directors
    have been very attentive to student complaints and have imaginatively
    worked with students to help them learn from their frustrations. But
    failed placements reduce the student's learning opportunity for that
    semester and can also damage the group dynamic. Finding valuable placements
    and cultivating them over time requires a large investment of time and
    an extensive network of contacts. It also depends a lot on personal
    interactions. With a system of rotating directors, the committee is
    concerned about the ability of the Program to maintain high-quality
    placements over time.

  • Inconsistent quality of
    adjunct instructors.     Most students have generally been pleased with
    their educational experiences in New York. Indeed, many have raved,
    in the Williams Record and elsewhere, about the importance of
    the WNY Program in their Williams education. Nevertheless, one complaint
    is often heard above others, namely that the quality of some of the
    teaching by adjuncts has been sub-par. On several occasions the SCS
    scores of courses taught by adjuncts have been quite low, suggestive
    of a disappointment amply supported by the written testimony the committee
    received from WNY students. This is not to belittle all teaching done
    by adjuncts. Some has been very successful indeed and it must be noted
    that the directors of the Program have responded to complaints and made
    a concerted effort to address student concerns about the quality of
    adjunct teaching when they have arisen. That said, adjunct teaching
    has been a central part of the program since its inception, and pedagogically
    the least satisfying.

  • Low student demand.
    The committee is unanimous that the Program should not continue with
    the current eight students per semester. Apart from the significant
    issue of cost, there are too few students to allow for the social diversity
    and intellectual richness that the Program should afford its participants
    – a point made by virtually every student who has been interviewed
    or offered written testimony to the committee. And yet hovering over
    all of our deliberations this year was one, perhaps unanswerable, question:
    if we invest in the Program and expand it, will we be able to secure
    the sixteen qualified students each semester that we feel would be necessary?
    The number of past applicants makes some of us quite doubtful. For the
    eight available places each semester there were some nine applicants
    for the Fall of 2005 (and only six who completed the Program), twelve
    for the Fall of 2006, twelve for the Spring of 2007, eight for the Fall
    of 2007, and fourteen for the Spring of 2008 (a couple of whom had wanted
    to study in New York in the Fall but applied late). Such numbers do
    not bode well for running a Program with a full complement of sixteen
    students each and every semester. Student interest has been higher recently,
    and the committee notes that there were twenty-six applications for
    the sixteen available spaces for the 2008-09 academic year. The committee
    cannot say whether this represents an upward trend, or whether it is
    a transient high in a noisy system. But considerable investment in advertising,
    along with a conscious effort to boost enrollment, would be required
    to attempt to yield the requisite thirty-two students per year.

  • Significant expense.
    The cost of educating eight students in New York each semester, with
    a resident director, visiting faculty, adjuncts, travel expenses, etc.,
    is considerable. We note above that the Program’s current home in
    the Williams Club, around the corner from Grand Central Station, has
    generally been an important asset and we recommend that if the Program
    is to continue it would be very well served by the College’s full
    acquisition of the Williams Club and its renovation of the Club’s
    upper floors for the purposes of the Program. However, as appendix four
    indicates, the Program will remain an expensive undertaking, although
    the per student costs will be substantially reduced the more students
    there are. The figures presented are hypothetical, and we note that
    it is difficult to estimate with any precision the cost of a reformed
    Program when the precise nature of those reforms cannot yet be known.
    Nevertheless, our calculations suggest that above and beyond the cost
    of full tuition and fees, the College would need to subsidize each student
    by approximately $31,700 per semester in a program with just eight students,
    $16,300 per semester in a program with twelve students, and $10,700
    per semester in a program with sixteen students. Depending on how, precisely,
    a larger program would work, and how much, exactly, it would cost to
    renovate the Williams Club, and then to operate and maintain it, these
    costs might be either higher or lower than estimated here. Nevertheless,
    the initial and thereafter annual investment would be such that we need
    to be sure that the Program would be viable – that it would be pedagogically
    important enough, and would attract the requisite number of students,
    to make that investment worthwhile.

  • Inefficient administrative
    structure.     To date, the Program has been administered on site by
    the faculty director and by a number of administrative staff members
    based in Williamstown. This arrangement is insufficient and inefficient,
    even for eight students. Were the Program to continue in an expanded
    form, it would be necessary to hire an on-site administrator and perhaps
    other staff members as well.

For these reasons, all
the members of the Williams in New York Program Review Committee feel
that the continuation and expansion of the Program would be a gamble.
A third of the members of the committee believe it is a gamble worth
making while two-thirds do not.

4. Conclusions

At the close of its deliberations,
members of the committee remained troubled by a number of vexing questions:
is the pedagogical value of the Program great enough that the investment
should be made to expand it; were the Program to be expanded would it
regularly draw the requisite number of students to warrant the investment;
and is there enough interest and commitment to be found amongst the
faculty from which regularly to draw a capable group of instructors
and directors?

In terms of these questions,
six members of the committee remain skeptical. Indeed, their reservations
with respect to the long-term viability of the Program would probably
warrant a vote to discontinue the Program. Three are cautiously optimistic
and their optimism would probably warrant a vote to invest in the Program,
thereby establishing it on a more permanent basis and with the eventual
goal of reaching a total of sixteen students per semester. Nonetheless,
our discussions were wide-ranging, and even those who are most concerned
about the problems with the Program acknowledge its strengths, while
those who are more optimistic are keenly aware of the problems. Ultimately,
it will be the responsibility of the faculty to reach a final decision.
Thus, we hope that this report will initiate and inform a very thorough
and open discussion of this matter at the May 2008 faculty meeting.
That discussion will be followed by a vote on the motion on page one.

Appendix
One

THE WORK OF THE WILLIAMS
IN NEW YORK PROGRAM REVIEW COMMITTEE

The work of the committee
commenced in May 2007 when the chair began to assemble more than 500
pages of Program-related material for the consideration of the committee.
This included promotional literature, information from the Program’s
website and the Williams College Bulletin, documents from the
Committee on Priorities and Resources (CPR) and the Committee on Educational
Policy (CEP) proposing the establishment of a New York program (2000-2004),
minutes of the faculty meetings at which those proposals were debated
(2001, 2003, and 2004), the reports submitted to the Dean of the Faculty
each semester by the WNY Program director (including assessments of
students’ work), course syllabi, SCS course evaluation summaries,
Program budgets and other financial agreements, material pertaining
to the Williams Club, and miscellaneous assorted newspaper articles,
memoranda, and other documents. Before the work of the committee began,
discussions were also held with the Program directors, past, present,
and future (Robert Jackall, E.J. Johnson, and Liza Johnson), with the
general manager of the Williams Club (Gabrielle Keene) and Club trustees,
and with Stephen Birrell (Vice President for Alumni Relations and Development);
a written summary of those discussions was presented to the committee.
Formal assessments of the Program were also solicited from Jean-Bernard
Bucky (in his capacity as WNY instructor), Carrie Greene (Academic Program
Coordinator), Robert Jackall, E.J. Johnson, and Liza Johnson. Finally,
documents pertaining to students included summaries of the interviews
undertaken each semester (both pre-enrollment and post-enrollment) by
John Gerry (Associate Dean of the Faculty) and/or Paula Consolini (Coordinator
of Experiential Education), a written summary of the two interviews
undertaken by the committee chair in May 2007 with students accepted
to study in New York in the Fall of 2007, and thoughtful, written testimonials
provided by more than three quarters of all the students ever enrolled
in the Program in response to the committee chair’s request for personal
reflections about the Program from all former WNY students.

The committee met to
consider this material beginning in September 2007, occasionally receiving
WNY Program updates and requesting further information as it undertook
its work. After a number of general meetings, it devoted lengthy sessions
to a consideration of the WNY curriculum (24 October), the role of fieldwork
in that curriculum (31 October), students and student experience (28
November), administration and finance (12 December), and location (9
January). In late January and early February the Committee discussed
its preliminary findings with the Dean of the Faculty, the chair of
the Steering Committee, and members of the CPR, and more formally interviewed
Program director Robert Jackall. The committee met again in March and
April to conclude its proceedings and discuss the drafting of this report.

Appendix
Two

Williams in New York
Program

CURRICULUM

Fall 2005
(Director: Robert Jackall)

WNY 301T Fieldwork in New York
(tutorial) – Robert Jackall

WNY 303 Slow Motion Riot: The
Social Life of the Metropolis – Philip Kasinitz

WNY 305 Craft and Consciousness
– Robert Jackall

WNY 307 Arts and the City –
Jean-Bernard Bucky

Fall 2006 (Director: Robert Jackall)

WNY 301T Fieldwork in New York
(tutorial) – Robert Jackall

WNY 303 Slow Motion Riot: The
Social Life of the Metropolis – Philip Kasinitz

WNY 305 Craft and Consciousness
– Robert Jackall

WNY 307 Arts and the City –
Jean-Bernard Bucky

Spring 2007 (Director: E.J. Johnson)

WNY 301T Fieldwork in New York
(tutorial) – E.J. Johnson

WNY 302 Cinema and the City –
Liza Johnson

WNY 304 Revolutions: Contemporary
Art in New York – Shamim Momin

WNY 306 Street Smarts: Learning
to Read the City – Anthony Robins

Fall 2007 (Director: Robert Jackall)

WNY 301T Fieldwork in New York
(tutorial) – Robert Jackall

WNY 303 The Social Worlds of New
York – Philip Kasinitz

WNY 305 Craft and Consciousness
– Robert Jackall

WNY 307 Arts and the City –
Jerry Carlson

Spring 2008 (Director: E.J. Johnson)

WNY 301T Fieldwork in New York
(tutorial) – E.J. Johnson

WNY 302 Cinema and the City –
Liza Johnson

WNY 304 Revolutions: Contemporary
Art in New York – Shamim Momin

WNY 306 Street Smarts: Learning
to Read the City – Anthony Robins

Fall 2008 (Director: Liza Johnson)

WNY 307T Work/Ethics: Frameworks
for Observing People at Work (tutorial) – Liza Johnson

WNY 308 Explorations in the Urban
Outback – Michael Crewdson and Margaret Mittelbach

WNY 309 Covering the Other: A Course
in Cross-Cultural and Community-Based Film –

      Musa Syeed

WNY 312 Independent Study in Metropolitan
Studies – Liza Johnson (supervision of a course


    in the NYU Metropolitan Studies Program)

Spring 2009 (Director: Liza Johnson)

WNY 307T Work/Ethics: Frameworks
for Observing People at Work (tutorial) – Liza Johnson

WNY 310 Art, Space, and the City
– Ondine Chavoya

WNY 311 Imagining New York City
– Dorothy Wang

WNY 312 Independent Study in Metropolitan
Studies – Liza Johnson (supervision of a course


    in the NYU Metropolitan Studies Program)

Appendix
Three

Williams in New York
Program

FIELDWORK SITES, FALL
2005 – SPRING 2008

(number of students for
each placement in parentheses)

Humanities & the Arts

  • Asia Society (1)
  • Christie’s (2)
  • Dodger Theatricals (3)
  • The Frick Collection
    (0)
  • The Guggenheim Museum (1)
  • Hebrew Union College—Jewish
    Institute of Religion Museum (1)
  • The Jewish Museum (0)
  • McConnell Hauser Films
    (1)
  • Metropolitan Museum of Art
    (3)
  • Museum of Modern Art
    (0)
  • Production Resource Group
    (1)
  • Urban Ethnomusicology
    (1)
  • Whitney Museum of American
    Art (1)

Law, Advocacy, Business & Public
Affairs

  • AvalonBay Communities (0)
  • CARE USA (0)
  • Common Ground (1)
  • District Attorney of New York
    (4)
  • International Rescue Committee
    (0)
  • L’Occitane (1)
  • Legal Aid Society of New York,
    Criminal Division (0)
  • Manhattan Institute (1)
  • New Century High Schools
    (0)
  • NYC Department of Housing
    Preservation and Development (0)
  • New York City Department of
    Investigation (0)
  • New York City Landmarks Preservation
    Commission (0)
  • Office of the Special Narcotics
    Prosecutor for the City of New York (0)
  • Richard Green High School
    (0)
  • Saint Ignatius School (1)
  • School for Democracy and Leadership
    (0)
  • United States Attorney, Southern
    District of New York (3)
  • Vera Institute of Justice
    (0)
  • Women’s Commission on Women
    and Children Refugees (1)

Medical Sciences & Public Health

  • Bellevue Hospital (1)
  • Mount Sinai School of Medicine,
    Department of Community and Preventive Medicine (2)
  • NYC Department of Public Health
    & Mental Hygiene (0)

Media

  • ABC News Special Events
    (6)
  • NBC Sports (1)
  • The New York Sun
    (1)

Appendix
Four

Williams in New York
Program

ESTIMATED BUDGET PER
SEMESTER

          WNY with 8
          students per semester          		 WNY with 12 students
          per semester          		 WNY
          with 16 students per semester
          Income
          Tuition and
          fees          		 $ 187,564 $ 281,345 $ 375,127
          Expenses
          salaries $ 170,708 $ 170,708 $ 202,958
          operating costs $ 82,790 $ 119,310 $ 155,830
          facilities $ 187,500 $ 187,500 $ 187,500
          Total cost $ 440,998 $ 477,518 $ 546,288
          Cost per student $ 55,125 $ 39,793 $ 34,143
          Total cost less
          income          		 $ 253,434 $ 196,173 $ 171,161
          Subsidy per student $ 31,679 $ 16,348 $ 10,698

Notes:

  • Costs as shown are estimates
    per semester     and are predicated on the Williams New York Program
    housed in a renovated Williams Club, owned and operated by the College.
  • Income: estimated as
    full tuition, fees, room and board per student per semester.
  • Expenses:
    • Salaries include pay, benefits,
      and supplements for director, commuting faculty member from Williams
      (one course per semester), 1-2 adjuncts per semester (depending on the
      number of students), and a WNY Program administrator based in NYC (calculated
      at half-time for 8-12 students and full-time for 16 students).
    • Operating costs include student
      food, misc. supplies and services, tech support, athletics, tuition
      for NYU course, teaching assistants and misc. course-related costs,
      commuting costs for Williams faculty member(s), student transportation/subway
      costs, visitors’ costs, social activities, etc.
    • Facilities expenses are calculated
      at 2.5% of the current estimated value of the Williams Club ($15m),
      as a proxy for the cost of maintaining and operating a College-owned
      building in the city.
  • Financial aid subventions
    are not included in these estimates.
  • The subsidy per student per
    semester (after the presumption of the payment of full tuition and fees)
    for the WNY Program compares with the current $2,230 per student per
    semester in the Williams-Exeter Programme at Oxford University (WEPO).
    The comparison, however, is difficult to make, given that the expenditure
    on facilities in Oxford (maintenance and operation) is calculated differently.