Choose Williams Over Yale
It was just 4 years ago that I (successfully?) urged Julia Sendor ‘08 to choose Williams over Harvard. This thread, and the appearance of long-time reader Sam Jackson (Yale ‘11), provides an opportunity to revisit. There are scores of students that were accepted at both Yale and Williams. Around 90% of them will probably choose Yale. I think that a majority are making a mistake, that most of them would be better off if they chose Williams. I think that most students are misinformed about what life is actually like at the two schools. Perhaps we can convince Sam (and other Yalies) to participate in the conversation.
To be clear, I don’t think that Sam (and other Yalies) have a bad time or get a bad education at Yale. I just think that they would have a better time and get a better education at Williams. Let’s start by focusing on academics. (I hope that Sam will answer these questions, both for himself and the “typical” student.) For both Yale and Williams:
1) How many professors know by name the typical student? By “professors,” I mean tenured or tenure track faculty. I think that, for the average first year at Williams, this is at least 4 if not 6. At Yale, I predict 1 or 2.
2) How much written feedback does the typical student receive on his papers from professors? At Williams, this must be in the thousands of words. At Yale, very little. Most/all of the written feedback is from poorly-paid and harried graduate students. Some is from lecturers and adjuncts of various sorts. I bet Sam has received written feedback from no more than two professors in his first year.
3) How much one-on-one conversation does the typical student have with professors? At Williams, this varies dramatically by student and does depend on how often you seek out faculty members outside of class. The same is true at Yale. But the average Eph gets around 10 times more direct interaction with faculty. The average Williams student in a single tutorial exchanges more words with that one professor in a semester than Sam Jackson will exchange with all his professors put together over the course of four years.
These are, of course, rough estimates. But I did live with Harvard undergraduates for 4 years and there is no doubt that these estimates apply there. I suspect that the same is true at Yale, although things are (reportedly) better in New Haven.
The market failure is that the typical high school student has no idea about this reality. She thinks that her interactions with professors at Yale would be, more or less, just like her interactions with professors at Williams, the only difference being that the Williams professors assign the books written by the Yale professors. If students really knew what they were getting, more would choose Williams.
Contrary opinions welcome.
Most Famous Eph Ever
Reader Brian Carey enjoyed this Record article on Lee-Hom Wang ‘98.
Singer Leehom Wang ’98 is the most famous Eph, ever. He’s more famous than George Steinbrenner ’52, he’s more famous than Stephen Sondheim ’50 and he’s definitely more famous than President James A. Garfield, Class of 1856. He’s too famous to perform at Spring Fling, and he’s also too famous to answer my e-mails, apparently. But if he’s so famous, then why haven’t you heard of him? Well, he may not pop up in American gossip magazines as much as LiLo, but “Wang Leehom,” as he is called in China, is a household name 12 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. It’s hard to miss Wang’s face in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei. Pass a McDonald’s, and you’ll see a poster of him rockin’ out next to a life-size frosty drink. Stop by a convenience store and pick up a bottle of Wahaha water, and there’s Wang again smiling at you on the label. Look across the street, and there’s Wang listening to music on his phone for a Sony Ericsson ad.
Is Wang the most famous Eph? Depends on the metric. I suspect that there are more people alive today that would recognize him on the street. Is any other Eph even close? But, being instantly recognizable by 12 year-old Chinese girls is a special kind of fame. By the way, another sign of my increasing out-of-it-ness is that I have no idea who “LiLo” is.
The people who did see Wang’s talent in pop were probably those who went to see Springstreeters shows. Wang was an active member of the a cappella group since his freshman year, and became extremely close with his fellow singers.
Which does not prevent some gentle mocking from his fellow Springstreeters.
Still my favorite Eph Youtube. By the way, did the Octet reject Wang?
After 13 years, Wang’s career is stronger than ever. Along with the many albums he has released since his debut, he recently starred in 2007’s critically acclaimed and controversial Lust Caution, directed by the esteemed Ang Lee. However, Wang is still Leehom from the block, and he knows where he comes from – the Purple Valley. According to Kubler, Wang will be returning to the College this summer for his 10-year reunion.
That will be interesting. Perhaps the College could have Wang sing while Erin Burnett ‘98 reported financial news. Just thinking out loud . . .
1988 Yearbook: Page 162
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What is wrong with Yale?
First they produce George W Bush, then Aleksey Vayner, now this. I hope this serves as a grim but necessary warning to any pre-frosh choosing between Williams and Yale as to how they might end up if they choose unwisely.
Eph Combinator
I had breakfast yesterday with a rich Eph who was then off to have lunch with Chief Investment Officer Collete Chilton. The conversation reminded me that, instead of just whining and complaining, I ought to make some substantive suggestions for the management of the endowment. So, how about an Eph Combinator?
Background: Paul Graham founded Y Combinator three years ago. Start here for an introduction. Let’s steal his genius idea, but in a Williams context.
So it’s not surprising to me that the Y Combinator model is being adopted and adapted by others. Last summer my friend Brad Feld helped sponsor TechStars in Boulder Colorado and a number of interesting startups have come out of that program.
I was at a meeting recently where a University was considering starting a venture fund to back companies coming out of their school. I encouraged them to look at the Y Combinator model for inspiration and suggested that they back 10 teams at $25k each instead of one team at $250k. Two reasons. First it’s hard to know who will get it right, by backing 10 opportunities instead of one, you vastly increase your chances of success. And second, you can get a lot done on $25k now, particularly if you back young software engineers right out of school (or even in school) who can live for at least six months on $25k.
This stuff is transformative.
Indeed. Basic idea is to fund 5 or so sets of Williams students in the class of 2008 who want to create a start-up. (Recent alums would also be welcome.) Give them enough money to live on for six months in exchange for equity. Plug them into the Williams network, starting with Village Ventures. Have the teams live in Williamstown, all the better to encourage them to focus on their work and continue bonding with Williams as an institution. After 6 months, set them free. If they have built something even vaguely interesting, they will be able to get some more funding, move to a big city and away they go.
This idea (stolen completely from Graham, see his essays for more details) is a win for everyone. The student founders are much better off working for a start-up then being a drone in some larger organization. The endowment probably makes money on the investments. (This is the main reason why others are trying to copy the plan.) The Williamstown community is invigorated with small business formation. Even academic departments like Economics and Computer Science have a chance to become more directly connected to the outside world.
In fact, I am sure that there are alums who would write a check tomorrow to fund the first year or two, either as a gift to the College or as a split-the-profits deal.
Would someone like Collette Chilton ever go for this? Not in a million years. (This is one prediction that I hope to be very wrong about.) She does not live in Williamstown. She does not care that much about Williams. She does not know the names of more than a handful of undergraduates.
The larger picture is that Williams as an institution has two goals when it comes to wealth. First, it needs to turn its $2 billion dollars into $10 billion dollars over the next 20 years or so. Not as easy as it sounds! The best place to put the marginal investment dollar is probably in the human capital of its graduates. Second, Williams wants to take care of (future) wealthy Ephs now so that those Ephs become big donors 20 or 30 years in the future. Funding them at the age of 22 is a great way to earn their loyalty.
1988 Yearbook: Page 161
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1988 Yearbook: Page 160
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I love these yearbook images! Am I the only one who looks at them? Feedback is always welcome.
Decent Year for Two Ephs
Eph alums (and hedge fund superstars) Andreas Halvorsen ‘86 and Chase Coleman ‘97 had pretty decent years in 2007, making $520 million and $400 million respectively. Of course, next to the $3.7 billion John Paulson made, that is mere pocket change.
Olympic Trials Marathon profile: Michelle Rorke ‘06
As I mentioned, Michelle Rorke qualified for the Olympic Trials Marathon, which is this coming Sunday. Michelle has come up before on EphBlog, but this is the first time I’ve advertised her race before the race is reported on EphBlog. Here is an excerpt from an interview with her:
What has the reaction to your 2:43 been like on the Williams campus?
It’s been fun having people congratulate me. I think they hear “Olympic Trials” and assume that means I have a chance of actually going to the Olympics. Most people don’t realize that 100 plus runners will be chasing three spots. I have to explain how big a gulf there is between 17th at Boston and 10th at Boston.What kind of marathon training schedule do you follow? Do you have a coach?
Pete Farwell, my cross country coach at Williams, is a 2:20 marathoner and a Boston veteran. He gave me some good training guidelines. I am not good about doing really structured workouts on my own. I did one 800 workout in February and then couldn’t get myself to back to the track.My schedule was very flexible. I took a day off every week and used the great hills around Williamstown to give my long runs some intensity.
For the rest of the interview, see Elite Running. To see Michelle run, go to Boston on Sunday.
1988 Yearbook: Page 159
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1988 Yearbook: Page 158
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CC Minutes 2008-04-09
Another amazingly detailed set of College Council minutes from Emily Deans ‘09. Morty was at the CC meeting and answered all sorts of interesting questions. Here are some of the highlights (and my comments) but read the whole thing.
Thomas Rubinsky (Class of 2010 Rep) asked whether the college was doing anything about the loss of the rectory as a co-op?
President Schapiro responded that he did not know whether the college was going anything but made several comments about how much he likes co-ops. He said that there may be some opportunities to turn buildings into co-ops once the North and South buildings are completed.
Good news! Co-ops are indeed one of the very best parts of student housing at Williams, and it is good to know that Morty agrees. One of my concerns about Neighborhood Housing was that the inevitable failure to create meaningful neighborhood community would lead the Administration to try to salvage the project by pulling seniors back into the neighborhoods, mainly by attaching co-ops to neighborhoods or by decreasing the number of seniors allowed to live off-campus. Perhaps there is no need to worry about that now.
Yet it is still a shame that the Administration take the obvious next step. If co-op housing is wonderful and popular (more than 1/2 of all juniors applied), why not create more co-ops? Genius, eh? Someone from Gargoyle or College Council ought to look into this, ought to come up with a plan that increases the number of co-ops even if it means taking nice senior housing away from the clusters. Such a plan could, if anything, make senior housing in the neighborhoods more equal than it is today.
Narae Park (Dodd Board Rep) then asked about the 2020 Committee.
President Schapiro said that the idea for the 2020 Committee is that we are supposed to look ahead about a dozen years to see what kind of challenges are going to confront Williams. Some examples he gave were improving the public schools and being competitive with our peer institutions in terms of financial aid packages. Williams keeps changing the financial aid packages but it is hard to compete with Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, etc. and we are competitive but part of discussion is financial aid and part of financial aid is trying to create a more inclusive society. He also mentioned the 1.5 million dollars the college has for next year for environmental initiatives. Then President Schapiro talked about globalization and bringing the world to Williams and Williams to the world. He said that part of the 2020 effort is to position the college to be a more attractive place that does a better job of educating students.
It would be nice if the College were to be more transparent about the 2020 planning process. We can’t all be invited to the special retreat in Oxford, but why not share 90% of the material that was passed out at those meetings? (Redact anything particularly sensitive.) A College Council member ought to ask to see this stuff.
Spending more money on the public schools is about the most inefficient means possible of making Williams a better college. But it does make the faculty happy!
Is it just me or is the number one most obvious priority matching the financial aid packages of Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Stanford? I am not arguing that the College needs to be more generous than these schools, just that we shouldn’t force an applicant to pay $10,000 more to choose Williams.
Rachel Ko (Wood At-Large) asked about bringing the world to Williams and Williams to the world. Some students have been trying to push for experiential learning on campus and a lot of classes aren’t using local resources to really allow students to learn in the field.
President Schapiro said that faculty are very skeptical about giving credit for experiential things because it is very difficult to do it right. Most professors like what they teach and how they teach it and are skeptical about giving up control. Bringing the world to Williams means having a more globalized student body, faculty, and staff (increase international students) and that has made a difference. He thought that the curriculum and student body were in a pretty good place and want students to have a lot of experience outside of classroom but thought that it would be a tall order to ask faculty to give up control.
Exactly right. Although it is tough to know the exact meaning of “experiential learning” in this context (and I am a fan of Rachel Ko), no course credit should be given for anything outside of faculty control. Students should, of course, be encouraged to do all sorts of activities outside of classes and if someone wants to call this “experiential learning” all the better. But each semester you take 4 classes which Williams faculty judge important and rigorous. Many of those classes will involve work outside of the classroom, whether it is field observations in Hopkins Forest or studying paintings at the Clark. But a member of the Williams faculty is always in charge of the syllabus and evaluation.
President Schapiro was then asked about changes in scholarships. He said that the good news is that colleges are competing to be more affordable but he thought that some recent changes are things that aren’t necessarily fair. There are a lot of schools that have rich kids paying sticker price who aren’t as smart as the rest of the class and that is what need-aware admissions means. Williams does a good job and has a decent distribution of students with families all the way up the income ladder and the way to improve that distribution is to improve aid packages. He said that the new changes in aid are creating a bizarre incentive to put wealth in to home equity.
Good advice to all the Williams applicants among our readers. Indeed, there are probably dozens of current Williams students who could improve their financial aid package if their parents emptied the family (non-retirement?) savings accounts and put that money into home equity. If the money is in the bank, the College demands a piece of it. If the money is in your house, maybe not.
But Morty is being either naive or disingenuous to imply that this is some “problem” with the financial aid system that could be fixed via better policy, and/or collusion via the 568 group. The central issue is that very rich schools (H/Y/P/S) want to get the students they want and they have, for years, competed on price to do so. Williams is forced to either follow suit or have no non-rich student who could have attended HYPS choose us instead. The home equity “incentive” derives from this competition because HYPS found it convenient to cut price via the mechanism of ignoring home equity. Williams is forced to go along, not because it finds home equity a more sensible way to save but simply because of peer competition.
And the next steps in this competition are fairly obvious (and perhaps HYPS have already started in this direction). Soon, elite colleges will not even ask you for your savings. Your family’s wealth (whether stored in bank accounts or home equity) will play no part in your bill. Instead, they will just ask to see you 1040 and base the family contribution on your income.
Full minutes below and more commentary tomorrow.
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1988 Yearbook: Page 157
Click below for full image. And who is that idiot dressed like a waiter?
And, yes, members of the class of 2008, the lesson is that you want to be very nice to the Gul editors in the class behind you . . .
1988 Yearbook: Page 156
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Purple Pub Update
Thought folks might be interested in another chapter in the Purple Pub story. Mary now thinks it will be open again for this fall!
This article from the April 9th Record provides some more details. I love how they highlight Mary’s connection with the students at the end. This is why the Pub has never been just another bar, but a part of the Williams community.
The Purple Pub will return to Spring Street at the end of the summer behind the George Hopkins building, according to the Pub’s owner, Mary Michel. While hoping to bring “a lot of the old pub into the new pub,” she is excited about the Pub’s new location, noting that it will “look out onto Spring Street for the first time.”
. . .
The new pub was originally going to have two floors but will now have only one, as the upper floor of the new building will house offices instead.
. . .
Michel has been working at a small home-based retail business, and also took on a job at Whitmans’ this February, where she hopes to continue working even after the Pub reopens. Out of all the difficulties due to the Pub’s closure, Michel said that the largest is “the time lost with the students,” which contributed to her motivation to work on campus.Once the Pub reopens, Michel is hoping to regain support in the community. She has remained in touch with her staff, all of whom intend to resume working at the Pub. She also plans to serve dinner at the new Pub. Though the relocating and rebuilding may have taken longer than expected, Michel said she hopes the saying “when you build it, they will come” will hold true and that the Pub will once again become an important part of Spring Street.
Olympic Marathon trials this weekend
This Sunday is the Women’s Olympic Trials Marathon in Boston. Two Ephs — Michelle Rorke ‘06 and Caroline Cretti ‘06 — have qualified and are running. I hope that many of you in the Boston area will consider coming out to watch. Here is the course (click for details):
The race starts at 8:00 on Sunday morning, and will last between two and three hours. Over the next few days I will link Michelle and Caroline’s profiles so that you can learn more about them, and perhaps decide to come to the event.
A False Accusation of Rape
I have been looking for more details on a false accusation of rape and assault that was (allegedly) made by a Williams student several years ago. Back in 2005, Loweeel wrote:
A “fake rape” story actually happened during my sophomore year (IIRC, maybe it was my junior year). This girl STABBED herself in the thigh, and claimed that her off-campus boyfriend came in, raped her, and stabbed her.
Needless to say, the frantic and denunciatory emails flew from Hopkins as fast as a bullet from a mishandled firearm. Needless to say, they were about as accurate as well.
It turns out that (again, IIRC) she wanted attention from him after he broke up with her (and there was nothing about him doing it in any bad ways). Hopkins eventually admitted that it was a false alarm, and the girl withdrew for psychiatric reasons. Despite the fact that campus was turned upside down on this unsubstantiated accusation, there was never going to be any disciplinary proceeding initiated against her.
Can anyone provide more details? I have no interest in reporting this student’s name, but I would like to narrow down the date, link to any Record stories, provide copies of any all-campus e-mails and so on. What do you remember of this event?
1988 Yearbook: Page 155
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1) Still sad that Professor Tim Cook (seen here playing volleyball with his students) left us all too young.
2) Vicki Rummler ‘88 (seen here singing at the Senior-Faculty Picnic) is widely considered to have the coolest job of anyone in the class: singing Jazz in Paris.
3) Liked this part: “Another member of the class of ‘88, David Kane, tried successfully to revive the lost Williams tradition of yearbook-signing with the recently-arrived 1987 Gulielmensian. Hopefully, this will become a regular feature of Senior-Faculty picnics in years to come.” I may be a crackpot, but I am a consistent crackpot.
1988 Yearbook: Page 154
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Division IV Is Dead
Or so reports Inside Higher Ed.
After months of discussion and debate, the National Collegiate Athletic Association has for now killed the idea of adding a fourth competitive division to accommodate the increasingly divergent views among officials of the 442 colleges that belong to its nonscholarship Division III.
But that decision, which was prompted by the results of a survey of those colleges that showed overwhelming opposition to breaking up the members of Division III, is unlikely to end the conversation, for one simple reason: That same survey showed wide disagreements among Division III members about many issues, including some core principles that the colleges supposedly share.
Read the whole things for details. I can’t find previous EphBlog coverage of this topic, but Williams folks like Lisa Melendy have been involved in the debate.
Most interesting issue with respect to Williams policies concerns financial aid.
One other result jumped out at a number of observers: More than half of respondents said they supported or strongly supported the idea that “[c]onsideration of leadership in athletics (e.g. team captain) in the awarding of financial aid to students should be allowed provided it is consistent with the consideration of leadership in other student activities.” Although Dutcher of the NCAA said he believed the way the question was framed may have contributed to that result, he and others acknowledged that taken at face value, that answer suggests questioning by a sizable number of Division III officials of a core principle: “that we do not award athletically oriented financial aid,” said Fry. “That piece of data really rocked me,” he added.
If I were a coach/institution that competed with Williams, I would note that the College’s aid budget has tripled over the past decade. If Williams was, in 1998, just using standard “need-blind” financial aid, then, whatever the College is doing now, “need-blind” is not an accurate description. I would see the College as, in essence, giving out merit aid, to athletes and non-athletes alike. I would want to know why I can’t do the same for my athletes. In fact, if I were a trouble-maker, I might file a complaint with the Division III authorities about Williams’ policies.
1988 Yearbook: Page 153
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1988 Yearbook: Page 152
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A Man’s World
Commentary on Tracy McIntosh ‘75.
Pending the unlikely reversal of his sentence on appeal, the Tracy McIntosh travesty appears over. On Feb. 13, the former University of Pennsylvania professor and preeminent stroke and brain-trauma researcher was led from a Philadelphia courtroom to begin a 31/2- to 7-year prison sentence for the September 2002 sexual assault of a then-23-year-old Penn graduate student in his office at Penn. In December 2004, McIntosh pleaded no-contest to sexual assault and possession of an illegal substance in connection with the incident. A first-degree felony rape charge was withdrawn as part of the deal.
McIntosh thus joins Kobe Bryant, Bill Cosby, Penn State football player Austin Scott, and other unlucky, if not wholly virginal, males who have run afoul of laws similar to Pennsylvania’s arguably unconstitutionally vague sexual-assault law.
In Pennsylvania, a person commits sexual assault, a second-degree felony, when “that person engages in sexual intercourse or deviate sexual intercourse with a complainant without the complainant’s consent.” In layman’s terms, sexual assault is penetration without consent. Rape has the added element of force.
The legislature declared sexual assault a crime in Pennsylvania in 1995 following a 1994 state Supreme Court ruling that a person could not be convicted of rape absent proof of physical force beyond a reasonable doubt. Intentionally or unintentionally, the removal of force as an element of the crime put the age-old he said/she said conundrum in a whole new light and opened the door to all sorts of sexual hijinks.
Previous discussion here. See below for the rest.
1988 Yearbook: Page 151
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The Great Amnesia
This is an excellent essay by Marilynne Robinson in the most recent Harper’s, based on a lecture given at Amherst last year, on the spread of the liberal arts in America through the founding of small colleges throughout the midwest. A few excerpts are included below for discussion, but you really should read the whole thing.
1988 Yearbook: Page 150
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Not even jackassable…
David asked that I re-post an article from my comment yesterday as a new thread, as some aren’t brave enough to read the comments (and I know even fewer follow links). This is a lovely little bit of Williams history, pulled from an 1895 article found online in the now free New York Times Archives. Honestly, the reaches of Google never cease to amaze me.
I’ve typed the text of the piece below, but I also recommend that you view the pdf in all of its glory - historic typface and all.
STUDENT WAYS AT WILLIAMS COLLEGE
Undergraduate Life There Many Years Ago.
John Howard Corwin in the American University Magazine.In its early days Williams College approached more nearly to Garfield’s famous definition of an ideal institution of learning — “a log with a student on one end and Dr. Hopkins on the other” — than could possibly be imagined by a visitor to Williamstown in these later times. There was then, in fact, little else to make the college beside the Faculty and very few students. The doctor resigned more than twenty years ago, yet his influence is still strongly felt. My impression of the men I saw and learned to love at Williamstown twenty years ago, in my own and contemporary classes, is that there were very few of them sent through college. No body of associates could, on the whole, have been more serious and earnest than they in the pursuit of all that goes to build up manhood.
When the college was in the “log” era it had some peculiar institutions, which have ceased with their causes. One was “Chip Day,” in the Spring when the Faculty allowed a day’s respite from books that the boys might rake up and burn the Winter’s accumulation of chips, which their own sturdy arms had made cutting the wood that burned in students’ stoves.
Athletics were not neglected in the days before steam heaters. “Gravel Day” was anciently another local institution — a recess that the boys might gravel the walks about the campus, those who did not work commuting by the payment of a fine, used to pay for the carts and horses.
Those were the days when, perhaps in a “Chip Day” poem, a Williams man flapped around Parnassus thus:
The roads were not passable,
Not even jackassable;
And he who would travel ‘em,
Must turn out and gravel ‘em.These useful and healthful days of frolic were merged into “Mountain Day,” now called “Scenery Day,” an opportunity for the athletic pleasure of climbing Greylock and offering sacrifices to the nymphs of the Hoosac and the hills. In these degenerate days, students actually drive to the top of Greylock. Ichabod! Nothing remains to ruin it but a hotel at the summit. It used to offer a grand climb through an almost pathless forest. It needed sturdy legs and good lungs to reach the summit. Sweet was the sleep on pine boughs on that breezy top in a shelter of green branches.
“Mountain Day” is still a Williams Institution. I have heard Martin I. Townsend say that Williamstown had an air to make a man feel like eating a whole ox, and the sturdy old gentleman looked when he said it as if could do it.
Old fellows who chopped their own wood, graveled their own roads, cleaned up the campus and climbed mountains insist that the ancient athletics were far superior to the new in physical, mental, and moral results; that they distracted the students less from the serious work for which men are supposed to go to college; that they were far cheaper than “Weston Field” and the Laselle gymnasium. They insist it is better to swing the axe than throw the hammer; better to climb a mountain and get somewhere than trot on a cinder track that returns to the starting point. Yet it may be these old fellows played “three old cat” and cricket and a mild football in which they kicked the ball and not each other.
Published December 25, 1895
Copyright The New York Times
There is further discussion in the comments section of David’s original post for anyone who wants to know more.
And another bit of Williams history, this time an article from 1854 that recounts a whole host of strange and interesting Williams traditions with their appropriate timing (among them Gravel Day in the Fall, Chip Day in the Spring, and Mountain Day in the Summer). This is amazing stuff. I don’t have the time to type the text of this one into the post, but please check it out! The brief overview: there were events that sound like the precursors to Ivy Exercises - class marshall organized fun events ending at East College; the possible originator of Light Night - evening presentations after the baccalaureate address called “Moonlight Exhibition.” I will admit it gave me chills to see who the speaker was that year - Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I could spend far too much time mucking around in the online archive of the NYT. I will follow up perhaps next week with a post about the mysterious mention at the beginning of the 1854 article of a recent “periodical story so discreditable to Williams.” That the internal workings of Williams were worthy of the Times is pretty cool.
History of Stetson-Sawyer
Wondering about the history of the Stetson-Sawyer renovations? This 70 page report (pdf) is undated by seems to have been written a decade ago.
Every few decades, Williams College seems to embark on a building flurry that results in the renovation and construction of buildings all across campus. The simple modernist facades of Bronfman Science Center, Mission Hall, and Bernhard Music Center stand testament to one such flurry that occurred in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. It appears that Williams College is primed to begin another decade of development. The Unified Science Center, completed this fall, stands ready to be joined by a renovated Baxter and new Performing Arts Center. Stetson Hall and Sawyer Library are also under consideration for renovations in the near future.
The possibilities for improving Stetson and Sawyer are, some would say, boundless. Our team was given the task of distilling the most cogent, practical, necessary possibilities and using them to make recommendations for the renovation of the two buildings.
Stetson Hall is infamous on campus as being a confusing building. Many freshman find that their first experience with the building is getting lost on the way to a professor’s office. The front of the building has floors 1 through 4; the back, levels a through h. Furthermore it is possible to go up a staircase from one level only to find that the next landing you come to is two levels above the one you were just on. The building’s layout simply isn’t intuitive. Furthermore, the demands placed on the building are quickly outgrowing its space.
Sawyer Library fortunately lacks Stetson Hall’s confusion but unfortunately also lacks its beauty, both in its interior and exterior. More important than its aesthetics, though, is the building’s lack of space. Built in the pre-computer era, the library is rapidly running out of space for books, computers, study areas, and everything else.
The college decided two years ago to investigate renovating Stetson Hall and more recently decided to also investigate the renovation of Sawyer Library. This project researches the needs of both buildings as well as possible options for their renovations. We view this renovation as an opportunity for the college to make a positive impact on the architectural atmosphere of the campus.
I have yet to read the whole report. Anything interesting? I would curious to read what Professor Michael Brown thinks about the trajectory of the project over the last decade.
1988 Yearbook: Page 149
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CC Minutes 2008-04-02
Latest College Council minutes from Emily Deans ‘09.
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