Thu 8 May 2008
I will be posting more material associated with the debate over Williams in New York. Below is the letter that Professor Robert Jackall sent to faculty members in response to the Waters Report. Comments:
1) How is this report delivered to faculty members? Is there an e-mail list for all faculty at Williams that something like this (and other material) goes out on? Or physical copies put in faculty mail boxes? I am always curious about the mechanics of exactly how Williams functions.
2) It is a shame that material like this is not made public. Any document that is distributed to 300 faculty members is, essentially, in the public domain anyway. It is not hard (for me) to find an anonymous source to provide a copy as I have done here. But it is a bother. Any document like this should be posted on the web. The College is doing somewhat better on this front (note the collection of letters from the President and the Provost) but more transparency is better.
3) For those to lazy to read Jackall’s response, I will summarize and comment. He offers three arguments for a No vote (which would keep WNY going). First, the Report does a shoddy job of gathering and presenting data. Second, it “misstates” the costs of WNY. Jackall clearly wins on both these points. Indeed, if I were the person (Morty?) in the Administration who wanted to end WNY, I would be upset about what a subpar job the Committee did. Even if you didn’t think that you would learn much from interviewing the students from Fall 2007, you still needed to do so. Jackall argues, third, that the Committee misunderstands the purpose of WNY. I think that there is a lot more to be said about this aspect of the debate, but not today.
6
May 2008
To:
The Williams College Faculty
From:
Robert Jackall, Co-director, Williams in New York
Re:
Response to the Williams in New York
Review Committee Report
At the May 2001 faculty meeting,
the Williams College faculty voted to establish an Experiential Education
Initiative with the Williams in New York Program (WNY) at its core.
Sixty-seven (67) percent of Williams faculty approved the initiative.
Voting was by written ballot and included absentee ballots cast by faculty
who could not attend the meeting.
A pilot WNY program began in
fall 2005, followed by pilot programs in the semesters of fall 2006,
spring 2007, fall 2007, and spring 2008. A total of 38 Williams students
have participated in these five pilot semesters. See Appendix
1 for the list of participating students.
In summer 2007, the Dean of
Faculty constituted a Williams in New York Review Committee, chaired
by Professor Chris Waters, to evaluate the WNY program and make recommendations
to the faculty about its future. You recently received a report from
that committee. Six committee members oppose the continuance of the
program. Three committee members support its continuance in modified
form, backed by the College’s resources.
The committee has framed a
proposition for the 7 May 2008 faculty meeting so that:
A YES vote
TERMINATES the WNY program
A NO vote
CONTINUES the WNY program, requiring
the College to take all necessary steps to
“modify the Williams in New York program to promote its viability”.
I urge colleagues to vote
NO on the review committee’s proposition.
The
following summary presents the three most important reasons for
a NO vote. (See pages 2-5)
More detailed notes on the
report appear on pages 5-9. Appendices (numbered 1-5 in Arabic numerals)
begin on page 10.
Summary arguments to
support a NO vote
- The review committee
proposes that the faculty vote on the fate of the Williams in New
York program on the basis of inadequate information.
Specifically:
- The committee
misstates and misrepresents the data on which it reached its conclusions
about the issue of participants’ assessment of the educational value
of the program. Appendix One
of the review committee’s report states that the committee employed
the following documents in assessing the program:
“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.” See Appendix 4 for Professor Waters’s letter soliciting
student materials.
- But the committee
did not interview any of the 16 students in the fall 2007 and spring
2008 WNY program after they completed their semesters nor did it receive
“written testimonials” from them. These 16 students comprise 42 percent
of all students who have participated thus far in the program [16/38].
See Appendix 5 for an e-signed statement from these 16
students in the fall 2007 and spring 2008 editions of WNY. These students
state:
“We were not interviewed
about our WNY experiences by anyone on the WNY Review Committee AFTER
our semesters ended, nor did we receive from anyone on the Committee
any request for ‘written testimonials’ about our experiences AFTER
our semesters in the program.”
E-signed
by:
| FALL 2007 |
SPRING 2008 |
| Melissa Barton ‘09 |
Sarah Cobb ‘09 |
| Nichole Beiner ‘09 |
Caitlin Colesanti ‘09 |
| Lauren Bloch ‘09 |
Anouk Dey ‘09 |
| Emily Fowler-Cornfeld ‘09 |
Claire Gallagher ‘09 |
| Craig Hand ‘09 |
Maya Lama ‘09 |
| Elizabeth Kantack ‘09 |
Morgan Phillips-Spotts ‘09 |
| Rebekkah Marrs ‘09 |
Andana Steng ‘09 |
| Nichole McNeil ‘09 |
Sophia Torres ‘09 |
That is:
- The committee did
not have: “thoughtful, written testimonials”
from “more than three quarters of all the students ever enrolled in
the Program in response to the committee chair’s request. . .
.” In fact, only 22 WNY students ever received requests
for “written testimonials,” and these were students only from the
first three semesters of the pilot program in fall 2005, fall 2006,
and spring 2007.
- According to
review committee’s own report (see above), Professor Waters interviewed
only two students from the fall 2007 semester and these interviews
came before they experienced the program.
- Thus, the entire
third year of the pilot program – a full 40 percent of the program
to date (two of five semesters)– remains unevaluated, except for
SCS scores, brief pre-participation interviews conducted by the associate
dean of faculty and the director of experiential education, and the
two interviews conducted by the chairman of the review committee. It
is particularly difficult to understand why the eight students from
fall 2007, all of whom have been on campus for all of spring 2008, were
not interviewed.
- Moreover, from
the perspectives of students participating in
the fall 2005, fall 2006, and spring 2007 WNY
semesters, the interviews conducted by the associate
dean of faculty and the director of experiential education focused almost
entirely on housekeeping issues (issues about running an educational
program in a working hotel) and students’ adjustment to New York City
and not on students’ views of
the educational value of the WNY program.
In addition:
- The committee
did not interview the non-Williams
adjunct professors in the program, some of whom the report criticizes
sharply, to get their perspectives on their courses, their successes,
and their failings
- The committee
did not interview or solicit materials from
any of the organizational partners in New York City who are enthusiastic
participants in the program and sponsors of our students’ fieldwork
sites.
- The committee
did not interview or solicit materials from any of the alumni and alumnae
who participated actively in the program. See Appendix 2
for the list of these alumni and alumnae.
All of these materials
are important for any rational decision by the Williams faculty about
the quality and feasibility of the Williams in New York program.
2.
The review committee
misstates the costs of the WNY program to date.
- The committee
conflates anticipated tuition costs to NYU in 2008-2009 with costs
sustained in all five semesters of the program to date. The affiliation
with NYU begins only in fall 2008.
- The committee
does not provide sufficient comparative data to allow faculty to assess
the relative cost of the WNY program with the Williams programs
at Oxford or Mystic. Nor does it provide a comparative estimate of the
relative cost of the WNY program with the subsidies per student provided
by the College to cover the difference between full tuition and the
“real cost” of a Williams education.
3.
Most importantly,
the review committee underestimates the talents, creativity, and ingenuity
of Williams faculty members to sustain the Williams in New York program
in the future.
Fieldwork is a singular
way for Williams students to integrate liberal-arts learning with work
in the world. Beyond the committee’s narrow construction
of the program’s signature emphasis on fieldwork by identifying it
solely with sociology, fieldwork is in fact a primary methodology throughout
the tripartite division of the Williams curriculum. The committee does
not take into account the extraordinary range of fieldwork possibilities
that Williams faculty members from different disciplines could bring
to the WNY program. For example, one need only reference:
|
in Renaissance Italy |
|
Astrological Events |
|
Forest
|
|
Northern Ireland, and Israel Ngoni Munemo: Fieldwork in Botswana |
|
|
|
Mongolia, and Tajikistan |
This is not to mention
the College’s long and wonderful tradition in other kinds of fieldwork,
to wit: Amos Eaton’s fieldwork in botany in 1817-1818 or the fantastic
history of the Lyceum of Natural History, which took Williams students
to the Bay of Fundy (1835), Newfoundland (1855), Florida (1857), Labrador
and Greenland (1860), South America (1867), and Honduras (1871). One
could also mention the 1986 WSP expedition to Amelia Island, Florida,
where a band of 16 Williams students discovered and excavated the re-buried
remains of 33 Native Americans.
The task in creating
the WNY program was to concretize the notion of experiential education
in a thoroughly intellectual way. Thus, WNY explicitly
eschews certain extant notions of experiential education,
specifically: pre-vocational internships, service learning, and advocacy
learning. Fieldwork encourages Williams students to learn how to
observe the world with their own eyes, ears, and disciplined sensibilities,
and how to establish and internalize their own criteria for assessing
the reliability and validity of what they observe, hear, and see.
Further notes on the
review committee’s report
- The review committee’s
praise for the program.
The first part of the committee’s report praises the pilot WNY program
for its implementation of the faculty’s May 2001 mandate to create
a thoroughly intellectual experiential education program. The committee
acknowledges that the WNY program also creates a venue to: overcome
the College’s rural isolation; offer opportunities for our students
to study in one of the most diverse cities in the world; and introduce
students to the rich cultural life of a major metropolis. The committee
also recognizes the enormous value of the Williams Club as a locus for
the program, situated as it is in the very heart of Manhattan. The committee
briefly characterizes WNY’s pedagogical goals. See
Appendix 3 for the full statement of WNY’s pedagogical goals.
2. On the issue of faculty to staff
the program. The report
states “faculty interest in directing the Program appears not to be
very high.” Exactly how many faculty members have expressed interest
in directing the Williams in New York program?
- The committee’s
report provides no numbers in this regard. But it is important for the
faculty to know not only how many but which faculty members and disciplines
have expressed interest in directing the program. It is also important
here to take into account the marginal and difficult circumstances under
which the program has been operating to date. Were the program
to be well established with the College’s full imprimatur, the number
of faculty interested in directing it would undoubtedly increase.
3. On the
“lack of curricular coherence.”
The WNY pilot program is the main component of the Williams faculty’s
May 2001 institution of an experiential education component of the College’s
curriculum. To this end, the various curricula of the program in each
pilot semester have emphasized components of experiential teaching
and learning. These include:
- Fieldwork in mainstream
institutions, accompanied by tutorials - Courses that take
students to remote corners of the city where they meet a wide variety
of men and women engaged in public affairs - Courses where students
interview men and women of affairs in a seminar context - Courses that introduce
students to the visual and performing arts - Courses that require
students to create videos of aspects of city life
Moreover, students’ first-hand
experiences are systematically contextualized by their professors in
wide-ranging historical and theoretical discussions, accompanied by
intensive writing. It is worth commenting on the academic rigor
of the WNY program. For example:
Fall 2007 WNY Courses Course
Requirements
| Fieldwork in New York |
15 hours of fieldwork/week fieldwork experiences |
| Social Worlds of New York |
All based on first-hand observations |
| Arts & the City |
6 of them first-hand reports on cultural 1 of them a term paper that |
| Craft & Consciousness |
11 1000-word, first-hand reports of students’ 1 5000-word paper addressing the problem |
How does the review committee
define “curricular coherence” and evaluate its “lack”?
What is the comparative frame of reference for this judgment?
Even more to the point, how did the
review committee reach its judgment about
WNY’s lack of “curricular coherence” in the absence of
post-factum interviews or “written testimonials” from more than
42 percent of the students who have taken the program thus far?
4. On the
“uneven quality” of fieldwork placements.
The committee argues that the fieldwork placements to date have been
uneven, but, once again, the committee provides no detailed information
to the faculty about the basis of its judgments about the relative worth
of placements.
It is the case that some
fieldwork placements to date have been better than others. But
the program has developed a roster of
very successful placements. For example:
| ARTS & HUMANITIES |
Museum of Modern Art
Art |
| LAW, ADVOCACY & PUBLIC AFFAIRS |
|
| MEDIA |
|
|
MEDICAL |
*Scheduled for spring |
Such placements can certainly
be made in many other organizations in areas across the entire range
of the Williams curriculum if
the College commits to the WNY program and determines to make the program
work. What is required is assiduous cultivation of contacts in
appropriate organizations, education of those willing to sponsor our
students in what we mean by fieldwork, and education of our own students
about the importance of energetically assuming initiative in shaping
their placements. It is important to note that such
effort underpins any kind of experiential education program.
Moreover,
the committee’s doubts about the feasibility of maintaining and continually
renewing such a network of contacts because of revolving program directors
can be addressed by the establishment of a board of advisors to the
WNY program consisting of faculty, alumni and alumnae in the
city, and already on-board organizational partners.
This suggestion was made to the review committee, but its possibility
is not discussed in the report.
5.
On adjunct faculty.
The committee states that some of the teaching done by adjuncts has
been “very successful.” At the same time, it states that “the
quality of some of the teaching by adjuncts has been sub-par.”
In neither instance does the committee provide any specific information.
In the five semesters of the pilot program thus far, the breakdown of
adjunct teachers has been:
| Jerry Carlson |
Fall 2007 | Professor of Film Studies, City College of New York and the Graduate Center, City University of New York Founder and Host of City Cinémathèque Williams College, Class of 1972 |
| Philip Kasinitz |
Fall 2007
Fall 2006 Fall 2005 |
Chairman, Dept of Sociology, Graduate Center, City University of New York Former President, Eastern Sociological Former Tenured Professor, Williams College |
| Shamim Momin |
Spring 2008
Spring 2007 |
Assoc. Curator of Contemporary Art, Whitney Museum Williams College, Class of 1995 |
| Tony Robins | Spring 2008
Spring 2007 |
Urban Guide
Former City Planner Williams College, Class of 1972 |
Name
Semester(s) in WNY
Current Position and Link to Williams
In addition, Williams Professor
Jean-Bernard Bucky taught in the WNY program in fall 2005 and fall 2006
and Williams Professor Liza Johnson ’92 taught in the spring 2007
and spring 2008 semesters. Professor Bucky submitted a statement
to the review committee, but he was never interviewed by the committee
despite the enormously important role he played in fashioning the first
two semesters of the pilot program.
Everyone associated with WNY to
date has had deep ties with Williams College. These colleagues all worked
extremely hard to create truly experiential courses. But
the committee did not interview any of the
adjunct professors who participated in the program to obtain their input
for the faculty’s consideration.
[Nor did the committee note the range of men and women that students
in some semesters met in the non-Williams adjunct professors’courses.
For instance, in fall 2007, in Professor Kasinitz’s course, students
met: Joseph Salvo, head of the Population Division of the City Planning
Department; James Flateau, political campaign manager for Yvette Clarke
who won a Congressional seat; and scholars such as Mitchell Dunier,
Robert Smith, Joshua Freeman, and Margaret Chin. In Professor Carlson’s
class, students met: Carmen Boullosa, the distinguished Mexican novelist
and critic; Michael Davis, librettist and opera director; and Ana Sokoloff,
arts consultant and former director of the Latin American division of
Christie’s.]
Instead, the committee
relied on the SCS as a means to evaluate WNY professors’ teaching
of experiential courses. The SCS is
an instrument designed to measure regular classroom interactions
not courses explicitly designed to be experiential. The committee states
that the SCS results were confirmed by written “testimony” of students,
but, once again, it provides no specifics. What written testimony?
From how many students? About which adjunct professors? What specifically
were the students’ complaints?
6. On student demand.
WNY does need to have more than eight students a semester in order
to increase the program’s social vitality. The committee has settled
on sixteen students a semester as the desirable number, both to achieve
differentiated student experiences and interests and to cut down on
total costs per semester.
This is a reasonable goal,
but one best achieved in stages. Even a program of twelve students a
semester will dramatically improve the group dynamics of the student
cohort and lower costs. A move to fourteen and finally to sixteen students
will further improve group dynamics and lower costs.
The issue of demand for
the program is crucial. But it is worth remembering that student demand
for the Williams-in-Oxford Programme, established by the executive decision
of President John W. Chandler, was low for several years until it achieved
its solid reputation among Williams students. Even now, demand
for the Oxford program fluctuates from year to year. For 2008-2009,
for instance, there were only 36 applicants for the Oxford program.
In its early years, Williams permitted students from our sister colleges
to attend our Oxford program until requisite demand was achieved.
Indeed, the demand for the Williams Mystic program has
always been low and regularly depends on enrollment from our sister
colleges. Given time and imaginative work, the WNY program can create
the kind of program to which Williams students respond in considerable
numbers.
7. On cost.
The committee presents hypothetical figures that suggest high
subsidies for each student enrolled in the WNY program, amounts that
decrease dramatically as the number of students in the program increases.
In addition, please note that the committee has calculated into its
estimate of operating costs the extremely high tuition fees to NYU for
2008-2009, a move that some faculty members in the WNY program vigorously
opposed on intellectual, practical, and financial grounds, but one that
was nonetheless approved by the administration. There were
no such tuition fees to NYU for the first five semesters of the program.
The committee also gives
a brief comparison of WNY’s high costs with Oxford’s relatively
low costs, at the same time acknowledging that the comparison is difficult
to make because the maintenance and operation expenditures on the College’s
facilities in Oxford are calculated differently. The
faculty also needs to know how the cost of the WNY program per student
compares with the cost of the Mystic program,
the Williams tutorial program, and with the
“real cost” of a Williams education itself.
Appendix
1: Williams in New York Pilot Program
List of students 2005-2008
Semester of Participation
Name and Year
|
Brandon Carter ‘07 Lily Gray ‘07 Andrew Lazarow ‘07 Walden Maurissaint ‘07 Krista Nylen ‘07 |
|
Mirza Delibegovic ‘08 Lauren Estevez ‘08 Louisa Hong ‘08 Jessica Phillips ‘07 Sarah Randle ‘08 Benjamin Sykes ‘08 Hannah Wong ‘08 |
|
Karina Godoy ‘09 Natalie Joffe ‘09 Elizabeth Kohout ‘09 Katherine Krieg ‘09 Kaolin McEvoy ‘09 Claire Murchinson ‘09 |
|
Nichole Beiner ‘09 Lauren Bloch ‘09 Emily Fowler-Cornfeld ‘09 Craig Hand ‘09 Elizabeth Kantack ‘09 Rebekkah Marrs ‘09 Nicole McNeil ‘09 |
|
Caitlin Colesanti ‘09 Anouk Dey ‘09 Claire Gallagher ‘09 Maya Lama ‘09 Morgan Phillips-Spotts ‘09 Andana Steng ‘09 Sophia Torres ‘09 |
Appendix
2: Alumni and Alumnae who have participated in the Williams
in New York Pilot Program 2005-2008
Robert Lipp ’60. Senior Advisor,
J.P. Morgan Chase. Co-Chairman of The Williams Campaign and Chairman
of the Executive Committee of the Williams College Board of Trustees
Robert Margolis ’78. Independent
Filmmaker
Herbert A. Allen ’62. Financier
John Kifner ’63. Senior Correspondent,
New York Times
Paul Lieberman ’72. Senior
Correspondent, Los Angeles Times
Marc Charney ’65. Editor,
New York Times Week in Review
Arthur Levitt ’52. Former
Chairman of the American Stock Exchange, former chairman of the
American Stock Exhange
Peter Willmott ‘59. Former
Chairman of the Executive Committee, Williams College Board of Trustees,
current chairman of the Board of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art
Institute
Paul Neely ’68. Current trustee
of Williams College
Laurel Blatchford ’94.
Chief of Staff, NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development
Tim Ross ’87. Research Director,
Vera Institute
Bethany McLean ’92. Journalist
and author of The Smartest Guys in the Room
Jerry Carlson’72. Professor
Film Studies at the City College of New York and the Graduate Center,
City University of New York. Founder and host of City Cinematheque.
Glen Lowry ’76. Director
of the Museum of Modern Art, current member of the Williams College
Board of Trustees
Stephen Harty ’73. Chief
Executive Officer of Bartle Bogle Hegarty. Current member of the Williams
College Board of Trustees
Kimberly Kirkland ’83. Franklin
Pierce Law School
Duffy Graham ’83. Savitt
& Bruce
Adele Horne ’91. Independent
Filmmaker
Timothy Shaw ’89. Chef, French
Culinary Institute
Jack Wadsworth ’61. Morgan
Stanley, San Francisco. Current member of the Williams College Board
of Trustees
Clayton Spencer ’77.
Vice President for Policy, Harvard University. Current member of the
Williams College Board of Trustees
Stacy Cochran ’81. Independent
Filmmaker
Shane Tela ’07. Law student
Ashley Kidd ’00. Graduate
student
Hope Coolidge ’75. Current
member of the Gaudino Fund Board
Valentin von Armin ’03
Christine Choi ‘90
Mario Chiappetti ‘78
Thomas Belden ‘76
Barton Jones ’68. President
of the Williams Club
Harry Matthews ‘67
Charles Sena ‘79
Illunga Kalala ’05. Law student
Abid Shah ‘02
Briscoe Smith ‘60
Jeffrey Urdang ’90
Paul Francis ’05. Prep for
Prep
Daniel Levy ‘92. Assistant
United States Attorney, Southern District of New York
Michael English ’95. Assistant
United States Attorney, Southern District of New York
Brendan McGuire ’98. Assistant
United States Attorney, Southern District of New York
Tracy Conn ’00. Assistant
District Attorney, District Attorney of New York
Anthony Robins ’72. Urban
guide.
Shamim Momin ’95. Associate
Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art
Michael Needham ’04. Business
school student
Marissa C. M. Doran ’05.
ActBlue.
Dana K. Fassler ’06. International
relations student at SAIS
Nathan Winstanley ’04. Advertising
executive
Michelle Cuevas ’04.
Ainsley O’Connell. ’06.
Business consultant
Winston Goodbody ’90. Entrepreneur
Chinyere Okoronkwo ‘83
Thomas Krens ’69, Director,
Guggenheim Museum
William Finn '74. Tony Award
winning composer/lyricist
Carolyn McCormick ’81. actress
on television and Broadway
A.R. Gurney ’52, noted playwright
Stephen Wertimer ’77. producer
and director of Law & Order
Appendix
3: WNY. Program Statement of Pedagogical Goals
Williams in New York
is a one-semester experiential education program that integrates traditional
liberal-arts scholarship with intensive fieldwork in mainstream institutions
in New York City. The program has several pedagogical goals:
- To teach students
how to do the kind of first-hand fieldwork that, with variations, is
a key methodology in disciplines ranging from art history and the classics,
anthropology and sociology, to field biology and epidemiological medical
research. In the metropolitan context of Williams in New York, this
means developing highly refined observational skills; the ability to
see both on-stage and backstage realities in big organizations; conversational
and interviewing abilities essential to enter fully into the life of
particular social milieux; the discipline to set aside personal beliefs,
frameworks, and ideologies in order to grasp others’ worlds from their
own standpoints; and the analytical command of field materials essential
for grounded interpretive work. - To thrust students
into several different occupational/professional worlds to give them
comparative frameworks against which to gauge their primary fieldwork
experiences and to enable them to see the intersection of social networks
and institutional worlds in a great metropolis. - To require students
to do extensive writing and public speaking about their field experiences
as ways of helping them shape and internalize their own criteria for
the discernment and appraisal of social realities. - To cultivate self-confident,
critical habits of mind to enable students to live rich intellectual
lives in the world of practical affairs. - To encourage students
to discover and enjoy the extraordinary ethnic, racial, linguistic,
religious, and community variety that characterizes New York City via
explorations of the nooks and crannies of a great metropolis—from
pool halls to Carnegie Hall; from Coney Island to Wall Street; from
local Pentecostal churches, to synagogues, to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral,
to Saint John the Divine Cathedral; from downtown dance clubs to uptown
soirées at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; from immigrant communities
in Chinatown to East Harlem and Washington Heights; from fashion shows
to film festivals; from comedy clubs to poetry jams. And to foster ongoing
dialogues among students about the significance of such kaleidoscopic
social realities. - To introduce students
to the worlds of the performing and visual arts, to the critical appreciation
of culture high and low, and to the social and organizational worlds
that produce and maintain the arts in the great metropolis. - To teach students
the history of New York City, the quintessential world metropolis, the
paradigm and embodiment of modernity’s achievements and problems. - To create an institutional
forum in which alumni and alumnae of Williams College can become engaged
in the ongoing intellectual life of the College; to foster an unbroken
dialogue between generations of Williams men and women.
Appendix 4:
Letter from Professor Chris Waters to some participants in the WNY program
I am writing to you in my capacity
as chair of a faculty and staff committee at Williams that will, this
coming academic year, look into the workings of the Williams in New
York program. As you may know, the New York Program was established
initially for a probationary period. This year my committee will consider
the Program in all its various aspects and report to the faculty with
recommendations as to the future next May. Faculty will then vote on
those recommendations, determining the future of the Program.
Obviously, one of the things we want to do is to solicit as much input
from former Williams in New York students as possible. Hence this e-mail.
We would be delighted if you could take the time to put your thoughts
to paper and send them back to me. What did you enjoy most about your
time in New York? What worked and what did not? What did you expect
and were your expectations fulfilled? What role did the Director play
and what role might he have played? How valuable were the placement(s)
educationally? What were the facilities like? What recommendations might
you like to see implemented to strengthen the Program? In short, how
valuable was your time in New York and what is your overall assessment
of the academic importance of the Program? These questions are quite
open-ended and merely suggestive of some of the things we are interested
in; obviously, anything else you would like to add would be welcome.
Anything you write will be confidential, read only by me and the other
members of the review committee (and submitted by me to the committee
anonymously if that would make you feel more comfortable). You can write
me a longer letter and send it to me as an attachment or simply send
me your thoughts via e-mail. But your candid reflections on both the
merits and problems of the Program as you experienced it would be very
valuable to us as we begin our work.
I am hoping to call the first meeting of the committee in mid-September
and want to have a dossier of materials available to the committee members
by then. Hence if you can share any thoughts you have with me by September
5th I would very much appreciate it.
For all former Williams in New York students who will be back at Williams
this coming academic year we hope to follow up the written comments
with individual or group interviews, so I certainly look forward to
chatting with you more about your time in New York in the Fall.
Meanwhile, I hope my request for some written comments is not too much
of an inconvenience and that you might be able to spare a little time
to share your thoughts with us. The very success of the Program in the
future depends on an accurate assessment of it this year, and particularly
of the experience of those students who have been part of
it.
All best wishes,
Chris
Chris Waters
Hans W. Gatzke '38 Professor
of Modern European History
Appendix 5:
Statement from the 16 student participants in the fall 2007 and spring
2008 semesters of the WNY program
We were
not interviewed about our WNY experiences by anyone on the WNY Review
Committee AFTER our semesters ended, nor did we receive from anyone
on the Committee any request for "written testimonials" about
our experiences AFTER our semesters in the program.
E-signed by:
Fall 2007
Melissa Barton ‘09
Nichole Beiner ‘09
Lauren Bloch ‘09
Emily Fowler-Cornfeld ‘09
Craig Hand ‘09
Elizabeth Kantack ‘09
Rebekkah Marrs ‘09
Nicole McNeil ‘09
Spring 2008
Sarah Cobb ‘09
Caitlin Colesanti ‘09
Anouk Dey ‘09
Claire Gallagher ‘09
Maya Lama ‘09
Morgan Phillips-Spotts ‘09
Andana Steng ‘09
Sophia Torres ‘09
May 8th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Interesting tidbit jumps out: it appears that the program has had no more than one male in any of the last four semesters. While extreme, this highlights the heavy tilt to females in study-abroad and study off-campus programs.
This also tangentially fits with the admissions blurb in The Record this week. Before going to the waitlist, the 521 enrolled students in next year’s incoming class is:
55% female
45% male
If they fill the targeted class by taking only males from the waitlist, the most even gender split posssible would be:
53% female
47% male
Looks like males are going to need some affirmative action!
May 8th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Jackall’s response is very well done. Tabling the evaluation of WNY to the fall was the appropriate result.
My gut reaction is that the program should be expanded to 16 or more, and opening participation to Williams’ “sister colleges” would be a good way to start.
May 8th, 2008 at 11:59 am
The problem is that, with a heavily subsidized program, you can’t make it up on volume!
When you are, in essence, “losing money” on every customer, every additional customer from other colleges paying below the actual cost simply drives the program deeper into the red.
The only way this would work would be if the College could drive down the cost of WNY to the point where it no longer required a subsidy above and beyond the $25,000 per semester sticker price. Then, enrolling non-Williams customers would be attractive because they would be full-pay customers with their home institutions (not Williams) paying the financial aid discount. On average, these outside customers would be paying Williams significantly more than a Williams customer (about $7,500 more per semester on average).
Again, I do not believe that getting this program approved for credit by other colleges would be a trivial exercise.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
aren’t we subsidizing every student anyway, hwc? the point of bringing in sister school students is because more students = better experience = better program. i don’t know if that’s true in this case, but it isn’t about making up money, it’s about making it a good program.
if it is a good program that fulfills the educational mission of williams college, williams can find the money for it. none of the monetary figures yet have convinced me its out of bounds extra-expensive. so what if it costs somewhat more than another study abroad? does it add something unique/different is the more important question.
i also don’t see how a program being taught and led by tenured williams and NYU faculty would be hard to get accepted by other schools as a study abroad/away option. you’re being contrarian…not that that is surprising.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Subsidizing Williams students and subsidizing Amherst or Bowdoin students from the Williams endowment earnings are very different things!
No. It is not sufficient to merely deem a program to be a good thing to fund it. If that were the case, I think we all could agree that teaching Sanskrit or Engineering at Williams College would be an intrinsically good thing. Yet, we don’t run out and spend the money on new Sanskrit and Engineering Departments because, in addition to their intrinsic goodness, we must evaluate:
a) the cost viz-a-viz other programs where that money could go
b) the potential customer demand
The issue here is not whether WNY is a good thing. Nobody is arguing that it is not. The issue is whether it is enough of a good thing to justify investing the resources to sell it, above and beyond all other study away programs, as Williams’ largest and most important study-away option. Again, 32 students per year is 15% of all Williams semester away customers.
32 customers per year sounds like a small number in isolation. In the context of the College’s overall study-away customer base, we are talking about a major commitment to emphasize this program. One has to consider whether attracting 15% of all Williams study-away customers to a single program is even remotely feasible. More popular than Williams-in-Oxford? Isn’t this unrealistic?
May 8th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Look at it like the decision-makers at Toyota. Your brand managers come to you with a new car model to consider. It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread for a particular niche market. Let’s say, the luxury two-seater market.
Will it be profitable? Yes, if sales of this niche product can be sufficiently marketed to the point where its sales exceed the Camry, the biggest selling car in the world, it will be profitable!
Do you approve the investment in the new model? Or do you view the projections of outselling the Camry as totally unrealistic on the face of it?
May 8th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
good job avoiding the second part of the phrase starting with the word “that”. you even quoted it! does it fulfill williams’ educational mission…engineering would not because it isn’t feasible within a liberal arts curriculum. swarthmore’s a great example of that, in fact (zing!). sanskrit doesn’t work because it isn’t an interest of anyone at the college (if it were, i’d bet they’d figure out a way to create it for the student or allow the faculty to teach it or let that faculty go). williams in new york, on the other hand, fits.
i also note you did a classic dkane in responding to only one small segment of the entire point and blowing it somewhat out of proportion.
you’re also misrepresenting the statistics and/or the interest base of the program.
1. People who don’t want to study abroad may want to go to NYC. so the study abroad pool is an inadequate metric.
2. It isn’t 32 people, it’s 32 semesters. That’s important, as you deflate the numbers by counting people who do a full year as the same as those who do a semester. who knows how many full year study abroads might want to do a semester in NY and a semester abroad. it might be trivial, but it is more accurate to describe it as “semesters” not people.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
seriously? college is now like selling cars? and williams in oxford is the camry of cars now? and this is somehow in competition with williams in oxford? that’s downright absurd.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
It’s exactly like selling cars when someone justifies the financial viability of a program by supposing a sales number that is unrealistic. Any good manager, such as Morty, would instantly say, “well, of course this new model is viable if it outsells our Camry, but what are the odds of this new model becoming our best selling car?”
It’s simply a dose of realism for the sales potential.
May 8th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
I’ve not been using study abroad as the metric. I’ve been using study away, which includes Mystic and New York. The 32 students per year “projected” for WNY viability would be 15% of all Williams study away students.
The number of students who do a full year in a study away program is relatively trivial.
I don’t know where to find Williams data, but here is Swarthmore’s study abroad data (PDF) for the last decade.
In 2006-07, there were 172 semesters abroad. Only 13 of these students were away for both semesters (primarily in Oxford or intensive language programs that strongly encourage a full-year program). For the five years prior to that, the number of students away for both semesters was (12, 11, 7, 11, & 7). So, only 6% so of total semesters abroad are incremental semesters resultig from a single student studying abroad for two semesters. For the sake of our back-of-the-napkins estimates, we can call it zero.
Williams’ numbers are a bit more complicated. They had 225 students study “away” in 2005-06, but that includes Winter Study. I’ve been using a number of 200 students taking a semester abroad (figuring 25 for Winter Study). It could be a little higher or a little lower.
BTW, on the topic of getting programs approved by other colleges, Vassar offers the following options in similar experiential programs. These programs involve taking a leave of absence from Vassar, but allow transfer credit. Unlike the options on their full approved list, Vassar financial aid does not apply to these programs. This is obviously a deal-killer.
May 8th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
maybe now is the time to point out that several Swarthmore kids were begging to return to the rigorous nail-bedded confines of their jock-less LAC after a super serious study abroad trecking across 3 continents and diving for garbage in the slums of 12 major cities.
All that for only 11.95/diem.
May 8th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Aidan: Actually, those were several Williams students!
Prof. Jackal makes an interesting argument; however, he does not address the key issues: can WNY ever get the 32 customers per year required for viability and is the program worth the additional investment relative to other programs Williams might consider?.
May 8th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Professor Jackall is a gem.
(Unlike the “interestedparent” taking up so much space on this thread — but as FM pointed out elsewhere, Ben S, this is a good source for examples of irrational and unjustified objections to the continuation of the program that may be useful as you go forward.)
May 8th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Aidan: I know that I would never stoop to engage in such tasteless and generally improper hyperbole as you have.
May 8th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
aparent,
Instead of dissing hwc, why don’t you follow his example and contribute facts/data to the discussion?
hwc is “taking up so much space on this thread” in exactly the same way that I take up so much space on EphBlog. There is an infinite amount of space here! hwc is providing information that people want to read. If you disagree with his facts or arguments, then provide your reasoning.
And, for the record, I mostly disagree with hwc on this issue. I think, but do not know, that with the right structure and leadership, there would be 16 (or at least 12) Williams students per semester who would want to sign up for WNY.
May 8th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
How exactly is it “irrational” to question whether there could ever be sufficient demand to make the program viable when the program does not currently have viable demand?
BTW, if Williams really wants to increase demand, it might make sense to flip the coin over. Instead of opening up the program to other colleges in New England and New York, why not market the program to students at foreign universities, for whom a semester in New York would be highly desireable?
Although I’m not a Bard fan in general, this appears to be the emphasis Bard applies to its larger NYC program (30 students per semester):
Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program in NYC
May 8th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
dkane:
I share your opinion that there is probably a way, given sufficient resources, marketing, effort, and emphasis, to enroll 16 students per semester in NYC. The issues are:
a) At what cost? And is the College prepared to pay any cost (in both money and effort)?
b) The customers have to come from somewhere. Is it strategically advantageous for Williams to dilute sales of other programs to bolster sales of WNC. I don’t have an answer to that, but it’s a question Williams MUST answer before dumping major resources into selling WNC. It’s a priorities question the orginal committee, the student advocates, and Prof. Jackal have all avoided.
May 8th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
dkane: Unfortunately, I don’t have the time (or sufficient hot air, I’m afraid) to contribute to the cause of filling up the vast expanses of available ephblog internet real estate.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
David:
Presenting sound reasoning is only gratifying when there is some level of receptivity to it.
hwc:
You obviously have a lot of experience and information to contribute to the discussions on EB… a contribution that would be lot better received, and of more value, if it wasn’t so obviously biased by a very personal, very negative, opinion of Williams. IMO, it is that bias that makes you so unreceptive to even the most intelligent opposing comments. Your way of handling opposition is to either ignore some, or all of it, or twist it to suit the moment. You go so far as to totally contradict yourself.
For example, in this thread you say:
“I’ve not been using a study abroad as the metric. I’ve been using ’study away’…”
whereas, on the other WNY thread, “More Thoughts…” you based your entire argument on comparing WNY to “study abroad”…”foreign study”…especially in Comment 4.
I believe that it is this deep bias that makes your objections seem “irrational” and “unjustified” to many of us.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I really shouldn’t have said “to many of us” in my last sentence. I have no right to speak for others.
But, to me, your bias does lend an “irrational” and “unjustified” tone to your objections… which puts me in agreement with ‘aparent’s comment.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Metric = the basis for a numeric look at the feasibility of selling 32 WNY packages. All of the numbers I’ve been using are based on 200 student/semesters of study away, a Williams term that includes Mystic, WNY, and 12 college exchanges.
I hardly think a preference for study abroad is a “Williams-hating” position. As you may be aware, Williams offers an extensive list of foreign study options for sale to its students:
Williams Study Abroad Programs
May 9th, 2008 at 2:29 am
to hwc:
Oh…stupid me…I guess I missed the point where you decided to base your argument, and your “metric”, on a whole different premise.
Oh…but wait…Rory missed that as well…which means I am in very good company.
And, so…I stand by my comment that you have a bias against Williams that underlies every one of your arguments, and which lends each and every objection, an “irrational” and “unjustified” tone.
And David:
You are so quick to criticize ‘aparent’ for ‘dissing’ hwc? And you ask that ‘aparent’ “follow his example and contribute…”?
LOL…I need to think about that one before I can even begin to formulate an adequate response.
to ‘aparent’:
Please come around more often. Your moxie is needed…and appreciated. The B. Russell quote was great, BTW…and absolutely brilliant timing.
May 9th, 2008 at 2:42 am
<blockquote.Oh…stupid me…I guess I missed the point where you decided to base your argument, and your “metric”, on a whole different premise.
Uh, actually, I decided to base an empirical look on the data which is available, data which Williams provides as students who “study away”.
Yes, Rory did miss it. He (is Rory a he?) was hoping that I was referring to 100 study abroad customers per semester and the number would suddenly increase if added domestic “study away” customers. No such luck.
Actually, I suspect that Mystic and WNY are the full extent of domestic study away customers. I highly doubt that the 12 college exchange is very popular these days.
May 9th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Webb and Dave -
Please try to understand the way others might perceive your tone.
(I fully expect you come to back and say you don’t care, that you’re not responsible for other people’s perceptions/misperceptions, that it’s a free world, that you’re just trying to generate discussion, that you don’t get what other people’s problem is, or some such, or to make some snide or zingy or self-righteous or sarcastic or sanctimonious quip. That sort of response may make you feel good personally (or accomplish something dear to your personal needs and agendas) but it does not tend to be conducive to particularly illuminating conversations.) <== I have gone back and forth about whether to add this, as I don’t like to get personal (and I keep finding myself so exasperated that I stoop to that level). I am really fed up with this situation. I applaud the patience of FM, aparent, Rory and others in trying to conduct a civil (actually, more than “civil” — warm, respectful, and responsive) dialogue with you.
May 9th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Blogs (including EphBlog) by their nature are not ideal (or even reasonably effective) places for warm, respectful, responsive or civil (or cold, disrespectful or uncivil for that matter) dialogue - but probably are not unreasonably efficient places for unresponsive diatribe.
May 9th, 2008 at 7:07 am
You’re right to point that out, Frank. Still, a lot of blogs are places where there is warm, respectful, responsive dialogue. I tend not to keep reading the cold, disrespectful, unresponsive, or uncivil diatribe kind so I forget how prevalent they are.
I guess the fact that I keep reading this blog just reveals how deeply interested I am in Williams.
May 9th, 2008 at 7:53 am
The primary (perhaps only) virtue which I find in this blog is that it causes me to easily gain various information about Williams, which ordinarily I would not otherwise acquire - despite the necessity (as in the case of all blogs) that I must skeptically sort, weigh and filter it as best I can.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:20 am
actually, hwc, go back to my post. my two points re study abroad/study away are still valid and you’ve obfuscated. while i did make the mistake (the terms are unclear) the other point I made still stands:
1. there may be an untapped resource of students who want WNY but none of the other options listed.
you, however, have been quite snide about the second point without at all respecting the first. there’s no evidence the first isn’t true, because WNY is different from these other programs in NYC.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Frank,
Reading EB to get information about Williams?
All well and good if the information is correct and unbiased, which happens to be my whole point.
I can only imagine how many ‘Williams’ people are reading your comment and rolling their eyes…especially considering the thread in which it’s contained.
I’m with Larry. I think an effort at civility would not only improve EB, but bring forth more participants as well.
May 9th, 2008 at 11:37 am
mom: I have a good deal of independent context for my assessments of EphBlog information.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Larry:
I have never made an ad hominem attack on [b]any[/b]EphBlog poster (oops…except Mary Jane Hitler and her idiot boyfriend). If you are truly interested in civil discourse, that is the place it should start.
Rory:
Yes, there could be some vast untapped market for WNY if Williams were to make a major marketing push. I even offered one: selling the program to students at foreign universities. However, the data does not suggest that finding a vast untapped market is likely without a Herculean effort.
Williams already has very high rates of “study away”, comparable to most elite liberal arts colleges. So we do not have a situtation where there is a vast untapped market for “study away” at Williams. The market is what it is: roughly 40% of students study away for a semester.
The market also tells us that negligible numbers of customers buy a second semester away. I gave you data for a comparable school showing that of the total semesters abroad, only 6% were purchased by customers opting for a second semester away. Again, the market is what it is.
Could somebody promote so effectively to change the market? Possibly; however, issues like completing a major, lack of science courses, missing friends for two full semesters, sports teams, music groups, and other factors set the market at buying one semester away, not two.
One of the factors that is confusing is the assumption that the market for “study away” is the entire 2000 strong student body of Williams, but that is not the case. College studies progress according a well-defined schedule. With few exception, the market for “study away” is just one class of Ephs (the junior class). Further, the market (as it is today) limits the potential customer base to about 40% of the junior class. According to the Committee (disputed by nobody), WNY needs to sell 15% of all Williams study away semesters to be viable. In other words, it’s only viable if it is far and away the most popular “study away” program at Williams College.
You can say that I’ve ignored your arguments, but those are the facts that must be dealt with by anyone voting for a signficant increase in funding and marketing effort for WNY.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Rather than attacking the messenger, why not present arguments or scenarios that could make Williams in NY work?
a) Is the Williams Club really the most cost-effective home for the program? Could costs be lowered and a more appropriate home be found at one of the NY’s universities (e.g. International House at Columbia)?
b) The killer cost associated with the program is amortizing the costs professors over so few students. Would enrolling Williams students in courses at NY schools (Columbia, NYU, CUNY) make more sense financially? Most study abroad programs make some use of local universities.
c) If lack of demand is the ultimate problem, why does WNY have to run for two full semesters each year? Just run it in the fall and you cut the sales challenge in half. I doubt that any of the Williams alum would complain if they only had to do a guest lecture once a year instead of twice. Or, make it the most popular Winter Study program in the book (this is REALLY the natural home for this program, IMO).
d) Sell the program to wealthy students at foreign universities. I’m not sure that Williams wants to be in this business, but that’s the market for customers buying “study away” programs in the United States. Between the Williams art mafia in NY and the resources at the Clark graduate program, Williams could probably package one or two very attractive art history themed products.
If you really want to save Williams New York, this is the kind of brainstorming that needs to take place, not attacking me for pointing out that a goal of selling 15% of all Williams semesters away in the WNY program is a daunting challenge.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
hwc,
those were good posts :)
-we’re not talking a “vast” need. We’re talking about needing what, 15-ish more semesters (is it 20? i’m not paying too close attention right now to all the numbers) of interest for it to work? that seems like a small and reasonable goal. I’d bet that as a program gets entrenched in williams, its popularity grows–especially if it can be properly marketed as uniquely valuable to x, y, and z. the experiential yet still williams niche seems like it could be appropriate to that need. Plus, i’d argue ANY student interested in graduate school in the social sciences (save, perhaps, economics) should be considering the program with its fieldwork as an opportunity to taste qualitative research methods in a way not available on campus. Programs grow over time, I don’t think 3 years is enough time to really convince anyone it can’t grow, or vice versa, to convince anyone it can grow.
(tangent alert)
this is much like most educational reforms. to really test one, we’d need to both do a natural experiment (or a controlled one) AND let the reform last long enough to become a part of the educational system. We rarely as a society do so–reforms are judged by their results after a couple years where most reforms that actually could make significant impact would require a 10 (or 15 or 30!) year time frame.
(tangent over)
-i really don’t know enough (considering how much the report has been panned) about the money and details of the program, nor am i fully taking a side because I am very ignorant of the details.
What I do know is that an experiential urban program in the social sciences (and humanities, i’d bet, but i’m not in a humanities field) is something that, looking back, i’d have wanted when I was at Williams. And to do good fieldwork in the social sciences, unfortunately (because winter study does make the most intuitive sense) requires much more than one month. It is also the type of research opportunity that could help convince pre-frosh that they aren’t missing out by going to a small, rural school as opposed to a research oriented urban school. most students who want to do research at a large urban school might do one semester or one year of research in the urban environment–now that chance is being provided for williams students as well. another good selling point, and much better as a selling point than “you could go to bard’s program!” even if the bard program is quite good.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
I’ve stopped reading this but saw #31 referenced me, and I’m replying to that.
I don’t think anyone involved in talking about WNY disagrees all that much about the, or at least a, central point : the costs need to be much more fully and appropriately explored and analyzed than they were in the committee report. I was not trying to attack your position.
If you are trying to say that you think I was making an ad hominem attack against you, you are wrong: we agree on the basic issue (although we have different approaches to and emphases on the details). What I was trying to say was that your tone was putting me off (by that I mean it gets in the way of my listening to, understanding, trusting, believing, or caring about what you have to say).
May 9th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Others routinely do. In fact, others routinely make zero contribution to the discussion at hand other than to jump in with an ad hominem attack.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
From just a quick browse down the approved program list, Williams College offers at least 50 fieldwork based “study away” programs, not counting WNY. Those are just the programs I’m familiar with. I may have missed many more.
You actually highlight what I think is the ultimate weakness of the WNY program as a learning experience: the lack of focus. If you had 16 students all focused at a common theme (urban development, art museums, architecture, legal services, etc.), you would have the basis for group field study, interaction, discussion, etc. Instead, you’ve got students following completely different tracks and I’m not sure you reach critical mass in any of them.
I’m not a “study away” program expert, but there has to be a reason that all successful field study based programs are centered around a very specific theme: urban development, environment, heath care, and so forth.
May 9th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I’m already on record hoping they’d do a team fieldwork program (maybe not all 16, but teams of 4 would be cool)! we agree on something!
I do, however, think there’s something different to a fieldwork program with williams connections in NYC compared to others–there’s more opportunity for follow-up, buy-in for a senior thesis, publishable papers, etc. I don’t see this as perfectly redundant when compared to programs offered by other schools to williams students.
May 9th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
hwc:
If you are talking about me (comment 35), I will say this. I contributed to the WNY discussion, in the way that I could, which was, to encourage the student who believes in it, to fight for it. Other than that, I am not informed enough to say much more.
As far as ‘attacking’ you? Nonsense. I just wish your comments came from a basic desire to make things better. Playing ‘devil’s advocate’, or taking on the role of ‘contrarian’ would be all well and good if it was clear that you had Williams’ best interests at heart…if your tirade was balanced with the ‘occasional’ unicorns and dewdrops.
Anyway, enough. I certainly don’t want to distract from the ‘real discussion’ here. Carry on.