Williams College
Encyclopedia
Williams College is a private liberal arts college
located in Williamstown
, Massachusetts
, United States
. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams
. Originally a men's college
, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this period, beginning in 1962. Williams forms part of the historic Little Three
colleges, along with Wesleyan University
and rival Amherst College
.
There are three academic curricular divisions (humanities
, sciences and social sciences
), 24 departments, 33 majors
, and two master's degree
programs in art history
and development economics
. There are 315 voting faculty members, with a student-to-faculty ratio
of 7:1. As of 2009, the school has an enrollment of 2,124 undergraduate students and 49 graduate students.
The academic year follows a 4-1-4 schedule of two four-course semesters plus a one-course "winter study" term in January. A summer research schedule involves about 200 students on campus completing projects with professors.
Colonel Ephraim Williams
was an officer in the Massachusetts militia and a member of a prominent landowning family. His will
included a bequest to support and maintain a free school to be established in the town of West Hoosac, Massachusetts, provided that the town change its name to Williamstown. Williams was killed at the Battle of Lake George
on September 8, 1755.
After Shays' Rebellion
, the Williamstown Free School opened with 15 students on October 26, 1791. The first president was Ebenezer Fitch
. Not long after its founding, the trustees of the school petitioned the Massachusetts legislature to convert the free school to a tuition-based college. The legislature agreed and on June 22, 1793, Williams College was charter
ed. It was the second college to be founded in Massachusetts.
In 1806, a student prayer meeting gave rise to the American Foreign Mission Movement. In August of that year, five students met in the maple grove of Sloan's Meadow to pray. A thunderstorm drove them to the shelter of a haystack, and the fervor of the ensuing meeting inspired them to take the Gospel
abroad. The students went on to build the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
, the first American organization to send missionaries
overseas. The Haystack Monument near Mission Park on the Williams Campus commemorates the historic "Haystack Prayer Meeting
".
By 1815, Williams had only two buildings and 58 students and was in financial trouble, so the board voted to move the college to Amherst, Massachusetts
. In 1821, the president of the college, Zephaniah Swift Moore
, who had accepted his position believing that the college would move east, decided to proceed with the move. He took 15 students with him, and refounded the college under the name of Amherst College
. Some students and professors decided to stay behind at Williams and were allowed to keep the land, which was at the time relatively worthless. According to legend, Moore also took portions of the Williams College library. Though plausible, the transfer of books is unsubstantiated. Moore died just two years later after founding Amherst, and was succeeded by Heman Humphrey
, a trustee of Williams College. Edward Dorr Griffin
was appointed President of Williams and is widely credited with saving Williams during his 15-year tenure.
A Williams student, Gardner Cotrell Leonard, designed the gowns he and his classmates wore to graduation in 1887. Seven years later he advised the Inter-Collegiate Commission on Academic Costume, which met at Columbia University
, and established the current system of U.S. academic dress
. One reason gowns were adopted in the late nineteenth century was to eliminate the differences in apparel between rich and poor students.
During World War II
, Williams College was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
, chemistry
, and biology
departments. In addition, it houses Schow Science Library, notable for its unified science materials holdings and architecture. It features vaulted ceilings and an atrium
with windows into laboratories on the second through fourth floors of the science center.
In 2003, Williams began the first of three massive construction projects. The $60 million '62 Center for Theatre and Dance was the first project to be successfully completed in the spring of 2005. The $44 million student center, called Paresky Center
, opened in February 2007.
Construction has already begun on the third project, called the Stetson-Sawyer project, but economic uncertainty has led to its delay. College trustees initially balked at the cost of the Stetson-Sawyer project and revisited the idea of renovating Sawyer in its current location, an idea which proved not to be cost-effective. The entire project calls for two new academic buildings, the removal of the Sawyer Library from its current location, and the construction of a new library at the rear of a renovated Stetson Hall. The academic buildings, temporarily named North Academic Building and South Academic building, were completed in fall 2008. In the spring of 2009, South Academic Building was re-named Schapiro Hall in honor of former President Morton O. Schapiro. In the spring of 2010 the North Academic Building was re-named Hollander Hall.
After several years of planning, the college decided to group undergraduates starting with the Class of 2010 into four geographically coherent clusters, or "Neighborhoods". Since the fall of 2006, first-years have been housed in Sage Hall, Williams Hall and Mission Park, while the former first-year dormitories East College, Lehman Hall, Fayerweather, and Morgan, joined the remaining residential buildings as upperclass housing. A student vote on the names of the four "neighborhoods" selected "Currier", "Wood", "Spencer" and "Dodd" by a simple majority. Incoming first-years, who live in groups of approximately 20, together with two junior advisors, are allowed to pick their entries via a lottery system. Rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors have the opportunity to change neighborhoods each spring if they so choose. The system is an attempt to integrate all undergraduates more successfully than was previously possible, mixing students representing a variety of interests and ethnicities, as well as to foster student-faculty interaction and to de-centralize event planning. During the spring 2009 semester, a committee formed to evaluate the neighborhood system, and released a report the following fall.
Williams recently ended one of the largest capital campaigns ever undertaken by a liberal arts college, with a goal of raising $400 million by September 2008. The college reached $400 million at the end of June 2007, a year and a half ahead of schedule. At the close of the campaign, $500.2 million had been raised.
As of the 2008-09 school year, the College eliminated student loan
s from all financial aid packages in favor of grants. The College was the fourth institution in the United States to do so, following Princeton University
, Amherst College
, and Davidson College
.
However, in February 2010, the College announced that it would re-introduce loans to its financial aid packages beginning with the Class of 2014 due to the College's changed financial situation.
In January 2007 the board voted unanimously to reduce college CO2 emissions 10% below 1990 levels by 2020, or roughly 50% below 2006 levels. To meet those goals, the college set up the Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives and undertaken an energy audit
and efficiency timeline. Williams received an 'A-' on the 2010 College Sustainability Report Card, following 'B+' grades on both the 2008 and 2009 report cards.
In December 2008, President Morton O. Schapiro announced his departure from the college to become president of Northwestern University
.
On September 28, 2009, the presidential search committee announced the appointment of Adam F. Falk as the 17th president of Williams College. Falk, dean of the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
at Johns Hopkins University
, began his term on April 1, 2010. Dean of the Faculty William Wagner took the position of interim president beginning in June 2009, and continued in that capacity until President-elect Falk took office.
by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges
.
There are three academic curricular divisions (humanities
, sciences, and social sciences
), 24 departments, 33 majors, and two small master's degree
programs in art history
and development economics
. The academic year follows a 4-1-4 schedule of two four-course semesters plus a one-course "winter study" term in January. During the winter study term, students study various courses outside of typical curriculum for 3 weeks. Past course offerings have included: Ski patrol, Learn to Play Chess, Accounting, Inside Jury Deliberations, and Creating a Life: Shaping Your Life After Williams, among many others. Williams students often take the winter study term to study abroad or work on intensive research projects.
Williams granted 510 bachelor's degrees and 35 master's degrees in 2008. The cost of tuition
and fees for 2010-2011 was $52,340; 53% of students were given need-based financial aid, which averaged $46,006.
Williams sponsors the Williams-Mystic
program at Mystic Seaport
; the Williams-Exeter Programme at Exeter College
of Oxford University; and Williams in Africa.
, Massachusetts, New Jersey
, Connecticut
, Florida
, Illinois
, Texas
, Virginia
and Maryland
, in that order.
Williams is classified as "most selective" by U.S. News and World Report and "more selective" by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
, Swarthmore, and every Ivy League
university. Williams ranks first in U.S. News & World Report
s 2011 list of Best Liberal Arts Colleges in the nation. Williams was ranked # 7 in the 2010 Washington Monthly rankings, which focus on key academic outputs such as research, scientific grants won in the natural and social sciences and the number of B.A. graduates earning Ph.Ds
. The survey also measures public service contributions. Williams ranked fifth, after Harvard
, Yale
, Princeton
, and Stanford
, in a 2004 Wall Street Journal survey of the "feeder schools" to the top 15 business, law, and medical schools in the country. Williams is ranked first by the National Collegiate Scouting Association, which ranks colleges based on student-athlete graduation rates, academic strength, and athletic prowess. Rounding out the top five are Amherst College
, Middlebury College
, Washington University in St. Louis
, and Stanford University
. Williams ranked sixth after Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, and Brown in Newsweek's ranking of "Brainiac" Colleges which measured the success of alumni in winning Rhodes, Marshall, and Truman Scholarships.
s at Oxford
and the Cambridge
, which are rare in American higher education. Although tutorials at Williams were originally aimed at upperclassmen, the faculty voted in 2001 to expand the tutorial program. There is now a diverse offering of tutorials, spanning many disciplines, including math and the sciences, that cater to students of all class years. In 2009-2010 alone, 62 tutorials are offered in 21 departments.
Enrollment for tutorials is capped at 10 students, who are then divided into five pairs that meet separately with the professor once a week. Each week, one of the students writes and presents a 5-7 page paper while the other student critiques it. The same pair reverses roles for the next week. The professor takes a more limited role than in a traditional lecture class, and usually allows students to steer and guide the direction of the conversation.
Student course evaluations for tutorials are typically very high. In a survey of alumni who had taken tutorials, more than 80% found their tutorials to be "the most valuable of my courses" at Williams.
The Board appoints as senior executive officer of the college a President who is also a member of and the presiding officer of the faculty. Nine senior administrators report to the President including the Dean of the Faculty, Provost
, and Dean of the College. Adam F. Falk was recently elected the 17th president of Williams, and took office on April 1, 2010.
College Council (CC) is the student government of Williams College. Its members are elected to represent each neighborhood, each class, the first-year dorms, and the student body at large. CC allocates funds from the Student Activities Fee
, appoints students to the faculty-student committees that oversee most aspects of college life, and debates issues of concern to the entire campus community. College Council is the forum through which students address concerns and make changes around campus. CC is led by two co-Presidents.
Williams is situated on a 450 acres (1.8 km²) campus in Williamstown, Massachusetts
, located in the Berkshires in rural northwestern Massachusetts. The campus contains more than 100 academic, athletic, and residential buildings.
Williams College is the site of the Hopkins Observatory
, the oldest extant astronomical observatory in the United States. Erected in 1836–1838, it now contains the Mehlin Museum of Astronomy, including Alvan Clark
's first telescope (from 1852), as well as the Milham Planetarium, which uses a Zeiss Skymaster
ZKP3/B optomechanical projector and an Ansible digital projector, both installed in 2005. The Hopkins Observatory's 0.6-m DFM reflecting telescope
(1991) is installed elsewhere on the campus. Williams joins with Wellesley, Wesleyan
, Middlebury
, Colgate
, Vassar
, Swarthmore
, and Haverford
/Bryn Mawr
to form the Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium, sponsored for over a decade by the Keck Foundation and now with its student research programs sponsored by the National Science Foundation
.
Hopkins Hall serves as the administration building on campus, housing the offices of the president, Dean of the Faculty, registrar
, and provost
, among others.
There is a Newman Center on campus; the Reverend Father Gary C. Caster, from the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois
, is chaplain.
The Chapin Library supports the liberal arts curriculum of the college by allowing students close access to a number of rare books and documents of interest. The library opened on June 18, 1923, with an initial collection of 9,000 volumes contributed by alumnus Alfred Clark Chapin, Class of 1869. Over the years, Chapin Library has grown to include over 50,000 volumes (including 3,000 more given by Chapin) as well as 100,000 other artifacts such as prints
, photographs, maps
, and bookplates.
The most famous items in the library's collection include first printings of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation
, United States Constitution
, and Bill of Rights
, as well as George Washington
's personal copy of the Federalist Papers
. Other notable objects include a range of books, letters, and miscellaneous items relating to Theodore Roosevelt
, who was a friend and, at one point, colleague of Chapin in the New York State Assembly
.
The Chapin Library's science collection includes a first edition of Nicolaus Copernicus
's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
, as well as first editions of books by Tycho Brahe
, Johannes Kepler
, Galileo, Isaac Newton
, and other major figures.
The Williams College Museum of Art
(WCMA), with over 12,000 works (only a fraction of which are displayed at any one time) in its permanent collection, serves as an educational resource for both undergraduates and students in the graduate art history program.
Notable works include Morning in a City by Edward Hopper
, a commissioned wall painting by Sol LeWitt
, and a commissioned outdoor sculpture and landscape work by Louise Bourgeois
entitled Eyes.
Though often overshadowed by the neighboring and much larger Clark Art Institute
and Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
, WCMA remains one of the premier attractions of the Berkshires. Because the museum is intended primarily for educational purposes, admission is free for all.
Located in front of the West College dormitory, the Hopkins gate serves as a memorial to brothers Mark
and Albert Hopkins. Both made lasting contributions to the Williams College community. Mark was appointed as president of the college in 1836,
while Albert was elected a professor in 1829.
The Hopkins gate is inscribed with an inspirational motto that is familiar to all in the Williams College community.
, a weekly broadsheet
paper published on Wednesdays. The newspaper was founded in 1885, and now has a weekly circulation
of 3,000 copies distributed in Williamstown, in addition to more than 600 subscribers across the country. The newspaper does not receive financial support from the college or from the student government and relies on revenue generated by local and national ad sales, subscriptions, and voluntary contributions for use of its website. Both Sawyer Library and the College Archives maintain more than a century's worth of publicly accessible, bound volumes of the Record. The newspaper provides access free of charge to a searchable database of articles stretching back to 1998 on its website.
The student yearbook is called The Gulielmensian, which means "Williams Thing" in Greek
. It was published irregularly in the 1990s, but has been annual for the past several years and dates back to the mid-19th century.
Numerous smaller campus publications are also produced each year, including The Telos, a journal of Christian thought, The Cowbell, a humor magazine, and the Literary Review, a literary magazine.
is a college-owned, student-run, non-commercial radio station broadcasting from the basement of Prospect House at 91.9 MHz. Featuring 85 hours per week of original programming, the station features a wide variety of musical genres, in addition to sports and talk radio. The station may also be heard on the Internet via SHOUTcast.com. Members of the surrounding communities above the age of 18 are allowed to DJ
on the station, which, as part of its mission, seeks to serve the surrounding community with news and announcements of public interest. The board of the radio station holds a concert every semester.
contest. Teams of students, alumni, professors, friends, and others compete to answer questions on a variety of subjects, while simultaneously identifying songs and performing designated tasks. The winning team's only prize is the obligation to create and host the following semester's contest.
The precise date of the debut contest is uncertain. Most spring contests occur in early May, but during its first decade, Williams Trivia was sometimes held in March or February. Assuming a May date, Lawrence University
's 50-hour-long Great Midwest Trivia Contest
, first held on April 29, 1966, would be the oldest continuous competition of its sort in the United States, but if the first Williams contest was held earlier, it would be the oldest. The distinction is appropriately trivial.
While other college-based trivia contests in the United States emphasize marathon endurance and revel in the obscurity of their arcana, the aim of the Williams contest is to cram as much evocative and entertaining material into as concentrated a space as possible. Lasting just eight hours, a typical Williams Trivia contest will demand between 900 and 1,200 separate "bits" of trivial information, delivering twice as much content as its "competitors" in a fraction of the time. No discernible rivalry exists between any of the various contests. The contest has occasionally received outside media coverage, including in the Sunday New York Times.
Choir, Gospel Choir, Jazz Ensemble, Kusika and the Zambezi
Marimba
Band, Percussion Ensemble, and Marching Band. Both music majors and non-majors are welcome to participate in all groups.
The Berkshire Symphony is conducted by Ronald Feldman, a former Boston Symphony Orchestra
cellist. Half of the orchestra consists of students, while the principal players and many section players are area professionals.
Williams Symphonic Winds is a leading proponent of new music on campus. In recent years, the group has evolved to include strings and premieres and performs works by prominent contemporary composers, including members of the faculty.
Student Symphony is an entirely student-run, student-conducted group. Student Symphony rehearses weekly and performs once per semester.
Under the direction of Bradley Wells, the Concert and Chamber Choirs perform a wide range of repertoire at a variety of concerts. A choral highlight is always the Festival of Lessons and Carols held just prior to the holidays in the Thompson Memorial Chapel.
The Williams Jazz program includes academic courses, ensembles (both traditional big band
, by audition, and several small ensembles), and applied lessons on primary jazz instruments.
In the Shona language
of Zimbabwe
, Kusika means "to create." Founded in 1989 at Williams College, Kusika performs traditional African music, dance, and storytelling from Ghana
, Zimbabwe
, and Senegal
. The Zambezi Marimba Band, founded in 1992, was the first African marimba band to be established in the Eastern United States. The ensemble plays marimba music from Zambia
, Zimbabwe
, South Africa
, and from the African diaspora
around the world.
Sankofa, called "Kofa" for short, is the Williams College Step Team. It is the most popular performing group on campus. It is a co-ed, student-run dance company. Sankofa choreographs original material that incorporates popular song, drums, hip-hop, break dance, spoken word, poetry, and sheer creative ingenuity. Stepping features precise, synchronized, and complex rhythmic body movements, combined with singing, chanting, and verbal play. The word “sankofa,” from the Akan people in Ghana, loosely translates to “reaching back in order to move forward.” Sankofa was formed in the fall of the ‘96-’97 school year by five women from the class of 2000: Dahra Jackson, Maxine Lyle, Mya Fisher, Melina Evans and Samantha Reed. In 2005, Lyle founded Soul Steps, a professional step company.
Williams' coed hip hop dance group "Nuttin' But Cuties", usually shortened to NBC, is one of the more prominent groups on campus with well-attended shows in the fall and spring semesters.
The Williams Percussion Ensemble, led by Matthew Gold, explores the masterworks of twentieth century percussion music, experimental music, music of many of the world's traditions, and the most up-to-date works by contemporary composers for percussion instruments.
The Marching Band, named "The Moocho Macho Moocow Military Marching Band", serves as a cheering section at the football games, as well as an entertainment show for halftime.
Williams also hosts seven student-organized a cappella
singing groups. There are two all-female groups, the Accidentals and Ephoria. The two all-male groups are Octet and the Springstreeters, and the two co-ed pop groups are Ephlats and Good Question. The seventh group, the Elizabethans, are a mixed-voice Renaissance ensemble.
The Williams Gospel Choir has served the college since 1986. Their performances are usually at the end of the semester, right before finals start, and serve to provide a spiritual and emotional courage to students during this difficult time of the semester.
Williams's school colors
are purple and gold, with purple as the primary school color. A story explaining the origin of purple as a school color says that at the Williams-Harvard baseball
game in 1869, spectators watching from carriages had trouble telling the teams apart because there were no uniforms. One of the onlookers bought ribbons from a nearby millinery store to pin on Williams' players, and the only color available was purple. The buyer was Jennie Jerome (later Winston Churchill
's mother) whose family summered in Williamstown.
The Williams college mascot is a purple cow
. The mascot's name, Ephelia, was submitted in a radio contest in October 1952 by Theodore W. Friend
, a senior at Williams. The origins of the cow mascot are unknown, but one possibility is that it was inspired by the Purple Cow humor magazine, a student publication begun in 1907, which used the college color along with a cow. The title of the humor magazine was in reference to Gelett Burgess
's nonsense poem:
song written by an undergraduate, "The Mountains," was by Washington Gladden
of the class of 1859.
. The bells ring, announcing the event, members of the Outing Club unfurl a banner from the roof of Chapin Hall and students hike up Stony Ledge. At Stony Ledge, they celebrate with donuts, cider and a cappella performances.
The first known mention of Mountain Day was made by Williams president Edward Dorr Griffin
in his notebook on college business. He wrote, under 'Holidays': "About the 24th of June a day to go to the mountain. If not then about the 14th of July. Prayers at night."
In 2009, with the threat of bad weather for each of the first three Fridays of the month, Interim-president Wagner declared "Siberian Mountain Day." Festivities were relocated from Stony Ledge to the much more accessible Stone Hill.
. They participate in the NCAA
's Division III and the New England Small College Athletic Conference
(NESCAC). Williams also competes in skiing
and squash
at the Division I level. Williams is ranked first among Division III schools for athletic spending per student.
Williams has a traditional rivalry with Amherst College
and Wesleyan University
. The "Little Three
", a subset of NESCAC, comprises the three schools. Williams and Amherst participate in notably intense competition, dating back more than a century. Although Williams College typically sports purple and gold as their school colors, purple is in fact the only school color. The gold was added in order to differentiate its colors from that of rival school Amherst's purple and white uniforms. On May 3, 2009, Williams and Amherst alumni played a game of vintage baseball at Wahconah Park
according to 1859-rules to commemorate the 150th-anniversary of the first college baseball
game played on July 2, 1859 between the two schools. Amherst-alumnus Dan Duquette
was instrumental in organizing the event.
Traditionally, Williams varsity teams sing the song "Yard By Yard" on the eve of every game:
Until 1994, Williams was not permitted, by NESCAC rules, to compete in team NCAA competition. The Williams women's swimming
and diving
team won the school's first national title in 1981, and claimed the title in 1982 as well. Williams played in the 2003, 2004, and 2010 men's basketball Division III national championship games, winning the title in March 2003. Men's basketball
also played in the 1997, 1998 and 2011 Final Fours. Williams was the first New England basketball team to win a Division III championship, and since they have been eligible to compete in the NCAA tournament, no team in the country has played in more Final Fours.
Williams teams to win national titles since Williams began participating in NCAA tournaments in 1994 include women's crew
(seven titles, including six straight from 2006-2011), men's tennis
(three), women's tennis (six, including four straight from 2008-2011), men's cross country
(two), women's cross country (two), men's basketball, women's indoor track and field
, and men's soccer. Other perennial contenders in NCAA tournaments include women's lacrosse
, women's volleyball
, women's soccer, women's field hockey
, men's and women's golf
, men's and women's swimming and diving and men's track and field.
Williams also has had success winning the NACDA Director's Cup
, presented to the institution within each NCAA division that has the greatest overall success in NCAA sanctioned-championships. Williams has won the NACDA Director's Cup
15 of the 16 years since its inception, including the last 13 in a row.
In 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 the college achieved #1 rankings in both academics and athletics within its peer groups (liberal arts colleges as ranked by U.S. News and World Report and NCAA Division III institutions as ranked by the Director's Cup calculations, respectively). Dual #1 rankings in any single year was an unprecedented achievement among the 1,053 NCAA member institutions.
Williams has an active club and intramural sports program, offering 14 club sports including ultimate
, rugby
, horseback riding, cycling
, fencing
, volleyball, gymnastics
, sailing
, tanning, and water polo
. Approximately 50% of Williams' students compete on at least one varsity, junior varsity, or formal club team.
Williams enrolled 2,173 undergraduate students and 54 graduate students in 2010. In 2010, women constituted 51.8% of undergraduate students and 61% percent of graduate students. Although 50% of students receive need-based financial aid, only 273 students (14%) of students qualify to receive Pell Grant
s. Williams has a 97% freshman retention rate and a 91% four-year graduation rate.
Williams College received 7,030 applications, admitted 1,215 (17.3%), and enrolled 548 students (45.1%) for the Class of 2015 (enrolling fall 2011). 89% of students graduated in the top tenth of their high school graduating class and the inter-quartile range on the SAT
was 670-760 for reading, 670-760 for math, and 660-760 for writing.
or the terminal degree in their field. Students fill out course surveys at the end of each semester, which play a large role in determining faculty tenure
decisions. Recently, there has been controversy over popular teachers being denied tenure based on other factors, including publication rates.
Williams offers Olmsted awards to four secondary teachers nominated by the graduating class.
Notable former and present faculty include:
left Williams. Graduates of Williams formed the Society to ensure that Williams would not have to close, and raised enough money to ensure the future survival of the school.
, one of the oldest constituent colleges
of Oxford University. In the early 1980s, Williams purchased a group of houses, today known as the Ephraim Williams House, on Banbury Road and Lathbury Road, in North Oxford
.
The Williams-Exeter Programme at Oxford (WEPO) was founded in 1985. Originally twenty six undergraduate students from Williams spend their junior year at Exeter each year as full members of the college but since 2010 this has been reduced to twenty four due to budget cuts.
Liberal arts colleges in the United States
Liberal arts colleges in the United States are certain undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers a definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general...
located in Williamstown
Williamstown, Massachusetts
Williamstown is a town in Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,754 at the 2010 census...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams
Ephraim Williams
Ephraim Williams Jr. was a soldier from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was killed in the French and Indian War. He was the benefactor of Williams College, located in northwestern Massachusetts.-Early life:...
. Originally a men's college
Men's college
Men's colleges in higher education are undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institutions whose students are exclusively men. Many are liberal arts colleges.-United States:...
, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this period, beginning in 1962. Williams forms part of the historic Little Three
Little Three
The "Little Three" is an unofficial athletic conference of three elite liberal arts colleges in New England, United States. The "Little Three" are:* Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts* Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut...
colleges, along with Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
and rival Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
.
There are three academic curricular divisions (humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
, sciences and social sciences
Social sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
), 24 departments, 33 majors
Academic major
In the United States and Canada, an academic major or major concentration is the academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits....
, and two master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
programs in art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
and development economics
Development economics
Development Economics is a branch of economics which deals with economic aspects of the development process in low-income countries. Its focus is not only on methods of promoting economic growth and structural change but also on improving the potential for the mass of the population, for example,...
. There are 315 voting faculty members, with a student-to-faculty ratio
Student-teacher ratio
Student-teacher ratio refers to the number of teachers in a school or university with respect to the number of students who attend the institution. For example, a student-teacher ratio of 10:1 indicates that there are 10 students for every one teacher...
of 7:1. As of 2009, the school has an enrollment of 2,124 undergraduate students and 49 graduate students.
The academic year follows a 4-1-4 schedule of two four-course semesters plus a one-course "winter study" term in January. A summer research schedule involves about 200 students on campus completing projects with professors.
History
Ephraim Williams
Ephraim Williams Jr. was a soldier from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was killed in the French and Indian War. He was the benefactor of Williams College, located in northwestern Massachusetts.-Early life:...
was an officer in the Massachusetts militia and a member of a prominent landowning family. His will
Will (law)
A will or testament is a legal declaration by which a person, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his/her estate and provides for the transfer of his/her property at death...
included a bequest to support and maintain a free school to be established in the town of West Hoosac, Massachusetts, provided that the town change its name to Williamstown. Williams was killed at the Battle of Lake George
Battle of Lake George
The Battle of Lake George was fought on 8 September 1755, in the north of the Province of New York. The battle was part of a campaign by the British to expel the French from North America in the French and Indian War....
on September 8, 1755.
After Shays' Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in central and western Massachusetts from 1786 to 1787. The rebellion is named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War....
, the Williamstown Free School opened with 15 students on October 26, 1791. The first president was Ebenezer Fitch
Ebenezer Fitch
Ebenezer Fitch was an American Calvinist clergyman and educator. He was the first president of Williams College.Born in Norwich, Connecticut, Fitch graduated as valedictorian from Yale College in 1777...
. Not long after its founding, the trustees of the school petitioned the Massachusetts legislature to convert the free school to a tuition-based college. The legislature agreed and on June 22, 1793, Williams College was charter
Charter
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified...
ed. It was the second college to be founded in Massachusetts.
In 1806, a student prayer meeting gave rise to the American Foreign Mission Movement. In August of that year, five students met in the maple grove of Sloan's Meadow to pray. A thunderstorm drove them to the shelter of a haystack, and the fervor of the ensuing meeting inspired them to take the Gospel
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
abroad. The students went on to build the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was the first American Christian foreign mission agency. It was proposed in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College and officially chartered in 1812. In 1961 it merged with other societies to form the United Church Board for World...
, the first American organization to send missionaries
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
overseas. The Haystack Monument near Mission Park on the Williams Campus commemorates the historic "Haystack Prayer Meeting
Haystack Prayer Meeting
The Haystack Prayer Meeting, held in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in August 1806, is viewed by many scholars as the seminal event for the development of Protestant missions in the subsequent decades and century. Missions are still supported today by American churches.Five Williams College students...
".
By 1815, Williams had only two buildings and 58 students and was in financial trouble, so the board voted to move the college to Amherst, Massachusetts
Amherst, Massachusetts
Amherst is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 37,819, making it the largest community in Hampshire County . The town is home to Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts...
. In 1821, the president of the college, Zephaniah Swift Moore
Zephaniah Swift Moore
Zephaniah Swift Moore was an American Congregational clergyman and educator. He taught at Dartmouth College during the early 1810s and had a house built in Hanover, New Hampshire that now serves as Dartmouth's Blunt Alumni Center...
, who had accepted his position believing that the college would move east, decided to proceed with the move. He took 15 students with him, and refounded the college under the name of Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
. Some students and professors decided to stay behind at Williams and were allowed to keep the land, which was at the time relatively worthless. According to legend, Moore also took portions of the Williams College library. Though plausible, the transfer of books is unsubstantiated. Moore died just two years later after founding Amherst, and was succeeded by Heman Humphrey
Heman Humphrey
Heman Humphrey was a 19th-century American author and clergyman who served as 2nd president of Amherst College for 22 years....
, a trustee of Williams College. Edward Dorr Griffin
Edward Dorr Griffin
Edward Dorr Griffin was a Christian minister and an American educator who served as President of Williams College from 1821 to 1836 and served as the first pastor of Park Street Church from 1811 to 1815.-Life and career:...
was appointed President of Williams and is widely credited with saving Williams during his 15-year tenure.
A Williams student, Gardner Cotrell Leonard, designed the gowns he and his classmates wore to graduation in 1887. Seven years later he advised the Inter-Collegiate Commission on Academic Costume, which met at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, and established the current system of U.S. academic dress
Academic dress
Academic dress or academical dress is a traditional form of clothing for academic settings, primarily tertiary education, worn mainly by those that have been admitted to a university degree or hold a status that entitles them to assume them...
. One reason gowns were adopted in the late nineteenth century was to eliminate the differences in apparel between rich and poor students.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Williams College was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
V-12 Navy College Training Program
The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II...
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Construction and expansion
In the last decade, construction has changed the look of the college. The addition of the $38 million Unified Science Center to the campus in 2001 set a tone of style and comprehensiveness for renovations and additions to campus buildings in the 21st century. This building unifies the formerly separate lab spaces of the physicsPhysics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
, and biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
departments. In addition, it houses Schow Science Library, notable for its unified science materials holdings and architecture. It features vaulted ceilings and an atrium
Atrium (architecture)
In modern architecture, an atrium is a large open space, often several stories high and having a glazed roof and/or large windows, often situated within a larger multistory building and often located immediately beyond the main entrance doors...
with windows into laboratories on the second through fourth floors of the science center.
Paresky Center
The Paresky Center is the student center at Williams College. It was designed by Polshek Partnership Architects and opened on February 16, 2007, after two years of construction, as part of the Williams College Winter Carnival celebration...
, opened in February 2007.
Construction has already begun on the third project, called the Stetson-Sawyer project, but economic uncertainty has led to its delay. College trustees initially balked at the cost of the Stetson-Sawyer project and revisited the idea of renovating Sawyer in its current location, an idea which proved not to be cost-effective. The entire project calls for two new academic buildings, the removal of the Sawyer Library from its current location, and the construction of a new library at the rear of a renovated Stetson Hall. The academic buildings, temporarily named North Academic Building and South Academic building, were completed in fall 2008. In the spring of 2009, South Academic Building was re-named Schapiro Hall in honor of former President Morton O. Schapiro. In the spring of 2010 the North Academic Building was re-named Hollander Hall.
After several years of planning, the college decided to group undergraduates starting with the Class of 2010 into four geographically coherent clusters, or "Neighborhoods". Since the fall of 2006, first-years have been housed in Sage Hall, Williams Hall and Mission Park, while the former first-year dormitories East College, Lehman Hall, Fayerweather, and Morgan, joined the remaining residential buildings as upperclass housing. A student vote on the names of the four "neighborhoods" selected "Currier", "Wood", "Spencer" and "Dodd" by a simple majority. Incoming first-years, who live in groups of approximately 20, together with two junior advisors, are allowed to pick their entries via a lottery system. Rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors have the opportunity to change neighborhoods each spring if they so choose. The system is an attempt to integrate all undergraduates more successfully than was previously possible, mixing students representing a variety of interests and ethnicities, as well as to foster student-faculty interaction and to de-centralize event planning. During the spring 2009 semester, a committee formed to evaluate the neighborhood system, and released a report the following fall.
Williams recently ended one of the largest capital campaigns ever undertaken by a liberal arts college, with a goal of raising $400 million by September 2008. The college reached $400 million at the end of June 2007, a year and a half ahead of schedule. At the close of the campaign, $500.2 million had been raised.
As of the 2008-09 school year, the College eliminated student loan
Student loan
A student loan is designed to help students pay for university tuition, books, and living expenses. It may differ from other types of loans in that the interest rate may be substantially lower and the repayment schedule may be deferred while the student is still in education...
s from all financial aid packages in favor of grants. The College was the fourth institution in the United States to do so, following Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
, and Davidson College
Davidson College
Davidson College is a private liberal arts college in Davidson, North Carolina. The college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently ranked in the top ten liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News and World Report magazine, although it has recently dropped to 11th in U.S. News...
.
However, in February 2010, the College announced that it would re-introduce loans to its financial aid packages beginning with the Class of 2014 due to the College's changed financial situation.
In January 2007 the board voted unanimously to reduce college CO2 emissions 10% below 1990 levels by 2020, or roughly 50% below 2006 levels. To meet those goals, the college set up the Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives and undertaken an energy audit
Energy audit
An energy audit is an inspection, survey and analysis of energy flows for energy conservation in a building, process or system to reduce the amount of energy input into the system without negatively affecting the output.-Principle:...
and efficiency timeline. Williams received an 'A-' on the 2010 College Sustainability Report Card, following 'B+' grades on both the 2008 and 2009 report cards.
In December 2008, President Morton O. Schapiro announced his departure from the college to become president of Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
.
On September 28, 2009, the presidential search committee announced the appointment of Adam F. Falk as the 17th president of Williams College. Falk, dean of the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
The Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, located in Baltimore, Maryland, is one of nine academic divisions of the Johns Hopkins University, in the United States. Located at the university’s Homewood campus at the Charles Village neighborhood in northern Baltimore...
at Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
, began his term on April 1, 2010. Dean of the Faculty William Wagner took the position of interim president beginning in June 2009, and continued in that capacity until President-elect Falk took office.
Academics
Williams is a small, four-year liberal arts college accreditedAccreditation
Accreditation is a process in which certification of competency, authority, or credibility is presented.Organizations that issue credentials or certify third parties against official standards are themselves formally accredited by accreditation bodies ; hence they are sometimes known as "accredited...
by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges
New England Association of Schools and Colleges
The New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc. is the U.S. regional accreditation association providing educational accreditation for all levels of education, from pre-kindergarten to the doctoral level, in the six-state New England region. It also provides accreditation for some...
.
There are three academic curricular divisions (humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
, sciences, and social sciences
Social sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
), 24 departments, 33 majors, and two small master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
programs in art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
and development economics
Development economics
Development Economics is a branch of economics which deals with economic aspects of the development process in low-income countries. Its focus is not only on methods of promoting economic growth and structural change but also on improving the potential for the mass of the population, for example,...
. The academic year follows a 4-1-4 schedule of two four-course semesters plus a one-course "winter study" term in January. During the winter study term, students study various courses outside of typical curriculum for 3 weeks. Past course offerings have included: Ski patrol, Learn to Play Chess, Accounting, Inside Jury Deliberations, and Creating a Life: Shaping Your Life After Williams, among many others. Williams students often take the winter study term to study abroad or work on intensive research projects.
Williams granted 510 bachelor's degrees and 35 master's degrees in 2008. The cost of tuition
Tuition
Tuition payments, known primarily as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in British English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English and Indian English, refers to a fee charged for educational instruction during higher education.Tuition payments are charged by...
and fees for 2010-2011 was $52,340; 53% of students were given need-based financial aid, which averaged $46,006.
Williams sponsors the Williams-Mystic
Williams-Mystic
Williams-Mystic is the name most commonly used for the Maritime Studies Program of Williams College and Mystic Seaport. Based at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut, USA, it is an interdisciplinary semester of study for 20 college sophomores, juniors and seniors. Williams College and the Mystic...
program at Mystic Seaport
Mystic Seaport
Mystic Seaport, the Museum of America and the Sea, in Mystic, Connecticut, is notable both for its collection of sailing ships and boats, and for the re-creation of crafts and fabric of an entire 19th century seafaring village...
; the Williams-Exeter Programme at Exeter College
Exeter College, Oxford
Exeter College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth oldest college of the University. The main entrance is on the east side of Turl Street...
of Oxford University; and Williams in Africa.
Selectivity
For the Class of 2015, the acceptance rate was 17.1%, and the average SAT scores of admitted students were 720 in critical reading and 715 in math. 56 percent of the students are expected to be valedictorian or ranked in the top one percent of their class. The top ten states represented are New York, CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Massachusetts, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
and Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
, in that order.
Williams is classified as "most selective" by U.S. News and World Report and "more selective" by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Rankings
In both 2010, and 2011, Forbes ranked Williams College as the best undergraduate institution in the United States, ahead of AmherstAmherst
- Higher education :*Amherst College, in Amherst, Massachusetts*University of Massachusetts Amherst- People :* Baron Amherst , in particular:** Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, 18th century British army officer...
, Swarthmore, and every Ivy League
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...
university. Williams ranks first in U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
s 2011 list of Best Liberal Arts Colleges in the nation. Williams was ranked # 7 in the 2010 Washington Monthly rankings, which focus on key academic outputs such as research, scientific grants won in the natural and social sciences and the number of B.A. graduates earning Ph.Ds
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
. The survey also measures public service contributions. Williams ranked fifth, after Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, and Stanford
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, in a 2004 Wall Street Journal survey of the "feeder schools" to the top 15 business, law, and medical schools in the country. Williams is ranked first by the National Collegiate Scouting Association, which ranks colleges based on student-athlete graduation rates, academic strength, and athletic prowess. Rounding out the top five are Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
, Middlebury College
Middlebury College
Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,...
, Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis is a private research university located in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1853, and named for George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all fifty U.S. states and more than 110 nations...
, and Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. Williams ranked sixth after Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, and Brown in Newsweek's ranking of "Brainiac" Colleges which measured the success of alumni in winning Rhodes, Marshall, and Truman Scholarships.
Oxbridge-style tutorials
One of the distinctive features of a Williams education is modeled after the tutorial systemTutorial system
At Cambridge University, Oxford University and Queen's University Belfast, undergraduates are taught in the tutorial system. Students are taught by faculty fellows in groups of one to three on a weekly basis...
s at Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
and the Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, which are rare in American higher education. Although tutorials at Williams were originally aimed at upperclassmen, the faculty voted in 2001 to expand the tutorial program. There is now a diverse offering of tutorials, spanning many disciplines, including math and the sciences, that cater to students of all class years. In 2009-2010 alone, 62 tutorials are offered in 21 departments.
Enrollment for tutorials is capped at 10 students, who are then divided into five pairs that meet separately with the professor once a week. Each week, one of the students writes and presents a 5-7 page paper while the other student critiques it. The same pair reverses roles for the next week. The professor takes a more limited role than in a traditional lecture class, and usually allows students to steer and guide the direction of the conversation.
Student course evaluations for tutorials are typically very high. In a survey of alumni who had taken tutorials, more than 80% found their tutorials to be "the most valuable of my courses" at Williams.
Organization and administration
The Board of Trustees of Williams College has 25 members and is the governing authority of the College. The President of the College serves on the Board ex officio. There are five Alumni Trustees, each of whom serves for a five year term. There are five Term Trustees, each elected by the Board for five year terms. The remaining 14 members are Regular Trustees, also elected by the Board but serving up 15 years, although not beyond their seventieth birthday.The Board appoints as senior executive officer of the college a President who is also a member of and the presiding officer of the faculty. Nine senior administrators report to the President including the Dean of the Faculty, Provost
Provost (education)
A provost is the senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States, Canada and Australia, the equivalent of a pro-vice-chancellor at some institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland....
, and Dean of the College. Adam F. Falk was recently elected the 17th president of Williams, and took office on April 1, 2010.
College Council (CC) is the student government of Williams College. Its members are elected to represent each neighborhood, each class, the first-year dorms, and the student body at large. CC allocates funds from the Student Activities Fee
Student Activity Fee
A student fee is a fee charged to students at a school, above and beyond the normal tuition and matriculation fees. These may be charged for general student activities, for supporting student media and other student organizations, for intercollegiate or intramural sports or academics, or as a...
, appoints students to the faculty-student committees that oversee most aspects of college life, and debates issues of concern to the entire campus community. College Council is the forum through which students address concerns and make changes around campus. CC is led by two co-Presidents.
Campus
Williamstown, Massachusetts
Williamstown is a town in Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,754 at the 2010 census...
, located in the Berkshires in rural northwestern Massachusetts. The campus contains more than 100 academic, athletic, and residential buildings.
Williams College is the site of the Hopkins Observatory
Hopkins Observatory
Hopkins Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts . Constructed in 1838 by Albert Hopkins, the college claims that it is the oldest observatory in America....
, the oldest extant astronomical observatory in the United States. Erected in 1836–1838, it now contains the Mehlin Museum of Astronomy, including Alvan Clark
Alvan Clark
Alvan Clark , born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, the descendant of a Cape Cod whaling family of English ancestry, was an American astronomer and telescope maker. He was a portrait painter and engraver , and at the age of 40 became involved in telescope making...
's first telescope (from 1852), as well as the Milham Planetarium, which uses a Zeiss Skymaster
Zeiss projector
A Zeiss projector is one of a line of planetarium projectors manufactured by the Carl Zeiss Company.The first modern planetarium projectors were designed and built in 1924 by the Zeiss Works of Jena, Germany in 1924. Zeiss projectors are designed to sit in the middle of a dark, dome-covered room...
ZKP3/B optomechanical projector and an Ansible digital projector, both installed in 2005. The Hopkins Observatory's 0.6-m DFM reflecting telescope
Reflecting telescope
A reflecting telescope is an optical telescope which uses a single or combination of curved mirrors that reflect light and form an image. The reflecting telescope was invented in the 17th century as an alternative to the refracting telescope which, at that time, was a design that suffered from...
(1991) is installed elsewhere on the campus. Williams joins with Wellesley, Wesleyan
Wesleyan College
Wesleyan College is a private, liberal arts women's college located in Macon, Georgia, United States.-History:The school was chartered on December 23, 1836 as the Georgia Female College, and opened its doors to students on January 7, 1839. The school was renamed Wesleyan Female College in 1843...
, Middlebury
Middlebury College
Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,...
, Colgate
Colgate University
Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York, USA. The school was founded in 1819 as a Baptist seminary and later became non-denominational. It is named for the Colgate family who greatly contributed to the university's endowment in the 19th century.Colgate has 52...
, Vassar
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
, Swarthmore
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....
, and Haverford
Haverford College
Haverford College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States, a suburb of Philadelphia...
/Bryn Mawr
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
to form the Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium, sponsored for over a decade by the Keck Foundation and now with its student research programs sponsored by the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
.
Hopkins Hall serves as the administration building on campus, housing the offices of the president, Dean of the Faculty, registrar
Registrar (academic)
In education outside the United Kingdom, a registrar or registrary is an official in an academic institution who handles student records. Typically, a registrar processes registration requests, schedules classes and maintains class lists, enforces the rules for entering or leaving classes, and...
, and provost
Provost (education)
A provost is the senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States, Canada and Australia, the equivalent of a pro-vice-chancellor at some institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland....
, among others.
There is a Newman Center on campus; the Reverend Father Gary C. Caster, from the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, is chaplain.
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
, photographs, maps
MAPS
Maps is the plural of map, a visual representation of an area.As an acronym, MAPS may refer to:* Mail Abuse Prevention System, an organisation that provides anti-spam support...
, and bookplates.
The most famous items in the library's collection include first printings of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 founding states that legally established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution...
, United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
, and Bill of Rights
United States Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property. They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and...
, as well as George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
's personal copy of the Federalist Papers
Federalist Papers
The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles or essays promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788...
. Other notable objects include a range of books, letters, and miscellaneous items relating to Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
, who was a friend and, at one point, colleague of Chapin in the New York State Assembly
New York State Assembly
The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature. The Assembly is composed of 150 members representing an equal number of districts, with each district having an average population of 128,652...
.
The Chapin Library's science collection includes a first edition of Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe....
's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium is the seminal work on the heliocentric theory of the Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus...
, as well as first editions of books by Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe , born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations...
, Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican...
, Galileo, Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
, and other major figures.
Williams College Museum of Art
The Williams College Museum of Art is a teaching museum located in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It is a department of Williams College. The museum's mission is to "advance learning through lively and innovative approaches to art for the students of Williams College and communities beyond the...
(WCMA), with over 12,000 works (only a fraction of which are displayed at any one time) in its permanent collection, serves as an educational resource for both undergraduates and students in the graduate art history program.
Notable works include Morning in a City by Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
, a commissioned wall painting by Sol LeWitt
Sol LeWitt
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism....
, and a commissioned outdoor sculpture and landscape work by Louise Bourgeois
Louise Bourgeois
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois , was a renowned French-American artist and sculptor, best known for her contributions to both modern and contemporary art, and for her spider structures, titled Maman, which resulted in her being nicknamed the Spiderwoman...
entitled Eyes.
Though often overshadowed by the neighboring and much larger Clark Art Institute
Clark Art Institute
The Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute, usually referred to simply as "The Clark", is an art museum with a large and varied collection located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States...
and Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, commonly referred to as MASS MoCA, is a museum in a converted factory building located in North Adams, Massachusetts, USA. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing arts in the country.MASS MoCA opened with 19...
, WCMA remains one of the premier attractions of the Berkshires. Because the museum is intended primarily for educational purposes, admission is free for all.
Located in front of the West College dormitory, the Hopkins gate serves as a memorial to brothers Mark
Mark Hopkins (educator)
Mark Hopkins was an American educator and theologian.-Life and career:Great-nephew of the theologian Samuel Hopkins, Mark Hopkins was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts...
and Albert Hopkins. Both made lasting contributions to the Williams College community. Mark was appointed as president of the college in 1836,
while Albert was elected a professor in 1829.
The Hopkins gate is inscribed with an inspirational motto that is familiar to all in the Williams College community.
Climb High, Climb Far
Your Goal the Sky, Your Aim the Star.
Student media
The longest running independent newspaper at Williams is the Williams RecordWilliams Record
The Williams Record is the student newspaper of Williams College. It was founded in 1885. News broken by the Record is often reported in other newspapers like the Berkshire Eagle, the North Adams Transcript, and The New York Times....
, a weekly broadsheet
Broadsheet
Broadsheet is the largest of the various newspaper formats and is characterized by long vertical pages . The term derives from types of popular prints usually just of a single sheet, sold on the streets and containing various types of material, from ballads to political satire. The first broadsheet...
paper published on Wednesdays. The newspaper was founded in 1885, and now has a weekly circulation
Newspaper circulation
A newspaper's circulation is the number of copies it distributes on an average day. Circulation is one of the principal factors used to set advertising rates. Circulation is not always the same as copies sold, often called paid circulation, since some newspapers are distributed without cost to the...
of 3,000 copies distributed in Williamstown, in addition to more than 600 subscribers across the country. The newspaper does not receive financial support from the college or from the student government and relies on revenue generated by local and national ad sales, subscriptions, and voluntary contributions for use of its website. Both Sawyer Library and the College Archives maintain more than a century's worth of publicly accessible, bound volumes of the Record. The newspaper provides access free of charge to a searchable database of articles stretching back to 1998 on its website.
The student yearbook is called The Gulielmensian, which means "Williams Thing" in Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
. It was published irregularly in the 1990s, but has been annual for the past several years and dates back to the mid-19th century.
Numerous smaller campus publications are also produced each year, including The Telos, a journal of Christian thought, The Cowbell, a humor magazine, and the Literary Review, a literary magazine.
91.9 WCFM
WCFMWCFM
WCFM is a radio station broadcasting a Variety format. Licensed to Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA. The station is currently owned by The President & Trustees of Williams College. Shows, which are run by students, faculty and Williamstown community members, include "Nothin' Much/Ah Yeah," "1580...
is a college-owned, student-run, non-commercial radio station broadcasting from the basement of Prospect House at 91.9 MHz. Featuring 85 hours per week of original programming, the station features a wide variety of musical genres, in addition to sports and talk radio. The station may also be heard on the Internet via SHOUTcast.com. Members of the surrounding communities above the age of 18 are allowed to DJ
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
on the station, which, as part of its mission, seeks to serve the surrounding community with news and announcements of public interest. The board of the radio station holds a concert every semester.
Williams Trivia Contest
At the end of every semester but one since 1966, WCFM has hosted an all-night, eight-hour triviaTrivia
The trivia are the three lower Artes Liberales, i.e. grammar, rhetoric and logic. These were the topics of basic education, foundational to the quadrivia of higher education, and hence the material of basic education, of interest only to undergraduates...
contest. Teams of students, alumni, professors, friends, and others compete to answer questions on a variety of subjects, while simultaneously identifying songs and performing designated tasks. The winning team's only prize is the obligation to create and host the following semester's contest.
The precise date of the debut contest is uncertain. Most spring contests occur in early May, but during its first decade, Williams Trivia was sometimes held in March or February. Assuming a May date, Lawrence University
Lawrence University
Lawrence University is a selective, private liberal arts college with a nationally recognized conservatory of music, in Appleton, Wisconsin. Lawrence University is known for its rigorous academic environment. Founded in 1847, the first classes were held on November 12, 1849...
's 50-hour-long Great Midwest Trivia Contest
Great Midwest Trivia Contest
The Great Midwest Trivia Contest, or Midwest Trivia Contest, is held each year in Appleton, Wisconsin, broadcast over Lawrence University's radio station, WLFM. It has a claim as the longest-running college bowl trivia contest. Beginning with Trivia XLI in 2006, the contest went to a webcast-only...
, first held on April 29, 1966, would be the oldest continuous competition of its sort in the United States, but if the first Williams contest was held earlier, it would be the oldest. The distinction is appropriately trivial.
While other college-based trivia contests in the United States emphasize marathon endurance and revel in the obscurity of their arcana, the aim of the Williams contest is to cram as much evocative and entertaining material into as concentrated a space as possible. Lasting just eight hours, a typical Williams Trivia contest will demand between 900 and 1,200 separate "bits" of trivial information, delivering twice as much content as its "competitors" in a fraction of the time. No discernible rivalry exists between any of the various contests. The contest has occasionally received outside media coverage, including in the Sunday New York Times.
Student music
Music ensembles at Williams include Berkshire Symphony, Symphonic Winds, Student Symphony, Brass Ensemble, Clarinet Choir, Concert and Chamber Choirs, HandbellHandbell
A handbell is a bell designed to be rung by hand. To ring a handbell, a ringer grasps the bell by its slightly flexible handle — traditionally made of leather, but often now made of plastic — and moves the wrist to make the hinged clapper inside the bell strike...
Choir, Gospel Choir, Jazz Ensemble, Kusika and the Zambezi
Zambezi
The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. The area of its basin is , slightly less than half that of the Nile...
Marimba
Marimba
The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...
Band, Percussion Ensemble, and Marching Band. Both music majors and non-majors are welcome to participate in all groups.
The Berkshire Symphony is conducted by Ronald Feldman, a former Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
cellist. Half of the orchestra consists of students, while the principal players and many section players are area professionals.
Williams Symphonic Winds is a leading proponent of new music on campus. In recent years, the group has evolved to include strings and premieres and performs works by prominent contemporary composers, including members of the faculty.
Student Symphony is an entirely student-run, student-conducted group. Student Symphony rehearses weekly and performs once per semester.
Under the direction of Bradley Wells, the Concert and Chamber Choirs perform a wide range of repertoire at a variety of concerts. A choral highlight is always the Festival of Lessons and Carols held just prior to the holidays in the Thompson Memorial Chapel.
The Williams Jazz program includes academic courses, ensembles (both traditional big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
, by audition, and several small ensembles), and applied lessons on primary jazz instruments.
In the Shona language
Shona language
Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore...
of Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
, Kusika means "to create." Founded in 1989 at Williams College, Kusika performs traditional African music, dance, and storytelling from Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
, Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
, and Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
. The Zambezi Marimba Band, founded in 1992, was the first African marimba band to be established in the Eastern United States. The ensemble plays marimba music from Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
, Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, and from the African diaspora
African diaspora
The African diaspora was the movement of Africans and their descendants to places throughout the world—predominantly to the Americas also to Europe, the Middle East and other places around the globe...
around the world.
Sankofa, called "Kofa" for short, is the Williams College Step Team. It is the most popular performing group on campus. It is a co-ed, student-run dance company. Sankofa choreographs original material that incorporates popular song, drums, hip-hop, break dance, spoken word, poetry, and sheer creative ingenuity. Stepping features precise, synchronized, and complex rhythmic body movements, combined with singing, chanting, and verbal play. The word “sankofa,” from the Akan people in Ghana, loosely translates to “reaching back in order to move forward.” Sankofa was formed in the fall of the ‘96-’97 school year by five women from the class of 2000: Dahra Jackson, Maxine Lyle, Mya Fisher, Melina Evans and Samantha Reed. In 2005, Lyle founded Soul Steps, a professional step company.
Williams' coed hip hop dance group "Nuttin' But Cuties", usually shortened to NBC, is one of the more prominent groups on campus with well-attended shows in the fall and spring semesters.
The Williams Percussion Ensemble, led by Matthew Gold, explores the masterworks of twentieth century percussion music, experimental music, music of many of the world's traditions, and the most up-to-date works by contemporary composers for percussion instruments.
The Marching Band, named "The Moocho Macho Moocow Military Marching Band", serves as a cheering section at the football games, as well as an entertainment show for halftime.
Williams also hosts seven student-organized a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
singing groups. There are two all-female groups, the Accidentals and Ephoria. The two all-male groups are Octet and the Springstreeters, and the two co-ed pop groups are Ephlats and Good Question. The seventh group, the Elizabethans, are a mixed-voice Renaissance ensemble.
The Williams Gospel Choir has served the college since 1986. Their performances are usually at the end of the semester, right before finals start, and serve to provide a spiritual and emotional courage to students during this difficult time of the semester.
School colors and mascot
School colors
School colors are the colors chosen by a school to represent it on uniforms and other items of identification. Most schools have two colors, which are usually chosen to avoid conflicts with other schools with which the school competes in sports and other activities...
are purple and gold, with purple as the primary school color. A story explaining the origin of purple as a school color says that at the Williams-Harvard baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
game in 1869, spectators watching from carriages had trouble telling the teams apart because there were no uniforms. One of the onlookers bought ribbons from a nearby millinery store to pin on Williams' players, and the only color available was purple. The buyer was Jennie Jerome (later Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
's mother) whose family summered in Williamstown.
The Williams college mascot is a purple cow
Purple cow
The purple cow initially became famous as a chimerical referent in a short humorous verse, but has since come to refer to a diverse range of other things, including sports teams, food, wine, and tobacco products, as well as marketing practices in general...
. The mascot's name, Ephelia, was submitted in a radio contest in October 1952 by Theodore W. Friend
Theodore Friend
Theodore Friend is an American historian, novelist, and teacher, a former President of Swarthmore College.-Life:...
, a senior at Williams. The origins of the cow mascot are unknown, but one possibility is that it was inspired by the Purple Cow humor magazine, a student publication begun in 1907, which used the college color along with a cow. The title of the humor magazine was in reference to Gelett Burgess
Gelett Burgess
Frank Gelett Burgess was an artist, art critic, poet, author and humorist. An important figure in the San Francisco Bay Area literary renaissance of the 1890s, particularly through his iconoclastic little magazine, The Lark, he is best known as a writer of nonsense verse...
's nonsense poem:
I never saw a purple cow
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one!
Alma Mater
Williams claims the first alma materAlma mater
Alma mater , pronounced ), was used in ancient Rome as a title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele, and in Christianity for the Virgin Mary.-General term:...
song written by an undergraduate, "The Mountains," was by Washington Gladden
Washington Gladden
Washington Gladden was a leading American Congregational church pastor and early leader of the Social Gospel movement. He was a leading member of the Progressive Movement, serving for two years as a member of the Columbus, Ohio, City Council and campaigning against Boss Tweed as acting editor of...
of the class of 1859.
Mountain Day
On one of the first three Fridays in October, the president of the college cancels classes and declares it Mountain DayMountain Day
Mountain Day is a traditional student celebration in which classes are cancelled without prior notice, and the student body heads to the mountains or a park.The day chosen is often a beautiful, crisp day when the fall foliage is in full color...
. The bells ring, announcing the event, members of the Outing Club unfurl a banner from the roof of Chapin Hall and students hike up Stony Ledge. At Stony Ledge, they celebrate with donuts, cider and a cappella performances.
The first known mention of Mountain Day was made by Williams president Edward Dorr Griffin
Edward Dorr Griffin
Edward Dorr Griffin was a Christian minister and an American educator who served as President of Williams College from 1821 to 1836 and served as the first pastor of Park Street Church from 1811 to 1815.-Life and career:...
in his notebook on college business. He wrote, under 'Holidays': "About the 24th of June a day to go to the mountain. If not then about the 14th of July. Prayers at night."
In 2009, with the threat of bad weather for each of the first three Fridays of the month, Interim-president Wagner declared "Siberian Mountain Day." Festivities were relocated from Stony Ledge to the much more accessible Stone Hill.
Athletics
The school's athletic teams are called the Ephs (rhymes with "chiefs"), a shortening of the first name of founder Ephraim WilliamsEphraim Williams
Ephraim Williams Jr. was a soldier from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was killed in the French and Indian War. He was the benefactor of Williams College, located in northwestern Massachusetts.-Early life:...
. They participate in the NCAA
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
's Division III and the New England Small College Athletic Conference
New England Small College Athletic Conference
The New England Small College Athletic Conference is an NCAA Division III athletic conference, consisting of eleven highly selective liberal arts colleges and universities located in New England and New York...
(NESCAC). Williams also competes in skiing
Skiing
Skiing is a recreational activity using skis as equipment for traveling over snow. Skis are used in conjunction with boots that connect to the ski with use of a binding....
and squash
Squash (sport)
Squash is a high-speed racquet sport played by two players in a four-walled court with a small, hollow rubber ball...
at the Division I level. Williams is ranked first among Division III schools for athletic spending per student.
Williams has a traditional rivalry with Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
and Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
. The "Little Three
Little Three
The "Little Three" is an unofficial athletic conference of three elite liberal arts colleges in New England, United States. The "Little Three" are:* Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts* Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut...
", a subset of NESCAC, comprises the three schools. Williams and Amherst participate in notably intense competition, dating back more than a century. Although Williams College typically sports purple and gold as their school colors, purple is in fact the only school color. The gold was added in order to differentiate its colors from that of rival school Amherst's purple and white uniforms. On May 3, 2009, Williams and Amherst alumni played a game of vintage baseball at Wahconah Park
Wahconah Park
Wahconah Park is a city-owned baseball park located in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and nestled in a working class neighborhood. One of the last remaining ballparks in the United States with a wooden grandstand, it was constructed in 1919 and seats 4,500. The stadium is now currently home to the, yet...
according to 1859-rules to commemorate the 150th-anniversary of the first college baseball
College baseball
College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. Compared to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a less significant contribution to cultivating professional players, as the minor leagues primarily...
game played on July 2, 1859 between the two schools. Amherst-alumnus Dan Duquette
Dan Duquette
Daniel F. Duquette is the Executive Vice-President of Baseball Operations for the Baltimore Orioles. He was the General Manager of the Montreal Expos from September through January and for the Boston Red Sox from through March...
was instrumental in organizing the event.
Traditionally, Williams varsity teams sing the song "Yard By Yard" on the eve of every game:
- Yard by yard we'll fight our way
- Thro' Amherst's line,
- Every man on every play,
- Striving all the time.
- Cheer on cheer will rend the air,
- All behind our men.
- And we'll fight for dear old Williams
- And we'll win and win again.
Until 1994, Williams was not permitted, by NESCAC rules, to compete in team NCAA competition. The Williams women's swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
and diving
Diving
Diving is the sport of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, sometimes while performing acrobatics. Diving is an internationally-recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games. In addition, unstructured and non-competitive diving is a recreational pastime.Diving is one...
team won the school's first national title in 1981, and claimed the title in 1982 as well. Williams played in the 2003, 2004, and 2010 men's basketball Division III national championship games, winning the title in March 2003. Men's basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
also played in the 1997, 1998 and 2011 Final Fours. Williams was the first New England basketball team to win a Division III championship, and since they have been eligible to compete in the NCAA tournament, no team in the country has played in more Final Fours.
Williams teams to win national titles since Williams began participating in NCAA tournaments in 1994 include women's crew
Crew
A crew is a body or a class of people who work at a common activity, generally in a structured or hierarchical organization. A location in which a crew works is called a crewyard or a workyard...
(seven titles, including six straight from 2006-2011), men's tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
(three), women's tennis (six, including four straight from 2008-2011), men's cross country
Cross country running
Cross country running is a sport in which people run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road...
(two), women's cross country (two), men's basketball, women's indoor track and field
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...
, and men's soccer. Other perennial contenders in NCAA tournaments include women's lacrosse
Lacrosse
Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...
, women's volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
, women's soccer, women's field hockey
Field hockey
Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...
, men's and women's golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
, men's and women's swimming and diving and men's track and field.
Williams also has had success winning the NACDA Director's Cup
NACDA Director's Cup
The NACDA Learfield Sports Directors' Cup is an award given annually by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to the colleges and universities with the most success in collegiate athletics...
, presented to the institution within each NCAA division that has the greatest overall success in NCAA sanctioned-championships. Williams has won the NACDA Director's Cup
NACDA Director's Cup
The NACDA Learfield Sports Directors' Cup is an award given annually by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to the colleges and universities with the most success in collegiate athletics...
15 of the 16 years since its inception, including the last 13 in a row.
In 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 the college achieved #1 rankings in both academics and athletics within its peer groups (liberal arts colleges as ranked by U.S. News and World Report and NCAA Division III institutions as ranked by the Director's Cup calculations, respectively). Dual #1 rankings in any single year was an unprecedented achievement among the 1,053 NCAA member institutions.
Williams has an active club and intramural sports program, offering 14 club sports including ultimate
Ultimate (sport)
Ultimate is a sport played with a 175 gram flying disc. The object of the game is to score points by passing the disc to a player in the opposing end zone, similar to an end zone in American football or rugby...
, rugby
Williams College Rugby Football
The Williams Rugby Football Club and the Williams Women's Rugby Football Club are intercollegeiate club sports teams at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The men's club was founded in 1958 by David Coughlan with support from H. Peter Pearson. The women's team was founded in 1976...
, horseback riding, cycling
Cycling
Cycling, also called bicycling or biking, is the use of bicycles for transport, recreation, or for sport. Persons engaged in cycling are cyclists or bicyclists...
, fencing
Fencing
Fencing, which is also known as modern fencing to distinguish it from historical fencing, is a family of combat sports using bladed weapons.Fencing is one of four sports which have been featured at every one of the modern Olympic Games...
, volleyball, gymnastics
Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
, sailing
Sailing
Sailing is the propulsion of a vehicle and the control of its movement with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to move the boat relative to its surrounding medium and...
, tanning, and water polo
Water polo
Water polo is a team water sport. The playing team consists of six field players and one goalkeeper. The winner of the game is the team that scores more goals. Game play involves swimming, treading water , players passing the ball while being defended by opponents, and scoring by throwing into a...
. Approximately 50% of Williams' students compete on at least one varsity, junior varsity, or formal club team.
Student body
| Undergraduate | U.S. Census | |
|---|---|---|
| White American White American White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa... |
63.7% | 65.8% |
| African American African American African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States... |
9.8% | 12.1% |
| Asian American Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,... |
10.7% | 4.3% |
| Hispanic American | 8.6% | 14.5% |
| Native American Native Americans in the United States Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as... |
0.3% | 0.9% |
| International student International student According to Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development , international students are those who travel to a country different from their own for the purpose of tertiary study. Despite that, the definition of international students varies in each country in accordance to their own national... |
6.7% | (N/A) |
Williams enrolled 2,173 undergraduate students and 54 graduate students in 2010. In 2010, women constituted 51.8% of undergraduate students and 61% percent of graduate students. Although 50% of students receive need-based financial aid, only 273 students (14%) of students qualify to receive Pell Grant
Pell Grant
A Pell Grant is money the federal government provides for students who need it to pay for college. Federal Pell Grants are limited to students with financial need, who have not earned their first bachelor's degree or who are not enrolled in certain post-baccalaureate programs, through participating...
s. Williams has a 97% freshman retention rate and a 91% four-year graduation rate.
Williams College received 7,030 applications, admitted 1,215 (17.3%), and enrolled 548 students (45.1%) for the Class of 2015 (enrolling fall 2011). 89% of students graduated in the top tenth of their high school graduating class and the inter-quartile range on the SAT
SAT
The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a nonprofit organization in the United States. It was formerly developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service which still...
was 670-760 for reading, 670-760 for math, and 660-760 for writing.
Faculty
Williams has 315 voting faculty, 96% of whom possess a doctorateDoctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
or the terminal degree in their field. Students fill out course surveys at the end of each semester, which play a large role in determining faculty tenure
Tenure
Tenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.-19th century:...
decisions. Recently, there has been controversy over popular teachers being denied tenure based on other factors, including publication rates.
Williams offers Olmsted awards to four secondary teachers nominated by the graduating class.
Notable former and present faculty include:
- Andrea BarrettAndrea BarrettAndrea Barrett is an American novelist, and short story writer. Her Ship Fever collection of novella and short stories won the National Book Award in 1996...
, National Book AwardNational Book AwardThe National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
winning author and MacArthur Fellow - Gene H. Bell-VilladaGene H. Bell-VilladaGene H. Bell-Villada is an American literary critic, novelist, translator and memoirist, with strong interests in Latin American Writing, Modernism, and Magic Realism...
, fiction writer, critic of Latin American literature, and historian of aestheticsAestheticsAesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste... - Raymond Chang, who has written high school and college textbooks in chemistryChemistryChemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
. - Joan Edwards of the biologyBiologyBiology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
department, who has a Guinness World Record for discovering the fastest blooming plant, the bunchberryCornus canadensisCornus canadensis is a herbaceous member of the Cornaceae family...
. - Louise GlückLouise GlückLouise Elisabeth Glück is an American poet of Hungarian Jewish heritage. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2003, after serving as a Special Bicentennial Consultant three years prior in 2000....
, winner of the 1993 Pulitzer PrizePulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
in poetry. - Kermit GordonKermit GordonKermit Gordon was Director of the United States Bureau of the Budget during the administration of John F. Kennedy. He continued to serve in this capacity in the Lyndon Johnson administration. He oversaw the creation of the first budgets for Johnson's Great Society domestic agenda...
of the economicsEconomicsEconomics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
department, who became Director of the United States Bureau of the Budget (now the Office of Management and Budget) during the administrations of PresidentsPresident of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
John F. KennedyJohn F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon B. JohnsonLyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
. - Harlan HansonHarlan HansonHarlan Philip Hanson , also known as "Harpo" Hanson, was an American educator and the Director of the Advanced Placement Program from 1965 to 1989.-Harvard and WWII:...
, former professor at Williams and Director of the Advanced Placement program from 1965 to 1989: - Clara Claiborne ParkClara Claiborne ParkClara Claiborne Park was an American college English teacher and author who was best known for her writings about her experiences raising her autistic daughter, the artist Jessica Park...
(1923-2010), author who raised awareness of autism. - Jay PasachoffJay PasachoffJay Myron Pasachoff is an American astronomer. Pasachoff is Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy at Williams College and the author of textbooks and tradebooks in astronomy, physics, mathematics, and other sciences.-Biography:...
in the astrophysicsAstrophysicsAstrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...
department, who uses solar eclipse observations to study the sun. - Mark TaylorMark C. TaylorMark C. Taylor is a philosopher of religion and cultural critic who has published more than twenty books on theology, philosophy, art and architecture, media, technology, economics, and the natural sciences...
, who has studied with Jacques DerridaJacques DerridaJacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
and taught religion classes at Williams before moving to Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. - Frank MorganFrank Morgan (mathematician)Frank Morgan is an American mathematician and the Webster Atwell '21 Professor of Mathematics at Williams College, specialising in geometric measure theory and minimal surfaces. He is most famous for proving the double bubble conjecture, that the minimum-surface-area enclosure of two given volumes...
, the Webster Atwell '21 Professor of Mathematics - William WoottersWilliam WoottersWilliam Kent Wootters is an American physicist, and a leading contributor to the field of quantum information theory. He proved the no cloning theorem in a joint paper with Wojciech H. Zurek. It was also independently discovered by Dennis Dieks. He has also worked on the quantification of...
, theoretical physicist known for proving the no cloning theoremNo cloning theoremThe no-cloning theorem is a result of quantum mechanics that forbids the creation of identical copies of an arbitrary unknown quantum state. It was stated by Wootters, Zurek, and Dieks in 1982, and has profound implications in quantum computing and related fields.The state of one system can be...
.
Alumni
The Society of Alumni of Williams College is the oldest existing alumni society of any academic institution in the United States. The Society of Alumni was founded during the "Amherst crisis" in 1821, when Williams College President Zephaniah Swift MooreZephaniah Swift Moore
Zephaniah Swift Moore was an American Congregational clergyman and educator. He taught at Dartmouth College during the early 1810s and had a house built in Hanover, New Hampshire that now serves as Dartmouth's Blunt Alumni Center...
left Williams. Graduates of Williams formed the Society to ensure that Williams would not have to close, and raised enough money to ensure the future survival of the school.
Williams-Exeter Programme at Oxford
Williams has a close relationship with Exeter CollegeExeter College, Oxford
Exeter College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth oldest college of the University. The main entrance is on the east side of Turl Street...
, one of the oldest constituent colleges
Colleges of the University of Oxford
The University of Oxford comprises 38 Colleges and 6 Permanent Private Halls of religious foundation. Colleges and PPHs are autonomous self-governing corporations within the university, and all teaching staff and students studying for a degree of the university must belong to one of the colleges...
of Oxford University. In the early 1980s, Williams purchased a group of houses, today known as the Ephraim Williams House, on Banbury Road and Lathbury Road, in North Oxford
North Oxford
North Oxford is a suburban part of the city of Oxford in England. It was owned for many centuries largely by St John's College, Oxford and many of the area's Victorian houses were initially sold on leasehold by the College....
.
The Williams-Exeter Programme at Oxford (WEPO) was founded in 1985. Originally twenty six undergraduate students from Williams spend their junior year at Exeter each year as full members of the college but since 2010 this has been reduced to twenty four due to budget cuts.
See also
- Elimination of Fraternities at Williams CollegeElimination of fraternities at Williams College]On June 30, 1962, the Williams College Committee on Review of Fraternity Questions submitted its report to the Board of Trustees, urging that the college assume responsibility for providing room and board to the entire student body...
- List of Williams College people
- List of Williams College presidents
- List of Williams College Commencement Speakers
- List of Williams College Bicentennial Medal Winners
- Williams-MysticWilliams-MysticWilliams-Mystic is the name most commonly used for the Maritime Studies Program of Williams College and Mystic Seaport. Based at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut, USA, it is an interdisciplinary semester of study for 20 college sophomores, juniors and seniors. Williams College and the Mystic...
- Board of Trustees of Williams College
- Taconic Golf ClubTaconic Golf ClubTaconic Golf Club is a semi-private golf course located in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The land that Taconic Golf Club occupies is owned by Williams College, and an independent Board of Directors oversees the daily operation...