Fall 2016

Colorful Collections

Among the images featured in Williams’ new Special Collections Coloring Book is a plate from Urbain Dubois’ Grand livre des pâtissiers et des confiseurs (Great Book of Pastry Chefs and Confectioners), published in 1883. Dubois was one of the most important figures in the literature of French cuisine, serving as personal chef to the Russian…

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Sixth Extinction

There have been five major extinction events since the evolution of complex animals. Each time, the planet underwent changes so acute and so rapid—in geological terms—that most living things were killed off before they could adapt. As our understanding about the so-called “Big Five” events has grown, we’ve come to realize that we’re now in…

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The Un-Making of a Racist

In his compelling new memoir, Professor Charles Dew ’58, one of America’s most respected scholars on the history of slavery, shares the story of his childhood growing up white in the Jim Crow South and how his consciousness— and conscience—were raised at Williams. “How did someone as white as you come to study our history?”…

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Rural Health

Alumni are working to improve health care in some of the country’s most vulnerable communities. In the shadow of shiprock, a dramatic volcanic butte rising over the plain in the northwest corner of New Mexico, stands the Northern Navajo Medical Center. It serves nearly 81,000 patients, mostly Navajo, and is located some 200 miles from…

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Exploring the Curriculum

In the Fall, Jeffrey Rubel ’17, a geosciences major and student chair of the Committee on Educational Affairs, and Allegra Simon ’18, an economics and history major and College Council co-vice president for academic affairs, launched an initiative to encourage students to explore the liberal arts and the college’s curriculum. “ Your 32: Your Chance…

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Modeling Coral Reef Health

Julie Blackwood is using math to solve ecological problems. Assistant professor of mathematics Julie Blackwood is using mathematical modeling to uncover the mechanisms that will limit algae overgrowth and promote reef health in the Cayman Islands. Coral reefs host thousands of species of fish and other animals and contribute to the biodiversity and health of…

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An Artist’s Life and Afterlife

The Deaths of Henri Regnault. By Marc Gotlieb. University of Chicago, 2016. A new book by Marc Gotlieb, Williams’ Class of 1955 Memorial Professor of Art and director of the Graduate Program in Art History, considers the life of Henri Regnault. It’s the first English-language book about the 19th-century French artist, whose meteoric rise was…

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Memory and Silence

Sociology professor Olga Shevchenko has been visiting with Russian families and studying their old photo albums, searching for clues about the Soviet past and knitting together a narrative about memory and silence. Shevchenko became interested in photographs and memory while working on her book Crisis and the Everyday in Postsocialist Moscow (Indiana University Press, 2008)….

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Reading List

What do Americans want from their political leaders, and of whom should they be wary? Students are answering this question throughout the fall in political science professor Nicole Mellow’s tutorial, Dangerous Leadership in American Politics. In addition to reading the writings of Lincoln, Tocqueville, and Max Weber, they’re delving into books including The Terror Presidency:…

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Art and Climate Change

The international artist collective Ghana ThinkTank is working with students this year to identify problems related to climate change and implement the solutions on campus. Invited by the Williams College Museum of Art as part of the campus-wide initiative Confronting Climate Change, the collective upends what its organizers call a “simplistic dichotomy: first world/ third…

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Remembering Professor Leslie Brown

The Williams community came together in September to celebrate the life of Professor of History Leslie Brown, who died Aug. 5 after battling cancer. A widely respected scholar of American history, Brown joined the Williams faculty in 2008. Colleagues, students, and alumni described her as a careful observer and cautious listener who demanded accountability in…

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In Memoriam

Williams said goodbye recently to two beloved members of its community. Professor of Mathematics, emeritus, Victor E. Hill IV died in July at the age of 76. David A. Booth, retired vice provost and political science lecturer, died in September at the age of 84. In sharing news of their deaths with the Williams community,…

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Celebrating Achievement

The Class of 2017 gathered in Chapin Hall for Convocation Sept. 17 to celebrate their accomplishments and mark the start of the academic year. President Adam Falk and College Council co-presidents Michelle C. Bal ’17 and Caitlin A.C. Buckley ’17 (on screen at right) each formally welcomed the senior class. Dean of the College Marlene J. Sandstrom…

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Rankine ’86 Named MacArthur Fellow

Poet and Yale professor of English and African-American studies Claudia Rankine ’86 has been named a MacArthur fellow for 2016. Calling her “a critical voice in current conversations about racial violence,” the MacArthur Foundation says her poetry, essays, lectures, and short films illuminate “the emotional and psychic tensions that mark the experiences of many living…

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Success in Failure

As Nov. 10 approached, marking 12 months since the Class of 1966 Environmental Center offcially began its pursuit of Living Building Challenge status, it was clear the building wasn’t going to meet one of the seven rigorous requirements necessary for full certification—that of using only the energy it produces and collects on-site. Ultimately, that’s not…

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From Boots to Books

Williams welcomed two veterans to the Class of 2020 through its partnership with Service to Schools (S2S) and VetLink, which connects high-achieving vets with highly selective colleges and universities. Benton Leary ’20 served in the U.S. Navy for six years before deciding to pursue a college education. An S2S advisor recommended Williams, and Leary was…

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By the Numbers: Horn Hall

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In the News

Williams made headlines in August for including information about students’ self-reported gender identity in a press release about the incoming class. In it, the college stated: “Of the 552 incoming students, 267 identify as men, 251 as women. Two identify as trans or transgender, and one identifies as nonbinary.” Shane Windmeyer, executive director of Campus…

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Majumder Receives Research Prize

Protik “Tiku” Majumder, professor of physics and director of the Williams Science Center, has been named the 2017 winner of the American Physical Society (APS) Prize for a Faculty Member for Research at an Undergraduate Institution. The prize honors a physicist whose research in an undergraduate setting has achieved wide recognition and contributed significantly to…

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A Closer Look: First Days

Williams’ first-year orientation is designed to build community from the moment students arrive on campus. A carefully planned week of activities, First Days covers a lot of ground, introducing students to each other (class photo, 1), to their surroundings (Williams Outdoor Orientation for Living as First Years, 2), to their entry-mates and junior advisors (Entry…

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Senior Staff Update

The college is saying goodbye to chief communications officer Angela Paik Schaeffer, who in January will become vice president of communications and marketing at Trinity College. In her six years at Williams, Schaeffer has overseen all aspects of strategic communications, including for the alumni relations, development, and admission offices, as well as for institutional branding…

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Why We’re Here

At Williams we talk a lot about “intentional community.” But it’s not just talk. We live this idea and work at it every day, because we believe it matters, that it’s a critical part of the particular kind of education we seek to impart to our students. Those of us who’ve devoted our careers to this work…

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Supreme Court Standoff

“Behind the Supreme Court Standoff ” (summer 2016) calls the stalemate over the Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland “without precedent.” Not so. In 1992, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Joseph Biden, calling for a “different standard” during an election year, said his committee should consider not holding hearings if President George H.W. Bush named a…

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A Marvelous Order

My wife and I attended public meetings in New York City to watch Jane Jacobs successfully overturn the Lower Manhattan Expressway proposed by Robert Moses in the mid-1960s and beat back the Spadina Expressway in Toronto a few years later (“A Marvelous Order,” summer 2016). Ms. Jacobs had little use for planners but mellowed a…

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Looking at Yesterday, Today

What a superb issue, focused on the mural at the Log (“Looking at Yesterday, Today,” summer 2016). Speaking truth to the power of embedded tradition is always tough, and that is what the honest historian is constantly up against. The thought of our Eph as “having a slave or two” was a new insight to…

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Dropping the Watch

I read with great interest your coverage of the watch drop from the chapel tower (inside front cover, summer 2016). I was Class of 1955, and my father, Edward L. Reed, Class of 1916, told me while I was there that he initiated that tradition by tossing an Ingersoll pocket watch, which men then carried…

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Getting a Read on Basquiat

1983, graffiti artist Michael Stewart was beaten by New York City police officers following an arrest for vandalism. He fell into a coma and died 13 days later. His friend and fellow artist Jean-Michel Basquiat paid tribute to Stewart, painting Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart) on the wall of Keith Haring’s studio. The painting,…

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Black Bodies Matter

As a student at Williams, Chaédria LaBouvier ’07 promised herself that one day she would bring the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat to campus. Back then, she never could have foreseen the ways in which his potent work and her own life would intersect, culminating in the Williams College Museum of Art’s installment this fall of…

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