Sept. 20, 2017: Search committee convenes to find new president

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ARTS P. 8

SPORTS P. 12

Carol Ockman performs

Football snaps 13game skid

VOL. CXXXII, NO. 2

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2017

Search committee convenes to find new president By NICHOLAS GOLDROSEN NEWS EDITOR At the beginning of this academic year, Chair of the Board of Trustees Michael Eisenson ’77 announced the formation of the search committee for the 18th president of the College. The committee, which Eisenson also chairs, includes representation from the trustees, faculty, staff, students and alumni. Eisenson also announced that the College has retained the search firm Spencer Stuart to assist. The search process, according to Eisenson, began after the announcement over the summer of President Adam Falk’s departure. The first step of the process was to establish the framework for the committee, selecting its members and retaining a search firm. The committee members include six trustees: Eisenson, O. Andreas Halvorsen ’86, Clarence Otis, Jr., ’77, Kate Queeney ’92, Liz Robinson ’90 and Martha Williamson ’77. They are joined by five members of the faculty, Ngonidzashe Munemo, associate dean for institutional diversity and associate professor of political science, Professor of English Peter Murphy, Professor of Economics Lucie Schmidt, Professor of Chemistry Tom Smith ’88 and Professor of Psychology Safa Zaki, and one staff member, Associate Provost Chris Winters ’95. The alumni members of the committee are Jordan

Hampton ’87, president of the Society of Alumni, and Yvonne Hao ’95, trustee emerita. The two student representatives on the committee are Ben Gips ’19 and Sarah Hollinger ’19. In selecting the committee, Eisenson noted that he aimed to assemble a group that would work well for the benefit of the College as a whole. “I had as a set of objectives making sure that we had people that brought to the process the perspective of students, of staff, of faculty, of alumni, but at the same time would understand that their principal responsibility was not to represent that perspective but to add that perspective, that their principal responsibility was to represent the school,” Eisenson said. “It’s a large committee, necessarily – academic search committees just tend to be larger than search committees elsewhere in the world – it will work best if everyone on the committee feels that their mission is to figure out what’s best for Williams, not what’s best for some subset of Williams.” The student members in particular were selected for their ability to serve in the challenging and critical role that the committee members will have to fill. “We were looking for students who had a broad range of experiences on campus, were believed to be well-respected by their peers, whose experiences weren’t strictly overlapping and who would, in the judgment of people who were in

NICHOLAS GOLDROSEN/NEWS EDITOR

The search process for the new president began with the announcment of President Falk's departure and will span the coming months. a position to speak about them, work well in this type of consensus environment,” Eisenson said. The committee is now beginning to gather public input for what members of the community would like to see in the College’s next president. “This [community input] is important in

fashioning the details of the job description for the new president – 90 percent of the job description stays the same each time but it’s the 10 percent that’s different, that we need to spend a lot of time thinking about,” Eisenson said. According to Eisenson, this input will take three forms: a community

survey, forums on campus and targeted outreach to specific subsets of the College community. In doing so, the committee will hope to clarify and specify what it is looking for in the next president. “There are some fundamental givens, which may sound like apple pie, but they actually are very important

in the Williams context,” Eisenson said. “A successful president of Williams will need to be somebody who really loves students, loves faculty, who either loves Williams or who we believe will come to love Williams. This is a very intimate place and

SEE SEARCH, p. 5

College pursues reaccreditation Class of 2019 banner in ’82 Grill By ISAIAH KRUGMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER The College has begun to seek reaccreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), completing a comprehensive self-study in preparation for the reaccreditation process, which must occur every 10 years. Accredited status is achieved through a voluntary process that institutions of higher education undergo, thereby “assuring the public of quality and fostering institutional self-improvement,” according to NEASC. The process lasts nearly two years, the first of which is devoted primarily to organizing the institutional review procedures. Because the College is consistently known as one of the best liberal arts colleges in the nation and has consistently earned accreditation in the recent past, the process aims more to improve institutional quality than to assure the public of that quality. Accreditation is an effective means of self-improvement because it offers a holistic reflection on the College’s performance. “[Reaccreditation offers] a chance for systematic institutional self-reflection – a moment at which we look at the whole college in all its

dimensions,” Stephen Fix, director of the reaccreditation self-study and professor of English, said. Fix chairs a diverse, 28-person committee of administrators, students and faculty, including the chairs of most standing faculty committees, tasked with assembling the College’s self-study report. The report builds upon the research and analysis done each year by the College’s standing committees. The final reports of these committees, according to Fix, often serve as starting points for the accreditation committee's work. The committee’s next step in the self-study is evaluating this data holistically and systematically. The committee will pay particular attention to changes and programs implemented since the last accreditation review in 2008 and determine whether changes implemented since then have improved the areas of the College that they were intended to. In addition, the committee compares the College’s operations to those of peer institutions, colleges and universities which resemble the College in makeup and mission, to understand whether problems are unique to the College or endemic throughout higher education. The committee assembles all

of its data and analyses into a lengthy report which is then submitted to NEASC. Before the College receives accreditation, it must undergo a final, external review by the NEASC commission. The commission assembles a team of academic, financial and administrative officers from other institutions accredited by NEASC, which visits the College and takes note of its distinct strengths and weakness. These are then outlined in a final letter to the College. In its last letter, the team praised the College for its academic focus, its quality of teaching, the leadership of its administrators, the role of faculty in its governance and its attempts to diversify the student body. The team also expressed a range of concerns at the last reaccreditation. It noticed a lack of long-term planning among the administration and encouraged the development of a formal budgeting process and campus development plan. The team also expressed concern for the faculty, citing a lack of resources, diversity and partner hiring process. The next review will partially determine whether the College has succeeded in easing these concerns.

SEE ACCREDITATION, p. 5

WILLIAMS BUSINESS ASSOCIATION HOLDS KICKOFF EVENT TO CELEBRATE UNCONVENTIONAL PATHWAYS IN BUSINESS

PHOTO COURTESY OF NICOLE CHIA-TIEN

vandalized with ‘KKK’ graffiti

PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE

The banner was defaced some time last spring, CSS believes. By SKYLAR SMITH EXECUTIVE EDITOR On Friday, a student notified Campus Safety and Security (CSS) about a “KKK” symbol written on the Class of 2019 banner hanging in the ’82 Grill. In two campus-wide emails, President Adam Falk notified the community of the incident and of the ongoing investigations conducted by CSS and the Williamstown Police to more precisely determine the timeline of events and to identify the perpetrator. Five class banners, often signed by class members at the end of their first year or the beginning of their sophomore year, hang in ’82 Grill at any given time. New class banners replace the old as classes graduate. Each banner, labeled “Class of ___” in purple felt, is covered in many student signatures. The Class of 2019 banner was originally signed by class members in the fall of 2016, but it is still unclear when the “KKK” symbol appeared; the symbol was written in small letters in the same color as many of the signatures and the banner hangs in the often dimly-lit ’82 Grill. When CSS received the call on Friday, it activated the College’s bias-motivated response protocol, which includes responding to the incident on campus, notifying key members of the College’s senior staff and alerting law enforcement. A CSS official,

along with a Williamstown police officer, arrived at ’82 Grill to document the scene that evening, according to CSS Director Dave Boyer. “Once we were aware of the incident, CSS activated the College’s bias-motivated response protocols, which includes on-campus response and off-campus notification to various college officials,” Boyer said in an email to the Record. “Unfortunately, our response to the scene occurred as a serious 911 medical call was received. The on-duty officers and supervisor responded to the medical call and later returned to the location of the banner with a Williamstown police officer to document the scene. We are hoping someone comes forward with additional information that will help us determine the identity of the person who defaced the 2019 class banner.” In his first email to the College community, Falk urged community members to report incidents of bias and to consult community standards on the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity website if unsure. “The symbol ‘KKK’ has long been used as a weapon, to intimidate and instill fear,” Falk wrote. “We cannot yet know the writer’s intention, but the nature of a weapon is that it does harm regardless of intent. When someone inscribed those letters, or defaced the banner with them afterwards, they harmed our community.” In his second email to the community, Falk detailed

how students, after receiving his first email, came to CSS to share relevant information which suggested that the “KKK” symbol has been on the banner since at least last spring. Falk thanked those reaching out to communicate with CSS, stating that “it demonstrates the kind of community effort needed, in our continuing fight against racial hatred and other forms of bias.” Dean of the College Marlene Sandstrom echoed Falk’s statements. “If we want to live in a campus that ensures that every member of our community has an equal opportunity to make the most of this place, then we need to shine a light on acts of racism and hatred that fundamentally run counter to that shared goal,” Sandstrom said.

WHAT’S INSIDE 3

OPINIONS Disorienting orientations: the problem with Team Eph

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NEWS Bryan Stevenson speaks on injustice

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FEATURES Ephs at the Clark engages students

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ARTS The Artist Otherwise Known as... Bertie Miller '18

11 SPORTS Women's golf places second at invitational USPS 684-6801 | 1ST CLASS MAIL U.S. POSTAGE PAID WILLIAMSTOWN, MA PERMIT NO. 25


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Sept. 20, 2017: Search committee convenes to find new president by The Williams Record - Issuu