ARTS P. 8 'Homebrew' wows in Greylock
SPORTS P. 12 The Independent Student Newspaper at Williams College Since 1887 VOL. CXXXII, NO. 4
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2017
Women's soccer secures #1 seed
MinCo, MSU, CISU and IC protest Trump travel ban By TESNIM ZEKERIA EXECUTIVE EDITOR Last week, members of the Muslim Student Union (MSU), Minority Coalition (MinCo), Coalition for Immigrant Student Advancement (CISA), and International Club (IC) teamed up to host a two-day event protesting the latest installment of the Trump administration’s travel ban. Scheduled to go into full effect on Oct. 18, the third iteration of President Donald Trump’s travel ban restricts travel from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Chad, Venezuela and North Korea. Unlike the first and second versions of the travel ban which were temporary, Travel Ban 3.0, — or what many have been calling “Muslim Ban 3.0” — places indefinite restrictions on entry to the U.S. In response, MinCo cochair Amina Awad ’18 found it necessary to mobilize and organize on campus. A member of the Advocates for Youth’s Muslim Youth Leadership Council, Awad was already helping with the launch of the nationwide social media campaign, #MuslimAnd. By encouraging Muslims to post pictures and messages that demonstrate their complex identities, #MuslimAnd seeks to push back against the singular narratives that criminalize Muslim and refugee communities. Inspired by this campaign, Awad was eager to show solidarity with Muslim communities and allies across the nation and began reaching out to different student groups to organize a large campus event protesting Travel Ban 3.0.
“As MinCo we’re always trying to get groups to collaborate … I reached out to the MSU at the beginning, and then I was like ‘Oh, International Club! This is an international issue.’ Then I was like, ‘Oh, CISA — they’re all about immigration,’” said Awad. “And, so I brought all the groups together and they were all really great and super helpful in figuring out logistics and getting manpower.” Working together, these groups tabled in Paresky Center last week during lunch hours, encouraging students to take pictures with various signs that read: “#MuslimAnd,” “I stand with immigrant communities” and “NO Travel Ban Ever.” Additionally, students had the opportunity to write on sticky-notes why they thought immigration was beautiful. Responses varied from “borders are fake” to “because I’m here.” These were then displayed on a large poster at the entrance of Paresky Center. Despite the success of these events, however, campus apathy towards the issue was a source of critique. “There’s a general apathy that scares me,” said Awad. “Because what if every time a new ban comes out, people care less and less every time? I feel like we’re going to reach a point in which nobody is gonna care, and like what if that’s the travel ban that goes through?” MSU co-chair Omar Kawam ’20 echoes a similar sentiment when he notes the complicity of many students. “There is a large segment of people that can easily be complicit about these kind of things if the issue doesn’t re-
late to their identities,” said Kawam. “As a result there’s less of an enthusiasm to be involved and I think that we can work on that.” According to Awad, this coupled with the lack of insti-
Last Wednesday, Carl Sangree ’18 created a petition on change.org to be delivered to the College administration titled “Rehire Robin and Kristine.” As of Monday evening, over 4000 people had signed the petition. In the petition, Sangree wrote, “My friend Robin Alfonso was fired from Williams College this summer. If you don’t know her by name, you probably knew her as ‘the ridiculously friendly Whitman’s snackbar lady.’ Williams security accused her of smoking marijuana with students at the Mt. Hope Mansion during last year’s senior week, despite the denials of both her and students she was with. The administration fired her nonetheless, ignoring her fifteen years of faithful work without any prior incident. She is just as important to our community as any student or professor, yet she has not been treated with any level of fairness.”
Sangree later added an update to the petition, stating he learned that another former employee of the College, Kristine McLear, was “treated just as unfairly as Robin as part of the same incident.” He writes that McLear was also fired due to the same allegations and claims that she was presumed guilty and never given a change to defend herself. Alfonso stated that she and McLear were called in for a 10-minute meeting with Campus Safety and Security. Alfonso said she got a termination notice in the mail regarding her health insurance. When she went into her meeting with her supervisor Bob Volpe, director of dining services, Alfonso was handed a termination letter. “If you look at one date I got in the mail on paper it was June 9 and we were fired the 12th,” she said. “You know it was already done. And I was working; I didn’t do anything wrong. I left that place [Mt.
question that warrants further exploration, Awad said. “It would be ideal if people were willing to stand for one another regardless of their identity and not feel like, ‘oh, we don’t have any say in the
politics surrounding Muslims because we’re not Muslim.’ I hope we can reach a point where an event for one group of students is equally attended by all segments of the Williams community,” said Kawam.
ZAHIRA KELLY GAVE VISTA'S LATINX HERITAGE MONTH KEYNOTE ADDRESS LAST WEEK ON COLONIALISM AND ANTIBLACKNESS AS LATIN AMERICAN NATIONALISM
PHOTO COURTESY OF NEFTALY LARA
Students object to firing of beloved snackbar employees By NEENA PATEL EXECUTIVE EDITOR
tutional support contributes to the desensitization of the College community. Whether this is due to the lack of students from countries on the travel ban or symptomatic of a growing millennial apathy is still a
Hope], brought them home and then went home.” “What really hurts both me and Kristine is that we had trusted our uppers and supervisors and nobody covered our backs,” Alfonso said. “Nobody even talked to us. [Director of Dining Services] Bob [Volpi] was my hero. I just don’t understand. I thought I had such a great relationship with him, and he didn’t even want to talk to me.” Martha Tetrault, director of human resources, said she only recent became aware of the student complaints. “The policies that govern the employee disciplinary process are in the online staff handbook,” she said. The disciplinary procedures at the College start with academic chairs and supervisors. The policy states that “they are intended to be fair, and allow the employee opportunity for improvement when possible; however, the
SEE PETITION, p. 5
THOUGH THERE WAS NO NATURAL DISASTER IN WILLIAMSTOWN, THE COLLEGE STILL EXPERIENCED GLOOMY FALL WEATHER
College restructures custodial pay By JACK BRENT GREENBERG MANAGING EDITOR According to information the Record has obtained from the Committee on Priorities and Resources (CPR), the administration of the College revised its pay structure for custodians about seven years ago to eliminate wage increases tied to seniority within custodial operations, decreasing the earnings that an incoming custodian could expect to receive over a career of service to the College on average. The CPR, a faculty-student-staff committee tasked with advising the president of the College on resource allocation, became aware of this change last year after requesting more information on salaries of hourly employees at the College. The committee filed the request with Fred Puddester, vice president for finance & administration and treasurer. Puddester presented on the revision in pay structure, which is exclusive to custodial work and did not impact any other hourly-wage work at the College, as something that had already occurred, a point which Puddester confirmed to the Record. “The pay plan was changed seven to eight years ago, so since then all custodians have been hired under the current system,” Puddester said. “The College from time to time reviews salaries with an eye towards the market and makes the appropriate adjustments. I was not here when this particular change was made, but I can assume there were at least two factors involved: the salaries and benefits for our custodial staff are well above market and the College was feeling the effects of the recession and was looking for ways to reduce costs without impacting current employees or other mission-critical investments we make on behalf of faculty and students.”
The administration maintains that it is deeply invested in the economic well-being of the College’s custodial personnel. “Virtually all our custodians – who are full-time employees with full benefits – are paid more than $15 per hour and all will be over $15 per hour by next year,” Puddester said. “For our entire team of custodians, 80 percent of them make between $35,000 and $45,000 per year.” According to data from MIT, the living wage in Berkshire County is $11.04 per hour for a single adult with no dependents. Relative to other staff positions at the College, “building staff,” under which custodial service falls, has seen the smallest percentage increase in “staff salary expense” of any sector at the College, according to the 2016 staffing report authored by the provost’s office. Whereas resources dedicated to salaries for employees engaged in faculty support increased by about 29 percent and resources dedicated to salaries for employees, student support and extracurriculars increased by about 45 percent, resources dedicated to salaries for building staff only increased by 9 percent between 2003-2006, after accounting for inflation. Total salary for dining services, in this same period, went down after accounting for inflation. Still, Puddester asserts that the College values the work of custodial services. “I can’t say enough about the work of our custodial team and everyone in facilities,” Puddester said. “They are the most dedicated group I have ever worked with and they care deeply about the faculty, students and staff they support every day.” Moreover, Puddester maintains that the revision in pay structure does not undermine the College’s belief in the importance of retaining qualified custodians: “We are fortunate to have a high level of stability
with the staff. Almost a third of our custodians have been with the college for over 20 years. To me, this means we have an experienced team that is knowledgeable about the campus and can serve an important mentoring role to newer employees. An important component of this change was that it did not impact any employees working at the College [at that time]. In fact, the College, unlike many peer schools, did not let any employees go during the recession – despite a [roughly] 20 percent drop in the endowment.” The Record reached out to Bob Wright, executive director of facilities management, but he declined to comment.
WHAT’S INSIDE 3 OPINIONS A need for change in the dean's office 5 NEWS Williams 101: How the yearly budget works 7 FEATURES Spotlight on research: Prof. Matthew Chao 8 ARTS 'Brad's Status' plays at Images 11 SPORTS Athletic trainers heal student athletes
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