COMMENCEMENT 2019
VOLUME CXXXIII
SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 2019
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THE WILLIAMS RECORD
THE WILLIAMS RECORD COMMENCEMENT 2019 COMMENCEMENT 201
NEWS
Maud Mandel inducted as College’s 18th president Last Saturday, Sept. 8, the College inducted its 18th president, Maud S. Mandel. Rather than consisting solely of a ceremony, the induction involved a full day of community events. The College website described the experience as “a full-day celebration related to the theme ‘Inside/ Outside,’ notions of which powerfully influence how we experience the world.” The day started with a walk through Hopkins Memorial Forest, followed by welcoming remarks by past interim president and Professor of Physics Protik Majumder. Before lunch, the Williams College Museum of Art, the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance, the New South Science Building and the Davis Center hosted conversations centering around the theme “Inside/Outside.”... Mandel’s formal induction ceremony started at 4 p.m. in Chapin Hall and lasted approximately two hours. It began with a processional that included ceremony speakers, professors in academic dress and others. Instead of wearing her own doctoral robe, Mandel wore the College presidential robe for the first time. The ceremony was immediately followed by a picnic dinner on Chapin Lawn, which included an open bar and live performances by Soul Sensations, Homebrew, Sankofa, Ritmo Latino and NBC. Among the induction attendants were members of the Board of Trustees, community members, alumni, faculty, students and the president of Brown University, Christina Paxson. In addition to speeches from a wide range of College community members, Mandel and Paxson both received honorary degrees, earning the titles of Doctors in Laws. The presentation of these degrees is a rare honor that reflects their service to the College – Mandel by becoming President, and Paxson by serving as Mandel’s mentor at Brown. The ceremony prominently featured Board of Trustees Chair Michael Eisenson ’77, who delivered the welcoming address and officially inducted Mandel to the role of President. Other speakers were drawn from the staff (Rachel Louis, assistant director of the center for development economics ), the faculty (Denise Buell, dean of the faculty), the alumni (Kate Ramsdell, society of alumni vice president), the Town Community (Anne O’Connor, Williamstown select board chair), peer academic institutions (Deborah Cohen, professor of history at Northwestern) and the current student body (Lizzy Hibbard ’19 and Moisés Roman Mendoza ’19, College Council co-presidents). Hibbard and Roman Mendoza’s speech, the first after Eisenson’s, critiqued some aspects of
SOPHIA SHIN/PHOTO EDITOR
Mandel's speech emphasized how her descendence from Jewish refugees was formative in her studies of diversity. the College while simultaneously welcoming Mandel. “Before we begin, we want to acknowledge that Williams College sits on the territory of the Mohican nation,” Hibbard began, referencing the historical injustices that occurred on the site of the College. Roman Mendoza continued by highlighting past intolerances that the College itself perpetrated. “This would not be a true welcome without addressing our faults and our flaws,” he said. “Williams was not intended to look like it does today. It was not intended for people of color, for women and for so many other students that contribute to our community. What Williams looks like today came from the hard work of past and present students, faculty, staff and administrators. Let’s acknowledge their contributions and continue their work.” Hibbard and Roman Mendoza also mentioned several areas in which they believed the College remained lacking. In particular, they drew attention to the practice of having students on financial aid pay a significant portion
of summer earnings back to the College, the lack of need-blind admissions for international students and the perceived struggle of the College to address the underlying causes of mental health issues on campus. In addition, Hibbard drew attention to the current movement for Asian American Studies. “Students here fought for Africana studies and Latinx studies,” she said. “They are still, after three decades, fighting for Asian American studies. We must support them in these efforts.” Other speakers adopted more upbeat tones. Louis praised Mandel’s eagerness to learn about the College, addressing several of her remarks to Mandel herself. “In a few months here, you have already learned more about my department, the Center for Development Economics, than many who have been here for years,” she said. O’Connor brought attention to the fact that Mandel is the first female President of the College. “As roughly the seventh female chair of the Select Board, and in a town indebted to the contributions of women
leaders, including the tireless and valiant Carrie Greene, I am pleased to see that Williams College has finally caught up with the town in choosing a woman to serve in a top leadership role,” she said. Cohen praised Mandel’s commitment to education and referenced her history studying oppressed groups, particularly Muslims, Armenians and Jews in Paris. “[Mandel’s] passion for education as a way of living and for diversity as a moral, intellectual and pragmatic good, chime in perfectly with Williams’s traditions and its future,” Cohen said. ... In her own speech, Mandel discussed how her family’s history has shaped her views on discrimination. “I’m the granddaughter of Austrian Jewish refugees who fled with their 9-month-old daughter – my mother – via Hamburg in 1939 on the SS St Louis,” she said. “The last boat to leave Germany carrying Jews, the ship was turned away from its destination port in Cuba at the last minute. After also being denied entrance by the United States and in Canada, and with Florida still visible from the deck, the captain brought the ship about and turned his 937 passengers to Europe.” Members of Mandel’s extended family perished in the Holocaust, including her great grandmother whose last name was Strum, Mandel’s middle name. “The S that I always include when I sign my name Maud Strum Mandel is a testament to her and the millions of others who have perished,” she said. Mandel referenced the “Inside/Outside” dichotomy that served as a major theme for the day. “I want to start by acknowledging that this entire process of becoming your 18th president has involved a massive and exciting shift as I moved from outside Williams to very, very much inside. It would be hard to overstate just how moved I am to be before you today,” she said. Mandel also praised the College, at one point addressing the five former presidents who were in attendance. “The visionary work that you, my predecessors, have done, has positioned Williams exceptionally well to extend our already long tradition of excellence in liberal arts education,” she said. Throughout the speech, Mandel continuously touched on her personal approach toward education and scholarship, framing her mission. “The goal has been to inspire students to engage in practices of lifelong learning through channeling their curiosity, honing their analytic skills, and challenging their assumptions.” – Rebecca Tauber ’21 and Samuel Wolf ’21 (Sep. 12, 2018)
INSIDE THE ISSUE News
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Professors cancel courses, cite ‘violent practices’ ............. ...................... CC rejects Williams Initiative for Israel ............................ Storyboard halts Storytime ..................................................... ................
Opinions
Features
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Meme page fosters community though laughter .......... 1 College Reaction provides platform for discourse ............ 1 One in 2000 ............................................................................... 1 Bellringers delight campus with song ............................... 1
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........................................... 8 Changing the terms of the “free speech” debate............... An open letter from CARE Now ...................................... 10 C 11 Record editorials ....................................................................... 12
Arts
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Senior art show Slop .............................................................. 1 1 Student input helps “Judas Iscariot” impress .................. 2
COMMENCEMENT ISSUE
Sports
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Fall sports ....................................................................................2 Winter sports .............................................................................2 Spring sports ..............................................................................28 Athletes of the year ..................................................................2
Commencement
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Commencement overview ..................................................... 1 Fellowships..................................................................................20 C ............................................................................... 22
Editors: Jeongyoon Han, Brooke Horowitch, Danny Jin, Irene Loewenson, Jack McGovern, Samuel Wolf, Kevin Zhang Yang Front cover photo by Irene Loewenson and back cover photos courtesy of Irene Loewenson and Kevin Zhang Yang
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COMMENCEMENT2019 2018 THE WILLIAMS RECORD COMMENCEMENT
Professors cancel courses, cite College’s “violent practices” Two professors canceled their courses in the days leading up to the start of spring semester. In an email to students enrolled in her courses, Kimberly Love, assistant professor of English, cited “a refusal to continue business as usual” in the face of “the College’s violent practices” as the reason that she would not return to the College this semester. Kai Green ’07, assistant professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies (WGSS), is spending the semester on medical leave, writing in an email to the Record that the College is not a “safe place” for him. Love explained her choice in her email, which was forwarded to members of the Record staff. “My decision is rooted in a refusal to continue business as usual while many of us (students, staff, community members, faculty) suffer from the college’s violent practices,” she wrote. In a Jan. 26 email, Chair and Associate Professor of WGSS Gregory Mitchell informed students enrolled in Green’s course, “The Drag of Black Masculinity,” that “Professor Green will be taking an unexpected medical
leave and will not be able to offer this class next semester.” Green told the Record that the strain of the past three semesters prompted the recovery period. “Unfortunately, Williams is not a safe place for me as a Black Trans Man, currently,” Green said. “I hope that better days are on the horizon, but that is up to the institution’s ability to listen to its students, faculty and staff for real change. The problem of anti-blackness and transphobia on campus can’t be Band-Aided up.” When asked to elaborate, Green referred the Record to his and Love’s article November article published in The Feminist Wire titled “Lessons from the Damned, 2018; or Why We Cannot wait for Tenure to Insist upon our Dignity, Respect, Power, and Value.” The article stated, “We write this piece to add to the collective record of institutional harms as documented by Black feminist scholars.” In the article, Green and Love detail microaggressions and recount a racist experience with a local business. “Our collective experiences, dem-
onstrate how colleges and universities have not made structural changes to create environments in which Black, Brown, disabled, poor, queer people, and our work can thrive,” they wrote. “Through various isolating tactics, academic institutions can dull our awareness of the grave conditions under which we are expected to perform.” Love and Green connected this issue with problems in the country at large. “What we are confronting is not much different from what we are experiencing as a U.S. citizen or not, in a larger society, that is in conflict and is struggling to hold onto its moral and ethical center,” they wrote. “We are living the backlash of a National and global push for liberation by and for Black, Queer, Transgender, Poor, Feminine/Femme people, and our Allies.” With Love and Green not on campus this semester, 48 students found themselves searching for new classes, with 38 originally enrolled in Love’s courses and 10 in Green’s class. Two students were enrolled in both Love and Green’s classes, including Afoma Maduegbuna ’21. “To
have, literally, first day of classes, half of my classes gone kind of sucked,” Maduegbuna said. “I’m sad and angry on so many different levels… but I’m glad [Love’s] taking care of herself.” The WGSS and English departments have worked to accommodate these students. Since Green’s course was a senior seminar required for the WGSS major, Kiaran Honderich, lecturer in WGSS, now offers a course in the same time slot titled, “Advanced Readings and Research in WGSS.” Kathryn Kent, English department chair, met with students to help them find new classes. “This necessitated that professors in the department, as well as a few outside it, raise the enrollment limits on their courses or allow students to join after the first meeting, which these professors were more than happy to do,” Kent said. Dean of the Faculty Denise Buell confirmed that Green is on leave and declined to comment regarding Love. Love had not responded by deadline to the Record’s email requesting comment. – Rebecca Tauber ’21 (Feb. 6, 2019)
President instructs students to relocate memorial, citing fire safety On Feb. 19, students took down portions of an installation honoring Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Kai Green ’07 and Assistant Professor of English Kimberly Love in Hollander Hall at the request of President Maud Mandel, who cited fire code and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) violations. Students first began placing the installation in Hollander on Feb. 9. On Feb. 13, Keith McPartland, associate professor of philosophy and chair of the Schapiro-Hollander users committee, deconstructed and moved parts of it after clarifying with Head of Campus Safety and Security (CSS) David Boyer and Manager of Safety and Environmental Compliance Frank Pekarski that the installation violated fire codes. Neither Boyer nor Pekarski, however, instructed McPartland to remove the installation. After the partial removal, students created an even larger memorial. They relocated parts of it after Mandel confirmed that the installation was in violation of “both state law and campus policy.” The original installation – composed of flowers, poems, copies of the Record, Feminist Wire articles, artwork and notes – spanned a hallway on the first floor of Hollander Hall and gave students an opportunity to express their solidarity with and support for the professors, who each cited institutional violence as the reason for taking
leave before the start of the spring semester. The installation covered portions of the wall, though materials were also placed on the floor and the doors of the two professors. In an all campus email on Feb. 20, Mandel explained that last week, senior staff decided that the memorial materials “weren’t impeding movement through Hollander and should be left undisturbed for a period of time,” yet that they “would eventually have to be moved.” The email continued, “Our plan was to allow them to remain until we could discuss long-term options with students.” ... President Mandel ended the all-campus email with a call for unity. “I also believe Williams has what it takes to persevere and transcend its challenges to become a better place,” Mandel wrote. “In fact, I believe we have to. I’m grateful I’ll be working toward that goal in partnership with all of you.” To some students, Mandel’s calls for cooperation rang hollow. “I am highly critical of the fact that President Mandel’s most recent email prioritizes the defense of Professor McPartland, rather than interrogating the biased and violent removal of the shrines that he enacted,” Minority Coalition co-President Tyler Tsay ’19 wrote. “He took it upon himself to reach out to CSS and EHS [Environmental Compliance], seemingly looking
for any excuse to remove the materials; he took it upon himself to walk across to Hollander to remove the materials, even though senior administration was already dealing with it directly with students in a much more appropriate manner. Even if he did not intend his actions as violence (and that is up for debate), they certainly were violent in their result.” On the morning of Feb. 13, Boyer reached out to Pekarski. “I contacted Frank Pekarski when I heard that he was reaching out trying to get the items moved,” Boyer said. “[I] was told that the items in Hollander Hall were a clear violation of the building/fire codes and that the items had to be removed from the hallway.” In an email to the Record, Pekarski confirmed that the installation, as it was originally constructed, was in violation of the fire code. Pekarski said he was told “that the memorial wasn't to be moved while things were sorted out,” and Boyer said that he was instructed “that the items were to remain and not be disturbed by anyone in CSS.” “At the end of our conversation it was not clear who was going to remove the items,” Boyer said. “I gave Frank Pekarski the name of professor Keith McPartland, who is our listed contact for building matters in Hollander.” Pekarski said that he told McPartland “there were fire code issues,” though he noted
that he “didn't tell [McPartland] to remove the materials.” ... Around 3 p.m. on Feb. 13, McPartland began moving the materials in Hollander Hall, picking up the articles, poems and string that had been placed on the floor and moving them to a table on the first floor of the building. Students witnessed McPartland moving the materials from their original location and asked him why he had removed the materials. He told students that the materials were in violation of the fire code. That evening, students began construction of a new, larger installation. Printed photographs of Love and Green, copies of the Record and articles from the Feminist Wire – including the piece Love and Green co-authored – were hung from the walls and ceiling. Photos of Love and Green were placed on McPartland’s door, and a wreath of sticks were placed on the ground in front of it. Messages from the students were written on the pictures of the professors, including “Black Love is Not a Fire Hazard,” “We Remember” and “Free Speech At What Cost?” with the hashtags #BlackLives Matter, #SayHerName and #WeRemember written over the pictures as well. ... – Arrington Luck ’22 (Feb. 20, 2019)
“March for the Damned” honors on-leave professors Love, Green More than 200 students and faculty congregated on Feb. 21 in Hollander Hall to participate in the “March for the Damned,” a rally in solidarity with Black and Brown faculty and staff at the College. The march professed “radical love,” honoring Kai Green ’07, assistant professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies, and Kimberly Love, assistant professor of English. Green and Love took leave from the College earlier this semester, citing the College’s “violent” institutional practices and environment for their departures. “Dr. Green and Dr. Love have not died,” Isaiah Blake ’21 said at the march. “But we did want to recognize them as [martyrs]… We are creating a memorial to bear witness to their lives. We are taking up space because they took the radical act to do the same. This is a memorial not for the dead but for the damned.” The march’s organizers, Coalition Against Racist Education Now (CARE Now), described themselves as an “amorphous group of students who came together to hex all fascists.” A recently renewed student movement, CARE Now seeks to continue “in the legacy of Black-led organizing efforts on the Williams College campus.” CARE Now members gave speeches during the event, outlining their mission and goals.
The event was, as Blake described it, “a memorial for the memorial – a vigil for the vigil.” ... “We made this memorial to remind everyone to love your home. Your home is your body,” Blake said. “As we saw last week, Black love is a fire hazard. It’s passion, it’s painful, it scares people, it takes up space, it’s a little too salty, it’s a little too spicy… it’s too loud.” “We honor these professors with this event in recognition of all they did for our community, in recognition of the violence our community did [to] them and in recognition of their willingness to stand witness to the troubles within our community.” Rodsy Modhurima ’19 said near the end of the march. “We thank them for their commitment for radical love in all its forms and wish to follow their example in spreading love, light and gratitude to all faculty and staff of color and trans and queer folk.” Beginning at 12:40 p.m., students and faculty gathered inside the main floor of Hollander, where organizers handed out flowers and candles. Blake opened with a breathing exercise, allowing everyone who had come to march to take a few moments to recollect. It was then that the students introduced the cheer: “I love you/ I love me/ I love us/ I love we.”
As students began marching around Sawyer Quad, they continued to chant the message of love. It took over 10 minutes for the entire crowd to reach Baxter Hall – the final destination of the march. Once inside Baxter, students began chanting, “Take up space,” before proclaiming, “I love Black people/ You don’t love Black people/ What’s wrong with you?” A memorial had been set up near the fireplace in Baxter, featuring pictures and messages for Green and Love. Under the signs “March for the Damned” and “Black Love is Not a Fire Hazard” in Baxter, students hugged, chanted and expressed solidarity. ... Blake referenced the removal of the memorial in Hollander. “Black love is a fire hazard,” he said. “We’re flames; we’re heat. We are a community, a body of homes loving themselves radically. And that is hot.” Blake then passed the microphone to other students, who expanded upon CARE Now’s purpose and the aims of the march. Jesus Payan ’20 spoke further on why students march. “The current deprioritization of hiring ethnic … and affinity specialists relies on simply the logic of low enrollments, which are in fact a result of the lack of course offerings,” Payan said. “Dr. Green and Professor Love’s departure[s]
highlight the structural devaluation of knowledge that resists the academic status quo.” Participants expressed their dissatisfaction with the support systems the College has in place for faculty and students of color. Modhurima spoke of the College’s “refusal to hold assaulters and abusers accountable, in the ways students are tokenized and in the failure to call out and condemn white supremacy on this very campus.” Modhurima then presented a list of demands for the College, which included support for queer and trans faculty and faculty of color and staff, increased development of ethnic studies units, and further administrative transparency beyond just verbal support and affinity housing. “We will not be forced to make space with people who hate us,” Modhurima said. Following Modhurima’s concluding remarks on radical love, students wrote small messages on heart-shaped cutouts, which were placed around the central memorial. “Let’s take a moment to breathe and actually feel the love in this room because I feel a lot of it,” Isabelle Zorich ’21 said. Members of CARE Now did not respond to the Record’s request for comment. – Shreyas Rajesh ’22 (Feb. 27, 2019)
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BSU holds town hall exploring affinity housing
Community celebrates, commemorates 50 years of Africana studies
On Nov. 11, the Williams College Black Student Union (BSU) organized a town hall in Griffin Hall on affinity housing and Davis Center renovations. As the event flyer read, the gathering was to be “a space for students, particularly Black students, to reflect on recent events and the general student experience here,” granting students the opportunity “to voice concerns and work towards solutions.” The meeting was attended by students of varying racial, economic and sexual identities, as well as by a few members of the staff and faculty, including President Maud Mandel. Topics of discussion included affinity housing and the upcoming housing lottery, the existence or nonexistence of Black spaces on campus, the difficulties of the entry system for people of color (PoC), experiences with Campus Safety and Security (CSS) and the potential for the College to adopt “The Chicago Statement on Free Speech.” The town hall began with personal anecdotes from current Black first-years, who discussed their feelings of tokenization within entries and the lack of PoC Junior Advisors (JAs), particularly Black JAs to whom they felt comfortable turning. There was discussion of the burden Black first-years, and Black students in general, feel to “educate” their non-Black peers at a time when they themselves are trying to learn, dissect and understand their own experiences. ... Discussion of the entry experience interweaved with ideas about what affinity housing could potentially look like at the College. Rocky Douglas ’19, co-chair of BSU, explained how as a first-year she experienced constant microaggressions and felt obligated to educate her peers, ultimately leading to intense feelings of isolation. “Thank God I found Rice House [a Davis Center house autonomously managed by BSU]” Douglas said, describing Rice House as “this space I could go to and connect with upperclassmen, feel safe and not deal with microaggressions or feelings of alienation. I was in a space that was made with me in mind.” ... The relationship between some students of color and CSS was also a topic of discussion. Isaiah Blake ’21 described the POC community as a “magnet” for CSS, a sentiment echoed by other attendees. Douglas provided context to the group, explaining how “recently there have been multiple run-ins between Black students, Black spaces and CSS or people who are supposed to be policing the space in some way…” Several students expressed how they feel unsafe around CSS officers. Some examples of alarming behavior that attendees gave included PoC-organized parties, where room capacity was arbitrarily and significantly lowered on more than one occasion, as well as examples of condescending and rude tones some CSS officers have taken with PoC. ... One of the final topics addressed was the College’s potential adoption of “The Chicago Statement On Free Speech,” also known as the “Chicago Principles.” President Maud Mandel spoke about a petition that has been circulating among faculty requesting that Williams sign the Chicago Principles. Though she encouraged students to look up the Chicago principles themselves to get a better understanding of what they are, Mandel described them as “a kind of high-level set of principles encouraging the university to have a stance towards speakers; [that is,] anybody should be allowed to be invited to the campus that anyone in the campus community wants to have come.” According to Forbes, since February 2018, at least 35 universities have adopted the Chicago principles. ... This meeting was recorded and is available for viewing on the “Williams BlackStudents” Youtube channel.
From April 4–7, the Africana studies department celebrated and commemorated 50 years of Africana studies at the College, collectively remembering the individuals and movements that shaped and continue to shape the lives of Black students on campus today. Throughout the weekend, alums, community members and former faculty were invited back to campus to take part in a sequence of events that current students could attend as well. In March 1969, the Afro-American Society (AAS), which is now the Black Student Union (BSU), published a list of 15 demands that included establishing an Afro-American studies program, hiring additional Black faculty and creating a Black cultural center in which Black students could live. A month later, dissatisfied with the administration’s response to their demands, 34 students from the Afro-American Society occupied Hopkins Hall at 4 a.m. on Friday, April 4. The students remained there until the following Tuesday, when opposing parties reached an accord that detailed the tangible steps to be taken by the administration to meet students’ demands. The occupation was a culmination of many nationwide tensions and movements, compounded by frustrations felt by many Black students at the College due to the lack of administrative support for their demands. Not only did it follow the decades-long struggles of the civil rights movements and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., but the occupation took place during a wave of student activism at peer institutions. Just a year prior to the occupation, San Francisco State established the department of Black studies following the longest campuswide strike in U.S. history, which lasted for five months. ... The importance and significance of celebrating 50 years of Africana studies was echoed by alums who returned to campus for the anniversary. “At my high school, this guy who I used to play basketball with, comes and says to me that ‘the great grandson of Jay Gould, one of the robber barons of America, said that African American people, people of African descent are inferior because they have no culture, no history, no civilization.’ I asked, ‘What did the teacher say?’ My friend said, ‘The teacher fumbled.’ Since then, I started doing research, but I had nobody to guide me. This was in 1968 during the civil rights movement,” said Vernon Manley ’72, one of the 34 occupants of Hopkins Hall, on why an Africana studies program was not only important, but necessary. ... The remembrance of 50 years of Africana studies is a dual mission. Associate Professor of Africana Studies Rhon Manigault-Bryant, curator of the “For Such A Time As This” exhibition at Special Collections and organizer of the weekend, explained how Africana 50 was both a celebration and a commemoration. “It is not a small feat – it really isn’t. It is a tremendous thing to have been around for half a century,” Manigault-Bryant said. “But there’s also a commemoration aspect because that road has not been easy. There are literally people who fought tooth and nail with this institution, to try and make sure that there’s room for me and my colleagues to do the work that we do. “It is both thrilling and humbling, and it’s also an important reminder. We really feel like we have the onus to live up to those expectations, and that commemorative side is really important because that’s the part that reminds us [to] keep our feet to the fire, to hold ourselves accountable, hold our students accountable and hold Williams accountable.” ...
Students at the College have articulated a vision for living spaces of affinity around a common identity – including but not limited to race, culture and sexuality – as an antidote to feelings of tokenization and isolation that students say the College’s current housing options fail to address. Students say that they have began conversations on affinity housing last spring with administrators, who say that affinity housing will be a key topic of consideration as the College moves forward in the strategic planning process. A group of students met with administrators on April 15 about a current attempt to create an affinity space through the housing lottery. One of the 12 demands published by Coalition Against Racist Education Now (CARE Now) on April 12 requested the establishment of “affinity housing for Black students (and all other marginalized groups).” This demand calls back to the 12th of the 15 demands made by students of the Afro-American Society in 1969, when they occupied Hopkins Hall and called for the creation of a Black cultural center in which Black students could live. Currently, the BSU has “pseudo-autonomy” over Rice House, one of the legacies of the Hopkins occupation and 12th of the list of demands published in March of 1969, according to Rocky Douglas ’19, co-chair of the BSU. Douglas emphasized the importance of Rice House to Black students at the College in a December op-ed for the Record (“We belong where we are: A love letter to Rice House,” Dec. 5, 2018). “In that historic house, we work, we cook, we converse, we congregate, we praise, we dance, etc., ad infinitum. Dozens of students study in the Alana Haywood library on the second floor each week,” she wrote. Though not a residential space, the support Black students have expressed from spending time with each other at Rice House has been cited to be the key to their survival at the College, according to Douglas. “At one point, in response to comments about the microaggressions, feelings of tokenization and isolation many minoritized students have experienced in entries, I said, ‘Thank God I found Rice House, because I think that’s the only reason I was able to survive,’” Douglas wrote. Richardson reexamined student interest in the establishment of affinity housing last spring, when she conducted preliminary levels of student interest in affinity/identity housing at the College, for her senior seminar (AFR 476, “Black Radicalism”). In a poll that was distributed among a group chat with Black students at the College, when asked the question, “If Williams had identity/affinity/culturally specific living options, could you imagine yourself choosing to live in this type of house?,” nine out of 18 students responded “yes,” and six students responded “maybe.” ...
– Kristen Bayrakdarian ’20 (Nov. 14, 2018)
– Haeon Yoon ’21 (April 10, 2019)
– Haeon Yoon ’21 (April 17, 2019)
PHOTO COURTESY OF COLLEGE ARCHIVES.
50 years ago, students from the Afro-American Society occupied Hopkins Hall to advocate for Africana Studies.
Students organize housing builds first ever Black Previews
A group of current students at the College organized Black Previews, programming for Black students admitted to the class of 2023 that is designed to provide both supplements and alternatives to Previews, the admitted students programming organized by the Office of Admission, in an attempt to more accurately portray the experience of Black students at the College to prospective students. Black Previews events, which are open to all ’23s and include a cookout, academic panel, extracurricular discussion, party and more, began on the night of April 16 and continued through April 17. This is the first time that students have coordinated events for prospective students who identify as Black. The events were created with the aim to give Black prospective students the opportunity to enter shared spaces with current Black students, and to better understand life at the College from the perspective of some Black students, according to organizers, some of whom found Previews events to be “exclusive” when they attended as prospective students. Prospective students are welcome to attend both Black Previews and Admissions-organized events; for example, prospective students could chose to attend either or both of the dinners offered by Black Previews and Previews. Isaiah Blake ’21, one of the organizers, said that students, including those who are affiliated with Black Student Union, felt compelled to create Black community for prospective and current Black students alike to foster inclusion at a predominantly white institution. “Every time we create space for community, we create the affinity spaces that we’ve been calling for,” Blake said. “Creating Black community is beautiful, but always threatening to institutions of power. But it always gets created because it’s necessary. Black community helps us survive predatory violence.” Seyi Olaose ’22 and Blake attended last Tuesday’s College Council (CC) meeting to request funding for Black Previews, and they expressed displeasure at the ways in which CC treated the request and interacted with them, characterizing the experience as racist. Blake said he was “appalled by how this was handled.” At the meeting, Olaose elaborated on the necessity for Black Previews. “A lot of the events at Previews are very exclusive and do not really show students what it is like to be a Black student at Williams,” she said, emphasizing the importance “to connect Black prefrosh with students on campus and help them commit to Williams.” ... Current students helped organize Black Previews, work that involved planning events, creating shirts and programs and more. – Jeongyoon Han ’21 and Rebecca Tauber ’21 (April 17, 2019)
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COMMENCEMENT2019 2018 THE WILLIAMS RECORD COMMENCEMENT
CC rejects Williams Initiative For Israel At its April 23 meeting, College Council (CC) voted 13–8 with one abstention against recognizing Williams Initiative for Israel (WIFI) as an official registered student organization (RSO). During a CC meeting one week earlier, Council members had voted to table WIFI’s initial request to gain RSO status. WIFI was the first club in over a decade that complied with all CC bylaws for recognition but failed to gain RSO status, according to archived CC minutes. In both meetings, there was heated debate among a number of guests, including representatives of WIFI and students advocating against the club. Last week’s meeting had nearly 20 guests, most of whom advocated against WIFI, and included Palestinian students who shared personal stories of trauma that they experienced while growing up in Palestine. Most debate centered around WIFI’s stated mission and purpose, which, according to the group’s constitution, “is to support Israel and the pro-Israel campus community, as well as to educate the College on issues concerning Israel and the Middle East.” The club also plans to hold events, including Jewish cultural events and celebrations of Jewish and Israeli holidays. “What we’re looking to do is to engage in educational initiatives, hold events, bring speakers to campus from a wide variety of political backgrounds with this issue and just put out more information so that students can look at all the available info and make a decision for themselves,” said Molly Berenbaum ’21, a leader of WIFI. “We’re really not interested in dictating a political position to students or faculty here.”
Students advocating against WIFI took issue with the lack of specificity they saw in WIFI’s stated mission. “From our perspective, there are ways of supporting Israeli statehood that don’t support the occupation or human rights abuses against Palestinians, but there are ways of doing that that definitely do,” said Joseph Moore ’20, who attended and spoke at both meetings as a guest. “[WIFI’s] inability to take a political stance with reference to those issues was incredibly problematic, and I think it came out during several parts of the conversation.” Mohazzab Abdullah ’21, who attended and spoke at the second meeting, shared similar sentiments. “Generally speaking, [Israel is] a state involved in an active conflict that is one of the really vile and problematic conflicts on the planet right now,” Abdullah said. “Regardless of what angle you approach it from, I think almost everyone will agree that massive abuses are happening, and I think that you need sort of a special consideration and debate when it comes to voting for RSOs that affiliate themselves with a state involved in such a conflict.” Several members of WIFI said that, during the meeting, they felt that the guests opposing their club were trivializing past Jewish oppression and concerns about anti-Semitism in their statements, including when one guest said: “I have Jewish friends, I have Jewish professors, my advisor is Jewish … I attended Shabbat dinners because I am not anti-Semitic, and I have a lot of Jewish friends.” Later in the meeting, a member of WIFI argued that Israel was not colonialist and was not committing genocide against the Palestin-
ian people because the Palestinian population has risen in recent years. “Even when you consider the fact that the Palestinian population is rising, it’s because they have a high fertility rate,” Moore said after the meeting. “Generally, populations in war zones have higher fertility rates because they don’t know if all of their children will make adulthood.” Abdullah shared additional concerns about the way that members of WIFI, in his opinion, were invoking the Holocaust to dismiss the experiences of Palestinian students who shared personal stories about their childhoods. One student shared that a gun was pointed to their face by an Israeli soldier when they were a child. “I don’t think that when you’re talking about your oppression at the hands of another state, I don’t think when a child is talking about having a gun shoved in their face by a soldier at the age of five, they should have the Holocaust thrown in their face,” Abdullah said. “No one in that room doubts that the Holocaust was everything that it was absolutely horrible and nightmarish and that the Jewish community genuinely has reason to need a strong state in the region, and no one doubts the fact that the Jewish state does face hostility from other Arab states in the region. But the way that should be interpreted is not to block legitimate and genuine criticisms of the state. That’s like saying that just because Pakistan was once colonized, the genocide we committed in Bangladesh should not be talked about because ... our army need[s] to be strong to protect us from future neocolonialism. I come
from a place that has also suffered, I have a heritage that is mutilated, but I don’t throw it in the faces of Bangladeshis if they were to ever bring up or organize something to the effect of raising awareness of Pakistan’s abuses in the 1971 war.” Prior to the actual debate in the April 23 meeting, there was a discussion among Council members and guests concerning how the meeting would be recorded and archived given a flurry of recent national media coverage of College events. In particular, a livestream from a Council meeting earlier in April has been featured on a number of alt-right and white nationalist blogs and websites, and some College students have received explicit threats, according to both guests and CC members who spoke at the meeting. CC ultimately decided not to publish a livestream for the April 23 meeting and published meeting minutes without any speaker names in a document accessible only to students and faculty with Williams emails. ... In the time since WIFI was voted down as an RSO, Berenbaum and members of the organization have had a number of meetings with faculty, staff, faculty advisors and administrators, looking ahead to strategize on how the club can exist on campus without being an RSO. “There are two holidays coming up ... which are Israeli Memorial Day and Independence Day, so we're also planning an event to mark those days,” Berenbaum said. “We’re definitely not going to just dissolve away and disappear.” – William Newton ’20 (May 1, 2019)
Theatre department cancels Beast Thing Students, faculty discuss free speech On Thursday, the theatre department announced the cancellation of its production of the play Beast Thing. The show, written by Aleshea Harris and described by the department as a “play-in-progress,” contained controversial and potentially traumatizing content and was directed in a manner that consistently left many participants feeling uncomfortable, leading to its cancellation. The play was directed by Visiting Assistant Professor in Theatre Shayok Misha Chowdhury, who previously directed The Wolves in the fall of 2017. The play centered on the burdens and consequences experienced by a town that hid away its sins; it was also intended as a platform for actors of color to express themselves outside of a white-dominated theatrical framework. “I wanted to bring Beast Thing to campus because Aleshea Harris’ work pushes back against that internal and external censorship, which artists of color are constantly navigating,” Chowdhury said. The performance would have involved copious violence, including “gun violence, selfharm, nooses and hanging, animal cruelty, silhouetted nudity/sex acts and infant death,” according to the event description.
Students involved in the production felt disconcerted with many aspects of the play. One of the actors in the show, Liliana Bierer ’19, emphasized that everyone involved came away with different reactions. “There is no single narrative of how or why [the cancellation] happened, no monolithic experience or conflict with clear sides,” she said. Of the 12 students initially cast, six quit the show within the first few weeks due to issues with the content. “Beast Thing, from the very beginning, was a play fraught with issues,” Onyeka Obi ’21, one of the actors who chose to remain in the show, said. “It was a cast[ing] that aimed to seek out PoC [people of color] from the community and yet ended up a majority white [cast]. This concern … led to a fissure that resulted in an exodus of most of the remaining people of color [in] the cast.” Kester Messan-Hilla ’21, an actor who left the performance, explained his complicated relationship with the show. “My involvement in Beast Thing mandated the suppression of the self,” he said. This suppression, MessanHilla felt, made his continued involvement in Beast Thing untenable. ... – Samuel Wolf ’21 (Nov. 7, 2018)
PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE.
The theatre department hung posters around campus announcing the last-minute cancelation of Beast Thing.
On Oct. 29, several members of the faculty sent out a petition calling for the College to adopt the Chicago Statement on Principles of Free Expression, originally released by the University of Chicago in July 2012. The statement, which addresses the occasional disinvitation of controversial speakers, claims that almost all speakers should be permitted to address an institution of higher education, citing the importance of free speech. The university, the statement said, “is committed to the principle that it may not restrict debate or deliberation because the ideas put forth are thought to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed.” However, the statement also made exceptions for banning harassment or defamation. Since 2012, 45 colleges and universities have adopted the statement. While many faculty members collaborated on the petition in support of the Chicago Principles, the three names associated with the petition were Associate Professor of Biology Luana Maroja, Associate Professor of Theatre David Gürçay-Morris and Professor of Philosophy Steven Gerrard. The petition took a strong stance in favor of the Chicago Statement and free speech on campus in general. “While there is an understandable desire to protect our students from speech they find offensive, doing so risks shutting down legitimate dialogue and failing to prepare our students to deal effectively with a diversity of opinions, including views they might vehemently disagree with,” the petition stated. The creators of the petition wrote that they hoped that, if the petition gained sufficient signatures, it could gain the attention of President Maud Mandel and ultimately lead to the College’s adoption of the Chicago Principles. ... Shortly after its introduction, the petition generated controversy amongst faculty, staff and students, and was discussed at a forum on Nov. 11, which demonstrated the range of ractions and pushback on the petition and Statement. Gail Newman, professor of German, who spoke with faculty against the petition and reached out to supporting students organizing
against the petition, took issue with the language and divisive nature of the Chicago Statement. “The Statement ... ignores the fact that both of these concepts [‘freedom’ and ‘civility’] have been used over and over again to shut down legitimate calls for conditions of safety that would allow the voices of those who haven't been heard to come forward,” she said. ... The students who worked on the response then created the Coalition Against Racist Education Now (CARE Now). “The student letter that surfaced in response to the faculty petition was co-authored and edited by over 20 students from a wide range of identities and positionalities,” CARE Now members said in an op-ed submitted to the Record. “It was, above all, a democratic, grassroots project from start to finish.” When approached by the Record for comment, CARE Now members chose not to comment beyond the student petition and their op-ed. The student-led petition rejected the Chicago Statement and expressed anger with the faculty petition; the students were frustrated by their lack of voice in the conversation. “Not allowing students into the discussion and circulation of the petition limits the potential for conflicting viewpoints and is thus completely antithetical to a free speech premise,” they wrote. ... In response to the variety of petitions, articles and responses regarding the Chicago Statement and the College’s policies, Mandel sent an email to faculty, students and staff taking action to continue the conversation. “I’ve decided to charge an ad hoc committee with exploring various points of view and making recommendations for how [the College] can ensure an educational environment that’s both intellectually open and inclusive,” she wrote. Mandel explained that she will counsel with “leaders of faculty, staff and student governance” when forming the committee, which will “contribute to the development of guidelines appropriate for [the College].” ... – Rebecca Tauber ’21 and Samuel Wolf ’21 (Dec. 5, 2018)
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COMMENCEMENT2019 201 THE WILLIAMS RECORD COMMENCEMENT
Storyboard halts Storytime as it reevaluates its mission On Sept. 26, Storyboard, the group behind Storytime, announced the decision to put a temporary hold on Storytime, citing the need to reflect on its mission and make changes to the event. The sabbatical has no firm end date, but Storyboard hopes to “revive a storytelling space, in a form that is to be determined by the community, by the end of the semester,” the board wrote in an email to the Record. “In the past year, Storyboard has been grappling with its mission and questions such as: how does one’s identity inform one’s experience as a speaker and a listener?” the six students who make up Storyboard wrote last Wednesday evening in an email to the student body. “Thus, we have decided to put Storytime as usual on hold, as we open up this conversation to the entire Williams community.” Storytime, the weekly gathering in which a member of the community shares a personal story to a crowd on the second floor of Paresky, is a College hallmark. ... According to Bilal Ansari, Assistant Director of The Davis Center and advisor to Storyboard, the board’s decision to pause Storytime fits into a broader campus movement about “the consumption of black stories, black lives and black narratives.” This movement took hold following the performance of Ars Nova’s Underground Railroad Game last spring, according to Ansari. The show, created and performed by Jennifer Kidwell and Scott R. Sheppard and directed by Taibi Magar, is a provocative comedy about confronting America’s history of slavery, according to The Berkshire Eagle. The performance at the College sparked controversy, Ansari said. “It had to do with the de-
PHOTO COURTESY OF ANGELA YOU ’20. Storytime took a break in fall of 2018 as it reconsidered its structure and purpose and reached out for feedback.
piction of African-Americans as slaves, scenes of painful episodes of our enslavement for comedic consumption on the stage and dolls in blackface on the flyers of advertisement,” he added. “Black people were in the audience, and we were experiencing it in tears while our white friends were experiencing it laughing.” The aftermath of the show led to the cre-
ation of a movement, organized by a former Minority Coalition (MinCo) co-chair, called ‘At What Cost?’ “It sparked some powerful and introspective conversations,” Ansari said. “Students began to say, ‘Let’s call a pause on anything to do with painful stories where people are just sitting there laughing or consuming others’ pain without a deeper effort at commu-
nity building.’ And so because of that kind of confluence between different things that were going on around campus, Storytime did some self-reflection, asking questions like, ‘What is our mission? What is our purpose? What are we really meaning to do with this space and this time?’” In the last week of the spring semester, Storyboard went on a retreat “organized to consider and address recent conversations on campus surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion with regards to the space we create,” the members of Storyboard wrote. It was then that Storyboard decided to put Storytime on hold. “Upon realizing how unclear our mission was and the potential need for dramatic change to the preparation and execution of Storytime, we thought it would be most responsible for Storytime to take a sabbatical,” Storyboard wrote... Storyboard sent an open-ended survey to all students in the email that announced the sabbatical. “We want to hear any and all thoughts you have – what you love about Storytime, how we can do better, or anything you want to say,” the board wrote in the survey. Many of the responses have been pleas to bring back Storytime, according to Ansari. The board also held a town hall in the Henze Lounge at 9 p.m. on Oct. 14. “One of the main reasons we decided to put Storytime on hold is we wanted to devote all of our energy to these conversations and changes,” Storyboard wrote. “We believe that addressing these important topics and running Storytime at the same time would be compromising.”... – Irene Loewenson ’22 (Oct. 3, 2018)
JAs react to new system, larger entries Following investigation, College Council votes Last year, the Junior Advisor (JA) system underwent significant changes. Due to gradual decreases in both applications and in students accepting the position, the Junior Advisor Advisory Board (JAAB) changed the standard entry format from having two JAs responsible for approximately 20-to-25 first-years to having three or four JAs responsible for approximately 30-to-50 firstyears. Over a month since JAs and first years arrived on campus, the Record sent a survey to this year’s JA class asking for comments about the new system. Of the 45 JAs to the class of 2022, the Record received 13 responses. Many current JAs’ initial reactions to the new system were negative or ambivalent when it was first announced last year. For example, Paul Shiels ’20 had concerns about co-JA dynamics. “I thought communication could be a problem with three or four JAs more than with two, and I thought entries would be more divided,” he said. Conrad Wahl ’20 described himself as “profoundly disappointed,” and Nate Jones ’20 was unsure about the large amount of first-years in each entry. “I was primarily worried about getting to know all my frosh personally with larger entries,” Jones said. ... JAAB Co-Presidents Jad Hamdan ’19 and Jesse Facey ’19 were more hopeful about the introduction of the new system last year. ... “Though the system underwent a change compared to the previous year, the JA system has historically seen various configurations that don’t fit the two-JA per entry of 20-25 frosh model. The changes were not as revolutionary as many might have viewed them, as the entry system has evolved numerous times,” they said. Associate Dean of the College and Dean of First Year Students David Johnson ’71 withheld judgment when the JA system was reconfigured. “I went into it with an open mind, fully supportive, especially since the JAs really own their own system. Our role in the dean’s office is more advisory,” he said. Having worked at the College for 29 years, Johnson echoed Hamdan and Facey’s perspective on the JA system as an evolving entity. “It’s part of the path of students trying to
figure out what the best way to self-govern is,” he said. “It seems to me a good way to take stock… Change seems so dramatic and so immediate and then we sit back and look at it as part of a gradual ebb and flow.” ... Over half a year since the introduction of the new system, many current JA responses appeared more positive than their initial thoughts, recognizing the benefits to the current structure. Jones has found that the larger size improves social dynamics. “I love the size of my entry,” he said. “I think the size has made it easier for people in the entry to find groups they like hanging out with, at least early on.” ... Despite these positives, many JAs have also experienced challenges and had some of their worries realized. Some JAs noted that while having multiple co-JAs shares responsibility more evenly, it can also make communication more difficult, both within JA teams and between the JAs and their first-years. ... Wahl believes that the larger entry size disrupts the unique social dynamics created by the prior entry system. “No single social unit functions as a group of 40 – or 50 for that matter,” he explained. “Naturally, any group of 40 is going to fragment into more tangible and functional social units. And naturally, these sub-groups are going to be more homogeneous – like will find like. But the formation of these homogeneous subgroups undermines what it means to be an entry: friendship among people who, traditionally speaking, would not otherwise have reason to become friends.” ... Despite the challenges, Hamdan and Facey also believe that the overarching attitude towards the new structure is favorable. “From what we have personally heard in speaking to a number of JAs, the response has been largely positive,” they said. “We’ve heard positive things from frosh too who are excited that they get to know more people and have remarked that they can imagine that having more co-JAs is easier on their JAs. That kind of feedback makes us very optimistic.” – Rebecca Tauber ’21 and Samuel Wolf ’21 (Oct. 3, 2018)
to retain treasurer; censures co-presidents On Dec. 4, College Council (CC) voted 12–7 to retain Treasurer Spencer Carrillo ’20 and mandated he attend educational sanctions to improve his performance. CC also voted 11–7 to censure CC Presidents Lizzy Hibbard ’19 and Moisés Roman Mendoza ’19 for raising the charges against Carrillo without placing it on the agenda or notifying CC before the Nov. 13 meeting. The vote followed a report by the Student Government Conduct Committee (SGCC), chaired by CC’s Vice President for Student Organizations Maria Heredia ’20 and Vice President for Community and Diversity Shane Beard ’20, which found Carrillo failed to meet some of his duties but recommended against removal. CC did not livestream or record the meeting – in contravention of its own bylaws – and made all votes taken during the meeting anonymous, asking CC members to close their eyes. Hibbard and Roman Mendoza presented the case against Carrillo. They reported that he failed to close out CC’s accounts on time over the summer and delayed the College’s audit, failed to file vouchers – as noted by administrators in the Controller’s Office and the Office of Student Life – and communicated unprofessionally and unreliably with CC subgroup treasurers, the CC presidents and the Minority Coalition chairs. During the summer and fall, Carrillo responded simply, “No” or “No thank you” to numerous requests from Hibbard and Roman Mendoza to discuss his performance. “Moisés and I tried reaching out to Spencer privately many times, spoke with multiple administrators, and brought this issue up at the CC executive meeting prior to discussing it in general Council,” Hibbard said. “We regret it had to rise to this level. As per the CC Constitution the presidents have the sole responsibility to ‘set the agenda for the College Council.’” Carrillo defended his performance. Regarding the summer transfers, he wrote, “That er-
ror was not a result of my malpractice… it was clearly confirmed to me by a previous Treasurer that when I completed the transfers didn’t matter.” He also alleged that the submission of many vouchers was not his job, but the assistant treasurer’s, and defended his communication style: “If I am emailing someone who I know well or am friends with, I am not going to go through the tedium of drafting a formal letter to them.” Other representatives called for consideration of the method by which Hibbard and Roman Mendoza brought the matter up on Nov. 13, which they percieved as inappropriate. “Any president bringing complaints forward in such a way, effectively lambasting a council member in public for what came off as personal reasons, is acting in a way that is distasteful, unwarranted, and unprecedented. It is something that cannot be tolerated by this or any Council moving forward,” said Representative Lance Ledet ’21. Ultimately, CC felt that Carrillo’s performance fell short of what his duties required but agreed that it implicated broader concerns with CC’s bylaws and operations and did not merit removal. “If in any way Spencer were being a structural impediment to making our system better, I’d understand that. But he’s not. He’s willing to work on these things and he wants to,” said Vice President for Student Affairs Abel Romero ’19. “We appreciate the hard work put in by Maria and Shane,” Hibbard and Roman Mendoza said. “Their report found Spencer in violation of three of our bylaws and we agree that their proposed suggestions of structural reforms are a good way to move forward after the vote tonight.” The full investigative SGCC report can be found on the Record’s website. – Nicholas Goldrosen ’20 (Dec. 5, 2018)
THE WILLIAMS RECORD
Professor Kent berates Professor Wang, sparking broader concerns over racism in English department On April 17, two students saw Chair and Professor of English Katie Kent behave aggressively toward Professor of American Studies Dorothy Wang, a woman of color, in an approximately 15-minute verbal confrontation in Hollander Hall. Wang, a former faculty affiliate in English, had approached Kent on her way to a departmental meeting to ask Kent if the meeting would discuss the recent leave of Assistant Professor of English Kimberly Love. Love had cited the College’s “violent practices” as a reason for her departure at the beginning of the spring semester. Wang had previously expressed concerns about the cancellation of recent English department meetings. For her, they were reflective of the department’s unwillingness to discuss what she sees as its longstanding history of hostility toward faculty of color (FoC) – a concern that had compelled Wang to disaffiliate from the department several weeks ago. The two students who witnessed the event – Jamie Kasulis ’20 and Emily L. Zheng ’20 – have met with Dean of the Faculty Denise Buell and President of the College Maud Mandel about Kent’s behavior. The two have called for Kent's resignation, citing her role in what they perceive to be issues of structural racism in the department. Kent wrote notes of apology to Wang, Kasulis and Zheng, but all three found the apologies insufficient and disingenuous. Students have organized a protest, “Love and Accountability: Occupy Hollander for FoC,” for May 10 from 12:30–1:30 p.m., calling for recognition of what the organizers call “violent racism” in the College’s treatment of FoC. Students have also invited the community to express gratitude and support for FoC, and have called for Mandel and administrators to address issues of racism at the College against people of color (PoC). ... The incident began slightly before 4 p.m., when Wang and Kasulis were walking through Hollander Hall and saw Kent. Kent was on her way to the department’s first meeting of the semester, and Wang asked Kent whether that meeting would include discussion of Love. According to Wang, Kasulis and Zheng, Kent reacted immediately and negatively, saying that sufficient conversations around Love had already been held. “Professor Kent got immediately irritated,” Kasulis said. “She took a defensive posture. She raised her voice.” When Wang mentioned the particular relevance of Love’s departure for the English department, given Love’s critiques of feeling unsafe and unwelcome, Wang said that Kent responded, saying, “‘She was talking about the College, Dorothy. She wasn’t talking about the department; she was talking about the College.’” For Wang, that statement was emblematic of what she sees as the English department’s continual inability to reconcile with its historical and present-day manifestations of racism. Kent briefly left after making that statement, and Wang said to Kasulis, “This is why I disaffiliated from English.” Upon hearing Wang’s comment, according to Wang, Kasulis and Zheng, Kent immediately turned around and made an incensed statement closely resembling, “Are you talking shit about me to your students?” “She was literally yelling in the hallway,” Kasulis said. At that point, Zheng, who had been listening from a chair across the hallway, walked up to Wang and Kasulis. ... Zheng said Kent’s tone and physical posture made her fear for the safety of Wang and Kasulis. ... After the incident, Wang alerted Buell, leading her, both students and Kent to submit statements and recount their experiences to Buell in person. According to Kasulis, these meetings resulted in
the corroboration of their stories. “When I went in to talk to Dean Buell, she said that Kent had already come in, and that our stories lined up,” Kasulis said. Buell declined to comment beyond confirming the meetings’ existence. “I am aware of this incident, have met with the involved parties, and have consulted with President Mandel, and will not comment on an ongoing matter,” Buell said. Kasulis and Zheng also met with Mandel at 4:30 p.m. yesterday. Kasulis found the meeting unsatisfying but did not comment further. In an email statement to the Record, Kent wrote: “During an encounter with Professor Wang and two of her students in Hollander Hall on Wednesday, April 17, I raised my voice and spoke to her using inappropriate language. I should not have yelled or sworn – I shouldn't have accused her of ‘talking shit about me’ to her students. Professor Wang’s questions about what I take to be confidential Departmental and College matters caught me off-guard and made me both upset and defensive. Nonetheless, I regret speaking to her in that way. I also regret putting her students in that uncomfortable position. It wasn’t my best moment. I lost my cool, and I apologize. All of us have moments where we wish we had done better – this is one of mine.” While Kent sent letters of apology to Kasulis and Zheng, both students said that the apology was “not adequate at all.” ... Kasulis, Wang and Zheng described the incident as emotionally harmful. “This is something that none of us are going to forget happened, and for a week afterward I would wake up in the middle of the night and think of it,” said Kasulis, who reported that she was physically shaking throughout the incident. According to the students, the incident confirmed what they felt were longstanding issues within the English department and a departmental culture of intimidation, fear, racism and disrespect toward FoC, and in particular FoC who specialize in academic fields relating to minority literature and other underrepresented disciplines. “To think also that Dorothy Wang has been at this school for 13 years – how is she supposed to call this place home if stuff like this happens to her?” Kasulis said. Wang expressed similar sentiments about the English department. “It confirms Kimberly Love’s assertion about violence of the institution,” Wang said. “People think she was just being hyperbolic, or they don’t understand. They’re always like, ‘Oh, what do you mean? Did somebody punch her in the face?’ That’s been the response, right? But [there are] all of these forms of violence: psychic, verbal, denigrating what we do.” ... Vince Schleitwiler, acting assistant professor in American ethnic studies at the University of Washington, who taught at the College from 2008–2015, concurred with Wang’s statement. Schleitwiler pointed to problems within the English department extending even before his time at the College. “The English department had a poor reputation and a poor record with regard to students and faculty of color when I was there, and for at least a decade or more before that,” Schleitwiler said. ... Update: On May 20, over one hundred professors, academics and alums, including multiple Pulitzer Prize winners, sent an open letter to Mandel on behalf of Wang. The letter, entitled “Crisis at Williams?” expressed solidarity with Wang, lauded her scholarly accomplishments and condemned Kent’s treatment of her. – Jeongyoon Han ’21 and Samuel Wolf ’21 (May 8, 2019)
COMMENCEMENT 2019
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Staff discuss low morale, feelings of alienation Among College staff, a “significant morale issue on campus, especially among support staff workers,” has existed for up to a decade, according to the Williams Staff Committee (WSC). Staff members say that they feel expendable and unvalued at the College, a perception that is exacerbated by a lack of involvement in decision-making and an inability to advocate for themselves. Fear of “retaliation,” staff members said and WSC confirmed, often dissuades staff from voicing their concerns to management. Many staff members expressed hope for change in the near future, however, with the arrival of President Mandel and the beginning of the strategic planning process. Staff members will hold seats on the strategic planning coordinating committee and on each of the eight working groups to assist in determining priorities and initiatives for the College to adopt in the coming decades. Five staff members across Dining and Facilities and one former employee spoke to the Record about management’s disregard for worker concerns, general feelings of alienation and their experiences of what they felt to be racist, sexist and homophobic treatment. These employees spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation and of losing their jobs. They requested that stories of their individual treatment not be published because they feared they would be identified and face retribution for speaking publicly. Comments from WSC suggest that
other staff have expressed similar concerns to WSC but that they have been afraid to voice their opinions to managers. ... The 2009 Faculty-Staff Initiative (FSI) Report documented many of the problems that staff continue to face. FSI was a grassroots group of faculty and staff “concerned about problems with recruiting and retaining faculty and staff of color.” “Staff often feel that they are valuable only in relation to the services they provide for faculty and students and are, therefore, dispensable and replaceable,” the report stated. “The compression of status of all non-faculty at Williams to one all-inclusive, low-caste-like, seldom recognized category remains an issue through which staff feel overlooked as members of the community.” The FSI Report demonstrates that these issues have persisted for some time, according to Andrew Cornell, visiting assistant professor of American studies. “All of these voices are saying 10 years later: That hasn’t changed, and they’re feeling the same thing,” Cornell said. Staff surveys that WSC conducted in 2014 and 2017 confirmed the existence of a morale problem to the committee. “According to the 2014 and 2017 staff surveys, morale is low,” WSC representatives told the Record. “And it’s certainly something we haven’t fully moved the needle on.” ... – Daniel Jin ’20 (April 3, 2019)
200 Departures of faculty of color in 2007 prompted the formation of the Faculty Staff Initiative (FSI), a grassroots group that examined the experiences of minority faculty and staff at the College. Led by Professor of Latina/o studies Maria Elena Cepeda, then-Professor of Africana Studies at the College and current Associate Professor of English at Rutgers Stéphane Robolin and Professor of American Studies Dorothy Wang, FSI published a report in 2009 that outlined many problems faculty and staff of color faced and provided suggestions for concrete future steps. The recent cancellation of couses by Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Kai Green ’07 and Assistant Professor of English Kimberly Love has compelled a closer examination of the College’s history regarding its retention and well-being of faculty of color. Contributors to the FSI Report said that the problems presented by the report are still relevant, and administrators said that they recognize those problems and are committed to working to address them. Professor of Art Laylah Ali ’91, who signed the report, maintained the continued significance of the report’s findings. “The College’s optimistic POC rhetoric and statistics do not always match what is happening on the ground, with colleagues, in meetings, in our town, etc. for many faculty of color, both untenured and tenured,” she said. “We need to really address both recruitment and retention of staff and faculty of color not simply through words and reports and committees — there have been quite a few of these in my almost 18 years as faculty here — but through actions that will profoundly and rapidly change the conditions under which we are operating, not just put out fires or nibble at the edges. And the College has historically treated faculty of color who challenge the College’s mainstream, outdated approaches as troublemakers or as difficult indi-
viduals instead of hearing the truth in what they are raising, often at great cost to themselves.” Dean of the Faculty Denise Buell recognized the struggles of minority faculty as a problem that requires collaborative effort to resolve. “This is work that’s on our minds all the time, that we’re collaborating around, she said. “This is work that can’t just be done in or from Hopkins Hall. It’s really important to have college leadership committed to improving the institutional climate, to make it one that is truly equitable for all. But it’s not sufficient just for leadership to say these are our core values. The entire campus community needs to own and participate in the work if we are going to live into these values.” While the College often creates committees and issues reports, Wang emphasized the unique nature of the FSI report. “It’s almost unprecedented to see a grassroots working group that just appears, especially among untenured junior people,” she explained. According to Robolin, the unconventional nature of the report stemmed from what he characterized as the administration’s unwillingness to work on the problems raised by minority faculty around the time of the departure of many professors of color in 2007. “There was very explicit discussion between us and the dean of the faculty,” he said. “We didn’t feel as though that sense of crisis was taken as seriously as those of us on the ground felt it to be. Therefore, we decided to move on our own.” ... In light of the issues raised, the FSI report gave suggestions to improve the experiences of faculty and staff of color. For faculty, report suggestions included, “Formalize the relationship between departments and programs ... offer regular professional development around diversity and inclusion,” and more. ... – Rebecca Tauber ’21 (Feb. 13, 2019)
THE WILLIAMS RECORD COMMENCEMENT 2019
8
OPINIONS
WILLIAM CHEN ’19, SERAPIA KIM ’19, RHEA JIANG ’20, SUIYI TANG ’20, JONATHAN DENG ’21, AUDREY KOH ’21, AMBER LEE ’21, LILIANNE AU ’22 and KEVIN ZHANG YANG ’22, MEMBERS OF ASIAN AMERICAN STUDENTS IN ACTION (Oct. 24, 2018)
DARIN LI ’21
ROCKY DOUGLAS ’19 (Dec. 5, 2018)
We belong where we are: A love letter to Rice House On November 11, 2018, the Black Student Union (BSU) hosted a town hall in Griffin 3. What we originally intended to be a discussion on housing and the upcoming Davis Center renovations turned into the most radically political space I have ever seen at the College. We contrasted the fear of white supremacists being allowed to speak on campus if the College adopted the Chicago principles with the shortage of adequate institutional support and affinity housing for students of color and queer students. Students expressed feeling as though Campus Safety and Security officers automatically assume Black and Brown students to be suspect and, after a student recounted an incident of being pulled to the ground by an officer, I imagined what it would be like for “Black students [at Williams] to be in spaces that are made for us where people cannot arbitrarily call the police on us.” At one point, in response to comments about the microaggressions, feelings of tokenization and isolation many minoritized students have experienced in entries, I said, “Thank God I found Rice House, because I think that’s the only reason I was able to survive.” We could have just as easily been conversing about the lack of affinity housing or the multiple hate crimes that have occurred on campus during my time here because, in many ways, Rice House is structurally connected to all of these issues. Rice House is a part of the legacy of Black student activism at the College. As a result of Demand #12 of the Afro-American Society’s 1969 occupation of Hopkins Hall, the basement in Mears House was given to Black students as an autonomous space on campus where we could feel welcomed, supported and comfortable. Our original housing was disrupted when the College reapportioned Mears House into offices and moved the African, Black and Caribbean groups to Rice House in 1983, which had been a co-op since 1981. This move occurred during the same two-year period that a cross was burned on the lawn of Perry House, the BSU’s office was ransacked and President John W. Chandler and many Black students received threatening phone calls. This move significantly altered the prospect of affinity housing at the College. The original placement of the BSU in Mears House gave us proximity to firstyear housing, dining services and the center of campus. Still, Rice House is the clos-
est the College has come to affinity housing and safe spaces for Black students, though there have been multiple movements for affinity housing at the College and alumni regularly remind us that there have been numerous attempts to “take” Rice House. Although, the threat to “take” Rice House seems to be mitigated for the time being, and students welcome the long overdue renovations, the struggle to maintain Rice has been decades long. I personally believe the deterioration of Rice House comes from that building carrying the burden of trying to provide all of the institutional support Black students have demanded over the decades but have yet to fully receive. That, and decades of delayed care. Rice House, though it is in desperate need of repair, is proof that there is beauty in struggle. Black culture and Black identities across time and space are created, preserved and restored through the act of gathering. Rice House is the only pseudoautonomous Black space on campus where we can consistently and freely do this. In that historic house, we work, we cook, we converse, we congregate, we praise, we dance, etc., ad infinitum. Dozens of students study in the Alana Haywood library on the second floor each week. Numerous organizations cook, serve and eat food together regularly to mitigate the homesickness many of us have here. Each week in Rice, whose walls are saturated with Black culture, groups host meetings where we digest and critique our experiences at the College, process current events and distract ourselves from the chaos. Rice House is home to Black Restoration Days, food festivals, collaborative joint meetings, career panels and cooking events for students and alumni during Homecoming. Frequently, Sankofa, NBC, Ritmo, BSU, SOCA and members of the general Black community utilize the space on weekends as an alternative to other campus parties, which do not feel welcoming to all minoritized students. The list of ways Rice House has been vital to me and other Black folk here goes on. In some ways, this op-ed is meant to connect the struggle to maintain Rice House over the past three decades to other struggles on campus. In other ways, this op-ed serves as a preservation of history. Above all, this is a love letter to Rice House, to the Power of Black students and to my communities. I could not have survived this place without y’all.
In support of affirmative action: Members of Asian American Students in Action speak out The Asian American Studies Movement at the College stands firmly in support of affirmative action. We recognize Michael Wang ’17, who has voiced support for ongoing efforts to dismantle affirmative action, as a former member of the Asian American community at the College; consequently, we realize the importance of holding those in our community accountable for their anti-Blackness and classism. We will not stand for Michael Wang’s egregious actions, and we are taking the necessary steps to address them, both within the College community and at large. The history and philosophy of Asian American Studies (AAS) is premised on challenging hegemonic structures of thinking. As part of the umbrella of ethnic studies, AAS traces its origins to the student activism at San Francisco State and UC Berkeley the late 1960s, when coalitions of Black, Latinx, Indigenous and Asian American student activists recognized the disciplinary violence of their Euro-centric curriculum, and organized strikes to push for its dismantling. As a discipline, ethnic studies challenges white privilege and interrogates instruments of racial violence. Thus, it is inextricably linked with the restorative project of affirmative action, which considers race in the college admissions process, for not only does it seek to incorporate the knowledges of those marginalized, but it also aims to mobilize higher education in a project of reparations. Any representation without redistribution is then but a guise that upholds the status quo. The first wave of Asian American admissions into academic institutions is directly indebted to the efforts of Black and Brown activists in the 1960s and 70s. Pushed by the leaders of the Black Panthers, NAACP, Third World Liberation Front and many others, the U.S. government in 1964 signed into law the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discriminatory practices based on race. Institutions of higher education were required to develop affirmative action programs specifically geared towards hiring qualified “minorities,” which, as defined by the Department of Labor, included Black, Latinx, Native American, and Asian American people. As designated beneficiaries of affirmative action, many Asian Americans gained admission to reputable schools in the 1960s and 70s. Helen Zia, a prominent Asian American activist, writes in her memoir Freedom Dreams that affirmative action — and the legacy of coalitional, Black-led activism during the Civil Rights era — allowed her, and many others like her, to go to college. Claiming that it would be fairer if colleges did not consider race during admissions because only the highest-achieving and “worthiest” students should get into top schools, opponents of affirmative action dangerously neglect the problem of structural inequality. The notion of an “equal starting point” is hardly realistic in a country founded upon genocide and enslavement. Structural inequality — whether that be racist zoning laws or financially inac-
cessible extra- and co-curricular activities — means that many students are not afforded the opportunities to discover their passions and fully develop their academic strengths. Countless studies have shown that these inequities lead to unequal outcomes. It is often remarked that all people are born equal, but it is patently wrong to claim that all people grow up under equal circumstances, and it is egregiously wrong to believe that all people will achieve their full capacity without access to the same resources. The point of affirmative action is not only to be fair, but is also to enact justice in a systemically unjust and unequal society. Affirmative action enables people of all races and of all socioeconomic statuses to represent themselves in society by claiming positions of power. Asian Americans have long occupied a place of instability and contradiction in our country’s racial matrix, characterized by Claire Jean Kim in Racial Triangulation as a wedge, in service of white people, to divide minorities against each other. Anti-affirmative action activists echo this logic when they claim the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action, like Black and Latinx folk, are taking Asian Americans’ spots in the college admissions process. However, ample research suggests that it is in fact white applicants who would benefit the most from abolishing race-conscious admissions, not Asian American ones. Despite the language of affirmative action opponents, which characterizes college admissions as a “zero sum game,” as Michael Wang puts it in an interview with Buzzfeed, and requires someone “to lose for someone else to win,” in fact, the only real winners of anti-affirmative action are white applicants. The flagrantly anti-black rhetoric which has surrounded Asian American complaints against affirmative action — that affirmative action benefits Black and Brown students at the cost of Asian American students and that all recipients of affirmative action are somehow “lazy” or “unworthy” — reveals a dangerous failing on the part of our community. The collaboration between Edward Blum and the “Asian American Coalition for Education,” of which Wang is a part, sees the alliance of a white supremacist with a group of predominantly upper-middle class, light-skinned, East Asian American men. Their efforts have the effect of maintaining a strict order racial hierarchy not only in the academy, but the world at large. Their unsubstantiated claims — about “merit,” “worthiness” and “equality” — display ignorance of structural injustice. On behalf of Asian American Students in Action, we stand for students of color — especially Black, Brown and Indigenous students, who have historically been denied the promise of higher education — and reaffirm our commitment to working with members of our community to dismantle anti-blackness and classism. In line with our mission and ethics, we firmly uphold affirmative action.
THE WILLIAMS RECORD
9
COMMENCEMENT 2019
CHERYL SHANKS, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE (Nov. 14, 2018)
Letter to the Editor: Why the College should not ban speakers Dear Editor, In 2015, many faculty at the University of Chicago agreed with, and signed, a statement advocating that the university not ban speakers. Faculty at other institutions have since voted to adopt similar statements, and one has been circulating among faculty at the College. I am among its signers. To some, signing signals disregard for the harm that hate speech inflicts on vulnerable people. I want here to outline my own reasons for making this commitment. First, to sign on to this statement is not to reject safe spaces. The College should allow for, and even provide, safe spaces. In
fact, it does. That provision does not mean that the College itself, in entirety, should be a safe space. Second, banning speakers is the same as banning books. A speaker is just an essay with a podium. Sawyer library’s collection includes eight versions of the reactionary, racist film “Birth of a Nation,” three versions of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and scores of books discussing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, each of which contains a copy of this manifesto against the Jews. If we choose, we can access more repulsive propaganda via interlibrary loan. The third week of September each year is national banned books week, and several weeks ago the
College and the local town libraries participated by defiantly displaying books that have been banned. I appreciate this display, and find it hard to see how a person can support free access to loathsome ideas in print but categorically reject their being spoken aloud. Third, specific people, by definition those in power, get to decide what is left alone and what is censored. It is naïve to believe that censorship, once allowed, will be wielded by the relatively powerless and vulnerable. That just seems foolish. We should respond to hateful speech and hateful speakers – but with politics rather than with law. Those like me who advocate
LILIANA BIERER ’19, ROCKY DOUGLAS ’19, ISABEL PEÑA ’19, CARLOS CABRERALOMELÍ ’20, SUIYI TANG ’20, ISAIAH BLAKE ’21, AUDREY KOH ’21 and ANNALEE TAI ’21, MEMBERS OF THE COALITION AGAINST RACIST EDUCATION NOW (Dec. 5, 2018)
Changing the terms of the “free speech” debate: Confronting national anxieties towards campus diversity The student letter that surfaced in response to the faculty petition was co-authored and edited by over 20 students from a wide range of identities and positionalities. It was, above all, a democratic, grassroots project from start to finish. We are now continuing under the name “Coalition Against Racist Education Now” (CARE Now) in the legacy of Black-led organizing efforts on the Williams College campus. It is vital to say that CARE Now is not interested in entering a debate about free speech in this current moment. A policy or committee that deals solely with free speech or expression is not the solution. Rather, we insist on recognizing the positioning of “free speech” for what it has become: moral ammunition for a conservative backlash to increasing diversity. As a grassroots collective of student organizers, we are concerned with long-term base-building that far surpasses rebuttals to “free speech” crusaders. To be clear, this “debate” is not about free speech, nor is it about decisions about whom the College invites to speak and whom we do not. It’s a matter of mutual trust and respect between students, faculty, staff and the institution as a whole. By using “free speech” as a discursive cover, those on the right have controlled the terms of debate such that they will always have the moral high ground and divert attention from what is really at stake here. Of course, we don’t want to restrict people’s ability to speak; rather, we aim to question which ideas we promote by way of honorariums and institutional platforms. For this reason, we refuse to accept the terms of this debate. Instead, let’s see the faculty petition for what it is: an institutional manifestation of a national anxiety towards a more diverse student and faculty population, not an invitation to a dialogue. After we can all agree that this is the ultimate root of this debate, we can then take steps to address it. We want to talk about the issue at the heart of this, which is the reality of bringing in students and faculty from marginalized backgrounds to create a “diverse” institution and expecting their silence and acceptance of the status quo. We will not accept this reality. Prejudice cannot be talked away; more “dialogue” is not the answer. Oppression can’t be fixed with rational debate because oppression is not rational. Once we all agree
that bigotry simply is not an “opinion” that can be swiftly invalidated in a “two-way discourse,” that such discourse instead needs to involve dismantling the very institutional and systemic forces that demean and denigrate marginalized students, and that the faculty petition represents institutional anxiety towards a more diverse student and faculty population, then we can take steps and move forward. Perhaps the authors and signers of the faculty petition did not have the intent to harm and silence students and faculty of marginalized identities, but they have chosen to enter a national debate that is harmful, toxic and ultimately must be recognized by the faculty and administration. Intent does not equate to impact. The issue we – the administration included – need to address is establishing and improving resources that aid students’ livelihoods and support their well-being, as well as maintaining and strengthening the spaces, resources and networks created by and for students that already exist on campus. Only then can the College truly claim to offer all its students the resources and supports they need. Institutions of higher learning have been reckoning with this for decades and the various student groups who have already taken practical steps to further this conversation have gone largely ignored. For example, the Williams Black Student Union (BSU), has been hosting all-campus Town Halls for years. This year, the BSU’s Town Hall brought students together to voice their concerns about the state of the College, and the “free speech” debate was brought to the floor. Student groups, primarily affinity groups, have furthered conversations about the future of higher learning in relation to diversity decades before the current “free speech” crusade began. The BSU among others has led the charge in creating solutions for these problems, and they are continuously publishing op-eds about current campus issues. These historic and present dialogues are entirely overlooked by framing this as a debate on “free speech,” further erasing and marginalizing the ideas and presence of Black members of the Williams community.
We also wish to decenter this faculty versus student narrative. The petition, though sponsored by several faculty members, has not garnered the support of all, or even a majority of the faculty body. Since the writing of the student petition, several dozen Williams faculty members have removed their names from the Chicago Statement, and the statement itself has been all but rendered defunct. Now, the faculty organizers, President Mandel and various other members of the Williams community are calling for open “dialogue” around the principles of our “educational environment,” centering the Chicago Statement without explicitly mentioning its name. As stated earlier, we contest the framing of this policy as one of “debate” or “dialogue.” Additionally, we point to the College aphorism, “death by committee,” and note the meager place of student voices on the committee and the ineffectual process through which they are appointed. Student appointments to President Mandel’s “ad hoc” committee are representative of the ineffectual and unjust process through which student voices are appointed. Though the administration deems College Council and the Minority Coalition the de jure voices of the student community, the fact of the matter is that both are concerned primarily with logistical tasks – of registering student organizations, events and budgetary distributions. To task these logistical bodies with the responsibility of filling the seats on the committee is to resort to the myopia of bureaucracy and is, ultimately, an act of bad faith. We do not need yet another committee to investigate how our educational environment can be made more “open and inclusive.” Again, we ask: open, and inclusive for whom? Instead, we challenge the Williams community to consider, together, the fundamental anxieties of “diversity” which underwrite the contemporary discourse of “free speech.” How might we offer forms of redress or protection to those institutionally, historically and currently imperiled bodies-in-question? We can and must make way for alternatives. Until then, all efforts at “dialogue” are but a ruse. Beyond this statement, we have chosen to not comment on our next steps as we are focusing on building coalition and self-care.
free expression need to attend arenas in which people express nasty views, engage with them and stand up to them. It is not especially responsible to advocate for free expression of ideas without at least talking back, trying to call out the agendas and interests behind them. I believe that we – faculty and staff and students to whom this matters – should help students learn how to stand up for themselves rather than withdraw the College from the world. Yours truly, Cheryl Shanks Professor of political science
CLASS OF 2019
BY THE NUMBERS
Applicants: 6883
Admitted: 1159
Percent Admitted: 16.8
Matriculants: 551
Male/Female (%): 48.8/51.2
International students (%): 8.0
U.S. students of color (%): 38
Average Verbal SAT Score of Admitted Students: 720
Average Math SAT Score of Admitted Students: 708
THE WILLIAMS RECORD
10
COMMENCEMENT 2019
JAMIE KASULIS and EMILY L. ZHENG ’19 (May 8, 2019)
Bearing witness to aggression against faculty of color: Calling for accountability from the College for structural racism On April 17, we witnessed egregious faculty-on-faculty aggression in Hollander Hall. We were walking with our professor, an Asian American professor of English and American Studies, when Professor Kathryn Kent ’88, chair of the English department, passed by on her way to a departmental meeting. Our professor asked if the meeting would discuss Assistant Professor of English Kimberly Love, who cited the College’s violence as the reason for her medical leave this semester. Since our professor is the person who was targeted in this situation and most harmed, we have deemed it inappropriate to name her in this article. Professor Kent immediately began to raise her voice at us. She shouted obscenities and publicly berated our professor. She tried to turn us against our professor by suggesting that it was our professor’s fault that Kent had made a scene. To be clear, all that our professor had done was ask an innocuous question and, unlike Kent, never raised her voice during the entire encounter. Furthermore, Jamie Kasulis ‘20 voiced that Professor Kent’s behavior was inappropriate, and firmly expressed her discomfort with Kent’s presence. It took multiple verbal requests from said student before Kent finally walked away. The only thing unique about this incident is that there were students there to witness it. In reality, this sort of violence,
as well as numerous other forms of it, have been going on at the College for years. The fact that claims of violence are so often belittled and dismissed by disciplinary bodies, administration, faculty and students are in itself a mechanism of institutional violence. The silencing and vilification of faculty of color (FoC) who speak out about political and institutional issues is violence. The constant request for more evidence of racism is also violence because it invalidates the ways in which racism harms our mental health and our bodies. In all of these situations, the burden of emotional labor, accountability and healing is disproportionately held by FoC. Racism is foundational to the structure of the College. Its effects are slow, suffocating and silencing. It permits people to shrug their shoulders and ask, “What violence?” It permits people like Kathryn Kent to escape accountability for their actions. We are writing this piece because we refuse to comply with this violence. We are writing this as two students of color who are infuriated about the ways in which our FoC mentors are being treated. And we are calling on all facets of our community to stand with us in rallying behind FoC and holding Kent accountable. For this reason, we are calling on Kent to resign as chair of the English department immediately. Kathryn Kent, you have failed to fulfill your responsibilities to your
FoC colleagues and students of color. But unlike them, you have had the privilege of receiving the benefit of the doubt over and over again. In your resignation letter, you should do the following: Acknowledge that your tenure as chair has been fraught with racist violence, which you have both perpetuated and failed to adequately address; apologize to the faculty whom you have harmed; and actively seek to make repairs and reexamine your privilege. You can take for granted that Williams is your home, while students and faculty of color have to fight to make a home out of Williams. It is behavior exactly like yours that makes it so hard for people of color to remain here. To our FoC mentors: Thank you for being here. Thank you for looking out for us on top of looking out for yourselves. Thank you for working to create change, call out violence and make this place a safer community for us all. We see you and we’re with you. To the administration: We call on you to remove Kent from her position if she does not resign by the end of the semester. Failing to do so clearly indicates your disinterest in protecting people of color on this campus. Furthermore, your reliance on slow, bureaucratic processes fails to take seriously the urgency of the situation. Students and faculty of color have been rallying at three times the speed with half
the resources to do the work that the administration fails to do. While they are doing that, it is on you to educate yourselves on what you need to know in order to do your job, which is to protect this campus’ students, faculty and staff. To the entire community: What happened on April 17 is just the latest example – one which has the privilege of becoming public – of a legacy of institutional violence. The issues that we raise in this piece are not merely interpersonal, but systemically related to the broader structural violence that is ingrained in the culture of this College. As such, let’s acknowledge the work that CARE Now has been doing all year to show love for FoC, to hold the College accountable, to envision a better Williams and even to outline the steps we need to take to manifest that vision. Let’s also acknowledge that this work did not begin with CARE Now, but has been taken up by students, faculty and staff for decades. But the burden of this work cannot and should not be left to the usual groups of individuals – it’s on all of us to take seriously the ways in which we are implicated in the College’s violence, and to continually work to undo that harm. As for us, we will never move through Hollander Hall in the same way again. We will never take an English class again. And we will always wonder what faculty of color are going through that we don’t know about.
COALITION AGAINST RACIST EDUCATION NOW (April 24, 2019)
An open letter to the Office of the President We are the Coalition Against Racist Education Now (CARE Now), an active and growing collective of student activists born out of resistance to the 2018 faculty petition on the Chicago Statement. We follow in the footsteps of our predecessors: the original 1988 CARE was a Black and PoC-led movement that sought justice for minoritized peoples in response to lacking institutional support for queer and PoC students and faculty. Over 30 years later, we are fighting these same fights. We garnered almost 400 student and alumni signatures in protest of predatory and hate speech in the fall of 2018. We organized a 200-strong March for the Damned on February 25th after the departures of Professors Kai Green and Kimberly Love due to the violent practices of the College. On April 12th, we presented the Board of Trustees with a similar list of demands tailored to their fiduciary role, and met with two trustees the following morning. The board failed to provide a public response to any of our demands by claiming that these issues fall under the purview of campus governance. This avoidance of responsibility is unacceptable, given that these demands are largely the same as what has been asked for over the past ten, twenty, fifty years. Thus, we now turn inward to hold ourselves accountable as a campus and ask that you join us in working towards making Williams a place we all can love. This document is more specific than the one presented to the trustees because as an administrator, these details are your responsibility. Additionally, as Williams is a faculty-governed institution, we urge you to spearhead conversation about demands specific to the Williams fac-
ulty and staff, rather than wait for others do it first (bystander apathy). Part of what has impeded the progress of similar movements in the past has been the co-option and dilution of their messages, and we hope the longer version of this document clarifies our position and clears the way for progress. In the spirit of attempting to overcome institutional inertia, we ask that you respond to these demands with a clear plan of action by Friday, April 26th at 5pm EST. A plan to form committees is not a plan of action, unless those committees are directed for the purpose of implementation only. 0. We demand a complete process of reconciliation to Indigenous peoples including the increased hiring and admittance of Indigenous faculty, staff, and students as well as the repatriation of life and land back to Nations impacted by the College’s ongoing settler occupation. The College must take concrete steps towards reconciliation, such as funding a multi-year fellowship for an outside researcher to investigate Williams’ history and relationship with slavery and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples. 1. We demand Williams College improve accessibility on campus, expand the Office of Accessible Education, create funds for urgent health needs, and streamline support for medical leave. 2. We demand increased admission and hiring of students, staff, and faculty with diverse abilities. 3. We demand the College increase funding to the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity (OIDE), meant to be directed to the Davis Center, to reflect the growing number of minoritized students
on campus and address the OIDE’s responsibility to the faculty. 4. We demand a thorough, external, and independent investigation into the practices and conduct of CSS, focusing on officer interactions with minoritized students. This must be accompanied by mechanisms for prevention and response to abusive and/or racist instances. 5. We demand the preservation and expansion of campus affinity spaces and their resources. 6. We demand a structure of sexual violence accountability which centers survivors rather than institutional stability. 7. We demand the necessary supports such that survivors can function and heal on our campus. 8. We demand the college implement measures of accountability for perpetrators of physical or sexual violence. 9. We demand the College increase pay to a living wage and eliminate pay inequity for staff in Dining Services and Facilities. 10. We demand the College create permanent and unmitigated networks of support for junior faculty of color. 11. We demand the expansion of Ethnic Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies by hiring new faculty and establishing new fellowships. 12. We demand the establishment of enrollment options and teaching fellowships in Native Studies, Trans Studies, Disability Studies, and Fat Studies.
These demands exist because we love Williams. They exist because the parts of Williams that we love exist in contradiction with the practices of the institution. Our love for the communities we have curated for ourselves is violated when the campus chooses to deprioritize accessibility, our spaces and bodies are over-policed by CSS, and we exist in constant fear of no contact orders being violated. Our love for Rice House and Black spaces on this campus is overshadowed by the absence of affinity housing as an option and the lack of affinity spaces for other minoritized people on campus. Our love for Black faculty is circumscribed when there are too few to love: when requests for an Africanist are neglected and existing professors are inadequately supported. Our love for the idea of liberal arts is undermined when there are gaping holes in the curriculum caused by the departures of faculty of color, and non-hegemonic systems of knowledge are constantly delegitimized. Our love for the staff who work so hard to keep this institution running is agitated by the pay inequities they face, as well as their lack of job security, inability to advocate for themselves, inability to speak out against the administration about their problems, and unjust working conditions. The list of paradoxes goes on. We love Williams. All we are trying to do is make the Williams we love, love us.
All we are trying to do is make the Williams we love, love us.
THE WILLIAMS RECORD
COMMENCEMENT 2019
11
LILIANA BIERER ’19 (Nov. 14, 2018)
On artistic process and accountability: Reflections on the cancellation of Beast Thing
There is no single narrative of how or why Beast Thing was cancelled, no monolithic experience or conflict with clear sides. It has been messy and muddy the whole time, as theatermaking needs to be. Theater is a space of true accountability; it is one of the only things I have never been able to bullshit. It holds me accountable to my own body and the knowledge it holds, and to the people in the room who witness it. For me, theater is fundamentally about creating an erotic embodied experience in a room with people. And I say “erotic” in the Audre Lorde sense: a sense of feeling and intuition lodged deep in the belly. Theater can tap into realms of experience that challenge the structures of knowledge that have been concomitant with the rollout of centuries of colonial violence. It is a space that allows for something more. I deeply respect all the work the designers, the director, the playwright, the crew and the cast have put into Beast Thing. I am grateful and so saddened that it will not materialize. But simultaneously I could not trust that the experience we were working to create would be generative. I could not trust that this audience – a room of my peers, my loved ones, my acquaintances, my community members – was being considered with care for the multiplicity of potential traumas they hold. I want to clarify that what I mean here is not that as a theater-maker one must know exactly the effect that a show will have. Nor do I believe that discomfort is dangerous. That would be naïve and anathema to the act of setting artistic work free. But those who witness a work must be
able to engage with its content, rather than be so engulfed by re-traumatization that the work as a whole becomes unintelligible. It is we, the actors, who would have been held accountable for the harm of the show. And there is an inherent manipulative power dynamic in that reality. We had little say in the decisions, yet we were charged with carrying them out in our bodies. In my experience, and I speak for no one else, the cancellation of Beast Thing was as much about the place of violence onstage in a small community like Williams as is it is about the process. I am both an actor and an organizer. In my organizing, a central tenet of community contracts is the notion of trusting intent and owning impact. In order to do the work, you need to trust that everyone is there with good intentions, and if people make mistakes, you hold them accountable for the harm they have done and for the impact of those intentions. With regard to certain pieces of violent imagery in the show, it became clear that there was no intention explicit and thoughtful enough to merit this imagery. And so for me, the question of owning impact could not even take place because the intention was not clear. But I think the reason it unraveled so quickly is that throughout the process, we as actors were continually disrespected, silenced and manipulated in the service of an artistic vision and conversations about which we were often not privy to. I firmly believe that theater is political. And in doing the kind of work that Aleshea Harris is making – one that opens up new possibilities for writers and artists of color in a stifling white
world – I think that process has to mirror its product. It is not just about what you make and who makes it, but how it is made. If we are to build new work, we damn well better treat people well along the way. What are we working towards if we cannot act out our espoused values? There was a culture of silencing that developed in the room, in which I did not feel valued as a whole person. Work about violence must be done, but it must be done as a labor of love, and that is not what happened with this piece.
DARIN LI ’21
SERAPIA KIM ’19, LINDA WORDEN ’19, OLIVIA TSE ’19, JESUS PAYAN ’20, LILIANNE AU ’22 and KAI SOTO-DESSEN ’22 (Feb. 6, 2019)
Accountability in College Council: How CC can serve marginalized communities What does accountability look like in College Council (CC)? This Council’s failure to acknowledge the negligence of duty and the lack of professionalism in the communications of a Council member revealed to the student body the weakness of the CC code of conduct to remove unfit leaders from positions of power. According to the CC Constitution, “Council members may be removed from CC for nonattendance or misconduct as defined by the Council bylaws.” The problems that arose last semester during Council stemmed not from the fact that there is no mechanism for removing problematic members but that this mechanism is dependent on our unclear, outdated and inadequate bylaws. Although several recent bylaws have been proposed and/or passed, including a short code of conduct and an impeachment bylaw, the process of making CC a more accountable institution of power is far from over. Accountability should be more than removing problematic leaders. It should be built into the institutional structure of CC, in the form of new bylaws that would set up a variety of clear standards for CC members to be held to. We must ensure that the next Council is made up of members that live by values that include listening to, believing in and meeting the needs of marginalized students on campus. There are several concrete steps CC can take to be more accountable to the student body that
it is supposed to be serving. One such way is by improving mechanisms of communication. It seems dishonest for class representatives to invoke the opinions of their constituents when there has historically been no easy way for their classmates to communicate with them. In response, we are looking to set up a Google Form, sent via weekly CC emails, so that students can submit thoughts and concerns to their representatives. For students desiring to voice their concerns directly, sending the agenda of weekly CC meetings to the entire student body would allow those with a particular stake in an issue to show up when they are being discussed. And meetings should resume livestreaming for ease of access to important discussions and decisions made during the meetings. Lastly, polling the student body on pertinent issues before their passage as well as holding larger town hall meetings with the student body on a semester basis could provide structured ways of evaluating the efficacy of CC in bringing about desired changes to the College. Above all, the only way to ensure that CC serves marginalized students and is held accountable for their actions is to center its actions around the voices of these students. Having been on CC or having worked closely with other CC members, we recognize the disproportionately large influence that CC members wield through their votes. Thus, it would
While I am left feeling guilty, unsatisfied, angry, sad and empty all at once, I am at least heartened by the bold act of collective power building that the students carried out. It holds promise for large structural changes at the College, which we desperately need. My kind of freedom does not wield and brandish content in the name of free speech or expression. No, it is rooted in deep connection and community accountability. And toward that goal, work remains.
be ideal if the demographic makeup of Council members reflected that of the larger student body so a given community’s needs can be properly represented. However, the authors of this op-ed are hesitant to imply that students ought to run to have their concerns and needs met. Students of color, LGBTQ+ students, low-income students, immigrant students and other marginalized students are preoccupied with a number of other burdens that more privileged students do not face. The upcoming tenure of CC is notable in its gross lack of candidates. Many students of color, and women of color in particular, who have historically been deeply involved in CC are not seeking re-election due to burnout. Although we cannot speak to their personal experiences, we can deduce that the particularly high-stress nature of this past semester’s Council contributed to their decision. But beyond that, the Class of 2019 and 2020 are each missing one candidate, and the Class of 2021 has not a single student running. Such lack of student enthusiasm is indicative of brewing mistrust in CC by the student body as a whole. Therefore, it is ultimately the responsibility of all Council members – especially those who are currently unaware of the most pressing needs of the community – to acknowledge and address the needs of the students they are supposed to be representing.
A YEAR ON THE RECORD “This new generation of professors of color – some of them are much more radical than what the College is used to, and Love and Green just happened to speak out in this way that ripped a hole in this fabric.” – Professor of American Studies Dorothy Wang on changes in campus discourse surrounding faculty inclusion, page 7. “This senior class means the world to me. They were the first group that said they wanted me to be their head coach. They made it their goal to leave a mark on a program that already had a lot of history. Even though three of them were 1000-point scorers, the entire class was always all about [the] team and each other.” – Men’s basketball head coach Kevin App on the team’s season, page 27. “I was with [co-host Adrian Black ’19] every step of the way, making sure that when he made posts [in the Facebook group], I liked them. I liked three-quarters of the posts he made on Facebook.” – Mack Radin ’19 on his role in hosting the Hoxsey armistice party, page 14.
THE WILLIAMS RECORD 12
COMMENCEMENT 2019
EDITORIALS THE WILLIAMS RECORD EDITORIAL BOARD
Centering inclusiveness in the College’s mission: A call for renewed attention to issues of minority faculty and staff well-being (Feb. 13, 2019) With the recent leaves of Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Kai Green ’07 and Assistant Professor of English Kimberly Love, the College’s need to foster an inclusive environment to support faculty and staff from all backgrounds and of all identities has become ever more apparent. This concern has been long-standing; the Faculty-Staff Initiative (FSI) Report in 2009 centered the retention of faculty and staff of color as a pressing issue. In the College’s mission statement, the Board of Trustees writes, “Diversity is not an end in itself, but a principle flowing from the conviction that encountering differences is at the heart of the educational enterprise.” Diversity and inclusion are not peripheral but central concerns to the College – the departure of members from our community because they feel unwelcome and unsafe should be of grave concern. The issue of retaining faculty of color, in particular, is all the more pressing with the expansions taking place in several academic units. As one example, the Curricular Planning
Committee Working Group on Asian American Studies’ recent recommendation to create three faculty positions in Asian American studies and eventually a program in the discipline will necessitate an equitable environment at the College that can sustain the long-term retention of faculty. The recent expansion of Native and Indigenous studies in the American studies program is another. Formalizing these disciplines is crucial to satisfying student demand and upholding the liberal arts mission of the College. An equally important element of this mission is affirming and supporting all scholars. Therefore, supporting the faculty who will build these programs with their scholarship and teaching is imperative. While the retention of faculty of color will prove crucial to the College’s academic success, so too is the retention of staff of color. Administrative and support staff are central to the College’s educational mission, and it is urgent that the College creates an environment in which staff of color can thrive and belong as well. Staff of color, as well as
junior and visiting faculty, lack the crucial protection of tenure; recognizing this double burden, and how it might also undercut the ability of staff of color to advocate for themselves, is also crucial to the College’s work on inclusivity. We acknowledge and recognize the risks that junior faculty and staff take on in their advocacy for inclusion at the College – such as in the FSI report. Faculty and staff of color often bear an increased service burden with regards to mentoring and supporting students of color, low-income students and first-generation college students. The need for various College committees and groups to have diverse membership also disproportionately burdens faculty and staff of color with additional service work. Recognizing the worth of this informal mentoring work that occurs in addition to more formal service expectations is crucial to retaining faculty and staff of color who are vital mentors to students. The College must also recognize the unique burdens that relocating to William-
stown – which is in a county that is over 90 percent white – can impose on faculty and staff of color. These challenges are numerous: a lack of culturally important foods or shops in the area, bullying or ostracism of one’s children in local schools, as Professor of Chinese Li Yu detailed in an op-ed for the Record (“A minority kid’s experience in a dominantly white small town,” Sept. 11, 2018) or discriminatory treatment at local businesses, as Love and Green recounted in their article for The Feminist Wire. As the FSI Report identified, the College must foster and grow support networks for mentorship of faculty and staff of color that extend to helping them make a home in the local community as well. In every hiring announcement it posts, the College pledges that “Williams College is dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive community in which members of all backgrounds can live, learn and thrive.” In light of recent events, it is clear there is still work to be done to ensure that this is a community where faculty and staff of color can live, learn and thrive.
On the need for affinity housing: Creating space for minoritized students (April 17, 2019) On Friday, the Coalition Against Racist Education (CARE) Now released an open letter to the Board of Trustees with a list of 12 demands calling upon the College’s trustees to fulfill their “obligation to the well-being and safety of its students, faculty and staff.” A group of student activists seeking to continue “in the legacy of Blackled organizing efforts on the Williams College campus,” CARE Now was formed last year, its name recognizing the original CARE movement that occupied Jenness House in 1988. CARE Now’s letter indicates ways in which students believe the College can work toward making the College a less harmful place for those of marginalized identities and to take steps toward becoming a more inclusive institution. Each of CARE Now’s demands deserves serious consideration and a thorough response from the Board of Trustees. We at the Record, while acknowledging that we do not hold any form of moral authority on the matter, look to CARE Now’s leadership as we collectively examine how to combat institutional violence at the College.
A failure by the Board to respond would be indicative of the very institutional negligence to which CARE Now draws attention. Affinity housing, the third of CARE Now’s 12 demands, has been advocated for by students as early as 1969, when the Afro-American Society, which occupied Hopkins Hall in demonstration, named affinity housing as one of its demands. The College did not respond to the Afro-American Society’s demands and has continually ignored such demands. In the past year alone, a discussion at a Black Student Union (BSU) town hall meeting in November, as well as an op-ed by Alia Richardson ’19 (“A case for affinity housing: Why the College should reconsider the housing system,” Nov. 14, 2018), discussed the organization of student housing around common identities. The longevity of this issue demonstrates that the call for affinity housing will not extinguish over time, so long as the College fails to address the residential needs of the marginalized members of its community. We at the Record wholeheartedly support establishing affinity housing at the
A YEAR OF CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
College. As a community, we must recognize that the College is a predominantly white institution in which students of color often feel tokenized, both in their residences and more broadly on campus. Establishing affinity housing will not singlehandedly solve this problem, but it will assist in making the College a more welcoming, supportive and safe community for minoritized students. Some say affinity housing reinforces division, arguing that having minoritized students cluster in one space would be harmful to the broader campus community. We believe, however, that allowing for a space where students can express their identities without fear of tokenization or marginalization will encourage students to exist more freely in the broader campus community, rather than recede from it. It should also be noted that there currently exists a de facto system of affinity housing among the predominantly white, upper-class athletes who reside on Spring Street and Hoxsey Street during their senior years. This point was brought to our
attention Richardson’s op-ed: While these off-campus homes are rented on the private market and not a part of the housing lottery system, the fact that they serve as a place where teams can congregate while people of minoritized identities do not have an equivalent space is a cause for concern that can be resolved with affinity housing. Furthermore, affinity housing has successfully been implemented by many of the College’s peer institutions, including Amherst, Bates and Wesleyan. For those who believe that the College is too small to successfully implement affinity housing, or that it would lead to community disarray, the endurance of such houses at these similarly small, predominantly white schools is an important counterexample. We look forward to hearing from the Board of Trustees regarding affinity housing and CARE Now’s other demands. The bedrock of a healthy campus is a willingness of all members to center the most minoritized voices, and the action items raised by CARE deserve acknowledgement and a considered response from the Board.
Asian American studies
A new era begins in a 30-year movement.
Commencement
Congratulations, Class of 2019!
New entry system
Shoutout to DAMP: the entry that will exist only once in Williams history.
Class of 2019
Y’all will always be my ro1le models. You know who you are. Good luck!
The op-eds this year
It’s been a wild ride.
Double rainbow
We all needed a moment of beauty (for our Instagram feeds #beautephul).
No spring
I guess some things never change.
FEATURES
THE WILLIAMS RECORD COMMENCEMENT 2019
13
College meme page builds community with edge and humor
It was established, as one of the founders put it, in “the bowels of an East [College] third-floor den” on April 27, 2017. In just over a year and a half, the group has expanded at a remarkable pace, now “boasting” 2,589 members. Issues raised within the group vary, including commentary about working on one’s acting chops as a “sober” student at Whitmans’ Late Night, rants over course workloads, a petition for making the exterior of the Williams Inn blue and “spicy” call-outs at certain members of the College administration. This is “Williams Memes for sun-dappled tweens,” the premier Facebook page for students to share all sorts of memes commenting on College life and topics important to members of the student body. Any member can post, granted that the post meets the community standards of relevancy to the College and is not racist, sexist or ableist. Despite the group only existing in a virtual space, the beauty of the page lies in the fact that students can come together on “Williams Memes” in an open forum for some cathartic, edgy and humorous content. As Luke Baumann ’19, co-founder of the group, put it, the group’s purpose is “to provide high-quality, hilarious image ‘macros’ to our valued customers.” “Name another institution on campus in which every single person on campus who is a part of the group – and even those who are off-campus – [is] on equal footing in an open forum, and they are nice to each other for the sake of humor,” Danny Donahue ’19, another co-founder, said. The establishment of the meme page is part of a larger nationwide movement of students at institutions of higher education creating Facebook pages in which members can post memes to relate to other students on campus. Inspired by these meme pages, Baumann founded the page with classmates Donahue, Liam Ouweleen ’19 and Mano Sundaresan ’19. The page is also used to criticize the administration on several fronts. Sundaresan said that the four of them were upset by parties “constantly getting derailed by the administration.” Additionally, they cited overspending, administrative bureaucratic decisions and misappropriation of
MEMES COURTESY OF EMILY MCDONALD ’19, LEFT, AUDREY KOH ’ 21, TOP RIGHT, AND EVAN CHESTER ’21, BOTTOM RIGHT.
Members of the Facebook page “Williams Memes for sun-dappled tweens” share College-related memes. funds – for example, the costly marble blocks in Sawyer Quad – as other criticisms. Memes were an ingenious way to voice such concerns. “It’s a language that the bureaucracy can’t really speak,” Donahue said. “It’s just ridiculous how serious the administration takes itself sometimes; this understanding that this meme is inaccessible to them and that they won’t be able to understand them – that is why the memes are so perfect.” But with the arrival of Maud Mandel as the College’s new president following Adam Falk’s departure, students are excited for the “Maud era.” Many feel that Mandel is a wholesome, kind, relatable and genuine president, and this sentiment is reflected by memes about the administration now being less “sarcastic” and “more wholesome,” Donahue said. One meme even explicitly states in rainbow text: “Friendship ended with Adam / Now Maud is my best friend.” In a broader sense, Onyeka Obi ’21 views the page as a way for a student body to struggle and laugh together. “I think the meme page is, functionally, a refuge for a lot of the student body,” Obi said. “We’re busy, we’re overworked, we’re
tired [and] we’re hungry. But we can take a break and laugh our hearts out over weird stuff we can bond over. Our campus is full of eclectic, different people, and it is very well reflected in the meme page.” Emily McDonald ’19, who posts memes on the page, said memes that play off of College stereotypes, student archetypes or academic habits are some of her favorites. Many students seem to agree: McDonald’s meme (pictured above left) satirizing course loads across the three academic divisions is the most liked meme on the page as of date, with almost 700 likes or reactions. Obi also noted that the page has provided space for acknowledging what she calls “uncomfortable social dynamics that exist” in campus culture, which can be attributed to the student body’s wide range of life experiences and perspectives. “I make memes making fun of things close to my heart – things I noticed during my freshman year, [like] the social weirdness produced from being from a socioeconomic class completely different from what Williams typically has,” she said. “From my own perspective, [the meme page] facilitates a lot of campus conversations
around uncomfortable topics without making people feel horrifically attacked or offended, which is great.” But the page was not always an open and welcoming community for all. In its beginning stages, several students had harsh criticism aimed at the founders, mostly Baumann, citing disapproval at the administrators’ power to delete memes that they believed were not creative or good enough to make it onto the page. “We admins liked to exercise a sort of ironic dictatorship-like approach to content moderation; we’d delete things if we didn’t like them and had all sorts of arbitrary rules,” Baumann admitted. Soon, students were making other meme pages in response to the “Williams Memes” founders. During the spring of 2017, the page administrators smoothed rough patches among certain members in the group and affirmed that the page was open to all who adhered to simple and straightforward community standards: allowing people to gain joy or some good laughs and not being hostile to members. Ultimately, the page fosters unspoken connections between students at the College, whether it be through discussing more serious issues of racial diversity and privilege or just squeezing in laughs during stressful times. “The meme page is ‘just’ a meme page, but I do think it plays a part in helping the whole Williams community feel a little more connected and help students understand each other better,” Baumann said. “We’re just out here trying to let off some memes,” Donahue added. With the collective creativity and humor of over 2,500 people, “Williams Memes” has a wide horizon ahead. Baumann has a specific vision for the page, which the next wave of administrators could take on once he and the other founders graduate this spring. “In the long-term, we hope to build our audience to over one million, monetize the page and use its income to finance the construction of a gigantic hydroponic cranberry farm on top of LaGuardia Airport,” he said. – Jeongyoon Han ’21 (Nov. 7, 2018)
Students raise money to buy books for local elementary schools Although the world beyond campus can sometimes feel distant from inside the Purple Bubble, some Ephs prioritize turning the unique resources available to students at the College into tangible services for the greater community. This is exactly what Kiri Peirce ’20 and Emma Reichheld ’19, two student leaders for the North Adams Public School (NAPS) elementary outreach program, had in mind when they came up with the NAPS Reads program, a new Center for Learning in Action (CLiA) initiative that aims to raise money on campus to purchase new books for North Adams elementary school libraries. In the program’s first iteration, 520 student participants raised $1850 through a meal swipe fundraiser. The money
will be divided among the three North Adams elementary schools and will almost double their book budget for the next school year. Before their fundraising began, the student team, which included Peirce, Reichheld, Joseph Wilson ’19, Jacob Justh ’20, Emma Lezberg ’20 and Isabel Torres ’19, reached out to NAPS librarians to determine whether they felt that such a program would be useful and what kinds of books they might be interested in. “We have been striving to choose diverse books,” said Sarah Farnsworth, head librarian at Brayton Elementary School. “It’s important that when students choose to read for pleasure, they can see themselves in the protagonists… We have been
PHOTO COURTESY OF MOLLY POLK.
Joseph Wilson ’19 reads to the pre-K class at Brayton Elementary School in North Adams.
aiming at books that represent different ethnicities, genders, settings, circumstances, etc.” Getting a diverse selection of children’s books on a tight budget can be difficult, so the librarians were delighted to hear that students at the College wanted to help. Once they had established their goal, the student team turned their attention to the College community. “Accepting monetary donations is complicated,” Peirce explained, “but they can accept book donations no problem. So we decided the best way to do it would be to raise the money and work with them to come up with a list of books that we could then buy with the money and donate.” With this in mind, the student team settled on a meal swipe fundraiser. They worked with Driscoll staff to host a “Kids’ Night” themed dinner featuring childhood classics, including chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese, where students on the meal plan could donate one “swipe.” They also tabled in Paresky during the preceding week, accepting both donations and book recommendations from students. “A quarter of the student population donated,” Reichheld said, “which was really exciting.” The student team is now in discussions with librarians about which books to purchase. In addition to diversity in terms of race and gender identity, the team looks to buy books that feature a wide array of in socioeconomic and family status. “In North Adams in particular, our kids come from a variety of family backgrounds,” Peirce said, “so [we look for] books that feature fami-
lies other than your typical nuclear family unit … [such as] single parent households and even some books about families struggling with addiction or incarcerated parents.” Students at the College went into the elementary schools read from select books from the public library, giving the elementary students a taste of what titles they may have access to next year. Reichheld described a moving experience from her visit. “I was reading one book about a family in a shelter,” she said. “The idea of the book was, ‘My dad doesn’t live with us in the shelter, but we are still a family.’ And afterwards a number of the kids had comments to say, ‘Oh, my dad doesn’t live at home, but we are still a family too.’ They immediately connected with that.” The CLiA leaders saw firsthand the impact of new books on those visits and hope to continue the project in some form next year. The North Adams Public Schools district, too, has been pleased with the endeavor and looks forward to more partnerships with the College in the future. “Everyone knows the value of putting a good book into a child’s hand; I think the best part of the project was demonstrated in the community partnership between Williams College students and the North Adams Public Schools,” said Kimberlee Chappell, the NAPS literacy coordinator. “We look forward to growing our relationship so that our students and Williams’ students can support one another in the quest for life-long learning through literacy.” – RB Smith ’20 (May 8, 2019)
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THE WILLIAMS RECORD
2019 COMMENCEMENT 201
College Reaction offers platform for student-driven discourse The last few years have ushered in a political landscape unlike any other in our nation’s history. Meanwhile, access to news media is constantly expanding: Pew Research Center reported in June of last year that 93 percent of adults get “at least some” of their news online, such as through digitized forms of established news outlets or fresh resources often exclusively available online. These two factors encourage students who want to share their opinions to do so through established digital platforms. Enter College Reaction, a groundbreaking website on which students at almost 50 colleges across the country can publish articles on topics ranging from elections to gun violence to the Fortnite craze. Founded by Cyrus Beschloss ’19 in the summer of 2017, College Reaction is an unparalleled tool both for giving college students a voice on contemporary issues and for understanding how college students think. “We want to help college students enter the national discourse,” Beschloss said. “People care what college students have to say, and we’re giving them a place to put themselves out there. The more that college students do engage, the more we’ll be taken seriously, and the less we’ll have people trying to give us the ‘kids menu.’” The origins of College Reaction can be traced back to Beschloss’ own attempts to do just that. As a first-year at the College, he wrote several pieces for The Berkshire Eagle, the regional newspaper in the Berkshires, and was surprised
KATIE BRULE/PHOTO EDITOR
Beschloss ’19 founded College Reaction, a site where college students can opine on current events. by the reaction he received. “I saw readers engaging with my work,” he recalled. Many students find that their attempts to get involved with such publications are dismissed as sophomoric, with very few finding an audience willing to listen to what they have to say. For Beschloss, that was not the case. “What surprised me was that they weren’t treating me as ‘just a college student.’ It made me realize that there’s an audience out there for college students’ opinions.” With that in mind, Beschloss set out to establish College Reaction, through which students
interested in making their voices heard could contribute to a publication dedicated solely to them. He first recruited through word of mouth, building a small network of students at the College with similar goals in mind. Not long after, he reached out to other colleges, including The University of Iowa, Oberlin and Princeton. “I would read pieces by other writers all over the place, and if it seemed like they had something to say, I’d reach out to try to recruit them.” Beschloss’s search process was made easier by the wealth of eligible writers he found: “Just by being a consumer of well-worded, smart college
opinion, you’ll find fantastic input everywhere you look,” he said. There are currently 95 students listed as part of the team. While the platform continues to publish a steady stream of original pieces, College Reaction’s main focus now lies in a slightly different field. “In fall of 2017, we started to shift into polling and statistics,” Beschloss recalled. He saw the potential in using the organization’s presence at colleges and universities to gather data, and after a few trials, the initiative was a success. “We try to gauge students’ opinions as scientifically as possible, as reliably as possible and on a diversity of topics,” he said. Now, College Reaction provides custom statistics on college students’ opinions to organizations hoping to understand this demographic. Whether consumers turn to College Reaction for its student-generated content or for its valuable polling insight, Beschloss said the mission of the organization remains the same. “We want to make clear that college students have important, valuable opinions,” he said. Beschloss is dedicated to keeping that principle the focus of his work, even after he graduates in the spring. “I’m planning to keep working on College Reaction even after graduating, but I’ll have to walk a certain line,” he said. “My first priority has to be ensuring that it stays the voice of college students, even when I no longer am one.” – Nigel Jaffe ’22 (Nov. 7, 2018)
Instagram account brings new Students host Hoxsey armistice party perspective to same view
SOPHIA SHIN/PHOTO EDITOR
Rebecca Van Pamel ’19 has posted a photo taken from the same spot near Paresky each day since October. Standing on the steps outside Paresky, we all see the same view: a white church framed against the picturesque Berkshire mountains and Williamstown sky. Many of us have walked by this scene every day without consciously observing the view. But now, it has its own Instagram account. Created by Rebecca Van Pamel ’19, @thesameviewfrompareskyeveryday features daily photos taken from outside Paresky. Van Pamel launched the account on Oct. 30, but she began photographing this scene three years earlier, as a first-year. “I would be walking up Mission Hill, coming up into that view, and I always felt compelled to take a picture of it just because it is such a nice image,” she said. ”It is just really striking. And then, sophomore year, living in Greylock, coming into campus again, I’d come into this view, and campus opens up to the front of [me]. I’ve always really liked this view.” More recently, as a senior sentimentally taking photos of her final fall on campus, Van Pamel realized that most of her pictures of the campus were of this scene. She decided that she wanted to keep these pictures somewhere, so she created the account, where she now uploads a daily photo of the iconic image. While she would originally take pictures at any time of the day, she has now developed a preference for taking them between 3:45–5:00 p.m.
Van Pamel has managed to upload at least one photograph every day she has been on campus, though she will occasionally ask friends for assistance with taking the photos if she cannot get to Paresky before the sun sets. “I became a little obsessed with making sure my phone was charged enough to make it to Paresky,” she said. “Right before Christmas, my phone completely died on me. I was using my friend’s phone, and taking a photo and having her send it to me on Facebook.” Van Pamel has no formal experience with photography and has “no interest in pursuing it beyond personal record keeping.” “Photography is just really personal,” she said. “I’m really sentimental about images. It’s not about making it beautiful or something. It’s there because it’s what I saw. I want it to be what I saw.” Although she started the account for herself as something to look back on after she graduates, it now counts among its followers alums and other College offices, such as the Williams Libraries and Williams Outing Club accounts. If any reader would be interested in continuing the account once Van Pamel graduates, they may contact her at rkv1@williams.edu. “If this is something for alums to see and reminiscence, then it is something valuable to continue,” she said. – Shreyas Rajesh ’22 (Jan. 23, 2019)
On the night of Nov. 11, hundreds of students celebrated the 100-year anniversary of the armistice for World War One (WWI) in the same way many celebrated Halloween, Homecoming and Thursdays in October: with a party on Hoxsey Street. The celebration – known as the Peace Party – seemed in many respects like a typical College party. Empty red solo cups and Natural Light beer cans littered the floor. Speakers in the dimly-lit basement of the house blasted music as partygoers danced and laughed and tried to talk over the music. But unlike the myriad of parties held at the College, the Peace Party had been almost two years in the making. In February 2017, after attending a cliquey, unpleasant party, Adrian Black ’19, then a sophomore, had an idea. “I remember thinking it would be better to have a party that was about getting to know people you didn’t know, where everybody was friends with everybody,” he said. “It occurred to me that we were coming up on the centennial of the end of WWI – and by coming up on, I mean it was still a couple of years [away].” Black created a Facebook group for the party. Over the last 20 months, people in the group have expressed their excitement for the event. In October of 2017, Chris Avila ’21 posted, “Wow, we are really building this up! Can’t wait – just 13 months to go guys!” Others posted to mark 11 months, six months, one month and one week left until the party. Black co-hosted the party with Mack Radin ’19. “I would give Adrian most of the credit, but I definitely supplied my name and moral support to the event,” Radin said. Moral support meant, he said, that “from the very beginning, from day one, I was with [Black] every step of the way, making sure that when he made posts [in the Facebook group], I liked them. I liked three-quarters of the posts he made on Facebook.” Black had planned to host the party in his apartment, but after over 250 people RVSPed “yes” to the event on Facebook, his friends who live on Hoxsey Street offered to hold it there. When Black found out a few weeks ago that First Chance, a dance for the senior class, would be the same night as the Peace Party, he was “a little perturbed.” Because most of his friends are seniors, he was concerned that the party would lack attendees.
Usually, of course, armistice commemorations are more somber than a Hoxsey party. After all, tens of millions of people died in WWI. Black said he is aware that the armistice centennial is not entirely a cause for celebration. “But I think the promise of peace matters. And not just in this trivial way, where I’m dressed like some hippie, like John Lennon or whatever,” Black, who wore blue-tinted round glasses, blue printed pants and an unbuttoned pink and green paisley shirt, said. “That hope – that belief in thinking that peace is possible – counts. Even if it just makes people come to this party and get to know one another. In that trivial sense, at this college, people being friendly with each other – I think that matters for something.” Students at the College have plenty of opportunities for reflection and seriousness, Radin said. “But it’s also important to be able to celebrate the good things that we have in life and the peaceful moments we can find on campus and elsewhere in the world… Peace hasn’t really worked out on a worldwide scale, and there’s a lot of tension between people in a lot of different ways. So it’s important to be able to find those moments of empathy [for people] to be able to connect with those around them. And if we get to provide a moment of empathy to just one pair of people through this party, then I feel like we’ll have succeeded.” “I think this party definitely fulfills its goal of trying to encompass a large number of students in lots of different groups,” Georgia Panitz ’22, a partygoer, said. “I feel that this is probably the most diverse group of students that I’ve seen at a party since I’ve been here, in terms of people that aren’t necessarily just athletes or from a certain theater group or musical group. It’s students from all grades, from different groups on campus.” And some of the partygoers were not even students at the College. Lucian Black, a student at Bowdoin and Black’s twin brother, was in attendance, along with ten of his friends. They drove four-and-a-half hours from Bowdoin to the College for the party. “In 1918, newspapers called this the greatest day in history,” Lucian Black said in reference to the armistice. “We’re trying to recreate the greatest day in history.” – Irene Loewenson ’22 (Nov. 14, 2018)
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2019 COMMENCEMENT 201
One in Two Thousand Minh Tran ’19
like, “Oh, that’s really helpful, Dad.” So I grab it but it doesn’t move; it just sticks to the pan. He tells me that every time you cook, you have to cook with conviction. He says you always have to go all in. He takes it again and just forcefully flips it with no hesitation. Boom. Whoosh. He’s like, “Now you try it.” I’m like, “Alright.” No hesitation, all conviction, whoosh – and it works.
Minh! Could you tell me a little bit about where So now do you flip eggs you’re from? for everybody? Oh, for sure. So I’m from New York, N.Y., born and raised. I feel like I always talk about being from New York, and even if I don’t tell people, they know just by the way I talk or the things I talk about... Being from New York is essential to my character. Can you tell me about how you learned to flip an egg? So my dad’s a chef, and when I was five years old he tells me to crack an egg into a pan. I crack the egg in, it’s cooking and then he told me to flip it. And he’s like, “You just do it like this,” and he just does it, and I was
Yeah, it’s actually a party trick that I do. I always have a pan at a party. [Laughs.] Look at you crackin’ jokes! Ever since I was young, I’ve wanted to make people laugh... For me, to aid in creating a space for laughter for anybody in any way I can is one of the most important things. It’s a part of why we’re here, you know what I mean? We’re here to get to know each other, but in order to get to know each other, we also have to laugh together. – Tesnim Zekeria ’19 (Oct. 31, 2018)
Jad Hamdan ’19 You are from Canton, Ohio, home of the National Football Hall of Fame. Canton’s biggest legacy other than soybean farms. Speaking of food – soybeans, I know, a tough transition there, but we’ll make it work – I hear you’re a Hot Tomatoes fan. I am. So, my best friend on campus, Alex Jen [’19], and I really got into Hot Tomatoes during our freshman fall. We had this tradition where we went to Hot Tomatoes every single Sunday freshman and sophomore year while we were on campus – which was kind of wild, espe-
the great people of the IKEA lounge [in the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance]! Do you want to continue doing theatre after you graduate? And do you know what you are doing after college? My rough plan is to move to New York City and try to make theatre in some way. I also love teaching – that’s what I do in the summers. I You’re also a staple of teach at a school in the Bahathe theatre community mas for high school students. here at the College. What draws you to theatre? Maybe you’ll return one day to Williams to teach. Being gay has always attract- Do you want to do that? ed me to theater and performance. Especially when I was Not so much. Williams has in the closet. There is some- been a gift in a lot of ways. But thing about enjoying – about I’m ready to be somewhere not being afraid to pretend. else. Pretending for the sake of You know, after I came out, feeling fully present is fabu- and I told people I was going lous and makes all of those to Williams, they’d give me moments of needing to pre- this look like I was headed for tend in life not so difficult. some kind of gay Shangri-La. Also, in the Williams the- And I arrived to the least – atre community, more than how would I describe this? It in any I’ve ever experienced, became very clear that the gay there is that sense of wel- men of Williams lived a lot coming weirdness, welcom- less like Oscar Wilde and a lot ing queerness – of craving it, more like Emily Dickinson. really. Needing that sort of community to live in. Silliness – Kevin Zhang Yang ’22 too. I love that. A shoutout to (March 6, 2019)
Tom Robertshaw ’19
Tesnim Zekeria ’19 and Rachel Scharf ’19 DJ: Do either of you have a moment or memory that really encapsulates your experience on the Record? RS: About a year ago, a bunch of us slept in the office one night. [Laughs.] I think that’s one of my favorite memories of this community. We were all hanging out in the office late one night and all fell asleep on one of the beanbag chairs, literally covered in newspapers as blankets. I always think about that memory when I think about the Record because I just remember being so happy with the community of people on
cially given the fact that Williams weather is not always conducive to sitting outside. But we would go to Hot Tomatoes every single Sunday at about noon, sit on the wooden bench right in front and eat our pizza. It wasn’t amazing pizza, but it was a pretty cool experience just to do and have something pretty weird. I remember he would put it on his Snapchat story, back when he actually used Snapchat – now he’s one of those Instagram story guys, God love him. It was a really great bonding experience for Alex and me. And finally, what’s something you haven’t done yet that’s on your Williams bucket list? I want to have a beer with a professor. That’s always been something that I’ve thought of as so classic “liberal arts college,” especially “liberal arts college senior,” so I’m hoping that that develops throughout the semester. – Nicholas Goldrosen ’20 (Jan. 23, 2019)
the paper. This space of the Record office has become a home for me at Williams, a place so comfortable for me I could sleep in it. I’ve been really emotional these last few days about leaving Williams. I’m going to miss this place so much, and the Record has definitely been a big part of it. I’m going to stop talking now so that I don’t cry. TZ: I think coming in here on one of our days off and still seeing people in the office – those are probably some of my favorite memories. It’s like: You come up here on a Thursday or a Friday at noon because you want to avoid the Paresky rush downstairs during lunch, and you find some of the Record people basically hiding out as well… Although we spend countless hours here, people still have made this space their home, and it’s super awesome to have been able to share that with folks here. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy. – Daniel Jin ’20 and Nicholas Goldrosen ’20 (May 8, 2019)
Kene Odenigbo ’19 In addition to your biology major, I know that you are on the pre-med track to become an OBGYN. What interests you about that field? I really like babies; I think they’re so cute. But also, I was set on being a neurosurgeon for a long time, but when I found out the residency was seven years, I was like, “OK, that’s a little much. Maybe just general surgery,” because I really wanted to be a surgeon. And then I shadowed a general surgeon for two days, saw three colonoscopies in a row and almost fell asleep. That’s when I knew it was not for me. It was the SPEC 19 program when I shadowed these doctors, and I got matched
with OB-GYNs. At first, I was like, “Why would I watch this?” But I loved it. The OBGYNs were wonderful and so kind and so willing to teach and answer questions... With OB-GYN, you can make connections with people because you see them every year, or more often if they are an expecting mother. So you really get to form bonds with them and help them through tough periods in their lives. I just think that’s amazing. I think you have the most reassuring presence, and since you’re graduating soon, I was wondering if you have any advice for Record readers. I think in general, and this is such an easy thing to do: Just be kind. In being a Junior Advisor and captain – people come to you with the craziest stuff in their lives, and you never know because they are so good at putting up a face. People are having a tough time as it is, so be kind and don’t judge. Or at the very least, don’t be a dick. And believe in yourself. Everyone is here for a reason. – Brooke Horowitch ’20 (April 24, 2019)
you can see a little further. Another thing is that at Williams I have to wear closetoed shoes, while in Florida I would walk around barefoot or wear flip-flops. Sometimes when I’m in the library I take my shoes off, but my friends are like, “That’s so weird, what is she doing?”
Neena Patel ’19
I see that you’re a lover of the sea. What’s your take on fish? Specifically, on How was the transition Goldfish? from home to Williams? Is there anything you Yes, just one kind though. I’m miss? super snobby about Goldfish. Every since I was little, probI grew up in Sarasota, Fla., so ably around the age of two, I something big for me com- was a huge Goldfish fan, but ing to Williams was that I had only the cheddar kind. But never lived in a place that was then they came out with the landlocked before. I didn’t wholegrain version, and now think about that or how weird that’s exclusively what I eat. that would feel to me because [Laughs.] Obviously not exI grew up two miles from the clusively what I eat in my life. ocean, and while I didn’t al- Everyday for most of middle ways take advantage of that, it school and high school, as a was where I could go and clear snack, I would bring Goldfish my head; the water and sound to school, and I’ve brought of the ocean always calms me Goldfish to Williams – in the down. So one of my favorite sense that I always have one places on campus is the tree- of those giant tubs of Goldhouse by the Hoosic River be- fish on me. I’m shocked that cause I can listen to the sound I haven’t grown out of it, but of the river. I also like going on it’s my comfort food! hikes because, even though you’re landlocked, once you’re – Shaheen Currimjee ’20 on top of a mountain, at least (Sept. 26, 2018)
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Thompson bell ringers delight campus with daily song Have you ever heard John Denver, the soundtrack to Les Misérables or the Game of Thrones theme song clang throughout campus and wondered who in the world was creating such a lovely sound? The melodies seem to come from nowhere, at random times, and they last for hauntingly few minutes. Many students smile to ourselves when we hear the Harry Potter theme song as we bike or walk across the quad and continue with our busy days as if nothing magical wafts through the air. So what is behind the sound? The real question, however, is who: 11 dedicated students who, in shifts, ring Thompson Chapel’s carillon, an imposing wooden structure connected to the bells that these students whack 21 times a week, three times a day. Using only one major octave – the carillon is in E flat – and a few extra notes, these musicians provide the campus with around 30 minutes of music each day. “When playing the bells, you work up a sweat, especially when you’re small,” Caroline Hung ’19 said, explaining that players must jump to hit all the notes on the giant instrument. Even the way up to the tower is tough. Climbing the 46 steps to the carillon can be a “workout,” Ziev Dalsheim-Kahane ’19 said. Besides being physically demanding, ringing requires immense focus and adaptability. So much of the music we hear is sight-read by these dexterous performers. Students tend to have three shifts a week, each of which requires them to climb the two-and-a-half flights of stairs up the tower, a reproduction of St. Cuthbert’s Church in England, to play the bells. “It’s sort of nice because you are so invisible,” Eric Rosenthal ’19 said. “It’s a weird experience.” The majority of those playing the caril-
SABRINE BRISMEUR/PHOTO EDITOR
Bell ringers climb to the top of Thompson Chapel each day to play a diverse set of tunes. lon are musicians in other realms, but for carillon players like Rosenthal, bell ringing is a vastly different experience. He said it allows him to “interact with the music rather than the audience.” Yet bell ringers have quite an audience. The bells can be heard from miles away, exciting dogs and residents alike. Although the guild members never receive the applause they deserve after a performance, Dalsheim-Kahane likes to think students can relax because of his music and that perhaps a song they recognize can calm them
during a stressful day. For this reason, he “gives the people what they want,” usually clanging out Beatles classics, hip-hop and appropriately-timed movie themes, as well as some meme songs. The tunes come from several binders of sheet music, all transcribed by former and current bell ringers. The music sits in piles for the ringers to choose during each shift. “I looked up to a lot of the former seniors because they had done so much, contributed a lot to the repertoire,” Angela Chan ’19 said.
For some students, ringing the bells in the chapel is connected to spirituality. Hung, who has been involved with religious life at the College, heard of the group through Rick Spalding, former chaplain to the College. Hung likes to find hymns in St. John’s Episcopal Church and transcribe them for the carillon to spread throughout campus the music that brings her joy. “When I hear the bells, I feel happier,” she said, beaming. “If it’s a tune you recognize, you feel like someone’s calling you up – it’s like a bonding experience.” Spalding, who maintained the guild for many years, inspired Hung’s passion for the carillon. Hung still remembers what Spalding said about the sound of the bells during one of the yearly dinners he hosted for the ringers. For him, they were a reminder of times passing, a sign that life is always going on. Moreover, Hung likes to get people excited, whether through classic songs or modern hits. The guild wants to encourage more students to apply to ring this spring, when auditions are held. But be warned: the audition is “stressful,” according to Rosenthal, as for the most part “you’ve never touched the carillon before, and you’re auditioning basically in front of the entire campus.” Although he “bungled” his audition, he was offered a spot on the team, with a large perk being that ringing is a paid job on campus. Anyone who can read music is “more than capable of playing the carillon,” he said. And even if you fail to make the guild, auditioning can give you the once-in-a-lifetime experience of clanging out a tune on 10,762 pounds of hundredyear-old bronze bells to be heard throughout the town. – Regina Fink ’22 (Jan. 23, 2019)
New organization WAFFLES provides spontaneity, surprises If you’ve taken an evening stroll past Paresky recently, you may recall experiencing a moment of déjà vu upon hearing a few lines of Harry Potter blasted through a speaker on the front steps. These events, and many more like them, are the brainchild of Williams Anarchists for Fun and Lighthearted Entertaining Surprises (WAFFLES), a new student organization on campus. WAFFLES, a self-described “wholesome underground prank collective,” aims to provide some relief from the day-to-day boredom of the College student experience in ways that eschew the pitfalls of events that may feel forced or overly planned. Rather than attempting to escape from monotony, WAFFLES strives “to disrupt the monotony itself” through spontaneous, original events. Morgan Whaley ’20 summed up the club’s goal concisely: “In short, we’re working to make Williams a place where people don’t need to go out of their way to have fun,” she said. Part of the group’s mission is simply to surprise people. According to Marshall Borrus ’20, WAFFLES aims to “create a Williams where you wake up and you’re like, ‘I don’t know what kind of crazy stuff will happen today,’” he said. “We want to make people rethink how they can live at Williams.” So far, the group has hosted several events. Aside from the ongoing quest to read the entire Harry Potter series aloud, the group at one point congregated outside Sawyer Library, gesticulating at the sky and shouting as though a UFO were passing over. Describing the club’s mindset in selecting activities, Jason Adulley ’19 said, “We go for stuff that’s really spontaneous
and surprising and generally try to stay away from overly planned events.” The group’s unusual name is a perfect example of the mindset it espouses. Ashley Villarreal ’20 reflected on the choice to describe the group as “anarchists” in the second letter of its acronym. “Well, anarchy gets some people’s attention, but the ‘FLES’ in WAFFLES – ‘Fun and Lighthearted, Entertaining Surprises’ – is more in line with what we do,” she said. WAFFLES distinguishes between the usually negative connotations of anarchy and what its members see as a more benevolent and fun “anarchy.” Ari Ball-Burack ’19 described the “primal yell” event that inspired WAFFLES. “One of us organized a primal yell during finals last spring, and watching 60 people scream their hearts out on the marble blocks, laugh and go back to studying was a highlight of my Williams experience,” he said. “We want to recreate and expand that feeling in a sustainable way, and WAFFLES seems like an answer.” Another way the club differs from more traditional groups is in its adherence to secrecy when it comes to coordinating events. The events the group plans, both in terms of frequency and type, vary. Surabhi Iyer ’21 explained the need for secrecy with that variety, saying that “the underground aspect is important because the last thing we want is for this club to become routine.” WAFFLES is open to the idea of expansion and is actively recruiting new members. “We’d love to have anyone who wants to get involved to come through, whether it’s by coming to events or join-
ing the team in a more permanent role,” Hallie Della-Volpe ’21 said. “The group is an assembly of really social, funny, positive people and we want to create events that surprise the community.” Students interesting in becoming a part of WAFFLES can direct their attention to the WAFFLES of Williams Facebook page or to its new website, launched this week at bit.ly/williamswaffles. Events are ongoing, and the group hopes to establish itself as a
part of the College’s social culture for good. Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí ’20 noted that the specifics, however, are still under lock and key for now. “As for future plans, that’s a secret – spontaneous surprise is key to our work, so I can’t reveal anything now,” he said. “But I promise that we have a lot planned for this semester and beyond.” – Nigel Jaffe ’22 and Shreyas Rajesh ’22 (Oct. 24, 2018)
PHOTO COURTESY OF BEN STANLEY ’19.
WAFFLES has hosted several Harry Potter events, with students reading the books aloud for hours.
ARTS College alum donates “Star Frog Man” art to biggest fans THE WILLIAMS RECORD COMMENCEMENT 2019
Out of the 123 original artworks lent to students by the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) for their Williams Art Loan for Living Spaces (WALLS) initiative, Zhu Wei’s New Pictures of the Strikingly Bizarre #9 was the first work to go this year: claimed by Zach Babat ’21, who camped out overnight beginning the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 8. Wei’s biggest fans, however, would have to be Richard “Cros” Saint ’19 and Andrew Wallace ’19, who met the piece not long after they met each other. Saint and Wallace, who were roommates in their first year and continue to live in the same house in their senior year, chose this work during their first semester at the College. Some may recall their first moment of fame in the Record when they were featured in a photo box on the front page getting this exact piece. Throughout the past four semesters, excluding their study abroad ventures in St. Petersburg and Paris (respectively), the duo braved the interminable WALLS lines again and again just to borrow Wei’s piece, which they came to think of as a “pet,” or their “third roommate – the cleanest roommate we’ve ever had!” as they described it. This journey seemed to come full circle when Jack Wadsworth ’61, donor of the artwork, in fact gifted two original prints of the piece to Saint and Wallace – to keep! – on Sunday, Sept. 9. “We were astonished and emotional to learn that we would be receiving prints of our own,” recalled Wallace. “We could never have anticipated getting to own copies of the piece of art with which we fell in love as freshmen. Now seniors, we dreaded leaving our painting as we dreaded leaving Williams next year – now, we get to take with us the former, and with it a piece of the latter.”
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PHOTO COURTESY OF BRADLEY WAKOFF.
Richard “Cros” Saint ’19 and Andrew Wallace ’19 exhibit their artwork donated by Jack Wadsworth ’61. Mr. and Mrs. Wadsworth’s generosity extends far beyond this event; in fact, Wadsworth has purchased eight additional original works by Wei from his series Pictures of the Strikingly Bizarre, which he is gifting to past student borrowers of Wei’s works who have shared special connections with the artworks in their WALLS notebooks – namely Abby Brustad ’19, Mikhayla Armstrong ’19 and three other alums. As any student who has participated in WALLS will know, a small notebook is given to each student with their respective artwork, the idea being that each borrower will add a small message, creating a collection of personal anecdotes throughout the years. The notebook for
New Pictures of the Strikingly Bizarre #9 in particular tells a multi-year saga of a growing friendship between two boys and their “Star Frog Man,” as they came to call the piece. The journey is a heartfelt one, beginning with first impressions: they were drawn to “the sad, maybe inquisitive look on the Star Frog Man’s face, and the face of his friend in the background,” said Wallace, who added that the work quickly became a “calming and reassuring” presence in the duo’s lives. “Star Frog Man” took on another form back in May of 2017 when Saint and Wallace created t-shirts with the artwork featured on them, gifting one to Wadsworth himself. Underneath the image, the shirts read: “Star Frog Man / Donated
to WCMA WALLS by Jack Wadsworth ’61 and beloved by all.” Beyond Wei’s pieces, Wadsworth has in fact donated 10 works to the WALLS collection, including intricate Japanese woodcuts by Kitagawa Utamaro and Torii Kiyonaga. Wei, however, would have to be the most provocative artist of Wadsworth’s collection. As one of China’s most notable contemporary artists of the post-Tiananmen period, Wei is also known for his critique of politics and society in a rapidly evolving China. As renowned Chinese art historian and critic Lu Hong points out, “The wisdom of Zhu Wei’s works lies in showing us that when one is pursuing a contemporary expression, the most important thing is to retain the means of a traditional rendition, to produce innovative results. It is especially crucial to retain a point of uniqueness in one’s artistic output in this time, when the development of contemporary art is under the threat of homogenization.” Indeed, Wadsworth’s admiration for Wei’s work was made obvious during the giving-over ceremony of the artworks that Sunday, where he stressed not only the importance of protest artists like Wei, but also of programs like WALLS that facilitate relationships between students and the artworks themselves. “The work they [Mr. & Mrs. Wadsworth] have done with the museum has clearly been successful in allowing more students to actively engage with pieces of art, and allowing art to filter into their daily lives,” added Wallace. And perhaps the most memorable moment of all was when Wadsworth ripped open his shirt à la Clark Kent to reveal none other than his “Star Frog Man” shirt. – Kaira Mediratta ’21 (Sept. 19, 2018)
Slop, a celebration of senior artwork, wraps successfully
PHOTO COURTESY OF JOSEPH BONCARDO.
This year’s senior studio art show featured the work of the 12 senior studio art majors at the College. What does it mean to be a Williams student? The College has long tried to answer this question in posters, videos and other promotional material, often glossing over the fact that diversity is not just representation and that the joys and pains of identity can’t really be summed up. This year’s senior studio art show, Slop, presented 12 instances of what it is really been like to live and work on this sometimes idealized campus. Though its flatly irreverent title suggests a sentimental mixed bag of work, the exhibition, which was open from May 10 to June 1, was at turns incisive and touching — the best exhibition I have seen in my four years here. Opting out of the usual wall label or sight line as lead-in, Slop presents a question writ large on a scroll by Kyle Scadlock ’19, visible from the entrance. “HOW DO YOU TELL THE TRUTH TO A CROWD OF WHITE PEOPLE?” Visitors are invited to contribute to the work, which hangs over WCMA’s second floor railing; there
are already some hard truths (“take apart the room,” “It has to have an effect on their pockets $ or power”) scrawled in red Sharpie from when the work hung in Hollander Hall during the March for the Damned in February. Much of Scadlock’s stark texts and drawings in Slop have been put up, roughed by the wind, taken down and debated around campus this spring, giving all his work on view a charged, resilient quality. Slop opens upstairs with a series of videos by David Tavarez ’19 and Aissata Yanneh ’20. In Tavarez’s “#earth#receding#hairline,” waves scamper and glisten over the sand as Tavarez notices his father’s receding hairline. A quiet exchange of unspoken love familiar to kids of color, the video segues beautifully into Aesha Siddiqui’s ’19 large pastels that capture the languid, continuous narratives of what it’s like to build an immigrant life. Moments of condensed energy — from a toddler startled by a cockroach to a young woman mov-
ing in alone — pull the eye to different corners. Siddiqui’s touch with the pastel renders texture poignant, whether in the peeling green of an old leather sofa or the hazy red-blue throb of police lights out the window. Siddiqui is in brilliant contrast and conversation with Luke Davis ’19 across the gallery, who also happens to be her neighbor in the studio. Davis paints with a luscious attention to garishness, as if to distract from the potentially sinister motives of his subjects. The pink on the Fisher-Price slide in “Twister Country” gleams like it has been airbrushed, centering a scene of kids in skin-tight ski masks. “Super Soaker” nods to a Harmony Korine recklessness, and with these paintings that emulate Huck-Finn-gone-bad, Davis seems to ask what we let happen in oblivious white suburbia. What is nice about Slop is that the exhibition is not just organized into 12 different sections, one for each artist: different works riff off each other unexpectedly, thanks to considered discussions and installations led by Professor of Art Laylah Ali ’91. Works by eva henderson ’19, Julia Vargas ’19.5, Caroline Lovisolo ’19.5, Ava Palmo ’19 and Angela Tang ’19 hold down the center of Slop, linking nicely with their peers by way of their divergent experiments with materiality (Vargas plays with yarn in reference to hair; Tang, with newspaper). Works are also in conversation with each other; for instance, “Sweet Cherries,” a painting on paper and fabric by Eli Pier ’19, plays well with the shades of red in Siddiqui’s pastel works. With details ranging from a hand unconsciously clasping together to the fray on a pair of well-worn blue jeans, “Sweet Cherries” captures a sense of comfort, but with a caveat. Pier often paints subjects with piercing, personal gazes — but there’s always a slight, bashful apprehension in their expressions that is quite charming. Pier’s iconography is picked up by Joseph Boncardo’s ’19 “Album Covers,” which exaggerate staged photography, filters and fonts to wryly point out how all music from indie rock to EDM is imbued with a specific culture and identity.
One cover, titled “Postgame,” shows young men jostling on a basketball court, except with guitars, as if High School Musical suddenly got serious. Slop closes with a video of Scadlock’s reparations performance during Previews, wherein he sat in an Uncle Sam costume next to a mule and asked people to come talk to him about reparations. Wondering how Scadlock got “permission” to do these projects across campus, I realized how strange a concept that is — “permission” to teach students about an effaced Black history, “permission” from College Council to host Black Previews, “permission” as a sort of policing. I don’t know how you tell the truth to a crowd of white people, but Scadlock’s performance, as well as Aissata Yanneh’s subtle, then hard-hitting videos might be one answer. Playing discreetly on small monitors between some old armchairs, the videos can be hard to watch because maybe the truth is not in logic, or reparations, but repeatedly ignored pain. In “Dunkin’,” Yanneh begins conversationally by asking if we know what it’s like to buy a donut and sit in a Dunkin’ for hours with nowhere else to go. Slowly, the video details both how Yanneh found friends and then the sad truth of how they were repeatedly profiled by police. Tinted yellow snapshots of friends and the College campus move by as Yanneh narrates either on the verge of bitter laughter or anger or tears: “To be black, trans, homeless … I had signed the letter announcing my death. I just felt unclean, you know.” But there are small, nice moments: “I fell in love, too. A few times. Twice.” Maybe the truth is partly that Black people just want some empathy. As a whole, Slop might be about a campus identity that’s bending and breaking. As an art show at a liberal arts college, the work is fresh in that it is created under the lenses of what students are reading and thinking about, and not just rehashing an art language. Slop is a celebration of these artists who’ve made themselves vulnerable toward some truth. – Alex Jen ’19 (May 8, 2019)
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THE WILLIAMS RECORD
COMMENCEMENT 201 COMMENCEMENT 2019
“Boiling Under” addresses student pressures via interactive dance This past Saturday I found myself in a familiar place: the Schow Science Library. Only this time, after reaching critical mass, the frenzied motion I was studying wasn’t in a glass beaker. Around 50 of us scurried behind Alexia Barandarian ’19 and her cast in her independent study performance on imposter syndrome, “Boiling Under.” Barandarian was inspired by research on psychological “syndromes.” With this scope, she reviewed interpretative dance performances tackling the topics of alcoholism, post-traumatic stress disorder and impostor syndrome. Audience members were each handed a rubber band from an assortment of colors and waited on the edge of our seats wondering when it would all begin. Would there be steam? Lots of deliberate bumping and method acting in the moves themselves, as a sly reference to how molecules in a boiling solution collide with each other? Looking for clues didn’t seem to help much: the boards were covered, seemingly at random, with slabs devoted to French conjugations, calculus and biochemistry reactions, among other things. But upon closer inspection, isolation in the cast seemed to be emphasized – two dancers dressed in chambray shirts and leggings, stood side-by-side as they worked on completely different things without consulting each other. Then, it happened. Flitting before our eyes, before settling into a precariously balanced ballerina pose, a blonde dancer beckoned to us to follow her outside of the Math and Science Resource Center (MSRC). The performance had been going on all along – with the dancers ignoring us because they were so engrossed in the busywork building blocks that structure the typical student’s day. The fact that their backs were turned to us, and that they didn’t even acknowledge each other, cast Boiling Under into a spotlight at once delightfully postmodern and telling of campus culture at the College.
KATIE BRULE/PHOTO EDITOR
“Boiling Under,” a performance made by Alexia Barandarian ’19, disrupts the illusion of “effortless perfection.” When I say “culture,” I don’t mean blaming administration, which is a commonplace and frankly unoriginal response at the majority of colleges and universities in the United States. Tossed into the sea of bodies, we trailed behind the rest of the cast through a maze: first to the breakout space near the glass room, then to the center carrels, to the rightmost stacks, back to the carrels and finally to the MSRC again. But if there’s one piece of advice Barandarian’s piece tries to leave the audience with, it’s shaking impostor syndrome and cultivating something that can rescript this negative student culture from the inside out. Barandarian’s research invokes findings from the 1980s of both Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes. Academics found the “impostor syndrome/ phenomenon” to be a “pattern where an indi-
vidual continuously doubts their achievements and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a ‘fraud’, regardless of external evidence of competency,” Barandarian said. While it’s difficult to assure a first-year (or senior) that they weren’t an admissions mistake, I’m wondering if the issue is less one that needs to be treated with validation and affirmation, and more with leaving worries behind altogether. The toll impostor syndrome can take was made evident by the duets that started with dancers alone in the frame (sometimes drowsy from lack of sleep or addiction – a reference to prevalent alcohol issues prevalent) that would end up being joined by another trying to pull them into more active, stable postures. Each piece featured motifs of rising and falling, pushing and pulling – basically any act of opposition that would pull one
of the dancers from the syndrome-induced daze. Barandarian explains her choice for these motifs, the piece’s title and the rubber bands as all having to do with high stress situations. “The unseen agitation that erupts before diving down again” refers to how “Boiling Under” in a person can take place beneath the surface and go largely undetected, she said. But the rubber band stays resilient – it can be stretched by external stresses before snapping back into place, or restoring its own sense of equilibrium. It can also double as a grounding technique to soothe anxiety and call someone back to present. It is this culture of self-doubt and blame, manifested in “Boiling Under,” that is arguably the most destructive across campuses – leading to burnout, alienation and desensitization. Instead of trying to justify to ourselves “how we got here,” something that increasingly turns us inward in a false show of introspection, we should instead ask how to best adapt now that we’re here. Most people try to evaluate themselves based on the past while forgetting that they actually have to be present in order to be “here.” But this already resolves more than half of the battle. Caring less about ourselves and more about others – for long enough to ditch sleeping at carrels or shutting everyone out in a pursuit of isolated self-improvement – seems to be what’s prescribed by all of the duets in Barandarian’s scene. This plays out beautifully in the final choreography when all of the dancers are working fluidly instead of in isolated fragments; learning new things from others to actively deal with the present instead of worrying about an already solidified past seems to be the major takeaway. This project is being taken further, and Barandarian’s piece is currently under consideration for a Claiming Williams Day workshop. – Wendy Hernandez ’20 (Dec. 5, 2018)
Joey Mullen and Jamal Meneide: “Guys Being Dudes,” now on film Jamal Meneide ’19 and Joey Mullen ’19 are longtime friends and creative collaborators currently working on their debut short film to be released this spring. I sat down with the duo to discuss their partnership, filmmaking, future collaborations and more. MANDELA NAMASTE: When did y’all become friends and work shorts and sketches together? JAMAL MENEIDE: I love telling this story, and Joey hates it, so this should be fun. [Joey laughs.] The summer between ninth and 10th grade, Joey invited me to go to his Cape [Cod] house. I’d never really hung out with him outside of school, so I’m thinking to myself, “Do I wanna do this?” But I rolled the dice, and the very first night that we’re there, Joey and I ended up bonding very hard over the fact that we liked these girls but they weren’t interested in us. JOEY MULLEN: By the way, this is like a shack in Cape Cod. [Jamal laughs.] The next day, we went to the beach. We made our first movie together, about a crab that dies, and there’s a funeral for it. And there’s a robber that’s stealing the dead crab. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but it exists. JAMAL: Unfortunately. JOEY: From there, we did independent projects during the last semester of our senior year. JAMAL: The sketch comedy that we did culminated in us making “Guys Being Dudes” — our YouTube channel. That was a lot of fun, but we started to take it more seriously. We did a Kickstarter [campaign] our freshman year to raise money for equipment, and that started to refine our ability to tell convincing or funny stories, which is something we’re still working on.
MANDELA: When you guys started the channel in high school, was it just a fun thing, or were you thinking you wanted to continue this in college? JOEY: Being able to go to school with Jamal made it a lot easier to say, “Yes, I enjoy doing this, and I wanna keep doing it.” I think if we went to separate schools, I would still be doing sketch and video, but working with Jamal pushed me to keep getting better at it. So, I don’t think I would have taken it as seriously if I weren’t in this partnership. MANDELA: Was your collaboration a factor in you both going to the College or a coincidence? JAMAL: I wouldn’t say it’s quite a coincidence. I did QuestBridge in high school, and I didn’t know anything about Williams when I was doing that except for that Joey committed here. So, I thought that if these schools that I’m looking at are about equal, I might as well go to the one where one of my closest friends is going as well.
JOEY: Lylia Li ’18, who was president of film club, also helped behind the scenes... We shot outside in Boston on what had to be the coldest day in human history — it was so brutal. JAMAL: Joey wrote this story about him and his injury, and it’s picked up by the main character. But going through an injury myself last fall, it didn’t implicate my identity as much. But knowing that I could have been in that position where I could have gone through this kind of crisis also made wanting to tell this story a bit more urgent for me. I think that was something that was really important to Joey too. MANDELA: What’s the future of your collaboration, and your separate futures at large?
JOEY: [Laughs.] I figured this question would be coming. We’re working on it, and it would be great to be writing somewhere. I love all stages of the filmmaking process, but the writing is still my favorite part, and I think having a knowledge of everything else helps my writing, so we’ll see. JAMAL: I’m in love with video editing, videography and cinematography. I’m also passionate about writing, so I hope that I can become a film writer and director. I’m looking towards things in digital advertising or production assisting, or potentially writing. So, in summary, similar to Joey, just any aspect of the creative side of filmmaking. – Mandela Namaste ’19 (March 6, 2019)
MANDELA: What’s the premise of your movie? JAMAL: Three college-aged students break back into one of their houses after they realize that they forgot some weed there, and along the way, the main character comes to terms with a necessary shift in his identity. JOEY: A line we were using at one point was, “Think Mission: Impossible, but with weed and hopefully taller actors.” MANDELA: Do y’all do behind-the-scenes stuff? JAMAL: Joey brought on Arjun Pothuri ’21 from film club. We had three Williams actors — Isaac Wilkins [’22], Noah Cohen-Greenberg [’22] and Peter Duke [’21] — and then people that Joey knew from his town played the other roles.
ANIAH PRICE/PHOTO EDITOR
Joey (left) and Jamal (right) directed and shot Smoke Break In, which they plan to release this spring.
COMMENCEMENT 2019
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Mary-Claire King to give commencement address King, Ophelia Dahl, Roger H. Brown, Michael Eisenson ’77 and Kevin Roosevelt Moore to receive honorary degrees The College announced on March 13 that Mary-Claire King, who discovered the BRCA1 breast and ovarian cancer gene, will give the 2019 commencement address. The baccalaureate speaker will be Ophelia Dahl, a British-American social justice and health care advocate. In addition to both speakers, Berklee College of Music President Roger H. Brown, Charlesbank Capital Partners founder and Williams Board of Trustees Chair Michael Eisenson ’77 and Grammy Award-winning singer, guitarist and songwriter Kevin Roosevelt Moore – known as Keb’ Mo’ – will receive honorary degrees from the College. An American Cancer Society research professor of genome sciences and medicine at University of Washington, King graduated from Carleton and earned her Ph.D. in genetics from the University of California, Berkeley. King, who has studied human genetics and health for 40 years, discovered the BRCA1 gene, providing insight into vulnerability to and prevention of breast and ovarian cancer for women with an inherited predisposition. At Berkeley, she collaborated with her mentor, Professor of Biochemistry Allan Wilson, to find that chimpanzees and humans share 99 percent of their gene sequences. She also used her knowledge of genetics for social justice, promoting the use of DNA evidence to identify Argentine children who had been kidnapped during the country’s 1970s and 1980s military dictatorship, as well as victims of humans rights abuses in five continents. Among the awards King has received for her work are the Lasker Foundation Special Achievement Award for Medical Research and the United States National Medal of Science. Baccalaureate speaker Dahl co-founded the nonprofit healthcare organization Partners In Health (PIH), which works with government and medical institutions to deliver healthcare to those who cannot afford services. Notably, Dahl’s work has been featured in the 2017 documentary film Bending the Arc. The daughter of author Roald Dahl, she also leads her father’s estate and serves as trustee of the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Buckinghamshire, England. Dahl
PHOTOS COURTESY OF MARY-CLAIRE KING AND OPHELIA DAHL.
This year’s commencement speaker, Mary-Claire King (left), discovered BRCA1, and baccalaureate speaker, Ophelia Dahl (right), co-founded Partners In Health. was named Bostonian of the year in 2011 by The Boston Globe. As president of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, honorary degree recipient Brown helped create the largest global online music education system; a new campus in Valencia, Spain; a merger with Boston Conservatory; a tripling of the endowment; and an over 500 percent increase in scholarship and financial aid. Prior to his presidency at Berklee, Brown, with his wife, Linda Mason, aided relief efforts for a humanitarian crisis on the Thailand-Cambodian border through the Land Bridge food distribution. The pair helped more than 400,000 people and saved over 200,000 lives as co-directors of a Save the Children Federation initiative addressing famine in Sudan. They then co-founded the biggest global provider of worksite childcare, Bright Horizons Family Solutions, as well as Horizons for
Homeless Children, a program that provides early education services to homeless youth. Brown was named the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year and received the Ron Brown Award for Corporate Leadership and along with Mason was named a Visionary Social Entrepreneur by the Social Venture Network’s Hall of Fame. Honorary degree recipient Eisenson is the founder and co-chairman of Charlesbank Capital Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm. Eisenson came to the College as a first-generation college student and later earned an M.B.A. and a J.D. from Yale. He began his career at the Boston Consulting Group and went on to become president of Harvard Private Capital Group. Eisenson has been chair of the Williams Board of Trustees since 2014 and chaired the presidential search resulting in President Maud Mandel’s appointment. He also worked to establish the college’s
investment office in 2006. Eisenson is also a cofounder of Horizons for Homeless Children. A Nashville-based blues renaissance musician originally from Compton, Calif., honorary degree recipient Moore, better known as Keb’ Mo,’ is a four-time Grammy Award winner. In the early 1970s, Keb’ Mo’ appeared on four of Papa John Creach’s albums and played with multiple bands up throughout the next two decades. His first release as a bandleader, “Rainmaker,” came out in 1980 under Chocolate City Records. He then took part in productions of the play Spunk and came out with a self-titled album in the early 1990s, later winning his first Grammy for his 1996 album Just Like You. He has also appeared on various television shows and films. – Rose Houglet and Arrington Luck (March 13, 2019)
Traditions live on at Williams’ 230th Commencement exercises From the first Commencement on Sept. 2, 1795, when Williams awarded degrees to four men in an old meeting house, to this year’s openair Commencement for hundreds of graduates, the commencemement ceremony at the College has changed in both setting and magnitude. Even so, the College’s 230th Commencement exercises will remain rooted in the past.
Stopping time from 80 feet up The class president and vice president ascend the tower of Thompson Memorial Chapel on Class Day to drop a watch, a decades-long tradition. The watch breaks when it hits the concrete 80 feet below, signifying good luck for the graduating class. The first watch-drop occured in 1916.
After singing the College song, “The Mountains,” the 1916 graduating class was debating what effect a fall from the top of the Chapel tower would have on a human body. Wanting to perform the test on an object with a reputation for being unbreakable, the class decided to use an Ingersoll watch. The original dropped watch survived its fall and stood up to its reputation. Because the breaking of the watch has come to symbolize good luck, class presidents in recent years have purchased a watch that is more breakable from Goodmans’ Jewelers, which embosses the watch with the College seal. Traditionalists believe that the watch should be dropped only once, even if it does not break. Those more concerned with the future of the graduating class recommend that the president throw the watch. Tradition also dictates that the officers must not have their feet on the ground upon releasing the watch. As such, security officers are kept on hand to hold their feet and ensure that the leaders of the graduating class do not meet the same fate as their timepiece. Planting ivy at West College
IRENE LOEWENSON/FEATURES EDITOR.
Every year on Class Day, a watch is dropped from the top of 80-foot-tall Thompson Memorial Chapel.
During Ivy Exercises, the class gardener plants the class ivy next to West College. The class poet composes and recites a poem for the occasion, the class musician performs
and the class historian speaks on the experiences of the Class of 2018. Although the origins of this ceremony are unknown, there are references to it in Class Day programs as early as 1861. The planting ceremony symbolizes an expression of solidarity with other classes. In addition, as members of the Class of 2019 start new lives away from the College, the ivy planted by the class will continue to grow. Like the ivy, the senior class will branch out in different directions, always rooted at the College. Gathering for Lightnight Lightnight, first held in 1986, has become a popular tradition. Steve Fix, dean of the College from 1985 to 1992, helped create Lightnight to expand the number of commencement weekend events that students, faculty and families could participate in together. “Lightnight is very well attended, and it gives people a gathering place Saturday evening,” Fix has said. “We wanted to do something involving light, something that would make the campus look dramatically different from every other night.” Held on the eve of commencement, Lightnight bathes Paresky with the soft light of thousands of candles and strings of twinkling lights.
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THE WILLIAMS RECORD COMMENCEMENT 2019
FELLOWSHIPS & PRIZES Cultivating Community Award recognizes a senior committed to developing and building a stronger, more inclusive Williams College community. Raquel Douglas
Austrian Ministry of Education Teaching Assistantship provides for one year as an English teaching assistant in an Austrian school. Rebecca Van Pamel
Hubbard Hutchinson, Class of 1917, Memorial Fellowship for demonstrated exceptional talents in the creative arts. Leonard Bopp, Eva Henderson, Story Ponvert, Thomas Robertshaw, Nicholas Wallach
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Junior Fellowship provides for one year at the Carnegie Endowement for International Peace. Jeremy Smith
Jeffrey Owen Jones, 1966, Fellowship in Journalism for a senior wishing to pursue a career in journalism. Zoe Dutton
C. David Harris Jr., Class of 1963, Prize in Political Science awarded to the political science major who writes the best paper in political philosophy or empirical political science. Ziev Dalsheim-Kahane
Chinese Government Scholarship to study Chinese language or culture in China. Arno Cai
Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship awarded to rising African American, Latino/a or Native American juniors committed to pursuing PhDs. MarChe’ Daughtry, Karen Linares, Merudjina Normil, Isabel Peña, Gabriel Silva Collins, Valeria Sosa Garnica
David A. Wells Prize in Political Economy awarded for an essay upon a subject in political economy. William Chen
NATIONAL FELLOWSHIPS
French Ministry of Education Teaching Assistantship for an English language teaching assistantship in France. Elizabeth Poulos Fulbright Grant for a year of study or research abroad in any discipline or teaching English. Rachel Cucinella, Samuel Grunebaum, Jonathan Hall, David Han, Estefani Hernandez, David Kwan, Emma Reichheld, Olivia Segal Mitchell Scholarship postgraduate study for one academic year in Ireland or Northern Ireland. Keshav Goel National Science Foundation Fellowship for graduate study in the sciences, mathematics and engineering. Anya Michaelsen Rhodes Scholarship provides for two to three years of study at Oxford University. Linda Worden Samuel Huntington Public Service Award for graduating seniors to pursue one year of public service anywhere in the world. Phacelia Cramer Schwarzman Scholarship one-year master's degree program at Tsinghua University in Beijng for promising young leaders. Kai Cash St. Andrew’s Society Scholarship for graduating seniors to pursue one year of public service anywhere in the world.. Phacelia Cramer Taiwan Ministry of Education Mandarin Scholarship covers tuition expenses for an approved Chinese-language program in Taiwan. Grace Fan, Alexis Jones Thomas J. Watson Fellowship provides a year of travel and independent study abroad around a self-initiated topic. Emma Mandel Yenching Scholarship graduate scholarship at Peking University in China. Alden Taylor WILLIAMS COLLEGE FELLOWSHIPS Allison Davis Research Fellowship awarded to students interested in pursuing Ph.D.s to fund two years of faculty-mentored research. Mikhayla Armstrong, Arkey Barnett, Arno Cai, Neftaly Lara, Bethel Shekour Charles Bridgen Lansing, 1829, Fellowship in Latin and Greek awarded to a student to assist them in pursuing graduate study. Liam Albrittain Class of 1945 Florence Chandler Fellowship supports one year of postgraduate intellectual and personal development while living abroad. Allison McPherson, Gabriel Silva Collins Dorothy H. Donovan and John Edmund Moody, 1921, Fellowships for two years of study at Exeter College, University of Oxford. Drew Fishman Dr. Herchel Smith Fellowship for two years of study at Emmanuel College, Cambridge University. Ari Ball-Burack, Roxanne Corbeil, Mary Guma, Erin Hanson, Elizabeth Hibbard, Zachary Ottati Frederick Eugene Stratton 1872 Fellowship in Biology for further study at one of the institutions belonging to the American Association of Universities. Francesca Barradale, Alexandra Griffin Horace F. Clark, 1833, Prize Fellowship awarded on the basis of superior scholarship, general ability and interest in scholarly research. Alina Shubina
Ruchman Student Fellowship for seniors committed to graduate study and intending to pursue a teaching career at the college level. Erin Hanson, Isabel Peña PRIZES Arthur B. Graves, Class of 1858, Essay Prize prizes to honor seniors who have written the best essays in the following fields: in Art: Nanase Shirokawa in Economics: Jeremy Smith in History: Alden Taylor in Philosophy: Zachary Ottati in Political Science: Miranda Chaiken in Religion: Giovanni DiRusso Arthur Judson Prize in Music awarded for achievement in music, with preference given to those planning a career in music management or administration. Erin Kennedy Arthur Kaufmann, Class of 1899, Prize in English given by the English department to a student who has done excellent work in English. Emma York A.V.W. Van Vechten, 1847, Prize for Extemporaneous Speaking awarded for impromptu speaking. Joseph Wilson Benjamin B. Wainwright, Class of 1920, Prize in English awarded to the student who has written the best short story. Caitlin Ubl Bruce Sanderson, Class of 1956, Prize in Architecture awarded to the senior who shows the greatest achievement and promise in the field. Kate Latimore Bullock Poetry Prize of the American Academy of Poets for excellence in the composition of original poetry. Emily McDonald CDE Larned Prize awarded for student papers of superior quality dealing with the management of development. Juan Pablo Rowert Mariscal Chaplains’ Prize for Commitment to and Excellence in Inter-Faith Engagement and Service for spirited citizenship in the religious diversity of this community. Giovanni DiRusso, Chen-Yi Hung, Michael Rubel Charles R. Alberti, Class of 1919, Award for a student who has significantly enhanced the sense of community on campus and who has the potential for doing so in wider communities in the future. Michael Rubel
David N. Major, Class of 1981, Memorial Prize in Geosciences awarded to an outstanding graduating senior in geology. Erikka Olson Doris deKeyserlingk Prize in Russian awarded annually in honor of Doris deKeyserlingk, teacher of Russian at Williams from 1958 to 1971, to a student or students who have earned distinction in Russian studies. Alexandra Melishkevich Dunbar Student Life Prizes awarded for significant written work on any aspect of student life focused on any issues affecting college students. Austin Anderson, Bryan Bailey, Jovana Calvillo, Phacelia Cramer, Paul Griffith, Sara Hetherington, Eliza Klein, James Rasmussen, Minh Tran, Qian Yang Edward Gould Shumway, Class of 1871, Prize in English awarded to the senior majoring in English who, in the judgment of the English faculty, has done the most distinguished work in English literature and composition. Erin Hanson Environmental Studies Committee Award for outstanding contributions to the environmental studies community at Williams. Korinna Garfield, Jane Tekin The Erastus C. Benedict, Class of 1821, Prize given in a variety of fields to recognize excellence. First Prize in Biology: Se Rin Kim Second Prize in Biology: Benjamin Wipper in Classics: Liam Albrittain, Ryan Taylor in French: Ryan Buggy, Moiz Rehan in German: Harmon Pardoe, Rebecca Van Pamel First Prize in History: Mary Guma Second Prize in History: Liam Albrittain Ernest Brown Africana Arts Prize given to a senior whose work has shown unusual brilliance, imagination, and industry in the arts, especially the performing arts. Merudjina Normil Francis Sessions Hutchins, Class of 1900, Memorial Fellowship Prize awarded to a senior who gives promise through personality and mental or moral qualities of becoming a useful, worthy and lovable citizen. Mark Bingaman, Isabel Peña Frank C. Goodrich 1945 Award in Chemistry for a student, chosen by the chemistry faculty, who demonstrated excellence in chemistry research. Anna Ringuette Frederick C. Hagedorn Jr., Class of 1971, Premedical Prize awarded in recognition of academic achievement and the embodiment of the principles of the medical profession. Haelynn Gim
Charles W. Hufford Book Prize awarded to the teaching assistant in political science who has served with the same excellence exhibited in that capacity by Charles Hufford. Calum Ferguson, Henry Lu
Freeman Foote Prize in Geosciences presented for an outstanding oral presentation of a senior thesis in geology. Daniel Donahue
Class of 1925 Scholar-Athlete Award awarded to a woman athlete whose commitment to excellence in athletics and scholarship is an inspiration to the community. Mackenzie Murphy
G. Stanley Hall 1867 Prize in Psychology awarded to a student who has demonstrated exceptional achievement in research within the field of psychology. Jessica Muñoz
THE WILLIAMS RECORD Gaius C. Bolin 1889, Prize in Africana Studies awarded for the best scholarly work written in Africana studies. Jaelon Moaney, Terricka Parker
Kenneth L. Brown, Class of 1947, Prize in American Studies awarded to a senior majoring in American studies. Tyler Tsay
Garrett Wright DeVries, Class of 1932, Memorial Prize in Romance Languages for excellence in Spanish. Zoé Chevalier
Lawrence J. and Carolyn M. Kaplan Prize for Dedication to and Leadership in the Williams College Jewish Association awarded to a senior who has shown sincere participation, responsibility, engagement and menschlichkeit on behalf of the Williams Jewish community. Marisa Flignor, Rachel Levin
Gilbert W. Gabriel, Class of 1912, Memorial Prize in Theatre awarded to the seniors who made the most notable contributions to the advancement of theatre at Williams. Carol Almonte Graves Prize for Delivery of Essay for the best delivery of a paper or report in political economy. Roua Agrebi, Benjamin Gips, Ryan Kelley, Curtis Maher, John Spence Henry A. Dwight, Class of 1829, Botanical Prize awarded to the student who maintains the highest standing in botany or a related area of study. William Doyle Henry Rutgers Conger Memorial Literary Prize awarded annually for the best contribution of prose or poetry submitted to a literary magazine published by students. Sara Hetherington Howard P. Stabler Prize in Physics awarded to the student who has demonstrated initiative, creativity, perseverance and achievement. Iona Binnie Jack Larned, Class of 1942, International Management Prize honors student papers dealing with development in the private or public sector in Africa, Asia or Latin America. Roxanne Corbeil, Robert Dulin James Bronson Conant and Nathan Russell Harrington, Class of 1893, Prize in Biology awarded by the department for outstanding work in biology. Haelynn Gim James F. Skinner Prize in Chemistry awarded to a senior chemistry major who plans for graduate study, has a distinguished record in chemistry and shows outstanding promise for teaching and scholarship. Lauren Vostal James Lathrop Rice, Class of 1854, Prize in Classical Languages for distinguished work in Latin or Greek. Giovanni DiRusso, Eileen Russell James Orton Award in Anthropology awarded to senior majors for excellence in anthropology. Anna Goldelman, Gabriel Silva Collins Jean Donati Student Employee Award in Music awarded to a senior who has done the most for the music department as a student employee. Abel Romero John Sabin Adriance, Class of 1882, Prize in Chemistry awarded to the student who has maintained the highest rank in all courses in chemistry. Walker Knauss John W. Miller Prize in Philosophy awarded to an outstanding philosophy student. Zachary Ottati Karl E. Weston, Class of 1896, Prize for Distinction in Art awarded to a senior majoring in art whose work has shown unusual brilliance, imagination and industry. in Art History: Kristen Park in Art Studio: Aesha Siddiqui in Art History and Practice: Anqi Tang Kate Hogan 25th Anniversary of Women in Athletics Award awarded to the senior woman who has distinguished herself in her commitment and contributions to the department of physical education, athletics and recreation. Caitlin Ubl
Lawrence S. Graver Prize in Theatre awarded for great potential in the performing arts as exemplified through excellence in criticism and scholarship. Isabel Benjamin Laszlo G. Versenyi Memorial Prize awarded by the philosophy department to a senior who is planning to attend graduate school in philosophy. Zachary Ottati Leverett Mears Prize in Chemistry awarded to a senior majoring in chemistry who has been admitted to graduate study in the medical sciences or medical school and who has had a distinguished record in chemistry and shows outstanding promise. James Heinl Linen Senior Prize in Asian Studies to graduating seniors who achieve distinction and show outstanding promise. in Asian Studies: Long Pham in Chinese: Drew Fishman in Japanese: Julio Tavarez Linen Senior Thesis Prize in Asian Studies for a graduating senior who writes an outstanding honors thesis with a substantial focus on Asia. Jeremy Smith Louise J. Ober Theatre Award in Creativity awarded to a senior who has shown notable creativity in theatrical work. Harriet Weldon Michael Davitt Bell Prize recognizes the best essay on a topic in American literature. Estefani Hernandez Morgan Prize in Mathematics to a senior major for accomplishment and promise in applied mathematics, statistics or mathematics teaching. Zhiqi Li Muhammad Kenyatta, Class of 1966, Community Service Prize awarded to a graduating senior for their outstanding public service. Ellyn Pier Nancy McIntire Prize in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies awarded to the graduating student who has made the most impressive contributions to women’s, gender and sexuality studies. Julia Blike Nicholas P. Fersen Prize in Russian awarded annually to a student whose intellectual vitality and passion for Russian culture reflect the spirit of Nicholas Fersen, professor of Russian at Williams from 1960–1988. David Han Olga R. Beaver Memorial Prize in Mathematics awarded to a student for extraordinary contributions to the mathematics and/or statistics community. Frances Dean Patricia Goldman-Rakic Prize in Neuroscience awarded to a student who has demonstrated exceptional achievement in neuroscience research. Anna Leonard Purple Key Trophy awarded to senior athletes who are letter winners and who best exemplify leadership, team spirit, ability and character. Olivia Barnhill, Robert Casey, Cordelia Chan
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COMMENCEMENT 2019 Richard Krouse Prize in Political Science awarded to a student who has done distinguished work in political science and who best exemplifies the intellectual and human qualities that characterized the life of Professor Krouse. David Han Richard Lathers, Class of 1877, Essay Prize in Government given to seniors who write the best essays on the duty or relation of citizens to government. Elizabeth Hibbard
Shirley Stanton Prize in Music awarded to the student who has best fulfilled their potential in music while at Williams. Qian Yang S. Lane Faison Jr. 1929 Prize awarded to the student whose paper best reflects their high standards in the critical engagement with an object of art. Christine Nyce, Lisa Zhang
Robert C. L. Scott Prize in History awarded for the best senior honors thesis in the fields of American or European history. Rebecca Van Pamel
Social Justice Advocate Award recognizes a senior who, in their time at Williams, has demonstrated a commitment to action toward access, equity and inclusion at Williams and elsewhere. Eliza Klein
Robert C. L. Scott Prize for Graduate Study in History to a senior honors student in history who plans graduate work in American or European history. Rebecca Van Pamel
Stanley R. Strauss, Class of 1935, Prize in English for the most outstanding critical honors thesis by an English major in terms of both the content and style of the thesis. Erin Hanson, Estefani Hernandez
Robert Dalzell Thesis Prize in History awarded for a history thesis that best exemplifies outstanding original research using primary sources. Andrew Wallace
Sterling A. Brown, Class of 1922, Citizenship Prize awarded to the senior whose undergraduate experience reflects outstanding leadership, high academic achievement and communication of new ideas, with preference to members of the Black Student Union. Raquel Douglas
Robert F. Rosenburg Prize for Excellence in Mathematics awarded by the mathematics department. Zhiqi Li, Anya Michaelsen, Anthony Simpson Robert F. Rosenburg Prize in Environmental Studies awarded in recognition of outstanding scholarship, potential for solving environmental problems and strong prospects for leadership in the environmental community. Caroline Weinberg Robert G. Barrow Memorial Prize for Music Composition awarded to a qualified music student on the basis of their accomplishment in music composition at Williams College and the promise the student shows as a composer. Andrew Aramini Robert M. Kozelka Prize in Statistics to recognize excellent statistics students. Youngsoo Baek, Eric Rosenthal Robert W. Friedrichs Award in Sociology awarded to a senior major for excellence in sociology. Grace Chamberlin, Grace Fan Russell H. Bostert Thesis Prize in History awarded to an honors student for the best thesis in American history, with special consideration to inter-American relations or Sino-American relations. Reed Jenkins Ruth Scott Sanford Memorial Prize in Theatre awarded to seniors with demonstrated ability in the theatre, with preference to those who intend graduate study in theatre. Emma Mandel Sam Goldberg Colloquium Prize honors students who have made the best colloquium presentations in mathematics and computer science. in Computer Science: Miranda Chaiken in Mathematics: Coly Elhai in Mathematics: Reuben Kaufman in Statistics: Nina Min
Tom Hardie, Class of 1978, Memorial Prize in Environmental Studies awarded to the student who has done the best work in environmental studies. Angela Chan Ursula Prescott Essay Prize in Political Science for the best essay on international relations or comparative politics. Chrisleine Temple W. Marriott Canby, 1891, Athletic Scholarship Prize to the senior with the highest average in course and who has represented the College in a recognized intercollegiate athletic contest. Josie Maynard Ward Prize for Best Project in Computer Science awarded to the student who, while exhibiting substantial technical depth, develops the most innovative and creative project in computer science during the academic year. Justinas Banys Willard E. Hoyt Jr., Class of 1923, Memorial Award awarded to the senior male athlete whose spirit and superior efforts on behalf of Williams athletics have been combined with deep academic interests. Andrew West William Bradford Turner, Class of 1914, Prize in History for the best thesis or essay in the field of American history or institutions. Alexandra Gudaitis William C. Grant Jr. Prize in Biology awarded to the senior biology major who has demonstrated the highest excellence and greatest insights in integrating different fields within the biological sciences. Emma Rogowski
Scheffey Award in recognition of outstanding environmental leadership. Jessica Muñoz
William Sloane Coffin Prize for Passionate Public Speaking awarded by the chaplains’ office to the winners of the competition held earlier this spring. Social Justice: Moiz Rehan Faith: Joseph Wilson
Sentinels of the Republic Essay Prize in Government awarded for the best essay on some subject relating to the American federal system of government. Jaelon Moaney
William W. Kleinhandler, Class of 1950, Prize for Excellence in Music awarded to students who show excellence in music. Sebastian Black, Angela Chan, William Doyle, Sean Ninsing
Shirin Shakir, 2003, Prize in Political Science awarded each year to the student writing the best essay from an international relations senior seminar. Jake Porath
Wyskiel Williams Math Award for a student who has expressed an interest in teaching mathematics. Reuben Kaufman
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THE WILLIAMS RECORD
CDE Graduates The Center for Development Economics (CDE) will graduate its 2018–2019 class at this year’s Commencement exercises. With the successful completion of a year of intense study, graduates of the CDE are awarded master’s degrees or certificates in development economics. These are the candidates who are expected to receive the master of arts in development economics.
Juliet Akello Uganda
Timothy Mtumbuka Malawi
John Deng Aleer South Sudan
Makumba Mukunta Venevivi Zambia
Khin Sway Aoo Myanmar
Mohammad Rafiul Munir Bangladesh
Rosa Brito Delgado Cabo Verde
Anvar Abaskhanovich Muratkhanov Krygyz Republic
Chhang Samnean Cambodia
Baba Ali Mwango Rwanda
Undral Erdenebat Mongolia
Elizabeth Christopher Naluso Malawi
Imanbekova Nazik Maratbekovna Kyrgyz Republic
Nguyen Trong Nghia Vietnam
Dev Raj Joshi Nepal
Jean Jacques Nikiema Burkina Faso
Chabu Joseph Kapambwe Zambia
Kevin Hope Njuki Kenya
Soudthavine Lorvanhxay Lao PDR
Aubin Bruce Nsabiyumva Burundi
Augusto Noel Mendoza Calderón Peru
Juan Pablo Rowert Mariscal Bolivia
Priscille Ziraje Mikebanyi Rwanda
Alice Sanyika Zimbabwe
Minosoa Lalaina Rianà Madagascar
Yeboah-Forson Daniel Ghana
Art History Graduate Program 12 students who have completed a two-year course of study in the history of art will be awarded master’s degrees during this year’s Commencement exercises.
Anne-Solène Bryan
Jenna Marvin
Jalen Chang
Gabriella Moreno
Marco Antonio Flores
Julie Reiter
Jacob Gagne
Nora Rosengarten
Kathryn Griffith
Brandon Scott
William Hernandez
Wei Wu
COMMENCEMENT 2019
Class of 2019 Officers Co-Presidents Izzy Ahn
Tyma Nimri
Kai Cash
Josemaria Paul Silvestrini
Madison Feeney
Mia Weinland
Mary Kate Guma
Meredith Wright
Class of 2019 Agents Co-Head Class Agents Gregory Andreou Jad Hamdan Ian Kagame Emma TenBarge
Associate Agents Robert Casey
Nina Min
Jesse Facey
Tyma Nimri
Jake Foehl
Alice Obas
Caleigh Forbes-Cockell
Angus O’Rourke
Korinna Garfield
Carmen Saab
Haomiao (Julie) Geng
Josemaria Paul Silvestrini
Mary Kate Guma
Isabel Torres
James Heskett
Rebecca Van Pamel
Jason (Bum Shik) Kim
Nicolle Vittini Cabral
Katherine Loftus
THE WILLIAMS RECORD
COMMENCEMENT 2019
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eva henderson ’19 talks tattoo art, artistic journey Even if you’ve never spoken to eva henderson ’19, you’d likely recognize her dots. “I’ve definitely thought about tattooing [my face] and seeing if anyone notices, particularly my parents,” henderson says wryly of the dots on her face. If you didn’t know henderson was a studio art major, her sartorial choices might tip you off. I first met henderson in BIOL 222: “Field Botany and Plant Natural History,” a course where we’ve ventured into the woods together once a week since February. While other students – myself included – clumsily handle the plethora of sample twigs distributed during labs, unsure whether to take them home or toss them into the surrounding brush, henderson regards her plants with the wonder and care characteristic of an artist. Many plant samples have ended up adorning henderson’s walls alongside her own art, which draws upon the natural world extensively. In Summer 2017, henderson served as the Artist-inResidence at the Zilkha Center, where she created the installation wooden planets from found driftwood and glass. A Class of 1960 Scholar in Studio Art, henderson has been shown twice in the Berkshire Arts Association Fellowship Show, which celebrates the work of Berkshire County based artists. She has also received grants from the Center for Environmental Studies for her work, which explores environmental and ethical themes. In henderson’s paintings and assemblages, there is an underlying tension between the transience of the natural materials henderson works with and the eternal aspects of these natural materials. Water, for instance, a substance henderson explores in her paintings, can be fleeting in discrete physical forms – such as rain or cloud – while enduring as part of a larger cycle.
Though henderson works in traditional formats such as painting, sculpture, and video art, she also uses her own body as a canvas, covering her skin with elaborate tattoos. “I had a friend who graduated last semester, Olivia Goodheart [’18.5] – she did a lot of hand poking tattoos and gave me my first tattoos so I asked her how to do it,” henderson said. “I got a lot of practice on myself and on others when I was living in Brooklyn last summer – there’s a much bigger client base [in Brooklyn] than there is at Williams College.” In the past few years, hand poked tattoos – or “stick n’ pokes,” as they are sometimes called – have surged in popularity as an affordable and more intimate alternative to traditional machine tattoos. “You basically use the needle you’d put into a tattoo machine, except having the machine do the repetitive motion, you do it with your hands,” henderson explains. “I’ve had people who couldn’t tell the difference between drawing on their skin with a sharpie and the poking, and people who have needed a break every two minutes because it hurt so badly.” Tattoo art, which henderson dabbles in, is a fitting extension of the dichotomy between the eternal and the ephemeral explored in her more traditional formats. Though many think of tattoos as the epitome of permanence, their very permanence is undermined by the transitory human bodies on which they exist; bodies shift and change, shifting tattoos along with them. henderson recognizes the relationship between the body and the artwork, but does not view the permanence of tattoos as a negative quality. “My parents are always telling me, ‘what if you decide you don’t like it, and you can’t get rid of it?’ Well, my whole body – I can’t get rid of that, I’m just stuck with it,” hen-
PHOTO COURTESY OF EVA HENDERSON ’19.
Forklift Danceworks builds connections through a community-based dance-making process. derson said. “If I decide I’m not super into a tattoo I gave myself, it’s just like any part of my body. People are dissatisfied with their bodies for all sorts of different reasons.” The permanence of henderson’s tattoos have led her to add more. “Having imperfections drives having more on because you can’t erase anything,” said henderson. “If something doesn’t look quite right, the only way to make it look better is to balance it out with something else.” Looking at henderson’s hands, it is interesting to see how henderson has approached this visual balance. “The first one I did on myself was the one on my thumb, a little face. It’s
a face that the spirits that show up in my paintings have,” she said. “The rest followed pretty quickly. They were all done over the course of a couple months.” henderson acknowledges that her practice has been “dormant” in Williamstown, where fewer students have sought her out. “I would love to get more serious about it once I graduate,” henderson said. “I’ll tattoo anyone who can pay.” With her whimsical designs and safe practice, henderson’s hand-pokes may be a unique alternative to consider for your next ink. - Lily Goldberg ’22 (May 1, 2019)
Student input, new leadership help ‘Judas Iscariot’ impress Last weekend’s theatre department performance of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, by Stephen Guirgis, was notable not only for its star cast, intelligent humor and philosophical weight, but more so for its unique inclusion of student input in the creative process. The show was led by director Shadi Ghaheri, visiting lecturer in theatre, and dramaturg Catherine María Rodríguez, both of whom emphasized actor participation in their process. The play, which imagines Judas Iscariot on trial in purgatory, was grounded by the exceptional Maya Jasinska ’21 as defense attorney Fabiana Aziza Cunningham, Samori Etienne ’21 as prosecuting attorney El-Fayoumy and Peter Matsumoto ’20.5 in the role of Judas himself. For many students, the inclusive rehearsal process impacted the quality and value of rehearsals, offering a much-needed change in the wake of the theatre department’s cancellation of Beast Thing in the fall. Ghaheri and Rodriguez began their process with “table work,” in which the entire cast and crew read and analyzed the show. “Normally in shows, we do that once or twice for the first couple days, and then we stand up and get on our feet,” Matsumoto explained. “For this show, we did it for a week… It was so much, but ... it was super helpful because the play is so damn long, and it’s so dense.” This process led to collective decisions to revise some dialogue in the show (a common occurrence during table work), cutting homophobic and misogynistic slurs. “None of us felt that [these were] necessary to the show,” Matsumoto said. Actors also had input in aesthetic elements of Judas by brainstorming their vision of the characters and bringing their ideas to the costume designers. These ideas were then incorporated into each character’s ultimate costume design. Ben Weber ’21, for instance, decided that his character biked to work and would die when he was hit by a truck while biking to Montreal. Weber’s ultimate costume design included cycling tights and a helmet.
PHOTO COURTESY OF KEITH FOREMAN.
In Judas Iscariot, witnesses are called to testify on whether Judas Iscariot should go to heaven. Character movement was also led by the actors, allowing the students themselves to determine what decisions would be most natural to them. “It was really a ‘follow your instincts’ sort of thing,” he said. Actors’ blocking decisions were sometimes even spontaneous, with the two attorneys, Etienne and Jasinska, receiving free rein to walk around the courtroom throughout much of the show. Rehearsals also pulled from student talent in non-acting capacities. The show contained several dance routines choreographed by Kester Messan-Hilla ’21 (Simon the Zealot/Pontius Pilate). The erosion of directorial hierarchies was paramount in Ghaheri and María Rodríguez’s vision. Actors received community agreements that also emphasized the right of actors to say ‘no’ at any time and push back against a director’s idea of how a character should be played. Jasinska found this collaborative environment extremely useful for her character. “For my character, because there was a lot of
heavy material, I would meet one-on-one with the director,” she said. “We would have separate meetings, essentially.” Weber also worked to add a level of levity to his character that, while not scripted, was soundly encouraged. This collaborative mindset was honored for concerns outside of the production as well. After several actors felt stressed about managing schoolwork and the production, the group discussed “the things that were burdening us that we thought we weren’t allowed to say,” according to Weber. Rehearsal ended an hour earlier that day with actors feeling acknowledged and heard. “When parts of the process became difficult for members of the cast, being able to discuss and share what we were experiencing significantly built trust and community in the space,” added associate director Nadiya Atkinson. The cast said that Beast Thing, which included many of the same cast members, had a decidedly different atmosphere. After the theatre department cancelled Beast Thing, actors
cited factors ranging from a lack of a student voice to a dehumanizing rehearsal process. “We were not listened to in Beast Thing; we were forced to just plow through,” Jasinska, who was in both shows, said. “When we raised concerns, it was just sort of thrust aside.” Concerns about graphic images, for instance, were ignored. In this show, by contrast, when actors raised concerns about the images associated with Pontius Pilate, played by Messan-Hilla, a Black man, threatening sexual assault against Fabiana Cunningham, played by Jasinska, a white woman, the cast collaboratively rethought elements of the scene. The openness of the show’s creative process was epitomized by having open rehearsals. This gesture was meant to allow the community a way into the show’s process and create a less secretive environment, and theatre faculty would sometimes stop by, though students rarely did so. Chair and Associate Professor of Theatre David Gürçay-Morris ’96 commended the unique quality of the show’s teamwork. “I couldn’t be happier that we have all been able to learn from Shari [Ghaheri] and Cat [María Rodríguez] over these past few months, both in their approach to making theater and to forging a community through that artistic work,” he said. In the end, according to actors, the open process paid off in the final product. “When you have such a big cast where everyone gets to make their own decisions, sometimes it feels a bit chaotic, but in this world it made it feel a bit textured,” Weber said. “Every single character that you saw on stage was their own person, with their own background.” For Jasinska, the process enhanced not only the show’s ultimate quality but her experience in performing in it. “The final product lent itself to us feeling like we had so much ownership over the show,” she said. “It made me really proud to to be a part of it.” - Rebecca Tauber ’21 and Samuel Wolf ’21 (March 13, 2019)
SPORTS
THE WILLIAMS RECORD COMMENCEMENT 2019
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FALLSports
No. 5 women’s soccer wins third NCAA title in four years
No. 5 women’s soccer (19–1–4, 9–0–1 in the NESCAC) successfully defended the NCAA Div. III championship, its third in four years. The women defeated No. 11 Christopher Newport (CNU) 2-0 in the semifinals on Nov. 30 before knocking off conference rival No. 3 Middlebury 1-1 on penalty kicks in the final to take home the trophy. Sarah Scire ’20 scored a goal in each half against CNU as the women blanked the highpowered Captains at UNC-Greensboro Stadium. The Ephs broke CNU’s 16-game win streak and advanced to the NCAA championship game with the shutout. “We knew coming into this game [CNU] had incredible individual attacking ability,” Eph head coach Michelyne Pinard said. “And they were exactly what we thought – they were incredible.” The Captains had not been shut out once the entire season prior to their matchup with the Ephs. In the game’s 10th minute, they nearly got on the board as All-American Riley Cook, who had scored in 11 straight games coming into the semifinal, rocketed a shot past tri-captain Olivia Barnhill ’19. However, it was quickly whistled off-sides. The Ephs stayed composed and began to possess the ball more as the half went on. Midway through, Ilana Albert ’21 gained control at midfield and made a run to the Captains’ goal, ripping a shot from about 30 yards out. The ball hit off the upper arm of a CNU defender at the top of the box and caromed to the right, where Scire raced onto it and quickly flicked a shot back to her left that nestled itself inside the left post with 22:33 remaining in the half for a 1-0 lead. “Ilana made an incredible, dynamic run inside, and I just continued my run like I’ve been told to do 1000 times,” Scire said. “And it worked out for the best.” CNU came out with its engine on high to start the second half and nearly gained the equalizer just 69 seconds in when Maddie Cochran took advantage of a bad clear and took a shot from inside the 18. But Barnhill raced out to make a sliding save. The Ephs answered with their own opportunity seven minutes later when Liz Girvan ’22
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.
No. 5 women’s soccer prevailed on penalty kicks against No. 3 Middlebury in the final as Olivia Barnhill ’19 stopped three of five shots from the spot, gained control of the ball at the midfield stripe and sent another through ball toward the Captains’ goal. Scire turned on her jets and flicked a shot to the right that beat the goalkeeper. Down two goals, CNU pressed forward, but the Ephs held strong. The back line of Maria Chapman ’22, Sarah Kelly ’20, Nkem Iregbulem ’20 and Liz Webber ’20 was supported by midfielders Pierson and Victoria Laino ’21, who not only stopped dynamic runs, but blocked shot after shot. After a header that Barnhill stopped with 17:44 left, the defense did not allow a shot on goal the remainder of the game. “Our defensive effort was outstanding,” Barnhill said. “Something we’ve been working hard on all year and really prided ourselves on is how hard we work and how tough we are in our oneon-one defending.” The women played conference rival Middlebury in the national championship game Saturday evening. It was the fourth time in five years the Ephs have played in the national championship game.
The final play of the game was a fitting end to the women’s season. In the pouring rain, Barnhill dove to her right and saved a penalty kick from Middlebury midfielder Clare Robinson. With the save, the women became the first team to repeat as national champions since 2011-12, when Messiah accomplished the feat. The Ephs received a goal from Aspen Pierson ’21 in the game’s 28th minute. Georgia Lord ’21 dribbled up the left side and sent a cross into the box. Albert one-touched it to the right side, where Pierson ripped a left-footed shot that was just out of the diving reach of Panther goalie Ursula Alwang on the right post. The women held that lead for the next 50 minutes, until an own goal tied the game at 1-1. An Eph defender looked to clear the ball from inside the six-yard box, but her attempt deflected off Barnhill and trickled into the back of the net. Early in the first overtime, the Ephs had a pair of scoring threats, but the women nearly won the game in the closing seconds of the period, as a cross inside the penalty box found the feet of Sci-
re. Alwang however raced out and deflected Scire’s shot to send the match to a second overtime. The game went to penalty kicks, a familiar place for the Ephs. Barnhill saved the first and third shots. Laino and Pierson made back-toback penalty kicks, and after four kicks for each team, the shootout score was knotted 2-2. Rain Condie ’22 took the Ephs’ fifth kick and sent a well-placed ball into the lower left-hand corner of the goal. Barnhill then stopped Robinson’s shot, and the celebration began. “It’s pretty surreal to win back-to-back and to have three of our four years be national championship years,” Barnhill said. “I think that’s just a testament to my class, a testament to this program, a testament to this team and all our players.” The game was the last in Eph uniform for Barnhill, Kristina Alvarado ’19, Madison Feeney ’19, Dawn Penso ’19, Natalie Turner-Wyatt ’19 and tri-captains Lauren Brown ’19 and Sarah Hollinger ’19. – Alexander Christ ’22 (Dec. 5, 2018)
Women’s cross country finishes seventh at Nationals with 283 points On Nov. 17, women’s cross country placed seventh at the 2018 NCAA Div. III Cross Country Championships in Oshkosh, Wis. Washington University won the meet with 98 points, closely followed by Johns Hopkins in second with 99 points. The women claimed seventh with 283 points, beating rival and NESCAC champion Middlebury, who placed eighth.
Paige Lawler from Washington University won the 6k race in a time of 20:55. Emma Herrmann ’20 was the first Eph to finish, with a time of 22:06, taking 46th place. She was six spots away from becoming an All-American. Co-captain Emily Harris ’19 placed 58th with a time of 22:15, and Audrey Rustad ’20 followed just behind in 61st with a time of 22:16.
Sarah Tully ’21 was the next Eph to meet her teammates at the finish line, running a time of 22:37 for 108th place. Grace Dailey ’22 followed behind soon after and ran 22:39 for 114th place. Head coach Pete Farwell ’73 highlighted Dailey’s performance, noting that she “truly dug deep to kick it in down the stretch.”
Jaylan Fraser-Mines ’21 finished about one minute after Tully and Dailey, running 23:34 for 226th place. Co-captain Lindsay Klickstein ’19 finished right behind FraserMines for 240th, running a time of 23:40. The Ephs again showed their depth as the difference between runners one and five was a mere 30 seconds, indicating how close the pack was. Farwell noted that there was “great racing in a dense field [with] everyone moving up and super finishing over the final kilometer, picking up several team places.” He was also excited about the Ephs’ finish: “This completed an excellent team season, beyond expectations,” he said. Harris recapped her last season. “We’ve accomplished what we have as a team this year because we’ve been able to work extensively with each other in practice and on the course during the race — which, in my 11 years of competing on cross country teams, is something that has been really unique to this year,” she said. The women graduate Harris, Klickstein and Jesse Facey ’19.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.
– Elizabeth Bigham ’21 and Julia Gunther ’20 (Dec. 5, 2018)
Women’s cross country edged out NESCAC rival Middlebury, which claimed first at NESCACs, for seventh at Nationals in Oshkosh, Wis.
THE WILLIAMS RECORD
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COMMENCEMENT 2019
Field hockey Football upsets defending NESCAC champion Trinity knocks off No. 1 Middlebury On Oct. 23, field hockey (12–5, 7–3 in the NESCAC) defeated No. 1 Middlebury 4-2 at home, giving the Panthers their first loss of the season and vaulting the Ephs into the third seed for NESCACs. The Ephs’ first chance of the game came when Elizabeth Welch ’22 found Emma Ticknor ’20, who diced her way through the Panthers defense and got a shot on net. Her shot was deflected by Middlebury goalie Megan Collins but landed back at her stick. Her second effort sneaked past Collins but banged off the post and out. The Ephs got on the scoreboard when Libby Dolan ’19 found the back of the net at 11:39. Four minutes later, Ticknor got a goal on a pass from Claire Fitzpatrick ’21 at 15:37, putting the Ephs up 2-0. After the goal, the Panthers called a timeout to regroup. The Ephs continued their offensive prowess after the timeout. Co-captain Meredith Wright ’19 dribbled down the baseline past a couple of defenders and found Ticknor in the circle who tipped it past Collins to put the Ephs up 3-0 at 18:18. The Panthers were eager to claw their way back into this game. After a lengthy possession in the Ephs’ circle, Panthers defender Erin Nicholas drove hard into the circle and buried an on-the-run shot for the first Panther goal of the game at 22:06. The Ephs responded with a goal of their own at 28:11. On a penalty corner, Isabel Perry ’20 took the initial shot, which was saved by Collins. After a scrum in the circle, the ball got loose and Ticknor notched her third goal of the half for a hat trick. The Ephs would hold their 4-1 lead until the end of the half. Abby Lloyd ’20 entered the game and took over for Emma Santucci ’19 as the goalie for the second half. Santucci finished the half with two saves. The first and only goal of the second half belonged to Nicholas, who scored after receiving a pass from a penalty corner at 57:30. Emma Johns was credited with the assist. The goal brought the score to 4-2 with just over 12 minutes left in the game. The Panthers added some offensive pressure on the Ephs with a couple of penalty corners, but the Ephs stood tall and kept the ball out of the net, keeping the Panthers two goals away. The rest of the game was a back-and-forth affair between the two teams, but the Ephs held onto their 4-2 lead for the remainder of the contest. Lloyd ended the game with five saves, and Collins finished with two saves. The last Ephs win over the Panthers was in 2009 when Ephs won 2-1 at Middlebury in the NESCAC quarterfinals. “I feel like we had a game plan and a strategy and we executed it to a T,” Eph head coach Alix Barrale ’93 commented after the game. “We never let up. We knew we had to put 70 minutes together [against Middlebury], and we did. From top-to-bottom, everybody did their job. We moved Ticknor up, and considering she scored three goals today, I think it worked out for us. To get a win against the best team in the nation is pretty special.” By winning the game, the Ephs secured home-field advantage for the opening game of the NESCAC tournament, which began on Oct. 28. The women defeated Bowdoin 3-2 on a game-winner by Libby Dolan ’19 to advance to the NESCAC semifinals, but fell to Tufts 3-0 on Nov. 3 to end their season. The team will graduate Dolan, Santucci, Wright, Julia Cochran ’19, Sarah McLaughlin ’19 and Caroline Taverna ’19. – Cameron Brown ’19 and Kirstin Mapes ’20
On Sept. 29, football (5–4, 5–4 in the NESCAC) scored 14 points in the third quarter en route to a 21-16 win against defending NESCAC champion Trinity, snapping the Ephs’ seven-game losing streak against the Bantams. The Bantams controlled the pace of the first half, outgaining the Ephs 200-141 yards and consistently getting into the red zone. But each time Trinity drove inside the 20, the purple-and-gold defense held. In the first half, Trinity had three red-zone possessions and only came away with a field goal each time. The Ephs had only one first-half red-zone drive but scored a touchdown on a seamroute pass from quarterback Bobby Maimaron ’21 to tight end Justin Burke ’21, which put the men up 7-6 before Trinity kicked a field goal to score the last points of the half. After making halftime adjustments, the Ephs outscored the Bantams 14-0 in the third quarter. This is not surprising, since the men have previously outscored their opponents 45-0 in a third quarter play this season. The Ephs’ first drive of the third set the tone for the rest of the game, as Trinity didn’t score again until very late in the fourth. Trailing 7-9, the Ephs opened the second half by driving all the way downfield in just 1:15 to put themselves on top for good, 149. The drive was sparked by two passes from Maimaron to wide receiver Frank Stola ’21, the first being a 45-yard deep bomb down the middle and the second being a 21-yard touchdown in the back left corner of the end
zone. Trinity drove right back down the field, but on the third down, linebacker TJ Rothmann ’21 jumped a pass from opposing quarterback Jordan Vazzano, intercepting it at the goal line. After Maimaron briefly left the game due to injury late in the third quarter, the coaching staff called a deep pass on the first play for quarterback Jackson Bischoping ’22. Bischoping delivered, unfurling a perfectly thrown dart that Stola caught at the 15-yard line and took all the way into the end zone to put the Ephs up 21-9. Nothing seemed to go right for Trinity after the half. Late in the third, a fake punt attempt on a fourth down led to just a six-yard gain, giving Williams possession inside the Trinity 40-yard line. In the middle of the fourth, when the game was still well within reach, Vazzano was intercepted by defensive back Ben Anthony ’20. On the Bantams’ secondto-last possession, Vazzano completed a pass that would have been good for a first down, only to see defensive back Desmond Butler ’19 force a fumble, which the Ephs recovered. With under two minutes to go, Vazzano exploited a blown coverage on a 73-yard touchdown pass that cut the deficit to 21-16. In order to win, the Bantams needed to secure possession with an ensuing onside kick that went out of bounds, allowing the Ephs to kneel out the clock from there. Out of Trinity's eight second-half possessions, two resulted in interceptions, two in turnovers on downs, two in punts and one on
a lost fumble, with only the final drive of the game resulting in points. For the second half and the game, the Ephs won the turnover battle 3-0. “We knew we were going to have to weather some storms early, and offensively. We did enough in the first half to give us some breathing room, and the defense made some great stops,” head coach Mark Raymond said, commenting on the Ephs’ approach during the game. As for halftime adjustments, Raymond gave the credit to his assistant coaches and players. “It’s just the coaches doing a fantastic job,” he said. “We have a bunch of guys who can make adjustments on the run. They work so hard, they prepare so hard and they’re able to do those types of things.” Maimaron completed 12-of-25 pass attempts for 154 yards and two touchdowns. Returning after not playing last week against Colby, Stola caught five passes for an impressive 138 yards and two touch downs. Rothmann was all over the field, registering the pivotal end-zone interception along with a fumble recovery, 15 total tackles and 2.5 tackles for loss. The men will graduate Amyhr Barber ’19, Desmond Butler ’19, Jameson DeMarco ’19, Christian Dumont ’19, James Dunn ’19, Jaelon Moaney ’19, Brendan Rosseau ’19, Karsten Salveson ’19, Austin Thomas ’19 and Joe Volpe ’19. – Joe LaRocca ’22 (Oct. 3, 2018)
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.
For the first time since 2010, football defeated Trinity, 21-16, behind two touchdown catches from Frank Stola ’21. The men opened the season 4–0.
... and the rest VOLLEYBALL
MEN’S SOCCER
SECOND AT NESCACS EIGHTH AT NATIONALS
OVERALL RECORD: 12–12 NESCAC RECORD: 5–5
OVERALL RECORD: 10–6–3 NESCAC RECORD: 4–4–2
Men’s cross country finished second at NESCACs in the middle of a nor’easter, with Ryan Cox ’20 placing first for the first time in his college career. The team also finished second at Regionals, securing the Ephs a bid to the NCAA championship where they scored eighth overall — their best finish in three years. The men will graduate Lucas Estrada ’19, Liam Albrittain ’19, Austin Anderson ’19, David Azzara ’19, Adrian Black ’19, Zeke Cohen ’19, Ross Hoch ’19, Jacob Kahrs ’19, Walker Knauss ’19, Mitchell Morris ’19, and co-captain John Spence ’19.
Volleyball placed sixth in the NESCAC regular season before falling to third-seeded Amherst in a five-set battle in the opening round of the NESCAC tournament. Middle hitter Mia Weinland ’19 was named to the All-NESCAC Second Team and the AVCA Northeast Region team. She recorded 216 kills and a team-high 2.96 kills per set. Olivia Hindy ’22 finished second in the NESCAC with 0.94 blocks per set. The women will graduate Weinland, Roxi Corbeil ’19, Ally Ostrow ’19, Morgan Richman ’19 and Tess Richman ’19
Men’s soccer beat Middlebury 1-0 and Hamilton 2-0 to advance to the NESCAC final, where the team fell to Colby 4-3 on penalty kicks after a 0-0 draw. With the performance, the Ephs earned an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament — their first appearance since 2013. In a first round matchup against Elizabethtown on Nov. 10, the men lost 2-1 in a nail biter. The Ephs will graduate Aaron Schein ’20, Sean Dory ’20, Eric Hirsch ’20, Ian Kagame ’20, Paul Griffith ’20 and captains Greg Andreou ’20 and Scatt Macdonald ’19.
MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY
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THE WILLIAMS RECORD
WINTERSports
COMMENCEMENT 2019
No. 7 women’s ice hockey wins NESCACs on home ice No. 7 women’s ice hockey (20–4–3) won its second-ever NESCAC title, defeating No. 18 Amherst in a semifinal game on March 2 and knocking off No. 9 Middlebury, last year’s conference champion, in the final on March 3. With the title, the Ephs clinched an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament. The women hosted No. 8 Norwich, the defending national champion, on March 6 and notched the first NCAA tournament victory in program history. “I am so happy for the group of six seniors,” head coach Meghan Gillis said after the NESCAC final. “They knew what they wanted and got the rest of the team on the same page to make it happen.” The weekend marked the first time the women had beaten Middlebury and Amherst three times in a season. “I am so proud of every member of our team,” Gillis told the Record. “Every single person has sacrificed the ‘me’ for the ‘we’ and is truly happy for the success of what we do as a group and are not worried about the individual. That’s pretty amazing that they can do that.” Against the Mammoths on Saturday, the Ephs scored early in the first period and maintained their advantage to win 3-1. The Ephs took the lead when co-captain Annie Rush ’19 wrapped a pass from the right side of the net around to defender Brynn Puppe ’21. Puppe fired a slap shot into the upper-left corner for the early 1-0 advantage. Halfway through the second period, the women received a power play opportunity after a hooking call against Amherst. During the advantage, assistant captain Abby Brustad ’19 skated around a defender and scored from the far-right side of net to make it 2-0. Amherst, however, responded with its own power play goal. The score remained 2-1 until 12:30 into the third period, when Michaela
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.
The women completed three-game season sweeps of Middebury and Amherst on March 2–3 to claim the NESCAC title at Lansing Chapman Rink. O’Connor ’21, assisted by Amanda Reisman ’20 and Avery Dunn ’21, flipped the puck into the top of the net with a backhand. Despite pulling their goalie with a few minutes left in the game, the Mammoths could not get past first-year goalie Chloe Heiting ’22, who saved 27 of 28 Amherst shots. “I thought that we came out a little bit sloppy, but then we settled in and played a more composed game,” Gillis said. “I thought lots of different people made key plays at different moments.” In the championship game the next day, the women ended Middlebury’s three-year reign as NESCAC champions. Middlebury opened the scoring, but the women equalized minutes later when Puppe fired a shot from the left side of the net.
The Ephs then pulled ahead early in the second period when Reisman deflected in a shot. After a series of penalties, the Panthers capitalized on a four-on-three advantage when a shot deflected by Anna Zumwinkle found its way to the back of the net to tie the game again. The Ephs finally took the lead for good with 10:52 left in the final period when Meghan Halloran ’21 scored off a backdoor pass from Delaney Szlezyngier ’22. “The composure of first-year defenseman Delaney Szlezyngier on the game winning goal to find Meghan Halloran back door was incredible,” Gillis said. With less than two minutes left in the game, the Panthers pulled their goaltender. While the extra player on the ice appeared to pay off when a Middlebury shot arched over Heiting and snuck under the crossbar, the
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
MEN’S SQUASH OVERALL RECORD: 15–12 SECOND AT NESCACs
SIXTH AT REGIONALS
SIXTH AT REGIONALS
OVERALL RECORD: 11–24 NESCAC RECORD: 5–5
Skiing won sixth place at NCAA Regionals on Feb. 22–23, with top five team finishes in the women’s slalom, the women’s 15k classic and the men’s 20k classic. The women will graduate Nordic captain Sonya Jampel ’19 and Alpine captain Hannah Hunsaker ’19. The men will graduate six members: Nordic skiers Braden Becker ’19, Evan Carr ’19 and captain Nick Gardner ’19 and Alpine skiers Bryan Bailey ’19, Gibson Donnan ’19, Charlie Harrison ’19 and captain Stockton Troyer ’19.
In her 28th season, head coach Pat Manning became the 22nd coach in Div. III history to win 500 games with a 58-34 victory over Colby on Feb. 1. Over winter break, women’s basketball (11–14, 5–5 in the NESCAC) also traveled to the West Coast, where the Ephs almost knocked off No. 7 Whitman on Dec. 20 before notching a victory over UC Santa Cruz on Dec. 21. The Ephs will graduate Caroline Lovisolo ’19 and co-captains Lexi Jones ’19 and Lauren Vostal ’19.
No. 20 men’s squash (15–12) secured a second-place finish at NESCACs on Feb. 2-3, advancing to the final match with a dramatic 5-4 comeback victory over Middlebury before falling to No. 2 Trinity. At Nationals, the men swept Tufts 9-0 on Feb. 15 but bowed out to MIT the next day. John Fitzgerald ’19 was named NESCAC Player of the Year. The Ephs will graduate co-captains Fitzgerald and Ben Eisenberg ’19, as well as Anand Butler ’19, George Clark ’19, Neel Jain ’19 and Oscar Merino ’19.
Wrestling placed sixth at NCAA Regionals in Providence, R.I. on Feb. 23–24. Eight Ephs advanced to the second day of the meet, and Joey Rossetti ’21 finished third in the 141 lb. weight class. The men also secured sixth place at the New England Futures Tournament on Feb. 17 with runner-up finishes from Nick Anselmi ’20 and Ian Darling ’22. The Ephs bid farewell to their seniors, Bennett Caplin ’19, Sebastian Dziadkiewicz ’19, Ben Morton ’19, Alex Pankhurst ’19 and Brendon Seyfried ’19.
MEN’S ICE HOCKEY
WOMEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING
WOMEN’S SQUASH OVERALL RECORD: 16–10 SECOND AT NESCACs No. 13 women’s squash (16–10) finished runner-up at NESCACs on Feb. 9–10, falling to Trinity 8-1 in the final after sweeping Hamilton and beating Middlebury 6-3. At Nationals on Feb. 22–24, the women lost to No. 12 Brown but bounced back to win two consolation games against rival No. 16 Amherst and No. 14 Middlebury. The Ephs will graduate captain Esther Baek ’19, who contributed points against Amherst and Middlebury in her final two matches.
goal was disallowed after a lengthy review due to a high sticking call. “I was just hopeful that [the officials] saw what we saw and that the right call would be made,” Gillis said postgame about the review. After time expired, the women rushed onto the ice to celebrate. “We all threw our gloves and sticks in the air and ran out to our goalie,” Reisman said. “Some people just couldn’t believe what happened. I guess there just aren’t even words to describe how we were feeling.” The team will graduate Anna Fucillo ’19, Olivia Stokes ’19, assistant captains Brustad and Claire Mancheski ’19 and co-captains Rush and Eliza Quigley ’19. – Mehr Sawant ’21 (March 6, 2019)
... and the rest ALPINE AND NORDIC SKIING
OVERALL RECORD: 14–9–2 NESCAC RECORD: 10–6–2
FOURTH AT NATIONALS
MEN’S INDOOR TRACK AND FIELD SIXTH AT REGIONALS
Head coach Bill Kangas returned from sabbatical to lead men’s hockey (14–9–2, 10–6–2 in the NESCAC) to several upsets early in the season. On Jan. 4, the men scored late in the third period to beat No. 6 Trinity by a score of 4-3. The team also split a two-game series with No. 4 Oswego and defeated No. 12 Babson. Marcus Mollica ’19 finished second in the NESCAC in goals. The team will graduate Mollica, captain Keanu Hilaire ’19, Connor Meike ’19, Roberto Cellini ’19 and Michael Pinios ’19.
Women’s swimming and diving finished fourth at NCAAs on March 20–23, marking the fifth consecutive year that the Ephs have finished fourth or better in the nation. The women also claimed a sixth straight NESCAC title on Feb. 14– 17. Ali McNamara ’19 won the Four-Year High Point Swimmer Award. The Ephs will graduate co-captains McNamara and Kristina Barry ’19, as well as Victoria Chentsova ’19, Dana Chung ’19, Franny Dean ’19, Giula Filocca ’19, Maia Hare ’19, Erin Kennedy ’19 and Bryanna Lee ’19.
Men’s track and field finished sixth out of 23 scored teams at the Div. III New England Championship in Brunswick, Maine. The men compiled 56 points. Aidan Ryan ’21 won the 3000m, bursting into the lead with a 60-second final quarter. On Jan. 12, the men captured their 31st consecutive Little Three championship. Co-captain Ian Kagame ’19 placed first in the high jump, and a comfortable victory in the 4x800m relay helped the team overcome a number of injuries and illnesses.
WRESTLING
THE WILLIAMS RECORD
COMMENCEMENT 2019
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Women’s track and field claims NCAA indoor title in Boston No. 1 women’s track and field won its second NCAA title in program history on March 8-9. The women earned 42 points at the meet, held at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston. Washington University finished second with 40 points, and George Fox came in third with 29 points. “It’s a great day to be an Eph,” head coach Nate Hoey said. “This team has faced so much adversity all season and never once have they held their heads down. They consistently look forward and to what’s in front [of them] and what they can do to maximize where they are. I’m so proud of this entire team and what they have done.” Starting Day One of the competition was Caitlin Ubl ’19 in the 60m hurdles prelims. Ubl came into Friday’s race seeded seventh but finished second in her heat with a personal and school record of 8.66 seconds. In the pole vault, Kelsie Hao ’21 missed only one bar until her final height. Hao finished with a height of 3.80 meters, just 2 centimeters shy of her personal best. The jump placed Hao in fifth place, which earned 4 points for the team. Maggie Murphy ’19 placed 13th in the event with a final jump of 3.60 meters. Anna Passannante ’20 competed in both the mile and 800m. In the mile, Passannante won her heat with a time of 5:03, putting her in fourth place going into the next day’s finals. Just an hour later, she took fifth place overall in the 800m prelims. In the 5000m, Emily Harris ’19 crossed the finish line in 17:29 to clinch 14th place. The 4x400m relay team, made up of Davis Collison ’21, Ella Dunn ’21, Ubl and Megan Powell ’21, finished first in its heat with a time of 3:51, which placed the team in the fourth seed for Sunday’s finals. The distance medley relay team, Brianna Bourne ’21, Summer-Solstice Thomas ’20, Abby Scott ’22 and
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.
The women won their first NCAA championship since 2007 in March at the Reggie Lewis Center, with eight competitors earning All-America honors. Audrey Rustad ’20, finished in 12:09, placing them 12th. Thomas also competed in the pentathlon, finishing in fifth place with 3507 points and securing four points for the team. Day Two of competition began with the high jump, in which the Ephs were represented by Emma Egan ’20 and Kene Odenigbo ’19. Odenigbo jumped the second-best height she has cleared all season, breaking her seed to finish in 14th. Egan achieved a perfect jump performance, missing no marks until the final height. The highest jump she cleared, 1.77 meters, secured a national title for Egan, who also set a personal best and school record. Ubl was next on the track in the 60m hurdles finals. Coming into the race seeded sev-
enth, Ubl finished in 8.84 seconds. The time was good enough for Ubl to break her seed and place sixth, winning the team 3 points. Passannante secured 16 points for the Ephs in her two races of the day. Starting with a second-place finish in the mile, Passannante broke seed and finished the mile in 4:46, a personal best and school record. Next, Passannante finished the 800m in 2:11, clinching second place again. With the performance, Passannante set another personal and school record, winning 8 more points for the team. Going into the team’s final event, the 4x400m relay team, the women were behind by only 3 points. In order to win the national championship, the team needed to come in fifth place or better. Collison, Dunn, Ubl and
Powell secured fourth place, scoring 4 points for the Ephs and clinching the title. With Collison coming out quickly in the first leg and taking the lead, the rest of the team held it. With each leg of the relay, the women created more and more distance between the majority of the heat to finish in a time of 3:50. “This was a total team effort,” Hoey said. “The energy and support for and from everyone was awesome.” The national championship wrapped up a highly successful indoor season for the Ephs. The women finished as national champions, New England champions and Little Three champions. – Cailin Stollar ’21 (March 13, 2019)
No. 19 men’s basketball upsets No. 2 Whitman in Sweet 16 In a thrilling weekend of NCAA tournament games, No. 19 men’s basketball (23–7, 6–4 in the NESCAC) knocked off No. 2 Whitman in the Sweet 16 on March 8 before falling in the Elite Eight to No. 9 Christopher Newport the next day. The men advanced to the Elite Eight for the sixth time in 10 years but came up just short of a third straight Final Four appearance. The weekend marked the end of the college careers of six seniors: Bobby Casey ’19, James Heskett ’19, Kyle Scadlock ’19, Michael Kempton ’19, Marcos Soto ’19 and Jake Porath ’19. Casey, Heskett and Scadlock were the first trio of 1000-point scorers to take the floor at the same time for the Ephs. “This senior class means the world to me,” said head coach Kevin App. “They were the first group that said they wanted me to be their head
coach. They made it their goal to leave a mark on a program that already had a lot of history. Even though three of them were 1000-point scorers, the entire class was always all about [the] team and each other. They were a joy to be around for four years.” After double-digit victories over Husson and Gwynedd Mercy in the opening weekend of the tournament, the men met secondranked Whitman in Clinton, N.Y. Despite committing 29 turnovers, the Ephs shot 29 of 43 from the field, including 7-of-11 shooting from 3, and overcame a late charge by the Blues to win 84-81. As a result of Whitman’s fast-paced full-court press, the game was unlike almost any other the men played this year. Although the men maintained a comfortable margin throughout the game, a combination of
foul trouble and the Whitman press continued to provide cause for concern. After Matt Karpowicz ’20 made a layup to put the Ephs up 77-65, the Blues rattled off a quick 9-0 run in the following two minutes. It looked like the game might have been slipping away when Whitman pulled within one at 80-79 with 49 seconds left. The Blues were called for a traveling violation however on their next possession. After the Ephs successfully inbounded the ball to Heskett, the senior hit both free throws to put the men up 82-79 with just 21 seconds on the clock. Fellow senior Kempton then won a jump ball to seal the game. With the win, the men advanced to an Elite Eight matchup with Christopher Newport, who edged out host Hamilton 75-67 in its Sweet 16 contest.
Both coming off hard-fought victories, the Ephs and the Captains struggled to find any rhythm on the offensive end at the beginning of the game. Off the tip, the Captains reeled off an 8-2 run to build a lead they would not relinquish for the remainder of the game. “I thought we gutted it out and found ways to make some runs,” App said after the game. “But they answered every time, and they did a great job of handling our runs.” Casey finished out his college career with 18 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists. Scadlock added 13 points and 9 rebounds. “We knew it was going to be a complete contrast from yesterday,” App said. “But that’s what makes this tournament so fun.” – Eric Hirsch ’19 (March 13, 2019)
Men’s swimming avenges loss to Tufts, recaptures NESCAC crown No. 19 men’s swimming and diving reclaimed the NESCAC championship last weekend – their 17th title overall – a year after falling to Tufts. Over the four-day meet in Middlebury, Vt., the Ephs finished with 1822 points, closely followed by the Jumbos with 1775.5 points. "This meet was an absolute back-and-forth battle with a very good Tufts team,” head coach Steve Kuster said after the win. “The effort, resilience and resolve that this team showed was inspiring.” With a new four-day format, the NESCAC Championship kicked off on Thursday night with the 800 freestyle relay. The change benefitted the Ephs as the “B” and “A” relay teams set back-to-back pool and meet records. The “A” re-
lay, which touched in 6:34.03, also secured the NESCAC record and posted the fastest time in Div. III this year. On Friday, the distance trio of Jamie Lovette ’21, Jackson Karofsky ’21 and Andrew Trunsky ’20 swept the podium in the 500 freestyle. Curtis Maher ’19 also placed fourth with a time of 20.93 in the 50 freestyle. On Saturday, the Ephs won five out of six individual events but the Jumbos narrowed their deficit to 24 points. In the 100 breaststroke, Jack Melnick ’19, who placed third for the NESCAC Four-Year High Point Swimmer Award, avenged an earlier loss in the 50 breaststroke with a first-place finish and personal best of 26.13.
“The men have competed incredibly well,” Kuster said. “Tonight was a tremendous night with some great swims for us. I love the grit and fire the team is bringing to the pool every session.” Sunday, the fourth and final day of competition, started with the distance swimmers once again proving their dominance. Karofsky won the 1650 freestyle, smashing his best time as well as sneaking under the pool record at 15:31.01, and Trunsky clocked in at 15:37.71 for second place. Lovette took third with his speedy front half. His time of 15:44.15 ensured that the Ephs swept the podium. After three Ephs competed in the 100 freestyle and 200 breaststroke and earned a com-
bined 143 points, the men dominated the final individual event of the meet, the 200 fly. Going into the race, the men trailed Tufts by 6.5 points, but they swept the podium and recorded five of the six fastest times. Lucca Delcompare ’20 led the group in 1:48.4. With the team effort, the Ephs surged into a 56.5-point lead over the Jumbos. A fourth-place finish in the 400 freestyle relay was enough to clinch the NESCAC title for the Ephs. The team will graduate Maher, Matthew Lennon ’19, Zach Ottati ’19, Dragan Vujovic ’19 and co-captains Melnick and Shahzad Mumtaz ’19. – Jack Melnick ’19 (Feb. 27, 2019)
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SPRINGSports
COMMENCEMENT 2019
No. 4 softball defeats Ithaca at Supers, advances to WS
Rebecca Duncan ’20 fired a called third strike past Ithaca lead-off batter Nikkey Skuraton with two outs and the tying run on second base on May 18 as softball (38–5, 12–0 in the NESCAC) edged the Bombers, 4-3, to sweep the best-ofthree NCAA tournament Super Regional. For her efforts in the circle, Duncan was named the Super Regional’s Most Outstanding Pitcher. Mackenzie Murphy ’19 was named the Most Outstanding Player after recording three hits and one RBI at the plate and pitching five innings of three-hit ball. “We’re happy to come away with the win,” Ephs head coach Kris Herman said after the game. “Ithaca is a super team obviously, scrappy. They manufactured some runs and got some hits. Both games I was really, really impressed. It was a great couple of games.” In the second game of the best-of-three series, the Ephs rallied from an early 2-0 deficit, scoring twice in the third and twice in the fourth to take a 4-2 lead. The women then held on for a one-run victory, their third straight one-run triumph. The Ephs are 5-0
in NCAA play to date and have won 27 of their last 28 games. “It’s been something we’ve been working toward since we went two years ago,” Murphy said. “Last year when we lost in Supers, that hit us hard. So we’ve just been working so hard. I think everyone on this team wants it so bad. I know everyone has checked in and is going for it. We don’t have doubts right now. We’re confident and we know what we can do and if we just go out like we’ve been doing, we feel invincible.” Ithaca scored twice in the top of the first after being blanked by Duncan in the first game, a 1-0 win for the purple and gold on May 17. But Murphy got stronger as the game continued. After a lead-off single in the second, she retired 10 of the next 11 batters she faced. Ithaca starter Haley Congdon retired the first six batters she faced, but Riley Salvo ’20 broke the ice with a lead-off single in the third. With two outs and Jenny Hickey ’21 on first base after a fielder’s choice, Kristina Alvarado ’19 drew a walk. Jessica Kim ’19 changed the game when she belted a 3-2 pitch from Congdon into the left-
center field gap. The ball shot all the way to the fence, which allowed Hickey to score and Alvarado to score from first to tie the game, 2-2. In the fourth, Mara Kipnis ’22 belted a lead-off single. That brought up Murphy, who connected with a Congdon pitch and drove it to left-center. The ball carried all the way to the fence, clanging off the top of the wall for a double that put runners on second and third with no outs. Kirstin Mapes ’20 next bounced a grounder to first that was good enough to score Kipnis with the go-ahead run. Casey Pelz ’19 followed with a single back up the middle that snuck into center field for a 4-2 lead. Murphy retired the first batter of the fifth before Annie Cooney lined a solo homer to left for the Bombers that cut the lead to 4-3. After Murphy sat down the next two batters, Duncan came out for the top of the sixth. She allowed a lead-off single to Vanessa Brown, who was quickly advanced to second. But Duncan forced a pop up and a soft liner to first base to end the inning. In the Ithaca seventh, Shannon Gage drew a lead-off walk and was sacrificed to second.
Duncan retired Cooney on a shallow fly ball to center for out number two, bringing up Nikkey Skuraton, who had both Bomber hits in Duncan’s two-hit shutout the previous day. The Ephs righty got ahead quickly in the count and threw a 1-2 pitch that went for the called strike that ended the contest. The Ephs had six hits in the win. Kim was 2 for 3 with two RBIs. Pelz was 1 for 2 with a single and a walk. Murphy picked up the win, allowing three runs on three hits while walking two and striking out two. She improved to 12-3 on the year and the win was the 58th in her career at Williams, extending her all-time wins record. With the win, the Ephs advanced to the eight-team Women’s College World Series for the fourth time in program history. The women traveled to Tyler, Texas, on May 21 in preparation for the start of the double-elimination tournament. The team will graduate Alvarado, Kim, Murphy, Pelz and Jill Jenkin ’19. – Kris Dufour (Sports Information, May 18, 2019)
Men’s crew wins first New Englands title since 2001 as all four boats medal On May 4, men’s crew won its first team championship since 2001 at the New England Rowing Championships. All four boats brought home medals to secure the title on Lake Quinsigamond. The 4V set the tone for the rest of the team by leading off the day with a silver medal. The men got off the line well, matched only by Boston College and UMass in the early going. Boston College quickly separated from the field, while the men pushed ahead of UMass for second. “Not only did we execute the race plan exquisitely, we found some extra speed in the final 400,” said coxswain Margot Berman ’22. “The boys really dug deep.”
Next up, the 3V matched the 4V’s performance with a silver medal of its own. The crew fell behind the entire field in the first 250 meters but gradually clawed their way back into the pack. At the 1000-meter mark, the men launched into their middle move and pushed their way into third place, ahead of Bates and WPI. From there, the boat found its rhythm and walked from half a length down to a length up on UMass. The men put together a strong and connected final sprint, but they were unable to pull ahead of Boston College for the win. The 2V added to the medal haul with a bronze in its race. At the start, the men fell a bit off the lead and came through the 1000-meter mark in
fourth place behind the Wesleyan. In the third quarter the Ephs dug deep and pulled away from the Cardinals. For the final 500 meters, the men continued to lead Wesleyan but were unable to pass Bates or Boston College. Six-seat Cameron Edgar ’21 said his crew’s unity was key to its finish. “I felt that our boat found a new level of patience and unity and it really showed both in our heat and in the final,” he said. “It was really great to go out there and defeat crews we lost to earlier in the season.” To clinch the championship, the 1V capped off the day with its own bronze medal. After a slow start, the men moved past UMass and walked through Trinity with their middle move. With
500 meters to go, the men locked in on Tufts and brought their stroke rate up to 37 per minute. In their best sprint of the year, the Ephs went from half a length down to half a length up on the Jumbos to bring home the bronze. “Our goal since the beginning of the season has been to ‘raise the average’ of everything we do,” said co-captain Adam Zoen ’19. “Winning the New Englands points trophy for the first time since 2001 is an incredible culmination of the hard work that all 41 athletes on our roster have put in this entire year to make themselves and their teammates better everyday.”
FIRST AT REGIONALS
MEN’S GOLF THREE TOP-25 FINISHERS AT NESCACs
MEN’S OUTDOOR TRACK AND FIELD EIGHTH AT REGIONALS
WOMEN’S CREW THIRD AT NERCs 3V FIRST AT NIRCs
No. 2 women’s track and field won its sixth consecutive NESCAC title on April 27 and secured first place at the New England Div. III Championship the following weekend. 12 women represented the Ephs at Nationals in Geneva, Ohio from May 23-25. The women will graduate Caitlin Ubl ’19, Anna Fitch ’19, Kennedy Green ’19, Emily Harris ’19, Rachel Hurst ’19, Lindsay Klickstein ’19, Katie Loftus ’19, Maggie Murphy ’19, Kene Odenigbo ’19 and Emma Reichheld ’19.
Sam Goldenring ’20 claimed the individual championship at the Div. III NCAA Championship in Nicholasville, Tenn., on May 14–17. Goldenring finished three under par, one of only two golfers to shoot under par on the tournament. Goldenring, Beau David ’21 and Jake Foehl ’19 also placed within the top 25 at NESCACs. At Little Threes on April 23, the team tied Amherst for a shared title, the first in the tournament’s history. The men will graduate co-captains Foehl and Will Beischer ’19.
Men’s track and field finished eighth at the New England Div. III Championship on May 2-4 with 37 points. At the meet, co-captain Zeke Cohen ’19 secured the first event victory of his college career in the 5000m. Tristan Colaizzi ’20, Aidan Ryan ’21 and Ian Kagame received All-Region honors. The men will graduate co-captains Cohen and Kagame, Austin Anderson ’19, David Azzara ’19, James Dunivan ’19, Lucas Estrada ’19, Elliot Fong ’19, Jacob Kahrs ’19, Mitch Morris ’19 and Jeremy Thaller ’19.
No. 8 women’s crew placed third at the New England Rowing Championships on May 4, taking three silver medals on the day. On May 12, the 3V won its race at the National Invitational Rowing Championships. The 1V and 2V competed at Nationals from May 31–June 1. The Ephs graduate co-captains Grace Chamberlin ’19, Harper Johnson ’19, Caroline Kessler ’19, Kate Latimore ’19, Diana Matthiessen ’19, Josie Maynard ’19, Julia Mini ’19, Ava Palmo ’19, Annie Rush ’19 and Eileen Russell ’19.
BASEBALL OVERALL RECORD: 24–11 NESCAC RECORD: 7–5
WOMEN’S GOLF NESCAC CHAMPIONS SECOND AT NCAAs
TENNIS MEN: 8–8 WOMEN: 6–10
WOMEN’S LACROSSE OVERALL RECORD: 7–8 NESCAC RECORD: 3–7
Winning the NESCAC West, baseball advanced to the NESCAC semifinals and notched its highest win total since 2011. Tri-captain infielder Doug Schaffer ’19 batted .412 en route to a NESCAC Player of the Year selection., Schaffer was joined on the All-NESCAC First Team by Eric Pappas ’21 and tri-captain Kellen Hatheway ’19. Jack Bohen ’19 made the Second team. The Ephs graduate Bohen, Hatheway, Schaffer, Tom Benz ’19, Will O’Brien ’19, Alex Panstares ’19 and David Kwan ’19.
Co-captain Cordelia Chan ’19 won the individual title at NCAAs as the women finished second in the team standings. The women won the NESCAC title on Oct. 6–7 as Chan, Holly Davenport ’21 and Joanna Kim ’22 earned First Team All-NESCAC recognition. Kim was voted NESCAC Rookie of the Year, and head coach Tomas Adalsteinsson won Coach of the Year. The women won their home invitational on May 4–5 as Kim took medalist honors. The Ephs graduate Chan and co-captain Isabella Wang ’19.
The No. 9 men put together a four-match winning streak following its spring break trip to Southern California, and the No. 10 women notched wins over over Trinity, Connecticut College and Bates. Both teams fell to Bowdoin in the NESCAC first round. Women’s co-captain Leah Bush ’19 was named First Team All-NESCAC, and men’s co-captain Deepak Indrakanti won the Clarence Chaffee Sportsmanship Award. The men graduate Indrakanti and Christian O’Connor ’19, and the women graduate Bush and Korina Neveux ’19.
Women’s lacrosse improved to 7–8 in Alice Lee’s second season as head coach. Emma TenBarge ’19, a Second Team All-NESCAC and First Team All-Berkshire midfielder, became the first Eph woman to surpass 40 goals in a single season since 2010. Claire Fitzpatrick ’21, a Second Team All-Berkshire selection, finished second on the team in goals (32) and first in assists (14). The team graduates TenBarge, Korinna Garfield ’19, Kailie Saudek ’19 and Suzanna Penikis ’19.
– Charles Ide ’20 (May 8, 2019)
... and the rest WOMEN’S OUTDOOR TRACK AND FIELD
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No. 5 men’s lacrosse knocks off No. 1 RIT in NCAA quarterfinal Kevin Stump ’20 scored with 58 seconds left in the second overtime period on May 15 to lift No. 5 men’s lacrosse to a 12-11 win over No. 1 RIT in a NCAA tournament quarterfinal matchup. “It's pretty exciting,” said head coach George McCormack after the game. “I really want to give credit to our defense. I felt like we sputtered a bit on offense in the first half. I thought our defense was asked to do a lot. They faced a lot of possessions and did a great job of communicating and staying together. And our big guys got going in the end: Stump and [Brendan] Hoffman [’20] and [John] Hincks [’20]. It was an incredible team effort. I'm just so proud of the guys.” Stump’s third goal of the game capped a rally by the Ephs over the final 6 minutes and 24 seconds of the game. Trailing by a score of 11-8, Stump scored off an assist from Jake Haase ’22 to narrow the deficit to 11-9. Jared Strauss ’21 then made a run at the goal and slipped a shot past Tigers keeper Walker Hare with 1:36 remaining to make it a one-goal game. With 57 seconds left in the game, after an Ephs timeout, Brendan Hoffman ’20 broke down his defender to the right and fired a shot past Hare to tie the game at 11. RIT had a chance late in regulation, but Harry Gahagan ’21 came up with a stop. Both teams had chances in the first overtime, but each defense stepped up to the challenge and kept the other team off the scoreboard. The Ephs also had two chances early in the second overtime, but Hare came up with two saves before Stump scored the game-winning goal. Hincks and Stump each scored three goals for the Ephs, while Hoffman tallied two. Gahagan made 13 saves in net. Early on, the game was a defensive affair. The Ephs defense shut out RIT over
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.
Men’s lacrosse advanced to the semifinals in the NCAA tournament, the best finish in program history. On May 15, the men upset No. 1 RIT in a 12-11 quarterfinal victory. the first 15 minutes and Hincks recorded the only goal of the first quarter to give the men a 1-0 lead. The Tigers however opened the second quarter with three straight goals to take a 3-1 lead. Just 2:31 before halftime, the men halved the deficit when Haase fed Tim Saffold ’22 to fire a shot past Hare. RIT held that 3-2 lead at halftime. Out of the break, Hoffman scored 37 seconds into the third quarter to tie the game, 3-3. Three minutes later, Hincks scored his second goal of the game off an assist from Stump for a 4-3 Ephs lead. RIT would respond with two goals to take a 5-4 lead, but the men countered with goals from Hincks, Cory Lund ’21 and Stump for
a 7-5 advantage with 4:23 remaining in the third quarter. RIT then closed the quarter with a three-goal run of its own, the last hitting the back of the net with only two seconds on the clock, and the hosts led 8-7 after three. Three minutes and 53 seconds into the fourth quarter, Matthew Seligson ’21 tied the game at 8-8 with a strong shot from the right side. But the Tigers scored three straight in span of 1:44. Cam Isaac closed the run with a goal at 7:23 remaining for an 11-8 lead. The Ephs defense, led by Cameron Brown ’19, Kyle Horihan ’20, Chris Burdick ’22 and Ben Anthony ’20, kept the Tigers off the scoreboard for the final 14:25 of
the contest, including both overtimes. Alex Kitt ’21, who won 15 of 28 face-offs in the game, won three straight down the stretch of regulation. With the double overtime win, the men advanced to a semifinal matchup at home against Amherst on May 19. In the rivalry game, the Ephs fell 12-8 to the Mammoths. The team will graduate Brown, Daniel Powell ’19, Dutch Buckley ’19, Matt Hogan ’19, Angus O’Rourke ’19, Mack Rush ’19, Jake Schuckman ’19, Riley van den Broek ’19 and Ben Wipper ’19. – Will Gentilello ’20 (Sports Information, May 19, 2019)
Athletes of the year
MACKENZIE MURPHY ’19
CORDELIA CHAN ’19
BOBBY CASEY ’19
OLIVIA BARNHILL ’19
SOFTBALL
WOMEN’S GOLF
MEN’S BASKETBALL
WOMEN’S SOCCER
ALL-TIME WINS LEADER SECOND MOST HITS ALL-TIME SECOND TEAM ALL-NESCAC
NCAA CHAMPION NESCAC PLAYER OF THE YEAR FOUR-TIME ALL-NESCAC
ALL-TIME LEADER IN 3-POINTERS SIXTH ALL-TIME IN POINTS TWO-TIME FIRST TEAM ALL-NESCAC
THIRD TEAM ALL-AMERICA FIRST TEAM ALL-NESCAC MOST CLEAN SHEETS IN A SEASON
Mackenzie Murphy ’19, a pitcher and infielder for the Ephs, became the all-time program wins leader on April 7. Murphy has recorded 58 wins during her career at the College, with 38 complete games in 60 starts. This season, along with her 2.35 ERA and 11 complete games in 14 starts, Murphy is batting .336 with six home runs. In the championship game of Regionals on May 13, Murphy tied the game with a three-run homer in the bottom of the seventh before hitting a walk-off single in extras.
Cordelia Chan ’19 won the individual title at the NCAA Championship in Houston on May 14–17. The team finished second for the second consecutive season and set a record for the lowest overall score in program history. On Oct. 6–7, Chan led the women to a fourth consecutive NESCAC title. She was the NESCAC Player of the Year in 2017, NESCAC Rookie of the Year in 2015 and a four-time All-NESCAC selection. She also won the Frank Deford Award for her contributions to Sports Information as a sportswriter.
Bobby Casey ’19 was named to the AllNESCAC First Team for the second season in a row. He also earned All-Northeast First Team and All-America Honorable Mention recognition. Casey averaged 18.2 points per game and led the NESCAC with 947 minutes played in his final season. Casey ends his college career as the all-time leader in 3-pointers for the Ephs. He is also sixth alltime in points and tenth all-time in assists. On Feb. 8, Casey scored a season-high 29 points in his last home game against Amherst.
Olivia Barnhill ’19 showcased her threetime national champion pedigree in front of the net this season, recording 78 saves in 24 games and posting a 0.876 save percentage. She shut out opponents in 11 games, anchoring an Eph defense this season. In a 0-0 double overtime tie against Amherst on Sept. 22, Barnhill had 11 saves. In the national championship game against Middlebury on Dec. 1, Barnhill saved three out of five penalty shots to secure her third NCAA title in four years.
NEWS
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CPC working group declares Asian American studies staffing requests immediate need for two hires for submitted by religion, American studies Asian American studies program A decades-long push for an Asian American studies (AAS) program made significant inroads on Feb. 7, when a working group formed by the Curricular Planning Committee (CPC) announced its recommendation that at least two new faculty be hired for the expansion of AAS at the College, concluding that “a program cannot be formed with current faculty resources.” In its report, the working group, composed of both students and faculty, announced strong support for an AAS program, laying out arguments for its merits and a framework for its implementation at the College. The working group, which was assembled in October 2018 and has been meeting weekly since, was charged by the CPC with “respond[ing] to questions about future possibilities for Asian American studies: curricular development, structures for a possible program, staffing implications, and so on,” according to the report. To this end, the report emphatically expressed that the creation of an AAS program would be impossible without additional faculty hires. In addition to maintaining current AAS-related courses in units such as history, American studies and women’s, gender and sexuality studies (WGSS), the report recommended hiring two tenure-track faculty who would devote at least half of their teaching to an AAS curriculum. The report suggested the formation of an AAS concentration composed of at least five courses, including one introductory course and one capstone seminar. A third faculty hire was recommended following the formalization of the program and concentration. The working group was chaired by Associate Professor of Geosciences Mea Cook and Associate Professor of Religion Jeff Israel, both of whom are members of the CPC. Working group members included Assistant Professor of WGSS Vivian Huang, Associate Professor of English Bernie Rhie, Professor of History Carmen Whalen, Professor of American Studies Dorothy Wang, Professor of History Scott Wong and Professor of Chinese Li Yu, as well as students Grace Fan ’19 and Tyler Tsay ’19. ... Student and faculty activism around AAS far predates the creation of the working group. As the recommendation lays out prominently, students first proposed an AAS program in the early 1990s through the group Asian American Studies in Action (AASiA). In the past year, AAS student activism has increased significantly; the report details that “students have held a workshop during Claiming Williams and three separate teachins with attendance at 100+, as well as organizing a photo campaign, a poster campaign and a ribbon action at the 2018 graduation that showed overwhelming support for AAS.” Faculty, too, have engaged in large-scale efforts for AAS in the past several years. In September 2016, Professor of German Gail Newman, who was the chair of the CPC at the time, reached out to several faculty members from the Asian studies department for assistance with the Asian American studies initiative. “The majority of Asian studies faculty (including both core and affiliated faculty) didn’t think that putting Asian American studies under the umbrella of Asian studies would make sense,” Yu said. “Placing Asian American studies under Asian studies would only perpetuate the widespread prejudice and bias against Asian-looking people who live and work in this country: that they are the ‘perpetual foreigners,’ thus always being outsiders of American culture.” Wang said that she witnessed similar prejudices and misconceptions during her professorship. “When I first arrived at Williams, a named-chair faculty person (who is no longer at the College) asked me what I taught,” she recounted. “I told him I taught Asian American literature in the American studies program, and he said, ‘That
makes no sense. You teach Asian literature in an American studies program?’” This response led Yu and Wang to pursue an AAS program separate from Asian studies and at the intersection of several disciplines. Wang and Yu co-founded a predecessor working group, the Asian American Studies Working Group, in 2016. According to the report, this group contained “twenty-five faculty members who hail from sixteen different academic units” and submitted a new faculty request to the Committee on Appointments and Promotions (CAP) and CPC in March 2018, setting the groundwork for the more recent working group. The report highlights the levels of communication that have been necessary in forming its recommendation, starting with outreach toward other institutions of higher learning. In addition, members of the working group participated in community outreach, with Cook and Israel leading a faculty forum in November. “There was interesting discussion about the scope of the field of Asian American studies and recent successful models at the College for the creation of new programs,” Cook said. “These discussions informed the committee’s thinking on these topics.” Fan and Tsay also led a student forum to solicit feedback and perspectives. “The committee was pleased with the turnout, the comments and the overall positive sentiment from students,” Tsay said of the student forum. “That said, we were also not surprised at the amount of interest in the program; students have continually demonstrated their passion for AAS throughout the past few decades, even with few results.” ... Tsay’s role as co-president of the Minority Coalition (MinCo) also assisted in connecting AAS to broader campus discussions. “What my MinCo role offered most throughout the committee process is a more campus-wide perspective,” Tsay said. “I was invested in campus debates on ‘free speech’ and on the lack of retention of minority faculty; both informed my role on the committee.” The report used student course history and student opinion in gauging the potential popularity of an AAS program. In a survey that the working group released, 61 out of 319 students said that they would concentrate in AAS if it were offered; 96 more said that they maybe would. In the past five years, three theses and 16 independent research study projects have concerned AAS. Furthermore, over the past five years, “an average of 39 students took one course, and an average of 7 students took at least two courses in Asian American Studies.” The report emphasized, however, that these numbers may underestimate the potential demand for AAS. “Enrollments are strongly related to critical mass of courses and faculty continuity, so past enrollments do not likely predict future enrollments once the number of faculty and courses grows,” the report says. The final major focus of the recommendation was on how to attract and select potential faculty. In addition to renewing Visiting Professor of American Studies Anthony Kim’s appointment for 2019-2020, the committee recommended hiring two new professors with “Ph.D.’s in interdisciplinary fields such as comparative racial and ethnic studies; American studies; women’s, gender, and sexuality studies; environmental studies; performance studies; urban studies; or similar interdisciplinary fields.” Wang has offered to chair the necessary search committee, which would emphasize intra-departmental collaboration in its search. All members of the original working group have offered strong support for its final recommendations. ... – Samuel Wolf ’21 (Feb. 13, 2019)
Two staffing requests for tenure-track faculty in Asian American studies (AAS) were submitted on March 1, marking a key step toward the creation of an AAS program at the College. These requests, submitted by religion and American studies, come in the wake of a Curricular Planning Committee (CPC) working group report that strongly endorsed an AAS program and recommended that at least two tenure-track faculty be hired to teach primarily in AAS. The requests were well received by Tyler Tsay ’19, co-chair of the Minority Coalition (MinCo) and member of the working group. “We’re very thrilled that these departments submitted requests for Asian Americanist lines,” he said. The requests, while a mandatory step for hiring, still face approval or rejection by the Committee on Appointments and Promotions (CAP). Chair of American Studies Cassandra Cleghorn emphasized the importance of AAS for the American studies discipline. “Institutionally, American studies has long been supportive of the establishment of AAS at Williams,” she said. “American studies programs nationwide are often the institutional sites of ethnic studies programs.” In accordance with this national trend, American studies is focused on finding candidates with both strong knowledge of AAS specifically and broader knowledge of American studies. Cleghorn cited the CPC report’s recommendations as influential in the specific request that is being made – an open-rank, tenure-track faculty member. Chair of Religion Jason Josephson Storm also confirmed the department’s submission of a staffing request for AAS. “I can say that we as a department believe that an Asian American studies candidate would find a good home in the religion department,” he said. Storm added that many current faculty members in the department, including Zaid Adhami, Jacqueline Hidalgo, Jeff Israel and Saadia Yacoob, study the discipline’s intersections with race in America. Storm also cited a pedagogical desire to see AAS on campus as rationale for the staffing request. “We are very much in support of broader curriculum changes at Williams, especially in terms of encouraging greater support for AAS and Ameri-
can studies, as well as ethnic studies more generally,” he said. ... For departments that did not submit staffing requests for this year, additional requests can be filed next year in accordance with the working group’s recommendations, which called for two immediate tenure-track hires and an eventual third hire. If CAP does not fulfill the request, however, no additional faculty can be hired and no program can be formed. CAP will deliberate over appointment decisions in the upcoming months before ultimately making decisions in May. Denise Buell, dean of the faculty and chair of CAP, did not provide any official response to the requests, citing that neither CAP nor CPC members have been able to meet to review them yet. She did say, however, that the requests merited serious consideration. “Both the CPC and CAP take the CPC working group’s report very seriously, so it will certainly play a significant role the deliberations of both committees,” Buell said. Tsay emphasized the importance of CAP’s approval in the pursuit of an AAS program. “The final approval of staffing requests rests solely on the CAP,” he said. “We are hopeful that the CAP holds to its word to follow the recommendations of the CPC Working Group's report and approves both lines this year; we are working with members of the CAP to make sure that approval for the two lines is indeed fulfilled.” Tsay argued that, considering the impending retirement of Professor of History Scott Wong – who told the Record that he plans to retire following the 2022 spring semester – both requests would have to be fulfilled in order for an AAS program to take root. ... Cleghorn also expressed cautious optimism for the fulfillment of the American studies request. “I hope the CAP is receptive,” she said. “We shall see! I do trust the process, however slowly it seems to move.” Update: On May 9, Buell sent an email on behalf of CAP confirming the approval of two tenure-track hires, one in American studies and one in religion, to allow for the establishment of an Asian American studies program at the College. – Samuel Wolf ’21 (March 6, 2019)
CARE Now sends open letter to President Mandel Following its letter to the Board of Trustees on April 12, the Coalition Against Racist Education (CARE Now) released an expanded petition to President of the College Maud Mandel on April 17, stating its demands to make the College a more inclusive space for minoritized groups. CARE Now has called for Mandel to respond to the demands by April 26 at 5 p.m. The new list of demands expands upon the 12 objectives that were requested of the Board of Trustees that call for institutional progress and includes sections recommending more hiring of faculty of color, enhanced minority studies programs, increased funding to the Office of Institutional Diversity, investigations of Campus Safety and Security (CSS), expansions of Title IX administration and increased pay for Dining and Facilities. Mandel responded to this request in an email to CARE Now and met to discuss the demands along with several other deans and administrators on April 24. ... The letter to Mandel, which was also distributed in an all-campus email and physically placed around campus, came in the wake of the Trustees’ lack of a public response to CARE Now’s initial demands. In the April 12 petition, CARE Now had demanded a thorough and public response to all demands by April 17, which it feels was not met. “The board failed
to provide a public response to any of our demands by claiming that these issues fall under the purview of campus governance,” the most recent letter stated. “This avoidance of responsibility is unacceptable, given that these demands are largely the same as what has been asked for over the past 10, 20, 50 years.” Representatives of CARE Now previously met with two trustees, Liz Robinson ’90 and Kate Queeney ’92, on April 13 to discuss the demands. During this meeting, the trustees expressed a willingness to listen but no concrete support, according to CARE Now, and stated to CARE Now leaders that the Board of Trustees does not respond in writing to demands in this format, prompting the expanded message to Mandel. In an all-campus email on April 17, Rodsy Modhurima ’19 informed students of their new course of action on behalf of CARE Now. “We welcome the entirety of the Williams community to join us to strengthen the Williams we love and compel President Mandel to support us in this mission by responding to our asks by April 26,” Modhurima wrote. The letter ends, “These demands exist because we love Williams. All we are trying to do is make the Williams we love, love us.” – Samuel Wolf ’21 (April 24, 2019)
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Congratulations Rachel Scharf and the class of 2019!
May your love of learning continue always. Congratulations to our daughter Isabel K. Benjamin. We are so proud of all of you have achieved and wish you continued success in all you want. May your life be full of health and well-being. Love Mumsy, Dad, Jordi, Keri, Charlie, Jimmy, Grandpa Burt and Elyse and Grandma Nanci and Grandpa Sid.
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Congratulations, Chandler Paige Pearson! Graduation is here and you will soon enter the world and discover your destiny. Soak up all the world has to offer, never lose sight of who you are, and go confidently in the direction of your dreams. We know you will leave the world a better place along the way. We love you so much and are so proud of you. Love Always, Mom, Dad, Taylor, and Myles
Gio, Congratulations on a fantastic four years at Williams! Your brilliant future awaits! Love, Mom, Dad, Joe, and Gabriella
Dear Julia, I am so proud of your academic, musical and extracurricular pursuits at Williams. Grandma Mary always said you “came from good stuff,” and Grandpa Jack will now say “the world is your oyster...” I can’t wait to see what the next chapter will be! Love, Mom
Congratulations Shahzad on your graduation! From being a JA, having an Eph Spotlight, to Senior Captain of the Men’s Swim and Dive Team, recapturing the NESCAC title, 3x All-Academic, recipient of the Robert B Muir Trophy, to finishing your collegiate swimming career as an All- American (HM)! Good luck in your future endeavors! Love Mom and Dad
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What Lies Behind Us And What Lies Before Us Are Tiny Matters Compared To What Lies Within Us You’ve conquered your classes and the court. You’ve climbed high and far together. “Courage, Sacrifice, Determination, Commitment, Toughness Heart, Talent, Guts” (Hamilton). That’s what our daughters are made of! Always remain true to yourselves as your journey continues.
Congratulations Morgan, Tess, Mia, Roxi and Ally With much love and pride, Your Parents
Austin, What a special journey you have had at Williams. You made lifelong friends, played the sport that you love, and will begin an amazing career. You have set high goals for yourself and have worked hard to achieve them. We are so proud of you!
Ross, Congratulations on your first, of many, major accomplishments. You did it! We are so proud of you son. You will do great things; we believe in you. With all of our love on this special occasion, Dad, Mom, Laura, Grandma Helen and Max
We love you! Dad, Mom and Parker
“The Berkshires seemed dreamlike”... keep chasing those dreams that brought you here! J.J. Dunn, we love you and are so proud!
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May you continue to make, and embrace, the world of your dreams. With endless love, Mom, Dad and Josh
SARAH HAMILTON HOLLINGER ’19 Words aren’t quite enough to share how proud we are of you. Can’t wait to see where your next journey takes our Natty Champ! Love, Mom, Dad & Drew
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THE WILLIAMS RECORD
2019 COMMENCEMENT 2018
Beloved Ana, we are very proud of you! Papai, Mamãe e Pepe
Michael With love and pride always, Congratulations on a great 4 years at Williams College! Love Mom, Dad, Timothy, Matthew and Catherine Congratulations to the Record’s graduating seniors! Reed Jenkins Sports Editor, Executive Editor, Managing Editor Rachel Levin Features Editor, Executive Editor
To our rainbow chasing, adventurous, industrious, persistent, musical, To our rainbow chasing, adventurous, industrious, persistent, intelligent, and handsome Kennedy.... musical, intelligent, and handsome Kennedy….
….congratulations on your graduation. Your mark on this
....congratulations world on your graduation. Your mark on this world is just beginning, is just beginning and we are thrilled to be part of the and we are thrilled to be part of the ride. ride. Mom, Dad and Harrison
Rachel Scharf Features Editor, Managing Editor, Editor-in-Chief Tesnim Zekeria Opinions Editor, Managing Editor, Editor-in-Chief
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2019 COMMENCEMENT 2018
Farewell to retiring faculty and staff Thomas Bearup Facilities
Richard Nesbitt Admission Office
Marilynne Beaulieu Advancement Operations
Carol Ockman Art History and Studio Art
David Berger Dining Services
Pamela Richard Facilities
Cheryl Brewer Office for Information Technology
Chris Robare Development Office
Sue Clairmont Admission Office
Gail Rondeau Hebert Office of Student Life
Kim Clark Student Medical Services
John Shea Real Estate
David Fitzgerald Facilities
Shanti Singham History
Joanna Gabler Williams Libraries
Gregory Smith Williams College Museum of Art
Gary Guerin Athletics Department
Steven Souza Astronomy
Karen Kwitter Astronomy
Nancy Snyder Facilities
Raymond Larabee Facilities
Valerie Turner Facilities
Kris Maloney Human Resources
Robert Volpi Dining Services
Linda McGraw Williams Libraries
David Wilson Facilities
Mary Morrison Registrar’s Office
Peter Wells Athletics Bob Wright Facilities
Thank you for all of your years of service to the community, and congratulations on your retirement.
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THE WILLIAMS RECORD
2019 COMMENCEMENT 2018
CONGRATULATIONS
KEVIN ZHANG YANG/OPINIONS EDITOR
CLASS OF 2019 Congratulations Sam! We love you! Mom, Dad, Joe, Claire, Grace
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COMMENCEMENT 2018 2019
Congratulations
2019From Graduates and Families! the Williams Parents Fund Committee CLASS OF 2019 CO-CHAIRS: Rosann Bocciarelli P’19, Jenna Feinberg P’20 and CiCi Reed P’17 We thank these generous families of the Class of ’19 for their 2019 gifts to Williams College. Bold-face indicates Purple Mountaineers *Denotes Parents Fund Committee volunteers
John Ahn ’87 and Helen Kim Mary Allen Valerie Andersen ’78 Daniel Aramini ’84 Kenneth and Christine Armstrong
Gregory and Roseann DiRusso
Scott Kessler ’88 and Annika Noren
John Pier ’85 and Stephanie Paine
Aaron and Charity Donnan
Kenwyn Anne Kindfuller ’82 and Andrew Kindfuller
Mark and Lynn Porath
Abram and Debra Klein Jamie and Kathryn Klickstein
Maria Sarath Ragucci ’78 and Frederic Ragucci
Kevin and Kristine Knauss
Mary Ann Randall
Bjorn Knollmann and Barbara Knollmann-Ritschel
James Reichheld ’87 and Julia Beasley Reichheld ’89
Lisa Dutton Darius Dziadkiewicz and Agata Siwiec Fredric Eisenberg and Leslie Goehl Alice* and David Elgart
Daniel Powell ’79 and Frances Powell
Christopher and Lisa Azzara
Burt Fealing ’92 and Kaye Husbands Fealing
Michael and Jeanne Suzanne Bailey
Brian* and Helen* Fitzgerald
Robert Koplowitz and Janet Pelz
Peter and Marie Richman
Shelly Ball ’86 and Jeffrey Burack
Brooks Foehl ’88 and Alison Denne Foehl ’88
Karl and Katrina Korfmacher
Donna Romeo and Celso Martinez
Mary Jo and Richard Kovacevich
Emily Rosenfeld
Lori Barnhill
Anthony Fong and Wendelin Leonard
Jeffrey Krane and Maureen Connelly
Amanda Bayer ’81 and Andrejs Penikis
Caird Forbes-Cockell and Lynne Hyman
Miroslav and Angela Krstic
Richard Rosenthal and Audrey Anderson
Po Fung and Shu Zhao
James and Rebecca Lamberth
Matthew and Melissa* Rubel
Monica Garfield ’89 and Scott Garfield ’88
Timothy Latimore ’86 and Chieko Latimore
Robert Ruggiero and Mary Penrod Frederick and Susan Saint
Alejandro Corichi Rodriguez Gil and Maria Gomez de Corichi
Chang Lee and Young Kim
Mark and Christine Saudek
Natalie Green Giles ’87 and Douglas Giles
Paul and Candice Lee
Janice Louise Smith Scott ’92
Robert and Julia Lee
Maximino Simian ’95 and Elena Alexandrova
Noel Barber
John and Evol Beckford David Beischer ’89 and Michelle Beischer Elizabeth Berry ’82 and Donald Gips Karin Best ’80 and Ronald Rogowski Meredith Bibber ’85 and Christopher Goss ’85 Mark and Diane Bingaman Jonathan Black and Kaarina Salovaara John and Lisa Blake* Rosann Bocciarelli* and James Weinberg* Edward Bousa ’80 and Maureen Bousa Matthew and Anne Brand Walter and Susan Buckley Bau Bui and Hanh Nguyen Jennifer and Darrell Bunkley Howard and Eva Bush Katherine Butler Michael and Kristina Caplin Mary Carroll and Daniel Russell James and Marsha Carty Patrick and Anne Casey Indrakanti Chakravarthy and Usha Indrakanti Douglas Chan and Sharon Lee* Avelino Chang and Huan Yi Situ Yong Chen and Helen Wei Nils Christoffersen ’88 and Anette Christoffersen James Clark ’84* and Evan Marie Freehill Clark* Virginia Clarke ’83 David and Suzy Cohen Per and Barbara Corbeil Lucy Corrigan ’84 and Joshua Schapiro ’83 Linda D’Albis ’78 and Ira Shenker Rosofsky Lisa and Gary Davis Shanesia Davis Pamela Dickinson ’86 and John Taylor Dickinson
Arkady and Karen Goldelman Sherri Goldstein
Mark Lemos ’81 and Marla Lemos Siu Lung ’90 and Robert Phay ’90
John Smedley and Carole Parker
David and Amanda Mabie
Peter and Stacey Smith
Sanjaykumar and Hemanginibahen Maisuria
Qi Song Jorge Soto and Magdalena Esparza de Soto
Ellen Markowitz
David and Cynthia Stark
Peter and Lisa Matthiessen
Sengen Sun* and Holly Tian
Sean McPherson ’88 and Naemi McPherson
Jeffrey Sutton ’83 and Margaret Sutton ’84
Stuart Melnick
Carola Tanna ’90
Yochi Melnick
Madeleine Temple
Anne Melvin ’85 and Daniel Sullivan ’82
Viet and Nguyet Tran
Michael Miller and Sarah Paul
Max Torres and Susan Yoshikawa-Torres
Dong Min and Marianne Kim
Brett Troyer and Melinda Marks
Anthony and Sabrina Mini
David Tsay and Susan Song
Todd and Mary Heskett
Alvaro Minondo and Nancy Gagner-Minondo
Richard and Merrill van den Broek
Alan (MA ’12) and Marjorie Hirsch
Joseph and Karen Mullen
James Hoch* ’82
Muhammad and Raana Mumtaz
William Wallace ’76 and Phyllis Wallace
Reginald James Hollinger ’85 and Paula Tuffin (’85)
Katherine Murphy
Ragnar Horn ’85 and Joey Shaista Horn ’87
Leila O’Connell ’84
Lisa and David Grain Nancy Gray ’78 David Greenberg ’88 and Dara Rose Schaefer Michael Grunebaum and Ruth Graver Arunas Gudaitis ’84 and Marina Goland Sharon Gunasti ’88 and David Gunasti Firas Hamdan and Maria Charif Robert Hansel and Lisa Robinson Scott Harris and Karen Horsch Philip and Catherine Harrison Arlene and Robert Hay Robert and Andree Heinl
Paul and Karen Hurst Kenichi and Joanne Iwama James Jampel and Sandra Marwill Russell Jenkins ’77 and Martha Jenkins Bern Johnson ’82 and Hillary Johnson Philipp Justus ’93 and Georgia Justus Rafael Kahane and Joyce Dalsheim Nolan and Donna Kawano Mark and Anne Kelley Margaret C.H. Kelly ’85 and Jonathan Kelly
David Nadelman ’89 and Kathleen Morton Timothy and Dianne O’Connor
Kelly Vostal Andrew Wallach and Peggy Yannas Jeffrey Weber ’86 and Stacey Gillis Weber Richard Weinland and Sandra Novo Daniel and Sandra Weiss
Alexandra Orellana
Cherie Weldon ’92 and Marcus Weldon
Kenneth and Cheryl Ostrow
Jeffrey Whittle and Polly Kinder
Dean and Christine Ottati
Pierre Wong ’80 and Yolanda Rebollo
Mark Ouweleen and Sarah Harding Vincent and Holly Palmo
Denny Wright ’87 and Kimberly Wright ’88
Charles Pardoe ’82 and Martine Westermann ’84
Rongbing Yang and Kajia Su Traci Young Butler
Vidisha Patel ’85 and Ashvin Patel
David and Yvonne Zaro
Kathryn Shaw Patterson ’87 and Steve Patterson ’87
Steven Zlotowski ’84 and Barbara Zlotowski
Santos and Irma Perez
Vitaly Zypnik and Maria Shubina
…and the many families who gave anonymously or whose gifts arrived too late to be acknowledged. This list reflects gifts received by the college on or before May 15, 2019. We took great care to ensure its accuracy, and offer our deepest apologies for any errors or omissions.
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