WHAT
Embedded Files
WHAT
WHAT is happening at Williams
WHAT is happening at Williams
Uncertain what to discuss with your fellow alumni? Here are some conversation starters on important topics that will continue to develop in the coming year including Williams/campus initiatives, building projects, and "Talking Points" or topical issues at Williams and in higher education.
Williams Initiatives
Williams Initiatives
Click the down arrows on the right for more information!
The Latest
In April 2022, Williams College took a major leap in improving college affordability when it announced its All-Grant Financial Aid program, replacing traditional loans and work-study requirements with grants that don’t have to be repaid. The program is the first of its kind in the nation and furthers the college’s commitment to eliminating economic barriers to a Williams education.
About 55 percent of Class of 2028 and 52 percent of all students receive financial aid which extends beyond tuition, room and board to cover expenses such as health insurance, unexpected medical bills, textbooks and art supplies, study abroad, and travel to and from campus. At a cost of roughly $6.75 million per year, All-Grant increases Williams’ total annual financial aid budget to $77.5 million.
For many students, the program relieves some of the unseen financial pressures of college life and provides flexibility. The time once devoted to a campus job can now be spent taking a more demanding course load, diving deeper into the material by attending professors’ office hours or exploring a new passion. A summer job to earn money toward a student’s tuition contribution can be replaced by an unpaid internship to support their career exploration.
The impact:
77% of surveyed aided first-year students: All-Grant was a main reason to choose Williams
98% : All-Grant had a positive effect on their experience
65% : greater ability to base educational decisions on interests and goals
56%: spent more time studying, in office hours, and other academic pursuits
The college introduced an all-grant model for financial aid. Hear from students in the Alumni Magazine and on this article how it’s made an impact on their Williams experience. more...
Background
Williams is committed to "True Affordability,” a comprehensive approach that looks not just at tuition, room and board but also at the hidden (and sometimes not-so-hidden) costs of attending college—textbooks and course materials, health insurance, travel home, summer storage, study away, unpaid internships and more—that prevent students from taking full advantage of all the opportunities available at Williams. Initiatives include:
Book grant program - For the past decade, alumni donors have made it possible for aided students to receive for free all required course texts and materials for any class they choose to take. This includes books as well as art materials, lab supplies, and more. See the Alumni Fund buy-the-book initiative.
Update our financial aid methodology, significantly reducing the cost to middle- and low-income families. It’s all part of ensuring that the exceptional students we admit can focus on what they’ll learn—not what they and their families earn.
Williams is one of 44 colleges and universities out of 1,137 nationwide that admit U.S. students without regard to their ability to pay, then cover 100 percent of demonstrated need.
More than half of our students receive financial aid and the average loan package is about $67,000/year. International students generally receive aid at a higher level than domestic students. Need may come into play for some international admits, but Williams is committed to fully aiding all admitted students.
Financial aid is a generational responsibility at Williams. Each generation that has come before has added to the resources of those who will come to Williams in the future.
Learn more
Learn more
Read President Mandel's announcement about the all-grant financial aid program here.
Read these testimonials
Go to the Williams Office of Financial Aid site.
My inTuition gives an estimate of what your family would pay for a year at Williams.
The College Scorecard provides the net price students with varying household incomes would pay at different leading colleges, including Williams.
50 YEARS OF WOMEN AT WILLIAMS
50 YEARS OF WOMEN AT WILLIAMS
In June of 1969, the Board of Trustees voted to admit women as students to Williams. The Class of 1975 -- the first to include women for all four years -- will celebrate its 50th reunion in June of 2025.
Over the next few years, the Williams community will celebrate the co-education milestone and also the women who first attended the college. We celebrate under the leadership of the first women president (Maud S. Mandel) and second woman board chair (Elizabeth Andersen '87). Click here to take a look back at the May, 2023 Women of Williams Conference
A dedicated group of alumnae volunteers, in close collaboration with staff, created the WE Lead initiative - Women's Equity in Leadership. The WE Lead advisory board works to close the Alumni Fund leadership giving gap between men and women (women comprise 41% of the alumni body yet about 34% of annual leadership donors) and ensure that women's leadership giving lights the way for future generations of Ephs. Leadership gifts from women in 2022 covered the average financial aid package for 61 students.
From class-led leadership initiatives to the creation of the first women's giving society (called The W), WE Lead aims to change the narrative and evolve our fundraising practices by inspiring a new generation of alumnae to lead through their philanthropy, beginning with young alumni gifts of $500 through annual gifts of $100,000 or more.
Here are some interesting facts about Women at Williams:
The first woman to complete all the degree requirements for a Williams degree was Katherine M. Berry in 1957. Because the college did not admit women at the time, she was not awarded her degree until 1975. She went on to serve as President of the Society of Alumni from 1988-1990, and held many other leadership roles as an alumni volunteer over the years. In 2007, 50 years after she completed her coursework, Kathie was awarded the Rogerson Cup, the college's highest award for alumni service.
The first women to graduate from Williams were members of the Class of 1971. Seven women received their Williams diplomas that year, along with more than 300 men. The valedictorian of the class was a woman, Joan F. Hertzberg '71, who began her undergraduate coursework at Vassar.
Margaret S. Pfunder '71 is the college's first Latina alumna.
The first Black woman to graduate from Williams was Emmillie R. Fox in 1973.
Learn more
Learn more
For more information please contact Janine Hetherington, Director of Women’s Leadership Giving.
ATHLETICS AND WELLBEING
ATHLETICS AND WELLBEING
Part of Williams' Strategic Priority is to teach wellness and teamwork as lifelong skills through new facilities and an integrated approach that sustains our hugely successful athletics program and more intentionally connects it to our strength in wellbeing services for the benefit of all students.
We are:
Conducting a program study and developing recommendations for future of athletics and wellbeing (Process complete by spring 2025)
Developing a pilot, the Integrative Wellbeing Initiative for Sustainable Excellence (IWISE), through Integrative Wellbeing Services for a cohort-based wellness program designed especially for non-athletes who can benefit from coaching.
We anticipate launching a new physical education course in Fall 2025 for first-year students focused on teaching wellbeing skills. It will be led by a trained coach/advisor, most likely from the Athletics Department, who will maintain a two-year relationship with students who are also part of a supportive peer cohort.
See "Buildings" below for more information about the Towne Fieldhouse, the Multipurpose Recreational Center, and the comprehensive plan for a new athletic complex. more...
We want to teach students to perform well while living well in a sustainable way. We seek to evolve notions of college success to include skills that fortify people to do really hard, creative things and stay well simultaneously, and across time.
The IWISE Curriculum will focus on topics such as: relationship with stress, coping with the unexpected, movement, rest, and sleep; mindfulness, gratitude, and self-compassion; attention focus, skills of immersion, distraction, and suppression; flow states versus clutch states.
Students will participate in all three components of the program — the class, the Wellbeing Advisor Program, and the community group — learning and practicing skills, getting needed guidance and support, all while a part of a cohesive group committed to doing the same. Graduates of the program will be deemed IWISE Scholars and become peer mentors. Our initial goal is to enroll 80-120 students. This enrollment would require 8-12 Wellbeing Advisor staff members. Assistant athletic coaches are strong candidates to take on this additional role given their relevant mentoring experience, skills in building teams, and frequent interest in expanding their professional responsibilities as they are typically part-time employees of the college.
GLOBAL SCHOLARS
GLOBAL SCHOLARS
Global Scholars, a new Williams initiative started in the academic year 2023 and administered by the Global Studies program, takes an interdisciplinary approach to exploring critical global trends and issues. Through their participation in this multi-year program (Sophomore year through graduation), the Global Scholars will be mentored and challenged to engage with new concepts and generate innovative questions as they enter and examine the complexities of the always evolving and interconnected world.
The objectives of the Global Scholars program are to: provide research-based global engagement opportunities for students, promote responsible and purposeful travel, connect study abroad with regular Williams classes, provide access to multi-year and regular mentorship, develop multi-faceted global awareness and skills sets.
Where we are: Last year (2023/24) was a pilot year with 12 sophomores selected from ~75 applicants in the Global Studies program who were mentored and challenged by faculty, other students, and alumni to engage with new concepts and generate innovative questions as they enter and examine the complexities of the always evolving and interconnected world.
Learn more about the Global Scholars program and the students' experiences here.
APPROACH TO FOSSIL FUELS & SUSTAINABLE INVESTING
APPROACH TO FOSSIL FUELS & SUSTAINABLE INVESTING
On April, 2022 President Maud Mandel sent an email to the Williams community publicly announcing the Board of Trustee’s decision for the College endowment to remove investments from the fossil fuel industry.
What does this mean? In short, Williams will gradually phase out all investments in fossil fuels companies to grow the College’s endowment, a significant move, given that returns on the endowment support over half of the College’s annual budget. Although the Investment Committee had decided to do this before President Mandel’s announcement, the public commitment introduced some measure of accountability to the plan. Williams wishes to maintain the community’s trust by not breaking a promise, so the public commitment puts the College further on its path to a more sustainable investment strategy. more...
A quick aside: to be clear, President Mandel did not in her announcement refer to the decision as “divestment." Nonetheless, the actions essentially amount to divestment from the industry, and some peer institutions taking similar steps officially refer to them as “divestment”. Hence, we will use the same word when describing the commitment.
As President Mandel noted in her email, Williams does not hold direct investments in fossil fuel companies (or any company’s stock). Instead, about 4% of the endowment is currently invested in real asset funds (pooled investments) that support fossil fuel projects. The public announcement commits the College to phasing out such investments by approximately 2033 and not making any new indirect investments in fossil fuels.
In addition, to date, Williams has allocated $30 million of the endowment to impact investments related to climate change, especially in sustainable energy. As former Chief Investment Officer Collete Chilton mentioned as a guest speaker in an Impact Investing Winter Study course, that’s more than most peer institutions have committed. The Investment Office also continuously engages with fund managers on investment opportunities advancing clean energy and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals.
This is a good start, and we should advocate for the College to do even more. Divestment is easy to rally support for because it sounds dramatic and monumental, but supporting impact investments and other sustainable investing practices is just as, if not more, important. We must be tenacious in demanding continual progress and transparency from the College on the matter of climate, by allocating even more money to impact and prioritizing ESG criteria in investments. Beyond that, we should work to foster climate education and research, advance campus decarbonization, and support our local communities in their energy transitions, and demand as much transparency as possible in how the endowment office operates. We, the Williams College community, should take action on these issues just as much as we did for divestment.
Learn more
Learn more
Read Provost Eiko Siniawer's update on Williams environmental sustainability initiatives here.
Read President Mandel's letter to the Williams Community about Williams investments and climate change practices here.
Information about Williams' sustainable buildings can be found here. In June 2023, the Board of Trustees endorsed the college's updated and expanded Sustainable Building Policy. It continues the minimum building performance requirement for larger capital projects — LEED Gold — while leaning more heavily into regenerative building design and operating principles as embodied by the International Living Future Institute's Living Building challenge and supplemental standards focusing on high energy efficiency and low carbon emissions such as zero energy, zero carbon and passive house designs.
The policy consists of two parts: one for smaller capital projects, which often do not involve new building construction and are more limited in scope and design flexibility, and one for large capital projects, which typically involve new structures or gut renovations and which provide opportunities for the holistic integration of sustainable design principles. A third part specifically targeting sustainability integration into asset renewal projects is in development.
DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION AND ACCESSIBILITY
DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION AND ACCESSIBILITY
Williams’ aspirations for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) stem from the belief that these issues are inextricably linked to educational excellence.
As outlined in the strategic plan, over the next decade the college is committed to:
Actively recruiting talented faculty and staff of all backgrounds and making a more welcoming campus for all members of the community.
Investing in the accessibility of our physical campus, as well as our technology, curricular and co-curricular opportunities to enhance our ability to create a community where all members can thrive and participate.
Deepening and broadening our commitment to furthering racial justice.
Taking restorative actions in response to the college’s history and establishing a historical record that gives all members of the community a stake in our shared story.
Building and opening a fully reimagined Davis Center. Originally known as the Multicultural Center, the Center was established in 1989 in the wake of student demands that the college recognize the need for support for students from underrepresented backgrounds. more...
Learn more
Learn more
Visit the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion website.
The reimagined Davis Center officially opened in April 2024!!
Sign up to receive the Davis Center Newsletter or review past issues.
MENTAL HEALTH: INTEGRATIVE WELLBEING SERVICES
MENTAL HEALTH: INTEGRATIVE WELLBEING SERVICES
Like most colleges and universities across the country, Williams has been grappling with the need for enhanced mental health services for students. Under the leadership of Director of Integrative Wellbeing Wendy Adam, Williams is piloting an innovative approach that focuses on helping students thrive, not just survive.
A first step in creating this culture of thriving is consolidating services in one place and connecting those services with the Williams health center. The Pond House for Wellbeing and Thompson Health Center -- located directly across Hoxsey Street from each other -- have become a campus within a campus for our mental health and medical services, centralizing a team of professionals completely focused on all aspects of holistic student wellness. more...
There are now 19 clinical staff serving Williams students' mental health needs. Williams has a student to mental health professional FTE ratio of 250 to 1. At peer schools, that number is 382 students per mental health professional FTE.
65% of members of the Class of 2018 used IWS at some point when they were a student, up from 37% among the Class of 2009.
There is no fee to students to utilize IWS, nor is there a cap on the number of sessions a student may have 1:1 with a counselor or in a group setting.
Beginning in the 2019-20 academic year, students also have 24/7 access to therapists via TalkSpace, and are able to have continuity of care via TalkSpace when off campus or studying abroad.
Learn more
Learn more
Read more about Williams' approach to Integrative Wellbeing here.
In spring 2021, under the leadership of President Maud S. Mandel, Williams released the final draft of the college's strategic plan, a road map for next 10 - 15 years of how to continu the college's trajectory of excellence for the future.
Members of eight working groups collected community input via hundreds of meetings and events for faculty, staff, students, alumni, families and area residents, as well as an online comment form and via email.
The process surfaced eight initiatives that spoke powerfully to Williams and the world we live in. These include: more...
Academic Initiatives -
Technology and the Liberal Arts - Increasing our emphasis on technology, both as a tool and as a topic of investigation. This includes interest in developing our expertise with new tools, using technology and data to address important questions across the curriculum, and fostering a critical perspective that allows us to understand the social, economic, ethical and psychological dimensions of technological change.
The Arts - Tap more fully into the richness of the arts at Williams and in our community, including museum collections, performing arts, and literary arts, ensuring that the arts remain vibrant, relevant, diverse, and inclusive by making the arts an even more central part of the curriculum at Williams.
Global Education - Make the convergence of strengths in our global educational offerings more visible on campus and to prospective students and alumni by increasing language opportunities, coordinating international course offerings, establishing a global internship program, and creating a multi-year global scholars program.
Learning by Doing - Grow and expand opportunities to ensure that every student gains crucial experience in research, tutorials, engaged learning, study away, entrepreneurship or other modes of “learning by doing.” The college will support efforts to enhance and expand our existing collaborations among faculty and student-facing offices, including the Center for Learning in Action (CLiA), the Fellowships Office, Study Away, the ’68 Center for Career Exploration, the Zilkha Center and the Davis Center.
Co-curricular and Residential Life - Step back and take a holistic view of how students' experiences in the classroom interact with experiences and lessons in the dorms, in student organizations, in performance spaces or on the field of play, or even in the endless unstructured moments of late-night conversations with friends or time spent alone. Develop and communicate a four-year developmental framework for integrating these lessons into students’ Williams experience that includes supporting student leaders (JAs, HCs and RDs); offering theme, affinity, programs and special interest housing; supporting student wellbeing on campus; and important pathways for introducing students to core principles of good health (athletics, physical education and recreation).
Integrative Wellbeing - Williams already offers a wide network of resources to support wellbeing on campus and are therefore well-positioned to develop an overarching framework for student wellbeing to nurture students’ physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual and social development. Williams will organize our many existing offerings and invite all faculty, staff and students to define a set of developmental goals for students and identify how various curricular, cocurricular and residential experiences contribute to those goals while recognizing that people bring a range of experiences and perspectives to their lives in our community.
Engaging Alumni - Work over the next 10 years to develop new engagement mechanisms, outreach methods and programming that reflect the college’s strategic goals and match them to alumni interests and expectations; strengthen career support and networking to support increased interaction among current students, young alumni and older graduates; and make a greater share of Williams’ education accessible to alumni throughout their lives, through such opportunities as Winter Study teaching and special alumni learning programs.
Access and Affordability - Make Williams affordable for all families, including middle-income households, by expanding our “Free Summers” program, adopting a more generous financial aid methodology and increasing the number of fully endowed scholarships; expand our definition of affordability to address the financial barriers that families still encounter in our system, while continuing to meet 100% of their demonstrated need; ensure that, once enrolled, students do not have to repeatedly disclose their socioeconomic or financial aid status to take advantage of academic and campus life opportunities; increase the number of funded internships available across diverse fields; seek to fully fund access to the range of experiences and opportunities we believe are essential to a Williams education, such as faculty-led academic and cocurricular activities, research opportunities, academic fellowships and summer internships; and intensify our recruitment, yield and retention of exceptional veteran and community college transfer students and provide the resources necessary to help them thrive at Williams.
Cross-Cutting Commitments - These two cross-cutting commitments are expressions of our mission and values and are part of everything we do.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility - Recruiting faculty and staff of all backgrounds, creating a community where all members can thrive and participate, broadening and deepening commitment to furthering racial justice, reimagining the Davis Center (formerly the Multicultural Center), and engaging with institutional history.
Sustainability - Through education and research; climate action; buildings, landscape, and land use; responsible consumption; accountability and transparency; and learning from others. See the Williams website for the Zilkha Center for the Environment.
Learn More
Learn More
Visit the strategic planning website or download the plan.
Click here to hear what President Mandel has to say about the Williams Strategic Plan.
And click here to hear what former Provost Dukes Love has to say about Strategic Plan priorities.
EPHLINK
EPHLINK
So often it's a fellow Eph who opens the door to what turns out to be the rest of your life and says, "Come on in." It doesn't matter if you're a current student, a recent graduate, changing jobs in mid-career, looking to break into a new industry, or seeking an introduction or mentor: members of the Williams alumni community continue to have a profound impact on one another.
Mentorship has long been a tenet of the Williams experience - the notion of Ephs helping Ephs engrained in what it means to be part of the community.
Since its formal launch in 2018, Ephlink, Williams first-ever online mentorship community, has grown to include approximately 90% of the current student body and over 5,000 alumni. more...
Over 53,000 messages have been exchanged between users across the world. Alumni and students choose the level of engagement they wish to have, personalizing their experiences depending on their interests, identities and availability.
Ephlink not only facilitates 1:1 connections, but also supports identity and affinity groups, job shadowing, and a job portal to seek out jobs, internships and short-term projects.
Building Projects
Building Projects
WILLIAMS COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART (WCMA)
WILLIAMS COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART (WCMA)
Plans for a new museum building have been many years in the making and are rooted in the college’s commitment to placing learning with objects at the center of a liberal arts education, and its vision for WCMA to grow and thrive as a leader and innovator among college art museums.
WCMA has carefully considered the potential programming opportunities not just for a new museum building but also for Lawrence Hall—an historic campus building, never intended to be an art museum but the space where the museum has resided since its founding in 1926—in line with the college’s strategic plan for the arts across campus.
The decision to move forward now is driven by practical and pressing needs related to the care and display of a global collection as well as to the care of our visiting public and campus audiences through greater accessibility and other accommodations not possible in the current facilities.
Learn more
Learn more
For the most up-to-date information visit the webpage devoted to the building project.
Here, you can explore the timeline for the project.
SO-IL Architects have been chosen to design the first stand-alone building for the college museum.
The new museum will be at the intersection of Routes 2 and 7 at the site of the former Williams Inn. The project is proceeding on a timeline aligning with WCMA's centennial year of 2026-27.
Click here to hear what former Provost Dukes Love has to say about WCMA (Volunteer Zoomcast, Nov 2021).
The pre-engineered metal building structure was designed by CannonDesign and is being built by Suffolk Construction.
Read more about the plan in Williams Today.
The building will be highly sustainable, currently tracking to be LEED Gold certified. It has been designed to accommodate a full rooftop solar photovoltaic array and offers electric vehicle charging stations. Mechanical systems are not only highly energy efficient, but compatible for connection with the campus’ future decarbonization project.
MULTIPURPOSE RECREATION CENTER
MULTIPURPOSE RECREATION CENTER
The Multipurpose Recreation Center (MRC) will provide indoor space for a multitude of activities including varsity athletics practices, intramural and club activities as well as select campus functions.
Slated to open at the end of 2025, the facility will include a three-lane, 200-meter track, four tennis courts, batting cages and a 40-foot high climbing wall.
The determination that the College’s Towne Field House was uninhabitable led to the ambitious priority to plan and build a new indoor athletics and wellness complex. It will be a three-phase project including:
Construction of a new multipurpose recreation center to be completed by early 2025
The Board of Trustees has approved the construction of a steel-framed building next to our outdoor tennis courts for prior program uses of Towne Field House temporarily while a new complex is built. Once a permanent field house is complete, the facility would be turned into a site for indoor recreation, including indoor tennis.
Execution of a program and site planning study for athletics and wellness
To ensure a new complex is planned in coordination with other athletics facilities, the College engaged Perkins & Will to guide our site planning and project development.
Realization of a comprehensive athletics complex
The Towne Field House was demolished in Fall 2023 and the site remediated for redevelopment. Our site planning study will guide its replacement alongside other facilities, likely to include a new hockey rink and fitness center. The larger project will incorporate the refurbishment and renovation of other facilities—Lasell, Chandler, Samuelson-Muir Pool, locker rooms, and more—for team support and wellness activities.
The pre-engineered metal building structure was designed by CannonDesign and is being built by Suffolk Construction.
Read more about the plan in Williams Today.
The building will be highly sustainable, currently tracking to be LEED Gold certified. It has been designed to accommodate a full rooftop solar photovoltaic array and offers electric vehicle charging stations. Mechanical systems are not only highly energy efficient, but compatible for connection with the campus’ future decarbonization project.
BOATHOUSE
BOATHOUSE
In the fall of 2024, the Williams Crew Team took to the water from the dock of a new $4.7 million boathouse. There was an opening celebration in September.
Nestled on the shore of Onota Lake in Pittsfield, the nearly 7,500 square-foot facility includes numerous upgrades compared to its predecessor, which dates to the 1920s and underwent renovation. Instead of a single, shared boat bay, the new building features individual bays for the men’s and women’s teams. There is increased storage space for equipment and supplies, a team room with cubbies, an office area for coaches, modernized bathrooms and a new, reoriented dock that makes it easier to get boats into the water.
Meanwhile, a new boat has joined the women’s fleet, named in honor of the late Nancy Storrs ’73—one of the college’s and the world’s greatest rowers. A pioneer in Williams coeducation and in women’s rowing, Storrs died in September of 2023.
The boathouse was featured in the Williams Magazine; and the Williams Record; additional photos can be found here.
The former boathouse, built in 1970, was only large enough to accommodate a program of 16 to 24 men. However, the current program is co-educated and has 88 athletes as of the 2023-24 school year, according to Mandel. The team had been rowing out of Camp Winadu in Pittsfield for the last two seasons while the boathouse was undergoing construction.
Coxswain Carina Sun ’26 found it particularly special that the boathouse is called the Williams College Boathouse, distinguishing it from others at peer institutions that hold donors’ names. “The boathouse and the opening of it is really a reflection of so many people’s work — so many efforts and a history of many people,” she said. “It’s nice to have a place we can call home — a place where we can welcome other teams and spectators.”
DAVIS CENTER
DAVIS CENTER
The Davis Center plays a crucial role in building community across the Williams campus, and in creating and holding space for students to discover, explore, and embrace all the beautiful and multifaceted aspects of their identities. That has been true since its founding in 1989 as the Multicultural Center.
The needs of an increasingly diverse student body have outgrown the current capacities of the space. President Mandel heard clearly from students, staff, faculty, and alumni just how crucial the Davis Center is to the overall Williams community.
The reimagined Davis Center officially opened in April 2024 after a substantial renovation and expansion. The new complex is a dedicated space that symbolizes the college’s commitment to and progress toward a fully inclusive community. As a hub of programs and spaces supporting historically underrepresented communities within the larger Williams family, the center advances broad campus engagement with complex issues of identity, history and cultures as they affect intellectual, creative and social life. This included full renovations of Rice House and Jenness House, the construction of a new addition to Rice House (replacing the footprint of Hardy House), and the creation of an outdoor celebration lawn—all fully accessible and utilizing principles of universal design.
Over the last two years, the college launched a series of philanthropic campaigns through the Alumni Fund to provide ongoing and expanded operational support of the Davis Center while creating new opportunities for students interested in racial justice and social justice.
Learn more
Learn more
Williams Today featured an article about the opening of the Davis Center, as did the Williams Record.
To see details about the timeline of the Davis Center project, visit this site.
You can sign up for the Davis Center newsletter.
Click here to hear what President Mandel has to say about the Davis Center.
CAMPUS PLAN
CAMPUS PLAN
In 2021 the college partnered with the firm Sasaki to envision the future of the Williams College campus. The result was a campus plan.
What is a campus plan? The purpose of the plan is to establish a long-term vision that ensures that each move Williams makes contributes to a holistic future vision for the campus.
The campus plan builds upon the College’s strategic planning initiatives and previous planning efforts, and will support the College in physically translating its academic mission and strategic vision. The plan serves as a tool through which the College can optimize capital investments that reinforce College goals, support student success, and advance mutual objectives with the town and the broader western Massachusetts region.
The plan was developed over a 20-month process, beginning in April 2021. As part of the Williams community, the experience and opinions of alumni were solicited in fall 2021.
Learn more
Learn more
Click here to hear what former Provost Dukes Love has to say about Campus Planning and Sustainability (Volunteer Zoomcast, Nov 2021).
SCIENCE CENTER
SCIENCE CENTER
Williams completed the most ambitious two-phase building project in the college's history. The Hopper (the south building), adjacent (and connected) to the Unified Science Center on Walden Street, opened in spring 2018 and Wachenheim (the north building) began in 2017 with the demolition of Bronfman Science Center, and opened in spring 2021. Both buildings house dozens of research and teaching labs, classrooms, and offices, as well as many spaces for study and collaboration.
The growing popularity of Division III subjects made this an ideal time to address the future of science instruction at Williams.
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