News from the college
Winding Down
As the fall semester draws to a close and snow periodically dusts the Williams campus, students are in the midst of final exams, and many of the
college’s offices are preparing to take a break from Dec. 23 through January 2. Covid protocols will remain in place for Winter Study in January, and a
booster clinic for already vaccinated students, faculty, staff and their families will be held Dec. 17, with plans for another clinic to be announced in the new year.
Williams Magazine Online
Fellowship Awards
- Patrick “Bo” Kane ’17 was named a Schwarzman Scholar for 2022-23. As he pursues a master’s degree in global affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing, he plans to study successful government systems in China.
- Hazel Richards ’23 has been named a Melville Fellow for 2021-22 and plans to write an original work under the mentorship of author Jana Laiz during the three-month fellowship
- RB Smith ’20 received a Marshall Scholarship to pursue a master’s degree from the University of Edinburgh, where he will focus on the social and ecological aspects of traditional arranged land management practices.
Faculty Spotlight
- Art professor C. Ondine Chavoya received a 2021 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers grant in support of his current book project on the Chicano artist performance group Asco.
- Physics professor Kate Jensen received a three-year, $413,000 research grant from the National Science Foundation in collaboration with Purdue University. The grant, which provides funding for undergraduate research assistants and a postdoctoral researcher, will allow the team to “expand our studies to investigate more dynamic processes, including how soft adhesives may change their sticky properties in response to being stretched or compressed,” says Jensen.
- Coach Steve Kuster and former coach Carl Samuelson made the College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America’s list of the best 100 coaches in 100 years.
- “Having been a troubled student myself, I think I’m just very empathetic to students who are having difficult times,” says English professor and department chair Bernie Rhie in a conversation with Tricycle magazine about using contemplative practices in his teaching.
In Memoriam
Broadway composer and lyricist
Stephen Sondheim ’50 died Nov. 26. In an outpouring of memorials, he was remembered in
The New York Times as the man “whose music and lyrics raised and reset the artistic standard for the American stage musical,” and a crowd of fans and Broadway stars came together to sing a
tribute in Times Square. Northeast Public Radio’s
WAMC spoke with Williams’ Anthony Sheppard, music department chair, about Sondheim’s connection to the Berkshires, and
The Berkshire Eagle recounted how his experience at Williams shaped Sondheim’s career. An article from the spring 2020 issue of
Williams Magazine offers a small glimpse at Sondheim’s influence on the Williams community.
Photo by Bradley Wakoff/Berkshirian Images
