Looking back

Crossing the Border: The Williams-Bennington Experience in late 60s

What was it about Bennington College?

The 17-mile ride up to Bennington was transformative.  But it was not always an easy journey for the Williams student of our day. One classmate, quoting James Joyce’s Ulysses, mentions understanding first-hand what Joyce meant by the “scotumtightening sea,” as he would sign in at the small guard’s office manned by stolid Vermonters whose tacit disapproval he interpreted as directed toward him, but was maybe aimed in a more general way toward the entire permissive and doubtless sinful lifestyle that lay beyond the gates. 

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Looking back

The Fraternity Debate — 1868 to 1968!

The Fraternity Debate — 1868 to 1968! by John Dirlam Fraternities began to take root at Williams in 1833 with the arrival of Kappa Alpha, followed one year later by Sigma Phi.  By the time of the Civil War, four more fraternities had joined them in competing for students—-Chi Psi, Alpha Delta Phi, Delta Psi, and Delta […]

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Opinion

“Frivolous, conformist, and anti-intellectual”

Williams Web Team Historian John Dirlam takes us back in time to 1868 when Prof. John Bascom (he of Bascom House, and later President of the University of Wisconsin) delivered a screed against fraternities at Williams. His report is bolstered by additions from the Web Team, and includes a video discussion led by former President […]

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Looking back

January 1968 and the Winter Study Program

Editor’s Note: January 1968 was memorable for several reasons. Without doubt, the most dramatic event was the Fort Hoosac fire, spectacularly captured in the photo by (then) Dean of Freshmen John Hyde. But it was also the maiden voyage for the Winter Study Program (WSP), which along with our class, celebrates its 50th anniversary this […]

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Faculty

Jack Sawyer, the Visionary President We Hardly Knew

President John Sawyer was a distant figure to most of us, the more so because he was not the best of public speakers and seemed to have a certain reserve in gatherings. It was rather paradoxical, really, on a campus where the Mark Hopkins ideal of professors and students engaging in lively discussion in a very personal educational process was the norm.

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Williams History

It’s 1815. Let’s move the Williams campus to Amherst or Northampton.

This almost happened. On May 8 of 1815, the Rev. Dr. Teophilus Packard, of Shelburne introduced a motion to the Board of Trustees of Williams College that “the institution and its prospects abandon the unfortunate location of Williamstown and relocate to some site like Amherst or Northampton, near the middle of the State.” The debate […]

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