Williams College
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Williams College is a small, private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts. As of 2004, the undergraduate enrollment was approximately 2,000 students. Fraternities were phased out beginning in 1962. Coeducation was adopted in 1970. There are three academic curricular divisions (humanities, sciences, social sciences), 24 departments, 31 majors, and two small masters programs in art history and development economics. The student:faculty ratio is 8:1. The academic year consists of two four-course semesters plus a one-course Winter Study term during the month of January. Williamstown is located in the Berkshires in northwestern Massachusetts, 145 miles from Boston and 165 miles from New York City. The College sits at the foot of Mount Greylock. When Henry David Thoreau visited in 1844, he remarked that "It would be no small advantage if every college were thus located at the base of a mountain."
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History
Williams College was chartered in 1793 with funds from the will of Colonel Ephraim Williams.
In 1806 a student prayer meeting gave rise to the American Foreign Mission Movement. In August of that year five students met in the maple grove of Sloan's Meadow to pray. A thunderstorm drove them to the shelter of a haystack, and the fervor of the ensuing meeting inspired them to take the gospel abroad. The students went on to build the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the first American organization to send missionaries overseas. The Haystack Monument near Mission Park on the Williams Campus commemorates the meeting.
By 1815, Williams had only two buildings and fifty-eight students, and was in serious financial trouble. On November 10, 1818, nine of the twelve Williams College trustees voted for a resolution stating that:
"Resolved, that it is expedient to remove Williams College to some more central part of the State whenever sufficient funds can be obtained to defray the necessary expenses incurred and the losses sustained by removal, and to secure the prosperity of the college, and when a fair prospect shall be presented of obtaining for the institution the united support and patronage of the friends of literature and religion in the western part of the Commonwealth, and when the General Court shall give their assent to the measure."
In February 1820, a petition to the Massachusetts legislature to this effect was defeated, and the college was not moved.
In 1821, Williams College President Zephaniah Swift Moore, who had accepted his position believing that the college would move east, abandoned Williams. He took fifteen students with him, and assumed the first Presidency of Amherst College. Story has it that Moore also took portions of the Williams College library. Though plausible, this account is unsubstantiated, and was declared false in 1995 by Williams College President Harry Payne. Moore died just two years later after founding Amherst, and was succeeded by Heman Humphrey, a trustee of Williams College.
Williams played Amherst College in the first intercollegiate baseball game in 1859 and continued on to pioneer many areas of academia and education. Williams' website has a list of "firsts" and a more detailed history.
Distinguishing features
School colors and origins thereof
Williams' primary school color is purple.
The story goes that at the Williams-Harvard baseball game in 1869, spectators, watching from carriages, had trouble telling the teams apart (there were no uniforms) so one of the onlookers bought ribbons from a nearby millinery store to pin on Williams' players. The only color available was purple. The buyer was Jennie Jerome (later Winston Churchill's mother) whose family summered in Williamstown.
Williams' other color is gold, purple's complementary color, which is why most team uniforms and paraphernalia have purple and a form of gold or yellow as the two dominant colors.
Purple cow
The Williams college mascot is a purple cow, possibly derived from Gelett Burgess's nonsense poem:
I never saw a purple cow
Nor do I hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one.
Another possible source of the mascot is the color of the surrounding mountains, which often appear purple in the light of the setting sun (but which don't really resemble cows).
Alma mater
Williams claims the first alma mater song written by an undergraduate, "The Mountains," which was written by Washington Gladden class of 1859.
Williams trivia
At the end of every semester since 1966, the Williams College radio station has hosted an all-night, 8-hour trivia contest. Teams of students, alumni, professors and others compete to answer questions on any number of subjects, identify songs, and perform a variety of unnecessary tasks. The winning team's only prize is the obligation to create and host the following semester's contest. It is the oldest continuous competition of its sort in the United States. Further history and details are available at an archival website.
Alumni society
Williams has the oldest existing Alumni Society of any academic institution in the United States, and may have the oldest alumni organization in the world. The Alumni Society was founded during the "Amherst crisis" in 1821, when Williams College President Zephaniah Swift Moore left Williams. Graduates of Williams formed the Alumni Society to insure that Williams would not have to close, and raised enough money to insure the survival of the school.
In the years since the Amherst Crisis the generosity of alumni has made Williams one of the wealthiest educational institutions in the United States, with an endowment of over $1 billion. On a per student basis, this is over 0.5% (one half of one percent) more than Amherst's endowment: Williams' endowment is an enormous $545,000 per student, while Amherst's endowment is $542,000 per student.
Not affiliated with the Society of Alumni, but also serving the college's alumni is the Williams Club in New York City. Located at 24 East 39th Street in Manhattan, the club operates as a hotel, restaurant, and meeting space for Williams alumni living in and visiting the city.
Notable alumni
Academics
- Michael Beschloss 1977, called "the nation's leading presidential historian" by Newsweek.
- Sterling Allen Brown 1922, African-American teacher, literary critic, and poet
- James MacGregor Burns 1939, Pulitzer Prize winning author.
- Robert F. Engle 1964, won the 2003 Nobel Prize in Economics "for methods of analyzing economic time series with time-varying volatility" (ARCH models) and holds the Armellino Chair at New York University (NYU). He graduated Williams with Highest Honors in Physics.
- Walter Kaufmann 1941, philosopher, poet, and translater.
- S. Lane Faison 1929, art historian.
- Kristin Forbes 1992, Mitsubishi Career Development Professor of International Management, MIT and Member, Council of Economic Advisers (confirmed by the Senate in 2003, she is the youngest person to ever hold this position).
- Mark Hopkins 1824. According to former U.S. president James A. Garfield (see below), "The ideal college is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other."
- Earl R. Mandle 1963, president of the Rhode Island School of Design
- Curtis T. McMullen 1980 is Professor of Mathematics at Harvard and winner of the 1998 Fields Medal for his work in complex dynamics.
- Barrington Moore Jr. 1936. Leading figure in Comparative Politics and professor emeritus at Harvard.
- Daniel Muzyka 1975, Dean of the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.
- James Scott 1958, Comparative political scientist and director of the department of Agrarian Studies at Yale.
- Herbert Stein 1935, former Chair, Council of Economic Advisers (and father of Ben Stein).
- Lester Thurow 1960 is the Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Professor of Management and Economics, and former Dean (1987-1993), MIT Sloan School of Management.
Artists and entertainers
- Gordon Clapp 1971, Emmy Award-winning actor on NYPD Blue.
- Chris Collingwood, Fountains of Wayne member.
- William Cullen Bryant, poet.
- William Finn 1974, Broadway composer of musicals, among other shows, Falsettos, and winner of the Tony award.
- John Frankenheimer 1951, director of The Manchurian Candidate and other notable films.
- A.R. Gurney, playwright, The Dining Room and Sylvia.
- Elia Kazan 1931, Oscar-winning director of Gentleman's Agreement and On the Waterfront and writer.
- John Sayles 1972, director of Lone Star and Eight Men Out.
- Adam Schlesinger, Fountains of Wayne member.
- Stephen Sondheim 1950. Sondheim premiered Phinney's Rainbow, a satire of Williams, and All that Glitters while at Williams.
- Paul Stekler 1974, documentarian.
- David Strathairn, actor in Sneakers, The Sopranos, and Memphis Belle (1990), among many others.
- Lee-Hom Wang 1998, pop star and actor in East Asia.
- Martha Williamson 1977, Producer, Touched by an Angel.
- Jesse Winchester 1966, Singer/Songwriter
Businessmen/women
- Herbert A. Allen, Jr. 1962. President and Chief Executive Officer of Allen & Company, a privately held investment firm and host of a storied annual media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.
- Steve Case 1980, founder and former CEO of America Online.
- Chuck Fruit 1969, Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President of Coca-Cola.
- Robert I. Lipp 1960, Chairman and CEO of Travelers Property Casualty Corp.
- Bo Peabody 1994, founder of Tripod (sold to Lycos in 1998 for $64 million) and Chairman of Village Ventures.
- Joseph L. Rice, founder of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, Inc., one of the oldest and most respected private equity investment firms in the world (and Trustee Emeritus of Williams College).
Curators and Museum Directors (aka the Williams art mafia)
Many were trained and deeply inspired by S. Lane Faison, who headed the art history department at Williams from 1940 to 1969.
- Michael Govan, director of the Dia Art Foundation.
- Thomas Krens 1969, Director Guggenheim Museums Worldwide.
- John R. Lane 1966, Director Dallas Museum of Art.
- Glen Lowry 1976, Director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
- Joseph C. Thompson 1981, director, MassMoca.
- Earl A. Powell III 1966, director of the National Gallery of Art 1992–present.
- Kurt Varnedoe 1968, MoMA Chief Curator of painting and sculpture until his death in 2003.
- James N. Wood, director of the Art Institute of Chicago (1980–2004).
Government officials and political notables
- Prince Hussain Aga Khan 1997, Shia Muslim Royalty.
- Bill Bennett 1965, Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan. Appointed as the United States' first drug czar under President George H. W. Bush.
- Arne Carlson 1957, 37th governor of Minnesota.
- Bainbridge Colby, Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson and founder of United States Progressive Party.
- Joseph B. Ely 1902, former Massachusetts Governor.
- President James Garfield 1856.
- Richard Helms 1935, former CIA Director.
- Herbert H. Lehman 1899, governor of New York and a co-founder of Lehman Brothers.
- Arthur Levitt, Jr. 1952, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, 1993–2001.
- Edward McPherson 1967, nominated by President George W. Bush as Undersecretary of Education, and current CFO at the U.S. Department of agriculture.
- Reza Pahlavi II (would have been 1983), former Crown Prince of Iran, matriculated at Williams, but left after his freshman year due to the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini.
- Bill Simon 1973, two-time California gubernatorial candidate.
- Bruce Sundlun 1946, former Rhode Island Governor.
- Goh Chok Tong Prime Minister of Singapore (1990-2004). Received Masters from Williams' Center for Development Economics.
- Samuel Finley Vinton, 19th century Ohio congressman.
- Kevin White 1952, the longest-serving Mayor of Boston (1968–1983).
Judiciary and Legal
- Stephen J. Field 1837, Associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and chief architect of the constitutional theory that protected industry from Federal regulation during the rapid industrialization that followed the Civil war.
- Anthony T. Kronman 1968. Dean (1994-present) and Edward J. Phelps Professor of Law, Yale Law School.
- Paul Michel 1962, Federal Circuit Judge.
- Telford Taylor 1928, Prosecutor of Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials, General in the U.S. Army, and professor of law at Columbia University and Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law.
Science, Technology, and Engineering
- Alexander L. Fetter 1958, Director of the Laboratory for Advanced Materials and former Chair of the Physics Department, Stanford University (1985-1990).
- William Higinbotham 1932, American physicist credited with creating the first video game.
- Edward Morley 1860, who co-performed the Michelson-Morley experiment, one of the most famous experiments in the history of physics.
Sports
- Ethan Brooks 1996, NFL player for Baltimore Ravens.
- Alex Blake 2003, Colorado Rapids (MLS).
- Dan Calichman 1990, MLS All-Star.
- Jim Duquette 1988, general manager of the New York Mets.
- Jonathan Kraft 1986, operator, investor and owner's representative to the New England Patriots, New England Revolution and Gillette Stadium. He is also COO of The Kraft Group.
- George Steinbrenner 1952, owner of the New York Yankees.
- Khari Stephenson 2004, Chicago Fire (MLS).
- Fay Vincent 1960, former major league baseball commissioner.
A list of Williams' Olympians is available at the Williams Sports Info website.
Writing and Journalism
- Dominick Dunne 1949, author.
- Ed Larson 1974, 1998 Pulitzer Prize winner in History for Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion.
- Tim Layden 1978, Sports Illustrated writer.
- Jay McInerney 1976, author of Bright Lights, Big City.
- Bethany McLean 1992, author of The Smartest Guys in the Room, on the collapse of Enron.
- Hedrick Smith 1955, 1974 Pulitzer Prize winner in international reporting.
- Charles Webb 1961, author of the book upon which The Graduate was based. (Supposedly, Williams College is the alma mater of Dustin Hoffman's character.)
Sports
The school's sports teams are called the Ephmen, or the Ephs. They participate in the NCAA's Division III and the New England Small College Athletic Conference. Williams has had tremendous success winning the NACDA Director's Cup, also known as the Sears Cup.
Williams is one of the "Little Three", along with Wesleyan and Amherst.
Williams has a traditional rivalry with Amherst College's Lord Jeffs. Williams and Amherst currently compete in 26 varsity sports and Williams sports a winning record vs. Amherst in 23. Amherst leads only in baseball and men's soccer while the two schools' women's soccer teams were tied, as of 11/6/2003.
Williams has played in the last two men's basketball Division III national championship games, winning the title in March 2003.
Academic reputation
Williams is currently ranked #1 on U.S. News and World Report's ranking of liberal arts colleges, and has ranked first in the academic reputation category each year that U.S. News has produced a survey.
Williams ranked fifth, after Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford, in a 2004 Wall Street Journal survey of the "feeder schools" to the top five business, law, and medical schools in the country.
