Williams College - Gulielmensian Yearbook (Williamstown, MA)

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about the Williams Bookstore. - And enough student voices joined together to prevent the administration from installing a computerized lock system on all campus buildings. 1987-1988 also saw the beginning of the renovation of Hopkins Hall, the debut of a second campus newspaper,The Issue, the final year of single-sex entries in the Freshman Quad, the completion of the new Steinbrenner track and the long- awaited opening of the John Wesley Chandler Athletic Center. Chandler gym received a proper christening when Nancy Hedeman C895 scored the 1000th point in her Williams basketball career. What a year for Athletics in the Ac- ademy! It was a year for changes in academia as well. Williams brought Oxford home with the introduction of tutorials into the curriculum. lt was decided that the Fresh- man Residential Seminar, an experiment of the past two years, would continue. The distribution of the Gaudino Committees report sparked campus-wide debate on the merits of independent study and the existance of a Ukeg culture On the scandelous side, The Record, in a shocking editorial, revealed that the College Council officer positions were strictly resume-padders and that the Council's work amounted to nothing. Laden with their work on projects such as the racism panel, departmental liason committees, faculty recruitment, equi- table field time and uniform rotation for womens sports, campus lighting, Div- ision lll course offerings, and calendar concerns, the Council did not have time to respond. These are just a few of the highlights of the 1987-88 school year. We hope this book will senfe as a stepping stone to even more memories. Enjoy. E 1 1 HM 14.6 X lt Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing! All around campus students were sing- ing this Duke Ellington favorite as they learned to jitterbug in a Free University course offered by the Jitterbugging Club during Winter Study. Ephs attended classes at Towne Field House where eighteen student instructors taught them moves like The Pretzel, The Cement Mixer, and The Texas Tommy. While jitterbugging has been offered at Williams in the past, organizers David Kane and Paul Danielson tboth '88j re- ported that over two hundred students took the course this year. Kane attributed the high enrollment to the fact that students who signed up had a few days to find a partner. He noted the advantages of the new location as wellg the Field House provided ample room for the new dancers to try out their spins and tosses. One of the instructors, Mark Solan t'88j, feels that jitterbugging has become so popular at Williams because it is a dance that a lot of people know and can do at parties. Solan said he thought the students had a lot of fun because the in- structors did not go around telling people what they were doing wrong. We just showed everyone what we know and let them take it from there. lt's something they could make up as they went along. The class finished up the Winter Study period with two all-campus dances that featured great tunes from the Williams Jazz Ensemble. Both dances were high- lighted by impressive dance contests. The Jitterbug Club hopes that the fun will continue for years to come. 1988 Gul!7

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he Gulielmensian, originally thought to mean that which pertains to Williams, is de- rived from the Latin gula, the throatg and mensare, to get caught in and is more popularly defined as that which Williams students cannot pronounce. We just refer to it affectionately as The Gul. Re- gardless, in putting together this one- hundred thirty-first edition, we wanted to encapsulate what is so special about Williams. instead of making broad, sweeping claims about everything Williams has to offer, ffor which informa- few juniors who were due to leave for Ox- ford but found themselves stranded in Billsville. lt is rumored a few panicked and tried to make it out on their own but were soon rounded up by Chief Zoito. We thought the administration was just chang- ing the calendar, not the seasons! Exactly one month later, Williams was taken by surprise when the Berkshires ex- perienced a black-out. This night-time power outage caused many students to leave their rooms and crowd the campus in search of friends and light. lBM and Macintosh users alike lost midterm papers. For once, Williams students had a tion decided it was finally time to d something about the appearance of Hop kins now that we had become a hub. On a more serious note, in recognitio of Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Awarenes week, the BGLU distributed sticker which asked Why assume l'm heterc sexual? Several members also travelle to Washington, D.C. to participate in th largest gay and lesbian rights march i history. Many efforts were made this year b students , faculty and administration U confront and alleviate elements of racisn at Williams as well. Early in the fall semes Y,W tion we refer you to the October 26, 1987, issue of U. S. News and World Reportl , we tried to focus on the people and events that made the 1987-88 school year so memorable. A closer Look at Williams 1987-88... Let's start with the snow. When each of us decided to come to Williams, we re- signed ourselves to snowy winters. While the Gul does not usually take a stand on sensitive, controversial issues, we have to say that we were vehemently opposed to having Williams start its snow season as soon as we returned. The October 4th blizzard fokay, it was only a foot, but it felt like a blizzardl took everyone by surprise except the few people who won Pappa Charlie's Guess the first day of snow contest. Especially surprised were the 6fOpening ri fill legitimate excuse for an extension. The year saw a plethora of creative advertising for various groups. The Dean's office set the tone with a complex map giving clues as to where top adminis- trators were hidden on campus. lt was rumored that the first student to find any of those who were relocated from Hopkins would receive a free pizza from Pizza Hut, the much-welcomed alternative to Col- onial. Signs for Agora magazine expanded on this map motif. Noting that the time it takes to drive from Williamstown to Boston is the same as the time it takes to drive from Williamstown to New York, they reasoned that this put Williamstown at the center of the universe. The Admis- sions Office noted that there was a sub- stantial increase in applicants after this news was released, and the administra- ter, the Commission on Campus Flace Relations, created by the President at the end ofthe 1986-87 school year, in tanden with the College Council, sponsored a student panel on racism that packed Bax ter dining hall. In addition, concerneu students heightened campus awareness of racism with pins which read: Racism kills. Fight back!, and Kick the racis habit. This effort was followed by the occupation of the Deans' office fJenness Housel by the Coalition Against Fiacis Education CCAREJ to encourage the ad ministration to recognize the gravity o racism on campus. About the same time, Baxter Lawn, al ways the locus for some form of studen activism became a toxic waste dump for a day as students protested the negligen dumping of toxic chemicals. Other stu dent protests centered around complaints

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