Teaching Styles: The approaches differ, but the common goal is learning- Faculty members
- 297
- Percent of faculty who are tenured
- 56
- Percent of full-time faculty who hold PhDs or highest degrees in their fields
- 96
- Ratio of faculty to students
- 1:8
- Tenured faculty members who earned bachelor's degrees from Williams
- 14
- Rank of Harvard, Stanford, and Yale (tie with Princeton) among institutions where Williams professors earned PhDs
- 1, 2, 3
- Percent of faculty members of color
- 17
- Percent of female faculty members
- 38
It takes a certain kind of student to decide that four years at Williams is right for them. And it takes a certain kind of person to decide that they’d like to live in Williamstown as an adult – establishing homes and relationships that will last a lifetime, continuing their academic endeavors, and becoming active members of a small college town community. We’re lucky to call members of this latter group our faculty.
To help students in his “Baghdad” class understand the city and its place in the American consciousness, comparative literature professor Armando Vargas insists on starting at the origins of students’ conceptions of Arab cultures: the Disney feature “Aladdin.”What unifies the members of our faculty is an overarching respect for the profound importance of an undergraduate education. We understand that good teaching can spark students’ intellects and channel their interests. Our professors enjoy taking risks and trying out new methods in the classroom. It’s no exaggeration to say that they are also some of the world’s leading scholars, alive in their own disciplines and comfortable making leaps between fields as disparate as English, chemistry, and religion. They are energized by the fact that their scholarly pursuits and research are supplemented largely by contributions from their student colleagues.
Faculty and administrators at every level are focused on providing each Williams student an enriching and supportive educational experience. They serve as advocates for students during their time at Williams, and as touchstones after graduation. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle of which they're proud to be a part. It’s no wonder that Williams alumni are tremendously loyal to the school—one good experience begets another, and so on, until you, yourself, find it time to return a favor by taking a first-year student out to coffee, just to make sure all’s well and that they are enjoying and benefiting from their time here.