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WilliamsFeature Stories

Biographer Stacy Schiff ’82 to receive an honorary degree

May 23, 2013

Acclaimed biographer Stacy Schiff ’82 says she was “tenderly taken care of” as a Williams undergraduate. In this C-SPAN interview, she recalls the college as a place where a “fabulous faculty” cultivated open minds to create “a tremendously good education in terms of writing.”

Photo by Elena Seibert

Schiff’s career proves her point. Her first book Saint-Exupéry: A Biography, was a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize. Her second,Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov): Portrait of a Marriage, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize. She is the author as well of the award winning A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America. Her most recent book, Cleopatra: A Life, was published in 2010 to universal acclaim. The New York Times’ Michiko Kakutani called it captivating, “…far more complex and compelling than any fictional creation.”

For these and many other accomplishments as a leading writer of her generation, Schiff will receive an honorary degree from her alma mater and deliver the baccalaureate at Williams’ 224th Commencement.

Learn more about Stacy Schiff and her fellow 2013 honorary degree recipients and find detailed Williams Commencement information here.

Award-Winning Student Research

May 13, 2013

In a corner of his office, Steven Swoap, professor and chair of biology, has a stool with two dancing mice drawn on it. While the pair more closely resemble Beatrix Potter characters than actual rodents, Swoap and his thesis students Rebecca Maher, Uttara Partap, and Christine Schindler have a strictly scientific interest in mice.

In much of basic science mice serve as important models of human conditions. Researchers can manipulate their genes, linking them with specific functions, and can translate the findings to humans. But the many ways in which mice differ from humans can present challenges to that research—and to the mice themselves.

“There was a pretty steep initial learning curve in taking care of the mice,” Maher says.

Undergraduate research award winners Christine Schindler, Uttara Partap, and Rebecca Maher

Schindler, Partap, and Maher in the Swoap lab.

For instance, lab mice are usually housed in temperatures of around 20ºC (68ºF), which is comfortable for humans but too cold for mice, causing them to suffer “cold stress.” Maher’s research examines ways to alleviate cold stress. Simply housing mice together or with nests could do the trick, she found after testing different conditions and monitoring the mice’s heart rates, blood pressure, and metabolic rates.

Maher and fellow classmates Partap and Schindler were honored recently for their research by the American Physiological Society. They won three out of 13 David S. Bruce Excellence in Undergraduate Research awards granted at the association’s Experimental Biology conference this spring.

Partap and Schindler worked together on two sides of an important finding related to the drug rapamycin, which has caught the attention of many researchers as a potential longevity drug. Partap and Schindler found that rapamycin can cause insulin resistance, pancreatic damage, and diabetes in mice. They also found that the effects of rapamycin were different for male and female mice and were, to varying degrees, reversible.

As impressive as their results were, Swoap says a thesis project is less about getting the right answers than it is about learning to design experiments and develop and test hypotheses. Even if students fail to get the results they initially expected, that doesn’t constitute a failed experiment, he says.

Schindler says the process was challenging but worthwhile. “Piecing together different aspects of the experiment—like the physiology, tissue structure, or insulin counts—to create a complete research project was very rewarding,” she says.

Both Partap and Maher have had previous research experience at Williams and elsewhere. Partap has worked with Swoap for two years and co-authored with David Hill ’73, director of Quinnipiac University’s Global Public Health Program, two papers on public health that grew out of a 2010 Winter Study course at Williams (the papers were published in the journals International Health and The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene).

Working on a thesis was a much different experience. “It allowed me to more independently think about, design, and work on a project that really interests me,” Partap says.

Maher agrees, reflecting on her previous experience as a research assistant at the Yale Cancer Center. At Williams, she could have complete control over her project and work closely and directly with professors instead of graduate students.

“Students at Williams own their projects, becoming intellectually engaged and invested in them,” Swoap explains. “They emotionally and intellectually understand the project; they know it in and out.”

Swoap’s students have won the David S. Bruce award in several previous years, but this is the first time three students from Williams have won in the same year. “We were nervous that we might end up in an awkward situation,” says Schindler. “It would have been fine if none of us got it but what if one of us didn’t get it?” Fortunately, none of them left with that awkward feeling.

Museum Lends Art to Students

May 9, 2013

Imagine this: You’re in your second semester at Williams, and you check out a Cézanne from the Williams College Museum of Art, the way you might check out Moby Dick from the library. You walk back to your dorm room and choose the perfect spot to hang it. Every day, for the entire semester, you look at it in different frames of mind, in natural light, in the glow from your reading lamp, with friends, and alone. You have the chance to spend time—to really understand—the painting from the comfort of your dorm room. “Much art was meant for ‘long time’ absorption,” says WCMA director Tina Olsen, “not what typically occurs in museums.”

Stop imagining.

“Long time absorption” is exactly what you will have the chance to experience starting next year. WCMA is launching a student art loan initiative as a key component of the Fulkerson Arts Leadership Program, with additional support from alumni who’ve given works of art and financial resources. Allan Fulkerson ’54, founder of the Arts Leadership Program, says its goal is to provide opportunities to help develop the next generation of Williams leaders in the arts. He sees the art loan initiative as one piece of that goal, “reaching and involving many students rather than just a few.” Fenner Milton ’62 agrees. Milton majored in physics at Williams but was deeply affected by the art history courses he took. “The important thing is to expose the non-art major to the concept of living with art,” he says.

Some of the art you could easily live with includes pieces by Cézanne, Jim Dine, Fred Wilson, Winslow Homer, Margaret Bourke-White, Marc Chagall, Alison Saar, Utamaro Kitagawa, and Williams’ own Ed Epping. “We want the art to reflect the diversity of our students, their backgrounds and interests,” says David Sledge, first-year student in Williams’ art history graduate program, curator of the student loan initiative, and member of the program’s selection committee. “We understand that all of our effort will be for naught if the art we select doesn’t engage or challenge the students.”

First-year student Madison Epsten is excited about the program because “it’s open to everyone living on campus, from the next Picasso to a future brain surgeon.” Epsten, who is thinking of majoring in either biology or psychology, is a student advisor on the selection committee. She says the program will transform dorm rooms into homes. “Students will get to experience a sense of possession over a piece of original art,” she says.

Milton hopes that feeling of possession will foster a lifelong appreciation for art, as his Williams education did for him. Sledge explains that the committee makes choices with the same goal in mind, “asking at every step: what works will engage students deeply and foster a lifelong dialogue with art?”

Students can see for themselves when WCMA puts on a salon-style exhibition, including an online module, in January 2014, to showcase the art before students select it. On the appointed day, there will be a first-come, first-served selection process. “We’d love to see students camping out overnight to get their first pick,” says Sledge.

WCMA director Olsen says the program embodies the philosophy that art is part of everyday life, giving students a way to connect to it differently from how they might in a museum. “This program allows people to attach to works of art, to absorb them on their own terms.”

Elementary Physics

May 7, 2013

Physicist David Tucker-Smith welcomed local fourth-graders to his lab.

Local fourth-graders were wowed by physics demonstrations in Professor David Tucker-Smith’s lab on campus.

Students and faculty members walking through Thompson Physics on Monday afternoon found themselves peeking into a classroom full of 60 fourth-graders from Williamstown Elementary School eagerly watching a demonstration by David Tucker-Smith, associate professor of physics.

Frani Micelli, a teacher at Williamstown Elementary, said the annual demonstrations by the physics department are always a highlight of the fourth-grade science curriculum. “The benefit is they get to see cool contraptions and get to hear it from real scientists, not just their teachers,” she said. “It’s more reinforcement.”

The students were wowed from the beginning, when they filed into the classroom to see multiple demonstrations set up. Tucker-Smith covered concepts of basic machines and Newton’s laws of motion, information that the fourth-graders had already been introduced to. The students eagerly anticipated Tucker-Smith’s questions, offering examples from their own lives to supplement his demonstrations and suggesting other experiments they could try as a group.

Highlights included Tucker-Smith rubbing a balloon on his hair to generate static electricity, which garnered a chorus of laughter from the room. One student suggested he stick it to the wall, where it remained for most of the lecture. Nearly the entire room jumped at the chance to help with a later demonstration of acceleration and how we understand motion, and students peppered him with questions throughout.

For his final demonstration, Tucker-Smith used a strobe light to make falling drops of liquid appear frozen in space, demonstrating the effect of gravitational pull on the acceleration of objects as they fall.

Tucker-Smith is the latest of several physics professors who have played a role in a longstanding relationship between the department and the elementary school. “We all want to help out,” he said. “The kids are so curious and enthusiastic.”

A Great Day of Service

May 3, 2013

Ten dozen donuts and bagels, 100 granola bars, 5 boxes of coffee, 150 bag lunches, and 150 T-shirts.

That’s what it took to fuel 150 Williams students who fanned out across 14 nearby schools, churches, and nonprofit organizations for this year’s Great Day of Service in April.

Mt. Greylock High School Spring Cleaning

The women’s soccer team headed up to Florida Mountain’s Manice Education Center to help clear winter trail debris, turn compost, and lay down wood chips in preparation for the center’s organic gardening program. First-year students from the Williams F. entry cleared fence lines, planted potatoes, and painted fences at Caretaker Farm.

Others judged middle-school projects at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts science fair, built an access ramp for a Habitat for Humanity project, helped the Adams Police Department collect unused prescription drugs, and cataloged items for a technology drive at St. John’s Episcopal Church. Still others did clean-up projects with students at Brayton Elementary School, high schoolers at Mount Greylock Regional, and at-risk youth at Berkshire Farm Center.

This is the 13th year that The Great Day of Service has been organized by students in Williams’ Lehman Council, who worked for weeks in advance—and from 7 a.m. on the day of—to make sure it all ran like clockwork. Lehman member Kairav Sinha ’15 surveyed Williams participants and found that 97 percent said the event exceeded their expectations, 100 percent said they felt their efforts were appreciated, and 100 percent said they’d volunteer again.

Williams students engage with the off-campus community throughout the year. Their efforts, along with curricular initiatives to link learning with experiences beyond the classroom, have recently come together in the new Center for Learning in Action.

“We hope to build on this momentum next year,” says Sinha, “not only on the Great Day of Service but throughout the year, continuing to support engagement experiences that enrich the lives of Williams students and community members.”

A Living Reminder of an Ancient Civilization

April 29, 2013

Taken out around Halloween for gallery talks and shown to behind-the-scenes visitors, the mummy hand at the Williams College Museum of Art is an artifact that simultaneously amazes, appalls, and confounds.

For anthropology professor Antonia Foias and junior Elizabeth Hart, a biology and anthropology double major, the mummy hand was a mystery to be solved. “When my students first encounter [it],” says Foias, “they are horrified.” The personal identity, the life that was connected to this human hand has been lost through the ages. There are no records of how it came into the museum’s collection, no background or date to place the hand in any specific time period.

Foias wanted to bring the humanity back to the mummy hand.

As part of Hart’s independent study on Egyptian religion, she and Foias proposed DNA and radiocarbon testing of the hand. To do those tests, however, a small sample of bone would need to be taken and sent to a lab. To determine if this would even be possible, they had the hand X-rayed at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center.

“I placed my hand over the X-ray photograph,” says Foias, who found that the mummy hand was bigger than hers. “Was it a man? A tall woman?” According to Lori Wright, a professor of anthropology at Texas A&M University who analyzed the X-ray, it was definitely an adult. The X-ray also indicated that a bone sample could be removed for analysis.

The results squarely placed the hand between 70 and 230 A.D., which is the Roman period in Egypt. “During this time, mummification was on the decline,” explains Hart, “which leads me to believe that this individual lived in a small settlement that hadn’t undergone extensive Romanization.”

So the mummy hand now can be definitively sourced from ancient Egypt. “It’s no longer lost on the timeline of history,” says Hart. “It can be reclassified as a living reminder of an ancient civilization.”

For more details about Hart’s and Foias’s research, read the museum’s blog posts, The Mystery of the Mummy Hand, then view a selection of the Egyptian works in the museum’s collection.

Computer Science 25th Anniversary

April 19, 2013

When Andrea Danyluk joined the computer science faculty in 1993, the college asked what equipment she would need for her work. Her request of a SPARCstation 20, with four 50MHz processors, 512 MB of memory, and 1.05 GB of disk space and a separate 10 GB external hard drive was unprecedented, and extraordinarily expensive—the computer alone cost $18,000. Today, most inexpensive laptops have almost as much memory as her external hard drive did 20 years ago.

While it may seem as if so much about the field of computer science has changed in the last quarter-century, longtime computer science professor Duane Bailey says the changes are on the surface. “They seem dramatic if you think about what a computer is today,” he says. “Yet, computer scientists are less concerned with the details of the technology du jour and more with the core questions we’ve been asking for years.”

They’re questions that Williams faculty have been asking since the mid-1970s, when introductory computer science, algorithms, and programming languages courses were taught by faculty in mathematics. Twenty-five years ago, computer science was becoming distinct as its own discipline, and these questions—what is a computer, what is information, and how can we structure information efficiently?—were increasingly demanding a faculty that could ask and answer them through research and in the classroom. There was a friendly parting of the ways—indeed the departments still share many students—and the computer science department was born. “The split was natural,” remembers Kim Bruce, the department’s first chair.

Some might wonder if it was appropriate for a liberal arts institution to train computer scientists—why not leave it to the computer engineering departments at larger universities? “Our faculty believe in the liberal arts, enjoy teaching, and actively involve students in research,” explains Bailey. “While few students come here thinking of themselves as computer scientists, 15 to 20 graduate each year sharing our passion.”

Danyluk adds, “Like other disciplines in the sciences, computer science has a strong theoretical foundation, it can be investigated experimentally, and it has practical applications.” And, more and more, computer science reaches into nearly every discipline.

Bill Lenhart, who had to choose between computer science and math when the departments split, explains the thinking behind the development of the discipline. “We wanted our graduates to be well educated in the fundamental ideas of computer science, so they would be prepared for jobs in technology, for graduate school in computer science, for whatever field they chose,” he says. To that end, Williams faculty have been involved with the national conversation about computer science curriculum development for the last 25 years.

Reflecting on her experience on the Association for Computing Machinery’s CS2013 Curriculum Steering Committee, the national committee charged with designing computer science curriculum, Danyluk notes that the three core courses Williams offered in the ’70s and ’80s are still fundamental to the major today. “Over the years, we have built up an onion of skills that our students are exposed to,” she says. “But the core remains the same.”

And because many Williams students double major, their understanding of that core—and everything that grows out of it—is that much broader. Bailey calls it “the softer sensibility” that Williams alumni bring to the careers they choose. “It’s hard to imagine what a computer will look like in another 25 years, but our students will be able to contribute in meaningful ways when that time comes.”

Case in point: A.J. Brush ’96, a senior researcher at Microsoft who describes her work in home automation systems as “trying to imagine the future and getting as close to it as possible,” has had to be an adaptable thinker throughout her career. “At Williams,” she reflects, “I learned not to be scared of the unfamiliar. I learned how to learn.”

Spring Break: Broadening Horizons

April 18, 2013

During spring break, Williams students scatter to the four winds. Some train with their teams or tour with performance groups. Others pursue academic research. But for a large number of students, spring break is a time to learn about and serve in communities as diverse as New Orleans, Nicaragua, and even a Navajo reservation.

From el campo…

Williams students spent spring break working in clinics in Nicaragua.

Fifteen Williams students spent six days working directly with medical patients in clinics all over Nicaragua.

Tre’dez Colbert and Patrick Joslin, both Class of ’14, say their spring break experience will stay with them for the rest of their lives. The pair led a group of pre-med students from Williams, Smith, and Mt. Holyoke Colleges to Nicaragua, where they spent six days working directly with patients in medical clinics all over the country.

Each day the group drove to a different temporary clinic set up in a church or a school by Global Medical Training (GMT), a humanitarian organization that gives undergraduates the opportunity for hands-on medical training in the developing world. Colbert and Joslin also traveled with GMT to the Dominican Republic during spring break 2012.

Working together in small teams and with an interpreter, students met with one patient at a time, using body language as well as the spoken word to determine what was wrong. Then the students consulted with a doctor, who would agree (or disagree) with their diagnosis and help determine the best treatment.

“We saw a lot of high blood pressure,” Colbert says. “Cowboys working in el campo all day, drinking a lot of coffee, probably not drinking enough water, would come in complaining of fatigue, dizziness, shortness of breath. We knew that probably meant hypertension.”

Joslin recalls a woman who came in with flu-like symptoms, her healthy daughter in tow. The team of students gave the mother a prescription and smiled at the little girl. That’s when the mother told the students that her daughter’s heart is on the right side of her body. Joslin knew situs inversus to be a condition a doctor might see once in a career, and asked if he could listen to her heartbeat. “It was incredible,” he says, “to see that her body works just fine this way.”

Both Joslin and Colbert say they are committed to working in developing nations or with patients living in poverty in the U.S. after they graduate. Adds Colbert: “It solidified my resolve to work in communities that don’t have enough resources.”

…To a reservation

Nine Williams students helped out on a Navajo reservation during spring break.

Eight students helped out in the classroom and community center on a Navajo reservation.

This was the fifth spring break Williams students spent on the Navajo reservation in Window Rock, Ariz., but the first time they volunteered at the local public schools there. Seth Tobolsky ’13 and Amanda Washington ’14—who have both spent each of their spring breaks on the reservation—led a group of nine Ephs to the region this year.

“In the past, the Williams group has gone to one of two private schools in the area,” explains Tobolsky. “In the public school system, I learned a great deal about the government’s relationship with the Navajo Nation and how underfunded schools truly suffer under legislation such as the sequester.”

The group helped out in classrooms, dug garden plots at the community center, and made connections they hope last a lifetime.

Washington—who plans to lead the trip again next year—spent mornings in a fifth-grade class at the public elementary school, helping out as a teacher’s assistant. She spent afternoons at the community center, which is open from 4 to 9:30 p.m.—“and later,” she says, “if the kids don’t have anywhere to go. There’s not much to do on the reservation, so what do teenagers get up to? The community center is a safe place, and their parents know where they are.”

The group also spent time at the Navajo Immersion School—where classes were conducted entirely in Navajo—ate traditional Navajo meals, including mutton and fried bread, and talked with high school students about the future. “The percentage of Navajo kids going on to college is low,” Washington says. “We helped in programs geared toward getting kids to think about higher education.”

Adds Tobolsky, “We helped get kids excited about learning. It’s amazing to make even a small difference in their lives.”

Bringing Medical History to Life

March 19, 2013

Imagine holding in your hands a piece of the rope used to hang the man who assassinated President James A. Garfield in 1882. Or a handwritten letter Ephraim Williams’ sister wrote after his death in 1755, describing her brother’s wounds in great detail and decrying the French and Indian War.

In the Williams College Museum of Art’s Rose Study Gallery this month, the students in Professor Patrick Spero’s “North American History” survey course got to do just that. As they considered these primary sources gathered from the college’s archives, the history the students had been learning all semester came vividly to life.

Spero invited Jason Kittler, a teaching doctor affiliated with the University of Massachusetts, to offer a medical perspective on the historical materials and the museum portraits of a Revolutionary War soldier, a conquistador, and an American president that were on view in the Rose Gallery. Considering a 1626 portrait called “A Knight of Santiago,” Kittler prompted students to suggest what might have caused the man’s slight wall eye and need to wear spectacles. History major Jay Gurney ’13 suggested syphilis, a possibility Spero affirmed as having “traveled to Europe, affecting everyone from the lowest to the highest classes.”

In a reference book from 1710 from the Chapin Library of Rare Books called “A Family Dictionary,” Spero’s students found recipes for both pain medication and chicken stew. “People didn’t have hundreds of books in their houses,” said Kittler, who has experience explaining—usually to medical school students—the medical knowledge of a time period based on its historical artifacts.

Why use primary sources to understand medical history? It provides a window into the lives, and lifestyles, of the people who came before. “Letters from this time period always open with how the writer is feeling,” Spero said, holding up an example sheathed in a protective plastic sleeve. “And they’re always feeling bad. That is the most fundamental difference between our lives and those of the people in the 18^th and 19^th century.”

Reflecting on this multifaceted approach to learning, Rudi Yniguez ’16 said, “Today’s class reminds me why this school is so spectacular and why I love learning.”

To learn more about the archives collections visit http://archives.williams.edu/

To learn more about the Chapin Library collections, visit http://chapin.williams.edu/index.html

To learn more about the Williams College Museum of Art, visit http://wcma.williams.edu/

The Human Library

March 8, 2013

On March 1 and 2, Williams College participated in the Human Library Project, an event where people volunteer to be “books” and visitors can “read” the books by talking to them for 30 minutes. The goal is for members of our community to learn more about each other, to explore and move beyond stereotypes, and to develop a greater understanding of each person’s unique story. Here are two personal accounts by a reader and a book.

Students review books, which were available to be read.

As I walked into Paresky, I was anxious about what ‘book’ to check out. I was overwhelmed with excitement as I went back and forth from the large display board that featured a synopsis of each book. Finally, I decided to pick a number—seven, my favorite. I was given a bookmark of sorts and was told to return my ‘book’ in half an hour. My book and I exchanged a few awkward smiles and some uncomfortable laughs as we sat down to begin. Energetic, but still a little hesitant, my book jumped in and asked, “So, what do you want to know?” Still nervous, I muttered, “Well, how did it start?” My book went on to tell me about her history of self-harming. As early as nine-years-old, she can remember digging her nails into her skin or biting the inside of her mouth when she felt overwhelmed. As my book aged, her methods of self-harm intensified. She began to cut.

And as I write this I know better than to call her a ‘cutter.’ Although relatively brief, our conversation taught me about the significance of phrasing patterns of depression and labeling people who are self-harming as “crazy” or “troubled.” My book decided to name herself “Cutter/Crazy” because those were the stereotypes she was trying to fight by sharing this part of herself. She was also fighting her fears of viewing herself as “crazy.” My book went on to tell me something someone had recently said to her. With a confident smirk, she said, “After speaking at a Gaudino Dinner, I was approached by an audience member who told me, ‘If people judge you for cutting, that’s their problem. You’re not just a cutter, you’re someone who has worked through it and someone who has the courage to share their stories to others.’”

This comment really struck a chord with me as I just shared with her that I couldn’t even imagine sharing something so personal with just anyone in the community. And although I still don’t have quite enough courage to become a book myself, I did have enough courage to listen to someone who was.

I learned a lot from my first book. She answered questions I was nervous to ask. She shared details where I was sure that no one ever would. My book offered me advice about how to be an ally and how to help friends and family members who are self harming. And, before I knew it, our thirty minutes were up and I had to let someone else give her a ‘read.’
—Maya Y. Dennis ’13

Nearly 2½ years since the last time I cut, it’s still a difficult issue in my life. Even after being mostly “recovered,” it’s still a struggle just dealing with the stigma surrounding Depression, mental illness and self-harm. Little rude or dismissive comments, jokes about cutting, suicide, or “emo” stereotypes affect me all the time and make me scared to share my experiences. But, deep-down, I know that the only way to fight against this stigma is to talk about it, that I can fight the stigma just by letting people know about what these issues are really like first-hand.

Thankfully, Williams has offered me many opportunities to share these experiences in a safe space. The most recent was the Human Library Project. Even though I’d shared at many awareness-related events at Williams, this one still made me especially nervous. The other events took the form of more formal discussions or speeches and focused on mental illness specifically. But what would Cutter/Crazy look like next to Archaeologist, Orthodox Jew, War Veteran, or That Guy in the Library? Further, this event was open to the greater community, not just students in the purple bubble. My worst fear was the event being like a zoo: “Ooh let’s see what a real live cutter looks like.” But, I found this to be far from the reality.

To my surprise, everyone that I spoke with had experiences somehow related to these issues, whether personal or with someone that they cared about. I found that people came not just to listen, but to talk. However, many shared that they didn’t feel comfortable bringing it up with their friends. I know that every time I talk about my experiences, I feel a little better and come more to terms with what’s happened, and the people that I spoke with seemed to feel better after our conversations; they seemed relieved to find someone else who wanted to talk about these issues. This made me realize that events like these are so powerful because these are difficult but vital conversations that need to be started somewhere. I’m thankful that the Gaudino Fund [http://gaudino.williams.edu/] and the Human Library Committee continue to foster this form of uncomfortable learning by organizing these amazing events and allowing us to make a difference in people’s lives just by talking and listening.
—Kira D. Marrero ’15

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