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Sinha came to Williams via Leland High School in San Jose, Calif. At Leland, speech and debate are essentially varsity sports, involving a quarter of its 1,600 students.  Joining the team as a 9th grader, Sinha finished as high as 8th place in statewide speech contests. He also led another kind of success, talking 200 of his fellow high schoolers into outreach efforts with hundreds of middle-school and elementary-school students.

Arriving in Williamstown, Sinha quickly found his way to Rick Spalding, Williams’ chaplain and coordinator of community service. Spalding introduced him to Kaatje White, director of the Williams Center at Mt. Greylock, who facilitates academic engagement between the school and the college. This connection, and a warm welcome from grateful Mt. Greylock 8th-grade teachers, allowed Sinha to start volunteering in the school weeks after arriving on campus. “This was completely win-win,” says White. “Kairav presented a curricular and pedagogical toolbox that teachers and students could benefit from immediately.”

Age-appropriate exercises are key.  Sinha’s high school mentor, Gay Brasher, developed the lesson modules Sinha uses at Mt. Greylock. Enunciation drills include tongue-twisters (“The big black bug bit the big black bear.”), while two-person skits stress storytelling through inflection. Fourteen-year-olds eagerly rehearse dialogues to present to their classmates. Sinha’s refrain—“Eyes up here!”—reminds antsy students that part of being a good speaker is being a good audience.

Sinha’s work with 8th graders has yielded results already. Mt. Greylock’s annual constitutional debates usually surface a few students who are truly terrified to speak in public. Thanks in part to Sinha’s work, says history teacher Pat Blackman, “Our two students who were most terrified were confident enough to participate on their teams, and indeed did so with the appearance of poise.”

Sinha’s newly founded club “Williams Speak!” aims to connect 25 Williams students with more than 600 local students across five grade levels this spring.  In addition to Mt. Greylock, these undergraduate volunteers will reach students at Williamstown Elementary School, Lanesborough School, Berkshire Arts & Technology Charter Public School in Adams, and Brayton Elementary School in North Adams.

Not bad for a guy half way through his first year at Williams.

Structured to mimic real library browsing, participants would search the card catalog, apply for a library card, and then check out one of the 35 books as they became available. The book titles, chosen by the “books” themselves, included “Custodian,” “Evangelical Christian,” “Fat Woman,” “Feminist,” “Iraq War Veteran,” “LDS Missionaries (Mormon),” “Olympic Athlete,” “Orphanage Boy,” “Psychiatrist,” and “Queer,” among others. Readers and books engaged in one-on-one conversations that lasted 30 minutes.

Helena Warburg, head of the Science Library at Williams, participated as a book titled, “Child of Holocaust Survivors.” Warburg said that she wanted to participate because as a librarian, “I love the message you get from a book. So the opportunity to be a human book instead of a written book was intriguing.” The experience was extremely intense for her. She was excited to be able to share something personal about herself, so that people could get a better idea of her identity, but she was surprised to learn the extent to which stereotypes persist. She adds that each reader was varied and, “not once did someone ask the same question.”

English and American studies major Lauren Shuffleton ’12, who participated with her friend, sociology major and fellow senior Evalynn M. Rosado, also found the experience deeply moving. Lauren, who shares her experience here, says “a half an hour is not nearly long enough to get into challenging conversations. But I think this was the lesson the Human Library gave me: the recognition that I have a stock of friends at Williams and in the Berkshires who have backgrounds different from mine, and that this is the time to get to those difficult, massively important discussions.”

The Human Library Project was organized at Williams by Magnus Bernhardsson, associate professor of history and Gaudino Scholar, and Katarzyna Pieprzak, associate professor of Francophone literature, French language, and comparative literature.

Support for the Human Library at Williams was provided by the Gaudino Fund and the Williams College Libraries.

The Human Library was founded in 2001 in Denmark to promote human rights and social cohesion. To learn more about the Human Library, visit www.humanlibrary.org

Initially conceived to contextualize student interest in art forms rooted in African traditions, Stalwart also provides an opportunity to explore new forms of music, media, dance, theater, literature, and art while providing students, faculty, and the community direct contact with working artists.

The name Stalwart Originality derived from a quote by W.E.B. DuBois addressing the American Negro Academy in 1897. There, he stated that African American people were “a nation stored with wonderful possibilities of culture” that could be realized not by imitating Europeans but by pursuing and preserving their own “stalwart originality.”

Although there is no set format for Stalwart—it changes every year depending on research, scope of the project, and student, departmental, and community support— there are four main components. Residencies bring visiting artists and scholars to Williams; public performances and presentations by these artists alongside students allow for an exchange of ideas and shared creativity; panel discussions after performances allow community engagement with artists, scholars, and students; and workshops provide intense interactive experiences for students and faculty.

Kenyan poet, playwright, theater artist, and political activist Shailja Patel is this year’s Stalwart visiting artist. Patel is in residency at Williams from February 22 to March 3. While she is here, she will lead a workshop for area high school students, visit Williams professor Katarzyna Pieprzak’s class called Displaying, Collecting and Preserving the Other: Museums and French Imperialism, and perform Bwagamoyo: The Father (Part II of Migritude). Her work charts a voyage from colonial Zanzibar to Kenya by way of the male body, drawing on her father’s history and her own involvement in Kenya’s post-election crisis. Through this story, Patel explores how the stories of our bodies are intimately mirrored in the larger Body Politic, and in our national histories. For tickets, visit the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance.

Started in 2001 by dance professor Sandra Burton and former Williams faculty member Annemarie Bean, participants have included Ronald K. Brown, choreographer of the new production of Porgy and Bess, and the rising Zimbabwean star Nora Chipaumire; poet/musicians Carl Hancock Rux, Sekou Sundiata, and DJ Spooky; and actors such as Oni Faida Lampley and Roger Guenveur Smith.

Stalwart has been supported since 2000 by partners both on and off campus—from Williams groups such as WBSU, the Multicultural Center, and the Africana Studies Department to community institutions such as the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

Front image: Shailja Patel, this year’s Stalwart Originality Artist-in-Residence. (c)All rights reserved by Books LIVE.

The competition is open to all Williams students who have completed required instrumental or vocal studies, are enrolled in qualifying courses, and are recommended by their instrument or vocal teachers. Students prepare with two pre-competition recitals and lots of practice.

Here, first-year student Robert W. Yang tells us why he wants to be a part of the competition.

A panel of judges selects the winners. The panel is composed of professional musicians from outside the Williams community and this year includes Joel Pitchon, associate professor of violin and chamber music at Smith College; Clarinetist Jorge Montilla, Principal Clarinet of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra and Professor at the Latin-American Clarinet Academy of Venezuela; and pianist and choral conductor Joe Rose, director of the Berkshire Singers and music director at St. Charles Church in Pittsfield, Mass.

For more information on the Berkshire Symphony and concert details, visit the music department’s website.