A group of junior advisors posing together
Families

Working with Williams

Helping Your Student Make the Most of Williams

Welcome to the community of Williams families.

We have a hugely important role to play in our students’ college experience. After all, we know them—and they know us—better than anyone.

As they have all their lives, our students may naturally come to us first for help at Williams. (“I got a C on my first paper!”  “My roommate sleeps with all the lights on!”) Our own first response may be to “fix it.”

This is our moment to step up by stepping back. It’s important to let our children navigate their own, sometimes delightfully unpredictable, paths through college. Here are ways to help them do so:

  • To a professor, a dean, a counselor, a coach, an academic support specialist, a chaplain). Williams is filled with spectacularly qualified, deeply dedicated faculty and staff whose jobs are to support students in every way possible to get the most out of their undergraduate experience. Encourage your student to get to know at least one faculty member well enough to feel entirely comfortable asking for a graduate school or job recommendation—and to befriend one adult on campus with whom they can be completely themselves.

  • Just as they are now responsible for waking themselves up in time for class, organizing their own time to meet their academic and extracurricular commitments, and learning to live in close quarters with people often very different from themselves, they are also responsible for deciding when and with whom they share personal information.

  • Taking classes outside their comfort zones, studying away, exploring a new personal interest or hobby, exploring Williams’ beautiful natural surroundings, and getting engaged in the local community are only some of the ways our students can learn and grow beyond their wildest expectations.

  • Unlike hometown peer relationships, the ones formed at Williams are between students who also live with each other in close quarters on a small campus.

    Students learn so much from each other in this unique campus environment that we often refer to it as the “second-half” of a Williams education—one that broadens perspective, deepens understanding, and increases empathy in ways that serve students well throughout their lives. Most of our alumni cite fellow Williams students among their very best friends and those with whom they’ve had very meaningful relationships.

    But that doesn’t mean all Williams personal relationships are easy or simple. Roommates, classmates, teammates, close pals, and intimate partners all present challenges at one time or another, particularly within such a diverse student population during the deeply formative years between 18 and 23.

    Williams takes these relationships seriously and sets clear expectations for the ways in which students conduct themselves with one another. You can help your student flourish at Williams, and contribute to the health and wellbeing of the student community, by talking to them about expectations and challenges around peer relationships in college.

    Here are some simple “starter” questions:

    • Who do you know now, in our family or hometown community, who’s deeply respectful of others?
    • What are some of the ways you show someone you respect them?
    • If you saw someone treating a new friend in a way that’s unacceptable, how would you respond?
    • Where would you go at Williams if you wanted to talk about these kinds of things?

    The Williams answer to this last one is “to any one of dozens and dozens of adults on campus who are trained and prepared to do so. Your student can find these people in the Dean’s Office, Integrative Wellbeing Services, the Chaplains’ Office, and in many other places here.

    And encourage your student to explore Williams’ Rape, Sexual Assault, and Sexual Misconduct Policies.

  • The Center for Academic Resources houses a number of services and programs designed to support students’ academic and intellectual engagement and to help them take full advantage of the curriculum.

  • The ’68 Center for Career Exploration is a one-stop shop for career exploration, internship and job searching, resume critiques, interviewing advice and networking. From first-year students to seniors ready for their first jobour staff is here to help them define and reach their greatest career potential.

  • Many students say that studying away marks the high point of their Williams careers—real adventures resulting in profound personal change.

  • Beyond partnering with us in your own student’s Williams education, we invite you help us  improve the Williams experience for all of our students.

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

Why can’t I see my student’s grades? Or course schedule? Or Williams disciplinary record?

Because Williams is prohibited by law from giving you such information without your student’s written consent. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (referred to as FERPA and sometimes called the Buckley Amendment) was passed by Congress in 1974 and prevents colleges from sharing information, including grades and transcripts, course schedules, names of students’ advisors, papers, tests, disciplinary records, and personal information such as social security number, age—even their parents’ or guardians’ names—without students’ expressed consent.

Williams can release such information in an emergency—if we deem that the health and safety of a student or students are at risk. If you believe such an emergency exists, call Campus Safety and Security at 413-597-4444.

Beyond legal prohibitions, “owning” their information is one of many ways in which students grow up in college. Just as they are now responsible for waking themselves up in time for class, organizing their own time to meet their academic and extracurricular commitments, and learning to live in close quarters with people often very different from themselves, they are also responsible for deciding when and with whom they share personal information. And just because Williams can’t give you such information directly doesn’t prevent you from asking your own student to share their progress and concerns with you. Indeed, we encourage you to talk to your student—to ask helpful questions and provide experienced support—throughout their college education.