<p>Wesleyan’s College of Film and the Moving Image - which operates the same as a major - and Williams’ Art History Department are two of probably three nationally recognized academic departments in all of NESCAC (the third is Wesleyan’s Ethnomusicology sub-specialty.) Amherst students may take a variety of film offerings, thanks to the proximity of Smith, Holyoke and UMass. However, I think if this were purely a matter of academic interests, Wesleyan would win hands down. </p>
<p>Vassar is certainly less jock oriented than any of the Little Three schools. Williams, Wesleyan and Amherst have been competing with each other for well over a hundred years and were a sports conference even before the Ivy League was formed. In the spirit of full disclosure, I should point out that Wesleyan is a minor subject of this month’s Atlantic Monthly magazine cover story, “The Dark Side of Fraternities”. Towards the end of the piece, there is a cringe-worthy description of a rape scene taken from court papers filed in a civil suit by the accuser, a Wesleyan freshman at the time of the attack. I have several differences of opinion with the reporter who wrote the article, but, for the purposes of this thread I will grant that there is a significant athletic presence at all three.</p>
<p>That being said, I don’t think there’s any question that Wesleyan is the most arts oriented of the colleges mentioned so far - excluding Vassar. In fact, the very same article that lays out Wesleyan’s fraternity troubles offers this quip, made in an obviously snarky tone at the outset, but, which I take as a back-handed compliment:</p>
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<p>And, FWIW, Wesleyan probably has more Jewish students than Amherst and Williams combined.</p>