Williams Affected by Financial Downturn

interesteddad
Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:44:50 +0000

1) I think Morty’s letter has triggered more concern than he intended or than is warranted. Williams College financials are sound.

2) The whole housing issue is probably too complicated to explain. In a nutshell, Morty was attempting to address some campus culture and social scene issues by imposing a new “neighborhood” housing system designed to minimize de facto segregation, i.e. all geeks in one dorm, all theater kids in another, jocks in another, and so forth. Ironically, the students who felt most disenfranchised by the old social scene probably lost the most with the new housing system as it broke up their self-segregated housing quad and parallel social scene. Morty’s heart is in the right place. It’s just a dificult challenge. Older alumni note the irony of the “new” housing system being largely the same as the one abandoned in the 1970s.

3) Williams offers one of the most comprehensive lists of available study abroad options I’ve seen. The lenghty list of pre-approved programs includes most of the good study abroad options around the world. I don’t think the process is terrribly complex. Financially, it is most beneficial to full-tuition students who may find that a semester abroad saves them money. As a parent, I would recommend studying the list of programs and initiating a conversation with your student about your expections for a study abroad semester viz-a-viz the tens of thousands of dollars you will pay. IMO, not enough students stop to consider breathtaking options beyond the conventional semester in Europe.

For example, the IHP programs are approved by Williams, Williams students routinely participate in these multi-continent programs, but many would never even know that options like this exist where the students spend five weeks each on three continents (e.g. Buenos Aires, Beijing/Shanghai, Bangalore):

[IHP Cities in the 21st Century](http://www.ihp.edu/programs/c21c/index.htm)
[IHP Health and Community](http://www.ihp.edu/programs/hc/index.htm)

Here’s the link to all 150 approved programs at Williams:

[Williams College :: Office of the Dean - Williams College Guide to Study Abroad](http://www.williams.edu/dean/saguide.php#Programs)