Archived Edition: November 11, 2003 | Back to Current	Jul 31, 2010

Schapiro speaks to CC
Hayley Wynn - MANAGING EDITOR

President Schapiro appeared before College Council (CC) last Wednesday to discuss current issues on campus ranging from the capital campaign to drinking among students.

Schapiro said such dialogue with students was essential to keeping the administration abreast of student issues and concerns. “We have good motives, but we don’t live in the dorms, we don’t eat the food,” Schapiro said. “There’s a lot of things that we’re called upon as Senior Staff to make decisions on, and to have a strong, powerful student voice is important.

“My experience in my fourth year here as president and my 15th on the faculty is that when the students really have something to say in a powerful way, they’re right, because they’re closer to it and they have the well-being of our institution at heart.”

Appearing with no prepared remarks, Schapiro instead answered questions from the Council. One of the first came from Mike Henry ’04, CC co-president, regarding The Williams Campaign.

Schapiro spoke to the somewhat unconventional nature of the campaign, and the subsequent difficulties in its implementation. “We did it in kind of a backwards way; usually you get ideas then raise the money and implement them. Instead we just implemented them,” he said. “It’s a little scary now, because we went out and spent a lot of money and now I’m out there trying to raise it…it’s a lot easier to say, I want to do this…but I didn’t want to wait.” He cited class size and construction as matters that pressed the campaign into action.

He also cited the current rough economy as one hindrance to the campaign: “We’ve raised about $160 million… a lot of people we expected to give $5 million gave us $2 million gifts, or 40 percent of the total…we raised over $75 million this past academic year, most institutions raised next to nothing…This is the first year in many that overall spending in higher education went down…I think we have a plan, that if funded, will make this place a lot better…but it’s tough out there, I’m not going to lie to you.”

Henry also asked Schapiro to speak about the new Baxter plans, and the newly released $38 million budget which exceeds the allocated $36 million. Schapiro stressed that a more expensive building was not necessarily a better one for the campus: “most of us agree that the new plan is actually better than the first.” He further elaborated on this idea: “If we had just said, well okay, let’s go back to the board…and say we just can’t cut anything else, we would’ve had a worse building than what we’re actually going to get for $36 million…I don’t think we need a building that’s any bigger than Baxter, we just need a building that meets our needs on that spot.”

Schapiro also said that the precise start date of the project was to be determined. “Williams deserves a first-class, first-rate student center that fits into that space with the look of it, and we’re going to get one, I don’t know why it took 50 years...whether it comes down in the middle of this June or the next June, the jury’s still out. I think the most important part is that we have a building that we’re really excited about.”

However, he also emphasized the importance of maintaining student life during construction. “We have a commitment to make sure there are no lost generations of Williams students who paid the price of construction and don’t benefit from it,” Schapiro said. “That means a phasing of construction projects, and spending lots of money to relocate vital projects like the Snack Bar.” He also stressed that students should remember the price that previous classes have paid for buildings now on campus.

Godfrey Bakuli ’07 asked Schapiro how he planned to address the drinking problem on campus. Schapiro advocated that while the administration could help, much of the responsibility for addressing the problem lies in the hands of the students. “You have to look after each other,” he urged. “If you tell somebody you’re making a mistake, [your] risking a friendship because you look like or seem paternalistic, but if you don’t, and you know in your heart they’re making a mistake, you risk your friend’s life…When in doubt, protect your friends.”

Schapiro acknowledged the possibility of changes in student-life if a tragedy were to occur, but said he hoped it wouldn’t be a “knee-jerk” reaction. “It shouldn’t take a tragedy to make those decisions,” he said. “It’s an epidemic…I know that we have to be as proactive as possible, we have to do whatever we can…This is the first money we should spend on anything, the lives and safety of our students…We’re just dodging these bullets.”The proposal of limiting dorm access as one potential solution was also discussed, and Schapiro again invoked the role of the community on campus.

“There’s a trust here, and we trust our students and the students trust each other, and there are a lot of paternalistic types of campuses…That’s never been Williams; we get entrepreneurial students, mature students, and I think you should treat people like adults.That’s not to say that you shouldn’t in my mind, ultimately make decisions…but you don’t want to be all that intrusive in the lives of the students.”

Schapiro also spoke about the Stand Against Hate Rally and the incidents that sparked it. “Williams College is never going to figure out exactly where to draw these lines, when do you erase the chalk, when do you kick somebody out for an e-mail, when do you censor a faculty member or a coach, these are difficult things,” he said. “If you don’t have a really good reason to censor speech that some people think is hateful, you should allow it to air…if you keep it underground, it never sees the light of day, and I think it’s useful, if someone says something that’s really inappropriate, to talk about it…not to just embarrass somebody but to make it a teaching moment.”