Archived Edition: January 27, 2004 | Back to Current	Jul 31, 2010

Williams in New York pilot program may be ready for 2005
Ainsley O'Connell - Senior Writer

For students looking to spend a semester outside the rural confines of the Purple Valley, the College has decided to move forward with a new alternative to established off-campus programs: Williams in New York. A pilot of the program, set to launch as early as 2005, was presented to the Board of Trustees and Senior Staff at their Boston retreat two weekends ago.

“I think the pilot is really on track now,” said Robert Jackall, professor of sociology and author of the program’s proposal. “A million details have to be ironed out, but I’ll be very surprised if the pilot doesn’t happen in ’05 or ’06.”

If the pilot program proves to be a success, Williams in New York may someday be comparable to other off-campus programs run by the College. “I share the faculty’s excitement about getting some version of a Williams in New York program up and running,” President Schapiro said. “We are really proud of the College’s current off-campus programs – Williams-Exeter and Williams-Mystic – and I fully anticipate that Williams in New York will be equally strong.”

The idea of bringing Williams students to New York City is not new. In May of 2001, the faculty voted to pass a proposal submitted by Jackall that outlined a single-semester program for 20 students. His memorandum to the Committee on Educational Policy (CEP) in April of that same year advocated a 2-pronged approach, with parallel tracks in the humanities and social sciences managed by two resident co-directors. But the initiative disappeared into the murk of the committee system, slowing to a halt at the recommendation of the Committee on Priorities and Resources (CPR).

Not until the idea of a pilot was suggested by Wendy Raymond, chair of the CEP and associate professor of biology, and Paula Consolini, coordinator of experiential education, did the program once again rise to the attention of administrators. Their interest in the pilot was further buttressed by the example of two new classes led by Jackall: a fall semester course on the sociology of New York, and a Winter Study course based in the city and currently underway.

Acting Dean of the Faculty William Lenhart and Associate Dean of the Faculty John Gerry presented the CEP’s revised plan for a Williams in New York pilot to the retreat’s breakout session on experiential education. A summary of their presentation was given to the larger group at the retreat’s Sunday meeting.

Jackall said he was encouraged by the Trustees’ reaction. “In the breakout session and then in the plenary session, I think for the very first time, the notion of a Williams in New York program, as originally envisioned, got a hearing and came away with a lot of Trustee support,” he said.

According to Raymond, getting the thumbs-up from the Trustees for a project like the Williams in New York pilot is not necessary procedurally, but is often important politically. “Informally, they think this sounds great,” she said, but “there was no formal approval.”

The framework of the CEP’s proposal is true to the “education spirit” of the original, Raymond said, though the size of the program has been reduced by half and the purchase of property in Manhattan is no longer under consideration. The pilot will be open to sophomores, juniors and seniors, and will accommodate from eight to 12 students. According to Jackall, the Williams Club is willing to house the students selected in its rooms for the entirety of the semester.

The epicenter of the program’s curriculum will be field work, a variant of experiential education. Other elements will likely include a tutorial linked to the field work component and two additional seminars, one of which will focus on the city itself.

Field work is a method of intellectual inquiry used by academic disciplines across the spectrum, though its foundation is often traced to sociology. Though field work can be accomplished by conducting interviews and other similar methods of direct study, it can also take the form of an internship, which allows students to observe an occupational arena by entering a private company or government agency.

“The studies show that students learn better when they’re engaged…applying those theories in the real world and revising those theories as they go,” Consolini said. “It’s the idea of engagement with the academic literature.”

Experiential education has a checkered history at the College, dating from the days of Robert Gaudino, a professor of political philosophy who joined the faculty in 1955 and taught for nearly 20 years.

Part of the discord is attributable to the various types of experiential education that exist across academia, and even within the College.

Leading proponents of the Williams in New York program have decided that field work will be the only form of experimental learning in which students may participate. Service learning, such as volunteer work; cause advocacy, which is often activist in bent; and internships with pre-vocational objectives will not suffice for course credit.

“The Deans explicitly…embraced the field work definition of what Williams means as experiential learning for academic credit,” Jackall said. “Everything else, they said, is praiseworthy, but that’s not what we’re going to do if we’re going to give credit for it.”

Jackall and his colleagues have stressed that the pilot should be academically challenging, Consolini said, citing faculty concern for the program’s “academic rigor.” Supporters of the CEP presentation in attendance at the retreat also noted related concerns expressed by some members of the Trustees and Senior Staff that students are opting to study abroad in programs that are not on par with the level of intellectual study encouraged by the College.

Also at issue is the question of cost. Raymond said the construction of several expensive building projects at varying stages of completion on campus makes it imperative that the pilot program demonstrate fiscal responsibility. It has not been decided whether students participating in the pilot will pay standard rates for tuition, room and board.

The CEP will spend the next few months evaluating the practical difficulties and potential obstacles posed by the pilot. “It has taken a very long time to reach this point and it’s still not clear what’s going to happen,” Jackall said. “The next three months are going to become extremely important, and even what happens in the next three months is not very clear.”

The Trustees’ retreat was a step forward, but for the near future, Raymond said, “It’s basically still a work-in-progress.”