 Williams CollegeWilliamstown, Mass. 01267 (413) 597-3131 Williams College, located in the scenic Berkshires in northwestern Massachusetts, was established in 1793. The college is private, residential, and liberal arts, with graduate programs in the history of art and in development economics. Home to approximately 2,000 students, Williams is consistently ranked as one of the nation's top liberal arts colleges and its faculty noted for the quality of their undergraduate teaching. Williams offers community and visitors a cultural medley of academic lectures, music, dance, theatre, and art. Its 24 academic departments regularly bring to campus an array of distinguished speakers and lecturers from every discipline. Recent visitors to campus have included the Congressional Black Caucus, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Senator John Glenn, Nobel Prize winner Harold Varmus, journalist James Fallows, law professor Lani Guinier, and Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute. The '62 Center for Theatre and Dance, a state-of-the-art performing arts facility with three different performance spaces each seating over 200 people, as well as a vast sprawl of rehearsal and practice areas, opened in 2005. Dance companies including members of the New York City Ballet, Intimate Philobus, and Black Grace, a New Zealand contemporary dance company have recently performed at the '62 Center.  Located just 30 miles from Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Williams has a thriving music program. The Berkshire Symphony Orchestra, a 70-member ensemble made up of half students and half professional musicians, offers four performances a season. The all-student Symphonic Winds provides a different sound, performing multiple times each year. In addition to visiting artists, performers, and lecturers, Williams students themselves offer talented performances of every kind. The student dance program includes Dance Company, a mostly modern and contemporary company; INISH, an Irish dance troupe; Sankofa, a co-ed step team; and Kusika, an African dance, music, and story-telling group. Each group showcases their work yearly, sometimes in collaboration with the college's many singers, songwriters, and music groups. Williamstown is home to two acclaimed art museums: the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, better known as The Clark, and WCMA, the Williams College Museum of Art. The Clark houses an extensive collection of French Impressionist painting, as well as specializing in master drawings and prints. The college museum has an all-encompassing focus that seeks to provide learning opportunities for college students as well as for all in the area. WCMA owns approximately 12,000 art objects, with collections reaching across cultures and time periods. The museum is noted for its stellar collection of American art from the late 18th century to the present. With the largest collection in the world of works by the brothers Charles and Maurice Prendergast, the museum is a primary center for study of these American artists in a transatlantic context of the 19th and early 20th centuries. While the Chapin Library of Rare Books is in temporary quarters, the library's collection of the Founding Documents of the United States is on temporary display at the Williams College Museum of Art.  Summertime at Williams brings the arrival of the annual Williamstown Theatre Festival, which for 55 years has brought together talented actors, directors, and audiences for 10 weeks of performances. For more information and to keep up-to-date on Williamstown and Williams College, visit www.williams.edu/. For a calendar of public events or to subscribe to the online calendar, At Williams, go to www.williams.edu/go/atwilliams |
