The Williams Record

Ellie Davis/The Williams Record At yesterday’s annual Town Meeting, Williamstown residents voted to increase Williamstown Elementary School’s budget and fund a new skate park, among other items. Town Meeting, which was held at Williamstown Elementary School for the first time in recent years, is open to all Town residents. This year, more than 300 community members attended the more than three-hour meeting to vote on 32 separate proposals.

Christopher Hughes/ The Williams Record Calls to reform the Facilitators for Allocating Student Taxes (FAST) have intensified as a group of elected FAST facilitators are pushing for a referendum proposing several changes to FAST’s constitution, in an effort to make the funding allocation system more equitable.

Iris Li/ The Williams Record The Williams Free Speech Alliance (WFSA), an alum-led organization pushing the College to focus on institutional neutrality and ideological diversity, is seeking a student liaison to serve as on-campus leader for the organization. This is the first time the group has recruited a student employee. The student will be paid $5,000 for a five-month term.

Categories: May 13, 2026 In The Graduate, written in 1963, Charles Webb ’61 details the life of Benjamin Braddock after his graduation from the College. The book chronicles his search for meaning while he defies the conventional expectations of the older generation. The paragon of modernism, The Graduate is a narrative filled with the anxieties of a boy — and a generation — on the brink of a rebellious movement.

Women’s lacrosse celebrated weekend victories over Grove City and William Smith. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Colton.) No. 23 women’s lacrosse (11-7, 5-5 NESCAC) secured consecutive victories during the first two rounds of the Div. III NCAA Championship, which were hosted by William Smith in Geneva, N.Y., over the weekend.

From left to right: John W. Chandler, John Clayton ’85, Michael Govan, and Martita Weil ’86. (Courtesy of Williams College Archives.) “I don’t have a typical day,” Michael Govan ’85 said in an interview with the Record. “It starts early, and it almost always ends up in going out. I go out six nights a week.” Govan is the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), where he is responsible for overseeing programming and operations for the largest art museum in the western United States.

Arleny Flores/The Williams Record. For the last issue of the Record this semester, Sports Executive Editor Arleny Flores’28 sat down with graduating members of last year’s Record’s management team to discuss their retirement from the Record and memories from their time leading the paper. In spring 2025, Max Billick ’26 served as editor-in-chief. In the fall, Haley Zimmerman ’26 served as editor-in-chief, with Aliya Huprikar ’26 and Inés Garcia ’26 as managing editors.

Inés Garcia/The Williams Record Copies of the Record after being printed in Albany. Over the course of four years as Record editors, we’ve spent our Tuesday nights finishing up the paper before it gets published the next day — following up with sources, adding last-minute quotes to articles, editing stories, and designing the paper’s layout.

Christopher Hughes/The Williams Record Students in the Class of 2028 declared their majors and concentrations on April 29, solidifying the academic paths they will pursue during their remaining time at the College. Registrar’s office data shared with the Record shows a sharp rise in Division I declarations, an all-time high in the number of English majors, and a continued decline in computer science majors.