Sophomore Year 1972-73
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SEPTEMBER 1972
Facilities
Renovated Morgan Hall and new Tyler House Annex open.
Call me at 597-XXXX: Students charged $35 a year for use of new Centrex telephone system (one phone per suite or single room)
Faculty
Two bio professors (including one who sues for discrimination over not being given tenure) resign, leaving department in lurch; two courses cancelled
Theater/Performing Arts
AMT introduces a thrust stage.
Clubs/Committees
Williams Black Student Union formed, replacing Williams Afro-American Society.
Sports
Women’s sports enters new era at Williams: Janis Wertz begins as full-time women’s phys ed instructor, coaching field hockey and tennis.
Extra, Extra!
Chan Lowe introduces BEANO comic strip in ReAd.
OCTOBER 1972
Theater/Performing Arts
Newly formed Williams College Chamber Singers debuts, including ‘75ers Andrea Axelrod, Tony Brown, Deborah Grose, Sheila Jackson, Richard Thornburgh, Jeff Williams.
On Campus
Composer Milton Babbitt lectures
Pianist Ruth Laredo
Poet Gwendolyn Brooks
Alvin Ailey Dance Theater residency
Facilities
Bryant House votes to admit women. Carter House doesn't.
Sports
Harry Jackson leads the Ephs’ offensive line in football.
Mike McGarr, Pete Hyde, Scott Lutrey and Paul Skudder star in track (and in November will help Williams to its third straight Little Three crown).
First Williams women’s ski team includes Sheila Jackson, Denise Littlefield, Lisa Berkley.
NOVEMBER 1972
Administration
President John Sawyer announces he’ll retire in June.
Report issued on grade inflation: “By the year 2031, all Williams students will receive an A+ in all courses.”
Politics
62 faculty members take out an ad in the college newspaper: "We remind our Faculty colleagues and students that George McGovern’s election next Tuesday is of the utmost importance for us all. We urge you to spend the next few days working for his election and then to vote for him on November 7th."
Mock election among students: 795 votes cast – 563 for McGovern, 191 for Nixon, 41 for “others”
Facilities
College thermometers lowered four degrees
On Campus
Michael Yeats, head of the Irish senate and poetry-hating son of the late William Butler Yeats
Robert Ardrey, playwright and science writer
Singer/songwriter John Sebastian
Poet Prof. Michael Harper of Brown
Cleveland String Quartet
Theater/Performing Arts
The General Brutus, Indians at AMT
Clubs/Committees
WBSU and Office of Career Counseling host a Black professionals’ career conference, attended by over 100 Black students and guests from area colleges
Williams Adelphic Union’s Martha Coakley and Dave Grogan lead fourth-place team in 10-school Wesleyan Pentathlon Invitational Tournament, and, with David Sylvan and Jon Lurie, win Williams title of best school in the tournament.
Tune In
New WMS-WCFM leadership—Barbara Rubin, station president (first woman to head a major campus extra-curricular activity); Chris Witting, station manager; Armand Balakian, production manager
Extra, Extra!
Anonymous ad appears in ReAd:
The next week’s ad:
Sports
Williams beats Amherst to become Little Three football champs – first victory against the Lord Jeffs in Pratt Field since 1958
Women’s field hockey season 4-1; Beth Brownell and Susannah Woolley lead in scoring
DECEMBER 1972
On Campus
The Mahavishnu Orchestra with John McLaughlin and Leo Kottke
Tune In
13th edition of the Trivia Contest, broadcast over WMS-WCFM from midnight to 8 AM
Sports
Williams wrestlers pin down New Paltz, with such grapplers as Gene Frogale and Hardy Coleman. No one has to face Harry Jackson, who wins on a forfeit.
JANUARY 1973
On Campus
Flamenco stars Jose Greco and Nana Lorca in Chapin
Williams College Jazz Festival brings Buddy Tate and His Orchestra, a Swing Jazz Festival (Milt Hinton, Roy Eldridge, Budd Johnson, Benny Morton, Claude Hopkins, Jo Jones), Rahsaan Roland Kirk and the Vibration Society, and Charles Mingus
Coffeehouse/Pub
Williams Coffeehouse succeeds Common Blood in Baxter Hall
Theater/Performing Arts
Winter Study Musical: She Loves Me…“But it is Helen Kelly who very nearly steals the show out from under everyone’s feet,” a reviewer wrote.
Williams College Chamber Singers, under Prof. Kenneth Roberts, perform 10 concerts in 21 days in France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany
FEBRUARY 1973
On Campus
Paul Taylor Dance Company Residency
Winter Carnival: The Byrds cancel; Brewer and Shipley can’t make it because of a snowstorm; three bands, Tim Moore, Crackin’ and Andy Robinson, perform. Concert refunds available.
Issues
Williams begins using 100% recycled paper for offset printing
Faculty
Named full professor: William T. Fox, Neil Grabois, Phebe Cramer, Steven R. Lewis, Jr.
Promoted to associate professor with tenure: Robert Dalzell, Eugene J. Johnson III, James F. Alstead, Roger Tarpy, Jr.
Charles Karelis, lecturer, philosophy, appointed assistant professor for three years (eventually becomes president of Colgate)
Theater/Performing Arts
World premiere of a.syl lum, a play developed by the Williams Theatre Ensemble, including Frank Doelger, Jan McClure, Peter Mertz, Jan Roberts
Coffeehouse
John Cordes on sax blows everyone away
Clubs/Committees
College Council – Jesse Marsh elected to Division I seat on Committee on Educational Policy; Ellen Oxfeld represents Division II to CEP; Kirk Renaud and Will Parrish represent Class of ‘75.
Sports
Students beat faculty at broomball during Winter Carnival
Women’s basketball: high scorer Fran Calafiore
Wrestling: Gene Frogale the New England champion at 142 lbs
MARCH 1973
Administration & Faculty
John Chandler announced as next president of Williams
Faculty allows limited student attendance (the College Council president and four council members) at all but executive sessions of faculty meetings
Faculty okays Williams-at-Home II and a comp lit major
New faculty named for three years, effective July 1, including Zirka Filipczak, Mark Taylor, Sarah Stage (who will marry Barry Kenyon), William Exum
Facilities: The New Library
Sigma Phi gives permission to demolish Van Rensselaer House, on site of what will become the new library
Trustees okay schematics for new library
Everyone else on campus argues over the schematics
On Campus
Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Oregon)
The Rev. Al Carmines
Bach Birthday Marathon (thank you Prof. Victor Hill)
Theater/Performing Arts
Premiere of Bill Finn’s Rape, with Harry Jackson playing Tannhauser and cast including Deborah Grose and Rick MacSherry
Clubs/Committees
WMPIRG becomes official at Williams; more than 50% of the student body has paid their $4 dues.
Sports
Al Shaw retires as basketball coach after 24 years
APRIL 1973
Gosh Golly
Students told to stop growing marijuana on their windowsills
College holds $1 million in fraudulent Equity Funding Corporation stock
Ground broken for new Williams Inn (Routes 2 & 7)
Williams-at-Home II cancelled; Prof. Robert Gaudino’s health won’t permit it
Lansing Chapman hockey rink is outfitted for major concerts – first for Loggins & Messina plus Jim Croce, then for Stevie Wonder
On Campus
Gary Wills
Arthur O. Eve, leader of NYS’s legislative Black Caucus
Classicist Paolo Vivante
Poet Richard Wilbur
Dr. Nathan Glazer
Kenneth V. Cockrell, president of the Labor Defense Coalition
Clubs/Committees
Cap & Bells elects Jan Roberts as VP, Steve Kelley as treasurer and Gene Falk as secretary for 1973-74
Sports
Track: Mark Sisson, Mike McGarr, Scott Lutrey and Paul Skudder run the Boston Marathon; Peter Johnson and Mike Reed overcome hurdles; also in the running: Bill Oberndorf, Tom Detmer, Jim Baker.
Crew: Little Three Regatta on Lake Onota sees John Abbott as cockswain; Bob Brantl aboard; women’s crew includes Lee Nash, Melinda Rastetter
MAY 1973
On Campus
Bella Lewitzky Dance Company
Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry
Juilliard Quartet performs Elliott Carter’s Third String Quartet, with Carter present
Actor Lawrence Keith, aka Nick Davis, star of the soap opera All My Children, comes to campus as guest of the Nick Davis Fan Club
Theater/Performing Arts
The Tempest, with Polly Wood as Miranda and Tom Lockhart as Trinculo
Clubs/Committees: College Council
Grants BSU $1,350 and loans $450 for publication of one issue of its magazine, Pamoja Tuaghunde
Votes 11-7 on resolution calling for the decriminalization of marijuana
Mike Rosten elected to represent class on Committee on Undergraduate Life
Extra, Extra!
Fred Walker calls for creation of a monorail system covering the campus (goes nowhere).
Sports
Curt Tong named basketball coach
Bobby Coombs retires after 28 years as baseball coach.
Lacrosse team, including Steve Dietrick, Ken Kubie, Barry McCarthy, beats Middlebury
Remembering
Small plaque honoring five Williams men who died in Vietnam War dedicated in Thompson Chapel
JUNE 10, 1973
Class of 1973 graduates 353 members, including 55 women.
Outgoing Williams President John Sawyer is commencement speaker
10 Honorary Degrees: Ralph Gomory ’50, VP of IBM; Dr. Robert Davis; Fairleigh S. Dickinson, Jr. ’41; Ferdinand K. Thun, Chair of Board of Trustees, and incoming President John W. Chandler; Sen. Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts; Colin G. Campbell, president of Wesleyan; architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable; Sir John Wolfenden, Director of the British Museum, and Pierre-Paul Schweitzer, Managing Director of the IMF