Preview Days During Passover?!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Williams College
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<p>As another Jewish alum, this doesn’t bother me. Matilda really nailed it. Again, there are plenty of options – you can go to a Seder at Williams, or schedule a visit to the campus at some other time in April, or go to one Seder at home and make one day of previes. None of those situations may be 100 percent ideal, but again, there are always going to be conflicts no matter what, and these previews are as noted before scheduled the same time each year in careful calibration with other schools so that most admitted students can attend as many previews of peer institutions as possible. There is a VERY tight window between the end of Spring Break and admissions deadlines, and a lot of competing priorities. And this conflict is unlikely to repeat itself anytime in the near future, I believe. </p>

<p>But to say the school is “anti-semetic” when the two prior Presidents were Jewish (I don’t think Falk is, but if he is, that would be three straight), when it is one of the few schools of its size with a major dedicated Jewish center right in the middle of campus, when the school traditionally employs a Rabbi / Cantor as an associate Chaplain, strikes me as a dramatic overreaction / overstatement. I don’t know anyone Jewish at Williams, including myself, that ever felt an iota of institutional animus towards Jews (I am talking about in the last 20 years, of course, not dating back to the 1950’s). Using that kind of hyperbole just undercuts what may be a legitimate question or complaint.</p>

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<p>I am almost positive Adam Falk is Jewish. I looked for the verification on the Williams site but couldn’t find it tonight.</p>

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<p>Much of choosing a college comes down to the “feeling” one gets when visiting, meeting with students, alum, professors, admissions people, etc. We visited Williams twice. Honestly, our perception before visiting of Williams was preppy, stuffy, etc. After visiting twice, we felt the opposite. We felt that Williams was a warm, accepting school, where my D would thrive. One small concern was the % of Jewish students compared to some of the other schools that she was looking at. Same exact situation when looking at Princeton vs. some of the other Ivies. But in both cases, we felt that she would be fine. She is not a “Super Jew” and may or may not get involved in Hillel or whatever Jewish organization at college. But, when we saw the preview days for Williams were on the same days as the seders, our first reaction was that it was very telling. It seems like it may be unavoidable and that it is not meant as a slight against the Jewish religion. I am sure it is not. But like all other “signals” a school sends out in their admissions websites, materials, info sessions, tours and preview days, this is one that is just not exactly friendly to Jewish prospective students. My first post suggesting anti-semitism was too strong and sensational. But, I do stand by claim of insensitivity and it looks like this message and maybe others keeps the Jewish population at 10% at Williams. Probably not a number that anyone at Williams looks at or strives for, but this year they are doing a good job at not adding one more Jewish student to those that matriculate.</p>

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<p>gonzo14: I understand your position, but I still do not think it accurate. These calendars are made up years in advance, and as Mathilda said, there is probably little or no wiggle room. Since Passover moves around every year, it is hard to schedule around it.</p>

<p>I am Jewish myself but we didn’t think this way. I am not saying it is not valid, but degree of Jewishness was just not a consideration for us. I know many friends and relatives that it was important to, so I <em>do</em> respect where you’re coming from.</p>

<p>The main point of my post is that I think Williams Jewish population is higher. My S writes “none” under religion because he isn’t practicing, and for family reasons. After my father saw his name on a list the Nazi of targeted Jewish American officers he told us to put “none” on all our papers under religion. He was not an anti-Semite or self-hating Jew at all. He just thought this prudent, thinking that as an American citizen his beliefs were nobodies business. </p>

<p>There are many non-practicing Jews at Williams that Hillel would not identify, so I do suspect the number is higher, if that is important.</p>

<p>My D attended Barnard, a very different school in terms of Jewish life. She met more Jewish kids in college than she knew from her childhood. So yes, a difference from my son’s experience at Williams.</p>

<p>I will tell you this, though. Every Friday someone asked him to go to Friday night dinner. Someone called him last night to attend the seder. He was asked by a friend to go on birthright. All at Williams.</p>

<p>He occasionally went to Friday night dinner. He didn’t go to the seder last night because he absentmindedly went to dinner earlier and then had too much work to take out two chunks of time. He wanted to go on birthright with the friend who asked, but he has made earlier plans to play violin and viola in a little chamber orchestra in Florence for he summer so he couldn’t go.</p>

<p>If you and your S want a more Jewish atmosphere than Williams, than you are making a good choice to have your S attend elsewhere. If you making this decision based on perceived slights and what they might imply, I think you are basing your decision on a faulty conclusion.</p>

<p>I am sure your S has been accepted at wonderful places and maybe one of them is a better fit.</p>

<p>We don’t find Williams stuffy at all, but these things really hit each student/family differently. Williams was my S’s clear first choice over Vassar, Wesleyan, Brown, Bard, U of Chicago and Amherst. It was all his decision, and even with some bumps in the road (hasn’t been all perfect) he still thinks he made the right decision.</p>

<p>Good luck, and I hope your S ends up at the perfect place for him.</p>

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<p>My conservative Jewish family attended Previews yesterday. We were not the only Jewish family to leave in time to get to New York, Boston, etc. for family seders. I spoke with the admissions person assigned to my S’s high school and the dean of admissions about the scheduling snafu. Both apologized and explained that previews are coordinated with other schools (they both specifically mentioned Amherst) so that previews days don’t conflict. Williams always gets the third Monday in April. In the past, this has been the day after Easter, causing celebrants of that holiday big problems in terms of traveling. In that light, I think that Williams has done the proper thing by (1) arranging for a seder and (2) making sure that accepted students would feel welcome throughout April should they choose to visit on another day.</p>

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<p>^As a practicing Christian, and, judging from the general level of stress at my place of employment these last two days, I think I can safely say, that spending a long Easter weekend away from home is in no way comparable to missing a Passover seder.</p>

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<p>I agree totally with Gonzo. It doesn’t matter what the reality of the thinking is behind Williams’ decision. The perception of the people on the receiving end is what matters here. Frankly, if Williams really HAD to keep it on this date, then they should have explained that in full, in advance to all the prospective students. </p>

<p>It was an extremely bad PR decision by the school, if this is something a prospective student has to understand by going to an internet chat room.</p>

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<p>I concur with gonzo (and by the Transitive Property of Agreement, with SDonCC). I’m grateful for Matilda’s explanation that there’s no malice in the way the calendar falls out, but it leaves a person with the simple fact that Williams is more dedicated to its own calendar than to avoiding conflicts with the religious holidays of students and their families. A great many people won’t care about that. For those who do…well, there it is.</p>

<p>Mythmom, I can’t buy the “hard to schedule around Passover” argument. The dates of all Jewish holidays are knowable years in advance. It’s hard to schedule around Passover only if you’re more committed to the third Monday and Tuesday of April than to avoiding Passover. Or, for that matter, Easter weekend.</p>

<p>Gonzo, it looks as if you got a couple of very useful pieces of information out of this: the dates of Jewish holidays may matter to you and your family a lot more than they do to Williams, and Williams didn’t make much of an effort in this case to explain its reasons or express regret when it scheduled these events on religious holidays. What you do with this information is, I suppose, totally up to you and your daughter. Surely, this must be better than finding all this out in the spring of your daughter’s sophomore year.</p>

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<p>My two cents: On a visit last week I found Williams to be a place offering warmth and welcome toward us folks of the Jewish persuasion, and I was not really looking for it. Our info session was held in the lovely Jewish Studies Center steps from the admissions office. Later we had a very pleasant chat with Cantor Bob, and talked inter alia about his annual or biannual J-term trips to Israel, which I will urge my son to consider if he is fortunate enough to get selected off the waitlist. Along the way we had some propinquitous conversations with students who happened to be Jewish, all of whom were happy there and one of whom was Orthodox and co-president of the student body. I saw a handful of students happily chopping vegetables and otherwise preparing for their Shabbat dinner the next evening.</p>

<p>I don’t know about Amherst but I know that one could hit “new admittee” days at Bowdoin, Middlebury, Wesleyan, and Williams without much overlap, leading me to believe the rigidity in scheduling, as explained above, is overall a good thing.</p>

<p>Anti-Semitism? Feh! Let’s not make a (purple) mountain out of a mohel!</p>

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<p>One thing I will cede is that Williams is not big on hand holding or explaining itself. It’s Yankee stiff upper lip the whole way. If you don’t like that, this is a good time to find out. However, it’s a come one, come all approach, not anti-Semitism. And yes, sometimes it is annoying.</p>

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<p>Sikorsky:
“but it leaves a person with the simple fact that Williams is more dedicated to its own calendar than to avoiding conflicts with the religious holidays of students and their families.” </p>

<p>I don’t think that’s a fair statement, because institutions aren’t monolithic entities. At Williams, previews aren’t part of the academic calendar, so I imagine the scheduling is basically decided by a couple of people in the admissions office, which makes this the sort of thing that could easily slip between the cracks. Given that Williams has done quite a bit to accommodate Jewish holidays on other occasions (as mentioned above, last year they moved up the start of the fall semester and shortened EVERYONE’s summers by a day just to avoid a conflict with Rosh Hashana), I don’t think you can reasonably generalize from this one occasion to grand claims about what Williams is or isn’t dedicated to.</p>

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<p>That’s a fair argument about the opening of school, jeke. And it’s also fair to observe that I don’t really know enough about Williams to make sweeping pronouncements. </p>

<p>But as for scheduling preview days in April, even if the task is done by fairly junior people in Admission, there has to be a file for people to go to whe they’re planning. They have to know how many chairs to set up for the opening, how many box lunches to order, etc. Either “check calendar for conflicts with western Easter/Orthodox Easter/Passover” is part of the procedure in that file, or it isn’t. It looks as if it isn’t.</p>

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<p>Religious life has been a big thing for my daughter at Williams and I think people get so stuck on the preppy jock stereotypes they don’t see that side of Williams. The intent was not anti-semitic. Perhaps it would have been better to acknowledge the bad timing in the invitation to Previews. Please do not take a faux pas from the admissions office as having anything to do with religious life at Williams.</p>

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<p>Just noticed this thread. Nothing could be further from the truth. Three presidents in a row are Jewish, might be considered a job requirement. The entire institution is at worst (or best depending on your point of view) religion, race, and gender blind. Everyone is embraced and welcomed. Of the three commencement speakers this year 2 are acknowledged to be Jewish and the other is rumored to be. On the one unofficial blog that covers Williams over 95% of the postings are by alum who self identify as Jewish. Very significant percentages of students, teachers, and administrators are Jewish, far far far beyond the percentage of the general population. There are 22 or so major religions and thousands of variants. It would be impossible to function with a calendar that sets aside every potential celebration or ceremony. There are over a billion people in the world who don’t recognize any religions of any kind. That week in question also happened to be Easter week and I don’t hear accusations of anti-Christian which would be just as outlandish. Maybe the posting was intended just to cause a stir because it is a patently false accusation. Williams is a secular institution as it should be, and one of the very best institutions of higher learning in the world.</p>

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<p>Williams has come a very, very long way since I was there, and bravo for that! Three Jewish Presidents (and a Catholic one) should speak for itself. I was there during the last years of the Jewish quota (10%), and it didn’t matter what you put on their forms (in fact, in this period, state law was interpreted as meaning no identifying information on applications could be requested or recorded). I have a non-Jewish name, and there was no identifying material on any forms or applications I submitted, and I was contacted by the Jewish student association (there was no Hillel) within two weeks of my accepting their offer of admission. For others, it was similar (I think they tried to find out through college counselors, but I really don’t know.) It was in this period that President Sawyer publicly apologized to Herbert Lehman for his never being elected to the Board of Trustees (despite huge contributions). (At this point, they refused to elect Catholics either.)</p>

<p>I do not think they did the scheduling knowingly or with any malicious intent, and I don’t think it reflects on religious (Jewish) life on campus in the least. I do think, however, that the after-the-fact explanation suggests to me that they are still a little bit tone-deaf. (It was similar with an anti-Semitic episode by a single student about four years ago, and, over the past 30 years, it has been difficult to retain a Jewish chaplain, a situation which I am happy to say seems to be changing). They wouldn’t be the only ones.</p>