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Just as the report was coming out, Williams changed some of its practices. It lowered the number of academic tips and increased the admissions standards for athletes.
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<p>The changes were detailed in the report:</p>
<p>1) The NESCAC conference reduced the number of low-band tips from 72 per school to 66 per school. This was a needed change, but is a bit of PR smoke and mirrors as it did not reduce the number of recruited athletes in each freshman class at any of the NESCAC schools: 130 to 150 per year at Williams. Nor did it reduce the number of "protects" -- recruited atheletes with close to average academics who are admitted based on athletic department discretion (30 to 36 recruits per year at Williams).</p>
<p>2) Morty mandated that no more than 10 of Williams' 66 academically substandard tips could fall in the lowest acceptable band (an academic 7 on a 9 point scale where the average Williams student is somewhere between a 2 and a 3). To me, this simply begs the question, "How bad were the tips before the change?"</p>
<p>BTW, I don't know how closely you followed the change in housing policy. Those of us who followed it closely know that the underlying motivation for implementing a wildly unpopular change was to break up a campus culture that was heavily segregated along athlete/non-athlete and binge drinker/non-binge drinker fault lines that had developed. The idea is to force students from both sides of these fault lines together in an effort to have a less bifurcated campus culture and tone down some of the behaviors by reducing the critical mass in some of the dorms. The most vociferous objection to the new neighborhood housing plan came from the non-athletes and non binge-drinkers who tended to congregate in what was then known as the Odd Quad, which they viewed as a safe space from the dominate social scene.</p>
<p>I wouldn't agree that the housing change was wildly unpopular. That's like reading the New York Times and believing that everyone in America votes democratic.</p>
<p>The change was loudly debated. Some supported it, some hated it, most adopted a let's see attitude. My son came in on the trial year so his experience may not have been fully representative, but his appraisal would be mostly positive.</p>
<p>My son had several friends who were serious athletes at Williams. I can say absolutely without doubt these kids were not lacking in academic prowess. The generality that athletes are a drag on the intellectual environment just doesn't hold up under examination of specific cases. Being an athlete and being smart (and often talented in another area) is not mutually exclusive.</p>
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Sixty-two percent of students indicated that they either do not support the idea of cluster housing or are leaning toward not supporting it, according to an online survey conducted by the Record last week.
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<p>Here are the results of the College Council poll on the Cluster Housing proposal conducted in 2005:</p>
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Participation rates varied for individual questions and ranged from 564 and 758 student votes on each question. </p>
<p>Do you support the Williams House System in its current form? </p>
<p>17.28% Yes
56.73% No
12.80% Undecided
12.14% Neutral
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<p>The College Council presidents ran and were elected that year on a platform of opposing cluster housing. When they met with the College deans, they were informed that the new system was being implemented whether the students opposed it or not, so College Council should work to implement the system instead of opposing it.</p>
<p>I suppose we can argue semantics of whether or not this constitutes "wildly unpopular" or not.</p>
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The generality that athletes are a drag on the intellectual environment just doesn't hold up under examination of specific cases. Being an athlete and being smart (and often talented in another area) is not mutually exclusive.
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<p>A careful reading of the Wiliams ad hoc faculty committee report I linked earlier in this thread strongly suggests that the negative impact on academics is almost entirely limited to two unnamed (but obvious) male sports teams. The only other disruption noted is the widespread abuse of the "division of day" rules by coaches and captains and the impact of the recent change to allow participation in NCAA championship tournaments.</p>
<p>The "generalities" you mention appear nowhere in the report and are, indeed, a red herring that is raised whenever the real issues are mentioned. The fact that there are very accomplished academics among the ranks of college athletes does not mean there aren't also academic dead weights. This is made very clear in the discussion of womens athletes in the Williams report and the repeated singling out of "two mens teams" throughout the report.</p>
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suppose we can argue semantics of whether or not this constitutes "wildly unpopular" or not.
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<p>I would say that a lot of students were happy with the status quo and didn't really sign on to the reason for change. After the change was made it was fine.</p>
<p>I think your analysis of the reason that Williams went to the cluster/neighborhood system is skewed. In the two years that my son participated in the housing lottery (2004 and 2005) students were only able to pick-in in groups of four; therefore it was not possible for a team or a special interest group to control a dorm or house. People may have chosen to live with their friends and under the new system that is still a possibility, but the scenario that you present -- football house, drunk house, etc -- just didn't exist.</p>
<p>As for the singled out teams -- all I can say is that Kurt Varnedoe played football at Williams. So even going back several decades it's misleading to generalize. Since I don't know the academic standing of the whole team or for that matter anyone on the team, I can't say whether they are low-band or high-band and I don't think you can either. There are other desireable admits -- URMs, internationals -- that may fall outside the SAT/GPA band as well.</p>
<p>Momrath, well spoken. We have been fortunate to have two sons at Williams as well (one of whom might have recently graduated with your son - class of 07?). and I agree with your analysis regarding the housing system as well as general campus culture. While the changes were being proposed, there was naturally some resistance to the unknown, but things settled down pretty soon, and for my younger son, the cluster housing is a non issue. Statistics - like the williams record survey - are often cited as ways to lend legitimacy to arguments, but as we should be aware, they can often be misleading. They are frequently old data but are used because "it is the best that we have." We have no way of knowing how many people responded to the Williams Record survey, and whether the respondees were biased in favor of those with a negative sentiment. My point is that this is hardly scientific.<br>
Using vastly outdated faculty self study reports to insinuate that athletics has cast a negative pall on the campus is again a weak attempt to lend authority to one's arguments. Yes, we're thrilled that Williams is again the favorite to win the NACDA Director's Cup, which speaks to its broad based excellence in sports. What is remarkable to me is that this has been accomplished in recent years without any help from the sports that are typically thought to require lowering admissions standards. Williams did not even do well against its NESCAC opponents in football (with the exception of that exciting college gameday win against Amherst), basketball or hockey. </p>
<p>Selective reporting of "facts" and "reports" has been problematic as well. Speaking of reports in general, did you have a chance to read the most recent accreditation report which Williams, unlike peer institutions, posted online? There is a wealth of current information here that prospective students will benefit from. </p>
<p>We are happy and thankful that our sons are part of the wonderfully artistic, athletic, accomplished and accepting Williams community.</p>
<p>icantfindaname: no typo - I meant what I said.</p>
<p>Speaking anecdotally, the Record article is accurate; most students are unhappy with the cluster housing system. The intensity of opposition has died down now that everyone realizes we're stuck with it for at least the next few years, but I think you'll find very few students who are genuinely pleased with it.</p>
<p>It's true that the old housing system limited pick group size to four, but teams could easily circumvent that by splitting into multiple pick groups and taking over an otherwise unpopular dorm (Tyler, for example). The cluster system has mostly succeeded in preventing that sort of move, but at the cost of (among other things) making it almost impossible to live with friends made after freshman year (and, in many cases, even friends from freshman year who don't want to abandon their entire entries and other friends in order to switch clusters).</p>
<p>I actually agree with Morty's logic on cluster housing. What he's trying to do -- use the housing system to change the campus culture -- is reasonable idea. I don't think it will work, but it might. I do believe that housing can drive campus culture.</p>
<p>I think he and the deans did a poor job of selling the idea to the students, mostly because they beat around the bush concerning their real motivation. They tried to sell it in terms of "neighborhood social events" and "better intramural competition" and a bunch of stuff that was recognized instantly by any college student for what it was: happy-talk mumbo-jumbo. Nobody spends milions of dollars to change a housing system just to have more neighborhood ice cream socials and study breaks!</p>
<p>At the end of the day, they finally just told the students, in effect, "Just shut up. This is the new housing system because I'm the Daddy, and I say so..." That's always going to be a tough pitch to college students.</p>
<p>Change creates the illusion of progress. There are many easy to see reasons why one might want to shake up the housing; building a legacy as an innovator, keep the fund raising going, and honest intellectual belief that this produces a better learning situation, something to do, a chance to rename some old buildings after current donors, to intermix groups that will benefit from each others company, on and on, and among them in a small way might be the athletic angle. As Sigmund said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.</p>
<p>Williams has won the Directors Cup. Thats 10 in a row. The NESCAC conference had quite a showing this year (out of almost 300 listed D3 schools):</p>
<p>If anyone thinks that these sports get a lot of admission help they are delusional (yes it may help if you have a 1480 sat a 4.4 gpa a record of service to the community and you are a proven athlete but you need all the pieces). Or that the culture of Williams is somehow diminished by these excellent students balancing the incredible effort that it takes to excel in their studies and their sports. "Jock school" ...not in any negative way.</p>
<p>What a wonderful year for the ephmen and ephwomen! Williams was trailing WUSTL and Amherst at the end of winter. Looks like the stellar performance by the women's spring teams helped Williams to the top of the heap in the Directors cup.</p>
<p>It's hard to really make a complete generalization on the sports culture [or anything else] in the school. It is pretty cool to have peers that are as passionate and talented in different sports and I can definitely say students are proud of the school's accomplishments in the realm of athletics (director's cup). </p>
<p>At the same time though, the athletics culture gets pretty annoying, to be honest. It reminds me a lot of high school sports teams and the social dynamics that come with it. For me, I went to schools in NYC where athletics really weren't that important and that type of culture only really existed in sitcoms on tv or in the suburbs. So, to see people so caught up in it at the college level (at a DIII school) is kind of stupid, in my opinion.</p>
<p>I've always played sports growing up, but it has always been on the side, never my main focus. Maybe that is why I see things in this light. But again, the culture is what it is and I'm enjoying the school and feel that the positives in the culture greatly outweigh any negatives.</p>