Williams College 2017 Accreditation Self-Study TO THE NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES SEPTEMBER 2017 Contents Introduction .........................................................................................................................................1 Institutional Overview ........................................................................................................................4 Standard One: Mission and Purposes ............................................................................................13 Standard Two: Planning and Evaluation ........................................................................................17 Standard Three: Organization and Governance ...........................................................................30 Standard Four: The Academic Program.........................................................................................37 Standard Five: Students ....................................................................................................................50 Standard Six: Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship .....................................................................65 Standard Seven: Institutional Resources ........................................................................................79 Standard Eight: Educational Effectiveness .....................................................................................91 Standard Nine: Integrity, Transparency, and Public Disclosure ...............................................102 Appendices .......................................................................................................................................109 i Introduction We first wish to extend our gratitude to the members of our visiting team, as well as the members of the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, for the time and attention they will devote to reading this self-study and offering us the benefit of their advice. Though complex and time consuming, there are many reasons why the accreditation process is important and valuable work for Williams to undertake. We’ll mention a few here. First, it is a chance for systematic institutional self-reflection—a time to look at the college in all its dimensions. We engage every year in multiple forms of self-examination and self-criti- cism, but we’re often focusing on particular issues or local areas of the college. The accredita- tion process is a special opportunity to examine the whole institution and reflect on how its many parts relate to that whole. Second, the process provides the opportunity to present ourselves for the judgment of our peers in the higher education community and, through them, to demonstrate to the public at large that we are who we say we are, and we do what we say we do. We welcome that scrutiny. Indeed, over the years we have made the principal documents from our 2007 comprehensive evaluation and 2012 interim review publicly available on the college’s website; we will do so again this time. Third, we see ourselves as writing a chapter in our long institutional history—taking a finely grained snapshot of our strengths and weaknesses at a given moment in time that will give those who come after us a perspective on our evolution as a college. Our process began in 2015, when President Adam Falk appointed Professor of English Stephen Fix as director of the self-study and Associate Provost Chris Winters as assistant director. In the week-to-week management of the self-study process, they have worked closely with President Falk and with the Accreditation Coordinating Group, which also includes Assistant to the President Keli Gail, Associate Dean of the Faculty John Gerry, Director of Institutional Research Courtney Wade, and Chief Communications Officer Jim Reische. Their work has been expertly facilitated by logistical support from Diane Koper- niak and Amy Wood, executive assistants in the President’s Office, to whom we express our particular appreciation. In 2016, to bring together many of the people with the expertise and experience that would be needed to write a good self-study, President Falk appointed the Accreditation Self-Study Steering Committee (ASSSC). Its twenty-eight members, listed below, include the president’s senior staff, as well as other key administrators; the faculty chairs of standing college committees whose work is especially relevant to the accreditation standards; and four student leaders. This large group sometimes met collectively, especially for discussions of Standard One (Mission and Purposes). ASSSC members helped create a useful checklist of the changes that have occurred at Williams since our last self-study, and wrote initial drafts of our responses to the standards. In some cases, they took particular issues back to standing college committees for discussion. We have kept the community informed about our work through reports at faculty meetings, meetings with department and program chairs, and presentations to other groups on campus. We have also sought guidance and input from beyond the campus. Members of the Accreditation Coordinating Group, as well as the dean of the faculty, have participated in meetings and workshops hosted by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) and such other organizations as the New England Assessment Support Network. Introduction 1 President Falk visited NEASC headquarters for conversations with officials there about the self-study process. We invited colleagues from the Office of Institutional Research at Smith College to discuss their innovative, faculty-driven student assessment program at a half-day workshop attended by some 20 Williams administrators and faculty leaders. We also greatly benefitted from the advice of our visiting team chair, President Robert Zimmer, who met with many members of the Williams community during his two-day visit in June 2017. There are several things we wish to note in advance about our “Responses to Standards for Accreditation”: • We have tried to avoid repetition whenever possible, but some has been necessary and useful in the course of responding to topics crossing several different standards. • In most cases, we have used the “description / appraisal / projection” rubrics suggested by NEASC to organize the various sections. In a few places, though, close adherence to those rubrics would have created unnecessary repetition, and it seemed more efficient and informative to blend them together. Nevertheless, all standards include commen- tary describing what we do, how we appraise what we do, and what we plan to do in the years ahead. • We are supplying a large number of supporting documents both in this self-study and in visiting team’s workroom, but we are happy to provide others that the team would like to see either before or during its campus visit. ***** We believe that Williams is sound in its structures and secure in its mission, but we are not complacent or self-satisfied. There is, if anything, a productive kind of restlessness in the Williams community—a recurrent desire to do more, do better, and, when appropriate, do differently. In the pages that follow, we will discuss the initiatives we have taken in the last decade, and those we will need to take in the next, to better fulfill and advance our mission. As we map our way forward, we welcome with gratitude the advice we will receive from our evaluators. 2 Williams College | 2017 Accreditation Self-Study Accreditation Self-Study Steering Committee / 2016–2017 Adam Falk Stephen Klass Chair; President of the College; Professor Vice President for Campus Life of Physics David Love Stephen Fix Provost; Professor of Economics Director of the Self-Study; Professor of English Protik Majumder Chris Winters Director of the Science Center; Professor Assistant Director of the Self Study; Associate of Physics Provost Rhon Manigault-Bryant Michelle Bal Associate Dean of the Faculty; Associate Class of 2017; Co-President of College Council Professor of Africana Studies Caitlin Buckley Megan Morey Class of 2017; Co-President of College Council Vice President for College Relations Denise Buell Ngonidzashe Munemo Dean of the Faculty; Professor of Religion Associate Dean for Institutional Diversity; Associate Professor of Political Science Alison Case Chair, Committee on Diversity and Steven Nafziger Community; Professor of English Chair, Committee on Undergraduate Life; Associate Professor of Economics David Edwards Chair, Committee on Educational Affairs; Gail Newman Professor of Anthropology Chair, Curricular Planning Committee; Professor of German Stephen Freund Chair, Committee on Priorities and Resources; Frederick Puddester Professor of Computer Science Vice President for Finance and Administration; Treasurer Keli Gail Assistant to the President; Secretary to the Jim Reische Board of Trustees Chief Communications Officer John Gerry Marlene Sandstrom Associate Dean of the Faculty Dean of the College; Professor of Psychology Benjamin Gips Courtney Wade Class of 2019 Director of Institutional Research Leticia Haynes Abigail Wattley Vice President for Institutional Diversity Investment Office Representative and Equity Safa Zaki Kevin Hernandez Chair, Faculty Steering Committee; Class of 2018 Professor of Psychology Introduction 3 Institutional Overview Founded in 1793, Williams College is the second-oldest institution of higher learning in Massachusetts. The college’s approximately 2,000 students are taught by a faculty noted for blending