Williams College Senior Awarded Churchill Scholarship

Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williams College senior Jesse Freeman has been awarded a Churchill Scholarship for study at the University of Cambridge for the 2015-16 academic year. Freeman was among 14 students selected for honor this year.

Freeman, a math major from Bethesda, Md., plans to pursue a Master of Advanced Study in pure mathematics at Cambridge. Afterward, he hopes to pursue a Ph.D. either at Cambridge or in the United States and go on to conduct research and teach at the university level.

“I am excited, honored, and humbled to join such a fantastic group of scientists,” Freeman said.

At Willliams, Freeman is a teaching assistant for mathematics, as well as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the Berkshire Symphony, and the college’s debate team. He studied abroad at Exeter College through the Williams-Oxford program in his junior year, and organized an undergraduate mathematics conference during his time there.



Freeman has won numerous awards for his mathematics and general academic studies, including the Goldwater Scholarship in 2014, a National Science Foundation grant, and a Class of 1960 scholarship. He has also given two invited presentations at the University of Glasgow on applied mathematics.

Freeman is the third student from Williams to be named a Churchill Scholar, following Emily Balskus ’02 and Jared Hallett ’14.

The Churchill Foundation was founded in 1959, and the first Churchill Scholarships were awarded in 1963. Including this year’s group, there have been 493 Churchill Scholars. The scholarship pays all university fees, a living allowance, an airfare allowance, visa costs, and a travel award for its scholars.

 

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Mount Greylock School Committee Votes Slight Increase to Proposed Assessments

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee on Thursday voted unanimously to slightly increase the assessment to the district's member towns from the figures in the draft budget presented by the administration.
 
The School Committee opted to lower the use of Mount Greylock's reserve account by $70,000 and, instead, increase by that amount the share of the fiscal year 2025 operating budget shared proportionally by Lanesborough and Williamstown taxpayers.
 
The budget prepared by the administration and presented to the School Committee at its annual public hearing on Thursday included $665,000 from the district's Excess and Deficiency account, the equivalent of a municipal free cash balance, an accrual of lower-than-anticipated expenses and higher-than-anticipated revenue in any given year.
 
That represented a 90 percent jump from the $350,000 allocated from E&D for fiscal year 2024, which ends on June 30. And, coupled with more robust use of the district's tuition revenue account (7 percent more in FY25) and School Choice revenue (3 percent more), the draw down on E&D is seen as a stopgap measure to mitigate a spike in FY25 expenses and an unsustainable budgeting strategy long term, administrators say.
 
The budget passed by the School Committee on Thursday continues to rely more heavily on reserves than in years past, but to a lesser extent than originally proposed.
 
Specifically, the budget the panel approved includes a total assessment to Williamstown of $13,775,336 (including capital and operating costs) and a total assessment to Lanesborough of $6,425,373.
 
As a percentage increase from the FY24 assessments, that translates to a 3.90 percent increase to Williamstown and a 3.38 percent increase to Lanesborough.
 
View Full Story

More Williamstown Stories