Williams College Museum of Art Announces Interim Leadership

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williams College Museum of Art has announced the interim leadership following the departure of Class of 1956 Director Christina Olsen. Olsen has been named director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

WCMA's current deputy director for Curatorial Affairs, 2000 Williams graduate Lisa Dorin, will become interim director. Dorin joined the museum in March 2013 from the Art Institute of Chicago, where she had served as associate curator of Contemporary Art. Since her return to campus, she has been a key member of the WCMA senior team, developing and implementing the museum's strategic plan, co-supervising the graduate curatorial workshop, and creating a new museum collections council for major acquisitions. She has also organized several prominent exhibitions, including recent shows highlighting the work of Meleko Mokgosi and Robert Rauschenberg.

Sonnet Coggins, WCMA's current associate director for Academic and Public Engagement, will become interim deputy director. Coggins arrived at Williams in March 2013 after nine years as master teacher for Modern and Contemporary Art and head of Adult and College Programs at the Denver Art Museum. At WCMA, Sonnet worked closely with Dorin and other senior staff members to articulate the museum’s strategic direction. She has collaboratively produced projects that push beyond formal conventions of exhibits and programs and explore the relationship between socially-engaged art and museum practice.  

As interim leaders, Dorin and Coggins will be responsible for providing direction to the outstanding staff, maintaining an ambitious schedule of upcoming exhibitions and programs, and enhancing student and faculty engagement.

Hancock Town Meeting Votes to Strike Meme Some Found 'Divisive'

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
10:40PM / Monday, May 06, 2024

Hancock town meeting members Monday vote on a routine item early in the meeting.

HANCOCK, Mass. — By the narrowest of margins Monday, the annual town meeting voted to strike from the town report messaging that some residents described as, "inflammatory," "divisive" and unwelcoming to new residents.

 

On a vote of 50-48, the meeting voted to remove the inside cover of the report as it appeared on the town website and in printed versions distributed prior to the meeting and at the elementary school on Monday night.

 

The text, which appeared to be a reprinted version of an Internet meme, read, "You came here from there because you didn't like it there, and now you want to change here to be like there. You are welcome here, only don't try to make here like there. If you want to make here like there, you shouldn't have left there in the first place."

 

After the meeting breezed through the first 18 articles on the town meeting warrant agenda with hardly a dissenting vote, a member rose to ask if it would be unreasonable for the meeting to vote to remove the meme under Article 19, the "other business" article.

 

"No, you cannot remove it," Board of Selectmen Chair Sherman Derby answered immediately.

 

After it became clear that Moderator Brian Fairbank would entertain discussion about the meme, Derby took the floor to address the issue that has been discussed in town circles since the report was printed earlier this spring.

 

"Let me tell you about something that happened this year," Derby said. "The School Department got rid of Christmas. And they got rid of Columbus Day. Now it's Indigenous People's Day.