Summer Events, Programs Keep Campuses Humming
 Trolleys used to ferry participants in the Massachusetts Teachers Association's annual summer conference are a familiar site in Williamstown each August. |
Next summer.
Shea is the director of conferences and events at Williams College, and it is her job to coordinate the schedules of all the athletes, academics and artists who converge on the campus in the months between graduation and the start of fall term.
There was a time when colleges slowed down when the temperatures shot up, but at places like Williams and nearby Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, there no longer is an "off season."
"As you called, I was working on the classroom grid for next summer," Shea said earlier this month.
"We don't have access to all of the dorms and all of the classroom spaces. Every summer, a percentage is taken off line for renovations. ... I'm planning to sit down with the director of construction later this month, but often we won't know until October or November for sure what will be available. In the fall, we're confirming with folks for next summer.
"It always works out."
This summer, Shea squeezed in a five-week summer science program for college, a weeklong "Adult Piano Retreat," the annual Summer Leadership Conference of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, myriad sports camps from golf to basketball to lacrosse and, of course, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, which wrapped up on Sunday.
And since the campus is a year-round operation, the vast majority of its employees stay on the payroll year round.
"That was the original intent of this office, to help facilitate that," Shea said. "Basically, Williams continues full employment in dining and custodial services.
"Between the conferences here and the Williams students on campus working for professors or in the library ... (the residence halls) are not as full as they are during the year, but they are in need of custodial services.
"It allows for people to take their vacations in the summer, but the folks who are here are working and staying busy. In fact, sometimes, some of them will say, 'Gee, I wish we were a little less busy.'"
The college's director of human resources said that there is plenty of non-conference work to be done in July and August, but the big impact of camps and events is in the dining halls.
"Otherwise, we're a 12-month campus,” Matha Tetrault said. "The academic offices, with a few exceptions, are 12 months. The administrative and the facilities departments are all 12-month operations because there’s a lot of work to be done on campus.
"Dining services — conferences are their primary business in the summer."
MCLA also keeps its campus humming with activity through the summer months.
"We have a very busy summer and a strong impact on the local economy," MCLA Dean of Academic Affairs Monica Joslin said. "We are looking at the college as a year-round operation."
One of the biggest programs on the North Adams campus is the 12-week Berkshire Hills Internship Program (B-HIP), an arts management program that attracts students from around the country and the world for opportunities to learn in the classroom and on the job at places like Tanglewood, Jacob's Pillow, the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Clark Art Institute and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
Forty students slated to enroll as MCLA freshmen in the fall were on campus early this summer to participate in the Individual Enrichment program, a four-week, residential, intensive program, Joslin said.
 Chandler Gymnasium at Williams College is filled each summer with basketball camps for boys and girls. |
"We also have our over-summer college courses for our own students and students who are home from other college," Joslin said. "Those programs are growing."
Over at Williams, there is not much more room to grow its summer offerings.
While not every available classroom or dorm room is filled each summer, Shea said she has to have some "wiggle room" in assigning space in case issues pop up late in the year that take away space she planned on using.
"We can't go at what I'd call 100 percent capacity because if something comes up, 100 percent becomes 105 percent very quickly," she said.
There are two large events — the MTA conference and WTF — that are longstanding staples of the summer season at Williams. But Shea's office also tries to accommodate smaller groups that may want to visit the campus in a given year.
"There's a little bit of marketing," Shea said. "We keep a list as people contact us through the year, and as I see a time slot, I'll approach them. The problem is I don't always know the facilities I’ll have available until close to the summer. It's hard to accommodate someone who wants to come here three years in advance."
And there are plenty of people who want to come to the school's bucolic setting.
"I think one of the reasons groups like the MTA come back year after year is that it feels far enough away that those people who come in from eastern Mass feel like they're getting away," Shea said. "And it doesn't have the expense of flying somewhere for a conference."
Tags: college, MCLA, summer programs, Williams College,
