Williams College Junior Awarded Beinecke Scholarship

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Joseph Moore, a junior at Williams College, has been awarded a Beinecke Scholarship in support of his graduate education.

The scholarship grants $4,000 immediately prior to entering graduate school and an additional $30,000 during graduate school. He is one of 20 students in the United States to receive the award this year.

Moore, a comparative literature major from Stroudsburg, Pa., plans to pursue a Ph.D. in comparative literature, studying the political dimensions of English, Spanish and French language literatures of the 20th century in a comparative context.

"Specifically, I’m interested in the international character of a lot of this writing," Moore said. "I think what this writing has the capacity to do, if read well and attentively, is indicate ways in which struggles for justice and equality can transcend the national contexts they emerge in; how we might think of ourselves and our political commitments beyond the limits of the nation state."



Moore first began to study literature at age 16 while a student at Northampton Community College in Tannersville, Pa. He became interested in the relationship between politically engaged art and the real circumstances of oppression and material deprivation out of which they emerge.

At Williams, in addition to studying literature, Moore has developed his foreign language skills and was a teaching assistant with the religion department. Fluent in French and Spanish, he studied at the Alliance Française Bordeaux-Aquitaine in Bordeaux, France, during the summer of his sophomore year and at the Middlebury Spanish School in Middlebury, Vt., in the summer of 2017. Among his other awards are the Robert G. Wilmers Jr. 1990 Memorial Student Language Study Abroad Fellowship, the Roche Student Research Fellowship, and the William C. Schmidt Class of ’43 Scholarship.

Established in 1971 by the Sperry and Hutchinson Company to honor Edwin, Frederick, and Walter Beinecke, the Beinecke scholarship program seeks to encourage highly motivated students to pursue opportunities available to them and to be courageous in the selection of a graduate course of study in the arts, humanities, or social sciences. Each year, approximately 100 colleges and universities are invited to nominate a student for a Beinecke Scholarship. Moore's award follows a Beinecke given to Chelsea Thomeer in 2016, Jeffrey Wang in 2015, and to Sam O’Donnell in 2014.

 


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Williamstown Finance Committee Finalizes Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Proposal

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The tax bill of a median-priced single family home will go up by 8.45 percent in the year that begins July 1 under a spending plan approved by the Finance Committee on Wednesday night.
 
After more than a month of going through all proposed spending by the town and public schools and searching for places to trim the budget and adjust revenue estimates, the Fin Comm voted to send a series of fiscal articles to the May 19 annual town meeting for approval.
 
The panel also discussed how to appeal to town meeting members to reverse what Fin Comm members long have described as an anti-growth sentiment in town that keeps the tax base from expanding.
 
New growth in the tax base is generated by new construction or improvements to property that raise its value. A lack of new growth (the town projects 15 percent less revenue from new growth in fiscal year 2027 than it had in FY26) means that increased spending falls more heavily on current taxpayers.
 
The two largest spending articles on the draft warrant for the May meeting are the appropriations for general government spending and the assessment from the Mount Greylock Regional School District.
 
The former, which includes the Department of Public Works, the Williamstown Police and town hall staffing, is up by just 2.5 percent from the current fiscal year to FY27 — from $10.6 million to $10.9 million.
 
The latter, which pays for Williamstown Elementary School and the town's share of the middle-high school, is up 13.7 percent, from $14.8 million to $16.8 million.
 
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