WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williams College President Maud Mandel on Friday sent a community-wide email announcing that school's commencement and reunion weekend weekend will not take place as scheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Seniors, while I am heartbroken that graduation cannot happen in the conventional way at the conventional time, I am determined that you will have your moment," Mandel wrote. "Rather than deciding for you what that should look like, my colleagues and I want to start by asking you."
Mandel announced that members of the Class of 2020 will receive a survey seeking their ideas about alternative ways to celebrate their graduation from the liberal arts college.
Traditionally, commencement exercises are followed one week later by the reunion weekend, which invites back alumni from across generations with particular efforts to bring back members marking signficant class anniversaries — fifth, 10th, 15th, etc.
"My heart goes out especially to the class of 1970, whose own senior spring term was canceled due to protests over the bombing of Cambodia, and who are now having their 50th reunion disrupted by a global pandemic," Mandel said. "I promise that we will find other ways to celebrate these milestone anniversaries, which are so important to alumni and college alike."
Like the graduating seniors, the alumni in key classes will be contacted by the college to seek alternatives, according to Mandel's email.
Mandel early last month announced that the school would be moving to a remote instruction model after classes ended on Friday, March 13. The overwhelming majority of students were told to vacate their college housing by March 17. A handful of international students with more difficult travel plans were excepted from the March 17 date.
Commencement had been scheduled for Saturday, June 7.
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Williamstown Again Williams' Town in Summer of '25
By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Williamstown Theatre Festival has announced a 2025 season with five full-scale productions, including two world premieres and two revivals of dramas by Tennessee Williams.
The summer festival lists the five productions on its website, which provides no information about dates and says tickets go on sale "in March."
In addition to two of his own works, Williams' influence is seen in one of the new works planned for the summer season, according to the WTF.
Williams, a Pulitzer Prize winner, was to have been included in the WTF's aborted 2020 season with a production of "A Streetcar Named Desire."
After the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of that season, the festival made its production available on a streaming service.
His canon has been a longtime staple of the festival, including a 1999 production of "Camino Real" on the Main Stage. Williams himself had a summer residency in Williamstown in 1982, one year before his death.
"Camino Real" returns for 2025 along with a production of "Not About Nightingales," one of Williams' earliest works, which he penned in 1938.
The summer festival lists the five productions on its website, which provides no information about dates and says tickets go on sale "in March."
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