Williams College Senior Wins Watson Fellowship

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williams College senior John "Jack" Romans has been named a Thomas J. Watson Fellow for 2020-2021. 

Winners of the fellowship receive a stipend of $36,000 for 12 months of independent study and travel outside of the United States. 

Romans joins 46 other students selected as Watson Fellows who hail from eight countries and 20 states. Selected from private liberal arts colleges and universities across the United States, Watson Fellows will travel the world exploring a diverse range of topics and disciplines.

A theater major from West Saint Paul, Minn., Romans will use the fellowship to pursue a project titled "Never Growing Up: Learning from Children's Theatre Practices." Working with artists, theater companies, and festivals around the world, his project aims to explore ways in which theater practices for young audiences teach us about universal storytelling.

"As an aspiring director, much of the personal growth in this project will come from the risk of mingling my own artistic ideas and craft with the unique works of international companies," said Romans, who participated in a student-run theater company at Williams and also served as a director, stage technician, and teaching assistant. "But there will also be moments like learning how these companies present their shows across cultures that will become incredibly influential for my own work."

Romans' research will take him to Australia, South Africa, The Netherlands, and Indonesia, where he will work with various children's theater companies, including the Papermoon Puppet Theatre, an Indonesian puppet company that is one of the most active international puppet companies from the Asia Pacific region. He will conclude his year of study and travel in Cape Town, South Africa, where he will work with the Magnet Theatre Company, supporting its mission to tell stories through dance and puppetry.  

"Researching the work of these companies and others like them has already impacted the ways in which I make [art], especially as a writer and director," said Romans, who spent a semester in 2019 at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts and has worked in productions of the MNOpera, Children's Theatre Company, NYU Tisch, and Ordway Center. "However, the real growth of an artist requires immersion, getting my hands dirty and putting myself into real work."


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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.
 
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