Williams Alumni Bicentennial

We turned 200!

THANK YOU. The Williams College Society of Alumni turned 200 in 2021, and thousands of you showed up for the bicentennial celebration: Zooming in from all corners of the world, learning and laughing with one another, and proving that there’s no community quite like ours.

As we welcome 2022 and bid farewell to our bicentennial year, we raise our glasses to you, our Eph family. Time and again, the bicentennial showed that the ties that bind us are deep and strong; that – no matter what – we’ll figure out a way to be together…and to have a blast along the way.

More than 100 staff and alumni volunteers helped plan the SoA bicentennial, which emerged as a glittering array of virtual programs, personal stories, puzzle competitions, and an epic cross-country cow-spotted RV journey. We chronicled our storied and – at times – complicated history and imagined a shared future where there’s a place for every Eph in the SoA.

The highlights shared in the video only scratch the surface of the bicentennial year and what it means to be an Eph. Much of what makes the SoA so special cannot be quantified: the annual trip with entrymates who have become lifelong friends, the life-changing professional advice from a friendly alum delighted to help a fellow Eph, or the unbridled glee at seeing a Williams sweatshirt across the street.

We are a community of people scattered across geographies and generations, here for one another because we all lived once upon a time in a tiny little town in the Berkshires. The SoA encapsulates the magic of that connection. The Williams beyond Williams.

It has been a joy and a privilege to be on this SoA bicentennial journey with you. Endless appreciation to the hundreds of Ephs whom we met and worked with along the way. Immeasurable thanks to all those who turned the bicentennial vision into a meaningful reality. And Eph-ternal gratitude to each one of you for being who you are, and for helping to make the Williams College Society of Alumni a place where every Eph belongs.

With echoes rebounding,
Laura Moberg Lavoie ’99 and Aroop Mukharji ’09
Society of Alumni Bicentennial Co-Chairs

 

Events Archive

Williams @ Work – Distill the Data: How to Tell a Nonprofit’s Social Impact Story with Existing Resources and Effective Practices

5/24/2022 at 3:00pm ET

Alumni involved in nonprofits are invited to join Luminary Evaluation Group’s Alison LaRocca ’06 as she reveals how nonprofits of every shape and size can leverage existing impact data to tell a compelling story about their organization’s impact.

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Presidential Zoomcast with Maud S. Mandel

2/28/2022 at 3:00pm ET

The start of the spring semester is an exciting time. Maud will share her perspective on a broad range of campus topics, and answer your questions in conversation with Kate Boyle Ramsdell ’97, President of the Society of Alumni.

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Eph Connect for Women of Williams

3/29/2022 at 4:00pm ET

In honor of Women’s History Month, the Alumni Relations team is pleased to host an online meetup for all Women of Williams as we celebrate our own history and 50 years of coeducation.

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Purple Prose Book Club & Author Talk

5/18/2022 at 2:00pm ET

Find your copy of our March-May 2022 Purple Prose Book Club reading selection The Henna Artist, and save the date for a special author talk featuring Alka Joshi.

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Every Person
Has a Story (EPHS!)

What does it mean to you to be a Williams alum?

Throughout the Society of Alumni bicentennial year, we invited you to tell your stories. The response was incredible, with nearly 400 alums represented in a collection of over 200 stories.

Puzzles in Purple

More than 300 of you joined the
Bicentennial Celebration Puzzle Hunt!

Join Greg Pliska ’84 for a look behind the scenes of the 11-part, 10-month Puzzles in Purple series, organized in honor of the Bicentennial of the Society of Alumni. Greg and his team of alumni constructors will talk about the process of creating a multi-part puzzle hunt, reveal the solutions for each puzzle, and announce the grand prize winners.

A graphic of puzzle pieces.

Ephs on the Mooove

graphic of an RV covered in bicentennial spots and logo, with one person staring out a window and another leaning against the hood

Meeting alumni where they are,
sharing who they are.

During the month of July, 170 of you greeted the cow-spotted RV and thousands followed online as Mike Rodriguez '17 and Juan Baena '06 made the journey across 26 states, 15 regional stops, 30 alumni interviews, and 9,000 miles. They shared alumni voices from their local communities and celebrated the shared sense of connection beyond the Purple Valley.