Executive Summary

``This will probably be the biggest change in student residential life at Williams since the abolition of fraternities.'' Professor Charles Dew '58, member of the Committee on Undergraduate Life.²

Professor Dew is right. Anchor housing will have a larger effect on student life at Williams than any policy change in the last 40 years. The College must, therefore, take more care in making this decision than it has on any other decision since the 1960s. We feel that care has not been taken. There has been an unfortunate rush to judgment with regard to anchor housing, a rush that threatens to throw out much of what is good about Williams in the midst of a praise-worthy attempt at improvement.

The CUL Report is, at best, a first draft of the sort of report that should be written. We do not question the CUL's goals. Its goals are our goals. We question the evidence, or rather the lack of evidence, as to whether the policy changes it recommends will achieve the goals that it so eloquently describes. In particular:

• The CUL ignores the experiences of every other college besides Williams. Middlebury and Bowdoin, for example, both moved toward anchor-like housing plans in the 1990s. What happened there is relevant to what will happen here.

• The CUL provides no discussion of the role of the Berkshire Quad at Williams, either historically or today. Whatever else may be said for anchor housing, it will destroy the ``Odd Quad.''

• The CUL leaves us with no metrics to evaluate the success or failure of anchor housing five years from now. Without metrics, how can we know whether or not the policy has succeeded?

CUL has failed to convince the student body that anchor housing will improve student life at Williams. Last month's College Council election featured this question: ``Do you support the 'Williams House Proposal' in its current form, as outlined above?'' Only 17% of the students said ``Yes,'' while 57% said ``No.'' There is, perhaps, a strong case to be made for anchor housing, but the CUL has so far declined to make it and has avoided taking on the most difficult and controversial aspects of the issue.

We implore the Trustees to ask the Administration to provide the entire Williams community with a more thorough analysis of anchor housing. The biggest change in student life in 40 years deserves no less.