Dana-Towne Library

Math Library at Night

The Dana-Towne Library, better known as the Math Library, was a popular place for Math majors and others to study. The lower floor was surrounded by math department faculty, and the upper floor, which formed a ring around a central open space, was surrounded by psychology department offices.

When asked what has made the Williams math department so successful¹, some math professors cited the configuration of their space. Students could easily collaborate in the math library, and their professors' offices were right there if they have a question since their office doors are always open. However, there are book stacks between the table area and the offices, to separate the professors and the students so that they're not staring at each other, because that could get awkward.

Sheafe Satterthwaite has pointed out that the math library is like an advertisement: When driving along Route 2, it was easy to look right into the math library (see illustration at right) and see students reading and working. This is a nice advertisement for what goes on at the College.

¹ The math department has been very successful in the following ways:

• Fully 10% of graduating students are math majors, which is well above the national average of just over 1%.
• Four of the math faculty (Colin Adams, Ed Burger, Tom Garrity, and Frank Morgan) have won an Excellence in Teaching award. No other college or university has more than two winners, and those that have two are much larger departments than Williams.

When the Bronfman Science Center was replaced by the Wachenheim Science Center, The Dana-Towne Library was replaced by the Frank Morgan "Math-Stat" Library, with a very similar configuration to the original.