Rod Brown tells us about his Williams Experience:
My first day as a freshman at Williams began on a somewhat surprising note. One of my roommate’s parents was an effusive lady from North Carolina. For a Long Island kid who had no experience with a southern accent, but determined to be very polite on first meeting my roommate’s parents, I found myself vigorously nodding my head as she spoke to me. I realized after a few minutes that I did not understand a word she was saying, but I kept responding “Yes Ma’am.” For all I know, she was saying “You are a complete idiot.” “Yes Ma’am.” Who knows? In any event, no permanent damage; the roommate is a friend to this day.
I was a first generation scholarship student at Williams. The difference between my high school and Williams, both academically and socially, was both striking and challenging. My ability to focus on addressing these challenges was largely overtaken by the political events of the day.
1967 was an unusual year. The Vietnam War dominated the news. I became quite active in working for Gene McCarthy’s presidential primary campaign, canvassing in Massachusetts and then New Hampshire. At that time, one often had to explain that “Gene” was not to be confused with “Joe.” I still remember at one house the poignant experience of speaking with a woman who had lost her son in Vietnam.
I also attended with classmates and acted as a marshal at a demonstration in Washington, D.C. A former Williams graduate put us up at a school he headed.
In all, it was a strange time to be “at Williams.” Physically, I was there, but for all my time at Williams my basic focus was on the outside world. Virtually every evening, the news reported “body counts.” For better or worse, during my time at Williams, I never felt that I truly experienced being “in college.” Things culminated in 1970, when the Spring semester ended abruptly and protests against the War took center stage.
At that point, I had decided to study philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. I had realized by my junior year that no matter what course I took, I would still write philosophy papers. Virtually everyone I was reading in philosophy had originally written in German. I was inspired by the philosophy and political science courses I took at Williams, especially with Prof. Kurt Tauber, to focus on political philosophy. Williams had given me a deep love for learning, so off I went to Europe, having designed my own senior year abroad program. I graduated in abstentia, and spent an additional year to obtain a Masters in Philosophy. The final irony is that, although during this time I was physically away from Williams, I carried then as I do to this day, the learning ethos of Williams.