Charlotte Jones
President, Williams Outing Club
The Basics
Organization Name: Williams Outing Club
Location: Williamstown, MA
Founded: 1915
Products: Club Memberships
Social: Instagram
Claim to Fame: Mountain Day! Every year on one of the first three Fridays in October, the Williams Outing Club facilitates a day off from classes for the whole student body. Students and community members enjoy hiking, cider donuts, apples, and a cappella concerts galore!
The Culture
The best thing about working at the Williams Outing Club is:
meeting new people on trips and then being able to say hello to them on the way to class, in the dining halls, and on other outings.
When we’re not working, we’re:
strategically placing hammocks around campus to entice people to relax, falling on cross country skis, getting lost in the woods, and bidding for frisbees in the snow (on the job, we’re extremely professional).
What we’re reading:
Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett, The Overstory by Richard Powers, Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
What we’re listening to:
“Amelia” - Joni Mitchell, Folklore and Evermore - Taylor Swift, “Joshua Tree” -Rozzi
If they made a movie about our workplace, it would be called:
Into the Zooms (soundtrack by Williams alum Stephen Sondheim)
Inclusion in the outdoors matters because:
Community is such an important part of participating in an outdoor space and the barriers that prevent outdoor communities from being accessible and open hurt the concept of community as a whole, both in outdoor and indoor spaces. Work to break down barriers to outdoor spaces is also work toward strengthening communities that we think are incredibly valuable both to outdoor spaces (e.g. combatting the changing climate) and to individuals (building relationships and friendships).
Five years down the line, it’s our hope that:
more of our campus will find our programming approachable and supportive; at the moment, the group of individuals who opt into our programming is largely homogenous. By increasing programming that works directly with our partners in affinity groups on campus, we hope that more students will see WOC’s programming as available to them. Through continued emphasis on community-oriented, on-campus programming (home-cooked meals, arts and crafts, granola making), we hope to increase interest and comfort in outdoor activities by providing many different avenues to participate in the WOC community.