Clubs & Organizations

GenCo

Generation Conscious at Williams aims to educate students around climate justice, help Williams College fulfill its institutional goals with regards to the Strategic Plan and Zero Waste Action Plan in tangible ways, and provide students with hands-on experiences in activism and disrupting unjust systems that disproportionately affect people of color and disadvantaged communities. Generation Conscious is a Black-owned small business in New York City with many chapters in peer institutions such as Connecticut College and Bowdoin College. Working closely with the Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives, GenCo hosts workshops that educate students about climate justice – how climate change and social justice are two sides of the same coin – and empowers students to engender change. GenCo @ Williams will provide funding for the free laundry detergent sheet program that simultaneously addresses hygiene insecurity for low-income, first-generation, and international students and reduces the laundry-related carbon footprint of Williams College by avoiding wasteful and environmentally damaging traditional laundry detergent products.

Williams Environmental Council

The Williams Environmental Council works to make the campus and student body more environmentally friendly and conscious through events and campaigns targeting specific environmental issues we’re facing as a community. Particular problems that have been addressed include waste from campus social functions, consumer waste, and tree cover on campus. We love hearing from students, staff, faculty, and community members so that we can more effectively work towards greater change.

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Putting hoops on the raised beds at Parson’s Garden

Williams Sustainable Growers

Williams Sustainable Growers plans and manages the two gardens on campus and distributes the harvest among students. The group also aims to promote awareness of and access to sustainable food and agriculture. We host events and have weekly work parties in the garden open to anyone!

Sustainable Living Community

The Sustainable Living Community (SLC) offers students interested in sustainable living an opportunity to practice the lessons they’ve learned in their classrooms in a supportive dorm community. The SLC encourages residents to prioritize behavioral changes that would decrease their carbon footprints from the source so they can be more aware of the impact of daily consumption behaviors. We recognize that building, maintaining, and supporting an intentional community around student sustainability and environmental efforts take a considerable amount of mutual understanding, so community-building is particularly important to the overall house mission. As one of the first colleges across the country to have a sustainable living option, we hope that the SLC will push the envelope on how students can enact change for a more optimistic carbon future.Two people working on crafts around a kitchen tableSix smiling people watch old-fashioned apple cider pressingGroup of SLL house members sit on a staircase smiling

The SLC is Williams’s first TAPSI house and is supported by staff at the Zilkha Center and the Office of Campus Life. The SLC is pleased to work with campus collaborators. Previous events that the SLC has co-facilitated include the Mohawk Forest gift exchange, apple cider-pressing, and film screenings. Rebekah Lindsay ’25 and Gus Demerath ’25 are the 2022-2023 Community Coordinators for the SLC.

Purple Bike Coalition

The PBC is a student run organization that intends to provide bicycle maintenance services to Williams students and the greater Williams community, while educating people on the processes used to repair the bike. PBC mechanics will teach bicycle riders simple maintenance techniques and try to give riders the skills to fix and maintain their own bikes. The PBC will replace simple parts and perform the maintenance free of charge. The PBC will conduct a free bike rental program for students, staff, and faculty. The PBC, affiliated with the Center for Environmental Studies, looks to improve the quality of cycling on the Williams campus by providing safety and riding tips.

WRAPS (Williams Recovery of All Perishable Surplus)

WRAPS packages leftover dining hall food into individual meals made up of a grain, protein, and vegetable. We freeze these meals before delivering them on Fridays to our community partners in North Adams.

Divest Williams

The group calls on Williams College Trustees to screen out all future investments in the top 200 fossil-fuel companies, within five years, divest the endowment of all direct and indirect investments in these same companies, and reinvest in opportunities that will reduce the college’s reliance on fossil fuels and companies that will enact solutions for climate change mitigation and adaptation.  They work closely with The Williams Endowment Initiative, a group of alumni with the same goal.

For a complete list of student organizations, visit the Office of Student Life website.