Should Amherst College match Williams on town aid?
Evelyn Sullivan thinks Amherst College, with its $1.66 billion endowment, could do more to ease the town’s chronic budget shortfall. And in making her case, she pokes the college in a sensitive spot. Sullivan moved to Amherst in 2001 after teaching in the Williamstown elementary school for 25 years. Williams College has made major financial commitments to Williamstown that deserve to be emulated, she said. “Since Amherst and Williams are athletic rivals, why can’t their rivalry extend off the playing fields?” she asked in a letter to the Amherst Bulletin. “The challenge for each college would be to rival each other in supporting their schools and town.” Others warn that tapping in to a rivalry is no way to strengthen an institution’s connection to its hometown. To call the two colleges “athletic rivals” is to underplay the intensity when their teams face each other. And as two of the top small liberal arts colleges in the country, Amherst and Williams also compete for students and facu
