WCMA To Host Community Forum On Facade, Roof of New Building

08:19AM / Monday, June 22, 2026Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) invites the community to a forum at 6 p.m. Monday, June 29, at the Williams Inn Ballroom to learn more about how the materials for the facade and roof are shaping the exterior of the new building.

according to a press release:

Inspired by the Berkshire landscape, the sculptural metal shingle roof and curved curtain wall and masonry facade work together to shape the building's architectural identity. The forum will include insights from the architects into the design of these elements and a project update from construction managers who are currently realizing them in construction.

Following the presentation, attendees are invited to participate in a ceremonial roof shingle signing to mark this milestone as the project advances toward its anticipated fall 2027 opening.

The new WCMA is conceived to serve the college, the local community and visitors to the Berkshires. The new museum will be a space designed with students in mind, fostering a sense of belonging for campus members and the wider community, and an inclusive experience for all visitors. The building will offer substantial gallery space for showing more of the museum's collections, as well as facilities for easy access to works of art for student, faculty, and visiting scholar requests, and more object study classrooms.

RSVPs appreciated here: https://tinyurl.com/4tzs8db4.

For more information, contact the museum at 413-597-2429 or visit artmuseum.williams.edu.

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Discrimination Against Muslim Americans Persists 25 Years After 9/11

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
07:00AM / Saturday, September 12, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Dozens of Muslim Americans were among people killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Untold numbers of Muslim Americans have suffered countless acts of discrimination in their aftermath.

"Of course, you'll find several accounts of Muslims from all over the U.S. describing how they went from the unknown kids in the school to being stereotyped or ridiculed for their Muslim names," Sidra Mahmood recalled recently. "However, many Americans forget that the victims of 9/11 were also Muslim Americans.

"I can't forget the time when a classmate broke down in sobs when 9/11 came up in our classroom at the Islamic seminary I went to in Texas, because her father's best friend who was like an uncle to her, died on 9/11."

Today, Mahmood is a chaplain at Williams College. In 2001, she was growing up in Karachi, Pakistan, when terrorists forced two passenger jets into the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan and another plane into the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. A third plane, which terrorists hoped to crash into a D.C. landmark, was brought down in western Pennsylvania after passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers.

The attacks, which ultimately claimed 2,976 lives, horrified people around the world, including in Mahmood's native land.

"I remember being aghast like anyone who witnessed the fall of the Twin Towers in real time," she said. "However, even as a child, fear gripped me about the possibility of war, especially once we learned that Afghanistan, right adjacent to Pakistan, would be attacked by the U.S. My mother had told me about the 1971 war between India and Pakistan when she remembered hiding in the dark after bomb sirens would go off in Punjab after intentional blackouts.

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