Class Notes deadlines for the 2024 publication year are:
| Issue | Deadline | Pub Date |
|---|---|---|
| March 2024 | Jan. 5, 2024 | March 1 |
| September 2024 | June 14, 2024 | Sept. 1 |
Class secretaries: Submit your class notes online!
Williams People and its online counterpart, Alumni News, keep readers connected to each other and to Williams. As class secretary, you are key to fulfilling this mission.
In print: Williams People is published by Williams College for the Society of Alumni twice a year and is mailed free of charge to alumni. The publication includes class notes, photos of alumni gatherings and weddings, and lists of weddings, commitment ceremonies and civil unions; births and adoptions; and deaths. About 97 percent of readers report reading alumni news in print.
On the Web: Alumni News is the password-protected, web version of Williams People. Log in with a Williams user name and password to view fully searchable content. Select “Find My Class” for the most recent updates from classmates. All content is fully searchable.
Writing class notes
The editors will edit your class notes according to the following guidelines, which will be enforced. Please:
Stay within your word limit. The average class notes word count is approximately 1,500. Keep in mind this is an average across all classes, which range from fewer than 50 members to more than 500. Notes of more than 2,500 words will be returned to you for editing.
Be brief and inclusive. Class notes are short updates about a wide range of classmates. Try to limit notes to no more than three sentences per classmate. Skip travelogues, details of non-alumni relatives’ lives and long lists.
Stick to your class. If you have news about alumni not in your class, kindly forward it to that class’s secretary using the contact information that appears in Williams People. If classmates’ news includes alumni not in your class, be sure to identify their graduation years. (Celia Coates ’99).
Stick to the facts. Class notes shouldn’t promote personal, political, religious or social views. Please don’t editorialize or comment on classmates’ news.
Don’t publicize without permission. Classmates are a great source of information about other Ephs they’ve seen or been in touch with. But something shared over dinner in a small group might not be meant for public sharing. If a classmate submits news about fellow alumni, please make that classmate or you have the permission of those alumni to share it in class notes. Same with social media posts; they’re another great source of news, but you should get permission to print that news in class notes.
Exercise tact and good taste. Jokes or anecdotes that might be appreciated by some classmates could offend others who read your notes. Avoid stories about drinking binges, romantic exploits, etc. Offensive, libelous, racist, sexist or inappropriate material will be deleted.
When in doubt, leave it out. The temptation is strong to report a classmate’s upcoming wedding, birth, trip or job change. Unfortunately, these plans don’t always come to fruition. Please include such news only after the event has occurred.
No Solicitations. Please don’t include links for financial donations. If someone is fundraising for a cause, please provide their contact information and suggest your classmates get in touch if they are interested in helping.
Submitting Class Notes
The editors must receive class notes through the online form or by email. Remember to always keep a copy of your notes.
Full names (first and last) and class years of alumni should be in bold each time they are mentioned, though class years should be in plain text (Kai Smith, Monica Lee ’99). See this guide to styling alumni names for details. The Office of Communications also maintains a college style guide for quick reference.
You are responsible for fact checking all information in class notes as well as for spelling your classmates’ names correctly. You can access the alumni directory by logging in with a Williams user name and password. Indicate uncommon spellings that you know to be correct by inserting [CQ] after the reference. Indicate questions for the editors by inserting [?] after the reference.
Class notes must be received on or before the deadline to be included in the publication. Contact the editors is you foresee a problem in meeting the deadline.
Submitting other content
Please encourage your classmates to send photos and news of weddings, births and adoptions directly to Williams People. Guidelines are available at Submit News.
Help from the college
Secretary email addresses. The college provides you with an email forwarding address to help your classmates keep in touch with you. Your address is your four-digit class year followed by “[email protected]” (e.g., [email protected]). Emails sent to this address will be forwarded to your preferred email address. To update your address, contact [email protected].
Class list servers. Most classes have email list servers to facilitate communications among classmates. The list server address is “class” followed by the last two digits of your year and “[email protected]” (e.g., [email protected]). A message sent to the list server goes to all classmates who have subscribed.
Class notes form. Alumni can visit alumni-news.williams.edu/my-class-notes/ to write their notes using an online form. When they choose their class year, their notes will be routed to the appropriate secretary’s email address.
Editorial style guide. Guidelines on grammar, spelling, punctuation and usage in materials produced by and for the college are available to view and print.
Deadline reminders. About four weeks before the class notes deadline, you will receive a reminder via email.
Class secretary list server. The editors maintain an email list server for secretaries to share practices, questions and ideas. A message sent to [email protected] will go to all class secretaries.
