About

The Center for Learning in Action (CLiA) cultivates and sustains experiential learning opportunities, curricular and non-curricular, in service of the teaching goals of our faculty, the civic aspirations of our students, and the needs of the wider community.

Experiential learning, at Williams fits with the College’s broad philosophy of enhancing student capacity to improve society.  The educational effects of community engagement work, when done ethically and effectively,  are powerful, adding real-life complications to classroom discourse and developing essential leadership and citizenship skills.

We at CLiA provide and connect students to course and extracurricular opportunities in a dozen action areas including education, health and wellness, and community and economic development.

Experiential coursework at Williams ranges from fully integrated off-campus programs such as Williams at Mystic to courses involving small field research projects.

Extracurricular experiential opportunities at Williams include K-12 teaching, tutoring, and mentoring programs, addressing food insecurity, assisting the justice-involved, engaging with elders, supporting refugees, and more.

See the visual summary and the annual CLiA Chronicle* for more information on specific opportunities.

*Note: This document has been tagged and alt-text has been included for those using screen readers. For accessibility features, please download and view using Adobe or the accessible PDF reader of your choice.

  • 2022-23 (Google Drive PDF)

    • Note: This document has been tagged and alt-text has been included for those using screen readers. For accessibility features, please download and view using Adobe or the accessible PDF reader of your choice.

    2021-22 (Google Drive PDF)

    • Note: This document has been tagged and alt-text has been included for those using screen readers. For accessibility features, please download and view using Adobe or the accessible PDF reader of your choice.

    2020-21 (Google Drive PDF)

    2019-20 (PDF)

    2018-19 (Google Drive PDF)

    2017-18 (PDF)

    2016-17 (PDF)

    2015-16 (PDF)