Williams previously served as an administrator at Michigan State University and was recruited to UMass as deputy chancellor in 1994 by her predecessor in the position, David K. Scott.
Williams graduated in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in comparative literature from Michigan State University, where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.
[1] Williams also spent a decade consulting and teaching in Europe and Asia through Michigan State's Graduate Studies in Education Overseas program.
[3] Williams held other administrative roles at Michigan State in the 1990s before being named executive assistant to the president and corporate secretary to the board of trustees.
The two knew each other at Michigan State, where Scott's career included turns as a professor, director for research at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, provost and vice president for academic affairs before his departure for UMass in 1993.
[5] Controversy surrounding her appointment focused on the fact that Scott created a new position during a period of budget constraints at the university, including a hiring freeze.
During her time in the position, a major technology upgrade networked campus buildings, expanded server capacity and implemented a student information system.
[5] During her tenure as deputy chancellor, Williams was prompted by a controversial appearance by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan in March 1994 to coordinate an event the following year to explore issues of race and difference.
"[10] During an August 2021 interview, following her retirement, Williams said that Wiesel had been due to return to New York City that evening by a car arranged by UMass but changed his schedule at the last minute to have dinner with Angelou at the Lord Jeffrey Inn in Amherst, where the two continued their conversation.
[5] Williams organized a 1996 "crossworld conversation" at UMass featuring a discussion between openly bisexual tennis star Martina Navratilova and former baseball umpire Dave Pollone, who is gay; a 1997 conversation between Coretta Scott-King and Congresswoman Pat Schroeder; and a November 2021 appearance by Peter and Linda Biehl, who founded the Amy Biehl Foundation Trust to empower youth in South African townships following their daughter's murder at the hands of a mob in the township of Gugulethu, outside Cape Town, on August 25, 1993.
Some demands were not met, including one seeking free child care for students, though the university promised a task force to study the issue.
As chancellor, Williams led the UMass Amherst campus during the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. She has described being called out of a budget meeting when it was discovered that a UMass employee — Christoffer M. Carstanjen, 33, a computer research specialist in the Office of Information Technologies — was a passenger on an airline flight that crashed into the World Trade Center in Manhattan.
Williams later said she made it a point to hold meetings with the longest serving staff members who lost their jobs as part of those cuts so they could hear the news directly from her.
[17] A union official hailed the 138-88 vote in favor of joining the United Auto Workers as the beginning of a national movement by dorm monitors.
Williams wrote in a letter to the 360 RAs on campus prior to the vote: "Collective bargaining with an outside entity will, in my view, inevitably collide with core educational and administrative decisions.
"[17] After serving as chancellor of UMass Amherst, Williams asked not to be considered for the interim presidency of the five-campus system, citing family reasons.
[21] In February 2017, Williams filed a legal briefing on behalf of the UMass system supporting Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey's lawsuit to block a Trump administration order barring citizens of seven countries — Syria, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and Yemen — from entering the United States.
[24] The committee nominated Mark Fuller, former dean of the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst, who had been serving as interim chancellor of the Dartmouth campus.