Williams Economics Major Named Global Citizen Finalist

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Will Turett, an economics major of Williams College and native resident of Irvington, N.Y., has been honored as a finalist for the IES Abroad Global Citizen of the Year Award. 

The IES Abroad Global Citizen of the Year Award is the first student-focused study abroad award of its kind, recognizing six U.S college students who studied with IES Abroad in 2017, positively impacted their communities through academic, philanthropic, or personal efforts while abroad, learned from their cross-cultural experience, and continued to better their communities, at home and abroad.

Through internships abroad with the European Environmental Bureau and European Forum Alpbach, Turett invested his translation and research skills and was able to partake in once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to share knowledge globally. 

One winner from Grinnell College, Yesenia Ayala, and four other finalists - from Loyola University of Chicago, University of California-Berkeley, Villanova University and Yale University - join Turell as the next generation of global leaders as part of the 2017 Global Citizen of the Year Award. 

IES Abroad is a not-for-profit organization providing access to 140 study abroad and internship programs in 34 cities around the world. IES Abroad received inspiring submissions from its students across more than 30 different U.S. colleges, such as Williams College, University of California- Berkeley, and Yale University, to name a few.

As part of their applications, student winners shared a range of meaningful contributions and anecdotes, such as working with students from low-income communities in Santiago, translating documents to support the work of an environmental bureau in Vienna, volunteering with a nutritional health organization in Buenos Aires, and bringing attention to the individual stories of women in Spain and Morocco.

As the winner of the Global Citizen of the Year Award, Ayala will receive a $1,000 cash prize, and the five finalists will each receive a $200 cash prize.

BHS' New North County Urgent Care Center Opens Tuesday

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff
05:44PM / Monday, December 15, 2025

There is a waiting area and reception desk to the right of the Williamstown Medical entrance. 

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Staff and contractors were completing the final touches on Monday to prepare for the opening of Berkshire Health System's new urgent care center. 

 

Robert Shearer, administrative director of urgent care, said the work would be done in time for Berkshire Health Urgent Care North to open Tuesday at 11 a.m. in a wing of Williamstown Medical on Adams Road.  

 

The urgent care center will occupy a suite of rooms off the right side of the entry, with two treatment rooms, offices, amenities, and X-ray room. 

 

"This is a test of the need in the community, the want in the community, to see just how much we need," said Shearer. "One thing that I think Berkshire Health Systems has always been really good at is kind of gauging the need and growing based on what the community tells us. 

 

"And so if we on day one and two and three, find that we're filling this up and maybe exceeding the capacity of the two exam rooms and one provider, then we look to expand it."

 

Hours will be weekdays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and weekends from 8 to noon, but the expectation is that the center will "expand those hours pretty quick."

 

BHS has two urgent care centers in Lenox and in Pittsfield. The health system had tried a walk-in center at Williamstown nearly a decade ago but shuttered over low volume of patients.