Courtesy http://flickr.com/photos/daiji/57567186/

It was James S. Davis ’66 and his wife, Anne, who in 2007 kicked off Middlebury’s $500 million capital campaign with an anonymous donation of $50 million. It was the Davis family that — for the past five years running — anonymously matched every alumni pledge to the College, dollar for dollar. And it was the Davis family that supported the Main Library’s construction when the dot-com bust put the project in jeopardy.

Now, the library that Jim Davis helped build will bear his family’s name.

At an unveiling ceremony today, President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz introduced Davis as the anonymous donor behind some of the most sweeping changes to have affected the College in recent history. Speaking at the newly named Davis Family Library, Liebowitz recognized Jim and Anne Davis, as well as their son, Chris Davis ’08, and their daughter Kassia for their longtime dedication to service and generosity to the College.

“In their own lives,” said Liebowitz, “they have consistently demonstrated the creativity, innovation, pursuit of knowledge and commitment to excellence that are at the core of a liberal arts education.”

Jim Davis '66 addresses members of the College community on May 6. // Andrew Podrygula, Photo Editor

Davis is the chairman of New Balance, the Boston-based athletic shoe company with annual revenues in excess of $1.5 billion. At the time Davis bought the company in 1972 for a $10,000 down payment, New Balance was making 30 pairs of shoes a day with six employees. Today, it operates in 13 countries around the globe and is among the five largest companies in the athletic footwear industry. But what sets New Balance apart from its competitors are the values that support the company, administration officials said in interviews Tuesday.

“He built this company in a unique way,” said Mike Schoenfeld, vice president for College Advancement. “It was all about family.”

After nearly 40 years, New Balance is still privately held.

Davis’ loyalty to family and community has consistently included Middlebury. Since graduating, Davis has donated over $70 million to the College. He has also spent 15 years as a member of the Board of Trustees, and considerable time as a behind-the-scenes advisor to Liebowitz and to President Emeritus of the College John M. McCardell, Jr.

With his $50 million starting pledge to the Middlebury Initiative, Davis helped establish a financial aid fund that slashed the loan burden for all students receiving assistance from the College.

“The first thing we did with that money,” said Schoenfeld, “was cut everybody’s loans from $4,000 a year down to either one-, two- or three thousand dollars, depending on your income.”

Through a tip from a college classmate, Davis introduced Middlebury to the Monterey Institute for International Studies (MIIS) — paving the way for an acquisition that is to become increasingly important as Old Chapel leans more heavily in the future on its satellite operations for income. The College is expected to take full ownership of MIIS this summer, when the California-based institution formally becomes “a graduate school of Middlebury College.”

The Monterey Institute offers a wide range of language and translation training programs, as well as Master’s degrees in international environmental policy and nonproliferation and terrorism studies. Davis became a member of the Board of Trustees at MIIS after the Middlebury-Monterey partnership was signed in 2005. Liebowitz and Schoenfeld credit Davis with making the agreement possible at all.

“His philanthropy has touched every single piece of Middlebury College for the last 30 years,” said Schoenfeld. “It’s unbelievable.”

Davis proved equally instrumental in the construction of the Main Library, which opened to students in July 2004 after nearly a decade of planning and building. The idea for a new library came about amid discussions over the future of nearby Starr Library — a hundred-year-old structure that, according to C.A. Johnson Professor of Art Glenn Andres, students avoided at all costs.

“Starr Library had 18 levels, and an inscrutable floor plan, and could never be made handicapped-accessible,” said Andres. “You couldn’t run technology there. You couldn’t run proper climate control through there. It was hopeless.”

A stone’s throw away, a science building stood in the Davis Library’s current position. But instead of drawing the eye to the sweeping lawns that sit beside South Main Street today, Liebowitz said, the edifice did little more than cut the College off from the town.

Calling the science building “obtrusive,” “a disaster” and likening it to the Berlin Wall, Liebowitz said the trustees ultimately voted to demolish the offending sight and construct a library in its place. Though some trustees questioned the need for a library in the digital age, Davis argued consistently and forcefully for the project as “the right thing to do” — even when the burst of the dot-com bubble at the turn of the century threatened to kill it off.

When the building finally opened its doors, Liebowitz stopped by one day on his way home from work.

“I talked to some of the language school students — I was only able to talk to the Russian students because of the language pledge — and they loved the space,” said Liebowitz. “They’d been there for 10 days, and they were there every night. It was more crowded in that library that summer than I’d ever seen.”

Nearly six years later, the Davis Library still fills up every night. Mike Roy, dean of Library and Information Services at the College, anticipates that the institutional mission of the library will only become more important as scholarship migrates to the Web.

“Much of a liberal arts education has to do with learning how to use information, evaluate information, present it in various formats and use it ethically,” said Roy. “And so we’re always thinking about what role the library can play in developing those sorts of capabilities.

“As more and more stuff becomes available digitally,” Roy added, “and people begin to prefer the digital, how do we have to change our habits in order to meet the needs of our community?”

Roy’s strategic foresight follows in the Davis family tradition. In his remarks, Liebowitz praised Davis for encouraging Middlebury to become a leader among its peers.

“He has always pushed the College to think big and to be alert to new opportunities,” said Liebowitz. “His goal has been to make Middlebury stronger by, in his words, ‘balancing the College’s traditional but unique heritage with a continuing enhancement of the Middlebury experience, as we prepare our students for leadership in a rapidly changing, more complex world.’”

For a photo gallery of the event, click here.

Courtesy

On Saturday, May 1, GlobeMed held a 5K Fun Run on the Middlebury Cross Country Course.

GlobeMed is a network of university students wthat works to improve the health of the impoverished.

Each GlobeMed chapter partners with a grassroots health organization in a developing country to collaborate on public health projects that make a positive impact in that community.

The proceeds of this 5K race will go directly to Africa 2000 Network-Uganda (A2N), an organization in Uganda dedicated to promoting community empowerment for sustainable livelihoods by working with small farmers. The specific A2N project for which GlobeMed is raising funds is an Information and Communication Technology center in the sub-county of Osukuru, Uganda.

It will collect farming data and provide information on health and sustainable agriculture practices.

“As the first 5K held by GlobeMed, it was a great success with over 40 participants,” said Megan O’Keefe ’11.

“The proceeds will go directly to A2N and make a difference in rectifying poverty though sustainable farming.”

This 5K Fun Run attracted runners of every level, from serious cross country racers to everyday joggers just looking to stretch their legs on a Saturday morning while supporting a worthy cause, and a good time was had by all.

The German Theater Festival and Competition is an annual all-day event in which elementary, middle, high school and university students present 15-minute theatrical productions in the German language and are judged by a board of German professors, consuls and representatives from the Boston Goethe-Institut, among others. Middlebury competed against teams from Mount Holyoke, the State University of New York at Oswego and Connecticut College this year — an unusually small number of competitors due to recession-induced budget cuts.

“The competition was very stiff this year,” said Associate Professor of German Bettina Matthias, the Middlebury group’s founder. “The cast … really came together as a group, even under pressure, and they were so much ‘in the play’ and in the moment, it really jumped across the theater’s pit and into the audience.”

Matthias founded the German Theater Group in early 2002, and since its inception the group has staged one or two full-length plays, in German, each academic year. In the past, the group has tackled such German dramatic masterpieces as Bertolt Brecht’s “The Three Penny Opera” and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s “Faust”; this semester, students have been hard at work on Arthur Schnitzler’s “Der grüne Kakadu,” which they excerpted and presented at the competition last week.

“The theater group is such a great way to combine our love for performing and performance with work in and on German,” said Matthias. “It is the single most enjoyable and rewarding thing in my professional life.”

“Acting with the German Theater Group is my way to shed the stress of tests and papers and become someone else on campus for a while,” said Hannah Hunter-Parker ’10, who has been involved in the group since her freshman year. “To see everyone’s language skills blossom as the production takes shape also is amazing.”

The group will stage the full-length version of “Der grüne Kakadu” for the public this Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Chateau.

K12, Inc., based in McLean, Va., has been providing online education to both public and home-schooled students for a decade. It was co-founded by renowned conservative commentator William Bennett in April 2000.

In addition to co-founding K12, Bennett worked for the government on education and drug policies during the Reagan and H.W. Bush administrations. He is also the author of multiple books on education, including The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories, a collection of stories assembled to teach readers of morality and virtue.

Despite his longtime commitment to education, Bennett has been involved in multiple controversies over the years.

Bennett found himself the subject of widespread anger in 2005 after a comment he made on his nationally syndicated radio show, Morning in America.

Responding to a caller’s suggestion that the “lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30 years” would be enough to preserve Social Security’s solvency, Bennett suggested that if your sole goal was to reduce crime, you could also “abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” Such an action “would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do … but the crime rate would go down.”

The Bush White House condemned his comments, as well as many Democrats and civil rights groups. Stating that Bennett would step down to avoid distracting K12 from its mission, K12 thanked Bennett for his service but made it clear that “[t]he opinions expressed by Dr. Bennett on his radio program are his and his alone.”

Nevertheless, in a recent interview on Bennett’s own radio show, K12 CEO Ron Packard said, “I still consider [Bennett] the education expert.”

Professor of French Paula Schwartz is concerned that Middlebury is partnering with K12. Even though Bennett has since left the company, she wrote in an e-mail, “Middlebury has legitimized K12 and the ideas it stands for — wittingly or not,” by making such a partnership.

Professor of Geography Tamar Mayer agrees, writing in an email that the “past of [K12] with Bill Bennett at the helm will continue to haunt Middlebury.”

Bennett aside, some worry that K12’s curriculum — which in theory would have no impact on MIL, whose content will be created exclusively by Middlebury faculty — is not appropriate.

Arizona State University researcher Susan Ohanian published an extensive critique of K12’s methods in 2004.

“K12 ignores such issues, which have to do with the nature of childhood, cognitive development and the purpose of schooling,” she wrote. Instead, “the curriculum relentlessly pushes ahead with eliciting memorized replies to adult questions.”

The company once again found itself the subject of media scrutiny in 2004, after it was awarded a $4.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to expand its program to public school students in Arkansas.

According to an analysis done by Education Week, an education newspaper based in Bethesda, Md., “K12 and its Arkansas partner received the grant despite the fact that one project that independent reviewers rated higher was not funded,” a highly unusual occurrence, sources within the Arkansas government affirmed.

According to an employee in conversation with EdWeek, who asked not to be identified, “Anything with Bill Bennett’s name on it was going to get funded.”

Three years later in 2008, K12 was criticized for outsourcing its essay-grading to India.

Kwitowski declared that students’ privacy was not jeopardized, EdWeek reported, though the two-year old pilot program was still discontinued.

Some wonder if K12’s history will have a negative effect on Middlebury’s new company, Middlebury Interactive Languages, of which K12 owns a 60 percent share.

President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz believes such concerns about K12’s past issues with content are unfounded, as the College will be in total control of the new products’ content.

“By virtue of the long list of operating agreements that formed the new company, Middlebury controls the content of what the new company produces, and nothing can carry the Middlebury name on it if it is not approved by Middlebury,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Although Old Chapel claims that all decisions regarding content will be made by Middlebury, Professor Mayer said she worries that the profit-minded board of directors, which is slanted towards K12, could still influence the programs’ content.

“The fact that this is a for-profit venture will certainly define what the content is,” Mayer wrote in an e-mail. “[I]mportant topics, such as religious conflicts or issues concerning sexual orientation, for example, could be censured (or vetoed).”
“How will we be able to control the contents if Midd’s representatives are less than 50 percent of the board?”

Liebowitz maintains that, in addition to the fact that MIL’s content will be created without K12’s input, the program is only for profit because it is designed to subsidize the very expensive education offered at Middlebury. In essence, it is acting as a fourth revenue stream for the College, like the endowment or tuition.

Approaching what could have been its final weekend of the season, the men’s lacrosse team stepped up and took no prisoners in their Friday and Sunday games against Williams and Amherst, respectively.

Before these games, the Panthers were 8-4 and just 4-4 in conference play, a sub-par performance for a team used to finishing in the top echelons of the competitive NESCAC conference. However, the season has reached its turnaround point, where failure spells elimination and victory leads the team one step closer towards the NCAA Tournament, in which the Panthers have participated for the past 12 seasons.

This high-stakes atmosphere seems to have rejuvenated the team. In Friday afternoon’s game at Williams, the team refused to let up the pressure on the Ephs in what proved to be an incredibly close defensive showdown –– both the Ephs’ goalie and Ryan Deane ’11 made 19 saves on the day.

“In the Williams game we had a great defensive effort,” said David Hild ’11.

“It started with our defensemen and D middies being aggressive and not giving up good opportunities for them, and ended with our goalie, Ryan Deane, playing extremely well, which he’s been doing for us all season.”

Williams opened up the scoring in the first period after a flurry of shots on the Panther net, but Hild quickly countered with a goal of his own to put Middlebury on the board. Although Williams would take 11 more shots in the period, Deane and the solid Panther defense thwarted these attempts, and the score remained knotted at one goal apiece.

The second period followed a similar pattern of Williams going up by a goal and Middlebury answering soon after. The Panthers final score of the period was an exciting last-second goal off of an Eph turnover that allowed Middlebury to enter the half tied with Williams 3-3.

After a scoreless third period, Middlebury took the lead for good with 8:15 remaining in the fourth after Eric Pfeffer ’13 beat his defender and fired a shot into the upper 90 of the net. The Panthers held on for an incredibly rewarding and hard-fought win that allowed them to enter the NESCAC tournament as the sixth seed.

With the beginning of playoffs, it’s a whole new season, according to Hild.

“We’re not thinking about the regular season right now because it isn’t important,” said Hild.

“All that matters is the next game, so that’s what we’re focused on -—winning the next game and continuing our time together as a team.”

The Panthers proved true to their word on Sunday afternoon at Amherst, where they travelled to the brink of elimination and back, and ultimately ended up living to fight another day.

While the Lord Jeffs, looking like a completely changed team from the one that suffered a 14-6 loss at the hands of the Panthers earlier in the season, jumped out to an 8-2 lead, their thoughts of victory would prove to be fleeting.

“I think the turning point was halftime when everyone realized we potentially only had 30 minutes left in our season,” said Hild.

“The biggest thing was not letting our seniors finish their time at Middlebury the way that we were playing, and leaving it all on the field. From then on it was a very different game.”

The Panthers, led by Hild and Tim Cahill ’12, who each netted four goals, surged on a 7-0 run to regain the lead, and never looked back, finishing the game with a score 15-12 in their favor.

The team now looks towards the NESCAC semis and beyond. Their focus is on extending their season as long as possible, and continuing far down the road to NESCAC and NCAA prestige. Bowdoin is currently standing in their way, and should be prepared to stand up to the full force of the Panther drive and determination.

After much discussion, the SGA voted to hold re-elections due to the numerous technological errors that occurred during the online voting process. First, the permission to “edit webforms” on the Drupal Webform module, the program used for the elections, was set to enable all “authenticated users.”

“This means that anyone logged into our website could edit any form on our website,” said SGA Director of Membership Tik Root ’12. “This setting can only be changed by people with the site administrator password. There are no logs of when, or for how long, this option was set this way.”

Michael Roy, Dean of LIS, cited problems with the Drupal module itself.

“Essentially [we were] a victim of this new platform,” he said. “We’ve moved away from the old Microsoft content management system to this new platform called Drupal, and we created a methodology for SGA to run elections using some Drupal forms, but the forms didn’t behave as advertised.”

The problem was then compounded by efforts made to rectify the situation. To address the problem of universal editing access, Root reset all the permissions on the election forms but accidentally reset the class voting groups. As a result, sophomores were set as the voters for the sophomore senator, juniors as voters for the junior senator, and seniors as the voters for the senior senator, although students should actually have voted for the senate position one year above their current year, since they will be in that year when the elected senator assumes his or her position on the SGA. There was a three-hour window during which students could vote in the wrong class senator election before the problem was identified and corrected.

“There was a bug in one of the forms and in debugging the bug, we introduced further bugs,” Roy explained. “There was a mismatch [in] who was supposed to access what data.”

One final problem with the election forms was that all students were granted access to the Cook Commons election. LIS confirmed that some incorrect voting did take place, 19 of the 171 voters for the Cook Commons senator were not on the Cook commons mailing list. This error was not identified for hours; all students could vote in the Cook Commons election from 5 p.m. on Thursday until Friday morning.

Roy added that part of the problem was that the students responsible for setting up the election forms did so very close to election time, effectively eliminating any chance for thorough testing of the finalized forms.

“Students being students,” Roy said, “this was all being done the night before the elections at 2 o’clock in the morning, and then the problems showed up right before [the election]. I’m going to insist that if we’re going to test this properly, the forms be finalized five days beforehand so they can actually be tested.”

The SGA decided to host re-elections as opposed to using the cross-checking abilities of the LIS to verify correct votes, because they did not want to alter results. Also, due to the three-hour window during which students were not allowed to vote for the correct class, the SGA was concerned that students did not go back and vote later if their earlier voting attempt was thwarted. Re-elections will ensure that all students have the same opportunity to vote in the correct elections. Although the SGA recognized that hosting another election may result in lower voter turnout and greater student displeasure, the senators decided to potentially sacrifice higher voter turn-out for the sake of ensuring valid election results.

Roy expressed agreement with the decision to host re-elections.

“I think it is the right thing to do because the data’s not good,” he said.

Campaigning by candidates will be allowed until re-elections begin at 12 p.m. on Thursday.

I was devastated after moving from Cleveland to Connecticut when I was 11. I had to leave my beloved Indians but eventually I learned to love the Red Sox.

Maybe I was too young at the time, but I never remembering criticizing the Indians besides letting go of Manny Ramirez. But I have a lot of problems with the Sox. And enemy number one is Jonathan Papelbon

The man is a goon. He is a fading player. He is slowly becoming the new and un-improved Keith Foulke.

He didn’t always piss me off. He was an integral part of the team’s 2007 World Series win. He holds the record for most consecutive scoreless innings (26) to start a player’s career. In 2006 he had a .92 ERA in nearly 60 games. He consistently musters up around 40 saves every season. But these are not the numbers that bother me.

Papelbon’s GO/AO (ground out to air out) ratio was .41 last year and stands at .71 thus far in 2010.

As a closer, he wants to get easy ground ball outs for a quick inning. The Sox have a great defense-minded infield and are more than capable of putting a game away when ground balls are hit to them. Papelbon can’t keep the ball on the ground and winds up getting a large chunk of his outs from well-hit fly balls that look like they could sail over the fence.

Coupled with this poor GO/AO ratio is his falling strikeout/walk ratio. In 2008, a good year for Paps, he tallied 77 strikeouts with only 8 walks. In 2009 his strikeout count remained about the same at 76 but his walk count rose to 24. In 2010, his walk and strikeout counts are both at 9. Walking men in the ninth inning just puts extra men on base for when those pop-ups eventually turn into extra-base hits.

Why has his strikeout/walk ratio suffered? He is missing his spots. I have seen Martinez set up high and inside so many times only to chase #58’s pitch that wound up low and outside. His ball speed has gone down and his placement is horrible.

I am sick and tired of watching him close games with a high fastball after having loaded the bases and brought the count to 3-2 with 2 outs. It makes for entertaining baseball but I would rather just see them win.

Papelbon is also the head perpetrator in making baseball the slowest game ever. Pitchers in the 1970s would get the throw from the catcher and start the windup three seconds later. Papelbon has to stare behind himself for 10 seconds before grunting at the batter for 20 seconds.

Slow play is unbearable and Bud Selig agrees. He has been fined more than $10,000 at least five times for his slow play.

After a recent game, Papelbon commented on the slow play and said, “Have you ever gone to watch a movie and thought, ‘Man, this movie is so good I wish it would have never ended.’ That’s like a Red Sox-Yankees game. Why would you want it to end?”

Well Jon, I want it to end because the longer you are in the game the more likely it is that you give up runs and lose it for the Sox.

His bad attitude and deteriorating play has won him a 4 year/$40 million contract with the Sox. I say drop this goon and put Daniel Bard in the closer spot. The Sox should have some loyalty, but when Papelbon doesn’t have any loyalty to his team, it’s time to drop him and let a young gun step in.

Some young guns will be stepping into the role of Sports Editor next season and I wish them luck. Have a great summer!

There are plenty of things to love about Middlebury that don’t include walks of shame and awkward dining hall interactions. Whether you are celebrating your last week or your fourth-to-last, embrace Middlebury’s quirks and idiosyncracies. Just don’t get crushed.

Close Encounters:

Weridos: Only in college will you be able to wear that strange outfit and still have friends or ride vehicles with odd numbers of wheels. Embrace it while you can.

Sidewalk friends: “I don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what you did, as long as you…” smile at me on the sidewalk.

Gifford make-out lounge: Wonnacott’s best kept secret. Built for clandestine fun, but make sure you’re clothed by the time custodial comes around.

Dining:

The Grille: Where the going-out and the stressed-out meet to bond over Dr. Feelgoods and cheesy fries. Bonus points if you take someone to The Grille and then take them home.

The Old Chicken Parm (RIP): Your deliciousness created lines out the door of Ross dining hall, but you were always worth the wait. Grilled chicken in tomato sauce will never get this reaction.

Sunday Brunch: Made to order eggs and waffles and rehashing last night’s adventures — what could be better?

Last Day of Classes BBQ: Delicious food, sunshine and the beginning of a weekend of pretending that exams aren’t in the near future.

Juice at Dinner (RIP): But really? Juice is a staple of a well-rounded diet, even at dinner.

Town Chili Fest: The way to a lover’s heart is through their stomach.

Otter Crew Brewery: We love your samples and your sales.

Trays (RIP): You may have been an unnecessary luxury, but love isn’t supposed to be practical

A&W: Two letters can mean so much on a hot spring day.

Parties:

Naked Lap: Whether it’s 3 a.m. or 3 p.m. during a darty, everyone’s a winner even if you’re having a losing “streak.”

Purple Jesus: Band in the basement and mysterious beverage: debauchery ensues.

Flannel/Neon/Ski-themed parties: Dressing in costume: seemed like such a good idea the night before.

“The Bar”: Sometimes you just have to go with the only one available. Plus you always know what you’re doing on Thursday night.

Lake Dunmore: There’s nothing quite like trespassing on state park property with a wiffle ball bat, a 30-rack and about 50 of your closest friends. See “First day of spring.”

Darties: The unique-to-Middlebury term for day drinking, most frequently observed on special occasions, such as St. Patrick’s Day, Derby Day, Winter Carnival, birthdays and throughout Senior Week.

Academics:

Study Abroad: The only Middlebury experience that no one can find the words to describe.

Thesis Carrel: Every thesis writer needs “A Room of One’s Own.”

Late professors: The anticipation of possibly missing class sets many hearts aflutter, even if you could have skipped the 40-person lecture anyway.

Advisors: Whether or not we actually visited your office, it was nice to know you were there.

First-year seminars: An interesting topic, a new place, a room full of eager young faces. It’s the first community you establish at Middlebury, even if it only lives on in awkward waves and smiles.

Dinner at professor’s house: (Non-dining hall food + not being in a dorm) x free drinks = true love.

Events:

The Snowbowl: When people question why you wanted to go to a small town college in Vermont, just tell them you have your own mountain.

Square Dance: Thank you, Middlebury, for facilitating my first of many flannel-clad hookups.

Orange Crush: The most colorful crush we have. Who doesn’t love the opportunity to wear neon spandex.

Otters: Even if you never go to this improv group again, don’t miss the April 20th show. A sense of humor is sexy.

Winter Carnival: One of Middlebury’s few campus-wide traditions.

Outdoors:

First day of Spring: Even though it’s only 42 degrees, everyone is wearing shorts, flip-flops and a smile.

Snake Mountain: You don’t have to be in the Mountain Club to enjoy this hike, but don’t go on a Friday night unless you bring a date.

First Snowfall: Especially when there’s someone from Hawaii in your class, the excitement is contagious. Forget classes, forget work! There are snow forts to be built. No matter how stressed you are, walking out of Proctor and getting a snowball lobbed in your face (or someone else’s face) can brighten your day — especially during the first snowfall.

Sunset at the organic garden: Pretend to be a Vermont hippie, even if just for one warm spring night.

Twilight Swing-set: You’ll never be too old to walk past a swing set and feel compelled to stop. It also makes for a fun stop on the way home from the bar.

Dorm damage remains a large problem on campus, with some dorms paying thousands a year. //Public Safety

“During J-term we usually have a lot [of incidents] because there’s a lot of drinking going on,” Ross said. “But it didn’t seem to stop after J-term ended and we started our spring semester as usually it does.”

March and April have been particularly costly months for Prescott House (ADP), where there have been recent incidences of broken chairs and tables, smashed outdoor lights, charred remains of a fire pit, food on the walls and other damage. The $2,484.84-worth of damage in March and April represents 73 percent of the $3,401.34 in house damage overall this school year. In contrast, Weybridge House cost only $21.50, and that was due to an accidental fire alarm.

Outer houses like Palmer and Fletcher have experienced more damage this year on the whole, according to Public Safety Sergeant Chris Thompson. But Thompson emphasized that this damage is not necessarily perpetrated by residents and has to do more with their propensity for throwing large parties.

Dorms, too, have taken a hit in the last few months. In a recent incident in Hadley, someone used a toilet seat to smash the glass in a vending machine and steal all of the food inside. In both Stewart and Forest Halls, windows were shattered, and in the basement of Forest, Facilities found ceiling tiles smashed on the ground. Kelly, Milliken and Lang have also received their fair share of wear and tear this year. Overall, though, damage has been spread fairly equally around campus.

“It’s been pretty straight across the board,” Thompson said. “The usual stuff that happens on weekends; people get a little over-zealous.”

Although damage this calendar year is up, this damage has not exceeded that done at the same point in the last school year. According to the most recent estimates, damages this school year represent a $15,000 drop, from $68,441.60 last year to $53,455.73 this year, although the disparity may narrow as the year progresses and when unfilled work orders are closed out.

However, incidents of vandalism still remain far above what they were ten years ago. In 2000, there were only 29 incidents campus-wide, and in 2007 incidents reached a peak at 236. There were 134 incidents in 2009, and 77 so far in 2010. Last school year, the school spent $86,564.08 fixing damage, and Facilities anticipates that around $20,000 will have to be spent between now and the end of the school year.

Facilities, which reports and often cleans up the damage, recently cut staff, which means that the individual employees have not seen a decrease in work. But Ross cautions not to rationalize the short staff issue as the cause for perception of increased recent damage.

“Taking a look at the fact that we’ve downsized our department doesn’t give any excuse for dorm damage,” Ross said. “[Students should] be responsible, that’s all.”

Assistant director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Jennifer Grotz read from “Cusp” and her forthcoming book, “The Needle.” / Cha Tori

On Friday, April 30 Assistant Director of the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference Jennifer Grotz gave a reading of her work in the Abernethy Room of the Axinn Center at Starr Library.

The event was sponsored by The New England Review, Cook Commons and the Department of English and American Literatures. Grotz, an alumnus of the writer’s conference herself, entertained her audience with witty interjections dispersed between poems of cool meditations and introspective connections.

After completing her BA at Tulane Univerity in 1993, Grotz continued her education, receiving her MA in English from Indiana University and then her PhD in literature and creative writing at the University of Houston. Since then, a seemingly never ending series of fellowships and grants have allowed her to work abroad, translating poetry from the French and exploring Polish writing.

Fulton Professor of Humanities and editor of the New England Review, Stephen Donadio, introduced Grotz with reverent words that touched upon her accomplishments as a writer and her qualities as a respected colleague.

“You know more about me than my last boyfriend!” Grotz joked as she took the podium and applause faded into laughter.

Through some Hollywood-induced manipulation, poetry readings have taken on a certain stereotype: bongos, mood lighting, the poet dressed in all black, a theatrical reading, and finger snapping. True, Grotz was wearing black, but the experience of listening to her read could not have been any more different from the cliché.

As the poems began to fill the room, it became clear that Grotz’s work is the product of her own sincere way of interpreting the world around her. “You can write a poem about anything,” Grotz commented between “object poems,” or pieces that focused on a single item and yet, true to her style, expanded far beyond the object that instigated them into life.

The manner in which she read her work offered the poems objectively and allowed the audience to take them as they were and impose its own inflections. Grotz made her poetry accessible by offering honest insights about her creative process that punctuated her serious poetic musings with humor.

Her straightforward manner assured spectators that there was no “catch” to what they were hearing but that her poems were her uninhibited reactions to a certain provocation.

Following the current of Grotz’s poetry is, in a way, what makes it most interesting. She expresses a mind that can draw connections between objects and experiences that normally exist unassociated, breaking down conventional categories and defamiliarizing readers to their surroundings.

Grotz’s writing exudes a fearlessness that comes from her ability to allow a poem to explore all of the different paths of thought a source of inspiration can spark, lingering on a subject but in no way staying still.

Grotz’s first book of poetry titled “Cusp” won the Katharine Nason Bakeless Prize and the Natalie Ornish Best First Book of Poetry Prize from the Texas Institute of Letters and her second publication, “The Needle,” is forthcoming in 2011. Grotz focused her reading on poems that have been published by The New England Review to pay tribute to the event but also included poems from

“The Needle.”

Her newer writing retains her characteristic train of thought as well as the rich cultural references found in “Cusp.” However, an investigative, more playful tone veils her more recent poetry, which prompted her to describe them as “weird” in that they were created out of a process unfamiliar to her.

“I was getting bored with myself,” she explained. Later she admitted, “I honestly felt a little embarrassed reading those to you just now,” proving the intimacy of her work.

On a similar key of bashfulness, Grotz tried to deflect the attention from herself at a dinner held in her honor later that evening. During a round of introductions she cried, “You all already know everything about me!” and finally offered, “I’m recently interested in boxing. I love boxing — not playing, just watching.”

Grotz’s poems are the composite of a woman who is just as comfortable befriending a peacock at a monastery in the French countryside as she is at a feral boxing match.

On the women’s side, Margo Cramer ’12 was Middlebury’s top finisher in the 800m run, placing third with a time of 2:13.52. Cramer was followed closely by first-year Juliet Ryan-Davis ’13, who took fifth with a time of 2:13.90.

Assistant Coach Nicole Wilkerson considers Cramer and Ryan-Davis’s performances in the 800m two of the highlights of the meet.

“Quite exciting was that [Ryan-Davis] ended up fifth overall in the 800m from the slowest section of the 800m. She won that heat by about five seconds, and her time not only placed her fifth overall but qualified her provisionally for Nationals,” said Wilkerson.

Cramer and Ryan-Davis, joined by Laura Dalton ’10 and Anjuli Demers ’10, were also part of the 4X400m relay team that took third. Posting a time of 3:36.82, the relay broke Middlebury’s school record by almost two seconds, and came within about one half of a second of the provisional qualifying time for Nationals.

Other top finishes for the Panther women included Dalton’s second place finish in the 400m hurdles (1:03.44), and a seventh place finish in the same event by Alice Wisener ’11 (1:06.67).

Amanda Lee ’11, who was previously named NESCAC Performer of the Week for her success in the steeplechase at the Princeton Invitational, took fifth in the 3000m steeplechase with a time of 11:30.51.

In the 400m dash, Grace Close ’11 placed 20th (1:01.44) while teammate Christina Kunycky ’11 took 22nd (1:02.10). First-year Sarah-O’Brien ’13 was Middlebury’s top performer in the 1500m run (5:00.28), and Julia Sisson ’12 was the top Panther in the heptathlon, placing ninth in the event.

In the field, first-year Grace Doering ’13 also brought in points for the women, taking fifth in the high jump (1.63m). In the pole vault, Danielle Baker ’13 took 10th (3.10m) and Jocelyn Breton ’12 placed 12th (2.95m).

The Middlebury men also had a strong presence in the 1500m run. Michael Schmidt ’12 took sixth in the event with a time 3:55.14, breaking the school record, which has been broken twice already this year. Wilkerson notes that Michael Waters ’10 had set the new record only two weeks ago at 3:55.24. “Kind of a fun battle going on there,” she commented.

Schmidt was followed in the 1500m by Jack Davies ’13 (3:56.46), Waters (3:56.60) and Victor Guevara ‘10 (3:57.82), who took 10th, 11th and 14th, respectively.

Micah Wood ’10 also earned points for the Panthers with his fifth place finish in the 400m dash (49.59). Wood was followed by teammates Ethan Mann ’12, who took 10th (50.04), and Connor Wood ’11, who placed 19th (50.86).

Mann, and Micah and Connor Wood were joined by Louis Cornacchione ’13 in the 4X400m relay, taking seventh with a time of 3:24.28. The men’s 4X800m relay of Davies, Waters, Guevara and Schmidt also scored, taking fifth in the event with a time of 7:53.06.

First-year Stu Fram ’13 garnered points for the men with his third place finish in the 110m hurdles (15.26).

Addison Godine ’11 also scored for the Panthers, taking seventh in the 800m run with a time of 1:54.53. The top Panther in the 400m hurdles was Jason Jan ’12, who took 13th with a time of 57.23. Middlebury’s top performer in the 3000m steeplechase was Nat Nelson ’11, who took 13th with a time of 10:01.40.

In the field, Silas Wong ’12 placed ninth in the triple jump (13.44m), while Nicholas Plugis ’11 scored for the Panthers in the javelin throw, taking fourth overall (57.06m).

The men’s and women’s track and field team now prepare for the Open New England Championship to be held next weekend at Northeastern University. Wilkerson is looking forward to the meet with great anticipation.

“[We’re] excited for Open New Englands –– overall a higher quality field to compete against,” she said.

“I’m looking for some season or lifetime bests to come from it, and the team will get some rest this week to be ready for it.”

The Bedard family purchased the business about 10 years ago from Christine DuMond who operated Illuminée DuMonde — a beeswax candle store started in the 1980’s. Bedard had been working as the business manager of Illuminée DuMonde and knew the ins and outs of the beeswax candle industry pretty well. Soon after the Bedards acquired the business, they moved to the store’s current address.

Although the Bedards do not raise their own bees (the Vermont climate does not allow for it) they do all of the candlemolding and -coloring themselves. The candle-making process starts with melting 20-pound blocks of beeswax. Next the pale yellow wax is turned into vibrant colors ranging from baby blue to ruby red. Scents are not added to candles, which instead retain the sweet fragrance of beeswax. Lastly, the molding process shapes the wax into little tealights, votives, tapers or more intricately shaped candles.

Burning beeswax candles is environmentally friendly, as they burn slower than paraffin candles, and paraffin is derived from petroleum. Beeswax candles also purify the air as negative ions are released when the candles are burnt and can aid in treating insomnia.

“If you have trouble sleeping you can light a beeswax candle for about an hour before you go to bed,” said Bedard, “You’ll sleep better.”

Another characteristic of beeswax candles is their tendency to “bloom” — a term used to describe the oxidation process that forms a white, powdery coating on the candle. Many wipe this substance off for a polished look, while others like the marbleized texture it creates.

“Number one it proves it is real and not a paraffin imitation, and also it reminds me of raspberries,” added Bedard.

When the company began, the candle products were put on shelves. This did not resonate well with customers who often commented that they didn’t know how to display them in their homes. Once candles were displayed with furniture and home accessories, people had a better idea of how to incorporate candles into their living spaces. Vermont HoneyLights continues this tradition today, and even has some pieces of furniture, custom-made by David Bedard, for sale.

In recent years Vermont HoneyLights expanded its inventory by selling Vermont jams and sauces, birthday cards, purses and raw honey. The business is currently in the process of revamping its website. Although Bedard plans to improve her business to keep up with modern times, the company will always stay true to the its core. Part of this means committing to dealing solely with American suppliers. All candles are made from beeswax harvested by American beekeepers and all additional products are domestically produced.

“We sometimes go completely outside of the box, as long as it stays true to the heart of the company,” said Bedard.

These 13 students were selected by a five-person committee composed of one student member and one faculty member each from Community Council and the current Judicial Boards, as well as the judicial affairs officer, a position currently held by Associate Dean of the College Karen Guttentag.

The first step in the selection process, according to Guttentag, was to identify the qualities of a strong board member.

Among these traits, Guttentag listed open-mindedness, a confidence in one’s personal moral direction, good listening skills, responsibility and “an awareness and belief in the community values that underlie our policies,” and a personal record of upholding and understanding these policies.

“I think that it’s important for Judicial Board members to have an open mind, the ability to keep case details confidential and the motivation to try to come to a decision that is fair and right,” said Amy Schlueter ’13, a new member of the AJB.
Jackie Yordan, ’13 another new AJB member, explained her qualification for the position.

“I understand the importance of being unbiased and the importance of being willing to listen to every side of an argument,” she said. “I understand the pressures that come with this job.” 

The position is certainly high-pressure, and a few of the newly selected members alluded to the demands of being a part of the board. Not only is participating in the judicial process time-consuming, but the responsibility of balancing the needs and assessing the interests of the Middlebury community can also be stressful. Overall, however, the new members expressed enthusiasm about their undertaking.

“It represents a process through which students take a part in deciding on disciplinary matters,” said Arthur Choo, ’12, a CJB member. “Middlebury is place where, ideally, discipline isn’t imposed in a top-down manner. Rather, members of the community uphold standards and hold people accountable to those standards. It’s great.”

Students in the Davis UWC Scholars Program gather to celebrate its 10th anniversary //Brett Simison

By the end of that first visit at the United World College (UWC) in Montezuma, New Mexico, Shelby M.C. Davis was mesmerized.

“Every religion, every culture, every circumstance, and here they were, working as a team. I didn’t have to be sold, it sells itself,” she said last Thursday at the 10th anniversary celebration of the Davis United World Colleges Scholars Program, held in McCullough Social Space. The program provides scholarships for 113 students at the College and a total of 2,007 students from 140 countries at 92 American colleges and universities.

During the celebration, Middlebury Magazine editor Matt Jennings held public interviews with co-founders Shelby Davis and Phillip Geier, and three alumni who attended Middlebury through the scholarships, Helene Songe ’04, Yohanne “Kido” Kidolezi ’05 and Livia Vastag ’07.

Davis pointed out that it was the drive and academic talent of UWC students that led him to establish a scholarship fund. UWC students come from over 180 countries, and the fact that they could excel academically in schools that taught in English, a second language, left a deep impression on him.

“If they can get into these five schools, [including Middlebury], where my family had gone … then why shouldn’t I invest in them or support them to come to America and continue their education?” she said.

Kidolezi ’05, now a MBA candidate at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, talked about how attending a UWC changed his life.

“Had I not gone to UWC, I probably would be married with two, three kids in rural Tanzania, growing rice and bananas and corn and having my own hut in a village where I was raised,” he said.

He plans to apply his knowledge in developing markets to the educational system in his home country.

Rhubini Kunasegaran ‘13 reflected on her UWC experiences, noting the personal growth she underwent at Pearson UWC of the Pacific, “We’re just a bunch of kids who’ve had this amazing opportunity to experience living with a bunch of other kids from different ends of the world. It’s like the world’s your neighbourhood. How do you come out of an experience like that?”

Though it has made unparalleled differences in the life of scholarship recipients, the Davis UWC program was also intended to positively influence the entire student body at each participant university.

“We can provide ongoing scholarships for amazing kids, which would in turn will further help internationalize the undergraduate experience at a place like Middlebury,” said Geier.

“Through their daily and personal contact with students from many different countries and cultures, all our students become much more knowledgeable about world affairs or understanding of the needs and concerns of people in other parts of the world,” remarked President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz at the ceremony.

Students also addressed the actual significance of international students in broadening perspectives on campus.
James Stepney ’10, a student from New York City said, “I’m interested in their stories, and just overall the vibes and the positivity that they can bring, not just [in] college but in life.”

However, the stereotype that international students are “antisocial” or “insular” has acted as a hindrance to bringing out the unique experiences they have to share.

“It’s so easy to be perceived as a group that doesn’t interact with any other group if you’re easily identifiable,” said Harry Magotswi ’11. “Take any of the sports teams — it’s a group that’s difficult for anyone from outside to be in. You don’t just walk up to the football team and sit down and have dinner with them.”

He further emphasized the importance of meeting these people on an individual basis and realizing “that they’re not antisocial” but that they are “some of the most welcoming and warm people.”

Stepney also emphasized that stereotyped students had to actively break down toxic misconceptions.

“Generally, somebody who feels like they are submitting themselves to the stereotype, if they become aware of that, they should ask themselves things like, ‘What can [I] do to be more proactive and [get] outside of that social stereotype?’” he said.

Another issue of importance to students was the decrease in financial assistance the Davis UWC scholarship program could provide for UWC graduates coming to the College, beginning with the class of 2014.

Originally, the scholarship program provided $40,000 a year for four years, but that amount has decreased by 50 percent due to the recession. A New York Times article last spring reported that the administration has tried to cope with this new change by trying to “attract more affluent applicants by stepping up its recruitment efforts in areas such as Western Europe and Hong Kong.” While many students found this move necessary in light of other budget cuts, several students believe it contradicts the College’s ideals of globalization.

“Although I understand the reasons, I am sad that the Davis Scholars program cut back on financial aid,” said Jakob Terwitte ‘13. “It [makes] it tougher, if not impossible, for many very talented UWC Scholars to come to Middlebury. I think the Davis Program has been incredibly successful in bringing international students from all socioeconomic backgrounds to Middlebury, and the cuts will necessarily cause the socioeconomic diversity of international students to decrease.”

Stepney agreed, expressing hopes that a post-recession Middlebury would take steps to preserve both the socioeconomic and cultural diversity that “makes Middlebury what it is.”

Before that, however, I graced half the campus (or at least most of the campus surrounding Allen, my freshman dorm) with my sexcapades, and before college I was really creative because someone in my family was usually home and I didn’t have access to all of the empty academic buildings that Middlebury offers at night.

Those endeavors were really exciting, and I’ve been thinking lately that destination sex shouldn’t just be out of necessity. As we all prepare for the great diaspora preceding summer vacation — and I know summer lovin’ is on everyone’s mind behind all of that final exam nonsense — I present some “greatest hits” of destination sex. You’ll notice lots of them are outside because we spend all winter snowed in.

Before I jump in, my general rule of thumb for fairly public sex is that unless you’re an exhibitionist, the likelihood that someone will see you and your partner going at it is about equal to the amount of clothing you should keep on — so if you think there’s an 80 percent chance of someone catching you in the act, you should probably keep 80 percent of your clothing on your body and the rest within reach in case you need to make a quick escape. Just a thought.

On to the places! First off, I just want to say kudos to the couple I walked in on in Hillcrest last year. It was just before 5 in the afternoon on a Friday last March and they were doing it on the desks at the front of the room with the shades up, and I’m pretty sure a lecture was scheduled at 5:30 or 6. Bold move. Almost as bold as doing it in one of the fishbowl seminar rooms in Bi-hall.

If you’re looking for someplace less ostentatious on campus, the natural amphitheater behind the cemetery is a good place (or so I hear — I haven’t been there yet), and a friend of mine made good use of the soft grass on top of Atwater dining hall — we need to use it for something now that it’s closed, right? Empty studies, the group study rooms in the library, the greenhouse in Bi-hall (that place is popular — just read the logbook), any of the dark wood-paneled rooms in Axinn (anybody see the sex scene in Atonement?) and even Mead Chapel (if you don’t mind the hard pews and you’re not particularly religious) are all other good options — just don’t leave a mess.

Off campus, you might think, “Sex on the beach!” but I promise it’s not worth it — you just get a lot of sand in really uncomfortable places and there is nowhere to run if the cops catch you. Believe me, I know. Doing it in a kayak or a canoe however — that’s a good kind of rocking the boat, if you know what I mean, and it’s a lot more private.

I like to think that destination sex is not just about doing it outside of the bedroom, but that it’s also about picking a place that adds to the experience either because someone might catch you (if you like that feeling) or because it’s just a beautiful space, so doing it in a gas station bathroom doesn’t exactly fit the bill. Shenanigans on a roof however, especially under a sky full of stars, are amazing.

A secluded meadow or on the hood of a car (preferably a nice car, but either way put a blanket down so you don’t burn your bare ass) or even just doing it in a different room at a different time of day (or during a thunderstorm — so epic) are other excellent choices.

Whatever you’re doing this summer, and wherever you do it, I hope it’s good.

Dr. Dog is an apparition — a “memory” of a past era, a feel-good mood that was born during the Summer of Love; indeed, this is a band that has drawn enough comparisons to the Beatles to make you sick.

Despite being a relatively current band, Dr. Dog releases classic rock ‘n’ roll music. For instance, the track “Station” clearly draws upon the folk-rock style of The Band with the easy-going acoustic guitar slide riffs, the moody organ and the strained lyrical harmonies. Even more, it’s as if the tune captures the essence of Rick Danko and Levon Helm’s voices effortlessly.

“Stranger,” which is also the lead track, opens in grandiose fashion by climbing and descending a scale in a way that shamelessly rips off the vocal melody from The Rolling Stones’ “Dandelion.”

However, “Shame, Shame” is not as adamantly stuck in the past as previous albums, which favored jamming over neat song structure. Instead, Dr. Dog uses cleaner production to capture moods beyond those attained by bright solos.

For instance, title track “Shame, Shame” is a tired dream achieved through a clean organ, wishy-washy background vocals and drippy guitar riffs. Halfway through the song, the vocals are forcefully strained to escape the overbearing haze.

This dreamy mood plays on the theme of the album: On “Shame, Shame” Dr. Dog admits to a focus on past musical styles — making the band nothing more than an apparition — but they capture this focus through moodier production that seems more current.

In fact, this may be Dr. Dog’s most eerie album, as it mixes past and present styles to create an unfamiliar sound. For example, “Where’d All the Time Go?” includes barbershop vocal harmonizing and 70’s style guitar riffs, yet the overwhelming vocal and instrumental build up during the chorus is chaotic and hip.

And “Someday” starts with a feeling of vast emptiness that is modern sounding, but the song quickly retreats to the expected Dr. Dog pop: triumphant vocal harmonizing that is, for lack of a better descriptor, very Beatles-esque.

The ability to mix styles in a unique way has earned “Shame, Shame” more critical acclaim. However, I hope that Dr. Dog doesn’t listen too much to their critics.

While I do enjoy exciting albums that attempt to innovate, I think that too much value is assigned to progressive experimentation and not enough is left to simple feel-good jamming. For this reason, I am both happy for Dr. Dog yet fearful for their future.

Simply put, I liked the old Dr. Dog, and I don’t want their roots to be lost in an attempt to innovate for the critics.

“Shame, Shame” is still full of happy moments. The bouncy “Jackie Wants a Black Eye” invites a sing-along: “We’re all in it together now.” “Shadow People” starts with strung out vocals and a dusty acoustic guitar, but slowly adds in more instruments to build to an epic finish.

And “Unbearable Why,” with its wavering and cyclical chorus, gives off a care free, easy going vibe. Indeed, these are the moments where Dr. Dog shines. And it is for these moments that I have played “Shame, Shame” continuously on repeat.

Josh Johnson ‘13

Nevada Research Expedition

“Geology rocks,” Josh Johnson ’13 quipped when asked about his plans for the coming months. This summer, the prospective geology major will be joining Professor Jeff Munroe on a two-week research expedition to northeastern Nevada. The trip, led by Munroe and Dr. Ben Laabs, geology professor at SUNY Geneseo, will have students from both schools backpacking through the Ruby and East Humboldt Mountains.

“They’re trying to develop climate change records from the region, looking at sediment cores of high-elevation lakes,” Johnson said.

This is the second year into the professors’ three-year project. With the help of National Science Foundation funding and a team of pack mules, the researchers will be drilling cores and taking sledgehammers to glacier boulders in an effort to collect samples for dating.

As one of just two Middlebury first-years taking part in the project this year, the Washington D.C. native is “super excited” about this opportunity.

“It’s going to be the most exciting part of my summer,” Johnson said.

Maddie Niemi ‘11

London Hedge Fund

Full immersion, it seems, is not a technique reserved solely for language majors. Maddie Niemi ’11 will shortly be crossing the Atlantic and diving headfirst into the business world.

Over the course of eight weeks, Niemi will be working on two major projects for a London-based hedge fund. The first entails researching the legal and economic implications of opening a branch of the company in Turkey. The second involves looking into Middle East- and Southeast Asia-based companies that may be good investment options.

“I’m at a place now where I’m considering a law degree, a business degree or a Ph.D. in economics,” she said. “This might give me insight into all of them.”

Though nervous about being on her own and possibly the company’s only intern, she looks forward to exploring a new city and learning about business practices around the world. After spending last summer doing legal research for her advisor at Middlebury, she is especially interested in the tax and business laws of the regions.

Having joined a firm that rarely takes interns in an already-sparse market, Niemi feels quite lucky. “I’m really happy to have this job,” she said.

Santiago Zindel ‘13

Palm Beach Zoo

After a year in Middlebury, where a glimpse of a deer is a respectable dose of wildlife, Santiago Zindel ’13 has his sights set on some slightly more exotic companions. Zindel, originally from Mexico City but currently residing in Palm Beach, Florida, will be working as an intern at the Palm Beach Zoo this summer.

Zindel is one of many college students participating in the internship program offered by the zoo. The program is divided into four areas of concentration: avian care, primate care, carnivore care and behavioral training. While interns in the first three groups will have feeding and cleaning duties for specific types of animals, Zindel will be shadowing trainers of a wide variety of species.

“I’m planning on a bio major, so I was looking for an internship to do with animals,” he said.

Zindel took a “backstage tour” of the zoo over Feb break where he was able to get a closer look at the training and care of the animals. He was especially impressed by the zoo’s humane approach to the animals’ monthly check-ups.

“Most zoos just tranquilize them, but with Palm Beach’s policy, they train the animals for the least intervention possible,” he said. For example, tigers are trained to keep their mouths open and put their paws up against a fence for examination.

After sending in his application earlier this spring, Zindel was interviewed by phone and selected for the internship. Though he has not settled on a career path just yet, he looks forward to beginning his foray into the study of animal behavior.

Jared Smith ‘13

Birthright Israel

For Jared Smith ’13, a safe and all-expenses-paid trip to a land relevant to both his own roots and current world issues sounded like an excellent summer plan.

Smith is one of seven members of Middlebury Hillel who will be traveling with Birthright Israel this summer. The students will embark on a 10-day journey with an itinerary that includes rafting down the Jordan River, a seminar on Arab-Israeli relations, exploring Jerusalem, camel riding and much more.

Birthright is funded by donations from philanthropists and Jewish communities worldwide in an effort to give young adults a chance to learn more about their heritage and strengthen the international community. Eligible participants are Jewish, between the ages of 18 and 26 and have not studied or lived in Israel after the age of 12.

For Smith, the application process alone, though not all too difficult, was eye-opening. “I think the hardest part was the statement of intent,” he said. “It wasn’t really until I got to that part of the application that I really had to think of why I wanted to do it.”

Though the prospect of free travel was alluring in itself, he was mostly drawn to the trip’s personal value.

“The biggest part for me is getting to experience a culture that would otherwise be difficult to experience, especially for safety reasons,” he said.

Dan Murphy ‘11

Sheperd Poverty Alliance Internship in Atlanta

Dan Murphy ’11 began crafting his summer plans when a campus-wide email from the Alliance from Civic Engagement (ACE) office caught his attention earlier this year. The message mentioned internships offered by the Shepherd Poverty Alliance, based at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.

“The alliance is a group of colleges that gets together to promote poverty curricula in colleges, studying poverty in America and promoting anti-poverty work,” he said. “It sounded like something that I was really interested in — community mental health and psychosocial well-being in low-income families.”

After a rigorous application process requiring a resumé, transcript, multiple recommendations and an interview, Murphy was chosen to fill one of two available positions. He will be working for Families First, a social services organization in Atlanta, Georgia. His work will consist of “promoting community integration” for primarily low-income families in the area. By making house visits and working on collaborative projects such as a community garden, he hopes to make a difference in these families’ lives.

“We’ll be determining what they need and how we can help,” he said.

Murphy is also eager to live independently for a change, as he and three other interns will be living in an apartment at Georgia Tech.

“Hopefully I’ll make some new friends and connections,” he said, “and I’ll be in charge of my own food.”

The article I wrote chronicled the surprising repercussions of too much aid in Haiti. The Haitian government has asked that the international community stop providing free health care and curb donations of food aid. Officials felt that Haitian citizens were becoming reliant on the aid, stalling the economic progress of the recovery. They were also noticing levels of corruption within their own law enforcement sector in relation to the distribution of aid.

Parke’s article on the other hand, highlighted the extremely praiseworthy efforts of Middlebury College students who have worked on a variety of fundraising initiatives for Haiti. They stressed the need of both the Middlebury community, and international community at large, to not let fundraising momentum fade. They note that there is still much work to do in rebuilding the struggling nation, and Haitian citizens continue to suffer from the devastation of the natural distaster.

While our articles seem to be in direct opposition, I believe that the message that can be taken from both pieces is actually closer than it appears. I think the key point that can be taken from both articles is the extreme difficulty that faces those within the humanitarian paradigm.

I hope that it is obvious that I would never condemn individuals for trying to raise funds for suffering individuals in another country. However, I do believe that way forward is not as beneficial as it may seem.

When I hear of resources being placed in storage in Haiti for future conflicts (because the over-allocation is causing looting and corruption), I wonder if the citizens of the Congo, or of Sudan who have been ignored by the international community.

If there are sites where an overabundance of aid is actually detrimental to the rebuilding effort, does it not seem reasonable to divert some of those resources to states in greater need?

While this is a gross oversimplification of the issue, I believe that its usefulness can be found in the ethical dilemmas it brings to light. Firstly, is it acceptable for NGO’s or government organizations to divert aid from one conflict to another when individuals donated believing that their money would be put toward the initial conflict?

Secondly, can one state ever receive too much aid? As Parke’s article rightly points out, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. It was this way however, before the earthquake struck in January. Is it the ‘job’ of the international community to help this national become, “better than it was before”?

How unsatisfying it feels to close an article with no answers to the questions posed within it. I hope however, that the divide between the two articles in the last issue may have been somewhat resolved. Though the Haiti disaster is undeniably important, I feel it is important to recognize that it is not the only crisis that the international community should focus on.

While many expressed concerns about these unprecedented housing reforms, the uproar eventually died down and men and women are able to live in the same halls without a second thought.

In our parents’ day coed residence halls were new and progressive. Today, Middlebury is at the forefront of a new frontier in housing: gender-neutral dorms.

On Sunday night, first-year Senator Tony Huynh introduced a presentation that called on the SGA to support gender-neutral housing at Middlebury. The proposed initiative, entitled “The Rooming Choice Act” was co-written by Huynh, Elizabeth King ’13 and Joey Radu ’13. The three students explained that the goal of the proposal is to create “a better, more tolerant, open environment on campus.”

“The college is not treating people who are legally adults as adults and allowing them to choose with whom they think they would be most compatible living,” said King.

What does gender-neutral housing entail, you ask?

The SGA resolution advocates that “gender should play no role in housing for sophomores and above.” This means that all students, regardless of gender, would be free to live together in any of Middlebury’s housing options, including doubles. This is less of a change than one might think, however, as the “Principles of Residential Life” in the College Handbook already state that “every residential unit is open to all students without regard to race, sex, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression or disability.”

Based on this language, it sounds as if Middlebury already has a policy of gender-neutrality.

Radu and King, both first-years in Atwater Commons, realized during spring room-draw that the college’s current policy of providing doubles to only same-gender roommates is not documented within the College Handbook.

They explained to the SGA that while applying for a two-room double in Coffrin, they were sent back and forth between various administrators and offices. There was no procedure in place to handle their request. Furthermore, no one immediately knew who had the final call on whether or not the pair could be roommates.

Their search for answers finally ended when Atwater Dean Scott Barnicle amended the Atwater Constitution to allow gender-neutrality in all two-room doubles. From there King and Radu decided to pursue a campus-wide policy change that would allow for gender-neutrality in all dorms, eliminating the system’s current vagueness once and for all.

The Rooming Choice Act calls upon the SGA to advocate for both a policy of complete gender-neutrality in all upperclassmen dorms and a search for a feasible option for gender-neutrality in first-year housing. While well over 50 colleges across the country have some form of gender-neutral housing, very few include the option for first-years. Two notable exceptions are Hampshire College and Skidmore College.

Radu, King and Huynh chose to focus on solely upperclassmen in this initiative due to the added difficulty of neutralizing first-year housing. Since first-years do not choose their roommates, finding an adequate solution will prove more complicated.

Nevertheless, they expressed their clear dissatisfaction with a housing system that ignores the discomfort first-years may feel when placed with a roommate of the same gender.

“Whose comfort are we valuing when we room a gay man with a straight man?” said Radu.

The SGA resolution calls for Middlebury to make every effort to create “a supportive environment for all students, regardless of identity as transgender or queer.”

A housing system that assumes all students would feel most comfortable rooming with someone of the same gender ignores the presence of the queer community.

Encompassing gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and other groups that do not identify as strictly heterosexual and “male” or “female,” many members of the queer community would in fact feel more comfortable rooming with someone of different gender.

“You get to choose who you live with — it’s a comfort thing,” said Huynh of the initiative.

The presenters addressed several common concerns with gender-neutral housing. While many skeptics immediately expressed concerns with a system that would allow heterosexual couples to room together, Radu and King emphasized that this has not been a problem on any of the campuses that have implemented gender-neutral housing. They reminded their audience that homosexual couples are in fact allowed to live together under the current system. The presenters also advocated that gender-neutrality be implemented in all upperclassmen dorms, as opposed to a select few.

“It’s isolating individuals who do want to live in a gender-neutral room, which isn’t really what the point of this policy change would be,” said King of confining gender-neutrality to certain spaces.

Ultimately, the SGA passed the resolution with a unanimous vote. With the support of the most prominent student organization on campus, The Rooming Choice Act stands a much better chance of being passed by the administration next fall. Should Middlebury embrace gender-neutrality in housing, students can expect the option by room draw next spring.

For the Panthers, it is their third straight loss after winning seven consecutive matches and drops their record to 12-4 and 4-3 in NESCAC play. Despite the recent string of losses, head coach Mike Morgan continues to be pleased with his team’s performance.

“The bottom line is that the team played with tremendous heart and fight against a very talented Amherst team,” said Morgan.

“In a funny way, I think everyone felt like it was the start of the season.  It was a great step to move forward playing like this, but everyone knows that we have plenty of really tough challenges lying ahead.”

Senior co-captain Jamie Haar ’10 reiterated Morgan’s sentiments. “The match against Amherst was a great one in that I think we played the way we know how to play,” said Haar.

“Even though we had a hiccup against Tufts last weekend, we didn’t let that get in the way of playing some great tennis. We had the win at our fingertips, but we were unable to convert in the last two matches.”

The Panthers were points away from victory. Doubles team Victoria Aiello ’12 and Anna Burke ’12 were defeated 9-8 (7-3) in a tiebreaker. It was one of three tiebreakers the Panthers would lose on the day, accompanying two crucial third set losses that would have swung the result in Middlebury’s favor.

Four more points for Aiello and Burke would have sealed a victory for the Panthers. But the Jeffs had their own plans as Amherst rallied late with two three-set victories to ensure the second seed in the NESCAC tournament where Middlebury hopes to capitalize.

“This experience of coming so close to beating the second-ranked team in the country I think will help us in the NESCAC tournament in regards to playing under pressure,” said Haar.

“Everyone competed well and the energy was high. If we compete the way we did against Amherst, I think we can beat anyone.”

Haar was one of the bright spots for the Panthers in the performance against the Jeffs, as she won both her doubles match with first-year player Alexandra McAtee ’13 and her singles match later in the afternoon.

Like many others, Haar credits much of the success of the team to its younger players, which features a very talented first-year class.

“I think the underclassmen — especially the first-years — handled the pressure with a lot of poise and left everything out on the court,” she said.

The Panthers return to Amherst this Friday to compete in the NESCAC tournament.

So clearly, that little parable was just to get your attention. Anthony Adragna’s article last week raised many big questions for me that I would like to share with the student body. While I admire the spirit behind Adragna’s call for more tolerance at Middlebury, closed-mindedness and a fear to depart from old habits seems to be a symptom of the greater issue at hand. This is the fact that we are not yet fully-realized people, living together in this very surreal oasis for self-discovery and achievement. Let us step back and look at the bigger picture of our diverse collegiate experience.

The fact of the matter is identity cannot be solved by any old label. While labels do need to exist, they are only a small part of who we are and the other 7/8ths of the metaphorical iceberg of human existence is a lot more complex than that.

Figuring that out is what makes college, and life, so much fun. Life would be boring if we all got along and loved each other. Often I feel that an open willingness to discuss this tension on campus is lacking and this is what frustrates me. I do not want more answers, I want more questions. I have seen all the ABC after-school specials and I am ready to engage in a community that wants to project itself beyond another trite, cookie-cutter mold.

We all know that there are a lot of pressures to bear as Middlebury students, but are all of these pressures warranted? How much of these requirements to fit into the Middlebury mold are actually self-imposed, and why would we do that to ourselves?

This past week, we were lucky enough to have Ariel Levy, a new role model of mine, come speak about the book Female Chauvinist Pigs in which she describes an economically-driven movement of raunch culture in America. She told of an encounter she had with a woman on Girls Gone Wild. Just as the woman had finished making out with another girl, Levy asked her why she did it, and she responded that it was a reflex, not a spark of passion or inspiration, just something automatic. That got me thinking about what is automatic here that perhaps should be more passionate. Are there aspects of this school that merely imitate inspiration rather than embody it?

While Middlebury, and any college, is full of great resources and good, kitschy fun, it is still a business and we are still part of a contract. We have to make the school look good so it will run. We all gave off an image of something to get in here, and we have to keep up that image to make the school look good, but I don’t want my daily existence to function on merely that level.

While you can pick your means of education from a catalogue, you cannot really pick your relationships that way. I might give off a certain image, but I myself am much more than that image and so are my friends. Our relationships are very real. They are real people and we share common values and good humor, but at the same time, we question and challenge each other in new and interesting ways everyday. Real inspiration is what we should strive for. That is what helps us truly grow and diversity comes along with that. There is a whole lot more to me than what I wrote down on my college application. I do not necessarily know what that all is, but I am comfortable with that, and I hope the rest of campus can join me in being comfortable with not having to know entirely who we are right now.

As the latest editor-in-chief of Middlebury College’s oldest news organization, I’ve been unusually fortunate. For one thing, I had at my back an exceptional lineup of veteran section editors that brought together nearly 40 years of combined experience. Armed with new design software and production equipment, the editors took it upon themselves to announce a campus-wide photo contest, launch a semi-weekly crossword puzzle, publish content on emerging platforms like Twitter and spark a public debate with Vermont health officials over the legal drinking age. In many ways, this team led itself.

On top of a remarkably deep roster, I was bestowed with a rare chance to make lasting changes at The Campus. Taking the reins as a junior rather than as a senior offered me the latitude to redefine The Campus’s relationship with the Web. The change had been long in coming, and not everybody was immediately on board with it. But having 17 months instead of the usual 11 made all the difference when it came to showing just how much it matters to a college newspaper like ours to be embracing the Internet.

First, there was the website. The last time we made significant changes to our digital strategy was back in 2001, when our previous site went live. By 2008, it was clear that our visually flat, text-heavy interface wasn’t going to attract the kind of readership we were looking for in the 21st century. What we needed was a more agile and assertive Web presence — one that we controlled from end to end. So we abandoned our cookie-cutter site, which until then had been run by an MTV subsidiary, and built one from scratch. It took two tries and countless discussions about our organization’s future, but we think what you see now when you visit middleburycampus.com is much better suited to Middlebury’s unique identity.

Then there was the issue of culture. Although our mission will always be to protect and defend the student voice, the reality is that our publication draws in a wide range of readers, including faculty, staff, administrators, parents, alumni, donors, trustees, prospective families and other observers of American higher education. Twelve percent of our online readership logs on from outside the United States. While the common temptation is to regard The Campus as a small-time publication with limited reach, our reporting often transcends the local boundaries we, as students, assume ourselves to be working within.

To avoid losing touch with that broader audience, we needed a Web presence that could keep up. And that meant changing the way The Campus itself interacted with the Internet. It meant, among other things, adopting Facebook and Twitter as legitimate reporting tools. It meant taking on video and audio production. It meant setting up a new section of the newspaper devoted to producing Web content. It meant figuring out how the Web could best serve readers so they’d keep coming back.

With no formal journalism program at Middlebury, this was easier said than done. But we’ve made great strides in the past 17 months, with more to come. Under the steady leadership of Lea Calderon-Guthe ’11 and Jaime Fuller ’11, The Campus will be picking up in the fall by making further improvements to the website, doing more with multimedia and posting content every several days instead of once a week. It’s an ambitious plan, but now is the best time to build on the foundations we’ve laid over the past year-and-a-half. I’m proud to have helped create a new future for this publication, and to be passing the torch to a team that believes in that future as fervently as I do couldn’t make me any happier.

The College implemented its new approach to drinking in September 2009 by closing the Health Center on weekend nights and implementing a “sober friend” policy that required friends of inebriated students to care of them. Members of the Residential Life Team staffed the NCO in the basement of Ross Commons to look after students without a sober friend.
Dean of Students Gus Jordan said the College made the decision to close the NCO in January.

“This was good news,” Jordan said. “It meant that sober students were stepping forward and taking care of their intoxicated friends, thus we did not need the office.”

Administrators report that the number of students intoxicated enough to require care from friends or in Porter Hospital has also declined over the year. During the 2008-09 year, public safety officers or friends transported 89 mild to moderately intoxicated students to the Health Center for observation. Through April of this year, Public Safety officers assigned 71 “sober friends” to moderately intoxicated students.

Jordan believes the statistics support the conclusion that the new alcohol policy is effective.

“I think the sober friend policy is working very well,” Jordan said. “Some students may be inconvenienced by this policy, but our hope is that students will encourage friends to avoid drinking to intoxication because of the negative impact this has on the community — and on one’s own friends.  Shipping intoxicated students off to the health center is not an effective approach to problematic drinking.”

The Middlebury Volunteer Ambulance Association (MVAA) has transported 12 students to Porter Hospital to date this year, the same number of students who were taken last year. Overall, close to 30 students have been taken to Porter Hospital for alcohol related conditions this year.

Assistant Dean of the College Karen Guttentag said alcohol often remains a major factor in cases bought before the Community Judicial Board (CJB).

“I have not noticed a difference in the general volume of alcohol-related cases coming before the CJB as a result of the new alcohol policy,” she said. “It contributes to accelerating physical and verbal altercations between students, plays a central role in incidents of hazing and sexual assault and often influences cases of vandalism.”

Despite the reduced numbers, Jordan does not believe the drinking culture at Middlebury has changed significantly.

“My primary concern is with problematic drinking, including alcohol abuse and the serious personal and community problems that stem from it,” he said. “When intoxicated, people are poor decision makers, and sometimes make serious errors in judgment.  Problematic drinking is something we all have to engage in— studaents, faculty and staff— if we are to make significant headway.””

Guttentag believes alcohol often prompts students to make regrettable decisions on behalf of intoxicated friends.

“Unfortunately, the disrespectful behavior directed to members of the Public Safety staff does not always stem from the inebriated students themselves, but often comes from sober students who think they are protecting their friends by interfering with Public Safety’s assessment efforts,” Guttentag said. “Needless to say, these students are doing no one any favors, and may in fact be directly jeopardizing the safety of the very people they are attempting to assist.”

In spite of the progress, Jordan believes the community must continue to discuss the issue of alcohol on campus.

“Students must step forward and look after each other if staff members step back,” he said. “This includes managing crowds, preventing underage drinking and effectively responding when a student is drinking too much.  If students do not take on these responsibilities, then staff must step in.  Personally, I find that infantilizing, but we are responsible to make sure students remain safe.”

“I came here to find out more about the troubles Muslims never talk about,” Mahnaz Rezaie ’13.

Alam founded an international organization when he was 19 years old “dedicated to Muslims who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, questioning, those exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity, and their allies, families and friends.” The group, called Al-Fatiha, means “The Opening” or “The Beginning.”

According to Alam, Muslims who identify as LGBTQ face a few main issues that make it difficult for them to openly admit their sexuality. Other than a general lack of institutional support, there is also the fear of being ostracized from family and no visible “out” community to look to.

Although coming out is a necessary step for Muslim LGBTs to take, Alam also said “It is a step they need to be strategic about. It’s not necessarily something that needs to be rushed into and they need to be prepared for all sorts of reactions.”

One of the main points of controversy over Muslims identifying as LGBT is that there is a widespread belief that the Qu’ran, the holy book of Islam, is not meant to be interpreted but instead accepted word-for-word. This causes issues because many believe that certain passages in the Qu’ran are specifically against queer relationships. In response to this, Alam stated, “The Qu’ran has been interpreted. You cannot read it literally because you’re interpreting it as a man or as a woman.”

The idea of an internal Jihad was also brought up in the talk. Literally translated, Jihad means “struggle.” The belief in Islam is that there are two types of Jihad, one that is internal and one that is external. The external Jihad is the widely known “holy war.” The Jihad of the inside is an internal struggle that is a part of the human psyche. Many of the real life examples Alam gave spoke of this internal Jihad, and Alam himself said, “For me, there is a struggle that continues to happen because I haven’t fully reconciled the issues of my sexuality and my faith. That interntal struggle is taking place right now and will probably continue to do so for a long time.”

Jean Lin ’10, co-president of MOQA and an organizer of the event, learned much from the talk.

“I didn’t realize, or never considered, the degree of difficulty for those who are both Muslim and queer to intersect both identities in their lives,” said Lin.

“There are churches where LGBTQ Christians can find acceptance, so I can’t imagine having to abandon my sexual identity entirely when it comes to matters of faith. For many Muslims, coming out, for a variety of reasons, isn’t an option and probably won’t be until there is more acceptance within Islam.”

Islam is currently undergoing a transformation that could lead to more acceptance in the future, starting with women playing a larger role in the religion according to Alam.

“For Islam, gender is really the next frontier,” said Alam.

The audience response to Alam’s talk was very positive, and many students remained after he finished to speak with him personally.

“This is something we don’t see a lot of on campus,” said Kristen Faiferlick ’10. “It’s nice to bridge two different academic topics that don’t often get brought together.”