Traveling Winter Term class preludes influx of trips in '08

Author: Akshay Khanna

The College will offer multiple courses that will venture off-campus during Winter Term beginning in January 2008 after the Standing Parents Committee raised money for class travel, President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz announced at the Nov. 6 faculty meeting. The increase in traveling Winter Term courses comes after only one class being offered this January will allow students to study off-campus.

Liebowitz's announcement of an increase in traveling courses, which had been more prominent in previous years, was met with widespread praise from the faculty.

"Off-campus winter term courses were tremendously successful in the past, and the faculty responded to the announcement of their return with enthusiasm," said Dean of Curriculum Bob Cluss.

This year, only one course offered for Winter Term will allow students to travel off-campus for study. "Deconstructing Discrimination," taught by Assistant Professor of Economics Caitlin Myers, will feature two field trips during the term that will allow students to conduct research for a class project.

Through the class, Myers is seeking to encourage students to take a more analytical approach towards their definition of discrimination and hopes that, "after reading articles on previous studies on discrimination, the students will be able to reach their own conclusions of what qualifies as a discriminatory practice."

Regarding the one field trip that the class will be taking to Boston over a weekend during the term, Myers emphasized the necessity of getting off-campus to conduct the class project, saying "Middlebury is a rather insulated and rural environment with relatively little diversity as compared to a metropolis like Boston."

"The College was extremely supportive of my idea for the class to travel to Boston," Myers said when asked about the difficulties that she might have had in getting permission to take students to Boston. "There were no issues that were brought up that were against the prospect of students leaving campus for academic purposes."

Alex Hall '08.5, who will be taking the class this winter, endorsed the course's offering of off-campus study. "Since the point of the class is to design and conduct a research project on racial discrimination, I would think it difficult to study race-related issues in Vermont since the state has so little racial diversity," said Hall. Plans for the class project are twofold, comprising of an observational section as well as a student trial. One of Myers' ideas is to observe whether customers at fast-food restaurants match-up and queue in line behind the cashiers who best reflect their own racial, ethnic or gender characteristics.

Myers explained that this class was a great opportunity for the students to observe these subtle, or in some cases blatant, behavioral differences and decide whether they qualify as discrimination.

Although "Deconstructing Discrimination" is the only course on offer for Winter Term in 2007 that involves study outside the Middlebury area, this is not the first time that a Winter Term class will be leaving campus for academic-related activities. Last year, Associate Professor of American Studies William Nash took a Winter Term class titled "Katrina and Its Aftermath" to New Orleans to study first-hand the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina and the state of New Orleans in the deadly aftermath of the storm.

Additional reporting by Zamir Ahmed.