OP-ED Where are our traditions?

Author: Maurits Pot

The overarching goal of the current Middlebury Initiative is to position the College as the first global liberal arts college of the 21st century. In short, the Initiative will enable Middlebury to further improve, expand and globalize. While these goals are commendable, I am often struck by how little I encounter about the Middlebury of the past in my daily life around campus. At some colleges, the past plays a vivid and integral role in the present nature of the institution, yet at Middlebury, I sense a lurking disconnect between the past, present and future. Middlebury is evidently a very progressive institution, yet being progressive should not entail being ignorant of one's past. While Middlebury is generally considered a better school in 2008 compared to 1980, the Middlebury of today should not disenfranchise itself from its rich history and institutional traditions.

While there is still some tradition manifested around campus, especially within sports teams, a cappella groups and other social establishments, I sense a lack of campus-wide manifestation of tradition. Whereas other institutions have actively guarded such rich traditions, epitomized in Princeton's yearly Alumni parade, Dartmouth's homecoming bonfire, and Williams' celebration of Mountain Day and a yearly lobster dinner, Middlebury has lost all but a few traditions such as Winter Carnival. As times have changed and Middlebury has evolved, some traditions are undoubtedly inappropriate and uncalled for in this day of age; however, there are many more harmless, influential traditions that have undeservedly undergone the same fate as such incongruous traditions.

The traditions students experience and share often have an unparalleled impact on their college memories. While the academic and athletic experiences at many top-tier schools will have many similarities, what distinguishes a Middlebury experience from say another liberal arts college experience will partly come down to shared memories often originating from collectively experienced rituals or traditions. Such rituals may have seemed rather mundane at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight, will hold an undisputable significance.

In many ways, tradition acts as an interface between the different periods of history that come to define an institution. Furthermore, tradition acts as a medium connecting different generations of members of an institution, as each generation likes to recollect and idealize its experience of a school tradition. In this sense, tradition's paramount role is to nurture a sentiment of community and continuity among different generations of an institution. Similarly, through tradition, institutions can transmit core values from one generation to the next, and ensure that an institution remains true to its founding principles.

While Middlebury has embarked on a more progressive agenda for quite some time, the downfall of tradition accelerated in the 1980's with the demise of the fraternity scene. Interestingly, the Middlebury fraternity scene adopted some of the progressive spirit of the College at an early stage without sacrificing its traditions, exemplified by the acceptance of an African American, Ron Brown '62, into an all-white fraternity at the time. These social institutions played a prominent role in prolonging social and cultural traditions, and tradition subsequently decreased as its underlying foundations disintegrated. At some colleges, tradition is celebrated on a campus-wide scale through parades, dinners, bonfires, lectures and other communal activities, yet at Middlebury I have yet to encounter such a custom. Furthermore, of the few traditions that still exist on a school-wide scale, such as the winter-carnival, the administration fails to preserve such integral aspects that have defined generations of Middlebury student's memories of their collegiate years. Simultaneously, current students have also fallen short in endorsing and prolonging such traditions by failing to consistently embrace them and defend their distinctive roles within the college experience.

From talking with other students and different alumni constituencies, these concerns are echoed to an even stronger degree, as numerous alumni feel estranged from the Middlebury they attended. If I were to ever return to Middlebury thirty years from now, I hope I could still identify myself with the Middlebury I attended, and ideally witness a revival of the traditions my Middlebury experience lacked.