Several administrators will divide the various duties of Dean of the College Tim Spears during his leave of absence this spring.
Spears’ responsibilities will be divided among Dean of Students Gus Jordan, Provost Alison Byerly and the Office of the President until he returns to the administration on July 1. He will use the absence to complete a book manuscript.
President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz discussed the division of responsibilities in an all-faculty e-mail. Jordan will serve as the College’s chief student affairs officer, Byerly will oversee the work of Library and Information Services, and the Director for the Arts and the Scheduling and Communications offices will report to Special Assistant Dave Donahue in the President’s office.
Liebowitz said that Spears had delayed the planned leave of absence several times already.
“Tim postponed his leave — originally scheduled for last year — to serve as Acting Provost,” he wrote. “ [He] then remained in the administration this fall in order to follow through on several initiatives, including the staffing analysis undertaken by the Staff Resources Committee.”
During his leave of absence, Spears will work on a book project devoted to the development of college football. He will explore the subject through his own family’s history. His grandfather was an all-American at Darmouth College and later had a Hall-of-Fame coaching career. His father was captain of the Yale University football team. Spears played for Yale in the 1970s.
Spears believes his work will show the development of football as a fixture on college campuses.
“I look at each of our experiences in turn, to show how the relationship between football and higher education evolved over the course of the 20th century and to explain how the sport was passed from father to son as an essential part of our growing up,” he said.
Ice Ban responsible for mysterious black streaks
The mysterious black fluid that appears on the sidewalks before forecasted storms is the College’s new experiment in snow removal, a product called Ice Ban.
“Ice Ban is sprayed on the roads and sidewalks before a storm, and prevents the snow from forming a bond with the surface it is applied to, making snow removal much quicker, easier, and with better results,” said Assistant Director of Facilities Services Luther Tenny.
“Being able to get rid of all the snow from the sidewalk means that a hard-packed snow surface does not form, letting the sidewalks and roads return to bare ground after a storm.”
Although many people assume that the product is made of tar because of Ice Ban’s dark color and oily consistency, the product is actually a sugar.
“It’s primary composed of magnesium chloride and Brewer’s Condensed Solids, which is a by-product from alcohol manufacturing, specifically beer,” said Tenny. “It is this product that gives the Ice Ban its very dark color and almost oily texture, even though it is a sugar, not an oil.”
“It looked really ugly, especially on a fresh sheet of snow,” said Anoushka Sinha ’13. “But most environmentally-friendly things involve dirt, so I’m guessing it is environmentally-friendly.”
Being mostly a waste food product, Ice Ban is indeed environmentally-friendly. The entire state of Vermont is experimenting with Ice Ban as a pretreatment, as well as spraying it directly on the salt applied to roads, to reduce the amount of salt needed.
By preempting snow, Facilities Services hopes to reduce the labor necessary to remove snow. “A further benefit is the reduction of labor and fuel use in trying to remove the hard pack of snow from sidewalks after a storm,” said Tenny. “And, naturally, bare sidewalks and roads are safer for pedestrians and cars.”
The application of Ice Ban is a fairly new practice for the College. Facilities Services has only been using it for a couple of years, and therefore are still perfecting the timing, amount and spray patterns for use. Tenny outlined the trickiness of the application process.
The ideal conditions for application, according to Tenny, are a “fairly narrow window,” so the College does not use it for every storm.
“Misapplication can result in some tracking into buildings, and somewhat slippery surfaces outside.”
Midd brief 2/25/10
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