Three years ago, Zach Drennen published a piece in The Campus titled “End the Feb Program.” While I full-heartedly disagree with his main idea (being a Feb ranks as one of the most formative experiences of my life so far), I still feel his pain. While reg-ular first-years have a hall of peers, an FYC, and a Commons system for support, new Febs are placed wherever space is available. “Whatever integration they get into the Commons system feels like an afterthought at best,” Drennen wrote. Although the college website promises that February admits are guaranteed “full admission to the College community,” Febs have not been given the same access to the Commons support system, a multi-million dollar program.
I’m relieved that after nearly 50 years, the administration has formed a new committee to discuss improvements to the Feb program. The move comes partly in response to a recent survey, in which 90 percent of Febs expressed dissatisfaction with integration efforts. According to the survey, two-thirds of last year’s freshmen Febs lived in non-first year housing, and a majority of last year’s freshmen Febs did not the find their FebYC beneficial.
Additionally, this year’s Feb orientation averages nine hours between evening and morning events, including an eight-hour interval the night before the inaugural meeting of their first-year seminar. That’s less than the film industry, which requires by law that actors have a 12-hour interval between the time they exit and enter the set. When I worked as a field guide in an in-patient psychiatric care program, it was against the law to offer less than an eight-hour window of sleep. A nine-hour window does not include the time it takes to shower, get dressed, and call your family.
Middlebury policy states that “causing excessive exercise, sleep deprivation or excessive fatigue” is considered hazing. Having gone through Feb orientation as a new student, a Feb leader, and now a FebYC, I found the lack of sleep and the number of events I was required to attend within a short period of time exhausting.
Of course, this is unintentional. The academic calendar is so full that orientation has to be condensed. Still, since Feb orientation is one of my favorite weeks at Middlebury, I hope we can find a way to start it earlier so there can still be all the fun events people loved, with the opportunity to be more present for them as they happen.
I shared these thoughts with the administration, and they did a great job making the time to meet with me and hear my ideas. By forming a committee to investigate systematic improvements, the college is showing that it values students and does not take these issues lightly. The administration has also started to be more deliberate about how they organize the program; in tandem with the Febulous co-chairs, orientation’s schedule has been gently paired down in recent years. They have invited the FebYCs to join the Feb Leader orientation training, and are organizing Feb orientation groups by Commons for the first time ever.
Unfortunately for the Feb program, other aspects are harder to change. The calendar committee locks in the academic schedule five years out, and four Commons still have the FebYC living in separate buildings from many of their Febs. Out of wanting my febs to have the best experience possible, I gave up my enormous room with a private bathroom in Le Chateau and a thousand dollar CA position to move to a Coffrin single, so I could live in the same building as my Febs. It’s telling that the CA position, a job done primarily over email, is required to live in their set of buildings to assist their residents, but the FebYC position, while newer, is not.
Future Febs may have it easier, but right now, it’s not good enough. Febs come to Middlebury at a significant disadvantage. The systems in place disproportionately benefit Regs in terms of Commons accessibility, language tracks, representation in the SGA senate (which functions more like a house of representatives, given that there is only one feb senator to represent four classes of febs), and a host of other issues. The system is still not fully designed for Febs, and certainly not yet a “program in its own right” as the website advertises in its brochure.
Hopefully, it will be soon. But in the meantime, as preachy as it sounds, when you shake hands and look an incoming Feb in the eye, please recognize that they are still at a disadvantage. Do everything you can to make them feel wanted and included in your communities. It’s a new culture here, and they have to learn everything.
