An open letter from your SGA president

Dear Students, 

In response to the op-ed published on Feb. 19th, I would like to highlight some of SGA’s current initiatives. I am aware of how important transparency is in effective governance, and in our last semester together, I will make an effort to improve SGA’s communication with the student body. 

This commitment to transparency starts with this op-ed. First, several of the initiatives mentioned in the op-ed as part of President B Striker’s ’25 administration have become a core part of my goals for this year. Chief among these is establishing an improved system of to-go containers. The Campus has previously reported that we lose over $45,000 in plates annually, and low usage of our current to-go system is a key driver. I’ve conducted extensive conversations with Student Affairs and Dining to work towards a long-term solution. Due to campus-wide budget cuts, Middlebury Dining Services and SGA were unable to secure funding to bring new to-go containers originally planned for the fall semester without cutting other programming, such as 10 O’Clock Ross. Our goal is to include a new system in next fiscal year’s budget, which will be approved by the Board of Trustees in May. As a short-term measure, we have collaborated with Dining to expand the sale of to-go containers and carabiners to the dining halls, augmenting their point of sale beyond MiddExpress. More details are available in a schoolwide email sent on Feb. 23rd or our Instagram post. 

To address the uncertainty of the current political moment, I have collaborated with the SGA Senate, the SAS Grants office, and immigration lawyers to create an SGA Immigration Legal Support Fund. For the spring semester, $10,000 has been allocated from our SGA reserve fund to provide students with access to immigration legal advice. Students are eligible to receive up to $1,500 from the SGA Immigration Legal Support Fund and can apply through the SAS grants process. SGA is fully prepared to support the fund in the long term, so students do not face financial barriers to accessing these essential resources.

We’ll also be sharing more details about the legal support fund at the SGA x Firewall Know Your Rights (KYR) Day on March 11th. Contrary to reports that the SGA failed to consider student input from Firewall for Freedom and other student activists, we are wholly committed to uplifting and representing student voices. SGA remains a close collaborator with Firewall, and we meet regularly to discuss student concerns in this challenging political climate. We respect and appreciate their advocacy for the student body, and we’re excited to co-host KYR Day with them. On March 11th, we will distribute Know Your Rights cards along with information from administrators about Middlebury’s response to federal officials on campus. Students will also have the opportunity to share anonymous feedback on the college’s response to current events, which we will convey to Student Affairs and the Board. We are also hosting a Q&A session with immigration lawyer Dan Berger at 4 p.m. in Davis 150A/B, who will share more specific information about civil rights and immigration law.

To conclude my tenure as SGA president, my administration is currently working on the following initiatives: 

Prioritizing communication with the student body through social media and other avenues. 

Beginning conversations with the new office of Student Success to ensure that there is an online booking system in place for next fall.

Hosting Staff and Faculty Appreciation Day in April to show our appreciation for the people who make Middlebury. 

Reviving the Spring All-School Picnic from pre-Covid as an opportunity for community building among students, faculty and staff. A preliminary date for this picnic has been set, and we will send out information about it soon, including a request for student input on the event.  

Increasing the number of water bottle fillers on campus by gathering information on necessary locations and submitting an expenditure request for next year’s budget.

Continuing to support students in the current political climate as needed. 

If you have any feedback on these initiatives or have ideas on what issues we should address next, we would love to hear from you. Please reach out to us at sga@middlebury.edu, @middsga on Instagram, or Go/HeySGA/ (for an anonymous option). To follow our progress on these initiatives throughout the semester, please refer to our semester planning document, which we’ll update regularly. We also invite you all to attend our General Assembly meetings, which are held from 7–9 p.m. biweekly in Johnson 204 (the next one is on March 17th). This is a challenging moment for Middlebury and colleges across the country, and I will make every effort to support you all. 

Sincerely, 

Nicole Meyers

Your SGA President 

(on behalf of the Middlebury College Student Government Association)