On March 9, President Ian Baucom welcomed 55 students from the Middlebury College Democrats (MCD) and the Middlebury College Republicans (MCR) into his home for the third joint meeting between the two groups. Students gathered around tables to share a meal and engage in conversations about their political beliefs.
“I wanted to do it because I wanted to listen. I wanted to meet some of you and put my name behind it. Publicly.” Baucom said as he addressed the congregated students.
Participants discussed a wide range of topics, including academic freedom and foreign policy, with the goal of continuing the clubs’ commitment to civil discourse and open engagement. While club leaders sat at each table to help facilitate discussion, all participants were encouraged to suggest topics and guide the conversation.
Sophia Galuppo ’26.5 said the setting allowed students to explore complex issues in a collaborative environment.
“It invited conversations that are sometimes really hard to have in normal settings,” Galuppo said in an interview with The Campus. “It's a great way to speak your ideas without fear of misspeaking, because we’re all in this conversation together trying to figure out how to get our points across. It’s all an experiment in this little conversation.”
“We had an extremely interesting conversation surrounding free speech on campus. I heard a range of perspectives at our table, with everyone sharing their views respectively and making strong points,” Violet Wexler ’28 wrote in an email to the Campus. “Being able to discuss an issue so directly relevant to Middlebury College with President Ian Baucom, who was sitting at my table, was a unique opportunity and really exemplified the kind of open conversation and collaboration I believe Middlebury strives for.”
Many participants sought to remain grounded in their own beliefs while also looking for areas of unexpected agreement.
“Sitting with a lot of different students, they had certain political opinions where I thought they would consequently align with other political opinions, and a lot of times that didn’t actually happen,” Joe Gerebi ’27 said in an interview.
Ignacio Gamero ’26, president of the Middlebury College Republicans, said the tone of the event remained largely respectful despite the sensitive nature of the topics.
“What I enjoyed most about the conversations was we approached them in a very civil way. We are discussing very sensitive issues, and we tried to understand why each other person has those views while also remaining true to our own views,” Gamero said.
Nick Christoforakis ’29 said the event provided a clear forum for debate. “I’ve never felt that across-the-aisle political discussion was suppressed, per se, but this and the other joint meetings this year resulted in significantly more open and candid conversation and disagreement than I’ve experienced before,” he said in a message to The Campus.
Even within the atmosphere of respect, conversations occasionally became heated.
“There was one remark that really frustrated me, and I had to remind myself several times that the point of the event was not to change other people’s minds, in order to let it go,” Caroline Jaffe ’26 wrote in a message to The Campus.
Baucom expressed his enormous pride in the students not merely having a conversation about having a conversation, but opting to take part in an event with assigned seating and the expectation of a deeply principled disagreement.
“[We know] that in the defining core, what it means to be in a college, animated by the open process of democracy, that what we must be for is free speech and academic freedom, but we know that we need to be more than abstractly for those things, and that’s what I thank you for,” Baucom said.
“These conversations matter because this country is deeply divided,” Jaffe wrote. “We need to learn about what others think and understand where they are coming from, rather than demonizing them. So many political interactions happen behind a screen; it is so important to understand the person behind the belief.”
The three leaders of the clubs, Gamero and the co-Presidents of MCD Erik Ghalib ’28.5 and Lucas Basham ’28, hope to continue improving the quality of the discussions they host.
“[W]hat really made the evening successful was the people who came: students with a wide variety of perspectives on every political issue. The idea is for these meetings to be good conversations, which means that the best way for them to evolve is if more people with different views to attend,” the three club leaders wrote in a joint statement to The Campus. “A big strength of this dinner was that discussions focused on big political issues and policy questions rather than just on current news events,” they added.
Some attendees noted that the event was a step in the right direction for Middlebury’s future in political debate. “I heard encouraging things from the President that suggest Middlebury in the coming years will be a place where free expression and intellectual debate can flourish,” wrote Thie Harthono ’28 in an email to The Campus.
“As a first-year still figuring out where I fit here and in the world, events like this matter. And if Middlebury wants to continue to be a place that nurtures healthy political discourse, this is what it looks like,” added Christoforakis.
Now in its third meeting, the collaboration between MCD and MCR has grown more comfortable as participants become familiar with one another. The event was limited to 55 students due to fire-safety rules regarding the capacity of the presidents house.
Gerebi, who attended the previous meeting, said the atmosphere has changed over time.
“I thought that the first time around there was more hesitation.” Gerebi said, who had attended the second joint meeting hosted by MCR and MCD, “Now people come to this session, and I really have noticed that you can express the feelings and beliefs that you have, that you don’t have to fear people taking you the wrong way or misunderstanding.”
Having started in a classroom setting, the collaboration between the two clubs continues to grow with no intention of stopping.
“This is our third joint meeting, but we can promise you it will not be our last,” Ghalib said.
“We’ve got some other exciting initiatives in the works to highlight free expression and academic freedom at Middlebury,” the leaders of the two clubs wrote.
Editor’s Note: Editor-in-Chief Mandy Berghela ’26 and Managing Editor Yuvraj Shah ’26 contributed reporting to this article. Harthono is a sports editor for The Campus. Wexler is a local editor for The Campus.
Rachelle Talbert '28 (she/her) is a News Editor.
Rachelle previously served as a Copy Editor. She intends to major in English with minors in Art History and Linguistics.
