News in Brief: Vermont reports 1,667 cases over five-day holiday break
Addison County reported 93 new cases on Nov. 29, marking an 80% increase in cases over the past 14 days as of Tuesday.
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Addison County reported 93 new cases on Nov. 29, marking an 80% increase in cases over the past 14 days as of Tuesday.
If you’re walking around the concrete of the new Triangle Park in downtown Middlebury, look down at the ground. You’ll be able to see two parallel diagonal lines on the sidewalk that reflect the shape of the new rail tunnel directly below.Last Wednesday, Bridge and Rail Project Community Liaison Jim Gish took the two of us on a tour of the recently finished Bridge & Rail project. As community liaison, Gish relays updates on the project to Middlebury residents by publishing weekly blog posts, among other methods. Along the way, we were able to learn not only about the technicalities and logistics of taking on such a huge construction project but also about Gish’s life and what led him to this crucial work.
In October, as part of a wider movement among museums to address overlooked or unexamined historical narratives and decolonize their exhibits, the Henry Sheldon Museum will launch its monthly virtual lecture series titled “The Elephant in the Room.” The talks, which are funded by the grant-making body called the Vermont Humanities Council, will be delivered by a group of scholars and curators who are familiar with the untold stories behind the museum’s objects. The museum’s objective of bringing suppressed historical narratives to the surface is particularly personal because of the relatively egalitarian goals of its founder, Henry Sheldon. The year 2021 marks his 200th birthday, an event that has prompted reflection on the museum’s current goals. “Sheldon had an interesting position in terms of privilege and class inside museums: he was a collector in the 19th century … but he didn’t have the wealth of the Rockefellers or the Fricks,” Taylor Rossini ’20, a collections associate and grant writer at the museum who contributed to pitching and developing this series, said. To combat his “outsider” status and the financial constraints that he faced, Sheldon turned his attention to more quotidian artifacts. Rather than importing ceramics from Europe, for example, Sheldon would collect everything around him, including mundane things that others didn’t think were worth saving, like local newspapers or ticket stubs. Because of Henry Sheldon’s disposition, the museum he founded now has a nearly encyclopedic collection of Middlebury and the surrounding areas in the 19th century. “This year, we’ve been thinking about how our museum plays into this larger conversation about how museums are these elite cultures, these repositories of incredibly valuable objects, and how our museum doesn’t fit into that mold,” Rossini said. “That’s not something that’s been made very clear.” Still, despite the museum’s history of preserving artifacts of everyday life, it is still subject to the challenges of bias and prejudice that many museums are grappling with today. “The Elephant in the Room” is an attempt to push that acknowledgment of the gaps in the Sheldon’s collection further. The January talk, for example, will address representation in 19th-century photography. Photographs of people of color in the museum’s collection have previously been left unlabeled, without much investigation into the identities of the individuals depicted in them. Rossini acknowledged that this is a sign of Sheldon’s own prejudices. “As egalitarian as we like to make Henry out to be, he was not interested in the stories of non- white, non-Christian contemporaries of his,” Rossini said. “So, we do have big holes in our collection where we have objects that give us a touchstone to tell these stories, but we don’t have information surrounding them to craft these stories.” The main goal of “The Elephant in the Room” series will then be to address and acquire new approaches to understanding these objects that have gone uncontextualized, as the Sheldon works to decolonize its collections and push conversations on race, gender, class, intersectionality and equity forward. “We’re hoping that these talks will give us some ideas, inspiration and hopefully, some new approaches that we can apply to our collection,” Rossini said. The values at the forefront of the “Elephant in the Room” series are ideas growing in importance at museums across America. Museums are working to create meaningful content for the 21st century that serves the people who visit rather than the objects displayed. “I think the goal with museums and among museum professionals is to stray as far as we can from this idea of museums being the ivory tower on the hill,” Rossini said. Though this movement is spreading worldwide, its impact is also visible in another museum close to home. Works in the Middlebury College Museum of Art were recently reorganized to reflect thematic arrangement rather than region- or chronology-based design. Rossini wrote and pitched the grant for the Sheldon Museum series alongside Eva Garcelon-Hart, a research center archivist at the Sheldon and the originator of the series. “For the last few years many museums, archives and other cultural heritage institutions have been questioning their collecting and curatorial practices in response to social pressures that call and demand broader inclusion, diversity and equity,” Garcelon-Hart wrote in an email to The Campus. “When I was working on exhibits and programming to commemorate [Sheldon’s 200th birthday], I realized that it may be a perfect opportunity to reflect on our current practices to meet the needs and expectations of our increasingly diverse communities.” After the pandemic hit, all of the museum’s exhibits were adapted to online formats, including webpages featuring photographs and video content. Rossini acknowledged that the switch made it more difficult for the museum’s core audience — namely, older townspeople — to access museum content. Still, she remains optimistic about transitioning to offering some museum content online for the foreseeable future. “A challenge has always been to broaden our audience as much as possible, and moving online did help with that. Younger folks, younger families, who are more comfortable with virtual content made their way to us and have stuck with us now, either through visitation or becoming members, even as we’ve reopened,” Rossini said. As of July 2021, the museum has reopened for visitation, but because the series — as part of its design to involve as many people in the conversation as possible — convenes speakers from many different locations, the talks will all be held online. The first lecture in the series, “Living with Death,” is about how to create meaning in a time of loss. The lecture will be on Wednesday, Oct. 6, at 7 p.m., and is open to all. It will be a conversation between the artist and writer Dario Robleto, and Assistant Professor of American Studies Ellery Foutch from the college. More information can be found at www.henrysheldonmusum.org/events.
As of Friday, Sept. 10, the Middlebury Bridge & Rail Project has officially hit the first milestone of its final stages, a phase called “substantial completion.” According to Jim Gish, the community liaison for the project, this phase is characterized by the Vermont Agency of Transportation’s (VTrans) announcement that major construction in downtown Middlebury is finished. The workers onsite finished around 7:30 p.m. last Friday evening, at which point the VTrans engineer on the project declared the checkpoint met. “There’s still some visible activity in the area, but the kinds of disruption that we’ve seen over the last four years . . . That’s all in the past now as we’ve turned the corner to the minor work that needs to be done to finish the project,” Gish said. A celebration of the end of the project, which took place on August 21, included the dedication of Middlebury’s new Lazarus Park. The park is named after the Lazarus family, whose members were central figures of the Middlebury community for generations and ran a department store downtown for decades. Governor Phil Scott attended and conducted the official opening of the park, which included turning on the new fountain downtown for the first time. “So much of my focus has been on construction, so it was nice to focus on the personalities and the community,” Gish said. Other new developments in the project include the opening of Printer’s Alley, a roadway that connects Main Street and Marble Works that had been closed for four years, and the final touches to public spaces, including the new Triangle Park. The park combines hard space and green space, constituting a venue fit for concerts, town gatherings, and other events that will bring people downtown and encourage the patronage of local businesses. “One by one, the town is returning to itself,” Gish said. “It’s great to see not only the people who live here walking around and admiring their downtown but people who are coming from out of state . . . just come here and marvel at their new downtown.” The project was initiated in the summer of 2017, with the dismantling of two bridges downtown and their replacement with temporary structures. As such, the construction phase lasted for approximately four years. In that time, the project was delayed for a total of seven weeks at the start of the pandemic, after Gov. Scott declared a state of emergency. That delay changed the end date of the project from July 2021 to September that same year. Another challenge that project managers have faced is the developing materials shortage in the construction industry. However, according to Gish, contractors at VTrans managed to work around the shortages without delaying the project further. The construction of the Amtrak rail platform is not part of the Bridge & Rail Project and is expected to be completed by the end of the month. The town of Middlebury has already hired a contractor to work on landscaping and parking around the platform. Amtrak is looking to introduce service from Middlebury to New York City’s Penn station by the end of the first quarter of 2022, according to Gish. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the same kind of materials shortages that we’re seeing might impact the start date [for Amtrak service], and it might run into summer,” Gish said. Although Gish is optimistic about the economic benefits of the project, he also acknowledged that the past five years have been challenging for local businesses and for those who travel through downtown to get to work and school. Construction disrupted both foot and vehicle traffic patterns, and the difficulties that local businesses faced were also compounded by the pandemic. “Now that we’re out the other side, it just shows the strength and resilience of our community,” Gish said. Gish noted that businesses in Middlebury’s downtown have been looking forward to the arrival of college students this fall and that part of that excitement stems from the success of the college’s Covid-19 policies last year, which made for low incidence of cases and campus spread. “The stores all have these signs posted that say, ‘Welcome back. We’re so happy to have you here,’” Gish said. “And that’s directed at the students . . . I thought that was a nice touch, to welcome you all back during what’s a challenging time for [students] as well as for us.” The next phase of the Bridge & Rail Project will be marked by the completion of minor corrections, like sealing cracks in sidewalks and lining parking spaces. Gish estimated that this phase would take place over the next couple weeks.
Vermont is looking years ahead to July 4, 2026, which marks the 250th anniversary of the ratification of the Declaration of Independence. This past December, Gov. Phil Scott signed an executive order establishing a 15-member commission to plan the semiquincentennial celebration of U.S. independence. But the events of the semiquincentennial are not limited to a single day — in fact, they are not even limited to a single year. “It’s a multi-year celebration,” Laura Trieschmann, chairperson of the commission and the Vermont state historic preservation officer, said in an interview with The Campus. “We’re still in the very early planning stages...but events and celebrations and lectures and exhibits will probably start showing up around 2025.” According to Trieschmann, most of the events planned by Vermont’s commission will be planned for 2026, so that those commemorating certain battles or historical moments that took place in 1776 will occur exactly 250 years later. Commemorations and celebrations in Vermont’s series of semiquincentennial events will continue through 2027, since 1777 featured several key events in the state’s history — including the establishment of Vermont as its own republic, the Battle of Hubbardton and the Battle of Bennington. The commission plans to extend the focus of commemorative events beyond state history. Instead, they will strike a balance by incorporating a peek into how Vermont has changed — or not — since the Revolutionary War era. The events will not only celebrate or critically examine the well-known figures within the state’s and country’s histories but will also illuminate the lives of the everyday person, including marginalized people and those whose stories have been neglected in the annals of American and Vermont history. The women of the time will be one subject of focus, as the commission is dedicated to organizing events that reflect the politics of domestic life, and not just the politics of battle. All fifty states will likely organize their own series of semiquincentennial events — even those that were established long after the Revolutionary War era. According to Trieschmann, Vermont was the ninth state to formally establish a committee, and some states — such as Massachusetts and New Jersey — have had commissions planning events for years. One of the Vermont commission’s priorities is to ensure that the events of the semiquincentennial reflect the period of the Revolutionary War as accurately as possible, and part of this is a focus on Black and Indigenous peoples who lived in that era. “History continues to evolve, so we can only be as accurate as what we know,” Trieschmann said. “But we certainly know that history has not been very kind to itself, in that African American and slave trade histories or the actions against Native Americans have not all been respected as they should be, so we want to make sure that there is inclusion there.” So far, the commission has only met once, and future meetings will be open to the public. The next meeting is scheduled for May 26, where the formation of committees — such as event committees and the education committee, which will petition that some of the relevant history be put into the state curriculum by 2025 — will be discussed.
The White River Junction Veterans Affairs (VA) Healthcare System has organized a vaccination clinic in partnership with the college that will take place on Saturday, April 10. The clinic will be hosted at the college’s athletics complex, where vaccines will be available to veterans and employees of the Department of Homeland Security. The health care system, which provides services to veterans in Vermont and the adjoining counties of New Hampshire, has hosted vaccine clinics for veterans at a few locations throughout Vermont since the state’s vaccine rollout picked up in early March. Past clinics have offered the Moderna vaccine, which is administered as a series of two doses that are optimally given four weeks apart, creating the need for a second follow-up clinic. At Middlebury, however, the upcoming clinic will distribute the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is administered as a single shot. Bringing the series of clinics to Middlebury allows for increased and simplified access to the vaccine for eligible groups due to its central location in western Vermont. “Partnerships within our communities across Vermont and New Hampshire are the key components in our vaccination deployment,” said Dr. Becky Rhoads, acting director for White River Junction VA Healthcare System in a press release from the college. “Each large vaccination clinic we are able to offer is one step closer to creating safe communities across our region.” President Laurie Patton also commented on the partnership of the college with the VA health care system. “We are grateful for the opportunity to participate in the Veterans Affairs’ vaccination effort and support the health of local Veterans,” Patton said. “Covid-19 has taught us how critical local partnerships are, and we are happy to join with the White River Junction VA Healthcare System to make this clinic possible.” Appointments must be made in advance of the clinic by calling 802-296-5151. Veterans who want to visit the clinic must complete an enrollment application ahead of time by calling White River Junction VA Healthcare System’s Eligibility Office at 802-295-9363 ext. 5118. DHS employees must prove their eligibility by registering with their DHS leadership. Vaccines will also be available to the spouses and caregivers of veterans and DHS employees, who can call the first number listed above to schedule an appointment.
This spring, the Community College of Vermont (CCV) is hosting a three-part virtual Abenaki speaker series. Jesse Bowman Bruchac delivered the first lecture on Feb. 18 and will be followed by Chief Don Stevens, who is set to give a one-hour presentation this evening, March 18, beginning at 5 p.m. Melody Walker Brook will give the final talk of the series on April 15 Bruchac — a Nulhegan Abenaki citizen and “a traditional storyteller, musician and Abenaki language instructor,” according to his website — spoke and sang to an audience of approximately 200 people when his presentation “Abenaki Creation Story, Language and Culture” kicked off the series in February. “[The turnout for Bruchac’s talk] far exceeds any events we would ever do at CCV, probably minus graduation,” said Katie Mobley ’97, dean of enrollment and community relations at CCV, in an interview with The Campus. “I imagine the next two will continue to have a really high turnout, as well.” Mobley partly attributes the higher-than-expected turnout to the accessibility that Zoom offers, which enabled community members across the 12 CCV locations — from Newport to Brattleboro to Burlington — to remotely attend the event. Restrictions related to Covid-19 pushed the talks to this online platform, which also allowed for the larger gathering of listeners. Additionally, the onset and impact of Covid-19 postponed the Abenaki speaker series for about a semester, as it was originally planned to take place in person in the fall of 2020. These plans predated the pandemic and spawned in part from reflections on the institution’s history and core values, with CCV celebrating its 50-year anniversary in January 2020. The series is also part of CCV’s ongoing initiative to inform residents of Vermont — and with these potentially far-reaching talks, beyond Vermont — about Abenaki culture and history. “Really broadly, I don’t think you can be an engaged or active citizen in our world right now and not be thinking about issues that impact the BIPOC community,” Mobley said. “It’s a value of CCV that we are a learning community and a community that examines where we are and where we came from.” An anniversary committee, which was formed in part to arrange events and celebrations for the year that exemplify the college’s values, worked in close dialogue with today’s speaker, Chief Stevens, and eventually arrived at the decision to host an Abenaki speaker series. About 15 years ago, Chief Stevens began serving on the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs, where he headed the effort to “obtain legal recognition of the Abenaki People in Vermont and … acquire land for the Nulhegan Tribe which had been absent for over 200 years,” according to the website for the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association. Chief Stevens’ more recent work has also furthered calls for the state government to pass an official apology for Vermont’s history of eugenics. His talk is called “History of Abenaki in Vermont, Sovereignty, and Recognition.” Mobley stressed that familiarizing oneself with the deep history of the indigenous people of Vermont is especially important within the community of CCV, as the college has campuses scattered throughout the state — and thus, primarily on land that was first stewarded by the Abenaki. “I grew up in Vermont, and I don’t have any memory of the Abenaki ever being talked about in the curriculum,” Mobley said. “For CCV, we’re a community college. We reflect the Vermont community we’re in, and we really wanted to make sure that we were shining a light on this really rich history of the Abenaki People and all the different ways that they’ve impacted Vermont and the ways they are continuing to impact Vermont.” Mobley cited the enthusiastic engagement of both students and faculty in issues of diversity, equity and inclusion as one key source of high interest in the talks. She anticipates that the series will continue beyond its three current segments, especially in light of the overwhelming turnout at the first talk, but that it may focus on “different communities or different areas.” Brook will deliver her one-hour talk, “Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Healing, and the Path Forward,” on April 15 at 5 p.m. She is a citizen of the Elnu Abenaki Band, has previously served as the vice chair and chair of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs and is an Abenaki educator, activist and artist, according to the webpage announcing the series. Anyone who registers online, including Middlebury students, is welcome to attend the upcoming talks by Chief Stevens and Brook. All that is required to register for an event is the completion and submission of a simple online form, through which a prospective participant can obtain the password-protected Zoom link and the key.
The Middlebury Police Department was put on alert last week following the announcement that the college planned to rescind the honorary degree of Rudolph Giuliani. Middlebury Chief of Police Tom Hanley said that the college and the department were “keeping the lines of communication open” in case of backlash against the Middlebury community, according to an interview with the Addison Independent. Such concerns were heightened by the increased activity of far-right groups in the wake of riots at the US Capitol on Jan. 6. On Jan. 11, in an emergency response bulletin, Hanley urged anyone with information about potential threats to submit a tip. “There is currently heightened concern over the upcoming inauguration and other events that may be targeted for disruption. This affects everyone,” Hanley wrote in the bulletin. At the time of publication, The Campus is not aware of any credible threats that have arisen in Middlebury following the announcement. Giulani began serving as former President Donald Trump's personal lawyer in 2018 and would later become a main contributor to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Following an editorial written by The Campus, Middlebury College rescinded his honorary degree on Jan. 12. Dean of Students Derek Doucet sent an all-campus email immediately following the announcement recommending that students call their local police department if they felt threatened or received alarming communication while not on campus. The email also noted that the Middlebury Police Department was available for students with similar concerns on campus. In an email to The Campus, Middlebury Interim Director of Public Safety Daniel Gaiotti reiterated the importance of student safety, but refused to comment further on any specific preparations. “Student health and safety is Middlebury's highest priority,” Gaiotti wrote. “The college routinely monitors local and national events as they relate to campus safety, but it does not provide detailed security information for safety reasons.” These concerns were part of a wider movement across the nation to prepare for any violence in the days leading up to President Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. After threats of violence at state capitals across the nation, the Vermont State Police (VSP) heightened police presence in Montpelier from Jan. 17 to Jan. 20. The last press release from the VSP on Jan. 20 stated that “there had been no reports of any incidents, arrests or citations” in Montpelier in days leading up to and on Jan. 20. The Middlebury Police Department receives intelligence information from the Vermont Intelligence Center (VIC) and the Southern Poverty Law Center, according to Hanley in a recent interview with the Addison County Independent. The VIC’s website states that it works in close collaboration with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to “identify patterns and indicators of criminal and terrorism-related activity in the state.
Up for re-election in the Vermont Senate this fall is Senator Ruth Hardy (D-Addison), who was first elected to the office in 2018 and is currently running for her second term. Hardy described adapting her campaign approach this year and reflected on overall changes in Vermont Legislature sessions given the ongoing Covid-19 crisis during an interview with The Campus. The Vermont Legislature typically convenes in January and adjourns in May. Disrupted by the pandemic this year, legislators worked largely remotely after a two-week recess in March and later adjourned in June. The legislature also reassembled in August for an unprecedented six-week second session to work out a number of items on the docket postponed earlier this year. Continued efforts to combat the spread of Covid-19 have changed Hardy’s campaign and those of her colleagues. The senator noted a shift from face-to-face campaigning to phone calls, honk-and-waves and socially distanced outdoor events. “In 2018, I knocked on thousands of doors around my district, just canvassing and talking to voters at their homes, and I’m not doing that this year,” Hardy said. “I just don’t feel like it’s safe for me or for them, and it doesn’t set a good example to show up at people’s houses unannounced.” Although she was unopposed in the August primary, Hardy still worked to reach her constituents. She launched a socially distanced campaign that included making phone calls, mailing letters and using social media after the fall legislative session ended. With two seats in the Vermont Senate apportioned to the Addison District and five candidates vying for a spot, Hardy faces some competition in the general election. But she noted that she views her race for re-election as less competitive this year than her 2018 race when she was a new candidate and stacked up against incumbents. Separate from her campaign, Hardy said that she is particularly proud of the tri-partisan effort in the legislature to convene virtually after the floor closed. Members of the legislature ultimately voted unanimously to approve remote legislation, allowing the state government to continue working safely in a time of crisis. “In normal sessions, we caucus with our parties,” she said. “But during the pandemic, we caucused as a whole. We never met separately. We always did everything together. And nearly every single vote on Covid-19-related things was unanimous. This is something I’m really proud of, and our state should be really proud that we have not approached this coronavirus crisis as a partisan issue in Vermont.” On the individual level, Hardy was also among the senators advocating the closure of the Montpelier Vermont State House in March, advancing a proactive mindset and an emphasis on safety while confronting the pandemic. At the beginning of the public health crisis, Hardy began reaching out to her constituents and helping them stay safe by providing resources and advice. “I was hearing from constituents about how worried they were and how scared they were,” Hardy said. “It’s going to be incredibly important that our state continue its vigilance and the collaborative work during the recovery from [Covid-19],” Hardy said. “We still have a lot more work to get through the pandemic, and then a lot of work to recover and rebuild our economy, rebuild our healthcare system and, frankly, our educational system as a result of this pandemic.” Hardy also serves on the Senate Committee on Education and the Senate Committee on Agriculture, significant to Addison County, which has the most farms of any county in the state. She also worked toward the adoption of climate change legislation that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state of Vermont. Additionally, with a rise in anti-racist initiatives and the ongoing nationwide protests against police brutality, Hardy plans to continue being an advocate in the Vermont Senate for criminal justice reform, “holding our police accountable and… making sure that we’re passing antiracist legislation in Vermont.” Hardy encourages Middlebury College students to vote this Tuesday in the town of Middlebury if they haven’t yet received or returned their absentee ballots. “This election is so important to the future of our country,” she said. “Wherever you vote, please vote.” Senator Ruth Hardy is married to Professor Jason Mittell, academic advisor to The Campus.
The 10-week closures of Main Street and Merchants Row to through-traffic in downtown Middlebury will come to a long-awaited end this Friday, Sept. 18. These road closures, which coincide with the temporary shutdown of the town’s rail line and diversion of its freight traffic, are the “high-water mark” in the five-year Middlebury Bridge and Rail Project, according to the project’s community liaison, Jim Gish. “The work in 2017, 2018, 2019 was all preparation work for this 10-week period,” Gish said. “This is the critical turning point of the project this week — kind of heading toward the finish line, which will happen next spring with the landscaping of two new parks downtown, and that will be the formal end of the project next July.” One main purpose of the $71 million Bridge and Rail Project, which is managed by Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans), is the substitution of two deteriorating 1920s-era rail bridges in downtown Middlebury with a rail tunnel. The dilapidated bridges, which had sparked safety concerns, were demolished in 2017, and temporary modular steel bridges were built in their place. Now, the temporary structures have been replaced with a passenger rail tunnel that returns the town green to its original size, which predates construction of the original rail line in the 1840s. The 3,500-foot downtown rail corridor that spans the distance between the Elm Street overpass and the trestle bridge over Otter Creek has been fully rebuilt at this point. This belowground construction of the rail line constitutes the other main purpose of the project. The project was suspended late last March when Gov. Phil Scott decided to postpone construction statewide due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The project’s operations resumed in May, and the 10-week closure period, which was planned four years in advance to take place between May 27 and Aug. 5, was delayed by seven weeks and began on July 13. “[The closures of Main Street and Merchants Row were] critical to be able to do all the work in this 10-week period that needed to be done,” Gish said. “The construction of the rail tunnel, the excavation of the rail corridor, repaving the roadways, new sidewalks for downtown. There’s a lot of activity that had to take place both aboveground and belowground during this 10-week period.” Road closures during this period have complicated navigating downtown Middlebury on foot. Grassroots organization Neighbors, Together, along with VTrans project administrators and other local institutions, organizations and businesses collaborated to provide a free shuttle around the blockage, according to Mary-Claire Crogan, community relations manager at Addison Country Transit Resources (ACTR). The ACTR-operated shuttle (dubbed Shuttlebury) runs continuously on a 15-minute loop around the town of Middlebury and stops at the municipal offices, Battell Block, Cannon Park, Congregational Church, Marble Works and Town Hall Theater. Walking maps with suggested routes are also included at each stop. “Rides around the blockage were mutually desired by Neighbors, Together and the VTrans project managers,” Crogan told The Campus. “And actually, there is a federal requirement for the construction project to provide ADA access to downtown locations during the road closures. But the service is for everyone, regardless of physical ability.” Shuttlebury was designed to transport the Middlebury population downtown to pre-planned events and incentivize them to visit the area at a time when local businesses might face a decline in patronage due to the road closures. However, in order to prevent the spread of Covid-19, those events were reevaluated and modified to be contactless. Nevertheless, Shuttlebury has operated during the construction at its full schedule, with ACTR implementing new safety procedures and heightened sanitation protocols to prevent spread of the virus. Although Covid-19 concerns were likely responsible for decreased shuttle ridership this summer, Crogan wrote, “Shuttlebury attracted new riders who had never ridden the bus before. Maybe this will inspire them to ride transit more often.” The Bridge and Rail Project funds the shuttle’s operation, so with the end of the 10-week construction period and road closures, Shuttlebury will come off the road this Friday. Crogan anticipates that the uniquely compact, ADA-accessible shuttle will be useful in the future to “access private driveways when people in wheelchairs need us to drive them to medical appointments.” The end of this 10-week period means the advantages of finished construction for Middlebury’s local businesses are within sight. “While there have certainly been concerns about the impact of the project on the economic vitality of downtown, in general, the community has accepted the value and benefit to the community of the project.” Gish said. “That’s probably particularly true right now as you can very visually see it taking shape . . . There’s now a level of anticipation and excitement at the revitalization taking place in our downtown.” “[The pandemic] coincided with the hardest part and the most disruptive part of the project for downtown Middlebury,” Gish said, referencing the worries about the economic impact on closing downtown roadways to through traffic. “It’s helped us get it done at a time when it’s less disruptive to the downtown area.” In addition to economic revitalization, benefits of the Bridge and Rail Project to the town of Middlebury include improvement in the safety of aboveground infrastructure like roadways and aging belowground infrastructure like water lines and sewer lines. Two new parks, including the expanded Triangle Park, which will have a mixture of hardscape and landscape as well as a plaza for events, will also result from the project. Still, Gish acknowledged the challenges that this part of the construction project has caused for Middlebury residents. “One of the things that has psychologically been a benefit to the community is the orderliness with which this project has progressed throughout this 10 weeks and really over the full life cycle of this project,” he said. “There’s been a steady and a very visible progression, which is in stark contrast to the world we’re living in today, which is full of unknowns and question marks and unknown finish lines.”
In partnership with Porter Medical Center (PMC), the college has prepared a written plan for providing student medical care during the fall 2020 semester. This plan includes referral pathways for Middlebury students experiencing varying degrees of illness or injury and establishes an approach to treating students who may have contracted Covid-19. The plan instructs students in need of any non-emergent medical care to use Parton Health Center’s services. Students will be able to access these services during Parton’s regular operational hours and — if providers are available — by calling the Health Service nurse line. “A nurse will work with the student to decide whether they need to be seen in person,” said Dr. Augustus Jordan, executive director of health and counseling services at the college. “And some medical situations do require an in-person visit. If so, the nurse will explain the process for entering Centeno [House].” If students are unable to get in touch with a Parton provider, they will be directed to speak to contracted telehealth providers. “At any time of day or night, seven days a week, and from any location, a student can call to log on to the new MiddTelehealth app and speak with a medical provider who can treat a wide range of common illnesses like cold and flu, sinus infections, allergies and other conditions,” Jordan said. On-campus counseling is remote for the time being, and resources for mental health care and regular counseling will be accessible to students on the MiddTelehealth application, which students can find at go/middtelehealth. “To expedite use of this resource, I encourage students to create an account with MiddTelehealth now, and then download the app,” he said. “That way, if they are not feeling well during the evening or on a weekend, they can quickly reach out to a medical or mental health care provider.” The college’s plan for student medical care also notes that telehealth providers can refer students to Parton if they decide further evaluation is necessary. Furthermore, if telehealth providers determine that students need urgent care, they can refer students to Porter. Students who are “acutely, severely and/or critically ill” or “traumatically injured” should continue directly to the PMC Emergency Department. An ambulance will be sent to transport the student to Porter Hospital if their condition calls for one. Any student seeking medical care at Porter Medical Center through the appropriate referral pathways is to be screened for Covid-19 upon arrival, according to the written health care plan. The plan also details Porter’s approach to patient intake. Porter staff will refer students either to the PMC Emergency Department or the Porter Acute Respiratory Clinic if they exhibit two or more symptoms of Covid-19. If students are asymptomatic, Porter will refer them to its ExpressCare center.
Thousands of Vermonters assembled in Burlington on the evening of Saturday, May 30, as a part of nationwide protests against police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police. Protesters, many wearing masks and carrying signs, first gathered in Battery Park to hear from Harmony Edosomwan, a University of Vermont student and one of the event’s organizers. Other opening speakers included Vermont poet Rajnii Eddins, who read a piece commemorating Black and Brown victims of police brutality and racial violence, and Kahlia Livingston from the Vermont Peace & Justice Center, an activist organization that helped coordinate the event. “I haven’t been able to sleep well all week,” Edosomwan said in her opening speech. “My heart aches for George Floyd. My brother’s name is George. What if that was my brother? He was my brother. Burlington, y’all have to do better. White liberals, you have to do better. It’s not enough to come to protests like this.” After the opening words, protesters marched to the Burlington Police Department and replaced the American flag with a Black Lives Matter flag. Edosomwan, who stood elevated on the bed of a truck in front of the building, confronted Interim Police Chief Jen Morrison and Deputy Police Chief Jon Murad, an event that was captured and posted on the Vermont Peace and Justice Center’s Facebook page. The surrounding crowd echoed her calls for officers with histories of abusing their power and using disproportionate force against Black people to be held accountable. Edosomwan called specifically for the removal of Jason Bellavance and Cory Campbell, two Burlington police officers with records of using excessive force. In May 2019, the officers attacked two Black men, brothers Jérémie and Albin Meli, while investigating reports of fights outside of a Burlington bar, causing Jérémie a lasting head injury. At the time, the Vermont State Police were also investigating Campbell for the March 2019 death of Douglas Kilburn. Three days before his death, Campbell had punched Kilburn repeatedly outside of the UVM Medical Center, fracturing his skull in multiple places. In April 2019, Vermont Chief Medical Examiner Steven Shapiro officially ruled Kilburn’s cause of death a homicide. Still, in November 2019, Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan announced that Campbell would not face charges for Kilburn’s death. “How do you expect Black and Brown people, or just people in general, to feel safe on the streets if you’re letting like Jason Bellavance or Cory Campbell still patrol?” Edosomwan asked Morrison and Murad. The protesters echoed her question and called for the officers to “do their job” of protecting all members of the community. Protesters also called for Morrison and Murad to apologize after one protester told his story of being held at gunpoint by Burlington officers who accused him of “stealing his own vehicle” and falsely claimed that they had a warrant for his arrest. The protester, who moved away from Burlington due to this incident, refused Morrison’s offer of her card as he and the surrounding crowd called repeatedly for an apology. No apology appeared to be issued. This exchange culminated in Edosomwan pouring red liquid from a jug at the feet of the police officers standing below her. “Their blood is on your hands if you don’t do anything to fix this motherf*cking department,” she said into a bullhorn. Edosomwan explained that the red liquid symbolized the blood shed by Black individuals in the city of Burlington, the state of Vermont, the country and in the world. “You said that you’re going to listen. If you do not listen … if another black person dies … trust me, we’re all going to be here, and this building is going down,” Edosomwan said. The statement was met with loud cheers from the protesters. “Their blood is on your hands,” she repeated to the officers. “I will give y’all grace today, but I am angry as f*ck, we could easily turn this sh*t up right now.” she said. “We could be Minneapolis in this place right now if we wanted to.” “I believe that you [Jen Morrison] are a nice person and I believe that you will take heed to what I am saying,” Edosomwan continued, before being cut off by fellow protesters who shouted at the officers, asking what concrete steps they would take. “I appreciate your remarks, I really do. I’m listening — I’m trying to be respectful and listen,” Morrison responded, before her remarks were drowned out by the cries of protesters. “If you turn this into Minneapolis, guess what? That’s going to set us back five more years,” Morrison added. The crowd expressed their disagreement with yells of disapproval. Morrison announced to Edosomwan and the crowd that the officers would return to the building. Protesters responded by questioning her if they would get an apology. “I’d be happy to chat with you anytime. Would you like an apology?” Morrison says as she attempts to hand her card to Edosomwan. Several protesters demanded an immediate and public apology, shouting, “We’re here right now!” Morrison and Murad left the scene as protesters screamed “coward” and booed the officers. Edosomwan told the protesters not to touch the officers and to make way for their exit. The group then made their way to Battery Park, where organizers held an open mic that featured Black performers, a handful of them high school students. A small group of White protesters stayed behind and vandalized the police department, which sustained minor damages, including a shattered window and graffiti, according to Rachel Fridal Siegel, executive director of the Peace & Justice Center and co-organizer of Saturday’s protest. “It was White people, and they were called to task that doing that puts black people at risk, not them as much," she said. Siegel said that the center is committed to uplifting the voice of and following the leadership of Black and Indigenous activists. “As an organization, it’s just critical to us to be following and centering Black and Indigenous people of color,” Siegel said in an interview with The Campus. “So, [Edosomwan] made the final call on some things that I honestly felt really conflicted about — the one significant thing being having an in-person protest at all.” Siegel cited concern over new outbreaks of Covid-19 following large, unregulated in-person gatherings. Organizers encouraged protesters to wear masks and practice social distancing at the park, and the center arranged a caravan for those who felt unsafe physically attending. But once the march to the police department began, interpersonal distance became impossible to maintain. But in the end, Siegel said that the Peace & Justice Center made the right choice in supporting Edosomwan, explaining that the mission of the center is to offer the infrastructure of the organization to activists who drive social change. Leah Salzman ’21, who attended the Burlington protest, also noted how the pandemic and worries about new outbreaks complicate protests. “There’s so much going on on social media right now because people are supposed to be social distancing and at home,” she said. “There’s this conflict of ‘What’s enough? You’re sitting on your phone and posting things, but is that really enough?’” Kevin Santoro ’21, another Middlebury student who attended the protest, said that “there was a large emphasis in the rhetoric of being the Whitest state, and how that exacerbates a lot of these issues, and there was also this narrative of breaking the idea that Vermont is this idyllic place separate from all of this.” Siegel also noted this issue, explaining that White Vermonters get “tremendously activated” when racial injustice reaches the national media but do not react to local occurrences of police brutality with the same outrage. “We want simple answers as humans, and especially as White people, I think. I just want to fix it,” Siegel said. “And there’s no ‘fix it.’ There’s just ‘do more.’”
Nicholas Milazzo ’18.5 started a GoFundMe campaign on March 21 in an effort to provide financial support to Middlebury restaurants impacted by Vermont’s Covid-19 outbreak and the subsequent closure of non-essential businesses. So far, Milazzo has raised $8,000 in donations for five local eateries, including the Old Stone Mill, Royal Oak Coffee, Fire & Ice, Costello’s Market and Magic Wok. Milazzo was living in Burlington, Vt. this spring, but decided to move back to Middlebury for the duration of the shelter-in-place order. He said in an interview with The Campus that he established the fundraiser as a way to provide relief for the Middlebury community while also heeding social distancing measures. Milazzo began organizing the fundraiser by compiling a list of the restaurants in Middlebury and contacting each of them to assess their individual need. Some had reassuring replies and indicated that they could withstand temporary closures or drops in sales, but others responded by saying that there was a “legitimate chance” that they could permanently go out of business. Currently, Milazzo plans to allocate the money raised among the five locally owned businesses. Of these businesses, he pointed out that Royal Oak Coffee — an independent coffee shop in Middlebury — is especially vulnerable since it is a relatively new establishment. “I was a science major, and the way I think of it is most biological systems die in their infancy,” he said. “Once you get through the first couple years, that’s when things start to stabilize, and you can take bigger hits. But these little seedlings of restaurants, they have the hardest time.” Among local businesses, restaurants are especially impacted by the Covid-19 crisis, according to Milazzo. Local restaurants operate on narrow profit margins, as they “pay expenses that don’t really produce returns until the future” — profits that are deferred even further if the business closes temporarily. “Most of what they do isn’t conducive to ever pressing pause,” Milazzo said. “And restaurants come and go in Middlebury regardless. It’s just a rough market.” Milazzo said that his goal was to extend the grace period for restaurants as they weather the storm of Covid-19-related closures. “I figured looking at those most vulnerable restaurants and supporting them and boosting their bottom line and giving them an extra two weeks, if that’s the most we can do ... That’s the goal,” he said. Milazzo’s monetary goal is to raise a total of $50,000, accumulating as many donations as possible to provide a buffer if worse comes to worst for local businesses. However, he has yet to determine how donations will be divided and dispensed to these establishments. “Fortunately, we’re not seeing restaurants dying right now, so we have a little bit of time to figure it out — how we allocate and who can make it,” he said. Fond memories during his time at Middlebury College are a large part of what motivated Milazzo to launch this fundraiser. He recalled taking breaks from the dining halls and going out to local restaurants on special occasions, such as when his friends would come into town or when his family visited for Fall Family Weekend. He maintains that revisiting the places that contribute to Middlebury’s charm and seeing a thriving town is “in some ways as much of the enjoyment of returning as seeing the campus.” The alumnus wants readers of The Campus to reflect on the role local restaurants play in their positive memories of the college. “The value of food is kind of hard to overstate,” Milazzo said. “One day, you’ll return to Middlebury, and your favorite restaurant might not be there. If that’s going to be the case, is that something you can deal with, or do you want to do what you can to make sure that other students can enjoy the things that you got to enjoy?” Milazzo encourages students and members of the wider Middlebury community to “do all they can” to contribute to solutions. “Ultimately, if for no other reason than the fact that you’ve demonstrated as a student or a member of the Middlebury College community that you value the town of Middlebury, just that gesture has value,” Milazzo said. “Even if it’s only a couple dollars, or even if we’re only able to help one place, it’s just about doing everything you can.” Editor’s note: Consider donating to Milazzo’s GoFundMe Campaign.
After the Trump administration enacted updates last August to Title X funding stipulations in a move to severely limit access to abortion care, Vermont refused to yield. The Vt. Department of Health Services and the Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE) made the choice to forgo federal money, instead continuing to providing abortion services to Vermonters through state funding. The choice was made possible by Vt. Health Commissioner Mark Levine, who announced that state contingency funds would be allocated to cover the $759,000 difference. This decision came before PPNNE even announced that it as withdrawing from Title X funding. Title X, which has been in place since 1970, has subsidized birth control and other forms of affordable reproductive healthcare on a federal level. However, these new regulations prevent the allocation of federal funding to organizations that provide or refer patients for abortion services except in certain circumstances, including medical emergency and rape. Before these changes went into effect, PPNNE was the only provider in Vermont to receive Title X funding for family planning and reproductive health services. Title X money has never directly funded abortion services in Vermont; rather, it has helped patients, many of whom are low-income and uninsured, access cancer screenings, contraceptives and STD testing and treatments. This funding has helped approximately 11,000 Vermonters in the past year, according to Sullivan. The update to Title X requires that healthcare providers receiving funding from Title X withhold information on abortion services from patients. Eileen Sullivan, communications director at PPNNE, indicated that this is in “clear violation” of medical ethics and standards of care. “PPNNE’s healthcare providers are not going to conceal any information from our patients in exchange for federal funding, and we particularly refuse to let the Trump administration bully us into withholding information about safe, legal abortion,” Sullivan said. Ruhamah Weil ’21, who worked at Middlebury Planned Parenthood as an intern last summer, recalled when the Trump administration began to restrict allocation of Title X grants. “Middlebury’s clinic doesn’t even perform abortions due to staff, funding and space constraints, and it had lost money from the government for providing all sorts of other medical procedures,” Weil said. “This type of policy helps create and embolden the stigma around abortions. It sends a message that says that if the conversation between you and your doctor even includes the word abortion, it’s not a medical conversation.” Weil also said she alerted patients to losses in federal funding by putting up signs around the clinic. These signs explained that federal funding would not pay for new patients’ healthcare, while making clear that financial assistance would still be provided to those who would have originally benefited from federal aid. Weil found it important that the Middlebury clinic did not give in to Title X’s new stipulations, but expressed concern that reproductive services may be now limited in other regions. “[These changes] pile on so much more fear, hatred, and misunderstanding to the idea of abortions. It brushes the issue into a corner and tries to hide from it,” Weil said. “Instead, we proudly stood by Planned Parenthood’s commitment to providing safe and legal abortions for those who wish to receive them, but we also proudly stood by our patients in Middlebury who weren’t there to receive abortions.” Feminist Action at Middlebury (FAM) Co-President Annie Blalock ’20 indicated that FAM has engaged with the Title X cuts by supporting Vermont Proposition 5, an amendment to the State Constitution that is currently being deliberated in the Vermont Legislature. This amendment, if ratified, would guarantee that reproductive liberty is an unalienable right for Vermonters, regardless of restrictions on the federal level. “[It is] empowering for the politically conscious and for those just existing in this country to actively fight against what the gag rule represents in this country,” Blalock said. She recalled a time when FAM brought Middlebury students to the Vermont House of Representatives the day the bill was introduced, and remembered that it was astonishing to see pro-life activists alongside Planned Parenthood advocates. “That speaks to the gravity of a constitutional amendment,” she said. “We’d be the first state in the country to do something like that.” Lucy Leriche, PPNNE’s Vice President of Public Policy for Vermont, will host a workshop at Middlebury on March 11 that will train students on effective communication around reproductive justice. “We’re incredibly grateful to the Vermont Legislature and Governor Scott for reserving state funds to ensure services like affordable birth control, STD testing and treatment, and cancer screenings can continue for the 11,000 Vermonters who need this care,” Sullivan said. Sullivan also indicated that Planned Parenthood will remain committed to protecting its patients’ reproductive rights regardless of current political opposition. “Our patients, everyone,regardless of zip code, income, insurance, race, or identity, deserves expert health care and accurate reproductive health information,” she said. “Our doors are open, and we’re here to provide you care — no matter what.”
The Educational Affairs Committee is proposing that the college switch to a credit hour system, allowing for students to receive more than one credit for more time-consuming classes. Questions still remain, however, as to how the college would transition to the new system. The earliest that faculty would vote on the motion is at their December meeting, and the earliest potential year of implementation is 2021. Discussions about this potential switch stemmed from concerns that the college’s current system is unfair to students who take a high number of time-intensive classes, including students who might have to balance these classes with work-study jobs. Some classes at Middlebury meet for as little as two-and-a-half hours per week, while courses with labs or discussions require many more hours in a student’s schedule. Yet courses are uniformly valued at one credit each. This is because Middlebury uses the credit unit system to measure progress toward an undergraduate degree, within which all classes are valued at one credit on a student’s transcript. The alternative would be the credit hour system, in which universities designate credits based on the number of weekly hours a student spends in any given class. Under this system, a student with more hours of class a week would accumulate more credits for their time. While some students expressed uncertainty about the exact benefits and drawbacks of different credit allocation systems, many feel the current policy is imbalanced. “Last year, I took around 20 hours of class per week, and this semester, I’m only taking around 12,” Sabrina Templeton ’22 said. “It is a little bit unfair that I’m getting the same amount of credit for such different amounts of class time.” Students who opt to take classes with time-consuming labs, screenings, and discussion sections may have difficulty studying abroad, and may not be able to take certain classes outside of their majors. “I feel like it makes it harder for science students to study abroad and reduces some opportunity to try other subjects,” Ming Harris-Weidner ’22, an Environmental Chemistry major, said. “However, I don’t really have much of an opinion on it because I’ll be happy as long as I graduate.” The college does provide a way to transfer credit units to credit hours for students who need to provide that information to a potential employer, or if they transfer to another school. The college’s website states that one Middlebury credit can be considered equivalent to 3.3 credit hours, while a class involving separate labs can be valued at 4.0 credit hours. “The 3.3 credits comes from comparing the minimum credits required for a Middlebury degree, which is 36, and the minimum credits required for a bachelor’s degree in a semester hour credit system, which is 120,” Registrar Jennifer Thompson said. “It is up to each institution to decide how they will normalize our credit into their system.” While the credit unit system is not particularly common, many other NESCAC institutions also use it. However, not every college uses the same conversion metric — at Bowdoin College, each class translates to 4.0 credit hours, and Williams College considers each course to be 3.75 credit hours. If faculty do vote to change Middlebury’s credit system, the college would not be the first NESCAC institution to adopt a credit hour system. Tufts University implemented a credit-hour system in 2018, assigning semester-hour units to each course. The number of units varies, depending on instruction time, demand of lab requirements and rigor of outside work. On their website, Tufts cites straightforward transfer of credit to other institutions and transcript standardization as the primary reasons for the change. Additionally, the university states that students can better anticipate a course’s difficulty, seeing as credit hours are assigned according to how many hours the course will take up in a week.
A group of undergraduate educators come together in Ripton, Vt. each June to discuss topics ranging from successful teaching practices to the necessity for experiential learning in a liberal arts curriculum. This event, called June Forum, has been hosted by Middlebury’s Center for Creativity, Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship for the past eight years. The three-day gathering takes place at the Bread Loaf campus, where participants join in structured discussions about “what works” while teaching social entrepreneurship and recreational activities. Attendance at June Forum varies from about 60 to 110 educators annually, and in total, 454 people have participated over the years — a figure that includes Middlebury faculty and staff members. Attendees have hailed from 33 states and five countries, and 98 distinct colleges and universities have been represented. “June Forum has become a meeting ground that has a national reputation for educators. We’ve had several people tell us that June Forum helped to shape their programs subsequently,” said Jonathan Isham, co-founder of the center and June Forum. “We’re proud to say that many folks in the liberal arts at the very least pay close attention to what we’re doing at Middlebury.” Music Professor Damascus Kafumbe said that attending June Forum has helped him expand his teaching style to include more of an “engaged learning” approach. “The lessons have particularly been helpful in designing a performing arts and community engagement course that I will teach in Uganda every other summer,” he said. Participants attend workshops and discuss topics such as educators’ values, inclusivity in the classroom and mindful learning. Outside of the formal learning environment, attendees exchange ideas among themselves. According to organizers, there is an emphasis on unstructured time, enabling faculty and staff to talk openly about various approaches in the area of social enterprise. “There are a lot of different kinds of faculty and staff members who are working in a similar field but with varying aspects of infrastructure within their institutions,” said Charlotte X.C. Sullivan, a social entrepreneurship program associate at Middlebury. “There are a lot of shared values ... but also a lot of challenges based on those differences, in terms of educating in the field of social impact.” In their spare time, educators have the chance to decompress after the school year ends and grades are finalized. The attendees stay in Bread Loaf lodging, which lends itself to laidback conversations and unplanned collaboration. “A lot of the most powerful or important outcomes of the forum have been in unstructured time, so in the times where you can sit down and have a conversation,” Sullivan said. The educators attend June Forum in part to improve their teaching methods, specifically in the field of social entrepreneurship. “We are helping people to prepare students to lead and address the world’s most challenging problems,” Isham said, referring to the Middlebury mission statement, which also guides June Forum. “We’re helping other educators to do what we think we do pretty well.” Isham notes that, for future June Forums, engagement of Middlebury faculty is a key objective. He also plans to stress the pedagogical applications of research at Middlebury in upcoming June Forums, with the hopes of appealing to Middlebury faculty. Professors would then have the opportunity to speak about the results of their research and how conducting research affects their teaching. While the organizers have not finalized the 2020 June Forum theme, Isham suggested it would emphasize the idea of “walking alongside.” This alludes to the poetry of Robert Frost, who owned a cabin near the Bread Loaf campus and was involved with the writing program there. “The best way to work with people and influence people and be influenced by them is to have that sense of alongsidedness,” Isham said. “We’re not trying to lead them on the path nor follow them. We want to use that as a metaphor for how social change works.”
Climate activists in over 150 countries left work, school and business as usual to join last Friday’s Global Climate Strike. The first event in a planned week of worldwide climate activism, the Global Climate Strike arrived in Middlebury as hundreds of students, professors and town residents gathered at College Park to protest government apathy toward climate change. College students walked out of class at around 9:45 a.m. to attend the rally, joining students of all ages from the Addison Central School District as well as educators and community members. Student organizations Divest Middlebury, Sunrise Middlebury, and Middlebury Sunday Night Environmental Group planned the strike in collaboration with Extinction Rebellion Vermont, a local climate activism group. Organizers Cora Kircher ’20, Zoe Grodsky ’20.5, Connor Wertz ’22 and Divya Gudur ’21 had been coordinating the event since July. Attendees gradually collected around the speakers’ platform, and when most had arrived, strikers kicked off the event by chanting, “We are unstoppable. Another world is possible.” “In my three years doing the climate strike, this is maybe the largest turnout we’ve had,” Grodsky told The Campus. Some protestors held handmade signs that displayed phrases like: “Denial is not a policy,” “Go Greta [Thunberg!]” and “There is no Planet B.” College students hoisted a banner that stated “Strike 4 Climate.” The excited chattering and passionate dialogues about climate change subsided as a series of inspired speeches began. Families, friends and strangers alike stood side-by-side and listened intently. Kircher spoke first, concentrating on the necessary coordination of the climate justice movement with “decolonization, racial justice and indigenous resistance.” As Middlebury is situated on what she referred to as “stolen land,” Kircher included a moment of silence in solidarity with the Abenaki — a native people of Vermont. “We are here to demand an end to the age of fossil fuels, and we are here to demand something better,” Kircher said. “We’re striking because we believe that another world is possible, and we’re striking because that world is only as close as we make it and only as far away as we allow it to be.” Grodsky spoke next, focusing on the uprising against oppressive institutions and the impossibility of true climate justice in a society where migrant, racial, and economic injustice are systemic and institutionalized. “The climate change and the systems we talk about have material consequences on people’s lives—not in some far-off future, not in some far-off place, but right here, right now,” Grodsky said. “We must acknowledge that the disproportionate harm of climate change is falling right now on the most marginalized populations.” During her speech, Grodsky also asked the crowd to join in remembrance of Juan de León Gutierrez, a 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant who, while fleeing the repercussions of climate change, was one of six children since September 2018 to die in United States custody. Professor of Sociology and author of “Global Unions, Local Power” Jamie McCallum spoke after Grodsky, highlighting the power of protest to teach and to “win a better world.” “There’s nothing I can think of that’s more ‘liberal arts’ than professors and students and community members being hauled off to jail together after such an action [as blockading the ICE Facility, or other acts of civil disobedience],” McCallum said at the rally. McCallum also emphasized the ongoing alignment of the labor movement with the climate justice movement. He cited the United Auto Workers as an example of recent protest: On Sept. 20, they held a strike of 50,000 people against General Motors — a global corporation. “We’re at a point where it’s pretty obvious that the climate crisis is an economic crisis, as well, and the people that have the power to transform an economic crisis, for the most part, are workers. Whether or not you work in an extractive industry, the climate crisis is beginning to affect all of us,” McCallum told The Campus. “There are all these ways in which these movements are cross-pollinating, and that is the holy grail of social change.” Vivian Ross, a first-year at Middlebury Union High School, spoke fourth at the rally. She emphasized the onus on all community members — despite age, past activism (or lack thereof), or other obligations — to somehow actively engage in combating climate change. “Walking out of school, leaving work, organizing a rally … These are actions that build and build into a barrier so high that the politicians and corporations can no longer scale it with their money and blatant lies,” Ross said. “As one human race, we are capable of making all the right decisions before the Earth as we know it dives off the cliff that it’s barreling toward. We are all perfectly capable of digging in our heels and refusing to let the worst of us get the better of us.” Environmental Studies Professor Rebecca Gould then taught the crowd a Hebrew song called “My Strength,” traditionally sung in peaceful protests — at “racial justice marches in D.C., in front of ICE facilities, after the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, and in Jerusalem with women fighting for the right to pray at the Western Wall.” “What music has done in social justice movements for hundreds of years, across cultures, is help us tap into the hope when we feel so much anger — not just righteous anger at the corporations but anger that gets in the way,” Gould said.
The college offered admission to 1,175 regular decision applicants, it announced on March 23, bringing the overall acceptance rate for this admissions cycle to 15.8 %. Prospective students were chosen from a pool of 9,750 applications, the largest in the college’s history. This year’s rate is the lowest in several years’ — last year saw a rate of 18.4% and the year before saw a rate of 19.7% — but Dean of Admissions Greg Buckles noted that the rate may rise a percentage point after May 1, when the school accepts students off the waitlist. With recruitment efforts broadening, those accepted to the Middlebury Class of 2023 represent all 50 states and Washington, D.C., as well as 82 countries. Recently, the Admissions Office has made an effort to recruit students from Florida and other Southern states. These efforts have yielded results; Florida is among the top five states for most students admitted in this cycle. “Simply stated, that’s where the people are,” Buckles said when asked about the college’s efforts to admit more students from the South. He noted that the number of high school graduates in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic is declining, a change which could have significant ramifications for a school like Middlebury that draws heavily from these regions. “Most of the demographic growth in the U.S. is coming in the southern and western states. While we’ve had a solid presence in the West for some time now, we’ve not had the same presence in the South.” Efforts to expand Middlebury’s reach has come in multiple forms. School visits, partnerships with community-based organizations, and connections with local alumni are some ways in which Middlebury recruits students in new areas. This focus becomes especially important as the number of high school graduates in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic decreases. Middlebury takes a personalized approach to admissions outreach. Michelle Nelson, an admissions counselor responsible for managing recruitment efforts in Florida, recently reached out to current students who hail from that state. She attempts to connect prospective students from Florida with those who currently attend Middlebury. College admissions was a hot topic in the news this year, following the scandal that resulted in the prosecution of 16 wealthy families earlier this week. Buckles said that the scandal did not influence the college’s admission process, since the story broke after the committee had already made its decisions, but said that it did review its databases to guarantee integrity. Buckles also noted that the Class of 2023 differs from other years in a unique way. “This is one of the first classes where virtually all of the applicants will have been born in the 21st century, which is interesting to think about,” he said. “They have no physical connection to the previous century, which is reflected in a number of ways: how they interact with each other and society at large, how they think about the future, their perspective on politics, diversity, inclusion and access.” The Office of Admissions is now turning its attention to Preview Days, which provide prospective students an opportunity to explore campus and partake in a variety of activities, all while acquainting them with students and faculty. Preview Days will be held April 15-17.