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(02/21/19 11:01am)
MIDDLEBURY - For many Middlebury families, February break often serves as a time to spend time with loved ones or enjoy winter sports. Rather than heading to the Snow Bowl or Sugar Bush, however, some Middlebury area teens chose to spend their break working on something that won’t become useful until the ice thaws: a sailboat. Since Feb. 18, the teens have been working in the Patricia A. Hannaford Career Center as part of a boat building workshop run by the Middlebury Teen Center.
Ed McGuire, a volunteer from St. Stephen’s Church and a veteran of the Vergennes maritime museum, spearheaded the project. McGuire is working with the teens to build sailboats out of two sheets
of plywood. In addition to providing a fun activity until school resumes, building the boats has allowed McGuire to teach them various life skills such as proper power tool usage and craftsmanship.
“[The project] allows the teens to develop new skills that they may not have had the chance to before,” said Devon Karpak, the career center’s Interim Program Manager, in an email to The Campus.
The workshop runs from 8 a.m. to noon, aligning with Middlebury Union High School’s February break. The teens are provided with both breakfast and lunch before and after the program. Providing these two meals was an important part of the workshop, as the teen center serves many food-insecure teens.
“We don’t collect a lot of data from our kids, but a lot of them tell us that they get dinner from the teen center,” said Cicilia Robison, an Americorps member serving the teen center.
The boat building workshop aims to further the mission of the teen center; to provide a safe space for teens from all walks of life and of all identities. “We provide a safe, gently supervised place that’s warm and has food. Our goal is to support our teens in whatever way they need,” Robison elaborated.
The center aims to adhere to its message of unconditional positivity in every interaction with the kids it serves. “There are no bad people, only bad actions. If someone messes up, we talk to them about it, but the next day we’ll act completely normal towards them,” Robison said.
Aidan Wertz ’22 volunteers regularly with Addison Central Teens. A couple of days a week, Wertz goes to the teen center early to cook breakfast for the participants. “I love being with the kids, they’re super fun to hang out with. It’s fun to see the kids blossom,” Wertz said.
At the time of publication, about three teens actively participated in the project. The success of the project in attracting participants reflects a greater interest in the teen center as a whole. “We average 15 to 20 kids a day. A year ago, it was six to seven kids a day. So the teen center has grown a lot, and is continuing to grow” Robison said.
In addition to the boat making project, the teen center provides more casual after school activities as well. Many of these activities take the form of affinity groups, like the center’s LGBTQIA group. The boat building workshop is part of a larger project to increase the number of skills-based activities offered by the center.
The success of the workshop has created optimism about the future of more hands-on projects in future. “We will actually be offering another opportunity like this to turn the boat from a hull into a full blown sailboat over April Break,” Karpak said in an email.
More information about Addison Central Teens can be found at https://www.middteens.org.
(10/04/18 9:58am)
MIDDLEBURY — New Chinese tariffs on American goods have created challenges for the local dairy industry. On Tuesday, Sept. 18, China announced tariffs on $60 billion worth of goods, including dairy products. This dairy tariff amounts to 25 percent of the cost of the product itself.
The tariffs on American dairy products come as a direct response to tariffs placed on Chinese goods by the Trump administration. These fees form part of an ongoing trade war, which began when President Trump enacted tariffs on steel in March 2018. The Chinese government reacted by placing taxes on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods. The trade relations between the U.S. and China have followed a similar tit-for-tat pattern throughout the summer, with each country increasing tariffs response to the other’s actions.
Agri-Mark is a cooperative that owns one-third of the farms in the New England region, including Cabot Creamery. The cooperative operates four plants, one of which is located in Middlebury. Agri-Mark is currently one of the largest suppliers of dairy products in the Northeast.
The increased tariffs have mostly affected the sale of dry whey products, the only products Agri-Mark sells internationally. Producing cheese and milk creates whey runoff, which is then dried into two different products, whey permeate and whey protein concentrate. According to Doug DiMento, Director of Agri-Mark’s Corporate Communications, the latter is sold nationally and internationally to create the well-known whey protein powder, a staple in many supermarkets and health food stores. Whey permeate is mostly sold internationally as a component of processed foods or as animal feed. Agri-Mark currently sells most of its whey permeate to China to use as animal feed.
“The tariffs have impacted our dry whey product business, and we’ve worked for many years to build those relationships with China,” DiMento said.
The fees have already begun to affect Cabot. DiMento estimates that the tariffs will cost Agri-Mark at least several hundred thousand dollars and could easily soar into the millions by the end of 2018. “It seems like we’re in it for the long-haul with the tariffs,” DiMento said.
Agri-Mark currently shares some of the costs of the tariffs with China. However, in order to remain profitable in the long-term, Agri-Mark will need to focus on finding new markets and marketing their whey products in new ways.
The Cabot plant in Middlebury will be hit especially hard. The waste processing plant located in Middlebury is one of Agri-Mark’s largest and produces much of the whey products sold internationally.
Students need not worry about their beloved Cabot products disappearing from the dining halls, however. Cabot cheese products are only sold domestically, so the tariffs have not affected the sales of these products.
“Because we age our products nationally, we already have a premium-priced product, there’s little room. Because the nature of the cheese business is so competitive, it’s very difficult to raise prices across the board without affecting the sales,” DiMento explained.
The trade war looks like it will not be ending anytime soon. According to Associate Professor of Political Science Jessica Teets, domestic political concerns on both the American and Chinese sides will most likely prevent a swift end to this situation.
“President Trump has made pushing China into making concessions a key part of his presidential agenda, and I do not think he will back down unless the pain felt by consumers and manufacturers gets so intense that they organize and vote against him in the next election,” Teets said.
“[In China] there is a national pride in ‘standing up’ to Western aggressors, and this is the narrative under which the trade war fits, which gives President Xi a mandate to not give in to U.S. demands,” she added.
Despite the myriad obstacles, Cabot and Agri-Mark remain optimistic for the future. “What helps us every year is that Cabot products keep winning awards for quality, so we’re going to keep focusing on the quality of our products,” DiMento said.
(09/20/18 9:58am)
MIDDLEBURY — The town was overwhelmed with furry paws and barking as dogs and owners alike thronged to the Middlebury Memorial Sports Center on Saturday, September 15. Woofstock, the annual walk aimed to raise funds for Homeward Bound, the humane society of Addison County, drew all number of four-legged friends and many an excited onlooker.
“All of the proceeds from the event go directly to providing the homeless animals of Addison County with food, shelter, veterinary services and compassionate care,” said Hannah Manley, the Director of Development at Homeward Bound. Although the total amount of funds raised has not yet been calculated, it appears Homeward Bound will exceed its $25,000 goal.
Volunteers completed a one mile walk from the Memorial Sports Center into downtown Middlebury and back. 157 people and 90 dogs participated in the walk.
“This is a slow-moving, leisurely walk, with a lot of water for dogs and people,” Manley said.
Several new activities distinguished the walk from previous years. Prior to the walk, dogs could complete an agility course on the hockey rink or have their photo taken by a professional photographer in a setup similar to that of a school photo. Likewise, an “ask a trainer” booth run by Emily Lewis, a trainer who works as a consultant for Homeward Bound, gave pet owners the opportunity to ask any questions they may have had.
As in past years, dogs splashed about at a pool party following the walk. Although the Middlebury community pool closed three weeks prior, Homeward Bound was still able to use the space for the event. Manley described the pool party as her favorite part of the event.
“It’s really awesome,” she said. “You really have to see it to believe it. As an animal lover, it’s just a really cool way to cap out the summer.”
Many of the dogs who participated in the walk were Homeward Bound alumni. Abby, age 10, brought Samantha, the dog she and her family adopted from Homeward Bound last year, to the walk.
“We really like the people and the dogs,” Abby said. “[Samantha] can jump super high.”
Those who attended the walk cited a love for the dogs as their main reason for participation in the event.Britney and Mercedes of Lincoln, VT brought their four dogs, Diesel, Remington, Mosheus and Crosby, to the walk.
“I had a dog [that] I got from the humane society two years ago. So we just like to support the society,” Britney explained.
Christine Blakeney, a professional dog trainer and volunteer for the humane society, who attended the event echoed this sentiment.
“I love dogs and cats and rescuing them, and they all need a good home while they are in transition, which is what Homeward Bound does,” she said.
Homeward Bound is located on 236 Boardman Street in Middlebury. For more information about volunteering, donating or adopting an animal, visit homewardboundanimals.org or email shelter@homewardboundanimals.org.
(11/30/17 12:00am)
MIDDLEBURY — At a press conference on Thursday, Nov. 16, at Middlebury College’s Kirk Alumni Center, the college announced its partnership with Goodrich Family Farms of Salisbury, Vermont, Vanguard Renewables and Vermont Gas. Goodrich Family Farms and Vanguard Renewables will work together to use cow manure and food waste to produce renewable natural gas via an anaerobic digester.
The college will work with the two enterprises to gain a sustainable energy source and to reduce its own food waste, helping it to achieve its sustainability goals.
An anaerobic digester will be built by Vanguard Renewables on Goodrich Family Farms’s property and will turn the cow manure provided by the farm and food waste from the community into an energy source. The digester located at the Goodrich farm is posed to produce the most renewable natural gas of any digester in Vermont.
In addition to purchasing the bulk of the power generated by the digester, the college will provide some of its food waste for the digester to use as fuel.
“We are constantly looking at new ways to make our energy sources more sustainable and diverse, and the digester project is a great opportunity to do that,” said college treasurer David Provost.
Goodrich Family Farms is a dairy farm and member of the Agri-Mark Cabot Creamery Cooperative in Salisbury, Vermont. The farm has been family-operated for four generations. Chase Goodrich, the fourth generation to operate the farm, has been a driving force behind the project.
“We want to diversify our income sources and find new ways to be environmentally friendly. Here in the Champlain Valley, we’re particularly aware of efforts to reduce phosphorus runoff into Lake Champlain,” Goodrich said in a press conference.
Vanguard Renewables, a firm based in Wellesley, Massachusetts, works with farmers to help them reduce their energy costs through the firm’s anaerobic digester program. Non-farm waste, like the college’s food waste, is delivered to the farms in sealed trucks and is then combined with the farm’s waste, namely animal manure, and put into a biodigester tank at the farm. Vanguard currently operates three other generators in Massachusetts.
Vanguard Renewables works directly with farms in order to help them reduce their energy costs by utilizing the waste they produce, including cow manure and food waste. The biodigester tank reportedly reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent, according to the Vanguard Renewables website.
“The Vanguard Renewables Farm Powered Organics to Energy Anaerobic Digester program offers farmers relief from rising energy costs and manure disposal challenges,” Vanguard Renewables’ website states.
“We’re especially excited about this project because it’s our first partnership with a college and our first digester in Vermont,” said executive chairman of Vanguard Renewables John Hanselman in a press conference.
Vermont Gas is a company that aims to provide clean energy to those in Addison, Chittenden and Franklin counties. It frequently conducts efficiency programs that aim to help its customers save money and reduce their energy consumption.
“Vermont Gas is proud to be the first local distribution company in the country to offer the choice of renewable natural gas service to our customers. A local source, hosted by a Vermont family farm, serving a world-renowned Vermont college, is a big step forward in advancing Vermont’s clean energy future,” president and CEO of Vermont Gas Dan Rendall said in a press conference.
While the project is still in the permitting phase, all parties remain hopeful that it will soon be underway. After the permits are obtained, Vanguard will begin construction on the Goodrich Family Farm and Vermont Gaswill begin constructing a five-mile pipeline along Shard Villa Road in order to connect the farm with the company’s pipeline network in Addison County, as reported by the Middlebury College Newsroom.
(11/16/17 12:26am)
STOWE — On Friday, Dec. 8, the Edgewater Gallery will open a new location in Stowe, Vermont. This will be the fourth location for the franchise, which currently operates two locations in Middlebury, Vermont, and one in Bozeman, Montana.
Dalton Hartye, marketing and design manager for Edgewater Galleries, cited the large number of artists exhibiting work in the galleries and the need to alternate peak seasons as the main reason they chose Stowe over Burlington for the new gallery.
“We thought that Stowe would be a better location due to the fact that we could then have alternating peak seasons. The summer and fall in Middlebury is a more popular season. In Stowe it’s the opposite,” Hartye said.
Each location features a different aesthetic. The On the Green location in Middlebury carries relatively larger pieces as its larger size can accommodate them, while the Middlebury Falls location carries smaller works. The Stowe gallery will serve as a combination of artists featured in both the On the Green location and the Middlebury Falls location. It will include wood block prints by Matt Brown, a local artist, and a large sculptural piece by Jonathon Evenger.
“It is definitely on the smaller [side], the smallest of the three in Vermont, but we do have a large amount of work up there, and we are constantly adding new work to that location,” Hartye said.
Edgewater Galleries are teaming up with Lamoile County United Way to host the grand opening of the Stowe location on Dec. 8, from 5 to 7 p.m.
(11/09/17 12:40am)
The Lobby restaurant will be ending its half-price Wednesday promotion starting this week. The promotion will be replaced with half-price burger Thursdays. Dickie Austin, director of operations of the Vergennes Restaurant Group, the management team that runs the restaurant, cited the need to mix things up and managerial strains as the main reasons for the switch.
The half-price Wednesday promotion had been going on for almost the entire four years the restaurant has been in business before management made the switch this week.
“We’d always intended it to be temporary and let it run until we came up with something else to try,” Austin said. “We’re moving it to Thursday to swap things out and mix things up.”
Austin also cited difficulties in managing the four restaurants under the same management group as a reason for the change. The four restaurants the group operates — the Lobby, the Black Sheep Bistro, the Park Squeeze and the Bearded Frog Bar and Grille — all operate in various locations throughout southern Vermont and focus on locally sourced menus.
“Our sister restaurant Park Squeeze in Vergennes has a half-price Wednesday and it created some management difficulty. We always want a manager to be present in the restaurants during a promotion like this,” Austin said.
Management remains confident that this switch will not significantly affect its customers.
“The most popular items on Wednesdays were burgers anyhow so we decided to make it burger night,” Austin said.
(10/04/17 11:53pm)
Ethan Sonneborn, an eighth grade student at Mount Abraham Union Middle School, announced this month his campaign for a spot in Vermont’s 2018 gubernatorial race. Sonneborn, a Democrat, aims to inspire other young people to participate in politics at any level.
“We need to engage young people in the process,” Sonneborn said in an interview.
Vermont is one of the few states that does not place an age requirement on gubernatorial candidates. Vermont’s youngest governor was 34-year-old F. Rey Keyser, Jr., who was elected in 1960. Gubernatorial candidates are only required to have resided in Vermont for at least four years, a requirement that Sonneborn, a lifelong Vermonter, has already passed.
Sonneborn has been interested in politics and history for most of his life, after finding a photo of Robert F. Kennedy in an encyclopedia. He was just five years old. He even talked with his kindergarten teacher about becoming president someday.
His interest in politics turned into action in middle school, when he led a peaceful protest against a school ban on talking during his lunch periods. He and his friends held signs and refused to eat until administrators lifted the ban.
Unlike most 13-year-olds, Sonneborn has developed nuanced positions on many of the issues currently plaguing both Vermont and the nation at large. He supports marijuana legalization and further protections for LGBT individuals. His first priority if elected would be to reform Vermont Health Connect, Vermont’s health insurance marketplace, in order to ensure that more Vermonters have access to affordable healthcare.
“These issues affect the entire nation, but I believe Vermont could lead the way in solving them,” Sonneborn said.
Sonneborn is most passionate about combatting apathy in politics. His mission to engage young people in the political process could prove to be challenging, as historically young people are less likely to participate in politics than their older counterparts. The General Social Survey conducted in 2014 revealed that millennials are less likely to vote than other generations, despite engaging in other forms of political action, as reported by The Washington Post.
“I really see a lot of pessimism in America right now. I’ve always thought America needs a fresh vision,” Sonneborn said.
Sonneborn has gotten many of his friends involved in his campaign as well. He launched his campaign a couple of weeks before the new school year began, and on his first day back, many of his friends asked to work on his campaign.
“My formal senior staff is almost entirely comprised of eighth graders. I think this helps — I was looking for people who cared about our state and wanted to help it through this time,” Sonneborn said.
Despite the challenges that will come with running a gubernatorial campaign and attending the eighth grade, Sonneborn is confident in his abilities to effect change in Vermont politics while still fulfilling his duties as a student.
“So far I’ve been able to balance both [the campaign and school], but I think running for governor is also a valuable educational experience and my parents agree,” Sonneborn said.
If Sonneborn wins the Democratic primary, he will most likely face incumbent Republican Phil Scott, who has not yet announced his reelection campaign but is expected to do so later this year. Democrat James Ehlers, the Executive Director of fishing and clean water advocacy organization Lake Champlain International, also announced a bid for governor in July 2017.
Although his main focus is to win the general election in 2018, for now, Sonneborn hopes the campaign itself will help interest more young people in the political process.
“We really need people engaged in the political process. I really appreciate it when people tweet at the campaign. It’s really important that we get people engaged,” Sonneborn said.
(09/27/17 11:13pm)
After two years of contentious negotiations with the school board, the Burlington teachers’ union voted to go on strike on Sept. 7. This represents the first time a teachers’ strike has occurred in Burlington since Sept. 1978. The issues surrounding this September’s contentious contract negotiations between the school board and teachers’ union centered on adequate planning time for elementary school teachers as well as recent budget and hours cuts that have recently plagued the Burlington school district.
Over one hundred teachers picketed outside Staples Plaza on Williston and outside Burlington public schools.
“A lot of people didn’t believe that Burlington teachers would actually go on strike, again underestimating us and not taking us seriously,” said Fran Brock, president of the Burlington Education Association. “Because [the school board] imposed [new working conditions] for a second year in a row, we felt there were no options left except to strike.”
This isn’t the first time negotiations between the school board and the teachers’ union reached a stalemate. Last year, the school board also created new, unwelcome working conditions. Although the two parties were able to reach an agreement the night before the union set to go on strike last year, remaining hostility remained that fueled the contentious negotiations this September.
“We found ourselves in the same place this year,” Brock said. “We tried to get the school board to be more responsive, so we voted again to strike.”
On Sept. 1, the Burlington public school board voted to impose working conditions on teachers within the district for the second year in a row, which included salary and healthcare changes as well as elimination of some of the elementary school teachers’ planning periods. After the school board imposed the working conditions, 95 percent of teachers voted to go on strike.
“A culmination of frustration and annoyance that the administration were really being disrespectful, weren’t listening to the teachers, dropping people into positions, just the idea that the board sanctioned the administration constant cuts and shifting around of people” fueled the strike, according to Brock.
While the board proposed a 2.4 percent salary increase, the union countered with a 2.96 percent salary increase in the first year and a 3.2 percent salary increase in the second year. The new healthcare system proposed by the school board, the Vermont Education Health Initiative, also included a lower percentage of out-of-pocket costs paid by individual members than the previous plan.
While salaries were important, the union maintains that their breaking point was the removal of planning periods for elementary school teachers. Brock maintains that these planning periods are essential to closing the achievement gap in Burlington public schools. In order to give elementary school teachers more planning time, the union suggests hiring more para-educators, like teachers’ aids, to aid educators at the elementary level. The board’s resolution includes changing two blocks of time formerly used as planning periods for teachers and to district-controlled supplemental education blocks, in which teachers will provide supplemental activities for their students. Moreover, the board requires that teachers maintain their non-educational duties, like playground and lunch duty.
“What’s lost to the general public is that there’s been a lot of changes on how we are expected to deliver education and it requires more one on one time with children and more collaborative work with teams — teams work together to develop student-centered learning,” Brock said. “There’s much more of a need for teachers to have planning time during the school day to have those collaborative meetings and work one on one with kids.”
The strike caused the Burlington school district to cancel four days of classes, with school resuming Wednesday, Sept. 20. Almost four thousand students were provided free lunch during the strike. For working parents, however, childcare options were limited. Many students spent their days in the public libraries while other parents paid to send their children to specially set up camps.
The two parties used independent mediator Ira Lobel to help settle the dispute. The settlement was reached Sept. 19 at 8 p.m. Although the official details of the new contract have not been revealed, both sides maintain the agreeability of the terms.
“We did get some of the elementary [school requests] the in contract, but [it]won’t go into effect until next year. This will require [the] district to hire more educators and give existing educators more hours,” Brock said. “It is a better contract than last year, but I don’t think either side got everything they wanted.”
Vermont is currently the only New England state that uses a collective bargaining system to settle labor disputes, which consequently allows teachers to strike. Vermont state Representative Kurt Wright (R-Burlington) and state Sen. Joe Benning (R-Caledonia) both plan to introduce bills in January that would set up new systems of contract resolution, thus banning future teachers’ strikes. Wright and Benning are looking for a system other than binding arbitration, which is what many states that ban strikes use to resolve employment disputes. The new bill in question, however, is not without its critics. Sen. Anthony Pollina (P/D-Washington) strongly opposes the bill on the grounds that it undermines “the strength and very existence of unions.” Others, including Brock, are confident that the current system works for Vermont.
“The issue is, [is the new system] really going to be more effective than the collective bargaining system we have had? [This] was only the second teachers’ strike Burlington has had in about 50 years under the collective bargaining system. It’s not like it’s a chronic issue,” Brock said.
(09/21/17 12:08am)
Vermont Governor Phil Scott (R) created a commission to study the legalization of marijuana in the state on Sept. 7 via executive order. This executive order comes only four months after Scott’s veto of S. 241, a bill that would create a similar commission in addition to legalizing small amounts of marijuana for recreational use, which passed the Vermont Legislature in May 2017.
“This Commission is part of a more thoughtful, deliberative process to deal with an issue that impacts all of us” Scott said in a statement.
The commission will include thirteen members and will be chaired by Tom Little (R), and Jake Perkinson (D), as reported by The Burlington Free Press. The mission and timeline of the commission created by Gov. Scott via executive order will differ little from that conceived of by the Vermont Legislature in May. The commission will focus its studies on the public health in addition to the economic effects of the creation of a regulated marijuana market in Vermont. The commission will meet by Oct. 1 of this year and will release a report regarding the possibility of a taxed and regulated marijuana market in Vermont by Dec. 15.
Although 65 percent of Vermonters approve of the legalization of the recreational use of marijuana, passage of a bill guaranteeing that right has met opposition within the Vermont legislature in addition to bodies governing at the town and village level. The Vermont League of Cities and Towns (VLCT) currently lobbies the state government in favor of local interests and has been a vocal opponent of marijuana legalization in Vermont.
“Speaking with one voice on behalf of many Vermont municipalities, VLCT educates state and federal officials about the impact of their actions on local governments and informs them of municipal needs” The Vermont League of Cities and Towns said on their website. The VLCT opposes the legalization of marijuana in Vermont on the basis of lack of clarity of the proposed policies that would implement legalization.
“Because there are so many unanswered questions, VLCT has from day one opposed the legalization of marijuana, and supports keeping current law intact which treats possession of small amounts of marijuana as a ticket-able offense, similar to a traffic citation” Gwyn Zakov said in the VCLT’s ninth Weekly Legislative Report of 2016.
For proponents of legalization, however, the study commission may not be as promising. Dave Silberman, a corporate lawyer based in Middlebury and spouse of a college professor, works pro bono on the legalization of marijuana in Vermont and explained this sentiment.
“The entire point of that commission is to slow things down” Silberman said. “The Vermont legislature has taken 100 hours of testimony in many different committees — all of these issues have been studied.”
The issue of the legalization of marijuana is not confined to the Vermont state government but has also caused controversy within Middlebury’s Selectboard, the entity that governs the local affairs of Middlebury along with the town manager.
“Each of the past two years, Middlebury's Selectboard had authorized our town's representative to the VLCT, Town Manager Kathleen Ramsay, to [oppose legalization], but without any notice or public discussion around the marijuana platform” Silberman said in an email.
Afterwards, Middlebury town residents passed a resolution prohibiting the Selectboard, governing body, from taking a position on the legalization of marijuana without public hearings. In August, the Selectboard conducted a survey to find the Middlebury community’s views on the legalization of marijuana.
“Town residents' responses were overwhelming 68 percent in favor of legalization, and against further lobbying on the issue 65 percent,” Silberman said.
Proponents of legalization argue that legalization would provide a myriad of public health and economic benefits to the state of Vermont. In Colorado, it is estimated that the legalization of marijuana added 135 million dollars to the state’s revenue in addition to creating thousands of new jobs, as reported by The Boston Globe.
“In May, 2017, the non-partisan Joint Fiscal Office estimated that a regulated cannabis market would produce approximately $350 million of economic activity each year, or roughly 1.2 percent of annual Gross State Product” Silberman said.
Likewise, proponents argue that legalization would help stem the opioid crisis currently plaguing the state. Despite efforts to curb the crisis, Vermont accounted for 106 opioid related deaths in 2016 alone, representing a 41 percent increase from the previous year. Likewise, The Rutland Herald reported that 17 percent of Vermonters received a prescription for an opioid in 2014, greatly increasing their chances of becoming addicted to prescription opioids in addition to heroin.
“Given the choice, people suffering from chronic pain are choosing cannabis over far more harmful and addictive opioids. States with safe and legal access to cannabis, and particularly those with robust regulated distribution models, see 16 percent fewer opioid-drugged driving deaths, a 20 percent reduction in opioid-related hospitalizations, and 24 percent fewer opioid/opiate overdose deaths than states without” Silberman said.
On the other hand, opponents of legalization argue that Vermont lacks law enforcement infrastructure that is as extensive as that of states like Colorado and Massachusetts and that allows legalization to be a viable option.
“In a state where many communities do not have local police departments and have to contract out for law enforcement services and where towns are often far from those services, we worry that S.241 addresses none of these concerns. Compare that with Colorado, where every municipality that voted to allow marijuana establishment has a local police or sheriff department, and sometimes both,” the VLCT said in a legislative report from March of 2016.
The VLCT also opposed S.241 on the grounds that it provided no funding for municipalities and local governments to handle the problems arising from the legalization.
Despite recent setbacks and strong opposition, supporters of legalization remain optimistic that the state of Vermont will eventually join the likes of the nine states in addition to the District of Columbia that have already legalized small amounts of marijuana for recreational use.
“The most harmful thing about marijuana is its criminalization,” Silberman said.
(09/14/17 4:01am)
After nine years of business, 51 Main has closed its doors for the last time as Middlebury welcomes The Rough Cut to the iconic space this fall. Ben Wells, a local restaurateur and former Middlebury College Men’s Rugby coach, will be leading this venture along with a small partnership group.
“We really wanted ownership of whatever took over the 51 Main space to be local,” Dave Donahue, special assistant to the President and director of community relations, said in an e-mail. The Rough Cut will be privately owned and the College will retain no control over it.
Leading up to the closure, 51 Main had been losing money for years. “We’ve tried different approaches to try to improve the bottom line but we haven’t been successful,” Donahue said. “At the same time student interest in 51 Main has ebbed and flowed over the years.” In the last year, employees had also began to notice the restaurant's decline.
“At first it seemed like there were a lot of students but then it started to not be a ton of people,” former bartender and waiter Alex Hogenhuis ’19 said.
Another student who worked at 51 Main, who wishes to remain anonymous due to employment retribution, also saw the decline in customers.
“There weren’t very many people coming in, except for Tuesdays or when there was a popular band coming in,” they stated in an interview. “There were days when only maybe 20 people walked through the door.”
The student also cited poor business practices as a main reason for the restaurant’s decline.
“It’s a very formal environment, and we served very fancy food, and college students just want burgers and beer. We should’ve just served that, but the head staff was very against that idea,” the student confessed.
On top of these criticisms, they mentioned that bands often cost more than the restaurant would generate in revenue in a given night. According to this student, the managerial staff’s resistance to changing the identity of the restaurant ultimately led to the restaurant’s demise.
“It was like they saw problems but never tried to fix anything,” the student insisted.
Wells hopes to attract a wider variety of people by changing the composition and identity of the restaurant.
“We hope to appeal to a wide cross-section of the community with great service, great food, great drinks and a great experience for everyone,” Wells stated in an e-mail.
Contrary to 51 Main, The Rough Cut will focus on serving barbecue and southern comfort food. It will still feature a bar, but its focus will shift specifically to specializing in bourbon and whiskey cocktails.
“The idea behind the look is that it will be like going to an outdoor barbecue - very relaxed, warm and comfortable,” Wells explained.
In addition to a change in the food, the restaurant will also have a new spatial layout to accommodate a larger kitchen and a mechanical bull.
“It will be a totally different restaurant and business than 51 Main was,” Wells insisted.
Despite the change in ownership, the College hopes to continue its affiliation with the space.
“We have discussed programming to attract students with the new ownership group and they are very interested in this kind of collaboration,” Donahue said.
Both the school, and the partnership, view the space underneath the restaurant as holding great potential for student programming and events.
(05/04/17 1:30am)
On April 26, Amy Goodman, broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author, delivered a keynote address to more than 200 audience members in Wilson Hall. Goodman’s visit to the College is part of a tour promoting her new book, coauthored with Dennis Moynihan and David Goodman, “Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America”.
Goodman founded the progressive, independent national news program Democracy Now! in 1966. Democracy Now! focuses its coverage on social movements often ignored by larger media outlets and seeks to amplify the voices of average Americans. In her speech, Goodman discussed some of the program’s most pressing stories, including Standing Rock, the revolutions in Tunisia and Occupy Wall Street. “I deeply think that those who are concerned about war and peace, those who are concerned about the growing inequality in this country, those who care about climate change, racial, economic and social justice and LGBTQ issues, are not the fringe minority. They are not even a silent majority, but the silenced majority: silenced by the corporate media which is why we have to take it back,” Goodman said.
Dennis Moynihan — former outreach director of Democracy Now! and uncle of Maeve Moynihan ’17 — and David Goodman — husband of 2016 Vermont gubernatorial candidate Sue Minter and brother of Amy Goodman — introduced her. Goodman’s speech focused on the importance of independent journalism in amplifying voices of resistance, especially in the Trump era. Goodman shared several examples of Democracy Now’s work in documenting social justice movements, including those that arose recently in Arkansas during the three recent double executions and during Occupy Wall Street. “I remember the corporate media and how they were dealing with Occupy. First they didn’t cover it for like a week, and this is in the media metropolis of the world: New York City. And then they start to ridicule it. This was not a leaderless movement, it was a leader-full movement,” Goodman said.
After learning of Goodman’s interest in coming to Middlebury, Moynihan worked with a variety of student organizations, faculty members and members of the community to plan and publicize the event. Moynihan worked with the Vermont Book Shop, located in downtown Middlebury, to publicize the event to both students and community members. The large interest drawn from community members caused Moynihan to change the location from Dana Auditorium to Wilson Hall. “My uncle Dennis has worked with Amy and Democracy Now! for a number of years, so she has been a close family friend to me for many years. The book tour was the perfect opportunity to have them speak at Middlebury,” Moynihan said. “I hope students and visitors left the event with a deeper understanding of what is actually going on in our world and a deeper commitment to independent media.”
Democracy Now! airs on WRMC 91.1 and online Monday through Friday at 7 PM EST.
(04/27/17 1:44am)
A ceremony for Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom HaShoah, took place on Sunday, April 23, in Mead Memorial Chapel. The College’s Charles P. Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life sponsored the event, and students Sarah Asch ’19.5, Cece Alter ’19.5 and Hannah Krutiansky ’19 — all board members of Hillel — worked with Rabbi Ira J. Schiffer to plan it. Middlebury College has been hosting Holocaust Remembrance ceremonies since the late 1970s. This event brought together students involved in Hillel as well as members of Havurah, the Addison County Jewish Congregation, in remembrance of the genocide that claimed the lives of over six million Jews.
The service began with a background address delivered by Chaplain of the College Laurie Jordan ’79 and ended with a Benediction by Schiffer. The event also featured a candle lighting ceremony, memorial prayers and musical interludes sung by the Middlebury College Choir. Both students and community members recited texts and led the congregation in song.
After the candle lighting ceremony, Alter and Krutiansky both spoke about their grandparents’ experiences during the Holocaust and the importance of remembering their stories in order to prevent future tragedies. “I think as we get farther and farther away from the Holocaust it’s easier to not think about, but especially as a Jew it’s such a part of our history and something that’s really important to remember, especially for me since my family was involved,” Alter said.
Both Alter and Krutiansky emphasized the Holocaust’s relevance to the current political climate. “When I went to Auschwitz with my grandfather, there was a teacher there who asked my grandfather if there was one thing I could teach my students, what would you want it to be, and he said ‘To love everyone,’” Krutiansky said. “When you love everyone, it’s much harder to get into such dangerous situations.”
Local physician Dr. Jack Mayer, author of “Before the Court of Heaven,” spoke next, focusing on Germany’s descent into Nazism. Mayer drew a comparison between Germany’s pre-1933 Weimar Republic and the United States’ current political climate, noting, “The Nazis wanted to make Germany great again.”
Asch, Krutiansky and Alter all serve as board members on Hillel, Middlebury’s Jewish student organization. Hillel holds services in the Freeman International Center every Friday night followed by a dinner, and also hosts other events for Middlebury’s Jewish student community. “It’s nice to have a Jewish space away from home,” Asch said. “Hillel offers a really great place to kind of reconnect with Judaism, because for a lot of kids college is the first time they’ve had to seek out a religious community.”
(04/21/17 2:56am)
Evelin Toth ‘17 was recently awarded the prestigious Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. The Watson program, established in 1961, is a highly selective program that funds a year of international study for its forty-nine fellows. An environmental studies major and French minor, Toth plans to use her Watson year to study the effects of climate change on island communities.
Toth’s project, titled “Adapting to the Rising Seas: Climate Change and Island Communities,” will study the unique problems faced by these areas in handling the global issue of climate change.
“I decided to focus on islands, because island communities and ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Due to this exceptional vulnerability, climate adaptation is a particularly acute issue in these places,” Toth said. Toth will travel to Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Taiwan, Samoa and Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands and will connect with local NGOs and environmental activists to conduct her project.
Toth hopes to gain a holistic view of how these communities alleviate problems related to climate change.
“While I have learnt a lot about climate change through an academic lens, I have always felt that in order to gain a profound understanding of its impacts, one has to engage with those communities that are directly affected by it,” Toth said.
Toth’s project will help her to better understand climate change and global solutions.
“I think that my Watson experience will be a bittersweet journey; I will learn about how climate change is affecting people’s lives and testing nature’s resilience. But I am also hoping to see how this shared, global challenge can unite us and help us rethink our relationship with nature,” Toth said.
Toth first learned about the Watson Fellowship her sophomore year and immediately knew that she wanted to apply for it. The application process began in the spring of her junior year and ended almost a year later.
“The Watson Fellowship pushes fellows to explore places where they have never been before. I grew up in Hungary, lived in Singapore for two years and moved to the States when I started college– engaging with people from different cultures and parts of the world has been an enriching experience in so many ways,” Toth said.
After she completes her project, Toth will continue her studies at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Management. “I am confident that the experiences I will gain during my Watson year will help me focus on the most crucial aspects of the climate problem in my future studies. Ultimately, I hope that the Watson year will make me be better prepared to join the global movement to combat climate change,” Toth said.
(11/13/15 4:26am)
Over the last two semesters, the student organization Middle Endian, otherwise known as Middlebury’s Computer Science club, has been working to create a new mobile app for the Midd Rides program, the evening transportation service on and around campus. The club plans to release the app during Winter Term of this year.
“The app is basically our solution to solve some of the inconsistencies and inconveniences of the current Midd Rides system,” said Sherif Nada ’16, one of the students spearheading the project.
Currently, students are able to use Midd Rides by calling the dispatcher phone number during operation hours and ask to be picked up at one of the service’s 11 stops. The dispatcher then radios the driver’s assistant who will tell the driver where the next pick-up location is. The goal of the app is to streamline this process.
“The biggest problem is that someone can call the van and say ‘come meet me at [Adirondack Circle], for example, and then you have no idea when that van is going to get there. And since Middlebury is freezing most of the year, that’s really inconvenient for a lot of people because they stay outside for a while [waiting for a van]” Nada said.
In order to enhance communications between the student and the Midd Rides dispatcher, rather than inundating the dispatcher with calls, students will be able to press a button that will alert the dispatcher that they need to be picked up. A drop-down menu will then allow students to select from the selection of locations around campus at which they wish to be picked up. The dispatcher will then be able to see the number of students at each location who need to be picked up and tell the drivers the most convenient and time-sensitive routes. Additionally, the app will alert students on their phones when the driver is near.
By alerting students when the driver is near, the app aims to cut wait times from ten or 15 minutes, to two or three minutes. “The dispatcher to driver lane of communication stays the same, but the user to dispatcher communication is what is changing, at least in this version” said one of the programmers Nosagie Asaolu ’18.
Laura Harris ’17, who has worked as a driver and driver’s assistant for Midd Rides for two years, agrees that the app would help Midd Rides be more efficient. “The new app would be useful to us as drivers because it will make it easi- er for people to meet the van on time, so we will be able to pick people up more efficiently and not spend time waiting at stops” she said.
Asaolu, Julian Billings ’16, Ben Brown ’18, Khi Chou ’16, Henry Swaffield ’18 and Peter Wang ’18 are the pro- grammers currently working to create the app. Nada founded the Computer Science club in order to provide com- puter science students with real-world rather than theoretical skills.
“I founded the club because I thought there was a disconnect between what is being taught in computer science and what is demanded in many areas of the job market,” Nada said.
The programmers who are creating the app hope for it to spark the interest of other computer science students. “For the community at large, this is definitely a way to use Midd Rides better, but for people involved in computer science, for people who are trying to learn about cod- ing or software development, this can be a playground,” Nada said. “They can try to upgrade the product and expand it into something bigger than what it was initially.”
(10/15/15 2:26am)
On Thursday, Oct. 8, 12 students competed for the opportunity to be the student speaker selection for next month’s TEDxMiddlebury conference. Gathering in Dana Auditorium, students had four minutes to present a condensed version of their proposed TED talks to a panel of judges. Topics this year included domestic violence, art and spoken word poetry, all of which fell under this year’s theme, “Caught in the Act.” Casey Wanna ’17 was selected as the winner and will give her talk at the sixth annual TEDxMiddlebury Conference on Sunday, Nov. 8.
Wanna’s pitch focused on her recovery from anorexia nervosa and the larger implications of that for the College community.
“Middlebury has a very keen focus on body type, and it’s very much entrenched in this idea that this thinness and this idealized body image is something that is very much desired” said Wanna. “I feel like there’s a lot of judgments that are passed on people due to body image and that there are a lot of cultural expectations that are just unachievable.”
Wanna intends for her talk to start broader conversations not only about body image but also about mental health.
“I want to focus on this internal dialogue that we run in our own minds, and how we can shift that internal dialogue from being negative to being positive, and what efforts we can make in that regard,” she said.
“I think this has a lot to do with body image particularly. However, I think it has a lot of broader implications in terms of mental health treatment.”
This year’s theme, “Caught in the Act,” focuses on self-discovery in college.
“College is a time for identity. You are thinking about who you are, looking back on who you were, and are able to see where you come from for the first time because you are not surrounded by it anymore” said Anna Jacobsen ’16.5, who is on the board of TEDxMiddlebury. “‘Caught in the Act’ is this idea of how our actions and how our own self-exploration inform our identity.”
TED, which stands for technology, entertainment and design, started in 1984 in order to showcase, as their tagline says, “ideas worth spreading.” The nonprofit has since grown to include multiple conferences throughout the year. The TEDx program began as an offshoot of the larger TED organization to create similar conferences at the local level.
The Programs on Creativity and Innovation launched TEDxMiddlebury in 2010. The program has rapidly expanded in the last six years, moving from McCardell Bicentennial Hall to the Mahaney Center for the Arts in order to accommodate the growing number of attendees. Speakers are professionally filmed during the conference and their presentations, which typically run at 18 minutes each and are uploaded to the TEDxMiddlebury YouTube page. In 2012 TEDxMiddlebury included the student speaker component.
In addition to one selected student speaker, the program also hosts six outside speakers.
“One of the biggest ways TEDx has grown is [that] we have really strong speakers,” Jacobsen said.
“People on TEDx have really learned what makes a good speaker and recognize when people are [at] points in their careers when they could give a really influential TED talk.”
In choosing outside speakers, TEDxMiddlebury aims to address issues relevant to the Middlebury community. “I see TEDxMiddlebury as being reactionary to events and thoughts on campus,” Jacobsen said. We bring speakers who can add insight to events on campus or issues that people are talking about,” said Jacobsen.
Speakers at this year’s conference include Marco Mezzavilla, a web development and computer science expert, and Brendan O’Neill, a migrant justice activist. Notable past speakers include spoken word poet Alok Vaidmenon, who gave a talk titled “We are Nothing and that is Beautiful,” and Assistant Professor of Dance Christal Brown, whose talk titled “Moving Questions” centered on nonverbal communication.
In the month leading up to her talk, Wanna will work with oratory coaches in order to develop her proposal into an 18 minute Ted Talk.
“My topic is really relevant to me,” Wanna said. “It has a completely personal basis, and I honestly feel like it’s a message that needs to be heard.”