38 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(10/01/20 10:00am)
Before she was Notorious, before she sat on the highest court in the land, before she argued in front of that very court against gender-based discrimination, Ruth Bader was a dedicated college student who snuck books into the bathroom to study. At a time when women were expected to graduate with little more than an “MRS” degree, Ginsburg was an unflinching academic whose accomplishments paved the way for millions to follow.
Justice Ginsburg was the first woman on the Harvard Law Review, graduated first in her class at Columbia Law School and became the second-ever woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court when appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993. By the end of her nearly thirty-year tenure, she had asserted herself a liberal champion for her scathing dissents and had become a household name. Ginsburg’s path to the Supreme Court was fraught with obstacles and discrimination, but for each door she opened, she made sure to hold it wide for those who followed.
Justice Ginsburg died on the night of Sept. 18, the first night of Rosh Hashanah. One of two “High Holy Days” in the Jewish calendar, the day marks the start of the Jewish New Year. Justice Ginsburg was the first Jewish woman to serve on the Supreme Court, and it is said that those who die on Rosh Hashanah are of great righteousness. As word of her death traveled around Middlebury, the college community mourned and reflected on the effects of her legacy in their own lives.
President Laurie Patton was home preparing Shabbat dinner when she heard of the Justice’s death. Ginsburg was a role model of Patton’s. She explained that the holiday of Rosh Hashanah celebrates the creation of a new world and, in her view, Ginsburg helped construct a new world for future generations to live in.
“I believe this identity [as a Jewish woman] was one of the things that gave her life-long grit,” Patton told The Campus. “I hope every young person sees in RBG’s words and her life story that discouragement is not a blow, but an opportunity, an opening for another path forward.”
Alex Dobin ’22 was also celebrating Rosh Hashanah in a Zoom service with her friends and family when she received a barrage of messages about Justice Ginsburg’s death. She told The Campus that she watched as others in the call began to hear the news as well.
“There was this moment where I knew that it was circulating among people whom I was sharing this moment with,” said Dobin. “What a day to find out this information about this incredible, strong Jewish woman who has talked about her connection to Jewish social justice. [...] There’s this idea that RBG is an icon for feminists everywhere and people interested in gender equality politics, but also within the Jewish community she’s totally an icon.”
In addition to Justice Ginsburg’s significance within the Jewish community, Patton looked to her as a symbol of intellectual resilience and courage.
“She never gave up — not when she was told she was employable only as a typist, not when she was denied teaching jobs, not when she lost cases,” Patton said. “She focused on the long-term issues, not the politics of the moment.”
Professor of Political Science and constitutional scholar Murray Dry has spent years studying decisions in which Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion, and those in which she dissented.
“I was, like many Americans, surprised and saddened by the news of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death,” Dry said. “She was more influential than any other person in bringing about a judicial recognition of the equal rights of women under the law.”
Dry identifies Ginsburg's “rockstar status” as a testament to her legal accomplishments and past decade of leadership on the liberal wing of the Supreme Court. He also notes that both Ginsburg and her colleague and close friend Sandra Day O’Connor “embodied in their careers the challenges that women had to overcome to be accepted in the legal profession on a par with men.”
Lucie Rochat ’22 remembers receiving a book of Ginsburg’s quotes as a birthday gift from her mother. For Rochat, this book serves as a reminder that much of Ginsburg’s impact came in small moments when she stood up and used her words to fight for equality, inspiring millions. “If I were to think of her legacy, it would be through those little quotes and little moments that were in that book,” Rochat said.
For Rochat, Ginsburg’s legacy will always be highlighted by her ardent efforts to protect the rights of women and minorities.
President Patton hopes that Ginsburg’s story will continue to serve as inspiration for young people, a lived lesson in the power of reason and determination.
“I will always be inspired by the way that RBG used reason relentlessly. She used reason to change the way we reason so that more people could live lives free of prejudice,” Patton wrote.
(09/24/20 10:00am)
After Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced new Title IX regulations on May 6, Middlebury implemented changes to its policies on Aug. 14 in accordance with the new guidelines. Students and advocates across the country fear that Devos’ changes could introduce new obstacles in the process of reporting sexual assault, bolstering the defense of those accused.
The more than 2,000 pages of regulations released last spring address Title IX, a 1972 federal civil rights law which prohibits discrimination based on sex in relation to any education program or activity that receives federal funding. The law covers a wide range of issues, from equality of opportunities in athletics to how schools address incidents of sexual harassment and assault.
The changes released in May alter the definitions of sex discrimination and harassment, changing how schools are required to respond to reports and which complaints the school is required to adjudicate under federal law.
The U.S. Department of Education published a press release on May 6 announcing the changes. It reads, “U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos took historic action today to strengthen Title IX protections for survivors of sexual misconduct and to restore due process in campus proceedings to ensure all students can pursue an education free from sex discrimination.”.
The most fervently contested changes to Title IX involve the investigation procedures for reports of sexual harassment.
A Brookings Institute analysis of the new regulations found that DeVos’s definition of sexual harassment demonstrates a narrowed understanding of the term from Obama-era standards. But it still remains broader than the even narrower definition offered by the Supreme Court.
President and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center Fatima Goss Graves responded to the new regulations with a commitment to taking legal action against the Department of Education.
“If this rule goes into effect, survivors will be denied their civil rights and will get the message loud and clear that there is no point in reporting assault,” she wrote in a May 6 statement. “We refuse to go back to the days when rape and harassment in schools were ignored and swept under the rug.”
Implementing Title IX modifications at Middlebury
The newly labeled Civil Rights and Title IX Office at Middlebury was tasked with implementing these new changes over the summer. Marti McCaleb serves as the college’s Civil Rights and Title IX Coordinator.
“The Department of Education has, for the first time in almost 50 years, issued binding legal rules governing how colleges respond to complaints of sexual harassment,” McCaleb said.
Some of the new regulations provide detailed requirements for colleges to follow, but others grant schools broad discretion in deciding what standards and practices to implement and how to go about writing their policies.
“Middlebury has not changed any of its behavioral expectations for students or employees,” McCaleb said. “We have restructured our policies and created a new investigation and resolution procedure for cases that fall under the new Title IX rules. For matters that don’t meet the federal definition, we will still respond to reports of misconduct using processes similar to those we have used in the past.”
The Middlebury College handbook Non-Discrimination Policy defines sexual harassment to include quid pro quo sexual harassment, meaning “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, written, visual or physical conduct of a sexual nature,” when compliance with such requests is explicitly or implicitly seen as impacting one’s employment or education. It also prohibits other discriminatory harassment based on or motivated by an individual’s actual or perceived sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression in the same way that discriminatory harassment based on race or other protected characteristics is prohibited. Sexual assault is considered a form of sexual harassment.
All college employees who are not specifically designated as Confidential Resources are required to report suspected instances of sexual harassment. Confidential Resources include — but are not limited to — MiddSafe, college counseling and medical providers and college chaplains.
The largest change being made to bring Middlebury into compliance with the new federal guidelines is the implementation of live hearings and the informal resolution option, according to McCaleb. For conduct covered under the new regulations, there is a distinction between a “report” and a “formal complaint.” The former can be addressed with various non-punitive supportive measures, while the latter must meet the newly narrowed definition of sexual harassment and triggers a college investigation unless the parties both agree to pursue informal resolution.
“Live hearings will be provided as required by the 2020 Title IX regulations,” reads the Middlebury handbook section on TIX Investigation & Resolutions Procedure. “At the request of either party, Middlebury will provide for the hearing to occur with the parties located in separate rooms with technology enabling the hearing officer and parties to simultaneously see and hear the party or the witness answering questions.” This section of the handbook details the process for reporting sexual harassment, undertaking an investigation, carrying out a hearing and sanctioning.
During the hearing, each party must have an “advisor” who may or may not be an attorney. If either party does not have an advisor, the school will assign them one. Advisors will “conduct direct, oral, real-time cross-examination of witnesses,” according to McCaleb.
Hearings will be supervised by a neutral decision-maker, an individual other than the Title IX Coordinator. This individual is tasked with making evidentiary rulings and determinations during the hearing. Following the hearing, they will release a written decision detailing facts of the case as determined through the hearing and conclusions in relation to the school’s Title IX policy.
Eric López, a human relations officer, will serve as a hearing officer under the new Title IX system.
“We will be responsible for conducting the hearings, making determinations regarding the relevance of questions at those hearings, and ensuring that only evidence that can be considered pursuant to the new regulations is used in determining whether a respondent can be found responsible for violations covered by the Title IX procedure,” López said of his responsibilities.
These new procedures contrast with Middlebury’s previous policy, which did not allow for any contact between the two parties and instead relied on an investigator and decision-maker to examine the available facts and make a decision. Each party could meet with them separately upon request.
Another significant change is the allowance of informal resolutions. Under the Obama administration, the Department of Education released a 2011 Dear Colleague Letter which required all complaints to be investigated in a formal hearing. Yet under the new changes to Title IX, students who make an informal report can opt to partake in a voluntary “adaptive resolution.”
“This structured approach, grounded in the principles of restorative justice, is designed to be adaptable so that a process can be identified that is appropriate for the harm caused and to best meet the needs of the individuals involved,” said Middlebury Director of Education for Equity and Inclusion Renee Wells. Wells emphasized that adaptable resolution facilitators work to ensure the process does not cause additional harm to survivors.
Adaptable resolution processes are all overseen by individuals trained in restorative justice, bias, historical harm and the current Title IX regulations. According to Wells, resolutions could include direct processes — interactions which include those individuals who have been harmed and those who have perpetrated the harm — and indirect processes, or separate meetings that do not require any in-person interactions between the individuals involved. Individuals work directly with facilitators to determine which processes they want to pursue.
Wells sees potential benefits in the fact that all of these processes provide students with greater agency and are crafted to the individual needs of those involved. She acknowledged that the considerable length involved in completing the course of an adaptable resolution could deter some students from participating.
“This creates a different pathway for processing harm and can be used in a variety of situations that could ultimately create significant culture change around how we view harming others and what it takes to acknowledge that and move forward,” wrote Assistant Director of Health and Wellness Education Emily Wagner in an email to The Campus. Wagner, a violence prevention education specialist, played a part in determining how to implement the new changes at Middlebury.
Leah Salzman ’21.5 worked as an intern for the Civil Rights and Title IX office this past summer, helping to determine how to implement the changes to Title IX. “I believe the work we did to implement the new regulations allowed for us to focus on making changes that clarify information and actually enhance connection with the student body,” she said.
Salzman thinks that it is important for students to know that filing a report can allow them to access resources and support measures, even if they ultimately decide not to file a formal complaint and go through the investigation procedures.
“Our commitment to education equity and equal access has not changed in light of these new regulations,” McCaleb and Chief Diversity Officer Miguel Fernández wrote in an Aug. 18 email to the student body.
Changes will have varied impacts on students across the country
Each individual school has some discretion to determine how they will implement certain policies. The new regulations “leave much room for colleges to work with their own communities to maintain and strengthen their protections for student safety, and to assure a fair, impartial resolution to complaints,” McCaleb said. Consequently, the impact of Title IX on students will differ depending on the institution.
There is also an increased emphasis on providing support, such as counseling, academic and residential accommodations, to students who experience sexual harassment. According to McCaleb, these measures reflect Middlebury’s pre-existing practices but could lead to significant changes at other institutions.
“The live hearing model for investigations (required by federal Title IX policy, so Middlebury doesn’t have a choice about this) is generally considered to not be survivor-friendly and could be a deterrent to students reporting violations,” Wagner wrote. McCaleb hopes that the option for students to file an informal report will help prevent the new live hearing requirement from deterring reporting.
McCaleb predicts that changes to mandatory reporting, standards of evidence, supportive practices and investigative processes will have the greatest impact on students at colleges and universities around the United States.
Under the Obama administration, schools generally required most college employees to serve as mandatory reporters of sexual misconduct or harassment. However, the new guidelines relax this standard, and schools can decide whether or not all employees serve as mandatory reporters. McCaleb sees two perspectives on this change: it could reduce colleges’ accountability for reporting and addressing misconduct, or it could allow students more autonomy and control over when and how they choose to come forward with complaints.
“These changes could have a chilling effect on reporting, or it could help reinforce the relationship of trust and privacy that students have with faculty or other college administrators and provide a greater sense of autonomy and fairness over the Title IX complaint and investigation process,” McCaleb said.
Instances of sexual harassment and assault at Middlebury can now be reported through an online reporting form at go/report.
Corrections: This article was updated with more accurate definitions and terminology.
(09/08/20 1:18am)
Dozens of pages of online instructions and 151 minutes of educational videos laid out a plethora of restrictions and regulations that were put in place to make a return to campus this fall possible. Since the majority of students returned to Middlebury last Friday, those rules have become reality.
For the most part, students have followed regulations. By day, they widely obey mask guidelines when out in public on campus, usually only removing masks to eat meals. At the direction of staff, they follow delineated paths through dining halls, and students have taken to socializing safely in distanced settings on Battell Beach and the Knoll.
But nighttime gatherings that exceed 10 participants, sometimes without masks, have sprung up in the past week, leaving student Residential Life workers and orientation leaders to take on new roles as disciplinary figures tasked with curtailing gatherings that violate Covid-19 guidelines.
“For ResLife, the past three days have honestly been pretty intense,” Luisa Vosmik ’21, a Resident Assistant who works in sophomore housing, told The Campus. “We are all super excited to have residents living in our halls and to be able to put our training to use… That being said, there have definitely been some chaotic moments that were a bit disheartening. At times, it has felt as though other students don’t recognize the impact their actions might have on our ability to remain on campus.”
Dean of Students Derek Doucet is encouraged by the low number of positive tests in Middlebury’s mandatory testing for students (since students returned to campus, two rounds of all-student testing have yielded just two positive test results). What remains essential, he told The Campus, is practicing behaviors that preserve the encouraging results first seen after processing move-in day results. “We’re open,” he wrote in an email to The Campus. “Now we have to remain sharply focused on doing what we must to stay open.”
The burden of enforcing Covid-19 regulations that seek to maintain that reality has fallen heavily on student leaders, including Residential Life members and MiddView Orientation leaders. Student leaders “have been working tirelessly over the last week or more to help pull off the reopening,” Doucet wrote. “Without them it would not have been possible to get this far.”
While Doucet acknowledges Public Safety as an important part of the college’s enforcement policy, Maya Gee ’22, the Community Assistant for Voter Hall and Painter Hall, and other student leaders told the Campus that Public Safety has been given a reduced role this year. Unlike in previous years, Residential Life members are now expected to collect the names, and sometimes the ID numbers, of students who break college Covid-19 policies.
Public Safety and Residential Life administrators did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
The student leaders are expected to enforce regulations related to mask-wearing, social distancing, gathering sizes and the presence of parents during move-in. Issues within ResLife’s purview before the pandemic — such as alcohol consumption, noise complaints and large gatherings — now have higher stakes, as many of these activities can lead to increased Covid-19-related risks. Residential Life members can choose from a variety of steps in these situations, including asking students to correct their behavior, filing an incident report or calling Public Safety or their Residence Director for assistance.
“It all depends on the situation,” Gee said.
Sophie Smith ’21, a MiddView leader leading virtual first year orientation sees the role MiddView leaders are playing in enforcing Covid-19 policies as similar to that of the rest of the student body. They are tasked with providing students with reminders of Covid-19 policies, reporting through the online tool or contacting Public Safety upon noticing a Covid-19 policy violation.
Several students have already been asked to leave campus while more are awaiting appeals for violating guidelines, according to Doucet. Due to the college’s rule against disclosing details from the disciplinary process, Doucet did not specify the nature of students’ violations, but he wrote that “we’re taking a firm stance on Covid violations which expose the community to elevated levels of potential risk.”
Besides the students who have already been sent home, a number of other students have received a sanction or removal from campus housing, held in abeyance. This status indicates that if the student violates any additional Covid-19 protocol, they will be dismissed from campus.
Following the release of first years from room quarantine, Residential Life members noted many violations of college Covid-19 policies, including reports of large gatherings of students both on Battell Beach and near the baseball field.
“There have been groups of 10-plus the past few nights, [especially] Friday and Saturday, where students were disregarding the physical distancing requirement, even when asked repeatedly to distance and disperse into smaller groups,” Vosmik said last week.
Gee saw some of these violations and contacted her Residence Director and Public Safety.
“I am trying to deal with it more as a friendly reminder perspective, rather than a more enforcement perspective,” she said. While Gee said she’s fixated on helping protect the Middlebury community, she is also giving students the benefit of the doubt and recognizes that this semester has brought a lot of changes. “It is a very fine line between intentionally breaking the rules and forgetting,” she said.
Gee said that she did not know the full extent of her responsibilities until she arrived on campus on August 18 and underwent Residential Life training. She acknowledged that the role can feel overwhelming at times.
The boundaries of the job are changing and becoming less distinct than in previous years, Gee noted as one of the many ways in which this year is different from last year, when she served a First-Year Counselor in Battell Hall. “We feel like we have to oversee so many more things, both inside and outside,” Gee said.
“Some staff members are really struggling with not feeling burnt out, that they always have to be on,” she said. Gee feels that every time she goes outside there is constantly some small violation she could find.
Residential Life student workers have been given a $500 pay raise for the year, following salary increases that took place over the past two years. Gee said that this is not enough, but recognized the financial limitation of the college and said that “we’re getting there.”
Residential Life workers have been instructed to never put their own health and safety at risk; if a situation arises where close contact with another student is required, they have been directed to call Residential Life administrators or Public Safety, Gee explained.
“Their job is not an easy one and we all owe them a debt of gratitude,” Doucet said, also pointing to the role MiddView orientation leaders have played in promoting and enforcing Covid-19 policies.
The college has put in place an online reporting system through which anyone can report a Covid-19 policy violation. As of early last week, roughly 30 reports had been submitted through the system. According to Doucet, each report has received follow-up, but the majority have been minor violations.
“The college is not playing around,” Gee said, explaining how each situation needs to be treated differently depending on the circumstances and the nature of the violation.
Gee said she supports the reallocation of duties to student Residential Life leaders, particularly when it comes to no longer having Public Safety officers patrol dormitories. But she added that this creates an increased level of responsibility for Residential Life and could result in a type of hierarchy among students; she noted the array of challenges that can come with trying to find a balance between holding students accountable and not making them feel over-policed by peers.
“We are really starting to move towards more of a community policing model,” Gee said.
And while Doucet acknowledged the essential role of Residential Life, he also knows that they cannot do everything.
“We need to avoid the temptation to think of our student leaders as responsible for carrying the whole weight of this enormous undertaking for their peers,” he said.
(05/14/20 10:01am)
Content warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of assault.
“The following is an undocumented paper which does not necessarily express the views of the College Administration,” the letter began. “The topic is Contraception. Don’t expect to find much practical information on the subject in Egbert Starr Library, because I’ve looked and there isn’t any, aside from the Time Magazine report on pills.” It bore the title “Honi Soyt Qui Mal Pence,” a maxim written in Old French which translates roughly to “shamed be the person who thinks evil of it.”
The letter went on to detail how conception occurs, different methods of birth control, their effectiveness and how to access them — on trying to get a prescription for the pill, it wrote: “go to Burlington or Rutland and borrow a plain gold or silver ring from someone, invent a married name and place of residence (but don’t tell any more of your “story” than they ask for and keep your cool.)” — and what to do if the reader believed she was pregnant. It included a comprehensive illustration of abortion methods as well as ways to attempt to obtain an illegal abortion.
The letter arrived in the first-year women’s campus mailboxes packaged with one male condom. Martha McCravey ’71 was on the other end of the mailbox.
“I remember reading it and going back to the dorm and talking about it with a couple other girls, we were all sort of ‘Wow! Where did this come from? And who wrote this? And what does this mean?’” McCravey said. “My biggest reaction was that my parents must never ever see or hear about this. Because I won't be coming back to Middlebury.”
She was shocked when Olivier revealed the letter at their 45th reunion. As far as she had known, everyone had “either hid it or burned it or thrown it away because [they] were so freaked out by it.”
McCravey grew up in a family with doctors, so she knew about birth control. But it was still not something she was accustomed to thinking about in the context of her own life.
During her time at Middlebury, McCravey knew female students who tried to obtain birth control prescriptions. They went to the student health center, but Middlebury’s Medical Director at the time, Dr. William Parton, for whom Parton Health Center is named, refused to write them prescriptions. She knew a few students in her sophomore and junior years who got abortions.
“I think the college would have been just as happy for everybody to get an abortion and nobody to be pregnant walking around,” she said. “That was saving face.”
Unlike McCravey, now-Writer-in-Residence Emerita Julia Alvarez ’71 did not receive “the letter.” She was a transfer student who arrived at Middlebury in the fall of 1969.
“This is the first I hear of that letter,” Alvarez wrote in an email to The Campus. “Both hilarious, astonishing, confusing, and painful to read — how little we knew back then and how few were the options! I feel for the pressures on us as young women with ownership of our own bodies still in the future.”
When Alvarez convinced her father to let her transfer from Connecticut College for Women, she conveniently omitted the fact that Middlebury was a co-ed institution. He almost turned the car around when he drove to drop her off and saw men walking around the campus.
“I had a boyfriend — I was terrified that even petting and fooling around could impregnate me,” she wrote. “I recall my boyfriend drawing a diagram of my body and showing me how my reproductive organs worked.”
To this day, most women from the Class of 1971 do not know who sent them “the letter.”
***
When Sharon Smith ’68 mailed her early decision application from California to Middlebury, she had one goal: to get as far away from her dysfunctional family as possible.
Smith lived in Battell her first year and took classes in anything and everything she could. With no idea what she wanted to study, Smith ultimately declared a French major after hearing a rumor that all female French majors got to live in “The Chat.” She later went on to switch her major to American Literature.
The summer after her first year, Smith did not want to return home to the family she had finally escaped. Her deceased grandparents had left her money and she wanted to use it to take classes in New York City for the summer. First, she had to convince her father, who controlled her access to the money.
“I told my father I wanted to go to Barnard and he said, ‘No, you can't go there. It's dangerous.’ And he wouldn't explain why, but I gradually figured out that he assumed that if I went to a girls’ college, I would automatically be recruited into lesbianism,” Smith said. She eventually convinced him to allow her to take courses at Columbia University instead.
Smith entered into an affair with a man during her summer in New York. She visited him again for Thanksgiving break her sophomore fall.
“I was very naive and I didn't want to do some of the things that I found myself having to do,” Smith said. At the time, Smith said, contraception was not something many women knew about — or knew how to get. She had tried to get a prescription for birth control pills from a doctor while at school, but when the Vermont doctor discovered she was unmarried, he kicked her out of his office.
When Smith returned to campus after the break, she discovered she was pregnant and was forced to return home to California where she had no option but to live with her father.
Smith spent her time at home writing to old classmates from her California boarding school and traveling to San Francisco to try and convince doctors to give her an abortion. Abortion would not be legal for another eight years until 1973, when the Supreme Court passed its landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
One day, while Smith was visiting a doctor, her father went through her mail and opened a letter that revealed her pregnancy. Her father found a doctor who owed him a favor, and Smith received hormonal injections which induced a miscarriage. The process was incredibly painful and Smith bled heavily for several days.
After finding out about her pregnancy — and thus her sexual activity — her father, who Smith described as a pedophile and “genuine psychopath,” acted out abusively and violently toward her. He beat her, punching her and leaving nasty bruises all over her face and body.
Smith returned to Middlebury for her sophomore year. One of the doctors she visited in San Francisco had refused to give her an abortion, but agreed to give her a prescription for birth control. She had the pills shipped to Middlebury and continued to have the prescription sent from California for many years.
“Between junior and senior year,” Smith said, “I decided I wanted to make sure that Middlebury girls had the knowledge that every female should have about how our bodies work, what conception is what contraception is, what sex actually can do besides being fun.”
So, by doing as much research as she could and from her own experiences, Smith wrote what would go on to be known as “the letter” — the same letter that Olivier and her friends re-read with disbelief at their 45th reunion.
Smith asked a couple of close male friends who were members of the Theta Chi fraternity—“a marijuana-smoking, acid-dropping, motorcycle-riding-up-and-down-the-stairs kinda place”— to purchase a large bin of condoms. She enclosed a condom in each envelope with a copy of the letter and sent them through the campus mail system, a couple at a time to avoid suspicion.
“I was so afraid someone would find out because I might be expelled. You know, all this sex stuff is dangerous, at least for girls,” Smith said. “If the girls get the knowledge then the boys can't do whatever they want.”
In the first edition of The Campus that fall, an article appeared on the front page entitled: “Frosh Women Get ‘Unofficial Guide.’” Dr. Parton commented on the letter and verified many of its facts. “Apparently someone did a great deal of research,” he is quoted saying. He described the letter as “on the whole, very, very correct.”
Parton said that he was willing to speak with small groups of girls and women about contraceptives, but he would not prescribe the birth control pill. There were no legal or medical barriers to him doing so, but he believed “that [was] up to the individual and the individual’s family doctor.”
When McCravey and her classmates matriculated in 1967, women still had to wear skirts to dinner and men wore jackets and ties. Women occupied the Battell side of College Street and dorm hours required them to check in to their dormitories before a set time each night.
Things started to change during McCravey’s sophomore year. Dorm hours ended and “by the time junior year came, it was like all hell broke loose.” Casual sex became more common and drug use was rampant. But women still did not talk openly about sex or contraceptive use. McCravey recalls that one might have inquired to a close friend about access to contraception, but no one sat around in their dorm hallways chatting about it.
That same year, there was a doctor in Middlebury affiliated with Planned Parenthood who was willing to prescribe birth control.
“I just sort of took the bull by the horns,” she said. Rather than making up stories, she told the doctor: “I'm in this relationship and I don't want to get pregnant. I've got a life to live and I've got plans. Now's not a good time.”
Today, McCravey is in awe of the risk taken by the letter’s author — to this day, she doesn't know who sent it — in delivering that information to first-year women. She sees it as an incredibly brave gift to all of the women who received it.
“She was doing it as a warning and as a help to naive young girls that she thought we were — and that she knew we all probably were. I think it's astonishing and remarkable that she took the time and the effort and somehow managed to get it into our mailboxes and get it printed off,” McCravey said.
Smith viewed her letter as a way to give back. Today she continues to do that as a neuropsychologist in Maine, where she works primarily with Medicaid clients. She found love in 1970. Smith and her husband celebrated the 50th anniversary of their friendship this past February, and the 47th year of their marriage in April.
***
Over 50 years later, a lot has changed on Middlebury’s campus. Men live in Battell, women no longer have to wear skirts to dinner and no one has to find a fake wedding band to go to a doctor’s appointment.
Izzy Lee ’20 is the leader of the student group Sex Positive Education College Style (SPECS), an organization whose creation was inspired by an idea from a class she took her freshman year. Lee’s first reaction to “the letter” was: “Thank God that birth control has come to where it is.”
“I'm impressed that [the letter] cover[s] rhythm method, male contraceptive diaphragms, foams, jellies, creams and then the pill and stuff,” Lee said. “But the angle of how SPECS and other groups teach about birth control has shifted.
“[The letter is about] how you can safely have sex so that a boy's happy, and you don't get pregnant. But if you do get pregnant, here's what you're supposed to do,” she said.
SPECS education workshops focus primarily on consent and emphasize that “it's so normal and so fine to say, ‘we need to use a condom,’” Lee said. The club reviews how condom use can play into consent, pressure and abuse and the difference between pregnancy prevention and STI prevention. Their workshops cover different types of available contraception and how to access those methods, with an effort to be as inclusive as possible, according to Lee.
Today, students can receive contraceptive counseling at Parton Health Center.
They can schedule a visit to undergo a “risk assessment,” in which Parton staff help students determine the safest method of contraceptive for them and educate students on the method they select. Parton’s nurse practitioners can prescribe contraceptives including oral pills, injections, patches and the ring, according to Director of Health Services Dr. Mark Peluso.
A local pharmacy processes prescriptions and delivers them directly to campus. Students who are seeking an implant or an IUD, two more permanent forms of contraception, are directed to local gynecologic practices. The Planned Parenthood of New England (PPNE) health center located in Middlebury offers birth control, pregnancy testing, emergency contraception and abortion referrals, among other health care services for men, women and LGBTQ services.
The PPNE chapter was started in Middlebury in 1969 by David B. Van Vleck, a professor of biology at the college and science educator, according to a memoriam written after his death in 2019. The health center served almost 800 patients in 2019, according to PPNE Vermont Communications Director Eileen Sullivan.
“We remain as committed as ever to delivering compassionate, non-judgmental care to patients of all backgrounds and regardless of their ability to pay,” Sullivan wrote in an email to The Campus. “We love the Middlebury community and are so proud to have a presence there.”
Lee added that the Health Center can administer pregnancy tests, provide free testing for STIs and dispense Plan B (emergency contraceptive) — though only after the recipient answers a slew of questions regarding why they need it.
Like Smith, SPECS recognizes the importance of providing information about contraception and sexual relationships to students early in their Middlebury careers. SPECS holds workshops in first-year residence halls with the hope of getting resources to students who might be feeling overwhelmed by the amount of responsibility that comes with having a safe sex life.
Lee observed that students enter Middlebury with varying degrees of knowledge and comfort surrounding issues of sex and consent, depending on where they are from and what kind of sex education they received prior to Middlebury.
For Lee, the letter serves as a reminder that a lot has changed, but much still remains the same. Alvarez agreed.
“I’m so relieved things have changed and chagrined that things have not changed enough for young women worldwide,” she wrote.
(04/30/20 9:56am)
The Middlebury Admissions Office announced that it will introduce a three-year trial period of test-optional admissions beginning with its fall 2020 admissions cycle. The policy was announced on April 8 and in part serves as a response to stresses from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Under the test-optional policy, students may choose not to submit any test scores as part of their application for admission. Previously, students were required to submit standardized test scores from either the SAT, ACT or three SAT subject tests.
Dean of Admissions Nicole Curvin sees this change as a way to offer flexibility to high school students who are facing high levels of uncertainty in their high school careers and future college application processes. Due to Covid-19, many high school students are grappling with the difficulties of navigating remote learning and unpredictability surrounding standardized test availability, format and timing. The decision was made in consultation with President Laurie Patton and the Admissions Advisory Committee.
In the college’s official announcement, Curvin said that the college has been considering a transition to a test-optional policy for a year. The admissions office has reviewed data and research from test-optional colleges over the past year and has worked to envision what such policy would look like at Middlebury.
“We will continue to take a holistic approach to reviewing applications which means we look at everything that is submitted to us including information on personal context, letters of recommendation, the essay and most importantly the academic transcript,” Curvin wrote in an email to The Campus.
The admissions office is still working to determine how it will assess students who choose not to submit test scores, but Curvin predicts that the evaluation of these students would place a larger emphasis on academic profile and school context.
Middlebury chose to implement a three-year trial period for several reasons. First, the impacts of Covid-19 on standardized tests are likely to impact students beyond those applying for the class of 2024. Additionally, there are concerns about access to testing for underrepresented and international students, according to Curvin. Lastly, the three-year period will allow the admissions office to evaluate the implications of this policy across several pools of applicants.
“I would say that we were excited about moving to a test-optional policy already and want to be able to think creatively about the potential to expand and develop our applicant pool,” Curvin wrote.
Curvin also sees this new policy as a way for the college to adjust to shifting demographics. She predicts that the number of high school graduates from New England and the Mid-Atlantic region will decrease and thus, “it will be important to identify new pipelines of students and to share Middlebury’s story as widely as possible.”
“By removing barriers in the admissions process, we increase the likelihood that our application and enrollment numbers will remain steady,” wrote Curvin. “We will think deeply about misperceptions or drawbacks that may come with regards to the test-optional process.”
The admissions office has not yet decided what criteria will determine whether or not they continue the policy beyond the three-year trial period. Curvin will work with the Admissions Advisory Committee along with other members of the Middlebury community to establish what factors will indicate the success of the program.
Bates, Bowdoin, Colby and Wesleyan were all test optional prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Williams has become test optional for the 2020-2021 admissions cycle and Tufts is implementing a similar three-year test optional trial period.
(03/19/20 6:14pm)
In an unprecedented decision meant to address concerns over the global Covid-19 pandemic, the college ordered students to leave campus last Tuesday. While the majority of students were expected to head home, those who wished to remain on campus — because of travel distance to home, high numbers of Covid-19 cases in their hometowns or other reasons — had the option to petition to remain on Middlebury’s campus.
Many who did so, however, were disappointed, as deans tasked with communicating the decisions pushed most applicants to find alternatives. At the same time, most of the students The Campus spoke with expressed understanding of the college’s safety concerns as the number of Covid-19 cases in Vermont increases.
Now, even those who were eventually granted permission to stay face uncertainty about the rest of the semester, as the college contemplates closing its campus to students completely depending on continual reassessments, according to emails sent by deans to students remaining on campus.
From 2,500 to 175
Administrators originally predicted that a few hundred students would be allowed to remain on campus. Ultimately, they permitted roughly 175 students to stay, according to an email sent by President Laurie Patton Saturday night. By Wednesday, March 18, as major U.S. cities instituted lockdowns and the U.S. closed its border with Canada, some students left campus for home; now, fewer than 140 students remain physically on campus, according to Dean of Students Baishakhi Taylor.
Deans were expected to tell students who petitioned to stay whether they could remain on campus for at least three weeks by Friday, March 13, the same day students were originally told to leave campus. The college later moved the departure deadline to Sunday.
The tight turnaround left students who were denied permission — many of whom were confident their situations warranted staying on campus — scrambling to find alternatives. The college advised those who were able to stay with family or friends stateside, which many are now doing, and is offering financial aid to those who need help traveling.
Deans were unable to respond for comment before this story was published. But many of the emails students received from their deans emphasized the importance of getting as many students off-campus as possible due to safety concerns arising from a potential Covid-19 outbreak. The emails encouraged students to exhaust all other potential options before petitioning to stay.
Donovan Compton ’23, a U.S. citizen who calls Italy home, had his petition to remain on campus rejected. With Italy on lockdown, he says returning home to that country’s Veneto region — one of the regions most heavily-affected by Covid-19 in the country — is not an option.
“If I were to actually attempt to go back to Italy … I would most likely not be able to access the country, and in the case I would be let into Italy, my parents wouldn't be able to retrieve me at the airport since the roads are blockaded so as to make driving extremely limited,” he wrote in an email to The Campus.
Compton’s request to stay was denied through a mass email sent to many students in Ross Commons. He said the decision so surprised him that he screamed aloud upon reading the email.
While Compton has family in the states, they are all located in Seattle, another coronavirus epicenter. For now, he is staying with family friends in Massachusetts.
Shahmeer Chaudhary ’21, who is from Dubai, also had his request to stay on campus denied.
“The decision did surprise me,” Chaudhary wrote in an email to The Campus. “I did not feel like I had any room or opportunity to negotiate. In fact, I was told by my dean, ‘You’re welcome to stop by and talk with me about that, but the answer will unfortunately be the same.’ I felt like I was out of options and the administration was unwilling to even hear me out.”
Domestic students also had concerns about leaving campus. Kai Milici ’21 is from Seattle and petitioned to remain on campus. She did not plan to stay there indefinitely, but felt that she needed a few more days beyond the Sunday move-out date to assess whether it would be smarter to return home or to stay with friends on the East Coast.
When Milici’s application was denied she, like many of her peers, reacted with frustration.
“I felt like I was being forced into a potentially dangerous situation,” she said, adding she was stressed by how the required self-quarantine would exacerbate existing feelings of isolation.
But in hindsight, with the possibility of travel restrictions and lockdowns looming in the coming days and weeks, she understands the college’s decision.
Milici has since returned to Seattle, where she said the high degree of social isolation has already resulted in increased stress. She does not expect to be able to leave for “at least a couple of months.” While she hopes to return to the East Coast to participate in summer internship opportunities, she is grappling with the potential that this may no longer be a possibility depending on how the situation progresses.
Tre Stephens ’21 was granted permission to remain on campus. Stephens is from Chicago, Illinois and petitioned to stay due to “extraordinary personal circumstances” regarding his home situation. He explained that he wrote to his dean out of fear, more than anything else.
“I wanted to stress that if I am requested to leave campus, I will literally have no place to go,” Stephens wrote in the email he sent to his dean. “I am honestly scared. Please please please consider letting me stay.”
This past summer, the stove in Stephens’ house exploded, causing a house fire that so completely destroyed the house that his family is currently living with other relatives. Stephens simply does not have a home to return to, he said.
The school initially denied Stephens’ request, instead offering to pay for his travel home. Stephens responded with another plea to stay. In his email, he wrote that he was not able to stay with family and close friends because they said they did not have space for him.
Following this secondary plea, Stephens was granted permission to stay.
Many students allowed to remain on campus have been warned that they may need to return home if the situation does not improve when the college re-evaluates its plan in three weeks.
An email from Assistant Director of Community Standards Elaine Orozco Hammond to multiple students last week insinuated this possibility. “It is possible we will be back in session, or asking people to leave in a few weeks,” it said. “We are taking this one step at a time.”
In that situation, Stephens has no idea what he will do.
“Where will I go? How will I get there? Money? Food? Clean clothing? These are all concerns that rush through my mind,” he said. But Stephens believes that college administrators are doing their best to act in the interests of students.
Other students applied to remain on campus for health concerns. Marisa Edmondson ’20 is from rural Colorado and has severe asthma. This condition compromises her immune system, and makes her particularly vulnerable to Covid-19.
Edmondson’s hometown is a two-hour drive from the nearest hospital, and her health condition posed a serious risk of possible contamination if she tried to fly home, she said. She considered living with friends in Rhode Island indefinitely when the school denied her request, but ultimately decided to road trip home to Colorado, where she will stay in quarantine with her parents.
Jake Guaghan ’22, from Honolulu, Hawaii, was denied permission to remain on campus. In his petition to stay, Guaghan cited the length and difficulty of traveling home and the likelihood that he may be exposed to coronavirus while in airports.
At the time of his petition — last Tuesday — he felt that it would be irresponsible to risk the possibility of bringing coronavirus back to an isolated locale. The denial of permission to remain on campus left Guaghan feeling anxious and scared, but not surprised.
“Throughout my time here, I've realized that American students who don't live in the contiguous 48 are often forgotten by the school,” he said. Students from Hawaii and Alaska face many of the same challenges as international students, he said, but there are no institutional structures to assist these students.
Owen Marsh ’20, from Scarsdale, New York, where there are multiple confirmed cases of Covid-19, has also been denied permission to remain on campus. After a middle school teacher in his town tested positive, many have been placed in quarantine.
Those living in Scarsdale are only leaving their homes when it is absolutely necessary and are constantly maintaining a distance of six feet away from all other people, according to Marsh’s parents. He was surprised, he said, when he received an email alerting him that he would not be able to remain on campus.
“I am lucky enough to have friends who have been willing to house me, but I don't know how long that will last, and I am sure that there are many much less fortunate than me,” Marsh said.
As of now, Marsh plans to move from place to place and avoid returning home. He hopes to be back at Middlebury before May — but at the time, it is unclear whether or not that will happen.
Gaughan’s plans changed constantly throughout the two days following the denial of his request to remain on campus. Ultimately, he has decided to go home. Given the escalating crisis, he is concerned that if he remains in the continental U.S., he would eventually be unable to return home.
During his flight home, another passenger seated in the row in front of Gaughan fell ill. The passenger was quarantined mid-flight and required the assistance of emergency medical services to deplane.
“While no one knows necessarily with what he is afflicted, I couldn’t help but think about how this type of scenario was exactly what I outlined in my petition to stay on campus,” Gaughan wrote in an email to The Campus on Saturday night.
Returning home will also impact the lives of students beyond the possible transmission of Covid-19. Due to the six-hour time difference between Vermont and Hawaii, there is the possibility that Gaughan will need to take his online courses at 2 a.m.
Chaudhary, the student from Dubai, expressed similar concerns. Dubai has a nine-hour time difference from Vermont. He is worried about how this will impact his ability to partake in classes that many professors are planning to conduct in a “video-chat” format.
Chaudhary said he is anxious about the impact returning home could have in the long-term, especially because he is hoping to do an internship in the states this summer.
Jiaqi Li ’22 is from China and, like Stephens, was granted permission to remain on campus. Li was concerned that flying home was not a viable option for her logistically or financially.
“I love Middlebury College dearly and at present, I truly consider this my home, my only home. The news on Tuesday really made me feel as if my world is falling apart, when the support system I rely on is no longer feasible,” she wrote in the email she sent to her dean requesting permission to remain on campus.
If Li’s request to stay had been denied, she felt that the best option would have been to explore housing options in Middlebury, off-campus, with the financial support of the college.
“This is a scary time for all of us. I know many people were sad to leave for multiple reasons, and for some of us leaving has never truly been an option,” Stephens said.
Editor’s note: Jake Gaughan and Owen Marsh are both Opinion editors for The Campus.
(03/12/20 2:00pm)
UPDATE — Thursday, March 12
The college is now allowing students to stay until Sunday, March 15 at 5:00 p.m., according to an email sent to students and parents yesterday. Students who wish to stay until then, but have already indicated to the school they will leave on or before Friday, should fill out this form indicating their plans.
The email also promised students who are leaving refunds for room and board "for the time students would have been on campus."
"Understanding that students may be returning to campus to finish the semester, we cannot at this time know the amount of the credit or when it will be applied to student accounts," it said.
——
Wednesday, March 11
The college released a series of statements Tuesday afternoon elaborating on next steps following its announcement that it will suspend in-person classes indefinitely after March 13.
Evacuating campus
Students must respond to a form indicating whether they will leave campus or petition to remain on campus for the duration of the semester. The criteria used to determine who can stay on campus will be stricter than for winter break, according to Baishakhi Taylor, vice president for student affairs and dean of students. To gauge whether it is unsafe for a student to return home, the college will consider factors such as travel advisories for those areas.
“This is preventative — we want students in safety sooner rather than later,” said Baishakhi Taylor, vice president for student affairs and dean of students.
Dean of Faculty Sujata Moorti and Provost and Executive Vice President Jeffrey Cason have recommended that professors lighten the workload for their classes as students prepare to leave campus. But the decision ultimately rests in the hands of faculty members.
Middlebury students are required to leave campus by Friday at 8 p.m. Amherst College, which yesterday announced a similar plan to suspend classes and asked students to remain home after spring break, is giving students until next Wednesday to depart campus.
While departing students will not be required to fully move out of their dorm rooms by Friday night, all of their belongings must be packed in boxes and labeled with their name, student ID number and their building name and room number. Boxing materials can be found in Commons Offices. Posters are plastered around campus with the slogan “Box, label & leave.”
Students are encouraged to pack whatever belongings they might need for the remainder of the semester and summer.
The college is currently working with SGA to provide break buses to students. The details are still uncertain, but the college will update students as necessary. The college will also provide eligible students with travel-based financial assistance.
[gallery ids="48987,48988,48989"]
Remote learning
Remote learning, beginning on March 30, will remain in effect until the administration gives further notice. Middlebury will re-evaluate the status of remote learning during the first two weeks of April.
Moorti has confirmed that classes will end as scheduled on May 11 and professors will adjust their syllabi to accommodate the shortened semester.
While some classes are easily transferable to a digital platform, others will be more challenging to shift. Amy Collier, associate provost for digital learning, will be overseeing the remote learning process. Collier cited the unique challenges posed by teaching classes such as language courses and lab sciences remotely.
“We are recognizing that there are some kinds of remote teaching and learning options that are more challenging for faculty and some remote teaching options that are more challenging for students,” Collier said.
Collier is working with faculty on a case-by-case basis to assist professors in translating their classes to a format that will work for both faculty and students.
“We're trying to make recommendations based on what we hope will be very inclusive for students and very manageable for faculty and students and that respond to the teaching goals the faculty are bringing to us,” Collier said.
Moorti explained that the college is considering the possibility of making all classes pass/fail for the remainder of the semester, in response to requests from students and faculty members. “We are looking into the implications, which are more complicated than they appear,” she said.
Making the call
Consultation with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Vermont Department of Health informed the college’s decision to suspend classes, according to Taylor.
She explained that a myriad of factors — including the inability to control who comes to campus and concerns about students returning from traveling over spring break — impacted the school’s decision.
“We just don't have the capacity — we cannot wait for a case to break on campus because then it's too late in many ways and we are a small school with limited resources,” Taylor said. “The state of Vermont is pretty small. We just don't have the capacity to have testing for everybody and we don't have enough personal protective equipment.”
The Crisis Management Team (CMT) oversees the evolving planning related to Covid-19. The group comprises a variety of stakeholders on campus including Collier, members of the Senior Leadership Group (SLG) and Mark Peluso, director of health services and college and head team physician, among others.
Peluso explained that the college’s decision to suspend in part hinged on a policy of what he called “social distancing.”
“Social distancing is one of the most effective mitigation strategies when pharmaceutical treatments (vaccines, medications) are not available and there is the potential for high numbers of cases,” Peluso wrote in an email to The Campus. “Close living quarters and shared dining facilities place students at higher risk for exposure if there is an illness outbreak
This is a developing story and will be updated accordingly. The Campus will also continue to chart the impact these changes have on the greater Middlebury community over the next few weeks, including how they affect staff, local business owners, and those at the Monterey campus and the C.V. Starr Schools Abroad. Visit middleburycampus.com for updated coverage.
(03/10/20 5:41pm)
For updates on the situation at Middlebury, check here.
For updates on the situation at Monterey and at the Middlebury programs abroad, check here.
President Laurie Patton confirmed Tuesday afternoon that students will be required to leave campus on Friday, March 13 to begin an extended two-week spring break in response to the Covid-19 viral epidemic. Following this break, Middlebury will begin remote classes on March 30. Students will be expected not to return to campus “until further notice,” according to Patton’s statement.
Students who may be compromised due to additional health conditions are permitted to leave campus before Friday. Those who cannot leave campus — such as some international students and domestic students who will be at a greater risk in their home community — can petition the school to remain on campus, where they will also resume courses digitally.
All students must indicate to the college their intentions to depart or petition to remain on campus. Students who wish to remain on campus must complete the form before 3 p.m. on Thursday, and will be notified of a decision before 9 a.m. on Friday.
The announcement outlines a myriad of other stipulations for the coming weeks.
The Campus will continue to update our coverage online as necessary.
(03/10/20 4:28pm)
Update: Since this article was published, the college officially and indefinitely suspended all on-campus classes. Check out our update here.
A campus-wide anxiety has ensued following a widely circulated email that said Middlebury will suspend all in-person classes starting this Friday, March 13 as a response to the Covid-19 viral epidemic. The email was sent by Héctor J. Vila, associate professor of writing and rhetoric and a member of faculty council, to students in two of his classes.
The college has not yet sent out an official statement about plans for suspension. The Campus is waiting for confirmation of the statements in the email, which explained that students will have a two-week spring break and classes will resume remotely beginning Monday, March 30. Vila and the college will not comment before the college's official email is sent out.
Most students are required to leave campus “until further notice,” the email read. Those who cannot — including some international students and domestic students who will be at a greater risk in their home community — can petition to remain on campus, during which they will take classes digitally.
Colleges and universities across the country have been taking steps to contain the virus. Many are moving students off campus and switching to remote instruction. New England schools that have acted accordingly include Amherst College and Harvard University. A list of schools that have taken action, curated by Campus Editor at Large Benjy Renton ’21, can be found here.
This story is developing and will be updated accordingly.
(02/13/20 11:01am)
Three weeks ago, Dominic Aiello ’22.5 and Brendan Philbin ’21, co-presidents of the Middlebury College Republicans, explained in a Campus op-ed their decision to invite Charles Murray to Middlebury for the third time this March.
Inevitably, the announcement stirred controversy across campus and reignited debates from 2017. Some of those debates have played out within College Republicans itself.
While the College Republicans will sponsor Murray’s upcoming talk, the co-presidents and their adviser, former Vermont Governor and college Executive in Residence Jim Douglas ’73 were the only individuals involved in the decision. Members of the club learned of Murray’s invitation at their meeting on Jan. 21, one day before the Middlebury community received notice through an opinion published in The Campus and an announcement by the college.
“The club did not vote on the prospect of bringing Dr. Murray to campus. As the elected presidents of the club, we have the ability to organize events on behalf of the club,” Philbin wrote in an email to The Campus. “The administration explicitly advised us not to tell other members of the community during the planning and we complied with that advice.”
In an email to The Campus on Feb. 18, Director of Media Relations Sarah Ray clarified that the administration only asked Aiello and Philbin to keep Murray’s visit confidential once the co-presidents had already invited him to speak. Ray said the college asked Aiello and Philbin to wait until they had confirmed a date for the event before telling others.*
In their op-ed, entitled “An invitation to reengage,” Aiello and Philbin cited two central reasons for bringing Murray to campus: freedom of academic inquiry and free speech, as well as Murray’s credentials.
George Werner ’21 sees the invitation as largely symbolic. Werner formerly served as the club’s treasurer and is currently the Representative to the State Federation for the Middlebury Chapter of the College Republicans. Although he does not agree that Murray was the best speaker to invite, he views this third visit as an opportunity for the Middlebury community to show that students have grown — and are now able to respect controversial speakers and their peers who may wish to listen to these speakers.
Clayton Hucks ’22 is also a member of College Republicans, but self-identifies as an independent voter. He expressed similar sentiments to Werner.
“Despite disagreeing with Murray’s views, I am a huge advocate for free speech and, therefore, think it is fine for the College Republicans to invite Murray to campus,” Hucks said. “I think free speech is dying on college campuses across our country and it is important that we try our best, here at Middlebury, to keep it alive.”
Former College Republicans co-president Kaleb Patterson ’21.5 disagrees with the decision to bring Murray back to campus. He sees the invitation as an attempt to be inflammatory, more than anything else.
“I think it really is just an attempt to sort of provoke the campus and I think it’s a really poor decision and a really self-centered decision,” Patterson said. “I think that their editorial was honestly a little bit of a facade.”
“Regardless of what happens, it’s going to reopen old wounds that I think we were maybe just now kind of getting over,” Patterson said, noting that the controversial invitation of right-wing Polish politician Ryszard Legutko last April only aggravated these wounds.
He said he sees value in bringing a controversial, thought-provoking speaker to campus, but that he doesn't know if Murray can even be considered “thought-provoking.”
Sophia Dongas ’21 served as co-president with Patterson last year, but said she chose to step down following a period of personal growth. While she no longer identifies as Republican and does not attend group meetings, Dongas still believes that engaging with dissenting perspectives plays an essential role in political growth.
“I hope that the invitation was not meant to provoke or incite unrest within our community. Rather, I would like to believe that the intention was to start an open dialogue among students and faculty,” she said.
However, she recognizes the larger significance that Murray has on the Middlebury campus. “The events of 2017 are a spectre that will always haunt our college’s history,” she said, and thus that “Charles Murray may not be the best figure to rally behind for the advocacy of free speech.”
Campus conservatives are generally divided between activism-focused, outspoken conservatives and more subtle conservatives, according to Patterson. He suspects that most students who identify with the latter group, including himself, are unhappy with the invitation.
Patterson has noticed a shift in the club’s goals since his tenure as president during the 2018–19 school year. While he viewed the group as a place for conservatives on campus to freely discuss ideas, he also sees Aiello and Philbin’s approach to the club as more activist. He explained that this form of aggressive activism among young conservatives on college campuses frequently takes the form of provocation.
Patterson said he will not be returning to group meetings as long as Aiello and Philbin — or other students with similar ideals — remain in leadership positions.
“I can definitely see [the invitation] pushing a lot of people away, who wanted more of a space to talk and meet other conservatives on campus,” he said.
Managing Editor James Finn ’20.5 contributed reporting.
*UPDATE — Wednesday, Feb. 19
The statement from Director of Media Relations Sarah Ray was not included in the original version of the article. It was later added for clarity.
(02/13/20 10:59am)
Editor’s note: These interviews have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
CAROLINE KAPP: Why did you attend the Iowa caucuses?
MAGGIE JOSEPH: I attended the Iowa caucuses to conduct research alongside Professor Dickinson in Political Science.
Abbott LaPrade: To actually caucus.
CK: What precinct(s) did you visit?
MJ: I visited Abbott’s precinct, Des Moines 59.
CK: Who won in the precinct where you attended? Were you surprised? Why or why not.
AL: Pete Buttigieg won the final alignment by a hair, by a few popular votes, but both he and Bernie [Sanders] got four delegates and [Elizabeth] Warren got three of the county or delegates of the 11 for my district. I didn’t think Bernie was going to do quite as well as he did. But no, we were always going to be a big Pete and Elizabeth hub.
CK: What is one word you would use to describe the feeling surrounding the process? Please explain.
MJ: It was a fun mix of excitement but also feeling really uncomfortable. I was so uncomfortable. I don’t think that the process of the Iowa caucuses is justifiable. When you think critically about who can be there and whose voice is represented and valued in the room.
AL: Community-building. I think it’s a really great opportunity to—I mean, it’s a bunch of your neighbors. So, I flew home for the caucuses and got to talk and hang out with all of my neighbors which was really cool. And you know, at the end of the day, it’s supposed to be this conversation, so it really is community oriented and focused on reaching a collective decision.
CK: Did speaking with caucus attendees give you any insights into issues that might become important in the upcoming election?
MJ: It depends on who you talk to. For example, Bernie supporters, and other progressive supporters, are often younger and they’re about issues like debt. They’re thinking about student debt, they’re thinking about the climate, they’re thinking about corruption. They’re thinking about electing a reconstructive president and talking about how things can’t keep going the way that they are going. How, America really needs as a candidate to take us in the other direction — and quickly — and that’s the big structural change argument. But for supporters of moderate candidates, it’s about electability — that’s what it all comes down to.
AL: I would say that, by and far, talking to both people in my precinct the night of the caucus — and then also when I was just home talking to friends — the biggest issue was: “How do we beat Donald Trump in 2016.” I think that there’s a lot of excitement about beating Donald Trump, there’s just not a lot of excitement about a particular candidate or a particular issue beyond that.
CK: What was it like to wait for results and not get them? Please describe the experience.
MJ: The media portrayed this chaos in Iowa, which was funny because it was so pleasant. That night we went to some victory parties, because those are fun, then we came home, and they were still not reporting. I thought, “that’s weird,” but then I thought back through, and it’s not surprising. The person who was running our caucus — I loved him — he was 80. This man was not logging into any app. They count by hand and you’re like, “Are you kidding me?” But then the New York Times and Associated Press are like, “Oh, we find inconsistencies in this in the report.” Yeah, no, duh. They’re doing this by hand like. It was really incompetency, more than any conspiracy I could see.
AL: I would actually say that, by and far, we’re actually run really, really well. The issue then came in the reporting and the votes, which was a gross miscalculation by the Democratic Party in Iowa. But I think that had it been 20–30 years ago, there would not be so much focus on the fact that there were not instantaneous results and in time for Jake Tapper bedtime. If it was a print media world, we wouldn’t even get results by the print deadline and you would have to wait either for a daily news or the next morning’s newspaper. I don’t think it was nearly as bad as the media made it out to be. The media just have nothing else to report on and they had hours of dead time to fill. So, they decided to rip on the Iowa caucuses, when in actuality, it was a really well run event. It was just not executed on the back end very well.
CK: Did this experience give you an insight into any strengths/flaws of the caucusing system? Do you think that it is a valuable system in our democracy?
MJ: Caucusing protects the status quo and it raises barriers to participation. If you enter the caucus at 7:02 p.m., you can’t go. What happens if the roads are bad, and there’s a snowstorm and you can’t afford snow tires or have a car? You can’t go if you have children at home, and you can’t bring them for whatever reason. Who has the privilege to attend a caucus? This experience made me think a lot about whose voice matters. I was able to observe the social dynamics of crowd managing and who was having various conversations. I saw who was using their social capital over someone else to convince them to join their party. The caucuses, to me, just felt like an old boys’ club, old white boys club all coming together. No individual is created equal, let’s not ignore social realities here. We are not in an equal playing field; we need to acknowledge this. Caucusing is built for a type of unity and equality that has either never existed in America, or that disappeared long ago.
AL: I’m a really big proponent of the caucus system. I think it really makes you think deeply about your choice and who you’re voting for. There is also this idea of the caucus being a conversation. When we went to the caucus, I caucused for Amy Klobuchar, and she wasn’t viable in the first round. So, a group of us talked about what the best strategy was going forward — what is our goal here tonight? I think that like a lot of people knock caucuses for not being open and accessible to everyone. So few people vote in primaries anyways. I would be curious to know what the primary percentage participation rate is in Alabama. The Democratic Party did a great job this year in making it more accessible and open than ever before — they had a bunch of satellite locations. My brothers goes to school in Connecticut and was able to go into New York and caucus remotely.
CK: What surprised you the most about the caucus?
MJ: I was surprised by how uncomfortable I felt in the caucus. I stepped into that room and realized how many people didn’t have the privilege to do so. I think the voter turnout rate is on par with 2016 — but it’s around 16% or something. Iowa is around 90% white and not a very racially diverse place. But I was still surprised — walking into the caucus of around 511 people, I saw fewer than 15 people of color in the room. The only people of color that were visible were often press. So, how can we consider this system to be representative of what Iowans want? But that being said, I found myself having moments of, “Wow, this is such a beautiful manifestation of democracy.” But, the other part of me was like, “What the hell?” This system, though it was instituted in the 1970s, reflects the idea of an America that has never existed. It was based on this conception of America, of 18th century America, in which equal, land-owning white men came into a room and picked a nominee. If that did exist at one time, it hasn’t existed for a long time.
AL: I don’t know if anything really surprised me, I was pretty well-educated and engaged and have been there before. I have also just been deeply ensconced in the system. I know the caucus program. I’ve worked in Iowa politics — it all makes a lot of sense to me, so I didn’t find any of it too terribly surprising.
(01/23/20 11:10am)
Abenaki will be among the offerings at the Middlebury Language Schools this summer. Through a new pilot program, the local Eastern Algonquin language will join Spanish, French, Italian, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, German, Portuguese and Russian in the over 100-year-old Language School program.
The Abenaki language, which is native to New England and Quebec, Canada, is considered endangered. Dean of Language Schools Stephen Snyder hopes that the introduction of the language to the schools will allow Middlebury to play a role in preserving and honoring local Abenaki culture.
Jesse Bowman Bruchac will serve as the director of the School of Abenaki. Bruchac is a citizen of the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe and has spent his life studying and teaching Algonquin languages. He is one of the only remaining fluent speakers of Western Abenaki, according to his curriculum vitae.
Bruchac works tirelessly to revitalize a variety of Eastern Algonquian languages. His efforts include the creation of WesternAbenaki.com, a site that shares podcasts, videos, a dictionary and language lessons. He has also run free summer language immersion programs, runs a Western Abenaki YouTube channel and facilitates a Facebook group for language learners.
Bruchac has lectured and taught at universities, including Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton and Yale.
Two assistant language instructors will join Bruchac, along with a variety of guest lecturers and other cultural experts. But Bruchac is also working to take advantage of the skills and knowledge of his students so that they can help instruct each other in language and cultural practices.
“In Jesse Bruchac, we have an extraordinarily able and enthusiastic partner who will teach us as much about immersion learning and cultural transmission as the Language Schools may be able to teach him,” Snyder said. “It has the potential to be a beautiful collaboration.”
The School of Abenaki will take advantage of Middlebury’s proximity to Abenaki tribes by supplementing language learning with cultural activities. Activities may include basket making workshops, drumming, storytelling and traditional crafts, as well as a possible visit to a nearby Abenaki cultural center. Students will also learn to play games, some of which are drawn from hundreds of years of gameplay in what Bruchac called “Ndakinna” — the Abenaki name for New England. “Being within Ndakinna, our homeland, will be a tremendously powerful reminder of the connection of our language work to the land that surround us,” he said.
President Laurie Patton envisioned the idea for the new school when Bruchac, accompanied by Abenaki Chief Don Stevens, played the flute and offered an invocation in Abenaki at last spring’s commencement ceremony. Bruchac has also given several lectures at the college. Patton and Bruchac began to discuss plans for the new school this fall.
Because of the program’s status as a pilot school, it will only run two weeks (other language schools run seven or eight weeks) and will have 20 students (other schools which have 50-200). Despite its pilot status, the school’s immersion style and Language Pledge will mirror the other languages programs.
Snyder expects students to come into the school with varying experience with the Abenaki language. “The interaction and peer teaching that happen among speakers of varying levels in the school’s community are some of the great advantages of the Language Schools model,” he said.
Bruchac said that the response from interested students has already been overwhelming. “Within the first day we had many more applicants than spots to fill,” he said.
“Thanks to ongoing revitalization work, and the number of applicants we’ve already had, we can select the very best speakers and strongest candidates from the Abenaki language community,” Bruchac said. He hopes that some of the 20 students may be future teachers who can help the School of Abenaki further grow and develop. He believes the Middlebury Language Pledge will help students and teachers focus on their conversational language skills.
“The Language Schools have always looked up at the global horizon and tried to bring together cultures from all parts of the world, yet we have never engaged with the rich opportunities offered the language, cultural and people who have traditionally inhabited the space we now occupy,” Snyder said.
Bruchac believes that the School of Abenaki will help grow public awareness and contribute to the preservation of Abenaki language and culture.
(01/23/20 11:08am)
Students in Cook Commons received an email on the morning of Jan. 16 announcing the departure of Dean Ian Sutherland. Sutherland joined the college in 2010 and also served as an assistant professor of Classics.
The Campus reached out to Sutherland for comment, but he said he is not at liberty to discuss his situation.
In the absence of a dean, Senior Associate Dean of Students Derek Doucet and Vice President of Student Affairs Baishakhi Taylor will serve together as an interim dean for students in Cook Commons.
“Transitions can be hard and we stay committed to doing our best and minimize impact on students,” Taylor said.
“My single biggest priority at this point is ensuring that they, along with all Cook students, continue to receive all the guidance and support they need to thrive here. That’s where I’m focusing my energy,” Doucet said.
The college has begun the search for Sutherland’s replacement. Doucet hopes to fill the role as quickly as possible, while simultaneously ensuring that they find a good and qualified replacement. They are considering both internal and external options. During this transitional period, the responsibility for Cook students will be shared, and students will not be redistributed.
Commons Residents Director Patrick Dayton is working with Doucet and Taylor to guarantee a smooth transition. Dayton feels confident in their ability to provide continual support for Cook students.
Doucet, Dayton and Taylor would not comment on the circumstances of Sutherland’s departure, citing confidentiality concerns.
(01/23/20 11:04am)
[gallery ids="47983,47981,47982"]
Following a fall semester wrought with student-caused residential building damages, especially among the buildings of Atwater Commons, students living in many of these residential halls have been charged for the common space damages that were not attributable to specific perpetrators.
“Prior to the Holiday break, all damages were totaled by building. Any damage to which a responsible student(s) had been identified was billed accordingly,” Atwater Commons Coordinator MariAnn Osborne wrote in an email to residents of Allen Hall, the Chateau, Coffrin Hall and Atwater buildings A and B. “Any remaining damage was totaled and shared equally among the residents of the area or building. These costs were added to student accounts and labelled as ‘damage’.”
Damages across all Atwater dorms for the fall semester totaled $5,953.16. Charges across all campus residential buildings were roughly $4,200, $2,700, $3,500 and $6,010 for the 2017–18, 2016–17, 2015–16 and 2014–15 academic years, respectively.
Individual students incurred charges as little as $3 and as much as $40 for these “remaining damages.” Some charges were distributed to whole residential buildings, while others were allocated to specific hallways or towers.
Damages in Atwater A and B included the removal of signs and urination in elevators; Allen had several signs torn from the walls; the Chateau sustained broken lounge furniture, urine and scorch marks in elevators, and destruction in bathrooms.
Last fall, a community meeting hosted by Atwater Commons Residence Director Esther Thomas included discussions of financial responsibility for damages in common areas or halls with no identified perpetrator. Students at the meeting expressed disappointment with shared charges like the ones distributed for the Fall semester.
Damage and charges are not limited to Atwater Commons: other halls and buildings on campus are charged accordingly for the cost of destruction maintenance.
(01/22/20 7:42pm)
Charles Murray, the controversial conservative speaker whose 2017 campus visit incited massive student protests and made national news, has been invited to return to Middlebury.
Murray is set to speak in Wilson Hall on March 31 at 4:30 p.m. The Middlebury College Republicans issued the invitation, according to an op-ed written by the club’s co-presidents Dominic Aiello ’22.5 and Brendan Philbin ’21 and published in The Campus today. Philbin said that Murray has accepted the invitation.
“We understand that this will have ramifications for us personally and the community at large. Nevertheless, we will continue to support free inquiry on our campus,” Philbin wrote in a text to a Campus editor. “We wanted to be transparent, up-front, and as clear as possible about the planning of the event. In our view, The Campus is the best vehicle to communicate directly with the community.”
The talk, which is being co-sponsored by the Open Campus Initiative along with the College Republicans, will focus on Murray’s new book “Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class.” Many of the event’s details and logistics are still being discussed, according to a statement sent to The Campus by Director of Media Relations Sarah Ray.
Murray first visited the college in 2007 to talk about his book, "The Bell Curve." His second visit a decade later, on his book "Coming Apart," sparked protests by hundreds of students, which ultimately prevented him from speaking to a live audience in Wilson Hall. Murray later delivered his talk via live-stream on the college’s website. Political Science Professor Allison Stanger, who moderated the live-stream and had been set to preside over the live event, sustained serious injuries at the hands of protesters after she, then-Vice President of Communications Bill Burger and Murray exited McCullough Student Center.
In the op-ed, Philbin said that the administration has been involved in discussions about organizing the event since last September, when the College Republicans first proposed bringing Murray back to campus. Ray said that the college’s policy of open expression should not be interpreted as an endorsement or approval of Murray’s views, and acknowledged the importance of open expression and student protest during speaker visits.
“Each year Middlebury hosts nearly 300 speakers who come to campus from across the country and around the world, invited either directly by the institution, by its faculty, or by its registered student organizations,” Ray wrote in the statement. “With each event, we are committed to providing a forum in which the Middlebury community can engage in a thoughtful, rigorous, and respectful manner.”
Box Office Manager Debby Anderson told The Campus that the college has hired additional security for the event.
Murray’s ideology has been classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as white nationalism; the SPLC website describes Murray’s work as driven by “racist pseudoscience and misleading statistics [that] argue that social inequality is caused by the genetic inferiority of the black and Latino communities, women and the poor.” Student protesters widely decried his views, such as those espoused in “The Bell Curve,” as racist, misogynistic and hateful.
After his 2017 visit, though, members of the American Enterprise Club (AEI), which invited Murray for that visit, argued that the prevention of the talk constituted a violation of campus free speech policies. Some national news outlets agreed.
Since 2017, Murray’s visit has contributed to re-evaluation of the college’s protest policy, prompted administration-led town halls and broadly influenced discussion about free speech on Middlebury’s campus and beyond.
Middlebury was thrust into the national spotlight after that visit, as news outlets including the New York Times, The Atlantic and Politico editorialized and reported on the event. Three weeks ago, Forbes magazine named the 2017 visit as one of 10 moments that “capture a decade in education.”
The college disciplined 74 students in the fallout of the event. In one case, an accused student filed a racial profiling complaint. Middlebury’s Title IX & Compliance Office launched an eight-week investigation and concluded that the Public Safety officer associated with the case did not violate its policies.
Charles Murray and certain members of the administration involved in the event’s planning process could not be reached for comment at press time.
This is a developing story and will be updated accordingly. Managing Editor Bochu Ding '21 contributed reporting.
Correction: A previous version of this story did not mention Murray's first visit to the college, in 2007. The article has since been updated to reflect that information.
(05/09/19 9:56am)
The controversy last month over the cancellation of a lecture by Ryszard Legutko threw the organization that invited him, the Alexander Hamilton Forum, into the national spotlight.
Student activists and faculty members criticized the Political Science department and Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs for sponsoring the event, including at a panel discussion held by both entities the day before the lecture was scheduled to take place. Neither the Rohatyn Center or Political Science department provided any monetary support of the event. At the panel, attendees asked who funded Legutko’s lecture, and the Hamilton Forum in general.
In an email to The Campus, forum director and Assistant Political Science Professor Keegan Callanan identified the three sources that fund the Hamilton Forum: The Institute for Humane Studies (IHS), J.P. Morgan Charitable Giving Fund and The Jack Miller Center.
Callanan said the forum takes no direction from its donors when it comes to selected topics, invited speakers or any aspect of the forum’s programming.
IHS is a libertarian non-profit organization affiliated with George Mason University. Its website identifies its mission to “ensure higher education becomes a place where classical liberal ideas are regularly taught, discussed, challenged, and developed, and where free speech, intellectual diversity, and open inquiry flourish.”
The Hamilton Forum received through IHS’s Grant for Free Speech and Open Inquiry program, which is supported by the Clifford S. Asness Foundation. The IHS website says the grant is “designed to support faculty who are interested in fostering free speech and civil discourse in academia as they undertake research, plan campus events, or develop student curricula exploring the past, present, and future of free speech.”
Grants range from $5,000 to $25,000 and relevant subject areas include the history and theory of free speech, philosophical and legal defenses of free speech, and the importance of open inquiry and intellectual diversity in higher education.
Charles G. Koch, chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, sits on the Board of Directors of IHS. Koch Industries is the second-largest company in America based on revenue, and includes businesses such pipelines, crude oil refinement and Dixie cups. Charles Koch and his brother David are well-known philanthropists and political donors, best known for contributing to the campaigns of conservative politicians. In recent years, they have also donated heavily to initiatives regarding free speech on college campuses, including donating to schools in an attempt to influence the hiring and fire of faculty members, as was the case at George Mason University.
In a 2018 article, The Center for Public Integrity reported on the Koch brothers’ contributions to college campuses, stating that their mission is “to inculcate the next generation with a philosophy like their own.”
One of the Hamilton Forum’s other sources of funding is the Jack Miller Center, a public charity. Its website describes its mission as to “[work] with professors and educators to ensure every student has the opportunity to learn the history and principles at the heart of American political life.”
At Middlebury, groups seeking external funding must go through an “institutional endorsement” process during which the “principal investigator/project director,” department chair, and a representative of the senior administration sign off on the grant as a whole, and in some situations on additional specifications.
“That process also allows us to ensure that we can meet any institutional obligations,” said Vice President for Academic Affairs Andi Lloyd. Lloyd explained that examples of such obligations include extra expenses like new equipment or space renovations for science related grants.
Once a grant is offered, the Office of Grants and Sponsored Programs reviews and negotiates the terms and conditions before accepting the grant.
“Our office’s role is to ensure that outgoing grant proposals are in compliance with internal and external policies/regulations,” said Chuck Mason, the director of grants and sponsored programs, in an email to The Campus.
Mason explained that the office will not sign off on a grant if there are any errors in the application or if the “institutional endorsement” is not complete.
Lloyd said that an administrator may choose not to sign off on a grant if the college is not able to meet the obligations of the grant — whether that means accommodations for a speaker, space renovations for a science project, or anything in between.
(05/02/19 10:00am)
Movies, television shows and popular music frequently glorify hook-up culture, especially on college campuses. While Zeitgeist reveals that hook-up culture is a large part of college life for many Middlebury students, it is not what they prefer.
When asked what campus cultures students participate in that they do not enjoy, hook-up culture was identified second, only after a culture of “busyness.” Hook-up culture outpaced drinking and outdoorsy-ness, among other aspects of life at Middlebury.
!function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement("script");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js");
In the past twelve months, the majority of respondents have had consensual sexual relations with one-to-three partners. A little over 8% have had more than seven sexual partners in the past year.
!function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement("script");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js");
Many students responded that they do not prefer hook-up culture. Over 87 percent of respondents indicated a preference for a romantic relationship, while only 6.96 percent favor hook-ups. These proportions remained relatively consistent across demographic markers including gender and sexual orientation.
This data corroborates a thesis published in 2015 by Leah Marie Fessler ’15 for the English and American Literatures Department. The thesis, titled “Can She Really ‘Play That Game Too’?” explores romantic and sexual culture at Middlebury, focusing on women’s experiences with hook-up culture.
Fessler used anecdotal evidence, data collected through an online survey and other forms of data such as Yik-Yak posts to conclude that female students at Middlebury almost always desired committed and consistent romantic relationships.
“Call it anti-feminist (which I’ll soon explain it’s not), call it old-fashioned (which sure, it is), call it dependent (which it may be) call it whatever you want,” Fessler wrote, “But I’d be so bold to respond: Call it true.”
Hook-up culture is glorified, Fessler explains, and students cite a number of reasons for participating. Fessler recognizes that some might criticize as anti-feminist her claim that hook-up culture is not compatible with females. But she argues that “by actively subscribing to male’s preferred sexual behavior… women ironically bolster, rather that react against male dominance.”
Zeitgeist results demonstrate that not much has changed since Fessler graduated four years ago. Students are still widely participating in a culture of hook-ups, while they would prefer romantic relationships. But, Zeitgeist data suggests that this is not only true for females at Middlebury and rather holds true across student respondents.
(04/18/19 9:57am)
Rukmini Callimachi has built a career out of talking to terrorists.
Callimachi joined the New York Times in March 2014 as a foreign correspondent covering Al-Qaeda and ISIS. WIRED magazine called her “arguably the best reporter on the most important beat in the world.” She is a four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist as of Tuesday, when her written work The ISIS Files and podcast Caliphate earned her another Pulitzer nomination.
During her talk in Wilson Hall last Thursday, Callimachi talked with members of the Middlebury community about creating Caliphate, her career as a journalist and the problematic approaches of the media and the government in addressing terrorism.
Callimachi began her career in as a foreign journalist working in India. She later went on to cover a 20-country beat in Africa and became the West African Bureau Chief for the Associated Press.
In her work covering Al Qaeda and ISIS, Callimachi has become acutely aware of the wealth of misinformation that circulates about terrorist organizations. She explained that terrorism is the only beat for which journalists only talk to one side of the issue.
Callimachi is determined to change this.
“I firmly believe in speaking to the enemy, in listening to them, which is different than believing them, in trying to understand them, which is different than giving them a platform, and I do this in the interest of reporting the most accurate version of events I can,” she said during her talk.
“In short, I do this in the interest of truth.”
Callimachi was born in communist Romania. When she was five, she, her mother and her grandmother fled Romania, passed across the iron curtain and were granted political asylum in Switzerland. She still recalls her grandfather breaking down in tears as he hugged her goodbye.
“The experience of being a refugee is the experience of being an other,” she said. Callimachi and her mother immigrated to the United States when she was ten. “That stain of otherness never fully left me,” she said.
Callimachi believes that being a refugee has impelled her to focus her career on reporting stories about outsiders. She sees a piece of herself in these people and thinks this makes it easier to talk with them.
“There is no greater outsider than the people we consider terrorists,” she said.
Since she started at The Times in 2014, she has interviewed more than 50 terrorists. “To me, these people are like a window into this unseen world,” she said.
Callimachi began her talk the same way she begins her 10-episode podcast, with a description of a visit to a Canadian hotel. She was responding to a tip that a former ISIS militant, Abu Huzayfah (a pseudonym), had returned to Canada from Syria. She described this tip as “a tantalizing opportunity.” Only a few hundred North Americans had made it to Syria. Of those, many were killed; only a few are able to return home and most of those who have returned are in jail.
During his interview with Callimachi, Huzayfah admitted to murdering two people at the command of ISIS. If this man was being honest, Callimachi and her team had “met alone, late at night, in an isolated hotel with a murderer,” she explained.
Later in her talk, Callimachi played a clip from the podcast where Huzayfah describes killing a man. “I just instantly thought I’m a psycho killer now,” he said, “what the hell did I just do?”
Callimachi instructed audience members to listen not only to what he said, but how he said it: the rapidity of his breathing, his frequent swallowing. Huzayfah’s emotional distress is clear in his voice.
She cited this as one of the benefits of working with podcasts. “It allows you to live in the gray,” she said. “There’s emotional information that’s encoded in people’s voices.” Print news doesn’t allow a reporter convey emotion with the same intensity.
Through her work, Callimachi has been able to dispel misunderstandings about Al Qaeda and ISIS. For example, while the United States government and media frequently referred to the Islamic State as the “so-called” Islamic State, Callimachi learned that, while it was not internationally recognized, ISIS was a complex and developed organization whose infrastructure mirrored that of an established state.
“Our tendency with the Islamic State has been to discount them, to underestimate them and in my opinion, this doesn’t help us in the war on terror,” Callimachi said.
She has gathered numerous documents left behind by ISIS as it has fled. Supplemented by the findings of others, she now knows that the Islamic State had 14 ministries including ministries of health, education and agriculture. They issued birth certificates and medical examinations as screening measures for children before they could begin school.
“We’re trying to educate people, to tell them news,” she stated as the purpose of her work. She explained that the line between reporting the news and providing these people with a platform is a “constant tension” and something she and her co-workers discuss frequently.
Callimachi spoke of the importance of listening in her work. When giving an interview, she doesn’t talk and rather tries to listen without judgement. “If I approach them with judgement, they’re going to shut down,” she said.
Her work is mentally and emotionally intense. Over time, Callimachi has learned how to metabolize her emotions by allowing these feelings to flow freely through her in the moment.
“If I have felt emotion in an interview, I’ve let myself cry with a source,” she said.
Callimachi recognizes that her job as a journalist is to inform the public, not propose policy, noting that she does not have a solution to the War on Terror. But she does know that, while ISIS has lost its territory, it is not defeated. Instead, it has simply returned to its “insurgent roots.”
In seeking to give advice to young journalists, Callimachi looked back to her time as an undergraduate student at Dartmouth. She suggested that students take advantage of language programs at Middlebury and learn new languages, as she regrets not learning Arabic while in school. Every additional language a journalist learns opens another section of the world for them to investigate.
The MCAB Speakers Committee, led by co-executives Rebecca Simon ’19 and Jade Moses ’20, brought Callimachi to campus. Simon said she was impressed by Callimachi’s talk.
“Ms. Callimachi is a journalist who has proven to be a force of nature,” she wrote in an email to The Campus. “Her empathy, innovativeness, and sheer brilliance is a testament to what journalism is and should always be.”
(04/18/19 9:54am)
From far away, this week’s display in Davis Library appears a brightly-colored mosaic of posters. But upon closer inspection, the set-up reveals a carefully-curated collection of quotes and photographs that address ideas of campus complicity in issues of sexual assault and harassment at Middlebury.
The display was part of the Complicity Project, an initiative coordinated by the SGA Sexual and Relationship Respect Committee. The committee focuses on issues related to sexual respect such as bystander intervention.
Student responses from the go/complicity survey informed the display. The survey, conducted in the weeks preceding the exhibition, asked a variety of questions, including: How have you been complicit? What are examples you’ve heard/seen of people around you being complicit in campus sexual violence? What do you think we can do as a student body to be less complicit?
Posters also featured quotations from faculty members who the committee had interviewed and photographs taken during tabling events in which students responded to issues of complicity on campus.
The committee is co-chaired by Cece Alter ’19.5 and Vee Duong ’19. “I really appreciated how people have engaged with it,” Alter told The Campus. She hopes that the project will get people to start conversations about sexual violence on campus and how to change it.
“I want people to think more critically about their place in a culture that perpetuates sexual violence,” Alter said, discussing the importance of speaking up when someone makes a harmful comment or joke.
Renee Wells, director of education for equity and inclusion, stressed the immense impact individuals can have in addressing issues of sexual violence. “Change always happens through individuals. It’s individuals who change systems, but it’s also individuals who change other individuals,” Wells told The Campus.
Wells encouraged students to engage in conversations with their peers to discuss these issues.
Throughout the process of crafting the library display, the committee incorporated feedback. They removed individual identifiers from the stories, placed disclaimers and content warnings with the display and included survey responses which disagreed with the project.
“For some survivors, some of the actions that other people have labeled as complicit are actually coping mechanisms for surviving,” Alter said, addressing some of the problems with the project. She explained that the purpose of the project is not to place blame on anyone.
On Thursday, April 18 at 4:30 in Hillcrest 103, Wells, along with Barbara McCall, director of health and wellness education, will be running a workshop centered around discussions of complicity. Wells explained that the workshop will be discussion driven and will look at issues such as why there is frequently silence around issues of sexual assault.
Wells said that since coming to campus this Fall, she has been impressed by students’ passion and investment in addressing issues of sexual assault on campus. “For me, it gives me a lot of hope,” she said.
(04/18/19 1:51am)
Despite the cancellation of his public lecture earlier today amid what college administrators described as “safety concerns,” the right-wing Polish politician Ryszard Legutko still spoke on campus this afternoon to a private classroom audience. A peaceful protest originally scheduled to take place outside of the lecture did not occur.
In an email to The Campus on Thursday, April 18, Head of Media Relations Sarah Ray clarified the “safety risk” that prompted the cancellation was an inability to crowd-manage the escalating number of people planning to attend the event.
"The fact that there were students who were planning to hold an event near the lecture was not an issue," she said in a subsequent email. “The safety concerns stemmed from the rapidly growing number of people who had expressed an interest in attending the two events. We simply did not have adequate staffing to ensure the safety of all the attendees.”
When asked whether other students were threatening the protesters, Ray responded that she could not confirm this.
Rather than speak before an audience at the Kirk Alumni Center as planned, Legutko delivered his lecture to Political Science Professor Matthew Dickinson’s “American Presidency” seminar. The talk, initially intended for the nine students in Dickinson’s class, became a pseudo-public event as students arrived over the course of the talk, which continued about 15 minutes after the class period ended. Student protesters, who had originally planned to peacefully and non-disruptively protest Legutko’s talk with a queer celebration, were not present at the event today.
A student in Dickinson’s class who was involved in the Hamilton Forum — the speaker series that brought Legutko to campus, headed by Political Science professor Keegan Callanan — asked if he could invite Legutko to the 1:30 p.m. class in the Robert A. Jones ’59 (RAJ) House. According to Dickinson, the event was entirely impromptu.
“I asked the students, as part of the classroom experience, do you want to invite him in here to critique his argument,” Dickinson told The Campus. When students expressed interest, Dickinson administered a secret ballot. He said that he would not invite the speaker unless there was a unanimous decision to invite him, which there was.
Before Legutko arrived, Dickinson had students research the politician’s views and formulate questions. “We spent the first hour of class conducting our own research to gather questions for discussion,” said Owen Marsh ’20, a student in the class. According to Marsh, Legutko came in to the class about halfway through, at 3 p.m.
Dickinson did not invite students from outside his class because he did not originally intend for the event to be public, but students sporadically filtered into the RAJ conference room throughout the talk. Political Science Professor John Harpham and the students in his “Rousseau” seminar joined the crowd after hearing about the lecture from a student in the class and cutting class short. Some of Harpham’s students, who had planned on protesting the lecture, chose not to attend.
Legutko delivered the lecture he was originally planning to give at the now-canceled event, though it was abbreviated for lack of time. He then took questions from Dickinson and the audience, which was by then comprised of students from his class, students from Harpham’s class and other visitors. A portion of the question and answer period was recorded on live stream by The Campus.
Provost Jeff Cason, who sent the school-wide email earlier about the cancelation of the lecture, told The Campus in an email that the college did not know about Dickinson’s decision to invite Legutko to his class in advance of it happening. Cason clarified that if the college had received a request, they would have advised Dickinson not to host Legutko “given our safety concerns.”
“If we had been approached asking if there were safety concerns, we would have said yes, most definitely,” he said. “We don’t have any policy to shut down a speaker invited to a class; faculty have speakers come to their classes regularly without any centralized approval.”
INSIDE THE CLASSROOM
Dickinson asked Legutko if reinterpretations of marriage over time to include same-sex marriage are a social intrusion. Many of the concerns student activists initially voiced about Legutko’s visit centered around controversial statements he made regarding same-sex marriage and gay rights.
“I am very reluctant to tamper with the meaning of words,” Legutko responded. “Once you change the meaning, you are in for trouble. Marriage as we understood was between a man and a woman. What has happened recently is a radical change. I don’t think that we should be allowed to go as far as changing one of the most fundamental institutions of the world.”
Legutko took more questions about liberal democracy and his views on tradition. One student asked how Legutko felt about the controversy surrounding his visit, and invoked the Charles Murray incident.
“Charles Murray was the first thing on my mind when I was invited ... It was unpleasant information, but it proves what I wrote in my book ... How can these things happen?” Legutko responded. “Why is there this spirit of ideological crusade?"
Dickinson stepped in to inform Legutko that student protesters had no intention of stopping him from speaking. Callanan, sitting in the audience, argued that there were some students who wanted the invitation revoked, claiming it was “not a majority, but definitely some.” Dickinson responded that he respectfully disagreed with Callanan, and that no protesters had an interest in stopping the event.
GOING FORWARD
After the talk, Dickinson expressed concern to The Campus about the administration’s decision to cancel the event. He heard about the decision as he was arriving to his class, and though he emphasized that he did not know the details of any alleged safety concerns, felt that the choice to cancel the talk “validates our fears coming out of the Murray talk.”
He added that the administration’s cancellation of the event denied students the right to protest, another manifestation of free speech.
“In my conversations with the protesters they made it quite clear they were going to voice their concerns about inviting this guy to campus, but they were not going to try to shut him down, which is precisely which should happen,” said Dickinson.
“They lost that opportunity to express that feeling of being violated in their own home, and that’s their right here as students,” he added.
Dickinson also fears that media coverage of the events will reflect poorly on Middlebury.
“[The media] is going to portray this as, once again, Middlebury College not being able to tolerate controversial views, and that’s not the case. The students did not shut this down, they did not prevent him from speaking,” he said.
Callanan told The Campus that he already invited Legutko back to Middlebury next year. Dickinson said he hopes that Legutko will return.
“I would hope students have the opportunity to protest and engage in response to him appearing on campus in a way they weren’t able to this time because of the administration’s decisions,” Dickinson said.
Although the whole college community did not have the chance to listen to and/or protest Legutko’s talk, Dickinson was pleased with how the students in his class engaged with the speaker.
“I was very proud of Middlebury students today, very proud of them,” he said.
[related title="Related Stories" stories="44374,44323,44368" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]