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(07/12/19 8:49pm)
Eric Masinter ’21 died by suicide last week. Eric took his life during a cross-country road trip returning to his home in Colorado from Middlebury, according to an all-school email from President Laurie L. Patton sent on July 11.
Eric is survived by his parents, Rob ’86 and Kathy, and siblings Jess ’19 and Sarah, U.S. Air Force Academy ’21. He was previously a contributing writer to the The Campus.
Those of us on the editorial board who worked with Eric were heartbroken by this news. Eric displayed thoughtful writing ability through the valuable contributions he made to the news and features sections of this paper. During his time at The Campus, Eric’s reporting focused on the greater Middlebury community, covering the achievements of alumni and students. We as a board would like to express our deepest sympathies to the Masinter family and to Eric’s close friends.
In her email, Patton described Eric’s notable qualities, such as his passions for art and rock climbing, and expressed sympathies to his family. She also encouraged students to reach out to the residential life team, counseling staff and Scott Center chaplains for support as needed.
More information about an on-campus event celebrating Eric’s life is expected at the beginning of the academic year. The Campus will publish a more in-depth tribute to Eric at that time.
(04/11/19 9:56am)
Krista Tippett, creator and host of the national public radio program and podcast “On Being,” will deliver the college’s commencement address on Sunday, May 26. On her show, she explores broad cultural and spiritual questions about what it means to be human. Her wide range of guests have included Desmond Tutu, Yo-Yo Ma, Mary Oliver, Teju Cole and Maya Angelou.
Tippett was chosen to speak by a committee of two students, two faculty and an administrator. In anticipation of her upcoming speech, Tippett shared messages directed at the Middlebury community in an email to The Campus.
“We live in this moment of cultural upheaval in which we know what’s broken, but we can’t yet see what the new forms will be, the new realities we want to inhabit,” she said. “Creating those is work for generational time. It’s important right now to take a long, reality-based view of time, which doesn’t come naturally in your 20s.”
Tippett also noted the importance of knowing how to celebrate and take joy wherever and whenever you can find it. “Practice letting those two impulses nurture each other,” she said, adding that she’ll speak more about this on commencement day.
Tippet said she will be honored to be there in a moment of celebration and passage. “I’m looking forward to being on the Middlebury campus for the first time in a long time, and will hope for some conversation around the edges of festivities with students and faculty,” she said.
Middlebury will also award honorary degrees at this year’s commencement ceremony. One will be awarded to Jane Mayer, bestselling author and the chief Washington correspondent for the “New Yorker,” where she has been a staff writer since 1995.
“The fact that I will receive an honorary degree from Middlebury is especially meaningful to me because my career as a journalist began in Vermont, working on the state’s smallest weekly newspaper, and because I am the proud parent of a Middlebury graduate, Kate Hamilton, who was a 2015 Feb,” she wrote in an email.
In recent years, Mayer has written on topics ranging from money in politics and the U.S. Predator drone program to government prosecution of whistleblowers. She is the author of several books, including the bestselling “Dark Money,” which examined the influence of conservative mega-donors including the Koch Brothers.
“My hope for the graduating class is that it won’t just conquer the world, but that it will also fix it along the way,” Mayer said. “There’s no formula for a happy life, and no avoiding some setbacks and pitfalls, but in my experience, no amount of pay can compensate for work you don’t love, and no amount of satisfaction is greater than feeling that you’re making some kind of a difference.”
Mayer also addressed Middlebury students with a call to defend the truth. “Tell the truth, whether about science, history, poetry or politics — these days its defenders are in way too short a supply!”
Michelle Mittelman will accept an honorary degree on behalf of her late husband, David R. Mittelman ’76, a longtime college trustee and parent of three Middlebury graduates. Mittelman died in May 2017. He was passionate about astronomy, establishing the P. Frank Winkler Professorship in Physics at Middlebury, and providing financial support for the college’s observatory and telescope.
Judith Heumann, a senior fellow of the Ford Foundation, lifelong advocate for the rights of people with disabilities and an internationally recognized civil rights leader will also receive an honorary degree. Previously holding positions such as first special advisor for international disability rights at the U.S. Department of State and in the Clinton administration, assistant secretary of the Office for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, she was instrumental in developing major disability rights legislation, including a section of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Donald W. Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan Band of Vermont’s Coosuk-Abenaki Nation, is also one of the planned recipients of an honorary degree. He is a respected Abenaki leader in Vermont who has been instrumental in raising awareness of the rich Abenaki heritage as well as securing legal recognition for the Abenaki people and their lands. Stevens also has more than 27 years of experience developing information technology, logistics, and manufacturing strategies for multimillion-dollar companies, is a U.S. Army Veteran and served two terms on the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs, the second as chair.
The degree bears both personal and cultural significance, Stevens told The Campus. “Neither of my parents were able to graduate high school because they had to work to support the family and help feed their siblings. My sisters were able to graduate high school but I am the only one in the family that was able to go to college and complete my degree after I completed my Military Service,” he said.
Stevens also addressed Middlebury students directly. “Stay in touch with what made you who you are and this beautiful planet of ours. It is the only one we have and must be looked after for future generations,” he said.
The Middlebury College Commencement ceremony will take place on the main quadrangle at 10 a.m. on Sunday, May 26. More than 5,000 family members and friends are expected to attend.
When asked what kind of audience Krista Tippett expects Middlebury to be, she responded, “Exuberant and eclectic and also pragmatic — a good combination.”
(10/25/18 10:00am)
The first came in the form of Panther Day and a parade from the homecoming football game to the annual Harvest Festival, new college traditions aimed to bolster school spirit. The second came in the form of a protest, one calling for the college to increase support for survivors of sexual assault.
(09/27/18 9:55am)
Reading literature is the answer to our struggles with race and difference — or at least it’s the best place to start, according to participants in this year’s Clifford Symposium.
The 15th annual academic forum, which took place from Sept. 20-22, centered on the works of Toni Morrison, the Nobel Prize-winning writer and activist for racial equality. Her most recent book is “The Origin of Others,” this year’s required reading for all first-years and the title of the symposium.
The symposium was interactive, enabling audience members to not only react to Morrison’s work, but also engage on a personal level with the text and fellow attendees. While the vast majority of the comments and ideas shared venerated these texts for their remarkable ability to evoke empathy and inspire honest dialogue, the discussions also revealed questions left unanswered.
On the first night of the symposium, American Studies Professor J Finley delivered a talk entitled,“‘Yonder they do not love your flesh’: Ghosts, Strangers, and the Specter of Race” which discussed how Toni Morrison’s “The Origin of Others” prompts a conversation on the nature and shape of American racism, and how violence and brutality have become its daily doings.
Finley addressed how the stories of Margaret Garner, an escaped slave who murdered her daughter rather than see her enslaved, and Eric Garner, who was viciously murdered by the NYPD in 2014 while selling loose cigarettes outside a beauty supply store, help us reach understandings about guilt, explicit or otherwise, in the perpetration of racial violence. This discussion opened the symposium with a frank conversation about race. Finley’s talk explored how estranging another has become easier than knowing a stranger for instance, citing a sort of interdependence between blackness and whiteness. This interdependence has become an obstacle, she said.
To this point, Treasure Brooks ’21 asked how to encourage widespread participation in the movement for racial equity.
“I think often whiteness is deracialized to make it seem as if to be white is to be void of race,” she said. “So I was wondering how do white people, or people who believe that they are white, have stake in the movement for racial equity?”
“It depends on what kind of world people want to see and live in,” Finley replied. “For white people, or people who identify as white, on a very basic and material level, what is the thing one is willing to give up? If you are actually willing to participate in a movement for racial justice because justice requires that the scale is not a metaphysical thing. One way is to become educated about the meaning of race and how it has come to be any particular context.”
The following day, the symposium shifted to a discussion of artistic interpretations of Morrison’s work. A performance that presented an adaptation of one of Morrison’s short stories, “Recitatif,” artfully experimented with racial erasure, toying with the audience’s perception of the character’s races in order to recount the story without explicitly racializing the characters. It was a collaborative effort that revealed how music, dance and theater can intersect and enhance meaning in Morrison’s work.
Matthew Taylor, a new faculty member in the Music department, and the pianist Asiya Korepanova captured the emotions, intensity and complicated presentation of characters in Morrison’s work through music. A choreographer and performer, Professor of Dance Christal Brown used the art form as a way to emphasize the story’s central themes. Though at times confusing, the dance performance’s ambiguities were deliberate. It sought to deconstruct understandings so that new insight might replace them. According to Michole Biancosino, who adapted Morrison’s work into this form, this intention guided much of the piece’s staging.
Although many of the events fostered constructive dialogue, some felt a need for continued conversation. One individual, who chose not to identify himself, spent much of the student forum objecting to the ideas presented by students and faculty, claiming, “the history of America is in the direction of progress.” This comment came after nearly an hour and a half of readings, all of which conveyed the deeply sad truth of racially motivated violence in the history of the United States, and the shared experiences of students of color on being othered.
While the symposium showed the college’s desire to spark dialogue around race, there were no direct mentions of other college initiatives related to the issue, except a book club organized in the spring by students in a course taught by Will Nash, a professor in the American Studies and English and American Literatures departments, and one of the symposium organizers.
In remarks delivered on the symposium’s opening night, President Laurie Patton stressed that Middlebury has only begun to scratch the surface of these issues. No direct references to any recent on campus incidents were made. Regardless, Patton’s sentiments expressed a desire to not only maintain discussions of race and difference but also to deepen those discussions.
“I believe that we at Middlebury have only begun to scratch the surface of the ongoing and deeply historical conversations we need to have about race in this symposium and about all forms of difference — class, gender, gender identity, sexuality, religion, just to name a few,” she said.
Patton said the community must think about how individuals have othered people in the past and continue to do so today at Middlebury. In order to make inclusivity part of the college’s everyday ethic, she argued, the community must understand the ways that Middlebury itself has been based on othering, built with some but not all people in mind.
Similarly, Nash commented on the timeliness of the symposium during his talk entitled, “Why Read Toni Morrison Today.” This discussion comes at a time when the community is wrestling with what it is going to be, he explained. In an interview with The Campus before the symposium took place, Nash emphasized that the symposium is not the end of the conversation, but part of a longer pursuit.
“We’re envisioning this as the beginning of a yearlong conversation, not a stand-alone weekend event,” he said. “We’re looking forward to how we can continue the work that we start with the Clifford throughout the course of the year.”
Student Government Association President Nia Robinson ’19, Shatavia Knight ’20 and Oratory Now Director Dana Yeaton organized the symposium’s student forum which sought to do just that.
The session began with audio of Toni Morrison reading excerpts from “The Song of Solomon,” recorded live at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in 1977, just before it was published to great acclaim. Middlebury students read and responded to excerpts from “The Origin of Others” and Morrison’s other works including “The Bluest Eye” and “Song of Solomon.” They then opened the floor for wider conversation.
“We have been struggling with the idea of the other for a while and we will continue to struggle with this idea long after the Clifford Symposium” Robinson said.
In the meantime, students, faculty and staff are beginning a conversation. Nash offered a class this fall on the work of Toni Morrison, which filled-up quickly, indicating student interest in the topic. And yet, at the student forum, many tables remained unfilled. Empty chairs, timid audiences, unanswered questions and ambiguous declarations about progress and the lack thereof characterized this symposium and the college, an institution struggling to identify itself but eager to include the community in a collective effort to imagine a better Middlebury.
(05/09/18 9:58pm)
The Gender Sexuality and Feminist Studies Department (GSFS) hosted the first ever themed game night last Friday in the Chateau Grand Salon. Students and faculty came together to explore feminist and queer theory through games designed and created by students in two GSFS classes.
Professor Carly Thomsen taught both classes, Politics of Reproduction and Introduction to Queer Critique. The intention of the students’ projects was to translate academic texts into an accessible form. The gathering filled the Grand Salon to capacity.
“I was really surprised to see how many students showed up” said Professor J. Finley of the American Studies department.
Although some professors who attended merely observed while students played, Finley played a Jenga game inspired by Foucault.
“I was really impressed by the absorption of really complex theoretical material and the ability of the people who made that game to make it into something that was engaging in an interesting and fun way.”
Spanish professor Roheno-Madrazo also played Foucault Jenga.
“I played Foucault’s Discourse Jenga, about how our societal discourses about sexual repression and oppression keep repeating in a self-perpetuating loop until they topple and get rebuilt...sometimes in very similar ways,” he said.
This game night started out as an assignment but ultimately manifested itself into a game night open to all. The intention of the students’ projects was to translate academic texts into an accessible form.
“What Carly [Thomsen] does is she really finds a way to bring the learning out of the classroom. The work she does to draw people into feminist work is great,” Finley said.
Finley and Thomsen are teaching a class called Beyond Intersectionality next spring, which will host a series of workshops and a symposium.
Thomsen stresses the importance of translation in her courses. The students’ desire to actualize their knowledge of what was going on in the world was the impetus for thinking about developing games as a class project.
“In a lot of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies classes we read a lot of theoretical work or work that surprises students and sometimes angers students. And at the end of classes I used to always be asked, what do we do with this information?” Thomsen said.
The students’ desire to actualize their knowledge of what was going on in the world pushed Thomsen to make developing games a class project. Without the tools or the knowledge to change any of the problems that students were discovering through their studies, an opportunity to expand the feminist and queer studies syllabi arose.
But Thomsen has long used translation based assignments in her courses.
“In all my classes, instead of writing just a final paper, students do what I call a translation assignment and so they take one text, one academic text, and think about how they would turn it into an alternative format for an alternative audience, one beyond our classroom. The point of this is two-fold. In order to talk about a text in the world you have to know it in a far deeper and more complicated way than you do if the other people with whom you are talking have also engaged with that text,” Thomsen said.
“I think in this political climate it is especially important to be able to talk with people who we might not agree with,” she said.
(03/01/18 1:16am)
“#MeToo, The Global Accents of Sexual Assault” attracted a large crowd this past Thursday afternoon in the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs. Students of all years and many different disciplines gathered to hear professor of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies Professor Sujata Moorti explore the nuances of the #MeToo movement within a global context.
By classifying the #MeToo movement as part of a universal phenomenon, pointing to increasing activism in various countries around the world, Professor Moorti sought to link the global and the local understandings of the movement. Moorti presented a map which highlighted the locations with the highest concentration of social media activity with the #MeToo and similar tags. While the United States had a notably high concentration, many other countries, particularly in Western Europe but also notably in Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, also had large presences on the map.
Although the title of this talk suggested a focus on activism beyond the U.S., much of the presentation proceeded thereafter with an analysis of the #MeToo campaign against Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment largely as it has played out in the United States. But recognizing the global accents of the phenomenon, Moorti argued, enhances our understanding of the local.
What followed was a thoughtful analysis of the #MeToo movement which both commended its intention and successes, as well as called for a significant shift in focus. Moorti raised several important points about the nature of the moment which set the stage for these conclusions, beginning with the crucial role of social media. The digital era has changed the platform for activism, she explained.
“Participatory interactive features of digital media is the current form of activism” Moorti said.
Origin stories, she argued, serve as an equally important tool in defining a movement. Moorti pointed to activism from the 60s and 70s in the United States for instance, as an overlooked and very relevant chapter of the campaign against sexual assault and sexual harassment. Consciousness raising groups and the notorious coining of the phrase “the personal is political” might be considered the analog version of our current digital activism.
But here lies the need for a significant shift. The visibility that comes with this sort of activism, though very speedy, doesn’t meet the mark. Analyzing fundamental issues at hand ultimately ought to trump the politics of visibility according to Profeesor Moorti. What is lost when we prioritize exposing truths over combatting the powers that produce them in the first place?
“We can come up with a different movement if we turn away from the Weinstein moment and go back further” she said.
Turning to when Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas, then a Supreme Court Nominee, of sexual assault, for instance, expands the narrative significantly, Moorti explained, presenting a photo from the infamous trial.
“This moment allows us to tell a different story about racialized sexism,” she said.
Moorti juxtaposed this imagery with Time’s Women of the Year cover to reinforce her point that redefining the origin story of #MeToo beyond the Weinstein moment allows us to refocus for the better.
“Classifying the Time women of the year as silence breakers erases decades of activism” she said.
Now is the time to be thinking about groundbreaking moments that preceded all the tweets and digital activism. The Anita Hill case and cases like when Dominick Strauss Khan, the former president of the IMF was ousted on a public platform should be included in our timelines, so that their fight may be continued and not forgotten . Khan’s case “presents an allegory for western hubris” and gets us back to thinking about hotel workers and other “women on the frontlines of sexual harassment and sexual assault” Professor Moorti explained.
The presentation’s conclusion challenged students to consider the complexities of the women’s movement in America. It reorganized to some degree what ought to be prioritized, with fundamental issues, deeper understanding of historical and global contexts, consideration of the intersections of race and class at the top of the list. Visibility politics, celebrity feminism should occupy a smaller space going forward.
What does the future look like, then? Professor Moorti concluded the presentation with a quote from Saludi Faludi’s Backlash which articulates the challenge at hand.
“An accurate charting of American women’s progress through history might look more like a corkscrew tilted slightly to one side, its loops inching closer to freedom with the passage of time—but like a mathematical curve approaching infinity, never touching its goal.”
Despite this tone, students were eager to continue the conversation. For instance, Sabina Latifovic ’18, challenged people to consider the accessibility of the legal system.
“Who has access to the legal system? Who has access to lawyers? Why do we view the legal system as legitimate and not hundreds of thousands of women speaking about their experiences legitimate?”
The talk concluded as many conversations about this topic easily do, with more questions than answers. However, if students would like to have more talks of this nature, they should email rcga@middlebury.edu.
(01/17/18 10:52pm)
While other colleges and universities close offices and cancel classes in honor of Martin Luther King Day, the college chose to host a series of events to commemorate his legacy, ultimately presenting the student body as well as the community with a unique opportunity to learn about the important practices and beliefs Dr. King championed throughout his life.
One of the MLK featured events this past weekend attracted a substantial crowd in Wilson Hall at the McCullough Student center, as the event held honored Dr. King’s commitment to non-violence. Through the support of various departments, the founders of the Holistic Life Foundation from Baltimore came to speak to students, faculty, staff and community members Sunday afternoon. Opening remarks made by a representative from the Scott Center for Religious and Spiritual life placed the talk within the context of spirituality and history by sharing a moving quote of Dr. King’s.
“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...This is the inter-related structure of reality,” said Laurie Jordan, quoting one of Dr. Martin Luther King’s letters from a Birmingham Alabama prison.
On that note, Ali Smith, Atman Smith, and Andy Gonzalez began their discussion. Their work teaching contemplative practice in underserved schools in Baltimore is reducing disciplinary problems among students. Before delving into the founding of the Holistic Life Foundation the speakers set the tone of their talk with a group meditation.
“This is a love and kindness practice,” Smith said. According to Smith, the meditation practice was inspired by human nature’s penchant for loving other people before serving oneself.
In guiding the crowd through a ten-minute-long meditation in which audience members were encouraged to focus on breathing and expelling all negative energies, Smith united the audience and established a space conducive to conversation.
Following the group meditation, the leaders reflected on the path that led to their roles as facilitators of mindfulness through mediation and yoga, sharing personal stories that connected with students on a very real level.
“Our love of hip hop and beer was what brought us together to form the holistic life foundation” said Smith, jokingly recalling the early days of their journey into the realm of philosophical exploration and mindful practices when they studied together at the University of Maryland.
But it was when the Smith brothers and Gonzalez were in Baltimore together post-graduation that the evolution of their personal relationships into one of mutually encouraged intellectual exploration ultimately took place.
“We saw a lot of suffering. We saw a lot of pain” Ali Smith said, on a more serious note. The Holistic Life Foundation founders felt that despite being college-educated adults, their lessons and degrees fell short of answering the questions that really plagued them. The more research into contemplative practices and various schools of philosophical thought that their curiosities led them to, the more questions they felt they had.
Wrestling with dilemmas testing the limits of the human experience, and living in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Baltimore then granted the soon to be founders of the Holistic Life Foundation with a rare opportunity, the chance to transform inner-city America through contemplative practice.
Today, they have achieved great success. A feature in Mindful Magazine revealed how their work is reducing disciplinary problems among students in underserved schools in Baltimore. The foundation is delivering an assortment of after school, mentoring, environmental education, and leadership training programs. The talk was extremely well received and speaks to the value of pursuing paths to community healing via contemplative practice.
(12/07/17 12:17am)
The Sixteen Days Campaign Against Gender-Based Sexual Violence began on International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Nov. 25, and will end on International Human Rights Day, Dec. 10. Each day that passes between November 25 and December 10 represents the movement towards the understanding that perpetrating any form of violence against women is, at its core, an issue of human rights.
In honor of this campaign, the Chellis House held an event Tuesday Nov. 28 at which students, staff, and faculty read and discussed passages from Juana Gamero de Coca’s monograph “Sexualidad, Violencia y Cultura” and from Julia Alvarez’s novel “In The Time of the Butterflies.”
In the reading of de Coca’s monograph, audience members were moved by the eloquence and power of her writing, which explored a wide array of topics, including the societal limits of democracy human notions of romantic love. The United Nations declared a Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in honor of Minou, Patria, and Maria Teresa Mirabel, whose activism to bring down Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship were the subject of Alvarez’s book. The discussions that followed readings from both of these works gave listeners the opportunity to process and explore their reactions to the texts as well as engage with the readers themselves.
In reading English translations of passages audience members felt compelled to discuss the role of translation in reading a text. This discussion of the literary works themselves reflected the elevated importance of the topics covered, the notion that sharing these stories and growing the audience is in itself a profoundly important form of activism. In gathering to listen to “Sexualidad, Violencia y Cultura” and “In The Time of the Butterflies”, attendees are were of the indisputable need to expose the reality and voice truth.
“It’s very important to name things by name to give the message that this is happening,” said Marissel Hernández-Romero, a professor of Spanish and Portuguese.
After reading the epilogue from “Sexualidad, Violencia y Cultura,” the room sat in silence for a few seconds. One woman was crying. The weight of the text was definitely felt throughout the room.
“That’s Juana’s passion…and I love that,” said Gloria Gonzalez Zenteno, a professor of Spanish. “I just found that so eloquent…because I don’t know what genre to call a book like this because it’s like a book of essays…but it’s so personal and so burning with passion…and I just found it so effective.”
The United Nations has made it their mission to both demonstrate the gravity of addressing gender violence on its own as well as linking it with the human rights movement. Here at Middlebury, the 16 days of activism to end gender violence is manifesting itself through meaningful, heartfelt and powerful conversation and spreading awareness through sharing the voices of others, taking time to reflect and call upon our peers to gather and participate.
There are several upcoming events to look out for in the remaining days of this campaign. On Friday Dec. 8, the Chellis House will take a stroll through the trails around campus for those seeking a breath of fresh air and the chance to participate in what they call “Walking Through Resistance”. The group will leave from Chellis House at 12 p.m., though in case of rain, snow or weather below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, they will meet at the indoor track.
(11/09/17 12:25am)
Sarady Merghani ’19, a neuroscience major, is taking advantage of one of Middlebury’s many programs dedicated to fostering student creativity to start her own business combatting stress on campus. Many agree that stress and well-being are unequivocally linked. Merghani hopes her health and beauty products will help students relax and reduce their stress levels.
The Old Stone Mill, a beautiful historic building nestled beside Otter Creek in the heart of downtown Middlebury, is space where the creators and innovators of Middlebury College come under one roof to share new ideas, explore creative passions and collaborate in a supportive environment. It is a venue through which many notable Middlebury entrepreneurial ventures have passed, and soon, Merghani’s business, Sulara, will be among them.
Sulara is a new line of health and beauty products inspired by ancient regions around the world and ancient techniques of personal care. Merghani named the business after her younger sister, with the intention to capture the beauty and regality that her name carries.
“She was named after a princess, actually, and my business kind of runs off of this idea of luxury and pampering yourself and making sure that you treat yourself as a queen, or a king,” Merghani said.
Her business sells toilette boxes that contain three primary products and one regionally-inspired beauty product. For instance, her toilette boxes may contain a combination of a cleanser, body scrub, body mask, or body butter, as well as a third beauty product determined by the region that inspired that particular box. Currently, Merghani is conducting research on Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome, Nubia, and Ancient China to inform her business.
“There were specific regions that resonated with me and I ended up picking those,” Merghani said, noting that reading about the royal families in these regions in ancient times sparked her interest in ancient beauty practices.
Sulara uses all-natural ingredients, such as aloe vera, to hydrate even the most sensitive skin. Merghani has been researching all-natural beauty and health since seventh grade, a period in her life she describes as incredibly formative.
“I have sensitive skin and it was hard for me to use cosmetic products without my skin breaking out or lightening, like getting lighter, and I didn’t want that,” she said. “I wanted to maintain my skin color but I wanted to take care of it and so I started doing a lot of research and reading books about natural ingredients and the importance of using natural ingredients on your skin.”
Merghani has made it her personal mission to share her self-care journey with her peers. She is very intent on testing her products this semester and plans to host an event soon as a beta-test before the company’s approaching launch. Merghani explained that many of the ingredients she uses, such as tea-tree oil and certain mint oils, can have a very intense effect on the user, depending on the desired sensation. She said she is eager to hear feedback from students.
“I use them and I like them, and my friends use them and they like them, but those are all subjective opinions and so I want a complete stranger to try it out,” she said. “So for this semester I will host an event where people try out the products as well as do some self-care nights.”
Merghani hopes her business can help solve the problem of high levels of stress and low levels of self-care. With her product, she hopes people will discover new ways to take care of themselves while also supporting the endeavor of a fellow student.
“There’s a lot of science behind mindfulness and aromatherapy, not just in terms of how important it is, but how effective it is in reducing stress and getting your mind focused,” she said. “Centering your body, mind and spirit, that’s what my company aims to do with our products as well.”
She prioritizes good ingredients, selecting only the best, sourcing from local vendors of organic, fair-trade and humane products.She believes that in taking care of ourselves, we also must take care of the world around us. The success of businesses like Merghani’s relies on the good consciousness of consumers.
She is also thoughtful throughout the creative process of her products, looking to the past to inspire her, a laudable pursuit amongst claims that such prioritizing of all-natural ingredients is nothing but a well-marketed trend. Merghani boldly states that in fact, all-natural self-care is not a fad but a practice of the wise and mindful that is here to stay.
(11/01/17 11:11pm)
The Middlebury Women Leaders Club held its first Female Mentor Luncheon on Friday, Oct. 27, with Professor of History Amy Morsman. Erin Van Gessel ‘17.5, made opening remarks.
Before coming to Middlebury, Morsman lived and worked in the South, as Van Gessel explained. She earned her undergraduate degree at Wake Forest University in North Carolina and a History PhD from the University of Virginia. Morsman channeled her interests in gender roles, slavery and the civil war in her dissertation and first book. Her research now examines race relations and regionalism in the nineteenth century, but the thing she loves most about her job as a professor is engaging young people in thought-provoking discussions.
At the luncheon, Morsman reflected on her undergraduate and graduate experiences as well as the nuances of balancing work and family life. While what we may find fulfilling exactly may be in constant flux, the need to support yourself persists. For that reason, she argues, we are constantly balancing and weighing.
“If you focus on what fulfills you instead of what you are doing, then you will never feel inadequate,” Morsman said.
In response to the question about what to do when you fail at what fulfills you, Morsman challenged students to reconsider what constitutes their standard for greatness and emphasized the importance of embracing failures.
“We often feel like we’re not supposed to share our fear and failures,” Morsman said. “But they are important.”
This led to a discussion about personal growth in which not only Morsman shared personal anecdotes about her studies, career, family, and the women who have inspired her along the way. Students also offered advice to other young Middlebury women in attendance.
The Middlebury Women Leaders Club is led by Van Gessel, Rae Aaron ’19.5 and Maryam Mahboob ’18. Morsman was the first female mentor for the luncheon series. There will be two more luncheons. The next will be with Dean of Students Baishakhi Taylor and the third will be with Jessica Holmes, a professor of Economics and leader of MiddCore.
Over Winter Term there will be a weekend with a conflict mediation workshop led by President Laurie L. Patton, a to-be-determined keynote speaker on Friday, and then on Saturday, a student-run fashion show modeling the work of a female student-run business, Share to Wear. The fashion show will serve as a fundraiser for She Should Run, an organization that recruits women to run for political office and runs their campaigns.
The Middlebury Women Leaders club meets bi-weekly on Monday nights in the Gifford annex from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. The symposium during J-Term will coincide with the one year anniversary of the Women’s March: Jan. 18-20, 2018.
(10/18/17 11:28pm)
For the crowd of Middlebury students, faculty and guests who gathered in Axinn Center 232 last Tuesday afternoon, the world of animated film came to life through a film series called “Remember When: A Collection of Animated Shorts Capturing the Intersections of Girlhood,” curated by filmmaker Lindsey Martin.
“Girlhood” presented a series of narratives that boldly and intelligently challenges the notion that young people exist unaware or unaffected by larger power structures. The stories featured girls in roles that many would argue we don’t see enough of in films both today and historically. Every narrative featured girls in roles beyond young caretakers, trophies and sidekicks.
When the lights turned off, and the mournfully optimistic, intelligently lighthearted, and unequivocally young voices of these girls filled the room, we were instantly catapulted into the world of the imaginary. The scenery was subject to every whim of the speakers’ consciousnesses, that were distinctly youthful and unrestrained despite the troubling realities that they reflected, arguably an effect that could only have been achieved via this sort of animation.
The series explored the use of animation as a way of processing traumatic histories and memories as well as a way to play with our realities and reimagine power dynamics, according to the event organizers. Each film uses animation in a different way, some in combination with live action, but all use the form to evoke nostalgia and reflection.
“I, Destini,” a film by 14-year old Destini Riley from Durham, North Carolina, explores the poignant and imaginative illustration of a youth’s perspective on the effects of having an incarcerated brother. “The FBI Blew up My Ice Skates” is a story born in the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1980 told from the perspective of Haleh, an eight-year old who just wants to enjoy her ice skates. “Love Letter,” directed by Lindsey Martin, features a 13-year old girl grappling with the hardships and emotional complexities of her parents’ divorce.
Through the complicated and artful animated medium, she tells the story of her imaginary friend who hibernates in a jar on her windowsill as she copes with her anxieties. In “My Doodle Diary,” a young girl named Maya writes about everything that rocks her teenage world. This daily narrative perspective into a young girl’s life offered viewers a chance to experience a delightful exploration of youthful expression. “A Place in the Middle,” about an 11-year old girl named Ho’Onani in Honolulu, tells the compelling and beautiful story about her hopes and struggles to become a leader of her hula group. Touching on important ideas of the Hawaiian spirit and femininity, the film celebrates the notion that what truly matters is what’s in your heart.
“It made me think a lot about being a kid that age and using my imagination and reality to understand things and cope with things and all of these submissions did such a good job of bringing the viewer into that world and I so appreciated how accurate that is,” said Emma Hampsten ’18.5.
At Middlebury, we are often afforded the opportunity to study power structures and their impacts through a somewhat distant academic lens, whether in classes such as Race and Ethnicity in the U.S. or The Sociology of Gender. Rarely are we granted the chance to sit down in a theater and experience the artistic manifestations of the thoughts and experiences of those whose lives these power structures so intimately affect.
(09/27/17 11:12pm)
This year’s Clifford Symposium, which took place from Sept. 21 to 23, centered on a topic of historical significance and, amid the turbulence of our present-day political landscape, renewed relevance. Entitled “The Soviet Century: 100 Years of the Russian Revolution,” the symposium consisted of panel discussions, screenings, and art performances across three days, allowing attendees to engage with material across a variety of mediums.
To celebrate the beginning of a weekend of inquiry and reflection, students, alumni and faculty enjoyed a Soviet Union-style dinner in Atwater dining hall, playfully renamed “Stolovaya No. 6” for the evening of Sept. 21.
In commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the Middlebury School in the Soviet Union, Thomas Beyer, professor of Russian and East European Studies, shared stories about Middlebury students who traveled to Russia during the Soviet era.
“The first thing that happened and happened every year for the next 12 years and ruined my August and summer vacations was that of the 15 students, only nine of them received visas,” Beyer stated.
Students who studied abroad in Moscow in the fall of 1977 witnessed the sixtieth anniversary of the October Revolution, a Bolshevik uprising led by Vladimir Lenin that constituted the second part of the Russian Revolution and which was instrumental in dismantling the tsarist autocracy.
Kevin Moss, professor of Russian, reflected on his time spent at the Pushkin Institute, a public education center in Moscow, from 1981 to 1982. There, Middlebury students studied alongside students from all across Eastern Europe who were training to become Russian teachers in their home countries.
Amid the general animosity of the era, residential life allowed for considerable intercultural exchange. Students from each country presented performances at celebrations hosted by the institution, though they often suspected that their dorms were under government surveillance.
“In many ways, the capitalists and the socialists were kept apart at the institute. The directors from the capitalist countries would meet separately from the directors from the socialist countries,” Moss recalled.
“There were also some ideological clashes, particularly in ’85 and ’86 and ’88 and ’89 when the Soviet Union was already beginning to publish some people like Pasternak and thinking about Solzhenitsyn. In the early years, when the students would say that they had read in their literature courses Pasternak or Solzhenitsyn, the teachers would say, ‘Surely you don’t think they will become part of the history of Russian Literature.’”
Nevertheless, students did not hesitate to make their opinions known by defacing posters of leaders of the Soviet Union or hanging the posters upside-down.
Besides a constant brewing of tension, the Soviet era was characterized by a sense of rigid uniformity. Moss recounted that stores were all operated by the state and labelled with generic names such as “meat” or “fish.” Aisles contained singular products, and on the rare occasions that a unique product ended up on the shelves, customers would flock to buy it.
The rest of the symposium shifted from reflections on lived experiences to analyses of political and sociocultural frameworks. Panels throughout the weekend offered insights and interpretations of events leading up to and surrounding the Soviet era.
In the opening remarks of a lecture entitled “The Russian Revolution as a Utopian Leap,” President Patton offered a framework in which to appreciate the significance of the Soviet era.
“While discussion of the events of a century ago is far less burdened than it was during the Cold War era, it remains inherently political,” Patton stated. “There is not, after all this time, a single accepted narrative of the revolution and its meaning, and that itself is a fascinating thing to study. The interpretations have ranged and continue to range drastically depending on the individual’s political and philosophical views, nationality, social background and moment in time.”
President Patton then welcomed the keynote speaker, Mark Steinberg. A professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Steinberg specializes in the intellectual and social history of Russia and the Soviet Union in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He showed the audience an image of “Angel of History,” a 1920 monoprint by the Swiss-German artist Paul Klee, which would come to symbolize the rise of the Soviet regime.
“For a lot of people who experienced the Russian Revolution, this seemed like a time of absolutely unbelievable possibility, like nothing anybody could expect with outcomes nobody could imagine,” Steinberg stated. “This was the possibility that one could overcome oppression. That one could overcome violence, in particular the oppressions and violence of an autocratic monarchy. One could overcome the inequities of the socioeconomic system, capitalism as some would call it.”
The Russian Revolution marked a moment in history when wreckage was replaced by the construction of something completely new. A sense of rebirth permeated the cultural landscape.
“This is why I think we find so many angels in the Russian Revolution,” Steinberg said.
During the question-and-answer session, students and faculty members pushed back against the concept of the Russian Revolution as a “leap” into utopia, suggesting instead that the political shift constituted a “fall” into problematic ideals.
The far-reaching effects of Soviet ideology were further explored in a panel entitled “The Revolution Abroad,” in which four historians gathered to discuss the reception of communist ideas in Japan, East Germany and France.
Max Ward, Assistant Professor of History at the college, explained the impact of the Russian Revolution on ideas of communism in Japan. The October Revolution led to a phenomenon dubbed “dangerous thought.”
“Communism was a crime of an ideological foreign threat,” Ward said.
Andrew Demshuk, assistant professor of history at American University, analyzed influences of the October Revolution in East Germany. Following that, Nicholas Clifford, Professor Emeritus of History, covered the obsession with Maoist thought in France from 1966 through 1980. During these years, many looked to Mao Zedong as a figure of communism more dominant than Khrushchev in the USSR. The largest of the Maoist groupings called themselves the gauche proletarians.
The Soviet era cannot be understood solely through its communist ideology, however. Political rhetoric and creative expression informed and at times challenged one another amid the turbulence of the times. Moving beyond a purely political analysis of the Cold War era, a panel entitled “Art in Revolution” explored the manifestation of Soviet thought in Russian music and literature.
Steven Richmond, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and former student at the Middlebury School of Russian, framed the discussion by outlining the role of censorship before and during the Soviet era. During the tsarist regime, Soviet leaders, whom he described as “creatures of censorship,” were involved in the underground press. In 1922, after the conclusion of the civil war, Soviet leadership created an official censorship bureau known as Glavlit. This new, centralized paradigm of censorship lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Next, Matthew Bengtson, Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Michigan, analyzed the role of Russian music from the mid-nineteenth to twentieth century. Drawing from his expertise in piano literature, he described the artistic landscape in nineteenth-century Russia as a “tug of war between cosmopolitans and nationalists” – those who looked to the West for inspiration and those who remained invested in local traditions. Tchaikovsky and Brothers Anton and Nikolai Rubinstein figured among the cosmopolitans, while the Mighty Five, Mili Balakirev, Modest Mussorgsky, and Alexander Borodin represented nationalist interests.
German philosophy, particularly the works of Nietzsche, strongly influenced the public’s perception of music as an artistic medium. During an era in which an apocalypse felt imminent, artists were positioned as prophets and seers, and the ability of music to transcend mere representation rendered it as the highest art form.
“Music was abstract, and thus it could claim to be spiritual,” Bengtson explained.
He acknowledged the subjectivity of historical accounts, describing this era as “the most difficult period for us to relate to these days because the experience of the World Wars has informed our way of understanding the world. Of course, history is not written by the losers.”
The role of art in response to a shifting political landscape was a central theme of the panel discussion. Bengtson noted that the abstract idealism of music challenged the premise of a Marxian society, in which everything is supposed to be concrete. Reflecting on this contradiction, he posed an inquiry to the audience: “What happens to communist groups when they are forced to reject the notion of art?”
The rhetorical nature of this question mirrored the sense of open-ended exploration and multifaceted interpretation that characterizes the annual Clifford Symposium. Marking the centenary of the Russian Revolution, this year’s series of discussions, screenings, and exhibits probed deep into past to reflect on questions that continue to bear relevance in the twenty-first century. The Cold War era may be behind us, receding further and further into our collective historical memory, but the art, cultures, politics and economics of Soviet times have left behind a legacy whose multiple meanings we are still trying to unravel today. In highlighting the significance of the historical rupture of 1917, this year’s Clifford Symposium served as a reminder to us all that the history books are never fully closed; that there is always more to remember, to interpret, and to boldly and rigorously question.
(09/14/17 4:02am)
Welcome back to college. As the school year ramps up, we would like to share with you an upcoming project we are really excited about. One of our many goals this year is to write long-term, in-depth pieces that look at student life on campus, in addition to our weekly coverage. In that spirit, we have already started to put together the first in a series of articles that will examine sexual assault and misconduct at Middlebury.
We believe that the conversation about sexual assault on college campuses — which is often part of our national dialogue — needs to be a larger part of our everyday life here at Midd. We believe that thoughtful journalism can change discourse within a community, and that we, as the student newspaper, have a part to play in this conversation. We are committed to putting the necessary time and energy into this reporting — to elevate voices that often remain unheard.
Over the course of the semester, we will write about different aspects of this issue. We will talk to student groups like MiddSafe and It Happens Here to learn about the organizations on campus that do work surrounding sexual assault. We will speak with the Title IX office about enforcement, and look into programs like Green Dot. Our first story, scheduled to come out next week, will cover the changes to Title IX policy Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced last Thursday.
We also hope to speak to survivors that are willing to share their stories, anonymously or otherwise. If you have story you would like to share as part of this project, or if there is a topic you would like us to cover, please do not hesitate to reach out to campus staff. We are happy to meet with you and talk you through our process if you are interested in participating.
The features team can be reached at features@middleburycampus.com.