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(11/01/18 9:55am)
Staff in the Student Financial Services Office explained the college’s financial services in this year’s second MiddWorks presentation on Oct. 25. Director of Financial Aid Operations Michael McLaughlin, Senior Associate Student Financial Services Director Michele Almeida and Loan Programs and Compliance Specialist Jane Aube led the presentation, which was intended to give students a better understanding of how aid works.
Student Financial Services oversees four main systems: financial aid, student billing, the college cashier and education loan financing. The discussion focused primarily on the financial aid component, given its relevance to the student body. McLaughlin emphasized the relevance of the session and of the Student Financial Services Office, an integral part of college operations.
“It touches every part of campus, every population,” McLaughlin said.
When applying for financial aid, students must fill out two applications: the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which concerns federal financial assistance, and the College Scholarship Service (CSS), which is the institutional methodology that dictates Middlebury’s financial aid.
The majority of financial aid is given out by the college itself. The average grant for an incoming student in the Class of 2022 was $49,000.
In determining how much aid a student will be granted, the office first calculates the expected family contribution (EFC). Both parental and student contributions are based on taxable income, with allowances made for things like child support, day-to-day medical costs, and daily expenses. It also considers assets like cash, savings, investment and real estate, with allowances for emergency reserve savings, education savings and low-income status.
The office also considers the number of siblings attending undergraduate institutions, which can affect the expected parent contribution. Student contributions, considered the “self-help” component, are largely made up of loans and work-study offers. This is considered with the idea that a student should share responsibility for the cost of their education.
The financial aid office then builds a budgeted cost of attendance for the student by first determining the total billed costs, like tuition, housing, meals and student activities, and the unbilled costs, such as supplies and travel. From this total cost, the EFC is subtracted. The resulting number becomes the calculated need for the individual student.
Scholarships are a common source of confusion in the financial aid process. McLaughlin explained that Middlebury does not offer merit awards because most students are academically qualified and admitted based on their merits. The office’s goal is to allocate funds to those who need it the most. The financial aid office does not allow outside scholarships to replace the family contribution, but they will let them replace loans or work-study.
Another aspect of Student Financial Services is student billing, where the department uses third-party vendor Nelnet Campus Commerce to bill students the cost of their attendance. Families can choose either to pay one semester at a time, on a monthly payment plan, or through a multi-year pre-payment plan.
The college cashier also operates through student financial services and deals with student charges such as dorm fines and parking tickets, as well as the campus retail operations such as dining, the Snow Bowl and the box office.
Education loan financing deals with the different loans families may take out as part of their financial aid. The college also offers exit loan counseling sessions before students graduate. Aube said this helps students plan for the future as they manage their loans after college.
(10/25/18 9:54am)
The Middlebury College Museum of Art has existed in some form or other for over 50 years, yet many might still consider it a hidden gem of the campus. Hosting both a permanent collection as well as travelling exhibitions, the Museum of Art has established its place at the college but is still striving to be a destination for the student body. The museum’s latest initiative, Thursday Nights at the Museum, hopes to improve just that.
The new program is largely organized by the Museum’s four student coordinators: Emma Boyd ’18.5, Flor Fernandez ’21, Pierce Gidez ’21 and Mimi Soule ’20. They act as the bridge between the Museum and the student body, working to make the space accessible and compelling to the student population.
In past years, the Museum held a large, semi-formal event every semester, typically with food and beverage, nice attire and live music. Turnout was good, but the infrequency of the event limited student exposure to the Museum. While these events will continue, the student coordinators hope that holding an event nearly every week will bring more students to the Museum and, as Gidez said, soon “make it the staple of the campus” it has not always been.
The Museum of Art first took form in the late 1960s with the completion of the Johnson Memorial Building, where many historically and artistically significant pieces gifted to the college were housed in the first floor. For many years the gallery was given little attention, so in the 1980s the college hired a gallery director. When the new Center for the Arts was designed, a space was designated for the Museum.
Every Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m., the Museum is open and hosts events such as talks and performances, while refreshments and snacks are served. Above all, the student coordinators want the Museum to become a place where students feel comfortable coming to “study, have a cup of coffee and relax,” Boyd said.
Last week on Thursday night, Saifa Hussain, Middlebury’s new associate chaplain and Muslim advisor, gave a talk about the Hajj. The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, a set of mandatory acts that form the basis for Muslim life, and consists of a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Though the pilgrimage is required only once of each person, Hussain has performed the Hajj twice.
After her talk, Hussain led the group into the Museum’s galleries, where the exhibit “Wondrous Worlds: Art and Islam Through Time and Place” is currently on display. The exhibition offers a glimpse of Islamic art through the ages in hand-printed Qurans, decorated plates and cups and engraved weaponry. In the context of her lecture, Hussain invited the group to explore the items and offered insight on many of them beyond what could be read on their labels. Much of religious Islamic art, she said, does not contain representations of humans or animals, and instead largely relies on geometry and symmetry, which was evident in the pieces on display.
This is just one example of the kinds of events held on Thursday evenings. Hussain’s talk tied into the art currently on display at the museum, but many of the other events are student-led, such as performance art and sketching.
Gidez said that the student coordinators would like to hear students’ suggestions too.
“If the student population wants to see something,” Gidez said, “we are open to that communication.”
Describing it as a “living museum,” he thinks it is constantly evolving and improving, and the Thursday Night events should as well.
(10/04/18 9:56am)
Mario Siddhartha Portugal Ramirez was a graduate student in Quito, Ecuador when one day he decided to grab a bite to eat at a local market. Among the vendors, he came upon several women who used unconventional medical practices to cure ailments. Feeling a little under the weather, Ramirez decided to give it a chance. The healers rubbed herbs on him and gave him some to ingest. The next day, he woke up and found he felt much better.
Years later, as a sociologist and former Middlebury professor, Ramirez decided to study these medical practices in depth. On on Thursday, Sept. 27, he discussed his recent work in this field in a presentation at the college. Through his research, Ramirez found that traditional medicine gained popularity through a wave of South American indigenous movements in the 1990s with the goal of transforming the government to be more inclusive.
A large part of these movements was a shift toward intercultural health, which consists of “actions towards integration of diverse medicine,” Ramirez said, giving “equal value to their ideological and practical grounds.”
Oftentimes, however, it is less a matter of identity that leads people to choose traditional medicine over conventional methods than it is a matter of cost.
When the government lowers the health budget, traditional practices become more common. According to Ramirez, a prevalent concept in Ecuador is that “every human being has some knowledge of how to heal himself,” and many individuals decide traditional medicine is the best route for them in everything from mild illnesses to cancer. In the growing capital city of Quito, these remedies take the form of urban folk medicine, with healers offering traditional health services in urban markets.
Most healers are women. Urban folk therapy is often very personal for the women involved, and many seek to pass on their knowledge to certain patients. Most therapies emerged prior to the fall of the Inca Empire and, though similar across the board, many are healer-specific and no two therapies are exactly the same. Men involved in traditional practices typically serve a more mystical, shamanistic role, though a handful of male healers are in practice.
Ramirez focused his research on two markets: the Mercado San Francisco, a clean, tourist-focused market with its roots in colonial Ecuador, and the Mercado de San Roque, which appeals more to locals. Most healers have their own stall, where they offer a variety of therapies and sell products like candles, soaps, perfumes, oils and alcohols tailored to particular issues.
Certain flowers are used to foster “luck, love and fortune.” Nettle is one of the primary herbs used for cleanses, where healers will rub it over the patient for general treatments (and yes, it does sting).
While herbal medicine is commonplace, it is not the only method of treatment among these practices. For instance, a red string tied around the wrist is said to cure those stricken by an illness where they miss someone so much they fall sick and eventually die. Another illness these women treat: sickness from a bad look someone gives you.
When one first goes to a healer, however, the healer may not immediately be able to discern what is wrong. To address this concern, there are some techniques unique to South American folk culture. For example, the healer might rub an egg all over the patient, let the egg sit, and come back to observe any spots or deformities on the egg, from which they can deduce what is wrong. In another method, they do the same with a live guinea pig (called a cuy in Ecuador), rubbing the rodent over the patient before killing it and opening it up to see what is wrong. If there is an abnormality with the guinea pig’s heart, for instance, there is probably an issue with the patient’s heart as well.
Ramirez’s research found that there is a sense of exclusion surrounding urban folk medicine, whose marginal existence is largely unregulated and ignored by the state government and NGOs. Therefore, knowledge of folk medicine is ambiguous, and little is understood about the medicine and conflicting perspectives of the subject abound over its validity.
Ramirez saw intercultural health as very much a gray area as well, where traditional and conventional knowledge both make up the healthcare network of the country.
One takeaway from Ramirez’s research: folk medicine is significant in strengthening the indigenous culture of Ecuador and in doing so, making the state more inclusive as it embraces its heritage.