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(01/27/16 5:10pm)
The trustees who serve on the College Board of Overseers discussed diversity and inclusivity last week during one of three of the Board of Trustees’ annual conferences. The Board’s governance system is divided into three Boards of Overseers: one for the College, one for the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and one for the Schools, including the School of the Environment, Bread Loaf School of English and the Language Schools.
“This issue is absolutely a priority for the Trustees, and they are very supportive of the work that has been happening on campus, while also understanding that there is much work yet to be done,” said Dean of Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs Andi Lloyd.
She continued, “Diversity and inclusion has been a focus for the College Board of Overseers since last year. It emerged as a priority during conversations last year about innovation and change in higher education — diversity and inclusion emerged, in those discussions, as a priority that was seen as central to the College’s mission. This has, therefore, been an ongoing conversation for the Trustees. They were, however, eager to hear about what has been happening at Middlebury during the fall, so we did provide them with an update on what has happened here, and we talked about events at Middlebury in the context of the broader higher education landscape.”
The Board met over the course of the weekend, inviting Leslie Harris, a professor at Emory University who has done research into campus climate, to speak to the trustees. Lloyd, along with Chief Diversity Officer Miguel Fernandez and Dean of the College and Vice President for Student Affairs Katy Smith Abbott, also briefed the trustees on campus events.
“Diversity and inclusion was the primary agenda topic,” Lloyd said. “We covered other pieces of business during our three-hour meeting on Friday afternoon, but this was the focal point for discussions.”
Multiple committees met and discussed new programs, strategic plans, master planning and international programs related to the matter. The standing committees and overseers reported the progress that had been made in their sectors to the other members of the board.
President of the Student Government Association (SGA) Ilana Gratch who serves as the Constituent Overseer to the College Board of Overseers, was also present.
“[The trustees] are 100 percent interested in student opinion and seem to genuinely care about the student experience at the College,” she said.
“We are very lucky at Middlebury,” Chair of the Board Marna Whittington said. “We have a very committed, very engaged Board that is really there wanting the best for Middlebury and they come to work. They work hard.”
(11/19/15 5:29pm)
Student organizations that have yet to receive funding will see a shortage of resources available to them in the 2015-16 academic year. The Student Government Association (SGA) Finance Committee has already allocated around $900,000 of the $1,000,000 Student Activities Fee (SAF). Roughly 40 organizations have not yet applied for funding, including clubs sports like rugby and crew—as such, these student-run organizations are predicted to receive the bare minimum of what they require to operate.
Treasurer of the SGA and Chair of the SGA Finance Committee Aaron de Toledo ’16 discussed the situation at hand. Using the SGA as an example to demonstrate how a club’s finances operate, de Toledo said, “The SGA has a budget. If the SGA, whether it’s a senator or someone on the SGA committee, decides to spend money, they give me a receipt and I would have to approve it, submit that receipt, and manage the budget.”
The Student Activities budget is funded from the SAF, which is collected from every student. The contribution each student makes to the SAF rises with inflation every year—it was $410 for the 2015-16 academic year. Every dollar in the budget is allocated by students to student organizations or programming that benefits students, such as MiddView. The fund grants students independence from the administration.
“It’s not that simple,” de Toledo says, “because, off the bat, there are some pretty big fixed expenditures. For example, MiddView is a three-year understanding between the student government and the College where the student government and the College split the cost for the first three years… This is the third year, so this is the final year where that’s going to hit our budget. That’s $98,000 a year, so ten percent of our budget off the bat gone.”
Another large fixed expenditure is the senior yearbook, Kaleidescope ($42,500).
“[The] yearbook is something that is slightly controversial because most students don’t know that we have a yearbook and that’s a fair amount of money,” de Toledo added.
Other large programs that are fixed costs in the budget are the Senior Committee ($30,100), Feb Celebration Committee ($7,905), and various Commons activities ($36,800).
The largest fixed expenditure is the Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB)1, which receives approximately one third of the SAF. Their budget this year is $337,650.
“Right off the bat, [the budget] is a lot less than a million dollars. From there, we go and allocate money to all of the various clubs. There are 175 student organizations.”
Once the fixed expenditures are covered, larger student organizations such as WRMC, Mountain Club, and club sports take up a huge chunk of the
budget.
Though some might argue the need to distribute funding always with an equitable dollar per member formula, de Toledo disagrees.
“We don’t have a fixed formula because having a fixed formula really doesn’t allow for any human aspect… Generally, we really try to look at impact when we fund budgets,” he said.
(11/18/15 9:19pm)
On Monday, Nov. 9 Phil Hoxie ‘17.5 and Alexander Khan ’17 attended the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) annual dinner and award ceremony in Washington D.C. This year, the Irving Kristol Award was given to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The American Enterprise Institute is, according to its website, “a private, nonpartisan, not-for-profit institution dedicated to research and education on issues of government, politics, economics and social welfare.” The think tank, founded in 1938, claims a non-partisan position, but is often cited as a right-leaning counterpart to the left-leaning Brookings Institution. The annual award is named after Irving Kristol, who is considered the father of American neo-conservatism, and many of its current staff members were involved in the second Bush Administration.
Although the delegates did have to pay for their plane tickets, Hoxie, who is the Vice-chair for the Vermont Federation of College Republicans, said that the institute gave them tickets for free, while others were charged around $2000 to attend.
The dinner itself, according to Khan, who is co-president of the Middlebury College Republicans, was a black-tie dinner and was attended by roughly a thousand people. Around twenty students attended, many of whom attended the AEI’s Summer Honors Program or served as interns for members of the executive council.
Among the many influential people who attended the event, Khan and Hoxie were able to meet political commentator Bill Kristol and former Vice President Dick Cheney. They also were able to meet Senator Jon Kyl from Arizona and Congresswoman Barbara Comstock ’81 from Virginia.
Netanyahu, after receiving his award, participated in a conversation with AEI Executive Vice President of Foreign & Defense Policy Danielle Pletka. Netanyahu began the discussion by paying homage to Irving Kristol, the namesake of the award.
“I do remember Irving Kristol as a great intellect, as a fearless intellect,” Netanyahu said. “Political correctness was thrown out of the window. He called it like he saw it and he had a profound influence on many. He had a profound influence on me. And I consider myself honored and privileged to have spent many hours with him.”
Among the other comments he made, he praised the United States for its continual support of Israel and characterized the war with Islamism as a war of ideologies that needed to be resolved with material warfare.
“My point is in addition to the battle of ideas, there’s the battle,” he said. “You have to win the battle. And the earlier you win it, the cheaper it will be. The longer you wait, eventually these forces will dissipate because there is no hope. There is no future for a world of darkness. And I think the Islamists will lose out, but it may take decades. It may take half a century. Nazism was defeated but it claimed the life of millions, tens of millions of people and a third of my people.”
The American Enterprise Institute released a statement Sunday which said that, “With the help of America, Europeans must find a common resolve to end the conflict in Syria. The current strategy, which consists of hoping that the war will go away, is not working. If anything, the fact that liberal democracies had almost completely vacated the space and allowed Iran and Russia to run the show made the situation in Syria so catastrophic and emboldened ISIL.”
According to Huffington Post, “Netanyahu said on Sunday that international leaders should condemn attacks against Israelis in the occupied West Bank just as they have the bloodshed in Paris, which left 129 people dead and hundreds injured, many of whom are in a critical condition.”
The AEI Club at Middlebury was started last fall by Hoxie, Khan and Jen Lifhits ’15. Before their weekly Thursday night meetings, they send out an article from the New York Times or Washington Post that covers an issue or an event. They also occasionally host speakers on campus. This Saturday, Nov. 21 they are hosting a Skype conversation with AEI’s resident scholar Norman Ornstein, which will take place at 4:30 in Library 105.
Along with the creation of the AEI Club at Middlebury, Khan, Hoxie and Hayden Dublois ’17 brought the Republican Club back to Middlebury after a brief hiatus. “It wasn’t really a club for the past two years.” Khan said. “We didn’t have regular meetings at all. Or members.” Hoxie added, laughing.
Although many of the members of the AEI are conservative through their association with the Republican Club, it is open to people of all political backgrounds.
“It is not conservative, or Republican, or one ideology.” Khan said. “It’s non-partisan… It’s open to people of all political backgrounds.”
(10/14/15 10:07pm)
Last Friday Oct. 9, delegates from the Middlebury College Republicans travelled to the Hilton Hotel in Burlington to watch John Kasich speak at the Vermont GOP Fall Harvest Dinner. Among the many people in attendance, current Vermont Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott was present.
Although regular attendees were charged $150 to attend the dinner, the Vermont GOP sponsored a number of Middlebury and Castleton State students to attend with free admission — which included a three-course dinner — and transportation.
Before Kasich’s arrival several Vermont residents gave speeches, many of them lamenting the increasingly progressive leaning of the state’s politics. UVM student Ashley Strong took the stage to express concern over the future of Vermont businesses and education.
One speaker expressed enthusiasm for the attendance of students from the various colleges and universities in Vermont, including Middlebury. Kasich made the effort to introduce himself to all of the students and shake their hands.
“I wish you could have accompanied me to New Hampshire,” he said, laughing, as he introduced himself to the delegates from Middlebury.
As Kasich took to the stage, he noted Strong’s concerns over the future of Vermont and said that he intended to make a difference.
“Young Vermonters like you are the reason we have so much hope for Vermont. What you want is what we want, and we’re trying to move forward with that with each election. It’s great to see all of you here tonight, it’s energizing,” Kasich said.
Although many believe that Kasich is a long shot to win the Republican nomination, his relatively moderate views, particularly on social issues, have attracted many supporters.
On Face the Nation, Kasich said, “I believe in traditional marriage, but the Supreme Court has ruled it’s the law of the land, and we’ll abide by it,” a comment that has drawn support and ire from many members of the Republican party.
Kasich also spoke on the importance of a balanced budget and his success eliminating the budget deficit and revitalizing the economy in Ohio.
In continuance with many presidential hopefuls’ anti-Washington rhetoric, Kasich noted the desperate need to fix Washington and weed out “suffocating regulations.”
“I think at the end of it all, people want reform, but they want somebody to enact it, to get it done, to stop the fighting.” Kasich said. “You want to heal the Republican Party in Congress? You want to heal the Republican Party in the country? Then elect a Republican president who gets the anxieties of Americans and has a program to bring us together.”
Kasich also acknowledged the growing need to properly treat mental illness in America. Along with the increased level of school shootings, he stressed the unacceptability of locking mentally ill people in prisons. He also called for prison reform, something that Van Jones stressed last Thursday in his address at Mead Chapel.
One thing that Kasich spoke about during his speech was the importance of protecting what he calls “The American Family.” To Kasich, one of the reasons America is experiencing many of its current ills is because the nuclear family unit that, for him, has been the backbone of American culture and economic prosperity, is declining. One of the reasons for this degradation, he claims, is the proliferation of abortion. Another is the irresponsibility of fathers who leave single mothers to take care of their children alone.
Kasich’s speech concluded to much applause. His visit to the Vermont Fall Harvest dinner marks the end of a four day bus tour through New Hampshire and Vermont.
(09/24/15 3:04am)
Student organizations that have yet to receive funding will see a shortage of resources available to them in the 2015- 16 academic year. The Student Government Association (SGA) Finance Committee has already allocated around $900,000 of the $1,000,000 Student Activities Fee (SAF). Roughly 40 organizations have not yet applied for funding, including clubs sports like rugby and crew—as such, these student-run organizations are predicted to receive the bare minimum of what they require to operate.
Treasurer of the SGA and Chair of the SGA Finance Committee Aaron de Toledo ’16 discussed the situation at hand. Using the SGA as an example to demonstrate how a club’s finances operate, de Toledo said, “The SGA has a budget. If the SGA, whether it’s a senator or someone on the SGA committee, decides to spend money, they give me a receipt and I would have to approve it, sub- mit that receipt, and manage the budget.”
The Student Activities budget is funded from the SAF, which is collected from every student. The contribution each student makes to the SAF rises with inflation every year—it was
$410 for the 2015-16 academic year. Every dollar in the budget is allocated by students to student organizations or programming that benefits students, such as MiddView. The fund grants students independence from the administration.
“It’s not that simple,” de To- ledo says, “because, off the bat, there are some pretty big fixed expenditures. For example, MiddView is a three-year under- standing between the student government and the College where the student government and the College split the cost for the first three years... This is the third year, so this is the final year where that’s going to hit our budget. That’s $98,000 a year, so ten percent of our budget off the bat gone.”
Another large fixed expenditure is the senior yearbook, Kaleidescope ($42,500).
“[The] yearbook is something that is slightly controversial because most students don’t know that we have a yearbook and that’s a fair amount of money,” de Toledo added.
Other large programs that are fixed costs in the budget are the Senior Committee ($30,100), Feb Celebration Committee ($7,905), and various Commons activities ($36,800).
The largest fixed expenditure is the Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB)1, which receives approximately one third of the SAF. Their budget this year is $337,650.
“Right off the bat, [the budget] is a lot less than a million dollars. From there, we go and allocate money to all of the various clubs. There are 175 student organizations.”
Once the fixed expenditures are covered, larger student organizations such as WRMC, Mountain Club, and club sports take up a huge chunk of the budget.
Though some might argue the need to distribute funding always with an equi- table dollar per member formula, de Toledo disagrees.
“We don’t have a fixed formula because having a fixed formula really doesn’t allow for any human aspect... Generally, we really try to look at impact when we fund budgets,” he said.
(04/29/15 5:44pm)
This year, two Middlebury College students, Maddie Orcutt ’16 and Kate Hamilton ’15.5, were selected to receive the prestigious Truman Scholarship.
The Truman Scholarship is a $30,000 grant awarded to a select number of college juniors interested in government and public policy with the purpose of assisting them in attending graduate school and providing them with networking and internship opportunities. In order to be selected, an applicant must write a proposal advocating a change in a particular policy. Those who are awarded the scholarship pledge to work for at least 3 years for the government or for non-profit organizations. For the year of 2015, only 58 students were awarded the scholarship out of 688 candidates; the College was one of 8 institutions to have multiple scholars.
Orcutt, a junior at the college and native of Wyoming, is double majoring in Political Science and Gender, Sexuality, and
Feminist Studies.
Among the organizations that Orcutt is involved in on campus, she is particularly passionate about It Happens Here, an organization started at the College that addresses sexual violence on campus and the ways in which the administration handles incidents of assault.
For her particular policy proposal, Orcutt examined the possible ways in which the federal government can reform the current U Visa system.
“U Visas are afforded to immigrant victims of domestic crime and largely victims of domestic violence and sexual assault,” she said. “So my proposal looks at how we can reform those processes so that local jurisdictions aren’t given such arbitrary power and so that we can standardize these processes in a way that is reflective of their goals at the federal level.”
As for law school, she said that she is “looking at a school with a really strong family law and immigration law program since [her] interests sort of straddle the line between both in the sense that [she is] looking at interpersonal violence but also its intersection with immigration.”
When asked what she plans to do during the five to seven years following law school, she said: “The Truman is unlike a lot of other fellowships or scholarships in that it does ask you to be really specific. I think applying for the Truman scholarship, even if I wouldn’t have won the money, was a really valuable process for me in that it… really made me reflect on how cool it is that I have these interests that I have developed at Middlebury.”
As for her long-term goals, she said that so far, much of her work has been focused on sexual assault in university communities.
“The fact of the matter is that women ages 18 to 24 are at their highest risk of sexual violence if they are not attending university. And so I’d really like to see us build upon this current campus awareness to look at other communities and try to figure out what’s happening elsewhere, how we can prevent these sorts of violence, and also what sort of legal responses are helpful and supportive,”
she said.
Hamilton, a Political Science major and native of Washington D.C., became interested in public policy when she was 12 years old after reading several books on income inequality. This prompted her to join City Year Young Heroes, a service learning corps for middle-schoolers in D.C.
While working as a field organizer for President Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012, she realized “that the wealth and educational inequality that I had seen in City Year also translates to civic inequality.”
For the scholarship, she wrote her policy proposal on “zero tolerance discipline policies in U.S. public schools.” These policies, she explained, began after Columbine as a way of expelling students who brought weapons to school, but soon evolved to include discipline for discretionary reasons such as tardiness and insubordination.
“A lot of times they are applied in ways that are not fair and they disproportionately affect African American students, which ends up with African-Americans being expelled and suspended at rates that are really not proportionate with the rest of the country,” Hamilton said. “This kind of discrimination is the first step in a process of disenfranchisement that I’ve seen carried out through City Year and it’s… not a way for our schools to play an inclusive role in our democracy.”
Hamilton is involved in a variety of organizations on campus. She is an Opinions editor for the Campus, the head of MiddVote, a student member of the Academic Judicial Board, a peer-writing tutor, and a research assistant to Political Science Professor Matthew Dickinson.
After she graduates, she plans to work for a 2016 presidential campaign before going to law school. After law school, she intends to practice civil rights law and eventually work for the Voting Section of the Department
of Justice.
(04/08/15 8:23pm)
Next fall, Sandra Carletti, professor of Italian at the College, will assume the position of Head of Atwater Commons. The previous Co-Heads, Peter and Michelle Nelson, are resigning after a long and successful run.
Although terms for Commons Heads generally last five years, the Nelsons were given a one year extension for familial reasons. This extension, combined with Mr. Nelson’s one year sabbatical in 2009, lead to their term lasting for a total of seven years.
When asked what addition to the Commons he was most proud of, Mr. Nelson, a professor of Geography at the College, responded that watching the monthly family-style dinners that he and Mrs. Nelson introduced grow and evolve has been a particularly validating experience. The dinners’ ability to gather students and faculty together in open discussion he believes are, “emblematic of the goals of the Commons system”.
The Nelsons are not leaving their position as Co-Heads eagerly. They both felt that it was time to hand over the position to someone who could dedicate more time to the Commons; Mr. Nelson is beginning his sabbatical in July and their children are both transitioning into high school and middle school.
Sandra Carletti, an Italian native and graduate of the University of Bologna and Johns Hopkins, has been a professor of Italian at the college for over 20 years, an experience that she says has influenced her decision to become the Head of Atwater Commons.
“As a member of the Italian department, I was already involved in the culture, the philosophy of the Commons, of bridging the gap between the classroom and the extracurricular activities,” she said. “I’ve always enjoyed that part of our job, the relationship that you form with the students that goes beyond the classroom. There’s something of value there and something that I’d like to continue, and I think that the Commons gives you the opportunity to go a little bit deeper into these relationships that you form with the students.”
Carletti is not the only Commons Head who is also a member of the Italian department. Her colleagues Patricia Zupan and Stefano Mula have also served as Commons Heads. Thus, she said, “it has been kind of natural for all of us in the Italian department to participate in the activities, to organize events, and to connect with students.”
Among the traits that she finds important for the role of Commons Head, she sees the ability to listen to students and be genuinely curious about students’ lives to be a particularly important trait.
“All of the work that is included in the Commons is for the benefit of the students. We all benefit from it by establishing relationships that go beyond the classroom… but ultimately it is for the students,” she said.
The first thing she intends to do as Head of Atwater Commons is to ask the students what they would actually look forward to doing, not just what they feel obligated to do. She would like to “involve the students as much as possible as generators of Commons activities, not just users.”
As someone who is deeply involved in the creation of a Food Studies program on campus, one goal of Carletti’s is to combine her interest and research in the subject with her position as Head of the Commons to make Atwater “a hub for everything that is Food Studies” on campus.
“And I’m not just thinking of cooking together,” she clarifies. “I’m really thinking about exploring issues that are related to food. We all have to eat. Food is a very important part of our lives, and right now food is also a growing discipline within colleges and universities. It is something that people really pause and think about and study.”
Another goal of hers is to involve not only the College community in the Commons, but also people from the surrounding area.
“There is also community outside of the college, our neighbors, that are very much, whether they like it or not, a part of our community,” she said.
In order to involve these people, she is considering organizing service events as well as community dinners in which neighbors outside of the college community are invited to join.
When asked what her ultimate goals for the Commons are, she said that her “hopes for the Commons will be to become more and more a place where students feel very comfortable going and hanging out and being involved.”
“You are far away from home. What is it you miss the most? What is it that you do not have, for example, in your everyday life that the Commons, in a way, could supply?,” she asked.
Finally, she would like to get rid of the apathy towards the Commons system that has become prevalent among some upperclassmen on campus.
“Sometimes I hear students kind of bragging about not even knowing what the Commons are, not being involved,” she said. “That is a loss, I think, of resources. It’s your loss if you don’t know what they are and are not participating. I would like to change that.”