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(05/04/17 3:57am)
Editor’s Note: This article is the third in a series that will examine the current financial state of the College. In recent years, the College has run budget deficits and has been forced to rein in spending in order to ensure long term financial stability. These articles will aim to inform the Middlebury community about the College’s financial situation, dispel rumors, raise new questions and, hopefully, spark new debates about how the College operates and spends its money.
The administration is devising a new health care plan, slated for January 2019, to help the College cut back on spending after running a five-year deficit.
Still administered through Cigna, the new health benefits will include a menu of plans: platinum, silver, gold and possibly bronze. Albeit more expensive, the new platinum plan will be comparable to the current one offered to all employees, while the bronze plan would provide the least coverage (and highest deductibles) for lower premiums. What you pay for is what you get.
Currently, the College foots 80 percent of the bill minus the copay or deductible for most health services. Visits that fall under preventative care like immunizations, mammograms and routine dental check-ups are completely paid for. “Any which way you look at it, this is a rich [health benefits] plan,” said Cheryl Mullins, director of human resources.
But that plan is likely to change. Faced with an operating loss that’s ballooned to nearly $17 million this year, college administrators are looking for ways to spend less. Spending outpaced revenue for five consecutive years, according to treasury reports; the last time the College “broke even” was in 2012. To get a grip on its operating deficit, Middlebury is sacrificing other amenities to prioritize academic spending. For students, this translates to changes like shortened dining hall hours and rises in tuition. For college employees, it means another change to their health plan.
This fall, the College switched administrators from CBA Blue – a subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont that insures nearly 90 percent of Vermonters -- to Cigna, a company that offers coverage in all 50 states and overseas. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners ranked Cigna as the seventh largest health provider in the U.S. by market share, and Forbes Magazine listed it as the fourth most-valued company among national competitors.
The switch, something that Bill Burger, vice president of communications and chief marketing officer, said is common and “usually no big deal” at other institutions, has generated more than a handful of complaints, about things like filing more paperwork or lobbying for claim approval from faculty and staff alike.
“I would not argue that CBA Blue took a little more liberal view of what is ‘medically necessary,’” Mullins said, citing teeth bleaching as a cosmetic procedure that might have once been approved. In 2016, the College spent about $20.5 million on healthcare. The switch to Cigna and its more stringent process for approving claims slimmed Middlebury’s annual health bill by $800,000, according to school records.
Middlebury was not the only college to switch to Cigna this fall, nearby Champlain College and St. Michael’s College did as well. The three schools make up the Green Mountain Higher Education Consortium, a partnership formed in 2013 for better bargaining power. The tagline on its website: “Efficiency and reducing costs is what Green Mountain Higher Education Consortium is all about.”
The proposed three or four-tier plan would be negotiated through the consortium. Norwich University, the nation’s oldest military college roughly 50 miles east of Middlebury, will likely hop on-board as well. The new health plan is a big draw, according to Burger.
Today, the College offers the same coverage for everyone who works full-time, regardless of age, health and job title – an engineer who runs the biomass plant and his family of four have the same plan as a tenured professor who lives alone. According to administrators, this one-size-fits-all policy isn’t just generous, it’s overkill. “Right now, we’re over-insuring,” said Vice President of Human Resources Karen Miller at an open meeting on March 21 in Wilson Hall. “Could we be lowering the cost to the College while providing health insurance?”
In 2016, college employees chipped in roughly 20 percent of the total $20 million healthcare cost through premium payments. In the private sector, those insured often pay a bigger slice – in the high 20’s or low 30’s. “We’re insulated from the market reality,” Burger said. “We need to have our employees pay more in premiums.”
At the College, biweekly premiums are determined on an income-sensitive scale; the more you make, the more you pay. A staff member making $20,000 per year pays $21 for the same coverage as a high-level administrator paying $141 from their $200,000 income.
Instead of signing everyone up for the one-size-fits-all health coverage, Miller said offering four different plans give employees the “choice” to save money, especially if they are young, healthy and single. And under the bronze plan, a health savings account would be included to help pad the risk of a major medical emergency.
Some professors oppose the change because it’ll likely mean higher premiums for the same health coverage. The new plans will likely cost the most for employees on the mid to higher-end of the payscale due to the effect of income sensitivity in calculating premiums. “And I am certain we will keep income sensitivity,” Mullins said.
There are also concerns that those who can’t afford the most expensive plan will lose out on health care – that the proposed changes will likely hurt staff members already paid the least. Will employees with big families and smaller paychecks, unable to afford higher premiums, be left out in the cold?
At the open meetings in March, professors spoke out against the new plans. “It’s insurance,” said mathematics professor Priscilla Bremser. “I can’t tell you what my medical tests next week are going to tell me. I think a healthy twenty-year-old could end up with leukemia tomorrow, and heaven forbid that twenty-year-old be on the wrong color plan.”
Bremser remained skeptical of how practical or beneficial a flex fund might be for those on cheaper plans with less coverage. “You can save ahead of time for health care, but not for something that ends up costing tens of thousands of dollars, especially if you’re on the lower end of the pay-scale at this college,” she said.
Of the roughly twenty people who showed up to Wilson Hall for a recent faculty and staff meeting about health benefits, most were professors. An employee in dining operations said many staff members either didn’t know or didn’t care enough to speak out against the changes. Wary of engaging in public debate against his employer, he refused to be identified by name. “There’s no leadership, no one on staff is willing to step up and lead it. And any talk of unionizing must be reported to higher bosses,” he said.
On the other hand, a recent college hire said the new changes were nothing to panic about. She was shocked at not being asked to choose a health plan at all in her contract. “I’ve lived this for over 20 years. I’ve seen it work for people,” she said. “You can never predict what your health is going to be, but the bottom will not fall out. We will all be insured. I think giving it a chance will be worthwhile.”
And if the platinum plan ends up costing a lot more than the current premium? “Well, I’m screwed,” the dining employee said. “I have a big family.”
(05/04/17 1:37am)
I would’ve liked to know more about staff members’ personal interests, hobbies and opinions about the College. Questions that were more critical of the way students treat staff would’ve been more valuable (and interesting) to read, than simply a list of “memorable interactions.” Instead of “What does your job entail?” why not “How does your job keep the college running?” or “What’s the most important part of your daily routine?” And let’s be frank, “What’s the best/worst part of your job?” is just a lazy question.
The spread only asked questions about their work and nothing about their identity outside the Middlebury bubble. It did a poor job of humanizing the staff — if anything, it reinforced the stereotype that staff members exist solely to serve students on this campus. What about their involvement in the community? What are they passionate about? What do they like to do for fun?
Journalism is in the business of asking good questions. As the semester winds down, I hope the editorial board keeps this in mind for future stories, even in its final issues.
Hye-Jin Kim ’17 offers a critique of a Features spread.
(03/10/16 4:10am)
Flint, Mich. Hoosick Falls, N. Y. North Bennington, Vt.
“We are facing a water contamination crisis across our country. North Bennington is the latest in a long line of communities who can no longer trust the most basic necessity of life,” said Erin Brokovich on her website, a consumer advocate involved in the Hoosick Falls investigation.
Brokovich is most famous for leading a $333 million settlement lawsuit in 1996 against Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) for contaminating drinking water in Hinkley, Calif.
On Feb. 25, Governor Peter Shumlin (D) released a statement that test results from private wells in North Bennington revealed harmful levels of Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA). All the sources affected were located within a mile from an abandoned Chemfab factory owned by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, the same company responsible for the recent PFOA contamination in Hoosick Falls, N.Y. where high levels of the chemical were found in the public water supply.
PFOA is a byproduct of producing Teflon, a non-stick coating used to treat pots and pans throughout the late 20th century. In the early 2000s, research linked PFOA exposure to increased rates of testicular and kidney cancer, high cholesterol and other endocrine-related disorders in humans. In 2006, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandated companies to phase-out PFOA production by 2015.
However, PFOA is a very stable chemical that does not degrade easily. It stubbornly persists, both in the enviroment and in the body.
“When people are exposed to PFOA,
the chemical stays in the body. These chemicals do not dissolve in fat like other persistent pollutants,” according to the Department of Health. “Instead, they accumulate in the blood. The time it takes for half the PFOA to leave your body is two to four years.” This is also assuming one is not exposed to additional PFOA from Teflon-coated pans.
Trace levels of PFOA are predicted to be present in 95 percent of the human population from pole to pole; even polar bears have tested positive. This is why PFOA levels are still a problem in the area, despite the factory being abandoned since 2002 following only two years in operation.
While the Vermont Department of Health offers kits for private well owners to test their water for inorganic chemicals like lead and arsenic, it does not offer a kit for PFOA detection. According to the Department of Health website, “Laboratories in Vermont are not equipped to test for PFOA. The Department of Environmental Conservation will collect water samples to send to an out-of-state lab for this specialized testing.”
As of Feb. 25, Vermont state officials have been going door-to-door, collecting samples from private wells within a one and a half mile radius of the Chemfab factory to test for PFOA. The Vermont Health Department has a stricter drinking water level for PFOA at 20 parts-per-trillion (ppt) than the national standard of 400 ppt set by the E.P.A. While the calculations are based “on the same science,” Vermont accounts for exposure to children early in life while the E.P.A. based their standard on exposure to adults. The wastewater treatment plant tested at 618 ppt and the landscaping business 168 ppt. The residential wells ranged from 40 to 2,880 ppt.
According to Dr. Harry Chen, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Health, PFOA is most dangerous when ingested; external exposure through water-resistant clothing or washing pots is negligible since PFOA cannot absorb into the skin.
On March 4, tap water from another Saint-Gobain factory, this time in Merrimack, N.H., was tested for PFOA. It tested at 0.3 micrograms per liter. While the E.P.A. does not enforce drinking water standards for PFOA, it has established a “provisional health advisory” for any level higher than 0.4 micrograms per liter.
“This is concerning news,” said Governor Shumlin in a statement. “We are fortunate that the public drinking water systems are not impacted. We will continue to be vigilant about testing private wells in the North Bennington area, getting bottled water to those who need it and addressing any health concerns or impacts going forward. No one should have to worry about the safety of the water they drink. We will be there for those impacted until the situation is resolved.”
The Saint-Gobain Corporation has been providing bottled water to residents affected by possible PFOA contamination in North Bennington and Hoosick Falls. A federal class-action lawsuit against Saint-Gobain on behalf of Hoosick Falls has been underway since September 2015. The lawsuit, spearheaded by Brokovich and the law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, will now include North Bennington in its investigation as well.
In a recent speech to residents of Flint, Mich., Senator Bernie Sanders urged his own state officials to “aggressively investigate the well water situation in North Bennington, keep families informed and ensure Vermonters have access to clean and safe water.”
“The state must hold the polluters responsible for their actions,” he said.
(03/03/16 4:30am)
At first, it appeared to be an “udder” disaster.
Last Friday, Feb. 26, an Agri-Mark owned tanker separated from the truck and overturned at the roundabout in downtown Middlebury, spilling roughly 40,000 pounds or 4,600 gallons of milk into the street. No one was injured, though most of the milk ran into Otter Creek.
Alex Browne ’18, a volunteer for the Middlebury Fire Department, responded to the scene. “There wasn’t much we could do besides try to dilute the milk [before it flowed into Otter Creek],” he said, noting the metal opening where the leak was located had been too warped by the initial impact to be wrenched shut.
According to the Vermont Department of Natural Resources, a large input of any organic matter (whether milk or more commonly, manure) increases the risk of eutrophication and oxygen depletion in aquatic ecosystems. Microbes in the water require oxygen to decompose milk. A rapid spike in this type of microbial activity can deplete dissolved O2 levels and suffocate aquatic life. The oils in milk can also directly clog fish gills. Due to the sheer volume of the spill, the milk was initially deemed a “toxic waste” by the Vermont Department of Natural Resources.
Following an initial investigation, the VT Department of Natural Resources confirmed that the spill did not cause significant environmental damage to Otter Creek. Though microbial activity is slowed by cold winter weather, recent mild temperatures caused by El Nino could pose a threat as scientists continue to monitor the creek in coming weeks.
There is an ongoing investigation on what caused the crash and who was responsible. A witness interviewed by the Addison Independent said a car had suddenly cut in front of the tanker inside the roundabout.
While milk spills are not common, roundabouts are well-known as treacherous territory for tankers. Most truck drivers are advised to avoid them when planning their routes, according to Todaystrucking.com. A simple Google search of “tankers” and “roundabouts” yields 154,000 hits; most of them are accident reports.
The average cost of a hundred-weight, or 100 lbs. of milk, currently sits around $16-17, according to Agri-Mark, a dairy cooperative based in Massachusetts with a processing plant on Exchange Street that also owns Cabot Creamery and McCadam cheese. Given that price estimate, the tanker’s roundabout mishap meant roughly $6,600 of milk flowed down Otter Creek last Friday. The entire clean-up, from milk dilution to towing the wreckage, took about six hours and caused heavy traffic up and down Main Street.
(12/10/15 2:22am)
It has been said: “Home is where the wifi connects automatically.” Yes, while it’s convenient being able to speed google French conjugations en route to an in-class exam, I wouldn’t describe the middle of Battell Beach as “home.”
But the ubiquitous (and free) campus wi-fi is arguably one of the more under-appreciated college perks.
Students rave about the unlimited meal plan and 4:00 Proc all the time. But when the dining halls close at 8 P.M. (and when you can no longer procrastinate by eating copious amounts of soft-serve), there is no feeling more glorious than curling up in bed and watching the black screen glow red: Netflix.
According to Billy Sneed, the Internet Technology Services (ITS) Manager for Central Systems and Network Services, internet usage peaks at 1.2 GB per second each evening. Not surprisingly, usage decreases on Friday and Saturday, and peaks again by Sunday afternoon. In order to protect against a network outage (can you imagine… it would be near apocalyptic for all the Type-A personalities on this campus), the College relies on two different internet service providers, Level3 and FirstLight.
The total annual cost to provide optical-fiber internet for the Vermont campus, including Bread Loaf, is about $250,000.
Although Sneed noted this was more costly than contracting with a single provider, he said, “But how much is it going to cost if it goes out?”
Other challenges unique to maintaining an internet network in rural Vermont is the diverse and mountainous terrain where the optical fibers must be installed, according to Jim Stuart, the Associate VP for ITS. The lack of quality providers in the region that can meet the College’s huge bandwidth requirements are also limiting, added Chris Norris, ITS Director of Security and Infrastructure.
There are currently 400 network access points (router-like devices) on campus. Balancing this with the number of banned personal routers is troublesome. “The presence of additional access points deployed by personally owned wi-fi routers could cause interference and disrupt services for everyone,” said Stuart, noting that each access point has to operate on a unique airwave frequency for optimal performance.
The decision to eliminate “Midd_unplugged” and switch to “MiddleburyCollege” that requires users to log-in using their College account raised concerns about privacy last spring. Should students streaming movies illegally be worried? What about accessing the “darknet,” an anonymous isolated network often used for black market transactions?
“We don’t snoop on an individual’s network activity,” assured Norris. According the Student Handbook, logs are only accessed to aid on-going investigations, to fulfill a subpoena, or address a notice for copyright infringement sent to the College by a third-party, such as Sony Entertainment.
According to Stuart, “Midd_Unplugged” was dropped to increase overall network security rather than to monitor student usage.
“People were leveraging wireless as their primary mode of communication. More business activities were taking place over the wireless network than has in the past,” said Stuart. “It became that much more critical that we secure the wireless network.”
From its start as a single coax cable running old-school Ethernet from Voter to Warner Hall in the late 1980s, it is evident that the College’s network has improved and evolved dramatically to keep up with the ever-increasing demand of students and professors. So whether you’re streaming “Masters of None” or researching a paper for your class on “Cultural Appropriation of Model Minorities,” don’t forget to send a quick thanks to the College’s hard-working ITS team.
(12/03/15 1:11am)
It’s no surprise there’s little overlap between winter-camping enthusiasts and Addison County’s homeless. In our own community, there are those who will have no choice but to spend at least one frigid night outside this winter. While most of us are fortunate enough to lack first-hand experience, sleeping outside frankly sucks (unless there’s a $200 sub-zero sleeping bag involved).
Though homelessness in Addison County is not as obvious and visible an issue as it is in urban cities, the figures on rural poverty are troubling. According to the John Graham Shelter website, there has been a 54 percent increase in childhood homelessness in Vermont – the number of children rising from 785 in 2009 to over 1,400 this year. More than 3,000 Vermont households were homeless and reliant on emergency shelters in 2014.
In order to raise awareness and collect donations for Addison County’s homeless, the John Graham Shelter in Vergennes is hosting its second annual sleep-out on Saturday, Dec. 5 at the foot of Otter Creek Falls near Marbleworks. For those willing to sleep outside, albeit more comfortably than those who are homeless, it is an opportunity to raise awareness and collect supplies for those afflicted by rural poverty.
“The shock value of having to sleep in the cold can bolster people to action,” said Dan Adamek ’18, who currently serves on the John Graham Shelter’s Board of Directors. “And sleeping outside is not just about physically facing the elements. There’s the psychological fear of not having a safe, warm place to rest one’s head at night.”
Participants from last year’s “Sleep-Out to End Homelessness” raised over $30,000 for the John Graham Shelter – enough to purchase a transitional housing unit. The event will begin at 4 p.m. with a candlelight vigil, followed by a light supper at St. Steven’s Episcopal Church. Sleep-out participants are asked to bring a bag of food, a box of diapers, toiletries, hygiene products, cleaning supplies and a new quilt or set of sheets for the John Graham Shelter.
In the sleep-out’s inaugural year, 40 participants raised over $30,000.
The money was used to buy a transitional housing unit for homeless members of Addison County before they can be placed in a permanent home. One of the residents of the housing unit had been homeless for over eight years.
“We’re facing an unprecedented wait-list for people who want to get into homes,” Adamek said. He blamed stagnant wages and rising living costs for the increased demand, noting that the “vast majority” of people at the shelter and in transitional housing were working at least part-time.
As of Sunday, over $20,000 has been raised for the John Graham Shelter. Adamek said this year’s goal is to raise $30,000. So far, teams from the Porter Hospital nurses’ union, the Walden Project at Vergennes Union High School, and the College have all signed up for the event.
Charlie Mitchell ’18 decided to attend the sleep-out after volunteering at the Charter House in town. “I’ve witnessed that struggle [of homelessness],” he said. “I’m signing up to have that conversation.”
The John Graham Shelter views homelessness as a community problem that requires a community solution.
“I’m there to raise my own awareness as much as anyone else’s with this experience,” Mitchell said. To donate, visit johngrahamshelter.org.
(11/18/15 7:33pm)
Over 250 students and faculty crammed into Dana Auditorium on Tuesday, Nov. 17 for a panel discussion hosted by the Department of Political Science on the Paris attacks. Mediated by Robert R. Churchill Professor of Geosciences Tamar Mayer, the panel consisted of Professor of Political Science Erik Bleich, Edward C. Knox Professor of International Studies Jeff Cason, Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science Ophelie Eglene, Assistant Professor of Political Science Sebhem Gumuscu and Associate Professor of Political Science Nadia Horning.
The discussion explored how issues of French-Muslim identity, the European Union’s open-border policy and regional instability in the post-colonial era created a volatile mix, allowing the Islamic State to recruit, organize and implement the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris. They also discussed possible ramifications of the attacks on the E.U.’s policy on border security, France’s declaration of war on the Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS and ISIL) and the College’s study-abroad programs.
According to Bleich, the Paris attacks should not be misconstrued to represent all French-Muslims as extremists who support the Islamic State. Citing interviews with French-Muslims in Lyon, France for a research project last January, he said:
“Most French-Muslims feel very French. Research shows French-Muslims identify with their country more than in any other European country. So why did these French-Muslims turn on their country?”
Although France has a controversial immigration policy, it has one of the easiest paths to citizenship for immigrants, even compared to Germany, which accepts more refugees than any other country in the E.U.
“Once you’re [a citizen], France promises liberté, égalité and fraternité,” Bleich said.
However, he also noted racism towards French-Muslims is not uncommon in France. He recalled interviewing a French-Muslim mother whose nine year-old son was called a “dirty, shitty Arab” in front of his classmates and his teacher.
“The vast majority of non-Muslim French people may be kind to French-Muslims in one-on-one interactions. But that doesn’t take the sting out [of racist events like this],” he said.
Racism is rampant in the poor Parisian suburbs where most Muslim immigrants live, separated from the rest of Parisian society and generally ignored by the city’s government.
“Unfortunately, France has failed to deliver in other ways,” Bleich said. “These suburbs are plagued by vandalism, violence, drug use and riots.”
Mayer added that these same neighborhoods have high unemployment rates and high birth-rates, creating communities of young, unemployed, disenfranchised men that IS recruiters prey on.
“It’s not the sermons at the mosques that radicalize people,” Mayer said. “The recruiters go to the gym where all the young people hang out. If there is a concerted effort to fight IS, it can’t be bombings.”
Horning showed two maps to explain the context of what happened in Paris and what may happen in the near future. The first map showed regions controlled by terrorist groups in Africa and the Middle East.
“The geographic spread of Islamic extremist groups connects West Africa, Central Africa and the Middle East,” she said. “The problem is bigger than the Islamic State.” The second map depicted the spread of IS and how it straddled state borders.
“The problem is bigger than individual states,” she said. “The enemy is not the state. It’s actually an idea [jihad and shari’a law]. You don’t fight an idea with bombs.”
Professor Horning was dismissive of the West’s current foreign policy when it came to dealing with IS and the crisis in the Middle East, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The problem we’re facing today has a lot to do with interventions that have no grand strategy, no real political project, just immediate action; countries flexing their muscles and showing strength to their democratic population who demand this kind of action.”
She noted that the current breeding grounds for terrorism like Afghanistan and Iraq are countries that have weak central governments.
“Jihadism is simply a view that the application of Shari’a law is the means of establishing social justice where people feel disenfranchised and mistreated,” she said. “These groups [like IS and Boko Haram] begin to constitute themselves as a voice against oppression or a voice against an inept, unfair, negligible government … Let’s not forget that we might be dealing with the ramifications of colonization. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Islamic State [is] in Iraq and Syria, [which] used to be British colonies.”
Eglene discussed the potential effects of the Paris attacks on the E.U.’s policy within the Schengen zone, which removes border controls between certain states across Europe.
“President Hollande immediately closed France’s borders,” she said. “Hollande has asked for suspension of the Schengen area for three months.” She mentioned the possibility of the Paris attacks in dismantling Schengen agreement, already in talks due to the recent refugee crisis.
The E.U. council will meet tomorrow in the aftermath of the attacks. Strengthening the external borders of the E.U., either directly through patrolling or indirectly through multi-national police and intelligence cooperation, is likely.
“The Paris attacks have shown a lack of intelligence sharing among members of the E.U.,” she said, noting that the terrorists responsible for the Paris attacks were active in Brussels, Belgium prior to Friday.
In regards to the College’s study abroad program in Paris, all students were located as safe within an hour and half of the first attack. Three of them had been at the soccer stadium when the bombing happened. Cason, the last panelist to speak, emphasized that the recent attacks should not dissuade students from going abroad. The recent attacks, he said, highlight the difference between studying abroad and simply traveling on vacation.
“Students should feel uncomfortable. They should be shaken up,” Cason said. “There is inherent risk in the world … students somehow think that going to Europe is less risky [than Cameroon or India], perhaps because it is more prosperous. But prosperity does not guarantee safety.”
Despite the attacks, no undergraduate students at the Middlebury School in Paris have asked to leave the program early.
“The communication we have been getting from students [in France] indicate how embedded they’ve become in the culture they are studying,” he said. “To me, this is a good sign.”
(11/13/15 4:48am)
The night before Halloween, Hannah Marks ’15.5, Ali Salem ’16, Danilo Herrera ’18, Sofy Maia ’16, Eric Benoit ’16 and Sasha Schell ’15.5 pulled up to the swanky Courtyard by Marriott overlooking Lake Champlain. Active in the film department, they had all heard of each other, but were vague acquaintances at best.
Not for long. Their next 40 hours would be spent together, mostly awake.
Chosen by Ethan Murphy, a staff member in the College’s Department of Film & Media Culture, these students represented Middlebury in the “Sleepless in Burlington” film slam hosted by the Vermont International Film Foundation last month. Competing with teams from Burlington College, Champlain College and UVM, teams of four to six students had 40 hours to write, shoot and produce a short film that met bizarre criteria such as referring to the year 1985, using an apple prop and including the line, “Put down that hat.” The judging panel was led by Burlington-resident Colin Trevorrow, director of the blockbuster hit Jurassic World and the forthcoming film Star Wars Episode IX (planned for release in 2019).
Although Burlington College won the “Best Film” award, the College’s team film, Next Caller, won three awards: “Best Actor,” “Best Actress” and a new impromptu “Storytelling” award that Trevorrow presented. The “Storytelling” award includes a campus visit and discussion with the famous director.
“After working so hard for 40 hours, winning ‘Best Film’ would have been gratifying,” said Marks, who directed the film, “but I think we’ll get more out of meeting someone successful in the field and learning from them.”
The biggest mental challenge for this team of high-achieving film majors was overriding their perfectionist nature in order to meet the 40-hour time constraint. Salem, who operated the camera as the director of photography, said he was used to getting the very best shot possible, “no matter how long it takes.” However, he and the rest of the Middlebury team were forced to change their approach that weekend.
“We can be perfectionists,” Marks said. “When we want to do a take again, but we know that we have another few scenes we have to film, we had to sacrifice.”
However, the team did not let the time constraint limit their imagination when it came to brainstorming Next Caller’s plotline. It featured an anonymous caller and a radio station interview with a controversial thriller author. The story was crafted and written so well it that inspired Trevorrow to award the team with a new “Storytelling” accolade.
“When we were developing Next Caller’s story with Sofy [Maia, the team’s screenplay writer] on Friday night, we were all immediately hooked on the idea,” Marks said. “Our imaginations ran away with it. Our mantra was: go big or go home.”
The biggest logistical barrier that the College’s team faced was being relatively far away from campus. Commuting back to Middlebury to use equipment and film scenes would have wasted two hours of precious time, so producer Danilo Herrera spent much of Friday night and Saturday morning trying to find a private radio station in Burlington for him to use. After a night of uncertainty, he eventually secured the Burlington College radio station. The team and their hired actors filmed for over 16 hours on Saturday starting at 8 a.m. and finishing at 12:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. They ended up with over 300 GB of raw footage in high quality 4K format.
Schell, who was in charge of editing, did not sleep on Sunday night. He worked from 1 a.m. right up to the 10:30 a.m. deadline. Salem and Marks stayed up with him, meticulously reviewing each scene.
In the hotel room at 2 a.m. on Sunday, 8 hours before the deadline, Salem was unsure whether they would even finish a cut. “It was a challenge to edit all the material,” said Salem. “Especially challenging for our MacBook Pros [due to the large file size].”
At 10:25 a.m. on Sunday morning, the team handed in their multiple award-winning submission. Watching their final cut for the first time in its entirety at the screening that afternoon, Schell was impressed by the sound work done by teammate Benoit.
“I think we had the cleanest sound out of all the movies, which is pretty swag be- cause it adds the little extra that makes a movie flow,” Schell said.
Although the initial demanding 40 hours are over, the team continues to work on editing Next Caller, with a possible on- campus screening in the works.
“In hindsight, a little simplifying might have been wise [given the competition’s time constraint],” said Salem. “On the flip side, we now have a project that should enjoy a solid life beyond this 40-hour film fest.”
(10/14/15 6:53pm)
According to Middlebury’s CCI website, LinkedIn is the key to controlling our professional online identity. “LinkedIn profiles rise to the top of search results from sites such as Google, letting you control that first impression.”
So having a LinkedIn profile forces potential employers to troll a little longer to find that embarrassing drunk photo or Facebook post, but what about its value as a professional networking tool? Does a friend endorsing your “Microsoft Excel” skills really mean much to job recruiters?
Of the 121 students we surveyed on their LinkedIn experience, 18% of respondents said that they found job opportunities through the site. Only 6% of respondents actually got the job. With these kinds of results, it is perhaps of no surprise that for some Middlebury students, “Let’s connect on LinkedIn” often comes off as an ironic joke rather than a genuine interest in professional networking. This week, The Campus investigates the value of LinkedIn for the Middlebury student. Is LinkedIn’s popularity all hype and peer pressure or are these student skeptics neglecting the true benefits of the site?
LinkedIn’s Rapid Global Growth
LinkedIn was launched in 2003 by Reid Hoffman, an American entrepreneur who had previously been on Paypal’s board of directors. In 2004, it attracted an impressive 120,000 members. By 2014, it had grown into a global network amassing over 332,000,000 members. As society becomes increasingly connected through technology, rather than face-to-face interaction, it seems only natural that professional networks move online as well.
Despite this societal trend and those impressive membership figures, creating and maintaining a LinkedIn profile can often seem fruitless in terms of actual job offers. The numbers don’t lie; the network is huge, but is it active?
“I’m connected to more than 1,000 people on LinkedIn, but a quick trip to my LinkedIn home page suggests that on any given day, there are probably fewer than 25 people – or 2.5% – that are actively engaged,” wrote Dave Kurlan, author of the Top Sales and Marketing Blog of 2011-2014, “to me, the phone is looking better and better every day.”
Garrett Griffin ’16 is a computer science and Chinese double major was recently recruited by both Google and the CIA via LinkedIn. Even he is still not sold on the site’s usefulness in professional networking.
“I’m jaded about a lot of technology. A lot of it is excessive and unnecessary and I thought LinkedIn just fell into that category. Like Facebook, it appeared as a social media space that doesn’t offer you much more than being a somewhat more formal way of interacting with people that isn’t email,” said Griffin. Initially skeptical, his mom ended up creating his profile last summer so he could keep in touch with the co-workers he had met on his internship with Amazon in Seattle.
Though he now admits his LinkedIn membership ended up being a “pretty good thing”, Griffin still hesitates to recommend the site to his friends, especially those who are not interested in working for internet savvy companies that actively recruit on LinkedIn. “I wouldn’t recommend it to my friends who are looking for say, jobs in art galleries,” he said.
Further, some students tend to shy away from LinkedIn because they are unsure who they want to connect with. For English major Julia Haas ’17, “LinkedIn seems like [a site for] someone who’s looking for a very specific career, and as someone who has no concept of what my major could lead to, I don’t think it’d worthwhile for me. It just seems a connection maker, and I have no idea what kind of connections I’m trying to make.”
LinkedIn Beyond Networking: A Powerful Research Tool?
In response to this skepticism, CCI career advisor Tracy Himmel Isham insists LinkedIn is much more than just a professional network. For students not yet interested in networking, it has the potential to be an efficient way to research companies and careers.
“Say you want to know a little more about social impact consulting, there’s over a 100,000 companies that have put profiles in here.” The company profile features a short mission statement, how they self-identify, their website as a live link, and their specialties listed in keywords.
“It’s all about algorithms, it’s all about keywords,” she said. “LinkedIn is phenomenal for research. Just to give you an idea, I went through and kept clicking through company profiles [based on the “People Also Viewed” feature] on social impact consulting,” she said. Using these profiles, she wrote short company summaries. This document spanned 22 pages. “There’s so much information you can trove out of this. For me, that’s the most exciting part,” she said.
Isham described the Student Jobs section of the website, featuring only entry-level and internship positions, as a personalized MiddNet [alumni database] and MOJO [Middlebury Online Job Opportunities site], combined. Through the use of Advanced Search, members can search keywords, such as Middlebury College and a company name, to see if any alumni work there. They can also filter alumni based on the industry they work in, their skills, and the city where they work. Say, you were interested in working in the San Francisco Bay area in the renewables sector and wanted to connect with relevant Middlebury alumnae. The advanced search feature allows you to do that.
“What’s cool about this [search feature on LinkedIn] is it’s not just a list of names,” she said as she clicked on an alumni’s profile in the Renewables sector. “Now I can go in and see what their trajectory has been. I can see that he’s risen through the company and where he worked before, his major, his class year and where he got his graduate degree,” Isham said.
Making (Valuable) Connections
As MiddNet becomes somewhat obsolete, LinkedIn could become more helpful to current students looking for a familiar hand up into a competitive industry. “I think the younger generation of alums are on LinkedIn more often than MiddNet,” Isham said, “MiddNet is a great source; there’s a ton of alumni on it. But LinkedIn is where I try to make [student-alum] connections happen.”
Though Isham believes LinkedIn can be a useful career tool for all students, she does not recommend students upgrade to a premium account. “I think there’s a ton you can do [without Premium],” she said. This is one reason why she advises students to avoid joining multiple groups where one has no personal affiliation, i.e. interest groups that can over-broaden their search results. Without the Premium filter, it can be near impossible to sort out which people are within a connection’s reach.
In addition to joining groups selectively, Isham suggested being careful with who students connect with and how they connect with them. Although the number of LinkedIn connections is boldly displayed on every profile, she insists it is more important to have high quality connections, rather than a large quantity.
“[In an invitation], my advice is tell people why you want to connect, because then it becomes personal. For me, if I get people who want to connect and they’re just a part of some green group I’m also a part of, and they send me the boiler plate invitation, I ignore them,” she said. Instead of directly sending strangers an invitation to connect, Isham suggests students try to find a mutual connection to introduce them.
“What’s cool about LinkedIn is if someone you know is asking you to connect, your chances are going to be 50% higher,” she said. “The more connections you have, the deeper you can go. If you connect to me, you have a way to connect to all of my connections,” she said.
She recalled connecting a student interested in the sustainable food industry who wanted to work in the new Provisions department for Patagonia. “I know someone [at Patagonia] who is a sustainability person, an alum who I used to work with on climate stuff,” she said. “I introduced them and they kept me in the conversation for the first couple back-and-forths. It was brilliant. They totally connected.”
(09/17/15 11:10pm)
Over the summer, a prospective student visiting the Middlebury College Organic Farm asked Jay Leshinsky, “So, does this place run itself?”
Leshinsky, the very tan full-time farm educator who manages the farm year-round, chuckled.
The question sounds absurd but many Middlebury students, myself included, have only spent time at the farm for sunset picnics, a couple of early morning runs, and perhaps a mid-afternoon class. For the majority of us, the upkeep of this two-acre plot is often taken for granted as a sort of neglected luxury. Yes, student volunteers work on the farm during the academic year, but what happens when the tomatoes start to ripen and the melons need weeding?
The Organic Farm was planned and envisioned by two passionate students, Bennett Konesi ’04.5 and Jean Hamilton ’04.5, in 2002. A year later, two alumni donors created a fund to hire two part-time summer interns to work the farm during the summer season. Since then, the summer internships have increased to four full-time positions. This summer, Matt Barr ’17.5, Margot Babington ’18, Jackie Kearney ’16, and Karma Lama ’17 were selected for the internship.
For the four summer interns, days begin at 8 a.m. when they spend an hour doing a morning “walk-around” to see how each crop is doing and planning their tasks and priorities for the day.
“Something like weeding or thinning [is good] if someone is looking for a meditative task,” said Kearney. “If you want to take your time and just think, you can go in a corner and weed for an hour and a half or so. It’s really nice.”
A more laborious task is watering the beds by hand. The farm’s design of many small beds encourages individuals to focus on a single crop at a time. There is no massive farm machinary here. While this design is great for educational purposes, irrigation has been a challenge.
The steady wind on the hill makes a large overhead sprinkler irrigation system inefficient. Indeed, the small irrigation system does not cover the entire farm. To irrigate individual beds, Leshinsky and the interns must lug two gallon watering cans back and forth from the fields.
The soil properties and farm location also make it difficult to keep beds moist. The Organic Farm was originally built on the hill due to the excellent draining properties of the sandy loam soil.
“The soil’s great when we have a June like we did where it rained almost every day,” Lehinsky said. “Since then, however, there’s been a dry spell. Besides an inch of rain on July 1, the farm hasn’t received much else... A lot of things are drying up but we can’t water the entire place. We have to pick and choose.”
Lehinsky said that fall crops are prioritized first, while summer crops, like tomatoes, are pretty much allowed to finish for the season.
“We’re also trying to plant cover crops, but there’s not enough rain to germinate them,” he sad. “It’s very challenging right now. It would take a prolonged slow rain to really saturate the ground.”
For summer intern Lama, an Environmental Studies major, the late summer drought forced her to address topics commonly discussed in classes, like soil erosion and water scarcity, in real-time.
“We actually experienced these is- sues in day-to-day work,” she said. “It wasn’t just something you theorized in class anymore.”
Despite the subpar weather this summer, Leshinsky is optimistic about the farm’s yield and the internship program as a valuable educational opportunity.
“In the most philosophical sense, I would say you always have to adapt your plans,” he said. “There are factors beyond your control when you’re dealing with the natural world. Of course, you plan as best you can. We have 14 years of records here about what we’ve grown, where we’ve grown it in different conditions. But you know nothing will be the same year from year, so you’re always having to be a good observer. To watch, to look, to smell.”
Around 10 a.m., Lehinsky and his in- terns break to chat and snack on freshly picked produce, varying from cucumbers to cantaloupes depending on what’s in season.
“[Tasting produce] is really, really exciting,” Kearney said. “We planted watermelons from seed in June and now we’re literally seeing our work come to fruition.”
“Seeing that full cycle has been rewarding,” Lama echoed. “The summer, that’s the peak season. Even if you volunteer out here [during the academic year], you miss that. Food also tastes ten times better coming straight out of the ground from your own hard work.”
From her summer working on the organic farm, Kearney was struck by how much water and energy was invested into producing just a small percentage of food for College Dining Services, even when using organic low-impact farming methods.
“We [at Middlebury] are in a position where we’re fortunate enough to be concerned about the quality of our food,” she said. “We talk a lot about whether it’s possible to feed everyone this way [organic and local]. I think there is a possibility but from looking into how much work goes into it and seeing small farms around here and how hard it is for them, it would take a lot.”
With the popularity of movies like Food Inc. and Jeremy Seifert’s OMG G.M.O, it’s often easy to romanticize the potential of small organic farms and their overall success.
“It’s work,” said Leshinsky. “Last summer, we spent hours and hours bent over green beans because two beds matured at the same time. But on the other hand, I feel pretty lucky that I can be out here all summer with wonderful students and great conversations.”
(04/29/15 5:53pm)
Obeidallah, an Arab-American lawyer-turned-comedian, has been featured on CNN and MSNBC. His first joke inside Mead Chapel: “At the end of the show, you’re all gonna be Muslims. I’m going to convert you … in a church.”
(03/12/15 12:12am)
“There’s something surreal about it. You feel like God,” Will Jacobs ’16.5 said.
Jacobs drives a Snowcat: a 20,000 lb. hulk of metal capable of grooming sub-par snow into quality skiing terrain. In Germany, where the machines are made, a Snowcat driver is called “Helder der nacht,” which translates to “hero of the night.”
But with this great title comes great responsibility. “When you go to a ski area and it’s a really bad ski day, sometimes that’s the weather conditions,” Jacobs said. “Most of the time, it’s the groomer who doesn’t know what they’re doing.”
His training began during his Feb-mester in New Zealand, where he did an unpaid apprenticeship at Whakapaka ski resort for three weeks. Since then, he’s worked at ski resorts in Chile and at Squaw Valley in California.
Jacobs described the thrill of driving a Snowcat as a power trip. “When you’re up there during a snowstorm in the night, you can’t see a thing and you’re pushing piles of snow so big that you can’t see out. You have enormous power.”
However, the job is not always glorious. “Sliding sideways off the mountain [in a Snowcat] is never fun,” he laughed, recalling a scary incident in New Zealand.
The hours are also unconventional. Jacob’s day usually began around 4 or 5 p.m. when trails close, to 11 p.m. or later. At Squaw Valley in California, he groomed during “the graveyard shift,” which ran from midnight to when the mountain opened the next morning at 8 a.m. “That’s just awful. I did that for a week. It’s not something I’d ever want to do in the long run,” he said.
Though Jacobs loves spending time on the mountain in a Snowcat, the Boston native never had dreams of becoming a ski bum when he got into grooming. “It’s not a ski bum job,” he said, citing the late-night hours, and required experience with heavy machinery that most people lack. “Skiing is kind of an upper-class sport, and being able to run a Snowcat is more of a middle class occupation. That was my situation.”
Currently, Jacobs is on the Snowbowl and the Rikert Nordic Center’s substitute list in case one of the regular groomers calls in sick, a rare occasion that happened once this year.
“I just do it for free. It’s a fun activity for me,” he said.
Even when he got paid working at Squaw Valley, he didn’t earn much, only around $12-13 an hour. Jacobs now considers his unique Snowcat skill set as a hobby. “I’ve wanted to do it since I was probably five years old,” he said. “When you’re five, you like any and every big machine. That love of big trucks, I never grew out of it.”
(02/11/15 9:51pm)
“Where are all the fat Americans?”
I overheard an international student joke in Proctor Dining Hall during the first week of first-year orientation. And he’s got a point. Middlebury’s student body is often labeled not only as very attractive, but also fitter — and much wealthier — than the average American.
“Middlebury, in particular, is a very fit school,” said Abigail McCeney ’18. “People are really active and really ‘healthy’ or it appears to be that way. I think that it’s hard for people to talk about having an eating disorder or having a body image problem because they want to appear they’re just healthy.”
It’s true most college dining halls don’t have all-natural peanut butter and homemade granola; YouPower spin classes are so popular at the College, there is now an online pre-registration system. But after her first semester, McCeney and her friend, Victoria Pippas ’18, began to notice the shared passion for health and fitness spiraling into a dangerous and unhealthy obsession among their peers.
“But we didn’t see any support available, like there is for sexual harassment or other issues,” said McCeney.
She and Pippas then decided to reach out to Sayre Weir ’15 and Barbara McCall, the director of Health and Wellness, to see what they could do to raise awareness and start conversations about eating disorders and a more holistic approach to health, instead of just physical health and fitness.
“[Mental health] gets put on the back burner because there’s so much going on with school and extra-curricular activities and sports,” said Pippas, “but focusing on your mental health makes you more successful in everything you do, too.”
With the help of Weir, they fundraised $4,500 for an interactive library exhibit and a guest speaker to address the issue of body image and self-confidence issues during National Eating Disorder Week, which begins on Feb. 15.
The interactive exhibit will invite students to reflect and share what they find most beautiful, either about themselves or others. It will be on display in the lobby of the Davis Family Library.
“The best way to break the taboo is to engage in conversation about body image, beauty, and wellness. The idea of the exhibit in the library is to spark conversation and reflection on what beauty means in our own eyes,” Weir said.
The speaker, Rosie Molinary, will give a talk titled “Ten Truths to Your Self-Acceptance Journey.” She is the author of the book, Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance. The event will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 24 at 7 p.m. in Wilson Hall, followed by a book signing.
“[Molinary] has been one of my mentors and inspirations over the last several years. I was inspired to bring her to Middlebury after reading her book,” said Weir. “After seeing so many people grapple with body image on campus, I am confident that her positive messages and realistic advice on self-acceptance and empowerment will be meaningful for our community.”
(01/22/15 1:29am)
On a typical crisp autumn night in Brooker last semester, Cooper Couch ’14.5 was curious about his new housemates. Curled up besides the cozy warmth of a crackling fire with fellow Brooker residents, he asked Emma Erwin ’15.5 a simple question.
“What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?”
This question has inspired dozens of Middlebury students to share stories on tackling their own private struggles. Originally an online platform for story submissions (read them at go/resilience), Project Resilience culminated with a two-hour storytelling event that took place in McCullough on January 20. At 8 P.M., students gathered in Wilson Hall to listen to their peers share their battles against depression, anorexia, anxiety, family deaths, and other personal struggles.
“The hardest things are often the most difficult to acknowledge, reflect on and share; but they are often the most critical, and that’s why I decided to use this prompt for [Project Resilence],” Erwin said.
The idea of writing to heal is not new. An article published in The New York Times earlier this January cited two studies, one at Duke University and another at Stanford, on the benefits of personal story-telling. Both showed that listening to peers who faced similar struggles led to long-term increased satisfaction with their college experiences. Researchers believed this exercise helped students change their personal narratives from “I don’t belong here”, to one of positivity and resilience, “I can get through this.”
“I was interested to see what everyone else was going through”, said Rachael Salerno ’18, who was also in-attendance. “I’ve had a blessed life and I’ve kind of been blind to what other people have been through.”
Jessica Chen ’17 echoed, “The respect I have for the people who shared their stories is two-part. For having the strength to survive that particular struggle. And for having the courage to write and speak about it publicly.”
Though some students were drawn to the event to support friends who were sharing their stories, others admitted the free cupcakes catered by MiddCakes were especially tempting. Regardless of the reason, every seat was filled; even the floor was packed with cross-legged attendees sitting shoulder to shoulder.
Mara Gans ’15.5, who shared her story at the event, was not surprised by the large turn-out. “These [mental/emotional] issues are something everyone can relate to,” she said. For her, the most rewarding part of the evening was watching the audience’s reactions as she spoke. Watching people hug each other or quietly release a couple tears was particularly moving.
“At the end of the day, it’s not about my story and it’s not about me speaking. It’s about this campus being a place where we can have these kinds of conversations, [where] this ‘harder’ side of us is something we can share,” she said.
Though Cole Bortz ’17, who attended the event, could not directly relate to any of the stories he heard, the speakers still impressed him. “It’s just nice to be around people being so honest. You don’t necessarily get that a lot. Especially with people you don’t know. And even with people you do know.”
Gans has also spoken at “It Happens Here”, a similar story-telling event focusing on sexual assault. She described sharing her story for Project Resilience as more of a community-based experience. “[It Happens Here] was about recognizing my own struggle and my own story,” she said. “I felt like this project [Resilience] was more about community and realizing that we all go through things. Providing hope to other people.”
For Salerno, listening to struggles of her peers helped put her own life into perspective. “You never know what people are going through,” she said, highlighting the importance of being kinder to everyone in daily interactions.
This event may have opened the door, even if only a slight crack, to a more honest and open-minded campus culture. “A campus that’s more empathetic and more willing to listen to what other people have to say,” Gans said.
“The truth is, everyone has a story,” Erwin said “Whether you’re someone who has faced some serious struggles of your own, or not, it’s important to support those who are sharing and to acknowledge the parts of your own life that have been difficult to handle.”
(01/15/15 3:57am)
Getting on and off the chairlift for the first time can be terrifying. It can also be quality comedy. There is even a short film by Warren Miller, an iconic action sports filmmaker, solely devoted to the potentially traumatic experience: “Chairlift-Funny Disasters” – check it out on YouTube.
But the lift operators at the Middlebury College Snow Bowl work hard to prevent any real trauma to skiiers and boarders. Some, like Tim Kerr of Brandon, Vt. have over 20 years of experience.
“We’re kind of unique, in that in bigger areas, they have lift operators who are lift operators and snowmakers who are snowmakers,” said Snow Bowl ski-area manager Peter Mackey. “[Here], one of our operators will be making snow at night and a couple days later, working on a lift.”
According to 23-year old lift operator Stephan Kerr, snow-making is the more difficult part of his job.
“It can be dangerous,” he said. “The air hydrant can hit you with up to 500 lbs of pressure if you discharge the line incorrectly.”
Despite the inherent dangers, there is very little turnover among Snow Bowl employees according to Mackey. He explained this is likely due to the ski area’s small size and family atmosphere. Many of the lift operators also work together at the Bread Loaf campus in the summer.
In the case of Tim and his son Stephan, operating Worth Lift on a “chausty” (a hybridization of ‘chilly’ and ‘frosty’ made popular by Snow Bowl manager Peter Mackey) Sunday afternoon is quite literally a family affair.
“We have some days we like each other, some days we don’t,” chuckled Stephan. “We ride in together, so if we fight, some days are long days. But what I love about my job, especially this ski area, is how much of a family we are.”
Stephan Kerr started working at the Snow Bowl when he was 16, and has been snowboarding here since he was eight. He recalled planning his runs to rotate between lift huts to hang out with different lift operators. “I grew up here,” he said.
Given the cost of lift tickets, gear and travel, skiing and snowboarding is an ironically difficult sport to access for some Vermont residents. Foster Provencher, a Sheehan lift operator, has never skied or snowboarded in his life. Asked if he ever considered it, he replied without hesitation: “nope.”
Stephan Kerr said most of his high school friends were more into riding snowmobiles than chairlifts. “If my dad didn’t work here, I never would’ve gotten into [snowboarding]. Because he worked here, I got to take lessons for free,” he said.
Stephan was an avid snowboarder until he had a snowboarding accident at the bottom of Allen in 2011.
“I went to stop and caught an edge,” he said of the accident. “My face hit the ground, my board came up over the top of my head and flipped me on my back. I did a scorpion.” He ended up with two compressed vertebrae and a month of rehab. “[My mobility for snowboarding] is pretty limited now,” he said. “Plus my dad told me if I even grabbed my board from the closet, he’s going to stuff it up no man’s land.”
While Stephan admits to feeling a little jealous watching snowboarders shred down Allen on powder days, he’s happily taken up ice-fishing and hunting with his dad. On slow days, Stephan plays games on his Kindle (especially Game of War) or completes crossword puzzles and reads daily comics as a distraction. The lift huts also conveniently have Wi-Fi.
As for the cold, it doesn’t faze him. “We work in shifts,” he said. “Thirty minutes on, then thirty minutes off,” Stephan said. “We dress for it.” While some skiers swear by hand and toe-warmers on single-digit days, Stephan relies on steel-toed boots and his hardy local upbringing. “It’s very rare that I wear hand warmers or toe warmers. I’ve kind of known what to wear just over years of growing up here in Vermont.”
Provencher, like my shivering self, is not so immune to the feels-like-negative-22-degrees wind-chill.
“There’s a lot of nice days, but also a lot of cold days,” he said, pausing to secure the chair for me. I clumsily plopped down. As the lift begins to lurch forward, he sent me off with a little wisdom in his slow and unwavering Canadian drawl. “But you gotta take the good with the bad.”
(01/15/15 2:28am)
Getting on and off the chairlift for the first time can be terrifying. It can also be quality comedy. There is even a short film by Warren Miller, an iconic action sports filmmaker, solely devoted to the potentially traumatic experience: “Chairlift-Funny Disasters” – check it out on YouTube.
But the lift operators at the Middlebury College Snow Bowl work hard to prevent any real trauma to skiiers and boarders. Some, like Tim Kerr of Brandon, Vt. have over 20 years of experience.
“We’re kind of unique, in that in bigger areas, they have lift operators who are lift operators and snowmakers who are snowmakers,” said Snow Bowl ski-area manager Peter Mackey. “[Here], one of our operators will be making snow at night and a couple days later, working on a lift.”
According to 23-year old lift operator Stephan Kerr, snow-making is the more difficult part of his job.
“It can be dangerous,” he said. “The air hydrant can hit you with up to 500 lbs of pressure if you discharge the line incorrectly.”
Despite the inherent dangers, there is very little turnover among Snow Bowl employees according to Mackey. He explained this is likely due to the ski area’s small size and family atmosphere. Many of the lift operators also work together at the Bread Loaf campus in the summer.
In the case of Tim and his son Stephan, operating Worth Lift on a “chausty” (a hybridization of ‘chilly’ and ‘frosty’ made popular by Snow Bowl manager Peter Mackey) Sunday afternoon is quite literally a family affair.
“We have some days we like each other, some days we don’t,” chuckled Stephan. “We ride in together, so if we fight, some days are long days. But what I love about my job, especially this ski area, is how much of a family we are.”
Stephan Kerr started working at the Snow Bowl when he was 16, and has been snowboarding here since he was eight. He recalled planning his runs to rotate between lift huts to hang out with different lift operators. “I grew up here,” he said.
Given the cost of lift tickets, gear and travel, skiing and snowboarding is an ironically difficult sport to access for some Vermont residents. Foster Provencher, a Sheehan lift operator, has never skied or snowboarded in his life. Asked if he ever considered it, he replied without hesitation: “nope.”
Stephan Kerr said most of his high school friends were more into riding snowmobiles than chairlifts. “If my dad didn’t work here, I never would’ve gotten into [snowboarding]. Because he worked here, I got to take lessons for free,” he said
Stephan was an avid snowboarder until he had a snowboarding accident at the bottom of Allen in 2011.
“I went to stop and caught an edge,” he said of the accident. “My face hit the ground, my board came up over the top of my head and flipped me on my back. I did a scorpion.” He ended up with two compressed vertebrae and a month of rehab. “[My mobility for snowboarding] is pretty limited now,” he said. “Plus my dad told me if I even grabbed my board from the closet, he’s going to stuff it up no man’s land.”
While Stephan admits to feeling a little jealous watching snowboarders shred down Allen on powder days, he’s happily taken up ice-fishing and hunting with his dad. On slow days, Stephan plays games on his Kindle (especially Game of War) or completes crossword puzzles and reads daily comics as a distraction. The lift huts also conveniently have Wi-Fi.
As for the cold, it doesn’t faze him. “We work in shifts,” he said. “Thirty minutes on, then thirty minutes off,” Stephan said. “We dress for it.” While some skiers swear by hand and toe-warmers on single-digit days, Stephan relies on steel-toed boots and his hardy local upbringing. “It’s very rare that I wear hand warmers or toe warmers. I’ve kind of known what to wear just over years of growing up here in Vermont.”
Provencher, like my shivering self, is not so immune to the feels-like-negative-22-degrees wind-chill.
“There’s a lot of nice days, but also a lot of cold days,” he said, pausing to secure the chair for me. I clumsily plopped down. As the lift begins to lurch forward, he sent me off with a little wisdom in his slow and unwavering Canadian drawl. “But you gotta take the good with the bad.”
(11/06/14 1:15am)
The hardest part about making pizza at Ross dining hall last Friday night was resisting the urge to face-plant into the first disk of bubbling, blistered cheese that Bobin Lee ’14.5 slid out of the oven. I swore I could hear the satisfying crunch of warm, golden-brown crust as the irresistible scent of freshly baked dough wafted up from underneath the copious amounts of homemade tomato sauce and melted mozzarella cheese. Much more appealing than cod.
“Now, you try,” he said, casually handing me the pizza peel (the oversized Italian relative to the common spatula).
I painfully peeled my gaze away from the pizza of my dreams and wiped a little drool from my bottom lip. Carefully opening the oven door, I gingerly probed underneath the next pie with the peel. This one was spinach and tomato. I awkwardly fumbled around, struggling to balance the pizza as I slowly maneuvered it onto the cutting board. Lee quickly sliced it into exactly 16 neat and cheesy slices.
“Spinach and tomato pizza is my favorite because it’s hard to make,” Lee said. “It’s hard to balance out the flavors of the pizza. Sometimes, I get complaints from people that I know that the pizza is too crispy or there’s too little cheese.”
I jokingly pointed out that one of the slices was looking a little bare. Lee laughed. “Well, I think my pizzas have enough cheese, but some people just always want more,” he said. “For me, it tastes too greasy.”
Cheesy enough or not, the slices disappeared while Lee assembled more pizzas to bake. He started with a pre-rolled disk of thawed, pre-made dough. Using a tool that has a bizarre resemblance to a spiky paint-roller, he punctured the dough to prevent it from rising too much in the oven, followed by an even layer of tomato sauce. The pizza toppings are usually based on what ingredients are leftover from meal preparation that week.
“The key to food preparation is consistency,” Lee said, as he topped the pizza with exactly two cups of cheese and slipped it into the oven.
Lee’s favorite pizza isn’t one of his own making, nor is it from the majority of campus’ favorite joint, Ramunto’s.
“I like Domino’s for practical reasons,” Lee said. “They do delivery until midnight on most days. It’s cheap, and it tastes good. I also like the thicker crust [compared to Ross pizza].”
Around 6:15 p.m., a line materializes and pizzas begin to disappear faster than we can make them. As students impatiently glare at the empty parchment paper in front of them, Lee remains unfazed. Meanwhile, I nervously peek into the oven to check the pizza’s progress every two seconds or so, praying for the pale crust to brown faster. Lee maintains a cool and confident demeanor that I assume only comes naturally after seven semesters of pizza-making experience.
“I think it’s the people in the dining staff that made me stick around for seven semesters,” he said. “If it weren’t for the group of people here, I probably would’ve left. Everyone in general is very down to earth, very friendly, very sociable and they want to get to know you. For me, [that attitude] is something I found lacking in Middlebury’s student community. Everyone is so busy in their own lives they don’t have the time to sit down and actually invest their time and energy in getting to know other people.”
“Peter Sheldon [one of the Ross dining services chefs] invited me over to his place for Thanksgiving last year because I didn’t have any place to go. I got to have a blast with his extended family and a couple other guys on the dining staff. He also took me out shooting a couple times.”
Making Ross pizza holds a special place in both Lee’s heart and his palette. “Personally, pizza is one of the reasons why Ross is boss. Period. Unlike a proctor panini, it’s more instant gratification, especially if you’re looking for a quick bite.”
The dining hall rush starts to slow around 7:30 p.m. We start cleaning up — wiping down counters, clearing empty trays, disposing used parchment paper. Lee teaches me how to efficiently sweep the floor, a skill he perfected during the two years he served in the Korean military.
“My least favorite part of this job is cleaning up,” Lee said. “Because nobody wants to do that.” Lee, an Economics major and international student from Bangkok, Thailand, looks down with a sad smile. “But once I graduate, I’m really going to miss the guys I work with.”
(10/30/14 2:53am)
Ever wondered about the mysterious “steam” coming out of the in-ground grate near the Mahaney Center for the Arts? (Hint: it has to do with something that Google headquarters and Middlebury College have in common).
“I have no idea,” Emma Hamilton ’17 said. “Is it a snow melter?”
“Well, it doesn’t smell,” Daniel Plunkett ’16 guessed. “I would assume its steam from the biomass plant. I don’t think there’s anything happening in the CFA that requires exhaust.”
“It’s steam, right?” Maya Woser ’18 echoed Plunkett’s prediction. “I don’t think it can be hot air. That just sounds dangerous.” But it is!
“It’s not steam (that’s being emitted from the grate),” supervisor of the College’s Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning system (HVAC) Raymond Gale said. “If you walked on there [the grate], you’d see it’s just hot air, only about 110 degrees or so.”
I walked on, and felt I had stepped into a sauna.
“When the air is cool, like this time of year, it just saturates the (surrounding)air with moisture, which makes fog,” Gale said, as I quickly wiped my sweat (fog?) ‘stache.
The whole underground contraption is part of the CFA’s air-conditioning system.
“Inside the building is what’s called a chiller,” explained Gale, and that hot air is what comes out of the grate. “It pumps chilled water around to different areas and it picks up heat as it goes through the building. The pipes take the water back into the chiller, and the chiller transfers the heat into the cooling tower. There’s a fan that blows hot air up through the water so it takes the heat out.”
Built in 1989, the chiller air-conditioning system runs almost year-round, from March to December, in order to maintain the humidity and temperature in the Museum’s galleries.
“Even when it’s fifty degrees outdoors, you need the chilled water to remove moisture from the building,” Gale said.
Most of the air-conditioned buildings on campus are not water-based but Freon-based and use DX coils and gas compressors. The cooling tower system is preferred for larger buildings because it is more efficient and more effective in cooling (measured in tonnage), than the Freon system, which is also a larger structure.
However, the water-based system uses more chemicals.
“The cooling tower needs a lot of maintenance, a lot of water treatment,” Gale said. “The water is warm and at a good temperature to grow bacteria, so you have to treat it daily with chemicals. The other [Freon-based] system is all internal, it’s all locked in. There’s no treatment.”
The chemicals used to treat the water are a microbiocide, A-202, and bromine. The microbiocide is biodegradable, according to Gale.
“We’ve switched [the chemicals] up from when I came 20 years ago,” he said. “We used to have chemicals that, when they went into the sewer to the treatment plant, messed up the [sewer treatment plant’s] bacteria. So we switched to biodegradable chemicals that don’t mess with the bacteria.”
There are also chiller systems installed in the Johnson Memorial Building and in BiHall.
“At certain times, if you look at the top of McCardell Bicentennial Hall you’ll see a plume coming up from there,” Gale said. “The CFA’s cooling tower is underground for aesthetic reasons, according to Gale. “There’s no place to put the cooling tower on top of the roof due to its shape and structure.”
In the near future, the chiller system in Johnson might be renovated into a new HVAC system that uses geo-thermal energy.
“The College is really going towards efficiency. Over by Battell Hall, they would drill all kinds of wells and use the local town water,” Gale said.
Although Gale is optimistic about the College’s commitment to sustainability, he has a few qualms about the 500 individual window air-conditioners they install each year for the summer language school students.
“It doesn’t seem very green to me,” Gale said. “Students often turn on their air conditioners and leave their windows open. They like to keep their room 70 degrees, rather than 75.”
The campus set points for cooling are 75 degrees and for heating 70 degrees. “We’re working towards a standardized AC system for some dorms,” he said.
And so, as another Vermont winter approaches, if you ever need to defrost your nose at the end of the long trek from BiHall to the CFA, this “foggy” grate is arguably the biggest hot spot on campus.
(10/08/14 11:29pm)
Kati Daczkowski ’18 loves apples. When she went apple picking last weekend at Happy Valley Orchards, a 16-acre apple orchard just two miles from campus, she ended up eating more apples than she actually picked.
“I love Honeycrisp apples!” she said. “The only downside of apple picking this weekend was the stomachache I got,” Daczkowski smiled. “But I still see myself going there all the time!”
Lucky for Daczkowski, and the rest of students on campus who don’t have time for daily visits to the farm, all the campus dining halls are currently stocked with both apples and fresh pressed cider from Happy Valley Orchards. The local apples are also featured in favorite dining hall desserts, such as apple crisp.
Middlebury residents Stan and Mary Pratt are the current owners of the 16-acre farm. Shortly after purchasing Happy Valley Orchards in 1998, they decided to contact Middlebury College food services for a possible supply contract.
“They were very positive and really wanted to do this,” Mary Pratt said. “They were already doing local produce with some other farms at the time, so they took us on, and we’ve been with them ever since.”
“I don’t think we would’ve even made it without the College,” she said. “It’s a big part of our business. I mean we’ve spread out now, and obviously we have the stand and we sell to the co-op but without the College, I think we’d be hurting. I really do.”
“It’s fun having a lot of students visit the farm. This fall, a lot of the sports teams came here and picked apples. During the winter, my husband is one of the [ice rink] Zamboni drivers at the College,” Pratt said. “I think we have a personal relationship with the College. And I like it because it keeps us young because we’re dealing with a lot of young kids.”
In addition to providing students with a fun weekend activity and the dining halls with crates of apples and jugs of apple cider, Happy Valley has started a new joint venture with the College this year. Small pints of the cider are now sold as concessions during football games.
“We’ve also paired with a hard cider company, called Citizen Cider, up in Burlington. We sell fresh cider to them and then they ferment it,” Pratt said.
In addition to cider, the farmstand at Happy Valley Orchards also sells home-baked goods, such as apple pies, cakes, muffins, and classic cider doughnuts. Unfortunately, none of these will be making an appearance on campus plates anytime soon.
“The donuts are a big hit, we usually run out everyday [at the farmstand],” Mary Pratt said. “My husband and his sister make the donuts and we’re not set up to do large numbers. Just doing the farmstand meets our maximum scale of production.”
“The doughnuts are incredible. Some of the best donuts I’ve ever had,” said Erin Giles ’17, whose favorite apple is Honeycrisp.
Honeycrisps are specially priced at $1.69 per pound, compared to all the other varieties of apples available (over 10!), which are $1.39 per pound. Mary Pratt explained the price difference as a result of demand.
“Honeycrisps are kind of new,” she said. They probably started in the 80’s. When you plant trees, it takes a while to get an apple. To get to production, it probably takes nine or ten years. In this country, there aren’t enough Honeycrisps [to meet demand].”
On the popular apple, Mary Pratt added. “It’s a little difficult to grow, but it does well in the Northeast,” she said. “Honeycrisp likes kind of a ‘coolness’. They do well here.”
However, the orchard’s best-selling apple isn’t Honeycrisp, but a Vermont classic, the McIntosh.
“Most people grew up with the McIntosh,” she said. “That used to be what mainly was grown in Vermont. Vermont used to sell a lot of apples to the United Kingdom. That was a big outlet [back then]. Macs are probably still the number one, but right behind are Honeycrisps.”
“Honeycrisp’s popularity is really helping us because McIntosh was beginning to lose its favor with a lot of people, especially with younger people. Now, the Honeycrisp is, in some ways, replacing it.”
Mary Pratt’s favorite apple is neither of these and probably one you haven’t seen in either Proctor or Ross.
“You know, it changes, but right now, and you’ll have to try one,” she said, as she handed me a small golden apple with a faint cherry blush, “I’d have to say it’s Vermont Gold. We only have a couple trees [in the orchard]. It was an apple that was started at UVM by a professor who’s since passed away. It’s a good apple.”
The smooth skin was thinner than a Honeycrisp, but the juicy crunch was pleasantly familiar. The flesh, though not as sweet, was refreshingly mellow and balanced. This was one good apple.
(09/25/14 1:00am)
“Panda hat kid just dropped the top scoop of ice cream off his cone, caught it, and put it on #likeaboss.”
“Panda hat kid talked to the tour group!”
“Beginning to question whether Midd’s mascot is the panther or panda hat kid.”
“I nominate Panda hat kid as Liebowitz’s replacement #VotePHK.”
I was initially unimpressed by the size and style of junior Ruben Guzman’s panda hat. It just seemed like any other fleece hat with a panda face. It seemed out of proportion to the attention he’s drawn on campus in the last couple weeks. Frankly, I had pictured a fluffy panda ski mask with large mitten paws as tassels, a full-on face mask disguise for the robber who eats shoots and leaves.
Sitting in Crossroads on a Friday afternoon with a whole sweet potato pie to share between us, Guzman ’16, however, did not fail to impress me with tales of personal significance behind his hat that went viral with social media app Yik Yak.
Though the panda hat was probably made in China, Guzman is a native of Sanger, California, a town he described as very different from Middlebury, which made adjusting to his first year of college difficult.
“You know how people fall back on certain things that are comfortable to them? For me, I fell back on hats and childhood,” he said. “Pokemon, Digimon, cute little animals. That was a way for me to cope with being uncomfortable. The hat became a natural way for me to do that.”
Though Guzman’s panda hat is hands-down his most famous hat, he has a collection of 10 other animal hats, including a chicken, an owl and a fox. He wears his panda hat the most often for pragmatic reasons.
“My panda hat is the best-made one. It’s the one in the best shape and protected me from the cold the best,” he said.
Guzman purchased the hat in San Francisco at a meet-up for prospective Georgetown University students.
“This is supposed to be Giants [baseball] fan-wear. After I bought the hat, the morning after, I got the acceptance letter from Middlebury. I was like, ‘Oh wow, it’s a sign!’
“Middlebury is so different from where I’m from. In my city, there are drive-by [shootings] that happen every week or so. Someone dies. And then people talk about that stuff. That was so normal to me. The openness. The whole showing vulnerability. The fact that a lot of people from where I’m from look very much like me: Hispanic.
“I came from that to Middlebury, where everything is calm,” he said. “There’s not a lot of craziness happening here. The craziness here is just academic, or somebody overdrank, and that wasn’t relatable to me. I don’t know what to tell you, I don’t know how to approach people, I don’t know how to understand why it is such a big deal. Why is it that getting a B on a test is a big deal? It’s just a B.
“I understand pain and suffering is, to people, relative. But, when you’re a first-year, you’re like, ‘People are so … I don’t understand that.’ That’s where the panda hat came in,” Guzman said.
“The hat is very representative of how I am. Very silly, very goofy, like life is so short. Middlebury is such a privileged place in good and bad ways. I feel like we all get caught up in the little bad stuff.” He smiles. “What’s the problem? Let’s just have some fun.”
Guzman, currently a First-Year Counselor in Battell, attributes his rise to Yik Yak fame to the first-years on his hall, Battell second floor center.
“The first person who showed the Yik Yaks to me was a first-year. I feel like Yik Yak is a big thing with the first-years. It was perfect timing. The incoming first-years came in, and, as an FYC, I was one of the first people they saw on campus and could attach some sort of significance to.”
“My nickname [as Panda Hat Kid] is chill. It’s definitely a thing,” he said, laughing. “[As for the Yik Yaks], it’s super hard to offend me. The closest one to being offensive was, ‘Panda hat kid makes me want to interbreed.’ I was cracking up. This is just hilarious!”
Guzman believes the campus’s infatuation with “Panda Hat Kid” along with his “five minutes of fame” will eventually die down.
“And I’m totally okay with that. As long as I’m perceived as someone that people feel comfortable around, that’s what really matters to me,” he said. “[As an FYC], whenever I see first-years, I like to ask them how they’re doing, and how they’re adapting to life at Midd. I feel like I’ve made a lot of connections with first-years who aren’t in my hall because of that.”
He tugged on the baseball tassels. “It’s only five minutes, and you should do the best you can with the five minutes you got.”