2016-17 Print Issues
Volume 115, Number 14 Volume 115, Number 15 Volume 115, Number 16 Volume 115, Number 17 Volume 115, Number 18 Volume 115, Number 19 Volume 115, Number 20 Volume 115, Number 21 Volume 115, Number 23 Volume 115, Number 24
Use the fields below to perform an advanced search of The Middlebury Campus's archives. This will return articles, images, and multimedia relevant to your query.
5 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
Volume 115, Number 14 Volume 115, Number 15 Volume 115, Number 16 Volume 115, Number 17 Volume 115, Number 18 Volume 115, Number 19 Volume 115, Number 20 Volume 115, Number 21 Volume 115, Number 23 Volume 115, Number 24
Order a print subscription to the paper here. For PDF editions of the print newspaper, please see the archives below. 2019–20 PDF Archives 2018–19 PDF Archives 2017–18 PDF Archives 2016–17 PDF Archives
This past week, Vermont selected seven communities to participate in a new initiative called Promise Communities. This initiative is part of Vermont’s Early Learning Challenge – Race to the Top Grant, a $36.9 million, four-year grant funded by the federal government to improve early childhood education and care across the country. Though this federal program, Vermont’s Promise Communities and the change this program will effect will be unique to Vermont. It is modeled after the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City, a successful program that has provided thousands of impoverished children and their families with free parental care and educational support. The following Vermont communities were selected for this grant: 1. Barre City, Barre Town; 2. Bellows Falls; 3. Green Street to Canal Street in Brattleboro; 4. Franklin County Early Childhood Programs Region; 5. Rutland City; 6. St Johnsbury; 7. Winooski. These seven communities were selected by a committee based on applications they submitted. The committee based its decisions on data regarding poverty rates, access to what they deemed “high-quality” childcare and pre-kindergarten and elementary school performance. Since the program primarily aims to help children from birth to age six, the committee looked at the number of children within this age range in the area in order to maximize the program’s impact. The committee also considered the willingness to participate of community partners and families in each applying location. For the next two years, these communities will receive Promise Community coaches. In the first year of the program, these coaches will work to understand the needs of each community and to create an “action plan” that will improve the community based on its specific needs. In the second year, communities will receive grants up to $200,000 and the coaches will remain in the community to see their plans come to fruition. After the period of two years, the community will be regularly evaluated to ascertain the long-term outcomes of these plans. The opinions towards this program has been in general quite positive. Governor Peter Shumlin is very excited to see the implementation of these seven Promise Communities across the state. “I hope these first seven serve as models for other communities to participate down the road,” Shumlin said. Jenne Morton is the director of Middlebury’s own College Street Children’s Center. Th childcare center is celebrating 15 years of providing high-quality care. She expressed optimism for the program, though Middlebury was not selected for a grant. “I think it’s a worthwhile thing. Supports are incredibly important considering that 80 percent of a child’s brain develops in the first three years of life. If we’re not providing great experiences for kids, we’re not helping them to be as successful as they could,” Morton said. 19 percent of Vermont’s children under age six live in poverty. For some families, access to quality education and childcare can be difficult, despite its necessity. “Having security is really important,” Morton said, elaborating on a specific difficulty that many modern families face and that the Promise Communities initiative plans to address. “There’s not always extended family these days. It used to be that if you had trouble, you could just ask Grandma. Now, families are so spread out, and first time parents especially don’t always know what to do. It’s important to be there for parents and help them figure their next steps out,” Morton said. However, Morton expressed some concern over the general set-up of the program. “In the first year they’re not giving any funding, which is a little bit difficult because they’re expecting something immediate to happen without any funding in place.” Indeed, because the program is only starting this fall, Vermont will have to see the direction the program takes and whether it affects Vermont families as desired. Even though the funding will not come immediately, there is hope that the flexibility of the program allows it to be tailored to the specific needs of Vermont families and, like the Harlem program before it, incite change to help break the cycle of poverty plaguing families in Vermont. “Our goal with this initiative is to help communities overcome barriers like limited transportation, inter-generational poverty, inadequate affordable housing, and the lack of local employment opportunities that inhibit success for young children. The Promise Communities initiative will leverage state and local resources and promote community-based innovations to improve school readiness for young children in our highest need, rural communities,” Vermont Secretary of Human Services Hal Cohen said. The success of this program will not be evident until its plans begin to take effect, but if successful, this may prove to be an effective model to promote early childhood education reforms around the state.
While the Middlebury girls’ soccer team makes it to Nationals and our football team wins NESCACs, Middlebury’s Debate Society has been quietly forging its own path of success. Coming up on its 100-year anniversary, the team has seen an unprecedented level of achievement, competing in tournaments around the country and the world, and for the first time in their history, they are ranked 15th in the country and 57th in the world — out of over 300 teams. Middlebury and other college teams across the nation compete according to the American Parliamentary Debate Association’s (APDA) style. They participate in a type of debate known as Parliamentary Debate, which APDA’s website describes as “an off-topic, ex- temporaneous form of competitive debate ... the format pits two two-person teams against each other in a contest of argument, wit and rhetoric which roughly simulates debate in a House of Parliament.” This means that the Middlebury team pairs its debaters up, and they compete together almost every weekend from September to April. “On a weekly basis, we go to Yale and other tournaments in the Northeast. This year, we competed in England and Malaysia,” Debate Society President James Callison ’17.5 said. “And we’re going to Greece next year.” For a long time, Debate’s membership remained around 10. As you can imagine, this makes weekly trips difficult, considering they like to take about 8 people, or 4 pairs, to each conference. But times are changing. Debate Team Captain Frank Wyer ’15 attributes their recent success to the new first- years and sophomore Febs, who have tripled the team size from 10 to 30 and have made Middlebury the largest team in the NESCACs. “This is the biggest team we’ve ever had, and freshmen have definitely driven the success of the team,” Wyer said. For the first time in their history, a team of two speakers, President Callison and Nate Rifkin ’15, placed 1st at a meet at Mt. Holyoke, and are ranked 18th as a pair in national rank- ings. Most remarkably, Noah Liebmiller ’17.5 sits as the top-ranked Novice debater in the nation, in effect Middlebury’s Rookie of the Year. Last weekend, Debate Society competed at Yale, with several individuals and teams placing in the Top 20 in final rankings. Indeed, it seems that the Debate Society’s success has snuck under our noses and almost under theirs as well. Many of its members have never participated in a debate before coming to the College, and have to start from scratch. “You have to sort of jump in,” Elana Feldman ’17.5 said. “We really encourage people to go to tournaments and just start speaking.” And though jumping right in, Debate agrees, is the best way to get someone good at the skill, the new school year has also brought changes to their training. “In years past, we predominantly didn’t really focus on training. But we’ve started to focus more on training novices and making sure everyone has a good foundation,” President Callison said. “We do exercises that help us with argument building, arguments that help us rhetorically, how we speak. We also do practice rounds, just to get into it,” Feldman said. Going forward, Middlebury Debate Society would like to continue its success, mainly by doing what has worked this year, as well as adding on a few things. One of its main goals for the future is getting more people to join and remain big players for the team. The time commitment can be a bit overwhelming, and some members remain on the fringes.
Green Mountain Power (GMP), an electricity provider to three-quarters of Vermont residents, has recently been approved by federal energy regulators to upgrade its three hydro-electric dams along Otter Creek, in the towns of Proctor, New Haven and Weybridge. The project is expected to cost about $19 million, and is to be completed by 2016. Though these plans have been in the making for years, GMP’s new license, provided by the federal government, has given the company the official go-ahead. The license allows the company to generate electricity from the dam for the next 40 years. “These improvements will significantly expand those hydro units by more than 50 percent, providing more energy for our customers and replacing market purchases,” said GMP President and CEO Mary Powell. The dams currently provide 14.4 megawatts of renewable power, but with the improvements they will be able to generate up to 22.8 megawatts, enough electricity to power 9,200 homes annually. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Vermont already has the lowest energy costs in New England, but the upgrade is expected to further lower these costs to Green Mountain Power subscribers. Vermont residents have already benefitted from the Kingdom Community Wind project, which began generating electricity in 2012. Green Mountain Power purchased the dams from the Vermont Marble Power Division of Omya Inc. in 2010. The hydro-electric dams originally provided energy to regional marble mills in the early 20th century and, despite their age, have continued to produce energy with little maintenance. “We have plants that are over 100 years old and producing extremely low-cost energy,” GMP Vice President Steve Costello said. Maintenance and repairs are key parts to increasing the efficiency of these dams. According to Costello, the dam’s previous owners were not as focused on power generation. “In some cases, the turbines were not operating,” Costello said. Improving existing turbines will create more energy without changing water levels, an important proviso should the dams coexist with the surrounding ecosystem. The project has not been free of controversy. Dams in Vermont have rendered fish migration next to impossible for the past two centuries, and environmentalists have raised concerns about dams degrading water quality and causing algae blooms, which are common problems associated with hydroelectric power. Though hydroelectric power stations are the largest producer of renewable power in the United States, these environmental concerns have led to the removal of over 1,000 dams in the U.S. Issues of flooding have also arisen in other dams that Green Mountain Power utilizes for power, including its Waterbury dam in northern Vermont. The town of Waterbury was devastated by flooding during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, and state officials have recently proposed to maintain summertime water levels instead of draining the reservoir during the winter, increasing the risk of flooding in the spring. Maintaining water levels would help hydropower production, but at the risk of fish and other organisms downstream. With those factors in mind, Green Mountain Power’s license includes the maintenance of environmental conditions surrounding the dam, with particular emphasis on upholding the state’s water quality standards. Green Mountain Power also plans on keeping a continuous minimum flow, which helps prevent water stagnation and maintains overall water quality. In addition, they plan on implementing easier upstream access for fish, hoping to correct an issue centuries in the making. “The improvements will not only produce more clean energy, they will improve habitats on Otter Creek and dramatically improve the look of the sites,” Costello said. The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources supports the project, and has certified its environmental responsibility.