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(01/15/20 3:00am)
The following letter was sent to Vice President of Human Resources Karen Miller, Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration David Provost, and President Laurie Patton.
Dear Karen and Dave,
We are very glad that the wages for incoming workers at Middlebury have been raised to something much closer to a livable wage. We realize that the college's primary purpose was to be competitive and thus salaries were raised for entry level positions, but we are concerned that this has created wage compression and a sense of serious dissatisfaction among our longest and most dedicated employees.
We believe the issue of wage-compression must be addressed. As you can imagine, for people who have been here for many years, even decades, it seems incomprehensible that their salaries should be the same as or just barely higher than incoming employees.
We hope you will consider issuing an announcement as soon as possible about how long-term employees will see their wages increase in the near future in order to compensate them appropriately.
Thank you for your consideration.
Signed,
Laurie Essig
Gloria Gonzáles Zenteno
Ellery Foutch
Kevin Moss
Ellen Oxfeld
Patricia Saldarriaga
Shawna Shapiro
Michael Sheridan
Yumna Siddiqi
Daniel Silva
Rebecca Tiger
Max Ward
Catharine Wright
(03/21/18 10:42pm)
As faculty members who helped to spread the word about the Mar. 14 school walkout led by students from the Middlebury Union High School, we were gratified to see such a large turnout this morning from the college community, including President Patton. It is heartening that so many Middlebury students, faculty, staff and other community members joined in solidarity with young people at the forefront of social change.
We are distressed, however, with some of the content of an “all staff” email that our staff colleagues received at 2:00 p.m. on Mar. 13, on the eve of the march.
That email stated that “[the institution’s] obligation is to conduct classes and provide services to our students. In order to provide these services we need all of our scheduled classes taught and offices opened and staffed.” If the leaders of the institution expected scheduled classes to be taught during the walkout, why wasn’t this (or a comparable) note sent to all faculty? Are the expectations about “employees’ engagement in protests and civic activity” different for faculty and staff? If so, why?
The “all staff” email went on to say that “[i]f staff choose to take time off for such activities, they should follow the college’s regular time-off policy by requesting time off in advance, and supervisors should review and approve those requests keeping in mind our need to maintain normal operations.” It is not clear to us that all staff would have had the time — from 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday to 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday — to secure such approvals from their supervisors. Moreover, we are concerned about the possibly intimidating effect of this email’s iteration of staff responsibilities, particularly since the email’s ostensible function as a “reminder” about the need to request permission for an absence from work is belied by its timing right before the protest. Furthermore, Middlebury faculty (as far as we know) were certainly not asked to secure permission from their department chairs, program heads and/or the Dean of Faculty to participate in this civic event. Is this a double standard? If so, why is this appropriate?
We do not doubt the sincerity of the email’s final sentiments: “We are supportive of your civic engagement, and encourage you to increase your awareness of the issues of our times.” Indeed, it is precisely because we are certain that the college’s leadership feels this way that we hope, upon the occasion of the next comparable community event, that staff and faculty will be treated in the same manner. Regarding robust civic engagement in the public sphere, the faculty’s status should never be privileged.
Laurie Essig, Gender, Feminist & Sexuality Studies;
Jon Isham, Economics and Environmental Studies;
Michael Sheridan, Sociology/Anthropology;
Marion Wells, English & American Literatures
(02/22/18 1:34am)
Much of our campus conversation lately has been about “freedom of speech” and “inclusivity,” as if they were opposing values between which we must choose. We have heard lofty statements like, “Freedom and inclusivity must go hand-in-hand,” yet statements like these preserve the binary. Moreover, while it might look nice as a slogan on a t-shirt, this framing doesn’t help us figure out what we actually mean by “freedom” and “inclusivity.” Some of our students and colleagues have been critical of the assumptions behind the word “inclusive”: Who is being included? Who gets to do the including? And included in what?
This past fall, Professor Shapiro worked with two research assistants (Bryan Diaz ‘20 and Casey Lilley ‘20) to examine what inclusivity means to students. One key finding is that while students have difficulty defining the term inclusivity, they have a lot to say about what exclusion looks and feels like. They talk about the ways in which our institutional culture — both inside and outside the classroom — limits their sense of belonging and agency. They describe struggling to “find comfort” with one another so that they can more productively engage uncomfortable topics. Many students feel a pervasive sense of “imposter syndrome” — particularly in classes where faculty seem not to acknowledge that “people come in with different levels of preparation for this school.” One comment in particular captures the gist of many students’ views: “Integral to inclusiveness [is] the removal of barriers that distance people, and the willingness to form community.”
These comments make clear something we know but don’t always talk about: the recipe for an inclusive environment involves more than simply “add diversity and stir.” Inclusivity requires not just offering new opportunities and resources, but considering who faces barriers to accessing the opportunities and resources already available, and committing to lowering those barriers. To experience inclusivity, in other words, is to experience a sense of freedom to take advantage of all that Middlebury has to offer.
We take some inspiration here from development studies’ concept of “unfreedom” as an alternative frame for talking about social inequality. Amartya Sen, the Nobel-prize winning economist who wrote Development as Freedom (1999), argues that poverty is an interlinked set of “unfreedoms” — i.e., as a lack of political and economic freedom to choose, innovate, and even take risks. Together these unfreedoms limit options for marginalized groups’ full participation in society.
What if, instead of focusing on the tension between freedom and inclusivity, we defined inclusivity as the bundle of freedoms to participate fully in all that this institution has to offer? In our recruitment materials, and on campus tours, we pitch to students and families an idyllic vision of a well-rounded and even “intimate” educational experience that includes a rich array of academic, co-curricular, and extracurricular relationships and opportunities. Yet we have seen that this sort of experience is unequally distributed. For many students, the heavy academic workload, combined with the need to earn money through paid work, limits the amount of time available for social and co-curricular activities. Moreover, we know from studies of campus life that many students feel constrained by the stratified social structure of the college—particularly if they don’t fit the “Middkid” mold — physically, ideologically and/or culturally.
At the beginning of the development era, Franklin D. Roosevelt articulated Four Freedoms as core values of development policy for the United States: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. What if we channeled FDR by asking:
What freedoms do we imagine should be available to all students at Middlebury? We offer the following as a starting list:
- Freedom to choose the course of study which most interests a student, not just what brings economic security
- Freedom to contribute to the institution’s decision-making processes
- Freedom to build new networks and relationships
- Freedom to access support systems, resources, and accommodations to which one is entitled·
- Freedom to achieve one’s academic best
- Freedom from discrimination and stereotyping
- Freedom from threats of physical and emotional violence
- Freedom from fear of social exclusion for speaking one’s mind
- Freedom to take academic and social risks
- Freedom to grow and change — and even make mistakes
- Freedom to bring our family/community histories and life experiences into the classroom and beyond.
Imagine if everyone in the Middlebury community did this homework exercise: Consider the extent to which you feel that these freedoms characterize your own experience at Middlebury. What are ways in which our own actions, and the actions of others, further or impede access to these freedoms — for ourselves and for others? Then, talk to a friend about what you’ve concluded. Scale up the conversation.
This is more than an academic exercise.
Talking about how each member of Middlebury experiences freedoms (or “unfreedoms”) in his, her or their day-to-day experience here can, we believe, lead to more effective action. It can help us attend to inclusivity not just through “adding on” but through “opening up.” In this way, we might move past simple binaries to engage one another in a deeper and more productive discussion about who we are and who we want to become.
Shawna Shapiro is a professor of linguistics. Michael Sheridan is a professor of sociology and anthropology.