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(05/08/14 12:16am)
Two students, Rana Abdelhamid ’15 and Spencer Salibur ’15, were selected as winners of prestigious Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowships which will provide them with financial support for two years of undergraduate and graduate study in preparation for work as a Foreign Service Officer.
The Pickering Fellowship, named in honor of Thomas R. Pickering, former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, El Salvador, Israel, India and the Russian Federation, provides “academic and professional preparation for outstanding candidates to enter the U.S. Department of State Foreign Service, representing America’s interests abroad.” Winners receive up to $40,000 annually for two years meant to defray costs of attending undergraduate and graduate school. Recipients also commit to a minimum of five years of service as a Foreign Service Officer in the United States Department of State.
Through the Fellowship and her eventual service as a Foreign Service Officer, Abdelhamid hopes to continue the work as a human rights advocate that she started in her teenage years. When Abdelhamid was 17, she founded the Women’s Initiative for Self Empowerment (WISE), which teaches young women self-defense, leadership and entrepreneurship skills. She worked on human rights causes through Amnesty International at home in Flushing, New York before coming to the College and founding the College’s own chapter of Amnesty International.
Abdelhamid plans to apply to programs at the Harvard Kennedy School and Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and is also interested in going to law school. “Either way,” she wrote in an email, “I want to continue my women’s rights advocacy work.”
On April 29, it was also announced that Abdelhamid was selected for a 2014 Harry S. Truman Scholarship, which provides $30,000 for specialized study.
Salibur, who is an International and Global Studies major with dual focuses on Latin America and Economics, wrote in an email that she has been fascinated with foreign countries from a young age and attributed that interest to her parents, who are from Haiti and Guadeloupe and raised her in a trilingual household speaking French, Haitian Creole and English.
“I applied for the fellowship because of my interest in working abroad to learn from and strengthen relations with other communities abroad and because of the strong relation between working in the foreign service,” Salibur wrote. “I am really excited for many parts of this opportunity: to go to graduate school and further my education and understanding of international affairs and economics; … for my postings abroad [and] the opportunity to be a foreign service officer and the amazing opportunity to work, connect and learn about other communities abroad.”
Both winners are also Posse Foundation scholars. The Posse Foundation awards scholarships to partner institutions such as Middlebury to high-achieving students “who may be overlooked by traditional college selection processes.” The College has hosted Posse classes (groups of students from New York, Chicago and Los Angeles) each year since 1999.
Additional reporting by RENEE CHANG
(04/30/14 11:43pm)
In an email sent to students, faculty and staff at the College and the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) on April 16, Chair of the Presidential Search Committee Al Dragone ’78 announced the roster of the Presidential Search Committee. The announcement is the first step in finding a successor for President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz, who will step down at the end of the 2014-2015 academic year.
The Search Committee will include representatives from groups of stakeholders spanning the Middlebury community, including members of the Board of Trustees, the Middlebury Alumni Association, College faculty, College staff, College students and a single representative from both the faculty and staff of MIIS. In his email, Dragone noted that the Search Committee and the Board of Trustees will also rely on assistance from the international executive search firm Spencer Stuart.
Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of American Studies Tim Spears, as well as other members of the Search Committee, declined to provide extensive details about the search process, due in part to the fact that the committee has yet to hold an official meeting.
Spears noted that it is common practice for any college to hire a search firm to assist in the process of finding a new leader. According to Spears, a search firm like Spencer Stuart can use its access to potential candidates to broaden the pool of candidates for the position.
The process will begin with several outreach sessions taking place at MIIS and at the College in early May. In an email notifying the College and MIIS communities of the sessions, Dragone wrote that Spencer Stuart representatives will use these sessions to identify qualities desired in the new president, as well as challenges and opportunities that the new president will encounter. Spencer Stuart will conduct similar sessions this summer at the College’s Breadloaf School of English, as well as at the Summer Language Schools.
Spears said that the sessions will contribute to Spencer Stuart’s generation of a prospectus describing the College and the characteristics sought in a new president to be distributed to candidates interested in the position. He likened the prospectus to the literature on colleges analyzed by high school students during the college admissions process. Spencer Stuart will likely deliver the prospectus by early summer.
Prospective candidates for the presidency may be nominated by members of the Middlebury community or by people who know the College or approached by Spencer Stuart starting over the summer, Spears said.
“If you’re a candidate, you’ve had several conversations with the people from Spencer Stuart — probably done your own due diligence on Middlebury — and then you’ll likely write a statement of interest to submit along with a curriculum vitae, and Spencer Stuart will collect that information and narrow the list,” he said.
The narrowed list of candidates will receive consideration by the Search Committee. The Search Committee will interview candidates and ultimately recommend a candidate to the Board of Trustees, which will make the final decision. The Search Committee has not yet decided how much interaction candidates will have with the broader Middlebury community or student body — this will likely be a topic of discussion at Search Committee meetings in May and June.
Spears said that candidates for leadership position of academic institutions like Middlebury are typically deans, provosts or chief academic officers at an institution like Middlebury or a larger university, but he noted that candidates can also come from outside academia, citing Raynard Kington, President of Grinnell College and former Deputy Director at the National Institutes of Health.
“For us, getting input from the community is really key,” Spears said. “You want the community to feel invested, to feel like they had an opportunity to be part of the search process.”
The two student representatives on the Search Committee, Bao Lin Xu ’16 and Nick Mallchok ’14.5 will provide student perspectives on the Search Committee.
Xu ’16 said that during her participation as a member of the committee she “will be looking for a community builder who has a similar vision for the future of Middlebury as I,” citing issues of race, identity and marginalization as her primary concerns.
“We need to be prepared as an institution, as a community of fine educators to be inclusive and to welcome all color, backgrounds and identities to feel like a part of this community,” Xu wrote in an email.
(03/13/14 1:40am)
A Brainerd Commons policy of fining students for leaving items in the hallways of residence halls has led to Brainerd’s levying fines of hundreds of dollars on students.
Each Commons attempts to discourage students from leaving items in the hall, and when contacted for comment, representatives from each Commons responded that the primary issue at hand was fire safety.
Cook Commons Dean Ian Sutherland wrote in an email, “There is no hard and fast rule for how Cook Commons responds to possessions left in halls, corridors, stairways and landings, etc. But in general, the problem created is related to ‘blocking the egress’ and falls under general violations of the fire code and are subject to a fine of $50.00.” Cook Commons has not fined any students this year.
Representatives of Wonnacott, Ross and Atwater Commons confirmed that their Commons have similar policies. Neither Wonnacott nor Atwater Commons have fined any students this year, but Ross Commons has fined students who failed to remove items from hallways after being asked to do so.
Visiting Professor of Comparative Literature and Dean of Brainerd Commons Natasha Chang said that Brainerd Commons policy is to fine students 100 dollars for each item left in the hallways of first-year and sophomore residence halls affiliated with Brainerd, that is Stewart Hall and Hepburn Hall. She strives to be “clear in communication, consistent in enforcement” with regard to the policy, and emailed residents of Stewart during J-term saying said the policy would be strictly enforced.
Chang said that there are several reasons for imposing such fines on students for violation of the rules regarding hallways in residence halls.
“First of all [items left in the hallway are] a fire safety violation — things that are in the hallway are considered to be blocking the means of egress,” she said. “That’s why we take it seriously. The policy is also meant to support custodial staff as well as the community in the dorm — it’s not nice to come home to a dorm with a hallway full of stuff.”
Environmental, Health and Safety Coordinator Jen Kazmierczak confirmed that, per College policy written in the Student Handbook, any items in the hallway might constitute obstacles for fire safety purposes. Custodial Services is responsible for correcting and reporting fire safety issues, but Commons Deans enforce fire safety policies.
Custodial Team Leader Liza Rheaume agreed that items in the hall pose a fire hazard, noting that in the event of a fire in a residence hall, smoke may obscure items left in the hallway which might cause students to trip. Therefore, she said, students who leave items in the hall may not only endanger themselves but also their neighbors.
Brainerd student Linley Shaw ’17 was fined during J-term for leaving her ski boots in the hallway of Stewart. A member of the Alpine Ski Team, Shaw missed an email about enforcement of the policy. Shaw returned from practice at about 11 one morning and left her wet ski boot liners next to her ski boots, with her mittens tucked inside the boots.
Thirty minutes later, Shaw was told that although technically there were six items — two boots, two liners and two mittens — she would only be fined 300 dollars instead of the possible 600. She met with her Commons Coordinator and came away with the fine lowered to 200 dollars, which will be added to her tuition bill.
Linley said that she understands the ramifications of crowded hallways for fire safety, but “200 dollars is a lot of money for 30 minutes outside my door without receiving a warning and without even having seen the email.”
Chang noted that this year, five students in Hepburn or Stewart had been fined, out of approximately 300 living in those two residence halls.
“The vast majority of people are extremely respectful of the rules and follow them, a small percentage don’t listen to them and don’t follow, and those are the ones who get in trouble,” Chang said.
According to Chang, the money from the fines goes into the Commons account, which funds community events such as the recent Bite of Brainerd.
“I’m aware as a Commons Dean that students have different economic capacities. If it’s taxing for students to pay that fine I work with them to come up with a creative solution that works for them.” Chang said.
She suggested that a student could work at several Brainerd Commons dinners over the course of their four years at the College in order to pay their fines, or their roommate or somebody else could pay their fines for them.
Lottie Hedden ’14 was fined 300 dollars for leaving her shoes in the hallway during her first year at the College.
“I thought 300 dollars was excessive, and that the policy sends the wrong message about how much cash Middlebury students have access to,” Hedden said.
(02/13/14 12:15am)
The Middlebury School of the Environment will open its doors to students for the first time this summer. The intensive six-week program promises to give students not only a rigorous interdisciplinary training in environmental studies but also invaluable leadership and entrepreneurial skills necessary to promote social change.
While the program will be inaugurated for the first time this summer, faculty members have been working to develop it for several years. In 1994, President John McCardell identified the study of the environment as one of five peaks of excellence of the college and a 1995 taskforce suggested the creation of a summer school of the environment. The College’s environmental studies program, founded in 1965, is the oldest of such programs in the US.
“For the last eighteen years we have worked to see how such a program could be offered, where it would be offered, what the pros and cons were and what the curriculum might look like,” said Professor of Environmental and Biosphere Studies and the Director of the Middlebury School of the Environment Stephen Trobulak. “It all finally all came together last year and the trustees approved our proposal last May.”
The College has been holding summer courses for a long time. The School of German was established almost a century ago in 1915 and the Bread Loaf School of English has been in session every summer since 1920. By accepting students from around the country, the summer programs expand the College’s educational reach.
“It seemed like a natural fit to develop a Bread Loaf and Language School-like summer program that focused on the environment,” Trombulak said.
Students in the program will take three interdisciplinary courses. All students will enroll in a Sustainability Practicum and a course titled Interdisciplinary Understanding of Place: Lake Champlain. In addition to the two required courses, each student is free to choose a Global Perspectives elective with topics such as international environmental negotiation and conservation planning.
“The goal of the program is to offer students a high quality education that focuses on cutting-edge curricula related to understanding the relationship between the humans and the environment,” Trombulak said.
The curriculum is set up to combine the knowledge base of environmental studies with the practical leadership and entrepreneurial skills necessary to promote social change after the completion of the program.
“We want the curriculum to reflect not just the knowledge base necessary to be effective at addressing environmental issues in the twenty-first century but also the skills base for doing it so the kinds of leadership and communication and project management skills,” Trombulak said.
“The goal isn’t to produce activists … What it is about is giving students the skills they need to succeed professionally in whatever domain they choose to pursue whether it is business, government, education or non-profit organizations.”
The blend of academics and practical skills is an attraction of the program.
“I am hoping to get the opportunity to get to know some folks from other schools who are also interested in environmental studies and about to jump off into the world to try and make it a better place,” wrote Isaac Baker ’15, an environmental studies non-fiction major who has applied to the program, in an email. “I [hope to] explore the MiddCORE-like personal development that the program is said to offer — I don’t fully know what that will look like but I am curious to find out.”
The curriculum also represents a combination of science and the humanities, which the environmental studies program at the College emphasizes during the school year. All environmental studies majors must take a core course titled Nature’s Meanings: American Experiences, which includes readings of authors like Emerson, Thoreau and Muir. Those who major in environmental studies must also take their cognates, or electives, outside of the natural sciences. This emphasis on the humanities stems from the realization that environmental issues have to do with mankind’s relationship with the environment.
The course about Lake Champlain, in particular, embodies the interdisciplinarity nature of the study of the environment.
“The sources of environmental challenges and the solutions inherently have both cultural and ecological roots and constraints it is unavoidably and inarguably true that to be able to chart an environmental future that works for humans and non-humans alike you have to be able to understand both the cultural narrative and the ecological narrative of a place,” said Trombulak. “It doesn’t make any sense to talk about water pollution control or fisheries management in Lake Champlain if you don’t understand both the human story and the ecological story.”
The priority deadline for School of the Environment applications is Feb. 15 and the program officially begins on June 20.
“It’s going to be an intensive experience in and out of the classroom,” wrote Baker, “I’m looking forward to diving in deep.”
(01/23/14 1:09am)
In the wake of President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz’s announcement that he will resign in 2015, students at the College have been considering the qualities they hoped for in the next president of the College, and also about the role of the student body in the selection process of the new president.
According to an April 2004 article in the Campus, the search that resulted in Liebowitz’s selection as President began with interviews of “approximately 300 to 400 qualified candidates for the position” by a 16-member search committee that included faculty, staff, trustees, alumni and student representatives. The committee submitted a single recommendation to the Board of Trustees, which voted unanimously to accept the recommendation.
During the 2004 search, the only student representative on the search committee was Erin Sullivan ’04, who was student co-chair of Community Council at the time. The December 2013 press release announcing Liebowitz’s resignation stated that the Board of Trustees will “provide information about a presidential search following the February board meeting.”
Vice President for Communications Bill Burger declined to comment on the search process, but wrote in an email that the process will be an “inclusive one.”
Students interviewed by the Campus expressed high expectations for the new president and for student involvement in the search process. Tianfeng He ’16 said that he hoped the process would make candidates available for student interaction and evaluation, and suggested hosting candidates for lunch with students in the dining halls.
Ian Ackerman ’16 agreed, noting that the opportunity to meet candidates for the position would help to ensure that the president would be someone accessible to students, but he acknowledged that the selection process is quite complex and thus mass student-candidate interaction may be impractical.
Students interviewed by the Campus also expressed a strong interest in a president who takes an active role in the lives of students, with some citing the precedent set by Liebowitz as an ideal.
“[Liebowitz] was very personable and made an effort to be available — at a school like this, where people are driven to try to effect change, personal contact is valuable,” Clare Ulrich ’14.5 said.
Isabel Tyler ’13.5 echoed Ulrich’s statement and the importance of a personable president, stating that “the president’s role is to facilitate conversation on important issues on campus.”
Few students were able to articulate specific goals for the College’s next president to aspire to.
Tianfeng He, however, cited the Pass/Fail option as an example of one of Liebowitz’s successes, as its primary purpose is to aid the student body.
Ackerman also hopes for a president who will “decrease bureaucratic red tape,” highlighting the process to drop a class after the Add/Drop period has passed as a situation where “[he would] like to see someone who will tear down some of those [bureaucratic] walls.”
(01/16/14 1:39am)
Students were faced with difficult travel conditions caused by Winter Storm Hercules and a polar vortex while attempting to return to the College for the start of J-term, forcing instructors to make accommodations for those who were absent because of travel delays.
The storm, which battered the Midwest and Northeast from Jan. 1-3, has been cited for at least 16 deaths and complicated travel for several days thereafter. Illinois experienced up to 17 inches of snow, while New York was hit with anywhere from six to 11 inches, and parts of Massachusetts received almost two feet of snow.
According to a Fox News report, on Jan. 3 alone, almost 1,500 flights were cancelled due to Winter Storm Hercules. Such cancellations snarled the travel plans of students such as Colleen Harper ’14, a member of the Women’s Swimming and Diving team who spent 48 hours travelling from her home in Chicago to Middlebury in order to dive at the team’s meets at Bates and Colby on Jan. 4 and 5.
“My flight to Burlington [on Thursday] was cancelled, so I took another flight to Newark that was delayed, causing me to miss the last flights to Burlington until Sunday,” Harper said. “I ended up taking a train from Newark to New York and then on to Burlington, and then drove to Middlebury, arriving at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday morning after leaving Chicago at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday morning.”
Delays also forced some instructors to make accommodations for missing students during the first few days of classes. Philip B. Stewart and Sarah F. Cowles Stewart Professor of Chemistry Jeff Byers is currently teaching Organic Chemistry I, which meets five days a week for over five hours each day, putting students who miss even one class at a great disadvantage. Byers turned to new technologies to aid those who were unable to return to campus on time.
“Two students missed the first lecture, and I was recording my full lecture on a Smartboard, so they had full access to everything,” Byers wrote in an email. “They got caught up pretty much immediately.”
C.V. Starr Professor of Russian and East European Studies Tom Beyer, whose Beginning Russian course meets for three hours every day, also leveraged technology to keep an absent student up to speed in the class as travel troubles kept her at home.
“We used FaceTime to let her participate fully in our intensive language where she was able to view, listen and respond,” Beyer said. “In the past for reasons of weather and personal emergencies, I have also used Skype to stay connected with class members.”
Other professors opted for replacement or make-up class meetings. Sasha Whittle ’17, whose flight from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport was cancelled, missed the first class in her J-term course “Infectious Disease: Historical Epidemics, Current Dilemmas, and Emerging Problems.” She was not alone in her absence, however.
“About 15 people missed our first class, so the professors [Visiting Professors Andy Hale ’06 and Russell Johanson ’06] held a make-up lecture so we could catch up,” Whittle said.
(11/20/13 10:15pm)
On Wednesday, Nov. 14, the Educational Affairs Committee (EAC) organized a panel on project-based and experiential learning at the College. Faculty members from an array of academic departments presented on hands-on teaching and learning techniques they have employed in their own classrooms.
Albert D. Mead Professor of Biology Jeremy Ward, Professor of Mathematics Frank Swenton and Associate Professor of Physics Noah Graham described their experience overseeing the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) Innovation Project course during J-term, focusing on applied sciences. STEM is a nationwide educational movement that seeks to improve education and experimentation in the sciences across the country. The J-term course project extended into the spring and summer, allowing students to further hone their ideas and designs and produce a thorough, engaging and hands-on final project.
Professor of Geology Peter Ryan and Coordinator for Community-Based Environmental Studies Diane Munroe described the Environmental Studies Senior Seminar as an opportunity for students to participate in “community-connected experiential learning,” citing the Fall 2010 seminar as an example.
Students in the seminar worked in collaboration with the Vermont Geological Survey and the Vermont Department of Health to map and study arsenic contamination in private wells in Vermont and worked with State Senator Virginia Lyons to design legislation addressing the problem. The legislation that students worked on passed in the Vermont legislature, but was ultimately vetoed by Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin.
College Professor David Colander argued that the College could implement an interdisciplinary “Liberal Arts Plus” plan to apply the principles of a liberal arts education to practical problems. Colander’s idea would involve the College awarding a certificate to students who completed a number of related Liberal Arts Plus classes and that participation by “Professors of the Practice” would be a crucial component of his plan. These professionals would serve as guest mentors in classes from and would “teach an applied portion of the course relating their experience to the students.”
Assistant Professor of History of Art and Architecture Sarah Laursen and Director of the College Museum Richard Saunders described their experience teaching “Gold, Sex and Death at the Museum,” a 200-level course in the History of Art and Architecture Department, explaining that the course is meant to introduce students to a museum’s many working parts by incorporating lectures by visiting museum curators, conservators, and critics.
Hannah Ostrow ’14, a HARC major and a student in “Gold, Sex and Death at the Museum” has found the structure and material of the course to be incredibly valuable.
“I think we’d all be better off if Middlebury incorporated more pre-professional coursework into the liberal arts model,” Ostrow wrote in an email. “I’m taking Gold, Sex, and Death in the Museum this semester alongside an art history theory course, which is as ‘pure’ liberal arts as it gets and I don’t feel that either is diminished because of the other.”
Discussions from the panel have the potential to influence EAC discussions surrounding internships for credit and an increase in experiential learning opportunities. Student appetite, too, is likely to drive the College to facilitate professional development through course offerings such as the ones discussed at the panel and the expansion of MiddCORE.
(11/06/13 11:18pm)
Axinn 229 was filled to capacity on Nov. 4, as students, faculty and administrators perched on windowsills and tables after chairs were filled to get an opportunity to participate in “Unpacking Chance the Rapper: Exploring the complexities around Community Standards, Artistic Expression and Academic Freedom.” In the hour and a half discussion that continued after at PALANA House, 26 students, Dean of the College Shirley Collado and two faculty members spoke.
Topics discussed at the forum varied greatly, ranging from a discussion on the feeling of security for minority groups on campus to the censorship of art.
“I was impressed with the terrific turn-out and appreciative of the honest and respectful conversation,” wrote Associate Dean of Students for Student Activities JJ Boggs in an email the morning after the forum. “The insights students shared will absolutely influence our future work in Student Activities. My sincere hope is that we will all continue these important discussions inside and outside the classroom and that they will help us create a community where students feel truly safe, supported and celebrated.
Student Government Association President Rachel Liddell ’15 also pointed to the large turnout when reflecting on the night.
“I was impressed by the level of discourse at the forum,” Liddell said. “The ideas posited by students there were thought-provoking for me. I am proud to be a part of a community that values debate and critical analysis. I hope these discussions continue, grow, and translate into actions, not just on the level of policy, but also on the level of interpersonal relations on this campus.”
Associate Professor of American Studies and Director of the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity Roberto Lint Sagarena and Assistant Professor of Dance Christal Brown moderated the event and ensured that all students and faculty received an opportunity to speak.
But not all students thought the forum was successful.
“I don’t even think we scratched the surface,” Sadé Williams ’14.5 said. “I don’t think we got to what the real issue is. This isn’t anything but a spectacle that is distracting us from the real conversations; it’s easy to talk about Chance the Rapper, but it’s not easy to talk about people on your hall [using homophobic language] or what it feels like to be a woman at the gym, or what it feels like to see rape culture happening at parties. Nobody wants to have those conversations, so we’re all talking about Chance.”
Despite differing opinions about what was accomplished during the forum, President of the Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB) Elizabeth Fouhey said that the key is to continue the discussion in the future.
“The issues discussed tonight are not just about Chance, MCAB or any particular group,” she said. “They are about our community as a whole, and I hope that this was the first of many conversations.”
Participants in the forum urged students to attend the discussion of roles and opportunities in the Arts programs on Thursday, Nov. 7, at 4:30 p.m. in Axinn 219 and MiddIdentity on Friday, Nov. 8, at 5:30 p.m. in the McCullough Social Space.
See this week’s editorial for The Campus’ reaction, or listen to an audio recording of the forum below.
[audio mp3="http://middleburycampus.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/ChanceForum.mp3"][/audio]
[EDITORS' NOTE: Unfortunately, some voices were lost from the audio above as the forum's length required switching between recording methods. Further, we apologize for the quality; Axinn 219 is not well-suited for recording such a large discussion.]
(10/31/13 12:09am)
Four staff members at the College were honored with Staff Recognition Awards last week. This year’s award recipients were selected by the 2012 Staff Recognition Award winners based on recommendations from colleagues praising their service to the College in leadership, stewardship, attitude and community service.
The four winners of the 2012 Staff Recognition Award selected Interim Director of the Center for Careers and Internships Peggy Burns, Catering and Convenience Food Coordinator Nancy Parsons, Laboratory Stores Manager Tom Sheluga and Space Manager Mary Carr Stanley to receive the honor this year.
The staff recognition awards are endowed by Professor Emeritus of Sociology Rudolf K. Haerle and recognize the importance of the role the staff plays in the College’s daily functions. Last year’s award winners, Custodial Team Leader Cindy Leno, Coordinator for Community-Based Environmental Studies Diane Munroe, Commons Dining Room Manager Brent Simons and Director of Student Fellowships and Health Professions Advising Arlinda Wickland, decided collectively on the winners of the 2013 award.
In an email, Munroe wrote that the guidelines for the award established by Haerle stipulate that the award must recognize one Dining Services staff member and one Facilities Services staff member, but the other two recipients can come from any other department of the College. Staff members submitted written nominations for their colleagues based on their work in areas of leadership, stewardship, attitude, and community service to be reviewed by the 2012 award recipients.
“It was a pleasure to read through all of the nominations and learn about all of the fantastic efforts of our dedicated staff, and many more than four people could have received this award,” Munroe said.
She noted that the winners of this year’s award demonstrated “above and beyond” conduct in the areas of evaluation.
Simons added that in evaluating the nominations for the award, previous winners also considered the number of years the nominee had spent in service at the College.
The staff members who won the award this year learned of their recognition several weeks ago, and all reported to be surprised and honored.
“Because I was chosen by my peers, it is even more gratifying,” Burns wrote in an email.
Stanley also wrote that she was honored to be chosen by her colleagues for recognition.
“The award is special in that it represents peer support and recognizes hard work and dedication of staff to Middlebury College,” Stanley said. “As I look at the plaques of others who have received the award, I feel humbled, grateful and proud to be included in this special group of people.”
A reception for the award recipients and their colleagues will be held on Oct. 30 in Crossroads.
(10/17/13 12:41am)
The Department of Public Safety has recently added two new officers to its staff in order to bring personnel levels up to full strength. But the move also accompanies a long-term discussion between Public Safety and Old Chapel regarding a permanent increase in the size of Public Safety.
The new employees, Officers Raymond Reed and Robert Stearns, started work last week. Officer Reed grew up in Brandon, Vt. and worked for 20 years in retail at Gregg’s Meat Market in Middlebury. He said in an interview that his people skills, refined after years in retail, will make his job as a Public Safety officer easier, and that he was attracted to work at the College by the people and the atmosphere here. Officer Robert Stearns grew up Ferrisburgh, Vt. and spent nine years in the United States Navy aboard attack submarines. He also worked as a security guard at UTC Aerospace Systems in Vergennes. He told The Campus that he looks forward to the dynamic atmosphere at the College. Officers Stearns and Reed will spend three months shadowing an experienced Public Safety officer in order to become accustomed to the job.
According to Sergeant Chris Thompson, the vacancies in the Public Safety staff opened after “some [former officers] chose to move on to different and new opportunities.” In an email, Associate Director of Public Safety Daniel Gaiotti emphasized that “Public Safety is currently not increasing the number of officer staff. We are hiring to fill existing positions which are vacant at this time.”
Gaiotti explained that the hiring process for a Public Safety Officer involves interviews and scenario questions for applicants with experience fitting the job description.
Although the new hires are not representative of a current plan to increase the size of the Public Safety officer force, both Old Chapel and the Department of Public Safety have confirmed that they are looking into increasing the size of the overall force. Associate Director of Public Safety Daniel Gaiotti wrote in an email that enrollment at the College has grown, new buildings have been constructed, and the College has established more programs. However, Gaiotti explained, the size of Public Safety has remained unchanged.
Gaiotti also noted that “Federal requirements and regulations pertaining to emergency planning, preparedness and response have also increased.”
Due to all of these factors, Gaiotti wrote, “There have been preliminary discussions about proposing an increase in staff to better meet the needs of the department and the College.”
Dean of the College Shirley Collado cited the scope of the challenge faced by Public Safety at its current size, calling it “a 12-month-a-year, 24-hour-a-day operation supporting a complicated organization that has grown beyond Vermont.”
Collado said that she and Director of Public Safety Lisa Burchard are “Reevaluating how to move forward with enhancing the department’s role and function in terms of health and safety.” However Collado clarified that this reevaluation did not inherently include an increase in the size of the officer force.
(09/19/13 12:25am)
Coverage of the Sept. 11 memorial protest set off a firestorm of responses, jettisoning The Campus’ coverage nationwide and setting records for views online.
At the time of print, The Campus had received over 80,000 views on the three stories combined, from IP addresses registered all across the country. The online fervor culminated with 48,134 views on Thursday, Sept. 12. The coverage set the record for the most views in a single day, and currently accounts for approximately 25 percent of The Campus’ total hits.
Shortly after learning of the incident, Editor-in-Chief of The Campus Kyle Finck ’14 wrote several paragraphs for posting on The Campus’ website along with a photo of the vandalism in process taken by Rachel Kogan ’14. Editors from across the paper worked to update the content and post additional photos to the paper’s website, Twitter and Facebook pages.
Throughout Thursday and Friday, the story gained national attention with various articles appearing on the Addison Eagle, Burlington Free Press, Business Insider, CBS, Daily Caller, Fox Nation, Indian Country Today Media Network, Inside Higher Ed, Times Argus, University Herald, and WCAX, in addition to a number of blogs, such as Breitbart. Many articles were filled with comments, condemning the protestors’ actions. Further, WPTZ posted a video about the incident, while both the Huffington Post and Addison County Independent reached out to the College and community for additional comments.
The national and local attention paid to the story set off a barrage of comments — more than 500 — on The Campus’ website along with numerous op-ed submissions. But the anonymous comments also provided a forum for an outpouring of hate, directed mainly at the protestors and at the College as a whole. Campus editors monitored the comments around the clock, deleting nearly 100 comments because of direct threats, curses and other breaches of The Campus’ online conduct policy.
“The comments we deleted on our site really appalled a lot of us moderating the discussion online, and we didn’t even receive the worst,” Finck said. “It was scary to see the amount of vitriolic and threatening comments left up on other news outlets’ sites.”
In particular, Finck singled out the popular humor blog Barstool Sports, which also picked up the story and ran The Campus article on Sept. 12 with commentary written by one of its editors. The posting attracted a large number of comments, many of which were profane attacks directed at the persons who removed the flags from outside of Mead Chapel.
(09/19/13 12:22am)
In a Sept. 12 email to the student body, the College’s new Director of Health and Wellness Education, Barbara McCall, outlined her agenda for the year as she fills a position that had gone unfilled for two years.
McCall comes to Middlebury from Castleton State College in Castleton, VT, where she served as the Coordinator of Campus Wellness Education. She attended Mount Holyoke College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and holds a Masters degree in Public Health.
McCall plans to focus her energies on five areas: the establishment of an advocacy group for victims of sexual assault, implementation of recommendations from the 2011-2012 Task Force on Alcohol and Social Life, expansion of the PAWS (Pause, Assess, Worried?, Speak Up!) bystander intervention program, the “reinvigoration” of the Student Wellness Leader program, and the introduction of a Party Monitor program.
McCall is in the early stages of training an advocacy group for victims of sexual assault. The group, which does not have a name yet, includes students, faculty, and staff.
The 2011-2012 Task Force on Alcohol and Social Life, whose recommendations McCall plans to pursue, was created after the College received the results of a 2010 survey of students on drinking which brought to light high risk drinking behavior among many students. The Task Force’s report, dated May 4 2012, includes over 40 recommendations for changes to the regulations regarding alcohol consumption at the College. McCall said that she plans to facilitate a social norms campaign wherein her office will seek to educate the College community about both healthy behavior and behavioral norms at Middlebury in areas such as alcohol use and stress.
The College introduced the PAWS bystander intervention program last year when it briefed the class of 2016 and First-Year Counselors (FYCs) on the new program. McCall emphasized her interest in bystander intervention, stating that people with training in a program such as PAWS are far more likely to intervene in a risky situation than those without training. She hopes to expand the program, possibly during J-term, but conversations are ongoing with regard to the target audience of PAWS training. McCall stated that she plans to take a thoughtful approach “as I get to know Middlebury and Middlebury gets to know me.”
McCall also plans to “reinvigorate” the Student Wellness Leader program, which is meant to provide students with training in health issues related to alcohol use, sex, stress and sleep as well as public speaking and group facilitation. Participation in the program waned in the years during which the position of Director of Health and Wellness Education went unfilled. In an email, Student Wellness Leader Sierra Stites ’14 wrote, “since Jyoti Daniere [the former Director of Health and Wellness Education] left in the summer of 2011 and we were without a director, we have fallen off the map to a certain extent.”
McCall envisions a cohort of students who can provide informal yet well-informed advice to their peers on these sensitive topics. She said that “peer health really interests me as a vehicle for health and wellness education, and it is a good way to get reliable information into the community.”
McCall also plans to start a Party Monitor program based on initiatives at Dartmouth College, Haverford College, Swarthmore College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. These students would attend registered parties as assistants to the party host and provide support if a guest required medical attention or the venue appeared to be overcrowded. They could also serve as liaisons between the Department of Public Safety and party hosts. The program is still in the developmental phases – McCall is in the process of reaching out to colleges with similar programs and soliciting their advice – but she envisions a start to the program occurring in the middle of the Fall semester. The model program at Dartmouth, known as the Green Team, is relatively popular, “Green Team is not a panacea, but every additional set of eyes helps” said Chase Weidner, a senior at Dartmouth.
(09/12/13 12:49am)
At their second annual meeting, held in May, the College Board of Trustees approved a $292.4 million budget for fiscal year 2014, and also approved plans to establish a new School of the Environment and a Hebrew Language Institute.
The budget for the 2014 fiscal year was increased 2.1 percent over the previous year’s budget.
The establishment of the two new organizations represents continued diversification of the College’s educational offerings; the College has steadily increased its educational menu through the creation of a number of for-profit programs, including the MiddCORE Immersion at Sierra Nevada College, the 2010 acquisition of the Monterey Institute of International Studies as a graduate school of the College and the opening of the Brandeis University-Middlebury College School of Hebrew in 2008.
The new School of the Environment, directed by Professor of Environmental and Biosphere Studies Stephen Trombulak, will launch in the summer of 2014. The six-week program’s curriculum will combine field study and hands-on learning opportunities, placing an emphasis on global awareness.
“The curriculum will focus on the facts and methods and help provide the tools so that students, armed with that information, will be better equipped to do something to make positive change in the world,” wrote Trombulak in an email.
Trombulak played an integral role in the conception of the School of the Environment and has been working to found the program since 1995. The development of the school was tabled in 1998 due to challenges in finding an acceptable location for the program.
Trombulak wrote that by 2010, the College’s greater willingness to consider new programs provided a more receptive atmosphere for the program, and the idea moved forward until it was ultimately approved by the Trustees in May.
According to the College’s press release, the School of the Environment will initially be located on the College’s Vermont campus, but Trombulak envisions holding the program in a variety areas, such as in a city or on a coast, in order to accommodate and facilitate a more varied curriculum.
The news release produced by the College after the Trustees’ meeting also described a new partnership between the College and Hebrew at the Center (HATC), a nonprofit organization located in Newton, MA that provides professional development opportunities to teachers of the Hebrew language.
The organization will be called the Middlebury-HATC Institute for the Advancement of Hebrew Language and will be led by Director Vardit Ringvald, Ph.D., who was the first director of the Brandeis University-Middlebury School of Hebrew.
In the College’s press release, Ringvald said of the center, “We envision it as a hub for the study of the Hebrew language that combines scholarship and practice.” Ringvald wrote in an email that the negotiation and creation of the new Institute took place over the span of two years.
In the press release, Ringvald cited a lack of professional development opportunities for Hebrew instructors as a primary reason for the establishment of the Institute. She also noted that “‘The new organization will combine Middlebury’s experience as the foremost school of language learning with Hebrew at the Center’s expertise in professional development for pre-college Hebrew language teachers.”
Ringvald wrote in an email that in the long term, the new joint Institute hopes to offer a Ph.D. program in Hebrew language-related studies, and that consideration of a program on translation in collaboration with the Monterey Institute of International Studies is underway.
The Board of Trustees also approved two new capital projects: the renovation of the Bread Loaf Inn and the modification of the College’s central heating plant to use more environmentally-friendly fuels at costs of $7.5 million and $1.7 million, respectively.
(04/10/13 4:21pm)
On Sunday, my buddy Trent tried to teach me how to surf. He kept an eye on the surf reports all day, and the swells were most forgiving at about five in the evening, so my roommate Joey and I piled into Trent’s orange Honda Element and we drove about 10 minutes to Asilomar State Beach. As we drove, Joey and I peppered Trent with questions about his surfing experience and learned that he returned from working in Guatemala with the Peace Corps about a year ago, where he taught the children of his Guatemalan host-family how to surf. When Trent left the country he left his surfboards with them so that they could continue to enjoy the passion he had shared with them.
There weren’t many people on the beach — the weather had alternated between partly-sunny, mostly-cloudy and partly-cloudy mostly-sunny all day — and most people just pull over to the side of the road that hugs the outside of the Monterey Peninsula and look at the ocean from the climate-controlled comfort of their vehicles.
We squeezed into wetsuits (I borrowed one of Trent’s old ones — it fit surprisingly well), we grabbed a few boards and waded into the surf.
Trent is an excellent teacher — he patiently explained not only how to transition from paddling a board to standing on it, but also how to read the water for the right waves and for dangerous, strength-sapping rip currents. While Trent worked with Joey, I sat on the beach and watched the sun slowly sink behind a thick bank of rain clouds gathering over the Pacific Ocean. Eventually the clouds outnumbered the rays of sun, and the waves became choppier and broke further from the shore, making them more difficult to surf. Trent decided that the coming darkness and the lousy waves rendered surfing impossible for a beginner, so we called it a day and adjourned to a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant for dinner.
While chatting over dinner Joey and I learned more about Trent’s passion for surfing and for the ocean. Joey talked about his passion for social entrepreneurship — using business as a vehicle for bettering the lives of others. As an aspiring defense policy wonk, my academic and professional interests varied significantly from either of my companions’, and I started to think about the many people with such varied passions I have met out here in Monterey, Calif.
To me this kind of diversity is different from that found at Middlebury. It is not manufactured through an admissions process, but rather it materializes as people vastly different in age, expertise and passions happen to converge in Monterey. Several weeks ago I enjoyed an Easter dinner with some friends — our group included an Egyptian woman pursuing an MBA, a French woman pursuing an MBA, a woman working towards a Master’s degree in teaching English, a Minnesota native who enlisted in the Army immediately after high school and was assigned to the Army’s Defense Language Institute (DLI, also located in Monterey) to learn Pashto and an Army officer and an Air Force officer, both French students at DLI.
When I left snowy Boston for Monterey, I didn’t expect that I would experience anything vastly different from Middlebury — after all, the Monterey Institute is “A Graduate School of Middlebury College.” But I have. I’ve made friends with people from far-flung corners of the globe — some married, some divorced, some surfers, some military, some veterans, some from the United States, some not — and that kind of broadening experience has been, to me, one of the most valuable yet unanticipated aspects of my time “abroad.”
Written by NATE SANS '14 in MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA
(10/24/12 5:54pm)
On Wednesday, Oct. 17, Director of Student Fellowships and Health Professions Advising Arlinda Wickland sent an email to first and second year premedical students announcing that the College has established an Early Assurance Program with Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College.
“This new partnership avails the opportunity for outstanding students at Middlebury who are clearly committed to a career in medicine to seek acceptance to Geisel Dartmouth in the sophomore year,” wrote Wickland in an email.
According to Wickland, the aim of the program is to allow students “to take full advantage of their undergraduate education without the pressures of applying to multiple medical schools during their final year in college.”
In order to participate in the partnership, interested students must apply by February of their sophomore year to be considered for nomination by the Middlebury College Health Professions Committee. The Committee will choose five applicants to whom it will provide letters of endorsement nominating them for the program.
After receiving an endorsement, nominees must apply to the Geisel Early Assurance Program itself. Students who are accepted to the program will be notified in the fall of their junior year after the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth Admissions Committee makes the decisions themselves of whom to admit.
The Geisel program also offers accepted students the opportunity to work at Geisel School of Medicine during the summer after their junior year. Participants must also take the MCAT prior to their commencement of their senior year.
Middlebury students and alums expressed support for the early admission programs. “Applying early … gives students the advantage of avoiding some of the stress experienced by upperclassmen pursuing admission. I can see how it would be beneficial to many students,” wrote Sarah Pollick ’14 in an email.
Alumnus and current medical school applicant Samuel Miller ’12 agrees.
“Application to medical school is a very competitive process, and pre-med students are often very concerned about their GPA,” said Miller. “This can sometimes discourage students from taking classes outside of their comfort zone, for fear that it will negatively impact their GPA. The early assurance program should lessen this concern for some students and allow them to take greater advantage of the liberal arts experience that Middlebury values so strongly.”
The Geisel Early Assurance Program is one of six similar programs at the College, which also maintains relationships with Albany Medical College, the University of Connecticut School Of Medicine, the University at Buffalo School of Medicine, the State University of New York Upstate Medical University and the University of Rochester Medical Center.
These relationships allow undergraduates at Middlebury to apply to these institutions during their sophomore or junior year depending on the institution. The criteria for applicants are stringent – most require a grade point average above 3.5, however some of the programs waive a requirement for the applicant to take the MCAT exam.
There will be an information meeting for candidates interested in the Geisel program in late October.
(09/19/12 11:42pm)
On Sept. 8, the Student Government Association (SGA) passed the Election Bylaws Reform Act, which updated regulations for students running for SGA offices. The act includes a change allowing candidates to campaign through the voting period – a technicality that caused disqualifications in past SGA races. The goal of the act is to streamline the election process by allowing candidates more freedom in their campaigning by permitting campaigning during the signature-gathering and voting phases of their candidacy. The act also outlines a clear process for adjudicating campaign rules violations.
SGA Press Secretary Olivia Noble '13 described how the new rules will make the election process more fair for all candidates.
"Before there were arbitrary rules that people either didn't understand or didn't read," said Noble. "That was the reason why people got disqualified, but it shouldn't be like that."
Previous legislation barred candidates from campaigning except within the specific time period between collecting signatures to petition for entry into the race and before the voting period began. This meant that candidates were only able to tell people signing their petitions that they hoped to run and were not allowed to go into detail about their platforms.
The new act allows campaigning to begin during the time in which candidates are petitioning for signatures. The new rules also require that candidates who are running for class-specific offices get signatures from members of the class they would be representing – e.g. only juniors may sign the petition of a student running for Junior Senator.
According to Noble, election reform has long been a priority for SGA President Charlie Arnowitz '13 "“ he and current Chief of Staff Anna Esten '13 also wrote the Arnowitz-Esten Fair Elections Act of 2011.
"[Arnowitz] and [Esten] wrote an elections reform in the spring of 2010 to modernize elections," said Noble. "They always intended to update them later on."
Esten explains that the Fair Elections Act of 2011, which addressed all-campus email privileges, was never meant to be a permanent solution to the problems the SGA was having with elections.
"The Fair Elections Act was a short term solution to a very specific problem," said Esten. "Quite simply, the elections bylaws were out of touch with the way Middlebury functions today ... We kept the vast majority of the rules that existed intact."
Esten explained that when the Fair Elections Act was written, the SGA had to read over many of the rules for elections that had previously been ignored. In doing this, rules such as the restrictions on the campaigning timeframe started to be enforced.
"That was the primary reason that President Arnowitz and I rewrote the bylaws this summer," said Esten. "It was extremely unfortunate that students that cared enough about Middlebury to run for election were being regularly disqualified because of a rule that seemed arbitrary."
Before the Arnowitz-Esten Act, the most recent changes to campaign rules were made in 2002. Noble said that the ongoing goal of the Arnowitz-Esten Act and the new Election Bylaws Reform Act is to update the rules to accommodate use of the internet and to remove confusing complications that caused disqualifications.
The changes to rules come in the wake of controversy caused by the disqualification of several candidates for the position of the President of the SGA. The Campus reported in October 2011 that SGA presidential candidate Mugo Mutothori '12 was disqualified from the SGA presidential election because he solicited votes after the end of the designated campaigning period.
In this particular incident, Mutothori was accused of sending text messages and an email to supporters encouraging them to vote after the voting period had already begun and after the campaign period had ended.
Mutothori was one of five candidates in a two-round election and received the second-most votes of any candidate behind eventual winner Vin Recca '12. Mutothori declined to comment on the changes to the election rules.
Fif Aganga '13 was also disqualified from an SGA presidential race for failing to follow campaigning rules. In April 2012 Aganga was dismissed from his position as Junior Senator, and in an interview with the Campus made comments relating to his impending presidential campaign before the official campaigning period had begun.
Aganga was quoted as saying, "I believe I am the perfect candidate to finally free the student government from the iron grip of easy and complacent decisions. I plan to kick-start this government, taking the reins of what I know can be a powerful force for good."
These statements, construed as early campaigning by the SGA, led to his disqualification from the race. Aganga did not respond to a request for comment on the changes to the election rules.
Noble noted that under the new rules neither Mutothori and Aganga would have been disqualified from their campaigns. The act calls for an Elections Council to be formed, which will have two student senators and four other students. The council will examine rules violations and make a recommendation to the Senate whether or not a candidate should be disqualified. The Senate then must decide by a two-thirds majority to disqualify the candidate.
The new rules were met with approval by Zach Dallmeyer-Drennen '14, who wrote a May 2011 column for the Campus criticizing the decision to disqualify Aganga, calling the disqualification "patently absurd" and stating "the law must be changed."
"I'm glad that [President] Arnowitz was so quick to follow through with his campaign promise to simplify the overly restrictive election law that had made elections a frustrating process for students over the past couple of years," wrote Dallmeyer-Drennen in an email. "I hope that this change ... means that future elections are about the issues important to the student body instead of about who put signs up on which day."
The act not only affects the candidates running for offices, but also students voting in the elections. Under the new act, students are not allowed to coerce voting by sharing an internet-enabled device or willfully observe other students voting.