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(05/07/15 3:08am)
As of this Friday, in addition to delicious pastries, a visit to the town of Vergennes can include a perusal of the town’s newest art gallery. The Peter Fried Art Gallery and Studio, located at 245 Main Street adjacent to Vergennes Laundry, will hold its grand opening on May 8 from 6-10 pm.
Originally from Prague, Peter Fried received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College in London in 1984. Fried lived in London until moving to Vermont in 1995 to study Buddhism at Karme Choling, a Buddhist meditation center in the Northeast Kingdom. Fried’s work has been showcased in exhibits in London and Paris, and throughout Vermont as well.
His artwork includes landscapes, minimalist abstracts and allegorical studies, all of which are exhibited at the gallery in Vergennes. In his art Fried was influenced by the way the Romantics, Realists and Post-Impressionists depicted nature with “simplicity, reverence and clarity.” He seeks to emulate this representation of nature in his landscape paintings. Inspired by Agnes Martin, in his minimalist abstracts Fried finds a point of balance between chaos and order. Lastly, the allegorical studies are Fried’s attempt to “give voice to the unconscious through a pictorial stream of consciousness.”
Fried chose to open his gallery in Vergennes because of the town’s intimacy and because it “feels auspicious.” He hopes that the gallery will inspire others to make and share art, contribute to the art community of Vergennes and “play a role in initiating a gentle, kind and intelligent revolution in the world, auguring an era of peace, prosperity and loving kindness.”
“I feel a need to make life meaningful, and creativity offers a means to this end. Art enables me to be more fully present in the world,” Fried wrote in an email.
(04/29/15 5:48pm)
“Ethos. Pathos. Logos. Till our last breath.” Thus reads the heading on Middlebury College’s Oratory Society website. The juxtaposition of Greek philosopher Aristotle’s “three persuasive appeals” followed by the latter colloquial phrase encapsulates the unique undertaking of the Oratory Society. Faculty director of the group, Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Dana Yeaton described the Oratory Society as “making fun of ourselves as we do something we think is important.”
The Oratory Society unofficially began a few years ago, but truly came to fruition last year in Yeaton’s 2014 Winter Term course, Oratory: A Speechmaking Studio.
Yeaton had noticed an overwhelming nostalgia for oratory practice beyond Middlebury’s campus. He referenced a recent alumni poll that illustrated a desire for classes on rhetoric at the College. The results of the poll showed that public speaking was the skill the College prepared them for the least. Ironically, the poll also showed that speechmaking was the skill alumni found most important in the professional world. Yeaton responded to this absence of and yearning for rhetoric by applying for a grant to establish Oratory Now, a comprehensive program that involves speechmaking trainings and workshops.
“[I wanted] the Oratory Society to seem as if it had been around forever and call attention to a skill that has always been a part of a liberal arts education but has faded,” Yeaton said. “Oratory might be the one thing that business people and people devoted to the liberal arts agree on. They all believe that speaking is critical.”
Committed to making voices heard, the Oratory Society’s mission is simple and compelling. Beyond improving public speaking skills, the group has a social purpose. As articulated on their website: “We believe that when people speak their minds, their community gains confidence in itself, and is strengthened.”
On April 22, the Oratory Society’s dedication to proving the importance of rhetoric to make a persuasive social argument was demonstrated in its “My Idea to Save America: A Speech Contest.” Originally nineteen students auditioned and seven were selected to present five-minute speeches in the final round. The finalists included: Alexa Beyer ’15.5, Dominick Tanoh ’18, Andrew Plotch ’18.5, Nadine Nasr ’17.5, Hannah Blackburn ’17, Charlotte Massey ’18.5 and Conor Simons ’15. Coordinator of the contest Alex Brockelman ’18 explained the purpose of the theme was to give students an opportunity to utilize their oratory skills while presenting an academic and personally founded idea.
“My hope is that with this prompt, regardless of who wins, trying to tackle the larger problems our society faces with concrete solutions is a useful thought exercise and a great opportunity to practice speechmaking,” Brockelman said.
Member of the Oratory Society Debanjan Roychoudhury’s ’16 opening speech playfully announcing to the audience they were “witnessing a contest only the Classical Greeks could compete with,” as well as the addition of a trumpet comically introducing each speaker, the event both an entertaining and thought-provoking experience.
Speeches were judged by three Middlebury faculty members: Russell Leng ’60 Professor of International Politics and Economics Allison Stanger, Professor of Classics Marc Witkin and Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Trebien Pollard. The judges based their evaluations on three criteria: originality of idea, effectiveness of delivery and persuasiveness of argument. The competition also involved a five-minute critique period conducted by “celebrity respondents” after each speech. Associate Professor of Theatre Alex Draper, Assistant Professor of Dance Christal Brown, and President Emeritus of the Conversation Law Foundation John Kassel were responsible for providing feedback.
All of the competitors proposed engaging youth in political action. Before monetary prizes were awarded, Tanoh was announced the winner of the People’s Choice Award, which had been determined minutes earlier by a secret vote from the audience.
The judges selected Blackburn as the first place winner and recipient of $500. In Blackburn’s speech she argued that “the American Anti-Corruption Act has the potential to stop corruption in our government. Starting with cities and other smaller jurisdictions, the movement can build to states and then Congress.”
Tanoh received second place for his idea to “start the process of fighting poverty by electing a candidate who places a focus on the truly poor, even if it is not politically expedient.”
Third place was awarded to Beyer for her idea, the Heartland Project “a YouTube Series that motivates more Americans to care about the environment by telling better stories.” Beyer expressed feeling a hunger to continue to pitch her idea after receiving such valuable feedback from the respondents.
“As I sat on deck battling pre-presentation nerves, I had one of those moments where I looked around and thought, ‘Gosh. The places Middlebury will lead you,’” Beyer wrote in an email. “I just feel so lucky for the opportunity to participate in something like this.”
Overall, Yeaton sees the future of rhetoric at the College in its students.
“The faculty and the administration agree that oral expression is essential to a Middlebury education. But if you look at the popularity of The Moth, TEDxMiddlebury, Verbal Onslaught, Poor Form Poetry, etc. it’s clear the real energy is with the students. They want to work on their speaking. They want to hear each other speak.”
(04/22/15 10:42pm)
“What I try to do is to get people to start looking around them,” Professor of the History of Art and Architecture Glenn Andres said, reflecting on his retirement at the end of this semester. In his 45 years teaching classes such as Art of the City, Andres has made “looking around” valuable and exciting for Middlebury students.
Hired in 1970, Andres has witnessed the College’s immense growth. He described his first years at the College co-teaching a general art survey course or, as he called it, Art 101 in Dana Auditorium filled to capacity.
“It was almost like a circus.” Andres recounted. “There was one class when students walked up and down the aisles as if they were popcorn vendors. Another time, a group of students streaked during lecture.”
This was before the Arts as an academic field had been developed as an essential component of a Liberal Arts education; a process Andres has played an integral role in advancing during his tenure. In particular, Andres has helped the Architectural studies program evolve from informal independent study meetings to one of the most respected undergraduate programs in the country.
“Glenn Andres is the founding father of Architectural Studies at Middlebury,” Professor of the History of Art and Architecture, Pieter Broucke wrote in an email. “Over the last four decades [he has] put Middlebury on the map as one of the few places where architecture can be explored at the undergraduate level.”
While Andres has undoubtedly witnessed much change on this campus, when asked about differences in the student body that have occurred during his time, Andres sees continuity where others see fluctuation. “People say students change, I’m not so sure they do all that much, “ he said. “Middlebury students have always been the kind of students who once they find their passion, there is no limit to what they can accomplish.”
Andres and the College’s student body have this ambition in common; in addition to the aforementioned accomplishments, Andres has been a source of knowledge and inspiration for Middlebury students and colleagues.
Architectural studies major, Eliza Margolin ’15 described Andres as eloquent and thoughtful.
“Glenn is easily the best lecturer I have had a Middlebury. He is so knowledgeable about such a breadth of topics that sitting in class with him is just plain fun,” Margolin wrote in an email.
Brandon Gell ’16, also an architectural studies major, said, “Professor Andres was by far the most inspired lecturer I ever experienced. So incredibly dedicated to thoroughly understanding the material he was teaching.”
Kristen Hoving, professor of the History of Art and Architecture also spoke highly of Andres.
“For the 32 years I have been at Middlebury, Glenn Andres has been a model of devotion to his students, excellence in the classroom, insightful scholarship, and committed citizenship,” Hoving wrote. “It’s hard to imagine the department without him.”
In addition to Andres’ invaluable involvement in the academic focus on art and architecture at the College, he has also assisted in the campus’ architectural evolvement. Andres served on planning committees for buildings such Bicentennial Hall, Ross and Atwater Commons, and also chaired the committee for the planning of the Davis Family Library and the Axinn Center. In the late 1980s Andres was involved in the early stages of the architectural planning of the Mahaney Center of the Arts (CFA). Andres remembers giving renowned American Architect, Robert Venturi a tour of Middlebury’s campus when Venturi was being interviewed to design the CFA.
“Venturi got out of his rental car, looked around, turned to me and said, ‘Do you know what you have here? You have what every person thinks an American college campus should like, except they almost never do,’” Andres related.
On campus, Andres’ favorite architecture is Old Stone Row because “it is iconic of the College,” and in the town of Middlebury, “hands down,” the Congregational Church, as according to Andres, it is one of the finest federal style churches in New England.
Colleague John Hunisak commented on Andres’ invaluable contribution to creating the architectural studies program and his “remarkable ability always to remain calm and reasonable.” He also recounted a common quote of Andres’ that represents his temperament and good nature: “Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.”
Most recently, Andres co-authored a book, twenty years in the making, Buildings of Vermont. The book is a history of Vermont architecture, highlighting the wide variety of building styles in the state.
In keeping true to the bumper sticker hanging on his door that reads, “I brake for old buildings,” Andres has recognized the diversity and significance of existing Vermont architecture and hopes to inspire that same appreciation among others.
Though he has exciting plans to travel to Sicily in the fall, Andres said, “I will miss watching each new generation of students begin to see the world about them with new eyes.”
(04/15/15 6:09pm)
MiddChallenge, a competition for Middlebury students to receive funding to support anything from an art project to a business model just announced the winners of the 2015 competition. The competition is divided into four categories: Business; Social Entrepreneurship; Arts and Education; and Outreach and Policy.
A committee, headed by students Kate Robinson ’16 and Olivia Tabah ’15, selected the top proposals from each category to advance to a final round of judging. On April 4, in ten-minute presentations qualifiers pitched their ideas before a panel of judges composed of Middlebury alumni, faculty and community members. Generally, two proposals from each of the four categories are chosen to receive a grant of $3,000, mentorship and, if needed, a space on the College’s campus to employ their ideas; however, this year there were exceptions in the Business and Social Entrepreneurship categories, which each accepted three winners.
One of the two grants in the Business category was divided between Flippant, led by Logan Miller ’15 and Michael Peters ’15 and an iOS app presented by Maddison Brusman ’18.5. Flippant, a company that “takes a less but more serious approach to business” and the creator of the upside-down pocket T-shirts sported by many on campus, will be relocating to Detroit this summer thanks to MiddChallenge.
Brusman is developing an app, she explained as “YikYak meets Slack that allows users to create and subscribe to hyper-local communal interest feeds.” She will use the money for an office space in SoMa, San Francisco.
JoyRyde, directed by Terry Goguen ’16 and AnnaClare Smith ’16 received the second grant in the Business category. Smith and Goguen plan to use the grant to develop the software for JoyRyde, “A mobile app that uses a reward-based system to prevent people from using their mobile phones while driving,” they wrote in an email.
“It keeps track of how far one has traveled with their phone locked. Once unlocked, the miles are saved in a bank, and the user is then rewarded their respective miles. Each mile can be used to buy coupons and deals for a variety of things, ranging from food, to music, to gas, and even charitable donations,” they said.
In the Social Entrepreneurship category, Lena Jacobs ’17.5 won for Dream Bus, a renovated school bus that will be converted into a mobile classroom. Over the summer the bus will be driven across the country stopping at high schools to conduct innovative sessions that will teach students how create a project of their interest.
Alexa Beyer ’15.5 is creating a YouTube series called the Heartland Project that is designed to share environmental stories in a creative way. Beyer explained that impetus behind her project was the need for compelling stories to motivate Americans to respond to today’s environmental problems.
The third winner in this category, Farid Noori ’18, won for Aghazgar, a two-week long camp for college students in Afghanistan. The program aims to create a culture of youth entrepreneurship. Noori wrote in an email:
“Aghazgar in Persian means someone who starts a new beginning and inspires others to follow. I see a strong connection between the success of this camp, and the wider contribution it can make in the Afghan society.”
In the Arts category, winners included Iron Eyes Cody, a band composed of Evan Allis ’15.5, Patrick Freeman ’15.5, Joe Leavenworth-Bakali ’15.5, Mark Balderston ’15.5 and Katherine Mulloy ’15.5. Sally Caruso ’15.5 won for her stop motion animation film about the perception of the female body by.
Iron Eyes Cody began performing in 2013 and will use the grant to offset the costs of recording their first album this summer.
“The album is the crucial next step to our evolution as a group, and we’re hoping it opens many more doors to come. Everything’s falling into place with this album, and we couldn’t be more excited for what the summer has in store,” Allis wrote in an email.
Finally, the idea to create an online interactive map of the Middlebury campus tour for prospective students, headed by Scott Gilman ’15 and Catherine Hays ’15 won in the Education, Outreach and Policy category.
Charlotte Massey ’18.5 received the other grant for Articulate, “a program that uses visual art as a tool for social change, empowering people to discover and speak out about the causes they care about.” Massey plans to use the money to run a weeklong program over the summer for middle-school students that she said, “Focuses on teaching new art skills and promoting awareness about local and world events in order to help them discover potential passions.”
Covering a wide array of interests and projects, the nine winners are all excited by the opportunity to employ their ideas thanks to MiddChallenge.
(04/08/15 10:02pm)
In honor of 100 years of commitment to foreign languages, the Middlebury Language School will celebrate its centennial with a special weekend of cultural events, lectures and panels on July 15 to 17. The wide assortment of activities, speakers and performances are open to all Middlebury students as well as to the Middlebury community.
In 1915, founder of the College’s first language school, Lillian Stroebe, was on a train from Burlington to Rutland when she spotted the College’s campus situated on a picturesque hill. The isolation and beauty of the College was the ideal place for Stroebe to employ her vision of beginning an immersive German language school. Stroebe presented her idea to the College’s administration, and they agreed to devote the summer months of Middlebury’s campus to learning foreign languages. The concept quickly expanded with the addition of French and Spanish to the German language school in 1916 and 1917.
Although Stroebe’s idea is now 100 years old, her philosophy and commitment to fostering a community of global learners remains pertinent, critical and the guide to Middlebury’s current language programs.
Director of the German school, Bettina Matthias, attests to the ingenuity of Stroebe’s idea that prevails today.
“The original idea and implementation was visionary and ahead of its time both pedagogically and intellectually,” she wrote in an email. “The Language Schools have a sort of magic that has really helped us stay so strong, and I firmly believe that it is and will be one of the foundations of a healthy future.”
Today, Middlebury Language Schools have an impressive global reach and influence. After beginning with only one language and 47 students, the program now has expanded to included eleven languages and has had over 50,000 students, with 12,000 students earning degrees.
Studies have shown that students of Middlebury Language Schools develop greater language proficiency after one summer of attendance than after a semester, and sometimes even a year, abroad. Students of the language schools not only acquire fluency, they also develop deep bonds with their peers and instructors that are reinforced by a mutual commitment to a summer of complete immersion.
For over a year, a centennial committee has planned a celebration and conference that will include phenomenal guest speakers, world-renowned cultural performers, delicious dinners and a culminating dance. The conference is divided into five panels themed: Framing the Global Academic Agenda; Language and Identity: Putting Your Self on the Line; Working Without Subtitles; The ‘Secret Sauce’: Selling Global Products in Local Markets; Language Schools 2.0: The Next Century. The Conference is bookended by extraordinary speakers; opening with Management Editor of The Economist, Adrian Wooldridge, and closing with Director of George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs and Middlebury alum and trustee, Frank Sesno.
In addition to providing stimulating panel discussions, the celebration will include cultural performances from language school alums and participants. The final night of the event will culminate in a ball for which attendees are to dress in outfits from the year 1915 that align with the culture of their language.
Following the dance are fireworks. For current students of the language program, the Language Pledge will be suspended when participating in conference events or activities that require the use of English; an exception Michael Geisler, Vice President of the Middlebury Language Schools, asserts he will only make every 100 years.
While the event will acknowledge and celebrate the accomplishments of the past 100 years, it also highlights the greater objectives of the schools in the future.
Geisler, seeking to put the celebration in a global context, said that the theme of the conference poses a question that goes beyond recognizing the importance of languages and asks why the study of languages is essential.
“A knowledge of the local culture is necessary in order to understand the way in which global issues are articulated, understood and dealt with in different parts of the world,” Geisler said. “This knowledge can only be acquired through knowing the language spoken in that part of the world.”
Geisler hopes to increasingly use technology and social media to improve the Middlebury Language Schools. He sees potential in using technology and social media as a means of creating an online learning environment, which will allow students to take a part of the language school with them as they continue to learn and connect virtually with teachers and peers after the program’s completion.
(02/25/15 7:10pm)
The inception of the Rohatyn Center for Global Affair’s Student-Led Conference was only a little over a year ago, and yet this year’s “Apathy and Action: Exploring Youth-Driven Movements” conference had the appearance of being a long established event on campus. Last year’s conference, entitled “Immigration in the Neoliberal Age,” set a precedent for progressive and internationally-relevant themes, which continued into this year’s conference.
Seeking “to put the latest youth-led movements in perspective and look to the future, aiming to determine the key factors that will be responsible for either bringing or deterring social change,” according to the event’s online description, students Gabbie Santos ’17, Bilal Khan ’18, Forest Jarvis ’15 and Karen Liu ’15 applied to lead and organize this year’s conference. Members of the Rohatyn Student Advisory Board (RSAB) selected the “Apathy and Action” proposal and other than financial support, Santos, Khan, Jarvis and Liu have been entirely responsible for orchestrating the conference. Their months of hard work and commitment to exploring the topic of youth-led social action were evident at last week’s conference.
After two days of guest speakers, discussions and screenings, the event concluded on the evening of Feb. 20. The conference addressed pertinent topics that were divided into the following five sessions: “Between Protest and Powerlessness: The Startling Ubiquity of Student Activism”; “The Radical Mind”; “Combatting Apathy”; “Collective Action and Strategy”; and “The Climate Movement.”
Compelling guest speakers, such as Shannon Galpin, founder and director of Mountain2Mountain, Marcela Olivera, the Latin American coordinator for Water for All and Alexandra Barlowe, outreach coordinator for Fossil Free Yale, supplemented each of these sessions — some traveling from as far as Bolivia to attend. In addition to these speakers, Schumann Distinguished Scholar Bill McKibben and Associate Professor of Sociology Linus Owens also imparted important knowledge and incited meaningful conversation.
Attendance and engagement was impressive. The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs (RCGA) Director Tamar Mayer found the event “very successful” and attributed some of the conference’s success to the thoughtful ordering of the discussions, “starting with an academic discussion about protest and radicalism and continuing with practitioners.”
Thinking back the organizers’ involvement in the planning process, Liu was initially drawn to their preliminary conversations.
“These were not just conversations, they were dialogues that we could translate into something larger — something that could engage the entire community and broaden the scope of participants,” Liu wrote in an email.
Santos also expressed a desire to have the conference act as a means to “engage the community in thinking about what our roles might be as youth, in the context of social movements, from the spectrum of apathy to action.”
Similarly, Jarvis expressed witnessing “a lot of high-profile student-led events and protests here [at Middlebury], which have been met with varying levels of success … it seems to be about finding a ‘happy medium’ between drawing people’s attention and getting people on campus to care about relevant issues and not being too divisive or aggressive about the movement.”
“If our students will move to organize around a topic, which is close to their hearts, and mobilize to bring change, this conference’s impact will last for a long, long time,” Mayer said. “Wouldn’t that be the ultimate success?”
With youth-driven activism sweeping the globe, it is likely that the success Mayer speaks of and the intention of the conference — to provide students with the opportunity to reflect on how to “affect and support change in the real world” — is well on its way to being realized.