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(03/11/21 10:59am)
When Lee* was admitted Early Decision to Middlebury’s class of 2025 this December, he assumed his acceptance letter would soon be followed by a financial aid package covering the full $75,000 price tag. He had informed the college that his father would not pay for his education and that he had not saved enough money to afford tuition on his own. His CSS profile even contained a signed statement from his father and another relative confirming his situation.
“Middlebury meets the full demonstrated financial need of all admitted students,” according to the affordability section of the admission page, and Lee was confident he met the criteria. Then, he received his financial aid award.
Initially, the college set Lee’s expected family contribution — the portion of the cost of attendance that a student’s family is required to pay — at nearly $30,000. Lee lives with his father, whose income places their household within the bounds of the upper middle class.
But Lee’s father refused to pay the family contribution — kickstarting a months-long process of negotiation, advocacy and crowd-sourcing that many Middlebury community members first became aware of through the circulation of a GoFundMe campaign created by Lu Mila ’24.
The campaign, entitled “Help a Trans Man Attend Middlebury College,” raised over $4,000 in the first four days after Mila set it up, but donations have since plateaued. After a few weeks of fundraising, it still sits under $5,000.
The campaign description provides a snapshot of Lee’s predicament, explaining that he is a trans man living in a red state and that he will soon be homeless if his father follows through on threats to kick him out after he turns 18. The page also describes the response Lee received from the college when he initially raised concerns about his financial aid package.
“They replied with ‘We cannot base our financial aid decisions based on a family's willingness to pay. We base our decisions on a family's ability to pay,’” the GoFundMe page reads.
Though donations have slowed, Lee and his advocates have made some progress with revising his financial aid package. Mila, who has known Lee since high school, posted an update to the page on Feb. 22 notifying followers that Lee’s financial aid award had been increased, roughly halving his expected family contribution.
To get the award increased, Lee had to provide additional documentation of his household’s expenses.
“I had to look for documents of uninsured expenses and find a way to ask my father about it,” he said in an email to The Campus. “I’m lucky that he was in a good mood and answered everything while providing the proof.”
Lee said he began telling the school about his situation at the start of Discover Middlebury, the college’s special visit program for underrepresented students.
“At the end of Discover Middlebury, I was reassured that whatever I struggled with, I would be helped for,” he said.
Confident in the college’s claims about meeting 100% of demonstrated need, Mila encouraged their friend to apply to Middlebury early decision, reassuring him that his financial circumstances would be understood.
The college uses the FAFSA to determine federal financial aid and looks at the CSS profile, personal tax returns and W-2s to calculate family contribution and institutional aid awards. Middlebury is a member of the 568 Presidents Group, a consortium of 21 need-blind institutions that have agreed on a consensus approach for determining financial aid awards.
Though the GoFundMe campaign may help Lee pay for the 2021–22 academic year, it may cause his expected contribution to increase for the following year. Lee has been in touch with Associate Vice President for Student Financial Services Kim Downs-Burns throughout the financial aid negotiation process, though Downs-Burns said she could not comment on a specific student’s financial aid award when The Campus reached out to her.
Downs-Burns noted that in general, any taxed or untaxed student income from 2021 — even something like GoFundMe earnings — should be reported on federal and institutional financial aid applications for the 2022-23 academic year. A reported increase in income could impact a student’s financial aid package for the following academic year.
“Our need analysis calculations vary depending on the family’s makeup and financial profile which factor into how a student’s contribution is calculated,” Downs-Burns said in an email to The Campus. “Typically most students have only a minimum expected contribution of $2,400. For students who may have higher than ‘typical’ earnings, that student contribution would expect to increase.”
Downs-Burns provided an example, saying that a student’s expected contribution might increase to $5,000 if they reported a total income of $20,000.
This could prove problematic for Lee, whose GoFundMe earnings would create a temporary increase, impacting his financial aid award in 2023-24 even if the money were fully depleted by the tuition cost of the previous year.
Lee said he plans to get a job as soon as he arrives at the college to help him pay for his education.
For students like Lee who need their parents’ finances to be discounted in order to receive adequate financial assistance to attend college, options are limited. One possibility is declaring financial independence on national aid applications like FAFSA, but students must meet certain criteria to do so.
Undergraduates over the age of 24 can declare independence based solely on their age. All others must prove that they are independent according to other U.S. Department of Education guidelines.
Among these guidelines, which include cases in which an undergraduate is married or a veteran of the U.S. armed forces, the most viable option for Lee is judicial emancipation. This would most likely require that he prove his financial self-sufficiency. However, Lee mentioned a number of factors that have prevented him from getting a job, including his father’s resistance and bigotry among potential employers.
Throughout the ongoing process of revising Lee’s financial aid package, members of the Middlebury community have been advocating for his case. Members of the Student Government Association (SGA) and the Community Council have been working with college administrators to push for changes to Lee’s financial aid package.
First-Year Senator Meg Farley ’24, who has been in touch with Mila and Lee, worked to publicize the GoFundMe campaign and has been exploring both Middlebury-specific and external resources to help find additional funding options.
“I've done some research on trying to find grants for trans students going to university or trans BIPOC students going to university,” Farley said. “There's slim pickings.”
Lee has also received messages of support from alumni. Andrew Sebald ’19, who faced similar financial aid challenges at Middlebury, has been reaching out to students and alumni of various colleges who have faced difficulties while applying for financial aid.
Lee’s case has attracted a lot of attention among college community members, and students and administrators will consider how to reform the financial aid system in the future, according to Farley.
As of publication, Lee is still in financial limbo. Many students and families have attested to the complexity of the aid application under normal circumstances, but the process has been particularly difficult for Lee.
“I feel guilty every minute of my day for the GoFundMe because I don't want others to pay for my situation. I feel agitated every second I'm not planning for every scenario or being told updates from others,” he said in an email. “I want to do more and plead my case as much as I can, but I try to remind myself that I'm doing what I can and that I will keep trying, even when I'm on campus.”
*Editor’s note: Lee is a pseudonym used to protect the identity of an admitted student.
(03/11/21 10:58am)
I am writing to you from ADK (recently renovated from the CCI into a dorm), where I am staying as an identified close contact of someone with Covid-19.
I would like to begin by admitting that, no, I didn’t keep my mask on every time I was outside of my room. I thought I was being wise about who I unmasked in front of, but clearly the rules are in place for a reason, and I am now paying the price of breaking them. But regardless of how I got here, I am in this situation, and I have no choice but to feel the emotions that come with it (a concept introduced to me by Carter Branley, the Middlebury counselor getting me through this week).
To be blunt, it sucks.
As a friend of mine astutely pointed out — in what must have been an attempt at reassurance — I have never been alone for this long in my entire life. And though I am very lucky to be able to quarantine in such a safe place, I didn’t know at the start of this week what that kind of aloneness would feel like.
Now, you might be wondering how one passes the time for seven days in ADK 203. Every morning after I wake up, I strategically place my Zoom camera so my classmates can’t see the overflowing suitcase behind me (PubSafe’s offer to drive my belongings from Giff to ADK allowed me to overpack sufficiently). Then, around 11:30, the dining staff leaves the building’s residents’ lunches downstairs and shouts to us that food has arrived.
Usually, I eat lunch in my desk chair, and I try to keep myself busy until around 4:00 (that’s when things get really exciting). At that time each day, I try to move for at least 15 minutes, whether that be by doing a YouTube workout or some semblance of an exercise that feels like it should be good for me. After that, I take a shower, which requires a text in the “Bathroom” group chat that has been made to avoid running into anyone. I’ve taken to Zooming with friends over dinner to make all of this feel a bit more normal, and then from there, the night kind of takes care of itself — and that’s another day gone by.
This is not like the two-week pre-arrival quarantine or the two-day room quarantine, where we had decorations, photos, trinkets and familiar views to distract us from the work we were meant to be doing. It is just me in a big, white-walled room, looking out the window at people who don’t know I am in here.
Zoom, Facetime, phone calls, texting — we have so many outlets of communication that have proven helpful in the last week, but none capture the feeling of sitting in a room with someone, masked or otherwise, and feeling their energy.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]This may all seem dramatic, but I miss people. [/pullquote]
I am the type of person to sit next to friends instead of across the table from them, to fix their collars for them instead of telling them to do it themselves and to tell them how much I love them more than I should — it’s how I cope. I have anxiety like many others, and in order to block out the stream of “what-ifs” and “why-didn’t-I’s” in my head, I lean on people.
And not having that has been hard.
Despite the mental toll that this quarantine has taken, it is important to note that the Middlebury College staff members themselves have done all that they could to make me feel heard, protected and remembered in this last week. They have provided quarantined students with kettles, yoga mats, comfort food and daily phone calls from Parton staff, “just to check-in.” They really do care, and, if nothing else, it’s nice to know.
On my fifth day of quarantine, I walked into the back door of Parton to get my second of three Covid tests before (hopefully) being released after the third negative result. A nurse, Peg (known among my fellow quarantined students for her kindness) asked me how I was doing, and I burst into tears. Honestly, I cry at car commercials, so it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I really could not control myself this time. I hadn’t spoken with anyone in nearly a week, and I hadn’t previously realized how much I missed in-person conversation.
This experience, albeit difficult and my own fault, has been an important reminder of how much (safe) interpersonal interactions matter. Since the beginning of Covid-19, I have gotten more comfortable being alone — most of us have. And that is a good thing, but a global pandemic isn’t something one should go through alone, even if we think we can.
Seven days in isolation may not seem like a lot, but it is enough time to have noticed the absence of small gestures that mean more than I realized they did. I need hellos from across the path, awkward masked conversations and friends (close-contacts) barging into my room on Sunday mornings to collect me for Proc breakfast. If I’ve learned anything from being in here, beside the obvious “follow the rules,” it’s that I’ve created a family for myself on this campus, and being away from them has shown me how much I need them.
Editor’s Note: Eliza King Freedman ’23 is an Arts & Culture Editor for The Campus.
(03/10/21 1:16am)
I almost rear ended the car in front of me last week when I saw it on the back window — a “Middlebury Crew” bumper sticker.
You don’t see Middlebury memorabilia much here. I live in Kenai, Alaska, a small town three hours south of Anchorage on the world-famous Kenai River. It’s known for its salmon fishing, but there’s a lot more than fish here — the landscape is also dotted with active volcanoes, scalable mountains and offshore oil rigs. Kenai and its sister city Soldotna are on the road system, which makes them significantly more accessible than other Alaska towns and cities you can only get to on a plane or ferry.
It’s an incredible place for a journalist. Alaska is the size of almost 70 Vermonts but has just 100,000 more people than the Green Mountain state. There are debates over natural resources that play out in real time, both on the Kenai Peninsula, where I live, and in the state at large. Many of the people who homesteaded on the peninsula in the 1950s and 60s, back before it was a state, still live here. Their family names are on street signs.
Just a few months in, I’m subsumed by this place. That’s partly because I’m a reporter, so I have professional permission to meet as many people as I can and ask them nosy questions.
But I imagine anyone who’s moved far away from home knows what it feels like to shift the center of their universe — for me, from New York to Vermont to Alaska.
That’s not to say my life here is dissociated from my past lives. I’m starting to realize it really isn’t. Home is part and parcel of everything I do.
I started my job search in Alaska because a Middlebury friend, Hunter Graham ’20, clued me in to a journalism job opening in Skagway, where her grandmother lives. One of my closest friends on the peninsula is a mutual friend of Professor Sue Halpern — she introduced us virtually when I got up here.
Last week, I had dinner with a Middlebury alumnus who’s been here for almost 30 years. He lives in rural Alaska and races sled dogs but he also knows what the inside of Mead Chapel looks like. The world is so delightfully small sometimes.
There’s also, of course, that bumper sticker. I’m still trying to trace it back to its owner.
Perhaps the biggest througline between then and now is the pandemic. I’ll never forget those early days of covering the virus as it barreled toward Vermont. My clearest memory from March 11, strangely, isn’t getting official word from the school but getting a call from editor Ben Glass ’20.5, who was at BevCo — seniors were scrambling to buy all the Keystone they could carry, he said, before they were kicked off campus indefinitely. It was a lesson in how college students react when they hear the apocalypse is coming for them.
I’m still covering that pandemic. The tenor of coverage has changed, but I still think about the conversations we had as a Campus team when I’m writing stories of my own here, over 4,500 miles away.
The newness of life here is bespeckled with fragments of familiarity. And time has seldom seemed linear these last 12 months. Not to mention we’re not fully graduated yet — an in-person commencement is still a promise for the nebulous post-Covid future. I think a few more classes will be joining in our post-hoc commencement than we anticipated last March (sorry, ’20.5 and ’21).
Maybe we’ll even finally get our Gamaliel Painter Canes. I’m not confident mine will fit in an overhead bin. But it might make for good closure.
Editor’s Note: Sabine Poux is a member of the class of 2020 and was the 2019-2020 Editor in Chief of The Campus.
(03/04/21 11:00am)
Roughly a year after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the vaccination process in Vermont is in full swing. Those older than 65, healthcare workers and long-term care residents and staff are currently eligible for the vaccine.
The state moved to inoculate those that were most vulnerable first, a decision that was made to minimize the number of deaths from Covid-19, according to Gov. Phil Scott’s statements in a press release.
As of this week, 18.2% of the total population in Addison County has received at least one dose of the vaccine. The state has administered a total of 164,700 doses, and a total of 58,400 people have completed their vaccination process across Vermont, according to the Covid-19 Vaccine Dashboard presented by the Vermont Department of Health.
In light of new cases and the pandemic’s persistence, Scott has extended the Covid State of Emergency to March 15. The designation eases the allocation of funding to local governments and places significant power in public health officials to implement regulations. In the past two weeks, there were a total of 90 new coronavirus cases in Addison County.
“The State of Emergency remains a needed tool to help us manage and respond to the pandemic,” Scott said in the press release. “As we continue to vaccinate more Vermonters, I’m hopeful there won’t be too many more of these extensions and we’ll get back to some sense of normal.”
Moving to Phase 4
As of early March, the state entered Phase 4 of its Covid-19 vaccination program, allowing those 65 and older to register for the vaccine in addition to all healthcare workers and first responders.
On March 8, Vermont is planning to move into Phase 5a, in which individuals aged 55 and older with identified high-risk health conditions will become eligible to be vaccinated. State officials also predicted opening up registration to K-12 teachers, staff and childcare workers, pending supply.
Vermont Health Commissioner Mark Levine said in an announcement that the 125,000 Vermonters who are 65 and older are targeted to receive their vaccinations by the end of spring.
The Vermont Department of Health estimates that the state will be ready to begin Phase 5 in late March, when people with high-risk health conditions will be eligible to receive the vaccine. These include but are not limited to cancer, pregnancy, obesity and certain heart conditions.
Mixed responses from the community
The community has had mixed responses to the state’s choice of priority groups eligible for vaccination. While some Vermonters are grateful to have already been able to access the vaccine, others farther down the priority list expressed concern with how long they may have to wait for their turn.
Piper Harrel, whose husband has Type 1 diabetes, was outraged that the disease was not included on the list of high-risk health conditions that qualify one to be vaccinated during Phase 5.
“Looking at the list, it was like, you gotta be f***ing kidding me,” Harrell told VT Digger. “It was like a punch in the gut.”
Khristen Pannone, whose husband Mario has polycystic kidney disease, expressed similar concerns. As the sole proprietor of a heating system repair company, he is not able to quit his job.
“If I don’t work, we don’t eat,” he told VT Digger.
“The soonest my husband would get a vaccine is April,” Pannone said. “And to me, that’s just unacceptable. You’re asking him to continue to go and work on a daily basis, and you’re telling him the soonest you can protect him is April?”
Dr. Levine justifies the decision by citing that elders have the highest death rates after contracting Covid-19. “We are really trying to preserve life — make sure we can keep as many Vermonters from dying,” he said in an interview in early February.
As of March 2, however, chronic kidney diseases and diabetes were both listed as health conditions qualifying individuals for vaccination during Phase 5 on the Vermont Department of Health’s website.
Courtney Allenson, the director of a local senior living facility, received her shot in January. “I am so happy to get my shot today. I am so happy,” she told WCAX. “We trust in the company that is making the vaccine, and we trust in the process.” She added that the facility, called The Residence at Otter Creek, is not worried about the state running out of doses.
“I thought probably there would be more medical people and rescue people, and all that might [cause vaccine shortages], but apparently not. They thought us old folks were worth doing something for,” Jan Anderson, an elder resident at the facility, told WCAX.
“At this point, the biggest challenge to vaccine distribution is the number of doses Vermont is receiving from the federal government, as well as reluctance from some people to receive a vaccination,” Addison County Senator Ruth Hardy told The Campus. “However, each week, the Biden Administration is expanding vaccine distribution to states, so I expect the pace to accelerate.”
Vaccinations for college students
As for the student community, Vermont schools continue to see low case counts compared to the general population. Education Secretary Dan French said in a news release that the state tested 2,200 school staff members this week, finding just one positive case.
At Middlebury College, the Health Center staff has already been vaccinated, according to Sandy Robinson, director of Health Services. The student Ski Patrol squad was also eligible for the vaccine due to their classification as first responders. The Health Services office at the college is regularly meeting with the Vermont Department of Health and other Vermont colleges regarding vaccines for the students.
“The topic of vaccinating students is an ongoing agenda item. However, college undergrads do not currently meet the eligibility criteria for the Covid-19 vaccine in Vermont,” Robinson said. “As more vaccines get approved and as the state moves forward with its vaccination plan, we will know more about what can be offered to college students.”
Scott praised the FDA’s emergency approval of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine in late February, which adds a third supplier into the mix and requires only one shot.
“This is another significant step forward in our work to end this pandemic” Scott said. “I join many in Vermont and across the country in welcoming this news.”
(03/04/21 11:00am)
Tayler* started working full time at Middlebury right after high school, with a starting wage of just over $8 an hour. Twenty-one years later, through Middlebury's compensation program, they are making $14 an hour. A single parent, they find themselves in line at the local food bank several times a month to make ends meet, and HOPE Middlebury helps Christmas come together for their child. Many of Tayler’s fellow service workers at Middlebury also have second jobs, an option unavailable to those without childcare or other support mechanisms.
How did we get here as an institution, where over 20 years of service and dedication to Middlebury still merits only a poverty wage? Sure, endowment woes and a poor job market play a role, but one of the deeper problems is more insidious.
In the last 20 years, Middlebury has prioritized faculty wage increases over those of staff. Every year, when possible, a sum of money is added to the Middlebury budget for salary increases, which is then distributed to faculty and staff as a percentage increase of their current wage. By my calculations, in most years, rather than dividing wage increases equally between faculty and staff, faculty have gotten a larger percentage increase than staff. In a particularly egregious example from 2001, faculty received an average pay increase of 7.5%, while staff saw only 4.3%. Inflation that year as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was about 3.4%, so faculty got over a 4% raise above inflation, staff less than 1%.
More recently, in both 2019 and 2020, faculty saw a 4% increase, while staff saw a mere 2%. However, inflation was greater than 2%, so the value of the staff raise was ultimately canceled out, while faculty wages increased over inflation.
Small changes in the CPI have proportionally larger impacts for lower-wage workers. The cost of items that factor into the CPI can vary by year, but a seemingly minor change in some items can tear a budget apart. For example, a 50-cent increase in the price of gas may barely affect more affluent families, but these same changes can be crippling for a service worker with little discretionary income within their budget.
On average, faculty have gotten a 1.4% greater yearly compensation increase compared to staff in the raise pool. Cumulatively, from 2000 until last year, faculty received a 113% increase in salary, while staff have only seen a 73% bump. Subtract inflation, and faculty net a 40% increase, staff only 13%.
So, for example, a staff member making $50,000 two decades ago is now making $86,500, while a faculty member at the same starting pay would now be making $106,725.
Middlebury pays staff by length of service — the longer you work here, the greater your wage. Had staff wages not been increased to $14, staff like Tayler who had been working at Middlebury for 20 years would now be making $13.84. If they had received compensation increases at the same rate faculty did, they would instead be earning $17.04. Adjusted for inflation, $14 in 2021 is the equivalent of $9 in 2001.
So, in our pay-by-tenure system, that's only an additional five cents a year over inflation for all of their experience, commitment and dedication. But the starting wage for a new employee at Middlebury is now $14 an hour, so we aren't valuing experience and commitment at all. Imagine working your whole life at an institution and getting the same pay as someone who just walked off the street. When Middlebury raised the starting wage for lower-paid service jobs, it caused this wage compression, where a range of pay for work is now non-existent and independent of the length of service.
How can we do better?
Middlebury has proven a strong commitment to staff, seen not only by wage continuity during the Covid-19 shutdowns but by the recent staff reductions during workforce planning without resorting to layoffs. We need to build upon and strengthen this commitment, by first fixing wage compression for affected staff. Long-time workers at Middlebury deserve to be paid more than new hires and should see a one-time increase in pay under our pay-by-tenure system. This needs to be the top priority for the next fiscal year when the Budget Advisory Committee prioritizes items in the budget.
All employees of Middlebury need to commit to the "ongoing alignment of staffing and budgets to the strategic goals of the enterprise," but staff cannot do this without our faculty and administrative partners. Faculty and the administration need to decide, post-Covid, where their values lie, and reflect those values in the budget. The solution is not to reduce the number of staff positions, allowing the excess work to roll onto those who remain. Will we go back to pre-pandemic travel and entertainment spending, where catered lunches for departments are prepared by workers who leave work and head to food shelf lines? Or do we build on our current successes some departments have seen in workforce planning and together determine what sacrifices need to be made to return to our student-centric mission?
Staff also need a voice in this process and should have representation on the appropriate faculty committees, including Faculty Resources. Staff representation on the Budget Advisory Committee has been a welcome step, but it is not enough. After a recent Board of Trustee financial decision, the Middlebury AAUP chapter stated the decision was made "without any input from either Faculty Council or the Resources Committee so that also brings up serious concerns about 'faculty governance' if none of the relevant faculty bodies were consulted." The last 20 years of faculty wage increases show that staff need their own voice, without relying on faculty governance.
Lastly, let's think of the hundreds of invisible staff cooking meals, cleaning buildings, and doing countless other tasks that keep our institution running. Someone at Middlebury considerably smarter than I once told me if we were brave as an institution, we'd make our starting pay $20/hour, rather than the $14 we pay now. As Karen Miller said, Middlebury needs to become an "employer of choice for the next generation." If faculty and the administration want to achieve this distinction, they need to ensure everyone at Middlebury is fairly compensated.
*Editor’s note: “Tayler” is a pseudonym used to protect the identity of a staff member.
Tim Parsons is the college’s landscape horticulturist.
(03/04/21 11:00am)
After Middlebury took a financial hit due to the pandemic, the Board of Trustees met in the last week of January to establish a plan for financial stability.
The Board of Trustees established three main conditions the institution must fulfill to achieve financial stability: operating at a surplus by fiscal year 2022, growing the endowment and paying off half of the institution's outstanding debts.
To achieve those goals, the board increased tuition and fees by 2.5%, limited the endowment draw to 5% and instructed the administration to begin making principal payments on half of the institution's outstanding debt.
Middlebury will not make any decisions about extending or ending the wage and hiring freezes until May.
Generating a surplus
Middlebury has operated at a budgetary deficit since 2012. When the board appointed President Laurie Patton in 2016, they established the “Road to a Sustainable Future,” a plan to break even on the budget by FY21. Middlebury was on track to achieve that goal by FY21 before the pandemic arrived, but instead closed out FY20 with a $11.6 million dollar deficit due to the pandemic.
Middlebury initially projected a $18.5 million deficit for fiscal year 2021 — which stretches from July 2019 to July 2020 — but the latest projection estimates a $10.2 million deficit instead. Middlebury experienced worse-than-expected losses from the shuttered schools abroad and a lack of revenue from room and board fees for remote students. However, unexpected “federal and state support for Covid-19 related costs and lost revenues” decreased operating costs and better performances by the summer Language Schools and the Monterey Institute made a significant difference, Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration David Provost said in an email to The Campus.
Despite recent losses, the board decided to resume the effort to balance the budget in the January meeting. They instructed the institution to produce a small surplus by 2022 and operate at a surplus of at least 1% by FY23, or $2.6 million.
A major part of balancing the budget relies on the college raising tuition. Though the college’s 3.25% tuition hike for the 2020-2021 academic year was met with staunch protest from students, parents, faculty and staff, the board decided to raise tuition and fees by another 2.5% for the upcoming year. Students will pay a total of $76,820 — $59,330 in tuition, $17,050 for room and board, and a $440 student activities fee.
But tuition increases alone will not close the budgetary gap, at least as the college defines it.
The college has defined the deficit based on the total revenues, which include the annual amount drawn from the endowment. If the college kept the draw on the endowment to a consistent figure closer to the endowment’s actual rate of growth — between 6 and 7% on average — instead of limiting the draw to 5%, the college may well be operating at a surplus instead, according to Professor of Economics Peter Matthews, who serves as co-chair of the the Middlebury chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Finance Committee and as a member of its Executive Committee.
A hard cap on the endowment draw artificially limits the resources available, a decision that may force the college to make unnecessary cuts and sacrifices in the future, according to Matthews.
“It's one thing to say that the sacrifice is absolutely essential to the well-functioning of the institution,” Matthews said. “But I am at the least incredibly uncomfortable with sacrifice on the altar of some arbitrary definition of deficit and surplus.”
Limiting the endowment draw
Between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2020 — the start of FY21 and the end of calendar year 2020 — the endowment grew by more than 15.4%, a $170.21 million increase. The institution is still awaiting information on the fourth-quarter returns, but Provost estimates that growth may actually exceed 16% or even 17%, making it the largest growth in more than a decade and more than twice the rate of growth in 2019. As of Feb. 2, Provost estimated that the total value of the endowment exceeded $1.25 billion.
The annual endowment draw is calculated based on a rolling average of the endowment balance for the previous three calendar years. The 5% Middlebury will draw for FY22 will come from the mean size of the endowment over 2018, 2019 and 2020 as of Dec. 31 2020. This strategy ensures that an individual year’s spike or decrease does not cause massive fluctuations in the amount of the draw, according to Provost.
Middlebury increased the endowment draw to 7.5% in FY21 in response to the pandemic, but the board elected to limit the endowment draw to 5% for FY22 and beyond. Middlebury assumes that the endowment will grow an average of 6 or 7% annually over a 10 year period. A 5% draw would therefore allow the endowment to grow by 1 or 2% each year, according to Provost.
Financial mismanagement by the previous administration ate through the institution's unrestricted reserves — the portion of the endowment not earmarked for specific purposes or programs by either donors or the board — which currently amount to just $4.7 million. Provost said the institution has to grow the endowment so it will be prepared for the next “rainy day” after the pandemic ends.
“The endowment is a multi-generational investment tool to support multiple generations of students and programs,” Provost said in an email to The Campus. “It is not a bank account, and we cannot use it to solve the dilemma of the college living beyond its means for the last decade nor solve the short-term strains of the pandemic.”
But Matthews questions why Middlebury is trying to grow the endowment for a future rainy day while the institution is currently in the midst of a crisis.
“It's important that we preserve a Middlebury for the next generation that is at least as good as the one that you're enjoying,” Matthews said. “But it works in both directions. [Current students are] entitled to a Middlebury that is at least as good as the Middlebury that future generations are going to enjoy.”
The AAUP advocated for an annual endowment draw of at least 7% in a statement published in May of 2020. A draw of that size would keep pace with the endowment’s average yearly growth. While the endowment would not grow, it also wouldn't shrink, fulfilling what Matthews views as the extent of the institution’s duties to future generations at this current moment.
“Especially during the period of Covid, [limiting the endowment draw to] five or even 6% effectively punishes this generation [for the sake] of future generations,” Matthews said. “[Current students are] one of the generations that count when we talk about intergenerational equity.”
Repaying debt
Rather than increase the endowment draw, the Board of Trustees during their summer meeting authorized the institution to borrow up to $30 million over the next five to seven years to make up for budget shortfalls. The institution will decide on how much money they will borrow in April or May, according to Provost.
Provost estimates that the loans will have interest rates between 1.75% and 2.25%. However, the real interest rate — what the institution will actually have to pay back after adjusting for inflation, typically around 2% — may very well be negative, meaning that the institution would pay less than they originally borrowed, according to Matthews.
“If one needs to borrow in order to cover shortfalls, this is not a bad time to do so,” Matthews said.
Even as the institution is proposing taking out more loans, the board’s latest plans prioritize paying back its current $268,093,000 debt. Rather than continue to pay only interest and defer payments on the principal of the loan, Middlebury amortized half of the outstanding debt, meaning the institution will make principal payments of $5 million to $13 million annually over the next ten years.
Provost believes that continuing to refinance the loans, even given current financial hardships, would not be “fiduciarily responsible” and unfairly punish future generations.
“With interest rates so low, some would argue that we should push out debt and not pay back the debt, just keep rolling it over,” Provost said in an email to The Campus. Instead, Provost advocates for paying back debt taken on to acquire assets as they are being used. This way, future generations are not burdened with the responsibility to pay for amenities that previous generations enjoyed.
The board also authorized renovations to Warner and Voter Halls as well as Dana Auditorium in Sunderland Hall in their January meeting. Construction is set to begin this summer and is projected to cost $10.8 million. The majority of those funds come from 2010 bonds, which have to be used within 36 months of the date the institution refinanced them last year.
The decision to focus on paying back debts and continuing with large-scale infrastructure renovations directly contradicts the AAUP’s call to “prioritize people before buildings and debt retirement” in their May 2020 statement.
“It is people, not capital assets, that define the Middlebury community, and funds otherwise set aside for infrastructure or accelerated debt repayment should be diverted in a crisis,” the statement said.
Middlebury has yet to make any decisions about many of the people-oriented issues the AAUP referred to in their priorities — including lifting the hiring freeze, adjusting faculty and staff compensation and ending or extending wage continuity. Provost said such decisions will come in May, when the institution does its normal budgetary planning for the coming fiscal year.
Moving forward
The Board of Trustees’ announcement came as “a complete surprise” to faculty, according to Matthews. Not only were they not consulted or part of the decision making process at all, faculty were not even informed that these decisions were being made.
Matthews views these financial decisions as central to the values Middlebury prioritizes, values which he says the entire Middlebury community — faculty, staff and students included — should be a part of determining.
“We still need a conversation about what our common goals are and what kind of financial practices would allow us to achieve those goals that aren't unilateral and don't presuppose some assumptions about the way financial markets work that's completely untethered from reality,” Matthews said.
The AAUP will meet in March to discuss the Board of Trustees’ announcement and to develop a formal response.
(03/04/21 7:06am)
(03/04/21 7:06am)
Today, The Campus presents its first issue of the spring semester.
The stories
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Today's Front Page
(02/04/21 11:00am)
A sleepy-eyed student wakes up at 5 a.m. to start class from their home in China. The next day, another on the West Coast rises at 4:30 a.m. for class registration. This certainly isn’t the “J-term, play term” that was so often quipped by tour guides.
This year, we’re strewn across the country and the world in a relentless pandemic that continues to get the best of us. Yet many students are still finding a piece of that “play term” while others are stuck at home unable to feel the joy and community that J-term is supposed to bring.
A remote J-Term is exposing the disparities of access and of behavior when students are left to their own devices. We left a campus of shared responsibility and constant testing, entering into thousands of different communities with varying levels of both — not to mention the winter months causing Covid-19 rates to skyrocket.
With three months between our departure from campus this fall and our arrival in the spring, time and temptation have been abundant. Many students sought to spend the winter with friends, and as we hit J-Term, that temptation grew stronger. Those who wanted to replicate a normal J-Term — and had the means to do so — often did just that.
One of the hallmarks of J-Term is experiential living and learning. Our commitment to one class, often dedicated to out-of-the-box topics and new methods of teaching, is an incredible academic gift. When that’s done in a shared environment on the Middlebury campus, the experience becomes even more unique and collaborative. With only one class, free time abounds, bringing our living situations all the more to the front of mind.
This year, the disparities of location, means and behavior are quite evident — and often intertwined. Not only have the actual academic opportunities become more difficult, but those navigating living and learning at home have to see some friend groups enjoying living and learning together. Many students are showing — visibly on social media — their ability to move to warm climates or ski with friends in Vermont, Colorado or Utah. Privilege abounds and, without a shared, grounding on-campus experience, allows for some to exploit their remote J-Term while others struggle just to stay engaged.
Our remote J-Term comes down to this: responsibility. Covid-19 dealt us all a pretty terrible hand: to first years entering this fall, to seniors trying to enjoy their last year, and to everyone in between. The normal Middlebury experience is all the more desirable now that we can no longer take it for granted.
But just because we’re not at Middlebury this J-Term doesn’t mean we don’t have the same responsibility wherever we are to be extra vigilant. It is on each and every one of us to do everything we can to take care of the community we are returning to. As we prepare for another school semester, we must also prepare for a return to campus policies necessary for keeping one another safe.
As we head into the final week of our remote J-Term, we ask the student body to be cognizant of how their behavior could impact hundreds of other students and those living in the town of Middlebury. Wearing a mask, socially distancing and committing to the two-week pre-arrival quarantine are absolute musts if we want to have another successful in-person semester.
The disparities on display are representative of the pre-existing realities of Middlebury’s student body. As the start of our two-week pre-arrival quarantine is only days away, we must each hold ourselves responsible for the group accountability we need to cultivate again this spring. No matter where we are during J-Term, it’s on each of us to play our part in establishing a safe campus so that we can build on our success from the fall. With vaccines slowly but surely making their way through the country, there is an end in sight. Let’s not let our behavior set us back now.
This editorial represents the opinions of the Middlebury Campus’s editorial board.
(02/04/21 11:00am)
Today, The Campus presents its second issue of winter term.
The stories
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Today's Front Page
(02/04/21 11:00am)
After 13 seasons in the NFL, Stephen Hauschka ’07 is hanging up his boots.
The Needham, Mass. native departs the NFL with an impressive legacy, marked by a Super Bowl win with the Seahawks in 2014 and a career field goal accuracy of 85.2%. But when his achievements are put against the backdrop of his unorthodox beginnings, they become all the more impressive.
Hauschka enrolled at Middlebury in 2003 with the aspiration of playing varsity soccer, but that dream never panned out. Instead, he joined the junior varsity soccer team and played lacrosse. Football wasn’t in the picture — it had never been — but once Hauschka arrived at school, the sport surrounded him. His freshman roommate, Scott Secor, was a member of the football team, and Scott’s teammates frequented their dorm room in Battell Hall.
In 2003, the football team went 4–4, with only two field goals all season. Looking to improve, the team started thinking — and that’s when an idea sprouted.
Secor and his football teammates knew that Hauschka had a strong leg — they had seen him use it on the soccer pitch — and with deficiencies on the kicking end of the gridiron, they saw Hauschka as a possible solution. So, they alerted head coach Bob Ritter about Hauschka’s potential, and sure enough, he earned an invitation to preseason camp the following fall.
Hauschka was a hit.
“The first time I really remember him was when he came out in the fall and there were actually three other kickers [but] you knew right away that he was different,” Ritter told The Campus. “The ball just popped off his leg. You could tell right away that he had the skills and talent that the other guys didn’t.”
At first, the ex-soccer player sprayed his kicks all over the place with little accuracy. But after spending time with kicking coach Steve Wolf, who has since retired from coaching at Middlebury, he quickly improved.
“He would drive up from Rutland, and we got to work during practice every day,” Hauschka said in an interview with The Campus. “I learned so much from him and kept getting better and better.”
By opening day, on Sept. 25, 2004, Hauschka had earned a starting position.
“I think I was lucky,” Hauschka said. “My first game, I made my first field goal, which was really helpful. And back then I hadn’t really associated what it feels like to make or miss field goals — but I knew it felt good to make it.”
With such a strong leg, Hauschka was also employed as a punter, tasked with pinning teams far back in their end. Only a few weeks removed from his first football practice, Hauschka was a dual threat.
“He punted the ball inside the 20[-yard line] a ridiculous number of times,” said Ritter. “So he really did have a big impact on the game, not only in the points he scored, but also the hole he put defenses in when punting.”
Every year, Hauschka improved. He hit 10 field goals between his sophomore and junior seasons, and then hit another 10 his senior year. Those tallies lifted him to the top of the program record book in career field goals (20) and most field goals in a season (10). Those records still stand today.
Hauschka was evolving into a polished kicker, so Ritter sent some of Hauschka’s tape to the Baltimore Ravens during his senior year.
“We always felt he had the talent and leg strength to [play in the NFL],” Ritter said. “He would kick a lot of our kickoffs deep and out of the endzone, so we knew he had that leg, and we knew that pro teams also look at that.”
Still holding onto a year of NCAA eligibility since he didn’t join the team until his sophomore year, Hauschka began to consider options for a final season. While a return to Middlebury was possible, both Ritter and Hauschka knew that a bigger school would provide a sturdier stepping stone to the NFL. So Hauschka sent emails to Division I teams, targeting programs with a departing or underperforming kicker. The list included around 45–50 schools.
That’s when North Carolina State University called, offering Hauschka a spot to walk on during training camp. A storied program in the Atlantic Coast Conference, NC State competed against teams like Florida State, UMiami and Clemson. These programs performed on the highest echelon of college football and had a proven track record of producing NFL talent. It was an opportunity that Hauschka couldn’t pass up.
While the setting changed — NC State’s stadium seated over 50,000 — Hauschka's momentum didn’t dwindle. In preseason, he beat out the competition for the starting position and never looked back. That year, he went 16-of-18 for field goals and 25-for-25 on extra points, finishing as a semifinalist for the top college kicking award. It was a dream season.
“After playing at NC State, I think it was January of that year, a couple [NFL] teams started reaching out,” said Hauschka. “Then I put everything I had into it and got signed [by the Minnesota Vikings] as an undrafted free agent.”
Just like that, Stephen Hauschka, a former collegiate JV soccer player, was now signed to a professional contract in the NFL. It was a career that would span 13 seasons, including stops at eight different teams: Minnesota, Baltimore, Atlanta, Detroit, Denver, Seattle, Buffalo and Jacksonville.
Hauschka’s most successful stop was in Seattle. In his six seasons with the Seahawks, he captured six franchise records and was named an alternate for the 2016 Pro Bowl. He also played in two Super Bowls with the Seahawks, winning one in 2014 against the Broncos.
“Just seeing him reach those heights and handle it — it's really exciting to see,” Ritter said. “He just had a great mindset and he really learned how to operate his body under pressure and stay smooth, and that's really the secret to his success.”
JV-soccer-player-turned-Super Bowl winner: it’s a wild success story, punctuated by an unconventional path.
“I think the whole thing is unexpected,” Hauschka said. “I never really thought I'd even play football. I was excited just to play at Middlebury to be honest — I didn’t really know what I was doing. And then I had this great career — win a Super Bowl, lose a Super Bowl — have lots of success on a few different teams and travel all over the country. It really opened my mind to life in general. It's quite an experience being an adult playing a sport.”
Now that Hauschka has a little more time on his hands, he looks forward to planting some roots with his family. After bouncing around the league for the past 12 years, it’s a chance to focus on those relationships and enjoy some semblance of stability.
As for a return to Middlebury, Hauschka won’t rule that out. Once the pandemic calms, he says, Middlebury will be one of the first stops on the docket.
“I'm sure he’ll come back,” Ritter said. “He’s always been very true to Middlebury.”
(02/04/21 10:59am)
(02/04/21 10:59am)
(02/04/21 10:59am)
Douglass Mackey ’11, a prominent far-right Twitter troll formerly known by the pseudonym Ricky Vaughn, was arrested by federal prosecutors last Wednesday for perpetrating a meme-based disinformation campaign that tricked more than 4,900 Democrats into believing they could cast ballots for Hillary Clinton via text message in the 2016 election.
Mackey’s images, shared on Twitter and Facebook, featured the hashtags #GoHillary and #ImWithHer and read “Avoid the Line. Vote from Home. Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925.” In the months before the election, Mackey also participated in Twitter and Facebook meme campaigns aimed at convincing Democrats that they could vote by hashtag and that Clinton was promoting a “Draft our Daughters” plan to make women eligible for the draft, among others. His campaigns often specifically targeted Black and Latino voters , with many messages written in Spanish or reading “African Americans for Hillary.”
Leading up to the 2016 election, Mackey operated under the Twitter handle @Ricky_Vaughn99 and various others, through which he disseminated racist, anti-Semitic, anti-feminist and conspiratorial claims to tens of thousands of followers. An MIT Media Lab list of the top 150 influencers in the 2016 election ranked the account ahead of both NBC and CBS News, as well as political commentators Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert. Mackey operated anonymously until his identity was revealed in 2018.
Mackey grew up in Vermont and graduated from Harwood Union High School before enrolling at Middlebury, where he was an economics major. He was also a short-lived member of the Middlebury Men’s Track & Field team.
Mackey’s official charge — conspiracy to violate rights — marks the first prominent criminal case that involves voter suppression through disinformation spread on Twitter, presenting a potentially groundbreaking shift in government enforcement of election interference. He is currently released from jail on a $50,000 bond.
(02/04/21 10:57am)
Burlington High School is set to re-open on March 4 in a renovated building that was once a Macy’s department store in downtown Burlington. The refurbishment, a $10-million project expected to be completed by Feb. 22, was initiated as a solution to the discovery of toxic chemicals in the old high school complex and its consequent closure in the fall.
Burlington School District superintendent Tom Flanagan is optimistic about the project. “We are excited about learning opportunities downtown and partnerships with theaters and businesses, as well as new, rich programs that will provide deep learning,” he said.
The former Macy’s store, located on Cherry Street, has 150,000 square feet of space, providing enough room for all of the academic classrooms in addition to music spaces, a cafeteria and areas for physical education class and afterschool sports.
“The walls are up; faculty and staff are prepping for what next semester’s going to look like. Everyone’s really excited just by the opportunity to get back into a home,” said Lauren McBride, the high school’s acting principal, in an interview with VTDigger.
The renovated building is a temporary home for Burlington High School while officials evaluate the old complex and the feasibility of removing PCBs. The district has signed a three-and-a-half year lease on the former Macy’s building, costing $1.2 million per year, and looks to complete initial chemical testing at the old complex by July. In light of high costs and extreme circumstances, the state is expected to bear the cost of the temporary school’s construction.
Though the district plans to begin spring instruction with only two days of in-person learning each week, Flanagan is hopeful that a shift to a fully in-person model will be possible in the near future.
“As vaccinations increase, the secretary of education thinks we will be back closer to fully in-person by April,” Flanagan said.
The move to Macy’s was precipitated by an unexpected turn of events in September. During preparation for an upcoming $70 million renovation project, air and soil tests revealed dangerously high levels of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in the old Burlington High School building. Vermont Department of Health guidelines required the school to halt in-person learning while administrators and the school board considered how best to move forward.
According to Flanagan, there were some benefits to the sudden move online. The district had originally planned a hybrid learning model in which students only interacted with their teachers twice a week. However, once the school went fully remote, it implemented a new model that gave the students four to five days of real-time contact with their teachers on Zoom, which is more interaction than was occurring at [most] other high schools in the area.
Another silver lining Flanagan identified in transitioning online was the increase in availability of support for and information about productive remote teaching strategies now that virtual learning has become the norm in many school districts.
However, Flanagan also acknowledged the strain online learning has placed on some students. “We are most concerned about our students who need us most,” Flanagan said. “Students with special education needs, students learning English and our most vulnerable students. We want them to be back in person to help support their needs.”
(01/28/21 11:00am)
Nonproliferation, economic diplomacy and localization management are terms seldomly heard on the college’s Vermont campus.But 2,500 miles away on the coast of California, more than 600 graduate students and hundreds of faculty and staff research these very topics at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies (MIIS), an establishment as deeply institutionally intertwined with the college as its Schools Abroad or Bread Loaf School of English.In 2005, Middlebury College’s then-President Ronald Liebowitz floated the idea of affiliating the college with the Monterey Institute, as it was known at the time. The institute was a graduate school founded in 1955 with a focus on foreign languages that evolved to include programs in areas like international policy, translation studies and terrorism studies. In 2003, it was placed on probation by its accreditation institute because of a pattern of operating deficits.A 2005 Faculty Council vote about the possible acquisition of the institute overwhelmingly opposed the idea, with nearly 80% voting against acquisition. Liebowitz and the Board of Trustees pursued an affiliation anyway, at which point the college absorbed the institute’s debts and assets. Five years later — in 2010 — the college officially acquired MIIS, and by 2015, the school was renamed The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.Over the last 15 years, administrators have made extensive efforts to bring the two institutions closer together. They’ve created funds to encourage inter-campus interaction, promoted collaboration between faculty and created opportunities for undergraduates to study away at MIIS. However, relations between MIIS and the college remain disjointed, partially as a result of their separate histories but manifesting more recently in financial concerns.In April 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic intensified, Middlebury’s faculty gathered to vote on the Sense of the Faculty Motion submitted by college Professor of Mathematics Frank Swenton recommending detaching MIIS from the college. The motion was spurred by fears of impending financial challenges resulting from the pandemic. Swenton believed disconnecting the schools was the most effective immediate step in avoiding risk of cuts to salaries and services at the Vermont campus.The motion sparked renewed debate in both Vermont and California about the place of MIIS in the college’s mission. In this series, we explore the forces, people, events and decisions that led to the relationship between the schools, the sentiments that persist at both institutions and visions for the future of the relationship.Click through the parts below to read more.
(01/28/21 10:59am)
The Giving Fridge, a plant-filled storefront occupying a once-vacant spot in downtown Middlebury, offers a unique pop-up initiative that allows customers to support local restaurants, combat food insecurity and buy plants — all in one convenient location.
The project employs a simple yet effective model: it sells plants, honey and other locally made goods to raise money to buy meals from local restaurant partners. Then, the entrees, salads and desserts are offered for free to anyone in need.
Founder Bethanie Farrell kickstarted The Giving Fridge on Dec. 23 with the goal of providing 250 meals between Christmas and the new year. Now, it is on pace to supply 1,000 meals by the end of January.
The original plan was smaller in scale and was not oriented toward addressing food insecurity. When Farrell moved to Middlebury in November and noticed empty storefronts in the downtown area, she formulated Plantopia, a project that would use plants to decorate the windows of the empty spaces. Then, she read some disturbing news.
“The statistic had come out that 1 in 4 Vermonters was now experiencing food insecurity,” she said. “It made me think that there has to be a way ... to reach people who may not be already receiving assistance.”
A major goal of The Giving Fridge is to provide assistance for anyone in need during this challenging time — including those who may be slipping through the cracks of standard programs and relief funding. Farrell has noticed that many of the people who use The Giving Fridge do not fit the stereotypical image of poverty: they are volunteer firefighters, AmeriCorps volunteers, frontline workers and people working multiple jobs.
Arran Stokes, service coordinator at the John Graham Shelter in Vergennes, suspects that people may avoid seeking aid because they don’t consider themselves food insecure.
“Some people think that because there are people worse off than them, they want to make sure that those people get the food,” Stokes said. “I want to tell them: if your refrigerator is empty, this [Giving Fridge] is a good place.”
Even for those who have been relying on aid programs, many of the Covid-19-specific relief funds have been losing steam. For this reason, the launch of The Giving Fridge could not have been more timely.
One of these aid programs was Vermont Everyone Eats, which was similar to The Giving Fridge but had a wider scope and more funding from the state legislature. The John Graham Shelter was receiving aid from this program until its funding was temporarily suspended in December.
“As soon as Everyone Eats lost funding, there was this huge deluge of need. Think about everyone that was getting food from the program… it was gone,” Stokes said. “[Farrell] filled this gap. She quickly stepped up and said, ‘This is what I can do.’”
Another major goal of The Giving Fridge has been to support local restaurants and producers hit by the pandemic. Every $10 raised through sales and donations is used to buy a $10 meal from one of several partner restaurants.
In addition to the weekly meal orders that are gifted to the community, she has started selling prepared meals to those who can afford the retail price, which provides a new revenue stream for restaurants. The Giving Fridge is open on Sundays and Mondays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., a time when many local restaurants are closed.
Danielle Boyce is the owner of American Flatbread Middlebury, one of the partner restaurants of The Giving Fridge. American Flatbread has been preparing 40 meals each week for The Giving Fridge — from their signature pizzas to soups and desserts. Boyce appreciates how Farrell has managed to create a project that meets so many local needs.
“Bethanie has been great about always remembering that it’s not just about one thing. It’s about the storefront, it’s about the restaurants and, of course, it’s about feeding people,” Boyce said. “The moment she has one of them covered, she is going to the next to make sure that it stays in the narrative.”
Other restaurant partners include The Arcadian, the Middlebury Co-op, Sabai Sabai, Two Brothers Tavern and Park Squeeze. Farrell has also established partnerships with farms in the area, including Ridgeline Apiaries and Scuttleship Farm, as well as with some bakeries.
In just a month, The Giving Fridge has been able to put $8,000 back into local businesses.
Due to the nature of The Giving Fridge, Farrell faces some challenges with long-term partnerships and planning.
“A little bit [of funding] comes in every day, so generally I can plan a week out. It would be amazing if I could plan a month out,” Farrell said. “As long as donations keep coming in, The Giving Fridge will continue. Even if someone buys just one meal, it makes all the difference.”
Farrell is also only using the storefront while it is in between tenants. Her next step for the project is to find a donor or a grant that will allow her to continue to use the space for the next four to five months while pandemic restrictions remain in place.
“The way it has come together has been really organic,” Farrell said. “I’m just hoping that it will continue to grow and meet the needs of the community.”
If you would like to buy a plant, donate to The Giving Fridge or reserve a meal for yourself or another, visit www.careofvt.com and follow @TheGivingFridgeVT on Instagram.
(01/28/21 10:58am)
On Jan. 4, then President-elect Joe Biden told the nation at a campaign event in Atlanta that if Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won their elections in the Georgia runoff, $2,000 stimulus checks would “go out the door immediately.” It has been a week since Biden’s inauguration and the swearing-in of the Georgian senators, but cash relief for American families has yet to arrive.
The number of people currently experiencing unprecedented financial struggle cannot be emphasized enough: 15 million Americans have lost their health insurance, 34 million are at risk of eviction and 54 million are facing food insecurity. You may have seen these statistics already, but at an institution like Middlebury College where 76% of students come from families in the top 20% income bracket, there is a strong chance our student body needs a reminder.
I’ll give credit where it’s due: from day one, Biden has kept his promise to undo former President Donald Trump’s executive orders — a guarantee that earned him a sizable chunk of voters. Biden has followed through, from re-entering the Paris Agreement and revoking the Keystone XL pipeline permit to ending the Muslim travel ban and halting border wall construction. It’s worth noting, however, that he had little excuse not to undo them swiftly since it only requires executive orders of his own.
Passing the relief bill through Congress is a more difficult process that requires consensus and collaboration, but Biden and his “dealmaker” branding are further complicating matters to the detriment of the working class. By attempting to pass relief with 60 votes in the Senate, instead of quickly sending relief through budget reconciliation, which only requires 51 votes, Biden is virtue signaling “bipartisanship.” Meanwhile, the deadline for next month’s rent is drawing closer.
As of Monday, Biden is open to negotiating the proposed $1,400 Covid-19 stimulus checks, prioritizing compromise at the expense of people in need. His willingness to renege means that the amount could be further reduced or fewer people may qualify for cash payments in the final bill. The proposal has already been contentious because many Americans believed that Democrats were advocating for $2,000 in addition to the initial $600 — not $1,400.
The proposed $1.9 trillion relief package, more formally known as the American Rescue Plan, has some great inclusions, such as the first federal minimum wage increase since 2009 which would move the wage floor from $7.25 to $15 an hour. There are also billions of dollars allocated toward food and rental assistance, the national vaccination program, and resources that will eventually allow schools to reopen — all of which align with the promises that Biden made during his campaign.
These are commendable policies that will be immensely helpful and should be pushed through as quickly as possible, especially considering that the means to do so are in place. Nevertheless, the sense of urgency to distribute aid amongst lawmakers has weakened palpably since Election Day.
Perhaps the most disappointing area that Biden has walked back on is his guarantee to improve our current healthcare system. He initially promised a public option that would allow Americans to buy into Medicare. Despite that promise, this key platform piece has not made the cut in the healthcare section of his proposed American Rescue Plan, which opts instead for pouring subsidies into private health insurance. Under normal circumstances, this lack of follow-through would be unsurprising — considering the fact that he has received millions in donations from large health insurance companies like Anthem and Centene — but it is especially disheartening during a global health crisis.
Relief has been held up because the Biden administration is apparently at a crossroads, struggling between cooperating with Republicans and getting relief out quickly. Anyone who has been paying attention to the Republican party over the last decade is not confused by this negotiating hold-up in the slightest; they have obstructed Democrats at every opportunity and clearly do not want to work with Democrats whenever they do not have to.
If Democrats are going to help people at this critical moment where it is so desperately needed, it needs to be done with backbone and it needs to be done now.
Joel Machado is a member of the class of 2022.
(01/27/21 8:46pm)
(01/27/21 8:46pm)
