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(01/27/21 8:46pm)
In J-Term of 2017, Thor Sawin swiped his ID card to get into a Middlebury College building for the first time. Sawin, an associate professor at MIIS, was teaching a winter term course in linguistics, and had a moment of realization when he first set foot on the Vermont campus.
“I'm like, ‘Oh yeah, I'm home,’” Sawin said. “I didn't even need to do anything special. I can check out a book out of the library with the ID card that I already had. It works in both places.”
Sawin, who also serves as the current president of the Faculty Senate at MIIS, understands that faculty at the college might not know just how intertwined the two schools are. He had been previously asked by college faculty who his provost was (Jeff Cason, just like the college) and who his president was — to which he replied, of course, “Laurie Patton.”
Financial fears about MIIS and its purported drain on the college aren’t the only barriers to total cohesion between the two institutions. Some college faculty still believe that MIIS simply doesn’t offer anything to the undergraduate liberal arts experience that Middleury provides, while others suggest that a failure of communication has left college faculty in the dark about MIIS’ efforts and values. And for some, a belief that MIIS is a fundamentally independent institution colors these sentiments.
“It's just not Middlebury. It's not Middlebury College to me,” Frank Swenton told The Campus.
From an administrative perspective, that simply isn’t true.
“Monterey employees are Middlebury College employees. These folks are part of the family. They do fantastic work for the College and for Big M,” Provost said, using the term for the whole Middlebury institution, which includes the college, institute, schools abroad, Bread Loaf School of English and more. He also noted that Middlebury’s effort throughout the pandemic to provide wage continuity for employees and educational continuity for students applies unquestionably to all units, including the college and the institute.
However, for Monterey faculty and staff, a division between the institutions described by some college faculty isn’t just less visible — it’s impossible.
“Here in California, we can't help but be constantly thinking about Vermont. Everything that happens in Vermont totally affects our life.” Sawin said, noting that many decisions at MIIS can't be made "without thinking about Vermont first," but that college faculty aren't always obligated to think first of their California counterparts.
Word traveled in pieces to MIIS after Middlebury’s faculty voted 122 for and 133 against ending the college’s relationship with the institute. Even though the motion lost, a nearly-split vote was a blow to morale at the institute, according to Sawin.
“It was a depressing feeling around here,” Sawin said. The vote was especially disheartening in light of herculean efforts taken by institute faculty over the last several years to fit themselves into Middlebury by streamlining work, adjusting their jobs and cutting costs. MIIS reduced its full-time faculty from 84 to 71, 11 of them through a workforce planning process, last year, and the institute’s programs are currently well-enrolled despite an expected hit because of pandemic. However, Sawin said, the college’s faculty didn’t seem to be recognizing these painful belt-tightening measures and intense enrollment efforts.
In reflecting on the climate at Middlebury that led to the vote, Sawin noted, “Either [college faculty] don’t know what we do, and we haven’t done a good job of telling our story,” Sawin said. “Or what if they know our story and they still think that what we do is not valuable?”
Swenton’s proposition to move some current MIIS programs to the Vermont campus rather than eliminating them was met with mixed feelings. Sawin emphasized that while some faculty would be happy to do their job anywhere, many have a deep sense of pride about being Californians, and connect their academic work to the state and local environment. Sawin cited the institute’s close relationship to Silicon Valley, connections to Asia and the Pacific and research on oceans as some of the ways that the California location is integral to the work of its faculty.
“We’re glad that you like us, and we get that ending our campus doesn’t mean you want to fire us and throw us into the street,” Sawin said. “But California is a big part of what we do, and what we are.”
Swenton likens MIIS to an office of a company being moved, or employees being transferred to a different branch, and he says that expecting individuals to move for a job is “legitimate and not unexpected”.
“I don't think it's an unreasonable ask,” he added.
While moving operations to the Vermont campus may be plausible — if not academically practical — for the institute’s faculty, this strategy doesn’t present a contingency plan for staff in California, who would likely lose their jobs were the campus to be dissolved and its programs transplanted.
Swenton acknowledges that job loss would likely occur, but says that this fact does not excuse the expenditures of maintaining MIIS. In his view, Middlebury bailing out a bankrupt Monterey on accreditation probation 15 years ago has already been a service to the employees of MIIS, but the college is not obligated to maintain that employment in perpetuity. “Would I say that for sure every single person who is used is working there, every single staff member and faculty member, would be moved over? I don't know, maybe that's part of the reason for the resistance,” Swenton said.
From an administrative perspective, moving Monterey’s programs to Vermont isn’t on the table — in addition to the benefits of having a West Coast presence, David Provost says that the presence of 600 graduate students alone would be unsustainable for Addison County.
“There isn’t housing stock in Addison Country to support 600 new individuals living here,” Provost said, noting that their existence would require massive new development. “Where would we put them? Where would they learn?”
In addition to unrealistic infrastructure investments, Provost also noted that, without a doubt the closure of the Monterey campus would result in job losses for staff. He said that while he believes the college would hypothetically offer new jobs at the college to those staff first, asking those individuals to transplant from Northern California to the drastically different central Vermont would be logistically difficult for both those staff and the college and would lead to the widespread layoffs that the college has tried to avoid.
Correction: An earlier version of this piece identified the wrong number of faculty who left MIIS through the workforce planning process. It was 11, not 13.
(01/27/21 8:46pm)
Proponents of the Sense of the Faculty Motion argue that such questions around keeping or releasing MIIS are necessary due to MIIS’ seemingly precarious financial situation. The motion references a staggering $100 million loss on the institute and suggests that cuts at the college were taken to subsidize expenses at MIIS. Further investigation into institute and college finances presents a more complicated budgetary situation.
In 2005, when Middlebury and MIIS, then known as the Monterey Institute, began their affiliation, the college injected $7.4 million into MIIS for general improvements. In 2010, the college acquired the institute’s assets, which were valued at around $40–50 million at the time.
Annual Middlebury College financial statements for the last 15 years are publically accessible through the College’s website. MIIS’ individualized financial statements are only available for the fiscal years of 2007, 2008 and 2009. The institute was profitable for all three years, and in 2008 held $24.7 million in long-term debt and $54.6 million in assets. In 2008, the college took on a total of $22.8 million of debt from MIIS.
In 2009, the college operated at a loss before bouncing back to profitability in 2010. For the next few years, the college operated at a budget surplus. In 2014, the college began operating at a loss. The college’s Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration David Provost attributes this downturn to stagnant tuition prices, not MIIS.
“My assessment is that [deciding to cap tuition increases at 1%] was fine, but there was no effort to control expenses going up at the same rate, and we saw expenses going up from 2013 to 2016 at the rate of five to seven percent,” Provost said in an interview with The Campus. Patrick J. Norton, the college’s Vice President for the Finance and Treasurer’s Office from 2008 to 2016, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Regarding claims about the size of MIIS’ role in the financial struggles of the last decade, Provost stated that from 2012 to 2020, the institute’s annual operating deficits only ranged from $2 million to $5 million while the college’s annual deficit ranged from $10 million to $22 million. “Strictly from a percentage standpoint…Monterey is contributing to about 20% of the financial struggle,” Provost clarified.
In 2020, both the college and the institute were expected to break even on their budgets. While neither school did due to the pandemic, the institute is expected to break even in fiscal year 2021.
In the motion, Swenton suggested that due to MIIS’ annual losses of $5–7 million as well as its $30 million of debt from 2005, the institute has accounted for “somewhere from seventy million to over one hundred million dollars” of debt service. Provost estimates that when accounting for MIIS’ earlier budget surpluses, that number is closer to $30 million. The $100 million number is a particularly popular, albeit incorrect, figure amongst those advocating for MIIS’ dissolvement, with multiple sources citing such a large deficit as their reason for supporting the motion.
Many proponents of the motion point to the higher cost of living in California as a needless drain on college resources. At Middlebury College, the lowest hourly rate for staff in 2020 (the most recent year published) was $11.00/hr, Vermont’s minimum wage is now $11.75/hr. In 2019 (the most recent year published), the lowest hourly rate at MIIS was $12.00/hr; California’s minimum wage is now $14.00/hr.
Opponents of the motion don’t dispute the operating losses of MIIS, but they do refute what they see as an “us or them” mentality and a lack of attention to student experience.
“One thing that I really worry about when we have discussions like this is that I feel like they should be based more on student priorities versus who earns what,” said Jessica Teets, an associate professor of political science at the college.
Others have a more pragmatic stance.
“In defending MIIS, one of my colleagues said, ‘We’re a nonprofit — we’re not supposed to make money,’ which is true, but not relevant.” Bremser told The Campus. “For fifteen years, the college part of this nonprofit has been shifting resources to the Monterey branch, to make up for the fact that MIIS still can’t sustain itself.”
(01/24/21 1:41am)
Although two-thirds of students said they did not regret their Fall 2020 enrollment decision, 76% of students said their mental health was worse during the fall semester than during a typical semester and nearly two in three students broke Covid-19 health protocols, according to a Campus survey. Other major findings include:
More than a third of students — 38% — said the semester exceeded expectations, while almost 40% said that it was worse than expected.
Almost half of students said that they disapproved of the administration’s handling of the fall semester.
A vast majority of students, 75%, said they felt stressed about their relationships this semester.
Students emphasized increasing social opportunities for students, promoting inclusivity and providing greater clarity on Covid-19 safety rules when suggesting improvements for the spring.
At the end of the survey, we also offered students the opportunity to anonymously share their ideas on how to make the spring 2021 semester better and provide any additional anecdotes from the semester. We have included some of these anonymous responses throughout this article and compiled specific student suggestions for improving the spring semester.
Academics
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The data reveal a striking lack of consensus regarding how the fall semester went: while 38% of students said the semester exceeded their expectations, nearly 40% of students said the semester was worse than they expected. About a quarter of students said the semester was about the same as they expected.
In the anecdotal responses, many students wished for more in-person classes. “Middlebury should prioritize its primary duty, which is to educate its students to the best of its abilities by making every possible effort to make classes in-person,” wrote one student.
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Satisfaction with the fall semester also varied by class year. While one in three members of the classes of 2021 or 2021.5 said the semester was worse than they expected, one half of respondents from the classes of 2023 or 2023.5 said the semester fell below expectations.
The vast majority of respondents, 87.5%, said they took four courses during the fall semester. A third of students indicated that two of their courses had in-person components, while 17% of students said they had zero classes with in-person components. The average student had in-person components in roughly half — 45% — of their courses.
Approval of college entities
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Of the six different entities we asked students to evaluate, Middlebury faculty enjoyed by far the highest approval rating. Still, in their anecdotal responses, students said they hoped that faculty would be more “lenient,” “understanding” and “flexible” during the spring semester. Some students wished faculty would go one step further and lighten students’ workloads.
“It seems like professors are concerned that reducing workloads means that we're learning less and not getting enough for our money,” one respondent wrote. “But the stress and depression of this fall made it so hard to learn that covering less material would be beneficial and we would actually learn more.”
Almost half of students, or 47%, disapproved of the administration, while a quarter approved of it. Some students said they thought Covid-19 policies were unrealistic or unclearly communicated in their anecdotal responses. “I hope that there can be more dialogue between students and administrators to understand how to better create rules that students will actually follow and feel safe,” one wrote.
Fall satisfaction and spring intentions
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Overall, two in three students said they did not regret their enrollment decision. One-tenth of respondents said they regretted their decision, and a quarter of students said they regretted the decision “somewhat.”
“I am not returning Middlebury in the Spring as they never fulfilled most of the things they told us they would throughout the semester,” one student wrote.
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If students’ intended spring plans are an indication of enrollment rates for the spring semester, Middlebury may see fewer students on campus this spring. 68% of students who said they intend to enroll as an on-campus student in the spring, compared to the 87% of respondents who identified as on-campus learners in the fall.
Compared to the 3.5% of students who took the semester off in the fall, 10% of respondents said they would not enroll or take the semester off.
One senior student said they were part of a group of friends leaving campus in the spring as a result of the strict rules. “It’s not how I wanted to spend my senior spring but we can’t deal with the rules on campus and just want to be able to be together for our last few months,” the student wrote.
An additional 9% of students were unsure of their spring plans. The number of remote students and the number of students living off-campus but taking classes on-campus is projected to remain the same for the spring at about 7% and under 3% respectively.
Covid-19 policies, rules, and guidelines
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Almost two in every three respondents — 64% — indicated that they broke Covid-19 safety rules this semester. A third of respondents said they exceeded room or suite capacity during the semester and a fourth of students reported having more than four close contacts. More than one in every ten — 13% — of students said they participated in a party or gathering with more than 10 people.
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One respondent said they were with as many as 30 other people in a house or suite without masks “every weekend.” The respondent added, “The rules were too strict. If I had followed them I would have become depressed.”
Some respondents believed that Covid-19 policies were enforced unevenly. “The inconsistency in punishment for breaking the Covid rules was absolutely unreal,” one respondent wrote. “Do not create a rule if it will not and cannot be enforced consistently.”
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Students greatly differed in their understanding of Middlebury’s Covid-19 policies. Nearly half of students said they felt confused by guidelines, compared to the 43% that said they were clear. “I worried pretty constantly that I would get reported for something that was me misunderstanding the rules and be kicked off campus,” one student responded.
Mental Health
The survey finds a striking decline in student mental health during the fall semester.
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Three-fourths of students said their mental health was worse than it has been during a typical semester. The three factors most likely to affect student mental health this semester were stress about an uncertain future amid the pandemic, stress about academic work and anxiety over friendships or “fear of missing out,” according to survey results.
“The one thing that was amazing was my professors, but it is hard to motivate oneself to do work when you feel miserable all the time,” one student wrote.
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Two-thirds of students reported feeling greater social isolation than in a normal semester, and almost a third of respondents experienced significant changes in their diet which led to either weight loss or gain. Nearly one in 10 students experienced intrusive thoughts of suicide which worsened during the semester.
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Three-fourths of students felt stressed about their relationships. Some students expressed that the Covid-19 restrictions implemented by the college were successful in limiting cases of virus, but did so at the expense of students’ mental health. One student put it succinctly: “Mental health is just as important as physical health.” Others said they experienced mental strain due to the inability to socialize with friends or the fear of being punished for breaking Covid-19 rules.
General Demographics
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This survey was sent to about 2,500 Middlebury students studying both remotely and on campus, and 549 — slightly less than quarter — responded. Eighty-seven percent of respondents were on-campus students this past fall, 2.3% of respondents lived off-campus but took classes on campus and 6.9% of respondents were remote students.
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Respondents were fairly evenly distributed by class year, with a slight majority of respondents coming from the classes of 2022 and 2022.5 at 28.2%.
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Three-quarters of respondents identified as white, 8.4% as Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander, 6% as of Latino or Hispanic Origin, 6% as biracial or multiracial, and 1.6% as Black or African American. Thirty-one or 5.6% of respondents identified as international students.
Slightly more than one-third of respondents said they receive financial aid.
Ideas from Student Responses for an improved Spring 2021 semester
Social Life
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80% of students said that they thought spaces for hanging out or socializing were inadequate. 75% of students said they thought there was inadequate space for hosting events.
In the anecdotal responses, students repeatedly said they hoped for more in-person social opportunities in the spring, either facilitated by the college or through extracurricular activities, and improved access to spaces for socializing. One respondent wanted “more opportunities for virtual students to stay connected to campus events with students in person.”
Other student ideas included having heaters for tents, changing policies so that it is easier to register events and providing “funding for students to figure out how to make their own fun.”
Several students said they would be willing to sacrifice off-campus privileges in order to make on-campus rules less strict.
Inclusivity
Some anecdotal responses mentioned the ways in which rules and policies create different playing fields for different students.
“This semester exasperated the divide between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' because the students who had access to a car to drive places in Addison County tended to have a better experience overall than those who didn't,” wrote the student, adding that they wished the college provided a “rent-a-car” service for students.
“Promote inclusivity,” wrote another student. “White students spend time with white students and are intimidating to students of color. There is an apparent divide.”
Other students felt that they had to exclude friends from social gatherings due to capacity limits. One student felt particularly strongly about Covid-19 policies capping the number of people in a room: “Rules [related to Covid-19] essentially required us to ruin our friendships.”
One student said that they hoped students would be allowed to rank their preferred dining hall. “Some dining halls have a reputation of being predominantly white spaces, whereas other dining halls have a perception of being more inclusive to BIPOC students,” the student wrote.
Creation and Communication of Covid-19 Policies
Some students hoped for student input regarding Covid-19 policies. One respondent recommended that new rules should first be run by Residential Life.
Several students perceived the college’s Covid-19 guidelines to be vague and worried that they would accidentally break a rule. “I wish that it was more clear what people [were] disciplined for,” wrote a student. Another student hoped for “more concise guidelines from fewer sources.”
Editor’s Note: Survey questions pertaining to mental health were designed in conjunction with the Student Government Association Health and Wellness Committee.
(12/03/20 11:00am)
High-risk Vermonters could receive a Covid-19 vaccination as soon as early December, State Commissioner of Health Mark Levine announced last week. Multiple pharmaceutical companies have applied for emergency approval from the FDA, accelerating the usual regulatory process.
Drug company Pfizer’s vaccine is scheduled to be reviewed by the FDA on Dec. 10, after which a potential rollout could be nearly instantaneous. Levine has said that Vermont could receive about 20,000 doses of an approved vaccine in the first wave.
The federal government plans to allocate the vaccine on a prorated basis, based on population size. Vermont, with just over 620,000 inhabitants, is the second-least-populated state.
Chris Finley, director of Vermont’s immunization program in the Department of Health, stressed the safety and integrity of the trial process despite the shorter timeline. Pfizer’s vaccine, reportedly 95% effective, was tested among 44,000 people.
“Although vaccine development has been fast, the steps to ensure safety have not been skipped,” Finley told The Campus. “I strongly encourage everyone to get the vaccine when available.”
High levels of vaccination would be necessary to reach herd or community immunity, which officials say is necessary to combat the virus.
Only a small number of Vermonters are expected to be vaccinated before the end of the year. “Due to limited amounts, initially the vaccine will only be made available to those at highest risk,” said Finley.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended Tuesday that healthcare workers as well as nursing home employees and residents be the first vaccinated. By Friday, Dec. 4, states must inform the federal government of their prioritized populations in preparation for vaccine delivery.
State health officials are uncertain when most college students will be able to be vaccinated, although Finley estimates it won’t be until “the middle to the end” of Spring 2021.
“Social distancing efforts will be key to containing Covid-19 on college campuses in the next semester,” said Finley.
In the fall 2020 semester, Middlebury had five positive student cases of Covid-19. The University of Vermont had 102 positive student cases, including those living off campus.
As pandemic fatigue rises and cases surge across the country, many are hopeful for the prospect of a vaccine in the near future.
“I have an immunocompromised family member, so a Covid-19 vaccine would definitely put my family more at ease,” said Victoria Andrews ’23.
“I don’t think it would necessarily change any precautions we would take in the near future, but it would definitely take away some of the stress of contracting Covid,” she added.
Andrews acknowledged the longer timeline for college-aged individuals, explaining that she expects little change in the immediate future for peers. “Spread could [still] occur at colleges because large numbers of unvaccinated students could be living and interacting with each other.”
Experts like Chris Finley stress sustained precautions even with a vaccine on the horizon. “If you’re in a group where vaccines may not be available to you for three to four months, stay the course with social distancing and masking.”
Andrews remains optimistic. “In the distant future, I hope the vaccine will allow many of the current guidelines to be relaxed and for the return of some sense of normalcy,” she said.
(12/03/20 10:57am)
Addison County could see a population decline of up to 7% as well as a stagnating economy over the next decade, according to World Data Lab projections. These declines can be attributed to gaps in housing, childcare services and employment opportunities, according to state representative Robin Scheu (D-Middlebury) and Professor of Economics Paul Sommers.
Scheu believes that housing is a primary contributing factor. Rep. Scheu moved to the county 28 years ago with her family and has been in Middlebury ever since. “Starter homes for starter jobs are many of the homes we need,” Scheu said, and starter homes are hard to find in Addison County.
Scheu spent nine years as Executive Director of the Addison County Economic Development Corporation before representing Addison County in the Vermont General Assembly. During her time with the corporation, she found that people were able to find work in Addison County but unable to find homes.
“They ended up not taking the job that they were offered because they couldn’t find a place to live that met their needs for their family,” Scheu said.
Median house prices have been rising in Addison County and are among the most expensive in Vermont, which could indicate that it may be difficult to find starter homes. However, such a significant decline in population is unlikely to be caused by housing alone.
Scheu also points to a lack of childcare in Addison County as a possible reason for population decline. Addison County is projected to see a decline in families in the next 10 years, with forecasts suggesting that adults aged 30–65 is the demographic that will see the largest population decline.
“As a working family, you don’t only want to have [quality] education … childcare is a really big thing,” Scheu said.
Other economic trends could also play a role in demographic shifts. Professor of Economics Paul Sommers associated the decline in the workforce demographic to decreased employment opportunities in Addison County. The workforce is projected to decline from 64% of the population in Addison County to 58% by 2030.
Per capita spending in Addison County is also projected to fall behind the state’s in the next decade, although it had tracked the state’s closely before the pandemic. After a slight recovery in 2021, Addison County’s spending power will remain around 4.5% lower than it was in 2019, while Vermont spending power is expected to be around 2% higher than 2019 levels. But the news isn’t all bleak. In fact, the pandemic has resulted in a wave of immigration into Vermont, according to University of Vermont researchers. A third of survey respondents — many of whose jobs have been moved online — also said that they plan to stay in the state after the pandemic. In catalyzing a shift to remote work, the pandemic may have also created new opportunities for a state grappling with its issue of population decline.
(11/19/20 10:59am)
The college has completed over 11,200 Covid-19 tests — more than 9,500 student tests and 1,700 employee tests — over the course of the semester.
The number of tests completed each week has fluctuated, sometimes exceeding and sometimes falling short of the goal of 750 weekly tests, according to Middlebury’s Covid-19 Reporting Dashboard.
The inconsistency resulted from differently-sized groups being identified for testing through the college’s Targeted Dynamic Testing program. The fluctuations also resulted from varying numbers of students reporting possible Covid-19 symptoms each week and the number of retests performed due to insufficient samples taken previously, Director of Media Relations Sarah Ray said in an email to the Campus.
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All students were tested twice during move-in and were tested again either in late September or early October. Faculty and staff working on campus were also tested throughout the fall semester.
The total cost of testing this year could reach $750,000, according to Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration David Provost. Each test costs $25, bringing the total cost of 750 tests per week to $18,750, not including transportation or personnel costs, Provost said in an email to The Campus.
Testing costs for the semester — a contributor to the college’s anticipated deficit — were a reason for raising tuition by 3% this year, according to an Aug. 6 email from college administrators to students.
On Nov. 5, the Vermont State Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee approved $3.2 million in reimbursements from the CARES Act to independent colleges for the cost of Covid-19 testing through Dec. 31, 2020.
Other colleges implemented more rigorous testing schedules during the fall semester: UVM has tested all students every seven days and Colby, a smaller college in a similarly rural location, has tested all students, faculty, and staff twice every week.
According to an analysis of their respective schools’ testing plans, Middlebury is the only school in the NESCAC to use a targeted sampling program for its testing. All other NESCAC institutions, many located in similarly rural areas, have tested all students twice weekly, with the exception of Williams College (once weekly) and Amherst College (three times weekly).
The Middlebury Return to Campus Guide outlines the college’s testing procedures, including reasons why an individual might be tested outside of regular testing. The college tests individuals studying or working on campus who display symptoms that could be associated with Covid-19, as well as those who are identified as close contacts of people who have tested positive for Covid-19.
All other tests are conducted as part of the college’s Targeted Dynamic Testing, with groups distinguished as “peripheral contacts” or “positional contacts.”
Peripheral contacts are those who may have come into contact with someone who tested positive for Covid-19 but who had limited exposure with the infected person and was not identified as a close contact by the Vermont Department of Health.
Positional contact is how most students and employees at the college are grouped, with different levels depending on the kinds of in-person activities performed. High-risk employees are in testing category 1, most in-person students are in category 2, most faculty and staff are in category 3, and students not taking in-person classes or living on campus and faculty or staff working remotely are in category 4.
During the last week of in-person classes, Middlebury offered optional departure testing as students prepared to leave campus and cases around the state of Vermont spiked. On Tuesday, the college reported that two students tested positive for Covid-19. One, one additional case was reported on Wednesday bringing the total of active cases on campus to three.
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Charlie Keohane '24 (COURTESY PHOTO)
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The journey from Central America across the southern border of the United States is a frequently traveled path, but its dangers are enormous, and migrants die every year attempting to cross the frontier. Middlebury’s “Hostile Terrain 94” project is a video compilation of members of the community paying tribute to those who have died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in southern Arizona.
The video is part of the “Hostile Terrain 94” project, directed by Jason De León, a professor of anthropology at UCLA. De León serves as the director of the Undocumented Migration Project, which visually catalogues migrant deaths that occurred as a result of the the U.S.’s 1994 Prevention Through Deterrence policy. The policy took advantage of the strategically increased border patrol presence in urban areas along the southern border, redirecting migration routes through the Sonoran Desert in Arizona to let the harsh environment and hostile terrain do the work of border patrol agents in deterring and preventing migrants from crossing.
The 18-minute video features members of the Middlebury community reading the name, age, reporting date and cause of death of migrants who perished while attempting to cross the border. While most people showed their face, some remained anonymous and spoke with a black screen.
The majority of the deaths are due to “exposure to the elements.” Throughout the video, text ran across the bottom of the screen reading: “As a result of the U.S. border enforcement strategy — Prevention Through Deterrence — at least 3,200 migrants have died while attempting to cross the harsh terrain of the Sonoran Desert of Arizona.”
“I think a lot of Americans just aren’t aware of the involvement that the U.S. has in perpetrating violence against migrants,” Stephanie Soriano-Cruz ’21, one of the students who helped organize the video, said. “The U.S has just distanced itself or deflected blame and placed it on the migrants themselves as if they’re responsible for their own deaths.”
Soriano-Cruz said that she wanted to raise awareness about the violent nature of the U.S.’s strategies in deterring migration.
The idea for the video was conceived when Rachel Joo, an associate professor of American Studies, taught De León’s book “The Land of Open Graves” in her course titled Immigrant America.
“It’s really a book that breaks all sorts of boundaries in terms of disciplines and incorporation of photography and art and academic tests,” Soriano-Cruz said. “It’s an incredibly powerful book about death on the US Mexico border, death of migrants, and who is to blame and what factors contribute to deaths.”
Many of her students were moved by the book and wanted to bring De León to campus to speak. Their wish came true in the fall of 2019 when he came to Middlebury, led several events and invited the school to join his project.
“Jason De León was interested in making it a very visible statement that would contribute to the discourse around immigration up to the election,” Joo said. “He wanted immigration to be a bigger issue than it has been in this last year. It’s been mostly about the pandemic, and obviously that affects everyone, but a lot of the issues around immigration, like these 545 children who’ve been taken from their parents whose parents can’t be located, that was just a blip.”
In October, a report revealed that the parents of more than 500 children separated from their families at the border could not be found.
In a world without Covid-19, the “Hostile Terrain 94” is a traveling visual exhibit. Participants receive a name of a migrant who died, fill out a toe tag similar to those that identify the bodies found in the Sonoran Desert and pin it to the location where their body was found on a large map.
“It becomes this 3D artwork. It really gives you an understanding of the lives that are lost,” said Trinh Tran, assistant professor in anthropology and education studies. “Because it’s individuals who are getting the names of individual migrants and writing it down, I think it starts to sink in, the scale and the enormity of the loss.”
Joo assembled a group of students including Alondra Carmona ’21, Christine Nabung ’22, Ariana Rios ’21, Soriano-Cruz ’21, and Tran. Tran has taken over the project this year while Joo is on sabbatical. Around 180 institutions, including schools, museums and libraries, are participating in the project. Although some places decided to create a Covid-19-safe way to create the toe tag exhibit, Middlebury decided to delay the hands-on component and create a video in the interim.
“I think during this time of Covid, when our freedom of movement is so limited, this project is really important because maybe now more than ever we can understand why the right to movement is so important, and how some people don’t enjoy those rights that we have,” Tran said. “Not only do they not enjoy those rights, but they will pay literally the highest price, which is their lives, in order to get that right to mobility.”
On Oct. 15, the Dean of Students sent an email to Middlebury students detailing the project. It informed members of the community that they could email Hostile Terrain in order to receive a name and record a clip for the larger video. Tran has access to the Undocumented Migration Project’s database of names and assigned them to individuals who reached out. On Oct. 28, the group, which is affiliated with Juntos, screened the video at Crossroads Cafe from 12-4 p.m.
“There's that Middlebury bubble we talk about a lot where it’s easy for us to just stay on campus and not really think about what’s going on in the community, but this impacts students on this campus and folks in the community directly, and we just don’t think about those things,” Rios said.
As a first-generation Mexican-American, this project is personal for Rios. Her father, who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in the 90s, was very excited about Middlebury’s involvement and submitted a video to the larger project.
“He was lucky and he was able to make it across, but there are thousands of people who don’t,” she said.
“The purpose of this project is to give names to the people who have crossed over. A lot of the time we don’t get to see and hear these names or these people who have lost their lives,” said Carmona, one of the other student organizers.
The team hopes to show the video again in the future, possibly projected on Mead Chapel, and make the video accessible on the internet.
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Dave Chappelle’s recent special “8:46” built directly upon the surge of Black Lives Matter movements across the country this summer. COURTESY PHOTO
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The cost of room and board, totaling $16,630 for the 2020-2021 school year, will remain unchanged and will not include any refunds, despite a shorter on-campus semester and remote J-Term.
Associate Vice President for Student Financial Services Kim Downs-Burns said that this price maintenance is because student enrollment in J-Term has never incurred any additional costs in tuition or room and board and because students will be on campus for a similar amount of time as previous fall and spring semesters.
Although on-campus semesters are shortened, students will be on campus for roughly the same number of days because the 2020–2021 Academic Year has fewer breaks and earlier arrival times to account for on-campus quarantine.
Fall students who arrived on Aug. 28 will have been on campus for 86 days. In fall of 2019, students were on campus approximately 90 days, varying slightly if they stayed on campus for breaks. Similarly, students will be on campus for about 14 weeks this spring, depending on the length of breaks; in the spring of 2020, students would have been on campus for 14 weeks if the semester had gone as planned.
When campus closed during the initial Covid-19 outbreak in March 2020, students received a prorated refund for room and board ranging from $1,000 to $4,380, depending on a student’s family contribution to the cost of attendance.
Downs-Burns also explained that although students often assume costs are built into the fall semester because Febs start in the spring, that this is not the case. “J-Term is covered by endowment earnings and other sources [outside tuition],” Downs-Burns said.
Every year during J-term, a sizable portion of the student population is off campus exploring internships or other opportunities, as students are only required to be on campus for two out of four J-terms.
This policy is consistent with other NESCAC schools. Amherst College will have a remote January Term — its version of J-term — at no additional cost to students enrolled in the fall or spring.
The Student Financial Services Office (SFS) has made changes to their policies to relieve some financial burden incurred by Covid-19. Kim-Burns explains that her office has approved 150 requests for reconsideration of financial aid based on reduction to family income or increased medical expenses.
“Total additional funding spent since July is approximately $1.1 million,” Kim-Burns said. Instead of looking at 2018 tax returns to assess aid like they usually would, SFS will look at 2020 projected income to accommodate changes. This policy will continue into the spring. “If a family has experienced a drop in income, we want to know about that,” Kim-Burns said.
She recommends students first reach out to their Dean of Residential Life and then email sfs@middlebury.edu to get help with financial aid. “We are meeting full financial need for the full four years; we need to be here at every moment for students,” Kim-Burns said.
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With the Nov. 21 move out date just around the corner, all students but those approved to remain on campus are getting ready to pack up and leave campus.
Whether you are planning to take the spring semester off, return to campus or are still undecided, The Campus has compiled a move-out guide outlining the protocols for departure this week.
Remote or gap semester students
Students who do not plan to return in the spring must fully move out of their residential space, meaning they must pack up everything in their room, suite or house and take it with them. Any students who are in need of packing supplies can find them near the Mail Center, in the Ridgeline Suites building, in Forest West and all dining halls.
Students returning for spring
Students living in singles — including those located in suites — who plan to remain in the same room in the spring may leave all their belongings in their rooms.
Students living in doubles who plan to return in the spring must move their belongings off the floor and onto one side of the room — either onto their bed or desk — and away from all heaters, windows and exits. Each roommate should label their bed, desk and side of the room with their name, ID number, residence hall, room number and phone number to better organize and keep track of each student’s items. Any belongings, including larger items, in shared common spaces should also be labeled.
Changing rooms
If students are changing rooms for the spring semester, they should move their belongings to their new room. If this is not possible, students should fully pack and label all of their belongings and leave them in their current rooms.
Students unsure of their plans
Holly Ange, Battell and Allen residence director, said students who are unsure of their spring plans should pack and move out, since residential life is not yet sure how they will handle belongings that are left behind.
“For students who think there’s any chance they might decide later on to go remote for spring, I recommend that they take as many of their belongings home with them, as they can to ensure that they’re able to access what they would need if they don’t return,” Ange said.
General Move-Out Protocol
Every student who is moving out must clean their room or suite before leaving, including disposing of all trash, recycling and compost. Vacuums and other cleaning supplies are available in each building’s designated areas.
Additionally, all students must lock and shut their windows, pull down their shades, unplug all unused or nonessential small appliances and remove all their personal items from bathrooms. Students should set their room thermostat to the middle setting (any thermostats that range from “snowflake” to 8 must be set to 4), to prevent pipes from freezing. Students should bring all plants and pets with them.
Students must also follow any additional building-specific closing or checkout procedures communicated by their Residential Director, including filling out closing tags left on residents doors by signing with the date and time they are leaving and checking the boxes indicating that they have followed all moving-out measures.
Off-campus students
The college recommends that off-campus students follow many of the same procedures as those who are on-campus, including taking out all trash, washing dishes, moving trash cans, bikes and furniture inside, as well as locking all doors and windows.
Pick-up and departure logistics
All students will need to leave by 8 p.m. on Nov. 21, unless they have received direct permission from the school to remain longer. At that time ID card access to residence halls will be deactivated. Students may have a maximum of two guests pick them up from campus. These guests cannot enter residence halls, must stay with their cars and are required to follow Vermont Covid-19 guidelines, including wearing a face covering.
Vermont guidelines also stipulate that visitors must quarantine at home for two weeks before entering the state. Parents picking up their college students are exempted as long as they make no contact with anyone in the state. If a day trip is not possible, they may stay overnight in the state only if they quarantine at their hotel.
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Election Day dawned bright and cold last Tuesday as voters made their way through the snow to the polls at the Town of Middlebury Parks and Recreation Department. Although there was a record increase in mail-in ballots in Vermont this year due to the pandemic, many voters still cast their vote in person. In Middlebury, total voter turnout hit an all-time high of 4,368 votes, surpassing the previous record set in 2016 by more than 600 ballots.
“We were going to vote by mail or use the drop box, but when President Trump’s tactic appeared to be one of voter suppression rather than reaching out to all Americans, we were adamant that we would come today,” freelance writer Gaen Murphee said.
Beyond these concerns, some voters chose to brave the cold for other reasons. Nicky Johnson ’22 said that she wanted to have the experience of voting in person. Similarly, Emily Vivanco ’23 expressed that voting in person brings greater satisfaction. Although many voters said that they considered voting absentee, they were confident in the safety precautions at the polls on Tuesday.
“People are a lot more fired up [compared to the 2016 elections],” Sophie Clark ’21 said. “This year, people are taking [the election] really seriously and are excited to get out and vote — and get their friends to vote.”
Despite the enthusiasm about being able to vote, several individuals expressed some disappointment about the limited options on the ballot.
“I just don’t like the two-party system,” first-time voter Aidan Mattingly ’22 said. Mattingly mentioned that he originally considered voting third party. Expressing a similar sentiment, Roodharvens Joseph ’22 said that he wished that there was someone else on the ballot to support. “But, it’s about unity now,” Joseph said.
Voters described a wide range of issues that impacted the choices that they made this year. Murphee cited justice, the rule of law and the continuation of U.S. democracy. Middlebury resident Chelsey Lattrell said that change was necessary, mentioning human rights as her main concern. “I don’t want to vote for anybody that’s not denouncing racism,” Joseph said.
Several voters mentioned the response to the pandemic, including Clark, who also enumerated issues including women’s rights and racial inequality. “It’s just so embarrassing the way that America has handled [the pandemic],” she said. Vivanco echoed Clark’s sentiments. “The pandemic really drives home the urgency of a new government,” she said.
That urgency was palpable on Tuesday morning as bundled-up voters exited the polls with “I Voted” stickers and the knowledge that they were a part of democracy in action.
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Students and community members gathered on the Town Green, holding signs and listening attentively to speakers, united by one central message: every vote that was cast must be counted.
Middlebury students joined local residents and community members on Nov. 4 at the Protect the Vote Rally, carrying hand-painted banners that read “Every Vote Counts” and “Our Voices Count.” Roughly 200 participants gathered for one of several Protect the Results rallies around the country advocating for upholding the results of the presidential election.
The event was the brainchild of local residents Fran Putnam and Bethany Barry, who began planning it about seven weeks ago. The two friends have organized together in the past and, as Putnam put it, “go all the way back to the Women’s March in 2017.” Putnam was inspired by a personal message from activist George Lakey, who encouraged local action to prevent a compromised election. Following Lakey’s suggestion, Putnam and Barry formed an affinity group composed of around 20 people, including both community members and Middlebury students.
Putnam, who frequents college Sunday Night Environmental Group (SNEG) meetings, reached out to students and assembled a group of student organizers for the event. This included Divya Gudur ’21, who relayed information about safety and Covid-19 protocol to student participants gathered on McCullough lawn on Nov. 4 prior to proceeding into town.
With Covid-19 cases on the rise, the organizers required that all attendees wear face masks and maintain physical distance. They also discouraged chanting and asked students to walk from campus to the green in groups of ten or fewer.
College employees served as traffic monitors, ensuring students made it safely to the Town Green on Wednesday afternoon.
“We were hoping we wouldn’t even have to do this today,” Putnam said, in an interview with The Campus. “We were hoping that our president wouldn’t announce that he had won an election when all the votes hadn’t been counted.”
Putnam and other organizers stressed that the event was non-partisan in nature. Local artist Sarah Ashe, who worked with Barry and Leicester resident Kate Williams to create some of the signs for the rally, said they had tried to keep the messaging on the signs neutral. Ashe and Williams hoped to emphasize the universal importance of counting every vote.
“It really is not a partisan issue. It’s a democracy issue,” Williams said.
The rally included speeches from Shoreham resident and activist Beatrice Parwatiker, local tenth-grader Vivian Ross and Keith Chatinover ’22.5.
Parwatiker opened her speech with praise for the late Congressman John Lewis, who she described as “a great ambassador of voting.” She then recounted the struggle for suffrage in the U.S. and the challenges faced by those who sought it.
“The vote is sacred because it has been given to me by the blood of my past relatives,” she said.
Ross delivered a message that attested to the fears she and other young people are facing, warning of potential disenfranchisement.
“People complain about how young people don’t vote, but imagine what the next election will look like if people my age have been shown that our votes will not be counted, that our thoughts are not wanted, that the majority of the people who live in this country are not the ones who shape it,” she said.
As the wait for election results drew on, subsequent Nov. 5 and 6 rallies attracted a smaller, though no less determined crowd of 20 to 25 community members. They stood on the side of the Town Green facing North Pleasant Street. Many of those who stayed for all three days were no strangers to activism, and, for some, civil disobedience had shaped the trajectory of their family history.
Tom Nicholson and Mimi Love-Nicholson, longtime residents of Middlebury, stood with their handmade signs at the end of the line of protestors on Nov. 6. Nicholson has been heavily involved in civil disobedience throughout his life. In addition to protesting, he refused the Vietnam War draft and served a 16-month prison sentence.
Though he noted that the vote count appeared to be going smoothly, Nicholson is prepared to keep protesting if Trump refuses to leave office.
“I might go down to D.C. and blockade the White House or something, lay in the street,” he said.
Though she does not currently have plans for more election-related organizing, Putnam is also ready to coordinate and engage in nonviolent mobilization.
“Until Jan. 20 gets here, we’re going to have to be on alert,” she said. “But if something really goes wrong, we have our people now.”
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“Kalish’s earliest visit to the campus was in 1966, and he has established a long-lasting and firm relationship with the college ever since.” COURTESY PHOTO
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Voting in Middlebury will take place at the Town of Middlebury Recreation Center & Gymnasium at 154 Creek Road. Vermont offers same-day voter registration with a valid form of ID or address verification, like a bank statement or utility bill.
Read The Campus' Middlebury voting guide for more information.
4:20 p.m.: According to an email from Acting Dean of Students AJ Place and Jason Duquette-Hoffman at the Center for Community Engagement, staff, faculty, and supportive community members will be walking on public sidewalks on College Street and Route 30 for the next few days, including evenings from 6 p.m. to midnight. "We have heard from students that you are concerned about potential reactions to the U.S. election results, and specifically concerns about non-Middlebury community members driving on College Street and targeting students," they write. "While we cannot prevent people from driving along these roads or saying things to students as they drive, we recognize the impact this can have, and we hope that this show of solidarity will provide some support to our entire community."
4:04 p.m.: Governor Phil Scott, a Republican, told media outside the town hall in Berlin that he voted for Joe Biden. The news was first reported by Seven Days' Paul Heintz. He is the first incumbent Republican governor to support the Democratic nominee. Scott was the first GOP governor to support Trump's impeachment inquiry in 2019. "It's been a bit of a struggle for me, but I ended up voting for Joe Biden," he said. "It's something that I'd never done in my lifetime. I had never voted for a Democrat for president, so I had to some soul-searching."
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Congressman Welch has represented Vermont in the House of Representatives as the state’s sole delegate since he was elected in 2006. After launching his career in politics during the civil rights era, Welch’s career has focused on energy efficiency, housing discrimination and bringing broadband to rural Americans. Looking toward a likely win in his re-election bid this year, The Campus sat down with the congressman to reflect on over a decade of work in the House.
Reflecting on over a decade in Congress, what do you consider to be your biggest accomplishment and why?
On climate change and economic recovery…
I think the biggest accomplishments that we had were clearly during the Obama years: it was the passage of the Affordable Care Act. I served on the Energy and Commerce Committee and I was very, very active in that effort. The biggest accomplishment in the House — but didn’t pass in the Senate — was the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, which we passed in that same session of Congress. That would have reduced emissions by 80% by 2050, and all of us are so disappointed that we lost that by one vote in the Senate. The last economic crisis, of course, was during the Obama Administration, when Wall Street collapsed and brought down Main Street. I played an active role in the American Recovery Act, which started to get us back on our feet.
I’ve been a leader on climate change issues. My role in the [Waxman-Markey bill] was to be the principal advocate for the energy efficiency aspects of that bill. Since then, I’ve been a champion in Congress on climate change, particularly the benefits of energy efficiency. I got involved in that when I was in the Vermont senate, and one of the things that I look back on with fond memories is the climate march that was organized by Bill McKibben when he was starting 350.org. He and Middlebury students led a march from Montpelier to Burlington in the election, back in 2006. I was one of the speakers at that original march.
How do you think we can build trust in politics again? Do you think politics have always been this divisive?
On Trump and social media...
[Politics] hasn’t been this divisive. Trump has embraced division as a tactic. One of his first acts as president was to ban people coming into this country on the basis of religion. That’s shocking. One of his policies was to separate children from families at the southern border — and I was one of the first members of Congress to go down there and witness that firsthand. I went to the Texas-Mexico border. And even today, we’ve learned that there are over 500 children where the government has no idea where their parents are. Trump plays racial politics to a degree that no one has ever seen. He won this election with three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, and he’s done everything that he can to intensify division rather than create unity since then.
There’s another issue here that will take significant thought and effort to overcome it, and that’s social media. What we see with the explosion of social media is an explosion of misinformation, of hate, of conspiracy theories — and it’s created a toxic, polluted atmosphere for dialogue about the problems that we collectively face. I think that’s a big challenge for our democracy. When there's no norms and no mutual respect, then it makes it much more difficult to find common ground.
That’s a big problem, and Trump is a master at understanding how this works and he exploited it and he was very successful at mowing down all of his Republican opponents in those primaries. This is a real challenge to our democracy.
On finding common ground with Republicans…
There’s two ways [to deal with partisanship] — personal and political. The personal way of dealing with it is that you show respect. You listen more than you talk. You look for where there’s common ground.
So, for example, I am a leader of the rural broadband caucus. I find ways of interacting where it’s about us trying to solve the challenges of the people who we represent. I have a colleague from West Virginia, [Rep.] David McKinley. He’s a Republican, and he is a good partner of mine when working on energy efficiency. On the other hand, he’s from coal country, and he attacks the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is causing a loss of coal jobs. I don’t agree with him on [attacking the EPA], but we agree on energy efficiency.
As a way of trying to build a relationship with him and show respect for the coal miners, I went to stay with him in his house in Harrison County, West Virginia, and we spent a day in a coal mine — we went down 900 feet and 4.5 miles in. We spent an afternoon being with coal workers who were working on a coal seam.
The point I was making was that I’m against coal [in that] I’m for clean energy, but I’m for the coal miners. Those coal miners did not create climate change. In fact, those coal miners are losing jobs, and they’re hard workers. I compared the coal miners to our dairy farmers as the hardest working people I’ve ever met. I saw how much that gave me an opportunity to be heard, by David and by many others who began to see that I’m advocating for clean energy, but it’s not because I’m against those coal miners. I’m against a lot of the coal company owners, but the miners are good people. That’s a way of showing personal respect and creating trust.
Institutionally is where Trump is pretty toxic. He is attacking institutions instead of building them up, instead of reforming them and strengthening them. When I say institutions, I mean everything from the court systems to the intelligence community to the EPA, where we have lost one-thousand scientists who have left in despair because of political manipulation. We have to build up our institutions and have trust in institutions to build trust in goals that are important to our society. So, on a personal level, it’s how you interact with people. On a political level, it’s a commitment to reforming, not destroying, institutions that we all need.
Do you have any fun stories from working in Congress for over a decade? What are some of your best days working in Congress?
On cheese (and getting the job done)...
One of my best days was when Mateo Kehler, who was the head of Jasper Hill Cheese, showed up at my office in D.C. in a t-shirt and cargo shorts. He was in a rage-slash-panic, because the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) just issued a rule that said cheesemakers could no longer store their cheese on wooden boards. Pretty crazy, because we have been storing cheese on wooden boards since the last supper. The background is that they did an inspection of a cheesemaking facility in upstate New York and found contaminated cheese, and there were woodboards there. As it turns out, the whole place was contaminated; it’s not that the boards were contaminated. [The cheesemaking facility in upstate New York] really had back practices and needed to be closed down, and they were. But the bad practices were the problem, not the use of wood.
So in any event, this would have been catastrophic for this award-winning cheese company, Jasper Hill. What do we do? So this was a while ago, when Paul Ryan was the chair of the Budget Committee. He’s Republican, and he and I don’t agree on anything. He represents Wisconsin, where they make a lot of cheese, and he and I used to kid a lot about who had better cheese. So, I went on the floor and found him, and I said ‘Paul, we got us a cheese problem.’ I explained it to him, and within a day, we called up the FDA to explain our problem. We said, ‘we’ve got a cheese problem, and you’re soon going to have a budget problem.’ And it got fixed.
It’s an only-in-Vermont story because you literally have this citizen, who is running this wonderful enterprise called Jasper Hill Cheese, show up unannounced in his t-shirt and cargo shorts to tell me what the problem was. It’s existential. And in a few days, it was solved. And it was solved in a significant part because I had a good pre-existing relationship with Paul Ryan, and I knew that, when it came to cheese and how it would affect Wisconsin cheese makers, Paul and I would be on the same page. It was an interesting combination of a Vermonter coming and dropping in and feeling completely comfortable in the office and asking for something that couldn’t be done, and we did it all in a couple of days.
On race and Representative John Lewis…
Another wonderful story: I got my start in politics in the civil rights movement. When I was in college, I dropped out of college to go to Chicago to work for a community organization that was fighting discriminatory housing. I dropped out of college for what would have been my junior year. I worked there, and then I returned to college, and then I returned to Chicago as a Robert Kennedy Fellow to resume my work when I got out [of college].
During what would’ve been my junior year in college, I went down to Atlanta to the Ebenezer Baptist Church where Martin Luther King, at that time, was the pastor. And I was in the church, and he spoke. It was a powerful experience to be with him when he spoke in that church. And afterwards, I went upstairs when he had a press conference, and there were very few people there, and he was denouncing the Vietnam War. My whole beginnings in politics were inspired by the racial justice movements of the late 60s — the voting rights movement.
Fast forward, I’m in Congress and I had a colleague that I revered from afar for a long time, and that was [Rep.] John Lewis. We, in the House, were very frustrated that Speaker Paul Ryan would not take up any gun safety legislation. We protested on the floor, and I spent a good deal of time sitting on the floor next to John Lewis when we were protesting in Congress about gun violence. All of us who served with John regarded it as a special privilege to be with him and to be his colleague. That memory, of sitting on the floor of the House, next to John, is probably one of my favorite, most proud moments. His advocacy was [to] get in good trouble… cause good trouble.
Now we’re continuing with the effort to deal with the incredible racism in our county that is systemic and ingrained. With the leadership of the Black Congressional Caucus, we passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which, unfortunately, Senator [Mitch] McConnell won’t pass in the senate. That continuation of the opportunity to work on racial justice issues means a lot to me, and I really appreciate the work that the students at Middlebury are doing to bring attention to systemic racism and try to find practical ways to address it.
