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(07/06/20 4:30am)
As the college unveils its fall semester plans, anxieties about making a decision with limited information and a pressing deadline are overshadowing previous uncertainties related to the fall.
While most international students would like to return and reunite with friends, they are also concerned about whether the dramatically altered college experience is worth the long trek back.
Many expressed that their decision would be easier if the college could provide more details on the course schedule, specifying the modes of teaching for individual courses and social distancing protocols.
“I feel the announcement seems more like a guideline instead of a practical plan with enough details,” said Steven Zheng ’23 from China, who is leaning towards taking another remote semester.
The long trek back
With major travel bans in effect and many airlines cancelling their overseas routes, international flights are very limited. While trying to get home in March, some students even faced cancellations after they had booked and paid for their flights.
The cost of travel poses yet another challenge. International tickets are likely to be more expensive, according to a BBC article, so returning to campus is financially impossible for some students. An economy ticket from the United States to Europe in early June cost $2,126 with Delta, according to Forbes. The normal price for this flight would be around $700, according to the same source.
There are also strict border restrictions in place.
According to the CDC, foreign nationals that have been in China, Iran, the European Schengen area, the United Kingdom, Ireland or Brazil during the 14 days before their arrival at the U.S. border may not enter. This means students from these countries would have to quarantine in another country for 14 days before entering the United States.
“I find this process exhausting and not worthwhile,” Zheng said.
International students are currently scheduled to arrive at Middlebury on Aug. 26. Although the college has not specified procedures for international arrival, they will likely have to undergo testing and quarantine on campus until all students complete the arrival testing process.
Despite all these challenges, some students see many benefits of returning to campus.
Many students expressed that in-person learning is likely to be more rewarding. They also value the opportunity to reunite with the community, engage in some extracurricular activities and have a larger selection of courses to choose from, since students can pick between online, in-person and hybrid-style courses.
Some students expressed that they would feel more comfortable given Vermont’s relatively low number of Covid-19 cases. They also hope its low population density would act as a natural defense against the virus.
Students will have to weigh these on campus benefits against the possibility that their classes of choice might be offered strictly online anyway, in addition to stringent quarantine and social distancing measures. The cost and risk of traveling to and from Middlebury, as well as the possibility of a second wave interrupting the fall semester, are also reasons for concern.
“The experience of evacuating as an international student in March was borderline traumatic. I can’t imagine doing that again if a second wave hits,” said Elsa Korpi ’22, who has been in Finland since March. “Daily cases in Finland are down to the tens, while the United States is now starting to hit new records. Voluntarily leaving Europe feels silly.”
She still has not yet decided her next semester plans.
Another remote semester?
For some, remote classes remain the only option given travel difficulties, family situations and challenges with maintaining a student visa during a gap semester.
“As I have high-risk family members back home, it would be painful if I couldn't support or be with them, especially since the health system isn't the best,” said Smith Muhuri ’23 from Kenya, the incoming co-president of the International Student Organization. He still hasn’t decided on his plans but is leaning towards staying on campus, as he has been there since March.
Others, most of whom live in urban settings, believe that staying at home will be a richer experience. They hope to take up internships, part-time jobs and other extracurricular activities in their hometowns while taking online classes.
According to International Student & Scholar Services (ISSS), it is still unclear if students can maintain F-1 student records if they attend classes remotely in the fall. Current regulations restrict F-1 students to taking only 1 course online that counts towards their enrollment requirement to maintain their visa status.
However, ISSS anticipates changes to the requirements that will allow students outside of the United States “to take more than one online course.”
The college will be charging full tuition for students who choose to take a remote semester from home.
The downsides of this choice include a smaller course selection, as many classes will not be offered online because the college discourages professors from “teaching simultaneously in multiple modalities,” according to the Fall 2020 FAQ page.
Muhuri believes that the college should encourage professors to offer both remote and in-person options in order to give international students more choices. Zheng and Korpi would also like to see more online courses and career related-resources for students taking a remote semester.
Muhuri and Zheng expect the remote learning experience to be less fulfilling and more difficult.
“It was just a tiring experience that I had to get up at 4 a.m. in China for my political philosophy classes this semester,” Zheng said.
A semester off
Reluctant to start another remote semester or travel back to the United States for a limited college experience, some have opted for a leave of absence instead.
However, according to ISSS, an interruption in student status can impede a student’s ability to apply for a work visa for jobs and internships in the United States. Reapplication for a student visa may even be necessary, depending on the individual case.
For many, Optional/Curricular Practical Training (OPT/CPT) and student visa complications are major reasons for deciding against a semester off.
“I would really appreciate it if schools push the government to loosen the qualification for OPT,” said Zheng. “I will be more likely to gap [a semester] if so.”
Scott Li ’23 from China is taking a semester off. He plans to do an internship and spend one to two months road tripping to Western China.
Despite his decision, Li supports the college’s plan for the fall semester and looks forward to returning next spring.
“I'm sure [the college] carefully balanced everything and tried their best to come up with what's best for everyone,” Li said. “It's just that this is really a tough time, and it's nobody's fault. Everybody should keep staying positive.”
The deadline to apply for a fall leave of absence is July 6.
However, students will get a full tuition refund if they withdraw before the semester starts according to the college’s refund policy.
How can the college help?
“There really is no good option. A remote semester feels like a missed learning opportunity, but I also have plans after undergrad that I wouldn’t want to delay,” Korpi said.
International students such as Muhuri and Zheng believe more details on the modalities of courses offered will help them make the best decision for next fall. According to the FAQ page, the college is planning to announce its course scheduling details in late July after professors plan their courses.
The college should also provide more details on how clubs would run and whether athletic facilities would remain open, according to Li.
Muhuri and Zheng also have concerns regarding how the pandemic would worsen the inequality on campus affecting international minorities.
“I don’t want to be left behind simply because I cannot be physically present on campus as an international student,” said Zheng.
ISSS plans to offer Zoom meet-ups or webinars this summer. It is also collaborating with the Admissions Office on virtual events with incoming international students to discuss their transition to campus.
“There are no guarantees regarding how this will all work out,” said Kathy Foley, associate dean and director of ISSS. “Fortunately, there are many dedicated faculty and staff colleagues on our campus who are doing everything they can to create a positive and workable experience for students to resume their studies in the fall.”
Editor’s Note: Elsa Korpi ’22 is an Arts and Culture editor for The Campus.
(06/21/20 8:27pm)
A majority of faculty members voted in support of students’ return to campus this fall, passing the “motion regarding modality” during a Tuesday faculty meeting. While 74% (136) of the faculty who participated voted in favor of passing the motion, many abstained after an attempt to table the motion failed. The motion is non-binding, and the administration will release the final decision about fall plans on Monday.
The motion regarding modality reads, “Based on our existing state of knowledge regarding health protections, campus preparations and college resources, the faculty supports bringing the majority of students back to campus for the Fall 2020 semester, with courses offered in person and/or online.”
Some faculty raised concerns about the motion, citing inadequate information about health and safety guidelines for the upcoming school year, uncertainty whether students would abide by new precautions and troubling data regarding classroom transmission. Others believed that the college would not give a faculty ruling much weight in their decision-making.
The Working Conditions subcommittee of Middlebury’s American Association of University Professors (AAUP) chapter wrote a proposal to table the motion indefinitely, which Philosophy Department Chair Lorraine Besser presented to the body.
Besser acknowledged the importance of making a decision about the fall in an efficient manner, but also noted how an in-person fall might have an asymmetrical impact on Middlebury community members.
“We are concerned that a Covid-19 breakout on campus could lead to a health crisis which may fall unequally upon staff members who lack the option to work remotely,” she said in an email to The Campus. “We also worry that the sense of the faculty vote itself was complicated by the ongoing budget discussions, which suggest that an in-person fall semester is best from a financial perspective.”
Despite mixed support for the motion, only 36% voted in favor of tabling.
Some faculty felt that they did have enough information to make a decision and that it was important for the body to express its position. Peter Schumer, professor of mathematics, spoke out against tabling the motion and in favor of passing it during the meeting. He said he believes the administration will take the faculty’s decision into account.
“The administration, the Board of Trustees have other concerns besides academics and have different points of view to bring to the table, but the faculty can at least speak on what we hope from an academic viewpoint,” he said in an interview with The Campus. “And I truly believe they take that seriously into consideration since, after all, we are an academic institution.”
While Schumer said he did share some of his colleagues' concerns, he was reassured by an informational meeting with administrators, including Director of Health Services Mark Peluso.
The motion regarding modality is one of the four, non-binding Sense-of-the-Faculty Motions submitted by the Academic Planning Group. Faculty passed the first two motions during an earlier meeting on June 12, calling for faculty discretion regarding course design and the upholding of the 12-4-12 week academic calendar with no in-person classes between Thanksgiving and the start of the spring semester. Faculty decided to push back the vote on motions three and four — the motion regarding modality and a motion calling for the creation of an experiential learning credit — to the June 16 meeting so they could receive more information about health and safety planning.
The motion seeking to establish an experiential learning credit passed with 81% of the vote. The initiative would give students the option of completing such a credit in place of a traditional fourth course in the fall, spring, or both semesters. The Educational Affairs Committee (EAC) is still developing the details of the initiative and held a preliminary meeting about it on June 18.
(06/19/20 3:20pm)
The following statement was previously sent to President Laurie Patton and other members of the Senior Leadership Group on June 17, 2020. The piece has been lightly edited in accordance with The Campus’ style guidelines.
We the undersigned faculty and staff members wish to offer our perspectives on plans for the Fall 2020 semester and the possibility of bringing students back to campus. We know and appreciate that the administration has worked tirelessly to assess various situations and balance many factors, both known and unknown. However, we believe that bringing back a significant number of students to campus risks a devastating health crisis, and thus there is only one path forward that prioritizes the health of our community as well as the long-term financial status of the college.
We see four basic scenarios for how the fall might play out:
In-person fall: We reopen campus for the majority of students and, having exercised widespread diligence and made broad investments in health and safety precautions, we are lucky enough to get to Thanksgiving without a significant outbreak.
Mid-semester shutdown: We reopen campus for the majority of students, but despite our best efforts, there is an outbreak that causes us to shut down campus early, sending most students home, disrupting the semester and potentially infecting many students, employees and community members.
Last minute abort: On June 22, we announce plans to reopen campus for the majority of students, but by the time that students would be due to arrive, conditions have changed locally, and/or outbreaks have emerged on other campuses that repopulated earlier than we do, resulting in our cancelling plans to bring students back at the last minute.
Planned remote: We proactively plan to teach remotely, allowing only a small number of students on campus who would not otherwise be able to safely and effectively participate in remote learning if they were off campus.
We think scenario 4 of a remote semester is what we should plan for now. Obviously, everyone would love for scenario 1 of a non-disrupted in-person fall to work out. We cannot emphasize enough that this would be our preference in an ideal world. But in the world we are actually living in, we believe that a mid-semester shutdown or last minute abort scenario is likely if we plan to repopulate campus. The cost to the institution in money, pedagogy, reputation and (most importantly) health with either of these outcomes would be even more dire than those associated with a planned remote fall. We understand that substantial financial losses would occur as a result of a remote fall, but we believe these losses could be minimized. We have suggestions in that regard, based on the AAUP budget statements that have been overwhelmingly endorsed by the faculty at the June 12 faculty meeting.
By aiming for an in-person fall, we believe the college would risk far more costly and dangerous situations. A mid-semester shutdown due to an outbreak would obviously be the worst, and seems quite likely, given how outbreaks have flared up over the past month throughout the U.S. Based on our understanding of the psychology of young adults and their attitudes toward risk, having 2,000 students, or even half that number, cohabitating and interacting with a large number of employees and community members is likely to produce an outbreak that could overwhelm a small-town hospital, resulting in severe illnesses and fatalities. This would result in damage to the College’s reputation and a backlash from the community, and it would waste the significant funds we would have to spend on preventative measures on campus. Most importantly, it would put the health of thousands of people at risk. A last-minute move to shift to remote would avoid the worst of this, but would waste a great deal of time and money, damaging the College financially and reputationally, and undermining the quality of teaching due to a last minute scramble.
Even if we were fortunate enough for an in-person fall to occur without incident, the experience for students would be far from what they had signed up for, leading to a semester of widespread tension and anxiety, creating rifts between members of our community with different attitudes toward risk, and forcing students, faculty and staff to work in challenging teaching and living environments of questionable safety. What might it mean to try to teach and learn in an environment where everyone begins to regard their friends, students, teachers and colleagues with mutual suspicion? It would certainly be a subpar semester lacking in many of the educational and co-curricular activities that typically make Middlebury a vibrant place. We are convinced by the case made by the Biology Department at Macalester College, which assesses both the health risks and inequitable challenges to community and mental health that a trauma-suffused in-person experience would create.
On the other hand, given the higher-than-anticipated enrollments for the online Language Schools — roughly two-thirds of conventional enrollment — we think it likely that more students than anticipated would sign up for a remote semester that maximized safety and leveraged our pedagogical expertise in DLINQ to create a robust and vibrant, equitable remote experience. We believe that as it becomes clear that Covid-19 is not going away this summer, more and more campuses will follow the early lead of California State University and McGill (and most Canadian universities) for a non-residential experience, or Harvard and Stanford in committing to remote teaching, embracing online learning and avoiding unsafe campus conditions. By saving time and money on trying to make campus a Covid-19-safe teaching environment, we can focus on ensuring that a remote Fall 2020 is well-planned and designed to continue regardless of local health circumstances. We can also use the talents of our Communications Office to represent how valuable and effective this online semester will be. We believe that the College is fortunate to have a large enough endowment and can withstand the losses from room and board fees without triggering significant cuts to employee compensation.
None of us want to be teaching online, nor see our students far flung across the globe. But the virus doesn’t care what we want. Just as Middlebury has been a leader in adhering to the inconvenient truths of climate change, we must acknowledge the science behind the spread of Covid-19 if unchecked. We believe a planned remote semester is vital to the health of our students, employees and broader community. On December 1, we would rather look back at a successful remote semester in a healthy Middlebury and wonder if we could have brought students back, than regret a failed attempt to bring students back that caused avoidable damage to our community.
We recognize that based on the faculty vote on June 16, we are not in the majority among our colleagues. Assuming that the College does bring students back to campus, we will continue to collaborate in advocating for the strongest possible health and safety protocols, full transparency in communicating these plans to the community, and a clear emphasis on protecting the employees and community members who will suffer the most from a health crisis.
Sincerely,
AAUP Working Conditions Subcommittee:
Jeanne Albert, Center for Teaching, Learning & Research
James Berg, English & American Literature
Lorraine Besser, Philosophy
Diane Burnham, American Studies
Laurie Essig, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies
Jamie McCallum, Sociology
David Miranda Hardy, Film & Media Culture
Jason Mittell, Film & Media Culture
William Poulin-Deltour, French & Francophone Studies
The signatories are members of the Working Conditions Subcommittee of the Middlebury branch of the AAUP.
Editor’s Note: Jason Mittell is The Campus’ faculty adviser.
(06/16/20 2:25am)
An email sent from the Office of the President to the Middlebury community on May 31 concerning the death of George Floyd sparked criticism from students at the college, who expressed discontent with its tone and content in the context of nationwide protests against police brutality and race-based violence.
Students wrote a letter responding to the president’s email and shared it with the college community in a document titled “Black At Midd: 06/3/20 Email to Laurie Patton,” which was distributed widely on social media platforms and among student organizations. While the letter is signed by “Concerned Students of Middlebury College,” the organizers’ Instagram account later announced that Myles Maxie ’22, Gifty Atanga ’23, Charice Lawrence ’23, Andrés Oyaga ’23, Daleelah Saleh ’23, Jarlenys Mendez ’23 and Kaitlyn Velazquez ’23 were its co-authors.
In the letter, students criticized several offenses in the President’s message, including the conflation of the coronavirus and racism, the hypocrisy of “verbal allegiance to racial equity but lack of action” and the use of “gasping for air” as a metaphor to bridge discussions about Covid-19 and police brutality.
The letter also highlighted past events when “Middlebury College has been complicit in allowing pervasive racism to exist on our campus.” These instances included a lack of action following insensitive comments at the Martin Luther King Today event in 2016, the invitation of Charles Murray in 2017 and 2020 and the invitation of Ryszard Legutko in 2019.
The students concluded the letter with a series of actions, immediate and for the coming academic year, that would help build a “more equitable and aware community.”
After sending the email to President Patton, the group turned the letter into a petition and asked college students, faculty, organizations and alumni for their endorsement through a Google Form. As of June 15, the petition had 1781 endorsements, including the signatures of over 950 students, 650 alumni and 55 student organizations, as well as numerous faculty, staff and other community members.
Myles Maxie ’22, an organizer of the petition, said that the number of alumni who signed onto the petition — despite not having received the president’s email — illustrated the college’s history on race and support for change.
“There are some people who complained about this who went to school here in 2003, and it still hasn’t changed,” Maxie said. “I think it’s also important for the faculty members who signed it to voice their concerns. There was an abundance of faculty who signed and had interesting things to say about the way that staff of color and of marginalized communities are treated at Middlebury, so that makes it not just a student issue.”
The president’s message was also posted on college social media accounts but was taken down on June 4 in response to the criticism. The president sent a second email on June 5 addressing systemic racism against Black people and expressing eagerness to implement the petition’s proposals.
“Our initial goals were to make sure Middlebury understood how hypocritical they were being and how performative this letter was. We got an apology, sort of,” said Andrés Oyaga ’23, another organizer of the petition. “But a big part of going beyond performative activism is to really learn from your mistakes and to think about what happened.” The way that Middlebury can learn, according to Oyaga, is to go through its own letter and address every sentence that may have been offensive.
“I don’t want this to be a thing where it’s over. We see that very often with different types of activism. People tend to be upset for a few weeks and then quickly move on from it. This is an important conversation we need to continue having as a campus community,” Maxie said.
Through their Instagram page, @blackatmidd, organizers invited students to apply to join their team. According to Maxie, the group plans to charter as a club — Concerned Students of Middlebury College — in the fall, working to realize the changes outlined in the petition and improve the culture at the college.
The Chief Diversity Officer, Miguel Fernández, also sent two emails addressing the petition’s request that the college provide resources to support Black community members and to empower non-Black community members to become better allies for their peers.
Although Oyaga and Maxie both expressed optimism about the response email, they said that a greater level of specificity is needed to demonstrate learning, that students of color are often unfairly burdened with having to educate others and that change will be an ongoing process.
“We think it’s really important to make sure that students and faculty of color have some representation in decision-making bodies, specifically in the board of trustees and with the senior leadership group,” Oyaga said. He hopes that the college will embrace the petition’s call to include the voices of students of color on campus to demonstrate action beyond performance.
“This is another instance of having to point out problematic-ness, and students who are at school to be students having to become teachers,” Maxie said. “For me, it’s fine. But it’s also not really my job as a person of color to have to consistently teach others how to properly address the concerns of students of color and of marginalized communities.”
Editor’s Note: Author Tony Sjodin ’23 signed the petition mentioned in the article. Daleelah Saleh ’23, one of the authors of the letter, is an Opinion Editor for The Campus. Saleh played no role in the reporting. Any questions may be directed to campus@middlebury.edu.
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(06/15/20 10:00am)
We recognize that the trauma of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade and too many others is felt deeply by all — and disproportionately by Black students, faculty and staff in our community.
We state unequivocally: BLACK LIVES MATTER.
The College and our community must commit, with actionable steps, to anti-racist work in our classrooms and campus community spaces, as well as in our personal lives and communities.
We support the action steps laid out in this letter from students. Please read this letter in full, and sign here to endorse their call to action. We will be following up with the coalition of student leaders who put this letter and petition together to see what progress is being made on these requests.
We explicitly ask the administration to lay out plans for mandatory anti-racist faculty education at the institutional level and an outline for ongoing institution action steps and accountability.
As the faculty Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), we are tasked with being the platform for faculty engagement and governance on issues pertaining to diversity, equity and inclusivity. We must also be held accountable for our actions.
We will continue to amplify and share the voices and concerns of faculty of color, and, especially in this moment, Black faculty. We look forward to sharing what we have learned in interviews with a number of underrepresented faculty on campus with the broader faculty and, more specifically, setting up meetings with departments and programs to strategize and implement DEI practices based on our findings.
We continue our work within faculty governance structures to support changes to foster campus environments which are anti-racist, supportive and equitable to all of our community members. Actions this year include: 1) advocating for and implementing the recognition of teaching accomplishments addressing diversity and inclusivity in our annual faculty salary forms; 2) continued work on addressing bias in course response forms; 3) engaging in high-level conversations about hiring, budget, academic planning and other aspects of faculty governance; 4) responding to campus issues related to DEI work, including: On engaging with Charles Murray, Making Opt-in More Equitable and Facing the COVID Crisis.
We will continue to address the racist structural and cultural barriers that severely limit our ability to recruit and retain Black faculty and staff, as well as other faculty and staff of color.
Anti-racist action can take several forms. Self-educating, having challenging conversations with friends and family, chipping in financially (as we are able) to organizations who are doing this work and more. A few additional resources:
Black Lives Matter: Ways You Can Help
The 1619 Project
Scaffolded anti-racism resources
General anti-racism resources
Anti-racism resources for all ages
There is clearly more work to be done. Silence and inaction in a moment such as this cannot be an option. However, in our eagerness to support and make our concerns known, we must not fall into problematic tropes or utilize painful metaphors that cause Black and other community members to relive past trauma. We will continue to push one another to consider our words and actions for their impact and not merely their intent. Part of accountability is truly apologizing when we make mistakes and outlining how we will do better.
While the recent deaths and protests impact us all, we especially encourage White and non-Black Middlebury members to take time each day to reflect — and then act — on what you can do to hold yourself and others accountable for taking discrete anti-racist steps. To our Black community members, we see you, we are here to listen if you want to share and our work continues. BLACK LIVES MATTER.
Sincerely,
Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Summer Membership, alphabetical:
Tara L. Affolter, Education Studies Program
Erin Eggleston, Biology
Kemi Fuentes-George, Political Science
Laurel Jenkins, Dance
David Miranda Hardy, Film and Media Culture
William Nash, American Studies
Shawna Shapiro, Writing & Rhetoric, Linguistics
Editor’s note: The above faculty members comprise the entirety of the Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Learn more here.
(06/04/20 5:24am)
We sent students a survey last week asking some of the questions that have continually shaped our lives since March 10.
From the data collected, we learned that:
Most students felt that professors were understanding. Ninety percent of surveyed students were satisfied with professors’ accommodations through remote learning.
Classes could get a lot smaller if we remain remote this fall, as 58% of students would elect to take a leave of absence if Middlebury chooses to remain fully-remote during that term.
The pandemic has not been kind to Middlebury students’ job opportunities. Sixty two percent of surveyed students at one point had a job or internship that was cancelled due to the pandemic.
Few people opted in to credit/no credit. In the wake of the failed movement for mandatory credit/no credit grading, 63% of respondents took all of their spring classes for letter grades.
At the end of the survey, we also gave students the chance to anonymously share opinions or anecdotes about experiences in quarantine. We’re really glad we did so — the responses you provided were at turns poignant, urgent and funny, and all of them capture the bizarre reality we’re living through. These anonymous opinions have been included in this article in places where they complement our findings expressed through data visualization.
General demographics
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Of the roughly 2,500 Middlebury students who were sent the survey, 583 — roughly a quarter — participated. Respondents were split fairly evenly across class years, with a slight majority of respondents coming from the classes of 2021 and ’21.5. (Though they will not be enrolled this fall, members of the class of 2020 were invited to complete the survey because of their perspectives on the spring semester and experience graduating during the pandemic).
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Reflecting the demographic reality of the college’s student body, a majority of respondents identified as white. Ten percent, or 58, respondents identified as international students.
Spring semester and summer
Mental health during remote spring semester
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A majority of students — 64% of respondents — reported having experienced mental health-related challenges during the course of their spring semester. Twenty-five percent reported knowing where to go to get virtual mental health support from the college, 27% said they did not know where to access care and the remaining 47% reported being “somewhat” aware of how to seek care.
But the logistical realities of being at home with parents, siblings and other family posed challenges for some students to seek help. “As someone who struggles with mental health, it's a lot harder to reach out for help when I'm at home and I feel at higher risk for falling into really bad lows and having no one around to help,” one student wrote.
“One challenge that I have faced has been less mental health problems myself,” a student wrote in their anecdotal response, “but more caring for family members struggling with their mental health.”
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Students reported feeling high levels of stress over uncertainty of life during the pandemic, as well as over jobs, relationships, academics, family life and home life. Often, multiple demands intersected to create unique challenges to tackling remote learning from home.
“Mother lost her job, father might too,” a student wrote. “Having everyone under the same roof in a small house has driven my parents to the brink of divorce.”
Approval rating of communication by college entities since March 10
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Students generally approved or were ambivalent about communication methods from college entities such as Schools Abroad, Parton counseling and the administration. However, several anecdotal responses expressed frustrations with a lack of solicitation of student input on the part of the college throughout the spring.
“Many other schools are hosting webinars and Zoom calls explaining directly to students what options they are considering in the fall,” one student wrote. “Middlebury has not told us the options and therefore there are more rumors/speculations. Even if the answer is ‘we don't know yet - here are some options,’ [that would be] better than barely hearing from them at all.”
Covid-19 infection among family, acquaintances and community
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Nine Middlebury students responded as having tested positive for Covid-19. Forty percent reported knowing a friend who had tested positive, and another 41% responded as not knowing anyone who had tested positive.
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Almost half — 48% — of students reported high levels of concern over viral transmission in their communities, while roughly 12% reported low levels of concern in their communities.
Opinions on spring remote academic programming
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A vast majority of respondents — 91% — reported professors being flexible in adjusting to the demands of remote learning. “Two of my professors were amazing — completely accommodating and conscious of the circumstances,” one student wrote. However, anecdotal responses saw many students report frustrations with how professors adjusted syllabi or failed to provide opportunities for asynchronous learning.
Many students wrote that some professors were patient and accommodating while others approached the semester in starkly different ways.
“I felt like most of the concessions certain professors claimed were just talk,” one student wrote. “One of my professors did not cut the workload at all and just added the material from the week we missed onto the post-break semester.”
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Despite high rates of approval for professors’ levels of accommodation, 64% of students reported that their academic experience this spring was at least “generally” impaired amid the adjustment to remote learning.
“If students were disadvantaged before, this pandemic only exacerbates the previous systemic issue,” one student wrote. “We should focus Middlebury's financial support to pledge to support students who have a less than ideal home situation for learning. This is a serious concern for accessibility reasons as well.”
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Students reported “news and outside distractions” as the most significant impediment to their distance-learning experience. Financial burdens were another — more than 100 students reported a need to make money while living at home as being at least somewhat of an obstacle to their learning, and thirty-four students reported lacking a home as a significant obstacle.
“I've been taking care of my two younger cousins whose both parents have brain injuries,” a student wrote. “Being home means that I have to step up in my family, and that involves home-schooling and helping to raise an 11-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy. It has also meant caring for my father who has early-onset Alzheimers. The playing field is extremely unequal when school is remote.”
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A significant majority of students — 63% — reported not taking any classes credit/no credit this spring. In the push for a credit/no credit system in the spring, students cited disadvantages faced by less-privileged students as the primary reason for offering such a system. Some students acknowledged that the credit/no credit system remained relevant because of these challenges, even if they were able to choose letter grades.
“My grades ended up good this semester,” one student wrote, “but I support universal credit/no credit because I know how much stress my friends have experienced in deciding whether to take courses for standard grading or for credit.”
Summer plans
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About half of students surveyed will participate in remote internships or jobs this summer. However, 62% reported previously having a job or internship that was later cancelled due to the coronavirus.
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A slight majority of respondents reported that they will be spending the summer months in the same location as where they spent their spring semester.
Fall 2020
“The Plan”
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Respondents favored an in-person, socially distanced semester for fall 2020 — a plan that raises questions about the college’s ability to enforce social distancing protocols in classrooms, dorms and the town of Middlebury. The other favorite options — delayed on-campus semester and pre-Thanksgiving end to the semester — raise similar questions that colleges will continue to grapple with as they consider on-campus possibilities.
Students are thus not enthused by the prospect of another semester of fully-remote learning. A significant percentage of anecdotal responses submitted at the end of this survey centered around respondents’ anxieties for the fall.
“I would easily trade my off campus/ traveling privileges for an in person-semester,” one student wrote. “Being able to socialize and learn in person with friends and colleagues is my highest priority.”
“I am going to be incredibly depressed if we can not return to campus in the fall,” another wrote.
But others expressed concern that the college committing to an in-person fall semester would pose too many uncertainties to be worth it. “I would rather have a clear remote fall than a chaotic one on campus,” one student wrote. More directly, others pointed out that an in-person fall would raise pressing questions about how to enforce social distancing guidelines.
Others offered their own tips on how the college should plan for the fall. “I think we should arrive to campus early, spend 14 days in isolation with the highest social distancing measures in place, and then have a normal fall semester,” a respondent wrote. “This would hopefully eliminate any risk of the virus spreading after the two weeks of isolation.”
As students sort through anxieties about what the fall will bring, immunocompromised students are experiencing higher degrees of concern about how the semester will look than most.
“As an immunocompromised student I am very scared of what life back at Middelbury would look like, yet also do not want to give up the rest of my college years,” a student wrote. “I worry about whether Middlebury is talking with the ADA coordinators/more vulnerable students to form a fall semester plan.”
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Four-hundred and twelve respondents — 71% — would be “very unwilling” to pay full tuition for a remote fall semester. And in the anecdotal responses, students posed concerns about how tuition payments and financial aid would work in the event of a remote semester.
“Will the college allow students on financial aid to take the semester off without restrictions? If I take the semester off and am on financial aid will I still be assured financial aid for the rest of my time at Middlebury? Will financial aid decrease due to financial hardships of the college? I am concerned that the college will hold financial aid over students' heads to prevent them from withdrawing from the semester if it is all remote,” a student wrote.
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41% of respondents said they would prefer a mandatory credit/no credit system in the event of a fully remote fall semester.
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And strikingly, 337 said they would attempt to take a leave-of-absence for the fall in the event of a fully-remote semester.
“Everyone I know would try to take a semester off if it were to be remote,” one student wrote in their anecdotal response. Another wrote that a fully in-person semester would be necessary for them to even consider paying full tuition and that “it isn't worth my money or my time otherwise.”
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In voicing anxieties about the fall, students — already three months into social distancing protocols by June — were most concerned about the ability of the pandemic in preventing them from socializing with friends.
Other significant anxieties stemmed from the ongoing public health risk and potential restrictions on campus activities.
“I am extremely concerned about the potential of party/social culture instigating an outbreak,” a student wrote. “I do not know that every student may follow social distancing/quarantining rules. In fact, I expect many to break them...I am worried that places of massive, close social gatherings (social houses, Atwater, etc.) will create a possible breeding ground for the virus.”
To the college, one student wrote, “good luck making these really tough decisions.”
Correction 6/4/20, 9:30 A.M.: A previous version of this article stated that "about a third [of students] reported knowing a friend who had tested positive and another third responded as not knowing anyone who had tested positive" for Covid-19. The correct figures are 40% and 41%, respectively.
(05/29/20 6:01am)
Students returned to Middlebury this month — many during “senior week,” a time usually dedicated to pre-graduation festivities and traditions — despite initial calls by the college that students vacate the town of Middlebury. Although a May 19 email from the Vice President of Student Affairs reaffirmed that returning violates state and college safety protocols, residents spotted students congregating and celebrating on campus and in town during the following days.
The Middlebury Police Department (MPD) has been in touch with the college about students returning to Middlebury, and Chief Thomas Hanley said the department notified the school about a gathering on college grounds on Saturday, May 23. MPD was first alerted to returning students after receiving multiple complaints from residents concerned about cars with out-of-state plates parked in their neighborhoods, according to Director of Media Relations Sarah Ray.
Matt Jennings, the editor of Middlebury Magazine, said that until last week, he occasionally saw a student or two walking around campus or into town, usually wearing masks and keeping their distance from others. So he was surprised to notice a group of 10 or 12 students, who were neither wearing masks nor maintaining six feet of distance from one another, taking photos on campus last week.
“I understand how hard this is for seniors, and I feel for the senior class, and I celebrated their senior celebration yesterday,” Jennings said in an interview with The Campus. “And I get the frustration some have, but equal frustration is when you see a small group — and I do think it's a small group of the senior class — who are not behaving responsibly.”
Administrators sent an email to all students on May 19 warning of the risks that students returning to campus could pose to the community. The email cited Vermont’s successful but still delicate containment of the virus and warned that early returns could hinder a fall return for all students — a possibility that hinges on cooperation between the college, town of Middlebury and local health officials.
Ray said two college Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers reported seeing five small groups of students on Sunday, May 24 — with an average size of about seven students each — sitting on the football field during sunrise, following senior week tradition. The groups sat far apart from each other and agreed to maintain social distancing when the public safety officers asked them to do so, according to Ray.
Later on Sunday, the college heard from worried town residents about a crowd of students that had been seen walking down South Street and through Chipman Park by means of an email list that administrators were included on. Previously, the residents had discussed concerns over a surge in students around graduation week.
In a different email, retired Psychology Professor Barbara Hofer also wrote to President Patton and other Senior Leadership Group (SLG) members about having seen students walking around the neighborhood. The email claimed students were partying and later walked through the South Street and Chipman Park neighborhood in groups. Hofer’s email also claimed that 100 students had returned.
“To date, DPS does not have information that indicates there were any large parties or gatherings on our campus or in the Chipman Park area during that time,” Ray said in an email to The Campus. “We are continuing to reach out to concerned neighbors who may have observed or heard anything in the area.”
The students’ path followed a route seniors sometimes take on graduation morning, when many watch the sunrise from the football and lacrosse fields before walking into downtown Middlebury for breakfast.
Barbara Marlow and her husband Hugh Marlow ’57, who live on South Street, said residents of her neighborhood are accustomed to being awoken at 4:30 or 5 a.m. on commencement weekend when students process from the fields. They were not awoken this year, but heard about the incident from neighbors.
“It’s very quiet when there are no students around, and we love having the students come back and all the energy they bring,” she said, referring to the return of students each fall. “This [incident] did not feel like that to the people who were affected. It felt disrespectful, and it felt frightening because of the health concerns involved.”
For some, sightings of students who returned to town last week foreshadowed possible worries about the fall semester, raising concerns about the public health risk posed by the return of students in general.
“These seniors have made it evident that while the pandemic continues, the return of Middlebury college students to campus will represent a significant threat to the health and well-being of the Middlebury community,” Hofer wrote in her May 24 email.
Marlow sees the return as two-sided — many residents love the presence of college students, but now may not be the best time for the relatively-isolated town of Middlebury to host them, she said.
“I think people want the students back, love having students around, but are concerned that — with all that's going on right now, with the worldwide health crisis, and all the cautions that they were given — if a few couldn't handle just one or two days, what on earth are they going to do if they return to campus this fall, and how safe will the community be?” she said.
Many students, such as Marissa Baker ’20, have stayed in their off-campus residences since the cancellation of in-person classes. Baker noted that rising concern about returning students has negatively impacted off-campus students who have remained in town after the college evacuated students from campus, even while she and her two roommates have continued to follow social distancing guidelines.
“Only one person from the house goes to the grocery store. They go to the grocery store, they use a mask and gloves and sanitize before they come back in,” she said. “We cross the sidewalk when we see someone when we're walking. We stay six feet apart for anyone that's not living in the house.”
Baker said she knows that some students returned to Middlebury this month, but said that those she has spoken to quarantined when they arrived. She also described how the phenomenon of returning students places pressure on students who have lived in Middlebury since the end of in-person classes.
“There's definitely been increased pressure on us to not come off as an out-of-stater or as a college student just because the town is getting worried that too many kids are coming back,” she said. “I've heard stories where, if you have too many out-of-state plates in your driveway, your neighbors might call the cops.”
Administrators have also taken steps to discourage students from returning to town and gather more information on those that did return. Besides the May 19 email, the college reached out to students’ parents and asked members of the Student Government Association (SGA) to appeal to their classmates.
On Sunday, members of the SLG wrote to the South Street neighborhood email group, acknowledging residents’ concerns and asking them to share information and photographs so the school could investigate the situation. The email mentioned that they will contact residents for their perspectives as the college develops a plan for next year. Barbara Marlow said she knows the administration is grappling with many difficult decisions as they determine what the fall will look like.
“I personally hope the college finds a way to reopen — I don't want them to do it in an unsafe way, but they don't want to do it in an unsafe way,” she said. “You know, I think everybody's goal is the same. The town is certainly dependent on the college, and the college is dependent on the town, and, you know, they're talking to each other and need to continue to do so. I'm sure they will. They always have.”
(05/14/20 9:55am)
Middlebury College will welcome a total of 750 new students as members of the classes of 2024 and 2024.5, an uptick from last year’s cohort of 703. The increase comes after the college’s acceptance rate jumped to 24% this year, an 8% rise from last year’s admission cycle. 640 new students currently plan to enroll in September and 110 will join the college in February.
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Among those planning to matriculate, 30% are students of color and 15% will be first-generation students, increases of 3% and 4% respectively. International students will comprise 11% of the class, while 18.9% will be Pell Grant recipients. The students hail from 44 states and Washington, D.C. as well as 54 countries.
The number of students receiving financial aid has also increased to 51%, up from 41% last year. Such fluctuation from year to year is common as Middlebury remains a need-blind institution. The college will award a total of approximately $16.6 million, with the average grant being $51,378.
After the pandemic led to the cancellation of traditional admissions events such as Preview Days and on-campus tours, the college has been forced to improvise. Admitted prospective students were offered a medley of remote programs and events including three Experiential Learning Centers that offer virtual connection to staff and faculty, as well as the option to be matched with a current Middlebury student with whom to text in lieu of Preview Days.
Although these students have all accepted Middlebury’s offer of admission, these statistics are tentative. The status of the upcoming academic year is still in question, with the administration set to communicate a contingency plan for the fall semester by June 22. The admissions staff is continually monitoring deferral requests and availability of student visas for incoming first-years and other students alike, leaving concrete enrollment numbers uncertain.
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(05/14/20 9:53am)
A petition urging Middlebury College to partially refund students for the spring 2020 semester tuition has garnered just over 120 signatures since its release last week. Tamar Freeland, a Middlebury Language Schools Masters student based in Madrid, started the change.org petition. The petition comes a month after the college partially refunded up to $4,380 in room and board charges to residential college undergraduates.
Freeland was motivated to petition by what she considered to be shortcomings of the Middlebury Language Schools Spanish M.A. program in Madrid this spring due to remote learning guidelines. “My peers and I realized that the quality of our online classes was far below that of in-person classes,” Freeland said. She stressed that, even though professors remained the same and leadership was flexible with due dates and technological difficulties, students were not receiving all that they had paid for.
“[As] a masters student, my classes are supposed to be small discussion level courses,” Freeland said, mentioning that Zoom classes have made it difficult to break out into discussions with partners. “We are supposed to be engaging with each other, but even at my level, that’s not happening.”
After drafting a petition and seeking initial feedback from her peers in Madrid, Freeland published the petition online, directed to President Laurie Patton, Dean of International Programs Carlos Vélez and David Provost, executive vice president for finance and administration. Freeland has also sent a letter to the Office of the President with the same message. The college acknowledged Freeland, saying they would formally respond to Freeland’s request later this week.
In a statement to The Campus, the college stressed that this spring’s priority has been on student well-being and the quality of their education through remote learning guidelines.
“Our ability — in this unprecedented time — to provide continuity in teaching and learning is dependent on our existing revenue sources,” the statement read. “None is more crucial than tuition, which enables us to continue to pay the salaries of our dedicated faculty and staff through the academic year, and therefore we are not in a position to offer tuition refunds.”
Freeland’s petition comes in the wake of much larger student-led motions at other colleges and universities to have spring semester tuition partially refunded. In many cases, class action lawsuits have been filed by students against their institution, including schools such as the University of Vermont and Brown University. Freeland mentioned that while partial fee and tuition refunding is widely applicable to all universities, individual institutions need to consider their financial ability to offer refunds in the first place.
“These circumstances do genuinely represent an existential threat to certain colleges that may have to declare bankruptcy or even cease to exist altogether,” she said, citing the uncertain future of a handful of Vermont state colleges as an example.
“That is not the case for Middlebury and other small, elite private schools whose funding is not tied to state budgets and that have endowments of a billion dollars or more,” Freeland said. “For small, elite private schools, refusal to offer partial tuition refunds isn't a question of a lack of economic resources, but rather a lack of administrative will.”
(05/08/20 9:03pm)
(05/08/20 8:57pm)
Nicole Le Mesurier '21
Singapore
How have you been impacted by the coronavirus outbreak?
I flew home to Singapore, where I have been for the last few weeks. When I first arrived in Singapore, life was almost normal, and businesses were still open. Having just flown out of New York, it felt strange to see how different the two countries were handling the situation. Thanks to the strict and thorough tracing programs implemented by the government, Singapore was able to initially minimize all Covid cases. I self-quarantined myself for the first two weeks, and during this time Singapore saw an influx of imported cases, mainly from students like myself coming back from the United States and the UK. Thus, it came with no surprise that the government announced that Singapore would begin a partial lockdown about a month ago, hoping to break this circuit.
Singapore has been able to quickly reduce the imported cases, but in the last few weeks, Covid has spread to migrant worker dormitories, where thousands of laborers live. Our lockdown was recently extended to June. Like everyone else, the coronavirus outbreak has impacted all areas of my life. I am unable to make it to some Zoom classes due to the 12-hour time difference, with one class starting at 4:50 am. I was also planning to intern in New York this summer, and those plans have quickly disappeared. It's been tough not being able to leave the house, especially for someone like me who always has to be on the go. However, I am grateful to be with family right now as I don't get to see them or be in Singapore often.
What has been your greatest worry or day-to-day concern as coronavirus has spread?
I guess my greatest worry is making sure that my family and friends are all safe. I know quite a few people who've had coronavirus and it's scary being so far away from them wondering if they are okay. I'm also concerned that school won't reopen in the fall, and I'm worried that I'll lose my F-1 visa as it's dependent on me studying in America.
What has made you happy over the past few weeks?
I've found happiness in the smallest of things, from finding myself chuckling at a meme to watching funny Tiktoks. I also find happiness in exercising, being able to FaceTime friends and spend some time with my family.
Where do you feel local?
Singapore, London, Middlebury, Stockholm
(05/08/20 8:53pm)
(05/07/20 10:02am)
Fifty years ago today, students, faculty, staff and administrators crowded together in the pre-dawn light to watch a fire consume Recitation Hall, a temporary building behind what is now Carr Hall. Earlier, at 4:15 a.m. on Thursday, May 7, 1970, a student doused rags in gasoline, placed them against the base of the building and set them alight. The flames engulfed the wood-frame structure at the height of the 1970 student strike over the Kent State shootings and Vietnam War.
While it later emerged that the arsonist was not politically motivated, the fear and tension ignited by the event epitomized the emotion and turmoil on campus and across the nation.
The Campus spoke with former student leaders and activists, faculty, and administrators from the 1970 strike about the triumphs, pitfalls and lasting legacy of the strike and the surrounding years of anti-war organizing.
The Strike
Just three days before, on May 4, protests against the Vietnam War and the bombing of neutral Cambodia engulfed Kent State University. The Ohio National Guard was called to intervene, and in the ensuing chaos, used live rounds on the students, killing four and injuring nine others.
The deaths of affluent, white college students engrossed the nation, bringing home the horrors of war to many in a way the far-off deaths of working class Americans and Vietnamese civilians had not. Calls for a national student strike spread like wildfire across college campuses. Five hundred miles away, the spark of radical anti-war activism finally reached the sleepy town of Middlebury.
“For six years, now, the flood waters of frustration and alienation and hopelessness have been rising behind the dam,” reads an article from the 1970 Middlebury summer newsletter. “The shooting down of the Kent State demonstrators finally cracked the facade, and all of this accumulated despair poured forth.”
For Howard Burchman ’73 and his band of fellow student activists, May 4 was a night of frenzied activity and organizing. In the WRMC-FM college radio office, Burchman manned the teletype, a machine that sends and receives typed messages, to follow the news coming out of Kent State and traded phone calls with student organizers across the country to coordinate political action at Middlebury. Students covered campus sidewalks with graphics calling for a strike and superglued padlocks on classroom doors so no one could attend class the next morning. At 7:00 a.m., Burchman called Dean of Students Dennis O'Brien to inform him that the students were striking.
By midday, the College Council and faculty had voted and approved a resolution to suspend classes for the rest of the week, both to grieve and memorialize those killed at Kent State and to protest the war in South Asia, joining over 800 colleges and four million students nationwide in the largest student strike in U.S. history.
That evening, students packed into Mead Chapel for a memorial service honoring the four dead students and for the first rally of the strike, which began immediately afterwards. Burchman recalls the space overflowing with bodies as 1,000 students crowded into the aisles of the chapel, designed to hold only 700. The choir sang “Absalom,” a haunting hymn whose lyrics poignantly encapsulated the grief, shock and anger of the student body (“When David heard that Absalom was slain, he went up to his chamber and wept, and thus he said, ‘O my son, Absalom my son, would God that I had died for thee!’”).
Students demanded that the college end its complicity with the U.S. military by removing the Reserve Officers Training Corp (ROTC) from campus; called for the federal release of political prisoners, including jailed Black Panthers; and urged for an immediate withdrawal of American troops from South Asia.
Throughout the week, students spent their days attending teach-ins, workshops and rallies to learn about the war, the draft and Black Panthers. Students marched through Middlebury Union High School to “liberate” the high schoolers and inspire political action. Activists canvassed throughout the town, engaging residents in conversations and aiming to educate the conservative-leaning community about the anti-war cause, according to Steve Early ’71. After the burning of Recitation Hall on May 7, many spent their nights patrolling the campus to prevent further destruction and to avoid the widespread violence witnessed on college campuses nationwide.
The town residents feared similar violence, and the fire seemed to only reaffirm those fears, causing tension to emerge between the campus and community. In an effort to improve public relations, Obie Benz ’71 organized a group of students to stay in Middlebury over the summer. The students engaged in community service work to try and mend the town-gown relationship and reassure locals that Middlebury students were not like the violent anti-war radicals frequently featured on their TVs.
Results
Classes resumed on May 11 with academic exceptions made for students who took the rest of the semester off to protest the war. The College Council, faculty, and student body voted to broadly affirm the national strike goals, substituting the demands of national leaders for more moderate language.
The Middlebury administration worked hard to maintain Middlebury’s reputation and reassure parents, alumni and community members that the college-wide activism was moderate in tone. Middlebury President James Armstrong never referred to the events as a “strike,” describing it instead as “suspending normal activities,” being “in extraordinary session” and deciding whether or not to “resume classes,” according to Baehr. In the summer newsletter to parents, the college framed the strike as “a united searching — by students, faculty, and administrators — for the most useful set of responses to the national situation.” The newsletter failed to mention Black students’ efforts to raise issues of race, or calls for solidarity with the Black Panthers. That year set the then annual fundraising record high of $272,000.
Still, the strike was a catalyst for widespread student anti-war action at Middlebury in the years that followed. Radical Education and Action Project (REAP), founded by student activists Early and Burchman the following fall, brought speakers to campus and hosted rallies, with the goals of inspiring political action and thought through education.
Burchman recalled groups of students routinely burning draft cards outside of Proctor Hall in shows of public defiance against the war. Burchman himself faced disciplinary action when he protested Navy representatives publically advertising beside the cafeteria line. He set up shop next to them and projected images of napalm-ravaged villages and mutilated Vietnamese children until the Navy representatives left.
“It's not like the student strike happened once and there was no more unrest,” Burchman said. “The great mass of Middlebury returned into its slumber, but there was an activated core of hundreds of students who remained very very committed.”
While immediate responses to the strike and student anti-war organizing at Middlebury may have been tepid, students’ efforts did make a long term difference. O'Brien cited the strike as a major reason for the college’s ultimate decision to remove the Military Studies Department as a credit-bearing program and relegate ROTC to an off-campus extracurricular in 1976.
“The collective activity, unexpected and unprecedented in scale, put pressure on lots of other people [like Armstrong], drew them in, and made them part of the process of seeking solutions to the situation,” Early said. “Students became a conscience for people in positions of authority, including elected leaders and heads of institutions.”
On a national level, many consider the widespread student activism on college campuses instrumental in pressuring the U.S. government to withdraw from Vietnam in 1973.
Issues of Inclusion
Anti-war efforts at Middlebury struggled to include more diverse voices.
While the killing of four white students at Kent State galvanized the campus into widespread action, the shooting of Black students by the National Guard, resulting in two dead and 12 injured, at Jackson State University in Mississippi just 11 days later hardly registered a response at Middlebury. Efforts by Black Students for Mutual Understanding (BSMU) to organize around the shooting and raise consciousness around the Black Power movement went largely ignored by the student body.
“The death of the four Kent State students was a very tragic event for Kent State and the parents of those students,” read the BSMU position paper published May 6. “However it would be hypocritical of this organization and its members to pretend that these deaths have rendered us emotionally bankrupt; for many of us, and the vast majority of Black people, death and suffering has become a very real part of life.”
“We barely paid even lip service to the urgent issues Arnold [McKinney ’70, the leader of the BSMU,] and others were trying to have us see during the strike,” wrote Kaarla Baehr ’70 in an email to The Campus. “Not surprising given the time and place, but painful.”
Just as Black activists were excluded from the mainstream conversation, women were sidelined as men took center stage in the anti-war movement at Middlebury and beyond. Baehr, the Student Senate president at the time, was the only prominent female voice during the strike.
When she came to the stage to speak to the assembled crowd at Mead Chapel on May 5, the entire rally had to pause for several minutes as she attempted to lower the microphone positioned well above her head. That struggle was indicative of an entire movement structured around an assumption of male leaders, Baehr said.
The summer newsletter to parents made that divide even more apparent.
“Striking blonde reads a letter to her teachers explaining why she was quitting for the rest of the year,” read an article detailing the chronology of the strike.
Class also divided student protesters. Calls to shut down the campus for the rest of the semester failed to inspire many low-income and first-generation college students, who did not want to jeopardize their hard-won and expensive education, according to Baehr. While some students took the summer off to protest the war, Early, a dedicated activist and major organizer of the strike himself, had to start work flipping burgers at McDonalds immediately after finishing his finals in order to afford his next year at Middlebury.
Learning to Lead
The gaps in representation during the 1970 strike gave rise to opportunity. Torie Osborn ’72 transferred to Middlebury in the fall of 1970 after being inspired by the anti-war activity of the previous fall. She became one of the most visible figureheads of the modern women's movement at Middlebury, helping eliminate curfews for female students, advocating for access to birth control and organizing an abortion underground to Montreal where it was legal in the days before Roe v. Wade.
She learned how to organize and lead as an activist through her anti-war activism at Middlebury. Those skills helped shape her decades-long career as a queer feminsit activist, which has included serving as the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and a term as senior advisor to the mayor of Los Angeles, focusing on reducing homelessness and poverty.
“I was used to being one of thousands of followers. When I got to Middlebury, I learned how to be a leader. I learned how to organize,” Osborn said. “The skills that I learned and the passion that was reinforced at Middlebury for social justice activism has shaped my whole life.”
Many of the organizers of the 1970 strike and subsequent anti-war activity went on to lead lives as prominent activists, like Early, who is known as an organizer, union representative labor activist, lawyer, and author. He said his time at Middlebury taught him how to successfully organize action and the importance of patience in long-term social justice efforts.
Burchman was a freshman in 1970. Leading anti-war activism over the next three years, he learned how to take advantage of the power of crises to galvanize the masses and create longstanding positive change. He later used those lessons to fight the ’80s HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City, advocate for community health and residential care and work to develop solutions for homelessness across the country. He is now working remotely to advocate for the homeless in Nebraska in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
“[The strike and anti-war activism at Middlebury] gave me a direction in life. The war gave me an understanding of the basic question: Who benefits?” Burchman said. “I’ve been able to have a wonderful professional career orientated towards issues of social justice... that I’m so grateful for. It gave me a great life.”
Beyond the individual lives of Middlebury graduates, the 1970 strike and anti-war activism of the late 60s and early 70s has left an indelible impact on the landscape of education nationwide.
In a Jacobin article, Early cited student walkouts over the Iraq invasion, Parkland shooting and climate change as echoes of the 1970 strike continuing to influence national politics.
“The memory of [the student strike] hangs on and hangs on,” said O'Brien. “The effect of that one moment, that one week, has impacted into the student DNA [at Middlebury and beyond].”
(05/07/20 10:01am)
During the regular school year, our dining staff cooks us delicious meals, so we wanted to see what they're cooking at home these days.
This is the first in The Campus' series of recipes from home, sent in from Middlebury College Dining Staff. We welcome submissions! Please send recipes and questions to npeachin@middlebury.edu.
Dearest Middlebury,
I think it is safe to say that, at this point, we are all a little crazy from our isolation. Maybe some of you are stressed from working from home, trying to home-school your children, manage teaching or learn online, or maybe you are just stressed from the uncertainty of our new normal. All of us miss being on campus and interacting with each other. I’m feeling it too.
As I have fully driven my husband and our Great Dane insane from being home all the time, I thought it would be a good idea to try something new. I have been spending my isolation learning new cooking techniques and I am playing with cooking Thai food. I also broke out the ice cream maker we received as a wedding present four years ago. Making ice cream has become a great way to spend an afternoon. And it is a great way to support local farms. I use Monument Farms dairy for this recipe and our own eggs. We have a flock of ducks that we raise organically in Vergennes, hence why this recipe calls for duck eggs. Chicken eggs will work, but they aren’t nearly as rich as duck eggs. The Middlebury Natural Foods Co-Op has local duck eggs for sale. I’m also always happy to deliver our duck eggs, so feel free to contact me if you’re interested!
I hope that you can have fun making ice cream. Making ice cream has become a tasty distraction from the unpredictable world we now find ourselves in. And involve your kids. They shouldn’t handle boiling cream, but they can certainly separate eggs!
Enjoy! Hopefully, we will all be together on campus again soon.
Best,
Krystal Dragon
Ross Commons Dining Room Supervisor
Strawberry ice cream with duck eggs
Ingredients:
4 duck eggs, yolks only (if you use chicken eggs, use 5)
2 cups whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or one vanilla bean scraped)
1 cup sugar
1 ½ cups frozen or fresh strawberries (if using frozen, thaw them before adding)
½ cup dark chocolate chips (optional)
Equipment needed:
An ice-cream maker
A sturdy whisk
Two heat-proof glass bowls (Pyrex works)
A wet dish-towel
A medium-sized saucepot (see note on utensils)
A fine-meshed strainer
A wooden spoon (see note on utensils)
Instructions:
1. Add heavy cream, milk, vanilla, and half of the sugar to a saucepot. Bring to almost a full boil or 190℉. You will know it’s ready when the cream starts to boil along the sides of the pot, rise, and pull inward. (Note: Do not full-on boil it or you will scald the milk.)
2. In a heat-proof glass bowl (I use a Pyrex glass bowl), whip egg yolks and the remaining half of the sugar with a hand-whisk until pale yellow and sugar is mostly dissolved (about a minute). (Note: Prop a wet dish-towel underneath the bowl so that it doesn’t slide all over the counter).
3. When the milk mixture comes to a light boil, turn off the heat, and slowly add the hot milk to the eggs while whisking the eggs constantly.(IMPORTANT NOTE: This is called “tempering” and if you are unfamiliar with this process, I highly suggest you search for a YouTube video of it. If you add the milk too quickly, the custard will shatter, and the result will be very sweet scrambled eggs!)
4. Return the tempered eggs to the saucepot and heat on low, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the mixture coats the back of the spoon. This only takes a couple of minutes. You should be able to drag your finger across the back of the spoon and make a trail through the custard. Do not let the custard boil, as it will shatter and, again, you will have scrambled eggs.
5. Remove custard from heat and strain through a fine-mesh strainer into a clean heat-proof glass bowl. (There might be a few solid egg bits, but don’t panic! This is why we strain it.). Let the custard come to room temperature, then cover half of the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for two hours, or overnight. (Covering half of the bowl allows heat to escape and prevents a skin from forming on the surface of the custard.)
6. When custard is chilled, add it to an ice-cream maker and churn for 18 minutes (or follow your ice-cream maker’s instructions for “base” or vanilla ice-cream churn times). Add strawberries (and chocolate chips, if using) and churn for 5 additional minutes.
You can eat it right out of the ice-cream maker or freeze it for harder ice-cream! This recipe makes about 6 cups of ice-cream.
(05/07/20 9:51am)
Just over 16% students — 204 total — of the 1,245 Zeitgeist respondents were varsity athletes. According to statistics on the Athletics Department’s website, nearly 27% of Middlebury students participate in varsity sports.
One dominant stereotype of athletes is that they “work hard, play hard.” When rigorous academics meet a big time commitment like a varsity sport, it “can definitely lead to finding a form of release elsewhere,” according to Munya Ra Munyati ’20.5, a member of the men's track team. We wondered if varsity athletes really do “go harder” than non-athletes.
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On average, athletes get drunker than non-athletes, according to Zeitgeist data. About 48% of non-athletes said they tend to “get drunk” when they consume alcohol, compared to 58% within the varsity-athlete population. For some athletes, drinking is a coping mechanism. Varsity sports take up roughly three hours a day — and some athletes recounted the toll that a demanding academic schedule coupled with athletic commitments takes on their mental health. “The more stress that builds up, the more people drink,” said Ra Munyati.
There also seem to be systemic practices that lead to an increased consumption of alcohol. Like most clubs on campus, varsity teams encourage their members to pay dues, the money from which is often used to provide people with hard alcohol. “Freshmen on teams are also given access to alcohol in a much larger capacity than most freshmen,” said women's track member Kiera Dowell '20.
Additionally, varsity athletes are more than twice as likely to “black out,” with 11% reporting it is a regular occurrence. “We like to push the limits of how much fun we can have,” said Pete Huggins ’21. Huggins, a member of the football team, also said that sometimes going out and drinking would turn into a competition of sorts between teammates, something he said was meant all in good fun. Dowell recalled a party after NESCACS her sophomore year that was “was absolutely insane,” but remains adamant when she says that ultimately celebrations like these are “not the leading cause” for the patterns of drinking followed by varsity athletes.
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We also asked where respondents were most likely to spend a Saturday night on campus, and allowed people to pick up to three options. The data elucidated that, generally (and unsurprisingly) much drinking is happening at Atwater. Nearly 83% of athletes reported that on an average Saturday night, they would most likely be found in an Atwater suite, almost three times — 270% — more likely than non-athletes. Put differently, while varsity athletes only made up about 16% of respondents, they represented more than a third — 34% — of Middlebury students who spend time in Atwater suites on the weekends.
Varsity athletes are also more likely to spend time at off-campus locations on Saturday nights. This is not entirely surprising, since senior members of varsity teams often apply for suites and houses and opt to hold team parties there.
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Men's hockey player Mitch Allen '20 felt that Atwater’s popularity among most varsity teams was due to a lack of other options, though he said that it was a less than ideal space. He mentioned that his “team has had an off-campus house for the past two years and that is very much preferred to anywhere else.”
Huggins also said the Atwater trend could be due to tradition. “A team will get a suite and everyone knows to go there,” he said. “There is a small bonding or celebratory aspect to it.”
Varsity athletes also differ from non-athletes in their sexual/relationship encounters. The survey results suggest that athletes were 12% more likely than non-athletes to have experienced a one-night stand. Furthermore, athletes were more likely to have engaged in consensual sexual activity with more partners. 38% of athletes said that they had engaged in consensual sexual activity with 2–4 partners in the last 12 months, compared to 30% of non-athletes. Additionally, 14% of athletes reported that they had abstained from consensual sexual activity in the last year, compared to 23% of non-athletes.
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Nearly 41% of non-athletes at Middlebury have reported being in a committed relationship. That number slinks back to just over 32% among the varsity athlete population. In other words, athletes were also 20% less likely to have been in a full-fledged committed/monogamous relationship while at Middlebury.
Some student athletes find this data surprising. “At least for track, there is sometimes inter team hookups but often that turns into dating.” said Marisa Edmondson '20 of the track team. “ A lot of my teammates date each other. I’d say as far as I know more people end up dating each other then casually hooking up,” Edmondson continued.
(05/07/20 9:50am)
The Campus asked Middlebury students to participate in the second annual Zeitgeist survey in November, looking to gain insight into campus culture by asking the questions that are often not discussed. This year’s survey included an exploration of love, relationships and the ever ill-defined “hook-up culture.” A total of 1,245 students responded — nearly 48.25% of the student body.
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The vast majority of Middlebury students — 90.82% — prefer a romantic relationship to a hook-up, according to the second annual Zeitgeist survey.
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Despite this indicated preference, 50.44% of respondents said that they have had a one-night stand in the past and 43.53% reported having had an, “unspecified, slightly-monogamous ‘thing.’”
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About 55.37% of respondents, or 686 students, reported having been in a committed romantic relationship before starting at Middlebury. However, only 39.43% of students, or 491 respondents, reported being in a committed/monogamous relationship at Middlebury.
Athletes are 7.09% more likely to have partaken in a one-night stand and, on average, have a higher number of sexual partners than non-athletes.
Students identifying as part of the LGBTQ+ community are equally as likely to participate in all forms of relationships and sexual activity as non-LGBTQ+ students.
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When asked about their satisfaction with the romantic scene at Middlebury, 46.01% of respondents answered that they were somewhat dissatisfied or extremely dissatisfied, 30.41% were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, 23.58% said that they were somewhat satisfied or extremely satisfied.
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The length of relationships for students have varied. 34.90% of respondents said that their longest relationship lasted over a year, while 22.35% have never been in a relationship.
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More than one in ten students — 10.17% of respondents — said they have cheated in a romantic relationship.
Respondents were asked how many partners they have engaged in consensual sexual activity within the last 12 months. The most common response was 2-4 partners, with 386 students. 263 students reported they had not engaged in sex within the last year. Respondents who identified as cisgender female were more likely to have not engaged in sex compared to their cisgender male counterparts: 24.25% compared to 16.26%.
Despite the fact that many students have participated in hook-up culture to some degree, it is not clear what this term actually means. Students attempted — and struggled — to define “hook-up” in the survey. 1,130 students heeded the call to demystify the ambiguous (and popular) term.
“Hook-up is a deliberately ambiguous word in English that can connote anything from just making out to full-on sex,” reads one response, adding that “hook-up” is not a term they use when speaking of their own encounters. “I believe that encounters of any sexual nature would constitute a hook-up, but I’d be wary of defining mine as such because of the social implications this term carries.”
Many responses stated that hooking up is the range that begins with making out and ends with sex. Some designated hook-ups as an act that must occur privately, while others included infamous Dance Floor Make Outs (DFMOs) in their definition. Many others explicitly defined hook-ups as, “anything more than kissing”, requiring some sort of sexual encounter.
One respondent wrote that hook-ups are, “Something sexual in nature that can turn into something more, but [that] doesn’t necessarily have too much meaning or … emotion.”
The word “party” appears in responses 40 times. One response says that hook-ups are “having sex with someone after a party and then not getting into a relationship for more than a couple weeks or so afterward.” The words “casual” and “casually” appear 66 times in responses. “Spontaneous” and “spontaneously” appear seven times.
A common theme in the responses is a lack of emotional connection or significance. As one respondent puts it, hook-ups are, “Having a sexual relationship with someone without necessarily the need for an emotional/romantic connection or committment to that person.”
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For those involved in the romantic scene at Middlebury, survey respondents were given a range of options to select how they have met romantic partners. The most popular option was through mutual friends, with 527 people, followed by on nights out (495), extracurriculars (275) and through residence halls (225). Respondents also pointed to orientation and on-campus jobs as places they met romantic partners.
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The data also shows that Middlebury students tend to download dating apps during their later years at Middlebury. The percentage of students who use dating apps increased as students aged, with only 17.25% of the class of 2023 respondents having used a dating app at the time of the survey compared to 44.19% of the class of 2022, 48.36% of the class of 2021 and 57.32% of the class of 2020.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in The Campus' April 23 Love Issue.
Riley Board and Caroline Kapp contributed reporting.
(05/07/20 9:49am)
The Zeitgeist survey asked respondents about different facets of social life at Middlebury, ranging from questions about substance use to TikTok. College social life invariably evolves for students as they get older, but nevertheless, we tried to depict a general snapshot from first-years to super-senior-Febs.
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A majority of respondents reported having partied where alcohol or drugs were present, or having used one of these substances themselves, before coming to Middlebury. Of these respondents, more than two-thirds, 79.8%, said that alcohol was the most commonly seen substance. Over half of all respondents, 53.1%, had smoked marijuana, and just under a third had vaped or juuled before coming to college. A mere 14.1% reported being around or doing none of the above.
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Patterns of substance use are similar across different school types. Students from public and charter or magnet schools were slightly more likely to have smoked marijuana, while private and boarding schools were more likely to have used a fake ID. Respondents who attended private day schools were the most likely to report doing at least one of the options listed.
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The data show that coming to Middlebury was generally associated with increased substance use. Around 75% of respondents said they partied in the presence of alcohol and/or drugs more at Middlebury than they had before, while 73% reported consuming more alcohol than before.
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When asked how drunk they usually tend to get at Middlebury, approximately half (48.7%) said that they “get drunk.” A tenth of all respondents reported not drinking at all, and the same number said they barely drink. A small number of students — less than 6% of respondents — reported getting “brownout” or “blackout.”
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We also asked respondents about their usage of various social media platforms. Instagram was the most popular form of social media among respondents, with almost two-thirds, 63.4%, rating it their most-used platform. Though more respondents reported using Facebook than Snapchat, the latter was used more frequently: 71.2% ranked Snapchat among their two most used platforms. Facebook reached this rank for only 41.1% of its users.
Tumblr and TikTok were both relatively unpopular among respondents, with 14.9% and 13.2% reporting using them, respectively. While only 23.9% ranked TikTok among their top three platforms in November, the app became a popular meme since stay-at-home orders were put into effect in March. (The Campus tried to get in touch with a number of habitual TikTok users for comment, but none of them wanted to go public about their use of the app.)
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81% of students said they had met friends through mutual friends, making it the most common way through which students formed friendships at Middlebury. Classes, residence halls and extracurriculars trailed not far behind, with approximately 76% of respondents choosing each. 40% of respondents reported having met friends on nights out. Under the “other” category, “Feb” was the most popular with 18 appearances. “Sports” appeared 10 times, “First@Midd” 7 times.
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When asked about friend groups, 63.4% of all respondents reported being part of multiple groups, while 9.5% felt they were part of none. The data show some variation between different ethnic groups. Black and Hispanic/Latino respondents were more likely than white and Asian respondents to consider themselves part of only one friend group. Black respondents were also the least likely to consider themselves part of no friend group.
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When asked about their Saturday nights, 75.2% of respondents selected hanging with friends as a pastime. Out of the five specific campus buildings listed on the survey, Atwater was the most popular with 39% of the vote, followed by the social houses with 35.6%. Approximately a tenth of respondents reported to be working.
Respondents were asked to mark where on campus they feel most uncomfortable. The resulting heat map shows a hotspot that spans the entirety of the Atwater suites, as well as clusters around the athletics complex and the Ross and Proctor areas. The data show overlap with reports of vandalism, as well as the 2019 It Happens Here map which documented incidents of sexual assault and harassment.
(05/07/20 9:47am)
The Middlebury academic experience is marked by a vast range of classes, a set of distribution requirements that push students to explore courses outside of their academic comfort zones, a strong honor code and small class sizes that allow students to develop relationships with their professors and peers.
But these college brochure bullet points don’t capture the full picture. This year, our Zeitgeist data answered more inconspicuous questions about those experiences, from why students skip class to what distribution requirements are hardest to fulfill, to how many students break the honor code and in what ways.
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Overall, students overwhelmingly feel intellectually stimulated at Middlebury, by their professors, their classes, their peers within their major and their friends. In fact, only 4% combined — 40 students — indicated that they either somewhat disagree or strongly disagree with the statement “I feel intellectually stimulated at Middlebury.” Sixty-five percent of students indicated that they strongly agree with the statement, while another 30% said that they somewhat agree.
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The vast majority of students indicated that they are most intellectually stimulated in the classroom, pointing to professors (39%), class material (35%) and classmates (8%). For some, the most prominent source of intellectual stimulation is outside the classroom: 10% of students indicated friends, followed by talks and student organizations, both at 3%.
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Students report consistent levels of intellectual stimulation across all majors. The concentrations with the fewest majors saying they felt intellectually stimulated were arts majors, with 57% of the 40 total arts majors choosing that option. Language majors — 32 total students — reported the highest rate of intellectual stimulation, at 72%. Arts and language majors were also less represented in the survey than most other majors.
Those 4% of students who strongly disagree about feeling intellectually stimulated are evenly distributed across major groups.
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Do students find that their peers within their major are intellectually stimulating? Almost two-thirds — 64% or 792 students — said yes. 18% said neither yes nor no, and 14% marked themselves as undeclared. Only 5%, or 63 students, indicated that they did not.
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Those who indicated that they are strongly stimulated by the other students in their major are most likely to be humanities, literature or natural sciences majors, and least likely to be arts, language or social sciences majors.
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And as for Middlebury’s Honor Code, which, “[r]equires of every student complete intellectual honesty” and which all students sign at the start of their time at the college, 46% of students wrote that they had broken the honor code, while the other 54% said that they had not. Last year, 35% wrote that they had broken the honor code, 57% said they hadn’t and another 8% chose ‘prefer not to answer’, an option which was not available on this year’s Zeitgeist.
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More than half of all honor code violations were with the use of unauthorized aid, such as translators, calculators, SparkNotes and friends’ edits. Cheating on a test comprised 29% of honor code violations while plagiarism, reusing papers and assignments and falsifying data made up the remaining 17% percent.
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Distribution requirements oblige students to take courses in seven of eight academic areas, in addition to four courses pertaining to certain civilizations areas out of six total regions. Students must also complete one comparative civilization course, and two College Writing courses. When asked which of these requirements is hardest to fill, the largest number of students, 24%, said that they did not have any trouble fulfilling any distribution requirements.
Students struggled most with the civilization requirement, with 20% indicating that this was the hardest to fulfill. Of the eight core requirements, students report having the most trouble fulfilling the physical and life sciences (SCI) requirement, at 12%. This is followed by deductive reasoning (DED) at 9% and then a foreign language (LNG) at 7%.
The social analysis (SOC) requirement is the easiest to fulfill, with less than 1% of respondents choosing this option.
There are many factors that may make some requirements easier or harder to fulfill than others. One of these is the sheer number of classes available within a given tag: SOC, for example, was a requirement met by 150 classes offered this fall, compared to only 61 for Literature (LIT) or 26 for Philosophical and Religious Studies (PHL). Additionally, some tags are more interdisciplinary than others: SCI, for example, was tagged only to classes offered in the Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Studies (although only one class), Geography, Geology, Linguistics (also only one course), Neuroscience, Physics and Psychology departments, while the SOC requirement is offered in 30 departments, including in First-Year Seminars.
Additionally, the Foreign Language (LNG) requirement sometimes requires completion of two or three semesters of a language, such as in the case of intro-level language courses, compared to the single-semester required for almost all other categories.
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Middlebury appears to have a solid attendance record: only 7% of students reported skipping class at least once a week, with 37% skipping “a couple times a semester” and 23% skipping just once per semester. Another 33% reported that they never skip class.
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Students cited mental health as the most common reason for skipping class, with mental health being the cause of 23% of missed classes, followed by feeling overwhelmed by assignments, 21% of the time.
Physical health accounts for another 18% of missed classes, while 13% is the result of oversleeping. 11% of the time, students say that they skip because their class time does not feel productive.
Respondents said they miss just 3% of classes because peers are also skipping, while only 2% of skipping happens because students feel intimidated or uncomfortable because of the class or the people in it. Of the 60 respondents who noted skipping class for other reasons, 19 mentioned travel and five cited skiing. Other responses mentioned job interviews, having friends or family visiting or studying for exams in other classes.
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More than half of students reported spending between four and six hours on academic work outside of class per day, with 28% spending less time and 19% spending more. A total of 6% reported spending 10 or more hours a day on schoolwork outside of class.
(05/07/20 9:46am)
This year, 1,245 students completed the second-annual Zeitgeist survey, an uptick of 42 respondents from last year’s inaugural questionnaire. This figure represents 48.7% of the students who were on campus this fall, according to the Fall 2019 Student Profile; however, students who were studying abroad were also invited to participate in the survey.
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Participation across class years was roughly the same. The class of 2022 had the greatest number of participants, with 270 respondents.
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Nearly 73% of respondents identified as white. Only 62% of domestic students in the Fall 2019 Student Profile identified themselves as white, which may indicate that the Zeitgeist survey results have a skew towards students who identify as white — though the student profile’s number does not take into account international students, who were reported in a separate racial or ethnic category.
The second-largest block of Zeitgeist respondents, at 10.4%, were students who identified as Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander. 5.4% of respondents identified as Hispanic or Latinx, and 2.9% of respondents identified as black or African American. 7.5% of respondents identified as biracial or multiracial.
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As might be expected of a liberal arts institution, nearly a fourth (23.3%) of survey respondents had an interdisciplinary major, which includes environmental studies, international politics and economics and international and global studies. The next most popular major category was the social sciences at 22.1%, followed by majors in the natural sciences, with 17.8%, and humanities majors at 8.7%. One in five respondents (19.8%) were undecided about their course of study. 22.4% of respondents indicated having a second major. Economics was the most popular major with 105 respondents, followed by environmental studies with 91, political science with 69, neuroscience with 66 and computer science with 66.
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Nearly 60% of respondents identified as cisgender females while only 36% of respondents identified as cisgender males. Less than 4% of students identified as a transgender male, transgender female, nonbinary, or felt that the options given did not define their gender. According to the Fall 2019 Student Profile, which used a binary classification of gender, 53% of students identified as female while 47% of students identified as male, indicating a skew in the Zeitgeist results towards cisgender female students. Over one in four students identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer or questioning.
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Forty percent of Zeitgeist survey participants are on financial aid. Ten percent of respondents are first-generation college students, which is similar to the most recent admitted class’s profile at 11%.
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Almost one in three respondents hail from New England states. One in five students is from New York, New Jersey or Pennsylvania. 13% are from the South, 12% are from Pacific states, 9% from the Midwest, and 5% are from Mountain states. Over half of respondents consider their hometowns to be suburban, 29% are from urban hometowns, and 18% from rural.
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Half of the respondents attended a public high school, 31% attended a private high school, 11% attended boarding school and 5% a charter or magnet school.
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One in ten respondents identified as religious; 28% considered themselves somewhat religious, and 60% did not consider themselves religious.
(05/03/20 2:22am)
