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(11/14/19 11:00am)
More than four weeks have passed since Atwater Commons Residence Director Esther Thomas called Atwater suites residents into a meeting about consistent damage in their buildings, including urination in elevators and sign theft. And, while all of the signs stolen in October have since been returned and inappropriate urination across campus seems to have come to a halt, destruction of and disrespect for property at Middlebury is nowhere near over.
Masted signs — the large blue-metal placards on posts outside many buildings on campus — were knocked down by students in the past several weeks, most notably outside of the Robert A. Jones ’59 House and Carr Hall, according to facilities staff. Repairs for these signs will collectively cost between $400 and $600, as the bases of the posts must be re-welded. Students also tore down recycling and custodial signs in Atwater Hall B.
Wayne Hall, a facilities supervisor, has worked at the college for 25 years, and has seen the levels of damage over the years ebb and flow based on the populations of different campus buildings.
“I get youthful exuberance and accidents, but the malicious vandalism and disrespect, I don’t get how people can feel okay about that,” Hall said.
On Monday, Oct. 14, shortly after the Atwater community meeting and only five weeks into this year, the total residential damage cost for the year came out to about $2,500. This suggests a higher rate of damage this year in comparison with others, given that during 2018–19 school year there were $4,200 in damages for the whole year. During the 2017–18 school year there were only $2,700 in damages.
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If destruction continues at this rate for the remainder of the school year, there could be an unprecedented $16,000 in residential hall damages. And, according to reporting from 2015, damages tend to pick up in the spring.
Hall and Custodial Supervisor Dan Celik spoke about the burden that deliberate damage places upon the custodial team, especially in a time of staff shortages.
“In the long run, [damages] are costing the college money. And with our staff reduction, I’d rather be fixing things that need to be fixed than fixing things that didn’t need to be broken,” Hall said.
Facilities has been suffering from staff shortages for years, but vacancies have peaked recently.
“I’ve been here for a long time and this is the first time that I remember having as many openings as we do,” an anonymous custodial staff member told The Campus last month.
When conducting fire safety checks, residential life and facilities will often find signs that have been stolen hanging on the walls of rooms and suites, like “trophies” according to Celik. The act of taking signs from the buildings in which people live for their own decor is particularly troubling to him.
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“You’re taking from your own community. You’re disfiguring your own building,” Celik said. “We pride ourselves on having a world class facility: not every place looks like this. And when it gets defaced it’s super frustrating. We do our best to make the bad places look good, keeping them clean.”
However, Celik noted, it’s not the so-called “bad places” — older buildings like Battell — where the damages primarily occur. It’s newer, nicer facilities like the Atwater suites.
Whodunnit?
Conversations about damage by students have often hinged on laying blame: if someone gets away with destruction without being caught — which is often the case — who should have to be responsible for the cost of repairs?
At the recent Atwater Community Meeting, students debated who should be charged for the $2,300 in damages that were originally to be divided among Atwater residents. Many argued that destruction in common spaces should not be charged to all residents, most of whom were not present at the time of damage or hosting the parties that brought in guests.
Thomas responded by imploring residents to set a tone in the building, and noting that they are broadly responsible for the space, even the communal spaces outside of their suites.
Celik and Hall echoed this sentiment. “We consider where you are now to be your home,” Hall said, referencing the way that students would likely behave in their own houses. He believes people are responsible for the buildings they live in and the behaviors of people who visit those spaces.
To students who have caused damage, either deliberately or accidentally, and want to avoid high fees for their entire building, facilities staff have a solution: fess up.
When a student comes forward about causing damage, the labor rate per hour is reduced from $59 to $39. When a specific student is not found to be responsible for damage, an entire hall or building will be charged the higher rate, but when responsible parties admit to destruction, they are individually charged at the lower rate.
While materials costs remain the same, facilities hopes to incentivize student honesty by reducing the labor fee in situations where students confess.
“I think if someone is honest enough to come forward and return the sign, we’re going to just fix the sign. We see that as an adult reaction. We’re not out to screw over the students, we just need to fix things,” Hall said.
(11/14/19 10:59am)
Most students studying abroad in Chile chose to stay in the country despite civil unrest, after the college’s study abroad office gave them the option to leave.
After protests started three weeks ago, the study abroad office first considered an evacuation of all students enrolled in Middlebury programs in Chile. On Oct. 24, it elected instead to give them several options. They could remain in Chile, relocate to Buenos Aires, Argentina or return to the United States, where they could earn partial academic credit through remote work or full credit by adding a summer language course. Students were asked to decide on a course of action by Monday, Nov. 4.
Of the 23 students enrolled in Middlebury programs in six Chilean cities, three chose to return to the United States, one chose to relocate to Buenos Aires and the remaining 19 chose to stay in Chile, according to Assistant Director of International Programs Alessandra Capossela.
Students were first asked to decide on one of the four options by Nov. 1. However, many became frustrated by what they saw as limitations in the options. To earn full credit if they went home, students would have had to complete Chilean coursework remotely, in addition to the additional course of summer language school, the cost of which would have been covered by the college. Relocating to Buenos Aires would have allowed students to earn a maximum of 3.5 credits, rather than the full four.
For many students, the easiest way to earn full credit would be to remain in Chile, where credit wasn’t a guarantee either because many universities there remain closed. In response, students called and sent emails to the study abroad office requesting more flexible ways to earn credit. Capossela responded by sending students revised options in an email on Oct. 29, which included opportunities to earn more credits in Argentina and at home without taking a language school course.
“We are hearing from some of you that you are feeling like you are forced to remain in Chile because you need to get four credits for this semester,” Capossela wrote in that email. “As I had mentioned in a previous message, it certainly was not our intention to preference staying in Chile over any of the other options.”
Capossela followed up with another email to students later that day, detailing courses organized by the study abroad office, independent of Chilean universities, that students remaining in Chile would be able to take while host universities remained closed. The five-week long intensive course focuses on social movements in Latin America and is centered on Chile.
[pullquote speaker="Mason Arndt '21" photo="" align="left" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]
A lot of the violence has continued. We’re limited in our movements and things feel really off.[/pullquote]
“This was big for us because it means we aren’t relying on the universities to resume classes in order to get credit, something we thought was unlikely to happen,” Mason Arndt ’21 said. Arndt is living in Viña Del Mar and chose to remain there for the semester.
Along with the intensive course, students will earn half a credit for each university class they were taking (most took three or four), one letter-grade credit for internships or independent studies and one credit for a writing and culture class that was already part of the Middlebury program. With these options, students have the opportunity to earn the four credits they expected to receive at the start of the semester.
Sidra Pierson ’21 was one of 11 students living in the sister cities of Viña Del Mar and Valparaíso who signed a petition asking to remain in Chile when the study abroad office considered an evacuation in October. The guarantees of credit for remaining in Chile only made her more sure of her decision, she said.
“There was a lot I could still get out of the semester even though we’re giving up a lot of your typical study abroad experiences,” Pierson said. “Getting another month and a half at the time with my Chilean host family and friends, and speaking Spanish, it all felt worth it.”
In Santiago, Mireille Becerra ’21 agreed, saying that staying in Chile is “easiest for me compared to all other options.” Because her semester in Chile is scheduled to end on Nov. 20, she said, leaving the country made little sense.
Though Chilean president Sebastian Piñera lifted the national state of emergency on Oct. 28, protests and violent government response have continued. Students studying in the sister cities and Santiago have watched protests and police crackdowns in their neighborhoods in the past days.
“Marches with thousands of people take place both on the streets and in plazas, parks, or other commercial sectors,” Becerra wrote in an email to The Campus. “Various stores continue to be broken into or set on fire as well. Both to disperse the massive crowds and to stop the robbers, the police use tear gas and water pressure.”
In Viña Del Mar, Arndt said, protests did not ease much even after the state of emergency was lifted. On Nov. 12, Pierson watched smoke rise above the city as fires set by arsonists raged, and took video of police clashing with protesters several blocks from her homestay.
“A lot of the violence has continued,” Arndt said. “We’re limited in our movements and things feel really off. There might be an image of everything going back to normal for students who have stayed, but that’s not really the case.”
On Nov. 13, administrators in Valparaíso had to cancel a meeting of the intensive course for the second time in two weeks amid concerns about students moving between the sister cities
“We’re all feeling like, ‘how the heck are we going to get this course done in the next four weeks?’,” Pierson said.
Students scheduled to study in Chile in the spring said they have received mixed messages about whether they will be able to proceed with their semesters abroad as planned.
“I feel that things are really up in the air, and the abroad offices are not offering very clear or specific information,” said Ella Houlihan ’21, who was planning on studying in Valparaíso in the spring. Some students have filled out applications to study in other locations such as Uruguay, Argentina or Cuba.
“I opened up a second app to Buenos Aires and I’m even considering applying to an external program to Cuba last minute,” said Olivia O’Brien ’21. “I really hope to go to Santiago, though. If Middlebury runs the program in the spring, it is still my top choice.”
According to Capossela, the study abroad office is in conversations with Chile program director Juan Pastene as to options going forward for students scheduled to spend the spring semester there.
“We are planning to let Spring 2020 students know what their options will be by the beginning of December,” she wrote in an email to The Campus.
(11/14/19 10:57am)
At this point, it’s certainly starting to feel like one.
A few weeks ago, I was disappointed to see the removal of the commons system. I felt very strongly about it, in large part due to my position in SGA as a commons senator and as one of the members of the Wonnacott Commons Council. Mostly, I was disturbed by the implications which the commons change holds for the structure of student representation in SGA moving forward.
As a result of that frustration, I drafted a bill. My bill would effectively maintain the current SGA Senate structure by replacing the five commons senators with a similar senate position (to be put into effect next school year). While my initial proposal was not passed, it sparked conversation. In particular, the SGA Senate found itself debating: what is the most effective way to structure our student government in a method that best represents students, increases SGA legitimacy and holds us accountable as a body?
In ensuing conversations, our 17-person senate offered a diverse range of opinions. Some believe the solution is an 11-person senate (created by removing both the Commons senator positions and the co-chair of Community Council from the senate); others believe the solution is adding another class senator position. At the end of the day, there is one idea we agree on without question or doubt: there will be changes to the Student Government Association’s structure moving forward.
I have had a lot of time to reflect throughout this process. I have thought about questions of representation, legitimacy and accountability time and time again over the last two weeks. I’ve come up with over six potential models based on the successes and failures of SGAs in comparable institutions. And yet even in light of research, reaching out to peer institutions and drafting and redrafting different models, I still felt something missing from my equation.
I realized that, as a student representative, I need to do a better job of representing the ideas of others on this issue (instead of behaving singularly). As a representative of approximately 20% of the student body, I needed to be consulting people on the system they want to represent them moving forward. That is what I have been trying to do for the last few weeks.
Generally, I try my absolute best to do speak candidly with my constituents to get their feedback. I am in constant conversation with a variety of people both inside and outside of my commons, trying to understand more about what other students at Middlebury care about. In doing so, I have gotten an incredible amount of insight into the things that matter to a broad cross-section of the student body. That is the type of work that is important to me. That is the type of on-the-ground work that promotes a student government’s sense of legitimacy and encourages accountability.
Last year’s Campus’s Zeitgeist survey showed that 53.4% of respondents felt indifferently or negatively about the performance of SGA. This trend has developed over the course of many years, during which people have had a net negative or indifferent opinion on the SGA as a whole. Historically, similar sentiments were recorded in which many students do not know what the SGA does, how it operates or even who is in it. This suggests that, in part, people were apathetic due to a lack of knowledge. That’s a problem. It’s a problem that is only solved by direct interactions, communication, transparency and gaining the input of the student body.
At the end of the day, SGA operations shouldn’t be comparable to a magic trick. There shouldn’t be a veil or smoke and mirrors disguising what’s going on. There shouldn’t be any magician’s secrets or keeping the best tricks of the trade from the public. These instances would only further the apathy of students as a whole and act counter to constructing a senate that is accountable and legitimate.
This is in no way meant to be antagonistic or an overly-harsh criticism; however, it is an unapologetic call to action for being deliberate, on both the part of SGA and the general student body. The way forward in this process is conversation, and that is a two-way initiative. Students should be well informed by their representatives on what is going on. To that end, students should feel enabled — and are encouraged — to use their voice to speak to their SGA representatives.
This isn’t a magic trick. Still, I think students and the SGA can do wonders together.
(11/07/19 5:14pm)
(11/07/19 5:14pm)
(11/07/19 11:21am)
CROSS COUNTRY
Cross country teams place solidly at NESCACs
BY JORDAN HOWELL
The Panther Cross Country teams are already off to a good start in the championship portion of the season. The men placed third, while the women placed fourth in their respective NESCAC Championship meets on Saturday, Nov. 2.
The top two finishers for the men were Theo Henderson ’20 and Henry Fleming ’20. Henderson captured second with a time of 25:41.8. Fleming followed close behind coming in at 26:00.7 to pick up 10th place.
The top two finishers for the women were Meg Wilson ’20 and Talia Ruxin ’20. Wilson grabbed 10th place with a time of 22:46.8. Ruxin came in right behind her in 11th place with a time of 22:47.1.
Ruxin commented on her team’s performance. “The team had a strong performance at NESCACs,” Ruxin said. “Every Midd runner ran considerably faster than five weeks ago on the same course!”
The Panthers’ next meet will be the NCAA Regional Championships on Saturday, Nov. 16.
“The general feeling is that the best is yet to come,” Ruxin said. “Coach Nicole Wilkerson has the training very dialed in for the final few weeks of the season. With her coaching experience and the team’s positive energy, we should be primed for a great performance.”
VOLLEYBALL
Volleyball sweeps weekend, ends regular season on high note
BY HEATHER BOEHM
Women’s volleyball closed out their regular reason with dominant play against conference rivals. The Panthers overcame Williams on the road in a five-set nail-biter on Friday, Nov. 1 and swept Hamilton on Saturday, Nov. 2.
“This weekend, the team came in with focus,” said Chellsa Ferdinand ’20. “After disappointing losses to Bowdoin and Tufts, we knew that defeat this past weekend was not an option.”
Middlebury started off the match with a decisive first set. The Panther offense lifted themselves to a 25-16 win that gave them some momentum heading into the second. The Ephs showed resilience in the second set but were edged by the Panthers by two points. The close set gave the Ephs some hope going into the third and they were able to beat out the Panthers 28-26. The next two sets were just as tight. The women capitalized on a few Williams errors, and took home the win in the final period.
The Panthers built off of this triumph going into Saturday’s contest with a 3-0 shutout. Middlebury slid past Hamilton by two points in the first set and eased by in the next two. Sophomore Maggie Wise led the offense with 10 kills, while Senior captain Gigi Alper held up the defensive front with 16 digs.
“Our team has incredible potential,” said Ferdinand. “We were resilient in the face of adversity. We all want nothing more than the best.”
Volleyball’s performances helped the women secure a spot in the conference tournament. Middlebury will fight for a chance to pick up a NESCAC title this weekend on the road against Amherst in a quarterfinal matchup.
WOMEN'S SOCCER
BY HEATHER BOEHM
Women’s soccer came up big with a 2-1 victory over Wesleyan in the quarterfinals of the NESCAC tournament on Saturday, Nov. 2.
The Panthers won the race to the scoreboard within the five minute mark. Simone Ameer ’21 capitalized on a Cardinal opening and slapped the ball to the back of the net. Middlebury’s offense spent most of the game giving the Cardinal defense a tough time but had an unlucky setback in the 61st minute. Wesleyan’s Dani Milovanov snuck her way in to bring some hope to her teammates.
Jinx Charman ’20 commented on her team’s effort. “Wesleyan is always a really tough opponent,” said Charman. “They have had some great wins this season, so we knew we had to get a goal in quickly. When they tied it up, our team really stepped our level up under pressure and we decided to high press their defense, which gave us a lot more opportunities.”
One of those opportunities led the way to sophomore Ellie Bavier’s goal. With time running out, Senior captain Olivia Miller paved the way for her game-winning effort with a well-placed cross.
Middlebury will take some confidence from this triumph but will refocus for their semifinal matchup against long-time foe Williams on Saturday, Nov. 9 at Tufts. After a silent 1-1 draw with the Ephs earlier this season, the Panthers will come out hunting.
“We are really excited to face Williams again, and hopefully we will get redemption for the national championship,” said Charman.
The championship game will be held on Sunday, Nov. 10 at Tufts as well.
FOOTBALL
BY LAUREN BOYD
The Middlebury Panthers improved to an 8-0 record this past Saturday, grinding out a win against a 4-4 Hamilton team. Not only did the Panthers take home the “Rocking Chair Classic” trophy, but also stepped one game closer to an undefeated season, guaranteeing a share in the NESCAC title.
Heading into the game with a 7-game win streak, the Panthers faced immense pressure to perform. The Middlebury squad hoped to extend this winning streak, clinch a spot as NESCAC champions, and honor their seniors in their last home game. The stands, packed with fans, friends, family, and alumni, kept loud and proud throughout the contest.
During the first drive of the game, quarterback Will Jernigan ’21 led the Panthers 60 yards down the field. After a connection between Jernigan and senior Frank Cosolito, Alex Maldjian ’23 punched in the first score of the game.
After a Hamilton response, tying up the game 7-7, the Panthers quickly responded to the pressure. Another drive by the Panthers led to a second Maldjian touchdown, bringing Middlebury to a 14-7 lead.
The Panthers would hold out for the rest of the game, preventing the Continentals from putting more points on the board. In the process, Middlebury claimed (at minimum) a share of the NESCAC title. Rounding out their season with a win against Tufts would mean being sole NESCAC champions and an undefeated season.
The Jumbos will be coming to prevent Middlebury from attaining a 9-0 record, hoping to move above .500 themselves. Falling to Williams, Wesleyan, Amherst, and Hamilton, Tufts currently holds a 4-4 record, tied up with the Hamilton Continentals.
The Panthers will kick-off their final NESCAC match on Saturday at 12:30PM.
FIELD HOCKEY
BY MIGUEL ESPINOSA
First-seeded field hockey topped Trinity, 3-1 at home in the NESCAC Quarterfinal on Saturday, Nov. 4. The Panthers advanced to the semifinals where they’ll face off against seventh-seeded Hamiliton on Saturday, Nov. 9. Middlebury will be hosting championship weekend, including the semifinal game between Tufts and Williams.
Forward Katie George ’23 put the Panthers on the scoreboard early in the first quarter and was assisted by captain Marissa Baker ’20. The Panthers augmented their lead in the second quarter thanks to goals by Audrey Lazar ’23 and Danielle Brown ’21. Trinity managed to score their only goal 20 seconds into the third quarter.
“We changed a couple of people's positions and were able to better utilize some of our strengths in doing so,” said Erin Nicholas ’21, when asked about what clicked for the Panthers, offensively and defensively. “Our new formation allowed us to possess the ball a bit better while also providing us the opportunity to attack from different areas on the field.”
MEN'S SOCCER
BY ERIK ARVIDSSON
The Panther men headed into postseason play determined to get a win to keep their season alive. First up was the NESCAC tournament quarter-finals against Connecticut College on Saturday, Nov. 2. After 110 minutes of scoreless play, a stat line not too uncommon for the Panthers this year, the game headed to a shootout. After the first five penalties resulted in a 3-3 tie, the shootout would be decided by sudden death. With the game on the line, Liam Sloane ’22 stepped up and netted the ball into the left corner. Goalkeeper Marco Kaper ’21 secured the final save to give the Panthers a birth into the NESCAC semi’s next weekend.
When asked about how it felt to convert the game winning goal, Sloane praised the team’s collective effort. “I was very happy to convert that penalty,” said Sloane, “but overall happier about the incredible team effort we put in.”
This weekend the Panther’s head to Amherst to face the top-ranked team in the nation. If they beat the Mammoths they will stay in Amherst for a chance to play for the tournament championship game on Sunday, Nov. 10. After tying the Mammoths during the regular season, Kenan Ulku-Steiner ’22 believes that “the key this weekend will be to run faster and kick the ball farther.”
(11/07/19 11:05am)
Middlebury is optimizing and modernizing its administrative systems with a new finance program called Oracle — the implementation of which has caused many difficulties and inconveniences for Middlebury staff, faculty and students.
This change occurred in collaboration with the Green Mountain Higher Education Consortium (GMHEC), which includes Middlebury, Champlain, and Saint Michael’s colleges. All three institutions are working to improve and reduce costs for common administrative services.
Through an initiative called Project Ensemble, GMHEC plans to implement a new Enterprise Resource System (ERS), a software system designed to integrate each college’s various administrative processes — finance, human resources, advancement and, potentially, student records — into a unified structure. At Middlebury, this new ERS will eventually replace Banner, the computer software the college currently uses. Phase one of Project Ensemble is projected to cost Middlebury $4.6 million, according to Mike Thomas, the vice president for finance and the college’s assistant treasurer.
As part of this effort, the college adopted the information system Oracle Cloud and began using its financial system in April to help track and manage the day-to-day financial transactions of the college.
Instead of running financial operations on-site, Oracle is housed in the cloud, which helps prevent against data loss. Like Banner, it is browser-based, and employees can access it through by signing in to an online portal.
According to Thomas, one benefit of this new system is that the budget office can approve purchases and expense reports from a computer or mobile device.
“Before Oracle, nearly every purchase we made at Middlebury involved a form that a person had to fill out and send to someone to then manually approve. Now, all of that happens through automated workflow,” Thomas said.
The switch has also helped Middlebury take advantage of the GMHEC for technical support, supplier management, accounts payable and more.
However, the change caused significant issues for Middlebury staff, who received minimal — and at times, incorrect — training in the system, according to a staff member who asked to remain anonymous.
“I wish we had gotten real training,” she said. “It felt like our work isn’t important enough to take the time to invest in it. We do an important job and it didn’t get the sort of attention that it needed.”
According to Thomas, Middlebury hired Hitachi Consulting — a firm that had minimal experience with Oracle, a system normally used by for-profit companies — causing significant issues with the roll out. With no people experienced with Oracle on campus, Information Technology Services was forced to learn and troubleshoot on the spot, the anonymous staff member said.
“At the beginning, people weren’t getting paid at all. Several departments, especially around commencement, were having trouble getting speakers paid. People didn’t even want to come to campus … It has hurt a lot of our relationships with people who have done business with the college over the years,” the staff member said.
The switch has also caused issues within the budget office. There were many bugs in the early stages of implementation, which took time and effort to troubleshoot and led to delays in processing payment and difficulties for employees, according to Thomas.
“We realized that we underestimated the required post go-live support from our implementation partners. It was definitely a lesson learned as we look at other modern systems,” Thomas said.
The change has also created extra work and complications for the Student Activities Office (SAO) and student organizations, according to Derek Doucet, the senior associate dean of students.
Most student organizations receive an annual budget of between $400 and $4,000 from the Student Government Association (SGA), which they spend and manage through the SAO. The SGA expects to allocate approximately $1,100,000 this academic year, according to Kenshin Cho ’20, director of the SGA finance committee.
Student organization leaders need to track budgets and expenditures closely, but the Oracle system has limited capabilities in tracking individual transactions. Student organizations also require regular, detailed budget reports, which the program does not provide, according to Doucet.
“The new Oracle system is frustrating as a treasurer that manages a relatively large budget and spends frequently, because we no longer get monthly expense reports with our operating account balance,” said Raechel Zeller ’22, treasurer for the female-identifying club frisbee team.
Pranav Kumar ’20, co-president and treasurer of club tennis, said he worries that he will accidentally exceed his club’s budget and be forced to foot the bill.
“We’ve built alternative systems to help alleviate these problems, but they remain a significant challenge for student org treasurers and have created significant additional work for the student activities team,” Doucet said.
According to Doucet, the transition to Oracle caused many Middlebury businesses to stop accepting charges directly from student organizations. Instead, student leaders increasingly must pay for organization expenses out of pocket and wait for reimbursement from the college, something that many students cannot afford to do.
However, Doucet said that the issues posed by the change has also created opportunities as the SAO explores alternatives. For example, the office is currently piloting a program in which student organization leaders can sign out credit cards, which he believes will be a better system than off-campus charges.
Moving forward, the administration hopes Project Ensemble will continue to improve the financial system and the overall function of Oracle through an “optimization phase,” which will include “a mobile expense app, a supplier portal where our payees can go to update information, and optical character recognition for invoice processing,” according to Thomas.
This spring, Middlebury plans to transfer Human Capital Management to Oracle, a move that was originally planned to take place this fall but was delayed in order to not repeat the mistakes with the financial system.
“Because it was pushed back so much and not rushed like they did with the finance one, people are a little more comfortable,” said the anonymous staff member about the transfer.
“But people are still nervous . . . because it’s our pay and our benefits going through that.”
(11/07/19 11:03am)
We’ve all been there — sitting hunched over your desk at an ungodly hour in the night, cramming for the second of three midterms that week, probably thinking: “I quit college.”
Today, some of the richest and most famous people in the world do not hold college degrees: Michael Dell, Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey. These are three compelling arguments for why it might be better to skip college, eschew $140K in tuition and spend your time building the next Facebook. For those of us who have regretted our decision to go to college or thought about dropping out, know that Assistant Professor of Economics Erin Wolcott has done research on this very idea. While her research doesn’t “direct people to college or not to college,” it does say something about the current population that does not go to college and what they’re doing (or not doing) afterwards.
According to the most recent American Community Survey in 2016, more than one out of every five men who do not attend college — about 7.1 million individuals — do not have jobs. In other words, only 78% of this population is employed, compared to 90% in the 1950s. Why is there such a high rate of nonemployment — which includes both unemployed people who are actively seeking jobs and those who are not — for men without a college education? To answer this question, Wolcott looked at different causes of unemployment in America.
Supply and demand is the first concept we learn in economics; it illustrates the relationship between how much producers sell and how much consumers buy. Everything can be linked back to supply and demand. In the labor market, demand side factors affect how much businesses and employers are hiring (their demand for labor), as these factors transform what jobs are available and who is doing them. Wolcott’s 2018 paper highlights the most common economic explanation regarding demand: “automation and trade reduce[s] the demand for low-skilled workers.”
Consider the General Motors (GM) and United Automobile Workers (UAW) strike, which lasted six weeks as company and workers negotiated wages and job security. GM workers feared for their jobs as the company made plans to close another factory and outsource to Mexico, where workers would provide the same labor for mere dollars. UAW workers are also fighting for security; since 1975, the number of UAW employees has dropped from 1.5 million to 400,000, as tech decreased the need for assembly line workers.
Supply side factors, on the other hand, affect who enters the job market (the supply of workers). Wolcott writes: “Economists have traditionally pointed the finger at [demand-side factors]. More recently, economists have been blaming the supply side, such as growing welfare payments and better video games that glue more men to their couches.” True, video games are vastly improving – take Fortnite as an example, which amassed over 4.3 million concurrent viewers on YouTube during its explosive Season 10 finale. Does this mean that unskilled men prefer to sit at home and play Fortnite all day than to get a job? Or examining the other supply-side culprit, unemployment benefits — maybe it is more profitable to get welfare and disability insurance.
The last factor causing nonemployment are search frictions, which make it difficult to match the workforce with available jobs. An example of a search friction? Online job postings. As college students, LinkedIn, Handshake and Indeed.com can make it easier to find jobs. Many older or uneducated adults, however, may not know how to use these sites, making it harder for them to find jobs.
So, we have three possibilities for why one of five uneducated men aren’t getting hired: (1) society isn’t demanding these populations (demand), (2) they don’t want to work (supply) and (3) new tech and resources are making it difficult to find work.
In her research, Wolcott built an economic model using employment, wage and other relevant data to encompass the three explanations for nonemployment to explore the extent of this causal relationship. She points to demand side factors — mainly tech and globalization — as the most significant reason for why so many unskilled men in America aren’t working: “It’s not because they’re choosing to play video games on average over a great job opportunity but because there aren’t job opportunities.”
“This is the first step to understand what’s going on,” Wolcott said.
Inequality is on the rise in America, breeding resentment and political polarity, and it is important to understand why. The next step is to start thinking about policies. While we aren’t about to become Luddites or stop global trade, economists have identified ways to bring people back into the job market, starting with education. Whether this will be making education cheaper, promoting vocational schools and apprenticeships or offering direct subsidies for specific institutions or courses, there are a myriad of potential solutions that will help make the labor market more inclusive and equal and bring millions back into the workforce.
(11/07/19 11:02am)
(11/07/19 11:02am)
(11/07/19 11:02am)
Arizona PBS news anchor Vanessa Ruiz, who made national headlines in 2015 for her accented pronunciation of words in Spanish while serving as broadcast anchor, visited Middlebury this week to share her unique experience as a reporter. Ruiz gave a lecture, “Speak American: How A News Anchor Became the News,” on Monday, Nov. 4. She also visited with students interested in media and communications careers at the Center for Careers and Internships, and ate with a cohort of students and faculty members from the Luso-Hispanic Studies Department.
In her lecture, held in the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs, Ruiz recounted her ascent to a nightly co-anchor position in the major television market of Phoenix. It was there that Ruiz faced racially-charged attacks for her on-air pronunciation of Spanish words, including the names of nearby towns, like “Mesa” and “Casa Grande.” The packed audience on a Monday afternoon included Spanish majors, professors and students interested in journalism.
Ruiz was born in Miami and raised in Colombia until the age of five. She entered the field of journalism in college in 2001, taking an internship with Telemundo, a global Spanish-language television network based in Miami. From there, Ruiz worked as a foreign correspondent in Nicaragua and Venezuela, where she covered Hugo Chavez’s last presidential election. She returned to the United States as a reporter for the local NBC news station in Los Angeles.
Ruiz noted that in each site with a large Hispanic population, she was able to speak in her native accent without question.
“Growing up and living in cities like Los Angeles and Miami, you really are in a bubble – a multicultural bubble,” she said.
It was only once Ruiz arrived at KPNX or 12 News, the local NBC affiliate in Phoenix, that she faced criticism for her pronunciation of certain words. After just one month on the job, local viewers hurled insults at Ruiz on Twitter. One user wrote, “I turn in to watch a newscaster, not a mariachi.” Another viewer suggested in the tweet that Ruiz be deported, adding, “She isn’t American she has no right to be here no matter how much some corporation paid for her.”
Ruiz was offered the chance, by her bosses and co-anchor, to respond on-air to the acerbic commentary about her. On live television, Ruiz offered a rebuke of her critics.
“Some of you have noticed that I pronounce a couple of things maybe a little differently than you’re used to,” Ruiz said. “I do like to pronounce certain things the way they are meant to be pronounced.”
Following her response, Ruiz received support from local and national political figures, including Phoenix-area State Senator Martin Quezada. Quezada tweeted that “our news is now more mature, culturally accepting and accurate. How is that a bad thing?” The New York Times and BuzzFeed picked up the story and ran articles on Ruiz’s response to the contention she received.
The Phoenix community was also grateful that Ruiz decided not just to respond to backlash, but to stay at the news station too: they thanked her for not leaving.
“What does that say about a community, when they have to tell you ‘thanks’ for not leaving?” She answered her own rhetorical question at the talk: “They had been feeling repressed, antagonized, attacked for so long.”
During her lecture, Ruiz attributed her desire to respond and her upstanding demeanor to the pride she has for her identity. Acknowledging the privilege she experiences as a “fair-skinned” Latina, Ruiz told students that she felt the need to stand up for Hispanics in the Phoenix area, a city whose population is roughly three-quarters white, according to Census data.
Ruiz now reports for the PBS NewsHour West, based out of Phoenix, as well as Arizona’s PBS station, which is owned by ASU. She is also a professor at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where she directs their Borderlands program.
Ruiz says she tries to do news “the good way,” by aiming to diversify the newsroom and encourage more bilingual students in the classroom to follow their professional goals.
“I look at bilingualism as an asset, nothing less,” Ruiz said.
Attendee Lila Sternberg-Schur ’21.5 read about Ruiz in professor Brandon Baird’s Hispanic Linguistics class last year. “Having the opportunity to hear Vanessa talk about what she’d experienced in person really brought the story to life and made it more tangible,” she said.
In a hearty question-and-answer session at the end of Monday’s lecture, Ruiz answered questions about her identity and her experience in journalism.
At one point in the Q&A, Ruiz spoke about the role journalists play in 2019, and how to write with one’s identity in mind.
“I still believe that I’m not the news – I shouldn’t be the news. At the end of the day, facts are facts,” she said.
However, she said that having diverse journalists engaged in the newsroom is essential.
“It’s up to us to bridge those gaps, and bring people together who may come from different backgrounds, different perspectives, and different experiences,” she said. “It’s not an easy muscle to flex, because it takes courage to be that person always raising your hand. But if we don’t do it, who will?”
(10/31/19 10:28am)
CROSS COUNTRY
BY JORDAN HOWELL
Before having this past weekend to rest, the Middlebury cross country teams competed in the Connecticut College Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 19. The women finished in sixth place, while the men took fifth place.
The top finisher for the women was Cassie Kearney ’22 as she captured ninth place with a time of 21:41.7. Next up for the Panthers was Talia Ruxin ’20 whose time of 22:09.2 got her twenty-second place. Next for the Panthers was Meg Wilson ’20 who came in twenty-ninth place with a time of 22:18.9.
For the men, Theo Henderson ’20 had a time of 24:50.0 which netted him seventh place. Henry Fleming ’20 was able to finish in twenty-ninth place as he ended with a time of 25:21.5. Another important finisher was Quin McGaugh ’22; a time of 25:40.8 got him fifty-first place.
Up next for the Panthers are the championship meets. This starts with the NESCAC Championships on Saturday, Nov. 2.
FOOTBALL
BY LAUREN BOYD
Head Coach Bob Ritter attained his 100th career win this past Saturday at, as the Middlebury Panthers extended their undefeated run, improving their record to 7-0. Ritter had also recorded his first win at the same stadium against the Polar Bears in September 2001. Middlebury dominated for most of the contest, starting off the game with a 21-0 run in the first quarter.
Ritter’s 100th win began with a 45-yard touchdown run from freshman Alex Maldjian to open the scoring for the game. QB Wil Jernigan quickly followed with his own rushing touchdown from 23-yards out, after the Polar Bears went 3 and out on their response. With less than a minute left in the first quarter, Jernigan connected with Maxim Bochman ’20 for a 21-0 lead.
While Bowdoin was only able to put one touchdown on the board before half, the Panthers responded with another 7 points of their own, making the halftime score 28-7. By the end of the third quarter, the Panthers tagged on another unanswered 13 points.
The Polar Bears found their groove at the end of the game, but could not put enough points to catch the Panthers. They decreased their deficit by 22 points, and by the end of the contest, the Panthers took home the victory, 47-29.
Next weekend, Middlebury will play the Hamilton Continentals (4-3), who most recently defeated the Tufts Jumbos (3-4), Middlebury’s last competition for the season.
Looking forward, offensive lineman Kevin Woodring ‘20 says the team is focusing on improving the little things, in order to see big results at the end of the season.
“I said this back at the beginning of the season, but the main focus, still, is that we have to be able to do the little things right. It may sound simple, yet it makes or breaks a game. We’re not a team to blow our opponent off the field; we’re a gritty, mentally tough and hard working team that grinds out wins,” Wooddring said, “In order to keep going 1-0, we have to continue to do the little things right. Right now, Hamilton is the best team on our schedule adn we have to do everything we can this week to be extremely well-prepared so that we come out and play a great game on Saturday.”
WOMEN'S SOCCER
BY HEATHER BOEHM
Women’s soccer wrapped up their regular season with strong NESCAC play against Tufts on Saturday, Oct. 26 and Williams on Tuesday, Oct. 29. The Panthers triumphed on the road against the Jumbos, sneaking the only goal in within the last few breaths of the contest. The women were able to hold off the Ephs 0-0 in a physical national championship rematch.
Despite 10th-ranked Tufts’ home field advantage, Middlebury held its own. The women had their share of opportunities, finding six shots on goal to the Jumbo’s five.
The defense protected the net, with senior goalie Ursula Alwang refusing to give the hosts any hope. With just under two and a half minutes of play, it was senior captain Virginia Charman who led her team to victory, nailing a shot past the Tufts goalie off of a free kick from sophomore Ellie Bavier.
After a hard-fought game, the Panthers quickly regrouped for Tuesday’s hyped rematch. The women played a brutally physical game, that ultimately ended in silence.
Charman commented on the team’s season. “It was a very successful season and we are really excited to build on our success,” said Charman. “We are pumped to get another opportunity to face the same teams we have been competing against in the postseason.”
This nearly perfect regular season play will give the Panthers the second seed in the conference tournament next weekend. Middlebury missed the top seed by a half of a point to Tufts.
Charman discussed the team’s mantra and mindset going into the postseason. “Our motto is to go ‘1-0’ every game, so that we can focus on each game no matter who we are playing. We do this so we don’t overlook any opponent or get too far ahead of ourselves.”
MEN'S TENNIS
BY JACK KAGAN
After making an impressive run to the finals in the International Tennis Association (ITA) New England regional tournament, Panther sophomore Stanley Morris punched a ticket to the ITA Cup that took place from Thursday, Oct. 17–19 at the Rome Tennis Center in Rome, Ga. The draw was packed with the regional finalists and champions hailing from top schools like Case Western Reserve, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS), Emory College and Kenyon College.
Morris, unseeded, shined once again, breaking through to the finals after notching wins against four-star recruit first-year James Hopper of Case Western Reserve and former five-star Jack Katzman of CMS, who was seeded third in the contest.
The final saw Morris up against familiar NESCAC competition: Boris Sorkin, Tufts’ standout junior from Russia who has been causing trouble for the Panthers ever since his arrival in Medford in 2017. Sorkin finished last spring ranked ninth in all of Division III tennis, just two behind former Panthers star Lubomir Cuba ’19. Last spring, no other Panthers cracked the top 50 on this list.
Morris came up just short in the final, taking the fourth-seeded Sorkin to a third set. A tight loss a first set tiebreak led to some momentum as Morris notched a second set win before falling in the third. Morris and the Panthers have to be proud of such a run, which should bode well for the spring and the future of Middlebury tennis.
Back in New England, the rest of the team played in the Bryant Fall Invitational in Smithfield, R.I. in the last competition of the fall. David Vilys ’22, Zach Hilty ’22, and Aleks Samets ’20 all grabbed two wins in the singles contest and will hope to break into the new-look lineup come springtime.
WOMEN'S TENNIS
BY MIGUEL ESPINOSA
Women’s Tennis concluded the Fall portion of their season by hosting the Middlebury Invitational on Oct. 18-20. The invitational featured Amherst, Brandeis and Williams and took place at the outdoor and indoor tennis courts on campus. The invitational didn’t crown a champion since the format involved teams playing each other in either singles or doubles.
On Friday, all Panther pairs won their doubles matches against Williams. Katherine Hughes ’20 and Skylar Schossberger ’20 sealed victory with an 8-6 set, Catherine Blayze ’20 and Brinlea La Barge ’23 won 8-6, and Maddie Stow ’20 and Amanda Frank ’23 notched a win, scoring 8-4.
Saturday also proved to be a successful day. Against Brandeis, La Barge and Blayze captured a victory at 8-2 and Ruhi Kamdar ’22 and Caitlin Neal ’23 won 8-7. Hughes, La Barge, Schossberger and Frank each tallied wins in singles matches against Williams.
Finally, on Sunday, Stow and Heather Boehm ’20 grabbed an 8-2 doubles victory against Amherst. The Panthers also won all five their singles against Brandeis.
VOLLEYBALL
BY HEATHER BOEHM
This past weekend women’s volleyball fought a tough battle for their seniors at home, but ultimately the women came up just short in their efforts, falling 3-0 to top-15 ranked Tufts. Despite the loss, Saturday was filled with teary-eyed celebrations of the three graduating seniors, Chellsa Ferdinand, Gigi Alper, and Beth Neal.
Tufts came out with a fiery start, dominating the first set right from the first serve. Middlebury showed resilience as the set continued, with flashes of brilliance on defense from Alper, who has preserved her high-ranking number of digs per set. She rounded out the weekend with a solid mark of 5.64, landing her a second place slot in the conference.
In the second set, the Panther offense began to find their stride. Sophomore Maggie Wise made her presence known with 10 kills, with her sophomore teammate Corley Doyle following close behind with 9. Wise, too, topped the conference leaderboards, finishing up the weekend with 3.10 kills per set, adding up to 220 on the season, earning her fourth place in each category. Tufts was able to overcome these impressive performances and steal the first set with a two-point margin. The Jumbos capitalized on their momentum and picked up the following set to close out the contest.
The women still have time left in their season to avenge their NESCAC loss. The Panthers will look to pounce when they travel to Williams on Friday, Nov. 1 and Hamilton on Saturday, Nov. 2 to close out their regular season play.
FIELD HOCKEY
BY MIGUEL ESPINOSA
First-ranked Field Hockey suffered its first loss of the season at sixth-ranked Tufts, 1-0, on Saturday, Oct. 26th. The Panthers’ 20-game winning streak, which had been extended since last season, has ended. Middlebury’s overall record drops to 13-1 and is tied for first in the NESCAC with Bowdoin. Tufts, meanwhile, maintains the second-best overall record at 13-2 and is tied with Williams.
Middlebury also notched close victories against Trinity and St. John Fisher, 3-2 and 2-1, on Oct. 19th and Oct. 20th, respectively. For their final regular season game on Tuesday, Oct. 29th, the Panthers downed Williams, 2-1.
MEN'S SOCCER
BY ERIK ARVIDSSON
Men’s soccer lost at reigning national champion Tufts, 2-1, on Saturday, Oct. 26. The first score of the game came in the 63rd minute when Drew Goulart ’20 gave the Panthers the lead on a free kick. While the Panthers fought hard to keep Tufts out of the back of the net, Jumbos forward Gavin Tasker scored the equalizing goal with 10 minutes left in regulation, thus extending the match into overtime. Tufts scored the walkoff goal in the eight minute and gave Panthers their second loss of the season.
Regardless of Tufts prowess on the national stage, the loss hurt for the Panthers. “Even though you’re going up against one of the top teams in the country, it was a back and forth fight, both teams had our chances, so it was a disappointing result,” said captain Aidan Robinson ’20.
The Panthers hosted their final regular season game on Tuesday, October 29th against Williams and tied in double overtime. Middlebury’s conference record now stands at three wins, two losses and five ties.
(10/31/19 10:05am)
After wrapping up the college's year-long workforce planning initiative this May, a process that saw 37 staff members take voluntary buyouts and caused a redistribution of workload among remaining staff, administrators announced via email to all college employees that the process had been a success — Middlebury could reduce its deficit without resorting to layoffs.
But an external email sent to facilities staff on Aug. 8 suggests the starkly different story, that some workers didn’t think workforce planning had been so “voluntary” after all.
“Middlebury Needs a UNION! -read on your break” the subject line of the email said.
It spelled out some of the pitfalls of the workforce planning process: Staff felt voiceless, overworked with insufficient pay, and as though the ground had been pulled from beneath them when they were offered buyouts and switched into new roles. Facilities staff specifically — those who work in maintenance and operations jobs, like custodial and groundskeeping services, as well as jobs in planning, design and construction — have reported to The Campus feeling exhausted and frustrated by failures in communication, too-long hours and last minute call-ins.
“I don’t know a bunch about unions — still don’t,” one facilities staff member said. “But I know the way that people get treated here. I’ve seen it. I just feel like we’ve got to do something.”
Throughout the summer, the email’s sender, David Van Deusen of the Rutland-based branch of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), met with facilities staff who sought to discuss how organizing a union would mitigate the heightened voicelessness brought on by the workforce planning process.
Not enough facilities staff have signed union authorization cards to trigger a vote to organize. Many said they see this as a sign that union efforts have failed. But Van Deusen remains adamant that efforts are ongoing. And facilities staff are insistent that something has to give.
Most of the 12 facilities workers The Campus spoke with for the story spoke on the condition of anonymity, for fear of retribution from peers and upper management.
Workforce planning raises “unanswered questions”
Most Middlebury students don’t know what workforce planning really means. But for staff, the process — which the college announced in June 2018 as a way to cut personnel costs and distribute work more efficiently — was ever-present for the better part of a year.
Department managers were tasked last fall with leading discussions within their divisions about how they could reorganize work more efficiently and cost-effectively, with the aim of shrinking staff compensation costs by 10% amidst an exigent budget deficit. That winter, senior leadership, in collaboration with human resources, finalized a list of positions that they would cut based on those findings.
The college identified 150 staff positions to be eliminated, though 100 of that number were “were already vacant through attrition and restrictions on re-hiring over the last few years,” The Campus reported in May. In February of 2019, the college handed out applications for buyouts — formally called Incentivized Separation Plans (ISP) — to 79 staff members, in hopes of cutting 45 of the remaining positions. Twenty-eight of those applications were offered to facilities and dining staff specifically.
The college sent more applications for the buyouts than were necessary, in the hopes that enough staff would elect to take them and the college would not have to resort to involuntary layoffs. If more staff than necessary applied, the most senior staff were offered buyouts first.
The college also created “close to 40” new staff positions based on needs identified during work reevaluations, according to Vice President of Human Resources Karen Miller. Applications for those positions were first made available to the staff who were offered buyouts, giving them the option to apply to stay at the college, rather than taking ISPs. To protect the privacy of the individuals who opted to take buyouts, the college has not made public the list of eliminated and added positions.
Ultimately, 37 staff took the buyouts, nine of whom were employees within facilities and dining. The college had hoped more staff would apply, but the number proved sufficient — the college did not have to resort to layoffs.
“This process has been both lengthy and challenging, and caused many in our community significant uncertainty and discomfort,” said President Laurie Patton in a May email to staff. “Thanks to your participation, the process was successful.”
Last year, The Campus reported growing anxieties among staff as they waited to hear from the administration about the futures of their jobs. For staff in some departments — like dining, in which a natural reduction of positions left few to be forcibly cut — these uncertainties have since mostly subsided. But in facilities, anxieties have subsisted. In some cases, they have worsened.
“There were a lot of unanswered questions. There still are a lot of unanswered questions,” said one Middlebury facilities staff member, a supporter of the union.
A 2017 survey, administered by the consulting firm ModernThink, shows that staff discontent surged even before workforce planning began. That survey showed frustration with communication from the Senior Leadership Group — Patton’s 17-member advisory council — a lack of transparency with decision-making and dissatisfaction with compensation, among other areas.
Still, workforce planning seems to have exacerbated many staff concerns. Some, for example, are frustrated with how work has been redistributed since some positions were cut, which has caused employees to feel overworked and underpaid.
“The work amped up with fewer people to do it,” said the aforementioned facilities staff member. “A lot of the extra stuff is taking away from the stuff that we need to do daily.”
The worker said he was frustrated with what he felt was a murky process. Decisions about the “voluntary” process were often made behind closed doors, he said, and the redistribution of work showed a lack of understanding about the work being done. “There was nothing voluntary about it,” he said.
Norm Cushman, vice president for operations, said communication can be a challenge in a department with so many workers. “It would have been very difficult to have solicited everyone’s input,” he said.
Cushman said the process of work redistribution will play out piecemeal, as employees who took buyouts gradually leave the college and their departments develop strategies for how to “do less with less.”
Low pay forces employees who work two jobs into a “balancing act”
The Campus has previously reported low wages as a source of dissatisfaction among employees. Separately, pro-union staff who spoke to The Campus said low wages were a major reason they sought to organize.
Many employees have to hold multiple jobs to survive. That balancing act, another facilities employee said, can become incredibly burdensome when workloads at the college are also increased in light of workforce planning. When many facilities staff did not show up to work after an unexpectedly severe snowstorm last year, for example, administrators questioned staff priorities.
“We had a meeting with a manager who was extremely unhappy because a lot of people weren’t here helping,” the employee said. “He told us that if we had second jobs, we needed to not go in and instead had to come in and shovel.”
The college has consistently framed workforce planning as a way to make staff feel more invested in the future of the institution. But according to staff, it doesn’t always feel like that.
“Yeah, you could say workforce planning is for us, because now [the college is] financially sustainable,” said Staff Council President Tim Parsons. “But if you’re only making $12.07 an hour and your shift in the custodial wing starts at 4 a.m., workforce planning doesn’t really feel like it’s for you.”
These low wages have led to shortages in some areas, like custodial and recycling services. To address these shortages, the college is currently spearheading a compensation review with an external consulting group. The aim of the study is to gather “market data” — information that will indicate what the college needs to pay going forward to make itself a competitive employer.
David Provost, executive vice president for finance and administration, said the college is undertaking the review now because it has been nearly a decade since the last one of its kind. He also said that the college has seen increased turnover in the last two years in positions within the lowest two pay bands, in which many facilities positions fall. Wages for OP1 positions — for example, some dining hall servery positions — begin at $11 an hour, while OP2 positions — including some groundsworking and custodial jobs — begin at $12.07 an hour.
Meanwhile, staff spoke about how comparable positions in town had wages that started three or four dollars higher, although without comparable benefits. Separately, custodians told The Campus that hiring shortages in custodial services might be due to the high costs of living in Addison County, costs which workers on an OP2-level budget are often not able to shoulder.
“We know over the last 18 to 24 months it has been more difficult to attract and retain OP1 and OP2 level positions,” Provost said. “If the review suggests we need to increase these salaries, then we will.” He added that the decision would have to be contingent on timing and availability of financial resources.
The college had to tackle workforce planning before the compensation review, Provost said, because addressing its financial management had to be a fiscal priority, given the severity of the deficit.
Provost said he is expecting the study’s data to show that the college should pay its OP1- and OP2-level employees higher wages. The study is set to be done by the spring. At that time, the administration will begin to work its findings into the budget for the 2021 fiscal year.
“A slap in the face”
The college did not officially lay off any employees. Some felt the offers they received backed them into corners anyway.
One employee, a servery worker who has been at the college for 31 years, said her situation felt like “a slap in the face.” She was previously employed in a facilities office job before her position was cut.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]At the college, seniority has never meant anything. I’ve been here 31 years — I’m a loyal worker, have always been on time, never been sick. Didn’t matter at all.[/pullquote]
Even though she shared a similar workload with the two other employees in her previous office, she had a different job title from her co-workers and hers was the only position that was cut. In other offices, where multiple workers held the same positions, the process was more “voluntary,” since one worker’s choice to take a buyout or job transfer meant others could refuse.
The servery worker was, as multiple staff members put it, “workforce planned.”
“At the college, seniority has never meant anything,” the employee said. “I’ve been here 31 years — I’m a loyal worker, have always been on time, never been sick. Didn’t matter at all.”
The staff member was informed by supervisors that her position would be cut toward the end of that phase in the process. But she couldn’t afford to take the buyout package the college was offering. The staff member instead applied for several of the then-newly-created positions posted on a private portal. Many of the available job postings required degrees, she said. “I don’t have a college degree,” she said. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t have the qualifications — I didn’t have the degree.”
All jobs for which she was eligible required higher levels of physical activity than she was used to. After working at a desk for so many years, the transition to a job that requires her to carry heavy loads and stand for hours at a time has taken a toll. Last week, she suffered a workplace injury.
Contacted by AFSCME while she was still in a facilities position, the staff member attended initial meetings and supported the effort to unionize. She said she would support unionization among facilities staff, even in her new role, “Because you’d have someone else looking out for you besides the people who are higher up here,” she said. “They expect the lowest paid people here to work the hardest.”
Despite low wages, staff like the servery worker identified the benefits the college offers to its faculty and staff as exceptional in comparison with other positions in the area. Among them are good healthcare, extensive retirement plans and paid time off, as well as discounts at some stores, free gym passes and roadside assistance.
“If it was not for the benefits, 90% of these facilities people would not be here,” the first facilities employee said.
“Benefits here are a lot better than what you would find anywhere else around here,” said the other. “But I can’t go down to Hannaford and buy groceries with my benefits.”
“Middlebury Needs a UNION!”
Van Deusen, the union rep and the president of the Vermont American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), said he was contacted by facilities employees over the summer about starting a union.
While some staff concerns, like low pay and abrupt, last-minute shift scheduling, have been prevalent for a long time, Van Deusen believes this round of workforce planning catalyzed the staff’s outreach.
After their first meetings in Ilsley Public Library in July, Van Deusen said he was in contact with “dozens of facilities staff.” At subsequent off-campus gatherings, he spoke with interested parties about what the union could offer them. Many were intrigued.
One of the facilities workers told The Campus he “absolutely” supports the formation of a union, “Mainly for pay. And also, to have a voice.” He cited the workforce planning process as a period during which he felt particularly left in the dark by his superiors.
The servery worker said she would be in favor of a facilities union, “because of the seniority part of it. And to negotiate a better raise,” she said.
Some workers were also inspired by the successful union effort at St. Michael’s College. In 2012, custodians there unionized with AFSCME. They later negotiated $15-per-hour pay in their second contract.
Despite this recent win for Vermont labor advocates, Sociology Professor Jamie McCallum, who specializes in labor studies, said union decline in the U.S. has been happening since the 1950s and picked up speed in the late 1970s.
Once word of mouth began to spread about the Middlebury union effort, Van Deusen handed out authorization cards for interested employees to sign. What followed was a flood of information and rumors circulating between staff and the administration. On Aug. 19, one month after union authorization cards were first distributed, Miller, the vice president of human resources, replied to the initial drive in a letter that administrators hand-delivered to all facilities employees.
“Middlebury supports your right to choose whether to unionize,” the letter said.
“We know that many of you have raised legitimate and important concerns about your jobs,” it later added. “We also believe that joining an outside labor union to address those concerns is not the answer.”
The letter highlighted some commonly cited “disadvantages” of forming a union, such as the potentially high cost of monthly dues.
A few days later, Van Deusen sent an email to facilities employees responding to the administration’s outreach.
“AFSCME, the labor union many of you are seeking to affiliate with, is aware that Management has been spreading false and misleading information in an effort to get you to NOT form a Union,” it said, before addressing what it called “actual FACTS” about forming a union.
In the days following, some staff opposed to the union left flyers in certain shops and break rooms on campus, countering Van Deusen’s points. Shortly after, the administration sent a list of FAQs to staff, based on questions it had received from facilities when administrators traveled shop-to-shop with Miller’s first letter.
The union effort has not yet reached the strong majority within facilities that it needs to move forward. There is no specific benchmark for that number, Van Deusen said, but it would have to be a number with which the group would feel comfortable. Some staff said they see the slowing momentum as a sign the effort is doomed. But Van Deusen said authorization cards have not been circulating for long enough to determine whether the effort will succeed or not. He plans to continue to collect and tally cards.
If he could gather enough, staff would then need to file paperwork with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an independent federal agency that protects the rights of private sector employees to better their working conditions and wages. The NLRB would then conduct a secret ballot election among facilities staff to decide whether a union would be formed.
If a majority opted for the formation of a union, the new effort would hold internal union elections for a bargaining team. From there, it would bargain a binding contract with the administration.
“This time next year, we would like to announce that a new union, with a contract, will be formed at Middlebury,” Van Deusen said. He hopes that contract would address staff concerns by forming a labor management committee, creating a binding grievance procedure and paying better for longevity and overtime, among other measures.
Not every staff member is in favor of a union coming to campus. One custodial worker said she would not support the formation of a union because she is worried about losing her benefits in the negotiations, although she is unhappy with her current wages. She was offered a buyout last winter, but did not have to take it because another worker on her team did.
“I enjoy my vacation time,” she said. “The health insurance isn’t what it used to be, but that’s changing in November, too. I enjoy my benefits.”
According to Miller, the college will put in place a new healthcare system this November, to go into effect in January, that will introduce more choice into the current plan.
Although some employees worry their benefits will be at risk if they unionize, McCallum said he finds it hard to believe that the college would target workers’ healthcare and benefits in negotiations.
“If Middlebury were to threaten the good benefits that workers now receive if they decided to go union, it would be joining a long list of union-busting corporations,” he said.
Besides, he said that employees would have to agree on any union contract with the college.
“Workers vote on any contract a union signs, and they would only vote ‘yes’ on a contract when their benefits improved or stayed the same,” he said.
McCallum said he sees collective bargaining as an “essential ingredient of a democratic workplace.”
“We need a living wage here, where everyone can live and work with dignity, and that will mean paying workers what they deserve, not just what the market dictates,” he added.
Middlebury’s “Black Tuesday”: A union effort three decades ago
The servery employee, who has worked at the college for 31 years and supports a union, was freshly employed at Middlebury when a series of job cuts in May 1991 destroyed a long-held perception of the institution as a reliable place to work. She remembers the day those positions were terminated, which has since come to be known by some as “Black Tuesday,” as a day filled with tears and disbelief.
The college administration has taken measures to avoid an event like Black Tuesday from recurring. Patton told two Campus reporters in an article published by VTDigger this fall that memories of 1991 have influenced how the college currently handles staff reductions, emphasizing its focus on giving people more of a choice and inviting them to think about the long-term trajectory of the institution.
Miller emphasized a similar sentiment in her conversation with The Campus.
“I can say that we were intentional to make this as humane as we could, to make sure that this was not a surprise to people and that they were engaged in conversations,” she said about this year’s workforce planning. “We really worked hard to do that. Were we 100% successful? I hope so, but maybe not.”
As in 1991, this recent round of workforce planning eliminated specific job “titles” rather than “people,” and both years saw efforts to organize. In September of 1991, The Campus reported that staff across campus were “exploring ways to increase their input in administrative decisions.” This included attempts by some to form a union, organizing for which would last four years before ultimately breaking down in 1995 after failing to garner enough support.
Those attempts were aimed at creating a wall-to-wall bargaining unit — a unit that would include all staff, unlike this year’s single-department effort in facilities. Bill Jaeger, director of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW), an AFSCME affiliate, helped spearhead that effort. His team was contacted by Middlebury employees in 1991, two years after HUCTW negotiated their own first contract.
Jaeger said attempts to unionize arose because of anger about the layoffs, but that at its core were more permanent longings for democratic change at the college.
“People were feeling like their eyes had been opened to how consequential and important it can be to have some breadth and some inclusion in important policy matters and in decision making,” he said.
HUCTW members visited staff in Middlebury to talk about the union, at times once per week. Most interest came from those in administrative and technical jobs, although there was some level of support and involvement in all staff departments, Jaeger remembered. In response, the administration called all-staff meetings to address the efforts.
That union was not able to pique sufficient interest, but Jaeger said staff who were involved were united around a shared sense of excitement for what they were building. “Most people are driven in the most steadfast way if they’re really building toward something that’s going to make a positive difference in the long term,” he said.
By 1995, when the effort fell, the college seemed to be undertaking corrective policies that gave employees some reason for hope.
College looks forward, staff still waiting for change
The college has reiterated time and time again that workforce planning is not a one-time process. This means that administrators are still assessing its successes, as well as where it’s fallen short.
Administrators are hopeful that the workforce planning process will allow the institution to run more efficiently and proactively in the future. Some of the new jobs, for example — including some of the positions offered to staff whose positions were cut, requiring college degrees — are more specialized, and were intended to take into account potential demographic shifts in Vermont so that the college can be an “employer of choice for the next generation,” Miller said.
“The whole purpose of the workforce planning is we’ve got to be prepared for our future,” she said. “I know it was a difficult process for many, but for some, I think it really helped us to transform and leap into that future state,” she added, citing the How Will We Live Together review as a concurrent, future-oriented process.
Miller said that the administration is committed to revisiting any “pain points” among staff and addressing them accordingly. At an Oct. 24 staff meeting, Patton announced that Special Assistant to the President Sue Ritter will do a listening tour throughout staff departments to hear employees’ concerns. The administration laid out its plan for the compensation review at that meeting, as well as several other measures, like a restatement that Senior Leadership Group would attend the holiday party this December, that suggest an effort to reinforce commitment to community-building.
The custodial worker and nearly every staff member interviewed for this article spoke about an intangible change that has made the working environment feel more corporate, and less warm and community-centered.
“When I first came here, it was different,” the custodial worker said. “It was more family-oriented, and everybody looked out for each other. It’s not like that anymore. It’s more sterile.”
Parsons, the staff council president, said Middlebury used to be a small institution with a real family feel. “As we have grown and expanded both our physical footprint here and our global footprint, we have somewhat lost touch with that,” he said.
“It would be a real challenge to bring that back,” he added.
Staff also overwhelmingly expressed large amounts of pride in Middlebury as an institution, a collective sentiment that is backed up by data in the 2017 ModernThink survey.
“It’s a great place,” the first facilities worker said. “And the benefits are great. We’re just underpaid for what we’re doing.”
This pride seems to leave many staff members feeling hopeful. But they’re also worried that the college will continue to disappoint them. Some left initial workforce planning meetings a year ago with the impression that “everything was going to be open and that communication was going to flow.”
“But it never did,” one staff member said.
“With workforce planning, there were so many unanswered questions,” he added. “The administration wouldn’t have been able to do that without talking to the union first.”
As the dust settles on the consequences of workforce planning, staff are still waiting to see tangible changes.
(10/31/19 10:04am)
The commons system will no longer exist come next fall, the college administration announced in an email to the Middlebury community on Oct. 24.
The email detailed a host of changes to the current residential life system following a multi-year review of the system, including the creation of a new Office of Residential Life, a push to work towards building a new student center, and the consolidation of deans’ offices into two first-year “clusters.” All together, the administration is calling the changes “BLUEprint.”
The review process, which started to take shape in spring 2018, originated in Community Council in 2017, after a New York Times article about income inequality inspired the council to conduct a student survey . The survey ultimately pointed to discrepancies in residential life experiences among students. The following year, an external committee convened to build the report that would eventually become “How Will We Live Together.” The report’s recommendations informed the upcoming overhaul.
Currently, first-year students live in one of five first-year halls, depending on their assigned commons. Per the new system, first-years will instead either live in Allen and Battell halls on the north side of campus, or Stewart and Hepburn halls south of College Street, depending on which “cluster” they are in. These changes will turn Hepburn from a sophomore dorm to a first year dorm, while removing first years from Hadley, a first-year dormitory located in the Ross complex.
Administrators chose to move first-years nearer to each other in response to the external committee’s report, which said that relocating first year students to live in closer proximity to one another “should increase students’ sense of belonging at Middlebury, and reduce some of the tensions related to diversity and inclusion that we heard about during our visit to campus.”
These changes effectively put an end to the commons system, which was first established after the removal of Greek life from campus in 1989 and modeled off of the house system at universities like Harvard and Yale. The commons were put into place in 1991 and have faced major adjustments twice since then.
The upcoming changes to residential life attempt to combat the “inefficiency” produced by the commons model, while also working to better serve and support students, administrators told The Campus.
“I was shocked at how complicated the system was... and the faculty were not being used as effectively as they could be,” said Rob Moeller, a psychology professor who specializes in the mental health of college students.
Moeller has been an integral member of the How Will We Live Together Steering Committee. The committee formed in the spring of 2018 to develop and write the final recommendations.
“[We realized] that the experiment of randomizing students into communities didn’t work,” Moeller said. “You can tell someone that their new mascot is a squirrel or frog or a rhino, but it didn’t resonate with students. Students weren’t walking around saying, ‘Go squirrels.’”
The plan also suggests planning will soon be underway for the renovation or replacement of Battell Hall, the biggest first year dorm on campus, as well as for a new student center. Administrators said that the college cannot operate without the beds provided by Battell Hall, meaning that the building will likely continue to operate while a new facility is built.
A re-centralized residential life office
The shift away from the commons system will fundamentally change how the college approaches student residential life staff. It will also add two new positions to the residential life team, including an associate dean for residential life and an assistant director of student success. These positions will be filled by AJ Place,who served as theDean of Brainerd commons until spring 2019, and Michelle Audette, who now works as Middlebury’s ADA Coordinator, respectively.
The positions will both fall within a consolidated Office of Residential Life. This office, in addition to directing students towards resources, will work to remove some of the workload from deans, the number of which will be downsized from five to four.
The college will use new software to help deans manage student needs, and deans will be relieved of some of their residential life responsibilities. This shift is intended to help ease deans’ workloads as they become responsible for larger numbers of students.
The creation of these positions is already underway, according to AJ Place.
“I’ll be supervising the folks that we know now as the CRDs, which is what I’m already doing this year,” Place said.
Place will also be supervising Assistant Director for New Student Experience and Residential Education Kristy Carpenter and Assistant Director for Housing Operations Kady Shea.
These positions are one such way the college hopes to reach students “proactively” and move away from what Place termed a “purely reactive” approach. Place hopes this re-centralization will provide students with heightened access to resources, including programming that will help educate students on a range of topics.
“In Brainerd last year, we piloted a program in the fall [where] we did a number of series of events for first-year students, specifically,” Place said. “We had our first program with the CTLR on time management, which doesn’t sound like a fun topic, but we had well over 60 people at [the event] just here in Stewart. That tells me that students value having that [kind of resource] right here and that we’ve missed the mark on not doing that.”
With this shift, the administration hopes to have deans work in concert — rather than individually — to promote student wellness.
“When we think about what mental health is, when you think about health in general, it’s not just responding to problems, it’s about prevention,” Moeller said. “We’ve got all these great people on campus. We don’t need to just be in crisis response mode. Let’s start to use these skills in meaningful ways to really help all students.”
History of the commons
While the commons shape current students’ perceptions of how Middlebury organizes housing and residential life, this was not always the case. American Studies Professor Tim Spears was a member of the 1998 Residential Life Committee that fleshed out the College’s original idea for the commons system.
Spears said the original plan stipulated that each commons would have housing for all four classes, a dining hall, a dean’s office, and housing for the faculty head. If fully realized, these commons would have resembled Ross and Atwater facilities.
While this original plan was passed with hopes of creating five “microcosms” that would function together as the Middlebury experience, the plan was drastically altered in 2007, when it became clear that the college did not possess the financial means to build the infrastructure required by the 1998 plan. The last commons construction project was Atwater, which occurred at the same time the Davis Family Library was being built in 2004.
Due to the financial constraints, the college turned to a 4/2 plan, which features “a 4-year commons affiliation and a 2-year residency,” as described by a blog post written by Spears and dated September, 2007. This is the plan students at Middlebury have come to know — a plan under which students maintain their relationship with their commons Deans for the duration of their college experience, while only living within their commons for half of that time.
The 4/2 plan looked to keep the elements of the commons that had already been implemented, while letting go of the price tags required by the original framework. Though the move saved the college millions of dollars, it left the original commons vision largely unrealized.
Karl Lindholm, a retired American Studies professor who has worked in all five commons, including as faculty head of Atwater and the dean of Cook, explained that the idea behind the plan was to “decentralize” administrative offices.
“The word that was on everybody’s lips was decentralization,” he said. “In other words, we decentralized the Dean of Students office.”
Spears, who was the dean of the college when the 4/2 plan went into effect, said the goal of this decentralization was to create well-resourced communities to enhance the student experience. He wrote on his blog that he was saddened by the move away from the original vision of the commons, but that the shift was made with the belief that inter-commons relationships would be enough to sustain the reduced system.
“You build connections with students or faculty and commons staff during your first year or two, and then you move off and do other things, but those connections bring you back to the commons,” he said.
Those benefits were reflected in the 2018 survey — over 65% of students reported that the commons helped them to get to know other students, while 58% reported that the commons system helped them meet other people.
While the commons spurred inter-student connections, the data did not support the idea that the commons was central to community building, which was the intention behind its implementation.
“The impact [of the commons system] is only being seen mostly in the first two years and in a very small number of students, and it’s a very expensive program,” said Baishakhi Taylor, the Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students.
John Gosselin, a senior who has served both on Community Council and on the How Will We Live Together Steering Committee, said that the faculty head model in particular does not make financial sense.
“The role of the commons heads originally worked a lot better than they do now,” he said. “The way it works now is we have very small dinners that cost $150,000 to cater for the five houses. That money could be spent better elsewhere.”
Gosselin said three people could be hired to work directly with students for the same amount of money.
Though the college has not confirmed whether the commons heads positions will be eliminated in the new model, there is no evidence suggesting that positions will carry over. The recommendations submitted by the Steering Committee describe the faculty head model as “real,” but says that “the preponderance of evidence suggests that [the reach of the faculty head position] is limited to a relatively small number of students, and relatively limited in scope, manifesting mainly as hosting dinner events.”
Both the Steering Committee and the administration used information gathered in the 2018 Student Residential Life Survey to support the idea that the common head positions are largely ineffective: data show that only 32% of students report having gotten to know their commons head.
Spears said that it is a “fair question” to assess how impactful the faculty head position is, especially because faculty are moving beyond the classroom, in some capacity, to serve in that role. He also noted figures such as those provided by the survey are hard to interpret.
“Just putting a number on it doesn’t really explain whether or how faculty are enhancing residential life and benefitting particular students,” he said.
Even if over 50% of students surveyed reported not having gotten to know their faculty head, it remains difficult to imagine eliminating the position, which is founded on support and care, Spears said.
“I’m sensitive to the fact that, in doing these interviews and meeting with people, there isn’t one single person connected to the current system who didn’t put their heart and soul into it,” Moeller said. “Each person really cares about students. Sometimes it’s difficult being told that you’re a part of something that’s not working as well as it should — it’s hard to hear that you’ve been pouring your soul into something and the outcomes clearly are not where they should be.”
Commons senators and student res life staff opine
Many students involved in the commons feel they were not properly consulted regarding the upcoming changes. Myles Maxie ’22, Middlebury’s Wonnacott Senator, is worried about how students will represent themselves given that the recommendations do not specify how the Student Government Association will change with the elimination of the commons. The current structure has five Senate positions affiliated with the commons — one seat to each commons — and the possible elimination of those positions would decrease senate seats by one third.
“I don’t appreciate the fact that this [new] system doesn’t have full thought behind it,” Maxie said. “They’re unsure on the status of commons councils, given the fact that they’ve removed the commons.”
Teddy Best ’22, who serves as Ross commons Senator, expressed a similar worry.
“I am concerned that the administration did not notify commons senators or commons councils of where they were headed with this process,” he said. “There’s no doubt there are problems with the commons system — that isn’t the question. The question is, what should we do about it? If it’s the case that the commons system is going to be abolished, that seems like a drastic response.”
Maxie also identified poor communication during the plan’s creation as a source of concern. Commons senators were officially notified of the final changes at the same time as the rest of the student body, leaving many to feel that they were not adequately involved in the review process.
“I don’t appreciate the lack of transparency that exists throughout this process,” he said. “This report is titled How Will We Live Together, and how can you live together with people when you can’t trust them to actually tell you the details on how they’re completing this process?”
Maxie and Best are not alone — residential life staff, including Ross Community Assistant Steph Miller ’20, expressed concern with the move away from the commons structure.
“I think a lot was overlooked in the ways these reviews were done,” Miller said. “I think some of the reviews were done hastily. The external reviewers were on campus for less than two or three days,” said Miller, who also expressed concern with the methods used to conduct the review.
“They didn’t talk to that many people and they didn’t talk to the [commons] teams as a collective,” she said. “I think if they had done that, they would’ve seen what is so magical about the commons.”
The Steering Committee, however, viewed the process differently.
“I don’t think there’s anything we could do that would have made this more transparent,” Moeller said. “Everything, the notes, the meetings, the reports on the go site. We would actually send out email invites to groups, blasting out [messages and] saying, ‘who’s willing to come for 40 minutes, an hour?’”
The past week has seen little public backlash to the elimination of the commons system, but it is a dimension of this announcement that is undeniably present. Though the greater student body has, for the most part, shown indifference towards the changes, many people affiliated with the commons and their offices were not available for comment or unwilling to speak on the record for this story, and several alluded to feelings of uncertainty and sadness at the prospect of moving away from the commons system.
Correction: A previous version of the article misstated that commons senators were informed of accepted changes prior to the rest of the student body. The article has since been updated.
(10/31/19 10:03am)
After a decade-long crusade of student activism, Middlebury has begun its long march toward divestment. In a unanimous decision last January, the Board of Trustees approved Energy 2028—an ambitious and sweeping plan that promises certain reductions of the college’s environmental footprint in response to the mounting climate crisis. With the vote, the board set a timeline for meeting a series of environmentally-minded goals and initiatives.
(10/31/19 10:01am)
Families dressed in costumes, posed for pictures, danced to live music and munched on bags of fresh-popped popcorn. A NASA toddler in a tinfoil hat and a painted cardboard rocket waited patiently in line for face-painting. A mini Evil Queen and a black fruit bat played a life-sized game of Connect 4. Multiple Spider-Men and one Spider Gwen chased each other in front of the bubble machine. In the meantime, parents holding umbrellas stood on the grass and waited for the parade, Spooktacular’s main event, to begin.
The Better Middlebury Partnership hosted its 12th Annual Spooktacular on the Town Green this past Sunday, Oct. 27. Despite a steady drizzle of rain, kids flocked to game stations and activity tables operated by volunteers. Visitors could enjoy games, face-painting, bubbles and a craft table, alongside dancing and halloween-themed treats.
Nancie Dunn, the primary organizer of Spooktacular, started the event 14 years ago and has been hosting it with the help of her husband, Bruce Baker, ever since. For Dunn, the idea for Spooktacular rose out of a need she saw for a community-based Halloween event.
“When my kids were little, there was a parade and a bonfire that the Middlebury Parks and Recreation put on, and then there was nothing,” Dunn said. “So I thought with this cute town we needed to make something.” That was when Dunn got the idea for Spooktacular, which she and Baker have been running ever since.
“We had good weather last year and saw about 500 kids,” Baker said. “Because of the weather, this year was the most challenging year out of the 14.” The covered gazebo in the middle of the Town Green served as not only a refuge from the rain but also as the center of activity from where Baker played live music.
“My favorite part is right here at the gazebo,” Baker said. “All the kids come up, and the ones that are gregarious dance with me and have fun.”
Lauren Laberge, in charge of face-painting station, is one of the committee members who organizes the event every year.
“It’s cute to see the families come out all dressed up,” Laberge said. “I think they love it because you don’t always get an opportunity with your kids to be a part of something with costumes.”
Sarah Stahl, who oversees the crafts, is another committee member.
“[Spooktacular] is different from trick-or-treating in the dark,” Stahl said. “This is a daytime event, and it’s free. Some mother even said to me: ‘Thank you for doing this. This is all we do for Halloween.’”
At 2:30 p.m., Dunn, dressed as the Spooktacular Witch, led the group in a parade through the town. All through Main Street, merchants, some in costume, stood outside their shop fronts with bowls full of candy ready to be dropped in the children’s waiting bags. Audra Ouellette has participated in Spooktacular for all the three years she has been an employee at Sweet Cecily, a local home goods retailer.
“My favorite part about the event are the little faces that come through with costumes on,” Ouellette said. “There’s almost no preparation the vendors have to do beforehand. Nancie supplies everyone with the candy. It’s perfect.” As kids walked past Dunn with bags heavy of sweets, they waved at the Spooktacular Witch and headed home.
“It’s a real nice community thing,” Baker said. “It gives people who might not be able to afford to do anything special on their own an opportunity to get dressed up with their kids and have a great time.”
(10/31/19 10:00am)
The Mad Taco and other retailers were welcomed to Middlebury by a large and hungry crowd last Saturday at the Stone Mill’s soft opening, which showcased the multi-purpose space’s new cast of restaurants and retailers. Middlebury residents and college students alike headed down to Mill Street for the Vermont taqueria’s much anticipated opening. By 5:30 p.m., the restaurant was abuzz with activity.
While there has been a lot of commotion around the arrival of The Mad Taco, the restaurant is just one of the new tenants of the new Stone Mill complex. The Stone Mill, formerly owned by Middlebury College, was bought by Mary Cullinane and Stacey Rainey of Community Barn Ventures in January of this year. The two transformed the building into a multipurpose space that now features The Mad Taco, The Arcadian To-Go, Dedalus Wine Shop, the interior designer Slate Home, Lost Monarch Coffee, a coworking space and Airbnb units.
The Mad Taco is located on the bottom floor, which used to house Storm Café. One of the employees at The Mad Taco, Nate Davis, said that there were moments when they were not sure the restaurant would be ready for the soft opening, as the space is not completely finished. After a few more finishing touches are put in place, The Mad Taco hopes to hold a grand opening on a to-be-announced date in the near future.
“We want to have a place for everybody to have fun,” Davis said. He said that the opening was successful, even with very little media promotion.
The menu at Middlebury’s Mad Taco is the same as the one featured at the taqueria’s original Waitsfield location. A variety of chicken, pork, beef and vegetable tacos are available, including smoked pork belly, a favorite of the Saturday crowd. The tacos are served on a double wrapped soft shell and are generously stuffed. A wide selection of burritos, fajitas and sandwiches are also available, alongside an impressive collection of homemade hot sauces, ranging from mild to very hot, as well as a full bar stocked with lots of Vermont IPAs.
Davis explained that Cullinane and Rainey approached The Mad Taco during the planning stages of the project about the possibility of being part of the complex. The two had been big fans of the location in Waitsfield, Vt.
On the ground floor of the Stone Mill, Cullinane and Rainey were manning the register at the Public Market, a collection of small stands representing various local businesses. The featured stores include Slate Home, which sells a range of homegoods from soap to coasters to kitchen supplies. The Slate Home team designed its own space to have a modern and slightly industrial feel.
The Vermont Book Shop and Dedalus Wine Shop also have stalls at Public Market. Dedalus Wine Shop was in the middle of a tasting on Saturday evening, an event which will occur regularly, according to Rainey. Lost Monarch Coffee is also a part of the market, with a seating area to grab a coffee and pastry.
The market also features a stall curated by Cullinane and Rainey called the Stone Mill Collective, which showcases the entrepreneurial ventures of Middlebury students and alumni.
When speaking about their goals for the space, Rainey and Cullinane said that they wanted to provide a multipurpose space where visitors can “grab a present, get a coffee, and head to work upstairs.”
“I really wanted to dive into the community and provide another spot for people to gather,” Rainey said. She and Cullinane have lived in Middlebury and been business partners for several years.
The opening welcomed a wide range of people from the Midd community, including students, families and retirees. When asked about what demographics she had hoped to see, Rainey said that she was thrilled with the variety of customers who came through the market on Saturday. “That’s the special part,” she said. “There’s been a lot of students who’ve been through the building. Families, some older retired folks, tourists. It’s been across the board, which is what we wanted.”
Rainey is also excited to bring more Vermont businesses to Middlebury.
“While it would be costly to have a full store up on Main Street, having a stall here gives these businesses an opportunity to test the market and expand their platform.”
The Public Market is now open Wednesday through Monday from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. The Mad Taco is open daily from 11:30 a.m. – 9 p.m., and will close on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and July 4.
(10/31/19 10:00am)
Middlebury saw its first visit from a 2020 presidential candidate on Oct. 16. William Weld, a former governor of Massachusetts running against President Donald Trump in the Republican primary, spoke to a crowd of around 40 students in Dana Auditorium in a talk hosted by the Middlebury College Republicans.
Weld previously ran as former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson’s running mate in the 2016 presidential election on the Libertarian Party ticket, which garnered nearly 4.5 million votes nationwide. Weld also served two terms as governor of Massachusetts between 1991 and 1997.
Brendan Philbin ’21, the co-chair of the College Republicans, met Governor Weld last spring after a campaign event in White River Junction, Vt.
“He offered to give a speech before I could even bring it up,” Philbin said. “I was put in touch with his chief of staff and then worked to plan the event for the next five months.”
Philbin said that he kept running into legal troubles, because any official campaign event hosted at the college would violate the college’s 501c3 nonprofit status. As such, Weld appeared in his capacity as a former governor and longtime political figure rather than as a presidential candidate.
Weld spoke about his political background and policy views, and spent most of the event engaging in a question and answer session with students. Weld also held a pizza social event in the Robert A. Jones ’59 Conference Room after his talk, where discussion continued.
“We know that the Middlebury community is very civically engaged and interested in politics, so we thought that this event with Governor Weld would give students, faculty and staff an opportunity to engage directly with a prominent politician at both the state and federal level,” Philbin said. “This is why I think the pizza social that followed the event was so valuable. It gave us a chance to speak candidly about politics with someone who’s been involved in it for decades.”
Weld spoke openly about his dismay with the Republican Party under President Donald Trump and his hopes for the future of the party, both in terms of policy and politics. Speaking about impeachment and loyalty to the President, Weld was particularly critical of many Republican members of Congress.
[pullquote speaker="Former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Loyalty is too often used as an excuse for doing the wrong thing.[/pullquote]
“Loyalty is too often used as an excuse for doing the wrong thing,” Weld told students.
Weld pointed to his time as governor of Massachusetts as an example of executive leadership. He described his budgeting strategies that helped the state out of a recession, his support of reforming but not repealing the Affordable Care Act and efforts to find ways to lower drug prices. He also stressed the importance of having a diverse political makeup of past and future administrations.
According to students in attendance, the extended Q&A portion of the event was particularly compelling.
“I definitely enjoyed hearing from an unconventional Republican candidate, and particularly found his bottom-up budgeting approach interesting,” Samuel Sullivan ’22.5 said.
Philbin said that students asked tough questions during the event, prompting good discussion.
“As I had warned Governor Weld would happen, the students did not go up to ask him softball questions,” Philbin said. “I was impressed, though not surprised, at how specific and interesting the questions that students asked were. They gave a great opportunity to really go in-depth into a presidential candidate’s political platform.”
Justin Cooper ’22 appreciated the opportunity to engage with the views of a moderate conservative.
“I thought Governor Weld gave very interesting insight into what a more moderate Republican’s political views might be, and it was very refreshing to hear a more level-headed conservative give alternative, in-depth policy ideas to Trump’s,” Cooper said. “That being said, during the Q&A, he did jump around quite a few of the questions, managing to fully evade giving a clear answer.”
Alex Demoly ’22 also thought some of Weld’s answers were evasive, but found him to be open and worth engaging with at the same time.
“My lasting impression of Governor Weld is that he is a very approachable man,” Demoly said. “Not one completely devoid of the talking points and rhetorical firmness necessary for a politician, but certainly one with whom you can have a comfortable chat, a slice of pizza in one hand and a Coke in the other.”
Philbin found the event to be a successful show of discourse and dialogue amongst members of the Middlebury community from all political stripes.
“I think it was important to show the Middlebury community, the overwhelming majority of which are of the political left, that Republicans are not all climate-denying corporatists unconcerned with issues like wealth inequality and minority rights,” Philbin said. “It can often feel like there is no common ground between members of our two dominant political parties but, once you’re able to have an in-depth conversation with them, it becomes clear that we often agree on more than we disagree.”
(10/31/19 9:59am)
(10/31/19 9:59am)
SARAH FAGAN
