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(04/29/21 6:05pm)
Anaïs Mitchell ’04, a Tony-award winning playwright and musician, will give the 2021 Middlebury commencement address. Mitchell is the creator of the acclaimed Broadway musical “Hadestown”, and was named one of the most influential people of 2020 by Time Magazine
Mitchell, a native Vermonter, grew up in Weybridge and majored in political science at Middlebury. Her play “Hadestown,” a retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice scored 14 Tony nominations in 2019, of which it won eight, including Best Musical and Best Original Score. She is only the fourth woman to write a full musical — including the book, lyrics and music — for Broadway.
In a college announcement, President Laurie Patton expressed her excitement about Mitchell’s address.
"Anaïs Mitchell stands apart from all other modern singer-songwriters for her imagination, storytelling, and tremendous songwriting talent," Patton said. "It is an honor to have Anaïs as our Commencement speaker. She is as interested in the world around her as the one inside her and she tackles big themes through music and theater — skills that will inspire our seniors as they prepare to enter the wider world."
Mitchell will receive an honorary Doctor of Arts from the college at the ceremony.
Three other Vermonters will receive honorary degrees at commencement. John B. Derick, a Trail Around Middlebury (TAM) coordinator for 30 years who has built and maintained trails for decades, will be a recipient. Dr. Mark Levine, Vemont’s commissioner of health, will also receive an honorary degree. Dubbed Vermont’s Dr. Fauci, Levine has led the state’s Covid-19 health efforts. The third recipient is Curtiss Reed Jr., a Vermont civil rights leader who has served as the executive director of the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity since 2001.
Mitchell and the honorary degree recipients will all visit Middlebury in person for the ceremony.
Commencement will occur this year on Saturday, May 29, in order to accommodate Covid-19 restrictions. An update last week announced that students will each be able to invite two guests to graduation, and that the ceremony will be spread out across five locations to abide by Vermont's health regulations. Only graduating seniors, remote graduating seniors, their guests and on-campus members of the class of 2021.5 will be allowed to attend the ceremony.
This story has been updated to include the fact that the speaker and honorary degree recipients will appear in person.
(04/29/21 10:00am)
Men’s baseball (1–5) tallied its first win of the season this past weekend, splitting a double-header with Hamilton (4–7). While the Panthers were shut out in the first game, they captured the win in the second after a walk-off home run by Evan Hunter ’24.
The Panthers were unable to produce much offense in the first game, losing 11–0 as Hamilton’s pitcher completed a shutout. Middlebury tallied three hits in total with singles from Lucas Flemming ’24, Joseph Duran ‘24 and Tyler Leinan ’24. Starting pitcher Charlie Kutz ’24 struggled, giving up 10 runs (seven earned) and five walks.
The Panthers bounced back in the second game, though. Starting pitcher Henry Gustavson ’24 had his best outing of the season, going four innings and striking out two, giving up two runs (one earned) off four hits and one walk.
“I felt like I did a much better job of getting ahead in the counts,” Gustavson said. “I tried to be aggressive right away. I only had two strikeouts, but I got into a lot of two strike counts that ended in outs so I was really happy about that.”
Gustavson was taken out after the Continentals tied the game at 2–2 after a double drove in an unearned run in the top of the fourth inning. In the bottom of the inning, after a single, a double and a hit-by-pitch loaded the bases, Jack Torpey ’24 doubled in two runs to retake the lead for the Panthers. A single by Hunter brought in two more runners, extending the Middlebury lead to 6–2 ahead of the fifth inning.
“He struck me out in the first at-bat, so I was looking to be aggressive in the next at-bat,” Torpey said about his fourth inning clutch hit. “I got a pitch I could hit and I got it pretty good.”
Hamilton’s offense revved to life in the sixth inning, scoring four runs to tie up the game. The score remained 6–6 until the bottom of the last inning, when Hunter led off the inning and took the game into his own hands.
“I had one approach for the first pitch: I’m only swinging if I see a fastball right in my zone which is what I got,” Hunter said about his at-bat in the bottom of the seventh. “After it went out, there was just that instant feeling of excitement knowing we just won our first game.”
With only 15 players currently on the roster — consisting exclusively of sophomores and first-years — the Panthers continued to prove that they can compete in the NESCAC despite their young complexion.
Men’s baseball will conclude its regular season next Saturday, May 1, with a double-header against the red-hot Amherst College Mammoths (7–2). The action will begin at 1:30 p.m. in Amherst, Massachusetts.
(04/29/21 10:00am)
The NESCAC celebrated its 50th anniversary as the Men’s Golf Championship kicked off this weekend at the Ledges Country Club in South Hadley, Massachusetts. For the eight out of 11 participating NESCAC schools, the competition offers a chance to earn the first trophy in nearly two years.
Tufts claimed a narrow lead through the opening 18 holes on Sunday, hitting a cumulative 300 strokes for a score of 12 over par. Trinity sits in second — just one stroke back of the leaders — while Middlebury is in third with 303 strokes. The Panthers have a healthy lead over the rest of the field, with fourth-place Hamilton 10 strokes back. Incumbent champions Williams are in fifth place after the opening weekend, with Wesleyan, Bates and Amherst rounding out the rear.
Jordan Bessalel ’21 led the Panthers in the first day of competition, currently tied for second overall by matching par. Meanwhile, Hogan Beazley ’23 sits fifth overall through the first round.
“We put ourselves in a good position for the final round next weekend,” Bessalel said. “We are excited for the opportunity to chase down the teams ahead of us.”
Although the team was hoping to post slightly lower scores through the opening round, Bessalel praised his team for their concentration and strong mentality: “The guys did a great job of grinding out every single shot.”
Colin McCaigue ’24 continued a strong start to his Middlebury career with a 76, with John Mikus ’21 scoring an 80 and Porter Bowman ’21.5 tallying a 90. The conference championship resumes next weekend on Sunday, May 2, at the same location.
Editor’s Note: Porter Bowman ’21.5 is the senior opinion editor for The Campus.
(04/16/21 11:47pm)
Many students have found their vaccination appointments canceled after Vermont paused the administering of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines through April 23. The decision follows a CDC and FDA recommendation to halt use of the vaccine until a rare blood clotting condition — found in six out of 6.8 million vaccine recipients — is investigated. Although Gov. Phil Scott has declared that students are not currently eligible unless they are permanent residents of Vermont or plan to remain in the state this summer, many who have accessed appointments to receive the J&J vaccine have struggled to reschedule them.
Scott tweeted on Tuesday that Vermonters who had made J&J vaccine appointments for April 13 would be contacted about rescheduling. Those affected were instructed to contact the Vermont Department of Health vaccine call center to get an appointment before the end of the month, according to a tweet from the department.
Kasey Mazzone ’23 received an email from the Department of Health on April 13 stating that her J&J appointment at Middlebury American Legion — which had originally been scheduled for that afternoon — was canceled.
“Your Appointment below has been cancelled. If this was done in error, please visit our website to reschedule,” the email said.
Charlie Caldwell ’22 also had an appointment for the J&J vaccine on April 13 at American Legion that was canceled. He received two emails from the Department of Health at 9 a.m. on Tuesday. One mistakenly notified him that a testing appointment had been canceled due to “unforeseen circumstances,” while the other was identical to the email that Mazzone received.
Mazzone later received a call from the department and eventually made an appointment in Middlebury for April 26, and Caldwell scheduled an appointment online for the Moderna vaccine on April 29 in Bennington.
But some students were not able to get an April appointment — despite the Department of Health’s efforts.
Aditya Jain ’22, whose appointment for the J&J vaccine at the Hannaford Pharmacy was also cancelled on April 13, was not able to reschedule his appointment through the department until May 14.
“What are the odds, really?” Jain said. “I just kind of laughed it off.”
As an international student, Jain may need to find accommodation in Vermont past the end of finals week or travel back to Vermont in order to receive his second dose.
Vermont’s decision to pause J&J appointments through April 23 has led other students to seek appointments well outside of Addison County, as limited availability and weeks-long wait times may inhibit some from receiving both shots of a two-dose vaccine before the end of the semester. Some students have been able to find earlier appointments less than an hour’s drive across the Vermont-New York border.
Though most travel is currently restricted to Addison County, students can seek approval from the college to cross state lines for vaccine appointments if the trip can be completed in a single day.
Some students scheduled out-of-state appointments within a day of their original appointment and decided not to ask permission to travel.
Other students have struggled to find any vaccination appointment after a cancellation. Ananya Manjunath ’23 — whose appointment for the J&J vaccine was canceled on April 13 — also found that nothing was available until the middle of May and most were located more than an hour away from campus. Without a car on campus, Manjunath was worried she could not make it there and has yet to reschedule her appointment.
“I was really hoping that maybe [the health department] would do it for me, since I had already scheduled one and they canceled it due to reasons outside of my control,” Manjunath said.
In an email to students sent on April 15, Dean of Students Derek Doucet announced that a plan was in the works to help transport students to vaccine appointments.
“Thus far, appointments have been most readily available in Rutland, and our transportation plan will, at least initially, focus there,” Doucet wrote.
In that same email, Doucet announced that students living or working on campus this summer will be required to be vaccinated. Students staying in Vermont over the summer become eligible on April 19, and the email encouraged students to sign up “immediately” once registration opens.
The email stated that all out-of-state students will be eligible beginning on April 30.
(04/15/21 10:00am)
Parton Center for Health and Wellness has temporarily cut its “Peace of Mind” sexually transmitted infections (STI) screening program, which previously allowed students to be screened for STIs without exhibiting symptoms. On-campus testing is now limited to students who have had a recent exposure or are exhibiting symptoms of an STI. Some students who have called to ask for Peace of Mind screenings have been unable to get tested and have felt shamed by Parton’s response to their request.
The Vermont Department of Health labs that typically process most of Middlebury’s tests have converted their capacity to Covid-19 testing and are not running STI testing, according to Director of Health Services Sandy Robinson. Parton can send tests to Porter Medical Center, but a shortage of testing supplies and high costs have led Parton to prioritize symptomatic testing over regular screenings.
Screening costs vary depending on a student’s health insurance. Common tests like gonorrhea and chlamydia cost $25 out-of-pocket if run through the VT Department of Health labs, but $222 if run through the Porter Hospital labs. The Gallagher Student Health Insurance provided through the college covers 90% of testing costs, but students on separate insurance or who do not want to use their parents’ insurance may see much higher costs.
Parton’s website recommends that students get Peace of Mind testing every six months if they have multiple partners during that time, yet they do not offer it themselves anymore.
Several STIs — including HPV, chlamydia, gonorrhea and herpes — can be infectious in people not showing symptoms. In the past, Peace of Mind testing was available to catch such asymptomatic cases.
Bethany* ’23.5 tried to get a preventative STI screening when she began seeing a new partner in the fall but was turned down because of limited testing supplies.
“I didn’t end up getting tested at Parton. After the call, I gave up on being tested because I don’t have a car or any access to other health facilities. I got tested as soon as I got home and everything was fine, but it would have been better for my peace of mind to be tested earlier,” Bethany said.
Bethany said she would be happy to go back to Parton if testing was made available again, but the way her call was handled made her less comfortable than when she has been tested at her gynecologist in the past.
“I felt that Parton addressed me in an accusatory manner, almost shaming me for having unprotected sex,” Bethany said.
When Avery* ’24 called Parton in late March for Peace of Mind STI testing, she was told Parton’s supply of STI tests was low due to a lack of funding and was denied a test.
Asymptomatic testing is available to students at Planned Parenthood in Middlebury, where Avery went after being turned away at Parton.
“No questions asked, [Planned Parenthood] offered to help me and set up an appointment. They even gave me a discount because I did not want to use my parents’ health insurance,” Avery said.
Claire* ’23 was able to get tested after explaining to staff that she had been encouraged to get a follow-up test for an STI she had been treated for several months earlier. She had no symptoms at the time, but was able to schedule the follow-up and described feeling supported by the staff member at her appointment. Still, Claire said there were flaws in the system.
“When you call to make an appointment, I honestly would rather not talk to the receptionist,” Claire said. “I had to talk to her about the context of my STI testing, and I would have rather done that virtually or through an appointment-making thing.”
She also had to fill out an online questionnaire — unlike past times she has gotten tested at Parton — asking her to list all of the different types of sexual activity she had engaged in, how many partners, and how much of it was protected versus unprotected, without knowing who at Parton would have access to the information.
Claire said she felt more supported than she had at previous Peace of Mind screenings at Middlebury.
“In past experiences, the people I’ve dealt with were a little more judgemental, or, when I was getting Peace of Mind testing, asked me why I needed it,” Claire said.
Robinson said Parton and the Vermont Department of Health are concerned about the limited testing capacity, and that they look forward to returning to regular testing as soon as possible.
*The names in this article are pseudonyms used to protect the privacy of students interviewed for this article.
(04/15/21 9:56am)
Covid-19 restrictions, such as room capacity and limiting close contacts, have put a new strain on student social life. Knowing that people have a wide range of risk tolerances when it comes to potential Covid-19 exposure, students also face the added challenge of navigating friendships.
“Some people don’t feel comfortable going to team practices outside or they shower at 2 a.m. to avoid people, and there are other people walking around without masks on at night or having crowded parties,” Nhi Dang ’23 said. “It’s a new part of social interactions. You have to make sure everyone is comfortable and on the same page with Covid-19 and it can be awkward if you aren’t.”
Some of this discomfort can also manifest when students have had to confront peers who are not following on-campus Covid-19 guidelines.
Isabel Linhares ’22, who is studying in person this year, recalled a scenario in which another student was not following physical distancing guidelines in the dining hall line last semester.
“I asked them to please back up just a little… they essentially told me I was naïve for expecting folks to social distance properly,” Isabel Linhares ’22 said.
The burden of speaking out about peers’ risky behavior often falls on students who are most at risk for severe complications of Covid-19, according to Linhares.
Such uncomfortable social situations in the fall have led some students concerned about Covid-19 risk to complete the spring semester remotely. Others, unhappy with what they saw as restrictive Covid-19 safety policies, have also elected to complete their spring coursework online, often from locations with more relaxed approaches to public health.
First years and first-year Febs have had the added challenge of forming friendships within the constraints of Covid-19 restrictions. Keziah Wilde ’24 felt that on-campus rules, such as room capacities, made it more challenging to make friends last semester. Even so, Wilde felt that the unusual form social interaction took sometimes had the effect of strengthening students' connections.
“There was something binding about things like watching movies outdoors when it’s freezing,” Wilde said. “There is something funny about that, which makes it memorable.”
However, Wilde still felt that the rules were an impediment to forming friendships.
“It's not like breaking rules looks cool. It just makes it easier to make friends when rules are broken,” Wilde said. “The reason that rules are upheld is because it makes people more comfortable, not actually for preventing Covid.”
As the spring semester progresses, some students feel that an increasing number of their peers are violating Covid-19 guidelines.
“[After initial weeks] most students seemed to relax not only their own definitions of closely following the guidelines, but also their expectations of others and their willingness to hold each other accountable,” Linhares said.
Many students have violated Covid-19 guidelines this year. A survey conducted by The Campus found that 354 out of 550 respondents broke Covid-19 health protocols in the fall semester. In September, 22 students were removed from campus following two Thursday-night gatherings that exceeded occupancy and indoor gathering limits in Atwater suites.
The college has reported 126 substantiated rule violations this spring, and two students have been removed from campus.
Throughout the four-day midterm recess that took place last week, many students flocked to Lake Dunmore and some gathered in unmasked groups by the lakeshore, prompting an email from Dean of Students Derek Doucet.
“In speaking with some of you who were there, it was clear that yesterday’s gathering was the inadvertent result of multiple groups of friends and close contacts all having the same idea of going to Dunmore on a beautiful spring day,” Doucet said in the Saturday morning email. “The final result however was that too many people gathered in one place, and it cannot happen again.”
Currently, one student is in isolation after testing positive for Covid-19 on April 5, according to the college’s Covid-19 reporting dashboard.
Ben Gooch, Associate Director of Clinical Operations at the Center for Health and Wellness, has noticed worrying trends among students that use counseling services. He acknowledges that changes to social life may have played a role.
“The level of inconvenience it takes to meet up with people in safe ways has made people less willing to reach out to friends that they may be less close with,” Gooch said. “There's a lot less of running into people in the gym or dining hall in the same way.”
Some students struggle with internal debates about whether or not to socialize if it means breaking the rules.
“I work with students who mention they feel socially isolated so they want to see people, but when they see people they feel anxiety or discomfort of being caught,” Gooch said.
Gooch hasn’t heard from students about pressures to break rules to fit in, but did hear that Covid-19 rules have made some students more isolated.
“What Covid has allowed for is that some people naturally gravitate towards spending time alone, and Covid has given permission,” Gooch said.
Many students have taken to anonymous social media accounts like the Instagram account @middconfessions to express their frustrations. One post from Feb. 28 reads, “I know Covid restrictions are only gonna be this strict for a little over a week, but I’m so worried [about] missing out [because] I don't want to break them to the extremes of others.” Another post expresses similar worries, “Being the friend group left out of the group due to Covid regulations sucks...I can’t help but feel personally hurt by it.”
(04/08/21 9:56am)
The women’s golf team is gearing up to begin NESCAC play in a short few days, when they’ll compete at the Hamilton Invitational on April 10.
The team hopes to build on a strong fall 2019 season in which they finished in the top three at all five of their tournaments, including a first place finish at their home meet at Ralph Myhre.
Although the team lost three seniors from last year, it has a strong core led by senior captain Erika Nakagawa ’21. Nakagawa has not played in a NESCAC match since the spring of her sophomore year, as the last two seasons were canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and she studied abroad the fall of her junior year. Despite the lengthy gap and uncertainty surrounding this season, Nakagawa is excited to finally compete again.
“I have some nerves going in because I thought I was retired,” Nakagawa said. “I was not expecting [the announcement about spring sports], but it’s obviously great news.”
Some other members of the team to keep an eye out for include sophomores Kayli Li ’23 and Katie Murphy ’23, who both look to improve on several impressive showings from last fall. Also, freshman Kaylynn Xia ’24 looks to make an immediate impact in her first season of play.
Entering his 13th season with the team, coach Bill Mandigo expressed his gratefulness that the team has a chance to compete this spring. He looks forward to watching his team out on the course once again and hopes that all the campuses can stay healthy, allowing the season to run smoothly.
Despite the challenges with the weather and Covid-19 safety restrictions, the team has prepared for the season in a variety of ways including chipping practice both indoors and outside, as well as weight lifting together. The adversity has also helped the team grow closer.
“I’m feeling super good about this year’s team,” Nakagawa said. “Even though we haven’t been able to play, we’ve still been making an effort to hang out and get dinner together. I’m feeling a lot closer and more connected with my teammates.”
(04/08/21 9:56am)
Although the women’s tennis team was supposed to open their season on April 3, a positive Covid-19 test on Trinity’s roster delayed the season opener to April 11. It was a tease, but after almost 18 months without a match, the season opener doesn’t feel far off.
Only seven of 11 players are on campus this semester, but the team is still confident and eager ahead of their season opener. As of now, the truncated spring season contains four matchups — two home and two away — though that number could increase in the coming weeks since the team is considering adding matches. The season opens with back-to-back away trips against Hamilton and Wesleyan, respectively, and then closes with two home matches against Amherst and Williams.
While nothing is etched in stone, current plans have the NESCAC splitting into two conferences: the East and West, with Middlebury positioned in the latter. There are rumors that each subconference will host its own end-of-season playoff tournament, with the two winners meeting in a final, but plans remain tentative and contingent on the health of the players.
This season, Ann Martin Skelly ’21 and Emily Bian ’21 are senior co-captains, stepping into leadership roles under head coach Rachel Kahan, who enters her fifth year at Middlebury. In 2018-19, Kahan led the Panthers to a 19–3 record as the team finished as NESCAC Finalists and NCAA Semifinalists.
There are four first-years on the roster, and while Covid-19 restrictions have made it tough to organize traditional team bonding events, they have integrated nicely into the team, according to Skelly and Bian.
“I think the freshmen are assimilating very well,” Bian said. “It’s a good sign that all four of them came back in the spring.”
The Panthers will begin NESCAC play on the back of a successful fall, according to Bian, where practices were competitive and engaging. “When we were at practice [in the fall], we were a lot more engaged with each other since we maybe didn’t get to see each other the past weekend,” Bian said.
Though the team graduated five seniors who were all high-caliber players, Bian noted that the team is in good hands.
“The freshmen have really stepped up,” Bian said. “And the returning players have gotten a lot better and definitely can fill those holes in the lineup. So far everyone has been extremely competitive.”
The women’s tennis matches will be livestreamed this spring season, according to Athletic Director Erin Quinn. The first match is slated for Sunday, April 11 at Hamilton. Start time is to be determined.
(04/01/21 9:58am)
As graduation approaches, I find myself gripped by a painful nostalgia. It’s as if all of my regrets from the past four years have materialized in the form of an inescapable specter. Sitting in class, I suddenly see myself making a joke at someone’s expense. Eating lunch, I cringe recalling when I slept through a date. I dream about a conversation that ended a close friendship. Like a curse, these memories I have entombed during my time here have been reanimated to haunt my final semester. The past few weeks have been fraught with these afflictive recollections.
Reliving these memories has been an emotionally taxing experience. I oscillate between periods of guilt, melancholy and mourning. To avoid the flashbacks, I bury myself in my assignments or spend an inordinate amount of time at the gym. But they always return, accompanied by that same aching nostalgia.
In essence, I feel a need for closure. A yearning to travel back in time to undo my wrongs, to hold my tongue, to make amends before a relationship frayed. My powerlessness to change the past is agonizing. In an absurd way, I feel like an ill-fated criminal — wrongdoings permanent — being led to the guillotine. While my tribulations are those of an ordinary college student — and I face graduation, not a death machine — it feels like my troubles have existential weight.
But unlike the condemned, I may be able to redeem my mistakes. Though I have lost their friendship, those people are not gone. They live within shouting distance, frequent the same dining halls, and it would only take a simple text to meet with them to profess my remorse. Absolution may be an apology away. Why, then, do I feel paralyzed to reach out to those I have hurt? Why does gaining closure feel so unattainable?
To answer these questions, I decided to take a critical look at my conception of closure and what it means to “move on.” My first realization was that my idea of moving on is rooted in ego. Wrongly, I believed recovering from a loss meant I could think about it without a negative emotional response. If I did not feel pangs of guilt or longing when it came to mind, then I assumed I had successfully and completely healed. Yet closure is more than just emotional resilience. Even with callousness, vulnerability remains. Apathy toward a memory becomes an excuse to avoid it, or hide it away and leave it unresolved. My need for closure has permeated through this emotional armor.
Holistic closure is deeper, more intangible. It involves a comprehensive understanding of the causes of the loss: the nature of the relationship preceding it, the content of what was said, the emotions at play. One must estrange themself from their limited perspective and examine the event from afar. Since our memories are so intensely colored by personal biases, this dissociation is incredibly challenging. It often takes repeated contemplation and self-reflection to come to an adequate conclusion. Early junior year, some of my hurtful words resulted in the abrupt end of one of my closest friendships. It took me over a year to recognize the significance of what I said, to take a step back and measure the conditions that precipitated the event. After doing so, I feel closer toward coming to terms with the role I played in the damaged relationship.
Yet loss involves more than one person. Does this mean I should involve others in my search for closure? Should I reach out to those friends I hurt junior year?
Whether reaching out to those you’ve hurt is appropriate, or even intrinsic to gaining closure, is a difficult question. However, I believe wanting to reach out to those you’ve wronged is a natural impulse. Therefore, its implications need to be considered.
I have defined two ways to address this dissonance: one is active, the other passive. An active approach involves reaching out to those you’ve wounded. It appeals to a romantic ideal — that reconciliation can be achieved through a single act of profession. While a heartfelt conversation could conceivably lead to closure, I am skeptical of its reliability. Consider, for example, when someone says that they accept an apology. How do you know they truly mean it? The appraisal of their forgiveness may simply be a projection of one’s desire for closure. In this way, the catharsis of profession can be used to pretend closure has been reached, when the issue may remain unresolved.
On the other hand, the passive approach involves using artistic expression to reach closure. By manifesting one’s experience through art, it offers a sense of agency that alleviates the feeling of powerlessness. Through this process, one can close the book on past misdoings without having to confront the art’s muse. Personally, I do this by making playlists out of songs that I associate with a loss. The songs inspire me to think deeply, and sometimes a particular chord or rhyme produces a newfound clarity. As I have grown, so have the playlists.
But in thinking about reaching closure before graduation, I am left with one final question: is it even worth the trouble? I will probably never see the people I’ve hurt here ever again after departing from campus. I am reminded of the image of the guillotine — if execution is inevitable, why would the condemned try to right his wrongs? In the same way, closure before graduation feels absurd. If that lost friendship from junior year is irredeemable anyway, then why do I even care?
I still search for an answer, but one aphorism embodies my optimism. Albert Camus once wrote, “The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.” Even as graduation makes its unassailable approach, I feel compelled by a transcendent desire to prevail over the specters of regret. There is an underlying beauty to the struggle that goes beyond atoning for a short-lived friendship. Compelled by this force, inconsolable and hopelessly idealistic, I will continue my search.
Joseph Levine is a member of the class of 2021.
(04/01/21 9:57am)
Student organizations have worked throughout the year to adapt programming to Covid-19 health protocols, but travel restrictions and limited in-person activity have made it difficult for many clubs to fulfill their core missions. Organizations like the Middlebury Mountain Club (MMC), Dolci and the Ceramics Club are now having to think outside the box — or outside the mug.
Travel restrictions are the primary obstacle for outdoor groups like the MMC. Since students are unable to travel outside of Addison County, the MMC is getting creative with local trips. In the fall, the club took frequent canoe trips in the waters around Middlebury and led hikes on the Trail Around Middlebury, according to Molly Arndt ’23, president of the MMC.
Ardnt noted that transportation is another big issue this semester. Since MMC is unable to use the school’s vehicles, it has been difficult to organize trips even within the county. The result is smaller hikes, which do not elicit the same interest as pre-Covid trips.
The MMC has also struggled to get guides certified in wilderness first-aid because the instructors who usually run trainings are not allowed on campus.
“Mountain Club usually offers a few wilderness first aid courses in the year as well as a wilderness first responder course over Feb break, and we haven’t been able to do those this year,” Ardnt said. “A certification in first aid is required in order to be a guide, so a lot of our guides, myself included, don’t have the qualifications.”
This year, the MMC is only requiring that one of two guides on every trip have the certification.
Other organizations, like the student-run restaurant Dolci, are facing similar challenges with pandemic programming. In past years, Dolci has run occasional five- to six-course meals for students, but they have not been able to run any this year due to Covid-19 restrictions, according to Grace Kellogg ’22, incoming president of Dolci. Though Middlebury students are missing out on the student-run restaurant experience this year, Dolci has found a way to support local businesses that are facing grim economic realities during the pandemic.
“The positive side is that we’ve been able to pivot into alternate methods of engaging students with food and supporting local farmers and businesses. Our main event in the fall was focused on distributing bags of fresh produce and food items from local businesses to students,” Kellogg said.
A virtual Student Activities Fair complicated the process of integrating new members. Most student organizations recruit new students at the fair, where booths set up on McCullough Lawn or inside Wilson Hall allow new students to see before them the full range of clubs and organizations. At this year’s fair, conducted through individual Zoom rooms for each club and org, many new students had never heard of more specialized groups like Dolci.
“The current freshmen have never experienced and may never have even heard of Dolci, so it will definitely require some focused energy to reach out to those students next year,” Kellogg said.
Hobby and interest groups, like the Ceramics Club, have also found challenges with limited in-person activity. The maximum capacity in the wheel-throwing studio is six people, according to Lexie Massa ’21, president of the Ceramics Club. However, due to pandemic-induced stress, the Ceramics Club has seen increased popularity. Given the limited number of in-person activities available this semester, the Ceramics Club sign-up sheet fills up quickly.
“It’s honestly a really great space for people to come and do an activity that they probably wouldn’t have time to do or wouldn’t have thought to do,” said Massa.
(03/25/21 9:59am)
Update — Wednesday, May 5
Despite initial projections, MiddCourses is still down. The Campus has not been able to confirm a new estimated date for the return of the site.
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Students who rely heavily on MiddCourses — the site that allows students to anonymously review their professors and classes — may have feared the worst when their attempts to reach the platform brought them to a page stating only that the domain was registered at NameCheap.com. The site became a mainstay for course registration when it was first developed in 2014, allowing students to see student-sourced information about individual classes and professors, including weekly time spent preparing for class, lecture quality and grading expectations.
Though MiddCourses is currently out of order, the Student Government Association Innovations and Technology Committee is working to fix the outdated features that led to the site's shutdown. Committee members estimate that MiddCourses will be up and running again in about a week. The committee has also planned some new upgrades for the future.
MiddCourses is run through the cloud hosting service Heroku, which requires a working stack of code that makes up all aspects of the website, according to Innovations and Technology Committee Director Lizeth Lucero ’21. In order to continue running, MiddCourses’ stack needed to be regularly updated, but it had not been touched since the creators graduated. The SGA Technology and Innovation Committee is currently upgrading the codebase and checking on any other dependencies to make sure the website can run smoothly in the future.
While the site is under maintenance, SGA is also planning to make other upgrades, including adding new professors and courses to the website.
SGA also hopes to incorporate textbook reviews on MiddCourses. Lucero hopes this will help students know in advance what textbooks are required for a course, how much they cost and whether they might be able to get them for free.
The site was originally conceived as a computer science project by then-SGA Director of Technology Dana Silver ’15 and Teddy Knox ’15. The SGA Innovation and Technology Committee took over the site as part of the Student Project Pipeline (SPP) initiative in spring 2014.
The SPP allows students to submit their projects to the SGA to be managed and upgraded even after the student has graduated. SGA members can also acquire projects by reaching out to the original owners. Lucero believes this process ensures that projects remain up-to-date and in line with current students’ needs.
In order to browse MiddCourses, students needed to make an account and post two reviews. The platform has received a steady stream of sign-ups each semester, according to Lucero. While the website has been down, Lucero said many students have reached out to inquire about its status, showing that they are eager to use MiddCourses as a course selection resource.
Niamh Carty ’23 told The Campus that MiddCourses has been a trusted resource for her during the course selection process, especially when the same class is taught by different professors.
“MiddCourses has been so helpful in choosing classes,” Carty said. “Whenever I have been deciding between two courses, I’ve gone onto MiddCourses to see which professor has better reviews. It hasn’t steered me wrong yet, so I definitely trust it a lot.”
Professor of Political Science Matt Dickinson is unaware of MiddCourses but recalls its previous iteration, MiddKid, which he found unreliable because his reviews were often erroneously listed on the page for Professor of Computer Science Matt Dickerson.
Dickinson is equally unimpressed by MiddKid’s successor, noting that the data captured is likely skewed.
“I would guess students who take the time to weigh in on courses outside of the normal course evaluation process are likely motivated by strong views — either very positive or very negative — about a particular course or professor, and thus aren’t likely to be indicative of students’ views in general and therefore wouldn’t be very useful to professors, or other students,” Dickinson said.
(03/25/21 9:59am)
Shoreham’s St. Genevieve Church closed its doors during the spring of 2020 due to a decreased number of worshippers and the need for structural improvements to the building. The effects of St. Genevieve Church’s closure rippled outward and — a year later — are being felt in Middlebury.
St. Genevieve, as well as St. Bernadette Church in Bridport, are considered mission parishes of St. Mary’s Church of the Assumption in Middlebury, the church situated at the corner of College Street and Shannon Street, near Sunderland and across the road from Warner Hall.
“[Mission churches are] in a more rural setting, and usually it means that the pastor is the same for both of them and that the mission church is kind of dependent on the mother church, the main church,” Friar Luke Austin said.
This relationship results in lots of cross over in attendance between the parishes. Many people from St. Bernadette and St. Genevieve attend St. Mary’s — and vice versa. The fact that Shoreham and Bridport are part of the Addison County School District is one factor that contributes to this shared attendance, among others.
The parishes consist of largely older populations, characteristic of Vermont and New England Roman Catholic communities. The area also has a large proportion of mass attendees who work in agriculture. To accommodate this population, mass is held at 7:30 p.m. on Saturdays.
“That’s very late in terms of a mass time for people, but it helps those who have ties to agriculture,” Austin said. “That’s certainly a demographic trait of Vermont in general, as well.”
A sense of emotional attachment that some Middlebury Catholics feel toward the St. Genevieve Church in Shoreham makes the church’s closure even more significant.
“There are certainly a number of people who grew up in Bridport and Shoreham, who may now live in Middlebury or somewhere else,” Austin said. “There’s family connections, there’s people who do business together, so there’s a lot of natural connections that already exist ... Certainly [for] people at St Mary’s who attended St. Genevieve it is an emotionally challenging thing, especially if they grew up in that church.”
Led by Kathleen and Randall Brisson, the St. Genevieve Preservation is working to negotiate with the Burlington diocese for a lease that would allow them to take responsibility for the church’s care.
“My initial proposal was to keep the church from being torn down and take care of it through fundraising, while running a non-profit thrift store and food shelf out of the back annex,” Brisson said.
Even if St. Genevieve reopens, there is a strong possibility that the two parishes might one day permanently merge into one, considering their connections. An impending issue of organizing churches and parishes is the decline of parishioners and priests, which contributed to the closure of St. Genevieve. The church was also concerned about the building itself and whether it was worth investing funds to repair.
“The Holy See released a document within the past year about how to kind of organize parishes so they can better serve the needs of mission and evangelization,” Austin said. “As our bishop and our diocese thinks about how to better organize ourselves, [a merge] could be something that comes up. There’s a sense that we need to be more efficient, or thinking towards the future, especially with our number of priests and our number of parishioners, about how to best organize ourselves.”
If a merge were to occur, the impact would more strongly impact Bridport and Shoreham but Middlebury as well.
“There could be a tendency to focus more on Middlebury, so the challenge is, how do we continue to reach out to families and people of the towns that are farther out?” Austin said.
Most likely, mass attendance would not be affected much. “I don't know if there would be a big numbers shift, I think it would stay the same,” Austin said. “For us, it would be a matter of organizational change.”
These trends across New England parishes are linked to changing demographics and may continue to influence Middlebury’s parish, as well as others.
“At the time they were all booming because there was a high number of people. Now, with the declining numbers of parishioners and priests, you don’t necessarily need all of those churches anymore.”
(03/18/21 9:59am)
The Middlebury chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has created a website that helps us understand the extent of the suffering of the Palestinian people currently and in the past. In this op-ed, I do not deny the merit of their arguments for the rights of the Palestinian people, but I do draw attention to a harmful blind spot in their activism.
The 21st century is, without a doubt, a frightening time to be Jewish. Antisemitism has increased exponentially in recent years; the FBI reported in 2019 that out of 1,521 anti-religion hate crimes in the US, 953 (62.7%) incidents were anti-Jewish. Taking into account the fact that Jews make up about 2% of the U.S. population, it is safe to say that American Jews face a dire threat. White nationalists use American Jews as an explanation for the growing agency and social equality of racial minorities in the U.S. Antisemitism in America fuels the fire of white nationalism like oxygen, hence the inherent antisemitic ideology of the QAnon conspiracy theory, and the swastikas and other anti-Jewish hate symbols among many insurrectionists and domestic terrorists who broke into the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
Jews’ suffering is not limited to the contemporary US, however; in the pogroms of the 19th and 20th centuries the leaders of tsarist Russia suppressed the Bolshevik Revolution by redirecting the people’s anger toward Jews, which led to a catastrophe in which hundreds of thousands of Jews were wounded, raped, mutilated and slaughtered. As a result, millions of Jews were forced to immigrate westward. Out of the need to protect the Jewish people from such objectively horrific atrocities formed the movement known as Zionism. As if Jews hadn’t suffered enough, the Nazi regime in the 1930s blamed their social and economic quandaries on Jews, leading to the genocide of 60% of the world’s Jewish population, roughly equating to six million. Countless Jews were left without a home, for their communities from before the Holocaust were either occupied or demolished; This existential crisis for the Jewish people led to the heightened urgency of Zionism among Jews and those who sought to protect them. Any explanation of Zionism that doesn’t account for Jews’ indescribable torment in the past and present constitutes complacency with the forces of brutality and oppression.
Due to historical and present-day anti-Jewish violence, my description of which barely scratches the surface, the need for a safe haven for the Jewish people is more relevant than ever before. This, naturally, does not mean that we may not criticize the government of the State of Israel (in which I find appalling flaws); in fact, constructive criticism is especially beneficial in this area for the purpose of creating a more peaceful and equitable Israel/Palestine for all.
However, it is of the utmost importance that any critics of the State of Israel explicitly state their support for a safe haven for Jews because of the prevalence of antisemitism and anti-Jewish violence in the world. To my great dismay, the organization called Students for Justice in Palestine not only disregards the need to protect Jews in their condemnations of the State of Israel, but they also actively advocate for the dismantling of the Jewish safe haven with their support of Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), whose co-founder (Omar Barghouti) claimed that “[Palestinians have a right to]... armed resistance… [Jews] are not a people.”
I argue that although criticism of the Israeli government does not necessarily equate to antisemitism, the unconditional criticism of the State of Israel without the explicit acknowledgement of Jews’ right to a safe space demonstrates a frightening lack of regard for the lingering effects of genocide and oppression against Jews. Additionally, by referring in their title to the entire area at hand simply as “Palestine,” SJP insinuates utter illegitimacy of the Israeli state. By extension, they perpetuate the antisemitic notion that Jews be denied a safe space, demonstrating complacency in aforementioned oppression and genocide.
The state of Israel was meant to provide a safe space in which Jews could flourish free of ethnic cleansing. However, I struggle to find the words to express my lamentation for the manner in which this was carried out; rather than creating a land of emancipation and equal opportunities, those who wished to protect Jews fought fire with fire, protecting the well-being of Jews at the cost of that of Palestinian Arabs who had largely inhabited the region beforehand. The rights of those Palestinian Arabs who did not flee in many manners were infringed upon, and these people have suffered unspeakable inequality and maltreatment for decades under various Israeli administrations. Notably, the current administration, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu, has continued building settlements in Palestinian territory, disturbing the precarious situation and violating Article 49 of the Geneva Convention. Because of this, the International Criminal Court (ICC) based in The Hague, Netherlands, has rightfully opened a formal investigation regarding war crimes committed by the Israeli government in Palestinian territories.
By extension, I also deem rightful the objective of Students for Justice in Palestine to put an end to systemic discrimination against Palestinian Arabs in the land of Israel/Palestine by promoting peaceful activism against the Israeli government. That being said, SJP’s positions take into account neither the lingering effects of the Holocaust nor the anti-Jewish hatred which has persisted throughout the fabric of history — SJP claims that Zionism is nothing more than a colonialist ideology, going as far as entertaining the proposal that Jewish nationals return to the lands of Eastern Europe, whose peoples had so horrifically slaughtered their Jewish populations. As a result of this complacency and lack of consideration for the implications of their own demands, even if it is not their intention, SJP harmfully aligns itself with those who hope to cause the further oppression of Jews.
This brings me to my denunciation of Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, a campaign which lies at the foundation of SJP. The third tenet of BDS calls for “the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.” If Palestinians Arabs inhabited the land of Israel/Palestine before 1948, and all Palestinian Arabs and their descendents are to return to their original homes, where are Jews to go as the cycle of anti-Jewish violence and antisemitism persists? As Omar Barghouti, the co-founder of the BDS movement said: “If the [Palestinian] refugees were to return, you would not have a two-state solution, you’d have a Palestine next to a Palestine.”
SJP does not even attempt to address this question; while their intention is righteous and ethical, the result of the policies it promotes is tolerant (or, dare I say, encouraging) of the hate that has universally plagued the Jewish people. The fulfillment of SJP’s demand for BDS, therefore, de facto amounts to the utter destruction of the state of Israel. Additionally, BDS completely disregards the fact that more than a fifth of the current population of Israeli territory identify as Palestinian Arabs; this tenet, were it to be fulfilled, would expropriate the land not only of Jews but also of countless Palestinian Arabs. The notion that Palestinian refugees be granted equal access to their homeland is a virtuous and respectable demand that I would support; the notion that Palestinian Arabs return to the exact residences in which they used to live, however, is logistically inconceivable and demonstrates an incomplete understanding of the situation at hand.
Finally, Middlebury SJP’s justification for their unconditional support of BDS — that Zionism consists of a “pernicious” instance of European colonialism — merely comprises a red herring designed to allow them to justify their harmful ideology by misleadingly comparing it to the malicious intentions of European colonizers. Although the British Empire’s presence in the Middle East may have embodied colonial interests to a certain extent, this explanation ignores the fact that the League of Nations precisely gave the British a mandate to administer the region. While Middlebury SJP’s definition of Zionism briefly mentions antisemitism, they fail to acknowledge the Holocaust or any form of anti-Jewish violence; ignoring these Jewish existential crises and by extension the humanity of the Jewish people exhibits blatant antisemtism. In short, the notion that Zionism is merely an embodiment of colonialism allows SJP to turn a blind eye to the need to protect the Jewish people, which is incompatible with SJP’s political agenda. In its current state, Middlebury SJP strays far from its pledge to “advocate for the rights, freedoms, and dignity of all people,” as promised on their official Facebook page.
In its neglect for the necessity of a Jewish safe haven and its support of the BDS movement, the organization called Students for Justice in Palestine treats the Israeli/Palestinian conflict like a zero-sum game: their demands imply that only one of the two peoples may inhabit the area known as Israel/Palestine. I urge activists for Palestinian rights, and anyone reading this article, to reject this misleading and injurious idea. The claim that anti-Zionism may not be equated with antisemitism is an utter falsehood, for it ignores the indelible fact that the two ideologies time and again come hand-in-hand. To those who virtuously fight for the human rights and equity of the Palestinian people: let us all unite against the structural inequality and atrocities committed by the Israeli government! I cannot stress enough, however, that in order for this cooperation to be feasible, I and many other Jews must know that we all agree on the legitimacy of the Jewish State and its reason for existence. As long as you support the BDS movement, which effectively advocates for the destruction of the Jewish State and thus constitutes an existential threat to the Jewish people, neither progress nor peace will ever be within reach.
Editor’s Note: Although Max Shulman-Litwin is a member of the Middlebury Hillel Board, he speaks only for himself in this article.
Max Shulman-Litwin is a member of the class of 2022.
(03/18/21 9:58am)
Eight Language Schools will return to in-person instruction in Vermont this summer while four will remain online, according to a Feb. 25 announcement from Dean of Language Schools Stephen Snyder.
The Abenaki, Arabic, French, German, Hebrew, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish schools will take place in person, following Covid-19 health protocols similar to Middlebury’s guidelines for the fall and spring academic semesters. The Chinese, Italian, Japanese and Russian Language Schools will all take place virtually, and the School of Hebrew will also offer online options. All Language Schools were online in summer 2020.
In-person students will follow similar protocols as students arriving in the spring, including a pre-arrival quarantine, getting tested upon arrival and quarantining in their rooms until they receive negative test results. Courses will be online for the first week. All students will have single rooms, and the Language Schools will create socially distant co-curricular activities that will primarily take place outside. According to Snyder, some in-person schools will still have online components, but having several programs fully online will help keep campus less crowded.
Snyder worked with the directors of each school to make decisions about modality on a case-by-case basis, considering travel and safety on campus.
According to Cecilia Chang, the director of the Chinese School at Middlebury, finding enough faculty to keep class sizes small — to allow for proper social distancing — would have been challenging, as many potential faculty members were only available to teach over Zoom and could not come to Vermont for the summer.
Last year, concern about Zoom fatigue led the Chinese School to make larger classes asynchronous, allowing students to review class videos on their own time. The program length was also shortened from eight to seven weeks. Small classes averaged only three people, and each student spent 30 minutes in one-on-one discussion with an instructor every afternoon.
This year, the Chinese School will keep the same academic structure and increase the individual discussion time to 40 minutes each day. Chang is hoping to set up a virtual host family with graduate students in China who will host extracurricular events for the students. Students will also be able to apply to be matched with an alum of the program in different career paths.
Last year, more than 1,100 students enrolled in the 2020 Language Schools programs, despite the change in format to fully virtual classes. Approximately 1,500 students enroll in a typical year.
“The language schools in their traditional model are really based on… experiential learning and it takes a great deal of faculty-student interaction and immersion experience,” Snyder said. “Everyone eats together and does activities all day, and that’s really where the proficiency gains come from, so we were struggling last year to recreate that in a virtual space and did the best we could.”
Despite successes last summer with online Language Schools, Snyder and Chang still believe that in-person instruction is the best mode for learning a language.
“Everyone wants to go back. The so-called Middlebury experience… is magical,” Chang said. “As a director and longtime teacher there, I want my students — I want many students — to experience that. It’s a wonderful place to be.”
Applications are still open for the summer 2021 Language Schools and are accepted on a rolling basis.
(03/11/21 11:00am)
Several Student Activities Fair meetings were interrupted last week by an anonymous participant who joined organizations’ virtual booths and disrupted their meetings in ways ranging from impersonating a campus administrator to making transphobic comments.
The person joined organizations’ Zoom rooms without their camera on, used a fake name — usually pretending to be an interested student — and asked questions about the organization from the representatives on the call. After a few minutes, however, they would say or do something to disturb the meeting.
None of the student organizations impacted could find an email address associated with the participant in the meeting report. However, administrators of an organization’s Zoom plan may be able to check more detailed reports from meetings, including the IP address of devices that were used to access the meeting.
It is possible that the incidents could have involved multiple disruptors; however, the students interviewed for this article all described a similar voice and pattern of behavior across different organizations and days of the Activities Fair.
Lily Shannon ’23 was running the Women’s Rugby Club meeting when the person entered the organization’s Zoom room. She and her co-host answered questions from the individual for several minutes, but the questions grew increasingly strange until the person made several transphobic comments and left, Shannon said.
The team’s board members spoke about the incident later and decided not to share details of what happened to avoid giving the person the attention they were likely seeking.
“Suffice it to say, there were transphobic comments made, and they were not cool,” Shannon said. “Our team wants to foster a sense of community and inclusivity, and we want all of our players to know that they are welcomed and valued on our team, so it was just really horrible.”
Shannon and her co-host are planning to contact the Community Bias Response Team (CBRT), Middlebury’s group of staff, faculty, and students who address incidents of bias. They hope that the CBRT can help them address the issue and find resources for investigating the incident, including — if possible — identifying the culprit.
Zoom has a setting that hosts can enable to allow only authenticated users — those who have signed in with their email address — to access a meeting, but it is not a default setting when meetings are created, and many Activities Fair meetings did not require users to be logged in. However, access to the spreadsheet with the time, date and link for Activities Fair booths required a Middlebury email address.
In past years, the Activities Fair has taken place in person, where students can visit tables set up by different student organizations and ask questions face to face. However, Covid-19 restrictions shifted the fair online for both the fall and spring semesters, leaving meetings vulnerable to anonymous online trolling.
“Zoom bombing,” a phenomenon where uninvited participants disrupt video-conference calls — often by screen-sharing pornographic or offensive content — has become more common as more events take place through teleconferencing software during the pandemic.
Middlebury’s Information Technology Services (ITS) lists security recommendations for Zoom meetings on their page, along with answers to other frequently asked questions about the technology. ITS suggests that public meetings be held as webinars where attendees cannot unmute themselves or share their screens, although this would limit the face-to-face interaction that is typical for the Activities Fair.
ITS also advises against posting Zoom links with passwords publicly. The spreadsheet with the schedule for Activities Fair booths included the Zoom links and passwords for each organization so interested students could participate in informal, drop-in meetings reminiscent of past fairs. At the fall Activities Fair, links and passwords were available in the same format but there were no reported incidents of Zoom bombing or other issues.
Other calls were not confronted with the same offensive comments as the rugby team but still had meetings disrupted by the anonymous person. Julia Goyan ’22, president of the women’s crew team, was in the team’s virtual booth when the person joined.
“The person started talking and sounded sort of strange, and was asking strange questions… and we ultimately removed him when we realized it was maybe not a student — or maybe not someone who should be in the call at least,” Goyan said.
The person eventually asked Goyan if she was single, and this alongside other strange questions and the fact that the person had their camera off led the hosts to remove them from the meeting.
At the Middlebury College Organic Farm’s Zoom meeting, someone logged in without a name or camera on and started making jokes, according to Clark Devoto ’23, who was running the meeting.
“I could tell that he was sort of trying to prank me. It wasn’t very tasteful what he said, but personally, I didn’t mind too much,” Devoto said. “He just jumped right in and said, you know, ‘Is this a hippie club?’ and then kept joking.”
Grace Hering ’21.5 was at an Activities Fair meeting for The Mill on Wednesday and the college’s Sailing Club on Thursday when the anonymous person joined. At The Mill, Hering and her co-host were explaining what the social house did when the person interrupted them and told them they were a campus administrator.
“I started laughing because the guy did not sound like a campus administrator, and obviously no campus administrator would come on a Zoom with just the name Ryan and start questioning us about our college-sponsored events,” Hering said.
Hering said the person seemed surprised when they said The Mill hosted parties that are school-sponsored and monitored by PubSafe, which cast further doubt on the person identifying themselves as an administrator.
At the Sailing Club’s Zoom meeting on Thursday, a person joined with their camera off and started asking questions. Hering and her co-host from The Mill were both on the call for sailing and suspected it might have been the same person, but decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and answered their questions about the team in case it was an interested student.
Representatives for the team screen-shared an introductory “hype” video on which the anonymous participant drew a phallic sketch using Zoom’s annotation feature.
“Obviously we can all see it’s him. I don’t feel like he had a very good conception of how Zoom worked, because he immediately goes ‘Oh, who’s doing that?’ and we all know he is,” Hering said.
The person rejoined the team’s Zoom room shortly after the Activities Fair had ended, while team members were still chatting on the call. Hering and others on the call spoke with him for a few minutes, where he said the sailing team had exhibited the least animosity of the groups he had visited and told the team he was trying to elicit reactions from people. He also asked Hering if she was single.
“I’m still not entirely sure that he was a Middlebury student. He seemed to know what baby Febs were, but he might have gotten that from all the clubs asking him if he was a baby Feb,” Hering said.
He referred back to seeing Hering at The Mill’s meeting the previous day, and she told him they had tried to find his email address after he left The Mill’s Zoom room.
“He said he didn’t know that people could look up emails after they left in Zoom activity logs, but that he had just been clicking on emails and had purposefully not logged on with his email,” Hering said.
Several other events of a similar nature occurred, in which the same student presumably entered Zoom rooms and asked strange questions or made offensive comments. The school has yet to address the incident publicly.
(03/11/21 10:57am)
(03/11/21 10:57am)
(03/11/21 10:57am)
The JusTalks program has changed throughout the years — ranging from informal teach-ins to a student orientation program to an all-day workshop conducted at Bread Loaf. Now, JusTalks has taken on a new tack, facilitating voluntary, specialized workshops that occur throughout the year.
This spring, the student-led organization kicked off a series of eight workshops exploring the intersections of prejudice and social life, including “Desirability: How Being Wanted by Others Shapes Us,” “Race and Class at Middlebury,” “Interracial Hookups/Relationships: Are your Preferences Racist?” and more.
“Ultimately, our end goal is that in each of the workshops, people are able to leave with one thing and take one step further in their own learning,” JusTalks program coordinator Jasmin Animas-Tapia ’21 said. “We don’t all need to start from point A and get to point B. The point is just to get to the next letter, to the next step. We hope that these conversations can be part of someone’s own learning and actions, and that they take that into their own circles at Middlebury.”
The JusTalks team creates the workshops collaboratively based on issues prevalent on campus or around the world. The sessions have largely focused on race this year in response to the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement throughout last spring and summer, but they hope to expand to more social issues as well.
“JusTalks is created by students and is led by students, and ultimately that is the essence of JusTalks,” Animas-Tapia said. “With JusTalks, we try not to intellectualize everything and make everything academic. This doesn’t happen just in an academic context, [which is] not always accessible. This happens in our everyday lives.”
Workshops build off of and respond to students’ experiences. The JusTalks team created a new workshop, “Race and Class at Middlebury,” during J-Term in response to the inequalities laid bare by the virtual semester. The content of the workshop will seek to guide students in their own reflecting on the importance of race and class on campus and the lack of discussion surrounding both.
In yesterday’s workshop, “Understanding and Responding to Racial Microaggressions,” students practiced responding to real examples of microaggressions that have occurred on Middlebury’s campus. JusTalks Facilitator Olivia Reposa ’24 acknowledged that it may be difficult for participants to have to relive some of these events, but the goal is for it to foster recognition and growth.
The team has two workshops offered only to white students. According to Reposa, the Black Lives Matter protests were the first time that many people realized the impacts of racism, even though these conversations should have been more prevalent long before.
“Having to think about systemic racism isn’t something that, as a white person, you have to do every single day,” Reposa said.
She noted people tend to associate white supremacy with extreme, large-scale examples like the KKK, but the “Uprooting White Supremacy in Ourselves” workshop — also only open to white students — focuses on the small things that happen day to day.
According to Animas-Tapia, programming made for only white students is important because it mirrors the whiteness of Middlebury. She emphasizes that these conversations ought to happen in majority white spaces, as it is not the responsibility of students of color to educate white students.
Animas-Tapia points out that these sessions are not meant to “guilt-trip” or demonize students. Rather, it is important that students approach them with honesty instead of being worried about saying the “wrong” thing.
On the other hand, some workshops will only be offered to students of color. One example is “Exploring the Relationships within and Across BIPOC Communities,” during which facilitators hope to create a space for students of color to share their experiences, build community, and discuss specific dynamics that communities of color face.
Meg Farley ’24 first attended a workshop on interracial friendships in October and has participated in seven more since.
“JusTalks provided the space to have these conversations that I typically don’t have,” Farley said. “JusTalks opened me up to like, ‘Oh, there are people on this campus that like to have these conversations, and there’s a way to have these conversations that’s mutually productive and allows for a lot of learning and, more importantly, unlearning.’”
“Everyone is so thoughtful and in the know and cares, and yet there’s often a point that we can’t get past in certain conversations because they’re just too taboo or they’re too painful or we don’t know how to have them without causing more harm,” Hannah Laga Abram ’23, a JusTalks facilitator, said. “JusTalks is a space where those conversations can happen, and we’re pushed beyond that point, whatever it is. In this moment of major crisis and upheaval, I think this is a really spectacular way to start doing the work of existing as a genuine related human in this time.”
The JusTalks facilitators are still planning workshops throughout the spring. As of now, they will have at least four in April as well. They are also hoping to host workshops for first years and with MiddAthletics, as well as to create new workshops that they have not run before.
(03/10/21 10:49am)
In the wake of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests that spread throughout the nation last summer, many Middlebury students and organizations called for institutional change, demanding the school take action against racial injustice and create a more equitable community. Through letters, testimonials and calls to action, student activists shed light on the ways racial inequalities and injustices run deep at Middlebury as a predominantly white institution. The college has created a multi-year action plan detailing initiatives intended to address inequality on campus and promote anti-racism. Many of the new initiatives came after students voiced their concerns and called for change. We check in with writers of three op-eds to see if the administration has met their demands and how they feel about Middlebury’s progress toward becoming an antiracist institution.
Concerned Students of Middlebury: Reevaluating Middlebury’s Record with Black Students
By Concerned Students Of Middlebury
Concerned Students of Middlebury (CSM), formerly Black@Midd, wrote a letter to President Laurie Patton, the members of the Senior Leadership Group (SLG) and the Middlebury College community in direct response to “the tone-deaf statement issued by the Office of the President on May 31,” which equated the Covid-19 pandemic and the effects of racism, calling them “two plagues”. The CSM letter, published in The Campus last June, discussed the offenses in President Patton’s initial letter addressing BLM, provided instances of when the college has been complicit in allowing racism on campus and offered immediate and long-term actions for administrators to take.
Myles Maxie ’22, one of the authors of the letter, saw that there was very little institutional support for ensuring certain voices are represented, specifically in decision-making bodies.
“I look back at my own history at Middlebury, researched previous history at Middlebury and saw that this [May 31 email] isn’t just a one-time failure of diction, it’s a failure of action historically,” Maxie said.
Administrators met the set of immediate actions CSM called for, which asked that three separate emails be sent from the school: one issuing an apology and the two others listing different resources for students.
The two other suggestions for this school year have also been well received, according to Maxie. Beginning last semester, the SLG started meeting monthly with a group of BIPOC students representing different cultural organizations to help identify needs and implement institutional change.
CSM also asked that Middlebury designate a student or faculty member to represent communities of color within the Board of Trustees. The SGA appointed a second student constituent to the College Board of Advisors of the Board of Trustees near the end of the 2019–2020 school year. CSM and the SLG have discussed the possibility of redefining that role to accomplish CSM’s demand. Maxie hopes to have a concrete solution to this in March.
Although the school responded well to the demands posed in the letter, further collaboration has often been difficult, according to Maxie.
“There's a lack of clear communication from the institution. I don’t think it’s with malintent, but I do think it makes the student body feel more uncertain about the intention of those who have more ability to get things done,” Maxie said.
Maxie believes the school could implement better timelines for institutional initiatives. He is satisfied with the college’s multi-year action plan, but thinks more guidelines and checkpoints are necessary in order to hold the administration accountable for their progress.
CSM has also drafted a series of resolutions that were released throughout J-Term.
“Our purpose is to provide an avenue for students who have been historically disenfranchised at Middlebury to have their voice heard and be able to construct meaningful ways of leading to change,” Maxie said. “We want a campus where maybe 20 years from now, 15 years from now, we don't need a CSM, because all needs of all students are being met, but as of now, that's just not the case.”
Cops don’t belong on Middlebury’s campus
By Middlebury Cops Off Campus
Last July, Middlebury Cops Off Campus (MCOC) addressed a letter to President Patton, urging the administration to restructure the role of public safety on campus and dissolve Middlebury’s collaboration with police and private security. The letter claims that the presence of private security and punitive public safety systems place the most marginalized groups of the community at risk, and that these systems are “incompatible with Middlebury’s stated goal of advancing racial justice and anti-racism.”
The letter concludes with various demands, including the group’s current primary goal of redirecting resources towards students’ overall wellbeing and prioritizing expertise in first aid, mental health and de-escalation.
However, MCOC has been frustrated with the administration’s response to their calls for change. Following their letter, the administration redirected MCOC to the Community Council.
Lynn Travnikova ’20.5, one of the organizers of MCOC and former co-chair of the Community Council, was disappointed by the administration’s lack of direct action. She believes some of their demands could have been implemented immediately and did not need to go through the long approval process of the Community Council.
According to Travnikova, the administration was also not responsive to the group’s emails or requests for meetings, and MCOC has not been able to talk directly with the SLG.
“They have the opportunity to hear from us, and they have the opportunity to listen to student voices, but by directing us to the Community Council, there seems to be an intentional delay in actually getting to what we have to say,” Chloe Fleischer ’21.5, another MCOC organizer, said.
Due to the unusual fall semester, Community Council only held a few meetings, and MCOC did not meet with them until early December. Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration David Provost and Interim Director of Public Safety Dan Gaiotti were also present at the meeting.
“We could tell from the things that David Provost was saying that there is a massive misunderstanding about what we’re asking for,” Travnikova said. “They focused a lot more on the idea of cops and talking about Middlebury’s relationship with the police department, when most of our focus and energy has gone towards Public Safety.”
Travnikova believes this misunderstanding may come from the polarization of the issue in the national sphere and from a lack of true engagement with the issue beyond the name of the group.
According to Fleischer, Provost claims he wants to reform the Public Safety Department, but that the administration is having a lot of these conversations behind closed doors.
“As long as these conversations continue in private, it seems to me very unlikely that things are going to get that much better because there isn't really a clear understanding of what needs to happen,” Fleischer said. “They're functioning with a misunderstanding of the problem, so any solutions will be based on an incomplete picture of what we're asking for.”
MCOC is still committed to transforming the way public safety looks on campus and holding Middlebury accountable to their pledges of anti-racism.
“They see us as these bright young people who want to change the world, and I just want them to empower us,” Remi Welbel ’22, an MCOC organizer, said. “They want us to translate that to changing the world. Let us translate that to changing Middlebury.”
Can you hear us now, President Patton?
By Kaila Thomas and Rodney Adams
Last September, Kaila Thomas ’21, planned a community protest in less than 24 hours, following the verdict that none of the Louisville police officers who shot and killed Breonna Taylor would be charged for her death. Over 500 people, including students, faculty and community members, attended the protest.
On Oct. 1, Thomas and Rodney Adams ’21 published a letter addressed to President Patton, denouncing her absence from the protest. Adams also shared his story from the evening after the protest, when he was the target of a racial slur by another Middlebury student.
There were a number of demands in the letter, including asking for a Black Public Safety officer, a Black faculty and staff recruitment program and a working body composed of Black students to help create anti-racism programming on campus.
Thomas said she and President Patton met following the open letter, and Thomas expressed her frustration with the college’s minimal acknowledgement of the success of the protest.
“The racial event that happened with Rodney, it overshadowed the protest, which is totally fine, but then the administration solely focused on the tragedy rather than the accomplishment,” Thomas said. “If the institution wants to be anti-racist, they can’t just focus on the tragedies that happen. They need to focus and celebrate the accomplishments that also happen towards racial equity.”
According to Thomas, all of the demands from the letter have been met or are in the process of being met, with the exception of the hiring of a Black public safety officer.
Thomas is also part of JusTalks, a peer-led initiative that examines structural inequalities on campus. In advancing the college’s commitment to anti-racism, JusTalks partnered with the Feb orientation, where all incoming students were required to attend one of their conversations.
“We want to start really prioritizing racial diversity, equity and inclusion type of courses with these incoming classes,” Thomas said.
Thomas is unsure, however, about the plans to make these types of courses available for everyone but hopes they can be implemented soon.
“I think they should work towards immediate change, and I know that that's difficult sometimes momentarily […] but I do think that the students of color on campus mostly want immediate change,” Thomas said.
Thomas is mostly satisfied with Middlebury’s response so far, but acknowledges all the work that remains. She also understands the school has a lot to handle amid the pandemic.
(03/10/21 8:07am)
From the bright red of the Japanese Maple outside the Emma Willard House, the warm yellow Ginkgos in front of Mead Memorial Chapel, the hot pink Rhododendrons behind Forest Hall or the blazing orange Sugar Maples outside Battell, the campus boasts stunning sights year-round.
For the most part, other than snapping daily nature photos to post or send to family members, you probably pay little attention to the other trees that surround you on campus. With all that has happened over the past year, it’s especially easy to lose the memories of foliage that fill out the edges of the most dramatic turning points and salient traumas. However, even though so much has changed since departing from campus last March, one thing has remained constant: our beloved campus itself.
The Darkest Day
Tuesday, March 10, 2020, 1:08 p.m.
Campus horticulturist Tim Parsons was walking across campus, ready to prune trees, when he suddenly received the text. Ding. “Date Change: Middlebury College will begin spring break this Friday, March 13, after classes end, which is one week earlier than scheduled. This will be a two-week break with classes resuming — remotely — on Monday, March 30. Remain Home After Break: Following spring break, students who can will be expected to remain at home and not return to campus until further notice.”
“I knew from the moment I read the screenshotted email, it was not going to be good,” Parsons said. “It just seemed off. Everything was so up in the air, and nobody knew what to do, or what to say. People get used to predictability, stability and it just felt off.”
Parsons noted that although the reckless acts of vandalism across campus and in town during the last week were apparent, the damage did not seem to have targeted trees as student vandalism often has in the past.
“I mostly saw signs being torn down, not trees that students are often keen to uproot,” he said. “It was yet another thing that felt odd.”
Speaking for the Trees
It is the deeply rooted love for the campus and Middlebury College community that makes Tim Parsons’ job both rewarding and a tall order.
Middlebury’s campus horticulturist since 2006, Parsons’ knowledge of the college’s greenery borders on encyclopedic. A Vermont-certified horticulturist and a certified arborist by the International Society of Arboriculture, Parsons was in the green industry for more than 25 years, running his own landscape design company and a garden center for nearly 10 years. Additionally, Parsons is a past president of Greenworks, The Vermont Nursery and Landscape Association and was chosen in 2003 as the Young Nurseryman of the Year by the New England Nursery Association. Although he grew up in Connecticut, he has lived in Vermont for 22 years and now lives at the base of Snake Mountain in Weybridge, Vermont with his wife, three daughters and “too many gardens.”
At Middlebury, Parsons’ responsibilities include the care and maintenance of the colleges’ robust urban forest, full landscape design and installation measures, and management of the sustainable turfgrass of the athletic fields. Along with caring for the abundance of trees on campus, Parsons has taught a “Trees and the Urban Forest” course several times, led field trips for other courses, and marshals a popular “Campus Tree Tour” each fall during Homecoming. He also writes a blog — appropriately titled “The Middlebury Landscape” — and is a member of multiple college committees such as the Master Plan Implementation Committee, the Emergency Response Team and Community Council. He has also served on the Environmental Council.
“I love everything about my job, but seeing how the college landscape makes people happy is the most rewarding part,” Parsons said.
Withering Life
Phenology — which comes from the greek “phaino,” meaning to show or appear — is the study of recurring life cycles of the living things around us, the seasonal experiences of insects, plants, mammals and the relationship of time to weather and climate. Parsons compares this to the collective experience between the environment and people during the Covid-19 pandemic.
As a landscaper, Parsons observed that the quiet looming over campus relates to the “natural ebb and flow of things.”
“I don’t know the exact class schedules all that well, but people certainly know when classes are out,” he said.
Parsons said after a majority of students left campus mid-March, he would walk to a certain part of campus where there are usually clusters of students studying or socializing, but there was no one there.
“The first week or so it’s nice to ride on those silly Gators and not be in the way of folks, but after that, it just wasn’t the same,” he said. “It was just really sad.”
“I remember the CFA parking lot is filled with crab apples. When those come to bloom they are absolutely spectacular,” Parsons said. “I was actually quite excited to see them this spring because I had never seen them bloom without any cars in the lot, so I made a specific point to walk to campus to see them.” But the crabapples did not bloom.
“Horticulturally, trees and shrubs sort of had their own pandemic too,” Parsons said. “We had a severe drought and it didn't rain for weeks on end. Lawns turned brown, leaves started to fall early, and wherever I looked, plants looked lifeless, much like how I felt.”
Parsons explained that like people and the pandemic, it can take years for the trees to fully recover from damage.
“I spent the whole summer watering trees, and I don't remember a year it was this dry for a long time,” he said. “I had hoped that some of the high traffic locations would receive a much-needed break, but the drought was so bad, there wasn't much of a difference.”
Throughout the summer, Parsons took solo walks around campus, checking in to make sure everything was still okay. He noted that the treasured hot pink Rhododendrons behind Forest Hall did, in fact, bloom as usual, a stark reminder of the loss of spring, and especially graduation. According to Parsons, the bright flowering bushes were planted there to serve as the original ceremony location, with chairs extending out across Battell Beach. After planning for the commencement ceremony all Winter, Memorial Day weekend eventually came that May, and with no students to graduate, Parsons had that weekend off for the first time in 15 years.
“When the students are gone after commencement and before language schools, it’s peaceful and nice, but after a couple of weeks of that, everyone’s ready for the energy to come back,” he said. “The whole point to working at the school is to help the students out, and that’s why we’re here, so it just doesn’t really feel right when campus is empty.”
Instagram Updates
Known for sharing snapshots of the college’s picturesque landscape, his family, sleeping pets and even an occasional baked good or two, Parsons’ Instagram (@middland) also happens to be a favorite account for many Middlebury students. His captions shared are pure musings that bring Parsons’ love for the small joys in life to the public eye.
On March 13, Parsons wrote, “Adopted a plant today, I named it Riley. Goodbye to all my student friends leaving today, hoping to see you again.” And on a photo of an empty campus, a sarcastic, “Day one at Middlebury College. 9:00, sidewalks filled as students walk to class.”
Parsons continued these logs the rest of the month, updating his followers on the life they abruptly left behind on campus. “Day three at Middlebury College. Cross country trail, missing the runners on the blue sky day.” “Day four. One of my traditions after the students move out is looking for rocks geology students don't want to bring home and leave in parking lots. Here's this year's finds. Anybody want to ID?” “Day five, quiet.”
As warmer weather arrived in Middlebury, Parsons continued to updated his small but mighty fanbase on the still life coming back to campus, highlighting the blossoming of White Siberian squill, serviceberry, daffodils, magnolias, the redbud trees in front of Axinn and the green grass beginning to show on the lawns. And on May 24, a picture of a flowering crabapple tree.
“Today would have been the day I decorated the commencement stage at Middlebury College then waited to see my former students and friends march in. So to them, I say so long, good bye, come back soon. Wish you could be here. #middseniorcelebration.” One student commented, “I miss the campus trees,” to which Parsons replied, “and they miss you!”
Parsons’ consistent updates continued throughout the summer, increasing as the date drew nearer for the August return to campus. He posted photos of the Adirondack chairs in storage, ready to be set outside again for use, renovated outdoor classroom spaces for the new norm of safe, socially distant learning and a shot of the Brobdingnagian tents outside of McCullough wittily captured, “Intense.”
And in October, Parsons called to action his growing fan base to fundraise for financial aid at the college. “As the Middlebury College arborist I've learned that the strength and resilience of our urban forest is based upon its diversity,” he commented. “If you can, help the ‘MoveMidd’ effort to help keep Middlebury the inclusive space it is. Link in bio, I figured out how to do that.”
Nearly half of all Middlebury students receive financial aid, and as the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic continues, disproportionately affecting students of color, that number grows and the need for student academic funding rises. “It’s important for everyone to have the opportunity to learn here, regardless of their background,” Parsons said.
Parsons’ fall semester updates petered out in December, ending with a quintessential photo of Mead Memorial Chapel that read, “And, just like that, campus empties out again, and it's just the cold trees and I. Hopefully students are returning in a couple months, if everyone can get their act together. For everyone that left for the semester, here is today at Middlebury College. We'll try and keep the snow around for your return.”
Staff Shifting
The college’s organic garden, The Knoll, holds a founding mission to educate and nourish its community. This came into clear focus when the onset of the pandemic left many staff and community members without a steady source of income.
As the pandemic continued throughout the year, staff concerns related to employment and compensation continued to loom large. A week after students left campus, the college committed to full wage continuity and no layoffs through June 30, a pledge administrators have since tentatively extended to next July in their new 2021 budget. Although the college set up the Covid-19 pay bank to support staff members throughout the pandemic, many staff who cannot work remotely still needed to use their own combined time off (CTO) to cover their days stuck at home. While many staff members have remained at home, others have begun to return to campus on staggered work schedules.
In anticipation of the community’s emergency food needs over the summer and fall, combined with the issues regarding staff employment hours, the college gave The Knoll permission to grow produce to meet community emergency food needs, and granted approval to bring in dining employees for paid full-time work over the summer. Parsons’ wife Nancy, a chef in Atwater Dining, was one of the individuals relocated there.
“I enjoyed getting to work with people I otherwise never would have,” Nancy said.
“Bringing staff members from other departments to work here was necessary,” Megan Brakeley ‘06, The Knoll’s current manager, said. “Even though life on campus stopped, life at The Knoll did not.”
“We missed the students this year because we connect with a lot of them in close quarters through dining, and you just grow to love them,” Nancy said. “With proper social distancing, safety measures and the change in schedules, that has drastically changed.”
Spaces that once connected students and staff don’t exist in the same form these days, and dining staff have taken notice.
“Students aren’t gathering in dining halls anymore, so we’ve completely lost all sense of community that happens in those spaces,” she continued. “It is one of the most drastic changes to campus life, and something not easily recreated in a pandemic-safe manner.”
Returning Where We Left Off
Just as Dining Services prepared for another round of individually packaged meals, the Grounds Department was also busy preparing for students to return to Middlebury for the spring semester, an ominous time that marked a year since the campus was abandoned.
“I’m always amazed at how smart and resilient plants are, and that’s exactly like Middlebury now,” Parsons said.
Before students returned, Parsons said, larger tents were installed across campus and the golf course was groomed for cross country skiing. The carpentry shop got busy building forty new adirondack chairs to add to the fleet to promote outside socializing, and the grounds crew assembled portable fire pits. “Pro tip for students? Bring marshmallows,” Parsons quipped.
“I’m really looking forward to having campus come alive again,” Parsons said that winter. “It’s comforting to know that we’ll all be together once again, and hopefully not have to miss out on another spring here.”
Symbol of Our Strength
From the growth around the pond behind the Mahaney Center for the Arts to the comforting line of trees between Axinn and Davis Library, the ivy-covered walls of Battell Hall to the unexpected diversity of the woods around the Trail Around Middlebury, the greenery of Middlebury College holds an important place on campus and within the hearts of Panthers young and old. And after a long, cold winter away from campus, Middlebury now invites the arrival of warmer weather, the opening of forsythia and the return of lifeo to campus as the harbingers of spring.
Author’s Note: Middlebury College sits on land belonging to the Abenaki Nation, and we have all contributed and been complicit in the brutal colonization of this Indigenous land. The Western Abenaki are the traditional caretakers of this Vermont area Ndakinna, or homeland. We give our gratitude to the Abenaki Elders and Indigenous inhabitants of Turtle Island past and present, and are thankful for the opportunity to share in the bounty and protection of this environment.
