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Small number of Middlebury students petition for partial refund of semester tuition

A petition urging Middlebury College to partially refund students for the spring 2020 semester tuition has garnered just over 120 signatures since its release last week. Tamar Freeland, a Middlebury Language Schools Masters student based in Madrid, started the change.org petition. The petition comes a month after the college partially refunded up to $4,380 in room and board charges to residential college undergraduates. Freeland was motivated to petition by what she considered to be shortcomings of the Middlebury Language Schools Spanish M.A. program in Madrid this spring due to remote learning guidelines. “My peers and I realized that the quality of our online classes was far below that of in-person classes,” Freeland said. She stressed that, even though professors remained the same and leadership was flexible with due dates and technological difficulties, students were not receiving all that they had paid for. “[As] a masters student, my classes are supposed to be small discussion level courses,” Freeland said, mentioning that Zoom classes have made it difficult to break out into discussions with partners. “We are supposed to be engaging with each other, but even at my level, that’s not happening.” After drafting a petition and seeking initial feedback from her peers in Madrid, Freeland published the petition online, directed to President Laurie Patton, Dean of International Programs Carlos Vélez and David Provost, executive vice president for finance and administration. Freeland has also sent a letter to the Office of the President with the same message. The college acknowledged Freeland, saying they would formally respond to Freeland’s request later this week. In a statement to The Campus, the college stressed that this spring’s priority has been on student well-being and the quality of their education through remote learning guidelines. “Our ability — in this unprecedented time — to provide continuity in teaching and learning is dependent on our existing revenue sources,” the statement read. “None is more crucial than tuition, which enables us to continue to pay the salaries of our dedicated faculty and staff through the academic year, and therefore we are not in a position to offer tuition refunds.” Freeland’s petition comes in the wake of much larger student-led motions at other colleges and universities to have spring semester tuition partially refunded. In many cases, class action lawsuits have been filed by students against their institution, including schools such as the University of Vermont and Brown University. Freeland mentioned that while partial fee and tuition refunding is widely applicable to all universities, individual institutions need to consider their financial ability to offer refunds in the first place. “These circumstances do genuinely represent an existential threat to certain colleges that may have to declare bankruptcy or even cease to exist altogether,” she said, citing the uncertain future of a handful of Vermont state colleges as an example. “That is not the case for Middlebury and other small, elite private schools whose funding is not tied to state budgets and that have endowments of a billion dollars or more,” Freeland said. “For small, elite private schools, refusal to offer partial tuition refunds isn't a question of a lack of economic resources, but rather a lack of administrative will.”

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Notes from the desk: In favor of a less outrageous, more authentic online presence

I’ve spent the past week paging through Jia Tolentino’s “Trick Mirror,” a collection of nine brazen and spirited essays that explore what it means to exist in the messy and delusional world of contemporary pop culture. Under the umbrella of millennial angst, she writes about religion, drugs, feminism and, namely, internet culture.  “As a medium, the internet is defined by a built-in performance incentive. In real life, you can walk around and be visible to others. But you can’t just walk around and be visible on the internet—for anyone to see you, you have to act,” writes Tolentino in her opening essay, “The I in the Internet.” Unfortunately, as ordered by law, we cannot walk around and be visible to others at the current moment. Instead, all of our nuanced layers are being relegated to the digital realm, meaning our online world isn’t just a part of our lives anymore, it is our lives.  This performance is especially dangerous because it is slated to continually reinforce the unspoken rules for how adolescents (and women especially) should strive to be in the hyper-visible world of social media. These guidelines tend to go something like this:  You want your Instagrammed self to be beautiful yet down-to-earth, impeccably put together yet effortless. Your Twitter needs to be funny, but not like you’re trying too hard — therefore candidly and gloriously self-deprecating. The version of self that appears on your LinkedIn profile should be, in essence, employable, but not obnoxious. Your Tinder profile, which may be glanced at for just a couple seconds, should make you appear desirable yet natural. God forbid your Spotify listens are #basic, but they shouldn’t be too #indie either.  All of these online selves merge to create the amalgamation that we are told is the ideal twenty-something adolescent: to be witty but self-aware, mature but entertaining, undoubtedly humble but unquestionably gorgeous. This ideal twenty-something individual should encounter struggles, but only cute and palatable ones, lest their real trauma compromises their imperfectly perfect internet presence.  I, too, am guilty of trying to squeeze all of my selves into these elusive boxes, of attempting to flawlessly position myself atop this impossible tightrope. And, if pulling this endeavor seems challenging and daunting, there’s no need to worry, according to the social media deities, because registering more accounts (see: the finsta) is free. I know that it’s absurd that I have 2 Instagram accounts and 2 Twitter handles. This instinct is deeply ingrained in the pressure of catering one’s self to different audiences, all of which provide distinctive forms of validation. As Tolentino says, “People who maintain a public internet profile are building a self that can be viewed simultaneously by their mom, their boss, their potential future bosses, their eleven-year-old nephew, their past and future sex partners, their relatives who loathe their politics, as well as anyone who cares to look for any possible reason. On the internet, a highly functional person is one who can promise everything to an indefinitely increasing audience at all times.”  And that’s not to say that Midd Kids aren’t performative in person. When I arrived on campus, I experienced a fair bit of culture shock. I was expecting the crunchy-ness of Vermont to dampen the stifling East Coast preppiness I had hoped to avoid. Mostly, I was wrong — my plans to wear sweatpants to the majority of my classes dissipated as I was confronted with the seemingly perfect personas of my peers. This encapsulates an overarching pressure of the Middlebury experience: the expectation to do everything well but to also do it effortlessly, a dichotomy that shapes internet culture, too. We brag about how late we stayed up writing that paper but we somehow still look perky and ready to seize the day at Proc breakfast.  Luckily, in the real, non-online world, we get the opportunities to see each other's genuine selves, despite the ridiculous façades of busyness that plague higher education. We can tell by even the smallest mannerisms when our friends are happy or hurting — or when our professors are in a good mood or a bad mood. On campus, there is an intimacy and vulnerability present that doesn’t hinge on likes or retweets. Set against the backdrop of the Green Mountains, we see it all — the tears, the fatigue, the annoyance, the pain. But we also see the heartfelt joy, the jubilant pride and the uninhibited gratitude. Now, however, this authenticity has been lost, unable to be emailed or Zoom-ed or DM-ed.  The human experience was never meant to be replicated digitally. The vibrant occurrences and interactions that remind us what it's like to be, well, alive, have become fragmented without the help of proximity or context. We’re left solely with our fabricated online selves, steeped in faux-happiness and performative attention-grabbing. “The internet is governed by incentives that make it impossible to be a full person while interacting with it [...],” Tolentino writes. “Less and less of us will be left, not just as individuals but also as community members, as a collective of people facing various catastrophes.” Amidst these terrible and strange circumstances, we have a chance to consciously rethink our online worlds. Already, we are seeing social media become a little more reflective of our IRL authenticity. It’s less filtered, less contrived. But this is only the beginning, and overhauling the internet machine most of us have bought into won’t be a simple task.  I’ll admit I don’t have the answers. As I’m sure is the case with many of you, if you see me on College Street or in Proc lounge, I won’t have my hair tucked into a perfect messy bun, stomach pulled in and shoulders back, outfit matching, while looking ineffably at ease — like what any Instagram feed might have you believe. It’s more likely that you’ll pass me falling very, very, painfully on ice, rushing late to class unable to see because I’ve forgotten to put my contacts in and my shirt is inside-out. (Of course, I’m doing all of these things and worse in lockdown, but you don’t see it — what Tolentino refers to as “selective concealment.") Let’s face it: the internet, in all of its feverish madness and glory, was meant to supplement our everyday lives, not exist on its own. But right now, it’s kind of all we got. This, more than ever, is a decisive time for us to parse through the factors that have led us to create such disparate on and off-line selves. Until we figure out a way to accurately express our faults, eccentricities and emotions in a digital format, we’ll continue to fight an uphill battle between our true identities and our idealized self-image.  Lily Laesch ’23 is one of The Campus’s Opinion editors.

Students from historically marginalized groups more dissatisfied with mental health resources

In recent years, colleges across the country have seen increasing demand for mental health resources from students. Between 2009 and 2015, the number of students who receive college counseling nationally increased by 30%. An investigation conducted by The Campus last year revealed that many students have not been able to receive timely support at Parton’s Counseling Center due to high demand for services. Over the past 20 years, counseling appointments at Middlebury have increased nearly 3.5 times, according to data from Parton. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var e in a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-"+e)||document.querySelector("iframe[src*='"+e+"']");t&&(t.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][e]+"px")}}))}(); !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var e in a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-"+e)||document.querySelector("iframe[src*='"+e+"']");t&&(t.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][e]+"px")}}))}();   This year’s Zeitgeist data corroborated the high rates of student counseling appointments highlighted in last year’s investigation: over a third of survey respondents (428 students) said they have been to therapy or seen a counselor at Middlebury. One-third of respondents have sought treatment for depression or anxiety since coming to Middlebury and nearly 20% of respondents said that depression or anxiety “always” impacts their experience at Middlebury.  !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var e in a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-"+e)||document.querySelector("iframe[src*='"+e+"']");t&&(t.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][e]+"px")}}))}(); A Campus article from January 2020 found that many students have struggled with a campus culture of harmful body and exercise standards. One student from this investigation said that “Middlebury has a very perfectionist culture.” Another student noted a “hyperprevalent” culture of “fatphob[ia]”.  Zeitgeist data reveals that over one-third of respondents have struggled with their relationship with food or exercise since coming to Middlebury, and two-thirds of respondents know a student who has faced one of these struggles. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var e in a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-"+e)||document.querySelector("iframe[src*='"+e+"']");t&&(t.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][e]+"px")}}))}(); Some students turn to substances to cope with mental health struggles. Around 8% of respondents said they “frequently” use drugs or alcohol to cope with stress, and a quarter of respondents said they “occasionally” use drugs or alcohol as a means of managing stress.  !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var e in a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-"+e)||document.querySelector("iframe[src*='"+e+"']");t&&(t.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][e]+"px")}}))}(); Some respondents felt that mental health resources at Middlebury were inadequate. In total, 29% of respondents felt that mental health resources at Middlebury are inadequate,15% of respondents felt that they are adequate and 56% said they did not know.  !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var e in a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-"+e)||document.querySelector("iframe[src*='"+e+"']");t&&(t.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][e]+"px")}}))}(); Zeitgeist data suggest that students become more disenfranchised with mental health resources at Middlebury as they get older. While fewer than 10% of respondents from the class of 2023 found professional counseling and mental health resources to be inadequate, nearly 60% of respondents from the class of 2019.5 found these same resources to be inadequate. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var e in a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-"+e)||document.querySelector("iframe[src*='"+e+"']");t&&(t.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][e]+"px")}}))}(); Students from historically marginalized identities had worse perceptions of the mental health resources at Middlebury. Nearly 40% of students who identified as biracial and almost 35% of students identifying as black or African American felt that mental health resources are inadequate at Middlebury, compared to 27% of students who identify as white.  Of the 11 counseling staff members at Middlebury, none are counseling staff of color. According to Gus Jordan, executive director of the Parton Center for Health and Wellness, the center has been searching for an additional staff counselor since this past fall, and had solicited applicants and referrals from over 50 institutions with counselor training or similar programs, including historically black institutions with these types of programs. The search was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.  A 2018 survey of university and college counseling centers found that nearly three-fourths of surveyed counseling staff identified as white. Culturally competent counselors have been found to achieve more positive clinical outcomes because psychosocial development can differ based on race, culture, or other demographic factors.   In an email to The Campus, Jordan said that multicultural competence was “essential for any counselor” and wrote that the counseling staff engage in various types of multicultural training every year, and regularly talk about issues of social justice and of difference.   “One of the central components of good counseling is the ability to join with a client, to come to understand and appreciate their world and their unique experiences from their perspective, with compassion and without judgment,” Jordan said. “This requires a deep appreciation for difference. It also requires humility and a desire to learn about others.”  !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var e in a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-"+e)||document.querySelector("iframe[src*='"+e+"']");t&&(t.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][e]+"px")}}))}();   For students who identified as LGBQ or questioning, 38.6% found professional health resources to be inadequate, compared to the 25.3% of students who are non-LGBQ identifying. LGBQ or questioning students are also more likely to experience mental health difficulties, with nearly 30% of these students saying that depression and anxiety “always” impacts their experience at Middlebury, while fewer than 20% of non-LGBQ students indicated the that they were “always” impacted by depression or anxiety.  Recent developments to mental health resources   In response to growing demand for mental health resources, Parton added a reworked mental health program this past fall. The program, led by the JED Foundation, aims to improve suicide prevention, substance abuse and mental health resources for schools. Although Parton has already expanded its counseling staff five-fold in the past 25 years, the center still hopes to expand further.  The Office of Health and Wellness announced the creation of a group called Mental Health Peer Educators, who will be available in the fall of 2020. According to their webpage, students will be trained to provide peer listening hours for Middlebury students, facilitate workshops on topics related to positive mental health, and facilitate a social connection-building program called ProjectConnect.   In coming years, the center plans to bolster staff for alcohol and drug-related issues, organize peer-and-counselor-coordinated support groups, and increase the availability of online resources, according to The Campus’ investigation around mental health.

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Middlebury’s athletic records that never were

Middlebury baseball, the college’s oldest athletic team with a dizzying recorded history dating back to 1881, has only been interrupted twice. Among a litany of season records, the first anomaly is a note where the statistics from 1918 should be: “World War I”. None expected the second to be the 2020 season, just as the senior class was on track to become the winningest class in the team’s history. But the spot reserved for their long-awaited record is now filled by an asterisk: “The 2020 season was cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic.” Anticipation had grown for the senior class since the team clocked the second-most season wins in their freshman season, then tied for the most ever in 2019. Last year’s team also led the all-time record board for most strikeouts, most walks and most stolen bases in both a single game and season, as well as second-place school records for most runs, most RBI and most at-bats. “I think it would’ve been our best year since I’ve been here,” said infielder Brooks Carroll ’20, who is currently listed in the individual top five all-time for  single season and career stolen bases. “This year would’ve been the culmination of all the hard work we’ve put in for four years now. So I think we would’ve had a lot of success.” Carroll, who played with the team since his first year at Middlebury, attributed the class’s record achievements to their chemistry. “Everyone was bought into the program and did whatever it took,” he said. “It was something we looked forward to in the last couple years, just thinking that it’s a very possible goal that we should work toward. These goals we’ve had for a few years were just being taken away from us.” The Middlebury men’s track team also entered the 2020 season on an upswing, having won the NESCAC Championship for the past two outdoor seasons. Jonathan Fisher ’20, whose events include high jumping and the 400-meter hurdle, had broken the school’s indoor record for the high jump earlier this year. He was gearing up for the outdoor season with his team before the cancellation.   “We all had very high hopes for how we could do as a team and individually and to see that all disappear so quickly was pretty heartbreaking,” Fisher said. “No one ever knows what’s going to happen, but I think both the men’s and women’s teams were feeling quite confident going into this championship season.” Entering the season, Fisher had his eyes on the NESCAC title, as well as the individual record for Middlebury’s outdoor all-time highest high jump. Adding one additional centimeter to his indoor record height would have allowed Fisher to claim the outdoor record, cementing his name in Middlebury’s athletic history. “I had been hoping to carry that momentum,” Fisher said. “I thought it was definitely within reach, but obviously that was not going to happen.” On the softball pitch, senior Melanie Mandell ’20 faced a similar circumstance. Mandell had been a standout player since her first year on the team and currently sits on the record board for multiple achievements, including the all-time most season doubles in 2019, most home runs in a single season in 2018 and a tie for highest all-time fielding percentage in 2018. This year, she was preparing to lead her team as captain. But Mandell was not ready to mourn the loss of her senior season just yet. “I didn’t get any closure on my career,” she said. “It was pretty immediate that I was thinking about how I could come back.” Mandell eventually made the decision to withdraw from her senior spring semester and return next year as a special student. This will allow her to compete in next year’s softball season and close out her career how she envisioned it. However, Mandell expressed the same sentiment heard from track to pitch to diamond: it’s not about the records. “It’s really just about playing with my team who I very much consider to be my family on campus,” said Mandell. “It’s about that experience of being with them for one more year.” Although Carroll and Fisher are graduating on schedule this spring and will not complete the final season of their athletic careers, they also valued the experience of competing alongside their teammates above anything else. “We’re always trying to do the best we can and, of course, beat records, but the records really aren’t on our minds,” said Carroll, who said the baseball team spent their final week post-cancellation reflecting on their seasons they got to spend together. “I knew this was going to be my last year of baseball ever, so I just wanted it to end on a good note. I wanted to play my last season with my teammates.” Correction April 30, 2020: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Jonathan Fisher '20 pole vaults for the Middlebury Track & Field team. He is a high jumper. 

College Instagram campaign features sanctioned student protester, reviving Murray tensions

Middlebury featured a photo of a student protesting Charles Murray’s 2017 campus visit in a promotional Instagram story last week, sparking anger among current and former students who accused the college of attempting to rewrite a painful chapter of its history for marketing purposes. The Instagram story was posted Wednesday as part of the college’s “Midd Daily” campaign, which aims to give prospective students a taste of campus life. It featured a photo of Austin Kahn ’17.5, originally taken by Michael O’Hara ’17 on assignment for The Campus, protesting Murray’s visit in Wilson Hall. In the photo, Kahn holds a sign reading “this is an appropriate response” in front of the livestream of Murray’s conversation with Political Science Professor Allison Stanger. The Instagram story bore a caption that read, in part, “Social Justice and Activism: At Middlebury, we don’t just talk about social justice; we also act on it.” It was deleted later that afternoon.  In the hour before O’Hara took the photo on March 2, 2017, protesters shouted down Murray as he attempted to deliver his talk in Wilson Hall, forcing him and Stanger to livestream their conversation from a different room. Stanger was later severely injured by protesters while leaving the building. Kahn was one of 74 students sanctioned by the college that spring for his role in the Murray protests (he did not reply to requests to describe the extent of sanctions he received as of press time, but has written publicly about being sanctioned on social media in the past). Severity of sanctions ranged from probation, which stayed on students’ records until the end of the semester, to official college discipline, which would remain on students’ permanent records. If it intended to embrace a longstanding part of campus culture, the Instagram story of Kahn also prompted anger that Middlebury was using an event for which students were disciplined as part of an advertising campaign.  “Funny that you would punish students for protesting and then use their protest as part of an [sic] big advertising ploy,” wrote Cora Kircher ’20, a member of the environmental activism group Divest Middlebury, in an Instagram story of her own on Wednesday. Divest Middlebury later shared a screenshot of Kircher’s story to its Facebook page.  The Campus previously reported on the lengthy disciplinary process Murray protesters faced, which in part used photo and video evidence of the protests to pinpoint who was involved. That process garnered criticism from people on many sides of the free speech debate, with Murray lambasting the punishments meted out as "pathetically” insufficient while others decried the “terroristic” effects of a disciplinary process meant to “satisfy national audiences,” in the words of a professor. “The funny thing is that after these protests, Middlebury launched an investigation where they used images like the one neatly featured on their account to discipline dissidents among the student body and intimidate sympathetic faculty,” Kahn wrote on his own Facebook page Thursday in a post that has since been shared 26 times.  In an email to The Campus, Social Media Director Andrew Cassel acknowledged criticisms of the Instagram story as “fully justified.”  “When we realized our mistake, of course we were concerned about any hurt it would bring to our community,” Cassel wrote. “In this case, both the admissions and communications teams recognized that we had made this oversight, and deleted the post.” Kahn said he saw the promotional intent behind the posting of the photo as stripping away the “socio-political context” of the protest it captured. “The phenomenon of removing that meaningful act from its context totally perverted it and makes it meaningless,” he said. “It’s absurd.”  In what he saw as a silver lining, Kahn received a “wave” of messages from friends, many of whom had gone through the disciplinary process with him, notifying him that the image had been used in the college’s story on Wednesday. O’Hara, the photographer, said that the Office of Admissions previously asked him permission to use the image, which he granted, but that he “was not provided context for how the photo might be used.” He granted permission under the assumption that the image would be included in #SixtyScenes, a collection of photos documenting campus life separate from the “Daily Midd” series that are shared as Instagram posts, not stories. Cassel, who began as the college’s social media director last December, previously told The Campus that photos featured in the “Midd Daily” series are chosen collectively by multiple members of the admissions and communications offices. Midd Daily and #SixtyScenes fit Cassel’s vision of giving the college a more personal social media presence that better captures day-to-day realities of campus life, goals he described in a recent Campus profile.  Debate over Charles Murray’s work and his right to a platform at Middlebury had revived at the college in the months prior to Kahn’s surprise shoutout: Murray was scheduled to speak in Wilson Hall on March 31 on a new invitation from the College Republicans. But Covid-19 led to the cancellation of his visit, which would have been his third to Middlebury since 2007, along with the rest of in-person spring programming.

Queer love stories: a compilation

Mixed in with the chaos and messy moments of young adults trying to understand themselves and their places in the world— compounded with fear, and conflict, and exclusion — are moments of joy and love within the queer community. Stories of friends, of partners, of community, and of self that are unequivocally worth celebrating. While united under a shared family of identities and similar struggles, each queer student has their own unique story. This article is neither a summation of the troubles, nor of the beauties of queer love on campus. It is simply a collection of queer love stories. Blurring the lines between romance and friendship Rachel H. ’19.5 discovered her queer identity on campus. She has experienced “some of the most genuine love of [her] life from the queer community at Middlebury, both in friendships anad romantic relationships.” “Being queer has really essentially shaped who I became in ways that I’m really really proud of,” she said. “My queer friends taught me how to have a voice and how to speak up for myself and how to be ok with being different. And that there are so many ways to love.” For Rachel, queer love blurs the lines between romance and friendship, and many of her closest friends are her exes. “Usually, when I’ve dated someone, it's been because I loved them for their friendship and the personal things about them in addition to and beyond just being attracted to them,” she said. According to Rachel, the smaller size of the queer community and dating pool necessitates maintaining amicable relationships after breakups. Especially among female and nonbinary queer Middlebury students, there is a respect for emotion and a culture of open communication that allows people to preemptively address hurt instead of letting it build up. Not only does that make it easier to stay friends with past partners, it creates deep bonds between queer friends.. “I feel like my queer friends have been some of the most emotionally aware, caring, thoughtful human beings in my life, and I’m super lucky to have them,” she said. “I love them so much.” Queer-loving your queer self Jack C. ’20 has grown into his queer identity at Middlebury, an important part of which, for him, is performance. Jack relies on cues, like his nose ring, the limp positioning of his wrists and short shorts, to signal his queerness to those around him. “When I walk into a room and I’m freaking wearing those tiny gold shoes that are three sizes too small and give me blisters every time I wear them and my black little short shorts and a cute shirt tucked in and I have my face done, I feel so queer because these people are seeing me,” said Jack. Around straight people, Jack says he feels obligated to censor his queerness. “I’m queer. But I want to be appropriate,” he said. “It's queerness that’s easy to swallow and easy to digest. I wear a nose ring but I can't go around talking about the orgy I had last night at the Mill. That’s too much.” In queer spaces and in the company of other queer people, Jack feels that there is room for his queerness in all its wild exuberance. He views the ability and space within the queer community to connect on a shared plane of identity — of cultural references, struggles and experiences — as a form of love. “At Middlebury I feel so free to do whatever I want,” he said. “It’s all about queer loving your queer self.” Not queer enough: cross-sections of identity While the love of the queer community has played a pivotal role in the experiences of many students, others feel alienated rather than accepted. As a woman of color, N. B. ’22 has never felt included in the queer community at Middlebury, which she views as overwhelmingly white and singularly focused. To belong, queerness has to be the central pillar of one’s identity. “At Middlebury, I feel like my queerness is erased,” she said. “I’m not queer enough for the queer community.” “Being black, race is always number one. I am black above all. I am a woman next,” she said. “Being queer is nowhere near the top of things I’ve struggled with.” Overcoming shame For Ciara C-H ’22, her current queer relationship has been a journey of self-acceptance and love. During high school, Ciara came out as queer to her boyfriend, expecting acceptance and support from someone who she thought loved and cared for her. Instead, it changed everything. While the relationship continued, her queerness remained a taboo topic. “Whenever it came up or anything about it came up, it would be very bad,” she said. “I would feel a lot of shame.” That shame led to an unhealthy cycle of self-doubt and insecurity about her identity. Her current relationship helped her emerge from that cycle and learn to be comfortable in the uncertainty and fluidity of her sexuality. “There are a lot of things I don’t know about my sexuality. But I can say for sure that this is true for me right now, and that she is who I want to be with,” Ciara said. “There’s not a single thing I’ve said or a single thing about me that brings her shame.” The dark side of queer love The queer community at Middlebury, like any other, is not without its issues. “The love is so so strong in our community,” Rachel said, “but to fully consider love you also have to see the dark sides of it.” Abuse, especially verbal and emotional, can be prevalent within the queer community at Middlebury, yet it often goes unspoken and unaddressed. “There is often this sense that as queer people we need to be perfect in our relationships, that they need to be better than heterosexual relationships,” Rachel said. “Any time that there’s a flaw in a queer relationship, there’s this fear that it could be used to justify homophobia ... Abuse within queer relationships has been silenced or brushed under the rug because people think it will weaken the public image of queer love.” Building queer spaces Many students described the unasked-for and often unspoken acceptance from their queer peers as a form of love. In the presence of visibly out people, many feel senses of safety, security and normalcy that they may lack in the larger campus community. “It is love in the sense of a little signifier that you will be loved here. This is a place where we have love for you,” Ciara said. “This is a place where every single person is different and their stories are different, but we have something that unites us.” For many, a huge part of experiencing and providing that love has been through visibility. Openly queer upperclassmen model what it can mean to be queer and help younger queer people integrate into the community, explore their identities and find a home on campus. However, that model can also lend itself to predatory behavior. Several seniors described feeling alienated from queer spaces as freshmen because older peers seemed focused on finding romantic partners and hook-ups rather than genuinely looking out for younger students. Now upperclassmen, Van Lundsgaard ’21 and Rachel have worked to reverse those practices and create a healthier system of mentorship and queer spaces. Rachel collaborated with other super senior Febs to revive Queers, Lovers and Homies, a group of female-identifying and non-binary queer folk who party and hang out together. Van has used his position as a party captain for the ultimate frisbee team to promote a team culture where queerness exists in the open and is an accepted and integral part of the community. The hope of these spaces is to show younger students that there are upperclassman they can come to for help and guidance and to allow queer people to connect and explore their identities in comfort. For current underclassmen, the love felt in those spaces has played an important role in making Middlebury a home, according to Eva ’23. “Wanting to support your friends and your community is a huge form of love,” Eva said. “It’s community love. Its love in its purest form. You want to help someone and care for someone for their own benefit.” Sunshine on the other side “Queer love is so beautiful and powerful and I'm so grateful that I get to experience it, whether romantically or platonically,” said Alyssa B. ’20. “It's comforting and empowering and full of dancing and sunshine, and even when your heart is being torn out it's nice to know that there's more dancing and sunshine on the other side.” Author’s note: Interviewees have been granted varying levels of anonymity for their own future privacy and protection. Editor's note: The name of one of the interviewees was abbreviated after the article was published to protect their privacy.

Room to breathe

I went through a breakup, right after Feb break. I promise I don’t intend to use The Campus opinion section as Tinder. I just want to share some reflections from my experience dealing with sadness at this insanely busy place (now, figuratively).  The break up happened on a Tuesday night. My agenda for the night included finishing newspaper layout, conjugating Arabic verbs and converting Cartesian coordinates. Dealing with grief was not included. Rather than feel sad, I intended to drown myself with work as a distraction.  It worked. Well, kind of. Wednesday through Friday, my friends and I chatted about stupid TV shows, upcoming primary elections and the weather — typical topics. (Looking back now, I miss in-person communications so much.) Whenever my friends checked in with me about the breakup, I said, “I’m over it.” Still, they seemed concerned, wanting to know if I were truly alright and offering to talk if I needed to. In response, I simply waved my hands and joked about being a strong and independent woman. I thought I would be able to pretend nothing was wrong forever. Fake it ’till you make it, as people say.  And yet, unfortunately and fortunately, my body finally gave out that weekend, exhausted. It was not the kind of exhaustion which follows a 10k run, but rather emotional vanity. I could barely feel anything. When I tried to talk, a mixture of Chinese and English nonsense would come out, something that tends to happen when I am extremely upset. The more I tried to pretend I wasn’t sad, the more my sorrow festered inside until eventually, while I was trying to print readings for class, the pages fell from my hands scattered everywhere on the Davis floor. I started crying right there, in front of the printer. The person behind me was shocked. Still, they quietly helped me gather the reading and whispered, “It gets better.” (Even though I never learned your name, kind printer person, I’d like to thank you.)  That’s when I was forced to come face-to-face with my feelings. I recognized how unhealthy my coping mechanisms up until that point had been. I mean, I wasn’t even coping, I was only feigning being okay.  And so I decided to spend some time alone. Even knowing it would be helpful in the long run, I felt guilty canceling plans with friends. Would they be disappointed if I told them I needed more time to figure out my emotions about my past relationship? What if they thought I was dramatic and weak? No one did. Instead, I got hugs and sweet texts containing words of comfort. That was the hardest, most rewarding weekend I have ever had. I tried new things: I spent hours listening to podcasts, attended my first ever spin class and went on an aimless, spontaneous walk. Scariest of all, I did all of these activities solo. As I watched “Criminal Minds” alone on Saturday night, I wondered if I was missing out on what could’ve been the best night of the week. And then I realized, I was having the best time. Solitude is not shameful. In fact, often it is enjoyable. (Thanks to that experience, self-quarantine for 14 days at a medical facility upon my return home a month ago became a lot easier).  The following night, I attended an editorial meeting in which we discussed how some people don’t enjoy J-Term as much for a variety of reasons. I realized that I wasn’t the only one who was obsessed over the thought of being engaged in a variety of activities and to be constantly busy. That night, I learned that other Middlebury students also had those wishes which led to more pressure and stress. It seems that I finally found the reason behind my stubborn determination to hide my pain. I mistakenly felt that I should have been ashamed of my misery since I was supposed to be enjoying myself like everyone else around me. But then, I thought, what if that’s why people around me are only showing happy and smiley faces instead of those of stress and worry?  As cliche as it sounds, I think sometimes we all need a reminder that we are entitled to our feelings. In the wake of my breakup, I felt anger, shame and guilt. I was too afraid to confront these emotions because I didn’t want to admit to others that I was an emotional wreck. It took an awkward encounter with a stranger to shatter my facade; still, the facade didn’t have to be put on in the first place.  I’m not suggesting that there is a linear healing process to sadness, because there isn’t. As my math professor has told me on several occasions, linear things are nice, but they rarely exist. I still feel doleful every so often. But, when I do, I stand up to those feelings with strength gained from a mixture of company and solitude. By allocating time for myself, I allow others to help me. By allowing myself to feel bad, I allow myself to feel better.  Rain Ji ’23 is one of The Campus’s Arts & Academics editors.

Daniel Tétreault '20 in Gifford Hall, Middlebury, Vermont

Daniel Tétreault ’20 Location: On campus, in Gifford Hall Submitted April 17, 2020 I have not engaged in face-to-face contact since the college asked me to discontinue my trips into town to visit some friends who were also quarantining. Additionally, wandering the empty campus with a mask on to try and maintain daily exercise has led to seeing the ghosts of faces that used to populate Midd. I started drawing and painting these faces, all MiddKids, in various artistic expressions of quarantine. I hope that they convey a sense of what I (and perhaps the artworks' subjects) am feeling to other students who find themselves similarly isolated. What has been your greatest worry or day-to-day concern as coronavirus has spread? I pray every day that those whom I love yet to whom I am not physically proximal will abide by the rules of quarantine and preserve their health, even in the absence of my nagging. What has made you happy over the past few weeks? Finding more time to paint or draw my feelings out has been the most meaningful, supportive step in weathering this solitary confinement.

A student’s refutation of the opt-in pass/fail policy

Editors’ note: This op-ed was originally shared as a Facebook post by the author. The original post has been adapted for publication in The Campus.  After reading the open letter to faculty on the opt-in policy yesterday, I felt the need to respond with counter-arguments, drawn from both #FairGradesMidd communications around this issue and my own opinions. I’ve also admittedly talked way too much, virtually, with friends about this topic on both sides of the debate.  I’ll start off with a concession: Neither universal pass/fail nor opt-in pass/fail will be the best grading system. The perfect grading system simply does not exist when students have to quickly leave campus and move to remote learning while also dealing with the impacts of a pandemic. In any system, some students will benefit and others will not. Now, onto my juicy hot takes in response to the open letter: Yes, a universal pass/fail system will disadvantage students who could have used this semester to raise their grades. However, I also acknowledge that this inequity is by no means parallel with inequities faced by students who simply won’t have the time, resources or space to focus on courses which I have the privilege to enjoy.  To the point that an opt-in policy respects choice: inequities dictate who has the power to make those choices. If some students have the ability to social distance, stay healthy and dedicate their normal amounts of time to school work, but other students do not because of circumstances at home, then that is inequitable. Theoretically, any student can then choose to pass/fail a course, but, in our current system, students facing challenges lose out on the theoretical “GPA boost” that the authors reference. Not only that, graduate schools like Georgetown Medical School have stated that they will continue to “highly prefer” applicants who take all prerequisite courses for grades if given the option. So, a student who might receive a C while taking courses remotely — even if they normally earn As — has to make the catch-22 choice of taking a C so they can still apply to top-tier graduate schools, with a lower chance of success; or taking the pass and also lowering their chance of acceptance.  More offensively, the notion that some Middlebury students “slacked off” during the five weeks we were on campus while others “worked diligently,” in the words of the letter’s authors, is blatantly false and uninformed by the reality of who Middlebury students are. We have a stellar graduation rate, high average/median GPAs and excelled in high school to gain admittance. Who among our peers are the slackers? In their second point, the authors contend that grades serve as a form of motivation or underpinning to college scholarship. However, grades do not and should not underpin academic scholarship, nor should they be the sole motivation to engage in this scholarship. If the loss of a letter grade causes a student to spend less time on academic work because they suddenly lack the motivation, then we have a deeper issue to address about why students engage in academics. But I do not believe most students will lose motivation. The authors also point to the further confusion that may arise from the change in policy. But just because a policy has been in place is no justification for that policy to stay in place, especially policies instituted without significant consultation with faculty or students. Furthermore, an unignorable student-led campaign for alternative grading policies has existed nearly from the very first day that the college announced its policy, so I for one was never operating under the assumption that this policy was set and fixed. To call a poll of 1,843 students (roughly 70% of the student body) irrelevant simply because it included an option that turned out to be unviable for accreditation is a blatant error. Even when removing that option, universal pass/fail still has more first choice votes than opt-in. To insinuate on a clerical error that the student body has not vastly voiced support for an alternative grading system is a blatant and intentional misreading of the data leveraged to serve the authors’ own opinions while silencing the vast majority of students.  In closing an email I sent to my current professors — something I encourage every student to do, no matter which policy you support — I said the following and I think it fits here as well: “Though apparently some of my peers might argue that people should be allowed to ‘write their own stories’ about how they persevered  through this time, let those stories be about persevering over a virus by contributing back to society through extra volunteer hours or aiding their family when family members fall ill or lose their job —  not about persevering by getting that A in that one class because Middlebury continued to enforce artificial and inequitable grading standards.” Mendel Baljon is a member of the class of 2021.

John Schurer for SGA president 

The editorial board is proud to endorse John Schurer ’21 for SGA president. Through his work with organizations like the SGA, MCAB and ResLife (to name but a few), John has demonstrated exceptional, genuine commitment to the Middlebury community over the last three years. We are confident that he will be an excellent representative for the student body and a dependable liaison with the administration. His track record of empathetic engagement has prepared him to run a more accountable and open-minded student government. From the moment he started at Middlebury in the fall of 2017, John not only sought to engage meaningfully with his community, but to make the college a more welcoming, work-able place for those around him. During his first year, John started the social media campaign #MeetMidd, seeking out and sharing the stories of countless classmates. Inspired by those stories, John went on to represent his peers as a class senator. Throughout his campaign, John reiterated his commitment to active listening. Meeting with our board, he candidly admitted that he “is comfortable not having all the answers.” We trust that he will exercise a similar humility as president. On that note, we sincerely hope that he considers integrating core pillars of his contenders’ platforms into his own.  As each led distinct, innovative campaigns in their own right, all three of these candidates only stand to gain by engaging with the ideas and initiatives proposed by their competitors.  Unlike many previous presidential races, this year’s endorsement was not simple. Members of the board expressed enthusiasm for all three contenders. To that end, we commend the passionate canadacies of Arthur Martins ’22.5 and Myles Maxie ’22. Both demonstrate bold, unyielding visions for equitable change within an organization that is regarded by many as inefficient and inaccessible. Where Arthur places a much-needed emphasis on coalition building, particularly in regard to his advocacy for mental health support and the international student community, Myles urges institutional structures at Middlebury to remain self-critical, identifying transparency and collaboration as areas in which there will always be room for improvement. They would both make terrific SGA members — or presidents — in years to come.  John has proven to have strong relationships with many administors. As the college continues to navigate a profoundly confusing and complicated time, we believe it is important for the next SGA president to hit the ground running come fall.  John’s wealth of institutional knowledge and familiarity with internal processes give him the necessary skills to work alongside administrators during this time. We hope that in moments when student voices merit particular recognition, John will leverage his established relationships to vouch for them.   We trust that John’s extensive background working with and inside the SGA will not prevent him from taking hard stances on difficult or controversial issues. He has proven himself to be patient, diplomatic and mature.  We encourage him to be decisive when and where needed.  Throughout his time at Middlebury, John has made repeated, wholehearted efforts to get to know each and every one of us. As he has shown through the  production of Moth-Up and the founding of #MeetMidd, John cares deeply about Middlebury’s stories. We can think of no candidate more qualified to value and tell our stories as SGA president. This editorial represents the opinions of the Middlebury Campus’s editorial board.

Middlebury-led panel zooms in on Vermont’s climate future

Middlebury hosted Vermont’s branch of the “Solve Climate by 2030” project, drawing more than 70 Zoom users to its virtual panel while universities in nearly all 50 states hosted simultaneous webinars last Tuesday. Dr. Eban Goodstein, director of the Center for Environmental Policy and the MBA in Sustainability at Bard College, launched the project last year with the aim of convening a panel of experts in every state who would determine three ambitious but attainable actions that communities could take against climate change. “What you do locally will change the future,” Goodstein said in his pre-recorded introduction to the panel, which was streamed to attendees at the beginning of the Zoom conference. He reminded viewers of the 2030 deadline to prevent catastrophic climate change, set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2018, and emphasized the need for immediate, local action that will facilitate an equitable transition to clean energy sources and green jobs. Transportation, heating and efficiency became the three areas of focus in the Vermont group’s discussion, which centered around constructing a Vermont that would work for all. The four panelists — Jared Duval, executive director of Vermont’s Energy Action Network; Carolyn Finney, scholar-in-residence in environmental affairs; Fran Putnam, a community organizer from Weybridge, Vermont; and Jack Byrne, dean of sustainability and environmental affairs — spoke at length about issues of justice and inclusion in future energy and transportation policy. Jon Isham, professor of economics and environmental studies, moderated the talk from the lounge inside Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest, with the familiar backdrop of Adirondack House and Forest Hall visible behind him. Due to concern about “Zoombombing,” attendees remained muted for the duration of the panel, with their posts in the chat function visible only to the panelists. The biggest challenge seemed to be keeping panelists within time constraints; the introduction portion of the panel took up most of the webinar’s scheduled 90 minutes. Duval, the first panelist to speak, addressed Vermont’s particular energy challenges: 70% of the state’s climate pollution is the result of transportation and heating, which also make up most of Vermonters’ energy costs. While the state has developed successful policy in its electricity generation sector, Duval said it has not seen the same success in the transportation and heating sectors. “It’s important to focus on the fuel,” he said, “but the fuel is not enough. It's also about the equipment — the vehicles and the heating systems — and intervening at that point of purchase when you can avoid locking in a decade of fossil fuel use with vehicles, or two or three decades with the average life of a heating system.” Duval noted that any policy addressing transportation and heating would need to focus on equity to ensure that low-income Vermonters are not left out of the transition to electric vehicles and heating systems. Finney built on Duval’s point about justice in her introduction, discussing how the power dynamics and relationships present in Vermont decide who gets to participate in climate conversations. The issue of justice brings greater complexity to the conversation, she said, and this complexity must be addressed when developing solutions. “It's as though we're asking ourselves to cut through to the solution,” Finney said of the panel’s aim. “And I think that makes a lot of people nervous — it makes me nervous — because I want to get there too, but I don't want to get there the same way we've always gotten there. Because a lot of people are going to lose.” Like Goodstein, Finney drew comparisons between Covid-19 and climate change. “Climate change does not honor borders,” she said. “And we know that just like we've seen with Covid-19, that it can impact everywhere, but it doesn't impact everyone in the same way.” Throughout her introduction, she reiterated the importance of considering the diverse impacts that climate change will have in Vermont. Putnam, who gave a talk last month about her self-designed study trip in the Nordic countries and is best known on campus for her work with the Sunday Night Environmental Group, spoke about her experience as a local environmental leader. As a retiree motivated to do something about climate change, she spearheaded programs for weatherization, waste management and transportation in Weybridge, Vermont and began volunteering with statewide environmental organizations and state legislators. “If somebody like me with no academic credentials in this field, or expertise, can do something like this, anybody can do this,” Putnam said. In Putnam’s experience, people in Vermont already want cleaner heating options and more efficient cars. The issue is affordability. “That's where the state of Vermont has to come in,” she said. “That's where our tax policies have to change. That's where the political structure has to buy into this and let us do what needs to be done.” Byrne brought his experience developing Energy2028 — the college’s commitment to use entirely renewable energy sources, reduce consumption by 25%, divest from fossil fuels and integrate the commitment into its educational mission by 2028 — to the conversation. He emphasized the potential for other towns to draw from the college’s success. Following more than an hour of introductions, Isham raised a question from the chat about including indigenous people in climate conversations. Finney responded by criticizing the idea of outreach and its implication of offering help, focusing instead on the need to build a relationship of trust with indigenous communities and respect the actions they are already taking to combat climate change. Isham then invited atmospheric scientist Alan Betts to join the conversation. Betts spoke for several minutes about the inability of the capitalist economic system to withstand planetary crises like Covid-19 and climate change, and the need to construct a just and stable world. “We cannot have justice unless we confront the corruption of the system that we have bought into and make it pay all the costs,” he said. As the panel’s time limit approached, Isham asked the panelists to summarize their own priorities. Duval reiterated the importance of establishing a comprehensive policy and regulatory framework centered around equity, while Finney pushed for honesty and truthfulness in legislation and education. Both Putnam and Byrne referred back to Betts’s call for economic transformation. Putnam spoke about the need for climate policy with fixed goals, which is currently stalled in the state legislature, as well as a fairer tax structure that prioritizes climate solutions, and the inclusion of indigenous voices. Byrne cautioned against polarization, and said, “I echo Alan again. Truth to power.”

Meet the candidates

Even in the midst of a global pandemic, the Student Government Association (SGA) elections are moving forward. The three presidential and two Community Council (CC) co-chair candidates on Thursday’s ballot engaged in a live-streamed debate via Zoom on Monday evening. https://www.youtube.com/embed/axTvLqT2hgg They have also been campaigning remotely, creating websites and posting on social media to communicate their platforms and generate support. The five candidates shared their ideas and spoke to their qualifications in Zoom interviews with The Campus. For SGA president: Arthur Martins ’22.5 Hometown: Brasília, Brazil Martins, co-president of the International Students Organization (ISO) and co-founder of #FairGradesMidd, said that he wants to make SGA more proactive and engaged with the student body. Martins is the only presidential candidate who has never held an SGA position. However, he has worked closely with members of the organization in past initiatives such as seeking SGA endorsement for #FairGradesMidd and working with senators to draft legislation supporting an ISO house. As ISO co-president, Martins helped restructure and expand the organization’s executive board this year, creating what he calls a “student-centered bureaucracy.” He also co-authored a letter to the Senior Leadership Group advocating for international students in the wake of the campus closure this spring. While working on #FairGradesMidd, Martins gathered dozens of student testimonials and restructured the campaign’s platform in accordance with feedback from other organizers. Martins said he has been involved in activism work at home in Brazil as well. “In my experiences as a grassroots organizer, as a community organizer, I've seen how powerful students can be, how much we can come together and truly rally behind causes that we believe in and make them happen,” he said. Martins said he’s hoping to bring this type of leadership and activism to the SGA. He broke down his platform into three parts: advocating for student rights and resources, creating a strong college community, and putting students first. He wants to improve mental health resources, residential life training and support for underrepresented communities. Martins also explained his belief that the SGA is not transparent or accessible enough to the student body and is too bureaucratic. “Everything has bureaucracy in life, but how can we make sure that the bureaucracy doesn't detract from the mission of being attuned to students, but that it lends itself to it,” he said. His website proposes office hours and greater online outreach as a means of remedying the transparency and accessibility issues he sees. Myles Maxie ’22 Hometown: Upland, California A two-year SGA member, Maxie is the current Wonnacott senator and has served on several SGA committees. This is his first year as a senator, though he was involved in cabinet committees last year. Maxie has worked on creating student advisory councils for all academic departments, making the Gamut Room more accessible to student groups and providing more information about textbooks before registration. Maxie also co-sponsored a bill supporting changes to the grading system this spring. As a member of the Academic Affairs Committee, he has collaborated with faculty in an ongoing effort to revise the course credit system. Beyond SGA, Maxie is also the social house secretary for PALANA and an admissions office student ambassador. In his role as chair of the Wonnacott Commons Council, he said he has discussed ways to continue supporting students after the dissolution of the commons system with his commons coordinator. Maxie’s platform emphasizes greater outreach to students for ideas and feedback. His website relays his plan in acronym form, using the letters of the word “focus.” He said he believes SGA’s initiatives should be founded upon the concerns of its constituency. “I have a bunch of student-generated issues that I want to address next year and that I'd brainstormed with students on effective ways to solve,” he said. These include keeping laundry free or low cost, increasing transparency about SGA initiatives and providing better representation for student organizations. Maxie explained the broad objectives of his potential administration. “It'll be about being actionable when we're faced with a problem and communicating what we're doing, having a plan for how we're addressing a problem and collaborating with others on it,” he said. John Schurer ’21 Hometown: Glenview, Illinois Schurer, junior senator and speaker of the senate, said he was “the most excited person on campus” when he arrived for his first semester, but soon discovered the campus was not as tight-knit as he had hoped. He attributed his involvement in various Middlebury organizations to a desire to create the community he had initially expected. This is Schurer’s third year as a class senator and his second time as senate speaker. He is also a marketing executive for Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB) and producer for the Middlebury Moth-Up, an organization that puts on live oral storytelling shows. Some know Schurer as the founder of MeetMidd, an Instagram-based compilation of brief student profiles, which he launched when the current juniors were first-years. Schurer has also worked in several roles in residential life. His time working in the Student Activities Office even led to a brief stint as the Middlebury Panther, an experience which he said motivated him to push for a new costume that increased both school spirit and comfort. On SGA, Schurer has aimed to make student resources more accessible and affordable, co-founding MiddBooks and supporting a bill that established financial aid for Snow Bowl use. Schurer also worked with trustees to create plans for a new student center, an effort he said he wants to continue. Some of the other initiatives included in his platform are creating a co-curricular transcript and acquiring athletic trainers for non-varsity athletes. Schurer said he wants the SGA to better represent all students. “We get a lot of bright minds who come into SGA and want to make a change, but we don't often enough get students who feel like Middlebury isn't built for them,” he said. He highlighted collaboration as an important aspect of his platform, and noted how he has already named his two chiefs of staff, Sophia Lundberg ’21.5 and Roni Lezama ’22, whose qualifications are listed on his website. For Community Council co-chair: Christian Kummer ’22 Hometown: Southbury, Connecticut Kummer, who served as a first-year senator last year, said that he based his entire platform on student input, soliciting feedback in the form he used to collect signatures. “I was really hesitant to be super prescriptive, because the entire point of the co-chair is to be a voice for student concerns, not to push your own agenda,” Kummer said. Kummer is committed to reforming mental health resources and said he wants to work with Barbara McCall, director of health and wellness education, and Gus Jordan, executive director of health and counseling services, to redesign the approach to mental health. He hopes to push for hiring more counselors and counselors who specialize in particular areas. Kummer expressed interest in increasing access to campus resources and programs, suggesting greater funding for First at Midd, as well as tackling environmental sustainability and vandalism issues. He also wants to provide better support for survivors of sexual assault and take greater steps in regard to preventing potential assaults. On SGA, Kummer served on several cabinet committees and worked on initiatives such as the snowbowl financial aid bill and the reinstitution of 10 o’clock Ross. As co-director of the first-year committee, he collaborated with the Center for Careers and Internships to create a first-year internship workshop. Kummer’s website lists the positions he has held beyond SGA, ranging from membership on the Community Judicial Board to PALANA to the Dance Company of Middlebury. “I love working with people in pretty much every aspect of my life at Middlebury, both in student government and outside,” he said. Joel Machado ’22 Hometown: The Bronx, New York Machado’s website divides the initiatives in his platform into pillars. Some of his intended objectives, such as a push to end the waste of dining hall dishes, connect directly to his earlier efforts in SGA and Community Council roles. Machado has been outspoken about campus issues in the past. His Spencer Prize Championship speech criticized the school for being “an institution of higher learning second and a business first.” Machado is a first generation college student and said his personal experiences and those of his family members have fostered his passion for combating inequality. “Like any other leadership role, the most important experience needed is having a real reason to care about what you are doing,” he said in an email. Machado noted the additional responsibilities of next year’s co-chair, who will play a role in familiarizing the new Dean of Students, who serves as the other chair, with the campus culture and outlook. Polls open Thursday, April 16 at noon, and close the following day at noon. Vote at go.middlebury.edu/vote/.

Admissions office markets Midd in a year roiled by economic downturn, public health crisis

Six days after most Middlebury students vacated campus to continue classes from home, the college admitted its biggest class of prospective students ever. The acceptance letters received by 1,836 high school seniors this March, plus the 392 early decision acceptances doled out in December and February, were the first in a string of correspondences the college will send accepted students as it tries to virtually woo young adults who are making college decisions in one of the most unusual times in recent history. With campus completely closed to visitors, the Office of Admissions will now depend on webinars, social media posts, and its own students and alumni to replicate that feel-it-in-your-bones sense many students look for when they attend Preview Days in the spring. Even with heightened virtual efforts, however, colleges around the world are facing Covid-19-related challenges that could lead students to either enroll in the fall as planned, or defer their admissions — a process experts refer to as “melt.” As a buffer, Middlebury admitted more students than usual to ensure it would reach its desired yield of 725–740 enrollees. The result is a pool of admittees that is nearly 700 students larger than last year’s and an acceptance rate that surpasses 20% for the first time in more than a decade. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var e in a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-"+e)||document.querySelector("iframe[src*='"+e+"']");t&&(t.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][e]+"px")}})}(); Differing solutions to a potential yield problem across higher education suggest that navigating challenges posed by Covid-19 isn’t as black-and-white as just admitting more or fewer students on the front end. As Middlebury ramped up its acceptance rates, peer schools such as Colby and Bowdoin hit record-low rates. College admissions consultant Matthew Greene said that he anticipates many schools will take this latter approach, and will rely on their waitlists to address potential melt. Middlebury has not released its waitlist information for the class of 2024. Greene said he thinks Middlebury’s method of accepting more students is “not a bad idea in the sense that students will be much more excited about a college if they’re admitted.” On the flipside, Greene said, the risk could be over enrolling the freshman class. College Treasurer David Provost said the college is not necessarily trying to enroll more students, but is rather bracing itself for more pressure on financial aid and an uptick in deferrals, among other projections. Data is already beginning to support that more students are planning on taking time off before starting school next fall. Edmit, a Boston-based company that advises students on paying for college, conducted a survey of 100 college-bound students and found that one-third of respondents were considering taking a gap year. Another quarter of students said they were considering going to school closer to home, or in an area that is less affected by the virus. “This wasn't a large sample size, but is consistent with dozens of conversations I've had with high school counselors, college-bound families and college admissions offices,” said Edmit co-founder and CEO Nick Ducoff.  Additionally, 10.5% of Middlebury’s admitted class is made up of international students, raising questions about access come fall. “Will travel rebound?” said Dean of Admissions Nicole Curvin. “Will they be able to get visas? Will countries open up so we’re able to get students to campus and to get them to orientation? We’re in really uncharted territory.” There’s no historical precedent for the current crisis, but Greene pointed to the September 11 attacks and the 2008 financial crisis as other phenomena that affected students’ decisions about college on a macro level. In 2002, the college raised its acceptance rate from 26% to 31%, before dropping again the following year to 28%. In 2009, the college also saw a higher acceptance rate, but that was partly due to a decrease in applications by nearly 1,000 that year. The applicant pool also decreased this year, which contributed to the higher acceptance rate for the class of 2024. The decline of about 585 applications from last year’s record-breaking numbers is unrelated to the coronavirus — regular decision applications were due on January 1, before China had even reported its first coronavirus-related deaths — but rather an ongoing demographic shift, according to Curvin, as fewer high school graduates come out of New England and more come out of the South and West. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var e in a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-"+e)||document.querySelector("iframe[src*='"+e+"']");t&&(t.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][e]+"px")}})}(); “That was something we anticipated,” Curvin said. “We had a record high last year, and expected there would be a softening this year.” Greene said he does not think Middlebury’s uncharacteristically high acceptance rate this year will hurt the college going forward. “I think it’s going to be a blip, a small blip,” he said. “And I think that admissions rate is a small factor in the rankings game.” Putting its best foot forward Meanwhile, the college is inviting all hands on deck to show prospective students — including the 70% of admits who have never visited campus — why they should pick Middlebury. Instead of holding a virtual version of Preview Days, which was originally scheduled for early next week, Curvin said the office will try to maintain as much regular contact with students as possible, with daily emails and the help of Midd Kids from all over the world. Already, 450 current students have signed up to text admitted students about the college. Alumni who conduct admissions interviews will also reach out, and there will be scores of virtual panels and webinars on Zoom for those who want to know what it’s like to be a Feb or how the Center for Careers and Internships works. In the absence of overnight stays and in-person tours, this sort of peer-to-peer outreach is key. Mariclare O’Neal, a high school guidance counselor in Chelmsford, Mass., said she thinks the biggest loss for students will be not getting a sense of the social environment on campus. “I love accepted students days,” she said. “I think they tell you about the school. You get a vibe.” The Office of Admissions was already beginning to build the groundwork for some of these online events and outreach initiatives. The Student Ambassador program for example, led by some members of the class of 2022 last fall, connected high schoolers from areas that fall outside the college’s usual purview with current Middlebury students who also live in those areas. And generally, as the number of applicants from New England has declined, the college has been boosting efforts to market itself online to those who might be more than a drive up Interstate-89 away. Still, there was a mad dash in the days before decisions came out to create a revamped website for admitted students that includes a live chat feature, several FAQs videos on life at Middlebury that current students recorded from home and a schedule of webinars. Andrew Cassel, the college’s new director of social media and content producing, said the Office of Admissions and Office of Communications created the website “over an intense four-and-a-half days.” He has been sharing informational posts about the college on its Instagram each day at noon and has turned to platforms like Facebook and TikTok to reach prospective students. “Being able to engage with [newly admitted students] on TikTok helps differentiate Middlebury from other schools that may not have a TikTok presence,” Cassel said. He said there have been increases in the college’s Instagram and TikTok followings since the decisions were released. https://www.tiktok.com/@middleburycollege/video/6805623602482892038 Senior Admissions Fellow Julia Sinton ’20.5 said she thinks one of Middlebury’s big selling points is its attractive campus. She noted that about half of the college’s visitors come in the summer. “So I think we're hoping to be open again in the summer and have a lot of visitors then,” she said. Sinton and the other senior admissions fellows are still giving six information sessions a week via Zoom. Her info session yesterday saw an audience of 82 families, who asked about 50 questions using Zoom’s chat function, she said. Fellow Sandhya Sewnauth ’20 agreed that Middlebury’s rural charm is an important facet of its appeal. “I do think that for students who are unfamiliar with rural environments and small towns, there is certainly an aura that you get once you are on campus that can only be felt in-person — I can recall this feeling when I visited Midd as a high school senior from New York City,” she said. “It was different from looking at pretty pictures in brochures, or YouTube videos of campus tours.” Greene thinks Middlebury’s cloistered location will be a selling point this year, as coronavirus overwhelms crowded cities. But he also noted that it can be difficult to get there, sometimes requiring connecting flights through multiple airports. “Clearly, safety and security are going to be top of mind for families,” he said. Colleges all over the country are extending their deposit deadlines to June 1, but Middlebury is sticking to its May 1 date. Students who plan on deferring, meanwhile, must let the college know no later than June 1, according to the college’s website. As one commenter wondered aloud on a College Confidential thread about the college’s uptick in admissions, it will be difficult to know until then how many students will actually matriculate in September. “It actually makes little sense, considering that they have had over-enrollment in the past and it didn't go well,” they said about the higher acceptance rate. “Alternatively, perhaps they know something that the other NESCACs don't.” !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var e in a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-"+e)||document.querySelector("iframe[src*='"+e+"']");t&&(t.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][e]+"px")}})}(); Editor's note: This story previously featured a photo from a webinar for incoming Febs. That picture has since been removed because one of the webinar's participants did not want her photo available on the internet.

Seasons end abruptly due to coronavirus

The NESCAC canceled all competitions, including conference championships, on March 11 to reduce the spread of Covid-19. The presidents of all 11 NESCAC institutions agreed unanimously on the decision. Following the announcement, athletic directors NESCAC-wide agreed to suspend in-person recruiting through April 30 while simultaneously allowing electronic and written forms of communication.  A day after the NESCAC’s decision, the NCAA canceled all remaining competitions and winter championships, including the women’s hockey’s NCAA quarterfinal between Middlebury and Endicott College. The game was slated to take place on Saturday, March 14. Similarly affected were athletes planning to participate in NCAA skiing, track & field, and swimming championships.  Senior athletes, who were looking forward to rounding out their final seasons, reacted to the news with disappointment. “The timeline on the decision was so quick,” said Weston Brach ’20, co-captain of the men’s tennis team. “It felt like one day we were training and getting mentally prepared for the first spring matches, and the next day we were told to leave campus.” Some athletes were already on the cusp of achieving their championship dreams. “I was simply heartbroken. 27 games, 21 wins, a NESCAC championship appearance and a bid to the NCAA's — all for that NCAA tournament,” said Sidney Porter ’20, a member of the women’s hockey team. “Everything we had worked for the entire season that led to the unbelievable opportunity to host that quarterfinal game and have a chance to go to final four, the first time in my four years, was taken away.” !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var e in a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-"+e)||document.querySelector("iframe[src*='"+e+"']");t&&(t.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][e]+"px")}})}();

Stanger to take additional year of leave at Stanford and Library of Congress

Political Science Professor Allison Stanger has extended her sabbatical another year after winning awards that will take her to Stanford, Calif. and Washington, D.C. next fall and spring. Stanger, who spent this past year as a fellow and visiting professor at Harvard University, will be the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in Ethics and American History at the John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress for 2020–2021. On a separate appointment, she will also be a fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) during that time. She will spend the year working on her new book, tentatively titled “Consumers vs. Citizens: Social Inequality and Democracy’s Public Sphere in a Big Data World,” she said in an email to The Campus. She noted that the locations of her upcoming posts will position her ideally for this kind of work, since she will be close both to the offices of the government and Silicon Valley. Stanger said she plans on returning to Middlebury for the 2021–22 academic year. “I’m very grateful to both my colleagues in the Political Science Department and to the administration for their exceptional support, and I am looking forward to returning to Middlebury when my fellowships end,” she wrote. “The experiences I have had these past few years should make me a better teacher and resource for Middlebury students.” Stanger was injured by protesters during Charles Murray’s visit to Middlebury in 2017. In the fracas that followed the disrupted talk, Stanger, who mediated the talk and escorted Murray out of the venue, suffered whiplash and a concussion. The following fall, Stanger began what was slated to be a two-year leave. But at the end of the second year, Stanger announced to the Middlebury Political Science faculty and staff her plans to remain off-campus for the 2019–2020 academic year. Stanger is currently a technology and human values senior fellow at Harvard’s Edmund J. Safra Center for Ethics, and is teaching a course at the university (now remotely, from Vermont) called “The Politics of Virtual Realities.” In her email, Stanger added that she was recently appointed to the Science Board of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. The handbook states that the college does not guarantee to faculty “extraordinary leaves” — leaves that last more than one year — but that the college may grant such a leave when a professor is offered “an unusual professional opportunity.” Dean of Faculty Sujata Moorti said that the college prioritizes “departmental and college planning in approving leaves.” The Political Science department in particular typically has between two and four professors on leave in any given year, according to Political Science Department Chair Erik Bleich. Next year, only one other professor — Professor Nadia Horning, who teaches in a different subfield — will be on leave. According to information available on the college’s website, Stanger’s current leave of absence is unpaid by the college. When asked if next year’s leave would also be unpaid, Moorti said Stanger “will be paid by the institutions hosting her.” The CASBS offers stipends to first-time fellows, and an endowment at the Library of Congress funds the chair position, which pays a stipend of $13,500 per month. Nominees for that position are sourced from a number of individuals and are recommended to the Librarian of Congress by a selection committee. Bill Ryan, the director of communications at the Library of Congress, characterized the position as one that “supports exploration of the history of America with special attention to the ethical dimensions of domestic economic, political and social policies.” He said the start and end dates of the chairmanship have not yet been finalized. The CASBS position runs September 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021. Before the coronavirus led to the cancellation and postponement of all on-campus events, Stanger was scheduled to visit Middlebury April 7 to talk about her most recently published book, “Whistleblowers: Honesty in America from Washington to Trump,” alongside the New York Times’s David Sanger. The book was fortuitously released this September, the same day House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. The inquiry was spurred by a whistleblower complaint against the President.  In the months that followed the book’s release, Stanger made a number of high-profile radio and TV appearances, and penned pieces for the New York Times and The Atlantic. In February, Stanger was one of about 50 authors to win a Prose Award from the American Association of Publishers for the book, in the category of Government, Policy and Politics. Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the location of Stanford University. It is located in Stanford, California.

Midd students scramble to get home as Covid-19 shuts down programs abroad

While students on Middlebury’s Vermont campus worried last week about when they would next see friends, how to navigate remote coursework and where to go after school shut down, those enrolled in programs abroad were confronting the same worries, but with an added caveat: To make it home, many of them would have to travel halfway across the world amid a rapidly-spreading global pandemic. Concerns over the Covid-19 virus have led colleges around the world to cancel study-abroad programs, and Middlebury’s own 16 programs have suffered the same fate. The college’s schools in China and Italy closed earlier this spring as the virus spread in those countries. Between March 10 and March 13, all remaining Middlebury schools abroad, from programs in Europe to Latin America, suspended their operations. The college later put out a call for all students remaining in foreign countries — those in externally-sponsored programs or who had stayed in host countries after their Middlebury programs canceled — to return to the U.S on March 19, the day the State Department issued a Level Four Global Travel Advisory. The result was several days of chaos and uncertainty for roughly 250 Middlebury students whose study abroad experiences had forcibly come to an end, as they sought to find their way home amid quickly-implemented travel bans and emerging facts about a mostly-unknown virus. “‘Chaotic’ is the best way to describe it,” said Porter Bowman ’21.5, who was studying in Stockholm, Sweden through an independent program canceled on March 11. Communication breakdowns Students reported that occasionally poor communication from program coordinators, combined with rumors and bewildering information bites from national news sources, increased the stress of navigating cancellation of their programs and journeys home. Kenzo Okazaki ’21 was enrolled in Middlebury’s CMRS program in Oxford, England, which was suspended on March 10. Students in his program became confused that morning, Okazaki said, after some of them received screenshots of the March 10 email in which Professor Héctor Vila leaked that the college would send students home from its Vermont campus later that week. Several nervous hours passed between when students first read Vila’s email and when they finally learned the fate of their own program from coordinators. “I think everyone was frustrated that there wasn’t much of a heads up that our program might be shut down, so that at least people could start thinking about leaving more than six days in advance,” Okazaki said. Abroad program coordinators have had to work “around the clock” to give direction to the movements of hundreds of students in programs across many time zones, according to Dean of International Programs Carlos Vélez. Vélez said the study abroad office made “every effort” to make decisions and update students on their programs’ status as quickly as possible, but that in any given country, information about travel advisories and restrictions “would change without warning, both from U.S. and local agencies.” “One of the biggest challenges has been the relentless pace at which things have changed during this crisis,” he said. Sometimes, lack of transparency from parties beyond students’ host institutions — like the president of the United States — caused problems. For students enrolled with Bowman in the DIS (Study Abroad in Scandinavia) Stockholm program, the hours between President Trump’s March 11 press conference, which aired at 2 a.m. Stockholm time on March 12, and the program’s official cancellation three hours later were “chaos.” During that press conference, Trump announced he was banning all non-essential travel to and from Europe effective that Friday, failing to mention that U.S. citizens would still be able to travel freely. After the conference, assuming they would be unable to get back into the U.S., the Americans in Bowman’s program frantically rushed to make travel plans even without receiving confirmation that their program had ended. “It was crazy,” Bowman said. “Flights were going like concert tickets.” In an open letter written by Helene Gusman ’21 (who studied in Yaroslavl, Russia) and Megan Salmon ’21 (Santiago, Chile) and circulated the week of March 9, students in programs abroad called on the administration to provide clarity on their situations. They had never received President Laurie Patton’s email outlining the Vermont campus’s plan to shut down, according to the letter, and had to wait hours and sometimes days before receiving clarity on the status of specific schools abroad. Vélez later clarified that messages sent to the “all student” mailbox are typically sent to students in abroad programs, but that a technical issue prevented the delivery of some such messages that week. Gusman and Salmon’s letter received signatures from 40 students around the world; however, its writers ultimately chose not to send it to the administration after Trump announced his travel ban and abroad programs began to provide more information to students. Trump’s travel ban caused panic for students across Europe. Gretchen Doyle ’21.5, who was studying in Middlebury’s program in Madrid, Spain, said she received a call from a friend at 5 a.m. local time on March 12 alerting her of the travel ban. Like Bowman, she was so concerned that she immediately bought a plane ticket home to New Jersey without waiting for confirmation of her program’s cancellation. Doyle recognized the challenges posed to abroad program coordinators in uncertain times, but said she was still frustrated by a lack of communication from Middlebury. “After Trump announced the travel ban and the majority of us had bought tickets to fly home, we didn’t hear anything from our program for a long time,” Doyle said. “I don’t blame anyone for the way things were handled because it was a stressful time for everyone, but I was frustrated.” As confusing as Trump’s language in his press conference was for students, Vélez said that it was equally disruptive for the study abroad office. Though the press conference made it seem as though the travel ban would apply to all travelers, the study abroad office was not certain this was the case and decided to wait to make announcements until the U.S. State Department released its official proclamation on the travel ban, Vélez said. “At that point, close to midnight in Vermont, all of our program directors communicated the correct information to all of our students abroad,” Vélez said. Students worry about academic continuity Just as students enrolled at Middlebury in Vermont worry about how coursework will continue as the college shifts to remote learning, those in programs abroad are wondering how curricula taught in different languages and across time zones will translate to life at home. Okazaki’s coursework within the CMRS-Oxford program was largely focused on individual research in Oxford’s libraries, and weekly one-on-one check-ins with professors during which students are given rigorous feedback on written work. That intimate structure will not be easily replicated thousands of miles away from Oxford’s famed libraries, he said. “The idea was to use Oxford's library and to become familiar with the resources you can get there that you can't get anywhere else in the world,” Okazaki said. “Well, now we are anywhere else in the world without a library.” Other students, like Lila Sternberg-Sher ’21.5, had not even begun classes at their host universities when their programs shut down. Students in Sternberg-Sher’s Middlebury program in Temuco, Chile — as well as in all other programs in Latin America, where local university classes begin in mid-March — were given the option of receiving full refunds and forgoing academic credit for the semester or taking online classes through Middlebury’s program in Chile (not the public university where they had planned on taking classes). Sternberg-Sher, a linguistics major, said she was disappointed that she will have to pass up on in-person linguistics research she was planning on doing in Temuco, but still plans to take remote classes from home. “I’m lucky enough to be set up well within my major that it shouldn’t be a huge issue for me,” she said, adding that the Chile program is well-equipped for remote learning after navigating university shut-downs last fall. Many students expressed relief that the Pass/D/Fail option would extend to those in abroad programs, like Hailey Kent ’21.5, who is directly enrolled in the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, where classes began in January. “This did not make for a very academically fulfilling semester, and I am glad that Middlebury is extending its pass/fail policy to students abroad because I feel my grades are not accurate representations of the quality of the work I have completed,” she wrote in an email to The Campus. Experiential learning Though the week of March 9 was mostly stressful for students, many said it was eye-opening to see the varied responses of governments and populations of their host countries during one of the more frantic times in recent history. In Madrid, Doyle and other students were surprised by the lax approach residents seemed to take to the virus in a city that news outlets have reported as a Covid-19 hotspot. They watched Madrid’s metro system, restaurants, cafes and sporting events running like normal, even as they heard from friends in the U.S that worry over the virus was heightening there. “There were people out in the central park, Retiro, and out at bars until the day I left,” said Lilly Kuhn ’21.5. Jess Cohen ’21, who was studying at the main public university in Buenos Aires, Argentina through a Middlebury program, observed similarly low concern over Covid-19 at first. Students’ host families, he said, were quick to denounce anxiety over the virus as overblown, and students in the program were similarly unworried. Once the Argentine government began to shut down public spaces on March 13 (the day Middlebury canceled its program there), Cohen said the seriousness of the situation began to sink in. No matter the reaction of varying countries’ populations, students said worry over the virus significantly impacted the truncated time they had in their host countries. “I read the news every night before going to bed and right when I woke up, and I usually couldn’t sleep through the night,” Doyle said. “It was difficult to immerse ourselves fully in Spanish culture because we didn’t know how much longer we’d be there, so it wasn’t the study abroad experience I had hoped for, to say the least.” Some students, disappointed at the prospect of losing a semester of language and cultural immersion, pondered staying in their host countries even after Middlebury had suspended programs or their host universities had closed entirely. Cohen initially planned to continue living with his host family and taking remote classes after the Middlebury program in Buenos Aires was suspended. By doing so, he thought, he could still obtain the Spanish-immersion experience he had gone to Argentina for in the first place while weathering the storm of Covid-19 in an area that seemed relatively unaffected. “I felt like all of the students in my program who had decided to leave were surprised that I was going to stay — but they had all wanted to stay,” he said. In the 24 hours after he made his initial decision, though, as Cohen watched the city shut down, he decided to head back to his home in Colorado. Even Buenos Aires, a part of the world that was largely untouched by the virus at the time of the Middlebury program’s cancellation, was closing bars, soccer stadiums, museums and restaurants — steps that were being replicated around the world to prepare for unknown effects of the rapidly-spreading pandemic. “Streets that were usually totally full of people and cars were completely dead,” Cohen said. “All the shops other than the grocery stores and a couple of cafes were closed that normally would be full.” Cohen scrambled to buy a ticket home on Saturday, March 14, and got one of the last flights out of the country before Argentina shut its borders on Sunday. Okazaki said that, between the Oxford program’s cancellation on Tuesday and his Sunday departure, there wasn’t much time to be preoccupied. When he finally found his seat on a direct flight from Heathrow to Salt Lake City, though, he said a sense of calm washed over him. “As soon as I got on the plane I realized how relieved I was and how lucky I was to get out of there,” Okazaki said. “I got home and realized that the U.K. was going to start being shut down, and realized how much crisis I had averted.” Editor’s note: Porter Bowman ’21.5 is a news correspondent for The Campus.

On crisis and community

It’s taken a pandemic for me to feel it, but real community can happen at Middlebury. On the morning of Tuesday March 10, life suddenly shifted. The only certainty anyone had was that of the immense change we were about to experience, and we quickly found ourselves in crisis.  Yet we have been in crisis at Middlebury for a while — one that has led to deep divides within the bodies that make up Middlebury, and between these bodies and the college administration. I was once the co-chair of the Community Council. Tragically, within my role as representative of the college community, I did not feel any sense of community at Middlebury. On the eve of what would have been Charles Murray’s third controversial visit to campus, divides had started to feel like a permanent reality I had to come to terms with, rather than something that could ever reach resolution. That changed last week. Over the past several days, I have witnessed something I haven’t seen before at Middlebury, and for the first time, I am not hesitating to call it community. That same Tuesday morning, a group of students created the Middlebury Mutual Aid Spreadsheet, and people near and far readily offered their homes, time and energy toward helping others. The spreadsheet is wonderful, tangible proof of how there we were for each other in a period of panic. Less tangible but just as real as the spreadsheet are the interpersonal interactions which happened in the face of our shared uncertainty: we acknowledged each other as vulnerable, scared human beings.  We checked in with each other, concerned about the wellbeing of those we’d perhaps only spoken to a handful of times before. Many professors sent out empathetic and reassuring emails to students, and classrooms became spaces in which we acknowledged our shared uncertainties. Students and staff expressed mutual concern for each other. We came together and spent time together, alleviating the feelings we often experience in times of struggle of being alone in hardship. Tuesday’s news could have been an opportunity for us all to revert inwards and focus only on ourselves. We did not let it become that. [pullquote speaker="Lynn Travnikova" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Tuesday’s news could have been an opportunity for us all to revert inwards and focus only on ourselves. We did not let it become that.[/pullquote] There are three things I have observed about what it takes to create community that this week has made clear.  First, community is not and cannot be top-down, created by administrators and assumed by all of us — community begins and ends with every single person taking part in it however they can. It involves breaking down the arbitrary barriers that restrict the ways in which we interact and empathize with each other as human beings – letting cliques within the student body and distinctions like“student,” “staff,” and “faculty” dictate the level of humanity we are willing to extend to each other only chokes community. We broke down these barriers last week when we each stepped up. One of my professors emailed my class shortly after we all received the news, offering a ride or a home-cooked meal to anyone who could use one. People posted in the Middlebury Free & For Sale Facebook group offering free seats in their cars on their journeys home and bus tickets at whatever prices people could afford. Staff friends in the dining halls and the mailroom checked in with me to ask about my plans, and I saw other students having similar conversations with staff members asking about how they would be impacted by the imminent changes. These are examples of how people do their part in contributing to community which grows from the roots up. Second, community consists of individuals recognizing when they are in positions to give, and then giving. A friend of mine pointed out how starkly the coronavirus situation has highlighted levels of privilege on our campus: Whose immune system is strong enough to risk returning to a city with prevalent cases of coronavirus? Who has a car to drive home? Who has the funds to afford a flight home? Who even has a home to go back to? All of us are fortunate in ways that others are not. Community requires the acknowledgement of our individual good fortune to support those who are struggling with something that we can then help with. In this way, we all support each other, and we all win. We gain so much more than we could ever lose when we give. We gain human connection, which has become so valuable right now. We gain a sense of our own humanity from helping those in need. We feel connected to something larger than ourselves.  Lastly, community requires maintenance, and it is on all of us to maintain it. Community has sprung forth this week, but will it survive when we eventually return to campus? We’ve become more empathetic towards each other in the mutual acknowledgement that nobody is having an easy time right now. But why aren’t we always more forgiving with each other? Why don’t we look each other in the eyes and smile more as we walk past each other, even if we are strangers? At its core, community at Middlebury requires an acknowledgement of our shared humanity. This becomes easy when we are all so vulnerable, and I hope we find the strength and love to continue doing so when normalcy returns to our campus. We’re here together. We experience Middlebury very differently and separately, but we do so together.  Perhaps some of our divides cannot or will not ever be resolved. Regardless, I write this because what happened on our campus last week is worth commemorating. It is emblematic of community, and the potential we all have to transform Middlebury. Lynn Travnikova is a member of the class of 2020.5 and former co-chair of the Community Council.