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(11/30/17 12:09am)
The men’s hockey season is in full swing, with four games under the Panthers’ belts. The Panthers took to the ice on Saturday, Nov. 18, at Kenyon Arena looking to improve on last years run. With an 0–4 start, after their first two weekends of play, the young team is figuring out where it needs work and the pace of Nescac play.
The Panthers dropped the season opener to Colby falling 9–1. Saturday they tightened up their play and challenged Bowdoin in a 2–0 loss.
On Nov. 18, in the season opener, the Mules cruised past the Panthers from the first few minutes of the competition. Colby quickly got to work and broke past the Panther defense. At 2:43 in the opening period, the Mules’ Mike Rudolph found teammate Mario Benicky who tallied the first goal of the contest. Unfortunately for the Panthers, Colby did not take long to double their total within the first five minutes of play as another shot whistled past Panther goalie Stephen Klein ’18.
Less than 20 seconds later, Middlebury’s response came from Brendan Dawson ’20. He kept the Panthers in the game after creating his own opportunity and going the length of the ice for the tally. This cut the Colby lead to one goal as they headed into the second period. Middlebury would be unable to add to their total despite a number of scoring opportunities, including a couple of chances later on in the match.
Building off of momentum, the Mules capitalized on their lead netting three shots past the Panther goalie in the second period. Two of those strikes were on Mule power plays - at the 15:46 and 7:34 marks. The Panthers wasted a golden opportunity in that stanza, failing to score despite having a five on three power play advantage for almost two minutes.
In the last period, Colby continued to exploit a porous Middlebury defense, increasing their advantage by four. Benicky and J.P. Schuhlen each realized a hat trick, which helped to solidify the Mules’ first conference victory of the season.
Klein shared time between the pipes with Brian Ketchabaw ’20 and Henry Cutting ’19. The three netminders had 18, nine, and three saves respectively. Middlebury trailed Colby in shots on goal by 39–23, going a long way to explain the significant score differential.
Trevor Turnbull ’20 reflected on the team’s first appearance.
“I think it was more about execution than strategy,” said Turnbull. “We have a young team that is eager to erase last year’s mistakes, and I think that played against us come game time being that we came out with more nerves than energy.”
These nerves would come up again as Middlebury took to the ice to face Bowdoin the next day on Nov. 19. While the result was not the desired outcome, the Panthers showed a much improved defense that allowed only two goals to the visiting Polar Bears.
Bowdoin, coming off an 8–16–1 season last year, batted the puck past the Panther goalie with 11:43 gone in the first period to capture the early lead. The Panthers had a few opportunities within the first few minutes, but the visitors from Brunswick denied their attempts.
In the second period, the Panthers came to life outshooting the Polar Bears 13–5, but they were unable to capitalize on this significant shot differential.
Bowdoin secured their first triumph of the season with under eight minutes left in the game, when Thomas Dunleavy knocked a rebound past Middlebury.
With under two minutes of play, the Panthers had a power play and were up by two players where they pulled Klein to try to force a goal, and put them on the board. But, Bowdoin’s defense was bulletproof, however, and they were able to maintain their shutout.
The Panthers showed offensive improvement compared to their duel against Colby, by outshooting the Polar Bears 39–27.
“This week we are going to practice keeping our game fast and simple, trying to not do too much with the puck,” said Joey Piccinini ’20 after the opening-weekend thud. “If we are just able to do the little things better, we should see some success in the tournament this weekend.”
While Piccinini’s statement reflected the team’s optimism, it was not enough for the Panthers to come out on top this past weekend against either Lawrence and Norwich. The Panthers kept busy over the break and celebrated Thanksgiving by skating around their home rink at the PrimeLink Great Northern Shootout. The tournament’s contenders included Middlebury, Norwhich, Lawrence, and Plattsburgh State.
The Panthers were knocked out of the main draw with a 6–3 loss to Lawrence, although Middlebury started to show some significant strides as they led 2–1 after one period and were tied half way through the third.
Nonetheless, the Panthers put up a strong fight against Lawrence in Kenyon Arena in the first round. Middlebury came out firing in the first period, with an aggressive offense that the Vikings were not prepared to face. The Panthers wasted no time in penetrating the Lawrence defense, and ultimately found their opportunity.
In the first few minutes, transfer Owen Powers ’20 paved the way for the first goal of the game as he swatted the puck back to Ryan Ashe ’21 after winning a faceoff. It was Michael Fahie ’21 who then found the back of the net and pulled the Panthers ahead. But the Vikings took less than three minutes to respond to the Panthers, equalizing the score. The Panthers proceeded to double their lead when Kamil Tkaczuk ’19 found an opening past the Viking goalie at the 8:59 mark.
Middlebury’s greatest challenge throughout the second period came from numerous penalties. However, the stanza held scoreless until Lawrence was able to breach the Panther defense and climb to 2–2 heading into the final time frame.
With a tie game on the line, the Panthers would have to compete with the intensity they had in the first period in the last 20 minutes.
Three minutes into the last stanza though, Lawrence’s Jake Roeper slid a shot past the Middlebury keeper, lifting them to a one goal advantage. But, the Panthers were able to momentarily erase the Vikings’ lead after Powers skillfully struck a shot past their goalie. This would be Middlebury’s last response to Lawrence, as the Vikings secured their spot in the next round of the tournament slapping back three quick goals past the Middlebury defense and finalizing the total to 6–3.
“The biggest thing for us is tightening up our systems and playing a full 60 minutes,” said Ethan Cohen ’19. “The team we are capable of being has been there in stretches all season, and it was there for much of this weekend.
“Focusing on cutting down on mistakes will get us where we need to be,” Cohen added. “It’s definitely early enough to turn the season around and we believe that we’re capable of doing so.”
Finally, last Saturday Nov. 25, the Panthers looked to take another step forward against the defending national champion, Norwich, in the consolation round. While the Panthers came up short in the tall task, losing 5–1, they had an opportunity to match up in the season’s early going against one of the country’s best.
For the first nine minutes of the matchup, neither team was able to get on the board. It was only off of a power play that Norwich tallied their first goal. Seconds before the 15 minute mark, Fahie tapped in the second goal of his career as a Panther, matching the Cadets’ total and pulling the Panthers even 1–1 with the national champs. Unfortunately, this would be Middlebury’s last scoring play of the tournament.
The Cadets would go on to net four more shots in the last two periods, with no response from the hosts. Middlebury only trailed Norwich 33–27 in shots on goal, but they were not able to capitalize on these opportunities as Cadet goalie Tom Aubrun was stellar, recording 26 saves. Middlebury also failed to exploit three power play opportunities, coming up empty handed on each of them.
Fahie was named to the all-tournament team.
The men’s hockey team will continue to battle for their first victory this weekend against another couple of Nescac rivals. Tomorrow they will be at Connecticut College and Saturday they travel to play at Tufts.
(11/30/17 12:07am)
After the dust settled on their national title, we chased down the star-studded senior class — Annie Leonard, Lauren Schweppe, Caroline Knapp, Carson Peacock, Audrey Quirk, and Eva Dunphy — of the field hockey team and asked them to share some thoughts on their tremendous careers and their fitting capstone season. Read on for some brief excerpts of what they had to say.
On what it’s like to be a member of the Middlebury field hockey team:
Eva Dunphy: Something that has made being a member of this team so special is that, since we joined the team, it has always felt like one big family. I’ve been on a lot of different teams, but I’ve never been on one that has been as loving, supportive and close as the the one this program has cultivated.
Caroline Knapp: When we are together we try not to separate by class, which is a huge positive of our team. We all hang out and joke around with each other, and it is unimportant what year someone is. Over the past few years, older players always emphasized that everyone must have space to have her voice heard, so that every individual feels like she has a place, no matter if she is a first-year, sophomore, junior, or senior. I feel like I’m always learning from my teammates, regardless of their year.
Lauren Schweppe: Our coaching staff, led by Coach [Katharine] DeLorenzo is the heart and soul of the team. DeLo is more than a coach to her players. Throughout my four years on the team she has always put emphasis on fulfilling our potential as people and not just as athletes.
Carson Peacock: Having the opportunity to play for Coach DeLorenzo has taught me more about how to be the kind of person that I want to be than anything else. She is unyieldingly dedicated to the game and this team and she pours herself wholeheartedly into each season. She has taught me about passion, hard work, and attention to detail; how to lead by example, how to expect results from those working with me, and what it means to work and operate within a team. She has showed me how I can create the kind of relationships that I want and has helped me to understand the kind of person that I want to be.
I know that all of the seniors are so incredibly grateful for her expertise, love and support and that it would have been a completely different team and an entirely different four years without her.
On their historic 2017 championship run:
Peacock: This season felt different than any other. Like every year, we went into the season hungry for a championship. However, I would say that it wasn’t until after about halfway through the season that we realized how good we were and how serious of a shot we had.
I distinctly remember talking to Audrey [Quirk] and commenting on the fact that we were going to win it all, that we just knew somehow, a kind of feeling that we had never had before. And I think a lot of that feeling came from how the team approached the game this season.
While many teams were eager and enthusiastic to take us down, our team was never concerned with how other teams saw us. We knew and treated every game as if it would be competitive. There was an attention to detail that was wholly embraced by the entire team, and this made us seniors, as leaders of the team, feel more confident in this team than we had ever felt before.
Annie Leonard: What’s most exciting about the postseason is that previous games, records, and statistics are irrelevant: the team that shows up to play is the one that will come out ahead. When November rolled around, we were a totally different team than we were in pre-season, and even than we were in our last regular season game.
We found our rhythm on the field and there was an energy and feeling of connectedness with our passes and set plays that is almost indescribable.
In postseason, nothing is guaranteed, but the team thrives under that constant pressure and it brings out the best in us. Knowing the end goal and how badly we all wanted it maintained our focus. We never let any circumstances affect our game; it was mental toughness that propelled us forward.
On the 2017 NCAA Championship match, a 4–0 victory over reigning national champion Messiah:
Leonard: As seniors, having the opportunity to play our last collegiate game on a beautiful field against the team that ended our season last year, and for the championship title, there wasn’t really much else we could ask for. The circumstances were beyond perfect.
There were definitely some butterflies going into the game, but more for excitement than nerves. In the end, we were looking to play the best game of field hockey we’ve ever played, and we did just that, both on an individual and team level.
Statistically speaking, the game was evenly split, but we capitalized on our opportunities, which allowed us to maintain pressure on our opponents up until the 70th minute.
Winning the game, it was a feeling of pure joy, of happiness, of accomplishment, and of pride. Especially as seniors, we knew what it felt like to win a national championship and wanted nothing more than for our underclassmen to experience that same incredible feeling. For us, to have and share that feeling one more time is particularly special.
On what they hope to have left behind, and the teammates who will carry the standard:
Knapp: The legacy that I hope we leave behind is one of passion, drive, compassion, and support, not just within the realm of athletics but also in life. Being a great field hockey player alone is not what has made this team so wonderful to be on and successful, though that is obviously a piece of it, but rather it is being around supportive teammates, who want to hear how your day was, want to know how you are doing, and want to lift you up.
That support will continue to be a part of the core of this team and benefit each member. I know that I’ve benefited greatly from this support system and can only help that I have given back to my teammates, what they have given me.
Dunphy: The program is headed in such a good direction — there is so much talent and the returning players are an amazing group of players and people. The rising seniors are already great team leaders. They’ll do a great job instilling the values important to MCFH in the incoming group of first-years and setting an example for the rest of the team.
Schweppe: As seniors, we couldn’t have asked for a better group of underclassmen. I know their energy and love for the team and for field hockey will carry over in years to come. The advice I would give to the underclassmen is to value and enjoy your time on this team, because it’s truly a special experience.
I wish I could do it all over again.
(Unfortunately, we were unable to reach Quirk, but we have it on good word that she agrees with her teammates on the above.)
(11/30/17 12:02am)
The tree on the main quad behind Old Chapel was lit up for the first time this season on Monday night.
Power was first brought out to the tree in 1984, and the lights have been strung each year since. “Jack Dapsis, our electrician, began decorating that particular tree, and he continues to do so to this day,” said Luther Tenny, assistant director of facility services.
The tree, a 45-foot Norway spruce, takes just over a day to decorate. “We have what we call our ‘man lift,’ a lift on wheels, that we drive out there and string the lights,” said Tenny.
The lights go up around Thanksgiving and are taken down in January or February.
“I always look forward to the lights going on the tree and it helps with the stress of finals, even if it’s just a little bit,” said Julia Hower ’19.
The candles in the windows of Old Chapel go up earlier. “That tradition started around 1998 after the renovation of Old Chapel. And those are LED bulbs in those, so those don’t use much for energy and last quite a long time,” said Tenny. The lights on the tree, however, are not LED. “At some point we’ll convert them over,” Tenny said.
Middlebury played an important role in the history of Christmas trees. In 1923, the college presented President Calvin Coolidge with a tree from his home state of Vermont to be the first national Christmas tree. The national tree stands on the Ellipse, next to the White House.
Although since replaced by other trees, the president has lit the national Christmas tree every winter since 1923 at a large ceremony called the national Christmas tree lighting.
At 48 feet tall, the first national Christmas tree resembled the tree on the quad.
(11/29/17 11:59pm)
The women’s basketball team hit the road for its first four games of the season and won all four, taking two wins at the Emerson Tip-Off Classic on Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 18 and 19, then defeating Johnson St. 74–27 on Tuesday, Nov. 21, and Clarkson 53–49 on Sunday, Nov. 26.
Middlebury opened its season at the Emerson Tip-Off Classic against the host, Emerson.
The Panthers jumped out to 10–0 lead and led 23–14 at the end of the first quarter. Thereafter they would only add to their lead by outscoring the Lions 19–5 in the second quarter to take a 43–19 lead into halftime.
Things were relatively even in the second half, and Middlebury easily moved to 1–0 on the season with an 80–55 victory. Sarah Kaufman ’18 led the team in scoring with 12 points, while Sabrina Weeks ’18 and Lily Kuntz ’20 both added ten off the bench.
In their second game of the quasi-round robin tournament, the Panthers shut down Mount Saint Mary, winning its second game 59–34. The Knights shot only 24 percent from the field, only making 10 field goals, while turning the ball over 24 times.
Once again, the Panthers got contributions off the bench as Betsy Knox ’20 scored a game-high 12 points. Colleen Caveney ’19 added nine en route to being named the classic’s Most Outstanding Player.
Next, the Panthers travelled to play at Johnson St. on Tuesday, Nov. 21, where they dominated once more to come away with a 74–27 victory. After the first half, Middlebury led 50–9.
In another balanced effort, Caveney tallied 12 points on four of five shooting in only 11 minutes, and Weeks added 12 points off the bench as well. No Middlebury player saw more than 17 minutes of action in the contest.
The Panthers’ competition got much tougher in their final matchup of the four-game slate at Clarkson on Sunday, Nov. 26.
After one quarter, the score was tied at 15, but Middlebury surged ahead, outscoring the Golden Knights by nine points in the second quarter to take a 31–22 lead into the locker room.
Clarkson responded in the third quarter by cutting the lead to two entering the final quarter.
Middlebury went on a 5–0 run to go ahead 47–40, but Clarkson came right back with a 6–0 run of its one to make it a one-point game with 3:39 remaining. The teams traded baskets around the two minute mark, and Middlebury held off Clarkson over the last two minutes to secure a 53–49 victory.
Alex Huffman ’19 scored the Panthers’ last four points and secured the rebound on Clarkson’s three-point attempt that would have tied the game at 52 with 15 seconds left.
No Panther scored in double figures, but 10 chipped in with Maya Davis ’20 and Catherine Harrison ’19 leading the way with eight points.
Neither team shot particularly well, as the Panthers finished at 31 percent from the field and the Golden Knights at 24 percent.
Middlebury will return to action when it travels to Colby-Sawyer on Friday, Dec. 1. They return home to play Plattsburgh St. on Tuesday, Dec. 5.
(11/29/17 11:57pm)
The eighth-ranked men’s basketball team swept its first four games of the season for the first time in four years, highlighted by winning its own tournament the weekend before Thanksgiving before winning two games on the road over break.
In the first tournament ever hosted by the men’s basketball team, the Panthers swamped Fitchburg St. 111–72 on Friday, Nov. 17, and dismissed Wentworth 74–58 on Saturday, Nov. 18, to win the tournament. Then, Middlebury went on the road to beat Johnson St. 84–77 on Tuesday, Nov. 21, and Endicott 78–67 on Sunday, Nov. 26.
Jack Daly ’18 led the way for the Panthers in all four wins, averaging 19.5 points, 11.5 rebounds, and 8.8 assists per game so far this season and recording what is believed to be the first triple-double in program history in the season-opener against Fitchburg St.
Middlebury came out firing in their season-opener at home in Pepin Gymnasium on Friday, Nov. 17.
Midway through the first half, the Panthers already held a 36–16 lead over Fitchburg St. And at the end of the first half, Middlebury led 62–27. The team shot 60 percent from the field, including eight of 12 from beyond the arc, and made 18 of 24 free throws, while the Falcons shot only 24 percent from the field.
The second half was much closer as Fitchburg St. shot the ball much better in the second half, but Middlebury was up by enough of a margin that it didn’t matter, as they won very comfortably by the final score of 111–72.
Along with Daly’s triple-double of 10 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists, Matt Folger ’20 led the Panthers in scoring with 17 on six of nine shooting and Eric McCord ’19 added 15 off the bench on a perfect seven of seven from the field. All in all, it was a balanced effort for the Panthers, as five players scored in double digits and every player on the roster played and scored.
As a team, the Panthers shot 56 percent from the field and knocked down 12 of their 23 three point attempts. They also assisted on 27 of their 36 baskets.
“Our motto on offense is ‘one more’ and that means we make the extra pass to get a great shot instead of a good shot,” said Daly of the Panthers’ offensive success on Friday. “Our success on offense stems from our passing and everyone’s selflessness. No one cares who gets the credit as long as we put the ball in the hoop. We are playing our up-tempo style to get easy points and look to tire the opponents out. It’s a lot of fun playing on a team that averages 20 assists per game and people take pride in sharing the ball.”
In the championship game of the Middlebury Tournament on Saturday, Nov. 18, Middlebury’s offense cooled from its white-hot pace on Friday, but the Panthers still handled Wentworth 74–58 to win the tournament.
Ahead by only one point with 6:19 remaining in the first half, the Panthers rattled off an 11–2 run over the next three minutes to take a 10-point lead, which was where they stood at halftime leading 38–28.
Wentworth cut the lead to seven points twice in the second half but could never get it lower than that, and the Panthers rode to the 74–58 win. Daly helped seal the Middlebury victory with 20 second-half points on seven of eight shooting, on his way to a career-high 25 points. For his efforts, Daly was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. Folger joined Daly on the all-tournament team, adding 15 points, nine rebounds, and three blocks on Saturday. Adisa Majors ’18 also chipped in 14 points on seven of nine from the field and seven rebounds in the win.
After shooting over 50 percent from three-point range against Fitchburg St., the Panthers made only 29 percent of their three-point attempts against the Leopards. Still, the Panthers shot 50 percent from the field and held Wentworth under 60 points and to 36 percent shooting.
“When the shots aren’t falling, we just have to make sure our defense is executing,” Daly said. “We gave up under 60 points against Wentworth, so I’m confident that if we can do that then we will win the game. Coach has been preaching that we must bring intensity, energy and passion to the defensive side.
“We can’t expect perfection this early in the season, but it’s been a great start to the season going 4–0.”
After two days off, Middlebury went on the road for its first away game of the season at Johnson St. on Tuesday, Nov. 21. The Badgers went ahead 16–14 7:19 into the first half, but the Panthers went on a 15–0 run over the next six minutes to take a thirteen-point lead. Middlebury’s lead grew to as great as 17 points, and the Panthers went into the locker with a 44–27 lead.
The Panthers extended their lead to 21 in the first four minutes of the second half, but then the Badgers started to slowly chip away, cutting Middlebury’s lead to as little as eight with just over seven minutes left in the contest. Middlebury responded with a 6–0 spurt, and the lead never fell below 10 until the Badgers hit a shot in garbage time that made the final score 84–77 in Middlebury’s favor.
The pair of Daly and Folger led the Panthers once more. Daly tallied 24 points, a career-high 15 rebounds and eight assists, while Folger added 21 points, 12 rebounds, four assists, two blocks and two steals.
Marqwon Wynn kept the Badgers in the contest by scoring a game-high 29 points, including 17 in the second half.
Middlebury aimed to start 4–0 for the first time in four seasons when it took to the court at Endicott on Sunday, Nov. 26. Last season, the Panthers hosted Endicott on the Sunday after Thanksgiving with a 3–0 record too, but fell to the Gulls 93–89. The Panthers got their revenge in the NCAA Tournament Sectional Semifinal, when they routed the Gulls 89–60. Adding to the intrigue, Endicott entered the contest 2–0 after upsetting No. 7 Babson on its home-court two days prior to its matchup with the Panthers.
This time around, Middlebury would not be denied a 4–0 start, fueled by an 11–0 run to end the first half to take a 38–23 lead into the break. The Panthers extended their lead to 20 in the first five minutes of the second half, but once again, Endicott chipped away at their lead until it was just six with over six minutes to go. Middlebury responded with five quick points, and the game never got any closer, ending in a 78–67 road victory for the Panthers.
“The two games against Johnson St. and Endicott were road games and for the new guys that’s a tough environment to play in,” Daly said. “It’s a learning process at this point in the season and I thought they all did a tremendous job in handling themselves and keeping their composure. We expect teams to make runs on their home court, so it’s important how we handle those runs and in both games we did a great job of answering. A road win is never easy, so to be 2–0 on the road so far is great.”
Daly led the Panthers in scoring with a game-high 19 points and almost had his second triple-double of the season, coming up one rebound and one assist short. Fellow captain Nick Tarantino ’18 tallied a season-high 17 points and 10 rebounds, while Hilal Dahleh ’19 added a career-high 18 points on six of seven shooting, including 4 of five from three-point range.
Endicott’s Keith Brown entered the contest leading the NCAA in scoring with 41.5 ppg, including 45 in the Gulls’ upset victory over Babson, but scored only 15 on 5–13 shooting against Middlebury.
“Coach devised a great defensive plan and we executed it perfectly,” Daly said. “He had five turnovers, and we limited his touches. The coaching staff put us in a great position to slow him down. The rotations were great which was a crucial part in slowing him down.”
Middlebury will return to the court on Tuesday, Dec. 5, when it hosts Plattsburgh St. (0–2) in its final home game before final exams. The two teams last met two seasons ago, when the Panthers defeated the Cardinals 71–49.
(11/16/17 12:56am)
The Student Government Association (SGA) Finance Committee has allocated $2,500 to help students receiving financial aid pay for Winter Term workshops. The SGA has added other improvements intended to streamline the application process and improve accessibility to workshops.
Every year, the Student Activities office hosts non-credit, student-led workshops, ranging from board game building to log rolling. However, since the workshops program does not have its own budget and is entirely self-sustaining, there is a fee for enrollment.
The SGA’s financial aid program was first conceptualized by former president Karina Toy ’17, student activities dean Derek Doucet, and former finance committee chair Kevin Benscheidt ’17 in the winter of 2016.
At the time, average enrollment costs stood at $33.50, and Toy recognized that some could impose a financial burden on students who wished to participate.
The previous model relied on a two-step reimbursement process, which caused a number of students who could not register in time to lose their aid opportunity. Under the SGA’s new policy, the aid application is embedded in the registration process for the Winter Term workshops.
“There will be no upfront payment required and aid awardees will not be billed,” said Jin Sohn ’18, the current SGA president. “Students’ spots will be held in the workshop until their eligibility for aid has been confirmed. In order to maintain confidentiality the SGA will never see the names of students who apply for or receive aid, nor any of their financial information.”
The finance committee, including chair Peter Dykeman-Bermingham ’18.5 and deputy chair Isabella Martus ’19, worked with Doucet and the financial aid office to implement a model that both protected students’ privacy and made it convenient to apply for aid.
“[We] wanted to remove any perceived social stigma from applying. We all know that issues of socioeconomic status are present on our campus, and we were concerned that students might be reluctant to apply if they thought their peers would be involved in any way in the application process,” Doucet said.
“We therefore needed to come up with a way to ensure it was only college staff who reviewed the applications, while still providing transparency so the SGA could see, in general terms, how their money was spent.”
In the new model, the Student Activities office collects aid applications and cross-checks with the Student Financial Services office to ensure that the applications meet the criteria set forth by the SGA. By serving as the only line of communication with applicants, the Student Activities aims to ensure confidentiality of student financial aid status.
In addition, Doucet worked to ensure that SGA assistance would not impact recipients’ overall financial aid status.
Dykeman-Bermingham hopes the program will enable more students to participate in a quintessential aspect of Middlebury.
“J-Term workshops are Middlebury’s most explicit format for students to learn from their peers. They are so often odd, fun filled monuments of student passion and they should be part of everyone’s Middlebury experience,” he said.
Registration for the workshops begin midnight on Sunday, Nov. 19, and end on Sunday, Dec. 17. Aid applications close on Dec. 9, and are awarded on a first-come, first-serve basis.
(11/16/17 12:44am)
In a class last week, I co-led a discussion on “Travesties,” Tom Stoppard’s play partly inspired by “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Being the studious student I am, I brought with me “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde” in case I needed to reference his work and/or pretend to be more well-read than I am.
As I pulled the book out of my backpack and threw it on the table, without thinking I said, “I brought the Bible!” One classmate half-chuckled.
Though my remark was made in jest, the more I thought about it, the more it felt like the truth. Having been raised without religion, for me, the Bible is just another book. So, my self-proclaimed joke about Wilde got me thinking, “What is my Bible?”
It could be Wilde’s collected works. His essays and novel have informed my view of art more than any other, and “The Importance of Being Earnest” is more or less the reason I study drama. But what else could it be?
Perhaps it is “United States: Essays 1952–1992,” Gore Vidal’s gargantuan collection of essays, which, to my mind, is the gold standard for U.S. political commentary. Whether you agree with Vidal’s views doesn’t matter, he is a master craftsman and the first writer I turn to for perspective on the 20th century. As much as I admire Vidal and treasure his body of work, his essays can’t be my Bible, can they?
If I were to answer the question ironically, I suppose my Bible could be “God Is Not Great” by Christopher Hitchens, the writer whose words first made me feel comfortable in my lifelong disbelief.
Maybe it’s “Harry Potter,” the series to which I have the strongest emotional connection, the books that first taught me about friendship, perseverance and loss.
Last week, as part of an internship application, I was asked to name my favorite book. I went with my gut reaction: “In Cold Blood.” It’s one I discovered after a rough first semester at Middlebury, when I ordered a stack of books from Amazon. Truman Capote’s seminal piece of new journalism was packaged on top, so I read it. I now have a personal connection to the novel because it came at a time when I needed to temporarily leave our world for a different one.
And that’s the one thing all these books, and others, and some I have yet to find, have in common: They’ve been there for me when I needed them, when I needed guidance, reaffirmation or to escape. They’re my Bibles.
(11/16/17 12:33am)
When Annie Ulrich ’13 describes Atwater Dining Hall, she describes a space that carries a magical dimension mirroring the fantastically bright world of the movie “La La Land.” Ulrich created “Sum of All Parts,” a public art piece at Atwater Dining that fills its high ceiling with more than eight hundred whimsical paper planes made from recycled papers, projects and problem sets.
During regular mealtime hours, lights from the ceiling illuminate the planes’ pages, yellowed with age and exposure and interconnected by cobwebs. The composition of the fleet creates a sense of dynamic movement so that, according to Annie, the planes seem to be in the middle of spiraling forward despite their static position in space.
“When you look at it from the back, through the beautiful large windows at night,” she said, “it feels like that space has something going on after hours, after everyone has left.”
Change seems to be a recurring theme when Ulrich speaks about the installation, which began as a project for her studio art senior independent study course. “Sum of All Parts” was created three times, each time for a different purpose. The piece was remade for Atwater Dining after Ulrich was presented with the CAPP award, a yearly award established by the Committee for Art in Public Places (CAPP) to honor a graduating senior. The most recent recipient of the award is Daniella Silva ’17, whose work is currently on display in the lower lobby of the Axinn Center at Starr Library.
As most CAPP pieces only stay on campus for one to two years, maintenance was not one of Ulrich’s priorities when considering the installation of “Sum of All Parts.” CAPP is now considering either a thorough cleaning of the piece or its removal.
Aided by the liberal use of a hot glue-gun, the paper planes were attached to mechanical wires, which were then attached to hoops that hung from the ceiling of the dining hall. Unfortunately, the same quality that allowed the piece to be easily mounted makes the piece vulnerable to the advances of time. Dust has been collecting in the folds of the paper and a colony of spiders have made their own additions to the piece through a series of artfully interconnected cobwebs.
Richard Saunders, the director of CAPP, says that the installation’s fate has not yet been decided, and sees enthusiasm in the college community to keep the piece.
According to Saunders, the selection process for the recipient of the CAPP award involves an “organic process” that allows members of the community to vote for the work of one of three nominated graduating students to reflect current interests of the student body and highlights of the studio art program. Included in the CAPP award is an agreement that the artwork will be displayed for approximately two years, after which it will be returned to the creator of the piece.
The removal or addition of a new installation is guided by practical considerations requiring a collaborative effort between the Space Management Committee, Campus Facilities and CAPP, which has recently undergone formal reorganization into a bicameral system that Saunders likens to the House and Senate of the American political system.
“There was never a plan to put all the works [of public art] in one location,” Saunders said. “The works are meant to engage, to be placed where people are likely to see them. Many students don’t make it to the Museum in their four years here, and the Public Arts program is an opportunity for unexpected encounters with art.” Often, Saunders added, the public art that seems to fade to the background of our daily lives eventually becomes an integral part of students’ experiences at Middlebury.
Ulrich, who returned to the college after graduation as the college’s associate costume director, echoed this notion. She noticed that other alumni who returned to visit saw the changes in the campus’s appearance as a reflection of changes in the more general campus scene.
“Art transforms a space by its presence but some art is not meant to last” Ulrich said. She points to professional artist Patrick Dougherty’s temporary piece, “So Inclined,” which inhabited the front lawn of the Mahaney Center of the Arts from 2007 to 2011 before practical reasons necessitated its removal. The changes in both Dougherty’s piece and hers reflect a natural process that occurs over time.
“Art doesn’t have to be this monument that just sits there,” Ulrich said. Interactive and accessible, Ulrich’s works are meant to invite viewers not to “come and adore me,” but rather to “come and play with me.”
At the last meeting of the CAPP, Professor Sanford Mirling of the studio art department presented a tri-college public art exchange program with Bennington College and Plattsburg State University. Through this program, three works from the Franconia Sculpture Park in Minnesota will be on loan for two years to each of the three schools, after which time the schools will exchange the works with each other. As permanent acquisition and maintenance works of art can be expensive, the public art exchange program, as Saunders points out, offers a means for the college to less expensively bring new works of art to campus and take calculated risks by bringing controversial works that will spark discussions in the public sphere and update the public art program to become truly contemporary.
Opportunities for student-directed public art are available through the CAPP fund. Saunders cites the murals in Proctor Dining Hall and at the back of Wright Memorial Theater as works which were either executed or proposed by students.
Ross Commons has also made an effort to bring student-created art into living spaces. Professor Maria Hatjigeorgiou, faculty co-head of Ross Commons, says that accessible art takes a special role in humanizing a living space as crowded as that which the “Rossers” inhabit. Near the Ross Commons Office, she points to the wall on which a collection called “100 Daves” had been displayed. The work was curated by senior Andrew Smith ’17 and its name is a pun on the eponymous final 100 days before seniors graduate from the college. The white brick wall is now empty.
“Look at that,” she said, her tone jokingly disdainful. “That is an institutional wall.”
Hatjigeorgiou speaks about her role in “setting an intellectual tone” for the students in a way that is similar to the presence of art in daily life.
“What we do is invisible,” she says, “but it permeates a space.” She refers to the commons in which a student belongs as the “intellectual home” where he or she individuates. In this process of differentiation, Hatjigeorgiou reasons, art is the medium that, “lends voices to people who may be quiet and introspective, who are not speaking out loud, who need art in their lives.”
“We sometimes have to be cautious with the art we display,” Hatjigeorgiou said, “because it might invite disrespect. We have to create a balance between being hopeful and doing what is practical. But I’m an idealist. I believe in art. Art humanizes.”
(11/16/17 12:13am)
The men’s basketball team’s goals entering the season are clear. First, the Panthers want to secure home-court advantage for the Nescac playoffs by finishing first in the regular season standings. Then, they want to win the Nescac for the third straight season, this time at Pepin Gymnasium. From there, having secured a spot in the NCAA tournament, they have their sights set on Salem, Virginia, and their first Final Four berth since 2011.
Last season, the Panthers had a trip to Salem within their reach, but ultimately fell a bucket short, losing to Williams 79–75 in the NCAA quarterfinals. The bitter taste of losing to a Nescac rival on their home court in one of the biggest games in school history remains in the mouths of the returning Panthers.
“We were a minute, a bucket away last year,” said team captain Jack Daly ’18. “So we know what it takes to get back there, the mentality, the work ethic it will take.”
To achieve these goals, Middlebury must find ways to replace the production of four graduating seniors, including All-American Matt St. Amour ’17 who is third on the program’s all-time scoring list, and four-year starting point guard and All-Nescac selection Jake Brown ’17. The class of 2017 went a combined 89–31 over its four years at Middlebury.
Daly and his fellow captains, Nick Tarantino ’18 and Adisa Majors ’18, make up the senior class charged with leading the effort to replicate and then build upon last year’s success. Daly, a two-year starter who led the Panthers in rebounding and was second in scoring and assisting last year, will take the lead in the backcourt after partnering with Brown and St. Amour for the last two seasons.
“We had three great guards last year, now we have just Jack,” said Tarantino about Daly, the only returning guard who figured into head coach Jeff Brown’s regular rotation last year. “This guy is going to have the ball in his hands, instead of a third of the time, like 95 percent of the time.”
On the other hand, Daly and Tarantino both expect the front court to assume a bigger role since that is where the bulk of Middlebury’s experience returns. Majors (9.6) is Middlebury’s second returning leading scorer, Eric McCord ’19 (7.9) third, Tarantino (6.8) fourth and Matt Folger ’20 (6.5) fifth.
“I expect between Nick, Adisa, Matt and Eric, who were kind of seen as second-tier to the three guards last year, to be able to fill the leadership voids left by Brown and St. Amour on the court,” Daly said. “I expect them to increase production, rebounding, scoring and efficiency. They’re going to be the face of our team this year. So, for them, their consistency is going to be expected, and they’re ready to take on that challenge.”
Unlike last year, when the Panthers were perimeter-oriented, Daly and Tarantino agree their big men will play much bigger roles this season.
“The majority of our returning players, besides Jack, that played significant minutes last year are big men,” said Tarantino. “I think we’ll play a little more inside-out this year, while still playing high-tempo, pushing the basketball in transition.”
What Tarantino refers to, up-tempo basketball, is a given for Middlebury men’s basketball these days. Coach Brown has built his program based on three main tenets: fast tempo, passing and defense, and he has been quite successful doing so, entering his 21st season at the helm with a 336–189 record which is the best in the program’s history.
Even though there will be turnover in personnel, Daly and Tarantino know the Panthers will stick to Brown’s philosophy.
“I think our playing style will be similar in terms of tempo, defense first, passing first,” Tarantino said.
“Coach Brown preaches every day in practice that we’re still going to play up-tempo, score 90 points a game, get 20 assists a game, and lock up on defense,” added Daly. “That’s the way he’s coached for 20 years, and he recruits players that can do that and adjust to that style has been very successful for him over his tenure.”
Several players who were either not on the team last year or played sparingly will need to step up and play more meaningful roles for Brown. The team especially needs players who can shoot the basketball, since the graduating class combined for over 70 percent of the team’s three pointers last season. A playmaker or two will also need to emerge since Jake Brown created so many plays last year with his passing and quickness to the basket.
Tarantino and Daly admitted that it is not possible to replace two great players like St. Amour and Brown individually, so the team must figure out how to do it collectively.
“We can’t expect to replace any of them,” Daly said. “You almost have to look to multiple players to do certain qualities that they brought to the team. So no one person is going to shoot as well as Matt or at the rate he shot at, but someone can hit one more three than he did last year or a freshman can come in and hit a three. No one player will create as well as Jake did, but a couple players can make a couple plays each game. So you really can’t replace great players like that. They go down in history at Middlebury, so it playing with the players you have.”
In the backcourt, Perry DeLorenzo ’20 and Joey Leighton ’20 have an opportunity to fill the shooting void as sophomores after not being given many opportunities in their rookie seasons.
“Perry and Joey have been playing very well in practice,” said Daly. “They’ve been shooting the ball very well. If they can keep that up, they can definitely see some time on the court because they can knock down some shots. They maybe didn’t play as much as they wanted last year, but taking the year to watch the college game, to watch St. Amour and Brown, they can really take something away from that. You definitely see that in practice, where their IQs of the game have definitely jumped from last year. It’s always great to have people on the court who can knock down shots and put points on the board.”
Max Bosco ’21 and Ryan Cahill ’21 could have similar impacts in their first year as DeLorenzo and Leighton, spreading the floor for a Panther team in fairly desperate need of spacing on the offensive end.
“Max has been shooting the lights out in practice,” Daly said. “And Ryan is a very versatile big who has been knocking down some shots and can put the ball on the floor.”
Jack Farrell ’21 profiles as a player with the potential to replace some of Jake Brown’s playmaking from the point guard position. He can handle the ball when Daly is out of the game or pair with Daly in two point guard lineups that coach Brown used so often last season.
“He’s very quick. His quickness is very similar to Jake’s from last year,” Daly said. “He’s an energizer bunny. The kid is up-and-down the court in three seconds, he can play make, is on your hip the entire 94 feet. He can definitely have an impact because he can play make and he can play defense, and those are two things coach looks for in a point guard.”
Will Ingram ’21, a tough-nosed defender, Griffin Kornaker ’21, who is injured right now, and James Finn ’20.5, a walk-on, round out a first-year class that complements each other well by providing a combination of shooting, defense and inside play to support the team’s returning foundation.
Since the Panthers are filling so many new roles entering the season, coach Brown has focused on instilling his basketball values in his team. More so than last year, Brown has to build from the ground up to reach a level where they can compete for Nescac and NCAA championships. He has spent a lot of time preaching an up-tempo, passing offense to his team, as well as using a lot of practice to put half-court offensive in place. Defensively and offensively, he wants to ensure that his team is always communicating, since younger guys are often more timid on the court. Brown and his team recognize how far they are from their lofty goals at this point in the season, and how capable they are of accomplishing them if they commit to improving as a unit.
People outside the program expect big things from Middlebury again this winter as well: D3hoops.com has the Panthers at no. 8 in its national preseason poll.
Still, Middlebury is looking up in the rankings at No. 3 Williams and No. 6 Tufts. As always, the battle for the Nescac championship will be fierce. The Panthers know they can take nothing for granted because everyone is going to be at their best against the two-time defending Nescac champions.
“Being that reigning champion, people always want to take you down,” said Daly. “Going into every game, we expect the best from our opponent, which means we have to bring our A-game every day. Those rankings really don’t mean anything to us because they are based off last year. They aren’t based off our current roster. It’s nice to be recognized, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t mean anything. We have to come into every game with the same mentality of do whatever it takes to win.”
Tarantino put the rankings in perspective, especially given that it is the preseason rankings.
“It’s only a ranking, and we’re playing for a championship, a Final Four,” added Tarantino. “We’re not playing for the Coaches poll.”
The Panthers will take the court for the first time tomorrow evening at 7 p.m. in Pepin Gym where they host Fitchburg St. in the Middlebury Tournament, the first ever regular season tournament held at Middlebury.
(11/16/17 12:10am)
The women’s basketball team has high hopes for their new season that will tip-off in two days on Saturday, Nov. 18, when they will take part in the Emerson Tip-Off Classic. Expectations are high, especially because the Panthers return last year’s cohort that finished 17–8, good enough to earn a home game in the Nescac Tournament.
Perhaps the most impressive part of last season’s overall success is that the team did not have a senior on the roster. Now, with everyone from last year’s squad back, the addition of a pair of first-year guards, Kirsten Long ’21 and Emily Wander ’21, and the return of Eileen Daley ’18, the prospects for the 2017–18 edition of the Panthers are exciting.
“We’re going to be a much deeper team than we have been,” Krasco said. “I think this is the biggest it’s been since I’ve been here.”
The roster size, now at 15, is in fact Krasco’s deepest. It is probably the deepest team the Panthers have had in recent memory. This will have many advantages as the season progresses. For now though, fourth-year head coach K.J. Krasco is excited about the enthusiasm and promise her team has displayed in practice.
“We have no weak links and I firmly believe we have all the players to have a positive outcome,” Krasco said. She, along with the rest of the coaching staff, hope to strengthen the hunger and ambition of this year’s team.
Senior captain Rachel Collins ’18 and junior captain Catherine Harrison ’19 are determined to get the season off to a strong start. Since returning to campus in the fall, they have led offseason training by organizing pickup games and getting themselves and their teammates involved in lifting programs. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the behind-the-scenes steps the Panthers have taken to improve this offseason. The team feels that they collectively enter the season in peak physical condition, which has allowed Krasco to implement the team’s strategies on both ends of the floor, and to focus on perfecting fundamentals and technical aspects of the game.
“Our practices have definitely been more competitive,” Krasco said, hinting at how her team is ready to get the season underway.
Harrison will look to pick up where she left off last season in which she almost averaged a double-double with 9.6 points and 8.4 rebounds-per-game. Equally important to this season’s success will be the development of the team’s five sophomores Maya Davis ’20, Betsy Knox ’20, Kira Waldman ’20, Vanessa Young ’20 and Lily Kuntz ’20. They will be of vital assistance for Harrison as they will add depth in the four and five positions. The quintet of sophomores have high expectations and their coaches and teammates will be counting on them to contribute.
“We expect a lot out of them and I think they are going to prove themselves from the get go,” Coach Krasco said.
The Panthers hope to limit turnovers and to crash the boards harder despite their relative size disadvantage. Last season, most of their losses could be directly attributed to being out-played in the paint and to turnovers. No one is hiding from last season’s pitfalls though. The team and the coaching staff have taken all of this to task head-on in practice.
Krasco cited weaknesses in rebounding last season to a lack of experience on the roster. Without senior leadership and with five first-years, Middlebury faced a steep learning curve. Now, they are ready to come out firing on all cylinders and look forward to positioning themselves to compete on the glass and win more second-chance opportunities.
If it was not already apparent, practice has become a focal point in the offseason and it will continue to be so throughout the season. The team and coaching staff are looking to make the most out of every practice and to understand the mindset that the next game is more important than their last. Maintaining a game-to-game approach and an even keel is something the Panthers believe can help keep them mentally in check as the year progresses.
“We had a couple early slip-ups against teams I feel we should’ve competed better against,” Krasco said of last year’s campaign. “We want to focus on the process and understand we have to do the little things very well.”
The Panthers are excited and determined. While they are taking a game-to-game approach, they did admit that they are looking to make a deeper run in the conference tournament. Still, they do not want to get too far ahead of themselves with the understanding that each game plays a crucial part in the team’s ability to reach its goals.
The Panthers tip-off on Saturday at 1 p.m. against Emerson for their first of two games in the Emerson Tip-Off and will wrap up the weekend against Mt. St. Mary’s with a 1 p.m. Sunday tip. You can catch the Panthers in their first home action after Thanksgiving, when the Panthers take on Rensselaer on Wednesday, Nov. 29, at 6 p.m.
(11/16/17 12:07am)
The men’s hockey team will be back in action this weekend when they face two of the teams from Maine, Colby and Bowdoin, on Saturday evening at 7 p.m. and Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. Coming off a three-win season, the Panthers are hungry for a winning year.
This year’s team enters determined to prove that last season was an anomaly for Middlebury’s historically strong hockey program. Their struggles were largely attributable to the numerous injuries that took many starters out of the lineup, which coincided with their typical hyper-competitive Nescac schedule.
“Even though we did not have the season we wanted to, we really grew as a team,” said Ethan Cohen ’19. “The adversity we faced will only make us stronger going into this season. The largest focus of our team is to continue to build for the future, while also getting Middlebury hockey back into the playoffs and back to its winning ways. We know that in a league as competitive as the Nescac that is never easy, but we have a talented, close knit group that has worked hard all year to prepare for the season.”
The team will have a new look this season and will fresh talent to emerge upfront. The Panthers only graduated three players (Greg Conrad ’17, Andrew Neary ’17 and Travis Stephens ’17), but they were all high-scoring starters that contributed to many of the program’s wins during their tenures. Other contributors who are not returning from last year’s squad, due to injuries and personal reasons, include Zach Weier ’18, Matt Doherty ’19, Spencer Cage ’19 and Danny Jacobs ’20.
The team has a promising incoming class with 10 new faces—nine first-years and one sophomore transfer.
Head coach Neil Sinclair reflected positively on his new group and looks forward to starting anew this season.
“We had a young team last year and we will be young again in 2017-18,” said Sinclair, who added that the influx of new personnel has brought “energy and enthusiasm [which] has helped set the tone for the team in pre-season. We will be counting on our veterans to lead the team in the early going while the new faces get used to the Nescac and stiff competition in the PrimeLink tournament. We expect this to be an energetic and entertaining group.”
The team will be led by three captains: Mark McLellan ’18, Vincenzo Gisonti ’18, and Kamil Tkaczuk ’19.
Key offensive players to watch out for this winter are Gisonti ’18, McLellan ’18, Tkaczuk ’19, Trevor Turnbull ’20 and Mitchell Allen ’20.
“[Gisonti] has the ability to impact every game,” Sinclair said of last season’s leading scorer.
Strong defensemen returning include Jimmy McKee ’19, Frank Cosolito ’20 and David Belluche ’18, and Stephen Klein ’18 will be tending the net again for the Panthers.
Puck-drop is set for 7 p.m. on Saturday evening against Colby.
(11/16/17 12:02am)
After a thrilling season filled with ups than downs, the women’s soccer team’s 2017 campaign came to a close in the second round of the NCAA tournament this past weekend.
Playing at the field of regional host MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Panthers opened the 64-team tournament with a 1–0 victory over the Western Connecticut State Colonials on Saturday, Nov. 11.
The next day, the team squared off against the Engineers in what promised to be an exciting match as it featured two top-25 teams (No. 13 MIT and No. 17 Middlebury). There was added intrigue, as well, given that it was the Panthers who eliminated MIT from NCAAs in the first round of the 2016 tournament. This time, however, it was the Engineers who outdid the Panthers. After 90 minutes of tenacious soccer from both teams, MIT emerged with a 1–0 victory to send Middlebury home with a final record of 12–4–2.
After getting bounced from the Nescac tournament in the first round three weeks ago, the Panthers found themselves waiting at home while the conference championship concluded the next weekend. Even though they didn’t yet have the assurance that they’d even be invited to the NCAA tournament, Middlebury was hungry for revenge: they went above and beyond in their preparation to put themselves in the best possible position to succeed.
When they did get the call for the NCAA tournament, they were ready, according to Alex Barber ’19:
“MWS came into the NCAAs sharp and ready to play. Even though we didn’t get to compete in the last weekend of the Nescac tournament, we took no time off and instead played a full inter-squad match on that Saturday. We had an intense week of practice leading up to the first weekend of NCAAs, including a 6:30 a.m. practice and a training session at UVM.
“We don’t mess around when it comes to the NCAAs because we know how great of an opportunity it is and how fierce the competition is. It’s all about how bad you want it, and we consistently battle to show it.”
Their preparedness was more than evident in Saturday’s matchup against Western Connecticut St.
Although the Panthers only ended up winning by one goal, the details of the box score offer a little more insight as to how the game really went.Middlebury dominated the game in terms of possession and managed 19 shots to Western Connecticut State’s nine. Some of the negative statistics even pointed to a dominant Panther team: the fact that Middlebury was flagged for offside violations seven times to the Colonials’ one was indicative of how much more time the ball spent on their opponent’s half of the field.
Barber felt that Saturday’s matchup against the Colonials was a high point in the Panthers’ season, at least in terms of their performance.
“We played technically sharp from the beginning and kept the ball on their half for most of the game, creating continuous scoring opportunities for ourselves,” Barber said. “Defensively, we kept their best player from having any dangerous attacking opportunities. I think that game was some of the best soccer we played all season.”
Barber was involved in Middlebury’s best scoring opportunity of the first half when she directed a corner kick into the penalty box around the 27-minute mark. Alissa Huntington ’18 got her head on the cross, but the Colonials’ keeper managed to fend off the attempt with a diving save.
The Panthers, keeping the crowd on their toes, ended up waiting until the 83rd minute to convert on one of their many scoring opportunities. Clare Robinson ’19 crossed a ball to Barber in Colonial territory, who, in turn, found Virginia Charman ’20 with a beautiful one-touch pass. Charman didn’t waste the opportunity. She laced the ball into the upper-left corner of the net to give Middlebury the deciding 1–0 lead. The Colonials made one last attempt that ricocheted off the crossbar in the 86th minute, allowing the Panthers held on for the 1–0 victory to advance to the second round.
Facing an MIT team on Sunday that had just stomped Castleton 7–2 a day before, Middlebury nevertheless felt ready for what their opponent was going to bring.
“Having played MIT in the first round last year,” Barber explained, “we know what kind of team they are and how they like to play. They play technical and pretty soccer, just how we like to play. Both teams had lots of scoring opportunities and it was a very exciting game, but ultimately, we were unable to find the back of the net in time to score a goal and tie it up.
“MIT is a great team, and we finished the game with our heads held high, knowing that we are a great soccer team that had a fantastic season.”
Head coach Peter Kim didn’t feel that the team came out flat on Sunday or that they were dealing with a victory hangover, either.
“We were capable of winning both games this weekend, to be sure,” Kim said. “Unfortunately, we had difficulty finishing goals this season, and that ended up being the story of the match on Sunday. We created plenty of chances to score, and should’ve finished a few more than we did.”
Middlebury led Sunday’s match in shot attempts, 11–10, but only managed to put two of those on target to the Engineers’ five. Once MIT scored what was to be the only goal of the game in the 22nd minute, the Panthers found themselves playing a frustrating game of catch-up for the rest of the match, colored by shot attempt after shot attempt that seemed to miss by just inches.
In the first half, Eliza Robinson ’21 had a free kick sail high and a second attempt corralled by the MIT goalie in the span of a minute. Eliza Van Voorhis ’21 connected with a header from a Barber corner-kick but missed over the crossbar. In the second half, Robinson had another attempt sail just over the top of the goal. Although possession went back and forth, the Panthers were mostly held away from the Engineers’ penalty box. When the official’s whistled sounded to signal MIT’s 1–0 victory, Middlebury’s season was over.
On the whole, Kim had some very positive things to offer about the Panthers’ season.
“I’ll remember this season as one of resiliency,” Kim said. “We suffered setbacks in a few key games that we felt we should have won, but those results only strengthened our resolve.
“I’m impressed by how we battled back and earned a NCAA tournament berth, then played some excellent soccer in Cambridge. We out-possessed and outshot Western Connecticut St. by a large margin and pinned MIT in their own half for significant portions of the game.
“It was a heartbreaking way to finish the year,” Kim said, “but the final result doesn’t take away from the effort the players put in. Hopefully younger players learned how hard they have to work in order to succeed, both individually and as a team. As for the seniors, they are largely responsible for the resiliency that this team showed. While a Nescac run would have been fitting for them, they can be very proud of the team that they built. They left a lasting legacy and will be sorely missed.”
Barber looked back on the season just as fondly, if not even more so — largely thanks to the close relationships she developed with her teammates over its course.
“Since we graduated 11 seniors last year, it was important to reassess our personnel and figure out who was going to fill important roles on the team that were vacated,” Barber said. “I was consistently blown away by the amount of talent on this team, and how deep our bench is. We didn’t just play with 11 starters the whole season, we played with everyone.”
But she saved her most touching words for her teammates about to graduate: Huntington, Maddie Morgan ’18, Emma Shumway ’18 and Rebecca Palacios ’18.
“Our four seniors have given our team and the soccer program endless dedication, heart and laughs,” Barber said. “They have showed us what it means to work for something you want badly and win, and what it looks like to smile and be grateful in the face of defeat. Alissa, Maddie, Emma and Becca are such special and intelligent individuals, and we will miss them so much as they go off to do amazing things with their lives.”
(11/14/17 7:19pm)
College president Laurie Patton sent a school wide email on Wed., Nov. 8, inviting students, faculty and staff, to a town hall the following day, Nov. 9.
“It is clear to me and, I believe, to many of you, that the essential bond of trust and assumption of good intentions that should unite us is broken,” she wrote. You can access the email here.
Co-sponsored by the Black Student Union and the Student Government Association, the audience filled Wilson Hall to capacity, causing event organizers to move the event to Mead Chapel. At the event, which was monitored by SGA and BSU members, students had the opportunity to ask administrators direct questions.
Below is a full transcript of the meeting, which has been edited for clarity. Please look for further analysis of the event in our issue after Thanksgiving Break. This transcription was done by features editors Sarah Asch and James Finn. Editor-at-large Elizabeth Zhou and managing editor Will DiGravio helped edit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO6XMI8V1oI&t=1749s
Jin Sohn (’18, SGA President): "SGA would like to acknowledge the presence of everyone in this room, and to thank you for taking the time to join us, together, as a community for an imperative conversation on respect and inclusivity. Over the past week, members of the SGA student cabinet have been working to support the student body in light of the recent painful and alienating events and dialogues. Likewise, many cultural orgs including BSU and other student activists have been working overtime to support students. We want to recognize those efforts especially because they were led by students from marginalized backgrounds. Today's conversation is not a solution in itself. But it can and must lead to transformations on our campus. We are here today because, in whatever way, we care. We care about our friends, we care about our peers, we care about our community. Please let us join together in that shared core value in order to foster change on our campus. In order to make this discourse constructive, active, and supportive of everyone, we are requesting that all comments, observations, and questions be respectful. We would like to encourage individuals to acknowledge their own identities and privileges when speaking. Please acknowledge the role and position with which you inherently enter this conversation. Further, while this event is crucial in providing a voice for students who are affected by the actions of others on this campus, it is important to remember that active listening is meaningful and important to engage with others in this room. Please listen and wait until someone finishes speaking before wanting to speak so that we can be respectful of all that is being said. To encourage collaboration and abolish any hierarchies present today, we will be limiting questions and answers to two minutes each. Additionally, to be conscious of everyone's time, we will be ending this event promptly at 6 pm. Ultimately, for the SGA, the goal of this meeting today is both to facilitate learning and listening in our community and to work toward establishing active next steps that students, faculty, staff, and administrators can collaborate on and be held accountable for. This is not the first conversation. It likely will not be the last. The point is that we all, all of us, are trying, and by simply being here today are actively working to change. Thank you, and I will now hand over the mic to President Patton for her to speak on her hopes for this event and then Wengel Kifle will provide some background and context on the current campus climate. Once the floor has been opened for conversation, Ishrak Alam, the SGA chief of staff, Annie Cowan, the SGA deputy chief of staff, and Rae Aaron, the SGA speaker, will ensure that a single voice is heard at a time by distributing a microphone. Finally, we recognize that these are really difficult issues, and if anyone needs to step out of the room or take care of themselves, please do so."
Patton: "Thank you so much. I'm really, really pleased to see everyone here. Thank you for being here, thank you for hanging in and staying in the difficult conversation. I want, particularly, to thank student leadership, particularly BSU and SGA for hosting this event, and we really look forward to hearing the voices of the members of all of our communities. We are in new territory at Middlebury, where we need to begin building a new kind of community, one that includes voices that we either have not heard or only partially heard. There are so many ways that such communities need to be built and the first is to give voice to experience. We want to pay attention to structures that cannot give voice to that experience, the economic, social and status hierarchies that limit us. Because of acts of racial bias on this campus and in this town, many students, faculty and staff have called us to account and are hurting. And while we are in new territory of trying to build a new kind of community, we are also in very old, unacknowledged territory. Part of Middlebury's unspoken story includes our acting according to racial stereotypes, acting in ways that serve to alienate. We have not acknowledged that enough. I want to acknowledge that hurt. I am deeply sorry that members of our community are in pain, and that people feel they have not been heard by the administration. It is our job to make better structures and more equitable relationships where voices can be heard and where people feel that they belong. It is our job to make a more inclusive public square where not just individual acts of bias but structural racism can be addressed and challenged. Middlebury can and should be a challenging place where we experience intellectual discomfort, and part of that discomfort includes listening to unheard voices better. For students who live here at Middlebury for only four years, this can take on a particular sense of urgency. We are working on many ways to address this and look forward to sharing those with you, but most importantly, today we need your help and creativity and thoughts. We also look forward, as Jin said, to follow up conversations from this one, to continue to visit student groups in dining halls, commons houses and other meeting spaces such as AFC, and to continue to move forward with concrete actions and timelines where we can work together both what our community is and what our community means to us. Together, I do believe with all the hard work we can build a new Middlebury. Thank you for bringing your voices to help begin that task today."
Charles Rainey (’19): "Hello everyone, thank you guys so much for coming today. I really appreciate and it really warms my heart to see this many people in this building to come and talk about some of the hard issues that are affecting racial minorities, particularly black students, on our campus. My name is Charles Rainey. I serve as president of the BSU this year, and what we hope to create through this conversation is a way for black students and racial minorities and other marginalized groups to be able to voice concerns about things that have really been festering on this campus for a long time. A lot of students have been jaded and have been really, really scared, really frightened and upset and we hope that this space is allowed not only for solution oriented steps to prevent a lot of the things that have been happening on campus, but also to serve as a forum where people can express their truest and deepest feelings about a lot of those things as well. We want to center this conversation by bringing up Wengel Kifle, who has prepared some remarks to share with you guys today. Thank you.
Wengel Kifle (’20): "Thank you so much for coming. When we discuss the current state of our campus, it's important to keep in mind what happened this past spring. Many students voiced deep and urgent pleas to Middlebury concerning not only Charles Murray, but also the deeply ingrained institutional and social aspects of Middlebury that do not make it a welcoming and inclusive space for students of color. After the start of this semester, there have been more events that have made students of color feel uncomfortable and unsafe. These events include the racial profiling of Addis; violent and explicit images and messages on chalkboards in Munroe directed toward Addis, racial profiling of a black female professor, harassment of black women on campus, faculty and students alike, and daily incidents, big or small, that students have to deal with in and out of the classroom in such white spaces. Personally, this semester has taken an extreme toll on me and my mental health. I found it impossible to have the motivation to survive my schedule and everything else Middlebury threw my way. And the lack of action by the greater community and the school in general to say 'we see you and we will fight for you' was all the more crippling. And I couldn't help but ask myself: why am I expected to give my best to a school and a community that was clearly not giving me its best? I hope that after today, that people that share my narrative can go away with seeing that administration and this school is recognizing them and is finally going to address these issues. Thank you.
Ishrak Alam (’18): "Thank you, Wengel, for your comments. We are going to open it up now to everyone -- we're going to have two mics upstairs and one down here."
Sohn: "If everyone can just be respectful of the two-minute rule. And also, faculty, administrators, students, everyone in this community, please feel free to weigh in and speak. If you could raise your hand if you'd like the mic, we can come to you."
Madeleine Bazemore (’19): "Hi, my name is Madeleine Bazemore and I'm a junior at Middlebury. I was in a meeting yesterday with some students activists...members here of the SGA, President Patton and some other administrators. We talked a lot about moving forward on campus, and something really concerning happened in that meeting. Our Title IX coordinator said that she didn't believe that white supremacy existed, was in her office or in the decision that was made regarding Addis in racial profiling. And I think the refusal of this campus and this administration to admit that white supremacy is present is very concerning. And I think that -- I don't even know how to address that, to have to take the time to explain what white supremacy is to a white woman felt like such a waste of time. Like, why are we having this meeting if I have to explain something so basic? Now, I don't know how to move forward with that, with the refusal that white supremacy exists, and because of that refusal that Addis will not receive an apology for being racially profiled."
Patton: "Yeah, thank you, Maddie. I did say that white supremacy existed, so I just want to make sure that there is a correct narrative. I would say, the really important thing that is true, structural racism exists and it exists at Middlebury. White supremacy, a way of being in the world, where the heritage is that white people have built something where they are unconscious of their own perspectives and unconscious of the way that they take up space, those are absolutely present at Middlebury. So that's a really important thing that I want to make sure I say, and that I said yesterday. And the other thing, in terms of the question, if we mean conduct that is based on or motivated by someone's personal characteristic that creates a hostile work environment, Middlebury is absolutely a place where that happens. Racism exists at Middlebury. Structural racism exists at Middlebury, and we have to work together to move forward to change that. And in our system, there is that conduct...or any other violation of our non-discrimination policies, we will act upon it and we have acted upon it. And we have a well-developed system in place to deal with those situations. The hard part of this conversation is that we can't apologize based on a narrative that wasn't supported by an investigation. I myself as a president have no part of that investigation. I want to make sure that's clear to everybody. So I don't know.... I didn't know that this investigation was going on. The reason why that office is independent is because they could investigate me, and that's really important for everyone to know. I want to say very clearly here, we are moving towards restorative practices as a culture, particularly in student life. And I and other members, individual members of SLG, are willing to sit with anyone -- anyone -- in a restorative practices circle, with trained facilitators, that acknowledges harm. I will sit with anyone [for] as long as it takes, in as many restorative practice circles as it takes, to change this community. And I would welcome any request to do that."
Sohn: "This is a quick announcement. We're also aware that some people might not be comfortable speaking up on a microphone, so we're gonna pass around some index cards if you'd rather pose a question that way. And then one of the students here can help ask that question. Thanks."
Liz Dunn (’18): "Going along with the point that President Patton just made, if there is white supremacy and structural racism at Middlebury, and if that is present in the Title IX Office, and if the investigation found that there was no evidence that Addis was racially profiled, does that not draw into question the investigative practices that Middlebury uses, and the standards that are currently in place? And is there any direct way to address that and to change that?
Patton: "Is our Title IX person here? I think there are a couple of things that probably should get clarified. The first is — and thank you, Liz, for your question — the fact that we need to always think about structural racism that we have, that doesn't mean that we don't stand by the integrity of the work that we've done, and that's the hard piece of this. And I need, as a president, and I do, as a president, stand by the integrity of the work that was done... Again, standing in restorative practice circles is part of acknowledging all of the different impacts for all of us here. But it's really important that even if there is a constant need for us to look at making the systems better, we still have to abide by the integrity of the process that exists here now."
Sue Ritter, Title IX Coordinator: "So I'm in a difficult position here because I can't discuss much of what I did in terms of the investigation that we did. I also completely reject the characterization that was just given of my office, and will continue to reject that. I have spent since 2008 here working really hard to make sure that the investigations that we do are free of bias, that they're fair, that they are full and fair investigations done by trained experts. My job is to be the guardian of our anti-discrimination policy. If I thought that this operation that I'm overseeing was grounded in white supremacist principles, I wouldn't be here. So people are going to have their opinions. I understand that. And I know I'm going to get blasted for everything that I'm about to say, but I am very confident in the people that conducted this investigation and worked extremely hard to make sure that all of the evidence was being considered in a careful and thorough and fair way. I don't know what else to say about that. And to get the response that I'm getting, that I don't have an understanding of what white supremacy is, in this context, is insulting. I didn't speak in that meeting yesterday because I was too flabbergasted to speak. I understand that people are entitled to their opinions. I have offered and will continue to offer to talk to anyone about the language of our policy and the process that we follow and will always be open to suggestions about how we can make it better. I never want to exclude somebody from coming into my office and saying, 'hey, this is language I think you ought to include,' 'this is language that I think you should take out.' I welcome anyone to look at the anti-harassment policy at any time and tell me what they think and I'm probably over my time speaking. But it's hard for me to stand here and speak without looking defensive, but I'm very confident in the work that we do, the work that we've been doing for ten years and the office that we've built. And that's all I have to say."
Rainey: "Hi, I'm Charles Rainey. I have a question. Sue, thank you so much for the contribution to the conversation. I am personally curious about how many people of color were involved in the investigation process and making this determination that came out of your office. And I think that that's a very important question to get us to understand what influences and what overwhelming perspectives may be in the office that may impact what the perception of the reality of the situation is in this regard... and creating definitions of what racial profiling is when there are no people — racial minorities in the room. And that may not be the case, but I just want to know — specifically, the question is: how many people of color were involved with this determination?"
Ritter: "Charles, I just want to make sure I understand the question. Are you saying how many people of color were interviewed in connection with the investigation? Is that what you're asking?"
Rainey: "So I think my question is not necessarily interviewed -- in terms of the process, the members of the administration who made the decision on what the determination is, how many, if any, were people of color?"
Ritter: "I have two people that work for me; they're both white. Is that what you're asking me?"
Rainey: "Yes."
Ritter: "Yes, so one was the investigator and one was the adjudicator. Correct."
Rainey: "Right. And I don't want to go over my time and I don't want to take up too much space in this conversation -- but I think my point in making this is that -- you know, what effect does the overwhelming whiteness in terms of the people who were involved in the determination have on the conclusion? And do you think personally that that may have affected what is going on here in terms of what the determination is?"
Ritter: "If I personally thought that, we would be having a different conversation. So I don't think it had an effect, no."
Shatavia Knight (’20): "On the idea that there are three white people in the Title IX office, I want to talk about the idea of administration. And one thing that I learned in my high school is that you can't be what you can't see. And there are very, very few professors of color here on campus. And so as a black female here, it's very hard for me to be in an environment where everyone says 'you can go on, you can be successful, you can learn a lot from your Middlebury experience' when I don't have many examples of, you know, black professors here on campus. And I wanted to know what Middlebury is trying to do about that, because I know that if I was to go into academia, Middlebury wouldn't be one of the schools that was on my list to get hired to. And I want to know what the administration is doing about that, to get more professors of color here so that students like myself don't feel like they're learning about race from white professors, and they're not learning about problems in society that they probably haven't actually experienced themselves."
Miguel Fernández (Chief Diversity Officer): "Thank you, Shatavia. That's an excellent question. You're absolutely right. Our diversity efforts within the student body over the last 20 years have been quite successful. I was a student here in the early '80s and I look out across this room and I see lots of diversity present here, and that was definitely not the case in the '80s. Some people feel as though we have a long way to go, and I won't disagree with that, but there has been significant change in the student body. That process has not been nearly as quick in the faculty -- you're absolutely right. We have been working on that hard lately — let me explain a couple of things that we've been doing. Over the last two years, we've been working with outside consultants who have been coming in, and it's mandatory now for all the search committees that are searching to go through a series of four workshops to work on how to diversify their pool, how to learn about bias in the evaluation system, et cetera, how we are going to present ourselves in interviews, the kinds of questions we're asking and the kinds of signaling we're doing in our advertising, and working with all the departments in that way. We're producing data for the search committees and working very hard. This year was the first cohort that came from having worked with them, and it was possibly the most diverse entering class of faculty in recent memory that we've seen, and we hope that this will continue. One of the frustrations is that faculty turns over a lot slower than students and so it's a slower process, but we're really working hard there. Some of you are aware of the C3 program — that's the idea of bringing in post-docs. We're part of a consortium of liberal arts colleges. The diversity officers are working to bring post docs in, folks from underrepresented groups and first generation, and also working on different topics to bring some diversity to give them exposure to what a liberal arts college is like. We visit the research universities to talk to the the graduate students about what a career is like, because oftentimes advisors in grad school advise their advisees not to go to a liberal arts college. They have this misconception that it's only teaching, and they don't maintain their research. So we go to break those myths and try to get folks -- and we take colleagues from the faculty to go talk to them about what that experience is like, what it's like to teach at a liberal arts college to try to get them into the pipeline. So those are a couple of the efforts we're doing, a lot of efforts in that way to try to address that. But you're absolutely right."
Student, Unknown: "So I thought it was great that you talked about some of the training that certain administrators get, and I was wondering if that training — if the faculty, as well as the people in Title IX, also get that training?"
Fernández: "Yes, so that's a good question, too. So the search process — there isn't mandatory training right now, and that is something that we have been talking about that's been made very present. And I think that is something the discussions are going toward, to make it for faculty, staff, students and the administration. There is currently for staff and faculty a -- I would say a minor training... there's a bigger thing around sexual harassment and other things that also talks about bias and discrimination. And everybody has to go through that. It's not enough. And that's exactly the kinds of discussions we're in right now. What we've done is we've had a lot of opt-in types of things, and we also do sessions with the new faculty as they come in. But that is part of the ongoing conversation."
Jeff Holland (’19): "I have a question directed generally at the administration. I understand that there's a desire, even possibly a requirement, an obligation, to stand behind the integrity of the judicial process and also to maintain confidentiality about any processes that may be undergone. But also there has been a very blatant contradiction in the judicial process involving Addis that was pointed out in The Campus, which is the most widely read student-run media outlet we have. So I don't think that there's any way that it could be more widespread that there was a contradiction between the judicial officer who said there was no need to move the investigation further, and then later came the guilty verdict after that. And at the same time, that same article pointed out that there was an ample amount of evidence that Addis was not present at that event. So I'm just wondering -- I know you want to uphold the integrity of your judicial process, but at what point does that break down, when there's evidence in the most widely read student publication there is, pointing that there's been a contradiction and pointing out that there's evidence to the contrary of what the judicial officer said? Thanks."
Hannah Ross (General Counsel): "I am a lawyer and I am responsible for Middlebury's compliance with laws. We did a full, fair and thorough investigation over the summer in response to a student's complaint that an employee acted wrongly. We looked very seriously at the question of whether our employee had engaged in a violation of our anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policy. Commencing an investigation about employee misconduct does not start a student conduct case. There is no student conduct case that can be brought against a person who's not a student of Middlebury. The investigation came to a conclusion following our policy and our process. The facts, as we understand them, do not support the narrative. That's where we are. It's not a guilty verdict. There is no proceeding that remains pending, and as I said, there is no process that Middlebury engages in that relates to a student's behavior when that person is no longer enrolled at Middlebury. That doesn't happen."
Sam (’18): "My name is Sam and I'm a senior here. Uh, what if you were wrong? I didn't mean that in a rude way, but seriously, what if you were wrong? Because you're talking about this as if, since Addis doesn't go here anymore there's nothing more you can do, it's not your problem. But I don't think that's even the point of it because the public safety officer who racially profiled her is still here. That person is still here. People say that the same public safety officer racially profiled a professor on campus this fall, which is something that the administration has also not addressed in particular, except for some rhetoric. So my question is, where's the process -- is it in Title IX? Is it in the judicial office? Is it through legal counsel? -- that would actually seek to respond to the allegations made against that officer who's still employed."
Ross: "I certainly didn't mean my comments about the fact that there's no student conduct process that gets started against a person who's not enrolled as a student at Middlebury to suggest that because a student has graduated, we don't care about our alumni. That's not at all a reflection of what I said. What I was trying to say is, there is no action that Middlebury takes that can impose a guilty verdict on a person who's not a student of Middlebury. And the investigation's conclusion, as I assume a number of you have read in the statement that we posted on Monday in the newsroom, the investigation concluded based on a wide array of evidence, including 22 interviews of members of our community. That investigation concluded that our public safety officer told the truth and acted within our policies. That's where we are."
Zeke (’21): "I realize that as a white male coming from an upper-class background, I hope a different perspective in this conversation. But at the same time -- I haven't suffered any racial biases here and I don't mean to detract from the Addis conversation going on -- but in my short time here I've also noticed that there are some serious institutional barriers preventing diversity from growing on campus. I find that we've touted our Posse and First at Midd programs ant stuff like that, but those don't actually account for a great deal of diversity percentage-wise in the student body. So I have a question for the administration as a whole. How can we make this a safer and less homogenous environment for future students? Could we, say, make Middlebury test-optional in the admissions office or perhaps look at tuition prices, as we clearly need a certain percentage of the student body to pay full price to account for the financial aid that we offer to other students?"
Patton: "Thanks, Zeke. That's a great question. I should just say that I'm a white woman who comes from a privileged background. So, in terms of financial aid, financial aid is the number one priority for this administration, to create more financial aid for students of all backgrounds. And it really, really matters to me that we do that. The other part of the balance that we have to make all the time is around questions of — we are required by law to balance our budget, so we kind of have to do both things. We are now, in any given year, we are between 42 and 48 percent of students on financial aid. The average grant is about 45 or 46 thousand dollars. And so we are in the top 40 or 50 schools in terms of giving financial aid. That doesn't mean that we can't and should do better, which is why this past meeting of the trustees -- the number one thing we did on a retreat with the trustees is to say, we want in the next 10 years to get to a much, much higher percentage of students on financial aid. Just so you all are aware, it would take us raising 360 million dollars to get to 55 percentage of financial aid endowed so we could just give that to folks. We haven't set a goal yet. One of my first jobs is to push the trustees, my 36 bosses, to set a goal, and that's we are now pushing to do. The last campaign, in terms of raising money, was 500 million dollars, and it took about 10 years to raise that, and a lot of it went to different kinds of things. So there needs to be a real concerted effort. That's what it's going to take to do that, and that is my number priority. So that is where we want to go and I hope we can get there. I hope that -- one of the things that would be really great to hear from people about is thinking about this larger question of, how do we get the word out about where we are and who we are without folks feeling like all we're doing is PR or touting a rhetoric or that kind of stuff. If there's a more real way that we could communicate both where we've come but also how much farther we need to go, that would be greatly appreciated, because we need help on making sure that we communicate in a genuine way. I hope that answered your question. I would love your help in making this a reality over the next 10 years. Is Andi Lloyd here, by the way? Can you address the faculty issue that was raised?"
Andrea Lloyd (Vice President for Academic Affairs/Dean of Faculty): "About diversity?"
Patton: "No, about the faculty member."
Lloyd: "So there was an allegation of racial profiling made by a faculty member. That case was also investigated. There was a determination that there was not racial profiling in that case. Um, what else?
Sohn: So, we just want to be conscious of people who don't feel comfortable speaking up on the mic, so we have collected some notecards. If we can just read one, so that we can be fair in that way, that would be great. So, one of the questions, is: isn't it important to address specific incidents of racism on campus quickly? What do you mean by inclusivity? Oh, so those are two questions. Just a blanket statement to avoid talking specifics of people's experiences."
Karla Nuez (’19): "My question was, in the email sent out to students regarding this event, it was stated that the community was broken. My question is why is there a constant need to describe the Middlebury community as a homogenous one, when that in turn avoids that there are people on this campus that struggle. By calling it homogenous, you're completely disregarding those struggles. And I feel like that makes it seem like the administration doesn't know the students that can pay the 60k-plus to attend this college. And when I was at the board of trustees meeting dinner, I told the chair about the racial profiling cases, and she looked at me, baffled. I think that is a clear indication that the administration and the board of trustees do not know their students, do not know what is happening on campus, and if their job is to protect us I feel like they're not doing the greatest job."
Weston Uram (’18): "I grew up at Kenyon College, where my mother is a faculty member, and one of the things I admire most about Kenyon is the president. Shawn Decatur, also known as D-Cat among the students, is a fun, approachable president who loves to talk with the students about any topic they bring up. One of his best qualities is his ability to find an autonomous voice. He was never afraid to say what he thought even if it differed from the public stance of the college. I hope to ask a few questions that Laurie, as the person and not as the institution, could answer. I want to know if you think Addis was at the Charles Murray talk. I'm not asking what the college has said or what they have not said. I want to know what you believe. I want to know what you believe because I want to know why you call Addis a friend. I want to know why you and your administration would take the time to mail a framed photo of you and Addis together to her personal residence, but don't seem to take the time to acknowledge the pain and suffering you have caused her. I want to know why the administration has refused to mention Addis's name in relation to the racial profiling or in response to the violent imagery found on the chalkboards in Munroe. I want to know why a photo of Addis walking at commencement, cane in hand, is repeatedly being used as promotional material for graduation. And I want to know when the administration will stop using black bodies as simply props and advertisements, and when they will recognize them as real people who have real feelings, who have real struggles, and who deserve real apologies."
Toni Cross (’18): "I have a mic up here, but I would love to hear President Patton's response to those questions."
Patton: "So, first of all, the comment about Middlebury communities, I absolutely agree. And I think that we should be continuing to talk about different communities. And if we haven't done so enough, I apologize for that. It's really important that we think through those questions of acknowledging different communities and acknowledging specifics about pain that you all have felt. One of the things that I really, really want to hear about, and I know we want to continue to think about, is particularly in classroom environments where people of color are not feeling that they can speak up. Or that they feel if they do speak up, that they will be misunderstood. Those are an incredibly important place for us, and I hope that as faculty and staff we can work together to change those experiences. So I think that that's absolutely right and that's really important to do. I also want to say that what Dean Loyd was talking about, I actually sat with that professor and apologized for her experience. And it's a very important thing that she was in pain, and that was acknowledged. So I think it's an unfair characterization of me to say that acknowledgement doesn't happen. It was important to reach out and engage. When I -- I don't know what the images are that are being used. I think it's really important in a conversation that we're all trying to do better, that we're all doing a lot of work every day to raise inclusivity where it's really hard. If we could find a way -- I don't know, I can't supervise every single thing that goes out. If that image that goes out is there, I'm sure that that was painful for people to see. I am willing to sit with anyone in the community in a restorative practices circle, including Addis, to hear the pain that she has experienced. I will do that with anyone in this community. And I think it's really important that we continue to think about those specific experiences. And that's why restorative practices matters. Part of what is hard in presidential speech, and I wish I could answer you as a person -- I can't right now, I'm here as a president. And so, I would be happy to walk with you and talk with you, but my role at this moment is to uphold all of the hardworking people. And so -- I do spend a lot of time with students and tell them what I think all the time in the luncheon halls, I'm in classrooms, I'm walking throughout the campus every day. And so, I'm more than happy to sit and talk to you. I'm sure the president of Kenyon also wouldn't be able to speak about a case in this way, but I will say again, those images were very, very disturbing. And perhaps, yes, we should have used Addis's name. I will sit with Addis, I will sit with any of you in restorative practices and talk about harm any time. That is me both as a person and as a president. I hope that answers your question, and let's go for a walk."
Jasmine Crane (’18): "It really hurt my heart to hear Wengel's struggle, because her struggle is my struggle and as a black women in science, there's only one black female teacher in all of BiHall. And I really look up to her. She's a shinning example for me who contemplates going far and taking the extra mile, but when I'm with some of my colleagues I don't feel like I'm very far, I don't feel like I'm their colleague. I just feel like I am a black face here. And I feel like as a black, African-American woman here, I feel like community which is being thrown around so carelessly I feel it's just a word it's not a feeling. I feel like it's just a structure like a church. We come in here and do we really do anything pertinent? I don't seem to feel that. I feel that I see Latinos coming together, from different countries, I see South Asian, East Asian people coming together, and I feel like they have to do that on their own because there is no place even for them. And especially for black Americans here, I feel like that's a diaspora, there is no place for us on this campus. I feel like African's stick together, that's great to hear, but I feel like as an American black woman I have no place here. No voice. And I don't know how to change this, honestly, because it doesn't start with the people of color. We have to start all together as one body, as Middlebury. We have created this iconic self-image of being woke, of being liberal, of knowing more than ourselves. But do we even really know ourselves? And so I ask not only students to look in their heart and think about oppression. But I want the administration to look at themselves and how they conduct themselves in their everyday lives. And how they treat not only the students but each other.
Cross: "I just had a couple of questions: is there a timeline for fixing this broken Middlebury community? I know when I visited here for preview days in 2014 at least six people told me: do not come to this school, it will crush you and I don't know that I could in good conscious tell a black senior in high school to come here. It's been four years. Is there a timeline for making it better. And also I would like to ask the administration who have spoken here today how they would grade themselves in presentation and the image that they are giving to us? With the defensiveness that we constantly see, with the willingness to label actions, or to call themselves victims or point out unfairness towards themselves but not necessarily extend that same courtesy to the students. So I'm asking how would you grade yourselves? What kind of message do you think you're putting forward?
Treasure Brooks (’21): "I haven't been here very long but earlier Charles mentioned the overwhelming whiteness at this school and I just want to bring attention to the overwhelming blackness that doesn't come in the form of bodies. I live in Battel and I can't walk to the bathroom or back to my room without hearing trap music. And there is an overwhelming amount of black culture here but it's not represented in the population, in the student body. We've had CupcakKe come here last week, we're having Elle Varner come, and before that we had Noname Gypsy, she came here as well. And I think that how can we allow for the student body to be consuming black culture at such an alarming rate when we don't even value the black women that are walking around on this campus? I think that is remarkably grotesque, honestly, and if you really want to show support, if you want to show a greater cultural sensitivity towards black students then maybe we should make those events exclusive until we can show a general respect for all of the black diaspora, all of the black faculty, of the black students, and not just black culture. And additionally, to respond to something you said, President Patton, I would hope that you did not see your presidency and personhood as mutually exclusive because in the event that you do I think there needs to be a greater consideration for what leadership is."
James Sanchez (Assistant Professor of Writing): "I want to say a couple of things. I haven't heard anyone from faculty speak yet and I don't want to absolve us from any of these issues because this is just as important for students and administrators as it is for faculty. A couple of things I want to mention is one I feel like faculty needs to do a better job of modeling anti-racist behavior for our students in the classroom. I say that because when I did my interview here I spoke with a Latina student and this was before Charles Murray and she was telling me with issues that she had with white professors in the classroom and how as a Latina student she often felt that racist, bigoted viewpoints were held on equal playing field as anti-racist viewpoints and I think that's something that I challenge all faculty to really consider when having classroom discussions. I also want to say that faculty have a lot of agency in creating change on campus environments and that's something we all need to remember as faculty members when conducting our classes, creating new courses, interactions with students, we have agency in creating change. So I really want to challenge my colleagues here to on campus to really consider that in the future.
Sha (’19): "This is more a clarifying question. I understand a lot of time when it comes to the judicial process there's need for privacy but I also I feel there has been a lack of transparency with a lot of things that go on at this college. And I would like to be informed or educated in possible: is a student assumed guilty until proven otherwise? Or is a student assumed innocent until proven guilty? Why is it that when there is a sexual assault case reported, the victim is often the one asked to prove that there was actually assault, when in this case a student was accused and she was actually asked to find evidence to prove that she was not there?"
Ross: "Under all our policies individuals going through any kind of discipline are innocent until proven guilty. And the obligation is not on them to provide evidence. That's why we employ people and pay their salaries to gather evidence but people are free to offer evidence if they chose to offer evidence. If you want to learn more about how our policies work or want to learn more about our processes Dean Baishaki Taylor has solicited volunteers to serve on a policy advisory group. I'll be working with that policy advisory group to get feedback from students on policies that are of importance to you. We welcome other folks joining that committee
Júlia Athayde: (’19): "I want to raise attention to something that I found very troubling last semester and that was the fact that Bill Burger, who is the vice president of communications here, was personally involved in the Charles Murray incident and also very involved in writing all the articles and the communication that is written to alumni, articles in the New York Times, in the aftermath of the incident. First something I wanted to say, I work for the Office of Investment so after Charles Murray I actually had to talk to alumni and explain to them what was happening on campus so I'm very sympathetic to the fact that it was a very hard conversation and I know how difficult it was for administrators to deal with all of that. Since then, I've been thinking about the fact that [Burger] was personally involved and I'm not sure if he's here or not, this is not a personal attack, I just wanted to raise awareness for that. He was there, and he was also writing the communication for the college. And this latest article in the newsroom talking about racial profiling, I was wondering if that was the first time that we addressed that to the outer community and our alumni? And who wrote that article, because there was actually no author? And the last paragraph of that article actually talks about his involvement and that he was found not guilty. And I was wondering if that process involved the same kind of investigation that Addis had to go through? Why was he found not guilty, and why was that written in an article in the newsroom this week?"
Ross: "I was one of the folks who helped write that statement and the final paragraph addresses the fact that there were two separate investigations about what went on March 2. One was the Middlebury Police Department Investigation. The Middlebury Police are of course responsible for investigating criminal behavior, driving a car dangerously would be criminal behavior. The police did not find any evidence that caused them to have concern about that. They did not investigate that, they did not bring charges. The independent investigators concluded based on unanimous testimony from all the witnesses to the event that Mr. Burger drove carefully. Those are the facts in that case found by two different investigations."
Esteban Arenas-Pino (’18): “I would like the administration to expand on their stance on activism on campus. It feels like after last spring activism has become a dirty word and is often vilified. Is the administration willing and ready to accept activism as a part of the campus culture, and is the administration willing to foster this as a value? After many years witnessing activism especially by women of color on this campus I would like to see this fermented as a stronger value? We will leave Middlebury to be organizers and activists in our communities. Shouldn't Middlebury foster these skills?”
Sedge Lucas (’19): "I have a quick question for President Patton. I saw online that you and Professor Stanger are going to be having a talk this coming February titled "Campus Speech: when protest turned violent" at the Cronkite School of Journalism in Arizona. Can you explain what the goal of this talk is? What do you think other schools or academia as a whole can learn about how Middlebury handled the situation last spring?
Patton: "Thanks for the question. Lots of different thoughts there. There are so many ways in which we could have done better. We have been slow to respond to graffiti incidents. I would just ask people to understand that we are living in the world where immediate response and the fact that we have to get the facts right is we want to make sure we get the facts right before we actually make a statement and so sometimes if we can't do it in 12 hours it's because we're wanting to make sure we have all the facts right. That being said it's really important that that slowness of response is something that we can do better on. And we want to do better on. Secondly, the things that I have learned as a leader and a person here at Middlebury, number one, I was hoping that all the work that we've done in the last two years about inclusivity and scholarships raised and C3 developed and AIM, and the alliance on disability, the bias response team, the more funds raised for financial aid, the restorative practices, all of these are things that have happened since 2015, since I got here. My mistake was in thinking that all those things and inviting everyone to do more of those things and invite us into those conversations would heal the hurt and it didn't. I did not understand the degree of hurt in this community and again I want to say how deeply sorry I am for that. So in response to that, part of what I push on in everywhere that I go is that inclusivity has to be part of any conversation around freedom of expression but we have to do both in the 21st century. And that we do not become more free unless we focus on inclusivity and all the ways that we've been talking about. And we do not become more inclusive if we can't have that freedom of expression as the basis of who we are. And so that is a very powerful message that we want to send in as many different places as possible. So I hope that gives you as sense of both what I have learned personally as well as the kind of push I want to make on creating both inclusivity and freedom of expression as a balance, as well as the only way we can become more free in the 21st century is to become more inclusive. I also want to say that in our conversation yesterday, Liz [Dunn] said something really powerful. And I want to make sure that we say that and say something about that and talk more about it. And that is "What do you need and how can we help?" was a question that one of her common's deans asked her and how powerful that was. And I think that even as we have to uphold policies and procedures, I think that having student advisory groups as well as the faculty motion that was really fantastic that I publicly endorsed and was thrilled to publicly endorse last week, where we are going to be doing an external review of our diversity practices. Again the big learning that I had last semester is clearly all the stuff that we've done since 2015 is not enough, and it's not effective enough, and that's really powerful so we are developing an advisory group on diversity for faculty and for building faculty I have been really powerfully advocating and only faculty can build a black studies program but we are really excited because faculty are moving to create that and I want to say here how important it is that we create that black studies program. So, lot's more to say, and I know I need to hand over the mic.
Hannah Pustejovksy (’18): "I wanted to bring it back a little bit to the point about financial aid. So I am a white student, I'm also on almost full financial aid, and I am pretty lucky being a student who is white having had a lot family who have gone to college and have dealt with this system. But if having difficulty with the financial aid system here I cannot even imagine what other students, of color, are having on this campus because I have been here for four years and I have yet to understand what happens in the financial aid office. I was incredibly hurt by an email that came out last week or the week before encourage students to consider if they actually could take on the loans that they were being given because I have no choice. I don't know what I'm supposed to do if I can't personally take those loans on, am I just supposed to drop out? I also think that financial aid is one of the most important things to making sure that students here also feel welcome because we do have only 48 percent of students here on campus who have financial aid and if students of color are on campus and we are not making it easy for them to be here including the huge financial responsibility we are putting on them, how are we even supposed to start and feel like equals? Every day I am aware that I have so much less money than people here. And how is the financial aid office going to make that easier?"
Nia Robinson (’19): "I don't really have a question, more so a comment. Looking around this room most of the people in here are people I expected to be here. There are some surprises, like good surprises but nonetheless a surprise. And I think that it's really important when we're talking about community we claim who we are talking about. Because for example, the people who have called me the n-word are not found in this room. And I understand that people have commitments, I understand that people have other things going on, but everyone in this room ahs something else going on and so I think we need to make at who is making sacrifices for global community. A lot of people in this room are part of my community and I respect and love them a lot. But I think there are people who are not found in this room who have no stake in building a community and that's okay whereas if I take a step back then suddenly it's a problem. So that's not really question, just more so a call for everyone in here to talk to your friends, talk to your commons, talk to your professors, because if we are building a community we need to make sure we're reaching everyone and not just the people who self select to be here."
Kifle: "To touch upon the faculty member who spoke about faculty responsibility and accountability as well as Nia's comment about community, and also Treasury's comment. So we do consume a lot of black culture here and it's amazing how much we consume it and then don't acknowledge black people. I'm also in the classroom I'm so sick for having to stand up for something problematic that arises. If my professor is here, I'm sorry, I meant to have a private conversation with you, but this going to happen. So here we are talking about [solar] power in Africa and then the professor says 'There's 40 countries in Africa" and I said, 'no.' And then my art history professor was talking about Western Art and then mentioned Egyptian art and I questioned why that is because it's African art. The thing that surprised me is not the fact that it happened but in both of those classes where there's a huge amount of people in there I was the only one that had a problem with this and I was the only one that was expected to speak out, and of course I did because nobody else was doing it. But I'm so tired of taking on that mental labor. If you call yourself an ally, if you say you care about us, this movement, please speak up because I am tired. I am so tired and if you say you support this community and if you say you support these conversations and whatever Midd needs to progress on then take your part. And it's not just on the administration and it's not just on the faculty, it's on students as well. Show us that you care."
Sandra Luo (’18): "I really want to appreciate all of you for offering to have conversations with us but we're really tired of just talking. When is the administration going to show that they care beyond just sitting in a circle and talking and continuing to exploit the vulnerability and emotions of students? When are we going to see some sort of tangible, concrete action that comes from these conversations. And if you want to talk about helping us maybe address the list of demands here that we've been passing out. Apologize to Addis and provide reparations for all the trauma the school put her through, actually investigate Bill Burger and take anonymous sources seriously because that's the way of providing safety for people who are willing to come forward and share their experiences, fix the judicial system instead of just telling us that it's flawed but that's just how it's always going to be. And I want to recommend that a lot of people have been talking for years and a lot of work has been put towards inclusivity and diversity for years, long before March 2. It would be great if they could do something more than just conversations. It's one thing to acknowledge pain and flaws it's another to actually address the flaws so that current and future students won't continue to experience pain. I know a lot of people around me really want to listen to answers from the administration so I'm just going to hold on to this mic until we get an answer from the administration. I really want to hear about a concrete action plan that is something beyond a conversation."
Fernández: "Where to start. So in regards to the demands that you referenced, I think you heard in regards to the judicial piece I think Hannah made the invitation to serve on a policy committee there. That's a very direct way of impacting judicial change. The second one is about the mandatory training for everyone and I hope I addressed that earlier but that's in the process. It's not going to happen tomorrow but there are things in process and more to come, can't be more specific about that because that part to come is still being worked on and I don't have the details. I did share details for things that are ongoing. More things that are happening that are on the ground that we are doing: I did mention that we're working hard at diversifying the faculty, I think we had a good example and make some comments and probably just fill his spring courses. The bias incident thing was a new effort by the community bias response team, I will grant you it is imperfect, and if you will continue to work on it it's been an effort to try to address a lot of the issues we've been talking about. It is imperfect, it is new, we're going through that rocky start that many things do. I expect communications to improve and we will continue to work on that. Concrete things that are going on other things, more things we've been working on: we've been trying to work a lot around the support o DACA and undocumented students, putting a lot of effort on resources there, supporting them in many different ways. The first generation programs, those kinds of things. Opportunities to engage, one of the things a lot of folks have been talking about today is the administration, how it acts and why it doesn't change and one of the things we heard yesterday and I think this is valid is more student input in decision making, and that's been heard. And the SGA has had a proposal to create student advisory boards that will meet with the different VPs, so there you've got advisory boards that will meet with different folks to learn about the process how decisions get made how does the process work and to have a direct influence on that so for instance with finance, with a lot of the different areas. There's much to talk about, but there's a lot more to do, too."
Rainey: "I have a really quick question. There's been a lot of talk about this in the black community and many other communities especially in the after math of Charles Murray. We all know how many of us feel the complete community embarrassment of how interrogating and punishing students for protesting on campus. And as we more forward in terms of restorative practices from the administration, going back to what Toni and others have said providing a timeline with that but also after we put in these new restorative practices and these new restorative justice measures, are they going to be retroactively implemented and have retroactive application regarding people who have gone through unfair processes in the past and students who have gone through extremely unsettling and unfair disciplinary procedures here at Middlebury, for case by case basis? If anyone in the administration could speak to that?"
Katie Smith Abbott (Vice President of Student Affairs): "I have been charged with leading our exploration of how to bring restorative practice to Middlebury. We are partnering with a firm called the Consortium for Equity and Inclusion and the two anchors for that are a woman named Stacy Miller who is the associate provost of inclusivity at Valparaiso and Dennis DePaul who is from the Dean of Students Office at UVM which has had real success for a very long period of time with restorative practices, grounded in Residential Life at UVM. So they came to explain the basic concepts of what is referred to as RP to the SLG in June, the Senior Leadership Group which is the Presidents and all the Vice Presidents. They came back for a subsequent training because we didn't fit everything in, they came back in September, they have met for an introductory session with a broad range of faculty and staff who work in student life. And they're coming back for a three-day training December 18, 19, and 20 and if there are folks in this room who want to participate in that training I'd be happy to talk to you. The only requirements are that you're able to fully commit for the three full days. It's 8:30-5, it's three full days, and you're willing to be part of the ongoing implementation conversations. It is not a fast process to implement but we're fully committed to it. The other thing I would just note is that restorative justice and restorative practices are kind of getting used interchangeably, and I do want to be honest about the fact that I'm learning, this is not something I knew about before I started on this journey working with Stacy and Dennis, being part of a group that's being doing some deep diving into this work. But what I will offer is that they have explained to us very clearly that restorative justice is a small subsection of restorative practices, and the reason we're drawn to restorative practices is because they can be used proactively not just reactively so that a moment like this one wouldn't be appropriate for a restorative circle, like President Patton was referencing earlier, but something called a conference that's very intentionally facilitated. Although I've got to say that I think the student leaders of this session are doing a pretty amazing job. So that's the timeline, we're moving into this training in December with an eye towards hopefully grounding it in student life and residential life by next fall."
Vee Duong (’19): "I had a question: so something kind of disturbing that I have been noticing this year being involved in more cultural orgs is that a lot of students say "Oh wow I didn't know that existed, when do y'all have meetings?" And then we're like oh well we had a booth at activities and we have a mailing list that's been open, we operate out of the AFC which is always open, and to have these open discussions that we have been having about race, to have people who do not identify as that come into that space, that is acceptable and that's fine and we encourage you to do that but to have people come in and not be aware of the space they're taking up is very frustrating. So this is a point for faculty and staff and/or administrators, in that what are you all doing to provide real educational resources for students, incoming students especially, so that the burden doesn't fall on cultural orgs where we are already working really hard to provide a space to take care of our members mentally and emotionally to support each other so we don't have to take on the additional burden of educating people because all the educational resources I have seen have been put together laboriously through hours of our personal time.
Baishakhi Taylor (Dean of Students): "Vee I hear your question and I agree that we also need to do more. We have added sessions during the MiddView. President Patton has now made JusTalks mandatory for the entire class. We have also added more training in our reslife program and among colleagues who are in the reslife group and that's obviously not adequate so on top of having all these sessions that introduce with the incoming class this year we'll continue to build on that and I also acknowledge that having those sessions only during MiddView and JusTalks is not sufficient so we need to build on it throughout the year so the responsibility is not on the Anderson Freeman Center and thank you for doing the work that you're doing and raising the question."
Anonymous question (read by Rainey): "It seems like both Alison Stanger and Laurie Patton have been taking a lot of public, national opportunities to speak about the events of the spring, including at a congressional hearing on C-SPAN, the Free Speech Conference Laurie spoke at. For the purpose of transparency, are President Patton or Alison Stanger being financially compensated for these talks? Are they profiting off the terrible situation the administration has put us in?"
Patton: "I was not paid to go to the University of Chicago and I have no interest in profiting any situation that happened at Middlebury. I am very clear that any conversation that's part of the national discourse where Middlebury is mentioned we need to create balance so at the Chicago conference part of what we pushed on with many, many people there is where is our inclusivity? Where are our inclusivity efforts? We've always got to balance those two things no matter what happens. I had no intentions of profiting in any way my intent is to work on moving a national conversation where people who are constantly talking about free speech also talk about inclusivity. So both of those things are balanced and fair and appropriate, so that's the very direct answer. I had a couple more responses to questions I didn’t get a chance to answer but if there’s time later [I’ll answer].”
Victor Filpo (admissions counselor, class of '16): "I hope I really speaking for myself here rather than any hat of student, alumn, or staff member here on campus. Something that is frustrating, honestly, about this conversation is that we've really been centering around the case that happened with Addis or the case that happened with the professor. And that's completely legitimate because they are people who've been struggling a lot and they've been carrying a lot of the heaviness of what's going on. But I would like to say that the reality is that a lot of people of color deal with this. It is not surprising. We are tokenizing them right now by only brining up those instances. When I was freshman, when I was walking with my Posse member in Battell, a public safety office stopped us and told us, 'I haven't seen you on campus can you show us your IDs?' When we were first years here at Middlebury. He still works here. I have also gotten accused by other Public Safety officers for other things. It turns out completely fine because my dean loves me, obviously. And all the deans here do an amazing job at really caring for their students and really trying to look out emotionally for everyone. But this continues happening on the daily. Just this last summer I was crossing with two other students, and I'm glad this stuff happens to me when I'm with other people because I would not be able to believe that it happens to me on this level, weekly or biweekly, it's insane. Crossing the street, people start accelerating and then they stop and they yell the n-word at you. You are walking to your house or walking to your dorm and someone stops in a car and just yells at you, 'that looks stolen,' yells a rap lyric at you, choses another slur. It really does baffle me that this happens so often and I was just here as a senior two years ago and we had the same conversation about a sombrero right here. And every year we will continue to have this conversation right here. And yet I still have to walk home and have this experience all over again. And the only time I will be taken seriously isn't even when I'm with another person of color but rather when I have the kind, woke, white lady who is willing to represent me and say whoa he's going through some pain let's do something about it. I don't want someone to have a voice for me. I want to be able to talk for myself to be able to talk for myself, to be believed, for something to happen when I ask for it. When a person of color is going through a lot they don't have means to be able to express it. Do we really understand the amount of people of color who haven't said anything about their experiences. And when you sit with someone and they say, 'that baffles me,' does it really? Does it really? It shouldn't because it honestly happens on such a daily level. And you yourself you're all very smart people. We know that this happens. We ignore it. We choose to ignore it because it makes us feel comfortable. And I wonder when we're going to stop with this comfort because we just sit here every single year and have this conversation all over again in this comfort and I hope that in future instances when the next one comes up it's not Shatavia, it's not Victor, it's not the professor. It's a collective group of people who are going through a lot."
Student, unknown: "You said something about conversation and us being free and all that. There's a lot of dark forces in general on this campus and beyond this campus and a lot of what was just talked about were references to instances where students are facing racism from other white students on this campus that I'm sure a lot of people don't know about. If we look we have Donald Trump as our president and there's just crazy things going on while we're sitting here having restorative conversations, there's evil things going on and this stuff that we're talking about is just a small sample of something that's going on. It comes to a point where people have to decide whether they're going to actually be on the side of what's right or what's wrong and everyone has to make their own choice. I hope that especially the white people here will make that choice and not hide behind good sounding rhetoric or kind words, because those things are good and genuine kindness is good but a lot of people here feel like unless the school addresses the issues that are going on at the institutional level how are we going to be able to talk about what's going on in the world?"
Patton: "I wanted to mention that we're working with public safety, public safety has gone through a mandatory de-escalation training as well as diversity training this fall and will continue to do so. Concrete action. Concrete action: we created a seizing the opportunity fund for any student at Middlebury who wants to and needs to do something different, whether they need their parents to come here, or whether they need to go to MiddCore, whether they need more money for something they need more access to at Middlebury. We have raised that money so that every student has access to all educational opportunities. We started that last year, it's available, talk to Katy Smith Abbott, another concrete action. Third, one of the things we're really excited about is, I really appreciate what you said about facing racism and acknowledging and the everyday racism that happens on this campus that I acknowledged in the beginning. I think that if we could create an archive to create news stories of what is happening to people that would make it even more powerful for us so we need to get those kinds of stories on the books. We need to do a lot more mandatory training, that concrete action is happening in the next year, and in the back there are about 15 more concrete actions, none of them are enough. We need your advice on how to make it more effective and again I want to acknowledge the hurt that people are feeling and we are going to create a lot of student advisory committees to be better and more effective. And I am so proud of this community for being here tonight. Thank you very much."
Sohn: "We also know that tonight not all of your questions have been answered and we want to thank everyone for raising those question."
Anonymous notecard (read by Sohn): "Hoping on Wengel and Mia's point on allyship, please understand that these may be very sensitive times for POCs, QTPOCs on campus and on that note if you find yourself going to the AFC I hope you take the responsibility to learn about what it means to the POC/QTPOC community. You could speak to the directors and student staff in the space, and it's very central to understand what it means to take up space in times as sensitive as this one. On that note please come feel free to come learn more about the positive impact the AFC is making on this institution."
(11/09/17 12:26am)
A small group of students met in Chellis House for a information session on Planned Parenthood on Oct. 19. Paige Feeser, the Vermont Public Affairs Organizer for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, led the session. Feminist Action at Middlebury (FAM) hosted the event, reestablishing the Generation Action initiative, the collegiate activist branch of Planned Parenthood.
Feeser welcomed the group and, arranging the seats in a circle, shared her own experience working with Planned Parenthood. She admitted that she did not initially feel the same passion for the organization as her colleagues until the Supreme Court struck down the Massachusetts “buffer zone” law in June 2014, siding with abortion opponents.
“I really for the first time saw this systemic oppression that is happening in that our country does not fully support women and the choices that they make about their own bodies,” Feeser said. “It was from there that I said I can’t stand idle.“
Feeser then launched into discussion, stating that she wanted to give the group a basic understanding of Planned Parenthood so that they could understand the organization on both a national and local level when talking to other people on campus. She explained that there are three important elements to the organization, the first being healthcare.
“We are a trusted healthcare provider, and in fact we’ve been providing healthcare for over a hundred years,” Feeser said. “We provide a wealth of different services, including abortion, but really our focus is both reproductive and sexual health.”
The second element is education.
“We truly believe that all people should be able to make voluntary choices about their health,” she said. “So we’re providing education during people’s appointments, during counseling sessions, we are providing 24/7 up-to-date information on our website.” Feeser also discussed Planned Parenthood’s peer educator program, which offers high school students sexual education training that they can then use to teach their fellow students.
The third element is advocacy, which is a critical piece in ensuring that people have access to healthcare and education services.
“Our mission statement is to provide, promote, and protect access to reproductive healthcare and sexuality education so that all people can make voluntary choices about their healthcare,” Feeser said.
Feeser also gave a few of Planned Parenthood’s northern New England statistics.
“We have 21 health centers across Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Last year we served 41,956 patients,” she said. “The majority of our patients are in their 20s, and that is interesting because it challenges what most people think, that people who use our services the most are in their teens.”
There are many other misconceptions about the organization. For example many people assume that patients only go to Planned Parenthood in times of crisis, such as an unplanned pregnancy or STI. But Feeser repeated that the organization offers many different services.
“[In the Northern New England branch], abortion care is at six percent, five percent pregnancy testing and five percent other counseling,” she said. “[Health care for transgender individuals] is a service that is up and coming in our health centers, as well as lab-testing.” She also mentioned other services, such as birth control, cancer screenings for both males and females, preconception education, STD preventatives and men’s health care, including erectile dysfunction treatment.
Feeser mentioned another myth about who uses services at Planned Parenthood. 87 percent of patients in Northern New England are women and 13 percent are men.
“Even amongst our supporters I hear all the time, ‘Planned Parenthood is a women’s organization.’ We’re trying to break that and certainly we are really working to bring more males into our health center, and really putting a focus on LGBT care as well,” Feeser said.
Feeser then turned the discussion back to the students and discussed sexual education and awareness in a school environment, a topic that the student organizations have been taking on recently. Natalie Cheung ’18, who attended the session, is working with other students to start a sexual education initiative on campus, but the students who attended Feeser’s talk felt that people should receive sex education before college.
FAM president Cara Eisenstein ’18 acknowledged that there are already sex-positive education organizations on campus, but she thinks that increasing this number is important.
“I think it’s great that there are a couple of different organizations doing similar and somewhat overlapping things, but with a different main focus, because that way the labor can be divided,” she said. She also mentioned that FAM and a few other organizations and individuals are working to bring a sex educator from O.School, an online sexual education platform, to campus in early December.
Eisenstein has also been working with Feeser on Planned Parenthood advocacy for the past few months.
“I think that as someone from Vermont who is relatively young, Paige is a great window into Planned Parenthood for students at Middlebury [who are interested in being] part of Generation Action,” she said. “I’m really glad we were able to reinstitute Generation Action on campus because it is an important organization for helping young people get involved in the fight for reproductive justice and focusing on advancing the goals of feminism through an intersectional lens.”
FAM is incorporating Generation Action into its meetings every Wednesday from 9-10 p.m. in the Chellis House. The club plans to have a tabling event in Proctor within the next few weeks in order to draw attention to current events surrounding reproductive justice.
(11/08/17 5:41pm)
The top-ranked Middlebury women’s field hockey team earned their fifth Nescac championship as they swept Trinity 5–0 at their home turf on Sunday, Nov. 5. This conference win grants them an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
The Panthers had maintained their winning streak with Saturday’s semifinal matchup against Bowdoin on Kohn Field, earning another appearance in the conference finals with a 5–2 triumph over the Polar Bears.
Annie Leonard ’18 quickly toppled the Bowdoin defense by scoring within the first two minutes of play for her 14th goal of the season. The Panthers did not let their opponents respond before knocking in another shot: Grace Jennings ’21 tallied the second point for the Panthers, scoring off of an assist from Molly Freeman ’19. Bowdoin was unable to respond to Middlebury’s 2–0 lead until almost halfway into the first 35 minutes. Polar Bear Elizabeth Bennewitz ’19 kept her team in the game, putting up the first of two points Bowdoin would score by the end of the game. But before the first half came to a close, Middlebury’s Erin Nicholas ’21 snuck in a goal past the Polar Bear goalie off of an assist from Jennings, giving the Panthers a two–goal lead heading into halftime.
The second half was silent for the first eight minutes until a strong play led to a Bowdoin score and narrowed the Panther lead. This goal only served to reinvigorate the Middlebury offense as Freeman pushed two shots past the Polar Bear goalie. This 5–2 margin would hold and offer the Panthers another chance to fight for the conference championship.
“Our strategy going into this weekend was to just focus on playing field hockey the Middlebury way,” said Sophia Peluso ’20. “We scouted Bowdoin and Trinity, but ultimately we were confident that if we played our game we would come out on top. There was a sense of calm and confidence throughout the entire weekend, it was a really cool thing to be a part of.”
On the afternoon of Sunday, Nov. 5, the Panthers looked to take back the championship that was stolen from them last year. But, this year they would have to defeat the Bantams to get there.
The Panthers quickly got to work, with Freeman getting her team one goal closer to a victory. She demonstrated her knack for scoring swiftly, punching in her third goal of the weekend off of a rebound within the first ten minutes. Five minutes later, Emma Johns ’20 awarded Middlebury their second point of the game. The Panthers were not satisfied with this two goal lead, as Leonard would hammer in two more shots past the Trinity goalie. Middlebury’s defense proved tough, denying the 16th-ranked Bantams an opportunity to get on the board. This gave Middlebury a comfortable 4–0 lead going into the second half, inching them closer to the title.
But, Middlebury refused to stop there. Freeman guaranteed the Panthers the victory, closing out the second half with the fifth and final goal of the game, thanks to the Panther defense and a stellar performance by Abby Furdak ’21 in goal to secure the shutout and a 5–0 win.
As the second half ran out, the Panthers rushed the field to celebrate their fifth conference title and their automatic spot in the DIII NCAA tournament.
Julia Richards ’20 commented on the team’s preparations for the upcoming weekend:
“Because we don’t know which team we’re playing until Wednesday, our strategy is, as always, to continue to focus on the fundamentals — great first touch, accurate passing and all shots on cage — and prepare for the individual team and their tendencies when we know more.”
The tournament will begin this coming weekend with the Panthers battling on Kohn Field in the regional round. Although they are coming off of a successful weekend, the Panthers are not satisfied, and are looking to make history with a third national title within the next few weeks.
(11/08/17 5:39pm)
In the Nescac tournament this past weekend, the volleyball team fell in the first round to Bowdoin 3–2 (25–22, 25–18, 17–25, 25–27, 10–15) on Friday, Nov. 3. The match at Tufts, a neutral site, was close throughout, marking a heartbreaking end to the Panther’s season.
With a 9–8 lead in the opening set, the Panthers strung together a 4–0 run that included a pair of kills from Eliana Schaefer ’18. Their lead ballooned to as great as six, 17–11, before the Polar Bears clawed their way back to a three point-deficit. Middlebury countered, using three kills by Sarah Staver ’19 to put together a 6–1 run and take a commanding 23–15 lead. Bowdoin surged back, winning the next five points before a Becca Raffel ’18 kill stopped the run. Emily Kolodka ‘18 ended the set moments later with a kill of her own to seal the set for Middlebury.
In the second set the Panthers again used a 4-0 run to give themselves a lead 12–7 behind two kills from Isabel Sessions ’19. Bowdoin returned fire to, once again, bring themselves to within three, but a block by Alice Roberts ’18 put the Panthers back up by four. Middlebury won five of the next seven points to achieve a two-set lead. In the set, they limited the Polar Bears to a hitting percentage below .200 while hitting .400 themselves.
In the third set, at an 8–8 tie, Bowdoin went on a run to go ahead 16–10. Sessions used a kill to bring the Panthers to within five at 18–13, but the Polar Bears retaliated by winning the next six points, eventually taking the third set.
In the fourth, Middlebury jumped out to a quick 5–1 lead but was on the wrong end of a 10-2 streak and went down 11–7. The rest of the set was a back and forth affair, seeing ties at 14 apiece, 15, 16, 21, and 24. Down to set point at 24–25, Emma Walsh ’21 recorded a kill to extend the set, but Bowdoin won the next two points to even the match. Bowdoin went ahead in the final set after a 6–1 run to put them up 9–4. Middlebury was unable to recover, as the Polar Bears took the final set 15–10 and the match as well.
Sessions led the attack with 17 kills, while Raffel (11) and Staver (10) also had double-digit kills. Walsh paced the Panthers with 39 assists and added 10 digs while Alper secured a team-high 16 digs.
Sessions had a career year, demolishing her season-high of kills, 273 in 2016, with 304 this year. Walsh made a splash in her first year with 512 assists, and her 9.48 assists per set ranked third in the Nescac. Another first-year, Shea Golden ’21, ranked in the top five in the conference in service aces per set with 0.43. Staver contributed 78 blocks on the season to lead the team with Schaefer just behind with 76.
Seniors Raffel, Kolodka, Roberts, and Schaefer finish their four year careers with a 64–37 record and one Nescac championship in 2016. Raffel ends her career fifth place all-time on the Panther kill leaderboard with 1,163 over her four years.
Although the season did not end as hoped, Raffel has nothing but good memories of her career, “The past four years have been an incredible experience playing for MCVB and I’m excited to see what the team accomplishes in the future.”
Roberts finishes with 473 kills while Kolodka leaves with 1,163 career digs to place her ninth in program history. Schaefer capped off her career with a career-season and totaled 449 kills and 162 assists in her time in a Panther uniform.
“The seniors have contributed in every way this season, fostering a family like dynamic that is evident on and off the court,” said Alper about her departing teammates. “We will miss the four seniors immensely next year but we are so excited to see what they will accomplish next. We are fueled to take back the NESCAC title in their honor.”
Coach Sarah Raunecker said the seniors were “the backbone of the team. All four were starters and major contributors to the box score, but on top of that, they were great teammates.”
While their contributions on the court cannot be understated, their attributes off it were just as impressive.
“I’m so proud of them,” said Raunecker. “I think it’s says a lot about the respect they’ve garnered over their careers that all four were selected for the NEWVA Senior Classic honoring the top seniors in New England. We will have some big holes to fill next year, both offensively and defensively. I’m really going to miss them.”
(11/08/17 5:28pm)
On the last home game of the season and final home contest for the Class of 2018, the football team routed Hamilton 41–20 after scoring the game’s first 41 points on Saturday, Nov. 4. Middlebury kept hold of the “rocking chair” by defeating the Continentals for the 22nd-straight time in the rivalry.
Hamilton deferred the toss, deciding to kick it off to a dangerous Jimmy Martinez ’19, who returned the ball 21 yards to the Middlebury 31-yard line. Two plays later, Jake Meservy ’19, who took over the offensive reins after a season ending knee injury to starting quarterback Jared Lebowitz, connected with Martinez on a 65-yard bomb. Carter Massengill ’20 completed the extra point and the hosts were off to a 7–0 lead, 45 seconds into the contest.
Three plays later, on Hamilton’s first possession, Kevin Maxwell ’19 forced a fumble, which Middlebury’s John Jackson ’18 recovered on Hamilton’s 37-yard line. On the ensuing play, Peter Scibilia ’21 rushed 15 yards out of bounds to the Hamilton 22, which set up a fantastic look for Meservy. He once again connected with Martinez for the duo’s second touchdown. Massengill completed the kick and Middlebury led 14–0 fewer than 2 minutes into the contest.
The Continentals attempted to move the chains on their next drive, but they failed. After a Hamilton punt, Middlebury started the drive on its own 16-yard line and marched to the Hamilton 31, aided by a Continental offside penalty. From there, Meservy threw his only interception of the game, but Hamilton could not capitalize on them mishap and punted again.
The punt travelled to the Hamilton 45 , and Kevin Hopsicker ’18 returned it twelve yards, setting Middlebury up in excellent field position.
Meservy rushed for 13 yards and the offense tacked on 15 more thanks to a Hamilton pass interference penalty, placing the Panthers at the Hamilton four-yard line. Dropping back in the pocket, Merservy found Scibilia for a four-yard reception and his third touchdown pass of the afternoon. Massengill missed the extra point, but the hosts held a 20–0 lead at the end of the first quarter.
In the second quarter, the two teams struggled for field position, with neither team mustering anything more than a punt for the first five minutes. At the eight-minute mark, however, Middlebury’s defense turned it up a notch. Hamilton quarterback Sam Foley tried to rush for one yard on a fourth-and-one play, but was stopped at the line of scrimmage. Before he was downed, Maxwell forced his second fumble of the game. Wesley Becton ’18 recovered the ball at the Hamilton 45-yard line and took it all the way to the house to give Middlebury a 27–0 lead.
On the ensuing Hamilton drive, Foley was sacked for a four-yard loss by Jackson. On the play, Foley fumbled, which was recovered by Aaron Slodowitz ’18. At the opposing 26-yard line, the Panthers were pushed back 10 yards thanks to a holding penalty. Meservy took the penalty in stride, answering with a 36-yard pass to Frank Cosolito ’20 for his sixth career touchdown and Merservy’s fourth and final of the day.
“Personally, the Hamilton game was a huge confidence boost for me, especially after getting my first start the previous week against one of the best teams in this conference,” said Meservy, who left the game after Middlebury took a 34–0 lead. “It was a really awesome feeling to see Jimmy [Martinez] make a perfect catch and then run down into the end zone to celebrate. Ever since the loss to Trinity, we’ve been eager to make a statement — the Hamilton game gave us that opportunity. I think that the first touchdown coming on the second play of the game helped us get ahead and stay head.”
After throwing the fourth touchdown, I was just so happy that I was able to help send the seniors out with a win on Senior Day; especially guys like Dan, Kasirye, and Lebowitz, who would’ve given anything to be able to play on Saturday.”
Hamilton could not get on the board the entire first half and they struggled to compete with the Panthers’ offense. With a minute and fifty seconds left in the first half, Will Jernigan ’21 went under center for a shot at the Continentals’ struggling defense. Starting at their own 33-yard line, Jernigan completed an 11-yard pass to Tanner Contois ’18 and a 30-yard pass to Martinez giving the Panthers position at the Hamilton 17. After completing a pass to Conrado Banky ’19 for 12 yards to get to the Hamilton five-yard line, the Panthers called a timeout. And with seven seconds left in the half, the Jernigan found Banky again from five yards out, giving the hosts a 41-0 lead and their final touchdown.
Hamilton managed to score three times in the fourth quarter. Their first touchdown came on a four-play, 69-yard possession, but they missed the extra point. They scored again five minutes later on a 6 play, 66-yard possession. Hamilton tried to go for the two-point conversion, but their attempt failed and the hosts maintained a 41–12 lead. The Continental’s final score came around the two-minute mark. Starting at the Middlebury 22-yard line, after a 30-yard punt return, Foley completed a pass 16 yards and a subsequent six-yard pass to Joe Schmidt. Foley completed the two-yard conversion and the final score of the game concluded with a Middlebury win, 41–20.
Meservy finished with 212 yards on 11-16 pass attempts and four touchdowns, while Jernigan went 4–6 for 58 yards. Martinez caught three passes for 117 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Jackson had a fulfilling day on defense, finishing with nine tackles, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery and a sack. Becton finished closely behind Jackson with seven tackles, an interception and a touchdown after a recovered fumble.
The Panthers close out their season on Saturday, November 11th against Tufts (5–3). With a win, Middlebury would end the season 7–2. If Amherst loses to Williams and Trinity loses to Wesleyan, Middlebury, Amherst, Trinity and Wesleyan would all earn a share of the Nescac championship with records of 7–2. The last time there was a tie for the Nescac championship was 2013 when Amherst, Middlebury and Wesleyan tied for the crown.
(11/01/17 11:11pm)
The Middlebury Women Leaders Club held its first Female Mentor Luncheon on Friday, Oct. 27, with Professor of History Amy Morsman. Erin Van Gessel ‘17.5, made opening remarks.
Before coming to Middlebury, Morsman lived and worked in the South, as Van Gessel explained. She earned her undergraduate degree at Wake Forest University in North Carolina and a History PhD from the University of Virginia. Morsman channeled her interests in gender roles, slavery and the civil war in her dissertation and first book. Her research now examines race relations and regionalism in the nineteenth century, but the thing she loves most about her job as a professor is engaging young people in thought-provoking discussions.
At the luncheon, Morsman reflected on her undergraduate and graduate experiences as well as the nuances of balancing work and family life. While what we may find fulfilling exactly may be in constant flux, the need to support yourself persists. For that reason, she argues, we are constantly balancing and weighing.
“If you focus on what fulfills you instead of what you are doing, then you will never feel inadequate,” Morsman said.
In response to the question about what to do when you fail at what fulfills you, Morsman challenged students to reconsider what constitutes their standard for greatness and emphasized the importance of embracing failures.
“We often feel like we’re not supposed to share our fear and failures,” Morsman said. “But they are important.”
This led to a discussion about personal growth in which not only Morsman shared personal anecdotes about her studies, career, family, and the women who have inspired her along the way. Students also offered advice to other young Middlebury women in attendance.
The Middlebury Women Leaders Club is led by Van Gessel, Rae Aaron ’19.5 and Maryam Mahboob ’18. Morsman was the first female mentor for the luncheon series. There will be two more luncheons. The next will be with Dean of Students Baishakhi Taylor and the third will be with Jessica Holmes, a professor of Economics and leader of MiddCore.
Over Winter Term there will be a weekend with a conflict mediation workshop led by President Laurie L. Patton, a to-be-determined keynote speaker on Friday, and then on Saturday, a student-run fashion show modeling the work of a female student-run business, Share to Wear. The fashion show will serve as a fundraiser for She Should Run, an organization that recruits women to run for political office and runs their campaigns.
The Middlebury Women Leaders club meets bi-weekly on Monday nights in the Gifford annex from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. The symposium during J-Term will coincide with the one year anniversary of the Women’s March: Jan. 18-20, 2018.
(11/01/17 10:52pm)
News media in the United States has changed dramatically over the past few decades, and few have a better perspective on that evolution than Walter Mears ’56. Mears served as editor-in-chief of The Campus in his senior year at Middlebury, and began reporting for the Associated Press (AP) immediately following his graduation. Mears wrote for the AP from then until 2001, during which time he covered 11 presidential elections and won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the 1976 campaign. Recently, Mears spoke by phone to Nick Garber, a news editor for The Campus, and discussed his time at Middlebury and the state of journalism in the Trump era. This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Nick Garber (NG): Some have alleged that the news media “graded Trump on a curve” in 2016, which minimized his flaws and exaggerated Hillary Clinton’s. What do you make of that allegation? Did you ever cover a candidate who was so unique that it felt difficult to cover them fairly?
Walter Mears (WM): “Unique” is a kind word to use for Trump. I guess the closest I could come would be [Alabama Governor] George Wallace in 1968 and 1972, and Ross Perot, who was the third-party candidate against Bill Clinton and [George H.W.] Bush. But I don’t think there’s been anyone quite like Trump.
One reason is the change in the coverage—the word news media means so many things now that it’s meaningless. You can call anything, from a totally fictitious website to the Associated Press, part of the news media, and it’s not. And the rise of social media, which I consider antisocial, has made it possible for people with all sorts of axes to grind to pose as though they were reporting news. And, egged on by Trump and also by the most liberal of us, objective news has become so subjective that it’s hard for people to know what they’re supposed to read, or hear, or see, or believe. I think that’s a great danger to our whole system, because without an informed electorate, you can’t have sensible elections.
As a reporter, I covered a lot of people I personally disagreed with. I spent a lot of time with Barry Goldwater in 1963 and ’64. I respected him and he was a patriot, but I didn’t think he ought to be president and disagreed with his views. But I covered him fairly and my colleagues did too. Barry thanked us after the campaign, saying, “I know most of you don’t agree with what I say, but I respect the way you covered it objectively.” I couldn’t cover Donald Trump fairly. I’m glad I don’t have to try. I couldn’t simply stand by and report objectively the irresponsible behavior of this man and the people around him.
NG: Can you boil down the issues with modern media into any one concept?
WM: I don’t know that there’s any one thing I could name. The fact that anybody with a computer is suddenly a journalist is part of the problem. Obviously, the biggest threat to the kind of news media I knew is the decline of the daily newspaper, because advertising migrated to the internet, and nobody’s figured out how to make a good business model to keep a newspaper going without advertising.
With that support structure being undermined by the availability of online advertising, you lose the resources that are essential to the kind of news coverage that is essential to a functioning democracy. If you look at the major newspapers, a few still maintain overseas news coverage, but most don’t bother since it’s very expensive. The coverage of statehouses is shrinking; in a lot of states where you used to have a press corps, it’s a handful of reporters who show up once in awhile but don’t cover state government the way it was covered in my era. That’s a function of resources, which are shrinking, and that’s a big problem.
NG: Thinking ahead to 2020, what do you make of the perceived split in the Republican Party? Do you expect Trump to draw any primary challengers?
WM: There’s a certain pattern that needs to be repeated. You’ve got to get through the primaries, you’ve got to get the nomination, and so forth. I’d be very surprised if there aren’t one or more challengers to Trump for renomination. [Tennessee Senator] Bob Corker, who’s retiring and telling the truth about Trump and his cadre, would seem to me to be a solid prospect for people looking for a challenger.
The campaign of 2016 was warped all out of shape by a number of factors. I hate to think a major reason was Russian interference—in my time, during and shortly after the Cold War, any candidate who was cozy with the Russians politically would’ve been laughed out of the race immediately.
NG: Can you describe how your time at Middlebury contributed to your career?
WM: Middlebury was crucial to launching me into my career in journalism. I always wanted to be a reporter. I chose Middlebury because it chose me. I wasn’t a very distinguished student going in—I did well in college and I graduated with honors, but my credentials as an applicant were not the greatest. Those four years were crucial to my maturing process, and The Campus was crucial to my career. My contacts opened the door that led me to work for the AP the morning after I graduated from Middlebury.
NG: The relationship between the student body and the administration is a dominant topic on campus these days. What kind of dealings did you have with the administration as a student, and as a student journalist?
WM: One of my duties as editor was to oversee the writing of the editorials and bring them to Sam Stratton, the president of the college, before they were published. Nothing was ever changed, though there was a sense that they were looking over your shoulder.
The biggest issue that arose in my time as editor was the summer before I became editor, a famous and beloved Dean of Men, Storrs Lee, was fired. They did it when the campus was deserted for the summer—I think because of the rebellion it would’ve caused, because he was a great dean and a fine gentleman. I wrote an editorial that basically said that we as a student body had every right to be outraged that a man of his caliber was dismissed, but that the board of trustees was within its right in doing what it did and that there was no way to overturn it. Basically, “I’m as mad as you are, but cool it.” It went over very well with the administration, but was also accepted and observed by the student body. It was regarded as a sensible, calming message from an unlikely place.
NG: Middlebury has received significant news coverage in recent months due to the March protests of Charles Murray. In the aftermath, it seemed that students on all sides of the issue were frustrated by the news coverage, which many felt failed to capture the nuances of the discourse on campus. During your career, how did you approach the challenge of accurately capturing the subtleties of the situations you reported on?
WM: Obviously, what got the attention was the fact that they shouted him off the stage and the professor was injured, and that it got out of hand. I wish that the people that objected to this man would’ve simply said, “The perfect answer is to let him have an empty arena. Nobody go—let the people who invited him listen to him, nobody else show up.” The one thing people like Murray can’t stand is to be ignored. Obviously, he wasn’t and Middlebury wasn’t—Middlebury got more news coverage than I’ve ever seen it get before or after, and all it did was inflate Murray.
It’s sort of like Trump—be outrageous and people will pay attention. I don’t know about the nuances on campus, but I think letting it get to that point takes away the ability to have rational discussion about it. I wasn’t there and don’t know exactly what happened, but it did get violent and that’s counterproductive.
NG: What advice would you give to young people that are seeking to enter journalism, or simply to hold power accountable in this era?
WM: I hope that people who aspire to journalism won’t give up because it’s too important to walk away from the institution that is crucial to democracy. I think that democracy is facing its greatest challenge in my lifetime, because its very essence is an informed electorate, and we’re losing that.
Trump, in suggesting that all stories with unidentified sources are simply made up by the reporters, is ignoring the fact that that’s a fireable offense—if you make up a source, you’re fired. That issue is one the Trump crowd rides hard because part of their stock and trade is sowing mistrust of the coverage people should be able to rely on. So, I hope people who aspire to journalism stick with it, and know it’s going to be more difficult now than ever, for the decline of the newspapers and for the fact that you’ll be surrounded by people howling that you’re a liar.
For the broader part of your question, it’s crucial to all of us that young people and old people pay attention to their sources of information. As a reporter, you don’t go with something if you have one source and you can’t back it up. Readers should apply a similar standard—not just grab a rumor from the internet, but look for backup, look for other sources. Do the research to find out what’s really going on. It’s difficult and most people don’t take the time to do it, but not doing it leads to a firestorm of misinformation. There’s so much floating around out there, and it’s easy to grab onto the latest rumor and treat it as truth. Checking sources is a standard for reporters, and it ought be what readers follow as well.
NG: We’ll see if my generation can figure that out.
WM: It’s going to be tough but I hope you do, because if we’re going to keep a democracy, we’re going to have to do better at informing ourselves about who and what we’re voting on. The whole process has been so distorted by so many factors that it’s hard to see why it’s worth it. But it’s worth it because it’s the system we’ve had for a couple of centuries, and it’s worth defending by paying attention to it.
(11/01/17 10:44pm)
Political science professor Allison Stanger, who was injured following the March 2 protests of Charles Murray, spoke out last week in an interview and a congressional hearing, blaming Middlebury faculty for the acrimony of the protests and requesting an apology from students involved.
The hearing, held on Thursday, Oct. 26 before the Senate Committee on Health, Labor and Pensions, was titled “Exploring Free Speech on College Campuses.” Stanger delivered written testimony and answered questions from the senate panel. She was also interviewed on C-SPAN before her participation in the hearing.
To begin her testimony, Stanger explained why she thought the protests occurred at Middlebury.
“First of all, any liberal arts college campus is something of a bubble, but Middlebury College is in the state of Vermont, making it a bubble within a bubble,” she said.
Stanger went on to fault faculty members for failing to adequately educate themselves and their students on Murray’s work, relying on secondary sources instead of Murray’s own writing.
“Just because everybody is saying something about some person or group obviously does not make it true. Exhibit A is 1938 Nazi Germany. Our responsibility as educators is to encourage students to read and think for themselves, not to outsource their thinking to others,” she said.
In both the interview and her testimony, Stanger did not distinguish between the indoor protest and the events outside which left her injured, instead drawing a link between the two.
“Shutting down speech is always an invitation to violence,” she said. “The people who supported some of the extremist actions, at least at the time, thought that what happened outside was a result of outside forces, but it’s all very much interconnected.”
The masked individuals who attacked Stanger and Murray have not yet been identified. In response to an interview question about the assailants’ identities, Stanger responded, “I have some ideas.”
“I wouldn’t want to see anybody punished or suspended, but I think it would be a very constructive thing for students who were involved in the shutting down of this speech that led to my injury apologize,” she said.
Stanger elaborated on the status of her injury in the C-SPAN interview. “I still have a couple of muscles in my neck that misbehave, but I feel like I’m almost back to complete recovery,” she said.
In both her testimony and interview, Stanger repeatedly blamed faculty members for the events of March 2, citing a need for students to be better “advised.”
“What disturbs me about what happened at Middlebury is that I think students were actively encouraged by some members of the faculty to do things that were not in their interest, and that upsets me. Eighteen to twenty-one year olds are still developing, and need to be advised in the right ways,” she said.
In her testimony, Stanger acknowledged the challenges experienced by students of color at Middlebury, while still denouncing the actions of protestors.
“None of this is to excuse the shutting down of speech and the violence to which it led, but it is to point out that the emotions the protestors brought to the event were real and justified. There is still much equality work to be done in our country,” she said.
Stanger ended her testimony with three conjectures.
“First, while the entire university cannot and should not be a safe space, there must be
some safe enclaves on campus to foster inclusivity,” she said.
“Second, if we are to avoid the implicit endorsement of real violence, such as what happened at Middlebury, institutions of higher learning cannot be in the business of policing symbolic violence. Calling speech symbolic violence, unfortunately, seems to justify physical violence as a reciprocal response,” she said.
Stanger’s final conjecture called for a peace treaty among departments on campus, citing the sociology and anthropology department’s demand that the political science department rescind its co-sponsorship of Murray’s talk.
Stanger ended her testimony by encouraging bipartisanship.
“More broadly, our constitutional democracy will depend on whether Americans can relearn how to engage civilly with one another,” she said. “There is important work for Democrats and Republicans to do together. Let’s get to it.”
Stanger is currently on sabbatical and will return to campus in the fall of 2019.
