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(03/03/17 1:37am)
Student-led protests prevented Dr. Charles Murray, a W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), from delivering a lecture scheduled to take place at 4:30 PM at Wilson Hall in the McCullough Student Center. The college's AEI Club invited Murray to speak about his 2012 book "Coming Apart,: and to engage in a conversation with Russell J. Leng '60 Professor of International Politics and Economics Allison Stanger.
Opening remarks were delivered by the college's Vice President for Communications and Chief Marketing Officer Bill Burger, AEI Executive Board Member Ivan Valladares 17 and Middlebury President Laurie L. Patton. AEI Co-President Alexander Khan d17 introduced Murray. After Murray arrived at the podium, students began to protest.
Approximately twenty minutes after the protest began, the college canceled the live event in Wilson Hall and decided to live stream a private conversation between Murray and Stanger. That live event will be made available through the college news room.
UPDATE March 3, 2017
In the time that that has passed since this article went live, new developments have emerged. As reported by the Addison County Independent, protestors injured Professor Allison Stanger as she escorted Charles Murray off campus following the conclusion of their live streamed conversation.
“During this confrontation outside McCullough, one of the demonstrators pulled Prof. Stanger’s hair and twisted her neck,” the Colleges Vice President for Communications and Chief Marketing Officer Bill Burger said.
“The protestors then violently set upon the car, rocking it, pounding on it, jumping on and try to prevent it from leaving campus,” he said. “At one point a large traffic sign was thrown in front of the car. Public Safety officers were able, finally, to clear the way to allow the vehicle to leave campus."
According to Burger, she was attended to at Porter Hospital later and is wearing a neck brace.
More information will be provided in next weeks issue of The Campus.
For videos and pictures of the event, please see below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6EASuhefeI&t=26s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_B-DssohgY
(02/24/17 1:15am)
Imagine a museum exhibition that not only amazes, inspires and entertains you along every step, but also challenges you with questions and ideas posed by every meticulously selected work of art. The latest exhibit at our very own museum, American Faces: A Cultural History of Portraiture and Identity, which opened on Feb. 17, guarantees viewers a fulfilling experience of such with more than 90 pieces that broaden the definition of American portraiture.
Richard Saunders, director of the College Museum of Art, is the curator of American Faces and the author of a recently published book with the same title. In an interview on Sunday, which was suitably turned into a tour of the entire exhibit, Saunders explained his long-term fascination with American portraits and identity. He has been interested in portraits since he was in college, and wrote his dissertation in graduate school on a portrait artist. Unable to find a good book about portraiture to assign to students in his classes, Saunders put years of his work into his own book.
According to Saunders, the exhibit is a “distilled version of the book.”
“The idea is that the Americans have been interested in creating images of themselves for hundreds of years, and so I was interested in why,” he said. “So I thought, well, can I break that down into groups? Can I create, as I’ve described this as a rudimentary taxonomy, a system to look at all this?”
To answer these questions, the exhibit is divided into seven sections, based around the same seven chapters in the book that bring out different themes and stories. The one hour of my first visit to the opening felt like barely enough to absorb the wide variety of the pieces selected; from oil-on-canvas paintings and daguerreotype to caricature and videos, the exhibit could be somewhat overwhelming, and requires close attention and active thinking from the viewer.
“That’s why the [label] texts are so long,” Saunders said in response to this observation. “I felt that it was important to do that, because otherwise people wouldn’t understand necessarily why something was here. I hope people get it. It’s like anything; you try and throw it out there, and see if people are interested.”
The first section of the exhibit, titled “The Rich,” starts us off with more traditional oil-on-canvas paintings, mainly from the 18th and 19th centuries, which were commissioned by wealthy people. People’s desire to showcase social status, wealth and fashion is apparent throughout the colonial period and into the first decades of the Republic.
“Many of these people are being flattered through the portraits,” Saunders said. “The idea was to make them look better. It’s like the ultimate Donald Trump experience.”
He pointed out that Trump once said he saw a 35-year-old when looking in the mirror, while the president was also dissatisfied with a painting of his 35-year-old self.
“I’d like one of [my students] to work on images of Donald Trump, because he has such an ego and a focus on his own [image],” Saunders said.
The portraits hanging on the wall from two centuries ago seem not so cut off from the present; in fact, they are so immediately related to our media world today, whether personal or political.
In the next section, “Portraits for Everyone,” two pieces on loan from the Andy Warhol Museum bring the audience to a new era of portraiture and identity. Saunders emphasized the importance of Warhol’s portrait of Ethel Scull, an art collector, which is one panel of a huge commissioned portrait consisting of 35 more of such pieces.
“He wasn’t interested in doing paintings like that,” Saunders said, pointing at the oil paintings from the former section. “So this is really important, in terms of telling how commissioned portraits by wealthy people changed in 1963 when he did this.”
The borrowing of this piece in part led to the installation of an actual photo booth in the exhibition, placed among other works of art.
“The photograph, on which this [Ether Scull painting] is based, was taken in a photo booth exactly like that,” Saunders said, highlighting the importance of the machine in impacting mainstream American painting.
As an interactive element of the exhibit, the photo booth allows visitors to take four black-and-white snapshots for free (despite the vintage words painted outside that indicate a 25-cent fee).
“Fame” brings together works of different media that look at famous people. “Images of celebrities have been gradually replacing portraits of heroes,” reads the section note. Across the wall printed with a large image of LeBron James hangs Constantino Brumidi’s “The Apotheosis of Washington” (1859), which is a preliminary work of the Capitol dome in Washington D.C.’s interior painting, depicting George Washington surrounded by holy figures in the clouds. Saunders commented that the Capitol dome is probably the most “hallow shrine” in this country, in which “Washington has become a god.”
“He’s moved on from being a real person,” he said. “He’s the embodiment of ideas and American beliefs about being noble, being moral and being patriotic.”
Walking towards the fourth section called “Propaganda,” Saunders explained that no portraits are accidental, and there is always a reason why a portrait is made. A number of the works included are political, including a Warhol painting in 1972 commissioned by the Democrats to create a negative portrayal of Richard M. Nixon, a more recent political caricature “Who Does He Think He Is” (2008) by Pat Oliphant depicting Barack Obama and a small TV looping the first televised presidential debate between Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon.
“This is about the obvious use of portraits for different agendas, for selling you an idea, or a product, or a political belief,” Saunders said. “It’s all about control, about image.”
The fifth section, “Self and Audience,” was, according to Saunders, the part he felt most challenged by in the curating process. Again, he attempted to showcase the long history of artists making self-portraits with a wide variety of works, along with ideas of the intended audiences for the portraits. Included in the section is C. Zimmerman’s panoramic photograph, “Women of the Ku Klux Klan.”
“[This photograph is about] an allegiance of a group that most people would find awful,” he said. “But these people certainly cared about being identified with that group.”
He pointed out that most of the people in these group portraits seem to be happy and proud to be part of the group.
“It’s about issues of identity. We all want to figure out where we fit into something, and connect to things that we care about and believe in.”
The section also includes more contemporary works, such as “Genetic Self-Portrait: Hair,” which is a hair’s image under a microscope, and a “Name Self-Portrait (with Beethoven),” on which the artist Gene Beery identifies with Beethoven through mere words and no image.
“Ritual, Power, and Memory” combines the ideas of monuments and memorials.
“This whole section really is about how we remember people, and how we use their lives to tell other narratives or establish beliefs that we feel are important,” Saunders said.
One of the most intriguing works displayed is a collection of postmortem portraits from 1850-75, which are small images of deceased people. Saunders is fascinated by how Americans have a hard time talking about death, though taking these images was a very popular thing to do back then.
“Most of these people were probably never recorded in painting, particularly the little babies who died, and infant mortality was enormously high,” he said. “So this was a way to honor them and to remember them.”
The other side of the section is devoted to public monuments and the breaking down of them in cases of people rejecting the power, both acknowledging the abundance of life-size bronze statues of celebrities in the U.S. and the ways in which they resonate with the public.
The exhibit ends in the center, where the seventh section titled “Gallery” offers the audience a resounding conclusion. “Portrait of Stephen Colbert” is likely to catch the audience’s attention immediately, with its unorthodox composition of portraits within a portrait. Saunders argues that the piece is “a satire of formal portraiture.”
“It’s funny in one regard, very funny,” he said. “But also I think it’s symbolic too, about the seriousness with which people take images.”
Lastly, Saunders discussed a painted portrait of John M. McCardell, Jr., President of the College from 1991 to 2004. The painting was commissioned by the College, and normally hangs in the Board Room in Old Chapel, along with portraits of all other former presidents.
“The idea is that Middlebury [College] dates back to 1800, and the board of trustees has a fiduciary responsibility to care for this institution and make sure it’s preserved and succeeds and thrives,” Saunders said. “By surrounding [the place] by all the people that kept it going, it sends a message, and it kind of underscores the decisions that are being made.”
It is Saunders’ hope that viewers can understand the importance and value of these carefully analyzed portraitures and the whole reason behind American people’s fascination with them. He attributes this particular reason to the founding of the U.S. as a country of immigrants where, for a lot of the people, their heritages are traced to other places. For Saunders, the idea that connects portraits with hierarchy in Great Britain, where some of the first groups were coming from, is mixed with the Americans’ values on individual success.
“It’s all based on identity, and how we view collective identity and individual identity,” Saunders said. “We talk about selfies as being different, and I don’t think selfies are different at all. I think they are just part of a continuum of lots of different things in world we’ve already been doing. It’s just the latest phenomena.”
(12/08/16 5:11pm)
Panther Athletics Middlebury College has made unprecedented efforts to develop a more diverse student body in recent years and those efforts are highlighted by the many faces in classrooms, dining halls and on campus in general, especially in the last ten years. The numbers have soared and the College continues to build its resume of racial diversity. T
his year, the general student body has a total of 2,532 students and of that number, 24 percent identified as a U.S. person of color, which is 628 students who identify as American-Indian, Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino or Mixed. Ten years ago, there were 2,455 students in the general body and of that number, only 361 students identified as a U.S. person of color, a mere 14 percent.
Despite these advances, the College’s athletic program has not reached nearly the same levels of diversification. In an effort to better understand how membership on sports teams where diversity is low shapes the lives of players, the Campus interviewed several student-athletes of color about their experiences on their team and at the College.
Athletes at the College are often balancing a number of different social spheres: their team, who they interact with generally on a daily basis; those involved in their academic commitments; and those friends they have outside of either of these. For athletes of color, another sphere exists: relationships with non-athlete students of color.
The following accounts come from students with different backgrounds and a variety of experiences before coming to the College. However, each decided to apply and for that reason, each shares a similar appreciation for and commitment to the College.
The Experience
“One of the places we’ve achieved great diversity is through prep schools; like Middlebury, they are investing and changing with the times,” Dean of Admissions Greg Buckles said. Many private schools, including boarding schools and Catholic schools, send their athletes of color to colleges such as Middlebury.
Many athletes of color, especially those from these top-ranked high schools, come to the College to succeed both academically and athletically, regardless of a lack of diversity on the sports teams.
Diego Meritus ’19, who identifies as African American and is a running back for the football team, described coming to the College despite the lack of diversity as almost a no-brainer.
“I chose to attend Middlebury because the opportunities this school has to offer outweighed any other factor,” Meritus said. “I would have regretted the decision to turn down four years at a top-ranked liberal arts school and the potential doors it could open for me.”
Meritus was not shocked after his arrival on campus, because he had grown accustomed to the majority-white campus and locker rooms at his high school.
“Coming from a private catholic high school in Massachusetts, the dynamic with regards to diversity was very similar to Middlebury. There were very few minorities and students of color in comparison to the general student body,” Meritus said. “At times this situation presents challenges for me, but being exposed to this phenomena early on, I was prepared for what was to come at Middlebury. At the same time, just because I am used to being a minority does not mean I am content with the lack of representation of students of color in the student body.”
Jourdon Delerme-Brown ’20, who plays alongside Meritus on the football team, identifies as AfricanAmerican of Jamaican and Haitian descent and attended a private school in Greenwich, Conn. Delerme-Brown, like Meritus, said that the opportunities that come with a degree from Middlebury College far outweigh a lack of diversity. He said his time here at the College so far reminds him of his high school.
“It’s virtually the same dynamic here compared to Brunswick, with respect to diversity,” Delerme-Brown said. “In the past, I’ve learned how to find solidarity between myself and other students of color, while not secluding myself from making friends and being around people who do not share my same ethnic background. This was a crucial lesson before coming to Middlebury because in college, no one will coach you to branch out, you have to take those steps on your own.”
Like Meritus and Delerme-Brown, Griffin Price ’20, who also identifies as African-American, has constantly found himself as the minority on his soccer teams. He said that it is sometimes a challenge, however “you learn that getting along in the locker room is crucial if you want to succeed out on the field. Sometimes you have to ignore the outside noise and come together as a group.” Price, a first-year goalkeeper for the men’s soccer team, attended the Westminster School, a private boarding school in Simsbury, Conn. He and his brother were the only two students of color on the predominately-white team and by his senior year, his brother having graduated, he was the only one.
“I thought about going to a historically Black college or university (HBCU) like Howard and exploring that type of learning experience in an environment dominated by African Americans. But ultimately I fell in love with what Middlebury had to offer,” Price said. “I had never had it easy in my life when it came to race, especially in my sport. Similar to a quarterback in football, the goalkeeper position is typically dominated by white athletes, so I am used to being an anomaly in a sport dominated by white privilege.”
Meritus, Delerme-Brown and Price have all had previous experiences in a predominately-white environments that have helped them transition smoothly from high school to college.
Alex Huffman ’19 and Olivia Bravo ’20 are two students of color who attended public high schools but, like their peers who came from private high s c h o o l s , t h e y had experiences that prepared them for the predominantly-white culture of the College’s athletic department.
Huffman, who identifies as African-American and half-Caucasian, is a guard on the women’s basketball team and went to a charter public school in Massachusetts. Her school furnished the opportunity to attend a camp in Colchester, VT, every summer between ages 11 and 17. Here, she met people who attended Middlebury and surrounded herself with people aware of the College’s academic and athletic esteem.
“I was not shocked at the lack of diversity on the women’s basketball team,” Huffman said. “Throughout my life, the teams I’ve been on, whether it was basketball or soccer, have been predominantly white. There have been few exceptions, but for the most part, being one of few persons of color is normal for me.”
In addition, Huffman spoke of how her bi-racial upbringing helped her maneuver the environment she has encountered at the College.
“Under the conditions of my parents and growing up with two different cultures, I feel that I’ve gotten more experienced at weaving in and out of the two worlds,” she said. “Some people are just learning that when they come here. All of my cross-cultural experiences have proven that my bi-racial identity is not a burden.”
Bravo, who is of Mexican descent and a freshman on the softball team, attended a public high school in northern Virginia. Bravo also recognized the academic and career benefits of coming to Middlebury as opposed to another liberal-arts school. In Bravo’s case, she too experienced an environment dominated by white culture.
“The public high school I attended was in one of the most affluent areas in northern Virginia and there was very little diversity there,” Bravo said. “So the lack of diversity here at Middlebury was not surprising or upsetting. When I applied I knew of the lack of diversity and was prepared to be in the same environment I had been in for most of my life.”
When applying to the College, Meritus, Huffman, Bravo, Price and Delerme-Brown were all prepared for the lack of diversity they would face on their teams. But not all athletes of color experience the same easy transition.
Another Look
Chellsa Ferdinand ’20, a first-year on the volleyball team who self-identifies as an African-American, and Emilio Ovalles-Misterman ’19, a former football player who identifies as Dominican and Caucasian are two athletes of color whose experiences have differed from their peers.
Ferdinand attended Brooklyn Technical High School — a public high school in Brooklyn, New York, with 5,500 students. There, most students were of Asian descent, however a significant portion of those students identified as African-American and/or as a person of color, she said. Ferdi - nand is also a member of the POSSE program, which is a college access and youth development program that identifies, recruits and selects students from public high schools and sends groups of these students to top universities and colleges across the country.
Throughout high school, Ferdinand was surrounded by people of similar experiences of growing up in the urban metropolis of New York. Within her POSSE group, she found solace with friends who not only shared her skin color but the experiences that have come along with it. Now at the College, she struggles to find the people who have had the same experiences as her and can truly understand the differences she’s faced throughout her career.
“Students of color often exist in two communities, one where they lend themselves to assimilating to those around them and another where they can be their true cultural selves,” Ferdinand said. “You have to constantly be aware of things you say and who you say them to. I think many athletes of color have to battle with those two worlds in this predominately-white school.”
She went on to articulate her experience of being the only of person of color on the volleyball team both in high school and in college and the difference in camaraderie among her teammates then and now.
“Being the only Black person on the team is a weird experience, but I’ve known it before,” she said. “On my high school team I was the only Black student, but looking back it didn’t feel like that, and I think in part that had to do with the fact that those girls were used to being around other students of color all the time. At Middlebury, it is not the same. On one hand, I love my team so much. I am able to share jokes, bond with them and train with them all the time. But on the other hand, my teammates share something that I do not: being white.”
Ovalles-Misterman attended St. Francis High School for four years, a private catholic high school with a graduating class of less than 10 people of color out of 120 students. However, after missing his junior year of football due to a severe tear in his patellar tendons, he opted to take a post-graduate fifth year of high school at Phillips Academy Andover in Massachusetts. It was at this prestigious boarding school that Ovalles-Misterman first learned about the College.
“Prior to Andover, I didn’t know a single thing about Middlebury or any other prestigious universities outside of the Ivy League and Patriot League schools, and I only [found out] about them because there were a few kids that ended up going to those places,” he said. “I was never made aware of these schools at St. Francis, partially because I only thought about football and partially because my counselors only tried to sell local schools to me despite the fact I had grades to go further.”
It was his time at Andover that ultimately led Ovalles-Misterman to seek out the College. However, he struggled to see the College as the place he truly wanted to be and as he spoke of his experience, the uncertainty of the College’s white-dominated environment came forth.
“Middlebury wasn’t my favorite place when I came to visit — it was cold, in the middle of nowhere and I don’t think I saw one person of color the entire time I visited, which really scared me,” he said. “The thought I could be going to an institution that was whiter than the places that I had come from was pretty daunting. But fast forwarding, my decision to come to Middlebury was mainly dependent on my financial aid package.”
Ovalles-Misterman’s experience with the football team parallels Ferdinand’s sentiments toward her team and the difficulty that arises in dealing with a team that is predominantly white.
“I don’t in any way regret playing ball at Middlebury and I am forever grateful to the staff and to the team because I knew they would always have my back. I always have a lot of love for those guys, ” Ovalles-Misterman said. “But the thing that affected me about the lack of color was the team culture was dominated by whiteness — it was a different vibe and I found it difficult to find my niche within the team. It just wasn’t a place I felt like I could go to forget about all my other issues.”
Limitations to Diversity
A op-ed piece published in the Campus last February titled “Deconstructing College Athletics,” explored how the NESCAC has limited coaches who try to recruit students to certain forms of communication, setting budget reservations for travel and lodging expenses and setting an extremely high bar for academic standings.
These policies, which aim to ensure academics take precedence before athletics, are a major factor in consistently homogenous sports teams. The majority of students of color who come to the College to play sports have either gone to a prep or private school where they have already adjusted to academic life where they are in the minority, or they have learned of the College through a leadership program such as POSSE. For students without a prestigious high school experience or the support of a leadership program, the culture at the College can come as a shock.
Although the Admissions office is able to pick and choose students based on a number of factors, the Athletics department is prevented by NESCAC policy from approaching potential student athletes who might not otherwise apply to the College, as is common practice in sports recruiting in other divisions across the country.
“At a NESCAC level, we’ve had diversity task forces working for the past ten years that I have been here,” Director of Athletics Erin Quinn said. “However, as a conference we have struggled over the years to balance the core principles of the NESCAC with the need for greater diversity among our teams.”
The NESAC mandates that a coach cannot come up to any player, without previously being contacted first, and pitch the College to them. This puts the College’s diversity initiatives at odds with the goals of the admissions office because of the lack of information that many students of color have regarding the College.
Buckles also noted the problems of the NESCAC policies that hinder the College’s ability to truly diversify their athletics, while the numbers of the general student body have gone up.
“If you look back historically, athletics have provided a very significant portion of the number of students of color represented at the college,” Buckles said. “Now the numbers have flipped as the College has made great structures in the general student body, but athletically, the numbers have not kept up.”
Chief Diversity Officer Miguel Fernandez spoke of the struggles of expanding diversity initiatives when NESCAC recruiting politics are so strict. “Our coaches recognized the lack of diversity and tried to work on it, but the numbers don’t show it,” he said. “The limitations put on NESCAC teams with respect to recruiting makes it very difficult to reach out to athletes who are not aware of NESCAC schools.” Many of the athletes of color that are recruited to Middlebury often enter without the help of a leadership or mentoring program such as Prep-for-Prep, Jack & Jill or POSSE. Often, those students who have the benefit of being a POSSE member and an athlete form tight bonds that their peers miss out on. Fernandez explained how administrators viewed the phenomenon of athletes of color and how the NESCAC has increasingly shaped one kind of athlete of color to come to Middlebury.
“The athletes we recruit have been at predominantly white high schools. They have kind of been through this before — not to say that it eliminates all problems — but they have lived through it and they know what they are up against. It is not a shock when they get here,” Fernandez said. “On the other hand, when we get the rare student of color who comes to one of the College’s teams from a predominately minority school, we, as administrators, are really just shocked.” Moving forward Each minority athlete who was interviewed agreed that an environment with more people of color teaches people how to interact with different cultures and is a positive experience, not only throughout the athletics program but also in the general student body. Ferdinand says her experience has been pleasant but, “Middlebury is just not as diverse as it says it is. There needs to be more students of color, plain and simple. Without having a group here such as POSSE or even your sports team, it is definitely more difficult to find your place here.”
Delerme-Brown also agreed with Ferdinand’s sentiments and reflected on what a more diverse Middlebury would look like. He said that an increase in culture can positively affect the experiences of others around him and hopes that the College notes the importance of expanding their diversity initiatives.
“Personally, I would never say no to more students of color, period,” Delerme-Brown said. “From an athletic standpoint, a more diverse locker room can be an improvement for everyone on the team. By having more people of color other students and fellow athletes can become more cultured, which is something I find important and somewhat of an unappreciated gift. Let’s bring more culture and diversity to our teams and to our school because we can bring new levels of ideas and experiences.”
Price also expressed his thoughts about the benefits of engaging with more people of color. He respects the challenges that any person of color has to face in college and in the real world, especially a person of color who is also an athlete. Price wants to see more of those people come to the College.
“Making an effort to attract and accept more students of color, not just athletes, benefits those students but also benefits our student body as a whole,” Price said. “What is unique about being a student-athlete is that you are expected to uphold the same academic standards as your peers while participating in our sports. When a minority applicant shows that level of determination to fight against the inherent inequalities that persist in their daily lives, to work hard not only in the classroom but on the sports field, it should be accepted that those people have what it takes to survive at Middlebury and we need more of those people here.”
(11/18/16 1:53am)
What is feminist glaciology? How should we talk about intersectionality? Can graffiti bring people together? Is there a solution to mass incarceration?
These are just some of the many questions that were addressed at the TEDxMiddlebury event on Sunday, Nov. 13. The event, hosted in the Mahaney Center for the Arts (MCA), brought together seven live and two previously recorded speakers in three hour-long sessions. The speakers’ topics covered a range of ideas but all fit under the umbrella theme of “Playing the Game.”
The theme encompassed the different ways in which we navigate and play “the game,” and to each speaker this meant something different. Some interpretations were abstract while some were literal, creating a fascinatingly diverse arrangement of talks.
The conference was a function of TEDx, a branch of the TED conferences. TEDx offers independently organized events that amplify the sharing of “ideas worth spreading” in communities. The informative and entertaining TEDx talks, covering a wide range of subjects, allow speakers to communicate to the audience their novel ideas and passions in an enthralling way.
The student-run TEDxMiddlebury board, a branch of the Center for Creativity, Innovation & Social Entrepreneurship (CCISE), was the brain behind the conference. The TEDxMiddlebury volunteers and board members worked extremely hard to choose the theme, contact potential speakers and organize the event. Their efforts were evident in the enormous success of the event.
This year’s TEDxMiddlebury event was split into three sessions. Each speaker spoke for 18 minutes, and many used projected images to supplement their talks. The talks were followed by student-led discussions, as audience members commented and reflected on the speakers’ talks.
The afternoon began with Kaamila Mohamed’s talk, entitled “Intersecting Identities and Space Making.” Mohamed referenced their identity as a black genderqueer Muslim to show how these identities do not need to exist in separate spheres. Instead, they drew upon intersectionality to find peace with themself, and promoted a powerful message about self-acceptance and love.
Mohamed was followed by Sarah Finnie Robinson, a Breadloaf School of English alumnus. In her talk, “The Game of Our Lives,” Robinson referred to the election and other recent political and environmental contexts in order to destroy the idea that climate change is a belief and not a fact. She praised the College for its environmental efforts, but acknowledged that there is more that needs to be done.
Reshma Saujani came next with her pre-recorded talk, “Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection.” Saujani is the Founder and CEO of the tech organization, Girls Who Code. In her discussion, Saujani criticized society for teaching girls to be perfect but failing to encourage female bravery and ambition. She cited this as a source of the deficit of girls in STEM careers, and encouraged a shift in the way we address girls and their work.
After a 15-minute break we heard from Will Kasso, with his talk entitled “Colors.” Kasso, who grew up in the inner city of Trenton, New Jersey, used art as a way to escape the criminal activity of his neighborhood in his youth. Through graffiti, he not only found a community of artists, but also a profession he loved — he is now a professional visual artist. While on stage, Kasso did a live painting, and his talk was so well-received by the audience that it earned a standing ovation.
Adam Foss’s pre-recorded talk, “A Prosecutor’s Vision for a Better Justice System” came next. Foss, a prosecutor in Boston, discussed the importance of keeping people out of jail. Offering real and educational solutions, he said, will end the self-fulfilling prophecy of returning to jail over and over again throughout one’s life and will break individuals out of the prison system and propel them into more productive lifestyles.
Next came speaker Mattie Brice, with “Using Play for Everyday Activism.” Brice discussed using video games for change and how she has engineered video games to help her friends understand her battles with depression. In this way, video games have been an important avenue of social action for her.
The conference resumed after the second break with Gabbie Santos ’17. Santos is an International Politics and Economics (IPE) major at the College. He competed for a spot at the conference against many other students and told himself that if he won he would come out to his parents — hence the title of his talk, “Go Big and Call Home.” Santos spoke of his experiences as a transgender male and critiqued the gender binary and heteronormativity that are embedded in society. Santos received a standing ovation from his peers.
“I like to imagine a block,” said Santos, “with a spectrum on it that we cut into two parts, then four, then eight and we keep cutting and cutting and cutting until the parts are so small, the divisions so thin, that when we take a step back, we can no longer tell that there any divisions at all. It begins to look like one whole block again, a fluid spectrum.”
Next, Marco Mezzavilla, a research fellow in engineering at the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering gave a talk entitled, “Wireless, Faster, Closer: 5G and Beyond.” He discussed the implications of up-and-coming 5G technology and travelled through the different generations of cell phones and Internet access. He tied these ideas to the importance of connecting worlds and how incredible it is that we can send messages across oceans “in a blink of an eye.”
Taking a different interpretation of the same theme was M. Jackson, with “Glacier, Gender, and Science: We Need More Stories of Ice.” Jackson described her experiences as a feminist glaciologist and the extensive criticism she has received towards her unique career. She discussed the necessity of having both female and male glaciologists in order to produce a well-rounded knowledge of the study. She proceeded to take this thought beyond glaciology and said it represents a greater indication of how we treat women in science and beyond.
Jackson’s talk about feminist glaciology resonated strongly with one student in particular, Georgia Grace Edwards ’18.
“I have always been obsessed with TED Talks,” said Edwards. “But I never expected to feel such a deep, meaningful level of connection like that which I experienced during M’s talk.”
“This past summer,” continued Edwards, “I worked for a helicopter company as a glacier guide on the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska, and I experienced so many of the gendered assertions that M voiced. However, in the moment, I didn’t know how to make sense of them and I didn’t understand what they meant in terms of a bigger picture.”
Jackson’s talk helped Edwards see the sexism she faced over the summer through a new lens and to realize the stigma surrounding female glacier guides.
“All my male co-workers had these big, scruffy beards and just looked like your typical rugged, Alaskan mountain men,” Edwards reflected. “And I think for tourists, that was the idea and the expectation they had in mind when they decided to come to Alaska. So no matter how many times I gave a more informative or energizing or funny tour, no matter how many times I gave my own gloves up to tourists or went the extra mile for them in any way (which the guys never did), I was never going to measure up to the masculine ideal that parallels the ‘man conquers glacier’ narrative.”
“And sure enough,” Edwards continued, “while I did make more in tips than any other female glacier guide, I did not even come close to that of my male counterparts. To have seemingly small observations like this one validated at the intersection of science and gender studies by a professional in the field of ‘feminist glaciology’ — which I had no idea even existed — was both liberating and relieving. I am incredibly grateful to Middlebury and to the TEDx team for bringing this speaker to campus, and for inspiring what may potentially become a new career goal for me.”
As Edwards’s revelation demonstrates, these talks offered unique connections between the speakers and the audience.
“TED Talks are an expression of something that you’re really into and love,” said Brice. “While I’ve always had these ideas in my head, I really got to communicate them to others, which forced me to shrink them down and make them concise and strong and factual.”
Santos added, “Speaking at TEDxMiddlebury was a very powerful experience, and I am very grateful for the opportunity. I came back from my year abroad in France, and I felt so ready and excited to share my most authentic self with our college community, especially as it is my senior year and days feel numbered. In important ways, my talk meant more to me than just any speech or any performance.”
The event’s nine individual talks were conducive to a deeply personal offering and receiving of ideas. The vulnerability of the speakers created intimacy in the theater, which made the event all the more meaningful. From climate change to video games to transexuality, the audience experienced a host of topics and was left to ruminate on a wide and range of ideas.
(11/17/16 10:43pm)
News of Donald J. Trump’s election as the nation’s 45th president sent waves of shock and uncertainty throughout campus, prompting students to stage protests against the president-elect and discussions of what the next four years will bring.
For many, election night was a surprising and ultimately devastating display of the American electoral system at work. The long election season culminated in a packed Crossroads Café Tuesday night Nov. 8. When, at 7 p.m., Vermont projected to go for Hillary Clinton, the group of mostly liberal-leaning students cheered loudly, proud of the state for being the first in the country to vote for Clinton.
Most students felt optimistic at this point, and Crossroads had a celebratory feel. People chatted with friends and shouted happily when early states were projected for Clinton. For some students, a Clinton victory was all but inevitable.
“I’m very confident in a Hillary victory; I’m just curious to see how much America will go for Trump,” James Callison ’17.5 said early in the night. “The only thing I am concerned about, however, is the Senate election. I’m worried it’s going to go 51-49 Republicans.”
Others did not share Callison’s certainty, but nonetheless felt that Clinton would most likely end up pulling through.
“[I feel] sort of cautiously optimistic, which is bad, because you want to feel hopeful that reasonably optimistic predictions from statisticians and political watchers… are solid predictions that you have faith in,” Noah Liebmiller ’17.5 said. “But at the same time, there’s a lot of self-doubt. I would hate to have my hopes crushed at the end of the day. One in four things happen all the time. Cubs came back from 3-1 the other day. Cavaliers came back from 3-1 in July. Nothing’s ever sure.”
At the same time, Liebmiller felt excited for election night and looked forward to watching the contest unfold.
“We’ve been waiting for this to happen for almost two years, and every day it got a little bit more intense, and so many crazy things have happened,” he said. “If you’re a nerd who loves politics, this is like Christmas morning, but it’s only once every four years.”
Charlotte Massey ’18, on the other hand, did not have much optimism and half-jokingly explained her contingency plan if Donald Trump were to emerge victorious.
“We’re flying to Europe tomorrow for a debate tournament, so the mindset is, if Trump wins, we’re just staying there,” she said.
In spite of the nerves, the atmosphere remained relaxed and congenial well into the night. Students enthusiastically grabbed free Grille food and watched as Matthew Dickinson and Bert Johnson, professors of political science, commented on the results as they rolled in. Until about 9 p.m., Dickinson and Johnson reiterated that Donald Trump had a very narrow path to victory.
And then it became clear that Trump was outperforming expectations. Dickinson and Johnson began to express surprise as states like Virginia, Michigan and Wisconsin remained extremely close with slight Trump leads.
The hum of conversation in Crossroads softened as students realized what was happening. The cheers for the few states that were called for Clinton became even louder. Conversations turned toward expressions of anger and frustration.
“It really pisses me off that it’s even this close because if she wins it’s still really depressing about what’s happening in America,” Caley Henderson ’18 said.
“So many people seemed so confident, and I thought I was ready mentally for the idea that it was going to be close,” Liebmiller said. “And I’m still not clear whether it’s close yet, but it’s starting to feel really close, and that’s not a pleasant thing.”
By 12 a.m., many of the students at Crossroads were thinking back to that moment that Vermont was projected and wishing the rest of the night would have gone much differently. Crossroads had closed, and Pennsylvania would soon be called for Trump.
At 3 a.m. on Wed. Nov. 9, Trump had been declared victorious and gave his acceptance speech to the nation.
“I felt that the values of America had failed those that are most vulnerable in society,” Callison said later about his reaction when he realized that Trump had won.
He and several other students gathered in Crossroads again on Wednesday morning to discuss the results, express their feelings and commiserate. Political Science professors, including Johnson, Sarah Stroup, Erik Bleich and Orion Lewis, led the conversation and attempted to give students some context for the election. But even they had a challenging time making sense of the results.
“This has been one of the most extraordinary elections in memory, with a result that most political scientists would not have bet on,” Johnson said later. “Those of us who study U.S. elections will now have to examine why the polling data leading up to the election was out of step with the result.”
While the students had come together to watch Hillary Clinton’s concession speech, the gathering ended up being a catharsis of sorts. It was a moment for students and professors alike to try to make sense of the intense emotions they were feeling.
For the rest of the week, many students and staff at the College struggled to figure out how to move forward. Some professors canceled class or delayed tests; others attempted to keep conducting business as usual. But among many students, the overriding emotions were confusion and sadness. Some professors and staff who have worked at the College for many years compared it to the days after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks; others were shocked at the depth of the emotional response from students.
“I have not seen our campus so paralyzed,” Stroup said. “Optimism and articulation were suspended. Our first years are navigating this historic moment in a new environment. Usually I can find some evidence and arguments from political science to these events, but we all got it wrong -- which requires some humility.”
Johnson perceived the same strong, passionate reaction from students. “The state of alarm on campus is something I have not seen before in my twelve years here,” he said. “I can understand why many are concerned with the result, and to be frank, I share many of their concerns.”
As a result of the election, the College organized several different opportunities later in the week for students and faculty to come together. During one such event, which took place on Friday, Nov. 11, members of the College community broke up into small groups to converse and reflect on the election and how to move forward.
In one group, the participants talked about the different ways that people might get active to make a change, the ability of faculty to take a stance against certain political rhetoric and how people might deal with the despair and hopelessness they feel. The participants agreed to be anonymous, but they all expressed an appreciation for the cathartic effect of the meetings.
For many, the willingness of students to engage in difficult and rewarding discussions at events like this was a particularly bright spot in an otherwise tough week.
“I have been surprised at and comforted by the range of conversations I have had,” Stroup said. “Yes, these are based on little sleep and half-formed thoughts, but people have reached out to discuss and deliberate.”
In response to the results, President of the College Republicans Club, Hayden Dublois ’17, emphasized the crucial importance of being there for those who are marginalized or scared by a Trump presidency.
“Even as a Republican, I’m disgusted by Donald Trump and disagree with his policies. But rather than rioting, I think there is a two-fold response that is more effective. First, be there for those who feel marginalized and scared by a Trump presidency,” said Dublois in an email to the Campus. “Second, oppose Donald Trump’s policies that you disagree with. Call your Congressman or Senator; donate to an interest group; join an advocacy organization — whatever you have to do to oppose the particular policies you disagree with.”
As the days passed, sadness and confusion transformed into anger and a desire to act. In conjunction with several students, Travis Wayne Sanderson ’19 helped plan and organize an election protest, which was held at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 13 outside Mead Memorial Chapel. Sanderson thought of the idea after taking note of similar events at different campuses. He saw it as a good method to transfer our community’s emotions into a constructive goal.
The Facebook event page, which garnered interested from over two hundred students, read: “Our presidential election has ended in terror for the lives and livelihoods of millions of marginalized people. We cannot sit still in a time of injustice. On Sunday, our Middlebury community will gather at the front steps of Mead Chapel to stand together against racism, fascism, hatred and all forms of oppression. We hope you can join us in standing up in this moment of history.”
Students eagerly gathered around the steps of Mead Chapel right at 4 p.m., with the crowd gradually growing as the protesters made their way down toward Davis Memorial Library. Many students held cardboard signs with slogans reading, “Not My President,” “Stronger Together” and “Love Trumps Hate.” The crowd, comprised of roughly 250 students, chanted as they then made their way across campus from Davis to McCardell Bicentennial Hall. Two of the chants that echoed across campus were “Immigration, Not Deportation” and “Build Bridges, Not Walls.”
Back on the steps of Mead, Sanderson took the stage first. Several speakers followed Sanderson, offering individual stories touching upon topics ranging from immigration reform to discrimination within on our own campus.
“Overall, I’m happy with how the protest went,” said Charles Rainey ’19, a student representative of Community Council, who spoke at the event. “The message is clear — we have a passionate subset of the population, a diverse group of kids that came out to really show that love trumps hate, that black lives matter, that the pussy grabs back and that we stand in solidarity with LGBTQ+ folks. I hope that this leads to a broader discussion for how these values we hold dear, and our feelings about the election, can be translated back on campus and make this campus a more inclusive one.”
As part of his speech, Rainey read two poems by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib. He emphasized the need to cultivate constructive conversation moving forward.
Moving beyond the protest, Sanderson envisions cultural organizations, as well as other student groups active in inclusivity, helping to continue the dialogue on a more permanent basis. However, he recognizes that this is a democratic effort.
“The conversations that have to be cultivated in the next months and years rely on people and organizations not only hosting them and making the spaces for them, but also on people in dining halls and other spaces making sure there isn’t a tolerance for intolerance in this place,” said Sanderson. “Even if you’re not directly involved, there’s space to be more inclusive and more of an exception to the dominant narrative of intolerance that has taken the nation since last week.”
(11/17/16 9:42pm)
Has Middlebury College developed a case of lockjaw? Following Shaun King’s talk in Mead Chapel two weeks ago, Campus reporters asked students what they thought of his ideas and Black Lives Matter. Many said they were reluctant to be quoted by name. The Campus was able to publish only opinions favorable to King and BLM.
Last week, as a stunned crowd in the Crossroads Café watched Donald Trump win the presidency, the celebrations apparently were confined to dorm rooms. In public spaces, the only permissible expressions seemed to be forced levity, consternation or grief.
When someone wrote Black Lives Matter on a blackboard, prompting someone else to cross off the word “Black” and revise it to “All Lives Matter,” our new Community Bias Response Team felt obliged to issue a communique.
The bias response team, the rest of the college administration, the Campus, the Student Government Association, the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, the Anderson Freeman Resource Center, and other diversity campaigners all seem to be on the same page, but is this impressive alliance of inclusionists excluding a significant share of the college community?
Personally, I have yet to find the silver lining in Trump’s victory. I share the cringing and anxiety of most of the people around me. But we cannot blame Donald Trump for our case of lockjaw.
Elite colleges like Middlebury are a bit like Christian monasteries in the Middle Ages. Our tax status and ability to pass on endowments undivided by inheritance makes us wealthier and wealthier in relation to the surrounding population. Some of our working-class staffers have less privilege than any professor or student--regardless of your skin color, gender status or current social class. If you don’t think this applies to you, let’s add up your tuition benefits and likely future earnings. Without privilege, you wouldn’t be reading books about it.
Middlebury College also resembles Christian monasteries in that we have a noble mission but, day to day, are competing with each other. Who will win the election for abbot? Whose agenda will prevail? Over time the shifting agendas, disagreements and deals of administrators, faculty, students, alumni and trustees have produced multiple discourses and claims that don’t necessarily mesh very well:
We’re a liberal arts college (so we take the time needed to develop subtlety and nuance in understanding complex issues).
We’re as competitive as possible (so we seek to admit and hire the best and brightest).
We’re also a big family (so we claim to have enduring loyalties).
We’re inclusive (which means we welcome new kinds of students and faculty).
We could get sued over that (which requires the constant addition of new forms of surveillance to control risk and assure compliance).
Not only can these commitments collide—every year the administration announces new improvements to manage the collisions. But the improvements can also collide. For example, what happened to our campaign against stress? How long did it stop us from announcing tempting new opportunities to stress each other out? And so I wonder if this college’s vulnerability to lockjaw originates in our attempt, following the advice of the Apostle Paul, to be all things to all people.
Nowadays, being all things to all people requires diversity and inclusion. Over the years, Middlebury College has defined this primarily in racial terms, rather than in terms of social class. There were good reasons to do this, but there were also good reasons not to—one of which is that focusing on race has led to our current fixation with privilege as a function of skin tone, when it actually has stronger roots in social class.
If I’m correct about this, I wonder if we could unlock our jaws with more discussion of how we’re using pregnant terms like race and racism, microaggression, cultural appropriation, and safe space. I say “pregnant” because, while you may expect one thing from these terms, you have a good chance of getting the opposite.
Let’s start with the biggest and scariest word of all, especially in a liberal enclave like Middlebury College. Race is a structural form of inequality that needs to be addressed in a liberal arts education. It is also a cognitive error. Skin tone is not a reliable guide to privilege or lack of same, nor is it a reliable guide to much of anything. My impression is that some Midd faculty encourage students to believe that race is the root of all social evil and that every issue should be racialized, that is, analyzed in racial terms. This is a serious mistake in my view; race is a recent invention, human beings never have lacked other rationales for mistreating each other, and it is rarely a good mono-causal explanation.
Microaggression is intended to describe how a classroom can be stacked against a minority. Judging from an administration-sponsored webinar last year, a microaggression is any perceived slight. But what if the perception is wrong, and how can any difficult issue be discussed without arousing emotions? Calling out students or faculty for microaggressions is more likely to shut down discussions than improve them.
Cultural appropriation is another concept intended to prevent slights to minority students. The problem is that anyone’s culture is, by definition, our assemblage of appropriations from the people around us. Culture is appropriation. What campaigners wish to prevent is cultural misappropriation, but if they are serious about defining what is and is not appropriate, they will have to classify individuals into pre-determined cultural groups and judge what styles of personal expression belong to each group. Good luck!
Safe space is, like campaigning against microaggressions and cultural appropriation, intended to protect minority groups from racial slights. Safety is a word like apple pie and motherhood—no one objects to it. But if the very idea of President Donald Trump makes many of us feel unsafe, should the college rope off areas where he shall not be named?
An underlying problem runs through all three of these concepts. Given that any argument is back-and-forth microaggressions, given that anyone’s culture is a sum of cultural appropriations, and given that our contemporary world is a threatening one, these concepts can be invoked to shut down any exchange of disturbing information.
That’s not what proponents want. What they do seem to envision is that certain people will have the right to label an interaction as a microaggression or a cultural appropriation, and that certain people will have the right to demand safe space. But not everyone. Thus white students will not have the right to demand safe space from a discussion of the slave trade, nor will they be able to claim cultural ownership of Alpine ski gear and business suits.
What the three concepts require, in practice, is classifying everyone on campus into potential victims and potential victimizers. Currently, the most popular label for this category of potential victims is “students of color.” “Of color” is an expression with a long and honorable history. It enables you to situate yourself outside the usual categories. It also builds solidarity between different groups who might otherwise compete with each other, making it very useful in broadening political platforms.
But should Middlebury College use skin color as an administrative category? I will argue no, because when color becomes an administrative category, it requires the institution to classify us on the basis of our skin tone. Exactly who has color? Asian-American and Asian students? Everybody from the Mideast and Latin America? Everybody with an Hispanic surname? And what about the assumption that students of color lack privilege whereas white students have it? Thanks to international student flows, immigration, and intermarriage, as well as Vermont’s class structure, skin tone on this campus is far from an accurate indicator of privilege.
This is why I think we’ve developed a case of lockjaw. With the best of intentions, our administration is mandating concepts that are so racially charged that, in the name of broadening conversations about race, they are instead shutting them down. If race is a cognitive error, we can’t escape it by constructing a new racial system. If we do construct a new racial system, it will empower some people at the expense of shutting other people up, just like the old racial system did.
Professor David Stoll writes in about racial discourse following the election.
(11/17/16 4:41pm)
News of Donald J. Trump’s election as the nation’s 45th president sent waves of shock and uncertainty throughout campus, prompting students to stage protests against the president-elect and discussions of what the next four years will bring.
For many, election night was a surprising and ultimately devastating display of the American electoral system at work. The long election season culminated in a packed Crossroads Café Tuesday night Nov. 8. When, at 7 p.m., Vermont projected to go for Hillary Clinton, the group of mostly liberal-leaning students cheered loudly, proud of the state for being the first in the country to vote for Clinton.
Most students felt optimistic at this point, and Crossroads had a celebratory feel. People chatted with friends and shouted happily when early states were projected for Clinton. For some students, a Clinton victory was all but inevitable.
“I’m very confident in a Hillary victory; I’m just curious to see how much America will go for Trump,” James Callison ’17.5 said early in the night. “The only thing I am concerned about, however, is the Senate election. I’m worried it’s going to go 51-49 Republicans.”
Others did not share Callison’s certainty, but nonetheless felt that Clinton would most likely end up pulling through.
“[I feel] sort of cautiously optimistic, which is bad, because you want to feel hopeful that reasonably optimistic predictions from statisticians and political watchers… are solid predictions that you have faith in,” Noah Liebmiller ’17.5 said. “But at the same time, there’s a lot of self-doubt. I would hate to have my hopes crushed at the end of the day. One in four things happen all the time. Cubs came back from 3-1 the other day. Cavaliers came back from 3-1 in July. Nothing’s ever sure.”
At the same time, Liebmiller felt excited for election night and looked forward to watching the contest unfold.
“We’ve been waiting for this to happen for almost two years, and every day it got a little bit more intense, and so many crazy things have happened,” he said. “If you’re a nerd who loves politics, this is like Christmas morning, but it’s only once every four years.”
Charlotte Massey ’18, on the other hand, did not have much optimism and half-jokingly explained her contingency plan if Donald Trump were to emerge victorious.
“We’re flying to Europe tomorrow for a debate tournament, so the mindset is, if Trump wins, we’re just staying there,” she said.
In spite of the nerves, the atmosphere remained relaxed and congenial well into the night. Students enthusiastically grabbed free Grille food and watched as Matthew Dickinson and Bert Johnson, professors of political science, commented on the results as they rolled in. Until about 9 p.m., Dickinson and Johnson reiterated that Donald Trump had a very narrow path to victory.
And then it became clear that Trump was outperforming expectations. Dickinson and Johnson began to express surprise as states like Virginia, Michigan and Wisconsin remained extremely close with slight Trump leads.
The hum of conversation in Crossroads softened as students realized what was happening. The cheers for the few states that were called for Clinton became even louder. Conversations turned toward expressions of anger and frustration.
“It really pisses me off that it’s even this close because if she wins it’s still really depressing about what’s happening in America,” Caley Henderson ’18 said.
“So many people seemed so confident, and I thought I was ready mentally for the idea that it was going to be close,” Liebmiller said. “And I’m still not clear whether it’s close yet, but it’s starting to feel really close, and that’s not a pleasant thing.”
By 12 a.m., many of the students at Crossroads were thinking back to that moment that Vermont was projected and wishing the rest of the night would have gone much differently. Crossroads had closed, and Pennsylvania would soon be called for Trump.
At 3 a.m. on Wed. Nov. 9, Trump had been declared victorious and gave his acceptance speech to the nation.
“I felt that the values of America had failed those that are most vulnerable in society,” Callison said later about his reaction when he realized that Trump had won.
He and several other students gathered in Crossroads again on Wednesday morning to discuss the results, express their feelings and commiserate. Political Science professors, including Johnson, Sarah Stroup, Erik Bleich and Orion Lewis, led the conversation and attempted to give students some context for the election. But even they had a challenging time making sense of the results.
“This has been one of the most extraordinary elections in memory, with a result that most political scientists would not have bet on,” Johnson said later. “Those of us who study U.S. elections will now have to examine why the polling data leading up to the election was out of step with the result.”
While the students had come together to watch Hillary Clinton’s concession speech, the gathering ended up being a catharsis of sorts. It was a moment for students and professors alike to try to make sense of the intense emotions they were feeling.
For the rest of the week, many students and staff at the College struggled to figure out how to move forward. Some professors canceled class or delayed tests; others attempted to keep conducting business as usual. But among many students, the overriding emotions were confusion and sadness. Some professors and staff who have worked at the College for many years compared it to the days after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks; others were shocked at the depth of the emotional response from students.
“I have not seen our campus so paralyzed,” Stroup said. “Optimism and articulation were suspended. Our first years are navigating this historic moment in a new environment. Usually I can find some evidence and arguments from political science to these events, but we all got it wrong -- which requires some humility.”
Johnson perceived the same strong, passionate reaction from students. “The state of alarm on campus is something I have not seen before in my twelve years here,” he said. “I can understand why many are concerned with the result, and to be frank, I share many of their concerns.”
As a result of the election, the College organized several different opportunities later in the week for students and faculty to come together. During one such event, which took place on Friday, Nov. 11, members of the College community broke up into small groups to converse and reflect on the election and how to move forward.
In one group, the participants talked about the different ways that people might get active to make a change, the ability of faculty to take a stance against certain political rhetoric and how people might deal with the despair and hopelessness they feel. The participants agreed to be anonymous, but they all expressed an appreciation for the cathartic effect of the meetings.
For many, the willingness of students to engage in difficult and rewarding discussions at events like this was a particularly bright spot in an otherwise tough week.
“I have been surprised at and comforted by the range of conversations I have had,” Stroup said. “Yes, these are based on little sleep and half-formed thoughts, but people have reached out to discuss and deliberate.”
In response to the results, President of the College Republicans Club, Hayden Dublois ’17, emphasized the crucial importance of being there for those who are marginalized or scared by a Trump presidency.
“Even as a Republican, I’m disgusted by Donald Trump and disagree with his policies. But rather than rioting, I think there is a two-fold response that is more effective. First, be there for those who feel marginalized and scared by a Trump presidency,” said Dublois in an email to the Campus. “Second, oppose Donald Trump’s policies that you disagree with. Call your Congressman or Senator; donate to an interest group; join an advocacy organization — whatever you have to do to oppose the particular policies you disagree with.”
As the days passed, sadness and confusion transformed into anger and a desire to act. In conjunction with several students, Travis Wayne Sanderson ’19 helped plan and organize an election protest, which was held at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 13 outside Mead Memorial Chapel. Sanderson thought of the idea after taking note of similar events at different campuses. He saw it as a good method to transfer our community’s emotions into a constructive goal.
The Facebook event page, which garnered interested from over two hundred students, read: “Our presidential election has ended in terror for the lives and livelihoods of millions of marginalized people. We cannot sit still in a time of injustice. On Sunday, our Middlebury community will gather at the front steps of Mead Chapel to stand together against racism, fascism, hatred and all forms of oppression. We hope you can join us in standing up in this moment of history.”
Students eagerly gathered around the steps of Mead Chapel right at 4 p.m., with the crowd gradually growing as the protesters made their way down toward Davis Memorial Library. Many students held cardboard signs with slogans reading, “Not My President,” “Stronger Together” and “Love Trumps Hate.” The crowd, comprised of roughly 250 students, chanted as they then made their way across campus from Davis to McCardell Bicentennial Hall. Two of the chants that echoed across campus were “Immigration, Not Deportation” and “Build Bridges, Not Walls.”
Back on the steps of Mead, Sanderson took the stage first. Several speakers followed Sanderson, offering individual stories touching upon topics ranging from immigration reform to discrimination within on our own campus.
“Overall, I’m happy with how the protest went,” said Charles Rainey ’19, a student representative of Community Council, who spoke at the event. “The message is clear — we have a passionate subset of the population, a diverse group of kids that came out to really show that love trumps hate, that black lives matter, that the pussy grabs back and that we stand in solidarity with LGBTQ+ folks. I hope that this leads to a broader discussion for how these values we hold dear, and our feelings about the election, can be translated back on campus and make this campus a more inclusive one.”
As part of his speech, Rainey read two poems by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib. He emphasized the need to cultivate constructive conversation moving forward.
Moving beyond the protest, Sanderson envisions cultural organizations, as well as other student groups active in inclusivity, helping to continue the dialogue on a more permanent basis. However, he recognizes that this is a democratic effort.
“The conversations that have to be cultivated in the next months and years rely on people and organizations not only hosting them and making the spaces for them, but also on people in dining halls and other spaces making sure there isn’t a tolerance for intolerance in this place,” said Sanderson. “Even if you’re not directly involved, there’s space to be more inclusive and more of an exception to the dominant narrative of intolerance that has taken the nation since last week.”
(11/10/16 7:01am)
In an effort to make use of the many unworn dresses at the College in an economical and sustainable way, Share to Wear, an on-campus initiative led by Linley Shaw ’17 and Charlotte ReiderSmith ’19, allows students to temporarily lend out their dresses to other students for a small rental fee of $10. Share to Wear then splits the received $10 with the lender, so all players in the exchange are benefited in some way.
Shaw and Reider-Smith conceived of their business at MiddCore, and it is now beginning to take shape on campus. The service relies on p a r t i c i p a t i o n from the Middlebury community.
Shaw explained that Share to Wear is meant to take advantage of the old and unused clothes in many students’ closets.
“Say you have 10 dresses in your closet, maybe you were anticipating formal events or just wanted to wear something nice, but you are realizing you are not wearing any of them as much as thought you would,” Shaw said. “Additionally you may have spent a lot of money on these dresses.”
Share to Wear allows you to lend out these dresses without having to completely give away the items. At any time during the process of renting or sharing, you decide you want your dress back, Share to Wear will return the piece to you free of charge, no questions asked.
In order to give a dress to Share to Wear, you can email Shaw or Reider Smith and set up a time to have the dresses picked up or to drop them off.
After the dresses are received, Shaw and Reider-Smith label each dress and hang them up on clothing racks. Every dress in Share to Wear’s inventory is photographed on a model and posted to their website and Facebook page, so students can browse the dresses at their convenience. Then on Thursdays, Share to Wear hosts pop-up shops.
At the pop-up shops, students can come peruse the collection, try on dresses, and decide to rent a dress or not. If the popup shop conflicts with your schedule, Share to Wear will also set up times to view the dresses by appointment.
Some weekends might bring in $5 for a dress lender, and other weekends maybe nothing. Shaw said last weekend her friend got lucky and made $15. Share to Wear takes time to see a return, but you can take your dress back whenever you desire.
In the summer of 2014, Shaw participated in MiddCore, Middlebury’s summer entrepreneurial program in Tahoe, CA., where the roots of “Share to Wear” were planted. After realizing her closet was full of nice, unworn dresses, Shaw thought there must be something better to do with her dresses than accumulate dust in her closet. She figured she wasn’t the only one in this situation.
This past summer, Reider-Smith participated in MiddCore as well and had a similar idea to Shaw. Reider-Smith was excited about starting a clothing rental service because she felt like she was always admiring other student’s dresses and would often borrow her friend’s clothes for formal events. Middcore allowed her to construct a solution for the need of a larger selection of formal wear in college.
At MiddCore, R e i d e r - S m i t h heard about Shaw’s initial idea and reached out to her. The pair met up in San Francisco this past summer, and, over pasta, they discussed the logistics of creating a clothing rental service on campus.
They both admitted balancing school and Share to Wear responsibilities has not been easy.
“Some weeks are harder than others,” Shaw said.
“There are times when I have a paper or a midterm, and I can’t focus on Share to Wear those days,” Reider-Smith said. “I feel like I could be working on Share to Wear every day, all day long, but there is obviously not the time for that.”
Although new issues arise daily, Shaw and Reider-Smith meet numerous times per week and are in constant contact about how to solve the many expected and unforeseen challenges that have popped up in the process of creating Share to Wear.
Shaw and Reider-Smith also met with Rent the Runway (a large scale national version of Share to Wear) in New York City during Fall Break to obtain advice on how to improve Share to Wear. They learned of the necessity of change in the mentality of renting clothes for this type of service to be successful.
“We are used to renting houses and cars, but renting clothes is still a foreign idea,” said Reider-Smith. “We need to get people to understand it as a normal behavior.”
So far the Middlebury community has been fairly receptive to Share to Wear, with over 15 dress rentals on their first weekend, and interest in the business is growing.
“It really feels successful to us when someone rents a dress who neither of us know, but heard about Share to Wear and is excited,” ReiderSmith said.
Shaw and Reider-Smith are adamant about creating an inclusive environment around their rental service. Anyone can share a dress, and anyone can rent a dress.
The Share to Wear team also aims to foster a sense of community between people sharing clothes. When they were taking photos of the clothes, they made many people wear the same dress to prove that different people with different body types can all look great in the same outfit.
Shaw and Reider-Smith are currently looking for an available working space, then they plan to update the website so rentals can be made online. Eventually they hope to create a kit that can be shared with other schools so they too can set up their own clothing rental service.
(10/27/16 3:30pm)
The Middlebury College department of International Politics and Economics (IPE) will host its fifth annual symposium, “The Global Illicit Drug Trade: Confronting Challenges and Exploring Solutions” on Friday, Oct. 28.
The event, slated to take place in the Robert A. Jones House Conference Room, will mainly consist of three lectures delivered by guest speakers with expertise in drug policy; the fourth will be given by Rebecca Tiger, a professor of sociology at the College.
In the lead-up to the symposium, the Campus spoke with Professors Mark Williams and Sebnem Gumuscu (Political Science) and William Pyle (Economics), who have served as the primary organizers of the event. All three highlighted the symposium’s pragmatic, policy-oriented focus, as well as the increasing pertinence of drug policy both at home and overseas.
“There were a number of things that led to this topic,” said Williams.
Perhaps the biggest motivator, he said, was a United Nations General Assembly session convened in April which focused on the world drug problem.
“Countries were trying to rethink the international law that deals with drug trafficking,” he explained. “We wanted to time the topic to coincide with that, to build off whatever momentum may have come out of that session.”
A central theme of the symposium, the professors said, will be an analysis of the perceived failures of global drug policy, and what steps nations may take to forge a better future.
“The standard pathway for a long time has been prohibition of drug production and drug consumption—selling and so forth —and punishment for those that are involved in any of those processes,” Williams said. “For many countries, there’s been a growing consensus that this sort of standard approach hasn’t worked. Not only hasn’t it worked, but it’s created more problems without even solving the problems of the drug trade itself.”
Moreover, Williams highlighted that the subject has increasing relevance at home. “I think that over time, there’s been a growing perception that something is not right with the way that we’ve been approaching illicit drugs,” he said. “You can see that, not only in the number of people that are incarcerated but in the return of some drugs that had been on the decline, like heroin.”
Pyle concurred, noting that the issue has particular resonance “if we think about something like marijuana policy, which is changing on a state-by-state basis. We have policy experiments in Washington state, Colorado—it’s something that’s directly relevant to Vermont state politics, it’s part of the governor’s race right now and the state legislature dealt with marijuana legalization in just the past year […]. So it’s something that’s international in scope but it also resonates nicely with issues that hit closer to home.”
Gumuscu elaborated on the significance of drug policy from a geopolitical standpoint. “I study and teach comparative politics, and we talk a lot about state building and state failure,” she said. “Interestingly, drug trade is a very important part of that process in very different parts of the world, especially the developing world.”
She explained that insurgent groups—sometimes known as terrorist groups, “depending on the point of view”—often depend heavily upon the drug market. “[These groups] gather substantial financial income and resources from this trade,” she said. “And they can thus finance their operations in many of these developing countries […]. So there are multiple dimensions to it, from state-building and state failure to insurgencies, terrorist organizations and transnational terrorist organizations and networks.”
Each of the day’s speakers, the professors said, would highlight some aspect of these issues. The first is Peter Reuter, a professor at the University of Maryland who Pyle described as “an expert on the international policy regime.” His lecture, “The International Drug Policy Reform Agenda: Why It Misses the Major Problems and Opportunities,” will be a critical examination of the drug policies undertaken by nations around the world.
The second speaker will be Beau Kilmer, a researcher at the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. His talk, “Marijuana Legalization 2016: Assessing the International Policy Landscape and Implementation Issues,” will analyze differing approaches to marijuana legalization.
Kilmer will be followed by Alejandro Madrazo Lajous, a researcher from Mexico City whose lecture, “The Constitutional Costs of the War on Drugs,” will compare drug policies in Colombia, Mexico and the United States, as well as how those policies affect the civil liberties and constitutional commitments that governments grant to their citizens.
The final speaker, Rebecca Tiger, will deliver a lecture titled “(Re) Imagining Drugs and Addiction: The Past, Present and Possible Future of Drug Policy,” focusing on the sociological implications of drug addiction.
“While we were putting together the program, we wanted to make sure that we covered a lot of ground, and as many different factors and dimensions as possible,” said Gumuscu. “So from Europe to North America, South America and even developing countries in general, that was the goal: to look at this particular topic from a very comprehensive perspective.”
Above all, the professors hope that attendees leave the symposium with a greater understanding of a highly complicated issue.
“One of the important takeaways that I personally want to emphasize would be the complexity of the issue and how multidimensional it is, and how hard it is to find easy solutions to this problem,” Gumuscu said.
“With an issue as complicated as drug trafficking and the other externalities that it creates, it’s unlikely that you’ll come up with a policy that will solve all problems,” agreed Williams. “So the issue would be, can we use the past, and other countries’ policy experiments and experiences, to minimize the risks that we would take as we try to reform policy? And can we actually maximize benefits from adopting some reforms while avoiding unnecessary costs?”
“We hope that the folks who attend come away with a better appreciation for the sorts of policy experiments that are being discussed currently and the costs of the current enforcement regime, whether it’s in terms of violence or incarceration or resources spent on policing,” Pyle concluded. “And a consequence that we could hope for is that the people walk out better-informed, able to be better citizens and better voters on issues relating to drug policy. If we can push the ball forward in that respect, then we’ll have done something very valuable.”
(10/27/16 1:10pm)
I was surprised to see the headline “Christian Group Dismissed Gay Lead- ers” in the last Campus, and not just because it shouldn’t be happening at Middlebury today. My shock was based on the fact that exactly the same thing happened in the spring of 2000, and I thought the issue had been resolved. I know the students involved think they know the Biblical texts and traditions they base their interpretation on, but as a linguist and a language teacher, I won- der. My students spend years learning Russian and study at our School in Rus- sia before they can really pontificate on Pushkin or Dostoevsky. How many of the IVCF students are fluent in New Testa- ment Greek or spend a semester in the Holy Land in their junior year, much less in the first century?All joking aside, I had just finished reading
Boswell’s Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality with my Intro to Gay and Lesbian Studies class. Aside from the textual analysis, one of the main points of Boswell’s book is that there was a time in the eleventh cen- tury when gay people were prominent and respected both in Europe and in the Catholic Church, so the “tradition” of ho- mophobia is hardly a continuous one or one that is truly based on theology and the Bible. Rather, societal change in the following centuries led people to seek Biblical justification for their prejudices. There was, says Boswell, a much stron- ger and more theologically sound tradi- tion against lending money at interest in the medieval period, but somehow we manage to allow banking, even today. As an educational institution, we should en- courage discussion of such issues, even or especially within Christian groups on campus.
In 2015, as in 2000, both the local chapter of IVCF and the national orga- nization claimed that they don’t dis- criminate based on identity, but only on beliefs. The effect of the discrimination, however, seems to be the same. Can we really expect gay and lesbian Christians to consider themselves second-class citizens who must remain celibate and proclaim their own exclusion from mar- riage? While we can’t dictate what IVCF believes, must we always defer to “sin- cerely held religious beliefs”? I am old enough to remember when white evan- gelicals in the South sincerely believed that God had separated the races. Bob Jones University banned interracial dating until 2000 because “If you are against segregation and against racial separation, then you are against God Al- mighty.” Would we allow a pass for that?
The recurrence of this kind of incident also shows that we need some structural change at the institutional level. Perhaps now is finally the time for Middlebury to create an LGBTQ center and hire a direc- tor who could both pro-actively make Middlebury a more queer-positive place and be brought in to help respond to any homophobic or transphobic situation that might arise in the future.
(10/26/16 8:12pm)
The Student Government Association (SGA), in partnership with the Black Student Union (BSU), unanimously passed a resolution at their Oct. 23 meeting that called for the College to raise both a banner and the flag of the Black Lives Matter movement on campus. The resolution recommended that the College hang the banner and flag for the duration of the fall semester, and provided several suggestions as to where both should be placed.
In the resolution, the SGA also officially announced their support for the endeavors of the Black Lives Matter movement and the BSU. They also recommended that President of the College Laurie L. Patton meet with representatives of the BSU at the end of the fall semester to discuss the sending of an e-mail statement that would support and endorse the Black Lives Matter movement.
The resolution also recommended the “continued effort of the Middlebury administration to consciously observe the deficit of black representation both within the student body and the faculty makeup.”
As worded in the bill, “the SGA and the BSU recommend: a careful look at where students are being recruited; how socioeconomic diversity impacts matriculation; investigating why students of color ultimately decide not to attend Middlebury College; investigating retention rates of students of color.”
They also recommended “challenging the notion that only ‘trainings’ can facilitate understanding amongst faculty members; and acknowledging the C3 program’s efforts at Middlebury College and exploring similar options for faculty diversity.”
The final recommendation made by the SGA and the BSU is for the College to create a standard procedure that would allow students to share their responses to “campus-related issues.” An example of such a procedure, as provided in the bill, would be “a go/link that invites students to express themselves to different campus-related issues.”
Members of the BSU, including BSU Co-President Nia Robinson ’19 and Treasurer Clark Lewis ’19, drafted and submitted the bill as part of an ad-hoc committee that the SGA formed three weeks prior to the approval of the bill. The ad-hoc committee also included Community Council Co-Chair David Ollin Pesqueira ’17, Senior Senator Aliza Cohen ’17 and Junior Senator Hanna Pustejovsky ’18, all of whom were the co-sponsors of the bill presented to the SGA.
According to Pesqueira, the subcommittee, prior to their first meeting, asked members of BSU to brainstorm recommendations and ideas to be included in the resolution.
“We wanted to make sure that BSU’s perspective was the priority because we did not want to lose the passion or authenticity that they brought to this bill,” he said.
This year, the SGA, according to SGA President Karina Toy ’17 is making a more concerted effort to work with student-organizations in drafting and voting on proposals.
“Right when [the SGA] knew we wanted to talk about this, David invited BSU to come [to a meeting],” said Toy. “If a student group really wants something to happen and we feel, as SGA members, ‘yes, this is something that we want to support them in,’ I think [collaborating] is completely fine.”
Both Toy and Pesqueira emphasized the desire of both the SGA and the BSU to have an open dialogue and work with the College’s administrators on this issue.
“[We] wanted to make sure that [the resolution] didn’t come off too much as a list of demands and whatnot, because we really do want to work with the administration, and, if anything, we do want to say that it is possible to work with the administration to create these effective policies,” Pesqueira said.
On Tuesday, Oct. 25, Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of the College Katy Smith Abbott, after a conversation with other members of the College’s Senior Leadership Group (SLG), responded to the resolution in an email to its authors.
Abbott wrote that the SLG supports the hanging of a Black Lives Matter flag or banner on campus. “The SLG is in strong support of the BSU hanging a flag or banner in a central space on campus,” Abbott wrote. “In fact, our conversation led us to determine that we are in support of creating a permanent, central space that student groups can have access to for the purpose of raising awareness and for creating support for a major cause or concern.”
According to Abbott, members of the SLG suggest that this space or “zone of free expression” be located on the patio in front of the McCullough Student Center, otherwise known as the Wilson Terrace.
“This would resemble public spaces seen at other campuses where banners, posters, chalked pavement and others forms of expression are commonly seen,” said Bill Burger, the College’s vice president for communications and chief marketing officer, in a summary of the SLG’s response.
“The creation of such a space will take some time and can’t happen over the winter, but it is something we’re eager to see discussed and debated on campus.”
Should the space be created, the SLG suggested that the SGA, or a subcommittee of the SGA, be responsible for determining how students can petition to use the space.
“Students can discuss whether a flagpole is desired in that space, or whether it would be preferable to have a means of hanging banners from the sides of the building, creating clotheslines for banners somewhere in that area, etc.,” Abbott wrote.
In response to the resolution’s call for the College to draft an email statement in support of Black Lives Matter, Abbott said that they will do so when the “zone for free expression” is completed. “The College will include a note of support for Black Lives Matter in a message announcing the establishment of the zone for free expression,” she said.
With regard to the SGA’s recommendation that a procedure be created for students to express their thoughts about “campus-related issues,” Abbott’s email said that the SLG believes that the creation of “zone for free expression” would be a powerful and impactful way for students to express their beliefs. However, she did add that if the creation of another platform is particularly important, the SLG would be willing to have another conversation in the future.
Abbott also responded to the recommendation from the SGA and the BSU that the College continue to observe the deficit of black representation both within the student body and faculty.
“Many of these [recommendations] are actively in process, and are being overseen by various members of the college staff and administration,” Abbott said. “[Chief Diversity Officer] Miguel Fernandez and [Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty] Andi Lloyd have offered to meet with students to offer an update on hiring, and we can certainly have a member of the admissions staff discuss how we are evaluating practices of outreach/recruitment.”
When asked by The Campus for comment on the drafting and passing of the bill, as well as a reaction to the response of the SLG, the leadership of the Black Student Union chose to respond, as a board, with the following statement:
“We, the board of the Black Student Union, would like to thank the SGA, SLG, and the numerous students who came forward with support for the flag. We are eager to see how it will affect the community’s conversation and how student groups will approach activism in the future. This is a great step for BSU moving forward.”
(05/12/16 9:50pm)
What does it mean to combine laughter and healing? To be the “perfect” survivor? And what do clowns and “panda puppies” have anything to do with it? Trying to explain the Post Traumatic Super Delightful (PTSD) play to those who did not watch the show was challenging at best. Performed in Hepburn Zoo on Thursday, May 5, Post Traumatic Super Delightful is most simply described as a one-woman show about a community trying to heal after a sexual assault. In practice, it is a heartbreaking, hilarious and nuanced tale of survivors, perpetrators and bystanders – and the impacts of a system that has not done anyone any favors.
Post Traumatic Super Delightful is written and performed by Antonia Lassar, directed by Angela Dumlao, stage-managed by Olivia Hull and further supported by a large team of women with varying backgrounds and skill sets. The fictionalized content stems from interviews with survivors, perpetrators, administrators, faculty and staff within the judicial system, and contains only two moments from Lassar’s real life. Director of Health and Wellness Education Barbara McCall, Molly McShane ’16 and Rebecca Coates-Finke ’16.5 worked to bring the play to campus through the Department of Justice Grant.
First, we meet the clown – a woman dressed in typical clothing who dons a red nose and performs ridiculous antics against the backdrop of voiceovers and music. Each interlude featuring this nameless, smiling character is infused with humor and stark realizations. At one point, the clown walks out with a pile of placards and begins to dance to the pulsing beat of “Survivor” by Destiny’s Child. One by one, she shows the front side of each placard: “I’m pretty.” “I’m white.” “I’m a girl.” “I’m the perfect survivor.” (She pauses after “I’m white” to show off her most awkward and invigorating dance move yet, before pointing to the sign again in a hilarious, self-deprecating recognition of her own whiteness.) Flipping the cards to the opposite side, she continues: “I’m not like the angry ones.” “I cry but I’m not a mess.” “I hate my rapist.” “None of you know him so none of you doubt me.” “I’m also perfect.” “At rolling my tongue.”
The clown proceeds to roll her tongue repeatedly with impressive dexterity, causing the audience to laugh in bewilderment. The contrast between this hysterical demonstration and the difficult truths conveyed by the placards is strategic and intentional. Society has constructed the narrative of the “perfect survivor” of sexual assault – white, female, pretty and not too teary-eyed, among other characteristics – to the detriment of anyone who does not fit this elusive mold. The clown highlights these identity politics by presenting the situation in the most straightforward manner possible.
“The play takes the trauma and pain that may be associated with being a survivor and doesn’t try to define it, which is the purpose of the clown,” Coates-Finke explained. “It’s responding to the myth of the perfect survivor, the narrative of what one should do and how one should be. The clown takes away identity in some ways, and just gives space.”
Lassar, who drew on her own training as a clown to create Post Traumatic Super Delightful, sees great potential in healing through laughter.
“Clowning has been used in sacred rituals in some cultural contexts. The sacred clown can be a presence that reflects back the truth of the community to the community, and mimics what you are doing,” she said. “The laughter is a recognition that we do act like that, people do talk that way. Getting a group of people to laugh about anything is to acknowledge that it exists. This is very powerful in a society that often invalidates survivors’ experiences.”
Though Post Traumatic Super Delightful was written largely for and by survivors, “Julia” – the fictional college student who was sexually assaulted by “Bryan” – never makes an appearance. Instead, her name comes up only in heated conversations featuring Lina, the school’s Title IX Coordinator, faculty member Dr. Margaret Roach and Bryan himself. Because it is a one-woman show, however, these conversations are enacted in a one-sided manner by the ever-evolving actress Lassar. Responses are implied rather than uttered aloud – and due to prominent changes in vocal and physical expressions, there is never a doubt as to which character is speaking at any given moment.
Lina uses brash language cloaked in a thick Russian accent, with inflammatory statements such as, “But I push her [Julia]! You know, I can file complaint myself, but if she won’t let me use her name, it won’t go anywhere. I’m not upset. I am upset. I shouldn’t be upset, but this is my first case. I want justice!” In contrast, Margaret speaks with a stiff, high-strung formality, while Bryan’s light Texan drawl marks all of his confused, frustrated and painfully honest musings.
In featuring a variety of voices, Post Traumatic Super Delightful is a reflection of how sexual assault is perceived by – and therefore affects – an entire community.
“Instead of hearing a story from a very singular perspective – which is a really important perspective of a survivor, but which can be limiting in terms of a full understanding of sexual assault and the ripple effect – we get a context and a way to process the pain,” Coates-Finke said.
“It allows us to think bigger about what the possibilities for awareness and activism are – the way that sexual assault affects people beyond the two or more people involved in one encounter,” McShane added. “It’s exciting both for people who are new to this conversation and for people who have been having this conversation for a long time.”
Through the dialogue, the audience becomes aware of the ways in which harmful narratives are reproduced.
“Bryan is not capable of rape. He is not a monster,” Margaret, his faculty advisor, says at one point.
“Julia does not look like a rape victim, okay? I had her in class. I know her.”
In response to the question “Do you think she was making it up?” Margaret states, “When you’re a drinker, there’s always the possibility you misremembered.”
Bryan’s pain and misconceptions also come to light through his interactions with Lina, the Title IX Coordinator who is adamantly advocating for Julia.
“I’m a freaking 21-year-old-boy! I’m going to have sex!” Bryan exclaims. “Rape is about power, it’s not about sex. What if this was just about sex?”
“I knew a guy in high school who got raped, real raped. And it’s really different. It’s like, I mean, he was bleeding. It was like on a walk home from a bar, and someone just appeared on the street. That’s rape. When you have to fight.”
Faced with these faulty assumptions – that drunk sex does not ever count as rape, that only monsters are capable of rape and that rape victims must look and act a certain way – it becomes clear why sexual assault has become such a blurry and complicated issue, particularly on college campuses. Post Traumatic Super Delightful addresses this complexity partly by stating these misconceptions aloud in the first place, and partly by emphasizing the humanness inherent in everyone involved.
For instance, though Lina demonstrates care and compassion, she is not always great at her job. She pressures Julia to file a Title IX complaint in the name of “justice,” but then realizes, “What is point of justice, if survivor will still be hurt?”
Meanwhile, Bryan is an accused perpetrator – yet his goofy demeanor and adoration for baby animal videos defy the common expectation that rapists cannot possibly be human. According to an anonymous feedback form submitted by an audience member, “It was tough to watch/hear from the perpetrator, because he was so nice… Ugh. I guess it’s easier to think of perpetrators as horrible evil people.”
Amid the stress of the judicial process, Bryan explains that all he can handle at this point is watching videos of “panda puppies” – a confession that drew huge, perhaps empathetic laughs from the crowd. Combined with his genuine, pleading questions – “I don’t know what I did! How could you not know if you raped someone? What’s non-consensual? What’s consensual?” – Bryan’s confusion becomes obvious. And in some ways, his actions become understandable. Like everyone else, Bryan is the product of a system, his thoughts shaped by a flawed education and harmful media messaging. All of these factors have led him to misunderstand what it takes to hurt another individual, or what it means to be a “good” or a “bad” person.
If certain lines from the play resonated with you in a strange or uncomfortable way, it may help to remember that we are all products of a system. Through our words, actions and willingness to listen to those around us, however, we can all play a part in dismantling rape culture.
“Even if you think you don’t know a survivor and you think you don’t know a perpetrator, everyone is so connected and complicit and responsible and in a positon to do something about sexual violence,” Coates-Finke said, “because you definitely know a survivor and you definitely know a perpetrator on this campus. Especially on one as small as ours.”
The multifaceted characterization within Post Traumatic Super Delightful proves that nothing and no one exists in black-and-white terms. Through its nuanced telling, the story becomes more real, and thus more relatable. Above all, it shows that laughter can, indeed, serve as an unexpected catalyst for healing.
Perhaps the anonymous feedback from the audience phrased it best: “I am feeling heavy and light simultaneously,” a 21-year-old female stated. “Trauma and sexual assault is not an easy topic to face, but I feel the load is always a bit lighter with the aid of the community and new tools.”
“As a survivor, I thought it was healing to see this performed in a serious and comedic way,” a 19-year-old male wrote. “I feel hopeful.”
(03/24/16 3:01am)
On Friday, March 18, Lynn Boggs resigned from her position as CEO of Porter Hospital in Middlebury. After just eight months on the job, Boggs will be replaced by Fred Kniffin, whom the board of directors has chosen to serve as Acting President and CEO.
“Thank you for the opportunity to serve as President and CEO of this great institution,” Boggs said in a press release at her resignation. “I wish the Porter community well as they contin- ue the important work of providing exceptional patient-centered care in our community.”
Maureen McLaughlin, the chair of the board of directors, thanked Boggs for her leadership in a press release.
“Lynn has led the organization at a time of great change for small community hospitals like Porter,” McLaughlin said. “We appreciate her dedication and commitment to the organization.”
Boggs’ resignation comes during a difficult time for the organization. Porter
Hospital, Porter Health Care and Rehabilitation Center and 12 physicians practices have collectively lost 1.6 million dollars in the previous fiscal year. In all, the organization has lost 12 million dollars since 2012.
Earlier in February, the hospital also laid off eight nurses in an effort to balance its budget, in addition to nine other employees. The nurses respond ed by posting a flyer at a Middlebury town hall meeting accusing the hospital of sacrificing patient care to budgetary concerns.
n an interview with Vermont Public Radio (VPR), the President of the Porter Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, Alice Leo, said that the firings were misguided.
“I think the focus was in the wrong place. Taking away nurses that do the hands-on care probably isn’t the best place to do cutbacks.”
Ron Hallman, the Porter Medical Center Vice President for development and public relations, defended the cuts.
“[Porter staff] is a team that is comprised of nurses and physicians and medical assistants and therapists, and I think we allowed our team to get a little too much of one type of provider. The losses were unsustainable. Our clinical leaders in our practices did assess the team according to various standards, or benchmarks around the country, and have recalibrated each practice according to those benchmarks.”
“The analogy is, it’s like you inherited a baseball team with nine pitchers. And you realize you need four infielders and three outfielders, and you need a catcher. It doesn’t mean you don’t like your pitchers,”
added Hallman.
Leo countered that the cuts would reduce the quality of patient care.
“We belive that our community shouldn’t have to drive to Burlington for their care, and that they should be able to receive high-quality care in Addison County. And having a registered nurse is really necessary for quality care.”
She was also critical of the way in which the management at Porter handled the cuts, which she belived was in an opaque way.
“No one asked us,” Leo said. Dr. Jean Anderson Swayze, a partner at Middlebury Family Health and an affiliated member of the medical staff at Porter Hospital, agreed that communication between the staff and the management at Porter was poor.
“With no sense of partnership or collaboration, there have been a wave of providers who have either left or tendered their resignations in the past six
months,” Swayze said. “I believe there have been seven. And the more concerning thing is that I know of other providers who are thinking about leaving.”
Budget issues are not unique to Porter Hospital, as many rural hospitals in Vermont have been plagued by budget issues in recent years. Roughly a third of all rural hospitals in the nation run at a deficit.
One federal program, known as the 340b Drug Pricing Program, allows small hospitals to purchase prescription drugs at a discounted price. Hallman said that the program, which is part of a broader strategy at cutting costs at Porter, is critical in keeping the organization afloat.
“We have a short-term one-year plan,” Hallmann said, “that involves a number of steps. The first is to integrate all of our overhead departments, which we’ve done ... We’ve improved our supply chain by some group purchasing arrangements ... We’ve also included, on the revenue side, a brand new infusion center, which is providing necessary services here in our community to folks who would otherwise have to drive to Burlington or Rutland for infusion care, as well as some cardiology services.”
However, many health care professionals are unsure whether these structural changes will be enough.
“The root of [the problem],” Swayze explained, “is that primary care is underfunded and under-appreciated, and in this current health care world, the bigger you are the more health care dollars you bring in.” Ultimately, Swayze argued that a radical change in the way health care is provided would allow smaller hospitals like Porter to remain open.
“We need a new system that values primary care, where there is complete transparency and pay parity,” Swayze insisted. “Not one that burns millions of dollars in creating a new health care bureaucracy.”
Without serious reform, Swayze claimed, small hospitals like Porter might continue to hemorrhage money and unfairly lay off health care providers. Yet for the employees at Porter that already lost their jobs, these changes come too little, too late.
(03/23/16 10:52pm)
The Middlebury women’s hockey team ended their NCAA tournament run on Friday, March 18, after falling 5-3 to top-ranked Plattsburgh State in the semifinal round. They finished the season with a record of 21-6-3, the team’s most since the 2010–11 campaign and the first time the Panthers punched a ticket to the Final Four since their run to the 2012-13 NCAA final. The teams have now each won three NCAA tournament games against the other — the Panthers won in their most recent meeting in the 2013 national semifinal.
The Panthers recorded 10 straight wins leading up to the semifinal, nine of which were shutouts.
Middlebury had the first scoring opportunity of the game, going on a power play at the 3:08 mark but not capitalizing. Two minutes later Plattsburgh State took a power play of their own and turned it into a 1-0 lead just as it was about to expire. For the goal, Karen Hudson one-timed a pass in the slot.
The Panthers bounced back after stopping a second Cardinal power play at 9:48. Seconds later, Jessica Young ’18 received the puck from Janka Hlinka ’18 and wristed a shot around a defender into the far corner of the net.
Middlebury tried several times to take the lead before the end of the first, but failed. Maddie Winslow ’18 shot from point-blank range on a feed from Young, but Cardinal goalie Camille Leonard denied the puck. Plattsburgh State closed the first period with a 13-7 shot-on-goal advantage.
The Cardinals continued their momentum early in the second. A minute in, Kayla Meneghin placed her own rebound into the goal to bring the Cardinals a 2-1 lead. She nearly extended that again at 4:32 on a dramatic breakaway, but her shot went high above the crossbar.
At 5:36, the Cardinals made it a 3-1 game with a hard wrister from Muna Fadel in the slot. They had two chances to extend that lead within half a minute, but Panther netminder Julia Neuburger ’18 made both saves at 12:50 and 13:10. She then came in clutch with a glove save after Megan Delay of Plattsburgh State shook two defenders and blasted the puck from the left point.
The Cardinals extended their lead to 5-1 to close out the second period. They went went on the power play at 16:04 and scored within six seconds. A minute later, two Plattsburgh State forwards worked a pass-and-cut play all the way to the net. Plattsburgh State led Middlebury 16-5 in shots on goal for the second period.
Middlebury turned up the heat in the final period in a last-ditch effort. Their second goal of the game came more than halfway through the period, with Young netting her second goal of the game when Elizabeth Wulf ’18 batted down a puck mid-air for Young to place over the goal line. It was Young’s 13th goal of the season.
With two minutes remaining, Wulf scored a goal of her own as she one-timed a Winslow pass to the back of the net. At the 18:04 mark, Middlebury pulled Neuburger from the net in favor of an extra forward. The Panthers managed to keep constant pressure on the Cardinal net, even going on a power play with 50 seconds left, but could not score.
Plattsburgh State finished with a 41-23 advantage in shots on goal, having gone 1-for-6 on the power play compared to Middlebury’s 0-for-4. The Panthers last made the finals in 2013 when they fell in a gut-wrenching 1-0 defensive thriller against Elmira; their last NCAA title came in 2006.
“I was proud of the way the team responded in the third, scoring two goals and not giving up any,” Head Coach Bill Mandigo said. “It was a very good season. Winning the NESCAC championship in Kenyon and making it to the Final Four was something the team did not think was possible in December.”
Mandigo praised the players for their collective effort. “The team worked hard and got better every day. This was a very good group to coach and I will miss seeing them on a daily basis,” he said.
With their hopes for a national title dashed, the Panthers played in a consolation game on Saturday, March 19, against Elmira, falling 4-1 to take fourth place in the tournament.
Elmira took the lead 14 seconds into the game on a rebound. At 3:57, Middlebury answered on a power play, with Jenna Marotta ’19 one-timing a pass from Winslow. Elmira made it a 2-1 game at 14:38 in the first period. Middlebury nearly had an answer seconds later, but the Soaring Eagle goalie blocked the shot.
Elmira extended their lead to 3-1 in the second period with a backhander from the right faceoff circle. The Panthers had two opportunities in the period, a power play at 5:18 and a big flurry at 10:10, but could not convert either.
In the third period, Middlebury upped the pressure on the Elmira net, but still were unable to score the puck. With 1:48 remaining, Elmira added an empty-net goal, handing Middlebury a 4-1 loss.
The Panthers began the year with a tough schedule that included top-ranked opponents like Elmira and Norwich. They made an impressive run to the tournament, surpassing last year’s loss in the NCAA quarterfinal round and winning the NESCAC title. With an impressive young roster, headlined by NESCAC player player of the year Winslow, as well as a solid in-comming freshman class, the team has a good chance of continuing to dominate on the national stage next year.
(03/23/16 10:47pm)
After a dismal 4-24 season last year, the Middlebury baseball team started its season off on Saturday, March 19, with a 2-1 loss and a 4-3 win in a double-header against Bates in Northborough, Mass. The Bobcats took the win in the seven inning, low-scoring first game, but the Panthers grabbed the night cap with a walk-off home run by Sam Graf ’19.
“Both games were close and came down to the final out,” said Colby Morris ’19, Middlebury’s starting pitcher in the first game. “The fact that we were able to come back from a tough loss in the first game to walk-off in extra innings in the second game really showed a resilience that should help us down the stretch against NESCAC opponents.”
Game one tipped in favor of the Panthers early, as they took an early 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning. Max Araya ’16 cracked a double to deep left field and scored when Jason Lock ’17 forced a Bates error.
Bates mustered an answer in the bottom of the second. Eric Vilanova ripped a homer for the Bobcats to centerfield, scoring Asher MacDonald from first and putting his team ahead 2-1.
In the third inning, Graf reached first on a hit by pitch. Jake Turtel ’18 singled just after, and on a wild pitch the runners each advanced a base. With Middlebury gunning to score, Bates starting pitcher Conor Colombo struck out back-to-back hitters to end the inning. The Panthers threatened again in the fourth. Joe MacDonald ’16 and Drew Coash ’18 both walked, but Colombo again managed to close the inning, this time with a double play.
By the top of the seventh, Bates still led 2-1. John Luke ’16 and Johnny Read ’17 managed to get on first and second, and Graf bunted them to second and third. With two outs remaining in the game, the Bobcats brought Rob DiFranco in to pitch. He managed to force the next two hitters to hit ground out back to him and secure the win for Bates.
“Our hitting was solid, but we missed lots of opportunities throughout the day with runners in scoring position and less than two outs, not executing the way we are going to need to,” Morris said.
The Panthers were the home team for the nightcap, and again took an early lead by scoring two runs in the second inning. The 2-0 lead came when MacDonald walked, Phil Bernstein ’19 singled, and Brendan Donohue ’18 ripped a double, sending MacDonald and Bernstein to home plate. In the third, Luke doubled in Araya to give the Panthers a three run lead.
Bates posted an impressive three-run effort in the fourth inning. Middlebury starter John Bunting ’19 allowed one double and a single. Bates’ Brendan Fox placed a two-run home run in deep right field to tie the game at 3-3.
The teams clashed in the eighth as they vied to go ahead. MacDonald was intentionally walked and Araya and Bernstein were hit by two of Bates reliever Chris Ward’s pitches. With bases loaded and one out, Ward dealt two strikeouts to keep the score tied. That set Graf up for his heroics the next inning. In the bottom of the ninth with one out, Graf knocked the baseball over the left field fence to bring home the win for the Panthers.
“Overall the team played tight defense and threw strikes, highlighted by a stellar performance from the bullpen in the second game when three different relievers (Jake Stalcup ’17, Dylan Takamori ’17, and Conor Himstead ’19) all had scoreless appearances to shut down Bates and give us opportunities to score the final run,” Morris said. “We are definitely stoked to get the first win out of the way.”
The Panthers will travel to Tucson, Arizona for their spring break trip, where they will play 10 games in eight days, including a three-game series with NESCAC opponent Williams.
(03/23/16 10:45pm)
The Middlebury and Wesleyan women’s tennis teams may have only been separated by one spot in the ITA national rankings when they met in the Nelson Recreational Center on Saturday, March 19, but no. 7 Middlebury dominated no. 8 Wesleyan on the courts 7-2 to move to 3-0 in the NESCAC and overall.
Lauren Amos ’16 and Alexandra Fields ’17 won the first match of the day when they defeated Helen Klass-Warch and Dasha Dubinsky 8-4 in third doubles. Wesleyan’s doubles pairing of Eudice Chong, the top-ranked singles player in the nation, and Aashli Budhiraja tied the match at one by beating Ria Gerger ’16 and Kaysee Orozco ’17 8-4 in the first slot.
In the final doubles match, Lily Bondy ’17 and Sadie Shackelford ’16 prevailed over Victoria Yu and Nicole McCann 9-7.
First-ranked Chong won the first singles match 7-5, 6-2 over Gerger to tie the match at 2, but the Cardinals did not win after that.
Christina Puccinelli ’19 overcame Budhiraja 6-3, 7-5 in the fourth slot to put Middlebury ahead for good. Fields triumphed over Yu, who is ranked ninth nationally, in three sets 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 in the second slot.
“I was abroad in the fall so winning such a big match in the beginning of the season has been a huge confidence boost for me,” Fields said. “Although we both played great tennis, I think that I won the match because I wanted to win more than she did.”
In the third slot, Bondy came back after the surrendering the first set to defeat Klass-Warch 4-6, 6-3, 6-1. Molly Paradies ’19 and Amos overwhelmed their opponents in the fifth and sixth slots, winning 6-3, 6-2 and 6-0, 6-4, respectively.
The Panthers will return to the court on Friday, March 25, when the travel to play no. 28 Babson, before embarking on their spring break trip to California. Out west, the Panthers will play four times in five days, including matches against no. 3 Pomona-Pitzer and no. 5 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.
The men’s tennis team, ranked third nationally, came from behind to defeat no. 9 Wesleyan in the Nelson Recreational Center on Saturday, March 19 and improve its record to 3-0 in the NESCAC and overall this spring. With their team down 4-3, Hamid Derbani ’17 and Timo van der Geest ’18 won the last two matches to secure a 5-4 victory for the Panthers.
The Panthers jumped ahead in doubles when Noah Farrell ’18 and Ari Smolyar ’16 defeated Zachary Brint and Greg Lyon 8-5 in first singles. However, Farrell and Smolyar did not face Wesleyan’s top two singles players, Steven Chen and Michael Liu. Chen and Liu narrowly beat Palmer Campbell ’16 and Derbani 8-6 in the second slot. Joachim Sampson and Sam Rudovsky also won 8-6, defeating van der Geest and William de Quant ’18, and the Cardinals led the match 2-1 entering singles play.
Campbell tied the match at 2 by making quick work of Tiago Eusebio 6-1, 6-2 in third singles. Farrell put Middlebury ahead 3-2 with a straight set victory of his own (6-4, 6-1) over Liu. The top-ranked singles player in the country had some trouble with Liu in first singles, who played with him early on, but took the match over at the end of the first set. Farrell played better as the match went on and wore Liu down, who grew frustrated with Farrell’s doggedness and ability to get to and return almost everything.
Samson answered right back for the Cardinals, handling de Quant 6-0, 7-5 in the fifth slot, and Chen, ranked no. 14 nationally but playing in the second slot, beat Smolyar after losing the first set 4-6, 6-4, 6-1. Smolyar was animated all match, at one point grasping at his face in anguish, as he struggled with his serve.
With his team’s back against the wall, Derbani overpowered Jake Roberts 6-2, 6-2 in the fourth slot, leaving the fate of the match in van der Geest’s hands. Van der Geest welcomed the challenge, overcoming a couple questionable calls by his opponent Dhruv Yadav to win the decisive match 6-2, 7-5 and seal the match for Middlebury. Van der Geest took a couple of games to get his feet under him in the first set, but once he did, he started to assert himself with consistent ground strokes and several impressive winners. Yadav regrouped in the second set, but van der Geest promptly denied any chance of a comeback and won the second set and the match.
“It was very exciting that I was able to clinch the match,” van der Geest said. “I was obviously nervous but felt like I dealt with it well. I learned that I need to improve moving up into the court so I will work on that this week.”
The Panthers will take the courts next in California, where they will play six matches in eight days over spring break. They will face multiple tests out west when they play no. 2 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, who beat them in the national championship last year, no. 8 Pomona-Pitzer and multiple Division I and II opponents.
(03/23/16 10:37pm)
The seventh-ranked Middlebury men’s lacrosse team returned to their winning ways last Saturday, March 19 when they traveled to take on the Wesleyan Cardinals. In their second overtime contest in as many games the Panthers emerged on top, scoring just 50 seconds into overtime to earn a big 9-8 NESCAC win. Middlebury looks to start another winning streak on Tuesday when they head to Plattsburgh State for an out-of-conference matchup.
The Panthers came out of the gates firing on all cylinders as they scored all three goals in the first quarter. The first, a Cedric Rhodes ’17 finish from a Jon Broome ’16 assist, came just 2:36 into the game. Broome continued to facilitate and dished another opening quarter assist with 5:28 remaining, this time setting up a Sean Carroll ’16 tally. Jack Gould ’19 finished the Panthers’ explosive first quarter with an unassisted goal with less than two minutes on the clock to give the squad the 3-0 lead.
Wesleyan finally found a way to get themselves on the scoreboard at the 2:12 mark in the second quarter when Niall Devaney found the back of the net. As the hosts started to tighten up defensively and prevent the Middlebury fireworks that marked the opening quarter, their offense continued to attack as just 1:30 later Taylor Ghesquiere cut the Panther lead to one.
That tight defense would not last long, however, as the electric Middlebury offense started to find its rhythm again, this time in the form of back-to-back goals in a run spanning just over a minute. Yet another Broome assist, the most consistent form of offense Middlebury has seen all year, led to a Joey Zelkowitz ’17 goal before a Jack Cleary ’16 strike re-extended the Middlebury lead to three with 3:09 remaining. The half ultimately ended 6-3 in favor of the Panthers after the two sides traded goals to finish the quarter.
The third quarter was marked by further battling from both sides as Middlebury again responded to an early Cardinal charge. After the home team scored the first two to again cut the lead to one, the Panthers responded with two late goals from Henry Riehl ’18 and Gould with 3:03 and 20 seconds remaining, respectively. In typical NESCAC fashion, however, Wesleyan battled their way back into the contest, erasing the 8-5 deficit by scoring all three goals in the fourth quarter. Harry Stanton led the Cardinal resurgence with an unprecedented single quarter hat trick.
It was the Panther defense, however, that prevailed when a Jack Defrino ’17 caused turnover led to a Dylan Fowler ’16 ground ball. On the ensuing Panther clear, Wesleyan was flagged for a penalty and gave the Panthers a man-up opportunity with five seconds left in regulation. As a result, Middlebury entered overtime with a man-up possession and a clear offensive game plan. After patiently working the ball around the perimeter, Gould ripped the game winner and his third tally of the day from 20 yards within 50 seconds of the start of the four-minute overtime period.
Goalie Will Ernst ’17 had eight saves to earn the win as Middlebury held a 39-28 advantage in shots. The Panthers went 1-2 in man-up situations and Wesleyan was unsuccessful in its lone opportunity.
The team earned their second straight victory in a 10-8 road win at Plattsburgh St. on Tuesday afternoon. Led by first-year Gould’s second hat-trick in as many games, the Panthers won yet another game decided by two or fewer goals, the fourth such contest of the season. After Plattsburgh found the back of the net less than five minutes into the first quarter to get out to an early lead, Middlebury came roaring back with a four goal streak to end the opening quarter. All three of Gould’s goals came during the streak, which culminated in a 4-1 Panther lead heading into the second quarter.
The two sides traded goals in the second quarter to end the first half with a score of 6-3 in favor of the visiting Panthers.
The Cardinals refused to go down easily, however, and came out in the third quarter with a three-goal streak of their own to tie the contest. Again the two teams traded two goal runs as the fourth quarter continued. Middlebury tallied goals from Tim Giarrusso ’16 and Kyle Soroka ’16, the latter on a man-up opportunity, Plattsburgh responded again to notch the game at 8-8 with 7:15 left to play. As has been the case for much of the year, a couple of Panther seniors stepped up when the team needed them most. Giarrusso scored his second to break the tie at 5:36 before Broome scored what would be the last goal of the game to make it 10-8 and effectively ice the Middlebury win with 3:17 left.
Broome capped the scoring with 3:17 left and made it a 10-8 final. The Cardinals owned a slight shot advantage (35-30), while the Panthers owned a 38-23 edge in ground balls.
Middlebury returns to action Saturday when the squad heads to Bowdoin for a huge NESCAC matchup on the road.
(03/23/16 8:43pm)
On Monday, March 21, members of the Middlebury community met in Twilight Hall to hear the College’s plans for the development of a new park area where the town offices and municipal gym currently stand.
The meeting was led by Dave Donahue, who has been developing the plans for the park along with the help of the Public Park Advisory Group. Before presenting the plans, Donahue stressed that he hoped the meeting would be conversational and informal, rather than a lecture — an opportunity for the town members to say what they like and didn’t like about the proposal.
Donahue started by explaining that the advisory group had done research and brainstormed ideas for the area. These ideas were then synthesized to come up with a set of principles to guide the development of the park. Their principles included: to make use of natural topography, be family friendly, be different from other parks in town, to keep maintenance costs low, include a variety of seating, be safe, inviting, accessible, and easily navigable, to conserve historical markers, include shaded & sunny spaces, have appropriate infrastructure (such as lighting or Wi-Fi), include some flat spaces and to not include any built structure.
Donahue also explained how research shows that spaces that have not been well used can be reenergized by even small changes. He expressed that the College wishes for the park to be a space where the town and the college can meet and interact.
While the College does own the land, Donahue reassured one concerned town member that there would be no sign reading “Welcome to Middlebury College”. The space will be operated like a public park, and the College will be responsible for its maintenance and upkeep.
The attendees raised many suggestions, including implementing an ice rink in the winter, a commitment to native planting and public art. The question of some sort of focal point in the park was also discussed.
Many others raised concerns, including parking safety and wanting to know what exactly would differentiate this park from others in town and attract people to come. One attendee made the point that while cities need green spaces to “get away” and be alone, a town, especially Middlebury, has a need for more public spaces. He said there needs to be something exciting to draw both townspeople and students in.
Others were concerned that the triangle-shaped park’s corner is on the town end and feel the park will be “turning its back” on the town. Donahue acknowledged this is a strategic space for both college and the town, and promised suggestions for a visitor’s center would be given full consideration in future meetings.
Donahue said he plans on holding a similar event later to get more students’ opinions, as well as perhaps two or three more events for the community members. After that, the Advisory Committee will discuss new suggestions and try to get to a final design that gets to as many ideas as possible. The final design will then go through a public review process in town.
The current timeline for the project calls for the plans to be finalized by May, the town offices to be razed in June, park construction to take place from late July through August, and completed in September. However, one of the town members present at the meeting urged Donahue and the College to not let the timeline dictate what happens, to take the time to figure things out, even if that requires waiting a year to “do it right."
(03/23/16 3:14pm)
As the Student Government Association (SGA) begins to discuss how to budget student organizations, namely club sports, it looks to the College for potential financial support; however, the College is confronted with its own short-term fiscal concerns and has started conversations to address where changes can be made in the budget in order to ensure long-term financial stability.
At the end of last semester the College held two open meetings to discuss financial stability. The meetings, held at the College and at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, were hosted by Vice President for Finance and Treasurer Patrick Norton and Provost Susan Baldridge. Over 450 members of the Middlebury community attended the meetings. “The overall message is that while Middlebury’s permanent condition and our long-term outlook are positive, we do have some short-term financial challenges,” Norton said.
Norton described Middlebury’s present situation as a “convergence of factors” which have led to current negative operating margins; a result of total operating expenses exceeding total operating revenues. In the fiscal year 2015 (FY2015), Middlebury experienced an operating margin of negative four percent. This year, the budget is expected to operate at a margin of negative five percent.
In FY2015, Middlebury’s operating expenses totaled $268,455,000 and financed the cost of salaries, wages and employee benefits; food, utilities and supplies (including books and periodicals); travel; debt payments; taxes, insurance and interest. Not included in operating expenses is the price of financial aid.
Total operating revenue, $258,820,000 in FY2015, is a culmination of tuition and other student fees, endowment returns and contributions in the form of donations. Over the past five years, revenue has been constrained by CPI+1, the College’s plan to cap increases in tuition at one percentage point above the annual increase in the Consumer Price Index. Although the program is no longer in place, it lowered revenue growth and affected the College’s budget.
Financial aid expenses have also increased by six percent annually from 2006 to 2015, a result of the College’s dedication to its policy of need-blind admissions.
Another major factor contributing to negative operating margins is a decline in the number of enrollments at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS) over the past three years. Although enrollments have stabilized at about 700 students, the College lost important tuition fees they count on for overall revenue.
Additionally, Middlebury’s growth as a College and a global liberal arts institution has introduced a number of new expenses and natural increases in operating costs.
Revenue sources have also been constrained by outside factors, namely volatile endowment returns over the past few years. Although the College’s endowment, $1,101,054,000 in FY2015, continues to grow, annual distribution of the endowment is determined by investment returns, which are not as stable. Endowment funds, managed and invested by Investure, are available to the College based on an annual distribution policy approved by the Middlebury College Board of Trustees.
The College aims to maintain a five percent return for the endowment but current spending is slightly over and therefore unsustainable for long-term budgeting practices.
Endowment investment policies can remain sustainable as long as the College works to restore a five percent return model. “Our investment philosophy is rooted in both long-term thinking and risk mitigation,” Norton said. “This approach has served us well. It has ensured that our endowment continues to grow and meets our spending needs for current students and faculty and future generations of students and faculty.”
This goal was one of many that Norton and Baldridge outlined at the meetings last fall. The College hopes to reach a positive three percent operating margin by 2019. To accomplish this, Norton and Baldridge introduced a series of plans to re-evaluate undergraduate tuition, room and board prices; compensation costs; financial aid packages; non-salary operating costs; and how long-term debt is financed.
“We are confident that we can achieve the positive operating margins by addressing all the issues described above - and without dramatic changes in any one area,” Norton said.
The College has also resolved to increase enrollment at Monterey and at the College. Norton mentioned plans to introduce ten new undergraduate students per year until enrollment at the College reaches 2,490.
These potential changes are being discussed across various groups on campus including the Faculty Resources Committee, the ad hoc Budget Committee and the Resources Committee of the Board of Trustees. Furthermore, the College will host another round of open meetings this April.
Norton emphasized that changes will be implemented in accordance with the College’s core priorities: “continued focus on academic quality, access and affordability, among other things,” he said.
“We’re looking at every line item in our budget,” Norton said. “We have to figure out how to recycle the dollars we already have.”
The SGA, as it works to refinance its own budget, looks to the College to fill gaps. “There are a lot of things that we fund, especially larger ticket items that are either in partnership with the administration or which we are lobbying to be picked up by the College as opposed to us,” Aaron de Toldeo ’16, the SGA treasurer, said.
“That’s a complete process of negotiation and it’s a long-term process but we don’t feel comfortable even starting when parts of the College are having to reduce their budget,” he added. “Theres no surplus, it’s shortfall.”
(03/17/16 2:56am)
As the sun shined bright and Main Street bustled with attendees of the 8th Annual Vermont Chili Festival, the seventh-ranked Middlebury men’s lacrosse team welcomed defending national champions and top-seeded Tufts to Youngman Field at Alumni Stadium on Saturday, March 12. After going down by three goals early in the game, the Panthers battled back to eventually tie their NESCAC rival in the fourth quarter before ultimately falling to the Jumbos by a score of 12-10.
The Jumbos got on the board quickly with a Jake Gillespie goal just 22 seconds into the contest, followed shortly by a nice finish from Tim Giarrusso ’16 to tie the game at one apiece. Gillespie, along with the rest of the Tufts offense, maintained momentum and powered the Jumbos to a 3-0 run with his Gillespie’s second of the day, in addition to tallies from Ben Andreycak and Austin Carbone over a span of just 1:50 in the first quarter. The Panthers stopped the bleeding with a rally from senior leadership as co-captain Jon Broome ’16 found midfielder Jack Cleary ’16 from behind the cage for a high shot to notch the score at 4-2 for the remainder of the first quarter.
The Panthers came out with a new level of intensity in the second quarter, peppering Tufts goaltender Alex Salazar with three shots in quick succession before Giarrusso found the net for his second goal of the day to bring the home team within one with 13:57 remaining. However, the Jumbos offense picked up right where it left off in the first quarter and responded by scoring four of the next five, including two bouncers from Cam Irwin and Kyle Howard-Johnson at 10:12 and 9:15, respectively. Again, a Panther senior stepped up to keep Middlebury in the game as Sean Carroll ’16 converted a Broome feed with 6:46 remaining. After a pair of Tufts goals only 31 seconds apart from John Uppgren and Andreycak, the Panthers put together a quality extended possession that ultimately culminated in a Henry Riehl ’18 goal and another Broome assist. Their efforts brought the score to 8-5 in favor of the Jumbos as the first half came to an end.
The game settled down in the second half as the Middlebury defense locked in and prevented the extended scoring streaks that had defined much of the first half. Instead, the Panthers put together a streak of their own with goals from Kyle Soroka ’16 and Jack Gould ’19 at 10:51 and 9:29. Tufts’ Connor Bilby responded to Middlebury’s best offensive run of the day with a piece of individual talent in a nice dodge and finished with just 3:02 remaining in the third quarter. Momentum swung back to the home side, however, when solid play on both sides of the ball resulted in a Middlebury goal. After causing a turnover in the final minute, Parker Lawlor ’18 scooped the ball before firing a goal with just eight seconds left to bring the Panthers within one heading into the final quarter.
Although Andreycak’s third tally with 12:13 remaining gave the visitors the 10-8 advantage, Middlebury continued to demonstrate their defining grit and resolve throughout the final quarter. John Jackson ’18 was a force from the faceoff, affording the Panthers valuable possession opportunities by going 15-25 in addition to scooping six ground balls. Gould got the offense rolling in the fourth, converting on a man-up opportunity just a minute before Lawlor scored his second unassisted goal of the day to level the score at 10-10 with 9:05 remaining. Only 20 seconds later, Gillespie dodged from the right side and found the back of the net for the eventual game-winning goal, while Andreycak added another at 7:38 to round-out Tufts’ offensive effort. The Panthers fired four shots in the remaining minutes but could not pull any closer as Tufts took possession in the final minute and ran out the clock.
While ultimately unable to gain the advantage in scoring, the Panthers outplayed Tufts in many categories throughout the contest. Notably, Middlebury nearly doubled their opponent in shots, posting a 59-30 advantage as well as a 32-27 edge in ground balls. The Jumbos relied on consistent goaltending in the win, with Salazar recording 18 saves on the day while Will Ernst ’17 made nine stops for the Panthers.
Clearing was a strength for both teams, with the Panthers finding success on 13 of their 15 opportunities, while the Jumbos went 18-22. Middlebury was 2-3 while playing with an extra man, while Tufts posted a goal in four tries.
“We just need to keep improving on a daily basis,” said Broome, one of Middlebury’s captains. “The game against Tufts showed that we can play with any team in the country, but it was also clear that we still have a lot of work on. Specifically, we need to be better in unsettled situations on both ends of the field.”
The Middlebury men’s lacrosse team dropped their second straight game on Tuesday, March 15 when St. Lawrence came to Youngman Field at Alumni Stadium. In nail-biting double overtime fashion the Saints took a 14-13 victory from the Panthers at home, a place where victories traditionally do not come easily to opponents. As a result, Middlebury’s record drops to 2-2; a line they will look to improve this Saturday when they travel to Wesleyan to play an ever-important NESCAC matchup. St. Lawrence returns to action on Saturday as well when they travel to Davenport, Fla. to take on Western New England University.
Both sides came out of the gate hot as the Saints’ Conor Healy opened the game only 1:10 into the contest a little more than a minute before Cedric Rhodes ’17 responded with an underhand strike from 10 yards away. The trend continued as Jordan Dow ’18 put the guests back in front at 9:36, only to bring on another Middlebury response as Michael McCormack ’19 ripped his first career goal with 9:12 remaining. St. Lawrence began to take the game over, however, as Healey and Dow led the Saints on a four goal run to put the visiting side up 6-2. After Jon Broome ’16 finished a Jack Cleary ’16 feed with only half a second left in the first quarter, Middlebury started the second quarter with a Rhodes man-up goal to make it a 6-4 contest with 13:49 left. Again, the Saints responded with a multiple goal run to give the visitors the 8-4 advantage. To counter, Middlebury looked to its senior leadership and found some in the form of two straight goals from Broome, on scoop and dish assists from Kyle Soroka ’16 and Harrison Goodkind ’16, respectively. Andrew Jarret ’17 gave St. Lawrence the 9-6 advantage heading into the half when he scored with only 24 seconds remaining.
After an offensively dominated first half which saw 15 goals, the third quarter had just three. Middlebury opened the final quarter by going on a four goal run of their own including the final two from a Jack Gould ’19 goaland the same connection culminating in a Soroka goal to give the Panthers a 12-10 advantage with 10:47 left. After a two goal counter by the Saints and Gould’s third of the day, an unassisted rip with only 2:11 left on the clock, Dow scored his fourth to equalize the contest at 13-13 and force overtime with just six seconds left. Sean Carroll ’16 had the best look in the first four-minute overtime period when he found space 10 yards out but ripped it just high. St. Lawrence’s Vautor then found space with just over a minute left in the second period, only to be denied by goalie Will Ernst ’17, who had 10 saves on the day. After a Middlebury possession that yielded a pair of shots with a man-up chance, Dow ended the game in the closing seconds redirecting a pin-point pass by Alec Dietsch ’17 from the right side for the Saint victory.
