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(11/19/15 5:29pm)
Student organizations that have yet to receive funding will see a shortage of resources available to them in the 2015-16 academic year. The Student Government Association (SGA) Finance Committee has already allocated around $900,000 of the $1,000,000 Student Activities Fee (SAF). Roughly 40 organizations have not yet applied for funding, including clubs sports like rugby and crew—as such, these student-run organizations are predicted to receive the bare minimum of what they require to operate.
Treasurer of the SGA and Chair of the SGA Finance Committee Aaron de Toledo ’16 discussed the situation at hand. Using the SGA as an example to demonstrate how a club’s finances operate, de Toledo said, “The SGA has a budget. If the SGA, whether it’s a senator or someone on the SGA committee, decides to spend money, they give me a receipt and I would have to approve it, submit that receipt, and manage the budget.”
The Student Activities budget is funded from the SAF, which is collected from every student. The contribution each student makes to the SAF rises with inflation every year—it was $410 for the 2015-16 academic year. Every dollar in the budget is allocated by students to student organizations or programming that benefits students, such as MiddView. The fund grants students independence from the administration.
“It’s not that simple,” de Toledo says, “because, off the bat, there are some pretty big fixed expenditures. For example, MiddView is a three-year understanding between the student government and the College where the student government and the College split the cost for the first three years… This is the third year, so this is the final year where that’s going to hit our budget. That’s $98,000 a year, so ten percent of our budget off the bat gone.”
Another large fixed expenditure is the senior yearbook, Kaleidescope ($42,500).
“[The] yearbook is something that is slightly controversial because most students don’t know that we have a yearbook and that’s a fair amount of money,” de Toledo added.
Other large programs that are fixed costs in the budget are the Senior Committee ($30,100), Feb Celebration Committee ($7,905), and various Commons activities ($36,800).
The largest fixed expenditure is the Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB)1, which receives approximately one third of the SAF. Their budget this year is $337,650.
“Right off the bat, [the budget] is a lot less than a million dollars. From there, we go and allocate money to all of the various clubs. There are 175 student organizations.”
Once the fixed expenditures are covered, larger student organizations such as WRMC, Mountain Club, and club sports take up a huge chunk of the
budget.
Though some might argue the need to distribute funding always with an equitable dollar per member formula, de Toledo disagrees.
“We don’t have a fixed formula because having a fixed formula really doesn’t allow for any human aspect… Generally, we really try to look at impact when we fund budgets,” he said.
(11/19/15 4:41am)
“Tell mom you love her,” my youngest brother, William, told me last Friday evening. I had answered the call in the midst of an economics assignment, and assumed he wanted me to respond to a text my mom had sent in our family group message – “Love you!” – about thirty minutes earlier.
(11/12/15 12:18am)
My roommate and I generate about two full bins of recycling and garbage per week – and that’s just in our personal living space. Imagine all the food waste, paper, bottles and packaging we as a student body of around 2,500 produce each week. Just six people are responsible for the collection, sorting, and disposal of all our refuse: the employees of the Middlebury College Recycling Center.
On Friday afternoon, I bore witness to the mountain of bagged recycling and garbage that was the result of just one day’s pickup. Before the bags arrive at the Recycling Center, they are picked up from over fifty sites by Wes Doner, main driver of the recycling truck, and Paul Gurney, main driver of the CDL (commercial driver’s license) trucks.
Doner described his typical morning.
“I come in, check my truck over, make sure the lights and everything are working and then I go around picking up all the recycling and come back to unload,” he said. “If I have any more time, then I’ll get off the truck and help these guys sort through the garbage and recycling.”
The CDL trucks run separate routes in order to fulfill their specific tasks. There is a trash route, a recycling route, a compost route and a daily bio-ash pick-up at the Service Building.
The College actually utilizes all of the compost it produces for landscaping around campus, including athletic fields and flowerbeds.
“Every three days, the compost is weighed at transfer stations and then taken to the stump dump up on South Street,” Gurney said. “Once a year, it’s screened out and made into our final product.” Once the bags of recycling and garbage arrive at the recycling center, they must be sorted. This might seem like a relatively straightforward process, as students have theoretically pre-sorted their garbage and recycling into the appropriate bins.
But Recycling Center employees Kimberly Bickham and Cleveland “Billy” Pottinger showed me this is rarely the case.
Pottinger called me over to where he was sorting and showed me the contents of one of the bags from a recycling bin. It was full of plates coated in some sort of nasty cheese sauce, plastic bags and tin foil mixed with a few actually recyclable cans and bottles.
“This one looks to me like it might be from the tailgate area,” Bickham said. “And that’s actually a lot nicer than some of the ones we’ve seen.”
The general consensus among the employees was that students could make their jobs exponentially easier by simply taking the time to sort their garbage from their recycling.
“Not dumping coffee or liquids into the recycling bins, breaking boxes down to help with space and not throwing light bulbs and batteries into the trash” were the most common offenses, according to Bickham. She also agreed that general sorting would be the biggest help.
“Everyone has a trash and a recycling bin in their room,” she said. “If they could simply sort in their rooms and then take those bins out to the appropriate large bins, that would help tremendously.” It might seem like common sense, but it’s easier said than done.
During the homecoming football game, the Middlebury Athletic department hosted the Green Panther Challenge. Green Liasons from varsity teams stood in front of recycling bins in the stadium and the tailgating area. They were supposed to monitor people sorting to improve the likelihood that trash would be put in the correct bin.
Bickham said, “The results were only a tiny bit better when sorting was monitored. Folks still aren’t sorting it out exactly the right way. I’m in hopes that with hockey and basketball being inside, the monitoring will go much better.”
After the garbage and recycling has been sorted, everything except returnable cans and bottles, enters the single-stream compacter. Once a month, paper is stacked and shipped to Rutland to be recycled.
Out of the four employees I spoke with, Pottinger has been with the Recycling Center the longest – although he said he wasn’t sure how long it had been exactly.
“I never check the time,” he said. “Time waits for no man, so I say let it run.”
The recycling center recycles more than just cans, bottles and paper – it also collects and re-sells used appliances, furniture, school supplies and clothing. These items are stored in attached trailers, which students have access to during normal recycling center hours. Usually, the reuse trailers get at least one visitor per day.
“Near Halloween, we were really busy with people coming through,” Pottinger said. “We’ll actually be closing the clothing part by the end of this month and bringing what’s left over to H.O.P.E. [a local poverty alleviation organization in Middlebury].”
On the whole, the College’s recycling practices are highly efficient. The diversion rate, or the amount of recyclables that are kept out of the landfill, is 64.5%, a rate that Pottinger described as “excellent.” But we could easily raise that rate if we can keep things like nacho cheese out of the blue bins.
Our recycling center is certainly doing its job – so maybe it’s time for us to give them a little more help. So, next time you’re in a hurry and tempted to chuck your half-chugged cup of coffee into the nearest receptacle, think about where that cup is going and whose hardworking hands it will have to pass through before it reaches its final resting place.
(11/05/15 3:46am)
At the end of September, the Burlington Police Department formally severed ties with a Department of Defense program responsible for transfering excess military gear to United States police departments. The department returned two pairs of night vision goggles, the only two pieces of equipment they had received, and Police Chief Brandon del Pozo announced that the department would not accept more equipment in the future.
“The militarization of local police departments is a genuine concern in our nation,” del Pozo said in a press release. Despite policing the largest urban area in the state, the Burlington Police Force was among the least involved departments in the redistribution program.
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger supported the decision, which he believes “cements the Burlington Police Department’s long-standing practice of avoiding the use of military equipment, in contrast to many other police departments. Our focus instead is on the basics of good policing in the 21st century: foot patrols, strong relationships between the officers and the community, and the use of modern tools to increase public transparency and police effectiveness.”
Although military equipment could be essential in rare emergency situations, Weinberger and del Pozo opted to rely on the Vermont National Guard and the Vermont State Police in such a situation.
“Collectively, in the state, we have all the equipment to handle all but the most inconceivable situations, and it’s all on call,” del Pozo said in an interview with WCAX News. “Secondly, as a matter of our track record, we have not used this equipment to the extent that justifies having it, that justifies a relationship that people point to as the militarization of police departments.”
Although unprecedented in Vermont, Burlington’s change in policy reflected just one reaction to the nation-wide militarization of police. The issue that has been at the forefront of a controversial public debate since the militarized response to protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting of Michael Brown.
“I think Ferguson was one of the real things that brought attention to this. If you are a hammer, then everything you see is a nail,” del Pozo said in the same interview with WCAX. “I think that’s the worry about military equipment in the hands of local police.”
The program responsible for equipment transfers is known as Defense Department Program 1033. Established in 1997, the program was intended to support the war on drugs, and later to aid in the fight against terrorism.
Since its inception, the program has distributed an estimated five billion dollars worth of equipment to police departments in the United States.
The program has delivered 610 Mine-Resistant Armored Trucks (MRAPs) around the country, as well as surplus night-vision goggles, scopes, body armor, and weapons, such as AK-15s and M-16s.
In the Spring of 2014, Vermont recieved it’s first and only MRAP. The vehicle, which weighs 40,000 pounds, stands ten feet tall, and is capable of deflecting roadside bombs, is currently housed in the National Guard’s armory in Windsor. After careful consideration, state police chose to remove the machine gun turret from the top of the vehicle.
According to an online database compiled by the news agency Seven Days Vermont, Addison County has received seven items of military gear through the program, including five M-14 Rifles and two M-16 Rifles. The Middlebury Police department has two of the M-14 variants.
Neighboring Orange County has received far more: 66 items in total, including two Humvees, a thermal sight, two industrial trailers, four M-14 Rifles and a variety of other accessories and training aids.
Critics of the redistribution programs argue that the presence of these military vehicles, guns and accessories is more likely to escalate violence than curb it.
“Amassing a worst-case scenario arsenal of military equipment results in officers seeing everyday police work through a military lens,” del Pozo said. “When I realized what a small role the military played in equipping our police, I concluded it was better to return the items and let our 1033 program memorandum of understanding expire.”
“There are times when military style equipment is essential for public safety, but they are very rare,” he explained.
Del Pozo admitted that the decision was largely symbolic, considering how little the department had actually received through the program, but that the department wanted to “make a statement.”
Not everyone in Vermont agreed with del Pozo’s decision. Critics have claimed that during natural disasters, or other crises, such equipment would be crucial for the safety of residents and officers.
In 2014, State Police Director Tom L’Esperance said that Vermont’s mine-resistant armored truck “... will help troopers get close to and help defuse a dangerous situation without exposing them to life-threatening danger. It’s a great piece of equipment,” he said, “however we hope we never need it.”
In fact, the MRAP was used during a murder investigation in February.
If purchased outright, mine-resistant vehicle normally costs around 500,000 dollars. Vermont’s MRAP cost just 8,000 dollars, or roughly the cost of transporting it from its military base. Vermont acquired a similar Bearcat vehicle in 2011. Both vehicles had to be repainted and customized for police use.
At the time, the acquisition made some Vermont residents nervous. In an interview with WCAX, former Marine Corps Col. Stephen Pomeroy said that, “From a former military guy’s point of view, it looks like an awful lot like the state police (are) escalating their firepower capabilities against a threat I don’t perceive to exist.”
Supporters of the program, on the other hand, claim that the program could be utilized for non-lethal support, at subsidized prices. According to the Congressional Research Service, the program offers a variety of law enforcement tools, such as “handcuffs, riot shields, holsters, binoculars and digital cameras.”
As a leader in this national dialogue, President Obama has pushed for revamping a ‘community-based’ model of policing. In May, when he visited Camden, New Jersey, he lauded their approach as a “symbol of promise for the nation.”
“It takes a special kind of courage to run towards danger,” he said in a speech, referring to police officers. “To be a person that residents turn to when they are most desperate. When you match courage with compassion – with care and understanding of the community like we’ve seen here in Camden – some really outstanding things can begin to happen.”
Obama contrasted Camden’s police with a militarized force: “We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people the feeling like there’s an occupying force,” he said, “as opposed to a force that’s part of the community that’s protecting them and serving them.”
Between 1990 and 2015, violent crime rates across the United States have declined. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, violent crime dropped 14.5 percent between 2004 and 2013. During this time, equipment transfers from the military have increased, largely due to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq winding down.
In August of 2014, in response to unrest in Ferguson, Obama ordered a review of the Defense Department Program 1033. According to a CBS News Report, the goal of the review was to ascertain “whether these programs are appropriate; whether state and local law enforcement are provided with the necessary training and guidance; and whether the federal government is sufficiently auditing the use of equipment obtained through federal programs and funding.”
The review was led by both members of the White House Staff and US agencies, from the National Security Council, Congress, the Domestic Policy Council, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, Treasury and Defense.
President Obama eventually decided to keep the program.
(10/21/15 11:44pm)
On Thursday, Oct. 15, the Town Hall Theater was one of 1,500 venues around the world that participated in the National Theatre Live broadcast of the Barbican of London’s much-anticipated production of Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
For four hundred years, new generations have plumbed not only the intricacies of Shakespeare’s text, but also the depths of the spaces between the words for contemporary interpretations that speak to modern audiences. In trying to appeal to a younger generation, this production needed to craft a show tailored to shorter attention spans, greater aesthetic expectations and more cultural awareness than ever before. In all three of these areas, the show succeeded with stunning clarity.
Cumberbatch is an unlikely superstar whose pale complexion, narrow eyes and self-conscious propensity for clever babble did not gain international recognition until his appearance as the title character in the BBC’s 2010 television production of Sherlock, a role which came 15 years into his career. The Barbican production came under significant scrutiny for casting the current “hot star” as a ploy to sell tickets to female and younger viewers.
Regardless of if it was a ploy or not, the three-month live run at the Barbican Theatre was quickly labeled “the most in-demand theatre show of all time,” nearly breaking online ticket vendors with queues of over 30,000 interested fans after the sale opened.
Over 225,000 international viewers watched the live broadcast or encore presentation on Oct. 15, more than the show’s live audience, and more than have ever seen a single National Theatre Live broadcast in the program’s history.
It’s difficult to remain cynical about the casting of Cumberbatch if his immense talents introduce thousands of viewers to a Hamlet who glitters in his whimsical grace, charismatically bounding across the stage in fluid fits of carefully coordinated choreography as he descends into a madness marked by the tragic loss of youthful hope and wonder.
This is a translation of Hamlet for today, led by Cumberbatch’s invigorating stage presence and a spectacular supporting cast, including acting legend Ciaran Hinds as Claudius and a moving Sian Brooke as Ophelia.
Students in many Department of Theatre classes attended the screening, opening the opportunity for a shared, external theatrical experience.
“Seeing outside work is great because it gives us all a common reference point, so we’re talking about the same production instead of relying on the abstract or trying to tell people about things we’ve seen that we think are important or impactful,” Associate Professor of Theatre Alex Draper said.
The production announces its modernity immediately, opening not with the traditional interaction with the ghost of King Hamlet, but instead with a solitary Hamlet as if he is a beat poet, Cumberbatch relaxing on the ground in an autumn sweater as Nat King Cole’s ‘Nature Boy’ spins on a record player.
Cumberbatch’s Hamlet is constantly in identity crisis, exhibiting layers of adolescent playfulness, sharp intelligence and overwhelming narcissism as his fairytale castle falls to pieces. This, of course, is what makes Hamlet so real, especially for a generation paralyzed by an array of unparalleled opportunities, responsibilities and commitments (or lack thereof). There is no longer a monarchy or a pervading propensity for sword fights, but there is something about Hamlet’s flailing attempts to discover his moral center which resonates today.
Students in the Literary Studies Department also attended the screening, allowing the three-dimensionality of the written word to supplement their usual academic pursuits.
“Seeing a performance makes you have a different perception of the work and inherently changes how you will approach it in the future,” Abla Lamrani-Karim ‘16 said. “By making this show modern, you forget that you’re listening to a very hard language that you’re not used to, and that makes you realize just how much Shakespeare is still today’s topic. That’s the beauty that this production was able to portray.”
The Barbican’s Hamlet is easily swallowed, with careful reductions and alterations of the original text – near the play’s middle, Hamlet’s inner conflict is mirrored by his amalgam of clothing, complete with a David Bowie graphic t-shirt, military pants, Converse sneakers and a tailcoat crudely painted with the word ‘King’ on its back - that pare Shakespeare’s longest play from four to three hours long.
Certainly, removing segments of Shakespeare’s original – coupled with the appearance of a tattooed Horatio in double-cuffed pants - has irked purists to no end. Regardless of its finer details, the production captures the core beauty of Hamlet in a manner which is engaging and provocative whilst maintaining the integrity of the text.
“This production managed to make Hamlet relevant and exciting and palatable for our generation,” Acting II student Nolan Ellsworth ‘17 said. “There was kind of a rock star vibe to the show at times which worked well with Cumberbatch’s personality and the tone of his performance.”
In a humor-infused take on a monologue exploring Hamlet’s possible decline into madness, Cumberbatch marches onto a table in his uncle’s study dressed as a toy soldier with a snare drum strapped to his chest, the rhythm of his movements fluidly matching his nonsensical language. The scene is delightfully playful, but undermines a suggestion of the turmoil in Hamlet’s head. At the same time, it’s plausible that emphasizing Hamlet’s joyful behavioral overcompensations capture an increasingly popular culture of pretending to be okay.
As is true with any theatre that explores rather than explains, either interpretation could be true.
Forgetting outside criticisms of performance or textual interpretation, the play offered a production backdrop so bold, so visually and atmospherically stunning in the unabashed, epic grandeur of its ambition, that it was nearly impossible to tear one’s eyes away from the constant crystallization of light enveloping its sumptuous visual articulation of innovative design.
Part of what makes live theatre unique is that each viewer is able to direct their own experience, freely changing focus from individual performances to the broader scene. In their revolutionary endeavor, National Theatre Live makes executive decisions for the audience, choosing when to establish a wide shot, zoom to an actor’s face or pan to follow a character’s movement from one side of the stage to the next.
This leads to the notion that certain nuances outside a chosen camera frame are lost to the film audience, but in the hands of the National Theatre Live crew, viewers from afar are gifted a version of the production seen from the balcony and the front row all at once.
“I was very suspicious of the live taping at first, but when it’s done well – and I think this was done incredibly well – it’s incredibly effective,” Draper said. “I don’t think it should happen all the time, but this was a really great example of why to do it because the size of the production, the technical feats of the set and his [Cumberbatch’s] sheer talent are the kind of forces that gather together so rarely on this scale.”
The Barbican production’s accessibility – both thematically and technologically – firmly foreshadows a new era of high-quality theatre that allows a much broader audience entrance into its formerly exclusive sphere. Through the unique initiative of National Theatre Live alone, more than 3.5 million people have viewed over 20 productions in 1,500 venues around the world, numbers far exceeding the reach of the theaters themselves.
In 2016, the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. is marking the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death by sending one of 233 known copies of his 1623 First Folio to every state. The College has been chosen as the Vermont host site, and there will be festivals, lectures and performances throughout February 2016 to celebrate the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays.
The next Town Hall Theater broadcast of National Theatre Live will be an international encore presentation of David Hare’s Skylight with Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan on Wednesday, Nov. 11 at 7 p.m.
(10/21/15 11:35pm)
Contrary to popular belief, vocal acrobatics, flawless dance contortions and state-of-the-art technology are not always necessary for an entertaining show. Sometimes, all it takes is one voice. Live storytelling is more than simply a tactic to lull young children to sleep or to pass time during long car rides; it is an art that helps to celebrate, validate and make sense of the many layers of human experience. Such was the purpose of the third annual Cocoon, a storytelling event organized by the Middlebury Moth-UP in collaboration with Director of the Mahaney Center for the Arts (MCA) Liza Sacheli on Saturday, Oct. 18. Featuring six members of the College and broader Vermont community, the night centered on the theme of “roots.” August Hutchinson ’16.5 and Celia Watson ’17, producers of the Middlebury Moth-UP, served as co-organizers and hosts of the event.
As per Moth-UP tradition, there were only three rules to the Cocoon: all stories had to be true, speakers could take no longer than ten minutes and they were not allowed to bring any notes onstage. The resulting performances were delightful in their honesty and polished in their delivery, spanning a wide spectrum of ages, backgrounds and experiences. The lineup consisted of Alexa Beyer ’15.5, Bianca Giaever ’12.5, a filmmaker featured on NPR’s This American Life and founder of The Middlebury Moth-UP; Associate Professor of History Rebecca Bennette, Burlington-based storyteller Deena Frankel, Jabari Matthew ’17 and Naomi Eisenberg ’18.
Collectively, the stories spanned a timeline from Sept. 11, 2001 to a childhood in the Bronx to this past summer. Settings ranged from the bottom of a canyon cliff in New Mexico to a youth village in Israel to a Picasso Erotique display in a Montreal art museum. Images of stolen pink bikes, falafel and embarrassing tube socks all managed to cross the audience members’ minds over the course of the two-hour show. Born from each individual’s interpretation of the theme “roots,” this sporadic hodgepodge of times, places and ideas made for a night of laughter, reflection and a few shocked silences.
Alexa Beyer kicked off the show by connecting a humorous incident of childhood naiveté to her current mantra as an environmentalist. She radiated with positivity, even when recounting her innocently unassuming response to the man who stole her bike and tried to sell it for $500, and then her subsequent struggle to keep a drive-in movie theatre alive in the wake of Walmart’s descent. Her hopeful spirit and ability to reflect compassionately on negative situations around her shined through particularly well in her closing lines.
“Our enemies aren’t these two-dimensional, evil villains,” Beyer said. “What is a big company if not a bunch of people who cry at the sad parts of movies? […] We keep trying to stab them with the law and wonder why they duck.” Ending her story with a thoughtful challenge, half directed toward the audience, half to herself, she stated, “Change their hearts as individuals by doing things that are inappropriately kind.”
Rebecca Bennette gave a similar, albeit less direct, call for more open hearts and minds. Following a chilling account of her experience in Germany as a half-Japanese woman mistaken – and subsequently discriminated against – for being Turkish, Bennette remarked, “My point is not that I can speak with authority on all forms of racism. Quite the opposite.” Delivered with calm precision, her speech struck the most serious tone of the night.
“People are discriminated against because their roots are from the ‘wrong’ places,” Bennette stated. “Yet they are brave enough to come anyway.”
Continuing the discussion of identity and belonging – concepts that can prove hazy for those who do not fit neatly into a certain category – Naomi Eisenberg offered reflection on her service trip to Israel in a performance that managed to be both humorous and harrowing. Using moments of laughter as transition points, she navigated the challenges, joys and absurdities of her summer with impressive clarity and eloquence.
“Imagine spooning vomit back into your mouth,” she described of a soup that caused the entire service group to “poop their brains out.” “Now add hummus.”
Switching expertly between points of comedy and gravity, Eisenberg’s parting words spoke poignantly to the sense of displacement that many of us undoubtedly feel about certain places in our lives.
“I thought I already knew Israel. But after I saw the country turned upside down, inside out, I realized how rootless I was,” she said. “This is not a place we’re entitled to. We have to make our own roots here.”
Meanwhile, in a critical examination of their own roots, Bianca Giaever and Jabari Matthew both offered stories of stark self-reflection, though set in drastically different contexts. Giaever’s tale began after her graduation from Middlebury; Matthew’s story dated back to his toddler and elementary school days. Giaever’s whimsical adventure – which landed her on a cross-country road trip to New Mexico, following a list of poetic clues in search of a millionaire’s hidden treasure whilst trying to get over a heartbreak – seemed almost too ridiculous to be true, whilst Matthew’s account of his early childhood dance lessons and falling out with his best friend Richard struck a nostalgic chord with the audience in its relatability.
Ultimately, both brought to light the importance of understanding – or at least trying to understand – how we arrived to where we are today and all the people and places along the way.
“I didn’t want to make my story seem as if it was a class lecture,” Matthew said. “I wanted to give off the truth, which was that although I experienced what I did in my story, I am still figuring things out. And perhaps there is a lesson to be learned in my story, but whether or not there was, that was certainly not the point.”
Giaever’s story echoed the same spirit of self-discovery. Her manner of speaking was endearingly open-hearted, as if she were reading straight from the pages of her own private journal. Meanwhile, Matthew’s voice boomed with conviction, his expert vocal portrayals of the other characters in his story often creating the surreal sense of a one-man show.
Perhaps the performance that elicited the widest range of emotion from the audience was Deena Frankel’s story on love, life and loss. Beginning with a blind date at an art display about sex and ending with a somber mountain hike on Sept. 11, 2001 with her soon-to-be husband, Frankel infused her piece with a delicate mixture of amusement, joy and sadness.
“[The art display] was all about sex, in every permutation and combination that you can think of, and some that I’m sure you cannot,” she said, drawing huge laughs from the crowd. “What do you say to a guy you just met about this? ‘Nice brush strokes?’”
Frankel’s sophisticated and confident delivery stood as a testament to her experience not only as a storyteller, but also as a member of the Vermont community with a myriad of wisdom to share.
“Love has its roots in shared comedy and tragedy,” she stated. “Our stories are the roots of love.”
In an era that has shifted largely toward film, media and television, the power of live oral storytelling is often underestimated, its relevance as an art medium questioned. But as the packed theater of the MCA proved on Saturday night, there is a strong demand for this performance platform. Events like the Cocoon remind us of the importance of human connections in the absence of screens and push us to find meaning in everyday interactions. The live energy and sense of shared experience that flourish during these events are rewarding to audience members and speakers alike.
“To be able to share your stories is one thing,” Eisenberg said. “But to know that there are people who showed up just to listen is, to me, really beautiful. As long as there are people who are willing to share their stories, there will be people who are willing to listen.”
(10/21/15 8:43pm)
Every culture, no matter what country or government, develops traits that distinguish the socially privileged from the impoverished. Usually, they’re ridiculous societal quirks. Cars in Manhattan are a fantastic example. You neither need nor benefit from one, which means you’re driving to show something. Implicitly, you’re screaming to the world that you 1) have time to wait on infested streets honking your horn incessantly and 2) have enough money to invest in a useless chunk of steel that has no utility where you live. Another good example are fur coats in Moscow, where noses mysteriously upturn at anyone who isn’t wearing a dead animal around their neck.
In Las Vegas, I encountered this in stark clarity. The status symbol of the Nevadan bourgeoisie isn’t an expensive car, nor is it a luxurious fur coat. It’s membership in the Literary Society, an aggrandized book club. They meet in whatever ritzy venue they desire and discuss their chosen prose, inviting the author to share a gourmet “brunch.” They also invite (for philanthropic reasons, I assume) local English teachers and their students. I was one of those students last January. I remember wealth, lots of it, worn on the necks of lawyers and casinocrats. Many appeared bloated with botox and hairspray. None of them really struck me as especially intriguing, except one – the invited author. He was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with extroverted confidence, an easy grin and a book called “Deep Dark Down: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle that set Them Free.” His name was Hector Tobar.
It’s safe to imagine that the 33 Chilean miners don’t possess the status symbols of their society. I doubt they had excessive cars or extravagant fur coats in their ten-week vacation in Hades, either. Their narrative is one the world has forgotten. In 2010, a few months after an earth-shattering quake, the San Jose copper-gold mine in the Atacama Desert collapsed on them. Their supervisor – who probably does have an excessive car and extravagant fur coat or two – happened to be absent. They were trapped in the abyss for sixty-nine days. Everything was darkness, literally and metaphorically. The only light was the fire of fear that seared their brains with every grumble of the cavern.
In the words of Jose Ojeda: “we were a pack of sheep, and the mountain was about to eat us.” And that trauma understandably bled into the sunlight and the “good” years that have passed since. One, for example, washed up drunk and suicidal enough to confine him to a Santiago psychiatric ward.
For a group as celebritized as the miners, you would think they would have been offered the best psychological assistance available on Earth.
They sure were buried in mountains of other stuff. They were offered planned trips – although most ended up not happening – to Britain, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Israel, Spain and Greece and a new motorcycle from Kawasaki Chile. As noted in El Segundo, each miner was promised approximately 19 million pesos ($38,000) in “vacations, clothing, and donations.” Not only did they not receive major psychological help, they also were skimped that compensation.
A CNN article published in August pointed out that “today, many of the miners have trouble making ends meet, some living off of government pension, which pays about $500 a month. That’s roughly half of what they made working at the San Jose mine.”
Others have returned to mining. Hector Tobar’s transcription of one victim’s story, Luis Urzua, is heart-wrenching: “to have one mine fall on top of you, and then to find yourself obliged to work underground in a second mine, with the same boss who once left you behind” is the “life of a miner.” A few years ago, we were the ones who lauded them with gifts and celebrity that most of them publicly stated they didn’t want.
We treated them like the Kardashians. Then we threw them out, back into normalcy, back into the mines.
But there’s still hope. If you go into town, to the Marquis Theater, the first poster you’ll see advertises “The 33” for November 13th.
It’s a movie adaptation of the Chilean miners’ story, starring Antonio Banderas. At the Literary Society meeting, Tobar specifically pointed out that ticket sales transitively fund the miners. The movie is a charity. And that’s great. . . until you think about it more deeply. While the miners themselves cycle through traumatic depression and impoverished wages, we in the First World can garble popcorn and watch portrayals of their suffering on gigantic silver screens. It’s exploitative, but it’s their last hope.
It’s their last possible way of reaping compensation for the tragedy that they experienced.
For this reason, I urge readers to book a ticket for November 13th.
Don’t come away from this article thinking the exploitation entitles you to skip it. You have the privilege to skip the portrayal of the miners’ suffering, but they don’t. They’re living it; they’re experiencing it right now.
Let’s make “The 33” sell out.
(10/07/15 11:43pm)
On Friday, Oct. 2, the Paul W. Ward ’25 Memorial Prize was presented at Twilight Hall auditorium, honoring 74 members of the classes of 2018 and 2018.5. Led by Writing Center director, Mary Ellen Bertolini, Friday’s hour-long ceremony highlighted the many ways in which students are taught to communicate clearly and effectively through writing in all areas of academic life at the College.
The Paul W. Ward ’25 Memorial Prize was established 37 years ago by his widow, Dorothy Cate Ward ’28, to feature writing that employs, as she put it, “precise and exact usage of words, exact meanings, phrases expressed lucidly and gracefully.” All nominees of the prize are invited by the Writing Center to train as peer writing tutors. In addition, the two runners-up and the winner receive cash prizes of $250 and $500, respectively. In an impressive display of the diversity of academic pursuits on campus, this year’s ceremony featured papers on criminal justice, street art, philosophy, linguistics, the nature sciences and much more, ranging in format from scholarly research articles to personal narratives.
Despite these far-reaching fields of study, this year’s judges – Vicki Backus of the biology department, Ellery Foutch of the American Studies department and Director of Academic Technology Bill Koulopoulos – were tasked with selecting writing pieces that communicate with precision and grace. As such, the prize continues to champion the merits of good writing across all fields of academic study.
As Bertolini expressed in her opening speech at Friday’s ceremony, “when Middlebury College committed itself to requiring writing in courses throughout the curriculum, we committed ourselves to an idea about the place of writing in a liberal arts education.”
Following the opening remarks, the honorable mention awards were presented to Naomi Eisenburg ’18, Robert Erickson ’18 and Gabe Weisbuch ’18. As the three nominating faculty members handed over the certificates, each professor spoke of a moment in which they were struck by the quality of their candidate’s writing. Whatever differences existed amongst the papers, each student was able to captivate the reader’s attention and elevate the content of the work through clear, impactful and effective communication.
This point became especially clear to the audience during the presentation of the runner-up awards, as winners were called upon to read a condensed version of their works, following a brief introduction by their respective nominating professors. Sawyer Crosby ’18 shared “The Depletion of Groundwater Reserves in the Rio Laja Watershed,” incorporating social and political elements into an otherwise strictly environmental paper. In this way, what may have been inaccessible to audiences unfamiliar with this subject area became relevant and comprehensible. As an audience member with no prior understanding of this region or its environmental features, I found the piece to be fascinating, made engaging by Crosby’s style and dedication to the principles of effective writing.
The personal narrative “I Used to Play the Harp,” written by Morgan Grady-Benson ’18, was also the recipient of the runner-up prize. Culled from recent life experiences, Grady-Benson’s paper dealt primarily with hardship and loss, making sense of a series of diverse, complex life experiences through thoughtful reflection. Her story captivated the audience in a style that rang clear and powerful throughout the auditorium.
First-place winner, Nina Colombotos ’18, offered yet another illuminating piece of writing in a unique academic arena. Her paper, entitled “Stand Your Ground: A Southern History Meets Modern Law,” brought a broad historical-social context to modern-day criminal cases related to the “Stand Your Ground” law. In connecting these significant current events to a long and complex cultural history of the south, Colombotos succeeded in unpacking a realm of criminal justice in ways both insightful and relevant.
The three writers honored by the Paul W. Ward Prize, as well as the 69 nominees and two honorable mention recipients, represent only a fraction of all Middlebury students who continually hone their writing skills in a diverse array of academic settings. The works of these particular students demonstrate the qualities of effective writing, and highlight why such writing is important. As Mary Ellen Bertolini stated in her opening remarks, “Those colleagues who are shaping the course of the future are the communicators.”
(10/07/15 4:43pm)
Last week, the Black Students Union (BSU) was the target of anonymous campus vandalism. Posters they had hung up raising awareness for Middlebury’s black community were defaced with comments reading “racist” and “promotes hate!” Two weeks ago, in another act of anonymity, a student established the go-link “go/doe,” which links to a wordpress account advocating for John Doe’s removal from Middlebury. Additionally, recent Campus editorial “Zero Tolerance: Here or Anywhere” was bombarded with a slew of anonymous comments, including, “You are what’s wrong with academia. You are what’s wrong with America.” We recognize that there are many troubling issues exemplified by these events, but we are choosing to address one in particular that plays into a larger narrative that we have observed on this campus: the culture of anonymity.
(09/24/15 3:04am)
Student organizations that have yet to receive funding will see a shortage of resources available to them in the 2015- 16 academic year. The Student Government Association (SGA) Finance Committee has already allocated around $900,000 of the $1,000,000 Student Activities Fee (SAF). Roughly 40 organizations have not yet applied for funding, including clubs sports like rugby and crew—as such, these student-run organizations are predicted to receive the bare minimum of what they require to operate.
Treasurer of the SGA and Chair of the SGA Finance Committee Aaron de Toledo ’16 discussed the situation at hand. Using the SGA as an example to demonstrate how a club’s finances operate, de Toledo said, “The SGA has a budget. If the SGA, whether it’s a senator or someone on the SGA committee, decides to spend money, they give me a receipt and I would have to approve it, sub- mit that receipt, and manage the budget.”
The Student Activities budget is funded from the SAF, which is collected from every student. The contribution each student makes to the SAF rises with inflation every year—it was
$410 for the 2015-16 academic year. Every dollar in the budget is allocated by students to student organizations or programming that benefits students, such as MiddView. The fund grants students independence from the administration.
“It’s not that simple,” de To- ledo says, “because, off the bat, there are some pretty big fixed expenditures. For example, MiddView is a three-year under- standing between the student government and the College where the student government and the College split the cost for the first three years... This is the third year, so this is the final year where that’s going to hit our budget. That’s $98,000 a year, so ten percent of our budget off the bat gone.”
Another large fixed expenditure is the senior yearbook, Kaleidescope ($42,500).
“[The] yearbook is something that is slightly controversial because most students don’t know that we have a yearbook and that’s a fair amount of money,” de Toledo added.
Other large programs that are fixed costs in the budget are the Senior Committee ($30,100), Feb Celebration Committee ($7,905), and various Commons activities ($36,800).
The largest fixed expenditure is the Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB)1, which receives approximately one third of the SAF. Their budget this year is $337,650.
“Right off the bat, [the budget] is a lot less than a million dollars. From there, we go and allocate money to all of the various clubs. There are 175 student organizations.”
Once the fixed expenditures are covered, larger student organizations such as WRMC, Mountain Club, and club sports take up a huge chunk of the budget.
Though some might argue the need to distribute funding always with an equi- table dollar per member formula, de Toledo disagrees.
“We don’t have a fixed formula because having a fixed formula really doesn’t allow for any human aspect... Generally, we really try to look at impact when we fund budgets,” he said.
(05/06/15 7:09pm)
Imagine looking out past the forest canopy onto the distant Adirondacks, the pink glow of the sunset spilling through their peaks. Imagine being suspended fifteen feet above the earth in a silent congregation of conifers with the face of a hill dropping sharply beneath your feet. Imagine feeling the peace in the air and the life in the woods on your skin and in your bones. Imagine unwinding at the Ridge Perch at the College, a 113-square-foot circular structure that a group of students plan to erect at the ridge of the Ridgeline Woods by the summer of 2016.
Julia Rossen ’16 originally conceived of the treehouse for her MiddCORE project in January 2014, after a conversation with her mother, alumnus Kate Troast ’76. Troast described to her daughter a treehouse that used to be on the College’s property during her time at the College, and Rossen was inspired to propose her own treehouse as a new community space. Her idea was also inspired by the David S. Stone ’74 Treehouse Fund, which funds community projects that do not qualify for other sources of funding.
Rossen collaborated with Brandon Gell ’16 brainstroming for this project. Because the Space Committee rejected the initial proposal, wary of the hazard of students being up in a tree, Gell and Matt Gilbert ’16.5 worked on the project during Winter term of 2015 and are responsible for modifing the treehouse plan into its current iteration: The Perch.
Architecture major Morgan Raith ’16.5 has also joined the project, working with them to bring it to fruition. Professor of History of Art and Architecture Pieter Broucke is advising the group, and Facilities Services Director of Operations Tom McGinn is eagerly on board as well.
The Perch will be accesible by a small bridge and mounted on a steel beam between two pine trees. Its main body will consist of close-fit six-foot cedar planks that organically slope down to a west-facing 42-inch glass railing. The Perch will also feature a bench lining its inner wall and a keylock entrance that limits visitors to the hours between dawn and dusk.
A 220 foot architectural path, accessible from Ridgeline Road, will loop toward it through the trees and lead to the Trail Around Middlebury (TAM). The project will be fully ADA compliant.
A place of retreat, the Perch will function as an alternative natural space of quiet, solitude, and creativity where individuals, groups, and classes that are usually cooped up inside can liberate their bodies and minds and connect with the outdoors.
“The purpose of it is an escape from college, which now more than ever seems to be something that’s important, with recent events, everyone hyper aware of stresses at school,” explained Gell. “All that we really have is The Gamut Room and the organic garden, but both of those spaces really function for specific groups on campus. The Perch, it’s not associated with anyone. It just is for the students.”
Gell also believes that The Perch will address students’ lack of ownership over campus spaces.
“That’s another really big problem with the campus in general,” he said. “The Perch could serve as a place where everyone knows that students made this and funded it. It’s like the solar decathlon houses in that everyone feels ownership over it.”
Yvette Lui ’15, who heard about the project in her architecture thesis studio, enthusiasticaly supports the idea of The Perch and approved of its design.
“I think it will provide a healthy escape for students from the school,” she said.
“I can’t imagine that anyone would not be really psyched about it,” said Gell. “It’s so within our grasp, too. It’s just, right now, a matter of money.”
The structure will cost around $21,000 to create and install. The team has already obtained $9,500. $2,000 came from the Treehouse Fund. The architecture department and individual donors contributed the rest of the money. The students are also waiting to hear back about their application to the Fund for Innovation. They hope to reach their fundraising goal by launching a MiddSTART campaign by the end of this academic year.
(05/06/15 3:27pm)
It is a bit of a break from the norm for this column to talk about a car company, but on April 30 Tesla Motors unveiled a product that transforms the electric car manufacturer to an energy storage company that has the potential to transform the way energy is used fundamentally. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors, revealed a hugely anticipated home battery system called the “Powerwall.” It is a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that can be mounted in a garage, basement or on the outside of a home. The home battery pack is about the size of a small refrigerator and will become available for purchase in 3-4 months with a base model price of $3,000. The battery can either be connected to home solar panels or to the grid itself. Essentially, this allows homeowners who connect it to the grid to store electricity when rates are low. The battery also allows homeowners who have solar systems to take full advantage of peak production throughout the day. The “Powerball” can serve as a backup generator in the event of a blackout. Musk wants to serve the business community as well by offering much larger “Powerpacks” to energy-hungry customers like utilities and tech giants.
These consumer and business-oriented batteries will be produced in Tesla Motors’ “gigafactory” in Nevada where Tesla’s car batteries will also be made once the factory is ready for use. This new product will be handled by a subsidiary of Tesla Motors called Tesla Energy. The goal of Musk is to revolutionize the utility industry by combining this battery technology with the home solar panel installation company called SolarCity, of which he is the chairman. The combination of these two technologies could transform individual homes into mini power plants — buying and selling electricity with the grid in real time. In addition, this battery and solar technology can serve as a substitute for traditional electrical grid infrastructure in parts of the developing world that have not yet been electrified. In his unveiling presentation, Musk compares this battery technology to smartphone technology. Just as cell phones permeated developing markets and there was no longer a need to build-out incredibly expensive land line networks, this battery technology could prevent the need for a build-out of expensive electrical grid infrastructure. However, there are a few minor problems with this potentially disruptive technology that could hinder the development of Tesla Energy.
It is unclear whether or not the price of the “Powerwall” system includes the subsidy given by many states (California, for example, gives rebates of up to 60 percent for home battery purchases). Additionally, in his presentation, Musk failed to mention that the battery packs would require a $2,500 DC-to-AC electricity converter. This allows for your house, which runs on AC current, to convert the DC current of the battery into usable electricity. There is also the cost of installation and maintenance which, when added to the cost of the converter and battery itself, brings the total cost of the “Powerwall” to $6,000 or more based on the model.
Musk’s goal is to radically transform the way the world uses energy on a massive scale. He wants to upend the traditional energy utility system. It would be a remarkable and incredibly lucrative feat to pull this off, but with the combination of SolarCity and Tesla Energy nobody is better positioned to succeed.
(04/29/15 5:54pm)
This year in May, key provisions in the Patriot Act that allow the bulk collection of private data and information are set to expire. In light of that, I find it particularly chilling that within Middlebury’s ongoing micro-debate about security there is an erroneous proposal to increase surveillance by installing new security cameras outside of dining halls in an attempt to address concerns about theft.
This is not the first time the subject has been broached at Midd. In fact, similar discussions took place in 2002, 2005 and 2006. However, thus far Middlebury has thankfully remained – with the exception of the WRMC studio and the art museum – camera-free.
My main concern is that though the administration may claim our dining halls are public spaces, any student that has ever dragged themselves into Proctor sporting a t-shirt and pajama pants would beg to differ. Frankly I don’t see any space on campus as “public,” given that we go to a school of 2,500 students in rural Vermont, a place that we as students call “home” for 9 months a year. If someone is going to film me in my house I at least want a syndicated reality TV series so I can get royalties from it.
And beyond the question of privacy lays a perhaps more important question of efficacy. We tend to assume that our privacy is being given up as payment for the “security” that these cameras provide. But you might be surprised to learn that a great deal of research shows cameras actually fail to decrease the incidence of crime, including theft. The United Kingdom has an extensive network of 40,000 cameras that were deployed in an effort to reduce crime in urban areas, but a 2005 comprehensive meta-analysis by two criminologists, Martin Gill and Angela Spriggs, found that cameras had no overall effect.
The story is the same on this side of the Atlantic. A study conducted by the USC School of Public Policy, Planning and Development, found that LAPD’s COMPSTAT figures from before and after the introduction of security cameras show no statistically significant impact on crime. A 1995 study by Rosemary Erickson, a Ph.D. in Forensic Sociology, found that not only do cameras fail to deter theft, but according to a series of interviews, most would-be and have-been criminals don’t care about the presence of cameras in the areas where they commit their crimes.
And then there is the “peace of mind” argument that, cameras, though ineffectual, somehow make us feel more secure. Ignoring the logical fallacy within that line of argument, there is also extensive evidence to suggest that cameras do not make people feel more secure. The Gill and Spriggs study mentioned earlier found that cameras had zero effect on perceived safety. That is to say, in return for a gross violation of our privacy, not only do cameras fail to provide security, they don’t provide peace of mind either.
The underlying problem is not a lack of surveillance, but a lack of trust. Ben Bogin (the Student Co-Chair of the Community Council) said last year during the April SGA discussion that to limit dorm damage and theft, we should focus on a social honor code to build a culture of integrity instead of installing security cameras. And he’s right; cameras build a culture of paranoia. Even if you close your eyes and wish really hard, the tiny red lights on cameras will never start blinking “I trust you” in Morse code.
So when you walk in and out of the dining halls today, breathe a sigh of relief knowing that you’re not being recorded and you can be yourself. Because in the end, the sense of trust at Middlebury is one of the things that makes this school great. I refuse to give up trust in my fellow students. Cameras have no place at Middlebury.
(04/29/15 5:48pm)
“Ethos. Pathos. Logos. Till our last breath.” Thus reads the heading on Middlebury College’s Oratory Society website. The juxtaposition of Greek philosopher Aristotle’s “three persuasive appeals” followed by the latter colloquial phrase encapsulates the unique undertaking of the Oratory Society. Faculty director of the group, Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Dana Yeaton described the Oratory Society as “making fun of ourselves as we do something we think is important.”
The Oratory Society unofficially began a few years ago, but truly came to fruition last year in Yeaton’s 2014 Winter Term course, Oratory: A Speechmaking Studio.
Yeaton had noticed an overwhelming nostalgia for oratory practice beyond Middlebury’s campus. He referenced a recent alumni poll that illustrated a desire for classes on rhetoric at the College. The results of the poll showed that public speaking was the skill the College prepared them for the least. Ironically, the poll also showed that speechmaking was the skill alumni found most important in the professional world. Yeaton responded to this absence of and yearning for rhetoric by applying for a grant to establish Oratory Now, a comprehensive program that involves speechmaking trainings and workshops.
“[I wanted] the Oratory Society to seem as if it had been around forever and call attention to a skill that has always been a part of a liberal arts education but has faded,” Yeaton said. “Oratory might be the one thing that business people and people devoted to the liberal arts agree on. They all believe that speaking is critical.”
Committed to making voices heard, the Oratory Society’s mission is simple and compelling. Beyond improving public speaking skills, the group has a social purpose. As articulated on their website: “We believe that when people speak their minds, their community gains confidence in itself, and is strengthened.”
On April 22, the Oratory Society’s dedication to proving the importance of rhetoric to make a persuasive social argument was demonstrated in its “My Idea to Save America: A Speech Contest.” Originally nineteen students auditioned and seven were selected to present five-minute speeches in the final round. The finalists included: Alexa Beyer ’15.5, Dominick Tanoh ’18, Andrew Plotch ’18.5, Nadine Nasr ’17.5, Hannah Blackburn ’17, Charlotte Massey ’18.5 and Conor Simons ’15. Coordinator of the contest Alex Brockelman ’18 explained the purpose of the theme was to give students an opportunity to utilize their oratory skills while presenting an academic and personally founded idea.
“My hope is that with this prompt, regardless of who wins, trying to tackle the larger problems our society faces with concrete solutions is a useful thought exercise and a great opportunity to practice speechmaking,” Brockelman said.
Member of the Oratory Society Debanjan Roychoudhury’s ’16 opening speech playfully announcing to the audience they were “witnessing a contest only the Classical Greeks could compete with,” as well as the addition of a trumpet comically introducing each speaker, the event both an entertaining and thought-provoking experience.
Speeches were judged by three Middlebury faculty members: Russell Leng ’60 Professor of International Politics and Economics Allison Stanger, Professor of Classics Marc Witkin and Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Trebien Pollard. The judges based their evaluations on three criteria: originality of idea, effectiveness of delivery and persuasiveness of argument. The competition also involved a five-minute critique period conducted by “celebrity respondents” after each speech. Associate Professor of Theatre Alex Draper, Assistant Professor of Dance Christal Brown, and President Emeritus of the Conversation Law Foundation John Kassel were responsible for providing feedback.
All of the competitors proposed engaging youth in political action. Before monetary prizes were awarded, Tanoh was announced the winner of the People’s Choice Award, which had been determined minutes earlier by a secret vote from the audience.
The judges selected Blackburn as the first place winner and recipient of $500. In Blackburn’s speech she argued that “the American Anti-Corruption Act has the potential to stop corruption in our government. Starting with cities and other smaller jurisdictions, the movement can build to states and then Congress.”
Tanoh received second place for his idea to “start the process of fighting poverty by electing a candidate who places a focus on the truly poor, even if it is not politically expedient.”
Third place was awarded to Beyer for her idea, the Heartland Project “a YouTube Series that motivates more Americans to care about the environment by telling better stories.” Beyer expressed feeling a hunger to continue to pitch her idea after receiving such valuable feedback from the respondents.
“As I sat on deck battling pre-presentation nerves, I had one of those moments where I looked around and thought, ‘Gosh. The places Middlebury will lead you,’” Beyer wrote in an email. “I just feel so lucky for the opportunity to participate in something like this.”
Overall, Yeaton sees the future of rhetoric at the College in its students.
“The faculty and the administration agree that oral expression is essential to a Middlebury education. But if you look at the popularity of The Moth, TEDxMiddlebury, Verbal Onslaught, Poor Form Poetry, etc. it’s clear the real energy is with the students. They want to work on their speaking. They want to hear each other speak.”
(03/19/15 2:50am)
If you are a Freshman or Sophomore, you likely attended a mandatory “Active Threat” seminar put on by the school administration during J-Term. Those of you fortunate enough to have missed it the first time were offered a second opportunity a few weeks ago.
The presentation included a video produced by the Department of Homeland Security preaching the keys to surviving an Active Threat situation: “Run. Hide. Fight.” The video in all of its cheesy, overwrought, Die Hard-esque glory, harkens back to the 1951 U.S. Civil Defense film “Duck and Cover’’ which taught school children to duck and cover to save themselves in the event of a nuclear attack. The cute turtle has been ditched in favor of a burly Jack Bauer clone dressed in black and wielding a shotgun, but the message is essentially the same.
The problem is that, while a nuclear attack was a very real threat to the U.S. in the 50s, suggesting that active threat situations loom over us daily is inaccurate and defeatist. The reality is that active threat situations on college campuses are exceedingly rare. Making the video (and mandating campus presentations) was a tacit admission of disinterest in addressing the root causes of campus related gun violence: a lack of gun control and the continuing failure of a mental healthcare system little changed from the one that existed during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Over the past 50 years there has been an average of 6 people killed every year on college campuses by gun violence. That’s roughly equal to the number felled every year from trauma sustained playing football, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Industry Research. But that pales in comparison to the nearly 1,500 college students killed every year in traffic accidents, 1,400 killed in alcohol related incidents, and 1,300 who commit suicide every year. In fact, if you went to college for 92 years straight, you would still only have a 1 in 100 chance of a shooting taking place on your campus. Even then, the odds of you being involved are miniscule.
The fear mongering of the national media that follows “major tragedies” overshadows the less sensational tragedies that occur every day, and as a result, time and resources are wasted on programs like the Active Threat seminars. Instead of giving us a half hour on why our instincts to run and hide when faced with a gun are 100 percent correct, why not give a 30 minute seminar on the signs of alcohol poisoning or what to do if you think your friend is suffering from depression. Even a short defensive driving seminar could save more lives than watching Goth Arnold Schwarzenegger shoot up an office building in a government funded video.
College shootings are national tragedies, but so are all preventable deaths. Sure, it’s time we take a critical look at how we can change gun control policy and the mental healthcare system in the United States, but it’s also time we recognize the reality of the situation: a video and a talk on campus attacks will do nothing to prevent such attacks in the future. So by all means, continue the national discussion about the causes and consequences of “Active Threat” situations, but stop suggesting that people should live in fear by forcing them to attend seminars. The real threats aren’t so sensational.
(03/18/15 5:47pm)
At their meetings on March 8 and March 15, the SGA passed notable acts and resolutions. The Senate also voted to ratify Maddy Sanchez ’17 as the Director of Transportation, five new Finance Committee Members and six new members of the Awards Committee.
The first issue of debate at the March 8meeting was the Honor Code Biennial Referendum Resolution, sponsored by President Custer ’15. The committee drafted this resolution in Winter Term, after carefully considering the Honor Code’s merits and failings. As Custer described, the committee was set up to think about “how we can come together as a community to talk about the Honor Code”. The resolution, which details how a revision process of the Honor Code could take place, was discussed at length. After some concern surrounding the time-line of the process, the resolution was put to a vote and passed nearly unanimously.
The next issue was the Senate Reform Act, sponsored by Custer. The act, which was created in the hopes of changing student perception and understanding of the efforts of the SGA, met much contention.
Many senators had issues with the potential adjustment of types of senators, as outlined in the act. The act entailed eliminating the five Commons senators and replacing them with eight “cluster board” senators, representing different groups on campus. The eight senators would be representatives from the cluster boards: academic and activists, cultural organizations, special interest and activities organizations, publications, religious organizations, athletics, and visual and performing arts. Some of the senators supported this change, saying that people’s actual interests would be better represented with this kind of system. However, there was concern from senators, such as from Senator Gogineni ’16, who said that an increase in the number of senators would greatly decrease efficiency.
While the bill also containted of other changes to the senate, the issue of cluster board senators seemed to be the biggest point of interest. Therefore Custer made a motion to split the bill, in order to only vote on the senators section at that meeting. The motion was passed and the act was put to a vote. The senators voted 9-6-2, and the act did not pass because it required a 2/3 majority.
At the March 15 meeting, two acts were passed: The Coffee Hour Act, sponsored by Custer and the LaundryView Investment Act, sponsored by Senator Toy ’17. The Coffee Hour Act will entail one coffee hour a week provided by the SGA, available for students to meet with and talk to their senators. Each senator is required to attend at least three coffee hours a semester, likely to be held in Davis Family Library or Bihall. Custer said that he envisioned these being easy, casual study breaks for students, with the added ability to get to know SGA members or offer suggestions.
The LaundryView Investment Act is a project that has been a reoccurring discussion for SGA during the entire academic year. After extensive research, the administration has told the SGA that the funding for LaundryView, a program which would tell students which machines were open/working, would have to come directly from the SGA’s budget. This act designated $8,500 of the budget for the first year of the service and $3,500 for the second year to be paid for the system. From the results of the Student Life Survey, it was found that nearly 72 percent of the student body thought they would benefit from this project. The act was put to a vote and passed 10-6-1.
(03/11/15 11:15pm)
What if I told you that there was a solution to a major policy issue facing our nation today that President Obama (D) and Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) agreed on? Would you believe me? Well, there is. Both President Obama and Congressman Ryan agree that expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) could lift millions of Americans out of poverty.
The EITC is a form of wage subsidy that takes into account a family’s income and number of dependents in order to calculate the amount of support the family will receive from the government. This is similar to a negative income tax (an idea proposed by President Nixon). The difference is that the EITC has a certain threshold for work to be eligible for the subsidy. Many economists credit the EITC for a substantial portion of the falling poverty rates and increased employment numbers of the 1990s.
The basic philosophical idea behind the EITC is that work should pay. Economically, the EITC is designed to impact a worker’s (or potential worker’s) choice between labor and leisure. It does this by raising the relative cost of leisure (wages lost by not working), which will in turn cause workers to demand less leisure. In economics, this is described as the “substitution effect”; one commodity, leisure, is being substituted for another, labor, due to a change in prices.
Some who are reading this might say, “But wasn’t this guy against the minimum wage, which also acts as a wage increase and could have the same effect?”
There are several key differences between the minimum wage and the EITC. As I have explained in previous columns, the minimum wage acts as a price floor, and comes with a conservatively estimated 500,000 plus lost jobs (Congressional Budget Office). Moreover, of the aggregate increase in earnings taken home from the minimum wage hike, Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute calculated that only 19% of those earnings would go to households below the poverty line. The EITC is much more targeted, and despite IRS flukes, the vast majority of increased earnings from the EITC have gone to the families that need them the most. The IRS in 2009 estimated that the EITC lifted seven million Americans out of poverty. Even so, it is not perfect. The program gives additional help to families with dependents, which is a good thing. However, the program needs to be expanded to give more benefits to all workers.
Another interesting idea that should be looked at came from the UK Conservative Party, and has been adapted by Congressman Ryan. The idea is to combine some of the almost one hundred anti-poverty programs into one “universal credit”. The idea is rather simple – remove some of the hoops to jump through so people get the entitlements they are, well, entitled to. This idea would provide the same benefits at a lower price tag, mainly by decreasing administration costs. Rep. Ryan goes on to argue that the program could also cut down on entitlement fraud by making the process more streamlined.
Unlike the EITC, the universal credit program is rather untested. Recently in England, it has experienced a bumpy rollout. The UK government tried to set up a website, on which people could register for their benefits, but the site has been plagued by glitches and other difficulties (maybe they used the same contractor as Healthcare.gov?). If those hurdles could be cleared, I think that the universal credit could really save the taxpayers some money while providing the same benefits to those who need them.
In any case, I think that expanding the EITC as well as creating the universal credit are issues that are politically feasible with the 114th Congress and President Obama. I have said it before, and I will say it again; Republicans need to legislate in a way that materially improves people’s lives. There is nothing that would be more devastating to the GOP in 2016 than two years of Republican control with nothing to show for it.
That means they will need to support legislation that can garnish 60 votes for cloture in the Senate, and will be signed by President Obama. However, the fight may not be over the merits of these two programs, but rather over how to make them deficit neutral. The universal credit, if scored favorably, could pick up some of that slack for expanding the EITC; however the rest of the offsetting revenue or spending decreases will need to come from somewhere. I hope that the two parties will work to reconcile these differences and pass an EITC expansion, because the bottom line is those Americans who would benefit can’t wait.
(02/25/15 3:03pm)
The Middlebury men’s hockey team finished the regular season by going .500 in back-to-back away NESCAC games. The Panthers were shut out by 10th-ranked Amherst 4-0 on Friday, Feb 20 and then turned around to beat Hamilton 3-1. Middlebury’s final regular season record sits at 10-11-3 and 7-8-3 in the NESCAC, putting them in the seventh seed for the NESCAC playoffs.
The Panthers drew a tough matchup for the first game of the crucial final regular-season weekend as they were tasked with playing the Lord Jeffs on the road.
Amherst scored the first goal of the game 9:32 in and did not look back. Amherst’s goalie made several incredible saves to keep the Panthers off of the scoreboard. It was 2-0 Amherst at the end of the second as the Jeffs got another puck past Middlebury goaltender Stephen Klein ’18. One minute into the third Amherst struck again, prompting Middlebury Head Coach Bill Beaney to pull Klein in favor of Mike Peters ’15.
Despite some good pressure in the third, Middlebury was unable to get on the scoreboard while Amherst notched one more goal to make it a 4-0 final score. Middlebury was unable to convert on five power play opportunities in the game and were outshot 28 to 25.
After the difficult loss to Amherst the Panthers traveled to Clinton, NY for a 3:00 p.m. faceoff against Hamilton on Saturday. The game against Hamilton started off much better for Middlebury. The Panthers were able to put on sustained pressure in the Hamilton zone and finally broke through on the power play 13:20 into the first period. After the Hamilton goaltender stopped a long shot from Terrance Goguen ’16, Brendan McGovern ’16 managed to scoop up the rebound and slip it inside the near post. The goal was the first Middlebury goal of the weekend and the start of a very good night for McGovern.
Hamilton equalized 6:10 into the second period as they got a shot past Middlebury goaltender Liam Moorfield-Yee ’16. Middlebury continued to press after the Hamilton equalizer and were rewarded with two McGovern goals in a two-minute span. McGovern hounded the slot area and was rewarded when he picked up rebounds off of Evan Neugold ’16 and Jake Charles ’16 shots and put both away, one at the 11:23 mark of the second and the next at the 13:13 mark to complete the hat trick and double his season goal total.
16:13 into the second a bit of a tussle occurred as both Cameron Romoff ’17 and a Hamilton player were sent off with game misconducts for facemasking. The Middlebury penalty kill was strong all game as they killed off all six Hamilton power plays. The Panthers were able to hold on for the 3-1 win as Moorfield-Yee picked up his second win of the season despite having to be replaced by Peters a little more than halfway through the second period.
With their final regular season record of 10-11-3, the Panthers have secured the seventh seed in the NESCAC playoffs. Middlebury now faces the tough task of playing the same Amherst team that just beat them 4-0, this time in an away quarterfinal matchup on Saturday, Feb. 28.
McGovern commented on the team’s prospects in the Amherst game.
“We need to go over the video from [this past weekend’s] game,” McGovern said. “This will definitely bring to light some of the issues we had. I’m sure we’ll see a lot of uncharacteristically bad plays. We need to play a smarter game with more energy. Fortunately, we have a week to correct those issues.”
(02/25/15 2:59pm)
Middlebury Swimming and Diving hosted the NESCAC Men’s Championship meet last week, Friday-Sunday, Feb. 20-22 at the Middlebury College Natatorium. After a jam-packed weekend of competition, some of the fastest swimmers in the conference had broken pool records in 19 out of the meet’s 24 events (most set the last time Middlebury hosted the NESCAC championship in 2008) and shattered four NESCAC conference records.
Williams, the seventh-ranked team in the nation, clinched first place for the 13th year in a row and 14th time in NESCAC history with a score of 2,066.5 points, while Amherst (ranked 16th nationally) and Connecticut College (ranked 21st nationally) took second and third with 1,579 and 1,323 points respectively. The Panthers were able to secure a seventh-place finish with 688 points, outscoring four of the other participating teams.
To start off the meet, Paul Lagasse ’16, Stephan Koenigsberger ’16, Noel Antonisse ’17 and Bryan Cheuk ’16 took 1:24.54 to finish the 200 freestyle relay, touching the wall eighth in the final of the event.
Later that night, Koenigsberger broke his own school record in the final of the 50 breaststroke (25.80), tying for fourth place with Connecticut College’s Kirk Czelewicz. The quartet of Alex Smith ’18, Koenigsberger, co-Captain Teddy Kuo ’15 and Lagasse also finished seventh in the 400 medley relay (3:26.84).
Middlebury faced a disappointing start heading into day two when the team of Justin Cho ’17, Koenigsberger, Cheuk and Antonisse got disqualified from the 200 medley relay because of a false start.
However, Mike McGean ’17 and Koenigsberger helped redeem the Panthers by setting school records in the 1,000 freestyle and 100 breaststroke, respectively.
McGean placed fourth in the event final of 1,000 with a time of 9:32.87, breaking the previous record set in 2008 by more than two seconds.
Koenigsberger swam a NCAA ‘B’ cut time and broke his own school record in the preliminary round of the 100 breaststroke, where he went on to secure third place in the event finals.
To finish off the night, Lagasse, Smith, Connor McCormick ’18 and McGean swam to a ninth-place finish in a time of 6:59.92 in the 800 freestyle relay.
On the third and final day of the meet, Koenigsberger improved his own school record in the 200 breaststroke with a runner-up finish and NCAA ‘B’ cut time of 2:02.43, 1.66 seconds faster than the time he recorded at the NESCAC meet last year at Bowdoin.
McGean also continued to perform well, placing third in the 1650 freestyle with another NCAA ‘B’ cut time of 16:04.58.
Meanwhile, in the deep end of the pool, Dylan Peters ’16 held his own throughout the weekend with sixth-place finishes in both the one-meter and three-meter diving competitions.
Though the Panthers faced a shortage of top-three finishes, many swimmers placed within the upper half of the competition. In the 50 freestyle for instance — an event where all top-24 swimmers finished within a margin of 1.24 seconds — Lagasse earned 14th place in the B final (21.63) and Brian Cheuk ’16 won 19th in the C final (21.47).
Kuo placed 17th in the C final of the 50 fly, while his co-Captain Lucas Avidan ’15 placed 15th in the B final of the 500 freestyle (4:42.58). Ethan Sivulich ’16 touched the wall in 26.87 seconds to get 19th place in the 50 breaststroke, and Antonisse placed 14th in the 50 backstroke (24.70).
“This year the whole month of January was just incredible [because we were able] to do much more speed [and] pace work,” said Head Coach Bob Rueppel, who is proud of the men’s team’s progression this season.
“The seniors were freshmen when I came in,” Rueppel said, “so I didn’t recruit them but they were the types of kids I would’ve recruited. We connected from the beginning, and … I feel like we had four classes that completely bought into our training program.”
The end of this meet marks the official end of the 2014-2015 Swimming and Diving season. However, the Panther swimmers whose NCAA ‘B’ cut times allow them to compete in the NCAA Division III Swimming & Diving National Championships will travel to Woodlands, Texas to swim on March 18-21.
(02/19/15 12:30am)
The Middlebury men’s hockey team went .500 in a pivotal rivalry home-and-home against Williams this past weekend, picking up the victory at home on Friday, Feb. 13, 2-0 before losing on the road 5-4 on Saturday, Feb. 14.
The Panthers started off the weekend on a positive note. Coming off a 3-0 shutout win over Wesleyan the weekend before, Middlebury prepared to square off against the 12th-ranked Williams College Ephs. Following an early Williams’ opportunity that was denied by Middlebury goaltender Stephen Klein ’18, the Panthers took control of the period. Less than two minutes after the Williams opportunity, the Panthers were on the board. At 5:57 into the first period Evan Neugold ’16 fired a shot from the crease that was denied, but stuck with the play and slipped in the rebound for his seventh goal of the season. Just 30 seconds into the second period it looked as if Williams would tie the game as a shot dribbled past Klein, but a rapid reaction from Panther defender Terrance Goguen ’16 cleared the puck off the goal line and kept Williams off of the scoreboard. Three minutes later and the Panthers struck again with another goal off of a rebound 4:21 into the second. After Mike Najjar’s ’17 initial shot was saved, Ronald Fishman ’16 picked up the rebound in the slot and put it away. Fishman’s goal was the end of the scoring for the game as both teams clamped down and both goalies came up with some incredible saves. Middlebury managed to end their home season on a good note as they won 2-0 and outshot the Ephs 39 to 22. Klein picked up his third shutout of the season with the victory.
The next day the Panthers looked to continue the positive momentum as they traveled to Williamstown to complete the second half of the home-and-home. It became clear after the first period that Saturday’s game would not be the low-scoring affair that Friday’s was. The Panthers took the lead 12:06 into the first period when Brendan McGovern ’16 picked up the rebound off of a Cameron Romoff ’17 shot and put it past the Williams’ goaltender for his third of the season. Four minutes later, Williams answered to make it a 1-1 game. The tie did not last long however, as the Panthers scored again at the 18:20 mark. Jake Charles ’16 found a rebound in front of the Williams net and backhanded it in to give the Panthers the 2-1 lead going into the second. Six minutes and 24 seconds into the second period Neugold increased the Middlebury lead to two. Neugold managed to get around both Williams defensemen and then shot it in glove side for a pretty goal. Unfortunately, Middlebury was unable to hold the lead in the high scoring second period and after forty minutes of play the game was tied 3-3. Charles struck once again for his team-leading 10th goal of the season 2:31 into the third. While on the power play Charles deflected a Romoff shot from the point past the Williams goaltender to give Middlebury the 4-3 lead. The lead would not hold, however, as Williams managed to get two more pucks past Klein to give them the 5-4 lead with only 3:48 remaining in the third period. The Panthers went on the power play at the 17:18 mark but were unable to convert and the Ephs picked up the 5-4 victory. Middlebury outshot Williams 39-25 in the loss.
This coming weekend marks the final two regular season games for the Panthers as they jostle for position in the playoff bracket. Currently sitting just under .500 at 9-10-3 overall and 6-7-3 in the NESCAC, the Panthers will look to end the season with a winning record and victories in two key NESCAC away games. The Panthers will square off against Amherst on Friday, Feb. 20 and then play Hamilton Saturday, Feb. 21. While Middlebury has already secured a NESCAC playoff berth, the Panthers have an opportunity to improve their seeding with a good showing this weekend.
