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(09/19/13 12:35am)
On Wednesday, Sept. 11. after a group of five protestors pulled out the 2,977 American flags comprising a memorial to commemorate each of the lives lost in the 2001 terrorist attacks, Sasha Schell ’16, Noah Bakker ’15, and Andrew Catomeris ’15 took it upon themselves to rebuild the memorial.
The three met for dinner that night, and while discussing the incident Catomeris suggested the three of them rebuild the memorial together and called Aubuchon Hardware looking for American flags sold in bulk.
“They were super sympathetic to the idea,” said Catomeris. “They even agreed to stay open late for us.”
Aubuchon only had about 60 flags to offer the students and it cost them about $50, which the students paid for out-of-pocked. Catomeris emphasized, however, “we do not wish to be reimbursed for this sum.”
“At the time the money was not the issue but rather the fact that the memorial was gone,” said Schell.
College Republicans put on the memorial every year in collaboration with College Democrats. In 2007, the Young Republicans Club bought the 2,977 flags with extra funding from the administration. Each year the organization spends about $10 on a few replacement flags. The organization estimated that replacing all of the stolen flags would cost the Young Republicans $500. However, on Monday Sept. 16, the boxes of stolen flags were returned anonymously to the doorstep of the Public Safety office.
Ben Kinney ’15, co-president of College Republicans, worked with Catomeris and the other students that evening to replace the flags.
“That night I got a text message that people were back on campus rebuilding the memorial, so I drove to campus with the flags I had managed to get from the protesters and added the remaining ones to our memorial,” said Kinney.
“The most triumphant moment for us was all the enthusiasm we got from passersby eager to help rebuild the memorial and the unity we all felt,” said Schell.
As angered as students were by the protestors’ behavior, the students The Campus spoke to seemed to strike a balance between feeling angry and using that emotion to right a wrong by rebuilding the memorial.
“Rebuilding the memorial was, I think, a service to the community,” said Schell. “In the same way that the building of it in the first place was a service to those who had lost loved ones in the attacks, replanting them meant that we as a community, found the destruction of the memorial to be deeply offensive. We called our friends to come help, and many passersby simply stopped to help. I think to a lot of people in the community this was a way to remember the tragedy of 9/11 but also quietly voice their opinion that the destruction of the memorial was wrong and deeply offensive.”
The students primarily involved in the rebuilding were not a part of student groups responsible for the memorial, but were students who wanted to take action. Ben Kinney confirmed that since the event, he has received dozens of letters from alumni thanking him for the memorial.
View a Photo Gallery of the replanting or listen to their Thoughts that evening.
(09/19/13 12:25am)
Coverage of the Sept. 11 memorial protest set off a firestorm of responses, jettisoning The Campus’ coverage nationwide and setting records for views online.
At the time of print, The Campus had received over 80,000 views on the three stories combined, from IP addresses registered all across the country. The online fervor culminated with 48,134 views on Thursday, Sept. 12. The coverage set the record for the most views in a single day, and currently accounts for approximately 25 percent of The Campus’ total hits.
Shortly after learning of the incident, Editor-in-Chief of The Campus Kyle Finck ’14 wrote several paragraphs for posting on The Campus’ website along with a photo of the vandalism in process taken by Rachel Kogan ’14. Editors from across the paper worked to update the content and post additional photos to the paper’s website, Twitter and Facebook pages.
Throughout Thursday and Friday, the story gained national attention with various articles appearing on the Addison Eagle, Burlington Free Press, Business Insider, CBS, Daily Caller, Fox Nation, Indian Country Today Media Network, Inside Higher Ed, Times Argus, University Herald, and WCAX, in addition to a number of blogs, such as Breitbart. Many articles were filled with comments, condemning the protestors’ actions. Further, WPTZ posted a video about the incident, while both the Huffington Post and Addison County Independent reached out to the College and community for additional comments.
The national and local attention paid to the story set off a barrage of comments — more than 500 — on The Campus’ website along with numerous op-ed submissions. But the anonymous comments also provided a forum for an outpouring of hate, directed mainly at the protestors and at the College as a whole. Campus editors monitored the comments around the clock, deleting nearly 100 comments because of direct threats, curses and other breaches of The Campus’ online conduct policy.
“The comments we deleted on our site really appalled a lot of us moderating the discussion online, and we didn’t even receive the worst,” Finck said. “It was scary to see the amount of vitriolic and threatening comments left up on other news outlets’ sites.”
In particular, Finck singled out the popular humor blog Barstool Sports, which also picked up the story and ran The Campus article on Sept. 12 with commentary written by one of its editors. The posting attracted a large number of comments, many of which were profane attacks directed at the persons who removed the flags from outside of Mead Chapel.
(09/12/13 3:58am)
As Kyle Finck reported for the Campus earlier this week, "a 2,977 flag memorial was ripped out of the ground in front of Mead Memorial Chapel shortly before 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 11 by a group of five protestors claiming that the flags were on top of a sacred Abenaki burial site." This coverage supplemented middbeat's original post, featuring the photograph above by middbeat's Rachel Kogan.
Both the community and country were quick to react through word and action.
A group of about ten students began replanting the flags in front of Mead Memorial Chapel by 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday evening; Anthea Viragh captured the photograph below from the reaction. Our upcoming issue (Issue 112, Number 2) will feature a story, gallery and podcast about these students and their effort to replace the memorial.
Late Wednesday evening, middbeat stated that Anna Shireman-Grabowski ’15.5 had "come forward to confirm her involvement in disposing of the American flags." The alternative news source posted the following statement by Shireman-Grabowski:
Today I, along with a group of non-Middlebury students, helped remove around 3,000 American flags from the grass by Mead Chapel. While I was not the only one engaged in this action and the decision was not solely mine, I am the one who will see you in the dining halls and in the classroom, and I want to take accountability for the hurt you may be feeling while clarifying the motivations for this action.
My intention was not to cause pain but to visibilize the necessity of honoring all human life and to help a friend heal from the violence of genocide that she carries with her on a daily basis as an indigenous person. While the American flags on the Middlebury hillside symbolize to some the loss of innocent lives in New York, to others they represent centuries of bloody conquest and mass murder. As a settler on stolen land, I do not have the luxury of grieving without an eye to power. Three thousand flags is a lot, but the campus is not big enough to hold a marker for every life sacrificed in the history of American conquest and colonialism.
The emails filling my inbox indicate that this was not a productive way to start a dialogue about American imperialism. Nor did I imagine that it would be. Please understand that I am grappling with my complicity in the overwhelming legacy of settler colonialism. Part of this process for me is honoring the feelings and wishes of people who find themselves on the other side of this history.
I wish to further clarify that members of the local Abenaki community should in no way be implicated in today’s events. Nor can I pretend to speak to their feelings about flags, burial sites, or 9/11.
Today I chose to act in solidarity with my friend, an Indigenous woman and a citizen of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy who was appalled to see the burial grounds of another Indigenous nation desecrated by piercing the ground that their remains lay beneath. I understand that this action is confusing and painful for many in my community. I don’t pretend to know if every action I take is right or justified—this process is multi-layered and nuanced. I do know that colonialism has been—and continues to be—a real and destructive force in the world that we live in. And for me, to honor life is to support those who struggle against it.
Please do not hesitate to email me or approach me if you wish to discuss this in person.
On Thursday morning, President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz released the following statement to the Middlebury College Community:
Yesterday, on the 12th anniversary of the horrific attack on our nation on September 11, 2001, a group of Middlebury students commemorated the loss of nearly 3,000 lives by placing American flags in front of Mead Chapel as they have done a number of times in the past. Sadly, a handful of people, at least some of them from our campus community, this year chose to desecrate those flags and disrespect the memories of those who lost their lives by pulling the flags from the ground and stuffing them in garbage bags.
We live in an academic community that fosters and encourages debate and discussion of difficult issues. It is also a community that requires of all a degree of respect and civility that was seriously undermined and compromised by this selfish act of protest.
Like many of you, I was deeply disturbed by the insensitivity of this act. Destruction of property and interfering with the rights of others to express themselves violates the standards of our community. The College has begun a disciplinary investigation of this incident.
There is always something to learn from differences of opinion. In this case, the disrespectful methods of the protesters overshadowed anything that might have been learned from the convictions they claimed to promote. We will not tolerate this kind of behavior.
On Thursday evening, a second protester named Amanda Lickers released a statement on Climate Connections, stating that she helped remove the flags from the grass. Lickers gave her reasoning in the posted statement:
i am a young onkwehon:we, a woman, a member of the turtle clan and the onondowa’ga nation of the haudenosaunee confederacy. i have been doing my best to be true to the responsibilities i have inherited through the gift of life, and the relationships i must honour to my ancestors and all our relatives.
for over 500 years our people have been under attack. the theft of our territories, the devastation of our waters; the poisoning of our people through the poisoning of our lands; the theft of our people from our families; the rape of our children; the murder of our women; the sterilization of our communities; the abuse of our generations; the
uprooting of our ancestors and the occupation of our sacred sites; the silencing of our songs; the erasure of our languages and memories of our traditions
i have had enough.
yesterday i went to occupied abenaki territory. i was invited to middlebury college to facilitate a workshop on settler responsibility and decolonization. i walked across this campus whose stone wall structures weigh heavy on the landscape. the history of eugenics, genocide and colonial violence permeate that space so fully like a ghost everywhere descending. it was my understanding that this site is occupying an abenaki burial ground; a sacred site.
walking through the campus i saw thousands of small american flags. tho my natural disdain for the occupying colonial state came to surface, in the quickest moment of decision making, in my heart, i understood that lands where our dead lay must not be desecrated. in my community, we do not pierce the earth. it disturbs the spirits there, it is important for me to respect their presence, their want for rest.
my heart swelled and i knew in my core that thousands of american flags should not penetrate the earth where my abenaki brothers and sisters sleep. we have all survived so much – and as a visitor on their territories i took action to respect them and began pulling up all of the flags.
i was with 4 non-natives who supported me in this action. there were so many flags staking the earth and their hands helped make this work faster. this act of support by my friends, as settlers, tho small was healing and inspiring. we put them away in black garbage bags and i was confronted by a nationalistic-settler, a young white boy who attends the college demanding i relinquish the flags to him. i held my ground and
confiscated them. i did not want to cave to his support of the occupying, settler-colonial, imperalist state, and the endorsing of the genocide of indigenous peoples across the world.
it is the duty of the college of middlebury to consult with abenaki peoples and repatriate their grounds.
yesterday i said no to settler occupation. i took those flags. it is a small reclamation and modest act of resistance.
in the spirit of resilience, in the spirit of survival
Throughout Thursday and Friday, the story gained national attention with various articles appearing on the Addison Eagle, Burlington Free Press, Business Insider, CBS, Daily Caller, Fox Nation, Indian Country Today Media Network, Inside Higher Ed, Times Argus, University Herald, and WCAX, in addition to a number of blogs, such as Breitbart. Many articles were filled with comments, condemning the protestors' actions. Further, WPTZ posted a video about the incident, while both the Huffington Post and Addison County Independent reached out to the College and community for additional comments.
Amanda Scherker wrote for the Huffington Post:
That said, Middlebury does not seem to have proof that the memorial had been placed on top of a burial site.
"It has never before been suggested that this is a Native American burial ground," Sarah Ray, the school's director of public affairs, told The Huffington Post via email.
Zach Despart at the Addison County Independent published the "Abenaki Response":
Don Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe, called the vandalism “disgusting,” and believes the protestors were acting to promote their own political beliefs.
“We didn’t know anything about this and if we had we certainly wouldn’t have sanctioned it,” Stevens said.
He said that Abenakis do not publicize the locations of their burial sites in order to protect them, and that he has no knowledge of any such sites on the Middlebury campus. Stevens said that even if the site of the memorial had been a burial site, the American flags placed in the earth would not have been a desecration.
“Our burial sites honor our warriors and their bravery,” Stevens said. “Putting flags in the earth to honor bravery would not be disrespectful.”
Stevens served in the U.S. Army; his father fought in Korea and his son served in Iraq as a member of the National Guard.
On Friday evening, the College announced a series of events on "protest and civility" planned for next week. The announcement states, "the occasion for these meetings is the destruction of the 9/11 memorial earlier this week, but our larger purpose will be to consider together the responsibilities we have as an academic community to treat one another with respect and tolerance, even as we pursue political and social agendas that sometimes divide us."
The various sessions are as follows:
Professor of Religion Larry Yarbrough on Monday, Sept. 16 at 8:00 p.m. in the Mitchell Green Lounge at McCullough Social Space
Professor of American Studies and Director of the Center for the Comparative Study for Race and Ethnicity Roberto Lint Sagarena on Tuesday, Sept. 17 at 12:00 p.m. in Carr Hall Lounge
Professor of Religion James Calvin Davis on Tuesday, Sept. 17 at 4:30 p.m. in Carr Hall Lounge
Chaplain Laurie Jordan on Wednesday, Sept. 18 at 4:30 p.m. at the Scott Center
Professor of Environmental Studies Rebecca Kneale Gould on Wednesday, Sept. 18 at 4:30 p.m. in Coltrane Lounge
Professor of Political Science Erik Bleich on Wednesday, Sept. 18 at 8:30 p.m. in the Mitchell Green Lounge at McCullough Social Space
Professor of Economics and Faculty Director of the Middlebury Center for Social Entrepreneurship Jon Isham and Professor of Geography Kacy McKinney on Thursday, Sept. 19 at 4:30 p.m. at the Scott Center
On Monday, Sept. 16 Ben Kinney ’15, co-president of College Republicans, wrote to the Campus, "I just got an email from Public Safety that two boxes containing all of the stolen flags were just dropped off at their door anonymously."
On Monday, Sept. 23 the Student Government Association Senate released the following statement:
We condemn the method of protest utilized on September 11th outside of Mead Chapel. We believe it was highly disrespectful, destructive and in violation of the the Student Handbook’s policy on respect and community standards. We support the administration’s decision to pursue disciplinary action.
Many members of our campus community, including members of the SGA, have lasting and painful memories from that horrific September morning in 2001. These members viewed the protest as a highly offensive act. Whatever one’s feelings towards American policy and this country’s history, the lives lost on September 11th were those of innocent individuals.
The Senate also condemns the disrespectful, hateful and violent speech exchanged in the wake of the 9/11 flag protest. Much of this speech came from outside of the campus community. But some discussions on campus included unnecessarily malicious and personal attacks. This practice is also disrespectful, destructive and in violation of the the Student Handbook’s policy on respect and community standards.
Protest as a practice encourages valuable debate. Protest enables the exchange of critical ideas, the altering of opinions, and, eventually, change and progress. But as with all things, there are lines that one should not cross. We, as leaders of the campus community, want to foster a forum for productive exchange and dialogue. The protest on September 11th has absolutely no place in this forum. It is our hope that the student body will rise above the malicious actions and speech that have permeated our campus in the last two weeks and create an environment that fosters effective and respectful discourse in our community.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. - Martin Luther King Jr.
(09/12/13 12:47am)
Tree vandalism has been on the rise since 2008, with the majority of incidents confined to the north side of campus near Battell Hall and the Atwater residential and dining halls. The greatest destruction was recorded during the 2012-2013 academic year, with dozens of branches ripped down and trees uprooted and eight trees had to be replaced altogether after suffering severe damage.
“[This damage] is going to hurt or kill these trees for the rest of their lives,” said College Landscape Horticulturist Tim Parsons, “Students are ripping bark down and that’s causing a big wound that then slows the tree down. I guess you could think of it as a small, continuously malnourished child.”
Any young tree that is pulled from the ground costs $500 to replace. Broken branches hurt trees as well, but there is no accurate way to determine the cost of such damage. Parsons called the tree vandalism “an aggressive form of entitlement,” but unlike dorm damage, there is no way to hold an individual accountable for an incident, other than catching them in the act.
As a result, administrators, staff and students alike are considering a number of methods to prevent and monitor tree damage, such as educating students and installing security cameras in regions with the greatest damage.
Last spring, Parsons produced a map illustrating annual patterns in incidents of tree vandalism, dating back to 2008. Parsons presented the map and discussed the growing issue of tree vandalism with Community Council, leading a group of student council members to post large-scale copies of Parsons’ map in buildings across campus.
“One of our aims is to make people feel more compelled to speak up concerning who might be doing this damage, so we can put an end to it,” wrote Kate Logan ’13, a student representative of Community Council, in an email. “Also, by forcing the topic and using indirect peer pressure to make people realize how destructive their actions are, we’re hoping that we can prevent something that shouldn’t even be happening in the first place.”
With no fail-safe method of guarding trees, particularly the new landscaping near the Atwater residence halls, Community Council, of which Parsons is a member, is working to hold students responsible for reporting and preventing the damage by offering rewards and propagating various methods of education of trees and tree vandalism.
Parsons has been tracking incidents of tree vandalism and posting pictures of the damage on his blog, MiddLand, to document and spread the news of such violence. On April 5 of this year, after three trees near Atwater were destroyed in two nights, Parsons decided to offer the reward of a pizza from Ramunto’s to anyone who helps him find the vandals.
His hope is that by educating students on the prevalence of tree damage and the monetary and environmental value of trees on campus, a consciousness and appreciation will develop that will ultimately eradicate all tree vandalism. His Arbor Day celebration on May 14 aimed to do just that, funded by an environmental grant and comprised of a 5k run around the most noteworthy trees on campus, planting new trees on the lawn between Allen Hall and Wright Theater and a cook-out outside of Atwater Dining Hall.
Additionally, large price tags were tied to a number of trees on campus that reported the benefits provided by each tree with statistics from TreeBenefits.com.
“Trees do a lot for us,” Parsons said. “Yeah, they’re nice to look at and they’re part of the landscape, but let’s take that Elm next to Old Chapel, for example. That tree will intercept 3,600 gallons of storm water [annually] that won’t go down into storm trains. It’s going to save 179 kilowatt/hours of electricity each year by shading and by blocking wind.”
Education and awareness are not guaranteed to eradicate tree damage, and thus preventing vandalism to trees, buildings and artworks on campus has become one of several reasons for the College to consider installing security cameras on campus. The issue was tabled last spring and could come before Community Council this year.
The cameras, according to Dean of the College Shirley Collado, are “a tool or approach that many other colleges have taken on to promote more health and safety, and more accuracy when investigating major thefts or damages to public places.”
The College is not staffed for live surveillance, so security cameras would be used retroactively as a means of investigating a specific incident, rather than monitoring student actions or movements.
Collado noted that the administration and Community Council were in the preliminary stages of discussing and exploring security cameras on campus late last spring, with no set time frame for an official decision.
“I think it’s reasonable — I’m not saying it’s the right decision — but I think it’s well within our rights to ask whether we as an institution have the opportunity to seek out solutions to where problematic behavior is happening,” said Collado.
(05/09/13 3:24am)
The Middlebury College track and field teams participated in the New England Division III Championships this Saturday, May 4, at Colby College. The men’s squad finished 10th among 26 teams, and the women placed 10th in a field of 25 teams.
Juliet Ryan-Davis ’13 ran a remarkable 2:07.73 in the women’s 800-meter run, setting a new track, Middlebury and Division III New England meet record. Ryan-Davis’ time was also 10th best in Division III all-time.
“My personal best before the race was 2:10.68,” said Ryan-Davis, “In high school and earlier in college I put 2:10 on such a pedestal. I kept getting stuck at 2:11 [this year].”
“I was really grateful for Emily Dodge [’13] and Patrick Rooney [’13] at the 200 meters and again at the 600-meter mark yelling my splits and telling me to push it,” continued Ryan-Davis, “When I realized [I had run] a 2:07, I was pretty psyched, because you don’t get to PR in the 800 by three seconds very often. The last time I did that was probably in high school.”
The men’s team from Bates squeaked out a one-point victory over MIT to capture the overall team championship.
For Middlebury, the 4x100-meter relay team of Kevin Chu ’14, Bryan Holtzman ’14, Fritz Parker ’15 and Will Bain ’15 placed third just behind MIT and Tufts. Holtzman also provided a top-10 finish in the 200-meter dash with a time of 22.27, good for sixth in the field. The men were also strong in the distance events. In the 1,500-meter run, Jack Davies ’13, Wilder Schaaf ‘14 and Patrick Hebble ’13 finished fourth, fifth and sixth. Sam Craft ’14 placed sixth in the 800-meter run. Anthony Lee ’13 finished fifth in the 5,000-meter run at 4:55.58.
On the women’s side, MIT achieved a clear victory over second-place Tufts.
For Middlebury, Kara Walker ’13 competed in the heptathlon, besting the field in the long jump and placing eighth overall. Carly Andersen ’16 placed fourth in the javelin throw. Emily Dodge ’13 came in at fifth in the long jump with a leap of 17’ 2.25”. Dodge also gathered a top-10 finish in the triple jump, placing sixth, and was joined by teammate Emma McGuirk ’15 at ninth. Laura Strom ‘15 tied for ninth in the high jump. Addie Tousley ’13 broke the top-10 in the 1,500-meter run, just seconds ahead of teammates Sarah Guth ’15 and Alison Maxwell ’15.
Alex Morris ’16 ran a 58.24 in the women’s 400-meter dash, good for sixth in the event. Sarah O’Brien ’13 joined Ryan-Davis in the 800-meter run, placing sixth with a time of 2:15.97. In the women’s 5,000-meter run, MIT runners took the top four spots, but were closely followed by Lottie Hedden ’14.
Additionally, the men’s and women’s 2013 All-NESCAC teams were announced this week. Twenty-six Middlebury athletes placed in the top three in their events at last week’s NESCAC championships to earn All-NESCAC honors.
Fifteen Middlebury men were included in the all-conference team, the most of any team in the conference. The Panthers were boosted by top-three finishes from all three of their relay teams at NESCACs.
For the women, 11 Panthers were named All-NESCAC, the second most in the conference.
The Panthers will compete next at the Open New England Championships on Friday and Saturday, May 10 and 11, hosted by Stonehill College.
(05/08/13 8:52pm)
Facing a diminished membership, low community participation and the absence of members willing to serve as co-chairs for next year’s organization, the leadership of the Middlebury Open Queer Alliance (MOQA) has announced its intention to pursue the formal disbandment of the College’s only student-run lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) group.
On Monday May 6, Emma Ashby ’13, Petr Knor ’15 and Ada Santiago ’14, the three MOQA co-chairs, sent an email to members of the LGBTQ student organization informing all that the group would be disbanded. The decision came following a vote during the organization’s weekly Sunday meeting, which drew a crowd of only five students — the organization’s three co-chairs and two group members.
“We have been talking about this on and off all year,” said Ashby, explaining that the leadership decided to finally disband in the face of “very sparing” participation and attendance at the organization’s Gaypril events.
“We brought an amazing speaker, Lesléa Newman, who has been a part of LGBTQ history — and which cost the school $1,500 — and only six people attended.” Ashby also pointed to low participation at the organization’s “Queer European” panel, a presentation on “downlow culture,” a workshop on HIV/AIDS as well as one of the group’s social events, an afternoon “BBQueer”.
“In addition,” she continued, “no one has stepped up to serve as the co-president of the organization for next fall. We just haven’t gotten enough support … Things have gotten really ridiculous.”
While sympathetic to student frustration, Dean of the College Shirley Collado expressed apprehension about the organization’s decision.
“I completely respect the decision that these students feel that they have to make, but I am concerned that we would not have a student organization to support incoming students,” she said.
Collado also wondered whether students had pursued all available channels before making the decision to disband.
“If they were open to engaging in a critical conversation with members of the queer community to get at how to alleviate some of the issues or answer the questions, then that might be a step before saying that they’re giving up,” she said.
As the College’s only student LGBTQ organization, MOQA is a group that seeks to fulfill the social, academic and political desires of students across all four years. For many underclassmen, the group serves as a safe space for conversation of identity and sexuality. Yet for others, a wholly different sort of space, one that is more social, academic or political is desired.
In March, the organization’s co-chairs asked their membership to complete a survey ranking in order of preference the types of events that they would like to see facilitated by the co-chairs. Of the survey’s 24 respondents, members were nearly evenly split across all activities — parties, performances, academic talks, panels and activism.
Though uncertain as to the cause of the low turnout for events and diminished member participation, Ashby offered a number of hypotheses.
“It’s sort of hard to get people to organize unless they are either very strongly for or very strongly against something. Of course, there is homophobia in pockets on the community, but for the most part people are very liberal. It’s hard because there aren’t really tangible things to organize against,” she said, alluding to the difference between generating enthusiasm for MOQA and a group like Divest for Our Future.
Ashby also suggested that MOQA faces a unique challenge in developing community around a sexual identity. “Many people just organize their own things because their friends are queer, and they don’t use MOQA as a conduit.
“But MOQA has the resources to provide funding for parties, lectures and speakers. It would be nice if MOQA could funnel a lot of different directives.”
Though sensitive to such explanations, Tony Huynh ’13, MOQA co-president from 2010-2011 offered an alternate diagnosis.
“I think that everyone is at fault, but I don’t think that meetings have been very well run this year,” he said, suggesting that MOQA has seen diminished member participation in part as a result of the group’s leadership.
Huynh suggested that this year’s group planned fewer social events than in past years, organized a reduced number of discussions during the group’s Sunday night meetings and also failed to adequately advertise programming.
In response to such critiques, Santiago, the one current co-chair who had committed to serve in the same position next fall, instead cited an institutional failure, describing the challenge that co-chairs face in seeking to provide programming for the diverse membership of the LGBTQ community without staff support.
“As co-chairs, we’re forced to focus on ourselves as students while simultaneously fostering safe spaces for an entire community of students, creating LGBTQ-related programming and events and addressing all the needs (social, political and academic) of students. Some of this should be provided for by a staff member,” she wrote in an email.
Santiago noted that Middlebury is “one of the only” NESCAC schools without an LGBTQ resource center or staff coordinator. Though the College has a Queer Studies House and Chellis House, the former is an academic interest house for queer exploration, and the latter, the Women and Gender Studies Resource Center, is independent from queer identification.
Ashby contended that students seeking non-academic LGBTQ support have only two options: MOQA or the Center for Counseling.
“So you can either get psychological help, or you could go to MOQA.”
Yet, Collado pushed back against this assessment, explaining that students seeking LGBTQ support can turn to a variety of staff and faculty, including Dean of Students J.J. Boggs, Special Assistant to the Dean of the College and Senior Advisor for Diversity Jennifer Herrera, all five of the Commons Deans, the staff of Chellis House and the faculty of the women and gender studies department.
“I hesitate to silo affinity groups by area of specialization,” she said. “I welcome the opportunity to engage in this conversation, but I want to make sure that we’re being very intentional about the way that we define the roles of our staff.”
Kevin Moss, the Jean Thompson Fulton professor of modern languages and literature, presently serves as one of MOQA’s two faculty liaisons. When informed of the news of the decision to disband the organization, he suggested that he did not think that such a move was an appropriate one, but hoped that it might spur conversation.
“I don’t think MOQA should disband, but if this gets people seriously engaging the question of how it can be better in the future, I’m all for it,” he wrote in an email.
“I also think it shows that we really need an LGBTQ coordinator to take responsibility for organizing things. Staff, faculty or students will burn out.”
Though official steps have not yet been taken to disband MOQA formally, Monday’s email explained that henceforth MOQA will “no longer function” as a student organization. Co-chairs hope that this step will cause the community to think more deeply about the role of an LGBTQ student group on campus.
“As a result of whole-community discussion, it is our hope that a conclusion can be reached as to the way forward for MOQA or a similar organization,” they wrote.
(05/08/13 8:48pm)
Students were invited to participate in an open forum on Tuesday, April 30 to address the question “What is the future of Social Life at Middlebury?” Sponsored by the Community Council, SGA and the Dean of the College Office, over 40 students and faculty members attended the forum to continue the ongoing conversation regarding issues surrounding on-campus social life, such as what many perceive to be a problematic drinking culture and the desire among many students for a more vibrant party options on campus.
The Task Force on Alcohol and Social Life presented their recommendations (which are available online) to the administration for consideration last spring. Since then, a Task Force implementation team has taken steps to enact many of the recommendations, according to Dean of Students Katy Smith Abbot. In addition to the recent hiring of a director of health and wellness, progress has been made in a number of other areas.
Although some items are still pending budget approval, students can expect to see the following changes: improved alcohol training programs for new students, opportunities to interact with Public Safety and custodial staff, accessible sound systems in public areas, more diverse and publicized programming and, ultimately, reforms to the party registration and hosting policies.
The forum was planned independently of the Task Force’s work, but served to create a similar dialogue.
“While the forum cannot directly create policy, I think it was an important reiteration of student voice on social concerns at Middlebury,” said Barrett Smith ’13, student co-chair of Community Council, which co-hosted the event.
At the event, Smith posed a series of questions to the audience to discuss, first in several small groups followed by an open conversation that lasted more than an hour-and-a-half as many students stayed to share their thoughts long after administrators had left.
Of the many issues raised, significant attention was devoted to the topic of kegs, with many students touting the keg as a viable option for safely and effectively hosting events with alcohol.
“Kegs have a negative connotation,” said Will Potter ’14.5, former social chair of Tavern. “But the reality is they can be some of the most efficient ways to run a well controlled party.”
Nathan LaBarba ’14, a member of last year’s Alcohol Task Force, agreed with Potter.
“The keg fosters a very interesting communal environment at parties, it slows down the rate of consumption of alcohol [and] it provides a space where the hosts of the event can make sure that they have control over who is consuming the beer that they are serving,” said LaBarba.
College policy prohibits the possession or consumption of any full-sized keg, except in the instance of a registered party or catered event. In order to register a party, hosts must participate in a Party Host Workshop, register any alcohol including kegs by 3 p.m. on the Thursday prior to the party, and provide and monitor a guest list for the event. Additionally, a social house hosting a party may only serve alcohol over a four-hour time limit; after the four hours, Public Safety monitors the closing of the keg and locks it in a closet.
Vermont law places no such restrictions on registering a keg in advance or using it within a specified time limit.
The College’s policy has been criticized for being excessively demanding. Associate Director of Public Safety Dan Gaiotti provided a number of reasons for its current existence including concerns about the large quantity, storage, damage and theft of kegs in addition to the “belief that it must be emptied within a short time frame or alcohol will go to waste.”
At the forum, Smith Abbot voiced the importance of “making sure that we are clear about why our keg policy is what it is. I think revisiting [the rationale for keg regulations] is worth it.”
LaBarba noted that the College’s four-hour limit for a keg to be legally registered may cause overconsumption, suggesting a reform allowing students to register a keg for an entire weekend.
“[The administration] will be carefully considering whether we might extend the hours that a keg is available,” said Smith Abbot, noting that this is one of many possibilities up for debate. “If we are going to shore up the policies that we have, we need to have a very strong rationale for it.”
Many in attendance at the forum described successful parties in which the student relationship with Public Safety was mutually beneficial. However, the overall sentiment was that looser restrictions regarding party registration and kegs in particular could help encourage and facilitate the hosting of more lively and collective gatherings.
“We understand that students want greater autonomy,” said Smith Abbot. “But how we make that a balancing act is an open question.”
One possibility under consideration is the presence of a paid student party monitor program, modeled after similar programs successfully implemented at Haverford College and Dartmouth College.
A number of students mentioned the lack of incentives to host a party. Zach Hitchcock ’13.5, former president of KDR, described the logistical difficulties of planning and registering a party, citing the high cost of hosting that house members frequently incur. Including alcohol and non-alcoholic beverages, as well as the required provision of food by college policy, Hitchcock estimated the cost of holding a large party to be $500, only a small percentage of which can be acquired from outside funding sources such as the Middlebury College Activities Boards or Commons funds.
“[Associate Dean of Students] Doug Adams has already convened a group of SGA senators and IHC representatives to discuss changes to party registration,” said Smith. “We should see an overhaul of IHC guidelines next academic year and will hopefully see significant reform to party registration as well.”
Adrian Kerester ’15 said that the current alcohol policy on campus has served to displace social life to off-campus locations.
“One of the reasons I came to this school was because I liked the fact that the social scene was all on-campus,” said Kerester. “I really hope that it can remain on campus and can flourish more on campus, because I think there are a lot of dangers associated with off campus parties, including drunk driving.”
“I’m most interested to see how the future of social houses will play out,” said Smith. “After a rough few years, KDR, the Mill and Tavern are primed to grow and thrive.”
Following students’ constructive criticism of campus social life and the College’s alcohol policy at the forum, specific steps to remedy the apparent lack of vibrant social life may be taken by the administration in the future, but the forum’s only clear consensus was that communication about potential solutions should continue among students, faculty and staff.
(05/02/13 12:55am)
As homeowners in the area consider their energy bills, the questions of what fuel to use, whether or not it will be renewable and how much it will cost are constantly arising. Yet while some might save by switching fuel types, the strategy of using less energy overall by improving a home’s efficiency has become increasingly popular among environmentalists and cost-savers alike.
In January, Efficiency Vermont announced the Vermont Home Energy Challenge in the hopes that it would jumpstart the state’s push towards energy efficiency. In Vermont’s 2011 Comprehensive Energy Plan, the state outlined a specific goal of improving the efficiency of 80,000 homes by 25 percent before 2020. The contest promises a $10,000 prize for an energy improvement project to any town that manages to weatherize three percent of its homes by the end of the year.
“Seventy-seven towns have signed up from all corners of the state,” said Paul Markowitz, Efficiency Vermont’s community energy program manager. “We’ve had probably 250 or 300 volunteers who were trained to organize and reach out to their community.”
Four months into the challenge, however, the statistics are showing just how challenging the three percent target is for towns. While many town organizers have made great strides in encouraging their neighbors to make energy pledges — or written commitments to any number of energy-saving home alternatives — few towns have moved beyond five or 10 percent of their actual weatherization goal.
“In terms of the level of activity, it really varies,” said Markowitz. “We have some [towns] like Middlebury and Weybridge that have been really active in terms of engaging their residents and other communities that have been slower.”
Admittedly, places like Weybridge have the advantage of having small populations where three percent translates to only a handful of homes; a city like Burlington, on the other hand, needs to weatherize over 500 homes in order to win the cash prize.
Yet for many involved, this cash prize is secondary to the overall goal of addressing climate change by reducing energy-use at the consumer level.
“Personally, my commitment is to address climate change,” said Fran Putnam, the lead volunteer in Weybridge. “I really wanted to take another step and move out into the community.”
After the construction of a zero-net-energy home with her husband and working on offering different green energy workshops in Weybridge, Putnam decided to involve herself and her community of activists in the home energy challenge as a way to reach out to a broader range of community members.
“We signed up to enter the challenge in January,” said Putnam. “We have a very active energy committee in Weybridge [that] formed in October, 2011. We had already done some projects together and we were looking for a new challenge.”
The group had been successful in persuading workshop participants to make lifestyle and housing changes to benefit the climate in previous years, but attendance was consistently low.
“We were looking for a new way to get the word out and just at that time, Efficiency Vermont started the Vermont Home Energy Challenge and we said, ‘this is perfect for us,’” said Putnam.
As a result of these volunteer efforts, 38 Weybridge residents have made pledges to reduce their energy use in some way, and one resident has completed a full efficiency upgrade.
“This town is a great town to be working in because people are so receptive,” said Putnam.
The process involves a free initial audit from local volunteers, followed by a $100 professional audit, and then the project itself, which generally cost between $5,000 and $10,000 after state and federal incentives.
The main driver for most homeowners to pursue efficiency upgrades is the predicted savings on their heating bills. Most projects save around $1,000 to $2,000 a year on energy bills, depending on the preexisting level of energy efficiency.
While the return is certainly higher than what a savings account might offer, the amount of upfront capital required to move forward with a project has been prohibitive for some.
“Right now, we’re able to offer an incentive after a job is completed of up to $2,000, said Kelly Lucci, Efficiency Vermont’s manager of public affairs and communications, “but, unfortunately, it’s not going to [help] decrease the up-front costs for folks who are on the lower-income side of the scale, [yet] still make too much money to benefit from the weatherization program, which targets very low-income folks and provides those services for free.”
In addition to those who may not be able to raise the funds necessary for a project of this scope, there are many other kinds of Vermont residents who are not being reached through this home energy challenge. For instance, seasonal homes have been excluded from the competition, while renters and mobile home owners continue to prove a challenge for efficiency-minded folks in Montpelier and across the state.
In order for Vermont to see a quarter of its year-round homes weatherized by 2020, it seems likely that they will have to further address the high upfront cost of insulating and air sealing a home, yet in the meantime, Efficiency Vermont officials are hopeful that there are enough people out there who can raise the capital to get the ball rolling.
“There are a number of people who may be in a better position to make these investments than they think,” said Lucci, “and the idea is to mobilize these town energy committees and to work through VECAN [the Vermont Energy & Climate Action Network], knocking on doors, talking to neighbors, and explaining the resources that are currently available.”
“You do have to spend some money to do this,” admitted Putnam, “but we’re trying to motivate people to use less energy by helping them see that it makes sense financially.”
In Middlebury, Vt. volunteers like Laura Asermily have also put in a great deal of work to promote the town’s energy efficiency goals. In order to succeed in the competition, the town needs to weatherize 91 homes in contrast with Weybridge’s 10 homes.
Outreach efforts have included lawn signs, tabling, neighbor-to-neighbor dialogue and even a new show on Middlebury Community Television (MCTV) that shares testimonials from residents who have completed efficiency work and seen the savings it can create.
The outreach team has also looked to some larger businesses in town to join in with the project.
“We’ve approached Middlebury College and other large employers like Porter Hospital, but these things take time.”
Because the College operates huge number of residential buildings for faculty and students in town and because of its carbon neutrality pledge, it appears as though this would be a good match. Yet thus far, Asermily and her team of volunteers have not been able to bring the College on board.
“I approached the staff council and was able to present to the staff council what the home energy challenge was,” said Asermily. “I asked for their guidance about how I could get the word out to staff. They suggested that I come in to do a learning lunch, or to canvas faculty staff at the Grille; I tried to do that but I was declined.”
In spite of this small roadblock, Asermily hopes to continue to work with the College to address this need for efficiency upgrades. The College has set up a Green Revolving Fund of one million dollars to power energy saving initiatives as a result of Efficiency Vermont’s efforts in 2011, so it may be that this fund will someday provide capital for smaller home efficiency projects of this nature. The money will revolve as these capital-intensive energy project begin to pay for themselves in energy savings, allowing the College to put those savings toward a new initiative down the line.
“Vermont’s housing stock is among the oldest in the country, so there’s certainly a lot of potential to improve the efficiency of Vermont homes, and save a lot of money on heating bills,” concluded Lucci.
(05/01/13 8:57pm)
The first time I visited Middlebury, my host walked me into Proctor and quickly disappeared, returning a minute or two later with a glass full of a cold, brown liquid.
“It’s chocolate milk. It’s amazing. You have to try it!”
Standing in the middle of Proctor, gulping down that thick, creamy milk, I was in awe. It was amazing. I wanted to know where it came from and why it was so delicious.
The short story is that my glass of milk, like every other glass of milk that has been consumed at Middlebury for the past 62 years, came directly from Monument Farms Dairy in Weybridge, a third-generation operation that, according to owner Jon Rooney, began operation in 1930 under his grandparents and has been producing milk for Vermonters ever since. Part of the Vermont community that receives the milk is the College, where milk is consistently delivered five days a week. The relationship between the College and Monument Farms Dairy is a chunk of the community-centered operation run by Rooney and his cousins, Bob and Pete Jones.
According to the department of environmental science, Monument Farms is the largest landowner in Weybridge, with 450 acres of their land under conservation. The employ 34-36 locals year-round for all aspects of processing, packaging and distributing of the milk. Monument Farms currently sells skim, 2 percent and chocolate milk all over Vermont. Rooney says that they used to bottle a coffee milk called “java-nip” milk, but production of that flavor was stopped many years ago. It would probably be very popular at the College today were it still in production.
Rooney wrote in an email that the dairy “milks 450-500 cows, putting us comfortably in the medium-sized farm category.” According to his calculations, Monument Farms produces, on average, 1.4 million gallons or 12.1 million pounds of milk annually. Despite being the largest producer/handler in Vermont and possibly New England the farm takes pride in maintaining small-scale style production.
“We’re obviously unique in that we are producer-handlers, processing our own milk and selling it,” said one of the current owners of the farm, Jon Rooney, in an interview for the department of environmental science. “That’s getting much more unique at our scale and I think people are more aware of that uniqueness now than in the past ... they’re glad to be able to buy a locally produced product from people they know.”
Monument Dairy Farms is a proud participant in the local food community.
“We view ourselves as a perfect (not that we’re perfect!) example of what is now called the “local food” movement, except that we’ve been preaching the need to buy local for as long as we’ve been in business. Everything we do revolves around community and everything we do is done with an eye to our impact on our community,” wrote Rooney.
Something that differentiates Monument Farms from its competitors is their dedication and interest in the community of which it is a part, as opposed to focusing on profit margins.
“We take [our] approach not from a marketing point of view, rather, from a belief that everything a business does has an impact on those around it,” Rooney said of the business, a common mantra throughout the local food movement. Monument Farms, however, has been following this credo since it first opened.
The Rooney and James families at Monument Farms Dairy might be some of the original locavores.
(05/01/13 8:06pm)
The Middlebury men’s and women’s track and field teams competed on Saturday, April 27 in the NESCAC Championship at Tufts University. The hosts were victorious on both sides, but the Panther teams had strong finishes. The women finished second while the men placed third.
The men won a total of four events on the day. Jack Davies ’13 continued his impressive season by claiming first place in the 3,000-meter steeplechase en route to setting a new NESCAC record at 8:58.01. The steeplechase secured a four-year sweep of that event for Davies. Bryan Holtzman ’14 led all competitors in the preliminaries of the 100-meter dash, then improved his time and won the final in a blazing 10.92 seconds. Kevin Chu ’14 also entered the finals of his event as the favorite and came out on top in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 14.71 seconds, good for eighth in the nation.
Finally, the men’s 4x100-meter relay team comprised of Chu, Holtzman, Fritz Parker ’15 and anchored by Will Bain ’15 bested the field with a time of 42.31.
On the women’s side, Juliet Ryan-Davis ’13 and Addie Tousley ’13 added to their long list of victories by claiming individual NESCAC championships. Ryan-Davis won the 800-meter run by nearly three seconds with a time of 2:13.73. Tousley was also a victor by three seconds in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 16:59.91. Her performance currently ranks sixth nationally.
Additionally, the 4x800-meter relay team of Sara Guth ’15, Alison Maxwell ’15, captain Sarah O’Brien ’13 and Nicole Schachman ’16 finished first with a time of 9:26.19.
Other members of the men’s team had successful days. Holtzman added to his 100-meter championship by placing second in the 200-meter dash.
“The toughest part about running multiple meets is taking each one event at a time,” said Holtzman. “I had to maintain focus on the first race before thinking about the next one. My strategy doesn’t change if I’m running one event or four. I owe my success to Coach Beatty. We came up with a plan to keep me well-rested in the week. This allowed me to perform for the entire day.”
Wilder Schaaf ’15 was a close second in the 1,500-meter run. Jason McCallum ’14 was another near-victor for the Panthers with a pole vault of 14’ 1.25”. Deklan Robinson ’16 and Taylor Shortsleeve ’15 tied for second in the high jump, each clearing 6’ 2”.
The men’s distance medley relay team of Patrick Hebble ’13, Sam Craft ’14, Cooper Kersey ’14 and Schaaf also placed second with a time of 10:10.63, just three tenths of a second behind the winning team from Bowdoin. The 4x400-meter team of Parker, Lou Cornacchione ’13, Patrick Rooney ’13 and Peter Hetzler ’14 finished third behind Tufts and Williams. Rooney also placed third in the triple jump and Davies added to his steeplechase victory by taking fourth in the 5,000-meter run in 14:41.69.
Emily Dodge ’13 posted a long jump of 18’ .25” – good for third in the competition and a new Middlebury school record – and also finished second in the triple jump with a leap of 36’ 7.5”. Grace Doering ’13 placed second in the high jump at 5’3”.
Ryan-Davis didn’t stop with the 800, but also ran the 400 meters and finished second. Additionally, the women’s 4x400- meter relay of Ryan-Davis, Alex Morris ’16, Jackie Kearney ’16 and Olivia Artaiz ’16 placed third in the meet. Maxwell and Kate Leib ’16 placed 3-4 in the women’s 1,500-meter run and Carly Andersen ’16 was fourth in the javelin throw to round out scoring for the women.
The women earned second-place by finishing with 117.5 points, behind only host Tufts.
The men’s 140 points, put them in third with a new Middlebury record for the NESCAC meet. The men trailed Tufts and Bates in the finals standings.
The next meet for both teams will be this coming weekend, May 3 and 4, at the Division III New England Championships, hosted by Colby College.
(05/01/13 2:41pm)
In one week, a student-created online petition to persuade the College to retract its statement of support for the proposed Addison County Natural Gas Pipeline garnered over 1,000 signatures. The student group, led by Cailey Cron ’13.5, Anna Shireman-Grabowski ’15.5 and others, aims to reach 1,500 signatures before officially submitting the petition to the administration.
The Addison County Natural Gas Pipeline is part of a proposed expansion of an existing Vermont Gas Systems pipeline, which currently operates 750 miles of underground pipeline, serving Chittenden and Franklin counties. The proposed 41-mile-long expansion will allow the towns of Middlebury and Vergennes to gain access to natural gas. The pipeline will ultimately terminate at the International Paper Mill in Ticonderoga, N.Y., located less than half a mile from the Vermont border.
The gas in the pipeline will come primarily from fracking efforts by Gaz Metro in Alberta, Canada, ultimately using the state of Vermont as a conduit to transport natural gas to the Ticonderoga factory while providing gas to a handful of towns in Vermont along the way. The state of Vermont banned fracking in 2012.
In 2010, the College chose to support the project to aid with its plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2016. If the pipeline is constructed, the College will gain access to bio-methane sources that can be stored and held within the pipeline. When heating buildings, the College first utilizes its bio-methane sources due to the difficulty in storing it.
In a 2011 letter to Governor of Vermont Peter Shumlin, President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz expressed his support for the pipeline, citing lower energy costs and fewer carbon emissions among the project’s benefits. Liebowitz also cited a project in Addison County for the creation of more farm-based bio-methane production plants as an idea that could become a reality if the pipeline were to be created.
“Farmers would be able to pump their pipeline-ready renewable natural gas directly into the pipeline,” wrote Liebowitz. “This would give a significant boost to these small bio-methane projects, eliminating the need for storage tanks and gas trucks and enabling the creation of a new, sustainable, farm-based industry in Vermont.”
Though contacted for this article, Liebowitz did not respond to a request for comment before press time.
In 2010, Integrated Energy Solutions, a Montpelier-based company, proposed that the College could gain access to bio-methane from the Goodrich Farm facility in Salisbury by way of the pipeline, which would also offer a convenient way to store the gas.
“We looked at the option of storing the [bio-methane] underground and it was just so expensive that it made the project undoable,” said Director of Sustainability Integration Jack Byrne. “The pipeline provides a storage solution. He [the owner of the plant] can put his gas in the pipeline and then we can take gas from the pipeline.
“We won’t necessarily be taking all his gas, because it’s going to be all mixed in with all that’s in there, but we’ll basically be owning the gas that he’s producing and we’ll be able to take out an equivalent amount.”
Gaining access to bio-methane would allow the College to cut down on one million gallons of fuel, moving one step closer to achieving carbon neutrality. The College also uses biomass as a means of reducing fuel dependency, burning 20,000 tons of locally sourced woodchips in lieu of one million gallons of fuel.
While the pipeline would certainly ensure that the College meets its carbon neutrality goals, students and professors have expressed concern about its effect on relationships with the town. While a number of local land and business owners are in favor of the pipeline for the economic benefits that it would provide, the opposition has been much more vocal.
“There’s definitely a town-gown relation piece, just in that the College has a pretty rare opportunity to advocate for the community because we’ve been given intervenor status,” Cron said, referring to Vermont Gas having granted the College permission to join and participate in ongoing litigation and debates without extra permission.
“My take on it is that regardless of whether the pipeline goes through or not, if the College doesn’t retract its support, we’re going to lose the support of our community. We’re here for four years and this community welcomes us and I think the institution, and we as student owe it to our community to ensure that their voices are heard and we in this instance have the megaphone and they don’t.”
Organizations applied to receive intervenor status through Vermont Gas directly, and thus the corporation was able to hand-select the arguments that they believed to be strongest.
“The College is uniquely positioned to really come out as a strong advocate for community concerns … because there aren’t a lot of people in the process right now who have been given that kind of access,” she said.
Students in opposition to the pipeline have argued that the process by which natural gas will be harvested and the process by which the pipeline will be built are not in line with the College’s environmentally-friendly position, most notably the fact that the majority of the pipeline’s gas will come from fracking.
“I’d love to see this as an entry point to a conversation for the College to expand upon carbon neutrality,” said Shireman-Grabowski. “We made this carbon neutrality statement several years ago in good faith, [and] now we’re going to expand that to look at how we really use energy on campus to really bend the arc toward a much more conservative use of energy.”
“Ultimately, if this is how we have to do carbon neutrality, then carbon neutrality becomes more about looking good rather than doing good,” she added.
Demonstrations in opposition of the pipeline have been ongoing, which Byrne believes to be in character with all that Vermont stands for, and will ultimately lead to a better decision regarding the construction of the pipeline.
“I’ve seen over and over again that a strong opposition to environmental issues has been a really healthy reaction because it has forced people to really think hard about how to do the thing that is best from an environmental and sustainability perspective,” he said. “I think it’s going to force people to think about things that they wouldn’t otherwise consider.”
The construction of the pipeline was not originally incorporated into the College’s carbon neutrality plan, but rather the proposed biomethane access serves as a convenient and unforeseen method of achieving carbon neutrality. If the pipeline is not constructed, Byrne said that the College would have to go back to the drawing board.
(05/01/13 2:37pm)
As part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, It Happens Here (IHH) brought Grace Brown, 20-year-old creator of Project Unbreakable, to Dana Auditorium on Monday, April 29 to share the history of her project and the stories behind some of the photographs. Project Unbreakable is a tumblr blog that captures photos of sexual assault victims holding quotes from their attackers and has received nationwide attention for its promotion of sexual assault awareness and hope. In 2012, TIME Magazine named Brown’s project as one of the “30 Must-See Tumblr Blogs.”
Since the blog’s creation, Brown has put up over 1,500 photographs. The photos typically show the survivor holding a poster that contains a statement from the attacker, and sometimes has a reaction or a detail about the situation as well. In many of the photos, the survivor’s face is shown.
Brown originally planned to cover the survivors’ faces until she began getting requests from women who wanted to show their identities. She described her choice to open up this option as the biggest decision she has made in her process thus far.
As Brown continued her talk, she switched between giving background stories to the images and letting them stand for themselves. She explained some of the results she saw, such as similar posters from different people. Many women held the words, “I love you,” or “Does this feel good?” and many male survivors wrote that they were expected to “like it” because they were boys.
Brown then changed the mood of the talk, highlighting Project Unbreakable’s positive message.
“Project Unbreakable is not sad,” she said. “It may seem like it, but if you dig deeper down, it’s a symbol of hope.”
She ended her talk by defining the goal of her project: to make survivors respected, rather than pitied or victimized.
RD Jenkinson ’10.5, the commons residential adviser (CRA) of Atwater Commons, then gave a brief description of resources on campus for sexual assault support and prevention. Dean of Cook Commons Ian Sutherland added that the College recently hired a new director of health and wellness education, Barbara McCall, who will arrive this summer.
“The student life community at the College looks forward to working closely with Ms. McCall to develop additional programming on sexual misconduct, to help educate all students about this issue and to try to eliminate its occurrence in our environment,” said Sutherland.
Sutherland also commented on the effectiveness of Brown’s blog.
“Grace Brown’s ‘Project Unbreakable’ is extremely powerful,” he said. “The images are simple, the messages brief and profound; yet together they convey that sexual assault is complex in its causes and wide-ranging in its effects. I applaud It Happens Here for sponsoring events such as Brown’s presentation and for building awareness of sexual misconduct on campus.”
The students who organized and attended the event were also moved by the images, and lingered in the auditorium for several minutes to talk about the issues surrounding sexual assault on campus and speak with Brown personally.
“Even as a woman, there are things that have become so commonplace we forget that they are actually not okay,” said Julia Deutsch ’13. “You think it’s a grey area, but its not. You have a right to be upset.”
Sam Koplinka-Loehr ’13 described the project as “a powerful reminder of the tremendous amount of compassionate work we have yet to do to build a positive consent culture and end rape and sexual violence on this campus.”
Inspired by the talk yet also concerned, Thomas Bryenton ’13 spoke about the emphasis at the College on survivors and the need for a program that informs men more effectively. Kristina Johansson ’14, an organizer of the event, added that this talk should be supplemented with a more expansive look at sexual assault on campus.
“We have to be addressing these larger notions of female sexuality, of what is currently socially acceptable and what isn’t,” she said. “We can’t end sexual violence only by giving resources, we need to be working to dismantle social norms so that we can prevent it from happening in the first place.”
Brown is currently looking to expand Project Unbreakable by getting involved in mandatory first-year orientations and trying to cultivate more submissions. She plans to publish a book in the future, but wants to keep her immediate focus on her expanding her current project.
(05/01/13 2:34pm)
Bangladesh is a country prone to natural disasters. Due to its location on a low-lying delta, Bangladesh sees more than its share of hurricanes and floods. However, last Wednesday, April 24, the country saw one of its worst man-made disasters. The collapse of an eight-story shoddy garment factory in suburban Dhaka, the capital city, killed over 375 workers. More than 500 people were still unaccounted for at the end of the past weekend.
The collapse happened while the factory was in operation Wednesday morning. While it is unclear how many workers were in the building at the time, the factory houses 3,122 employees. Despite the high death toll, rescuers, working day and night through heat, humidity and the occasional thunderstorm, pulled out dozens of survivors as late as Saturday and Sunday.
The rescuers drilled 25 narrow holes in the rubble to reach survivors. They formed a human chain to remove debris from the building. Any dead bodies discovered were brought to a nearby high school, where families waited anxiously for news of their loved ones. Victims who could not be immediately rescued received water bottles, food and even oxygen cylinders.
As the days dragged on and the probability of finding survivors dwindled to zero, rescuers began using heavier equipment to more quickly clean up the rubble. The use of heavy equipment was met with resistance from family members of missing workers, who protested for a longer rescue operation.
On Tuesday, large cracks and missing concrete appeared in the structure of the building and local police ordered an evacuation. A bank and some shops on the ground floor complied. The garment factories in the upper floors ignored the order after the building’s owner Mohammed Sohel Rana guaranteed the safety of the structure despite the top three floors of the building having been built illegally.
Rana ran away from authorities after the collapse. He was arrested near the Indian border in West Bengal state on Saturday. Authorities also arrested three other owners of two factories operating in the building. In addition, two government engineers, Imtemam Hossain and Alam Ali, who were involved in approving the building’s construction, have also been detained.
The Bengali government has responded swiftly to the tragedy, promising to bring building owners to justice, a call echoed by demonstrators in the streets of Dhaka.
“It is not an accident, it is a killing incident,” said Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu. “All, including owners and administrative officials concerned, must be put on the dock for the killing of people.”
Bangladesh’s Secretary for Housing and Public Works pledged to set up a government agency to monitor building code and safety compliances.
The garment and textile industry is a backbone of the Bengali economy. Third in the world after that of China and Italy, the industry brings in $20 billion per year. Working conditions are poor for workers and wages are low. Most of the products from Bengali factories eventually make their way to stores in western countries. So far, only Primark has said that it was receiving products from a factory in the collapsed building.
Frequent disasters in Bangladesh like this one have drawn attention to the plight and vulnerability of factory workers and the gross negligence of safety regulations. In November 2012, a fire in a factory claimed 112 lives. Also in suburban Dhaka, a building collapse in 2005 killed over 70 people.
(04/25/13 4:01am)
On Friday, April 12, Paul Donnelly ’15, Matei Epure ’16 and Chris Matteri ’13 travelled to Siena College in Loudonville, New York, to compete in the 18th annual Conference of the Northeast Region of the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges (CCSCNE 2013).
The three Middlebury students came out among the top; they placed second in a field of 33 teams from schools across the Northeast.
Daniel Scharstein, professor of computer science and chair of the computer science department, noted in an email that he was pleased by the strong Middlebury performance: “The CCSC contest is a regional contest [and] in past years, Middlebury’s team has won this contest several times (though not in the last three or four years).”
The competition is just one of several to which Middlebury sends a team. Another competition Middlebury competed in past years is the Association for Computing Machinery(ACM)-International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC). The competition’s website touts the ACM-ICPC as “the oldest, largest and most prestigious programming contest in the world.”
Though the Middlebury team hasn’t done particularly well in past years, Scharstein is optimistic that with the spike in computer science enrollments and an influx of experience, the team will be competitive in the future.
A host of Middlebury students and two professors, Scharstein and Frank Swenton, professor of mathematics, are competing in the Google Code Jam, an international competition designed to bring together professional and amateur programmers alike to solve tough coding problems. This year, 21,278 people participated in the first round with 17,000 advancing to the next round (including all of the Middlebury participants). In the following round, only 3,000 will advance.
Tom Dobrow ’16, one of the students competing in the Google Code Jam, spoke of his eagerness to continue competing in coding competitions.
“I heard of [the contest] only a few days before the competition from my professor who offered extra credit to students who could advance past the qualifier round,” he said. “The first round was very casual, with little pressure, but apparently all subsequent rounds are very challenging. I don’t think any of us expect to get much further in the competition. [However], I look forward to doing competitions like this in the future, especially those where I can compete on a Middlebury team.”
Matteri, a member of the second-place team at CCSCNE, benefited from the competitive coding.
“These contests help me realize how much I still have to learn as a coder, since being forced to code under pressure reveals what you know well and what could use improvement,” he wrote in an email.
The benefits of knowing how to code and competing at a high level extend beyond the mere personal intellectual challenge. Technology is an integral part of everyday life and coders are the innovators and the inventors when it comes to how society uses the available technology. Good coders are at a premium, and yet “it is interesting (and disconcerting) that of the 500 participants last year in the semifinal round [of the Google Code Jam], only 25 were Americans,” wrote Swenton.
He continued, ”As the world continues deeper into the Information Age, the U.S. is not producing even close to enough good programmers to fill the demand present in the job market. I think this is a great thing for students to participate in — it’s competitive, it’s fun, it gives them a reason to hone and practice extremely valuable skills, and, if they do well enough, it can help to pave the road to a great job.”
(04/25/13 12:43am)
The men’s and women’s track and field teams hosted the Middlebury Invitational on Saturday, April 20 at the Dragone Track. The Panthers competed against University of Vermont, Plattsburgh St. and the women of Colby-Sawyer.
Both teams won their respective competitions handily, winning a total of 25 out of 35 events. The women scored 89 of a possible 173 points, while the men captured 116 points.
On the men’s side, the Panthers dominated the field events. Daniel Plunkett ’16 scored several points for the team, winning both the shot put and hammer throw. Fellow first-year Ian Riley ’16 was the top collegiate javelin thrower at the meet. Several of the team’s jumpers also had standout meets. Deklan Robinson ’16 placed first in the long jump and second in the high jump. Meanwhile, Patrick Rooney ’13 won the triple jump, and Jason McCallum ’14 was victorious in the pole vault.
The men’s team’s outstanding showing continued through the running events as Bryan Holtzman ’14 led the pack with a win the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.81, matching the Dragone Track record. Patrick Hebble ’13, Sam Cartwright ’16 and Sebastian Matt ’16 captured the first three spots in the 1,500-meter run. Luke Carpinello ’16 won the 800-meter run, while Sam Craft ’14 came in second just after fellow Middlebury runner to Nick Spencer ’15 in the 400-meter dash. Louis Cornacchione ’13 won the 400-meter hurdles, while Stuart Fram ’13 won the 110-meter hurdles.
On the women’s side, the competition was equally impressive. Carly Andersen ’16 continued her impressive season by winning the women’s javelin throw. Emily Dodge ’13 was first in the triple jump. Grace Doering ’13 put up the best high jump. Jackie Kearney ’16 led the pack in both the 400 meter and 100-meter hurdles to continue the Panther winning streak.
After finishing an impressive indoor season, Juliet Ryan-Davis ’13 continues to break school records as she ran the women’s 800 meter in 2:11.82, setting a new Dragone record. Ryan-Davis’s fellow DMR relay team member, Alexandra Morris ’16 finished first in both the women’s 400-meter dash and 200-meter dash, taking the top spot in both spring events while, Chelsea Montello ’16 placed first in the women’s 100-meter dash to complete the women’s sprint dominance.
Tri-captain Kara Walker ’13 bested the competition in the long jump with a 5.16 meter jump, before competing in the women’s 4x100-meter relay alongside Emma McGuirk ’14, Lauren Henry ’16 and Chelsea Montello ’16. The four bested the relay teams from Plattsburgh and Colby-Sawyer by over a second with a time of 52.12.
“The weather was pretty unfavorable on Saturday,” said Walker. “So being able to complete smooth handoffs and run a good race against the wind is definitely a confidence booster looking ahead [to NESCACs].”
Looking ahead to next week, Walker continued, “Our team lives for NESCACs. Until now, it’s basically every man for himself, but at this meet we truly came together as a team. Every performance and every point counts. Both the men’s and women’s teams have a great shot at winning this year, so there’s a lot of buzz and excitement, but we’re all trying to rest up and save our energy for when we need it most. We are very ready, and I think we can expect some big performances.”
Jack Davies ’13 may not have competed at Middlebury this weekend, but he did not take the weekend off, instead traveling to Princeton to compete in the Larry Ellis Invitational at Princeton on Friday, April 19. There Davies ran the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 8:52.08, a personal best by two seconds, breaking his own school outdoor record by over nine seconds and earning himself the honor of being ranked the top racer at the Division III level in that event. Additionally, Davies’ record time clocks in as the 10th best all-time in Division III.
“It was a great race for Jack,” said distance coach Nicole Wilkerson. “It was just a good opportunity for him to race the steeple. He ran strong and pulled away with 1,000 meters to go, and won by a good 15 meters. He ran strong and looked good, and will look to break 8:50 over the next few weeks.”
The men and women’s teams will gear up this week in preparation for the April 27 NESCAC championships at Tufts University.
(04/24/13 4:41pm)
Environmentalists across North America have recently become infatuated with the XL Keystone Pipeline System. The current proposals will expand the pipeline system to provide oil from Alberta, Canada to Texas. What many environmental groups protesting this pipeline fail to comprehend is that the oil will come to market, pipeline or no pipeline.
The United States has consumed between 18 and 21 million barrels of oil a day for roughly five years, of which Canada was the largest provider last year at an estimated 2.7 million barrels per day. Canada will increase this number over the next decade. The expansion of the Keystone Pipeline system is a crucial part of those plans. And as an environmentalist, Canadian and student living in Vermont, I find it bizarre that so many people would be against its construction. The prevention of this pipeline’s construction will simply mean that more oil is delivered to U.S. refineries by rail. There is no technology currently on the horizon that will replace oil in North America.
“There are hidden costs people aren’t taking into account when you are considering wind, solar and hydro power,” says Glenn Dawson, a geologist and president of Williston Hunter Canada Inc. “Solar panels are made entirely from oil. Wind turbines from steal that require iron ore, coal and energy to produce, ship and install. And while hydro might provide efficient energy, you can never reclaim an enormous dam, but you can reclaim the land from a mine.”
So who gains from protesting and preventing the XL expansions?
Not environmentalists. The political capital being drained from otherwise productive initiatives is unbelievable. No one is applying the appropriate amount of pressure to Congress and the administration to institute proper oversight and double well drilling required in every other modern oil-producing country in the world, which could have prevented the BP Horizon catastrophe.
Consumers lose too, as the oil will come to American market by rail, an inefficient form of transportation. 590,000 barrels a day will travel the XL into U.S. markets. A “whale belly” car carries roughly 33,000 gallons or 1,050 barrels. That means that 560 rail cars will need to be loaded with oil, shipped from Alberta to Houston while stopping at customs and other cities and then unloaded constantly. Adding in track repair and maintenance, the financial costs are enormous.
“Most people believe they are paying WTI (West Texas Intermediate) prices at the pump, but they’re not. They are paying Brent, which is $10-20 more per barrel. The people making the money are the middlemen that can buy Albertan oil at the wellhead for $45 and sell to gulf refineries after shipping by rail for the $100 Brent price. The pipeline should help narrow that gap for American consumers,” explained Mr. Dawson.
The environment also loses. How many extra tons of fossil fuels will be burned in order to accomplish this? It takes approximately one gallon of oil energy to transport 1 rail car approximately 440 miles. With the route to Houston roughly 2,500 miles, each shipment of 560 rail cars will take roughly 3,180 gallons of oil energy to transfer that oil from Alberta to Houston. And let’s not forget the huge impact of extra super tankers docking, loading and shipping oil from Africa and the Persian Gulf.
“We have the toughest regulations in the world,” reasons Mr. Dawson. “Do people really think that Venezuela, Africa and Russia adhere to the same environmental standards that Canadians and Americans do? We are constantly increasing our efficiency with water use and this oil will protect American needs from embargo, war and any other unforeseeable diplomatic squabbles.”
The relationship between two of the closest allies in the history of the world also suffers. The debate over this pipeline is a thorn in the side of two countries that are quite literally family. I love both countries. I am Canadian, but I call Vermont home, whether I’m traveling in America or Europe. And by the way, Canada is part of America too — it’s North America. And if I could have it my way there wouldn’t be a border between us.
However, there is a bright spot. Norwegian light crude (Brent) and Persian oil will both be cheaper relative to Alberta synthetic crude and Bakken shale oil from North Dakota and Montana. Americans will purchase more from abroad without even realizing it. The pipeline proposed to cross the Rockies and deposit crude into super tankers in the Pacific Ocean for distribution in Chinese and Japanese markets will also gain steam.
Meanwhile, the U.S. economy has steadily recovered for the past two years following the recession, steadily expanding demand for synthetic crude. Refineries along the gulf coast have met this demand by importing larger quantities of crude from Venezuela, whose profits go directly into a regime that promotes distinctly anti-American sentiment.
“The XL expansion is a win, win, win, for the environment, international political strength within America and the economy,” said Mr. Dawson, who feels that the facts are being ignored or skewed. “The pipeline provides a safe source of oil that allows Americans to pursue interests without the fear of an embargo. It will even help prevent Brent from controlling prices at the pump. Is oil ever going to be completely clean? No, probably not, but we are always trying to produce oil more and more efficiently.”
Donald Donaldson '13.5 is from Toronto, Canada
(04/10/13 9:48pm)
The Middlebury men’s and women’s track and field teams competed in two meets in California over spring recess, March 23 and 30, and in a three-team meet at Springfield College on Saturday, April 6, with the teams competing well in all three meets.
The Panthers opened up the season at Point Loma Nazarene University on March 23 in the Ross and Sharon Irwin Invitational. After practicing outside only sporadically during the preceding weeks, the Panthers were excited to get outside in California.
“They’re two different sports, indoor track and outdoor track,” said coach Martin Beatty. “So we jumped into our first meet almost cold. And I was really happy with the performances that we had.”
Kevin Chu ’14 won the 100-meter hurdles and placed third in the 400-meter hurdles. Panther men Bryan Holtzman ’14 and Diego Galan Donlo ’14 also captured victories in the 100 meters and high jump, respectively. Additionally, the 4x800-meter relay team, comprised of Jack Davies ’13, Patrick Hebble ’13, Sam Craft ’14 and Wilder Schaaf ’14 paced the field with a time of 7:50.44.
The women’s 4x800-meter team of Juliet Ryan-Davis ’13, Addie Tousley ’13, Alison Maxwell ’15 and Sarah Guth ’15 also finished first. Ryan-Davis also won the 400 meters while Tousley won the 1,500 and Dana Tripp ’14 out tossed the rest of the field with a hammer throw of 128’8”.
There were more impressive finishes on both the men’s and women’s sides. Davies placed second in the 1,500 meters. First-years Mark Perry ’16 and Aaron de Toledo ’16 finished 2-3 in the 5,000 meters. The 4x100-meter relay team of Holtzman, Chu, Fritz Parker ’15 and Sam Rives ’15 also finished second. Also finishing 2-3 were Jason McCallum ’14 and Conor Simons ’16 in the pole vault. Peter Hetzler ’14 placed second in the 400 meters. For the women, Maxwell finished third in the 1,500 meters. Also finishing third were Grace Doering ’13 in the high jump and Carly Andersen ’16 in the javelin.
Middlebury competed at the same venue on March 30 and again experienced a great deal of success.
“We’re working pretty hard during the week,” said Beatty, “so the second meet, the people who are well prepared from the whole year, who are in great shape, they’re going to respond well from the hard work and do well.”
Craft defeated the field of 68 in the 800 meters, while Hebble won the 1,500 meters, Louis Cornacchione ’13 won the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 56.55. In the women’s 800 meters, Ryan-Davis, Tousley and O’Brien finished 1-3. In the 5,000 meters, Katie Carlson, Guth and Caroline Guiot pulled off the same feat. Emily Dodge ’13 won the 100-meter hurdles. Andersen bested the field with a javelin throw of 130’. Tripp finished second in the women’s hammer throw, while Chu placed second in the men’s 110-meter hurdles and Deklan Robinson ’16 finished second in the high jump.
Additionally, Davies won the 3,000 steeplechase, earning himself NESCAC Performer of the Week accolades
“He’s a stud,” said Beatty. “He’s expected to do really well. We’re hoping he’ll end up being a national champion; he has that type of capability.”
When asked if any newcomers had impressed during the week in California, Beatty singled out thrower Carly Andersen. Andersen finished second in the javelin throw at the first meet and won the second meet. She also competed in the discus and hammer throws.
“She cranked out a great throw of 130 feet in the second meet. And there’s more there, she has a couple of technique things that she needs to work on. She can go even further and hopefully go to NCAAs.”
“I was throwing okay in practices,” said Andersen, “The first throw of the second meet was a PR by about two feet, and I hadn’t thrown that far since junior year of high school.”
Andersen has received coaching and guidance from older throwers and assistant coach Luke Hotte.
“There are a lot of little tips that people have about how to prepare for a meet,” said Andersen, “Just how to practice and how to be deliberate so you get the best results. NCAA nationals is the top 22 women and I think I’m 16th or something now so hopefully I keep it up and get to go.”
Beatty commented on the team’s trip to California and its value to the team.
“It’s a great bonding trip,” he said.
On Saturday, April 6, Middlebury competed against Springfield and Bowdoin in a meet hosted by Springfield. Both the men’s and women’s teams won the three-team meet.
Alexandra Morris ’16 won the 400 meters. Andersen again was victorious in the javelin throw. The women dominated the 1,500 meters, with Ryan-Davis, Maxwell, O’Brien and Guth finishing 1-4.
For the men, Holtzman won the 100 meters and Hetzler the 400 meters. Schaaf took home the victory in the 1,500 meters. Stu Fram ’13, Taylor Shortsleeve ’15 and James Lynch ’16 swept the podium in the 110-meter hurdles. Chu and Jake Wood ’15 went 1-2 in the 400-meter hurdles. Anthony Lee ’13 won the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 9:23.29. The Middlebury men’s teams won both the 4x100-meter and 4x400-meter relays. Kyle Harrold ’13 also won the pole vault and Dan Bent ’13 won the triple jump for the Panthers.
(04/10/13 4:19pm)
Over the past few weeks, tensions on the Korean Peninsula have risen to levels not seen in years, perhaps decades. The latest escalation in militaristic rhetoric and conflict preparation began soon after North Korea conducted a nuclear test on Feb. 12. That underground test, North Korea’s third in less than a decade, was seen as a sign of the country’s continued defiance of international condemnation. If the test succeeded in “miniaturizing” a nuclear device for missile deployment, which is not likely but possible, the test would mark a turning point in North Korea’s nuclear program.
The United Nations Security Council vehemently opposed North Korea’s actions and approved tough sanctions on March 7, affecting banking, trade, travel and the import of luxury goods. Unlike previous sanctions, this latest response gained unanimous council approval, with China voting in the affirmative to condemn the actions of North Korea’s regime, which it has strongly supported for decades with public rhetoric and food and fuel aid. Many national security experts say that this is a sign that China’s patience with North Korea’s defiant acts is wearing thin.
Following the approval of new sanctions and the start of joint Korean-American military exercises in the region, North Korea promptly declared null the armistice agreement between the North and the South that has kept peace on the peninsula since the end of hostilities in the Korean War in 1953. At a border outpost in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), North Korea has turned off the phone that provides a direct line of communication between the two sides. In 2003 and 2009, the North also declared invalid the armistice in response to military exercises.
Just prior to the Security Council vote, North Korea also threatened preemptive nuclear strikes against the United States. Most experts agree that the North does not yet have the capability to deliver nuclear warheads with Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). It is more likely that the North has the ability to strike South Korea, Japan and even American bases in Guam with mid-range missiles. Even so, the security alliance between the U.S. and both South Korea and Japan would obligate an American response to any aggression from the North. There are 28,500 American soldiers stationed in South Korea alone.
Last week, North Korea barred hundreds of South Korean employees from entering the Kaesong joint industrial complex, one of the few areas of cooperation between the two sides that also employs 50,000 North Korean workers. Furthermore, the North Koreans said they would be restarting nuclear operations at its Yongbyon complex, which was shut down in 2007 as part of the aid-for-disarmament negotiations known as Six Party Talks. At the end of the week, North Korea informed diplomatic missions in Pyongyang, including that of Russia, that it could no longer guarantee their safety and security.
The United States has responded by deploying anti-missile defense systems to Guam. It has also postponed an ICBM missile test to avoid escalating tensions. The U.S. commander in South Korea has canceled a trip to Washington to monitor the situation on the peninsula.
Although the escalation in rhetoric and war preparations is grave and serious, many experts believe that Kim Jong-Un is simply trying to consolidate power within the hawkish military and bolster his domestic legitimacy. Some argue that North Korea’s actions are all too familiar and it does not have the capability or will to follow through.
(04/10/13 1:50pm)
Middlebury students welcome the arrival of spring in many ways, the least pleasant of which may be stress related to housing. As randomly assigned housing numbers are released and superblock applications considered, many students become anxious at the prospect of securing “good” housing for the following academic year. Before considering why this system causes such stress for students, it is important to acknowledge that housing here reflects and enhances the overall liberal arts mission of the College in meaningful ways.
At Middlebury, students are taught to think outside the box, make connections across a range of disciplines and engage with a variety of different perspectives. The fact that on-campus housing is guaranteed for all four years here facilitates these goals and helps to build a strong community in which discussions continue beyond the classroom and into organized events, casual lunchtime conversation and, of course, dorm life. Having the vast majority of students concentrated on campus as opposed to scattered throughout the surrounding area facilitates a richer, more comprehensive learning experience and ensures that no student is too far from class, the dining hall, facilities or their friends.
In addition, it is hard to complain about the quality and diversity of housing options offered. Upperclassmen who live in interest houses, for example, enjoy great spaces themselves and offer engaging programming to the rest of the student body throughout the year. Few other schools can boast having language houses, social houses and superblocks as well.
Managing such a wide-ranging housing system for 2,500 students is undoubtedly a difficult task, and Residential Systems Coordinator Karin Hall-Kolts and others do an admirable job of placing students in a fair manner. In color-coded emails, students are given step-by-step instructions on how to navigate the housing process. The annual housing fair also gives students an opportunity to connect with the appropriate people and ask questions.
Despite these merits, however, housing anxiety arises each year, and with good reason in some cases. Upperclassmen assigned housing numbers have no way of knowing what numbers their peers have received, which makes coordinating with others and deciding which house to apply for difficult. Releasing a list of all students and their assigned numbers would likely reduce the stress involved with strategizing about the “right” house to apply for. Doing so would also clear up any incorrect assumptions that numbers are assigned unfairly. If the administration chooses not to release a full list of assigned numbers, students should take the lead and develop a voluntary system to share the information, making the process easier for everyone. Other measures to make the system more transparent include holding housing fairs after numbers have been released, giving students an opportunity to interact with Hall-Kolts and each other with more pertinent information.
The underlying cause of housing angst may also relate to the commons system itself, which was never fully implemented as envisioned; though original plans had proposed a more extensive system of neighborhood-like communities, the economic recession delayed the full completion of this project. While the poor timing is not the administration’s fault, the commons system as a whole may hurt some students when it comes to housing. Obviously, everyone’s experience is unique; some students love living with the same people for two years and value the relationships that otherwise may not have formed, while others feel that the system unfairly limits their options, making it harder to meet new students and live with friends. We understand that the commons system has logistical merits, as it reduces the number of students who must be entered into the campus-wide housing draw. However, the commons system does not work for everyone, including Febs who may feel isolated from their commons and awkwardly thrown into their sophomore year dorm after a semester elsewhere. The recent decision to allow sophomores to live in social houses may also open up more flexibility on this front.
While students, faculty and staff should work together to ensure that everyone has a positive housing experience, the administration itself will have to acknowledge the need for more housing space in the near future. Rising enrollment and an increasing number of students choosing not to study abroad make construction of new dorms or conversion of existing buildings likely in the coming years. With areas like the mods long past their expiration date and the future of large spaces such as Prescott House undecided, there is an opportunity to develop new housing options that appeal to broader swaths of the Middlebury student body and remain in line with the College’s core liberal arts mission.
(03/20/13 11:07pm)
It is not surprising that the word “occupation,” was not mentioned in Dennis Ross's lecture on Tuesday night. The word does not exist in the discourse of the Israeli government, it wasn’t mentioned during the farcical elections for the Israeli Parliament recently nor does it exist in the language of American policy makers.
As Noam Sheizaf showed with his article on 972mag.com, Ross’s agenda for the peace process accepted the Israeli leadership’s conditions “before negotiations even began.” There can be no peace process without acknowledgement of the reality of occupation and apartheid. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice.”
Ross operates under a false assumption that Israel and Palestine are equal sides of a symmetrical conflict. In the same way that there has been no symmetry between white people and African-Americans during Jim Crow, between white Afrikaners and natives during South African apartheid or between colonialists and indigenous Americans during the past 500 years of European colonialism, thus there is no symmetry between Israeli occupiers and occupied Palestinians.
The everyday reality of racism, systemic inequality and brutal apartheid is purposefully ignored, clouded by statements about policies and the region’s complexity. Perhaps after years of yielding so much power and influence, Dennis Ross is incapable of understanding life within a Palestinian refugee camp. What was particularly astonishing, however, was his misinformation about the reasons for which a refugee camp exists.
In an astonishing feat of deception, Ross blamed the Palestinians for maintaining refugee camps. He suggested that the Palestinians end the refugee situation and build houses in the “vast” spaces south of Bethlehem to house the refugees. He did not acknowledge that it is virtually impossible for a Palestinian to get a building permit from the Israeli Occupation Administration. He did not acknowledge that almost 1,100 Palestinians, most of them children, were displaced by housing demolitions in 2011 alone.
Most significantly, he ignores or is not aware of Israel’s responsibility for Palestinian refugees. In the systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, over a million Palestinians were forced out of what Ross considers Israel. This continues today to be one of the most neglected acts of ethnic cleansing in the 20th century, and its aftermath of human devastation still bears effect on the lives of millions in the Middle East and across the world.
In his version of the two-state option, Ross envisions a Palestinian state that is butchered and divided by gigantic, oppressive walls, with no control over resources (the separation barrier annexes the water aquifer to Israel) and no freedom of movement, very similar to the South African Bantustans during the Apartheid regime. He ignored the fact that the occupation of Gaza has never ended, despite the disengagement in 2005, and that IDF control over sea, land and air turns Gaza into the largest open-air prison in the world, still recovering from the deaths and injuries of thousands, and without a nonviolent avenue to transgress its pain. Having Ross share his agenda on campus is like having a speaker endorse South African Apartheid during the 80’s.
But now, as Middlebury’s environmental leanings lead it in Gulliver’s steps to divestment from fossil fuels and arms manufacturing, we recall that we have divested from Apartheid, and that no pro-Apartheid speaker would receive a microphone in our halls in the same way that no white supremacist or eugenicist would. As we embrace the values of environmental justice, it is imperative we recognize that divestment from fossil fuels and arms manufacturing is the first step towards divestment from Israeli Apartheid.
The 15th article of the Principles of Environmental Justice asserts that “Environmental Justice opposes military occupation, repression and exploitation of lands, peoples and cultures, and other life forms.” By claiming the principles of Environmental Justice as we move forward on divestment, we therefore take a step towards Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) on Israeli occupation. BDS is a nonviolent tactic and a global call, drawing from the struggle against South African Apartheid, to end the occupation. To engage in these efforts, join Justice for Palestine, the new student club, by sending an email to jfp@middlebury.edu. Continue the discussion at 4:30 p.m. in Dana Auditorium today with the screening of the Academy Award nominee Five Broken Cameras and the following discussion with Instructor in Arabic Ahmad Almallah.
Some define education as the ability of making connections between concepts. Middlebury students have made the connection between war on people and war on the climate. The same economic forces benefit from both. It is time to heed the call, listen to the voices of those oppressed by our endowment and by the figures of authority we somehow continue to welcome and take a step for justice. Coming back to Martin Luther King, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
AMITAI BEN-ABBA '15.5 is from Jerusalem
