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(10/08/20 10:00am)
Three months ago, we editorialized on the importance of working and thinking beyond the Instagram stories and Twitter trends revolving around performative anti-racist advocacy in the wake of the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and many more. “As protests and racial justice begin to leave the national discourse — our actions from this point onward are key in implementing concrete changes and forwarding genuine change,” the Editorial Board wrote in July.
Implementing these concrete changes at Middlebury — that dismantle structures of institutional racism and engender cultural shifts that decenter whiteness and white comfort — are more imperative and urgent than ever before. On Friday, Sept. 25, just hours after more than 500 hundred students marched on College Park protesting the Breonna Taylor verdict, Rodney Adams ’21 and Jameel Uddin ’22 were accosted by two white students who referred to them using a racial slur. Then, on Thursday, the Political Science department in conjuction with the widely contentious Alexander Hamilton Forum sponsored a debate titled “1619 or 1776: Was America Founded on Slavery?”
It has been made painstakingly clear that Middlebury must come to reckon with our complicity in the occurrence of overt hate speech — but also grapple with how institutional recognition of certain events leads BIPOC students to question their place on this campus. We must also recognize for whom the consequences of such events have just been made clear, and who has always known such stark injustices to be apparent and normalized.
While many white students expressed shock and dismay in response to these incidents, entrenched racism on campus has always been a demoralizing reality for BIPOC students. For them, the use of explicit racial slurs, an academic climate that treats the lived experiences of BIPOC students as topical academic theories and the morally deficient outcomes of police brutality verdicts aren’t just unsurprising — they’re expected.
Students, in their own right, have a vital obligation to reach far beyond their aesthetic Instagram infographics to bridge this disconnect. And while holding our peers accountable day in and day out is critical, we cannot let the administration off the hook for the role they play in abetting racism on campus.
This summer, our inboxes were peppered with promises we have yet to see reach fruition, from the half-a-million dollars to support nebulous “anti-racist programming” to obscure plans for a new task force, a DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) action plan and supposed initiatives at the board and trustee level. Students remain in the dark about these initiatives, and we urge the administration to double down on a much-needed sense of urgency that has appeared absent thus far.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]We cannot wait for an amorphous five-year plan to tackle racism on campus. We must see material steps being taken as soon as possible — not just ambiguous lip service directed towards students who require both answers and healing. [/pullquote]
These steps in question are not a mystery. The letter to President Patton published last week in The Campus by Adams and Kaila Thomas ’21, the organizer of the Breonna Taylor protest, outlined a myriad of definitive demands ranging from Black faculty and staff recruitment efforts and a comprehensive Black Studies program to a compensated body of Black students responsible for creating distinct anti-racist initiatives alongside the Senior Leadership Group.
It is becoming increasingly evident that Middlebury does not have a concrete framework for addressing the racism that is embedded in the fabric of our institution. The administration has not only lacked adequate clarity and urgency — they are also unprepared.
This dilemma draws a parallel with another serious aspect of Middlebury life that we have been considerably prepared for. When it comes to Covid-19, we have extensive infrastructure in place to tackle the general campus culture surrounding everyday actions. Conversations regarding Covid-19 safety and responsibility aren’t just encouraged, they’re unavoidable. From classrooms to residence halls to required trainings, Middlebury has ensured that this discourse has become a natural part of our daily lives.
But why is it can we not have the same all-encompassing focus on campus toward anti-racist work? Why have dialogues surrounding race and race-based advocacy been confined to a specific few while many — predominantly white — members of our community get to skate by? Why is it that some professors can choose to go the entire semester without once having to confront inequities in their own classrooms?
It is long past time that we as a community stop placing these conversations and actions on the back burner. We students have a lot of work to do, but we expect that the powers that be will meet us halfway. We can no longer afford to be surprised by manifestations of both structural and interpersonal racism at Middlebury, and we can no longer be complicit in enabling the circumstances that allow such manifestations to be perpetuated.
This editorial represents the opinions of the Middlebury Campus’s editorial board.
(10/08/20 9:58am)
Like nearly all campus operations, the process for picking up packages from the mail center this year has been altered to comply with social distancing protocols. This fall, the pick-up location was moved entirely to the warehouse, although envelopes and small packages can still be retrieved from students’ mailboxes in McCullough Student Center.
In a normal year, package pick-up would be split between the warehouse and the mail center in McCullough during the beginning months of the academic year. The typical system for package pick-up in the McCullough mail center did not allow for proper social distancing, according to Jacki Galenkamp, the mail center supervisor. Students usually form a line that extends from the pick-up window and runs parallel to the wall of mailboxes.
“If you were to have to do that six feet apart, it could definitely be problematic,” Galenkamp said.
Moving package pick-up to the warehouse allows for proper social distancing outside.
At the beginning of every academic year, the mail center receives a high volume of packages as students order dorm room and school supplies. Last year, the mail center received about 30,000 packages in the first two months of school, according to Galenkamp.
“The warehouse is [normally] open for about the first month of school, because we get between 1,000 and 1,500 packages a day and a lot of those are large items,” Galenkamp said.
But this year, the mail center has been receiving fewer packages than other years, possibly because of the abbreviated in-person semester and instructions for students to pack lightly.
The new package pick-up location has some benefits for the mail center staff and the package delivery staff. The loading dock, where packages are dropped off by mail carriers, is located near the warehouse, making transporting the packages easier.
“To have all of the packages being processed in one space has definitely been a very positive thing because we don’t have to split our work,” Galenkamp said.
Additionally, the warehouse is not near other sources of crowding. This is in contrast with the mail center, which is near the Grille, Crossroads and Midd Xpress.
The transition to the warehouse has been smooth, according to Katie Wilmore ’23, a student worker at the mail center. “We are essentially doing the same thing but in a bigger space,” Wilmore said.
Eventually, package pick-up may have to move back inside McCullough since the warehouse does not have insulation for the colder months.
”We had a couple of days when it was frozen overnight, where we had some issues with the computers,” Galenkamp said. As the weather turns colder, Galenkamp is hopeful that adjustments can be made to keep computers in the warehouse running so the mail center staff can continue to operate from the warehouse.
“Our number one priority is to be safe and to get everything done in a timely manner,” Galenkamp said. “We thought we were gonna be moving back [to McCullough], but if the weather holds, there’s no reason that we have to, so, we’ll see.”
(10/08/20 9:56am)
With fall student events canceled or restricted by Covid-19 safety guidelines, many students are wondering where their $436 student activities fee is going this year. The fee was set by the Board of Trustees before students were sent home in the spring and, like tuition, has not since been reduced.
Many traditionally expensive student events, like concerts and dances, are not possible this semester, and many clubs will not be able to execute their usual programming. But budget proposals, according to SGA Finance co-Directors Mason Olmsted ’21 and Alice Hudson ’21, reflect the dedication and energy of student organization leaders.
“It blows my mind how creative these clubs have gotten,” Hudson said. “It goes to show the passion of the students with these organizations.”
All non-remote students paid the activities fee, bringing the total pool of money to $1.2 million. The SGA Finance Committee allocates the money through review and approval of club budgets, a process that usually takes place at the end of spring semester. Because students were sent home before that budgeting process could begin last spring, the meetings between the Finance Committee and student clubs were moved to this fall.
Students who are studying remotely can still participate in student activities, and many clubs are adding virtual components to better include remote members.
Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB) is the largest recipient of these funds. Their budget this year is on par with previous years but is allocated to an array of new programming such as virtual escape rooms and trivia night.
MCAB is also hoping to use its funds to expand its collaborations with and support of other student organizations. MCAB President Trishabelle Manzano ’21 said she is especially excited for opportunities to partner with groups like the International Students Organization (ISO) and Middlebury College Musical Theatre Organization.
All speakers that MCAB is considering scheduling will be virtual. With no travel costs and, in some cases, reduced speaker fees for virtual talks, a wider array of voices is now possible within the MCAB budget.
Manzano said that the process of rethinking their programming and spending has allowed MCAB leaders to also reevaluate their methods.
“We’re hoping to retain as much spirit as possible, but also to create a shift toward being more inclusive and intentional about the program that we put on to best support the student body, rather than to just remain with what we’ve traditionally historically done in the past,” Manzano said.
Other student clubs are also rethinking their programs and proposing new ways to engage members.
On Tap, Middlebury’s tap dance group, increased their budget to fund the purchase of individual, portable wooden dance mats so that they can practice and perform outdoors.
The women’s ultimate frisbee team asked for money to purchase cones that could be spread around the pitch at six-foot intervals to help team members maintain physical distance. Players can only travel from cone to cone in gameplay. In the spring, when their season typically picks up, the team may even play matches with these adapted rules.
As they are currently unable to host rallies, Feminist Action at Middlebury is requested funding for Masterclasses in Adobe Illustrator and other programs that are useful tools for activism.
Alongside these innovative proposals, some clubs have received funding for what are typical major events, like tournaments and trips, that may not actually be possible later in the year.
“The way we've been operating so far is assuming that events will get to happen this spring,” Hudson said. “That's the big question mark: what is the spring going to look like?”
Since the student activities fee is the same as last year’s, the Finance Committee is able to make funds available for those tentative events. Hudson said that if those events do not take place, the SGA Finance Committee will be “getting a hefty reserve of returned allocations.”
The Finance Committee currently has $110,000 in reserve money following the club budget approval process. Clubs are able to submit budget proposals or new money requests until mid-spring, and having reserves helps ensure that funds are available for those circumstances. The remaining reserve funds and any returned money from clubs who underspent their budgets are allotted to various projects at year’s end, like the proposed MiddKidd Mega Project last spring.
Just under $70,000 of the pooled fee money covers expenses unrelated to club spending. This year student break bus services have been expanded to address challenging travel circumstances due to the pandemic, with a total cost of roughly $25,000 for the year. Additionally, $7,800 went toward the cost of school-wide activities portal Presence, and $4,150 was set aside to fund February outdoor orientation. $10,000 went towards Addison County Transit Resources (ACTR) subsidies.
Other destinations for funding include the $3,500 J-term workshop fund, a $5,000 SGA retreat, campaign reimbursements totaling $1,000, $500 in SGA survey prizes, and various awards amounting to $6,000. Most of the fee money, however, is dedicated to funding the budgets of student organizations.
Olmsted and Hudson do not want clubs to let the possibility that events could be canceled or the difficulty in planning given Covid-19 safety guidelines keep them from applying for funding.
“We don't want any clubs to feel like it would be too hard to do anything this semester because of Covid,” Hudson said. “We have the same amount of money, and so we really want clubs to come in and take advantage of this and get creative with their budgets this year.”
(10/01/20 9:59am)
(10/01/20 9:59am)
Dear President Laurie Patton,
“Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!” chant more than 500 voices approaching from a distance on Friday, Sept. 25. Were you to step out onto the street right outside your door, you would be able to see the leadership, solidarity and humanity that Middlebury expects of its students. Along with a quarter of the student population on campus, faculty, staff members, administrators and community members all made the commitment to protest, advocating for the protection and safety of Black Lives, and to denounce the unjust decision made in regard to the fate of the murderers of Breonna Taylor.
You would have heard the speeches of Breanna Moitt ’24, from Los Angeles, California; Luka Bowen ’22, from Tucson, Arizona — and me, Kaila Thomas ’21, from Kennebunk, Maine. We poured our hearts out about how hard it is to be Black in a white space, and about how we wonder where the anti-racism initiatives you promised are this semester. Maybe you would have noticed the cheers of approval following what we said, and the excitement when I asked everybody to line up, socially distanced, to march and chant on the bridge. You would have been there for the moment of silence that followed.
And this is where Rodney’s story begins.
I’m Rodney Adams ’21 from Dorchester, Massachusetts. Around 10 p.m. on that same Friday, I was talking about my day with my best friend Jameel Uddin, acknowledging my peers' success in organizing a peaceful protest. We talked about how proud we were of ourselves for attending, but also how hopeful we were for the Middlebury community.
Seconds later, we stepped out of my car and were reduced to just “n******” by a white male student — and a bystanding white male did nothing to stop it. As a Black man, I knew they wanted me to throw everything away, provoking me to forfeit my livelihood. But I was raised by a Black family who practiced love in the face of hate. Looking right in front of me, I saw an evil that so many Black Americans face; a reality I was taught to expect while knowing that those two white men will never be subject to the same circumstances.
Overwhelmed with emotion — pain, hurt and anger — I walked away knowing my power as a Black man. The entire Middlebury community immediately came to my side; my fellow classmates, my coworkers at the Grille and the CCI, alumni and faculty.
Almost everyone but you.
It is time to step out of the Twilight years. The last definitive action toward racial equity Middlebury took was 197 years ago when they allowed a Black man to graduate from this institution. And at the time they had no understanding of this “progressive” act, since they did not know he was Black until after he was admitted. The distance from College Park to your stairs is merely a few steps, but there are so many more steps that need to be taken in order to decrease the distance from yourself and the Black community here at Middlebury. We do see more Black faces on campus; however, representation means nothing if there is still a culture actively working against our identities.
We want an explanation as to why you were not in attendance at the march in solidarity with Black lives, why you did not recognize the accomplishments of the college community, and why you failed to acknowledge the implications of a racially charged incident that same night in a timely manner.
We want to elevate Black voices.
We want you to continuously and actively support the Black community.
We want a Black PubSafe officer.
We want a Black Studies Program with an expanded course selection and a course catalog that represents the diverse contributions we have made to this world.
We want a Black faculty & staff recruitment program.
We want a working body composed of Black students who are compensated for helping create anti-racism programming on this campus that will annually assess and review the school’s commitment to an anti-racist framework, working closely alongside the Senior Leadership Group.
We want a detailed outline of the plans for the $500,000 Anti-Racism Fund. We want a required annual anti-bias training session for all students, faculty, and staff to be completed before arrival on campus.
We want the Community Bias Response Team to achieve its intended purpose and to not just be performative.
We want students involved in discriminatory harassment cases to be required to complete an anti-racist workshop. Education and reflection must be implemented as a consequence to these incidents.
We expect a timely response to this open letter with real answers and actions to back up our questions and requests. As Angela Davis courageously said, “You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.”
Sincerely,
Kaila Thomas ’21 and Rodney Adams ’21
Kaila Thomas and Rodney Adams are members of the class of 2021.
(10/01/20 9:58am)
Last Thursday, Kaila Thomas ’21 left her Russian class feeling a burning need to do something. The night before, the verdict was announced that none of the Louisville police officers who shot and killed Breonna Taylor in March would be charged for her death. Yet, despite the grief and rage boiling inside of Thomas, the campus seemed unperturbed, the calm unruffled. She took to Instagram, calling for students to march with her the next day in protest of the verdict.
Despite receiving little more than 24 hours of notice, the campus community came out in force. Over 500 people, almost all students with some faculty and community members, attended the protest. Nearly a quarter of the 2,219 students living on campus or in the adjacent area joined.
Students gathered on Battell Beach and the McCullough lawn beginning at 2 p.m. on Friday, proceeding in carefully coordinated groups of 10 and filing down to the college green in neatly arranged pairs for the rally. College staff helped coordinate the march and ensured protesters followed social distancing rules.
Student speakers addressed the crowd at the rally, expressing what it means to be Black on Middlebury’s campus and in the U.S. They called for the college and Middlebury community to take decisive action against racism locally, decrying them for their perceived inaction over the last few months.
Over the summer, Middlebury received a $500,000 donation for anti-racist initiatives on campus. More than a month into the semester, the college has yet to announce plans to put that money to use or reveal a timeline for when they will make and implement those decisions. Some students have become frustrated by their inaction.
“I want Middlebury to show that Black lives matter to them and not just raise money,” Thomas said in an interview with The Campus. “They need to put their mouth where their money is and actually take action.”
In his speech at the rally, Luka Bowen ’22 called for the college to seek out Black students and directly ask them what they need. In an interview with The Campus, he advocated for the college to direct the money toward present material needs, such as financial aid and textbooks, rather than forming unnecessary committees and centers.
“We already have communities that we can go to,” Bowen said. “The real problem is that many Black students can barely afford to go here.”
Both Thomas and Bowen criticized the college for failing to prioritize anti-racism this semester in the same way they focused on Covid-19. While the college mandated that all students take two SafeColleges courses totalling 212 minute on the new Covid-19 protocols, they provided no anti-racism training. Middview orientation programming fell under criticism for a clumsy attempt to insert anti-racism training into their plans at the last minute, centering white students over their BIPOC peers.
“I am more afraid of getting brutalized by the police than getting coronavirus, and I’m scared of getting Covid-19,” Thomas said in her speech. “This is as pressing as coronavirus measures right now.”
Bowen also advocated for the college to defund Public Safety, which he believes exists solely to “harass Black students.” Calls for the college to restructure the department and address its history of alleged racial profiling have grown over the past months.
Despite Middlebury’s promise to reduce public safety presence on campus, their roles have only increased as they have assumed the responsibility for enforcing Covid-19 health guidelines.
Bowen called for white students, faculty, staff and community members to step up and “take the baton” to help Black students fight racism in Middlebury.
“We cannot end the white killing spree of our neighbors, our siblings, our parents, children, friends or any Black person in our community alone. We cannot end racism alone,” Bowen said. “It is time for you white individuals to look inside yourselves and figure out what you can do to help without waiting to be asked.”
Beneath the specific calls for action ran an undercurrent of grief and rage, though not surprise. Breonna Taylor’s murder and trial followed an all-too-familiar pattern of police murdering Black people with impunity. Students were not shocked when the result was the same.
“I wasn’t surprised by the verdict,” said Melynda Payne ‘21. “We should never expect justice from a system that supports white supremacy.”
While Payne did not expect justice, that did not lessen the harm of its denial. Particularly heartbreaking for many students was the fact that the only officer indicted, Brett Hankison, was charged for wrongfully endangering Taylor’s neighbors. As one protester’s sign read, “they only got charged for the bullets that missed.” Several Black students expressed alternately feeling grief, rage and anguish.
“My name is [Breonna] too,” said Breanna Moitt ’24, one of the rally’s speakers, in an interview with The Campus. “I'm a Black woman too, and the idea of me and my death being worth so little that the bullets hitting someone else's door are worth more than my life was so painful to think about.”
For some, a small town in rural Vermont may feel far-removed from police shootings and the murder of Black people throughout the country, but, for many students, it is impossible for such events to feel distant.
“We like to pretend that campus is a bubble, but it's not,” Payne said. “[Racism and police brutality] affect my life here on campus as a Black woman; it's an active trauma. It's not just an Instagram story, it's my life.”
After the rally, the protesters marched out of the college green and into town, gathering on both sides of the Cross Street bridge and spilling out onto the nearby sidewalk as they held signs and chanted at the busy afternoon traffic.
The protest received mixed reactions from passing cars. Some honked in support; others yelled “Trump 2020” and “all lives matter” out of open windows. A truck with a Trump flag revved past protesters before circling back for another pass. One motorcyclist stuck his middle finger up at the crowd.
At the end of the bridge intersecting with South Pleasant Street, one maskless man stood mostly silently, facing protestors with a smirk on his face and a Trump-Pence 2020 sign in his hands. His occasional cheer of “four more years” was drowned out by students chanting “no Trump, no KKK, no facist U.S.A.”
Just hours after the protest, Rodney Adams ’21, who is Black, and Jameel Uddin ’22, who is South Asian, reported being the targets of a racial slur from two white students walking on campus. One student, who was not wearing a mask, reportedly told them, “Well look, here goes them n******.”
“Whether there was a protest on that day or not, sh*t like that is still going to happen,” Adams told The Campus. “It’s even more of a reason why we need action to start from the institution to say that this is not okay and that this shouldn’t be happening any more.”
One of the two students involved came forward, and the college has promised to address the incident.
Victoria Netter ’22, who is Black, said that she frequently experiences racism on campus, even if it isn't always as blatant as what happened to Adams and Uddin. Those everyday experiences of racism, compounded with larger scale events such as the death of Breonna Taylor and the failure of the grand jury to indict her killers, can wear Black students down and contribute to a sense of hopelessness and helplessness, according to Netter. Still, when Netter spoke to The Campus the night before the protest, she remained resolute and determined to attend the march and take action in Middlebury.
“I don’t feel hopeless, otherwise I wouldn’t be [protesting],” said Netter. “You can only keep moving forward if you have something to move forward to.”
Student activists plan to continue pushing for anti-racist change and racial justice at Middlebury throughout the upcoming year.
“This work, anti-racism work, starts locally,” Thomas said in her speech. “Change starts now, it starts here and it starts with us.”
(10/01/20 9:57am)
When campus closed for students last spring, Professor of Economics Caitlin Myers and Professor of Political Science Sarah Stroup — both on sabbatical at the time — began looking for ways to keep people academically connected. From their collaboration, the Faculty at Home Series emerged.
The Faculty at Home Series, a webinar-style lecture series open to the public, premiered on April 22 and has continued into the fall. Each session features a lecture by a Middlebury faculty member, followed by a brief Q&A moderated by Stroup or Myers. Since April, the series has featured twenty lecturers presenting on topics ranging from food systems’ transformation to Frankenstein. Attendees register online and then receive a Zoom link to join the live talk.
Stroup and Myers envisioned the series as a way to create a virtual public sphere where academic conversations could resume after the closure of the campus. The program received funding from the Engaged Listening Project, a “faculty training program with a focus on techniques to better engage students with controversial topics” led by Stroup, which had independent grant money at its disposal, specifically to support work in the digital space.
In partnership with the Office of Advancement, the series emphasizes connection with the broader Middlebury community, including alumni, parents and other friends of the college. The series also acts as an adaptation of the Faculty on the Road series, wherein similar programming is offered in cities across the country, according to Associate Vice President for Alumni and Parent Programs Meg Storey Groves ’85. Myers says that the Faculty at Home series is more accessible by nature. Since its start, the series has had 2,500 unique attendees from 49 states and 43 countries.
Spring and summer lectures have included as broad-ranging topics as “The perils of being black in public: A conversation with Carolyn Finney,” “Diagnosing Dissent: Soldiers and Psychiatry in Germany from WWI to the Nazi Era” and “Assessing coral reef resilience to thermal stress in the face of climate change.”
“It was a dream come true. For us to have this way of engaging in a really robust way was incredible,” Groves said.
Groves has received a number of messages from participants expressing their gratitude for and excitement about the series. In addition to being of value to the community as a whole, she sees the series as being mutually beneficial and rewarding for attendees and lecturers alike.
Professor of Political Science Bert Johnson says that the series offers attendees a distinct scholarly perspective of phenomena that they may not get from the daily news cycle, while simultaneously providing a platform for the scholars themselves.
“It’s important for scholars to be able to communicate with the broader interested public, and to be able to explain why we think what we think, why what we are observing is sometimes different than what you might see in the media or in other popular conversations,” Johnson said. “We offer a different perspective than what you get in the day to day.”
The talks also give current students a glimpse into the Middlebury community out in the world, which can be hard to conceptualize while attending the Vermont campus, according to Johnson. The next talk will be on October 16, featuring Assistant Professor of Film & Media Culture Natasha Ngaiza. It is entitled “‘Black Lives Matter’ and Abortion at the Movies.” Recordings of all previous lectures can be found at go/facultyathome.
(09/26/20 10:13pm)
A day of resistance and solidarity was soured by the actions of a pair of students behind Ross last night. Rodney Adams ’21 and Jameel Uddin ’22 were preparing for a relaxing evening after a day of protesting when two white students confronted and harassed them with a racial slur, according to Adams.
Per a campus-wide email from Chief Diversity Officer Miguel Fernández, one of the two students has come forward to the college and is speaking to the Department of Public Safety and Student Affairs.
At around 10 p.m., Uddin and Adams were walking along the north side of College Street turning right into HMKL Way behind Ross. They were approached by two white students walking towards Ridgeline and the townhouses: one was clothed, wearing a gaiter and carrying a traffic cone; the other was shirtless and maskless.
Initially, the masked man warned Adams about carrying alcohol outside as Public Safety officers were in the area. Adams, who is 21 and was carrying a closed bottle of wine, replied, “Okay, thank you.”
The other man, without a mask, then quickly approached Adams and Uddin and said, “Well look here goes them n******.” The man then stared down Uddin, who is South-Asian, and Adams, who is Black. Adams asked the man to repeat what he had said and to identify himself.
“He wanted a response,” Adams said in an interview with The Campus. “And it took everything out of us to not hit him.”
The other man, with the traffic cone still in tow, then called out, “Charlie, Charlie, c’mon, it’s time to go.” Both students then walked off towards the Ridgeline Suites.
About an hour after the incident, Adams posted a Twitter thread detailing the event titled, “Experiencing a hate crime first hand on Middlebury’s Campus a thread:”. The tweets quickly went viral, with students reposting screenshots of the tweets to their Instagram stories and professors and alumni replying to Adams’s original tweet. At time of publication, the top tweet in the thread had amassed over 200 retweets and close to 500 likes. Popular Instagram account @dearpwi, an account with over 31,000 followers, also posted screenshots of the thread.
(09/17/20 10:00am)
The 10-week closures of Main Street and Merchants Row to through-traffic in downtown Middlebury will come to a long-awaited end this Friday, Sept. 18. These road closures, which coincide with the temporary shutdown of the town’s rail line and diversion of its freight traffic, are the “high-water mark” in the five-year Middlebury Bridge and Rail Project, according to the project’s community liaison, Jim Gish.
“The work in 2017, 2018, 2019 was all preparation work for this 10-week period,” Gish said. “This is the critical turning point of the project this week — kind of heading toward the finish line, which will happen next spring with the landscaping of two new parks downtown, and that will be the formal end of the project next July.”
One main purpose of the $71 million Bridge and Rail Project, which is managed by Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans), is the substitution of two deteriorating 1920s-era rail bridges in downtown Middlebury with a rail tunnel. The dilapidated bridges, which had sparked safety concerns, were demolished in 2017, and temporary modular steel bridges were built in their place.
Now, the temporary structures have been replaced with a passenger rail tunnel that returns the town green to its original size, which predates construction of the original rail line in the 1840s. The 3,500-foot downtown rail corridor that spans the distance between the Elm Street overpass and the trestle bridge over Otter Creek has been fully rebuilt at this point. This belowground construction of the rail line constitutes the other main purpose of the project.
The project was suspended late last March when Gov. Phil Scott decided to postpone construction statewide due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The project’s operations resumed in May, and the 10-week closure period, which was planned four years in advance to take place between May 27 and Aug. 5, was delayed by seven weeks and began on July 13.
“[The closures of Main Street and Merchants Row were] critical to be able to do all the work in this 10-week period that needed to be done,” Gish said. “The construction of the rail tunnel, the excavation of the rail corridor, repaving the roadways, new sidewalks for downtown. There’s a lot of activity that had to take place both aboveground and belowground during this 10-week period.”
Road closures during this period have complicated navigating downtown Middlebury on foot. Grassroots organization Neighbors, Together, along with VTrans project administrators and other local institutions, organizations and businesses collaborated to provide a free shuttle around the blockage, according to Mary-Claire Crogan, community relations manager at Addison Country Transit Resources (ACTR).
The ACTR-operated shuttle (dubbed Shuttlebury) runs continuously on a 15-minute loop around the town of Middlebury and stops at the municipal offices, Battell Block, Cannon Park, Congregational Church, Marble Works and Town Hall Theater. Walking maps with suggested routes are also included at each stop.
“Rides around the blockage were mutually desired by Neighbors, Together and the VTrans project managers,” Crogan told The Campus. “And actually, there is a federal requirement for the construction project to provide ADA access to downtown locations during the road closures. But the service is for everyone, regardless of physical ability.”
Shuttlebury was designed to transport the Middlebury population downtown to pre-planned events and incentivize them to visit the area at a time when local businesses might face a decline in patronage due to the road closures. However, in order to prevent the spread of Covid-19, those events were reevaluated and modified to be contactless.
Nevertheless, Shuttlebury has operated during the construction at its full schedule, with ACTR implementing new safety procedures and heightened sanitation protocols to prevent spread of the virus. Although Covid-19 concerns were likely responsible for decreased shuttle ridership this summer, Crogan wrote, “Shuttlebury attracted new riders who had never ridden the bus before. Maybe this will inspire them to ride transit more often.”
The Bridge and Rail Project funds the shuttle’s operation, so with the end of the 10-week construction period and road closures, Shuttlebury will come off the road this Friday. Crogan anticipates that the uniquely compact, ADA-accessible shuttle will be useful in the future to “access private driveways when people in wheelchairs need us to drive them to medical appointments.”
The end of this 10-week period means the advantages of finished construction for Middlebury’s local businesses are within sight.
“While there have certainly been concerns about the impact of the project on the economic vitality of downtown, in general, the community has accepted the value and benefit to the community of the project.” Gish said. “That’s probably particularly true right now as you can very visually see it taking shape . . . There’s now a level of anticipation and excitement at the revitalization taking place in our downtown.”
“[The pandemic] coincided with the hardest part and the most disruptive part of the project for downtown Middlebury,” Gish said, referencing the worries about the economic impact on closing downtown roadways to through traffic. “It’s helped us get it done at a time when it’s less disruptive to the downtown area.”
In addition to economic revitalization, benefits of the Bridge and Rail Project to the town of Middlebury include improvement in the safety of aboveground infrastructure like roadways and aging belowground infrastructure like water lines and sewer lines. Two new parks, including the expanded Triangle Park, which will have a mixture of hardscape and landscape as well as a plaza for events, will also result from the project.
Still, Gish acknowledged the challenges that this part of the construction project has caused for Middlebury residents.
“One of the things that has psychologically been a benefit to the community is the orderliness with which this project has progressed throughout this 10 weeks and really over the full life cycle of this project,” he said. “There’s been a steady and a very visible progression, which is in stark contrast to the world we’re living in today, which is full of unknowns and question marks and unknown finish lines.”
(09/17/20 9:59am)
The following letter was previously sent to the Middlebury Administration on August 3, 2020 with over 500 signatures. The piece has been lightly edited in accordance with The Campus’ style guidelines.
Dear Chairperson Lee,
Dear President Patton,
Dear Provost Cason,
Dear Dean Moorti,
Dear Ms. Fitzpatrick,
We hope that this note finds you and your loved ones safe and healthy. We are writing out of deep concern over the state of the humanities at Middlebury College and the absence of BIPOC voices both on campus and in our curriculum.
Many of us had the great fortune of being History of Art & Architecture (HARC) majors at Middlebury. Specifically, we benefited from the passion and family-like support of a faculty that worked tirelessly to hone our critical thinking skills and broaden our perspective of history, religion, social studies, politics and economics through the lens of art and architecture.
Over the course of our collective time as HARC majors on campus, we have noticed the steps the HARC department has taken to increase the presence of BIPOC artists, art historians and art critics in our readings and course materials. We recognize and appreciate the department’s dedication to improving the discipline, especially one that is particularly notorious for perpetuating white, eurocentric ideas and ideals.
Yet, we also ecognize the limitations of the department that we love so dearly: the Middlebury College HARC Department lacks any specialization in African and African diasporic art. While this gap has proven problematic for years — how can we call ourselves well-educated art historians if we are missing critical art historical education of an entire demographic? — the recent national spotlight on white supremacy and institutionalized racism reminds us again of the urgent need for African and African Diasporic Art specialists within the Middlebury HARC department.
This request is not new. We are aware that the HARC Department first submitted a proposal to hire a tenure-track African art specialist in 2018. This is less than a year after Middlebury announced the Creating Connections Consortium (C3), which has received $5.5M in funding from the Mellon Foundation to establish the C3 Professorship. As you know, the C3 program offers funding for up to two years of tenure-track positions in the humanities with the explicit focus on diversifying faculty. Denied in 2018, the department resubmitted the request in 2019. While Middlebury College approved funding for an African art specialist for the 2020-2021 school year, it was only for a two-year, non tenure-track position. As a result, the department received fewer than five applications and the extended offer was turned down in favor of a curatorial job at a museum. Now, hiring for the role has been suspended indefinitely as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We recognize the urgent and unprecedented financial situation in which Middlebury finds itself as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. We understand that movement out of the budgetary “red” will take time. However, the hiring of an African art specialist cannot wait. There are no classes in the HARC department that address any aspect of the Black experience. This is unacceptable. Creating a more equitable and just learning environment for Middlebury students cannot wait.
Middlebury College can and must explore other creative funding options. One potential option is to apply for a Mellon Grant. As Middlebury has been the recipient of over $37 million in funding from the Mellon Foundation since 1971, this option should be a viable first step. In the last five years alone, the Mellon Foundation has granted over $800 million in funding to 401 institutions of higher education to support programs related to the humanities and the arts. Furthermore, as a member of the C3 Program, Middlebury can and must apply for the C3 Faculty Funding program, which is specifically dedicated to increasing underrepresented perspectives and voices among faculty. Should this not be an option, the Mellon Foundation continues to award grants in the same capacity.
Additionally, it is important to explicate the obvious fact that the addition of African and African Diasporic Art specialists to the HARC Department would not only benefit the HARC faculty, students and curriculum, but all faculty, students, and departmental curriculums at Middlebury. First and foremost, we are aware of the external support from the Black Studies and African Studies departments for the role. Additionally, since many Middlebury students elect to fulfill their college art credit through the intro HARC class, the inclusion of African and African diasporic specialists in the new Global Intro HARC would expose many non-BIPOC students to a new set of ideas and ideals that will broaden the perspectives they bring to their other classes and dining hall discussions. Furthermore, the expansion of the HARC faculty and curriculum to include African and/or African diasporic art will better prepare students to be more equitable leaders in their chosen careers. For example, medical schools have increased their offerings of art history classes as the visual and critical thinking skills are critical in the medical field. Given the medical world’s clear failures to protect the health of Black people, especially of Black women, adding these art history classes would help to expose non-BIPOC future doctors and researchers graduating from Middlebury College to a culture that is not their own, providing them with the context and skills to not make the same errors as their predecessors.
If there was ever a plea for the humanities and for the arts, it is now. In the call for justice, for the eradication of white supremacy, it is the humanities that enable us to become better citizens, discerning citizens, educated citizens, anti-racist citizens.
Hiring an Africanist for the HARC department, albeit a great step, is just one step and it is long overdue. Comparing our offerings to Amherst, Bowdoin, Colby, Tufts, Connecticut College, and Bates — peer institutions in the NESCAC — Middlebury is the only History of Art & Architecture program without expertise in both African and African Diasporic Art. It is clear that the college has deprioritized the arts for too long, has neglected to listen to its own faculty’s requests, and are now playing catch up. The arts in general has a history of severely neglecting the voices of BIPOC, and we are frustrated and disappointed that Middlebury continues to contribute to this status quo.
Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to hearing from you and to discussing how the institution plans to rectify this urgent matter.
Sincerely yours,
Emily Knapp and Adrian Kerester
Emily Knapp and Adrian Kerester are members of the class of 2015.
(09/08/20 1:18am)
Dozens of pages of online instructions and 151 minutes of educational videos laid out a plethora of restrictions and regulations that were put in place to make a return to campus this fall possible. Since the majority of students returned to Middlebury last Friday, those rules have become reality.
For the most part, students have followed regulations. By day, they widely obey mask guidelines when out in public on campus, usually only removing masks to eat meals. At the direction of staff, they follow delineated paths through dining halls, and students have taken to socializing safely in distanced settings on Battell Beach and the Knoll.
But nighttime gatherings that exceed 10 participants, sometimes without masks, have sprung up in the past week, leaving student Residential Life workers and orientation leaders to take on new roles as disciplinary figures tasked with curtailing gatherings that violate Covid-19 guidelines.
“For ResLife, the past three days have honestly been pretty intense,” Luisa Vosmik ’21, a Resident Assistant who works in sophomore housing, told The Campus. “We are all super excited to have residents living in our halls and to be able to put our training to use… That being said, there have definitely been some chaotic moments that were a bit disheartening. At times, it has felt as though other students don’t recognize the impact their actions might have on our ability to remain on campus.”
Dean of Students Derek Doucet is encouraged by the low number of positive tests in Middlebury’s mandatory testing for students (since students returned to campus, two rounds of all-student testing have yielded just two positive test results). What remains essential, he told The Campus, is practicing behaviors that preserve the encouraging results first seen after processing move-in day results. “We’re open,” he wrote in an email to The Campus. “Now we have to remain sharply focused on doing what we must to stay open.”
The burden of enforcing Covid-19 regulations that seek to maintain that reality has fallen heavily on student leaders, including Residential Life members and MiddView Orientation leaders. Student leaders “have been working tirelessly over the last week or more to help pull off the reopening,” Doucet wrote. “Without them it would not have been possible to get this far.”
While Doucet acknowledges Public Safety as an important part of the college’s enforcement policy, Maya Gee ’22, the Community Assistant for Voter Hall and Painter Hall, and other student leaders told the Campus that Public Safety has been given a reduced role this year. Unlike in previous years, Residential Life members are now expected to collect the names, and sometimes the ID numbers, of students who break college Covid-19 policies.
Public Safety and Residential Life administrators did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
The student leaders are expected to enforce regulations related to mask-wearing, social distancing, gathering sizes and the presence of parents during move-in. Issues within ResLife’s purview before the pandemic — such as alcohol consumption, noise complaints and large gatherings — now have higher stakes, as many of these activities can lead to increased Covid-19-related risks. Residential Life members can choose from a variety of steps in these situations, including asking students to correct their behavior, filing an incident report or calling Public Safety or their Residence Director for assistance.
“It all depends on the situation,” Gee said.
Sophie Smith ’21, a MiddView leader leading virtual first year orientation sees the role MiddView leaders are playing in enforcing Covid-19 policies as similar to that of the rest of the student body. They are tasked with providing students with reminders of Covid-19 policies, reporting through the online tool or contacting Public Safety upon noticing a Covid-19 policy violation.
Several students have already been asked to leave campus while more are awaiting appeals for violating guidelines, according to Doucet. Due to the college’s rule against disclosing details from the disciplinary process, Doucet did not specify the nature of students’ violations, but he wrote that “we’re taking a firm stance on Covid violations which expose the community to elevated levels of potential risk.”
Besides the students who have already been sent home, a number of other students have received a sanction or removal from campus housing, held in abeyance. This status indicates that if the student violates any additional Covid-19 protocol, they will be dismissed from campus.
Following the release of first years from room quarantine, Residential Life members noted many violations of college Covid-19 policies, including reports of large gatherings of students both on Battell Beach and near the baseball field.
“There have been groups of 10-plus the past few nights, [especially] Friday and Saturday, where students were disregarding the physical distancing requirement, even when asked repeatedly to distance and disperse into smaller groups,” Vosmik said last week.
Gee saw some of these violations and contacted her Residence Director and Public Safety.
“I am trying to deal with it more as a friendly reminder perspective, rather than a more enforcement perspective,” she said. While Gee said she’s fixated on helping protect the Middlebury community, she is also giving students the benefit of the doubt and recognizes that this semester has brought a lot of changes. “It is a very fine line between intentionally breaking the rules and forgetting,” she said.
Gee said that she did not know the full extent of her responsibilities until she arrived on campus on August 18 and underwent Residential Life training. She acknowledged that the role can feel overwhelming at times.
The boundaries of the job are changing and becoming less distinct than in previous years, Gee noted as one of the many ways in which this year is different from last year, when she served a First-Year Counselor in Battell Hall. “We feel like we have to oversee so many more things, both inside and outside,” Gee said.
“Some staff members are really struggling with not feeling burnt out, that they always have to be on,” she said. Gee feels that every time she goes outside there is constantly some small violation she could find.
Residential Life student workers have been given a $500 pay raise for the year, following salary increases that took place over the past two years. Gee said that this is not enough, but recognized the financial limitation of the college and said that “we’re getting there.”
Residential Life workers have been instructed to never put their own health and safety at risk; if a situation arises where close contact with another student is required, they have been directed to call Residential Life administrators or Public Safety, Gee explained.
“Their job is not an easy one and we all owe them a debt of gratitude,” Doucet said, also pointing to the role MiddView orientation leaders have played in promoting and enforcing Covid-19 policies.
The college has put in place an online reporting system through which anyone can report a Covid-19 policy violation. As of early last week, roughly 30 reports had been submitted through the system. According to Doucet, each report has received follow-up, but the majority have been minor violations.
“The college is not playing around,” Gee said, explaining how each situation needs to be treated differently depending on the circumstances and the nature of the violation.
Gee said she supports the reallocation of duties to student Residential Life leaders, particularly when it comes to no longer having Public Safety officers patrol dormitories. But she added that this creates an increased level of responsibility for Residential Life and could result in a type of hierarchy among students; she noted the array of challenges that can come with trying to find a balance between holding students accountable and not making them feel over-policed by peers.
“We are really starting to move towards more of a community policing model,” Gee said.
And while Doucet acknowledged the essential role of Residential Life, he also knows that they cannot do everything.
“We need to avoid the temptation to think of our student leaders as responsible for carrying the whole weight of this enormous undertaking for their peers,” he said.
(09/04/20 4:36pm)
A second Middlebury student is in isolation after testing positive for Covid-19, as revealed by the Day Seven test results delivered yesterday for students who arrived on August 26 and 27.
Of the 322 results received from the round so far, only one test was positive, 316 were negative, and five were inconclusive and will be retested, according to an all-students email sent by Director of Health Services Mark Peluso on Sept. 3. The infected student is doing well, Peluso said.
The student had learned this week that they were exposed to the virus at home before arriving on campus, according to Peluso. Upon realizing they were at risk of infection while at Middlebury, the student entered quarantine while awaiting test results. The number of contacts under quarantine on Middlebury’s Covid-19 dashboard jumped on Wednesday from two individuals to four. The number then jumped again yesterday to show one new student under isolation — totalling two — and 10 students under quarantine, likely reflecting others who had been in close contact with the infected student in the past days.
“While we expected to see additional positive results in our Day Seven testing and were prepared to respond, we know this news is concerning to our community,” Dr. Peluso wrote. “It cannot be said enough that we must remain vigilant during this period of campus quarantine and beyond.”
The case has been reported to the Vermont Department of Health which has commenced contact tracing for the infected student, and it is likely that additional students will be moved into quarantine. While the infected student was quarantined after learning of their own exposure before arrival, no precautions were taken surrounding the student’s on-campus close contacts until the student officially tested positive yesterday.
The college’s policy dictates that contact tracing does not occur for close contacts of a symptomatic or possibly exposed student until the student in question has received a positive test result. This protocol is consistent with the Vermont Department of Health, which is responsible for all on-campus contact tracing and treats such incidents as they would any other case in Vermont.
“This approach, which is required by the Vermont Department of Health, has proven to be an effective mitigation measure for COVID-19 and other illnesses,” Peluso wrote in an email to The Campus.
According to Middlebury’s Covid-19 information page, “Close contact is defined as being closer than six feet for longer than 15 minutes, regardless of whether a face covering was worn.” On the Vermont Department of Health website, “close contacts” are listed to be anyone with whom you live, have eaten a meal, shared a car or been intimate partners, among others.
“[The department] conducts contact tracing and determines who is a close contact, and thus subject to quarantine,” Dean of Students Derek Doucet wrote in an email to The Campus. “Until a positive test result is received, a symptomatic individual is likely to be considered a person under investigation (PUI).”
Because only positive cases are reported to the Vermont Department of Health, those who have been in close contact with PUIs are not traced or quarantined. Such was the case earlier this week when a student was moved to isolation housing after developing symptoms indicative of Covid-19, including a high fever, sore throat and chills. Although the student ultimately tested negative, her suitemates and other close contacts were not directed to quarantine or take extra precautions while awaiting her test result.
While the Vermont Department of Health continues contact tracing procedures for the infected student, Dr. Peluso urges students to be cautious. “The entire campus must follow strict health and safety protocols — including the wearing of face coverings, regular hand washing and physical distancing — and abide by our codes of conduct to ensure a successful semester.”
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(09/01/20 3:08am)
UPDATE: Tuesday, Sept. 1, 12:03 a.m.
The student in isolation in Porter House, who was placed in isolation Monday morning after developing Covid-19 symptoms, received a negative test result late Monday night for a test administered after they developed symptoms. The student told The Campus that they would remain in Porter House Monday night and would consult with college health workers the following morning about next steps.
——
After delays in the delivery of test results nearly doubled the “room quarantine” period for students who arrived on Middlebury’s campus Friday, results returned throughout Sunday afternoon and evening showed promising early signs for Middlebury’s reopening efforts, with no new positive results among those who arrived on campus Friday.
Updated Monday morning, the Covid-19 dashboard showed zero positives among the 1,109 tests conducted Friday and 26 from Saturday (six people tested Friday were re-tested due to insufficient samples). Middlebury has thus logged just one Covid-19 case since students returned to campus (a student tested positive after arriving on August 26). While the lack of positive results marks an early success in the college’s reopening, administrators cautioned in an all-school email against students taking a lax approach to Covid-19 guidelines in the week ahead.
“While we are encouraged by these early results, follow-up testing of all students seven days after their arrival is another vital component of our plan and an important safeguard against potential spread of the virus,” wrote Director of Health Services Mark Peluso and Dean of Students Derek Doucet in an all-community email Monday. All students who arrived Friday living on and off campus will be tested again on Sept. 5, seven days after their initial test.
At least one student developed Covid-19 symptoms, including a fever, sore throat and chills overnight Sunday after receiving a negative arrival test result earlier that day and being released from room quarantine. The student, who told The Campus about their situation on condition of anonymity because of privacy concerns, was moved into isolation in Porter House Monday morning and is awaiting results of a second Covid-19 test administered today.
The student said they were placed in Porter rather than Munford because the latter house is reserved for those with confirmed Covid-19 cases.
A Parton staff member initially told the student’s suitemates and residents of an adjacent suite who had spent time with the student to temporarily self-isolate. However, hours later they were told by a Parton nurse practitioner that they were allowed to return to campus quarantine pending the symptomatic student’s results.
Some of the students who were in contact with the symptomatic individual told The Campus that they have chosen to take extra precautions of their own accord, and all said they had followed distancing and mask protocols around the symptomatic person. None said they have developed symptoms of their own.
When asked about the status of the quarantined student, Director of Media Relations Sarah Ray wrote in an email to The Campus that “to protect the privacy of our community, we will not be releasing any information about individuals who test positive or who are in isolation for any reason.” Ray did not respond to a question about whether contact tracing had begun for students outside of the symptomatic student’s living partners, or whether contact tracing would take place only in the event of a positive test.
Students who arrived Friday were originally expected to receive test results sometime Saturday, and expressed increasing frustration as the hours of room quarantine wore on through Sunday evening. But negative test results began to arrive in inboxes that afternoon and evening, and students gradually trickled out of their rooms onto a changed campus, where masked, socially-distanced gatherings and outside dinners eaten from to-go containers are now the norm.
The delays in returning results occurred due to a staff scheduling issue at the Broad Institute, the Cambridge, Mass.-based lab that is providing Middlebury’s testing, Doucet wrote in an email to The Campus on Sunday evening.
“It appears to be less a total capacity issue and more a scheduling one,” he wrote, when asked if the slow turnaround was due to the increase in the number of tests Broad is performing, as it tests at other colleges with move-in dates this week. “Broad operates around the clock, but needed to adjust its staffing plan to ensure that it had sufficient staff at the busiest times of their processing day, which turned out to be at different times then they anticipated. They tell us they’ve now adjusted.”
In an email to The Campus, Broad Communications Director David Cameron said that Broad’s testing capacity is presently at 50,000 tests per day, and that “we should have that up to 100k per day in a few weeks if needed.”
On its website, Broad claims its tests are processed with turnaround time “typically less than 24 hours.” The institute is also providing testing for more than 100 other colleges and universities including Williams, Harvard, Colby and UVM, all of which have intensive testing plans and saw large numbers of students return to campus in the past week.
Most Middlebury students now on campus moved in on Friday, a day on which Broad performed the most tests of any day since it began Covid-19 testing in March. The institute processed nearly 44,000 tests that day, and more than 30,000 each of the two days prior.
Managing Editor Hattie LeFavour contributed reporting.
Correction 9/1/20: A previous version of this article stated that 1,103 tests were conducted Friday, Aug. 28. The correct number was 1,109 tests, with 1,103 negative results and six yielding insufficient samples that led to re-tests.
Update 9/3/20: A previous version of this article stated that the Broad Institute is providing testing to 25 colleges and universities The Campus was able to find. In a press release on Sept. 2, Broad stated the true number was 108 colleges and universities. The article has been updated.
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(08/11/20 4:18am)
With more than 3,000 Middlebury students, faculty and staff set to return to campus in late August, the college is planning to test 750 of them — on top of those who develop viral symptoms — for Covid-19 each week over the course of the fall semester, in a “targeted” testing approach directed towards higher-contact parts of the community.
Director of Health Services Mark Peluso described the testing plan in a July 28 meeting between college administrators and the Town of Middlebury Selectboard (the plan is also described in the college’s Return to Campus Guide.) Students will receive an initial test when they arrive on campus and another test seven days later, both in Virtue Field House. Following those two tests, students will be included with faculty and staff working “high-contact” jobs in “Targeted Dynamic Testing” (TDT), which will consist of 750 tests per week.
Acquired from the Broad Institute based in Cambridge, Mass., tests will be diagnostic PCR anterior nares swabs, which are more sensitive than antigen tests, the other common type of Covid-19 test. Broad claims it can return results in 24 hours.
Any student who develops Covid-19 symptoms will also be tested, and the college has reserve tests for symptomatic students so as not to draw from the weekly 750-test allocation for TDT, Peluso said. Students will receive an email when they have been selected for TDT, and tests will likely continue to be held in Virtue Field House.
Testing 750 community members weekly means less than one-fifth of the roughly 2,300 students, 300 faculty members and 1,200 staff occupying campus this fall could receive a test from the college every seven days, not including symptomatic individuals. And although both the Return to Campus Guide and administrators in town halls have said that the plan is to randomly test everyone at the college throughout the semester, TDT will be targeted towards some parts of the community more than others.
“TDT is intentionally dynamic” and “will focus on students living in congregate housing, and the staff and faculty members who work directly with them,” Peluso wrote in an email to the Campus. “Congregate housing” actually refers to all student housing and approved off-campus housing, he said, suggesting that any student would be eligible for a test each week. Staff such as healthcare workers, custodians, public safety, facilities, dining and residential life personnel will also be “targeted” for TDT, he said, and faculty members who interact with students “may also be tested.”
Peluso did not clarify how the college plans to break down the 750 weekly tests among students, staff and faculty each week, but wrote that “the breakdown will vary depending on local community and campus prevalence of illness.” The Return to Campus Guide urges faculty and staff to “consult their healthcare providers for medical advice, including testing options.”
Mirroring approaches at other colleges, administrators see testing as one piece of a broad plan for Covid-19 containment. Experts agree that strict behavioral interventions are also an essential part of safe college reopening, and that testing must be coupled with these measures to make campuses safe. “Physical distancing, gathering size restrictions, hand hygiene and face coverings have been very successful in mitigating the spread of illness in places using those strategies,” Peluso said.
Those steps are outlined extensively in the Return to Campus Guide, along with the college’s plan to have students quarantine prior to their arrival and to “open” campus in phases.
However, the 750 tests-per-week plan places the college’s testing frequency well behind some peer schools: Every University of Vermont student will be tested each week for the first three weeks of the university’s semester, after which UVM will re-evaluate its plan. Champlain College, Wesleyan and Tufts universities also plan to test all students weekly during the fall semester. Harvard will test students every three days and, in a plan that could cost up to $10 million, Colby will test twice-weekly. In the cases of Harvard and UVM, both schools could consider a TDT-type approach later in the semester, but only if their initial bouts of heavy testing yield low infection rates.
Johns Hopkins University — which is in a much denser urban area than Middlebury — had planned on testing all students twice-weekly this fall, but cancelled in-person classes last week. One of the university’s top infectious disease specialists later called the rigorous testing strategy it had planned to use “an incomplete defense.”
The college is prepared to raise or lower its number of weekly TDT tests depending on level of infection in the community, Peluso said, and if viral prevalence remains low, it may use some of the 750 tests allocated for TDT to test symptomatic community members. Testing will be free for students on the college’s health insurance.
“We have purchased enough test capacity to perform arrival testing for all students, and 750 tests per week for 12 weeks, plus some reserve testing for surge or symptomatic students,” he said.
Students interviewed by the Campus shared mixed feelings about the testing plan, with some grateful for arrival day and day seven testing, while others said they wished the college would test more throughout the semester.
“One of the reasons that I have any confidence in Middlebury's return plan at all is that everyone, including asymptomatic folks, is getting tested upon arrival to campus. Without that, I would be extremely hesitant to return,” said Keith Chatinover ’22.5.
Others are less optimistic. “One hundred percent of people tested once over a five-week period is not going to prevent an outbreak from exploding,” said Michael Koutelos ’20.5. (With the 750 weekly TDT tests targeting certain members of the community over others, it is possible that some students could go more than five weeks without being tested.)
Colleges’ Covid-19 testing plans depend heavily on finances, and many institutions around the country will test with less frequency than Middlebury.
The college’s plan to test students on arrival and seven days later is a step many smaller institutions are not able to take for financial reasons, for example: Small schools like Cornell College in Iowa will not test students upon entry. And free testing under college insurance is also not available at every school. Students at St. Michaels University, which plans to test students randomly and won’t test any student more than four times throughout the term, will have to pay a $150 testing fee, according to the Burlington Free Press. Syracuse University will charge students $49 for “testing kits.”
Testing 750 community members weekly falls short of some expert-recommended testing levels that may be required to maintain a “controllable” level of Covid-19 infection on campuses. A widely covered study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association called on colleges to test every community member once every two days to “yield a modest number of containable infections” — but acknowledged that doing so “sets a very high bar ...logistically, financially and behaviorally.”
When asked how Middlebury settled on testing 750 community members per week, Peluso pointed to the Center of Disease Control (CDC), Vermont Department of Health and American College Health Association Guidelines. He wrote that the possibility of false positive tests arising from widespread testing of asymptomatic students was one factor that pushed the college to do fewer tests. “The increased risk of false positive results in low prevalence situations, with ensuing isolation and quarantine of individuals who do not actually have the disease, must be considered,” he wrote.
While the likelihood of a test yielding an incorrect result does increase in communities with low disease prevalence, prevalence estimates are “a snapshot in time,” according to Director of Global Health Programs Pam Berenbaum. Disease prevalence at Middlebury and in Addison County could thus be different in late August, with students returning to campus from around the country, than it is now (the county as of August 10 had just 2.5 Covid-19 cases per 100,000 residents, according to the New York Times).
Another question about testing at Middlebury lies in the ability of the Broad Institute, the Harvard and MIT-based lab that will head Middlebury’s testing, to increase its testing capacity to fill the needs of dozens of Northeast universities and colleges. The institute plans to provide tests for at least 25 colleges the Campus was able to find, including Colby, Williams, Harvard and UVM, all of which have testing-intensive plans.
Broad has ramped up its testing in the past few weeks. Since it began testing in March, it has performed an average of 3,511 tests per day, and has the capacity to ramp up to 100,000 tests per day if needed, according to the Boston Globe. But the highest number of tests the institute has conducted to date was 13,008 tests on Aug. 6.
Middlebury will pay Broad $30 per test, which brings the cost of its TDT plan to $22,500 per week, assuming the college holds 750 tests weekly (Peluso added that “there are other fixed costs such as courier fees, staff time and PPE needs that add to the total cost,” and the total cost of testing could vary depending on testing of symptomatic people).
Administrators say they’ve worked closely with Vermont state and local governments in building a reopening strategy and describe Vermont’s stellar record in keeping infection rate low as a buffer in their plan not to test all students weekly.
“We have lower disease prevalence in the region which makes it less likely that the illness would come to campus from local community spread than if Middlebury were in a higher prevalence area. That does not mean it won’t happen, it’s just far less likely to happen,” Peluso said. “Vermont, and the Middlebury area in particular, has done a great job in keeping the spread of Covid-19 low.”
But that success could mean little when students come to campus from different parts of the country. While many students have spent summer in the town of Middlebury or other places away from home, a Campus analysis found that of roughly 12,000 students enrolled at Bates, Bowdoin, Tufts, Connecticut College and Middlebury, 20% are originally from states designated as White House “red zones” as of Aug. 3, with another 78% living in the “yellow zone,” areas with moderate levels of infection.
Just 2% of students reside in the only “green zone” that presently exists in the country — the Green Mountain State itself.
Digital Director Benjy Renton contributed reporting.
(07/29/20 4:38am)
In the wake of nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism, universities across the country are confronting their own issues of racism and exclusivity. Varsity and club sports teams at Middlebury have begun to examine privilege and exclusion present within their own groups, and some are taking direct action to foster an environment welcoming to all members.
Varsity teams reexamine recruiting practices
An open letter penned by Middlebury athletes across sports and addressed to the athletics department petitions coaches and faculty to shift practices to better serve underrepresented communities, widen geographic areas of recruitment and deprioritize recruiting trips.
The letter asks that the athletics department move recruiting efforts online to better reach individuals who cannot afford to fund their own recruiting trips, and to shift away from prioritizing face-to-face recruitment interactions, which disenfranchise certain potential athletic recruits.
“Quite simply, we are calling for the demographics of Middlebury student-athletes to better represent those of our country and world,” the letter reads.
The Middlebury track and field team is taking the matter into its own hands, developing a new student-led recruiting strategy. “Student-athletes will recruit high school track and field [and] cross country athletes from racially and socioeconomically diverse high schools located in the Middlebury student’s hometown,” said track athletes Greta Sirek ’22, Grace Kirkpatrick ’22, and Kate Holly ’21.
The swimming and diving team at Middlebury is exploring a similar strategy.
Swimmer Courtney Gantt ’22 is among those who want to make Middlebury’s swim and dive team more diverse and inclusive. “This could include expanding opportunities for virtual recruiting trips if people cannot afford to come to campus or bringing Middlebury admissions representatives to more [places] where there are high POC populations that may not know about Middlebury otherwise,” Gantt said.
The swimming and diving team is predominantly White — in fact, there were no Black athletes on the 2019–2020 roster. In addition to addressing recruitment tactics, the team is also working on educating themselves about race and swimming.
This meant organizing conversations concerning race and diversity in the sport with Director of Equity and Inclusion Renee Wells. Gantt emphasized the importance of engaging in these difficult conversations as a team in order to make a difference both in and out of the pool.
“Our team is making a commitment to educate ourselves about the history of race and swimming and the different access that Black people have had to higher education, jobs, healthcare and all spheres of life,” Gantt said.
The swim and dive team also plans to provide more swim lessons to low income families in the area to expand access to swimming.
The women’s soccer team also reflected on their presence on campus as a majority White team by hosting team meetings with faculty to discuss anti-racism. “We hope to make efforts to diversify our team and are looking into tangible ways we can do that throughout the summer and when we get back to campus,” Ellie Bavier ’22 said.
Club sports take on addressing Whiteness and exclusion
Although club sports teams often offer messages of inclusion in their recruiting and mission statements, many face similar issues of exclusion and discrimination.
Alyssa Brown ’20 is a member of the Middlebury ultimate frisbee team. In Brown’s memory, there have been few to no Black players on the men’s and women’s frisbee teams. Brown attributes much of this lack of diversity to frisbee’s origins as a countercultural sport that has historically been played in majority White and wealthy communities.
“The Pranksters have certainly come a long way since 2016 in terms of intentional learning and commitment to inclusivity, but students of color still do not feel welcome, so there is still a problem,” Brown explained.
Because club sports do not receive the same funding as varsity sports on campus, teams often count on players and their families to make monetary contributions. Although Brown said the Pranksters have always tried to be inclusive by providing monetary aid for those who need it, the personal funds needed for team social activities can be hindering.
“Being surrounded by a community that is interpreted as ‘wealthy’ can generally be discouraging for low-income students,” Brown said. “This is also important to note because race and class are undeniably linked, although obviously it’s case by case.”
Rugby has made steps to decrease the stress that can be created through these required finances. Freshmen are no longer required to pay the annual dues, and players have the option to rent equipment and gear instead of buying.
Megan Salmon ’21 also spoke of issues with racist culture that the team had five years ago. “There was an alum who had a position of power on the team who abused it and created a very racist and generally unwelcoming environment on the team,” Salmon said.
“In the years since, it’s my personal opinion that the women's rugby team has done an excellent job of turning around the culture by having meetings discussing the harm and racism, and gradually having more and more BIPOCs present in our leadership positions. Not intentional, but it helped.”
Salmon and her teammate Lenny Gusman ’21, both athletes of color, recently facilitated a two-hour dialogue about the history of the prison-industrial complex and policing and how they impact the team and team culture. They plan to continue the conversation by conducting similar meetings throughout the semester.
The Pranksters are also having conversations about race and inclusion. Since 2018, the team has held a community workshop each semester with the goal of creating a more inclusive team environment. At these meetings, leaders of the men’s and women’s teams discuss the barriers that are presented through the sport of frisbee and set expectations on how to lessen these obstacles.
Now, both the men’s and women’s frisbee teams are committed to adopting the format of these workshops to address issues of Whiteness and exclusivity within the sport.
The crew team is in the same boat. “Issues of exclusivity on our team are evident from the overwhelming Whiteness of our membership, high rates of attrition of BIPOC from our team and the unacceptable acts of discrimination, notably microaggressions, that many of our rowers of color have experienced,” captain Sophie Smith ’21 said.
Smith explained that the team is planning on changing their financial aid and fundraising system, as well as increasing flexibility to the practice schedule to remove barriers for members who may need to work to support their education. The team is also considering adding new leadership positions, such as a novice captain position, to ensure these changes will be as impactful as possible.
Above all, athletes of color emphasised the necessity of a cultural shift in making long lasting changes.
“I think it’s important to address the reason why POCs are not joining the teams and tackling them instead of just giving into the consensus that Middlebury club sports are just predominantly White and we can’t do anything.” Gusman said. “Our team still has a long way to go just like everybody in this country, but I am proud of the active steps we have taken. Even if we think we are doing our best we can always do better.”
Student athletes raise funds for the Black Lives Matter movement
Many sports teams have also stepped up to raise money and awareness in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, using social media as a means to spread information.
The women’s swim and dive team organized a fundraising campaign, raising over $4,000 for the Rutland Area NAACP through a 48-hour “sweat-a-thon.” The team donated $1 for every minute of exercise logged and accepted donations through an online fund.
Gantt, along with fellow organizer Ellie Thompson ’22, said the fundraiser helped generate conversations about the Black Lives Matter movement among family and community members, who shared posts, educational materials and photos of their workouts on social media. Although she considers the fundraiser successful in garnering support from friends, family and alumni, she isn’t satisfied yet.
“We know that it is not enough to raise money,” Gantt said. “We must continue the conversation and do more.”
The women and men’s varsity squash teams fundraised a total of $12,260 for the Vermont branch of the ACLU’s Smart Justice Campaign. The teams chose to support a more local organization to “become more engaged with the problems of [their] wider community” and “to spread awareness about the prevalence of racism in Vermont,” according to their official statement. The teams held several discussions over Zoom and shared their learnings with friends, family, alumni and Instagram followers via an informational sheet as part of their fundraising efforts.
The squash program will continue their commitment to antiracism by appointing three “Social Justice representatives” who will lead conversations to “ensure awareness of systemic racism.” The teams also plan on designating one match each season as an annual fundraiser for a cause related to Black Lives Matter, according to their latest statement.
The women’s soccer team raised over $2,300 to donate to Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a non-profit organization providing legal representation for prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted, unfairly sentenced or abused in jail. Bavier said the team elected to support an organization that actively works to end mass incarceration and inspire lasting change within the criminal justice system.
“We appreciated the tangible legal steps implemented to create change, and we found their story incredibly compelling,” Bavier said.
The track and field team arranged a virtual 4,000-meter race on July 19 to collect money for the Know Your Rights Camp (KYRC) COVID-19 Relief Fund. Coordinated by Sirek, Kirkpatrick and Holly, the fundraiser supports communities of color that have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus outbreak.
The three organizers explained that they chose the KYRC fund, which was founded by Colin Kaepernick in 2016, for its mission to engender social and economic change in Brown and Black communities across America. So far, the team has collected over $1,500 and expects more donations as the summer continues.
Several club sports teams have also joined the fundraising effort to support the Black Lives Matter movement within the sports arena and beyond.
Coordinated by Salmon, Gusman and teammate Betsy Romans ’23, women’s rugby hosted a fundraising campaign to support BLD PWR, a Black-run nonprofit organization dedicated to training a more diverse community of entertainers and athletes. The team challenges other clubs to do the same, without disclosing the amount of money raised to avoid performativity.
“We believe that group silence contributes to a lack of accountability among individuals which justifies neutrality and inaction — thus serving the agenda of the oppressor,” the team’s social media post stated. “For this reason, we challenge other Middlebury organizations to take the route of action rather than just words.”
Similarly, Middlebury’s ultimate frisbee team published a statement of their unequivocal support for the Black Lives Matter movement, outlining a course of action for implementing change in our communities.
The Pranksters also raised $4,818 to split between the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, Black Lives Matter of Greater Burlington and Ultimate Impact through donations from team members, family, friends and alumni.
The sailing team recently collected funds to support Campaign Zero, an organization dedicated to researching policy-based solutions for ending police brutality and urging other NEISA (New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association) to take action. Middlebury’s sailing team is also part of NEISA’s Equity and Inclusion Committee, which elects one representative from each team in the league to discuss issues of exclusivity within the sport of sailing.
Middlebury’s crew team gathered monetary donations for three organizations, including the NAACP, National Bail Out and Row New York, which provides academic and athletic support for youth, regardless of background or rowing ability.
While team fundraising campaigns have helped spread awareness and raise funds to support anti-racist organizations, each team recognizes that the pocketbook itself is not powerful enough to create permanent change.
“We are hopeful that there will be changes at an institutional level to do more to bring prospective POC athletes to Middlebury and increase teams’ diversity,” Gantt said. “We must increase access to our school and our sport so that more Black leaders can emerge and contribute their voice to the national conversation.”
Copy Editor Ideal Dowling ’22 contributed reporting.
(07/14/20 4:47am)
In addition to the Covid-19-related difficulties all Vermonters face — such as finding childcare or struggling to pay rent — migrant farmworkers in the state are encountering additional challenges during the pandemic, according to Vermont Director of Racial Equity Xusana Davis.
“[Migrant workers] are more legally vulnerable than a lot of other Vermonters because of things like immigration, wage effects, lack of labor protection, et cetera,” Davis said. “So all of these things really compounded to make Covid-19 especially difficult for a population that was already vulnerable for a lot of reasons.”
The roughly 1,300 migrant farmworkers have also been excluded from the $1,200 stimulus payments that were a product of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Congress passed the bill in late March to provide economic assistance to families, businesses and workers.
Federal regulations mandate that states use federal Covid-19 relief funds for U.S. citizens, permanent residents and other qualifying immigrant groups who meet certain specifications. Recipients must also have t a Social Security number, meaning that certain groups, such as undocumented immigrants or F-1 student visa holders, would not qualify for stimulus payments.
In cases of mixed-status families, in which one spouse with a Social Security number is married to an individual with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) and the pair filed taxes jointly, neither individual would qualify for federal payments.
In mid-May, Migrant Justice, an organization based in Vermont whose mission is to organize for economic justice and human rights for the farmworker community, spearheaded a call-your-legislator campaign that advocated for Vermont legislators to create a Covid-19 relief fund for immigrant families.
“We have a population of people we consider to be essential,” Davis said. “But they are essential not just to Vermont’s bottom line. They are essential to our state as a whole, just as people.”
According to Vermont State Senator Ruth Hardy, Vermont received about $1.25 billion from federal Covid-19 Relief Funds (CRF), money distributed to each state to help with economic consequences of the virus. Hardy was involved in discussions with the Senate Agriculture Committee back in May to provide $500 payments to every farmworker in Vermont. These efforts have fizzled as the legislature later learned that providing payments to migrant workers would not be an eligible use of the CRF money “for a variety of reasons,” according to Hardy.
First, states cannot use federal funds for stimulus payments to people who do not have social security or other documentation, Hardy said. The state must also be careful to use the funds for eligible recipients — the state would never want to provide stimulus payment and then be in the position where they would have to ask for that payment back, according to Hardy.
“There isn’t a clear connection between just providing the funds to the workers and the allowable uses of the CRF funds, which have to be for economic harm or expenses due directly from the Covid-19 crisis,” said Hardy.
State funding is not really an option either, Hardy said. Vermont’s General Fund, which is normally used to fund state programs and operations, has been severely depleted due to the declining revenues from sales taxes and other taxes. According to Hardy, the state’s funds are about “$350 million in the red right now.”
Last week, Hardy was among a group of legislators who met with the Vermont Community Foundation, a charity that identifies communities in need and provides financial resources, to investigate the possibility of using private philanthropic funds to assist migrant workers and other workers who were not eligible to receive a federal stimulus payment.
The discussions are still in their early stages, and Hardy said that the Foundation has received inquiries from other groups of people requesting philanthropic assistance. However, Hardy said she believes the private route may be the best option at this point.
“There is a lot of demand for every type of money, whether it is federal money or state money or private money,” Hardy said.
Many of Vermont’s dairy farms, where many migrant workers are employed, have responded with precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the virus. The measures have seemingly been effective so far: the Open Door Clinic, a free health clinic for people who are uninsured or underinsured in Addison County, has documented only one patient with Covid-19, said Julia Doucet, the clinic’s outreach nurse and nurse case manager.
“What [farmers] have done is isolate the farm instead of isolating the individuals,” Doucet said in an interview with The Campus. According to Doucet, the challenges that migrant workers are facing are not unique to the Covid-19 pandemic, but are nonetheless heightened by it.
“They have always struggled with food insecurity,” Doucet said. “They have always struggled with social isolation. They have always struggled with lack of transportation. But Covid-19 has, in some ways, made it worse.”
Doucet said that the coronavirus has diminished the support system that migrant workers have. For example, The Addison Allies, a network of volunteers in Addison County that provides transportation, social interaction and in-person English lessons to migrant workers, has had to hold off on volunteering during the pandemic. Many of the volunteers are considered “higher risk” and therefore have to abide more strictly by social distancing guidelines.
Migrant workers may also face language barriers in acquiring health care or information about the virus. In addition, some workers may not have the necessary materials to identify the symptoms of the coronavirus, according to Doucet.
“There was not a single farmworker that we spoke to who said, ‘Oh, let me take my temperature on this thermometer I have in the bathroom,’” Doucet said.
The Open Door Clinic subsequently put together “Covid Kits” with soap, hand sanitizer, ibuprofen and masks. Many of the supplies were donated, and the masks were hand-sewn by community members. In total, the clinic was able to give 750 masks to 51 farms, according to Doucet.
Doucet also said the Open Door Clinic has been working hard to plan ahead and reach out to farmworkers ahead of the coronavirus spike that is expected to occur in fall and winter. They are also working with the Vermont Department of Health to make sure there is proper language access for contact tracing in Spanish.
“We’re all fairly concerned about what this fall will bring,” Doucet said. “I don’t know if we can get lucky enough and get through a second season with only one worker getting sick.”
Editor’s Note: Ruth Hardy is married to Middlebury College Professor of Film and Media Culture Jason Mittell, who is the Campus’s academic advisor. All questions may be directed to campus@middlebury.edu.
(07/14/20 4:40am)
On June 29, Burlington City Council voted in favor of the Racial Justice Resolution, which defunds the Burlington Police Department (BPD) and aims to increase its transparency and accountability.
This resolution is a response to the death of George Floyd and the subsequent protests against systemic racism and police brutality in the United States.
“Policing in the United States... continues to largely protect middle and upper-class White communities and their property, while over-policing BIPOC communities,” the resolution reads.
In response, the resolution requires BPD to decrease the total number of officers by 30 percent, from 105 to 74 officers. It allows officers to “elect of their own accord to retire or leave.” In the short term, the BPD predicts it will lead to a 22 percent decrease in officers.
Additionally, the resolution plans to reallocate police funds to other social safety organizations, such as mental health institutions and addiction specialists, to address the problem of over-policing.
It also reduces collaboration between Burlington school districts and the BPD after the 2021 Spring semester, ensuring that the police are not used for wellness calls and terminating full-time BPD School Resource Officers.
The BPD has expressed concern about the reduction of officers.
“The BPD cannot provide the same patrol services with 22 percent fewer patrol officers,” the department said in a statement. “22 percent of our current call volume is approximately 6,270 calls. [Officer reduction] should not happen before [creating] viable, effective alternatives that can answer the calls.”
The resolution also aims to increase police transparency by negotiating for a requirement that the BPD report the use of force and allowing the Police Commission access to demographic data on encounters between officers and citizens.
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger, who is a usually strong advocate of defunding the police, did not support the reduction of officers. In a press conference on the matter, he called for a further examination of the department from a third party.
The resolution itself calls for a review and assessment of the BPD by a joint committee of the City Council Public Safety Committee and the Police Committee. In addition, officers will also receive additional training to avoid racial biases and excessive use of force.
The resolution has support from racial justice activists and groups, including Justice for All and Vermont Racial Justice Alliance.
The Vermont Racial Justice Alliance calls it “the most comprehensive resolution on racial justice in history.” Mark Hughes, Executive Director of Justice For All, also refers to the resolution as a “historical milestone.”
“This is about transforming the lives of Black and Brown people by investing in their lives, by holding space for their culture, by providing them with opportunity and ensuring equity that they deserve to thrive,” said Hudges during a public forum.
The resolution argues that while systemic racism traces its roots deep into the nation’s history, Covid-19 has “exacerbated the impact of systemic racism” on the marginalized communities.
Defunding the Middlebury Police Department
Thomas Hanley, chief of the Middlebury Police Department (MPD), believes more discussion is necessary regarding policies involving defunding the police at Middlebury.
Hanley told The Campus that cutting the police budget will reduce the effectiveness of the department, “creating periods when no police are on duty.”
According to Hanley, “the MPD has one of the lowest police per capita ratios in the country, with 1.8 officers per 1,000 population.” The standard for rural communities is 3.5 per 1000, according to the FBI.
Currently, the MPD “receives anywhere from 4,500 to 7,000 calls per year, round the clock,” Hanley said. Among these calls, 4.5 percent are related to mental health and inebriates, he said.
Hanley believes that plans to defund the police must have a rigorous alternative to fill in the void created by a reduced police response. He questions their current ability to do so, given the lack of specification and planning from existing defunding policies.
“All agencies that come under the umbrella of a social service agency are either county-wide or state agencies,” he said. “Why would the taxpayers of Middlebury... provide services elsewhere?”
He also points out that social services already receive “supplemental funding from every town in Addison County.”
Hanley welcomes more discussion on the role of the police and the effects of diminishing the police.
“Do we want to remove the police from the pro-social model... trained to respond to any calls, or relegate them to being just an armed force to deal only with the most dangerous of situations, and only when they are on duty?” he asked.
However, Midd Cops Off Campus, a student activist group advocating for the removal of police presence on campus, disagrees.
“People have been thinking and writing about police defunding and how to do it with viable alternatives for years — in this moment that work is just being realised,” said the group. “People aren’t going into it blind. It’d be a gradual process [with] enough time for alternatives to be set up and functional.”
In a letter to President Laurie Patton, the group states that the “presence of police do not make our community safer, [but] perpetuates an unwelcoming culture of White supremacy.” The letter also accuses the Middlebury PD of “racially profiling and harassing... community members of color,” including Middlebury students and professors.
(06/15/20 10:00am)
“Protests Work!” read the flyer handed out at a vigil in downtown Middlebury last Sunday night. Roughly 500 people gathered at College Park and along Cross Street to denounce police terror against Black communities and bodies.
Sunday’s event follows a vigil held on May 30 that drew roughly 375 participants. The Middlebury chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) organized a second event after the first gathering’s popularity and again asked protestors to wear masks and maintain social distancing. SURJ members also distributed flyers with actionable steps to take against racism, a list of positive advances made in the past weeks and solidarity tools for White allies.
“I have been heartened by the mobilization of people around the globe, but especially of people in my own little community of Middlebury who are demanding that the white supremacy and racial oppression that lay at the core of American society must end,” said Bill Hart, professor of history and director of Black Studies. “I showed up to show that the Black bodies of Middlebury students, faculty and staff, and of Black people in the community, matter — that my black body matters.”
The town of Middlebury is a small community, and “no one is under the illusion that standing on the Cross Street Bridge will end police terror,” said Jamie McCallum, professor of sociology. However, McCallum noted that vigils and protests show solidarity, love and respect for the larger uprisings going on around the country and the world.
“In a vastly, vastly white place like Middlebury, even something small like safely standing with Black Lives Matter flags in downtown goes a long way towards making me feel at ease here,” said Kemi Fuentes-George, professor of political science. Fuentes-George recounted previous instances of harassment and being called the n-word in downtown Middlebury.
However, attending protests and vigils is only the bare-minimum in protesting white supremacy, according to Lana Povitz, visiting assistant professor of history. Povitz expressed disappointment that the organizers of Sunday’s gathering did not take the opportunity to ask more of participants or advertise upcoming events or actions.
“This was a crowd that would probably have said ‘yes’ to any number of asks,” Povitz said. “I wonder when we might be ready for something a little less anodyne. How can we disrupt business as usual?”
For Fuentes-George, the vigil went as expected. “We’re not going to get the kinds of demonstrations that we’re going to get in New York for many reasons, including that it’s not very diverse,” he said.
“I understand that there were some people who felt disappointed with how the protest went, that it wasn’t radical enough, but the reality is that’s the town that we live in,” Fuentes-George added.
McCallum hopes the vigils will encourage people to step up their commitments for racial justice in other ways. Hart remains “cautiously optimistic” and questions what real change the growing movement will bring about.
“The image of Derek Chauvin’s knee on George Floyd’s neck reminded my mother of what her father — my grandfather — often told his children: the White man will forever keep his boot on the Black man’s neck,” Hart said. “Floyd’s murder reminds us that little seems to have changed in White attitudes toward Black lives and bodies.”
Some have described the past decade as a turning point for racial justice, Hart said, and he “certainly hope[s] so,” but history has shown a trend of White America resisting change and reasserting White privilege. Hart cited the Civil Rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s, the Great Society, Affirmative Action and the election of President Barack Obama as only a few examples.
“Meaningful change will only come when Black Americans build alliances with Brown and other disfranchised peoples as well as with White allies, and with one powerful voice, as now, demand massive, transformational change,” Hart said, “and when White Americans re-examine everything they think they believe in, to paraphrase James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time.””
“Healing without justice is no healing at all,” Hart said.
(06/08/20 5:01am)
The Middlebury College Theatre Department Costume Shop is accustomed to last minute alterations, so when the Covid-19 pandemic hit Vermont, employees quickly changed course from sewing costumes to sewing face masks.
Led by Associate Costume Director Robin Foster Cole and Costume Shop Director Carol Wood, the seamsters immediately set to work organizing materials and mask patterns the moment the college shut down in March. “We call it the Massive Midd Mask Making Movement,” Wood said.
“It’s all about the silver linings to the pandemic,” Foster Cole added. “We weren’t going to sit idly. This is bigger than a show.”
Foster Cole’s best friend from high school is an emergency room doctor in Rhode Island. After speaking with her on the phone, Foster Cole realized she had the opportunity to play a role in the fight against the virus too.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cloth masks are not interchangeable with medical grade masks, but can help reserve medical masks for health service professionals and others who critically need them.
Shortly after most students evacuated campus, Mark Peluso, Middlebury’s director of health services, contacted Alex Draper, chair of the Theatre Department. Peluso requested the department’s costume shop sew face masks for healthcare workers at Porter Hospital, where there was a limited supply of standard masks; by that time, Wood and Foster Cole were already on it.
Not long after that, the college made another mask request: this time, could the students and staff remaining on campus also be supplied two masks each? “There was no doubt we could execute this,” Wood said.
After seeing a Facebook post online of the costume shop’s progress, members from the college’s laundry services offered their sewing skills and joined in on the mask-making mission.
For Foster Cole, this communal effort by all ends of the Middlebury community was not left unnoticed. “I grew up in Middlebury,” she said. “It’s amazing how many people here stepped up to take care of each other.”
The masks are made with cotton fabric, a layer of fleece for extra comfort and protection, and elastic bands to wrap securely around ears. But even with the stockpile of supplies in the costume shop, Wood and Foster Cole needed more materials to continue manufacturing masks.
President Laurie Patton stepped in, generously offering to financially support this endeavor with personal discretionary funds for more fabric and elastic.
“I love that this simple skill of sewing we love to do is helping the community,” Foster Cole said. “We’re doing it for the college, but also for the greater community.”
Wood explained sewing the masks is not difficult, especially with her 11 years experience as a draper and stitcher with the San Francisco Opera, and the aid of her mother, Nancy Wood. This professional experience allows her to cut about 100 pieces of fabric for masks every hour, plus the additional three-and-a-half minutes of sewing it takes Wood and her mother to make one mask. After the measuring, cutting and sewing takes place, the masks are washed twice, pleats pressed, size marked, and packaged up for distribution: 300 masks to add to the college’s augmenting stockpile, the rest to Round Robin, the local nonprofit overseeing mask collection and delivery to Porter Hospital and other local organizations.
According to Wood, the costume shop churns out 400–600 masks per week. To date, the mask makers have produced 3,000 masks and counting.
Wood and Foster Cole, along with their tenacious team of sewers, do not have a numerical goal for the number of masks they are manufacturing. “We’re going to do whatever is needed,” Wood said. “Whatever it takes, however many we make, no one is going to go without a mask.”
Mai Thuong ’22 is one of the students who remained on campus. She was given a homemade mask a few weeks ago and wears it on a regular basis.
“We use them when we go to the dining hall to make both the dining staff and the students less paranoid of transmitting something to each other,” Thuong said. “Psychologically, it just also appears safer.”
“The fashionable nature of the mask is also a big plus,” Thuong added. “When I got my masks with bright sunflowers on them, it made me really happy.”
After hearing of the costume shop’s production-efficient assembly line, senior Abbey Knight ’19.75 also joined in, offering their sewing skills to whip up additional masks while isolating off-campus in Middlebury. “I love hands-on projects, so making masks felt like a fun craft project with a purpose,” Knight said.
Knight is new to sewing, having learned how to this year for a puppet show. “Making masks has been a good way to learn more about the ever-mysterious sewing machine and practice the basics.”
Volunteer residents of the greater Addison County have also joined in the nationwide effort to provide health care workers and neighbors in the community with protective face masks. Faith Daya of Brandon, a retired community organizer and mentor at the sewing lab at the Makery – the collaborative maker space at the Hannaford Career Center in Middlebury – is one of those volunteers.
A month ago, Daya pulled together an email list of “just a few people, maybe 45 women,” sending out the call for help in making masks. “It’s truly a labor of love,” she said. “This is like having a mission, a purpose to help others.”
To date, Daya’s group, dubbed “Sew Vermont Safe,” has made and donated more than 2,500 face masks to area businesses, clinics, assisted living residencies, subsidized housing works, and hospice care employees across the Addison and Rutland counties.
For those interested in joining the cause and obtaining mask sewing kits, contact Carol Wood at cbwood@middlebury.edu, Faith Daya at faithdaya55@gmail.com, or visit https://unitedwayaddisoncounty.org.
(06/04/20 5:24am)
We sent students a survey last week asking some of the questions that have continually shaped our lives since March 10.
From the data collected, we learned that:
Most students felt that professors were understanding. Ninety percent of surveyed students were satisfied with professors’ accommodations through remote learning.
Classes could get a lot smaller if we remain remote this fall, as 58% of students would elect to take a leave of absence if Middlebury chooses to remain fully-remote during that term.
The pandemic has not been kind to Middlebury students’ job opportunities. Sixty two percent of surveyed students at one point had a job or internship that was cancelled due to the pandemic.
Few people opted in to credit/no credit. In the wake of the failed movement for mandatory credit/no credit grading, 63% of respondents took all of their spring classes for letter grades.
At the end of the survey, we also gave students the chance to anonymously share opinions or anecdotes about experiences in quarantine. We’re really glad we did so — the responses you provided were at turns poignant, urgent and funny, and all of them capture the bizarre reality we’re living through. These anonymous opinions have been included in this article in places where they complement our findings expressed through data visualization.
General demographics
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Of the roughly 2,500 Middlebury students who were sent the survey, 583 — roughly a quarter — participated. Respondents were split fairly evenly across class years, with a slight majority of respondents coming from the classes of 2021 and ’21.5. (Though they will not be enrolled this fall, members of the class of 2020 were invited to complete the survey because of their perspectives on the spring semester and experience graduating during the pandemic).
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Reflecting the demographic reality of the college’s student body, a majority of respondents identified as white. Ten percent, or 58, respondents identified as international students.
Spring semester and summer
Mental health during remote spring semester
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A majority of students — 64% of respondents — reported having experienced mental health-related challenges during the course of their spring semester. Twenty-five percent reported knowing where to go to get virtual mental health support from the college, 27% said they did not know where to access care and the remaining 47% reported being “somewhat” aware of how to seek care.
But the logistical realities of being at home with parents, siblings and other family posed challenges for some students to seek help. “As someone who struggles with mental health, it's a lot harder to reach out for help when I'm at home and I feel at higher risk for falling into really bad lows and having no one around to help,” one student wrote.
“One challenge that I have faced has been less mental health problems myself,” a student wrote in their anecdotal response, “but more caring for family members struggling with their mental health.”
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Students reported feeling high levels of stress over uncertainty of life during the pandemic, as well as over jobs, relationships, academics, family life and home life. Often, multiple demands intersected to create unique challenges to tackling remote learning from home.
“Mother lost her job, father might too,” a student wrote. “Having everyone under the same roof in a small house has driven my parents to the brink of divorce.”
Approval rating of communication by college entities since March 10
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Students generally approved or were ambivalent about communication methods from college entities such as Schools Abroad, Parton counseling and the administration. However, several anecdotal responses expressed frustrations with a lack of solicitation of student input on the part of the college throughout the spring.
“Many other schools are hosting webinars and Zoom calls explaining directly to students what options they are considering in the fall,” one student wrote. “Middlebury has not told us the options and therefore there are more rumors/speculations. Even if the answer is ‘we don't know yet - here are some options,’ [that would be] better than barely hearing from them at all.”
Covid-19 infection among family, acquaintances and community
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Nine Middlebury students responded as having tested positive for Covid-19. Forty percent reported knowing a friend who had tested positive, and another 41% responded as not knowing anyone who had tested positive.
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Almost half — 48% — of students reported high levels of concern over viral transmission in their communities, while roughly 12% reported low levels of concern in their communities.
Opinions on spring remote academic programming
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A vast majority of respondents — 91% — reported professors being flexible in adjusting to the demands of remote learning. “Two of my professors were amazing — completely accommodating and conscious of the circumstances,” one student wrote. However, anecdotal responses saw many students report frustrations with how professors adjusted syllabi or failed to provide opportunities for asynchronous learning.
Many students wrote that some professors were patient and accommodating while others approached the semester in starkly different ways.
“I felt like most of the concessions certain professors claimed were just talk,” one student wrote. “One of my professors did not cut the workload at all and just added the material from the week we missed onto the post-break semester.”
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Despite high rates of approval for professors’ levels of accommodation, 64% of students reported that their academic experience this spring was at least “generally” impaired amid the adjustment to remote learning.
“If students were disadvantaged before, this pandemic only exacerbates the previous systemic issue,” one student wrote. “We should focus Middlebury's financial support to pledge to support students who have a less than ideal home situation for learning. This is a serious concern for accessibility reasons as well.”
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Students reported “news and outside distractions” as the most significant impediment to their distance-learning experience. Financial burdens were another — more than 100 students reported a need to make money while living at home as being at least somewhat of an obstacle to their learning, and thirty-four students reported lacking a home as a significant obstacle.
“I've been taking care of my two younger cousins whose both parents have brain injuries,” a student wrote. “Being home means that I have to step up in my family, and that involves home-schooling and helping to raise an 11-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy. It has also meant caring for my father who has early-onset Alzheimers. The playing field is extremely unequal when school is remote.”
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A significant majority of students — 63% — reported not taking any classes credit/no credit this spring. In the push for a credit/no credit system in the spring, students cited disadvantages faced by less-privileged students as the primary reason for offering such a system. Some students acknowledged that the credit/no credit system remained relevant because of these challenges, even if they were able to choose letter grades.
“My grades ended up good this semester,” one student wrote, “but I support universal credit/no credit because I know how much stress my friends have experienced in deciding whether to take courses for standard grading or for credit.”
Summer plans
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About half of students surveyed will participate in remote internships or jobs this summer. However, 62% reported previously having a job or internship that was later cancelled due to the coronavirus.
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A slight majority of respondents reported that they will be spending the summer months in the same location as where they spent their spring semester.
Fall 2020
“The Plan”
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Respondents favored an in-person, socially distanced semester for fall 2020 — a plan that raises questions about the college’s ability to enforce social distancing protocols in classrooms, dorms and the town of Middlebury. The other favorite options — delayed on-campus semester and pre-Thanksgiving end to the semester — raise similar questions that colleges will continue to grapple with as they consider on-campus possibilities.
Students are thus not enthused by the prospect of another semester of fully-remote learning. A significant percentage of anecdotal responses submitted at the end of this survey centered around respondents’ anxieties for the fall.
“I would easily trade my off campus/ traveling privileges for an in person-semester,” one student wrote. “Being able to socialize and learn in person with friends and colleagues is my highest priority.”
“I am going to be incredibly depressed if we can not return to campus in the fall,” another wrote.
But others expressed concern that the college committing to an in-person fall semester would pose too many uncertainties to be worth it. “I would rather have a clear remote fall than a chaotic one on campus,” one student wrote. More directly, others pointed out that an in-person fall would raise pressing questions about how to enforce social distancing guidelines.
Others offered their own tips on how the college should plan for the fall. “I think we should arrive to campus early, spend 14 days in isolation with the highest social distancing measures in place, and then have a normal fall semester,” a respondent wrote. “This would hopefully eliminate any risk of the virus spreading after the two weeks of isolation.”
As students sort through anxieties about what the fall will bring, immunocompromised students are experiencing higher degrees of concern about how the semester will look than most.
“As an immunocompromised student I am very scared of what life back at Middelbury would look like, yet also do not want to give up the rest of my college years,” a student wrote. “I worry about whether Middlebury is talking with the ADA coordinators/more vulnerable students to form a fall semester plan.”
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Four-hundred and twelve respondents — 71% — would be “very unwilling” to pay full tuition for a remote fall semester. And in the anecdotal responses, students posed concerns about how tuition payments and financial aid would work in the event of a remote semester.
“Will the college allow students on financial aid to take the semester off without restrictions? If I take the semester off and am on financial aid will I still be assured financial aid for the rest of my time at Middlebury? Will financial aid decrease due to financial hardships of the college? I am concerned that the college will hold financial aid over students' heads to prevent them from withdrawing from the semester if it is all remote,” a student wrote.
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41% of respondents said they would prefer a mandatory credit/no credit system in the event of a fully remote fall semester.
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And strikingly, 337 said they would attempt to take a leave-of-absence for the fall in the event of a fully-remote semester.
“Everyone I know would try to take a semester off if it were to be remote,” one student wrote in their anecdotal response. Another wrote that a fully in-person semester would be necessary for them to even consider paying full tuition and that “it isn't worth my money or my time otherwise.”
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In voicing anxieties about the fall, students — already three months into social distancing protocols by June — were most concerned about the ability of the pandemic in preventing them from socializing with friends.
Other significant anxieties stemmed from the ongoing public health risk and potential restrictions on campus activities.
“I am extremely concerned about the potential of party/social culture instigating an outbreak,” a student wrote. “I do not know that every student may follow social distancing/quarantining rules. In fact, I expect many to break them...I am worried that places of massive, close social gatherings (social houses, Atwater, etc.) will create a possible breeding ground for the virus.”
To the college, one student wrote, “good luck making these really tough decisions.”
Correction 6/4/20, 9:30 A.M.: A previous version of this article stated that "about a third [of students] reported knowing a friend who had tested positive and another third responded as not knowing anyone who had tested positive" for Covid-19. The correct figures are 40% and 41%, respectively.
