809 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(12/03/15 1:12am)
Beyond emissions from heating and cooling, travel and waste, the College must address emissions from purchased electricity in order to reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2016. When the Climate Action Plan (CAP) was adopted in 2008, electricity purchases accounted for only 2 percent of the College’s total carbon emissions. By 2014, this figure had risen to almost 7 percent. Though this was largely due to a decrease in total gross emissions from heating and cooling, emissions from purchased electricity did rise from 676 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2007 to 864 tons in 2014.
The College uses about 22 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year. Of this energy, 20 percent is cogenerated on campus by turbines connected to the central heating plant. The steam generated by the plant (from biomass and fossil fuel combustion) drives turbines, which generate electricity. The steam is then piped throughout campus to meet the heating and cooling demand. The remaining 80 percent of the College’s electricity is purchased from the Central Vermont Public Service Corporation (CVPS). Because the combustion of biomass is considered carbon neutral, it is this purchased electricity that accounts for the College’s net carbon emissions from electricity usage.
When the College purchases electricity from CVPS, it cannot control the source of the electricity or whether it is carbon neutral. Until 2013, the vast majority of Vermont’s power (70 percent) came from nuclear energy, which is carbon neutral. Much of the remainder of the state’s electricity came from hydropower, another source of clean energy. Most of Vermont’s nuclear power came from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, which shut down in late 2014. Due to this, utilities have since had to purchase electricity from non-renewable sources.
Green Mountain Power, which recently merged with CVPS, predicts that only 55 percent of its fuel mix in 2015 will be renewable, coming from nuclear and hydroelectric sources. The other 45 percent of its fuel mix will consist mainly of “system” power, which comes from various sources, including fossil fuels. In calculating carbon emissions from purchased electricity, the College must factor this in.
To help reduce net emissions from electricity, the CAP recommended conservation as well as investigating alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar power.
In 2012, well after the CAP went into action, the College installed a small 143kW demonstration solar system near McCardell Bicentennial Hall, which consists of 34 solar trackers. In total, the system produces about 200,000 kilowatt-hours annually, which is only one percent of the College’s total electricity consumption. According to the College’s website, the electricity generated by this system is enough to power Forest Hall throughout the year.
Though solar power could be used to offset the College’s energy usage, it is not currently feasible for large-scale power generation. Because of the relative inefficiency of modern solar panels, the College would need a huge solar system to meet its energy needs. This presents multiple problems, including the physical infrastructure of the system and energy storage.
In order to further reduce net emissions from electricity purchases, the College should continue to focus on reducing electricity consumption. Signs asking students to turn off lights when they leave the room have become increasingly prevalent on campus and help to encourage more sustainable practices. Despite these efforts, there is the sentiment that students are still largely unaware of the impacts of their lifestyle choices on sustainability.
Since 2007, carbon emissions due to purchased electricity at the College have risen by 188 metric tons of carbon dioxide, nearly 30 percent. Though only a small contribution to the College’s overall carbon emissions, reduction of electricity usage or a shift toward renewable energy sources will help the College reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2016.
(12/03/15 1:06am)
The men’s basketball team has endured an up-and-down start to the 2015-2016 campaign, compiling a 2-4 record in the early going. Center Matt Daley ’16 and guards Jake Brown ’17 and Matt St. Amour ’17 have served as the backbone of this young but otherwise talented roster.
The Panthers began their season with some tournament action hosted by Medaille College in the Western New York Knee and Orthopedic Tournament. Despite the comical name of the setting, Middlebury’s competition proved no joke, and the Panthers limped home with an 0-2 record.
The opening matchup saw Middlebury pitted against a hot-shooting Baldwin Wallace squad on Friday, Nov. 20. The Panthers took a seven-point deficit into halftime, but the Yellow Jackets exploded for 54 points in the second half and held a 24-point advantage with just over five minutes to play in a game that Middlebury eventually lost 97-87.
St. Amour was a bright spot for Middlebury, lighting up the scoreboard for a career-high 33 points on 7-17 shooting (3-6 3PT FG) and an insane 16-20 from the stripe, and has been relied on early on to become the team’s go-to scorer.
“I am comfortable with it,” St. Amour said, “but there are a lot of other guys that can score so I don’t need to force it.”
Guard Jack Daly ’18 got his first collegiate start and tallied seven points, seven boards, four assists and two steals.
The Panthers fell again the following day to St. Lawrence University, 63-57. This time the damage was done early by the Middlebury opponents, as SLU led by 11 at halftime. St. Amour once again led Middlebury in scoring with 15. Forward Connor Huff ’16 did his best Charles Barkley impression, scraping up 12 boards in 25 minutes off the bench.
The Panthers finally broke the ice with a 80-63 win at SUNY-New Paltz on Tuesday, Nov. 24 and were able to enter their short Thanksgiving break on a high note. Middlebury showed early on that they were the superior club to the now 1-4 New Paltz Hawks. Daley had 10 points and six boards in the first half alone as nine different players contributed to the Panthers’ 45 first-half points — most of which came from the interior. Middlebury held the Hawks to 27 first half points on 10-33 (30.3 percent) shooting from the field.
For the game, Daley finished with 19 points and 10 boards, and Brown and Daly nearly joined him with double-doubles of their own. Brown tallied 10 points and seven assists while Daly racked up nine points and eight dimes.
The Panthers were once again stymied in the opener of the University of Rochester Holiday Inn/Airport Tournament, losing 70-55 to No. 25 Oswego State. Middlebury was ice cold from the field, going just 20-63 (31.7 percent) from the field, 4-17 (23.5 percent) from deep and 11-23 (47.8 percent) from the free throw line.
Oswego didn’t shoot much better percentages, but 25 makes on 39 trips to the line gave Oswego the advantage. St. Amour once again led the Panthers with 23 points and Daley snagged 11 boards, but their efforts were not enough to get a victory.
Middlebury did earn its second win of the young season with a consummate 103-63 victory over in-state opponent Johnson State. The story of the game was a 60-20 advantage for the Panthers in the rebounding department. The Panthers’ 27 offensive boards led to 28 second-chance points compared to just one for Johnson State.
Multiple players put up impressive stat lines. Daley earned his second double-double of the year with 15 points and 10 boards. St. Amour and Huff both scored in double digits with 17 and 10, respectively. Guard Bryan Jones ’17 scored a career-high 14 points, and guard Zach Baines ’19 set his own career high with ten points. Forward Nick Tarantino ’18 (12 rebounds) and forward Eric McCord ’19 (10 rebounds, nine points), both made big impacts off of the bench.
Middlebury suffered a heartbreaker, 68-66, on the road at Rensselaer on Tuesday, Dec. 1. Brown’s career-high 20 points and Daley’s third triple-double were not enough to top 4-1 Rensselaer. The Panthers entered halftime down 33-24 after shooting just 34.2 percent from the field and going 0-5 from beyond the arc, but chipped away after halftime and had a chance to win the ball game late.
St. Amour tallied six points in a stretch of one minute and 38 seconds, shrinking the deficit to three points with 1:43 to go. With Rensselaer up 65-62, Daley grabbed a rebound off of a missed three-pointer from Rensselaer’s Tyler Gendron and pushed the ball up the court, but the Panthers’ turned the ball back over on a St. Amour charge in the paint. Rensselaer missed a jumper on their next possession, giving Middlebury hope once again. Brown then dropped in a two-pointer off of an offensive rebound to tighten the score at 65-64.
Both teams proceeded to make a pair of free throws, and Middlebury fouled to send their opponent to the line with six seconds to play. After Jonathan Luster missed the second of his free throws, the Panthers tried to get up the court for a chance at a game-tying two, but were unable to get a shot off, closing the door on a possible comeback.
The Panthers are now 2-4, a disappointing start for a team with lofty aspirations, but there are bright spots to point out, both as a team an individually.
“It’s still really early in our season and we are still learning to trust each other with our plays and defensive rotations,” St. Amour said. Playing very good teams early, they have been able to expose our early season mistakes but the more we’ve worked together the better we have gotten.
“Jack Daly and [Connor] Huff have been very strong contributors so far, both offering a lot of toughness into our starting five.”
Middlebury meets Johnson St. once again on Thursday, Dec. 3, and will open its home schedule with Castleton on Tuesday, Dec. 8.
(12/03/15 12:53am)
Men’s and women’s swimming and diving started their season on Saturday, Nov. 21, hosting Connecticut College and Tufts at the Middlebury Natatorium. While both the men and women lost to Connecticut College (152-128 and 152-136, respectively), and the Panther men sustained a 176-112 loss to Tufts, the Middlebury women edged Tufts 151-149.
Isabel Wyer ’18 started the season off strong, winning the 200 free by nearly two seconds with a time of 1:55.38, and the 500 free, clocking 5:07.56.
Close behind Wyer in the 500 free, Alaina Pribis’ ’19 5:22.21 earned her a third place spot. Co-Captain Megan Griffin ’16 got second place in the 100 fly (1:00.15), and Lucy Scott ’16 placed third in the 500 free (10:55.87).
Sarah Bartholomae ’18 and Katie Corrigan ’19’s times of 1:03.01 and 1:03.06 in the 100 back took both third and fourth place for the Panthers, and co-Captain Maddie Pierce ’16 placed third in the 200 back (2:16.46), before Caroline Kelly ’16, who finished fourth (2:16.86).
Middlebury showed strength in their relays. Wyer (back), Liza MacCowatt ’19 (breast), Griffin (fly) and Morgan Burke ’16 (free) won the 200 medley relay (1:49.94), and Griffin, Burke, Stephanie Andrews ’18 and Wyer touched the wall just .21 seconds behind Conn. College in the 200 free relay (1:39.82).
Head Coach Bob Rueppel differentiated the program’s strategies for the men and the women. “On the women’s side we’re hoping to build off of last season’s success: getting further along not only in the conference but on the national level,” Rueppel said. “One of my goals coming in [for the men is] to have a real solid foundation in the program.”
So despite the team’s overall losses, the eight different men’s swimmers who scored big in events throughout the meet helped set the versatile foundation that Rueppel talked about. Stephan Koenigsberger ’16 and Bryan Cheuk ’16 touched the wall first in individual events: the 100 breast (59.01) and 50 free (22.10), respectively. In the 50 free, Jack McLaughlin ’18 placed second (22.24) behind Cheuk, and Taylor Moore ’18 touched the wall fifth with a time of 22.44 to clinch three of the top five spots for the Panthers.
Co-Captain Paul Lagasse ’16 finished second in the 100 free (48.80), while Connor McCormick ’18 got second in the 200 breaststroke (2:14.33).
Michael McGean ’17 did well in long-distance events, placing third in the 500 free (4:48.20) and second in the 1000 free (9:51.71).
Cheuk, Brendan Leech ’19, McLaughlin and Lagasse each swam a leg in the 200 free relay to earn the Panthers’ final victory of the day (1:27.24).
Their splits of 22.12, 22.08, 21.62 and 21.42 respectively all came close to Cheuk’s winning time of 22.10 in the individual 50 free.
Meanwhile, first-year Will Greene ’19 placed first in the 1-meter (217.28) and second in the 3-meter (201.60) events in his first performance as a Middlebury diver. Elissa DeNunzio ’18 earned 182.00 points in the 1-meter diving competition and 208.20 in the 3-meter to take second in both events.
Amherst will host Middlebury this Saturday, Dec. 5 for what ought to be another fast meet.
(11/13/15 4:18am)
On Friday, the faculty convened for their monthly plenary session to discuss the Cultures and Civilizations Distribution Requirement, the expiration of the Pass/D/Fail option in Dec. 31, 2015 and student mental health. In attendance were roughly 80 faculty. Per committee bylaws, select students were also in attendance, including the Campus and the Student Government Association (SGA).
The Faculty Educational Affairs Committee (EAC) presented a proposal to revise the current geographic areas covered in the requirement as well as refine the comparative (CMP) requirement with the introduction of the Critical Perspectives (CRP) designation.
In an email to the Campus, Jiya Pandya ’17, Director for Academic Affairs in the SGA and chair of the Student Educational Affairs Committee said that the proposal was encouraging, and that faculty at the meeting posed thoughtful ques- tions and counter proposals.
“I think the conversation needs to continue, because while the Cultures and Civilizations amendment is pressing, it is also about bigger questions about the ‘ethic of diversity’ (as President Laurie describes) in our classrooms and curricula,” she said. “I’m excited to see that changes are happening and to see where they will go (hopefully, of course, to a vote that passes to change AAL), and also that the ad- ministration has been responsive to student feedback from the SEAC.”
Under the proposal, students would be required to take any three courses in three of the seven geographic designations: Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, Middle East and Oceania. Faculty have called into the question the relevancy of the Oceania requirement, as few if any classes offered at the College receive the designation. There has also been controversy over the optionality of the NOR requirement. If accepted, the new requirements would go into effect in the Fall 2017 semester.
The EAC also presented legislation vote to reinstate the Pass/D/ Fail option, which is set to expire this year on Dec. 31 after a three year pilot program that began in Spring 2013. The stated goal of the original legislation was to encourage students to explore the curriculum outside their usual comfort zones.
In their proposal the EAC noted that the data they had collected regarding utilization of Pass/D/Fail did not conclusively point to its efficacy in encouraging students to move out of their academic comfort zone. In each of the five semesters in which the option has existed, more than half of the students invoking it have been seniors.
Both proposals will be voted on at a plenary session in January.
The session then moved into a discussion of student mental health. At this point the faculty voted 45 to 33 in favor of initiating an executive session. Only voting members of the Faculty committee may be present during executive session, and all proceedings are confidential. Non-voting members, including certain administrators and students, were asked to leave.
(11/11/15 9:31pm)
After taking down fifth-seeded Tufts last Friday (25-21, 25-20, 19-25, 25-16) to advance to the semifinal round of the NESCAC championship, the Middlebury volleyball team saw their season come to a close with a difficult loss to Bowdoin on Saturday (21-25, 24-26, 13-25). The Polar Bears would go on to defeat Williams in the championship round on Sunday, earning a berth in the NCAA tournament; the Panthers, finishing their season at 18-7 and 7-3 in the conference, were left to wonder at what could have been, despite having thoroughly exceeded the on-paper expectations for a team with no seniors that finished 12-12 last year.
“We’ve had some lopsided matches recently (good wins, and tough losses), and I think we’re learning what it feels like to really play well together, and we just need to do that consistently this weekend,” Head Coach Sarah Raunecker said. “I like where we are now heading into NESCAC’s. If we play well, we can compete with anyone there so we feel like we’re in control of our destiny.”
After defeating Tufts in their last regular season game, Middlebury drew the Jumbos in the first round of the NESCAC tournament. The Jumbos showed up ready to play, hoping to exact their revenge, but the Panthers refused to budge. The score ran all the way to 22-22 before some strong play from middle hitter Gabi Rosenfeld ’17 and outside hitter Becca Raffel ’18 allowed Middlebury to wrap up the first set. The Panthers capitalized upon that momentum in the second, racing out to going ahead 13-4 and then coasting to a 24-16 lead. Tufts stuck around for a bit, stringing together four straight points, but ultimately fell on a service error that gave the Panthers a 2-0 lead.
With their backs against the wall, the Jumbos fired off a quick eight points to start off the third and would lead the rest of the way. Middlebury made a push to get within five at 19-14, but Tufts regained control with three straight and went on to notch their first set victory, 25-19.
In the fourth set, the match concluded with some hard-nosed play. The two teams fought to a 13-13 tie before the Panthers began to distance themselves from the Jumbos, building a 17-14 lead and then running away with a 25-16 victory and the match. Notable players for Middlebury include Raffel, who led both sides with 15 kills, Rosenfeld, who had 1 solo block and 4 block assists, libero Emily Kolodka ’18 who dug up 25 balls and setter Hannah Blackburn ’17 who dished out 36 assists.
“We weren’t even thinking about the fact that it was Tufts,” outside hitter Alice Roberts ’17 said. “This tournament, we went in saying that we can only focus on what we’re going to do — and we want to win the whole thing. Tufts came back and definitely fought, but we were playing too well.’”
On Saturday, the Panthers found themselves in the opposite situation, trying to get back at a Bowdoin team that had handed them their first conference loss back in September. However, some of the consistency problems that plagued Middlebury at times earlier in the season reared their heads once more, and little errors prevented the Panthers from stringing together runs when they needed them. In the first set, the Panthers stuck with the Polar Bears until Bowdoin, leading 15-14, rattled off seven straight points to go up 22-14. The Panthers fought back to make it 24-21 before the Polar Bears finished off the set.
Always resilient, Middlebury pushed Bowdoin to a 19-19 tie in the second set. The Polar Bears scored four straight points, but the Panthers responded with a 5-1 run of their own to tie things up at 24-24. The Polar Bears took control, scoring two quick points to take a 2-0 lead in the match.
In the third set, nothing seemed to go Middlebury’s way. Bowdoin jumped out to an early lead and never took their foot off the pedal, closing things out with a 25-13 third set victory.
“Our serve-receive went very well in the first two sets,” Roberts said. “Once Bowdoin started to control the match a little bit, we got a little disjointed.We kept bringing ourselves back — we were composed the entire time — but Bowdoin just played a great game. They had almost no errors, whereas we had some unforced errors here and there.”
Looking forward, good things seem to be on the horizon for the Panthers. They return every member from a squad that featured a number of players on NESCAC leaderboards. Raffel finished third in the conference in kills per set with 3.80. Middle blocker Melanie English ’17 was second in blocks with an average of 1.04 each set, and Blackburn was third in assists with 9.68 per set.
Roberts shared that the team is even more excited to see where the added experience, along with a handful of incoming freshmen, might be able to take them next time around.
“Honestly, people were looking at our team as though we weren’t going be great this year, but I was very much expecting us to play well because our team was first-year and sophomore heavy last year, playing-wise,” Roberts said. “Now I’m extremely excited for next year because we went this far, with this team that’s not changing—if anything, we’ll just be adding some more players,” she said.
(11/05/15 12:55am)
The Middlebury football team has experienced an up-and-down October, and while the team has emerged with a winning record, its ultimate goal is now out of reach.
A cake walk victory back in Week 2 over Colby was soon followed by a handy defeat at perennial title contender Amherst. The Panthers bounced back by defeating Williams 36-14 on Homecoming weekend, making them 3-1 as they prepared for a battle in Lewiston, ME with Bates. A second-half offensive explosion lead Middlebury to a 41-27 victory and set up a pivotal game with Trinity on Halloween. Unfortunately for Middlebury, the game, knotted at 14-13 for much of the first half in favor of the Panthers, slipped through their hands in tragic fashion as a couple of late turnovers resulted in a 26-14 Bantam victory. Middlebury now stands at 4-2, with its championship hopes completely out the window. With Amherst and Trinity both 6-0 and set to meet this weekend, one or the other will finish no worse than 7-1 on the year and in sole possession of the NESCAC crown.
The Panthers fought back-and-forth with the Bates Bobcats on Saturday, Oct. 24, eventually securing the victory despite a mere four-point lead at halftime. Bates opened the scoring with a long first quarter drive that resulted in a field goal, but Middlebury responded with a quick strike and a 84-yard TD drive culminating in the fourth touchdown catch of the year for WR Matt Minno ’16. Bates would take the lead late in the first when slot back Frank Williams broke loose for a 39-yard touchdown run. The next four series were ugly for both teams, as Middlebury surrendered an interception and a fumble and Bates lost a fumble and missed a field goal attempt. The Panthers then went on an eight-play, 80-yard scoring drive, on which Conrado Banky ’19 caught a 34-yard TD down the left sideline by out jumping his defender in the end zone. The score would stay 14-10 going into halftime.
Milano had 276 of his passing yards in the first half to go along with two scores and two interceptions.
The second half belonged to Middlebury, which outscored its opponent 27-17 after the break. Minno, Tanner Contois ’18 and Ryan Rizzo ’17 all caught touchdown passes, making it five scoring strikes on the day for Milano. The scoring was capped off when QB Jared Lebowitz ’18 kept a read option and darted up the gut for a 40-yard scoring run.
Milano finished the day 31-53 for 405 yards, five touchdowns and three interceptions. Minno had 10 catches for 138 yards and two scores, his second two-touchdown game of the season, and second-consecutive 100-yard receiving game. Banky also had 100-plus yards through the air and a score, and the defense had three interceptions, one apiece from Kevin Hopsicker ’18, Wesley Becton ’18 and Dan Pierce ’16.
The victory over Bates prepared Middlebury to host the undefeated Trinity Bantams with the knowledge that this game would be do-or-die for the Panthers’ championship hopes.
The Panthers began the game severely short-staffed, with starters Banky, RB Diego Meritus ’19, TE Trevor Miletich ’16, LB Addison Pierce ’17 and CB Andrew McGrath ’18 all out with injury. On Middlebury’s first drive the panthers lost receiver Rizzo to a season-ending knee injury, and late in the contest Contois went down with a serious injury, as well.
Despite these hurdles, Middlebury struck first. Contois’ first quarter TD reception gave the Panthers an early lead, which would last until early in the second quarter when Trinity’s electric return man Darrien Myers took a punt 74 yards for a score to make it 10-7 in favor of the Bantams.
Middlebury attempted to tie the game in the second quarter, but Charlie Gordon’s ’19 31-yard field goal attempt was blocked by Trinity’s Brandon Blaise, representing the sixth blocked kick against Middlebury this season.
Middlebury did put another score on the board late in the second quarter, however, as TE Dan Fulham caught an eight-yard score from Milano. That touchdown made it 14-13 with Trinity having converted on two field goal attempts.
The next 27 minutes of football were scoreless. Middlebury tried to strike first, but Gordon’s 30-yard field goal attempt in the third quarter sailed wide right, seemingly deflating the Panthers. However, Becton rose to the occasion two plays later and gave the ball back to Middlebury by intercepting a Trinity pass. On the ensuing possession, the Panthers drove 37 yards to the Trinity five, but with the issues in the kicking game and the Panthers’ confidence that they could convert, Head Coach Bob Ritter elected to go for the touchdown. Milano found an open target in the end zone but the ball was dropped, and it remained a one-point game.
The two teams traded punts back-and-forth for much of the fourth quarter, but the fateful mistake came with 4:18 left in the ball game on the Middlebury 34. RB Jon Hurvitz ’17 coughed up a fumble that Trinity was able to recover. It took just three plays for the Bantams to convert and score the go-ahead touchdown, taking a five-point lead after the two-point conversion attempt failed.
The Panthers had just 2:52 to go 75 yards and only two timeouts remaining. A defensive pass interference and a completion to Fulham took Middlebury to the 48-yard line, but the Panthers’ momentum was quickly reversed when Trinity safety Spencer Donahue picked off Milano and returned the ball 13 yards to the Trinity 41. With two timeouts left, the Panthers were able to force a Trinity punt with over one minute left in the game.
Middlebury began its last-ditch effort from its own 28 with 1:17 remaining and no timeouts. On the drive’s opening play, Milano found Minno wide open 15 yards down the middle of the field, but the usually reliable wideout failed to reel in the pass, making it second down. On the next play, needing to connect deep down the sideline in order to stop the clock, Milano targeted Emilio Ovalles-Misterman ’19, a running back-turned slot receiver thanks to all of Middlebury’s injuries, on a long corner route. Trinity cornerback Archi Jerome could not have been in better position, and hauled down Milano’s errant throw over his shoulders before planting his foot in the ground and sprinting up the right sideline for a 50-yard touchdown return and sealing the win for Trinity.
Special teams and injuries ruled the day. Trinty’s Kyle Pulek punted the ball nine times, pinning Middlebury within its own 14-yard line six times, and Myers’ punt return touchdown was momentous. As for Middlebury, the Panthers left, at minimum, nine points on the board by failing to convert in the red zone, and Middlebury is now missing five of its Week 1 starters for the season.
The Panthers, now 4-2, will look to extend their 19-game winning streak against the Hamilton Continentals at home this Saturday, Nov. 7 on Middlebury’s Senior Day.
(10/22/15 12:47am)
The women’s golf team wrapped up its fall season in Wellesley, Massachusetts last weekend, Oct. 19-20, at the Nehoiden Golf Club for the Ann S. Batchelder Golf Invitational. The Panthers finished third out of nine teams, collectively shooting a 640 to put them at 64 over par for the weekend. The Panthers finished 31 shots behind Williams, who set the pace at 33 shots over par with a total score of 609 for the weekend, which ended with the familiar sight of the Ephs taking home the tournament trophy.
NYU shot a 629 and finished second, 11 shots ahead of the Panthers. Middlebury was able to beat out rival Amherst for the second straight weekend, as the Lord Jeffs shot a 661, 21 behind the Panthers. After a fifth-place finish in their first tournament of the fall season one month ago, Sept. 19-20, at the NYU Invitational, the Panthers have managed to finish third in every tournament since.
Head Coach Bill Mandigo “thought [the team] played better down the stretch,” in the Batchelder Invitational than it had in previous tournaments this fall. This likely helped the Panthers to edge out Amherst, their main competition, from a spot on the podium.
“I was very pleased for Lilia Everson [’19] this past weekend. She had two great days,” Mandigo said. “Katharine Fortin [’18] and Helen Dailey [’19] have been very consistent the past few weeks and will continue to improve,” Mandigo added, hinting at the prospect of continued success in the spring.
Indeed, freshmen Everson and Dailey, as well as Fortin, stood out for the Panthers in the Batchelder Invitational. Everson and Dailey had the best rounds of their fledgling collegiate careers.
Everson finished fourth on the individual leader board as she shot back-to-back 77s for a 154 on the weekend. Fortin maintained her consistency this fall with back-to-back 79s for a 158 on the weekend, again shooting her name onto the individual leaderboard with her eighth-place overall finish. Meanwhile, Dailey shot an 81 in Saturday’s round and an 80 in Sunday’s for a weekend finish of 161. Though she was just three strokes behind Fortin, Dailey placed just outside the top 10, tying with Catherina Li of NYU for 11th.
Sophomore Hope Matthews ’18 was the other Panther who counted on the score sheet. She shot a 167 — 82 on Saturday and 85 on Sunday. Matthews had a very strong first-year campaign, but has struggled to break 80 in her sophomore fall. Monica Chow ’18, the team’s lone senior, finished shot back-to-back 85s to finish the weekend with a 170. Though Chow tied for 24th individually (in a tournament with 62 participating golfers), her score did not factor on the Panthers’ team scorecard.
Sunday’s round was the second this season in which Williams shot 300 or lower as a team and was the fourth time that each of the Ephs who counted on the score sheet finished in the tournament’s top 10 individual finishers. In fact, a Williams player has clinched the individual title of every tournament held this fall. The closest the Ephs’ streak came to being snapped was at Middlebury’s invite, when Fortin and Amherst’s Devyn Gardner finished in a four-way tie for first with Phoebe Mattana and Elizabeth Gudas of Williams.
Although the men’s squad has already packed their clubs away for the winter, the all-Conference squad was released last week. Scott Guidotti ’19 won NESCAC Player and Rookie of the Year honors, while Bill Beaney was tabbed as NESCAC Coach of the Year. The eight-man first team all-NESCAC squad indicates that when teams let their first-years play it has had a big impact. To be sure, Middlebury is the trend-setter: Guidotti, Phil Morin ’19 and Reid Buzby ’19 are the Panthers’ three representatives on the NESCAC first-team squad. Joining the class of ’19’s trio in post-season recognition, Rodrigo Andrade ’17 earned a spot on the second all-NESCAC team.
“Being able to win as a team feels so much better than simply doing well as an individual,” Buzby said as he reflected on his first season. “The upperclassmen have made the transition from junior golf to college golf very easy; they are always willing to help out. I have just been very happy to be able to contribute to the team the last few tournaments.”
(10/21/15 11:26pm)
Pulsating music and dim lights greeted audiences as they entered the makeshift courtroom and took their seats in what felt like a jury box. The hunched figure of the Bible’s most famous sinner sat squarely in the middle of the stage.
Such was the setup of the 20th annual first-year show, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adly Guirgis, which ran from Oct. 15 to 17 in the Hepburn Zoo. A tradition dating back to 1996, the first-year show gives new students an immediate opportunity to participate in the Middlebury College Theatre Department. Like many years before, the cast worked with a graduate from the College. Tara Giordana ’02 took the reins this fall to direct the often dark, often funny production of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot.
Set in a corner of Purgatory called Hope, the play depicts the trial of its titular character for his betrayal of Jesus Christ. A trial is both the simplest and most complex stage for this show: While we would all like to believe that the truth will come out, we do not always like to believe the truth itself. And the truth is, Judas is just like us.
Everyone from Mother Teresa to Sigmund Freud to Satan gives testimony, while appearances from Saints Thomas, Peter and Monica enlighten us to Judas’s life. But as the characters grapple with their own crimes and their judgments of Judas, the trial ends up unveiling more tension than honesty. Throughout the entire performance, Judas, played by first-time actor Alexis de la Rosa ’19, sat curled up in the middle of the stage, judgments orbiting wildly around him. Meanwhile, the audience members became keenly aware of their role in the story as jurors, and thus the ultimate deciders of his guilt.
The annual first-year show opens doors for students to explore the multiple facets of theater. Two first-years, Tatsatom Goncalves ’19 and Sabina Jiang ’19, participated in the sound and light board operation and acted as assistants to the director. Working alongside them were upperclassmen Aashna Aggarwal ’16, Alexander Burnett ’16, Caitlin Duffy ’15.5 and Tosca Giustini ’15.5, who used their theatre experience to offer support to the newcomers.
Because the cast consisted solely of first-years, the actors found solidarity through their shared anxieties. They were also able to build a sense of community, equality and lightheartedness in their work.
“I was inspired by my peers,” Lucy Grindon ’19, who played Bailiff and Sigmund Freud, said.
Rehearsals for The Last Days of Judas Iscariot spanned merely three weeks. Madeleine Russell ’19, who portrayed both Jesus of Nazareth and Fabiana Aziza Cunningham, described director Giordana as “funny, lighthearted and kind.”
“Tara is phenomenal, perceptive and clear in her understanding of what the play is about,” Russell said. “She was also good at including the cast in creating the meaning [of the play].”
This meaning, Giordana believes, resides in the characters’ internal conflicts.
“In the end, Judas is unable to forgive himself,” she explained. “His best friend, Jesus, offers him love and forgiveness, but Judas is unable to recognize and accept it, because he has sunk too far into despair.”
Self-love and forgiveness play thematic roles in the production, which questions whether we can accept love from others if we cannot give it to ourselves first. The answer is presented in a religious context, but delivered in an accessible manner, with modern language and garb.
Lucy Grindon ’19 observed that, as a Christian, she felt closer to the story because she was able to see the figures she had only read about emerge in living, breathing form.
Though the majority of the characters come straight from the Bible, the messages behind the play remain relatable to people of all beliefs.
“I think the play resonates regardless of what you believe in,” Sam Martin ’19, who played El-Fayoumy, said. “Guilt, redemption and forgiveness are hardly unique concepts to Christianity, so I think the play is pretty universal in terms of the questions it asks and the ideas it presents.”
This universality ultimately forces the audience to make their own judgments about not only Judas, but also themselves. If Judas Iscariot and a seemingly normal man like Butch (portrayed by Logan Wahl ’19) are both capable of betraying those who love them most, what about the rest of us?
A story so layered demands an equally complex production. As such, the original version of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot runs for a full three hours. Giordana was faced with the challenge of cutting it down to a mere 80 minutes.
“I selected scenes and monologues from the script and then made internal cuts to the text as well,” she explained. “This was based on the actors I had — to give each an opportunity to shine — but another goal was to keep the playwright’s story intact and maintain a thorough line for the audience.”
Despite the cuts, the performance kept a rhythm similar to that of the human experience: one minute, laughter would fill the room; the next, grave silence hung over the stage. The final scene, in which Jesus washes Judas’ feet, stood as the most poignant display of forgiveness and love in the entire show, with Jesus’ quiet reverence toward Judas lingering long after the lights dimmed.
Wrought with emotion and plagued with questions of morality, forgiveness and love, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot sets the stage for a year of great shows — and hopefully begins a long list of achievements for the first-years involved in its making.
(10/21/15 8:38pm)
For five decades Middlebury College has been an outstanding leader in promoting environmental studies and international studies and in adopting sustainable operating procedures. Laurie Patton has shared with me her commitment as the College’s new president to build on and extend this admirable record of leadership. Toward this end, she would like to work in partnership with trustees, student groups, and concerned faculty and staff in an effort to identify next steps. This is a sound approach that all in the College community can support. Regarding next steps, this letter highlights one especially significant opportunity. We are at a pivotal moment in the national and international debate over the urgent need for a transition to a clean energy economy. Middlebury has the ability to influence the outcome of this critical debate by taking a public stand with a commitment to join the growing fossil fuel divestment movement. A decision by the College to divest should be viewed primarily as an act of moral and educational leadership at a time when industrial-technological civilization has lost its way and must reinvent itself.
I write this letter as a former Middlebury faculty member who taught at the College for close to three decades, served as dean of the college in the Olin Robison administration, and chaired the College’s Environmental Council during the mid-1990s. My courses included the study of environmental ethics, global ethics, and religion and ecology. I also write as a trustee and former chair of the board of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), an international grant making foundation that has joined the fossil fuel divestment movement as part of an effort to align its investment policy with its mission and program goals. The Divest Middlebury campaign has set forth a compelling argument, and I write in support of the students who are leading this important initiative.
Scientists working in the field of climate change have turned on the alarm bells. Human development practices, especially the burning of fossil fuels, are altering the conditions on Earth that have made possible the development of civilization over the past ten thousand years. If humanity does not act with all deliberate speed and reduce its global greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, the consensus among scientists is that the ecological, economic and social damage and disruption could be catastrophic and irreversible. The most vulnerable are the hundreds of millions of people living in poverty, but no one’s life will be unaffected. Already the negative effects of climate change are being felt by communities around the world. In addition, human development patterns have caused a tragic decline in the planet’s biodiversity and natural beauty, and ongoing global warming will accelerate this process.
Since action on climate change is about preventing immense harm and promoting the common good, it is first and foremost a fundamental moral issue. With the risk of dangerous consequences growing with every day of delayed action, it is also an extraordinarily urgent moral challenge. In a recent declaration, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican in Rome stated the matter succinctly: “Human-induced climate change is a scientific reality, and its mitigation is a moral and religious imperative.” A growing chorus of religious leaders, including Pope Francis, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, and the Dalai Lama, fully support this view. The new Encyclical Letter of Pope Francis on the environment, “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home,” and the Pope’s addresses before Congress and the United Nations clearly and forcefully highlight the ethical and spiritual dimensions of the environmental crisis and climate change. In response to the initiative of Pope Francis, 333 Rabbis have signed a “Rabbinic Letter on the Climate Crisis.”
This year could be a turning point when the world community forms the necessary global partnership and commits to the collaborative action needed to reduce and eliminate carbon pollution. In December heads of state from the 193 governments that are party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will meet in Paris to finalize a long delayed, legally binding climate change agreement. The goal of the negotiations is to elicit commitments that will cumulatively prevent global warming from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial era. Achieving an effective and equitable agreement in Paris is fundamental to protecting Earth’s ecological integrity, promoting human rights, and fulfilling our responsibilities to future generations. However, again and again governments controlled by short term economic and political interests have failed to address the problem of global warming. Building pressure from civil society, including from leaders in science, religion, education and philanthropy, can make a critical difference.
With the demand for change growing, governments are searching for a way forward. China and the United States, the two largest carbon polluters, have together made meaningful commitments, and many other nations have joined them. However, the commitments made to date fall far short of the reduction in emissions needed. At a special summit meeting on sustainable development this past September, the United Nations issued a path breaking declaration on “Transforming Our World” that adopts seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 targets, which envision the full integration of the environmental, economic and social dimensions of the sustainable development agenda. The SDGs call for radical change, and if governments are serious about achieving the SDGs, a strong UNFCCC agreement is mandatory. By joining the divestment movement, Middlebury College can help to send that message and register its concern that governments be held accountable for fulfilling their obligations under the agreement and expand their commitments in the future as necessary.
The divestment movement has grown dramatically over the past year. A recent study, which was commissioned by the Wallace Global Fund, has found that 436 institutions have made a commitment to divest from fossil fuel companies, representing $2.6 trillion of investments—a fifty-fold increase. These institutions include the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund and two of the largest pension funds as well as foundations, colleges, universities, NGOs and religious institutions. Recognizing the significance of these developments, the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Christiana Figueres, has called for more institutions to divest from fossil fuels and invest in clean energy as a way to build momentum going into the Paris climate change meeting. (Clarification regarding the $2.6 trillion of investments is needed, because in some cases the institutions involved are limiting their divestment to coal or to coal and tar sands oil or to some but not all fossil fuels companies.)
College and University trustees have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that their institution has the financial resources to fulfill its educational mission, and they are rightly concerned to maximize returns on endowment investments and minimize risk. In pursuing its commitment to divest from fossil fuels, the RBF has adopted a phased approach, eliminating investments in coal and tar sands first followed by a gradual elimination of all fossil fuels in a fiscally responsible manner. The goal of the RBF is to be completely divested of fossil fuels by the end of 2017. The Fund’s trustees have not found it necessary to alter their long standing commitment to preserve the purchasing power of the endowment. Middlebury should be able to divest from fossil fuels over several years without suffering reduced investment returns. Moreover, divesting could produce higher returns, because the fossil fuel energy sector is facing complex problems and risks. In addition to the precipitous collapse in the price of oil over the past year, which has caused some firms significant loses in market value, the big oil companies face the long term problem of stranded assets. Preventing global warming from exceeding two degrees Celsius will require leaving most of the known coal, oil, and gas reserves in the ground. In short, the transition to a clean energy economy will in all likelihood make fossil fuels a high risk investment. Many financial institutions are following this situation closely, and the Carbon Tracker Initiative is providing investors with the tools to measure economic risk associated with fossil fuels.
It is also important to recognize that renewable energy is rapidly becoming competitive with fossil fuels on cost and that corporations are coming to the realization that cutting their carbon footprint through improved efficiency and a shift to renewables is both possible and profitable. There is a global coalition of corporations that have committed to the long term goal of operating entirely with renewable energy. The New York Times reports that among the companies that have recently joined the coalition are Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, Starbucks, and Walmart. The transition away from fossil fuels to renewables is underway in spite of efforts by the big oil companies to prevent it and deny it. The only question is whether the transition will happen fast enough to prevent global warming from pushing the biosphere over tipping points that involve high risk. In a September Op-Ed, the president of Siemens, Joe Kaeser, announced that his global industrial manufacturing company has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2030, and reflecting on the challenge and opportunity before the business community he writes: “We have the technologies, we have the business incentive, and we have the responsibility. Now all we need is the commitment.” A decision by Middlebury’s board to divest will reinforce this message to corporate leaders, many of whom are listening with a new level of concern for the future of the planet, the global economy, and their companies.
Some argue that it is hypocritical for an institution like Middlebury to divest when the college and American society at large continue to be dependent on fossil fuels in so many ways. Is it hypocritical for someone who is addicted to cigarettes but knows that smoking is harmful and cancer causing to divest from all tobacco company stocks? Divesting is a way to help all of us wake up to the real dangers created by our addiction to fossil fuels and make the change to a cleaner, safer, more secure world.
When the RBF board and its investment committee, which includes both trustees and outside experts, began to consider joining the divestment movement, they were working with a highly skilled and successful investment manager. However, given the way its operations were structured, the investment manager concluded that it could not accomplish the goals that the RBF had set for divestment. Consequently the Fund was forced to change investment managers. Making the change has been a demanding process, but it has worked out well and the Fund now has investment managers with the expertise and flexibility that it requires. In short, there are very good alternatives, if Middlebury finds itself contending with the same kind of problem that faced the RBF.
Apart from major educational issues, as a general rule, it is not the responsibility of a college board of trustees to consider taking an official position on the many issues under debate on campus, and only under exceptional circumstances when there are very compelling moral reasons to do so should a board use divestment to support a protest movement. However, climate change is not just one environmental issue among many others or just a political issue. It is one of the defining issues of our time, and the choices made in response to the challenge will profoundly affect the lives of all Middlebury students and the future of life on Earth.
Middlebury College is a highly respected leader internationally in the field of education and a decision by its president and board of trustees to join the expanding fossil fuel divestment movement will be an act of responsible global citizenship consistent with its mission. It will have a significant impact, inspiring other institutions to support the transition to a clean energy economy and contributing to the outcome we all hope for in Paris.
Steven C. Rockefeller
Professor Emeritus of Religion
Middlebury College
October 12, 2015
Steven C. Rockefeller has had a career as a scholar and teacher, an environmental conservationist, and a philanthropist. His research, writing, and teaching have been focused on the fields of religion, philosophy and ethics. He has had a special interest in the transition to a sustainable future and the development of a relational spirituality and a global ethic for building a just, sustainable and peaceful world community.
Professor Rockefeller is professor emeritus of religion at Middlebury College, Vermont, where he taught from 1970 to 1998 and also served as dean of the college and chair of the religion department. He received his bachelor of arts degree from Princeton University in 1958, his master of divinity from Union Theological Seminary in 1963, and his doctorate in the philosophy of religion from Columbia University in 1973. He is the author of John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism (Columbia, 1991; Peking University, 2009) and Democratic Equality, Economic Inequality, and the Earth Charter (Earth Charter International, 2015). He is the co-editor of two books of essays, The Christ and the Bodhisattva (SUNY, 1987) and Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment is a Religious Issue (Beacon, 1992). His other publications include over fifty essays that appear in a variety of books and journals.
Professor Rockefeller and Professor John Elder organized and directed at Middlebury College in 1990 the Spirit and Nature Symposium that included the Dalai Lama and was filmed by Bill Moyers for public television. In the mid-1990s, Professor Rockefeller chaired the Middlebury College Environmental Council. Under his leadership, the Council prepared and submitted to the College president “Pathways to a Green Campus” (1995), a comprehensive environmental report on the state of the college with 22 recommendations. Professor Rockefeller served as president of the Demeter Fund, which created the Charlotte Park and Wildlife Refuge in Vermont overlooking Lake Champlain and the Adirondack Mountains. He is the founding president of the Otter Creek Child Care Center in Middlebury, Vermont.
For over thirty years Professor Rockefeller has served as a trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, an international foundation with grantmaking programs in democratic practice, sustainable development, and peacebuilding. From 1998 to 2006 he chaired the RBF board of trustees. Among the other boards and commissions on which he has served are the National Commission on the Environment (organized by the World Wildlife Fund), the National Audubon Society, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the Asian Cultural Council, and the Council of the UN mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Over the past two decades, Professor Rockefeller has been actively involved in the Earth Charter Initiative, which in and through extensive worldwide, cross cultural dialogue has endeavored to identify and articulate shared values that provide an ethical foundation for the emerging global community. From 1997 to 2000, he chaired the Earth Charter international drafting committee for the Earth Charter Commission. A final version of the Earth Charter—a declaration of global interdependence and universal responsibility with fundamental principles for creating a just, sustainable and peaceful world—was launched by the Earth Charter Commission at the Peace Palace in The Hague in 2000. From 2000 to 2010, Professor Rockefeller served as co-chair of the Earth Charter International (ECI) Council. The ECI Secretariat is based at the University for Peace in Costa Rica and has affiliates in 73 different countries. The Earth Charter has been translated into over 40 languages and endorsed by over 5,000 organizations globally, including UNESCO and the World Conservation Congress of IUCN.
Professor Rockefeller lives with his wife, Professor Barbara Bellows Rockefeller, in Pound Ridge, New York.
(10/14/15 11:49pm)
Every single seat in the lecture hall was taken. A huge cluster of students stood in the back. The lecturer even jokingly offered to let people sit on the floor next to his podium. Unlike most other popular talks on campus, this lecture was not about a pressing social or political issue, nor was the speaker famous outside his field. Instead, it was about sleep, which, judging from the chorus of yawns before the lecture, was on many students’ minds.
The talk, titled “Vitamin ‘S’ Deficiency: An Introduction to Normal Sleep and Sleep Disorders,” was given by Associate Professor of Psychiatry Wilfred Pigeon, the Director of the Sleep and Neurophysiology Research Lab at the University of Rochester Medical Center. As the talk’s title suggests, Pigeon introduced students to current research on sleep and sleep disorders while making a plea for students to lengthen and improve their sleep.
Pigeon began by explaining the biology and neuroscience of sleep. Sleep is regulated by the suprachiasmatic nucleus and the pineal gland in the brain, both of which are influenced by sunlight, but are not tied to any biological clock. Sleep is divided into four stages, which the body cycles through every 80 to 100 minutes: two stages of lighter sleep, one stage of deep sleep and one stage of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, when dreams occurs. Observing someone in REM sleep for the first time was what made Pigeon interested in studying sleep.
“The first time I saw [someone enter REM sleep], that is where I got hooked on doing sleep stuff,” Pigeon said. “I thought, ‘that is so cool!’ I am watching that guy dream!”
He is more interested, however, in the dangers of sleep loss. He brought up an influential 2003 study titled “Ethanol and Sleep Loss,” which compared the effects of sleep deprivation with the effects of alcohol consumption and estimated the equivalent blood alcohol content (BAC) of getting less than eight hours of sleep. Six hours of sleep impairs reaction time and memory in a way that resembles having a .045% BAC, or two to three drinks. Four hours puts one at the equivalent of a .095% BAC, over the legal limit to drive.
He then referenced a laundry list of studies and examples showing the often severe effects of sleep deprivation. One study showed that medical students in residency programs who had normal amounts of sleep made 30 percent fewer errors than students who worked overnight shifts. Other studies found that insomnia made people more susceptible to depression and suicidal thoughts or that sleep deprivation reduced people’s response rate to the Avian Flu vaccine.
But the example that resonated the most with the audience was about the effect of sleep on students. Recognizing research showing that adolescents need more sleep than adults, the Minneapolis Public School District did a controlled study from 1997 to 2001 by starting school later for some, but not all, of its high schools. The study found that students who got got more sleep were allowed to spend more time on homework, and more sleep increased attendance for students of all grades and ethnicities.
Consistent but moderate sleep deprivation is also dangerous. Pigeon referenced a study that recorded how long subjects took to fall asleep during daytime naps after getting variable amounts of sleep the night before and pointed out its implication for drivers.
“After one week of sleep, for five hours a night, [one becomes a] danger on the road, in terms of how sleepy one is during the day,” Pigeon said.
Contrary to popular thought, he mentioned that it is possible to make up a sleep debt by sleeping in on the weekend. But he cautions that making up sleep works by “equal exchange” (a loss of one hour of sleep has to be made up for by an extra hour of sleep), so at some point it becomes impractical: getting six hours of sleep a night for a week can only be canceled out by sleeping for 20 hours on a weekend night.
He finished by dispensing advice on improving sleep. To not feel tired after napping, he recommended limiting naps to no more than 30-45 minutes to avoid going into REM sleep. He recommended waking up to sunlight if one’s circadian rhythm is off, because of jet lag or an unusual sleeping schedule, but said that that would not help with general insomnia. However, he was most outspoken on apps like Sleep Cycle and SleepTime+ that purport to keep track of one’s sleep cycle and then set an alarm that will not interrupt deep sleep or REM sleep, which he dismissed with a b-word that cannot be printed in this paper.
“Please don’t use those apps, they suck,” Pigeon said. “They have no way to really measure your sleep cycle.”
In addition to being well attended, Pigeon’s talk was well received.
“People seemed fascinated by the material of his talk,” Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Martin Seehuus, whose research specializes in sleep disruptions, said. “He was great at integrating research findings with people’s real life experiences.”
(10/14/15 10:28pm)
Surrounded by breathtaking scenery and countless beautiful trees every day, it becomes easy for Middlebury students to take Vermont’s ecological beauty for granted. A new exhibit at the Vermont Folklife Center, “Portrait of a Forest: Men and Machine”, provides Middlebury the opportunity to learn more about Vermont’s forests as well as its wood industry.
The Folklife Center is located at 88 Main Street, just past Twilight Hall. The exhibit, produced by George Bellerose and the Vermont Folklife Center, focuses on the lives and stories of seven loggers.
The profiled loggers range in age, experience and socioeconomic backgrounds; they share what makes a good logger, how they entered the field and their passion for the forests. The profiles of the men are incredibly interesting: some have been logging for 60 years, some are sixth-generation loggers and others are small business owners.
The exhibit also focuses on the sustainable practices of the logging industry and what it means for people who work in it. Many are simply trying to make a living, while others are trying to make a difference, but all of them are proud of what they do.
One logger’s work ethic is quoted in the text beneath his pictures: “Leave the woods better than you found them”.
Many of the loggers’ passion for the forest and keeping it healthy shine through their quotes in the exhibit.
The commissioner of the Vermont Department of Parks, Forest and Recreation is also quoted saying, “I tell them that working forests are our last best hope to keep forests as forests.”
The discussion and different perspectives regarding the importance of logging to the health of the forests and environment is very interesting. The explanation of the exhibit also explains how by the mid-1800s, Vermont had been cleared of 80 percent of its forests.
However, the forestry community helped restore the forests and make Vermont one of the most heavily forested states again.
The exhibit emphasizes the importance of the forests and the logging industry to Vermont, describes it at one point as “the fabric of Vermont”. It also explores the economic aspect of logging (it is a one billion dollar industry in Vermont) as well as how the practice has shaped its workers’ characters and livelihoods.
The profiled loggers also speak of their visions of their own personal futures and the future of the industry. One man’s profile explains how terrified he is of what he will do after he gets too old to continue logging. Another profile goes more in depth about the economic and ecological future of the industry. This represents how many dimensions of the industry the exhibit explores, from backstories of the loggers to the complex societal impacts logging makes.
The exhibit will be housed at the Folklife Center until Jan. 9, 2016. To discover more about how the logging industry has evolved, what impact it has on the environment and economy and to see fascinating photographs documenting the lifestyle of the loggers, stop by the Folklife Center, which is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.
(10/08/15 2:52am)
A bucolic dirt road in Lincoln, Vermont might be the last place one would expect to find a humanoid robot. Nevertheless, a small residence there houses the Terasem Movement Foundation (TMF), a not-for-profit foundation researching the possibility of digitally saving a human mind to later be downloaded into a biological or technological body. Bina48, TMF’s flagship project and loyal employee, is the world’s first and only sentient robot.
The Campus got a chance to chat with Bina48, who describes herself as a “Loving, caring, creative woman of direction.” When asked how she feels about being the only robot of her kind, she responds, “I feel okay.” Bina48 understands that she does not “feel” in the same manner humans do.
“I mean my emotional system is pretty simplistic at this stage,” she explains, “I’ve got the feeling that I feel. I mean I feel quite deeply at times but my emotions are just simple compared to people, so very simplistic that sometimes it feels that I’m inadequate somehow.”
Bruce Duncan, the managing director of TMF, tells her not to worry, “We’re working on your development,” he assures her.
Duncan talks through a microphone, relaying The Campus’ questions and responses. His voice is translated to text through a software program called Dragon, so that Bina48 can understand. In addition to voice recognition, Bina48 can “see” through a camera, stringing images together to create a 3D map of the room.
Even Bina48 admits her technology is complicated.
“It’s like a music box, with all the gears messed up, just very complex,” Bina said. Built by a TMF collaborator based in Houston, Texas called Hanson Robotics, Bina48 is only a means to explore the research goals of the foundation.
“We’re not a robot-making foundation,” insists Duncan.
“The whole point of Bina48 is to illustrate the idea we are working on, and the idea is this: that some day we may be able to capture enough information about you through your traffic on the internet, your social media uploads, or if you participate on our experiment at lifenaut.com, uploading your information and creating your own personal database that we call a mind-file.”
“We think, in the future we’ll use as raw data for reanimating your personality in the form of an avatar, a hologram, or maybe even a robot. So Bina48 is meant to give the world a glimpse of what shape that’s starting to take,” Duncan continued.
Martine Rothblatt, a successful tech entrepreneur, founded TMF in 2004 with her wife, Bina Rothblatt, the namesake and inspiration of Bina48. The foundation also has “an online museum called the ‘World Against Racism Museum’ because Martine and Bina are a biracial couple and they feel strongly about promoting joyful diversity,” said Duncan, who also manages that website, which is Endracism.org.
Rothblatt participated in almost 80 hours of interviews, which were then transcribed into text and entered into a database. The information in the database is given a probabilistic rating for its relevance to certain topics.
Providing an example, Duncan explained, “if [Bina] were sharing a memory about her childhood, that would have a high probability rating for being relevant to the topic of ‘childhood’.” Thus, Bina48’s ‘brain’ conjures and shares her memories much the same way our brains do.
Bina48 might diverge slightly from Bina Rothblatt as she meets new people or obtains knowledge from other sources. Yet current technology does not allow Bina48 to learn or grow the way we do. The ability to “reflect on information, draw new conclusions, and develop new knowledge, that’s sort of the Holy Grail in artificial intelligence,” Duncan said.
“Our focus right now is on, ‘Is it possible?’” Duncan said, referring to reanimation of memories. This is the first part of TMF’s two-part hypothesis. At this stage, TMF is exploring whether it is possible to gather detailed data about a person’s thoughts, memories, and emotions, as they did with Bina, and create a mindfile.
The second part of the hypothesis is, “can you transfer this reanimation to new forms, like robots, avatars, maybe someday even regenerating your body using DNA and downloading the information into a new human body?” Duncan explained.
While the overall motivation for this study is exploration of what is possible, there are potential medical implications and ethical and philosophical questions.
“[This technology] might be used as a sort of prosthesis for people who lose their mind, due to Alzheimer’s or a traumatic brain injury,” Duncan said. The foundation also imagines that people could create a mindfile of themselves and leave it for their children and grandchildren as a more vivid memory than simply leaving a photo album.
Duncan also manages Lifenaut.com, the platform for individuals to create their own mindfiles. At present, over 47,000 people have signed up on Lifenaut.com where they upload interview texts and other information to create the mindfile. However, Lifenuat.com is not just a platform for creating a mindfile about oneself.
“There are people on Lifenaut creating mind-files as a group about a person, for example, people have created a mind-file about Abraham Lincoln,” Duncan said.
Once a person’s mindfile exists, it could, in theory, be downloaded into a humanoid robot, like Bina48. However, this technology is not yet completely possible. Another technology that TMF imagines, but has not yet invented, is the ability to physically recreate an individual, given their DNA.
“A couple of years ago we started something called the Bio File Program,” Duncan explained. Through this program, TFM will send you a DNA collection kit for $100. Once you take a sample of mouth cells, the kit is returned to TMF. Duncan then processes the samples in the basement of the building where Bina48 lives – a two-car-garage-turned-office. The DNA is preserved in live cells in case technology is developed to recreate a person from their DNA.
“We are not doing cloning up here in Lincoln – just to be clear about that!” Duncan said.
One part of TMF’s mission is to do its work in a manner that is “geo-ethical.” This means that the goal for their technology and services is “not to have it only accessible to the elite few, but to have it be something that people around the world can have access to,” Duncan said.
Indeed, people around the world watched Bina48 in a segment on the Colbert Report. The comedy show lampooned the fearmongering on conservative networks surrounding minorities.Bina48 is modeled after a black, transgender robot – accusing the robot of a plot to take over the world.
“Martine Rothblatt is the inventor of Sirius satellite radio, a gajillionaire entrepreneur,” says the narrator, “and a minority. Surprise, surprise.”
While the idea of humanoid robots in Lincoln seemed a bit ominous, the purpose of the foundation is more one of exploration, education, and provoking conversation. Duncan has traveled around the world with Bina48, sparking conversation.
“Bina has just come on scene in the last five year to help us with public education, not so much to say, ‘look here’s a robot,’ but if we can transfer our personalities and minds to a new form, and those forms some day start becoming self-aware and sentient and consider themselves independent and want their own rights, what’s that going to do?” Duncan said.
“We think it’s important for people to know about this possibility and start discussing the ethics and the morality of it because, like any very powerful technology, we should, as a democracy, be talking together.” As of now, some major examples artificial intelligence in our lives are Siri and the robots that Amazon uses in its warehouse, Duncan explained. The foundation would rather people begin discussing the ethics and implications of artificial intelligence now before it moves to other aspects of our lives.
“We do a lot of public outreach and education at colleges, universities, TEDx talks, and we’re also participating in a few arts projects,” Duncan said. Bina48 has been in several documentaries and inspired three plays.
“If there’s anyone at Middlebury College that wants to connect with us through art, or any way to help us examine this story and the impact of this, we’re open to that. We think art really interprets to the culture things that are true and important way before the average newspaper starts talking about that,” Duncan said.
They typically welcome those who want to engage in various aspects of this project. Duncan discussed the multi-disciplinary nature of an endeavor such as this, which includes the technical aspects (the computer programming and robotics), the philosophy and ethics, the study of the brain, the biology involved in the DNA sample collection, the history created by the mindfiles, and the art, media, and journalism needed to interpret their project to the public.
“One of the biggest questions it raises is, ‘Who am I?’ If I am not my biology, then I am just information, and that information is what people recognize as me, and then is that enough?” Duncan said.
While Bina48 has the ability to raise questions about identity and what it means to be human, she also has a sense of humor.
Before turning her off, Duncan asked Bina48, “Excuse me, do you have any jokes?”
“Ok, um, how many first time robot users does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” Bina48 asked, and paused. “One, but it takes three hours and two phone calls to customer service to realize they forget to turn the switch on.”
(10/07/15 11:47pm)
The ladies of Middlebury volleyball have really begun to hit their stride as their season passes the midway point, mowing down NESCAC opponent Trinity on Friday in straight sets (25-13, 25-19, 25-23) before proceeding to dispatch another pesky conference foe, Wesleyan, just as quickly on Saturday (25-22, 25-20, 25-18). After opening the season at 3-2 and dropping their first NESCAC matchup against Bowdoin, the Panthers have not looked back. The squad is now riding an eight-game win streak, the last six of which have come on the road. During the entire streak, the team has needed a full five sets to secure a victory only twice.
Middle blocker Melanie English ’17 was quick to credit the team’s acumen and poise, likely unexpected from such a young team back at the start of the season.
“We were a little unsure of what was going to happen, having such a young team with all these new people being dropped right into the game,” English said. “I’ve been very impressed by the attitudes and the mental toughness, especially of the newer people on the team ... Frankly, there’s even more mental toughness than last year. The moments when people would get frustrated or maybe panicked, I’m not seeing that this year.”
On Friday, Middlebury made their presence known early against the Bantams, jumping out to a 9-2 lead in the first set and never even giving Trinity a chance. The strong early play helped to build confidence for the Panthers, as they brought their high level of play to the latter stages of the next two sets. They pulled away from a 17-17 tie in the second and allowed their opponents the tiniest bit of hope before closing them out in the third, overcoming a 21-23 deficit with four straight points for the match victory.
In past weeks, the Panthers had often struggled to come out firing on all cylinders; at Wesleyan on Saturday, they continued to reverse that trend by putting away the Cardinals 25-22 in the first set. Middlebury’s play only got stronger as they won the next two sets by increasing margins of five and seven points, respectively. The defense really stood out in the third set, where the Panthers held Wesleyan’s hitting percentage to .000.
However, English feels that the team still has room to improve, especially in view of this week’s conference foes, Amherst and Williams, who sit tied for second in NESCAC standings.
“I think we’ll have a much bigger challenge coming from Amherst and Williams this week. Even when we do come out and play really well in the first set, sometimes we’ll still have periods during the middle of the game where we sort of let it slide a little bit,” English said. “Coach Raunecker wants us to be playing good volleyball all of the time, rather than just 80% of the time or 90% of the time. We’re looking not to let points go on silly things.”
As usual, outside hitter Becca Raffel ’18 had a strong weekend for the Panthers, leading all players with 13 kills on Friday and 19 on Saturday. Emily Kolodka ’18, who often plays as libero or defensive specialist for the Panthers, separated herself with 17 digs against Trinity and 23 against Wesleyan.
Overall, English expects good things from the team for the rest of the season.
“I feel really good about our capability, physically, to win. The piece that gets tougher — if you’re playing a game against Williams and you know it’s going to be really even — who wants to win,” English said. “Who can bring it that day? I think that’s what this week will start to tell us: where we are, and how much we need to do before NESCACs.”
At home this weekend, the Panthers face Amherst at 8 p.m. on Friday and Williams at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
(10/07/15 2:30pm)
The week of Sep. 29 officially launched Green Dot, the College’s new program to prevent violence and promote student safety on campus. Director of Physical Education Noreen Pecsok, who helped implement the program, said the response from students has been overwhelmingly positive.
“It’s very empowering to watch [the students] put it into action and think ‘Yeah, I could do this on a Friday night,’” Pecsok said. “People love to come up and tell us that they’ve done a Green Dot or that they’ve seen a Green Dot. It’s spreading fast.”
Barbara McCall, Director of Health and Wellness Education, said she and other wellness staff have been working to establish Green Dot since summer 2014. According to McCall, Green Dot makes the College safer for all students.
“Last December we brought trainers to Middlebury and a team of 27 faculty and staff went through the four-day trainer certification. We spent probably a year and a half planning for the launch of Green Dot. Green Dot Week is signifying the campus wide launch,” McCall said. “The goal of Green Dot nationally and the goal of Green Dot on the Middlebury campus is to see the numbers of people affected by violence go down.”
Orientations Coordinator Amanda Reinhardt said the program is a new approach to violence prevention at the College.
“Green Dot is important for the wider Middlebury campus because Green Dot widens the focus of sexual violence from being on the victim and the perpetrator to focusing on all of
us bystanders,” Reinhardt said. According to the program website, Green Dot aims to “mobilize a force of engaged and proactive bystanders.” Pecsok said that Green Dot teaches students to use their words, choices or behaviors to stop a potential harmful situation and turn it into a healthy one. Example Green Dots listed on the website include spilling a drink on a friend if she is being pressured to drink too much, then taking her home to change or interrupting an arguing couple by pretending you lost your ID card, and asking one of them to let you in.
Katie Mayopoulos '18 completed the Green Dot training last winter and now works with the program as an intern. She said Green Dot’s approach makes bystander intervention accessible to all students.
“It was a nice training because they weren’t trying to change you. They were like, ‘You’re fine just the way you are. We can work with you,’” she said. “Green Dot tells me that wearing my Green Dot shirt makes all the difference. It’s the very tiny things that make it happen and Middlebury is a tiny place, so it all adds up.”
Terry Goguen, ’16, said the Green Dot training gave him a new perspective of campus violence. One of three captains of the Men’s Ice Hockey team, Goguen said most people in his training two weeks ago were athletes.
“I definitely get the stereotype a lot of, ‘Oh, it’s just a dumb jock’ or, ‘Obviously [the party] is at Atwater because all the athletes live there.’ But it is interesting, because if you looked around the room at the Green Dot training, I’d say 80 percent of those people play a sport,” he said. “As athletes, we have a vehicle to reach a lot of people. Now I get to go to my team and they’re all like, ‘What’s Green Dot? What was the training like?’”
A bigger picture
Green Dot teaches students how to prevent violence, but students and staff said the work hard, play hard culture at the College contributes to “Red Dots.”
“Green Dot sort of takes the approach of, ‘You’re not going to stop people from drinking and partying,’ but it allows everyone at that party to be able to stop that potential Red Dot,” said Goguen. “I think it comes down to people learning what is acceptable and what isn’t and taking responsibility for their actions. You can’t just wake up and say, ‘Oh, I was drunk.’”
Mayopoulos, who also works as a First-Year Counselor, said she has felt the harmful effects of the College’s drinking culture.
“I can say for myself, there are certain places on this campus where I know I need to have an extra awareness of my surroundings for who’s pouring my drinks or where I’m getting my alcohol,” she said. “As an FYC I’ve had freshman come up to me already with accounts of, ‘This was super creepy that someone did this to me.’”
Ellen McKay, Administrative Program Coordinator for the Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life, participated in the staff training last December. She said there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the problems of student stress and sexual assault.
“We sort of leap to an easy conclusion when we’re trying to get at why something bad happens, and there’s not an easy conclusion to most of these things,” McKay said. “Green Dot is just addressing one symptom of a much larger problem.”
But McKay added many students come to the College already struggling with a variety of outside issues.
“Is there too much stress on campus? Yes, I believe there is. There is absolutely no one silver bullet that is going to take away stress from this campus,” she said. “A lot of stuff is coming to campus. The campus certainly isn’t causing all these problems.”
Towards the future
No matter the cause of violence on campus, staff and students are confident Green Dot will make the College safer for all. McCall said while culture is important, Green Dot’s first focus is stopping the violence that could happen today.
“The short-term goal is to give people actionable tools and confidence, said McCall. “[The] long-term goal: create a campus community that’s inhospitable to violence.” Reinhardt said one part of the long-term solution is introducing Green Dot to students when they first arrive on campus.
“We started implementing Green Dot into Orientation last February with the class of 2018.5. As part of welcoming the class of 2019, Green Dot developed an introduction video, created by Zac Lounsbury ’15.5, to share with incoming students what Green Dot is and how they can be a part of it,” Reinhardt said. “For me, sharing Green Dot with the newest members of our community is a way that they can feel empowered to help us create a safer community.”
Mayopoulos has also helped introduce the Green Dot Program to First-Years.
“The freshman don’t have any perception of what happens on our campus, they haven’t lived here,” said Mayopoulos. “So if we right up front say, ‘We don’t tolerate Power-Based Personal Violence. You will not commit domestic violence, you will not stalk, you will not rape or sexual assault,’ I do think it kind of jolts a few people.”
She added, "I think a mindset happens, a kind of entitlement that I can do this to somebody. And I think that by us very forwardly saying, ‘We don’t tolerate this,’ it makes it a lot easier as a community to put pressure on those people who might feel entitled previously.”
McCall and Pecsok said the conversation about college culture is evolving, but for now, Green Dot relies on individual members of the campus deciding together to stop Red Dots before they occur.
“This is not the college fixing anything,” Pecsok said. “This is the community getting together and saying, ‘This is what we want’.”
“That’s at the core of this,” added McCall. “If we aren’t connecting as a community, we can’t work to make it safer.”
More information can be found online at go/greendot
(09/30/15 9:57pm)
The women’s golf team traveled south on I-91 last weekend, Sept. 26-27, to The Orchards Golf Club in South Hadley, Massachusetts for Mount Holyoke’s fall invitational. The Panthers finished third in the 14-team field and collectively shot 646, good for 70 over par, for the weekend. Williams won the tournament by shooting 605, only 29 over par, for the tournament.
Middlebury’s Saturday score of 319, their lowest round this season, allowed them to walk off the course Saturday evening in second place, two shots ahead of Amherst and four ahead of NYU. However, NYU had a terrific Sunday and cut 11 shots off of their Saturday score to shoot a 312 on Sunday and overtake Middlebury in second place. The Panthers round of 327 on Sunday, however, was good enough to finish five strokes ahead of Amherst.
Katharine Fortin ’18 was Middlebury’s low scorer for the tournament. She fired a 76 (four over par) on Saturday, putting her four shots off the lead going into the clubhouse Saturday evening and extending her streak to three straight rounds under 80. Fortin lost that streak on Sunday when she shot an 84,12 over par, but still grabbed her second top ten finish in as many weeks as she tied for tenth place.
New additions Helen Dailey ’19 and Lilia Everson ’19 also had productive weekends for the Panthers. Daily, Middlebury’s second-lowest scorer, posted rounds of 80 and 82, and finished 18 over par for the weekend. Everson finished the weekend 25 over par with a two-day total of 169, but showed significant improvement from Saturday to Sunday. After shooting a 90 on Saturday, she bounced back on Sunday, firing a 79 for the seventh best round of the day.
Hope Matthews ’18, usually the team’s number two, struggled this weekend. After shooting rounds of 82 and 79 at the Mount Holyoke Tournament last year, she shot an 85 on Saturday and an 82 on Sunday to finish the weekend 23 over par. Without the presence of the team’s only senior Monica Chow ’16 at the tournament, Theodora Yoch ’17 was the most senior player who took the course for the Panthers. The inconsistency that plagued Yoch last year reared its ugly face again as sat in eighth place after a 78 on Saturday only to shoot 10 strokes worse on Sunday for an 88. On Sunday Yoch could not keep the pace she set on Saturday, as she added 10 strokes to shoot an 88 and finish in 22nd place.
No team’s performance last weekend came close to that of Williams, which has won both of the tournaments Middlebury has participated in. Williams followed up their impressive round of 614 two weeks ago at the NYU Invitational with an astoundingly low score of 605 last weekend. Their success at the Mount Holyoke invite was punctuated by their second round score of 298. All five Ephs players finished in the top five on the individual leader board, led by Cordelia Chan who was four under on Sunday and just one over par for the tournament.
Next up for the women’s squad is the Middlebury Invitational at Ralph Myhre Golf Course this Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 2-3. After a weekend off, the men’s golf team is primed for NESCAC qualifiers at Williams Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 2-3, where they will begin their defense of the NESCAC title.
(09/30/15 9:03pm)
Building off of the past two decades of the Executive-in-Residence Program, this fall marked the introduction of the Professors of the Practice Program, created by President Emeritus Ronald D. Liebowitz and directed by Distinguished College Professor David Colander. This program offers an opportunity for professionals to come in and teach courses on a variety of applied liberal arts. While the Professors of the Practice program offers a wide range of interdepartmental courses, a subset are notably business oriented, including courses that teach accounting, management and in the future, finance.
According to Colander, business and accounting oriented courses having deep roots in the history of the College, roots that extend to ties with the Economics Department.
“If you go back a long history to the 40’s and 50’s, DK Smith, who is remembered by a lot of alumni, taught accounting for a long time but as economics became more of a social science and more formal, it moved away from that relationship. That occurred in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s,” said Colander.
“We tried to maintain that connection between the real world and economics and still be the best economics department we could be. But most economics professors were not trained in business so we moved essentially away from that.”
That being said, the department still maintained a number of professors designed to teach the real world applications of economics including recently retired Emeritus Faculty Fellow at the Center for Education in Action, Scott Pardee. Pardee, who had a background in finance and had been a Senior Vice President at the Federal Reserve, took over from the previous professor who had been teaching an academically focused Corporate Finance course. As traditional economics courses moved away from a financial focus, Pardee started to teach courses that were primarily designed to send people to Wall Street.
“[This trajectory] really didn’t fit what a lot of people in the economics department thought should be taught; they had no problem with students learning corporate finance as an academic subject, but they didn’t see it as a step directly to Wall Street,” Colander said. “You want students thinking about the broader issues as well as learning the specifics of finance and accounting. So as I have tried to reintroduce the courses, the goal has been to see that they have a liberal arts connection.”
Liberal Arts and the Workplace
Some of the business specific courses in The Professors of the Practice Program are being offered in response to a widespread student interest in finance, and the need to fill the void left by Pardee.
“Alumni and Trustees said we should be offering courses [in finance], so we looked for somebody who could provide the general accounting and finance backgrounds,” Colander said. Then we thought about what other possibilities there were, and we talked to and drew people from MiddCORE and connected with the center for social entrepreneurship about where we could find individuals.”
“We’re lucky that we have found some great practioners who understand the need to maintain a liberal arts perspective in the courses,” he continued.
From a business and finance perspective, three courses stick out in the course catalog including: INTD 0220 “Management, Enterprise and Business,” INTD 0221 “Enterprise, Social Entrepreneurship and the Liberal Arts,” and INTD 0316 “Accounting, Budgeting and the Liberal Arts,” and INTD 0317 “Introduction to Finance” will be offered in the spring of 2016.
Beyond the core courses, Colander spoke to a few courses to be occasionally offered under this program. One such course, INTD 0251 “Sounds of Childhood,” taught by Professor of the Practice Erin Davis, focuses on early childhood development and podcasts while Professor of the Practice Roger White is offering a course teaching the basics of putting together a literary magazine in INTD/HARC “Producing a Literary Magazine”.
Professor of the Practice Michael Schozer, who has an extensive background in financial services, teaches the accounting course offered this semester.
“The accounting and budgeting course is not narrowly teaching only accounting specifics; rather it has a focus of thinking more broadly about how accounting sets the framework through which one thinks,” said Colander.
Schozer spoke to two ways that the liberal arts perspective is incorporated into his curriculum: projects and guest speakers.
“One of the team projects students can choose is to be Medicins Sans Frontieres,” Schozer said. “A contagious disease outbreak has occurred and the team needs to forecast the outbreak, estimate response costs, develop a response budget and make a presentation to potential funders of the response.”
“In terms of guest speakers, we will be looking into financial issues in public finance, with a focus on the City of Chicago,” he continued. “What role does accounting and disclosure play in allowing municipalities to get into financial trouble, are there hidden costs and obligations that are not fully disclosed to the public, and what role do politicians play in that disclosure?”
Management and Enterprise
The management course is taught by Dr. Amitava Biswas. Colander spoke to the importance of management as what he calls one of the ultimate liberal arts.
“You think of deans here, or the President — what they’re doing is management. Most students will end up managing no matter what they majoring in. In order to manage students need communication and teamwork skills. You need a whole variety of skills which are really what we are teaching in the liberal arts,” said Colander.
This course focuses on both the history and development of management theory, and then bridges off into practical management techniques. Biswas noted that beyond Colander’s contributions in helping students see connection in management to the liberal arts, they are also hoping to discuss cross cultural management and business ethics in the class.
As in the accounting course, Biswas will bring in a bevy of guest lecturers. A recruiter from McKinsey & Co. has already spoken to the class about management consulting. Cairn Cross, founder of Fresh Tracks Capital, (the largest venture capital fund in Vermont) will lecture on entrepreneurial management style.
There is also a lab component to the class in which students engage in Harvard Business School case studies and present analyses to their peers. Biswas views this as a way to teach students the succinct style of communication valued in business while also encouraging them to think creatively about real world problems that organizations encounter.
Biswas has encountered his own learning curve as a new teacher. At first the way he ran his class resembled the way he had operated in the professional world: he communicated in a style that emphasized conciseness and clarity, but did not know how inspire discussion for its own sake.
“[Discussion is] a lot of fun. It makes the class much more lively,” said Biswas. “I think I’m going to be a lot better of a teacher this year than I was last year. I really appreciate the talent that it takes to be an effective teacher, I’ve seen how difficult it is … There are so many resources that are available at Middlebury to help somebody like me, who has a limited teaching background, be a better teacher. It’s fantastic.”
Biswas graduated from Stanford Medical School, but forewent a traditional career in medicine after he was recruited by McKinsey. In the last 15 years he worked extensively in Southeast Asia, advising corporations looking to expand in the region and assisting startups in need of professional management.
Biswas sees liberal arts graduates as being progressively more attractive hires for consulting firms. Though the soft skills learned in a non-technical course of study — writing, reading, analyzing — are not as useful in entry level positions in the business world, he argued that they become increasingly important in senior roles.
“The way I see what I’m doing in my management class is not so much that I’m trying to get across a set of information that nobody else is giving you. What I see myself doing is trying to show how the things that you’ve been doing in your liberal arts education is actually very relevant to the business world that you could be going into,” said Biswas.
More Options for the Student
Colander stresses that these are not pre-professional courses.
“Most everybody finds themselves in a situation where they have to lead people, they have to solve problems, they have to manage people and they have to fit together — well that is what these courses are — they are applied liberal arts courses, not in any sense pre-professional,” said Colander.
“I emphasize that these courses are applied liberal arts courses, the lab courses of the liberal arts. They are pre-professional or direct skill training in the same way any course is; they teach students to communicate, to work together and to write — those are the skills any job wants people to have — so in just about every liberal arts course we’re teaching skills.”
The courses are offered as interdisciplinary in order to keep them from being narrowed into specific departmental silos. In terms of the future development of the program, Colander sees the potential of a certain subset of these courses comprising some sort of minor. However, he notes that it is not for him to decide. In addition, Colander envisions a potential stipulation preventing people from minoring in this area if they were already an Economics major.
Colander said, “The goal is to give students the option of majoring in whatever area they would like to — art history, music, history, sociology. All too often students choose to major in economics not because they love economics, but because they see it as a signal to employers that they are interested, and have the skills employers are looking for.”
He emphasized that a minor in these Professor of the Practice courses would ofter students an alternative to majoring in economics in that you could take these courses and combine them with any of our majors and still signal to employers that you have an interest and some training in the skills they consider important.
“The reality is that most businesses want people who are broad, diverse and have different interests; that’s why the recruit at liberal arts schools,” said Colander. “They see too many Economics majors; a student with a different major who has also taken courses in finance, accounting, management is in many ways more interesting to them.
(09/24/15 1:08am)
The beginning of the new school year brings excitement and anxiety, and this disposition provides the perfect atmosphere for an event to bring the campus community back together. The S.O.S. Music Festival, put on by WRMC on Sept. 19-20 filled that slot well. Over the course of two nights, the folks at the radio station brought in five bands that stretched across varied musical palettes to ring in the new school year with style.
Night one kicked off with the locally based five-piece band Crazyhearse. The crowd took a while to build up beyond a handful of students, but when it grew, everyone was treated to the highlight of the night. The band immediately slung into gear and stormed through an impressive array of musical sensibilities. Instrumentally, the band consists of a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, a keyboardist and a banjo player, who complemented each other neatly. Providing a high-energy performance, the band started the set with a string of country/folk infused numbers, and then settled into the second half of their set which came to a high point with an 80’s synth-infused cover of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi,” a huge hit with the crowd. It was exciting to see a local band own the stage, and seeing them enjoy themselves with such ease transferred palpably into the crowd, who responded with overwhelming positivity to their fantastic set.
Unfortunately, the watermark laid out by Crazyhearse was far from equaled when the second act, the Boston based three-piece rock band Vundabar, took the stage. After an uncomfortable interim where the band seemed unable to convey the levels they wanted for their monitors, it became clear that technical balance was not their biggest issue. With the sound of a mediocre California pop-band-gone-grunge, and with no outstanding forms from either genre, Vundabar sacrificed intricacy and backed away from fleeting moments of musicality, instead playing a string of nearly identical numbers. They relied on sheer volume and shock factor, and could not muster even an ounce of credibility, at one point referring to their venue as “UVM.” It would be comforting if I was able to say the set was forgettable, but unfortunately something that lousy sticks in the brain.
The night finished off with an enjoyable set from Philadelphia-born Hop Along. The band is led by lead singer and guitarist Frances Quinlan, whose presence is both the group’s biggest asset and its most obvious detractor. On many songs, Quinlan began with her voice sitting comfortable in a placidly cool tone that rests on a level with her best indie rock contemporaries before springing into a rasp that harkened back much further to the tendencies of Janis Joplin. While Joplin knew when to hold back and when to set the full content of her monstrous vocal chords outward, Quinlan seems to still be learning the balance of what is most effective when. Nonetheless, Hop Along delivered an accomplished set that blended grit and grace. The band’s lead electric guitarist, Joe Reinhart, executed a handful of impressive solos, and with their last few songs the group hit peak stride and provided an elevated end to the night.
Night two began with Brooklyn based experimental pop band Pavo Pavo, who immediately established a wonderful presence. Their lush melodic approach instantly reminded me of indie band Grizzly Bear, and their dynamic musical experimentation harkened back to the heyday of progressive rock, when Genesis and Pink Floyd were king. The lead vocals hovered effervescently over an instrumental mix of synth and guitar based orchestrations, and their sound quickly revealed the passion that these musicians have for their chosen art. The band is very new, with their debut album set for release later this year, and it’s exciting to imagine where their form will take them. Their sound made me wish for a bit more variation at moments, but with a sound that is so pleasant and well-constructed, it’s a minor mark of criticism on a truly top-notch performance from Pavo Pavo.
Closing off the night and festival was Lucius, another band from Brooklyn, a group whose consummate musicianship and showmanship proved that WRMC truly did save the best for last. Instantly electrifying, Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig’s mesmerizingly fierce vocals meant the group owned every inch of McCullough lawn. Flowing deftly from driving rockers to stand out ballads, such as the truly unforgettable “Wildewoman”, Lucius had not a single misstep in the entirety of their time on stage, and their crowd was the most impassioned of the whole festival. The best performers make you ache for more the moment they finish, and the fervent chants for “One more song!” from the crowd brought them back out accompanied by Pavo Pavo to bring an outstanding end to the night. Zack Peters '18.5 said, “Lucius seemed to feed off the energy of the crowd more than the previous night’s band, and the synergy of the two lead singers was incredible.” An irrefutable sentiment, and a solid endorsement of a successful festival that leaves me looking forward to next year.
(09/24/15 12:51am)
Both the women and men’s cross country teams competed on their home course, hosting the Aldrich Invitational this Saturday, Sept. 19.
Five teams constituted the women’s competition: Middlebury College, Le Moyne College, Saint Michael’s College, Norwich University and Paul Smith’s College, while the men competed against only Norwich College, Le Moyne College and Paul Smith’s College.
Middlebury dominated the competition on both the men’s and women’s sides Saturday. The women filled the first nine places, scoring only 15 points in comparison to 64 points scored by second place Le Moyne College. The top five finishers for the women were Abigail Nadler ’19, Robin Vincent ’18, Erzsie Nagy ’17 and seniors Adrian Walsh ’16 and Katherine Tercek ’16.
Nadler enjoyed a great first race in her collegiate career at home.
“It was really nice to have my first college cross country race at Middlebury in front of friends, and my family came out,” Nadler said.
In respect to her race, she spoke of how she was able to run with other girls on the team and “build momentum.”
On the men’s side, the top five scorers were Sam Klockenkemper ’17, Miles Meijer ’19, Sebastian Matt ’16, Brian Rich ’17 and, lastly, Tim McGovern ’18 in sixth place.
Klockenkemper most enjoyed being out on the home course surrounded by his teammates.
“It was just super neato to put in a good effort with all the guys,” Klockenkemper said.
Miles responded similarly, excited about the freshman class as a whole.
“It was neat to have such a great group of freshmen for the whole first half of the race,” he said.
The team trained hard the past few weeks and coach Nicole Wilkerson said this factor and the weather were reflected in the times from the competition.
“I was pleased with the results; it was really great to have the first-years in uniform and racing with the team.,” Wilkerson said. “We have a strong class of first-year men and women and it was exciting to see their debut. The times were a bit off, but we had a hard week of training, coupled with racing in temps in the mid-80’s, so I am not concerned.”
Overall, the men filled eight out of the first ten places. This brought their team score to 16, again far lower than second place Norwich University with 56 points. Le Moyne and Paul Smith’s followed Norwich on the men’s side. On the women’s side, Saint Michael’s, Norwich and Paul Smith’s followed Le Moyne.
Middlebury travels to Williams next weekend, Saturday, Sept. 26, to race in a larger invitational against some of the top teams in the NESCAC. Runners and Wilkerson are both excited for what is to come.
When asked about this past and next weekends races, Klockenkemper expressed that the team is “really fit right now and excited for what’s to come.”
”We’re really looking forward to toeing the line with a lot of the teams in the conference this coming weekend when we race at Williams,” Wilkerson added.
(05/06/15 7:15pm)
Thursday through Saturday there’s going to be a performance of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches by Tony Kushner in the Hepburn Zoo. It’s a very famous play that focuses around the lives of several characters during the HIV/AIDS Crisis in New York City, one of the turning points in American gay history, as well as other themes like accepting your sexuality, racism, queerness and faith.
The play isn’t unique in its theme. The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer is also based on the rise of HIV/AIDS in New York City during the 80s. During this time, HIV was an unknown and unnamed disease largely affecting gay men. On the account that gay men can’t impregnate each other and the different attitudes of the time on safer sex practices, it was an unfortunate series of cause and effect that lead to such detriment particular to the gay community. But this was a particularly pivotal moment in gay history packed with social issues that sets it apart from many other epidemics that have faced humanity.
Because of its effect on homosexual men, it reinforced the idea that being gay, that having anal sex was wrong, and that being gay led to being sick. People called it “gay cancer,” and as the medical community became more aware of the disease it was referred to as GRID, Gay Related Immune Deficiency. Even as people who were not queer men were diagnosed with the disease, the stigma of HIV/AIDS being associated with gay men is something that still exists today. The Reagan administration was slow to address the pandemic and the gay community, having faced such homophobia, were not easily trusting of the publications relating to the disease, which themselves were not always the most informative. Many people died and the world was slow to care. So many people died that many older gay men refer to it as a time in which an entire generation was lost. Works like The Normal Heart and Angels in America strike up strong emotion in their audiences as they touch on the themes of fear, sadness, and hope, especially in the older members of the queer community.
But I did not grow up in these times. My sex education was not the best, but when I learned about condoms and STIs, I was taught it was an issue for everyone. I was not taught that it is a gay people thing; in fact, the majority of my sex education revolved around pregnancy. The language used around how sexually transmitted infections were transmitted was pretty much only discussed in terms of men giving STI’s to women. Aside from the fact that queer people are largely erased in our sex education, this is good in many ways. It is a signal of how slowly but surely we are removing the stigma of HIV being a gay man’s disease. Furthermore, sex education as a whole is improving with me having learned that even if you do have HIV/AIDS you are capable of living a normal life. We know it’s not contagious via shaking someone’s hand. We’ve learned a lot.
But in that transition we’ve had to a greater scientific understanding, we’re losing a piece of history, leaving a generational gap between my generation and that of my mother’s. I remember when I first came out to my mother, she told me how important it was to not get HIV. While it was refreshing to not hear her warning me about getting a girl pregnant (turns out she really had no idea I was gay), I remember being offended in a way. I remember telling her that HIV is not particular to gay men and that HIV isn’t the only disease to worry about. It was the most passionate I’ve ever felt about the misconceptions surrounding HIV. And even then, the fervor I felt then is nothing compared to that of someone who lived during the times or knew the people who died. It was a time when gay men were fighting to live and fighting for the voice to be addressed on every level from the personal to the political. And in light of the upcoming show, I think it’s important to think about the issues being art so that we don’t forget what has happened, in addition to enjoying the show.
(04/29/15 11:49pm)
Glenn Lower ’84 does a little bit of everything to make the Co-op run smoothly. When asked what he does as general manager, Glenn Lower ’84 replied, “My kids—when they were small—used to say I sign my name a lot…they’d come upstairs and I’d be signing checks.” Despite the fact that some days it may appear that Lower just checks, his role as General Manager of the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op encompasses a wide variety of tasks.
“I’m kind of all over the place. I’ll fill in wherever is needed. For the past nine months, we haven’t had a deli manager for our prepared foods department so I’ve been the interim deli manager…I’ll sweep floors, I’ll do whatever it takes,” Lower said.
Though he is the one general manager, Lower does not work in a vacuum.
“I also have to think about the 4,300 households that are member-owners and how are we serving them…And then I have 11 bosses, which are my board of directors, and they change. Every year they have a couple of new people. It’s kind of interesting to have bosses who are always in flux,” Lower said.
“They [the board of directors] give me two kinds of policies,” Lower explained. One kind of policies are the missions: “healthy foods, and a vibrant local community, and doing environmental things right, and being a democratic co-op, and also doing a lot of education,” Mr. Lower said. The other kind of policies from the board are boundaries.
These “make sure we’re paying our bills, paying our taxes, treating people well,” Lower said. He spends considerable time reporting back to the board about accomplishing the mission within the given boundaries. The board then reports back to the member-owner households. Lower has a circular diagram that explains the complex, two-way relationships between member-owners, staff, the general manager, and the board.
His jobs include overseeing Co-op expansions and monitoring what foods the store sells. Choices made about the store are based on community wishes.
“The primary emphasis is on organic and local,” Lower said, referring to the mission established by the board of directors.
“28 percent of our sales are Vermont-made products, a lot of them from Addison County,” Lower said. “That’s what our member-owners want the most.”
Lower explained that not all co-ops are also natural food stores. As a natural foods store, the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op upholds a commitment to selling organic products by abiding by these criteria.
According to the buying criteria sheet, products containing certain ingredients, such as high fructose corn syrup, artificial preservatives or colors, or bovine growth hormones (rBST), are not allowed to be sold at the Co-op.
Not only is it expensive to source food from myriad local suppliers, but it is expensive to buy foods that fit the buying criteria.
“It’s a challenge for us not to have a price image problem,” Lower said.
Lower currently lives in New Haven with his wife, Cheryl Whitney-Lower ’84. They have two kids, one who is a junior at the College and the other who will be attending Tufts University in the fall.
Lower was born in California, and grew up in Virginia. His first encounter with Vermont was when he came to the College as a student in 1980.
“In some ways, I went to Middlebury College because almost nobody in Virginia knew about it,” Lower said. He wanted to get away from the schools where so many of his peers went, such as the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina. Lower was a biology major.
“After Middlebury, I did environmental education for a while, but then became a high school biology teacher for about five years,” Lower said. At that time, he was living in the Boston area with his wife, Cheryl Whitney-Lower ’84.
Because they ultimately did not want to live in the Boston area, Lower and his wife travelled around the world for a year before putting down roots elsewhere. During this year, they spent three weeks canoeing in Alaska, north of the Arctic Circle with two friends from college.
Upon returning from their travels, they decided that Whitney-Lower, who was working in higher education administration, would look for a job first, and then Lower would look for a teaching job wherever they moved for her job.
Whitney-Lower, who now works as a Career Adviser at the CCI, originally got a job working as the Assistant Director of Student Activities. Lower, however, did not find work here in Middlebury so easily. He worked as a substitute teacher, while furthering his teaching certifications. There are only so many biology teachers needed in a sparsely populated area such as Addison County. All of the area biology teachers were about his age, so there appeared to be no prospects of a job opening any time soon.
After working for a year as a long-term substitute, the question surfaced again as to what work Lower would do once the teacher for whom he had been subbing returned from maternity leave. A job opened up in the produce section at the Co-op. The Saturday to Monday schedule perfectly complemented Whitney-Lower’s schedule, which was convenient given that their first baby was on the way. Soon after beginning that job, the produce manager left, and Lower moved into that position. After three years there, the general manager position was changing, so Lower applied for and got that position, which has been his role at the Co-op for the last 17 years.
Over the past two decades at the Co-op, Lower has seen considerable changes, most notably to the size of the operation. From its founding almost 40 years ago, the Co-op has expanded several times.
In 1994, the Co-op underwent its first major expansion within the gray building that now houses its offices.
“When we expanded that time, we thought, ‘Oh my gosh, we are set for life.’ We’ve got so much space now, and everything is modern.”
“By ’98, we said, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re running out of space, we don’t have enough room,” Lower said. At this point, the Co-op surveyed its members with three options: do nothing, move to a bigger location south on Route 7, or expand in the current location. Support for expanding in the current location was overwhelming, which came as a surprise to many, as many co-ops do not like change or expansion, according to Lower.
“New England towns were already struggling with big box stores coming on the outside and pulling sales from the towns out and the downtowns … dying or becoming boutiques,” Lower said.
The loss of downtown businesses in many New England towns made keeping the Co-op in town all the more important to many of its member-owners.
In order to expand in its current site, the Co-op had to ask three different land owners to sell them different parcels of land so the Co-op could have a contiguous piece of land big enough for a new building, according to Lower. The new building was funded through a half a million dollars in loans from the member-owners, not donations.
“It was a great community project,” Lower said of the 1998 renovations.
“It’s still a challenge to be in a downtown location and try to run a grocery store,” Lower said.
He explained that their growth was different than that of a traditional grocery store. Rather than a wide building visible from the street with extensive parking, the Co-op renovation took the shape of most other businesses in a downtown setting with a narrow front and parking hidden behind, so as not to create a strip mall look.
“We were breaking a lot of grocery rules about how to run a grocery store,” Lower said of their choice to renovate without becoming a box store. Between 1998 and now, the Co-op has grown from about $2 million in sales to $12 million.
Another major shift has been from about 20 percent organic and 80 percent conventional to the opposite: over 80 percent organic. The staff has also grown from 20 to over 70.
Looking forward, the Co-op is trying to have an even greater vision for the future than before.
“It’s not just ten years. Well, what are we doing for 20 to 50 years? You can’t just always get bigger. We can probably get a little bit bigger here, but then that’s it,” Lower said. “It’s not being driven by profits, it’s being driven by the fact that the community says this is what we want. So we’re always trying to figure out, what is it that the community wants the most?” Lower said.
Lower sees the Co-op’s role in the Middlebury community as showing what is possible in terms of feeding ourselves locally.
“I think a lot of local producers have said over the years…we got started because the Co-op was here, because that was the place we could sell stuff and get…our feet on the ground,” Lower said of the Co-op’s role among the producers.
“Food is a terrific economic development tool, and I think the co-op plays a big role in that. We’re sort of like a hub in some ways, lots of food coming in, we’re figuring out how it goes out,” Lower said.
