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(09/16/10 4:07am)
Unprompted, Fifelo Aganga ’13 turned to me and declared, “If I had to sum myself up in three words I would have to say black, British – and I’m torn between two words now: drunk or lackadaisical.”
More than a tad off-color, Aganga definitely gets noticed at a place like Middlebury, a place he says shocked him with its apparent homogeneity upon arrival.
Known as one of a few resident Brits on campus and in town as well, he complains that the crew down at Dunkin Donuts is still struggling to understand his pronunciation of the word “doughnut.” Aganga grew up a deathly shy kid in London with Nigerian parents.
“If two people were in the room I couldn’t talk. It slowly got better over time and then around 16 I was touched by a priest,” Aganga said adding that this did not really happen. “People don’t like when I make comments like that. It gets very awkward.”
While most of us have come to know him as Fif or Fifelo, neither of those names will help you find him in the college directory as his birth certificate spells his name with two “I”s rather than one. Fifelo is also know as Pip, Fil (pronounced Phil), that “drunk British black guy” and Baba Dudu. The last one, which comes from his aunts, leaves him lamenting that “even [his] own family is racist toward [him].” Although he voices his outrage with good nature, Aganga doesn’t shy away from admitting, “I attribute a lot of things to the fact that I’m black.”
Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that a European would come to the U.S. and make note of American race relations but it seems that Aganga feels his time is better spent misinforming people about European traditions.
“I once convinced an American that we don’t have telephones in London and that we use carrier pigeons to communicate, or shout,” Aganga said.
Nonetheless, Aganga feels he has overcome any racial barriers that may exist at Midd and has carried on several interracial “bromances,” with such characters as Brendan Scully ’13 and his old roommate Nathan Rudd ’13. “We [look] totally different when we’re together because he’s a ginger and I’m black,” says Aganga. “He’s muscular and I’m scrawny.”
However, Aganga would like to confirm that though it may come as a surprise, he is straight. Too bad his mother still has her doubts after finding his yellow “Legalize Gay” underwear, one of a now-retired pair that he and a friend debuted over spandex at last year’s 80s Dance and then took to wearing around campus all year.
“I have three sisters,” Aganga said. “That’s why I’m so feminine.”
At the close of our interview Aganga was off to work on his costume for this year’s 80’s dance and fill out medical forms for soccer try-outs. Other current projects include turning his single in Forest Hall into a “pink palace” and picking up a Southern accent.
“If I could go anywhere I would go to the moon or Alabama,” Aganga said. “The moon, so if I ever meet Buzz Aldrin or Neil Armstrong I don’t want them holding it over me that they’ve been to the moon and I haven’t, or Alabama ‘cause I love the way they speak.”
Aganga is currently studying Chinese with hopes of returning to China for study abroad. Before coming to Middlebury he spent a gap year in China, where he enjoyed being so gloriously different that a crowd of people watching a show of performing bears stopped to turn around and watch him instead of the animals. Completely baffled by his presence a little girl asked simply, “Why?”
Although Aganga claims to be “a very simple person with a simple mind” most would agree that his gears are turning just a little differently than the rest of ours. Being this unique individual that he is I figured that Aganga would have some very poignant life advice to offer, maybe along the lines of how to learn to embrace one’s true self, but the most he would say was, “When things get hard, have a drink or take naps. You get the best naps in class because you feel naughty.”
Quick Facts:
Signature item: The thing around his neck, which he likes to call an opium container, but whose contents shall be kept secret.
Found Middlebury: via word of mouth during his gap year in Beijing.
Favorite place in Middlebury: The Stone Leaf Tea House.
(09/16/10 3:58am)
As part of an administrative restructuring taking place this year, Commons deans will now report to Commons heads, as opposed to directly to the Dean of the College, as was previously the case.
Part of the liberal arts mission has always been to integrate campus life with education in the classroom, and the Commons system was originally formed for this purpose. The administration places special attention on this mission and recently decided to restructure the Commons hierarchy in this way as part of a larger movement to give more authority to the faculty heads.
“From the Strategic Plan [was] a recommendation to elevate the role of the faculty member overseeing the Commons,” said President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz. “This is the value added that we believe students have here at Middlebury ... that faculty members more or less oversee and help mentor [students and] direct them toward academic resources at this institution or even a network of academics outside the institution.”
However, questions have been raised concerning the issue of academics and scholars, individuals who are not residential life professionals, leading student life.
Liebowitz believes that the current faculty heads are able to assume this leadership role without disrupting student life — indeed, according to Liebowitz, their increased leadership will add to student life.
“Many of the heads were uneasy, and this is natural,” he said. “People of our generation, of the 70s and 80s coming into Middlebury, would just run the other way … I think we’ve now come full-circle to the point where now we can feel … more comfortable recognizing what [faculty] add to the educational experience … of students at Middlebury.”
Commons heads agreed that the move to let faculty commons heads supervise commons deans would not interfere with residential life.
“The essence of things is the same … the deans have always been very close to the heads and the CRA and the coordinator ... Now the College is trying to emphasize the connection between the deans and the heads and facilitate the communication,” said Ross Commons co-head and Visiting Lecturer in Religion and Women’s and Gender Studies Maria Hatjigeorgiou. “I think we have a description of something that has already been there … the administration’s articulation of reporting shouldn’t really bother us. It doesn’t create additional hierarchies or dependencies of sorts. It just describes in a clearer and more transparent manner a relationship that was there.”
Brainerd Commons head and Silberman Professor of Jewish Studies Robert Schine agreed.
“The commons staff ‘reporting’ to the faculty is just one way of seeking to ensure that everything that transpires in the commons is aligned with this educational goal,” he said. “The change is not as profound as it might be … more along the lines of tweaking [the system] a little.”
Schine said he had hosted over 50 dinners and discussions with visiting scholars and artists through Brainerd Commons last academic year alone. He pointed to the educational value of such hybrid academic-residential life events.
“When we have a dinner at the house following a lecture, students whom colleagues have chosen because of a seminar or class [are invited] because they have particular interest in the topic. Then we can dive deep,” he said.
Students also talked about how they found the Commons to be beneficial to academic life as well.
“I use it a lot for academic support,” said Spencer Brown ’14. “If there’s a problem I don’t know and I can’t get to professors’ office hours, I go down a hall or a floor and I’ll find someone who can help me.”
Others praised the social aspects of the Commons as well.
“I think the Commons are worthwhile because I believe that the smaller communities we live in as freshmen are useful for making friends,” said Steven Dunmire ’13. “We’re not just some faceless number living in some gigantic hall with everyone in your class. It’s a little more homey.” Dunmire went on to praise the Ross Assassins event as one he truly enjoyed.
There were those who could not identify benefits in the Commons system, for one reason or another.
“I think the commons system is fairly worthless,” said Adam Dede ’11. “As a freshman, I was one of the people who didn’t fit in Battell so I lived in Gifford and did not live in a freshman hall. I didn’t really have a Commons experience and I didn’t really have an FYC [First Year Counselor].”
Hatjigeorgiou did acknowledge that a lot of opportunities available through the Commons are not known to students.
“Perhaps we over-communicate because sometimes through all that buzz and tons of information we exchange, a lot of essential content [about the Commons] remains hidden,” she said.
However, she did say that the Commons worked extensively with the orientation team and FYCs to help students learn more about what the Commons do, like holding an event at the Commons house or requesting funding from the budget.
Harjigeorgiou invited students to explore the opportunities offered by the Commons.
“Just inquire and see what resources are open to you – respond with the same energy we are offering you … find us and meet us halfway,” she said. “Perhaps the Commons need to be rediscovered by those who haven’t because they are a fantastic resource to enrich student life.”
(09/09/10 4:07am)
For most of the world’s people, climate change is inextricably linked to starvation, migration and extinction; the phenomena cannot be mentioned independently of declining crop yields, rising seas and vector-borne disease. For the overwhelming minority of us living in the developed world, however, this is far from the case. Here, the social sciences insist that speaking about the costs of global warming is commensurate to fear-mongering; that the dialogue must be framed instead in the context of green jobs, trade competitiveness with emerging economies and the need to reduce dependence on dangerous foreign oil. But for children in the Maldives and high school students in Montana, fear of coming of age in a sunken nation and outsourced manufacturing and service jobs is a matter of lived experience; in the Global North entire societies have been built an arm’s length away from the Earth’s natural systems, while poorer populations live and die by subsistence economies.
This fundamental disconnect is all too tangible when nations gather to discuss and debate solutions to the climate problem. Copenhagen was fraught with mistrust and misunderstanding between the developed and the developing, riddled with economic excuses for inaction from the former and impassioned pleas for survival from the latter. Parties were practically speaking different languages; some employed the metrics of GDP and GNP while the others had nothing to leverage but potential body counts. It is no wonder negotiations culminated in an agreement leagues away from the fair, ambitious and legally binding international climate agreement that is still needed.
We desperately need shared experience. We need metrics around which we can build solidarity and understanding and trust. And we need them from every nation on earth; scientists maintain that stabilization of the climate system will require both sweeping emissions reductions from the world’s richest nations (on the scale of 80-95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050), and ‘substantial deviation from business as usual’ from the poorest. Economists have called for the collective mobilization of hundreds of billions of dollars for low-carbon growth and adaptation crucial to delivering billions from poverty in an already warmer world.
A common thread does exist in the form of a threat to our collective humanity. Nowhere is this more apparent than where I spent the summer: West Kalimantan, Indonesia. There, indigenous Dayak populations are starving. Their centuries-old agricultural practices are incompatible with a climate that no longer experiences a dry season, and their rice supplies are devastatingly insufficient as a result. National and multi-national palm oil companies have responded by buying up significant swaths of land made cheap by desperate families, and the vibrant culture of the Dayaks is diminishing in parallel with their sovereignty.
Worldwide, roughly 300 million people still retain strong indigenous identity, wedded to a particular geographic place through myth and memory and with a distinct history and language. These cultures account for 60 percent of the world’s spoken languages and collectively represent more than half of humanity’s intellectual legacy.
They face, however, assimilation and acculturation similar to that confronting the Dayaks of West Kalimantan. The likelihood of violence, conquest, famine or natural disaster compromising their unique ways of life increases every day climate change continues unabated.
The demise of cultural diversity is not among those climate impacts frequently listed, but it is among those affronts against which we can unite. The ‘ethnosphere’ — the full complexity and complement of human potential that lives and breathes in languages, medicinal practices, agricultural systems and oral traditions the world over — is sacrosanct. It is that which separates us from other species, that which could, above all else, justify the preservation of our entire race, as opposed to simply a wealthy portion of it.
This piece is, of course, the act of a desperate person: a frantic searching for a motivation that will deliver all nations to the negotiating table immediately. Idealistic it most certainly is. But in all our picketing and protesting and lobbying, I do believe that we have failed to approach those responsible as fellow people. We have failed to reach out to them on a spiritual level and discuss climate change as something that transcends national interest. It is time we celebrated the beautiful complexity that lines our shared humanity; time we saw that in a universe that remains largely a mystery, we cannot afford to silence the sacred pluralism of the human race. At the very least, it’s time we tried.
(05/06/10 4:00am)
I’ve been thinking recently about where people hook up (have sex, make out, whatever your definition is). Since sophomore year, I personally haven’t been doing it anywhere interesting — ah, the benefits of a single room.
Before that, however, I graced half the campus (or at least most of the campus surrounding Allen, my freshman dorm) with my sexcapades, and before college I was really creative because someone in my family was usually home and I didn’t have access to all of the empty academic buildings that Middlebury offers at night.
Those endeavors were really exciting, and I’ve been thinking lately that destination sex shouldn’t just be out of necessity. As we all prepare for the great diaspora preceding summer vacation — and I know summer lovin’ is on everyone’s mind behind all of that final exam nonsense — I present some “greatest hits” of destination sex. You’ll notice lots of them are outside because we spend all winter snowed in.
Before I jump in, my general rule of thumb for fairly public sex is that unless you’re an exhibitionist, the likelihood that someone will see you and your partner going at it is about equal to the amount of clothing you should keep on — so if you think there’s an 80 percent chance of someone catching you in the act, you should probably keep 80 percent of your clothing on your body and the rest within reach in case you need to make a quick escape. Just a thought.
On to the places! First off, I just want to say kudos to the couple I walked in on in Hillcrest last year. It was just before 5 in the afternoon on a Friday last March and they were doing it on the desks at the front of the room with the shades up, and I’m pretty sure a lecture was scheduled at 5:30 or 6. Bold move. Almost as bold as doing it in one of the fishbowl seminar rooms in Bi-hall.
If you’re looking for someplace less ostentatious on campus, the natural amphitheater behind the cemetery is a good place (or so I hear — I haven’t been there yet), and a friend of mine made good use of the soft grass on top of Atwater dining hall — we need to use it for something now that it’s closed, right? Empty studies, the group study rooms in the library, the greenhouse in Bi-hall (that place is popular — just read the logbook), any of the dark wood-paneled rooms in Axinn (anybody see the sex scene in Atonement?) and even Mead Chapel (if you don’t mind the hard pews and you’re not particularly religious) are all other good options — just don’t leave a mess.
Off campus, you might think, “Sex on the beach!” but I promise it’s not worth it — you just get a lot of sand in really uncomfortable places and there is nowhere to run if the cops catch you. Believe me, I know. Doing it in a kayak or a canoe however — that’s a good kind of rocking the boat, if you know what I mean, and it’s a lot more private.
I like to think that destination sex is not just about doing it outside of the bedroom, but that it’s also about picking a place that adds to the experience either because someone might catch you (if you like that feeling) or because it’s just a beautiful space, so doing it in a gas station bathroom doesn’t exactly fit the bill. Shenanigans on a roof however, especially under a sky full of stars, are amazing.
A secluded meadow or on the hood of a car (preferably a nice car, but either way put a blanket down so you don’t burn your bare ass) or even just doing it in a different room at a different time of day (or during a thunderstorm — so epic) are other excellent choices.
Whatever you’re doing this summer, and wherever you do it, I hope it’s good.
(04/29/10 4:00am)
Over the course of the last few months, you may have noticed somewhat ambiguous signs for a thing titled “The Middlebury Moth.” No, those aren’t advertisements for a horror film. Inspired by the original “Moth” series, live storytelling events held in New York City regularly since the ’80s, Will Bellaimey ’10.5 and Bianca Giaever ’12.5 teamed up to stage the performances ( and record podcasts) here at the College in hopes of rejuvenating the art of storytelling. The Middlebury Campus sat down with them in the Gamut Room, site of their increasingly-popular series, to find out what started the whole thing.
MC: Can you tell me about the origins of “The Moth”? What originally inspired you to recreate it in Middlebury?
Bianca Giaever: Well, we’re big fans of the real, the big “Moth,” up in, I mean, down in New York City, the big city.
Will Bellaimey: We’re both really big fans of podcasts in general.
BG: We obsessively listen to podcasts.
WB: We’re addicted to podcasts.
BG: Addicted to podcasts. And “The Moth” actually encourages making little moths, but using the horrible name “MothUp,” which we refused to use.
WB: But basically we just thought it was such a cool event, and it’s really not that hard to put together. It doesn’t require people to do — I mean, it’s nice when they do preparation — but it doesn’t require people to do as much preparation as reading stories, reading essays or “This American Life,” for example. And we really liked the combination of the live component and the podcast.
BG: It’s a great way to bring people together. Stories are very engaging. And we’ve been able to get professors and townspeople to tell stories.
WB: I don’t even remember when we started thinking about it. I mean we’ve been talking about it forever.
MC: Well, I was going to ask, when did you first team up? When did you first meet and decide this was something you wanted to do?
WB: Bianca and I have been friends for a while. There were a couple interesting, sort-of similar events earlier this year. There was the Angsty Teen Poetry Night, and the first one was really cool and there was such good turn-out, and everyone brought their horribly emo poems and songs that they wrote when they were thirteen and there were just tons of people here, and we thought, “Wow, we could get a really big turn-out.” So I think it was after that, that we said, “We’re going to do ‘The Moth.’”
BG: Yeah. We’ve just been talking about it for what seems like forever.
MC: How do you find the people with the stories? How do you choose stories? Do you end up having more stories than possible to put on in one night?
WB: A little bit. We’re not at overload yet. We’re not at the point where we have to audition people. I mean, I would love to, but that would be tricky, but I’d love to be at the point where we had that many stories and I’d love to be at the point where we had that many stories and people would always be coming up to us so we’d have more than we’d need, but the first time we did it, we kind of just talking to each other and thought of friends, or people we sort-of know or people who were good storytellers and the hope was that after doing the first time, it would get a big enough showing that people would come to us and say, “Oh I have a good story for next time,” or “There’s this one professor you should talk to.”
BG: Yeah, we try to get as diverse a group as possible and balance it out. So, equal men and women. Usually we have five students, two professors and one townsperson. It’s been a little harder to get professors. They seem a little suspicious sometimes. You have to explain to them.
WB: It’s because of the time. Anything that happens after 10 p.m. is suspicious to them.
BG: But we like the time also because it gives it a kind-of a late-night raunchy feel. “The Moth” was originally named “The Moth” because these guys would stay up really late on the porch telling stories until the moths came to the light in the dark.
MC: So how do you choose the themes every other week?
BG: We just create them in our head.
WB: I’m just like, “Bianca, it should be this.” And she says, “No, it shouldn’t. It should be this.” And I say, “Yeah, you’re right. It should be that.
BG: And we take suggestions for themes all the time.
MC: So then, when people leave after the performances, what do you hope they take away?
WB: I don’t think we know what they’re going to take away before it happens. We want them to say, “Wow, that was a really great night of stories.” Mostly we want them to be entertained. But we also want them to learn about each other, and to be motivated themselves to try telling stories, especially people who might not otherwise.
BG: I mean, it’s a feeling, when a great story is told and everyone’s right there laughing together. Just the buzz of it all.
WB: There’s something incredibly personal about the storytelling medium, whether they are true stories, and that since you’re not reading it from notes, it’s really coming from the heart. When somebody really connects with a good storyteller, there’s a level of empathy that’s really extraordinary that you don’t see in some other form where it’s scripted.
(04/29/10 4:00am)
Though Middlebury students are known to joke about living in a bubble, the earthquake that devastated Haiti in January was a catastrophic wake-up call. The quake, which registered at 7.0 on the Richter scale and led to the deaths of 230,000 (and the displacement of countless more) by February, clearly called for and received an immediate response.
What many do not realize is that it also calls for long-term action. According to Daniel Khan ’11, “One of the biggest problems now is a lack of interest.” That, he said, is a “tragedy” in itself.
“As with a lot of these natural disasters, there’s a huge response right away when the media’s all over it, then it sort of trickles off,” said Jessie Ortwein ’10.
Middlebury’s contributions to the “huge response” were substantial, beginning with groups of students collecting donations outside of dining halls. However, some saw the lack of organization as an impediment to further efforts.
“A lot of civic-minded students were trying to raise money, but it wasn’t coordinated at all,” said Khan, vice president of the Pan-Caribbean Student Organization (PCSO). He saw it as “only natural that [PCSO members] try to head up the initiative.”
Thus, Students for Haiti Outreach United Together (SHOUT)was born. Khan and Karl Krussell ’11 began by e-mailing friends and other potentially interested students, suggesting they meet on a regular basis.
“We talked about how it was important to keep fundraising and not let the momentum fade,” Hannah Judge ’11 said of the group’s early meetings. Judge has contributed to Haiti fundraising through both SHOUT and Middlebury’s GlobeMed chapter, which focuses on a variety of global health issues.
“We wanted to focus on raising awareness because it was in Haiti, to convey what the situation really meant and how long-lasting the implications really are for the country,” she said.
With the help of the Alliance for Civic Engagement (ACE) office, SHOUT began coordinating with international aid organizations and planning events. To begin raising awareness, students and professors, including resident Caribbean scholar Associate Professor of History Darien Davis, took part in a panel discussion in late January. In February, SHOUT partnered with the Entrepreneurs Foundation, who pledged to match all donations made at collection tables or online for a full week. This past weekend, five a cappella groups (four from the College and one from Middlebury Union High School) performed at the Memorial Baptist Church, suggesting a donation of $5 per person toward Haiti reflief.
After extensive research, SHOUT members decided to work with Partners in Health (PIH), a nonprofit organization that has been working in Haiti for over two decades.
“They do a really good job of working with the local infrastructure and government, and they focus on sustainable projects,” said Judge. The group also donates to Yéle Haiti, another non-profit started by Grammy-winning musician and Haiti native Wyclef Jean.
“It’s a grassroots organization entirely run by the Haitian population,” said Khan. “We wanted to work with both PIH and Yéle Haiti so it’s not just foreign workers pouring in.”
Meanwhile, other student organizations use SHOUT and Middlebury’s PIH account as a home base. PCSO, for example, contributed its gift fund to the pool. Alianza Latinoamericana y Caribeña fundraised independently but also transferred the proceeds to the collective fund. GlobeMed, though heavily focused on Uganda in its projects, has recently shifted focus to Haiti. Co-president Ben Zorach ‘10 worked with test-prep company Kaplan, urging them to auction off one of their courses to benefit the cause. Kaplan obliged, donating twice the winning bid to PIH. GlobeMed also helped with a Grille delivery fundraiser earlier this month.
Other students, such as Ortwein, decided to act on their own. After coming back from February break with an idea, she gathered a group of friends to assist in her first fundraising endeavor. With the help of donations from local businesses, American Flatbread was able to host (and staff, free of charge) her fundraiser featuring hors d’oeuvres, an open bar, a raffle, a silent auction and live music.
Ortwein also chose to donate to PIH without knowing that SHOUT had done the same, further underscoring its merits.
The involvement of multiple student groups and “random well-wishers,” as Judge put it, encourages all students to participate in fundraising efforts. “It wasn’t just one group that automatically stepped up,” she said.
Khan is optimistic that if properly executed, foreign aid could help to raise Haiti’s standards of living to higher than they were before the earthquake.
“This is a clean slate for them,” said Khan. “Of course, it was a terrible cost, but now they’re able to rebuild and restructure the government.” For the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, where 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, this could be a welcome glimmer of silver lining.
“It’s really cool that several months later, we’re still showing commitment to the cause,” said Ortwein. “There’s still such a need for volunteers, and financially, I think it’s important that people still keep at it.”
Khan explained that although the initial influx of manpower and funding was remarkable, the country is approaching a new stage of need. Houses built immediately after the earthquake were meant to last just one to two years until permanent housing could be constructed, leaving hundreds of thousands of people in buildings “just begging to fall,” especially with the onset of the rainy season.
“They need money just as much now for intermediary projects as they did immediately,” he said. For this reason, students have not donated all of their funds, hoping to stagger their support over a more logical time span.
Plans for next year are already brewing, as SHOUT is lining up guest speakers for the fall. Mike Kiernan, a local ER trauma surgeon, plans to give a presentation on the week he spent in Haiti earlier this year. Students can also expect to hear from Brian Concannon ’85, Middlebury alum and director of the U.S.-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.
Additionally, graduating seniors can feel confident that their plans and ideas will not fall by the wayside after their departure.
“Faculty have expressed interest in making sure this continues after members graduate, even if SHOUT disbands, since it was sort of formed ad hoc,” Khan said.
Judge encourages students to look at SHOUT’s Facebook fan page for updates on coming events, as well as Middlebury’s PIH page at http://act.pih.org.org/page/group/Mid-MiddleburyCollege, where they can track the amount raised to date and donate online. The current figure, not including the amounts raised by the Grille delivery or the American Flatbread event, is just shy of $6,000. “It’s so important to continue the efforts and not just write it off, like, ‘Okay, that was in January. It’s over. What’s next?’” said Judge.
(04/22/10 4:00am)
With 11,730 volumes, the Platt Memorial Library in Shoreham, Vt. serves a population of 1,299. Compare this to an establishment like Fletcher Free Library in Burlington, Vt., which maintains a collection almost ten times as large for a population of nearly 40,000, and the obvious conclusion leaves residents of smaller towns without the same number of resources, and unable to keep up with a constantly growing pool of text.
Cue the Green Mountain Library Consortium (GMLC), for whom equity has been a primary motivation. The consortium, which, since it took off in 2007, remains the only one of its kind in Vermont, now providing downloadable audio books to over 100 libraries statewide, aiming to make its resources available to both the well-funded and financially limited collections.
“In a consortium,” explained Judah Hamer, children’s librarian at Illsley Public Library in Middlebury, and treasurer of GMLC, “each member pays in money to create this umbrella structure that serves each individual library well. To an end user it looks sort of like a county library system, except that a county library system is funded often with state or county or local level money.”
GMLC, on the other hand, is more of a grassroots organization, which allows the board — Stephanie Chase and Lucinda Walker join Hamer as president and secretary, respectively — to establish its own billing system so that each participant may take full advantage of the services.
“Something we still work on every year is how to create a fee structure that makes it possible to provide equity for the level at which people participate,” said Hamer. “So it seems fair to everybody, but at the same time, is still accessible.”
Currently, GMLC charges member libraries based on budget size, asking different percentage levels from the large span of budgets. It caps the fee for the bigger libraries, again seeking to level the playing field. Libraries invest these funds so their readers don’t have to.
“Library services are free,” noted Hamer. “That’s the point.”
But while readers only benefit from membership in the consortium, the financial burden on participating libraries is not insignificant. Still, what was originally a group of no more than two dozen libraries has gained almost five times that many members in a matter of three years. Consortium members see it is a worthwhile investment for several reasons, one of which is the availability of titles.
These titles are chosen by GMLC’s selection committee, a group of librarians who feel out different audiences for what is in greatest demand. From there the committee goes to Overdrive, a vendor that provides downloadable audiobooks.
Since its inception the consortium has begun working with a second vendor, Recorded Books — also known as NetLibrary — and in July it will start requiring its members to make use of both providers. Hamer sees the use of two companies as beneficial, because GMLC can bank on the best from each different model.
Recorded Books, for example, provides an audio database for which the company is directly responsible. It develops the recording from the beginning, finding readers and negotiating rights. Therefore, the quality is consistent and members know what to expect. Additionally, once a title is in the Recorded Books database it is available to any reader at any time.
This is different from the Overdrive system, which mirrors a library’s one-book, one-reader arrangement. The audiobook is checked out and unavailable to others. That said, Overdrive allows its material to be downloaded piece by piece rather than all at once.
“It provides the flexibility for people to download books in smaller bits,” said Hamer.
Additionally, once the consortium buys an audiobook from Overdrive, it owns that recording. If GMLC chose to end its contract with the company, they would still have the collection that accumulated during the partnership, whereas Recorded Books is a database for which GMLC pays to have access. Once the pay stops, the database is no longer available.
But even if the consortium wanted to end its association with either vendor, Hamer doubts that this would be feasible.
“These companies negotiate lots of different rights for books so they don’t really overlap in the content,” noted Hamer. The selection, therefore, would be too limited to serve GMLC’s audience without drawing material from both vendors.
The variation throughout this audience is one reason, Hamer believes, that the consortium has been so successful.
“It hits different slices of the population that are really distinct,” said Hamer. “The kid who wants to listen to the book and read along is very different from someone in their 70s or 80s whose sight is deteriorating and who needs another option because large print book selection is limited.”
Hamer also listed commuters and people who work late among the most common listeners.
“For lots of libraries that don’t have evening hours, that’s a way to serve that population that may never get in the doors,” observed Hamer.
As successful as the GMLC has been, the board is familiar with the challenges it will face as it moves forward. For one thing, the demand of responsibility is unrealistic for a volunteer board of just three people.
“There are a few people carrying a lot of weight,” said Hamer. “There are points where you say, ‘This could be more smoothly run.”
Additionally, getting member libraries to be more active participants is a difficulty.
“Making decisions for the consortium can be difficult,” said Hamer. “They’re better made collaboratively with lots of input from different people. This is a public service,” Hamer continued. “We’re constantly evolving to meet the needs of the public. We need to help members to realize that their active participation role is significant.”
In the spirit of collaboration, GMLC has also launched a new project with Opensource Software. Together this subset of GMLC and the software development company are working to develop an integrated library system that would allow member libraries to have their own servers and house their own collections and catalogs.
Beyond this, Hamer doesn’t foresee any other large-scale projects, at least for the present.
“We’re at this point where we know we could grow a lot,” he said. “But we have to get some things in place before we really punch into that growth.”
(04/22/10 3:59am)
Were you a fan of MGMT’s “Oracular Spectacular,” or, more particularly, of “Electric Feel,” “Kids” and “Time to Pretend”? Have you had fun blasting the infectious “Daylight” by Matt & Kim out of your fast moving vehicle? These tunes are great, and, with the “indie” label attached, they make you feel on top of the current music scene.
Unfortunately, it is hard to scan the plethora of music blogs in order to impress a music snob, so I am here to try and help out. This week, I’m changing it up. I’m going to list five tunes by five different artists that are catchy yet obscure enough to give you some credibility among music geeks.
I’ll do my best to cover different genres, but, given my taste, I will inevitably leave many out.
1. “O.N.E.” by Yeasayer: How perfect for the first tune, “one” spelled in all caps. This song combines Afropop guitar jangles and bass riffs with ’80’s-style production to create an epic danceable beat. The timing of the chords is truly bizarre, but Yeasayer are able to show off their quirks in accessible fashion. Any fans of Animal Collective’s less experimental side will immediately take a liking to this tune and this band.
2. “Who Knows Who Cares” by Local Natives: I know I’ve already professed my obsession with this song in a previous review. But I like it so much that I am now putting it on this list and demanding that you listen to it. At first a tranquil guitar riff and beautiful harmonizing, this song is then lifted to a faster pace by a string accompaniment. Indeed, this is a feel-good tune about living life to the fullest, about taking a “van down to Colorado.” This song is for fans of the recent streak of chamber pop in popular indie music (read: Grizzly Bear’s “Veckatimest”).
3. “Shadow People” by Dr. Dog: Despite sounding eerily similar to Adam Sandler’s band from “The Wedding Singer” during the first verse, this tune shows off Dr. Dog’s ability to recall music from a past time in a familiar, more current songwriting structure. This tune is for those who refuse to listen to music past 1980. Believe me, Dr. Dog can play some great (classic) rock ‘n’ roll.
4. “The High Road” by Broken Bells: Okay, maybe this tune isn’t so obscure, but it is so catchy and immediately likeable that I had to include it. Danger Mouse’s dreamy production is so nicely complimented by James Mercer’s voice. At first Mercer — lead singer for The Shins — sounds blasé, but, as more instrumentals enter the song, the once effortless voice is fervently strained. The tune, and the rest of the album, has been my go-to for studying.
5. “Jail La La” by Dum Dum Girls: Unfortunately I missed this four-piece as an opening act just a few weeks ago. Still, I have been digging their freshwoman effort, “I Will Be.” “Jail La La” is so highly stylized with fuzz and distortion, and so catchy with its up-tempo pace and cool vocal delivery. Have fun listening to this tune in your car with the windows down on a summer day.
There you have it — five promised songs by five current artists. Show them to your friends and let them know how truly cool you are.
(04/15/10 3:59am)
Both the jokes and Ele Woods’s ’11 oppressively colorful tunic in “Beyond Therapy” appear equally anachronistic for today’s world, and yet both still elicit the most uproarious of laughs.
Though the gags might have been a bit worn-out, the sense that the homophobic and “crazy people” jokes were, in fact, once original comes through. It’s not often that works from the 1980s seem like “period pieces,” but the Christopher Durang play shown in the Hepburn Zoo over the weekend of April 8-10 manages to hearken back to that era of Madonna cone-bras and “The Breakfast Club,” and not-too-subtly remind us of how long it’s been.
Through seemingly dated, the ’80s setting of “Beyond Therapy” remains central to the comedy. Durang, often having encountered suggestions to update the play, has steadfastedly refused. After all, the time period does not interfere with the looking-for-love-while-lonely relationship farce’s main purpose — it wants nothing more than to make you laugh. There is no great moral, tragic twist or dramatic ending.
Overtones of the hackneyed theme “we’re all crazy!” instigate the humor. And while overused, the ridiculous situations nevertheless are carried forth by a cast ridiculously pleasing enough to overcome the tired script.
Woods, playing a word-fumbling, narcissistic, kindergarten teacher-like therapist, commands the stage, and it is not only because of the overwhelming brightness of her outfits. She trips over her words with purposeful, delightful ease, and her disorderly use of the English language combining with her sickly sweet smiles could not play to any soundtrack but that of spectators’ boisterous laughter. Other cast members portray their characters just fine, but Woods surpasses “just fine.”
Woods plays Mrs. Wallace, a therapist who ironically needs therapy herself. In this comedy of errors, Mrs. Wallace “helps” Bruce (Reilly Steel ’11) overcome his relationship problems, while also partly engendering them. (It turns out that her encouragement of Bruce placing personals ads in the paper for women annoys his gay lover, Bob (Sam Koplinka-Loehr ’13). Who’d’ve thought?) When Bruce meets Prudence (April Dodd ’13), they irritate each other until they like each other enough to start dating. Prudence’s masculinity-challenged therapist, Dr. Stuart Framingham (Dennis Wynn ’13) and a cute waiter (Grady Trela ’13) complete the love hexagon.
As Bruce and Prudence try to make their relationship work, it becomes abundantly clear that the affair is a travesty in the making. Their idiosyncratic therapists’ interfering fingers make the tightrope of modern love all the more daunting. Bruce only wants to marry Prudence and live in a house in Connecticut with an apartment over the garage for Bob, but his simple wish is hampered by, among many other problems, Dr. Framingham’s constant (and illegal) attentions towards Prudence.
In portraying the back-and-forth between Framingham and Prudence, Wynn and Dodd are perfectly matched — that is, their chemistry is nonexistent. The undercurrent of disgust threaded through her rebuffs only encourages his slimy notice, and Wynn’s mastery of what men think of as “smooth” makes their scenes even better. Similarly, the character of Bob makes the comedy all the greater, with even Koplinka-Loehr’s gait communicating his amusing annoyance at his boyfriend’s new girlfriend.
“Beyond Therapy” turns out, after all, to be good medicine. Submitting to the absurdity of the comedy, to Woods’ ribald yells of “cocksucker,” to Steel’s repetitive speech patterns about his “feelings” and to Wynn’s amusing Napoleon complex, means releasing those veins bulging from the accumulation of college stress and giving into the ease-inducing hilarity.
Some students might find the new contortions of their face muscles a tad overbearing and unfamiliar, so unused to laughter as the end of the semester’s workload begins to amass upon them, but that just shows how utterly necessary its pure silliness is.
“Beyond Therapy” might be a relic from the ’80s, but in its nature as a farce, it accomplishes its aim better than a good tickling ever would. Utterly undemanding, the comedy forces its audience into a release through laughter, ironically manifesting a therapeutic role even as it shows just how bad some therapy can be.
(04/08/10 3:59am)
College officials have apologized following a significant computing error by Library and Information Services (LIS) that led rising upperclassmen to receive incorrect room draw lottery numbers on March 31. Administrators also expressed regret this week for ongoing delays in finalizing super block housing assignments, despite recent reassurances that the process would be concluded by the end of Spring Break.
“We recognize that room draw is a significant process for students,” Provost and Executive Vice President Alison Byerly acknowledged. “There was a lot of anxiety associated with it, and everyone involved feels very badly that more anxiety was added by virtue of the mistake, but we hope that once people got their real numbers they were able to make their plans accordingly.”
Residential Systems Coordinator Karin Hall-Kolts explained that it was not Residential Life that discovered the mistake, but physics student Nate Woods ’11.
Woods “sent me a very nice message which prompted me to sort the numbers and take a look at them in different ways. When I did that, I noticed they didn’t seem random to me either,” explained Hall-Kolts.
In an e-mail to Hall-Kolts, Woods explained how he had compared his number “with 13 Atwater rising seniors, and we all had numbers in roughly an 80-number range (about 380 to 460, or so). No Atwater students I’ve talked to had numbers outside this range. Out of about 850 numbers, the chances of this happening are about (1/10)^13, or about one in ten trillion.”
“These numbers strongly suggest an issue with your number assignment algorithm,” wrote Woods.
To verify Woods’ claim, Hall-Kolts first sorted students by graduation year, and confirmed that seniors had been issued better numbers than juniors, in accordance with standard policy. However, when Hall-Kolts sorted all the numbers from highest to lowest, she “realized [large groups of students] were all in the same Commons and that all of their numbers were relatively close.”
Hall-Kolts then “verified the information with LIS staff,” who confirmed that an error had been made.
“Somehow the commons had played into it to some degree,” explained Hall-Kolts. Although commons affiliation is taken into account for first-year and sophomore housing, a 2007 revision of the housing system stripped that affiliation entirely from the upperclassman room draw process — or should have, at any rate.
Dean of Students Gus Jordan admitted that the LIS mistake caused some commons to receive poorer numbers than others. Some commons had numbers spanning the entire class, but other commons had numbers that reflected only higher ranges.
Under normal conditions, said an LIS programmer, the computer algorithm should “assign each student a six-digit random number, then sort [this number] by class and then read through that and assign an [ordinal] number” that marks the rank of the student in the housing draw.
The programming error resulted from the accidental addition of “some other field in the sort process.” The staff member declined to comment on the specific nature of the addition.
“It’s a procedure, and one of the steps in the procedure was wrong — totally unintentionally,” said the LIS staff member in a phone interview.
Once the administration had been alerted to the blunder, students received another e-mail on April 1 from Karin Hall-Kolts with the correct lottery numbers. Jordan assured students that LIS “implemented a two-step process so that they could be absolutely certain they were randomized. We certainly didn’t want to make another mistake.”
Byerly explained that to fix the problem, programmers simply removed upperclassman commons affiliations from the program and ran it again. The numbers are generated based upon a randomized assignment that relies only on verification that students are eligible for housing. The current system does not take into account students’ lottery numbers from previous years.
However, before Hall-Kolts could distribute the new numbers, the situation was complicated even further by an April Fools’ prank that capitalized on LIS’s error. A fake e-mail began circulating among affected students early Thursday morning with the subject line “Room Draw Info – Update” from the address khall.koltz@gmail.com. Although Hall-Kolts’ last name was misspelled, the e-mail had the same format as that issued the previous day by the real Hall-Kolts, and included students’ full names and class years.
“I heard about the e-mail in a text from a friend who was in the library at the time,” said Evan Masseau ’11. “She had a great number, so I actually biked down to her from Proctor to celebrate. Then, when I checked my number there, mine was also superb, so we were both very excited. The fake number kept me pretty psyched through my Orgo class and on toward lunch, when a friend called me to tell me it was a prank. I was obviously disappointed but extremely impressed with the prankster.”
Despite Masseau’s feelings that the prank was “well-played,” Byerly referred to the prank as “odd” and Jordan called it “unfortunate.”
Jordan added that the administration’s main concern, apart from any additional frustration the prank may have caused among students, is the “misuse of our information technology system. We reserve our e-mail for official correspondence, and if someone misuses [this system], they are subject to disciplinary action.”
Frustration over the distribution of incorrect room draw numbers has been exacerbated by ongoing complications in the super block assignment process. The super block system is currently “on hold,” according to Jordan, in anticipation of new housing openings that “may impact the appropriate location of the super block groups.” Converting buildings into dorms has been both expensive and complex, Jordan explained. All members of super blocks were issued random room draw numbers.
At press time, the Office of Residential Life still had not provided super block applicants with confirmation of their housing status.
Ty Carleton ’12, the leader of the Comparative Music super block, expressed concern and frustration with the super block process’s inconclusiveness. In early March, Residential Life offered Fletcher House to Comparative Music, yet upon submitting a full roster and being told that contracts were forthcoming, Carleton says he had not heard anything. Two separate requests for contracts and information resulted in, first, a general e-mail sent to all super block leaders explaining that the process had been put on hold, and finally, “a very vague reply” that mentioned “problems with some of the super block assignments.”
“I don’t want to lay blame,” wrote Carleton in an e-mail. “I don’t understand the intricacies of this surely daunting task of securing housing for an entire student body, and I’m sure Lee Zerrilla and Karin Hall-Kolts are working as hard as they can under these unfortunate circumstances that are out of their control. However, it would be a huge weight off my shoulders if we could just get these contracts signed, and I look forward to some transparency from the administration in the near future.”
Senior Residence Director Lee Zerrilla offered no deadline for an announcement, but assured students that finalized super block information would be provided “before room draw,” with the hope of allowing students adequate time to think about their housing plans. Room draw for rising juniors and seniors is scheduled to begin with large block applications on April 22.
The latest announcement came just weeks after Jordan wrote an e-mail to students expressing his “hope to have the decisions made by the time students return from spring break.”
Zerrilla also echoed regret over the delays in announcements.
“It’s unfortunate that I don’t have more information,” said Zerrilla in a phone interview on Tuesday.
(04/08/10 3:59am)
Griselda Gambaro’s “La Malasangre [Bad Blood],” the faculty show that appeared in the Steeler Studio Theater in the Mahaney Center for the Arts (MCFA) last week, is one that will not soon be forgotten — it will continue to haunt those who were fortunate enough to have seen it — and I mean that in a very good way.
From the first high-pitched cackle that erupted from Ben Orbison’s ’12.5 (who played the role of the father) mouth down to the final, eerie, scream-sodden scene, the cast and crew of the play led the audience on a tumultuous roller coaster that constantly fluctuated between laughter and horror.
The cast lineup boasted a number of Middlebury theater veterans not the least of whom was Cassidy Boyd ’10, whose acting in the play will count as her Senior 700 work. Boyd played the lead role of Dolores, the daughter of a malicious man of fortune in Buenos Aires circa 1840.
When we meet Dolores, she is only just beginning to comprehend her father’s tyranny over his family and her own lack of agency within his household. It is a household haunted by passing carts and horses on the cobblestone outside, a stand-in for the father’s atrocious deeds that remain unspoken throughout the play.
The sound of these vehicles incites terror in Dolores, her mother, and her new tutor. Rafael (Willy McKay ’11) is the unfortunate hunchback whom Dolores’ father has selected to be her tutor, in hopes that his deformation will ensure that his daughter will remain pure so that he can marry her off to a wealthy gentleman caller. But Rafael, with his refreshing moral sense and quick wit, is more than a hunchback, as the audience discovers along with Dolores.
The first act of the play was wrought with charming, Mr. Darcy-and-Elizabeth-type scenes of Boyd and McKay exchanging rather charged words with one another, and Boyd attempting to exert her power as the daughter of fortune over a lowly tutor — she means, as she says, to “make [his] hair turn gray.” The charm becomes tainted, however, when Dolores plays the bratty “daddy” card and things take a rather nasty turn. What follows is a highly comical scene in which Dolores’ father both comforts her with baby talk, promising things like new dresses and parties, and at the same time, shouts threats over to Rafael.
The hilarity quickly dissipates, however, when Fermin (Brian Clow ’13) grabs Rafael and drags him away to be beaten. Though difficult to pull off, the rapid switch in tone was flawlessly executed by Orbison, Boyd and McKay, with help from equally flawless sound and light crews.
Indeed, much of the performance came across as flawless — not a line was dropped, nor a gesture misplaced — and, perhaps most impressively, each of the actors adopted highly convincing and emotive facial expressions.
Dolores’ guilt is palpable in her pained expression after Rafael returns to teach her the next day, and is unable to sit due to the injuries that he has sustained. But it was Martina Bonolis ’10, with her masked winces and woeful smiles, who won the most sympathy from the audience as the suppressed and abused mother. At one point, Bonolis sank, clutching at her hair with her hands with all torment of one who has suffered more than we can possibly know, slowly and posed like a gothic sculpture. The power that Bonolis brought to the small scene was masterful and made it more moving than any other in the play.
Act Two brought a change in set (a grand piano was placed beneath the glowing chandelier, and a sofa now graced the imitation parquet flooring), as well as a change in scene. No longer was the audience privy to the gradually growing romance between Rafael and Dolores; instead, we were invited to view the inner-workings of an arranged marriage. Now awkward laughter was added to the mix of cackling and the shouting from Act One, as the terribly oblivious yet sleazy John Peter Paradise (Nathaniel Rothrock ’13) was forced (and forced himself) upon the enlightened, no-longer-bratty Dolores, who has eyes only for “her hunchback.”
Elements of the grotesque, such as the red light that served as a reminder of the blood that was being spilled off-stage, and the dead birds that Fermin carried in, helped wind the play down to its final, shrill scene. “La Malasangre” came to a close amid the incessant sobbing, shrieking, shouting and screaming that one would expect from a play written to allegorically reflect the right-wing repression led by the military junta in Argentina during the ’70s and ’80s, a time full of violence and unspoken terror.
With the help of Professor of Theatre and the play’s director, Claudio Medeiros, and the rest of the cast and crew, Bonolis, Orbison, McKay and Boyd managed to draw their Middlebury audience into the horrors that Gambaro captured so intensely in her socio-political piece.
(03/18/10 4:59am)
We live in a strange democracy. We live in a democracy where we have no voice, where we have no say, where we only feel safe because our country saves us from the very risk from which it puts us. But, for two hours last Thursday evening, performing artist and MacArthur Fellow Guillermo Gómez-Peña transported the audience to a true democracy, a democracy where the artist and politician held the same value, tested the same truths, and were heard with the same ears.
A democracy where those in charge had to “sit, listen and, if they are smart, take notes” on a weekly meeting concerning art in a democratic society.
Gómez-Peña, self-proclaimed Chicano activist, writer and performing artist, has been crossing borders and letting people know it for over 30 years. Born and raised in Mexico City, Gómez-Peña moved to San Francisco at 23 to study post-studio art.
Around this time, he began to make himself known as a performing artist, especially concerning the politics of identity, the lines of cultural and political borders and the power imbalance in the world.
His early shows, which gave him the nickname “border brujo,” were mainly performed along the California-Mexico border. These performances, such as the “Cruci-fiction” project, where Gómez-Peña and Roberto Sifuentes crucified themselves across from the Golden Gate Bridge as two contemporary public enemies — to replicate those crucified along with Christ in the Passion — launched Gómez-Peña into the performing artist spotlight.
From there, his shows continued to ask questions of people usually left alone.
Another show was titled “The Temple of Confessions,” where Gómez-Peña and Sifuentes dressed as El Mexterminator and El Cybervato, living saints from a future, endangered religion. On display in Plexiglas boxes in a mock temple complex, they called upon people to share their greatest confessions or desires concerning other races.
Gómez-Peña, through his shows, pioneered the concept of reverse anthropology, an idea through which he is able to explain the dominant culture to itself using different cultures as a catalyst.
Most of his performance work since then has been in this vein, trying to make the audience come to a self-realization about its own situation in the world.
There was no exception Thursday night, as Gómez-Peña talked unabashedly and questioned the political structure that exists in the United States. Though more of a spoken-word performance, Gómez-Peña’s show made many eccentricities were made crystal clear to the audience. As he said during Cafecito Hour, he has always been a member of fringe culture, as that is the area where it is possible to be noticed.
However, as fringe culture began to become pop culture through the ’80s and ’90s, he was forced to push himself further and further out, to the land of the perverse. So, as he took the stage, paying tribute to the four cardinal directions with an air freshener, dressed with one high heel and a skeletal glove, not many questions were asked.
He began with the invocation: “Dear post-apocalyptic hipsters,” and proceeded to weave the audience into a democracy where every voice was heard. He questioned the audience members about their identities and their interactions with immigrants, which ultimately led to the conclusion: “What’s up with Vermont?”
This was a topic of conversation during the Cafecito Hour as well: How is his art so universally applicable, since most of it only deals with the Mexico-U.S. border? Gómez-Peña pointed out that the same basic culture conflicts exist everywhere across the globe. This point of culture clash — when an indigenous culture encounters something foreign — is the moment Gómez-Peña tries to evoke in his work.
The emotions Gómez-Peña pulled from the crowd were as vibrant and varied as a painter’s palate. He seemed to be conducting the whole audience, talking with and through his hands.
His impassioned diatribe about the current political state and the quality of our democracy raised questions in everyone, as the audience was abuzz with interesting topics after the show.
Undoubtedly, Gómez-Peña is one of modern society’s most renowned and intriguing performance artists. His show captured and expressed his persona perfectly, and left everyone wondering what kind of a strange democracy they are truly living in.
(03/18/10 4:57am)
Last week, the Campus reported that Midnight Breakfast had been expanded to three nights. However, although the SGA approved three nights, Dining Services is currently comfortable with providing only two nights due to staff reductions. There will therefore be only two nights of Midnight Breakfast this spring, the dates of which are still to be determined.
At the March 14 SGA meeting, the Senate continued its discussion regarding improvements to the fitness center. With elliptical machines costing more than $3,000 per machine and upright and recumbent bikes valued at over $2,000 each, efforts to replace the gym equipment will undoubtedly be expensive.
Most SGA members were highly interested in equipment restoration efforts, but were concerned that sizable financial contributions would set a dangerous precedent. By assuming the costs of gym equipment, a cost typically associated with the Athletics Facilities budget, the SGA runs the risk of those costs not being budgeted in the future.
The SGA recognizes the current poor state of the gym equipment, but is cautious about funding new machines in their entirety. The SGA will continue to examine the situation to determine the most cost-effective and pragmatic way for the SGA to contribute.
In addition, the SGA voted in favor of a transportation committee bill that will lower the cost of SGA break bus tickets. The SGA currently makes a profit from selling break bus tickets to New York City and Boston. The passage of this bill calls for the changing of ticket pricing such that until the end of the 2010-11 school year, ticket prices will be set by dividing the cost of bus rental by the number of seats available.
Using this break-even pricing mechanism, a ticket to New York City might be $95 instead of the current $115, and a ticket to Boston would be $75 instead of $80. The SGA hopes these pricing changes will increase the number of riders while lowering student costs. The pricing system will be evaluated for effectiveness at the end of next year.
SGA President Mike Panzer ’10 proposed moving Senate elections from the fall to the spring. Panzer hopes this change will increase voter turnout in addition to providing the Senate with more organizational time before the start of the school year. In previous years, later fall elections have resulted in a sitting Senate not being established until late October, significantly delaying SGA operations.
Panzer believes spring elections will allow an educational period for new Senate members that will facilitate a prompt and efficient start to SGA operations in the fall. As a result, fall elections would be reserved exclusively for first-year senators, with other elections being held the preceding spring.
Although this allows for focus on first-year class elections in the fall, first-years would be excluded from running for commons senator, because those elections would take place in the spring. SGA members agreed to pursue the institution of spring elections, and a bill regarding that change will be presented for an official vote at a future meeting.
The committee also voted to explore the possibility of expanding Midd Ride hours, adding Sunday buses to Burlington, and financing a second week of the expanded 24-hour library schedule during finals.
(03/11/10 4:59am)
Even as the newly implemented printing quota system has already reduced the use of printers across campus, students find themselves nearing the end of their free allowance of pages.
By making students pay for additional printing, the College seeks to cut down on waste and trim its budget however. Dean of Library and Information Services (LIS) Mike Roy said the College had planned to eliminate free printing before the financial crisis struck.
“This was something that we had tried to get going but there really wasn’t the political will to do this,” said Roy. “But once the financial crisis began, it became easier politically to just make the argument that we should do this.”
According to Roy, data are being gathered to review the new system at the semester’s end.
“We made our best good-faith effort based on last year’s data to try and come up with what was reasonable, and we’ll look at it again and might need to make some adjustments,” said Roy.
Despite the statistics, students widely disagree with the College forcing them to pay for mandatory readings.
“I print assigned readings, which are a lot because I am a IPE major,” commented Daniel Crepps ’12.
Crepps is one of many students who find that, with more than half of the semester to go, they have gone through more than half of their credit.
“I have $11 left, and I don’t print excessively, but when reading is assigned, I have to print it to avoid staring at a screen for hours on end,” says Crepps.
LIS worked closely with the Faculty LIS Advisory Committee (FLAC) and the Student LIS Advisory Committee (SLAC) to iron out the details of the system, such as how much credit each student should receive, and to try to integrate it into the college community with the greatest ease.
“The system is not going to be perfect the first time around,” said Pathik Root ’12, a member of the SLAC. “Any system has its flaws, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. We had to start somewhere. This is a process. Quotas can definitely change. Nothing is set in stone.”
Students and the SLAC continue to debate the use of e-reserves instead of course packs.
“We didn’t want to revert to course packs just because it would be a step backwards, especially for environmental concerns,” Root argued. “E-reserves gives students the flexibility to pay for a reading if they want to. With e-reserves, the copyright fees are taken up by the school, so students are only paying for the actual paper and ink.”
To help ease the burden on students, a push has also been made to get members of the faculty in tune with the new limitations. Associate Professor of Film & Media Culture and American Studies Jason Mittell is a member of the FLAC and has tried educating faculty on alternative ways of conducting their classes.
“We sent out an all faculty e-mail in January explaining what the policy was, telling the faculty that they should be mindful of the policy and making some suggestions so that they can make active decisions, said Mittell, “I also co-ran a workshop on electronic grading.”
As part of the new system, students receive $25.00 per semester, except for seniors, who are given $50.00. Logs of data from last year showed that seniors printed about twice as much as other students and failed to show any strong trends with respect to printing habits among majors.
“It’s sort of like health care,” said Roy. “We wanted to cover 80 percent of the cost with students covering 20 percent of the cost and if we gave seniors the same quota we would have only covered for them about 40 percent of their cost.”
Different ideas have been considered regarding how to differentiate between majors and classes that require more amounts of reading.
“I think the credits should be allotted per course rather than per student,” suggests Daniel Schiraldi ’13. “I’m sure there are students who leave plenty of credit unused while others are struggling to stay under the limit.”
However, because Banner Web and Papercut, the printing software used by the college, are not in sync, the technology is not available to directly link a student’s academic status to his or her printing.
“We realized that it would be very complicated to differentiate between every major — the technology just wasn’t there,” said Root. “What would you do with first-years who haven’t declared majors? Or people who switch majors mid-semester or someone who just happens to have a lot of political science classes one semester? It’s tricky.”
Courtney Guillory ’11 said she believes the printing limitations are inconsistent with other policies on campus.
“The new printing system would make sense if the College didn’t require us to waste paper in so many other ways,” Guillory said. “All official forms, such as add/drop cards, require paper when that could easily be done over the Internet. The newspaper itself could be considered a waste of paper, but all of these things are considered fine. Then, when I need to print something out for class, I have to pay.”
Despite its flaws, the new printing system does come with its benefits. Due to less printing, printers will be more stable and break down much less than in the past.
“One of the hopes I have is that we can get new machines,” said Roy. “The lower volume will make them perform better but also getting a new fleet of printers will help out.”
Another benefit is that students can now send printing jobs to print stations directly from their laptops by typing in “go/papercut” into their browsers and logging in using their Middlebury username and password.
New changes are also on the horizon such as a system of “rollover credit,” a policy suggested by a student that would allow students to accumulate unused printing credit until he or she graduates. Soon, students will also be able to re-route printing jobs from one station to another.
“We wanted to make the changes in a way where there would be trade-offs so that some things would get easier although we had to pay,” said Root.
Any suggestions are welcome and should be submitted to the LIS suggestions page at http://blogs.middlebury.edu/lissuggestions/make-a-suggestion.
(03/11/10 4:59am)
“Introducing,” the appropriately titled debut album from the San Francisco all-female trio Brilliant Colors, is unmistakably a product of the 21st century. Like so many other recent indie bands, the group borrows heavily from noisy, lo-fi, and instantly hummable underground acts of the ’80s and ’90s (Guided By Voices and Jesus and Mary Chain immediately come to mind), but lacks the vitality, rawness and quality songcraft that made those older artists remarkable.
As far as contemporary comparisons, Brilliant Colors most closely resembles the overrated Vivian Girls, another all-woman band obsessed with fuzzy distortion and infectious melodies. “Introducing” follows the same trite formula of so many of its peers, adding nothing to this already worn-out genre. The album is basically a collection of 10 forgettable and underdeveloped noise pop songs that drip with boredom. Clocking in at just over 20 minutes, “Introducing” can’t end quickly enough.
The album’s opener, “I Searched,” with its droning reverb, jangly guitars, and indiscernible lyrics epitomizes nearly every track on “Introducing.” The song’s melody is its only saving grace, but it’s smothered beneath incessantly ringing distortion, an uninspired chord progression and lead singer Jess Scott’s frustrating mumbles. On “Motherland,” Scott does her best Karen O impression, screeching and moaning until it sounds like she’s about to lose her voice. But whereas the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ leading lady delivers her vocal performances with soul and ferocity, Scott’s unintelligible howls come off as annoying and gimmicky.
As the album progresses, its tracks become indistinguishable. The same rudimentary guitar-playing and singing smear each song, making for an entirely forgettable listening experience. Almost nothing on “Introducing” warrants a repeated listen and, after its 10 songs breeze by, you’re left wondering why the band took the time and effort to title them in the first place.
For all my complaints about “Introducing’s” lack of originality, the album’s best track, ironically, is also its most blatant rip off. “Absolutely Anything” unabashedly steals the melody from the 1984 Nena hit “99 Red Balloons.” Brilliant Colors transform the ’80s standard into a tough, buzzing punk-pop song that captures what a successful female shoegaze trio should sound like (Vivian Girls, take note). Best of all, Scott’s vocals take center stage, revealing a surprisingly clear and melodious voice. Still, moments like this are rare on “Introducing” and fail to compensate for the rest of the album’s mediocrity.
Slumberland Records, Brilliant Colors’ label, is famous for its assortment of noise pop and shoegaze artists. In 2009, they released the amazing debut from the Pains of Being Pure At Heart, an album rich with distortion, original melodies, and clever wordplay. Unfortunately, releases like this are a dime a dozen in today’s indie music world and “Introducing” certainly attests to that. It seems like every week a dozen new bands emerge on some obscure label with the same lo-fi, underproduced aesthetic. If you’re hoping Brilliant Colors will be that diamond in the rough, you should probably dig deeper.
(03/04/10 5:00am)
Middlebury College has never officially indentified with a particular religion. In fact, non-religious students could spend all four years of college without witnessing or being involved in any event of religious worship. Despite fading into the ebb and flow of life on campus, most of the world’s spiritual or religious traditions do exist here and are practiced by a wide variety of students from diverse backgrounds.
The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UU), which combines two traditions — the Unitarians and the Universalists — is a relatively young religion and has only been in existence for about 100 years. The Unitarians originally were Christians who did not believe in the Holy Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, while the Universalists originally were Christians who believed in the inevitable reconciliation of all members of the human race with God. After the two religions combined, it might have been expected that their religious creeds would meld together, too. But today’s UUs follow no religious creed at all. Without past scriptures and a fixed set of religious views, defining UU belief remains, even for congregants, a difficult concept and “a tough explanation,” said RJ Adler ’11.5, co-leader of the UU student organization at Middlebury. In an attempt to reach out to the student body, the UU student organization at Middlebury recently organized “Soulful Sundown,” a laid-back group meeting of campus UUs in an attempt to grapple with that exact question.
Defining UU faith in concrete terms is, in fact, impossible, as UU member Matt Sunderland ’11 explained.“If someone asks you, ‘what do Unitarian Universalists believe?’ it’s a trick question because you can’t say what Unitarian Universalists believe. You can only say what you believe as a Unitarian Universalist,” said Sunderland.
Adler echoes the same sentiment in his sermon on the nature of Unitarian Universalism.“The faith is personal because one person may accept this new idea that another person has and another person won’t accept the same idea into their own belief system,” he said.
Unitarian Universalism is not just a religion that caters to the individual; it is practiced individually, as well. “I meditate every day and feel a strong bond with divinity,” said UU member and Alexander Twilight Artist-in-Residence Francois Clemmons, “but don’t feel that it’s my ‘job’ to make everyone else do the same thing that I do. It’s just too personal.”
One would think that such a religion would make a congregant feel isolated, but this is not the case, for the spiritual journey of a Unitarian Universalist cannot be taken without the free exchange of ideas.
“I have found a community that’s made up of profoundly thoughtful atheists, Buddhists, former-practicing Jews, agnostics, those who follow Druid/feminine energies, and other naturalist variations … It’s a rich human experience and inspires me to follow my own search,” said Clemmons of his relationship with the others in his congregation.
For Elizabeth Davis ’12, co-leader of the UU organization at the College, community has played a key role in her connection to the religion. “For me,” said Davis, “it is a lot about community; it always has been. My parents sing in the choir and until I went to college I knew probably 80 percent of the people in the church. We have a lot of people in the church.” The UU community is an active one, conducting weekly sermons, Sunday school and holding conventions and overnights to connect the youth of different congregations in their support of social reform and integration.
While the Unitarian Universalists cannot be tied down to one particular set of beliefs, they are not without some form of spiritual guidance. The UU church has seven basic principles that it teaches to aid in the process of openly viewing and experiencing the world.
“They were drawn up when the religion was drawn up,” explained Adler. In accordance with the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, congregates acknowledge the following:
* The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
* Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
* Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in their congregations;
* A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
* The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within their congregations and in society at large;
* The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all;
* Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which they are a part.
These, however, are simply stops along the path of Unitarian Universalists’ “spiritual journey.”
“Why would a journey be so important? Isn’t being at the end what’s really important?” asked Adler. “I don’t really think so … Unitarian Universalism stresses this journey. It is not a religion like others, because we don’t know what happens at the end … By having the end be unclear it helps people pay more attention to how they are going to get there. It is similar to the ideas that philosopher John Dewey had about education. He said that education is not a means to an end but an end within itself. Spiritual exploration would be pretty boring if we weren’t allowed time to explore.”
Though having so much leeway in religious expression can be exciting, it can be daunting as well. Many turn to religion because it is a marked pathway that can light the way to self- and spiritual discovery.
“Some days I feel I can understand the comfort of having to have a belief system and being able to really connect with a belief system that other religions have. It’s hard sometimes [not to have that], but most days I’m just loving the community I’m surrounded by,” said co-leader Rebecca Chin ’10 on the occasional difficulties of the free-form spiritual journey.
This liberty is, for many, precisely the motivation for joining the UU church. “I don’t miss the liturgy and ritual of the traditional church I grew up in,” said Clemmons of his switch from fundamentalist Baptism to Unitarian Universalism. “I found it far too constraining. It’s important to me to have a spiritual base that’s non-judgmental or dictatorial about life’s most important search: who are we and why are we here.”
Adler summed up the nature of that search at the conclusion of his sermon, “Unitarian Universalists are in the business of searching for our own personal beliefs and are taking a different road to enlightenment,” he said. “This road just happens to be much less well traveled, riddled with potholes, and we’ve lost our map. We’re still driving on as we are pretty sure that we are going in the right direction and, if worse comes to worst, we know that we can always get back on the interstate. But for now we’re happy to be on a backcountry road.”
(03/04/10 4:59am)
The SGA voted to contribute $47,000 to fund an expanded Outdoor Introduction for New Kids (OINK) program for the fall of 2010 at its Feb. 28 meeting.
After the administration withdrew financial support for the reinstatement of MiddView, the outdoor orientation program supported by the Middlebury Mountain Club (MMC) and the Student Government Organization Association (SGA), the SGA agreed to fund MiddView for three years, beginning in 2011. The structure of outdoor orientation for the fall of 2010, however, was undecided until the SGA’s meeting.
At the meeting, the MMC requested financial support from the SGA to fund one of three possible options for next fall’s outdoor orientation programs. All three options represented a modified version of OINK, which will be larger than the previous OINK program but still smaller than Middlebury Outdoor Orientation and MiddView programs were. The two most attractive options to the SGA were the first option, which would accept 330 participants and require 80 orientation leaders and an SGA contribution of $47,000, and the second, which would require 60 orientation leaders but would only be able to accept 240 first-year participants, at a cost of $29,850 to the SGA.
Option one was the most expensive option presented, but the SGA felt strongly that OINK 2010 should strive to be as inclusive as possible. SGA member David Peduto ’11 recalled his experience as a first-year, when he was turned away from the outdoor orientation programs, and the MMC presenters emphatically apologized for the current impossibility of funding a completely inclusive orientation program. Torn between financing option one, the most ambitious option, and option two, the option deemed most feasible by the MMC because fewer orientation leaders would be needed, the SGA voted in support of a compromise between the two programs.
By deciding on “Option 1.5”, as it was dubbed by Vincent Recca ’12, the SGA committed itself to a $47,000 contribution to OINK 2010. The MMC will use the funds to strive for option one, but if option one is later determined to be infeasible, the MMC will revert to option two and return unused funds to the SGA. This pragmatic yet optimistic compromise reflects the value both the SGA and the MMC place on inclusivity in the orientation programs.
Although Option 1.5 will not replace MiddView, it will allow a large number of the class of 2014 to experience the outdoor orientation. The goal of OINK 2010 is to afford the Class of 2014 as many orientation opportunities as possible. Although recruiting 80 orientation leaders may seem like a daunting task, with the enthusiasm of the College community, option 1.5 is highly feasible.
Although OINK 2010 was the primary focus of the meeting, the SGA also discussed how to spend the $11,000 collected from parking fees, which is now available for transportation expenses. The SGA decided to examine the possibility of adding a third Zipcar for students’ use, pricing break bus tickets so that the cost of the bus will be offset only if the bus sells out, adding a one-van service from the Rutland train station for all major breaks, and adding a student-run shuttle to Burlington airport. The SGA also voted to keep the activities fee for next year at its current level, $380.
(03/04/10 4:59am)
Maiden Vermont
March 4, 7 – 8 p.m.
Want to be a part of an all-female community a cappella group? Join Maiden Vermont at Cornwall Elementary School Thursday night! New music will be introduced at this rehearsal, and women of all ages who love to sing and can hold a harmony part are invited to check out this barbershop-style a cappella group. Please call (802) 388-1012 to sign up beforehand!
Dodgeball tournament
March 6, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
If you can dodge your math homework, you can dodge a ball! Scrounge up five other players and $30 and you can play dodgeball to your heart’s content at the Mount Abraham Union High School gymnasium. All proceeds benefit the Mount Abe field hockey team. Six players per team are required, with at least one member of each gender. Please call (802) 453-2333, ext. 2030, or contact mstestson@anesu.org for more information or to register.
Fifth annual
“Tour de Blueberry”
March 6, 10 – 11 a.m.
Enjoy a guided tour of the scenic trails at Blueberry Hill Ski Center. Tickets are $15 per person to benefit the Catamount Trail Association and kids 12 and under ski free with their parents. The $15 also includes a daily trail pass and soup, and you will enjoy half-price rentals all day. For more information please contact (802) 247-6735 or ski@blueberryhillinn.com.
Horse Traders benefit dance
March 6, 7:30pm – 8:30pm
Don’t miss this opportunity for all ages at the VFW on Exchange Street! The Horse Traders are Middlebury’s premier cover band, playing a wide range of favorites from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, as well as current pop rock, blues, and soul. There will be refreshments, and for those of age there will be a cash bar. Admission is $5 per person to benefit production of a local documentary.
Free yoga & meditation
March 7, 4 – 6 p.m.
Let the week’s (and the weekend’s) stress melt away at this monthly community gathering at Otter Creek Yoga in the Marble Works. There will be gentle yoga, meditation and a reading of the Five Mindfulness Trainings of Thich Nhat Hanh. Beginners are welcome. Please call (802) 388-1961 for more information.
Blood drive
March 9, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
If you missed the Atwater Commons blood drive on March 3, you have not missed your chance to save a life this month! If you are at least 17 years old and weigh at least 110 pounds, head over to the Middlebury American Legion and give a pint to the American Red Cross. Appointments are not necessary.
(02/25/10 5:10am)
The United Nations Climate Change Conference, held in Copenhagen in December, has generated much uncertainty and debate. Copenhagen was arguably one of the most important international negotiations in recent memory. Still, the implications for our planet and for international politics are still unknown. What changes should be made for a post-2012 international climate treaty?
Last week, students Rhidaya Trivedi ’12, Ben Wessel ’11 and alumna Jaimie Henn ’07, a 350.org campaign organizer, joined Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies Chris Klyza and Scholar-in-Residence in Environmental Studies Bill McKibben on a panel attempting to answer that very question. Listening to the panelists and their apprehension, one sentiment resounded: the future of the planet is being negotiated and the youth of this world needs to be a part of the decisions that will shape it.
Many young Copenhagen attendees like Wessel proudly sported emblazoned t-shirts with the words, “How old will you be in 2050?” Part of the negotiations was widely focused on trying to match new targets that science suggests must include up to a 25-40 percent cut in CO2 emissions by 2020 and up to an 80 percent cut by 2050, Trivedi explained. Consequently, the panelists said, the people in office making — or not making — these decisions won’t be the ones to live through the repercussions of their actions.
While talks may not have produced immediate results, as Henn put it: Copenhagen went from “Hopenhagen to Nopenhagen” — a lot was happening amongst civil society members, especially young people.
One of the more remarkable aspects of the conference was the power asserted by some 2,000 young people present, who, in Wessel’s words, “fundraised for over a year, who educated themselves, who were leaders in their communities … and were coming to Copenhagen for the purpose of influencing their leaders to create an international climate treaty based on science and survival.” There were so many young people that for the first time, international youth were considered an official constituent by the United Nations.
In Copenhagen, passionate and dedicated young people from all over the world had access to policy-making in a way that, in the panelists’ view, should be made more available to youth year-round when dealing with issues such as those surrounding the Copenhagen summit.
While 100,000 people from various countries, ages and socioeconomic backgrounds marched the streets, others had the opportunity to work on the “inside” of the convention center, some of whom were Midd-kids advocating for legislation and policy change: Trivedi made her voice heard when she spoke to the administrator of the EPA and Wessel met with three members of Congress in the Hard Rock Café to discuss possible solutions to climate negotiations.
The panelists also addressed the pertinent question: beyond Copenhagen, what can young people do to advocate and implement change? Besides the progress in policy work that needs to be furthered, Henn explained, “there’s a real need for public pressure. There’s a real need for the U.S. Senate to make progress. We must work on the national level.”
Students who want to make a difference need to make their voices heard, according to the panelists. Said Trivedi, “That includes telling representatives what you want to see happen, and the criteria upon which they should be acting abroad.” The 350.org campaign sloganexpresses hope for a treaty that is “Fair, Ambitious, and Legally Binding,” and this vision can only be effectively achieved through advocacy and civic engagement.
(02/25/10 5:06am)
All great schools have great traditions. There’s the Bonfire on Dartmouth Night, the Doghead St. Patrick’s Day party at Colby and the festive parade floats at Faber College, but none can compare to Winter Carnival at Middlebury. This weekend students, faculty and members of the town community will celebrate this annual event for the 87th time, making it the longest-held student-run carnival in the nation. The carnival itself is comprised of Nordic and alpine ski competitions held at the Snow Bowl and the Rikert Ski Touring Center, but over the years the weekend has developed into much more than that, with traditions such as snow sculpting and the Winter Ball making this one of the most memorable times of the year.
The festivities heat up Thursday night with a bonfire on Ross lawn followed by a fireworks show that will surely catch the attention of even those foolish enough to miss out on the ground-based pyrotechnics. On Friday, the real fun begins when classes are cancelled so students can watch their friends on the ski team take on rivals like Dartmouth and UVM in the final Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association (EISA) races of the season. This year’s carnival is themed “Go Gold,” due to the overlap with the Winter Olympics. This year, students can cheer on Midd-kids not only in Vermont, but also in Vancouver, as Simi Hamilton ’09 and Garrott Kuzzy ’06 represent America on the Nordic courses.
As the last carnival of the year, Middlebury’s home event serves as the Eastern Championships, further adding to its significance. Increased shuttle service means you can cheer on Middlebury’s racers even if you don’t have access to a car. Also, for those who are prepared to hit the slopes themselves, the first 20 shuttle riders on Friday and Saturday receive free day passes!
Student participation has been on the rise the past few years, but your presence is just as important as ever. Responding to student outrage at the slated elimination of the Friday recess in 2009, the Board of Trustees set up a three-year probation period to gauge student enthusiasm for the events. Thanks to the hard work of Winter Carnival Committee members Catherine Collins ’10.5, Katie Hubbard ’10, Derek Sakamoto ’10 and Nicolas Sohl ’10, the events have recaptured some of the excitement that had waned in the recent past. All students who want to preserve one of Middlebury’s most iconic traditions should make it their business to go to the events and have some fun!
The following spread includes some links to Winter Carnivals past, as well as perspectives from current participants and a schedule of events. Use this spread to stoke your excitement about the upcoming events and as a guide to plan your weekend. And you will want to plan ahead because, though it is free to watch the races, some MCAB events sell out fast, so you will need to buy tickets ahead of time. So go out there and experience one of the the greatest tradtions at Middlebury!
Weather
The past few weeks have not seen much precipitation in the town of Middlebury and students who have not been to the mountains may be skeptical of the snow conditions at the Rikert Ski Touring Center and the Snow Bowl. Despite these fears, the Middlebury College staff and ski team have been working hard to ensure the courses are sufficiently covered. The snow makers have been running and the ski team has helped shovel snow out of the shady woods to give enough coverage for the mass starting area for the Nordic events.
Over the past 87 years, Winter Carnival has experienced a wide variety of snow conditions. According to Snow Bowl Manager Peter Mackey, there has been only a handful of years when the College has had to use a cross-country venue other than Rikert.
Skiers sound off on their season: Nordic
This season has been a pretty exciting one for the Middlebury Nordic team; with two former skiers in the Olympics and some fantastic results throughout the carnival season, regardless of what happens this weekend and at NCAAs, this season will certainly be counted as a success.
The men’s team has established itself as the team to beat on the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association (EISA) circuit. Along with perennial rival and powerhouse Dartmouth, it has split the season’s races, the Dartmouth men taking six victories and Middlebury taking four. Dylan Grald ’13 has put in several outstanding results and currently holds the lead in the EISA Rookie of the Year standings, which he will sew up this weekend if everything goes as planned. Pat Johnson ’11 has been dominant since returning from Germany, where he represented the U.S. at the World Junior Championships in January. This weekend is important for the men’s team not only because it is Middlebury’s home carnival and the Eastern Championship; this weekend’s races are also the final opportunities to qualify for the NCAA Championships in Steamboat Springs, Colo. Johnson has already locked up a spot, but both Grald and I are looking for big races this weekend to confirm their spots as well.
Not unlike the women’s alpine team, the women’s Nordic team has suffered more than its fair share of illness and injury, but also like the alpine women, they have risen to the occasion and held their own against teams at full strength. This year’s team has been paced by Lauren Fritz ’10 and Corinne Prevot ’13, in addition to the rock-solid performances of Keely Levins ’13. The Panther women have tough competition in the Big Green of Dartmouth who are certainly one of the strongest women’s Nordic programs in the country. Both Prevot and Fritz are on the edge of NCAA qualification (the top 13 athletes as determined by their best four races, two in each technique), so be sure to give them a big cheer as they go by.
We are looking forward to home course advantage this weekend and hope that Middlebury will once again come out in force to support both the Nordic teams. Saturday’s races, starting at 10:00 and 11:30, will be the most exciting to watch as they are “mass start” format, where all 70 competitors race head-to-head over 15 kilometers for the women and 20 kilometers for the men. The ski races on both the Nordic and the Alpine side at Middlebury Carnival, believe it or not, are some of the most well-attended ski races in the country, and every year students tell me that they represent the most exciting spectating that Middlebury Athletics has to offer. Division I competition only comes to Middlebury once a year; don’t miss out.
—Graham Egan ’10, member of the Nordic team
Skiers sound off on their season: alpine
The season thus far has provided the team with some great results. This year our men’s team has shown a lot of promise and great results, especially from first-years Bryan Shpall ’13 and Andrew McNealus ’13. It's really tough to jump right into Division I skiing and those guys have definitely shown that they can compete with anyone. Our men’s side has consistently been one of the top point-scorers of any of the men’s alpine teams. Therefore, we really hope to use our home hill to our advantage, since it is one of the most unusual hills on the circuit, which definitely gives us an edge.
On the girls side, we have struggled with injuries throughout the season, forcing us to compete with five girls at some of the races instead of the usual six. Even with this obstacle, the girls have really stepped it up with the added pressure and have provided some very valuable points to the team.
The team as a whole is really pumped for this coming weekend. Middlebury Carnival is always the most watched Carnival of any on the circuit. It is really great to see everyone out on the hill and it allows us to step it up to another level, knowing everyone is cheering for us. It would be great to uphold this tradition by having as many people up at the Bowl as possible, so we can continue to make the Middlebury Carnival the most anticipated race of the year.
Dartmouth has consecutively won the last 14 carnivals over the past two years. The last team to stop that winning streak was the Middlebury Ski Team and we hope to end their reign of terror by winning this weekend on our home hill. There is no better atmosphere than the Middlebury Carnival, which should help us put their win streak to an end.
—Jon Hunter ’10, member of the alpine team
Looking back,
moving forward
Winter Carnival is one of the College’s longest standing traditions and one of the oldest college carnivals in the country, second only to Dartmouth College’s. It is an event that, for many on the campus, is eagerly anticipated and enjoyed, remembered in snapshots, formal wear, concert tickets and memories as one of the markers of the Middlebury College experience. However, the line-up of events, attitudes and general atmosphere of the Winter Carnival weekend have certainly evolved and transformed over the years.
When asked what has changed about Winter Carnival from his years as a student at the College, Karl Lindholm ’67, dean of Cook Commons and assistant professor of American Studies, replied simply: “Everything.”
“Winter Carnival was a big deal — a really big deal,” said Lindholm. “You have to remember that men and women lived on separate sides of the campus, which changed in 1968-9. You had to have a date for Winter Carnival.”
In an article from the 1974 edition of The Middlebury Campus, Carol Miller wrote: “Some went to the Carnival Ball, girls dressed in gowns found especially for the occasion, and boyfriends coming from various New England colleges to escort their Middlebury girlfriends.”
“Winter Carnival was enormous, and it was not exclusive to Middlebury College,”said Lindholm. “People came from all over [to Middlebury College and Dartmouth College during their respective carnivals] for skiing and parties. All 11 fraternities hosted parties, and with one Public Safety officer for a student body of 1,250, you could wander around with open containers, walk from one frat to another with a beer. F. Scott Fitzgerald went to Dartmouth’s Winter Carnival one year!”
Skiing was also, traditionally, a huge attraction.
“At the entrance to the Bowl, there was a long line of school buses, bringing students up,” said Lindholm. “Everyone was there; it was like you see on television. Fans lined the landing area.”
That particular tradition began in 1932, when skiers at the College decided to host their own competition, in conjunction with Alumni Winter Weekend. In the earliest years, there were also toboggan races, speed skating and snowshoeing competitions. Though the athletic department ran the competitions initially, the Mountain Club took over, and in the early 1940s, the races moved to what is now the beloved Snow Bowl.
“The entire student body participated in these events which were the beginnings of Northern Lights,” wrote John Owen in “Carnival Reviewed and Previewed,” from a 1983 issue of The Campus.
The ice show was also a tremendous event, though it started to dissipate in the ’70s and ’80s.
“Everyone went to the ice show, and all of the acts were students,” said Lindholm. “Now, it is mostly local kids.”
In an article titled “ice show incites the heart’s desire,” Carol McAfee wrote, “about 936 woolen caps tossed in willy-nilly display of free-falling gratitude to the 1975 Winter Carnival Ice Show,” proving how well-attended the event was in that era.
One event that has always been highly atttended has been the Saturday night concert and dance, which used to be called “Klondike Rush,” featuring two acts, some of which, in Lindholm’s memory have included: Dizzy Gillespie, one of the revolutionary jazz musicians and founders of behop; the Shirelles; the Simon Sisters; the Kingsmen; and even B.B. King in 1974.
In a 1974 edition of The Middlebury Campus, Seth Steinzor, in his article “The wait was worth it,” described the scene outside of the venue for King’s concert: “Time passed like Nixon, slowly and painfully. The drizzle did what drizzles do. The crowd grew steadily more crowded. Several people began chanting rhythmically, ‘Let us in! Let us in!’”
The wait was “worth it,” and attracted most students, some of whom spent time “getting psyched” as one staff writer explained it.
Students and visiting guests, during the Winter Carnival of the ’60s and ’70s, spent some time “getting psyched in general,” mostly at the 11 campus frats, in the days when Munford House, the Centeno House, Fletcher, KDR and the Mill all housed fraternities.
In Carol Miller’s ’74 article, focusing on parties at Slug and Sig Ep, she wrote, “One girl paid her dollar, tried to navigate through the masses for about five minutes, then left because she ‘just couldn’t handle it.’ Many, however, withstood the early onslaught to stay and dance as long as the bands would play.”
The frats that housed such populated parties eventually declined until they were outright eliminated in 1991, and that, along with the raised of the drinking age in the early ’70s and the Vietnam era ethos that opposed institutionalized events and organizations, helped lead to the comparatively anemic involvement that is more common to Winter Carnival, at least in Lindolm’s view.
“The College is just a different place,” said Lindholm. “American student culture 40 years ago was entirely different. Men aren’t bringing dates to the Carnival; women don’t have a midnight curfew; not everyone is wearing school colors, cheering at games.”
With a larger, more heterogeneous campus, “not everyone will go to hockey games, and not everyone is a skier,” Lindholm said.
“I wouldn’t make qualitative judgements about which is better,” said Lindholm. “That was then, and it isn’t coming back. Some might talk about ‘the good old days,’ but I like Middlebury College now.”
Though history and culture have altered the extent to which students are involved with events during Carnival weekend, the student body has also shaped and invented new rituals. The Carnival is a tradition morphing with the times, while prevailing as one of the traditional staples of life at the College.
— Rachael Jennings. Features Editor
