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(05/05/22 10:00am)
The Middlebury we know today is not the same as the one we surveyed during the first Zeitgeist student body survey in 2019. We may have expected the college to change over these four years, and it did — entire classes matriculated and graduated, presidents were elected and impeached, social trends rose and fell, boats got stuck and unstuck in canals — but few could have foreseen the transformation that our community and our world would experience in that time.
(04/28/22 12:39pm)
Ciara Burke ’22 presented her research in a poster presentation in the Great Hall of Bicentenial Hall.
(04/21/22 9:59am)
“Botticelli in the Fire,” written by Jordan Tannahill, was performed in the Hepburn Zoo blackbox theater last weekend. The show was the senior thesis in directing for Ryan Kirby ’22 as well as the acting thesis for Madison Middleton ’22.5 and an intermediate project in costuming for Katie Concannon ’22. For this one weekend, the Hepburn Zoo blackbox theater was completely transformed, decked out with an ornate painted floor and draped columns. Colorful lights flashed as the audience settled into the house, creating a spectacle even before the play officially began.
(04/21/22 10:00am)
On Friday, April 8, Middlebury announced its purchase of a 35-acre parcel of land on Seminary Street Extension in downtown Middlebury for $1.5 million, a deal the Board of Trustees approved in February. The college plans to have Summit Properties of South Burlington, a development company owned by Middlebury graduates Charlie Brush ’69 and John Giebink ’77, create mainly affordable and subsidized workforce housing on the lot.
(04/07/22 9:57am)
Beginning March 14, the Addison Central School District (ACSD) transitioned to “mask-optional” status following new Vermont state guidelines. In an email sent to the ACSD community, ACSD Superintendent Peter Burrows thanked students and staff for helping keep the school safe over the past two years and emphasized how all members of the community could now decide whether or not to wear a mask.
(03/31/22 9:58am)
The Board of Trustees approved a 4.5% increase in tuition on March 15, raising the total cost of undergraduate tuition to $62,000 and room and board to $17,800 for the 2022–23 academic year. Additionally, the student activities fee will increase $20 to $460, bringing the total cost of attendance at Middlebury to more than $80,000.
(03/04/22 5:29am)
After a year-long hiatus due to Covid-19, ski racers, students and spectators once again took to the slopes at the Middlebury Carnival. The races were one event in the larger 99th Annual Winter Carnival, which consisted of on-campus events such as a bonfire, fireworks, trivia and several activities like mini golf and laser tag. Olivia Dixon ’24, looks back on her Winter Carnival weekend fondly, “It was really fun so I feel like now I’m looking forward to doing it again … It was lowkey and fun and very memorable”. While she did not attend the ski races, she notes how she heard fantastic reviews of the experience. “Just one big party and wearing fun bright clothes”, she describes.
(03/03/22 11:01am)
The Middlebury Staff Council conducted a survey in September 2021 asking staff at the college and Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey about working conditions across the institution. Fifty-four percent of eligible employees responded to the survey.
(03/03/22 10:59am)
From the Trail Around Middlebury (TAM) to Haymaker Buns and the Marquis Theater, the town of Middlebury is buzzing with places to go, things to do and people to see. Amidst all of these options, many residents and college staff members have their special favorite locations.
(02/24/22 11:00am)
As my graduation approached, I thought a lot about what it meant to be a Feb as someone who didn’t start as one. Firstly, it means that I can’t downhill ski. As a member of the largest Feb class to date, I am one of those Covid-canceled-my-semester-abroad Febs. On Saturday February 13, 2022 I graduated alongside 189 of my peers. Of the 190 students who graduated, only 80 of those students began as part of that February admit class.
(02/24/22 10:58am)
After hitting record highs last month, Covid-19 cases in Vermont are starting to decrease, as the Vermont Department of Health reported only two new cases of Covid-19 in Addison County on Feb. 22. According to an email from Middlebury Updates sent on Feb. 18, Addison County saw a 52-percent decrease in positive Covid-19 cases reported in the last week. New positive cases decreased by 23 percent in the broader Vermont area during the same time period, while hospitalizations and deaths have also declined in recent weeks.
(02/24/22 11:00am)
A Middlebury student and owner of a local coffee-roasting company recently purchased another Middlebury-based coffee business.
(02/24/22 10:55am)
Hailing from southwestern Zimbabwe, the a cappella quintet Nobuntu could have been enjoying the frequent sun and 80-degree days that usually mark this time of year at home. Instead, they chose to travel to Vermont to perform for the Middlebury community on Feb. 18.
(12/02/21 11:00am)
After many of us struggled through a year in which connection was, understandably, limited by strict Covid-19 guidelines, this semester’s return to (near) normalcy has in many ways been a relief. We missed sitting in Proc for hours, attending in-person classes and watching our peers compete in home athletic competitions. We’re grateful for these opportunities to connect. But as we strive to create a new normal and redefine what it means to exist in community together this year, it has sometimes felt like we’re ignoring the elephant in the room.
(12/02/21 10:59am)
Update — Thursday, Dec. 2
(12/02/21 11:00am)
Addison County reported 93 new cases on Nov. 29, marking an 80% increase in cases over the past 14 days as of Tuesday.
(11/18/21 10:57am)
We’re two Jews and we like to complain. In our culture, we call it kvetching. You can kvetch about silly things, like cold Matzo ball soup. Or you can kvetch about serious things that should really change, like a total overhaul of the Proctor Dining Hall heating system. In this weekly column, we’re going to try to keep it light and complain about the little things that, if changed, could make Midd students’ lives just a bit easier. We’ll leave the big issues to the Editorial Board and kvetch about the small ones.
(11/18/21 10:55am)
With both academic and social events returning to in-person meetings this fall, some social houses have seen an uptick in new member interest.
(10/28/21 9:58am)
Words may not be able to describe how I feel about Kate Bush, but I can still try. A breakout star in Britain at age 19, Bush made her name with thematically sprawling concept albums and interpretive dance. By age thirty-five, she had abandoned fame and moved to the countryside to live in obscurity (until her 2005 comeback album “Aerial”). I got into her music the summer when I was 17, and I have never stopped listening. Bush has accompanied me through all of the growth and changes I’ve experienced since then, and over the years, I’ve always been able to come back to her songs and find new meaning in them.
(09/30/21 10:00am)
When Piper Boss ’23 reached out to Middlebury with concerns about studying abroad in Spain — then a country classified by the State Department as “Level 4: Do Not Travel” — she was informed by her abroad coordinator and Dean of Students Derek Doucet that she had two options: go to Madrid or take a leave of absence.
Concerned about the rise of Delta variant Covid-19 cases in late summer, a number of Middlebury students questioned the safety of their plans to study abroad for the Fall 2021 semester. When they inquired about withdrawing from their international programs and re-enrolling at Middlebury, they were informed that Middlebury’s over-enrollment precluded the possibility of returning to the Vermont campus.
“My family and I were very nervous for me to be living in this large metropolitan area and interacting with local people, which is a large component of abroad programs because the goal is language immersion,” Boss said.
Boss had planned to begin her semester in Madrid in mid-August. Covid-19 cases spiked in Spain toward the end of July, prompting the U.S. State Department to announce its Level 4: Do Not Travel classification on July 26, 2021.
According to Boss, the administration at the C.V. Starr School Abroad in Madrid informed the fall enrollees that the only way the program would be cancelled was if Spain closed its borders to international travel. Covid-19 vaccination, Boss also learned, was not a requirement for host families.
The vaccination rate in Spain has since increased, with 80% of the population having received at least one dose as of Sept. 21. Boss was placed with a vaccinated host family. Thus far, her experience has been positive, but she noted that her time could easily have been much more dangerous and felt that Middlebury did not seem to care about this possibility.
“Considering that Covid is still very much a problem in most of the world, it just seemed like there was a huge lack of forethought for international programs,” Boss said.
Eliza King Freedman ’23 and Abby Schneiderhan ’23 faced similar circumstances, having planned to study abroad in Rabat, Morocco.
Like Spain, Morocco was classified as a Level 4: Do Not Travel destination on Aug. 23, 2021. As of that date, 48% of the population had received at least one vaccine dose, and as of Sept. 22, 59.2% of the population had received at least one dose. Host families were not required to be vaccinated, and the country currently enforces a 9 p.m. curfew that has been in place since Aug. 2.
Despite serious concerns for physical and mental health when traveling to a Covid-19 hotspot with strict public safety measures in place, King Freedman felt she had no choice but to go ahead with her original plans — having received no assurance from the administration that she would be permitted to return to Middlebury.
“I just feel like I couldn’t actually make an informed decision about whether or not it was safe to come [to Morocco] because Middlebury essentially took away any safety net we had throughout the process,” she said.
Schneiderhan made what she called a “now-or-never” choice to travel to Rabat. The day after she left Canada, her point of departure, the country terminated flights to Morocco.
“One of the most stressful parts of this whole experience was deciding what to do when travel was so uncertain,” Schneiderhan said. “Had I waited another day, I wouldn’t have even been able to get to Rabat, and I didn’t have the fallback option of knowing that I would be able to go back to campus.”
Ultimately, all students whose programs abroad were cancelled or who decided not to participate in those programs were able to return to campus this fall and received housing, according to Dean of Students Derek Doucet. The college’s late summer purchase of Inn on the Green allowed for more available space at the Bread Loaf campus than expected earlier in the summer.
By the time the college created a waiting list for on-campus housing, Boss already had plane tickets to Spain departing just four days later.
“I felt very ignored,” she said. “They were clearly prioritizing their struggle with housing over the safety of their students who were going abroad.”
Doucet told The Campus in an email that all college decisions to run study abroad programs were based on a review of pandemic conditions in each country.
“It sounds as though those students definitely had a difficult time working through some very difficult decisions,” Doucet said. “As we continue to manage the effects of the pandemic, we have made every effort to provide students with opportunities to study on campus and abroad when feasible.”
