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(09/24/20 9:57am)
When the Class of 2024 arrived on campus on Aug. 26, they were not whisked away on the three-day trips that typically characterize the finale of Middlebury’s first-year orientation program, MiddView. Instead, they met with MiddView student leaders twice-daily in groups of 10 to 12, with some interacting in person and others covening virtually.
Covid-19 threw a wrench into the college’s standard orientation model. Planning for MiddView begins in January, so the Student Activities Office (SAO) had already booked campgrounds, reserved vans and started making arrangements for various trips long before it was clear how life on campus — and throughout the world — would be altered by the pandemic.
Amanda Reinhardt, director of student activities, said her office finished selecting trip leaders for fall 2020 about a week before students were sent home in March. The usual on-campus spring training for leaders, which gives prospective leaders an introduction to orientation and community building, moved online for spring 2020, with opt-in sessions for the roughly 150 selected leaders.
Even before the college published its Return to Campus Guide detailing the guidelines for the fall semester, SAO staff anticipated the need for a different approach to orientation. MiddView leaders arrived on Aug. 18 and underwent training during the week prior to the arrival of the first years. Groups of first years and leaders then had hour-and-a-half-long meetings twice a day from Aug. 28 through Sept. 8, engaging in the usual ice breaker and community-building exercises but also participating in conversations about school policies.
Rasika Iyer ’22, a leader who also led a trip in fall 2019, reflected on her two MiddView leadership experiences.
“Last year when I was leading a trip, the responsibilities of a MiddView leader were primarily ensuring the safety of everyone on your trip and then also building community,” Iyer said. “This year we had a lot more duties that in previous years were either that of ResLife — like FYCs and RAs — or responsibilities of faculty members.”
These included explaining the college honor code, conducting pre-advising for course registration and discussing the school’s alcohol and drug policies.
“In years past, [first years] would have met with 150 other students and staff in a room and learned about the Honor Code, and that was definitely not an option,” Reinhardt explained.
MiddView this year was modeled after Feb Orientation, during which new students meet daily with leaders who guide them through all aspects of the orientation process, not just trips. Given this fall’s capacity limits and gathering size restrictions, hall and large group meetings could not occur in person. First years learned about school policies through a combination of MiddView group conversations and pre-recorded videos.
Though the videos were required, first years said they did not believe anyone was keeping track. Quinn Pidgeon ’24 said first years were often assigned videos that they later discussed in their MiddView groups. One of these videos was a three-hour pre-recorded webinar on microaggressions. Pidgeon noted that he believes the topic is very important but also added that he knows many students did not watch the webinar in full and that he preferred his group’s in-person discussion to the recorded video.
“I got more out of that, just sitting, talking with people face-to-face, than staring at a screen,” he said.
Brittney Azubuike ’22, a MiddView leader and president of Black Student Union (BSU), organized two days of affinity group lunches for up to 80 students per day. Because of gathering size restrictions, first years who signed up were split up into groups of 10 over two different time slots, with each group eating under one of the tents on McCullough lawn.
MiddView leaders volunteered to organize lunches for students of color, LGBTQ+ students and disabled students. Azubuike facilitated one of the lunches for students of color and said her group has continued to meet for meals throughout the semester.
Not all MiddView groups were on campus. Miguel Sanchez-Tortoledo ’23, a MiddView leader, was unable to return to campus on Aug. 18 because of his job and was assigned to lead a virtual group. Sanchez-Tortoledo’s group increased from 12 to 15 members after a few students who had intended to study on campus faced unexpected travel complications and joined virtual programming.
According to Sanchez-Tortoledo, students’ locations ranged from China to Turkey to the U.K., and he and Rachel Lu ’23, the other co-leader of the group, settled on 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. ET meetings to better accommodate their different time zones.
Lu is studying remotely from Shanghai this year. She organized an in-person meet-up in Shanghai with several first years, including some from her group.
“The idea kind of came about because most people in my group are from Shanghai, and they already have a group on social media that they were connected through,” Lu said. “I think it was a really good opportunity for them to have some sort of in-person community while being remote.”
For their two-hour Zoom meetings, Lu and Sanchez-Tortoledo drew from a list of virtual activities compiled by the SAO, organizing rounds of two truths and a lie, explaining school policies and even asking group members what kitchen utensil they would be.
“I was definitely nervous that there were going to be awkward silences, and people wouldn't want to participate, but that was definitely not the case,” Lu said. “People were eager to get to know each other, and they came up with ways that they thought would help them connect with each other, which I was really happy to see.”
(09/10/20 9:58am)
The rising student debt crisis in the U.S. is not breaking news. From 2000 to 2016, the average annual cost of college has more than doubled, from around $15,000 a year to nearly $32,000. Over the past 20 years, only two other goods or services have risen as much as college: hospital services and college textbooks. Importantly, wages have been unable to keep up with these Everest-like spikes. Since 1989, the cost to attend a university has increased nearly eight times faster than wages. While the cost of a four-year degree exploded to $104,480, real median wages only rose from $54,042 to $59,039 between 1989 and 2016. As a result, many families have been pressured to take out student loans to send their kids to college. This is where it gets bad.
In 2020, Americans currently owe over $1.64 trillion in student loan debt, spread out among about 45 million borrowers. That’s about $587 billion more than the total U.S. credit card debt. Sixty-nine percent of seniors graduating with a four-year degree in 2019 had student loan debt, with 75% of graduates from private, nonprofit colleges (like Middlebury) having loans as of May 2018. As much as 14% of borrowers who go to nonprofit colleges will default on their loans within 12 years, leaving their credit scarred and crippling them financially for years to come.
But doesn’t the value of a college degree make up for the cost of the loans? This question requires a two-fold answer. Historically, obtaining a college degree led to a life of greater financial security than a life without one. College graduates received cultural and social capital in a way that put them at an economic advantage over their peers. However, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found in a recent study that the wealth premium (the increase in wealth because of having a degree) for recent college graduates is almost at zero. In other words, the value of a college degree may not actually be the investment it is purported to be as high costs and lack of job opportunity negate gains.
The second part of the question concerns the actual value of a college degree. College tuition costs and the demand for degrees keep increasing, so one would assume that this reflects the increasing value of a college degree. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Current median pay for bachelor’s degree holders is below 1990 levels, yet college tuition fees have gone up 391%. As many as 40% of recent college graduates are unemployed or underemployed. For context, higher education tuition has outpaced healthcare costs about two-fold in that period — despite the marginal value of a college degree remaining stagnant.
As more people have become aware of the income gap between college and high school graduates, the demand for college degrees has skyrocketed. Colleges have taken advantage of this by jacking up their prices to obscene heights. This leaves people with a choice: forgo college and accept a lower living standard or take on insurmountable student loans with a limited chance at future prosperity. In both situations, the average student loses and colleges benefit.
At this point, you may be asking whether taking out student loans to go to Middlebury is worthwhile. It is a complicated question, but the answer is likely yes. Middlebury has a positive return on investment (ROI) over twenty years. This means that for most Middlebury alumni, their degree will earn them a job that will make the hefty tuition “worth it.” However, Middlebury is ranked 379th in the country in ROI, despite being ranked in the top 60 for tuition. Shouldn’t the price of a college reflect the value of its degree?
Obviously, college is more than just a measure of how much money a student will make with their degree. People are paying as much for the social aspects as for the academic opportunities. There is living in dorms, going to parties, eating in the dining hall and other experiences that, to some, make the value of college priceless. Regardless, that absolutely does not mean that colleges must raise prices eight times faster than wages, and twice as fast as healthcare costs. That is predatory.
I was fortunate enough that I did not have to borrow any money to go to college. But when I look around at my peers worrying about paying off their student loans — while colleges like Middlebury sit on their endowments and rake in mountains of tuition — it makes my blood boil. Millions of kids throughout America are being lured into borrowing money to pay for a degree that will never pay off. This is a system that benefits the rich and privileged while everyone else is left mired in debt and begging for a job. While student debt continues to metastasize, the federal government and colleges stand idle. And why wouldn’t they? They just keep collecting their interest and tuition fees, while American students are left wilting under economic stress.
Some politicians, like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have called for a cancellation of student debt. With both of their presidential campaigns falling short this year, that demand seems unlikely to materialize anytime soon. To address the immediacy of this crisis, the American people need to take it into their own hands. Some have called for Americans to come together and forge a debt strike. By refusing payments on student debt, the government may renegotiate the terms of the loans, making them more amenable. Regardless of the method, stemming the rise of college tuition can only happen if those buying college degrees take initiative and stake their claim on the value of their education. A movement against student debt is long overdue.
Joseph Levine is a member of the class of 2021.
(07/14/20 4:41am)
Police reform took center stage in the Vermont legislature as lawmakers voted unanimously to approve S.219 on Friday, June 26 before adjourning for six weeks. The bill, which aims to address racial bias and excessive use of force by law enforcement, was first introduced in January but gained new attention from lawmakers following the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis this May.
The bill, which now awaits Gov. Phil Scott’s signature, prohibits officers from using any restraint maneuver — including chokeholds — that “applies pressure to the neck, throat, windpipe or carotid artery that may prevent or hinder breathing, reduce intake of air or impede the flow of blood or oxygen to the brain.” In addition, the bill updates the definition of unprofessional conduct to include prohibited restraints. Officers who cause serious injury or death by using such a restraint face up to 20 years imprisonment and a $50,000 fine.
S.219 also requires that Vermont State Police officers begin using body cameras and that Vermont law enforcement agencies comply with existing race data reporting requirements in order to retain state grant funding. Under 20 V.S.A. § 2366, for all roadside stops Vermont police agencies are required to report the race, age and gender of the driver; the reason for the stop; any type of search that was performed; any evidence that was collected and the outcome of the stop.
Criticism
Although activists across the country have called for swift action to address police brutality, some Vermonters have criticized the bill as hasty and lacking in input from the state’s Black and Brown communities. Vermont State Senator and President Pro Tempore, Tim Ashe, explained that the legislature’s biggest challenge has been “the battle between time and progress.”
“I’ve watched ‘the process’ derail too many no-brainer reforms. So my encouragement as Senate leader was to act in as many instances as possible,” he wrote in an email to The Campus. “While these discussions will rightly continue in the months and years ahead, the will to act is now and it would be a mistake to miss it."
In addition, legislators set a repeal date of July 1, 2021 on the prohibited restraint and justifiable homicide statutes in order to prompt further action on them during the next session.
“In looking at [the justifiable homicide] statute, when our judiciary committee was taking up [bill S.219], they realized ‘this is really out of date and we need to do something with this,’ but we just didn't have the time to dig into it,” said Vermont State Senator Ruth Hardy in an interview with The Campus.
She explained that S. 219 is only a first step, and that the repeal forces the legislature to deal with the statute during its next session.
“It basically continues the conversation and continues the work and the testimony and the research into updating these statutes to make sure that they are relevant and timely and fair and unbiased and that they hold the police accountable for their actions,” Hardy said.
Furthermore, though this bill takes steps to address misconduct by individual officers, it does not include many of the demands made by advocates of institutional reform.
As part of his campaign for High Bailiff of Addison County, Dave Silberman began a petition titled “Repair Our Public Safety Systems: Center Justice and Community.” Calling for officials at all levels of government to move beyond words, it demands for civilian oversight of police use of force incidents, a review of all pending cases with Black defendants for signs of racial bias and the strengthening of existing hate crime laws.
Silberman said in a recent call with The Campus that addressing the systemic racism that “infests” policing systems starts with reevaluating the state and municipal budgets to reallocate resources towards models of public safety that center community justice instead of retribution and punishment.
His petition calls for reallocating law enforcement budgets to services such as crisis intervention and substance use counseling.
“Some people might want to call that ‘defund the police’; I call that reallocating our budget,” Silberman said. “But at the end of the day, it's about spending less on policing and more on effective models of community safety.”
Other bills
The legislature has made progress on other bills pertaining to policing and criminal justice reform. Bill S.338, also known as “Justice Reinvestment II,” passed on Wednesday, June 24 and also awaits Gov. Scott’s signature.
Based on the results of a decade of research into Vermont’s criminal justice system, it aims to reduce the state’s incarcerated population and reduce related expenses by streamlining furlough and parole policies.
The bill also commissions a new study into racial disparities in Vermont’s criminal justice system, with a focus on exploring the relationship between demographic factors and sentencing outcomes as well as whether the use and length of incarceration contributes to racial disparities.
In addition, the bill aims to reduce recidivism by providing greater support to persons transitioning into the community. Recidivism contributes significantly to Vermont’s incarceration rates, with an average of 78% of accepted inmates in the past three years returning from furlough, parole and probation. In addition, nearly 80% of furlough returns to incarceration are due to technical violations — such as a lack of housing or employment — rather than new criminal offenses.
When the legislature reconvenes in August, it will continue to work on S.119 — a bill that authorizes police use of deadly force only when “necessary” in the context of each situation — and S.124 – which modifies the state’s police recruitment, training and conduct standards and expands civilian membership in the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council.
Editor’s Note: Ruth Hardy is married to Middlebury College Professor of Film and Media Culture Jason Mittell, who is The Campus’s academic advisor. All questions may be directed to campus@middlebury.edu.
(05/14/20 9:56am)
From a virtual two-hour performance of "Julius Caesar" to a museum tour accessible from your home, the college has transformed its interaction with technology since Covid-19 spurred the transition to remote learning. Behind it all is the Information Technology Services (ITS) team, which has been working tirelessly to ensure smooth technology access for the college community.
As the world adjusted to the crisis in early March, the college’s technological infrastructure was well-prepared. Many resources already take place online, such as Webmail, OneDrive, and Canvas. During the two-week spring break, ITS worked to engage with online vendor partners, and updated licenses to meet the growing need.
Even with those existing services, Vijay Menta, associate vice president and chief information officer for ITS, shared that home internet access has been a significant issue for the community. Faculty and staff residing in rural Vermont have experienced connection instability. To respond, the ITS team has put forward best practices to suggest improvements and contacted home internet providers to stay updated.
Prior to Covid-19, the college had 80 VPN users per day. Now it has 500 VPN licenses, peaking at just over 300 concurrent users per day—an increase of 300%. By the end of spring break, these measures were put in place for users.
Another major concern for the ITS is internet equity for the community.
“We were working on this (internet equity) from the very beginning, because we knew there will be students who don’t have the full internet access that is needed,” Menta said. “We have a program in place where we can recommend students to the student financial services for help.”
The department also recommended that professors remain flexible with students and adopt an asynchronous mode of learning. The department has loaned around 80 laptops, webcams, headphones and other accessories to students.
The financial needs behind these decisions were immediately approved by President Laurie Patton and the cabinet. There was also a savings offset as travels to conferences and professional developments were canceled, and the money was used to purchase VPN licenses in response to growing need. ITS also accelerated its planned laptop purchases, to ensure sufficient inventory in stock for anyone who requests them.
Virtual learning posed other challenges for academic instruction, and ITS partnered with Digital Learning & Inquiry (DILINQ) to work on innovating modes of learning.
“We’re trying to do as much as possible in a virtual manner, and if we notice something is needed for students to learn in a different way, we are able to look into those opportunities to see if we can provide that assistance too,” Menta said.
Not surprisingly, Zoom is the most popular service ITS has implemented during the transition remote learning. Prior to Covid-19, the college hosted roughly 700 Zoom meetings per week. In contrast, 8,000 Zoom meetings have been held since May 1. On a typical day this May, there are 500 meetings per day on a weekend and between 1,250 and 1,500 meetings on a weekday. The college currently owns 6,000 Zoom licenses, and has added 3,300 new users since early March, when it already had 2,600 active users.
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“Not only are we prepared to use Zoom, ITS is prepared to use alternative devices such as [Google Meet] and [Microsoft Teams] if backup is needed,” said Menta.
One way ITS supports virtual learning is through the help desk Zoom room. Traditionally, ITS help desk has staff and student helpers located in the Davis Library on campus. Now, this service can be accessed via Zoom.
Checko Mkocheko ‘22 worked at the help desk on campus and continues to do so from home. Mkocheko feels fortunate that the help desk is one of the few jobs that can go fully online, and he receives compensation as he did prior to Covid-19.
“I do not deal with personal computers, network issues, printing issues, software issues and classroom support anymore. I help clients mainly on credentials and accessing college online resources,” said Mkochecko.
Menta warned that there has been an increase in phishing attacks since Covid-19, with people posing as genuine organizations to compromise users’ accounts.
“I want people to be very vigilant about this, and when in doubt, when you don’t recognize the sender’s email, please make sure you contact infosec@middlebury.edu, which will help you protect in the long run and keep our data safe and secure,” Menta said.
But with new multi-factor authentication in place, Menta is confident in the college’s internet security.
The workload for ITS has been high as members of the team act in support of many members of the community. On top of the Covid-19 response, ITS is also planning to go live with its Oracle implementation as part of the Green Mountain Higher Education Consortium initiative. While other projects are on hold, regular maintenance, security, and upgrades must go on.
“As the leader of the group, one of the things I make sure is to categorize our tasks into must-do, important, and defer,” Menta said. “We need to better prioritize to make sure we are helping the community on Covid-19 responses and remote learning first. We are in a much more steady place now than we were in March.”
Menta expressed gratitude for his team, and their partners at the college, including DLINQ, communications and marketing, and other departments to make sure services are delivered. He is thankful that students and faculty have been working patiently with ITS, and emphasized that they are here to help with any questions.
(05/07/20 10:02am)
Fifty years ago today, students, faculty, staff and administrators crowded together in the pre-dawn light to watch a fire consume Recitation Hall, a temporary building behind what is now Carr Hall. Earlier, at 4:15 a.m. on Thursday, May 7, 1970, a student doused rags in gasoline, placed them against the base of the building and set them alight. The flames engulfed the wood-frame structure at the height of the 1970 student strike over the Kent State shootings and Vietnam War.
While it later emerged that the arsonist was not politically motivated, the fear and tension ignited by the event epitomized the emotion and turmoil on campus and across the nation.
The Campus spoke with former student leaders and activists, faculty, and administrators from the 1970 strike about the triumphs, pitfalls and lasting legacy of the strike and the surrounding years of anti-war organizing.
The Strike
Just three days before, on May 4, protests against the Vietnam War and the bombing of neutral Cambodia engulfed Kent State University. The Ohio National Guard was called to intervene, and in the ensuing chaos, used live rounds on the students, killing four and injuring nine others.
The deaths of affluent, white college students engrossed the nation, bringing home the horrors of war to many in a way the far-off deaths of working class Americans and Vietnamese civilians had not. Calls for a national student strike spread like wildfire across college campuses. Five hundred miles away, the spark of radical anti-war activism finally reached the sleepy town of Middlebury.
“For six years, now, the flood waters of frustration and alienation and hopelessness have been rising behind the dam,” reads an article from the 1970 Middlebury summer newsletter. “The shooting down of the Kent State demonstrators finally cracked the facade, and all of this accumulated despair poured forth.”
For Howard Burchman ’73 and his band of fellow student activists, May 4 was a night of frenzied activity and organizing. In the WRMC-FM college radio office, Burchman manned the teletype, a machine that sends and receives typed messages, to follow the news coming out of Kent State and traded phone calls with student organizers across the country to coordinate political action at Middlebury. Students covered campus sidewalks with graphics calling for a strike and superglued padlocks on classroom doors so no one could attend class the next morning. At 7:00 a.m., Burchman called Dean of Students Dennis O'Brien to inform him that the students were striking.
By midday, the College Council and faculty had voted and approved a resolution to suspend classes for the rest of the week, both to grieve and memorialize those killed at Kent State and to protest the war in South Asia, joining over 800 colleges and four million students nationwide in the largest student strike in U.S. history.
That evening, students packed into Mead Chapel for a memorial service honoring the four dead students and for the first rally of the strike, which began immediately afterwards. Burchman recalls the space overflowing with bodies as 1,000 students crowded into the aisles of the chapel, designed to hold only 700. The choir sang “Absalom,” a haunting hymn whose lyrics poignantly encapsulated the grief, shock and anger of the student body (“When David heard that Absalom was slain, he went up to his chamber and wept, and thus he said, ‘O my son, Absalom my son, would God that I had died for thee!’”).
Students demanded that the college end its complicity with the U.S. military by removing the Reserve Officers Training Corp (ROTC) from campus; called for the federal release of political prisoners, including jailed Black Panthers; and urged for an immediate withdrawal of American troops from South Asia.
Throughout the week, students spent their days attending teach-ins, workshops and rallies to learn about the war, the draft and Black Panthers. Students marched through Middlebury Union High School to “liberate” the high schoolers and inspire political action. Activists canvassed throughout the town, engaging residents in conversations and aiming to educate the conservative-leaning community about the anti-war cause, according to Steve Early ’71. After the burning of Recitation Hall on May 7, many spent their nights patrolling the campus to prevent further destruction and to avoid the widespread violence witnessed on college campuses nationwide.
The town residents feared similar violence, and the fire seemed to only reaffirm those fears, causing tension to emerge between the campus and community. In an effort to improve public relations, Obie Benz ’71 organized a group of students to stay in Middlebury over the summer. The students engaged in community service work to try and mend the town-gown relationship and reassure locals that Middlebury students were not like the violent anti-war radicals frequently featured on their TVs.
Results
Classes resumed on May 11 with academic exceptions made for students who took the rest of the semester off to protest the war. The College Council, faculty, and student body voted to broadly affirm the national strike goals, substituting the demands of national leaders for more moderate language.
The Middlebury administration worked hard to maintain Middlebury’s reputation and reassure parents, alumni and community members that the college-wide activism was moderate in tone. Middlebury President James Armstrong never referred to the events as a “strike,” describing it instead as “suspending normal activities,” being “in extraordinary session” and deciding whether or not to “resume classes,” according to Baehr. In the summer newsletter to parents, the college framed the strike as “a united searching — by students, faculty, and administrators — for the most useful set of responses to the national situation.” The newsletter failed to mention Black students’ efforts to raise issues of race, or calls for solidarity with the Black Panthers. That year set the then annual fundraising record high of $272,000.
Still, the strike was a catalyst for widespread student anti-war action at Middlebury in the years that followed. Radical Education and Action Project (REAP), founded by student activists Early and Burchman the following fall, brought speakers to campus and hosted rallies, with the goals of inspiring political action and thought through education.
Burchman recalled groups of students routinely burning draft cards outside of Proctor Hall in shows of public defiance against the war. Burchman himself faced disciplinary action when he protested Navy representatives publically advertising beside the cafeteria line. He set up shop next to them and projected images of napalm-ravaged villages and mutilated Vietnamese children until the Navy representatives left.
“It's not like the student strike happened once and there was no more unrest,” Burchman said. “The great mass of Middlebury returned into its slumber, but there was an activated core of hundreds of students who remained very very committed.”
While immediate responses to the strike and student anti-war organizing at Middlebury may have been tepid, students’ efforts did make a long term difference. O'Brien cited the strike as a major reason for the college’s ultimate decision to remove the Military Studies Department as a credit-bearing program and relegate ROTC to an off-campus extracurricular in 1976.
“The collective activity, unexpected and unprecedented in scale, put pressure on lots of other people [like Armstrong], drew them in, and made them part of the process of seeking solutions to the situation,” Early said. “Students became a conscience for people in positions of authority, including elected leaders and heads of institutions.”
On a national level, many consider the widespread student activism on college campuses instrumental in pressuring the U.S. government to withdraw from Vietnam in 1973.
Issues of Inclusion
Anti-war efforts at Middlebury struggled to include more diverse voices.
While the killing of four white students at Kent State galvanized the campus into widespread action, the shooting of Black students by the National Guard, resulting in two dead and 12 injured, at Jackson State University in Mississippi just 11 days later hardly registered a response at Middlebury. Efforts by Black Students for Mutual Understanding (BSMU) to organize around the shooting and raise consciousness around the Black Power movement went largely ignored by the student body.
“The death of the four Kent State students was a very tragic event for Kent State and the parents of those students,” read the BSMU position paper published May 6. “However it would be hypocritical of this organization and its members to pretend that these deaths have rendered us emotionally bankrupt; for many of us, and the vast majority of Black people, death and suffering has become a very real part of life.”
“We barely paid even lip service to the urgent issues Arnold [McKinney ’70, the leader of the BSMU,] and others were trying to have us see during the strike,” wrote Kaarla Baehr ’70 in an email to The Campus. “Not surprising given the time and place, but painful.”
Just as Black activists were excluded from the mainstream conversation, women were sidelined as men took center stage in the anti-war movement at Middlebury and beyond. Baehr, the Student Senate president at the time, was the only prominent female voice during the strike.
When she came to the stage to speak to the assembled crowd at Mead Chapel on May 5, the entire rally had to pause for several minutes as she attempted to lower the microphone positioned well above her head. That struggle was indicative of an entire movement structured around an assumption of male leaders, Baehr said.
The summer newsletter to parents made that divide even more apparent.
“Striking blonde reads a letter to her teachers explaining why she was quitting for the rest of the year,” read an article detailing the chronology of the strike.
Class also divided student protesters. Calls to shut down the campus for the rest of the semester failed to inspire many low-income and first-generation college students, who did not want to jeopardize their hard-won and expensive education, according to Baehr. While some students took the summer off to protest the war, Early, a dedicated activist and major organizer of the strike himself, had to start work flipping burgers at McDonalds immediately after finishing his finals in order to afford his next year at Middlebury.
Learning to Lead
The gaps in representation during the 1970 strike gave rise to opportunity. Torie Osborn ’72 transferred to Middlebury in the fall of 1970 after being inspired by the anti-war activity of the previous fall. She became one of the most visible figureheads of the modern women's movement at Middlebury, helping eliminate curfews for female students, advocating for access to birth control and organizing an abortion underground to Montreal where it was legal in the days before Roe v. Wade.
She learned how to organize and lead as an activist through her anti-war activism at Middlebury. Those skills helped shape her decades-long career as a queer feminsit activist, which has included serving as the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and a term as senior advisor to the mayor of Los Angeles, focusing on reducing homelessness and poverty.
“I was used to being one of thousands of followers. When I got to Middlebury, I learned how to be a leader. I learned how to organize,” Osborn said. “The skills that I learned and the passion that was reinforced at Middlebury for social justice activism has shaped my whole life.”
Many of the organizers of the 1970 strike and subsequent anti-war activity went on to lead lives as prominent activists, like Early, who is known as an organizer, union representative labor activist, lawyer, and author. He said his time at Middlebury taught him how to successfully organize action and the importance of patience in long-term social justice efforts.
Burchman was a freshman in 1970. Leading anti-war activism over the next three years, he learned how to take advantage of the power of crises to galvanize the masses and create longstanding positive change. He later used those lessons to fight the ’80s HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City, advocate for community health and residential care and work to develop solutions for homelessness across the country. He is now working remotely to advocate for the homeless in Nebraska in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
“[The strike and anti-war activism at Middlebury] gave me a direction in life. The war gave me an understanding of the basic question: Who benefits?” Burchman said. “I’ve been able to have a wonderful professional career orientated towards issues of social justice... that I’m so grateful for. It gave me a great life.”
Beyond the individual lives of Middlebury graduates, the 1970 strike and anti-war activism of the late 60s and early 70s has left an indelible impact on the landscape of education nationwide.
In a Jacobin article, Early cited student walkouts over the Iraq invasion, Parkland shooting and climate change as echoes of the 1970 strike continuing to influence national politics.
“The memory of [the student strike] hangs on and hangs on,” said O'Brien. “The effect of that one moment, that one week, has impacted into the student DNA [at Middlebury and beyond].”
(05/07/20 10:00am)
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay, 2014
Is it “good”? Yes. It’s Roxane Gay. Of course it’s good. It’s Roxane Gay. She is the definition par excellence of “good.” Does it deliver on what’s promised? Hey, wait a minute there. No. Not exactly. “Bad Feminist” is a collection of essays in which Gay examines her personal life, the media and race rhetoric in the United States, all within one tome. The work is equal parts memoir, musings and in-depth cultural analysis of television, movies and gender politics. It makes you wonder how Gay effectively pitched the collection to an agent/editor given the work’s somewhat negotiated cohesion. Let’s be clear: Roxane Gay is brilliant. She’s a deep thinker and a writer who makes her complex and nuanced ideas accessible to a broad public of people. But why is a recounting of her participation in a competitive Scrabble tournament in this collection alongside her critiques of Quentin Tarantino’s slavery era cinematic film “Django Unchained”? I want to be open to new types of publication, especially if they’re featuring the black, first generation, Haitian American child of immigrants who grew up in Midwestern towns, as Gay is and as she did. However, “Bad Feminist”challenges my concept of the very concept of a “book.” Assuming a book is a compilation of writing that is centered on a singular theme or narrative, as they often, but not exclusively, are, this is not a book. It happens to be a collection of essays that exists within the same binding and perhaps the reader should be given more of a clue as to what they’re in store for.
Are we praising Roxane Gay because she’s engaging topics that are long overdue for public discourse? (Yes.) Or because she is producing work that makes sense in the publications, layouts and formats in which it appears? (Not so much.) What do I mean when I say the work is “good” then? Well, what I’m actually saying is Roxane Gay herself is an impressive person. She has fought tremendous self-loathing. She is undeniably an admirable activist for women’s rights and bodily autonomy. Her voice is a critical one that sees truth and does not balk from it, even when it’s ugly— especially when it’s ugly. However, “Bad Feminist” is an uneven work. It reflects her intelligence. Yet, it is an early and “green” work that does not reflect talented, editorial skill. I wouldn’t write her off — and I have the benefit of saying this after having read and listened to her works “Hunger” and “Not That Bad.” But I think she was still getting her bearings when this one came out— still sharpening her tools. I would only recommend individual essays of this work, for example, if someone was teaching a class on media representations of Black suffering, encouraging them to review Gay’s words on “12 Years A Slave.” But it’s harder to recommend the compilation as a whole as it’s so diffuse in its focus. For other thematic works like this one, maybe see “Why I’m Not A Feminist” by Jessica Crispin (which I have yet to read) or “Sister Outsider” by Audre Lorde, which I’ve listened to via OverDrive.
Hunger: A Memoir of My Body by Roxane Gay, 2017
Trigger Warning: This book regularly references rape and bulimia as lived experiences by the author.
Brilliant. Personal. Timely.
Gay’s “Hunger” is a compilation of more than 80 autobiographical essays, vignettes and commentaries in which the author tells of growing up in a loving family and how she was traumatically gang raped at the age of 12. The rape destabilized her confidence, sense of self-worth and relationship with her body for decades to come. For the record, Gay refers to herself as a “victim,” not a “survivor.” As a tween, Gay believed that if she made her body unattractive, she would never again be subjected to the sexual violence she experienced. So she ate and ate and her body grew and grew. And while she engaged this protective mechanism, she was utterly unable to reveal the cause of her excesses to her parents and family for many, many years.
What’s special about this book is that Roxane Gay articulates a nuanced notion that isn’t nearly as broadly held as I believe it ought to be: who we are is wildly distinct from the bodies we inhabit. She is a smart writer, bisexual, Haitian American, a Midwesterner with a doctorate degree who also happens to be morbidly obese. And while we live in bodies that can be unruly, non-conforming and may not encounter appropriately accommodating furniture, walkways, vehicles and the sort, who we are and what we can accomplish is not determined by thigh gaps and washboard abs, despite what the culture might suggest.
I would recommend this work to anyone who feels that their body is seen, read and assigned a narrative even before their thoughts are shared, heard and weighed. For more works like this, see “meaty” by Samantha Irby or “Shrill” by Lindy West.
Not that Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture edited by Roxane Gay, 2018
“Not That Bad” is an anthology of testimonies from people who have been victimized by rape culture. Rape culture refers to a whole series of phenomena that surround and may include rape: victim blaming and shaming, the proclivity to protect abusers, the widespread ignorance surrounding conversations that seek sexual consent and more. Editor Roxane Gay is a writer and academic who was gang raped as a child and shares some details surrounding her own story in the opening introduction. The gang rape she experienced caused her to lose her faith and to engage in eating habits that she believed would protect her from further abuse, which ushered in a decades’ long era of struggles with her weight, as documented in her memoir, “Hunger.” Gay has a strong history of seeking fair and broad representation of women’s voices and she achieves that goal in this compilation, including a few men’s testimonies as well.
In “Not That Bad,” inviting over two dozen participants, Gay does everything you expect she would: she seeks out and collects a diversity of voices to speak to the nuances and fissures of a theme. She includes a Hollywood actor’s voice who was not touched, groped or raped but whose sense of bodily autonomy was violated in other ways via the media. She includes a story from a woman who studied law and was trained to discredit women through character attacks. She includes the voice of a woman who never learned to say no as she is much more familiar with acquiescence and prioritizing her sexual partner’s needs and demands. In terms of the prevalence of rape and rape culture, the book is much needed and long overdue. In some ways, rape is so commonplace that our societies have become desensitized to its impact as demonstrated by the use of rape narratives in video games or the word “rape” as a shorthand for minor, non-sexual violations or as a punchline for jokes. This collection shakes readers and re-awakens us to the actuality of rape-related trauma, reminding us that there are victims and victimizers all around us. This work is available in print and as an audiobook. For a different type of title that celebrates women’s pleasure in sex, see “Moan: Anonymous Essays on Female Orgasm.”
(04/30/20 10:01am)
College is often characterized as “the best four years of your life.” In many ways, the undergraduate experience represents an extended attempt to make that dream a reality: choosing who to be friends with, what extracurriculars to join and which subject to major in are all informed by the ideal image of “Middlebury College” we have in our heads. Of course, that narrative is not only far too reductive, but often interferes with our ability to enjoy the college experience. Now, far away from campus during the Covid-19 pandemic, we have a unique opportunity to take a step back — an opportunity previously only available to alumni — and reflect on how we spend our time at Middlebury.
In reality, college is much different than the dreamed-up utopias propagated by popular culture. Our current situation has only introduced more distance between that dream and reality: Physically separated from Middlebury and its consequent FOMO culture, we find ourselves focusing on the things we might have taken for granted while we were still on campus. We miss walking out of Axinn after what should have been a 20-minute check-in with a professor, but which turned into an hour-long conversation on maple creemees. We miss our study buddies, Proc crushes and hallmates. We miss the feeling of a 12-person seminar and the relationships that are built in such a small setting. The further we get from College Street, the more these experiences seem to take on a new significance.
At the same time, some of the things we agonized about at the time don’t seem so important. We’d be willing to bet, for instance, you aren’t yearning for sweaty nights in Atwater. The stresses of figuring out who to sit with at Ross, what to wear to that ’80’s-themed party, and whether the question you ask in class might make you seem unintelligent have all fallen by the wayside. What remains are fond memories of spontaneous conversations in Wilson cafe, impromptu movie nights with friends and cooking extravaganzas (read: disasters) in the Battell kitchen. We wish we had more fully embraced the experiences actually offered by Middlebury, rather than spent so much time pursuing the ideal visions we previously helpd of what we were supposed to do.
If nothing else, lockdown has shown us is that no one really has it all figured out. When we return to campus, rather than worry whether or not our time at Middlebury is what is “should” be, we should appreciate our undergrad for what it is. As cliché as that sounds, it’s easy to stress over whether or not we are doing college “right.” (Will I be invited to that off-campus party? Am I taking the classes I should be? Should I go to KDR or Tav tonight? Am I finding my people?). Yet, as the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us, even the best laid plans can be disrupted — and so maybe weren’t worth stressing so much about in the first place.
This editorial represents the opinions of the Middlebury Campus’s editorial board.
(04/28/20 7:56pm)
Genevieve Herron '23
Westford, New York
Submitted April 3, 2020
I am a resident of Brooklyn, New York, so instead of living where I normally reside, I am at my family's second home in Westford, N.Y. While I understand that I am very lucky to be out of the city, which is chaotic and where there is a lot of suffering, living upstate has its downsides. My house is very rural. You cannot see any other homes from where I live. We are not connected to the electrical grid and receive all of our power from our solar panels or a small gas-powered generator. Until about three weeks ago, we did not have internet access. We installed satellite internet in preparation for being here for a prolonged period of time since my sister and I need internet access for school work.
There is barely cell reception. Our house has no heat and only uses wood stoves. My regular routine of working at a desk or at the library has been disrupted significantly. I have been able to make an extra bedroom into a sort of study which is fortunate, but I have been very distracted by my sister’s work. She is studying classical flute and will practice for as many as four hours a day — which can be very loud and distracting. I have to have my Zoom classes in my kitchen because I cannot get good enough reception in my "study" and I often feel guilty for making my parents cease all activity during my classes.
My parents definitely have higher stress levels right now, as do I and many others. My aunt and uncle are both doctors in NYC. My aunt is a pediatrician and has not had much contact with coronavirus patients, but my uncle has been working in ERs and hospitals all over Brooklyn. When we FaceTime him, he recounts horror stories of what he sees at work. We are all worried for them.
Furthermore, both of my parents are concerned for my grandparents. They are all in their 80s and 90s and live alone (both couples are divorced — two remarried and one is a widow, my family tree is complicated). My dad's mom lives alone on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She has been shopping at grocery stores she finds mostly empty and walking her dog in Central Park when she can. My dad's dad and stepmom also live on the Upper East Side, but my step-grandmother has glioblastoma and needs 24-hour care. She is irritable and not herself. So, on top of worrying about his elderly father navigating Manhattan in the time of coronavirus, my dad has to worry about his father's wife dying. To my grandfather, it's already as if she's gone.
What has been your greatest worry or day-to-day concern as coronavirus has spread?
I am worried about my relatives and friends becoming ill, mostly my grandparents and aunt and uncle. I am worried about my friends not missing me and about not being as close as we were when we return to campus. I am worried about my dad becoming so anxious and stressed, and possibly becoming sick (he is 60 and the most at risk in my immediate family).
What has made you happy over the past few weeks?
I have enjoyed watercoloring, which is a hobby I just got into over spring break. I enjoy writing letters to my friends. I have been having lots of fun goofing off with my 21-year-old sister who I do not see that often. I have been practicing my stick shift driving. Baking bread.
Anything else you'd like us to know?
I have also been sick for the past two-to-three weeks and had to go to a mobile hospital in a nearby town. That was a very humbling experience because I saw what the healthcare workers were doing to care for those with illness that are not coronavirus.
(04/16/20 10:02am)
Professor of Mathematics Frank Swenton submitted a Sense of the Faculty Motion prior to the faculty meeting last Friday, recommending that Middlebury release the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) from the college. In it, he alleges the college has been forced to cut down on health benefits and staff positions to balance the deficit caused by the institute. Swenton claims that the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the financial situation.
An earlier version of Swenton’s motion alleged that around half of the college’s current deficit “stems directly from MIIS.” However, after a Campus reporter asked him about this point, Swenton said he suspects the current deficit estimates do not account for losses from Monterey, and removed that sentence from his motion. Swenton also pointed out that MIIS costs accounted for $5.3 million of the college’s total $10.5 million deficit in 2018, information that can be found in the minutes record of a Special Faculty Plenary meeting held in November of that year.
“The College will fail to meet its budget this year by an estimated $17 million, and severe cuts are unavoidable,” reads the new version. College Treasurer David Provost said in an April 7 email to faculty that the college would see “a total revenue shortfall related to COVID-19 of $17.3 million” in the 2020 fiscal year.
Swenton connected his claims about cutting down on health benefits to the new insurance plans that were offered this fall, but Provost did not not mention anything about cuts in benefits. Provost has said that the college’s budget advisory committee will meet to discuss potential recommendations to ameliorate losses — for example, the administration will ask department heads to consider expense reductions and has already implemented a hiring freeze for all staff positions. These efforts come a year after the college wrapped up its year-long workforce planning effort, which was spearheaded to reduce the college’s then-shrinking deficit. That process saw staff at both the college and the institute take voluntary buyouts.
Due to time restraints, the motion was not formally introduced last Friday. It is likely that it will be discussed at the upcoming faculty meeting this Friday as unfinished business, following the vote on the mandatory credit/no credit grading policy proposal.
Faculty of the college opposed affiliation with the institute from the outset. A vote in April 2005 to acquire the institute was met with strong opposition — 80 faculty opposed the acquisition, 21 endorsed it and 15 abstained from voting. Despite faculty protests, Middlebury formally acquired the institute in 2010, after a five-year affiliation agreement.
“In my dream world, the Trustees and Administration would take a long, hard look at MIIS and finally do something about it,” Swenton wrote in an email to The Campus. However, he is aware that the proposal might not be enough to change their minds, since he said the numbers and statistics he presents are already known by the administration.
The Sense of the Faculty Motion does not have any binding effects — Dean of Faculty Sujata Moorti said such a motion is instead meant to"register faculty sentiment about a particular topic." But Swenton said he still hopes that the proposal can demonstrate to the administration Middlebury professors are paying attention.
“The faculty technically have no power in these decisions, yet we're the ones having to shoulder the consequent burden via cuts in benefits, staff, ” he wrote.
While this is the first time Swenton has submitted a formal proposal on this issue, the relationship between the institute and the college has been on his mind for a while. At the November 2018 faculty meeting, Swenton questioned whether the allocations as presented are a true representation of the situation. According to the minutes record, he said, “Isn’t that money that would have been for Middlebury?”
(04/09/20 10:01am)
The Covid-19 pandemic has added additional stress for the 10 faculty members undergoing tenure review this spring and the 80–90 junior faculty members on tenure-track positions.
Candidates currently undergoing tenure review can either choose to continue their review as planned during the spring or opt to halt their review and resume in the fall, according to Provost and Executive Vice President Jeff Cason. The college will also be offering junior faculty the opportunity to delay their tenure clocks by a year, regardless of where they are in the process.
“For the 10 of us under review, the anxiety of a difficult, fraught period has been exacerbated,” Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies Nicolas Poppe wrote in an email to The Campus. While Poppe has chosen to continue the review process, he noted that stress related to Covid-19 compounded existing tenure review anxieties.
[pullquote speaker="Nicholas Poppe, Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]For the 10 of us under review, the anxiety of a difficult, fraught period has been exacerbated.[/pullquote]
Achieving tenure is the culmination of a seven-year process. Tenure-track professors undergo their first review by the Reappointments Committee in their third year at the college. Granted its successful completion, faculty members then undergo tenure review in the spring semester of their seventh year. During this review, the Promotions Committee evaluates candidates’ teaching abilities through several classroom visits that occur throughout the semester, as well as faculty members’ records of scholarship and service to their academic department.
For Poppe, the classroom visits by members of the Promotions Committee had just begun when it was announced on March 10 that on-campus classes would be suspended and moved online due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Of the four visits they were able to complete before March 13 [the last day of in-person classes], only one was done in what I would consider to be normal circumstances,” Poppe wrote. He said the three other visits happened on the Wednesday and Friday of the final week of in-person classes.
“I trust that the Promotions Committee members understand this, but they were abnormal classes conducted at an extraordinary time. Other colleagues had even fewer visits done before we moved online,” he added.
Poppe, like the other faculty who chose to continue with their tenure review, will find out in May whether he has been granted tenure. The decision is based upon the recommendation of the Promotions Committee to President Laurie Patton and with the approval of the Board of Trustees. Upon achieving tenure, the candidate, previously an assistant professor, receives the rank of associate professor with tenure. Tenured faculty members receive, formally, a significant pay increase and, informally, increased academic freedom.
While Poppe expects that the reviews completed this semester will have the same outcome as those from a semester without the uncertainties related to Covid-19, he also noted that this semester’s unordinary events will “impact junior colleagues for years to come,” since they will have one fewer “normal” semester during which they may build up their portfolios and prep for review.
Other colleges and universities have also announced alterations to their normal tenure and reappointment policies to ease the pressure of the semester. Amherst College is offering an opt-in policy that allows candidates undergoing tenure review in the fall to extend their tenure clock by one year; candidates scheduled to stand for tenure in a future year may also extend their tenure clocks. Syracuse University, Ohio State University and Creighton University have announced similar policies.
Recognizing that extending the tenure clock by a year means another year with an assistant professor salary, the University of Massachusetts Amherst took the policy one step further, allowing faculty to delay the tenure clock and implementing a policy that will retroactively pay faculty who achieve tenure the promotion increment in salary for that missed year.
(04/09/20 10:00am)
With the chaos of the past months, it’s safe to say we’d all rather be somewhere other than in the midst of 2020. For some, Dua Lipa comes in right on time to fill otherwise stressful weeks with a new album that briefly transports us somewhere else.
Originally set for release on April 3, "Future Nostalgia" — Dua Lipa’s second album — debuted two weeks ahead of schedule due to a leak. Packed with groove and style, the tracklist takes us on her ambitious journey that’s changing the pop scene.
Since Dua Lipa broke into mainstream music in 2017 with her first album, I’ve been a pretty avid listener. With this in mind, I wasn’t entirely sure of what to expect in "Future Nostalgia." In fact, I’m glad I had no expectations. As she sets out to redefine her music, Lipa opens the eponymous lead single with, “You want a timeless song? I wanna change the game. [I’m] Like modern architecture, John Lautner coming your way.”
"Future Nostalgia" consists of 11 tracks, discounting its forthcoming deluxe version. The album is decidedly upbeat and cinematic, with visual and melodic aesthetics reminiscent of '80s film, like the atmospheric silences that begin and end songs like “Future Nostalgia” and “Don’t Stop Now.” Are you familiar with the opening to Michael Jackson’s "Thriller"? That’s almost similar to what “Future Nostalgia” opens on, with an eerie vibe followed by a considerably brighter sound as Lipa comes in. Unleashing an arsenal of catchy and seductive melodies, "Future Nostalgia" builds on her familiar, smooth voice but imbues it with the groove of another time. Powerful bass lines and catchy beats help — songs easily melt into one another, creating an album that makes you want to dance.
Lipa’s sound fits hand in hand with the transformative trip "Future Nostalgia" takes us on. A deliberate track order slots the titular song “Future Nostalgia” first, followed by a collection of fast-paced melodies in “Don’t Start Now” and “Break My Heart,” head-bob-inducing groove in “Pretty Please” and ethereal, spacey notes in “Cool”. Frankly, the tracklist cleverly scatters around just enough diversity to not appear homogeneous. Despite how much I enjoyed listening to "Future Nostalgia," most of its appeal is dominated by its catchy melodies that might overshadow lyrics. Between blatant political commentary in “Boys Will Be Boys” to playful messages of empowerment and sexual freedom in “Hallucinate” and “Pretty Please,” there’s an element of general appeal that makes this album enjoyable.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]The album revitalizes genres past with modern innovation.[/pullquote]
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure that “the game” is as dramatically changed as she proclaims. Keeping in mind similarities of '80s music and Lipa’s prominence in modern pop, the album more so revitalizes genres past with modern innovation. It’s not a bad thing, however — rather, it’s what makes me like "Future Nostalgia" even more. The album retains the familiar authenticity and brightness characteristic of Lipa. Her optimistic, colorful vision is what makes her so valued as a pop artist we know and love, bringing a sense of familiarity. When compared to "Dua Lipa," "Future Nostalgia" does have a dramatically different vibe; the only past track I’d think of similarly would be “Blow Your Mind (Mwah).” Whilst "Dua Lipa" was packed with slower, more ambient tracks, the comparatively polished sound of "Future Nostalgia" helps gear her music in a new direction.
Of course, with Lipa's strong foothold on pop music, it’s likely that more people will follow the lead of "Future Nostalgia" with its playful venture into fusing varied music with a bold and flirty appeal. This is a shift I look forward to hearing more of, especially with the creativity and complexities it can inspire in budding artists. Thanks to "Future Nostalgia," I’ve had an eventful week of exploration into this new world. Done with sophistication and style, Lipa's dive into an uncertain future is an optimistic one.
(03/12/20 10:11am)
In September, the Middlebury College Republicans set in motion plans to invite Charles Murray back to campus for a third visit, requiring hours of meetings with administrators and lengthy discussions about logistics. This week, those plans have ground to a halt.
All spring semester courses will be moved online beginning March 30 in light of the spreading global Covid-19 outbreak, the college announced Tuesday. Murray’s talk, which was scheduled for March 31, will likely be cancelled as a result of the new steps, according to College Republicans Co-President Brendan Philbin ’21.
Philbin says he has not yet conferred with members of the College Republicans as to whether they’ll reschedule.
“From what we’ve seen, it doesn’t seem like we’ll even be back at school for March 31,” he said. “If we do end up deciding we want to reschedule, it would be for the fall.”
Murray, a controversial conservative writer who garnered national attention from works such as “The Bell Curve,” visited the college in 2007 and 2017. The protests of his 2017 visit led to the injury of political science professor Allison Stanger, and catalyzed conversations about free speech on college campuses. Since the College Republicans announced Murray’s planned return in a January op-ed, many of those conversations have been reignited. Before this week, students and faculty were planning to strike and hold teach-ins on the day of his talk.
Philbin said that Murray was notified promptly of the college’s decision to move courses online and that the talk would likely be cancelled. He said that Murray wasn’t surprised. In an interview with The Campus earlier this week, Murray expressed the expectation that the talk might be pushed, as colleges around the country took steps to protect students from the spreading virus.
“The Middlebury thing is way up in the air given the coronavirus situation,” he said. “Given the number of things that are being cancelled—and we’re only talking three weeks away? I’d say, that’s pretty iffy right there.”
The planning
With the College Republicans’ meager budget of $415, financing Murray’s talk proved a preliminary obstacle.
According to Murray, his speaker fee is usually $10,000 for colleges like Middlebury. Yet when College Republican co-presidents Philbin and Dominic Aiello ’22.5 and former Vermont governor and College Republicans adviser Jim Douglas reached out to him to gauge his interest in coming back, he immediately waived the fee.
“I’m not charging the college because I thought it was important — still think it’s important — for me to come back to Middlebury,” Murray said in an interview with The Campus.
Next came the meetings. Philbin estimates that he, Aiello and Douglas met with the administration at least seven times since the initial proposal in mid-November.
Philbin said that originally the administration proposed that the talk take place mid-day, at 1 p.m. Philbin insisted on a typical talk time of 4:30 p.m., so that students weren’t confronted with the choice between attending classes and the talk.
“They also proposed another event time that was the Friday of spring break,” Philbin said. “So, spring break starts at 4:15 and the event would have been at 4:30. We eventually ended up getting March 31 — but that took several meetings.”
Throughout this entire process, Murray has not had contact with the administration. “I haven’t talked to anybody from Middlebury’s administration about anything,” he said.
The visit would have been Murray’s first visit to a college campus in the wake of the release of his new book, “Human Diversity: The Biology of Race, Gender, and Class.”
Day-of protocol
Organizing day-of logistics for Murray’s visit resembled something between an obstacle course and a jigsaw puzzle. Like last time, the talk was slated to take place in Wilson Hall. There were 140 seats designated for the event.
According to Philbin, a private security consulting group, Blue Moon Consulting, was involved in the planning process. The firm’s website says it deals in “proactive reputational risk and crisis management.”
Philbin, Aiello and Douglas planned on divvying up tickets with a lottery system. The College Republicans reserved 60 of the tickets for their own club members, various faculty and members of Open Campus Initiative — the co-sponsor of the event. Philbin said the College Republicans do not have an official roster, but that 8 to 20 members are usually in attendance at each meeting.
Of the original 140 tickets, 80 remain for Middlebury College ID-holders.
McCullough Student Center — the building in which Wilson Hall is situated — was to be closed for the entirety of the day. “We’ve been told from the administration that they’ll have McCullough closed down and cleared in the morning,” Philbin said.
After the college announced plans to upgrade its security plans last fall, McCullough has been one of the first sites to receive ramped-up security measures in recent months. The plan has cost the college around $200,000, according to Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration David Provost. Components of the plan include the implementation of security cameras and additional key-card access.
Provost said the costs for additional security for the Murray event, through Green Mountain Security, would have totaled between $5,000 and $10,000. They were to be funded by the college. There were no planned costs for the local and state police services that the college had requested be in attendance.
“Some will say that we will have spent up to $200,000 this year and we will use some of those improvements on the Murray event,” Provost told The Campus. “What would we have spent this year on those investments if Murray wasn’t coming? Close to $200,000. What are we spending now that Murray is coming? $200,000. Was it accelerated? Some could say yes.”
Looking ahead
There is currently no official confirmation from the administration that Murray’s talk will be cancelled. In a phone interview late Tuesday, Philbin said that “the current status is that the event doesn’t seem like it’s happening.”
After the many meetings and preparations, Philbin sees the cancellation as an upset. “It’s disappointing,” he said. “We put in six months of work. I committed social suicide for this event and now it seems like it’s not going to happen. Things are totally up in the air right now.”
Correction March 12, 2020: A previous version of this article stated that Philbin was present at meetings with Blue Moon Consulting Group. Although they were involved in the process, they were never at a meeting where he was present.
(03/05/20 11:10am)
Hundreds of Middlebury residents gathered at the town meeting at Middlebury Union High School on Monday night, approving all seven proposed articles. The town meeting, a manifestation of direct democracy, involved the discussion of several proposals, followed by a voice vote. Residents also reviewed and discussed information on three more legislative articles that were decided on Tuesday via Australian ballot.
The meeting featured first-time Moderator Susan Shashok, who replaced former Vermont Governor and longtime town meeting moderator Jim Douglas ’72. Shashok has previously attended the town meeting as a member of the selectboard — the town’s governing group of seven elected members — and was endorsed by Douglas last year after he announced he would not be running again for the position of moderator.
“[Douglas’s endorsement] felt pretty good,” Shashok said in a phone interview Wednesday. “He’s been a very good mentor to me during this process. Even though it’s big shoes to fill, I told everybody I’d have different shoes. Jim’s okay with that and so I’m okay with that.”
At the meeting, Middlebury Selectboard Chair Brian Carpenter read a year-in-review report, which mainly focused on progress of the Middlebury Bridge and Rail Project.
The town budget was approved without dissent and included increased funding for the replacement of public works equipment, such as the town’s 25-year-old street sweeper. Tax surpluses will be used to fund downtown projects like the railroad platform and updates to light fixtures.
The two most contentious articles of the night were Article 4 and Article 2, both of which allocated additional extra-budget funds to first responder services. Article 4 requested a $63,721 increase in appropriations for Middlebury Regional Emergency and Medical Services (MREMS).
Some residents expected money requests for first response care to be part of the town budget, and not presented as a separate article. But the the selectboard said it had not had enough time to review the MREMS allocation request to add it to the budget beforehand.
Opponents were concerned about giving such a large sum of money to a non-profit without the selectboard spending time to review the proposal. Advocates for the article however, claimed that emergency and medical services are essential.
“I understand and appreciate the concerns expressed regarding municipal appropriations for independent, non-profit entities,” said Ben Fuller, vice-chair of MREMS, in an email to The Campus. “That said, I also believe that the critical, life-saving services we provide put us in a slightly different category than most other non-profits.”
These concerns led to a motion to postpone consideration of the item, an action that Shashok said she hadn’t anticipated.
“We had one motion to lay the item on the table, and that’s very rare,” Shashok told The Campus. “I knew what to do, but I had to stop the meeting and double-check my notes just to make sure I had it right.”
The motion to table eventually failed, and Article 4 passed with an amendment to limit the increased funding to one year.
“I think it was the best solution to support them this one time, and make sure that the selectboard had full authority to vet and include what we feel is appropriate in next year’s budget,” Carpenter told The Campus.
Article 2, which allocated $80,000 to the Middlebury Police Department (MPD) for the purchase of new police cruisers, also incited discussion at the meeting. Residents pointed out that funds for vehicle replacement are an annual expenditure, not a one-time purchase. Police Chief Tom Hanley agreed and said during the meeting that he is not sure why the police vehicle allocation has not been added to MPD’s budget.
Discussions centered around the high wear and tear on police cars, which can be used for four years before requiring heightened levels of maintenance. In focusing on environmental concerns, the police department replaced one of its cars last year with a hybrid car. Though the cruiser is not yet in service in Middlebury, the department is considering purchasing two more hybrid cruisers this year.
Other articles dealt with 2020 tax collection dates and allocation of funds from the Cross Street Reserve Fund for water system improvements. The selectboard's goal is to complete the water system improvements before the state begins a repaving project throughout town.
“Ideally, we would not replace the roads and then dig them up again,” said selectboard member Heather Seeley at the meeting.
The meeting ended with discussion of other articles that would appear on the Australian ballot the following day, including Article 9, a proposition that allocates funds to flood resilience projects in East Middlebury. Article 8 proposed allocating $5,000 to the Turning Point Center, a non-profit that provides services to those suffering from substance abuse, and Article 10 proposed using $850,000 to rehabilitate dilapidated buildings near the police station. All articles passed with healthy margins on Tuesday, according to Carpenter.
Dave Silberman, attorney and Middlebury resident, spoke multiple times during the meeting.
“Democracy only works when people participate in it,” Silberman said. “I really feel that I’m exercising my civic duty.”
For Vermonters like Silberman, who values democratic participation, and Shashok, who considers herself a “democracy geek,” town meeting presents an opportunity to take advantage of an important tradition.
“I love Vermont’s town meeting,” said Fuller, the vice-chair of MREMS. “It’s an iconic tradition that helps preserve the sense of community in our towns and allows for the most direct and transparent form of democratic government.”
(02/20/20 10:55am)
Students will now have access to free New York Times and Wall Street Journal subscriptions, the Student Government Association (SGA) announced in an email to the student body on Sunday evening.
The initiative to provide students access to the two subscriptions, spearheaded by SGA director of institutional affairs Miki Nakano ’20 and SGA treasurer Kenshin Cho ’20, has been in the works since October, Cho said.
SGA arranged the daily delivery of 60 print copies of the Times for several years, but eventually decided that the limited number of papers was not worth the cost — which would have been $27,394, plus a price increase, for annual campus-wide print and web access. In November 2018, the SGA stopped funding campus-wide online access to the Times, also for financial reasons.
The newest decision to provide the student body with online subscriptions to the two newspapers was informed by a survey conducted of other colleges by the library. The results indicated that most of the roughly 80 schools contacted had subscriptions to one or both of the publications, according to Cho. SGA also felt it was important to provide the subscriptions so that students could more easily stay informed about world events and complete assigned reading for classes without running into paywalls.
Cho was unable to share how much SGA is paying for either subscription, as both newspapers included non-disclosure agreements in their contracts with the college. Cho explained how this made the price-negotiation process challenging, as SGA could not legally compare what they were quoted with the prices paid by peer institutions. SGA will have the opportunity to renegotiate pricing at the end of the two-year Wall Street Journal contract and three-year New York Times contract.
The two subscriptions are for digital versions of newspapers, and do not include additional features like crosswords or New York Times Cooking.
“We don’t want to burden the entire student population with paying for the crosswords that some people want to do, whereas we could justify the cost of paying for the actual paper,” Cho said.
Cho explained that SGA opted to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal and the Times in particular because they hoped the two papers would provide different content. He noted that some believe the Wall Street Journal has better business coverage, and that the op-ed sections of the two papers together provide a broader spectrum of voices.
“If we want people to be educated about the world and we are not providing that resource, then I wonder if we are being true to our word,” Cho said.
(02/13/20 9:17pm)
The Panthers hosted the Conn College on Saturday, Feb. 1. Middlebury held a 16–8 advantage over the Camels during the first ten minutes of the game, thanks to impressive play from Reagan McDonald ’23 and Maya Davis ’20. During the second quarter, however, the Camels secured 18 out of the first 24 points, which brought the game to a stalemate 34–34 at half time. The two teams had intense exchanges during the third quarter, and Davis and Michaela Sullivan ’22 collaborated to score points. During the last quarter, with less than 7 minutes remaining, Middlebury was able to catch up to the Camels after seven straight points. Unfortunately, the Panthers could not turn the tide and lost the game 87–80.
Sullivan performed outstandingly in this game, scoring a career-high 25 points. In regards to the game, she said, “Losing to Connecticut wasn’t an easy pill to swallow. Despite the loss, we outscored them in the fourth quarter, which shows how unwilling we were to give up, and I’m really proud of the way we fought until the end. At the end of the day, it’s about working hard, becoming better basketball players, enjoying each other’s company, and having fun.”
On Feb. 6, Middlebury traveled to Massachusetts to compete against Emmanuel College. The Saints opened the game with a 6-point edge over the Panthers, and in 10 minutes, they had a 25–17 lead. Middlebury fought hard to come back during the second quarter. Claire Miller ’23 and McDonald shot impressive back-to-back threes, and two teams scored evenly during the second quarter. Regrettably, the Panthers had a tough time during the third quarter, even after incredible plays from Alana Kornaker ’22. With a mere 4 minutes remaining on the clock, Middlebury continued to work to shrink the difference, but lost to Emmanuel 82–89.
The Panthers had a bumpy start in their game against Wesleyan on Feb. 9, as the Cardinals led a steady 10-point advantage during the first quarter. Middlebury was able to reduce the point difference somewhat during the second stanza, but Wesleyan persisted in their attacks. Thankfully, McDonald was able to cut the disadvantage for Middlebury as she scored back-to-back. During the last quarter, the Panthers cut the deficit to 76–66 with a minute remaining. Betsy Knox ’20 tallied up six points, while Kira Waldman ’20 scored consecutive layups. The Cardinals overpowered the Panthers 84–70.
Recounting the week McDonald said, “Although the past few games have not gone on our way, we are remaining positive and keeping our team morale high. As a team, we are focusing on working together and celebrating both individual and team success.”
The Panthers will challenge the Jumbos at Tufts on Friday, Feb. 14.
(02/13/20 10:59am)
Editor’s note: These interviews have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
CAROLINE KAPP: Why did you attend the Iowa caucuses?
MAGGIE JOSEPH: I attended the Iowa caucuses to conduct research alongside Professor Dickinson in Political Science.
Abbott LaPrade: To actually caucus.
CK: What precinct(s) did you visit?
MJ: I visited Abbott’s precinct, Des Moines 59.
CK: Who won in the precinct where you attended? Were you surprised? Why or why not.
AL: Pete Buttigieg won the final alignment by a hair, by a few popular votes, but both he and Bernie [Sanders] got four delegates and [Elizabeth] Warren got three of the county or delegates of the 11 for my district. I didn’t think Bernie was going to do quite as well as he did. But no, we were always going to be a big Pete and Elizabeth hub.
CK: What is one word you would use to describe the feeling surrounding the process? Please explain.
MJ: It was a fun mix of excitement but also feeling really uncomfortable. I was so uncomfortable. I don’t think that the process of the Iowa caucuses is justifiable. When you think critically about who can be there and whose voice is represented and valued in the room.
AL: Community-building. I think it’s a really great opportunity to—I mean, it’s a bunch of your neighbors. So, I flew home for the caucuses and got to talk and hang out with all of my neighbors which was really cool. And you know, at the end of the day, it’s supposed to be this conversation, so it really is community oriented and focused on reaching a collective decision.
CK: Did speaking with caucus attendees give you any insights into issues that might become important in the upcoming election?
MJ: It depends on who you talk to. For example, Bernie supporters, and other progressive supporters, are often younger and they’re about issues like debt. They’re thinking about student debt, they’re thinking about the climate, they’re thinking about corruption. They’re thinking about electing a reconstructive president and talking about how things can’t keep going the way that they are going. How, America really needs as a candidate to take us in the other direction — and quickly — and that’s the big structural change argument. But for supporters of moderate candidates, it’s about electability — that’s what it all comes down to.
AL: I would say that, by and far, talking to both people in my precinct the night of the caucus — and then also when I was just home talking to friends — the biggest issue was: “How do we beat Donald Trump in 2016.” I think that there’s a lot of excitement about beating Donald Trump, there’s just not a lot of excitement about a particular candidate or a particular issue beyond that.
CK: What was it like to wait for results and not get them? Please describe the experience.
MJ: The media portrayed this chaos in Iowa, which was funny because it was so pleasant. That night we went to some victory parties, because those are fun, then we came home, and they were still not reporting. I thought, “that’s weird,” but then I thought back through, and it’s not surprising. The person who was running our caucus — I loved him — he was 80. This man was not logging into any app. They count by hand and you’re like, “Are you kidding me?” But then the New York Times and Associated Press are like, “Oh, we find inconsistencies in this in the report.” Yeah, no, duh. They’re doing this by hand like. It was really incompetency, more than any conspiracy I could see.
AL: I would actually say that, by and far, we’re actually run really, really well. The issue then came in the reporting and the votes, which was a gross miscalculation by the Democratic Party in Iowa. But I think that had it been 20–30 years ago, there would not be so much focus on the fact that there were not instantaneous results and in time for Jake Tapper bedtime. If it was a print media world, we wouldn’t even get results by the print deadline and you would have to wait either for a daily news or the next morning’s newspaper. I don’t think it was nearly as bad as the media made it out to be. The media just have nothing else to report on and they had hours of dead time to fill. So, they decided to rip on the Iowa caucuses, when in actuality, it was a really well run event. It was just not executed on the back end very well.
CK: Did this experience give you an insight into any strengths/flaws of the caucusing system? Do you think that it is a valuable system in our democracy?
MJ: Caucusing protects the status quo and it raises barriers to participation. If you enter the caucus at 7:02 p.m., you can’t go. What happens if the roads are bad, and there’s a snowstorm and you can’t afford snow tires or have a car? You can’t go if you have children at home, and you can’t bring them for whatever reason. Who has the privilege to attend a caucus? This experience made me think a lot about whose voice matters. I was able to observe the social dynamics of crowd managing and who was having various conversations. I saw who was using their social capital over someone else to convince them to join their party. The caucuses, to me, just felt like an old boys’ club, old white boys club all coming together. No individual is created equal, let’s not ignore social realities here. We are not in an equal playing field; we need to acknowledge this. Caucusing is built for a type of unity and equality that has either never existed in America, or that disappeared long ago.
AL: I’m a really big proponent of the caucus system. I think it really makes you think deeply about your choice and who you’re voting for. There is also this idea of the caucus being a conversation. When we went to the caucus, I caucused for Amy Klobuchar, and she wasn’t viable in the first round. So, a group of us talked about what the best strategy was going forward — what is our goal here tonight? I think that like a lot of people knock caucuses for not being open and accessible to everyone. So few people vote in primaries anyways. I would be curious to know what the primary percentage participation rate is in Alabama. The Democratic Party did a great job this year in making it more accessible and open than ever before — they had a bunch of satellite locations. My brothers goes to school in Connecticut and was able to go into New York and caucus remotely.
CK: What surprised you the most about the caucus?
MJ: I was surprised by how uncomfortable I felt in the caucus. I stepped into that room and realized how many people didn’t have the privilege to do so. I think the voter turnout rate is on par with 2016 — but it’s around 16% or something. Iowa is around 90% white and not a very racially diverse place. But I was still surprised — walking into the caucus of around 511 people, I saw fewer than 15 people of color in the room. The only people of color that were visible were often press. So, how can we consider this system to be representative of what Iowans want? But that being said, I found myself having moments of, “Wow, this is such a beautiful manifestation of democracy.” But, the other part of me was like, “What the hell?” This system, though it was instituted in the 1970s, reflects the idea of an America that has never existed. It was based on this conception of America, of 18th century America, in which equal, land-owning white men came into a room and picked a nominee. If that did exist at one time, it hasn’t existed for a long time.
AL: I don’t know if anything really surprised me, I was pretty well-educated and engaged and have been there before. I have also just been deeply ensconced in the system. I know the caucus program. I’ve worked in Iowa politics — it all makes a lot of sense to me, so I didn’t find any of it too terribly surprising.
(01/23/20 11:10am)
On Tuesday, Jan. 14, the Panthers and the Engineers fought an exciting and tightly-contested game. Middlebury led Worcester Polytechnic Institute with a 21–11 advantage with only a minute left on the clock in the first quarter. However, the Engineers showed no signs of backing down in the second and third quarters, the teams were neck and neck with Middlebury holding only a one point advantage in both quarters. Kamryn You Mak ’23 helped the Panthers gain a higher margin when she first defended a three and then connected from long range. As a walk-on athlete, You Mak felt welcomed by everyone on the team. “We played well together as a team — moving and sharing the ball, talking on defense, and helping each other out,” she said.
Middlebury’s record suffered a blow from a loss to Colby on Friday, Jan. 17. The game remained a tie during the first two quarters until the Mules topped the Panthers by one point heading into the last quarter. During the fourth quarter, the Mules stepped up and tallied 16 out of 18 of the first points of the period. Although Middlebury tried to come back, the Panthers ultimately fell 48–62. Betsy Knox ’20 broke the blocked shots record held by Catherine Harrison ’19 and became the school’s all-time leader with 109.
The Panthers were unable to bounce back from the loss as they also fell to Bowdoin the following day, Jan. 18. The team had a hard-fought battle with the second-ranked Polar Bears. Bowdoin had a six point advantage over Middlebury at the end of the first quarter, and its advantage grew larger as the second quarter was closed out with a score of 32–25. In the third quarter, Middlebury worked tirelessly to close the gap from 44–27 with five minutes left on the clock to 46–32. Unfortunately, Polar Bears eventually secured a 80–61 win over Middlebury. Maya Davis ’20 led the scoreboard with 21 points, followed by Kira Waldman ’20 with 13, Reagan McDonald ’23 with 11, and Knox who put up 10.
Middlebury will face Williams on the road on Saturday, Jan. 25, before returning home Friday, Jan. 31 to host Trinity.
(01/23/20 11:00am)
What has unfolded since the morning of January 3, 2020 has been incredibly difficult for me to unpack as an Iranian-born Canadian citizen and a U.S. permanent resident. To summarize the sequence of events, the United States, under President Donald Trump launched an airstrike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the Quds Force, sparking an escalation in tensions between the Iranian regime and the U.S.. Iran then launched over a dozen missiles to two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops. Four or so hours later, a Ukrainian passenger plane, UIA Flight 752, crashed in Tehran after take-off. After initially blaming the crash of engine failure, the Iranian government admitted to mistakenly launching a surface-to-air missile (some reports now say two missiles were launched).
To put it simply, the recent events involving the Iranian regime have been overwhelming. Although I am against escalating tensions in the Middle East, the narratives of Soleimani and the Iranian regime presented in western media, specifically concerning Soleimani’s popularity and the general opinion of the Iranian people, are entirely false. It is disheartening that world powers economically involved with Iran have turned a blind eye to the Iranian regime’s ongoing abuse of power and attempts to silence its opposition. The powerful individuals within the Iranian regime are not humans: they are monsters who must be held accountable for all the pain and suffering they have caused their innocent people and those affected by Soleimani’s actions outside of Iran.
I am adamantly against the current regime and its treatment of the Iranian people. My family would not have had to leave Iran if the regime allowed its citizens to practice their human rights. As my father likes to say, “there may be freedom of speech, but there is no freedom after speech.” The Islamic Republic of Iran consists of a broken government, economic disparity and minimal human rights, where the Ayatollahs and the rich become richer and the rest are left to suffer. I have always wished for the fall of this disgraceful regime, and hope the death of Qasem Soleimani could be the beginning of the end.
Soleimani, who dictated Iran’s foreign policy, was the second most powerful man in the country. He was personally sanctioned by the U.S., the European Union, and the United Nations, and the U.S. even deemed him a terrorist. Until his death, many of you may not have even heard his name. But to many Iranians, he was either seen as a “selfless hero” or a murderer. Soleimani’s minority of supporters was made up of regime sympathizers who favored expansionism and military interventionism in hopes of returning to the glory Iranians once enjoyed during the Persian Empire.
Under Soleimani’s leadership, the Quds Force has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan, as well as hundreds of U.S. soldiers in the region. The Islamic Republic’s financial and military support for its proxies and allies is alarming because it has placed greater importance on power over the condition of the Iranian people.
The Iranian regime declared the days that followed Soleimani’s death national days of mourning, closing businesses, workplaces and schools during that period. Protests erupted in some cities with Soleimani supporters chanting “death to America.” The Iran state media outlets released videos of the streets of major cities packed with black-clad mourners. The funeral procession for Soleimani eventually led to a stampede that killed 70 mourners and injured over 100 other people.
It is difficult to gauge the reactions of Iranians living in Iran because of the restrictions on communication within the country. A prominent tweet reposted by Shaun King, an outspoken civil rights advocate and journalist, claimed 82% of Iranians inside the country looked favorably upon Qasem Soleimani. This statistic originated from a 2019 study conducted by the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. This data was collected by interviewing 1,000 Iranians inside the country via phone interviews. The methodology of this study is problematic because it is a common belief in Iran that the government has all phones tapped, so how could Iranians comfortably express their true opinion over a presumably tapped phone?
A more credible study done in 2018 by the Group Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN) surveyed over 19,000 Iranians, 80% of whom lived inside Iran, through a secure online survey platform shared via social media networks. Only 0.2% of respondents said they would vote for Qasem Soleimani in a free election. While I understand that not all of Soleimani’s supporters would vote for him for president, these findings are an indicator of Soleimani’s perceived popularity among Iranians.
Prominent American news media outlets have brought on foreign policy experts and political analysts to weigh in on the escalating tensions with the Iranian regime, deafening the public to important matters at hand. Republicans have proudly supported the “accomplishment” of Trump in ordering the airstrike that killed a terrorist. Democrats have expressed their fears of what the regime and its allies may do, and have focused on how the crisis is Trump’s way of diverting attention from his impeachment.
Since the UIA Flight 752 crash, U.S. media coverage has diminished because the crisis no longer appeals to the U.S. public or the political agenda of U.S. politicians. But the crisis in Iran is not just a political matter: it is a matter of human rights and holding a corrupt regime accountable. These events remain relevant to millions of innocent Iranians who continue to live through the dire conditions, even if they’re not deemed important enough to be covered by U.S. media.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]U.S. media coverage has diminished because the crisis no longer appeals to the U.S. public or the political agenda of U.S. politicians.[/pullquote]
In a recent interview, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked whether she supported the protesters in Iran. She diminished the majority of protesters opposing the regime by focusing her response on protests involving Solemani’s supporters because they were “protesting against the U.S..” Pelosi’s disregard for the majority of Iranians is a representation of how the Iranian people have been treated by foreign governments, which have disregarded the regime’s oppression of the Iranian people’s rights.
The IRGC has a long history of hindering the Iranian people’s right to freely express their opinions: most recently, over 1,500 were killed during the November 2019 unrest protesting the exponential spike in fuel prices. Since the regime’s admission of guilt to their role in the UIA Flight 752 crash, thousands of protesters have flooded the streets of major Iranian cities, chanting “Shame on you” to the IRGC forces and calling for Ayatollah Khamenei to step down. The IRGC’s response? Firing tear gas and sometimes shooting and killing its own people.
Irrespective of international response, the Iranian government will continue to silence its own people with excessive force throughout these protests because this crisis has placed them in a vulnerable position. During these trying times of conflict, I ask you to go after the facts and to not be afraid to question what your favorite politicians may say. Evidence surrounding these events will continue to come out, and the Iranian people will continue to risk their lives by sharing damning evidence on social media platforms displaying the regime’s troubling actions in hopes of uncovering the truth that the regime frequently tries to hide from the world. Innocent Iranians have suffered far too long and deserve to be heard. The Iranian regime refuses to give a voice to the voiceless, so as a free society, we must hear those who are trying to speak up.
Niki Kowsar is a member of the Middlebury class of 2021.5
(01/12/20 3:16am)
A month after students protested for higher staff pay, the administration has raised its minimum entry-level wages for some staff positions in the lowest pay bands.
Effective December 30, 2019, the increases affect workers in about 80 existing benefits-eligible positions — jobs in which employees work at least half of a full-time work schedule — and raise the starting rates for numerous open positions, most of which fall in Facilities Services and Dining Services. Previously, staff in entry-level Operations Level 1 (OP1), 2 (OP2) and 3 (OP3) positions made $11, $12.07 and $15.22 an hour, respectively. The new minimums fall at $14, $15 and $16 an hour.
The Campus reported in a series of stories last October that insufficient wages were causing widespread discontent among staff in some of the lowest pay bands, spurring some facilities staff to consider unionizing and creating staff shortages in other areas.
Last month, hundreds of students protested in support of paying staff higher wages. In response, the administration reiterated that it would address such concerns with a compensation review meant to gather market data and make the college a more competitive employer.
That compensation review is slated to finish in late spring. But Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration David Provost said it was already apparent that the review would indicate an issue with entry-level positions. While Provost did not share how many OP1, OP2 and OP3 positions are currently vacant, The Campus previously reported that a large number of openings in certain departments have put significant strain on college staff.
Provost also said the administration thought raising wages now would send a strong message about the college’s priorities, one he feels has been reiterated by various groups across campus, from the student-led protest to conversations at faculty meetings.
“The messaging I was hearing from faculty, staff and students was that this is our top priority,” Provost said. While the college has known it would need to address low pay for a long time, the extensive support for higher wages allowed it to circumvent “a lengthy conversation about prioritization” and to commit those dollars now.
When asked where the college found the money for the wage increases, Provost chuckled. “I haven’t yet,” he said. But since the budget for fiscal year 2021 goes into effect this July, the college will only need to find extra funds to tide itself over for half the year. Any changes made following the spring compensation review will be factored into the new budget.
Provost explained that the college determined the amounts for the wage increases based on market data from comparable positions in the area. The college had originally only committed to reexamining OP1 and OP2 jobs, but included OP3 wages in its adjustment as pay increases excluding OP3 would have placed OP2 wages only 22 cents below OP3 rates.
Pay compression
Every staff member The Campus interviewed for this story said they were glad to see the college raise at least some wages earlier than expected, but many are concerned that those changes only impact employees in entry-level positions. The raises create an issue known as pay compression, in which more senior employees who have received incremental annual raises for years will not receive raises because their wages exceed the new minimums — sometimes only slightly.
Waste management/custodial employee Brenda Hansen has been working at the college since 2001. Over the last 19 years, her pay has increased to $15.78 an hour.
Hansen’s job is classified in the OP2 band, in which the new entry-level minimum rate is $15. She said she feels she has “fallen between the cracks,” and thinks the college should have refrained from increasing entry-level wages until it could increase wages for all employees in the affected pay bands.
“People are going to be starting in here making 78 cents less than what I have been making,” she said. “I’m dedicated employee. I’ve worked hard.”
When she inquired about pay compression in an email to the Office of Human Resources, Hansen was told the college is aware of the issue and will make decisions on the matter following the compensation review, in “several more months.” The email emphasized that the college had to focus its efforts on starting salaries first to “attract and retain” employees.
Provost told The Campus he thinks addressing compression pay will be an important next step for the college.
“The next couple months for the people in that compression area are going to be difficult,” Provost said. “I’m going to ask for their patience. And I hope that our ability to do this now shows that this is what we want to do.”
Atwater Dining cook Patti McCaffrey said the administration told staff at a meeting last fall that it would probably have to look at compression issues soon. She said Executive Director of Food Services Dan Detora also acknowledged pay compression would be a problem when he visited the dining halls the morning before the announcement about the wage increases was made.
Landscape worker Todd Weedman is somewhat optimistic that the college will address compression come spring.
“I think a lot of people are upset about compression, and I understand that and I get it,” Weedman said. “But I know they’re working on it. I’m willing to take them at their word for it and I think we will see something as we move forward.”
Others, frustrated by what they identify as repeated patterns of bad communication, are not confident the administration will raise their wages. One facilities employee, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, is concerned that the administration’s decision was just for show. He did not receive a wage increase because he was earning slightly above the increased minimum in his pay band.
“That email is all smoke and mirrors,” he said. “It’s a decoy. Because now students think the college followed through and everyone’s happy.”
Staff largely credit students for putting pressure on the administration to address wages. In multiple interviews, they repeatedly brought up how grateful they were for students’ displays of concern. One of the co-organizers of the December student-led protest, Celia Gottlieb ’21.5, said she does not feel the change adequately addresses underlying institutional issues.
“It is a shame that this issue has only seen progress after student involvement,” she said in an email to The Campus. “This is an issue staff members have raised for the past three years without making much headway.” Gottlieb and others said this is a start on a longer road toward better staff treatment.
Many workers, like Facilities Service Floater Isaac Larocque, say the change indicates more broadly how the college treats its long-term employees.
“Seniority doesn’t really mean anything,” he said. “How can somebody who’s been here 20 years, or 10 years, just be left in the dust?”
The Campus will continue following the story as the college moves forward with its compensation review.
Managing Editor James Finn '20.5 contributed reporting.
Editor’s note: The Campus has granted anonymity to a number of sources in a series of stories about staff pay and treatment. Granting anonymity is not a practice we take lightly, but we feel the sensitive nature of the subject matter and some employees’ fears for retaliation warrant anonymity in these cases.
(12/05/19 11:03am)
The college is offering a new health insurance plan option to employees that will take effect on January 1, 2020.
Employees had the chance to either enroll in this new option or stick with their old insurance plans during a two-week insurance enrollment period earlier this month. A total of 113 Middlebury and Monterey employees enrolled in the new plan.
The new plan — called the Panther Plan — is a high deductible health plan (HDHP), which means the plan costs less per month but has higher deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums. It also includes a health savings account (HSA), an untaxed pool of money to which the enrollee and school contribute that can be used to cover eligible health expenses. This sets it apart from the existing option, which the informational materials distributed to employees refer to as a preferred provider organization (PPO) plan. The PPO plan has a lower deductible and a higher monthly premium and does not include a health savings account.
Lower upfront costs, higher deductibles
The Panther Plan offers enrollees an in-network deductible of $2,000, nearly seven times the equivalent deductible for the PPO plan. A deductible is a set amount of money an enrollee must spend on their health expenses before their health insurance starts covering a percentage of those expenses. This means that individuals enrolled in the new plan would have to pay for up to $2,000 of their non-preventative medical care before the insurance plan would cover a portion of the remaining expenses.
For in-network preventative care like immunizations, on the other hand, insurers pay the entirety of costs regardless of the deductible because of a federal regulation under the Affordable Care Act. This provision did not change from the old plan to the new one.
The new plan also has much higher out-of-pocket maximums than the old plan. An out-of-pocket maximum is the total amount enrollees can cumulatively spend on all their health expenses within the year before insurers pay for 100% of the remaining covered expenses. The higher out-of-pocket maximums for the Panther Plan mean that enrollees will need to pay more of their medical expenses in a given year before the maximums kick in and they are insured for the rest of the year.
Cheryl Mullins, the college’s director of human resources, explained that the school added the Panther Plan in an effort to provide interested employees with more health insurance options.
“From the employer’s perspective, such plans are a little less expensive and tend to have lower increases over time,” she said. “We think the plan is a win-win for the college and certain employee demographics.”
The college also introduced the new Panther Plan in part because of the potential benefits of a health savings account.
“HDHPs with HSAs are really attractive to various employee subsets, in particular because of the triple tax savings available under the HSA,” Mullins said.
The school intends to contribute $1,000 to individual and $2,000 to family HSAs under the Panther Plan. For this past November enrollment cycle only, the school will incentivize employees to choose the new plan by contributing an additional $400 to individual HSAs and $600 to HSAs for employees covering themselves and one or more dependents. This sum, and any money enrolled employees choose to put into their accounts, is not taxed when it is deposited or withdrawn, and can be used to pay certain medical expenses tax-free.
“The new plan is certainly not for everyone, but for those individuals who are looking to maximize tax qualified savings it’s a great option,” Mullins said. “The plan is also great for employees who are relatively low utilizers of the health plan as they have the opportunity to amass a nice nest egg that can be used for medical expenses in the future, as needed.”
Overall cost remains a concern
However, other school employees expressed concern that the risks of a plan with a higher deductible might not be worth the lower premiums and potential tax benefits. Katie Gillespie, associate director for research compliance and member of the compensations and benefits committee of the staff council, decided to re-enroll in the school’s old PPO plan.
“I can see how the HDHP with HSA may provide cost savings for some, but it’s also kind of a gamble,” Gillespie said. “Of course we all hope to be healthy in the coming year, but if you end up having unforeseen medical expenses, you might end up paying more in the end.”
Gillespie also mentioned that a few people she had spoken to were worried the school might eventually take away the PPO plan option.
“While we don’t currently have an indication that will happen, changes in the name of cost savings can always put people a little on edge,” she said.
Randall Ganiban, a professor of classics, also opted to stick with the PPO plan. He explained that it appeared to him the new plan benefitted younger, single employees rather than families. He agreed with Gillespie that the PPO plan seemed worth the higher monthly premiums for many of the employees he spoke to.
“It seemed that most people I spoke to preferred the PPO plan,” Ganiban said. “Its coverage seemed to be broader and, even though the cost was a little bit higher, it seemed to offer more benefits in the long run.”
The school incentivized enrollment in the Panther Plan by making premiums, the charge for enrollment in a health insurance plan that participants incur every two weeks, more sensitive of employees’ different incomes. Panther Plan premiums, which are already lower than that of the PPO plan, will be based on a percent-of-income approach, while the PPO plan will continue using the tiered premium system the school has employed in the past. The tiered system places employees into groups based on $10,000 salary increments, and those in the same coverage category — for example, all those enrolled as families — have the same premium. This means that an employee making $20,000 and an employee making $29,000 pay the same premium, as long as they are both in the same coverage category.
As Mullins explained in a September email to her colleagues, this system is not always as sensitive as it needs to be.
“It does not respond automatically to pay variations — up or down,” she wrote. “And due to its tier basis, a small change in pay, from, say $39,000 to $40,000, will tip an employee into a new tier, which can result in a sizeable increase in employee contributions, rather than a small incremental change.”
The switch to a percent-of-income approach for the Panther Plan would therefore be a factor in deciding which plan to enroll in, as the new plan offers a mechanism for determining employee premium contribution more tailored to their specific income.
An employee’s decision to choose one plan or the other is also impacted by their tax bracket, given the potential tax benefits of the HSA, and the size of their household.
There are several other major differences between the two plans, including how they handle in- and out-of-network expenses, preventive and non-preventive care and copays.
For the PPO plan, the out-of-pocket maximums are the same for providers in- and out-of-network. However, the Panther Plan’s out-of-network maximums are double that of their in-network maximums, which would make seeing an out-of-network provider significantly more expensive. The two plans the school offers are through Cigna, a multinational health service corporation based in the U.S. and operating in more than 30 countries, according to the company’s website. In order to avoid the higher maximums for out-of-network care, Panther Plan enrollees would need to find health care providers exclusively within Cigna’s national network.
The old PPO plan pays for at least 80% of non-preventative costs both in- and out-of-network, and some types of covered care do not require that enrollees meet their deductible before insurance pays for them. The Panther Plan also pays for 80% of non-preventative in-network costs, but only 70% of both preventive and non-preventive out-of-network costs, and those enrolled must have met their deductible before receiving this coverage. Non-preventative medical procedures can include a large variety of care, with anything from allergy treatment and acupuncture to emergency care and organ transplants.
The old plan also has fixed copay amounts, with a $10 copay for generic brand drugs, $25 for preferred brand, and $40 for non-preferred brand. Panther Plan copays are a percentage of the cost of the drugs, with 10%, 30%, and 40% copays for generic, preferred brand and non-preferred brand respectively. This means that enrollees in the Panther Plan have to pay more in copays than enrollees in the PPO plan if the medication they are purchasing costs more than $100, but less if it is less than $100.
The Panther Plan provides school employees with lower premiums than the PPO plan and potential tax savings. During a healthy year, an enrollee might save on health insurance expenses and benefit from the health savings account, but during an unhealthy year, the higher deductible and out-of-pocket maximum could mean a greater financial burden.
“For some folks, myself included, paying a little extra in premiums is worth it for the peace of mind,” Gillespie said.
