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Small senior houses allotted to rising juniors in superblock process

Several members of the class of 2021 are outraged after discovering through word of mouth that this year’s superblock program granted Turner House and Homer Harris, typically reserved for rising seniors in the general housing draw, to rising juniors in early March. The college added these small houses to the superblock pool after the number of superblock applicant groups more than doubled between this year and last. The number jumped from six for the 2019–2020 cycle to 14 for 2020–2021, according to Assistant Director of Residence Life Kady Shea. The majority of applicants were rising juniors. Superblocks, which conventionally include large houses available to upperclassmen through an early application process, were originally listed this year as 48 South Street (KDR), Homestead House and 97 Adirondack View. Interested students were asked to apply for one of the three houses with a proposed theme and student roster. Some groups were thus surprised to receive emails requesting they cut down their groups to fit into Turner and Homer Harris, as well as Jewett House (formerly the Wellness House) after Homestead was removed from the process to serve as the new Wellness House location. “We wanted to honor the number of superblock applications we received, so we looked for other spaces on campus that could be used that wouldn’t have a broad impact on the larger community,” said Shea in an email to The Campus. “We were very intentional in trying to not use some of the most popular junior/senior housing. For example, we had specific requests for 107 Shannon Street and 248 College Street (Beach House) and felt that due to the popularity of those spaces, they will remain in the general room draw process.” These housing reconfigurations have yet to be communicated to students, and many rising seniors were confused and disheartened to hear of the changes through peers. While the Covid-19 crisis disrupted much of the overall housing process, superblock assignments and the off-campus lottery are among the earliest housing proceedings. Both were completed before Middlebury’s evacuation, barring seniors from the chance to apply to live off campus or join the superblock application process in the wake of this information. Henry Cronic ’21, who heard from a sophomore friend that they had been granted one of the senior houses for the 2020–2021 year, was initially in disbelief. “I told them that’s ridiculous,” said Cronic. “The school would never do that without telling everyone first.” Cronic was one of many seniors hoping to draw a high enough lottery number to live in either Turner or Homer Harris, which some consider to be among the best housing options on campus. Although both juniors and seniors are permitted to apply for superblocks, rising seniors jockeying for small houses were assured they needn’t apply. Throughout the process, the 2020–2021 superblock website read, “Small senior houses (e.g. 637 College Street, Turner House, Homer Harris House) are not available as superblocks.” This assurance was retroactively removed from the site once the houses had been filled. “For seniors to not even have a chance to ask for them is ridiculous, especially if they were following the rules and waiting to go for them,” Cronic said. “It’s extremely tone-deaf and they made the decision to not tell seniors about it.” The applicants themselves were similarly perplexed. Each group had entered the process with a roster of students equipped to fill a specific house, therefore requiring them to reconfigure post factum to fit the new options. One group that originally applied for 97 Adirondack View, which houses eight, was asked to cut three people from its initial application to fit into Homer Harris, which accommodates five. Another group that originally applied for Homestead, which houses 15, was also asked to cut three people to fit into Jewett, which sleeps 12. Per superblock tradition, each of the five superblock houses will be home to a specific interest presented by their respective groups during application. Jewett House will be dedicated to meditation and mindfulness; KDR will be committed to community engagement; Homer Harris will be focused on sustainable design; Turner will be centered around relationships, care and consent. 97 Adirondack View, formerly home to PALANA House before its move to Palmer in the last housing cycle, will become the International House and will serve as a workspace for the International Student Organization. According to Shea, the addition of Turner and Homer Harris was considered carefully. “I realize there may be some students who may be upset and confused about the use of Turner and Homer Harris as superblocks, but overall, a lot of intention and thought was put into these superblock applications” Shea said. “I feel confident in our decisions and I look forward to seeing how these groups build community on campus.” However, Elizabeth Callaway ’21 expressed similar frustration to Cronic. “They publish an official schedule and we wait patiently to comply while, unbeknownst to us, they are disregarding the process,” said Callaway. “Senior year is an irreplaceable opportunity to be with our friends after being scattered across the world during junior year and before dispersing across the country for jobs. The houses they gave away were some of the best opportunities for seniors to have that time together in a way that a lot of other options can’t provide.” In an email to all students on Thursday, Residence Life acknowledged that the housing process had been set back significantly but did not address the superblock draw nor offer a timeline for the remainder of the assignments. “Rest assured that we will be running Room Draw for the 20/21 academic year as soon as possible,” it read. Shea predicts that this process will not start back up again until May.

Will O'Neal '20 in Westford, Massachusetts

I do not like the town I’m from. Yesterday, I overheard a neighbor announce that he wasn’t selling off his stocks, because, and I quote, “I only invest in companies I believe in, like ExxonMobil.” I don’t know his name, because all of the neighbors I did know got divorced and moved away. My only plans for post-grad seemed attainable, if not specific: to never, ever, ever move back to Westford, Massachusetts. Well. Here I am. In the grand scheme of things, I am fine. I have a stable home and a loving family and good health. For me, in my position of privilege, this pandemic is more of an inconvenience than a life-shattering catastrophe. Still, during my morning pout, or my afternoon grumpies, or my evening sulk, or my bedtime brooding, it’s hard not to let things grow out of proportion. All I wanted from this life was to live somewhere interesting, where I didn’t have to define the word “queer,” where I could remake myself free from the religion of hyper-corporate normativity. (That place may exist nowhere, but that won’t stop me from looking.) But since I find myself here in Westford, and not cool queer dreamland, I have to make the best of it. I’ve tried some different coping strategies during this time of exceptional angst — saying I’ll bake bread, masturbating, not baking bread, masturbating again, and getting annoyed at my parents for no reason, to name a few — but one thing, more than most others, has helped me stay sane: birdwatching. Now I’m no expert birder. I can identify a few common bird calls, and a normal amount of birds by sight, but I’d never really tried to thoroughly learn the names and calls of all the birds around me. I can tell a robin’s chirp from a crow’s caw, but a dark-eyed junco from a song sparrow? I’m lucky if I can even call myself an amateur birdwatcher. So last week I went on to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s website and began to peruse their massive bird guide. I learned that there’s a difference between a swift and a swallow, that there are more warblers than I ever could have imagined, and that I only recognized a tiny fraction of North American birds. I decided to memorize the calls of every bird native to Massachusetts, but soon realized that that would be no easier achieved than reopening the U.S. economy on Easter. There are so many birds in Massachusetts, more than I ever could have imagined. This would be a long-term project, I realized; luckily for me, all I have is time. Out walking the other day, binoculars in hand, I heard three bird calls in a row that I couldn’t identify. The birds were too far away to see, or hiding among the branches, and I felt totally in over my head. In this dark night of the birder’s soul, I thought to myself: what’s the point of all this, beyond maybe distracting myself from the slow-motion global apocalypse? As a literature major, I love filling my head with interesting and impractical information, so learning about birds is perhaps not a surprising hobby. The less it prepares me for the corporate world, the better. But that’s not quite it. The last few weeks have shaken my already-fragile sense of direction, throwing me way off course; watching chickadees hop-chirp around in a thicket of young pines makes me feel grounded and purposeful, in a way that masturbating too much or not making bread never have. Something more than filling time and gray matter draws me to birdwatching. Nature writer Robin Wall Kimmerer says that modern American society is afflicted with a condition she dubs “species loneliness.” In this state of alienation, she says, “as our human dominance of the world has grown, we have become more isolated, more lonely when we can no longer call out to our neighbors.” She does not mean only ignorance of our human neighbors (though I am certainly guilty of that, too); there is another kind of loneliness, a quieter one, that stems from only knowing our human neighbors. When we don’t know the name of the bird at our window, is that any less awkward, less isolating, than not knowing the name of a neighbor? The very first thing that Adam does in the Bible, directly after God creates nature, is give names to the things around him: “to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field.” This is how we find a home within the place we live. Without names, the world around us is shapes, sounds, and smells. But when we name it — whether it’s the birds or the trees or the mountains — it becomes a word, and words are a part of us. If I don’t know the birds’ names, I’m as lost in the shallow woods of suburban Massachusetts as I am in the labyrinth streets of New York. Slowly but surely, I am learning who lives in the woods around me. When I go for a walk, I hear a red-bellied woodpecker and black-capped chickadees, where before I heard vague pretty bird songs. The world around me is falling apart, but I’m finding a home where my home has always been. Call it escapism, or call it embracing the world we live in. It’s both, and it’s helping me to stay sane. I still don’t know my new neighbors’ names. That’s my loss and I should probably change that (although I’ve never known a bird to invest in ExxonMobil). Besides, I won’t be stuck here forever … right? Submitted April 7, 2020.

Tenzin Dorjee '20 in New York, New York

With the future of the novel coronavirus unpredictable, it seems like everything has changed in a heartbeat. It was not long before Middlebury, like many other institutions across the country, announced its decision to hold remote classes and asked its students to leave campus. The unfolding of such news brought waves of chaotic emotions, stress and sorrow to the student body, especially the senior class. The depth of the current crisis is impacting various aspects of all our lives, but its punch hit the senior class differently. As seniors, we still had roughly two-and-a-half months of our last semester remaining before we lost it all. We lost late nights with our friends. We lost the chance to enjoy our last semester in VT. Above all, we lost the senior events we were all waiting to celebrate to cap off our academic successes from our four years. On top of this, some of us lost the opportunity to perform in our final show, whether that was with dance, a cappella or a theatre group. Others, including myself, missed out on our spring break training trip with our team and the spring athletic season. We lost a great deal of our time at Middlebury, cutting short the last chapter of our college year.  For us, this was truly a curveball. Only a few months ago, we started the fall semester and were thrilled about the upcoming year. I remember beginning my senior year with a bit of awe and a lot of mixed feelings. I was delighted it was my last year, yet devastated about the impending end. I was also amazed by how swiftly time flew and how my class had so quickly reached the final stretch of our college career.  The sudden turn of events threw many of us into mourning. It stripped us of our time together and left us feeling speechless. It seemed like no words could ever properly convey our heartaches and the lingering uncertainty about graduation. The icing to all this bitterness was the loss of any sense of closure. We did not have the chance to conclude our final chapter as we saw fit. Instead, everything abruptly came two months early: the tears, the move out and the goodbyes. We rushed to fill the fleeting moments, trying to squeeze everything the next two months would have held into just the couple of days we had left together. [pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]It is only a matter of time before this red light becomes green and the whirlwind will pass. [/pullquote] This loss will likely leave a gap and a lingering sense of absence in us. And frankly, it sucks. It sucks that our last few months of college got screwed up. I'm sorry to those who missed out on their final performance. I'm sorry to the athletes who lost their season and the opportunity to be with their team. I'm sorry to the seniors who've been working tirelessly on their thesis. This is all still surreal and I'm sorry it happened to us. Amidst all this despair though, I'm still hopeful about our class. I believe we can navigate through this ambiguous course. It certainly won't be easy, but we entered Middlebury during a tumultuous time and have weathered through it all these past three years. We've been resilient since our arrival and can continue to be as we move forward. Growing up, we learned about how the generations before us have witnessed similar troubling events. And like them, we are currently living through history, soon-to-be stories we speak of to future generations. It is only a matter of time before this red light becomes green and the whirlwind will pass.  However, for now, it seems the loss we encountered is still the source of our grieving. This is not to detract from the larger issue but only to acknowledge and reassure our feelings are valid. Each of us has had undoubtedly distinct experiences on campus, but there is comfort in knowing that such a mishap has served as a bonding moment for us. And so, although we were afforded less time together than we expected and are deeply saddened by that,  I would like us to think of one of my favorite quotes as we reflect on our time at Middlebury: "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." Thank you Midd! Submitted March 27, 2020.

Here-Being

German philosopher Martin Heidegger is famous for his theory of Dasein, or “There-Being.” For Heidegger, the temporary nature of things renders them meaningful. Thus, meaning in a person’s life comes from the acknowledgement that one cannot do everything before they die. One action or decision precludes others. Anyone who has walked into a bookshop and realized that they cannot read every book will understand this concept. Thus, we exist as Beings limited “There” to a particular stretch of space and time. Heidegger has been on my mind lately. I, like many others, recently faced several endings in quick succession. A few weeks ago, Phil, a friend and a man whom I very much admire, passed away. A few days later, I was abruptly told to leave the United Kingdom as my visiting student program was one of the first that Middlebury closed outside of China and Italy. In a sense, both events were long-expected. Over a series of months, I made myself at home in Oxford. My newly-found church family contributed immensely to this sense of belonging. I met with this close-knit group, of which Phil was a central member, numerous times a week for dinners, devotions and lots of coffee. The deeper I laid roots in Oxford, the more I anticipated the inevitable pain of leaving at the end of the year. I spent months looking for ways to extend my stay. When that looked unlikely, I looked for ways to return as soon as possible. By the time our program was cancelled, I had already come to terms with leaving in April. What was it to me, then, that this departure was suddenly a few weeks earlier? I first learned about Phil’s illness on my return from Christmas vacation. It wasn’t discussed at length but it hung over our morning coffees. When it was brought up, it was discussed with Phil’s usual sense of humour and reflection. One Sunday morning, he and his wife told us about the trials of finding a gravesite. They arrived at a cemetery and Phil introduces himself to the unsuspecting worker as “one of their future residents.” He was then asked, in all seriousness, whether he would like a gravesite with a view. When he wasn’t joking about his death, he took it calmly in stride. One morning as I was leaving coffee, he stopped me to thank me for recognizing his existence. That was so essentially Phil. He may have also been thinking about death à la Heidegger (he was a retired philosophy professor after all) or maybe he wasn’t. Phil could talk on a range of topics, from Nietzsche to limericks, but he was always principally concerned with making a human connection. The news of Phil’s death hit hard. The sense that time is fleeting was reinforced by the news of my peers’ and my own imminent departure later that week. Many of my peers, naturally, were crushed by the sudden dashing of their semester plans. People had postponed travel plans until the calmer, latter half of the semester. Our triumphal last week before break was filled instead with last-minute travel arrangements, rushed work that couldn’t be brought home and desperate attempts to sightsee. In the early afternoon of my last day in Oxford, I went to church for Phil’s funeral. Sitting in my pew among people I love, I was surprised to find how much of Phil’s life spoke to ways I had grown in the last several months. He was, in his own words, “a washed-up philosophy tutor” who had no qualms discussing Hegel with his plumber or Nietzsche at church dinners. He was a writer who regularly contributed to his newspaper. He was deeply religious and had even become, for a time, a Carmelite priest. Fundamentally, he was full of love for others. His personability mixed intimately with his religious and academic passions. Heidegger draws a distinction between one’s “ownmost death” and the death of others. In the experience of someone else’s death, one loses one relationship (to the deceased) whereas, in one’s own death, every relation to the external world dissolves. For Heidegger, one’s death is “ownmost” because it is the reference point which defines all of one’s Being. Another’s death is merely a reminder of one’s own, imminent death. In such moments, one feels “Anxiety,” a term Heidegger uses to denote the specific existential dread that comes from the anticipation of the end of one’s existence. If this is the case, then the Anxiety I felt at Phil’s passing was not what I would have expected. The drive to throw myself into Being could be described with the imperative “Carpe Diem.” Yet, the well-known formulations of “Carpe Diem,” “to suck out all the marrow of life,” or “that the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse” are now so often repeated they have become cliché. It is easy to forget that the things you do today, in the moment, will forever be part of your existence. In moments of Anxiety, one remembers that we only exist There, in a small stretch of space and time. “There” hardly seems an appropriate word in this time of self-isolation. At the moment, we all wish we could be “there” — or anywhere, really, but here. I have it easier than most; my self-isolation goals of reading and writing are encouraged rather than prevented by being stuck inside. Still, it seems to me that seizing one’s brief life is easier out there than it is in here. The phrase “Carpe Diem” is most often invoked when we are out in the world, with a myriad of possibilities before us. It becomes even more important at times when our possibilities are curtailed to what can be accomplished in living rooms while wearing pyjamas. It is much harder to suck the marrow out of life when we are forced inside, Here, away from each other and the world. At a time when nearly everything has been put on hold, it is so much more important not put our lives on hold as well. As I travelled back to the US, I thought about my classmates’ abroad experiences. Many of them had expected to travel in this latter portion of the term. Having been evacuated, their abroad memories won’t be nearly as full of travel as they may have expected. Instead, their memories will consist chiefly of day-to-day life, when we took time for granted. If that’s true of the unexpected ending to our semester abroad, how much more will that be true when the end of our lives come? Phil made me want to be something more than I am today. His death reminded me that that has to happen now. Our lives will only ever be what we can make of them today. Here and now. Ben Beese is a member of the class of 2021.5.

In game-time decision, college ski areas close early to maintain social distancing

The college’s ski areas at both the Snow Bowl and Rikert Nordic Center have cut their seasons short. Despite previous plans to stay open for the weekend of March 13, the ski areas had their last day of the season that Saturday — the day before Middlebury students were required to leave campus, and three weeks ahead of their planned closure date of Saturday, April 4. “Making this about community safety was easy with respect to deciding to close,” said Mike Hussey, general manager of Rikert and the Snow Bowl. “It absolutely made sense to all of us involved in the decision making process.” Closure discussions Hussey and his team began discussions about an early closure once they received word on Tuesday, March 10 that Middlebury was suspending in-person classes and sending students home. “On Wednesday the 11, I met with the team at the ski areas and determined that keeping the areas open would not further the cause of ‘social distancing,’” Hussey said. “The Base Lodge [at the Snow Bowl] is a melting pot of a vast cross section of people.” Hussey recommended to Middlebury’s Senior Leadership Group (SLG) that the ski areas close on Friday, March 13. “The decision was initially left to me then the SLG took it up,” Hussey said. After the college announced it was extending its deadline for departures and that Middlebury students were allowed to stay on campus through Sunday, March 15, the two parties agreed to keep the ski areas open through the weekend. Hussey said that the Middlebury ski areas, which publicly announced their closure plans on March 13, were some of the first ski areas in the country to do so. While Vermont has not issued a state order to shut down ski resorts, as was seen in Colorado, Vail Resorts (including Stowe and Okemo), Alterra Resorts (Sugarbush, Stratton) and Powdr Resorts all announced on March 14 that they would close immediately. As a result, the Snow Bowl became a popular backup option on Sunday to skiers who had been left stranded by the immediate closures at other mountains along the Route 100 valley. However, at 8:20 a.m. on Sunday, 10 minutes before the scheduled opening of the lifts, Hussey made the decision to close the mountain as the lodge was already in excess of a 250 person maximum set by the state government of Vermont. “This was initially a hard decision as it was a great opportunity for new customers to experience the Snow Bowl, something we strive for,” Hussey said, “but in reality it was easy because it wasn’t about the Snow Bowl or the skiing but the safety of the people.” Lost revenue and opportunity The need to shut down quickly — sometimes temporarily, sometimes indefinitely — in response to the virus has greatly affected local business across Addison County and Vermont. Hussey said he doesn’t have an estimate yet of lost revenue from the early closure of the ski areas, but did note that the end of March is not typically a highly profitable time. “The main revenue sources are season pass sales, the holidays, and [the college’s] Feb vacations,” said Hussey. “We missed a few weeks of weekend skiing, mostly for pass holders,  and a couple events.” Jack Brady ’21 was one of the many pass holders seeking to take advantage of the last weeks of the season. “I like to get out at least a couple of times a week through the end of March,” Brady said. “The conditions may not be as great towards the end of the season, especially with the amount of snowfall this year, but it is always fun to ski with friends.” Thanks to the decision to keep both campus and the ski areas open into the weekend, Brady was also one of many students able to take advantage of the Snow Bowl’s last days. “I was lucky enough to go to the Snow Bowl on Saturday, which ended up being closing day,” Brady said. “While many students had already left campus the prior day, I enjoyed this last opportunity to ski at the bowl.” Next steps Hussey and his team are still working hard to officially wrap up the ski areas for the season. “Currently, we are able to do the customary closure work for the ski areas as it is primarily independent work on the mountain and office work that can be done remotely,” Hussey said. He does not expect a major disruption in the work plan, with the early closure being close enough to their normal business cycle, but shares the uncertainty that most small business owners are facing amidst the crisis. “That said, we do not know what this pandemic will bring and are planning for how to work effectively in the next months.”

Onward: How The Campus is continuing its coverage

We had three Covid-19-related stories on the docket a week and a half ago. Now, it’s hard to think about — and report on — almost anything else. A lot has changed since then. We’ve since shared goodbyes, packed up our commons-office-provided boxes and dispersed around the world.  Some watched their friends leave, unable to return to their own homes themselves. Some of us worried about work-study; others grappled with food insecurity.  As the dust settles, so many questions linger: What will online classes look like?  What are the implications of the suspension for the town of Middlebury? Will the college provide its staff with financial security as operations come to a grinding halt? The Campus is committed to continuing our investigation into these questions — and the coverage of the diverse narratives of our greater Middlebury community.  Amid the ambiguity and uncertainty of current events, we want to provide a sense of clarity. And during a time when we are the furthest apart physically, we want to be a platform that helps Middlebury stay connected. What can you expect from us? The show must go on. The Campus will continue its coverage remotely, online. We will publish stories as they are ready this and next week, and will re-assume regular Thursday coverage on April 2, the first Thursday after spring break.  Our weekly newsletter will also highlight the key stories from the week, so don’t forget to sign up for it here. That newsletter will start back up on April 2 as well. We see ourselves as a forum to amplify voices that can no longer chat around dining hall tables, greet each other between classes and convene at local coffee shops and teahouses in town.  As we scatter geographically, we want to explore what remoteness means for the different members of our community. This is work we cannot do alone. Here are some ways to get involved: Help us with coverage: Let us know if you’re interested in joining our team of writers — no prior experience necessary and the commitment is flexible. Express your opinion: Tell us what you’re thinking by submitting an opinion piece or a letter to the editor. Keep us in the loop: Know something that’s going on or want us to explore a certain topic? Drop us a tip. Tell your story: We want to fill our (virtual) pages with stories from every corner of the now-dispersed Middlebury. Send us a short story about your experience, or email us if you’re interested in contributing regularly with tales from your living room couch, quarantined city or quiet dorm room. We will have prompts regularly for potential letters to the editor (200 words) and op-eds (800 words). This week’s prompt is about all the feels that came with last week’s announcement. Our mission is to serve our readers and to reflect the goings-on and spirit of the college in this extraordinary time, so please stay in touch. We are looking forward to seeing you engage with — and participate in — our coverage this semester.

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Senior Week in March: Covid-19 truncates seniors' final semester

Last Tuesday, a leaked email announcing Middlebury’s move to remote learning spread like wildfire across campus. Before most students could process the possibility of campus shutting down, a few seniors had already begun to organize an impromptu “senior week” of festivities to recognize this year’s graduating class — one that would take place in mid-March, instead of May. Within an hour, an event titled “SENIOR WEEK” had appeared on Facebook. “As responsible seniors, we have decided to take things into our own hands this week to ensure that we fulfill our seniorly duties before departing from Middlebury,” read the Facebook event’s description, penned by Tatum Braun ’20. Close to 500 Middlebury students — with nearly 600 seniors in the Class of 2020 — eventually joined the private event on Facebook. She had no idea it would get so big. “At that point, I just knew I wanted to make the last few days on campus count,” Braun said, “especially since most of my friends are not returning to Middlebury in the fall.” Within the first six hours after the event’s creation, 20 students had posted suggestions of events and places for the senior class to get together. One of the first posts pointed out that Two Brothers, a local tavern and bar, opened at 3 p.m., suggesting seniors meet there. By 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday, the now-ubiquitous “2019.75” graduation year was used as a hashtag on the event page for the first time. Senior events initially proved difficult to organize. Emotions and logistics collided with anxiety over the abrupt end of the semester. Yet by Wednesday, there were final a cappella concerts and seniors posting “crush lists” on the bulletin board outside Proctor dining hall. Traditions coalesced in their time-honored Senior Week form. The day of the announcement, Evolution Dance Crew was slated to have a tech rehearsal for its upcoming show. Instead, members gathered to talk through the emotional tumult that accompanied the decision. Someone at the meeting suggested finding an alternative way to showcase all the work the group had been putting in since the first week of J-Term. The result? A Thursday flash mob on Proctor Terrace. “We didn’t really do much advertising — it was mostly word of mouth between friends — and we chose a time where Proctor is usually full so people walking by would see it,” said Evolution Co-President Abla Laallam ’20. Laallam is one of the eight seniors in Evolution. “The word of the week was ‘processing,’” said Jack Litowitz ’20, a senior and the treasurer of the Senior Committee. “It’s hard to even feel sad or happy when you’re in shock. But despite that, we filled the week.” On Saturday morning, many seniors trekked to the football field to watch the sunrise — a time-honored Senior Week tradition. They held a flag that bore “2019.75” for photos. In hindsight, some seniors fear that the turbulent week — filled with “high highs and low lows,” according to Litowitz — may have flouted the CDC’s recommendations of avoiding large gatherings. "I am a bit regretful looking back for starting a group that seemed to encourage drinking during days when Covid-19 was already significant,” Braun said. “But I had no idea the group would become so big, and I just wanted to make the final days at Midd as positive as possible.” Student festivities may have been partially responsible for vandalism that occurred on and off campus toward the end of last week. Some of the destruction occurred at Two Brothers Thursday “College Night,” which is typically made up of majority seniors.  Although the college has promised to re-evaluate the public health crisis in early April, many seniors fear they will not return this spring. Yet members of the Senior Committee — the eight seniors and two administrators responsible for events during students’ final year at Middlebury — remain optimistic. “Seeing so many schools out-right cancel graduation is making me grateful for Middlebury,” Julia Sinton ’20.5, one of the Committee members, said. “We’re not a 30,000-person state school. That makes it possible to be a little more flexible in last-minute planning.” As of now, all of the college’s reservations, catering bookings, and plans for Senior Week remain intact. It is also possible that the originally planned week, slated for May 19–24, could be postponed. But members of the committee are also aware of how the situation is “in flux.” Until the Senior Committee receives the official word from President Laurie Patton that commencement cannot take place due to Covid-19, its members will continue to plan. “For now, it’s business as usual,” Litowitz said. It’s difficult to imagine a postponed celebration topping the collective spirit and ingenuity that characterized this month’s improvised iteration. Seniors seized the fleeting week to celebrate the end of their truncated college career — all 3.75 years of it. “The whole week was marked by an unbelievable coming together of students,” Litowitz said. “Not once was there an event this week where there was a guest list.”

'SEVEN' celebrates stories of women changemakers

Imagine feeling silenced, voiceless. Imagine feeling as though even if you were to speak, no one would care to hear what you had to say, much less act on it, no matter the importance of your words.  In the documentary play “SEVEN,” L.A. Theatre Works explores the true stories of seven women who found their voices by standing up for the rights of women, children and families all over the world. Despite the efforts of their peers to silence them, they persisted and overcame culturally- induced adversities to protect the well-being of those around them. By speaking out, they ultimately changed their lives and the lives of those around them for the better. L.A. Theatre Works, a not-for-profit American media arts organization, was founded in Los Angeles in 1984. As the foremost radio theatre company in the United States for over thirty years, the organization works tirelessly to create both classic and contemporary plays that are immersive, educational and imaginative. SEVEN checks each of these boxes and more. Through a magnificent mirage of stories, switching back and forth between tales across the globe, the audience peers into the lives of women who risked life-threatening obstacles to improve the lives of women in their respective corners of the earth. Their bravery and empathy shines through the excellence of the talented actresses: Jennifer Shelton, Tess Lina, Maritxell Carrero, Ellis Greer, Laila Ayad, Shannon Holt and Lovlee Carroll, and through the words of seven award-winning playwrights. Associate Professor of Theatre Cláudio Medeiros commented on the play’s powerful stories and impressive acting. “Laila Ayad (Farida Azizi / Afghanistan) and Lovlee Carroll (Mukhtar Mai / Pakistan) were particularly effective in a format that for the most part keeps the actor aware that she is a narrator as well, and focuses ‘living the role’ on the voice and its ability to express a range of emotions, from pain or grief to joy and strength,” he said. “I think we made a very good choice with SEVEN. I am delighted that my students could see it, from a human perspective and as student actors.” From the opening moments of the play, the audience is entranced by the simple stage set-up: seven microphones, all facing front, a simple projection backdrop and a telephone. Each woman stood motionless at a microphone, waiting for her turn to speak. And the play came to life. The audience is transported to Russia by Marina Pisklakova-Parker, where women victims of domestic violence were shockingly common, and then to Cambodia by Mu Sochua, where young girls were often victims of human trafficking. We travel with Farida Azizi to Afghanistan to empower rural women and with Muhtar Mai and Hafsat Abiola-Costella to Nigeria and Pakistan to fight for women’s right to education. Inez McCormack tells the story of promoting peace and equality in Northern Ireland and, finally, Anabella de León shows us how, as a young woman from Guatemala, it is possible for women to accomplish great feats such as becoming entrepreneurial leaders and running for political office. Asked about the aspect of SEVEN that felt most meaningful, audience member and prospective theatre student Marijke Stiffler ’23 noted the “overarching theme of women supporting women.” “Too often in the media do we see women attacking each other, like Wendy Williams going after Ashley Graham for changing her son’s diaper in a Staples or Fox News correspondents ripping apart sexual assault survivors,” Stiffler said. “The fact that all of the stories were interconnected in some fashion emphasized the push for unity as it showed me that we have more in common with each other than is easily visible; moreover, it showed that nothing negative will come from unconditionally supporting the women around you through their struggles, as they will more likely than not turn around and support you in return.” In light of SEVEN, how can we, members of the college community, mobilize in support of human rights? Maybe it is as simple as finding a way to tune in to the silence, the smaller communities where the voices have been repressed and can no longer be heard. By listening, we can become better advocates for the rights of those in need, inspiring a new global movement of change-makers: us. 

Frances VanderMeer: Leaving a wake at all levels of competition

Senior Frances VanderMeer has had a collegiate athletic career many would dream of.  A captain of the women’s swim team, she has earned All-NESCAC praise, attended NCAAs three out of her four years here and broken her own school record. For VanderMeer, though, swimming is about so much more than an impressive list of accolades.  “I don’t think any of this would have been possible without the team that I have,” said VanderMeer. “It’s great to break your own records and go to NCAAs, but if you don’t have a team behind you, it doesn’t mean nearly as much” VanderMeer has been swimming for as long as she can remember. Her mom rowed at Cornell and her dad was a member of the surf team at the University of California, Santa Barbara —  swimming was a skill they wanted their children to learn as early as possible. VanderMeer joined her first competitive swim team at age seven. But her high school — Notre Dame High School in Elmira, New York — did not have a swim team when VanderMeer began attending (she played tennis instead). The summer before her sophomore year, VanderMeer, her parents and another family worked to create a swim team, which started out as a mere squad of five. Because that team was so small, Middlebury has been her most authentic team experience. She did not always plan to swim in college; during her sophomore year of high school, her parents, both being college athletes, encouraged her to pursue collegiate swimming. VanderMeer was unsure, as she had not yet experienced the bond of being on a team and wondered if swimming in college was something she wanted. Her parents knew from experience, however, how different swimming for a college team would be than VanderMeer’s club and high school experiences.  She expresses her gratitude for having decided to swim in college. “All of those people who were there [my freshman year] and all the people who are here now and everyone in between has made this sport absolutely incredible,” said VanderMeer. “The support that we have for each other as a team, that is what has made this special, and that has been the best part of all of it.” Being able to experience the dynamics of being a part of a close, supportive team has been more meaningful to Vandermeer than her accomplishments in the pool.  Her numerous accolades, however, cannot go unnoticed; she will be attending her third NCAA Division III Championship this year from March 18 to March 21. She earned a qualifying 50-yard freestyle time of 23.60 in the NESCAC tournament, which was her second-straight conference title in the event. She also earned her third straight All-NESCAC honors in the 50-yard backstroke, while simultaneously breaking her own school record in the event with a time of 25.69. Senior teammate Hannah Kredich ’20 spoke about Frances’s strong work ethic. “Even when she went abroad to Bordeaux the fall of her junior year and did not have the opportunity to train as much as she would have at Middlebury, she came back even more determined to improve and work hard, and because of that fire I don’t think it is a coincidence that that was the first year she got an individual title,” said Kredich. Coach Bob Rueppel is excited to watch Frances compete in her final NCAA championship, “Our goal is to achieve what she has never done before so I am very excited to see her perform,” said Rueppel. “I am confident she will have a great week at NCAA’s.” Though Frances is preparing for the competitive race, she stresses that her goal “has never been to get to the [nationals] meet. [My] primary goal was to have fun with it and see where that took me and funny enough, when that’s your goal and you don’t put pressure on yourself, good things tend to happen.” VanderMeer’s composed demeanor carries into her leadership position as a captain of the team. “She has an amazing presence on deck at meets and is someone that, even when she has not had a good swim, will be the first to get right back behind the lanes to cheer for her teammates and to offer words of support and encouragement to anyone who needs it,” said Kredich.  Coach Rueppel also commented on VanderMeer’s leadership skills “Her impact on the group has been incredible,” said Rueppel. “My hope is that her legacy will continue after she graduates.” VanderMeer is an International Politics and Economics major, as well as a member of the Middlebury Consulting Group and the Academic Judicial Board. She will be moving to Washington, D.C. this summer to work at Accenture Federal Services, a consulting firm with a focus on the federal government. In terms of swimming, VanderMeer plans to take a break from the pool for a little while. Without her teammates, swimming would be different. She can see herself coaching in the future, but in the short-term, VanderMeer plans to play more tennis. Swimming will always be important to VanderMeer’s life, though.  “This sport has taught me so much in terms of work ethic, teamwork, getting along with other people, and leading a large group of people, and those lessons will be with me forever,” said VanderMeer. “And in that way, I guess swimming will always be a part of me and what I do.”

Re “Coronavirus in N.Y.: Manhattan Woman Is First Confirmed Case in State”

The following was submitted to the NYT as a Letter to the Editor.  To the Editor: Words cannot express the disappointment I felt when I saw that The Times chose to feature an image of Chinatown in Flushing, New York alongside its breaking story about a Manhattan woman who contracted the coronavirus after returning from Iran. There is no connection between Chinatown and Manhattan — nor Iran — except for the fact that the first case of the coronavirus appeared in China and the emergence of an accepted narrative that the carriers of the virus are Asians. For many Asians and Asian-Americans such as myself, The Times represented a platform that told our story — one that is nuanced, complex and above all, human. We had confidence in The Times that it would do its due diligence to look beyond the black and white to find the gray, to tell our story accurately, and to do so without bias. That trust has been violated.  The Times commands the attention of hundreds and thousands of eyes, wielding a powerful force — one that can be used to dispel racist and xenophobic agendas or permit, enable, and endorse them.  Whether intentionally or not, the Times has dehumanized a community in its weakest moments, feeding into toxic, misleading, and fantastically inaccurate narratives that enable and justify racism and xenophobia. If The Times is true to its mission to “seek the truth and help people understand the world,” then it must seek truth by looking behind the curtain of its own biases and evaluate whose world it is helping whom understand. Bochu Ding ’21 is a Managing Editor for The Campus.

40th on 100th: David Finckel and Wu Han grace Robinson Hall once again

Amid fireworks and other fanfare on the eve of Winter Carnival, David Finckel and Wu Han, a cellist-pianist couple currently residing in New York, delivered the 10th performance of the Performing Arts Series’ 100th season.  Finckel and Wu’s performance legacy at the college is extensive; Finckel first performed at Middlebury as a part of the Emerson String Quartet in 1981, and returned with Wu in 1984, marking their college debut as a couple. Their performance on Friday, Feb. 28, was Finckel’s 40th appearance on a Middlebury stage.  Friday’s program spanned different musical periods. The concert began with Beethoven’s Sonata no. 3 in A Major for Cello and Piano, op. 69 — a piece that Wu later discussed in-depth, acknowledging the equality between the cello and piano in its composition. Transitioning to the 20th century, the second selection of the night was another sonata: Claude Debussy’s Sonata for Cello and Piano. The chase-like quality of the second movement stood in stark contrast to the first “Prologue” movement. The couple’s onstage awareness of one another and emotive playing highlighted the dynamacy of sound in the piece. The final piece before intermission was composed by Pierre Jalbert, a contemporary composer based in Houston. The college commissioned Jalbert for this special performance to honor both the Performing Arts Series centennial and the talents of Finckel and Wu. Friday marked the world premier of this piece of music. An 18-minute composition, “Ephemeral Objects” consisted of seven movements, each expressing and exploring a different aspect of musical language and history. The result was effective and successful as it rendered introspective juxtapositions. The movements may also be performed individually.  Following intermission, Finckel and Wu performed works by Mendelssohn and Chopin. Though the two composers were contemporaries, the evening selections elicited very different emotions as Mendelssohn’s “Lied ohne Worte” (Song without words) was poetic and fluid; while Chopin’s Sonata in G Minor for Cello and Piano had more dramatic undertones.  Robison Concert Hall’s excellent acoustics and intimate design, coupled with Finckel and Wu’s onstage chemistry, created an audience-wide sense of awe as the notes of each of the five selections pierced and soared with the control of the performers. Met with a standing ovation, the couple returned to the Robison Concert Hall stage for a short encore before joining patrons at the post-concert reception.

'Lost Luxuries: Ancient Chinese Gold' now on exhibit

If the two thumb-size polyhedral gold beads didn’t have an accompanying museum tag explaining their origin, many would not recognize them as Han dynasty (25-220 CE) adornments from China. Indeed, when most people think of Chinese antiques, their minds go immediately to beautiful Qinghua porcelain. Little attention has been paid to Chinese gold — until now. Curated by Assistant Professor of History of Art & Architecture Sarah Laursen and now on exhibit at the Museum of Art, “Lost Luxuries: Ancient Chinese Gold” is an attempt to showcase these ancient Chinese gold artifacts. Laursen became fascinated with Chinese gold when she was completing her dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania, where she worked with ancient Chinese gold artifacts from Liaoning, a province in northeast China. After completing her doctorate, she broadened her research to look at Chinese gold across the country as new archeological sites emerged. That’s when she met conservator Donna Strahan, with whom she explored the technology behind the Chinese Gold Cicada Plaque, named after its shape.  The Cicada plaque inspired more curiosity in other potentially forgotten gold objects that American museums have in their collections. “There was so much [information on Chinese gold artifacts] in the US collection that nobody knew that was there,” said Laursen. In order to meet international standards, all antiquities purchased by the museum must have left the country of origin before 1970. To learn where qualified antiques are located today, she and her students went through domestic historical records, including the study of 20,000 records of the Caro Archive at Institute of Fine Arts of New York University. Laursen was surprised by some of her findings. “I found out that the person behind that the single largest collection [of Chinese gold] in the United States was really a woman who never gets any credit,” she said. “She was referred to as Mrs. Charles Stinson instead of her actual name, which was Helen Pendelton Winston. That is tragic to me.”  Ms. Stinson donated numerous gold objects to the Minneapolis Institute of Art after the passing of her husband, who was a Minneapolis native and traveled extensively in Europe. After preparatory work, Laursen visited the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Arts, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017 to look at objects in person. Many objects of this exhibit, such as a Zhou dynasty necklace, a Han dynasty gold box, a Sui/Tang dynasty Buddhist sutras and a Tang dynasty Rosette, are on loan from these respective museums.  When Laursen thought she had a full checklist for the exhibition, unexpected news struck: Christie’s would hold an auction titled “Masterpieces of Early Chinese Gold and Silver” in September 2019. After viewing its catalogue, she was immediately drawn to two polyhedral gold beads, originally from Dr. Johan Carl Kempe’s collection in Sweden. “I would do anything to have those,” she recalled herself thinking. True to her words, the museum had the winning bid on a Xianbei gold plaque and two polyhedral gold beads from the auction. The museum did not disclose the objects’ price to The Campus, but according to Christie’s public records, the museum paid $37,500 for the plaque and $60,000 for the beads.  The exhibition not only highlights the beauty of the showcased objects, but also zeroes in on goldsmith techniques and recent archaeological discoveries to create a comprehensive learning experience for its visitors with different technologies such as Esri StoryMaps and a Holosonics Audio Spotlight. The use of technology in exhibitions stemmed from 2020 Vision: Seeing the World Through Technology, an initiative under Andrea Rosen, curator of the Fleming Museum of Art in 2016. Laursen explained that the curators decided on the strategy because technology can be adapted to fit a variety of museum types, science institutes, history museums, art galleries and many more. The curation of the exhibition has been extremely gratifying, according to Laursen. She said that this exhibition, in addition to raising public awareness, also sparked other museum curators’ interest in Chinese gold.   “The most rewarding is knowing that I’ve changed the fate of those objects,” she said.  “Lost Luxuries: Ancient Chinese Gold” will remain on display at the Middlebury College Museum of Art until April 19. 

Count committee to aid Census Bureau for county-wide enumeration

The Campus reported last week that the college was collaborating with a local committee to ensure a complete headcount for the 2020 Census. The Middlebury/Addison Complete Count Committee, established last spring to directly aid the U.S. Census Bureau, is conducting similar efforts across all of Addison County. Dana Hart, director at the Ilsley Public Library and representative on the committee, said that the committee has been meeting monthly with a Census Bureau representative. “[The group] is sort of organized into subgroups, so we’ve all been working within our own sector to reach out to people and educate them about the census,” Hart said. “We’ve sort of taken a divide and conquer approach and then we get back together, report what we’ve been doing and brainstorm.” Vermont also has a Complete Count Committee that focuses on state-wide outreach to complete the census count. The Census Bureau usually starts counting rural populations in Alaska at the end of January. By mid-March of the census year, most U.S. households will have received invitations to participate in the census, with information on how to do so. Each household completes one form, which includes questions about all individuals who live in the house, on April 1, Census Day. In April, trained census enumerators perform quality check interviews and — from May to July — visit houses that have not yet responded to perform in person interviews to finalize the count. There are other processes in place for people living in U.S. territories, group quarters such as colleges and military barracks, and people living in transitory housing such as RV parks and hotels. All staff at the Ilsley Public Library have attended census trainings, equipping them with the tools to respond to common questions from library visitors. The library will also have a computer reserved in the computer lab this month for people to fill out the questionnaire — the census is being offered online for the first time this year. Social service organizations in the area are also coordinating to diffuse helpful info. The Counseling Services of Addison County has worked with partners including Charter House and the Addison County Community Trust to provide support in the process. “I’m reaching out to agencies who are involved with housing […] just trying to spread the word so people see information about the census and have lots of possibilities to complete the census or get help if they need to,” said Ingrid Pixley, the housing coordinator for Counseling Services of Addison County and a representative on the Complete Count Committee. She said she sometimes finds participants mistakenly think they must share a great deal of information about themselves on the census, in part due to the thickness of the paperwork. Distrust of the government also poses challenges to census enumeration. “It can be difficult to persuade individuals to participate in a count of the population and to offer up information about their homes and family members if they feel suspicious about how that information could be used,” said Chris English, the assistant town manager of Middlebury and chair of the Middlebury/Addison Complete Count Committee. “By law, the Commerce Department cannot share census data with any other government agency, but mistrust can be a significant barrier to getting an accurate count.” English mentioned that the U.S. Census Bureau has built safeguards to protect the collection process, storage of and the ability to access census data.  The government uses census data at a macro level to determine where to direct federal funding resources. The library receives federal funding based on census data through the Vermont Department of Libraries, according to Hart. Other government initiatives, including Medicare, infrastructure spending, housing assistance programs, Pell Grants, the National School Lunch Program and dozens of others use census data to allocate funds. “The census is an important, mandatory questionnaire that all Vermonters should feel safe filling out. Their data is protected and kept private,” Hart said. “Anyone who has questions can certainly stop by the library.”

Notes from the desk: engagement is a two-way street

Oh boy. Where to begin.  It only takes a minute on Twitter to read that a liberal arts education is too coddling — that it shields students from the real world, and places feeling over fact. We need Charles Murray to bring us the uncomfortable truth and hard statistical analysis. Right? I’m not sure what classes the people making these claims have attended. Whether it be in Russian classes or with other political science majors, I find myself in uncomfortable discussions day after day. (In part this is because one big source of discomfort currently resides in the White House, which, even as an international student, I’ve heard is sort of a big deal). In my three short semesters at Middlebury, I’ve been anything but coddled; I’ve patiently read borderline dehumanizing arguments against reproductive rights, I’ve watched documentaries about exploited migrant workers and read Frederick Douglass’ “Narrative of the Life of a Slave” until I had to take a break because I felt physically ill.  I vividly remember going to class after reading Douglass. Instead of praising its progressive outlook, my professor grumbled at length against the editor’s suggestion that a female slave’s escape would probably have looked very different — that Douglass’ tale was, in essence, a masculine one. A reasonable inference on the editor’s part, I thought, given that Douglass was only able to flee the plantation after physically fighting his slave owner. Besides, didn’t Toni Morrison echo this in “Beloved”?  My professor scoffed that one could find feminist theory in any work if one wanted to — and with that, the conversation was over before it even started. Anyone who thinks I’ve avoided uncomfortable conversations wasn’t in that classroom.  The discussions around Charles Murray’s third (yes, third) invitation to Middlebury have, in many ways, been a heightened, fever dream version of those I have had in some of my classes. Like with the aforementioned professor, it feels like talking to a wall, except in this wall there is an elephant-shaped speaker that blasts the words “free speech” and “free academic inquiry” at you at regular intervals.  I don’t take issue with either of these things per se. Having attended German schools for half my life, I know how vitally important it was for myself and my classmates to study the atrocities of the Holocaust in an uncensored manner, even as we grew older and grappled with the difficult views of Holocaust deniers. Those classes were somber. I don’t take that as a sign that we weren’t ready to engage, but that everyone in the room understood the weight of the subject at hand.  I’m not sure the same can be said about the conversations surrounding Charles Murray. What’s more, those conversations do not feel like dialogues at all. As a board, we editorialized on the topic of transparency versus clarity, noting that the co-presidents of the College Republicans had not succeeded at providing either. By refusing to meet with The Campus in person, they have effectively put themselves above the kind of “diligent and respectful” engagement they themselves implored the community to participate in.  When it comes to articulating these nonsensical, one-sided demands about engagement, Parul Sehgal’s review of “Human Diversity” for The New York Times hits the nail on the head. As she notes, the very first page of Murray’s latest work bluntly states that if you believe in the constructedness of gender, race and class, you “won’t get past the first few pages before you can’t stand it anymore.” Read further into Murray’s work, and we find what Sehgal identifies as the book’s most revelatory line: “Now that we’re alone..." “Now that we’re alone. This book is for the believers. Rigorous readers, skeptics, the unindoctrinated — you won’t be persuaded by “Human Diversity,” but why should that matter? You’re not even invited,” Sehgal writes in her review. “How’s that for a safe space. How’s that for an orthodoxy.” Engagement is a two way street. There is an important and marked difference between discussing “unpopular opinions” (the sanitary way to say “unapologetic bigotry”) in the context of genuine academic discussion and giving them a literal, raised platform as will be the case with Murray’s upcoming lecture.  I suppose my question is, what is enough “engagement” for the organizers of this event and what form do they want it to take? Is engagement not the myriad of op-eds published in this paper? Is it not projects like the Middlebury College Disorientation Guide and go/charleswho that keep alive the institutional memory of March 2017? Is it not the nuanced reviews of writers like Sehgal, who read his work in full and could point to its obvious shortcomings? It seems not, and perhaps that’s the point. There is an implicit demand on the part of Murray’s proponents to have those he writes about confront him in person. For the bodies that his work looks down on to be physically present at his lecture, when it is clear from Murray’s own writing that he is not interested in “engagement” at all.  Elsa Korpi ’22 is an arts & academics editor.

MiddKid Mega Project offers $100,000 in grants for students

The Student Government Association Finance Committee is dedicating $100,000 of budget surpluses to fund student-run projects through the MiddKid Mega Project. The committee is accepting applications on a rolling basis until March 20, or whenever money runs out. Project proposals can include events, experiences or other investments to enrich student-life on campus and will be carried out this spring and next fall.  Kenshin Cho ’20, chair of the finance committee, explained that this initiative is a one-time competition to incentivize creative ideas and expedite the process of funding them.  The Finance Committee identified the $100,000 surplus in the student activities budget in its mid-year report. The student activities fee this year was $426 as included in the tuition, an $8 increase from last year. The Finance Committee allocates this fee, a cumulative $1,080,000, to student organizations and other events.  The Finance Committee attributes this surplus to both the $8 increase and an abnormally high rate of student organizations returning allocated funds. They attribute this increased return rate to confusion generated by the college’s switch to a new finance system, Oracle — clubs spent less money because they did not understand how the system worked and were cautious about overspending. Cho and the Finance Committee wanted to spend the money deliberately, so they turned to the community for ideas. The committee determined that it is best to spend the money this year because it is a portion of tuition paid by current students, Cho explained. Cho is aware that funding can be complicated, but he hopes that this project will allow students to start projects while avoiding many of the complex obstacles that frequently accompany funding.  “We don’t want student organizations to make decisions based on how much money they get, and instead start making decisions based on what they want to do and ask for money afterwards,” said Cho. “We are thinking about ways to open up funding to individuals and organizations, particularly without the commons system, because that’s where a lot of individuals used to go to plan small events.” Amanda Reinhardt, director of student activities, serves as an advisor to the Finance Committee. Reinhardt stressed that an important role of SGA is identifying gaps in student activities.  “This opportunity is here so students can get creative, and you don’t have to be part of a student org to do something. It’s an opportunity to name what’s missing,” said Reinhardt. A board consisting of the 13 members of the Finance Committee, two SGA senators and one cabinet committee member will judge the project proposals.  The application process includes an initial online form followed by an in-person pitch to the committee. Cho wanted perspectives beyond those of Finance Committee members represented in the consideration. Furthermore, the committee will prioritize proposals that address concerns highlighted by past surveys, such as Zeitgeist and exit surveys completed by graduating seniors. As of last weekend, the committee received six applications. One application has already stood out to Cho: the SGA’s technology committee’s proposal to fund a Hackathon. This initiative will probably be the first to receive funds from The MiddKidd Mega-Project. Cho noted that the Hackathon will involve collaboration between various organizations and requires a large budget but he thinks that the event will be meaningful.   “We definitely want to spread the word because it’s a great opportunity. It’s one of the few times the SGA is putting money behind what they want to do, which is to listen to student concerns about social life and extracurricular life,” said Cho. “We want to take advantage of that and hear a really diverse range of ideas. We want to unleash the creative energy of the community.” Editor’s note: Kenshin Cho ’20 was formerly a Local editor for The Campus.

In low-turnout election, students vote to reduce size of senate, re-brand senators ‘representatives’

Students voted last week in favor of eliminating the position of commons senator, reducing the Student Government Association senate from 17 to 12 members. The Feb. 26 vote also confirmed a title change for SGA members, from “senators” to “representatives.” Both items were part of a referendum that was proposed in response to the dissolution of the commons system. Only 264 students voted, about 10% of the student body. The referendum passed with 57.6% of the student vote. The changes will be implemented at the start of the 2020–21 academic year, according to the SGA constitution. These changes will affect elections this spring. “Lack of participation in this referendum is indicative of a larger issue of communication between the student body and the student government,” said SGA Director of Membership Thomas Khodad ’22. “We are addressing this issue not only by reducing the number of representatives but also by increasing student outreach and transparency.” Cook Commons Senator Karina Sharma ’22, whose current position will be terminated next year by the elimination of the commons system and the referendum, said that she thinks the dissolution of the commons system has given the SGA a chance to re-evaluate the structure of the senate and to reframe it for efficiency. “With a smaller senate, each representative will be able to contribute more, which will foster deeper conversation and more accountability,” she said. Wonnacott Commons Senator Senator Myles Maxie ’22, whose current position will also be eliminated, claims that the wording of the referendum questions misrepresented the issue at stake. The first question in particular asked whether students “support the elimination of the Commons Senator positions.” Maxie noted that the commons senator positions will be eliminated with the commons system regardless next year, and said that the real question was whether the senate should shrink or create new positions to replace those senators.  Maxie believes that this change will only exacerbate current problems because students, by his assessment, already view the SGA as an elitist, ineffective, and overly bureaucratic body.  “I don’t think the answer to solving an issue of representation is to make fewer representatives,” Maxie said.  Maxie is not contesting the referendum results, but he believes that this incident highlights the need for a constitutional update. The senate is already planning to examine and possibly change the constitution at the end of this year in relation to unclear impeachment rules.

I am not the debris

I am not a climate change denier. Still,  I struggle to connect with the green movement, and find myself lapsing in and out of doubt about proposed solutions such as the Green New Deal. While listening to Naomi Klein’s recent talk, I identified my position in the climate movement for the very first time. Klein described the movement as a “burning fire” which must shed away the “debris” of disapproval and disbelief. I rolled my eyes and thought, that’s me, the debris. She then said there are people at the margins of the issue who see the problem but are not committed to the cause. They are not debris —  they are the people she hopes to reach in order to help fuel the fire. I am one of those people. Why am I at the margin? How do I differ from my peers who are devoted to the movement? Klein’s words compelled me to ask myself these kinds of questions. The answer is that I cannot commit to a cause I only believe in sometimes. I grew up in China, a country miles ahead of the U.S. in terms of the damage inflicted by anthropogenic climate change. In elementary school, I was taught about global warming. I made presentations of polar bears barely staying afloat in the melted glaciers. I saw pictures of factories emitting smoke that shrouded the sky. “Don’t let the last drop of water be our tear” read a slogan pasted in my elementary school bathroom. I had asthma because of the air pollution. To me, a “night sky” meant a subdued orange hue. The first thing my mom did in the morning was to check the PM2.5 scale for air quality. On days when the smog was most severe, we wore masks to school and were not allowed to play sports or go outside. In high school, I was told to use the phrase “climate change” instead of “global warming.” I remember thinking that was  strange, because the earth is clearly warming, at least in China. Growing up as the first generation of Chinese children most directly affected by human-induced climate change, it would be reasonable to assume that I am passionate about reversing its damages. Instead, the opposite is true: I have normalized climate change. I may have had asthma growing up, but so did all my friends. The smog was a nuisance, but we adjusted to it. The orange nights were accompanied by a spectacular skyline. As for the polar bears and the factories, I never actually saw them — they existed only in PowerPoints.  In high school, I took a quiz from the Global Footprint Network and learned that if everyone on earth lived like me, we would need six earths to sustain our consumption. I wasn’t proud of the result, but I knew if I wanted to see my family in China on holidays from boarding school, this is what it took. And so I am not scared of the immediate effects of climate change because I have lived many of them myself. I know that our planet has exceeded its healthy temperature, but I also know that you can enjoy a childhood accompanied by inhalers and masks. I know that in times of crisis, I have adequate resources to combat the immediate damages. And yet, as Naomi Klein stressed in her talk, these resources are not available to everyone. Perhaps I can’t see the permanent effects of climate change today, but I have begun to recognize the importance of equity and outreach at the flint of this movement. Klein’s talk made me realize how narrow my perspective has been up to this point. Climate change affects more than just me, my family, and my community; in fact, it affects everyone on this planet. It also often disproportionately affects those of greater age, or lower income.  As someone who needs six earths, I cannot be an activist and tell other people how to make the earth greener; I would be a hypocrite. I can, however, start by doing my small part. Right now, that means recognizing my place on the edge of the movement, so that maybe one day I will catch on fire too.  Rachel Lu is a member of the class of 2023.

Activists flood Burlington City Hall to halt future ICE collaboration

BURLINGTON — Over 130 activists, including 20 Middlebury students, rallied in support of a proposed resolution to end collaboration between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Burlington City Police Department at the Burlington City Council Meeting on Feb. 18. The resolution aims to close four loopholes within Burlington’s Fair and Impartial Policing policy (FIPP). The current policy allows Burlington police officers to ask about a person’s immigration status if they are suspected to have recently crossed the border, and to report the immigration status of victims and witnesses of crimes to deportation agents. The policy also grants deportation agents access to individuals in police custody, and permits police to share confidential information with immigration agents if they deem it a matter of “public safety.” “It’s really important that [the resolution] passes because Burlington sets precedent for a lot of other towns that are considering this,” said Leif Taranta ’20.5, a member of Juntos and Sunday Evening Environmental Group, both of which organized student involvement in the protest. “What happens here is going to set the stage for the rest of Vermont.” So far, Winooski — the town adjacent to Burlington — is the only town in Vermont to have closed the loopholes.  The city council was initially set to vote on the resolution on Jan. 27. After postponing the vote to Feb. 18, they struck it from the agenda shortly before the start of the meeting in favor of what they deemed more time-sensitive matters.  “The City Hall can’t just table important things like this just to suit their own preferences and think that that won’t be met with backlash from the community,” said Lynn Travnikova ’20.5.   No Más Polimigra —  whose name combines the Spanish words for police (“policía”) and immigration agents (“migras”) — hosted the rally in collaboration with several other community groups, including Migrant Justice, Community Voices for Immigrant Rights, 350 Vermont and the Vermont ACLU. The rally began outside of City Hall with several activists speaking about the importance of the resolution and expressing their collective rage at its continual deferral.  “This is a fight for our community, this is a fight for dignity, this a fight for the right to live in our community without fear,” said Betsy McGavish, an organizer with No Más Polimigra. “We are here to remind the councilors that they do not have to uphold a white supremicist police immigration state any longer.” Protesters then marched inside, ringing the perimeter of the hall in a dense thicket of bodies, posters, and banners. Several Middlebury students, trained in de-escalation practices by Taranta before the rally, positioned themselves at evenly-spaced intervals along the wall, their bright orange vests highlighting them against the crowd. The room filled with the sound of 130 people chanting “Vermont will fight for immigrant rights”’ for over 30 minutes as the council members filed in, took their seats and faced the protesters.  During the public comment, several migrant dairy workers and undocumented immigrants spoke, recalling their experiences with Burlington police and immigration agents. Hugo Rojas described being detained by ICE after a routine traffic stop, calling the incident “one of the most bitter and difficult experiences of [his] life.” According to No Más Polimigra, the FIPP loopholes violate immigrants’ rights to fair and equal treatment under the law, undermine public safety by scaring immigrant communities away from reporting crimes or working with the police, and divert resources away from community policing towards immigration enforcement. “In these times of increased disparity of justice and wealth there is oppression coming down from the federal level, and we need to stand up on the state and local level and set an example for the rest of the country,” said Vermont State Representative Brian Cina.  “I call on the city of Burlington to take this action with the community here watching because we will be watching. We’ll be coming out of the shadows to raise our voices and make ourselves heard,” said Enrique Balcazar, a Migrant Justice leader and migrant dairy farm worker.  Throughout the course of public comment, tensions escalated between protesters and City Council President Kurt Wright. Wright repeatedly ordered the crowd to “be respectful” and not cheer for those speaking. Though the council limited public comment to one hour, several activists continued speaking even after the time had elapsed. One woman accused the council of upholding white supremacy through Wright’s conduct.  The City Council is set to vote on the proposed resolution on March 9. No Más Polimigra plans to hold another rally at that meeting. The protesters signaled their intent as they filed out of City Hall chanting, “We’ll be back on March 9th.” “We are going to make our voices heard,” said Travnikova, “and we are going to keep coming.”

'Under the Covers: The Hidden Art of Endpapers'

In a time when Kindle is on the rise and most books are instantly accessible online, it has become a rarity for people to pick up hard-cover, good old-fashioned books. We have forgotten to appreciate the age-old craft of bookmaking in the midst of a technological frenzy, and the hidden treasures inside these books have become as dusty in our minds as the shelves they sit upon.  “Under the Covers: The Hidden Art of Endpapers” reminds us of these forgotten treasures by outlining the history of endpapers, sheets of paper pasted onto a book’s inside covers. In the 15th century, endpapers simply served the purpose of protecting the first and last pages in books; however, as time went on, they began to be seen as works of art. From the earliest minimalistic paste papers to the increasingly common applications of marbling, printing, illustrating and modern-day photography, the exhibit shows the evolution of endpapers through the centuries, succeeding in reigniting an appreciation for what is hidden in plain sight.  “With this exhibit, we wanted to showcase books not just as neutral containers for any old text but as a material object that tells stories of the time and place that it first came into being,” said  Rebekah Irwin, Special Collections & Archives director and curator of the exhibit. “When I look at a book, the text — the actual words under the covers — is rarely what I look at first. Especially old books. I look at the binding, the feel of the paper, the heaviness of the book, the smell (yes, old books do have a unique smell!). I also look for illustrations, annotations and doodles, and I always look for remarkable endpapers.”  Irwin adamantly believes that the physical features of books serve as a looking glass into its history. “We might remember the story of Dr. Suess’s “The Lorax,” but do we remember the freaky endpapers? Or the showy and spectacular decorated papers popular in the 1700s through the 1900s?” asked Irwin. “Our hope is that our exhibit sends you back to your shelves to open up long neglected books. Not to read them of course, but to take a closer look at the book and to see it, rather than read it — especially the endpapers. I suspect we all have at least a few surprises on our bookshelves if we took the time to look under the covers for these concealed works of art.”  Kaitlin Buerge ’13, special collections and archives fellow, discussed her experience working on the exhibit.  “Selecting books for this exhibit was the best. In my head, I’ve been referring to the process as ’shopping’ the stacks, because I would venture into our rare books section and try to guess which kinds of spine and covers might suggest beautiful endpapers within,” Buerge said in an email to The Campus. “I started to recognize that books with more expensive-looking bindings would often have marbled endpapers, but I was often surprised by the marbling hiding inside books with much plainer, old-looking (17th and 18th century) covers.” Buerge recalled that while she was a college student, museum and library exhibitions rarely caught her attention. Yet through the eye-catching glass cases in Davis Library, she hoped students could spend some time enjoying “a glimpse of N.C. Wyeth’s illustrations or the marbled endpapers.” Often overlooked, Buerge sees this exhibition as an opportunity to give endpapers the overdue credit they deserve. “Under the Covers: The Hidden Art of Endpapers” is on display in the Davis Library atrium now through May 31, 2020. Whether you stop in for a quick visit on a study break or are inspired to look a bit more closely at the books lining your desk back home, the endpapers display reminds us to acknowledge the aspects of our lives that take a little more work to find and understand. If we all challenge ourselves to seek these surprises hidden on our bookshelves and in our lives, who knows? The worlds around us and the worlds written, hardbound in our palms, may just become a little more exciting.