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(12/06/18 10:57am)
Discussions during a recent reunion of the department of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies (GSFS) led alumni to write a letter to President Laurie L. Patton, calling for her condemnation of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ proposed changes to Federal Title IX policy that the letter identifies as “regressive” and “terrifying.”
In a message scheduled to be sent to the community on Wednesday as of press time, Patton commented on the proposed changes to Title IX policy without mentioning the alumni letter. When The Campus asked the college whether Patton would respond directly to the letter, College Spokesperson Bill Burger referred The Campus to Patton’s statement.
The reunion, which took place at the college on Nov. 17, brought graduated GSFS majors and current students in the department together to discuss various strategies of activism against sexual violence at the college. The changes to Title IX that DeVos announced on the morning of Nov. 16 quickly became a focus of discussion, with attendees expressing particular concern about a new policy that would require schools to offer a trial option, in which both parties would be cross-examined by the other party’s advocate.
The discussions at the reunion prompted six GSFS alumni who graduated between 2008 and 2016 to sign a 500-word letter and email it to President Patton. The letter was drafted in the days following the reunion and sent to her on Nov. 20. Their goal, they said, is to ensure that the college would continue to provide survivors of sexual assault support under the proposed new federal laws.
“The policy proposed by Betsy DeVos threatens to return us to an era where campus sexual assault is pushed under the rug,” Maddie Orcutt ’16, one of the letter’s signees, wrote in an email to The Campus. “As someone who lived through an era where campus sexual misconduct proceedings were inaccessible to survivors and opaque at best, let me assure you we do not want to return to that era. It’s important to get the college on record about its policies and procedures because it promotes transparency and accountability.”
Beyond calling for Patton’s condemnation of the cross-examination rule and DeVos’ Title IX policy changes as a whole, the signees reflected on the importance of protest and activism as part of their time at Middlebury, writing that activism was “integral to our educations and to the very formation of our identities” during their time here. Noting the importance of activism to any student’s ability to speak out against sexual assault on college campuses, the letter calls current Middlebury College protest policies “managed and restricted” in ways that the alumni fear may be limiting students’ voices as they attempt to grapple with issues such as sexual assault and Title IX laws on campus.
Through conversations with students during the Nov. 17 alumni reunion, the six alumni signees of the letter — Orcutt, Emily Pedowitz, ’13, Margo Cramer ’12, Kolbe Franklin ’08, Luke Carroll Brown ’14 and Kristina Johansson ’14 — felt that the culture surrounding campus activism had changed over the years and that these changes needed to be addressed in the letter.
“What is clear from our time on campus is that students are terrified of Betsy DeVos’ recently announced Title IX policy. What is also clear to us is that Middlebury students are equally as terrified of speaking out on a campus where protest is now so managed and restricted,” the letter reads. “When we listened to students this weekend, we didn’t see the anger that had been such a catalyzing emotion for all of us. We saw students who were defeated, disillusioned, and shutdown.”
The alumni view current college protest policies as curtailing students’ ability to start conversations and hold demonstrations related to sexual assault on campus, a development they see as alarming in what the letter identifies as today’s “chilly political climate.”
“Based on my understanding of these policies, the effectiveness of activism is likely hindered due to the ways in which these policies restrict the creativity and visibility of necessary forms of activism,” Franklin said.
The letter closes with three demands that the alumni hope to see addressed in Patton’s response.
“We are asking you to go on the record to publicly state the following,” the letter reads.“That Middlebury will continue to adhere to a preponderance of the evidence standard in Title IX proceedings; that live cross-examination in Title IX cases will curb reporting and make our campus less safe; and that Middlebury College does not think that Betsy DeVos’ recently announced Title IX policy is in the best interest of Middlebury students.”
Ultimately, the authors hope that the letter will help survivors of sexual assault at Middlebury receive the recognition and support they need.
Patton has issued statements on controversial Trump administration rulings in the past, such as the amendments to DACA and legal recognition of transgender people. The alumni who penned the letter hoped to see a similar level of recognition for survivors of sexual assault after DeVos’ Title IX announcement.
“In the midst of our current political climate, there is such an importance for schools, organizations and leaders to actively speak up and against policies that fail to protect vulnerable populations and that promote a culture of intolerance,” Pedowitz said. “I believe this allows students to feel safe and protected by their organization when there is so much chaos, unknown and intolerance being perpetrated politically in the national landscape.”
(12/06/18 10:56am)
A sunny day signaled the end of the Storm Café. The restaurant, located in the Old Stone Mill building on the banks of Otter Creek, had been a staple in the Middlebury food scene for years. Last year, their American cuisine made from local ingredients won the café a spot in Visiting New England’s “12 Favorite Places for Breakfast” list.
On Nov. 11, Beth and John Hughes, who ran the restaurant for the past 13 years, said goodbye to regular customers, many of whom had been coming there since it opened in the lowest floor of the Old Stone Mill 25 years ago.
“It’s bittersweet,” John told Seven Days.
“This was our dream—to own our own business together,” Beth said in an interview with the Addison Independent. In a statement on the Storm Café’s website, they both thanked the Middlebury community for their patronage and promised they would miss all those who dined with them over the years. The Storm Café will be missed by many in the Middlebury community. John estimated that roughly 80 percent of the café’s customers came from the college. “The Storm’s cozy atmosphere, the sounds of the waterfall and [the] delicious food never failed to provide happy meals for me and my family,” Sophie Hiland ’22 said.
The café joins a long list of recently-closed local businesses, but the decision to close was not made solely by the business owners. Middlebury College, which owns the Old Stone Mill building the Storm Café called home, informed the Hughes this past summer that their lease would not be renewed.
However, there is a rainbow after the storm for the Hughes family. Both Beth and John are now working as a paraprofessional and a cafeteria chef, respectively, at Salisbury Community School. And, to sweeten the deal, their twin daughters Molly and Lilly are both students at the school. “For the first time in 20 years, I’ll have my weekends off,” John added.
As the Hughes move on to other things, Middlebury College announced an end to its search for a new partner to move into 3 Mill Street. The lucky tenants? Community Barn Ventures, a group based in town that, in the words of co-founder Stacey Rainey, helps businesses “solve whatever problems they have, getting them from where they are to where they want to be.”
The group started work just over a year ago and already has about 15 clients. It has been looking to expand beyond just its current advisory role, and found the perfect opportunity on the banks of Otter Creek.
Middlebury College bought the Old Stone Mill building in 2008 for $2.1 million. Since then, the college has used the space above the Storm Café as an incubator for student creativity and innovation. The building has been home to students and locals alike, fostering specifically non-academic, self-designed projects ranging from art exhibitions to band practices. However, Bill Burger, vice president for communications and chief marketing officers, explains, “the building needs such investment that it didn’t make sense to go ahead with the same use of the building.”
Community Barn Ventures will close the deal on purchasing the building for $500,000 in early January. The group has already contracted local firm McLeod Kredell Architects to help bring its vision for the historic building to life, opening up to the public in summer 2019. The Middlebury-based modern architecture firm emphasizes a “search for appropriate local expressions of universal qualities and ideals,” according to its website. John McLeod is a visiting professor of architecture at the college, while Steve Kredell teaches at Norwich University’s School of Architecture and Art.
Stacey Rainey and Mary Cullinane, co-founders and partners at Community Barn Ventures, are Middlebury residents who stepped away from corporate jobs and now focus on making their work “have a positive impact on our community,” Cullinane explained. Their plans for the four-and-a-half story, 9,000-square-foot space reflect this desire for community engagement and support for local business.
The top floor and a half will become five Airbnb units, each with its own bathroom and secure access but with a shared living room and kitchenette, intended for parents, visiting professors, or tourists. Just below the mini-hotel will be the Community Barn Network, a shared workspace divided into seating for people working on personal laptops or without a need for private space, dedicated offices and a shared conference room, and telephone booths for those who need to make private calls. The second floor will house a public market with eight to 10 permanent vendor stalls, half of them food-based and half for hard goods, as well as a stall for coffee and a general watering hole.
The objective is to create a “daily destination,” a place where students and town residents can go for a variety of functions. This deliberate attempt to engage with the community was instrumental in the college’s decision to sell to Community Barn Ventures.
“There were a number of different groups interested in the building,” Burger said. “But we wanted to find the right partner who would do something that we felt was best for Middlebury and that would create opportunity for Middlebury College students.”
The iconic space at 3 Mill Street is being brought into a new age by Community Barn Ventures, but the new plans include a nod to the building’s past: the first floor will remain a restaurant, though Community Barn Ventures is still looking for the perfect partner to take over the space. No matter who ends up taking over the first floor at 3 Mill Street, they will have big shoes to fill with the Storm Café’s departure.
(12/06/18 10:55am)
A sunny day signaled the end of the Storm Café. The restaurant, located in the Old Stone Mill building on the banks of Otter Creek, had been a staple in the Middlebury food scene for years. Last year, their American cuisine made from local ingredients won the café a spot in Visiting New England’s “12 Favorite Places for Breakfast” list.
On Nov. 11, Beth and John Hughes, who ran the restaurant for the past 13 years, said goodbye to regular customers, many of whom had been coming there since it opened in the lowest floor of the Old Stone Mill 25 years ago.
“It’s bittersweet,” John told Seven Days.
“This was our dream—to own our own business together,” Beth said in an interview with the Addison Independent. In a statement on the Storm Café’s website, they both thanked the Middlebury community for their patronage and promised they would miss all those who dined with them over the years. The Storm Café will be missed by many in the Middlebury community. John estimated that roughly 80 percent of the café’s customers came from the college. “The Storm’s cozy atmosphere, the sounds of the waterfall and [the] delicious food never failed to provide happy meals for me and my family,” Sophie Hiland ’22 said.
The café joins a long list of recently-closed local businesses, but the decision to close was not made solely by the business owners. Middlebury College, which owns the Old Stone Mill building the Storm Café called home, informed the Hughes this past summer that their lease would not be renewed.
However, there is a rainbow after the storm for the Hughes family. Both Beth and John are now working as a paraprofessional and a cafeteria chef, respectively, at Salisbury Community School. And, to sweeten the deal, their twin daughters Molly and Lilly are both students at the school. “For the first time in 20 years, I’ll have my weekends off,” John added.
As the Hughes move on to other things, Middlebury College announced an end to its search for a new partner to move into 3 Mill Street. The lucky tenants? Community Barn Ventures, a group based in town that, in the words of co-founder Stacey Rainey, helps businesses “solve whatever problems they have, getting them from where they are to where they want to be.”
The group started work just over a year ago and already has about 15 clients. It has been looking to expand beyond just its current advisory role, and found the perfect opportunity on the banks of Otter Creek.
Middlebury College bought the Old Stone Mill building in 2008 for $2.1 million. Since then, the college has used the space above the Storm Café as an incubator for student creativity and innovation. The building has been home to students and locals alike, fostering specifically non-academic, self-designed projects ranging from art exhibitions to band practices. However, Bill Burger, vice president for communications and chief marketing officers, explains, “the building needs such investment that it didn’t make sense to go ahead with the same use of the building.”
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]The objective: to create “a daily destination” for students and residents.[/pullquote]
Community Barn Ventures will close the deal on purchasing the building for $500,000 in early January. The group has already contracted local firm McLeod Kredell Architects to help bring its vision for the historic building to life, opening up to the public in summer 2019. The Middlebury-based modern architecture firm emphasizes a “search for appropriate local expressions of universal qualities and ideals,” according to its website. John McLeod is a visiting professor of architecture at the college, while Steve Kredell teaches at Norwich University’s School of Architecture and Art.
Stacey Rainey and Mary Cullinane, co-founders and partners at Community Barn Ventures, are Middlebury residents who stepped away from corporate jobs and now focus on making their work “have a positive impact on our community,” Cullinane explained. Their plans for the four-and-a-half story, 9,000-square-foot space reflect this desire for community engagement and support for local business.
The top floor and a half will become five Airbnb units, each with its own bathroom and secure access but with a shared living room and kitchenette, intended for parents, visiting professors, or tourists. Just below the mini-hotel will be the Community Barn Network, a shared workspace divided into seating for people working on personal laptops or without a need for private space, dedicated offices and a shared conference room, and telephone booths for those who need to make private calls. The second floor will house a public market with eight to 10 permanent vendor stalls, half of them food-based and half for hard goods, as well as a stall for coffee and a general watering hole.
The objective is to create a “daily destination,” a place where students and town residents can go for a variety of functions. This deliberate attempt to engage with the community was instrumental in the college’s decision to sell to Community Barn Ventures.
“There were a number of different groups interested in the building,” Burger said. “But we wanted to find the right partner who would do something that we felt was best for Middlebury and that would create opportunity for Middlebury College students.”
The iconic space at 3 Mill Street is being brought into a new age by Community Barn Ventures, but the new plans include a nod to the building’s past: the first floor will remain a restaurant, though Community Barn Ventures is still looking for the perfect partner to take over the space. No matter who ends up taking over the first floor at 3 Mill Street, they will have big shoes to fill with the Storm Café’s departure.
(11/28/18 10:57am)
Editor’s Note: This is an installment of the weekly column Foreign Correspondents, which will chronicle Middlebury students’ experiences studying abroad. Here, Hope Allison ’19.5 shows snapshots of her life in Edinburgh.
I feel I’m at a delicate moment during my life here; three months in, I feel I’ve finally settled in, but there are still moments of newness. I try to savor this feeling, this balance between the foreign and the familiar, the strange and the routine. It’s been a wonderful time to photograph, because everything seems beautiful to me — either because of its novelty or because of its everyday simplicity. I hope this feeling lasts.
I’m struck by the light — by its variety and richness, and now, almost December, by its brevity. There are times it is soft and diffuse, times where the day never really seems to get bright, the days I light candles at lunchtime. And then there are times it is blinding, harsh golden beams striking out from dark gray clouds. The light is in constant flux, making everything seem at once unreal and hyper-real, where even the familiar sights are rendered anew. In the words of Alexander McCall Smith, “This is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas, a city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again.”
It’s hard to believe how quickly this semester went, and I feel lucky to have another one ahead of me. If nothing else, these photos are a love letter to Edinburgh and its dwindling autumn light.
(11/15/18 11:00am)
The controversial mural titled “Everyone Loves a Parade” on Church Street Marketplace in Burlington was vandalized for the second time in two weeks on Thursday, Nov. 1. The 124-foot long mural located on the main pedestrian thoroughfare, which focuses on portraying Burlington throughout its history, has been criticized for excluding the histories of the Abenaki and people of color.
The vandalism involved defacing the faces on the left side of the mural with chemical solvent and then spray-painting pink dollar signs onto the mural in what is believed to be an act of political protest. The damaged portion of the mural is currently covered in blue tarp. Jon Murad, chief deputy of operations for the Burlington police department, told The Campus that while the department has “unidentified persons of interest,” they have “not identified any suspects at this time.”
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger immediately condemned the act of vandalism, stating in a press release that the “vandal(s) has disrespected those engaged community members and the democratic rule of law.” Murad echoed the mayor’s statement, saying that “the suspect or suspects also unilaterally set themselves above the community, and arrogated to themselves the decisions that belonged to the community.”
A task force designated to determine a course of action in regards to the mural voted on Oct. 15 to have the mural removed by August 2022. This date allows the city to comply with its agreement with the artist and the businesses that funded its creation. A plaque is to be added explaining that the mural does not represent the entirety of Burlington history. The recent vandalism incident has not impacted the decided date of removal of the mural.
An incident had occurred previously on Oct. 19 in which the word “colonizers” was sprayed above the mural. The spray paint used in this incident was easier to remove than the most recent vandalism as it was located above the main images depicted in the mural. Police have reason to believe that the two incidents are related.
In October of 2017, activist Albert Petrarca spray-painted “Off the Wall” on the plaque accompanying the mural. Petrarca and his Off-the-Wall coalition have been the most vocal advocates of removing the mural, claiming that the recent decision of the task force promotes white supremacy. Albert Petrarca was charged with unlawful mischief in January. He did not respond to a request for comment.
[pullquote speaker="OLIVIA JIN" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]There are ways to protest yet maintain respect of legal authority.[/pullquote]
The mural was designed by Montreal-based artist Pierre Hardy and uses a technique called trompe-l’oeil, in which figures appear three-dimensional and to scale with their surroundings. The mural commemorates the 400th anniversary of the “discovery” of Lake Champlain by Samuel de Champlain. It features a portrayal of Lake Champlain history through important figures and businesses in Burlington, from Bernie Sanders to Sweetwater’s American Bistro to Ethan Allen.
The mural, according to critics, does not accurately include the role of Native Americans, especially the Abenaki tribe, in the history of Lake Champlain and Burlington. In response to a reply-all email from Patrarca to councilors and media, Chief of the Abenaki tribe Don Stevens condemned the protests as “counterproductive.” In May, the Abenaki Alliance and the mayor announced a partnership to promote Abenaki history in lieu of participating in the task force concerning the mural. Such a partnership may potentially result in displays of Abenaki artifacts in Burlington airport and at a summer festival on Church Street.
Olivia Jin ’20, president of Middlebury College’s Amnesty International club, expressed concern for the exclusion of Native Americans from historical narratives.
“The removal of Native Americans from U.S. history is a nationwide problem, and the exclusion of the Abenaki tribe in the portrayal of the Lake Champlain history is problematic,” Jin said. “Native Americans have been, and still are, vulnerable to human rights violence in the U.S., and as a human rights group, we stand by Native Americans and support the movement to change the narrative.”
The controversy surrounding the “Everyone Loves a Parade” mural invokes questions regarding the proper form of action in protest of selective histories and racism, reflecting national discussions concerning the removal of monuments and artwork that people believe promote racism. Burlington serves as an example of a city struggling to reconcile an accurate portrayal of history with artworks already in place.
Responding to questions about appropriate forms of protest, Jin said, “I personally think there are ways to protest yet maintain respect of legal authority.” She acknowledged that “the impacts of these actions are slow to see,” which can lead some to “question the extent to which these methods are effective and choose other forms of protests.”
The authorities in Burlington have made clear that this crime will be taken seriously regardless of its motive. The mural and the actions surrounding it have generated public discussion of diversity, inclusion and protest in the city of Burlington. Weinberger claimed in his press release that “when arrests are made we will seek full prosecution of the perpetrators.” Regardless of the outcome of the case or the motivations of the crime, Murad told The Campus that the police department is “taking the crime very seriously.”
(11/15/18 11:00am)
Back in Spring 2018 when I carried out an oral history interview with Madu Udeh for the In Your Own Words project, he recommended that listeners wanting to know more about Nigerian history read the novel “Half of A Yellow Sun.” Having written this column for over a year now, I knew that it would be faster to watch the film adaptation, so after requesting the library purchase the cinematic work (go/requests/), I did.
Shall I say more about the author first?
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is becoming a household name within the black community, with a clip from her speech “We Should All Be Feminists,” being featured on Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” album. Even before the album dropped, academics (myself included) lost it/had wet dreams (and rightfully so) over her TED talk “The Danger of A Single Story.”
And controversy, too, followed Adichie when she made comments suggesting that women and trans women’s lived experiences may be different. So, all this is to say, she is no stranger to the limelight. And when we think of African women making it big in the United States, she, Lupita Nyong’o and Danai Gurira are at the top of the list.
All that said, “Half of A Yellow Sun” treats Nigeria’s Civil or “Biafran” War. I don’t want to pretend to be an expert on this — I’m not. But I’ll tell you what I think I know. Following colonization by the British, Nigerians are ushered towards a self-identification that is not indigenous to their mores. There are the the Hausas, the Igbos, the Yorubas and, not to mention, the Muslims, the Catholics, the animists and those who embrace more than one of these tribal and religious identities. When the country achieves its independence, it must revisit systems of self-identification: Are they Britain’s former colony of Nigeria? Or something else? It is within this space of cultural turmoil that one party decides to secede from the union, preferring to identify as “Biafra,” but, as history teaches us about civil war in the United States in the mid-19th century, secession is a polarizing act and leads to much instability. (Please feel free to write in and correct me where I’m wrong with any of the details.)
I don’t think the movie is great. *shrug*
I do think it’s educational. And I support most anything in our collection that will further humanize African peoples to Western readers, viewers, educators and learners. I also don’t mind watching beautiful black people do most anything. ;)
I’d say check out this work if you plan on studying abroad in Nigeria or England; if you’re interested in the legacy of European colonialism on the African continent; if you want to know more about literary productions beyond the classic Western canon.
For works that treat similar themes, see Equatorial Guinean author Donato Ndongo’s “Tinieblas de tu memoria negra” (The Shadows of Your Black Memory), which follows a young African man’s preparation for Catholic priesthood, or Zadie Smith’s “White Teeth,” which I have yet to read.
Literatures & Cultures Librarian Katrina Spencer is liaison to the Anderson Freeman Center, the Arabic Department, the Comparative Literature Program, the Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies (GSFS) Program, the Language Schools, the Linguistics Program and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
(11/15/18 11:00am)
How do you grieve when you’re in a different country, a world away from chaos? How do you mourn when you’re immersed in a foreign culture?
I had wanted to write an article for The Campus as a foreign correspondent speaking about my experiences studying abroad in Mainz, Germany, the difficulties of adjusting to a new way of life, the realities of learning in a different academic system and language, and the appreciation being away has given me for Middlebury as an academic institution and community. But after the events of Thursday, I cannot write that article.
I will never be able to forget November 8, 2018. I woke in the morning to a news alert about another mass shooting. I feel sick writing these words. It was just another amidst so many similar stories we’ve seen in the past few years. But it wasn’t the same. Not this time. This time it was in Thousand Oaks. The town where I was born. The town that for nearly 22 years I have called home. My community was attacked and I was 5,782 miles away and I could do nothing. And so I became fixated on the news, needing information, but terrified of what that information might be. I watched as twelve people plus the shooter were confirmed dead, and before that reality could even sink in, I had to register for spring classes at Middlebury. Worlds and dreams and nightmares were colliding. A young man from my high school was declared a hero, another was declared dead, and yet another was declared a mass murderer.
Had a handful of people decided not to stay in that night I could have known one of the victims. Had this been a few summers ago, one of my best friends would have been there. Had I gone to my local college instead of moving across the country to Middlebury, odds are I would have been there. The degrees of removal were suddenly gone and I was exposed and it was terrifying. And yet I was safe. My family was safe. My friends were safe. But they could have been hurt way too easily.
My mom has been saying that this shooting has changed the fabric of our community—because now we know we can produce something like this. A boy can grow up in Thousand Oaks and do the unthinkable. We can produce a tragedy enabled by a culture that devalues mental health care and does not prioritize lives over personal desires to own guns. We will never be the same. And as our tragedy is broadcast on news channels and written about in newspapers and posted about on social media, my home is losing its anonymity. No longer will I have to say I grew up 45 minutes northwest of Los Angeles. People have now heard of Thousand Oaks, and it breaks my heart, because of all the wonderful things they could know about my beautiful, quiet, and loving hometown, they will only know this horrific piece of it. Thousand Oaks will never be the same.
The night of the shooting was college night at Borderline Bar & Grill, so my generation has been affected the most. The days since the shooting have been like a high school reunion out of a horror story. I have talked to people I hadn’t spoken to in months, even years. At the lowest point in our town’s history, people are coming together. Our sense of home and community has never been stronger. And yet I am still in Germany and I can physically do nothing. I cannot wait in line to donate blood for the injured, I cannot attend the vigils, I cannot hold my loved ones close, weak with relief that they’re safe, and I cannot protest for gun reform because Germany has some of the strictest gun laws in Europe and hasn’t seen a mass shooting in 3 years. I feel helpless. Any abroad experience can be isolating, but it’s especially so when dealing with something so devastating and so personal.
I’m discovering that grief takes many forms. It is disbelief and immobilizing shock. It is speechlessness, it is tears, it is anger, it is laughter and it is remembrance. I’m not religious, but I went to the cathedral in the Mainz Altstadt on Saturday for an organ concert and there I found a place to silently mourn. My path back to the bus station takes me through an open-air market and I stopped to buy flowers. They stand on my desk in memory of the victims. I am separated from my shattered community, but I am finding ways to heal on my own.
(11/15/18 10:58am)
MIDDLEBURY – Nearly one year to the day after The Rough Cut arrived at 51 Main St. in downtown Middlebury, the BBQ joint announced its closure. The Rough Cut bid Main Street farewell with a goodbye party last Friday, Nov. 2 to celebrate its last plate of St. Louis Pork Ribs and its final heaping of fried pickles, serving drinks at sharply discounted prices throughout the evening. The self-described “neighborhood bar,” which prides itself on a large beer selection, live music and food with soul, revealed the send off on its Facebook page last week.
“We have some hard news. We’ve made the difficult decision to close,” the post read, continuing to express gratitude to patrons, employees, and the Middlebury community for their support.
Ben Wells, owner of the Marquis Theatre and now former owner of The Rough Cut told the Campus last year that he hoped to create a “positive, warm, energetic environment” for people to enjoy. An outpouring of support and words of regret at the restaurant’s closing via social media stand testament to The Rough Cut’s popularity amongst staff members and the community.
“I’ve never been more heartbroken to leave a place. Thank you Rough Cut for one of the best years of my restaurant life,” said Rebecca Hanleigh, one former employee, commenting on the Facebook farewell.
The team at the BBQ restaurant joins a growing list of small businesses and entrepreneurs in downtown Middlebury that have been forced to shutter their doors within the past year in the face of economic hardship.
The restaurant’s closing date coincides with the lease renewal date for the college-owned property at 51 Main. According to former employee Wynne Ebner ’19, the college let the space at a half-lease. Wells made the tough decision to close after realizing that he would not be able to afford the full lease and also “take care of everybody,” including employees and colleagues.
[pullquote speaker="BEN WELLS" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]The Rough Cut was a lot of fun. It was a lot of hard work ... We did the best we could.[/pullquote]
“I don’t really know what’s happening in Middlebury right now,” Ebner said. “There’ve been definitely days or weeks where it’s been busier — like parents weekend for example. But for the most part … it’s just slow,” she said, describing her experience at The Rough Cut the past couple of months.
“If I knew the answer to why [The Rough Cut] didn’t work out then I’d like to think I would’ve changed it,” Wells said. However, of his working relationship with the college, Wells had only good things to say: “The administration has been incredibly supportive and really went above and beyond in terms of putting us in the best possible position to succeed.”
The college and the town, Wells believes, are inextricably linked, each supporting the other. For that reason he is concerned, like many others, about the “vitality and vibrancy of Main Street.” This is why, he explained, he invested in bringing new and fresh energy to town with the mechanical bull, music stage and other efforts at The Rough Cut.
While succeeding may appear increasingly challenging in light of the turnover of shops and restaurants, Wells believes that not all of the economic hardship can be attributed to contemporary issues, explaining that Middlebury has been “dealing with an awkward downtown layout since time immemorial.”
Despite the challenges residents, students, the administration and business owners will face during Middlebury’s current period of economic hardship, Wells remains optimistic and heartened by the community’s strength.
“Middlebury is still going to be here. We’re all going to be here next year and in five years,” he said, adding that the detrimental effect of the rail bridge construction project is temporary. “And that’s one area that is such a positive relationship with the college and the town: neither of us are going anywhere.”
College students and residents in search of the Southern comfort food, live performances from local musicians and a casual place to watch the game that The Rough Cut offered will now have to turn elsewhere. However, these closures do not mean that Downtown has to become obsolete. Wells believes we all can and should make an effort to revive it.
“The Rough Cut was a lot of fun. It was a lot of hard work. The restaurant industry in general is pretty tough, pretty challenging [and] pretty relentless,” Wells reflected. “Our experience was all of that. We did the best we could.”
If Wells and his team at The Rough Cut did the best they could, he encourages students to do the best that they can do as well.
“I think everybody who lives here — and students are one segment of the community — needs to support local business and support the downtown,” he said. “It makes a real difference in how we all can create the world we want to live in.”
(11/15/18 10:56am)
When Middlebury students think of syntax, we often think of literary analysis, points off our last essays or units in Intro to Linguistics. We don’t often think of dance. But syntax was a main focus of Bebe Miller’s “In a Rhythm,” performed by six dancers and Miller herself over the weekend from Nov. 8 to 10. The performance featured oration, silence, YouTube interviews, a Nelly hit and a single piano note to which the dancers would move, jump and groove.
Miller began the piece with a story of listening to an audio reading of a text by David Foster Wallace and her enthrallment in the writing and the reader’s voice. Miller herself spoke warmly and captivatingly, a complement to the dancers who moved behind her, responding and interpreting her words. The choreographer and director of the company described how she was inspired by the syntax of the texts, and wanted to further explore how syntax and flow could relate to dance.
“In making this suite of dance I wanted to look at the syntax of movement — how we collide with meaning through the juxtaposed dynamics of action and context, in time and space,” Miller wrote in the program as an introduction to the piece. “Our tacit reading of the building blocks of situations is inherent in the culture it serves.”
Exploring the syntax of movement, Miller played around with the timing of the music and dance moves, breaking between or effortlessly moving through phrases. This was paralleled in the use of the roll of grey hard felt placed on stage, which was either smoothly rolled out by the dancers or scrunched up spontaneously. The dynamic use of time in the choreography was much like what one might read in piece of literature — its flow changing with its meaning.
Miller also manipulated space between her dancers as a way of exploring syntax in movement. The large gaps between the dancers, which often drew different groups to different ends of the stage, made it difficult to see everything that was going on at once. This, Miller explained in the Q&A after the performance, was her intention: much like in communication and in language, people will often miss things that are happening. It is to the audience’s discretion to take in what they can and to understand the piece as a whole.
With this, “In A Rhythm” became as much political statement as artistic exploration. From talking about her inspiration for the piece, Miller shifted to speaking about race, mentioning Emmett Till and her ability to conjure up his face in her head, and an interview between Toni Morrison and journalist Charlie Rose, in which Rose asks Morrison: “Can you imagine writing a novel not centered around race?” The interview was later played from a laptop, surrounded and watched by a few of the company members, while Trebien Pollard and Professor of Dance Christal Brown, two black dancers, danced behind them. Pollard and Brown slouched and jammed together in their chairs while Nelly’s “Country Grammar” cut in from the interview. By having these moments, Miller seemed to be inserting race into her dance, a deviation from normal dance choreography and a response to Charlie Rose’s interview question.
There were so many different levels to this piece, which was selected and brought to Middlebury as part of the Clifford Symposium, from race, to syntax and language, to the concept of art.
“Everything is here. Everything is available,” Miller said. “What’s left is choice.”
(11/08/18 10:59am)
When I first heard about the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, I turned to writing as a way to process my grief. Since I wrote down my first reactions to the news, I have seen incredible resilience within the Jewish community and wonderful support from those who stand with us against hate. I am so grateful for the solidarity and love that I have experienced over the last two weeks.
When I saw the news, I tried to think if I know anyone who lives in Pittsburgh. If any of my Jewish friends have family there. If any of the first-years we’ve welcomed to Hillel over the last few months grew up there. I couldn’t think. I called my friend and cried on the phone. And I cried after we hung up.
When I saw the news, I got up and put my Magen David necklace on. It belonged to my grandmother. I needed to wear it that day.
When I saw the news, there was no news yet. Two police officers — shot but not killed, no information about further casualties. Situation developing. Eight confirmed dead, further injuries reporting to the hospital. Suspect at large. Suspect surrenders. 11 confirmed dead. Suspect yelled “all Jews must die” as he entered the Shabbat service and opened fire. I couldn’t read more news after that.
I thought about the chill that ran down my spine and into my toes when I heard white supremacists marching in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us.” I was scared then. This is what I was scared of.
I thought about the desecrated Jewish cemeteries with the gravestones tipped over. The rocks that were once stacked on top spilled off into the grass. I always put rocks on top of Jewish gravestones when I go to cemeteries. It feels like a promise. It feels like telling the dead that even though they are gone, they passed down their customs. That there are still people who know to put rocks on gravestones. They succeeded, they can rest.
I thought about the swastika that was chalked onto the Havurah in Middlebury after the 2016 election. We held a memorial service on campus and we sang in the November night. It was freezing out, and it felt like maybe every Jewish person in Vermont came to mourn with us. I held a candle. I felt so much less alone.
When I was in Prague this summer, I visited the surviving synagogues. The synagogues still stand there because Hitler planned to use the city as proof of the exterminated Jewish race. In the Pinkas Synagogue, they have painted the names of every known Czech Jew who died in the Holocaust. 78,000 names. The names cover every inch of every wall downstairs from floor to ceiling. Upstairs, they have an art exhibition: children’s art pieces from the concentration camp Theresienstadt. Most of those children died in Auschwitz.
I remember studying those kids during Holocaust Remembrance Day at my Hebrew school. When I was 15, we did an exercise where we each received the profile of one of the children to memorize. We stood in a circle and we told the other students about our assigned child. At the end, if the child had died before the war ended, we sat down. Writing this, I don’t remember if the child I learned about died or not. But I can tell you exactly which of my friends sat down in that circle. My little sisters were both in that circle. I know they both sat down.
Outside that synagogue in Prague, I walked through the Jewish graveyard. It’s all stacked on top of itself, since Jews did not have the right to expand it. I stepped across the rope to place a pebble on top of a gravestone nearby. It was the only rock I could find.
I can’t stay away from the news any longer. I click through the articles. CNN. Washington Post. New York Times. The shooter, they say, was a known white supremacist and anti-Semite. He posted evil words on the internet, as so many do. I don’t want to know his name. I don’t care what his story is.
He said “all Jews must die.” But I am still here. While I was standing in that synagogue in Prague, I thought about that. I am here. In a city that witnessed unspeakable atrocities, on a continent where six million people died for believing as I do. I am still here. We are still here. At the time, that gave me some small amount of hope. It still does, even on days like these.
In memory of those who lost their lives, I will try to practice “gemilut chasadim,” acts of loving-kindness. I will remember that our fight is never over and that my Judaism teaches me to fight for all those who face threats of violence and erasure. My heart breaks for all of those who lost loved ones on Saturday. May their memories be a blessing.
A version of this piece was originally published in New Voices, an online Jewish student magazine.
(11/08/18 10:57am)
MIDDLEBURY — The July passage of marijuana legalization in Vermont has had an impact on not only future use of the drug, but past offenses as well. Vermont State’s Attorneys Dennis Wygmans and David Cahill estimate there are now roughly 2,800 Vermont residents with expungeable cannabis convictions. In other words, residents who were previously convicted of a cannabis possession charge that is now allowed under new state laws can have these charges expunged.
David Cahill, Windsor County State’s Attorney, released this estimate earlier in the year, by tallying cases where charges could potentially be expunged due to the changing laws in annual state reports since 2008. Recently, Vermonters have begun to have their charges expunged due to the efforts of many local organizations and attorneys to help residents expunge their own cannabis misdemeanors, including those in Addison County.
Last month, State’s Attorney Dennis Wygmans teamed up with pro bono attorney Dave Silberman to do just this: organize and host expungement clinics to assist county residents in filing petitions to clear qualifying cannabis charges from their records. Silberman, a longtime drug reform citizen’s advocate, specifically designed these clinics for cannabis-related expungements.
[pullquote speaker="DAVE SILBERMAN " photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Those of us who’ve been unfairly targeted in the past can finally clear our records and no longer have to worry about the lifetime of negative repercussions.[/pullquote]
“Vermont has already decided, as a state, that growing and using marijuana shouldn’t be a crime, and yet so many people continue to carry the burdens of their previous convictions,” said Silberman, in a press release sent out early last month. “By obtaining expungement, those of us who’ve been unfairly targeted in the past can finally clear our records and no longer have to worry about the lifetime of negative repercussions that past arrests continue to have on our job prospects, eligibility for federal benefits like student loans and our general standing in the community.”
Silberman told The Campus that organizing these clinics was fairly straightforward.
“We had to find volunteer attorneys from Vermont Legal Aid and Vermont Law School Center for Justice Reform and folks who actually know how to process expungements,” Silberman said. He held two Middlebury clinics in October, the first in the Frank Mahady Courthouse, and the second at the college’s Kirk Alumni Center. These events provided a start-to-finish expungement filing process, including free consultation from Vermont Legal Aid Volunteer Attorneys.
“A lot of people don’t know that expungement is available to them. Having a clinic raises awareness that this is an option,” Silberman said. While the expungement process can be done individually, Silberman and Wygmans understood why convicted residents may not undertake it on their own. Filing a petition can be difficult. “Even though the forms are relatively straightforward, a lot of folks are really uncomfortable with pro se representation (or self-representation) in the legal system,” he said.
There are financial barriers as well.
“If you had a criminal defense attorney for your previous conviction, sure you could go back to that person, but that attorney will say, ‘Okay, that’s an hour and a half of my time, and that will be $350,’” Silberman said. “Here, we have pro bono attorneys doing this at no fee.”
Residents need to pay $90 to file for an expungement petition, Silberman said. In an effort to address this, the executive director of the PennyWise foundation, Laura Subin, offered fee scholarships at the clinics for qualifying residents.
“Current requirements that individuals file a petition and pay the courts a $90 fee are huge barriers to some, hurting most those who have the least,” said Subin. “PennyWise is proud to stand up and say ‘This is wrong,’ and we hope to be involved in legislative advocacy that will make expungement of eligible crimes happen automatically and for free.”
Relieving financial barriers might increase the clinics’ success rates. “We had folks here fifteen minutes before we even opened,” Silberman said. At the first round of expungements at Frank Mahady Courthouse, Wygmans says 20 county residents attended and at least 12 were able to file for expungement. The documents were sent to the courts for approval.
Saturday’s clinic felt similar. Silberman greeted attendees at the door of Kirk Alumni Center on the edge of Middlebury’s campus. Residents signed in and then discussed their potential filing with members of Vermont Legal Aid. Wygmans was present, as well as Middlebury student volunteers from the college’s Pre-Law Association.
Other Vermont counties have offered similar expungement events in the past six months. Cahill is another leader in cannabis misdemeanor rollback efforts.
“Props are due to Dennis Wygmans,” Cahill said, commenting on the continuing efforts from the Addison County State’s Attorney office to hold expungement events. “The key is to repeat these clinics.”
Cahill explained that Windsor County has hosted driver’s license suspension and cannabis misdemeanor expungement clinics, and hopes to hold other drug related expungement events in the future. In fact, Middlebury’s expungement clinics, although focused on relieving cannabis charges, welcomed residents with “any and all” qualifying charges for expungement. Vermont Legal Aid’s website says the qualifying offenses are four specific felony charges including almost all misdemeanors as well as “Felony Burglary (not in a home), Grand Larceny, Prescription Fraud and Criminal Mischief.”
Silberman described his motivations in simple terms. “The plain fact of the matter is that cannabis prohibition has and is a tool of racial oppression. It is not just good enough to end it; we have to reverse it,” he said. “There is a historical wrong here that needs to be corrected, and these expungement clinics are a small step in correcting that wrong.”
(11/08/18 2:53am)
Nearly one year to the day after The Rough Cut arrived to 51 Main St. in downtown Middlebury, the BBQ restaurant has announced it will be closing its doors for good after one last hurrah this Friday, Nov. 9. The self-described “neighborhood bar,” which prides itself on a large beer selection, live music and food with soul, revealed the coming closure on its Facebook page on Tuesday afternoon.
“We have some hard news. We’ve made the difficult decision to close,” the post read, continuing to express gratitude to patrons, employees, and the Middlebury community for their support.
Ben Wells, the owner of The Rough Cut, told The Campus last year that he hoped to create a “positive, warm, energetic environment” for people to enjoy. An outpouring of support and words of regret at the restaurant’s closing via social media stand testament to The Rough Cut’s popularity amongst staff members and the community.
“I’ve never been more heartbroken to leave a place. Thank you Rough Cut for one of the best years of my restaurant life,” said Rebecca Hanleigh, a former employee, commenting on the Facebook farewell.
The team at the BBQ joint has yet to publicly announce the reasons for the abrupt end of service. However, they join a seemingly ever-growing list of small businesses and entrepreneurs in downtown Middlebury that have been forced to shutter their doors within the past year.
College students and residents in search of Southern comfort food, live performances from local musicians and a casual place to watch a sports game will have to turn elsewhere. Starting at 3 p.m. on Friday and lasting “until the beer is gone,” The Rough Cut will host a goodbye party to celebrate its last plate of St. Louis Pork Ribs and its final heaping of fried pickles, serving drinks at sharply discounted prices throughout the evening.
“We’re not crying, you’re crying,” the Rough Cut team lamented in their Facebook goodbye.
Look for an updated version of this story in next week’s print issue, on stands Thursday, Nov. 15.
(11/06/18 7:04pm)
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ADDISON UPDATE: 11:06 pm
Democrats Ruth Hardy and Chris Bray were both declared winners of the local state senate race at 9 pm this evening. The announcement was followed by a joint speech, in which the two cited Universal Primary Healthcare, paid family leave and a comprehensive lake cleanup plan as the top priorities to tackle in Montpelier.
Hardy, a first-time elect, thanked her staff and husband, Jason Mittell, professor and chair of the Film & Media Culture department, for their support on the campaign trail. She spent the day visiting 10 of the 25 towns with campaign treasurer Dave Silberman. She drove from Huntington to Middlebury "blasting 80s tunes and dancing," she said at the Middlebury Inn this evening.[infogram id="addison-senate-district-25-towns-total-1ho16vvomr0v6nq" prefix="PeT"]
Paul Forlenza, who's on the Addison County Democratic Committee in Lincoln, Vt., was stationed at the corner of the Middlebury Inn, intermittently connecting his computer to the large TV in the room to broadcast up-to-date local election results.
"Town clerks report into candidates or somebody who's close to a candidate in town," Forlenza said.
Vermont House seats for Addison-3 were won by Democrats Diane Lanpher and Matt Birong by a narrow margin. Democrats Mari Cordes and Caleb Elder were also elected to Addison-4 with 26.5 percent and 29.1 percent of the vote, respectively.
"Yes! We have two Ds. Caleb and Mari have just won," declared Dave Sharpe, the retiring legislative from Lincoln, Vt. to a packed crowd at the Middlebury Inn Tuesday night just before 9 pm.
STATE UPDATE: 10:46 pm
At the VT Dems event in Burlington this evening, Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Peter Welch were among the politicians to give speeches.
"Being the United States Senator from Vermont has been the honor of my life," Sen. Sanders said during his speech this evening.
Attorney General T.J. Donovan was re-elected for his second term. Jim Condos, the secretary of state, addressed the crowd just after the announcement of Donovan's win, harping on the emphasis of voting in this midterm election.
"This election was about one four-letter word: vote," Condos said during his speech. He believes the state's voter turnout was 55 percent today -- the highest of any midterm election. 69,000 early votes were cast, as opposed to 33,000 in 2014.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Christine Hallquist addressed the crowd, thanking supporters and volunteers for the arduous hours put in during the last six months. She admitted defeat with 82 percent of votes reporting in the state.
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"I'm very proud of the campaign we've run," Hallquist said in her concession speech at the Burlington Hilton. "Phil is going to be very committed to the future of Vermont. We sparred well and I think Vermont is a beacon of hope of what democracy looks like."
Hallquist began her campaign on March 2 and has been lauded by Democrats for supporting single-payer healthcare, the $15 minimum wage and paid family leave -- all proposals Gov. Scott's vetoed in the last few months[pullquote speaker="Christine Hallquist" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]We sparred well and I think Vermont is a beacon of hope of what democracy looks like.[/pullquote]
Gov. Scott's favorability dropped dramatically after passing stricter gun laws this past summer. However, he's continued to be one of the most favored Republican governors nationwide. Vermont is one of the only states that often has split ballots. Many voters are willing to vote for a Republican governor, but Democratic senators and congressman.
Editor's Note: Ruth Hardy is the spouse of Prof. Jason Mittell, The Campus' academic advisor. Mittell plays no role in any editorial decisions made by the paper. Any questions may be directed to campus@middlebury.edu.
(11/01/18 10:00am)
Trigger Warning: Many artists who have been accused of sexual assault and sexual impropriety will be referenced in this review. For campus resources surrounding sexual assault, visit go.middlebury.edu/sexualviolenceinfo. Also, visit MiddSafe’s site at go.middlebury.edu/middsafe or student group It Happens Here at go.middlebury.edu/ihh.
To report a sexual assault, contact Middlebury College’s Title IX Coordinator Sue Ritter (sritter@middlebury.edu) at 802-443-3289. Her office is in Student Services Building 213.
This children’s (?) book is an absolute love letter to the Dominican Republic, all of the brown people born there and those who populate its diaspora. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz scribes a brief and endearing tale around Lola, an elementary school student who was born on the Caribbean isle but can’t seem to recall any of its details. Lola’s teacher gives her ethnically and racially diverse class an assignment of drawing a picture about where they are from and Lola must tap into her community, asking neighbors and relatives about their memories, in order to create a picture of an island that lives within her.
Díaz’s narrative has much in common with his own: he was born in the Dominican Republic and came to the United States as a child. His identity then, like Lola’s, is transnational — rich because it is informed by two places, yet negotiated, too, as it is a hybrid. On the journey, readers tour a neighborhood that is filled with people who trace links to the Dominican Republic and cultural products that come from the island, like empanadas. The omnipresent music, too, is a cultural motif. What Lola and readers realize is that many Dominicans are in diasporic spaces because they were escaping a reality that was less favorable. Without ever explicitly mentioning the Dominican Republic’s former dictator, Rafael Trujillo, and the many deaths that resulted from his power, Díaz is able to conjure a time when living on the island was equivalent to living under an ominous and encompassing threat.
The book is impressive in that it features a brown girl with highly textured hair leading an adventure of historical memory. There aren’t many I can readily name that do this. A better choice could have been made in terms of the size and style of the font used within the work. The text is fine and narrow and sometimes exceeds 100 words per page, which suggests this work is not intended for young children. In that respect, I think Díaz struggled to truly identify his audience. If the readership is, say, aged 5-10, like the main character, “Islandborn” comes off as text-heavy and the political overtones that reference a dictatorship may be lost on children without a good deal of contextualization. That is, without a parent or adult nearby to provide explicit explanations of an era of pain and oppression, children attempting to read this work independently are likely to miss an important layer of the narrative.
I suspect it would be remiss to review one of Díaz’s works without acknowledging the accusations against him in the wake of the #MeToo movement. To some people it is not reaching to say that over the last 15 years, particularly following the publication of “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” Díaz had been elevated to the status of a literary god.
Díaz became known as a go-to author who would champion the voices of the marginalized and oppressed and has received non-stop invitations to speak on all sorts of topics including the politics surrounding writers of color and transnational writers in the United States. I, too, sought out his thoughts and takes on contemporary politics, following his Facebook publications with attention, admiration and gravitas. I was also impressed by his professorship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and his participation in workshops designed to further develop the work of new writers of color. In short, my admiration ran so deeply, I wanted to marry this man.
Then some deeply concerning reports were made about his character and his behavior regarding how he has treated women and how his power allowed him to treat women abusively without repercussion. As my inclination is to believe people when they identify perpetrators of abuse, misconduct and misogyny, the stability of the pedestal upon which I and we, collectively as a culture, had placed him, was shaken. My trust as an avid and faithful fan was compromised.
If he behaved poorly in the dark — which I believe he did — then what was “Islandborn” when placed in the light? Did he really believe in the power of a story featuring a young Caribbean girl of color? Or was it just a convenient marketing ploy that further branded him in a favorable light? Or something in between? Did he realize that young girls of color mature and become women of color? And that those women of color were being disrespected and violated by his allegedly abusive behavior? Are humans identifying as female only worthy of respect and protection before they develop secondary sexual characteristics that can make them desirable to men? Are they afterwards “prey” and “fair game”?
Perhaps needless to say, I can’t read his work with the same eyes I would have in 2017. Díaz’s works have their merit, sure. But divorcing the writer from the work he/she/they produce(s) is, in a word, challenging.
Another writer whose character has come under similar scrutiny following accusations of sexual harassment is Sherman Alexie, author of “The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian.” Bill Cosby, too, star of “The Cosby Show,” is serving time for three counts of aggravated indecent assault against Andrea Constand. Comedian Louis C.K. from “Louie” publicly confessed to exposing his genitals to his female colleagues, another form of sexual misconduct. Aziz Ansari, creator of “Master of None,” has been accused of misconduct. And Dr. Avital Ronell of New York University, author of many works in our collection, including “Crack Wars” and “Stupidity,” has been accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault, stalking and retaliation.
I live in a conflicted space because I love(d) what some of these artists produced and, simultaneously, I hate their misogyny and abuse.
If you want to read another work that treats a transnational narrative stemming from the Caribbean, see Edwidge Danticat’s “Breath, Eyes, Memory,” which, admittedly, is triggering in a host of different ways but features Haitian characters and engages a transnational discourse.
Literatures & Cultures Librarian Katrina Spencer is liaison to the Anderson Freeman Center, the Arabic Department, the Comparative Literature Program, the Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies (GSFS) Program, the Language Schools, the Linguistics Program and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
(11/01/18 9:59am)
“You are part of the performance,” artist Néle Azevedo told the crowd of students, professors, community members, children and a few dogs that gathered at the base of the Davis Library steps last Tuesday evening.
At the center of the crowd were two large freezers holding 400 eight-inch-tall figurines of men and women made of ice, the centerpieces of Azevedo’s renowned installment titled, “Minimum Monument: Art as Emergency.”
The piece, which involves ceremoniously “sitting” all of the figurines in line to then watch them gradually melt, is an environmentally-conscious performance event that serves as a visual metaphor for climate change.
Azevedo handed the first figurine to a little girl, commencing the display before crowds swarmed the artist and her team in order to take part. When first placed, the figurines held a crisp ghostly frost, sitting firmly on the steps where they were positioned. Once they began to melt, however, they slowly turned transparent and thinned ominously in unison. It was for this reason that Azevedo chose ice as her medium, describing it as poetic material for the installment.
Each figurine is made using a mold, after which Azevedo and her team hand-file and chip away at the ice to get the perfect shape. She described the process as grounding and meditative, emphasizing the importance of working with volunteers and members of the community that the piece is taking place in. It is this process that gives each figure an unmistakable human presence, making the piece both eerie and powerful as the frosty, featureless figures sit with their heads bent to watch the melted water slowly drip from their toes. Azevedo uses this facelessness to emphasize the unity of man, claiming, “I celebrate the anonymous figure” rather than any singularly powerful person. This is why the piece presents many small figures instead of one large one, she continued.
“I conceived this work subverting the characteristics of the official monuments,” she said. “It is an anti-monument.”
Azevedo was invited to make her U.S. “Minimum Monument” debut by University of Vermont Professor Maria Woolson, who hosted the exhibit’s first showing on the school’s campus before coming to Middlebury. Prior to the Vermont installments, however, the monument had made a global name for itself. Azevedo has brought her art to countries throughout Europe, Asia and South America and frequently showcases the ice sculptures in Brazil, her home country. The largest was a display of approximately 5,000 figurines in Birmingham, UK in 2014.
Azevedo applied a broader context to her art by addressing the crowds about the threats facing the Amazon rainforest in her home country of Brazil.
Although the installation’s message is widely interpreted as a metaphor for the broad topic of climate change, the piece is meant to be somewhat interpretive, and it is not the first time “Minimum Monument” has been used as commentary on specific events.
Once, at a performance in Italy, it coincidentally took place in the midst of a protest on school privatization and was thus interpreted by the crowd as a metaphor for the children within Italy’s education system.
Again, though more intentionally this time, the piece was used in Brazil to protest plans for a construction of a dam that would uproot indigenous people from their homes. It was there that the monument took on its most blunt message as Azevedo molded one solitary female figurine out of her own blood to melt among the water. It was not until 2009 that the piece became distinctly known for its message on climate change, though Azevedo believes this interpretation to be paramount.
“Words are not enough,” said Azevedo on climate change.
Although the “Minimum Monument’s” figurines typically take 40 minutes to melt after they’re set up, the sunless mid-40s Vermont afternoon was not so obliging. The piece was still vaguely visible about four hours later on the Davis steps, though this became a part of its power.
Like climate change, the piece does not always present a clear and blatant progression. Instead, it gradually transformed over time.
The change was even more pronounced hours later as the melting and broken figures glowed in the fading twilight.
(11/01/18 9:59am)
Surrounded by machine parts and agricultural equipment at a promotional event for state Senate candidates, incumbent Governor Phil Scott sat down with The Campus to discuss his platform for re-election on a rainy October evening. The smell of Porky’s BBQ & Smokehouse’s well-loved brisket and mac n’ cheese wafted in from outside as Scott spoke to his desire to do what he can to “forward Vermont.”
While most other states across the country are gearing up for gubernatorial midterms, Vermont is one of only two states where the term for governor lasts for just two years. Next week, on Election Day, Nov. 6, the state will vote to elect either the Republican Scott or — in what would be a major upset — his challenger, the Democrat and political newcomer Christine Hallquist.
Republican governors historically tend to be popular in liberal Northeastern states, and Scott is no exception. Last year, a Morning Consult poll showed Scott’s approval rating at 60 percent, ranking him as the seventh most popular governor in the country. But, according to another survey released in July of 2018, Scott suffered a net drop of 38 points in approval — driven mostly by Republicans. Conservative disapproval stemmed largely from Scott’s shifting position towards stricter gun control in the wake of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla. and the foiled shooting plot in Fair Haven, Vermont.
Scott currently retains a relatively solid 45 percent approval rating, according to a VPR - Vermont PBS Poll. Combined with the natural advantage of incumbency, this base of support may be enough to indicate a likely victory. The national election tracking website FiveThirtyEight gives him a 95 percent chance of winning as Election Day draws near.
Poised for gubernatorial reelection, Scott, a racecar driver turned long-term politician, sits at the wheel of what could be a rocky second term in office. With a state legislature heavily dominated by Democrats, Republican nominees falling behind in many other states and much work to do in Vermont, Scott is up against significant challenges.
Scott would have a lot left to accomplish in a brief second term to realize even his 2016 campaign promise: “grow the economy, make it more affordable, and protect the most vulnerable.”
So, what does it mean for this moderate Republican to uphold these principles?
ADDRESSING THE “AFFORDABILITY CRISIS”
“From my perspective, everything we do is about the economy and changing the demographics of our state,” Scott said. “That’s where our challenge is: We’re an aging state, the second oldest in the country and I believe that we’ll be number one if we don’t change our ways.”
The struggle to retain young people and fill job opportunities is a concern many Vermonters share. With a low unemployment rate of 2.8 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Scott’s focus is on workforce challenges and addressing what he terms Vermont’s “affordability crisis.”
[pullquote speaker="Phil Scott" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]That’s where our challenge is: We’re an aging state, the second oldest in the country and I believe that we’ll be number one if we don’t change our ways.[/pullquote]
He emphasized figuring out what it takes to keep college-age students — like those at Middlebury College — in state, in order to “to take advantage of our great quality of life but also the opportunities that are here.”
The students that Scott has spoken with, he said, described being drawn out of state by career opportunities, less expensive housing and general affordability.
“The good news,” Scott said, “is that we have … about 10,000 graduating every year so we have opportunity and we have jobs available and open — but we have to connect the two.”
In his first term as governor, the legislature passed Scott’s $35 million housing bond proposal, which was the largest investment Vermont has made toward affordable housing for the state’s workforce. The sale of these “sustainability bonds” by the Vermont Housing Finance agency aimed to create more available and affordable homes for working families, according to a February 2018 press release. Given time, Scott believes, this sale will help to positively impact the state’s economy.
MICHAEL BORENSTEIN
MINIMUM WAGE
Unlike his opponent Hallquist, Scott does not believe in increasing the minimum wage. Scott has maintained throughout both of his campaigns, and his time in office, that the way to make Vermont more affordable is through keeping taxes and fees where they are.
“I would say you should travel from Brattleboro to Springfield to Bradford, to St. Johnsbury up in the Northeast Kingdom because that’s all along the Connecticut River,” Scott said, tracing an imaginary map of the state. “Right across from the Connecticut River is another state called New Hampshire that has a minimum wage of $7.25, that has no sales tax, that has no income tax, and no corporate tax.”
Raising the minimum wage, Scott believes, would be placing Vermont companies along the border at the risk of not being able to compete with out-of-state business.
“I want people to make more money. I believe in supply and demand and capitalism,” he said. “If they want to change the minimum wage so that we are on an even keel, and even playing field with everyone else, do it nationally.”
TAXES AND FEES
Following his 2016 gubernatorial campaign, Scott made a pledge to not increase taxes or fees, including property tax rates. In his first term he worked to eliminate the social security income tax for low and middle-class households and avoided increasing fees for residential property owners. His logic: live within the state’s means. He believes the 2018 budget surplus of $55 million made it “counterintuitive to raise taxes.”
“I waited until after [the 2016 campaign], built the budget and then determined that we could live within our means,” he said. Scott held the line on taxes and fees with just one exception, as the threat of a government shutdown this past summer forced his hand. He vetoed two proposed budgets that included increases in certain tax rates before eventually allowing the Fiscal Year 2019 budget to be adopted into law without his signature. Though Scott backed much of the package’s other initiatives, some of which were his own proposals, he could not sign on to the increase in non-residential property tax-rates.
[pullquote speaker="Phil Scott" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]I cannot support the Legislature’s decision to increase the statewide non-residential tax rate by 4.5-cents in a year we have a large, and growing, surplus.[/pullquote]
“I’m letting this bill become law without my signature because, ultimately,” Scott wrote in a letter addressed to the legislature. “I cannot support the Legislature’s decision to increase the statewide non-residential tax rate by 4.5-cents in a year we have a large, and growing, surplus.
“I wasn’t going to shut down the government in order to prove my point,” Scott said about his decision not to continue the budget standoff. “Sometimes people take advantage of your good naturedness, but at the same time we accomplished a lot over the last two years — we didn’t raise a single tax or fee for the general fund.”
While he has yet to make the same pledge so far, Scott said his administration will continue to build this year’s budget with the hope that a sufficient surplus will allow him to keep taxes and fees steady.
“To make Vermont more affordable we have to have economic activity. We’re focusing in those areas that obtain that,” he said.
TAX AND REGULATE MARIJUANA
Adults at least 21 years of age are legally allowed to possess and grow marijuana in Vermont, thanks to a new law that went into effect in July of this year. The law, which received Scott’s approval in January, permits individual use and possession with restrictions but does not allow for the purchase or sale of marijuana.
The institution of a tax and regulated marijuana market is another area where Scott and Hallquist disagree. Though ultimately Scott did not disagree with the possible value in implementing a commercial marijuana market, he does not believe Vermont is ready.
“I signed the legalization of marijuana. So it’s not as though I’m philosophically opposed,” he said. “I just think we need to do this right and we have an opportunity and an obligation to do it right.”
Doing it right, he said, means first designing better ways to test impairment on highways and doing the work of more education and prevention in schools.
“Public safety from my standpoint is the highest obligation of any government,” he said. “So let’s do that, let’s work together on that and then bring the tax and regulation system in.”
HEALTH CARE
Following in former Gov. Peter Shumlin’s footsteps, Scott aims to expand and improve health care options in the state through an all-payer model. Unlike the universal healthcare route supported by Hallquist, the all-payer system is designed to equalize prices so patients pay the same fee at a given hospital. With this model, he said, “we’re looking to pay providers for the care of the patient holistically instead of the fee for service program.”
He remains skeptical about the idea of a state single-payer approach, arguing that Vermont is not ready for such a system at the present moment. It took Shumlin five years after taking office to come up with a proposal for a single-payer model that, in the end, Scott recalled, was “not going to work for Vermont.”
[pullquote speaker="Phil Scott" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Just prove to me it [universal healthcare] can work, show me the plan, tell me who’s going to pay for it, how much is it going to cost, basic things of that nature.[/pullquote]
“I said I’m open minded. Just prove to me it can work, show me the plan, tell me who’s going to pay for it, how much is it going to cost, basic things of that nature,” Scott said.
Ultimately, though he professed keeping an open-mind, Scott posited that the single-payer method is too expensive and would put Vermont at risk in comparison to other states. “We’re not an island,” he said. He plans to continue to expand and improve the all-payer pilot program if re-elected, focusing investments on prevention, quality of care and long-term benefits for Vermonters.
OPIOIDS
Addressing the opioid epidemic falls under Scott’s third principle of “protecting the vulnerable,” and represents one of his priority initiatives. In a state where obituaries of those who lost their lives to addiction go viral nationwide, addressing this epidemic must be a priority for any governorship.
“We’re taking action on a number of different fronts,” Scott confirmed, underlining his Opioid Coordination Council (OCC) and initiatives to continue expanding and improving prevention, treatment facilities, transitional housing, recovery and enforcement. He highlighted the opening of another treatment facility in St. Albans, as well as the reduction of the treatment waiting list in Chittenden County from 700 to zero.
Scott offered praise for the Hub and Spoke model, which is the state’s current framework for providing opioid addiction treatment with 9 large regional “hub” facilities and 75 “spoke” care settings focused on more long-term recovery. He described Vermont as “a leader in the country in regards to treatment and recovery,” acknowledging the work left to be done.
PRISONS
For a governor who places utmost importance on protecting public safety, the issue of Vermont’s overpopulated prisons has presented some strife for the Scott administration.
“We put forward a prison,corrections plan last year to the legislature and it wasn’t well received,” said Scott, referencing his proposal to increase Vermont’s prison capacity. His plan entailed employing CoreCivic, a private prison company, to construct and lease a prison in Franklin County. Critics faulted Scott’s proposal to work with a private prison corporation. The facility, which would be run by state employees, would create space for inmates who have been forced to out-of-state prisons.
Former Democratic Governor Howard Dean began the practice of exporting inmates, Scott said. Responding to criticism, Scott said his proposal was no more than a “mechanism for building the facility in a manner that we could afford.”
“I left [the proposal] open when we developed it — we put it out there — but you know this is politics 101, D.C. type politics,” Scott said. “I said from the beginning this is just a concept, a plan. If you want to build it with state resources, draw your own facility up, engage us!”
He underlined the fact, however, that his administration has reduced prison populations by about 50 people and pledged to go back to work on his plan if re-elected.
Bottom line, Scott said: “I would like to see us have an opportunity to have all of our offenders within state borders.”
MERCHANTS’ ROW RAIL BRIDGE CONSTRUCTION
On a local note, Scott is sympathetic to the concerns held by Middlebury residents in the face of the economic hardship posed by the rail bridge infrastructure project. While he offered words of support, he clarified that financial aid for the town was more complicated.
“There is a limited amount of money. A lot of our dollars are leveraged with federal funds and they don’t allow for us to use their dollars to supplement,” Scott said. What’s more, he said, when resources are used to supplement losses in one community, “it takes infrastructure projects away from other communities.”
FOLLOW THROUGH
“We haven’t followed through with everything we needed to follow through with initially,” Scott said, underscoring the brevity of his first term. “So I’m going to continue to be the person I am and do what I can to forward VT in a much different way.”
Scott’s open-mindedness, willingness to, as he describes, “work across the aisle” and “treat others with respect and civility” even when they disagree may set him apart favorably from many candidates nationwide in the era of party politics.
Now, more than ever, an inclination to work outside of party lines and compromise can be hard to come by. However, Scott’s oft-repeated claims to bipartisanship hinge first on the ability of others - namely his opponents - to generate legislation and then prove to him that such proposals could work.
“Show me the plan, tell me who’s going to pay for it, how much is it going to cost, basic things of that nature,” he said. Given the state of his party support, if re-elected, it might require more than just a passive, though welcoming attitude — but some active creativity on the part of this moderate Republican to see his platform goals accomplished.
(11/01/18 9:59am)
The current midterm election cycle has seen record numbers of women running for office across the country. There may be few Vermonters more qualified to speak on that topic to Middlebury students than Madeleine Kunin, the first and to this day only female governor of Vermont.
Kunin, who was Vermont’s governor from 1985 to 1991, visited the college last Tuesday to read from her second memoir, “Coming of Age: My Journey to the Eighties.” Kunin was greeted by a room packed full of students and town residents alike.
Ruth Hardy, the executive director of Emerge Vermont and a Democratic candidate to represent Addison County in the Vermont Senate, introduced Kunin. Kunin founded Emerge Vermont, which trains and provides resources for female-identifying Democrats seeking public office. Holding back tears, Hardy recounted her time working with Kunin, with whom she celebrated success and recovered from failure.
Hardy remembered the joy she and Kunin felt at Hillary Clinton’s success in winning the Democratic nomination for the presidency and their sadness at her loss four months later.
[pullquote speaker="Ruth Hardy" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]A woman in her forties has time to wait for the next big election, while a woman in her eighties may not.[/pullquote]
“As painful as it was for me, I knew the loss was far greater for Madeleine,” said Hardy. “A woman in her forties has time to wait for the next big election, while a woman in her eighties may not.”
The adversity that Kunin faced, however, has not dulled her impact in Vermont and beyond. As she concluded her introduction, Hardy’s message was simple and perfectly conveyed the success of Kunin’s work as a role model and advocate.
“Thank you for all that you have done for me and for women and girls across Vermont,” Hardy said.
Indeed, Kunin’s work to pave the way for women in politics is significant. Kunin was born in Zurich to Jewish parents and moved to the United States to escape the Nazis as a young girl. Hardy told the audience that as a mother, Kunin fretted for the safety of her young children as they crossed railroad tracks each morning to get to school. Her initiative to find a solution to this problem led her to politics. Kunin went on to serve as the first and only female governor of Vermont, and the only woman in the United States to serve three terms as governor. After her governorship, Kunin continued her work in government as the United States Deputy Secretary of Education and Ambassador to Switzerland and Lichtenstein under the Clinton administration.
Kunin also hopes her memoir will tell a story beyond her political career. “You are caricatures almost in public life,” she said. “You are either liberal or conservative, good or bad [...] I think at some level, even though I’m shy about bringing it out to the extent I did, I also want people to know what my life and thoughts were — that I was more than this flatlined public caricature of a woman.”
The perspective is unique because Kunin is able to be more direct, noted Karin Hanta, Director of the Feminist Resource Center at Chellis House.
“She candidly reflects on aging through a gendered lens,” Hanta said. “She no longer feels like her words are ‘filtered through a fine meshed screen’ because her public life no longer depends on public approval.”
[pullquote speaker="Madeleine Kunin" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.[/pullquote]
Kunin also read from her writings in poetry and prose, which described her experience growing old.
“I want to stay in the brilliance, [but] there is also sometimes a desire to retreat,” Kunin said.
This sentiment was also reflected in her remarks on the importance of political engagement today.
“That is the most dangerous thing — that we get so depressed that we shut the doors and turn off the lights, and we can’t afford to do that,” Kunin said.
Hanta emphasized that Kunin served as a role model for people who identify as women asserting themselves in politics rather than fading into the background.
“In today’s political climate, Governor Kunin’s accounts of strength in the face of adversity — she was sometimes ridiculed and rendered invisible in her political life — inspire women to persevere in playing an active political role,” said Hanta. “By addressing a topic that is not often talked about, she inspires women to have courage and speak their truth.”
When asked about specific advice that she had for women in politics, Kunin responded first saying she was glad that someone had asked. She reflected on the fact that in the United States, progress for women in politics has been excruciatingly slow compared to other countries.
[pullquote speaker="Madeleine Kunin" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]That is the most dangerous thing — that we get so depressed that we shut the doors and turn off the lights, and we can’t afford to do that.[/pullquote]
This year, however, she believes that things are changing. She expressed her pleasure with the outpouring of women running for office this year and believes that we actually have President Trump to thank for this.
“If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu,” Kunin said, articulating her belief that the most effective and tangible remedy for the problems women face in the world is running for office.
Such experiences of invisibility in politics are all too familiar to Kunin, who recalled her testimony during the confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.
“It was all men, the whole Senate Judiciary Committee, and we knew they weren’t listening to us,” Kunin said.
She recounted how powerless it felt to look up at the dais and to know that she had no impact. In spite of the adversity and challenges that Kunin sees women facing today, she remains hopeful.
“Despite the dark times, I would urge you to continue to believe in democracy — the pendulum does swing,” Kunin said.
Perhaps the dark times Kunin referenced reflect Yeats’s prophetic line: “things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” But Kunin concluded with a concise message of hope, elaborating that even in the hardest of circumstances, we must have hope and not give up on democracy.
“The centre will hold, but only if we are vigilant,” she said.
Kunin’s reading was made possible by The Vermont Book Shop and The Feminist Resource Center at Chellis House. College Democrats and Feminist Action at Middlebury also sponsored the event.
Editor’s Note: Ruth Hardy is the spouse of Prof. Jason Mittell, The Campus’ academic advisor. Mittell plays no role in any editorial decisions made by the paper. Any questions may be directed to campus@middlebury.edu.
(11/01/18 9:57am)
PIA CONTRERAS
Just about everyone says this is the most important election of “our” lifetime. In other words, this election will determine the future of Trumpism. All agree: a Democratic Congress most likely means a quicker end to the Trump Presidency. Some think this would be good, others bad.
But, this election is about much more than that — it is, as hyperbolic as it may sound, about the future of democracy. Voter ID laws are limiting voters, particularly people of color, from exercising the right many of us take for granted. Gerrymandered districts result in inaccurate and inequitable representation. In Georgia, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, also the Republican nominee for governor, is overseeing his own election, and has tried to purge eligible voters off the rolls and ignored the real threat of election hacking.
As Middlebury’s own Scholar-in-Residence Sue Halpern tweeted in August, “Years ago, when I got my doctorate in political (democratic) theory, I never imagined disenfranchisement would still be a tactic, but here we are.”
The Harvard Institute of Politics released Monday the results of their biannual National Youth Poll, which found that “young Americans are significantly more likely to vote in the upcoming midterm elections compared to 2010 and 2014.” Hopefully, our student body will help prove their prediction true. In 2014, just 14.3 percent of Middlebury College students voted in the midterm elections. That is pathetic. It is even more pathetic that it took the last two years to remind us of the need to (hopefully) get out and vote.
Voting is more than just a fun activity from a “Schoolhouse Rock” song, it is a habit. Would you forget to dress up for a Halloween party? Buy gifts during the holidays?
And that’s where the idea for an “Election Issue” comes in. Here we are, reminding you to vote. We’re doing our part as young journalists to get you, and us, in the habit of voting — of thinking about the issues in your community, state and beyond.
If you missed your home state’s absentee deadline, or won’t be able to make it home for Election Day, we semi-forgive you. That is because it is not too late for you to vote here in Middlebury. Yes, as a Middlebury College student, you are a resident of Vermont. We explain how to vote in town step-by-step on Page A2. Since I know every student reads The Campus cover-to-cover, now no one has an excuse not to vote. Again, it’s a habit. Do it.
Finally, I must say that this week’s issue is the culmination of months’ worth of planning and hard work by our entire staff.
Over the summer, when the managing editors and I pitched the idea to the rest of the team, they hit the ground running and never looked back. We are proud of their work, and grateful to those who agreed to talk with them during the course of their reporting, and to those who wrote op-eds.
Thank you and go to the damn polls.
(11/01/18 9:57am)
Former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin had a favorite saying about representation in politics, one that stuck with many of the women she worked with: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”
It was with that philosophy in mind that Kunin founded Emerge Vermont in 2013 to help elect more women to public office. Kunin was inspired to start the organization after she spoke at a conference hosted by Emerge America, the national parent organization. Since its inception, Emerge Vermont has trained 88 Democratic women to run for office. 20 Emerge Vermont alumnae currently hold elected office in the state. In 2018, 34 Emerge Vermont alumnae are running for office or for reelection, including gubernatorial candidate Christine Hallquist.
These 34 Emerge alumnae run alongside a record number of female candidates across the country this year. According to PBS News, more women than ever before have won major party primaries in races for governor and Congress this year. Most of these women are Democrats. “I’m thrilled that so many women are thinking about it who haven’t thought about it before,” Kunin said in an interview with The Campus. “Emerge is really filling a need.”
Though Kunin applauded the high number of female candidates, she said Vermont still has a lot of work to do. Vermont is the only state that has never sent a woman to Congress. Kunin is the only female governor to have served in Vermont.
Many women in government are working to change the state’s political culture to make it more egalitarian. State Sen. Debbie Ingram (D-Chittenden) said that women need to run to advocate for issues that impact them disproportionately, such as women’s health care needs and child care.
“When half the population is female then we should have a similar proportion in our government,” Ingram said. “We can’t expect men to continue to be in the majority and represent our interests. We need to speak for ourselves.”
But it is often a challenge to get women to run for public office, as State Rep. Jill Krowinski (D-Chittenden 6-3) experienced firsthand. Krowinski currently serves as the House majority leader and is a member of the Emerge Vermont advisory council. When somebody first suggested she run for office in 2012, she hesitated. Krowinski was familiar with politics. She had served as the director of the Vermont Democratic House Campaign, the executive director of the Vermont Democratic Party and run a gubernatorial campaign, but she saw her role as helping other women get elected. She said she “had to be talked into” running herself. This experience further hit home for her the importance of programs like Emerge.
Emerge Vermont offers two types of trainings for women: a six month in-depth training and a boot camp weekend option. The six-month intensive includes 70 hours of programing, during which participants learn about everything from public speaking and fundraising, to campaign strategy and field operations, to cultural competency and ethical leadership. During the training sessions, prospective candidates get advice from Washington experts and local politicians.
In 2018, the full program cost $750, and the bootcamp $265. Executive Director Ruth Hardy, who is currently working part-time as she runs for an Addison County state Senate seat, said there are several options available for women who cannot afford the full cost. “Scholarships are available, as are payment plans, and assistance with fundraising to cover tuition,” she said. The 2019 tuition has not yet been set.
Hardy said that Emerge Vermont tailors their training to the state’s political landscape, but that much of their curriculum translates to other places. She also noted that while “campaigning in rural areas is different than urban areas,” alumnae sometimes move and run in other places. Hardy also mentioned that Middlebury students have participated in the bootcamps in the past, and that they would be welcome in the longer program as well, although the scheduling commitment would be difficult to balance with a full course load.
State Rep. Carol Ode (D-Chittenden 6-1), who graduated from Emerge in 2014, remembers that the program challenged her to consider all aspects of running for office. Ode and Ingram, who are both currently running for reelection, mentioned that they still receive support from Emerge in the form of bi-weekly strategy phone calls.
“We’ve had periodic phone calls where several of us get on together and trade ideas and talk about what’s going on the campaign,” Ingram said. “Emerge has sent out several emails highlighting those of us who are running and getting the word out.”
Equally important to the strategy sessions, Ingram said, are the lasting relationships that Emerge alumnae form with one another. “We refer to each other as Emerge sisters and it really does feel that way, that we have a special bond,” she said. “We help each other with campaigns and call each other to vent when we need to.”
Ingram has also worked as a mentor for subsequent classes of Emerge trainees. As part of the program, the women spend a day shadowing a representative at the state house. “Some of them have reached out to me to ask if we can get coffee and ask me advice and I always try to make time to meet with them,” she said. “I want to make sure I help women come along and get more women running for office.”
For Democratic women considering running for office, Ingram, Ode and Krowinski all recommend Emerge Vermont as a good way to get started. Krowinski also noted that not all the women who participate necessarily end up as candidates. “We have alumnae who have gone through the program and didn’t feel ready to run for office so my next advice for them was to get involved in a local campaign,” she said.
Going forward, Emerge Vermont is considering expanding their program on the local level. “We are seeing a lot of interest, especially given the climate nationally, of women wanting to run for office,” Krowinski said.
Applications for the next round of training will open in 2019, and the next training session will begin in the spring.
Editor’s Note: Ruth Hardy is the spouse of Prof. Jason Mittell, The Campus’s academic advisor. Mittell plays no role in any editorial decisions made by the paper. Any questions may be directed to campus@middlebury.edu.
(11/01/18 9:49am)
This past week I bought a pair of “University Red” Nike Huaraches. I was excited about this athleisure purchase because the color of the shoes is super vibrant and a great statement piece to my outfits. I wanted to stand out and even though Nike Huaraches are a very typical shoe, the color is not. In addition, I also saved about $40 on my purchase by ordering the shoes in a kids size instead of adult. Shop smarter.
Anyone who knows me, or has seen me around, knows that I can often be spotted marching up and down the hills of campus in heels or booties. So, how did a pair of sneakers end up in my online shopping cart? Something that I always admired about Nike was their branding. Beyond the quality of shoes, I was always interested in the image the company has historically perpetuated.
As a Black American woman, I have been drawn to Nike’s commitment to advertise and market to a diverse consumer base. Nike has been in the news recently for its campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick and Serena Williams. Companies that stand up for social justice and inclusivity are ones that I have always tried to support as a consumer. I love when I scroll on Instagram or read online about the latest company to clap-back at injustice or feature a model with whom I can actually identify.
However, a conversation I recently had with a friend challenged my thinking and made me want to investigate further. Capitalizing on individuals’ desires to feel included and respected in society has manifested itself into very clever marketing. I find that the latest trend in fashion is that of social justice.
Advertisements featuring physical diversity in models, sponsorships with social activists and wittily worded social media posts are everywhere. As movements focused on immigration, gay rights, black lives, sexual violence and beauty norms have come to the forefronts of conversation, they’ve also come to that of retail stores. After recognizing that minority groups have sufficient purchasing power, companies specifically target these communities to market their products and incorporate them into their customer base.
As a result, I have begun to wonder what, other than marketing, these companies do to contribute to the communities they are appealing to. Nike has recently come under scrutiny for advertising support for the black community while historically contributing to conservative political campaigns. Whenever a social or political event in our nation makes the news headlines, many companies will demonstrate public support. However, this support often fades away with the next news cycle. I worry that inclusivity is often not driven by the morality of companies but by capitalistic incentives to sell to untapped but lucrative demographics instead. I find that many companies will jump on the bandwagon of fighting the good fight publicly but don’t always contribute beyond the marketing campaigns.
Many individuals, like myself, will become loyal to brands that speak to them stylistically and personally. The brand has become a huge part of the decision making process when purchasing a new item.
Recognizing that it’s rare to find a company that actually puts its money where its campaigns are, I’ve started to challenge myself to think beyond the advertising and do more research about where I spend my money.
