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(11/12/14 9:33pm)
The Jupiter String Quartet is a family of musicians in every sense of the word: the group began as a childhood musing and has flourished into adulthood over the years. It was honed through college all-nighters, strengthened by the bonds of marriage, and is now blossoming into one of the most renowned string quartets on the planet. Their secret undoubtedly lies in the intimate personal connections that are so vital to excellent chamber music. Jupiter has won countless awards around the globe for their masterful communication and stunned audiences everywhere with their energy and talent. Middlebury cannot wait to welcome them back to campus this Sunday, Nov. 16 at 3 p.m. in the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts Concert Hall.
Chamber music is one of the most difficult and mysterious musical configurations. It requires players to not only pay unwavering attention to their peers, but also to execute their own parts with detailed precision. It is not as structured and foolproof as an orchestra, yet still more absolute and demanding than a modern jazz or rock ensemble. Every note is heard, every microtone off-pitch noted. The personal musicianship of each player is naked before the audience. Yet the secret behind a magical, gripping chamber performance is not one’s own musical excellence, but rather the way it fits with that of the three other players. Attending a chamber recital is watching and listening to four people conjure a temporal realm, a celestial world where the creative energies of all members are understood without words, a communicative work of art in real-time. Playing chamber music is the closest thing we have to telepathy, and Jupiter’s magic is that they have mastered it.
On Sunday, Jupiter will play three monumental chamber works. They will start with Bach’s Well-Tempered Klavier, transcribed for string quartet by WA Mozart.The Well-Tempered Klavier is a monumental work, a sort of treatise on the very material of music. Any person interested in music — be it classical, rock, dubstep or any other genre — would take interest in it. Bach, who knew the foundations of music better than anyone before or since, deconstructs the fabric of the music and sensationally re-engineers it across all keys. As an amateur pianist who has the pleasure of playing these stunning pieces, I cannot wait to hear them transcribed to strings, to hear what four different minds can do as opposed to just one.
Following the Well-Tempered Klavier, Jupiter will perform a 1939 Bela Bartók quartet. Written in Hungary during the outbreak of the second World War, Bartók’s sixth quartet brings a cool air of dry dissonance from modern Europe. It was a dark period in the composer’s life — he was starkly averse to the rise of Nazism in neighboring Austria and feared it would overtake his native Hungary as well, yet he was unable to leave due to his mother’s failing health. The manuscript of the quartet is pulsing with these conflicts, an embodiment of all the emotions and sentiments coursing through Bartók’s life. To feel them recreated by Jupiter will be a heart-wrenching experience indeed.
Saving the best for last, Jupiter will end with Beethoven’s 15th String Quartet in A minor. My favorite deaf composer had absolutely no connection to the aural realm when he wrote
this quartet two years before his death. Consequently, this piece, among his other late pieces, was written through purely intellectual motives. His collection of late quartets were highly controversial when they were published due to their deep emotional and intellectual content—legend says that the composer himself cried when he read his work. Only a century after their publication did these pieces become popular again. This composition is not one you can listen to as background music; it is a journey that grips all the attention it can find.
The Jupiter String Quartet, which enjoys a fruitful relationship with the Middlebury Performing Arts Series (this is their sixth visit) is not an event to miss. Not only is every Jupiter concert a collection of highly talented individuals, it is also a family gathering. As such we will see the masks taken off and the music flow freely. With a repertoire this stunning, I know where I will be on Sunday afternoon. Thanks to a generous endowment, this concert is entirely free, with no tickets required! Take the afternoon to treat yourself and experience the glory of a world-class quartet.
(11/12/14 7:18pm)
Three weeks ago I found my bike in a bush. I had locked the wheel to the frame, but not the bike rack. Someone had thrown my bike into a bush. This wasn’t an isolated incident. Two other friends have had their bikes thrown into bushes. Now when I walk by all of the bikes are locked to the rack. I would love to live in a community where that wasn’t necessary. I would love to live in a place where I could leave my bike locked to itself, or better yet, leave it unlocked. I believe that’s a possibility.
To most people, the Honor Code means “I won’t cheat.” That’s a pretty low standard for honor. I’d like to raise that bar. And let me start by saying that I hope I don’t come across as the holier-than-thou, honorable Ben Bogin. I am not. But I think that for students who aspire to a high standard (as we Middkids usually do), the Honor Code falls woefully short. I want our Honor Code to mean, “I will live with integrity at Middlebury, and treat all people with respect.” Then maybe people would stop throwing bikes into bushes.
Some have said we should give up on the Honor Code. We could go back to proctored tests and leaving our backpacks at the door. But I would be incredibly disappointed to give up honor as a value at Middlebury. I’d like to keep working on the Honor Code so that we don’t have to admit defeat. After discussing the issues and researching what other schools do, I’d like to propose the following ideas.
First, I’d like the Judicial Board to publish summaries of hearings online for the Middlebury Community. The names of students and professors would be redacted, and any participant in a hearing could request that the summary be delayed. One goal is to provide transparency to the judicial process for both students and professors. I also want students to feel connected to the Honor Code hearings on a personal level. I recently read Judicial Board files from a peer institution, and the experience caused me to reflect on my own experiences and actions. I want our whole community to experience the same thing. I want people to talk about the Honor Code as much as they wax poetic about chicken parm.
Second, I want to change the Honor Code statement to “I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this assignment, nor have I seen dishonest work.” Not that students should let their vigilance detract from their test. But every time we sign the honor code, we’ll remember that witnessing a violation makes it our responsibility to report it. I understand that this situation feels uncomfortable, and it is. But this discomfort is the price we pay for the privilege of self-proctored exams. And isn’t that what we’re doing here? Stretching our comfort zones, thinking about ethical problems and finding who we really are?
Third, I want to add the Community Standards to the Honor Code. Right now we have a de facto Academic Honor Code. The word “Academic” isn’t technically at the front, but the code only applies when taking a test. I think that the Honor Code should apply everywhere, all the time. And I want to add a section with the following language: “Anyone witnessing a violation of the Community Standards is morally obligated to confront that person.” And notice that I’m not saying we should all be turning each other in to Pub Safe. I just want to live in a community where if people saw someone throwing a bike into a bush, they would take the time to ask if the bush had offended that person in some way.
I want to elevate the Honor Code so that it means more than don’t cheat. I want it to force students to think about what it means to live here in a community, and what it means to work and play with integrity and respect. These ideas are going to take your support. I’d love to know what you think. Let me know as I wander through Proctor looking for friends, or as I stumble, bleary-eyed, out of my many 8am classes (I know, they’re rough). Or send me an email at bbogin@middlebury.edu.
Artwork by RUBI SAAVEDRA
BEN BOGIN '15 is from Larkspur, Calif.
(11/12/14 7:15pm)
I am a little late on the uptake, but it appears our campus has taken a renewed interest in our social, or lack thereof, lives. Or perhaps long-simmering tensions have boiled over and all our angst and frustration is being made known. Or maybe we just had an opportunity to complain. No matter what perspective you have, President Liebowitz’s discussion on social life has revealed a lot on the administration and, more importantly, us as a campus.
Yes, I admit it. We do not have the most “college” of social lives. This is not a large school, this is not a school that still has Greek affiliations (with maybe the exception of KDR), so what are we really to expect? It’s Middlebury for God’s sake. We enjoy beer from independent breweries, long sunsets, and complaining about our workload. Getting belligerent in a toga on a Tuesday was never part of the equation. Though that does sound like fun.
We have a tremendous amount of trouble admitting who and what we are. There is an identity crisis somewhere in between loving a drinking culture and going out a couple times a semester. Do we want a more robust social life on campus? The answer seems to be generally yes. How do we get it? That’s the real question.
Well, who is responsible for taking all our fun?! Clearly, we are just a ton of fun on our own if only the administration and the long arm of the law, Public Safety, would just leave us alone! We’ve all heard that argument, and we’re all bored of it. I could tell you our Public Safety officers are doing their job, I could say to the kid chanting “F*%* Pub Safe!” to get over yourself. Most importantly, I could tell anyone that anywhere in the world there is no police officer that is nicer than one of our Public Safety officers.
In many ways we have come to this frustrating logical end by way of default. We need someone to blame for our stifled social culture, and Public Safety is the easy target of authority. I understand that. I have had Public Safety knock on my door at 8:45 p.m. on a Friday in an upperclassman dorm. I have had Public Safety lecture me about the placement of chips at a party. However, I would gladly suffer all these inconveniences in return for just any one of the times I have needed Public Safety officers and they have responded. Officers Paul, Bryan and Amy I immediately think of as people who have responded with professionalism and genuine concern to situations that I could no longer control. My only true regret is that I’ve only gotten to know these people from those situations. Wouldn’t it be better if student organizations took them out to dinner? Developed professional, working relationships rather than antagonistic ones? If we can’t control what the administration does, then that is on us as students. If we want a better social experience, changing the way we interact with Pub Safe on a regular basis could go a long way.
What about us though? Are all our misbegotten social woes really the fault of an administration or policy? Or is it something to do with us? Before you answer, think about the last time you threw some kind of event yourself, be it registered or un-registered. When was the last time you were on the contributing rather than receiving end of the Middlebury social experience? To the small number of you out there who have hosted large events you know that they are rather expensive, rather stressful at times, and can often be received by a student body that is plainly ambivalent. Let alone the risks of dorm damage, angry drunks and sexual assault. If everyone contributes, these responsibilities tend to even out. However, when it consistently falls upon a few select student organizations, it becomes burdensome, and frankly unappealing, to keep throwing those types of events.
Our social lives are not simply going to be handed to us — nothing in life ever is. The larger “Middlebury” experience is not going to simply be given to you. It has to be made, and that takes more than a little effort. The biggest misconception we have as a student body is that words alone will create change, be that selfish change or larger social change. Before we start demanding policy changes, let’s start living the changes we want seen. I guarantee we will have better luck. If you want a certain social experience, go out there and get it. Get your host training or your TIPS training or crowd manager training. Get to know Public Safety as genuine people. Let’s work on it ourselves; maybe everyone will have a little more fun.
(11/12/14 7:14pm)
As registration for spring semester approached during my first year at Middlebury, I remember the stress and excitement that came with it. And, like any enterprising first year with nearly a semester of experience under his belt, I immediately began trying to figure out all the important course information not listed in the catalog’s surprisingly brief course descriptions. How did students like the professors teaching these courses? How demanding would the workload be for each of them? Was I going to be writing papers, completing problems sets, or taking tests all semester? First, of course, I sought advice from the handful of upperclassmen I had managed to befriend during my first few weeks on campus. While helpful, only one of them had actually had any of the professors on my list of potential classes. They did, however, point me to what I thought was the holy grail of course information — middkid.com.
Initially, I thought I had found all the information I needed. By reading through these reviews written by actual Middlebury students, I could figure out how much time others spent on the class each week, what they thought about the professor’s teaching ability and whether they would recommend taking the class. Slowly, however, I became increasingly disillusioned with the value of the information middkid.com provided in helping me make informed decisions about my classes. For starters, many of the reviews felt dated, with newer faculty having few if any reviews at all — an important gap, given they often teach introductory level courses. In addition, the organization of the site made it difficult to find courses and professors. Multiple pages containing different reviews referred to the same professor, sometimes with different spellings of his or her name. Finally, while I found many of my fellow classmates at Middlebury to be thoughtful students, they did not seem to be the ones writing the reviews on middkid.com. Rather than a general review of how most students felt about the course, the middkid.com reviews were frequently of the “loved it” or “hated it” variety.
Last spring, to improve upon all of these shortcomings, the SGA launched MiddCourses, a student-run course evaluation site. MiddCourses makes sure all the most recent courses are accurately listed by pulling that information directly from the College’s course catalog. More importantly, though, it limits access only to those with a middlebury.edu e-mail address and requires users to complete two new reviews each semester to view the existing database of over 1,500 reviews. This keeps our reviews up-to-date and makes them far more representative of general student opinion than those found on middkid.com. Rather than continuing to sing the praise MiddCourses, however, I’ll stop here and just recommend that you simply visit both and compare. I’m confident you’ll find MiddCourses the better option.
Even if you find the two comparable in quality, however, I think there remains a compelling reason to spend your time on MiddCourses — the student body owns it. We can, quite literally, change anything we want about the site. Middkid.com, by contrast, is a for-profit enterprise over which we have no control. We have already incorporated student feedback into MiddCourses so that it better serves students, and we are currently in the process of adding more features. That level of student ownership makes the future of MiddCourses far brighter than middkid.com. Students will always be in the best position to know how to improve and update the site so that it continues to be a helpful tool prior to registration. In addition, writing a review on MiddCourses increases the likelihood that future Middlebury students will be more informed when making decisions about which courses they should take. I have yet to meet anyone who has actually spent their own time reviewing courses on middkid.com. MiddCourses, on the other hand, creates the right incentives to encourage students to thoughtfully review their courses.
The reflections we have on our academic experience at Middlebury are incredibly valuable, and we ought to share them with one another. While those reflections obviously extend beyond merely reviewing a course or a professor, MiddCourses gives us an opportunity to capture at least one element of our academic experience and pass on that information to future students. The site offers an invaluable opportunity to reduce the confusion and stress many feel when trying to figure out which classes to take. It is a unique platform through which we can institutionalize the type of information we all try to figure out by word of mouth before we register each year. Since we created it, MiddCourses can ultimately make sure that future students benefit from a large reservoir of past students’ experiences — and, quite frankly, that is something middkid.com will never to be able to offer.
TAYLOR CUSTER '15 is the SGA President and is from West Brookfield, Mass.
(11/06/14 4:05am)
After nearly a year of renovations, Middlebury’s Marquis Theatre re-opened this Wednesday. The theater, originally built as a vaudeville house in 1939, had been closed since August 25 for renovation.
The bigger theater, which will showcase live shows every week, features an expanded stage, a state of the art sound and light system, and dance and seating sections. The new complex also features a Southwestern restaurant, headed by Ben Wells, restaurant entrepreneur and men’s rugby coach at the College and Bill Shafer.
The structural renovations are extensive, from the new southwestern color scheme to the upgraded theater.
“We made the stage bigger, and we took out the first four rows of seats, and flattened the floor,” Wells explained. “We have rows of coffee tables and couches.”
“In the couch area, we can just move the couches to the side, and then we’ve got this great dance floor. Professional surroundsound, professional quality lights and lasers – so we’ll be able to do light shows – so it’s going to be a pretty great place to watch a show.”
Perhaps the biggest change to the venue is the addition of a new southwestern style restaurant managed by Wells.
“I had managed a Southwestern restuarant in Boulder, CO, and loved the food,” Wells said. “When I moved here, it was pretty obvious when the old Mexican restaurant closed that everyone has been clamouring for Mexican style food.”
Wells was happy about the first few days of operation.
“Today is our first lunch,” he explained on Tuesday. “We opened last night for dinner but we didn’t really advertise it, so it was quiet. We’re getting the word out today. So far, we’re getting great feedback on the food.”
The menu, already posted on the theater’s website, offers myriad Mexican finger foods. For example, the ‘nachos libre’ include corn tortilla chips, cheddar & jack, onions, peppers, black beans, and guacamole.
All of the food at the restaurant is under 10 dollars.
“Value is really important to us,” Wells said. “We want people to feel when they come in that not only is the food tasteful, but they’re getting great value. We want it to be affordable for students, we want it to be affordable for families.”
Wells, a father of two, knows how important value is to those living in Vermont.
“It can be pretty expensive to go out to eat, and I just wanted to make it a place that people enjoy coming to and feel like they’re getting great fresh delicious food – and also great value.
The restaurant will also serve beer to those over 21. Patrons can take their food and drinks into the movie theatre, which is either a few steps down a carpeted ramp, or up a flight of stairs.
“We have rows of couches of coffee tables and couches,” Wells explained, “and then we have these great cup holders and trays, so they can hold all your food and a bunch of drinks. [The drinks] also fit in the cup holders of the movie seats and stand up on the coffee tables.”
When asked about hosting student performers from the College, Wells was enthusiastic.
“We’d love to have whoever is interested,” Wells said. “Whoever is interested in performing down here, in doing some sort of concert or performance – or whatever the media may be – we’d love to host stuff like that.”
The Marquis hasn’t reached out to the College recently because its employees have been busy with construction. Railings still need to be sanded and certain outlets installed, but the facility is nonetheless ready for business. Wells expects his patronage to expand as the venue’s popularity rises among the community.
“In our minds, it’s really a community center,” Wells said, “so the more types of events we can host, the better.”
(11/06/14 2:24am)
The relationship between students and the administration is like any other: it needs constant communication to be healthy. Last Sunday, in recognition of a general discontentment in the student body, President Liebowitz held an open forum about social life on campus. That Liebowitz opened this discussion to students shows that he wants to see the student-administration relationship mended. He sat on the stage at the front of the room and engaged with students face-to-face, equitably splitting the forum between airing student concerns and explaining administrative responses. We at the Campus commend Liebowitz and the administration for their willingness to engage and their openness to student input. This is a starting place for initiating substantial change.
Something about the subject matter, perhaps the all-encompassing nature of the term “social life,” drew a surprisingly diverse cross-section of students. People were there to discuss everything from diversity, identity and inclusion to party life and college alcohol policies.
The stark contrast in student views on the most pressing social life issues was evident during the forum. Embittered by the administrative decision to limit social spaces such as ADP, some students asked why spaces like ADP that are inclusive spaces where “everyone was welcome” are shut down. This is far from true. We at the Campus would like to caution the recurring misuse of inclusive language: using “everyone” to really describe the “Middlebury majority.”
At one point, several students in attendance read a statement listing the other highly relevant concerns that go beyond alcohol and partying, such as preventing sexual assault and holding similar forums to discuss marginalized and intersecting identities on campus. After the statement was read, nearly the whole audience stood up in solidarity and we count ourselves among them. These social issues deserve attention in forums or discussions in their own right and should not be forgotten with increased attention being paid to drinking or partying.
Occasionally, the cracks in the student-administration relationship showed through with visible frustration on both sides. For example, one student commented that she did not know how to throw parties and that there needed to be a go/link explaining the process of registering a party, to which Dean of Students Katy Smith Abbott and other administrators responded, “There is. It’s go/party.”
Evidently, the information gap goes both ways. The administration needs to include us in important policy discussions, but, in return we need to intentionally find information and use it. It is not the administration’s job to make sure we have enjoyable parties to go to every weekend. That is on us. We ought to communicate with administrators and they ought to help, but we cannot expect (and probably do not want) them to preemptively involve themselves in our social lives.
We need to proactively seek out concrete solutions for our ailing social lives. For example, one thing students can do is to get to know Public Safety, both personally and in terms of their role on campus. As the Editorial Board, we would like to reiterate the importance of this topic which was discussed at the forum. It is easy to view them as the enemy — as the people who give citations, patrol hallways and knock ominously on closed doors. But the fact is, we are lucky to have them. At other schools, Public Safety is not patrolling — the police are; instead of getting citations, you get arrested. Students should take the extra couple of minutes to engage with our officers, learn their faces and realize that they are actual people. Maintaining a healthy relationship with Public Safety shows maturity on our part and benefits all parties.
At certain points during the meeting, it was suggested that there should be a working group of students to continue the discussion on the state of social life. We at the Campus would like to see this happen and for this group to be as effective as possible. Therefore, we call on SGA President Taylor Custer and Smith Abbott to bring together a diverse group of students from all walks of campus life to turn the words at Sunday’s forum into action with results that are visible by the end of the academic year. This task force needs to represent the many social spheres across campus and directly communicate with the community to detail the most pressing social issues on campus. The group will hopefully bridge this troubling information gap between the College and all its students.
Ensuring diverse perspectives on this task force is one of several key parts to this idea to make it effective. Additionally, the group should put forward six actionable ideas on improving social life. Three short-term items should be submitted to the SGA and Old Chapel by the end of Winter Term and three long-term items should be on the desks of administrators by the end of the academic year. As Sunday’s forum demonstrated, ideas on improving social life abound. Making these changes happen is on the students, and a dedicated team of us on this nascent task force is a good place to start.
Finally, we at the Campus recommend a mandatory orientation day for all students at the beginning of the fall semester where all this information is told to students in person. It is easy to ignore the deluge of emails we get in the first few weeks of school. An in-person training on party hosting, as well as issues like sexual assault prevention, safe drinking and other student life issues would be a needed refresher for many students. After first-year orientation, we have very little organized interaction with administrators where we can simply ask how to do something. And during orientation we were so overwhelmed and overstimulated by making friends, finding our dorm and all of the other basics that we do not have any context for many of the trainings and do not retain a lot of the material. A reorientation day would allow upperclassmen to learn how to function and engage better with the Middlebury community. There could be specific sessions geared for the new year as well. The sophomore orientation could be more basic whereas junior and senior orientations could focus on party hosting, off-campus living and study abroad. This day would be a way to help students interact intentionally and knowledgeably with our community here.
We recognize that change is difficult. However, if there is a fraction of the energy and ideas from the forum on this student social life task force, there will be positive results. Sunday’s forum was a good start, but for change to happen we need to turn words into action. Ultimately, we need to take responsibility and take the initiative, not just defer responsibility to the administration. A high academic workload will never be a valid excuse for ignorance or entitlement. It is not enough to sit back, throw your hands in the air and say that you do not know how to do something or that someone needs to do it for you. Though at the forum we repeatedly referred to ourselves as kids, that mindframe is toxic and it is time to change it. We are adults, and it is time to take responsibility for our own social scene.
Artwork by NOLAN ELLSWORTH
(10/30/14 2:54am)
“I’m totally addicted to Sour Patch Kids,” said everyone ever. You have probably heard someone say something along those lines recently, or have said something similar yourself. Similar to saying, “I’m so depressed,” or “I’m starving,” most of us do not mean we are “addicted.”
Despite our casual use of the word, addiction can be a big problem for young adults. Addiction is a chronic disease involving compulsive substance use and abuse, often with harmful consequences. According to the American Psychiatric Association, drug and alcohol abuse are the leading causes of preventable illnesses and premature death in society today. In 2012, 17.7 million Americans, or 6.8 percent of the population, abused or were dependent on alcohol, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Though this was a decrease from the 7.7 percent found in 2002, this still constitutes a large number of people.
Perhaps more worrisome is the fact that 19 percent of college students meet the criteria for alcohol abuse or dependence, according to the National Epidemiologic Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions. Heavy drinking, especially when occurring outside of a college party culture, can lead to alcoholism, a disease that can wreak havoc on one’s physical and mental health: it is often associated with depression and can cause severe liver damage, impotence, infertility, premature aging, birth defects and increased risk of heart disease — not to mention problems with relationships, careers and finances.
Fortunately, alcoholism and alcohol dependence can be treated, especially if you do not allow it much time to develop. In college, it may be the norm for some to drink more than 5 drinks in one night or at one time. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, five drinks at one time or in one night more than 5 days per month constitutes “heavy drinking.” That may not seem like a whole lot of alcohol in a college setting, but in any other setting, this behavior would be seen as worrisome. It is important to stay vigilant and monitor your own alcohol use and that of your friends. Maybe it is the norm for you to be drinking a lot with your friends here at the College, but when you or a friend start drinking alone, drinking before going to class or blacking out every single weekend, this is cause for concern.
If you’re worried (or just curious!) about your alcohol consumption, it is worth making an appointment at the Parton Center for Health and Wellness counseling to do the BASICS (Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention of College Students) Assessment. This is a confidential assessment for college students that assists them in understanding where their drinking habits fit on the continuum of drinking behaviors, helping students assess the relationship between their alcohol habits and life goals and provide resources to reduce harms. It does not tell students not to drink, nor does it involve judgment or confrontation. This personal report can be reviewed with a nurse or counselor to help identify how to reduce further risks and to provide local resources if desired.
You can call counseling services at 802-443-5141 to make a BASICS appointment. Another great resource is a blood alcohol calculator (BAC), which can now be found the form of an smartphone apps: DrinkTracker, available on the iPhone, is one example. This allows you to input the drinks you’ve had and does the work for you, so you can monitor your own alcohol use.
Some basic information to be aware of: the average person’s liver can digest one drink per hour and for a 185 lb. male, 2 drinks in one hour will yield a BAC of 0.025. For a 130 lb. female, 2 drinks in one hour cause a BAC of 0.053. Women have less dehydrogenase, an enzyme that breaks down alcohol, than men, so the same amount of alcohol will produce a higher BAC in a woman as compared to a man. In addition, a higher percentage of body fat and hormone fluctuations can contribute to a higher BAC.
A common misconception is that drinking will cure a bad mood. In reality, drinking alcohol can cause sadness or anxiety to get worse, in addition to changing how alcohol is processed in the body. Feelings of fatigue are also exacerbated by alcohol consumption — fatigue leads to a more inefficient liver, leading to a higher BAC than normal.
Another important thing to be aware of is alcohol’s interaction with other drugs. Some antibiotics, when taken with alcohol, can have unpleasant and even serious side effects. Diabetes and hypoglycemic medications combined with alcohol can cause severe and unpredictable reactions, so alcohol should be avoided in these circumstances. Alcohol combined with antihistamines can cause severe drowsiness, while opiates combined with alcohol can enhance the sedative effects of each, increasing the risk of overdose. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), can cause dangerous spikes in blood pressure leading to stroke, and should never be taken with alcohol.
Many over-the-counter medications and vitamins come in a time-release capsule; however, alcohol dissolves the coating, leading to the immediate release of the full dose. It’s vital that you keep track of any medication you’ve taken before drinking alcohol, as some of these interactions can occur with both heavy and light drinking. Most medications have warnings explaining any drug interactions, but information can also be found online on a certain drug’s interactions with alcohol or other drugs. It’s never a bad idea to ask your prescribing physician whether it is okay to drink alcohol in conjunction with medication, and if so, how much.
It is important to be conscious of your alcohol consumption habits, and if necessary, seek treatment and more information from Parton. Drinking responsibly and looking out for your friends can help prevent injury, assault, sexual abuse and death. The College’s Good Samaritan policy states: “There may be times when safety concerns arise from a student’s excessive drinking or drug use, and in these situations, students should not hesitate to seek help from the Student Life staff, Public Safety, medical or counseling professionals, and/or local or state police out of fear of disciplinary action. Under this Good Samaritan policy, neither the student in distress nor the student or organization seeking assistance will ordinarily be subject to disciplinary action for the possession, provision, or consumption of drugs or alcohol.”
If you see someone who looks like they may need immediate help due to alcohol or drug use, call Public Safety, who will be able to provide rides to Porter Hospital. For more long-term concerns, Parton can be a valuable resource.
(10/29/14 8:44pm)
On Friday, Oct. 24, the Middlebury MothUP hosted the second annual Cocoon in the Mahaney Center for the Arts. Featuring six storytellers from wildly different backgrounds each tackling the theme of blood, Cocoon was an intimate and singular experiment in narration and audience engagement.
For the uninitiated, Cocoon is fundamentally inspired by The Moth, which was originally created in 1997 by George Dawes Green as a live storytelling event in New York City. Since then, it has been adapted for radio by NPR contributor and six-time Peabody Award recipient Jay Allison as The Moth Radio Hour, in addition to countless variations across the country.
While the College has hosted its own incarnation of The Moth since 2010, Cocoon aimed to bring the popular storytelling format to a larger audience while featuring an expanded cast of storytellers. The event, now in its second year, was completely sold-out and boasted a waitlist of about 40 people, one of the largest crowds ever to express interest in a MCA Concert Hall performance.
Produced by Veronica Rodriguez ’16.5 and coordinated by Luke Greenway ’14.5 and Rachel Liddell ’15 and Director of the MCA Liza Sacheli, Cocoon was a startling and captivating experience. Each storyteller offered something at once entertaining and uninhibited. From Kathryn Blume, an Oregonian reconciling with her far-flung New York relatives, to Bill Torrey, a Vermont native recounting a tale of teenage rebellion, the storytellers offered glimpses into dynamic and complex life experiences. Often fantastic pacing and a natural ability to balance comedy and sobriety enabled the speakers to easily endear themselves to the audience, drawing us in while managing to retain a wholly singular voice.
The beauty of the storytelling format in particular, bare of any script or visual aid, was that each storyteller managed to conjure up entire backdrops with just a few words, allowing the imaginations of the audience members to fill in the gaps. Over the course of a single evening, the audience was transported to the backwoods of midcentury Vermont through Torrey, the swamps of Jacksonville, Florida through Assistant Professor of Dance Christal Brown, and a darkly comical funeral in a Jewish cemetery through Kathryn Blume, as well as Chris de la Cruz ’13 and Melissa Surrette ’16. Each storyteller offered not only a sense of self, but also a sense of place. Through this we can begin to sense the purpose of traditional storytelling. Why have oral traditions existed throughout history, but to bring people to places they may never have the chance to see and to allow them to vicariously live through experiences they otherwise can’t?
The live setting only enhanced the strength of the storytelling format. While radio broadcasts may reach a broader audience, they lack not only the physical shared space of a live show, but also cannot possibly recreate the sense of intimacy that is generated both among members of the audience and between the storytellers and the audience.
In his story, Otto Pierce ’13.5 used blood in multiple contexts, underlying his relationships with three other young men and exploring the social and political forces that have led them, since their initial meeting, to live very different lives than him. Be it an HIV infection, spilt blood or near-death experiences, blood and race have become defining signifiers of distinctions between young men who otherwise share common ground. Pierce mixed the personal and profound adeptly, using his personal experiences to consider the social forces that in many ways determine our futures, and invited the audience to do the same. We came away not only delighted by a story of brotherhood and youthful misadventures, but also sobered by the realization that there still exists such stark injustice in a country that has yet to fully resolve long-established racial disparities.
“Each format has its own kind of beauty,” Allison, who acted as emcee of the event, said. “Just listening is lovely, but going and sitting in a room with an audience and being able to watch people’s faces is also beautiful.”
Yet despite the myriad formats The Moth can take, it has maintained its essential core since its inception.
“It doesn’t change or grow in any fundamental way,” Allison said. “The concept of it has stayed true since the beginning; you just sit there and listen to your fellow man say something honest about their lives, take it or leave it.”
It is this honesty that gives an event like Cocoon its potency. Not only was each story well crafted and interesting, but they all also came from a willingness to share some meaningful experience with virtual strangers, despite the potential for failure or embarrassment. While every story offered something valuable, Brown’s story in particular was able to skillfully marry deft pacing with a raw and resonant subject. While carefully plotted and articulated in a simple and straightforward manner, her exploration of her relationship with her late father still seemed to burst with moments of spontaneous passion. The mark of truly transformative storytelling, Brown seemed to make new discoveries in a story she had likely rehearsed and told many times before. As a result, the audience was left feeling they had witnessed something both deeply personal and massively momentous. The event became not only a shared experience, but also a willful exchange between speaker and audience member. A speaker offered their story, and in exchange, the audience members were left to assess its meaning and perhaps see their own lives a little differently.
In this sense, Cocoon, though high-concept and distinctive, boiled down to the essence of conversation, something that is easy to lose in a world that often seems driven by competing distractions. Yet Cocoon, like all other incarnations of The Moth, suggests there is a craving for this type of extended and unornamented engagement.
“The lovely thing is that people are happily willing to sit there and listen to a single voice for an extended period of time,” Allison said. “It’s an affirming thing to me. We will still pay attention to each other without taking a phone call or needing special effects.”
(10/29/14 6:05pm)
One of the hardest parts of being a fan of hip-hop is being asked the following question: “how can you listen to music that revolves so much around the glorification of violence?” I usually deflect the question by saying something about how you can consume art without endorsing its message, but really that’s all that is, a deflection. Consuming art, or rather understanding it, is the act of extending one’s humanity and allowing the artistic expression to join with that humanity (paraphrasing Ralph Ellison there). Listening to rap music is a central part of my life, and my relationship with the art is too deep to pass off some CNN sounding B.S. about not “endorsing a message” to such a probing question. The real truth is, I’m not sure how to answer that question.
Part of the challenge is nailing down what is meant by violence. What kind of violence are we talking about? Is it Eminem’s maniacal “Kill You,” a veritable laundry list of fantasies ranging from chopping people up with chainsaws to developing pictures of the devil, or is it Bobby Shmurda’s “Hot N----,” the enormously popular summer anthem which describes Shmurda and his homies mowing down enemies with every kind of machine gun you can name and several you can’t? It may seem like a ridiculous question, but the kinds of violence described and celebrated in these two songs are extremely different and hold varying significance to the question at hand. While “Kill You” can be pretty chilling to listen to, it hits that level of crazy that pushes it nearly into abstraction. Eminem isn’t trying to make us think he’s actually done these things, he’s trying to convince us that he actually wants to. Beneath its brutal descriptions, the song’s real purpose is to ask us just how crazy we think he is.
Shmurda’s “Hot N----,” on the other hand, has its own element of fantasy, in the sense that it isn’t documentary. But the activities he’s describing, gunning down his enemies in the street and “selling crack since like the fifth grade,” reverberate with a violence that feels markedly more live-action than the cartoonish blood-splatter of “Kill You.” Shmurda’s lyrics remind one too much of what is actually happening in the collective hood of cities across the US. Chicago had over 500 murders in 2012, and police data indicated that somebody was shot in the city every 3.57 hours. In Bobby Shmurda’s hometown of New York, over 60 percent of 2012’s 419 murder victims were African American and were largely the result of gun violence. While Eminem’s serial killer persona threatens us with the idea of Saw come to life, Shmurda focuses on a wave of death that is terrifyingly real. As such, I find the kind of violence portrayed in “Hot N----”, and songs like it harder to rationalize.
But what makes this issue so difficult is that I don’t even feel comfortable with that previous sentence. I’m essentially saying that it feels more acceptable to listen to somebody rave about sadistic fantasies than it does to listen to another somebody turn the bloodshed of inner-city violence into a feel-good club banger. Doesn’t it seem weird that I find it harder to justify listening to a 20-year-old kid rap about what he’s seen all around him as he has grown up? If hip-hop is going to be used a venue to discuss violence, and it most certainly will, it seems wrong to pass judgment against expression of actual experiences.
I guess the part of me that shudders for a moment whenever I listen to “Hot N----” is responding to the overt celebration in Bobby’s words. Its his eagerness to embody this character that makes me ask myself, “is this wrong?” But as Rembert Browne of Grantland points out in his excellent piece on the song, that energy is what makes the song so infectious and irresistibly joyous when listened to with a bunch of people looking to forget about everything other than becoming one undulating blob mimicking Shmurda’s trademark Shmoney Dance. The most amazing thing about “Hot N----” is that for all the machine gunnery and descriptions of how victims “twirl then they drop,” the song is somehow uplifting. The part of me that squirms when I hear him and think about the hundreds of kids out there shooting at each other is swiftly shoved out of the way by the exuberant charisma of this dude.
Again, this is the challenge of discussing violence in hip-hop. I started by explaining how “Kill You” and “Hot N----” depict two different kinds of violence and in no time at all, this somehow devolved into a description of turning up on the dance floor. Maybe that’s the best way to explain it. Rap music provides a means to express and entertain violent ideas in a way that transforms them into something else. At least that’s the best way I can describe it. If you don’t agree, or if you’d rather not listen to music that uses violence and aggression in that fashion, I don’t blame you. But I can tell you in full confidence, you’re missing out.
(10/22/14 10:57pm)
On the first Thursday of every month, students fill The Gamut Room in Gifford Hall to hear their peers tell a story as a part of The Middlebury MothUP. The live storytelling events are, indeed, as simple as they sound – each student storyteller takes the microphone, without notes, for about ten minutes to tell a true story that relates to a monthly one-word theme. The organic format prompts uniting stories of heartbreak and hilarity which have made the event popular not just at the College, but around the nation.
Founded as a not-for-profit organization in 1997, The Moth is the creation of poet and novelist George Dawes Green, a Georgia native who wanted to bring the intimate family storytelling of his childhood to New York City. Dawes held the first Moth in his living room, but word of mouth spread the event to cafés and clubs across the city, and seventeen years later the program is now available to listeners across the country through The Moth Radio Hour, which is broadcast by more than 200 radio stations.
Started at the College in 2010 by Will Bellaimey ’10.5 and Bianca Giaever ’12.5, The Middlebury MothUP immediately packed audiences into the intimate social space and café housed in The Gamut Room. Since then, the program has only grown, hosting a never-ending line-up of students and sparking a J-term workshop in narrative storytelling.
Middlebury MothUP producer Luke Greenway ’14.5 has been involved with the program since his first week on campus.
“I had heard of the Moth previously and listened to it on public radio, so when I heard that there was a Moth here at Middlebury, I got in touch with the people in charge and wondered if they wanted someone to tell a story,” Greenway said. “My very first month here I got up and told a story and then asked if I could get involved, so it’s been a passion project since then.”
Last year, the Middlebury MothUP traveled out of The Gamut Room and into the Concert Hall of the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts (MCA) for the first ever Cocoon live storytelling event, bringing the MothUP to an even larger audience.
Featuring six storytellers – including two students, one alumna, a faculty member and two active members of the community – spinning narratives of metamorphosis the sold-out event proved a smash success, and this year’s Cocoon has built on that momentum to bring the event to even bigger heights.
“We wanted Cocoon to be a bridge between the Middlebury campus and the community because the limitations of The Gamut Room space, which we love, mean that the event is usually not conducive to community members attending,” Greenway said. “We wanted something that would be in addition to the Moth, not instead of, but that would allow people from the whole community to participate. It’s like the Middlebury MothUP on steroids.”
Last year Greenway served as the lead producer of Cocoon, but this year his role is overseeing the mentorship of each storyteller as they develop their narratives.
“Recently, for example, I spent an hour on the phone with one of the storytellers, discussing his stories with him and helping him to formulate ideas and get ready for the performance,” Greenway said.
This year, Middlebury MothUp producer Veronica Rodriguez ’16.5 is leading the student coordination of Cocoon, selecting the storyteller line-up and emcee. Working directly with Director of the MCA Liza Sacheli, Rodriguez worked to develop a theme, advertising material and strategies for work shopping the stories to be told.
“I love live storytelling,” Rodriguez said. “It is one of the most basic forms of human connection. Sharing stories is a way to communicate and it is how we gain understanding of one another, and how we remind each other that we’re all human. A lot of times, a story paves a path towards catharsis and empathy.”
2014 Cocoon storytellers include climate activist and actress Kathryn Blume, sixth generation Vermonter and logger Bill Torrey, Chair of the Dance Department Christal Brown, NYU masters candidate Chris De La Cruz ’13.5 and native Vermonter and creator of the Stockbridge, Vermont Stable Space Otto Pierce ’13.5. The theme is blood, which can be taken literally, figuratively or simply as a point of inspiration.
Middlebury MothUP producer Rachel Liddell ’15 co-hosts the monthly student events with Greenway. The process of crafting a larger event like Cocoon, she explained, is largely one of collaboration.
“Typically we brainstorm which people we want to reach out to as a group,” Liddell said. “Veronica has been leading point on this, and Liza also gives us ideas of people we could contact. Usually people are interested and really care about the project when we reach out to them. We were able to be more proactive this year, so we were able to find some great storytellers from a diverse background that doesn’t include our immediate community.”
This year, in addition to the six diverse faculty, alumni and community storytellers taking the stage this year, the Middlebury MothUP is thrilled to present Jay Allison as the emcee of the event. Allison is an independent journalist who produces The Moth Radio Hour through Atlantic Public Media and has contributed to NPR news programs and This American Life. A six-time Peabody Award winner, he hosted and produced This I Believe on NPR and co-edited the bestselling companion books.
“Since last year, the Middlebury MothUP has developed a relationship with Vermont Public Radio’s version of the Moth, and has collaborated to bring the Moth events to Burlington,” Rodriguez said. “With Jay Allison as our host for the evening, we continue to see collaboration between Middlebury’s storytelling projects and figures from our main source of inspiration, the Moth Radio Hour.”
Cocoon is an opportunity for members across the College community to join together in the enjoyment of stories that represent many levels of collegiate and local life.
“I think sharing stories is a thing that a lot of people find very rewarding,” Liddell said. “For people who are sort of routine visitors of The Gamut Room Moth, this is essentially the same thing with a glossier, more professional feel. For people who haven’t yet had exposure to the Moth, this event is a great opportunity to listen to people who you don’t normally get to hear from and learn about people’s perspectives on the world.”
Cocoon will take place Friday, Oct 24 at 8 p.m. in the Concert Hall of the MCA. Tickets are available through the Box Office at $10 for the public, $8 for college ID holders and $5 for students. The event is expected to sell out. A catered reception with the storytellers will take place after the show.
(10/22/14 7:28pm)
We are writing in response to the article Oct. 8 Campus article “Report Shows that Sexual Assault Numbers Tripled.” While we think it is important that the topic of sexual assault is covered in the Campus, we were disappointed by the ways that the article misrepresented the issue. First of all, the title was simply inaccurate. Sexual assault numbers did not triple. Reported incidents of sexual assault did triple. The title, accompanied by a graph showing the rapid rise in reported cases, misled readers to believe that there was an unprecedented and mysterious spike in the number of incidents of sexual assault on this campus. This is disrespectful to survivors and to the campus community as a whole. First of all, it suggests that there were only 5 sexual assaults in 2011 and 2012, which is untrue. Based on a study by the National Institute of Justice, five percent of college women are sexually assaulted during any given calendar year; in other words, it is estimated that for every 1,000 women attending a college or university, there are 35 incidents of rape. Most importantly, “less than five percent of completed or attempted rapes against college women were reported to law enforcement.” There is no reason to believe that Middlebury’s numbers would diverge from the national average.
Therefore the only conclusion that can be inferred from the announcement that reported incidents of sexual assault jumped from five to seventeen in one year is simply that more people reported than usual. This is a fairly safe assumption, as reports of sexual assault at colleges have increased nationally. There are many possible reasons for this. The Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized in 2013, creating new standards of compliance for schools. The White House has established a task force focused on preventing and responding to sexual violence on college campuses. Students at colleges and universities across the country have rallied and pressed charges against their institutions, so the U.S. Department of Education is now investigating over 70 schools for Title IX violations. The stories of survivors such as Emma Sulkowicz from Columbia University and Lena Sclove from Brown University have received widespread media attention.
Another important point of clarification is that the statistic of 17 reports does not refer to the number of students who pursued a judicial process. It refers to the number of students who told a Campus Security Authority (a Dean, Professor, coach, Public Safety officer, CRA/CA/RA/FYC, etc.) that they were sexually assaulted. If they become aware that a student has been assaulted, these members of the community are required to inform Public Safety. Public Safety then adds the incident to the numbers for the Clery Report, which is published October 1st of every year. Just because an assault is reported does not mean that a student must pursue a judicial process. Karen Guttentag, the Dean of Judicial Affairs, states: “Our work with students … is guided by our understanding of the importance of allowing students to make their own choices and to restore their sense of control over their own path after an experience that may have profoundly violated that sense of control. We are always extremely concerned when we hear of events that may involve sexual violence, and we would always prefer to investigate. However, in some cases, the involved student expresses to us very clearly the preference that we do not investigate, and we feel a strong commitment to honoring their wishes.”
Instances of sexual assault have not tripled on Middlebury’s campus: they are already high, as they are at colleges across the country. Using the Department of Justice’s statistics, we can estimate that around 43 Middlebury students were assaulted in the past academic year. We hope that future Campus articles will represent the issue accurately so that students can be informed about sexual assault at Middlebury and think about their role in stopping it.
REBECCA COATES-FINK '16.5 is from Northampton, Mass.
KATE MURRAY ' 15 is from Milton, Mass.
(10/08/14 11:42pm)
In a letter written in 1819 by Romantic poet John Keats to his brother George and sister-in-law Georgiana, Keats said that “nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced — Even a Proverb is no proverb to you till your Life hast illustrated it.’
The College’s community of poet-performers, Poor Form Poetry, captures this “realness” of poetic experience in their spoken word presentations. They bring to poetry a fourth aspect: performance. Designed to connect with the audience, Poor Form’s poetry is written, work-shopped and then performed in the spoken word style during their on-campus events or, as it has been in the past, national poetry slam competitions. As opposed to spoken word, which involves more storytelling, slam poetry has a much more theatrical element.
Last year, Poor Form Poetry was not as active due to the group’s graduated seniors and the number of juniors studying abroad, but now they are back and already preparing for their upcoming show in November. They are focusing more on the spoken word element but depending on the group’s interests may compete in slam competitions later on.
Meagan Neal ’15 is a senior in the group and, having been involved with the group since her sophomore year, is one of the leading forces this year. Although in her first year of Poor Form the group focused largely on participating in the wider slam poetry college community, Neal said, “we’re making more of an effort to reach out to the college community. We want to have a solid group of poets that really care about each other and each other’s work and then share that with the campus.”
Poor Form’s efforts to integrate themselves into the campus can be seen in the auditions held last month for new members. Out of the nearly twenty people who auditioned, seven were accepted. One of these new members is Andrew Snow ’15, who is also a prominent member of Middlebury’s open mic group Verbal Onslaught.
“As a freshman I was blown away by their skill,” Snow said. “You get to workshop with some amazing poets and I really wanted that atmosphere.”
Emily Luan ’15, another leading senior in the group, was impressed both by the amount of people who showed up and by the poetic skill that she saw.
“There were a lot of really great people, which was a really pleasant surprise,” she said. “We looked for a certain quality of poetry but we also wanted a wide range of voices and styles.”
Now, with more new members than old, Poor Form has done just this: drawing from the student population to create a myriad of talented voices and capping the group at eleven members. Having more poets allows for a more extensive workshop, one of the integral elements of Poor Form.
Workshop, a process practiced in many of the College’s creative writing classes, involves sharing one’s personal, written work with the group and listening to different reactions, praises and critiques. Having a consistent group of people to workshop with twice a week allows for much personal growth as a writer as well as an opportunity to connect within the group and build relationships outside of the College’s traditional academic writing classes.
Poor Form’s members thus develop their writing into spoken word presentations, bringing in the element of performance to create a much wider poetic experience for the audience and, by John Keats’ standards, making it very real for everyone who listens.
It is not easy to perform a personal collection of words in front of an audience. “You don’t know how people will react to your words, especially if it’s personal,” Snow said.
But the upside? “Having that constant inspiration to write is so helpful,” Neal said. “Learning when to raise and lower your voice, when to preserve those sacred, quiet moments in the poem and to transmit feeling and emotion in a way that for me personally isn’t always possible when it’s just words on a page.”
Without campus organizations such as Verbal Onslaught or Poor Form Poetry, there is no available environment to hear what other writers are working on across campus and to hear their sentiments expressed out loud. “It’s absolutely mind blowing to me how good they are,” Snow said. Writing poetry is often a personal experience but poetry itself is an art with the power to inspire, affect, and move others; through Poor Form Poetry, this can happen right at Middlebury.
(10/08/14 6:19pm)
A few weeks ago Erin proposed that the environment and global warming would — or rather should — be a major issue this election cycle. That is simply not going to be the case. To quote President Clinton, “it’s the economy, stupid.” More importantly, that hurts Democrats and their overall standing with midterm voters. Unfortunately for Erin and Harry Reid (D-NV), in a ranking of issues and their importance to voters, a 2014 Gallup poll found that voters consistently rank economic issues and healthcare as top priorities. Gallup also found voters consistently placed social issues and global warming in second to last and last, respectively. To make matters worse for Democrats, Gallup also finds that most Americans trust Republicans more with the economy.
To make matters even worse, the Obama recovery from the 2008 recessions has been dismal. Sure, unemployment went down, but, as William Galston aptly points out, the labor force participation rate is still as bad as it was in 2009, with very little change over Obama’s tenure in office. Some of that is due to an aging workforce, but most of it is due to discouraged workers dropping out of the labor force. Median household income has also dropped for the average American under Obama’s watch. So the voters are in need of some change this November.
Take a minute to let that all soak in.
The likelihood that Obama will use the word “shellacking” this November is slim, but that doesn’t mean that he will be happy. Most polls show Republicans will gain control of the Senate and hold their majority in the House. On its face, this looks really bad for Democrats. However, if the GOP drops the ball and wastes this opportunity by grandstanding and partying (pun very much intended), the Democrats will gain it all back and more in 2016.
The goal of my columns, when I am not responding to Erin, will be to propose ways in which I feel the GOP needs to move forward to prove to Americans that we are more than simply the loyal opposition. We need to prove to everyday Americans that the GOP is the party of reform and economic growth. This entails that when the GOP controls both houses of Congress, they sponsor and pass bipartisan legislation that the President would be hard pressed to veto. The good news is that these don’t need to be new bills. The “Shaheen-Portman Energy Bill” that got tabled because of last October’s fiasco would be a great start. More good news is that there are plenty of bills (that would need to be resubmitted next Congress) that the House has passed and that Harry Reid (D-NV) has refused to put to a vote in the Senate. The GOP simply cannot afford to allow for there to be two more years of stalled government. Republicans need to do some re-branding before the Presidential race gets underway, or else we will get crushed.
This lofty goal will not be easy, and righting the economic ship going into 2016 is a must. As much as I would like to replace Obamacare (happy birthday by the way, you’re still awful; but that will be a topic for another week), the solution is putting Americans back to work and reforming our education system. Jobs and education are the best ways to combat inequality and right the ship. In my home state of California, Neel Kashkari is providing a model for what I hope the GOP will become.
Mr. Kashkari is taking up the noble task of unseating Gov. Jerry Brown on a platform of “Jobs. Education. That’s it.” This is exactly the direction the GOP needs to be going. Although I like that California is more fiscally sound than it once was, Brown and the Democratic supermajority have still managed to make the Golden State finish 46th in jobs and 46th in education. But wait, we also have the highest poverty levels in the union as well. It’s a difficult task screwing up one of the world’s largest economies (if California were its own country), but the Democrats aren’t doing it any favors. California gets low marks in business friendliness as well, says a 2014 Thumbtack report, scoring an “F.” Texas, by contrast, received the highest marks. It should also be no secret as to why Texas has been almost recession proof. Just ask Toyota and Tesla, both of which are fleeing California. Toyota is moving its US headquarters to Texas and Tesla is building its new factory in Nevada. Elon Musk (Tesla’s owner) is also moving his space company to Texas. This trend is not contained to California, it’s a pandemic among “Blue States” across the country.
With all this said, between now and 2016, Republicans have a choice to make. They can either simply oppose Obama the next two years as Americans suffer through an ailing economy, or they can put bills on the President’s desk, daring him to veto them. The GOP needs to action on the major economic issues facing our country in 2015, or we may be looking at eight more years of economic turmoil.
Artwork by VAASU TANEJA
(10/08/14 6:17pm)
Shortly after the administration announced its controversial change to the tailgating policy, many students asked me why I, as the President of the SGA, had no knowledge of the impending change. Their concern highlights a question I imagine many of you have pondered at one point or another while at Middlebury: Why do we have SGA and Community Council? The fact that most students do not have a clear answer to that question highlights a major problem. Given my role in the SGA, I feel compelled to offer you an answer to at least the first part of that question.
In my view, the SGA fulfills three crucial roles on campus. First, it is responsible for managing and spending the Student Activities Fee (SAF) in a way that makes our non-academic lives here a little better. Second, it oversees all of the student organizations on campus. Third, it is supposed to be, in the words of the College Handbook, “the vehicle through which students can participate in the formulation of institutional policy.”
With respect to the first two roles, we actually do a good job. Most student organizations are funded well and run effectively, but of course there is always room for improvement. Ensuring that this continues to happen takes a significant amount of work by the members of both the SGA Finance Committee and the SGA Constitution Committee. In addition, the SGA operates a number of services for which it rarely receives credit. These include the free daily newspapers in the dining halls, the break bus program, and MiddCourses.
It is on the third count, I believe, where we have more work to do. Frankly, the SGA needs to serve as a better conduit between the student body and the administration. We currently fail to communicate sufficiently with both parties. First, let’s tackle the SGA’s relationship with the student body. Only a handful of students know what SGA does, and fewer still view it as the best way to “participate in the formulation of institutional policy.” The SGA tends to attract students primarily interested in changing policy, while MCAB and other student organizations tend to attract those interested in event planning and publicity. As a result, we as a group often fail to adequately communicate what it is we are doing. Having been in the SGA for two years now, I am personally guilty of not communicating my work well enough. Given recent events, though, it is clear we need to better publicize our work. To that end, we have taken a number of steps this year to better communicate with you. These initiatives include creating a new website, updating the SGA bulletin boards in McCullough, establishing a Director of Publicity position in my Cabinet, and setting up weekly office hours for each of our elected members. Hopefully, these small initial steps will serve as a solid foundation for a better level of communication between the SGA and the student body.
In terms of our relationship with the administration, most of our influence currently takes the form of me and other elected SGA members meeting with administrators to express students’ ideas and concerns. Although this system fosters trust, it lacks transparency and limits the flow of information. A better approach would be for the SGA to secure greater student representation on administrative and faculty committees. In this manner, we can more consistently convey our ideas during the early stages of the policy-making process. We may not get a vote, but we should get a voice. Progress in this area would increase the amount and transparency of communication between students, administrators, and faculty.
You may still be asking, why should SGA in particular do these things? Why not leave individual groups of students to push for change? We are, after all, a fairly small campus with easy access to administrators. I would respond that much of the value of the SGA stems from its institutional presence. The question is not one of existence, but one of strength. It is in the best interest of the student body to have a consistent advocate voicing the student body’s ideas to administrators. As a source of institutional memory, the SGA can protect the progress we make each year. Although change may come more slowly than we would like and perhaps not at all on some issues, a more effective SGA could, at the very least, secure us a consistent voice at the table.
From reforming the trustees’ governance structure to hiring a new president, change is in the air at Middlebury. I have tried to articulate how the SGA needs to change as well as the ways in which it can enhance student life on campus. Regardless of whether you find my argument convincing, it is important that you make your voice heard on this issue. I look forward to hearing your ideas, and would be happy to discuss them with you in person or over e-mail. You can reach me at sga@middlebury.edu.
TAYLOR CUSTER '15 is the SGA President and is from West Brookfield, Mass.
(10/08/14 6:14pm)
I had the remarkable experience of growing up as an ex-patriot. Yes, I grew up in the strange and foreign land of Canada, our friendly neighbor to the North. While my citizenship remained firmly American, an interesting thing happens when you live abroad. You suddenly become the spokesperson for your entire country. A strange transformation takes place and after a few years I found myself highly critical, yet highly patriotic. I knew all the flaws of my homeland — I had people ask me about them almost every day, and I would fight with tooth and nail to defend it. You can imagine my surprise when I came to Middlebury.
Yes, Middlebury, we are not the most patriotic of places. What was I to expect? An elite, liberal arts college in New England? Surely it must be filled with all manner of socialist degenerates! I digress. No, it wasn’t crude stereotypes about political affiliation (socialists make America great just like anyone else). It was a deep discontent with our republic. Something that went beyond the mere cynicism often associated with students.
I couldn’t and can’t understand it. I’m not exactly a red-blooded, Bible thumping American. I am often critical of my home: its foreign policies, its social policies, the people in it, but when push came to shove the United States was and is my home. My family has no real military tradition and has only been in this country since around the Second World War. There were stories about America told by my grandparents, though. Not necessarily how great it was, but how much worse the alternative was. Sure, grappa was drunk at family occasions and the toast “Next year in the homeland” was an ingrained tradition. These were empty words however. When asked directly whether my great-grandmother would want to ever go visit Sicily, her reply was simply, “Why the hell would I ever want to go back there?”
America, for her generation, was a dream, not because it promised anything, but because here they had the right to simply be left alone. Free from the horrors of endemic unemployment and Cosa Nostra, my grandparents and their parents had few positive thoughts about their homeland. Their children got American names and they were happier for it. They were happy to be free of a situation that was so hopeless they decided to get on a boat and sail for some unknown destination simply because it could not get any worse.
Of course things are not so black and white. The Mafia put my grandfather out of work at least once in New York. Their culture and language were effectively snuffed out, and for a long time, along with Jews and Blacks, Catholics were not welcome at institutions like Middlebury. But things were better. Imperfect, yes, but better.
So why have I walked you through this fairly typical immigrant odyssey? Because we lack something that generation had. It is the classic problem of the next generation: we don’t know how good we have it. We take things like Democracy, our Constitution, the wonders of the Bill of Rights, and accept them as merely for granted. Not many of us have had the experience of living in a place that did not have these things. So we are comfortable being opinionated, cynical, and unpatriotic.
True patriotism isn’t agreeing with everything your country does or says or liking the people in charge. I’m sure we can all think of true patriots who shook the status quo to its very core because they believed in American principles.
The elephant in the room (no party references intended) may just be our arrogance, Middlebury. Isn’t it convenient to become saturated in like opinion to the point where any idea outside our cozy bubble seems alien and wrong? Here we sit in our little ivory tower of liberal learning, in one of the most liberal of states, happy to enjoy the freedoms given to us at no cost, yet unwilling to participate in even the simplest of patriotic activities, voting for instance.
Have we ever paused to consider how incredible it is that we can do the things we do, simply without being bothered? We are allowed to protest tailgating bans, protest the protest of tailgating bans and openly critique our professors, elected officials and police officers (if you’re not stupid about it). What’s more, in perhaps the most deeply patriotic gesture, some of us even to spend our days critiquing, debating and questioning our government and then get a degree. Yes, our country is not perfect, yes, it could use some work. But it’s a lot better than most of the alternatives. So I make my case for America. Let’s hope our generation is willing to plug the holes in what might be a sinking ship rather than jump overboard.
Artwork by GLORIA BRECK
(10/08/14 6:08pm)
Dear Middlebury community,
Last spring, a friend encouraged me to download the app Yik Yak. “It’s like an anonymous twitter for Midd people, it’s hilarious,” she said.
I hadn’t spent much time reading it, until one day at lunch when I scrolled through the message board and saw:
“If I could bang a hippo for no finals, I would hunt down Jordan Seman.”
My heart was pounding as I looked around the dining hall. A million things crossed my mind: Is someone watching me? Should I have worn this dress? Did someone see me eat that second cookie? Should I put on my jacket?
In that moment, all of my insecurities flooded me. I felt exposed, betrayed and mostly embarrassed. Without telling my friends, I got up from the table and ran back to my room where I hid out for most of the next two days.
Whoever posted that message couldn’t have known that I have struggled with body image issues for most of my life. He/she probably wasn’t aware that I have gone through therapy to combat those issues. He/she likely didn’t think that clicking “submit” would cause me to restart with overanalyzing every outfit choice and every calorie on my plate. The person couldn’t have known these things because he/she clearly doesn’t know me. I guess you don’t have to know someone to say something hurtful about her.
I’m not one to generally care what others think about me. Since going to therapy I have woken up most mornings feeling confident and unconcerned about my weight. And as someone who loves food and exercise, I don’t really think I should have to be concerned. I am more than my physical body. I am NOT my weight, and I know that.
So why is it that one nasty message sends me spiraling into self-doubt?
Why is it that this person — who, by the way, didn’t even spell my name right — felt it was necessary to publicly criticize me?
Is this what we want our social media use to be capable of?
I write this not to make people pity me. I am not the first or the last girl who will be posted about on Yik Yak or other similar pages. I’m sure that other messages directed at other girls will be no less hurtful. But I am not comfortable with the fact that people on this campus are hiding behind anonymous apps to post character-assassinating messages that serve no useful purpose except to bring people down. Even more than that, I am disappointed that someone in our community would think to post something so distasteful about a fellow student.
To whoever “yakked” about me last spring, if you are reading this, I hope you know that contrary to that childhood rhyme, words CAN hurt me. And yours did. But I hope that coming forward — non-anonymously, for that matter — will inspire other social media users out there to rethink what they post.
Mostly, I hope that we can all reflect on what kind of community we want Middlebury to be.
I know I want to be able to sit down at lunchtime and not worry about what other people are saying — or writing — about me. I want to feel comfortable on our campus, and I don’t think I’m alone.
So, to those of you reading this message, I’m asking you to help me make our school a safe space. I’m asking you to think about your words and how they can sting. I’m asking you to encourage positivity through your actions.
Let’s start now.
Love,
Jordan Seman
Class of 2016
(10/08/14 6:04pm)
Editor’s Note: The following text contains vulgarity.
It seems innocuous. An app where you can post something witty, watch it get up-voted and monitor your karma score changing as people respond. But this seemingly harmless “fun” often comes at the expense of members of our community.
When Jordan Seman ’16 submitted her op-ed about her experience being targeted on Yik Yak, found on page seven, it hit close to home for many of us on the Editorial Board. As a news organization, we grapple with anonymity constantly between our policies on anonymous op-eds and sources and the steady stream of sometimes hurtful and often unproductive anonymous comments posted on our website. We also grapple with issues of censorship, and, in our staunch shared belief in freedom of speech, we are hesitant to endorse any policies that threaten it. But Jordan sent us a powerful reminder that there are real people behind the screen in these situations, and that anonymity can devastate individuals and communities.
Jordan is not alone. There are many students on this campus who have been victims of anonymous personal attacks or of attacks on the groups with which they identify. For example, one of the most popular threads on Middlebury Confessional at the time of writing this editorial is “Bitchiest Bitches On Campus,” on which students are actively naming people and discussing who among them is “the bitchiest.” Just a few weeks ago we ran a piece entitled “What Middlebury Should Never Forget,” reminding students of the sexually explicit, threatening and homophobic note that was left on a student’s door last fall. And last spring, Dean Shirley Collado sent the student body an email in which she expressed concern over numerous examples of misogynistic behavior on Yik Yak and one particularly abominable instance of homophobia on another mobile app, Grindr, in which a posted message read, “None are safe, none are free,” and included a photograph of a lynching.
These disturbing comments are not unique to the Middlebury community. A few weeks ago, Norwich University became the first college or university to ban Yik Yak, carrying high symbolic weight but little actual import. Though they blocked Yik Yak from their wireless network, students can still access it with a data plan, as many already do, making it nearly impossible to block this app. Oberlin faced the same dilemmas with Oberlin Confessional, the original Confessional site, which crashed in 2009 and was promptly replaced by ObieTalks, which was equally popular and equally nasty. These two case studies show that an outright ban of these forums do not solve the problem. Moreover, there are still myriad ways to anonymously engage outside of these forums — be it on our website, on Middbeat or even in person as seen with last fall’s note — meaning that banning these sites would be merely a bandaid on a larger problem.
Dean Collado echoed this sentiment in her email last spring, writing that “blocking these sites is not the ultimate answer for our larger community.” But just because we do not believe banning these sites will solve the problem does not mean we can sweep them under the rug.
Particularly as mental wellness becomes a topic of conversation, in part due to brave honesty and openness found both in Jordan’s op-ed and in Hannah Quinn ’16’s widely read blog post about depression, we must think critically about the way our online actions affect this community. When posting, we must imagine the person sitting at their computer in the dorm room next to ours the same way we would if we were having a conversation in the hallway. Even when no face is attached, cyberbullying leaves lingering damage, though the veil of anonymity often makes that easy to forget.
The question then remains, how do we maintain a community where people feel safe and supported while also acknowledging that anonymous forums are inevitable in the digital age? The answers are not easy.
Both the Campus and Middbeat are moderated websites, and both Yik Yak and Middlebury Confessional offer tools to self-moderate, be it through downvoting or through reporting a comment. We must take responsibility for the hateful words that pervade our community and report these comments rather than scroll past after 10 seconds of outrage. It is up to each of us to make these digital spaces safe for all members of our community and to encourage online accountability — there is no one else who is going to do it.
To clamp down on damaging online dialogue, we must provide resources and education to incoming students. In the same way that we promote sexual assault awareness and prevention, we should educate the community about the dangers of online harassment. Bystander intervention means looking out for each other, both online and off. Technological literacy extends beyond clicking “I agree” on the terms of use whenever we update our password. We must reintroduce the term cyberbullying into our vocabularies, because it is not an issue that magically disappears when we graduate from high school.
Being attacked online has direct consequences that result in serious harm. We have all seen news stories of people who hurt themselves or others because of online harassment. We have had countless examples for hateful online comments on this campus — we should not have to wait for Middlebury to become the public face of this problem for us to take it seriously.
Artwork by NOLAN ELLSWORTH
(10/01/14 11:47pm)
Hey everyone! We are Lee Michael Garcia Jimenez and Rubby Valentin Paulino and we are two gay men on campus looking to facilitate sustainable conversations about gender and sexuality.
While we’re hoping to discuss matters that range from lesbianism to the patriarchy, we acknowledge the fact that we are not professionals. This column is just as much as a learning experience for us, as we hope it’ll be for you. Blatantly put, we’re two queers who like talking about queer things, and we hope that our words lead to discussion and hopefully some understanding.
To start off the year, we thought it’d be nice to bring up one of the first big queer events to happen this school year (and we don’t mean the Q&A Party). Sept. 23 was Bisexuality Day, also known as Bi Pride Day.
Unsurprisingly, the event brought about some cheap media coverage online and was successful at putting together slideshows of the (in)famous bisexual celebrities of our time. The way Bisexuality Day was being managed by large media companies helped us raise many questions about the way we see bisexuality. Most importantly we wanted to know how we could share “bisexual day” with you in a way that would underline “the struggle” or social stigma that pins the freedom of bisexuals around the world.
When asking around about the number of bisexuals people knew on campus, the largest answer we got was three. Where are the bisexual people on campus? And does their lack of presence in the community reflect some deeper issues? Of course!
For many people, it’s hard to think of bisexuality as legitimate. For instance, you’ll notice that from the mass of celebrity “coming out stories”, the vast majority are about celebrities being gay. Now let’s ignore the fact that the media is involved with the coming out or outing of celebrities or even the fact that there’s a need to come out. Let’s just focus on the vast underrepresentation of bisexuality in our community (not to mention asexuals, genderqueers, and all the other sexual and gender minorities. Even among the few openly bisexual people we’ve began to see as time goes on, it’s almost always women. Why is that?
GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, defines bisexuality as a sexual orientation in which a person is not limited to one gender in their attraction.
While labels vary in meaning for every individual, this provides a broad understanding of the term bisexuality but it’s always fine to ask someone what their label means to them, especially if you don’t understand. Too often, people simply assume a lot about someone’s sexual experience. And while we’re not saying everyone should go around talking about sex (unless you want to), when those assumptions harm a community, it’s best to address them.
That’s why we see more bisexual women in the media than bisexual men: because people make assumptions and have a double standard for men and women when it comes to bisexuality. Often bisexuality is thought of as being “half-straight”, a 50/50 divide on your attraction split between men and women. However, this has a different definition for each gender.
Women who are half-straight are seen as sexy since they satisfy the porn culture-induced fantasy of men watching girls get it on with the ability to join the action. This definition of bisexuality for a woman doesn’t even consider a woman’s personal sexual desire or pleasure but rather her ability to satisfy the man. And how does a bisexual woman satisfy a man? Threesomes.
On the other hand, it’s not entirely socially acceptable for men to be bisexual. Because being half-straight means you’re half-gay, and that one half of gayness taints the straight. Furthermore, we are dealing with sexism that says that a gay man isn’t a real man or is no better than a woman.
Our experience in the “oh so marvelous” queer community — especially among gay men — reflects that being “half-straight” means you’ll never be satisfied and thus you’ll never be faithful. This leaves bisexuals stigmatized as being dirty and promiscuous. You’re probably just a straight person experimenting anyway, unless of course you act gay. Then you’re just a gay person who can’t admit it.
In retrospect, being bisexual isn’t being half-straight (Eureka!). Sexuality is fluid and can be thought of as existing on a spectrum. While some homosexuals go through a period of identifying identify as a bisexual, it’s simply people exploring different labels as they learn more about who they are. Bisexuality is legitimate, and it isn’t a sexuality that leaves people incapable of monogamy. A person’s gender is just one out of many characteristics of a person, and just because you find multiple aspects attractive, it doesn’t mean you’ll never be satisfied unless you have them all.
Maybe you like redheads and brunettes, or you like both cat-people and dog-people. If you settle down and marry a redheaded cat-person, does that mean you’re going to need to go and have sex with a brunette and play with her dog in secret? Of course not, that’s absurd. Similarly, bisexuals are capable of being in committed relationships with either a man or woman (What?!).
And because of the myths and stigmas around bisexuality and prejudice from both the queer and straight communities, many bisexuals remain in the closet, despite the fact that they are the vast majority of the queer community. And that’s why we need a day to celebrate bisexuality and be aware of the challenges bisexual people face.
We hope you have a very gay week! Whether that means happy or homosexual is up to your interpretation (but we suggest both).
(10/01/14 11:36pm)
Ladies and Gentlemen, Izzy and Maddie a.k.a. the NARPs are back and ready to make a comeback that is hopefully more successful than Hilary Duff’s latest single (#duffwillrise). For those who are new to The Campus and our column, welcome. To returning fans, where was our fan mail this summer? And to all of you froshies out there who spent your high school career sleeping in a bed covered with SAT books and don’t know what NARPs stands for, first of all, was that really worth it? Secondly, please introduce yourself to Urbandictionary.com ASAP and memorize the following acronym: Non-Athletic Regular People. If you are one of those people who thought throwing those SAT books across your room counted as your daily exercise, you are one of us.
Last semester, we spent twelve weeks struggling to train for a half-marathon that culminated in our not running a half-marathon. Although this appears as a failure, we were finally able to join in the ranks of people who use foreign phrases like “I just went on a run … voluntarily” or “My leg is cramping.” This semester, the NARPs have decided to explore other unknown realms of the campus. Ever wonder what happens when you put two rhythmically-challenged people in a Riddim twerk practice? Or when two die-hard karaoke fans who, after months of practice, have failed to master Seasons of Love from Rent join an a capella practice? Fortunately, this column will chronicle our awkward, embarrassing, and enlightening journeys into those uncomfortable predicaments.
As Izzy and Maddie contemplated the subject of their first column while heading into Atwater dining hall for macaroni and cheese last week, the answer appeared right in front of their faces. Otter Nonsense Auditions Thursday/Friday 4:30-6:30 Forest East Lounge. What better way to kick off a column about stepping out of one’s comfort zone than diving head first into an improv group audition. In order to maximize anxiety and potential asthma attacks, Maddie and Izzy decided to eliminate any safety blankets and try out on different days.
Izzy arrived on Thursday otterly flustered (see what we did there?) — Brainerd’s Fall Fest had run out of free pie. She then had a performance some would say was worse than Ashlee Simpson getting caught lip-syncing on Saturday Night Live. Halfway through the audition, an Otters member advised the auditioners to “switch up” their characters, if they had been gravitating toward a certain personality — go for the opposite. Izzy realized this directly applied to her as she had been embodying a loud-mouthed and hyper scatterbrain. In other words, she had been playing herself. For the next skit, Izzy found herself in the corner of the room, hiding behind a chair, failing to respond to any of her fellow actor’s questions. The audience called scene shortly thereafter.
Maddie was exceptionally nervous for her audition as her last encounter with the word “tryouts” involved getting cut from her no-cut-policy freshman basketball team. Her skits found her in a range of strange predicaments including, but not limited to, stealing a peacock from the zoo in order to use its feathers for dorm decoration. Things only got weirder when her improv partner set her up to kill someone by wrapping shoelaces around an invisible person’s neck. Thankfully, the audience called scene before the murder was mimed. Maddie hopes that the skit that started approaching incestual territory outshined her flubbed felony.
Although the auditions went very poorly for us, we could agree that the adrenaline rush after the tryouts was unbelievable. Putting themselves completely out of their comfort zones caused an incredible amount of anxiety, but surprisingly no embarrassment. As much as we would love to attribute the lack of humiliation to our never-ending levels of self-confidence, it had more to do with the environment. The Otter members were incredibly welcoming, and ended the auditions in a supportive group huddle (is this what being on a team feels like?). To the Otters, thank you for a hilariously fun and awkward time. To our readers, we’ll catch you in two weeks when we chronicle our attempted gyrations during a Riddim hip-hop practice.
(10/01/14 10:38pm)
On Tuesday, Sept. 30th, thirteen students gathered in Crossroads Cafe to compete in the TEDxMiddlebury Student Speaker Competition, in which participants delivered four-minute pitches to a panel of judges on an idea they wanted to further explore and share through a full TED talk. Rachel Liddell ’15 was the winner of the competition and will therefore be this year’s student speaker at the fifth annual TEDxMiddlebury Conference, which is currently set to be held on Sunday, Nov. 9th with the theme, “Living in the Question.”
Liddell’s pitch was titled “Sex, Power, and Politics: How and Why We Sexualize Powerful Women.”
She said, “I’m hoping students will gain a little insight into our own community at a micro level. At a macro level, I hope we all start thinking about how we act as voters and judgers of the people around us, and how we include the sexuality of women in our perception of women’s skill in a variety of areas including politics, art, history, anything.”
Liddell’s topic was inspired by her experiences running for and serving as the President of the Student Government Association (SGA).
“The way I felt perceived by my community was not always positive,” said Liddell. “Specifically, during my campaign, someone defaced one of my posters to make it sexually explicit. This experience was incredibly hurtful at the time, but over time, I’ve recognized it as part of a pattern in society at large. Discussing how powerful women are sexualized will address this pattern, and hopefully disrupt it.”
Founded in 1984, TED is a nonprofit devoted to the sharing of ideas in the form of talks lasting no longer than eighteen minutes.
“The TEDx program is a branch of TED that supports communities around the world to host their own TED-like events,” said Josh Swartz ’14.5, one of the chief organizers and board members for TEDxMiddlebury.
TEDxMiddlebury was founded under the Programs for Creativity and Innovation (PCI) and held its inaugural conference in 2009 for an audience of approximately one-hundred people. Since then, the conference has expanded to host 400 people in the Middlebury Center for the Arts (MCA) Concert Hall.
Notable guest speakers from past conferences include spoken word artist Big Poppa E from HBO’s “Def Poetry” series and Emmy Award winning director of NBC News Washington Jeffrey Blount.
“[The conference] has grown quite a bit,” said Swartz. “We professionally record all our talks and upload them to our YouTube channel. Our most popular talk from last year was queer and trans activist Alok Vaid-Menon’s, whose talk ‘We are nothing (and that is beautiful)’ was an editor’s pick on the TED website just this month and has been watched over 80,000 times.”
“This year, for the first time actually, the Middlebury Oratory Society partnered with TEDx and hosted a prep session [for participants] before the Student Speaker Competition,” said Swartz. This session was held on Monday, Sept. 29th.
Among the many changes over the years for TEDxMiddlebury was the inclusion of the student speaker. Ryan Kim ’14 spoke in the 2012 conference, and Alec Macmillan ’14 spoke in the 2013 conference.
“Having a student speaker has helped us further engage the student body,” said Swartz. “This is always an ongoing goal for TEDxMiddlebury.”
Ryan Kim ’14 and Alec Macmillan ’14 were the first student speakers for TEDxMiddlebury. Kim spoke in the 2012 conference, and Macmillan in the 2013 conference.
Swartz stated that between twelve and sixteen students deliver pitches in the Student Speaker Competition each year.
“Anyone can pitch. They have four minutes, and we try to limit their use of visual aids and multimedia, so the judges can focus on the presence of the person and their idea, which will ultimately become the foundation for a longer eighteen-minute talk” said Swartz.
With Liddell set to be this year’s speaker, Swartz and the other organizers for TEDxMiddlebury will focus their efforts exclusively on the November 9th conference.
Swartz said, “It’s motivating to be part of a team that works so actively to make each event better than the last — to work towards building something that is both inspiring for the student body and that represents and values many different identities, experiences, and ideas.”
Meanwhile, Liddell will be working with MiddCORE Instructor in Persuasive Communication Mike Kiernan to develop her winning pitch into a full eighteen-minute TED talk for the conference.
“I am so excited and honored to have the opportunity to speak at TEDxMiddlebury,” said Liddell. “Hopefully, I’ll influence the way people think, and I definitely plan on having fun. I am very grateful to talk about an issue for which I care deeply.”
