1000 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(10/01/14 10:29pm)
The tailgating policy change was first made known to the student body on Sept. 16 and since then there have been many student-led initiatives to discuss the change as well as the process by which it was made.
Such initiatives have included an open Student Government Association (SGA) Senate meeting where members of the administration were available to speak with students, coverage by multiple news outlets on campus and meetings between student leaders and administrators. However, according to SGA President Taylor Custer ’15, this issue will, for the time being, not be included on the agenda for the SGA for the upcoming year after the passage of the most recent resolution.
On Sept. 21, the SGA Senate held their meeting in the Robert A. Jones ’59 house to accommodate the extra students who came to listen to the discussion and pose questions to Dean of Students Katy Smith Abbott and Athletic Director Erin Quinn. The meeting allotted time for both senators and students to direct questions to these administrators regarding both the policy itself and the process that went into it.
“There was a lot of benefit of actually being there and being able to talk to those who were directly involved with the decision,” said Custer. The meeting concluded with the passing of a resolution (with a vote of 15-0-2), detailing how the administration will work with the student body about future policy changes.
“A resolution states the official position of the student body as presented by the SGA and its capacity as a representative,” Custer explained.
According to the resolution, “the administration should inform the President of the SGA and the Student Co-Chair of Community Council about all changes to college policy to ensure that the student body has an opportunity to voice its ideas and concerns about changes it believes will impact student life… [and] the President of the SGA and the Student Co-Chair of Community Council should inform their constituents about those policy changes that they believe students would like to have an opportunity to discuss.”
The SGA Senate meeting, the new resolution and student input have shown that one of the most troubling aspects of this policy change was the process behind it.
“Middlebury prides itself on being transparent, especially in the student to administration relationship,” said Junior Senator Sydney Sanders ’16. “The resolution that was produced was specifically about the lack of clarity in the policy-making process. We have SGA and Community Council for students to participate in changes like this and to work closely with the administration to discuss issues, especially surrounding non-academic issues, on campus.”
Custer noted that the common denominator between those who supported and those against the policy change was the belief that the lack of student involvement in the final decision was unacceptable.
“I’m hoping that the main outcome of this debate will be that the administration will be more open with us about what policy changes they’re considering. From there, we can take all that information and figure out which ones the student body will want to weigh in on,” he said.
Ben Bogin ’15, Co-Chair of Community Council, said in an email, “The administration is well within its rights to make a policy change like this without input from the SGA or Community Council, but I hope that students always have the opportunity to discuss policies changes that affect our social life.”
According to Custer, the way the policy change was handled could potentially set a bad precedent for future changes. “If we’re not involved in this policy change, who’s to say we won’t be included in the conversation on a policy change more relevant and seen as more important by other segments of the student body?” he said. “At Middlebury, given the mission of the College, it’s inconsistent if students aren’t included in the conversation.”
The student body has held conflicting views, however, about whether the issue of tailgating is really worth the amount of attention it is receiving. There have been many student responses through different mediums. The We the MiddKids petition to reverse changes made to the new policy received over 2,500 votes, which is over three times as many votes cast for the change to the Culture and Civilizations requirement. The Sept. 17 post on the student-run blog Middbeat generated close to 100 comments.
There have also been posters put up throughout the College addressing what issues students would like to see addressed over the issue of tailgating. These posters carry a call to action for students. They say, “Historically, students have been social justice leaders in critical movements around the world. Where will you invest your time?”
Guest contributors Ian Stewart ’14 and Cailey Cron ’13.5 noted in their opinions article that the type of attention surrounding the issue of tailgating has “dilute[d] the potency of words and ideas that are needed to fight real injustice — some of which is alive and well at Middlebury.”
However, as members of the SGA note, this upsurge of student advocacy will hopefully be representative of student involvement in future issues.
“I’m always happy when I see people passionate about an issue. I think if you’re looking at the tailgating issue as a process problem, then the amount of student attention is worth it,” said Sanders.
“People being passionate about this issue will hopefully transfer into students being more vocal about other issues around campus. This is just a starting point for people to voice their opinions and offer student input on other issues,” he added.
Custer also pointed out that the heightened attention to this matter also stems from parental and alumni involvement. The change in the tailgating issue more directly affects them when they return to campus, whereas other issues affect them in a less direct way.
Moving forward, the change in the tailgating policy will not be a major issue at the next SGA Senate meeting. As noted in an email sent on Sept. 23 to the student body, the administration stands by its decision. Any changes to the policy itself, as noted by members of the SGA, are very unlikely.
“Based on my conversations with the administrators, I know that they are very firm on their decision, primarily because it’s motivated out of their concern that it is a safe space,” said Custer.
While revisions to the passed resolution to make it more specific are being developed, the next step is witnessing how the administration to student relationship changes.
Custer said, “At the end of the day, it is a decision that is within the purview of the administration. The administration does get to make decisions unilaterally, but hopefully with our input. And if not, then hopefully with our concerns addressed.”
(10/01/14 8:27pm)
This year marks the launch of a new arts-themed social house on campus. Located in Prescott House on Ridgeline Road, the Attic was founded by Hannah Giese ’16, Emma Gee ’16 and Jackie Wyard-Yates ’16.5, and currently houses thirty students.
Last year, Giese, Gee and Wyard-Yates heard that there was a social house available for the first time in fourteen years due to the shutdown of Prescott as a freshman housing option after only one year. The three hatched the idea of a living space where students could pursue their artistic and musical endeavors. Thus, the Attic, based on the musical term “chromatic,” was born.
“The Attic provides a creative and low-key, relaxed atmosphere where people can decompress and do the things that they love,” Gee said. “And they don’t have to be graded for it. It’s a good break from work and a good expression of self that can help make life a lot easier.”
In addition, the leaders hope that parties hosted by the arts house will give students more social options, so as to alleviate problems with overcrowding at other parties on campus.
Members of the Attic represent virtually every arts arena on campus. Between the fall and spring semesters, the house will be inhabited by students from all seven acapella groups, College Choir, Orchestra, jazz band, RIDDIM, the Dance Department, the Studio Art Department, the Theatre Department, the Middlebury Campus staff, WRMC and comedy improv troupes. Among the diverse groups of residents are also individual writers, pottery-makers and the head of Crossroads Café, falling under the category of culinary arts.
Due to social house technicalities, only two sophomores are able to live in Prescott this year. The majority of members are juniors and junior Febs, with a fairly even ratio of boys to girls.
“People here didn’t know each other coming in,” Gee said. “That won’t be the case anymore after we’ve been living together for a whole year, but I think it created a very interesting starting point for us.”
“I think it says a lot about the membership where these people were so open to living with people they didn’t know. Reliving the freshman double experience,” Giese said.
To kick off the beginning of the school year, house members enjoyed a classy plus-one dinner with homemade spaghetti, salad and brownies, and later listened to jazz music in the spacious living room.
“We managed to feed sixty people for under a hundred dollars,” Giese said.
Since then, other art-based groups with membership in Prescott have rented out space inside the house for various activities.
“As a result, we’ve hosted more organizations, or will be hosting, than we’ve had events ourselves,” Wyard-Yates said.
However, this is soon to change.
As with the implementation of any new social house, there have been a number of bureaucratic constraints. To set their ideas into motion, Giese, Gee and Wyard-Yates had to meet with the Constitution Committee, the Interhouse Council Committee and their cluster manager, who oversees activities in various social houses, on numerous occasions.
“We’re still very much in the ideas phase,” Gee said. “But we’re in the process of implementing a lot of things.”
Once the leaders obtain a budget in the coming weeks, they plan to organize a wide range of arts-oriented activities open to anyone on campus. Ideas for future events include open mic nights, art galleries, student concerts, collaboration with the Mill, in-house talent shows, theater productions, performances by visiting artists and bands and much more. Above all, the leaders of the Attic aspire to create a highly inclusive environment that reaches out to the entire College community.
“Not only do we want to promote the people in the house to be active in whatever arts they like to pursue, but we also want to open up to the campus,” Wyard-Yates said. “For example, in the student art gallery in the basement, we would have submissions from people not only from the art department, but from anyone who likes to do art.”
Furthermore, the leaders hope to utilize space in the house for arts-related pursuits. They plan to hang up artwork on picture rails to decorate the plain white walls, and arrangements are being made to place a piano in the living room. In addition, there is a mess room in the basement where members can do anything from practice music to splatter paint on the walls as they make art. The goal is to create an environment that inspires house members to engage in creative endeavors.
“I intend to pursue art and writing more now that I have the space to do it,” Wyard-Yates said.
As the year progresses, the main goal for the house leaders is to spread the word about the inclusive, arts-oriented environment that the Attic fosters. The leaders are looking forward to recruitment week, which takes place the week of Oct. 20. They plan to host some low-key open events geared to allow underclassmen to hang out with house members and become acquainted with the social house system.
“The next key to our success is to have people know who we are,” Gee said.
(10/01/14 6:13pm)
Last week Erin, in support of the “People’s Climate March,” argued for policies called “cap-and-trade” which essentially set emission caps on companies and then allow them to buy and sell these emission permits with each other. However good or bad this program may be, it is not the only “pro-climate” program being proposed and implemented. When evaluating climate and energy policy, the most important component is a simple cost-benefit analysis. I will admit, all this information so far was covered last week; however what was never discussed were the costs and the benefits themselves.
I’m a fan of good news first, so let’s start with the benefits of cap-and-trade, renewable energy mandates, and other “green” initiatives. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the goal of these programs is to actually combat climate change. Well, unfortunately that is hard to assess, but the inconvenient truth for the eco-liberals (cue Thomas Steyer) is that the science at best is inconclusive (I’m sure I will get an earful about this). I will be the first to admit that climate science is not my expertise, so let us consult the experts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013 produced a global report on this very issue. The IPCC estimates that by 2100 we will see a three degree Celsius increase in temperature. Obama, being a man with many strategies, has a plan to reduce emission to 17 percent less than 2005 levels. The American Enterprise Institute (a well-respected think tank in Washington, DC) has used the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s climate simulator to estimate that even if the entire world adopted Obama’s plan, it would only reduce warming by 0.15 degrees Celsius. Those are the long-term benefits. It is worth noting that the IPCC also mentions in their report that we have reached a “pause” in climate change, which contradicts original projections and trajectories cited by the aforementioned eco-liberals. The IPCC also failed to find any significant increase in extreme weather or evidence that would suggest sea-level increases in years to come.
The other side of the coin are the costs. Most environmental-protection plans, like cap-and-trade, seek to shift the “costs” to the firms themselves. This is essentially done by putting a price tag on pollution and the like. These new taxes and regulations can cause businesses to cut jobs, close altogether, or move. This is a simple explanation for the costs of measures like cap-and-trade and carbon taxes, but policies like the renewable energy mandates are harder to grasp.
Renewable energy mandates are programs in which states decide how much of their energy supply must come from renewable areas like wind, solar, and water. Sounds great, right? Well, renewable energy sources pose some issues. First and foremost they are reliant on the weather, which is unpredictable. In addition, wind and solar farms take up massive tracts of land.
In 2010, California generated 20 percent of its power from renewable sources, but California’s energy prices were double that of other states without such a mandate, according to the Institute for Energy Research. The biggest problem with these mandates is that they distort the markets and hamper competition. These mandates harm cleaner, but not renewable energy sources, like nuclear and natural gas.
Nuclear plants produce electricity with zero carbon emissions. We also have an abundance of natural gas, which burns much cleaner than other energy alternatives, like coal. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is a big supporter of natural gas. The Democrat from San Francisco famously said: “I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels”. The now minority leader is half right. These mandates, even though they promote certain sectors of our energy production, actually hurt our energy diversity, which is key to keeping prices down and insuring our energy security for the future. The increased energy prices, as an effect of energy mandates, result in an increased cost to households and businesses in California, which already face their fair share of economic hurdles.
Now that it has been established that heavy-handed governmental programs like cap-and-trade and renewable energy mandates are costly and won’t even come close to solving our possible climate problems, I feel it is important to discuss the direction we should be headed. I feel the goal of environmental policies should be to reduce local pollution, in order to keep our cities and neighborhoods clean. This task is best solved on the demand-side. In other words, because energy is a necessity, it is sounder to try to reduce consumption, and I think this is best done at the individual consumer level, through incentives. There are many things individuals can do to reduce their carbon footprint that the markets and the government should, and often are incentivizing. First and foremost, fuel efficient and electric cars. One thing the state of California does that is very good is it allows fuel efficient cars to drive in the carpool lane and avoid paying tolls in rush-hour. This law has incentivized my family to own a 2003 Prius (which is covered in stickers, including one for Romney), a 2012 Prius plug-in, and a Tesla Model S. On top of that, everybody likes saving money at the pump. The second is solar panels. A tax credit on solar panels for households could be an effective way to reduce carbon use as well as help families with their electric bills (given that will take time and depends on the upfront costs and value of the tax credit). I believe there are many things each individual can do as a form of environmental stewardship, which is very important in the battle to conserve our nation’s valuable resources. Many of these initiatives save individuals money on electric bills and at the pump, without harming our economy as a whole.
So far I have touched on a lot of issues, all of which are important. However, none of these issues will be deciding factors in any major 2014 race. Many Democrats in key states are backing away from climate issues all together. This list includes Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Natalie Tennant (D-WV), and Mark Begich (D-AK). And then there is Alison Grimes of Kentucky, who thinks she can campaign with coal-makes-us-sick Harry Reid (D-NV) and then claim to be pro-coal. Nevertheless, most Americans will make a decision in 2014 based on the state of the economy and other issues that affect their pocketbooks, not climate change.
Artwork by JENA RITCHEY
(10/01/14 6:11pm)
While I don’t agree with the manner in which the College administration revised the tailgating policy, I understand it. Especially with the advent of social media, we have the need to play up our college experiences. There’s the constant pressure to make our normal college experiences align with those from the University of Miami while on spring break. Every one of us wants to go out on a Saturday night and find a room packed with hundreds of people rhythmically beating their arms in the air while subject to a laser show, loud trap music and a fog machine. And, while I’m not offering this as an excuse for our behavior, I am acknowledging the pressure arising from beyond the Middlebury bubble.
Clearly, if the students who are in an uproar about the change in policy were present during the meetings, the policy change would have been more moderate or wouldn’t have happened at all. There are two problems with this, however. One, the College would have had to involve the students, which logistically wouldn’t have been difficult — it’s been done it before. And two, here’s the big one, the students who care about their tailgates would have had to attend the discussions. I find that, with the exception of a select few, the right people who have the most to contribute to the conversation are the most absent in the college’s proceedings (task force on alcohol). It’s not without invitation either. The president and dean of students hold office hours, we have student representatives and we are flat out extended an invitation to attend discussions on specific issues by our president over email.
I argue that we need to take more responsibility. Traditionally, social change arises from student movements. How can we be taken seriously when we only communicate with one another when we are five-deep? The privilege wouldn’t have been taken away from us had our peers taken-it-to-the-face in moderation. The privilege might be re-granted if we could speak our minds appropriately and devote more time to a cause than being angry for a week and forgetting about it. As far as I can tell, conversation has declined due to our receiving a couple of carefully worded emails.
People need to speak up. I’m talking about more than just the tailgating policy. I’m talking about the poster outside Ross that I’ll admit I was infuriated by at first for belittling something that is very important to us as a student body — democracy. Then I realized it was a call to action. It’s literally begging us to ask ourselves what we believe in and so far it’s been up for a week and is still 50 percent blank. We are allowing things to happen to us rather than, as the future leaders of this country, the ones making things happen. Through and through, I have to disagree with Barstool Sports on this one. If we want to be treated as adults, we should begin acting like them.
TAYLOR SHORTSLEEVE '15 is from Medfield, Mass.
(09/25/14 3:11am)
Over the last few weeks, an internet blog has been making the rounds throughout Middlebury students. At this point, you’ve probably heard of it. Called the Middlebury College Disorientation Guide, the blog contains several posts outlining some of the problems with Middlebury’s approach to environmentalism and social justice. It’s an intriguing collection of articles that makes you think about what it means to be a Midd student, how we interact with our school, and how our school interacts with the world.
Certainly, the Disorientation Guide hits upon some hot-button issues that are popular in today’s culture. It raises some difficult questions about the aims of Middlebury’s investment. It calls out the college for being hypocritical with regards to carbon neutrality. It even attacks some of the most espoused beliefs on campus—that Middlebury is somehow unique, that going here is an unreproducible experience, and that students here have exceptional intellects and talent.
Although I agree with what much of the Disorientation Guide states, it makes some impassioned arguments that stray from the supported to the impulsive. It uses the power of fad social movements to make its points, relying on scathing attacks on elements of Middlebury culture that probably don’t deserve all the hate that the guide is leveraging on them.
For example, the guide wants us to ask ourselves, is Middlebury actually progressive? Do we uphold standards of social justice? The authors take the declarative stance that no, in fact, social injustices are reflected within the student body. But the question that this raises is if societal problems become a college’s problems. Is a college culpable if you can see stereotypes in its student body?
The disorientation guide is right in stating that the number of rich and white people at this school is disproportionate and, sometimes, shocking. But the guide also reasons that this makes Middlebury not actually progressive or diverse at all, insinuating that the relative lack of ethnic and socioeconomic diversity on campus is a choice the college is consciously making.
However, blaming Middlebury for this lack of diversity is misunderstanding the issues behind social inequality. What the authors of the disorientation guide seem to forget is that the disproportionate representation of the wealthy at Middlebury is a symptom of this social inequality, and most likely not a result of some insidious scheme to make money. It’s not necessarily Middlebury’s fault that the student body is as disproportionately represented as it is. We should not make the college responsible for systemic social problems.
Of course, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t attempt to address them. I certainly think that the College can help out in local communities, strengthening schools and addressing the problems at their sources. After all, the best way to fix any injustice is not to slap a quick fix on it after the damage has already been done; rather, helping out at its root cause can progress toward eliminating the problem altogether.
But even though Middlebury has issues with diversity, all students share the common belief that Middlebury is special. Or at least, that’s what I thought people believed. The guide’s authors argue that, actually, the uniqueness of Middlebury is fake, and that our school is really founded on an elitist, archaic understanding of knowledge and wisdom. While I agree that much of the American education system needs to be fixed, and that there’s too great a focus on test-taking, the guide goes so far as to seemingly assert that intelligence is a social construct. “Meritocracy is not real,” it says definitively. Sure, there are different forms of intelligence, and there are many hundreds of millions of brilliant people who didn’t go to schools like Middlebury, but that doesn’t mean that the form of intelligence Middlebury emphasizes isn’t any less real.
We were accepted to Middlebury because we were talented in academics. Many of us were good at memorizing tables, formulas, and dates, but that’s not the only element of education. Middlebury focuses on critical thinking, encouraging us to challenge our professors, our books, and the thoughts of others. Even if it’s not unique, this alone makes Middlebury special. We are all talented in this form of intelligence, and our college serves to emphasize it and make us better learners, thinkers, and citizens.
The fact that we are all intelligent in this way and share in the same intellectual community doesn’t make us better than anyone else. The guide’s authors were right in that intelligence comes in countless shapes, and that we can learn from every person on Earth. However, that fact doesn’t preclude us from being exceptional. We are intelligent, talented, and dedicated. But the authors equate being exceptional with exceptionalism, intelligence with elitism. And yet, Middlebury students are often brilliant at what they choose to do, while at the same time recognizing the inherent equality in all humans. Being good at something doesn’t necessitate lording it over people.
The authors also suggest that, along with no one being exceptional, Middlebury itself isn’t unique. In other words, although we think non-Midd students won’t “get it,” in fact our community doesn’t provide us with anything special. I respond to this by asking them, what makes Middlebury not unique? It’s a special experience that only exists in one place, with one set of students and professors, with one set of values. Saying it’s not unique is far more disingenuous than saying it is. No one outside of Midd will understand that special and life-changing philosophy class you might have taken. That was a singular, incredible experience that only a very few people got to participate in. This isn’t a bad thing. Each college has its own unique brand of education and unique set of experiences it offers. If you click with your school, if you passionately love being a student there, you’ll have four years that no one else will ever experience. It’s yours and only yours. And that’s the beauty of it.
In my last column, I discussed how we have to be careful of slipping too far into the “Middlebury Bubble.” I believe that the Disorientation Guide is a prime example of the effect of the bubble on the way people perceive social problems. Popularity can cause rational activism to become irrational and impulsive. Disenchantment can become more of a person’s identity than a logical feeling about a system. Middlebury has its fair share of problems, but conspiracy theories will do nothing to solve them. Demeaning the incredible wealth of opportunities and the social activism that the college pursues will improve nothing. Instead, addressing problems in the most positive ways possible will help people and communities without harming the ability of the college to operate.
(09/25/14 3:00am)
Ever since the new tailgating policy was announced, we’ve been outraged. Outraged at the outrage. In MiddBeat’s coverage and subsequent online comments and Jack Dolan’s op-ed on the Campus’ website, there are several troubling trends that demand discussion.
The more dangerous of these tendencies is the way in which the ban’s opponents have appropriated the language of social movements, social justice and human rights. Middbeat’s unabashedly slanted reporting (paragraph three kicks off with “‘What. The. F***?’”) barely avoids using the words “right” and “liberty” to describe what’s at stake. A commenter, “Jenny”, wrote: “I’m starting to feel like I’m living in a police state in Middlebury.”
The subsequent calls-to-action—which were soon echoed by countless current and former students in the comments section underneath—included suggestions of withholding donations and signing petitions. Of protesting, in other words, an injustice. To use this language when what’s at stake is being able to binge drink at a particular time on a patch of privately-owned grass is to dilute the potency of words and ideas that are needed to fight real injustice — some of which is alive and well at Middlebury.
If Middlebury were a place free from significant social issues, the current attempts to reverse the new tailgating restrictions could be seen as clumsy beginners’ attempt to make change. In the presence of true inequity, however, the vocabulary of social change and resisting institutional power deserves to be used with discretion and only after deep consideration. What are these real issues? Middbeat jogs our weak institutional memory in a poll it recently posted on its site: “What’s the most pressing issue on Middlebury’s campus right now?” “The new tailgating policy” tops the recorded responses, with more than double the votes of any other option. Ranked lower in the poll are many of the most pressing and significant issues that the College has faced since we matriculated in 2010: the distressingly ethnocentric AAL requirement, administrative resistance to divestment and the hate crime constituted by the specific threat of sexual violence against a queer student. Those are the issues that demand action, that merit dozens upon dozens of online comments, that might justify civil disobedience. Those are “What Middlebury Should Never Forget,” as Celeste Allen reminded us in her op-ed last week.
Should the administration have engaged students and/or the SGA before instituting the ban? Yes. Are there questions about social life and alcohol that need discussion? Certainly. But it is distressing to watch (granted, from afar, as recent alumni) students rally behind their “right” to tailgate while so many more critical movements — ones regarding students’ physical safety, even — have struggled to get traction. So should it make us think about our priorities? Yes. And Dolan’s final exhortation — “Fight for your right to party”? Partying is not a right. It should be one of the last things we fight for.
When acts reeking of entitlement (thousands of missing dishes, public intoxication, underage drinking, property destruction) are met with administrative response, students have reacted as if a slap on the wrist was a slap in the face, as if students are entitled to do whatever they want, wherever they want.
Students with various minority identities have long described their inability to feel comfortable or “at home” at Middlebury. Now, we’re seeing one of the rare times where the “traditional” — as in, “of the majority,” not as in “rightfully revered” — MiddKid feels threatened; this issue has hit at the heart of the most comfortable and comforted segment of the student body: an athletic, mostly-white, predominantly upper-class group.
When “David” comments on Middbeat, “Tailgates are one of the only places where everyone at the school is invited to come together and have a good time,” he’s both wrong and missing the point. Certainly, there’s no de jure segregation, no entry fees, no secret invitations. But to say that a relatively small, “kind of fratty” (as I heard someone describe it), drunken crowd is representative of the Middlebury community has dangerous implications.
To think that the tailgate really is a safe and comfortable space for anyone is myopic. There are certainly students at Middlebury who like to party and want to attend a tailgate, but do not feel like it is a space for “people like them” because they do not meet the identity-based requirements to be “traditional” MiddKid. There’s a difference between being “invited” and feeling welcome.
Perhaps what concerns us most is the dangerously skewed perspective made evident in that comment from “David.” If tailgating students look around at their fellow revelers and think they’re seeing the full spectrum of Middlebury’s diversity, then they are blind to the presence and, consequently, the struggles of many other non-“traditional” groups of students at Middlebury.
How convenient, then, that narrow-minded perspective is. For if we’re all just part of the tailgate crowd, then our “right to party” is indeed the only “right” that demands our indignation. So how might current students move forward? Learn about the social justice movements happening on campus and don’t just speak up when you feel attacked, be an ally to those who are less comfortable than you at Midd. Fellow alumni: our voices are powerful. Don’t go hoarse over beers in a parking lot.
IAN STEWART '14 lives in Washington, D.C.
CAILEY CRON '13.5 lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
(09/25/14 2:49am)
From SGA to Community Council, we have a system of student liaisons to the administration whose key purpose is to keep the two groups on the same page. Yet last week we were all surprised to receive an email announcing that alcohol would no longer be allowed at tailgating events. Though students are all over the map on the policy itself, and we on the Editorial Board reflect this divide, we all agree that this process was flawed. The decision came directly out of the athletics department, bypassing and undermining student organizations, which are meant to represent the student body’s interests in exactly this type of decision. If the administration wonders why it is receiving such negative feedback, it is because it has failed to properly communicate with the student body. They are treating the student body more like a group of sixteen-year-olds than adults. The email from President Liebowitz, Dean Collado and Director of Athletics Erin Quinn on Sept. 23 acknowledges this failure to communicate, but actions speak louder than words, and what matters is how they will act differently going forward.
There are many other, more transparent paths this could have taken. First, directly following the unacceptable behavior prompting this policy, Erin Quinn, Director of Athletics, should have sent out a message calling out what had happened. He should not have deliberated over this decision for almost a year, as indicated in his email, without ever seriously petitioning for student input. Though the Sept. 23 email mentions consulting Community Council, evidently it was not a thorough enough discussion for the SGA and the rest of the student body to not be blindsided six months later. Quinn should have suggested the policy change and gone to student (and faculty) forums to modify his ideas and brainstorm other ways of dealing with the problem.
The lack of communication shows that the administration does not have confidence in the student body. This could have been an opportunity for students to step up and be more conscious of their actions, which they might have done to preserve tailgating. This disconnect is clear in that by and large, the student body was not aware that the behavior at these events was troublesome, but the Sept. 23 email illustrates the administration’s longstanding concern with tailgating behavior and an inability to self-police. If told that our behavior was out of line, things could have been different. Perhaps students would have found innovative ways to maintain high standards of behavior while still tailgating. The issue at hand here is the lack of discussion and transparency. With one department making a decision for everyone, we are not upholding the ideals of our community.
The loss of tailgating brings questions of Middlebury’s identity to the surface — questions that must be answered as a community. We as a school must consider what football games should look like, whether we want to engage in events that encourage day drinking on our campus and whether this decision was, in fact, the best thing for Middlebury students. Although our Editorial Board does not agree on the answers to all these questions, we agree that they were not one person’s decision to make; they are questions that belong to the school as a whole.
That being said, we need to take responsibility for engaging in these discussions. The forum on Sept. 21 is an example of a failure on our part. Though the WeTheMiddKids petition has 2,500 votes, only 20 students attended the forum, letting an opportunity to meaningfully engage slip through our fingers. Being drunk in the dining halls is not an effective way to make your outrage known.
Moreover, the behavior at last year’s tailgates was out of line. There is absolutely no excuse for this behavior. Although there are only four tailgates per year, and most alumni and parents attend only one, students must deal with the consequences to a far greater degree. Everyone involved in this has caused the many to be punished by the actions of the few. The egregious actions of all offending parties are far more insulting and disrespectful to the Middlebury community than any miscommunication on the part of the administration.
Everyone has done something wrong, from the administration’s failure to communicate to the disrespectful behavior of the students and the alumni at the tailgates. This is an opportunity for us to learn from our mistakes and ensure that going forward, everyone’s voices are heard. Student input should not just be lip service. With the Presidential Search Committee and other decision-making bodies with student representation, we need to know we are valued. Tailgating is the hot button issue of the moment, but effective communication will guide Middlebury into era of the College, and we hope to still be proud to call it our alma mater.
(09/25/14 1:06am)
Within the Center for Teaching, Learning and Research (CTLR), the Writing Center is dedicated to helping students through every stage of the writing process. The Peer Writing Tutor Program is the workhorse and heart of this center.
Senior Lecturer and Tutor in Writing and Director of the Writing Center Mary Bertolini is in charge of training, assigning, evaluating and supervising her Peer Writing Tutors. Maggie Morris ’15 is the head peer writing tutor and is responsible for approving tutoring sessions, running evening make-up sessions and assisting the Program Director. Cate Costley ’15 is the head mentor and manages and guides the Writing and Academic Mentors attached to First-Year Seminars.
She also runs evening make-up sessions and assists the Program Director. Robert Silverstein ’15 is the manager of drop-in tutors, and therefore manages, supervises and assigns evening shifts, while also creating publicity for the program and assisting the Program Director.
Peer Writing Tutors and Writing Academic Mentors are trained mentors designed to aid first-year students with writing and presentation skills. Described by Bertolini as “approachable, courteous, knowledgeable, patient, diplomatic and generous,” tutors are expected to meet with their students individually for up to sixty hours over the course of the semester, and are also made available to each Commons on frequent occasions.
To receive the honor of becoming a Peer Writing Tutor, students must either have been nominated for the Paul W. Ward ’25 Memorial Prize, an annual award given by the faculty to those first-year students who are identified as producing outstanding essays, or specifically requested by a faculty member to join their first-year seminar or college writing course.
Before becoming a peer tutor, students receive extensive training from the CTLR. Bertolini describes the training as including “practice writing conferences, instruction in starting with macro problems and moving to micro problems, thesis and organization review, oral presentation training, dealing with a variety of specialized student challenges and problems, support for international students, information about writing in different majors and disciplines, grammar review and information about other support services on campus.”
In addition, Writing and Academic Mentors, who work exclusively with First-year Seminars, work with Director of Learning and Resources Yonna McShane to receive training in time management and study skill strategies. New peer writing tutors attend six training sessions, while experienced tutors attend three. All tutors receive paid compensation from the CTLR for their time.
Peer writing tutors were designed to help students grow as writers. Their motto is “help the student write the best paper the student can write, not the best paper the tutor can write.” Peer tutor Madelaine Hack ’17 spoke to this issue of preserving academic integrity.
“Students look at us like we are the quick fixes, but we can’t tell them what to do,” Hack said. “We can only guide them to create a finished project of their own. All I can do is help to lead them in the right direction.” Bertolini also recognizes the delicacy of the issue.
“The easiest thing for tutors to do would be to fix papers, but that violates the Honor Code,” she said. “Most of our training consists of ways for tutors to help students make their own revisions on their own papers.”
In order to emphasize that tutors are trained to grow writers, not to fix papers, all Peer Writing Tutors must take the Academic Honesty Tutorial and participate in at least one practice writing conference a semester.
However, there is a growing sentiment from students that meetings with peer tutors are ineffective. Jake Brown ’17 verbalizes this dissatisfaction when describing his interactions with his peer tutor.
“It was only for ten minutes,” he said. “It was really awkward. I just showed her my paper, she said it was good, and I left. I would prefer to ask a friend for help than a stranger.” Although Brown’s experience only represents one voice, his opinion speaks to the larger problem of a disconnect between the expectations of peer tutors and their actual role.
The issue facing the peer tutors is an expectation gap. Students too often enter a session with their peer tutor with the expectation that their paper will be fixed by the end of the meeting, and peer tutors approach the session with the anticipation of being able to answer all of the students’ questions. The writing process often involves many revisions and drafts and the generation of new ideas takes time and cannot be manifested on the spot. Once peer tutors are viewed as authorized aid and not a cheat sheet, progress and perspectives can change. When asked about changes she would like to make to the program, Bertolini had some promising ideas.
“I would like to offer more varied training opportunities for my trained writing tutors and mentors,” she said. “Carrie Macfarlane, Director of Research and Instruction, has offered research workshops for the writing tutors and mentors, and I would like to offer more training in presentation technologies for those tutors as well. We now have writing tutors available in all five Commons on various evenings. I hope more students will take advantage of this wonderful opportunity right in their own dorms. Finally, this fall, we’ve launched a Writing Center Word press site (go/writingcenter), and we’ll be tweeting from the Writing Center (@MiddWritingCent or go/writingtweets).”
It is important to recognize the faces behind the Peer Writing Program and the students who make it all possible. The training and expectations are immense and should not be taken lightly. Hopefully by understanding the perspective and role of Peer Writing Tutors, students can be better equipped, and in the right frame of mind, for their next paper.
(09/24/14 8:35pm)
The online voting period for the Student Government Association (SGA) First-Year Senator elections opened last Friday, Sept. 19. First-years placed their votes in ranked order for three candidates: Christina Brook ’18, April Poole ’18, and Jin Sohn ’18. When the polls closed twenty-four hours later, it was announced that Brook and Sohn would be placed into the two open positions.
145 votes — representing 25% of the Class of 2018 — were cast. This year’s elections utilized the same “rank ballot” system that started last year, allowing students to rank their desired candidate in order of preference. The SGA also added a “None of the above” option this year, which, according to SGA Elections Council Chair Nick Warren ’15, is supposed to allow “students to still feel involved without having to choose [a candidate].”
Each candidate was given a fifty dollar campaign budget to spend. Poole decided against using this money and instead focused on “meeting as many people as possible” because of the small number of candidates there were running.
“Last year, when I ran, there were eight candidates,” former First-Year Senator Karina Toy ’17 said. “I went up to everyone and introduced myself and hung posters everywhere.”
Toy led the First-Year Committee with former fellow senator Wenhao Yu ’17 with the goal of creating a more cohesive class for first-years. The Committee is responsible for organizing events for first-years such as Atwater dinners.
The newly elected Brook explained that she has never been involved with a student government organization of any kind. “None of the schools that I attended ever had something remotely similar,” Brook said.
Brook wanted to pursue a position where she could have an impact and stated that her interest stemmed from the “way students could voice their opinions regarding the inner-workings of relevant issues on campus and within this community.” Brook plans to reach out to her fellow peers and address the issues they believe to be pressing matters. She also would like to address “the way in which freshmen interact with upperclassmen, predominantly regarding discussing major/minor possibilities, academics, and student organizations.”
According to Warren and Toy, the primary job of the Senators is to represent the opinions of their class and to voice these opinions when proposing legislation and working with administrators. With her term completed, Toy offers parting words of advice for Brook and Sohn: “Talk to people. Never be afraid to ask questions and always pursue your own legislative interests.”
(09/24/14 8:26pm)
On Tuesday Sept. 16, just days before the first football game of the season, an all-school e-mail was sent detailing a new tailgate policy, in which alcohol is prohibited at all venues, including in the tailgate area, as is amplified music. The email, signed by Dean of Students Katy Smith Abbott, Director of Public Safety Elizabeth Burchard and Athletic Director Erin Quinn and which cites ensuring a safe, healthy environment and consistency with the NESCAC sportsmanship clause as the main reasons, came as a shock to multiple constituencies within the College community.
Though Quinn and President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz assert that the conversation of changing this policy formally began last year, and years before informally, the all-school email was the first time that students were looped into the conversation, including elected student officials like SGA President Taylor Custer ’15.
“I was shocked that the student body wasn’t consulted in any way. If I hadn’t heard anything about it, then it’s unlikely that any student had,” Custer said.
“Students--particularly those legally old enough to drink— do not understand why that liberty is being taken away without reason,” added Francesca Haass ’16.5 in a letter to Liebowitz.
“They are frankly insulted that the school chose to justify this policy change with an email that was, for lack of a better word, bulls--t. If you are going to take away freedoms from students, have the courtesy and courage to do so in an honest manner rather than couching it in a vague NESCAC statement. Maybe you do have very legitimate reasons, and I think the students would be very interested in hearing your arguments so that a real debate about student life on Middlebury’s campus can take place,” Haass’ letter read.
A petition entitled “Reverse Changes in the New Tailgating Policy” was drafted through WeTheMiddKids and received 2,507 votes, by far the largest number of votes an SGA petition has received since its formation.
However, college officials stand by the argument that there is clear reasoning for their decision, including one incident which Quinn refers to as the “tipping point”: the homecoming game versus Trinity College.
“An unmanageable number of students and alumni, I couldn’t tell you the exact number, but well over 100, were very intoxicated,” Quinn explained.
“I was getting phone calls from Public Safety saying, ‘Erin, we are trying to clear the parking lot and get people back into the stadium so that they will stop drinking. They are really drunk; they are belligerent; they are swearing at us, but they don’t want to go into the game.’”
Quinn explained that prior to this point, the College had made some incremental changes to the tailgating policy in response to what he calls “an increasing number of belligerent students and alumni at games.”
One incremental change was the decision to open the tailgate area only an hour and a half before kickoff to limit on-site drinking. Likewise, College policy mandated that the tailgate area be cleared after kickoff and then again once after halftime, in attempts to limit alcohol consumption.
At the Trinity game, however, Quinn instructed Public Safety to keep the students and alumni within the tailgate area, despite the policy.
“If they can’t handle them out there, contained and isolated, then it will be far worse inside the stadium. So I thought how can we minimize liability, because we don’t have the people in the stadium to control them. That in and of itself is a scene that is not acceptable,” Quinn said.
According to Quinn, some tailgaters went on to steal food and beverages from Trinity families and run across the road to use the bathroom publically.
However, what many constituencies have taken objection to the most is not the justification for the policy, but the lack of transparency around the decision making process itself.
At an SGA meeting with Quinn and Smith Abbott, SGA Senator Michael Brady ’17.5 asked about demonstrated this concern.
“I think what a lot of students are struggling with is that we weren’t given any real, hard facts about the bad behavior. The Trinity game was mentioned, but do you have any hard facts? Was there a big increase in property damage, hospital visits, or complaints from community members?” Brady said.
Quinn stressed Public Safety’s inability to contain students, and its efforts to keep the local police from intervening.
“I know this might not be satisfactory, but we don’t have any hard data,” Quinn answered.
One alum and current parent also voiced his concerns about what the policy would lead to.
“Banning alcohol and witch-hunting underage drinking on campus doesn’t work well anyway, it just creates smaller groups, drives students off-campus, and encourages pre gaming type behavior,” he explained.
“I understand that the administration wants to get the drinking under control at events,” alumna and current parent Heidi Lehner ’72 said. “But drinking amongst even underclassmen is inevitable and I am concerned with the binge drinking culture increasing on campus.”
Liebowitz sent an all school e-mail on Tuesday, Sept. 23 offering context for the tailgating policy, in which he apologized for not being more transparent, “It is clear that preparatory communications would have served everyone, including us, well and so we apologize for what was a surprise to many,” he stated.
That said, Old Chapel was not immediately apologetic. In one meeting with the Campus, it was explained that the College does not usually consult students on policy changes that affect all of the College’s constituencies.
While Burchard felt that the administration’s communication to students on this issue has been overlooked.
“We have communicated to students about the tailgate policy,” Burchard explained. “Last year we sent a campus wide notice explaining all of the tailgate rules. We posted signs at the tailgate area, and officers and security staff members warned people when the rules were being violated or if conduct was unacceptable. “
Likewise, Liebowitz referenced a Community Council meeting in March, where a conversation about the policy change took place. Although it was mentioned, there is no reference to the policy in the minutes of that meeting.
Despite different perceptions of what was communicated, there have been over-whelming amounts of both positive and negative feedback, however, the threat from alumni to withdraw donations is concerning.
“Many of the younger class agents are resigning which is worrisome,” said President of the Alumni Association Bob Sideli.
Although he does not think the affect on contributions to the college will be “dramatic,” he expresses “anything that causes the [alumni] to disconnect is unfortunate.”
But the feedback has by no means been consistently bad.
“We received emails from some NESCAC schools, I won’t say which ones, but who more or less hinted that this may have broken the ice and other schools might follow; no one seemed to want to step out front and address an issue that was really coming into focus at other schools as well,” Liebowitz concluded.
(09/24/14 2:32pm)
On Sept. 18 at the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts Dance Theatre, artists brought together by connections to North Carolina and Vermont presented NC Dances VT, an evening of dance works by The Van Dyke Dance Group, the University of Vermont’s Coordinator of Dance Paul Besaw and Assistant Professor of Dance Christal Brown. The concert was composed of six works quite distinct in character, yet all the pieces incorporated some common heritage of the choreographers’ experiences in North Carolina and Vermont.
We tend to consider the sweat arising from physical exertion as undesirable or gross, but the human body is capable of so much dynamism and expression in movement achieved by intense physical effort. The evening of dance performances reminded us of those possibilities of beauty in physicality, beginning with the piece “Tract,” choreographed by Besaw and performed by Brown and Vermont area dancers Misha Bailey, Hanna Satterlee and Marly Spieser-Schneider.
The stage was centered by musician D. Thomas Toner, who stood playing the marimba in a spotlight as the female dancers, dressed in matching blue, swirled around him in circular motion for much of the piece. The live performance of the music within the dance raised the question of the interaction of music and dance in performance. We often focus on the visual of the dancers moving through space while taking for granted the strong emotional effect the music can have on us as viewers. At several points during the piece, the dancers slowed their movements to cause a visual shift towards Toner, who continued to move at his own pace with the music in center stage. At the close of the piece the four dancers strode off the stage at a run while intensely gazing at the audience, as if to question what we notice and where our focus lies.
“A Sense of Order,” choreographed by Jan Van Dyke, featured The Van Dyke Dance Group’s Laura McDuffee, Christine Bowen Stevens and Kelly Swindell depicting scenes of repetitive and ritualistic daily life, presumably of working women in costumes that evoked hotel maids. The motion of the three dancers was mechanical and strictly rhythmical, as if constrained and dictated by the clock — as is often the case in a busy working life. The three women formed various trio formations, each depending on and supporting the others, though at a few points rectangular blocks of light would illuminate the floor and cause the trio to break up momentarily. A striking moment near the end of the piece was when two of the dancers backed out of such a corridor of light and were dramatically obscured by darkness at the back of the theatre before reemerging to continue going through their motions as before, as if hinting at a possibility for escape from the stark black and white colors and rhythms of their routine.
The third piece, “Pastor of Souls,” was certainly the most visually unusual work of the evening. Besaw appeared onstage wearing sneakers, sweatpants, a scrub shirt, latex gloves and a blue surgical mask while holding a box of tissues under his arm. Moving deliberately and slowly in a disturbing green light, he conjured an air of eeriness as he began doling out tissues one by one from the box. The first one he drew out of the box agonizingly and spent much time floating and waving it about before letting it fall to the ground, but by the end of the piece, after offering the box to a front-row audience member, he frantically pulled tissue after tissue out of the box and threw them into the air. It seemed to connote a disposable and consumerist attitude about medical care that promises remedy after remedy to be used and disposed of at a whim.
The next piece, choreographed by Brown and performed by New York City dancer Beatrice Capote, was titled “Miss Universe,” and began with an accordingly stunning visual. In the pitch black theatre, Capote stood slowly revolving over a small globular projector that lit up the inside of her thin white hoop skirt with patterns of stars. But as the theatre filled with light and the music changed, Capote stepped out of the skirt and shifted swiftly from the delicate revolving motion to an energetic and lithe freedom of movement that was richly satisfying to watch. She vacillated several times between this fulfilling motion and contrasting measured and careful quality as she focused on the skirt or the black star globe. At one point, while dancing with the skirt on, the audience was left waiting for her to abandon the hindered motion the skirt allowed and to leap out into freedom again. This contrast suggested a struggle between the inner forces and passions we all possess, and the controlled, proper image that we desire to show the world, and this work certainly hinted at the depths of possibility within.
“The Life and Times” by Van Dyke was a stirring duet between Besaw and Swindell, who portrayed the progression of a relationship between a man and a woman. The piece was elegantly framed by parallel movements in the beginning and end. At first the couple stood in separate, distanced spotlights, sliding back and forth in sync to the music, but the piece closed with them sharing one spotlight, Besaw behind Swindell as she held up her left hand at a right angle to frame his face. Within the narrative of their interaction, their respective movement qualities revealed the personalities of their characters while also complementing each other in moments of embrace or contact. It seemed to be a story of mutual support and understanding that withstood the challenges of time and conflict.
The ending piece of the evening was “Interiors,” a work-in-progress by Brown. Opening with shy body language and the quiet sound of her singing, Brown evoked a young and unsure individual who gradually gained comfort with the stage and found her voice — a moment marked by a burst of confidence in her movement and a shift to orange lighting. Yet in the midst of this self-discovery she found loneliness and fear as sounds of whispers and voices flooded the theatre and Brown whispered, “Is anybody here?” over and over again. The audience discovered a cause of her distress as the audio clip played, “An unarmed teenager was shot and killed today,” and as she pointed two fingers in the shape of a gun towards the door. Her motion and the sound changed to qualities of defiance and strength as the words, “I’m gonna dance my God-damned dance” reverberated through the theatre, and the audience felt Brown’s power and the will to find her own truth amidst all of the voices and confusion of a seemingly unjust reality through her body and expressions.
NC Dances VT presented a wide variety of choreography and artistic expression, and it is clear that all had a strong message to convey to the audience, though what that message was may have been different to each person. Such is the nature of experiencing dance.
(09/17/14 9:16pm)
The summer before my senior year of high school I joined a pretty radical group working for environmental justice in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland, Calif., my hometown. I had read about the new group in an article online and asked to join in its efforts.
We ran a free environmental education summer camp for kids in the neighborhood, started an urban garden and rehabilitated a property that was to become the group’s new home. When not working we meditated with anarchists, practiced yoga and held sessions on restorative justice during which we cried for the world and each other (In retrospect, I may have joined a cult).
At one of these sessions we studied the work of the esteemed environmental activist Joanna Macy. A senior member of the group read aloud one of her quotes, “the heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe.” I remember the moment distinctly; these words sank into me, cementing a truth I understood but had not been able to fully articulate.
The previous year, my junior year of high school, I fell in love with my AP Environmental Science class because it led me to a realization that now seems so simple, but at the time it was, and still is, profound: the fundamental interconnectedness of all life on Earth.
High school had come with all of its usual — and some not so usual — traumas, but through environmental science I came to see the disconnections in my own life as a microcosm of the larger disconnections in the global environmental system. I was broken open, as Macy says, by the realization of my own disconnections, and thus could accept and act upon disconnections in the global environmental system. I could “contain the whole universe.”
For me, environmentalism means acknowledging interconnectedness — within ourselves, friends, communities, institutions and countries — and examining when these connections are severed and the often consequent environmental damage to ecosystems that ensues. As an environmentalist, I work to return to and repair connections — connections which are unlike puzzle-piece connections, but that are dynamic and perceptive of societal and environmental changes.
I am far from my cult days but the premise of my work and thinking remains the same: connection. Through this column I hope to broadly explore a range of disconnections from the personal to the communal to the global, and tackle themes related to balance and identity and to my work in the Socially Responsible Investment Club, Research and Investment in Sustainable Equities (RISE), the SGA and the Commons System because I think we could all use a little more broken openness — a little more connection. I will, however, leave out more discussion of anarchist meditation. For that, you will need to speak with me directly.
SOPHIE VAUGHAN '17 is from OAKLAND, Calif.
Artwork by JENA RITCHEY
(09/17/14 9:11pm)
Editors’ note: The following text contains vulgarity and obscenities. Printed with Ada’s permission.
They say that if you forget your history, you are doomed to repeat it.
So, Middlebury, I think it’s time to do some remembering.
A year ago today a student received a rape threat at Middlebury College. In the words of the original letter left on the student’s door, “[you] carpet-munching dyke,” “burn in hell,” “you say you’re gay but we know you’ve never fucked a guy… so we’re gonna fuck you till you’re straight” and finally, “I know you want it.”
Needless to say, these phrases are exceedingly not okay.
Let me rephrase that. NO. NO. NO. YOU DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, TREAT ANOTHER HUMAN BEING LIKE THIS.
I was not the person who received the letter, but I do know the recipient. She told me that she had been targeted in a homophobic threat her freshman year and that she was also the person who had to deal with this letter.
To be honest, I was and am completely and totally enraged. I believe people to be fundamentally human, so I’m not out to hunt down the person who wrote her that letter in order to casually castrate them. But my strongest memory of Ada is of her warm smile during a sign language club meeting that somehow seemed to laugh with me as I fumbled to form something coherent with my hands and at the same time to give me, a young first-year trying desperately to make some sort of home at Middlebury, the sense that someone here valued me.
So just be damn glad that I am too committed to my belief in people to endorse casual castration.
I’ll let her tell the more detailed story of the two homophobic attacks, in a text she sent it to me, and then we’ll come back and chat. Here is a very small fragment of the illustrious life of Ada:
“So, freshman year, someone wrote ‘Hey Dyke! Go to Hell!’ on my whiteboard in Sharpie. It happened during Spring semester (March or April, not sure which). I reported it to my Dean and to Public Safety, who took some notes and talked to me once or twice. My Dean was incredibly helpful, and there was an all-student email sent out (I can forward it to you if you want, if I find it). But beyond that, there wasn’t very much done about it. I think we had a MOQA meeting about it — I also reported it to the MOQA co-presidents at the time. But MOQA had about 5 consistent members at that point, so word didn’t really get out.
So that was that incident. Then, this past semester, there was that whole incident with the letter being left on someone’s door that threatened to rape them because they were gay. That was me. I also reported that one to my Dean, and Public Safety talked to me and people on my hall several times about it and said they did everything they could to find out who had done it, but never came to a real conclusion. There was an all-student email that was sent out, but it didn’t discuss the homophobic nature of the letter and I was, to say the least, miffed about that.
In both situations, I didn’t come out with this publicly, with my name attached, but I did what I could to make the incidents as known as possible without the possibility of revealing myself as the recipient of these attacks. Unfortunately, not very much was ever done about it, which was disappointing at the least. I really do wish more had been done about it — the fact that people don’t know this stuff happened/happens is really upsetting, because people think Middlebury is this really accepting place where LGBTQ people can get on without problems, but that’s not actually the truth, particularly for those who are not white, cis, and/or mainstream.
So that’s about it. Let me know if you have any other questions for me, and I actually don’t have a problem with you using my name. The first event (the one that happened my freshman year, in Spring of 2010) I’m a lot more open about, mainly because I felt really threatened by the second one and became quite anxious about my personal safety after receiving that letter, but I don’t think there’s reason to fear for my physical safety anymore, so if you’d like to use my name, you may. Of course, you’re not required to, and if you do, just let me know so that I know that that’s happening [which of course I did before I published this].”
Here’s the reason I won’t let you forget this history, Middlebury College: because you, because we, failed her. A student was attacked and was left without any reason to believe that she was safe from someone raping her. Not only did we fail to protect her when she needed us, Middlebury, but this exact same situation could happen again to another student.
In terms of homophobia, Google and a few hours of research tell me that what Ada experienced was hardly an isolated incident of homophobia. In 2007, homophobic graffiti was sprayed in three different buildings on campus over the course of a month. In 2010, posters for “Gaypril” were ripped down. Last semester, a number of LGBTQ students were sent homophobic and racist messages on the app Grindr, one of which (and this is a direct quote from the campus wide email) included the statement “None are safe, none are free” and contained a photograph of a lynching.
In terms of rape and sexual assault, I personally know two people who were assaulted on Middlebury’s campus. They are the reality behind the It Happens Here Campaign, these two people who should not have had to experience physical violence in their institution of learning (if you don’t know what IHH is visit go/ithappenshere). I’ll also say this. After my run in with a sexual assault-ish situation, I remember thinking: all a part of being a female college freshman. I’m a junior now, and I still think that easy expectation of violence says some pretty horrible things about what we like to call normal.
In terms of not white, cis and/or mainstream, just yes. If one more friend of color tells me about how they doubt their own attractiveness at Middlebury, I think my heart is going to break. Each person who has told me that is one of the most beautiful people I am privileged to know, in both appearance and spirit. I’ve now gone far enough away from Middlebury to understand that there is a very specific type of mainstream, of normal, present and to be outside that normal means you have to constantly measure yourself against it because everybody else certainly is. Physical violence is awful, but it is far from the only way to hurt another person.
Now let’s talk about responsibility. An individual, like the student, has a lot of power at Middlebury. But it is not the responsibility of any student to address a systematic failure to guarantee basic safety. That would be the responsibility of the governing systems of Middlebury.
It is the responsibility of the individual to be outraged. To be kicking and screaming mad that someone was attacked on our campus and we didn’t do anything to protect her or to protect ourselves. I am. And I hope you are too.
CELESTE ALLEN '16 is from Scottsdale, Ariz.
(09/10/14 8:11pm)
As my German school friends and I hurtled up the steps of McCardell Bicentennial Hall, pressing all the elevator buttons to get there fast, I felt like I was clambering through a window back into childhood, when I lined up for hours on end to gaze at spectacles in circuses.
Sliding up the staircase of the Observa- tory curled in the shape of DNA — or just curly fries — I was sucked through a time tunnel. I remember whispering to my friend (in German), ‘This feels just like the chamber where HAL lives, in 2001: A Space Odyssey!’
As you peer through the aperture, you don’t know whether you are looking through a telescope or a microscope. Saturn was so small — as if it were a cartoon on a fuzzy CRT television with a pet-moon on its hip. I felt like I was watching a scene from Georges Méliès A Trip to the Moon, except, this time it is Saturn — a slight thumbprint in the sky, just barely there. At the same time, you realize you are staring into the deep abyss of space. It is strange to be in contact with something so absurdly distant. I couldn’t help but sympathize with Saturn — so isolated and far away! It must tally the rotations of its moons (how many lightyears more?!) and hurry to align itself to other planets for their timely rendezvous.
It must both love and hate the sun for holding the solar system together and yet binding it to this irrevocable and eternal rotation. At least it has its moons, its rings and the sun’s illumination, unceasing through the seasons to accompany its endless toil.
After going up to the viewing tower, we went down to the open-air podium where smaller telescopes were set. As one of my Chinese friends amd I waited in the queues, we spoke in a mixture of Cantonese, English and German. I was driven into confusion — the perfect subject-verb order was broken into the structureless combination of Chinese words, in which meaning are strained into small frames of pictures, which are then verbalized into curt, stark syllables. Sometimes I feel like Cantonese is the exact opposite of German. While Cantonese is spoken with nine tones, expressing its meaning sensually as if in music, German words arrive logically at their meaning with word particles. For example, with ‘fern’, meaning distance, and ‘weh’ meaning pain, the word ‘fernweh’ is formed meaning wanderlust (which is also an example of this logic).
We also saw the surface of the moon up close. It is a pregnant curve — a chalk-pale cheek pockmarked with craters. Mars was a jittering tungsten filament. You aren’t sure if the image was an afterimage printed in the back of your eyeballs after you stare at a lightbulb for too long.
My best friend Annie from Hong Kong goes to a school in a city. She envies me for having the advantage of height, as our school is perched on a hill. Moments when you can stare into the far distance are indeed luxurious, but we have too much of that in Middlebury. I find it impossible to ponder these bodies in the sky. Sometimes the walk from Proctor to the Library is too long and stark, and I yearn to resign my thoughts to the noise and chaos of ill- managed city planning.
(05/08/14 12:19am)
On Tuesday, April 29, Twilight Auditorium was filled to capacity by 4:30, the start time for the Inaugural Lecture “The Case for Marx,” given by Christian A. Johnson Professor of Economics and Department Chair Peter Matthews. Jim Ralph, Dean of Faculty Development and Research, had to turn away students, professors and Middlebury residents after all of the seats were filled.
Professor Matthews’ talk centered around the question “should there be room in modern economics for a much vilified but seldom read nineteenth century thinker?”
President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz introduced Matthews, who spoke briefly of his path to becoming an Economics Professor at the College.
The lecture began with the slide “Karl Marx n’est pas mort (translation: Karl Marx isn’t dead).” Marx’s association with socialism and unjust actions committed by Stalin in his name was immediately acknowledged, and Matthews suggested that this lecture was purely to explain Marx’s economic insights and how they could be applied to the modern economy.
“[I gave the talk] to encourage people to read about Marx, and to know the difference between Marx the economist and Marxism,” said Matthews.
The lecture explained how Marx’s view of class struggles may seek to explain inequality, its causes and possible solutions. Marx’s notion that capitalism may eventually give way to some sort of socialism was explained as well.
Listeners considered the words of Marx’s good friend Engel and how Marx thought it was productive to question society and consider alternatives when problems arise.
“I gave the talk purely because I wanted to say ‘There is a wide range of theories about the world around us, and here’s one.’” The lecture argued that the current gap between the 1 percent and the 99 percent isn’t sustainable.
Matthew’s slides also featured a quote by Lawrence Klein in April 1947: “Marx did not fully anticipate the Keynsian Theory of Effective Demand… [he] laid the groundwork for a complete equation system to determine the level of income… [t]he primary advantage of the Marxian Model, however is that it provides more information.” This citation from over 67 years ago acknowledges the flaws in Marx’s theory, along with many other past and future citations that Professor Matthews posed.
The lecture also touched on a popular modern analysis of the economy: Thomas Piketty’s book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The text “gives data about the total level of private capital and the percentage of income paid out to labor in England from the 1700s onward” according to Mike Konzcal’s spring 2014 article in the Boston Review titled Studying the Rich: Thomas Piketty and his Critics. Professor Matthews and Konzcal’s article explained that economists with more right-wing ideas criticize the fact that Piketty does not have enough economic models to prove his theory, and economists to Piketty’s left say he over emphasizes mainstream economics and does not say enough about politics.
Matthews indicated the importance of young people being exposed to a diversity of opinions. He suggested that college is the first time that many young people have the opportunity to explore a full set of alternatives and values — often different systems of values then those that they grew up with.
“I hope that attending a lecture like this helps students consider how philosophers have previously theorized the world. It isn’t to say Karl Marx is right and another philosopher is wrong — it’s merely to start the discussion,” concluded Matthews.
(05/08/14 12:18am)
A ceremony was held this past Tuesday in Crossroads café to honor Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater Dana Yeaton with the Marjorie Lamberti Faculty Appreciation Award. The annual award was initiated by the SGA as an opportunity to recognize those faculty members who have made an impact on the College.
The award is student-nominated and given to faculty members who, in the words of retired History Professor Marjorie Lamberti, “have demonstrated excellence in teaching (be it lecture course, seminar, or laboratory) and dedication by giving time, energy, and effective effort in encouraging and supporting students in their search for knowledge and in their intellectual development inside and outside the classroom.”
After students send in nominations, the winner is selected by a committee of SGA members based on the number and quality of the nominations for each faculty member.
Andi Lloyd, dean of the faculty, said, “I appreciate the fact that this award is entirely driven by students— in its initiation and execution, this is an opportunity for students to identify and thank exceptional faculty members. And that gives it special significance.”
Lamberti was a professor at the College from 1964 until her retirement in 2002, specializing in modern European History. Yeaton was also a graduate of the College, and was a student during Lamberti’s time teaching. He has been a member of the faculty since 1998 and part of the theater department since 1999.
“Receiving the Lamberti Award is such an honor because it comes from the students. It’s particularly meaningful for me because when I arrived at Middlebury as an undergraduate in the late ‘70s, Professor Lamberti was already a legend here. Students who couldn’t get into her classes would sometimes attend her lectures for fun. Here was this diminutive figure with enormous intellectual energy, who literally seemed to know everything. We were in awe of her, and I still am,” said Yeaton.
Yeaton teaches many playwriting classes, and as a playwright himself, brings a unique knowledge to his courses. “Because I continue to write plays, I have a special relationship to people who are trying to write plays. I’ve found that getting into a script, whether its mine or somebody else’s, takes the same muscles,” he said. “Working with someone else’s text feels like a combination of therapy and collaboration; no, I’m not the author, but we can still get inside their idea and make discoveries together.”
Many of Yeaton’s plays have received recognition throughout the country. He is also the Founding Director of the Vermont Young Playwrights Project, which, since its start in 1995, has provided high school students a chance to work with professional playwrights, actors and directors.
Yeaton has also taught courses at the University of Vermont and the University of Tennessee. Of working with Middlebury students, Yeaton said, “These are students who want a challenge and you get to play up to that. You raise the bar for them, because that’s what they want. Of course that means raising the bar for yourself.”
He continued, “Students come here eager to find out what it is they’re actually here for. So as a professor, you get to watch people change course and struggle with some of the bigger questions of life. It makes teaching here seem really important.”
Yeaton’s dedication to his students is exemplified in his approach to teaching. “We’re trying to encourage students to broaden their interests, and in the theater department especially, we’re hoping they can see how this particular art form can pull widely varying disciplines together. When we see students doing that, well, it makes you proud,” he said.
(05/07/14 4:15pm)
You may not know it, but there is a very real military presence on the Middlebury campus. Maybe you’ve seen someone wading through the crowds of flannel and Toms in camouflage and combat boots. Maybe you’ve wondered what the U.S. Army was doing occupying ADK on a Wednesday afternoon. Maybe you’ve done a double-take when you realized there was a soldier waiting in line behind you at the Grille. Wonder no longer, because I’m taking this opportunity to reveal the nature of this military presence: it’s me. I am the one and only member of the Reserve Officer Training Corps from Middlebury, and I’m here to put a name to the face. Or the uniform: I’m Callie to you Midd kids, Cadet Bullion to UVM’s Green Mountain Battalion, and soon to be Lieutenant Bullion to the soldiers I will lead as an officer in the U.S. Army. Over the past four years, I have balanced the life of a student and a cadet. With very little awareness and very little support for Middlebury students who choose this path, it’s a long and challenging journey to embark upon, involving hundreds of dollars in gas spent driving back and forth to Burlington every week, schedules rearranged to accommodate ROTC classes, and countless weekend and summer plans broken to make space for training. You get used to the odd looks, the questions, the inability to put into civilian words what this life is like. Having a foot in these two worlds has never been easy. But it has always been worth it.
To provide a little perspective, let me describe what a typical weekend field training exercise looks like: I wake up at 0400 on Friday morning, roll out of bed, put on my uniform, lace up my boots. I take the hour long drive to 601 Main, ROTC headquarters at UVM, downing an energy drink and a power bar on my way to try to kickstart the weekend. A quick bus ride dozing off against a rucksack packed with three days worth of gear and we arrive at our destination: Camp Ethan Allen Training Site, Jericho, Vermont. Then it’s non-stop training: first aid, learning how to evacuate casualties in a Blackhawk helicopter, day and night land navigation (Ever been given a map, a compass, some grid coordinates, and a flashlight you’re not supposed to use and been told to go out into the woods alone on a moonless, rainy night to find those coordinates? It’s an experience), qualifying on the firing range with an M-16 rifle, a six mile march carrying 35 lbs., and twelve hours of simulated situations learning how to conduct ambushes, attacks and reconnaissance missions. By the third day I am exhausted, running on less than ten total hours of sleep the entire weekend, and looking forward to a hot shower, a good meal and sleep. But first there’s another hour drive south on Route 7 and a pile of homework waiting for me. But despite it all, I fall into bed that night smiling because I have taken another step toward the end state, a dream four years in the making: a gold bar on my chest.
And in just a few weeks, that dream will come true. The day before I receive my diploma, I will raise my right hand, and take an oath that few Middlebury students have taken: “I, Caroline Louise Bullion, having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of second lieutenant do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter. So help me God.” With that oath I shoulder a huge responsibility. It’s the responsibility for the soldiers under my command, men and women who heard the call just like I did. It’s the responsibility to always try to do what’s right even when it’s difficult. It’s the responsibility to lead. And this responsibility is a lot heavier than that 35 lb. rucksack. But I look forward to it all the same. I hope this legacy will not end with me, that other Midd kids will continue this quiet but proud tradition of service to a world outside the proverbial “Middlebury Bubble.” Because on that commencement weekend I will be both a Middlebury Panther and a Green Mountain Battalion Catamount, proud to call both my family, unable to have gotten to this point without their love, support and encouragement. Go Midd, Catamounts Lead the Way!
CALLIE BULLION '14.5 is from Millis, Mass. Artwork by TAMIR WILLIAMS.
(05/07/14 4:07pm)
The United States is growing, in general, increasingly liberal with each passing year. With this liberalization comes greater equality, but perhaps more importantly, a greater sense and understanding of how unequal our society remains.
Thus, people speak out. In greater numbers and with greater voices, marginalized groups are pushing back against the inequality that has plagued humanity for so long. I, as a human among other humans, cannot be happier seeing the progress being made and the steady march toward equality.
But with the rise of these civil rights movements come those who would perpetuate the division between groups. The alienation that some minorities or oppressed groups have felt through the years has rightly caused frustration and a desire for change, but this also seems to have created a simmering animosity toward the traditionally “dominant” group. In other words, there seems to be a perpetuation in our cultural discourse of an “us-vs.-them” mentality, which I strongly believe threatens the potential for an equal and tolerant future.
I am a Caucasian, upper-middle-class, cisgender, heterosexual, secular-Protestant, healthy American male. My mind is the result of white-, male-, and rich-privileges. Although I attempt to subvert negative stereotypes of these identifiers whenever I can, I cannot deny that I have been born into groups which held traditionally dominant roles in the past. But there has been a shocking amount of generalizing and even anger directed toward these facts of my birth over the years from people I attempt to talk to about equality. More often than I can count, when I state truthfully that I consider my beliefs in line with feminist beliefs, I have received the dismissive response, “Ha! You cannot be a feminist; you are a male. You cannot understand the adversity facing women.”
For people attempting to break down preconceived notions based on birth, this seems to me more than a little incongruous. True, perhaps I can never empathize with women because I have never lived in a matriarchal society and I will never be female. But emotional understanding is not the only type of comprehension. Sympathy is nearly as powerful as empathy and can encourage actions in a similar way. I absolutely sympathize with the mainstream feminist movement and women’s desire to achieve greater equality in society. I understand on a rational level the implicit oppression that the patriarchal anachronisms in the United States cause. Moreover, most men that I have met in my life share this wish to advance women and other groups because they understand, on a deep level, that inequality is inherently wrong. One does not have to be a direct victim of oppression to feel strongly that it is wrong and want to work against it.
Lately, I have noticed that divisiveness often goes even deeper and permeates even the way people discuss achieving equality. When people throw around terms like “white privilege” and “male privilege”, and sometimes even invoke them to explain some aspect of my life, I feel uncomfortable and demeaned. These privileges do exist, and there should not be such an imbalance, but I did not choose to be born the way I was. The criticism of such positive discrimination often strays from the general and becomes personal. All I, personally, had control over was how hard I worked and what I participated in. I still struggled through my own adversity, whether in the form of financial trouble, depression or anxiety. When I hear someone explain away a student’s success with white privilege, I feel angry. Society absolutely needs to be fixed, but I and most other individuals have done nothing to promote or flaunt our privilege and instead wish to raise everyone up to the same level for good. My point is, then, that criticizing privilege is one thing; dismissing success by stating that it is based upon that is another entirely.
Thus, what I have seen is a growing undercurrent of antagonism toward dominant groups that, while understandable, does little to further the quest for equality. There is a line between constructive and destructive protests, and that line is being crossed too often. Often heard among some groups, especially those online, are phrases like “crush the patriarchy”, designed to dismantle the male-dominated society that seems counterproductive to me. If a group wishes to advance, why would they attempt to do that by dragging back and disempowering another group? Why not push for bringing everyone up to the same level as the top, instead of bringing down the top to the lower level? This may seem a matter of semantics, but the way this is phrased truly matters. In other areas it is generally agreed that destructive rhetoric does little to achieve any good. For example, capitalism inherently produces income inequality, and a great many people would argue that that is detrimental. However, in discussions about how to fix the income gap, the most legitimate solution is not to “crush capitalism” but to hybridize capitalism and socialism to bring the lower socioeconomic classes up while gradually eliminating superfluous and archaic advantages of the wealthy. The same model should be true for civil rights movements. In my opinion, the best way to gain widespread attention and legitimacy for a cause is not to alienate other groups but to work to combine and progress together. Rather than calling for the destruction of a social phenomenon, instead push to fix it and promote cooperation among all people, truly cementing the truth that we are all equal as humans.
Artwork by CHARLOTTE FAIRLESS
(05/07/14 4:06pm)
In the Campus on April 24, we read an op-ed written by Hannah Bristol describing her experience with the senior class gift and the fundraising methods being used. As Senior Committee members, this article was a great learning opportunity for us, and we would like to take a brief moment to respond.
The Class of 2014 & 2014.5 Scholarship Fund has the ability to change an incoming student’s life. As a committee, we believe supporting this student is a great way for us to create unity as a class while giving another student a chance to experience all that Middlebury has to offer. This gift is about a cumulative effort that we can make as seniors.
Through our fundraising efforts we have found that some members of our class do not feel inclined to give for a variety of reasons. As a committee, our job is not to convince you to give, our job is to make the case for giving, and hopefully inspire you to give; but giving is a personal, voluntary choice. That being said, we would like to address some of those reasons and clear up any ambiguity or confusion.
1. Your gift matters.
Our goal for the scholarship fund is to raise a total of $10,000. This is a big number! In our experience we found that if we went around saying “We want to raise $10,000!” many people would be too overwhelmed by the amount to even give. Although it might be easy to believe a donation of $20.14, $15, $10 or even $5 might not make a difference, it does. Gifts of $21 or less to the fund have totaled over $3,000! With over 600 students in our class, your combined donations lead us closer and closer to passing our goal.
Our gifts towards the scholarship fund have also inspired parents of our class to show enormous support for our senior class gift. The parents of our class are helping us make this scholarship possible and this speaks volumes to their commitment to Middlebury and their understanding of the importance of giving back.
2. Percentages
Our goal this year is to get 68 percent of our class to support the scholarship fund. There are a few reasons we strive this number. We believe this is a way to unite our class and a way to challenge one another to support a fund that will make a member of the class of 2018’s Middlebury experience possible. We understand that not everyone is in a position to give $20.14 to support the fund, so we stress participation to show that everyone, regardless of giving amount, can have an impact on the gift and help us get closer to our larger goal of $10,000.
3. The Scholarship Fund
Earlier this year our class voted on where we wanted our Senior Gift money to go. By a huge majority we voted to give money to a Scholarship Fund. We hope that everyone who voted will also follow up and make a donation to this great cause. We have heard from some that this gift is not “tangible” enough:
“How will we know this actually goes to a student?”
“Will this go to one student in need? Or will it be distributed between a few?”
“We won’t even know who gets the money, how can we be sure this is where it’s going?”
These are GREAT questions and we encourage you to continue asking them! What we can tell you is that yes, this money goes directly to a student’s financial aid package and no where else. This money will not be distributed but will be given to one student who cannot afford Middlebury but will be able to attend because of the Class of 2014. The Senior Committee is currently working with the Annual Giving Office to work on a way to update our class on who this student is once he or she arrives on campus. This way, we can take pride in knowing exactly where and to whom our gift is going.
4. Solicitation
There is no one perfect way to appeal to the masses, so our efforts have been multi-faceted. We announced on Facebook a few weeks ago that Senior Week might be at risk due to our low participation rate and our lack of funds. Thanks to many of you who got the word out, our percentage went from 25 percent to 34 percent in just one week. Our Committee has worked tirelessly sending emails, making phone calls and tabling around campus to encourage people to donate. If we don’t ask, we don’t get donations — simple as that.
We were not trying to use Senior Week as a “pawn,” but rather make public the very real situation that we have been trying to deal with at every Senior Committee meeting. We understand that a boat cruise during senior week, along with other activities scheduled for that week, are not a necessity, but we have received feedback from much of our class that they would like to participate in these activities. We are working to make our last week at Middlebury a special time for our entire class, and these activities are a way to do that.
5. It is a personal choice.
As mentioned earlier, as a committee, we are not here to convince you to give, but rather to make the case to support the Scholarship Fund. If you, as a senior, do not want to give to the Scholarship Fund, then we cannot make you give. We can, however, clear up any confusion that you might have. For example: If you don’t support Middlebury’s stance on divestment, giving to the class gift will not force you to go against that belief. Giving to the class gift is the one way to have complete control over where your money goes, and this money will allow a future student to experience the “things [you’ve] loved here” and the “opportunities [you’ve] had.”
Money going to the Scholarship Fund will not go to the administration or the endowment. The funds raised will go into the student’s financial aid package. It is simply a gift from us to a future student. We have all been so fortunate to attend a place like Middlebury, and our gift is to allow someone else to have that opportunity. Who knows, this person could make your goals a reality in their time here at Midd.
6. Come Join us!
We invite you to come to a meeting so you can learn even more about the issues we are dealing with and offer some constructive advice on how we can better convey our fundraising priorities. With your help we can better convey the goals of the fund and how this is a great opportunity to give back.
Thank you for the insight that your article provided. I hope we have been able to address some of your concerns.
Written on behalf of the SENIOR COMMITTEE. Artwork by JENA RITCHEY.
(05/07/14 3:59pm)
Straight
This is what you go through, the thumbing through the hand of cards to see what you’ve got and what you can do with your hand. You’re gonna get sadness in spades. I’ve seen enough boys walking bulldogs on ropes and Global Health girl Facebook photos of unvaccinated children in Cambodia and New York Times notifications buzzing on my phone at 4 a.m. telling me about 200 abducted girls and trailers for movies about pretty people with cancer and heard enough rape jokes and hiccupy laughs from genuine alcoholics and read enough Buzzfeed lists and terrible poetry to know that the crumminess out there is endless.
Flush
The very first piece of advice my mother gave me when we were on the road towards Middlebury (with faint urgency and hysteria in her voice because she was realizing the length of the list of life lessons she had forgotten to teach me including how to shoot a gun and how to operate a chainsaw) was “don’t get involved with a professor.” Holds up, I hear. But you should get in with a professor. Find your mentor, your expert, your spirit guide. You can have more than one. I have developed almost irrational loyalty towards professors on this campus, probably unbeknownst to them. Screw course evaluations. Go into that person’s office hours and talk to them. Write them a thank you note at the end of the semester. Figure out a research project that they would be jazzed to advise. Learn how to navigate a professional collaboration. It’s cliche to cry in a professor’s office. Do it anyway if you feel like it. Some of them will blink at you calmly and think about how many more papers they have to grade before they get to go home to a six-pack of Longtrail. That’s what I’d do if I were a professor.
I sat in Timi Mayer’s office at the end of my sophomore spring and said, “I can’t do anything for anyone else in this world. Why do you keep doing this? What’s the point?” I was crying like a chump. I saw her whole face soften. “All I can do is teach,” she said. “All I can do is try to make students think. Critically think.” I knew this already. I knew why I was kicking my own ass, bending over backwards for seemingly little payoff and a pile of debt to get myself a liberal arts education. I know I am not worthless, that I have something to offer, that I am not yet a broken person. But I often need someone other than my paid therapist (who I absolutely do not believe for a second) to tell me to my face. Those moments of rhetorical validation, between you and the professor you respect? Irreplaceable. Don’t write that paper so that your professor gives you grade A. Write it so you can stretch your fingers and toes as far as they reach from your body, so that your professor can see that you are not just college student, you are a person who is trying, a person at work.
Three-of-a-Kind
Isn’t it funny how often this pricey (we/I love to talk about $$$) experience often feels just so cut-rate? Like at the end of a paper or a party, I feel post-coital but still unfulfilled? When my mother comes here she walks around campus, re-upholstered in new grass and spotless branding and sighs in jealousy. I am never going to have this place and time again, this bargain brand form of adult lite stocking a country club bathroom, these rooms of rampant, brambled, fumbling gecko children all squawking for attention or fetal positioning to disappear. I am trying to see the beauty in the final lo-fi montage of belly buttons and blinking cursors and coffee breath and dorm room bed flops and Proctor oatmeal. Somehow try to remember, even if this seems like a disappointing Woody Allen film times racism times rape culture divided by old-fashioned animal cruelty projected on the shiny carapace of the self you thought you were going to be (an extra in the movie adaptation of the sequel to your life) that it’s also the soft carousel of your friend taking all the dishes to the conveyor belt or solidarity in the basement of the film lab at 3 a.m. or the Gampitheater with a vase of lilacs and strawberries and OutKast playing from an iPhone for a birthday breakfast or an entire discussion class gaining fast on a desert mirage called cultural collective memory.
Full House
When it’s the first snow I sit in Johnson Memorial Building’s lounge, and stare up at the skylight in the honey-wood ceiling. Proctor Booth room is best before 9 a.m., soundtracked to VPR Classical and water with lemon. There is an ice cream machine on the sixth floor of Bi Hall as well as the greenhouse. Go there in the dead of winter for oxygen and chlorophyll and chipwiches. I was once told that you can get inside the organ chamber in Mead Chapel through a little door, though I have never tried it. You have to be in the library very early if you want to claim the SSR (Secret Study Room) in the back right corner on the ground floor. Sama’s has the cheapest coffee. Use the Bike Shop. Hillcrest air feels like the Fiji water of airs. Use the outhouse in the Organic Garden. Use the craft supplies in the Crest Room. Sleep on as many couches as possible. The first time I saw Facilities edging all the sidewalks, I just stared and stared. That is a crazy thing, to edge all these sidewalks! That is a beautiful, insane task! Admire the edged sidewalks. There are a lot of things happening “behind the scenes.” Figure out what they are.
Four-of-a-Kind
Here’s a good game to play: search your email inbox for instances of the word “stressed” or “panic attack.” You’ll realize you’ve been here before. Some selections from a four-year stint:
December 2013: And maybe I’m just writhe-ing and circular-stress-thinking more than usual because 40 assorted pages due by Thursday will not get done and definitely not ease the minds of people who I think I’ve let down and betrayed because they maybe saw potential in me and I am systematically failing them or “not enough sleep and too many drugs”
May 2013: My harddrive crashed! I am back from sea which was nice but I am dumped back into stressland again because today as I got in on the night bus, I came down with a miserable fever. Ideal. And everyone is gone on spring break except for my one roommate who was tripping balls all day in my house on LSD while I lay in bed and shivered to the tempo of Pink Floyd or whatever
December 2012: wildly frustrated on verge of tears and hyperventilation in the GIS lab, no can do.
September 2012: i almost had a mini panic attack and then on my way home i stopped off at weybridge to say hi to bekah and on the way there i saw a sad bro chasing after a very unrelenting and prim girl who was stalking away angrily and he was calling and calling “Louisa! Louisa!!!! WAIT PLEASE DON’T RUN AWAY FROM ME!” and it was quite tragic.
March 2011: i skipped class today to work on the three essays i have due tomorrow. IM SO STRESSED. I NEED THIS TO BE ENDING. nose to the grindstone until fri...here we go.
September 2010: I almost have a panic attack every day just thinking about how much amazing stuff is offered here and that it is not humanly possible to take advantage of it all in just four years.
Hang in there, lil’ buddy. You’re gonna be fine.
Straight Flush
My friend Bekah brought this term into my life: “Big Feelings.” She stole it from one of her friends in Seattle who works at a preschool with little kids, many of whom have been abused or neglected. When the kids are experiencing an overwhelming emotion-cloud of feelings they can’t process, understand or deal with in an effective or socially great way (good or bad)...they call that having Big Feelings. Your Big Feelings are valid, and you don’t have to answer to anyone. No one ever has to ruin everything, not even me. Some things you can just enjoy and let run through your hair like Moroccan oil and pour into your heart of Spring Breakerz embers and spread and fizz like a mimosa.
Royal Flush
I rediscovered my mother’s other classic piece of advice when I was playing that email inbox game earlier — in response to some minor crisis, she wrote back: “You should, as I still like to say, put your hair in a pony tail, splash cold water on your face and get real.”
Artwork by CHARLOTTE FAIRLESS
