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(05/07/14 4:11pm)
Affirmative action doesn’t work and it’s unconstitutional. The state cannot change destructive culture that inhibits black success. Those who benefit from affirmative action are unqualified.
Do you believe these statements, dear reader? Despite the often cited election of President Obama and the de jure de-segregation of American society, racial minorities still navigate structural and institutional racism today. In this context, affirmative action is necessary to correct for past discrimination, prevent further discrimination and create opportunities that were previously denied to people of color and women. However, the most recent Supreme Court decision (Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action) upheld the right of Michigan citizens to bar the state from using affirmative action in university admissions, which adds Michigan to eight other states that have outlawed affirmative action. In a blistering dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argues for affirmative action and asserts the importance of dialogue around race. “We ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society,” she writes. “It is this view that works harm, by perpetuating the facile notion that what makes race matter is acknowledging the simple truth that race does matter.” This ruling comes within a year of Shelby County v. Holder, the decision that gutted a key part of the Voting Rights Act. These decisions represent an attack on policies meant to correct for past barriers to social mobility and opportunity. Still, most opponents instead see affirmative action as discrimination against white people.
The rhetoric of anti-affirmative action arguments is disconcerting. Phrases like “they’re taking our spots” use language of entitlement and displacement. By naming the spots for college admission as “ours,” affirmative action opponents suggest that those spots should be in their possession and that minority students who benefit from affirmative action are displacing those who really deserve admission. Although until the 20th century, college seats were primarily available only to white, wealthy men, it is in part for this reason that affirmative action exists: to open up college admission to historically marginalized groups and avoid the continued practice of saving those spots for the privileged.
Anti-affirmative action rhetoric of who “deserves” the “spot” is also prevalent at Middlebury. Although Middlebury pledged its support for affirmative action, several faculty and students continue to contest it. According to a number of students of color at Middlebury, two beliefs — that affirmative action threatens existing privilege and that students of color are not qualified for admission — are commonly heard. One writer of this piece, Maya Doig-Acuña, shared that after she was admitted to Middlebury, many of her friends complained, saying: “you’re so lucky — being black makes it so much easier to get into college,” and “affirmative action makes it harder for white people to get into school.” After attending the presentation of “Race, Sex and the Constitution,” another writer, Lily Andrews, has repeatedly heard that “all views deserve to be shared” and that arguments against affirmative action simply represent one benign side in an intellectual debate. If this is true, then racist statements like “students of color are unqualified” are legitimized. When a policy affects real people’s lives, it should not be debated in this way.
Writer Alex Jackman contributes another experience: during a class discussion on affirmative action in the fall, Professor Dry presented an unfair dichotomy to his class: he asked, would you prefer to be a single black student in a classroom at a college that does not practice affirmative action and thereby not be questioned on your admission? Or to be one of several minority students in a classroom at an affirmative action college where white peers were empowered to make assumptions about your intellectual aptitude and how you were accepted? To limit the question of affirmative action in this way is restrictive and dangerous and obscures other possibilities that exist for minority students, what they can offer and how they should be treated. We cannot equate affirmative action with academic ineptitude or create environments where some students are empowered to question their peers’ worthiness. All students work hard to get into colleges and we need a paradigm shift so that we can begin to appreciate this and the value all students bring to the classroom.
Students at Middlebury also tend to overlook ex-nominated forms of affirmative action, namely athletics and legacy. Preference for athletes manifests as coaches choose the students they recruit to be admitted; when it comes to many sports on campus, athletes from white, wealthy schools are privileged. When it comes to legacy, we must remember that Middlebury was exclusively open to white men and although Middlebury is now need-blind for U.S. students, remains most accessible to wealthy, white families with legacies of higher education. One national activist group, Angry White Guys for Affirmative Action, writes, “it is hypocritical and profoundly wrong to call affirmative action for minorities “racism in reverse,” while treating affirmative action for bankers, farmers, white men of power, as entitlements.” It is also ironic that white women — the largest beneficiaries of affirmative action — are at the forefront of protesting this policy.
We support affirmative action because we recognize the ongoing prevalence of hiring and admittance prejudices, the lasting effects of historical barriers to opportunity and the need to take active steps to redress these effects and create greater equity. We need affirmative action because we do not all have the same opportunities. Rather, unequal historical advantage and access to social mobility structure our admissions into elite colleges and obscure the talent and worth of students who cannot put name-brand schools and programs on their applications. Class-based affirmative action is also necessary, but we cannot replace race-based policies because that ignores intersectionality. We value racial diversity in the classroom; however, arguments that defend affirmative action solely because it provides diverse classroom experiences for white students are troubling. There is a progress narrative we have bought into about race: the laws are signed, we elected a black president, so race is no longer an issue. But when we live in a country where the rights of people of color are constantly contested and their lives constantly reexamined, there is still work to do. Affirmative action is not up for debate.
Signed by Alex Jackman ’14 , Lily Andrews ’14, Maya Doig-Acuña ’16, Afi Yellow-Duke ’15, Kya Adetoro ’13, Kate McCreary ’15, Cooper Redpath ’14, Katie Linder ’15, Molly Stuart ’15.5, Jasmine Ross ’16, Marcella Maki ’14, Greta Neubauer ‘14.5, Brita Fisher ’15, Joanna Georgakas ’14, Feliz Baca ’14, Alice Oshima ’15, Katie Willis ’13, Molly McShane ’16.5, Philip Williams ’15, Josh Swartz ’14.5, Elizabeth Dunn, Ally Yanson ’14, Maddie Dai ’14, Ashley Guzman ’13, Jackie Park ’15, Alexander Chaballier ’16.5, Cooper Couch ’14.5.
(05/07/14 3:54pm)
In recent weeks some faculty colleagues have questioned the College’s investment and participation in Middlebury Interactive Languages (MIL). MIL is a for-profit, joint venture created in 2010 by Middlebury and K12 Inc., a Virginia-based company that creates online educational and curricular content for students in grades K-12. Today, approximately 170,000 students learn languages through MIL courses in elementary and secondary schools across the country. For many of these students, these courses provide the only opportunity they have to study a language other than English.
This venture, something new for our institution, raised concerns from the beginning. Colleagues noted that one of the founders of K12 Inc., William Bennett, was a political conservative whom they viewed as hostile to public education. Bennett, however, was long gone from the company by the time we began MIL. Critics also claimed that K12 was aiming to undermine the country’s public education system because of its association with charter schools. In fact, MIL’s courses, which are taught in 1,200 school districts, are making it possible for public schools to continue offering language courses rather than eliminate them as has happened all too often during the past decade. In addition, many new teaching positions have been created as a result of the adoption of MIL courses.
This past year, MIL alone has hired more than 110 language teachers, certified in multiple states, to teach MIL courses. For example, the state of Delaware asked MIL to hire and train four language teachers (two Spanish, one Chinese, and one French), each of whom teaches in multiple schools across the state. For the coming year, Delaware will expand its MIL offerings, which will require the hiring of two additional Spanish teachers. The city of Baltimore, which has contracted this year to use MIL courses, will offer Spanish in ten elementary schools this Fall, and then in all of its elementary schools the next year. The city is hiring new teachers to teach across the 10 schools. And here in Vermont, Weybridge hired a Spanish teacher a couple of years ago to teach the MIL Spanish elementary course, and that teacher now offers Spanish in neighboring elementary schools where MIL is used as an after school program.
The latest round of criticism arose earlier this year after a high school Latin teacher contacted the chair of our Classics Department, Professor Marc Witkin, and noted that a course sold by MIL (but developed by a predecessor company) contained a number of errors, and could be misunderstood to say that the course was developed by Middlebury faculty. Understandably, Professor Witkin found this disturbing. He brought this to my attention and to the attention of others and I thank him for that. The management team at MIL acted quickly: it notified those taking the Latin course of the errors in the course, corrected them, and clarified in its marketing materials that the Latin courses were not developed in partnership with Middlebury or by Middlebury Classics faculty.
I believe MIL acted appropriately and we have put new controls in place to help prevent similar issues in the future. Though Middlebury is a “minority” partner in this collaboration (it owns 40 percent of the company), all new course development has been done by a Middlebury development team, with full authority over the content. This control is a non-negotiable requirement for Middlebury to continue in the venture, as the institution is keenly aware of the need to protect its reputation.
The incident with the Latin course opened the door for those who opposed the MIL venture to propose we sever ties with K12 Inc. and end the venture. Unfortunately, they have chosen to do so by putting forth a narrative that neither provides a full context nor aligns with the facts. A proposed, non-binding faculty motion calling on Middlebury to sever the relationship with K12 Inc. suggests that MIL censored curriculum content to satisfy the Texas Board of Education or other unnamed entities. This is a misleading claim. MIL ultimately decided not use some raw footage it shot for the French and Spanish courses that showed people smoking and drinking alcohol. Such scenes were in the authentic videos shot on site as the courses were in the development process, but were never included in the courses themselves. It was understood that elementary and secondary schools (and parents) would not want to encourage those activities by having them in pre-college textbooks or courses. This strikes me as a sensible decision that hardly rises to the level of censorship.
More to the point, perhaps, is the criticism raised about the exclusionary nature of MIL’s course content; colleagues have objected to how same-sex couples and non-traditional families were excluded from MIL courses. This is largely true, and the MIL development team, led by Middlebury Professor of Linguistics and MIL Chief Learning Officer Aline Germain-Rutherford, has already begun to work on guidelines for a greater inclusion of lesser represented groups in future MIL courses. The team will follow guidelines established by state boards of education, including California, many of which now encourage and even require greater representation of diverse populations in K-12 textbooks and course materials.
Ironically, MIL courses today include greater diversity and are more inclusive of a range of family structures and multicultural perspectives than the course materials used in most, if not all, of the College’s introductory language courses.
Perhaps lost in the criticism, and what should certainly be of interest to all of us, is the positive reviews of MIL course from students, teachers, administrators, and independent researchers at Johns Hopkins University. In a comprehensive study released last year, researchers judged MIL courses to be among the best available of their kind.
It is worth restating the reasons why Middlebury entered into this venture:
• First, we seek to retain our leadership in language teaching, which began 100 years ago with the founding of the Middlebury summer intensive Language Schools and their distinctive approach to language learning. To achieve this goal, we need to experiment with new pedagogies, including online learning. We purposely pursued experimenting outside the “college educational space” so as not to interfere with the traditional pedagogies at the College or confuse MIL’s mission with the College’s. MIL has contributed much to our understanding of what works and does not work with online courses in foreign language teaching and learning, and continues to represent a valuable and cost-effective research and development (“R&D”) vehicle.
•Second, we believed it was important that, as leaders in language instruction, we expand access to language education for pre-college students. The United States continues to lag behind much of the world in language education, and recent cuts to public school budgets have affected the teaching of languages disproportionately: foreign language courses are among the first to be eliminated when budgets need to be trimmed. MIL has the potential to increase access to language education for many students across the country, and has already done that. While little of what we learn might find its way back to our residential liberal arts curriculum, there is no doubt that online learning will soon complement our Language Schools intensive summer curriculum, our Bread Loaf School of English curriculum, and a number of degree programs at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
•Third, we recognized that this venture was an opportunity for Middlebury to develop new revenue sources that would help us sustain our commitment to need-blind admissions, increasing our student body’s socioeconomic diversity through greater financial aid, small class sizes, and competitive salaries to attract and retain an excellent faculty and staff. We can no longer count on annual tuition increases to generate the resources needed to achieve all these goals, and so if MIL ultimately provides revenue to the institution, it will help us preserve what we value most in our residential liberal arts program.
We chose to partner with K12 Inc. due to its experience in creating online pre-college courses successfully in disciplines outside the foreign languages. We knew we could not launch courses independently, as we needed the technological experience and scale to allow for course development and meaningful student and course assessment. Our $4 million investment in MIL, for which we received a 40-percent share of the company, was an investment from our endowment and has no effect on our annual operating budget.
Middlebury’s long record of innovation and experimentation has frequently been questioned by those comfortable with the status quo. This was true in 1915 when the first summer Language School was founded here at Middlebury by a German professor from Vassar College. The Middlebury faculty opposed the idea, arguing that such a program had no place on the Middlebury campus. It was not part of the Middlebury mission, many argued. Thankfully, President John Thomas went ahead with the creation of the Language Schools despite the opposition. Thomas recognized the risks, but also saw the possible long-term rewards from what was then a novel and new way to teach languages and culture.
One hundred years later, there is no doubt that everyone who has studied at Middlebury, whether in the summer at the intensive Language Schools, or here as an undergraduate student, has benefitted from the leadership in language education the Schools have brought to the College. Likewise, pursuing online education with a partner in the pre-college educational space, though beyond the traditional mission of our undergraduate college, has allowed us to experiment, learn, and, hopefully, remain in the forefront of language education for the foreseeable future. Such leadership for a liberal arts institution is rare, and we should neither take it for granted nor rest on our past accomplishments.
RONALD D. LIEBOWITZ is the President of Middlebury College
(05/07/14 3:50pm)
Sexual assault on college campuses is making headlines this month as Tufts was found noncompliant with Title IX and the Department of Education released a list of 55 schools currently under investigation, including Amherst, Harvard and Dartmouth. Though many of our peer schools are being investigated, Middlebury was absent from the list. Thanks to the leadership of our Title IX Coordinator, Shirley Collado, as well as Human Relations Officer Sue Ritter and Associate Dean for Judicial Affairs and Student Life Karen Guttentag, we have robust sexual assault policies, in addition to other anti-discrimination measures, that ensure survivors of sexual assault are granted the everything required by Title IX and more.
Throughout the course of this year, the Campus has written numerous editorials taking a critical look at the way we do things here from physical education requirements to granting credit for internships. Many of these editorials focused on the negative and proposed important changes we thought needed to happen. But in our last set of editorials this year, it is important to recognize the progress we have made on combating sexual assault and raising awareness. This past week has been a dark one for many of our peer institutions, and Middlebury should take pride that we are ahead of the curve.
Although we are compliant, the Federal investigation needs to be a wake up call for everyone; simply being compliant is not good enough. We should use this moment to reflect on our own policies and practices to prevent sexual assault on our campus. We have not had cases that sparked campuswide outrage, as Brown or Amherst have seen over the past few years, but as It Happens Here reminded us in January, sexual assault happens on this campus and we must continue to engage with the issue to support survivors and prevent future instances.
Hiring Barbara McCall as Director of Health and Wellness last summer and launching MiddSafe this year are huge steps in the right direction and go a long way to keep us at the forefront of the fight against sexual assault. The grant we received from the Department of Justice earlier this year is testament to the hard work put in as Middlebury’s policies and plans are to be models for other schools.
But there are still areas where more can be done, notably orientation, which MiddSafe has already started rethinking to incorporate more sexual assault prevention programming. For many students, K-12 sex ed looked a lot like the beginning of Mean Girls, with abstinence, pregnancy and STDs dominating the discourse. Many come in with little or no sexual experience, providing a unique opportunity to influence student’s approach to sex. In fact, in some ways, college sex ed is even more important than the middle school or ninth grade where for many, sex still seems far away. But currently discussions of sex on campus are often relegated to the back channels of MiddConfesh and most public forums talk about the dangers of sexual assault.
In addition to conversations about consent, we need to promote sex positive dialogue. Just because a situation does not cross the line into being sexual assault does not mean it is a healthy situation or that it is not damaging. The College should provide more opportunities, either in orientation or throughout the year, for students to learn more about sex, from proper forms of protection to frank conversations about pleasure. Helping students navigate sexuality and be properly prepared to have open conversations about sex can help evolve the way we talk about sex on this campus and chip away at rape culture. This needs to come from multiple fronts. McCall has worked hard to implement more sexual education programming, but we also need support from Parton to help students think about sexual safety without stigma, including questions about sexuality or relationship status.
As we work to graduate students with the “ethical and social qualities essential for leadership,” as our mission statement says, we must think about how our students will promote respectful sexual behavior once we graduate. As we have discussed in our conversations about the honor code, what we build here is reflected in our character after Middlebury and we cannot be apathetic about the values we wish to see. Although national attention has been focused on sexual assault on college campuses, date rape does not end once we are handed our diploma. The lessons we learn here, from how to talk about sex to bystander intervention, will remain with us and allow us to commit to being active opponents of sexual violence.
Artwork by NOLAN ELLSWORTH
(04/30/14 11:12pm)
From April 30-May 3, the Middlebury College Departments of Theatre and Dance are presenting Sarah Ruhl’s Tony Award-nominated play “In the Next Room” (or The Vibrator Play). Associate Professor of Theatre Claudio Medeiros ’90 will direct the work, which stars seven students and serves as the final campus production for theater majors Mari Vial-Golden ’14 and Matt Ball ’14.
True to its title, the play explores the use of electric vibrators in treating women for “hysteria” in 19th century Saratoga Springs, N. Y. It also sheds light on doctors’ long-standing, limited understanding of human sexuality and, in particular, the female orgasm. After all, the hysteria diagnosis — which is no longer recognized as medically sound — was regularly applied to women exhibiting symptoms ranging from nervousness to fatigue to irritability to general “troublemaking.”
It was these themes of female sexuality and desire that drove Vial-Golden to audition for the role of Catherine Billings, one of the leading characters in the play.
“It is a period piece that takes place in the late 1800s, but the themes are so timeless,” Vial-Golden said.
Indeed, the play points to just how far we have come but also how much we still don’t know about human sexuality.
“To me, it’s mind boggling that it’s so recent that we have actually come to understand the female orgasm,” Medeiros said.
Although “In the Next Room” presents serious topics, it does so with humor and lightheartedness. This rich balance appealed to Medeiros but has also challenged him and the cast.
“Tonally, it’s a tricky piece because it’s funny and serious often at the same time,” Medeiros said. “The challenge becomes how to navigate that. The director has to guide the actors to find a truthful connection with both the comedy and the drama. At the same time, one wants the audience to laugh at the situations but not the characters.”
Katie Weatherseed ’16, who plays Sabrina, a patient treated for hysteria, notes that the play draws some of its humor from characters’ genuine innocence, especially in contrast to that of a 21st century audience.
“The characters bring a charming naiveté that’s just really fun to play and also fun to watch,” she said. “I hope that the show can make the audience laugh while also giving them a little food for thought.”
In order to prepare for the show, the cast researched sex and intimacy in the Victorian Era, read the book that inspired the play, Rachel P. Maines’ 2001 text Technology of Orgasm, took a historical walking tour of Saratoga Springs and watched the 2011 movie Hysteria, which stars Maggie Gyllenhaal and explores similar topics to “In the Next Room.” In order to gain a better understanding of the “hysteria” diagnosis, Weatherseed also read Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s popular short story, “The Yellow Wall Paper. “
“[It] was probably the piece I looked to most, as it guides the reader through the consciousness of a woman who is stifled by gender roles and encouraged to suppress her emotions,” she said.
Blocking scenes was particularly important to the rehearsal process because the play takes place in two adjacent rooms. Action moves between both and sometimes occurs in each simultaneously.
“It’s almost like in film — whoever is in the foreground is in focus, but then the focus can shift to the background,” Medeiros said. “Finding a way to do that in the theater has been a really interesting challenge.”
Because the play will be her last at Middlebury, Vial-Golden is particularly grateful that “In the Next Room” has presented challenges like this unconventional blocking.
“It’s nice to end on a challenge and to end with a friend — Matt Ball — who I’ve been working with since freshman year, as well as a phenomenal cast of mainly underclassmen,” Vial-Golden said.
Medeiros hopes that “In the Next Room” will push audience members just as it has the cast. Hopefully, viewers will leave the play with not only a deeper understanding of the evolution of medicine, sexuality and gender, but also a revised definition of intimacy.
“I think the play ultimately proposes a return to a kind of radical intimacy, one that is not just sexual but erotic in the larger sense of the word: a true physical, emotional and spiritual connection...I find that quite beautiful,” Medeiros said.
“In the Next Room” (or The Vibrator Play) opened at The Seeler Studio Theater on Wednesday, Apr. 30 and will run through Saturday, May 3 at 7:30 p.m. each night. Tickets are $6 for Middlebury College students and available at go/boxoffice.
(04/30/14 4:45pm)
As April winds to a close, the College wraps up a month of events focused on raising awareness about sexual assault. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and new Health and Wellness Director Barbara McCall launched a series of events throughout the month in order to “recognize and support survivors in our community and create and maintain spaces for healing, allow program attendees to deepen their understanding of sexual violence at global, cultural, community and individual levels, and recognize sexual violence as a topic worthy of time, care and conversation in our community.”
The events included “Meditation for Survivors,” a workshop in which participants were guided through healing visualizations and breathing exercises to quiet the mind, “Sex, Relationships, and Consent: What You Need to Know,” a workshop by Keith E. Smith, the Men’s Outreach Coordinator at the University of Vermont, which discussed sex, relationships, communication, violence and what it really means to have consent, and “B.R.A.V.E. (Be Ready Aware Victorious Empowered),” a personal safety training workshop for both physical and mental empowerment. According to McCall, these events were well-attended and received positively. McCall emphasized the expansion of the sexual assault conversation as one of the goals for not only this month but for the entire year, too.
According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in five women and one in 71 men will experience attempted or completed sexual assault at some time in their lives, a majority of those assaults happening during college. Though students consistently seek to increase awareness through certain events like “It Happens Here,” Wellness Committee member Casey Watters ’15 points out that the discussion may not always continue after such events.
“The lack of discussion afterwards takes away from some of the immense potential such a powerful event has on this campus,” Watters said.
In the media recently, apps such as “Kitestring” have received attention for their possible efficacy in preventing sexual assault. Kitestring is a “safecall” service (available for use by smartphone and non-smartphone users alike) that will automatically alert your emergency contacts if you do not check in with the app after an allotted amount of time. It can be used generally to get someone from Point A to Point B safely: you know you are going to be walking home alone, so you tell Kitestring to check on you in 15 minutes. Kitestring will then either text you or the app will send you an alert after 15 minutes have passed to make sure you have made it to your destination safely. If you do not answer the text or confirm with the app that you are safe, Kitestring will text one or more emergency contact numbers you gave it with a generalized message or a custom one you made: for example, “Hey, this is [insert your name here]. I’m walking back from this concert to my apartment by myself. If you’re getting this message, I may not have made it back safely. Give me a call?” You can text the app to extend the amount of time you have allotted if you are delayed, and you can add additional secret code words so someone else cannot check in with the app for you. Unlike other safecall apps, Kitestring relies on SMS instead of a data connection or just an app, so it is available to millions more users than other options. Some have suggested it could be used to prevent sexual assault.
But McCall pointed out that apps like Kitestring are far from a perfect solution. “Best practices in bystander intervention education do not rely on apps,” she said. “They are focused on communication between friends and community members to assess risk and act accordingly.”
Former Sexual Assault Oversight Committee Member Fritz Parker ’15 agreed, saying, “While apps like Kitestring certainly have their place, I think it is important that they not distract from the real issue: there are people who don’t feel safe doing something as simple as walking home. These emergency services don’t help us address that issue, only deal with their consequences more efficiently. That’s something, but it’s not a solution.”
GSFS Major, MiddSafe advocate and Feminist Action at Middlebury President Alexandra Strott ’15 highlighted one major issue with the app.
“I’m glad that [Kitestring] exists if it has the potential to help someone out of an uncomfortable or even dangerous situation, or even just to give someone peace of mind on their way from Point A to Point B, or while they’re out on a first date with someone they’ve never met before, for instance,” she said. “I’m a little wary of an app like Kitestring being branded as a solution to rape culture and sexual assault rather than as a precautionary measure. It doesn’t really address sexual assault that occurs between intimate partners or acquaintance rape.”
Watters believes that Kitestring may be effective in more urban areas and thinks there are better ways to address sexual assault on campus, like the workshops and discussions that took place this month.
“At Middlebury, I see our solution more through empowerment and discussion teaching students their rights and resources: to remove blame from the victims in realizing that it is always okay to say no halfway through or change your mind, to stand by a belief that you want your partner to use a condom, even if it may not feel as good and to stress to all students that a maybe is not a yes, and a no is not a maybe,” she said.
Sexual assault is not the only way that sex can introduce complications in the lives of young adults, and the app world has realized as much. Fears of STIs and pregnancy can often add to the stress of college life and app-creators are tapping into this with a variety of apps, primarily targeted toward females, to improve reproductive health and awareness and help optimize (or minimize) risk of pregnancy.
One such app is “Glow.” Originally targeted toward women who were having trouble conceiving, Glow analyzes data on a woman’s menstrual cycle, basal body temperature and medication history to predict when a woman is most likely to be pregnant. Though at the start it operated as an encouragement to try to conceive on certain days, the app now has many different interfaces depending on whether the user is trying to conceive or trying not to conceive, and whether the user is sexually active. For those who are not sexually active, the app focuses on reproductive health tips and provides alerts for the user as to when to expect her next period; for those who are sexually active and trying not to conceive, the app alerts the user at “high-risk” times of the month. All of Glow’s alerts and tips are based on the data provided by the user; the more information the user provides, the more accurate the app’s information will be.
This app is not a substitute for gynecological visits or pelvic exams, nor does it mean that one no longer needs to practice safe sex.
As Strott points out, “Apps like these can be really useful for students who are concerned about becoming pregnant, if it gives them peace of mind, but I think it’s important for them not to use these apps as a substitute for practicing safe sex (whatever that looks like for them) and getting exams and tests regularly.”
Though both of these apps do not provide fail-safe solutions to sexual assault or unwanted pregnancy, they can be helpful tools to use in conjunction with healthy practices, good communication and increasing awareness and education.
(04/30/14 4:42pm)
If Hannah Sobel ’17.5’s linguistics study is valid, there won’t be any feminists left in the movement for marijuana legalization. Though Sobel doesn’t smoke, she enlisted her friends to record their conversations while under the influence of marijuana to study gender differences in speech patterns for her linguistics anthropology class, “Language, Culture and Society,” taught by Marybeth Nevins.
Sobel described it as a study that “looked at how women talk when they’re high and how men talk when they’re high, in both same-sex and mixed gender conversations.”
Her results could be perceived as somewhat troubling for feminists. She found that “being baked” firmly re-established existing gender roles and modes of accepted behavior in mixed-gender conversations. In one recorded conversation, which included four females and one male, the male spoke almost the entire time.
“Men generally tend to dominate mixed-gender conversations [when sober],” Sobel said. “They’ll keep talking quietly until they get what they want. They’ll talk until you look at what they’re doing if they’re trying to make you see something cool they can do.”
Topanga* ’17, who participated in the study, echoed the same observations. “When I listened to the recordings, I realized how little we [females of the group] got into conversations when it was mixed gender,” she said. “You just hear male voice after male voice after male voice and then once in a while, a little interjection of one of us laughing, or just being like, ‘Oh my god, you’re so silly!’”
When in the company of members of the opposite sex, women talk less than they do when surrounded by other women.
“Women just tend to laugh. Women just get really happy and quiet,” Topanga said. “In all-female conversations, women were louder and more boisterous with each other and quieter in mixed gender conversations.”
Burt* ’15, who claims to regularly smoke marijuana, said he did not notice himself dominating conversations while high. He has, however, been smoking since a young age.
“For me,” Burt said, “it feels like a lot of smoking weed, I just associate with guy time, and smoking itself is kind of a ‘men’s activity’ to me.”
So, what could be behind these behavioral changes? Are solely gender-biased social mores to blame?
Sobel hypothesizes that the discrepancy is rooted in biological differences among genders. “I think the biological portion of it is that marijuana tends to make you quiet,” she said.
But she also points to societal factors in the conversational tendencies, citing specifically the idea of women being “seen and not heard.”
Burt and Topanga cited initial paranoia and social anxiety in inexperienced smokers as the main trigger for male-dominated conversations while high, rather than conventional social norms.
“When I was first introduced to smoking, I would go into situations and become super super socially anxious,” Burt said. “I couldn’t even talk to some of my good friends. Now, when I get high, it’s like way the opposite.”
Topanga agreed with this analysis, arguing that this might be exaggerated in women.
“I’ve talked to people who, having that drug in their system, and knowing they are in an altered state of mind, makes them more aware of what they’re doing,” she said. “So, if they would be uncomfortable around guys anyways, that’s just going to amplify that, because you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I’m high, and these are cute guys.’ Like what do I say? What am I going to do? So you just don’t say anything.”
Another interesting finding of Sobel’s study was how differently marijuana affected mixed-gender dynamics in conversation compared to alcohol, another commonly abused substance, on campus.
Sobel found that women tend to become the dominators of conversation when alcohol is consumed by both genders.
But the “over-talking” was not described as Sobel as an expression of a gender-centered power struggle.
“It’s not a rude thing, this domination. They’ll just talk and keep talking,” she said.
Another feminist-fearful finding was that female derogatory terms were more common in conversations under marijuana influence among all-female groups than in sober conversations; taboo name-calling, like “you f***ing wh***”, used as terms of endearment, were more common in same-sex conversations involving marijuana than those involving alcohol, according to Sobel’s study.
Recognizing that her study is only preliminary, Sobel plans on “taking this a little further” and possibly turning it into an independent research project.
“The findings aren’t complete, yet,” she said. “But, I’m looking at frequency of smoking in the study as well. I’m also going to look into content, especially with stories.”
There is no push-back from the administration or from the linguistics department for her to halt her controversial research. Her linguistics professor, Assistant Professor of Sociology/Anthropology Marybeth Nevins, was not even initially fazed by her project proposal.
“She didn’t say anything negative about it, [even though] I know it’s kind of unorthodox…and illegal,” Sobel said. “But I used pseudonyms and it wasn’t me, but my ‘stoner friends,’ who I gave the recorders to. She approved it pretty much immediately.”
“The fact that her teacher was so willing to let her do is just an example of how much more prevalent, how much more accepted marijuana is,” Topanga said.
(04/30/14 4:37pm)
For my last column of the year, I wanted to touch on a more serious issue. Inspired by recent events in my life as well as many friends, and also various Middfesh stories, I believe it is important to discuss the very serious issue of STDs (sexually transmitted diseases). While sex comes with a lot of great things, if people aren’t safe, it can come with some scary aspects, too.
From speaking with my peers on this campus, it seems that there is a general attitude of “it happens, but not here” with regards to STDs. I’m not sure why this is — perhaps it’s the relatively affluent make-up of the school, or the fact that no one seems to talk about these problems. But Middlebury is no exception. In fact, I have personally known more than a few kids with a scare or two. Getting tested is terrifying and nerve-wracking, but definitely important.
I myself have had my own scare. After a friend who I had been with notified me that they had tested positive for an infection, I was terrified. I had done everything right, put everything on correctly, but still went to get tested immediately. Luckily, everything ended up negative, but after getting tested, I realized how easy and how necessary it was, and how rarely college students actually seem to get tested.
Many people might believe that as long as you use a condom, everything will be fine. And to some extent, this is true. But what a lot of people forget is how easy it is to forget to use protection. The girl is on the pill, the last condom broke or expired, you are drunk and it feels better. The list of excuses for refraining from using protection goes on and on. And a lot of people feel that, with their 3.8 GPA, perfect figure and 3 job interviews lined up, that they are untouchable. Whatever the reasons may be, a fair amount of college students don’t always follow the seemingly “obvious” rules of sex protection. In fact, the National College Health Assessment estimates that up to one half of college students don’t use condoms during sex.
However, the lack of awareness about these issues actually makes the problem more serious. Some stats say that up to 80% of people infected with STDs show no immediate symptoms. This, combined with the College’s known hookup culture, makes spreading diseases that much easier. And even for those that get tested, going back and informing past partners is awkward, especially if they were a random one-night stand.
Some of the major diseases, such as HPV and chlamydia, can show absolutely no signs in men or women. However, in order to practice safe sex, it is extremely important to get tested. The CDC states that nearly one half of the 20 million people newly diagnosed with STDs year fit under the 15-24 age bracket. So remember, any time you think you’ve been in a risky situation, or even if you have recently switched a few partners, get tested. Yearly. The worst thing you could do is ignore these issues and potentially hurt yourself and the college community.
FYI: The Parton Health Center does STD and HIV testing, as well as the Planned Parenthood in town, and these are both normally confidential. There is a lot more information online so you can find the best method for you.
(04/24/14 3:06am)
This week’s commemorative event for Sexual Assault Awareness month will take place tonight at 6:30-8 p.m. in Crossroads Café. While in recent months on both a national and local level here on the campus, there has been a tremendous influx in dialogue surrounding sexual violence, the event Sex, Hooking Up, and Consent: What You Need To Know sets itself apart from other opportunities that work towards awareness and solutions. The poster asserts that it will be, “A Workshop and discussion about sex, relationships, communication and violence prevention for students of all genders.” This advertisement promises an interactive discussion aimed at equipping students with knowledge and necessary rhetoric to navigate the complex nexus of emotions, gender politics and potential for violence, infused in the hook-up culture.
The College is using funds awarded from the grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, which the college has won due to the combination of students and the administrations unabashed readiness to confront sexual violence on our campus.
Facilitating the discussion is University of Vermont’s Men’s Outreach Coordinator, Keith Smith. Since 2006, Smith has worked as both a counselor and workshop leader with the goal of, “Fostering healthy masculine identity development and non-violence.” It is essential to have a well-versed and thoughtful facilitator, like Smith, when it comes to such a complex topic, “Especially when it comes to sex,” Professor of Creative Writing and Gender Sexuality and Feminist Studies Catharine Wright said.
“Where so many aspects of our humanness are involved: our body, our identities, our emotional development, our spirituality, even,” she said.
From extensive interviews with community members at the College, it is clear that many feel that in an intense academic climate, with various pressures threatening to asphyxiate many students’ well-being, students use sex as a way to escape their anxieties and release pressure.
“Sex can be a healthy way to release pressure, [but] the combination of substances and sex and no social accountability is deeply problematic,” Wright said. “Add to that the fact that there are so many aspects of social identity and emotional development that never get adequately addressed on campus. And the fact that students, like everyone, inherit larger histories of gender, sex and power that most of them never unpack.”
Sex gets complicated faster than we consciously comprehend. Of course, there are undeniable moments of respect and connection that arise from the College’s prominent hook up culture, but there are still unavoidable instances of violence and dishonesty that arise from the more shallow, abusive and opportunistic facets.
When asked why a discussion about sex and consent are part of the event, Director of Health and Wellness Barbara McCall said, “These topics are now interfacing with the discourse around sexual violence on campus which I think is an important combination. To focus only on stopping violence in a “now” moment is short-sided because we know that giving students tools to create and explore healthy and consensual relationships is a foundational prevention strategy.”
Raising awareness about sexual assault is a hugely important first step, but a critical next step is to provide students with the necessary communication skills to cultivate a lasting, safe and vibrant sexual environment for all.
Alex Potter ’16.5 expresses that he feels pride when both Middlebury students and administration come together to foster a dialogue about such a prevalent issue because it, “is an issue that affects all members of community regardless of sexual orientation. It affects the health and well-being of all, and being open about sexual violence and sexual health is the first step towards improving it.”
Fortunately, these conversations are being bolstered by amazing work done by Middlebury students to speak out against sexual violence. It Happens Here, MiddSafe, and The Red Tent Event run student forums on sexual health and sexuality. Discourse surrounding sex and consent is clearly gaining momentum on campus.
If issues of sexual violence are to be overcome as they need to be, breaking patterns of silence and censorship are necessary. Silence supports ignorance. It is imperative that people talk about the issues and the patterns, and try and tease out the various factors inhibiting Middlebury from being a completely sexual violence free campus. Events like the Sex, Hooking Up, and Consent are a big, necessary step towards evaluating the oppression that can occur in a hook up culture like that of the College. They give students the communication skills to foster a healthier sexual dialogue when it comes to hooking up. Whenever sexual violence is happening, a change is necessary, and as Wright argues, “That’s what dialogue, in concert with policy, can do.”
(04/24/14 1:01am)
In honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), student and administrative members of the Sexual Assault Oversight Committee (SAOC) have put together a program of activities intended to support victims of sexual violence as well as spark discussion on campus about sexual violence prevention and education.
“It says something about our community values when things like this are on the calendar,” said Director of Health and Wellness Education and SAOC Co-Chair Barbara McCall. “It sends the message that [our community] thinks that this is an important conversation to be having … and [that] we want to support those who have been affected by sexual violence as best we can.”
“The SAOC’s goal, in general, has been to create a gathering place on campus where many different offices and individuals on campus who are working toward sexual assault prevention and education can collaborate and combine manpower into action and practice,” said Jordan McKinley ’14, co-chair of the SAOC.
Funding for the events will come from a campus grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women. Since the release of funds in February, the grant has been used to fund a variety of activities and trainings aimed at promoting a community-based approach sexual violence on campus.
“Sexual assault education, prevention and response has been a priority for many years at Middlebury ... It’s absolutely central to our commitment to providing a safe and inclusive community,” said Associate Dean for Judicial Affairs and Student Life Karen Guttentag, the project director of the grant.
“While working on the grant… it seemed natural to say [that] ... part of these funds should be used for programming both that stems from student interest and involvement and also supports the work that many other offices are already engaging in,” said McCall.
An SAOC subcommittee broadly entitled “Education and Workshops” began talking about SAAM programming last Fall. Many of the ideas for the events this month came from these subcommittee meetings.
The “B.R.A.V.E.” workshop, one of the activities that is part of the April program, is a result of McKinley’s ideas from the subcommittee.
The workshop, led by TaeKwon Do Instructor Kellie Thomas, will focus on techniques for personal safety. “The great thing about [Thomas] is that her lens is all about empowerment and finding your voice and confidence,” McCall said.
“We wanted to ... have a class that spoke more toward empowerment through being able to physically protect yourself,” McKinley added.
As part of the program, Men’s Outreach Coordinator at UVM Keith Smith facilitated a discussion about the confining stereotypes of masculinity at last week’s SAOC meeting.
“I’m also really excited about having Keith Smith come down from UVM and talk to us,” McKinley said. “He does a lot of really good work involving men ... and talking about how traditional gender roles and the concept of masculinity play into sexual assault and how we incorporate men into sexual assault prevention.”
“If someone wanted to start a support group for white males, it would probably be laughed out of the room,” said Kyler Blodgett ’17 who took Smith’s J-term workshop, “The Man Box.” “There’s a lot of support networks for women for sexual assault and recovery, but there just aren’t the same resources for men.”
Blodgett also noted that discussion about masculinity on the College’s campus is not prominent enough.
“The first rule about masculinity is don’t talk about masculinity,” said Smith at last week’s SAOC meeting.
In light of this problem, McCall said that SAOC has taken on the task of teaching students about how to be engaged men.
“It made sense to follow [last week’s meeting] up with an educational opportunity,” said McCall in reference to Smith’s workshop, “Sex, Hooking Up, and Consent: What You Need to Know.” “There’s something really powerful about having [Smith] facilitate this important conversation through a different lens.”
While Smith’s workshop will be geared toward sexual assault prevention, MiddSafe advocates will emphasize the healing element of SAAM at the “Supporting a Friend 101” workshop, Meditation For Survivors and Yoga For Survivors.
“For trauma victims, particularly people who have experienced sexual violence or sexual assault, it can be a very disembodying experience,” said Marcella Maki ’14, who proposed the idea for the Yoga for Survivors event. “[Yoga] can be a really useful part of wellness and taking steps toward recovery and self love.”
Looking to the future, both McKinley and McCall expressed interest in making SAAM programming an annual event.
These events, “are certainly a re-establishment” of sexual assault awareness on campus, according to McCall. A complete calendar of events can be found at go/saam14.
(04/23/14 2:54pm)
I am a student in Professor Dry’s Race, Sex and the Constitution course and for my presentation at the Spring Student Symposium reading a paper I wrote for the class, I’ve been called a racist. First, in beyond the green’s preview of the presentation, Lily Andrews wrote, “To watch out for (MAY be offensive): ‘Race and American Political Regime’ discusses colorblindness. Murray Dry has a BAD reputation around racism….” This provocative piece of advertisement brought a lot of students to our presentation, inevitably including those who would misunderstand our words. Then came an anonymous essay on MiddBeat, called, “A Counter Narrative to ‘Race, Sex, and the U.S. Constitution’ Symposium Presentation.” This piece claimed that the presenters vastly misunderstood race and racism and that it is a great crime to do anything but automatically support programs like affirmative action. In response, I would like to express my overall concern with the potential effects of shutting out opposing voices as well as address a few misunderstandings in Anonymous’ piece.
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard is: “Read books written by those you disagree with.” With similar sentiment, I would first like to ask potential critics to avoid pre-judging, especially with judgments that are poorly founded and revolve around something so fickle as a reputation.
To address Anonymous’ post, the papers we read presented a wide range of views and were put together by a group of students that have dedicated a whole semester to educating themselves about race and sex in America. We have read the liberal books and the conservative ones. We have read their critics. We have had discussions and written essays and striven to get to the heart of these important issues. We came to the presentation with thoughtful insights gleaned from a lot of reading and hard thinking. Yet, we were told we misunderstood racism. Further, we never had a chance at understanding it because we are not ourselves the minorities of which we spoke. I would posit, to return to my previous point about shutting out discussion, that to truly understand things, you must fully educate yourself. One should not simply read Michelle Alexander, but also read her critics and her challengers. They may not say what you want to hear, but they will expand your thinking and round your opinions.
The particular statement, “All ideas do not need to be entertained,” concerns me. Rather than censor ourselves so quickly, we should instead foster all productive types of student discourse.
I feel morally and intellectually compelled to address the assertion that “Racism is colorblindness.” The sole dissenter in Plessy v. Ferguson (the now-overturned case that upheld segregation in the south), Justice Harlan, wrote, “Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” Harlan was the only Justice to object the blatant and real racism behind Jim Crow — so why does Anonymous reject his view? If racism is colorblindness, can we never defeat racism, defined this way, except by guaranteeing permanent entitlements based on skin color? That’s antithetical to the conventional, sensible understanding of racism. Today, colorblindness seems to be the goal of the Supreme Court, which accepts affirmative action today, but looks to a future in which it will be unnecessary. Justice O’Connor, writing an opinion supporting affirmative action, but with a twenty-five year sunset, said “[A]ll governmental use of race must have a logical end point.” The Court has not accepted colorblindness categorically, as many Justices do view affirmative action as problematic. Given the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the use of race is what must be defended, not the absence of racial preferences. If one is to reject both the voices that stood up against Jim Crow in 1896 and our honorable justices of today, it must be done with credible proof and well-thought out arguments.
I would also like to ask the Middlebury student body: Why has it become impossible to have a full discourse about race without being labeled a racist? I cannot but think the only remaining recourse to respond to those you disagree with after you forgo the informed, educated response is to call people names. I suppose it is easier to write us off as racists rather than sitting down and thinking together. And, when you fling names on the Internet, you can convince others we are racists, too, all while keeping your identity secret. Sounds like a pretty good set-up. But I ask you to not take the easiest, loudest route. Do not simply paint us as misinformed monsters. Read with us. Talk with us. Do not rush to be offended or prove us wrong. Be open to the possibility that your thoughts may evolve, as will ours.
(04/16/14 5:21pm)
What’s in a name? As Romeo said, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Yet, in this day and age, names, and more specifically definitions, definitely matter. While many modern day college students enjoy the benefits of sexual freedom and the influx of information on sex, relationships have received much of the backlash from all of these changes.
A few decades ago, the boundaries of relationships were very clearly defined. People would be “seeing each other,” and after a while, if the feelings were mutual they would end up “going steady”. While the vocabulary might have changed, even up until more recent times, people traditionally would find a boyfriend or girlfriend first, and then the rest would follow.
But now, many relationships start with sex. You meet someone on a drunken Friday or Saturday night, and after some dancing or DFMOs, you both go back to a room, do the nasty and wake up in the morning for an awkward good bye, or if you are lucky, a relatively pleasant breakfast and quick hug goodbye. And then, you see the person one weekend, the next and the next. But generally both people are afraid of DTR, defining the relationship. But what do you call the guy or girl you sleep with every Friday and Saturday night but are definitely not dating and are barely even friends with? Is it exclusive? Is it going anywhere? Most of the time people don’t even really know, they just go along for the ride until it fizzles out or blows up.
Relationships, therefore, have kind of gone by the wayside. Instead, people have “things”, as they are often dubbed (can there be a more ambiguous word?), that pretty much just allow for miscommunications and insecurities. But what is it that has really changed? I believe that people have become more sexually expressive, but the requirements for dating have not adapted with people’s sexual activity. While having sex no longer has the same stigma, for some reason having sex with someone before you are dating precludes them from a datable option. Perhaps it’s because the idea of dating is still relatively conservative: the innocent expectations of a boy giving you a ring and going steady with him à la Grease are still going strong.
Who knows if this change is a good or bad thing? All I know is that there shouldn’t be a stigma to sex. As sex becomes more open, people’s preconceived notions need to adapt. And also, more importantly, dating should not go away! People shouldn’t use simple sexual relationships as replacements for actual emotional relationships; they aren’t the same. And while a consistent drunk hook up on weekends, (or even a sober hookup on weekdays), may be great, the lack of clarity doesn’t help anyone.
(04/16/14 4:04pm)
Joanna Rothkopf ’12 wrote a dank column near the end of her time here, which I guess you could call a “feminist column” (squirm) called That Thing Down There. (I squirm not because I feel uncomfortable to call myself a feminist, but because of how many people abandon ship when they hear a bright-eyed white-skinned Middlebury girl say that. It’s like sliding up in your Birkenstocks, whispering “sustainability” and popping your liberal arts insured booty on the hood of your daddy’s Range. If your rants start to smell like pop feminism, if you’re tagged as an activism fetishist, if you cannot skillfully walk the line between stone cold revolutionary c-word and really active listener to all voices, your take-me-seriously card is revoked. Side note: I recently have taken ownership of the c-word and I have a lot of feelings about it. Email me if you want to discuss.) That Thing Down There used to be a great, steady feminist voice on our campus, and I wanted to do a mini-homage in my vague-cloud-column this week with a haphazard brush with the discussion of modern conceptions of modesty and immodesty.
So let’s talk about that hair down there. Ooooh, touchy subject? Bush seems to make people around here more uncomfortable than talking about masturbation (but maybe still more acceptable than discussing anal play?). For the record, to all you ladies tagging Insta’s of your flowing Garnier Fructis locks with “long hair don’t care,” that phrase isn’t about topside mane. That phrase refers to pubes and armpit hair. Just ask Lil’ Wayne. The ability to hold shame and shamelessness in tension is one of the most fun feminist pickles to put on the side of a slice of hot meat at the Girldom Deli. We evaluate our goods and decide what we are ok or not ok with presenting to the world, instructed by other ‘doms, especially Sexdom and Media-dom. Personally, when I get home at the end of the day, I’ll take off all of my clothes. Visitors, friends, strangers; I cannot count how many people have seen my Ts. I’m not about to join a nudist colony, but I am pretty cool with being naked. And since high school, I’ve eschewed hair and felt a part of the norm.
Even being cool with being naked makes things a lot more complicated and body-centric than it seems it should. How many thinkpieces about Lena Dunham and her show Girls could go for 800 words without mentioning how much she featured her naked body on screen. None of them, as many secondary thinkpieces pointed out (including the one you’re reading right now, sigh). Censorship of da ladie$ in public spaces and forums has become most evident to me in artistic venues. At Maisie Ogata ’14’s performance art piece during the Symposium last Friday outside of the Johnson Memorial Building, I learned that you aren’t allowed to be nude in public spaces on campus. A couple days later, while helping Lily Miao ’14 install some art in the foyer by McCullough Social Space, she was not allowed to post a painting with full frontal nudity.
Who is ok with what and why are we ok with that? In Istanbul I enjoyed keeping it hairless down there. Often for religious reasons, many women (and men) in Turkey wax off a lot of their body hair. Elif, my Turkish bikini waxer, once answered the phone mid-wax. It was her mother. I find it worth sorting through the juxtaposition of how near someone is allowed to my nether regions and for what reasons to figure out just what the deal is. In traditional Istanbul, sex resulted in a kind of invisible or internal blemish, a stigma, but to get a full Brazilian was part of a ritual maintenance of cleanliness.
Our constant body evaluation is coupled with a shifting relationship with how much of this we can see on a daily basis as well as its connotations to others. The fake math of body economics is relentless. If I take my top off on Battell Beach, I am technically at risk of getting a citation. If I grow my hair out, I wonder how many boys here at Middlebury would pump the brakes at the feel of OG-sin, Eve-style pubic zones mid-romantic-entanglement. If my name is now Google-associated with the word “bush,” how many job offers have I lost?
Pubic hair seems to have a recent comeback in trendiness, even mainstream-ness, judging by recent articles in New York Times Magazine and The New York Times itself by Amanda Hess (a dope sex columnist, read up on her) and Marisa Meltzer respectively, about a month apart in publication. But even if the Times is glacial in its recognition of alt trends (Surfer chick 70s bush is suuuuuuch a thing you guys, it was not just hippies. Our moms were woooorking it.), it does suggest some sort of mainstream interest. As Hess notes in her December article and Meltzer in her January piece, several celebrities have expressed their tendency to keep it natch, and American Apparel, in their window display in Lower Manhattan, manikins posed with full bush under their sheer negligé. When I was in Los Angeles, capital city of hair removal down to the follicles, a group of post-grad friends confirmed their preference for bush. Turns out that hair is erotic to plenty of people out there. Recent mid-act with a signif. other actually left me worried about how bare I was down there.
So now I’m growing my own hair out, maybe because I’m a trend-chaser. Or maybe, I don’t mind getting less action in my final months here because I’m outgrowing Middlebury and its teenagers who are still learning that bodies are cooler and more fun if they don’t look like blowup dolls. Or maybe because my body, specifically my c-word, is the only space over which I feel I have political power at this point in my life. No matter what I choose to do with my pubic hair or how many people have seen my areolas, I’d like to think I still have purity of heart. Haha just kidding, I’m a deviant who’s going to hell on a River Styx Wet n’ Wild water slide.
Artwork by TAMIR WILLIAMS
(04/16/14 2:48pm)
If you wanted to get an Adderall prescription written for you while at the College, you would need to go through a person like Dr. John Young, who works at the Counseling Service of Addison County. He is the consulting psychiatrist for the College and is on the front lines of the complex issue of prescribing psychostimulants.
“It is one of the more complex assessments diagnostically,” he said. “The problem is that sometimes it is a diagnosis of desire — ‘I read a book, I tried someone’s Adderall and it worked for me, I think I have ADHD.’”
The problem with diagnosing ADHD is that there are few black and white cases and no blood test to confirm lack of focus. As a result, Dr. Young tries to get to know the patients and looks for red flags.
“You want a good reason, not just performance enhancement. When I meet with someone, I’m trying to get an idea of what they’re looking for, if they’re looking for treatment more broadly, and whether they’re willing to accept that there are a lot of different ways their problem might be addressed. The more they focus on this medicine, that’s a red flag for me.”
Young said he sees on average 10 Middlebury students a year looking for psychostimulants. Less than half he believed actually needed the medication.
“I once had a Middlebury student in my office stand up and slam the door because he didn’t get the medicine that he thought he needed,” Young said. “It’s a tricky thing because usually they’re suggesting it, and it’s very hard to talk people out of that because it is a simple answer, it’s something that works now.”
But for every student he declines to prescribe, there may be a doctor back in their hometown more than willing to prescribe them enough Adderall for them and their friends.
“There’s too much of it around, and people are being pressured by their friends to give it out. I guess it’s just part of things now, but I don’t have to like it,” Young said.
But for Oliver ’13, who graduated last spring with an economics degree, easy access psychostimulants were a common convenience during his time at the College, similar to coffee.
“I really use it for midterms and finals. There’s pretty much no work that can’t be helped by Adderall or any other stimulant.”
Oliver readily admitted that he showed none of the symptoms of ADHD and saw Adderall as a vehicle to get him where he needed to go.
“It’s just another tool that people use and will continue to use no matter how difficult you make it,” Oliver explained. “It’s the cost of doing business. You can’t breed this go-getter culture and not expect students to take advantage of their resources, whether it be coffee or Adderall. To me, they are both performance-enhancing supplements. Coffee is legal, but at the end of the day, it helps you get the paper done.”
Conventionally, Adderall and other psychostimulants are meant to level the playing field for students who are not able to focus and need the medicine. But Oliver does not buy that argument.
“I’m sure those people [with serious ADHD] exist, but I’m skeptical that the majority of people prescribed here actually qualify as people who would need the medication to level the playing field,” he said. “If we’re talking about my rationalization process, I’m thinking of me with it and me without it, and at the end of the day, I’m not going to feel bad because I know how many other kids do it. I don’t mind being on an unfair playing field and I’m not going to leave an advantage on the table.”
Oliver’s views on Adderall usage were seen as “worrisome and sad” to Dean of the College Shirley Collado. To her, psychostimulant abuse is a symptom of a larger problem.
“A major concern is the culture where students feel they need to take a drug like Adderall inappropriately,” Collado said. “It signals an inability as a person to press pause, slow down and make mistakes. I wonder what the long-term cost will be when I think about a Middlebury student if you fast-forward 25 years, what the impact of that thinking and rationalization is.”
With a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Duke University and over 12 years working as a higher education administrator, Collado has a unique understanding about psychostimulant usage and the larger trends it suggests.
“We are all contributing to creating a high-intensity situation here. But Middlebury is only one version of a high-impact environment, and my worry is that for students who are learning to cope by taking a drug, what the trend is going to be for the long term.”
While most students the Campus talked to began their psychostimulant usage at the College, Collado pointed to a new wave of applicants who are being stimulated and pushed to their maximum from young ages.
“There’s a lot of evidence of how readily these medications have become,” she said. “Parents who are fine with getting their kids on medication when they are in middle school, trying to make their kids as focused as possible so they can get into a place like Middlebury.”
“Behind the story is the context of a new pharmaceutical reality that a lot of psychologists worry about. The drugs are legitimate ways of coping for students who really need it, but I’m worried about the culture that we are currently in where there is an abundance of these drugs,” she continued.
Every expert the Campus talked to was asked to respond to Oliver’s assertion that Adderall use was the cost of doing business at a place like Middlebury. Reactions were overwhelmingly of concern and alarm, except for one.
“I think that is very insightful,” said Assistant Professor of Sociology Rebecca Tiger. “Adderall helps you be better at what we are asking you to do. We ask you to do a ton of work, have a fit body, fit mind, do all sort of extra-curricular activities, engage in community service, and have a good social life. Adderall can help you with that, so what is so wrong with it?”
Tiger, who has taught classes on the sociology of drugs and deviance and social control, refused to weigh in on whether drugs like Adderall are good or bad, but was quick to note what she sees as hypocrisy in what is considered “bad.”
“What I find really interesting is that students would never compare Adderall to crystal meth,” Tiger explained. “For the students I’ve talked to, they always say: ‘well, it’s not crystal meth.’ But actually, yes it is. This isn’t about drugs, we’re talking about people. If I am a good, high functioning person, and I occasionally take Adderall, who cares? But if I am a poor, rural person who is out of work, then we really care if I am taking amphetamines and criminalize it. You guys are rarely criminalized for your drugs use.”
...
For Tyler ’14, it was a slow, seamless transition from taking Adderall as a study drug once during his first-year to regularly taking it to study and party starting junior year. At first he just got a pill here and there from a friend, but as his use increased he transitioned to buying from a campus drug dealer. If he buys smaller quick-release Adderall, it is $1 for 2mg. Extended-release XR pills are discounted, but not by much.
“Before, it was only when my friends had some, a crime of opportunity. Now, there’s a person I buy from. It’s expensive, but worth it to me.”
The numbers of students at the College using psychostimulants recreationally is unknown, and the estimates vary greatly depending on the anecdotal source. Tyler estimated that 50 percent of students who take it orally eventually try it recreationally.
“You can justify it as a study enhancer by arguing that it’s for work,” he said. “A lot of people get into the drug by justifying it that way, but the recreational use doesn’t have that safety net. Usually people don’t start snorting it until they have done it a couple times orally. It comes on slowly. You try it, you like it, then move on.”
Tyler said snorting Adderall makes him more attentive in conversations, allowing him to live up to social expectations. But despite his best efforts to keep the pills he buys for studying, Tyler said he ends up snorting more than he intends every month. The dealer he buys from usually sells out, so he has to go at the beginning of the month. In the beginning of March, he bought $60 worth — 120mg — but only used 50mg to study with.
“I’m like a goddamn child when I have it,” he said. “I can’t keep my hands off of it. Especially if it’s a night when we’re going out, I’ll just bust out the Adderall. I have to be strategic or I’ll pop them like candy.”
One of the biggest frustrations is that Tyler rarely snorts it all himself.
“It’s annoying to me when my friends just don’t want to go through the process of buying Adderall. I can’t fault them for it, because I am much better friends with the guys who sell it, so I’ll just go kick it with them and buy Adderall.”
Tyler’s monthly sojourns to his drug dealer put him in the minority of illicit users. Over 73 percent of the respondents obtained Adderall and other psychostimulants from either “Close friend/Sibling” or “Friend,” according to the 2013 report on psychostimulants by Ben Tabah ’13.
As his thesis has come to a head mid-way through the spring, Tyler continues to buy Adderall on the first and the fifteenth when needed. While he said he has come to terms with his own usage, he was unsure when asked whether he would let his kids be prescribed Adderall.
“If I had a child who showed symptoms of ADHD and was in a position to be prescribed Adderall, I would think long and hard about it. Not to say that I would or would not, but I would do a lot of research because an Adderall prescription is something that fundamentally affects your day-to-day interactions.”
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When you follow a group of students over the course of a semester, there are always nascent trends that do not have data to support and cannot be definitively proved. But among long-term prescribed students, there is a subset that has had enough, and decided that the side affects just are not worth the rewards.
Going into his senior year this fall, Ben ’14 was juggling a long-term relationship with prescription stimulants. His brother and sister were both prescribed growing up, and he began taking psychostimulants in ninth grade. He was given Focalin and Adderall and brought it with him to the College, taking it regularly.
Insomnia and loss of appetite hit Ben particularly hard. He arrived at the College 5’10 and 150 lbs. and left at the end of his first year a skeletal 135 lbs. When he finally finished all his work, the battle to find a few hours of a sleep began.
“Nyquil was the only thing that could knock me out. I would write a stream of consciousness during those sleepless nights, writing things like ‘wow this Adderall won’t go away.’ Pages and pages. You get to the point where you just ask yourself what the hell your doing,” he said.
“People would always joke, ‘you like working, Adderall makes work fun.’ Try taking it for two days, then leaving the library wanting only to sleep and not being able to because your mind is racing and won’t stop.”
Ben would take a pill, enter the library, and exit ten hours later feeling as if his head was in a cloud.
“I felt at times like I was a guinea pig, and no one could really understand where I was coming from,” he recounted. “I started thinking when I turned in papers coming off my Adderall high, ‘who was doing that work? Me or the drugs? Am I really in control?’”
The long days and longer nights brought him to a moment of crises.
“I haven’t been able to get a handle on it,” he said late in the fall. “When my parents came up this past weekend, I told them not to ship me another bottle.”
As he progressed through his senior year, Ben began to learn how to cope without the drug. It was harder to do work, but he said the benefits far outweighed the cost, from smoking less weed to a reinvigorated sex life. But it remains a constant battle.
“My brain keeps telling me to call my mom, hop in the library, and just start knocking work out,” he said. “But I don’t want to do that right now. I’m at the point of deciding what I want to do with my life and what role Adderall is going to play in that life.”
During spring break, Ben took it sparingly to try and push through his thesis. He said it helped immensely, but the side affects were especially severe because he had no tolerance. Returning after break, Ben continued to lay off psychostimulants.
Ben is not alone in taking a hard look at long-term psychostimulant usage.
“They’re not miracle drugs,” said John Young, the Middlebury-based psychiatrist. “A lot of people find that in the long run, after the initial excitement wears off, it might not be more helpful than a cup of coffee.”
After graduating, Oliver went to work at an investment bank. While he used Adderall for his junior summer internship, he too has decided against taking psychostimulants.
“You want to be seen highly at work, but you can only do so much in one day, while one test in a math or economics test could be worth 40 percent of my final grade,” he said. “There’s no six-hour period of time at work where it will be worth 40 percent of my evaluation.”
But even if there are students re-evaluating the long-term worth psychostimulants, there will always be a project or midterm beckoning on the horizon, tempting students across campus.
“I’m the Dean of the College coming in and saying, ‘take a chill pill’ (no pun intended),” Collado said. “This is the time to invest in yourself away from your parents and have it be messy some of the time. It’s normal for students to explore drugs and all kinds of things in college, but if that is the normative culture that a student is walking into, that is highly problematic. My biggest concern is that you are equipped with the right tools, confidence and reflection so that you are not creating behaviors here that will be detrimental to your future as a person.”
The problem with living in the Adderall Generation is that you cannot just divorce yourself from these drugs altogether. As Ben learned, there is no such thing as cold turkey for students taking psychostimulants at the College. But you can learn to use the drugs responsibly and come to terms with their role here. For better or worse, from 30mg extended-release Adderall pills with breakfast to Saturday nights driven by neon blue and orange lines, we are living in the Adderall Generation.
“If you walked up to any random person on campus and offered them Adderall, not many of them would say no,” said Ben. “But I’m trying to find a way to live my life in a way that nobody understands. Kids who take Adderall regularly never talk … [but] we need to start talking and reflecting.”
Listen to Kyle Finck discuss this series on Vermont Public Radio.
Additional Reporting by ALEX EDEL, Layout Assistance by HANNAH BRISTOL, Graphics by EVAN GALLAGHER, and Photos by ANTHEA VIRAGH
(04/11/14 6:59pm)
On the surface, A Clockwork Orange is a standard dystopian text, in the same line as classics such as Huxley’s Brave New World. It is complete with suitably wicked teenage males, beautiful young women and gratuitous violence. It is not so simple though; it is an intricate work. It is freedom and choice, not violence, teenage rebellion, good and evil, social pathology, nor high adventure that is at the heart of this work.
Written by Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange was first published in 1962 and then adapted into a film by Stanley Kubrick in 1971. The film was a success and despite being quite controversial, it has become iconic. Burgess felt that the film glorified sex and violence in a manner that detracted attention from the core theme of his novella - choice. So repulsed was Burgess that, in response to it, he published a revised version in 1987 which focused the lens more on his core theme of choice. It is this central message that Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Andrew W. Smith ’97.5 has aimed to capture in directing the College’s production, which is an adaptation of the novella by Anthony Burgess scheduled to be performed on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights this week.
“It is everything that you want theatre to be,” Smith said. “It’s stylistic, full of action and great choreographed sequences, full of a lot of good questions and full of a lot of heart and passion. There is a lot of music, light and a sense of pageantry. There is a whole lot to it.”
Smith believes that part of the reason he selected A Clockwork Orange as the text for the production is that it is an expressionist piece and he is interested in that style and the creativity that it inherently brings to the process and, ultimately, the product.
“Expressionism is a certain kind of style that, in essence, tells the story through the eyes of the main character,” he said. “Many of the stylistic choices have to do with how the other characters interact with him, or what they are blocking. Their behavior or actions are filtered through the lens of what it feels like to the main character [Alex]. That was certainly a point of interest in choosing the novella for the script,” said Smith.
The production’s aim is not just to convey the central message, but to lead to discussion and ask questions.
“I really believe and appreciate theatre that asks questions more than provide answers and that is what I am hoping will happen with this show,” Smith said.
While choice is the main message, Smith is aware of the intrinsic violence in the story but urges the audience to be alert to the distinction between the film and the novella.
“It is crucial to separate the movie and the novella,” he said. “Our production focuses more on the novella. Still, it is a show that is full of fight choreography; there are probably 15 different fights that involve huge numbers of the cast. We affectionately refer to it as a fight show with a little bit of text, but that is not to underplay the value of the text itself which has a very high level of poetry to it.”
Language is certainly a prominent feature of the text because it uses Nasdat, which is an invented language created by Antony Burgess.
“It [Nasdat] is essentially a mixture of Russian and English which at the time up to this are the two most politically powerful languages,” Smith said. “The result is a very poetical language.”
The political significance of merging these two languages, given the context of the political tension that existed when the novella was written, is unmistakable to anyone familiar with the history of the Cold War. The use of Nasdat is even more important within the story because it is an impenetrable language spoken by the youth. It is incomprehensible to judges, government and all forms of authority in whatever guise that they are presented.
Smith is working with a total of 28 talented actors, stage manager Katie Preston ’17, assistant stage managers Adam Rivera ’17 and Aashna Aggarwal ’16, and between 15 and 20 students in technical supporting roles.
A lot of hard work has gone into making the production possible.
“We rehearse every day for the maximum number of hours possible, which is an average of 24 hours a week,” Smith said.
As the performance date looms ever nearer, they have been rehearsing for an average of 30 hours a week.
“The time commitment is truly impressive,” he said.
Steven Medina ’17, one of the actors, conveyed excitement for the upcoming performances. He expressed that his sense of drive is predicated on working with a group of people that care for and supportive of each other, as well as his ardent love for theater.
“Honestly, we are all thrilled to be together,” Medina said.” At times, rehearsals get really stressful, especially when I have to study and do homework for other classes. I keep moving forward because this camaraderie means a lot to me and I have a huge passion for theatre. Andrew is great and when he directs us, I know he really cares about, not only the show, but our wellbeing and how we are developing as actors. I love these guys and soon our hard work will pay off, which is probably what most of us are waiting to test.”
The show will be nothing short of a dazzling phenomenon.
“The show combines the element of heart with spectacle, brilliant language and a great text – and that is something quite rare. It should be entertaining and hopefully thought-provoking,” Smith said.
Performances will be held in Wright Memorial Theatre at 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Apr. 10 and 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Apr. 11 and Saturday, Apr. 12. Tickets are $6 for students and are available at the Box Office. There will also be a discussion of the production after the Friday performance with the director, cast and managers.
(04/09/14 9:59am)
Emma ’14 first snorted Adderall halfway through sophomore year.
A friend took the orange 20-milligram (mg) pill and crushed it into a light powder with the bottom of a mug, before guiding the mass into four equal lines with a credit card and instructing Emma to get a tampon. She removed the applicator and blew her first line, beginning a recreational use that continues to this day.
“It was almost euphoric, it felt like I could do anything.” she said. “But the next morning, I had the worst hangover I’ve ever had in my life.”
More than two years later, Adderall has become a constant companion to Emma’s academic and social life.
“Recreationally, I wish I never tried it in the first place. Freshman year and the beginning of sophomore year before I tried it, I really liked just being drunk, and that was fine with me. Now in my friend group, that’s never enough. We can’t just all hang out and drink and go out. Someone always wants to do Adderall to take it to the next level.”
Emma’s story is one of an increasing number that point to a new reality across colleges and universities nationwide, as a wave of high-performing and highly stimulated students strive for top grades and are willing to do whatever it takes to get there.
Over the past 13 months, the Campus has followed numerous current and former students — all of whom requested anonymity and were given pseudonyms and, for some, different genders for legal and social reasons — as they grappled balancing their relationships with the powerful psychostimulant with academic, social and societal expectations. The Campus also interviewed experts on the frontlines, from psychologists prescribing the drug to neuroscientists studying their affects on the brain.
Data on psychostimulant use at the College is hard to come by. In a student-led study last spring, 16 percent of Middlebury students who responded to the anonymous survey reported illegally using the drug, slightly above the 5 to 12 percent estimated nationally. Of that percentage, only 4 percent reported having prescriptions. While the data is scarce, the stories of use and abuse paint a complicated picture, in which the line between prescribed use and illicit self-medication is murky at best and farcical at worst.
Whether Adderall is a life-changing medicine or an unfair performance enhancer depends on whom you talk to. What is clear is that we are now living in the Adderall Generation, a reality that is rarely talked about but apparent just below the surface. You may not have a prescription or snort the drugs on weekends, but psychostimulants are here to stay, and they have the potential to affect nearly every aspect of life at the College.
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When Emma was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in grade school, her parents refused to give consent for psychostimulant medication, instead resorting to behavioral therapy and tutoring. But when she got to the College, the workload became too much. After struggling to keep up as a first-year, she was prescribed Adderall as she went into her sophomore year.
“I remember the first day that I took it,” she said. “I felt really uncomfortable in situations other than doing work and didn’t really know what to do with my hands or where to look with my eyes, but when I was doing work it felt like I was in that movie Bruce Almighty when he’s typing on the computer really fast.”
She was first prescribed two 10mg fast acting Adderall a day. When she did not feel anything, the dosage was upped to 20mg three times a day. Her doctor told her to only take two pills a day, but prescribed her three to make sure she did not run out. Because Adderall is a schedule II controlled substance, Emma cannot fill her prescription across state lines in Vermont.
While Adderall has only been around since the late 1990s, psychostimulants have been ingrained in American culture. First discovered in 1887, they had no pharmacological use until 1934 when they were sold as an inhaler for nasal decongestant. Once the addictive properties of the drug became known, psychostimulants became a schedule II controlled substance in the early 1970s.
“If you look at the history of amphetamines, it was a miracle chemical, but they didn’t know what to do with it,” said Assistant Professor of Sociology Rebecca Tiger. “It couldn’t just be thrown on the open market, so they called it a drug, but then they needed to find a disease for it to treat. Amphetamines have been racing around looking for a disease because people want to use them.”
Psychostimulants regulate impulsive behavior and improve attention span and focus by increasing levels of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter involved in natural rewards such as food, water and sex. Depending on the dosage, psychostimulants can boost dopamine levels 2 - 10 times more than a natural reward.
Put simply, dopamine is a key driver of happiness. The chemical is the key to many popular drugs — from opiates like heroin to amphetamines like MDMA. The release of dopamine in the brain after taking psychostimulants causes the euphoria users often feel. But when you constantly feed your brain dopamine, it can diminish your ability to make it independently.
While her grades shot up during her sophomore year, Emma felt the full force of the side effects. Growing up, Emma was outgoing and vivacious, but the Adderall made her reserved and quiet. As a result, she was often forced into a zero-sum game between academics and basic social happiness. Adderall often took precedence.
“I tried to avoid hanging out with people when I was on it, but that’s hard since it lasts a pretty long time, and then coming off it at night, it would make me really emotional and sad. It was really hard when I was coming down off of it to tell myself this is the Adderall and I shouldn’t actually be sad about whatever I was feeling.”
The sadness Emma felt after coming down from her Adderall is called anhedonia, or the loss of pleasure from things we naturally find rewarding.
As her relationship with the drug evolved, she learned basic parameters of what she could and could not do with Adderall. If she took it too late in the evening, she wouldn’t sleep. If she did not take any for a few days, she had to take it early in the day or risk insomnia. But when finals rolled around, all bets were off.
“Especially during finals, it got kind of aggressive. I would take it at like 10 p.m., work all night, go to bed at 4 a.m., wake up at a normal time, take another one, and continue doing work.”
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There are more than a dozen different medications currently on the market to treat ADHD. While there are slight differences between medications, Adderall and Ritalin have become the poster children for psychostimulants. Emma has tried both.
If the College has an expert on the psychostimulants, it is Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Clarissa Parker. Before arriving in 2013, Parker spent 10 years studying genetic risk factors associated with drug abuse and dependence, including sensitivity to the reinforcing effects of psychostimulants such as methamphetamine in mice. Parker said one of her main concerns is younger and younger ages at which psychostimulants are prescribed.
“For me, the problem lies in the fact that so many people take it during a time when their pre-frontal cortex is still developing,” she said. “We know this part of the brain continues to develop into the mid-20s. When you combine that with the age group that is most likely to abuse drugs — high school and college — it’s dangerous.”
For big pharmaceuticals, stimulated minors means major profits. In numerous articles, the New York Times has reported on how the industry has lobbied heavily to push for medication over behavioral therapy.
“Studies have shown that there isn’t much long-term difference between Adderall usage and behavioral therapy for treating ADHD,” Parker said. “There are other ways to get the same effect, they just aren’t as immediate.”
Parker was quick to draw a line between people who take the drug responsibly under medical supervision and those who take it without a prescription, those who crush and snort their medication or those who take more than prescribed, repeatedly clarifying that the negative side effects affect those who abuse it. But Tiger thinks that line has little to do with medicine.
“The line you draw between people who need it and people who don’t is a cultural construct,” she said. “My interest is in who draws that line, and what their interest is in drawing it. People rarely use drugs the way they are supposed to, so in a way we are all abusing these drugs.”
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Besides attending the College and taking Adderall, Max ’15 and Emma have little in common. A third-year lacrosse player, Max never encountered psychostimulant use while in high school, but quickly found it at the College.
“I remember when I was a first-year, and I was in this kid’s room, and he was crushing up pills. I didn’t know what they were doing until he just told me ‘doing homework.’ They called it skizzing.”
With the stress of midterms building four months into his college career, Max took Adderall for the first time.
“I wrote a five-page paper in an hour,” Max described. “That’s when I realized, ‘this is nuts.’ There are a lot of athletes on different teams that can’t do work without snorting Adderall. Anything that requires putting your mind to: Adderall. That’s what steered me away from taking it a lot. I couldn’t get like that.”
Max does not have a prescription and estimated that he takes it five times a semester. Across athletics, he estimated that 60 percent use psychostimulants as a tool to get schoolwork done. When asked how easy it would be to obtain five pills, he took out his phone – “one text.”
In the 2013 survey, conducted by Ben Tabah ’13, over 20 percent of males reported experimenting with psychostimulants compared to only 10 percent of females. When asked about the difference, Parker noted that in animal models she had worked with, there were no sex differences in psychostimulant usage.
“You can teach a mouse to self-administer drugs, and there aren’t sex differences in the amount they administer stimulants like cocaine and dexamphetamine (an ingredient in Adderall) which suggests to me the issue is not about sex, but more about gender,” she said.
Social constructions around Adderall are apparent beyond just gender usage. Cocaine is often viewed as a whole different class of drug socially than Adderall, despite their similar chemical makeups, effects, and legal classification.
“Coke is scary to me,” Emma said. “It seems more intense to me because it is illegal and it could be cut with anything.”
“Coke is different than Adderall,” Max said. “The fact that [Adderall] can be prescribed to you means it’s not as harmful. The only downside is that you don’t sleep. That’s the only fight you face when taking it. If the amount of people taking Adderall were doing Coke, it would be considered a huge problem.”
Max is exactly the type of student Executive Director of Health and Counseling Services Gus Jordan is worried about.
“There is the notion that it is a quick fix, and that it’s safe because it comes in prescription form, but you are really playing the edge if you take these drugs without proper supervision,” he said. “We know that if you crush an Adderall pill, and snort it, it hits your brain in ways akin to cocaine, and with similar risks for dependence. This is such a powerful and potentially dangerous medication, that once it gets into a community and used in uncontrolled ways, people get hurt; you’re participating in that by selling or giving it away, and you don’t know if you will really harm someone down the road.”
In his 17 years at the College, Jordan has served in a number of student life roles and taught clinical courses in the psychology department. He said that psychostimulant use and abuse has only really come onto his radar in the past five years.
“Right now, it’s the hype about how great Adderall is that everybody seems to be listening to. But we don’t really know what happens when this drugs is used recreationally or without a prescription. I suspect that there are a lot of darker stories that aren’t being told, especially about the addictive qualities of these drugs, tragic stories that are buried out there.”
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Asking Emma whether or not she would do it all over again is an impossible question for her to answer. Her views on Adderall are as complex as her usage. On one hand, she vehemently attests that without the drug, she would not be at the College. But she is acutely aware of the power the drug has, from sleepless nights to unwrapping tampon applicators time and time again.
“I think my path was necessary, but I don’t know if it was the right one in hindsight. I wish I didn’t have to take so much, but from trying all the other doses, nothing else really worked.”
Her parents know about her use because they pay for it, but have no idea about the recreational use — “they would be shocked and really mad.”
When asked whether or not she would let her kids take Adderall, she quickly said no before retracing her steps.
“Not until it got really bad, and not before the end of high school or even college. I think it’s going to get banned, or at least prescribed a lot weaker, just because it is addictive and being prescribed so ubiquitously,” she said. “It’s just going to end badly.”
Listen to Kyle Finck discuss this series on Vermont Public Radio.
Additional Reporting by ALEX EDEL, Layout Assistance by HANNAH BRISTOL, and Photos by ANTHEA VIRAGH
(03/19/14 5:16pm)
Friends with benefits. All of those words individually sound so nice. Friendship, that’s awesome. And benefits, who doesn’t want those? Yet somehow, often, these situations don’t end up working out as perfectly as people initially plan. At a place like Middlebury, with the “work hard, play hard, then work harder” environment we have, many people don’t have time for dating. But that certainly doesn’t mean that people don’t want to play, if you catch my drift. Yet, as many people realize by their second semester at Midd, random Saturday night hookups only get you so far. While the first one or two might feel really exhilarating, and afterwards you can tell people how “college” your Saturday night was, after a while it begins to lose its appeal. And also, nine times out of ten, the hook up isn’t really ever that great. It’s messy and drunk and awkward and the next morning you wake up as early as possible to avoid any and all conversation.
So many people find that a solution is friends with benefits. None of the pressure of dating, but all of the fun of hooking up with someone you know. But, trysts that are “No relationships, no emotions, just sex” as Mila Kunis so eloquently states in “Friends with Benefits,” are very hard to come by. In the end, there is always some sort of miscommunication.
I remember my first time trying out friends with benefits. Late into freshman year, I hooked up with this guy I knew, same friend group and what not. I knew he was a player, but he was hot, so I figured as long as I kept my expectations exceedingly low, there would be no issues. And then we hooked up again. And then we started hooking up on weekdays. Sober. In the afternoon. And, while all my girl friends insisted that this was totally the beginning of a relationship, I knew deep down that it wasn’t. We were friends, and we would talk before and after sex. But the purpose of the hang out was strictly sex. The only problem was that we were not on the same page at all. I figured we were hooking up exclusively; he didn’t. And it all blew up one night when we were at Atwater and I walked in on him hooking up with some random girl. After a night of drunken fighting, fight sex, and subsequent sober conversation we both realized how much we assumed about the other person’s impressions on the hookup. It’s amazing— you’d think that the fact that being friends and having sex without the pressures of dating would mean that you could be really open with what you want. But for some reason, in friends with benefits, people seem even more afraid to be honest. No one wants to be the one who’s more into the relationship, and yet no one wants to be a “douche” or a “bitch”, especially if you risk screwing up the friendship.
So what are Middkids to do? Dating can be great, but also time consuming and stressful, and for people looking for something less serious but still sexually gratifying, friends with benefits is there….a much better option than random DFMO’s (Dance Floor Make Outs) turned random one night stands. And they are. As long as they are done properly. After the first round failure with “sex friends”, I made a second attempt, and this one ended much less dramatically. We had been good friends for a while, and after hooking up a few times, just talked about how we wanted it to be very casual, and only when it was convenient for both of us. We also were much more open about what we wanted from sex, how we wanted to experiment and new things we wanted to try, which made it a lot more fun! And I think, the most important aspect to making “no strings attached” situations work is this: Not every day. Once a weekend, or every other weekend, definitely. But when you start getting into everyday hookups, you enter a dangerous gray territory. Only venture there if you really don’t care about getting hurt, or if you are a big risk taker. As I see it, friends with benefits should be a no-stress, no-nonsense hookup with someone you can trust. Don’t make it out to be more or less than it is.
(03/19/14 3:48pm)
Two weeks ago I wrote an article for The Campus about how certain brands of leftist activism, especially those on this campus, have created a hierarchy of classes, which dictates admission into our collective discourse (see: “Jared Leto and the Thought Police”). A week later an article was published in response (see: “We Too Are Angry”). It didn’t contradict what I had written so much as confirm what I had thought, that this brand of activism doesn’t want a conversation. It doesn’t want to branch out; it simply wants to preach to the choir.
This tendency to divide manifested itself especially acutely this past weekend. Blake Shapskinsky, President of the Collective Mind SuperBlock, reached out to one of the authors of the response article to ask if they would be willing to participate in a debate over the topics raised by the two pieces. The offer was declined. More than the student’s simple refusal to engage in conversation, what really shocked me was the student’s assertion that such ideas should not be the topic of discussion. It’s not that the student believed such subjects too trivial for elevated discourse. To the contrary, the student thought them too important to be at the heart of dialogue. This is both misguided and irresponsible.
To refuse to engage in conversation is antithetical to the academic tradition; it can never be an option. Man’s closest encounters with greatness have not come by way of complacency. Rather, such accomplishments have been the product of a restlessness of thought and being. From Galileo’s reimagining of the solar system to Marie Curie’s isolation of radioactive isotopes, comfort was never enough. The Olympic motto, “Faster, Higher, Stronger”, gets at this human urge to perpetually expand the boundaries of what we know to be possible. Indeed, peer-review sits at the heart of the academic system for a reason. To join in critical dialogue with another is to embody this appetite for growth.
In The Common Good, Noam Chomsky says, “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.” If you want to talk about a false consciousness, there it is. We let ourselves believe that we’re cutting edge, that our eyes and ears are open to change, but more often than not our conception of intellectual novelty is looking at the idea we entered the room with painted a different shade of grey.
If we were to follow the precedent set in “We Too Are Angry,” we would never stop drawing the limits Chomsky describes. We would draw them between blacks and whites, men and women, cis and trans, homo and hetero, and so on and so forth. We would acknowledge that everyone comes here with a different base of experience and belief, but never challenge ourselves to think outside our own.
Consider this anecdote told by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: “I recently spoke at a university where a student told me it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had recently read a novel called American Psycho, and that it was a shame that young Americans were serial murderers.” We cannot reduce people to their lowest common denominator. Fifty years after the March on Washington it should go without saying that the tone of one’s skin or the sex of one’s lover should not be the determinants of the worth of one’s opinion. Only in respecting everyone’s intellectual capacity can we realize the dream that is the marketplace of ideas.
The success of democracy is that it allows the dissemination of ideas to affect tangible changes in people’s lives. For millennia such transformation was only possible by way of violence, but the revolutionary notions of free speech and association have changed that. Appeals to the mind are the liberal’s weapon of choice; it’s the ballot not the bullet. From the regulation of industry to the deregulation of the female body, these appeals have had success when they reach across the aisle to convince others, not condemn them. I ask that we all treat our time here at Middlebury with the respect it deserves. It is a lucky thing to be surrounded by minds like these, eager not just to teach but also to learn.
(03/19/14 3:47pm)
“Act like a man.” I am sure that is a sentiment older male figures have expressed to any young man at some point in their lives. And I am sure the reasoning was well intentioned, even if ill-founded. I’m sure they meant ‘be brave, don’t cry and be athletic’; all those colloquial things we see personified in James Bond, Bruce Wayne or hell, even Aragorn. It is all beautifully idealistic and just a tad chauvinistic. We never have to see the failure of this idealism that we keep out of sight and mind because, well, it makes us uncomfortable.
I am not sure if I am a feminist, but I would sure like to be. I know that men possess a comparatively higher level of social, political and economic power in this country. I also hold firm that this is fundamentally wrong. Yet, I cannot speak personally to these issues, as I am not a woman. I rarely if ever fear physical violence, I have never had to worry about abuse or assault and I do not have to make a choice between my career or pregnancy. Yes, men have luxuries that are unfair and wrong. While we gain these social benefits, men too have every reason to be royally pissed off with the patriarchy.
Yes, men reap the benefits of the societal structure in place, but they suffer from it too. If we look at violent crime, for example, it comes as no real surprise that men dominate in the statistics. Men are more likely to commit and be victims of violent crime. The rate of homicide for men in 2011 was 7.4 per 100,000 citizens, women at 2.0. Do we just have a violent nature? Well that’s just the way we are, I’m sure. Why doesn’t this surprise us? It certainly does not surprise me.
Let’s move on though. Did you know men make up 93.3% of America’s prison population? Well of course they do, they’re committing more crimes! It’s just in their nature. Yes, along with the highest incomes and CEO positions, men can also claim almost complete monopoly over our prison system. Statistically this makes perfect sense as men are committing the majority of crime, or in the case of violent crime, the vast majority. Why this disparity? I am uncomfortable with the gut reaction that men are predisposed to criminal activity. Wouldn’t that be a strange thing to tell a young man that compared to his sister he is more likely to go to jail and more likely to become president.
Lastly, the number nobody wants to talk about, but remains the most horrifying yet the most unsurprising, is that men claim the vast majority of sexual abuse and assault crimes. Again, this does not surprise us. If we keep our eyes open we can see signs of this every weekend night. Or better yet, ask women about it.
So we know these things, and I am sure by now the situation looks pretty grim. As is often the case with atrocities and things that make us uncomfortable, we are often prone to looking for “good” and “bad” instead of constructive solutions. Here I sincerely believe the patriarchy has failed men too. Men are almost always the perpetrators in acts of sexual violence and I genuinely wonder why. Can you tell me? Is it just coded in to us? Too much testosterone? I would argue the rape culture persisted in our society is less a facet of that and jokes about rape (though those certainly don’t help) and maybe something more ingrained. Maybe the reason is that men are continuously bombarded with images of validation and power coming as a result of sex. Maybe it’s because James Bond is always in control and always gets the girl, and every first grader can tell you who James Bond is.
Men need to stop being complacent in their status as aggressors. Men need to be willing to hold each other accountable, to understand that the system has failed us too, has predisposed us to more successful suicide attempts, emotionally distant relationships and violent crime. Conveniently, you also fail in “being a man” when you begin to question what it means. In my limited experience, “being a man” is not what it was cracked up to be. I want no part of a stereotype that promotes abuse and violence, and neither do many of my male peers.
Men should be angry at the gender normativity they are slotted into, just as women should be. We should be furious. We should howl and scream and fight alongside feminists and anyone else who is willing to stand up to a patriarchal gender system. We may choose to brush off statistics and stereotypes by claiming well, that’s not me; so I appeal to your sense of selfishness. Men, you have a reason to be pissed off and you should let the world know about it.
(03/06/14 2:21pm)
I am your new sex columnist for the semester, nice to meet all of you! We are always hearing or talking about the “hook up culture” here at Middlebury, yet it seems that people here (girls especially, though I’m biased) never talk openly about sex! Instead, sex conversation is relegated to anonymous posts on Middfesh or the occasional drunk conversation. Which brings me to my first column topic: Start talking about sex!
I don’t encourage people thinking that they should be ashamed of any of their activity behind closed doors. Given that we are at a small school, no one wants to air out their dirty laundry, which makes sense. I’m not suggesting giving people all the little nitty-gritty details of your Atwater hook-up from this weekend. Instead, I want to encourage people to be more open about what they want sexually, specifically with the people they are going to be having sex with. Sex can be great, fun, awesome, exciting (among other things) but it really gets good when you feel like you can be open and trust your partner. And let me tell you, from stories and my own experience, there are way too many people who are having bad sex. Or worse, not even realizing they are having bad sex.
People at the College need to be more open with their sexuality. This means not being embarrassed because you like watching porn or not hiding that one little fetish you enjoy. It also includes being open with your limits. Sex isn’t for everyone, and it’s important to create an environment where people are comfortable to talk about what they like, but also what they don’t. Embrace your sexuality for what it is and what it isn’t. The more that people are in tune with their own sexuality, the better sex will be for everyone. Trust me!
There seems to be a divide between genders when it comes to opinions about sex at Middlebury. Guys tell me they regret “not going to a state school” because girls here are “prudes” and need to be more interested in having sex. According to them, girls aren’t interested in having sex. Let me tell you: many girls are interested in sex. But the difference is that girls worry about being judged for their behavior. They want to have sex, yet for some reason, there’s a stigma where they can’t act like they want it, for fear of being a “slut” or “whore.” On the other side, no one wants to be considered prudish, so people might also be participating in activities that they don’t feel comfortable with. Neither situation is desirable, for either party.
A solution? Start talking! The sooner we start talking about sex, the more we are going to feel confident that we aren’t the only ones with certain insecurities. And that is only going to make you feel more comfortable sexually, I promise.
I know people tend to be a little bit scared to get these kind of conversation started, so I’ll start it for you here in my column. I’ll try to discuss different sexual problems, frustrations or discoveries I have had or heard about on our campus here. But most importantly, don’t let the conversation end there. Keep talking. And discovering. And if you choose to have sex, make sure you are having better sex! You deserve it! We all deserve it! Don’t you dare sell yourself for less than you deserve. That is, sheet tangling, toe-curling, breathtaking, orgasmic sex (provided you want it, that is).
Here’s to getting the conversation started!
Xoxo,
Sex Panther (60 percent of the time, I work every time)
(03/06/14 2:11am)
On Sunday, March 9 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Chellis House will be holding the Red Tent event, an activity designed to help members of the Middlebury community that identify as female relax and pamper themselves for a day, in the McCullough Social Space.
The Red Tent Foundation is helping to sponsor the event with a grant. The Red Tent Foundation is an organization that supports female empowerment and community.
“The Red Tent event affords us with an opportunity to relax and think about what is really important in life,” wrote Karin Hanta, Director of Chellis House, in an email. On why the event is so important, Hanta noted that she “thought that with our busy schedules, we often don’t find the time to sit down and have meaningful conversation.” Hanta and several student monitors have been working over the course of several months to put the event together.
The concept was first brought to Hanta by Anna Stevens ’13.5, who attended such an event in Providence, Rhode Island and was impressed by the sense of community and caring that permeated the conference.
“I was struck by how inclusive this event felt — there were around 100 to 150 women there and it seemed as if each person, stranger or not, had someone to talk with and something to participate in,” Stevens wrote in an email.
This is the first time that event has been held at the College. There will be workshops on many topics, giving attendees the opportunity to explore everything from sexual health and sex toys and financial security to yoga, henna and organic makeup, amongst other things. There is a variety of activities to entertain different types of attendees.
“It’s a perfect time to put aside the schoolwork and spend a few hours indulging yourself in a healthy and fun way,” wrote Rebecca Coates-Finke ’16.5, one of the organizers of the event, in an email.
Holistic health practitioners Nicole Burke and Alyson Young will lead three workshops on the stage of the McCullough Social Space to spearhead conversation at the event. “The Story of Woman: Remembrance of Sacred Traditions” (11 a.m.-12 p.m.) will explore the history of the Red Tent and its place in today’s world, while “13 Clan Mothers” (12:30-1:30 p.m.) will focus on the bonds of sisterhood and giving life to the creative force within ourselves to heal ourselves and the world. “Women’s Moonlodge,” (2-3 p.m.) participants will deepen their connection with their own knowing and plant seeds of intention.
There will be three other workshops on the main floor of McCullough: “Menstrual Health and Arvigo Massage” with naturopath Dr. Sarah E. Wylie from 12:15 to 1 pm, “Sex Toys and Sexual Health” with “Naughty Girlfriend” Jenn Buker, and “Financial Security for Women” with Heather Jerome from the National Bank of Middlebury from 2:15-3 p.m.
“The goal is to provide a safe and comfortable space for Middlebury’s women to take some time to take care of themselves,” Coates-Finke wrote, also noting that organizers expect a large turnout from women of all ages.
Another important goal of the event is to include women from both the College and the town of Middlebury. According to Hanta, there was a significant amount of advertising for the event done in town.
“The event is intended for women from both Middlebury College and the surrounding community and is intergenerational; we are hoping women of all ages will attend,” wrote Stevens.
