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(04/06/23 10:05am)
Former Vermont Governor and executive in residence at the college, Jim Douglas ’72, filed a lawsuit against the college on Friday March 24, contesting the removal of the “Mead Memorial Chapel” name from the building. The decision that the chapel would no longer bear the name of John A. Mead was enacted in September 2021, due to Mead’s role in advocating and promoting eugenics policies in Vermont in the early 1900s.
(03/02/23 11:01am)
What would it look like to create a centralized platform to engage in boundary-defying artwork, critical conversation and innovative content for the Middlebury community? Do we have a space that’s diverse and disruptive, a community that touches on the tension between tradition and (trans)formation?
(12/08/22 11:01am)
Tammy Austin began her role as the new director of counseling at Middlebury College on Monday, Nov. 28, filling the position left vacant by former director Alberto Soto, who resigned in August.
(11/17/22 11:01am)
August 17, 2021. A hot day, after a long night of sleeplessness. I’m in a crowd of hundreds of people. My father leaves my sisters and me at the first checkpoint: Abbey Gate in Kabul, Afghanistan.
(11/17/22 11:00am)
I first learned of John Klar on Facebook. He bought his first wave of ads in the late spring. They were professional, yet rustic: photos of him working on his farm or interacting with constituents, promising in several captions to “bring together people from different political views,” and to “bring a critical eye to Montpelier” in another. The State Senate district I live in, encompassing most of rural Orange County, Vt., was the one in which Klar was campaigning, and my first thought was that he seemed made in the image of Phil Scott, Vermont’s prominent Republican governor. My home state has a history of electing moderate conservatives with staggering margins of victory, but in recent years, few other than Scott have been able to put together the pieces of the puzzle on election day. Klar’s ads, heralding his common sense and emphasis on fiscal responsibility, were like those I saw for Scott every election cycle, so I assumed he was trying to replicate the governor’s success.
(11/10/22 11:05am)
Monique “Mo” Bonner ’92 is the owner of Addison West — a home and lifestyle store on Main Street in downtown Middlebury. The Campus spoke with Mo last week about Addison West, the store’s new location in Waitsfield and her experience at Middlebury.
(11/10/22 11:02am)
The Evolution Dance Crew (Evo) made their debut for the semester with two back-to-back shows in Wilson Hall on Nov. 5. The show was titled “Love, Sex, and Magic,” a theme voted on by the group’s dancers because of its versatility and variety of interpretations. For some, the theme is about the joys and difficulties that come along with relationships with other people. For others, it’s about trusting oneself, trusting others and trusting the dance process.
(10/27/22 10:00am)
Picture this: You walk into the Grille after a Friday night out, ripe with anticipation to take that first, deliciously warm bite into a crispy Dr. Feel Good. Sitting at a lowly lit table with your friends, your buzzer erupts and you spring out of your seat to collect your winnings. All of a sudden, on the walk back to your booth you notice that despite your boundless enthusiasm for this sandwich your supposed-to-be-watery mouth is as dry as a desert. What’s going on?
(10/27/22 10:04am)
Niche Reads: Novels for physics majors
(10/06/22 10:00am)
My gynecologist recommended I take one Aleve before my intrauterine device (IUD) insertion. According to friends and the internet, this advice is common practice.
(09/22/22 10:07am)
If you’re anything like me, summertime is for catching up on TV shows. This season brought the latest installments of fan-favorite shows like “Stranger Things,” “Never Have I Ever” and “Only Murders in the Building,” but also fresh and exciting programs. I will be recapping four of my favorite new shows from the past few months in this article. Happy watching!
(05/05/22 10:00am)
The Middlebury we know today is not the same as the one we surveyed during the first Zeitgeist student body survey in 2019. We may have expected the college to change over these four years, and it did — entire classes matriculated and graduated, presidents were elected and impeached, social trends rose and fell, boats got stuck and unstuck in canals — but few could have foreseen the transformation that our community and our world would experience in that time.
(04/21/22 9:59am)
“Botticelli in the Fire,” written by Jordan Tannahill, was performed in the Hepburn Zoo blackbox theater last weekend. The show was the senior thesis in directing for Ryan Kirby ’22 as well as the acting thesis for Madison Middleton ’22.5 and an intermediate project in costuming for Katie Concannon ’22. For this one weekend, the Hepburn Zoo blackbox theater was completely transformed, decked out with an ornate painted floor and draped columns. Colorful lights flashed as the audience settled into the house, creating a spectacle even before the play officially began.
(03/17/22 10:00am)
On March 9, the live Moth-Up storytelling event brought an intimacy to Middlebury not often experienced in the whirlwind of the academic week. Hosted in the Gamut Room, where the audience had to arrange themselves Tetris-style to fit, the event kicked off when the lights were dimmed and a spotlight shone on the speaker, creating a personal link between audience member and storyteller. No microphones were present; voices alone were used to fill the space.
(01/27/22 11:00am)
This is how I used to start the story: as soon as I entered his room, I wanted to leave. This is how I should start the story: I was drunk; he was drunk; it’s not his fault. It still makes me want to cry. It’s not his fault.
(12/09/21 10:57am)
I know that I talk all about sex, dating and relationships, but I’ll be honest… a lot of relationship standards confuse the shit out of me. There are too many specific ways for how my partner and I are “supposed to” exist. At the beginning of our relationship, I often found myself questioning if I was doing something because I wanted to or because I was expected to. I’m grateful that my partner and I have such good communication and are both willing to play with our relationship to figure out what works. After workshopping our relationship dynamic, we stumbled into the magical world of Relationship Anarchy (RA).
(11/18/21 10:56am)
This semester has really flown by. I know everyone always says that, but I actually have no idea where it’s gone. Feeling stressed and pulled in many directions seems to be a common theme among people I’ve talked to recently. Sometimes I have moments when it feels like my body and brain aren’t on the same page; it can be incredibly frustrating and unfair.
(10/28/21 9:58am)
Words may not be able to describe how I feel about Kate Bush, but I can still try. A breakout star in Britain at age 19, Bush made her name with thematically sprawling concept albums and interpretive dance. By age thirty-five, she had abandoned fame and moved to the countryside to live in obscurity (until her 2005 comeback album “Aerial”). I got into her music the summer when I was 17, and I have never stopped listening. Bush has accompanied me through all of the growth and changes I’ve experienced since then, and over the years, I’ve always been able to come back to her songs and find new meaning in them.
(09/16/21 9:56am)
Middlebury Senior Technology Specialist Scott Remick was arrested July 7 on federal charges of possesing child pornography. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison and would be required to register as a sex offender. At his preliminary hearing on July 26, he pleaded not guilty.
Remick allegedly had images of young children in various restraints, which a hacker discovered and turned over to authorities. The hacker was later granted immunity.
According to authorities, the informant also discovered chat files which included exchanges of images of child pornography with someone named “Jeanie,” who the hacker believed to be a teenager.
The college declined to comment on Remick’s employment status, but he has most likely been placed on leave.
“Middlebury complies with and cooperates in all matters involving lawful requests from authorities,” Director of Media Relations Sarah Ray said in an email to The Campus. “In the rare event of an arrest, we ordinarily place the employee on leave and take other appropriate steps while we gather more information.”
Authorities confiscated over 100 hard drives, computers and digital media from Remick, many of which belong to the customers of the computer repair business that he owned, Vermont Geek. Prosecutors have presented no evidence that Remick produced any images himself or had direct contact with any producers. The deadline to file pretrial motions is in November.
(05/20/21 3:15am)
The Fostering and Restoring Community section involves strategies that are concerned with creating restorative mechanisms to address harm, facilitating spaces for critical conversations and workshops, creating avenues for dialogue between different stakeholders and providing opportunities to report incidents of bias and discrimination. These strategies are wide in scope, addressing students, faculty, staff, administration and community members.
Director of Equity and Inclusion Renee Wells said that being in a community means that people will both experience and cause harm that is often unintentional.
“Harm is happening all over the campus all the time,” Wells said. “I think that cultural change requires that we acknowledge where systemic, institutional, interpersonal barriers and harms exist and the ways in which we are either unintentionally complicit in or sometimes benefit from that.”
“Due to differences in lived experience, every individual has a different comfort level navigating and talking about harm, and it is important to meet students where they are at in their journey,” Wells said. Though some people may feel discomfort during conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion, ultimately, they are feeling discomfort with a threat to the status quo, Wells explained.
“But what we have to acknowledge is that this status quo is a whole bunch of interconnected systems of oppression that perpetuate inequity and harm,” she said. “So we have to get comfortable with the fact that people are going to be uncomfortable with that.”
Of the 14 strategies detailed in the Fostering and Restoring Community Section of the Action Plan, 10 were scheduled for completion this year. Twelve of the fourteen have either been accomplished or commenced at the time of publication, and eight strategies are ongoing.
Responding to incidents of harm
Strategy #1 is about developing a system for using restorative practices, which is a framework used to proactively build community in response to incidents that cause harm on campus. There is a current framework in place, but the Restorative Practices Steering Committee — which includes several staff and administrators — is constantly tweaking the framework and is still integrating it into bodies around campus.
Associate Dean of Community Standards Brian Lind said that restorative practices, which have been employed by the college for several years in place of traditional disciplinary avenues, consist of three pillars: community building, responding to harm, and leadership. Residential Life and staff members have been trained in facilitating community building circles and restorative frameworks to address breakdowns in community, such as when communities cause harm to each other.
The restorative practices framework can be used in a variety of contexts, but often involves bringing parties who have experienced and caused harm together to discuss the impact of a behavior or breakdown in community.
“Restorative practices give us a meaningful framework to develop relationships so that we have stronger bonds when we cause or experience harm,” Lind said. “And we have a shared practice of how to respond to [harm] appropriately.”
Strategy #12 establishes alternative options for responding to incidents of relationship misconduct outside of the traditional adjudication process. Before this alternative pathway was available, students who wished to report misconduct filed a complaint with the Title IX office and underwent a formal investigation, according to Lind. This strategy creates another option.
“The [adaptable process] gives us a way, I think, to address it in a form that isn't punitive, that will hopefully help repair the harm that's been caused, and help everybody involved kind of process and work through writing the situation.
Establishing opportunities for critical conversations
Strategy #2 is about engaging students in critical conversations around healthy relationships including sexual encounters and consent, and strategy #4 is about critical conversations about consent, sexual violence, and misconduct. These initiatives have commenced and are ongoing.
According to Emily Wagner, assistant director of health and wellness education, their office has already had successful engagement with a variety of programs, including ProjectConnect, a six-week group series where students learn about developing authentic relationships, and Finding Your People, a panel for students to share ideas about expanding your friendship circle and creating community at Middlebury.
Green Dot, a pre-existing program that aims to prevent sexual violence and promote healthy relationships through bystander intervention and conversation, will begin providing training at each of the Middlebury schools abroad. The training will be tailored to the cultural and linguistic differences of that country beginning in the fall of 2021, Wagner said in an email to the Campus.
Sex Positive Education for College Students (SPECS) and confidential advocacy services such as MiddSafe have also sought to create a safer space on campus regarding relationships and consent.
For the past three semesters, the Title IX office has also incorporated Speak About It — a program about consent and communication — into first-year student student orientation. The Title IX office also hosted a book club for students for the book Sexual Citizens, which discusses sexual assault on college campuses, according to Wagner and Civil Rights and Title IX Coordinator Marti McCaleb.
“As we move into the 2021-2022 school year, we are working closely with Residential Life and other campus partners around strategic ways to reach more students in person,” Wagner said in an email.
Avenues for dialogue and feedback
Several strategies in this section are concerned with establishing channels of communication between students and staff, faculty, and administration.
Wells hosts weekly office hours on Fridays from 12 to two and by appointment where students, faculty and staff can share concerns, seek support, and explore strategies to address concerns, an initiative introduced in strategy #6 of the Plan.
Per strategy #7, the Senior Leadership Group (SLG) — a collection of senior-level administrators — has been meeting monthly with a group of BIPOC students who “represent key stakeholders and leadership of different cultural organizations to have collaborative discussions that aim for the implementation of institutional change,” according to a school-wide email from Dec. 15.
Strategy #8 calls for the creation of a Student Advisory Council for the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to provide feedback and recommendations related to campus concerns, barriers to marginalized students on campus and forms of oppression. According to Chief Diversity Officer Miguel Fernández, this strategy has not yet been implemented.
Strategy #9 tasks Faculty Council and the Educational Affairs Committee with “explor[ing] the possibility of including a question about accessibility, equity, and classroom climate on Course Response Forms.” This strategy is slated for 2021–2022, and work has not yet begun on this initiative, according to Faculty Council member Natalie Eppelsheimer.
Strategy #13 tasks Community Council (CC) with exploring the role of Public Safety and collaboration with police and security. CC will then present a proposal to SLG outlining their findings. According to Co-Chair of Community Council Christian Kummer, CC has been in conversation with administration to create a formal recommendation on this topic, which will likely be completed next fall.
Workshops
Strategy #5 calls for regular workshops for faculty and staff to better understand the reporting requirements and investigation process for discrimination, harassmaent and sexual violence, and appropriate resources for members of the campus community. OIDEI provides the workshops and has presented them to various offices and groups, including Directors of the Language Schools, faculty and staff at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, staff of the Schools Abroad and incoming new faculty at Middlebury, according to McCaleb.
“Every Middlebury employee has the responsibility to participate in and promote a respectful environment at Middlebury,” said McCaleb in an email. “Our conversations in this area are geared towards individuals understanding their personal impact and obligations within our community.”
Strategy #14 calls for “regular education opportunities related to diversity, equity and inclusion in the local community.”
Wells has spearheaded these efforts, and has facilitated various workshops in the past year about anti-racism, microaggressions and stereotyping for local non-profits, the Rutland NAACP, campus and community members, Middlebury Co-op managers and the Ilsley Public Library.
Communication and Reporting
Strategy #3 is concerned with clear communication about behaviors prohibited under the Non-Discrimination Policy and how to report breaches of this policy. This strategy has already been implemented.
Strategy #10 advises the creation of an online form that can be used to report incidents of discrimincation, harassment and violence. This form has been in use since at least last fall, and can be found at go/bias. As of January of this year, the form had received 28 incident reports representing 16 incidents, according to Fernández.
Strategy #11 recommends that an online form be used to report incidents of discrimination, harassment and violence. This form can be found at go/report and has been promoted through various social media channels and partners, though it is not yet widely utilized, according to McCaleb.
