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(04/11/19 9:54am)
I’m vegan and I went abroad for my febmester. Sometimes I struggle figuring out which of these to tell someone first when I meet them. At this point, I’ve decided to just go with both and berate people with my amazing cultural experiences and moral superiority.
I’ve been vegan for a year and a half. When I jumped in cold tofurkey last year, the only thing I thought I knew about veganism was that vegans are loud, annoying and can’t stop talking about veganism. I decided it would be fun to play up that character and jokingly be the annoying vegan around my friends. But as most things go in my life, what started as ironic is now entirely unironic. This is because over the past year I’ve learned that veganism is way more important than I thought. It blew my mind how little I or the average person knows about the impact of dietary choices. I want to share a few of the mind-blowing facts I’ve learned about the three tenants of veganism (environment, health, and ethics) and describe why I’m not afraid to be an annoying vegan.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Veganism is way more important than I thought.[/pullquote]
A vegan diet is by far the diet with the smallest impact on the environment. If we all consume animal products at the rate we are now, we will never see our world overcome the climate change crisis. Scientific studies have shown for years that the most effective way to benefit the environment (besides not having kids) is to cut back on animal products in your diet. This is because production of all types of animal products is incredibly less efficient than plant products. If we took all of the land that is being used to raise animals or grow crops for those animals and instead used it to grow crops for human consumption, we could meet the food requirements of the entire world multiple times over. The animal agriculture industry is responsible for 18% (some say upwards of 51%) of all greenhouse gas emissions, more than all cars, trains, planes and every other vehicle in the transportation industry combined.
However, environmental impact goes well beyond just carbon footprint. It’s commonly stated that our oceans are dying, but it’s a little known fact that the majority of the trash in the ocean is fishing nets and equipment. Overfishing is destroying coral reefs and vital ocean ecosystems. Animal agriculture is responsible for up to 91% of Amazon deforestation. The animal waste runoff from factory farms pollutes rivers and is destroying ecosystems. It takes 56 gallons of water to produce a single egg and 1,000 gallons of water to produce a gallon of milk. It’s time for Middlebury to stop blindly thinking that our animal product consumption is in line with our environmental ideals.
There are huge health benefits from switching to a healthy vegan diet even from a healthier standard American diet. A vegan diet helps prevent thirteen of the fifteen leading causes of death in the United States, including cancer, diabetes, stroke and especially heart disease. That’s not vegan propaganda; there are a multitude of studies to support this claim. The American Dietetic Association states that a plant-based diet is appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy and childhood. In other words, according to nutritional experts, you will not get any deficiencies with a well-planned vegan diet. Additionally, you can easily get your protein needs on a vegan diet. Fifteen members of the Tennessee Titans NFL team are vegan. There are many vegan super athletes and many super athletes going vegan.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]It’s time for Middlebury to stop blindly thinking that our animal product consumption is in line with our environmental ideals.[/pullquote]
Animals in the agriculture industry are subject to the most brutal pain and suffering you can imagine being inflicted on a living being. The phrase “humane slaughter” is an obvious oxymoron, and the entire concept is a myth. Due to the demands for efficiency in the butchering process, slaughtering methods are almost always performed sloppily, leading to excruciating pain and immense fear in the animal. The footage of factory farming that you’ve hopefully seen (if not, watch the film Dominion), is not the extreme footage. It’s the industry standard. Over 90% of farm animals in the United States live on factory farms with these brutal practices. Local farms are also far from being cruelty-free. The production of dairy requires the non consensual impregnation of cows and for calves to be taken from mothers immediately at birth. Hens have been bred to lay eggs twenty times more than what is biologically normal for them, leading to painful health complications. In the vast majority of cases, male chicks that are born in the egg industry are immediately (like moments after birth) tossed into a meat grinder. If you’re against animal abuse, you’re against the animal agriculture industry.
These facts are only the tip of the iceberg. Most people say that they’re fine with people being vegan as long as they’re not annoying about it, because diet is a personal choice. But diet is not a personal choice. You’re literally choosing the fate of other living beings and the fate of the environment. So I’m not going to be shy about telling you to be vegan. Every day we are destroying the environment a little more. Every day people are being killed or crippled by preventable diseases. Every day millions of sentient, feeling animals are being born into a life of pain and misery. There’s no time to be shy.
Please contact me if you have comments or questions. I’m always willing to talk about these issues.
Editor’s Note: This op-ed was previously published with the headline: “Why I’m an Annoying Vegan."
(04/11/19 9:53am)
The earth is not to be taken for granted.
Last Thursday evening in Wilson Hall, 30 years after publishing the seminal climate change volume “The End of Nature,” Bill McKibben revisited the many lessons he has learned since the book’s publication. That was the first one.
McKibben, known for his work as a journalist and environmental activist, founded the international climate change organization 350.org in 2008. In 2010, McKibben was named Middlebury’s Schumann Distinguished Scholar. Since then he has regularly given talks on campus and appeared at college events, while continuing his work as an activist outside of Middlebury. During last week’s talk, entitled “What I Learned in the Last Three Decades: A First Glimpse of My New Book,” he shared eight lessons about the climate crisis and human nature along with excerpts from his newest book, “Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?”
The talk began with introductions by Professor of Economics Jon Isham, Dean of Environmental Affairs Nan Jenks-Jay, and College President Laurie L. Patton. Isham read a new poem written by the environmental poet Wendell Berry about McKibben, the first entry in a book of writings gathered from close colleagues and friends of McKibben’s. Jenks-Jay presented McKibben with the book. Patton read her own entry, thanking McKibben, whom she called “the world’s colleague and friend,” for his many contributions to the college over the last 18 years.
About two months ago, Jenks-Jay suggested giving McKibben an award in recognition of the 30th anniversary of the publication of “The End of Nature,” Isham told The Campus. This idea evolved into the book they presented to him at the talk, a collection of 39 contributions from people who have worked with him on the front lines of the fight against climate change.
Today’s climate movement did not exist fifteen years ago, McKibben wrote in an email to The Campus. “Whether it’s strong enough to match the fossil fuel industry I don’t know,” he wrote, “but it is very good to know that at least there will be a fight.”
The second lesson McKibben learned is that some people actually do their jobs. The price of solar panels has fallen by 90 percent in the last decade, he said, thanks to the work of engineers — and the “ex-hippies” who spent their time “down in the basement fussing with the lead-acid batteries.”
“The good story of the last thirty years is that we know, now, how we could solve a problem that in a certain way seemed insoluble in 1989,” McKibben wrote. In 1989, there was no clear alternative to coal, gas and oil. Now, as solar power has become more affordable, there is.
His third lesson: it’s possible to win the argument, but lose the fight. Despite winning the climate change argument, scientists lost the fight to the world’s fossil fuel elites who had enough money and power to inhibit change. Oil companies knew all the basic facts of climate change by the 1980s, but their willingness to spread “the most consequential lie in human history” produced a 30-year debate about whether climate change was real at all.
For the fossil fuel companies, that lie remains a success. “The President of the United States believes that climate change was a hoax invented by the Chinese, an idea so odd that if you were sitting on the ACTR bus next to someone muttering this, you would get up and change seats,” McKibben said.
After the release of “The End of Nature” in 1989, McKibben worked to grow the global climate movement and continued to write books. Just over a decade ago, he began dedicating more time to organizing, combating the massive amounts of money in the fossil fuel industry, moving away from book writing. But “Falter” felt necessary, especially considering how far McKibben has come since he wrote “The End of Nature.”
“‘The End of Nature’ was a good book, but written by a young man,” he wrote. “That has both advantages and disadvantages.”
The fourth thing McKibben learned is that large numbers of people will gather and do the work they are asked to do, “if they’re given a — even mildly plausible — reason to think it might be successful.” He brought up the then-upcoming Climate Solutions Walk held last weekend, a five-day march from Middlebury to Montpelier. He described a similar march in 2006, during which protesters walked from the Robert Frost Cabin in Ripton to Burlington.
In 2006, when they reached Burlington, he said, they were greeted by then Congressman and senatorial candidate Bernie Sanders, who praised them enthusiastically for their activism. Sanders then asked, “What is this about, again?”
McKibben’s primary takeaway from the 2006 march was that people respond better when they are asked to do more challenging things, because they are more likely to step up if they feel that their work means something. This is also seen in the unexpected global success 350.org saw in 2009, when they coordinated thousands of protests around the world on the same day.
In 2009, McKibben said, climate activism was an unfilled ecological niche. But while nobody focused primarily on climate change, many worried about closely related issues: women’s rights, war and peace, development, public health, hunger, and “all the problems you couldn’t address on a planet that was rapidly destabilizing.”
Lesson five, he said, is that it is sometimes necessary to go beyond education and confront the problems. The Keystone Pipeline protests show, regardless of their outcome, that it is possible to stand up to big oil. Divestment of money invested in fossil fuels has also been more successful than McKibben ever anticipated, with coal and oil companies now recognizing the financial losses as a serious threat.
The sixth lesson: “it’s possible we may not win this fight.”
Never take a snowstorm for granted, McKibben warned, because winter as it exists now will not last much longer. The evidence of climate-related losses is rapidly becoming ubiquitous. Coral reefs, “once the most enchanted corner of God’s brain,” he said, “are now just lobotomized and vacant.” He played a video he had filmed of a glacier disintegrating into the sea.
The seventh lesson is a little bit more optimistic: to have any chance of “winning”— of slowing and limiting climate change enough for human civilization to survive—people will need to stretch well beyond their comfort zones. After all, he said, the planet is way outside its comfort zone. And what people have done so far is clearly insufficient.
McKibben cited two mechanisms which have been enhanced over the last 30 years and serve as reasons for hope. One is the solar panel. The other is the evolution of nonviolent resistance. Activism by pioneers like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi serve as the foundation of the climate movement protests.
“You shouldn’t have to go to jail to get people to listen to science,” McKibben said. But it works.
His eighth and final lesson is that the world is so beautiful, and so remarkable, that all of this is worth a try. Earlier that day, he said, as his flight to Middlebury passed over the Adirondacks, he found himself captivated by the view. And yet, while watching a recent SpaceX launch, he realized that the richest people on earth just want to leave this planet behind.
Moving forward, the next ten years are likely to be the most critical, McKibben said. “Can we make a decisive transition away from fossil fuels in that period? If not, I think the prospects for catching up with the physics of climate change become vanishingly small.”
“We are messy creatures, often selfish, prone to short-sightedness, susceptible to greed,” McKibben said at the end of the talk. “In a Trumpian moment, with racism and nationalism resurgent, you could argue that our disappearance would be no great loss. And yet most of us, most of the time, are pretty wonderful. Funny. Kind. Another name for human solidarity is love. And when I think about our world in its present form, that is what overwhelms me.”
(03/21/19 10:36am)
MIDDLEBURY - Hundreds gathered at College Park in downtown Middlebury last Friday, March 15, to strike against government inaction on climate change. Middlebury Union High School students and college students alike walked out of class at noon, flocking to the Town Green. They were met by members of Addison County’s Interfaith Climate Action Network and other local climate activists including Bill McKibben, the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and founder of 350.org.
Strike organizers Cora Kircher ’20, Connor Wertz ’22 and Katie Concannon ’22 planned the event in solidarity with the hundreds of other Youth Climate Strikes happening across the globe that day.
In the midst of busy mid-day traffic, event organizers spoke through a blaring microphone while strikers held cardboard signs with phrases like, “Keep fossil fuels in the ground,” “Oceans are rising, so are we” and “Stop burning our future.” Many in attendance wore green and intermittently cheered throughout the event.
“I see a shift in how people are talking about [climate change],” said Warren Galloway ’21, who walked out of class that morning. “There’s more pressure against governments and bureaucracy, and holding people accountable, rather than just starting grassroot movements. I think people are starting to panic.”
Speakers included organizers Connor Wertz and Cora Kircher, Asa Skinder ’22.5 and Middlebury Union Alumna Greta Hardy-Mittell.
Wertz was the first to speak, citing the U.S. Youth Climate Strike Organization and pleading support for the Green New Deal, an immediate halt to fossil fuel infrastructure, and mandatory inclusion of climate change in U.S. education systems.
“This is more of a prayer than anything else,” said Wertz, urging local leaders and government officials to listen and act on the cries from America’s youth. “We are asking for your actions. We are asking for your vote, your body, your tongue, your arms and wrists and your will. That’s what we need to make the change that needs to happen.”
Cora Kircher spoke next, framing climate change as a present threat.
“This can’t be a future-centered movement alone because [climate change] is happening right now,” she said. Kircher hosted a minute of silence for people currently experiencing the effects of climate change, as well as for the Abenaki people, “whose land we are occupying.”
Asa Skinder ’22.5 spoke third, informing protesters about the State Government’s hesitance to confirm the ESSEX Plan, a state initiative to produce low-cost clean energy to Vermonters. In a state that spends 8% of its GDP on fossil fuels, Skinder believes Vermont isn’t doing nearly enough to limit its use of these resources.
“In Vermont, we often feel like we are in an environmentally responsible place, but if you look at the actions of our leaders in the House and Senate, that’s not true,” Skinder said. “They may not be climate change deniers, but they are climate delayers.”
Middlebury Union High School Alumna Greta Hardy-Mittell broke up the largely political discourse by reading an anecdote of her time in the Amazon Rainforest in December of last year.
“The suffocating fear of climate change followed me even to the most remote and pristine location on earth,” she said. “I could only think about how it is all going to fade away.”
Kircher capped the event by fiercely arguing that climate change is a complex issue, comprised of matters of social prejudice and conservative economic policy.
“In order to fight the climate crisis, we have to pursue a radical politics that recognizes that climate change isn’t separate from white supremacy, capitalism and an extractive economy and culture based on commodity accumulation and the exploitation of natural resources and other human beings,” she said.
The crowd dispersed around 12:30 p.m. after a last applause for all four speakers. Many felt satisfied with the event.
“There was a great turn out,” said Cat La Roche ’21. “I really didn’t expect this many people.”
To learn more about The Youth Climate Strike Organization, visit youthclimatestrikeus.org.
(03/21/19 10:30am)
MIDDLEBURY — While the scrambled eggs were hot, the topics of discussion were even hotter at the Addison County Governor’s Breakfast. A group of around 40 residents and college students gathered in the Middlebury American Legion early on Monday, March 18 for breakfast with Governor Phil Scott and various Addison County state senators and representatives.
Addison is the only state county that hosts a legislative breakfast every Monday during the legislative session. Elected officials took the opportunity to update their constituents on the progress they and their committees have made in the Legislature. State senators Christopher Bray and Ruth Hardy discussed the debates and passing of bills relating to environmental regulations, rural economic development and a pilot program for career and technical education.
Governor Scott began the breakfast with a short speech outlining the three priorities of his administration: growing the economy, making Vermont more affordable and protecting the most vulnerable.
"To achieve this future, we need be honest about the challenges we face," he said. He also addressed Vermont’s stagnant and aging population — since 2009, Vermont’s labor force has declined by 15,000 workers and Addison County’s public school enrollment has suffered a 25% decrease (1400 students) since 2004.
“That’s not a recipe for economic growth,” Scott said. “My agenda this session focuses on Vermonters finding a job and starting a career.” Some of Scott’s other priorities include increasing investments in education and early childcare, putting a tax on e-cigarettes, and identifying residents interested in relocating to Vermont. “We need more taxpayers, not more taxes,” Scott said.
Following the governor’s speech, residents were invited to ask questions of their legislators and governor. Alec Fleischer ’20.5 had the first question of the morning, asking Scott what actions he will take to combat the threat of climate change. Fleischer, who is a member of the Sunday Night Environmental Group and Divest Middlebury organizations on campus, cited the recent passage of bills during Middlebury’s town meeting to support the 350VT Climate Solutions Resolution.
“We're doing a pretty good job on the electrical front; we just need to do a better job on the transportation front,” Scott said. He believes that protecting the environment and a strong economy go hand in hand.
Other questions delved into topics such as Vermont’s healthcare system, the opioid crisis, a potential statewide plastic bag ban and weatherization. “I'm a conservative Vermonter, very frugal by nature, trying not to waste,” Scott said when asked whether he would support S.113, an act currently in the legislature relating to the prohibition of plastic carryout bags, expanded polystyrene and single-use plastic straws.
Middlebury resident Andrew Pezzulo asked Scott whether he would make Election Day a paid holiday in Vermont, mentioning the high turnout in Addison County of 64% in the 2018 midterm election. “It is a civic duty…I'm open-minded,” Scott replied.
Later in the day, Hardy and Bray joined state representative Amy Sheldon ’88 at a Center for Community Engagement “Lunch with Legislators,” a program organized by the center’s Privilege and Poverty academic cluster. Over lunch, the legislators discussed a variety of topics, including the environment, the county’s economy, college-community relations and poverty alleviation.
Sponsored by the Bridport Grange No. 303 and the Addison County Farm Bureau, the next legislative breakfast will be held on March 25 at the Congregational Church in Salisbury.
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(03/21/19 9:56am)
Alongside drinking crappy beer and “finding yourself,” it is an American college tradition to be jaded about our country. I am no exception. I am a jaded, beer-drinking American college student trying to find himself. So, when it was time to go abroad, I was ready. I did not want to hear about the shutdown. I did not want to hear about an election still two years away. I escaped to Irkutsk, a medium-sized city deep in Russia’s Siberia.
It was the perfect to place to go. I am meeting a people that fearlessly battle frigid temperatures and possess warm personalities that blossom over a cup of tea. I am learning a beautifully complex language that has both amazed and humbled me. I recently saw the stunning, frozen expanse of Lake Baikal — a true natural wonder. But the most surprising part is how I am learning a lot about America, too. I am learning to appreciate it. This is what’s been in my head:
My car. Americans use cars for everything. Whether it be going to work, school, or Starbucks, there is almost always a car involved. In Irkutsk, public transportation reigns supreme, and it works well. Public busses and trams move tens of thousands of people everywhere around the city, every day. My personal favorite is the marshutka, which is a small van that weaves through traffic at dangerously high speeds, without seatbelts. Marshutkas during rush hour feel like Tavern parties on the first weekend of school, except everyone is completely silent. And if you want to get off, you must break the silence and yell out your stop. Awkward. But after a while, I began to miss my car. That feeling when you get to your car after a long day is irreplaceable. It is an “almost home” feeling that means “this is my metal box and I am safe inside of it.” Throw some friends into the backseat, roll down the windows and turn up the music and you have a distinctly American experience. I admittedly kinda miss my nerdy Honda CRV.
The American College experience. College in Russia is a world away. Most Russian students grow up and go to college in the same city they were born in. This brings a welcoming sense of comfort in a challenging time of life. Mom, dad, brother, sister, and the dog are not far away. Most students don’t live in dorms and go home after class instead, so the idea of college being more than just academics is almost nonexistent. For most Americans, it is the opposite. College is the capstone of our teenage angst. We get to leave high school and our hometown behind, so we can reinvent ourselves hundreds of miles away. This means our campus takes on a whole different meaning. Middlebury is more than just a school; it’s a place where we live, laugh, cry and fall in love. We celebrate life and learning together for four years and complain about to-go containers while we’re at it. A very American experience, indeed.
That quirky American spirit. It is well-known that Americans, especially young ones, are incredibly optimistic about their ability to shape their futures. Optimists say it is admirable. Pessimists say it is naive. My Russian friends don’t share the same mindset. They are very realistic and pragmatic about things. They often accept the status quo and work with it. They may not plan to change the world, but they will do what they can, given the constraints. I know I share a similar mindset. Maybe that’s why we get along. But that youthful American energy that wants to change the future is still something that I admire. And it is something I should pay more attention to. Just think about Middlebury. A dedicated commitment to tackling climate change by generations of Middkids is the reason why we are carbon neutral. It is why Middkids actively try to change their lifestyles to fight climate change. I always thought this American energy was naïve. But maybe I’ve changed my mind because it actually does deliver change.
There are plenty of reasons to be frustrated about America. And we should be. Being content with the status quo is not a part of that quirky American spirit that wants to change the world. But my time abroad has convinced me that there are many things to be thankful for. Living in a small campus community dedicated to learning both in and outside of the classroom is something you don’t see often outside of America. Blazing down the highway in a big SUV with the windows down, music up and the company of friends is a distinctly American experience. So, go study abroad and learn a new language and a completely different culture. You might learn something about America, too.
(03/14/19 9:58am)
The Hillcrest Orchard was filled to capacity for the “White Allies: It’s Your Turn” meeting last Thursday evening, with students lining the windowsills and crowding onto the floor as organizers Treasure Brooks ’21 and Wengel Kifle ’20 spoke about the need to eliminate racial violence from the Middlebury curriculum. [pullquote speaker="Treasure Brooks ’21" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]The academic institution is the greatest mobilizer of white supremacy.[/pullquote]
“Repeat after me,” Brooks told the crowd, “the academic institution is the greatest mobilizer of white supremacy.” Attendees echoed her words. Later, asked how she came up with the phrase, she said, “It’s just the truth.”
Promoted as an opportunity for white students, particularly those who oppose campus inequality but rarely speak up outside the classroom, to learn about advocating for racial equity, “White Allies” offered white students a glimpse into the social and academic difficulties faced by students of color. Brooks, who is black, described Middlebury as a site of colonial indoctrination, and said that the first step toward being on the right side of history is to decolonize the curriculum by incorporating diverse viewpoints that are often neglected by academia.
“Decolonizing the curriculum, I think, is to intentionally teach different authors and teach from perspectives that are non-western and non-white,” Brooks said. Most of the academic content used in Middlebury’s courses was produced in colonial and white supremacist systems, she said, and the intentional addition of different perspectives to curricula makes the context more complete.
“It’s not just adding in new voices,” said Renee Wells, director of education for equity and inclusion. “It’s adding in new voices that can name the ways in which our historical modes of thinking are oppressive.”
The event was completely student-run, but Wells described herself as a sounding board for student concerns, including those recently put forth by Brooks and Kifle regarding campus climate and curriculum.
During the meeting, Brooks referred to Carr Hall, which houses the Anderson Freeman Center, as a space for students of color. One white student, seated on the floor in the back corner of the room, turned to the person beside her, and whispered, “What’s Carr Hall?” The other student, also white, just shook her head.
At the end of the meeting, the presenters had participants break into groups by academic department and then passed out petitions, urging students to approach professors about the need for Middlebury to undergo an institutional process of academic decolonization, and to request that faculty members sign on in support.
The meeting organizers began co-writing the petition the day after Brooks served as guest discussion leader for Middleground, a new student group created as a platform at the end of last year for students to share personal stories about the challenges they face at Middlebury. Brooks, a History major, told The Campus about a STEM major who spoke at Middleground and started to cry while describing an experience with intolerance in the classroom, and the profound effect it had on her own attitude toward college academics.
[pullquote speaker="Treasure Brooks ’21" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]The violence we experience in the classrooms is truly across disciplines.[/pullquote]
“The violence we experience in the classrooms is truly across disciplines,” Brooks said.
Changing the social climate on campus is a complex endeavor, but Brooks and Kifle see expanding diversity within curricula as a goal that is both critical and attainable. Brooks read the college’s mission statement aloud during the meeting, emphasizing its claim to prepare students to “contribute to their communities, and address the world’s most challenging problems.”
“Whose community are we learning how to help, to engage with?” she said. “Whose?”
Most Middlebury students would describe themselves as allies, Kifle, who is also black, said in an interview with the Campus. But she noted that white students lack the double consciousness held by students of color and, as a result, frequently don’t realize that they are not getting the entire perspective. Expanding the curriculum, she said, helps everyone.
“It’s not that people of color need this more,” Brooks said. “The chasm in our education is more visible to us because we know our own history and we know what’s missing.”
Middlebury’s mission statement promises to prepare students to address the world’s most challenging problems, but the current lack of global, critical perspectives presented in the classroom fails to accomplish that, Kifle said. Limiting the voices available to students to one dominant demographic, specifically white men, hinders the scope of their education and leaves them unprepared to face real world issues.
“Professors are just serving as moderators instead of educators,” Kevin Mata ’22 said, after Brooks invited students of color to share their opinions about the academic environment.
“A lot of them are teaching the way that they were taught,” Brooks said at the meeting. “That does not make it right.”
Kifle told The Campus that the petition circulated at the meeting demands the education Middlebury already claims to provide its students, holding the college accountable for what its mission statement promises.
“What we’re attempting to do is not radical whatsoever,” Brooks said.
[pullquote speaker="Francoise Niyigena ’21" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]We all come with different misconceptions about people who are different from us.[/pullquote]
“We all come with different misconceptions about people who are different from us,” said Francoise Niyigena ’21, one of the founders of the student organization Middleground. She started the organization with a group of friends after they realized that they had all come to college expecting to have transformative conversations with people who were profoundly different from them, but that those conversations rarely happened. Niyigena said that most students who currently attend meetings are struggling with some aspect of campus culture, or face discrimination in the broader community, but that the group welcomes anyone who wants to learn.
Middleground meets every other Thursday from 6–7:30 in the Hillcrest Orchard. Kifle will facilitate its next meeting, focusing on immigrant students’ experiences, on March 14.
Kifle told The Campus that the petition serves as concrete evidence of support, but that their main motivation for holding the meeting was to raise awareness about, and increase student involvement in, the process of decolonizing Middlebury’s curriculum. The “White Allies” organizers said they had big plans moving forward, but added that those plans depend on white allies’ continued support.
(03/14/19 9:57am)
Editor’s note: This piece was written for a longform sports journalism course in Winter Term 2019. The Campus is publishing it due to its relevance in today’s politicized climate. The author supplemented research and interviews with past and present Middlebury students with her perspective as a member of the Middlebury Pranksters.
It was the day after Charles Murray visited Middlebury College, leaving in his wake a community torn apart and questioning its identity. The arrival of the author of The Bell Curve sparked campus-wide protests, as students of color braced themselves for yet another message that they didn’t belong. Many members of the college’s ultimate frisbee team, the Pranksters, had attended the protests and were now arriving at the athletic center for practice.
Miyo McGinn ’19.5, then a first-year, walked down the stairs of the Virtue Field House and sat down next to Mary Thomas, a senior captain of the women’s team. Most of the players had already moved onto the field for warm-ups, and they were alone. McGinn is half Japanese-American, so she hadn’t felt personally attacked by the events of the previous day like Thomas, who is half-black. Sitting there, off to the side, both felt isolated from their team. Looking around, McGinn thought, “I don’t feel like they understand how tired I am right now, and I don’t feel like they understand how deeply, deeply hurt I am right now.”
While others set the turmoil aside in order to practice, McGinn and Thomas stayed where they were, coming to the harsh realization that their teammates and friends could not grasp the pain they were in. “We kinda just started putting on our cleats and never got past that,” Thomas said.
Ultimate was first introduced in 1968 and has yet to become as institutionalized or bureaucratic as it does not have the extent of sponsorship, advertising or oversight from an officiating body like other popular American sports. Instead, frisbee has carried the countercultural attitude of its first decade into the 21st century. At its essence is “Spirit of the Game,” the idea of spirited sportsmanship that places the responsibility of fair play and respect on each player, with players self-officiating games even at the highest level. Across the nation, ultimate communities pride themselves on being open and welcoming. And yet, students have indicated that in so many ways, despite welcoming players, the ultimate community’s structure and behavior leaves something to be desired.
McGinn didn’t realize this until her eighth year of the sport. She grew up playing in South Seattle with the All Girl Everything Ultimate Program (AGE UP), which empowers young women of color and uses ultimate to work toward social justice. To her, ultimate and social justice were inextricably intertwined. Then she came to Middlebury and joined a new ultimate community. “[That’s] when I was like oh, wow, this is the norm, where I came from is not the norm.” Suddenly, she saw that what ultimate was most intertwined with was whiteness. Holding up her hands and forming a Venn diagram, she says, “I think frisbee culture and white culture are almost entirely overlapping.” Coming to this community and to this realization, McGinn reeled. Ultimate to her had always been about social justice, and now it seemed to be purely a vehicle for socializing and drinking.
Why are those two circles in McGinn’s Venn diagram so often nearly completely overlapping? For the Middlebury Pranksters, the reasons seem endless. Spirit of the Game and self-officiating instill many in the ultimate community with the attitude that their sport as superior. The reality is that these unique aspects bring their own problems, highlighting implicit bias and inadequate cultural competency in coaches and players alike. Spirit of the Game, for example, relies on shared norms of acceptable behavior, which vary dramatically based on culture. If white players are those establishing what a foul looks like, what disrespect looks like, then whiteness is woven into the fabric of the game.
The costs of playing ultimate also present barriers, both to playing the sport and to participating in the community. Thomas remembers that new players were sometimes reluctant to go to tournaments because spending the weekend off campus was both socially and financially burdensome. Between dues for tournaments and parties, expenses become prohibitive for some. Connor Hanify, a senior who was captain of the men’s team last year, says leadership tries to reduce any barriers. They fundraise to be able to subsidize whatever individuals can’t afford. “We always say come talk to us if there’s a problem,” he says, “but it’s not easy doing that.”
Divya Gudur, a sophomore on the team, says there’s another dimension that adds to a feeling of inaccessibility. The team has frequent parties, but “if you’re on financial aid you start counting every day the amount of money your parents are spending,” she says. It makes it hard to justify participating in the party culture of the team. McGinn feels similarly: as a student who’s taking out loans and whose mom is working two jobs, all just so that she can get this education, she feels like she can’t afford to indulge in the ways other students with a safety net can. And if you’re not at social gatherings, it’s hard to be as integrated. This of course can apply to anyone, regardless of race, but it’s frequently an obstacle for students of color who often don’t feel like they can take the same liberties as their peers.
You can find binge drinking on any college sports team at Middlebury. But ultimate culture isn’t just a drinking culture. It’s a culture of weirdness. Miles McQueen, a junior who no longer plays but remains what’s known as a “social member,” remembers his first frisbee party vividly. Thomas came up to him, and said, “Ok, here’s a shot of vodka,” extending one hand. “And here’s a carrot,” she added, extending the other. So the two did a shot and chased it by eating a carrot.
McQueen was both bewildered and amused at the time, but recognizes that some of this weirdness can be off-putting for new players. Certain strange activities and traditions are specifically intended to build community, like “circle questions” at the beginning of practices, where all players stand with arms around each other and share their response to a random question of the day. A choice example used this past fall is: Would you rather fart butterflies or sneeze marbles?
Most newcomers are surprised by and maybe slightly uncomfortable with this goofiness at first, but learn to love or at least accept it. McQueen and Gudur, both people of color, take issue with the assumption that it’s just something to adjust to. “POC communities have different cultural norms than majority white communities do,” says Gudur. “I think the quirkiness sometimes doesn’t fit into POC culture.” If we already stand out, she says, why would we want to draw more attention to ourselves?
Students of color are hyper-visible at Middlebury regardless of their behavior, so “Already being at Middlebury is pushing,” says McQueen. His freshman year when the team did its bi-annual “naked run,” a nighttime streak through the library during finals week, he knew he wouldn’t have the privilege of anonymity from wearing a mask. “Being the only black guy on the frisbee team, I just did not want to do that,” he said. For this reason, the team didn’t wear masks this year during its fall semester run.
But there’s an important element that McQueen and Gudur come back to over and over again. Gudur says she has always felt incredibly welcome on the team, and McQueen acknowledges that while he was in a very white space, that the team’s unfailing openness and acceptance was what made him feel comfortable from the start. Neither feels that they have been treated differently on or off the field because of the color of their skin. McQueen looks back on his freshman year and notes how many genuine people he met who to this day he considers cherished friends.
Hanify was also surprised by and grateful for the community he discovered when he became a part the team. He joined simply to play the sport he loved, but says, “The unique culture we had made it an amazing experience and challenged a lot of beliefs I had.” In many ways, he says, the team is diverse. The variety of opinions, identities, and sexualities represented on the team along with the open and trusting nature of the community has taught him to think differently.
It makes it easy for him to wonder: maybe ultimate is just white because it’s a new sport that originated in places of privilege. Maybe it just hasn’t spread to other places yet and become pervasive across race and class divides like more popular American sports. Maybe it just takes time.
But when Thomas recalls her reaction in the aftermath of Murray’s visit, it’s impossible to deny that something more is at play. That day when she and McGinn sat on the side while watching their teammates play, she admits she may have jumped to conclusions about others’ ability to empathize. She had already decided “there are just things that I don’t talk about with people on the frisbee team.” When her teammates became her primary friend group, she extended this logic: “here at Middlebury there are just things that I don’t talk about and no one else will be able to relate to.”
Why didn’t she at least give her teammates a chance to prove her wrong? Because the year before, she had already seen what they would do with such a chance. A series of racist op-eds in The Campus caused an alarmed Black Student Union to join several other cultural organizations in writing a lengthy open letter to students. A player who was abroad at the time constructed a “Reader’s Digest” of the message, and sent it to the team. She urged everyone to read it in case they hadn’t had the chance to read the longer letter, and to think seriously about the issues in their community. It was an eloquent and compassionate email, recalls Thomas.
Immediately, a captain on the men’s team wrote back: he scolded the individual for inappropriate usage of the email list, and for not clearing the message with captains first. “This was my pivot point with my relationship with the Pranksters around race,” says Thomas. She thought, “Holy sh*t,these people I’ve been captaining with and friends with really don’t value the things that I value and don’t see racial justice and inclusion as something the Pranksters need to be dealing with.”
Thomas has thought a lot about what happened. “Spirit of the Game absolves people of their need for self reflection,” she says, and that plays out at Middlebury. She loved the weird culture and fully participated in it. But, she adds, “I’ve seen that operate as a shield against criticism … like, ‘oh, we’re just these fringe weirdoes, we can’t possibly be the oppressor.’”
There’s a clear dichotomy between how the ultimate community presents itself — as fun loving and accepting — and how certain members perceive and interact with the community. If the Pranksters want to be what they say they are, there’s work to be done.
But McGinn isn’t sure this is the take-home. “Is what communities of color need ultimate frisbee?” she wonders. Speaking from a place of passion about social justice, she views making the sport equitable and diverse as of low importance. Other issues are more pressing. “Maybe we should stop police brutality or the school to prison pipeline.”
Hanify holds more hope. “The idealist in me wants to think that frisbee is a really cool thing and a way to bring people together and that Spirit of the Game lets people learn how to stand up for themselves and have a platform to speak on.”
Across the nation, individuals and groups are working to bring reality closer to aspiration. In 2017 USA Ultimate launched a Vision Tour, during which it facilitated community conversations in nearly a dozen cities. The purpose was to discuss the ultimate community’s hopes and concerns about the sport’s future, and the first topic listed on the agenda was equity and diversity.
Change at the national level will be hard and take time. But in the meantime, Thomas sees hope in specific communities. “Individual teams can make little oases of inclusivity,” she says. “That’s my dream.”
(02/14/19 11:00am)
The Middlebury Board of Trustees unanimously voted to divest last weekend, the culmination of a more than six-year effort by student-activists to rid the institution's endowment of investments in fossil fuels.
Divestment is one of four components of the institution’s new 10-year Energy2028 plan, which also includes a framework for committing to 100 percent renewable energy, reducing energy consumption on campus by 25 percent and expanding environmental education initiatives. President Laurie L. Patton publicly announced the plan yesterday before an energized crowd in Wilson Hall.
"I feel like everything I've learned in all of my classes at Middlebury has led up to this moment,” said Alec Fleischer ’20.5. Fleischer is a member of the student-run Sunday Night Environmental Group (SNEG) and works with Divest Middlebury, an SNEG campaign formed in 2012.
“This process has taught me how to be an activist, how to push this institution, and how to create sound environmental policy,” he said. “I'm glad to see this institution implementing the lessons it's teaching its students.”Energy2028, Patton said, is a natural progression in the college’s long history of environmental leadership, dating back to the founding of the nation’s first Environmental Studies program in 1965. Today’s announcement makes Middlebury one of the most prominent institutions to pledge full divestment from fossil fuels, and marks a new chapter in its mission to combat climate change.
The decision does not come without risk, with trustees acknowledging that divestment may pose a small cost to the endowment over time. But the potential loss was a significant part of the trustees’ debate, and Patton described their ultimate decision as the most responsible choice the board could make.
“This plan is true to Middlebury’s culture and values,” Patton said. “It acknowledges that we do not have all the solutions at our disposal at this moment to meet these goals, but it commits us to make every effort to do so. I could not be prouder or more inspired by our institution than I am today.”
DIVESTMENT’S DEEP ROOTS
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(02/14/19 11:00am)
On Jan. 29, Middlebury announced it will begin divesting from fossil fuels over a fifteen year period through the Energy2028 initiative. As a board of students, we are excited and incredibly proud of the collaborative work between student activists, Middlebury administrators, staff, faculty and the Board of Trustees, who unanimously agreed to the proposal. We share in our community’s excitement that our institution is living up to its reputation as an environmental leader.
Student activism surrounding divestment has persisted through multiple presidents and has been passed down through generations of students. A 2012 article written by Scholar in Residence Bill McKibben for Rolling Stone brought the issue into public focus. In 2013, however, the Board of Trustees voted against divestment. But student activists persisted.
We are grateful to the students of the Sunday Night Environmental Group (SNEG) who continued to push for divestment, often writing in our Opinion pages. We applaud the trustees for being willing to rethink their initial stance on divestment, and we hope that other institutions who are disinclined to divest take note that change is possible. Divestment is a complex issue, but this agreement shows that when everyone works together we can find solutions.
We were pleasantly surprised to see that Energy2028 encompasses goals larger than divestment of the 4 percent of our $1.124 billion endowment directly invested in fossil fuels. It promises to transition to 100 percent renewable energies by 2028, to reduce consumption on campus, and to expand environmental educational opportunities. While we know that this plan won’t completely eliminate the school’s indirect investments in fossil fuel companies if they are included in general equity funds, we are still pleased that Middlebury is using a broader definition than most for what constitutes a fossil fuel company in its direct investments.
We are proud of all that Middlebury has promised and recognized that there is a lot of work to be done to ensure that all of these promises come to pass. We hope that students continue to be climate activists and pass down the knowledge and importance of this agreement to the next generation of students.
As a paper, we will continue to support student activists in holding Middlebury accountable. Through continued reporting on the history of divestment and on Energy2028 as it unfolds, we want to do our part in giving this initiative its best chance of succeeding by staying invested in its progress. We hope students will continue to write opinion pieces about their activist work.
Those who are skeptical of this announcement have every right to be. Some student activists were dismayed in 2016, when Middlebury reached carbon neutrality only by purchasing carbon offsets from its Bread Loaf campus. But we hope that Energy2028 is the next step of a truly more progressive Middlebury in all realms. We hope the college will continue to practice transparency, detailing how exactly the goals of Energy2028 will be met, and continue soliciting student opinion.
We are grateful for the leadership of Laurie Patton and the Middlebury students, professors, community members and administrators who helped make divestment a reality. We are excited to traverse this new frontier and see how Energy2028 unfolds.
(02/14/19 11:00am)
Middlebury residents will vote on whether to enact legislation that would ban plastic bags within the community on March 5. A Town Hall meeting will take place the night before the vote, giving residents, business owners and members of the Selectboard a chance to discuss the proposed ban and its possible implications before making their decision.
Middlebury resident Amy McAninch and Middlebury College student Amelia Miller ’20 are spearheading the movement to ban plastic bags. Prompted by the news of other towns that have approved plastic bag bans, McAninch said she “felt really strongly that we could do this.” Since then, they have held several meetings throughout town to hear concerns, questions and suggestions about the bag ban.
On Feb. 12, two of these meetings were held at the Residence at Otter Creek, an Independent and Assisted Living Facility in Middlebury and the Ilsley Public Library. The meetings have been happening in town for months now, and McAninch and Miller’s hard work has paid off: the signatures on their petition were verified by the Town Clerk in January, which means the proposal can be voted upon in the Town Meeting. Should the motion go through, the Selectboard will then manage the exact wording and logistics of the program.
The benefits of a ban are clear from a sustainability viewpoint. The Mass Green Plastic Bag Cost Calculator shows that the town of Middlebury, with a population of 8,500, uses about 4,513,500 bags every year. These bags cost retailers $180,540 each year — a figure that doesn’t include the environmental impacts of the plastic production.
As it is now, consumers can choose to use reusable bags or recycled plastic or paper bags. However, those involved in the movement to ban plastic bags are not confident that shoppers will consistently opt for alternatives, continuing generally to use the bags supplied by retailers. The thin composition of these bags poses a problem. They can break, blow into the water, or turn into microplastic particles, thereby contaminating water sources or threatening wildlife.
The Mother Up!: Families Rise Up for Climate Change group, a project of 350Vermont, met in late January to discuss potentially banning plastic bags in Middlebury. The group, run by Ashley Laux of the college’s Center for Community Engagement, meets once a month to take action against climate change. The structure of the group mirrors similar groups throughout other Vermont communities, designed to provide a forum for families to be proactive in climate change action while also balancing their familial responsibilities. Past issues included eco-Sabbath days, where consumers change their patterns of behavior to “try to live lighter on the earth”, explained Laux. She feels that the group has helped her learn more about causes she might not have otherwise engaged with as well as making her a more conscientious consumer and environmental activist.
The group meets once a month in the Town Recreation Center, where dinner and childcare are provided by 350Vermont. According to their Facebook page, Mother Up!: Families Rise Up for Climate Action represents “a network of parents across Vermont who are coming together to take organized, empowered action to protect the health and safety of our collective future.”
The participants in the Middlebury chapter of the project engage in local action, as highlighted in January’s meeting where community members brainstormed the best ways to campaign on behalf of the ban. From letters to the Front Porch Forum and the Addison County Independent to speaking at the Town Hall Meeting next month, parents are prepared to play an active role in the environmental movement in town. They also discussed the possibility of donating reusable bags in order to reduce the worry that getting rid of plastic bags would force people to buy new bags that might be unaffordable for some.
The engagement displayed by the Mother Up!: Families Rise Up for Climate Change is reflected in the community as a whole. McAninch noted that there has been very little pushback from community members at any of the meetings so far. In fact, she noted that the next step would be to tackle plastic straw usage in town.
Laura Asermily, a member of the Middlebury Selectboard, attended the meeting as well, appearing optimistic about the success of the proposed ban. She explained that last year, 70 percent of surveyed Middlebury residents supported a ban of this nature. However, it could take about a year from the time the town votes on the possible ban to its actual implementation. The Selectboard would need to finalize logistics of getting rid of plastic bags, from grandfathering them out to providing a cheap and sustainable alternative. Those details could take a while, explained Asermily, but they would also create great change for the community.
In the meantime, Mother Up!: Families Rise Up for Climate Action has turned their efforts towards the capital. In February, the group is planning to have their children make Valentines for the Earth to deliver to the state legislature in Montpelier on their Annual Lobby Day in an effort to encourage more eco-friendly laws. Hopefully, their civic-minded dedication will provide dividends as residents cast their ballots on Feb. 5.
Middlebury students can support the ban by not using plastic bags and, whenever possible, patronizing stores who support the bag ban and are committed to building an environmentally sustainable town. Registered Middlebury voters can add their names to the petition by emailing KeepMiddleburyBeautiful@gmail.com.
(02/14/19 10:57am)
The weekend before finals, Elise Leise ’22, Leif Taranta ’20.5, Connor Wertz ’22, and I traveled to Washington D.C., and two of us got arrested. While on the surface, this may look like a series of self-destructive decisions, in actuality, traveling to D.C. was one of the best decisions we ever made.
The four of us went to Washington with the explicit purpose of lobbying Congress with about 1,000 other volunteers from the Sunrise Movement. Sunrise dedicates itself to the mission of drafting and passing the Green New Deal through Congress. Modeled off of FDR’s New Deal, the GND will make American industries more sustainable, transition our energy supply to 100 percent renewables, and create millions of green jobs.
Most importantly, the GND confronts the “justice” component of “climate justice.” By breaking up fossil fuel monopolies in addition to providing a livable wage for all workers and universal health care, the GND aims to tackle the social justice problems that facilitate the exploitation of the environment. Without this component of social justice that so many previous climate policies lacked, the GND would not confront the root of the problem: human exploitation perpetuating environmental exploitation.
Upon discovering the story of Sunrise in the news, including its successful sit-in in Nancy Pelosi’s office in November, Elise, Leif, Connor, and I knew we wanted to get involved. When the opportunity to go to D.C. presented itself to us, we soon found ourselves driving to Washington during one of the busiest weekends of fall term.
On Dec. 10, we congregated with other Sunrise volunteers in the appropriately-named Spirit of Justice Park outside of the three congressional office buildings we would be visiting. Elise, Leif, and Connor lobbied Vermont Congressman Welch with other volunteers and persuaded him to publicly endorse the Select Committee for a GND.
I collaborated with citizens of greater Reading and Philadelphia to lobby a representative from my home state, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, Rep. Matt Cartwright (PA-08) has yet to publicly endorse the Select Committee for a GND, but as the legislation makes its way to the House floor, I have hope that this will soon change.
After we lobbied 50 separate congresspeople, we combined to perform demonstrations in the offices of three high-profile representatives: Nancy Pelosi, Jim McGovern, and Steny Hoyer. Pelosi was a particularly important target, as the ability to create a Select Committee rests on the Speaker’s shoulders. Since December, Pelosi has established a powerless committee unable to create or pass legislation, but we have hope that this too will change.
On the other hand, McGovern listened to the Sunrise volunteers and publicly endorsed the committee. Now, over 43 congresspeople and congresspeople-elect have publicly supported the Select Committee for a GND, and over 300 public officials have endorsed the Committee.
Many volunteers, however, wanted to do more. Risking arrest is a method of social justice demonstration that symbolically reveals how committed individuals are to specific causes. Elise and Leif were arrested, though never convicted, of incommoding (civil disobedience). Singing and chanting with other Sunrise volunteers, both Leise and Taranta sat down in Hoyer’s office and refused to leave. After receiving polite warnings from officers, they were zip-tied and paraded out of the building.
While their arrest was probably terrifying for them, watching so many people take this risk inspired hope not just in me but across the country. That is what Sunrise is — a movement born out of hope for a more perfect world, not a movement born out of fear and darkness. In this movement, the Democratic Party is finally standing for something instead of against it. It is standing for people fighting with words and songs and true human connections instead of the violence and hatred that brought us here. The taste of those values was so addicting and inspiring that the four of us knew Dec. 10 was not the end.
Since then, we founded Sunrise Middlebury, a hub of the Sunrise Movement that can help mobilize individuals for regional, state and national actions. Now, in collaboration with Sunday Night Environmental Group (SNEG) and Middlebury townspeople, we are actively working to pass the Climate Solutions Resolution. This proposal would implement climate solutions in Middlebury like adding solar panels to schools and banning fossil fuel infrastructure in the town, but it would also petition the state government to stop construction of any new fossil fuel infrastructure. If registered Middlebury voters pass this proposal on March 5, we could stop the metaphorical bleeding of climate change in this state and could work towards additional future initiatives.
Such future initiatives could include the Vermont Green New Deal, a state-level version of the national proposals of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey. Statewide legislation like the Vermont GND is imperative in our current political situation where federal environmental policies often do more harm than good.
The Middlebury Climate Solutions Resolution and the Vermont GND will work hand-in-hand to make Vermont a national leader in sustainability. Sunrise Middlebury is working to make these initiatives possible, and Middlebury students can be a part of that.
We often feel helpless in the threat of climate change, as if every mile we drive in our petrol-powered vehicles and every piece of plastic we use will be the literal plastic straw that broke the camel’s back, that will send the world over the edge. But being surrounded by so many hopeful environmentalists advocating for policy change that would shift the burden of sustainability from people like us to the people in power — that is uplifting, that is beautiful, and that is what a free, just, democratic America looks like. If you want to be a part of that America, come to SNEG on Sunday nights at 8:30 in the Orchard of Hillcrest and get out the vote in Middlebury on March 5.
(02/14/19 10:55am)
Every year, as the fall gives way to winter and temperatures drop, Middlebury College kicks up the heat in the buildings on campus, especially in the residence halls. While Middlebury students are privileged to have these toasty buildings as a haven to escape the cold, they are often forced to seek further refuge — this time from the heat — once they are inside. The combination of the college overheating the dorms and students’ inability to have full control over their thermostat settings leads individuals to open their windows to regulate the heat, generating a ridiculous amount of wasted energy.
Creating a comfortable indoor environment is an issue across campus, even in the newer buildings such as Ridgeline and the townhouses. Middlebury boasts carbon neutrality and claims to be “committed to environmental mindfulness and stewardship in all its activities … giving a high priority to integrating environmental awareness and responsibility into the daily life of the institution.” A college with such environmental prowess should have no problem addressing something so simple as heating its residence halls efficiently, right? You would think so.
It seems that Middlebury sees this as a simple problem with an easy solution: post a color-coded guide online and around campus to show students how to beat the heat (and cold) of their dorm rooms.
But often, instead of following protocol, students seeking an immediate change in their rooms open the windows sometimes without adjusting their thermostats. Furthermore, students have reported that even with their thermostat on the lowest setting, they still experience overheating. So, is the problem that the “solution” (if you can even call it that) offered by the how-to guide is too simple, too dumbed down? Even if it is effective to a certain extent, is there more Middlebury can do to improve the efficiency of campus heating?
Middlebury could learn from the initiatives at Kenyon College, a small, private liberal arts college in Ohio, very similar in campus structure, student body and climate. Like Middlebury students, those at Kenyon had very limited control over the thermal settings in their rooms, causing uncomfortably warm inside temperatures. In an attempt to solve this issue, students used to leave their windows open throughout the winter. A 2012 energy audit performed in Kenyon’s residence halls confirmed that this resulted in higher costs and wasted energy for the college.
To improve student comfort and increase energy efficiency, Kenyon College retrofitted six residence halls with wireless energy management technology from Magnum Energy Solutions that included smart thermostats, occupancy sensors and window sensors that automate HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) in the dorms. When students open their windows, the technology sends a wireless signal to the smart thermostat, automatically turning off the HVAC system. Additionally, when students leave their rooms, the thermostat receives a signal from the occupancy sensor and automatically sets the HVAC to eco-savings mode. The software also allows the college’s facilities team to remotely configure and control the system, while providing data on the school’s energy consumption in real time. Most importantly, students have embraced the system as it saves energy and gives them more control over their own comfort.
So, Kenyon found an effective solution to this issue — great! But doesn’t it sound disruptive and costly? Not so, according to Ed Neal, sustainability director at Kenyon who said, “The operation of the system is simple and straightforward, and the installation didn’t impact regular operations at all.” And though it can be pricey to implement — Kenyon’s project cost a whopping $7 million — over the long term, the payback in energy savings will fully offset the costs.
There are also different avenues to finance the retrofit that Middlebury could consider. One option is through an Energy Services Agreement (ESA), a pay-for-performance solution that requires no up-front capital. This means that Middlebury would pay back the costs through energy savings realized on utility bills once the retrofit is complete. Metrus Energy, which happens to be the brainchild of a Middlebury alumnus, is one such company that could finance this type of project through a performance-based contract.
Middlebury’s Thermal Comfort Policy claims to “ensure the comfort of students, faculty and staff while minimizing the environmental impact of heating and cooling systems.” However, the college cannot rightly claim this while the issues of overheating the buildings and wasting energy through open windows continue. Middlebury maintains that sustainability, energy efficiency and environmental stability are integral parts of its current operations and its growth. But in order for these values to truly be pillars of the institution, Middlebury must learn to effectively control the climate within the dorms.
(02/13/19 4:20pm)
In the days preceding the Trustees’ approval of Energy2028, the Sunday Night Environmental Group (SNEG) and the SGA Environmental Affairs Committee organized a series of events, called the Fossil Free Fest, designed to familiarize people with the proposed plan. The week of activism culminated in Sunday’s vote and Tuesday’s announcement of the board’s decision to adopt Energy2028.
On Tuesday, the groups held a “Divest Your Bank Account” information session about personal divestment from fossil fuels and on Thursday, they ran shuttles between ADK and Vermont Credit Union so students could open accounts there.
Also on Thursday, there was a panel about divestment in Dana Auditorium, moderated by Environmental Sciences Professor Dan Suarez and featuring SNEG co-manager Gabe Desmond ’20.5, Scholar-in-Residence Bill McKibben, founding member of DivestMiddlebury Jeannie Bartlett ’15 and Alyssa Lee of Better Future Project.
The organizing groups called for an Orange Out on Friday, Jan. 25, in which students were asked to wear the hallmark color of DivestMiddlebury in support for Energy2028. The same day, faculty, community members and alumni gathered in Mead Chapel for a letter writing and solidarity event. Orange-clad SNEG club members asked attendees to write letters to the Board of Trustees, thanking them for their support in making Middlebury an example of environmental leadership and sharing why climate change mattered to them. In the second half of the event, attendees were asked to share thoughts aloud at the podium.
Connor Wertz ’22, a member of SNEG, spoke of his first experience with activism protesting a gas pipeline in Massachusetts and expressed his commitment toward divestment.
“I will show up until people are no longer losing their dignity and their lives from climate disasters,” he said. “I will show up until humanity is placed above profit and community above greed.”
While club members spoke positively of how receptive the Trustees and the administration have been toward making the Middlebury campus a more sustainable environment, they also reminded the audience that in many places in the world, progress remains stagnant and climate change continues to disproportionately affect marginalized people.
Joining students on stage was Fran Putnam, a 71-year-old Weybridge resident and longtime SNEG member, who spoke of how climate change will affect her three grandchildren. Putnam offered environmentally friendly recommendations to the crowd, advising people to use public transportation and eat more plant-based meals.
Food Studies Professor Molly Anderson discussed climate change’s disastrous effects on water availability, food production and biodiversity. She referred to Energy2028 as an opportunity to “stand on the side of life” and “genuine economic development.”
The event highlighted the progression of DivestMidd over time, with several alumni returning to campus to stand in solidarity with current students. Isaac Baker ’14.5 and his fellow alums drove up from Boston to show their support.
“Energy 2028 is even bolder and more comprehensive than what was being considered at the time we were here,” he said.
“I hope that Midd is a place that supports its students to critique it, and push it, and support it to be the best version of itself,” said Greta Neubauer ’14.5 in her speech. Neubauer helped start the DivestMidd campaign in 2012.
At the end of the event, attendees walked silently as a group down to Old Chapel to hand their letters to the Trustees.
Even with the success of Energy2028, the students of SNEG will continue their activism. Future efforts include supporting the rollout of Energy2028, opening a Middlebury hub of the Sunrise Movement, an organization that advocates for the Green New Deal, and encouraging town members to vote for the Climate Solutions Resolution, which petitions for climate solutions on a state level.
(01/24/19 10:59am)
In a world of sobering climate reports and inadequate national action, institutions that actively seek to propel the climate movement forward are the catalysts needed for national progress. Middlebury is one of those inspirational catalysts, and in choosing to attend Middlebury, I hoped to join its momentous wave of environmentalism. In learning about the student-led carbon neutrality campaign, the Environmental Studies Program, and the fossil fuel divestment campaign, I saw the drive, intelligence, and hope of the student body. Beyond that, I saw the unflinching support of an administration destined to pioneer true environmental stewardship.
Now with four months under my belt as a Middlebury student, I can positively assert that the Middlebury students of Sunday Night Environmental Group (SNEG), a student climate justice organization, are addressing some of the world’s most challenging problems. With its support for divestment and internal carbon pricing, SNEG is taking comprehensive action to curb the effects of climate change. Upon encountering these initiatives on campus and witnessing the process of their incorporation in the Energy 2028 proposal, my preconceived notions about the College were confirmed.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Middlebury is often recognized as a leader in sustainable higher education.[/pullquote]
The Energy 2028 proposal provides a complete transition to 100% renewables, a 25% reduction in consumption, an internal carbon pricing system, the enhancement of sustainability education, and a response to the student divestment referendum. First proposed in 2013, the student divestment ask advocates for the complete removal of approximately $53.7 million of the College’s endowment from the fossil fuel industry. It was ratified by the SGA with 79% student support, followed by faculty support of 92%. Internal carbon pricing has also received popular support over the years, as have movements for sustainability literacy and emissions reductions. Because Middlebury is often recognized as a leader in sustainable higher education, the idea of sustained fossil fuel use and investments appear contradictory to the College’s identity. Through Energy 2028, the Middlebury community and Board of Trustees have an exciting opportunity to demonstrate their support for environmental justice.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]There is a need for a vision, a desire for a “so what” that can mobilize entire battalions of climate activists.[/pullquote]
Being at the College now amidst the whirlwind of the divestment campaign, however, I understand the nuances of this 6-year project. I understand that change can feel impossible; humans have a tendency to wait for the 11th hour, the 59th minute. I understand that each community member acts with the best of intentions for the College and that the Board of Trustees prioritizes fiduciary responsibility to students and the school. Divestment from fossil fuels and the other components of Energy 2028 align with this goal. In acting on Energy 2028, the College can take leadership in the realm of climate action and its mission of global leadership, while also maintaining fiscal responsibility. This positive action provides an unparalleled opportunity for Middlebury to catalyze progress in the realm of environmentalism.
Ultimately, positive action is part of a larger need within the environmental movement, a need for a broadening of the conversation around energy. There is a need for a vision, a desire for a “so what” that can mobilize entire battalions of climate activists. For it will not be fear that motivates and mobilizes but rather innovation and ingenuity that will charge the troops and launch them into action. What do we want to find when the dust settles and the noise dies? We must advocate for that world we want to see, not against an ungodly alternative.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]SNEG hopes to show the Board, the students, the faculty, staff, alumni, state, and country what our world can be.[/pullquote]
When I went to Washington D.C. on December 10th to protest with the Sunrise Movement for a Select Committee for a Green New Deal, I saw a movement that painted a picture of that beautiful world so many of us hope to live in one day. I saw a diverse but equal society, a government that truly protects its people from the corrupting influences of fossil fuel money, a clean country, a green country, a society that is healthy and employed and happy. The kind of hope produced from a movement like Sunrise is the type of hope so close you can taste it.
I taste this type of hope in the energy here at Middlebury. Yes, Divest Midd is against the idea of financially endorsing and enabling the activities of exploitative companies and individuals within the fossil fuel industry. However, more importantly, SNEG hopes to show the Board, the students, the faculty, staff, alumni, state, and country what our world can be. We can be a country that puts our money where our mouths are, a country that fully embodies leadership in progress and innovation, a country that actively chases the values of responsibility, integrity, creativity, and contribution we so espouse. Ultimately, though, that transition to a just, responsible, clean country can only come when institutions and individuals push for it, when they break the ground in acts like Energy 2028.
We are asking our school to end its ownership of the industry poisoning our homes and our futures. We are making the economics of green initiatives more feasible. We are truly achieving the carbon neutrality that has been the face of our environmental identity and taking responsibility for the consumption patterns that have created this global problem in the first place. We are empowering students and magnifying voices, challenging the status quo and demanding the higher standards we know our school is capable of achieving. Taking positive action on Energy 2028 can propel our school and our country on a path to change the world. My only question is, why on Earth would you want to stop that?
Note: Anyone wishing to support these causes can attend the following events:
Thursday, 01/24:
Personal Divestment Action 1:00 at ADK
Divest Panel at 4:30 in Dana Auditorium
Friday 01/25:
School-wide Orange-Out All Day
Letter-Writing Event at 1:00 at Mead Chapel
Storytelling Event 2:00 at Mead Chapel
(01/17/19 10:59am)
In recent months, we have become aware of concerns that divestment might present a risk to financial aid. Divest Middlebury would like to state publicly that the accessibility of our institution is a top priority for our group. We are a climate justice organization that stands for racial, gender and economic equity. Financial aid is a priority of our group as a whole and also of personal importance to many of our organizers. In writing this op-ed we also hope to stress the economic benefits of divestment and reaffirm our commitment to our fellow students. Arguments that pit financial aid and environmental justice against each other are unfair and inaccurate. These arguments ultimately put the burden for climate inaction on Middlebury College’s most vulnerable students.
There is ample evidence that divestment from fossil fuels is a financially savvy decision. In the official referendum ratified by the student body, SGA and the faculty, Divest Middlebury asked the Board to pledge to divest all holdings in the top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel corporations over a five-year time period. This extended timeline would allow the college’s investment managers to divest holdings in a controlled way, ensure low financial risk, and reinvest in more profitable and sustainable industries.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]There is no evidence that divested financial institutions experience increased losses.[/pullquote]
In 2010, MSCI, a prominent provider of stock market indices and analysis, created two investment indices of the largest 9,500 corporations, one that included fossil fuel investments and another that did not. Over the next five years, the fossil-free portfolio averaged an annual return .97 percent higher than the index including fossil fuel corporations. If $1 billion had been invested in the fossil free index in 2010, it would now be worth $2.24 billion, whereas its counterpart would be worth $2.13 billion. In 2017, fossil fuels were also the second worst performing sector in the S&P 500 stock market index, losing four percent compared to market gains of 19 percent. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a fortune that made its money in the fossil fuel industry, recently published a report stating that the Fund’s success has shown that fossil fuel divestment “can be done without causing harm to the overall performance of your investment portfolio.” These sentiments are shared by the nearly 1,000 other institutions that have pledged to divest. A recent analysis by investment strategist Jeremy Grantham found that there was no evidence that divested financial institutions experience increased losses. Similarly, another study demonstrates the potential financial penalties for not divesting, suggesting that New York State pension funds have lost $22 billion by staying invested in fossil fuels.
Stranded assets theory confirms the financial risk of not divesting: continued investment only exposes portfolios to risk, since marketed valuation of fossil fuel corporations is contingent upon the burning of 942 gigatons of carbon reserves. Fossil fuel corporations cannot approach their market valuation without ignoring the Paris Climate Agreement, which restricts future carbon emissions to 800 gigatons. Failure to divest puts our endowment at unnecessary risk of the carbon bubble caused by stranded assets. Furthermore, when other institutions of higher education have divested, donations have significantly increased. For all of these reasons, we believe that divestment is the fiscally responsible action.
Even in the unlikely case that Middlebury loses returns due to divestment, losses should not impact financial aid. Investments in the top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel companies make up 0.6 percent of Middlebury’s endowment, with 5 percent of the endowment having exposure in the entire fossil fuel industry. Currently, 25 percent of Middlebury’s endowment goes toward financial aid. In the case of any loss due to discontinued exposure to the fossil fuel industry, risk would be spread evenly across the endowment. It is unlikely that fossil fuels outperform the rest of the market and all alternative investments, yet even if fossil fuels outperformed the other 95 percent of investments by 10 BP points (.1 percent), the impact of not being invested in the fossil fuels industry would be $55,000 from our total endowment. This would result in a total loss of $13,750 from financial aid, a minimal loss in comparison to millions our school commits to financial aid each year. In the past, Middlebury has not cut its institutional commitment to funding financial aid in years of poor endowment performance. For this reason, individuals who argue that financial aid should be the first thing to be cut reveal much more about their own priorities than the priorities of the college or the divest movement.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Divestment represents an important action that Middlebury can take to condemn climate change, support the college mission statement, and protect students’ futures.[/pullquote]
It is unfair and insulting to use students on financial aid as an excuse for inaction and the perpetuation of injustice. Divestment represents an important action that Middlebury can take to condemn climate change, support the college mission statement, and protect students’ futures. We would like to point out that students of more vulnerable socio-economic backgrounds are statistically more likely than wealthier classmates to experience negative impacts from fossil fuel infrastructure and environmental injustice. We are here to learn the skills necessary to protect our families and home communities from climate change. Falsely using our education as an argument to continue investment in the same industry that is hurting us is both cruel and flawed.
In the end, discourse that frames divestment as being at odds with financial aid is fearmongering. We know that divestment and financial aid can go hand in hand and we are thrilled to stand for both. We regret that our fellow classmates may have felt nervous about the financial impacts of divestment and will happily participate in further conversation about concerns regarding this issue. As always, our movement is open to everyone, especially those most marginalized by the climate crisis. We will not allow our educations to be used as a rhetorical device with which to jeopardize our futures as we move towards climate justice together.
(01/17/19 10:57am)
Donald Trump’s election stunned the Democratic Party. An unprecedented campaign yielded an unimagined result. Election night climaxed with televisions splashing images of sobbing Hillary supporters and euphoric MAGA-hatted Trump acolytes.
Democrats were due for this rude awakening. Republicans have dominated the recent political landscape, and, prior to the 2018 election, Democrats held fewer elected positions in the United States than at any time since the 1920s. However, it took someone as appalling as Trump for us to realize our current political inefficacy and start discussing a viable path to restored political power.
The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake summarized the Democrat’s historically bad position in 2016. Republicans in that year controlled:
- 33 of 50 governorships: a record.
- 68 out of 98 state legislative chambers: tied for the record.
- The entire legislatures in 33 out of 50 states: another record.
- 4,171 out of 7,383 state legislative seats (56.5 percent of all seats): yet another record.
Republican power at the local and state levels eclipsed Democrats’ power even before Trump took office. Liberals were either ignorant or complacent about that fact. Our party needed revamping: one that cared not only about getting the issues “right”, but also one that valued winning elections. After all, in a democracy, the losers do not get to make the rules. After the 2018 election, that revamping may become a reality if we can set aside ideological purity for pragmatic decisions that win seats in diverse districts (beyond liberalism’s coastal strongholds).
Once Trump took office, his antics and bigotry energized Democrats. The erratic President and his controversies captured our attention. We watched as Trump and a GOP Congress chaotically pursued a regressive agenda that featured tax cuts for the rich, an almost successful attempt to repeal Obamacare, a ballooning fiscal deficit, a retreat on climate change regulations, and the separation of children from their families at the border.
In last November’s midterm elections, the Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, implemented an effective electoral strategy. Rather than repeating Hillary Clinton’s failed strategy during the 2016 campaign, which emphasized Trump’s moral failings but did not articulate a clear alternative vision to cure the country’s ills, Democratic leaders encouraged their candidates to stress health care, increased wages, decreased prescription drug prices, and other kitchen-table issues. The Democrats’ economic message in 2018 resonated with a broad coalition of voters across the country, and the Party gained forty seats and won the House.
Despite their midterm success, Democrats remain divided over how the party should proceed.
One group argues that Democratic candidates won elections because they advocated progressive policies like universal basic income, Medicare for All, and free college, while also calling for the abolition of ICE and Trump’s impeachment. Fearless progressivism, they claim, stirred the base of younger voters, many of whom were women and minorities. This cadre was led by the exciting victories of representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley, and the near victory of Beto O’Rourke in dead red Texas.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Democrats seeking to flip Republican voters and win contested districts must focus on health care and jobs.[/pullquote]
However, Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley did not gain seats for the Democrats. They simply took seats that had been held by reliable, albeit a bit more centrist, liberal Democrats. O’Rourke lost. Moreover, their progressive voices have pushed the party left, endangering moderate Democrats in centrist areas.
More centrist Democrats recognize that, if you want to address Democrats’ lack of political power, you need to win seats that were previously Republican or hold onto Democratic seats in areas that often vote conservative. Last November, Pelosi helped Democratic candidates find success in moderate districts by resisting her party’s pull to the left. Pelosi’s San Francisco voters pushed her to confront Trump on immigration and funding for Planned Parenthood, but she refused. “Those things are in our DNA, but they are not in our talking points,” Pelosi said.
Research shows that Pelosi’s strategy of forsaking hot-button, wedge issues in favor of a focus on economic populism is best. Extensive polling and focus group research collected by the House Majority PAC indicates that Democrats seeking to flip Republican voters and win contested districts must focus on health care and jobs.
There are many examples of Pelosi’s strategy bearing fruit. For example, Conor Lamb won a traditionally Republican district in western Pennsylvania by emphasizing health care and tax equity. This was a big gain for the Democratic Party, and should not be dismissed because Lamb took conservative stances on gun rights and supported Trump’s tariff policy, positions that aligned with the voters in his district. In West Virginia, which Trump carried by the widest margin in the entire nation (an astounding 42 percent gap), Democrat Joe Manchin held on to his Senate seat because voters saw him as fighting for the economically disadvantaged. To do this, Manchin had to show some conservative bona fides, such as voting to confirm Justice Kavanaugh, opposing abortion, and receiving an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association as recently as 2012. While he would not have been an ideal Democratic candidate in Massachusetts or California, he was the only kind of Democrat that has a shot at winning in West Virginia.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Because of the more extreme left’s quest for purity on this issue, the Democrats lost an important Senate seat.[/pullquote]
Liberal purity on social wedge issues often undermines moderate Democrats who campaign in red states and threatens recent Democratic successes. Take the midterm election in Missouri, a state Trump won by nineteen points. Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill lost her seat last November in part because of criticism from abortion activists. Throughout the election, young progressives denounced McCaskill for not being a sufficiently prominent, vocal supporter of women’s reproductive freedoms. What these progressive attacks failed to acknowledge was McCaskill’s strong, pro-choice voting record.
In an interview with the New York Times after her loss, McCaskill called the abortion activists “irritating … It would’ve been one thing if I ever wavered, but I’ve had to take a lot of tough votes on this issue over the years. I have been standing in the breach for women’s rights as it relates to reproductive freedom for all of my adult life.” In the end, Missouri elected Senator Josh Hawley, a staunch pro-life Republican. Because of the more extreme left’s quest for purity on this issue, the Democrats lost an important Senate seat. They also ironically replaced a consistent vote for reproductive rights with a Republican whom Planned Parenthood called “An anti-abortion zealot who wants to take America back to the days of the 1950s.”
The left needs to stop setting up circular firing squads. When activists make contentious issues litmus tests for holding office, it hurts moderate Democrats campaigning in conservative states. Our candidates need to be able to attract votes in socially-conservative districts without fearing retribution from coastal progressives. As former House Speaker Tip O’Neill said, “All politics is local.” Let’s broaden the Democratic tent, and allow centrist voices to campaign in moderate districts.
(12/06/18 10:57am)
Discussions during a recent reunion of the department of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies (GSFS) led alumni to write a letter to President Laurie L. Patton, calling for her condemnation of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ proposed changes to Federal Title IX policy that the letter identifies as “regressive” and “terrifying.”
In a message scheduled to be sent to the community on Wednesday as of press time, Patton commented on the proposed changes to Title IX policy without mentioning the alumni letter. When The Campus asked the college whether Patton would respond directly to the letter, College Spokesperson Bill Burger referred The Campus to Patton’s statement.
The reunion, which took place at the college on Nov. 17, brought graduated GSFS majors and current students in the department together to discuss various strategies of activism against sexual violence at the college. The changes to Title IX that DeVos announced on the morning of Nov. 16 quickly became a focus of discussion, with attendees expressing particular concern about a new policy that would require schools to offer a trial option, in which both parties would be cross-examined by the other party’s advocate.
The discussions at the reunion prompted six GSFS alumni who graduated between 2008 and 2016 to sign a 500-word letter and email it to President Patton. The letter was drafted in the days following the reunion and sent to her on Nov. 20. Their goal, they said, is to ensure that the college would continue to provide survivors of sexual assault support under the proposed new federal laws.
“The policy proposed by Betsy DeVos threatens to return us to an era where campus sexual assault is pushed under the rug,” Maddie Orcutt ’16, one of the letter’s signees, wrote in an email to The Campus. “As someone who lived through an era where campus sexual misconduct proceedings were inaccessible to survivors and opaque at best, let me assure you we do not want to return to that era. It’s important to get the college on record about its policies and procedures because it promotes transparency and accountability.”
Beyond calling for Patton’s condemnation of the cross-examination rule and DeVos’ Title IX policy changes as a whole, the signees reflected on the importance of protest and activism as part of their time at Middlebury, writing that activism was “integral to our educations and to the very formation of our identities” during their time here. Noting the importance of activism to any student’s ability to speak out against sexual assault on college campuses, the letter calls current Middlebury College protest policies “managed and restricted” in ways that the alumni fear may be limiting students’ voices as they attempt to grapple with issues such as sexual assault and Title IX laws on campus.
Through conversations with students during the Nov. 17 alumni reunion, the six alumni signees of the letter — Orcutt, Emily Pedowitz, ’13, Margo Cramer ’12, Kolbe Franklin ’08, Luke Carroll Brown ’14 and Kristina Johansson ’14 — felt that the culture surrounding campus activism had changed over the years and that these changes needed to be addressed in the letter.
“What is clear from our time on campus is that students are terrified of Betsy DeVos’ recently announced Title IX policy. What is also clear to us is that Middlebury students are equally as terrified of speaking out on a campus where protest is now so managed and restricted,” the letter reads. “When we listened to students this weekend, we didn’t see the anger that had been such a catalyzing emotion for all of us. We saw students who were defeated, disillusioned, and shutdown.”
The alumni view current college protest policies as curtailing students’ ability to start conversations and hold demonstrations related to sexual assault on campus, a development they see as alarming in what the letter identifies as today’s “chilly political climate.”
“Based on my understanding of these policies, the effectiveness of activism is likely hindered due to the ways in which these policies restrict the creativity and visibility of necessary forms of activism,” Franklin said.
The letter closes with three demands that the alumni hope to see addressed in Patton’s response.
“We are asking you to go on the record to publicly state the following,” the letter reads.“That Middlebury will continue to adhere to a preponderance of the evidence standard in Title IX proceedings; that live cross-examination in Title IX cases will curb reporting and make our campus less safe; and that Middlebury College does not think that Betsy DeVos’ recently announced Title IX policy is in the best interest of Middlebury students.”
Ultimately, the authors hope that the letter will help survivors of sexual assault at Middlebury receive the recognition and support they need.
Patton has issued statements on controversial Trump administration rulings in the past, such as the amendments to DACA and legal recognition of transgender people. The alumni who penned the letter hoped to see a similar level of recognition for survivors of sexual assault after DeVos’ Title IX announcement.
“In the midst of our current political climate, there is such an importance for schools, organizations and leaders to actively speak up and against policies that fail to protect vulnerable populations and that promote a culture of intolerance,” Pedowitz said. “I believe this allows students to feel safe and protected by their organization when there is so much chaos, unknown and intolerance being perpetrated politically in the national landscape.”
(11/15/18 10:57am)
After 23 years in higher education, Andi Lloyd is leaving Middlebury to pursue a higher calling.
Lloyd, the dean of the faculty and a Biology professor, will leave the college at the end of this academic year to attend divinity school. She is currently applying to schools and plans to become an ordained minister.
“If you had told me that two years ago, I would have been surprised to hear it,” Lloyd said. After all, she only began regularly attending church a little over a year ago.
Lloyd first came to Middlebury as a biology professor in the fall of 1996, straight out of graduate school at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. She had attended Dartmouth College as an undergraduate.
“I was really interested in teaching at a liberal arts college, and I loved Vermont. This was my dream job which I didn’t think I’d get, but I applied anyway,” she said.
[pullquote speaker="Andi Lloyd" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]My desire to have a life that included faith is longstanding — it dates back to childhood.[/pullquote]
She accepted her current administrative role in the 2012-13 academic year. “I really liked thinking at the institutional level. I liked thinking about the whole college enterprise,” Lloyd said. It also allowed her to advance the work that brought her to Middlebury.
“Administrative work is exciting because it furthers that thing that I deeply love, which is classroom teaching,” she said. Lloyd has continued to teach biology and ecology classes as well as continued her research on the effects of climate change on northern forests. Now, Lloyd said, “I’m leaving all of that behind.”
She made the decision to leave academia and apply to divinity school within the last year.
“It was one of those life-cracked-open moments of a pathway presenting itself that I had never imagined was there, so it’s a recent turn,” Lloyd said. Although her parents grew up going to church, she only went as a young child and on Christmas.
“My desire to have a life that included faith is longstanding — it dates back to childhood,” she said. “I’ve just been really good at ignoring it for large stretches of my life.”
A little over a year ago, Lloyd finally acknowledged this desire and began regularly attending the congregational church in town.
“It was over the period of three or four months that followed from that— just this deepening sense that I had found the place I was supposed to be,” she said. “I fairly quickly began to think about how much I wanted to be in that world all the time.”
[pullquote speaker="Andi Lloyd" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]There’s a way in which that same interest in thinking about issues of environmental justice and how we are in the world can be approached from the perspective of ministry.[/pullquote]
Divinity schools prepare students for entry into the clergy, and the student’s religious faith is an integral part of their experience — unlike seminaries, however, divinity schools are attached to universities. After earning her Masters of Divinity, Lloyd can be ordained.
Although she will soon stop teaching and end her research, Lloyd sees a link between ecology and divinity. “It doesn’t feel to me like I am entirely leaving that world of biology and ecology behind, I think there are big pieces of it that carry forward,” Lloyd said. “There’s a way in which that same interest in thinking about issues of environmental justice and how we are in the world can be approached from the perspective of ministry.”
She also sees a connection between ethics and one’s obligation to the planet and other species, as well as a similar appreciation for the Earth.
“There’s a lot around reverence for the natural world,” Lloyd said. “Whether I frame that as the person with a PhD in evolutionary biology or whether I frame that as a Christian, there’s surprising overlap there, in terms of just opening oneself up to the amazement of this planet we live on.”
Other scholars have examined the relationship between the natural world and Christian faith. The Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale Divinity School, for example, is dedicated to exploring this connection.
After graduating from divinity school, Lloyd plans to become a pastor at a congregational church.
“The emphasis of the denomination as a whole on social justice and environmental justice, things that are near and dear to my heart, is really, really important,” Lloyd said. “I would love to be back in Vermont, but that’s not mine to decide.”
Lloyd has the uniform support of the congregation in Middlebury and of her family and friends. “I feel so lucky to have the people in my life that I do,” she said. “A surprising number of them have expressed a lack of surprise, and I don’t fully understand where that comes from.”
After more than 20 years working in academia, Lloyd is making an undeniably enormous transition. “There are still big pieces of this that I don’t fully understand,” she said. “I have a sense of amazement looking back at the last year of my life, and that amazement is full of some mysteries, some things that I generally don’t understand.”
(11/01/18 9:59am)
(11/01/18 9:59am)
“You are part of the performance,” artist Néle Azevedo told the crowd of students, professors, community members, children and a few dogs that gathered at the base of the Davis Library steps last Tuesday evening.
At the center of the crowd were two large freezers holding 400 eight-inch-tall figurines of men and women made of ice, the centerpieces of Azevedo’s renowned installment titled, “Minimum Monument: Art as Emergency.”
The piece, which involves ceremoniously “sitting” all of the figurines in line to then watch them gradually melt, is an environmentally-conscious performance event that serves as a visual metaphor for climate change.
Azevedo handed the first figurine to a little girl, commencing the display before crowds swarmed the artist and her team in order to take part. When first placed, the figurines held a crisp ghostly frost, sitting firmly on the steps where they were positioned. Once they began to melt, however, they slowly turned transparent and thinned ominously in unison. It was for this reason that Azevedo chose ice as her medium, describing it as poetic material for the installment.
Each figurine is made using a mold, after which Azevedo and her team hand-file and chip away at the ice to get the perfect shape. She described the process as grounding and meditative, emphasizing the importance of working with volunteers and members of the community that the piece is taking place in. It is this process that gives each figure an unmistakable human presence, making the piece both eerie and powerful as the frosty, featureless figures sit with their heads bent to watch the melted water slowly drip from their toes. Azevedo uses this facelessness to emphasize the unity of man, claiming, “I celebrate the anonymous figure” rather than any singularly powerful person. This is why the piece presents many small figures instead of one large one, she continued.
“I conceived this work subverting the characteristics of the official monuments,” she said. “It is an anti-monument.”
Azevedo was invited to make her U.S. “Minimum Monument” debut by University of Vermont Professor Maria Woolson, who hosted the exhibit’s first showing on the school’s campus before coming to Middlebury. Prior to the Vermont installments, however, the monument had made a global name for itself. Azevedo has brought her art to countries throughout Europe, Asia and South America and frequently showcases the ice sculptures in Brazil, her home country. The largest was a display of approximately 5,000 figurines in Birmingham, UK in 2014.
Azevedo applied a broader context to her art by addressing the crowds about the threats facing the Amazon rainforest in her home country of Brazil.
Although the installation’s message is widely interpreted as a metaphor for the broad topic of climate change, the piece is meant to be somewhat interpretive, and it is not the first time “Minimum Monument” has been used as commentary on specific events.
Once, at a performance in Italy, it coincidentally took place in the midst of a protest on school privatization and was thus interpreted by the crowd as a metaphor for the children within Italy’s education system.
Again, though more intentionally this time, the piece was used in Brazil to protest plans for a construction of a dam that would uproot indigenous people from their homes. It was there that the monument took on its most blunt message as Azevedo molded one solitary female figurine out of her own blood to melt among the water. It was not until 2009 that the piece became distinctly known for its message on climate change, though Azevedo believes this interpretation to be paramount.
“Words are not enough,” said Azevedo on climate change.
Although the “Minimum Monument’s” figurines typically take 40 minutes to melt after they’re set up, the sunless mid-40s Vermont afternoon was not so obliging. The piece was still vaguely visible about four hours later on the Davis steps, though this became a part of its power.
Like climate change, the piece does not always present a clear and blatant progression. Instead, it gradually transformed over time.
The change was even more pronounced hours later as the melting and broken figures glowed in the fading twilight.
