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(03/08/18 2:35am)
Frederick Weston ’79 came to speak at Middlebury on Thursday, March 1 in the Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest. In his speech, entitled “Decarbonizing an Economy: Electricity, Coal, and the Threat of a Good Example,” Weston discussed topics ranging from his career and his time at Middlebury to more serious topics, such as what he sees as the most significant hindrances to the global adoption of renewable energy.
After graduating from Middlebury with a B.A. in theatre, Weston decided to change paths and enter the world of consulting, working for the American International Group with a focus on the Arabian oil business. After several years there and realizing that there were many issues within the United States yet to be addressed, Weston decided to face domestic environmental problems head-on by working for the Vermont Public Service Board in regulating utilities. In 1999 he joined the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), where he still works today as the director of their China Program. Weston has dedicated his life’s work to creating more efficient and cleaner ways to produce and share energy.
Weston framed his talk around the fact that energy is the cause of and solution to all the world’s environmental problems, going at this idea from several sides of the issue. Weston believes we need to “decarbonize electricity, then electrify industry, transportation and buildings.” With the current technology, changing our energy systems from fossil fuels to renewable energy would be possible and relatively quick. The costs of renewable energy are getting lower, and thus more competitive with the cost of fossil fuels as technology improves. Electric power is getting cleaner and clean cars are getting more accessible and widespread.
Yet many obstacles stand in our way of transitioning to renewable energy, many of which trace back to money, which Weston outlined in his talk. Weston believes we must rearrange our economy so that people, both users and producers, are rewarded and make money by doing the right thing. Some of the more surface-level suggestions Weston proposed are investing in energy efficiency, redesigning wholesale markets to encourage buyers, using electricity more efficiently to use less energy, tracking the demands of energy users and responding economically to change pricing.
More foundational changes that Weston proposed concern mostly policy changes that need to come from coordinated efforts from government officials and energy companies. Two of the most common ways for the government to regulate corporate energy use and climate effects are “cap and trade” (or cap and invest) and “pollution pricing.” “Cap and trade” penalizes companies that exceed a limit on greenhouse gas emissions decided by scientists. Companies that emit less than their limit can then trade (or invest) their extra emissions to other companies, therefore rewarding companies that emit less. The caps on emissions are currently going down, encouraging a reduction in emissions on a broad scale. “Pollution pricing,” similar to a carbon tax, also puts a limit on emissions, but companies that over pollute must pay fines. Weston emphasized the need to reinvest income into renewable energy. Companies could put the money they make from shares of emissions into renewable energy research rather than selling their shares.
Weston concluded his talk by discussing the example set by China, which has issues with air pollution and premature deaths due to climate change and fossil fuel emissions. Like China has done, Weston believes, the United States should introduce a wide-scale limit on carbon emissions, reduce the use of coal in our industries and economy and increase energy efficiency. In Weston’s opinion, this all can be achieved without dislocation in the economy. Good policy and good markets designed to drive results and reward low carbon usage will help us avoid depletion of our natural resources and further harm to our environment.
(03/07/18 11:53pm)
This is the first in a series of three op-eds from the carbon pricing campaign at Middlebury. This week’s is focused on the federal level, next week’s is focused on carbon pricing in Vermont, and the last week’s endorses a carbon pricing mechanism at Middlebury College. To learn more or to get involved, come to Sunday Night Environmental Group at 8 p.m. at Hillcrest.
It is unacceptable and irresponsible for Middlebury to further delay joining the other colleges and universities that have endorsed carbon pricing. If you have ever watched “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Before the Flood” or another climate documentary, you were probably left with a bitter taste of dread and a sense of helplessness. While these documentaries do a great job of highlighting the danger of climate change, they often stop short of presenting real, practical policy to address climate change. Middlebury College, a long-time leader in environmental activism, must stand by its values and students by endorsing carbon pricing policy.
The idea behind a carbon price is simple: the government collects a tax for every ton of carbon dioxide which is emitted. A commonly held misconception is that this tax would disproportionately harm the pocketbooks of lower-income people; however, most proposed plans include rebates and tax returns to account for the increased cost on consumers. Funds can also be used to invest in building and researching clean energy solutions.
Carbon pricing is not radical, nor is it flashy. But it works. It is an equitable and science-based first step in combating climate change which accounts for the real cost of burning fossil fuels. This tax would work within the market to incentivize replacing fossil fuels with clean energy. A carbon tax is rooted in neoliberal economic theory –– it has also been shown to work in markets around the globe. According to Vox, over 40 countries currently have or are implementing carbon pricing.
British Columbia, Canada, has had a carbon tax since 2008. From 2007 to 2014 the province decreased carbon emissions by 5.5 percent despite an 8.1 percent increase in population. Over this same time, the province’s real GDP increased by 12.4 percent. Sans economic jargon, a carbon tax improved both the economy and the environment. According to The Globe and Mail, British Columbia’s carbon tax has been so successful that the Canadian government is instituting a national carbon tax by the end of 2018.
Support for carbon pricing spans the political spectrum. Carbon pricing has been endorsed by Barack Obama, Lindsey Graham, Angela Merkel, Rex Tillerson and even our very own Bill McKibben. These endorsements make it easier to have a national conversation about carbon pricing. In 2009, the American Clean Energy and Security Act passed the House but was never brought to a vote in the Senate. This bill would have instituted a national cap-and-trade market like that found in the EU. The bill was never brought to a vote due to a lack of enthusiasm from lawmakers to do so at the time. In the midst of the financial crash and the efforts to pass Obamacare, potential carbon pricing legislation was ignored. In order to let legislators know that there is public support for carbon pricing, we must continue to gain nonpartisan support from our institutional leaders.
This year, Sunday Night Environmental Group (SNEG), along with the Environmental Council, partnered with Our Climate’s national Put A Price On It campaign. One of the goals of this campaign is to gain endorsements from college presidents to demonstrate to lawmakers that institutions shaping tomorrow’s leaders are committed to solving climate change. In the past year, over 35 colleges have officially endorsed Put A Price On It, including UC Berkeley, Swarthmore College and Wesleyan College. We have collected over 1,200 signatures from Middlebury students asking the administration to also endorse carbon pricing. Given that the new Middlebury College mission statements aims to “foster the inquiry, equity, and agency necessary for [students] to practice ethical citizenship at home and far beyond our Middlebury campuses,” it is our sincere hope that our educational leaders will lend their support in this critical struggle.
(03/01/18 1:18am)
Particularly in the current political climate, the fact that women make up less than 20 percent of the representatives in Congress concerns many. Elect Her is a national program that encourages more women to run for government and gives them the skills and resources necessary to alter this pattern of male-dominated political leadership.
On Saturday, March 3, the Women’s Resource Center at Chellis House is bringing the Elect Her workshop to Middlebury’s campus. Also sponsored by Feminist Action at Middlebury (FAM), Middlebury College Democrats, the Center for Community Engagement, MiddVote, the Student Government Association (SGA) and the political science department, the workshop will run from 12:30–4 p.m. in Wilson Hall of McCullough.
All female-identifying or non-binary students are encouraged to attend by signing up at go/electher. Free sushi and desserts will be available for lunch.
The Elect Her program was originally developed in 2007 by Running Start and the American Association of University Women (AAUW), national nonprofit organizations that train young women interested in politics to run for office. Running Start has discovered that only four women in Congress today are under 40 years old, and that although women running for office win at the same rates as men, many fewer women run in the first place. As a result, Running Start’s mission is to empower young women to find their voice and gain the confidence they need to put themselves out there.
In addition to their Elect Her program, which alone visits about 50 colleges per year and has trained over 10,000 college women since its creation, Running Start also runs several internships and has recently initiated a social-media campaign to challenge sexism in politics. Distributing sheets of paper that read #ILookLikeAPolitician at their workshops, Running Start has encouraged young women to pose with the hashtag and post their photos to social media in order to change societal perceptions of who can be a leader.
Rana Abdelhamid ’15, now an internationally recognized human-rights advocate, first brought the Elect Her program to Middlebury in 2013. It found huge success, with about 100 students in attendance.
However, the workshop has not been held at Middlebury since, and Chellis House director Karin Hanta, who collaborated with Abdelhamid five years ago and went on sabbatical immediately afterward, initiated its return this March.
“At the time we did [the first workshop], there hadn’t been a female student-government president for a long time,” Hanta said. Following the workshop, a female SGA president was voted into office for the first time in what Hanta estimated to be about seven years.
Though female representatives now make up 50 percent of Middlebury’s SGA, this statistic is not reflected at the state or national level, and Hanta said that she decided to bring the Elect Her workshop back to Middlebury in light of the current political climate. “We just want to keep up the heat,” she said.
Susannah Wellford, who is the co-founder of both Running Start and the Women Under Forty Political Action Committee (WUFPAC), will facilitate the Elect Her workshop this year. She co-founded WUFPAC, Running Start’s predecessor, in 1999 with a similar dedication to electing young women to political office. The organization is now the only nonpartisan political action committee in the United States.
Ruth Hardy, Lauren Sampson and Kristina Guerrero Sylvester from Emerge Vermont will also be attending the workshop to speak on a panel about local female elected officials. Hardy is the executive director of Emerge Vermont, which is the state chapter of Emerge America, a democratic training program for women leaders that supports candidates throughout their campaigns. Sampson and Sylvester are both alumni of Emerge Vermont’s program, and Sylvester is also the founder and CEO of TurboPUP, a company that sells compact bars of dog food to take on the go.
Throughout the four-hour training, students will work in both small and large groups to develop leadership skills. The four central exercises will help students formulate their main campaign issue, learn how to build their network of support and give an elevator pitch and then give them a taste of a real campaign through a group simulation. The workshop will also include an interview with two female representatives from Middlebury’s SGA about their own experiences running for office.
Though the Elect Her workshop is designed to train young women to run for government positions, this year’s program organizers emphasized that the training can be beneficial for anyone.
“[The workshop] is really good for getting women into government positions and that kind of thing, but also for just general leadership and being inspired in that way,” said workshop organizer Mikayla Hyman ’20. “These are general skills that cross over no matter what you want your career to be, and there are a lot of different ways you can learn from this.”
(02/22/18 2:23am)
On Friday Feb. 16, Dr. Barney Ellison came to the college to give a talk on climate change and renewable energy. Ellison received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at Yale after studying biology at Trinity College in Connecticut. He is now a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he also runs an organic chemistry research laboratory. His recent interests are in climate science and the effects of aerosols.
Ellison began the lecture by introducing the practice of chemical testing done to air particles to reveal what dangerous chemicals are present in the air, such as carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases. He then discussed the quantities and extent of damage done by such harmful gases and chemicals, showing the audience infrared spectroscopy graphs, which are used to analyze chemical compounds in the air.
Additionally, Ellison discussed the environmental effects of climate change, notably found in the melting of ice in Greenland. All of his findings about these effects were supported by his calculations of the quantities of chemicals in the air.
Ellison reminded the audience that within this century, the world could run out of fossil fuels for energy use and that it is up to students to find alternative energy sources to fix this problem. He proposed that solar and nuclear power would be the best sources of energy in the coming years, noting that France gets the majority of its energy from nuclear sources. However, he emphasized that a safer source of nuclear energy is needed before it can become more widespread.
Ellison also brought up the possibility of chemically removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, though he questioned the ability of this method to combat such an extensive problem.
With such a large Environmental Science program at Middlebury, Ellison’s call to action hopefully resonated with many of the members of the science community. Ellison ended with a call to the scientific community to emphatically dedicate its resources and focus in on climate change research.
(02/15/18 1:43am)
Middlebury’s Board of Trustees invests our billion-dollar endowment in a fashion that resembles a clandestine mission, code-named Operation Profit. We know little about where our money is invested, the global impact of these investments appears purposely obscured, and the college community of faculty, staff, and students has zero input on investment decisions. We only know that Middlebury’s endowment includes $60 million worth of stock in fossil fuel corporations due to years of campaigning for this basic information.
As a coordinating committee member of Divest Middlebury, I drove across the East coast to document the destruction of Operation Profit. I walked on blown-up mountains, visited impoverished communities living at the base of power-generating stations, and observed lakes blackened with coal slurry. As an Environmental Policy major, I was well aware of these acts of eco-genocide. However, witnessing the impact of Middlebury’s ownership of $60 million in fossil fuel investments and $750 thousand in coal assets specifically brought me to tear.
These investments hurt not only the places I visited, but contribute to injustices across the globe. Climate change, while produced primarily by wealthy nations, disproportionately harms those in the Global South, especially people of color, women, and those living in poverty. How could my beloved “carbon neutral” institution justify its ownership of any fossil fuel project? By defending these unjust investments, Middlebury has failed to listen to the 81% of students who believe environmental, social, and governance must be taken into account for our endowment, the 1000 students who have signed a divestment petition, or the more than 100 students who demanded divestment outside the Fall board meeting. Face to face with the repercussions of Middlebury’s decisions, I was ashamed to be associated not with the college community, but with those trustees who implement Operation Profit despite clear opposition.
Divest Middlebury’s sole demand since 2013 has been to “divest all endowment assets, both directly held and commingled, that include any of the top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel companies.” Back in 2013, divestment would have made Middlebury a true environmental leader and sent a strong message to peer institutions. Instead, the trustees voted to remain owners of the fossil fuel industry, lending the college’s moral license and reputation for sustainability to corporations who profit off climate injustice.
When the trustees voted not to divest in 2013, they were able to hide behind a curtain of uncertainty. What would happen to our endowment returns? How would divestment work with our current money manager, Investure? These were legitimate questions at the time, but global institutions have repeatedly decided that divestment is not simply a moral imperative, but vital to their endowments’ financial security.
To date, 813 institutions with a combined divestment of $6.01 trillion agree that fossil fuel corporations will not reach current market evaluations without warming the Earth by 6 ̊C. As worsening extreme weather ravages the globe, low-lying areas face rising waters, tropical diseases continue to spread, and water supplies become increasingly stressed, governments will stop the burning of fossil fuels. The market for dirty energy will disappear, causing reserves currently valued at trillions of dollars to become worthless.
Peer institutions have acknowledged these stranded assets. Barnard College’s trustees unanimously committed to divest and have left Investure. The Rockefeller Foundation — the founders of ExxonMobil — divested and left Investure. Colby College became the first NESCAC school to divest. Even New York City and State decided to divest, causing billions to leave the industry and sending the endorsement of the world’s financial capital to the divestment movement. Every week, new Boards of Trustees determine that fossil fuel divestment is morally and fiducially responsible, it’s about time Middlebury does the same.
Divestment will eventually occur. But the question is, will it be too late? President Patton, Chair Parizeau, Mr. Provost, Mr. Truscott, and others, will you forgo your last chance to send a clear message that Middlebury demands a transition to a post-carbon economy? Will you forgo the opportunity to sell ownership in an industry whose current market evaluation is contingent upon the burning of all fossil fuel reserves and the irreversible alteration of Earth’s climate? It is too late for Middlebury to be a leader on divestment, but I hope that Middlebury’s noteworthy contributions to environmental stewardship will not be overshadowed by the moral outrage and fiduciary irresponsibility caused by your indefensible loyalty to Operation Profit.
Visit go/divest and join us Sunday 8 to 9 in Hillcrest 103 to get involved.
(01/24/18 11:36pm)
Middlebury trustees are both intelligent and compassionate, the qualities they share with the students they admit to the college. But since the premise of college is that you emerge still wiser after the passage of four years — that new information changes us — it’s probably time to look at the lessons learned over the last half decade since Middlebury’s board first took up the question of fossil fuel divestment. Let’s examine the evidence that has emerged in the course of those years, a learning process that has accelerated in recent weeks as big cities like New York have pledged to sell off billions in oil and gas stocks.
Climate change has gotten far far worse. The last five years have seen global warming move from mostly theoretical to entirely disastrous. We’ve watched vast swaths of the planet’s coral reefs die in the course of weeks; we’ve seen new diseases ride the expanded range of mosquitoes across entire continents; our satellites have shown the north and south poles melting at unprecedented pace. Just in the two percent of the planet covered by the U.S., the last six months has seen the highest rainfall ever recorded (Hurricane Harvey), the longest extreme winds (Irma) and the horrific destruction of Puerto Rico (Maria). Oh, and the biggest wildfire in California history, followed by epic rains that resulted in mudslides that killed 20 people. There is no greater injustice on our planet than the rampant climate change that overwhelms the poor and vulnerable, and since Middlebury invests in fossil fuel, it owns a small piece of each of these sadnesses.
The oil companies have been shown to be dishonest, on a remarkable scale. One knew, five years ago, that they were irresponsible — that their business plan of ever more exploration and drilling was at odds with what every scientist said the atmosphere could absorb. But three years ago great investigative reporting revealed that they had actually known everything about climate change three decades ago, and engaged in a systematic cover-up. That’s why cities from San Francisco to New York have filed suit. But whether it turns out to be technically illegal, it’s clearly intellectually corrupt; were Exxon a Middlebury student, it would have been rightly disciplined for shading the truth.
Oil and gas investments have proven to be unsound, vastly underperforming the broader equities market. Had the trustees heeded faculty, student and alumni opinion five years ago, the endowment would be larger now, and we could afford more financial aid. Many other investors — including groups like the Rockefeller philanthropies that once invested with Middlebury’s own brokers — have broken free and prospered, both morally and financially. But it’s not too late: given the rapid plunges in the price of renewable energy, the fossil fuel industry will remain under unrelenting pressure. So there’s still money to lose, unless we act.
Divestment turns out to play an enormously positive role. Studies released this year show that it has both dramatically amped up the level of concern and action about global warming, and also cost the fossil fuel industry serious money that it would otherwise have spent on exploration. By contrast, Middlebury’s notion that it could usefully “engage” the fossil fuel companies has proven hollow. At a few companies it has produced a few concessions — Exxon, for instance, has said it will start providing “climate risk disclosure” on new projects. But that’s not much help: we can see what the climate risk is. And we can also see that they and their trade groups continue to lobby for ever more openings: in just the past month they’ve won the right to drill off the entire American coast, not to mention inside Alaska’s largest wildlife refuge. “Engagement” has turned out to be “cover.”
This list of new evidence has convinced many who were at first reluctant. New York City, for instance, capital of the planet’s financial system, announced this month it would not only divest from fossil fuel but sue the five largest oil companies for the damages incurred in Hurricane Sandy. In November, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund took the same step — and that’s the largest pool of investment capital on the planet, a trillion dollars earned off North Sea oil. The smart money, in other words, is now fleeing.
We are all, of course, proud of Middlebury. I’ve spent time on more college campuses than most people, and I’ve never met a finer president than Laurie Patton; the board of trustees proved its environmental concern when it moved all those Breadloaf acres into permanent conservation status. And now they can prove that education really works — that when new information emerges, as it has over the last half-decade, people can change. If it goes for students, it should go for trustees, and from some of the conversations I’ve had on campus, I remain hopeful.
In the Trump years, it’s clear we can’t rely on the government to take care of our biggest problems. We have to do what we can ourselves, and what Middlebury can do is divest. Not “some day,” not after yet another committee offers yet another report, but as soon as possible, while it still makes a difference. Since I believe that education indeed matters, I believe we will.
Bill McKibben is Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury, and the co-founder of the climate change group 350.org.
(01/17/18 10:58pm)
Steve Willsey of Shaker Maple Farm in Addison County tapped his first tree in 1988. For Willsey and many other Vermonters, maple syrup production, or sugarmaking, now represents a primary source of income. Donna Hutchinson (Mt. Pleasant Sugarworks) explained that it was not always like this. “The industry has certainly changed. It has become more of a mainstay, commercial industry and less of a local, family business,” she said.
The maple syrup industry in the U.S. has been growing steadily over the past two decades, according to UVM Extension maple specialist Mark Isselhardt. This iconic industry has always required a certain degree of flexibility because the production season is dependent on many variable weather conditions. However, a UVM study on the adaptability of maple production published in 2016 reports that climate change may require sugarmakers to make substantial changes to their operations in order to remain competitive.
Though images of metal buckets hanging from trees, symbols of historical tapping technique, are often used for marketing purposes, the reality of modern production is very different. A variety of new technological advances, including networks of plastic tubing, reverse osmosis devices, and vacuum pressure pumps, have contributed to the growth and efficiency of sugarmaking. At Solar Sweet Maple Farm in South Lincoln, Vermont, Rhonda and Tom Gadhue maintain around 23,000 taps. When the correct balance of freezing nights and above-freezing days arrives, usually in the spring, maple sap will begin to flow and the Gadhues can begin to tap.
“Our saps come to our sugar house and are pumped into three to four different tanks. Once the tanks are full the sap gets processed through a reverse osmosis machine, which takes the water out and decreases the boiling time,” Rhonda Gadhue said, describing the processing of maple sap. “Then it’s run through a wood fire evaporator and once it reaches a certain temperature, the syrup is ready to be filtered and packaged.” The Gadhues’ sugarhouse is built from reclaimed Vermont barns and powered by solar panels, a testament to their commitment to “preserve the environment, make the best use of [their] land, and foster sustainability”.
Historically, the typical tapping season began on Town Meeting Day, a Vermont holiday on the first Tuesday in March. But Dr. Timothy Perkins, director of the UVM Proctor Maple Research Center, said that technology is allowing the season to begin earlier and run longer. The Gadhues hope to begin this week.
“Usually we start tapping the day after new years but this year it was so cold that to tap would have done damage to the trees,” said Rhonda Gadhue.
Steve Willsey has already begun tapping. “I never would have started so early before,” he said, “but because the tubes are so sterile, the trees won’t start healing over before I’m finished tapping.” Dr. Perkins explains that, at least for now, this improved sanitation and technology is allowing sugarmakers to offset any changes that might arise due to climate change.
In recent years, warmer winters have benefitted production, bringing record crops to Shaker Maple Farm and many other sugarworks in the Northern Kingdom. “I had two record crops the last two winters,” said Willsey. “But long term I have no idea – down the road if it gets too warm that could be problematic because you need the freezes [to tap] as well.”
The expansion of the maple industry in recent years brings more concerns for Willsey and many other sugarmakers: if growth continues and supply starts to outpace demand, prices of syrup could drop in the future. Vermont is the biggest maple producer in the United States, accounting for 42 percent of the country’s production, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. In a report published in 2015, the Center for Rural Studies at UVM put the value of maple production growth at 150 percent, from $19,755,594 in 1992 to $49,432,000, and ranked maple as the fourth most valued agricultural commodity in Vermont. Another Addison County sugarmaker, Dave Folino, who has been in the business since 1979, urges maple producers to focus more on marketing and selling syrup in The Maple News. “So far, maple has been one of the few reliable, steady, profitable sectors of agriculture in Vermont. I fear that could change,” he cautioned. Folino clarifies that he is not arguing against growth, rather for more “balanced growth.”
Extreme weather fluctuations that accompany climate change will pose several problems for maple syrup producers. Folino has noticed more and larger wind storms since 2000 and though warmer temperatures may be beneficial for the moment, the Addison County Independent reports, these trends may make production more difficult in the long run. “My biggest enemy right now is the wind. The storm that came through in November knocked trees down and messed up tubing,” said Willsey. “I don’t know if I’m just more in tune [to weather changes] but I get really nervous now whenever I hear strong winds.”
Despite concerns about climate change and the future economics of the iconic maple industry, sugarmakers in Vermont remain hopeful. “Every year is different,” Hutchinson said. “You adapt in the sugaring industry.”
The technological improvements such as vacuum tubing are an example of the adaptability of researchers and producers to new challenges. “I love being my outside and making a product that everybody likes,” said Willsey.
For many, sugaring represents both a source of livelihood, a community, and a passion. “The community that comes through and visits the farm when we’re boiling is amazing,” Rhonda Ghandue said. “Everybody can feel the excitement of getting what you’ve worked for year round – it’s a great feeling.”
(12/07/17 12:37am)
As the holidays descend on Middlebury, the Werner Christmas Tree Farm has gone into overdrive to prepare for its 26th season. The owners, Cheryl and David Werner, started the farm after David’s father, Fred, who had a passion for planting trees, gave them a batch of Scotch pines.
The family business has since trickled down to Fred’s grandchildren, who now often come back to Middlebury between Thanksgiving and Christmas to serve as the farm’s elves as sales go into high gear. Amanda Werner, a Skidmore College graduate and full-time cheesemaker at Champlain Valley Creamery, is the only one of Cheryl and David’s children who helps year-round.
The farm consists of 25 acres near the couple’s home, with another 10 acres in Lincoln, Vermont. The farm aims to sell around 2,000 trees each year while having 35,000 planted trees in various stages of growth. At the time of Fred Werner’s gift of pines, Christmas tree farms were ubiquitous across the region. An Addison County Christmas Tree Growers Association, which has since disbanded, had a substantial membership base.
“We plant in spring, and we always plant more trees than we end up cutting off,” Amanda said. “In the summer months we’ll shear the trees, using a long knife like a machete. We walk around them and swing the knife, knocking off the tips of the branches to outline the shape we want.”
The undulating nature of the Christmas-tree industry calls for a spike of 10 to 12 workers during peak season, while only the immediate family works during the rest of the year. In the coming month, the family will divide the workload, with Cheryl Werner handling checkout, Amanda Werner making wreaths and David Werner creating garlands.
On a typical December weekend, the farm can anticipate around 200 people searching for Christmas trees. Equipped with measuring sticks and bow saws, some customers like to cut their own, while others choose from the selection of pre-cut trees. The trees are not distinctly organized by height, but workers direct customers to fields that typically have certain height ranges.
“We say that most people have eyes taller than their ceiling,” Amanda Werner said. “They may think a six-foot tree sounds like a good height but then are drawn to trees closer to eight feet in height.”
David Werner, who is a full-time woodworker the rest of the year, runs most of the business operations in his workshop on the property during the holiday season. The decorated barn is stocked with maple syrup and garlands but has wood clamps and tools peeking out behind the garlands on the walls. Cheryl Werner occupies the rest of her time as a teacher in plant, animal and mechanical sciences at the Hannaford Career Center.
Amanda Werner hopes to keep the family business going when her parents retire, possibly in the next few years. She also hopes to add new programs and activities to the farm.
“It’d be really fun if we could have a build-your-own-centerpiece workshop,” she said. “I don’t know if we’ll ever have enough time and people to do this, but we do have a sleigh, and one of the horses knows how to pull it. We would also need snow for that, though.”
Although entirely a retail operation today, the farm used to ship trees wholesale. The appeal of a true Vermont pine tree drew orders from as far as the Caribbean. Amanda fondly remembers packaging trees for Bermuda nearly 15 years ago after a heavy snow. Transported in the bottom of a large ship, the trees were unwrapped hundreds of miles away with the snow still intact on them.
As climate change becomes more apparent each year, the Werners have noticed less snow and later freezes.
“Obviously, we’ll have to deal with warming more and more in the future,” Amanda Werner said. “This year was a little bit easier for us because we had that cold snap early in November and we need three hard freezes before we can do any harvesting. The freezes trigger a sort of hibernation of the trees [that] sets the needles.”
To handle the warming climate, the Werners have shifted most of their brush cutting up to their mountain fields. These areas get colder earlier and allow for the first harvesting of the season. With a warming Vermont climate, the farm may have to move more of its production to a higher elevation. However, the lack of snow has not prevented customers — both local and out-of-state — from flocking to the farm as soon as Thanksgiving leftovers start to diminish.
According to David Werner, the lack of snow has meant a steadier stream of customers during the month of December, rather than a swarm at the first sight of flurries. With snowy days farther apart, people are no longer willing to wait for the increasingly rare snow days.
For more information on the Werner Tree Farm, visit their website at www.wernertreefarm.org.
(12/07/17 12:33am)
On Friday, Dec. 1, Addison County Transit Resources (ACTR) published a renovated shuttle bus schedule as a result of the relocation of the Middlebury Transit Hub from Merchant’s Row to Academy Street near Twilight Hall. The hub change became necessary because of the downtown Middlebury bridge construction, but the new location should make the bus services more accessible to students at the college.
“I am very excited to share with you the launch of renovated and revamped ACTR bus services, so that you can get where you need to go with more ease!” SGA President Jin Sohn ’18 said in her email announcing the changes to students.
The Middlebury Shuttle Bus (MSB) College Shuttle, a fare-free mode of transportation, will now offer frequent service at ADK, Axinn@McCullough and Freeman Way, according to Sohn. The Academy Street Hub also provides passenger shelter so that commuters will have protection from the elements, especially in the upcoming winter months.
“The boon of these necessary changes is improved connectivity for the college campus,” Mary-Claire Crogan, community relations manager for ACTR, said. “Campus riders now have direct access to every route from Twilight Hall.”
Crogan shared that last year, she worked with some members of the SGA in addressing climate change through public transit. Together they addressed potential campus stops that could be used to reach desirable locations around Middlebury for students. The new stop at Axinn@McCullough is a result of these collaborations, according to Crogan.
“The SGA helps to cover some of the costs for the ACTR services through a grant dedicated to sustainable transportation initiatives,” Sohn said.
Crogan noted that there were conversations about the new Academy Street hub with the SGA as well, but that the move was really part of larger town and state affairs, in which various officials and community members worked together to make the decisions.
According to Crogan, the new hub does present some challenges. For example, there were concerns about walkability for physically impaired riders and for the schedules and transfers that would be affected by the new location. However, since the summer, ACTR and the town of Middlebury have been working to alleviate these concerns.
“The town relieved walkability concerns by permitting new stops at the Post Office that can be used to access downtown locations and the new hub,” Crogan explained. “Staff worked all summer testing new pathways, looking for efficiencies and rewriting timetables. We found creative ways to keep the in-town buses pulsing with the same frequency.”
Since the launch of the new schedule last Friday, the system has been running smoothly. New Main Street stops maintain bus accessibility for commuters around North Pleasant Street or anyone looking to access downtown services. Crogan said that the new Academy Street hub has had the largest impact on the Tri-Town Bristol and Vergennes routes, the riders of which will now have slightly longer trips.
Although she is unable to predict how much these changes will increase student bus usage, Crogan thinks the incentives for using the new system will appeal to students at the college.
“Many members of the college community say they are concerned about the effect of carbon on the environment,” she said. “Riding the bus is a small change a person can make with a significant climate impact.”
Sohn believes that the new system will increase ridership of Middlebury students, especially since the flexibility and number of stops have increased on campus.
“I also expect this service to be especially helpful to students who travel to town(s) often or live off-campus, and for students who need transportation accommodations,” Sohn said. “The ACTR buses are wheelchair accessible and ADA-compliant, both very important factors.”
Crogan highlighted the ways in which the bus system can work to connect students at the college with the greater Middlebury and state communities as well. For example, it can make students aware of local events and places that will diversify their Vermont experience and expose them to communities in the state. Additionally, by using the ACTR system, students help to maintain its funding and existence for the larger community.
“‘Transportation for everyone’ is written on the side of every ACTR bus, and that is absolutely true. Students using transit share the ride with members of the community from every age and socioeconomic background,” Crogan said.
Sohn agreed that increased opportunities for students to explore beyond the college bubble will likely lead to increased interactions with the outside community.
“I think it will be important to see to what extent these interactions happen and how we can find ways to create similar opportunities to promote stronger community relations in other sectors on and off campus as well,” Sohn said.
Both Sohn and Crogan emphasized some key elements of the ACTR bus system that students may not be aware of. These include that there is no cost to ride to destinations in the town of Middlebury, that buses will pull over at any safe location to pick up passengers who wave, that the MSB Hospital bus now serves Porter ExpressCare and that the Snow Bowl shuttle is fare-free for Middlebury College students.
According to ACTR, there will be new signs, new schedule brochures and updated website information to reflect these changes. Additionally, riders can call 388-ACTR(2287) with any remaining questions.
(11/16/17 12:58am)
While the temperature on Friday Nov. 10 was a brisk 26 degrees and frost covered the ground, the conversation in the conference room at the Robert A. Jones ’59 House certainly warmed up the room and created a lively, rich atmosphere. The International Politics and Economics (IPE) Department hosted its sixth annual symposium, featuring three scholars from universities across the northeast, each delivering separate lectures moderated by a chosen student majoring in IPE.
With the support of the department, Professors Douglas Irwin of Dartmouth College, Edward Mansfield of the University of Pennsylvania and Peter Schott of Yale University came to campus to give short lectures for about 30 minutes each. After each presentation, students, faculty and other community members were invited to ask questions about the topics discussed, with the first question reserved for students, as per tradition. This year’s symposium was titled, “The United States and Global Trade: Winners, Losers and the Way Forward,” and each speaker had his own addition to the conversation topic.
William Pyle, IPE program director and professor of economics, who co-organized the event along with Associate Professor of Political Science Sarah Stroup, introduced the packed audience to the afternoon’s event.
“This is the signature public event of [the] IPE program, when we invite three outside experts to speak to a question of global importance,” he said. Jeffrey Cason, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the schools, continued the introductions, noting that thinking about trade in global context is crucial, especially in today’s political climate.
“Trade is perfect topic for symposium that wants to cross borders between politics and economics,” he said.
Irwin gave the first lecture, titled “Protectionism and Economic Populism: Lessons from US History.” Irwin is the John French Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College and is the author of the recently published, “Clashing over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy”. Using examples from current politics, he showed that there is a new divide in America regarding opinions on trade that does not revolve around political parties.
“It’s not so much a left-right issue as an open-closed issue,” Irwin said. Drawing on the history of trade policy in the U.S., Irwin suggested that there have been three eras of trade policy: Revenue (1789-1860), during which Congress was given the power to tax; Restriction (1860-1934), during which there was a move to protect American interests; and Reciprocity (1934-present), during which the U.S. encouraged trade. Throughout his lecture on the histories of policy, he concluded that trade has always been a source of domestic political conflict and there has been a renewed partisan conflict in the post-Cold War era and the recent presidential election.
Continuing the conversation,Mansfield gave a presentation on American attitudes toward trade. Mansfield, professor of political science and director of the center for international politics at the University of Pennsylvania, discussed the changing public mood towards U.S. trade policy. Using graphs showing the public’s opinion toward trade and economic models such as the Heckscher-Ohlin and Ricardo Viner models, he explained the various factors towards these fluctuations. In addition to volatile political economy and partisanship, Mansfield mentioned three factors of political psychology: attitudes of isolationism, nationalism and ethnocentrism.
“All three factors play a huge role in what people think about trade and globalization, but people think about [the] international part; they don’t think about the trade part,” he said, showing that the public opinion is based on an individual’s comfort with globalization, rather than a specific opinion on trade policy. Mansfield concluded his presentation with the idea that despite widespread claims that attitudes about trade reflect economic consequences, these attitudes were guided to a much larger extent by isolationism, nationalism and prejudice.
Schott concluded the set of presentations with a lecture titled “The Distributional Implications of Trade Liberalization with China.” Schott is a professor of international economics at the Yale School of Management, and one his most recent projects examines the decline of U.S. manufacturing employment during the 2000s. He recounted a brief history of U.S. manufacturing employment and trade liberalization with China. Schott also linked mortality rates in the U.S. with exposure to trade liberalization, in addition to discussing the decline of manufacturing employment in certain areas of the U.S., such as Appalachia. He finished his presentation with the recommendation to conduct more research into the factors that impede reallocation before policy can be formulated.
Pyle thought the event was a success.
“I was extremely pleased with the audience turnout. The room was full to capacity for all three of the presentations. And the quality of the presentations was uniformly high,” he said. “There’s really so much still we have to learn about how our labor markets respond to shocks, whether those are induced by trade, as was the case when China joined the WTO, or technology. Going forward, we need to understand better as a society how we can do more to spread the gains and alleviate the costs.”
Fusing together politics and economics, this year’s IPE symposium shed light on a topic very relevant to today’s society and political climate.
(11/14/17 7:19pm)
College president Laurie Patton sent a school wide email on Wed., Nov. 8, inviting students, faculty and staff, to a town hall the following day, Nov. 9.
“It is clear to me and, I believe, to many of you, that the essential bond of trust and assumption of good intentions that should unite us is broken,” she wrote. You can access the email here.
Co-sponsored by the Black Student Union and the Student Government Association, the audience filled Wilson Hall to capacity, causing event organizers to move the event to Mead Chapel. At the event, which was monitored by SGA and BSU members, students had the opportunity to ask administrators direct questions.
Below is a full transcript of the meeting, which has been edited for clarity. Please look for further analysis of the event in our issue after Thanksgiving Break. This transcription was done by features editors Sarah Asch and James Finn. Editor-at-large Elizabeth Zhou and managing editor Will DiGravio helped edit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO6XMI8V1oI&t=1749s
Jin Sohn (’18, SGA President): "SGA would like to acknowledge the presence of everyone in this room, and to thank you for taking the time to join us, together, as a community for an imperative conversation on respect and inclusivity. Over the past week, members of the SGA student cabinet have been working to support the student body in light of the recent painful and alienating events and dialogues. Likewise, many cultural orgs including BSU and other student activists have been working overtime to support students. We want to recognize those efforts especially because they were led by students from marginalized backgrounds. Today's conversation is not a solution in itself. But it can and must lead to transformations on our campus. We are here today because, in whatever way, we care. We care about our friends, we care about our peers, we care about our community. Please let us join together in that shared core value in order to foster change on our campus. In order to make this discourse constructive, active, and supportive of everyone, we are requesting that all comments, observations, and questions be respectful. We would like to encourage individuals to acknowledge their own identities and privileges when speaking. Please acknowledge the role and position with which you inherently enter this conversation. Further, while this event is crucial in providing a voice for students who are affected by the actions of others on this campus, it is important to remember that active listening is meaningful and important to engage with others in this room. Please listen and wait until someone finishes speaking before wanting to speak so that we can be respectful of all that is being said. To encourage collaboration and abolish any hierarchies present today, we will be limiting questions and answers to two minutes each. Additionally, to be conscious of everyone's time, we will be ending this event promptly at 6 pm. Ultimately, for the SGA, the goal of this meeting today is both to facilitate learning and listening in our community and to work toward establishing active next steps that students, faculty, staff, and administrators can collaborate on and be held accountable for. This is not the first conversation. It likely will not be the last. The point is that we all, all of us, are trying, and by simply being here today are actively working to change. Thank you, and I will now hand over the mic to President Patton for her to speak on her hopes for this event and then Wengel Kifle will provide some background and context on the current campus climate. Once the floor has been opened for conversation, Ishrak Alam, the SGA chief of staff, Annie Cowan, the SGA deputy chief of staff, and Rae Aaron, the SGA speaker, will ensure that a single voice is heard at a time by distributing a microphone. Finally, we recognize that these are really difficult issues, and if anyone needs to step out of the room or take care of themselves, please do so."
Patton: "Thank you so much. I'm really, really pleased to see everyone here. Thank you for being here, thank you for hanging in and staying in the difficult conversation. I want, particularly, to thank student leadership, particularly BSU and SGA for hosting this event, and we really look forward to hearing the voices of the members of all of our communities. We are in new territory at Middlebury, where we need to begin building a new kind of community, one that includes voices that we either have not heard or only partially heard. There are so many ways that such communities need to be built and the first is to give voice to experience. We want to pay attention to structures that cannot give voice to that experience, the economic, social and status hierarchies that limit us. Because of acts of racial bias on this campus and in this town, many students, faculty and staff have called us to account and are hurting. And while we are in new territory of trying to build a new kind of community, we are also in very old, unacknowledged territory. Part of Middlebury's unspoken story includes our acting according to racial stereotypes, acting in ways that serve to alienate. We have not acknowledged that enough. I want to acknowledge that hurt. I am deeply sorry that members of our community are in pain, and that people feel they have not been heard by the administration. It is our job to make better structures and more equitable relationships where voices can be heard and where people feel that they belong. It is our job to make a more inclusive public square where not just individual acts of bias but structural racism can be addressed and challenged. Middlebury can and should be a challenging place where we experience intellectual discomfort, and part of that discomfort includes listening to unheard voices better. For students who live here at Middlebury for only four years, this can take on a particular sense of urgency. We are working on many ways to address this and look forward to sharing those with you, but most importantly, today we need your help and creativity and thoughts. We also look forward, as Jin said, to follow up conversations from this one, to continue to visit student groups in dining halls, commons houses and other meeting spaces such as AFC, and to continue to move forward with concrete actions and timelines where we can work together both what our community is and what our community means to us. Together, I do believe with all the hard work we can build a new Middlebury. Thank you for bringing your voices to help begin that task today."
Charles Rainey (’19): "Hello everyone, thank you guys so much for coming today. I really appreciate and it really warms my heart to see this many people in this building to come and talk about some of the hard issues that are affecting racial minorities, particularly black students, on our campus. My name is Charles Rainey. I serve as president of the BSU this year, and what we hope to create through this conversation is a way for black students and racial minorities and other marginalized groups to be able to voice concerns about things that have really been festering on this campus for a long time. A lot of students have been jaded and have been really, really scared, really frightened and upset and we hope that this space is allowed not only for solution oriented steps to prevent a lot of the things that have been happening on campus, but also to serve as a forum where people can express their truest and deepest feelings about a lot of those things as well. We want to center this conversation by bringing up Wengel Kifle, who has prepared some remarks to share with you guys today. Thank you.
Wengel Kifle (’20): "Thank you so much for coming. When we discuss the current state of our campus, it's important to keep in mind what happened this past spring. Many students voiced deep and urgent pleas to Middlebury concerning not only Charles Murray, but also the deeply ingrained institutional and social aspects of Middlebury that do not make it a welcoming and inclusive space for students of color. After the start of this semester, there have been more events that have made students of color feel uncomfortable and unsafe. These events include the racial profiling of Addis; violent and explicit images and messages on chalkboards in Munroe directed toward Addis, racial profiling of a black female professor, harassment of black women on campus, faculty and students alike, and daily incidents, big or small, that students have to deal with in and out of the classroom in such white spaces. Personally, this semester has taken an extreme toll on me and my mental health. I found it impossible to have the motivation to survive my schedule and everything else Middlebury threw my way. And the lack of action by the greater community and the school in general to say 'we see you and we will fight for you' was all the more crippling. And I couldn't help but ask myself: why am I expected to give my best to a school and a community that was clearly not giving me its best? I hope that after today, that people that share my narrative can go away with seeing that administration and this school is recognizing them and is finally going to address these issues. Thank you.
Ishrak Alam (’18): "Thank you, Wengel, for your comments. We are going to open it up now to everyone -- we're going to have two mics upstairs and one down here."
Sohn: "If everyone can just be respectful of the two-minute rule. And also, faculty, administrators, students, everyone in this community, please feel free to weigh in and speak. If you could raise your hand if you'd like the mic, we can come to you."
Madeleine Bazemore (’19): "Hi, my name is Madeleine Bazemore and I'm a junior at Middlebury. I was in a meeting yesterday with some students activists...members here of the SGA, President Patton and some other administrators. We talked a lot about moving forward on campus, and something really concerning happened in that meeting. Our Title IX coordinator said that she didn't believe that white supremacy existed, was in her office or in the decision that was made regarding Addis in racial profiling. And I think the refusal of this campus and this administration to admit that white supremacy is present is very concerning. And I think that -- I don't even know how to address that, to have to take the time to explain what white supremacy is to a white woman felt like such a waste of time. Like, why are we having this meeting if I have to explain something so basic? Now, I don't know how to move forward with that, with the refusal that white supremacy exists, and because of that refusal that Addis will not receive an apology for being racially profiled."
Patton: "Yeah, thank you, Maddie. I did say that white supremacy existed, so I just want to make sure that there is a correct narrative. I would say, the really important thing that is true, structural racism exists and it exists at Middlebury. White supremacy, a way of being in the world, where the heritage is that white people have built something where they are unconscious of their own perspectives and unconscious of the way that they take up space, those are absolutely present at Middlebury. So that's a really important thing that I want to make sure I say, and that I said yesterday. And the other thing, in terms of the question, if we mean conduct that is based on or motivated by someone's personal characteristic that creates a hostile work environment, Middlebury is absolutely a place where that happens. Racism exists at Middlebury. Structural racism exists at Middlebury, and we have to work together to move forward to change that. And in our system, there is that conduct...or any other violation of our non-discrimination policies, we will act upon it and we have acted upon it. And we have a well-developed system in place to deal with those situations. The hard part of this conversation is that we can't apologize based on a narrative that wasn't supported by an investigation. I myself as a president have no part of that investigation. I want to make sure that's clear to everybody. So I don't know.... I didn't know that this investigation was going on. The reason why that office is independent is because they could investigate me, and that's really important for everyone to know. I want to say very clearly here, we are moving towards restorative practices as a culture, particularly in student life. And I and other members, individual members of SLG, are willing to sit with anyone -- anyone -- in a restorative practices circle, with trained facilitators, that acknowledges harm. I will sit with anyone [for] as long as it takes, in as many restorative practice circles as it takes, to change this community. And I would welcome any request to do that."
Sohn: "This is a quick announcement. We're also aware that some people might not be comfortable speaking up on a microphone, so we're gonna pass around some index cards if you'd rather pose a question that way. And then one of the students here can help ask that question. Thanks."
Liz Dunn (’18): "Going along with the point that President Patton just made, if there is white supremacy and structural racism at Middlebury, and if that is present in the Title IX Office, and if the investigation found that there was no evidence that Addis was racially profiled, does that not draw into question the investigative practices that Middlebury uses, and the standards that are currently in place? And is there any direct way to address that and to change that?
Patton: "Is our Title IX person here? I think there are a couple of things that probably should get clarified. The first is — and thank you, Liz, for your question — the fact that we need to always think about structural racism that we have, that doesn't mean that we don't stand by the integrity of the work that we've done, and that's the hard piece of this. And I need, as a president, and I do, as a president, stand by the integrity of the work that was done... Again, standing in restorative practice circles is part of acknowledging all of the different impacts for all of us here. But it's really important that even if there is a constant need for us to look at making the systems better, we still have to abide by the integrity of the process that exists here now."
Sue Ritter, Title IX Coordinator: "So I'm in a difficult position here because I can't discuss much of what I did in terms of the investigation that we did. I also completely reject the characterization that was just given of my office, and will continue to reject that. I have spent since 2008 here working really hard to make sure that the investigations that we do are free of bias, that they're fair, that they are full and fair investigations done by trained experts. My job is to be the guardian of our anti-discrimination policy. If I thought that this operation that I'm overseeing was grounded in white supremacist principles, I wouldn't be here. So people are going to have their opinions. I understand that. And I know I'm going to get blasted for everything that I'm about to say, but I am very confident in the people that conducted this investigation and worked extremely hard to make sure that all of the evidence was being considered in a careful and thorough and fair way. I don't know what else to say about that. And to get the response that I'm getting, that I don't have an understanding of what white supremacy is, in this context, is insulting. I didn't speak in that meeting yesterday because I was too flabbergasted to speak. I understand that people are entitled to their opinions. I have offered and will continue to offer to talk to anyone about the language of our policy and the process that we follow and will always be open to suggestions about how we can make it better. I never want to exclude somebody from coming into my office and saying, 'hey, this is language I think you ought to include,' 'this is language that I think you should take out.' I welcome anyone to look at the anti-harassment policy at any time and tell me what they think and I'm probably over my time speaking. But it's hard for me to stand here and speak without looking defensive, but I'm very confident in the work that we do, the work that we've been doing for ten years and the office that we've built. And that's all I have to say."
Rainey: "Hi, I'm Charles Rainey. I have a question. Sue, thank you so much for the contribution to the conversation. I am personally curious about how many people of color were involved in the investigation process and making this determination that came out of your office. And I think that that's a very important question to get us to understand what influences and what overwhelming perspectives may be in the office that may impact what the perception of the reality of the situation is in this regard... and creating definitions of what racial profiling is when there are no people — racial minorities in the room. And that may not be the case, but I just want to know — specifically, the question is: how many people of color were involved with this determination?"
Ritter: "Charles, I just want to make sure I understand the question. Are you saying how many people of color were interviewed in connection with the investigation? Is that what you're asking?"
Rainey: "So I think my question is not necessarily interviewed -- in terms of the process, the members of the administration who made the decision on what the determination is, how many, if any, were people of color?"
Ritter: "I have two people that work for me; they're both white. Is that what you're asking me?"
Rainey: "Yes."
Ritter: "Yes, so one was the investigator and one was the adjudicator. Correct."
Rainey: "Right. And I don't want to go over my time and I don't want to take up too much space in this conversation -- but I think my point in making this is that -- you know, what effect does the overwhelming whiteness in terms of the people who were involved in the determination have on the conclusion? And do you think personally that that may have affected what is going on here in terms of what the determination is?"
Ritter: "If I personally thought that, we would be having a different conversation. So I don't think it had an effect, no."
Shatavia Knight (’20): "On the idea that there are three white people in the Title IX office, I want to talk about the idea of administration. And one thing that I learned in my high school is that you can't be what you can't see. And there are very, very few professors of color here on campus. And so as a black female here, it's very hard for me to be in an environment where everyone says 'you can go on, you can be successful, you can learn a lot from your Middlebury experience' when I don't have many examples of, you know, black professors here on campus. And I wanted to know what Middlebury is trying to do about that, because I know that if I was to go into academia, Middlebury wouldn't be one of the schools that was on my list to get hired to. And I want to know what the administration is doing about that, to get more professors of color here so that students like myself don't feel like they're learning about race from white professors, and they're not learning about problems in society that they probably haven't actually experienced themselves."
Miguel Fernández (Chief Diversity Officer): "Thank you, Shatavia. That's an excellent question. You're absolutely right. Our diversity efforts within the student body over the last 20 years have been quite successful. I was a student here in the early '80s and I look out across this room and I see lots of diversity present here, and that was definitely not the case in the '80s. Some people feel as though we have a long way to go, and I won't disagree with that, but there has been significant change in the student body. That process has not been nearly as quick in the faculty -- you're absolutely right. We have been working on that hard lately — let me explain a couple of things that we've been doing. Over the last two years, we've been working with outside consultants who have been coming in, and it's mandatory now for all the search committees that are searching to go through a series of four workshops to work on how to diversify their pool, how to learn about bias in the evaluation system, et cetera, how we are going to present ourselves in interviews, the kinds of questions we're asking and the kinds of signaling we're doing in our advertising, and working with all the departments in that way. We're producing data for the search committees and working very hard. This year was the first cohort that came from having worked with them, and it was possibly the most diverse entering class of faculty in recent memory that we've seen, and we hope that this will continue. One of the frustrations is that faculty turns over a lot slower than students and so it's a slower process, but we're really working hard there. Some of you are aware of the C3 program — that's the idea of bringing in post-docs. We're part of a consortium of liberal arts colleges. The diversity officers are working to bring post docs in, folks from underrepresented groups and first generation, and also working on different topics to bring some diversity to give them exposure to what a liberal arts college is like. We visit the research universities to talk to the the graduate students about what a career is like, because oftentimes advisors in grad school advise their advisees not to go to a liberal arts college. They have this misconception that it's only teaching, and they don't maintain their research. So we go to break those myths and try to get folks -- and we take colleagues from the faculty to go talk to them about what that experience is like, what it's like to teach at a liberal arts college to try to get them into the pipeline. So those are a couple of the efforts we're doing, a lot of efforts in that way to try to address that. But you're absolutely right."
Student, Unknown: "So I thought it was great that you talked about some of the training that certain administrators get, and I was wondering if that training — if the faculty, as well as the people in Title IX, also get that training?"
Fernández: "Yes, so that's a good question, too. So the search process — there isn't mandatory training right now, and that is something that we have been talking about that's been made very present. And I think that is something the discussions are going toward, to make it for faculty, staff, students and the administration. There is currently for staff and faculty a -- I would say a minor training... there's a bigger thing around sexual harassment and other things that also talks about bias and discrimination. And everybody has to go through that. It's not enough. And that's exactly the kinds of discussions we're in right now. What we've done is we've had a lot of opt-in types of things, and we also do sessions with the new faculty as they come in. But that is part of the ongoing conversation."
Jeff Holland (’19): "I have a question directed generally at the administration. I understand that there's a desire, even possibly a requirement, an obligation, to stand behind the integrity of the judicial process and also to maintain confidentiality about any processes that may be undergone. But also there has been a very blatant contradiction in the judicial process involving Addis that was pointed out in The Campus, which is the most widely read student-run media outlet we have. So I don't think that there's any way that it could be more widespread that there was a contradiction between the judicial officer who said there was no need to move the investigation further, and then later came the guilty verdict after that. And at the same time, that same article pointed out that there was an ample amount of evidence that Addis was not present at that event. So I'm just wondering -- I know you want to uphold the integrity of your judicial process, but at what point does that break down, when there's evidence in the most widely read student publication there is, pointing that there's been a contradiction and pointing out that there's evidence to the contrary of what the judicial officer said? Thanks."
Hannah Ross (General Counsel): "I am a lawyer and I am responsible for Middlebury's compliance with laws. We did a full, fair and thorough investigation over the summer in response to a student's complaint that an employee acted wrongly. We looked very seriously at the question of whether our employee had engaged in a violation of our anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policy. Commencing an investigation about employee misconduct does not start a student conduct case. There is no student conduct case that can be brought against a person who's not a student of Middlebury. The investigation came to a conclusion following our policy and our process. The facts, as we understand them, do not support the narrative. That's where we are. It's not a guilty verdict. There is no proceeding that remains pending, and as I said, there is no process that Middlebury engages in that relates to a student's behavior when that person is no longer enrolled at Middlebury. That doesn't happen."
Sam (’18): "My name is Sam and I'm a senior here. Uh, what if you were wrong? I didn't mean that in a rude way, but seriously, what if you were wrong? Because you're talking about this as if, since Addis doesn't go here anymore there's nothing more you can do, it's not your problem. But I don't think that's even the point of it because the public safety officer who racially profiled her is still here. That person is still here. People say that the same public safety officer racially profiled a professor on campus this fall, which is something that the administration has also not addressed in particular, except for some rhetoric. So my question is, where's the process -- is it in Title IX? Is it in the judicial office? Is it through legal counsel? -- that would actually seek to respond to the allegations made against that officer who's still employed."
Ross: "I certainly didn't mean my comments about the fact that there's no student conduct process that gets started against a person who's not enrolled as a student at Middlebury to suggest that because a student has graduated, we don't care about our alumni. That's not at all a reflection of what I said. What I was trying to say is, there is no action that Middlebury takes that can impose a guilty verdict on a person who's not a student of Middlebury. And the investigation's conclusion, as I assume a number of you have read in the statement that we posted on Monday in the newsroom, the investigation concluded based on a wide array of evidence, including 22 interviews of members of our community. That investigation concluded that our public safety officer told the truth and acted within our policies. That's where we are."
Zeke (’21): "I realize that as a white male coming from an upper-class background, I hope a different perspective in this conversation. But at the same time -- I haven't suffered any racial biases here and I don't mean to detract from the Addis conversation going on -- but in my short time here I've also noticed that there are some serious institutional barriers preventing diversity from growing on campus. I find that we've touted our Posse and First at Midd programs ant stuff like that, but those don't actually account for a great deal of diversity percentage-wise in the student body. So I have a question for the administration as a whole. How can we make this a safer and less homogenous environment for future students? Could we, say, make Middlebury test-optional in the admissions office or perhaps look at tuition prices, as we clearly need a certain percentage of the student body to pay full price to account for the financial aid that we offer to other students?"
Patton: "Thanks, Zeke. That's a great question. I should just say that I'm a white woman who comes from a privileged background. So, in terms of financial aid, financial aid is the number one priority for this administration, to create more financial aid for students of all backgrounds. And it really, really matters to me that we do that. The other part of the balance that we have to make all the time is around questions of — we are required by law to balance our budget, so we kind of have to do both things. We are now, in any given year, we are between 42 and 48 percent of students on financial aid. The average grant is about 45 or 46 thousand dollars. And so we are in the top 40 or 50 schools in terms of giving financial aid. That doesn't mean that we can't and should do better, which is why this past meeting of the trustees -- the number one thing we did on a retreat with the trustees is to say, we want in the next 10 years to get to a much, much higher percentage of students on financial aid. Just so you all are aware, it would take us raising 360 million dollars to get to 55 percentage of financial aid endowed so we could just give that to folks. We haven't set a goal yet. One of my first jobs is to push the trustees, my 36 bosses, to set a goal, and that's we are now pushing to do. The last campaign, in terms of raising money, was 500 million dollars, and it took about 10 years to raise that, and a lot of it went to different kinds of things. So there needs to be a real concerted effort. That's what it's going to take to do that, and that is my number priority. So that is where we want to go and I hope we can get there. I hope that -- one of the things that would be really great to hear from people about is thinking about this larger question of, how do we get the word out about where we are and who we are without folks feeling like all we're doing is PR or touting a rhetoric or that kind of stuff. If there's a more real way that we could communicate both where we've come but also how much farther we need to go, that would be greatly appreciated, because we need help on making sure that we communicate in a genuine way. I hope that answered your question. I would love your help in making this a reality over the next 10 years. Is Andi Lloyd here, by the way? Can you address the faculty issue that was raised?"
Andrea Lloyd (Vice President for Academic Affairs/Dean of Faculty): "About diversity?"
Patton: "No, about the faculty member."
Lloyd: "So there was an allegation of racial profiling made by a faculty member. That case was also investigated. There was a determination that there was not racial profiling in that case. Um, what else?
Sohn: So, we just want to be conscious of people who don't feel comfortable speaking up on the mic, so we have collected some notecards. If we can just read one, so that we can be fair in that way, that would be great. So, one of the questions, is: isn't it important to address specific incidents of racism on campus quickly? What do you mean by inclusivity? Oh, so those are two questions. Just a blanket statement to avoid talking specifics of people's experiences."
Karla Nuez (’19): "My question was, in the email sent out to students regarding this event, it was stated that the community was broken. My question is why is there a constant need to describe the Middlebury community as a homogenous one, when that in turn avoids that there are people on this campus that struggle. By calling it homogenous, you're completely disregarding those struggles. And I feel like that makes it seem like the administration doesn't know the students that can pay the 60k-plus to attend this college. And when I was at the board of trustees meeting dinner, I told the chair about the racial profiling cases, and she looked at me, baffled. I think that is a clear indication that the administration and the board of trustees do not know their students, do not know what is happening on campus, and if their job is to protect us I feel like they're not doing the greatest job."
Weston Uram (’18): "I grew up at Kenyon College, where my mother is a faculty member, and one of the things I admire most about Kenyon is the president. Shawn Decatur, also known as D-Cat among the students, is a fun, approachable president who loves to talk with the students about any topic they bring up. One of his best qualities is his ability to find an autonomous voice. He was never afraid to say what he thought even if it differed from the public stance of the college. I hope to ask a few questions that Laurie, as the person and not as the institution, could answer. I want to know if you think Addis was at the Charles Murray talk. I'm not asking what the college has said or what they have not said. I want to know what you believe. I want to know what you believe because I want to know why you call Addis a friend. I want to know why you and your administration would take the time to mail a framed photo of you and Addis together to her personal residence, but don't seem to take the time to acknowledge the pain and suffering you have caused her. I want to know why the administration has refused to mention Addis's name in relation to the racial profiling or in response to the violent imagery found on the chalkboards in Munroe. I want to know why a photo of Addis walking at commencement, cane in hand, is repeatedly being used as promotional material for graduation. And I want to know when the administration will stop using black bodies as simply props and advertisements, and when they will recognize them as real people who have real feelings, who have real struggles, and who deserve real apologies."
Toni Cross (’18): "I have a mic up here, but I would love to hear President Patton's response to those questions."
Patton: "So, first of all, the comment about Middlebury communities, I absolutely agree. And I think that we should be continuing to talk about different communities. And if we haven't done so enough, I apologize for that. It's really important that we think through those questions of acknowledging different communities and acknowledging specifics about pain that you all have felt. One of the things that I really, really want to hear about, and I know we want to continue to think about, is particularly in classroom environments where people of color are not feeling that they can speak up. Or that they feel if they do speak up, that they will be misunderstood. Those are an incredibly important place for us, and I hope that as faculty and staff we can work together to change those experiences. So I think that that's absolutely right and that's really important to do. I also want to say that what Dean Loyd was talking about, I actually sat with that professor and apologized for her experience. And it's a very important thing that she was in pain, and that was acknowledged. So I think it's an unfair characterization of me to say that acknowledgement doesn't happen. It was important to reach out and engage. When I -- I don't know what the images are that are being used. I think it's really important in a conversation that we're all trying to do better, that we're all doing a lot of work every day to raise inclusivity where it's really hard. If we could find a way -- I don't know, I can't supervise every single thing that goes out. If that image that goes out is there, I'm sure that that was painful for people to see. I am willing to sit with anyone in the community in a restorative practices circle, including Addis, to hear the pain that she has experienced. I will do that with anyone in this community. And I think it's really important that we continue to think about those specific experiences. And that's why restorative practices matters. Part of what is hard in presidential speech, and I wish I could answer you as a person -- I can't right now, I'm here as a president. And so, I would be happy to walk with you and talk with you, but my role at this moment is to uphold all of the hardworking people. And so -- I do spend a lot of time with students and tell them what I think all the time in the luncheon halls, I'm in classrooms, I'm walking throughout the campus every day. And so, I'm more than happy to sit and talk to you. I'm sure the president of Kenyon also wouldn't be able to speak about a case in this way, but I will say again, those images were very, very disturbing. And perhaps, yes, we should have used Addis's name. I will sit with Addis, I will sit with any of you in restorative practices and talk about harm any time. That is me both as a person and as a president. I hope that answers your question, and let's go for a walk."
Jasmine Crane (’18): "It really hurt my heart to hear Wengel's struggle, because her struggle is my struggle and as a black women in science, there's only one black female teacher in all of BiHall. And I really look up to her. She's a shinning example for me who contemplates going far and taking the extra mile, but when I'm with some of my colleagues I don't feel like I'm very far, I don't feel like I'm their colleague. I just feel like I am a black face here. And I feel like as a black, African-American woman here, I feel like community which is being thrown around so carelessly I feel it's just a word it's not a feeling. I feel like it's just a structure like a church. We come in here and do we really do anything pertinent? I don't seem to feel that. I feel that I see Latinos coming together, from different countries, I see South Asian, East Asian people coming together, and I feel like they have to do that on their own because there is no place even for them. And especially for black Americans here, I feel like that's a diaspora, there is no place for us on this campus. I feel like African's stick together, that's great to hear, but I feel like as an American black woman I have no place here. No voice. And I don't know how to change this, honestly, because it doesn't start with the people of color. We have to start all together as one body, as Middlebury. We have created this iconic self-image of being woke, of being liberal, of knowing more than ourselves. But do we even really know ourselves? And so I ask not only students to look in their heart and think about oppression. But I want the administration to look at themselves and how they conduct themselves in their everyday lives. And how they treat not only the students but each other.
Cross: "I just had a couple of questions: is there a timeline for fixing this broken Middlebury community? I know when I visited here for preview days in 2014 at least six people told me: do not come to this school, it will crush you and I don't know that I could in good conscious tell a black senior in high school to come here. It's been four years. Is there a timeline for making it better. And also I would like to ask the administration who have spoken here today how they would grade themselves in presentation and the image that they are giving to us? With the defensiveness that we constantly see, with the willingness to label actions, or to call themselves victims or point out unfairness towards themselves but not necessarily extend that same courtesy to the students. So I'm asking how would you grade yourselves? What kind of message do you think you're putting forward?
Treasure Brooks (’21): "I haven't been here very long but earlier Charles mentioned the overwhelming whiteness at this school and I just want to bring attention to the overwhelming blackness that doesn't come in the form of bodies. I live in Battel and I can't walk to the bathroom or back to my room without hearing trap music. And there is an overwhelming amount of black culture here but it's not represented in the population, in the student body. We've had CupcakKe come here last week, we're having Elle Varner come, and before that we had Noname Gypsy, she came here as well. And I think that how can we allow for the student body to be consuming black culture at such an alarming rate when we don't even value the black women that are walking around on this campus? I think that is remarkably grotesque, honestly, and if you really want to show support, if you want to show a greater cultural sensitivity towards black students then maybe we should make those events exclusive until we can show a general respect for all of the black diaspora, all of the black faculty, of the black students, and not just black culture. And additionally, to respond to something you said, President Patton, I would hope that you did not see your presidency and personhood as mutually exclusive because in the event that you do I think there needs to be a greater consideration for what leadership is."
James Sanchez (Assistant Professor of Writing): "I want to say a couple of things. I haven't heard anyone from faculty speak yet and I don't want to absolve us from any of these issues because this is just as important for students and administrators as it is for faculty. A couple of things I want to mention is one I feel like faculty needs to do a better job of modeling anti-racist behavior for our students in the classroom. I say that because when I did my interview here I spoke with a Latina student and this was before Charles Murray and she was telling me with issues that she had with white professors in the classroom and how as a Latina student she often felt that racist, bigoted viewpoints were held on equal playing field as anti-racist viewpoints and I think that's something that I challenge all faculty to really consider when having classroom discussions. I also want to say that faculty have a lot of agency in creating change on campus environments and that's something we all need to remember as faculty members when conducting our classes, creating new courses, interactions with students, we have agency in creating change. So I really want to challenge my colleagues here to on campus to really consider that in the future.
Sha (’19): "This is more a clarifying question. I understand a lot of time when it comes to the judicial process there's need for privacy but I also I feel there has been a lack of transparency with a lot of things that go on at this college. And I would like to be informed or educated in possible: is a student assumed guilty until proven otherwise? Or is a student assumed innocent until proven guilty? Why is it that when there is a sexual assault case reported, the victim is often the one asked to prove that there was actually assault, when in this case a student was accused and she was actually asked to find evidence to prove that she was not there?"
Ross: "Under all our policies individuals going through any kind of discipline are innocent until proven guilty. And the obligation is not on them to provide evidence. That's why we employ people and pay their salaries to gather evidence but people are free to offer evidence if they chose to offer evidence. If you want to learn more about how our policies work or want to learn more about our processes Dean Baishaki Taylor has solicited volunteers to serve on a policy advisory group. I'll be working with that policy advisory group to get feedback from students on policies that are of importance to you. We welcome other folks joining that committee
Júlia Athayde: (’19): "I want to raise attention to something that I found very troubling last semester and that was the fact that Bill Burger, who is the vice president of communications here, was personally involved in the Charles Murray incident and also very involved in writing all the articles and the communication that is written to alumni, articles in the New York Times, in the aftermath of the incident. First something I wanted to say, I work for the Office of Investment so after Charles Murray I actually had to talk to alumni and explain to them what was happening on campus so I'm very sympathetic to the fact that it was a very hard conversation and I know how difficult it was for administrators to deal with all of that. Since then, I've been thinking about the fact that [Burger] was personally involved and I'm not sure if he's here or not, this is not a personal attack, I just wanted to raise awareness for that. He was there, and he was also writing the communication for the college. And this latest article in the newsroom talking about racial profiling, I was wondering if that was the first time that we addressed that to the outer community and our alumni? And who wrote that article, because there was actually no author? And the last paragraph of that article actually talks about his involvement and that he was found not guilty. And I was wondering if that process involved the same kind of investigation that Addis had to go through? Why was he found not guilty, and why was that written in an article in the newsroom this week?"
Ross: "I was one of the folks who helped write that statement and the final paragraph addresses the fact that there were two separate investigations about what went on March 2. One was the Middlebury Police Department Investigation. The Middlebury Police are of course responsible for investigating criminal behavior, driving a car dangerously would be criminal behavior. The police did not find any evidence that caused them to have concern about that. They did not investigate that, they did not bring charges. The independent investigators concluded based on unanimous testimony from all the witnesses to the event that Mr. Burger drove carefully. Those are the facts in that case found by two different investigations."
Esteban Arenas-Pino (’18): “I would like the administration to expand on their stance on activism on campus. It feels like after last spring activism has become a dirty word and is often vilified. Is the administration willing and ready to accept activism as a part of the campus culture, and is the administration willing to foster this as a value? After many years witnessing activism especially by women of color on this campus I would like to see this fermented as a stronger value? We will leave Middlebury to be organizers and activists in our communities. Shouldn't Middlebury foster these skills?”
Sedge Lucas (’19): "I have a quick question for President Patton. I saw online that you and Professor Stanger are going to be having a talk this coming February titled "Campus Speech: when protest turned violent" at the Cronkite School of Journalism in Arizona. Can you explain what the goal of this talk is? What do you think other schools or academia as a whole can learn about how Middlebury handled the situation last spring?
Patton: "Thanks for the question. Lots of different thoughts there. There are so many ways in which we could have done better. We have been slow to respond to graffiti incidents. I would just ask people to understand that we are living in the world where immediate response and the fact that we have to get the facts right is we want to make sure we get the facts right before we actually make a statement and so sometimes if we can't do it in 12 hours it's because we're wanting to make sure we have all the facts right. That being said it's really important that that slowness of response is something that we can do better on. And we want to do better on. Secondly, the things that I have learned as a leader and a person here at Middlebury, number one, I was hoping that all the work that we've done in the last two years about inclusivity and scholarships raised and C3 developed and AIM, and the alliance on disability, the bias response team, the more funds raised for financial aid, the restorative practices, all of these are things that have happened since 2015, since I got here. My mistake was in thinking that all those things and inviting everyone to do more of those things and invite us into those conversations would heal the hurt and it didn't. I did not understand the degree of hurt in this community and again I want to say how deeply sorry I am for that. So in response to that, part of what I push on in everywhere that I go is that inclusivity has to be part of any conversation around freedom of expression but we have to do both in the 21st century. And that we do not become more free unless we focus on inclusivity and all the ways that we've been talking about. And we do not become more inclusive if we can't have that freedom of expression as the basis of who we are. And so that is a very powerful message that we want to send in as many different places as possible. So I hope that gives you as sense of both what I have learned personally as well as the kind of push I want to make on creating both inclusivity and freedom of expression as a balance, as well as the only way we can become more free in the 21st century is to become more inclusive. I also want to say that in our conversation yesterday, Liz [Dunn] said something really powerful. And I want to make sure that we say that and say something about that and talk more about it. And that is "What do you need and how can we help?" was a question that one of her common's deans asked her and how powerful that was. And I think that even as we have to uphold policies and procedures, I think that having student advisory groups as well as the faculty motion that was really fantastic that I publicly endorsed and was thrilled to publicly endorse last week, where we are going to be doing an external review of our diversity practices. Again the big learning that I had last semester is clearly all the stuff that we've done since 2015 is not enough, and it's not effective enough, and that's really powerful so we are developing an advisory group on diversity for faculty and for building faculty I have been really powerfully advocating and only faculty can build a black studies program but we are really excited because faculty are moving to create that and I want to say here how important it is that we create that black studies program. So, lot's more to say, and I know I need to hand over the mic.
Hannah Pustejovksy (’18): "I wanted to bring it back a little bit to the point about financial aid. So I am a white student, I'm also on almost full financial aid, and I am pretty lucky being a student who is white having had a lot family who have gone to college and have dealt with this system. But if having difficulty with the financial aid system here I cannot even imagine what other students, of color, are having on this campus because I have been here for four years and I have yet to understand what happens in the financial aid office. I was incredibly hurt by an email that came out last week or the week before encourage students to consider if they actually could take on the loans that they were being given because I have no choice. I don't know what I'm supposed to do if I can't personally take those loans on, am I just supposed to drop out? I also think that financial aid is one of the most important things to making sure that students here also feel welcome because we do have only 48 percent of students here on campus who have financial aid and if students of color are on campus and we are not making it easy for them to be here including the huge financial responsibility we are putting on them, how are we even supposed to start and feel like equals? Every day I am aware that I have so much less money than people here. And how is the financial aid office going to make that easier?"
Nia Robinson (’19): "I don't really have a question, more so a comment. Looking around this room most of the people in here are people I expected to be here. There are some surprises, like good surprises but nonetheless a surprise. And I think that it's really important when we're talking about community we claim who we are talking about. Because for example, the people who have called me the n-word are not found in this room. And I understand that people have commitments, I understand that people have other things going on, but everyone in this room ahs something else going on and so I think we need to make at who is making sacrifices for global community. A lot of people in this room are part of my community and I respect and love them a lot. But I think there are people who are not found in this room who have no stake in building a community and that's okay whereas if I take a step back then suddenly it's a problem. So that's not really question, just more so a call for everyone in here to talk to your friends, talk to your commons, talk to your professors, because if we are building a community we need to make sure we're reaching everyone and not just the people who self select to be here."
Kifle: "To touch upon the faculty member who spoke about faculty responsibility and accountability as well as Nia's comment about community, and also Treasury's comment. So we do consume a lot of black culture here and it's amazing how much we consume it and then don't acknowledge black people. I'm also in the classroom I'm so sick for having to stand up for something problematic that arises. If my professor is here, I'm sorry, I meant to have a private conversation with you, but this going to happen. So here we are talking about [solar] power in Africa and then the professor says 'There's 40 countries in Africa" and I said, 'no.' And then my art history professor was talking about Western Art and then mentioned Egyptian art and I questioned why that is because it's African art. The thing that surprised me is not the fact that it happened but in both of those classes where there's a huge amount of people in there I was the only one that had a problem with this and I was the only one that was expected to speak out, and of course I did because nobody else was doing it. But I'm so tired of taking on that mental labor. If you call yourself an ally, if you say you care about us, this movement, please speak up because I am tired. I am so tired and if you say you support this community and if you say you support these conversations and whatever Midd needs to progress on then take your part. And it's not just on the administration and it's not just on the faculty, it's on students as well. Show us that you care."
Sandra Luo (’18): "I really want to appreciate all of you for offering to have conversations with us but we're really tired of just talking. When is the administration going to show that they care beyond just sitting in a circle and talking and continuing to exploit the vulnerability and emotions of students? When are we going to see some sort of tangible, concrete action that comes from these conversations. And if you want to talk about helping us maybe address the list of demands here that we've been passing out. Apologize to Addis and provide reparations for all the trauma the school put her through, actually investigate Bill Burger and take anonymous sources seriously because that's the way of providing safety for people who are willing to come forward and share their experiences, fix the judicial system instead of just telling us that it's flawed but that's just how it's always going to be. And I want to recommend that a lot of people have been talking for years and a lot of work has been put towards inclusivity and diversity for years, long before March 2. It would be great if they could do something more than just conversations. It's one thing to acknowledge pain and flaws it's another to actually address the flaws so that current and future students won't continue to experience pain. I know a lot of people around me really want to listen to answers from the administration so I'm just going to hold on to this mic until we get an answer from the administration. I really want to hear about a concrete action plan that is something beyond a conversation."
Fernández: "Where to start. So in regards to the demands that you referenced, I think you heard in regards to the judicial piece I think Hannah made the invitation to serve on a policy committee there. That's a very direct way of impacting judicial change. The second one is about the mandatory training for everyone and I hope I addressed that earlier but that's in the process. It's not going to happen tomorrow but there are things in process and more to come, can't be more specific about that because that part to come is still being worked on and I don't have the details. I did share details for things that are ongoing. More things that are happening that are on the ground that we are doing: I did mention that we're working hard at diversifying the faculty, I think we had a good example and make some comments and probably just fill his spring courses. The bias incident thing was a new effort by the community bias response team, I will grant you it is imperfect, and if you will continue to work on it it's been an effort to try to address a lot of the issues we've been talking about. It is imperfect, it is new, we're going through that rocky start that many things do. I expect communications to improve and we will continue to work on that. Concrete things that are going on other things, more things we've been working on: we've been trying to work a lot around the support o DACA and undocumented students, putting a lot of effort on resources there, supporting them in many different ways. The first generation programs, those kinds of things. Opportunities to engage, one of the things a lot of folks have been talking about today is the administration, how it acts and why it doesn't change and one of the things we heard yesterday and I think this is valid is more student input in decision making, and that's been heard. And the SGA has had a proposal to create student advisory boards that will meet with the different VPs, so there you've got advisory boards that will meet with different folks to learn about the process how decisions get made how does the process work and to have a direct influence on that so for instance with finance, with a lot of the different areas. There's much to talk about, but there's a lot more to do, too."
Rainey: "I have a really quick question. There's been a lot of talk about this in the black community and many other communities especially in the after math of Charles Murray. We all know how many of us feel the complete community embarrassment of how interrogating and punishing students for protesting on campus. And as we more forward in terms of restorative practices from the administration, going back to what Toni and others have said providing a timeline with that but also after we put in these new restorative practices and these new restorative justice measures, are they going to be retroactively implemented and have retroactive application regarding people who have gone through unfair processes in the past and students who have gone through extremely unsettling and unfair disciplinary procedures here at Middlebury, for case by case basis? If anyone in the administration could speak to that?"
Katie Smith Abbott (Vice President of Student Affairs): "I have been charged with leading our exploration of how to bring restorative practice to Middlebury. We are partnering with a firm called the Consortium for Equity and Inclusion and the two anchors for that are a woman named Stacy Miller who is the associate provost of inclusivity at Valparaiso and Dennis DePaul who is from the Dean of Students Office at UVM which has had real success for a very long period of time with restorative practices, grounded in Residential Life at UVM. So they came to explain the basic concepts of what is referred to as RP to the SLG in June, the Senior Leadership Group which is the Presidents and all the Vice Presidents. They came back for a subsequent training because we didn't fit everything in, they came back in September, they have met for an introductory session with a broad range of faculty and staff who work in student life. And they're coming back for a three-day training December 18, 19, and 20 and if there are folks in this room who want to participate in that training I'd be happy to talk to you. The only requirements are that you're able to fully commit for the three full days. It's 8:30-5, it's three full days, and you're willing to be part of the ongoing implementation conversations. It is not a fast process to implement but we're fully committed to it. The other thing I would just note is that restorative justice and restorative practices are kind of getting used interchangeably, and I do want to be honest about the fact that I'm learning, this is not something I knew about before I started on this journey working with Stacy and Dennis, being part of a group that's being doing some deep diving into this work. But what I will offer is that they have explained to us very clearly that restorative justice is a small subsection of restorative practices, and the reason we're drawn to restorative practices is because they can be used proactively not just reactively so that a moment like this one wouldn't be appropriate for a restorative circle, like President Patton was referencing earlier, but something called a conference that's very intentionally facilitated. Although I've got to say that I think the student leaders of this session are doing a pretty amazing job. So that's the timeline, we're moving into this training in December with an eye towards hopefully grounding it in student life and residential life by next fall."
Vee Duong (’19): "I had a question: so something kind of disturbing that I have been noticing this year being involved in more cultural orgs is that a lot of students say "Oh wow I didn't know that existed, when do y'all have meetings?" And then we're like oh well we had a booth at activities and we have a mailing list that's been open, we operate out of the AFC which is always open, and to have these open discussions that we have been having about race, to have people who do not identify as that come into that space, that is acceptable and that's fine and we encourage you to do that but to have people come in and not be aware of the space they're taking up is very frustrating. So this is a point for faculty and staff and/or administrators, in that what are you all doing to provide real educational resources for students, incoming students especially, so that the burden doesn't fall on cultural orgs where we are already working really hard to provide a space to take care of our members mentally and emotionally to support each other so we don't have to take on the additional burden of educating people because all the educational resources I have seen have been put together laboriously through hours of our personal time.
Baishakhi Taylor (Dean of Students): "Vee I hear your question and I agree that we also need to do more. We have added sessions during the MiddView. President Patton has now made JusTalks mandatory for the entire class. We have also added more training in our reslife program and among colleagues who are in the reslife group and that's obviously not adequate so on top of having all these sessions that introduce with the incoming class this year we'll continue to build on that and I also acknowledge that having those sessions only during MiddView and JusTalks is not sufficient so we need to build on it throughout the year so the responsibility is not on the Anderson Freeman Center and thank you for doing the work that you're doing and raising the question."
Anonymous question (read by Rainey): "It seems like both Alison Stanger and Laurie Patton have been taking a lot of public, national opportunities to speak about the events of the spring, including at a congressional hearing on C-SPAN, the Free Speech Conference Laurie spoke at. For the purpose of transparency, are President Patton or Alison Stanger being financially compensated for these talks? Are they profiting off the terrible situation the administration has put us in?"
Patton: "I was not paid to go to the University of Chicago and I have no interest in profiting any situation that happened at Middlebury. I am very clear that any conversation that's part of the national discourse where Middlebury is mentioned we need to create balance so at the Chicago conference part of what we pushed on with many, many people there is where is our inclusivity? Where are our inclusivity efforts? We've always got to balance those two things no matter what happens. I had no intentions of profiting in any way my intent is to work on moving a national conversation where people who are constantly talking about free speech also talk about inclusivity. So both of those things are balanced and fair and appropriate, so that's the very direct answer. I had a couple more responses to questions I didn’t get a chance to answer but if there’s time later [I’ll answer].”
Victor Filpo (admissions counselor, class of '16): "I hope I really speaking for myself here rather than any hat of student, alumn, or staff member here on campus. Something that is frustrating, honestly, about this conversation is that we've really been centering around the case that happened with Addis or the case that happened with the professor. And that's completely legitimate because they are people who've been struggling a lot and they've been carrying a lot of the heaviness of what's going on. But I would like to say that the reality is that a lot of people of color deal with this. It is not surprising. We are tokenizing them right now by only brining up those instances. When I was freshman, when I was walking with my Posse member in Battell, a public safety office stopped us and told us, 'I haven't seen you on campus can you show us your IDs?' When we were first years here at Middlebury. He still works here. I have also gotten accused by other Public Safety officers for other things. It turns out completely fine because my dean loves me, obviously. And all the deans here do an amazing job at really caring for their students and really trying to look out emotionally for everyone. But this continues happening on the daily. Just this last summer I was crossing with two other students, and I'm glad this stuff happens to me when I'm with other people because I would not be able to believe that it happens to me on this level, weekly or biweekly, it's insane. Crossing the street, people start accelerating and then they stop and they yell the n-word at you. You are walking to your house or walking to your dorm and someone stops in a car and just yells at you, 'that looks stolen,' yells a rap lyric at you, choses another slur. It really does baffle me that this happens so often and I was just here as a senior two years ago and we had the same conversation about a sombrero right here. And every year we will continue to have this conversation right here. And yet I still have to walk home and have this experience all over again. And the only time I will be taken seriously isn't even when I'm with another person of color but rather when I have the kind, woke, white lady who is willing to represent me and say whoa he's going through some pain let's do something about it. I don't want someone to have a voice for me. I want to be able to talk for myself to be able to talk for myself, to be believed, for something to happen when I ask for it. When a person of color is going through a lot they don't have means to be able to express it. Do we really understand the amount of people of color who haven't said anything about their experiences. And when you sit with someone and they say, 'that baffles me,' does it really? Does it really? It shouldn't because it honestly happens on such a daily level. And you yourself you're all very smart people. We know that this happens. We ignore it. We choose to ignore it because it makes us feel comfortable. And I wonder when we're going to stop with this comfort because we just sit here every single year and have this conversation all over again in this comfort and I hope that in future instances when the next one comes up it's not Shatavia, it's not Victor, it's not the professor. It's a collective group of people who are going through a lot."
Student, unknown: "You said something about conversation and us being free and all that. There's a lot of dark forces in general on this campus and beyond this campus and a lot of what was just talked about were references to instances where students are facing racism from other white students on this campus that I'm sure a lot of people don't know about. If we look we have Donald Trump as our president and there's just crazy things going on while we're sitting here having restorative conversations, there's evil things going on and this stuff that we're talking about is just a small sample of something that's going on. It comes to a point where people have to decide whether they're going to actually be on the side of what's right or what's wrong and everyone has to make their own choice. I hope that especially the white people here will make that choice and not hide behind good sounding rhetoric or kind words, because those things are good and genuine kindness is good but a lot of people here feel like unless the school addresses the issues that are going on at the institutional level how are we going to be able to talk about what's going on in the world?"
Patton: "I wanted to mention that we're working with public safety, public safety has gone through a mandatory de-escalation training as well as diversity training this fall and will continue to do so. Concrete action. Concrete action: we created a seizing the opportunity fund for any student at Middlebury who wants to and needs to do something different, whether they need their parents to come here, or whether they need to go to MiddCore, whether they need more money for something they need more access to at Middlebury. We have raised that money so that every student has access to all educational opportunities. We started that last year, it's available, talk to Katy Smith Abbott, another concrete action. Third, one of the things we're really excited about is, I really appreciate what you said about facing racism and acknowledging and the everyday racism that happens on this campus that I acknowledged in the beginning. I think that if we could create an archive to create news stories of what is happening to people that would make it even more powerful for us so we need to get those kinds of stories on the books. We need to do a lot more mandatory training, that concrete action is happening in the next year, and in the back there are about 15 more concrete actions, none of them are enough. We need your advice on how to make it more effective and again I want to acknowledge the hurt that people are feeling and we are going to create a lot of student advisory committees to be better and more effective. And I am so proud of this community for being here tonight. Thank you very much."
Sohn: "We also know that tonight not all of your questions have been answered and we want to thank everyone for raising those question."
Anonymous notecard (read by Sohn): "Hoping on Wengel and Mia's point on allyship, please understand that these may be very sensitive times for POCs, QTPOCs on campus and on that note if you find yourself going to the AFC I hope you take the responsibility to learn about what it means to the POC/QTPOC community. You could speak to the directors and student staff in the space, and it's very central to understand what it means to take up space in times as sensitive as this one. On that note please come feel free to come learn more about the positive impact the AFC is making on this institution."
(11/01/17 10:11pm)
A sad day it is indeed when supposedly “liberal” publications like The New York Times and The Guardian are seen practically falling over each other singing praises of those bold Defenders of Democracy, the Senate’s newest Knights of Truth, Bob Corker and Jeff Flake. Seriously, if I sound mockingly hyperbolic (which, to be fair, I am), just read how the Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui described Flake’s recent Senate speech in her less-than-subtle front page piece entitled “Battle hymns of the Republicans: Trump civil war is just getting started:”
“It is time for our complicity and our accommodation for the unacceptable to end,” Flake said, in explosive remarks that were instantly labeled as a historic act of defiance. “There are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles. Now is such a time.”
Similarly breathless praise was shown forth upon Flake’s fellow Republican ideologue, multimillionaire Tennessean Bob Corker, whose recent criticism of Supreme Idiot Donald Trump was described by The New York Times as “an extraordinary rebuke of a president of his own party.”
Historic act of defiance! Extraordinary rebuke! What a low bar we’ve set for such things. Yet in all fairness, one could be forgiven for agreeing with these laudatory words upon first glance; after all, the sight of a senator referring to the White House of a sitting president as an “adult day care” would have once been quite the spectacle, and admittedly felt pretty satisfying to read. But this blanketing coverage is hardly more than a vapid, TMZ-style play-by-play of a Twitter feud between two celebrities. What Flake and Corker are actually frustrated about is The Donald’s near-comical unwillingness and inability to play the Reaganesque role of President, something which even previous all-time foot-in-mouth champion and expert shoe-dodger George W. Bush managed to occasionally pass for (‘Mission Accomplished’ Top-Gunnery notwithstanding).
The reason that all these establishment Republicans like Flake and Corker ever went along with Trump’s stunning idiocy at all is because his attention-consuming theatrics take all the focus off of their party’s quieter dismantling of environmental and financial regulations, industry capture of agencies and other blatant giveaways to their corporate masters. Trump’s lack of any substantive policy knowledge or interest, however distasteful to Washington intelligentsia, is fairly inconsequential for the bureaucracy assembled by his party to finish the task of converting our state to little more than an enabler and enforcer of corporate greed. If Jeff Flake were somehow President instead, I have little doubt that he would have nominated oil industry mouthpiece Scott Pruitt for EPA chief just as readily.
Obviously Trump is eroding the office of President, and our culture more broadly. But these things were in decline long before that bloated orange embodiment of toxic masculinity decided, likely out of boredom, to chain the nation to his cart on the express lane of societal malaise. Yes, Trump has brought the aesthetics of the presidency to a Kid Rock shade of terrible, but sadly this unflattering representation of American politics more accurately reflects its internal moral rot than the poised, intellectual Obama. Why didn’t Republicans like Flake decry “the constant non-truth-telling...the debasement of our nation” (his words on Trump) when Bush’s cabal blatantly lied about WMDs in Iraq? Is this Republican tendency towards honesty also annulled every time a fossil-fueled lawmaker denies climate change? Was the office of President not eroded when it started to approve summary executions via drone strikes on American citizens without due process? The hypocrisy here is so outstanding that I’m struck with the horrifying possibility that they’ve begun to believe their own nonsense.
Thus the real root of Flake and Corker’s insubordination, and their subsequent positive press, comes not from any place of real dissent, but because the carefully cultivated veneer of stately legitimacy has been crudely ripped off by a man with the tact and taste of an 11-year-old. It’s almost grotesquely beautiful, if it weren’t so painful to watch. Now the capriciousness, the astounding corruption, warmongering, jingoism and plain old irresponsibility that has unfortunately characterized the last few decades of the declining American Empire is no longer festering, disguised, in the background. Instead, it’s exuberantly celebrated in every asinine tweet, unconsidered nuclear provocation, and embarrassingly public tit-for-tat that we see faithfully reproduced on screen and page, ad nauseum.
This is too much for most of us to handle, let alone pillars of the old order like The Times or Bob Corker. So instead we pretend that it’s just this one buffoon’s crusade on decency, rather than a reflection of the society that placed him on its own throne. Even so, it’s frankly pathetic to see publications that brand themselves as principled liberal opposition siding so readily with politicians as despicable in substance as Trump is in image. Perhaps once we rid ourselves of a perverse longing for the illusion of righteous governance to return, we can actually get to the work of achieving it.
(11/01/17 8:59pm)
As Middlebury’s board of trustees convened inside Old Chapel on Thursday, Oct. 19, members of the college community rallied outside to renew a years-long call for the college to divest from fossil fuels.
The event, described as a teach-in, was organized by the student group Divest Middlebury. Scheduled to coincide with the trustees’ annual fall meeting, the event featured speeches by three students and three community members.
“The place we love is not behaving in the way that we need it to behave,” said Bill McKibben, an environmental activist and scholar at the college, who headlined the event. “It’s not a very hard thing that we’re asking.”
Divest Middlebury calls for the college’s board of trustees to withdraw all investments that the college holds in any of the top 200 fossil fuel corporations—a ranking maintained by the environmental advocacy group Fossil Free. The college’s endowment, managed by the firm Investure, currently invests $60 million in corporations on that list.
The Divest Middlebury campaign began in 2012, and the board of trustees voted against divestment that same year. A resolution supporting divestment was passed by the Student Government Association (SGA) in 2013, and a 2017 SGA survey showed that 67% of the student body supports divestment.
Alec Fleischer ’20.5 delivered the first student speech, providing an overview of the divestment movement and its goals. Fleischer then led the crowd in a chant of “Stand up, fight back,” intending to be heard by the trustees inside Old Chapel.
Esteban Arenas-Pino ’18 spoke next, focusing on Middlebury’s history of student protest.
“In May 1969, 250 students staged a sit-in in Coltrane to demand the faculty take a position on the role of ROTC on campus and the dissolution of the department of military science,” he said. “Clearly, since then, the campus legacy has been one of activism.”
Arenas-Pino framed divestment as a matter of social justice, calling for the end of “carbon colonialism and the modern climate apartheid that renders those in the global south the most vulnerable to climate injustices caused by global warming.”
Emma Ronai-Durning ’18.5 voiced similar sentiments. “Divestment has called attention to the essential connections between capitalism and racism in creating climate destruction,” she said.
“[The trustees] missed an opportunity to be leaders in environmental justice, climate justice and what they claim they stand for,” she said. “Today, as the board continues to hide behind its guise of neutrality, students haven’t taken no for an answer. We see that there is only one answer: that’s organizing.”
Non-student speakers focused on the impacts of climate change already being felt in Addison County. “It poured rain for three months here,” said Fran Putnam, a Weybridge resident. “The farmers who normally plant their corn the middle of May, they planted their corn on July 6.”
McKibben discussed the trustees’ past failure to divest, and the movement’s continued importance.
“I had high hopes so that Middlebury could be the first place to divest, and we really had it lined up. It was great, everybody here talking” he said. “Sadly, Middlebury whiffed. The trustees weren’t quite up to it then, couldn’t bring themselves to do it.”
McKibben emphasized that the growing renewable energy sector, in conjunction with an unstable fossil fuel industry, makes divestment an economically sound choice. “We’re moving away from fossil fuels. That’s the past, not the future,” he said.
“It behooves, in this place in particular, the board of trustees to pay some attention to the moral authority of the people who will have to live through the crises that we are now creating,” he said, invoking the elder generations of which he and many trustees are a part. “We’re going to be dead before climate change hits at its absolute worst.”
The crowd at the protest matched the leaves on the trees, wearing the orange that has come to symbolize the divest movement. Despite the blustery weather, attendance exceeded one hundred students.
Bea Lee ’20.5 was one of them. “I want to do more than wear a piece of orange felt on my backpack,” she said.
(10/19/17 1:05am)
Last week, former Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) and former Governor John Sununu (R-NH) and chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush, came to campus for a conversation entitled, “Finding Common Ground for Economic Opportunity in the Trump Era.” (For coverage of the event, click here). Following the event, Frank and Sununu sat down with The Campus for an interview, which has been lightly edited for clarity.
Middlebury Campus (MC): Last March, in the room we were just in, students here protested a speech by Charles Murray, preventing him from speaking. This is something we've seen around the country—what are your general thoughts on college campuses shutting down speakers?
John Sununu (JS): The biggest problem in America today.
Barney Frank (BF): I don’t think it’s the biggest problem in America, but it’s outrageous. First, from a standpoint of individual rights and civil liberties, it’s wrong, morally wrong—that’s not the way you want a democracy. Secondly, it is particularly disturbing because it intrudes on the function of a university, which should be where people learn. Third, it bothers me politically. I don’t want to make that an important reason, because it’s wrong whether it’s helpful [politically] or not, but it’s totally counterproductive. These are people on the left who could not be giving the right a bigger gift; they could not be doing more to empower right-wingers.
This is an argument I’ve been having with a lot of people for 50 years. In the ‘60s when there was excessive violence in African-American communities and in Vietnam, Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew made great hay off of that, so it’s politically counterproductive in that sense. Finally, it’s very shortsighted for people who are members of vulnerable minorities. Yeah, on campus the pro-LGBT position and the pro-African American position might be in the majority. But in the broader society that isn’t always gonna be the case. For LGBT people in particular, to reaffirm the principle that if a conversation upsets people you shouldn’t have it, is an attitude I’ve been fighting all my life about my rights.
JS: The reason I think it’s the biggest problem, or one of the biggest problems, is because it’s producing a generation of young people who are on campus and who will be leaving campus who, in my opinion, are being encouraged by a lot of faculty members to feel that the First Amendment is not an appropriate right in this country. To me, none of the other rights work without First Amendment rights.
MC: What might be the causes of this phenomenon? Is it reflected in our political climate, as exhibited in Congress?
BF: I don’t know. Some of it is because of economic disadvantage, but that’s not the case here—these are not people, on the whole, who are economically disadvantaged. I’m skeptical of my ability to explain why it happened, because if I knew why it happened, maybe I would’ve known it was gonna happen. But I suppose there is one argument that I’ve heard that I totally reject—I’ve heard it from those Antifa people, who are especially obnoxious and who are themselves dangerous—that there is a danger that fascism is gonna take over. That isn’t remotely the case and even if it was, the [proper] targets are not the ones they deal with. So I do not know why we have this outbreak.
JS: I’m not sure I understand it either. Some of it is related to the point I tried to make [during the event]: that technology has permitted people to isolate themselves with others that are completely in accord with them, and give them a feeling that they don’t have to hand shouldn’t exchange ideas with other. We’ll have to see how far this thing does, but I would really urge conservatives, liberals, progressives, everybody of every philosophy, to understand the point the congressman made upstairs: that constructive discourse is necessary in a democracy.
BF: It bothers me too, because I want to make change. I want people to go out and vote and throw out the bad people and put in better people and then put pressure on them to do the right thing. The problem in part is people think, having done that, that they’ve done something for the cause. “Hey, I made America better for LGBT people by shouting down a bigot!” That doesn’t do me a goddamn bit of good. It’s an easy way out. If you really don’t like these people, get out there. Write letters, call talk shows, get on social media and make your arguments with people.
MC: This is a very liberal institution, and a lot of people here come from very liberal places. When you come to an institution that reaffirms the beliefs you’ve held all your life, how do you go about challenging yourself? How do you, as lifelong members of one political party, keep challenging yourself?
JS: Read, read, read. There’s some great authors out there. Read both sides.
BF: Find some people, go listen to them speaking, even if it’s not on campus. I wouldn’t recommend watching TV—with rare exceptions, TV people promote fighting and squabbling.
MC: Here at the college, many folks with conservative views feel silenced, as though if they express their viewpoints, other students will attack them. What would your advice be to young conservative students?
BF: Get over it. Do people still say, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me?” Call me a name, so what? Sununu and I have been getting called names for a living for a very long time. I would say just don’t take it to heart, don’t take these people seriously.
JS: It’s hard to do that, especially if you’re afraid of retribution from faculty. But Barney’s right—either believe in what you believe in enough to not hide it, or go somewhere else. If enough go somewhere else, maybe the institution will learn something’s wrong. Institutions have a responsibility, and in a constructive way, [students should] urge more of the kind of stuff we had tonight.
MC: Congressman Frank, during the talk, you referenced the lack of political participation in the U.S., especially in primaries. This plagues the Democratic Party in particular. Aside from reminding people of the value of voting, what kind of role does the party have in maximizing turnout?
BF: [The party] can’t take sides, but what it can do and has done is fight very hard against voter suppression. There’s a task force headed by Eric Holder, to fight at the local level against restrictive rules.
JS: Obviously I don’t agree with the congressman on that. To answer your question about what the party can do: it’s hard for the party in primaries because it doesn’t want to be perceived as favoring somebody and it doesn’t take much of a nuance or slip for that to happen. But there are ways it can fund phonebooks saying to go out and vote; door-knocking, dropping off literature about every candidate in the party. That’s what the party can do. But in primaries it’s really up to the candidates—they’re the ones receiving the contributions, they’re the ones urging people to get out, and it’s up to them to get support.
BF: You can have much more influence with your peers than we can, when you’re of that age. There are advocacy groups—part of their work is to make a list of everyone and tell them to go vote. People should not exaggerate the role of the parties. I’ve had people complain to me that “The Democratic National Committee rigged the nomination for Hillary Clinton.” My answer is, the Democratic National Committee couldn’t put out a fire in a bathtub. They just don’t have that kind of power.
MC: You talked about the role of the party; do you think there’s a need for a 3rd, 4th, 5th party?
BF: You know that story, there’s a guy next to a girl, he has his hands around her, and he says, “I wish I was an octopus so I could put 8 arms around you.” And she says, “You ain’t using the two you got!” You’re not doing what you want with what you have! The parties are not monoliths.
JS: You don’t want to get European, where you give leverage to some group that—
BF: And why would you want to start a new party? If you have enough votes to win in a new party, go vote in primaries and take over an existing one. The parties are not monoliths. And a third party, what would it be for?
MC: Well, thinking of the divide between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton—
BF: So you think it would be better to have two parties? In terms of what is achievable in the U.S. Congress in the foreseeable future, there’s no practical difference. Neither one of them could give you all of what you want; people are fighting about unrealism. So let me put it this way: if people want to start a third party to the left, the Republicans would be delighted; if the Republicans wanted to start one to the right, the Democrats would be delighted.
JS: I just think a two-party system serves the country well. You may think it’s broke, but it ain’t broke.
(10/18/17 11:42pm)
MIDDLEBURY — At a public hearing hosted by the Vermont Climate Action Commission in Brattleboro on Thursday, Oct. 5, Middlebury students joined community members to discuss solutions to reduce carbon emissions and fight climate change. Many solutions were proposed, including incentivizing renewables, divestment from fossil fuel companies and government subsidies of weatherization, with carbon pricing being the most popular.
“It really struck me to get to hear from Vermonters because you realize that all of these issues are impacting their lives and the things that they care about,” Oscar Psychas ’21 said about his experience at the hearing. “One thing I love about Vermont is that people are really civically engaged — they really care about making a positive difference in the government. I think it’s an exciting opportunity if Middlebury can be a part of that Vermont community and democratic spirit to take part in finding solutions to these important issues.”
For Vermont, a state reliant on agriculture, addressing these issues is all the more urgent. Following President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, many institutions, states and countries have agreed to continue to try to meet carbon emission reduction goals.
Vermont is a part of these ranks. Governor Phil Scott (R) signed Executive Order No. 12-17 in July 2017, creating the Vermont Climate Action Commission (VCAC) as a part of his commitment to reduce the state’s carbon emissions. The VCAC aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a way that will boost the economy and affect all Vermonters equally.
Although the carbon pricing initiative proved popular among residents, Gov. Scott has rejected the proposal. In a statement from September, Gov. Phil Scott said “I will veto a carbon tax if it comes to my desk because we cannot make Vermont more affordable by making it less affordable.” He also said that “real solutions will strengthen the economy and not add to the crisis of affordability many families and business are facing.”
Many agree with the governor that carbon pricing would negatively affect Vermont residents, citing higher gas prices as a concern.
Bennett Pienkowski ’20.5 explained another perspective: “Carbon pricing will be a net positive for the economy of Vermont because it is a potentially revenue-neutral campaign that will help us reduce emissions. The thought being that if you raise the price on carbon, we will spend less on carbon, and then less money will leave the state in the form of fossil fuel revenues. The money that doesn’t leave the state is going to be spent locally.”
Bennington College student Sabrina Melendez explained this idea further in an interview for VTDigger. “[Revenue-neutral] means taxing carbon emissions of fossil fuel companies at the extraction and distribution level and returning that money to the people of Vermont to make up for higher gas prices,” she said.
According to the Manchester Journal, although the ‘listening tour’ held by the Climate Action Commission has received praise, many are urging Gov. Scott to take the next step and uphold his commitment to the reduction of carbon emissions by supporting a carbon tax in Vermont.
At the Snow Bowl Family Bash on Saturday, Oct. 14, students hosted an educational booth in order to spread the word about the carbon pricing initiative at Middlebury. Leif Taranta ’20.5, a student who worked at the booth, shared some thoughts about the effort.
“We must live in occurrence with the values that we put forth. Middlebury is proud to have a carbon neutral campus and to model environmental sustainability, yet we still have harmful carbon emissions. There are many ways to take responsibility including divestment from fossil fuel companies and investment in renewables, but carbon pricing is one concrete, localized step we can take now, especially because we cannot count on the federal government to take action against climate change,” he said.
In addition to supporting the initiative on a state level, students at the Snow Bowl advocated for localized carbon pricing within Middlebury College.
“For the rest of the semester we’re going to be collecting signatures and getting people excited about supporting a carbon price on campus so that we’re upholding our own commitment to sustainability,” said Psychas. “That carbon price is not going to be coming out of the pockets of students, faculty or staff of the college.” President Laurie Patton has agreed to endorse the petition if enough signatures from the student body are collected, he said.
“We’re a leading education institution, maybe the leading educational institution in the state, and so I think when we take action, especially in such a small state, it sets a tone,” Pienkowski said. “And so if we institute our own carbon charge and get President Laurie Patton to support it, that says a lot.”
The Sunday Night Group, a group that focuses on environmental problems and awareness on campus, particularly climate activism, will be hosting more events in the coming weeks. On Thursday, Oct. 19, at 4:30 p.m. in front of Old Chapel, they will be teaching about divestment, another important step that Middlebury can take towards combating climate change and protecting the environment.
(10/18/17 11:23pm)
Former House of Representative member Barney Frank (D–MA) sat down with former New Hampshire governor John Sununu (R) last Wednesday to discuss the status of economic opportunity in the Trump era. Gail Chaddock, the former political editor for the Christian Science Monitor, moderated their discussion.
Sponsored by the Common Ground Committee and the Christian Science Monitor, the discussion was part of a series called “Critical Conversations,” an initiative started the college in response to the political events that occurred last spring. Its mission is to emphasize Middlebury’s commitment to free expression and inclusivity while promoting better arguments with greater respect.
The conversation, titled “Find Common Ground for Economic Opportunity in the Trump Era,” focused on four main topics: jobs and growth, economic opportunity and the social safety net, taxes and regulations, and immigration. Throughout the discussion, the two politicians emphasized the importance of maintaining civility during a time of increasing political polarization.
“The process of arguing and disagreeing is essential to democracy and to finding the right answer,” Frank said.
Both politicians blamed the proliferation of technology and the wide-spread use of social media for causing the current political climate.
“Because of today’s technology, people only talk to others whom they know have the same political beliefs. This promotes a cluster of sameness and creates a climate in this country that dissuades confrontation,” Sununu said.
Both men used this conversation to criticize the media — saying the media only covers the negative aspects of government and ignores the positives. Frank said this focus on negativity makes bipartisan cooperation increasingly difficult.
“When you compromise, you are the traitor,” Frank said. Both politicians emphasized a need for the media to find a balance between holding the government accountable and praising their successes.
In terms of economic policy, the two did not disagree on specific issues but instead they emphasized different aspects of the economy they deemed most important. Sununu highlighted the need to encourage capital investment on U.S. soil.
“The government needs to create incentives for companies to repatriate jobs here,” he said. “Democrats and Republicans need to come together for tax bill that has incentives while protecting the middle class.”
He added a need for the tax reform bill to include a way for the three to five trillion dollars in companies overseas to come back the U.S. economy.
Although Frank praised trade and capital investment, he put more emphasis on the need for equity.
“We make money by selling things to other countries. It’s a mistake we’ve made a push for trade yet we fail to compensate those people who are hurt by trade,” Frank said. “Trade does not offset the benefits between winners and losers. It multiplies the benefits for the winners, and the losers are the same.”
Both men condemned what they saw as President Trump’s inability to produce a coherent agenda — Frank going as far as to refer to Trump as “the insulter-and-chief,” but also they praised him for starting a dialogue about the need for countries who participate in NATO to pay their fair share.
Their discussion turned to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which allows undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children to apply to remain in the country. Both criticized President Trump unfavorable view of the policy.
“People whom were brought here without being asked should be allowed to live here and become citizens,” Frank said.
Sununu added that DACA was a potential cornerstone of cooperation for Congress, saying that this policy was the perfect opportunity for the two parties to reach across the aisle and begin compromising.
The conversation ended with both men emphasizing the most effective way for students to bring about change in the government was trust in the political system.
“It’s important to participate in the process and stay with it even if things don’t happen quickly,” Sununu said. “Keep participating and don’t get frustrated. The system was designed to be hard to change major policy.”
Frank stressed the need to vote against obstructionist politicians in order for more legislation to be passed.
“Primary elections have more of an effect on politics than final elections. Refusing to vote in the primary perpetuates extremists in politics,” he said.
The audience had mixed opinions on the discussion.
“I appreciated their perspective and their history having both worked in Congress for so long and how, as representatives of two different parties, they were able to forge compromises and have substantive discussions” said Margie Harris, a visitor from Portland, Oregon, in town to see the leaves change colors.
Jackie McMakin, a local resident of Middlebury, said, “It’s enlightening and refreshing to hear a Democrat and a Republican spark each other to go deeper and to create value for the country.”
But to some of the students in attendance the conversations centered too much on the importance of respectful dialogue during confrontation, which some students felt ultimately detracted from the over all content of the debate.
“They were too focused on civility so they ended up not having any substantive debate over policy,” Avery Dyer ’21 said.
David Rigas ’21 agreed with Dyer. “They emphasized the importance of disagreement, but it kind of seemed like they agreed on everything,” he said.
The next event in the Critical Conversations series will take place on Thursday, Oct. 26, at 7 p.m. in Wilson Hall. It is titled “How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning the Racist Lessons of a Southern Childhood.”
(10/04/17 11:46pm)
This past summer was the first time since 1893 that eight or more major hurricanes formed in a row in the Atlantic. This hurricane season was also the only season on record with three hurricanes with an Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) — a scientific measure of the strength of the hurricane — over 40.
Only 26 of 424 Atlantic hurricanes since 1950 have had an ACE value above 40, making this summer anomalously active for a hurricane season. This level of activity and the devastating effects of these hurricanes have elicited many questions, many of which were addressed at the “Harvey, Irma, Maria: A Community Teach-in” event at the Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest on Sept. 29. The event gathered students and faculty alike to discuss these questions and the implications of this summer’s flurry of hurricanes.
The moderator of the discussion, economics professor John Isham, began by asking participants to posit the questions they had in order to create a list of questions before the discussion started. Questions ranged from specifics about the correlation between climate change and hurricanes to the media’s reaction to the hurricanes. The breadth of subjects touched by these questions emphasized how interdisciplinary a conversation about hurricanes should be, a need which was only reinforced throughout the conversation.
The first question discussed was the relationship between climate change and hurricanes. Environmental studies professor Molly Constanza-Robinson said the general conclusion of scientists was that “we aren’t causing them, but we’re intensifying them.” Dan Brayton, an English and American studies professor, backed Costanza-Robinson up by making clear that behind the complicated science of hurricanes lies the simple fact that “hurricanes are all about warm water.” Not only do hurricanes form over warm water, but they are also intensified by warm water. Together, the professors’ responses make clear that climate change is causing a rise in sea temperatures, which allows hurricanes to intensify easier.
From there, the conversation branched into the tragic situation in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was hit by category four Hurricane Maria on Sept. 19, causing the entire island to lose power, cell coverage and running water. This, coupled with the destruction of buildings and roads, has caused a dire and dangerous situation for all Puerto Ricans.
One student brought up how it took the United States a full week to lift the Jones Act to allow Puerto Rico to receive aid from other countries. The Jones Act prevents Puerto Rico from trading with any country but the United States, and delineates that if a ship from any other country wants to go to Puerto Rico, it must get explicit permission from the U.S. government.
This brought up questions about the role the United States should play in aiding Puerto Rico. Professor Isham described how Puerto Ricans are subject to U.S. Federal Taxes and economic limitations like the Jones Act without the privileges of U.S. citizenship. He viewed these as important aspects of this “post-colonialist” period in history.
Professor Rebecca Gould mentioned how the U.S. government said it was difficult to access and aid Puerto Rico due to its poor infrastructure, and said the government should instead be asking itself what is actually causing that poor infrastructure. Costanza-Robinson brought up how rich Americans in hedge funds profit off loans to Puerto Rico, the process of which is throwing Puerto Rico into increasing debt. She noted how this exemplifies the power of a small group of rich Americans to control the fate of millions of people.
Later in the conversation, Alec Fleischer ’20.5 of the Divest Middlebury movement brought up this point. He described how Middlebury is still invested in companies like these hedge funds and asked the question, “How are we different from these hedge funds if we’re still invested in them?”
Joseph Holler, a geography professor, then passed around a paper that showed a map that was part of the Flood Insurance Study done in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The map was blanked out by a white square with writing on it that said “Flood hazard information for this portion of the transect has be superseded by the revised interior drainage analysis performed in 2014.”
Holler described how political processes redacted the actual flooding hazard information. Now companies are building and rebuilding in New Orleans as though it is safer than it was before Katrina, regardless of the fact that, in reality, it is not.
Isham concluded the discussion by asking the group, “What should we do?” One student’s response was to simply elect the right people. Participants generally agreed with this as a solution, though there was some debate about how to elect the right people. Another student lamented how he felt that those who are currently in the position to be elected are not people he would want to elect. Another student brought up the need to inform voters on the issues brought up in this conversation, from climate change to the U.S. international affairs in Puerto Rico.
This conversation brought up a lot of important problems surrounding this past hurricane season, too many to address in this article alone. While not all the mentioned issues were about the hurricanes themselves, they were all directly tied to the causes and devastating effects of hurricanes. This reporter left the conversation not feeling very optimistic about the issues that were brought up, but was impressed by the intelligent and open discussion. Conversations like these and the actions that result from them are vital if we are to address these challenges we face as a college, as a nation and as humans.
(10/04/17 11:41pm)
Those who have gotten to meet me probably know that I am a 21-year-old freshman, that I took part in two gap years before coming to Middlebury, and that I am running for first year senator. I noted throughout the application process that during my second gap year I enrolled in a computer science course, coded, worked, pursued my passion for bicycles, worked on college applications and spent time with family.
Yet I left behind details about my life that I did not feel comfortable sharing at the time. I left out the fact that most of that year was spent dealing with the aftermath of sexual assault, both in hospital beds and at meetings for an investigation that would culminate with the impunity of my perpetrator.
After having completed a highly rewarding gap year abroad in Leon, Nicaragua, working with renewable and energy efficiency initiatives, I returned home to partake in a summer program hosted at the university I was expecting to attend. But shortly before the program’s end, my life encountered the same predicament that too often affects young, college-bound men and women across the nation.
The story is all too familiar: a drunken night. A clouded mind. Unwanted touch. And finally, overwhelming confusion, anger, fear, sadness, powerlessness and even self-hatred and blame. I was unable to leave my dorm hall, eat in the dining halls or even sleep. I was forced to silently catch a train home and take a second gap year.
Fast-forwarding to my life here and now as a new Middlebury student I find myself running for first-year senate. I feel it is important to echo the words of Gregory Buckles, dean of admissions, during his convocation speech this past September: “We’re not looking for perfection, nor should you get wrapped up in finding perfection here at Middlebury,” he stated. “The truth is you’re not going to find it.”
While I do not expect Middlebury to be perfect, I do expect it to be better than what I encountered at the other college I was planning on attending (and thankfully never did). I expect it to be better than that place where I was told by an administrator to ‘learn my lesson,’ after painfully recounting my sexual assault. And thus far it has.
Over this past summer I contacted Sue Ritter (Title IX coordinator) asking for resources for survivors and received support. I recognize the complexity of the issues that permeate Middlebury’s campus, as well as my own personal lack of sufficient knowledge needed to form a fully educated and rational opinion. But I see that the college still has a long way to go when it comes to addressing sexual assault, health, transparency and accountability.
While I would like to refrain as much as possible from engaging in the gratuitous enumeration of the several positions that make up my platform, focusing on the source of the passion that drives this campaign instead, I feel it is important to discuss ways in which the school can more seriously tackle gender-based violence.
Health Care Access
To improve students’ access to their healthcare needs, the school should follow in the footsteps of colleges and install vending machines providing emergency contraception (Plan B), condoms, tampons, Advil and other medical products that students may need access to when Parton Health Centre is closed. This is particularly relevant for emergency contraception which research shows is most often needed during weekends.
Student Accountability
One of the main policies that I would like to pursue includes the creation of a student accountability office to facilitate avenues of cooperation between students and administrators, and provide productive criticism. This office would afford students the ability to report safely, comfortably and anonymously inappropriate behaviour by administrators and staff.
To improve students’ access to their healthcare needs, the school should follow in the footsteps of colleges and universities like Stanford, Pomona and UC Davis, among others, and install vending machines that provide Plan B, condoms, tampons, Advil and other medical products that students may need access to when Parton Health Centre is closed. This is particularly relevant for emergency contraception which research shows is most often needed during weekends.
Finally, but most importantly, a school that aims to seriously tackle gender-based violence should promote the following:
Climate Surveys
Performing a campus climate survey yearly to recognize the extent of this problem. Climate surveys allow students to anonymously and candidly describe their experiences on campus and evaluate the effectiveness and access to the resources that the college makes available to them. This tool is the first step to effectively addressing gender-based violence on campus, and is championed by national organizations like Know Your IX.
Data Transparency
The school should maintain easily accessible statistics of gender-based violence, extending beyond the limited Annual Security and Fire Safety Report mandated by the Department of Education under Title IX, which only go back three years. Furthermore, prints of such statistics and reports should be provided to incoming first-years during orientation.
Improving Bystander Training and Sexual Education
The sexual education offered to incoming freshmen is currently very cursory and brief. A more comprehensive sex-ed programme that addresses affirmative and enthusiastic consent, safe sex and healthy relationships (among other issues) more in depth is needed. The creation of said programme needs deep collaboration between students, faculty and staff but some of the points I would like to pursue include:
No first-year or incoming freshman should be allowed to receive ID or access to dorms without completing such a training course, and orientation should include more small group discussions on the issue sexual assault.
Group Therapy
Middlebury college, in partnership with the local organization WomenSafe, used to facilitate group therapy for survivors of gender-based violence. But this service was suspended due to “low-attendance.” As a SGA senator, I would like to pursue the reinstallation of this resource to better serve survivors.
Commit to Obama-era policies
Throughout this past summer, Betsy DeVoss’ Department of Education introduced significant changes to Title IX that reverse Obama era mandates — including the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter, which ordered universities to adjudicate sexual assault cases under the preponderance of the evidence standard. As a SGA senator I would urge the administration to commit to these Obama-era protections and standards, following in the footsteps of other colleges like Amherst.
Emergency Lights
Middlebury’s campus is spread out and can be quite dark at night. There should be more blue emergency phones located around campus to promote a more safe and comfortable environment.
(09/27/17 11:55pm)
In the wake of President Trump’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the college has continued to publicly and internally support DACA-mented and undocumented students.
College president Laurie L. Patton and chief diversity officer Miguel Fernández did not mince words in their defense of DACA-mented students in a Sept. 1 email to students.
“We are writing to state clearly that no matter what the [Trump] Administration decides to do, we will stand by our students, protect their rights, and continue to provide them an outstanding education,” they said. “We are proud of the accomplishments of our DACA students and will continue to support them in every way we can.”
President Obama created DACA through an executive order in 2012. The order grants legal status and protection from deportation to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as minors. The email from Patton and Fernández came just days before President Trump announced his decision to end the program.
The protections provided by DACA will officially end on March 5, 2018. President Trump gave Congress a six month ultimatum to introduce legislation to reinstate the protections DACA provides. If Congress does not pass legislation, DACA-mented individuals may lose their legal status and face deportation.
In addition to publicly denouncing the actions of the Trump administration, the college will expand the legal resources available to DACA-mented students.
“Once we learned that the DACA program would be phased out, the college arranged for an attorney who is experienced with providing advice to DACA-eligible students to offer telephone and videoconference consultation appointments before the October 5, 2017 renewal deadline arrives,” said Kathy Foley, director of international scholar and student services.
Given the unpredictable future of many immigration policies in the Trump-era, the college plans to expand the resources available to students.
“The reason that this is a little different is that there has been a change within the government, so we feel as though some additional resources are potentially necessary to help students navigate,” said Fernández, the point person for DACA-mented and undocumented students on campus. “We hope to bring someone to campus to talk, later on, in person.”
The administration has continued to vocally pledge its commitment to DACA-mented students. A letter signed by Patton and other Vermont college presidents on Sept. 21 recognized the contributions of DACA-mented students to American society and Vermont college communities.
“We support swift action by Congress to bring forward legislation to establish DACA permanently in law,” said the letter. “We also support Vermont in joining fourteen other states in a lawsuit challenging the plan to terminate the DACA program….We stand united with DACA-mented students.”
The administration’s vocal support of DACA-mented students began last year with a series of all-student emails following the election of President Trump. In January, the college announced that DACA applicants to the class of 2022 would be considered with the same need-blind admissions policy afforded to American citizens.
“The administration has been very verbal in expressing their concern for DACA-mented students, and we are pleased with the promises they have made,” said a member of Alianza, a student group active in providing a community for DACA-mented students.
The student requested anonymity given the current political climate surrounding immigration issues.
The college is not required to share students’ immigration status with the federal government. However, the college has a established a system through which student volunteers are made available to speak with those hesitant to discuss their immigration status with administrators.
“One of the big challenges is wanting to work and help, and at the same time, not out the individuals, so how to best reach out and at the same time maintain privacy and protection. We want to maintain the safety and privacy of our students,” said Fernández.
In an email sent to all students on Tuesday, Miguel Fernández urged students to “be a visible ally.”
“I think it’s an important piece to make every attempt to make every student feel welcome and part of the community, so that takes work,” said Fernández.
Trump’s order has put the fate of over 800,000 DACA beneficiaries in the hands of Congress, but Fernández expressed optimism about the power of everyday citizens.
“I think the most important thing that we can do, as individuals and as a community, is to try to press our representatives to turn it into law. I’m confident that with enough pressure, with enough push, we can make this happen.”
The Campus will continue reporting on this topic as the situation develops.
(09/27/17 11:07pm)
I can hardly be the only person at Middlebury that has observed the unprecedented succession of extreme weather events, from the cataclysmic hurricanes in the Caribbean to the deadly floods in India and Sierra Leone, with a gnawing sense that the climate’s dreaded new normal is quickly arriving. I say gnawing, because anyone with a sufficient understanding of the problem knows that their daily lifestyle makes them complicit in it; indeed, as I boarded my carbon-spewing flight from wildfire-choked Oregon back to here, it was extremely apparent that even banal, seemingly apolitical acts of transit are inextricably linked to the greatest moral crisis of our age. In short, I am a hypocrite, and you probably are too.
Notice how simple, how natural it is to unleash personal value judgements around climate and sustainability, even self-deprecating ones. How can you claim to care about the planet when you don’t use LED light bulbs! Or an electric car? What, you don’t subsist on canned garden produce and solar hot water alone? When subjected to this kind of scrutiny, I suspect nearly all but the most dedicated and ascetically-minded come up short; in fact, to make oneself properly ‘sustainable’ to the extent necessary to reverse course on climate change is to embark on a daunting series of investments, changes to behavior, and general self-restraint, all within a society largely structured around the encouragement of ravenous consumption. When our collective, institutional misdirections are perceived as individual lapses in morality, it’s unsurprising that those sympathetic to environmental concerns feel guilty, and those unsympathetic or unknowledgable feel accused and attacked.
With this critique, I’m not trying to invalidate people’s individual contributions to sustainability as somehow pithy or useless. Nor am I trying to cast people attempting to live sustainably as judgmental. However, I think it is necessary that we not fall into the unproductive mindset that climate change can be solved on the individual level alone, that it is a problem stemming from individual choices, and that subsequent improvements in lifestyle alone will trickle up. For as long as we continue to structure our politics, career aspirations, technological solutions, and values on a faulty understanding of who and what is truly responsible, we will get nowhere.
I think it is first important to consider why exactly we see our personal lives as the arena in which the climate battle can be fought. The pronounced shift towards the glorification of the individual, so prevalent in modern Western society, one overbrimming with LinkedIn profiles and vainglorious celebrities, cannot be overlooked here. We humans have become increasingly atomized and alienated, both from the productive forces that provide our material needs and wants, and perhaps more importantly from the organizational capacity to direct society towards some preferred destination. This power has been deferred, as a matter of course, to private persons and organizations structured around the private creation and dissemination of profits. For the Middlebury student, it often seems that your best bet of ‘changing the world’ is getting a job that lets you do that (as if Gandhi had a 401k!). From that Randian morality comes not just ecocide, but also the cruel inefficiencies of America’s price-gouging health care system, or the nearly-universal corporate control of political parties and institutions made obvious in recent elections. The great irony is this pervasive myth of individual freedom, the ability to choose whatever, is an illusory one; sure, you can buy a can of Coke with your name on it, but it’s much harder to truly divest yourself from a climate-killing system. We, the economically fortunate, are given the opportunity to buy our way out of eco-guilt, through Teslas and solar panels, but this still leaves intact or even strengthens the overlapping networks of capital that has future trillions staked out on the extraction/production of oil, minerals, timber, beef, cars, etc. Thus we are forced to make do with the local and achievable, or the career; to assuage this guilt some found social enterprises, or become green lifestyle gurus, radical-minded journalists and academics, protest organizers, etc. In sum, we try to apply this fundamentally limited ethic of individual achievement, the crowning cultural innovation of capitalism, to solve its ultimate failure.
In order to really address the underlying causes of climate change, we must channel our individual guilt into condemnation of those forces that have arranged modern society so wastefully. Climate guilt, in the more judicial sense of the term, is far from equal. Last July, the UK’s Carbon Disclosure Project published a damning report showing that only 100 companies were responsible for 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions since 1988; naturally, oil companies like Exxon and Saudi Arabia’s Aramco topped the list. Garden and bike to work all you want, but these companies and their financial backers will stop at nothing to extract every drop of oil from the ground unless they are collectively, intentionally opposed. What is ecological is political, and vice versa. The main thing we should feel guilty about (I certainly do) is allowing ourselves to be continually strung along by these companies and their government representatives, instead of working actively to replace them. In future columns I will discuss more ideas for how and why this should occur (in a way that goes beyond regurgitating Bernie Sanders’ platform). The crowd campaigns and physical resistance against the companies that built the Dakota Access Pipeline was a good example of where to start, but we should strive to be more disruptive.
It is precisely those that are least responsible for carbon emissions, namely the poor and marginalized of the world, that are already suffering the most from its effects. And as long as global society is rooted in an individualized and private morality, rather than one of public solidarity and development, these people will never have the financial means to rebuild or relocate, let alone purchase a Tesla.
Tevan Goldberg is an environmental policy major from Astoria, Oregon.
