Use the fields below to perform an advanced search of The Middlebury Campus's archives. This will return articles, images, and multimedia relevant to your query.
1000 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
The beginning of autumn on campus brings with it the annual Fall Family Weekend, eagerly awaited by many students and families as a chance to reunite. This year, however, parents will touch the ground on campus before many of the leaves do.
My name is Liv Cohen and I have one semester left at Middlebury College (I refuse to use the term super-senior Feb; I am sorry, it just makes me squirm, but that is beside the present point). The point is that I remember Middlebury in the fall of 2019 with all of the startling clarity of a terrified freshman. It was the last semester before the shit hit the fan, if you will, and one of the last semesters that Blackbird Literary and Visual Arts Journal was a vital part of campus life.
It’s not often in any sport that a player achieves 1,000 of something, but that’s exactly what Kelly Ferrero ’23.5 did. Ferrero, a senior captain and starting libero on the Middlebury women's volleyball team, surpassed 1,000-career digs on Sept. 9 in a game against Gettysburg College.
It is 8 a.m. on a Friday morning and the town of Middlebury is just waking up and making the pilgrimage to Royal Oak.
Women’s Soccer
My small hometown in upstate New York is one with a mighty sprawl through winding avenues of pines, up and over hills and alongside mountains. Neighborhoods, grocery stores and restaurants are awkward distances from one another without sidewalks in between.
The student body is now very familiar with Middlebury’s pandemic-related over-enrollment issues. We have previously editorialized and reported on how the consistently larger-than-usual student body over the past three years has affected class size, dining hall lines, parking spaces and housing. Middlebury has taken numerous steps to manage over-enrollment, including purchasing the Inn on the Green and using the Breadloaf campus for upperclassmen housing.
When you were in first grade, you probably went on to second grade without much thought. And from second to third and all the way through elementary, middle and high school. What’s crazy about the first roughly 18 years of your life is that you go to school… and that’s all. Maybe you’re involved in some extracurriculars, like sports or clubs, or an afterschool job, but, generally, your focus is on being a student. Senior year of high school rolls around and some people decide they’ve had enough, but many students today decide to go on to college. So you keep plugging along through four more years of college until suddenly you’re sleep deprived and giddy walking across a stage in a black gown trying to squint through the sun and not drop your diploma and cane. Or at least that was my graduation experience.
Due to increased student enrollment this fall because of a larger-than-usual number of students graduating in February 2024, Middlebury is offering a variety of housing alternatives this semester, including a $10,000 stipend to juniors and seniors who take a voluntary leave of absence for the fall semester and J-term.
Middlebury is paying a $10,000 stipend to 30 juniors and seniors who opt to take the fall and winter semesters off.
To our memory
As graduating seniors, we feel that it is important to acknowledge the institutional history that may be lost when our class leaves Middlebury. How did the college respond to Covid, and how did this (in)action affect our student body? Who is Charles Murray, and why has the college invited him to campus multiple times, despite widespread student retaliation and national news coverage? Is Energy2028 a feasible goal or another instance of institutional greenwashing? Where can we access resources created by students to ensure our academic, social and financial success at Middlebury?
“From the Archives” is an opportunity for various writers to visit the Middlebury Special Collections and write about a different artifact each week. The Special Collections boasts hundreds of thousands of historic items, and through this column we encourage writers to explore not only the college’s history, but also the history of the world around us.
If you struggle to find time for fun reading, this is the spot for you. Niche Reads recommends novels that relate to academic (or other) interests so you can explore a new book while still feeling productive. Check back each week for more cool books.
“The Middlebury experience” is often referred to by students, alumni, faculty, parents and tour guides as the all-encompassing vision of student life. These four years are supposed to be a life-changing whirlwind of academic rigor, close friends, athletic victories and personal growth — all while surrounded by the idyllic fall foliage of rural Vermont. But what does this really mean? What truly defines our Middlebury experience?
The Middlebury campus is undeniably beautiful, as is the state of Vermont. As spring arrives, we find ourselves eagerly awaiting the emergence of bright buds on trees, the return of green grass and the chance to lay on the lawn basking in the sun. The sprawling quads in some ways feel synonymous with college life; a leftover design choice from a colonial archetype of universities in the western world. The allure of higher education depends on its marketing of students reading books out on the grass, kicking around a soccer ball, or just hanging out with friends. But, do we really need this much lawn to enjoy its recreational benefits? Whether it’s used or not, we mow every piece of this college landscape, mostly just out of habit.
Most current Middlebury students are familiar with a college that is understaffed. In addition to some academic departments being low on faculty, Facilities Services, Custodial Services and Dining Services have battled persistent understaffing since 2020. The degree of this staff shortage has fluctuated over the past few years, in part due to large-scale forces such as the pandemic and the state of the national economy. However, local factors like Middlebury’s remote location, the lack of affordable housing in Addison County, non-competitive wages and the new skill matrix and disrespectful student behavior have likewise continually threatened the size of the college’s workforce. These past couple of weeks have brought new urgency to the understaffing issue as dining operations, including the Grille, Crossroads and MiddXpress, Davis Family Library, and the International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS) office have had to reduce their hours or the availability of certain services, leading to frustration among the student body.
Fueled by a love of books, Middlebury resident Amy Graham installed a small box on a post outside of her home in summer 2018. Behind the hinged door is a rotating selection of books, all of which are available for the community to borrow for free.
Last Saturday, Middlebury College hosted its first official Highland Games, also known to students as the Middland Games. Over 40 students competed, demonstrating their athletic prowess while audience members cheered.
I’m a very big fan of tea, and the Stone Leaf Teahouse is one of my favorite places in Middlebury. I visit the store regularly, as I find it to be the best place to spend some good, quality time with my school work or friends (or both). With this in mind, I can’t quite tell if my motivations behind writing this article are to convince you to also love tea or to discover more about Stone Leaf and tea itself. I’m leaning more towards the latter.