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The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs launched the Rohatyn Global Scholars (RGS) program this fall, aiming to connect first-year students to the global resources available through Middlebury programs.
Content Warning: This article includes mentions of the death of a student.
Despite the college’s remote location, not all college faculty live in Middlebury proper. Among professors, there is a growing community of “commuters” who live outside of the town, many of them in the Burlington area, but still work at the college.
An estimated 963 upperclassmen not involved in independent work attempted to register for 875 available seats on the final day of J-Term registration this year — leaving almost 100 students without a 2022 winter term class.
All Middlebury faculty and staff will receive two extra vacation days and a $1,500 bonus this December, according to an email from the Vice President for Human Resources to all staff and faculty.
Many students of color at Middlebury are already aware of many people in the college are a lot less than enthusiastic about their presence. From long stares for doing anything that slightly indicates our culture — and not in a cultural appreciation way but more in the way of being watched like an animal at the zoo — to the subtle change of tone when spoken to, as if speaking to something inferior, this is nothing new or surprising. These daily incidents range from outward racial slurs, white supremacist stickers on the student center sign, and even concerns of over-policing PALANA events by public safety — which is an intimate, safe social house for students of color — compared to next door, predominantly white social houses. Along with a systematically disadvantaged education system for minorities all of their lives, students had to go more than an extra mile to end up at prestigious, private institutions like Middlebury that are known for their support system. But the school flyers will never mention the micro- and macro-aggressive mistreatment that is involved for us. Middlebury is supposed to provide a system in place to protect their minority students from bigotry, and not implement more discriminatory systems to further disadvantage minorities like putting them on the Bread Loaf campus.
Students living at Bread Loaf and the Marriott will be required to move into housing on the main campus if they plan to stay at Middlebury over the five-day Thanksgiving break.
As the ninth week of the semester comes to an end and students continue to readjust to learning in person, 20 students continue to learn remotely, away from campus.
Club sports at Middlebury have rapidly increased in popularity among students in recent years, but many of their leaders say that the administration and the Student Government Association (SGA) have not given them the budget necessary to maintain safe and competitive teams.
Zoe Sipe ’23.5 waited to die in the parking lot of the Middlebury Marriott.
The largest anaerobic biogas digester in the Northeast began production on Goodrich Family Farm in Salisbury on July 21. Standing beside Vermont Governor Phil Scott and Lieutenant Governor Molly Gray at the summer kickoff ceremony was the college’s executive vice president for finance and administration and treasurer, David Provost. Renewable natural gas produced by the digester will provide about one third of the energy that the college uses for heating and cooling — at the time, Provost called this partnership “critical” in helping Middlebury reach its renewable energy goals.
Among students, it is common knowledge that Middlebury’s mental health resources fall short in a myriad of ways. The counseling office has long remained understaffed and overbooked, leading students and even professors to suggest that students would be better off searching in Burlington for services or not bothering at all. Members of the board who have also served as orientation leaders noted that they err on the side of honesty with their new students, expressing that mental health support on campus is inadequate at best and devastatingly lacking at worst.
Most of the campus dreams on with a few more hours of sleep to spare at 6 a.m. But in Proctor dining hall, the kitchen is up and running for the day. Coming through the backdoor, Wayne, the truck driver, was busy moving in boxes of food supplies. Most staff did not know who I was or what I was doing there but greeted me with a smile and a “good morning” nevertheless.
The idea came to me while watching a snowboarding movie called “Offline” which started with a neon-coloured, 3D, spinning sign that said: “The Internet Never Sleeps.” In the background was a dizzying collage of memes, likes, emojis and phones. The introduction nauseated me so much that I decided to go offline for some time.
Middlebury College is located in a beautiful autumnal environment. Amidst the peaks of the mountains and turning leaves, Midd students bustle through rolling hills to class, practice and meals, but on Halloween and the days leading up to the holiday, what can Middlebury students do to celebrate? From scary to sporty to beautiful, here are The Campus’ recommendations as we go into Halloweekend.
The heart of Addison County is aged and well worn. Past the pumpkin spice storefronts, oreo cows and paint-chipped houses dotting the hills lies an ancient site with stories to tell. It is the color of rain-dampened sugar maples and ginger leaves, trampled to a fine pulp on the forest floor. It smells of moss and walnuts left to rot under a blanket of fresh snow. The heart of Addison County is fire-singed and beaten by the steel-toed boots of men, unaware of the clouds grimacing from above. We call it Snake Mountain. Locals call it cryptic, beautiful and home.
I have anxiety and depression. My favorite color is purple (or blue, depending on the day). I’m happiest in libraries, at concerts, on the beach or watching sunsets. I’m passionate about multimedia storytelling and creating positive representation for marginalized communities. Fall is my favorite season (partially because my birthday is in October and partially because of how beautiful the leaves look). I’m a New Yorker and thought I would never survive outside a city, but am learning to love the access to nature that living in a rural setting affords me. I understand rationally that these are all facets of my being, that without any one of them, I would not be the person I am. But I’m still wary about attaching the label of “mentally ill” to myself. I’ve been grappling with my mental health for most of my life. After my parents divorced, my mom decided it would be healthiest for me and my brother to learn how to process our feelings in therapy. As first and third graders, respectively, we weren’t thrilled by this prospect — especially since we had some therapists we didn’t get along with. In retrospect, I give her major kudos for this: recent studies have found that only about 10% of children see a therapist before they turn 18. I was in sixth grade when we found someone we really liked and I have been meeting with her ever since. I’ve also been a proponent of mental health initiatives and in high school I advocated for more accessible mental health resources on a local and state level through the New York Civil Liberties Union. As a student at Midd, I’ve had multiple conversations with peers about mental health, some of them even among the Editorial Board of the Campus. On a wider level, mental health isn’t the taboo it once was. Whether diagnosed officially or not, many of my friends are open about the ways in which they’ve struggled with their mental health, both on and offline. Over the years, social media accounts dedicated to raising awareness around mental health and promoting resources have become more commonplace. There are varying stats on Gen-Z mental health, but studies agree that more than 2/3 of Gen-Zers are mentally ill in some capacity — a proportion much higher than for previous generations. Despite this generally more mental-health savvy culture and all of my own resources — having access to a therapist, having a mom who “got it,” having a Posse mentor and a greater support network on campus, I still fell through the cracks. I spent my first semester in college on a schedule fit more for a vampire than an 18-year-old. I’d wake up at 7:30 a.m., spend my morning trying not to fall asleep in classes, get lunch, then go back to my room and pass out until 7, 8, or sometimes 9 p.m.. I would proceed to stay up until anywhere from 2 to 5 a.m., struggling to focus and get my homework done. Rinse and repeat. On paper, I had a great first semester. Sure, I was constantly on the verge of a breakdown, but at least my transcript and résumé were strong. In retrospect, this feels like an almost superhuman feat. I can’t imagine pulling off the grades and extracurriculars I did, while running on the consistent lack of sleep I had. Maybe it’s because Covid-19 drained me of the capacity to run on nothing but sheer willpower, caffeine and adrenaline. Or maybe it’s because I’ve learned not to push myself past my limits anymore — or at the very least, how to stop prioritizing everyone and everything above myself. I don’t think I turned a single assignment in on time that semester. While I had been repeatedly assured that everyone struggled with adjusting to their college course load, this felt outside of the realm of typical transition-period difficulties. People in my hall and in my classes were still somehow able to be up at the same time the sun was, and maintain some sort of a social life. While I recognized that functioning in a constant state of burnout wasn’t healthy, it was second-nature to me — I didn’t have a blueprint for operating any other way. I graduated from high school with an IB diploma at the cost of my sleep and my sanity. I was privileged to learn how to write strong analytical papers, how to conduct research, how to engage with my course material and the world around me in meaningful and critical ways. But I also adopted a really toxic mindset of prioritizing assignments and grades over my mental and physical health. This mindset transferred over to my time at Middlebury. It’s one that seems to thrive in high-pressure academic environments known for their rigor. After multiple FaceTimes with my mom that ended in tears, I was forced to admit to myself that something was wrong, that I was drowning, that I needed help. But asking for help was easier said than done. I worried that admitting I was struggling would be conceding that I didn’t belong at Midd, that I wasn’t capable of handling the workload, that I didn’t deserve to be here. These fears were rooted in imposter syndrome — which is especially common for women of color at predominantly white institutions. I eventually reached out to all the resources at my disposal. Soon, my mentors knew I was struggling, my professors knew I was struggling, my dean knew I was struggling, my academic advisor knew I was struggling. They were sympathetic, outlining various avenues of support I could access — but not one of them suggested that I try to get accommodations. Instead, they advised me to go to the Center for Teaching, Learning and Research and work on creating schedules for myself — a method I had already been taught in high school. I was made to feel like it was my fault, like if I just managed my time better and worked more effectively I could stay afloat. [pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="off" background_color="#ffffff" border="none" border_color="#FFFFFF" border_size="5px" shadow="off"]I was made to feel like it was my fault, like if I just managed my time better and worked more effectively I could stay afloat. [/pullquote] While schedules and time-blocking can be helpful, no amount of time-blocking could cure my brain fog. I'd sit and stare at my computer for hours, willing words to appear on the screen, but I couldn't do it. I spiraled into a vicious cycle where I would get so anxious about something having to be not only good, but perfect, that I would avoid doing it. Then, when the deadline had passed and I was still faced with my blank screen, I felt guilty, which made me more anxious. With fight or flight out of the picture, that left me with a third option: feeling frozen. These are classic symptoms of mental illness, symptoms that, in retrospect, so clearly point to a need for help. It’s not that I’m unfamiliar with accommodations, it’s that I never thought they applied to me. Being high-functioning means that the struggles I go through because of my mental illnesses exist below the surface. One of my family members has ADHD and he’s had an Individualized Education Program, the pre-collegiate version of accommodations, for many years now. Professors are required to include information about the Disability Resource Center on their syllabi and they often encourage students to reach out for accommodations. I always skipped over this part. My perception of accommodations was that they were for people with learning disorders or physical disabilities, not those struggling with anxiety and depression. You can’t advocate for yourself if you don’t think you deserve help. [pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="off" background_color="#ffffff" border="none" border_color="#FFFFFF" border_size="5px" shadow="off"]You can’t advocate for yourself if you don’t think you deserve help.[/pullquote] Halfway through my sophomore fall, I discovered that one of my friends was given accommodations because she had panic attacks — something that I also dealt with. This surprised me, not because I didn’t think she deserved them, but because so much of the language surrounding accommodations highlights “disability.” I was forced to redefine disability — not only on a larger scale, but in my own relationship to it. My mental illnesses were so ingrained into my daily life that I overlooked the fact that they were just that: illnesses. More importantly, I overlooked the fact that being neurodivergent meant I had to work harder than my neurotypical peers to complete the same assignments — not because I was any less capable, but because I had to overcome the barriers that come with anxiety and depression in the process. Somewhere along the way, I forgot to be proud of myself for what I've been able to accomplish despite having to overcome so much. Instead, I fell into cycles of beating myself up for not meeting my fullest potential. The next week, I applied for accommodations. Despite this being a multi-step process, as outlined on the Disability Resource Center website, it was less of an ordeal than I had braced myself for. I had expected to undergo an interrogation of sorts, to prove that I genuinely needed help and wasn’t trying to cheat or find an “easy way out.” I reached out to my therapist beforehand to ensure that she could produce documentation to back up my claims. While this streamlined the process, I later found out that it wasn’t even necessary (despite what the language on the site about documentation suggested), and that students could get assessed through the school. In comparison to these daunting preconceptions, the actual process seemed almost overwhelmingly simple. I emailed the Disability Resource Center, set up an appointment with them, and over the course of an hour, explained the ways in which I was struggling and was presented with different solutions in the form of accommodations. Almost immediately after, I received a provisional Letter of Accommodation and got a permanent one after filling out some paperwork and sending documentation from my therapist. While I was grateful for how straightforward the process was, and for the lack of red tape around it that I had previously envisioned, I felt bitter (and still do) that it took so long to get there, that I had been so wary about reaching out for help before. There’s an astounding amount of irony in the fact that the site for the office dedicated to accessibility uses official language that is inaccessible to students and doesn’t have clearer guidelines on what qualifies as a “disability” for the sake of acquiring accommodations. [pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="off" background_color="#ffffff" border="none" border_color="#FFFFFF" border_size="5px" shadow="off"]There’s an astounding amount of irony in the fact that the site for the office dedicated to accessibility uses official language that is inaccessible to students and doesn’t have clearer guidelines on what qualifies as a “disability” for the sake of acquiring accommodations. [/pullquote] While I wasn’t told to seek out accommodations my first semester, I was advised to drop a class. This happened again last semester, when I was falling behind on readings and assignments. Both times, I refused. I told myself I could stick it out, despite the sleep and peace of mind I knew it would cost me. Even though I was granted the institutional support I so desperately craved two years ago, there’s a sense of shame that continues to hang over me, that exists in tandem with a self-imposed expectation to prove myself: at first, just as a woman of color at Middlebury, but then, as a woman of color who qualified as having a disability. At the beginning of this semester, I was hesitant to send a professor I admired my letter of accommodation, worried it would make him think less of me, that I’d have to work harder to prove I was a “good student.” I think this is representative of a wider stigma associated with mental illness, that it is something that is a burden, something to be worked around, something to be “dealt with.” On the flip side of this stigma, I’ve seen discourses that reframe mental illnesses in an overly positive light, even going so far as to call them “superpowers.” Neither of these feel right to me. My anxiety and depression mean spirals and panic attacks — where it feels like the walls are closing in on me and I can’t catch my breath no matter how hard I try. On good days, though, I can acknowledge that they’re the parts of me that make it easier to empathize with others, to provide a good listening ear and advice if needed. The fact that I have mental illnesses is not good or bad, it just is. They’re a part of me just as much as my favorite colors, settings and seasons. But even as I type that sentence, I know that it is something that I’m still coming to terms with. [pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="off" background_color="#ffffff" border="none" border_color="#FFFFFF" border_size="5px" shadow="off"]The fact that I have mental illnesses is not good or bad, it just is. They’re a part of me just as much as my favorite colors, settings and seasons. But even as I type that sentence, I know that it is something that I’m still coming to terms with. [/pullquote] My ability to acquire accommodations was entirely circumstantial, a combination of privilege and luck. If I had never met my friend who had accommodations because of her panic attacks, I’m not sure that it would’ve ever crossed my mind to pursue accommodations for myself. If my mom hadn’t put me in therapy, it might have taken me a lot longer to name the issues I was facing and learn how to cope with them. The list goes on. I want to envision a world (or at least a better version of Middlebury) where if you’re struggling, you get the help you need. Not just through individualized support like accommodations, but more structural solutions that allow grace and create room for students to get extensions and similar “aid”— not because a Dean said they should, but because they know themselves best, and they know they need it. But that can’t happen until we’re able to have open, honest, vulnerable conversations about the ways in which we are struggling. This, in turn, requires overcoming the shame and guilt associated with not meeting expectations — whether those be your own or those imposed upon you. I hope that this article is a start.
Otter Creek Used Books looks and smells exactly like what one would expect of a secondhand bookstore in rural Vermont. Hidden behind the main highway that cuts through the town, the store had a sign that announced the weekday hours and a cheeky “Sundays by chance.” Next door, a deli played jovial jazz tunes, and customers at a nearby teahouse chatted out in the sun.
After a year and a half of quarantining, distancing and Zooming, Middlebury is beginning to again resemble what it once was, and the desire to return to a pre-pandemic campus life — pre-dispersion of friends and classmates taking semesters off or learning remotely, pre-seeing close contacts only, pre-off-campus travel restrictions — is palpable. There seems to be a shared sentiment that we all need to make up for the time and freedom we lost to Covid-19. Super senior Febs, seniors and senior Febs are simultaneously daunted by their impending graduation date, another reminder to fill every single possible moment before running out of time. Juniors and junior febs who only had three-quarters of a year or less want to recapture the brief, “normal” college experiences they had before packing up to go home. And sophomores, who have only ever known Middlebury during the pandemic, have the same excitement, sense of wonder and pressure to have a great start to their college experience that first years have. After so much time spent alone, it can feel like a disservice to oneself to not take advantage of every opportunity for social interaction. Plus, a desire to live life to the fullest in the wake of a huge, life-altering event (especially one that caused massive casualties) is a natural human response. Not to mention that concerns that Covid-19 could once again spike and send us back into isolation leave students wanting to make sure they aren’t regretting turning down a social event when they had the chance. These internal and external pressures to take advantage of the “return to normal” only add to preexisting societal forces that claim college needs to be the best four years of your life and to a pervasive Middlebury busyness culture. Accordingly, for the past three-and-a-half weeks, many students have been going non-stop. This incessant “going” can manifest as sitting in the dining hall for five hours “doing work” (but really chatting), or as partying as often and as hard as possible. It can manifest as making travel plans for Fall Break despite being exhausted, or as falling victim to FOMO so hard that you attend a Flo Milli concert you know you will not enjoy — but no matter what, existing this way can only last so long before our social batteries, emotional stabilities and physical well-beings utterly deteriorate. This editorial is meant to be a reminder that college is a lot, and that sometimes, even in this pandemic-recovery era, it is okay to just get by. Everyone needs a break at some point, and we can tell many people desperately need one right now by the amount of coughing happening in Davis. To assuage our collective anxiety, we think it would first be helpful to confront what we have lost. As a board, we are of the opinion that it is not exactly “time” that perished; certainly, social events, academic and professional opportunities, athletic competitions and study abroad programs disappeared, but we still experienced more than a year of life. We struggled, and we also learned, grew and often made connections and memories that we may not have otherwise. Most importantly, we experienced a collective grief that cannot be swept under the rug in a quick return to pre-pandemic life. We ask the college faculty and administration to support students in accepting the past so we can move forward more calmly. Many professors have already completely eliminated the forgiving late policies they enacted at the start of the pandemic and have overall lessened their flexibility, but we are still in a pandemic. We are still readjusting. And we are certainly still learning how to cope with our grief. The administration should encourage continued understanding in addition to creating spaces and times for students to face and accept the stress, sadness and anxiety the pandemic produced in us. It can be extremely difficult to remember to self-reflect and reevaluate what is really meaningful to you — but amid all the horrors of the pandemic, perhaps increased intentionality can be a silver lining. We hope students will stop thinking of the pandemic in terms of “time lost” — which can lead to a temptation to run ourselves into the ground — and try instead to conceptualize the pandemic as “joy lost,” which might aid us in spending our time more intentionally as we work to reevaluate what brings us that joy. So, instead of focusing on what mainstream Middlebury culture or other influences tell you the college experience “should” be, transitioning back to pre-pandemic freedom can be an opportunity to redefine what your individual, ideal college experience looks like. For some, the dream may well be sticky Atwater parties and off-campus darties; for others, making the most of Middlebury might come in the form of chill movie nights with just a couple friends or exploring the vastness of Vermont through hikes, apple picking, swimming and brewery visits. To each their own, and that is what makes college great. As we continue through this year, we can acknowledge the pain that comes from losing parts of the regular college experience (an experience that is, though not the last joyful part of life as lore holds, still a special and short time in our lives) in a way that does not encourage overloading ourselves. Remember to take a breath, be kind to yourself and try to rediscover balance.
Assistant Professor of Black Studies Viola Huang, teaching African American Activism in Education and Beginning German this semester, missed the new faculty group photo because she arrived at the Middlebury campus only a week before classes started. She moved from Passau, Germany to Vermont after finishing her degree at Columbia University and completing post-doc work at University of Passau. Her travels were largely disrupted by the new restrictions in place because of Covid-19. Indeed, beginning a teaching career at the college in the middle of a global pandemic has been a challenge for many. This fall, Middlebury welcomes nine new tenure-track professors and 44 new faculty in total. Huang was attracted to the college because she wanted to apply for teaching-focused institutions so she could work closely with a diverse group of students. Despite roadblocks on her way to the campus, she felt supported by her colleagues in the Black Studies Department, the German Department and by other administrative staff. Huang has not taught any in-person class for the past one and a half years. “I have lost out on many of the most rewarding aspects of my job over the past semesters: I have never met my recent students except on Zoom and missed sending those off that graduated,” she said. The Arabic Teaching Assistant Maryait Khader said that teaching a language in a pandemic is a strange experience. Specifically, she finds it difficult because of masks. “Sometimes you need [the students] to focus on the letters, so ideally you could show your mouth to your students,” she said. On the other hand, she also thinks that people have learned how to be more forgiving and have more patience for each other since Covid-19. Khader was happy to see students working diligently amid fast-paced changes. “People are always smiling and give me a lot of good energy,” she said. Khader holds a master’s degree from the University of Jordan. She came to the college leaving two young children in Amman. On campus, she works with Arabic language students and professors to foster an Arabic learning community. Living at the Arabic House, she offers a variety of culture lessons for interested students. Khader found out about Middlebury College by chance from a friend, and she is most excited about the nature in Vermont. “Nature is fabulous here, although at the same time, I’m a bit worried about the snow,” Khader said. Similar to Khader’s experience, Assistant Professor of Studio Art Matthew Schrader, formerly a faculty member at the Milton Avery Graduate School of Arts at Bard College, felt incredibly welcomed by the area as he went for hikes, shopped at farmer’s markets and explored local food. He arrived in August from New York City and found the specificity of his new position unique as it reflects his life experience as an artist over the last decade. This fall, he is teaching a cross-listed course between the Studio Art Department and Black Studies Department titled Spacing. Students meet twice a week to explore the built environment through the lenses of race, class and gender. In contrast to Professor Schrader’s drastic change of scenery, Assistant Professor of Biology and Global Health Sam Byrne comes to the college from St. Lawrence University, located in one of the most rural areas of New York State. Because of that, he felt that there wasn't much of a transition. “I love rock climbing, foraging for mushrooms, fishing, gardening and many other outdoor activities, so I am happy to be in an area that provides great opportunities to be outside,” said Byrne. This term is Byrne’s second time teaching an epidemiology course during a pandemic, and it is equally interesting and challenging for him. “Public health is a field defined by difficult problems that require deeply interdisciplinary answers, so public health education is a perfect fit for a liberal arts institution like Middlebury,” Byrne said. Most of his research is focused on the health effects of persistent organic pollutants among Alaska Natives. He thinks that community-minded epidemiology can be used to benefit people experiencing environmental injustice, and to meaningfully impact policy to prevent future injustice. According to him, in the Covid-19 context, there has been a radical shift in the culture of health behavior that really emphasizes personal reasonability. Byrne said that he tends to not explicitly discuss Covid-19 as an example in class because it remains raw for many people. “It isn't easy to focus on learning if your thoughts are pulled away by real personal concerns and losses,” he said. Like many of the other new faculty this year, Byrne is excited to return to in-person teaching. “Part of what I love about residential liberal arts institutions is the concerted effort at community building,” Byrne said.