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(03/11/21 10:58am)
I am writing to you from ADK (recently renovated from the CCI into a dorm), where I am staying as an identified close contact of someone with Covid-19.
I would like to begin by admitting that, no, I didn’t keep my mask on every time I was outside of my room. I thought I was being wise about who I unmasked in front of, but clearly the rules are in place for a reason, and I am now paying the price of breaking them. But regardless of how I got here, I am in this situation, and I have no choice but to feel the emotions that come with it (a concept introduced to me by Carter Branley, the Middlebury counselor getting me through this week).
To be blunt, it sucks.
As a friend of mine astutely pointed out — in what must have been an attempt at reassurance — I have never been alone for this long in my entire life. And though I am very lucky to be able to quarantine in such a safe place, I didn’t know at the start of this week what that kind of aloneness would feel like.
Now, you might be wondering how one passes the time for seven days in ADK 203. Every morning after I wake up, I strategically place my Zoom camera so my classmates can’t see the overflowing suitcase behind me (PubSafe’s offer to drive my belongings from Giff to ADK allowed me to overpack sufficiently). Then, around 11:30, the dining staff leaves the building’s residents’ lunches downstairs and shouts to us that food has arrived.
Usually, I eat lunch in my desk chair, and I try to keep myself busy until around 4:00 (that’s when things get really exciting). At that time each day, I try to move for at least 15 minutes, whether that be by doing a YouTube workout or some semblance of an exercise that feels like it should be good for me. After that, I take a shower, which requires a text in the “Bathroom” group chat that has been made to avoid running into anyone. I’ve taken to Zooming with friends over dinner to make all of this feel a bit more normal, and then from there, the night kind of takes care of itself — and that’s another day gone by.
This is not like the two-week pre-arrival quarantine or the two-day room quarantine, where we had decorations, photos, trinkets and familiar views to distract us from the work we were meant to be doing. It is just me in a big, white-walled room, looking out the window at people who don’t know I am in here.
Zoom, Facetime, phone calls, texting — we have so many outlets of communication that have proven helpful in the last week, but none capture the feeling of sitting in a room with someone, masked or otherwise, and feeling their energy.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]This may all seem dramatic, but I miss people. [/pullquote]
I am the type of person to sit next to friends instead of across the table from them, to fix their collars for them instead of telling them to do it themselves and to tell them how much I love them more than I should — it’s how I cope. I have anxiety like many others, and in order to block out the stream of “what-ifs” and “why-didn’t-I’s” in my head, I lean on people.
And not having that has been hard.
Despite the mental toll that this quarantine has taken, it is important to note that the Middlebury College staff members themselves have done all that they could to make me feel heard, protected and remembered in this last week. They have provided quarantined students with kettles, yoga mats, comfort food and daily phone calls from Parton staff, “just to check-in.” They really do care, and, if nothing else, it’s nice to know.
On my fifth day of quarantine, I walked into the back door of Parton to get my second of three Covid tests before (hopefully) being released after the third negative result. A nurse, Peg (known among my fellow quarantined students for her kindness) asked me how I was doing, and I burst into tears. Honestly, I cry at car commercials, so it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I really could not control myself this time. I hadn’t spoken with anyone in nearly a week, and I hadn’t previously realized how much I missed in-person conversation.
This experience, albeit difficult and my own fault, has been an important reminder of how much (safe) interpersonal interactions matter. Since the beginning of Covid-19, I have gotten more comfortable being alone — most of us have. And that is a good thing, but a global pandemic isn’t something one should go through alone, even if we think we can.
Seven days in isolation may not seem like a lot, but it is enough time to have noticed the absence of small gestures that mean more than I realized they did. I need hellos from across the path, awkward masked conversations and friends (close-contacts) barging into my room on Sunday mornings to collect me for Proc breakfast. If I’ve learned anything from being in here, beside the obvious “follow the rules,” it’s that I’ve created a family for myself on this campus, and being away from them has shown me how much I need them.
Editor’s Note: Eliza King Freedman ’23 is an Arts & Culture Editor for The Campus.
(03/11/21 10:57am)
For the past few days, Snapchat has been highlighting moments from this time last year, and while memories are usually bittersweet, these are tinged with a special brand of nostalgia. I feel like an audience member that knows something the main character doesn’t, leaving me no choice but to sit and watch as a series of unfortunate events unfold. Every photo and video feels like a memorium: This is your last WOMP show, too many bodies in a too-small space, everyone swaying in sync. This is your last time lingering in the Proc booths, socializing with your computer out just for the pretense. This is your last time sitting in a packed theater, awestruck whispers exchanged with friends sitting centimeters away. This is your last late-night Grille run, mozzarella sticks consumed under fluorescent lights — they taste best at 2 a.m. This is your last academic conference where the only technical issue is that there aren’t enough mics. This is your last time sipping a Starbucks-adjacent latte while poring over your textbook at Wilson Café. This is your last blissfully unaware morning before the world fell apart.
Spoiler alert: the world didn’t end. One year later and everything has turned upside down, but it’s been that way for so long I don’t notice it much anymore. In fact, it feels almost bizarre to see pre-Covid photos or people on television not wearing masks. That’s the new “abnormal,” or it would be, except that “normal” ceased to hold any real meaning the day we learned we were being sent home indefinitely.
March 10, 2020 demarcates a very clear “before” and “after” in my life, and everything in the “after” has been a case study in extremes. Following my departure from campus, I spent six months at home in Astoria, New York with my mom and brother. It felt like a regression. Just as I was starting to thrive at Midd — I had favorite spaces to hang out in, classes and extracurriculars I loved, multiple friend groups — I found myself back in my childhood bedroom, everything the same except for me. Polaroids from high school lined my walls, my graduation cap hung above my desk. I had to readjust all over again, but I took comfort in knowing that everyone else did too. As death tolls rose and states were put under lockdown, we were all in mourning — not just for lives lost but for life as we knew it.
Eventually the curve flattened and restrictions lifted, but because my mom and brother are immunocompromised, we engaged in very few activities. I haven’t ridden the subway since last February, and I can count on one hand the number of times I saw friends while in New York. My high school self would be shocked to discover that she had more freedom of movement — and a much more robust social life — than I did both times I was home. That’s not how it’s supposed to work, she would protest. I had envisioned carefree nights in the city, exploring museums and picnicking in Central Park — getting lost but not caring because that’s what adolescence is for. Instead, I lived different variations of the same day for six months, then again for another three, like a bad “Groundhog Day” remake.
If I wasn’t already bitter enough about this loss, the hours I spent scrolling through Instagram served as a reminder that even as my life was on pause, it had resumed for many others. Over the summer, interspersed with anti-racism infographics were lighthouses and lake houses, foreign locations serving as selfie backdrops. With “white privilege” on the tip of everyone’s tongues, it was hard not to notice the irony. My friends and I were stuck in small apartments, and access to the outdoors, which was already rooted in affluence, was further restricted for us. Meanwhile, people who have always gotten to enjoy the wilderness continued to do so.
My saving grace was that I had a backyard and was able to go on walks around my neighborhood. But even that respite disappeared when I returned home for winter and temperatures dropped. I went days without leaving my house or seeing the sun. Throughout J-Term, I sat on Zoom for hours, lamenting the loss of “J-Term, play term.” Meanwhile, the phrase took on a whole new meaning for other Midd kids; I watched as they skied, hiked and lived in houses together. It’s not that I didn’t want other people to have those experiences, but they brought already-existing socioeconomic divisions into sharp relief. They reminded me that the consequences of this pandemic bear themselves very differently across class lines, significantly altering the losses faced and sacrifices made.
Despite this bitterness, I’ve felt immensely aware of my own privilege in this unprecedented — as everyone likes to remind us — time. I reflect on it daily, listing at least three things I’m grateful for. I’m grateful that both of my parents can work safely from home and that no one I love has lost their life to Covid. I’m grateful that I have access to food, water, electricity, Wi-Fi and somewhere warm to sleep. I’m grateful for my health and safety. These are things that I can no longer take for granted.
When we returned to school in the fall, I avoided catching up with people. I dreaded being asked how my quarantine/summer was because I had nothing to say, few fun experiences to speak of. It was one of the hardest time periods of my life. I was, and still am, reeling from the trauma and didn’t have the emotional energy to pretend otherwise. Once the semester started, however, socializing was easier. I had talking points to cling to — the difficulty of the transition, how many in-person classes I was taking, how different campus felt with all the Covid restrictions — ways to talk to someone without actually talking to them.
And like clockwork, I’ve found myself in the same position as we transition from J-Term into spring semester. For the first few days, I worried that I had developed social anxiety. I feared running into people and having to make small talk. I felt like I had to remember how to be a person again, how to communicate outside the confines of a Zoom box. This was especially difficult given that I had avoided catching up with anyone over break — texting people that I missed them and wanted to FaceTime soon but never actually following through. It wasn’t for a lack of loneliness. FaceTiming people was gratifying, but also draining: while it was nice to interact with friends for a bit, seeing them on a screen served as a reminder of their physical absence, the actual distance between us. I felt guilty for not reaching out more, but checking in is a two-way street, and the mere thought of being asked “how are you” was enough to fill me with anxiety. So I went three months without talking to most of my friends, and now that I’m back, catching up feels even more daunting. However, like last semester, as classes started and dining halls reopened, I scheduled meals and study times with friends, making myself socialize until it felt comfortable again.
But just as I fell into a rhythm, Snapchat memories started to appear, reminding me of how drastically different my life was a year ago. I find myself slipping back into the five stages of grief. But then I refocus on gratitude. I’m grateful that I’m back on campus and that all my classes are in person, since so many of my friends have no choice but to do remote semesters. I’m grateful for the time I spent with my family; our nightly routine of bonding over Netflix shows, and that I was home for Ramadan and my brother’s college acceptance — celebrations I would’ve otherwise missed. [pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]I’m grateful that this year has forced us to take a step back and reconsider our priorities, extending compassion and empathy when we might not have before. I’m grateful for growth and healing. I’m grateful that I’m alive. I’m grateful that I’m alive. I’m grateful that I’m alive. [/pullquote]
Editor’s Note: Daleelah Saleh ’23 is an Opinion Editor for The Campus.
(03/11/21 10:57am)
It’s Friday night. Through a hazy memory of Middlebury of ancient times (well, a year ago), you can picture what you would normally be doing: getting dressed up in ridiculous outfits, gathering friends from near and far into teeny tiny rectangular dorm rooms, and going out to all of the best spots on campus to dance the night away. Now, Friday night causes tension; students feel the strain of the restrictions they must adhere to in order to stay safe. Five people in your room? That’s a no-go. Dance parties? What dance parties? With Midd Movies, however, all these worries seem to dissolve.
Midd Movies is a Middlebury College exclusive streaming platform, hosted by MCAB. On the site, you will be greeted by a vast array of over 700 films, arranged by category: comedy, romance, action and more.
“This service offers backup programming and alleviates pressures from many student [organizations] to constantly plan events,” Trishabelle Manzano ’21, member of the MCAB board, said. “Those who are introverted, like myself, and/or those may not feel as comfortable leaving their rooms can simply use this service to their hearts content on the weekends. Sometimes we just have to give ourselves one of these mental health days as well.”
If you’re a fan of comedy, you’ll find classics like “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” as well as more modern films like “The Big Sick” and “Crazy Rich Asians.” Action, science fiction, horror and mystery movies are abundant, so you’re sure to find a film that you and your friends can agree on. Date night? Midd Movies has got you covered. With romantic movies like “Dirty Dancing” and “The Notebook,” you’re sure to lock eyes with a quarantine cutie while appropriately socially distanced and masked. From my first-hand experience watching “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” date night has never been so suave or exciting.
"Whether you’re from Middletown or the Midwest, Midd Movies offers anything but middling movies (i.e. Midway (2019)) to the Middlebury community. We have the ability to watch some of the greatest works of cinema in the past century: everything from “Boss Baby” to “Cats” is available on Midd Movies. It is the best use of your tuition since 10:00 p.m. Ross,” MCAB board member Gibson Grimm ’22 said.
This past weekend, my friends and I decided to watch “Mamma Mia.” We set a laptop at one end of the hall, hooked it up to a speaker and spread out so we could dance to all of the best ABBA tunes. Enjoying one another’s company and rekindling the best of Middlebury in times past has never been as easy as it is with the help of Midd Movies. What once seemed daunting and limited has grown into an exciting challenge. Instead of deciding whether or not we can spend time with our friends in a global pandemic safely, we are exploring fresh, new ways to do so.
(03/11/21 10:55am)
Have your Spotify playlists become stale? Is your weekly mix just not cutting it? Maybe it’s time to branch out and listen to something new. The Executive Board of WRMC, Middlebury College’s radio station, has selected a wonderfully wide range of albums, spanning time and genre, for your listening pleasure. Check back each week for a new set of recommendations.
*RIYL: recommended if you like
Programming Director’s Pick – Micah Raymond ’21
Album: “Devil’s Rain” - Maria BC ’19.5
Genre: Ambient, Dream Pop
RIYL: Grouper, Oneohtrix Point Never, Broadcast
Blurb: This debut album from Middlebury and WRMC alum was recorded in the solitude of Maria BC’s apartment bedroom during lockdown. Maria’s classical vocal training shines through against soft guitar loops and ghostly reverb. The album gets its title from a folktale in which sunshowers are the work of an evil spirit; it is beautifully intimate, expansive and full of dreamy longing. Maria’s music is “close and visceral, like Cocteau Twins’ melodies repurposed as choral pieces… [it] lands as softly and naturally as snow at night,” Pitchfork magazine said.
Concerts Manager’s Pick – Gennie Herron ’23
Album: “Atlanta Millionaires Club” - Faye Webster
Genre: Indie rock pop
RIYL: Ambient indie, good songs with snazzy lyrics, Better Oblivion Community Center
Blurb: Faye Webster weaves narratives using a wavy guitar and a solid rhythm. She has a lovely voice that conveys emotion in every note. Her songs are good for any mood: from moping break-ups to dancing in your room (alone or with friends). “Better Distractions” was also one of President Obama’s favorite songs from 2020.
Library Manager’s Pick – Jacob Raymond ’23
Album: “Old Time Feeling” - S. G. Goodman
Genre: Country blues
RIYL: Margo Price, Tyler Childers, H.C. McEntire
Blurb: S. G. Goodman’s debut album brings us to the life of a Kentucky farmer’s daughter through its bluesy and Southern rock and roll influences accompanied by Goodman’s wistful lyrics and harrowing vocals. From the smooth “Tender Kind” to the angry and moody “The Way I Talk,” this album is both a love letter to and a painful protest against the Southern experience that seems to stem from her own experience. If you are looking for an album that is both old and new, feels both loving and longing, and sounds both subdued and emphatic, you will find it in “Old Time Feeling.”
Creative Director’s Pick – Pia Contreras Balbuena ’22
Album: “YHLQMDLG” - Bad Bunny
Genre: Latin Urban, Trap
RIYL: J Balvin, Ozuna, Maluma, Daddy Yankee
Blurb: This album title might look like a typo, but it’s actually an acronym for “Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana” or “I Do What I Want.” It’s an excellent album that takes this phrase very literally, especially with regard to its lyrics and production, which vary widely between songs. I highly recommend listening to this album, but beyond that I recommend adding Puerto Rican icon Bad Bunny to your playlists.
Business Manager’s Pick – Maia Sauer ’22
Album: “The Tipping Scale” - Kinlaw
Genre: Dreampop, Artpop
RIYL: Caroline Polachek, Jenny Hval, Kate NV
Blurb: The album is dreamy, poetic and a little bit dancey for your “it’s still winter somehow, but all I really want is to be driving alone on a summer night with all my windows down” mood. Atmospheric and bittersweet, “The Tipping Scale” is chock full of sweeping synths and moments that sink into house beats and crowded basement sounds. Its lyrics center around memory and how to navigate changing relationships.
Social Media Manager’s Pick – Jose Morales ’22
Album: “take it, leave it” - Jackie Hayes
Genre: Alternative, Indie
RIYL: Billy Lemons, Indigo De Souza, No Vacation
Blurb: Jackie Hayes’ latest EP “take it, leave it” is a small set of tracks that showcase her creative experimentation with production and vocal performances. This is her first EP as a solo artist since she left her previous band Family Reunion, and it holds the feelings of a transitional moment in her life. The first two tracks, “headache” and “enemy,” follow some introspective thoughts of dissatisfaction, frustration and confusion. The last two tracks “belong” and “dead of winter” build off these emotions and take on a more aggressive tone. The drums pick up their pace while the guitar and her voice become increasingly distorted. There is a sharp, high-pitched distortion that comes in during “belong,” evoking the emotions of frustration that come with feeling displaced mentally and socially.
(03/10/21 8:07am)
From the bright red of the Japanese Maple outside the Emma Willard House, the warm yellow Ginkgos in front of Mead Memorial Chapel, the hot pink Rhododendrons behind Forest Hall or the blazing orange Sugar Maples outside Battell, the campus boasts stunning sights year-round.
For the most part, other than snapping daily nature photos to post or send to family members, you probably pay little attention to the other trees that surround you on campus. With all that has happened over the past year, it’s especially easy to lose the memories of foliage that fill out the edges of the most dramatic turning points and salient traumas. However, even though so much has changed since departing from campus last March, one thing has remained constant: our beloved campus itself.
The Darkest Day
Tuesday, March 10, 2020, 1:08 p.m.
Campus horticulturist Tim Parsons was walking across campus, ready to prune trees, when he suddenly received the text. Ding. “Date Change: Middlebury College will begin spring break this Friday, March 13, after classes end, which is one week earlier than scheduled. This will be a two-week break with classes resuming — remotely — on Monday, March 30. Remain Home After Break: Following spring break, students who can will be expected to remain at home and not return to campus until further notice.”
“I knew from the moment I read the screenshotted email, it was not going to be good,” Parsons said. “It just seemed off. Everything was so up in the air, and nobody knew what to do, or what to say. People get used to predictability, stability and it just felt off.”
Parsons noted that although the reckless acts of vandalism across campus and in town during the last week were apparent, the damage did not seem to have targeted trees as student vandalism often has in the past.
“I mostly saw signs being torn down, not trees that students are often keen to uproot,” he said. “It was yet another thing that felt odd.”
Speaking for the Trees
It is the deeply rooted love for the campus and Middlebury College community that makes Tim Parsons’ job both rewarding and a tall order.
Middlebury’s campus horticulturist since 2006, Parsons’ knowledge of the college’s greenery borders on encyclopedic. A Vermont-certified horticulturist and a certified arborist by the International Society of Arboriculture, Parsons was in the green industry for more than 25 years, running his own landscape design company and a garden center for nearly 10 years. Additionally, Parsons is a past president of Greenworks, The Vermont Nursery and Landscape Association and was chosen in 2003 as the Young Nurseryman of the Year by the New England Nursery Association. Although he grew up in Connecticut, he has lived in Vermont for 22 years and now lives at the base of Snake Mountain in Weybridge, Vermont with his wife, three daughters and “too many gardens.”
At Middlebury, Parsons’ responsibilities include the care and maintenance of the colleges’ robust urban forest, full landscape design and installation measures, and management of the sustainable turfgrass of the athletic fields. Along with caring for the abundance of trees on campus, Parsons has taught a “Trees and the Urban Forest” course several times, led field trips for other courses, and marshals a popular “Campus Tree Tour” each fall during Homecoming. He also writes a blog — appropriately titled “The Middlebury Landscape” — and is a member of multiple college committees such as the Master Plan Implementation Committee, the Emergency Response Team and Community Council. He has also served on the Environmental Council.
“I love everything about my job, but seeing how the college landscape makes people happy is the most rewarding part,” Parsons said.
Withering Life
Phenology — which comes from the greek “phaino,” meaning to show or appear — is the study of recurring life cycles of the living things around us, the seasonal experiences of insects, plants, mammals and the relationship of time to weather and climate. Parsons compares this to the collective experience between the environment and people during the Covid-19 pandemic.
As a landscaper, Parsons observed that the quiet looming over campus relates to the “natural ebb and flow of things.”
“I don’t know the exact class schedules all that well, but people certainly know when classes are out,” he said.
Parsons said after a majority of students left campus mid-March, he would walk to a certain part of campus where there are usually clusters of students studying or socializing, but there was no one there.
“The first week or so it’s nice to ride on those silly Gators and not be in the way of folks, but after that, it just wasn’t the same,” he said. “It was just really sad.”
“I remember the CFA parking lot is filled with crab apples. When those come to bloom they are absolutely spectacular,” Parsons said. “I was actually quite excited to see them this spring because I had never seen them bloom without any cars in the lot, so I made a specific point to walk to campus to see them.” But the crabapples did not bloom.
“Horticulturally, trees and shrubs sort of had their own pandemic too,” Parsons said. “We had a severe drought and it didn't rain for weeks on end. Lawns turned brown, leaves started to fall early, and wherever I looked, plants looked lifeless, much like how I felt.”
Parsons explained that like people and the pandemic, it can take years for the trees to fully recover from damage.
“I spent the whole summer watering trees, and I don't remember a year it was this dry for a long time,” he said. “I had hoped that some of the high traffic locations would receive a much-needed break, but the drought was so bad, there wasn't much of a difference.”
Throughout the summer, Parsons took solo walks around campus, checking in to make sure everything was still okay. He noted that the treasured hot pink Rhododendrons behind Forest Hall did, in fact, bloom as usual, a stark reminder of the loss of spring, and especially graduation. According to Parsons, the bright flowering bushes were planted there to serve as the original ceremony location, with chairs extending out across Battell Beach. After planning for the commencement ceremony all Winter, Memorial Day weekend eventually came that May, and with no students to graduate, Parsons had that weekend off for the first time in 15 years.
“When the students are gone after commencement and before language schools, it’s peaceful and nice, but after a couple of weeks of that, everyone’s ready for the energy to come back,” he said. “The whole point to working at the school is to help the students out, and that’s why we’re here, so it just doesn’t really feel right when campus is empty.”
Instagram Updates
Known for sharing snapshots of the college’s picturesque landscape, his family, sleeping pets and even an occasional baked good or two, Parsons’ Instagram (@middland) also happens to be a favorite account for many Middlebury students. His captions shared are pure musings that bring Parsons’ love for the small joys in life to the public eye.
On March 13, Parsons wrote, “Adopted a plant today, I named it Riley. Goodbye to all my student friends leaving today, hoping to see you again.” And on a photo of an empty campus, a sarcastic, “Day one at Middlebury College. 9:00, sidewalks filled as students walk to class.”
Parsons continued these logs the rest of the month, updating his followers on the life they abruptly left behind on campus. “Day three at Middlebury College. Cross country trail, missing the runners on the blue sky day.” “Day four. One of my traditions after the students move out is looking for rocks geology students don't want to bring home and leave in parking lots. Here's this year's finds. Anybody want to ID?” “Day five, quiet.”
As warmer weather arrived in Middlebury, Parsons continued to updated his small but mighty fanbase on the still life coming back to campus, highlighting the blossoming of White Siberian squill, serviceberry, daffodils, magnolias, the redbud trees in front of Axinn and the green grass beginning to show on the lawns. And on May 24, a picture of a flowering crabapple tree.
“Today would have been the day I decorated the commencement stage at Middlebury College then waited to see my former students and friends march in. So to them, I say so long, good bye, come back soon. Wish you could be here. #middseniorcelebration.” One student commented, “I miss the campus trees,” to which Parsons replied, “and they miss you!”
Parsons’ consistent updates continued throughout the summer, increasing as the date drew nearer for the August return to campus. He posted photos of the Adirondack chairs in storage, ready to be set outside again for use, renovated outdoor classroom spaces for the new norm of safe, socially distant learning and a shot of the Brobdingnagian tents outside of McCullough wittily captured, “Intense.”
And in October, Parsons called to action his growing fan base to fundraise for financial aid at the college. “As the Middlebury College arborist I've learned that the strength and resilience of our urban forest is based upon its diversity,” he commented. “If you can, help the ‘MoveMidd’ effort to help keep Middlebury the inclusive space it is. Link in bio, I figured out how to do that.”
Nearly half of all Middlebury students receive financial aid, and as the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic continues, disproportionately affecting students of color, that number grows and the need for student academic funding rises. “It’s important for everyone to have the opportunity to learn here, regardless of their background,” Parsons said.
Parsons’ fall semester updates petered out in December, ending with a quintessential photo of Mead Memorial Chapel that read, “And, just like that, campus empties out again, and it's just the cold trees and I. Hopefully students are returning in a couple months, if everyone can get their act together. For everyone that left for the semester, here is today at Middlebury College. We'll try and keep the snow around for your return.”
Staff Shifting
The college’s organic garden, The Knoll, holds a founding mission to educate and nourish its community. This came into clear focus when the onset of the pandemic left many staff and community members without a steady source of income.
As the pandemic continued throughout the year, staff concerns related to employment and compensation continued to loom large. A week after students left campus, the college committed to full wage continuity and no layoffs through June 30, a pledge administrators have since tentatively extended to next July in their new 2021 budget. Although the college set up the Covid-19 pay bank to support staff members throughout the pandemic, many staff who cannot work remotely still needed to use their own combined time off (CTO) to cover their days stuck at home. While many staff members have remained at home, others have begun to return to campus on staggered work schedules.
In anticipation of the community’s emergency food needs over the summer and fall, combined with the issues regarding staff employment hours, the college gave The Knoll permission to grow produce to meet community emergency food needs, and granted approval to bring in dining employees for paid full-time work over the summer. Parsons’ wife Nancy, a chef in Atwater Dining, was one of the individuals relocated there.
“I enjoyed getting to work with people I otherwise never would have,” Nancy said.
“Bringing staff members from other departments to work here was necessary,” Megan Brakeley ‘06, The Knoll’s current manager, said. “Even though life on campus stopped, life at The Knoll did not.”
“We missed the students this year because we connect with a lot of them in close quarters through dining, and you just grow to love them,” Nancy said. “With proper social distancing, safety measures and the change in schedules, that has drastically changed.”
Spaces that once connected students and staff don’t exist in the same form these days, and dining staff have taken notice.
“Students aren’t gathering in dining halls anymore, so we’ve completely lost all sense of community that happens in those spaces,” she continued. “It is one of the most drastic changes to campus life, and something not easily recreated in a pandemic-safe manner.”
Returning Where We Left Off
Just as Dining Services prepared for another round of individually packaged meals, the Grounds Department was also busy preparing for students to return to Middlebury for the spring semester, an ominous time that marked a year since the campus was abandoned.
“I’m always amazed at how smart and resilient plants are, and that’s exactly like Middlebury now,” Parsons said.
Before students returned, Parsons said, larger tents were installed across campus and the golf course was groomed for cross country skiing. The carpentry shop got busy building forty new adirondack chairs to add to the fleet to promote outside socializing, and the grounds crew assembled portable fire pits. “Pro tip for students? Bring marshmallows,” Parsons quipped.
“I’m really looking forward to having campus come alive again,” Parsons said that winter. “It’s comforting to know that we’ll all be together once again, and hopefully not have to miss out on another spring here.”
Symbol of Our Strength
From the growth around the pond behind the Mahaney Center for the Arts to the comforting line of trees between Axinn and Davis Library, the ivy-covered walls of Battell Hall to the unexpected diversity of the woods around the Trail Around Middlebury, the greenery of Middlebury College holds an important place on campus and within the hearts of Panthers young and old. And after a long, cold winter away from campus, Middlebury now invites the arrival of warmer weather, the opening of forsythia and the return of lifeo to campus as the harbingers of spring.
Author’s Note: Middlebury College sits on land belonging to the Abenaki Nation, and we have all contributed and been complicit in the brutal colonization of this Indigenous land. The Western Abenaki are the traditional caretakers of this Vermont area Ndakinna, or homeland. We give our gratitude to the Abenaki Elders and Indigenous inhabitants of Turtle Island past and present, and are thankful for the opportunity to share in the bounty and protection of this environment.
(03/04/21 11:00am)
For new students, the first few weeks at Middlebury can feel like a crash course in knowing everything you can about life here — and playing off the things you don’t. We remember what it’s like to show up for class in Twilight when you’re supposed to be in Axinn, so let us help you avoid that mistake (and quite a few others).
Google Maps can take you to specific buildings on campus. Apple Maps can’t.
Wilson Cafe is in Davis Library. Wilson Hall is in the McCullough Student Center.
The shorthand AXT is not Axinn Center – it’s Twilight Hall, the brick building by town. (Axinn is AXN.)
The second floor of Hepburn holds both a room of study carrels (called “Hep carrels”) and a theater (called “Hep Zoo”).
There’s also a performance space on the bottom floor of Gifford called the Gamut Room.
There are bathtubs in Battell. (We do not endorse their use.)
Students have free subscriptions to The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal (but not the crosswords).
There’s free sushi for lunch in The Grille on Thursdays.
You can print posters in BiHall and Davis Library.
Yogurt City, the frozen yogurt store in town, sells boba and dumplings.
To see the dining hall menus, go to go/menu, go/lies, go/noms or go/food.
Carillonneur George Matthews, the man who plays the bells from Mead Chapel, gives free bells lessons to any student with piano experience.
The Ceramics House holds open wheel hours for anyone who wants to throw pottery.
You can take free student-run yoga and spin classes on campus.
If you submit recipes to the dining hall through the “Recipes From Home” form, the dining hall chefs will add them to a future menu.
If you leave your bike unlocked, it may be taken for a joyride on Friday and Saturday nights, or disappear permanently.
Students have free access to the full Adobe Suite.
There are printers at Midd Express and in LaForce (a dorm in Ross).
You can write for The Campus anytime you want (and we hope you do)!
The Middlebury vernacular is an important part of feeling at home here — or at least understanding what anyone is talking about. Here are a few terms that may be confusing (or, at least, that perplexed The Campus’ editors when new students).
AC = the Athletics Complex
AFC = The Anderson Freeman Resource Center, a center dedicated to supporting students of color and first-generation students
Pub safe = Public Safety
Go/… = Go links, or web shortcuts, allow you easy access to common websites when you’re connected to Midd’s wifi. Popular links include go/lies (for daily dining menus) and go/directory (to find where anyone lives on campus). If you’re using Safari, add an extra slash at the end
BevCo = Middlebury Discount Beverage, students’ go-to beer source
Tindia = Taste of India, Middlebury’s Indian restaurant
Sabai = Sabai Sabai, Middlebury’s Thai food and sushi restaurant
The Bowl = The Snow Bowl, Middlebury’s ski mountain
BiHall = McCardell Bicentennial Hall
Proc = Proctor
Battell Beach = The field between Battell and Ross
Kenyon = Kenyon Ice Arena, the hockey rink in the AC
KDR = the old Kappa Delta Rho house that houses juniors and seniors
Tav = Tavern, one of Middlebury’s five residential social houses
The Ross Challenge = spending your entire J-Term in the Ross Complex, including eating, sleeping and learning, without stepping foot outside. (At least, it was a “challenge” before the pandemic.)
NESCAC = New England Small Colleges Athletic Conference, including Middlebury, Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College (or “Conn College”), Hamilton, Tufts, Trinity, Wesleyan and Williams
Two Bros = Two Brothers Tavern, a restaurant in town often attended for first dates or parent visits
Ups = Mr. Up’s, a 50-year-old restaurant and bar by the river in town
BBM = Big Beer Monday, a night for low-priced beer hosted by Mr. Ups and attended heavily by seniors
Parton = Parton Health Center, the campus’ in-person medical building
Porter = Porter Medical Center, the nearest off-campus hospital
WRMC = Middlebury College’s student-run radio station, 91.1 FM
The Marquis = the small movie theater in town (that serves Mexican food)
Rosie’s = Rosie’s Restaurant, the longstanding breakfast spot on Route 7
Midd Bagel = Middlebury Bagel and Deli, students’ go-to bagel source
GrillMe = The Grille delivery service for late-night food
(03/04/21 11:00am)
Tayler* started working full time at Middlebury right after high school, with a starting wage of just over $8 an hour. Twenty-one years later, through Middlebury's compensation program, they are making $14 an hour. A single parent, they find themselves in line at the local food bank several times a month to make ends meet, and HOPE Middlebury helps Christmas come together for their child. Many of Tayler’s fellow service workers at Middlebury also have second jobs, an option unavailable to those without childcare or other support mechanisms.
How did we get here as an institution, where over 20 years of service and dedication to Middlebury still merits only a poverty wage? Sure, endowment woes and a poor job market play a role, but one of the deeper problems is more insidious.
In the last 20 years, Middlebury has prioritized faculty wage increases over those of staff. Every year, when possible, a sum of money is added to the Middlebury budget for salary increases, which is then distributed to faculty and staff as a percentage increase of their current wage. By my calculations, in most years, rather than dividing wage increases equally between faculty and staff, faculty have gotten a larger percentage increase than staff. In a particularly egregious example from 2001, faculty received an average pay increase of 7.5%, while staff saw only 4.3%. Inflation that year as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was about 3.4%, so faculty got over a 4% raise above inflation, staff less than 1%.
More recently, in both 2019 and 2020, faculty saw a 4% increase, while staff saw a mere 2%. However, inflation was greater than 2%, so the value of the staff raise was ultimately canceled out, while faculty wages increased over inflation.
Small changes in the CPI have proportionally larger impacts for lower-wage workers. The cost of items that factor into the CPI can vary by year, but a seemingly minor change in some items can tear a budget apart. For example, a 50-cent increase in the price of gas may barely affect more affluent families, but these same changes can be crippling for a service worker with little discretionary income within their budget.
On average, faculty have gotten a 1.4% greater yearly compensation increase compared to staff in the raise pool. Cumulatively, from 2000 until last year, faculty received a 113% increase in salary, while staff have only seen a 73% bump. Subtract inflation, and faculty net a 40% increase, staff only 13%.
So, for example, a staff member making $50,000 two decades ago is now making $86,500, while a faculty member at the same starting pay would now be making $106,725.
Middlebury pays staff by length of service — the longer you work here, the greater your wage. Had staff wages not been increased to $14, staff like Tayler who had been working at Middlebury for 20 years would now be making $13.84. If they had received compensation increases at the same rate faculty did, they would instead be earning $17.04. Adjusted for inflation, $14 in 2021 is the equivalent of $9 in 2001.
So, in our pay-by-tenure system, that's only an additional five cents a year over inflation for all of their experience, commitment and dedication. But the starting wage for a new employee at Middlebury is now $14 an hour, so we aren't valuing experience and commitment at all. Imagine working your whole life at an institution and getting the same pay as someone who just walked off the street. When Middlebury raised the starting wage for lower-paid service jobs, it caused this wage compression, where a range of pay for work is now non-existent and independent of the length of service.
How can we do better?
Middlebury has proven a strong commitment to staff, seen not only by wage continuity during the Covid-19 shutdowns but by the recent staff reductions during workforce planning without resorting to layoffs. We need to build upon and strengthen this commitment, by first fixing wage compression for affected staff. Long-time workers at Middlebury deserve to be paid more than new hires and should see a one-time increase in pay under our pay-by-tenure system. This needs to be the top priority for the next fiscal year when the Budget Advisory Committee prioritizes items in the budget.
All employees of Middlebury need to commit to the "ongoing alignment of staffing and budgets to the strategic goals of the enterprise," but staff cannot do this without our faculty and administrative partners. Faculty and the administration need to decide, post-Covid, where their values lie, and reflect those values in the budget. The solution is not to reduce the number of staff positions, allowing the excess work to roll onto those who remain. Will we go back to pre-pandemic travel and entertainment spending, where catered lunches for departments are prepared by workers who leave work and head to food shelf lines? Or do we build on our current successes some departments have seen in workforce planning and together determine what sacrifices need to be made to return to our student-centric mission?
Staff also need a voice in this process and should have representation on the appropriate faculty committees, including Faculty Resources. Staff representation on the Budget Advisory Committee has been a welcome step, but it is not enough. After a recent Board of Trustee financial decision, the Middlebury AAUP chapter stated the decision was made "without any input from either Faculty Council or the Resources Committee so that also brings up serious concerns about 'faculty governance' if none of the relevant faculty bodies were consulted." The last 20 years of faculty wage increases show that staff need their own voice, without relying on faculty governance.
Lastly, let's think of the hundreds of invisible staff cooking meals, cleaning buildings, and doing countless other tasks that keep our institution running. Someone at Middlebury considerably smarter than I once told me if we were brave as an institution, we'd make our starting pay $20/hour, rather than the $14 we pay now. As Karen Miller said, Middlebury needs to become an "employer of choice for the next generation." If faculty and the administration want to achieve this distinction, they need to ensure everyone at Middlebury is fairly compensated.
*Editor’s note: “Tayler” is a pseudonym used to protect the identity of a staff member.
Tim Parsons is the college’s landscape horticulturist.
(02/04/21 11:00am)
After 13 seasons in the NFL, Stephen Hauschka ’07 is hanging up his boots.
The Needham, Mass. native departs the NFL with an impressive legacy, marked by a Super Bowl win with the Seahawks in 2014 and a career field goal accuracy of 85.2%. But when his achievements are put against the backdrop of his unorthodox beginnings, they become all the more impressive.
Hauschka enrolled at Middlebury in 2003 with the aspiration of playing varsity soccer, but that dream never panned out. Instead, he joined the junior varsity soccer team and played lacrosse. Football wasn’t in the picture — it had never been — but once Hauschka arrived at school, the sport surrounded him. His freshman roommate, Scott Secor, was a member of the football team, and Scott’s teammates frequented their dorm room in Battell Hall.
In 2003, the football team went 4–4, with only two field goals all season. Looking to improve, the team started thinking — and that’s when an idea sprouted.
Secor and his football teammates knew that Hauschka had a strong leg — they had seen him use it on the soccer pitch — and with deficiencies on the kicking end of the gridiron, they saw Hauschka as a possible solution. So, they alerted head coach Bob Ritter about Hauschka’s potential, and sure enough, he earned an invitation to preseason camp the following fall.
Hauschka was a hit.
“The first time I really remember him was when he came out in the fall and there were actually three other kickers [but] you knew right away that he was different,” Ritter told The Campus. “The ball just popped off his leg. You could tell right away that he had the skills and talent that the other guys didn’t.”
At first, the ex-soccer player sprayed his kicks all over the place with little accuracy. But after spending time with kicking coach Steve Wolf, who has since retired from coaching at Middlebury, he quickly improved.
“He would drive up from Rutland, and we got to work during practice every day,” Hauschka said in an interview with The Campus. “I learned so much from him and kept getting better and better.”
By opening day, on Sept. 25, 2004, Hauschka had earned a starting position.
“I think I was lucky,” Hauschka said. “My first game, I made my first field goal, which was really helpful. And back then I hadn’t really associated what it feels like to make or miss field goals — but I knew it felt good to make it.”
With such a strong leg, Hauschka was also employed as a punter, tasked with pinning teams far back in their end. Only a few weeks removed from his first football practice, Hauschka was a dual threat.
“He punted the ball inside the 20[-yard line] a ridiculous number of times,” said Ritter. “So he really did have a big impact on the game, not only in the points he scored, but also the hole he put defenses in when punting.”
Every year, Hauschka improved. He hit 10 field goals between his sophomore and junior seasons, and then hit another 10 his senior year. Those tallies lifted him to the top of the program record book in career field goals (20) and most field goals in a season (10). Those records still stand today.
Hauschka was evolving into a polished kicker, so Ritter sent some of Hauschka’s tape to the Baltimore Ravens during his senior year.
“We always felt he had the talent and leg strength to [play in the NFL],” Ritter said. “He would kick a lot of our kickoffs deep and out of the endzone, so we knew he had that leg, and we knew that pro teams also look at that.”
Still holding onto a year of NCAA eligibility since he didn’t join the team until his sophomore year, Hauschka began to consider options for a final season. While a return to Middlebury was possible, both Ritter and Hauschka knew that a bigger school would provide a sturdier stepping stone to the NFL. So Hauschka sent emails to Division I teams, targeting programs with a departing or underperforming kicker. The list included around 45–50 schools.
That’s when North Carolina State University called, offering Hauschka a spot to walk on during training camp. A storied program in the Atlantic Coast Conference, NC State competed against teams like Florida State, UMiami and Clemson. These programs performed on the highest echelon of college football and had a proven track record of producing NFL talent. It was an opportunity that Hauschka couldn’t pass up.
While the setting changed — NC State’s stadium seated over 50,000 — Hauschka's momentum didn’t dwindle. In preseason, he beat out the competition for the starting position and never looked back. That year, he went 16-of-18 for field goals and 25-for-25 on extra points, finishing as a semifinalist for the top college kicking award. It was a dream season.
“After playing at NC State, I think it was January of that year, a couple [NFL] teams started reaching out,” said Hauschka. “Then I put everything I had into it and got signed [by the Minnesota Vikings] as an undrafted free agent.”
Just like that, Stephen Hauschka, a former collegiate JV soccer player, was now signed to a professional contract in the NFL. It was a career that would span 13 seasons, including stops at eight different teams: Minnesota, Baltimore, Atlanta, Detroit, Denver, Seattle, Buffalo and Jacksonville.
Hauschka’s most successful stop was in Seattle. In his six seasons with the Seahawks, he captured six franchise records and was named an alternate for the 2016 Pro Bowl. He also played in two Super Bowls with the Seahawks, winning one in 2014 against the Broncos.
“Just seeing him reach those heights and handle it — it's really exciting to see,” Ritter said. “He just had a great mindset and he really learned how to operate his body under pressure and stay smooth, and that's really the secret to his success.”
JV-soccer-player-turned-Super Bowl winner: it’s a wild success story, punctuated by an unconventional path.
“I think the whole thing is unexpected,” Hauschka said. “I never really thought I'd even play football. I was excited just to play at Middlebury to be honest — I didn’t really know what I was doing. And then I had this great career — win a Super Bowl, lose a Super Bowl — have lots of success on a few different teams and travel all over the country. It really opened my mind to life in general. It's quite an experience being an adult playing a sport.”
Now that Hauschka has a little more time on his hands, he looks forward to planting some roots with his family. After bouncing around the league for the past 12 years, it’s a chance to focus on those relationships and enjoy some semblance of stability.
As for a return to Middlebury, Hauschka won’t rule that out. Once the pandemic calms, he says, Middlebury will be one of the first stops on the docket.
“I'm sure he’ll come back,” Ritter said. “He’s always been very true to Middlebury.”
(02/04/21 11:00am)
Following a decision by the Vermont legislature to allow mail-in voting for town meetings, Middlebury has decided to skip the annual in-person meeting and vote on all measures by ballot. The move, a response to growing Covid-19 cases, changes the nature of Vermont municipal politics for the time being.
Vermont’s annual town meeting stands as a revered New England tradition and a modern-day reminder of what direct democracy can look like. Many Middlebury residents treasure the “floor meeting” in particular, where hundreds of residents gather to debate and vote on policies concerning the town.
It is usually community-oriented, discussion-centered and — above all — in-person.
During a typical year, Middlebury holds its floor meeting the night before Vermont’s Town Meeting Day, which falls on the first Tuesday of every March. The town’s annual budget is the largest item of the night, but other municipal matters are discussed as well. On the following day, additional measures are decided by paper ballot, including the election of town officials.
This year, however, the town will vote on all measures solely by Australian ballot, the typical secret ballot that is used in U.S. elections.
Jim Douglas ’72, the former governor of Vermont, noted that the floor meeting offers a unique forum for amendments and explanation. Douglas moderated the floor debate in Middlebury for 33 years before retiring in 2019.
“It is pure democracy. Everyone is a legislator for a day and has an equal voice in the affairs of the community,” he said in an interview with The Campus, reflecting on the change to mail-in voting.
“Now there is no opportunity for amendments,” he said. “Generally, when the budget is up for debate, someone can motion to change it. On the ballot, it will pass or be rejected — there are only two options.”
However, there are some advantages to the Australian ballot that the floor meeting lacks. It holds the potential for wider turnout because voting at the floor meeting requires a person to be physically present. This means that people who are unavailable on that particular day — whether they are working, away from home, sick or unable to attend for another reason — will be able to cast their vote as well.
“It is kind of a catch-22,” said Ann Webster, Middlebury’s town clerk. “The Australian ballot may be more attractive for people who actually get a chance to vote on something they don’t normally vote on. But the debate, seeing people in person, that ritual — it is really important.”
In theory, mail-in ballots have the potential to provide the accessibility that the floor meeting lacks. Voter turnout broke records in both Vermont and Middlebury during November’s 2020 elections, when ballots were mailed to every registered voter in Vermont. However, Vermont used federal funding to send those ballots, and the state legislature is unlikely to do so again for the floor meeting ballots without more federal funding.
Dave Silberman, High Bailiff of Addison County, was encouraged by the high turnout in November.
“Clearly, the desire among the populous is to be able to vote easily and early by mail. People will have to request them for this election, but they have gotten used to voting by mail,” Silberman told The Campus.
Silberman also hopes that Middlebury College students will be requesting mail-in ballots.
“Students ought to know that they absolutely have the right to vote in Middlebury local elections. They are an important constituency in this town and crucial to our social fabric,” he said. “Town meeting votes are typically very small shares; having 100 people show up to vote can make a huge difference.”
Several elections this March also hold the potential to increase voter turnout among both college students and residents of the town. On March 2, Middlebury will decide whether retail cannabis stores will be allowed to open in Middlebury, as well as whether the town of Ripton will leave the Addison Central School District. Esther Thomas, a member of the college’s Residential Life staff, is also running for Selectboard.
However, Douglas fears potential negative consequences if Vermont democracy shifts away from in-person decisions.
“The essence of our tradition of direct democracy is human interaction, the ability to question municipal officials and to hold them accountable,” he said. “I hope this is a temporary shift, but I’m worried about it.”
Webster, on the other hand, is more open to allowing some of the more positive changes to subsist.
“I am certainly hoping there is a definite swing back to normal. I’m also excited about the opportunities we might have,” she said. “There are things we have learned about how we might better communicate and make things more accessible for people. I’m hoping we gain progress.”
The town of Middlebury will host an informational meeting about the upcoming election on February 22 at 7:00 p.m. For more information about this and the elections, visit townofmiddlebury.org.
(02/04/21 10:57am)
Karen Miller, former vice president of Human Resources and chief risk officer, left Middlebury for a position at Morehouse College this week. Laura Carotenuto, Cathy Vincent and Ellen Usilton, who all hold senior positions in Human Resources, will co-lead the department on an interim basis, according to an email announcement last Friday.
Risk Operations will also separate from Human Resources to become the Office of Enterprise Risk Management. Mike Thomas, former vice president for finance, is now leading the new department, stepping into the role of Vice President of Administration and Chief Risk Officer. Thomas will also act as an officer on the Board of Trustees’ Risk Committee and remain an authorized signer for contracts and financial matters at the college.
Now that Miller has departed, the administration is faced with continuing her numerous initiatives.
The college will form a search committee, with Vice President for Finance and Administration David Provost as chair, to select Miller’s replacement. Working with Koya Partners and Storbeck Search, two executive search firms, the committee will convene this month and aims to find a new vice president for Human Resources by July 1.
During her five years at Middlebury, Miller led several major projects in Human Resources. Notably, she oversaw workforce planning, the introduction of the Oracle HCM administrative software, the Mercer Compensation Study, the organization of the Leadership Alliance and the formation of the Green Mountain Higher Education Consortium with Champlain and St. Michael’s Colleges.
President Laurie Patton announced via email in December that Miller would leave the school at the end of January. Patton complimented Miller’s impact on the college and her coworkers, saying that Miller brought “renewed camaraderie to her teams, sharper focus on shared strategic goals and a customer-service orientation to our daily business activities and interactions.”
Patton said that she would “begin immediately to develop plans for continuity,” a considerable undertaking given the number of ongoing initiatives and recently completed projects with unsettled results in Miller’s department.
Miller discussed those newly implemented projects in an email to The Campus, many of which share a theme of streamlining, restructuring or introducing new technology into the college’s administrative employment system in pursuit of efficiency.
One of the most visible projects was workforce planning, which was undertaken in 2018 and 2019. The school consolidated employment structures with the aim of remedying budget shortfalls and making departments more efficient.
To meet the objective of reducing employee expenses by 10%, the college eliminated roughly 150 positions (100 of which were already vacant), created about 30 new positions and identified about 50 positions to be eliminated in the years following the project.
Workforce planning had a mixed reception. The employee buyout and position consolidation process was, for some, confusing and frustrating alongside other workforce changes like the rollout of the Oracle software. The project also sparked an unsuccessful unionization attempt among staff last fall.
The Oracle software rollout was another major undertaking of Miller and her department. Adopted as part of the Green Mountain Higher Education Consortium, the Oracle Human Capital Management software is a cloud system that digitalizes and consolidates data of everyday financial transactions at the college.
The rollout of Oracle sparked controversy because staff and students who had to make the switch — including everything from student club expenditures to the college’s accounts payable — felt insufficiently trained and therefore frustrated with the software.
Miller also started the Leadership Alliance, a group of about 120 managers from across the institution that meets weekly with HR leadership. Its goals, according to Miller, include enhancing communication, strengthening leadership and managerial competencies and fostering collaborative engagement and support within the group.
Coming down the road for the HR department is a potential adjustment of the staff evaluation system, called Annual Performance Summary (APS). The school has put the APS process on hold while HR considers implementing changes.
In his email, Provost listed the administration’s many priorities in supporting the Human Resources department during its transition, which were echoed by Patton in an email to The Campus.
“Throughout the spring, we are focused on wage continuity through Covid, completing the compensation study that was interrupted by the pandemic, addressing compression issues and continuing to work with Leadership Alliance and Staff Council on managing change,” Patton said.
Miller will serve as Chief Administrative Officer and Secretary of College at Morehouse College in Atlanta.
(01/28/21 10:59am)
On Dec. 3, 2020, Middlebury’s official Instagram account posted a story encouraging students to join the new Facebook Campus platform, a section of the app wherein college students can only interact with other students at their school, which rolled out at select colleges this fall. “As a Middlebury student you have access to @facebookcampus,” read the Instagram post. “Visit @facebookcampus and start developing a community based on your interests, hometown, class year, fandom, or field of study.” Such language is eerily similar to that used by Facebook in its own advertising for the new feature:
“College is a time for making new friends, finding people who share similar interests and discovering new opportunities to connect – from clubs to study groups, sports and more. In the early days, Facebook was a college-only network, and now we’re returning to our roots with Facebook Campus to help students make and maintain these relationships, even if they’re away from their college.”
This post raises a lot of questions regarding the nature of the college’s relationship with Facebook; it goes without saying that it is uncommon practice for official college accounts to post advertisements for private companies, much less one of Facebook’s size. When I noticed the college’s Instagram story in December, I asked on Twitter what the nature of the college’s relationship to Facebook was. I received a reply from @middlebury clarifying that “there was and is no financial exchange between FB/Midd for access to Facebook Campus.” Middlebury was one of the 30 colleges that was given early — free — access to the new platform this past fall. I’m sure most students are aware of this fact due to regular posting by Campus Ambassadors — students paid to turn their personal social media pages into advertising verticals for Facebook — that has flooded students’ feeds for the last few months. Further emails and direct messages inquiring about the relationship between Middlebury and Facebook remain unanswered.
Moving forward, the college should not only publicly clarify the nature of their relationship with Facebook but also sever whatever relationship that may be. Further advertisement of the platform by the college would serve as an endorsement of the unethical business practices that Facebook employs around the world to take advantage of their users — including Middlebury students.
There are many reasons to critique Facebook both as a company and as a social media platform. Some examples include but are not limited to: its ethically-questionable founding, its well-documented experiments with emotional manipulation, how Facebook subsidiary WhatsApp’s lack of moderation led to lynchings in India, how Facebook’s own lack of moderation led to genocide in Myanmar, its outsized manipulative influence on elections around the world, the inhumane working conditions its moderators are subjected to, Facebook’s fraudulent inflation of video metrics which led to mass layoffs in journalism, its permittance of rampant Covid-19 disinformation, its comically massive lobbying budget, its advertising of weapons accessories following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and many other transgressions.
Any one of these issues is reason enough for the college to distance itself from the platform. But if none of them hit close enough to home, here’s a fact that will: one of the biggest problems with Facebook is its extractive business model that treats users as reservoirs of accessible personal data and little more. Facebook Campus aims this model directly at students.
In that same December tweet clarifying the college’s relationship with Facebook, @middlebury added a claim that “[Facebook Campus] is 100% designed for students” before linking to marketing material from fb.com. This is a lie. Facebook Campus is no more designed for students than an oil rig is designed for the Earth. Facebook needs our user data to profit, and they are willing to go to great lengths to extract it.
At Facebook, the user is the commodity. Ninety-eight and a half percent of the firm’s revenue comes from advertising to users and harvesting user data. By being famously cagey and greedy with their privacy policies, Facebook has perfected mass data collection. Reading the Facebook Data Policy leaves one feeling curious at what aspect of a user’s experience they aren’t surveilling, with nearly every user action quantified and stored for later use.
In many ways, Facebook Campus presents an even scarier opportunity for such data surveillance. By centralizing the college experience onto its platform, Facebook no longer has to make educated guesses about the minutiae of students’ lives; instead, students give it to them. Facebook Campus is able to glean which classes, clubs and majors students are in, along with who they study with and even where they live. This intimately detailed personal data will then be auctioned off for any number of purposes or will be used by Facebook themselves to sell students things. Facebook Campus did not grant us early access because they care deeply about fostering community at Middlebury college. They did it for the free and robust collection of personal data that we provide them.
Of course, most students have already signed up for at least one of Facebook’s platforms and are already being surveilled. I once shopped for a hat by saying “baseball cap” into my phone’s microphone and looking through the resulting Instagram ads. But the purpose of this op-ed is not to shame individual students for using Facebook. The platform is good at doing what it is supposed to do — connecting people. Even if one is able to escape from Facebook and the portfolio of social media platforms it owns, true freedom from Facebook’s data supervision would require almost no usage of any online platform, something that is nearly impossible to do in 2021.
One may ask, then, what the purpose of Middlebury disavowing Facebook Campus is if the data extraction is already happening. Such an observation dismisses the importance of an institutional endorsement. Just as Middlebury rescinding Rudy Giuliani’s honorary degree matters and just as the college’s divestment from fossil fuels matters, so does the stance of the college on predatory products that target its students. Middlebury’s advertisement of Facebook Campus is a tacit endorsement of the shady practices and unethical policies that Facebook uses. Regardless of what individual students decide to do with their own personal data, the college should not be advertising for a platform that will overindulge and invade students’ personal privacy.
Facebook can be fixed — there are reforms, redirections and antitrust lawsuits that can be enacted to improve the company. There are some good, earnest people employed there who are actively working to create a better social media platform. Middlebury has no role to play in advertising these reforms, nor do we have a role to play in Facebook’s inevitable brand rehabilitation campaign. The stated mission of Middlebury — and of the other 29 colleges and universities that Facebook has chosen to test Facebook Campus on — is one that revolves around education, not the wealth of corporations. The college must prioritize students’ privacy over the access — and surveillance — that Facebook Campus is offering.
Jake Gaughan is a news editor and a member of the class of 2022.
(01/28/21 10:57am)
When the majority of students left Middlebury for winter break, leaving just 23 students on campus for the dining halls to feed in December, dining hall staffers were left with little work. As a solution, the college offered these staffers the option to temporarily work in other departments, which allowed them to avoid using up their Combined Time Off (CTO) during the break.
Staff members accumulate CTO the longer they work at Middlebury, and it can be used for vacation time or sick leave. Those who did not opt for positions in other departments will be required to use CTO to account for the time off.
Dining staff are currently helping across a range of departments, including Grounds and Custodial as well as at the Snow Bowl and Bread Loaf. There is also a “skeletal crew” working at Ross to feed the small number of students currently living on campus.
Coordinating requested time off and scheduling new positions for 100 dining staffers was no easy feat. According to Dan Detora, director of dining services, staff were given the choice of where they would like to work, and Middlebury made efforts to put them in their preferred spot.
Patti McCaffrey, a chef in Atwater, has worked in the kitchens of Middlebury for 22 years. After similar reshufflings last year, she had worked in the athletic center during the summer and was happy to return there for winter break.
The majority of the dining staff went to custodial services. The custodial team typically employs about 85 staffers, but this year it was down to about 65 during the fall semester after a hiring freeze that has been in place since last spring. The team has temporarily increased nearly twofold this winter with the addition of dining staff.
The custodial staff usually cleans small houses and suites during the semester but did not do so this year due to their reduced numbers and the health risks presented by Covid-19. Now that most students are away from campus, staff has been busy cleaning these houses and suites and moving the belongings of students assigned to new rooms for the spring. As things have slowed down, the college wants employees who accumulated more than 80 hours of CTO by November 29, 2020 to take time off. This is to reduce the likelihood of staff taking such breaks in June and July instead, when the college anticipates there will be a lot more work to be done.
Dan Celik is one of the custodial supervisors who has integrated teams of dining staff into facilities work. He also teaches an introductory course on cleaning, including safety aspects, PPE, chemicals to use and ergonomics to prevent injury. He has been busy teaching these classes to the dining staff members who recently joined the custodial team.
McCaffrey noted that Middlebury has been understanding about the difficulty of these changes.
“There’s been no pressure at all. It’s been like, ‘work at your own pace, take lots of breaks,’” he said.
According to Celik, everything has run smoothly, and the dining staff has successfully integrated with the team. Still, the situation is not perfect. The dining staff were hired as cooks, and many would much rather do that.
“For people who aren’t really happy about this, it’s a long enough time to not be doing what they really want to be doing,” McCaffrey said.
The dining staffers have been able to maintain their same pay, and they will return to their regular dining positions for the spring semester.
(01/24/21 1:41am)
Although two-thirds of students said they did not regret their Fall 2020 enrollment decision, 76% of students said their mental health was worse during the fall semester than during a typical semester and nearly two in three students broke Covid-19 health protocols, according to a Campus survey. Other major findings include:
More than a third of students — 38% — said the semester exceeded expectations, while almost 40% said that it was worse than expected.
Almost half of students said that they disapproved of the administration’s handling of the fall semester.
A vast majority of students, 75%, said they felt stressed about their relationships this semester.
Students emphasized increasing social opportunities for students, promoting inclusivity and providing greater clarity on Covid-19 safety rules when suggesting improvements for the spring.
At the end of the survey, we also offered students the opportunity to anonymously share their ideas on how to make the spring 2021 semester better and provide any additional anecdotes from the semester. We have included some of these anonymous responses throughout this article and compiled specific student suggestions for improving the spring semester.
Academics
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The data reveal a striking lack of consensus regarding how the fall semester went: while 38% of students said the semester exceeded their expectations, nearly 40% of students said the semester was worse than they expected. About a quarter of students said the semester was about the same as they expected.
In the anecdotal responses, many students wished for more in-person classes. “Middlebury should prioritize its primary duty, which is to educate its students to the best of its abilities by making every possible effort to make classes in-person,” wrote one student.
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Satisfaction with the fall semester also varied by class year. While one in three members of the classes of 2021 or 2021.5 said the semester was worse than they expected, one half of respondents from the classes of 2023 or 2023.5 said the semester fell below expectations.
The vast majority of respondents, 87.5%, said they took four courses during the fall semester. A third of students indicated that two of their courses had in-person components, while 17% of students said they had zero classes with in-person components. The average student had in-person components in roughly half — 45% — of their courses.
Approval of college entities
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Of the six different entities we asked students to evaluate, Middlebury faculty enjoyed by far the highest approval rating. Still, in their anecdotal responses, students said they hoped that faculty would be more “lenient,” “understanding” and “flexible” during the spring semester. Some students wished faculty would go one step further and lighten students’ workloads.
“It seems like professors are concerned that reducing workloads means that we're learning less and not getting enough for our money,” one respondent wrote. “But the stress and depression of this fall made it so hard to learn that covering less material would be beneficial and we would actually learn more.”
Almost half of students, or 47%, disapproved of the administration, while a quarter approved of it. Some students said they thought Covid-19 policies were unrealistic or unclearly communicated in their anecdotal responses. “I hope that there can be more dialogue between students and administrators to understand how to better create rules that students will actually follow and feel safe,” one wrote.
Fall satisfaction and spring intentions
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Overall, two in three students said they did not regret their enrollment decision. One-tenth of respondents said they regretted their decision, and a quarter of students said they regretted the decision “somewhat.”
“I am not returning Middlebury in the Spring as they never fulfilled most of the things they told us they would throughout the semester,” one student wrote.
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If students’ intended spring plans are an indication of enrollment rates for the spring semester, Middlebury may see fewer students on campus this spring. 68% of students who said they intend to enroll as an on-campus student in the spring, compared to the 87% of respondents who identified as on-campus learners in the fall.
Compared to the 3.5% of students who took the semester off in the fall, 10% of respondents said they would not enroll or take the semester off.
One senior student said they were part of a group of friends leaving campus in the spring as a result of the strict rules. “It’s not how I wanted to spend my senior spring but we can’t deal with the rules on campus and just want to be able to be together for our last few months,” the student wrote.
An additional 9% of students were unsure of their spring plans. The number of remote students and the number of students living off-campus but taking classes on-campus is projected to remain the same for the spring at about 7% and under 3% respectively.
Covid-19 policies, rules, and guidelines
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Almost two in every three respondents — 64% — indicated that they broke Covid-19 safety rules this semester. A third of respondents said they exceeded room or suite capacity during the semester and a fourth of students reported having more than four close contacts. More than one in every ten — 13% — of students said they participated in a party or gathering with more than 10 people.
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One respondent said they were with as many as 30 other people in a house or suite without masks “every weekend.” The respondent added, “The rules were too strict. If I had followed them I would have become depressed.”
Some respondents believed that Covid-19 policies were enforced unevenly. “The inconsistency in punishment for breaking the Covid rules was absolutely unreal,” one respondent wrote. “Do not create a rule if it will not and cannot be enforced consistently.”
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Students greatly differed in their understanding of Middlebury’s Covid-19 policies. Nearly half of students said they felt confused by guidelines, compared to the 43% that said they were clear. “I worried pretty constantly that I would get reported for something that was me misunderstanding the rules and be kicked off campus,” one student responded.
Mental Health
The survey finds a striking decline in student mental health during the fall semester.
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Three-fourths of students said their mental health was worse than it has been during a typical semester. The three factors most likely to affect student mental health this semester were stress about an uncertain future amid the pandemic, stress about academic work and anxiety over friendships or “fear of missing out,” according to survey results.
“The one thing that was amazing was my professors, but it is hard to motivate oneself to do work when you feel miserable all the time,” one student wrote.
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Two-thirds of students reported feeling greater social isolation than in a normal semester, and almost a third of respondents experienced significant changes in their diet which led to either weight loss or gain. Nearly one in 10 students experienced intrusive thoughts of suicide which worsened during the semester.
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Three-fourths of students felt stressed about their relationships. Some students expressed that the Covid-19 restrictions implemented by the college were successful in limiting cases of virus, but did so at the expense of students’ mental health. One student put it succinctly: “Mental health is just as important as physical health.” Others said they experienced mental strain due to the inability to socialize with friends or the fear of being punished for breaking Covid-19 rules.
General Demographics
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This survey was sent to about 2,500 Middlebury students studying both remotely and on campus, and 549 — slightly less than quarter — responded. Eighty-seven percent of respondents were on-campus students this past fall, 2.3% of respondents lived off-campus but took classes on campus and 6.9% of respondents were remote students.
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Respondents were fairly evenly distributed by class year, with a slight majority of respondents coming from the classes of 2022 and 2022.5 at 28.2%.
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Three-quarters of respondents identified as white, 8.4% as Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander, 6% as of Latino or Hispanic Origin, 6% as biracial or multiracial, and 1.6% as Black or African American. Thirty-one or 5.6% of respondents identified as international students.
Slightly more than one-third of respondents said they receive financial aid.
Ideas from Student Responses for an improved Spring 2021 semester
Social Life
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80% of students said that they thought spaces for hanging out or socializing were inadequate. 75% of students said they thought there was inadequate space for hosting events.
In the anecdotal responses, students repeatedly said they hoped for more in-person social opportunities in the spring, either facilitated by the college or through extracurricular activities, and improved access to spaces for socializing. One respondent wanted “more opportunities for virtual students to stay connected to campus events with students in person.”
Other student ideas included having heaters for tents, changing policies so that it is easier to register events and providing “funding for students to figure out how to make their own fun.”
Several students said they would be willing to sacrifice off-campus privileges in order to make on-campus rules less strict.
Inclusivity
Some anecdotal responses mentioned the ways in which rules and policies create different playing fields for different students.
“This semester exasperated the divide between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' because the students who had access to a car to drive places in Addison County tended to have a better experience overall than those who didn't,” wrote the student, adding that they wished the college provided a “rent-a-car” service for students.
“Promote inclusivity,” wrote another student. “White students spend time with white students and are intimidating to students of color. There is an apparent divide.”
Other students felt that they had to exclude friends from social gatherings due to capacity limits. One student felt particularly strongly about Covid-19 policies capping the number of people in a room: “Rules [related to Covid-19] essentially required us to ruin our friendships.”
One student said that they hoped students would be allowed to rank their preferred dining hall. “Some dining halls have a reputation of being predominantly white spaces, whereas other dining halls have a perception of being more inclusive to BIPOC students,” the student wrote.
Creation and Communication of Covid-19 Policies
Some students hoped for student input regarding Covid-19 policies. One respondent recommended that new rules should first be run by Residential Life.
Several students perceived the college’s Covid-19 guidelines to be vague and worried that they would accidentally break a rule. “I wish that it was more clear what people [were] disciplined for,” wrote a student. Another student hoped for “more concise guidelines from fewer sources.”
Editor’s Note: Survey questions pertaining to mental health were designed in conjunction with the Student Government Association Health and Wellness Committee.
(12/03/20 11:00am)
Choosing and beginning to use a new name is an important milestone in the transitioning process for many transgender individuals. For trans students at Middlebury, that process is complicated by the bureaucratic ordeal of navigating the college’s many online platforms.
In an ideal system, the preferred name and pronouns a student registers in BannerWeb would carry over to the college’s other online platforms. In reality, this information flows inconsistently and sometimes does not flow at all, making it incredibly difficult for trans students to fully transition at Middlebury, according to Director of Education for Equity and Inclusion Renee Wells.
Legal names — typically the name a person is given at birth — are those that appear on government-issued documents. Changing them can prove an expensive and arduous process, depending on the state. Many trans students have yet to change their legal name because of these difficulties and because doing so could require them to come out in ways they may not feel ready or safe to do. Preferred names refer to names some trans people choose as a way to better encapsulate their identity in the meantime.
Some platforms, like the students’ email accounts, automatically update once students change their names in BannerWeb. Others, like Canvas, require students to change their names on-site. Still others neither update from BannerWeb nor allow students to update them individually.
StarRez, which manages rooming assignments, falls into this category. Students often use the platform to see who their roommate will be, which can inadvertently out trans students, especially first years.
A.S. ’23 came out and began transitioning in high school, looking forward to a more “normal” college experience where he could live on a gendered floor and interact with people like his cisgender peers without having to be completely open or come out to everyone. Like many of his fellow first years, A.S. waited in nervous anticipation to find out his future roommate. When he checked StarRez and saw that he was listed with his legal name, that excitement turned to sickening dread as he realized that this stranger — whose attitudes were unknown and with whom he would be living in close quarters — already knew he was trans.
“I shouldn’t need to come out to anybody without making that decision for myself,” A.S. said. “But especially to people I live with and work with and who I just don’t know how they’ll handle it if they find out I’m trans. That, I think, is the most important recognition of privacy and responsibly using students' information.”
While other first years idly chatted and got to know each other in hall meetings, A.S. sideyed his roommate and first year counselor, wondering who exactly knew and what their reactions might be. While other first years nervously shifted in their seats during their first college classes, A.S. worried that his professors might inadvertently out him to the class during roll call. While other first years stressed about registration, making friends and forging their identities in this new environment, A.S. feared for his safety.
Students also cannot change their names on Presence, the platform student organizations use to take attendance, organize activities and manage their members. When student leaders search for students using their emails to add them to the organization’s page, they immediately see the students’ legal names. Presence outed A.S. to several peers against his will, uncomfortably expanding the network of people who know that he is trans.
The platform hosting the mail center’s data, the Center for Careers and Internships, and Advocate, the platform through which the college processes care and discipline reports, all fall into this category as well. This means that trans students often receive packages labeled by the mail center with their legal names or letters from the college addressed to their legal names.
Repeatedly facing their legal names and incorrect pronouns causes substantial harm to trans students, many of whom feel invalidated or stigmatized by these experiences, according to Wells.
For some trans students, seeing their legal name also brings up painful memories of family who do not accept who they are and weaponize their names to repeatedly reject their identity. This harm is compounded by the inconsistency of college platforms. Trans students never know when their legal name will appear and are often blindsided and unprepared for the harm it causes, according to Charlie R. ’21, president of Middlebury’s Trans Affinity Group.
The increasingly online world of the Covid-19 pandemic has only heightened the difficulties trans students typically face when changing their names and pronouns. Students inevitably have had to spend more time on online platforms both inside and outside the college system, forcing trans students to encounter their legal name more often, according to Charlie.
Correcting these issues often involves outing themselves to professors, classmates, administrators, human resources employees or Information and Technology Services (ITS) staff.
For example, CourseHub, one of the platforms that hosts class rosters, experiences problems with displaying trans students’ correct names and pronouns. In the past, it consistently failed to update students' names. Now it often lists students’ preferred names in parentheses after their legal name, according to Assistant Vice President and Chief Information Officer Vijay Menta.
Due to this set-up, professors who use these rosters to take attendance or call on students may misgender or use trans students’ legal names rather than their prefered names. This mismatch forces students to correct their professors, often in front of an entire class, effectively outing them as trans, according to Wells.
While medical, financial or student records often necessitate the use of legal names, many internal documents and interactions do not require them, even in these departments. Neither staff nor trans students have always received clear guidance on when they absolutely must use their legal name.
This uncertainty creates issues, especially regarding students’ health care. Appointments, emails and discussions between students and Middlebury’s various health care providers can legally occur under students’ preferred names but do not always, according to Wells.
Francis S. ’23, who uses they/them pronouns, scheduled an appointment with MiddTelehealth this semester. Though they indicated their preferred name and pronouns when they created an account, their healthcare provider repeatedly misgendered them and wrote the appointment report using incorrect pronouns.
A month later, Francis arrived at Parton for their mandatory flu shot and identified themselves by their preferred name. When the medical provider couldn’t find their appointment, Francis had to introduce themselves by their legal name, an incident they say many of their trans friends also experienced.
Repeated instances of being misgendered or referred to by their legal names reinforce an oftentimes troubled relationship with healthcare and discourage trans students from seeking help when they need it, according to Charlie.
Parton currently requires that students identify themselves by their legal names at appointment check in, though the center plans to work with their electronic health record to alter this process in the future, according to Associate Executive Director of the Center for Health and Wellness Barbara McCall.
Health Services had never provided services on such a large scale before Covid-19 necessitated mandatory flu shots and was unprepared for the nuances of trans healthcare. McCall pledged to address this issue.
“Misgendering, deadnaming and other kinds of identity invalidation can significantly affect people’s relationships with medical and mental healthcare, including not seeking services when needed,” McCall wrote in an email to The Campus. “The Center for Health and Wellness is committed to on-going training, systems evaluation and the integration of student feedback to meet the healthcare needs of Middlebury students, including honoring and respecting their identities.”
Healthcare and financial platforms also are not required to display students’ legal names in their on-site interfacing, but many do anyway.
Each time Francis opens Oracle — the platform that hosts student employment payments, records and communication — they are greeted by a large banner on the top of the screen referring to them by their legal name. When Residential Life sent an internal roster to student employees, they pulled names from Oracle and listed Francis by their legal name, outing Francis to their supervisors and peers.
Some online platforms have internal information flow problems as well. Even after successfully changing their name and pronouns in Handshake, Francis still receives emails from the platform with subject lines like “[legal name], we think you’ll like these new opportunities.”
These display issues not only force trans students to confront their legal name more often, they create added stress as students worry their peers might see these sites or emails open on their computer.
A.S. remains constantly vigilant while navigating Middlebury’s platforms. Everytime he opens a problem platform or email, he looks over his shoulder to make sure he’s alone, and he never leaves those sites or emails open on an unattended computer or phone.
Even when college systems do allow trans students to change their name, they inconsistently display them. After updating their names in BannerWeb, some trans students’ emails and school directory listings continue to display their legal name and place their preferred name afterwards in parenthesis, as if it were a nickname.
Displays like those effectively out trans students with every email they send or recieve, especially when either their legal or preferred name carries a strong traditional association with one gender, according to Wells.
Because the college assumed that all of the systems for changing students’ names functioned correctly, no complete resource guide exists to guide trans students through the arduous process of changing their name throughout the many online platforms. Students must hunt down the individual instances where their legal name appears and attempt to change them one by one, Wells said.
Francis estimates that they have sent more than 10 emails to try to correct the name displayed in Oracle, to no avail.
"I had so many emails back and forth with HR that I just sort of gave up," Francis said. “It's really frustrating and demoralizing . . . [and] it takes a lot of time that I could be spending doing what I actually like doing. . . They see it as a minor inconvenience, but, for me, it's just another reminder that the world is hard for trans people.”
Many trans students also see the challenges they face while trying to change their name in Middlebury’s online systems as an indication that the college does not fully welcome or accept them. Every time Francis sees their legal name or has to correct someone, “it’s another reminder that [they’re] not exactly understood or safe [at Middlebury].”
That feeling of exclusion is even greater for students whose genders are not recognized by the college’s platforms at all. Students wishing to change their pronouns in BannerWeb are only given three options: he/him/his, she/her/hers and they/them/theirs. These options exclude genderfluid, bigender, demigender and agender students, among others, as well as those who use neopronouns like xe/xem/xyr.
“The institution needs to create space for people and affirm people,” she said. “When we're sending out messages that are invalidating them, we're doing the opposite of that… It creates a lot of harm that's being done by the institution that you've chosen to make your home for four years.”
This year, Digital Learning and Inquiry (DLINQ) added pronoun options to Canvas, which will display alongside students’ names on the class roster, discussion posts and other interactions. Students whose preferred pronouns are not included in the drop-down menu can submit a consultation request form to customize their pronouns, according to Heather Stafford, a DLINQ instructional designer.
Wells approached ITS in the fall of 2019 to resolve these issues across Middlebury’s various online platforms. According to Menta, ITS has since made some small strides towards fixing the many problems, including creating space in CourseHub to display students’ preferred names and pronouns, but much of the problem remains unresolved.
“There is no unilateral fix that will resolve all the existing errors,” Menta said. “There are many systems that need to be coordinated and important issues of accessibility and security to be considered as we make changes.”
ITS’s former project manager got as far as addressing some small issues and identifying the key problems before he left in January. Unfortunately, the department has been unable to hire his replacement since the college instituted a hiring freeze last spring, and the project fell by the wayside. ITS is committed to addressing this issue “as soon as the pandemic is behind us,” according to Menta.
Trans students who are currently forced to navigate the inadequate name-changing system are dissatisfied by Middlebury’s long-term approach to fixing it.
“I totally understand that people are spread thin right now, but students still deserve to see their real names (not their given names) on Middlebury platforms,” Francis wrote in an email to The Campus. “When a friend comes to me saying that they want to change their name in Midd's systems, I hate having to tell them that it's an uphill, often impossible battle.”
While trans students wait for an institutional fix, they must rely on each other for help navigating this process. For some students, the Trans Affinity Group fills the holes left by the lack of institutional support. Trans students use the meeting space and group chat to troubleshoot the process of changing their name across college systems, spitball name suggestions for transitioning students and provide a safe space and support as they attempt to navigate a college that does not always accommodate or prioritize their needs.
“Being trans is beautiful. Being trans is fantastic. Transitioning is hard but has wonderful outcomes,” Francis said. “But [difficulties with updating my name on college platforms] are still a reminder that institutions...are not set up to make sense of who I am.”
Editor’s note: Some interviewees have been granted partial anonymity for their own future privacy and protection. A.S. ’23 is a member of The Campus’ staff.
Trans students seeking support can reach Charlie R., president of the Trans Affinity Group, at crouhandeh@middlebury.edu.
(12/03/20 10:57am)
Hannah Laga Abram ’23 won the Ward Prize for the 2019-2020 Academic Year. The award recognizes first-year students who demonstrate exceptional skill in writing. Laga Abram, whose work was nominated by three professors, also received a $500 cash prize. Ryo Nishikubo ’23.5 and Mia Pangasnan ’23 were runners-up for the award, and Emily Garcia ’23, Gloria Escobedo ’23 and Kate Likhite ’23 received honorable mentions.
Established by his family in 1978, the prize is named for Paul Ward ’25, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and diplomatic reporter.
A committee of three faculty judges from different academic disciplines decide on one winning submission, two runners-up and three to five honorable mentions. About 50 students are nominated each year for the prize, drawing from work in both fall and spring classes.
Laga Abram said she was surprised to hear she had won the award.
“I’ve been in love with words for as long as I can remember, so it’s delightful to feel seen and heard in that way and be at a school that treasures the magic of language,” she said. “I’m flabbergasted, honored and grateful to all of my professors, the judges and others who make the Ward Prize possible.”
Laga Abram’s winning work was titled “The Ecology of Folklore: A Relational Examination of Storytelling Traditions in Ireland and Iceland,” which she wrote for her Environmental Anthropology class.
Professor of Anthropology Michael Sheridan nominated Laga Abram’s piece for the prize in May, and asked to serve as a judge on this year’s panel in September. He said that her essay demonstrated talent and thoughtfulness beyond her years.
“She engaged the topic insightfully, and then boldly and creatively connected it to course readings and themes. She demonstrated a mastery of the topic that I would expect from a junior or senior who had been marinating in a discipline for a much longer time,” Sheridan said. “It was a beautiful text and a shining example of the craft of writing.”
“Stories have so much power in reminding us that the earth — and ourselves as a part of it — are alive, wildly beautiful, and made of mystery,” Laga Abram said.
Writing and Rhetoric Professor and Writing Center Director Genie Giaimo took a lead role in coordinating this year’s process. Working in conjunction with Giaimo, Writing and Rhetoric Professor James Chase Sanchez selected the faculty for this year’s judging panel.
Given that there are only three judges for the prize, one of Sanchez’s biggest goals and challenges was getting “an array of voices and disciplines” on the panel. Even with the challenges of online learning this semester, Sanchez had no trouble finding judges to serve on the panel, which consisted of Professor of History Ian Barrow, American Studies Ellery Foutch and Sheridan.
Sheridan said that he enjoyed the diversity of thought that comes from having judges in different academic departments. “By having the judges come from different parts of the college, it balances out differences like disciplinary approaches to knowledge and aesthetics,” he said.
The prize has received steady enthusiasm from faculty and students alike in recent years. To keep this momentum going, Giaimo hopes to see a greater number of nominated pieces from STEM classes.
Professor of Writing and Rhetoric as well as Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies Catharine Wright has been a recurrent nominator over the past twenty years. “[I nominate essays] that leave me excited after reading them, stimulate me with their insights and ambition, and move me,” she said.
Editor’s Note: News Editor Abigail Chang ’23 and Managing Editor Riley Board ’22 contributed reporting.
(11/19/20 10:59am)
The college has completed over 11,200 Covid-19 tests — more than 9,500 student tests and 1,700 employee tests — over the course of the semester.
The number of tests completed each week has fluctuated, sometimes exceeding and sometimes falling short of the goal of 750 weekly tests, according to Middlebury’s Covid-19 Reporting Dashboard.
The inconsistency resulted from differently-sized groups being identified for testing through the college’s Targeted Dynamic Testing program. The fluctuations also resulted from varying numbers of students reporting possible Covid-19 symptoms each week and the number of retests performed due to insufficient samples taken previously, Director of Media Relations Sarah Ray said in an email to the Campus.
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All students were tested twice during move-in and were tested again either in late September or early October. Faculty and staff working on campus were also tested throughout the fall semester.
The total cost of testing this year could reach $750,000, according to Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration David Provost. Each test costs $25, bringing the total cost of 750 tests per week to $18,750, not including transportation or personnel costs, Provost said in an email to The Campus.
Testing costs for the semester — a contributor to the college’s anticipated deficit — were a reason for raising tuition by 3% this year, according to an Aug. 6 email from college administrators to students.
On Nov. 5, the Vermont State Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee approved $3.2 million in reimbursements from the CARES Act to independent colleges for the cost of Covid-19 testing through Dec. 31, 2020.
Other colleges implemented more rigorous testing schedules during the fall semester: UVM has tested all students every seven days and Colby, a smaller college in a similarly rural location, has tested all students, faculty, and staff twice every week.
According to an analysis of their respective schools’ testing plans, Middlebury is the only school in the NESCAC to use a targeted sampling program for its testing. All other NESCAC institutions, many located in similarly rural areas, have tested all students twice weekly, with the exception of Williams College (once weekly) and Amherst College (three times weekly).
The Middlebury Return to Campus Guide outlines the college’s testing procedures, including reasons why an individual might be tested outside of regular testing. The college tests individuals studying or working on campus who display symptoms that could be associated with Covid-19, as well as those who are identified as close contacts of people who have tested positive for Covid-19.
All other tests are conducted as part of the college’s Targeted Dynamic Testing, with groups distinguished as “peripheral contacts” or “positional contacts.”
Peripheral contacts are those who may have come into contact with someone who tested positive for Covid-19 but who had limited exposure with the infected person and was not identified as a close contact by the Vermont Department of Health.
Positional contact is how most students and employees at the college are grouped, with different levels depending on the kinds of in-person activities performed. High-risk employees are in testing category 1, most in-person students are in category 2, most faculty and staff are in category 3, and students not taking in-person classes or living on campus and faculty or staff working remotely are in category 4.
During the last week of in-person classes, Middlebury offered optional departure testing as students prepared to leave campus and cases around the state of Vermont spiked. On Tuesday, the college reported that two students tested positive for Covid-19. One, one additional case was reported on Wednesday bringing the total of active cases on campus to three.
(11/19/20 10:55am)
With the Nov. 21 move out date just around the corner, all students but those approved to remain on campus are getting ready to pack up and leave campus.
Whether you are planning to take the spring semester off, return to campus or are still undecided, The Campus has compiled a move-out guide outlining the protocols for departure this week.
Remote or gap semester students
Students who do not plan to return in the spring must fully move out of their residential space, meaning they must pack up everything in their room, suite or house and take it with them. Any students who are in need of packing supplies can find them near the Mail Center, in the Ridgeline Suites building, in Forest West and all dining halls.
Students returning for spring
Students living in singles — including those located in suites — who plan to remain in the same room in the spring may leave all their belongings in their rooms.
Students living in doubles who plan to return in the spring must move their belongings off the floor and onto one side of the room — either onto their bed or desk — and away from all heaters, windows and exits. Each roommate should label their bed, desk and side of the room with their name, ID number, residence hall, room number and phone number to better organize and keep track of each student’s items. Any belongings, including larger items, in shared common spaces should also be labeled.
Changing rooms
If students are changing rooms for the spring semester, they should move their belongings to their new room. If this is not possible, students should fully pack and label all of their belongings and leave them in their current rooms.
Students unsure of their plans
Holly Ange, Battell and Allen residence director, said students who are unsure of their spring plans should pack and move out, since residential life is not yet sure how they will handle belongings that are left behind.
“For students who think there’s any chance they might decide later on to go remote for spring, I recommend that they take as many of their belongings home with them, as they can to ensure that they’re able to access what they would need if they don’t return,” Ange said.
General Move-Out Protocol
Every student who is moving out must clean their room or suite before leaving, including disposing of all trash, recycling and compost. Vacuums and other cleaning supplies are available in each building’s designated areas.
Additionally, all students must lock and shut their windows, pull down their shades, unplug all unused or nonessential small appliances and remove all their personal items from bathrooms. Students should set their room thermostat to the middle setting (any thermostats that range from “snowflake” to 8 must be set to 4), to prevent pipes from freezing. Students should bring all plants and pets with them.
Students must also follow any additional building-specific closing or checkout procedures communicated by their Residential Director, including filling out closing tags left on residents doors by signing with the date and time they are leaving and checking the boxes indicating that they have followed all moving-out measures.
Off-campus students
The college recommends that off-campus students follow many of the same procedures as those who are on-campus, including taking out all trash, washing dishes, moving trash cans, bikes and furniture inside, as well as locking all doors and windows.
Pick-up and departure logistics
All students will need to leave by 8 p.m. on Nov. 21, unless they have received direct permission from the school to remain longer. At that time ID card access to residence halls will be deactivated. Students may have a maximum of two guests pick them up from campus. These guests cannot enter residence halls, must stay with their cars and are required to follow Vermont Covid-19 guidelines, including wearing a face covering.
Vermont guidelines also stipulate that visitors must quarantine at home for two weeks before entering the state. Parents picking up their college students are exempted as long as they make no contact with anyone in the state. If a day trip is not possible, they may stay overnight in the state only if they quarantine at their hotel.
(11/18/20 2:11am)
Two Middlebury students tested positive for Covid-19 according to early results from Covid-19 testing held Monday, the school announced in an email Tuesday morning.
The cases were the first among students at the college since two tested positive in early September during entry testing. They were therefore the first two cases acquired in Middlebury rather than before arrival at the college. In total, the college has had four student cases to-date this semester.
“This news underscores the importance of strictly abiding by Middlebury’s campus quarantine rules as well as Vermont Governor Phil Scott’s order restricting social gatherings,” Mark Peluso, Middlebury’s head physician, said in the email.
Peluso said the two students had been moved to isolation. The school completed contract tracing this evening and moved 15 student contacts into quarantine, according to the Covid-19 dashboard. Two students were previously placed into quarantine after contacting someone off campus who tested positive, putting the total number of students in quarantine at 17.
Colleges around Vermont have had spikes in cases and increased their Covid-19-related precautions, as Vermont has a surge of the virus. The University of Vermont on Monday reported 35 new cases that nearly doubled its total for the semester, and Northern Vermont University suspended all events and athletic practices last Friday after two students tested positive.
Vermont set several single-day case records last week, with a high of 122 cases reported Nov. 15. Officials at Gov. Phil Scott’s press conference Tuesday announced plans to ramp up statewide testing, and warned that new cases in the state could rise by as much as 50% in the next six weeks.
Middlebury administrators sent another email to students on Tuesday evening to share that an additional 1,100 tests were performed throughout the day Tuesday, and to urge caution. Peluso reminded students not to jump to conclusions simply because they might know a student who tested positive, or were a contact of someone who had.
“As we noted in the earlier announcement, simply knowing a person who has Covid-19 or having interacted with a person who is in quarantine does not mean you are a contact,” he said in the later email.
The college placed all students under “campus quarantine” last Friday, preventing them from entering the town or Addison County. On Tuesday, Peluso said that campus operations would continue as planned despite the new cases.
Most tests performed Monday and Tuesday were part of Middlebury’s exit testing plan, which offered all students a test on a voluntary basis on one of those days as they prepare to leave campus Nov. 21.
Departure testing is not mandatory. Peluso said in Tuesday’s initial email that “we have about 300 open appointments” for departure testing on Tuesday afternoon, and encouraged students to take advantage of them.
(11/12/20 11:00am)
Students and community members gathered on the Town Green, holding signs and listening attentively to speakers, united by one central message: every vote that was cast must be counted.
Middlebury students joined local residents and community members on Nov. 4 at the Protect the Vote Rally, carrying hand-painted banners that read “Every Vote Counts” and “Our Voices Count.” Roughly 200 participants gathered for one of several Protect the Results rallies around the country advocating for upholding the results of the presidential election.
The event was the brainchild of local residents Fran Putnam and Bethany Barry, who began planning it about seven weeks ago. The two friends have organized together in the past and, as Putnam put it, “go all the way back to the Women’s March in 2017.” Putnam was inspired by a personal message from activist George Lakey, who encouraged local action to prevent a compromised election. Following Lakey’s suggestion, Putnam and Barry formed an affinity group composed of around 20 people, including both community members and Middlebury students.
Putnam, who frequents college Sunday Night Environmental Group (SNEG) meetings, reached out to students and assembled a group of student organizers for the event. This included Divya Gudur ’21, who relayed information about safety and Covid-19 protocol to student participants gathered on McCullough lawn on Nov. 4 prior to proceeding into town.
With Covid-19 cases on the rise, the organizers required that all attendees wear face masks and maintain physical distance. They also discouraged chanting and asked students to walk from campus to the green in groups of ten or fewer.
College employees served as traffic monitors, ensuring students made it safely to the Town Green on Wednesday afternoon.
“We were hoping we wouldn’t even have to do this today,” Putnam said, in an interview with The Campus. “We were hoping that our president wouldn’t announce that he had won an election when all the votes hadn’t been counted.”
Putnam and other organizers stressed that the event was non-partisan in nature. Local artist Sarah Ashe, who worked with Barry and Leicester resident Kate Williams to create some of the signs for the rally, said they had tried to keep the messaging on the signs neutral. Ashe and Williams hoped to emphasize the universal importance of counting every vote.
“It really is not a partisan issue. It’s a democracy issue,” Williams said.
The rally included speeches from Shoreham resident and activist Beatrice Parwatiker, local tenth-grader Vivian Ross and Keith Chatinover ’22.5.
Parwatiker opened her speech with praise for the late Congressman John Lewis, who she described as “a great ambassador of voting.” She then recounted the struggle for suffrage in the U.S. and the challenges faced by those who sought it.
“The vote is sacred because it has been given to me by the blood of my past relatives,” she said.
Ross delivered a message that attested to the fears she and other young people are facing, warning of potential disenfranchisement.
“People complain about how young people don’t vote, but imagine what the next election will look like if people my age have been shown that our votes will not be counted, that our thoughts are not wanted, that the majority of the people who live in this country are not the ones who shape it,” she said.
As the wait for election results drew on, subsequent Nov. 5 and 6 rallies attracted a smaller, though no less determined crowd of 20 to 25 community members. They stood on the side of the Town Green facing North Pleasant Street. Many of those who stayed for all three days were no strangers to activism, and, for some, civil disobedience had shaped the trajectory of their family history.
Tom Nicholson and Mimi Love-Nicholson, longtime residents of Middlebury, stood with their handmade signs at the end of the line of protestors on Nov. 6. Nicholson has been heavily involved in civil disobedience throughout his life. In addition to protesting, he refused the Vietnam War draft and served a 16-month prison sentence.
Though he noted that the vote count appeared to be going smoothly, Nicholson is prepared to keep protesting if Trump refuses to leave office.
“I might go down to D.C. and blockade the White House or something, lay in the street,” he said.
Though she does not currently have plans for more election-related organizing, Putnam is also ready to coordinate and engage in nonviolent mobilization.
“Until Jan. 20 gets here, we’re going to have to be on alert,” she said. “But if something really goes wrong, we have our people now.”
(11/12/20 10:59am)
As the nation waited on edge to hear the results of the 2020 presidential election, many of Middlebury’s students of color feared that tensions could erupt into racialized violence on campus and in town.
Students worried that the college, which hosts a much higher concentration of people of color than the surrounding area, would provide an easy target for racial violence and hate speech. Many students of color decided to stay on campus, travel in groups, avoid the main roads and town and remain hyper-vigilant for the duration of election week and beyond.
Jasmin Animas-Tapia ’21 made one last trip into town to stock up on groceries on Nov. 1. She worries that tensions will continue to mount over the coming weeks instead of dying down. Unless absolutely necessary, she does not plan on returning to town before she leaves for the end of the semester.
As a Black woman, Kaila Thomas ’21 believes she is an easier target for racial violence than male students of color. For the duration of election week, Thomas scarcely left her college housing except to attend in-person classes and eat in the dining hall. Friends escorted her to classes and sometimes brought her meals so she wouldn’t have to leave her refuge.
Many students of color did not fear outright physical violence in Vermont but worried that they might be verbally assaulted by passing cars or community members. The threat of these interactions undermines a sense of “emotional safety” for students of color, according to David Vargas ’22.5.
Vargas defined emotional safety as the feeling that he is wanted or belongs here, something he has felt infrequently during his time at Middlebury. Similarly, Animas-Tapia thinks about it as “feeling comfortable enough in spaces to be open and honest” about who she is.
None of these feelings and fears were new or unique to this election week. The election, and the rising national tensions that surround it, only serves to exacerbate existing worries for students of color, many of whom feel unsafe and uncomfortable in town even under normal circumstances.
Vargas is hyper aware of how his skin color visually marks him as an “outsider” in town. He remains constantly on guard, aware of his surroundings and thoughtful of his actions to avoid conflict when he leaves campus.
“Being Brown in America, you always have to be careful,” Vargas said.
Animas-Tapia carefully polices herself and her conduct when she enters the town. She tries to keep her head down and avoid calling attention to herself. She wears makeup and purposefully dresses up and tries to “look presentable.”
When she walks with her Spanish-speaking friends, she is careful to only speak English. Though it goes against her nature as a native New Yorker used to brusque interactions, she tries to appear overly friendly to passersby and cashiers in town.
“I’ll go out of my way to make small talk even if I'm not invested in the conversation just because, if I come to your store, I want you to recognize me,” she said. “I don’t want you to see me as a threat or as an outsider.”
Many students of color shared stories of facing racial harassment in Middlebury in the past. Vargas recalled a man shouting “Make America Great Again” at him as he rode by on a bicycle during his first semester. A man recently yelled “All Lives Matter” at Hennah Vohra ’21 out of the window of a passing car, and Animas-Tapia recalls freezing in shock when a white woman referred to her using a racial slur in Hannaford.
“I can’t remember her face anymore, and I never saw her again, but it was just something that really really stuck with me,” she said. “It just takes one moment to mess up the relationship [with the town].”
An “institutional memory” of past incidents also informs students’ fears, according to Vargas. A recent incident in which a white student used a racial slur against Rodney Adams ’21 looms heavily in many of their minds. Other past incidents, such as the appearance of stickers for a white supremicist organization on campus and white nationalist propaganda in Davis Family Library, all lend weight to students’ worries that they too could be targeted.
The college responded to students raising concerns about their safety during the election by organizing volunteer groups of faculty, staff, and community members to patrol the campus perimeter during the week. Patrols ran on Monday and Tuesday from 8 a.m. to midnight and from 6 p.m. to midnight for the rest of the week, according to Center for Community Engagement Assistant Director Jason Duquette-Hoffman, who organized the patrols.
Volunteers walked through the biting winds and blistering snow Monday night for over nine miles during their three-hour shifts, on the lookout for any outside agitators harassing students. Professor of Anthropology Michael Sheridan volunteered Thursday night, completing eight laps of the campus during his shift. At the end of the night, Sheridan’s Fitbit informed him that he had taken 21,000 steps.
“I thought it was wrong that anybody in our community should have to worry about their physical safety on our campus,” Sheridan said. “I saw this patrol idea as one way to contribute something to overall feelings of security and belonging in the community.”
According to Duquette-Hoffman, the volunteers were primarily meant to support students. Should something happen, they were told to follow the students' lead, but to try to support them and guide them away from the interaction rather than directly intervene. The college does not know of any incidents in the past week, according to Interim Director of Public Safety Daniel V. Giatto.
Duquette-Hoffman hoped that volunteers wouldn’t face any harassment and would instead spend their shifts enjoying a nice walk around campus and friendly conversations with students. He aimed for their presence to comfort nervous students and signal that the college cares about them and their fears. Many students of color said that they appreciated the volunteers’ efforts.
“BIPOC students on this campus often feel very isolated in the challenges we face,” Vohra said. “Knowing that our campus as a whole is finally cognizant of those is comforting.”
In addition to Public Safety increasing staffing on Monday and Tuesday nights, Middlebury also hired Green Mountain Concert Services (GMCS) to provide extra security during election week. Like the volunteer patrols, the college hoped that they could support students and guide them away from tense interactions should outside agitators approach them, according to Giatto.
GMCS’s presence raised concerns for students of color weary of security services and police in a time when the Black Lives Matter movement’s national prominence has put police brutality and racism at the forefront of people’s minds. Rather than alleviate her fears, GMCS staff only made Animas-Tapia more tense.
With no strong connection to the college or sense of the campus community, she worried about how they might interact with students. Should a student of color respond to harassment, she feared that GMCS staff might side with the initial attacker and cause further harm to the student.
The college’s lack of transparency heightened these concerns for some students. Though the college announced the volunteer patrols in a campus-wide email, they sent no communication about GMCS. Animas-Tapia only noticed their presence because their bright yellow jackets caught her eye.
Elijah Willig ’21 was also frustrated by the college’s lack of communication and failure to proactively address students’ concerns, noting that the college only organized volunteers and hired security after students of color repeatedly raised concerns about their safety. In his view, the college’s latest actions are part of a larger pattern of the administration reacting belatedly and insufficiently to the concerns of students of color.
“The administration only supports students when students demand that the administration supports them,” Willig said.
Animas-Tapia also wishes the college had reached out to students of color and directly asked them what they wanted and needed. A solution informed by their actual experiences would make students feel safer than GMCS or volunteer patrols, whose efforts she thinks are largely ineffective.
Those patrols do not enter dorms, nor do they monitor the everyday, small interactions where harms pile up, according to Animas-Tapia. While the fear of those interactions may die down as the election fades into memory, the threat will not disappear.
“This is not the only time you should prioritize keeping your students safe from harm,” she said. “It's not coddling your students; it's just giving them the peace of mind to know that they are safe here and to live happily and healthy.”
No amount of temporary security will effectively protect students of color on campus if the college does not directly address its role in perpetuating systemic racism, according to Vargas.
“It's all connected,” Vargas said. “If you don’t work hard enough to eradicate white supremacy and racism here, that's not really supporting people much with regard to the election. The election and the atmosphere here is just a byproduct of what's going on in the country overall.”
Editor’s Note: Professor of Anthropology Michael Sheridan is senior writer Sophia McDermott-Hughes’ academic advisor.
