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(09/24/20 10:00am)
After Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced new Title IX regulations on May 6, Middlebury implemented changes to its policies on Aug. 14 in accordance with the new guidelines. Students and advocates across the country fear that Devos’ changes could introduce new obstacles in the process of reporting sexual assault, bolstering the defense of those accused.
The more than 2,000 pages of regulations released last spring address Title IX, a 1972 federal civil rights law which prohibits discrimination based on sex in relation to any education program or activity that receives federal funding. The law covers a wide range of issues, from equality of opportunities in athletics to how schools address incidents of sexual harassment and assault.
The changes released in May alter the definitions of sex discrimination and harassment, changing how schools are required to respond to reports and which complaints the school is required to adjudicate under federal law.
The U.S. Department of Education published a press release on May 6 announcing the changes. It reads, “U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos took historic action today to strengthen Title IX protections for survivors of sexual misconduct and to restore due process in campus proceedings to ensure all students can pursue an education free from sex discrimination.”.
The most fervently contested changes to Title IX involve the investigation procedures for reports of sexual harassment.
A Brookings Institute analysis of the new regulations found that DeVos’s definition of sexual harassment demonstrates a narrowed understanding of the term from Obama-era standards. But it still remains broader than the even narrower definition offered by the Supreme Court.
President and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center Fatima Goss Graves responded to the new regulations with a commitment to taking legal action against the Department of Education.
“If this rule goes into effect, survivors will be denied their civil rights and will get the message loud and clear that there is no point in reporting assault,” she wrote in a May 6 statement. “We refuse to go back to the days when rape and harassment in schools were ignored and swept under the rug.”
Implementing Title IX modifications at Middlebury
The newly labeled Civil Rights and Title IX Office at Middlebury was tasked with implementing these new changes over the summer. Marti McCaleb serves as the college’s Civil Rights and Title IX Coordinator.
“The Department of Education has, for the first time in almost 50 years, issued binding legal rules governing how colleges respond to complaints of sexual harassment,” McCaleb said.
Some of the new regulations provide detailed requirements for colleges to follow, but others grant schools broad discretion in deciding what standards and practices to implement and how to go about writing their policies.
“Middlebury has not changed any of its behavioral expectations for students or employees,” McCaleb said. “We have restructured our policies and created a new investigation and resolution procedure for cases that fall under the new Title IX rules. For matters that don’t meet the federal definition, we will still respond to reports of misconduct using processes similar to those we have used in the past.”
The Middlebury College handbook Non-Discrimination Policy defines sexual harassment to include quid pro quo sexual harassment, meaning “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, written, visual or physical conduct of a sexual nature,” when compliance with such requests is explicitly or implicitly seen as impacting one’s employment or education. It also prohibits other discriminatory harassment based on or motivated by an individual’s actual or perceived sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression in the same way that discriminatory harassment based on race or other protected characteristics is prohibited. Sexual assault is considered a form of sexual harassment.
All college employees who are not specifically designated as Confidential Resources are required to report suspected instances of sexual harassment. Confidential Resources include — but are not limited to — MiddSafe, college counseling and medical providers and college chaplains.
The largest change being made to bring Middlebury into compliance with the new federal guidelines is the implementation of live hearings and the informal resolution option, according to McCaleb. For conduct covered under the new regulations, there is a distinction between a “report” and a “formal complaint.” The former can be addressed with various non-punitive supportive measures, while the latter must meet the newly narrowed definition of sexual harassment and triggers a college investigation unless the parties both agree to pursue informal resolution.
“Live hearings will be provided as required by the 2020 Title IX regulations,” reads the Middlebury handbook section on TIX Investigation & Resolutions Procedure. “At the request of either party, Middlebury will provide for the hearing to occur with the parties located in separate rooms with technology enabling the hearing officer and parties to simultaneously see and hear the party or the witness answering questions.” This section of the handbook details the process for reporting sexual harassment, undertaking an investigation, carrying out a hearing and sanctioning.
During the hearing, each party must have an “advisor” who may or may not be an attorney. If either party does not have an advisor, the school will assign them one. Advisors will “conduct direct, oral, real-time cross-examination of witnesses,” according to McCaleb.
Hearings will be supervised by a neutral decision-maker, an individual other than the Title IX Coordinator. This individual is tasked with making evidentiary rulings and determinations during the hearing. Following the hearing, they will release a written decision detailing facts of the case as determined through the hearing and conclusions in relation to the school’s Title IX policy.
Eric López, a human relations officer, will serve as a hearing officer under the new Title IX system.
“We will be responsible for conducting the hearings, making determinations regarding the relevance of questions at those hearings, and ensuring that only evidence that can be considered pursuant to the new regulations is used in determining whether a respondent can be found responsible for violations covered by the Title IX procedure,” López said of his responsibilities.
These new procedures contrast with Middlebury’s previous policy, which did not allow for any contact between the two parties and instead relied on an investigator and decision-maker to examine the available facts and make a decision. Each party could meet with them separately upon request.
Another significant change is the allowance of informal resolutions. Under the Obama administration, the Department of Education released a 2011 Dear Colleague Letter which required all complaints to be investigated in a formal hearing. Yet under the new changes to Title IX, students who make an informal report can opt to partake in a voluntary “adaptive resolution.”
“This structured approach, grounded in the principles of restorative justice, is designed to be adaptable so that a process can be identified that is appropriate for the harm caused and to best meet the needs of the individuals involved,” said Middlebury Director of Education for Equity and Inclusion Renee Wells. Wells emphasized that adaptable resolution facilitators work to ensure the process does not cause additional harm to survivors.
Adaptable resolution processes are all overseen by individuals trained in restorative justice, bias, historical harm and the current Title IX regulations. According to Wells, resolutions could include direct processes — interactions which include those individuals who have been harmed and those who have perpetrated the harm — and indirect processes, or separate meetings that do not require any in-person interactions between the individuals involved. Individuals work directly with facilitators to determine which processes they want to pursue.
Wells sees potential benefits in the fact that all of these processes provide students with greater agency and are crafted to the individual needs of those involved. She acknowledged that the considerable length involved in completing the course of an adaptable resolution could deter some students from participating.
“This creates a different pathway for processing harm and can be used in a variety of situations that could ultimately create significant culture change around how we view harming others and what it takes to acknowledge that and move forward,” wrote Assistant Director of Health and Wellness Education Emily Wagner in an email to The Campus. Wagner, a violence prevention education specialist, played a part in determining how to implement the new changes at Middlebury.
Leah Salzman ’21.5 worked as an intern for the Civil Rights and Title IX office this past summer, helping to determine how to implement the changes to Title IX. “I believe the work we did to implement the new regulations allowed for us to focus on making changes that clarify information and actually enhance connection with the student body,” she said.
Salzman thinks that it is important for students to know that filing a report can allow them to access resources and support measures, even if they ultimately decide not to file a formal complaint and go through the investigation procedures.
“Our commitment to education equity and equal access has not changed in light of these new regulations,” McCaleb and Chief Diversity Officer Miguel Fernández wrote in an Aug. 18 email to the student body.
Changes will have varied impacts on students across the country
Each individual school has some discretion to determine how they will implement certain policies. The new regulations “leave much room for colleges to work with their own communities to maintain and strengthen their protections for student safety, and to assure a fair, impartial resolution to complaints,” McCaleb said. Consequently, the impact of Title IX on students will differ depending on the institution.
There is also an increased emphasis on providing support, such as counseling, academic and residential accommodations, to students who experience sexual harassment. According to McCaleb, these measures reflect Middlebury’s pre-existing practices but could lead to significant changes at other institutions.
“The live hearing model for investigations (required by federal Title IX policy, so Middlebury doesn’t have a choice about this) is generally considered to not be survivor-friendly and could be a deterrent to students reporting violations,” Wagner wrote. McCaleb hopes that the option for students to file an informal report will help prevent the new live hearing requirement from deterring reporting.
McCaleb predicts that changes to mandatory reporting, standards of evidence, supportive practices and investigative processes will have the greatest impact on students at colleges and universities around the United States.
Under the Obama administration, schools generally required most college employees to serve as mandatory reporters of sexual misconduct or harassment. However, the new guidelines relax this standard, and schools can decide whether or not all employees serve as mandatory reporters. McCaleb sees two perspectives on this change: it could reduce colleges’ accountability for reporting and addressing misconduct, or it could allow students more autonomy and control over when and how they choose to come forward with complaints.
“These changes could have a chilling effect on reporting, or it could help reinforce the relationship of trust and privacy that students have with faculty or other college administrators and provide a greater sense of autonomy and fairness over the Title IX complaint and investigation process,” McCaleb said.
Instances of sexual harassment and assault at Middlebury can now be reported through an online reporting form at go/report.
Corrections: This article was updated with more accurate definitions and terminology.
(09/24/20 9:58am)
As a young “Daily Express” correspondent, Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) once explained to a colleague the secret to success in the newspaper business. “The correct procedure [when assigned a story], is to jump to your feet, seize your hat and umbrella and dart out of the office with every appearance of haste to the nearest cinema,” Waugh said.
During what is hopefully the last few months of the Trump era, recommending Evelyn Waugh can seem like a daunting task. Both Waugh's brand of Catholicism and his political views bend towards the uber-conservative, and the novels of his later years increasingly include storylines and jokes that give way to theological tirades and overwrought language.
But when he stays away from untenable beliefs, Waugh’s novels reign supreme in their painstaking style and dark humor. The word “satire” almost doesn’t apply to his books; Waugh’s jokes don’t just strike the reader with their barbed venom but simply induce sheer (if at times uncomfortable) laughter.
Captain Grimes in Waugh’s novel “Decline and Fall,” for instance, has taught at a number of public boys’ schools in the UK for years but is always getting fired for getting “in the soup.” Grimes remains an optimist, though, because he always gets job transfers thanks to his social class. “Besides, you see, I’m a public school man,” Grimes says. “That means everything.” Waugh deftly savages “old boy” networks here, even as he blends the tricky line between satirizing classism and trivializing the horrors of sex abuse. That same cold hilarity is found in his novels “Vile Bodies” and “Scoop,” where characters often shrug at human folly and their own emotions.
For readers interested in more thoughtful literature, I still recommend Waugh for the overwhelming humanity of his two masterpieces “A Handful of Dust” and “Brideshead Revisited.” “Dust,” which recounts the fall of country aristocrat Tony Last after his wife Brenda leaves him for a younger man, has perhaps the meanest scene from any twentieth-century novel. When Brenda’s son John dies in a riding accident, for a moment, she thinks that her lover — also named John — has perished instead. Upon hearing that her boyfriend is alive, the now childless Brenda sighs, “Thank God.” It’s definitely an over-the-top scene, but we’ve all at one time or another met those wantonly self-centered beasts like Brenda Last, and few novelists capture the special banality of their narcissism more acutely than Waugh.
The structure of “Dust” also allows us to — barely — digest such heinousness by balancing genuine darkness with slapstick doom. Shortly after the cuckolded Tony Last flees to the Amazon, he gets abducted by a certain Mr. Todd, a Colonel Kurtz-esque hermit who captures Tony and forces him to eternally read aloud Charles Dickens at gunpoint. I can see an icier satirist like J.M. Coetzee constructing the “Thank God” scene, and perhaps Flannery O’Connor at her weirdest might employ “Nicholas Nickleby” à la Mr. Todd. But in my mind, only one writer adeptly combines these two types of gallows humor, laughing at evil in all its pain and all its absurdity.
And as for the sunnier anomaly of “Brideshead Revisited?” Well, a good deal of the novel’s last 200 pages play out a tad ham-fisted, particularly when Lord Marchmain — an avowed atheist and philanderer — suddenly takes Holy Communion in his last minutes, dying only after making the sign of the cross. But the book’s first 100 pages have an unvarnished sentimentality which has aged well. When the novel’s narrator Charles Ryder reflects on his college years, his comments on the features of Oxford wistfully transition into an ode to being young with one's friends. Charles especially misses “[Oxford’s] autumnal mists, her grey springtime, and the rare glory of her summer days — such as that day — when the chestnut was in flower and the bells rang out high and clear ... It was this cloistral hush which gave our laughter its resonance, and carried it still, joyously, over the intervening clamour.”
Rereading this passage, I find myself forgetting the shock humor of “Decline and Fall” and Waugh’s later persona, that cigar-chomping right-winger outraged over the dawn of a British welfare state and the Great Scandal of the Catholic Church (its 1964 cessation of the Latin Mass). Instead, this is Waugh at his most ornate and sincere. And Charles Ryder’s ruminations about Oxford definitely echo my own joys about returning to campus for this weird, masked, and somehow beautiful semester.
(09/24/20 9:58am)
Hey MiddKids! I’m back just in time to answer all the Covid-19-related sex questions you didn’t even know you had. There’s nothing like six months with your parents and siblings to prepare you for the new and strange social landscape that is this semester. Navigating our social lives in college was hard enough when we could touch one another, and with the new Covid-19 regulations, the Middlebury social scene has practically become uncharted waters.
In Phase Two, we've been told to pick four — and only four — close contacts to associate with. This makes any flirtatious, Proc crush-esque romances seem more unattainable than ever. Being told you can only interact closely with four people for the foreseeable future is very daunting. Do you choose four of your best friends? Do you leave a spot open in hopes of a new intimate partner? Do you sacrifice one of your closest friends for an already established partner? Were you looking forward to having more than four partners? These are all tricky questions with no obvious answers. I’m here to give you some tips and tricks for navigating sex and intimacy when DFMO’s, one night stands and random hookups are off the table (or at least more complicated than they used to be).
Remember that you do not need to be having sex. The Covid-19 pandemic is a really scary time, and possible transmission of the virus is enough to make anyone want to take a break from — or choose not to start — physical intimacy. Also, for many people, sex is not a part of their lives for a little time, a long time, or ever — pandemic or not — and that is perfectly normal. But if you do find yourself wanting a partner or sexual intimacy, here is what I have to say:
As the self-proclaimed Sex Panther, I know that being deprived of physical contact for six months leaves a lot of people craving intimacy and pleasure; maybe even a DFMO (there I said it). And coming back to this weird, dystopian campus is not exactly conducive to the sex lives that people may want or expect on a college campus.
Communication is the key to Covid-safe sex (and all sex, literally). Communicate your boundaries — know what your partner has been up to (are they following Covid-19 guidelines…?), know who they have been seeing, tell them who you have been seeing and what you are looking to get out of your time together.
Just making out? Cool. Something more with those face coverings on? Nice. Condoms and dams non-negotiable while we wait for more research on the virus? #science. Direct communication about what you want and don’t want is sexy and can build trust (also sexy). Maybe Covid-19 is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for to step up our sexual health conversation skills, and the pandemic is the masterclass we all didn’t know we signed up for.
Whether you are looking for snuggle buddies, multiple partners or want to make full use of the four-person close-contact limit, here are some things to keep in mind:
1) These guidelines are in place to help us, not just to complicate our sex lives.
2) Keep a running list of your hookups if you didn’t already (c’mon, we all think about it sometimes…), even if it was a one-time thing or they were a close contact for less than a hot second. This will be extremely important if contact tracing becomes necessary.
3) 2020 is the time to practice your safest sex yet! The Covid-19 virus has been found in poop and semen which means condoms, dental dams and other barrier methods are some of the best tools we can use to protect against STIs, unwanted pregnancy and Covid-19.
4) Don’t just wash your hands, wash your sex toys too! Check the packaging or manufacturer's instructions for the best cleaning method for your toys. It could be hot soapy water, a 10% bleach solution or something else.
5) As I said earlier, communication is key right now and becomes even more pertinent when you are having sex with new or old close contacts. Keep talking!
Good luck, and stay healthy!
xoxo,
Sex Panther
(09/24/20 9:58am)
With many colleges and universities now off limits to visitors, prospective students for the classes of 2025 and 2025.5 are navigating new ways to explore college campuses. Middlebury’s phase-based reopening plan will not allow for any admissions visits or tours on campus until Phase Three — at the earliest. In the meantime, the Admissions Office is providing alternative ways for high school students to learn about Middlebury and get a feel for the college.
“The admissions office is working to meet students where they currently are, and because we’re not offering on-campus opportunities, that means we’re doing a whole host of virtual and remote experiences for students so that they can connect with faculty, staff and students,” Dean of Admissions Nicole Curvin said.
In a normal year, Curvin travels to high schools to engage with students. But this isn’t a normal year, and Curvin, along with other members of the admissions office, will not be leaving the Middlebury area.
However, without travel, admissions officers and student employees have been hard at work for months to build a virtual Middlebury for prospective students to explore.
“The pandemic, and not being able to travel as we usually do in the fall, has pushed us to do some things that we probably could’ve and should’ve been doing for a long time,” Director of Admissions Sam Prouty said.
In place of a typical map with street names and labelled buildings, the admissions website now features an interactive campus map depicting the lush greenery of Vermont and the infrastructure on campus.
In addition to this new way to “tour” Middlebury’s campus, a panel of students and faculty meet weekly to offer prospective students a taste of the programs available at the college. These webinars are recorded, making them available to students across different time zones.
“We’re certainly seeing a lot of good engagement with our webinars,” Curvin said.
Current students still play an active part of the admissions process. Senior Admissions Fellows, a group of senior students who conduct information sessions and assist with admissions programming, serve as “the main conduit between the admissions office and the public,” according to Prouty. These students offer prospective students personal insight into their own lives at Middlebury.
“It’s been incredible to see that, because we’re online, it’s a more equal playing field. You don’t need to book a flight or have a parent travel to Middlebury, Vermont with you,” Senior Admissions Fellow Julia Sinton ’20.5 said. “That eliminates the time and cost it would take to come visit in a normal year.”
Senior Admissions Fellows reflect on and talk about their experiences with future applicants and their families during virtual information sessions. These programs allow for international students, many of whom cannot visit campus even during a normal year, to view campus from the same lens as other prospective students.
“I think that will actually allow us to reach potentially even more students than we have traditionally, because now if you can’t get to Middlebury or we can’t get to you, we have a whole lot of programming that in the past has been sparse.” Prouty said.
(09/24/20 9:56am)
In a nameless country in the Middle East, a civil war breaks out. Not only is this inconvenient for new lovers Nadia and Saeed, it’s potentially fatal if they do not find a route to evacuate as their surroundings rapidly disintegrate into armed strife. The relative simplicity of their lives as working college students is irrevocably disrupted, and while they make their way out of the country, readers journey with them, reviewing all that they leave behind. Will their new lives as refugees ever allow them to return home? If so, what will they find that remains when they return? Can their newly budding relationship survive the upending turmoils of life abroad?
Mohsin Hamid’s novel is a curious one in that he makes intentional choices I have not seen before. For example, by withholding the characters’ country of origin, he makes the story more universal, forcing readers to ask themselves what is more important: the nation from which the protagonists originate or the perils to which they are subjected because of the ongoing conflict at home?
This is not strictly an “Australian,” “Syrian” or “Zimbabwean” story; it’s a story of the lives and normalities that are threatened and disrupted in moments of instability. Nadia and Saeed, irrespective of their origin, need food, shelter and stability — needs often overlooked depending on how displaced people are perceived given their religion, language and state of peace or enmity with powerful countries.
Another choice Hamid made was to veil the routes of passage that Nadia and Saeed use to arrive in countries that are not experiencing warfare. Words like “asylum” and “visa” do not appear in the narrative. Rather, Nadia and Saeed use an unnamed system of doors to “exit west.” Access to these doors comes at a significant monetary expense, but they make it to the other side. Each door leads to a new destination: the Mediterranean, London, California. However, the conditions they find in their new residencies continue to push them farther away from home.
The journey is an adventure, and the physical travels are as important as the narrative’s emotional ones. For another work in the collection that treats the complex nature of being an immigrant or a child of immigrants, check out “How To Read the Air” by Dinaw Mengestu or Fabien Toulmé’s French-language “L’odyssée d’Hakim.”
Editor’s Note: Katrina Spencer was the Literatures & Cultures Librarian, and this book review was written for The Campus before she left the college.
(09/22/20 10:00pm)
UPDATE: Sept. 22 at 7 pm
Students who are removed from campus for Covid-19 violations will not be refunded for room and board, "absent exceptional circumstances of economic hardship," according to Sarah Ray, director of media relations.
——
With Middlebury’s carefully considered reopening plan, students have eagerly awaited every new phase. Last Thursday, students were jubilant to enter Phase Two, allowing them to venture into downtown Middlebury and Addison County. The college even celebrated by hosting food trucks on campus Friday that proffered free pulled pork sandwiches and fresh doughnuts.
But for two groups of students, specifically residents of the notoriously party-centric Atwater residence halls, festivities came to a grinding halt when Public Safety officers knocked on their doors Thursday night. In both cases, officers discovered gatherings over the maximum occupancy limit of six for the spaces, and over the indoor gathering limit of ten people. There were two gatherings of 14 and 15 students in different Atwater suites, according to students present. In the second case, several students managed to leave without incident, dodging the Public Safety officers and escaping from one of the suite’s two exits before the officers demanded student IDs.
The 22 students written up by Public Safety met individually with Brian Lind, the associate dean of conduct, on Friday morning over Zoom, according to two upperclassmen involved in the episode. He notified them that those living on campus would need to leave for violating college policy, and students living in off-campus residences would lose access to the campus and its facilities, including in-person classes. The college has been tight-lipped about the incidents and Lind did not respond to multiple emails for comment.
According to a college media statement sent to The Campus Monday, “students removed from campus because of Covid-19 violations are ordinarily eligible to return in the following semester.” The statement also indicated that the reprimanded students will not be allowed to “visit, study, or take courses on campus” for the remainder of the semester.
The students were given 24 hours to appeal the decision before college officials issued their final verdict on Sunday. Anonymous sources involved in the incidents say that all of the students who appealed received the same letter Sunday night: they were not allowed to remain on campus and needed to move out within 24 hours, by Monday night at 7 p.m. The letters were so identical that two students mistakenly received letters addressed to friends who were also at the gatherings.
From day one, the administration has established a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to Covid-19 policy violations. There are no strikes or warnings: one violation, and you could be out. Despite the glimmer of hope that the appeals process provides, none of the students who appealed were able to remain on campus. The college has already sent home five students for breaching Covid-19 policy, bringing the grand total to 27 students who are now not allowed on campus.
To some, the college’s stringent policy does not recognize students’ varying socioeconomic situations. “I wish there was more of a warning system because the consequence of getting sent home does not have the same effect for all students,” said Tre Stephens ’21, a student who was not involved in the incidents that occurred last Thursday. “But granted, students shouldn’t be breaking the rules.”
Middlebury’s success so far has relied on peer-to-peer accountability, or what some might see as peer pressure. In both instances last Thursday, students at the gatherings suspected that they were “snitched” on by a student who called Public Safety to report loud noise coming from the suites. The link “go/snitch” has become a source of banter on campus as students jokingly — and not so jokingly — threaten to report one another through the college’s reporting page.
The college has so far successfully thwarted a Covid-19 outbreak on campus, with only two students testing positive for the virus who have since recovered. Middlebury currently has 0 active cases on campus, with 6,3969 tests already administered according to the college's Covid-19 reporting dashboard.
The punished students who were registered for in-person courses faced the difficult task on Monday of notifying professors that they were no longer allowed to attend class. Sources close to a few of these students said that while some professors were willing to make concessions, at least one professor notified a student that they would need to drop the class. At this point, it is unclear whether students would receive a refund for room and board.
Since the events Thursday night, the mood in the Atwater complex has been somber. “When I went out Saturday, it was dead quiet,” said Atwater resident Andrew Ng ’22. “The administration definitely sent a strong message.”
(09/17/20 10:00am)
Upon first glance, Andrew Callaghan is like any other news anchor: he wears a suit, holds a mic and stands in front of an ever-present cameraman. That is, however, where the similarities end, for even in his adherence to journalistic conventions Callaghan is most certainly unconventional. His iconic gray suit was purchased from a Goodwill in Tucson for $15 and, according to its eBay description, has never been washed; he adorns the suit with a pair of Nike Air Max 95s and — instead of in a news van — Callaghan and his crew tour the country in a 1999 Coachmen RV.
Callaghan doesn’t belong to any larger news organization, and it is precisely this freedom that allows his YouTube show “All Gas No Brakes” to be as untethered and chaotic as it needs to be. What separates Callaghan from his peers -- and I use that term broadly -- is his profound ability to listen. As the show has developed and matured over the course of its year-long existence, so too has Callaghan’s interview prowess.
Callaghan’s career began with his project “Quarter Confessions,” which was inspired by the drunken mayhem that unfolded in front of him night after night during his stint as a doorman in New Orleans’ French Quarter. The premise of the show was simple: Callaghan and his director/camera operator Michael Moises would roam the streets of the French Quarter in the late hours of the night and film anyone and everyone that could stand in front of the camera. Needless to say, in an area with cheap and plentiful drinks and tourists that had come from all over to lose their inhibitions, there was no lack of subjects to film.
“It’s an honor to be able to document this frenzy of sex, liquor, garbage and drugs,” Callaghan said in an interview with Office Magazine in 2019.
The differences in maturity between “Quarter Confessions” and “All Gas No Brakes” are drastic, though their underlying premises are not too dissimilar. Initially posted to Instagram, “Quarter Confessions” was a series of quick moments, each less than a minute in length, capturing people saying and doing whatever their drunken minds told them to do. These videos are lewd, jarring and pure pandemonium: some people lob insults at opposing colleges’ quarterbacks, others reveal themselves to the camera, and drunkards fight in the street — chaos. “All Gas No Brakes” is a continuation of this format but with an additional appreciation for the subject matter. Many of the show’s core components remain the same, such as the shouting, cussing and overly excited interviewees, yet Callaghan and his crew have expanded the show to be so much more than its predecessor.
Just as soon as Callaghan finished his first year of college, he fled, leaving his clothes, electronics and everything else in his dorm behind to hitchhike across the country. It wasn’t so much a manifest destiny-like want to become a more worldly person; he had just become fed up with the rigid structures of college and wanted to be free and untethered. So, for 70 days, Callaghan hitchhiked across the country, relying on the kindness of strangers to travel and eat. He turned the whole experience into a zine of the same title as his current show, and most interestingly, he removed himself and his stories almost entirely from it.
“I think it’s important to let people tell their own story, to remove yourself from it even if you disagree with what they’re saying,” Callaghan said in the Office Magazine interview. This, above all else, is the mantra of his current show: let people tell their own story.
“All Gas No Brakes” and its crew know no bounds. They have traveled to just about every state in the country, finding its most bizarre convention, event or individual; there are episodes on the Midwest FurFest, a Flat Earth Conference, the NASA/SpaceX rocket launch and a Donald Trump Jr. Book Club, to name a few. My reaction to his videos always follow the same emotional trajectory. The initial impacts of his videos are increasingly a slap in the face, like he reached out through my monitor and shook me awake. After being shocked by the mayhem of it all, I immediately feel a sense of superiority, as every interviewee that steps into the camera’s frame makes a fool of themselves. Yet, as the video progresses, I drop the superiority complex and am taken aback by how understanding Callaghan is of his interviewees.
He is a journalistic chameleon, always seeming to record people from within their own community, finding common ground and empathy everywhere he goes. Callaghan never interrupts anyone, and he always seems to understand and empathize with his subjects, even at their least intelligible. His ability to be a part of the very communities he is researching separates him from other news sources — so much so that when he cuts to footage of Fox News and Democracy Now! covering the very same Portland protests as he does, it makes them seem like uneducated third parties.
If you’re going to his YouTube channel to find ignorant people spout off about this or that, you’ll be satisfied, but if you go in with an open and empathetic mind, you’ll find yourself uncovering pockets of the United States you never knew existed. “All Gas No Brakes” is not a social media freak show. It is instead a magnification of America, a spotlight on its dark corners. What Andrew Callaghan and his crew are doing to modernize and democratize journalism is more than just drumming up viral social media. It is an unadulterated look at a greater collective of individuals; an inside look at America’s outsiders.
(09/17/20 9:59am)
As Phase One neared its highly anticipated end, the college concluded its campus quarantine programming last Friday with a remote lecture and Q&A by Scholar-in-Residence Bill McKibben. During the talk, titled “This Crisis and the Next One: What the Pandemic Suggests About the Century to Come,” McKibben spoke about the relationship between environmental injustice and Covid-19 and the reasons he believes Vermont has been so successful in its battle against the pandemic.
Jim Ralph, professor of American history and culture, introduced McKibben. Following his talk, three underclassman student panelists — Tim Hua ’23.5, Alicia Pane ’23.5 and Daisy Liljegren ’24 — opened the Q&A session with prepared questions.
Before diving into the future implications of the pandemic, McKibben began by speaking about its ramifications in the present moment. He emphasized the disproportionate severity of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on minority communities, even in predominantly white Vermont: one of the state’s few bad outbreaks occurred in Winooski, a city with a large immigrant population.
“If there was a single powerful quote from the last six months, it came, tragically, from George Floyd,” McKibben said. “And, as you all know, what he said was, ‘I can't breathe.’”
He described the many ways in which the compounding crises of the past six months have restricted the ability of people, particularly Black Americans, to breathe: police brutality; poor air quality from coal fired power plants, usually seen in POC communities; the wildfires filling the air with smoke; and the sheer heat of this past summer.
“We have this huge mix of crises on top of each other,” he said.
During his talk, McKibben highlighted three key aspects of the relationship between the pandemic and the climate crisis.
1: Reality is Real
“I've spent the last 30 years trying to remind people that chemistry and physics won't negotiate or compromise,” McKibben said. “And the pandemic was a good reminder that the same is true for biology. It’s fine for the president to get up and say it’s all a hoax and whatever, but the microbe could care less. If it says stand six feet apart, then stand six feet apart.”
2: Reaction Speed Matters
“We've learned a lot about flattening curves this year,” he said. “The U.S. and South Korea had their first cases of Covid-19 on the same day in January. South Korea went, admirably, to work. And it’s not over there, but it's definitely in the rearview mirror, and with a tiny fraction of the suffering and the loss of life that we've experienced here. That's because we wasted a couple of months, as Bob Woodward has demonstrated over the last couple of days, despite the fact that the White House knew very well what was going on. That slow reaction is the equivalent to the way that we've done nothing about climate change over 30 years that the scientists have given us a warning. And so now, of course, we need to move with extraordinary speed.”
3: Social Solidarity is Really Important
“I grew up in the political shadow of Ronald Reagan,” McKibben said. “He was the dominant figure in my early life, elected while I was in college. Unlike most presidents, he really did realign the country around a new ideological idea, and that idea basically was that markets were going to solve all problems — that government was, as he put it, the problem, not the solution. Indeed, the most famous laugh line in Reagan's speeches, always, was, ‘The nine scariest words in the English language are, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.’ Well, it turns out that the scariest words in the English language are, ‘We've run out of ventilators,’ or ‘The hillside behind your house is on fire and you have to leave now, without any of your possessions.’ Those are not things that are solved by markets. Those are things solved by social solidarity of one kind or another, governments learning to work competently, but people joining together with some trust in those governments — and with each other.”
According to McKibben, about 78% of Vermonters mostly or completely trust their neighbors, compared with 38% of Americans. And 69% of Vermonters say they know most of their neighbors, as opposed to just 26% of Americans. He credits the state’s high level of social trust for the early, effective intervention that limited the spread of Covid-19.
Earlier this year, as armed protesters gathered in many states in opposition to wearing masks and other pandemic-related mandates, “in Vermont, there was a demonstration called for Montpelier outside the state capitol,” McKibben said. “And when the day came, there were seven protesters on the ramp for that demonstration.”
He doesn’t attribute Vermonters’ willingness to wear masks and maintain social distance to particularly liberal politics: though Vermont is home to democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, the state’s governor, Phil Scott, is a Republican. Rather, McKibben ascribes it to the state’s unusual geographical and political structure. Unlike other remote states, which tend to be centered around a small number of major cities, Vermont’s population is spread more evenly across the state, and individual towns manage their own affairs through annual town meetings.
“It is a state of villages, and what that means is that people tend to know each other better,” McKibben said. “More to the point, what it means is it’s enabled this long Vermont tradition of very close, democratic self-governance.”
He believes that local self-governance disincentivizes polarization, “simply because you have to get the business of the town done and everyone knows it.”
Many of the questions from panelists and audience members alike addressed the concept of social trust. Hua, one of the panelists, asked whether anti-mask protests could have decreased social trust elsewhere in the country; attendees raised questions about encouraging trust on a larger scale and the potential for people with more diverse backgrounds, in more densely populated communities, to develop similar levels of social trust.
McKibben emphasized that it is unclear how significantly Vermont’s demographics — being a particularly homogenous state with a predominantly white population — impact social trust throughout the state, and that it is difficult to gauge how well the concept of local self-governance might translate to other parts of the country. He denounced the increasing political polarization perpetuated by the current federal government and spoke highly of efforts like “citizens’ assemblies,” designed to help communities become informed about, and collaborate on ways to deal with, local issues.
Pane, another panelist, asked how McKibben sees Vermont’s motto, “Freedom and Unity,” playing out during the pandemic.
“We have chosen, I think, unity above other freedoms here in Vermont during the course of the pandemic,” McKibben said.
(09/17/20 9:58am)
As students returned last month to a new semester in disparate capacities, 85 have chosen to live off campus in the town of Middlebury. Facing increased surveillance and most of the same restrictions as other students, some say that life off campus, at least during Phase One, is more stressful.
During the summer months, students were mindful of respecting and protecting the Middlebury community while retaining a sense of normalcy in their ability to leave their homes and visit both town and the surrounding areas, according to Chris Gernon ’21.
“I would work from nine to four and then would go to a swimming hole or to Lake Dunmore,” said Van Lundsgaard ’21, who moved back to Middlebury in June.
Conditions changed, however, in late August, when the college followed through on its decision to welcome back its full student body — excluding those who chose to pursue a fully online experience — to campus.
Gernon and Lundsgaard live in a house on Weybridge Street, along with three other seniors and two senior febs. Like the rest of the off-campus students, they are only able to travel to and from campus. No guests, whether from the community or campus itself, are allowed in their home.
Since they aren’t on the meal plan and are not allowed to visit grocery stores, stocking up on groceries was an essential part of preparations for the college’s reopening. Delivery services have become a necessity as well — many of the town’s most popular restaurants offer meal deliveries, and Instacart, an online grocery-ordering service, has quickly gained popularity.
While on-campus students must adhere to a strict set of guidelines, their off-campus counterparts face a reality of rules that are equally unyielding. “For the most part, it feels like we are living in a normal house until we leave the house,” Lundsgaard said.
In fact, life might be more stressful as off-campus students, with “not getting in trouble with the college,” as Gernon puts it, becoming a large component of their respective experiences.
Some feel that the college is policing off-campus students more harshly and to a greater extent than the on-campus students. “The college seems to be more concerned with optics than actual health protocols,” Lundsgaard said.
Students living off campus are subject to the eye of the public, or at least the community of Middlebury and the greater Addison County. College administrators regularly patrol the off-campus housing areas, even stopping by to check on individual living spaces. While this security detail is “very nice,” it can sometimes become overwhelming, Lundsgaard said.
“[Students] have seen in-town community members be accosted by security guards,” he continued. These guards demand to know where each person is going, inquiring after their adherence to campus quarantine, Lundsgaard said.
But while off-campus college life has been drastically impacted by Covid-19 and subsequent college-issued restrictions, students remain focused on the positive aspects of their current experience.
“Thanks to my friends’ enthusiasm and positive attitudes, I have not minded hanging out six feet [apart] or being ‘stuck’ with my roommates at home,” Emily Allardi ’21 said. Allardi lives on Cross Street, near the small roundabout in town.
The realities of this semester have deviated from her expectations as well. She imagined that wearing a mask and “being safe” would be the only restrictions on her life, and that, come fall, she would still be able to go to the grocery store and exercise outside in town.
But the unexpectedly limiting protocols enforced in the last few weeks have inspired her to “[take] full advantage of [the college’s] beautiful campus.” She has run the TAM trail for the first time and enjoys visiting the organic garden and taking in the views.
In terms of outlook for the future, off-campus students are hopeful. The college announced on Monday that the transition into Phase Two will take place on Thursday, Sept. 17, meaning students residing both on and off campus will be allowed to leave campus then. However, students are still not permitted to visit off-campus residences.
“I think [the plan] is effective and the best way to make sure the town is safe,” Lundsgaard said.
Gernon agreed, saying that, “gradually lifting restrictions seems like the best way to ensure everyone is safe while following the rules.”
(09/17/20 9:58am)
While large universities around the country are becoming Covid-19 hotspots, the 11 schools in the NESCAC — which have far fewer students and are generally located in low-density areas — have kept their Covid-19 cases extremely low so far.
Middlebury College has only seen two total active cases, and both students have since recovered. All NESCAC schools except for Tufts University have had fewer than five positive cases. Tufts — which is over twice the size of the other NESCAC schools and is located in a major city — has had nine new positive tests in the last week, with a total of 26 Covid-19 cases.
In contrast, several large universities across the country have witnessed catastrophic Covid-19 outbreaks. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill evacuated students after testing revealed a positivity rate of 13%, while the University of Georgia and University of Wisconsin-Madison both reported over 1,000 cases in the past week.
All NESCAC schools tested students upon arrival, instated a quarantine period afterward, and are now intermittently testing students through the Broad Institute, a testing provider based in Cambridge, Mass. Bates College and Bowdoin College are testing all students twice per week, whereas Middlebury and Connecticut College are performing tests on a portion of the student body each week in addition to testing students who show symptoms.
In late August, Middlebury welcomed 2,161 students back to campus, with an additional 85 students living in off-campus housing and 329 studying fully remotely. Bowdoin College was the only NESCAC not to invite all students back, permitting just 653 students — or 40% — back to campus and prioritizing first-year and transfer students, with some other exceptions. The Bowdoin Orient reported that 75% of students were dissatisfied with this decision.
Some NESCAC schools are adjusting their academic policies to allow increased flexibility. Bates College is proceeding with two 7.5-week modules instead of a traditional semester. Williams College is allowing students to take as many classes Pass/Fail as they want, and Trinity College is allowing students to graduate with 1.5 fewer credits than are usually required. Tufts is allowing students to graduate after only six full-time semesters instead of the previous requirement of eight, offering increased flexibility for students to attend part-time. Middlebury has also modified its academic policy, allowing students to take up to one course during the fall 2020 and spring 2021 semesters on a credit/no-credit basis.
Amherst has moved many classes to outdoor spaces and installed temperature monitors at the entrance to several student buildings. To reduce the spread of germs, Hamilton College spaced out classes by 20 minutes for classroom cleaning and Williams converted most housing to single-occupancy.
NESCAC schools have already had to penalize students for breaking Covid-19 safety rules. Dean of Students Derek Doucet told The Campus that several students have already been asked to leave campus, while more are awaiting appeals for violating guidelines. Bowdoin has also asked a first-year student to leave campus for violating the seven-page community agreement that all students studying on campus had to sign. One reason for this strict enforcement is that most NESCAC schools occupy small towns with limited healthcare services.
The cost of testing and implementing Covid-19 regulations is putting new financial pressure on NESCAC schools. Middlebury has allocated $5 million to cover costs created by the pandemic and increased tuition by the standard of 3%. Bowdoin will spend $875,000 on testing this year. Williams is the only NESCAC school to reduce tuition due to the pandemic, lowering the total by 15% for all students, in addition to eliminating the student activities fee. Trinity is keeping tuition stagnant at the 2019-2020 level.
But not all small colleges have been able to maintain low Covid-19 rates. Colorado College shifted to fully remote learning after 11 of their 800 on-campus students tested positive and an entire dorm of 150 students was quarantined.
Vermont has maintained one of the lowest Covid-19 rates in the country, and only 38 out of 42,109 total tests at Vermont colleges have been positive, according to the Vermont Department of Health. The largest college in the state, the University of Vermont, has seen 15 positive cases so far.
While many large and urban universities are suffering from uncontrolled outbreaks, schools in the NESCAC and Vermont colleges are maintaining low rates by merit of advantageous size and geography, bolstered by strict rules and frequent testing.
(09/16/20 3:51am)
The next period in the college’s “phased approach” to a safe reopening will be pushed back to Thursday, Sept. 17, two days after it was originally planned to begin. Phase Two allows for greater freedoms, including leaving campus for other locations in Addison County and relaxing physical distancing with a small number of close contacts.
The announcement was made in an all-school email in the afternoon of Tuesday, Sept. 14, and came just one day before the widely anticipated start date of Sept. 15, which was described in the Return to Campus Guide as the optimal Phase Two start date, and shared in the mandatory pre-arrival SafeColleges training.
Dean of Students Derek Doucet said that the transition to Phase Two was delayed because remote students and students taking leaves of absence who are living in the area and only recently arrived in town had not yet completed their arrival quarantine phase mandated by the state of Vermont.
“We were concerned that an immediate move to Phase Two would open the possibility that students on campus who had been through multiple rounds of testing might be inadvertently interacting with these recent arrivals, which would pose an exposure risk,” he told The Campus.
Doucet said that, additionally, observations of other colleges and “evolving public health guidelines” led the college to push the start date. He also clarified that Sept. 15 was the earliest possible start date for Phase One, as opposed to a set date.
Only two individuals have tested positive for Covid-19 on campus, both of which were detected during the two rounds of arrival testing. Both of those cases are now listed as recovered, and there are zero active cases on campus after 5,362 tests. A few students have been asked to leave campus for violations of Covid safety rules.
Some of the freedoms that come with a move to Phase Two will include local recreational travel within Addison County and the use of student vehicles. The college will also begin phasing in limited indoor dining hall seating, limited use of indoor athletic facilities and student use of outdoor athletic spaces such as the golf course, Snow Bowl and TAM.
When using personal vehicles, students will be required to wear face coverings, keep the windows open at least two inches for ventilation and maintain physical distancing as much as possible.
Phase Two will also allow students to define a small social circle of individuals with whom they relax physical distancing. The announcement email notes that students will be allowed to have no more than four individuals with whom they are “close contacts”.
A guide called Sex in the Time of Covid-19, published by the Health and Wellness office in August, noted that they “anticipate that any dating/sex partners would be part of this circle.”
Students will need to complete another online training before being released from campus quarantine. Engaging in Phase Two activities without completing the training will be considered a violation.
(09/10/20 2:18pm)
Welcome back to the fall semester! This fall, The Campus will continue publishing content online on a weekly basis on Thursdays. You can browse our stories on our website, as well as check out a virtual front page each week.
The stories
News
Covid rules enforcement falls on student leaders
Staff, cautiously optimistic, face increased workload as students return
Middlebury holds breath as Covid case number sits at two
Unsure of what to expect, first years grapple with a college experience marred by the pandemic
Economic downturn and Covid-19 precautions bring tuition and endowment draw increases
Local
Porter Medical Center prepares for a fall semester transformed by the pandemic
Arts & Culture
Direct Your Attention: Malcolm Gladwell’s perfect hi(story)
Reluctant journeys: International students traverse a world of obstacles as U.S. limits entries
Museum of Art shuts its doors for reorganization, plans to reopen in spring 2021
The only dating guide you’ll need this fall semester
Jay Parini’s “Borges and Me”: Beyond Just a Memoir
Opinion
Editorial: It’s a hard time to be a student, it’s a harder time to be a first year
Middlebury is just learning to deal with students in crisis, but it shouldn’t be
MASK OFF, MIDD: A college senior’s take on romance amid Covid
Snake oil and student loans
Environmentalism at Middlebury has roots in exclusion
The final year of Ask Tré
Sports
Fall coaches adjust to a season without competitive play
Siefer’s Scoop Podcast: An introduction
Life looks different and so does the student body: Athletes on leave
Throwback Thursday: This day in 2016: Sydor’s defense lifts Middlebury
Athlete of the week: Erin Nicholas ’21
Today's Front Page
(09/10/20 10:01am)
Middlebury’s second round of Day Seven Covid-19 tests revealed no new cases of the virus among students, leaving the college’s total number of active cases at two. All enrolled students living on campus and in town were tested on Sept. 2, when 821 tests were administered, and on Sept. 4, when 1,138 tests were administered.
One student in the Sept. 2 cohort tested positive, bringing the number of active student cases to two. All other students tested negative or were retested due to insufficient samples.
The student who tested positive on Sept. 2 had previously received a negative result from their Day Zero test. Following their release from room quarantine, the student learned about a possible exposure at home. Upon receiving notification of the potential exposure, the college informed the Vermont Department of Health for contact tracing purposes and told students who may have come into close contact with the individual to quarantine in their rooms until cleared. That student tested positive, but all of their contacts have since been released from quarantine.
Middlebury will now move toward its Targeted Dynamic Testing program, testing 750 members of the college community each week starting Tuesday, Sept. 8. The first week of testing includes many employees who are working on campus, ResLife staff and MiddView leaders. The college will report the results of those tests by noon on the day they are received on Middlebury’s Covid-19 Reporting Dashboard.
To be tested, students arrive at Virtue Field House within a specified time slot, where they blow their nose and sanitize their hands before entering. Staff then direct them down a path to a specific testing station, where students confirm their information with a staff member who sits behind a clear barrier. Finally, they pick up a cotton swab and vial and go to another staff member, who instructs them about how to properly swab the inside of their nostrils.
Samples are later sent to the Cambridge-based Broad Institute, which conducts the tests and returns results to the college in about 24 hours. The Broad Institute is working with 108 colleges and universities in Massachusetts and the surrounding states to test students, faculty and staff for Covid-19.
Targeted dynamic testing will follow the same procedures as earlier rounds of testing. According to the Return to Campus Guide, “While this kind of ongoing, periodic testing of a population has not been widely studied, there are indications from some countries that it can be beneficial in detecting asymptomatic or presymptomatic cases.”
The college may adjust how much testing is done weekly if positive cases remain low or tick upwards, according to the guide. It also notes that the Center for Disease Control and Vermont Department of Health have instructed that individuals who have a positive PCR test should not be re-tested until 90 days later. In the case of a false positive, those individuals would be excluded from testing and could later contract the virus without being identified by dynamic testing.
Individuals who receive insufficient samples are retested shortly thereafter, but, after a negative Day Zero result, they do not have to room quarantine while awaiting retest results. Students whose Day Zero samples were insufficient had an extended room quarantine, while the rest of the student population was released to campus quarantine.
Beau Berg ’24 was one of the few students whose test came back inconclusive.
“Being online [for orientation] was definitely good, so I didn’t miss out on as much as I might have otherwise, but it was pretty hard just sitting in my dorm all day when it seems like everybody is out making friends,” said Berg.
Berg took his Day Zero test when he arrived on Wednesday, Aug. 26 with other first-years, and received an email telling him his test was inconclusive on Friday morning. He then retested with the group of students arriving on Friday, Aug. 28 and remained in room quarantine until Sunday night.
With Day 7 testing now completed for all students, the campus is looking toward a relaxation of restrictions in Phase 2 of the reopening plan — possibly beginning on Sept. 15.
(09/10/20 9:59am)
As total Covid-19 cases in the United States topped six million late last month, thousands of students from all over the world returned to Middlebury in anticipation of a largely in-person fall semester. Staff members’ experiences have varied greatly across departments since the college announced its fall plans in June and subsequently put in place a hiring freeze. Many staff now deal with uncertainty and the looming threat of furloughs should students be evacuated prematurely this semester.
Cautious optimism
Many community members, including staff, feared that students’ return would bring the same infection spikes — and resulting campus closures — that have plagued colleges and universities across the country.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” said Katie Gillespie, associate director for research compliance and a representative on the Staff Council. “The test results that have come back are very promising.”
Following Day Zero and Day Seven testing, just two students have tested positive for Covid-19. Despite the encouraging signs, many worry that cases will eventually spike.
“I am concerned a little bit about once the initial phase is over,” said Amy Holbrooke, the economics department academic coordinator. “Then things start to loosen up a little bit, and they start leaving campus or sneaking their friends in.”
Some staff expect the college to close well before Thanksgiving break, according to Tim Parsons, the college horticulturist. Parsons served as president of Staff Council last year and is a current Staff Council representative.
“Everyone feels like they’re trying to make the best out of a bad situation,” he said. “They’re not really expecting it to last.”
Staff worry that a sizable outbreak could result in students being sent home, leading to a partial refund of students’ room and board fees and putting their Covid-19 pay protections in jeopardy.
“Some people are worried about what might happen if we do have an outbreak,” Gillespie said. “We’ve been told they’re going to reevaluate in October, and if students are sent home and they have to refund room and board, then the furloughs happen.”
Amid concerns, many staff members are glad to see students in person again. “I am happy that the students are back for sure,” said Custodial Supervisor Dan Celik. “Every student I speak to is so appreciative to be back and makes sure to thank me/us for what we have been doing to the campus … I hope we can be a model for other institutions.”
Safety and clarity first
Many staff members were happy with their new work environment’s protections, including barriers, personal protective equipment and social distancing, all provided or mandated by the college.
“I think they’re really trying to make it a safe work environment,” Holbrooke said, adding that the college has encouraged staff who can work remotely to do so.
Staff also feel more positive about the administration’s communication, which they believe has improved since March, according to Parsons. Many have also found the administration to be especially receptive regarding concerns about workplace safety, Gillespie said.
Gillespie cited an incident in which a constituent of hers felt uncomfortable being scheduled to work at the entry testing site. In response, administrators offered information about safety measures at the site and the option to meet with Medical Director Mark Peluso. This, along with conversations with students who completed testing, reassured the staff member, according to Gillespie.
One longtime dining employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retribution, echoed the reserved praise of the administration's handling of the return to campus. “I think the administration is doing that best they can, with having students come back. Was it the right decision to have on campus classes? It is such a double edged sword, but we can only hope for the best,” they said.
“There is more work for the rest of us to cover”
Still, many staff members in departments like Dining and Custodial have seen their workload increase since students first began arriving on Aug. 18. New safety measures along with preexisting staffing shortages have left employees feeling the strain.
“From our work standpoint in Dining, it has been a real challenge,” the anonymous dining staff member said. “The procedure for feeding (students) now requires a substantial amount of time because we just don’t have the people to pull it off in a normal paced timeframe.”
All hiring has been frozen until July 2021. As some dining staff retired, left for new jobs or faced childcare issues, the anonymous employee estimated each dining hall had lost at least two staff members. The employee noted how this has increased work for the remaining staff members in conjunction with the new practice of packaging students’ meals in to-go boxes.
On top of added Covid-19 processes, as the majority of students moved in, entered room quarantine and had all meals delivered to their door, dining staff received jumbled communication on how many meals to prepare.
“There were last minute changes and shifts on the numbers,” the anonymous dining staff member said. “We had to pivot and shift gears constantly for four straight days because the numbers and situation kept shifting. It may not have been anyone's real fault, but people feel there’d better be a pretty hardy debrief after this is over, especially if we have to go through this again in January for spring semester.”
The custodial department has also been heavily impacted by the increased workload.
“They’re slammed, they’re down a lot of positions,” Parsons said. “[Custodial] had to expand some of their shifts.”
Custodial reorganized their work schedule to accommodate cleaning classrooms and implementing the extra round of disinfection, Celik said.
“We now have shifts that work around the clock, seven days per week,” he said. “We do have to get most of our work in the residence hall completed between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m., which has posed some time challenges. But, as we learn the routines, we are getting more efficient at it.”
In an Aug. 28 email to most of the Senior Leadership Group and a lengthy list of staff and administrators, Dean of Students Derek Doucet asked for help to “make sure students stay spread out as they line up and get their food” and attached a sign-up sheet. The email was soon passed along to many staff members across departments.
To fill in the staffing gaps, staff, coaches, faculty and administrators have been enforcing social distancing in dining lines.
Following confusion among staff regarding whether hours spent enforcing distancing in dining halls would be eligible for overtime pay, Karen Miller, vice president for human resources and chief risk officer, specified in a Sept. 3 email that enforcing distancing in dining hall lines is treated as volunteer work and will not count as overtime. Staff eligible for overtime — mostly hourly workers — cannot volunteer.
As staff members face additional pressures at work, the complications of home life create an evermore challenging situation. Childcare is a source of stress for many staff members: those with children are particularly overscheduled as they attempt to balance work with homeschooling and childcare, Gillespie said.
Schools in Addison County will be using a phased approach to their fall semester and will begin in-person class two days a week, although that is subject to change based on Covid-19 transmission both in the county and statewide.
While some staff members worry about the potential for an outbreak of Covid-19 as on-campus restrictions are relaxed in phases two and three, others fret about the polarizing nature that the college’s return has had to the town of Middlebury. In the weeks prior to students’ return, there were increasing calls by local community members and college employees for the college to switch to remote learning in anticipation of a Covid-19 outbreak.
Parsons only sees one way out. “We need to really band together and treat this like a community problem and have this not be so polarizing.”
(09/10/20 9:59am)
We’re in his American-made car, this blue beast equipped with two Lysol cans and enough sports equipment to outfit half a hockey team. As he rolls to a stop next to my Honda, he expertly (maybe a little too expertly) toggles to Niall Horan’s “Slow Hands” and the sensual lyrics fill the car.
Slow hands, like sweat dripping off our dirty laundry. No chance that I’m leaving here without you on me.
We make initial eye contact — you know, that look — and I’m ready to close off our date with a smooch. Unsure if we’re supposed to kiss through our masks (that could be hot, right?), I make the executive decision to take mine off. In a manifestation of my unparalleled sex appeal, the mask strings get caught on my dangly earrings and, when I finally wrestle them free, I’ve broken a sweat from the stress of my unexpected skirmish. Oblivious to my struggle, he seamlessly removes his own mask, revealing a set of lips destined for Chapstick advertisements. I ready myself for the soft impact of the kiss.
And then, in all of my wisdom, I lunge forward and give him a side-hug — a side-hug — and blurt out, “Thanks for such a fun time!” before bolting.
I’m a natural at a lot of things, but boys have never been my forte. Add a global pandemic into the mix, a healthy dose of personal anxiety, and Middlebury’s “We encourage sexting during Phase One” policy, and I am left wondering: what could possibly go wrong?
While I’m undeniably outgoing, have a deafening laugh (some would dare call it a cackle), and say “hi” to people I follow on Instagram but have never had a conversation with, my boldness does not necessarily translate into romance. Sure, I’ve asked out guys first, mailed some love letters and, most recently, private messaged my Zoom crush (ballsy, I know), but these spurts of confidence are nevertheless intertwined with my (somewhat endearing?) clumsiness.
You might not find “chronic awkwardness” on Web MD, but trust me, I have all the symptoms.
A relic of my high school love life (or rather, the wasteland that resembled a love life), my romantic awkwardness developed when my eight closest friends all started dating each other. The ninth wheel of my friend group, I was on my own to navigate proms and first dates while it seemed that everyone around me had already figured it out.
I’d like to think that I’ve stockpiled enough good karma to carry me through my love life, but I have stumbled through nearly every romantic milestone. Namely, when I had my first kiss, I pulled away after ten seconds and exclaimed “I’m a virgin!”
Even more famously, one week after “Cupid Shuffling” my way through senior prom, my date, a dashing lad with a penchant for backflips, started successfully pursuing the 2016 U.S. Olympic gymnast, Laurie Hernandez.
And finally, lest I forget the times during my freshman year that I would wake up in the morning to booty calls and, worried that not responding would be rude, message back with a genuine, “Sorry didn’t see this, was asleep!”
Thankfully, I have managed to survive these cringey moments with only mild bruising and a considerable amount of laughter. For the most part, I have kept my awkwardness at bay during college (I no longer flirt by sending my class crushes unsolicited Quizlets) and, despite hook-up culture at Middlebury, have found myself on a number of dates. With time, patience and a bit of hopeless romanticism, I have gained some footing when it comes to love.
Romance in college, naturally accompanied by its own anxieties, is even more challenging when you’re a girl of commitment. In truth, there’s a part of me that wishes I were comfortable with casual flings, those drunken hook-ups that end nearly as soon as they start (I’m talking figuratively and physically here, boys). However, through the years, I have learned that attracting the people you desire, whether that’s a short-term or committed connection, hinges on being honest with yourself and others.
As we begin at Midd, I wonder what love in our rural Vermont town will look like this year. The musky autumn breeze, usually crisp and sweet, will now mingle with the potent smell of hand sanitizer. Friends who typically reunite on Battell Beach will be replaced by individuals waving to each other as their masks hide their elation. Even Atwater, the setting of many freshmen’s first college party, will be overwhelmed by the sound of crickets chirping rather than drawn-out tones of “Mr. Brightside.”
Despite limiting our physical connections, both romantically and platonically, our desire for love and acceptance remains steadfast. Now, more than ever, we will seek comfort in one another and search for unique ways to show others we care about them. Tune in to my Middlebury Campus column, MASK OFF, MIDD. Laugh with me (or at me) as I navigate relationships during the era of Covid and have honest conversations about college romance.
MASK OFF, MIDD, I’m telling all.
Maria Kaouris is a member of the class of 2021.
(09/10/20 9:58am)
The rising student debt crisis in the U.S. is not breaking news. From 2000 to 2016, the average annual cost of college has more than doubled, from around $15,000 a year to nearly $32,000. Over the past 20 years, only two other goods or services have risen as much as college: hospital services and college textbooks. Importantly, wages have been unable to keep up with these Everest-like spikes. Since 1989, the cost to attend a university has increased nearly eight times faster than wages. While the cost of a four-year degree exploded to $104,480, real median wages only rose from $54,042 to $59,039 between 1989 and 2016. As a result, many families have been pressured to take out student loans to send their kids to college. This is where it gets bad.
In 2020, Americans currently owe over $1.64 trillion in student loan debt, spread out among about 45 million borrowers. That’s about $587 billion more than the total U.S. credit card debt. Sixty-nine percent of seniors graduating with a four-year degree in 2019 had student loan debt, with 75% of graduates from private, nonprofit colleges (like Middlebury) having loans as of May 2018. As much as 14% of borrowers who go to nonprofit colleges will default on their loans within 12 years, leaving their credit scarred and crippling them financially for years to come.
But doesn’t the value of a college degree make up for the cost of the loans? This question requires a two-fold answer. Historically, obtaining a college degree led to a life of greater financial security than a life without one. College graduates received cultural and social capital in a way that put them at an economic advantage over their peers. However, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found in a recent study that the wealth premium (the increase in wealth because of having a degree) for recent college graduates is almost at zero. In other words, the value of a college degree may not actually be the investment it is purported to be as high costs and lack of job opportunity negate gains.
The second part of the question concerns the actual value of a college degree. College tuition costs and the demand for degrees keep increasing, so one would assume that this reflects the increasing value of a college degree. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Current median pay for bachelor’s degree holders is below 1990 levels, yet college tuition fees have gone up 391%. As many as 40% of recent college graduates are unemployed or underemployed. For context, higher education tuition has outpaced healthcare costs about two-fold in that period — despite the marginal value of a college degree remaining stagnant.
As more people have become aware of the income gap between college and high school graduates, the demand for college degrees has skyrocketed. Colleges have taken advantage of this by jacking up their prices to obscene heights. This leaves people with a choice: forgo college and accept a lower living standard or take on insurmountable student loans with a limited chance at future prosperity. In both situations, the average student loses and colleges benefit.
At this point, you may be asking whether taking out student loans to go to Middlebury is worthwhile. It is a complicated question, but the answer is likely yes. Middlebury has a positive return on investment (ROI) over twenty years. This means that for most Middlebury alumni, their degree will earn them a job that will make the hefty tuition “worth it.” However, Middlebury is ranked 379th in the country in ROI, despite being ranked in the top 60 for tuition. Shouldn’t the price of a college reflect the value of its degree?
Obviously, college is more than just a measure of how much money a student will make with their degree. People are paying as much for the social aspects as for the academic opportunities. There is living in dorms, going to parties, eating in the dining hall and other experiences that, to some, make the value of college priceless. Regardless, that absolutely does not mean that colleges must raise prices eight times faster than wages, and twice as fast as healthcare costs. That is predatory.
I was fortunate enough that I did not have to borrow any money to go to college. But when I look around at my peers worrying about paying off their student loans — while colleges like Middlebury sit on their endowments and rake in mountains of tuition — it makes my blood boil. Millions of kids throughout America are being lured into borrowing money to pay for a degree that will never pay off. This is a system that benefits the rich and privileged while everyone else is left mired in debt and begging for a job. While student debt continues to metastasize, the federal government and colleges stand idle. And why wouldn’t they? They just keep collecting their interest and tuition fees, while American students are left wilting under economic stress.
Some politicians, like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have called for a cancellation of student debt. With both of their presidential campaigns falling short this year, that demand seems unlikely to materialize anytime soon. To address the immediacy of this crisis, the American people need to take it into their own hands. Some have called for Americans to come together and forge a debt strike. By refusing payments on student debt, the government may renegotiate the terms of the loans, making them more amenable. Regardless of the method, stemming the rise of college tuition can only happen if those buying college degrees take initiative and stake their claim on the value of their education. A movement against student debt is long overdue.
Joseph Levine is a member of the class of 2021.
(09/10/20 9:57am)
Middlebury College increased tuition by 3 percent for the 2020-21 academic year, sparking criticism from students, parents, faculty and staff. The Board of Trustees voted in January to raise tuition and revisited the decision after the Covid-19 pandemic hit, but decided to move forward with the increase.
“At that time there were so many uncertainties,” Treasurer David Provost said. “We’d just refunded about nine million dollars … so the 2020 loss is going to be about $12 million.”
The planned FY21 budget draws an extra 2.5 percent from the endowment, in addition to the typical 5%. This amounts to a maximum of $23.5 million extra this year, according to Provost. The FY21 budget also includes approximately $5 million to cover costs created by the pandemic, such as testing, PPE and classroom modifications.
While fewer students will be on campus in the fall, no faculty or staff have been laid off. More intense cleaning regimens and complicated food distribution necessitated by Covid-19 have increased costs this semester, according to Provost.
“At the time, because of the level of the deficit, with $23.5 million dipping into the endowment, the board did not feel comfortable reversing its decision like some schools have,” Provost said.
Annual tuition increases are not unusual at colleges and universities throughout the country, even in years without the financial uncertainties of a global health crisis. In spring of 2019, the board voted to increase Middlebury’s tuition by 3.25 percent for the 2019-2020 school year, and other NESCAC schools implemented similar increases. In April of 2019, Provost said he expected an annual tuition increase of roughly 3 percent for the next three to five years.
This year’s increase has been controversial given the impact pandemic precautions will have on college life, with a shift to largely online courses, new physical distancing and gathering-size guidelines, and many students enrolled as remote learners.
During the spring term, students across the country petitioned universities for partial tuition refunds because of the shift to remote learning, and some students brought class-action lawsuits demanding reimbursements. A Middlebury Language Schools Masters student began a petition urging the college to refund tuition for all affected students, but the college refunded only room and board fees for the spring.
Many have questioned why the college is not relying more heavily on the endowment, how the increase is justified when the liberal arts college experience shifts to remote learning and why tuition is increasing amid faculty and staff wage freezes.
“I understand why they are raising tuition in theory, but I wish that they had not done it in a time where so many families are financially vulnerable,” Eva Stanley ’23 said.
Several other colleges have adjusted their fall tuition rate because of the pandemic’s effects on in-person education and the financial circumstances of families. Georgetown, Princeton and Lafayette have announced a 10 percent discount for students studying remotely, and Williams is cutting tuition by 15 percent for both in-person and remote students.
One of the reasons Middlebury cannot do the same, according to Provost, is the donor-restricted portion of the endowment. When donors give to the college, they can earmark their contribution for a particular program or purpose, making those funds unavailable for emergency use during the pandemic. Middlebury has a comparatively high proportion of donor-restricted funds in its endowment, Provost said.
“Of the 1.157 billion, 1.126 billion is restricted, of which 946 million of it is donor-restricted, so we can’t use it for any other purpose,” Provost said. “We could go back and ask donors — if they’re still alive — if we can change it, and we still may have to do that if things get much worse.”
Another $180 million of the endowment is board-restricted, meaning the board could choose to change the designation of those funds for other purposes. However, many of the top board-designated endowments are for faculty salaries, student financial aid, the museum and athletic facilities, leaving less funding available for future years.
The Middlebury chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) issued a statement on their website and Twitter expressing surprise at the tuition increase. “All employee salaries have been frozen (and with cost of living [increase] about 1.6 percent this means all employees are earning less than in 2019). Employees also face threats of 15 percent compensation cuts that remain in the current budget plans depending on whether students can remain on campus this fall,” the statement said.
The response also said publicly available IRS forms from previous years indicate that the college regularly draws more than 5 percent from the endowment, contrary to the college’s claim that they are taking more from the endowment this year than they normally would. According to Priscilla Bremser, professor of mathematics and member of the Middlebury AAUP, the college’s goal has been to annually draw 5 percent from the endowment for many years, but it has consistently drawn more than 5 percent for the last 10 years.
“We are concerned this is an excuse to justify future further cuts to worker compensation, inevitably creating tension between Middlebury workers and students, which only hurts us all as we enter into an uncertain and highly stressful fall semester,” the AAUP statement said.
“I do think long-term it will have an impact on future increases,” Provost said. “If we get through this year, I think the pressure not to increase tuition next year will be much greater than it’s been.”
In addition to an increased tuition, Middlebury’s student activities fee has also remained the same. Some colleges have also discounted the mandatory student activities fee for the academic year because of restrictions on in-person events and travel. Middlebury students studying remotely will not pay room and board, nor will they pay the mandatory student activities fee. Students studying on campus will pay the full $436 student activities fee this year, although many events will happen entirely online and remain open to remote learners.
The SGA Finance Committee distributes the student activities fee collected by the college through a budgeting process that may change this year. The committee does not set the activities fee but is adjusting their budgeting process to reflect the unusual semester.
“We have to go back and look over everything we funded in the spring, so we actually have pushed off a lot of our budgeting process to this fall because it is looking so different, and we want to be up to date with the requirements on campus for health and safety,” said Mason Olmsted ’21, director of the SGA Finance Committee.
Approximately a third of the student activities funds go to the Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB) each year to pay for popular events like concerts. This year those events will not be possible, so the Finance Committee has been working with MCAB to reassess how funds will be distributed and used.
“I’ve been wholly impressed with MCAB’s creativity and ability to start planning events despite the circumstances, especially considering many of their programming and events typically function around being together and being in person around many people,” said Alison Hudson ’21, the other director of the SGA Finance Committee.
The committee is also working to evaluate how the student organization budgeting process, usually completed in the spring of the previous school year, will potentially change during the fall.
“It’s gonna take the first month to figure out what’s going on, what are the rules, what can we do, what can we not do. That’s where I really hope organizations come in with great ideas via new money requests, and we can fund those events on campus,” Olmsted said.
(09/10/20 9:56am)
Senior field hockey player Erin Nicholas ’21 has a decorated athletic career at Middlebury. A two-time National Player of the Year and two-time All-American, Nicholas was a key player for the team’s three-straight NESCAC Championships and three-straight NCAA Division III National Championships. She was named the 2017 Rookie of the Year and the 2019 NCAA Field Hockey Championship Most Valuable Player.
Despite her successes, Nicholas did not always have her heart set on playing field hockey in college. In fact, she almost tried out for soccer instead of field hockey as a high school freshman. With some convincing from her sister, though, Nicholas decided the day before soccer try-outs to pursue field hockey instead.
Even so, she did not seek to play the sport in college until her junior year of high school. Although she had previously been looking at colleges for lacrosse, Nicholas ended up committing to Middlebury to play field hockey. Shortly after, she reached out to the lacrosse coach and received approval to join both teams. Nicholas has also seen success on the lacrosse field as a First Team All-American selection in 2019.
The balance between competitive athletics and rigorous academics, coupled with the opportunity to play both sports, made Middlebury stand out for Nicholas.
“I had always heard about [Middlebury’s] reputation for having people who are genuine and down to earth, and I wanted to surround myself with that type of person for my four years of college,” Nicholas said. “And being able to compete for a championship each year is something that’s very attractive as an athlete.”
Grappling with the effects of Covid-19
Unfortunately, with the cancellation of NESCAC fall sports competition, Nicholas and the field hockey team will not make a bid for a fourth-straight ring. Despite the lack of outside competition, Middlebury Athletics is striving to maintain the same energy as previous years. The field hockey team is practicing four to five times a week in smaller groups, and Nicholas stressed their continued devotion to playing the game they love.
“Practice intensity should stay the way it has been in order to grow and get the most out of our season,” Nicholas said. “We are staying positive and seeing this as an opportunity to improve for next year and the next few seasons for the underclassmen.”
Without the need to scout other teams and play their formations, this season offers a unique opportunity to concentrate on team-specific goals and improvement. “We definitely have a ‘be where your feet are’ mindset,’” Nicholas said. “We are living in the present moment, focusing on what’s surrounding us and where we currently are, and allowing that to build up to our success.”
Because some members of the team are not on campus, staying unified is an extra challenge this year. However, Nicholas explained that the team’s mindset has set the tone for the field hockey team’s approach to the season.
“It’s a bummer to not have games and the preseason we would typically have, but it’s been really cool to see everyone on campus making the most of having to be outdoors,” Nicholas said. “It’s been fun to be forced to be creative with the ways we bond and interact as a team. This time definitely has a lot of challenges but it also has a lot of silver linings that we’re trying to make the most of.”
Katie George ’23, fellow field hockey member, spoke about Nicholas’s leadership and importance to the team.
“Erin is one of those players that impacts every aspect of the game on and off the field. Once she graduates, the team will definitely be changed, but her drive, passion and skill are passed onto every player when we come together,” George said. “Her leadership and attitude will leave a lasting mark on MCFH and will without a doubt help the program continue to grow.”
Off the field, Nicholas is a member of the Pre-Health Society, the PR manager of the club Love Your Melon, and attends Impact Middlebury, an organization that pairs students with pediatric cancer patients to help support them through their treatment process. She is also a member of the Athletic Policy Committee and the SGA Athletic Affairs Committee.
Nicholas is a Molecular Biology and Biochemistry major and a Psychology minor. Although she plans to attend medical school in the future and is considering a career as an orthopedic surgeon, she isn’t counting out coaching either. She said she cannot imagine sports not playing a role in her life. “I’ve grown up always playing a sport so I couldn’t imagine a year without it.”
Nicholas has a busy schedule; life as a two-sport student athlete and a pre-med student isn’t simple, but she never fails to find the positives amidst all the chaos.
“It’s a huge time commitment, and I definitely have to make a lot of sacrifices, but it’s worth it because of the people I get to surround myself with every day,” Nicholas said. “I love the sports, but the people are what make it so special and so incredible. I’m very grateful.”
(09/10/20 9:56am)
Normally, it takes at most a day for You Tao ’22.5 to travel from Beijing to Middlebury College. This year — between the passing of travel bans and the global Covid-19 pandemic — it took him almost a month.
On Jan. 31, President Trump announced that all aliens who had spent time in mainland China within the past 14 days would be denied entry to the U.S., including F-1 visa holders such as You.
You became one of many Chinese international students forced to make a decision about whether or not to return to campus. To bypass the proclamation, he knew he had to spend 14 days in a third country open to Chinese tourists. But the resources associated with spending 14 days in a different country posed a challenge, not to mention health risks during international travels.
At the end of July, You finally decided to return to Middlebury.
“Being able to see my girlfriend was the decisive factor,” he said. “But it wasn’t the only reason.” He explained that poor internet connection and the substantial 12-hour time difference make taking remote classes from China difficult.
You did not expect that he would be facing such a difficult choice. He had hope that the Trump administration would lift the travel ban before the end of summer.
Before flying to the U.S., You first spent 14 days in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. His family did not support the trip at first because they thought the journey was too long and risky, but his mother eventually deemed the travel route safe enough.
In Phnom Penh, he completed mandatory room quarantine while waiting for his initial Covid-19 test result. He was then released on the second day, upon which he observed that life in Phnom Penh had seemingly returned to some semblance of normalcy. “People are just casually going about their days,” You said.
When asked if he was frustrated during the arduous trip back, You said that there was general organizational chaos throughout his stay in Phnom Penh. “We were packed into a poorly air conditioned auditorium [to get tested],” he said. “It was a little bit irresponsible, because you don’t want the testing center to become a petri dish for the virus.”
You admitted that this entire journey back to campus made him feel like he was in a “magical realism novel.” He said that he was not overly shocked that the travel ban was not lifted in time, given the U.S.'s tumultuous relationship with China.
Having been an international student in the U.S. since high school, You never felt too stressed at the border. However, after the president’s proclamation restricted certain Chinese students from entering America, he felt more pressure than he usually would, even though the proclamation applied to graduate students.
You arrived on campus on Aug. 26 after more than 20 days of traveling. Upon arrival, he had to begin room quarantine because he was unable to quarantine at home for 14 days.
“I now quarantine without any defiance,” he said jokingly. “Quarantine doesn’t feel like oppression anymore.”
Coincidentally, while You traveled from Beijing to Middlebury, Liu Bo ’23 left the college for Chongqing, China, which he calls home.
After the college evacuated students in March, Liu decided to stay on campus and wait for the situation to develop. But in May, the college’s plan to ask all students to leave campus prompted him to begin looking for a ticket home. In early August, he was finally able to secure one. His host family took him to Burlington, and he flew to New York City with “pure luck.”
Liu described his journey as “ordinary.” He traveled through Burlington, New York City, Seoul and Shenyang to finally reach his destination of Chongqing. Without the pandemic, Hainan Airline runs a direct flight from Chongqing to New York City twice a week.
“The most memorable part about the trip was finally being able to eat hotpot,” he said of a food that Chongqing is famous for.
You and Liu decided to travel in opposite directions after carefully considering their individual circumstances. The Covid-19 pandemic, exacerbated by complicated international relations, created an entirely new universe for international students.
One thing remains certain: academic work goes on. On Tuesday, You and Liu began taking remote classes from their rooms located on opposite ends of the globe, one in Forest West and the other in Yubei, Chongqing.
(09/08/20 1:18am)
Dozens of pages of online instructions and 151 minutes of educational videos laid out a plethora of restrictions and regulations that were put in place to make a return to campus this fall possible. Since the majority of students returned to Middlebury last Friday, those rules have become reality.
For the most part, students have followed regulations. By day, they widely obey mask guidelines when out in public on campus, usually only removing masks to eat meals. At the direction of staff, they follow delineated paths through dining halls, and students have taken to socializing safely in distanced settings on Battell Beach and the Knoll.
But nighttime gatherings that exceed 10 participants, sometimes without masks, have sprung up in the past week, leaving student Residential Life workers and orientation leaders to take on new roles as disciplinary figures tasked with curtailing gatherings that violate Covid-19 guidelines.
“For ResLife, the past three days have honestly been pretty intense,” Luisa Vosmik ’21, a Resident Assistant who works in sophomore housing, told The Campus. “We are all super excited to have residents living in our halls and to be able to put our training to use… That being said, there have definitely been some chaotic moments that were a bit disheartening. At times, it has felt as though other students don’t recognize the impact their actions might have on our ability to remain on campus.”
Dean of Students Derek Doucet is encouraged by the low number of positive tests in Middlebury’s mandatory testing for students (since students returned to campus, two rounds of all-student testing have yielded just two positive test results). What remains essential, he told The Campus, is practicing behaviors that preserve the encouraging results first seen after processing move-in day results. “We’re open,” he wrote in an email to The Campus. “Now we have to remain sharply focused on doing what we must to stay open.”
The burden of enforcing Covid-19 regulations that seek to maintain that reality has fallen heavily on student leaders, including Residential Life members and MiddView Orientation leaders. Student leaders “have been working tirelessly over the last week or more to help pull off the reopening,” Doucet wrote. “Without them it would not have been possible to get this far.”
While Doucet acknowledges Public Safety as an important part of the college’s enforcement policy, Maya Gee ’22, the Community Assistant for Voter Hall and Painter Hall, and other student leaders told the Campus that Public Safety has been given a reduced role this year. Unlike in previous years, Residential Life members are now expected to collect the names, and sometimes the ID numbers, of students who break college Covid-19 policies.
Public Safety and Residential Life administrators did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
The student leaders are expected to enforce regulations related to mask-wearing, social distancing, gathering sizes and the presence of parents during move-in. Issues within ResLife’s purview before the pandemic — such as alcohol consumption, noise complaints and large gatherings — now have higher stakes, as many of these activities can lead to increased Covid-19-related risks. Residential Life members can choose from a variety of steps in these situations, including asking students to correct their behavior, filing an incident report or calling Public Safety or their Residence Director for assistance.
“It all depends on the situation,” Gee said.
Sophie Smith ’21, a MiddView leader leading virtual first year orientation sees the role MiddView leaders are playing in enforcing Covid-19 policies as similar to that of the rest of the student body. They are tasked with providing students with reminders of Covid-19 policies, reporting through the online tool or contacting Public Safety upon noticing a Covid-19 policy violation.
Several students have already been asked to leave campus while more are awaiting appeals for violating guidelines, according to Doucet. Due to the college’s rule against disclosing details from the disciplinary process, Doucet did not specify the nature of students’ violations, but he wrote that “we’re taking a firm stance on Covid violations which expose the community to elevated levels of potential risk.”
Besides the students who have already been sent home, a number of other students have received a sanction or removal from campus housing, held in abeyance. This status indicates that if the student violates any additional Covid-19 protocol, they will be dismissed from campus.
Following the release of first years from room quarantine, Residential Life members noted many violations of college Covid-19 policies, including reports of large gatherings of students both on Battell Beach and near the baseball field.
“There have been groups of 10-plus the past few nights, [especially] Friday and Saturday, where students were disregarding the physical distancing requirement, even when asked repeatedly to distance and disperse into smaller groups,” Vosmik said last week.
Gee saw some of these violations and contacted her Residence Director and Public Safety.
“I am trying to deal with it more as a friendly reminder perspective, rather than a more enforcement perspective,” she said. While Gee said she’s fixated on helping protect the Middlebury community, she is also giving students the benefit of the doubt and recognizes that this semester has brought a lot of changes. “It is a very fine line between intentionally breaking the rules and forgetting,” she said.
Gee said that she did not know the full extent of her responsibilities until she arrived on campus on August 18 and underwent Residential Life training. She acknowledged that the role can feel overwhelming at times.
The boundaries of the job are changing and becoming less distinct than in previous years, Gee noted as one of the many ways in which this year is different from last year, when she served a First-Year Counselor in Battell Hall. “We feel like we have to oversee so many more things, both inside and outside,” Gee said.
“Some staff members are really struggling with not feeling burnt out, that they always have to be on,” she said. Gee feels that every time she goes outside there is constantly some small violation she could find.
Residential Life student workers have been given a $500 pay raise for the year, following salary increases that took place over the past two years. Gee said that this is not enough, but recognized the financial limitation of the college and said that “we’re getting there.”
Residential Life workers have been instructed to never put their own health and safety at risk; if a situation arises where close contact with another student is required, they have been directed to call Residential Life administrators or Public Safety, Gee explained.
“Their job is not an easy one and we all owe them a debt of gratitude,” Doucet said, also pointing to the role MiddView orientation leaders have played in promoting and enforcing Covid-19 policies.
The college has put in place an online reporting system through which anyone can report a Covid-19 policy violation. As of early last week, roughly 30 reports had been submitted through the system. According to Doucet, each report has received follow-up, but the majority have been minor violations.
“The college is not playing around,” Gee said, explaining how each situation needs to be treated differently depending on the circumstances and the nature of the violation.
Gee said she supports the reallocation of duties to student Residential Life leaders, particularly when it comes to no longer having Public Safety officers patrol dormitories. But she added that this creates an increased level of responsibility for Residential Life and could result in a type of hierarchy among students; she noted the array of challenges that can come with trying to find a balance between holding students accountable and not making them feel over-policed by peers.
“We are really starting to move towards more of a community policing model,” Gee said.
And while Doucet acknowledged the essential role of Residential Life, he also knows that they cannot do everything.
“We need to avoid the temptation to think of our student leaders as responsible for carrying the whole weight of this enormous undertaking for their peers,” he said.
