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(04/20/20 8:48pm)
Alexander Herrera
Former member of the class of 2022, who transferred out of Middlebury at the end of fall 2019
Locations: Ciudad de México, Mexico and New York, New York
Submitted March 26, 2020
I transferred out from Middlebury in December 2019, but instead of going back home to NYC, which is now deemed the "epicenter" of the coronavirus outbreak in the country, I moved to Houston, Texas. At this point, the virus was spreading in the U.S., but this had not affected my daily life. At the end of February, I then moved to Ciudad de Mexico, where I currently reside and work for an NGO that works with kids with cerebral palsy. I am set to stay in Mexico until the end of May.
While I am aware that New York and other parts of the U.S. are under quarantine, here in Mexico, the picture looks different. Honestly, the outbreak to us doesn't seem too serious given that it hasn't hit the country at an alarming rate (yet). As someone who lives in New York City, it feels unreal seeing my family and friends having to completely move out of their colleges, stay at home and stop all non-essential business. As someone who's currently taking a gap semester and living alone in another country, I have been experiencing the outbreak in the U.S. as an outsider.
Most people, including myself, are going about our daily lives as usual. While there has been a spike in cases of coronavirus in Mexico, very few people here are actually alarmed. There are people who wear face masks outside given that CDMX is such a densely-populated city, but other than that, not much has changed. At the NGO I'm currently working with, the administration has discussed the possibility of pursuing distance learning for our students given that their disabilities make them susceptible populations to the virus. In the case that this were to happen, I would probably have to move back home. I have taken a total of five flights so far this year and I still have two more trips planned for the upcoming months. But as of right now, I don't plan to postpone or cancel any of my upcoming trips.
What has been your greatest worry or day-to-day concern as coronavirus has spread?
I would say that my greatest worry has been my family, especially because they are under quarantine and are living day-to-day the crisis and alarm that the virus has created in our city.
What has made you happy over the past few weeks?
I'm very much happy with my decision to no longer attend Middlebury. Besides traveling, I have really enjoyed getting to know Mexico and working with so many students in the past two months.
Update as of April 20, 2020:
A couple of days after submitting this to The Campus, the NGO I was working with announced that it was transitioning to a virtual platform for the rest of the academic year. At the same time, on March 23, Mexico City announced the National Campaign of Healthy Distancing, a national program of non-pharmaceutical measures based on social distancing. That same day, Mexico entered Phase 2 of the coronavirus outbreak, according to WHO, and non-essential businesses were ordered to close.
Currently, there are over 8,000 confirmed cases of the virus in the country. Due to the outbreak in CDMX, I made the hard decision to leave Mexico and go back to New York. I've been in the U.S. for a couple of weeks now, doing my best to follow stay-at-home orders and social distancing rules.
(04/17/20 1:37am)
Editors’ note: This op-ed was originally shared as a Facebook post by the author. The original post has been adapted for publication in The Campus.
After reading the open letter to faculty on the opt-in policy yesterday, I felt the need to respond with counter-arguments, drawn from both #FairGradesMidd communications around this issue and my own opinions. I’ve also admittedly talked way too much, virtually, with friends about this topic on both sides of the debate.
I’ll start off with a concession:
Neither universal pass/fail nor opt-in pass/fail will be the best grading system. The perfect grading system simply does not exist when students have to quickly leave campus and move to remote learning while also dealing with the impacts of a pandemic. In any system, some students will benefit and others will not.
Now, onto my juicy hot takes in response to the open letter:
Yes, a universal pass/fail system will disadvantage students who could have used this semester to raise their grades. However, I also acknowledge that this inequity is by no means parallel with inequities faced by students who simply won’t have the time, resources or space to focus on courses which I have the privilege to enjoy.
To the point that an opt-in policy respects choice: inequities dictate who has the power to make those choices. If some students have the ability to social distance, stay healthy and dedicate their normal amounts of time to school work, but other students do not because of circumstances at home, then that is inequitable. Theoretically, any student can then choose to pass/fail a course, but, in our current system, students facing challenges lose out on the theoretical “GPA boost” that the authors reference.
Not only that, graduate schools like Georgetown Medical School have stated that they will continue to “highly prefer” applicants who take all prerequisite courses for grades if given the option. So, a student who might receive a C while taking courses remotely — even if they normally earn As — has to make the catch-22 choice of taking a C so they can still apply to top-tier graduate schools, with a lower chance of success; or taking the pass and also lowering their chance of acceptance.
More offensively, the notion that some Middlebury students “slacked off” during the five weeks we were on campus while others “worked diligently,” in the words of the letter’s authors, is blatantly false and uninformed by the reality of who Middlebury students are. We have a stellar graduation rate, high average/median GPAs and excelled in high school to gain admittance. Who among our peers are the slackers?
In their second point, the authors contend that grades serve as a form of motivation or underpinning to college scholarship. However, grades do not and should not underpin academic scholarship, nor should they be the sole motivation to engage in this scholarship. If the loss of a letter grade causes a student to spend less time on academic work because they suddenly lack the motivation, then we have a deeper issue to address about why students engage in academics. But I do not believe most students will lose motivation.
The authors also point to the further confusion that may arise from the change in policy. But just because a policy has been in place is no justification for that policy to stay in place, especially policies instituted without significant consultation with faculty or students. Furthermore, an unignorable student-led campaign for alternative grading policies has existed nearly from the very first day that the college announced its policy, so I for one was never operating under the assumption that this policy was set and fixed.
To call a poll of 1,843 students (roughly 70% of the student body) irrelevant simply because it included an option that turned out to be unviable for accreditation is a blatant error. Even when removing that option, universal pass/fail still has more first choice votes than opt-in. To insinuate on a clerical error that the student body has not vastly voiced support for an alternative grading system is a blatant and intentional misreading of the data leveraged to serve the authors’ own opinions while silencing the vast majority of students.
In closing an email I sent to my current professors — something I encourage every student to do, no matter which policy you support — I said the following and I think it fits here as well:
“Though apparently some of my peers might argue that people should be allowed to ‘write their own stories’ about how they persevered through this time, let those stories be about persevering over a virus by contributing back to society through extra volunteer hours or aiding their family when family members fall ill or lose their job — not about persevering by getting that A in that one class because Middlebury continued to enforce artificial and inequitable grading standards.”
Mendel Baljon is a member of the class of 2021.
(04/16/20 10:02am)
Of all the forms of isolation bred in this national distancing experiment — physical at best, and at worst its insidious cousins of the emotional, mental and social varieties — literature has borne witness to each. Whether we’ve staved them off or found ourselves embroiled in them, we’re all experiencing at least one: the government-mandated type. (The only type that might have driven Thoreau out of the woods.)
But I’m not going to tell you to go read “Walden” — it feels a bit condescending to be told to “live deliberately” when the only thing keeping one compos mentis is a two-pound bag of Swedish Fish and the Apple podcast app. I’m also going to leave off much of the other seemingly go-to isolation literature — Virgina Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse,” Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and anything by Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson and James Joyce. (Which is not to say I don’t recommend them.)
In lieu, here’s a list of six books to help you lay bare, dissect and anatomize your own isolation in all of its mordant and oft-unseen incarnations.
1. “My Year of Rest and Relaxation” by Ottessa Moshfegh
If I could recommend one queen quarantine book, it would be this one. Truth be told, any of Moshfegh’s books could fill this slot — she was once described by Jia Tolentino as “the most interesting contemporary American writer on the subject of being alive when being alive feels terrible” — but this novel seems particularly germane. Maybe it’s because the book features a recent college graduate in self-inflicted exile from her own life in New York City, or maybe it’s Moshfegh’s all-too-apt shrewdness in accounting the experience of little-to-no experience. Either way, this novel is a bleary-eyed walk worth taking through a life where time itself is held captive.
2. "The Trial” by Franz Kafka
Kafka, a literary horseman of self-isolation, is another author whose entire body of work could essentially fit this list. “The Trial,” his standout novel among a slew of short stories and novellas, follows Josef K. around a tortuous bureaucratic carousel as he tries to make sense of a life that does its best to spin him into disoriented monotony. A recent essay in The Los Angeles Review of Books pinpoints this well — of all the doors opening and closing for Josef K. in “The Trial,” we see a frustratingly similar number in front of us in this pandemic. Yes, watching them swing in real time can get disheartening, and yes, this novel understands.
3. “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric” by Claudia Rankine
This book engages with a topic that seems to stare down those of us in quarantine: what’s the right role for the individual within this writhing political culture? “An American Lyric” is one of Rankine’s signature literary forms, quilting segments of prose, poetry and television imagery. The first time I sat down with it, I read it twice before leaving my chair. If you don’t know how to think, feel or act on all the things going on in the news, happening around you or stirring within you that make you feel alone, this book will deliver headway.
4. “The Friend” by Sigrid Nunez
This novel is at once a meditation on grief and a portrait of the relationships we may increasingly have with our pets as we inevitably spend every hour with them. When the narrator’s worshipped literary mentor dies, she is pressed to adopt his grief-stricken Great Dane named Apollo. Through her own deep grief and waning grasp on her writing, she pushes further into her own isolation with Apollo, all the while ruminating on expression itself. As many of us lean into the solace of our pets in inadvertent replacement of those we can’t see, this book can at times feel like a pat on the head. “I know this is all moronically anthropomorphic,” writes Nunez, “but sometimes that is the form love takes.”
5. “Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life” by J.M. Coetzee
Coetzee’s 1998 novel “Boyhood” is one of two fictionalized accounts of his own childhood in Cape Town published in the years leading up to his Nobel Prize. This one, the first, roams through a life cut into sections. Within each, there is a boy under a new identity, reconciling action and self-perception in a life that he has yet to feel comfortable in. This book holds water for the many whose lives have been disrupted by the pandemic, and those who themselves are reconciling with identity when left alone to define it.
6. “The Nickel Boys” by Colson Whitehead
In his latest novel “The Nickel Boys,” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead follows a young Elwood Curtis through the most odious form of isolation on this list. Amid the Civil Rights movement, Elwood, a black teenager about to enroll in college in Florida, is sent to the Nickel Academy reformatory for a mistake. Together yet alone, remembered yet forgotten, the reformatory’s occupants contend with their notions of humanity while forced to source it from within. Though I could not possibly argue that this experience runs parallel to ours in quarantine, Whitehead's insights ring true across them. “If it is true for you,” he writes, “it is true for someone else, and you are no longer alone.”
(04/16/20 10:01am)
In a normal year, over half of Middlebury’s junior class studies abroad. Next year will likely be different. As students look to the fall semester, many who had planned to study abroad are reconsidering due to Covid-19-related travel and safety concerns, with questions over whether the Middlebury Summer Language Schools will run, and disappointment about the loss of the current semester on-campus.
The decline in students studying abroad will affect housing and course registration in the upcoming semester, and will have academic implications for students whose majors require a semester abroad — such as International and Global Studies (IGS) and International Politics and Economics (IP&E).
“We have seen a higher percentage of students than usual withdrawing their study abroad applications between the application deadline and now,” said Liz Ross, associate dean for international programs and off-campus study. Students who applied to study abroad this fall have until June 15 to seek readmission to the college.
At this time, it is uncertain how many juniors will choose to remain on the Vermont campus, or will ultimately be forced to stay as a result of cancellation of programs abroad. Some schools, like Binghamton University, have already canceled their study abroad programs for fall 2020. Ross said that all Middlebury programs are proceeding as planned at the moment, but said that her office is paying “especially close attention” to what’s going on in areas like the southern hemisphere and India, where programs have early start dates in July and August.
In a worst-case scenario, in which no students are able to go abroad this fall, the college anticipates having roughly 200 more students on campus than during a typical semester, according to Senior Associate Dean of Students Derek Doucet.
Many students attend Language Schools the summer before studying abroad in a non-English-speaking country to attain the necessary level of proficiency to meet Middlebury’s requirements for studying abroad. Uncertainty about the fate of these programs has also contributed to doubts and anxieties for students in this situation.
The college has not yet announced a decision about summer programming, which includes Language Schools. The announcement is set to come sometime in mid-April. Other northeast colleges, such as Harvard and Wesleyan, have already canceled on-campus summer programming or moved programs online.
The Registrar’s Office announced on April 15 that course registration for the fall semester would be pushed to mid-summer, as the office is currently unable to estimate how many students will be on campus next semester. The office also requested that students planning to study abroad register for classes as a fall back option.
Opting for a semester in Vermont
Many students pin study abroad as a cornerstone of the Middlebury experience. Choosing not to go, on the eve of that semester, has been a challenging decision. Some have reconsidered pursuing their travels because of the disappointment associated with the premature departure from campus this spring.
“My primary motivation to reconsider study abroad was because I felt like I, like all other students, was ripped away from my life at Midd too early and abruptly,” said Massimo Sassi ’22, who was planning to study in Florence, Italy in the fall.
Maia Sauer ’22 was planning to study in Paris, France, but has changed her mind since the college’s transition to remote learning.
“I think the study abroad decision is difficult, because I have to weigh both the short- and long-term consequences. Do I prioritize what could be the experience of a lifetime, and miss out on a semester at Midd with people to whom I’ve already had to say premature goodbyes?” Sauer said. “Or, do I forgo study abroad and regret my decision later, when it becomes harder and harder to plan a similar experience?”
Sauer also expressed that being away from campus prompted her to reconsider her priorities for the upcoming semester, and helped her realize that she is not interested in the lonely adjustment to life abroad, especially now.
Anna Wood ’22 had planned to study in Buenos Aires, Argentina in the fall — one of those programs with an early July start date — and is not confident that her program will happen.
“I figure that the program will most likely be canceled,” Wood said. “I also don’t want to spend more than one semester away from the campus and community that make Midd so special.”
Caroline Ritter ’22 was planning to study in Germany, but if Language Schools do not occur, she won’t be able to.
“Even if I could, though, losing the last half of our spring semester has made going abroad seem much less desirable,” she said. “I think it is probably a short-sighted decision to stay just because I miss my friends, but ultimately that is kind of the way I am leaning.”
All of the students interviewed noted having conversations with friends, peers and teammates who were also preemptively reconsidering studying abroad.
Academic implications
Several majors at Middlebury, including International and Global Studies (IGS), International Politics and Economics (IP&E) and some language majors, have a study abroad requirement. Although department-by-department decisions have not been made yet, these programs are aware that they may need to adapt to the crisis situation.
“Given the fact that we are dealing with a global pandemic and travel will certainly not be possible for a while, IGS will amend the requirements as needed,” said Tamar Mayer, the director of IGS.
Mayer says that after the programs in China were canceled before they even began this January, the IGS program amended their requirements and replaced the abroad experience with more language courses for those students. A similar process may occur in future situations, as language proficiency is also a requirement for the major.
Associate Political Science Professor Amy Yuen, the director of IP&E, reached out to students on April 7 to let them know that the department would make accommodations for the situation.
“If the college begins canceling study abroad programs, then the IP&E program will consult with administrators and faculty on how to accommodate students who have not fulfilled study abroad,” Yuen said. “There are many options to consider if this becomes an issue, but we will not leave students in the lurch. We will make some kind of accommodation.”
But for some students, the situation has caused a total reconsideration of academic priority.
“As I grappled with [study abroad], I began to think about if the IGS major was really something I wanted to do,” said Sassi, the student who was scheduled to study in Florence. With time at home to step back from academics and think about his trajectory at Middlebury, Sassi began to rethink his plans. “I started thinking about life after college, and to be honest, I didn’t really see a future for myself in the IGS field.”
Sassi has since taken steps toward becoming a joint music and anthropology major.
Correction: A previous version of this article said that Boston University, not Binghamton University, had canceled its programs abroad. The error has since been corrected.
(04/16/20 9:57am)
Two-and-a-half weeks ago, President Laurie Patton signed off her college-wide email with Middlebury Discount Comedy’s rendition of “Imagine,” urging the community to use imagination and support each other while off campus. Embodying the message, student clubs have continued to function as creative outlets and community spaces amid the Covid-19 crisis. To some clubs, the unexpected halt is a great challenge and disappointment, especially since the spring is typically a time of celebration; for others, it’s allowed for innovation and new perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/yqVBGj0ibGA
Middlebury Discount Comedy, a sketch comedy club, was pleasantly surprised by Patton’s shout out in her email. Their original intent was to satirize the viral video of celebrities singing “Imagine,” as the group champions humor and a good laugh. Before leaving campus, they were beginning to write for their final show of the year, a performance which may now happen on Zoom.
President of the club Will Koch ’21, is pleased that the tight-knit group is able to communicate and laugh virtually but admits that the energy of creating collectively is lost when the group cannot be together.
“The unique part of the group is that we all love to create, but we create the majority of our stuff together. In that respect it's tough to be apart right now, but we still maintain our banter within the group despite the distance,” said Koch.
The group is looking forward to their return and future shows. For now, they will be active on social media, where fans can still engage with their content.
An all-male a cappella group, The Dissipated Eight, is working on an album recording to keep motivated. The group had to cancel its spring break trip and concerts for the remainder of the semester, which were all fundraising efforts for the album. However, having budgeted wisely in the past, the group still plans to record its album at Two Visions Studio later in May.
Eli Abbasi ’20, president of The Dissipated Eight, said that the creative vibe is different when making music remotely, especially because rehearsals are self-taught and solo auditions will take place via Zoom. Nevertheless, Abbasi is confident in the group.
“The bond of this group is that we hold each other accountable and we can put things like this in perspective. That’s a testament to the bond we created at Middlebury and while touring,” Abbasi said. As a senior, he’ll be leaving the group for good this year, but said the album is keeping all the group’s members from being too sad about missing out on its final concert and saying a real goodbye.
Members of Radical Asians (RAISINS) are seeking alternative ways to connect with each other as they navigate a novel political environment brought on by the crisis. RAISINS is a non-institutionalized Asian and Asian American student collective, together with a network of Asian professors, that raises political consciousness for their racial experiences with a focus on community building.
The club has shifted into a book club format. Co-presidents Jasmine Chau ’21 and Anton Gallegos ’21 were inspired by an ethnic literature class and took book recommendations from professors.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-uiQmKhj6p/
“Personally, I find it really hard to not have a space like RAISINS. It’s definitely hard to talk about [Covid-19] with my parents because I’m not sure if they really understand what’s happening in the world,” Chau said. “They express concern differently, so I really miss those RAISINS conversations where we can share without feeling like we won’t be understood.” With the rising racial tension surrounding Covid-19, literature is a way for the club members to talk about their experiences, particularly those who are struggling with feelings of not fitting in with the current political landscape.
“This crisis really brings out the foundation for Asian resentment and yellow peril,” said Gallegos. “The perception of foreignness mixed with being seen as a danger is similar to Asians being seen as bringing in the coronavirus. It’s also amazing to see people navigating towards building grassroot support for Asians, which I have not seen before.”
GlobeMed has also shifted focus for the semester, making its meetings more optional and infrequent than before. GlobeMed at Middlebury is a chapter of a national organization that focuses on public health issues for marginalized groups. The club had to cancel fundraisers for its partner organization in Rwanda and re-evaluated the schedule of its weekly meetings due to the sensitivity of Covid-19.
In a survey conducted by the club’s leadership, members expressed strong interest in meeting over Zoom and sharing webinars and articles.
“We know it would be a burden for us to talk about global health now as it affects everyone,” said Ansley Harralson ’20.5, co-president of GlobeMed. We decided that we would create a separate group for an opt in process. This is a way to support people’s needs and reevaluate commitment.”
Members discussed Covid-19 at meetings before it escalated in the U.S. and kept awareness of the interconnectivity of public health issues. The constructive framework of the club in addressing the seriousness of every issue has prepared them to talk about Covid-19 in a strikingly similar manner.
Co-president Margaret Maxwell ’20 shared that the club now talks about the U.S healthcare system more than it had before. They are actively in touch with their partner organization in Rwanda, who have tailors making masks, and it appears that they have the crisis better controlled than the U.S.
Across the collegiate community, many debate tournaments have migrated online. Justin Cooper ‘20, president of the Middlebury Debate Club, had to cancel a tournament at Middlebury and a chance to compete at the Pan-American Universities Debate Championship in Curaçao. The team will resume practices virtually via Zoom, and other debate tournaments are held over online platforms such as Discord and Minecraft.
“The team has stayed largely connected through the last couple of weeks, doing group calls and staying in touch to support each other,” said Cooper. “It’s really great to see everybody making a real effort to stay connected and in touch with each other in times like these.”
(04/16/20 9:55am)
As a child of Generation Z, I do not remember 9/11, but I do remember my parents downgrading from our “beep beep” Road Runner High Speed Internet to our “screech screech” dial-up internet. My family was pretty early to the home-internet game, so at my elementary STEM magnet school, I was one of the only kids in my kindergarten class who knew how to access the internet. Therefore, I was the girl who proudly showed all the boys how to play computer games on the Playhouse Disney website.
Five years later, it was 2009. Ethernet, desktop internet, was still king. “Zoom” was just a television show on PBS Kids and “Google it” was not in my vocabulary. My most memorable internet experience was the fateful day that my stock-tracking buddies in my math class and I logged on to our desktop classroom computers to learn that the market had crashed and our imaginary investments had vanished. (Except for that one quiet kid who invested in a stock we'd never heard of called “Netflix.”)
In middle school and early high school, I really only used the internet for recreational purposes. Back then, it was perfectly normal for me to leave the house without my phone and go for an entire week without using the internet. I only began regularly using the internet in the 11th grade when I went to boarding school. At home, I occasionally borrowed a computer from my parents; at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, however, every student was required to have their own laptop. Despite dreaded 1 a.m. WiFi cutoffs, I relied on my institution to make sure I had sufficient internet access to submit my assignments on Canvas and to upload coding assignments to the server in the computer science department.
Fast forward six years. Everything, including WiFi, was big in Texas. During my gap year, I lived at an Austin seminary where my rent was $250, utilities and internet included. WiFi was pretty simple. My housemates and I simply picked up a modem and plugged it into the wall. We made our WiFi password something along the lines of "WeHaveInternet!" to mark the momentous occasion.
Back in school at Middlebury, I never had any particular problems connecting to the internet. I only used FaceTime about twice a year, and I used Zoom once this past January to interview for a consulting internship. I don't have an Instagram, Snapchat or Tik Tok. Even at Midd, I really only used the internet to check my email. If I needed to complete an intensive technology task, I was headed to a campus computer lab.
My relationship with the internet was fine until Middlebury announced that it would be closing as a precautionary measure due to the Covid-19 crisis. It is now 2020, and the world is officially in a WiFi era. With the extended spring break, I decided to start a new virtual workout program. Sadly, my Covid-19 self-quarantine resolution met a brick wall with my parent’s internet. It could sometimes take minutes to refresh my email, so accessing HD Video Teleconferencing platforms such as Zoom was a far-off dream.
On Wednesday, March 25, I reached out to the CCI about the Middlebury Student Emergency Fund, but I was told to seek help elsewhere. The judgement was that my slow internet was not an urgent situation, and I needed to try harder before coming to the college for help. Thus, I was annoyed by President Laurie Patton’s March 29 email, praising the initial success of the Emergency Fund. Even decisions about whose emergency merits a response reek of privilege.
Yet other institutions are responding to student needs in the Covid-19 crisis quite differently. For instance, UC Berkeley’s Student Technology Fund is rapidly deploying laptops and WiFi hotspots with service plans to students in need free of charge. In addition, students can request a Cost of Attendance Adjustment if they need to purchase a new device or take on other expenses to participate in remote learning.
During the second week of spring break, the provost sent out a survey asking if students had access to home high speed internet. I now realize that I provided false information because I naively assumed that all internet access of any speed was equally sufficient. Post-epiphany, I now plan to take advantage of internet service providers who are giving households with at least one K-12, college student or teacher two months of free high-speed internet access. Still, this leaves me wondering just how many low-tech users like myself may have overestimated their access to high speed internet, not realizing that a WiFi connection that can connect to Facebook cannot necessarily reliably support an hour long Zoom conference call.
Christine McDow is a member of the class of 2021.
(04/13/20 3:09am)
I was one of the lucky few to be approved to stay on campus, but on the first Monday of spring break, the administration sent out a mandatory survey on which we were to initial our understanding that the college may require us to leave anyway at any point in time.
Two days later they initiated room changes, and I realized that my housing situation no longer felt safe. Thanks to the extreme generosity of a few online friends, I managed to get down to Boston to crash on a friend's couch. What little time I had left to prepare for life post-graduation is gone now. I'm trying to take things just one day at a time.
What has been your greatest worry or day-to-day concern as coronavirus has spread?
Housing insecurity weighs on my mind constantly, as does my paramedic sister’s health. Anyone I could stay with is in the at-risk group, and I constantly worry that I’ll accidentally infect them.
What has made you happy over the past few weeks?
Seeing the first blossoms of spring. Eating spicy rice cake.
Submitted March 26, 2020.
(04/13/20 12:54am)
Like most seniors, having to leave school two months before graduation was really hard. I had so many things and final college experiences I was looking forward to. As a senior athlete, I missed out on my senior season of track, NESCACs and our San Diego spring break trip. This was especially hard because I missed all of my junior year season because of injuries. I was looking forward to senior week, days spent at Dunmore and making memories with my friends. I miss my friends, my house, my teammates, my classmates and my professors. I’ve been isolating at home alone and I really miss human interaction with people my age. Also, as a senior it’s been scary leaving college and going into an unstable economy. Most of the places I have applied to have suspended their hiring process due to the pandemic.
What has been your greatest worry or day-to-day concern as coronavirus has spread?
I have severe asthma and so I’m really at risk of getting very sick if I get the virus. My biggest worry is getting sick and needing to go on a ventilator. My small town not having the medial infrastructure to deal with a massive outbreak. I don’t want to get sick and be separated from my loved ones and potentially die alone on a ventilator.
What has made you happy over the past few weeks?
I have been doing a lot of single-track mountain biking on the trails near my house. I like whipping down the hills; the trails remind me a little bit of Rikert, which is my favorite place to go at Middlebury when I get stressed. I also have been doing a lot of virtual happy hours with my friends and teammates. In between all that, I've been sewing masks for our local hospital which has kept me busy and gives me a feeling of purpose again.
Submitted April 9, 2020.
(04/09/20 10:00am)
The ubiquitous pressure to stay home to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, formalized by Governor Scott’s statewide “Stay Home, Stay Safe” mandate on March 24, begs the question: what if you don’t have a home to stay in?
In an effort to answer, local nonprofits such as the John Graham Shelter, Charter House and WomenSafe have been working together to move dozens of Addison County’s housing-insecure into vacant rooms at the Middlebury Inn, Sugar House Motel, Courtyard Marriott and Middlebury Sweets Motel. Middlebury College Dining has joined the effort as well, donating three fresh Proctor-concocted meals to the relocated Vermonters each day.
The rooms are subsidized by a state voucher system that is typically implemented to shelter those living outside during Vermont’s frigid winters. In the face of Covid-19, the state declared such “adverse weather conditions” to allow continual voucher distribution to those who need to self-isolate safely. In Addison County, the program now serves between 47 and 50 residents.
Ongoing medical conditions and homelessness often go hand-in-hand, as do shelters and close quarters, explained Jubilee McGill, the primary project coordinator at the John Graham Shelter. This leaves those in need particularly vulnerable to Covid-19.
“Shelters are close communal living spaces where things are more likely to spread,” McGill said. “The state has worked really well to make sure that the people who are highly vulnerable and without permanent housing are able to socially isolate somewhere.”
The program’s organizers have also recognized that self-isolation necessities go beyond housing security. They contacted Middlebury College Dining, who immediately agreed to donate food to those in need. The Proctor Dining Hall staff, still working to prepare food for the 100-odd students remaining on campus, now package two hot meals per day from the pre-planned menu, as well as a cold breakfast for the next day delivered with dinner.
The lunch and dinner meals typically consist of the prepared entrée, vegetable, starch and dessert, while breakfasts include a combination of muffins, fruit, bagels or cereal. As Middlebury College struggles to maintain staff employment after most students have left campus, the donations also generate hours for dining hall workers.
“This program certainly helps with keeping the staff employed,” said Dan Detora, Middlebury’s Executive Director of Food Service Operations in an email to The Campus. “The staff are happy to help and happy to continue to be working. They feel like this is their way to help the community in these unprecedented times.”
Once prepared, the dining staff leave the meals on the Proctor loading dock, where they’re picked up by John Graham Shelter staff and delivered to the doorsteps of those in need.
The meal delivery service is both a great way to provide nutrition to the food-insecure and to minimize contact between people who are self-isolating, McGill explained. “We’re ensuring that there’s not a lot of people coming in and out, and that the meals are delivered safely for everyone’s health,” she said. “It feels very dark and scary at times, but I think getting that meal they feel remembered and seen.”
Walter Stugis, chair of Charter House’s board of directors, also expressed his gratitude in an interview with The Campus last week. “God bless Middlebury College,” Stugis said. “This is all while operating to serve the students who are still living on campus. It’s amazing.”
Organizers and volunteers at the nonprofits have also begun extending their delivery services to include personal hygiene products like shampoo and toothpaste, as well as items to keep residents entertained during self-isolation, such as art supplies, puzzles, books, magazines and decks of cards.
“We also want to make sure we’re paying attention to their emotional health,” McGill said, adding that the organizations are working with Middlebury College’s Center for Community Engagement to connect their clients with student volunteer “buddies” to talk to. “We’re thinking to have someone else who they can vent to and talk to and potentially advocate for them as needed.”
Addison County’s nonprofits plan to continue housing and feeding those in need indefinitely.
“I think it really helps for people out in the community to hear good stories and know that things are being done,” said McGill. “Makes us all feel a little less lost."
Correction April 9, 2020: A previous version of this article referred to the John Graham Shelter as John Graham House. Additionally, meals prepared by the college are picked up by John Graham Shelter staff, not staff of the Charter House.
(04/09/20 9:57am)
College announces employee case of Covid-19
A Middlebury staff member has contracted Covid-19, Treasurer David Provost and College Physician Mark Peluso told the community in an email Tuesday afternoon. The staff member, who is the first college employee to test positive for the virus, is isolating at home and “doing well,” the email read.
Separate investigations by college health officials and the Vermont Department of Health determined there was “no risk of transmission of COVID-19 to any College student, faculty, or staff member.”
Porter Hospital announced the first case of Covid-19 in Middlebury on March 19. Since then, the Vermont Department of Health has reported 49 total cases in Addison County, which includes an employee at the Shaws grocery store in Middlebury. The county has not yet reported any deaths of the virus, which had infected 605 statewide as of April 8.
College pledges wage continuity through June
Middlebury will continue to pay all benefits-eligible staff — faculty, administration and other full-time staff members — through June 30, according to an email sent to employees on Wednesday. Paychecks will continue to roll out regardless of employees’ sick leave and combined time-off status.
The announcement of the June 30 date follows several weeks of planning shaped by the college’s March 18 to prioritize wage continuity. Administrators recognize that setting that date creates the expectation for employees that something “dramatic” might happen on that date, Provost wrote in the announcement. “While we cannot guarantee that that will not happen, we are naming the date because it is what our best budget projections allow us to say at this time,” he wrote.
The SGA has pledged $200,000 of its reserve funds this spring toward helping maintain wage continuity.
Mid-April date set for decision on summer programs
The college will make a decision in mid-April about the status of summer language schools and other summer programming, Provost told Campus editors in an interview on Monday.
The Campus reported on April 2 that the College was still accepting Language School applications, according to a recent email to a Language Schools mailing list. However, the email asked applicants not to make travel arrangements at that time, and said the college was “looking at alternative options depending on language and level, should our programs be disrupted.”
For more coronavirus updates, check here.
(04/08/20 4:41pm)
With the future of the novel coronavirus unpredictable, it seems like everything has changed in a heartbeat. It was not long before Middlebury, like many other institutions across the country, announced its decision to hold remote classes and asked its students to leave campus. The unfolding of such news brought waves of chaotic emotions, stress and sorrow to the student body, especially the senior class.
The depth of the current crisis is impacting various aspects of all our lives, but its punch hit the senior class differently. As seniors, we still had roughly two-and-a-half months of our last semester remaining before we lost it all. We lost late nights with our friends. We lost the chance to enjoy our last semester in VT. Above all, we lost the senior events we were all waiting to celebrate to cap off our academic successes from our four years. On top of this, some of us lost the opportunity to perform in our final show, whether that was with dance, a cappella or a theatre group. Others, including myself, missed out on our spring break training trip with our team and the spring athletic season. We lost a great deal of our time at Middlebury, cutting short the last chapter of our college year.
For us, this was truly a curveball. Only a few months ago, we started the fall semester and were thrilled about the upcoming year. I remember beginning my senior year with a bit of awe and a lot of mixed feelings. I was delighted it was my last year, yet devastated about the impending end. I was also amazed by how swiftly time flew and how my class had so quickly reached the final stretch of our college career.
The sudden turn of events threw many of us into mourning. It stripped us of our time together and left us feeling speechless. It seemed like no words could ever properly convey our heartaches and the lingering uncertainty about graduation. The icing to all this bitterness was the loss of any sense of closure. We did not have the chance to conclude our final chapter as we saw fit. Instead, everything abruptly came two months early: the tears, the move out and the goodbyes. We rushed to fill the fleeting moments, trying to squeeze everything the next two months would have held into just the couple of days we had left together.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]It is only a matter of time before this red light becomes green and the whirlwind will pass. [/pullquote]
This loss will likely leave a gap and a lingering sense of absence in us. And frankly, it sucks. It sucks that our last few months of college got screwed up. I'm sorry to those who missed out on their final performance. I'm sorry to the athletes who lost their season and the opportunity to be with their team. I'm sorry to the seniors who've been working tirelessly on their thesis. This is all still surreal and I'm sorry it happened to us.
Amidst all this despair though, I'm still hopeful about our class. I believe we can navigate through this ambiguous course. It certainly won't be easy, but we entered Middlebury during a tumultuous time and have weathered through it all these past three years. We've been resilient since our arrival and can continue to be as we move forward. Growing up, we learned about how the generations before us have witnessed similar troubling events. And like them, we are currently living through history, soon-to-be stories we speak of to future generations. It is only a matter of time before this red light becomes green and the whirlwind will pass.
However, for now, it seems the loss we encountered is still the source of our grieving. This is not to detract from the larger issue but only to acknowledge and reassure our feelings are valid. Each of us has had undoubtedly distinct experiences on campus, but there is comfort in knowing that such a mishap has served as a bonding moment for us. And so, although we were afforded less time together than we expected and are deeply saddened by that, I would like us to think of one of my favorite quotes as we reflect on our time at Middlebury: "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." Thank you Midd!
Submitted March 27, 2020.
(04/08/20 4:25pm)
All right so! As we were unceremoniously kicked off campus, I was put in an interesting circumstance as I, like many others whose work was campus-specific, had to think about how I could finish my thesis while away. My project is a stop-motion film and requires a fair amount of college equipment, as well as a dark space big enough to house my set and film. Originally, I was planning on staying at Middlebury for an extra week to finish everything up, but was not approved to do so. So THEN, I was planning on staying off-campus and sneaking into the building where I was working for that week and just hoping no one would catch me. My department head strongly advised against this and, after much inner debate, I eventually relented. My final option was to check out roughly a car's load of equipment and move my set to a friend's house in Stowe, which is where I am now.
For the past week, I have been filming in an upstairs bathroom with all its windows and light sources blocked by layers of black trash bags. I must say it has been a much more pleasant experience than sneaking into a building day after day. However, as I am currently in Vermont and my home is in Miami, I'm struggling with how I will be able to get home after I finish filming and before school starts back up again.
What has been your greatest worry or day-to-day concern as coronavirus has spread?
I'm not sure how or when I am going to be able to go home, and how I can do so without endangering my family.
What has made you happy over the past few weeks?
I've found that filming my thesis has been a great way to pass the time, and I have amassed a growing list of mostly Dungeons & Dragons-related podcasts to listen to while I work. It’s also very convenient to have your set in the bathroom, cause that means you never have to leave to pee! Also, cooking is fun. The friend in question just pulled out the absolute dankest of banana breads.
Submitted March 25, 2020.
(04/02/20 8:40pm)
Following the lead of other colleges and universities, Middlebury will not bring students back to Vermont this semester and has ruled out the possibility of an in-person commencement in May, President Laurie Patton confirmed in an all-campus email Thursday afternoon. In a separate email, Treasurer David Provost detailed a plan to partially refund students’ room and board payments.
The approximately 120 students who remain on campus will be allowed to stay until the end of the semester provided federal and state governments do not change their policies, according to Dean of Students Baishakhi Taylor. “Students who are on campus can leave campus if they so choose, and we will help them with travel needs as appropriate,” she wrote in a text message to The Campus.
All classes will carry on remotely, “continuing the emergency approach to teaching and learning our faculty and students have already begun,” Patton wrote. She promised continued communication from the administration to help maximize students’ remote learning experiences.
Students have waited anxiously for news about commencement as the response to Covid-19 escalated around the country in recent days. Thirty-eight U.S. states had enacted stay-at-home orders as of April 2, and many colleges and universities around the country had cancelled graduation ceremonies. In the NESCAC, Bowdoin postponed its graduation ceremony without considering a virtual alternative, while Tufts will take Middlebury’s route of both a virtual May ceremony and a later, in-person gathering.
Patton acknowledged the disappointment members of the class of 2020 will feel at missing out on an in-person commencement in May, and said the college will still hold an in-person ceremony on an undecided date later this year or in 2021. The email did not describe possible formats for the virtual rendition of the ceremony, which will still be held the last weekend in May.
In his email, Provost wrote that the college will automatically place “prorated” credits for room and board fees on students' accounts beginning next Monday. Students will be credited between $1,000 and $4,380 — up to 55% of semester room and board fees — depending on families’ contributions to tuition costs.
Students have the choice of applying the credit to future charges or requesting a refund, Provost wrote. The credits, which will total close to $9 million, come as the college continues to pay all faculty and staff wages through the end of the semester. Families can also opt to make a tax-deductible donation to the college in their credit amount.
Middlebury’s annual June reunion ceremony has also been cancelled, according to Patton’s email. The school has not yet made a decision about the status of the summer language schools, but told those on a language schools email list two days ago that they are still accepting applications. However, the email also asked applicants not to make travel arrangements at the current time, and said that it is “looking at alternative options depending on language and level, should our programs be disrupted.”
This is a developing story. Check The Campus’ website for updates.
(04/02/20 10:10am)
Whether called “shelter-in-place” or “stay-at-home,” local and state-wide orders across the country all have the same blaring message: leave your home as little as possible.
Early last week, Governor Phil Scott followed suit with a “Stay Home, Stay Safe” executive order that went into effect on Tuesday, March 24. The directive is one of 37 state orders to limit citizens’ movement in an effort to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Scott’s order came after many college employees had already transitioned to remote working. Faculty and administrators were settled into work via Zoom and some professors had reportedly already experimented with creative backgrounds for their first classes (think a photo of the second floor of Davis Library for “continuity’s sake” or an iconic Zoom meme).
With many employees working from their living rooms, staff have taken the greatest hit from Scott’s order.
Karen Miller, the vice president for human resources, and David Provost, the college’s executive vice president for finance, reached out to staff with the college’s game plan shortly after Scott’s announcement. They had anticipated stricter measures restricting resident mobility.
“They’re now implementing the plan they told us was going to happen if things got worse,” said Patti McCaffrey, an Atwater cook whose work has been modified since the executive mandate.
The college identified “essential workers” that must continue reporting to work — on a limited basis — in order to provide for the 120-odd students that remain on campus. Essential workers who must resume their work on campus include health care staff, public safety, facilities services, dining services, and information technology support, according to the staff-wide email sent out last week.
From plumbers to student mail staffers, there are a number of workers that are integral to the functioning of the college, said Mike Moser, director of facilities services — making them “essential workers” by definition. The college’s hope is to have these staff members work on a rotational basis to limit the number of them on campus at any one time.
“In short, we have approximately 125 students on campus that need our service support,” Moser said in an email to The Campus. “We’re aligned to provide that support and continue to adjust our plans daily as this situation evolves.”
He said that facilities wouldn’t have the capacity to adapt to such a dynamic situation save for the college’s new Covid-19 compensation plan. The plan includes a 21-day Covid-19 Pay Bank that increases employees’ allotted sick days.
Before the governor’s executive order, dining services had a different plan of action. With only one dining hall remaining open, around 70 dining employees were set to lend a hand with facilities, deep-cleaning and doing odd-jobs — like painting — as needed.
In light of the new mandate, this plan is no longer in motion. But barring the previous roadmap to move a number of workers to facilities, the backbone of dining services’ coronavirus-strategy remains intact, according to Dan Detora, executive director of food services. Employees will work in rotational teams of eight to limit their contact with other workers and only one dining hall will remain open.
In the new system, staff will end up working fewer hours. The days they will be forced to take off because of the stay-at-home mandate will come out of their Covid-19 Pay Banks.
After being assigned to teams of eight during their final meeting, dining staff accepted a somber reality: Aside from the seven other workers on their teams, employees did not know when they would see their colleagues and friends again.
“Usually right before Christmas break, when you know you’re not going to see each other for two weeks, we give each other hugs,” said McCaffrey of the Atwater dining staff. “This time, we couldn’t hug each other goodbye.”
(04/02/20 10:00am)
“Are you coming home tomorrow?” I texted my mom on my third day of social isolation, still in a hazy state of heartbreak and denial and seeking a familiar comfort.
A minute later, she responded: “This makes me sad. I don’t think so.”
Not the answer I wanted, but the one I knew was coming. As an internal medicine physician at the Seattle Swedish Medical Hospital, my mother had finished her four shifts for the week. And yet she still had to stand by on call, waiting.
At the time, internal hospital projections said it would be 10 days until Seattle — where the first American coronavirus death took place — looked like Italy. This wasn’t hard to believe: All over the city, hospitals had canceled all elective surgeries and non-essential appointments in order to transform entire wings to prepare for the coming influx of Covid-19 patients. On a soccer field where I used to play, they’d begun construction of a 200-bed field hospital. By all accounts, it would be mere days until the healthcare systems were overrun and overextended — and so my mom stayed, to linger amidst the strange calm that preceded the terrifying, inevitable storm of patients.
After I left for college, my family moved to North Central Washington, with my mom commuting in and out of Seattle for work. Now, she remains in the city alone, unable to return to her family, and each day that passes without her feels like a tremendous loss. It may be safer for me out here, but it is stranger; especially now that the physical presence of my mom has been replaced with a speakerphone that occupies the fifth spot at the dinner table.
Already, my mother is beginning to feel the strain. At 3 a.m. on the same night my mom confirmed she would not be returning home, she checked herself into urgent care with unusually high blood pressure accompanied by a serious anxiety attack. This was the result of a vicious cycle of news consumption and somber conference calls in regards to ventilators, masks, fatality rates and testing availability. In an eerie late-night role reversal, she was reassured by the urgent care specialist that many other doctors felt the same way, and then dispatched. Moments like those challenge my own false preconceptions about healthcare workers, who seem like these invincible and untouchable beings that will swoop in to save us all. In reality, they’re significantly more vulnerable than most — and their ability to effectively do their jobs hinges on us.
In fact, for many healthcare providers, it is a manner of when, not if, they will become patients themselves. Nationwide, many are opting to sew their own masks or use bandanas as the medical supply quickly depletes. Additionally, all over the country, the burden of hazardous care is fragmenting families like mine, as many clinicians opt to separate from loved ones instead of risking exposing them to the virus.
In the weeks leading up to my departure from Middlebury, I called my mom once a day (if not multiple times) to worry and ask ridiculous questions and then worry some more. I relied on her in each moment of coronavirus-adjacent uncertainty while still on campus — but now it had become apparent that I needed to stop. I needed to stop asking her if my persistent cough meant the world was ending. I needed to stop pretending she was this untouchable and omniscient superwoman who could instantly assuage my unease. (I’m now forbidden from uttering anything along the lines of “I’m bored” to her, as she reminded me that she would give up her frenzied panic and despair for boredom in an instant.) What she is up against is unimaginable, and far more dismal than my not-leaving-the-couch and missing-my-friends grumpiness will ever be. Last week, my mom jokingly asked who I thought my 14-year old brother would prefer as a legal guardian. I wondered how much pain was disguised behind her lighthearted tone.
It may be months before I see my mom again, but this time I’m not across the country at Middlebury. I’m mere hours away, wrangling my siblings in some messy semblance of fabricated mothering, trying and failing to fill her shoes. The other day, during one of our frequent, petty arguments about whose turn it was to load the dishwasher, my younger brother uttered one of his favorite lines: “Don’t tell me what to do, you’re not my mom.” But then he paused, letting a tiny, nervous laugh escape. “Well, I guess now, you kind of are.”
When we talk about “flattening the curve”, we are not just looking to protect obscure and cryptic bureaucratic systems. The framework of these institutions is comprised of valiant individuals who are not immune, and not superhuman. And yet despite their own humanity and susceptibility, they will continue to show up even if there are not enough ICU beds, or ventilators, or testing kits, or equipment to keep them safe. My mom stays at work for you, miles and hours away from her loved ones. Please, please stay at home for her.
Lily Laesch ’23 is one of The Campus’s Opinion editors.
(04/02/20 10:00am)
The NESCAC canceled all competitions, including conference championships, on March 11 to reduce the spread of Covid-19. The presidents of all 11 NESCAC institutions agreed unanimously on the decision. Following the announcement, athletic directors NESCAC-wide agreed to suspend in-person recruiting through April 30 while simultaneously allowing electronic and written forms of communication.
A day after the NESCAC’s decision, the NCAA canceled all remaining competitions and winter championships, including the women’s hockey’s NCAA quarterfinal between Middlebury and Endicott College. The game was slated to take place on Saturday, March 14.
Similarly affected were athletes planning to participate in NCAA skiing, track & field, and swimming championships.
Senior athletes, who were looking forward to rounding out their final seasons, reacted to the news with disappointment.
“The timeline on the decision was so quick,” said Weston Brach ’20, co-captain of the men’s tennis team. “It felt like one day we were training and getting mentally prepared for the first spring matches, and the next day we were told to leave campus.”
Some athletes were already on the cusp of achieving their championship dreams.
“I was simply heartbroken. 27 games, 21 wins, a NESCAC championship appearance and a bid to the NCAA's — all for that NCAA tournament,” said Sidney Porter ’20, a member of the women’s hockey team. “Everything we had worked for the entire season that led to the unbelievable opportunity to host that quarterfinal game and have a chance to go to final four, the first time in my four years, was taken away.”
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(04/02/20 9:59am)
Political Science Professor Allison Stanger has extended her sabbatical another year after winning awards that will take her to Stanford, Calif. and Washington, D.C. next fall and spring.
Stanger, who spent this past year as a fellow and visiting professor at Harvard University, will be the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in Ethics and American History at the John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress for 2020–2021. On a separate appointment, she will also be a fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) during that time.
She will spend the year working on her new book, tentatively titled “Consumers vs. Citizens: Social Inequality and Democracy’s Public Sphere in a Big Data World,” she said in an email to The Campus. She noted that the locations of her upcoming posts will position her ideally for this kind of work, since she will be close both to the offices of the government and Silicon Valley.
Stanger said she plans on returning to Middlebury for the 2021–22 academic year.
“I’m very grateful to both my colleagues in the Political Science Department and to the administration for their exceptional support, and I am looking forward to returning to Middlebury when my fellowships end,” she wrote. “The experiences I have had these past few years should make me a better teacher and resource for Middlebury students.”
Stanger was injured by protesters during Charles Murray’s visit to Middlebury in 2017. In the fracas that followed the disrupted talk, Stanger, who mediated the talk and escorted Murray out of the venue, suffered whiplash and a concussion.
The following fall, Stanger began what was slated to be a two-year leave. But at the end of the second year, Stanger announced to the Middlebury Political Science faculty and staff her plans to remain off-campus for the 2019–2020 academic year.
Stanger is currently a technology and human values senior fellow at Harvard’s Edmund J. Safra Center for Ethics, and is teaching a course at the university (now remotely, from Vermont) called “The Politics of Virtual Realities.” In her email, Stanger added that she was recently appointed to the Science Board of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico.
The handbook states that the college does not guarantee to faculty “extraordinary leaves” — leaves that last more than one year — but that the college may grant such a leave when a professor is offered “an unusual professional opportunity.”
Dean of Faculty Sujata Moorti said that the college prioritizes “departmental and college planning in approving leaves.” The Political Science department in particular typically has between two and four professors on leave in any given year, according to Political Science Department Chair Erik Bleich. Next year, only one other professor — Professor Nadia Horning, who teaches in a different subfield — will be on leave.
According to information available on the college’s website, Stanger’s current leave of absence is unpaid by the college. When asked if next year’s leave would also be unpaid, Moorti said Stanger “will be paid by the institutions hosting her.”
The CASBS offers stipends to first-time fellows, and an endowment at the Library of Congress funds the chair position, which pays a stipend of $13,500 per month. Nominees for that position are sourced from a number of individuals and are recommended to the Librarian of Congress by a selection committee.
Bill Ryan, the director of communications at the Library of Congress, characterized the position as one that “supports exploration of the history of America with special attention to the ethical dimensions of domestic economic, political and social policies.” He said the start and end dates of the chairmanship have not yet been finalized. The CASBS position runs September 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021.
Before the coronavirus led to the cancellation and postponement of all on-campus events, Stanger was scheduled to visit Middlebury April 7 to talk about her most recently published book, “Whistleblowers: Honesty in America from Washington to Trump,” alongside the New York Times’s David Sanger. The book was fortuitously released this September, the same day House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. The inquiry was spurred by a whistleblower complaint against the President.
In the months that followed the book’s release, Stanger made a number of high-profile radio and TV appearances, and penned pieces for the New York Times and The Atlantic. In February, Stanger was one of about 50 authors to win a Prose Award from the American Association of Publishers for the book, in the category of Government, Policy and Politics.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the location of Stanford University. It is located in Stanford, California.
(04/02/20 9:58am)
The college’s ski areas at both the Snow Bowl and Rikert Nordic Center have cut their seasons short. Despite previous plans to stay open for the weekend of March 13, the ski areas had their last day of the season that Saturday — the day before Middlebury students were required to leave campus, and three weeks ahead of their planned closure date of Saturday, April 4.
“Making this about community safety was easy with respect to deciding to close,” said Mike Hussey, general manager of Rikert and the Snow Bowl. “It absolutely made sense to all of us involved in the decision making process.”
Closure discussions
Hussey and his team began discussions about an early closure once they received word on Tuesday, March 10 that Middlebury was suspending in-person classes and sending students home.
“On Wednesday the 11, I met with the team at the ski areas and determined that keeping the areas open would not further the cause of ‘social distancing,’” Hussey said. “The Base Lodge [at the Snow Bowl] is a melting pot of a vast cross section of people.”
Hussey recommended to Middlebury’s Senior Leadership Group (SLG) that the ski areas close on Friday, March 13. “The decision was initially left to me then the SLG took it up,” Hussey said. After the college announced it was extending its deadline for departures and that Middlebury students were allowed to stay on campus through Sunday, March 15, the two parties agreed to keep the ski areas open through the weekend.
Hussey said that the Middlebury ski areas, which publicly announced their closure plans on March 13, were some of the first ski areas in the country to do so.
While Vermont has not issued a state order to shut down ski resorts, as was seen in Colorado, Vail Resorts (including Stowe and Okemo), Alterra Resorts (Sugarbush, Stratton) and Powdr Resorts all announced on March 14 that they would close immediately.
As a result, the Snow Bowl became a popular backup option on Sunday to skiers who had been left stranded by the immediate closures at other mountains along the Route 100 valley. However, at 8:20 a.m. on Sunday, 10 minutes before the scheduled opening of the lifts, Hussey made the decision to close the mountain as the lodge was already in excess of a 250 person maximum set by the state government of Vermont.
“This was initially a hard decision as it was a great opportunity for new customers to experience the Snow Bowl, something we strive for,” Hussey said, “but in reality it was easy because it wasn’t about the Snow Bowl or the skiing but the safety of the people.”
Lost revenue and opportunity
The need to shut down quickly — sometimes temporarily, sometimes indefinitely — in response to the virus has greatly affected local business across Addison County and Vermont. Hussey said he doesn’t have an estimate yet of lost revenue from the early closure of the ski areas, but did note that the end of March is not typically a highly profitable time.
“The main revenue sources are season pass sales, the holidays, and [the college’s] Feb vacations,” said Hussey. “We missed a few weeks of weekend skiing, mostly for pass holders, and a couple events.”
Jack Brady ’21 was one of the many pass holders seeking to take advantage of the last weeks of the season. “I like to get out at least a couple of times a week through the end of March,” Brady said. “The conditions may not be as great towards the end of the season, especially with the amount of snowfall this year, but it is always fun to ski with friends.”
Thanks to the decision to keep both campus and the ski areas open into the weekend, Brady was also one of many students able to take advantage of the Snow Bowl’s last days.
“I was lucky enough to go to the Snow Bowl on Saturday, which ended up being closing day,” Brady said. “While many students had already left campus the prior day, I enjoyed this last opportunity to ski at the bowl.”
Next steps
Hussey and his team are still working hard to officially wrap up the ski areas for the season.
“Currently, we are able to do the customary closure work for the ski areas as it is primarily independent work on the mountain and office work that can be done remotely,” Hussey said.
He does not expect a major disruption in the work plan, with the early closure being close enough to their normal business cycle, but shares the uncertainty that most small business owners are facing amidst the crisis.
“That said, we do not know what this pandemic will bring and are planning for how to work effectively in the next months.”
(04/02/20 9:58am)
Not many would characterize Middlebury’s student-administration relationship as “simple.” Mere weeks ago, the college faced intense, sustained outcry from students protesting Charles Murray’s third controversial invitation to speak on campus. On Murray and other issues, students have critiqued the administration for a lack of forums for accessible, inclusive dialogue, as well as a broader lack of transparency around decision processes. It’s tough to blame these critics: Communication relaying decisions made by the administration often assumes a distant, all-too institutional tone.
Like pretty much everything else in our lives, though, that tone — not to mention the broader student-administration relationship — shifted over the past few weeks.
Take the days leading up to students’ departure from campus. Per the college’s March 10 email, nearly all students were initially expected to vacate their rooms by the night of Friday, March 13. Responding to students’ stressed objections, though, the college extended that move-out date to late Sunday, allowing more time to book plane tickets or make arrangements to stay with friends. While students were unable to reap the benefits of this extension — like those who had already scrambled to purchase Friday plane tickets — we appreciate the flexibility and humility exhibited in this gesture, which recognized that the original timeline was neither practical nor sympathetic.
This same tone imbued administration communication throughout spring break, wending its way into regular emails, social media updates and resource pages from various college bodies. While these updates rarely claimed to have all the answers (many simply alluded to decisions under consideration), they went a long way toward making scattered students feel in the loop. These dispatches weren’t purely informative, either; they contained as much well-wishing and community-building as they did logistics, from photos of seniors at sunrises to poetry courtesy of President Laurie Patton. Plus, rather than silo updates into discrete emails to students, faculty and staff, information was compiled together onto a single, publicly-available page. We’re pleased by how many of these announcements read less like stiff, official college communications and more like the reflections of individuals likewise mourning the loss of our on-campus community. During a crisis which has quite literally stripped us of the comfort of others’ company, such virtual displays of humanity were and continue to be deeply appreciated.
Our appreciation extends beyond Facebook posts or emails, to initiatives like Student Emergency Funds and offers to compensate for lost work studies. And comparing Middlebury’s response to that of other schools has only reinforced our sense of pride. Rather than make an immediate decision on, say, commencement proceedings (some schools have cancelled them outright or else intend to stage virtual ceremonies), Middlebury has held off for the time being in order to consider all options — and, in an email sent over spring break, President Patton even asked for students’ help in coming up with those options. The school is also providing staff with a Covid-19 Pay Bank, which will allow them to take off 21 additional sick days without dipping into their regular banks of days. We are pleased by the continued reassurance that wage continuity is one of the college’s priorities, even amidst an uncertain financial situation.
This isn’t to say that the college’s response to our current crisis has been perfect. Many students find themselves frustrated or confused by unanswered questions — what, for instance, has Middlebury done with students’ possessions left on campus? Is the college planning to standardize the wide range of teaching approaches individual professors have adopted? Will the 120 students remaining on campus be asked to leave before the semester is over? Others are unsatisfied with current plans for the semester, as the debate around opt-in and universal pass/fail grading indicates. And the remote resumption of classes this week will inevitably be attended by its own fresh set of concerns.
While we recognize that confusion and ambiguity are unavoidable during such a sudden, unprecedented period, we ask that the college exercise the same striking flexibility and empathy in addressing these and future issues. As the spring semester carries on, we want the college to continue to value Middlebury’s off-campus community by maintaining a consistent openness to students’ feedback. We’d hope, too, that this accessible, human approach to administration extends beyond our current crisis and into future academic years. Setting inevitable fears and frustrations aside, the last few weeks have left students proud of the college which most of us have, for the moment, left behind. We trust we’ll be just as proud of the one we return to.
(04/02/20 9:57am)
Update: Since this article was published, Dean of Students Baishakhi Taylor told The Campus that students remaining on campus will be allowed to stay until the end of the semester, as long as federal and state governments do not change their policies. See that update in full here.
For the approximately 120 students who have remained at Middlebury since in-person classes were discontinued on March 13, campus life is far from what it was just a few weeks ago. As the threat of Covid-19 continues to rise, the college has implemented a series of changes geared towards social distancing and outbreak preparedness. Students are still waiting to hear whether they will be allowed to stay on campus for the remainder of the semester or asked to go home.
Nearly all campus buildings, including libraries, Atwater and Ross dining halls, and most residence halls, are closed to the remaining students. Students received an email on Wednesday, March 18 that asked them to relocate to Gifford, Hepburn, and Forest Halls by Saturday, March 21.
Last weekend, Meili Huang ’23 packed up her Battell double and moved into a single in Hepburn. Huang said the move-out process was similar to that which many students who left campus experienced the week prior.
“They offered the boxes and everything and there was a sign up sheet for asking for people to help, and they will help you move everything,” she said.
Xuan He ’20, recounted a similar experience. She said college facilities staff drove students and their boxes between their old and new rooms.
“I was really moved to see so many people working together to make sure that students on campus still have a place to stay,” she said.
Although the school consolidated students into three residence halls, they strategically assigned rooms in a manner that promotes social distancing. Individual halls within the dorms are at half occupancy at most, and all students are living alone.
“The halls are pretty empty, quiet, and it's just kind of weird,” Huang said.
No more than two students share a single bathroom and some students have a bathroom to themselves. Custodial staff are working even harder to ensure spaces are clean — He said it seems they are now cleaning the bathrooms daily.
Francoise Niyigena ’21, a First Year Counselor who lived in Hadley, said that a piece of paper on the doors of students’ former rooms stated they were approved to stay on campus until the end of spring break. The school has not yet confirmed whether students can live on campus beyond April 5, but some are taking their relocation as a sign that they will be permitted to stay until the end of the semester. Niyigena’s Commons Residence Director said the rooming situation could potentially change depending on Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines.
The email students received regarding dormitory relocation said that moving would make things easier on staff and that the school had a responsibility to the greater Middlebury community. Niyigena said she thinks this means empty dorms could be repurposed to increase Porter Hospital’s capacity need be. He, who previously lived in the Interfaith House, said her former residence is being converted into a potential quarantine space.
Vermont Governor Phil Scott issued a statewide stay-at-home order on March 24, asking residents to cease nonessential travel. Niyigena said that students essentially already adhered to such standards prior to the actual order. Students are not permitted to leave the town of Middlebury, and many businesses have closed. Middlebury’s grocery stores are open, but news of a local Shaw’s employee who tested positive for Covid-19 has spread concern among students.
At Proctor, the only dining hall that has remained open, staff members serve food in disposable to-go boxes, and students can no longer eat in the dining rooms.
“For the last couple of days, the dining hall tables have been removed,” said Niyigena. “There's like a chair wall between us and the staff that are serving us.”
Despite these changes, students still have many food options available to them. He said there are usually four or five hot food options as well as some salad bar items, milks and a few different desserts. In order to limit how many people touch food and serving utensils, students can no longer serve themselves. Staff members place each student’s meal into a to-go box for them.
“The positive thing about this experience is that now students actually have more interactions — direct interactions — with dining hall staff,” He said. “We say ‘thank you’ and ‘hello’ and they ask us what we would like to have.”
Though nearly all campus spaces are now closed to students, MiddExpress and the Grille have remained open with limited hours. Even so, the school discouraged gatherings of more than ten people in an email to on-campus students. The Mail Center is also currently open, but is scheduled to close after April 5. Cater Wang ’21 said that students have been practicing social distancing by standing further from the Mail Center window, and staff now sign for picked-up packages instead of students.
“I guess the major difference is just you have less people waiting in line for a package,” he said.
In the absence of typical on-campus activities and hang-out spaces — and with coronavirus precautions minimizing face-to-face interaction — students are finding different ways to fill their time and see one another.
“For me, I go take walks and try to keep my room sanitized and meditate,” He said. “I meditate quite often or try to do yoga, and sometimes my friends and I do workout sessions outside together.”
Huang said she has spent a lot of time in her room doing work and watching TV shows, but she sometimes asks friends if they want to pick up lunch and eat it together. Niyigena has also appreciated small-scale group activities such as evening yoga sessions planned by one of her friends.
“Or you do a movie night or have tea or cook together with just like three, four other people, just to kind of have that sense of community,” she said. “I think that's been really, really helpful for me.”
While small get-togethers provide a degree of normalcy, students noted how much emptier the campus feels.
“I've gone for a couple walks, maybe for like a run around, and you barely see anybody,” said Niyigena. “Or maybe you see like two or three other people, but that's it.”
