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(10/10/19 10:03am)
“People are obsessed with Middlebury” — even and especially after they leave the college, according to Professor of the Practice Erin Davis. As a co-producer of “Midd Moment,” along with Juliette Luini ’18.5 she’s encountered a fair number of Middlebury fans. “For a lot of alumni ,” she said, “this is a real part of their identity.”
The first episode of “Midd Moment” was released on Monday, Oct. 7. “Midd Moment” is a new podcast hosted by Laurie Patton in an effort to connect with the Middlebury alumni community. In the brief introduction to the podcast, Patton explains that many alumni are interested in “a direct link to the Middlebury community.” The podcast features a different guest each week, including professors, alumni and other people with connections to Middlebury. In addition to Middlebury Magazine, the podcast is another outlet for alumni to connect with the Middlebury community. “When you’re not here anymore or on one of Middlebury’s campuses, directly participating in Middlebury, they miss it,” Davis said.
Davis explained that the podcast aims to “continue to give people access to the stuff that you miss once you leave Middlebury.” When asked about student interest in the podcast, she said that it is geared toward alumni so she is uncertain how current students will respond to it, but hopes that they will listen to it and see what they think.
According to Davis, something she has taken away from producing the podcast is how much the college has given so many alumni. “There’re just people doing really cool stuff, who went to school here,” Davis said. “It’s really made clear to me what Middlebury has to offer. It’s an incredible springboard.”
Producing “Midd Moment” was a humbling experience, Davis said. As a Professor of the Practice at the college, Davis sees students pushing themselves academically “to the limit every day,” but hopes that they will develop skills that help them make a difference in the world.
“[Podcasts] have the potential to make you feel connected, to make you learn something new, or to feel something new by the time the podcast ends,” Davis said. She hopes that this will ring true for “Midd Moment” as well.
When planning the podcast, Davis said that they were considering how to make it more appealing to current students, yet it did not seem like an effective way to engage with them. The production team threw around ideas such as interviewing students, but those ideas all “felt false, like old people trying to appeal to young people,” Davis said.
Davis said that the producers of “Midd Moment” want to be representative of the diversity of alumni career paths. They tried to find a diverse group of alumni to talk to about their current endeavors and how the college has impacted their work. One of the interviewees, Bianca Giaever ’12.5, found success immediately after graduating, and now, several years later, continues to develop her voice in the film and radio world. Koby Altman ’04, the general manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers, spent years coaching after he graduated from Midd. Another alumna, Julia Alvarez ’71, has been publishing successful novels for over 30 years.
The first episode featured Environmental Studies Scholar in Residence Bill McKibben. McKibben, one of the world’s leading environmentalists, opens the episode by saying “I’m not convinced that there’s any institution in the world that’s produced more people doing more interesting things in the environmental world than Middlebury.” President Patton and McKibben discuss the college’s environmental initiatives, including the Energy 2028 plan and the college’s plan to divest completely from fossil fuels. Patton asks McKibben what he thinks needs to be done to change people and institutions to actively and effectively combat climate change and hey discuss the importance of individual responsibility and group action. According to McKibben, the key to effective action is in “individuals deciding to become a little less individual and joining together in movements large enough to make some difference.”
“I hope it scratches the itch that alumni feel to be reconnected to Middlebury,” Davis said. “So I hope that they can read the magazine and feel connected, I hope they can listen to the podcast and feel connected, I think it’s just another way for people to connect.”
This season of the podcast features 11 episodes with different guests each week. The podcast airs on Mondays.
(10/10/19 9:59am)
It’s week five of term and I can’t name a single movie in theaters. I check the date not once, but multiple times a day. I was in Wilson Café last Friday and I heard a student ask, “So wait, what happens if they impeach him?”
Her friend shrugged and sipped his iced coffee. A moment passed, and then:
“Hang on — they’re actually trying to impeach him?”
New students, I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that this place has a unique ability to block out the rest of the world. The space between BiHall and the Athletic Center is like our own Odyssean land of the Lotus-eaters, with footpaths unfurling in every direction like tributaries of the river Lethe. Really, it’s as though the minute we arrive in September we drudge up all knowledge of the outside world and put it in a Harry Potter-style Pensieve … which our parents promptly pack up and drive back to Boston in the family Escalade. Sure, there are exceptions, the kinds of people who turn heads in seminars by name-dropping every new White House hire. I suspect that for a lot of us, though, our best news-reading practices fall by the wayside during term-time.
To be clear, I sympathize. In many ways, simply being at Middlebury complicates any attempt to stay in the news loop. This campus isn’t exactly conducive to podcast listening (it’s tiny, and in the short walk from Forest to Davis you’ll run into at least four people who force you to pull out your AirPods and say hello). Print media is hard to come by; even when there were still free copies of The New York Times outside dining halls, these were picked to pieces by avid crossword do-ers (now, cruciverbalists have to get the app). And while articles appear from time to time in our News Feeds, we all know the only point of Facebook at college is to figure out whether the Alex you hooked up with in Munford last night is the same one in your friend’s GSFS lecture.
That said, the problem with these excuses became a lot clearer to me a few weeks ago. As a Toronto native, I was surprised to overhear the Canadian Prime Minister’s name while waiting in line for a Proctor panini press. A quick phone-check confirmed the worst: photos of the Liberal leader in brownface and blackface had surfaced and, in doing so, unleashed an understandable media storm.
Trudeau’s past abuses of privilege aside, I was shocked. The photos were released on Wednesday. At this point, it was Saturday. How had I missed that? Not to mention — what did it say about my literal and figurative living situation that I was able to miss that?
That afternoon, I FaceTimed my dad. When we talked about Trudeau, I struggled to keep up my side of the conversation. Proper noun-phrases like “Liberal Party” and “University—Rosedale Electoral District” (for which and in which I’d worked all summer) felt foreign on my tongue.
“Will it change the way you vote?” he asked. I wasn’t sure, so we switched to talking about things on the other side of the Pacific. My dad asked if I’d kept up with the protests in Hong Kong. I blushed. I hadn’t.
“What are they teaching you up there, Elle-Belle?” he asked.
Not everyone finds ignorance embarrassing. I’ve had conversations where the phrase “oh, I don’t read the news” is tossed around with relished irreverence, where obliviousness is worn as a blank badge of honor. Here, a lot of students seem to “Add/Drop” news-reading like it’s a fifth, eminently dispensable elective. If I were an advisor asked to sign off on that particular course switch, I’d remind my advisee that willful ignorance is a pretty profound privilege. At Middlebury, most of us can leave the outside world alone because we’re safe in the knowledge that, if we want, it’ll leave us alone too. But that isn’t true for everyone on campus, and it certainly isn’t true for the rest of the country.
Above all else, I’d remind my advisee that there’s a difference between getting an “education” and becoming world-aware. Many professors do their best to bridge that gap. Still, it’s one thing to study impeachment procedures in an Axinn lecture hall, and another entirely to appreciate that those procedures are happening right now, re-molding the socio-political landscape well beyond the next row of Green Mountains. I’d suggest that this second kind of awareness holds more value than any “A.”
And so it’s up to us to keep the outside world close, to search out headlines and perspectives and bring them into imaginative being on College Street. I realize it takes enormous effort. But it’s also enormously important — and, I’d argue, part of our duty as students at one of the best schools in the country. When I graduate in May, I’d like to re-enter a world I not only recognize, but might one day make an informed, meaningful contribution to.
(10/03/19 10:05am)
Political Science Professor Allison Stanger has begun her third year of academic leave from Middlebury. With minimal communication as to her whereabouts, students continue to wonder if and when she will return.
Currently a technology and human values senior fellow at Harvard University’s Edmund J. Safra Center for Ethics, Stanger is “working on projects of her own,” according to Harvard Fellowships and Programs Manager Emily Bromley. Bromley was unable to provide further details of Stanger’s work at Harvard, but said “we are thrilled to have her here with us.”
Stanger is also a visiting professor with Harvard’s Department of Government, and will be teaching a course on the politics of virtual realities in the spring.
At the end of what was intended to be a two-year leave, Stanger disclosed plans to remain off campus for a third consecutive year in an email to the Middlebury Political Science faculty and staff. In the email, she announced her fellowship and visiting professorship, adding that she would also be a faculty fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance at the Kennedy School of Government.
Stanger’s official leave began in the fall of 2017, the semester after students shut down a lecture by controversial speaker Charles Murray. Stanger had been slated to mediate the Q&A with Murray, which she eventually did when the lecture moved to a livestream format following disruption from the protesters.
When the pair exited the venue, Stanger was jostled by a crowd. She suffered a concussion and neck injury.
The faculty handbook states that sabbaticals can last either six months or a full year, but does not make mention of two- or three-year leaves.
“When there are extraordinary opportunities faculty have the capacity to extend their leaves,” Dean of Faculty Sujata Moorti told The Campus.
Moorti did not say whether Stanger was on paid leave, since the matter is “relate[d] to confidential personnel information.”
One of Stanger’s former advisees, who asked to remain anonymous, has received minimal information about Stanger’s absence.
“When I asked Professor Stanger to be my adviser, she told me she was planning on taking a year’s sabbatical,” Stanger’s former advisee said. “It was only when I got back from the summer did I find out it was for two. I heard from a student and not the department.”
The advisee said the department was otherwise supportive, and they were able to find a new adviser to take Stanger’s place.
“I’ve tried to get in touch with Professor Stanger but despite sending her multiple emails, have never received a response,” the advisee said.
Political Science Department Chair Erik Bleich said the department has had to adjust to accommodate Stanger’s absence.
“She teaches a number of very popular courses in our department,” Bleich said. “We’ve been lucky to have Professor Felicia Grey join us for the three years of Professor Stanger’s time away from campus.”
Grey has been filling the department’s course offerings as a visiting professor in the international relations subfield, Stanger’s area of expertise.
Political Science Professor Kemi Fuentes-George said that the department has been able to offer more options for the International Politics course with Grey on the faculty, but that the college has not been able to offer Stanger’s American Foreign Policy course since her leave.
“My knowledge about her plans is and has been extremely minimal,” Fuentes-George added.
Grey will be teaching American Foreign Policy this spring.
Stanger has made a host of public appearances since her leave. In the immediate wake of the Charles Murray incident, Stanger wrote op-eds, spoke on panels and at conferences, and testified before a U.S. Senate committee about free speech on college campuses. Most recently, Stanger has been promoting her new book, “Whistleblowers: Honesty in America from Washington to Trump,” which she released on Sept. 24.
The book was coincidentally released the same day that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, following a whistleblower complaint that detailed conversations between Trump and the president of Ukraine about Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
The day after the book’s release, Stanger published a piece about whistleblowers in The Atlantic and was interviewed about her book on NPR. Stanger told Vermont’s WCAX-TV in an interview posted on Sunday that she believes whistleblowing is “heroic, and a bipartisan, American duty necessary to keep our nation’s elites honest and our democracy intact.”
Stanger’s fellowship at Harvard is scheduled to end on May 31, 2020. According to Political Science Department Coordinator Linda Booska, Stanger plans to return to campus next year.
Stanger did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article referred to Stanger’s former advisee by name. The advisee has since requested their name to be redacted from the article.
A previous version of the article also did not note that Grey will teach American Foreign Policy this spring. The article has since been updated.
(09/26/19 10:06am)
VOLLEYBALL
By: HEATHER BOEHM
Women’s volleyball came up big this weekend, cruising past two NESCAC rivals. The Panthers tallied a 3–0 victory over Colby on Friday, Sept. 20 and closed out a 3–2 win over Bates College on Saturday, Sept. 21. They boast a 2-0 NESCAC record after the wins, and a 7-2 overall record.
If the Panthers were going to make the long trek to Maine, they were going to show up on court. Despite a rocky last weekend, the women were ready to take on their first NESCAC battle. Although Middlebury took the first three sets, each one was a fight to the very end.
Corley Doyle ’22 and Maggie Wise ’22 lead the squad to their sweep, putting up eight kills each. Gigi Alper ’20 protected her side of the net with 23 digs.
Middlebury’s matchup against Bates was a much tougher five sets. The Panthers bested the Bobcats in the first set before Bates stole the next two. The Panthers were able to respond by picking up the next two sets.
Wise proved to be a crucial part of Saturday’s win with 19 kills, while Alper dove around the court to a season high, recording 40 digs.
Beth Neal ’20 commented on the team’s excitement after a decisive weekend.
“Coaches and players were thrilled with the results of this weekend,” Neal said. “Our focus up until this point was to get ready for NESCAC play. The fact that we were able to come off of a seven-hour bus ride Friday night and leave with two conference wins is definitely a positive sign of what’s to come for the rest of the season.”
The women now look to next weekend’s challenge: Amherst. Middlebury will have some nice views on the road to the home of the Mammoths on Friday, Sept. 27.
Neal spoke about the team’s focus for this week’s practice.
“We have always matched up really well with Amherst,” Neal said. “With that in mind, we are definitely going to work on limiting our unforced errors in the coming week. Having no midweek game, we are set up perfectly. We have ample time to focus on the quality of our reps, rather than the quantity. Once we are able to make these minor adjustments and hone in on the potential for our deeply skilled team, we will be unstoppable in the conference.”
MEN'S SOCCER
By ERIK ARVIDSSON
After coming up without any goals in their past two contests, the luck of the men’s soccer team was due for a change.
Their busy last week began on Sept. 17 with a 1–0 win over Mount St. Mary of New York. Then, on Saturday, Sept. 21, the Panthers earned their first NESCAC win over Hamilton. Ben Potter ’20 scored in the 59th minute, and the Panthers held on for 30 more minutes to earn the win.
“I especially have been impressed by Ben Potter, or ‘Pawtah’ as he is called in the locker room,” former player Kye Moffat ’19 said. “He has been scratching together goals, not turning his back on any scoring chance.”
On Sunday, Sept. 22, the Panthers hosted Vermont rival Castleton University. The boys brought it to their opponents, winning with a final score of 7–1. Jake Labranche ’21 scored two goals.
“I saw the opportunity to score, and I told myself, ‘Come on Jake, you can do this,’ and then I did it, and then everyone gave me high-fives!” Labranche said.
Next up, the Panthers play Connecticut College at home on Saturday, Sept. 28, and Amherst on the road on Sunday, Sept. 29.
WOMEN’S GOLF
By MICHAEL SEGEL
This past weekend, eight players from the women’s golf team competed in the Mount Holyoke College Invitational. The Panthers earned an impressive second place finish out of the 16 participating teams, which included NESCAC rivals such as Bates and Bowdoin and some out of conference teams such as NYU and Vassar.
Williams won the two day event, finishing under 600 strokes with 599, leaving Middlebury and NYU in a second place tie with 622 apiece. Leading Middlebury to this near–top finish were Chloe Levins ’20 and Katie Murphy ’23. Levins tied for fourth out of a staggering 86 participants (73 on Saturday, 78 on Sunday) while Murphy put up a strong performance herself, rounding out the weekend with a four way tie for ninth overall (79-76). Kayla Li ’23, Anna Zumwinkle ’20 and Elizabeth Kenter ’23 all placed within the top 27, making it a strong weekend all around for the squad.
On another promising note, five of the eight Middlebury contestants tallied a lower score on Sunday compared to Saturday. The Panthers are back in action next weekend where they will host the Phinney Golf Classic, their last tournament before the NESCAC Qualifier.
MEN'S GOLF
By JACK KAGAN
The Middlebury men’s golf team is coming off a 16th place finish out of 25 teams after this past weekend’s Williams Fall Invitational. The tournament featured fierce rivals such as Williams, Trinity and Hamilton, all of whom finished in the top 10. Teams from 13th–16th place were separated by only a couple of strokes, with Middlebury finishing three strokes behind 13th place St. Lawrence University.
A bright spot of the weekend was standout captain Jeffrey Giguere ’20, who tied for ninth in the tournament overall. His performance is even more impressive considering he finished the first round tied for 14th. The next highest Panther finisher was Sean McGarrity ’23 who tied for 51st.
After a promising third-place finish last weekend at the Duke Nelson Invitational, Middlebury will need to avoid another middle-of-the-pack performance. Doing so could have significant implications for the conference standings, as they head to Wayland, Mass. for the NESCAC Championship Qualifier on Saturday, Sept. 28–29.
WOMEN'S SOCCER
By JENNY LANGERMAN
Women’s soccer struggled at Hamilton this past weekend, finishing with a 1–1 tie on Saturday, Sept. 21.
After some missed scoring opportunities by Middlebury, Hamilton got on the board first with a rebound shot midway through the first half. The Panthers then responded with a goal by Simone Ameer ’21. Ameer currently leads the team in scoring.
Nonetheless, Hamilton’s seasoned goalkeeper continually frustrated the Panthers’ attacks. Gretchen McGrath ’21, Eliza Van Voorhis ’21 and Ameer had strong chances to score, but all their shots were skillfully knocked down. Panther goalkeeper Ursula Alwang ’20 also held down Hamilton, with multiple saves throughout.
The Panthers hope to remain relevant in the rankings when they play against Connecticut College and New England College on Sept. 28 and 29.
CROSS COUNTRY
By JORDAN HOWELL
The Aldrich Invitational, hosted by Middlebury, gave the men’s and women’s cross country teams an opportunity to showcase their fighting spirit before friends, family and other members of the Middlebury community. The Invitational took place on Sept. 21.
The men’s squad achieved third place. Top finishers included Zander Kessler ’22 and Connor Montgomery ’20. Kessler took fifth place amongst all runners with a time of 26:52.4. Montgomery, meanwhile, finished in 13th place with a time of 27:25.8.
The women’s squad attained first place. Talia Ruxin ’20 got a time of 2:43.5, allowing her to capture second place. Chloe Smith ’21 came in right after Ruxin with a time of 23:50.6.
“I was pretty happy with it!” Smith said, when asked about her performance. “I’m excited to continue to build on my base this season and to race in spikes next week.”
The season continues as the men and women will compete in the Purple Valley Classic at Williams on Saturday, Sept. 28.
“Going into Purple Valley, we are excited to put together a full roster and spike up for the first time this season, because despite having three meets, we haven’t really competed at our full capacity yet,” Kessler said.
FOOTBALL
By LAUREN BOYD
Football shut out the Bates Bobcats 28-0 this past Saturday, Sept. 21, in its first away match of the season. The team will look to improve its record to 3-0 this upcoming Saturday, Sept. 28 against Trinity at home.
Middlebury dominated the offensive and defensive games, scoring 28 unanswered points. Led by quarterback Will Jernigan ’21, the Panthers tallied 292 passing yards compared to the Bobcats’ 94. Alex Maldjian ’23 led the rushing game with 141 yards, which was more than all the rushing yards produced by Bates. In total, Middlebury rushed for 176 yards.
Defensively, a plethora of Panthers contributed to keeping the Bobcats away from the end zone. Jack Pistorius ’21, Pete Huggins ’21, Zander Bailey ’21 and Nate Stewart ’21 each recorded four tackles, while Bailey and Huggins each earned a sack.
The first two scores of the game came from the Panthers’ pass game; on the first drive, Jernigan connected with Maxwell Rye ’20, followed by a second touchdown pass to Aidan Power ’20. After Maldjian rushed for a 4–yard touchdown, the Panthers were up 21–0 going into the half.
Both teams went scoreless in the second half, until Maldjian scored a 49–yard touchdown. With four completed PATs from Carter Massengill ’20, the Panthers finished the game with a 28–0 win, improving their record to 2–0.
For their next game, the Panthers will play the Trinity Bantams at home, hoping to avenge last year’s loss.
(09/26/19 10:00am)
After lifetimes of being told to turn off the lights and stick to reusable water bottles, it’s easy to feel hopeless about climate change. Take this week: On Sunday, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization released a new, harrowing report about rising temperatures. Rather than engage with climate strikers across the country, the President tweeted that Greta Thunberg “seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future” (“So nice to see!”). And Facebook photos of devastation in the wake of Hurricane Dorian offered demoralizing, daily reminders that we aren’t prepared for the even more immediate consequences of the climate crisis.
Still, for those who joined the protest at College Park last Friday, it felt like maybe — just maybe — we might still have cause for hope.
With an issue as confounding and urgent as climate change, collective actions like voting and protesting are the closest things we currently have to answers. At a basic, human level, participation in large-scale activist movements is unifying. On Friday, members of the Middlebury community found renewed strength in the knowledge that others were not only worried about, but that they were working on, the same issue as they were, whether that knowledge came from joining the crowds in College Park or pulling up Facebook to find friends from all walks of life clicking “Interested” on the page for their own local climate strikes.
Energy2028 — the college’s four-pronged framework for increasing campus sustainability over the next nine years — similarly was the culmination of years of student climate activism. If upheld, the college’s promises represent enormous, tangible progress.
It seems a bit soon, though, to start patting ourselves on the back.
Self-interrogation, on the part of this editorial board and the broader student body alike, is important. Many Middlebury students (including members of this board) consider themselves self-aware and thoughtful eco-citizens. Yet many of those same Middlebury students have little knowledge of their college’s ecological footprint, or the college’s plan to reduce those footprints, as evidenced by the amount of background research we had to require in composing this editorial.
That is no longer acceptable if we claim sincerity in calling for the kinds of sweeping structural change our climate crisis demands. How can we hold the administration accountable to promises if we have not properly investigated what those promises are? Collective action is crucial; still, it rarely comes about as a result of abstract or isolated, uninformed thought. The UN General Secretary, António Guterres, made a similar point in anticipation of this week’s Climate Action Summit in New York, warning world leaders to leave behind “beautiful speeches” and arrive instead “with concrete plans and strategies for carbon neutrality by 2050.” He closed the summit by providing a comprehensive overview of those concrete initiatives. We need to apply the same substantive standard to climate conversations on campus.
Once we stopped trying to write an editorial telling everyone to drive less and recycle more, the editorial board began discussing the different ways we can use our platform to cover climate activism on campus. As mentioned in our first editorial of the year, we often talk about “holding the administration accountable.” The Campus sees itself as a sort of campus watchdog, and when it comes to an unprecedented emergency like climate change, interrogating the role our institution plays in that emergency is of utmost importance.
To that end, we are committed to publishing more climate-related content (and would love to receive some of that from you, in the form of pitches and op-eds). Beginning this fall, we will be spearheading a special interactive project that will allow viewers to visually engage with the ways in which Energy2028 is hitting the marks — and falling short.
This commitment stems not only from our duty as truth-tellers, but out of our unwavering belief in the importance of collective action. For students, professors and locals alike, that formed a rare, raw moment of solidarity, even — dare we say it — hope.
(09/26/19 10:00am)
Climate activists in over 150 countries left work, school and business as usual to join last Friday’s Global Climate Strike.
The first event in a planned week of worldwide climate activism, the Global Climate Strike arrived in Middlebury as hundreds of students, professors and town residents gathered at College Park to protest government apathy toward climate change. College students walked out of class at around 9:45 a.m. to attend the rally, joining students of all ages from the Addison Central School District as well as educators and community members.
Student organizations Divest Middlebury, Sunrise Middlebury, and Middlebury Sunday Night Environmental Group planned the strike in collaboration with Extinction Rebellion Vermont, a local climate activism group. Organizers Cora Kircher ’20, Zoe Grodsky ’20.5, Connor Wertz ’22 and Divya Gudur ’21 had been coordinating the event since July.
Attendees gradually collected around the speakers’ platform, and when most had arrived, strikers kicked off the event by chanting, “We are unstoppable. Another world is possible.”
“In my three years doing the climate strike, this is maybe the largest turnout we’ve had,” Grodsky told The Campus.
Some protestors held handmade signs that displayed phrases like: “Denial is not a policy,” “Go Greta [Thunberg!]” and “There is no Planet B.” College students hoisted a banner that stated “Strike 4 Climate.” The excited chattering and passionate dialogues about climate change subsided as a series of inspired speeches began. Families, friends and strangers alike stood side-by-side and listened intently.
Kircher spoke first, concentrating on the necessary coordination of the climate justice movement with “decolonization, racial justice and indigenous resistance.” As Middlebury is situated on what she referred to as “stolen land,” Kircher included a moment of silence in solidarity with the Abenaki — a native people of Vermont.
“We are here to demand an end to the age of fossil fuels, and we are here to demand something better,” Kircher said. “We’re striking because we believe that another world is possible, and we’re striking because that world is only as close as we make it and only as far away as we allow it to be.”
Grodsky spoke next, focusing on the uprising against oppressive institutions and the impossibility of true climate justice in a society where migrant, racial, and economic injustice are systemic and institutionalized.
“The climate change and the systems we talk about have material consequences on people’s lives—not in some far-off future, not in some far-off place, but right here, right now,” Grodsky said. “We must acknowledge that the disproportionate harm of climate change is falling right now on the most marginalized populations.”
During her speech, Grodsky also asked the crowd to join in remembrance of Juan de León Gutierrez, a 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant who, while fleeing the repercussions of climate change, was one of six children since September 2018 to die in United States custody.
Professor of Sociology and author of “Global Unions, Local Power” Jamie McCallum spoke after Grodsky, highlighting the power of protest to teach and to “win a better world.”
“There’s nothing I can think of that’s more ‘liberal arts’ than professors and students and community members being hauled off to jail together after such an action [as blockading the ICE Facility, or other acts of civil disobedience],” McCallum said at the rally.
McCallum also emphasized the ongoing alignment of the labor movement with the climate justice movement. He cited the United Auto Workers as an example of recent protest: On Sept. 20, they held a strike of 50,000 people against General Motors — a global corporation.
“We’re at a point where it’s pretty obvious that the climate crisis is an economic crisis, as well, and the people that have the power to transform an economic crisis, for the most part, are workers. Whether or not you work in an extractive industry, the climate crisis is beginning to affect all of us,” McCallum told The Campus. “There are all these ways in which these movements are cross-pollinating, and that is the holy grail of social change.”
Vivian Ross, a first-year at Middlebury Union High School, spoke fourth at the rally. She emphasized the onus on all community members — despite age, past activism (or lack thereof), or other obligations — to somehow actively engage in combating climate change.
“Walking out of school, leaving work, organizing a rally … These are actions that build and build into a barrier so high that the politicians and corporations can no longer scale it with their money and blatant lies,” Ross said. “As one human race, we are capable of making all the right decisions before the Earth as we know it dives off the cliff that it’s barreling toward. We are all perfectly capable of digging in our heels and refusing to let the worst of us get the better of us.”
Environmental Studies Professor Rebecca Gould then taught the crowd a Hebrew song called “My Strength,” traditionally sung in peaceful protests — at “racial justice marches in D.C., in front of ICE facilities, after the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, and in Jerusalem with women fighting for the right to pray at the Western Wall.”
“What music has done in social justice movements for hundreds of years, across cultures, is help us tap into the hope when we feel so much anger — not just righteous anger at the corporations but anger that gets in the way,” Gould said.
(09/19/19 10:01am)
Middlebury residents François Clemmons and Douglas Anderson will each receive a 2019 Vermont Arts Award from the Montpelier-based Vermont Arts Council. Both Clemmons and Anderson have been active in furthering the arts in the Middlebury community for more than two decades.
Clemmons will receive the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, announced originally by Governor Phil Scott on Sept. 6, 2019. In a Press Release from the Office of Governor Phil Scott, Scott said, “I am pleased to name François as the winner of this year’s Excellence in the Arts award. His renowned musical talent and years of service to his community made him the perfect choice. Congratulations, François, and thank you for making Vermont proud."
Clemmons served as the Alexander Twilight Artist-in-Residence and director of the Martin Luther King Spiritual Choir at Middlebury College from 1997 until his retirement in 2013. He is well known for his 25-year career portraying the role of Officer Clemmons on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and for his work as a Grammy Award-winning opera singer.
As an Artist-in-Residence at Middlebury College, Clemmons left a mark as a professor, community leader and mentor who interacted thoughtfully with students and other members of the college community.
“I would tell my students, ‘I want to know what you think’,” Clemmons said. “My goal up here was personhood. I was benefiting, and they were benefiting. It’s more than an artist in residence, it’s more than a music teacher, it’s how we as a society and as a race have to be together with one another.”
In addition to Clemmons, Anderson will receive the Arthur Williams Award for Meritorious Service to the Arts. Anderson is the current Artistic Director of the Town Hall Theater, Inc. in Middlebury. His previous directing projects include all Opera Company of Middlebury productions since 2004, as well as Middlebury College productions of ”Cabaret” and “Sunday in the Park with George.”
After moving to Middlebury in 1993, Anderson undertook the project of restoring the Middlebury Town Hall Theater. Built in 1883, the community’s theater had fallen into a state of disrepair, leaving room for a new hub of performing arts. After a ten-year rebuilding process, the theater reopened in 2008 and has been the home of several hundred events since. Anderson also founded the Opera Company of Middlebury in 2004.
Clemmons and Anderson have both been prominent artistic contributors to the town of Middlebury and Middlebury College. President Laurie Patton commended the two Middlebury artists’ work in the community.
“Through song and theater, François and Doug have brought to the Middlebury community much more than the beauty of art and performance,” Patton told the Rutland Herald on Sept. 14. “They’ve also shown us how emotionally powerful shared experiences can be.”
On Oct. 23, The Vermont Arts Council will hold a ceremony for the recipients at the Mahaney Arts Center.
(09/19/19 10:00am)
Imagine: You are a prospective student wandering the campus late last Thursday afternoon. Having marveled at the sheer scale of the Ross complex, peeked in through the narrow windows of Atwater dining hall and pestered your parents into buying you your first white-and-navy Varsity sweatshirt (as well as, of course, one for your younger sibling), you arrive at Chapel quad.
What you find there leaves an impression more vivid than any admissions pamphlet ever could.
There, long rows of tables extend out from McCullough Student Center, plastered with brightly-colored signs spelling out the names of different student organizations, covered in free candy. These tables stay in place for two hours, tittering in the mid-September wind as droves of socially-conscious freshmen straggle by. Every so often, one brave individual in Birkenstocks stops to talk to an upperclassman on the other side of the table, copying their email onto a sign-up sheet and snag a mini Snickers bar. Whatever you thought you knew about Middlebury College before, you will likely leave having made the following conclusion: To become a Middlebury student is to become involved.
As last Thursday’s Student Activities Fair illustrated, club culture is front and center at Middlebury. Back in high school, clubs were often fodder for our college applications, distilled to one-liners on our resumes or a singular talking point during an alumni interview. Here, they mean so much more. Let us explain.
For the first time in a long time, first years are given a moment to pause and reconsider their previous commitments and future aspirations. A number of us on the editorial board reflected on the many motivations for joining clubs in high school — fleshing out your Common App, for instance, or acquiescing to overbearing parents who are eager to fulfill their vicarious varsity football fantasies.
One editor vividly characterized her own arrival at college as a kind of “self-shedding:” gone were any perceived obligations to play the violin (as, at that point, she had for some 12 years) or dance ballet. Instead, she was free to follow her own, more up-to-date instincts and interests. To that end, we encourage you, first-years, to reflect on your own passions, and let current curiosities guide your extracurricular exploration. Do not be dissuaded by self-doubt, or any perceived lack of experience. One editor remembers starting out at The Campus by writing a regular film column — without “any knowledge about anything related to film whatsoever.” (“It worked out, didn’t it?” she laughed. A true case of “fake it ’till you make it.”)
Sophomores and juniors, conversations about joining clubs hold equal importance for you. Often, organizations form the crux of students’ social lives at Middlebury. One member of the editorial board, for instance, joined club tennis during her sophomore year. She said that, for her, “the importance of the actual tennis component was secondary.” She averred that the club could be about origami or roller-blading, but that at its core what was important to her was the continuity and security that comes from knowing a group of people for over two years.
The social benefits of being involved assume even greater importance in light of recent on-campus conversations about mental health. In an op-ed published over the summer, Arthur Martins ’22.5 alluded to the unique potential for isolation on a secluded college campus like Middlebury, or the often devastating burden that comes from trying to “figure out how to make sense of our experiences alone.” As many students know, this isolation assumes physical as well as emotional forms. In a place which regularly demands hours and hours of solitary studying — be it in dimly-lit thesis carrels among the furthest reaches of the Davis Upper Mezzanine or couches hidden on the fifth floor of BiHall — Middlebury students spend unavoidable amounts of time alone with their thoughts and textbooks.
Alternatively, participation in student orgs is an easy and effective way to engage with other people. For some, participating in an a capella group or improv troupe might be merely something different to do on a Tuesday night. But for others, when the sun begins to set around 4:15 p.m. and students find themselves sagging beneath an all-too-familiar February melancholy, an opportunity to leave the GIS lab and enter a vibrant room full of their peers forms nothing short of a lifeline. Many clubs, like Model UN and frisbee, even go so far as to eat dinner together. Aw!
Juniors abroad: ¡Escuchen! Vous pouvez rejoindre des clubs partout dans le monde. One member of the editorial board reflects that, had it not been for the “uniquely un-athletic” context of Oxford University, she would never have considered joining a women’s soccer team. Only among the “panting and pasty British” — her team’s goalkeeper, for instance, regularly smoked to relax while the opposing team took penalty shots — did she discover her own, somewhat athletic stride. Another editor identifies her choir as the “most valuable part” of her five months in Argentina.
And despite what you’ve heard, seniors, upperclassmen may even benefit the most from extracurricular activities. For instance, one board member talked about how various clubs helped him narrow down his career goals. We don’t have consulting or law classes, but we do have Middlebury Consulting Group and Middlebury Law. Take it from us: meeting late-night deadlines in The Campus office feels as real-life as it gets.
The benefits of getting involved at Middlebury extend well beyond freshman year. Even at a basic level, extracurriculars give students a chance to excel outside of Twilight seminar rooms; at an institution that places so much stress on academic achievement, this can provide a crucial well of confidence and identity for many members of the community.
If that doesn’t convince you, take it from the editor who pointed out that the stakes are “fairly freakin’ low”. If the walk to the ceramics studio turns out to be too long on a weeknight, or you stop attending Quidditch practices once it begins to get colder, do not fret. There will be another semester, and a fresh set of sign-up sheets to go with it.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Photos courtesy of Shirley Mao and Benjy Renton for the Campus.
(09/12/19 10:04am)
So, you want to be a Broadway star? For a few chosen Middlebury students, this dream becomes a reality each summer with the Potomac Theatre Project.
The Potomac Theatre Project, or PTP/NYC, is a Middlebury Theatre Department program that allows undergraduate students to be a part of the professional theatre world while still studying at the college. The project was founded in 1987 by Professors Cheryl Faraone, Richard Romagnoli and Boston University Professor Jim Petosa who were “determined to establish a dynamic and provocative company that would also provide a bridge to professional theatre for aspiring young students,” according to the company’s website. Students work alongside Actor’s Equity professionals and professors on two different productions that run in an Off-Broadway theatre in New York City for five weeks throughout the summer.
This program is unique to Middlebury and cannot be found at any other liberal arts college. Students are able to see what the “real world” of professional theatre is like while working with established actors and learning from their professors. Many of the Actor’s Equity professionals are Middlebury alumni who were originally students at PTP.
Students audition for the two summer productions at the college in a more personal setting than others in the industry. Zachary Varricchione ’21 said this was a major draw for him to do the program because he knew how other students had to deal with “huge cattle-call type auditions” to work in professional theater. The addition of having the program led by Middlebury professors made his decision even more clear. “To have a program that’s run by your own professors with intimate auditions is almost unheard of,” he said.
Madeline Ciocci ’20, who has been a part of PTP for two summers, says that the special connections between students and Equity actors are also what make the program so impactful. “It’s really exciting to get to know them, their craft, and their process, to learn from them.”
Varricchione said that observing the professionals at work contributed to “some of the biggest artistic growth I had this summer...[they] really inspired me to do my best and take some of their habits to raise my work to a higher caliber.”
Students at PTP are incorporated into every facet of the production, not just performing onstage. The entire cast and crew work together to help with marketing, business planning, and even set and costume design.
This deep-dive into the intensity of the Off-Broadway world is eye-opening and exciting for students who have been involved in theater previously. “I’ve been doing theatre for almost my whole life, but not until I did PTP did I understand not only how much emotional work theatre can be, but also how exhausting it can be in a physical sense,” Ciocci said. “It’s a life that’s totally and completely exciting, but also one that takes a wild amount of constant energy and commitment.”
The added responsibilities involved in being a member of the company is more realistic to what the professional world is like, which Varricchione appreciated coming from a college theater setting. At shows at the college, cast and crew members often have their designated roles with not that much overlap. PTP is more the “classic theater company experience, where the actors are in charge of run crew, and building sets, and everything else,” said Varricchione.
This season, the company put on two productions, “Dogg’s Hamlet,” “Cahoot’s Macbeth,” two plays often performed together by Tom Stoppard and “Havel: The Passion of Thought,” written by Harold Pinter, Václav Havel and Samuel Beckett. “Dogg’s Hamlet” is a play where three young boys try to confuse a driver by speaking “Dogg,” a language that is comprised of English words that mean the opposite of what speakers are used to. The play then turns into a 15-minute interpretation of “Hamlet.” The same cast also performed “Cahoot’s Macbeth,” which consists of actors performing Macbeth in a controlling state while under surveillance by a hidden government agent.
The other cast performed “Havel: The Passion of Thought,” which is composed of five one act plays that expose the challenges living in an oppressive Communist state. These plays were once considered so controversial that they were banned in Czechoslovakia, leaving actors to perform them in private homes and distribute them illegally.
This season’s choice of plays is in line with PTP’s focus on art that critically examines the world outside of the theater. On their website, the organization states how since its inception, PTP’s work has “addressed the necessity and difficulty of art, homelessness, censorship, pornography, AIDS, totalitarianism, apartheid and gender wars -- always in passionate, deeply human terms.”
When asked about what he wanted audiences to take away from “Dogg’s Hamlet” and “Cahoot’s Macbeth,” Varricchione said that the cast hoped that “the audience would think about how their actions have been complicit and how they have been resistant to oppressive systems today.”
Ciocci, a member of the “Havel” cast, felt that when she was “working on this set of plays that investigates resistance and dissidence under an oppressive regime, it’s impossible to not think about how timely the content feels.”
She elaborated on a specific moment in the play where a character, Stanekova is forced to decide whether or not to protest a fellow artist’s incarceration because of his activism or to “continue to subtly fight while existing within an unethical system.” She felt that this crisis when deciding which way to act against oppression to be relevant in today’s world where “it’s not clear which actions will yield the best results, and which actions you’ll be able to live with and respect yourself for.”
PTP co-founder, co-artistic director, director of “Dogg’s Hamlet,” “Cahoot’s Macbeth” and Chair of the Theatre Department Cheryl Faraone stated in the season’s introduction video that these plays are “the best kind of theatre; it makes you think, and it makes you feel, which has been kind of a PTP mantra for most of our 33 years.”
(09/12/19 10:01am)
On the Tuesday after I found out that my brother had died by suicide, one of my students told me that his best friend was his sunshine; she was his light when he felt himself surrounded by darkness. Eric was not like the warmth of sunshine. Eric was my moonlight—that cool, beautiful brilliance that perfectly complements the starry darkness of the universe. He was an ever-changing yet constant presence that filled me with wonder at the creative capacity of the human soul.
I started to draw and paint and write because he drew, and painted, and wrote—because once we were sitting on the thin mattress of his college dorm-room bed and I lamented the insignificance of human life, lamented that we are just specks of dust crying out into the void and so often we leave nothing behind but a few memories. And he was flipping through his sketchbook as he sat at the bench of his electric piano and he said—look, this is me, crying out into the void.
He cried out into the void in a voice tinged with the comic absurdity of his melodica, an instrument that ridiculously combines a mouth nozzle with a miniature keyboard. Unnecessary. Absurd. Hilarious. And beautiful for being a combination of those qualities. Eric loved that melodica because he knew it was the result of trying to create meaning in a universe without any meaning at all, and he was someone who fundamentally understood the importance of creating your own meaning.
Even though his striving has ceased, I will forever be grateful for the inspiration he gave me to cultivate my own creativity, to unabashedly pursue something that other people don’t consider valuable, because you love the process of striving.
Like staring up at the moon, there were times he felt just out of reach. As we spent this last year together at Middlebury, I saw him growing into the kind of man I didn’t just love as a brother, but a person I deeply enjoyed being around—a talented young man with varied passions and an edge of cynical humor that put the world in a new perspective. And it hurts beyond words to know that I lost him just as I was getting to know him.
I hate when people tell me things will get better. Because love and suffering go hand in hand, and if I ever cease to suffer at the loss of him, I will have ceased to love him. And that, I refuse to do.
Editors’ note: Eric Masinter ’21 died by suicide July, 2019. Eric took his life during a cross-country road trip returning to his home in Colorado from Middlebury, according to an all-school email from President Laurie L. Patton sent on July 11.
Eric is survived by his parents, Rob ’86 and Kathy, and siblings Jess ’19 and Sarah, U.S. Air Force Academy ’21. He was previously a contributing writer to the the Campus.
Those of us on the editorial board who worked with Eric were heartbroken by this news. Eric displayed thoughtful writing ability through the valuable contributions he made to the news and features sections of this paper. During his time at the Campus, Eric’s reporting focused on the greater Middlebury community, covering the achievements of alumni and students. We as a board would like to express our deepest sympathies to the Masinter family and to Eric’s close friends.
(08/13/19 6:01pm)
We are often told that college is a seminal period of our lives; that it is the time in which we grow the most because we leave our home communities, live on our own, and are able to fail and thrive in a liberal academic environment. We hold as self-evident that excelling in classes, assignments, and extracurricular activities will contribute to our personal growth and prepare us to face the challenges of the “real world.”
Yet, when the real world presented itself to me in the form of major depression in the fall of my first year at Middlebury, there was little from what I learned in class that equipped me with the tools to recognize, engage and deal constructively with the emotional challenges I was facing. In 2017, I withdrew from college to take care of myself. I couldn’t help but feel I was a failure for not living up to my peers’ and the college’s expectations. Not only did I think I was not worthy of returning, I was certain that this struggle was mine alone.
While struggles like mine can appear individual and inconsequential, they are deeply rooted in our collective ideas of what constitutes a normal college experience. High stress, sleep deprivation, as well as alcohol and substance abuse are perceived not only as inevitable, but as necessary to ensure we mature. Paradoxically, comprehensive conversations about their impacts on our mental wellbeing are repeatedly neglected and dismissed. With our struggles left unsaid, in fear that we are the only ones going through them and that no one else can understand us, we find ourselves burdened with figuring out how to make sense of our experiences alone. It is an impossible feeling.
The scale of struggling with mental health in college is often lost on us. According to the American College Health Association, three out of five students will experience mental health issues at one point of their college career, most often in the form of depression or anxiety. For two out of five students, these issues will be so severe as to significantly impair their ability to function socially and academically. Despite the severity of these conditions, the study reports that only a small percentage of students will seek help at their college’s counseling centers. Worryingly, at Middlebury, when students do attempt to ask for institutional help, they risk being met with overworked or unavailable resources.
This is too important an issue not be comprehensively and urgently addressed in all institutional levels at our school, because neglecting our emotional wellbeing has dire consequences. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for college-age students, and over 75% of lifetime mental health conditions will develop by age 24 with lifelong implications if not diagnosed and treated early.
While it is imperative to strengthen and better fund Parton Health Center, it is equally necessary to find other ways to increase our institutional support network. Providing comprehensive access to a quality standard of institutional care should not come at the expense of overworking our counsellors or residential staff, nor the student body itself. We must stop approaching mental health from a crisis-intervention perspective, instead finding ways to incorporate policies that can promote long-term emotional resilience. It is not enough to assume that academic excellence by virtue of itself will allow us to deal with rejection, sadness, happiness, frustration and the many other emotions that are inherent in all our life experiences.
Conversations that shift the paradigm of mental healthcare as an individual problem are in order for all of us; after all, this is an issue in which everyone in our community has the power to make a change. However, it is the college as an institution that has the most ability and the greatest responsibility of leading change by example. These efforts are by no means utopian. Thoughtful, proactive and effective policies towards emotional resilience have been adopted successfully elsewhere. We do not need to look further than Main Street to find great examples: The Counseling Services of Addison County (CSAC) offers annually a “Mental Health First Aid Training” open to the community. In addition, they recently launched the “OK. You’ve Got This” Project, working with high schools in Middlebury to promote emotional resilience and teach positive coping strategies to students as a way to proactively address mental health and substance abuse.
We do so much good in our community already. But it’s time we take it a step further as an institution.
As for those who may be struggling now, I urge you to hear my message. Asking for help is hard, but you and your concerns are valid. They will always be. Do not be afraid to reach out to your advisor, your dean, your peer. It made a difference for me; I came back after a year-and-a-half medical leave to realize I was a part of this community all along, even when I did not feel well. It is our collective duty to be there for each other. Remember, you are not alone.
Arthur Martins is in the class of 2022.5.
(06/25/19 6:24pm)
The college approved a Curricular Practical Training (CPT) option for international students last week after major delays from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) left international students around the country unable to begin their summer jobs in the States.
CPT, which Middlebury only previously offered to students completing winter term internships, will allow international students to complete summer internships for credit in the States. The credit will not transfer to students’ transcripts, but the option will permit participants to start work despite restricting federal delays.
International students have always needed special permission to stay and work in the U.S. outside the academic school year. Usually, they can do so once they receive approval from the federal government to complete Optional Practical Training (OPT) through their student visas. Previously, this process was guaranteed to take fewer than 90 days, and students were allowed to apply for OPT 90 days or fewer before beginning their internships.
But this year there are delays on the national level, which Citizenship and Immigration Services is attributing to, “a surge in employment authorization requests.” The federal government has also removed the guarantee that processing would take fewer than 90 days. As a result, many international students with internships in the U.S. have not yet been granted legal permission to live or work here, leaving these students in limbo.
“For more or less the past month, this problem has been constantly on my mind, and I was getting increasingly anxious,” said Roger Dai ’20, an international student who was worried he wouldn’t be able to start his job at Bloomberg in New York City until the college announced the CPT option.
Earlier this month, Dai and Elisa Gan ’20, another international student interning in the U.S. this summer, created an online petition that garnered over 1,000 signatures, lobbying for Middlebury to circumvent the federal delays by guaranteeing students’ authorizations to work through CPT.
Solving the problem at Middlebury proved tricky given the college’s policy that summer internships cannot be completed for credit. In order to create a path forward for international students this summer, administrators designed a way for students to apply for CPT through an existing one credit-hour course at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey (MIIS).
According to Dean of Faculty Andi Lloyd, this option will provide students who are approved a quarter credit for the summer so that they can continue with their internships without OPT approval.
“That credit will not be transferable to the college, and so students will not earn college graduation credit,” Lloyd said in an email to the Campus. “The solution is thus fully consistent with the college’s current policy on credit for summer internships.”
Vice President of Academic Affairs Jeff Cason clarified that the college also decided to waive their normal practice of not allowing paid internships to count for credit under their new CPT solution because these internships will not count for graduation credit.
Cason also said that the college has not yet decided if this will be a permanent option for students or not.
“We haven’t decided whether this will be the long-term solution going forward; we expect to have a much broader conversation about internships in the coming year,” he said. “This was a solution we could accommodate within our current structures and courses, but we imagine that there might be other solutions as well, and welcome that conversation.”
In the online petition, Gan and Dai laid out some of the benefits of CPT over OPT.
“CPT does not have to be processed by USCIS, and instead can be approved directly by the school in a matter of days,” they wrote. “CPT also does not have a steep fee like OPT, which costs $410.”
According to Gan, CPT also offers international students the chance to work in the U.S. without using up any of the limited 12 months of work that their F-1 visa allows. Through a for-credit program, students can save more of their 12 months of U.S. working time until after they graduate if they chose to stay and work in the states.
Gan, like many other international students, felt the impact of the OPT delay before the college announced a solution.
“I am living without income flow every week during the wait,” she said in an interview before the announcement about CPT.
Gan said that she started her internship this week and has extended her end date to make up for lost time.
Dai also started his job this week. Before good news came from the college, Dai was scrambling to figure out his housing situation. His summer housing in New York was guaranteed through his internship, which meant he could not move in until he started work.
A History of Debate
Debate over CPT is nothing new at Middlebury. In 2014, the faculty discussed and voted on a proposal that would have allowed summer courses, mostly taken off campus, as well as internships that met certain criteria to count for college credit. The proposal ultimately passed after the credit for internships section was removed.
“While there was widespread agreement that internships have educational value, there were differing opinions about whether or not an internship should be treated as equivalent to a course,” Lloyd said, remembering the discussion coming down to a very close vote.
Lloyd added that faculty were not involved in the decision to create a CPT option through MIIS, as the new option does not conflict with existing policy.
“The discussion of credit for internships more broadly, however, is likely to continue in the years to come, as the landscape around the issue has changed somewhat since the faculty last discussed,” she said.
The Student Government Association (SGA) also unanimously passed a resolution supporting a CPT option in the spring of 2018.
Kailash Raj ’19, an international student who sponsored the resolution as a junior senator, said he believes CPT makes Middlebury more accessible to all students.
“If Middlebury's goal is to become inclusive for students of different levels of social economic background, allowing CPT would help achieve that goal,” he said. “It is already hard for international students to receive summer internships compared to those that do not require significant paperwork.”
As a recent graduate, Raj is not eligible for the college’s new CPT program and is instead still waiting to hear back on his OPT request. He hopes to start work in Boston in mid-July.
Gan said she is happy that the college found a solution for this summer, but she stressed that recent USCIS delays represent the many ways it is harder for international students to enter the U.S. job market should they choose to.
“International students do not enter the job market on an equal footing with domestic students. ” she said. “To miss any deadline and link in the process may significantly change one’s future paths. Therefore, the college’s support in lowering any barrier for international students is extremely valuable and necessary.”
(05/13/19 5:15pm)
Last week’s Campus – the last issue of the academic year – contained two disturbing articles concerning the Department of French and Francophone Studies here at Middlebury College, of which I am currently chair. One, a “news item,” dealt with our study-abroad program in Yaoundé, Cameroon, a program our department has enthusiastically supported since its creation. The other, an opinion piece, had to do with what the authors perceived to be a lack of Francophone-related courses offered by our department.
Both articles contained unsettling and misleading claims about the department that were never brought to our attention prior to publication.
In the article about our program in Yaoundé, Nick Garber '19 (the journalist) alleged, via an “anonymous source” (female), that a male member of the Middlebury French department (never identified but referred to as “he” in the article) had discouraged her from attending the program in Cameroon because of the poor quality of French spoken there. The “professor” had allegedly told her it would hold her back professionally should she take on an African accent in French.
This is a serious allegation against our department, especially given that we were very actively involved in the planning and inception of the program in Cameroon that remains to this day Middlebury’s only study-abroad site in Sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, we established the program to foreground the College’s commitment to Francophone Studies and to counteract damaging prejudice against French spoken outside of France, be it in Yaoundé or Montréal. To implicitly—yet publicly—implicate our department in promoting such prejudice without notifying us was wreckless and potentially defamatory. That The Campus didn’t understand this prior to publishing the article demonstrates a lack of journalistic ethics and calls for a response that goes beyond a “teachable moment.”
As for the opinion piece criticizing our curriculum and its purported dearth of Francophone courses, Zorica Radanovic '19 and Charlotte Cahillane '19.5 made several incorrect and inflammatory statements. Contrary to their assertions, we have had, over the past 22 years, a well-known specialist of Francophone Literature who has almost every year, unless on sabbatical leave, offered an advanced course on the subject. The authors—incredibly—erased her from the department’s history, a baffling and tactless omission! With the addition of a new faculty member last year, two of our four literature specialists now focus on Francophone literature. We have also significantly globalized our lower-level curriculum. In our first year courses, we include authors from the Caribbean, North Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, la Réunion, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Viet Nam. In FREN205, professors teach works by Maryse Condé, one of the best known authors writing in French today from Guadeloupe, to introduce our students to textual and cultural analysis. Condé’s texts deal in important ways with the question of race and racism, between the “colonies” and the French “métropole.”
Might I add that the department’s last two invited speakers were from the African diaspora: Gisèle Pineau (acclaimed author from Guadeloupe), and Pap Ndiaye (renowned historian from Sciences-Po who works on Blacks in France).
That the authors of this piece overlooked our attachment to Francophone literature and culture is dismaying, perhaps most of all because they both took advanced courses in French and Francophone Studies and studied abroad in Cameroon through the department.
William Poulin-Deltour is an associate professor and chair of the Lois ’51 and J. HarveyWatson Department of French and Francophone Studies.
(05/09/19 10:05am)
One afternoon last October, the four students studying abroad in Middlebury’s school in Yaoundé, Cameroon, received a cryptic message from the program’s director, asking them to meet for dinner at the home of one of their host families.
The puzzled students assumed that the director, Ariane Ngabeu, wanted to discuss some change to the semester’s academic programming. They nearly discounted the possibility that the meeting had anything to do with Cameroon’s contentious presidential elections, which had taken place nine days earlier on Oct. 7, and whose results were slated to be announced within the next week.
“In our wildest dreams it was something about the elections,” said Emily Ray ’20, one of the students in Cameroon last semester. In Yaoundé, the country’s bustling but tranquil capital city, the notion that the election results could unleash a wave of political violence was unthinkable.
But while the students were waiting for Ngabeu to arrive for dinner, they received an email from Nicole Chance, an assistant director for Middlebury’s international programs and a liaison for the Cameroon school. It contained a startling announcement: Middlebury had decided to relocate the four students to Morocco, fearing that electoral violence could sweep Cameroon and shutter its airports. The group would be put on flights to Rabat, Morocco just over a day later, with no guarantee that they would be able to return to Cameroon to finish their semester.
“It was traumatic,” Ray said.
Ultimately, the trip proved to be successful — and also unnecessary. The four students, along with Ngabeu, spent a pleasant week in Morocco before returning to Cameroon, which had remained almost entirely peaceful after the election results were announced.
During the hectic, stressful period immediately before the trip to Morocco, and in the months since, people involved have raised questions about how the decision to relocate was made, whether Middlebury applies standards to its African programs that it would not apply elsewhere, and how Middlebury makes judgments about its faraway programs from a campus in rural Vermont.
MESSAGES FROM MIDDLEBURY
Middlebury’s decision to relocate the students in Cameroon came as the nation, historically one of the stablest in Central Africa, entered a period of relative instability. Within the last two years, peaceful protests by the country’s English-speaking minority against the largely French-speaking national government turned violent after government forces cracked down on protesters. This growing “Anglophone crisis” has caused increased opposition to President Paul Biya, who has led Cameroon since 1982. But Yaoundé is located well within the country’s peaceful Francophone region, and last semester’s students detected little unrest as they navigated the city each day.
“I remember my host mom saying, ‘Oh, Cameroonians don’t go out in the streets, so no one’s going to protest it,’” Ray said. “No one thought that anything bad would happen in Yaoundé.”
Other educational programs operating in Cameroon have had varying responses to the country’s fraught political situation. A program operated by the SIT Graduate Institute hardly altered its plans that semester, Ngabeu said. On the other hand, Dickinson College suspended its long-running program in Yaoundé in December, citing risks posed by the Anglophone crisis.
The first signs of Middlebury’s discomfort came the morning of the elections, when Ngabeu received an email from Liz Ross, Middlebury’s associate dean for international programs, containing a link to a New York Times article published the day before. The article described Cameroon as being “on the brink of civil war,” asserting that the upcoming election was “escalating an already volatile situation” in the country.
“I was surprised,” Ngabeu said. “Because if anything is happening in Cameroon, I’m the first to know about it.”
After asking around, Ngabeu said she learned that the images in the New York Times article were out-of-date photographs of the conflict in the Anglophone region, with little bearing on the city of Yaoundé or on the upcoming elections.
Still, several days later, the message from Middlebury had grown more urgent: Chance asked Ngabeu where she would be able to travel with the students, in the event that Yaoundé became unsafe following the announcement of the election results. Ngabeu told Chance she would spend the next day putting together a plan.
Ngabeu reached out to an acquaintance who worked at the Belgian embassy in Yaoundé, asking whether any arrangements had been made to help Belgian nationals stay safe. The employee dismissed her concerns, noting that the embassy was located in Yaoundé’s upscale Bastos neighborhood.
“They told me, ‘No no no, you’re in Bastos! It’s already safe. If you’re afraid, look for a hotel in Bastos,” Ngabeu said.
So Ngabeu wrote back to Middlebury, proposing that she wait out the election results with the students from a hotel in Bastos. But Middlebury staff said this failed to address their main concern: the possibility that Cameroon would close its borders and airports, trapping the students inside the country.
“We were afraid that if [violence] did spread out, that it would be too late for us to make a decision about what to do with the students,” explained Carlos Velez, the dean of international programs, in an interview with The Campus.
Within a day of Chance’s urgent message to Ngabeu, the two of them, along with Velez and Ross, had agreed on Morocco as a destination. Middlebury’s existing program there would provide the infrastructure needed to host the visitors. The only problem was that Ngabeu, a Cameroonian national, needed a Moroccan visa which would take five days to arrive — and the group was set to leave in just two days.
So Ngabeu visited the Moroccan embassy and bribed an employee to expedite the process. Soon after, she sat with the students as they reacted incredulously to the news.
“I said, ‘Don’t ask any questions, because I am not capable of answering them,’” Ngabeu said.
Unsure whether they would ever return, students spent the next day hurriedly packing all their belongings, saying goodbye to their host families and traveling around Yaoundé, buying souvenirs to bring back to the United States. Ngabeu left her two young children at home in Yaoundé, presuming that Middlebury would not pay for their travel to Morocco.
“That’s the proof,” Ngabeu said. “I left my children and I went away, because I knew there wasn’t any violence.”
Although Ngabeu was skeptical, she said she suppressed her doubts. “When they say it’s for safety, what can I say? I can’t say with certainty that nothing bad will happen,” she said.
Velez said the Middlebury staff were certain their precautionary steps were the right ones. “Nobody could assure us that nothing was going to happen,” he said. “Even if somebody had, I’m not sure if I would’ve believed it.”
CLAIMS OF UNEQUAL TREATMENT
On Oct. 22, the students watched from Morocco as the incumbent Biya was re-elected Cameroon’s president, earning a suspiciously resounding 71% of the vote. The expected result was received calmly in Yaoundé, and within two days, the students found out they would return to Cameroon. The trip to Morocco had lasted one week.
The trip itself had been enjoyable, Ray said, but the stress caused by the departure did not seem to be fully acknowledged after the group returned. And as the months have gone by, Ray said she has begun to think more critically about Middlebury’s decision to evacuate the group.
“It just makes me mad,” Ray said. “There’s already so many different hurdles and obstacles that the Cameroon program has to go through, because it’s a program in Africa. There’s so much unfounded fear.”
Ray is not the only one troubled by the excursion to Morocco. Nadia Horning, a professor of political science who serves on a faculty committee that oversees the Cameroon program, said she was taken aback when Velez and Chance first notified the faculty committee about the trip — just hours after the decision to evacuate had been made.
“I didn’t take it particularly well,” Horning said. A native of Madagascar who studies African politics, Horning said the incident in Cameroon was the latest in a succession of cases in which the continent has received unequal treatment at Middlebury. She pointed to an effort by faculty several years ago to convince the college to offer Swahili at its summer language schools. After receiving a verbal commitment from an administrator that Swahili would be chosen as the schools’ newest language, Horning said she found out abruptly during a speech by an administrator that Korean had been picked instead.
“That did bother me personally,” Horning said.
When it came to Cameroon, Horning said she understood administrators’ desire to take safety precautions, but still felt the college applied unreasonable standards. “I’m not pro-recklessness and anti-safety,” she said. “But I’m definitely anti-exception. I’m anti-standards for Africa that don’t apply elsewhere.”
Ngabeu suggested that students studying in Asia or Europe would not have been relocated in similar circumstances. “They wouldn’t have done anything,” she said. “People would have stayed where they were.”
Moreover, she worried about the precedent the relocation may have set. “Middlebury really has to reflect on its strategy," Ngabeu said. “Because if every time there's an election, we have to send people to the opposite coast — that's nonsense.”
Velez disputed the idea that any double standard had been applied. “If I fear there will be widespread violence anywhere, I would take more drastic measures,” he said.
Still, many involved with African Studies at Middlebury tell anecdotes about biases and unfounded fears they have encountered on campus. Ngabeu recalled instances in which parents of students interested in the program asked her how their children would drink water or receive medical care in Cameroon, presuming the country did not have hospitals.
One first-year at Middlebury, interested in studying in Cameroon, told The Campus that a French professor recently tried to dissuade her from going and urged her to study in France instead.
“When I asked him why, he discussed African accents, meaning it would be really hard for me to understand an African accent and that when I came back from Cameroon, I would have an African accent,” said the student, who was granted anonymity so she could speak freely about the exchange. “He implied that that wouldn’t be good for my future career prospects,” she recalled, adding that the professor “made a face” as he discussed African French.
Seeking to expand Middlebury’s curricular offerings outside of Francophone Europe, Charlotte Cahillane ’19.5 and Zorica Radanovic ’19 — both alumnae of the Cameroon program — wrote an op-ed in this week’s Campus, advocating that the French Department create more courses that venture “beyond the geographic boundaries of France.”
For those involved in the October evacuation, meanwhile, the heart of the problem seems to lie beyond Middlebury’s campus. Ngabeu, for her part, says she cannot blame Middlebury staff for the decision they made, given that they had to account for Americans’ general prejudices towards Africa.
“It’s a question of how Americans look at us,” she said. “It’s not that Middlebury wanted to do this, it’s that Middlebury wants to show to other institutions, to parents, to Americans — ‘You know that our kids are in this country, and we’re taking care of them.’”
“The problem is distant,” Ngabeu said. “Middlebury only acted to respond to what others were thinking.”
(05/09/19 10:00am)
This week, Middlebury is entering the final stages of its yearlong workforce planning process. On Tuesday, the college finalized employees’ acceptances of voluntary buyouts, which the college terms Incentivized Separation Plans (ISP), marking the end of a process that has been ongoing since early February.
Although an overview of which positions were eliminated and how each department is being affected has not yet been made available, the college has indicated that it is on track to meet its goal of reducing employee expenses by 10%, or about $8 million. The college plans to make an announcement about workforce planning after the Board of Trustees meeting in May, according to college spokesperson Sarah Ray.
President Laurie L. Patton notified faculty and staff on Feb. 4 that the college had identified 150 staff positions to be eliminated, while an additional 30 new positions would be created and filled as a result of the workforce planning process. Of the 150 positions identified for reduction, though, about 100 were already vacant through attrition and restrictions on re-hiring over the last few years. Around 50 occupied full- and part-time staff positions, including roughly 42 full-time positions, were set to be eliminated over the next few years, according to an email sent the following day to faculty and staff.
Because many staff share job titles, the college sent buyout applications to 80 employees on Feb. 8, although only 42 of their positions needed to be eliminated. Those employees had until March 11 to submit if they wished to receive a buyout. Staff members in affected positions were notified by their supervisors before receiving a buyout application from the college.
All employees eligible for buyouts were also granted access to a private job portal where they could apply to thirty new positions, which had been created as part of the workforce planning process, before they were made broadly available. This was part of the college’s effort to reduce the workforce and eliminate staff positions, while ensuring that the separation process was voluntary.
The second week of March, a few days after applications for buyout packages were due, official offers were sent out. In accordance with state law, employees had 45 days, or until April 29, to accept the buyouts. The exact contents of the package varied depending on salary and duration of employment at Middlebury. Following the April 29 deadline, staff were entitled to a seven-day period during which they could rescind their acceptance.
Although administrators will not know definitively until after accepted separation offers are finalized on May 7, college communications so far suggest that there will be no need for involuntary layoffs, which had been mentioned as a possible last resort if not enough employees took buyouts. Most recently, a March 15 email to faculty and staff said that the 47 buyout applications “put us on track to achieve our goal” of reducing employee compensation by 10%.
For some staff members, especially those already planning to retire, the buyout was a welcome opportunity. For others, the process has been draining, especially when paired with the implementation of Oracle, a new online financial platform that some staff complain is difficult to navigate.
“I’ve worked here for 18 years, and right now stress levels are the highest I’ve ever seen them,” said Missey Thompson, a staff council representative and box office coordinator at the Mahaney Center for the Arts.
Some staff who received separation offers but did not want to leave the college were able to find new positions, either within their old department or in a new one. Others have had more trouble.
One employee, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, currently holds a position slated to end in June. “I have been here over 31 years, and I cannot afford to take the buyout,” she told The Campus. The staff member, who applied to three newly created positions through the private portal, has been rejected from one and never heard back from the other two. Despite repeated assurances from the college that “individuals who are offered the incentive and do not take it will remain employed at Middlebury,” some staff are faced with terminated positions and limited options in the coming year.
Still, many staff appreciate the intentionality that has gone into this process, especially compared to staff cuts the college undertook in past years, which left crucial positions unoccupied or left longtime employees abruptly out of work. Nonetheless, the communication (or lack thereof) from leadership throughout the months-long process added an additional layer to an already nerve-wracking process.
On more than one occasion, staff learned details about the progress of workforce planning from media reports before receiving any communication from the administration. The all-staff email announcing that letters would arrive within the week notifying staff their position had been terminated, along with a buyout offer, was not sent until Feb. 4, five days after a Jan. 31 Addison Independent article containing the same news. And many staff had been unaware that up to 40 new positions would be created through workforce planning until The Campus reported that fact in February. That figure was eventually lowered to 30.
Staff also report experiencing limited communication across departments. Since each department had its own restructuring plan to eliminate 10% of personnel expenses, much communication about buyouts was left to individual department leaders — a decentralized approach that led to miscommunications and confusion as staff heard about reductions and changes in other departments through word of mouth.
Tim Parsons, the president of staff council, says this has contributed to a lingering anxiety among staff. “With differing levels of communications by department, the process did not go as smoothly as we had hoped across the institution,” Parsons told The Campus. “We’re still waiting to hear what the future state will be.”
The “future state” Parsons referred to is how work will be redistributed following the departure of those who accepted buyout offers. But without knowing exactly how responsibilities will be allocated, many departments are concerned that they will be expected to do the same amount of work with less staff. While the administration has repeatedly assured staff that this will not be the case, the lack of clarity on a future state has left some department heads and managers on edge. Staff hope the finalization of buyout offers this week will finally provide a clear picture of the composition of workforce planning going forward.
(05/09/19 9:58am)
After growing up in a family of educators, incoming Dean of Admissions Nicole Curvin initially avoided pursuing a career in education. But she soon changed her mind, intrigued by the vitality and constantly changing nature of higher education.
“What I realized, ultimately, is that one of the best places to have a job is on a college campus,” said Curvin, who currently serves as director of admissions. “You have an influx of energetic and excited students each year. You have faculty who are amazing at their discipline and can inform you of pretty much any topic that you’re thinking about in your life.”
Curvin will begin her new role as dean of admissions on July 1, succeeding Greg Buckles, who will leave for the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey on June 30. In the context of a national conversation regarding the ethics of higher education admissions practices, Curvin hopes to continue fair admissions processes at Middlebury, maintaining a holistic review of candidates and focusing on creating a suitable fit between the student and the campus community.
“We remain fully committed to the integrity of the admissions process and of all the pieces that go into that, whether it’s athletic recruiting or working with our legacy community,” Curvin said. “Our hope and our aim is to attract amazing students and to encourage them to consider Middlebury as an option. I will continue to be transparent in the admissions process for Middlebury, understanding that we have to say no to a large percentage of the students.”
Curvin, who began working at Middlebury in 2014, has spent much of her time at admissions focusing on access and inclusivity to the college. Curvin is involved in the selection of Posse Scholars, a program that provides full-tuition scholarships to students with academic and leadership potential who may otherwise be overlooked in the admissions process. Each year, Middlebury typically recruits about 30 students from three different cities.
Curvin emphasized that recruitment efforts extend well beyond the Posse program. Appointed coordinator of multicultural recruitment in 2017, Curvin helped develop outreach strategies, working with community groups and organizations to ensure that first-generation students, undocumented students and students of color are well-represented on campus. According to Curvin, these efforts have attracted over 2,000 applications from students of color.
As Curvin transitions into her new position, she has several objectives that she hopes to pursue along with the rest of the admissions team. Curvin hopes to establish more “touchpoints” on campus between admissions and faculty, staff and students to think about the bigger picture of college admissions at Middlebury. Another goal is to improve collaboration between Middlebury and other colleges in order to reach communities that may not have heard of Middlebury or other liberal arts institutions. Such partnerships could allow schools to exchange ideas about recruitment and financial aid practices, and help facilitate visits for prospective students to multiple schools in the same region.
“[We are] continuing to think about who the next generation of students is and what they might look like, and thinking about how the mission of the college will drive that conversation as we’re recruiting,” Curvin said.
During Curvin’s twenty years in admissions, academic advising and career counseling, she has become frustrated by the narrative that a student must make the “right” decision regarding which school to attend.
“Some students are losing sight of this idea of fit,” Curvin said. “The disappointment comes in peeling away the important parts of the conversation regarding a college choice. And in drilling this idea that there are only a few places that students can be successful or have this outcome. And to watch students think that there’s this ‘dream’ place that they need to be.”
While the admissions team has worked to put Middlebury on the map both nationally and internationally, Curvin recognizes that one barrier to a diverse student body is getting students to come to Middlebury to experience the campus culture for themselves. Most students who currently visit campus have the financial and social means of getting to Middlebury. Curvin supports expanding programs that facilitate prospective student visits to Middlebury, and that have counselors advocate for those students to learn about Middlebury’s curricular and extracurricular offerings.
“One of the ways that we can impress about students that this could be a place for them is for them to see it and experience it,” Curvin said.
This past week, Curvin has been to nearly a dozen college fairs around New York City. These recruitment trips allow Curvin to talk with students and inform them of Middlebury’s offerings, answer general questions about the college process, and encourage them to visit Middlebury’s campus in person.
“That’s another really eye-opening part of the recruitment work that we do, is that we go to so many different types of high schools,” Curvin said. “We can be in a private school with a lot of resources, or we can be in a big public school that has limited resources, but it has amazing students, and great programs. And it gives you some perspective when you come back to campus and you’re reading those applications. There are no two students who are alike, and there are no two high schools that are alike. There are hundreds of different varieties, and just trying to figure out that match is important.”
(05/09/19 9:56am)
“You know it’s okay to masturbate, right?”
These jarring words came from my mother while we were making sun-tea together in our kitchen. I was 14 and horrified. I uttered a curt “Yes, mom” to shut down the conversation as quickly as it had started. From my memory, her rhetorical question was brought on by no comment of my own. I was a private teenager and had less than no interest in talking to my parents about sex (along with most of America’s teens, I’d imagine).
Sun-tea unfinished, I casually, yet swiftly, left the room to avoid a very-much-unwanted continued conversation. All she had said were seven words. She clearly thought there was no need for an explanation (thank you, Urban Dictionary) as she knew that one sentence would do the trick in unwinding the bundle of prejudices I had held in regard to masturbation.
‘Masturbation is gross. Sacrilegious. Dirty. Un-lady-like. For boys.’ These were the sentiments that the vast majority of my female friends held growing up and that, unfortunately, some still hold.
My hometown was exceptionally progressive and homogenous, with only one outwardly conservative student in my graduating high school class of 138. Regardless of its supposedly liberal ideals, our public high school had its share of gendered afflictions, just like any other. And due to the hushed nature of sex, the problem wasn’t put into words. For girls, we didn’t know what we were missing because no one was willing to talk to us about it.
Starting in the final years of middle school, some boys were already joking about sex and masturbation at recess—normalizing the conversation from the outset. While boys learn from others at sleepovers, along with YouTube, Urban Dictionary, Pornhub and maybe even their overly presumptuous fathers, girls are left in the dark. According to Dr. Perri Klass in an Op- Ed from December for The New York Times, this isn’t just a problem in the social realm: there’s a complete deficit of conversations about masturbation in pediatricians’ offices as well.
And when these conversations do happen? “We do leave girls out of the conversation almost totally,” said Dr. Elizabeth Erickson, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Duke University, in an interview in the New York Times Op-Ed.
From conversations with friends, I am the only female I know whose mother even uttered the word “masturbation” while growing up. In hindsight, I was the lucky one. According to our friends at Planned Parenthood, masturbation also comes with a host of emotional and physical benefits: reduced stress, sounder sleep, improved self-esteem and body image, even “strengthened muscle tone.”
However, this is not a call for universal masturbation. It does not interest everyone and that is, quite honestly, not my concern. This is, rather, a call to normalize conversations about masturbation for girls as a means to enable them to take agency over their own sexual health at a young age. Masturbation can help girls learn about their own bodies before getting involved with anyone else’s.
When we don’t broach the subject, we risk creating power imbalances. When it’s normal for boys to talk about sex while the same conversations are stigmatized for girls, one sexual partner in a heterosexual relationship will be inherently more informed than the other. By “informed,” I mean to say that the sexual partner’s primary education may stem from porn sites and graphic boasts from pubescent peers. Heterosexual porn is infamous for focusing on the “male gaze,” which means that for the pubescent viewers, sex will appear to hinge on a female performance, as opposed to a reciprocal experience.
Telling girls that it’s okay to masturbate is also a way of fighting against what has become known as the “orgasm gap” that exists in heterosexual encounters and relationships. In one study that examined the rate of orgasming among couples, researchers found that among 800 college students, 91% of men reported orgasming nearly every instance of having sex, while only 39% of women did. This gap runs the risk of making girls feel as if they don’t deserve to be as physically pleased as their male counterparts, potentially contributing to a feeling of being lesser than. (For comparison, 95% of lesbian women report orgasming with their partners.)
Allowing girls to go ahead and discover what is pleasurable and comfortable before engaging in sex may strengthen communication with future partners and enhance overall well-being. And it will hopefully avoid instances in which she’s told what to do by a “more informed” partner wearing Vans and a snapback.
So why is masturbation still such a taboo subject? To put the topic in a historical perspective, U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders was forced to resign in 1994 by President Clinton after publicly saying that masturbation is “a normal part of human sexuality” and should be taught in sex-ed classes. This was only 25 years ago, just around the time that people of my generation were entering the world and our parents were mulling over various parenting tactics.
A close friend recently confided that she first learned it was okay to masturbate during her sophomore year of college in a “Gender and Women’s Studies” class when the professor insisted that every woman in the room buy a vibrator. At this point, my friend had already had a boyfriend for a year and a half.
Evidently, 20-something is too late to realize it’s fine to masturbate. Destigmatizing masturbation equips girls and women with the power of sexual knowledge from an early age. There are few greater gifts to a young girl than giving her the ability to take agency over her body; casually telling her it’s okay to masturbate may be the first step.
(05/09/19 9:53am)
This was a record season for the Middlebury College Women’s Rugby Club. On Saturday April 6, they competed in the Rugby Northeast 7’s tournament. The ladies tore up the field, winning three matches, allowing them to compete against one of the best teams in the nation: Bentley University.
The game was nerve-racking, the score tied until the last thirty seconds of the game. Unfortunately the Falcons stole the win, allowing them to steal a spot in the National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO) Championships.
Bentley dropped out, allowing the Panthers to compete in NSCROs on April 27-28.
The team went to Pittsburgh for the championship. The Northeast Tournament (national qualifiers) was their first tournament of the season. The team had only eight practices to prepare for the tournament, most of the other qualifying schools had their lineups set for months. Co-captain Ellen Colton ’19 recalled that the going to the championship was “exciting, rewarding, and gave us an amazing opportunity to learn from some of the best teams in the country.” Even competing in the tournament meant a lot to the team, Colton continued, “I’m really proud of the team for learning from each match we played and then putting those things into practice, which resulted in us winning both of our matches on the second day of the tournament and finishing 13th overall. We support each other on and off the pitch and I think you could feel that in every match.” As she leaves the school and the team, Colton hopes that this will encourage the club to keep pushing itself. Despite their lack of school resources and experience, they are clearly still able to hold their own on a national level.
This experience meant everything to the Panthers: “Even if we didn’t place first, we all felt like winners walking off the field” said Megan Salmon ’21, rising forwards captain. As a leader of the team, she’s excited for what’s to come. “We have a lot of young talent to work with and this trip to nationals just proved that this was only the beginning for MCWRC,” she said. The championships seemed to light a fire in some of the younger members, first year Miriam Weathers says the end of their season, “felt like such a reward. I think that it will definitely make the team work harder, going into the future. We all want to qualify again, for sure.”
(05/09/19 9:53am)
As this semester comes to an end, the college bookstore has taken over MiddBooks, a book-trading website set up by students Pete Palumbo ’20 and Marty Williams ’20 at the beginning of this academic year to facilitate peer-to-peer exchange after the bookstore stopped carrying books.
The MiddBooks website, accessible at go/middbooks, is entirely free for both buyers and sellers. It functions as a platform for individual classified ads, similar to the Free & For Sale Facebook page that many students have used to buy and sell books in the past. The key difference is that MiddBooks is organized by academic subject. To make a post, students can click on the appropriate subject and leave a comment with the information for the book they want to sell. MiddBooks does not facilitate online payments, so students will be expected to decide on fair prices and exchange money among themselves.
Bookstore Manager Erin Jones-Poppe initially reached out to MiddBooks earlier this year to ask about the future of the site. She had been recommending MiddBooks to students trying to sell books that were not being accepted by the official buyback program, but she wanted to talk more about how the bookstore could promote and support MiddBooks as a resource for students looking to buy books.
In fact, Palumbo had been considering letting MiddBooks die after its slow start last fall, when the books posted on the site vastly outweighed the number of sales.
When Jones-Poppe met with Palumbo and John Schurer ’21, who joined MiddBooks to help with marketing this J-term, they decided that the best option for MiddBooks would be absorption by the bookstore, since the bookstore can offer increased publicity and a free website on which MiddBooks can operate. Palumbo self-financed the previous MiddBooks website, middbooks.com, so the bookstore reimbursed him for the payments he had made for the domain.
“By being assumed by the bookstore, we’re able to email the whole school at once, link through the school’s website, maintain our free status indefinitely and also have a clear path after I graduate as far as who takes over the mantle,” said Palumbo, who has managed the MiddBooks site largely on his own since his co-founder went abroad this Winter Term.
To help students see which of their books are in demand, MiddBooks will be posting the bookstore’s official spreadsheet that lists required texts for the coming semester. But not every required book will make it onto the spreadsheet.
“Not every professor submits the page back in time in order for the bookstore to know what textbooks they’re using, so even if you don’t see your textbook on there, it’s still probably worth your time to post it anyway,” Palumbo said.
The bookstore also hosts a book buyback program operated by MBS Direct, their online bookselling partner, but MBS Direct does not accept all books for buyback. And MiddBooks may prove to be a better option for student sellers if buyers on campus are willing to pay more for quick, in-person book exchange than MBS Direct can offer for buybacks.
Palumbo points out that MiddBooks is also the more environmentally friendly and carbon neutral option, since no shipping has to be involved when a book is going “from Battell to Pearsons.”
(05/09/19 9:53am)
In early October 2018, while we here at Middlebury were gearing up for apple-picking, cooler weather, and changing leaves, Cameroon was about to hold its presidential elections. On Oct. 7, 2018, Paul Biya was re-elected for his 7th term, making him President of Cameroon since Nov. 6, 1982 and only the second president since Cameroon gained independence. The elections this year gained particular international attention because of growing concerns and tensions over Biya’s handling of the “Anglophone Crisis.” While it is far more complex than we can explain in a few sentences, Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest Regions have been linguistically and culturally Anglophone since colonization. Since 2016, protests in the Northwest and Southwest regions have brought to light the systematic inequalities Anglophone Cameroonians experience, while Biya’s government has suppressed and killed hundreds of these civilians in the region since.
Conceivably due to concerns regarding this crisis, the International Programs office at Middlebury decided to pull out the four students studying in the capital city of Yaoundé at the time. They made this decision without consulting professors at Middlebury connected to the program via African Studies, and through discussions with Program Director Ariane Ngabeu, although she was not in favor of relocating. Ngabeu offered the counter proposal that the program take the students from their host families for 1-2 days and put them up in a well-fortified hotel in town in order to alleviate Middlebury’s fears. The International Programs office did not bite. Instead, the International Programs Office informed the students with little notice that they would be leaving Cameroon, potentially indefinitely, to go to Morocco while the elections took place. The students had no choice in the matter.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]The students had no choice in the matter.[/pullquote]
Ngabeu even decided Yaoundé was more than safe enough to leave her toddler and 8-year old daughter to go about their regular daily schedules while she was with the Middlebury students in Morocco. Everyone was confused about this decision: the program director, the students studying in Yaoundé, some Middlebury professors who were made aware of the decision, and alumni of the Cameroon study abroad program from recent years. Stereotypes about Africa were becoming very clear. Unlike the protests in Paris, the ones in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon were somehow more violent and dangerous. Imagine if students in France were pulled out and sent to neighboring countries whenever there was a presidential election on the horizon.
It’s hard not to feel like this decision points to racism and xenophobia in Middlebury’s abroad programming. To us this decision, for a multitude of reasons, was ridiculous. Due to the resources and time expended on sending the students to Morocco, the students that semester were not able to take the typical tour of the Western region of Cameroon where they would have had more of a chance to engage with Cameroonian history and culture outside of the city. For many who have completed the program, that week-long trip is a key part of the semester or year in Cameroon. Not only this, but the decision to send students to the Morocco program forced the staff and students in Morocco to mobilize quickly in order to accommodate and entertain the group from Yaoundé.
Quite frankly, we feel very sad and frustrated that this was kept out of the public eye and that it occurred without any conversation. It feels like certain people’s knowledge and experiences were valued over others’. This makes us think about whose stories are being told and by whom, which extends past the events we just discussed and into the French department at Middlebury as a whole. In the French department at Middlebury College, the course materials overwhelmingly represent French authors, French playwrights, and contemporary French issues.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Why did the Middlebury administration decide that studies concerning language and culture in the Francophone world were some of the first courses to go?[/pullquote]
We know that at least one professor in the department, and probably one or two more, specialize in Francophone studies and literature. However, you wouldn’t know this from the classes being offered. In brief conversations with department members where we’ve raised these concerns, it has been mentioned to us that the department has had to cut down on the classes being taught and the regions it focuses on due to financial and enrollment level difficulties. But we pose this query: Why did the Middlebury administration decide that studies concerning language and culture in the Francophone world were some of the first courses to go?
French is the official language of 29 countries in the world, but these countries are not represented in the classes offered nor in the faculty of the French department at Middlebury. The French department recently hired Professor Linsey Sainte-Claire, and from taking that class, we can say that her “Body Politics in Francophone Fictions” class has been the single most engaging and influential French class we have had the opportunity of taking while studying French at Middlebury College. This article is not meant to shame or blame any of the members of the French department for the lack of representation of Francophone studies, but rather it is meant to air our frustrations and disappointment with the hopes that the administration will support the department’s further efforts to diversify the chateau.
Before studying abroad in Cameroon, students are required to take one class beyond FREN 209/210, which can be any of the following courses: Communities in French Culture, From Romanticism to Modernism, Criminal Minds in Literature in France, Travelers and Migrants, and Introduction to Contemporary France. Only one of these courses (Travelers and Migrants) explicitly moves beyond the geographic boundaries of France, and has only recently started to be taught. Before we went to study abroad, we were not given the opportunity to learn about Francophone Africa, let alone Cameroon, in an academic space.
It feels like Cameroon has been given a backseat at Middlebury College. Among several things, we hope that this op-ed will make the study abroad office and the administration consider the ways in which they have perpetuated racism in academia, and we hope that there will continue to be a greater effort by put forth by French professors to discuss and promote the study abroad program in Yaoundé.
