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(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.
(05/09/19 9:51am)
As alumni of the Middlebury Chemistry Department and former students of Professor Byers, we are truly disheartened by the recent events that transpired as a result of an insensitive Chemistry exam question. Some of us worked closely with Professor Byers in his research group; others have been his students for multiple chemistry classes. We are of different races and ethnicities, different nationalities and from diverse backgrounds. In Jeff Byers, we saw nothing but a dedicated educator with compassion, a sense of humor and genuine care and concern for all of his students, whether you were performing research with him or simply taking chemistry courses.
While the exam question concerning HCN was insensitive and misguided, there was nothing in that question that suggests Professor Byers is anti-Semitic, racist, biased or discriminatory. Nonetheless, President Laurie Patton said in a statement, which is published in Newsweek, that “Middlebury has, and always will, condemn any actions that are anti-Semitic or racist in intent or effect, just as we will any other acts of bias or discrimination.” In the current political climate and the ease of news dissemination on social media and otherwise, the school was swift and harsh in its condemnation of Professor Byers in order to protect its image. The quick condemnation and categorization of the professor’s exam question as “anti-Semintic” was a knee-jerk reaction that does not serve the long-term interests of a college dedicated to respect, open dialogue and personal growth of all members of its community.
One must not underestimate the chilling effect the school’s “zero-tolerance” policy has on educators. Even though Middlebury prides itself on being a residential campus where faculty interact with students inside and outside the classroom (far beyond their call of duty), faculty are expected to have no lapse in judgment. Furthermore, all educational materials must be sanitized. Under such a policy, decades of dedication to students, recognized and appreciated by the students and alumni, are dismissed, despite Professor Byers having owned up to his mistake and apologized repeatedly. We have decided to come to Professor Byers’ defense - to speak out against political correctness at the expense of a faculty member’s lifelong dedication to the College and generations of students.
Professor Byers has paid dearly for his insensitivity – not only is he now on leave and being investigated for faculty misconduct, this incident is published in many major news outlets, in the U.S. and abroad. His name is forever tarnished because of a momentary lapse in judgment and the school’s overreaction. We urge the school to reinstate Professor Byers, so that students can continue to benefit from his teaching and the College can continue to be a venue for open, respectful exchange of political and social views.
In sum, by choosing the “safe” path, the administration is giving into fear of being “trampled” by the loud mob of the vehemently politically correct, who are so easily triggered by keywords and see all in black and white, without the ability to recognize nuances and context. Of all places, an educational institution should grant that to err is human and should thus unequivocally stand behind Professor Byers, who has owned up to his mistake, rather than behind a faceless ideology that shouts tolerance and sensitivity without a shred of either.
Signed,
David S. Shuman ’93
Maciej Ceglowski ’97
Bonnie Lee ’03
Adelina Voutchkova-Kostal ’04
Jakub Kostal ’04
Kyle S. Knight '88
Nathan R. Neale '98
(05/02/19 10:00am)
DINING HALL: OVERALL
The dining hall debate has long served as a campus identifier — are you a Proc person or a Ross person? — accompanied by silent judgement from both sides. In the end, more students favor Middlebury’s oldest, coziest dining hall, according to Zeitgeist results.
[infogram id="favorite-dining-hall-on-campus-by-race-1h7j4d9e0gyd2nr?live"]
With nearly 40% of the vote, Proctor Dining Hall was crowned the favorite among the student population, and Ross wasn’t even in second place. Atwater Dining Hall polled second with 33% favorability, while Ross lagged behind with approximately 27%.
So what is it about Proctor? Maybe not the food. Although it’s popular for its well-utilized panini presses and consistent fare, Ross menus are usually more expansive and students often quip that Atwater’s are “fancier.” Out of the three, Proctor is even ranked last on the college review site “Niche” in the category of Middlebury’s “best on-campus food options.” On the other hand, Proctor boasts the shortest lines, low ceilings and a diverse range of seating choices from the lounge to the booth room, giving it an intimacy that Ross and Atwater might lack. Proctor is the welcoming space you can walk into in pajamas after a night out. The meat of the matter is that Proctor simply doesn’t judge. (And it will be served with kettle chips.)
DINING HALL: ATHLETES VS NARPS
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In contrast to results showing students’ overall preference for Proctor, varsity athletes opted for Atwater 40% of the time, They diverged from their non-athlete peers to rank Proctor second (and Ross last, again). Atwater, Middlebury’s newest dining hall, was constructed in conjunction with the notoriously sports team-populated Atwater suites, providing them with a convenient stop at perhaps the campus’ most upscale stop for breakfast and lunch. It also exclusively offers round tables that allow for larger groups.
DINING HALL: CLASSES
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While first-years prefer Proctor slightly more than upperclassmen at 43% favorability, Middlebury’s oldest dining hall retains a remarkably consistent 38% of votes among sophomores, juniors and seniors. Ross Dining Hall loses favor as students grow older. Atwater picks up the loyalty that Ross loses. This leaves seniors as the only class that prefers Atwater. Ross tallies less than 20% of favorability amongst seniors. Ross Dining is often favored by those who conveniently live in the Ross dormitories, which contains less housing for seniors than for other classes. This may explain the eight-point drop between junior and senior Ross favorability, and why it’s most popular among first-years.
GRADES / SLEEP / SOCIAL LIFE
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The “work hard, play hard” attitude is ingrained in Middlebury students before we even arrive on campus. As it turns out, it’s more than a stereotype — data tells us the same story. When asked to choose two of three options out of good grades, sleep and social life, Middlebury students chose good grades three quarters of the time, usually paired with social life. Although the overwhelming focus on good grades may reflect well on Middlebury students’ academic integrity, it’s troubling when paired with low prioritization of sleep. This high-stress, no-rest duo can easily jeopardize students’ mental and physical health, which is particularly concerning when accompanied by Middlebury’s “busy-ness” culture, documented below.
UNENJOYABLE CULTURES: GENERAL
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The “busy-ness” game is one that’s all too familiar to Middlebury students. From loudly complaining about upcoming problem sets at lunch to half-bragging about hours logged at Davis, more than 40% of students reported participating in “busy-ness” culture, even though they don’t enjoy it. Defined as a competition to appear busy that often comes at the expense of mental or physical health, “busy-ness” pervades Middlebury and has the capacity to push students beyond their means in an effort to be perceived as productive. Middlebury’s infamous hook-up scene also tops the list, with 235 students, or 16%, participating despite not enjoying it. This culture is often paired with drinking, in which 15% of students report partaking despite disliking it. These statistics reflect a social pressure that informs choices that are meant to be personal, which has the potential to foster unhealthy or dangerous relationships to sex and alcohol.
UNENJOYABLE CULTURES: CLASS
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“Busy-ness” culture is reported at above 40% even for first-years, but the bad news is that it doesn’t really get better. In fact, its prevalence steadily increases as students get older. The classes of 2019 and 2019.5 reported almost 50% participation, perhaps as a result of increased pressure to complete graduation requirements, boost resumes and find careers. On the bright side, participation in unwanted “brand-name apparel” culture steadily decreases in an ascent through the class years, tallying at 14% in the class of 2022 and 2022.5 and dropping to around 9% among seniors.
Drinking, drug and hook-up culture all remained relatively consistent across the grades, as did a pressure to appear “outdoorsy,” which consistently polled below 10%.
10 PAST TEXTS
In a question asking students to count how many of their past 10 texts were with someone of their own race, it was found that white students’ texting habits tended to be far more insular within their own race. More than 85% of white students reported that more than half of their past 10 texts were solely with other white people, with a majority reporting that eight, nine or all 10 texts were exchanged within their race. Non-white students, on the other hand, most commonly reported that zero, one or two of their past 10 texts were exchanged with people of their race. Middlebury’s student body, for reference, is approximately 64% white. These statistics are also useful in displaying how “othering” takes place at Middlebury, leading non-white students to feel removed from the mainstream campus community at a predominantly white school.
(05/02/19 9:57am)
This week, I am featuring one of my favorite hosiery items. As someone who loves wearing skirts and dresses, I spend a lot of time wearing tights, leggings and knee high socks, especially during the winter. My favorite, however, are my fishnet tights. As a young 20-year-old heading off into the professional business world after college, I have tried to use my remaining time at Middlebury as an opportunity to wear typically unorthodox clothing.While fishnets definitely do not keep me warm in the Vermont winters, I enjoy the sense of edge and empowerment I feel when I wear them. My time at Middlebury has been full of controversial events and personal growth. I have had journeys exploring my sense of self, my womanhood and my Blackness in the context of this institution. I am leaving this campus more empowered and strong. So wearing fishnet tights has felt like one small way to wear my rebellion. It’s been a subtle but bold means of self expression.
This past semester, there have been many events focused on body empowerment and celebration. I attended Behind the Vagina Monologues, Evolution and the BrASS Burlesque Show and each left me feeling reaffirmed within my body. Fishnets are typically associated with hypersexuality, promiscuity and deviance. I wanted to explore how nylons have managed to take on such a heavy connotation.
The origins of hosiery date back centuries. The earliest known pair were found in the tomb of a noble Egyptian women over two thousand years ago who more than likely used them for warmth. A stark contrast to when fishnets became a popular choice for women during the Victorian era as a display of nobility. They have been used for style but also warmth as they’ve been made from animal skin, hair, silk and nylon. And, as technology has evolved, so have hosiery. Knitting, looming and modern day manufacturing have lead to what we know and love today. Fishnets, in particular, have been a stylistic choice for many for the past several decades. Movie stars, celebrities and sex workers have all donned the nylon versions of the past. Fishnets are thought to have been popularized by Parisian performers in the early 1900s before coming to the U.S. and becoming a part of flapper and pin-up culture starting in the 1920s.
I think it is because of these more modern uses specifically that the hosiery has been sexualized and symbolic of rebellious femininity. So, throughout their journey, from flappers to punk rockers to urban streets to me in Middlebury, VT, the trend has persisted and stylistically evolved. When I put on my fishnet tights to go to class, I am reminded of their long history and every type of person who wore them in the past, for whatever occasion.
(04/25/19 9:53am)
Every year since 1981, the graduating senior class has honored its time at Middlebury by presenting a class gift to the college. This year, the Classes of 2019 and 2019.5 voted to use their funds raised through donations to endow the Fund for Staff Support. The reserve will go towards aiding staff members in need of emergency assistance or support.
“We wanted our fund to give back to the people who are at the heart of running Middlebury, and who have done so throughout our four years here, but will also still be here when we leave,” said Senior Committee Treasurer Tricia Nelsen ’19. “We wanted our legacy to have an impact on the staff who aren’t here temporarily, but continuously make this place function.”
The tradition of giving a senior gift began in an effort by the college for students to learn the importance of philanthropy and leaving a legacy behind when they graduate. As the tradition has developed over time, the college has begun soliciting donations to match the senior gift. This has enabled students to raise even more for their class gift, allowing them to choose more meaningful projects such as scholarships and environmental support.
Past gifts have included funding for nature trail maintenance and landscaping, benches and the clock outside of the McCullough Student Center, building the Solar Decathlon House, renovating the lounge in Proctor, buying an additional MiddRides van, purchasing new campus printers, and memorial scholarships honoring the memory of classmates.
This year, the five-person Senior Committee narrowed down the options for the class gift to five choices after an “overwhelming number of poll results.” In addition to funding for staff supports, other possible options included allocating the funding towards financial aid, the arts, sustainable energy, and internships and off-campus experiences. According to Nelsen, after a final vote, the majority voting seniors elected to fund staff support.
The Committee’s goal is to raise $10,000 in student gifts for the fund. They are suggesting seniors donate $20.19 in honor of their class year. Those who donate will receive an official class pint glass, designed by Jill Stauffer ’19. They are hoping to raise an additional $15,000 in gifts from alumni and parents and are soliciting donors to match funds raised by students.
The fund will be managed by the Chaplain’s Office and the Human Resources Office and distributed to Middlebury College staff members in times of need and emergency via an application. It will subsidize financial burdens such as emergency medical expenses, funerals, heating and other unexpected crises.
Beyond the monetary contribution to the project, the senior class gift is also a symbol of student support. It is the last opportunity as a student — and the first opportunity for a soon-to-be alumnus — to give back to the college and to be part of the greater Middlebury community.
“The staff should feel supported and appreciated by the student body,” said fellow Committee leader Angie McCarthy ’19. “The senior class gift is a way for seniors to show their appreciation for their time at Middlebury and those who made it happen.”
McCarthy suggested the gift will “hopefully strike a note with members of the entire community,” since everyone benefits from the services the college staff provides. McCarthy also noted that while the seniors are pleased the class gift will go towards staff aid, “students shouldn’t always have to be the last line of support.”
“I think this decision has a ton of benefits, primarily the ability to help staff when they need it, but I also think it helps show them how much we appreciate their hard work even though students can sometimes come off as unappreciative,” Nelsen noted. “It’s the least we can do.”
More information on the fund can be found at go.middlebury.edu/seniorfund.
(04/25/19 9:49am)
I urge anyone who has not seen Ellis Glickman’s April 18 letter “In Defense of Jeff Byers” to read it carefully. Glickman, a Jewish student and member of Prof. Jeffrey Byers’s CHEM 0103 class, agrees that the question about poison gas on a recent exam was offensive, but says, “To call the question harmful is more dangerous than the question itself could ever be.” I think this is the essence of the issue. The uproar over news of this now-infamous question is vastly out of proportion to its importance. The instructor certainly used poor judgment in including it, but there is no proof or even serious suggestion of hostile intent on his part. The campus will move on to new issues, but the injury to Prof. Byers may be very long-lasting.
For writing this question, Prof. Byers has been all but branded an anti-Semite and Holocaust trivializer and (it appears) forced to take a leave. He has been rebuked by the president in an all-campus email, something unprecedented in my time at the College. The story has made local public radio and is likely to go farther. As Glickman notes, the Holocaust was real and the gas was used. We must never forget that. But beyond causing understandable short-lived shock and discomfort, did the exam question do enough damage to justify the flood of condemnation? Exactly who was harmed, how and to what extent? We should demand specific, convincing answers before rejecting Prof. Byers’s prompt apology as insufficient and virtually expelling him from the community. If we retaliate so furiously for an ill-considered but non-malicious action, what would we do if a faculty member really were shown to be an anti-Semite, Holocaust trivializer, or a racist who has harmed a student in some more serious way?
The College as an institution and, probably, most faculty, staff and students highly value and work to promote diversity, inclusivity, sensitivity and a climate of safety, respect and support. Most of us are probably mindful of what we say and write, striving to recognize and overcome our own prejudices and trying to avoid gratuitously offending others. But the prevailing attitude that any slip-up, however unintentional, any presentation by an objectionable speaker, or any uncomfortable classroom experience threatens some students and indicates that they are unwelcome or not valued constrains the spirit of free inquiry, expression and debate which is vital to a rich academic life. Trying to shield students from any emotional distress--encouraging them to feel entitled to such protection—does not help them prepare for life in the less indulgent “outside world,” where they will not find constant personal support and where we hope they will focus outward on the myriad enormous problems facing our planet.
Human mistakes and shortcomings are inevitable. We should attempt to correct them without personal condemnation, without dwelling on them longer than necessary and with recognition of good intentions. Surely it would be better to cultivate our proclaimed values by good example, discussion and friendly persuasion than to enforce lip-service to them through constant suspicion, surveillance and denunciation.
(04/24/19 12:06am)
At least nine Student Government Association senators have threatened to resign en masse if college officials do not meet a list of 13 demands, a decision that would effectively dissolve the elected body for the remainder of the academic year.
The demands were outlined in a letter emailed Tuesday morning to senior college administrators, including President Laurie L. Patton, with all students copied. Demands in the letter are wide-ranging, and include: “structural changes” to college policy aimed at increasing administrative transparency; “improvements to existing programs” like Green Dot and bringing all buildings into Americans with Disabilities Act compliance; and “new initiatives,” including the creation of an LGBTQ+ Center and a Black Studies department.
In the letter, senators also asked Patton to appear before students at a town hall on Tuesday, April 30 in Mead Chapel. Senior Senator Travis Sanderson ’19 told The Campus that the resignations would occur sometime after then, depending on how and if administrators respond to their demands.
“We just received the SGA communication and are reviewing it. Many of the concerns are already being addressed,” Patton told The Campus Tuesday afternoon. “For others, we believe we can find a way forward to work together. We welcome an opportunity for engagement with SGA and have already reached out to its leaders. We will be providing a response, which we hope we can work on collaboratively, next week.”
While not every member of the SGA Senate has promised to resign, all members approved sending the letter to administration, Sanderson said. The resignation of at least nine of the 18 senators would mean the absence of a quorum at all future meetings, and thus the effective dissolution of the elected body for the remainder of the academic year. With the threat of resignation, senators hope to send a message about inadequate student representation in administrative decision-making.
“It has become evident that the connection between the administration and students has been reduced to a one-way street,” they wrote. “The administration has failed time and again to listen to the desires of its students.”
Their demands, titled “Thirteen Proposals for Community Healing,” are aimed to improve student representation and promote community healing on campus, including several proposals that had previously been brought to the administration but were either tabled or overlooked.
“There is a long history of SGA recommendations being ignored,” Sanderson said.
As it stands now, SGA resolutions are mostly symbolic recommendations to college officials — no real student check exists on administrative authority. But in the letter, the senators claim a right to participate in administrative decisions.
“Our tuition funds the college, and the college’s purpose is our education,” senators wrote. “Middlebury College is first and foremost a school, not a corporation. Why is it that decisions are often made with little to no consent or involvement from us in our own school?”
In an op-ed published by The Campus Tuesday afternoon, SGA President Nia Robinson ’19 supported the actions of senators regardless of where they stand and promised to keep advocating for students in her role.
“For the final weeks, I will continue to support those who come to me and offer advice to any students who will listen. I will continue to advocate for them whether in trustee or SLG meetings when I am the only student in the room,” Robinson wrote. “My sole goal is, and has always been, to help leave this campus in a better state than I found it.”
Reaching a Breaking Point
The letter enumerates instances of administrative neglect of student proposals, from the failure to make Middlebury a sanctuary campus in 2016 to the recent cancellation and fallout from the the controversial scholar and Polish politician Ryszard Legutko’s scheduled lecture, which also resulted in the cancellation of a peaceful, non-disruptive student protest scheduled to take place outside. In the letter, senators condemn the administration for waiting until Friday, April 19 to unequivocally say that the student protesters were not the security concern. That delay, they write, caused misinformation about the protest to spread in the national media.
Senior Senator Alexis Levato ’19 said that the SGA saw the period following the lecture cancellation as an opportune moment to act.
“I think we cared about these issues as individuals, and cared about them as SGA, but didn’t feel there was a possibility of actually doing anything until this happened,” she said. “Which I think speaks to the way the administration is structured, that it only really allows students to be activists in moments in which it’s blowing up in their faces.”
Varsha Vijayakumar ’20, a junior senator and the SGA president-elect, also saw the moment as a culmination of SGA and student activists’ frustrations.
“I personally reached a point where I feel like the administration has been taking advantage of our empathy, and I think that’s unfair to put a disproportionate burden on students to work hard to make this place more like a home for students,” she said. “We’re at a point where it’s not just the SGA, but also a lot of student activism and mobilization that is pushing for change. And we want to support that.”
The letter alleges that it was only when administrators heard that senators were discussing dissolution that they said, in an email sent by Provost Jeff Cason and Dean of the Faculty Andi Lloyd, and forwarded to students by Dean of Student Baishakhi Taylor, that “our assessment of the potential safety risks of Wednesday’s planned lecture did not reflect concerns about threats from student protesters or students attending the event. Rather, we were concerned about the safety of those participants.”
“We are extremely disappointed that only after hearing threat of SGA’s dissolution did an administrator publicly clear organizers of blame as the unnamed security threat that led to cancellation of the Ryszard Legutko event,” the letter reads.
No member of the SGA reached by The Campus would comment on the record about the alleged interaction with an administrator.
Vetting Speakers
After The Campus posted the letter online Tuesday, debate ensued over the senators’ third proposal, which calls for the creation of a due diligence form that includes questions aimed to determine whether a speaker’s views align with Middlebury’s community standards, “removing the burden of researching speakers from the student body.”
The proposal also asked for each academic department to create a student advisory board that would have access to a list of invited speakers one month in advance in order to provide feedback when necessary.
“This is absurd. Students should relish the chance to research speakers, to interact with speakers, to debate with speakers,” Rich Cochran ’91 wrote on The Campus Facebook page. “I am shocked that the SGA would publish this list of unilateral demands.”
Sanderson clarified to The Campus that the proposal would not bar speakers from campus. Instead, the answers to the form would be made public to inform the community in advance of the speaker’s arrival.
“If anything, this ensures a greater degree of informed free speech and assembly,” he said. “Critics are arguing that we want to keep speakers from campus, which is incorrect.”
The Process
Senators first began to discuss what would eventually become the letter on Wednesday afternoon in the wake of the Legutko cancellation. Over the weekend, they began to gather feedback from student leaders, including the heads of cultural organizations and leaders of the Legutko protest. Some senators spent most of Friday drafting the letter, which they then shared with all senators.
Vijayakumar was one of the students who spent the better part of the day working on the letter. She was also notified around midday that she had won the SGA presidency.
“I celebrated for maybe 20 minutes, but that was not my focus,” she said. “It’s the last thing I’m thinking about. Even on Friday, the entire day, I was working on these demands.”
On Sunday, April 21, senators went into executive session during and following their regularly scheduled meeting to discuss the draft. The session lasted one hour.
The following night, senators hosted a student-only town hall in Mead Chapel to gather feedback on the letter and demands. Robinson opened the forum by reading the demands and introduced the senators’ proposed plan to resign. Then, attendees divided into focus groups to discuss further. Each group parsed the drafted demands and suggested modifications to senators, who led the groups. Senators then met later that evening to finalize the letter based on student feedback. According to Vijayakumar, they discussed the suggestions made on every point, and identified major trends in feedback in an attempt to incorporate as many as possible.
In an interview with The Campus, Sanderson stressed the senators’ desire to involve other members of the community in the draft. He said the SGA is only one forum in which students have tried and failed to work with administrators to address the concerns of the student body. Specifically, he cited the title of the letter, which was recommended by members of the community. They also received emails with suggestions and ideas from students who could not attend the town hall.
When asked about the college’s recent work with students to divest from fossil fuels by 2028, Sanderson said that the administration did not adequately credit student activists in their announcement.
“In the case of divestment, it was a massive student campaign for a long time, but it was co-opted by the administration in the end,” he said. The letter addresses this concern: “Students who work on these initiatives alongside faculty must receive credit for their work, and will not be excluded from these initiatives once faculty begin working on them.”
When reached for comment, Community Council Co-Chair John Gosselin ’20 said he supported some of the senators’ demands and disagreed with others.
“I disagree with the general strategy of demands and dissolution because it has forced the student government to express opinions too quickly and without any nuance, reflection, or evidence of serious discussion, despite the best efforts of the SGA meeting on Sunday and the poorly attended student town hall on Monday,” he said.
History Repeats Itself
In 1967, members of the Student Association, then equivalent to the SGA, took a similar approach to addressing feelings of powerlessness vis-à-vis the administration. Members saw the body as a mouthpiece for administrative decisions and doubted its own ability to advocate for students, and voted to hold hold a campus-wide referendum on the body’s dissolution. The proposal passed overwhelmingly among students, who voted 407-70 in favor. Two years later, the current iteration of the SGA, newly-endowed with more representative and legislative capacities, formed.
Today’s SGA is drawing inspiration from its predecessors’ decision.
“When circumstances mirror those faced by student leaders half a century ago, we must consider options similar to the ones they faced,” senators wrote. “In the words of Brian Maier, the equivalent of an SGA senator at the time, ‘we must take power rather than ask for it.’”
But senators are also wary of the unintended consequences their predecessors’ actions had on the student body. Last time, dissolution of the Student Association left student organizations without funding. This time, the resignation of senators would leave the other components of the SGA intact, including the SGA President’s Cabinet and the SGA Finance Committee, which allocates the student activities budget.
“We don’t want to hurt students and nullify all the projects they’ve spent a full semester working on. That’s definitely not our intent,” Levato said. “I think we’re learning from that decision in order to make sure that students are only positively affected by this.”
Senators still think, though, that the threat is substantial enough to warrant a serious response from the administration. Vijayakumar believes the student body is on board.
“We do feel like this is the most productive way to enact change right now on this campus,” she said. “We wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t think so.”
(04/23/19 9:17pm)
Editor's Note: Nia Robinson '19 is president of the Middlebury College Student Government Association.
In a conversation I had a few weeks ago, we talked about how grateful we were for a mild year, compared to the previous years. We made sure to knock on wood, so we didn’t jinx it. Perhaps the wood was fake or we didn’t knock loud enough. Maybe we were naïve for thinking knocking on wood would do anything in the first place.
So far, April has been one of the hardest months for our campus, for SGA, and for all of us personally. From the chemistry professor to the Legutko talk to campus life speeding up as it does every spring, our minds are spinning in millions of directions trying to process the environment around us. In classes, I hear people talk about whether or not they think Legutko should have spoken. In Proctor, I hear students planning protests and talking about how they are going to respond right before needing to run to class. Whether it is in the dorms or in Crossroads, the atmosphere on campus is heavy and exhausting.
I am sure you have all heard rumors about SGA and the plans to dissolve. I have spent the last week wrestling with where I stand on it and what responsibility I have to SGA, students, and the general Middlebury community and to myself. On one side, I think about how I talk to alums and hear about how they approached similar grievances marginalized students are currently facing. I share the frustration of the students around me who spend countless hours in Old Chapel feeling like their voices are not acknowledged. When I think about the Black Lives Matter flag that is still under my bed, when I console my peers who question why they’re doing all of this work for free, when there are students who are ambivalent and undisturbed in the face of their peers’ hardships—these are the moments where I too question the purpose of the work that we do.
On the other side, dissolving SGA would put more work on students who too are struggling with the same questions I asked above. How can I expect the “essential” operations of SGA — like the finance committee — to still function if I myself refuse to show up? Who is going to pick up the pieces if the same people part of SGA are taking them apart? As president, as a person who cares about this school, and as a member of this community, I have realized it is my job to weigh all aspects. When I talked to my cabinet to get their opinion, they all raised valuable points. Drew Platt '20.5, co-director of external affairs, said, “Governments that shut down are not the ones we want to emulate.” Later he asked, “Are we trying to make a statement or are we trying to make change?” When I heard these comments, I took a moment to consider the moment we’re in. Students are in a crucial moment where we can drastically help move this community in a positive direction. And in any moment like this one, there needs to be work done on all fronts.
Students didn’t elect me to tell them what they want to hear. They didn’t elect me to sit by and watch them make the same errors of those who came before us.
I believe in learning from history. I believe in the power of students. I believe in the student organizers and the students on SGA. I also believe in calculated risks and understanding a problem fully before making a decision. For the final weeks, I will continue to support those who come to me and offer advice to any students who will listen. I will continue to advocate for them whether in trustee or SLG meetings when I am the only student in the room. I will continue make strides to increase how many students are in the room. I will continue to work within (and sometimes outside) of my power to ensure students are involved in the decisions that affect the way they live, work, and exist on campus. My sole goal is, and has always been, to help leave this campus in a better state than I found it.
(04/18/19 10:34am)
Vermont has been ranked number one overall for 2019 in Bloomberg's annual report on gender equality. This is the third year in a row that Vermont has led the rankings in the yearly report. The state was also ranked number 6 for women in leadership, and received high scores in the report’s five categories -- pay ratio by gender, female labor force participation, college degree attainment, health coverage and women in poverty.
Rep. Linda Sullivan, D-Dorset, attributes this ranking to the priorities of the state legislature. “With a strong focus from the legislature on gender equality,” she said, “Vermont will be driven to be a leader in this area.”
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Vermont’s legislature is 39.4 percent female compared to 28.7 percent nationwide. Vermont boasts 71 female members to 109 male members. The legislature recently passed a bill requiring employers to pay sick leave, and is considering a bill allowing paternity leave -- two pieces of legislation that are aimed at increasing gender equality.
“The legislature is working on bills to provide higher livable wages,” said Sullivan, “as well as to work through issues of providing other benefits to families.”
Representative Mollie Burke from Brattleboro and other policymakers recently proposed a resolution which designates April 2, 2019 as Equal Pay Day, with a proclamation signed by Governor Scott that same day. Advocates for equal pay wore red during legislative sessions.
Sullivan also acknowledged that there are challenges in passing legislation to eliminate the gender-pay gap. “However, these bills need to be thoroughly vetted and weighed against the costs to provide the services,” she said, “so while there are projects in the works, the roadmap to getting there must be well thought-out so as not to create barriers for the very populations they are intended to assist.”
Closing the wage gap would have many benefits for Vermont as a whole. Equal pay reduces poverty, adds money to the overall economy and attracts families to Vermont.
According to a report issued by Change the Story (CTS), a Vermont-based organization working towards gender equality, Vermont does well in the categories considered by Bloomberg. Women have a pay ratio gap of 16 cents, compared to a 20 cent wage gap nationally. For labor force participation, 66 percent of women work in Vermont’s labor force, compared to 58 percent of women nationally.
“Education is a key area of focus,” claimed Sullivan. In terms of education, 33 percent of women earn a bachelor’s degree in Vermont, six points higher than the national average for women’s education.
One of the indicators in which Vermont does poorly is rate of women in poverty, in which Vermont is ranked 17 with a rate of 12 percent. The CTS also found that women are significantly more likely to live in poverty than men, and 3 percent of Vermont women who work full-time do not make enough to cover basic living expenses.
It’s also important to note that the Bloomberg report does not break down statistics in terms of race. For example, Vermont ranked well for the gender pay gap, yet this gap is much larger for women of color. As reported by the Vermont Commission on Women, there is a 46 percent gap for Hispanic and Latina women, a 42 percent gap for American Indian and Alaska Native women,a 40 percent gap for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander women, a 37 percent gap for African American women, and a 15 percent gap for Asian women.
The CTS found that in Vermont, 13.4 percent of all families with minor children live in poverty, and that this number increases to 37 percent if a women is the single head of the household. CTS also found that the wage gap of women with dependant children increases to 26 percent, as compared to the 30 percent for women nationally.
“Middlebury does well in gender equality, but there are always ways to improve,” said Ellie Broeren ’22, an active member of Feminist Action Middlebury (FAM). The college currently boasts a 48.2 to 51.8 male to female ratio for students, with a staff ration of 49.5 to 50.5 (male to female). Still, such statistics fail to account for some of Middlebury’s underlying problems.
“What comes to mind for me is the lack of transparency about contraception and sexual health on campus, as this is an issue that largely affects women,” said Boeren. To combat this, FAM has created a website at go/sexysources that provides information on sexual health and are currently trying to get Plan B available at Middlebury Express.
Despite the issues in gender equality that are still prevalent in Vermont and at Middlebury College, Sullivan reminds us to also celebrate our successes. “With a strong focus from the legislature on gender equality,” she says, “Vermont [has been] driven to be a leader in this area.”
