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(03/14/19 9:58am)
The Hillcrest Orchard was filled to capacity for the “White Allies: It’s Your Turn” meeting last Thursday evening, with students lining the windowsills and crowding onto the floor as organizers Treasure Brooks ’21 and Wengel Kifle ’20 spoke about the need to eliminate racial violence from the Middlebury curriculum. [pullquote speaker="Treasure Brooks ’21" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]The academic institution is the greatest mobilizer of white supremacy.[/pullquote]
“Repeat after me,” Brooks told the crowd, “the academic institution is the greatest mobilizer of white supremacy.” Attendees echoed her words. Later, asked how she came up with the phrase, she said, “It’s just the truth.”
Promoted as an opportunity for white students, particularly those who oppose campus inequality but rarely speak up outside the classroom, to learn about advocating for racial equity, “White Allies” offered white students a glimpse into the social and academic difficulties faced by students of color. Brooks, who is black, described Middlebury as a site of colonial indoctrination, and said that the first step toward being on the right side of history is to decolonize the curriculum by incorporating diverse viewpoints that are often neglected by academia.
“Decolonizing the curriculum, I think, is to intentionally teach different authors and teach from perspectives that are non-western and non-white,” Brooks said. Most of the academic content used in Middlebury’s courses was produced in colonial and white supremacist systems, she said, and the intentional addition of different perspectives to curricula makes the context more complete.
“It’s not just adding in new voices,” said Renee Wells, director of education for equity and inclusion. “It’s adding in new voices that can name the ways in which our historical modes of thinking are oppressive.”
The event was completely student-run, but Wells described herself as a sounding board for student concerns, including those recently put forth by Brooks and Kifle regarding campus climate and curriculum.
During the meeting, Brooks referred to Carr Hall, which houses the Anderson Freeman Center, as a space for students of color. One white student, seated on the floor in the back corner of the room, turned to the person beside her, and whispered, “What’s Carr Hall?” The other student, also white, just shook her head.
At the end of the meeting, the presenters had participants break into groups by academic department and then passed out petitions, urging students to approach professors about the need for Middlebury to undergo an institutional process of academic decolonization, and to request that faculty members sign on in support.
The meeting organizers began co-writing the petition the day after Brooks served as guest discussion leader for Middleground, a new student group created as a platform at the end of last year for students to share personal stories about the challenges they face at Middlebury. Brooks, a History major, told The Campus about a STEM major who spoke at Middleground and started to cry while describing an experience with intolerance in the classroom, and the profound effect it had on her own attitude toward college academics.
[pullquote speaker="Treasure Brooks ’21" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]The violence we experience in the classrooms is truly across disciplines.[/pullquote]
“The violence we experience in the classrooms is truly across disciplines,” Brooks said.
Changing the social climate on campus is a complex endeavor, but Brooks and Kifle see expanding diversity within curricula as a goal that is both critical and attainable. Brooks read the college’s mission statement aloud during the meeting, emphasizing its claim to prepare students to “contribute to their communities, and address the world’s most challenging problems.”
“Whose community are we learning how to help, to engage with?” she said. “Whose?”
Most Middlebury students would describe themselves as allies, Kifle, who is also black, said in an interview with the Campus. But she noted that white students lack the double consciousness held by students of color and, as a result, frequently don’t realize that they are not getting the entire perspective. Expanding the curriculum, she said, helps everyone.
“It’s not that people of color need this more,” Brooks said. “The chasm in our education is more visible to us because we know our own history and we know what’s missing.”
Middlebury’s mission statement promises to prepare students to address the world’s most challenging problems, but the current lack of global, critical perspectives presented in the classroom fails to accomplish that, Kifle said. Limiting the voices available to students to one dominant demographic, specifically white men, hinders the scope of their education and leaves them unprepared to face real world issues.
“Professors are just serving as moderators instead of educators,” Kevin Mata ’22 said, after Brooks invited students of color to share their opinions about the academic environment.
“A lot of them are teaching the way that they were taught,” Brooks said at the meeting. “That does not make it right.”
Kifle told The Campus that the petition circulated at the meeting demands the education Middlebury already claims to provide its students, holding the college accountable for what its mission statement promises.
“What we’re attempting to do is not radical whatsoever,” Brooks said.
[pullquote speaker="Francoise Niyigena ’21" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]We all come with different misconceptions about people who are different from us.[/pullquote]
“We all come with different misconceptions about people who are different from us,” said Francoise Niyigena ’21, one of the founders of the student organization Middleground. She started the organization with a group of friends after they realized that they had all come to college expecting to have transformative conversations with people who were profoundly different from them, but that those conversations rarely happened. Niyigena said that most students who currently attend meetings are struggling with some aspect of campus culture, or face discrimination in the broader community, but that the group welcomes anyone who wants to learn.
Middleground meets every other Thursday from 6–7:30 in the Hillcrest Orchard. Kifle will facilitate its next meeting, focusing on immigrant students’ experiences, on March 14.
Kifle told The Campus that the petition serves as concrete evidence of support, but that their main motivation for holding the meeting was to raise awareness about, and increase student involvement in, the process of decolonizing Middlebury’s curriculum. The “White Allies” organizers said they had big plans moving forward, but added that those plans depend on white allies’ continued support.
(03/14/19 9:57am)
Editor’s note: This piece was written for a longform sports journalism course in Winter Term 2019. The Campus is publishing it due to its relevance in today’s politicized climate. The author supplemented research and interviews with past and present Middlebury students with her perspective as a member of the Middlebury Pranksters.
It was the day after Charles Murray visited Middlebury College, leaving in his wake a community torn apart and questioning its identity. The arrival of the author of The Bell Curve sparked campus-wide protests, as students of color braced themselves for yet another message that they didn’t belong. Many members of the college’s ultimate frisbee team, the Pranksters, had attended the protests and were now arriving at the athletic center for practice.
Miyo McGinn ’19.5, then a first-year, walked down the stairs of the Virtue Field House and sat down next to Mary Thomas, a senior captain of the women’s team. Most of the players had already moved onto the field for warm-ups, and they were alone. McGinn is half Japanese-American, so she hadn’t felt personally attacked by the events of the previous day like Thomas, who is half-black. Sitting there, off to the side, both felt isolated from their team. Looking around, McGinn thought, “I don’t feel like they understand how tired I am right now, and I don’t feel like they understand how deeply, deeply hurt I am right now.”
While others set the turmoil aside in order to practice, McGinn and Thomas stayed where they were, coming to the harsh realization that their teammates and friends could not grasp the pain they were in. “We kinda just started putting on our cleats and never got past that,” Thomas said.
Ultimate was first introduced in 1968 and has yet to become as institutionalized or bureaucratic as it does not have the extent of sponsorship, advertising or oversight from an officiating body like other popular American sports. Instead, frisbee has carried the countercultural attitude of its first decade into the 21st century. At its essence is “Spirit of the Game,” the idea of spirited sportsmanship that places the responsibility of fair play and respect on each player, with players self-officiating games even at the highest level. Across the nation, ultimate communities pride themselves on being open and welcoming. And yet, students have indicated that in so many ways, despite welcoming players, the ultimate community’s structure and behavior leaves something to be desired.
McGinn didn’t realize this until her eighth year of the sport. She grew up playing in South Seattle with the All Girl Everything Ultimate Program (AGE UP), which empowers young women of color and uses ultimate to work toward social justice. To her, ultimate and social justice were inextricably intertwined. Then she came to Middlebury and joined a new ultimate community. “[That’s] when I was like oh, wow, this is the norm, where I came from is not the norm.” Suddenly, she saw that what ultimate was most intertwined with was whiteness. Holding up her hands and forming a Venn diagram, she says, “I think frisbee culture and white culture are almost entirely overlapping.” Coming to this community and to this realization, McGinn reeled. Ultimate to her had always been about social justice, and now it seemed to be purely a vehicle for socializing and drinking.
Why are those two circles in McGinn’s Venn diagram so often nearly completely overlapping? For the Middlebury Pranksters, the reasons seem endless. Spirit of the Game and self-officiating instill many in the ultimate community with the attitude that their sport as superior. The reality is that these unique aspects bring their own problems, highlighting implicit bias and inadequate cultural competency in coaches and players alike. Spirit of the Game, for example, relies on shared norms of acceptable behavior, which vary dramatically based on culture. If white players are those establishing what a foul looks like, what disrespect looks like, then whiteness is woven into the fabric of the game.
The costs of playing ultimate also present barriers, both to playing the sport and to participating in the community. Thomas remembers that new players were sometimes reluctant to go to tournaments because spending the weekend off campus was both socially and financially burdensome. Between dues for tournaments and parties, expenses become prohibitive for some. Connor Hanify, a senior who was captain of the men’s team last year, says leadership tries to reduce any barriers. They fundraise to be able to subsidize whatever individuals can’t afford. “We always say come talk to us if there’s a problem,” he says, “but it’s not easy doing that.”
Divya Gudur, a sophomore on the team, says there’s another dimension that adds to a feeling of inaccessibility. The team has frequent parties, but “if you’re on financial aid you start counting every day the amount of money your parents are spending,” she says. It makes it hard to justify participating in the party culture of the team. McGinn feels similarly: as a student who’s taking out loans and whose mom is working two jobs, all just so that she can get this education, she feels like she can’t afford to indulge in the ways other students with a safety net can. And if you’re not at social gatherings, it’s hard to be as integrated. This of course can apply to anyone, regardless of race, but it’s frequently an obstacle for students of color who often don’t feel like they can take the same liberties as their peers.
You can find binge drinking on any college sports team at Middlebury. But ultimate culture isn’t just a drinking culture. It’s a culture of weirdness. Miles McQueen, a junior who no longer plays but remains what’s known as a “social member,” remembers his first frisbee party vividly. Thomas came up to him, and said, “Ok, here’s a shot of vodka,” extending one hand. “And here’s a carrot,” she added, extending the other. So the two did a shot and chased it by eating a carrot.
McQueen was both bewildered and amused at the time, but recognizes that some of this weirdness can be off-putting for new players. Certain strange activities and traditions are specifically intended to build community, like “circle questions” at the beginning of practices, where all players stand with arms around each other and share their response to a random question of the day. A choice example used this past fall is: Would you rather fart butterflies or sneeze marbles?
Most newcomers are surprised by and maybe slightly uncomfortable with this goofiness at first, but learn to love or at least accept it. McQueen and Gudur, both people of color, take issue with the assumption that it’s just something to adjust to. “POC communities have different cultural norms than majority white communities do,” says Gudur. “I think the quirkiness sometimes doesn’t fit into POC culture.” If we already stand out, she says, why would we want to draw more attention to ourselves?
Students of color are hyper-visible at Middlebury regardless of their behavior, so “Already being at Middlebury is pushing,” says McQueen. His freshman year when the team did its bi-annual “naked run,” a nighttime streak through the library during finals week, he knew he wouldn’t have the privilege of anonymity from wearing a mask. “Being the only black guy on the frisbee team, I just did not want to do that,” he said. For this reason, the team didn’t wear masks this year during its fall semester run.
But there’s an important element that McQueen and Gudur come back to over and over again. Gudur says she has always felt incredibly welcome on the team, and McQueen acknowledges that while he was in a very white space, that the team’s unfailing openness and acceptance was what made him feel comfortable from the start. Neither feels that they have been treated differently on or off the field because of the color of their skin. McQueen looks back on his freshman year and notes how many genuine people he met who to this day he considers cherished friends.
Hanify was also surprised by and grateful for the community he discovered when he became a part the team. He joined simply to play the sport he loved, but says, “The unique culture we had made it an amazing experience and challenged a lot of beliefs I had.” In many ways, he says, the team is diverse. The variety of opinions, identities, and sexualities represented on the team along with the open and trusting nature of the community has taught him to think differently.
It makes it easy for him to wonder: maybe ultimate is just white because it’s a new sport that originated in places of privilege. Maybe it just hasn’t spread to other places yet and become pervasive across race and class divides like more popular American sports. Maybe it just takes time.
But when Thomas recalls her reaction in the aftermath of Murray’s visit, it’s impossible to deny that something more is at play. That day when she and McGinn sat on the side while watching their teammates play, she admits she may have jumped to conclusions about others’ ability to empathize. She had already decided “there are just things that I don’t talk about with people on the frisbee team.” When her teammates became her primary friend group, she extended this logic: “here at Middlebury there are just things that I don’t talk about and no one else will be able to relate to.”
Why didn’t she at least give her teammates a chance to prove her wrong? Because the year before, she had already seen what they would do with such a chance. A series of racist op-eds in The Campus caused an alarmed Black Student Union to join several other cultural organizations in writing a lengthy open letter to students. A player who was abroad at the time constructed a “Reader’s Digest” of the message, and sent it to the team. She urged everyone to read it in case they hadn’t had the chance to read the longer letter, and to think seriously about the issues in their community. It was an eloquent and compassionate email, recalls Thomas.
Immediately, a captain on the men’s team wrote back: he scolded the individual for inappropriate usage of the email list, and for not clearing the message with captains first. “This was my pivot point with my relationship with the Pranksters around race,” says Thomas. She thought, “Holy sh*t,these people I’ve been captaining with and friends with really don’t value the things that I value and don’t see racial justice and inclusion as something the Pranksters need to be dealing with.”
Thomas has thought a lot about what happened. “Spirit of the Game absolves people of their need for self reflection,” she says, and that plays out at Middlebury. She loved the weird culture and fully participated in it. But, she adds, “I’ve seen that operate as a shield against criticism … like, ‘oh, we’re just these fringe weirdoes, we can’t possibly be the oppressor.’”
There’s a clear dichotomy between how the ultimate community presents itself — as fun loving and accepting — and how certain members perceive and interact with the community. If the Pranksters want to be what they say they are, there’s work to be done.
But McGinn isn’t sure this is the take-home. “Is what communities of color need ultimate frisbee?” she wonders. Speaking from a place of passion about social justice, she views making the sport equitable and diverse as of low importance. Other issues are more pressing. “Maybe we should stop police brutality or the school to prison pipeline.”
Hanify holds more hope. “The idealist in me wants to think that frisbee is a really cool thing and a way to bring people together and that Spirit of the Game lets people learn how to stand up for themselves and have a platform to speak on.”
Across the nation, individuals and groups are working to bring reality closer to aspiration. In 2017 USA Ultimate launched a Vision Tour, during which it facilitated community conversations in nearly a dozen cities. The purpose was to discuss the ultimate community’s hopes and concerns about the sport’s future, and the first topic listed on the agenda was equity and diversity.
Change at the national level will be hard and take time. But in the meantime, Thomas sees hope in specific communities. “Individual teams can make little oases of inclusivity,” she says. “That’s my dream.”
(03/14/19 9:56am)
This Friday, March 15, students in over 90 countries will walk out of school to demand action against the climate crisis. In recognition of the fierce urgency of this crisis, we faculty look forward to joining the action organized by Middlebury College and Middlebury Union High School students: to leave campus at noon and rally in the park across from Shafer’s Market. We encourage all faculty, staff, and community members to walk in solidarity with Middlebury students at noon on Friday.
Signed,
Martin Abel
Molly Anderson
Julia Berazneva
Tanya Byker
James Chase Sanchez
Molly Costanza-Robinson
Laurie Essig
Kemi Fuentes-George
Peter Hans Matthews
Jonathan Isham
Rebecca Kneale Gould
Marc Lapin
Bill McKibben
Jason Mittell
Erica Morrell
Linus Owens
Michael Sheridan
Dan Suarez
Carly Thomsen
(03/07/19 11:36am)
EAST MIDDLEBURY — When Chef Paul Dow left his job working for Middlebury College dining after 20 years to open his own barbecue restaurant, he wasn’t expecting to fill a student niche. Paul’s Deli and BBQ, officially open as of Feb. 11, is nestled in East Middlebury where restaurants are spread thin. For Dow, this location just makes sense. The store is within walking distance of his house and has next-to-no culinary competition. For hungry Middlebury students returning from a day at Snow Bowl, the stop-in restaurant also makes sense, but for a different reason: it provides a much needed reprieve from settling for a bag of gas station chips on the way home from the ski slopes.
Paul’s Deli and BBQ, located at 51 Ossie Road at what was formerly the Down Home Deli & Market, is still evolving, but it’s already serving some serious fare. Dow’s current specialty is his pulled pork. After being slow-cooked for hours, it’s served either straight up, in a bun with homemade coleslaw, in a Cuban sandwich or in the customer-favorite style: on a fresh waffle.
“I’m trying to do as much as I can homemade,” Dow said. “It’s coming out really well.”
Dow’s current menu also includes items like breakfast sandwiches made with sausage, bacon or tomato; grilled cheeses; sides like macaroni and cheese, baked beans and potato salad; cookies and brownies; and daily specials. He also makes his own sauces, including a maple barbecue sauce that’s prepared with maple syrup made by his family just up the street.
For now, all of this is a one-man show. Open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, Dow runs nearly everything himself. Luckily, Dow’s culinary background makes it easy. He grew up learning to cook from his parents, who both worked in Middlebury College dining.
He started working for the college himself on a part-time basis when he was 14, beginning as a dishwasher before moving to the kitchen in Proctor dining hall. He then attended Johnson and Wales University to study pastry for a semester before transferring to the New England Culinary Institute where he received his degree.
After graduation, he returned to Middlebury College for a total of 20 years of full-time service. He began at the juice bar, which has since been replaced by Crossroads Café. He then moved on to work in Ross and Atwater dining halls, at Bread Loaf and in on-campus catering before serving as the night manager of The Grille for the last eight years. (When asked what it was like working weekend nights there, Dow left it at “I have seen a lot of things.”)
For Dow, leaving The Grille was a pretty significant transition. “I went from getting done at 3 o’clock in the morning to getting here at 6:30 in the morning,” he explained, adding that he’ll have to show up even earlier once he starts adding long-cooking items like brisket to his menu.
But he doesn’t seem to mind. “It’s something I’ve always wanted I think,” Dow said. “I’ve been (making barbecue) as a hobby for probably 10 years now.”
Although pulled pork has been the central dish so far, Dow has lots of ideas in the works. He’s waiting on a new smoker that will allow him to add different kinds of meat to the menu. “I can’t wait to start doing brisket because I don’t really see much,” Dow said, explaining that he slow-cooks it for 16-20 hours to get it just right. “I love brisket a lot.” He also plans to offer chicken and ribs, as well as pre-order to-go dinners.
For the summer, Dow is considering adding a charcoal grill to prepare hamburgers and hot dogs. “I’d like to get into some sort of homemade ice cream and milkshakes type stuff,” Dow said.
In a neighborhood lacking quick-bite options, Paul’s Deli and BBQ has been well-received. The restaurant already has customers that come in daily and a 5-star Google review. One customer, who ordered a Cuban sandwich, raved, “It was by far one of the best sandwiches I’ve had in the area! The pork had just come out of the smoker when I arrived. It doesn’t get any better than this.” Other reviews cited the breakfasts, macaroni and cheese, pulled pork sandwiches and Dow’s homemade maple barbecue sauce as particularly tasty.
Dow expects that the restaurant will pick up even more during the summertime, when he hopes to add outdoor space and see more foot traffic. For the winter, it makes for a convenient and hearty stop for skiers returning from the Snow Bowl.
Paul’s Deli and BBQ is still gaining its footing, but it has started off strong in the somewhat precarious Middlebury restaurant scene. Chef Dow is positive about the future, and he’s happy to be able to finally cook and serve what he loves. In a place like East Middlebury, Dow said, “It’s nice to have something a little bit more homemade.”
(03/07/19 10:59am)
[gallery ids="43497,43498,43499"]
The doorway that separates the lower level of Davis Family Library from Middlebury’s Special Collections is rather unassuming, considering it is the entrance to a space that contains some of the college’s most prized material belongings. It is rather like a certain pub in Harry Potter that is visible to witches and wizards while Muggles walk past every day without turning their heads.
“We often meet students in their senior year who have never come down here,” said Rebekah Irwin, the director of Special Collections. “This is a really secure space: it’s both a temple and a prison. We’re behind locked doors and we have special security systems, so that can be quite intimidating and can feel a bit privileged.”
Indeed, the hyper-secure space located under Wilson Café is a fascinating juxtaposition between temple and prison. In a space that contains two first editions of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and books written over 400 years ago, the intimidation of interacting with Special Collections is undoubtedly warranted. To enter the space and to engage with the materials, however, is a priceless experience that is available to anyone who asks.
“We try to be as open as possible,” Irwin said. “That’s one of our challenges — making sure that this feels like a space that students can come to.”
Though its closed-off appearance may be daunting, however, the discovery of Middlebury’s Special Collections and Archive feels like the discovery of an ancient ruin, an oasis tucked away in a desert of bleary eyes and blue recliners.
“In Special Collections, we adhere to the idea that an artifact itself can teach us something and speak to us in a way that a digitized copy cannot,” Irwin said. “Digitalization is great and can do all sorts of things like a keyword search, but we like to think that side-by-side, the two complement each other. When you see a book that was held by an antislavery activist in the United States in 1850, it gives you a sense of the experience and the lives lived at that time.”
To Irwin, Special Collections is an opportunity to learn about the past with the aid of physical objects. If nothing else, the collection is a space created to humor the visceral response humans have when holding documents and articles held by other humans centuries in the past. Its existence, furthermore, is a testament to the importance of history and the humanities at Middlebury College.
“Recently in the news there have been these stories of the catastrophic declines of humanities majors in colleges across the United States, and some people have worried that studying history has become an exclusive privilege,” explained Irwin. “But when you have a historical view, you can see that the fights we are still fighting today have been going on for decades, and you can learn from them and win battles that are still ongoing. We can see that through lenses of race, sexual identity and gender. Without that, you feel like the battles today have no historical precedence, and you try to fight them without any ammunition that’s been learned from the past.”
Though Special Collections exists to teach Middlebury students about the past, Irwin has been tasked with focusing on the preservation of the present for future students.
“We need to collect as much as possible to tell our stories,” she said. “How we preserve the past is changing, and we don’t exactly know what it will look like to study the history of Middlebury College fifty years from now. We just had a class in that was looking at when the first student organizations and clubs for LGBT life and African American life emerged. We had newspapers and some meeting notes, but no student organizations take meeting minutes anymore. We don’t know the answer to how history will be preserved going forward.”
Through the uncertainty, however, Irwin believes that people will continue to create physical items that can ultimately end up in the archive.
“We try to collect things off of bulletin boards. Students still make lots of posters,” she said. We try to actively collect those and other things that capture the events on campus. I don’t see a time when students will stop making posters.”
Even if they do, Irwin is confident that Special Collections will find a way around digital obstacles.
“I hope that it will always be important to express political and cultural ambitions physically, through t-shirts and water bottles, because we can collect all of that,” she said. “And though the physical material may slowly go away, we hope that something will take its place. We hope that a student will still be able to search on [the Special Collections] Instagram pages 25 years from now to get a sense of what student life was like.”
(03/07/19 10:57am)
The Middlebury women’s lacrosse team took to Kohn Field with a loud home crowd behind them for the first time since last May. Ranked the second squad in the country after an exhilarating NCAA run, the Panthers walked out on the turf hungry for another almost flawless season. But, on Saturday, March 2, the women fell short, trailing Bates 11-10 by just one goal in overtime.
The Panthers got to work early on, throwing up the first two goals on the scoreboard. Emily Barnard ’20 and Kirsten Murphy ’21 snuck two shots past the Bobcat goalie before the third minute ticked by. The field was quiet for another 20 minutes, as both teams failed to find an open net. The silence was broken by Barnard once again, when she cradled the ball to the crease, giving the Panthers a three-goal advantage.
Barnard came out looking faster and stronger than ever, picking up a career-best of five goals during the contest. Despite a relaxing semester abroad in Madrid, Spain, she showed no signs of any respite and posed a huge offensive threat to the Bobcat defense. If this matchup says anything about her, Barnard will continue to be a leading scorer throughout the 2019 season.
But Bates answered the deficit. They snapped the host lead, adding two goals to their name before Kate Zecca ’20 tallied another for the Panthers. At the end of the half the Middlebury offense held their ownclosing out the period still having a narrow margin of 6-5 over their NESCAC foes.
As the second half whistle blew, the women hit the ground running. The Bobcat defense was helpless against an unrelenting Middlebury offense. Erin Nicholas ’21, who was a big part of Middlebury’s success last year, started off the scoring followed by Barnard and Casey O’Neill ’19. But a four goal lead was simply not enough. In the final 15 minutes of the half, Bates knocked back five more goals to Middlebury’s one, tying the game and leaving Middlebury parents at the edge of their seats.
Captain Susanna Baker ’19 spoke about the team’s play on Saturday. “Our play in the midfield was awesome on the draw and in transitions. However, we struggled to finish on offense, which gave Bates more possessions that they capitalized on. This week we are really focusing on taking only high percentage shots and communicating well on defense,” Baker said.
The underdogs were in for an overtime fight and they got the upset that they came for. In the final moments of play, Bates sophomore Summer Dias propelled her team to victory with an unassisted goal, closing out the match with a score of 11-10.
Captain Sara DiCenso ’19 commented on the team’s unexpected loss this past weekend. “We were definitely upset at the outcome of the game. We are not going to dwell on the loss and our mistakes, but rather hope to learn from them. I think this will be a good learning experience for our team and can be a positive turning point in our season,” said DiCenso.
The women will look to find revenge in their two matchups this coming weekend. The Panthers will face off against another NESCAC rival, Connecticut College, on home turf Saturday, March 9 at 12:00 p.m. The following day, on Sunday, March 10 at 1:00 p.m., they will challenge Springfield at home.
(02/28/19 10:59am)
Bill Burger, the college’s vice president for communications and chief marketing officer, will leave his position on April 30. President Laurie L. Patton announced Burger’s departure in an all-school email on Feb. 14. According to the email, Burger will remain as one of Patton’s senior advisors until June 30.
Patton said the college will immediately begin the search for Burger’s successor and that she hopes to hire someone before the fall. Until then, Robin Gronlund, the current associate vice president of marketing and creative services, will serve as his interim replacement, beginning May 1.
Burger leaves behind a complicated legacy, as many in the college community associate him closely with his role in the controversial Charles Murray protest and its aftermath in March 2017.
While news of his departure came as a surprise to some, Burger said he told Patton over a year ago that he intended to leave the role. He said the demanding nature of jobs like his cause increased turnover, not just at Middlebury, but at similar institutions. Of the 11 NESCAC schools, Burger is currently the third-longest serving head of communications.
“I think from an institutional perspective it makes sense for the transition to happen now,” he said. “Middlebury is embarking on several long-term projects, and continuity will be helpful.”
Among these projects, Burger named the continued implementation of Envisioning Middlebury and an upcoming fundraising campaign.
Patton did not return a request for comment on Burger’s departure.
Leaving His Mark
In her email, Patton detailed some of Burger’s contributions to Middlebury, including his role in increasing the college’s social media presence and his influence on the award-winning Middlebury Magazine. Patton also praised Burger’s work in integrating the various parts of the Middlebury institution under one identity.
“He arrived at a point of critical transition as Middlebury began to fully embrace the complexity of its schools and programs and the need to think strategically about its identity and operations,” Patton said in the email. “He led the institution through the successful introduction of a new identity system that linked all our schools and programs”
Patton also described Burger’s relationship with The Campus, writing, “Bill has regularly and effectively worked with individual students, coaching on ethics, reporting, and best practices, and with editors at The Campus, while always respecting the independence of student journalism.”
Ellie Reinhardt ’17, a former editor in chief of The Campus, worked with Burger during the time of the Murray protest, and recalled having a productive relationship with Burger’s office.
“He constantly challenged me and challenged the staff, pushing us to reflect and refine our processes and our content,” she said. “He held The Campus to the highest standard of journalism, gave candid feedback and demanded professionalism. I will always appreciate his candor.”
Ethan Brady ’18, another former editor in chief, disagreed with Patton’s description of The Campus’ relationship with Burger. Brady said that he and Burger had different views of the role The Campus should play in the Middlebury community. He recalled a meeting with Burger and Patton in which both expressed they believed the paper was publishing too many negative stories.
“He articulated this idea that The Campus is a morale booster or a community builder, and if we print negative coverage or bad coverage then we’re not doing our job,” Brady said.
After this meeting, The Campus ran an editorial pushing back on the request for more positive coverage and affirming the paper’s independence from the Communications Office.
“There’s no such thing as negative coverage if it’s accurate and factual,” Brady said. “The school should not be immune to any sort of scrutiny.”
Brady acknowledged that Burger was simply doing his job in trying to protect the image of the school. Still, as editor in chief, Brady had a different view of the newspaper’s purpose.
“The duty of The Campus is to provide a check on the institution,” he said.
Role in the Murray Protests
Outside the newsroom, many students associate Burger with the role he played in the Murray protest.
As the protest played out, Burger planned to shuttle Murray and Political Science Professor Allison Stanger, the talk’s mediator, away from the event. The official college account, published by the college newsroom, said that Burger accelerated away from McCullough Student Center and that students jumped onto the hood of his car after it had begun to move. In the aftermath, many students disputed that account, alleging that Burger drove through the crowd and into protestors, at one point accelerating with a student on the hood of his car.
Sarah Karerat ’18, who was among those put on probation for her involvement in the Murray protest, said that for her Burger represented the administration’s effort to punish her and her fellow students for their actions.
“He became a figurehead of the anxiety and fear of the administration that we had about how the judicial process was going to affect our futures,” she said. “He was the voice of the protest policy that night, and one of the things that sticks out to me is in the whole free speech argument was that the protest policy and the judicial process eventually became censorship in its own right. And in a public manner he represents that censorship.”
Throughout the judicial process and after, when Karerat had already received her two semesters of probation, she recalls feeling anxious often. This feeling was accentuated in the presence of administrators who she associated with the protest and the trial, including Burger.
“Whenever I saw him in public spaces I was pretty immediately uncomfortable and afraid. At the beginning, that spring of 2017, I usually would leave spaces because of that discomfort,” she said.
Life After Middlebury
Burger intends to take some time to decide on his next move. He and his wife Susan Greenberg, who teaches writing and journalism at the college, plan to remain in Middlebury for the next year and a half. Greenberg will continue to teach in that time.
“I’ve spent time in media, the corporate sector, and higher education,” Burger said. “I’ve enjoyed working in all of those fields and so I don’t rule out anything for the future.”
He also noted that he is proud of the work his team has accomplished during his tenure.
“Middlebury has become a more transparent place than ever before,” Burger said. “We are more willing to engage with the media in good times and challenging times. There’s not a lot of room for hiding in today’s media environment and the best institutions — and I’m proud to say Middlebury is one of them — must be accepting of being in the public eye more than was the case even a decade ago. That’s been a growing experience for some people, but there’s no going back.”
GiGi Hogan contributed reporting.
(02/21/19 11:04am)
MIDDLEBURY - Homelessness in Vermont is sometimes hidden within the state’s signature rolling green hills and idyllic pastures. Though the issue may not be as obvious or prevalent in Vermont as in urban centers across the country, it is nonetheless a serious and growing problem.
The Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness (VCEH) recently released a report showing that homelessness increased from 2016 to 2018. The winter months, in particular, can create life-threatening situations for those experiencing homelessness.
Between October and April, organizations across the state work to meet the increased demand for shelter caused by extreme cold weather. Doug Sinclair, co-director of Charter House Coalition, explained that “shelter life is not easy … so, in the warmer months, some people prefer to camp. Many official and nonofficial campgrounds have people living there who are homeless, even if it’s not apparent.”
Middlebury’s Charter House provides clients with a Winter Warming Shelter from Oct. 15 to April 15 annually. As reported by The Campus earlier this year, the shelter opened on Sept. 1. The need is especially pronounced by Dec. 1, according to Sinclair.
Peter Kellerman, co-director of the John Graham Housing & Services in Vergennes, Vt., noted a similar trend of increased need in the winter. But Kellerman continued, “we’re full year-round and maintain a waitlist. There’s a greater need during winter months, but the truth is, we’re always full.”
“Need seems to have grown every year over the last 10 years,” Sinclair observed. This may have to do with a variety of factors.
Firstly, there is a lack of employment opportunities, and the jobs that are available do not have adequate wages. The National Low Income Housing Coalition released a report last year showing that “both average renter wages and prevailing minimum wages are insufficient to afford modest rental apartments throughout the country.” According to the report, a federal minimum wage earner would have to work 122 hours per week for 52 weeks per year, in order to afford a two-bedroom apartment.
“A lot of retail minimum wage jobs are available [in Vermont], which don’t create enough of an income to sustain housing,” Kellerman explained.
“Folks who could’ve afforded to live on their wages 15 years ago, have ended up in a situation where they just don’t have enough income to afford housing,” Sinclair said, echoing Kellerman.
Dawn Butterfield, treasurer for the VCEH, elaborated on the issue. “The cost of living in Vermont is pretty high; some scales rate it number 42 in affordability. Wages have not kept pace with the cost of living, so households with moderate incomes are falling farther and farther behind,” she stated.
These problems are compounded by a severe shortage of affordable housing. “There is a less than 1 percent vacancy rate for affordable housing in Addison County,” Sinclair noted. “Someone can have a [housing] voucher to help them with rent, but can’t find an apartment because it’s not there, so they lose the voucher.” Butterfield agreed that “truly affordable housing is rarely found.”
In Addison County, a perfect storm of events contributed to this shortage leaving many experiencing homelessness in vulnerable positions. Previously, three motels accepted housing vouchers. One however — The Blue Spruce Motel – was destroyed in a fire in 2017 , and another, Greystone, now Middlebury Sweets Motel, was sold to “folks who are less inclined to receive people with vouchers,” as characterized by Kellerman.
This left just one, the Sugarhouse, that according to Kellerman, also holds some “reticence.” Those experiencing homelessness can have “complex service needs, such as mental illness or addiction, so the experience for the proprietor is not always great,” he continued.
Those who are lucky enough to find affordable housing may still face a multitude of challenges in acquiring and retaining the housing. Landlords may be reluctant to “Landlords, both public and private, are loathe to take chances on people who have a poor rental history whether because of payment issues, violence, or crime. That’s understandable, of course, but it does make it challenging to find housing for people, even when they have made changes in their lives that might make them ‘better’ tenants,” Butterfield said.
People experiencing homelessness are also more likely to suffer from severe mental illness, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. “You have to think about domestic violence victims, addiction, mental illness, and people who have experienced extreme trauma,” Kellerman said. “There are a lot of layers to homelessness and how people get affected.”
Butterfield also mentioned the impact of the opioid crisis on increased homelessness. People experiencing homelessness are disproportionately affected by substance abuse and overdose, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Additionally, the Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018 identified stable housing as a critical part of treatment and recovery. These factors left homeless populations across the nation very much at risk to be impacted by the opioid crisis
Finally, Kellerman spoke about the effect of the changing political landscape. “People have been staying with us longer and longer. There is fear [on the part of the clients], because much of the human services funding we rely on has been threatened.”
Kellerman also noted that state agencies are taking a conservative approach following the government shutdown. “They want to make sure they’ll be able to sustain what’s already active, and don’t want to hand out too much,” he said. “But I think it’s worth taking a chance… because people are suffering.”
In order to address this daunting problem, organizations in each county of Vermont work together on a process called Coordinated Entry. Developed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the process is intended to “make sure the most vulnerable among us are housed the quickest,” explained Jan Demers, Executive Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO).
Organizations find available housing, use a vulnerability assessment to look at who is most in need of housing, and then assess what those people need to get into the housing, Demers elaborated. “Even though there may be more households in need, the process of being referred by one of multiple community partners and assessed for level and type of housing need, means we are able to more quickly get people the help they need,” Butterfield said.
Despite the efforts of organizations such as CVOEO, VCEH and shelters, more support is needed to tackle the problem of homelessness in Vermont. For example, Kellerman discussed the importance of ongoing support for formerly homeless people when they are housed.
“When they acquire housing, there’s a new set of stressors, and what had them at risk in the first place doesn’t disappear that quickly. After people are safely housed, ongoing outreach is essential,” he said.
Demers agreed, and pointed out that “funding is no longer there for agencies like CVOEO, and other social service agencies, that used to get funding for supportive services for people who are recently housed.” She agreed that being able to follow people, especially through their first year being housed, would be beneficial.
Butterfield brought up multiple other points including the creation of more “truly affordable housing for households with limited incomes and more money to subsidize rents. He went on to describe the importance of supporting case management for households with multiple barriers to obtaining and retaining housing, as well as more incentives like risk pools so landlords are more willing to take chances on challenging tenants.
Community can also be important in supporting people experiencing homelessness. “If you’re homeless, you feel disenfranchised. You don’t feel part of the community,” Sinclair said.
Some of the challenges faced by people experiencing homelessness can derive from judgment or misunderstanding of their circumstances. “People think that ‘homeless people’ are somehow to blame for their misfortune, and so they don’t ‘deserve’ to be helped,” Butterfield noted. In Kellerman’s words: “It’s not what’s wrong with them, it’s what’s happened to them.”
Demers emphasized the importance of compassion and considering people as individuals. “No matter if you are at Middlebury College, walking around the campus, there are people on your grounds who are in circumstances where there is trauma and great difficulty. Being open to knowing who those people are and what their needs are is essential,” Demers said.
To contact or donate to Charter House Coalition: www.charterhousecoalition.org
(02/21/19 11:00am)
Middlebury dining halls generally accommodate students’ desires to eat where they want. Whether that means taking plates of food outside when it is sunny, eating in Proctor Lounge or deciding to take food back to a dorm room, students have freedom to dine where they choose.
College staff say that oftentimes students abuse this privilege, creating a nightmare scenario for custodians in the process. Many students opt to abandon dirty plates and silverware in dorm bathrooms, hallways and kitchens. Some students even throw dirty dishes in the trash.
Missy Beckwith, the associate director of Facilities Services, said that this is a persistent problem that adds significant unpleasant work for staff who end up collecting dishes from residential spaces.
“These dishes tend to attract bugs and rodents and begin to smell,” she said. “So, while it is not expected that custodial teams return the dishes or even pick them up, they do.”
Cindy Webb, a custodian who works in Hadley Hall, said she leaves whatever dishes she may find for a few days to see if a student will pick them up before she does so herself. Webb also confirmed that she often finds dishes in the trash, even though she works in a dorm attached to Ross Dining Hall.
[pullquote speaker="Cindy Webb" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Just in my trash bin over in the middle of second floor Hadley, I pulled out 14 cups, two plates and a bowl in two days.[/pullquote]
“Just in my trash bin over in the middle of second floor Hadley, I pulled out 14 cups, two plates and a bowl in two days,” she said. “The last few years I felt like it had tapered off and then for whatever reason this year it’s worse again.”
Webb estimated that about 80 percent of the dishes she comes across while making her rounds in the dorms are in the garbage.
Even when custodians see dishes in the trash, Beckwith said they are not supposed to remove them for health and safety reasons.
“The contents of the average trash or recycling bin can be hazardous — broken glass, improperly disposed needles, pathogens,” she said. “While the custodial staff wears gloves when removing trash, it is unreasonable to ask them to suit up in the personal protective equipment required to rummage through a bag of trash.”
While custodians like Webb who work in Ross are able to return recovered dishes directly to the dining hall, custodians in other dorms are not able to fit such trips into their already busy schedules. Instead, they typically place dorm dishes on the curb with the trash to be taken down to the Recycling Center.
There, waste management workers set the dishes aside in storage bins. They also open up trash bags and sort through the garbage, pulling out any plates, cups or silverware they see and storing them alongside the dishes picked up from other locations.
According to Waste Management Supervisor Kim Bickham, once the bins are full, they send the dishes back up the hill to the dining halls. Bickham said that on average half of the dishes they see are in the trash and half have been collected elsewhere.
“We bring them back to the dining halls once a month, or more often if we have to,” Bickham said. “We return on average 600 to 700 pounds of dishes a month.”
Executive Director of Food Service Operations Dan Detora said that at the end of Winter Term the dining hall received far more dishes than usual — a whopping 1,700 pounds. Detora said that big returns like that often happen before breaks.
[pullquote speaker="Kim Bickham" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]We return on average 600 to 700 pounds of dishes a month.[/pullquote]
When dishes arrive from the Recycling Center they are uniquely difficult to clean after having been stored with food on them for weeks.
“They have to soak at least two days, at least, because they are filthy,” he said. “Then we run them through the dishwasher once or twice, typically twice because they are just nasty.”
Randy Bushey works in the dishroom in Ross and helps when dishes arrive from the recycling center.
“A lot of them come back with mold and stuff. They are really really disgusting and I don’t think people understand or know that,” Bushey said. “There’s times where the aroma just fills the room and I have to leave to go get my breath.”
He said the hardest food to get off month-old plates is fried eggs.
Some of the dishes are so dirty and moldy that they are unsalvageable and have to be thrown away. This, along with normal wear and tear, causes Dining Services to spend up to $20,000 a year on replacement dishes.
Webb pointed out that this wastes both money and resources. “The dining hall has a budget. That’s what they have to work with,” she said. “Do you want to have quality food? Or do you want to just keep buying dishes? And to think about the impact on the environment too, how much ends up in the landfill, it’s kind of ridiculous.”
Dining Services and Facilities have struggled to solve the problem. A few years ago, Detora said they added the dish racks outside of Ross and Proctor to make it easier for students to return dishes after hours.
Detora also said they created the to-go box program in the hope that students would remove fewer plates from dining halls, but it has not made much of a difference.
Webb said that the college used to impose fines on hallways that left dishes out, but she raised concerns about the fairness of that practice.
[pullquote speaker="Cindy Webb" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Do you want to have quality food? Or do you want to just keep buying dishes?[/pullquote]
“I seriously objected to that because I felt that students that could not afford to pay their portion of the fine would be the ones that would end up picking the dishes up,” she said.
Others, including Cook Commons Coordinator Francisca Drexel, think that students should be prevented from removing dishes from dining halls in the first place.
Or, as Detora pointed out, students could fix this problem by returning their dishes.
“I get it, students are busy. But I really wish they would just bring back their dishes,” he said. “It would be a tremendous help to a whole lot of people if they would just bring their dishes back on a regular basis. And if they want something to go, get a to-go container. That’s the whole idea of the program.”
(02/14/19 10:55am)
Middlebury received a record number of applications during the 2018-2019 admissions cycle, with 9,750 students vying for a spot in the Class of 2023. The applicant pool increased by 5.6 percent compared to last year’s 9,230. With an increase of 13.9 percent, the number of applicants who identify as students of color also reached a new high.
Over the past 10 years, Middlebury’s applicant rates have increased by about 34 percent, according to Dean of Admissions Greg Buckles. Within that same 10 years, the college has seen a 99 percent increase in students of color, and a 75 percent increase in international students.
“Using an incremental, thoughtful, and responsible approach, we want to grow the pool to reach any potential candidate for whom a Middlebury education might be a good fit,” Buckles said.
In a news release, Director of Admissions Nicole Curvin attributed this year’s growth in part to recruitment by Middlebury’s staff in the South and the West, where growth in applicants was particularly strong. Applicants rose by 16 percent in the South, and 10 percent in the West.
The applicants hail from across the country, with most admitted students coming from New York. Other pipeline states include California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Illinois.
International applicants were up 10 percent this year. The six countries with the most applicants were led by China, with 628, followed by Pakistan, India, South Korea, Vietnam and Kenya.
Other NESCAC schools, such as Bowdoin, also saw an uptick in applications. Bowdoin received a total of 9,300 applications this year, an increase over its record of 9,081 for the Class of 2022.
[pullquote speaker="Greg Buckles" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]We are trying to pay more attention to students who may fall outside what some may consider traditional norms or mainstream types of Middlebury profiles.[/pullquote]
For the first binding early decision round, Middlebury said it admitted 297 of the 654 applicants this December. A quarter of early admits were students of color. The second round of early applicants and regular decision applicants will receive their decisions in mid-February and March 23, respectively.
The college is looking to continue the development of a diverse and balanced community in the Class of 2023.
“We are trying to pay more attention to students who may fall outside what some may consider traditional norms or mainstream types of Middlebury profiles,” Buckles said.
Looking to the future, Buckles believes the college will focus on reaching international applicants, as well as tackling affordability.
“Middlebury will want to continue to be accessible to anyone who is qualified and admitted regardless of ability to pay,” said Buckles, who is leaving the college at the end of the academic year to take a job at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey.
The admissions team is busy reviewing applications for next year’s class, which they expect to total between 610 and 630 students in the fall and another 100 to 110 in February. The projected class size of about 700 is consistent with previous years. Last year’s overall acceptance rate was 18.4 percent, down from 19.7 percent the year before.
(02/14/19 10:55am)
Every year, as the fall gives way to winter and temperatures drop, Middlebury College kicks up the heat in the buildings on campus, especially in the residence halls. While Middlebury students are privileged to have these toasty buildings as a haven to escape the cold, they are often forced to seek further refuge — this time from the heat — once they are inside. The combination of the college overheating the dorms and students’ inability to have full control over their thermostat settings leads individuals to open their windows to regulate the heat, generating a ridiculous amount of wasted energy.
Creating a comfortable indoor environment is an issue across campus, even in the newer buildings such as Ridgeline and the townhouses. Middlebury boasts carbon neutrality and claims to be “committed to environmental mindfulness and stewardship in all its activities … giving a high priority to integrating environmental awareness and responsibility into the daily life of the institution.” A college with such environmental prowess should have no problem addressing something so simple as heating its residence halls efficiently, right? You would think so.
It seems that Middlebury sees this as a simple problem with an easy solution: post a color-coded guide online and around campus to show students how to beat the heat (and cold) of their dorm rooms.
But often, instead of following protocol, students seeking an immediate change in their rooms open the windows sometimes without adjusting their thermostats. Furthermore, students have reported that even with their thermostat on the lowest setting, they still experience overheating. So, is the problem that the “solution” (if you can even call it that) offered by the how-to guide is too simple, too dumbed down? Even if it is effective to a certain extent, is there more Middlebury can do to improve the efficiency of campus heating?
Middlebury could learn from the initiatives at Kenyon College, a small, private liberal arts college in Ohio, very similar in campus structure, student body and climate. Like Middlebury students, those at Kenyon had very limited control over the thermal settings in their rooms, causing uncomfortably warm inside temperatures. In an attempt to solve this issue, students used to leave their windows open throughout the winter. A 2012 energy audit performed in Kenyon’s residence halls confirmed that this resulted in higher costs and wasted energy for the college.
To improve student comfort and increase energy efficiency, Kenyon College retrofitted six residence halls with wireless energy management technology from Magnum Energy Solutions that included smart thermostats, occupancy sensors and window sensors that automate HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) in the dorms. When students open their windows, the technology sends a wireless signal to the smart thermostat, automatically turning off the HVAC system. Additionally, when students leave their rooms, the thermostat receives a signal from the occupancy sensor and automatically sets the HVAC to eco-savings mode. The software also allows the college’s facilities team to remotely configure and control the system, while providing data on the school’s energy consumption in real time. Most importantly, students have embraced the system as it saves energy and gives them more control over their own comfort.
So, Kenyon found an effective solution to this issue — great! But doesn’t it sound disruptive and costly? Not so, according to Ed Neal, sustainability director at Kenyon who said, “The operation of the system is simple and straightforward, and the installation didn’t impact regular operations at all.” And though it can be pricey to implement — Kenyon’s project cost a whopping $7 million — over the long term, the payback in energy savings will fully offset the costs.
There are also different avenues to finance the retrofit that Middlebury could consider. One option is through an Energy Services Agreement (ESA), a pay-for-performance solution that requires no up-front capital. This means that Middlebury would pay back the costs through energy savings realized on utility bills once the retrofit is complete. Metrus Energy, which happens to be the brainchild of a Middlebury alumnus, is one such company that could finance this type of project through a performance-based contract.
Middlebury’s Thermal Comfort Policy claims to “ensure the comfort of students, faculty and staff while minimizing the environmental impact of heating and cooling systems.” However, the college cannot rightly claim this while the issues of overheating the buildings and wasting energy through open windows continue. Middlebury maintains that sustainability, energy efficiency and environmental stability are integral parts of its current operations and its growth. But in order for these values to truly be pillars of the institution, Middlebury must learn to effectively control the climate within the dorms.
(02/14/19 10:54am)
After being known for 27 years as the CFA, the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts is undergoing a name change. College officials have decided to rename the building the Mahaney Arts Center, or the MAC — a change that has provoked confused reactions from students, some of whom insist on continuing to use the building’s old name.
The Center’s weekly ArtsMail message to the Middlebury community on Sunday, Feb. 3 highlighted the change and outlined the history of the building’s name. According to the email, the building opened as the Center for the Arts (CFA) in 1992, but was renamed the Kevin P. Mahaney ‘84 Center for the Arts (MCA), in 2007. While this acronym was officially used by the college, it was never widely used by students or other members of the college and Middlebury community, who continued to refer to the building as the CFA.
[pullquote speaker="Liza Sacheli" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]With this change, we hope to achieve some much-needed clarity about the building’s identity, and its programs, too.[/pullquote]
“With this change, we hope to achieve some much-needed clarity about the building’s identity, and its programs, too,” said Director Liza Sacheli in an interview with The Campus. “We hope that the shorter, catchier name is easier to remember and use.”
The decision was made by college administrators, Arts Center staff, the Office of Communications and Marketing and the Office of Advancement. The changes were also approved and supported by Mahaney.
Quickly following the Feb. 3 email, the Facebook group Middlebury Memes for Crunchy Teens erupted with comedic criticism of the acronym change. “CFA ‘til I die baby,” Christian Chiang ’20 titled his post. “BREAKING: New Big Mac Not Going to Stop Students from Being Petty About Meatless Mondays, More At 6,” wrote Susan Deutsch ‘19.5.
Students also reported their discontent with the name change to The Campus.
“The MAC just sounds like an order at McDonald’s,” said Kaitlynd Collins ’19, a Theater major, who felt strongly about the change and criticized both its purpose and its implications. “There is no clear reason to change the letters in a freaking acronym!” she said in a text message, arguing that the college is trying to change the way students talk.
“Literally, why?” Elizabeth Sawyer ’19 said. “How is this going to do good in any way? What are we gaining?”
Collins speculated that the name change could have been done to provide greater publicity to the building’s namesake, a major college donor, though she did not see how changing the acronym would further recognize Mahaney.
[pullquote speaker="Kaitlynd Collins '19" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]If someone says, ‘I’m headed to the MAC,’ it’s not like Kevin P Mahaney’s face will be projected in a golden light as the letters leave their mouth.[/pullquote]
“If someone says, ‘I’m headed to the MAC,’ it’s not like Kevin P Mahaney’s face will be projected in a golden light as the letters leave their mouth,” she said.
She also pointed out that prompting students to recognize Mahaney in this way could be uncomfortable for some individuals. Last January, Mahaney was accused of covering up the rape of a 20-year-old woman, In March, the charges were dropped. “He potentially covered up a sexual assault and I don’t want to acknowledge him in my day-to-day life,” Collins said.
Sacheli reported positive reactions from students, faculty and staff regarding the changes, adding that people expressed excitement over the simpler name.
(01/24/19 11:01am)
As the college continues its process of workforce planning and prepares to review its compensation policies, issues surrounding staff compensation garner renewed attention.
For years, members of the college community have called for changes to the staff pay structure, particularly around low-wage positions. They remain concerned over the ability of staff to afford the costs of living in and around Middlebury, and the inability of departments that rely on these positions to fill job openings.
Staff pay follows a multi-tiered scale organized under two wage structures. Structure A applies to most staff positions, while structure B applies to jobs with competitive market conditions and comes with higher hourly wages.
Both contain four career bands: administrator, management, specialist, and operations. These bands are then divided into levels based on the amount of responsibilities associated with the job. At each level, staff can be paid within a certain range, broken up into three with minimum and maximum values shown for every third.
Jobs are categorized into one of these levels and compensated accordingly. For example, a floor crew custodian is paid at an Operations Level 2 (OP2) rate, with a minimum of $11.00 per hour in the lower third and a maximum of $15.58 per hour in the upper third.
Approximately 15 percent of staff, including custodians and dining hall servers, are paid at the OP1 and OP2 levels, the lowest of the bands. As the costs of living increases, many of these employees are finding it increasingly difficult to work at the college.
“I do think that the pay is low. I really do,” said a member of the custodial team. “It’s not keeping up with the cost of living, so a lot of people here work two jobs. It’s tough. Really tough,” he said.
All employees quoted in this article wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.
In a report published last year, the National Low Income Housing Coalition showed that a resident of Addison County would have had to earn an average of at least $19.63 per hour or work close to two full-time jobs at minimum wage to afford rent and utilities. The county is now the fifth most expensive in the state of Vermont.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Nobody wants to come here, and when they do come here, they don’t stay.[/pullquote]
The experiences of staff members reflect the figure. “With rent and food, it’s hard to live here on the pay,” a second custodian said.
In response to these concerns, the administration has often cited generous benefits packages the college provides to full-time employees. With good insurance, retirement plans and even subsidized education for children, working at the college remains an attractive option compared to similar jobs in town. It’s a benefit that many members see as a critical part of their livelihoods.
“My friends in construction, they’re getting paid more. But they don’t have good insurance,” said a member of the facilities staff. “Several years ago, I had a medical issue, and that was a big deal.”
Others say that benefits are not enough. Staff earning close to minimum wage may be working from paycheck to paycheck — where money today means the difference between paying the phone bill or not.
“Your first year, you get five weeks time off. The health insurance is top-notch. But if you’re making 12 or 13 bucks an hour, what good does time off do?” asked a second member of the facilities department.
“[Time off] is useless because you can’t afford to go anywhere,” said the first custodian. “Might as well work.”
The level of pay is not only affecting the living conditions of staff, but also contributes to a shortage in certain departments on campus. Managers have struggled to fill open slots, with nine openings left unfilled in custodial positions.
It is a jarring change for college staff used to getting the help they need in order to fulfill the various demands of the expansive campus. A third employee in facilities recounted his first few years working at the college a decade ago, when custodial positions would be highly sought after.
“We would put out a help-wanted ad for floor crew and there will be 10, 12 job applicants,” he said. “You had to beg to get an interview here. And now you can’t drag ‘em in here,” the first custodial worker said.“Nobody wants to come here, and when they do come here, they don’t stay.”
Staff members speak of friends who have chosen to work in similar jobs in the state, foregoing better benefits for a slightly higher base pay. Listings for custodial positions in school districts around Burlington or Essex can start at $15 per hour with benefits, attracting people who in years past may have chosen to work at the college. Even jobs closer to home, including crew positions at Dunkin’ Donuts and cashier positions at the Natural Foods Co-op are paying wages close to what the college offers — around $12 per hour.
Broader trends outside of the college’s control have also exacerbated the issue. Low unemployment rates across the United States have led to a tight labor market where employers struggle to fill entry-level positions. At the end of last year, the unemployment rate in Addison County stood at 2.3 percent, one of the lowest since the Department of Labor began recording the data in Vermont.
Even when departments are able to hire, however, staff turnover remains an issue. Employees are discouraged by a perception that the administration fails to adequately reward good performance — a 2017 staff survey revealed that only 27 percent of faculty and staff were satisfied with the college’s recognition and awards programs.
Over the past five years, pay raises have hovered around two percent across the board, with few opportunities for merit-based rewards in lower-wage positions.
“I came in at the entry level, and now I’m at the top of the wage band. But it’s much harder for people to do that now,” said the first facilities employee, who has worked at the college for 25 years.
The first custodial worker shared the same sentiment. “If you screw off and I work hard, we get the same raise,” he said.
The administration, for its part, has responded to these concerns by launching a review of performance management processes, hoping to wrap up by the fall of 2020.
Still, many remain unconvinced that conditions will improve. “This used to be a great place to work. It still is, it still is," said the first custodial worker. "But it’s too bad."
For full staff issue coverage, click here.
(01/24/19 11:00am)
The monthslong effort by Middlebury to shrink staff costs and reevaluate the way the institution does work is entering its most critical stage, and staff members report varying levels of satisfaction with the process as they wait for buyout offers to arrive in February.
The workforce planning process, announced by President Laurie L. Patton in a June email to college employees, began with the goal of shrinking staff compensation costs by 10 percent — about $8 million — by the end of the academic year. Now, administrators have reviewed proposals to reshape departments across the institution, and buyout offers will be sent to staff in early February. Involuntary layoffs remain a last resort, if not enough employees take buyouts by the end of the academic year.
Faculty, meanwhile, are undergoing a separate process of buyouts and retirement plans, as part of the same effort to reduce the college’s deficit.
LEARNING FROM THE PAST
For several years, college officials have been open about the financial challenges that the institution is facing, with yearly operating expenses exceeding revenues since the 2013 fiscal year. Causes of the deficit include rising financial aid commitments, a flawed policy that capped annual tuition increases and an aborted venture into online language instruction.
The college has since lowered its deficit faster than initially projected, hoping to balance its budget by fiscal year 2021. But faculty and staff pay remains the institution’s biggest expense, often making up about two-thirds of its annual spending.
This is not the first time that budgetary issues have prompted the college to rein in staff costs, and administrators are taking lessons from past mistakes. In 1991, college officials, led by then-President Timothy Light, abruptly fired 17 staff members, causing an uproar that made national news and brought about Light’s resignation. And following the 2008-09 financial crisis, the college offered voluntary buyouts to any employee interested in taking one — an unstructured process that led to excessive loss of crucial staff positions, some of which needed to be restaffed shortly afterwards.
So when administrators realized a new wave of deficit reductions were needed, they took a more deliberate approach. “To do it in a really thoughtful way we needed to think about the work we do, and how we could staff ourselves for a sustainable future,” said Bill Burger, vice president of communications and chief marketing officer.
Beginning in the early fall, staff vice presidents across the institution were tasked with leading discussions within their departments about how their work could be redesigned, and done more efficiently. In December, each department submitted two different proposals to senior leadership, containing alternate plans that would cut compensation by 10 and 15 percent, respectively.
Now, staff across Middlebury can only wait. As of last week, Burger said, senior leadership was almost done reviewing the proposals and finalizing a list of positions to be cut. Before decisions are finalized, Human Resources is required by law to review the proposals to make sure they do not disproportionately affect certain demographics.
In early February, staff working in areas where the college plans to cut positions will get letters giving them the option to apply for buyouts. The college will send more applications than necessary, anticipating that many will decline to apply. By early March, the applications will be due and administrators will know whether enough staff have volunteered to take the buyouts, or whether they will need to resort to layoffs. On the other hand, if more staff than necessary apply, the most senior staff will be offered buyouts first.
The staff cuts in some areas will be partially offset by the creation of about 40 new staff positions in other areas — the result of new needs identified through the planning process. Applications for these positions will first be made available in early February to all staff members who are offered buyouts.
WAITING FOR WORD
Workforce planning will have uneven effects across Middlebury, leaving some staff departments largely intact while transforming others. Likewise, staff contacted by The Campus report uneven feelings about the process. Many said they have been pleased with the level of transparency thus far, while some complain that the drawn-out process has left them on edge for too long. Others say they simply haven’t paid much attention to it all.
“For our area, the communication’s been really great,” said David Kloepfer, the assistant director of Student Activities. “We haven’t heard exactly what the full plan is as of yet. We’re still waiting to hear the final outcome.”
Missey Thompson, box office coordinator at the Mahaney Center for the Arts and a representative of the staff council, said workforce planning has been a major point of conversation at the council’s meetings for some time. The staff council advocates for good working conditions for college employees and has held forums and posted information about workforce planning on its blog since the process was announced.
“We knew that something was coming a while ago — we didn’t know what it all entailed until they were ready to tell us,” she said, adding that some anxiety remains about the potential job cuts. “Whenever people have to leave, it can cause a lot of tension, but I think it depends on the day and how people feel so we’re just kind of going with the flow. That’s all we can do right now.”
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]You might lose the 40 percent of your job that you like.[/pullquote]
But some staff who feel most at risk of losing their jobs say that the long process has been a source of deep stress. Academic coordinators, who handle the logistics of academic departments and support faculty and student work, fear that some of their positions may be cut, while the coordinators who stay employed will need to deal with new responsibilities.
“Morale is terrible,” said Judy Olinick, coordinator for the Russian, German and Japanese Departments. “Everybody is worried about it, it’s just been going on so long.”
While Olinick, like other staff, participated in the initial planning conversations this fall, she reported feeling helpless as the final say was left to senior leadership.
“We had all these meetings where we discussed it at great lengths, breaking up into little groups — ‘What can you change, and how would you change it?’” she said. “But it doesn’t mean anything unless you have some idea of what is really going to be changed.”
Even staff who expect to keep their jobs face uncertainty about how much their job descriptions will be changed, according to Tim Parsons, landscape horticulturist and president of staff council. An employee who gets to keep 60 percent of their job tasks, for example, may still be disappointed by the results of workforce planning.
“You might lose the 40 percent of your job that you like,” Parsons said.
Still, some staff look forward to the impending changes to their departments.
“I’m looking forward to some changes, to stir things up,” said Christina Richmond, an Atwater Dining Hall I.D. checker and servery worker. “Change is always good. I’m not afraid of it.”
GROWING PAINS
Multiple staff members reported frustration about the way workforce planning has become intermingled with the goals of Envisioning Middlebury, the college’s long-term strategic framework. Patton herself connected the two processes in her June message, saying that they both entail “responsible stewardship of our resources.”
Dan Frostman, manager of the Davis Family Library circulation desk, said that the alignment of the two processes made decision-making difficult.
“We were trying to envision the next five to 10 years while also trying to figure out what it would look like if we got rid of 10 percent of the staff,” he said, noting that he reached out to his circulation staff to get input on both the changes they wanted to see and the cuts that had to be made. “So that was challenging and, personally, a little bit frustrating, to try to do those two sort of opposed things at the same time. There wasn’t a lot of reconciling that could be done between the two.”
Olinick said that she and her colleagues struggled to focus on the future, since workforce planning presented a more immediate issue.
“How can you make recommendations about that if you’re worried about keeping your job?” she said.
BEYOND WORKFORCE PLANNING
Workforce planning is not the only source of staff discontent at Middlebury. Low salaries in certain staff positions have prompted some employees to seek work elsewhere, and a 2017 staff survey showed low confidence in senior leadership and dissatisfaction with the way administrative decisions are communicated.
But Burger said that those concerns have informed this process, prompting administrators to focus on communication and consider changing the compensation structure once the planning is complete.
Though administrators expect to resolve the institution’s budget shortfalls within the next few years, the college remains heavily staffed, with a growing student body. With the newly-completed Envisioning Middlebury project serving as a likely precursor to a major fundraising campaign, this may not be the last time the college has to reconcile its long-term goals with its short-term needs.
For full staff issue coverage, click here.
Correction: An earlier version of this article said that the new positions created by the planning process will first be made available to staff members who took buyouts, when they will actually first be available to all staff members who were offered buyouts.
(01/24/19 11:00am)
After 44 years of teaching at Middlebury College, Tom Beyer will be retiring from his teaching responsibilities after the 2019-2020 academic year. As of this past Monday, Jan. 21, he is one of 23 faculty members who have signed agreements to participate in the Faculty Retirement Incentive Program (FRIP).
In an email to all employees last June, President Laurie L. Patton announced the introduction of a set of elective, incentive-based retirement and separation plans for faculty in Middlebury and Monterey as part of the college’s workforce planning effort for both faculty and staff. This later developed into FRIP.
The college will save money from FRIP despite the total number of faculty remaining largely the same over the next few years. Because new, tenure-track faculty can be paid lower salaries than long-tenured professors, this series of faculty replacements will result in significant savings. According to Dean of Faculty Andi Lloyd, if all of the retiring faculty members were replaced, projections suggest that savings from this program could fall between $2 million and $2.5 million over the next several years.
The 117 members of the college faculty eligible for the program all have contract end dates later than July 1, 2021, and have worked in a benefits-eligible position for at least 10 years after age 45, according to the Office of Finance and Administration. The FRIP package will include a year’s salary and the establishment of a Health Reimbursement Account, as well as funds for scholarship and research for up to three years after retirement.
In general, Beyer, the CV Starr Professor of Russian & East European Studies, is pleased with the program. In comparison to a similar incentivized retirement program offered in 2008, which offered “one date, one payout,” and carried with it potentially “adverse tax implications,” the current program is “very flexible and thoughtfully cast,” Beyer said.
Beyer opted for the latest of his three options for retirement dates under FRIP: June 2019, December 2019 and June 2020. He explained that the program’s relatively early announcement relative to its implementation gave faculty enough time to examine the program’s “implications for their teaching, the implications for their scholarship and also the financial implications of the program.”
Assuming most departments hire new faculty to replace retiring faculty, the FRIP process is not expected to decrease overall teaching force at the college. As faculty leave Middlebury at a staggered pace, college officials expect that within three years, the total number will remain about the same as it is today.
Having advance warning of a faculty member’s retirement six to eighteen months ahead allows a department to “re-examine its own missions, goals, and possibilities for the future,” Beyer said.
[pullquote speaker="Tom Beyer" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]“So much of our lives at Middlebury is defined by our relationship with and our connection with students. So of course, student interaction is something that I’ll miss.”[/pullquote]
In the Biology department this year, for example, students received emails requesting their participation in the department’s hiring process for a new faculty member to replace a retiring tenured professor in aquatic ecology. This process began a year in advance of the professor’s retirement and involved a series of research talks and teaching demonstrations by visiting candidates for the position throughout the fall semester.
“I think that [FRIP] gives an opportunity in particular to younger colleagues who aspire to tenure, to feel like there is a place for them,” Beyer said.
Newer faculty fresh out of graduate school “are aware of the latest and most up to date research in a whole variety of areas,” Beyer said. When Beyer first received his Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures, he was “much more of a generalist and was aware of the latest work in critical theory and writing.”
“After tenure, one becomes a bit more specific in the area in which they look at,” he said.
The ability to “teach the courses I really want to teach, one more time; to read the books I want to read, one more time,” was important to Beyer, who plans to teach a course on the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky and another on 20th century Russian writers in the coming fall term.
“So much of our lives at Middlebury is defined by our relationship with and our connection with students,” Beyer said. “So of course student interaction is something that I’ll miss.”
For Beyer, however, ceasing his teaching responsibilities in the classroom also provides an opportunity to focus on his own research agenda, which he calls his scholarly “bucket list.”
“We were aware that the decisions that faculty make about retiring reflect both financial considerations and, in many cases, an interest in continuing to be productive scholars and to remain connected to their scholarly communities, here and elsewhere,” Lloyd said. FRIP’s enrichment fund, she said, was designed to allow faculty to continue their scholarly endeavors after retirement.
Continuing research after retirement, for Beyer, also means that “my connection with the college, with my scholarship, and with the projects that I have doesn’t come to an abrupt end.” Continued office space for one year after retirement, Beyer said, was “particularly important for me and, I suspect, for my other colleagues who exercise this option, to put their scholarly life in order and in perspective.”
“All things come to an end at some time,” Beyer said. “Here the end comes, as it were, as a choice.”
For full staff issue coverage, click here.
(01/24/19 10:59am)
The Department of Economics is recruiting for three faculty positions, and its coordinator Amy Holbrook has barely been able to leave her office since the start of J-term due to the amount of work she has. Holbrook is helping to bring in nine candidates in three weeks and has to organize all their travel logistics and schedules on campus, a process that she described as “fast and furious.”
“I haven’t left my office for the past two weeks, even to get lunch,” Holbrook said. “My faculty have been bringing me food and drinks.”
Scrolling down her packed email inbox, Holbrook explained that recruiting new faculty marks the busiest time of her year and is probably one of the most important parts of her job. She has been working as academic coordinator for the department since 1997, and her job responsibilities range from working on course catalogues to helping students declare their majors.
While there are more than 100 senior Economics majors graduating every year, the academic departments and programs vary greatly in size — and so do the job responsibilities of each coordinator.
“I don’t think that you could just say, ‘This is your job description, now only do those things,’ because that’s not really what this job is,” said Michaela Davico, coordinator for the Dance department and History of Art and Architecture. “You always have to be a little bit flexible to do what comes your way.”
The flexibility is part of what drew Megan Curran, coordinator for the architectural studies and studio art programs, to the job in the first place in 2015. She said that the flexible hours have been beneficial for her family and work life.
“I have a very good relationship with my faculty, where I can have conversations with them about what they are allowed to ask of me and what they are not,” Curran said, adding that a lack of such communication for other coordinators, who have been at times asked to perform jobs outside their responsibilities, such as physical tasks, and that there are some coordinators who might not feel comfortable doing the same.
“I TEACH THEM HOW TO DO THEIR JOBS”
Holbrook said that her faculty members are extremely supportive. “I consider them family at this point,” she said. “But I don’t do their jobs for them, and I want that made very clear. I teach them how to do their jobs so I can do mine.”
This past fall has been especially intense for Curran. Besides the faculty recruitment and the normal academic workflow of the entire year that makes fall the busiest, she said that the ongoing workforce planning process became another source of stress.
Throughout the past semester, the group of more than 20 academic coordinators have been having multiple meetings with Dean of Curriculum Susan Gurland.
“[Gurland] has been providing us with information that she’s been given, and she’s been very open and honest with the conversations that we’ve been having regarding the workforce planning,” Curran said, explaining that the meetings initially “had this very intense environment” because a lot was unknown.
The academic coordinators were notified of the workforce planning situation last July, and expect steps will be taken in March or April. Judy Olinick, coordinator for the Japanese, German and Russian departments, said that it has been a difficult wait.
“It’s very hard to tell what’s going to happen,” Olinick said. “It’s really disturbing to people, to the staff, to have to go through this whole year and go through Christmas and New Year and not be sure they are going to have their jobs in July.”
According to Olinick, it is a consensus among coordinators that the structure of their jobs should essentially stay unchanged, with each department and program being identified with one specific coordinator.
“The departments are unique in how they function,” Holbrook said. “And you really need to have a coordinator for each individual department, because they know specific details that are important to the efficiency of running that department.”
“OH HONEY, I CAN’T”
Davico, who started working for Dance and History of Art and Architecture in 2014, said it has taken her almost all of the past four years to master the learning curve of the position, because there are responsibilities that only need to be carried out once or twice each year. She has also had student workers who help with social media and other tasks.
Interaction between academic coordinators and students varies, depending on factors like the size of the department or program. As the coordinator for the largest department on campus, Holbrook hires student office associates, who usually stay on the job throughout their college careers. Political Science major Grace Vedock ’20 has been working for Holbrook since her first year, helping with data entry, filing and event planning.
Vedock has developed a close relationship with Holbrook, much like many students in and out of the department have.
“It’s really common for students walking by Warner, and just come by Amy’s office and sit down. The candy jar really draws people in,” Vedock said. “It makes sense with Economics majors, but then there’s just a bunch of Amy-fans that just know her for some reason or another.”
Holbrook used to organize Thanksgiving dinners for major students who stay on campus during the break, which gradually increased in size and ended up needing college van rentals. Students would gather in her house to enjoy a big dinner, music and games.
“I think it’s because I’m pretty much an open book — I’m honest about myself and my own life, and I think students feel comfortable around that,” Holbrook said. “I sort of humanize things, so then they open up and they share things with me. I think in the day-to-day Middlebury experience, they’re not seeing a lot of that.”
Last semester, Holbrook took an introductory French course, where she also made many friends. One of the many first-years and sophomores in the class was planning to declare a major in Economics, and asked Holbrook if she could be his advisor.
“It was so sweet. I’m like, ‘Oh honey, I can’t, but let’s walk and I’ll tell you why,’” Holbrook recalled. “After talking with him, I recommended a faculty member who he would feel comfortable with as his advisor.”
The whiteboard calendar on one of Holbrook’s office walls is decorated with magnets, photos, postcards and artifacts brought back from all over the world by students and faculty, who continue to be Holbrook’s favorite part about her job.
“I don’t think that people at Middlebury, staff especially, get recognized for how integral they are in the running of Middlebury College,” she said. “Everyone is intertwined here. Everyone is connected.”
For full staff issue coverage, click here.
(01/24/19 10:59am)
Two days before the start of the 2004 women’s soccer training season, then-assistant coach Peter Kim learned of an abrupt coaching staff change that left the team without a head. After only a year on the Middlebury coaching staff, Kim became the prime candidate for the head position.
Just over a year before, Kim had been working at a youth nonprofit, continuing a track he had set for himself years earlier when he pursued and earned an M.A. in public administration. He wanted to provide consulting services to nonprofits, helping them to run more like highly effective businesses. But after 10 years in the nonprofit world, Kim wasn’t enthused. In addition to his day job at the nonprofit, Kim had founded and was running a youth club in central Vermont, Capital Soccer. “I felt like I was doing more for kids after work than in my day job,” he explained. He decided to leave the nonprofit and took time to regroup.
It was the summer of 2002 when Doug Holly, a friend of Kim’s and coach of the Vergennes High School soccer team, called Kim. Holly informed him that Diane Boettcher, then coach of Middlebury, was looking for an assistant coach. Kim had no desire to coach college at all, but Holly convinced him to go down to Middlebury to meet with Boettcher. Soon after arriving on campus, Kim realized he had the potential to make an impact on the team. He took the job.
Coach Kim’s eagerness to jump into leading practices paid off when Boettcher left unexpectedly in 2004. “The players didn’t even know [of the staff change] when they got here; they were expecting Boettcher,” he explained. Despite this rapid transition, Kim felt obligated to to maintain the level of success of the previous few years; Boettcher had led the Panthers to the dominant position in the NESCAC in 2000, then second and third places for 2001 and 2002, respectively.
Additionally, when Kim joined, there hadn’t been a long-standing coach in the position for most of the team’s history. Coaches were overextended because of the three-sport coach model where they would head a different team each season of the year, leaving very little room for program growth. This left them with no offseason to help train their athletes, let alone develop training and game strategies.
Kim was the first women’s soccer coach to shun this model, instead devoting a significant amount of time and energy in the offseason to better develop the team. This included making workout packets, conducting bi-weekly training sessions and developing the schedule for the next season. Given more time to settle into the job, Kim found himself loving the position and eager to channel his best coaching ability.
The most noticeable development in Division III athletics during Kim’s tenure, however, has been the explosive growth of recruitment effort made by both teams and prospective players. Approached by more than 800 athletes a year, Kim communicates with each player individually and devotes an extraordinary amount of time seeing her play, ideally multiple times, before “the moment of truth,” when she decides whether to apply to Middlebury early decision. Kim was quick to criticize this American recruiting system. “It leads kids to make their college choice for the wrong reason. They wait to get tapped on the shoulder by the coach on high who dubs them worthy of playing for them, when it should be all about the student choosing the school that’s right for her,” Kim said. Nowadays, it isn’t rare for him to receive emails from sixth- and seventh-graders proclaiming their allegiance to the Panthers. “It’s terribly unhealthy,” he frowned. “In what world would that make sense?”
Kim’s skepticism of this “elite” mentality extends into his coaching philosophy. While an undergrad at UVM, Kim sustained a devastating concussion that pulled him from the sport early in his career. From then on, he had to focus exclusively on a doubled academic course to graduate on time. This profoundly influenced his current emphasis on athletics as part of the greater picture of college life: “Injuries can happen, and if that happens and suddenly you stop loving the school, then you’re probably at the wrong place.” In this way, Kim’s philosophy is perfectly tailored to the Middlebury student. “When I was in college, academics were not prioritized. You got it done to the extent that it was important to you. Middlebury kids, to their credit, love school, and then they come down and play at a Division I level.” He cited how one of his goaltenders played a major role in a theater production last semester and smiled with pride. “That’s a testament to who you guys are as students here.”
Kim’s overarching coaching philosophy is paired with a core set of team values, all of which rolled off his tongue with sharp familiarity. First up was academics. Second, he said, “We play the game; we believe in the technical game and to keep it on the ground.” Next on the list was community service. “I am very proud that we are one of the leaders in community service on this campus. We’re spoiled rotten here, and we try to maintain a culture of gratitude because we are just so lucky.” Finally, with a twinkling smile, he mentioned the family culture of his team. “Class lines are blurred almost to the point of being erased, and students become family with players three years older and younger than them. It’s that chemistry, which is difficult to explain, that is the central aspect of the team. If we didn’t have that, we wouldn’t be successful.”
Upon being asked what success meant to him, Kim, unsurprisingly, presented a long list. “This year was a success because we made it all the way to the finals, and we won the state championship, and we played beautifully, and we won the NESCAC Championship, and we’re a family, and we’re killing it in the classroom, and we’re leading the campus in community service. I think that kind of sums up what Middlebury is about: the word and.”
For full staff issue coverage, click here.
(01/24/19 10:58am)
Marcia Provoncha has started her work day the same way for 14 years — checking her emails, especially those from students — to keep up with the demands of her role as Middlebury’s Costume Shop director.
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Provoncha moved to Vermont with her parents when she was three and has lived most of her life here ever since. After learning how to sew in high school, Provoncha went to college for a couple of years, but decided to drop out because of financial reasons. Starting off at a local sewing studio for five years, Provoncha picked up finer sewing skills from the woman she was working for, and was later hired to manage another local weaving and sewing studio, where she stayed for another fifteen years before coming to Middlebury.
When there was a part-time job opening at the college, Provoncha did not feel confident that she would qualify. Despite her concerns about sewing costumes and about not having a higher educational background, Provoncha eventually gave it a try and applied for the job.
“They called me in for an interview and they wanted me to bring in things I had made, so I did, and they looked them all over and everything. Two days later, they called me and offered me the job,” Provoncha said.
Arriving at Middlebury with extensive experience in sewing garments for people, Provoncha discovered a totally different world in making costumes. Rather than a straightforward process of taking measurements, doing a mock-up, making slight adjustments, and then sewing the garment from beginning to end, making costumes is full of complex intricacies.
After completing all of these steps on a costume design, Provoncha has to wait for another round of fitting to make sure that every small piece of a costume is exactly where they should be, i.e. sleeves nicely sitting on the shoulders rather than dangling from a lower spot.
“You put the collar on after that. Closures, buttons, zippers, all that kind of stuff is last. And that’s not always the case when you are making one for someone who is not an actor,” Provoncha explained. “Another difference is that you leave a lot of seam allowances. Because you usually use those garments more than once on more than one actor, you want to make sure you have enough fabric in hand to let that garment out for a bigger person.”
Overseeing four major theater productions every year as well as managing costumes for the annual J-term musicals, providing help for student projects and various shows during summer language schools, supporting anyone from the school who needs costumes, Provoncha has become a walking costume carousel in the past fourteen years.
As someone randomly picks up a costume from thousands of the stock pieces hanging and turning downstairs on a carousel, Provoncha could easily tell you who wore it during what show, and even the size of it.
When asked about her secret, Provoncha said, “If you work on a garment so many times, you won’t forget.”
Every time there was a new theater production, it started a brand-new journey for Provoncha. The first show she worked on at Middlebury was “The Bewitched,” which takes place in the 1600s. The show only used period clothing, which involved corsets, bum rolls, great big dresses with huge hands for female characters and very fitted ornate costumes for males.
“That was probably one of my favorite shows. I love sewing period clothes. They are much more interesting than modern clothes,” Provoncha said. “Another one I loved working on for probably the opposite reason was called ‘St. Crispin’s Day.’”
With the story taking place in medieval times, the costumes had to look like medieval garments despite the fact that they were made new and fresh for the show.
“So, you are cutting them out, making them look brand new, and then you have to distress them to make them look like somebody has worn them for fifty years. So, you put holes on them on purpose, and you get them all dirty and ragged looking. [...] They all looked great, and they all looked crappy,” Provoncha said.
Occasionally, there were challenging costumes, and that was when the costume shop became a place of magic that turned the impossible into something that was real and beautiful.
Back in the spring of 2011, the costume designer for the production “Eurydice” had pictured for three of the female characters to be covered in all grey with dead babies or teddy bears.
“I ordered all of these baby dolls from a toy store. Then we sat in the costume shop, took them all apart, taking off the legs, arms, and heads, and we had to spray paint them all,” said Provoncha.
As thick as a baby doll could be, it was a great amount of work for Provoncha and the people working at the costume shop to sew each of the baby dolls onto a fat suit three times.
“They were amazing looking when they were done, but to keep sewing over and over again, trying to push a needle through a rubber baby doll into something else and making sure that it was secure was tough,” said Provoncha.
Stepping into her fourteenth and last year working at Middlebury, Provoncha said working with students was the highlight of her job. Not only the students who work and help out at the costume shop or the sewing studio, but also the ones who come in for fittings or who simply walk in for help in costumes.
Olivia Christie ’19, a theater major from Fairfield, Vermont who started interacting with Provoncha as a student actress during her first semester and then began working at the costume shop two years ago, described Provoncha as “a source of light and joy.”
“She taught me a lot of things to do with sewing, but a lot of her influence comes from just how kind she is,” Christie said. “She really cares about all of the students that come through, and that’s rare to have someone who is so ready and willing to be supportive, help you out, and do you a favor.”
Sophia (Ningxuan) Dong ’21, an IGS major from Ningbo, China, just started to work at the costume shop last fall. Besides feeling the serious and responsible side of Provoncha when working, Dong thought Provoncha more “like a grandmother,” who would listen to anything you say.
“She would give you candies. Sometimes, she treats you like a child. But that’s pretty cool because you just feel like you grow this type of bond with her and you would not be willing to disappoint her,” Dong said.
While looking forward to spending time gardening, visiting her children, and camping and travelling with her husband after retiring in May, Provoncha said the part she would miss the most was working with the students.
“The students keep me young. We listen to music all the time in the shop. That’s how I get to know who the latest bands are and everything. And to teach them something they don’t know how to do, and they are so proud that they have done that. That’s definitely the best part of the job,” Provoncha said.
“I just really enjoyed working with Marcia over the past four years, and I think a lot of people would say the same thing,” Christie said. “She just really cares about her students and about everybody’s well-being, which is really nice in a crazy competitive fast-paced place like Middlebury to have someone who is so there for you on the individual level.”
(01/24/19 10:57am)
If you have listened to Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast, you may have heard the true story of a boy named Carlos. Carlos was a kid from a poor neighborhood in Los Angeles who found his way into opportunities usually available only to the upper class. The transition wasn’t easy. He faced social instability, violence, and a string of foster homes, but he managed to keep his grades up enough to make it into an elite school. Carlos became one of a small minority of students in an elite environment who were not born into that space. But Gladwell does not comment on the question of how Carlos fared in that environment. What happens to Carlos once he arrives in the elite school? How does he remain hinged to his background, as a first-generation college student, as a child of the working class?
Carlos arrives in the elite private school in a long convoy of Sedans and Vans. It’s Move-in Day. The lawn is swarmed with anxious parents and harassed first-years, one part eager, another part nervous to meet their roommates. Maybe that day he doesn’t notice. He doesn’t notice the differences between his classmates and himself until he’s sitting in a seminar room with about four dozen fewer students than any of his classrooms back home. And the professor’s asking them a question. Carlos’s friend — you know, the type of friend that you latch onto during orientation before realizing you have nothing in common, but are doomed to endlessly greet with a fake smile and pleasantries — is sitting across the room. He’s engaging the professor in light-hearted banter. Carlos didn’t even know you could do that. Carlos had a select few teachers that served as mentors back home but they never talked about favorite skiing slopes. What even was the difference between cross-country and “Alpine” skiing?
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]How do first-generation students remain hinged to their backgrounds?[/pullquote]
Carlos is already behind. Not in coursework, but in something more important : networks. He thought of college as the next step in an academic journey — letter grades, deadlines. He bought into the brochures the college sent along with his admissions letter. His friend was almost ready to convert a conversation about ski techniques for a letter of recommendation while Carlos sat on the sidelines with nothing but a few A-’s on essays the professor didn’t even return in time.
Carlos feels out of place. The people that live on his hall are no different than his friend in class: passionate, nice enough, but just not people that were easy to talk to. Holding a conversation in and of itself was an obstacle. Instead of competing in ski tournaments, or traveling in Nepal, Carlos took care of his little sister back home. He worked for a family restaurant late into the night. Not exactly an ice breaker. Most of his dorm-mates just say, “Oh, that must have been nice.” They can’t relate. That’s not their fault.
When we talk about hinges, we must understood that some students are hinged to their background more than others. The past informs our future, but for Carlos, his past and future are at odds. Carlos stands at a three-forked road. All three roads are pretty barren, deserted, only a few footprints here and there. Maybe Carlos calls down one of the trails and asks one of the few other Carlos’s on campus what to do. Maybe he gets advice. But ultimately, Carlos still finds himself alone at that fork. He has to decide himself.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]There’s an infinity of possibilities within the same three-forked road.[/pullquote]
The first road leads to integration. Carlos adopts the mannerisms and speech patterns, maybe even the fashion tastes, of his classmates. He learns how to hold a conversation about skiing and growing his hair long in Nepal. He becomes the affable and well-adjusted student that downplays his background in order to engage his professor in a discussion about Sartre that will eventually land him a stellar recommendation to his dream job at a corporate law firm that affords him a condo in a gentrified area of town. Carlos becomes his classmates.
The second road leads to family responsibility. Carlos realizes that his duty to his family is most important. That’s why he’s getting good grades in the first place, right? His little sister needs him. Performing well in these elite spaces can lead to a job where he makes enough money to get his sister to college, too. Carlos studies his classmates’ social cues enough to land a job at a corporate firm. At the firm, he can earn enough money to lift his entire family out of the working class. Carlos becomes the family breadwinner.
The third road leads back the way he came. Carlos acquires a sense of alienation that propels him to consider the structural factors that make him so different and clueless in the elite private school. Convinced that following his own passion is selfish, Carlos makes the connections necessary to find a job that helps dismantle the system. His job at a nonprofit does not earn him enough money to radically change his family’s conditions, but he hopes to make a bigger difference in society. Carlos becomes the activist.
These roads are not mutually exclusive. In his journey, Carlos might take one path, only to end up on another. Maybe Carlos the classmate donates regularly to organizations that help students like him apply to better schools. Maybe Carlos the family breadwinner hates the system, like the activist, and chooses to go to law school to eventually work in family law, earning both money and opportunities to help others in his same situation. There’s an infinity of possibilities within the same three-forked road.
What remains static, however, is the fact that Carlos is hinged to his background in a way that his classmates are not. His past makes the future more difficult, starting with the three-forked road. And there is no guarantee that Carlos has the liberty to choose on the three-forked road at all. He will graduate college, tears streaming down his face, in the same gown as everyone else. He will hug his classmates. Then, he will start the job hunt. According to research by Hiring Learning Systems, 85 percent of jobs are never advertised. The vast majority of folks score jobs through tapping into their networks. These networks are not only the product of handshakes and Handshake, but also family connections. If the backdoor is the front-door, what about people like Carlos? What about folks whose network is a community of waiters and clerks back home? Does he even have the capacity to choose between the three roads when scoring any white-collar job at all is significantly more difficult for him than his classmates?
America was built on narratives of advancement and meritocracy. The college in and of itself is often sold as the vehicle of social mobility. We champion liberal arts slogans, but deep in our core, we are taught to believe that making it in college is making it in life. But for us working class kids, for those of us like Carlos, the callouses on our parents’ hands and the lines on their temples are built deep into our identities. There are hinges that keep us tied to our past, to our rank, to our social class.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]We are those around you with an unabiding social class anxiety, an impostor syndrome infecting our nerves.[/pullquote]
But let’s assume Carlos has the choice. He is isolated and alone at the three-forked road. The three-forked road represents the obstacle that Carlos confronts by virtue of his background, one his classmates do not share. There’s rarely a separate road for family responsibility or activism for his classmates. The three forks are integrated seamlessly into a highway to success for many folks on campus. Prep school, college, entry-level job, promising career: these are all expected signs that the children of the elite pass as they drive down the highway. The off-ramps to family responsibility and activism are easy to navigate. While Carlos is cutting his way through a jungle that not a single family member of his has ever traversed before with every financial aid paper that he desperately tries to understand, his classmates can drive on a freeway to their dreams.
Carlos represents many of us who find ourselves here in Middlebury who were not raised with silver spoons in our mouths. We are those around you with an unabiding social class anxiety, an impostor syndrome infecting our nerves. We walk across campus simultaneously blending in and standing out, but we are here. We are those who have a chance to become unhinged from our past, if we so choose.
When I was eleven, two of classmates discovered dismembered body parts in the desert lot next to our school. Those classmates came to class the next day, to write on textbooks thirty years old, in our classroom of fifty students. I’m sure the dismembered hand and torso beneath the tumbleweed still wakes them up at night, if they survived this long. Some classmates dropped out long before high school graduation; some fled to bootcamp; some sank into drug addiction to numb the suicidal impulses that shot through spines every time their mothers screamed at them from sofas. People “get by.” This is by no means a summary of every first-generation experience; it is merely one story, one of many, a Carlos in the small minority on campus whose narratives are rarely heard.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Those of us who are Carlos have already overcome so much.[/pullquote]
For me, neither a high school diploma or a college degree were signs passed on the highway to success. Not me, someone who shares blood with generations of folks who never made it past eighth grade, people whose college experience may just include non-credit courses and night classes. Not me, whose friend back home still works two unstable jobs just to keep her family afloat. Not us named Carlos, whose parents torture themselves every year awaiting the fateful decision of Student Financial Services in calculating our financial aid. We earned our way onto this campus, but we emotionally prepare every semester to leave.
Those of us who are Carlos have already overcome so much. By the time we reach the three-forked road, we have already left many people on the road behind us. Friends of mine earned better grades than me, scored higher test scores than I did, and dreamed bigger and farther than me. But they had to stay behind to help their family’s business survive. Their selfless choice cost them their best shot at social mobility, at the American Dream itself.
We are few in number, here, at Middlebury. Sixty percent of the student body belongs to the top one percent of income in the United States. But we are here, next to you, among you. We are Carlos. We face an obstacle that most of our classmates do not. We don’t know whether we should become more like you or prioritize our family or turn back the way we came and change the system for the better. We don’t know how to negotiate these hinges that keep us from fully integrating with the main student body on campus. We desperately wish to have the liberty to make that choice at all, but we will soon discover the job market may not be so forthcoming. But we will find a way. Whatever road we take, we will have made it farther than those who came before us. We will overcome on this long road. We will find a way to be content, to find meaning, to be happy.
In this world, to be happy in and of itself is a revolutionary act.
(01/24/19 10:55am)
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A mixture of frustration, optimism and anger characterized a student teach-in on the proposed changes to Middlebury's protest policy last Friday. Held in the Hillcrest Orchard, the teach-in allowed students to share concerns about the proposed policy’s lack of transparency and potential ramifications.
The newly drafted protest policy was published online in November as a potential replacement to the existing policy. The proposal sought to resolve areas of ambiguity in the college’s existing policy (read our coverage of the new policy here).
At the beginning of the teach-in, attendees picked up copies of the proposed policy changes, which can be found at go.middlebury.edu/newprotestpolicy. Sarah Koch ’18.5 asked students to read aloud the definitions of the terms “expressive activity,” “disruption,” and “civil disobedience” as listed at the end of the policy, and participants responded that they feared the vague definitions would give the college disciplinary leeway while limiting student autonomy.
[pullquote speaker="Emma Ronai-Durning '18.5" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]I feel like the administration hasn’t listened to any of the feedback it’s gotten in the past, so I feel skeptical about the policy reflecting what students are actually saying.[/pullquote]
Teach-in participants also cited frustration with the open meetings General Counsel Hannah Ross held last October and November. At the meetings Ross, the main administrator involved in drafting policy changes, explained the upcoming changes to the Middlebury Handbook and provided an overview of the work by Envisioning Middlebury, the Committee on Speech and Inclusion and college faculty.
Some attendees said they saw the fall meetings as the college’s ingenuine attempt to show interest in student input.
“I feel like the administration hasn’t listened to any of the feedback it’s gotten in the past, so I feel skeptical about the policy reflecting what students are actually saying,” said Emma Ronai-Durning ’18.5, one of the organizers of the teach-in.
Taite Shomo ’20.5, another organizer, asked participants whether they thought students’ and community members’ voices were being heard.
“We feel like we’re not being listened to,” said one student in response. The student went on to describe how the Student Government Association (SGA) bill that was intended to protect students engaging in protest was not incorporated into the new measures.
Another student said that the policy did not reflect the recommendations the Committee on Speech and Inclusion made in their report last January. In the recommendations, the committee emphasized the importance of changing campus culture over changing policy to address issues of free speech and protest.
All who spoke during the discussion agreed that the revisions were, at best, unclear and inflexible. Wengel Kifle ’20, who attended both the teach-in and Ross’s meeting in October, said she believed there was “really no room for change in the idea [Ross] was proposing.”
Students also expressed concerns that the policy changes would ultimately lead to the penalization of students and staff while leaving tenured professors exempt from blame. They also speculated that violations of the policy would prevent new professors from receiving tenure.
A key point of uncertainty during the discussion was whether the policy sufficiently outlined the process of selecting and vetting speakers, and the absence of accountability for that body.
Participants pointed out the lack of examples of acceptable and unacceptable behavior included in the new policy, compared to the existing version. The new policy does not provide the college’s expected response, either, leaving students protesters unsure about the consequences of their actions and making students on the Community Judicial Board responsible for determining their peers’ punishments.
One student said the proposed policy only addressed student behavior and not students’ motivation. Another pointed out that the policy made no mention of compounding disciplinary violations.
Several participants found fault in the new policy’s stance against “deliberate and significant disruption,” with disruption defined as “behavior that impairs or prevents expressive activity of others, or obstructs Middlebury’s activities or essential operations,” and prohibited disruption considered “all behavior that significantly disrupts Middlebury events, activities, programs and/or operations.”
“What if intentions aren’t disruptive?” one student said. Another argued that disruption is necessary for people to express opinions and suppressing it is counter to the point of a liberal arts institution.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Fighting for justice, standing up for justice and academic security should not be at odds with each other.[/pullquote]
“I think the ugliness of policy surrounding protest and compounding punishment has suppressed speech on this campus already,” Koch said.
Toward the end of the teach-in, organizers handed out slips of paper and asked participants to respond to the following prompt: “What do we want our protest policy to look like? What would we like to be possible at Middlebury?”
“Fighting for justice, standing up for justice and academic security should not be at odds with each other,” one student said in response. Others said that the policy should focus more on the content of protests, and that people should have a clear understanding of what’s allowed, what’s not, and what the consequences will be.
As one student put it, “Where’s the line? If I cross it, what happens to me?”
In conclusion, Ronai-Durning urged everyone present to find something they are passionate about and to try and change it.
“There’s lots one can do without being punished for it,” she said.
