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(09/16/16 2:00am)
As Middlebury’s Homecoming weekend approaches, one can feel a burgeoning sense of school pride. A number of factors might form that feeling – excitement about seeing graduated classmates, a sense of spirit from cheering on the football team as a crowd, or perhaps just the fervor around ubiquitous free cider donuts – but the sense of a “Middlebury” identity becomes palpable during Homecoming. The sentimentality surrounding this weekend therefore causes us to stop and ask ourselves – what is “Middlebury” and how can Middlebury best come together?
Over the past year, the College has participated in the national dialogue surrounding inclusivity and diversity. At times, this dialogue has driven wedges between members of our community. Some students have felt victimized and excluded from the College because of their identities, and shame has been cast on insensitive majority groups who perpetuate this dynamic. At the Campus, we will not try to propose a fix-all solution to this problem because the issue is too multi-faceted and out of our purview. However, our editorial board would like to make a difference in those ways that we can. With Homecoming in the background, we think one way we can make a difference is by endorsing unification at Middlebury and inclusivity in the College’s traditions.
To unify Middlebury, we must identify what makes it so great. Despite the emphasis on Middlebury’s Homecoming football game, it seems evident that our College is not a big sports school and is instead built upon a more substantial foundation. While our bleachers are by no means empty at sports games, the College seems to breed fans for more than just its athletics.
Many pride the school on its academics, which challenge students and simultaneously encourage a liberal arts exploration of subjects. Students appreciate Middlebury’s location in between the Adirondack Mountains and the Green Mountains, and the chance to get outdoors that such a location offers. Some point to Middlebury’s larger network with the Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Language Schools and the Bread Loaf School of English as being emblematic of Middlebury’s greatness. There are many aspects of Middlebury that make it stand out, but we as an editorial board want to make sure that traditions surrounding the College’s identity are not leaving anyone out.
The recent conversations about inclusivity and diversity are extremely relevant to our College. Middlebury has a history of exclusivity, dating back to the days when classrooms sat only white, male students. Those original “Middkids” set the tone for traditions to come. We still find ourselves partaking in quintessential privileged New England culture, perhaps best showcased by our excitement around events like the Homecoming men’s football game and the ski races at Winter Carnival. While we do not wish to condemn these traditions, as they compose part of Middlebury’s historical identity, we would like to challenge ourselves to expand Middlebury’s current and future identity.
It is time to give representation in the form of traditions to a larger diversity of students. Currently, our school’s privileged New England culture proves the point that many on campus are trying to make: that Middlebury does not always include every student. How can a female international student relate to men’s football, a sport that does not exist for women in her country? How can a student whose family did not choose to pay for expensive ski vacations to Vail or Aspen jump into the culture around skiing? Without eliminating these New England traditions, Middlebury must introduce new, more inclusive traditions.
[As a school with so much to offer – strong academics, beautiful natural surroundings, a larger institutional network and more – we should have no trouble fostering new traditions at Middlebury. Already, there are efforts in place to create more accessible events. The Anderson Freeman Resource Center has worked to introduce historically marginalized students to activities that are integral to Middlebury’s identity, but which were previously associated with a more privileged elite. The Center has sponsored partnerships with organizations like the Middlebury Mountain Club, introducing students with no prior exposure to activities like canoeing, hiking and skiing to such a lifestyle.] *this paragraph needs refinement...
Last Friday, President Patton hosted an all-school barbeque on Battell Beach. It allowed the student body to come together outside on our beautiful campus and get to know fellow students, faculty and staff we otherwise would not have known. It was a great example of the kind of tradition the Campus would like to see moving forward. It included all students and revolved around today’s student body, not the student body of a Middlebury past. All students, no matter where they came from, what economic background they were raised in or what they were interested in could coalesce around a picnic on the lawn. This sort of tradition – one that sets everyone on an equal playing field – is a start for new traditions.
Having contemporary, representative traditions is therefore one of the best ways to bring Middlebury together and move Middlebury forward. It is a start to addressing larger grievances by members of our community and can begin as soon as this weekend. So let us enjoy Homecoming, but let us also keep in mind that, as great as Middlebury is, there is still room for improvement and increased unification.
The editorial represents the official opinion of the editorial board of The Middlebury Campus.
(05/12/16 10:58pm)
Partygoers passing through the Chromatic social house last Saturday night may have been met by a surprising sight: four individuals, in varying states of undress, standing by the entryway with purple handprints painted over their abdomens and cardboard signs in their hands. Student bodyguards stood beside them, handing out informational slips, interacting with passersby and making sure that the performers remained untouched.
“Not asking for it,” the first sign in the lineup read.
“Still not asking for it,” the next two read.
And finally: “Sexual assault leaves a mark.”
This was the fifth public installation of the art activism group Stares on Stairs. The main organizers of the movement are Chi Chi Chang ’18 Elizabeth Dunn ’18, Katie Mayopoulos ’18, Morgan Grady-Benson ’18 and Nell Sather ’19. Their activism is open to anyone who is interested in the cause, and each performance thus far has been composed by a slightly different group of 12-15 individuals.
“It feels different every place we perform,” Sather said. “Chromatic felt very intense for a lot of reasons: the close physical proximity, the level of drunkenness, the noise and a much wider and larger audience than before.”
The idea for a radical campaign for sexual assault awareness was launched in “Radical Humanity: Performance and Social Activism,” a 2016 J-Term course taught by visiting filmmaker, choreographer and activist Tiffany Rhynard. Since then, the group has evolved and expanded into the public consciousness, implementing their first three installations in the stairwells of the Atwater suites, a notorious party scene on campus. Each performer stood on a platform, as two students serving as bodyguards stood on either side of them.
Meanwhile, the fourth performance took place in the hallway outside Kenyon Arena Center before the BØRNS concert a few weeks ago. Signs for alternative routes were present at all venues, alerting passersby of the upcoming scene and allowing them to avoid it as they wished.
The potential to cause unintentional harm to viewers, particularly to survivors or people who may be triggered by the performance, is an issue that the group continues to navigate. As a statement on their blog articulates, “We recognize that performance art activism should be disruptive, and discomfort is a natural and intended reaction to something challenging the status quo. However, we also want to be careful not to harm the people we are trying to advocate for. [...] We are continuing to think of ways that we can evolve the installation to prepare for the potential impact it could have on survivors.”
Because alcohol consumption, party spaces and rape culture are so intimately connected, the purpose of bringing the movement to various areas on campus is to make sexual assault visible in places beyond neutral discussion venues. The group acknowledges the importance of extending the conversation beyond a self-selected audience.
“People who are motivated by the cause will show up to certain things,” Dunn said. “But there’s a pretty large group of people who actively avoid these conversations, not because they don’t have the time but because they don’t want to.”
However, Dunn also acknowledged the intensely sensitive nature of the topic for many individuals on campus.
“Of course, we understand if your own personal experiences have been negative or you don’t have the mental energy. That’s understandable for us, and that’s always been very difficult for us, because we don’t want to trigger people or make people really uncomfortable,” they said. “But at the same time, there’s a different kind of discomfort on this campus that just leads to silencing. That’s something we’ve been trying to address – that culture of silence, pretending that this isn’t an issue.”
Student responses to this radical activism have varied widely. Negative feedback has stemmed largely from male-identifying individuals, with such reactions as, “F**k you guys,” “Why are you targeting us?” “I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone!” “Get out, we’re just trying to have fun!” “I’m gay, so I could never sexually assault anyone!” “Bitch!” and “This isn’t art. Have you seen the Sistine Chapel? That’s art.” One of the most disturbing comments was, “She thinks sexual assault is a problem? I’ll sexually assault her.”
During one of the Atwater installations, a group of men carrying solo cups stood in line with their backs to one of the performers, forming a human wall.
“The goal was to block us from view, to limit our power, to say, ‘You’re not welcome here,’” Grady-Benson said.
Amid the annoyance, denial and hostility of passersby, an informal – and alarming – body of research is emerging.
“We’re getting people to say things to us that they’re thinking or saying behind closed doors, and we’re trying to make that public,” Grady-Benson explained.
Despite the negativity, there has also been an outpouring of support from other observers. Comments have included “Thank you so much for doing this,” “This is so important,” “You are all so brave,” “I can’t believe nobody has done anything like this before,” “As a survivor, this really speaks to me” and “How can I get involved?”
In a process filled with political strife, some individuals have expressed discomfort with the radical nature of the movement. As such, participation in Stares on Stairs has shifted throughout the past few months.
“We really want to emphasize that everyone has agency in this project,” Grady-Benson stated. “There is no shame or judgment if this is not for you.”
“I never want to push people on that, because I think an individual is the best person to evaluate the level of risk that they are ready to accept,” Dunn added. “But it’s sort of a tradeoff, because in order to get something accomplished, you do have to put yourself out there in some kind of a way and take a risk. I wish that people who are able to – mentally healthy enough and in a good enough place – would open themselves up to that risk. There’s a difference between ‘I don’t want to be triggered’ or ‘I’ve had a really bad week so I can’t do this right now’ and ‘I’m nervous about what people will think if they realize that I am involved in this kind of radical action.’”
Each role in the performance comes with its own set of difficulties. The performer, half-naked and marked by handprints, must stand silently as they become the subject of stares, some hostile, some curious and some at an indiscernible point in between.
“It’s really informed my experience to be a performer and not speak to people. There’s so much I want to speak to people as they’re walking by,” Sather said.
“It’s not that we are silent,” Chang said. “I would say that our body is the message.”
Meanwhile, the bodyguards must be attuned to the mood of the space as partygoers – most of them intoxicated – stream past them, occasionally interacting with the performance.
“People have said the craziest things, like, ‘I’m an art history major. This isn’t art,’” Sather said. “You have to evaluate – is this something I should engage in, or simply something to remark on later?”
“Perhaps we bother some people by bringing such a serious topic to party spaces that are meant to be overflowing with good music, laughing and dancing,” Mayopoulos said. “But the truth is, I’d much rather receive a charged comment from a partier who doesn't want to engage with our performance because it ruins the good vibes of their partying than not do this performance and see the number of sexual assaults increase.”
The group performs in short stretches, reconvening every 10 minutes or so to check where everyone is at emotionally, physically and mentally. As a show of solidarity, they stay as a group and leave as a group, with the entire performance lasting from one to two hours. Afterward, people may go their separate ways to rest, or debrief if there is something pressing to address. The group always offers an open discussion to the campus a couple of days after the event, but so far, no one beyond the immediate circle of participants has shown up.
“Getting people to care on campus is really hard for any activist movement,” Grady-Benson explained. “It’s easy for people to either say ‘fuck you’ or ‘love you’ and not really care the next day.”
“If you care about this issue, maybe you don’t have to come to our event, but do you want to write something? Do you want to help us make posters or art? There are a lot of ways to support our group besides physically participating in protest,” Dunn said.
In spite of all the barriers that Stares on Stairs has encountered – from administrative hesitation to student apathy to outright aggression – these activists are determined to awaken the dialogue on sexual assault, to shift the culture of victim-blaming that has ravaged colleges across the nation. As one exhausting and informative semester draws to a close, they are already brainstorming ways to expand their mission, from posting photographs to bringing the movement to other campuses to diversifying the group to include more genders and sexual identities. All the while, however, these students acknowledge the limitations and risks inherent in their work.
“This is not a finished thing. We don’t have a formula. There’s still a lot of room for growth. This is not just high risk for ourselves, but for our community, and we want to recognize that us doing a disruptive action can have a harmful impact, even it that’s not our intention, particularly on survivors of sexual assault,” Chang said. “Continuing to be in conversation with MiddSafe advocates and other people not in the group has been really important. We are learning each time. This is by no means the right way. It’s just us trying to do the work as intentionally and mindfully as possible.”
Visit go/stares or go/stairs to learn more about their mission.
(04/21/16 10:40pm)
During your daily trek to classes, the library, or your favorite dining hall last week, you may have encountered an unusual sight – people making interpretive movements while donning headphones and walking around a public space. If you stayed for long enough, you might have noticed that the ordeal seemed entirely unplanned: over the course of an hour or so, random passersby would occasionally enter the space, receive a pair of wireless headphones and a written prompt, participate in a spontaneous, improvised performance for several minutes and then continue on with their day. Some people simply stood by and watched, while others walked past the scene without a second glance.
Also known as drop-in dance performances, these informal, audience-based productions popped up twice last week, once in the Great Hall of Bicentennial Hall and once on the patio outside Ross Dining Hall during the lunch rush. The heavy foot traffic around these venues allowed for a large number of students to observe and potentially engage with the performance.
A third art installation took place within the Warner Hall Greenhouse on Wednesday evening, April 13, though this one did not involve audience participation. Students and trained performers danced around inside as random passersby observed through the glass.
These improvisational performances came as part of the Movement Matters program, a two-year residency through the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Middlebury College Dance Program that uses movement to explore the intersectionality across disciplines. The team consists of choreographer and performer Maree ReMalia; sound designer David Bernabo; choreographer, dancer and educator Jil Stifel; and visual artist Blaine Siegel. Based in Pittsburgh, they are melding their different artistic fields together through participatory events.
“The very nature of these drop-in events is that it’s not necessarily a viewer who is sitting and being danced at,” Stifel said. “It’s something that you happen upon the same way you happen upon a flower. It’s something to be engaged with and interested in before moving on.”
Rod-based installation pieces were prominent in both performance venues. Constructed by Siegel and placed artistically throughout the space, these flexible physical structures were available for participants to interact with, destroy and rebuild.
Each drop-in performance was set against a score that sourced sounds from the organic farm and select locations on campus. Created by Bernabo and audible only to the headphone-wearing participants, the score served as both the ambience and inspiration for physical expression. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as “silent disco” – the experience of dancing to music that only one person can hear.
To initiate the self-improvised performances, each participant was offered a written prompt. These statements ranged from straightforward (“Yell at the space,” “Start a movement and repeat it with growing intensity” or “Swirl”) to silly (“Find a happy dance in your feet and get groovy”) to abstract (“Decorate the air with your movement” or “Respond to the architecture with textured movement”).
The Movement Matters team recognized that the significance of interpretive dance may not be immediately apparent to the viewer – or to the performer, for that matter. However, they expressed hope that participants benefited from the spontaneous, non-verbal expression of the self.
“During our event at BiHall, we were asked by a student why what we are doing is important. It’s a good question – especially in an environment that runs on assignments, discourse and evaluation,” Stifel said. “Through research, we know some of the ways that we can foster resiliency in our brains are through mindfulness, exercise and social connection. By taking time to move our bodies with other people following specific prompts, we are engaging all of those practices at the same time. In this way, the act of dropping into a movement exploration is an artful way of strengthening our powers of resiliency.”
That is not to say that everyone felt quite ready to engage, however. Some people turned around and walked the other way when they saw the installation, as they did not want to cross through the space. Others talked to the facilitators of the event as they walked by, but did not participate. This hesitancy speaks to the perceived inaccessibility of dance – a non-verbal medium of expression that often leaves viewers feeling more confused than enlightened.
As such, ReMalia acknowledged the importance of meeting individuals where they are and not pushing them too far past their comfort zones.
“It’s a process,” she explained. “For someone who doesn’t encounter dance or move in a certain way very often, even coming upon it can be the first step.”
Indeed, the post-performance reflections of some participants expressed appreciation for the spontaneous exercise.
“Freeing and I smiled the whole time. It didn't matter what others were doing, just what I felt moving through,” one person wrote.
“It was interesting seeing all around me and being fully visible yet having physical constraints,” another said.
And finally: “I had a baby 4 months ago and all throughout pregnancy and early infancy, my body was a principle factor in day to day life. Not so much recently. Finding a ‘happy place in my feet and getting groovy’ felt really good. Thank you.”
(03/23/16 3:22pm)
A live lottery for the Ridgeline Townhouse Application Process took place in Dana Auditorium on Monday, March 21. 10 of the 12 units were offered, granting 80 senior students to live in the new Ridgeline Townhouses opening this fall. The two remaining units will be included in the regular room draw process through BannerWeb.
Located along Adirondack View Road, the complex consists of three buildings, each with four separate townhouse units. Each unit contains eight single rooms with full-size beds, a kitchen, living room and laundry appliances. Construction on the project began in the fall of 2015, marking the first major construction project the College has seen since the addition of the Atwater Residence Halls in 2004.
“As the townhouses are a new offering at Middlebury, the Residential Life Committee thought that for the opening year the housing should be offered through a live draw rather than the online Large Block draw process,” said Doug Adams, Associate Dean of Students for Residential and Student Life. “This process was recommended to the committee by several student groups when the housing was announced in the spring of 2015.”
To enter the lottery, applicants were required to assemble groups of eight students and rank their preferred townhouse units. The application opened online on March 4, and both juniors and seniors were permitted to form groups. However, the application noted that junior and senior-junior mix groups would be drawn only if less than ten senior-only applications were submitted. 33 senior groups submitted applications, and, as such, one group of juniors and two senior-junior mix groups were removed from the lottery.
In the same manner as the process for off-campus housing, the live, public lottery assigned each group a number that was entered into a bingo cage, drawn by Adams himself. The first ten numbers were granted townhouses for the upcoming semester.
Two of the units, which consist of singles and blocked doubles, were not offered in the live-draw lottery. The decision to leave two units available arose following discussions with student organizations that argued against excluding students who may not be able to assemble a group of eight students but still want to live in the complex.
Rooms in these units will be included in the online room draw, which begins on April 18.
(03/23/16 3:20pm)
The March 6 meeting of the Student Government Association (SGA) began with a vote to recommend that President of the College Laurie L. Patton increase the Student Activities Fee by roughly $0.82 in order to keep the fee in line with changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Currently, the annual fee paid by all students is $410.
Junior Senator Karina Toy ’17 announced that after a meeting between members of the SGA and leaders of cultural organizations on campus, the SGA will be emailing their weekly agenda to organization presidents and sending emails to cluster boards during election seasons in an effort to make sure the SGA is more diverse.
First-Year Senator Charles Rainey ’19 updated the group on the events that have been held by the First Year Committee over the past year. Events included a “Cookies and Chill” night, a Reg and Feb meet-and-greet and an intercultural open-mic night where students wore an article of clothing important to their culture.
Senators voted to approve a proposal introduced by President Ilana Gratch ’16 to begin the SGA election process two weeks earlier than scheduled. Official dates have yet to be determined but elections will occur in mid-April.
The March 13 SGA meeting began with an update delivered by Dean of Students Baishakhi Taylor, who shared that the Alliance for an Inclusive Middlebury (AIM) will be hosting a symposium on diversity and inclusion featuring speakers and student leaders from other schools. AIM — which launched in December — is currently developing a website that will be released in the near future. Alumni Affairs is working to make changes to the Kirk Alumni Center to make its photo exhibit more inclusive. The administration will also be hosting a series of faculty dinners to discuss inclusivity and diversity on campus.
Senior Senator Madeleine Raber ’16 shared with senators that roughly 275 students attended the 51 Main student-run bar night. Brainerd Senator Jewel Chen ’16 stated that a printer will be added to the LaForce Library in Ross.
Sophomore Senator Colin Boyle ’18 introduced a bill to establish a committee comprised of senators, finance committee members and representatives of club sports teams to draft a plan to deal with the funding of club sports. Boyle’s proposal came after SGA Treasurer and Finance Committee Chair Aaron de Toledo ’16 presented a plan at the March 6 SGA meeting to implement a system of club sports funding in which teams would receive funding caps based on their overall cost and participation. De Toledo introduced the proposal in an effort to make the funding of all clubs more equitable. Senators rejected de Toledo’s proposal and passed Boyle’s which, in addition to forming the committee, leaves the current funding system in tact. Should the committee fail to draft a funding proposal, de Toledo’s plan will be implemented, subject to a senate vote.
Senators approved changes, proposed by de Toledo, to the Finance Committee guidelines. Changes to the guidelines include establishing a precedent that the committee will only fund food and snacks deemed essential to the club and eliminating the funding of hotels and flights for student events.
(03/17/16 1:26am)
Last Wednesday, March 9, Governor Shumlin visited North Bennington to hold a town hall style meeting with residents and discuss the ongoing water contamination crisis. Shumlin announced that water in the Bennington area had been contaminated by a carcinogen known as perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and assured residents that his administration would make fighting the contamination a top priority.
“We are not going to desert you,” Shumlin told the concerned onlookers. “We’re going to make sure that we not only get through the short-term challenges figuring out how we get clean water to folks on a permanent basis, not just the stuff for trucking in, then figure out how we hold whoever did this accountable.”
The spill can be traced back to a Chemfab factory, which was acquired by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics in 2000, and shut down just two years later. Saint Gobain is currently embroiled in a similar PFOA contamination crisis in Hoosick Falls, New York, for which it has been fighting a class-action lawsuit since September of 2015. The lawsuit, spearheaded by the law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, will now include evidence from North Bennington.
In the past, PFOA had a variety of commercial uses, but was phased out by the Environmental Protection Agency due to its carcinogenic qualities. At the Chemfab factory in North Bennington, it was used to apply protective coatings onto fabric.
Saint-Gobain released the following statement following the PFOA incident: “We understand that tests commissioned by the Department of Environmental Conservation showed no detection of PFOA in the public water system for Bennington. The tests did reveal elevated levels in three private wells, as well as two commercial sites. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics has contacted state and local officials, and has offered to fund the provisioning of bottled water and point-of-use filtration systems for these locations, and others that might be affected. We will cooperate with all local, state and federal officials as they investigate and manage this issue.”
A spokeswoman for Saint-Gobain said that the company followed strict environmental protocols during its two years of operation in North Bennington. Officials at both the Department for Environmental Conservation and at the Governor’s Office will focus on testing wells in the surrounding mile and a half diameter.
Chuck Schwer, the Director of the Vermont DEC’s waste management and prevention division, explained that this 1.5 mile diameter was an “educated guess.”
“We aren’t sure exactly of how the chemical was released into the environment,” Schwer explained, “Was it an airbourne-type problem, or was it a release at the factory that just got into groundwater? Looking at the topography, understanding a little bit the properties of the chemical, we developed the mile and a half.”
Getting the results from these tests can take weeks, and it is still unclear as to the full extent of the contamination. Schwer urged residents to reach out to the division if they owned a private well in the area.
“The first step is figuring out exactly how widespread the problem is,” Taylor Dobbs, a reporter for VPR, said in an interview. “Once they know that, then they know ... where to target their efforts and who they really need to help.”
One resident living near the plant, Jim Goodine, argued that the smell radiating from it had been a problem since the mid-1970s. Although he had complained to the company that the smell was so bad at times he could not leave his house, his complaints led nowhere.
“You know, I’m a carpenter,” said Goodine in an interview with VPR. “And these were big guys, industrialists with factories in different places, and they show up in Brooks Brother suits, and you feel intimidated by people like that.”
“In hindsight I’m kicking myself as hard as I can ... I feel partly responsible that I didn’t go to the state and say, ‘You have to do something here. You have to find out what’s going on.’”
In an effort to better educate the public about the developing situation, both the Vermont Department of Health and the Department for Environmental Conservation (DEC) have launched websites on the situation in North Bennington. Bennington College also recieved a grant from the National Science Foundation Rapid Response to conduct original research on PFOA, and will offer a six-week course on water contamination and how to manage it in the spring and fall. The class will examine the PFOA molecule chemically and how this chemical might move through soil and groundwater.
“We’re going to have to learn something about how [PFOA] becomes introduced to the groundwater and how it migrates through the groundwater, and how you ultimately wind up getting it out and restoring the safe water supply,” said Tim Schroeder, a professor of earth science at Bennington College.
Still, for residents in the North Bennington area, the PFOA crisis is an immediate one. Many residents are still in limbo, awaiting the results of a week-long test for the carcinogen in their private wells. In the meantime, Saint-Gobain has offered to pay for their bottled water.
(03/16/16 8:49pm)
This letter was co-authored by three Middlebury survivors. It is not our intention to speak for all survivors, but rather to speak from our own situated experiences. The identities inhabited within adjudicatory processes are not divorced from the world outside of them – race, class, ability, gender, immigration status, etc. continue to matter. We appreciate the full range of survivors’ experiences; the decision to speak out is an entirely personal one.
Dear Editor,
As a collective of Middlebury survivors, we wish to respond to last week’s article “Reexamining Our Sexual Assault Investigative Process.” We intend to rebut many of the sentiments expressed in this article. Although the author claimed to abhor victim-blaming, we believe that they largely reproduced the violence of victim-blaming in their own writing.
The author’s primary concern surrounds the idea that some rapists are actually innocent; we must be critical of survivor’s stories. “Skepticism is the defining trait of any good learner,” including skepticism of lying survivors. Such concerns surrounding false reporting are grossly overstated. The FBI Bureau of Justice Statistics has collected data on false reporting for decades, consistently finding that the rate of false reporting in instances of rape is somewhere between two and eight percent. This isn’t to say that false reporting does not exist, but that it is incredibly rare. The rate of false reporting for rape is significantly less than the rates reported by the FBI for other serious crimes. Would we question a victim of robbery in the same way? The bottom line is that survivors of rape, as a category, continue to be marked as suspect, and misconceptions about false reporting have direct, negative consequences on why many survivors don’t report their assaults (see Lisak et. al. 2010).
The author also raised concerns over the preponderance of evidence standard, meaning the evidentiary standard used by colleges to adjudicate Title IX cases across the country (for more on the federal government’s justifications for the use of this standard, see the April 4, 2011 Dear Colleague Letter). It is worth noting that even under a preponderance of evidence standard, a finding of “not responsible” does not necessarily mean “innocent.” For a number of reasons, cases of interpersonal violence remain notoriously difficult to “prove,” and many methods of collecting evidence — such as through rape kits — remain incredibly traumatic and invasive.
The author would lead readers to believe that the preponderance of evidence standard causes potentially innocent respondents, such as John Doe, to be routinely expelled from this institution. Yet in contrast to the sentiments expressed in last week’s op-ed, the Doe case signals the degree of agency and recourse that respondents actually have, both through Title IX claims as well as through civil law.
Here are some facts that last week’s author failed to disclose to The Campus: Clery data indicates that Campus Security Authorities became aware of 17 possible allegations of forcible sex offense during the 2013 reporting period. Of those 17, College Disciplinary Actions data reveals that only five cases resulted in a sexual misconduct proceeding. Of those five, only three saw an end to their adjudication processes. Of the three that went through a complete proceeding, two cases resulted in a finding of “responsibility.” Of the two cases reaching “responsible” decisions, one respondent was suspended and one received “Official College Discipline.” To insinuate that the Middlebury system or society at large disfavor “alleged rapists” is nothing short of factually inaccurate.
“You want justice? Don’t go to the administration, go to the police.” As if this decision was so easy, or was an alleged rapist’s decision to make. There are a number of reasons why a survivor may elect to forego a criminal proceeding. Some Middlebury survivors have taken their respondents to court. But at the end of the day, it is up to each survivor to determine how they want to proceed — whether they elect to transfer, not report, report to the campus, confront their rapists themselves and/or pursue criminal or civil charges. Rape is often experienced as a site of great choicelessness, and who makes the decisions matters. It is not the job of society to tell survivors what justice should look like; it is up to the survivor to reassert their agency to best meet their own justice needs. For those of us who choose to co-exist on campus with our assailants, that decision is extremely difficult. Yet that remains our decision to make.
The one thing that we’ll agree with the author on is that Middlebury’s SMDVS policy is a highly imperfect and adversarial process; “The College’s system for dealing with sexual assault does not give you what you deserve, regardless of whether you are an alleged victim or alleged perpetrator of violence.” This reality was echoed by a video made by Middlebury survivors a year ago entitled Middlebury Unmasked (go/unmasked). Each choice comes with unfortunate consequences, yet we stand firm in the belief that it remains a survivor’s task to analyze the array of options before them and decide which option(s) they should pursue.
The author of last week’s op-ed emphasized their own feelings of isolation as they underwent their campus judicial process. Does the author seriously think that their sense of isolation would have been lessened during a more visible proceeding in a court of law? For survivors, we’d argue that such experiences of isolation in this community are likely amplified. Isolation is pervasive in sentiments which reduce survivors’ lived experiences to nothing more than (a heteronormative) “he said, she said.” Our feelings of isolation are augmented by the enduring impacts of our trauma, including PTSD. Our trauma is by no means neatly contained in one night; in terms of attaining “justice,” there is no silver bullet.
“If someone approaches you and asks “did you do it” it feels an awful lot like the “are you sure?” question we choose not to ask alleged victims.” We’d like to debunk the author’s notion of a “post-victim-blaming era” right now. It simply does not exist. Survivors are still asked “are you sure?” in a number of arenas — within sexual misconduct processes, within criminal court and within our friend groups and families. We are still asked “are you sure?” in op-eds which would call into question our capacity for truth or our ability to make decisions for ourselves.
The fact of the matter is that many Middlebury survivors often feel the need to reassert our voices in this community, even in the smallest of ways. That’s exactly what we’re doing in this letter. We are deeply convinced that the judicial process at Middlebury leaves much to be desired, yet we also believe firmly in our rights to pursue our educations free of sexual violence. Unlike proceedings in criminal court, the heart of Title IX requires educational institutions to bear some responsibility for our experiences within them. The irony of last week’s op-ed is that it replicated the violence that many survivors experience in the aftermath of their rapes; under a barrage of disbelief, we were once more forced to take time out of our educations to defend ourselves from tired stereotypes.
We are multidimensional, and we are so much more than the passive “victim” reproduced in last week’s op-ed. Many of us have felt isolated and alone in our experiences, but we are complex human beings who are also full of joy, desire, empowerment and opinions. We need not be spoken for, and we reject the author’s notion of protection. We are an integral part of this community, and we have a right to be here and to continue to take up space. The resolution mechanisms for these sorts of cases remain imperfect and limited, yet it’s our job as claimants to pause and decide which resolution mechanism seems like the lesser of several evils at the time. To insinuate that survivors’ don’t or can’t take into account the treatment of their perpetrators when selecting a resolution mechanism is insulting.
Moving forward, many of us remain committed to reforming the judicial process and continuing to assert our right to a violence-free education. Some of us remain interested in the possibility of using restorative justice to address campus claims through a more harm-centered discourse. Yet one thing must be made clear: if you truly support survivors, you will empower them with the agency to determine their unique path moving forward. You have not been in our shoes and you do not get to pretend to see with our eyes. This never has been — nor will it ever be — your decision to make.
Anonymous ’15
Anonymous ’16
Anonymous ’16
(03/10/16 4:36am)
Do you currently play a club sport? Have you ever tried one out? I think a typical experience of many students on this campus, if they are not of the 300+ club sport athletes, is that they tried a club sport for a day or two, and found it wasn’t for them. I would estimate that the number of people who have ever tried or participated in a club sport (even for a brief period of time) is at least 700 students.
Politically, we have seen much discussion about accessibility on this campus. What is accessibility? Are all facilities accessible? On a less quantifiable level, are experiences and organizations on campus accessible for people of all backgrounds? These questions become very prevalent when examining the nature of athletics at Middlebury. The athletic center is not an accessible place for many students. On a base level, it is populated by people who seem to already be physically fit and absolutely beautiful. A girl on my freshman hall once quipped that Midd made her want to “run 4 miles with full makeup on.” Gymtimidation is not the only factor, however. Some gym facilities, like the squash courts or the hockey arena, remain inaccessible to those whose who were not fortunate enough to learn how to use these facilities adequately. I, for one, did not know about the existence of squash until I arrived at Middlebury.
Beyond facilities, varsity sports are decidedly not-accessible. Before the start of the year, coaches plan and assemble the majority of their teams. There is the remote possibility of walk-ons, especially in sports like track, but this is not a prevalent phenomenon. As a consequence, the fitness center often feels segregated. Non varsity athletes generally use the cardio machine areas and the weight room, while varsity athletes use those areas and seemingly everything else. Intramural teams will certainly use the turf in the field house or the basketball courts, but always scheduled around the practice times of varsity squads. This is not a knock against varsity athletes, but it is important to acknowledge that the foundation of varsity athletics is inaccessibile. To remain competitive, sports like lacrosse need people who already know how to play and are physically fit. If you want to learn how to play lacrosse, or master tennis, or swim competitively, tough luck.
Let’s now examine the structure of the competitive club sports, which I will abbreviate as CCS, to differentiate from the recreational club sports (which do not engage in competition with other teams). These sports, which include crew, rugby, and water polo, have active rosters of over 125 students. Crew itself has about 60 members, and would be about the same size as our largest varsity teams. These athletes practice in season on a similar structure to varsity programs. Speaking for crew, on the water practices are about 3 hours a day, 6 times a week. Practices off the water tend to be shorter, with no drive to Lake Dunmore, but are more intense. During the off season, each rower was asked to erg/run/swim/lift their way to 1,425,000 meters. This is approximately the distance between the center of town and Charlotte, North Carolina. From friends and acquaintances, it seems other CCS share similar dedication in practice and fitness. The ultimate key to club sports is that they are perhaps the most accessible competitive athletic programs at Middlebury. The majority of people at Middlebury can sign up to be a “novice” in one of these sports, someone who has had little or no prior contact with the game. Regardless of your physical starting point, these novice programs are designed to take you to the appropriate fitness level needed to be competitive. On the financial side, club sports have a powerful financial aid structure to help lower the barriers for people who want to participate. This aid is raised through fundraising. All the members of the team, beyond practices, spend hours to make sure that all can participate.
There is currently an initiative in the SGA to set a funding cap on club sports, so that each club sport is funded (per person) the max amount allocated by each student’s extracurricular participation fee, which is just above four hundred dollars. Currently, sports like sailing and crew are taking more than this fee per athlete, meaning that each athlete is costing more than the fee they are putting in. The concern is that this funding scheme is unfair, and the Finance Committee has also taken this view. The new proposal will slash some budgets for club sports by up to 30 percent, which may leave some sports unable to exist beyond a recreational level. I, too, share the concern that no club or organization should be funded more than the “fair” level.
Where is the administration when it comes to this? Are the interests in club sports as legitimate as financial interests in Monterey or opening a new school abroad? Is Middlebury College rooted in the small liberal arts campus or a gigantic international corporation? If the new funding gap is applied, somewhere, somehow, the administration could provide $20,000 dollars to keep the club sports at the same operating level. It is particularly notable that the college’s financial health is not particularly vibrant, as admitted by the head of the Finance Committee. Yet, the issue of club sports involves the livelihood of hundreds of students. The interests of students should be the first priority of Middlebury, and the diffusion of responsibility that Athletics, Old Chapel and other agencies on campus have shown in solving the funding issue of club sports is concerning. Why should students who practice and fundraise for upwards of 12-20 hours a week also have to defend the legitimacy of their interests? Why should a student-run Finance Committee be forced with dealing with an issue that should have never been theirs to solve?
I am not going to defend why club sports are important to people. Ask any club sport athlete. If this funding cap passes, club sport budgets will decrease, and student interests on this campus will be damaged. I ask you, as fellow peers at Middlebury, who also believe in ideals of accessibility and student life, to urge your respective senators in the SGA to vote no this upcoming Sunday. Until a new funding proposal can be reached, with the deficit in funding picked up by the administration, continuing with the cap will do far more harm than good.
(03/10/16 4:26am)
“Now don’t go getting sentimental!”
I continued chopping — onion, after onion, after onion. It was the first day of MAlt DC, a trip to “explore the ethics of inequality in the capital of one of the wealthiest nations in world history,” as our tag-line (primarily used to fundraise from doting family members and professors) went. The ovens hissed; the voice of a berating chef shrilled from a nearby room. We were in a kitchen beneath a monstrously large homeless shelter just out of view of the grand, lavish halls of Congress. As government white collars chopped bills that primarily benefited the white collar majority, we chopped onions for people that society drove to the margins.
After several hours, we ended our shifts at the same time as the workers. But the next day, we didn’t return immediately to work.
“So y’all go to Midd?” the white CEO asked us. He smiled. “I went to Williams!”
We laughed and listened as he gave us a full description of the kitchen. He took our questions and mulled over them for more than an hour while the workers were on the shift we were also scheduled to be working. The CEO had intervened, so we couldn’t join them until the conversation concluded. The only people in the room — a very public cafeteria — were products of the “Liberal Arts.” We were very aware of that, especially when the CEO stopped speaking when an outsider entered. As soon as they were gone, he smiled amiably. And then he continued as if he never stopped.
That wasn’t the only instance of our privilege leading to exceptional treatment. A few days later, the fact that we were college students earned us a trip — in the middle of our shift—to a “gourmet coffee and bagel shop.” We were a potential source of expansion for the kitchen, since they had a program designed specifically for college campuses. Drinking coffee with yet another white face, every minute felt like its own forever. I thought about the workers, no doubt cutting onions, back at the kitchen.
We started to realize the kitchen hierarchy possessed a racial element. First, the workers were overwhelmingly black — former inmates and patients. They were victims of mass incarceration, the “negative externalities” of policies made just around the corner at the Capitol. They had no choice but to work if they wanted to get back on their feet. Second, the leaders of the business itself were all white. (The only exception was someone who had been promoted from the worker class). There didn’t seem to be any animosity, fortunately, and everyone was directed at the same positive goal. But that didn’t mean the racial element did not exist.
Another dimension of the hierarchy became clear over the next few days. The workers were black, and management was white, but what about the in-between? The middle — which included us — seemed to be split evenly between “required community service” and “volunteer” classes. The former’s presence was mandated, so members were less privileged than us, although they also were white. One was a student at Virginia Tech whose education had been interrupted for a “private reason.” He would be “back on his feet” after another few months. (“Just pretend to work,” he whispered when we finished our task). The volunteers, like us, were much more temporary, but also mostly white. Beyond just us ambassadors of the state of Vermont, there were well-positioned capitalists doing their service, and a Class of 2015 college graduate who was flitting from non-profit to non-profit to “find her passion.”
I thought about that for a while. How can someone who works seven days a week to even have a chance at a job and someone who can live in her parents’ house as a restless volunteer be in such close proximity? How can both the victims and victors of society be so close together — not only in the kitchen, but in the city — where the wealth of Congress lies directly next to the poverty of the kitchen? How can we ignore race when it continues to be a very apparent division? How can the myth of post-racialism continue to persist when reality exists?
Just as we were leaving to return to campus, one of the workers — who we had gotten to know well — smiled at us. She gave one of us her phone number, and asked a few questions.
“You’re in college? Ah, you’ll be fine!”
And then she turned away, vanishing back into the kitchen.
(03/10/16 4:04am)
Last weekend, March 4-6, Saskia Pownall-Gray ’16 and Tiffany Hau ’16 competed at the College Squash Association individual championships at Chelsea Piers in Stamford, Connecticut. Pownall-Gray and Hau entered the tournament ranked 51st and 60th.
Powell-Gray faced 46th-ranked Hedvika Suchanova of Dickinson College in her opening match. She was defeated in a five-match marathon, losing the deciding game 11-7.
Powell-Gray then entered the consolation bracket, and lost to George Washington’s Abigail Shonrock in a three-game match. In the last game, Pownall-Gray showed signs of comeback, but ultimately Shonrock gained the upper hand and won 15-13.
Hau competed against 37th-ranked Alexandra Toth from Princeton and unfortunately fell in three games (11-5, 11-4, 11-7). However, Hau remained upbeat about her time at the championships.
“I had a wonderful weekend and played some of the best squash I had all season,” Hau said. “It was really exciting [playing at Chelsea Piers that] I hadn’t been to before.” Hau had a crowd of supporters on hand, including her family, Panther teammates, Coach Mark Lewis and friends from home.
After her loss in the opening-round match, Hau beat 69th-ranked Brandy Williamson from Mount Holyoke in a four game showdown. She won the final game 11-5. Though she lost in her next match against 53rd-ranked Victoria Arjoon of Bates College, Hau put the weekend in perspective.
“It was nice being able to finish on that [note] being a senior in my last weekend of squash,” Hau said.
When asked about her goals, Hau said she just wanted to enjoy her time and compete to her best potential.
“I wanted to enjoy it,” Hau said, “it was my last weekend of collegiate squash so I wanted to leave the weekend feeling proud of myself and the way that I played. I wanted to be able to look back and remember how fun it was. I definitely achieved that and with those good feelings definitely came some good results.”
Hau also gave praise to her teammates for their support and encouragement.
“[Though] it was strange not having the whole team together,” Hau acknowledged, “hearing from [teammates] and remembering the energy from the weekend before at Nationals definitely propelled me through the tournament.”
(03/10/16 4:02am)
Last Monday, Allen Gilbert announced that he is leaving his position as the Executive Director of the Vermont Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), after holding this title for 12 years. Gilbert has not decided when his last day will be, but has clarified that he will maintain his position until the summer while a replacement is being found.
It is expected that this replacement process will take about three to four months. The search for Gilbert’s successor has commenced and will span the nation with efforts facilitated by Board Chair James Morse.
“It’s been a great run,” Gilbert said in an interview with VTdigger. “12 years is a long time. It’s a full-throttle job and I just need to slow down.” Gilbert also ensured that he does not plan to quit his work all together, but emphasized the desire to be at a place where he can take care of his health as well. Indeed, Gilbert claims to have a list of about five public policy projects that he will give attention to despite the fact that he is leaving his position.
“I don’t see myself stopping from doing some form of gainful work. I’ve got a long list of things I still want to do,” Gilbert assured the Burlington Free Press in an interview.
The longtime president clearly was not lacking in things to do during his 12 year term with the ACLU. Before leading Vermont’s ACLU, Gilbert held a job as a reporter for the Rutland Herald, worked as an English teacher in Germany and served as a partner in a public policy and research communications firm. As a Worcester resident, Gilbert assumed the position of executive director when Vermont’s chapter of the ACLU only had three staff members. By the end of Gilbert’s term, the chapter was composed of five staff members. One major implementation of Gilbert’s was the addition of ACLU Vermont’s first staff attorney.
“The growth in staff and the strategic location [of the group’s offices] are symbolic of Allen’s successful efforts to expand the ACLU’s work and visibility,” praised Board Chair James Morse in an interview with VTdigger.
Morse’s second element of praise refers to Gilbert’s decision to relocate the Vermont ACLU’s offices from the Vermont College of Fine Arts on East State Street in Montpelier to Elm Street. The goal and successful effect of this relocation of offices was for the members of the ACLU chapter to place themselves closer to the Vermont Statehouse, where they hoped to inspire and fight for concrete changes. In fact, the executive director himself has been described as being a frequent presence at the Statehouse where he has shown no fear for engaging in heated debate with law enforcement members. Gilbert further expressed his passion for his job to VTdigger as he claimed to enjoy that he “never knew what was coming down the pike” as executive director of the Vermont ACLU.
After announcing his decision to step down from the head position, Gilbert revealed two of his proudest moments and accomplishments in his work in the ACLU. The first major accomplishment that he cited was his involvement in the Guiles v. Marineau case in 2006. This was a freedom of speech case in which a middle schooler’s right to political speech was contested. The ACLU ultimately emerged victorious with this case in the circuit court.
The second major accomplishment that Gilbert cited was a discrimination lawsuit that the ACLU worked to use to counter the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville. This case emerged in 2012 when the Wildflower Inn refused to host a wedding reception for a lesbian couple. This case was a success for the ACLU and for Gilbert because the inn settled and agreed to pay the women a civil penalty for their actions.
According to VTdigger, Gilbert expressed that “a civil liberty is never completely and permanently won,” and that he has been honored to have been given the opportunity to play a role in fighting to protect them in his role as the leader of Vermont’s American Civil Liberties Union for all these years.
(03/10/16 12:26am)
Hepburn Zoo has always been known as a venue for unconventional art performances, but last weekend’s performance may have topped them all: On Friday, March 3 and Saturday, March 4, the doors opened, free of charge, for Middlebury Discount Comedy’s second ever show, Much Love in this Air.
Founded last fall by Shannon Gibbs ’18, the campus’s first sketch comedy group is comprised of 11 students: President Gibbs, Vice President Isabella Alonzo ’18, Producer Liana Barron ’18, Head Writer Greg Swartz ’17.5, Head Director Alexander Herdmann ’17, Faraz Ahmad ’19, Dan Fulham ’18, Sebastian LaPointe ’18, Peter Lindholm ’17.5, Jack Ralph ’18 and Marney Kline ’17.5. Coming from a wide range of experience levels and majors – from computer science to theatre to English, with no discipline in the clear majority – the company produces all of its sketches through a collaborative round-table format.
Posters for the show featured all members of the company lying in a sea of roses, completely nude save for a few petals photoshopped strategically over their private parts. According to Gibbs, the provocative, creepy and vaguely romantic vibe behind these promotional pieces was completely intentional and particularly accentuated by the fact that Much Love in this Air premiered nearly three weeks after Valentine’s Day. ‘Who says the season of love is over?’ the posters seemed to ask, foreshadowing the unconventional sense of humor that lay behind the entirely student-run production.
Gibbs opened the show with a list of trigger warnings for sexually explicit material, violence, abortion and other inflammatory topics. In the 24 sketches that followed, ranging in length from a mere 30 seconds to several minutes, these themes were escalated, decontextualized, satirized, broken apart, muddled up and in some instances, oddly mishandled. Puzzling at some moments and shocking at others, Much Love in this Air proved to be far more unsettling a performance than even its posters could suggest.
Sexual content was pervasive throughout the show, beginning with a three-part series of sketches in which a male student, played by Swartz, is taken hostage and forced into a sexual bondage by a female Public Safety officer, played by Alonzo. Another student, played by Barron, watches on in helpless horror. The premise for this story is understandable enough: two students are caught drinking underage, and the officer must confiscate their alcohol. However, the situation quickly escalates into a bizarre commentary on the tense relationship between Public Safety and the general student body. As Barron appeals to the administrator to release her boyfriend, she ends up screaming hysterically into the phone, “Right, you’re trained, but who the fuck are you helping?” followed by, “Why do I voluntarily go into this bureaucratic shit hole?” She is eventually transferred to the Department of Existential Crises, where a soothing voice on the other end, performed by Ahmad, instructs her to “imagine yourself running through a field of puppies with a middle-aged, robust Public Safety Officer” and to “gently breathe in and lock your fingers underneath your cheeks.”
“Now, if you have a tight little asshole, press two and you will be transferred back to Public Safety,” Ahmad says in the final line of the sketch, leaving the audience to pause and then giggle in bewilderment.
Such was the nature of most of the night’s performances: Shameless in their absurdity, the sketches were often cloaked in dark humor and met with relative silence, as the viewers struggled to process what they had witnessed onstage. For the most part, MDC’s outlandish approach to comedy seemed incongruent with the audience’s taste – but this did not seem to faze the actors, whose emphatic voices and humorously exaggerated facial expressions remained as strong as ever from beginning to end.
Another sexually explicit scene, innocently titled “Science Class,” featured a teacher offering his students a “more hands-on experiences” through a new form of “dirty work.” This euphemistic language quickly gives way to the crude question, “How many of you have been f**ked in the ass before?” The class proceeds to split into pairs to carry out this activity, with one student’s clear discomfort becoming the focal point of the lesson. Perhaps surprisingly, the blatant ridiculousness and obscenity of the sketch drew considerable laughter from the crowd, though many audience members were undoubtedly left asking themselves what exactly they were laughing at – and what message the outrageous script was trying to convey.
The line between outlandish humor and incomprehensible absurdity was crossed at a few points throughout the night. For several uncomfortable minutes, the audience watched as Winston and Lydia, a dysfunctional young couple as portrayed by Gibbs and Fulham, broke out into a fight at a night club, dancing feverishly together the entire time. The juxtaposition between their volatile words and cheery, perfectly synchronized choreography was clever, though their enunciation was often obscured by their quick movements, making it difficult to follow the conversation. The parts that were audible, however, were often too over-the-top and intentionally lewd for the audience to feel comfortable laughing.
“You mean you’ve been using condoms this whole f**king time?” Lydia shrieks at one point.
“Maybe if you weren’t such a f**king slut c**t we would think twice about it, Lydia,” Winston responds.
The tendency to veer too far into unsettling extremes escalated into outright violence during “Faraz’s Final Rose,” a scene based on the wildly popular reality show The Bachelor, as well as during a couple of abortion sketches. Firstly, the final rose ceremony – in which the bachelor selects one of three beautiful girls to be his wife – concludes with Chris Harrison, the host of The Bachelor as portrayed by Lindholm, chasing down and shooting the first runner-up, played by Gibbs. “I’m still alive, asshole,” are her final words in this unnecessarily grotesque scene. What had begun as an entertaining commentary on the problematic premise of The Bachelor devolved into an unwarranted display of violence.
Next, in what was likely the most disconcerting performance of the night, a pharmaceutical clinic offers a list of painful options to women seeking an abortion, including but not limited to hypothermia, being thrown down a flight of stairs and a series of punches to the gut, courtesy of a creepy man named Lucifer. In this jarring satire of the current health care system, lines like “I think sluts like you deserve a 50-50 shot” and “My father took me hostage so I wouldn’t murder the child we made” are delivered with a sort of bluntness, a blatant desire to provoke, that comes across as inappropriate. When the first woman to request an abortion emerged blood-stained from behind the curtain, followed by a stab to the torso that took the life of the second patient, the disapproving silence from the crowd seemed to be directed not at the real-life issues that inspired the sketch, but rather at the wildly disturbing content of the sketch itself.
Recognizing that their self-identified “Freudian” style can be more than a little odd, Middlebury Discount Comedy (MDC) writes all of their sketches with the hopes of highlighting the severity of real-world problems.
“We take an issue that’s pertinent to us as Middlebury students or as citizens of the world and we blow it up to an extent that it’s so decontextualized that people can see the satire we’re trying to go for,” Barron explained. “We’ll heighten it and heighten it and heighten it until finally, it’s violence.”
“This show tackles issue that are a bit more sensitive and takes them to a darker place,” Swartz added.
Not all moments in Much Love in this Air were completely off the mark, however. A 30-second public service announcement, delivered by Fulham, brought the crowd to a roaring laughter with its sheer, deadpan simplicity: “Now, remember, kids,” he said. “Drugs. One day, you just start doin’ em.” In contrast, a cult-like sing-along of the phrase “Prepare the way of the Lord” in “Trump’s Inauguration” introduced an eerie sense of hysteria to the room. This creepy take on the political storm that has ravaged the United States was met with a positive reception, as disgust toward the Trump campaign is a common sentiment amongst the overwhelming majority of Middlebury College students.
Meanwhile, in terms of prevalent on-campus issues, a sketch entitled “Atwater Speed Dating” resonated with many. In this well-executed performance, a female student meets one unappealing candidate after another – from the insensitive and dull to a guy who refers to himself exclusively as “Jaboi” – during a night out. Taking place amidst blaring music in a shadowy suite, it is an apt interpretation of a social scene that many students have described as stifling, unsatisfactory and frustratingly cyclical.
“People like it when you talk about things that are relevant and happening right here, in here, in this bubble,” Barron explained. “We have a tone to us that’s very idiosyncratic and dark.”
Following a whirlwind perusal of relevant issues both on campus and in the real world, a stand-out sketch of the night centered on the group’s round-table sessions. All 11 members of the company gathered onstage to parody the process of pitching ideas and writing scripts, with one major plot twist: the actors were all topless (save for 3-D heart attachments covering the girls’ nipples). As the scene progressed, the inexplicable half-nudity began to make more sense. Gibbs proposes that they all be topless together for their next show, to which Alonzo responds, “I don’t think that’s really tasteful, Shannon; not all of us are comfortable with our bodies like that.” A heated debate ensues – “What’s the joke?” “What’s the context?” – and as the audience stared at the bare-chested group of people before them, the irony became suddenly clear. Infused with a strong dose of Freudianism, the scene ends on an abrupt and meta note.
Comedy has long served as a vehicle for powerful social commentary, bringing humankind’s ills under the most revealing of lights and inviting all to observe. However, the humor behind Much Love in this Air hinged largely on a brash insensitivity that alienated audience members more than it challenged them to explore the difficult issues at hand. Though there were certainly moments of clever satire sprinkled throughout the night, if the uncomfortable silences were any indication, the show was deeply perplexing and perhaps too heavy to bear at times. Whether in moments of laughter or quiet unease, MDC pushed the audience to consider why they were or were not laughing, as their shotgun-firing, belly-bleeding sketches blurred the line between what is appropriate to convey and what is not.
(03/09/16 4:28pm)
At the monthly plenary faculty meeting on March 4, the faculty discussed a proposal to create an open-access repository at the College. The proposal was presented by Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Svea Closser on behalf of the Open Access Working Group and the Faculty Council.
A repository is a database where faculty can make their published articles available for free in one location. The repository would include scholarly journal articles, conference proceedings and book chapters. It would not include creative works, books, commissioned articles or other publications where authors are compensated directly for their writing. Though submission of articles would be mandatory, faculty members would be able to obtain a waiver should they not want an article included. The faculty voted to table the proposal and will vote on it after discussing it in open meetings.
Later in the meeting, Professor of Psychology Barbara Hofer, on behalf of the Faculty Council and Appeals Council, proposed changes to the Faculty Handbook. She presented six recommendations aimed at clarifying misunderstandings that originate from the current handbook language regarding the faculty review process.
One recommendation proposed changing handbook language to say that any candidate denied a reappointment or promotion would be provided with a written rationale for the decision. Another proposed modifying a passage to clearly state that all tenured faculty members, even when on academic leave, are expected to submit a letter regarding a colleague undergoing review. The faculty in attendance tabled the proposal and will vote on it after discussing it in open meetings.
The faculty approved a proposal, made by the Educational Affairs Committee, to clarify language regarding honors eligibility after a student commits an academic honesty infraction. The old language rendered students who received either an official or unofficial College discipline ineligible for graduation and/or departmental honors. Now only students who receive an official College discipline are ineligible from those honors.
Joseph Burr Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry Rick Bunt made a motion, on behalf of the First Year Seminar Steering Committee, to support the creation of an “All College Luncheon Day.” At the luncheon, faculty would sit at tables, grouped by department or program, and have lunch with undeclared students on one day, once a semester, to answer questions and provide guidance to students. The goals of the luncheon are to better communicate curriculum changes to students, build greater relationships between faculty and students and get students acclimated to the advising process. The faculty approved the motion, which formally recommends that the administration implement the luncheon.
(03/03/16 12:06am)
On Feb. 25-27 in the Hepburn Zoo, The Vagina Monologues returned in its third consecutive year at the College, but the fresh form and delivery of the play, renamed Beyond the Vagina (Monologues), explored changing definitions of femininity and womanhood in an inclusive and ambitious showcase of thought-provoking narratives.
In an effort to start a conversation about previously taboo subjects like female genitalia, sexual stigmas and violence against women, writer Eve Ensler ’75 compiled a theatrical celebration of vaginas and femininity based on two decades of interviews with over 200 women spanning age, ethnicity, nationality and sexual experience. Premiering in 1996 in New York City — and shown in a limited run in the same year at the Mahaney Center for the Arts — the resulting piece, The Vagina Monologues, featured a candid exploration of anatomical and sexual awakenings, feminine shame and historical and societal gender oppression through one common subject: the vagina.
After a five-year off-Broadway run and a subsequent national tour, the worldwide popularity of The Vagina Monologues continued to grow after the exposure of a Madison Square Garden engagement and an HBO television adaptation. In 1998, Ensler established V-Day, an organization originally staffed by volunteers whose mission demands that violence against women and girls must end. Since the organization’s inception, the number of annual February V-Day productions has grown to 5,800 worldwide, the proceeds of which benefit shelters and rape crisis centers to further V-Day’s mission. All of the proceeds from the College’s production were donated to WomenSafe, an Addison County organization working toward the elimination of physical, sexual and emotional violence against women.
Though The Vagina Monologues remains a global phenomenon 20 years after its debut, the play has garnered significant criticism for representing a largely white, cisgendered, heterosexual perspective that portrays a dated view of femininity and womanhood. Director, producer, script adapter and lighting designer Rebecca Coates-Finke ’16.5, who has worked on three consecutive productions of The Vagina Monologues, wanted to create a performance experience that addressed these criticisms and expanded the play’s reach and relevance. After launching the 2014 show with a student monologue and introducing an accompanying booklet of student voices in 2015 to make the production more Middlebury specific, Coates-Finke embarked on her most ambitious interpretation of the show’s potential with this year’s Beyond the Vagina (Monologues).
“I wasn’t satisfied with just doing the play as it was anymore and I was curious as to whether or not it was possible to use the script to undermine some of the central issues with it in a new play,” Coates-Finke said. “I believe that a show can’t be feminist if it can’t reflect the context that it’s in, and in that way it [The Vagina Monologues] does allow itself to become irrelevant over time because it keeps repeating the same story even when culture has shifted.”
Featuring an all-student ensemble of 16 cast members and six American sign language interpreters dressed in black and shades of red, Beyond the Vagina (Monologues) was presented in the round in the Hepburn Zoo, encouraging an interactive and physical performance style that — like the content of the text — did not allow for audience complacency.
In addition to familiar aspects like a compilation book of eight monologues written, edited and illustrated by students and performances of nine monologues from the original piece — including Anna Hoge ’19’s confident and unapologetic rendition of “Hair,” an exploration of the societal pressures placed on women to modify their body hair for ‘beauty’ and Jenne Meneses Montiel ’19’s Spanish-infused interpretation of “My Angry Vagina,” a condemnation of female medical treatment and the proliferation of consumer products implicitly shaming female bodies — Coates-Finke incorporated outside speeches and materials to shatter the limitations of the original text.
Early in the show, an audio-recording of transgender writer, speaker and activist Julia Serano’s piece “Cocky” played over the loudspeaker as American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter Julia Desmarais ’18 offered an emotive translation on a darkened stage. As a transwoman who did not have genital reassignment surgery grappling with her position outside of traditional gender definitions and the constant threat of physical violence, the juxtaposition of Serano’s candid voice to the quietly gripping visual translation left the audience momentarily stunned by the interplay of raw emotion and articulate narrative in the piece.
“One of the main criticisms of The Vagina Monologues is that it’s biologically essentialist, so what it does is it uses the vagina to talk about the experience of being a woman, which ends up leaving a lot of people out in terms of conversations about sexism and devaluing the feminine,” Coates-Finke said. “I wanted to complicate that because there are many trans women who have not undergone surgery. I wanted to use the audio of Serano’s piece to recognize the fact that there was nobody in my cast who identified as a trans woman and to acknowledge that there are some people not in the room whose voices still need to be heard.”
The inclusion of ASL interpretations of each piece, as well as an increased commitment to physical performance and a greater incorporation of multimedia, augmented the thematic changes to contribute to an overall tonal shift toward inclusivity, innovation and open discussion.
Each audience member was asked to write their own definition of femininity on a piece of paper upon entering the theater, and the responses encapsulated a shifting view of femininity as a measure of power, self-esteem or choice rather than a static biological assignment or reinforced social construct. Coates-Finke discussed the reflection that three years of engagement with The Vagina Monologues has prompted.
“I have learned so much more about femininity and what my gender means from people who are a-gender or gender queer or trans women because there is something very powerful about acknowledging in some ways that there is a little bit of choice involved in how you get to identify your gender and how you can change and enact that every day,” Coates-Finke said.
Another striking addition to the show was Stella Boye-Doe ’19’s nuanced rendition of “Respect,” written by critical race theorist and founder of intersectionality Kimberlé Crenshaw for the V-Day production A Memory, A Monologue, a Rant and a Prayer. The piece confronts the history of America’s simultaneous capitalization and oppression of the black vagina. Asserting that the United States was built on the backs — and through the wombs — of slave women, the piece offers startling statistics about a continued lack of progress and respect, including the fact that rapists of black victims receive, on average, one-fifth of the sentence of the rapists of white victims.
Though only a week has passed since this reinvention of The Vagina Monologues premiered, Coates-Finke and the cast have received some positive feedback.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been thanked so much for doing a show before, and other members of the cast have had similar experiences,” Coates-Finke said. “It has been really powerful to hear about people who were skeptical of the show because of previous criticisms and decided to see it for themselves. I think I was worried about not having gained the trust of the people I really wanted to be in the room, so I was glad to see that people were trying it out even if in the past it hadn’t been what they wanted it to be.”
In its ambition to expand its scope and explore shifting conversations on femininity and gender, Beyond the Vagina (Monologues) undermined many of the contradictions inherent in its original form, incorporating deft artistic decisions to present a piece unique to its time and place. Coates-Finke’s presentation is a vision of what The Vagina Monologues could be, and it is my hope that the play can continue to push its own boundaries in years to come.
On Friday, March 4, Coates-Finke will be discussing her process in writing, producing, and directing Beyond the Vagina (Monologues) at 12:15 p.m. in the Abernathy Room.
(02/25/16 3:32am)
Harper Lee’s beloved classic To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960 and won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. The zeitgeist novel depicted in bare terms racism in America and reaffirmed the values of equality and unity. The book has sold more than 40 million copies globally and has become a staple of high school curriculums. But despite the book’s acclaim and instant success, Lee repeatedly vowed never to publish a novel again. For the next 56 years, she lived a private life in small-town Alabama and an anonymous one in New York City, her career a single gem.
Not long before she went dark to the public — just four years after the publication of Mockingbird and two years after the film version — Lee recast her literary objectives in a 1964 interview with Roy Newquist, the editor of a book titled Counterpoint. Perhaps because of the rarity of such encounters with Lee, the Newquist interview has become one of the few sources of material that illuminate her mystery. In it, Ms. Lee clearly stated her literary ambition: “to describe a disappearing way of small town, middle class Southern life. In other words, all I want is to be the Jane Austen of south Alabama.”
Less often quoted than this statement is her explanation of it. She wanted to “leave some record of the kind of life that existed in a very small world. She hoped to do this “in several novels, to chronicle something that seems to be very quickly going down the drain.”
Lee said she was always fascinated with the “very definite, rich social pattern” that makes up the tiny towns of the South. “I would simply like to put down all I know about this because I believe that there is something universal in this little world, something decent to be said for it, and something to lament in its passing.”
Beyond Harper Lee’s crowning achievement of Mockingbird and her lone interview with Newquist, the front-page obituary of Lee in Saturday’s New York Times recalled the literary world’s biggest story of 2015: the publishing of her second novel, Go Set a Watchman. The book, in all its controversy, is crucial to considering Lee’s legacy, which had been fixated for more than half a century on one work. Watchman was met with a considerable amount of backlash, with some accusing Ms. Lee’s publisher of taking advantage of her in her old age.
They raised eyebrows at the timing of the manuscript’s discovery and the announcement that it would be published, which was only weeks after the death of her sister, Alice Lee, who had long been Harper’s confidante and whom many considered to have been her protector. Skeptics use reports of Lee’s deteriorating state at the time the manuscript was discovered as evidence that she could have easily been coerced into agreeing to something she had not wanted for 56 years. “It would be very difficult to prove this one way or another,” Bertolini said.
In a New York Times column, Joe Nocera called the book a “fraud” and “one of the epic money grabs in the modern history of American publishing.” Jonathan Sturgeon wrote in Flavorwire that Watchman is not Mockingbird’s sequel or prequel, but rather its prototype. Lee herself described the book as her first book’s “parent.” Sturgeon points to wholesale passages in Watchman that were later reworked for Mockingbird.
Pieces of literature have been published against some authors’ wishes, noted John Bertolini, Ellis Professor of English and Liberal Arts. He noted Vergil and Franz Kafka as examples. “Of course the same thing happened with Kafka: he ordered that all his works be destroyed, but they weren’t. Fortunately for all of us, Vergil’s orders orders on his manuscript of the Aeneid weren’t followed either.”
With all the debate over the origins of Watchman, the biggest bombshell turned out to be an explosive plot twist that no one saw coming. Atticus Finch, the crusading lawyer of To Kill a Mockingbird, whose principled fight against racism and inequality inspired generations of readers, is depicted in Watchman as an aging racist who has attended a Ku Klux Klan meeting, holds negative views about African-Americans and denounces desegregation efforts. “Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?” Atticus asks his daughter, Jean Louise — the adult Scout.
Bertolini said he was astonished by the reaction to the book. “It involved one of the most colossal misreadings of a book that I’ve seen. It was said that it turns out Atticus is a racist after all, and that’s not, I believe, the point Harper Lee was making in that book. She was demonstrating that Atticus was continuing to educate Scout, and that he thought it was a flaw in her that she idealized him so much. He did that precisely to provoke her to think about his having a flaw, about his not being a perfect man.”
The very fact that the manuscript exists, he said, means a lot. “The book makes an important statement that should be read — about not blindly idealizing somebody, not expecting perfection from all human beings under all circumstances. Atticus may have done that deliberately to help to Scout grow up, to become a mature, understanding, forgiving human being. This is, after all, what he spent his whole life doing.”
Claire Borre ’18, an English major, said that Watchman complicates the emphatic depiction of Atticus as a hero and exposes his flaws to modern readers. “I read Go Set a Watchman as a completion of Scout’s coming-of-age that was started in To Kill a Mockingbird,” she said. “Having read Mockingbird as a young girl and then reading Watchman this past summer, I connected to both in very different ways. Scout’s first attempts at understanding the world, like my own, were heavily influenced by those around her, whereas Jean Louise, and myself as a college student, must learn to look inward for her own value.”
Borre continued: “The more adult perception world presented is not as strictly good or evil as in Mockingbird, and Lee reveals a more nuanced worldview that makes people reevaluate their perception of the hero Atticus. It is a shattering of the hero image of Atticus.”
Bertolini pointed to the strength of her first novel as a lasting part of her legacy. “To Kill a Mockingbird, both the book and the film, had an influence in the Civil Rights Movement that was analogous to the impact of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in persuading people to be against slavery. I first encountered it when I was in high school, first the book and then the film, which had a big influence on me. I will never forget that.”
The general consensus among book critics is that Go Set a Watchman is not as well written as the masterpiece of Mockingbird is. “Isn’t that true of all the secondary books by great authors?” said Bertolini. “They’re usually much better than the best of the ones being published today, because true artistic talent and genius is a rare thing.”
For all the excitement, confusion, surprise, drama and controversy, the world nevertheless has another Harper Lee work.
(02/25/16 2:58am)
The Middlebury women’s club Water Polo team successfully opened their season at the Natatorium last weekend, Feb. 20-21, where they hosted the first tournament of the season for the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA)’s Women’s New England Club Division. The Panthers, who ranked 11th out of the 16 teams competing for the 2015 National Collegiate Club Championship, emerged from the weekend in a tie for first place with their 3-1 record.
Middlebury went 2-0 with consecutive wins over Boston College and Dartmouth on day one of the tournament, followed by their convincing 11-point victory over Northeastern and hard-fought loss to Boston University on Sunday, Feb. 21.
After just four days of official team practices, the Panthers opened the season with a one-point victory over Boston College in a nail-biter on Saturday, Feb. 20. Middlebury got on the board in a hurry against the Eagles, as first-year Kate Claman ’19 scored the first two goals of her career at Middlebury in the first two minutes. Claman went on to sink three of the Panthers’ six goals in the first half, en route to a team-high of four goals.
Hannah Grotzinger ’16, one of the four senior team captains, explained why Claman’s performance was integral to the Panthers’ success.
“I play the set position — in front of the center of the goal on offense — and Boston College decided to double or triple-team me, so the shots on goal had to come from players at other positions,” Grotzinger said.
Following Claman’s initial 2-0 lead, Grotzinger traded goals with Boston College (BC), who brought the score to 5-3 by the end of the first quarter.
Co-Captain Alex Spencer-Wong ’16 then broke the Eagles momentum with a counterattack goal to open the second quarter, and Grotzinger tied the game at five goals apiece three minutes later. BC proceeded with a goal of their own before Claman shot from the outside to knot up the game at six apiece.
It looked like the teams would head into the halftime break tied at 6, but Boston College managed to score its seventh goal in the waning seconds, taking a 7-6 lead into halftime.
Emily Bustard ’17.5 led the charge for the Panthers after her stint as goalie in the second quarter, and added two goals in quick succession to put Middlebury on top 8-7.
Boston College would score with 13 seconds remaining in the third, leaving the fans on the edge of their seats with the game tied at eight as they awaited the final quarter.
The Panthers looked to continue putting pressure on the Eagles.
“Our goalie [Anna Lueck ’18.5] hasn’t been able to play recently, so some of our starters were playing in goal for the entirety of the tournament,” Grotzinger said.
“Because of [Lueck’s absence], our strategy against Boston College (and all teams) was to put a lot of pressure on their offense and guard them tightly to make passing difficult [and minimize their shots on goal].”
The game was in the balance until the very end, as Boston College went up 10-9 with 2:29 remaining on the power-play. One minute later, Claman found the back of the net for the Middlebury equalizer. Then, just as the game seemed destined for overtime, a five-meter penalty shot was awarded to the Panthers with 10 seconds left; Grotzinger’s five meter shot found the back of the net, allowing the Panthers to pull off an 11-10 victory.
The Panthers took on the Big Green of Dartmouth that same evening, coming through with a 9-6 victory.
“We were really excited before the game,” Grotzinger said. “Dartmouth has been our biggest rival for many, many years so we had a very strong desire to win before the game even started. This mentality definitely helped us during the game.”
It only took Grotzinger 20 seconds to get the Panthers on the board.
“In all the games we won this weekend, we scored the first goal of the game,” Grotzinger said. “The first team to score a goal in a game gets a very positive surge of adrenaline, and a lot of the sport is based on mental strength, not only physical strength.”
The Dartmouth game was all but over at the half, which began with a score of 6-1. “I think the most decisive point in the Dartmouth game came at the end of the second quarter after four different players on the Middlebury team had scored goals and we had prevented Dartmouth from scoring.”
“We had great momentum coming out of the second quarter, and one of our goals for the season is to be able to keep that going, even against a high-pressure defense like the one we faced from Dartmouth in the second half,” said Bustard, who scored her second goal of the game in the second half.
The Panthers held on in the second half for a 9-6 win. In addition to two-goal contributions from Bustard and Grotzinger, Co-Captain Christina Denbow ’16 scored 3, while co-Captainn Sam Horn ’16 put away one goal.
The Panthers hit the pool early on Sunday, Feb. 21 at 9 a.m. to commence a 13-2 rout of Northeastern. Middlebury jumped out to a 7-0 lead, going into the half up 8-1 over the Huskies.
“[The] Northeastern game was great because our newer players got to see a lot of game-time [where they could] practice the skills we’d been working on in practice,” said Grotzinger, who found the back of the net five times against the Huskies.
Other goals against Northeastern came from Bustard (4), Spencer-Wong (2), Julie Ehrlich ’17.5 (1) and Amanda Geller ’16 (1), while Denbow won three of the four sprints to start each quarter.
“Our team is naturally fast, so we were able to score on many counter-attacks against Northeastern — despite the fact that we’d only been training for four days before the tournament, compared to the other teams who had been practicing since mid-January,” Grotzinger said.
A few hours later, the Panthers took to the pool for the last time of the weekend against conference newcomer Boston University. The Panthers fell 7-4 but played the Terriers closely.
The Terriers jumped out to a 1-0 lead when they scored just under five minutes into the game. Grotzinger quickly answered with a backhand goal assisted by Horn.
Denbow began the Panthers’ second-quarter scoring as she netted an assist from Bustard off of the counter-attack. But every time the Panthers scored the Terriers had an answer, and then another when they scored just a minute later. Nevertheless, Bustard rounded out the quarter by sailing in a lob shot from the set position.
The third quarter began with another Grotzinger backhand goal, but again Boston responded with a quick goal to break a 4-4 tie. The Terriers followed with another three goals in the final half of play.
Despite ending the weekend with a loss, the Panthers had a successful first weekend and are in good position in the conference standings.
“I’m proud of the way we played this weekend, especially with it being so early in the season,” Bustard said. “I can’t wait to see what we can do in our next home tournament in April,” Grotzinger said.
(02/24/16 8:57pm)
We are writing directly in response to the op-ed from the last issue, “I’m Only Human.” The op-ed has upset a lot of people and has hurt a lot more. As demonstrated by the polarized comment section online, it unfortunately represents the views of a sizable portion of the student body. And while censoring their views would not be productive, we must explain why they are misguided.
Cultural appropriation and microaggressions may appear trivial compared to the experiences of people like Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Sandra Bland. At Middlebury, people of color are not getting shot. But racism on this campus is very real.
Middlebury College, despite the wonderful education it provides, can be a painful and isolating place for many black students.
“You’re kinda an Oreo. Black on the outside and white on the inside!”
“I don’t really see you as a black person.”
These comments can shape how students of color perceive themselves at Middlebury. We might feel weak or inferior when people use the n word; as “ghetto” when people appropriate the ghetto; or as unintelligent when people joke about the way we speak.
True, a white student saying the n-word is not an international crisis like Syria or Boko Haram, which the author cited as “more important things to worry about.” But the accumulation of microaggressions is a macroaggression. They shape how minorities are treated in the real world. Seeing black people as “aggressive” can trigger police brutality, and seeing them as “stupid” could inhibit their ability to get hired. This prejudice is just the top layer of a worldview that systematically exploits people of color, and a litany of others, so it is crucial that we challenge it here at Middlebury.
In an effort to ignore this reality, some advocate a form of perverted humanism – the idea that we can all get along with each other on the understanding that we are all human beings, not as “black, white, gay or straight.” Some may think, “We all are human, and ought not worry about differences like gender, sexuality or race. Progress is sloppy, and we shouldn’t be monitoring our own speech or behavior. Make mistakes, think big and don’t take anything personally!”
This is callous. Like it or not, we do not live in a post-racial society. Even children, from a very early age, begin distinguishing between different races. We should acknowledge the reality we live in, instead of inventing another, even if it does make life more complicated.
And one final point: As students, we are not as removed from the real world as we would like to think. When we leave Middlebury we will become law-enforcement, teachers and parents. At that time, the argument over ‘micro’ or ‘macro’ issues parodies itself: Inequality is inequality, and prejudice is prejudice. And respecting the dignity of all people should not be a chore.
Harry Cramer ’16.5 is a Local Editor from Wellesley, MA and Kahari Blue ’19 is from New Haven, CT.
(02/24/16 4:58pm)
On Feb. 5, Don Kjelleren resigned as Director of Professional and Career Development for the Center for Careers and Internships (CCI). He ended his 17 years at the College to become the Director of the Williams College Career Center.
Kjelleren will be replaced by Ursula Olender, Associate Dean of Students and Director of the Career Center at Amherst College, who will start on March 21. She has further experience as the Director of Career Services at Colgate University and the Associate Director of Career Services at Dartmouth College. In the interim, students looking for advising in finance, consulting and business can schedule appointments with Susan Walker, associate director at the CCI.
While at Middlebury, Kjelleren specialized in guiding students interested in finance, consulting and business. Sarah Sicular ’16, a peer career advisor in the CCI, said, “So many students come in for finance and he had a huge personal network and always had all of the interests of his students at heart. I think a lot of students are really missing out that they don’t get to have Don as their advisor. He helped build up the Middlebury pipeline to careers in finance.”
During his career at the College, Kjelleren built up a large web of connections by networking with alumni, parents and companies visiting campus. Peggy Burns, Director of the CCI, reassures students that Ursula will be coming with that exact same network from her previous work, particularly at Colgate and Amherst. “We could not have asked for a more seamless transition,” she said.
Besides spending time advising students, Kjelleren trains as a triathlete with world ranking. He also has enjoyed biking to work on warm summer days and swimming in the freezing cold of Lake Champlain.
About her colleague Burns said, “It was fun having someone in the office with this incredible athletic prowess and experience with extreme sports. He has a good sense of humor and he cared very much about the staff and the students.”
Although Kjelleren says he will miss those bike rides, his colleagues and the students, he very much looks forward to in his new job. He is excited for the challenge of a tremendous growth opportunity. He said, “The culture and feel of the Williams Career Center is very different than Middlebury’s, in part because the Center is housed in College Advancement and so there are about 90 professional staff running around at high speed doing great things.”
While Kjelleren’s colleagues are certainly sad to lose him to Williams, they are excited about the great opportunity ahead of him. Furthermore, he leaves an excellent finance and consulting program behind him, which according to Burns is a strong foundation that the CCI expects to build upon in the future.
Burns believes this foundation will only benefit from the new perspective Olender brings.
“Ursula is coming from a campus that has a strong commitment to diversity and it is something she is particularly passionate about,” Burns said. “Her feet are firmly planted in the idea that these four years are a developmental process and she really wants to meet students where they are. She’s very committed to making the career exploration process a little less scary for students.”
Kjelleren leaves some parting words of advice, “Students, shift your focus from ‘What do you want to do?’ to ‘Who do you want to be?’ Be confident, dream big and don’t settle for less.”
(02/24/16 4:57pm)
Karen L. Miller will join the College in April 2016 as the new Vice President for Human Resources and Risk. In her new position, Miller will act as a strategic leader for the Office of Human Resources and the Office of Risk and Compliance, both of which serve all of Middlebury’s schools and programs.
Miller will be the first person to hold both the vice presidency of the Office of Human Resources and the vice presidency of the Office of Risk and Compliance. As Vice President for Human Resources, Miller will strategize about staff structure, hiring and compensation policies for Middlebury faculty, staff and student employees. In her role as chief risk officer, Miller will succeed Dr. Michael Geisler, who will leave Middlebury to become the new president of Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York.
According to Geisler, the main function of the Office of Risk and Compliance is “to enable and support the hundreds of initiatives and individual activities and programs that Middlebury faculty and students embark upon each year.” The office identifies and tries to contain the risks associated with those programs “without stifling the academic creativity and entrepreneurial spirit that so distinguish the Middlebury community,” Geisler said.
Miller will join the College’s senior administration, working closely with President Laurie L. Patton and other administrators.
“Managing a large and increasingly complex institution effectively and efficiently means bringing best practices to the table, and Karen’s broad experience will be invaluable to us,” President Patton said.
Currently, Miller is a special advisor to the president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, where she has previously served as vice president and general counsel, vice president of administrative services, senior vice president of administration, chief of staff and chief operating officer. Before beginning her time at Morehouse College, Miller worked in several other higher education administration positions, including academic dean of John Marshall Law School.
Miller holds a BA from Emory University and a JD from Harvard University. She is also a candidate at the University of Georgia’s Institute of Higher Education, researching the process of improving organizational capacity and leadership capacity at higher education institutions.
“At a time when many institutions talk about being global or entrepreneurial or sustainable, Middlebury actually lives up to those aspirations and many more. That’s a credit to the faculty, staff and students at Middlebury, and I look forward to working with all of them,” Miller said.
(02/18/16 3:31am)
What’s the weirdest thing about the first year of college? If you answered “having a roommate,” then you agree with me, (sorry to the other contenders, such as eating in dining halls, partying on weeknights and being in class only 30 percent as often as you were in high school). Sure, some first years live in singles, but they’re the exception that proves the rule: Only in college is having your own room suddenly unusual.
Many of my classmates have always had their own room at home, while others still share a bedroom with a sibling or two. I shared with my older brother until late elementary school, when we went our separate ways. Each night, when the lights went out, we would discuss our Neopets (characters in an online game) and wage imaginary battles (“I use a fire spell!” “But my ice wall counters that!” “Nuh uh!”) between our bunk beds. I have yet to hear of a pair of college roommates that interact like that.
My roommate and I are, in many ways, polar opposites. I’m the sensitive type, ready to open up my heart at a moment’s notice. He’d usually rather open up a beer, and has the same number of emotions in a week that I might have in an hour. But when a J. Cole song comes on or we pass out for our afternoon naps, you might swear we’re the same person.
I always have a quick blurb about my roommate holstered in the back of my mind, because “How’s your roommate?” is by far the most common question I get from friends and relatives back home. The freshman year roommate is a cultural icon, and I can see why. Your relationship with your roommate has more power to define your experience than almost anything else, and the range of possibilities is vast: From best friendship at first sight to outright disaster.
“My roommate and I are both gay latinos who love Lady Gaga,” said a sophomore friend of mine. “Long story short it worked out pretty well.” Even so, he lives in a single now and says he values the increased space and privacy.
Many of the students who live on my floor have been equally lucky with their roommates. “We have each other’s backs and we both respect each other in an important way,” my friend said. “We don’t infringe on each other’s space. I trust him as much as anyone, [and] he’s so f*cking reliable.”
Commonalities seem to contribute to friendship between roommates, but factors that people pointed to even more were trust and comfort level. When one or both of those are lacking, the relationship suffers.
One first-year girl, for instance, said she likes her roommate and considers her a friend, but doesn’t always feel comfortable in their room. “We talk a lot at night, but sometimes I’m really tired,” she said. Her roommate will drone on, unaware that her captive audience would really rather go to bed or leave the room through the door she’s been inching toward for the past 20 minutes. Sometimes her roommate realizes she isn’t in the mood to talk, but she said that actually leads to more discomfort and hurt feelings.
When trust and comfort are absent entirely, communication becomes hard, too. And that’s when you get outright disaster. One of my friends did not see eye to eye with his roommate about using illegal substances in their room, and they no longer live together. “[We] just did not communicate enough about what we each wanted from the room,” he told me in a message. “His mood would always be off when I would be around … and he just wasn’t really open to talking about it.”
As I write this, my roommate just sexiled me. Maybe I deserve the revenge for snoozing my alarm clock multiple times each morning. College, man…
