1000 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(04/08/15 11:07pm)
Middlebury is hard. I have found attending this college to be challenging and exciting, and my experience here has shown me that learning for the sake of itself may be the most rewarding of adventures. This adventure can be characterized as leisure: we are lucky to have this opportunity to study, to contemplate, to wonder, to imagine and to hypothesize. But I have also found Middlebury to aid and abet an unhealthy conception of success, as perhaps it must if it wants to be competitive as a globally leading liberal arts brand name. The importance of brand recognition at Middlebury creates an a-liberal environment that requires us to focus on achieving “success” rather than focusing on the health of our souls. We should strive for leisure, but also recognize that our investment in Middlebury as a brand poses an obstacle to the leisure for which we might wish.
A Middlebury professor once noted that we spend an inordinate amount of money to pay for college, and that if the purpose is to secure a higher income thirty years down the line, it is too much. But if we are not just being filled up with facts and prestige, and rather our souls are being turned away from the shadows and towards knowledge of the good, then the high cost might just be a bargain. Liberal education should teach students not just how to act but to act with “firmness in the right.” It should give students knowledge regarding how they should act once they leave the ivory tower.
My present understanding of the liberal arts indicates that we should search for knowledge by confronting unanswerable questions, including that most important one: how do I live well? As human beings, we are uniquely qualified to take part in this quest. Allan Bloom once wrote, “Man is the particular being that can know the universal, the temporal being that is aware of eternity, the part that can survey the whole, the effect that seeks the cause.” “Seeking our cause”- – well, if this doesn’t sound like leisure of the most important variety, I don’t know what does.
However, I am unconvinced that this sort of activity happens regularly at Middlebury. I find it unlikely that all classes seek insight into the human condition or broach the question of what it means to act with integrity or justice. The current inadequacy of our honor code confirms that Middlebury does not succeed in teaching virtue. In many classes I have taken at Middlebury, we look at things that seem good or bad, and we look at the systems that create these good or bad situations. However, we don’t always ask why something that seems good is good. We deal with the parts, not the whole.
While I admit to seeking the whole rather than the parts in some of my classes, it is not just the content but also the form that forces me to question whether my liberal arts education has been one characterized by leisure. Sure, when I read a beautifully worded sentence or explore a complicated concept, sometimes I feel something within me shift. When this happens, I am reminded of this crazy idea – that I might have a soul, and that learning here at Middlebury might be what nourishes it. But I also know that when I am in the library and I hear the lady on the loudspeaker say that it will close in 15 minutes because it is 12:45pm and I still have to memorize the names of Roman consuls and power through 200 more pages of so-called beautiful and soul-affirming literature – well, when that happens I no longer have the time or energy to verify its lofty reputation for myself. Because Middlebury doesn’t just ask us to seek, but also to prove that we have sought.
Emily Bogin '16 is from Larkspur, California.
(04/08/15 8:23pm)
Next fall, Sandra Carletti, professor of Italian at the College, will assume the position of Head of Atwater Commons. The previous Co-Heads, Peter and Michelle Nelson, are resigning after a long and successful run.
Although terms for Commons Heads generally last five years, the Nelsons were given a one year extension for familial reasons. This extension, combined with Mr. Nelson’s one year sabbatical in 2009, lead to their term lasting for a total of seven years.
When asked what addition to the Commons he was most proud of, Mr. Nelson, a professor of Geography at the College, responded that watching the monthly family-style dinners that he and Mrs. Nelson introduced grow and evolve has been a particularly validating experience. The dinners’ ability to gather students and faculty together in open discussion he believes are, “emblematic of the goals of the Commons system”.
The Nelsons are not leaving their position as Co-Heads eagerly. They both felt that it was time to hand over the position to someone who could dedicate more time to the Commons; Mr. Nelson is beginning his sabbatical in July and their children are both transitioning into high school and middle school.
Sandra Carletti, an Italian native and graduate of the University of Bologna and Johns Hopkins, has been a professor of Italian at the college for over 20 years, an experience that she says has influenced her decision to become the Head of Atwater Commons.
“As a member of the Italian department, I was already involved in the culture, the philosophy of the Commons, of bridging the gap between the classroom and the extracurricular activities,” she said. “I’ve always enjoyed that part of our job, the relationship that you form with the students that goes beyond the classroom. There’s something of value there and something that I’d like to continue, and I think that the Commons gives you the opportunity to go a little bit deeper into these relationships that you form with the students.”
Carletti is not the only Commons Head who is also a member of the Italian department. Her colleagues Patricia Zupan and Stefano Mula have also served as Commons Heads. Thus, she said, “it has been kind of natural for all of us in the Italian department to participate in the activities, to organize events, and to connect with students.”
Among the traits that she finds important for the role of Commons Head, she sees the ability to listen to students and be genuinely curious about students’ lives to be a particularly important trait.
“All of the work that is included in the Commons is for the benefit of the students. We all benefit from it by establishing relationships that go beyond the classroom… but ultimately it is for the students,” she said.
The first thing she intends to do as Head of Atwater Commons is to ask the students what they would actually look forward to doing, not just what they feel obligated to do. She would like to “involve the students as much as possible as generators of Commons activities, not just users.”
As someone who is deeply involved in the creation of a Food Studies program on campus, one goal of Carletti’s is to combine her interest and research in the subject with her position as Head of the Commons to make Atwater “a hub for everything that is Food Studies” on campus.
“And I’m not just thinking of cooking together,” she clarifies. “I’m really thinking about exploring issues that are related to food. We all have to eat. Food is a very important part of our lives, and right now food is also a growing discipline within colleges and universities. It is something that people really pause and think about and study.”
Another goal of hers is to involve not only the College community in the Commons, but also people from the surrounding area.
“There is also community outside of the college, our neighbors, that are very much, whether they like it or not, a part of our community,” she said.
In order to involve these people, she is considering organizing service events as well as community dinners in which neighbors outside of the college community are invited to join.
When asked what her ultimate goals for the Commons are, she said that her “hopes for the Commons will be to become more and more a place where students feel very comfortable going and hanging out and being involved.”
“You are far away from home. What is it you miss the most? What is it that you do not have, for example, in your everyday life that the Commons, in a way, could supply?,” she asked.
Finally, she would like to get rid of the apathy towards the Commons system that has become prevalent among some upperclassmen on campus.
“Sometimes I hear students kind of bragging about not even knowing what the Commons are, not being involved,” she said. “That is a loss, I think, of resources. It’s your loss if you don’t know what they are and are not participating. I would like to change that.”
(04/08/15 8:18pm)
On Thursday, April 2, Nathan Alexander ’17 was found in his room in Milliken Hall after taking his own life.
President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz announced Nathan’s passing in an email addressed to students, staff, and faculty.
“We know this comes as a great shock to his many friends, classmates, and faculty members. Public Safety discovered Nathan after receiving a request from a fellow student who was concerned about his whereabouts,” he wrote.
The request was submitted by Maggie Nazer ’17, a close friend of Nathan who last saw him three days before he was discovered.
“His girlfriend messaged me worried because she had been messaging Nathan for hours and had not heard back from him. I kept texting him and went to his room to check if he was there,” Nazer said in an email. “All along, I believed he was either too stressed with work to answer or simply needed space from us.”
Nazer reached out to Nathan’s sister and discovered he had not been replying to her messages.
“This is when I thought there must be something wrong and called Public Safety,” she said.
A Public Safety officer discovered Nathan in his room, where emergency medical services pronounced him dead. The cause of death was asphyxiation. In the late afternoon, upon receiving confirmation that the family had been notified, Liebowitz sent an email informing the College community.
“At a difficult time such as this, I encourage everyone on campus to look out for one another,” he wrote.
That evening, students, staff, and faculty were invited to gather in Coltrane Lounge, where staff members from the Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life, Parton Center for Health and Wellness, and members of the Commons team offered support.
Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of the College Katy Smith Abbott announced a schedule of opportunities for students, staff, and faculty members to gather in remembrance and support.
A candlelight vigil was held in Nathan’s honor on April 6 in Mead Chapel. From April 7 to April 9, community members were invited to the Fireplace Lounge in Ross Commons Dining for conversation and reflection.
“I encourage you to find ways to address your own feelings, questions, and concerns—whether in one of the scheduled gatherings, with your dean, with one of the counselors at Parton Center for Health and Counseling, with a chaplain at the Scott Center, or with friends,” Smith Abbott said in her email.
She continued, “If you, or someone you know, might need help over the next days and weeks, please reach out to one of us.”
Nathan’s girlfriend, Marium Sultan ’16, was studying abroad in Sri Lanka when she learned of Nathan’s death.
“Take advantage of the moments to be as kind as you can to others because you never know when you will have another chance to,” she said. “The last thing Nathan told me was that he loved me. He told me he was lucky to have met me, and I told him the same.”
Nathan was a graduate of The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut, where he developed interests in public policy and a passion for sailing. At the College, he had not yet declared a major but took courses in economics and political science.
His loss is deeply felt by those who knew him.
“I think that this tragic incident has the potential to inspire a collective transformation of the social environment and our relationships on campus,” said Nazer.
She continued, “Many of us suffer quietly as we greet each other and take part in social gatherings that often make us feel more isolated. Reaching out and showing support should not only be an intention that remains in the form of texts or words but also an action. Having someone go out of their way to come knock at your door is better than just sending you a text. But before everything else we must find the strength and courage to open up to each other, be real, be vulnerable, and take it from there.”
If someone you know exhibits warning signs of suicide:
• Do not leave the person alone
• Remove any firearms, alcohol, drugs or sharp objects that could be used in a suicide attempt
• Call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255)
• Take the person to an emergency room or seek help from a medical or mental health professional
(03/19/15 12:04am)
Terracotta hexagons tessellate the floors at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington D.C., where I intern. Soles pat, dignified, across them as agents flood in and out of the aisles office to office, a loose collared dance. My desk, flush with the copier, features an Escher print, a portrait of my parents and soft stones I collected on California’s coast. I doze watching swarms of foot traffic in the corridor, which evokes a Southwest terminal moments after deplaning. One of the pebbles warms in my fist.
The internship started Monday, but my mentor is out West for the next two weeks. I do not have a badge for building clearance yet – they say two weeks, though the office veterans add six – and my computer setup has been tortoise-pace. I am the youngest in the building, probably on the whole block.
I am here in search of meaningful work. Two years into college and back from the honeymoon, disenchantment set in. The outcomes for my Middlebury 60-hour work week were letters and numbers, not social reform or justice. In the age of the climate refugee and Black Lives Matter, thousands were sounding the alarm, and meanwhile, I was unresponsive, a bovine bumming around greens under snow, spouting facts like broadsheet and nightly holed up in a dusty inglenook of Axinn.
Last fall, I met with Dean Hanson, asked for temporary leave and so started my gap semester, a season released from routine, hypothetical coursework and doused in rough-and-tumble “real” life. I was interested in enhancing lives, not proceeding with mine.
My time away did, however, start inward at a Buddhist monastery in the orchards north of Escondido, California. I lived under the rules and regimes of practicing monks of the olden Thai forest tradition. As a layman for one month, I attended morning and evening chants, prepared meals, swept paths and hiked to the groves down in the foothills to collect fruits – avocadoes, oranges, kumquats – to trade in town. The experience nursed my inner self. I read, wrote and meditated insatiably. I found sustentative calm, millennia-old wellsprings of wisdom, and more distilled notions of what I hope to accomplish this year, decade and century.
Days after leaving Metta Forest, I was back East, attending the weekly roundtable brief for EPA’s Climate-Ready Water Utilities (CRWU) Initiative, the office in which I now sit. CRWU is a program within the Water Securities Division that develops climate change risk assessment tools and strategies for water utility infrastructure operators. Picture an extreme weather remediation panel, though specific to the water sector, scaled nationwide and tailored by U.S. region. So far as glimpsed by the intern, there seems to be an overwhelming amount of impactful work conducted here. The CRWU Initiative’s efforts directly protect water treatment and transport infrastructure around the country, for decades and for millions.
In the thick of my semester away from Middlebury, I see clearer. Not in the sense of waning astigmatism or wearing prescription lenses, but in the sense of understanding. I can hear a procession of gridiron coming-together: intelligibility. So inexorable are our bounds today from college to employment that my generation’s youths – particularly, those of the nation’s college elite – are losing sight of themselves. College-age millennials are wearing blinders, and as I have come to discover, it has meant stepping away from schoolwork to lower them, take another look and gain finer resolution. That mental image we sustain of how we are supposed to go through our education should not, and cannot, blind us. College “conditioning” can wait. It is time to know – precisely and concisely – what we are doing in college in the first place. As the globe gains weight, its temperature rises slowly and sprawl persists on the scale of continents, I cannot proceed listlessly, without genuine purpose or anchorage. In the light of the heat, this is my time to reassess. I welcome you to join me.
What our Connected Generation understands and a warmed world portends do not agree. There is a mountain range of evidence without manifesto and we are complacent, afraid to ask fresh or difficult questions – to look diagnostically at the old – because we do not want to see what we will find. Do not trivialize the importance of introspection. Evaluate and reevaluate. Critically review the armature of your plan. Consider time away, and take a closer look: it is the only way to create a climate tolerant of and furnished for reform. The view is not all bad.
(03/18/15 5:39pm)
On Feb. 19, a group of 10 disgruntled students shook up a Community Council-sponsored “Community Conversation” event with loud allegations directed towards the College’s Residential Life team. These ten students, all former or current varsity athletes, complained that they had been unfairly treated in the off-campus housing lottery on the basis of their identities as athletes.
The off-campus housing lottery is a random process through which rising seniors can apply to live in houses not owned by the College. Interested students can submit applications for groups of up to three people. These applications are then put into a pot and selected at a drawing event that is open to all students who applied. The applications are then drawn from the pot by a random student who applied for off-campus housing. According to the College’s website, the only criterion that may bar applicants from being accepted to live off campus is official College discipline.
As the Campus reported on Feb. 25, 58 rising seniors were approved to live off campus in this year’s lottery, which took place on Feb. 17. Of these rising seniors, approved only eight varsity athletes were chosen from the lottery, of the 37 varsity athletes who applied. Three others athletes were accepted just after the lottery because Residential Systems Coordinator Karin Hall-Kolts, who organizes and conducts the lottery, forgot to add their names to the pot.
It was the shockingly low acceptance rate among varsity athletes that caused the Community Conversation outcry. How could the lottery be random if so few athletes were accepted, they challenged.
“It just doesn’t seem random based on who got it,” said Riley Dickie ’16, a former men’s hockey player who was rejected from the lottery and spoke at the Community Conversation event. “It just seems so fishy.”
“I would like to think that it is random because it is such an important thing for so many students,” added Maggie Caputi ’16, a women’s lacrosse team member who was accepted in the lottery but also spoke out at the Community Conversation. “At the same time, I think it’s really suspect that such a big group of specific people weren’t approved to live off campus. I think that’s really weird.”
“I don’t think that the people in the hat were chosen to be in the hat,” said Mary Claire Ecclesine ’16, a former field hockey team member. “I just think that maybe some people were taken out. And there’s no way that anyone could know that.”
Claiming that the administration may have rigged the lottery against varsity athletes that they believed were more likely to throw parties, specifically football and lacrosse players, these ten students claimed there was foul play.
The Campus Investigates
In the light of these claims, the Campus decided to investigate just how random the off-campus housing lottery was on Feb. 19.
Based on calculations performed by Paige-Wright Professor of Economics Paul Sommers and this reporter using hypergeometric probability distribution, the probability that only these 11 athletes, who applied in 6 application groups, would be accepted in a random lottery—and so many others would be rejected—is 35/10,000 chances. If we excluded two application groups, whose names were not or were likely not in the lottery pot at the time of the drawing (the three athletes who were accepted just after the lottery and five athletes who submitted an invalid application of five people), the probability rises slightly to a still miniscule 44/10,000 chances.
These figures indicate the low likelihood that so few athletes would be accepted in a random lottery process. However, it is crucial to note that the only thing these figures prove for certain is that there is a chance, though slight, that this outcome would occur. It is not impossible for this result to occur in a random lottery process.
Sommers interpreted these low probabilities to indicate that, possibly, there may be something impeding the randomness of the lottery system.
“Somewhere there is an element of non-randomness,” Sommers said. “And it may be as simple as someone who conducts the lottery not thoroughly mixing the slips.”
Administrative Response
In an interview with the Campus last week, Associate Dean of Students for Residential and Student Life Doug Adams maintained that the lottery was 100 percent random.
“The reason we do the draw is to address the concern that there is something other than random chance [happening],” Adams said. “It is completely random chance.”
Adams pointed out that only seven of the 111 total students who applied to live off-campus attended the lottery drawing. Those that attended did not see a problem with the drawing.
Moreover, Adams added, this lottery process has been occurring for years without complaints. This is the first year that complaints of discrimination against a group of students who applied have been raised.
He maintains that the off-campus housing lottery is one of the most transparent processes of any at the College.
“The [process] is about as open as you can get, currently,” Adams said.
Hall-Kolts was away on a personal leave and unavailable for comment about these claims.
The Waitlist
In addition to the lottery itself, athletes rejected from living off campus found issue with the waitlist process that follows it.
After the initial lottery, students who applied to live off campus are emailed to inform them whether they were accepted or not, and those students not accepted must respond to the email to obtain a spot on the waitlist. It is imperative that students respond to the email quickly as the order in which students respond determines their place on the waitlist. A higher spot on the waitlist is ideal because if students who were accepted to live off campus cannot find housing or decide to live on campus, students on the waitlist can then have a chance to move off campus.
Complaints about this waitlist process are two-fold.
First, Hall-Kolts sent the emails informing students about the results of the lottery during practice time for varsity athletes—between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. This meant that students who applied in all-athlete groups were not able to respond to her email and secure a place on the waitlist until over an hour after the email was sent, disadvantaging them against non-athletes who might be able to respond right away and get a higher spot on the waitlist.
Adams responded that this was not an issue he was aware of, but that the timing of the email was not intentional.
“[The email was sent] at the time that she [Karin] was done processing the information,” Adams explained. “We certainly can adjust our times if it’s felt that that is a sensitivity.”
Secondly, several athletes reported that they were not informed of their position on the waitlist. This lead them to suspect that students were not getting off the waitlist as a result of their position on it but due to other factors, such as pressure from parents, especially those who are significant donors to the College.
“The perception of a lot of kids is that money talks,” Dickie said. “When in doubt, get your parents involved.”
Adams countered that these allegations are “completely not true.”
He said the reason that students’ positions on the waitlist are not shared with them is because the waitlist is fluid, with positions changing often when students are accepted from it to live off-campus or decide to drop off the waitlist and live on campus instead.
“We don’t take anything into consideration except available slots. If I don’t have anything available, I don’t move people around [on the waitlist].”
On Campus Housing Policies
These complaints about off-campus housing policies and suspected discrimination against athletes arrive in the context of other claims that athletes are being treated unfairly in on-campus housing processes.
In this year’s superblock and social house application process, two groups of varsity athletes applying for superblocks felt that their applications were denied because of their identities as athletes.
In an interview with the Campus on March 4, Alli Sciaretta ’16, a women’s lacrosse team member, explained that she and 14 other current or former varsity athletes applied for Homestead House with one non-athlete. The group felt optimistic about their chances of getting the house. They were the only group that applied to live in Homestead.
After their presentation, however, the house was given to a group of rising juniors who did not apply to live in Homestead but applied to live in Meeker. Sciaretta feels that the group may have faced some discrimination because of the athlete compisition of their group.
These fifteen athletes also applied to live off campus and all were rejected in the initial lottery.
Stewart Denious ’15, football player and organizer of the proposed Palmer social house “The Hall,” felt his social house application was denied for the same reason: 24 out of 30 students living in Palmer in the fall would be athletes and 26 out of 30 in the spring.
In an email to Adams sent after the group’s rejection, which Denious shared with the Campus, Stewart explained, “We (…) feel we were biased against as an athlete heavy house, one of the students at the meeting was very obvious about seeing us as an athlete house asking us how many non-athletes we have on the roster.”
Finally, a student who wished to remain anonymous told the Campus that during his application process for a mod he was directly told by Hall-Kolts that the administration tries to avoid giving superblock housing to all-male groups of athletes. This student’s all-male athlete group was eventually awarded a mod for next year, however.
Adams denies that applications for social houses or superblocks are ever denied on the basis of the number of athletes who will live in them.
According to Adams, this year an especially high number of athletes applied to live in superblocks. Additionally, over 50 percent of the students who were accepted to live in superblocks and social houses next year are athletes.
“We always look at athletic status after we make the acceptances for the main reason that we want to make sure that we are not discriminating against a group,” Adams said. “We look for the strongest program, not [at] the group of students that are backing it.”
Thus, according to Adams, the applications that were approved were those that the committee felt were the strongest; they were not chosen based on the number of athletes on their roster or the gender of those athletes.
Implications
The Campus is unable to prove or disprove the randomness of this year’s off- campus housing lottery based on the available information. Nor can the Campus say for certain whether athletic identity may play a role in whether some superblock and social house applications are chosen over others, consciously or unconsciously. The evidence presented in this article suggests, however, that while the Residential Life team may believe that the off campus lottery is as open as it can be, some students believe there is still room to improve it.
Students, such as Sciaretta, have suggested that students should be able to put their own names in the lottery pot so that they know that the pot was not pre-selected. Additionally, doubts about the integrity of the waitlist have caused many students to express desire to see the waitlist and know their position on it, despite its fluid, changing nature.
While the lottery was moved early this year, to the month of February, to try to redress the discrepancy between when homeowners want to sign leases (fall) and when the students are approved to life off campus (spring), students expressed desires for improvement on this front. In an interview with the Campus, Adams explained that the College plans on hosting a series of meeting with local property owners to try to address this issue.
Finally, and most radically, some students have doubted whether a lottery is the best system for choosing which students can live off campus.
“I feel like if seniors find a place to lease off campus, they should be able to live there and be approved to live off campus,” said Kelsey Phinney ’16, a Nordic ski team member who was approved to live off campus in the lottery. “A large group of my friends spent a lot of time and energy finding a great place to live off campus and then none of them were approved, which does not feel that fair.”
Lastly, in the largest sense, the student complaints highlight a growing belief, on behalf of athletes, that the administration inaccurately and unjustly perceives athletes at the College.
As Denious suggested in his email to Adams, some students believe that administrators draw broad conclusions about athletes based on this one aspect of their identity.
“This [Denious’s Palmer social house group] was a group with incredible diversity in majors, being from different places in the country, social interests, and some of us happen to play sports,” Denious said. “To label it as an ‘athlete house’ is to make sweeping generalizations, and completely diminishes the individual character of each person in the house and completely goes against what Middlebury stands for.”
“People say a lot of things about the athletic community here without really knowing enough individuals or without really understanding the culture of each team,” Caputi confirmed.
“But athletes are very aware of all the things that are being said. I think that regardless of whether or not the lottery was random, it is important to know that athletes who were rejected do have a right to speak up about it,” she concluded.
(03/12/15 2:44am)
It was a harsh Vermont winter in December 1963 and, in the midst of the subzero temperatures, a landmark student life initiative had also frozen over. “The ‘question of honor’ at Middlebury College seems to have plenty of support as an ideal and not so much as a working system,” read a December 5 front-page Campus article. The article, which included student concerns about a code’s implications, foreshadowed the proposed Honor Code’s defeat in a student vote for the second time that May.
Over the past year, the Campus has investigated the untold story of the creation of the Honor Code. Although the story of the origins of the Honor Code at Middlebury is often that of a system fashioned by students and for students, the historical picture is much murkier.
A lengthy search in the College Archives and interviews with those who witnessed the process firsthand reveal that the Honor Code had a slightly turbulent history from the start.
It was a story that dominated the early 1960s at the College: a group of students and administrators who saw the Honor Code as an important opportunity for students to take ownership over their education. And yet, they received surprisingly strong pushback from students on the language and specifics of the proposed code.
The code’s proponents even dropped a compulsory peer-reporting clause, a hallmark of honor systems at Princeton University and elsewhere, from the Middlebury Honor Code in order to ensure its passage via a student vote. Moreover, after two failed student referenda on the Honor Code, evidence found in the Archives shows that at least one administrator recommended enacting the Honor Code without a student vote of support. However, in March 1965 the Code received sufficient support in a student vote to pass. Faculty opted for a streamlined approval process to avoid sending the Honor Code back with revisions to be subject to another student referendum, which they thought could be tantamount to its defeat.
The question of student votes on the Honor Code has renewed relevance of late. On Sunday, the Student Government Association (SGA) Senate voted in favor of amending the Honor System’s Constitution to put the code to a biennial student referendum with the options to maintain, revise, or eliminate the Honor Code. The amendment now must receive 2/3 of the vote in a referendum in which 2/3 the student body votes and must also be ratified by the faculty.
Change in the Air
Middlebury’s academic Honor Code, far from a lone initiative, was the product of social changes on campus that created profound shifts in student life during the 1960s. The College of the 1930s-50s was on its way out in several ways that precipitated the creation of an Honor Code.
Historians of the College have written much about the changes that took place in the 1960s. Among these reforms were major social changes to the institutional rules surrounding student freedoms. The influential Dean of Women Elizabeth ‘Ma’ Kelly oversaw a period in the ’60s when the ground shifted under students’ feet regarding their freedoms and rights as young men and women.
In the ’60s, parietal hours — the now seemingly antediluvian rules that governed when men and women could visit opposite-sex dorms —were gradually phased out. The College began to offer help to students with questions about birth control and sexually transmitted diseases. Finally, the fraternities and sororities, long the bastions of the social life of yesteryear, became less and less of a mainstay of the campus party scene.
Historian of the College David Stameshkin said the ’60s were a period of remarkable change, bar none.
“Students wanted to be treated as adults. The administration wanted to treat the students as adults in certain ways but not others,” Stameshkin said in an interview. “It was incredible how things changed in the time [James] Armstrong was President.”
These changes, taken together, amounted to a climate of dramatically increased student responsibility in social life. Naturally, this trend simultaneously made its way into the academic realm.
As discussions were underway about a potential code, the Campus polled 254 students in October 1962 and found 80 percent approved of a code in theory. The newspaper also polled students and found that 35 percent of those surveyed had experience with an honor system at their high school. However, “a majority indicated they would not speak directly to a student if they found him cheating.”
The first instance of bringing the Honor Code to a vote occurred on November 19, 1962, when it failed. Harold Freeman ’62, the Student Association (SA) President, informed the Campus that the vote to inaugurate an Honor Code was defeated, 623-512, a combination of students voting “no” as well as “No-with-Qualification.” 235 voted no, 388 voted no with qualification and 512 voted yes. The students in favor did not reach the 85 percent threshold of “Yes” to send the measure to the faculty for a vote.
However, Freeman gave hints that the fight for a code was not over. “Freeman observed that by adding together the Yes and No-with-Qualification votes, almost four-fifths of the students were in favor of at least some form of Honor Code,” reported the Campus. Nonetheless, it would not be easy to convince the students who voted No-with-Qualification.
The SA, in a postmortem, theorized that a main cause for the defeat was the clause requiring students to report observed violations. This clause was considered a hallmark of longstanding honor codes at universities, including Stanford and Princeton.
Peer-Reporting Controversy
These qualms about the code reared their head repeatedly in the next two years. Surveys revealed approximately 80 percent of students supported an honor system as an ideal, but blanched at the proposal under consideration. “The main objection was to the obligation to report an offense committed by another person,” reported this newspaper.
Helen Gordon, president of the Panhellenic Council, “agreed that an honor code would be a benefit to Middlebury, but thought reworking of the ‘obligation’ clause necessary,” according to the Campus.
Gordon said, “It’s unrealistic to assume that human nature will [report others] but I don’t think they ought to leave out entirely this kind of an idea because it denies the opportunity to a person who’s really honest.”
The peer-reporting requirement would remain an issue through the end of the 1960s and beyond. As the clause became a sticking point in the debate, those in support of the Honor Code pushed back on the idea that peer-reporting meant “tattling” or being a “rat.”
In a December 1963 issue, Campus Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey J. Joseph opined that “whenever one brings up the subject of an Honor Code, the listener politely nods, makes a disparaging grimace, and quickly manages to say something like: ‘You going to the hockey game tomorrow night?’”
For all of the social life changes happening contemporaneously with the Honor Code debate, a large number of students felt comfortable enough with the status quo to stymie any efforts at instituting an honor system. Joseph explained that many students thought of the proposed Honor Code as either a way to end fraternities or to increase social code regulations and theorized that these factors led to its defeat.
“Let’s face it,” he wrote, “if someone wants to cheat, he cheats. If someone wants to ‘tell’ on him, he should be allowed to ‘tell.’ It is important to realize that a provision for ‘telling’ on someone is not included for the main purpose of making enemies out of friends. It is there to protect every honest student by presenting to the cheater a possibility that he will be caught. If you have any qualms about ‘telling’ on your buddy, keep your head down in your paper where it belongs.”
Despite the support of students like Joseph, the SA leadership began to contemplate foregoing the peer-reporting requirement. The Vice President of the SA was reportedly “willing to drop the stipulation that students report others, adding that ‘the maturity of Middlebury students ought to be able to make an honor code successful.’”
In December 1963, the chair of the student Honor Code Committee, Michael McCann ’65, cautioned against pushing the code too vigorously without almost unanimous student support. Two months later, the SA polled students on a potential honor code in what would be the run-up to a second push to pass it via a student body vote. A point of particular emphasis in the questionnaire was intended to gauge how students would feel about peer-reporting. The article stated that “McCann stresses the importance of questions dealing with student and faculty reports of offenders.”
The survey occurred concurrently with the 1964 election of a SA President, in which candidates weighed in on an honor code. Both John Walker ’65 and Peter Delfausse ’65 made an honor code a part of their platform.
Delfausse, who would win the election, said to a Campus reporter, “We on this campus are treated as adults in everything but the integrity of our academic work. Shouldn’t this be the first area in which we should be trusted? Nothing can force the student body into accepting something which isn’t wanted, but if an honor system is desired, we will find the right words with which to express it.”
Nevertheless, concurrent discussion about combating student apathy regarding the SA gives the impression that the Honor Code was an issue important to the members of its committee, but perhaps was less relevant to the wider student body. Richard Hawley ’67 was the Editor-in-Chief of the Campus, and said other issues captured the student body’s attention more than the Honor Code, particularly parietal hours — although he nonetheless appreciated the code when it was instated.
“I remember feeling a kind of relief,” Hawley said in an interview. “What a relief it was to take your exam to the library and do it there. I remember thinking, ‘This is wonderful.’ But I don’t remember student passion about it.”
Princeton on the Otter
Within the next few months, a figure who would be pivotal to Middlebury’s history weighed in on the code. College President James Armstrong, who had stepped into the position in 1963, approved of the proposed Honor Code in a meeting with McCann.
Armstrong said in a comment to the newspaper in April 1964, “Herding of students into the fieldhouse like animals, with proctors standing over them like jailkeeps, is not in keeping with the ideals of a liberal arts education.”
The influence of the college president and other key members of his administration may have been crucial to the Honor Code’s passage. Before arriving at Middlebury, Armstrong had spent his entire academic career at Princeton, an Ivy League school with one of the nation’s oldest academic honor codes — passed in 1893, with an obligatory peer-reporting clause. Armstrong earned his B.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton and then served as a faculty member and dean until he was appointed Middlebury’s 12th President.
“When Armstrong came as president from Princeton, he started bringing people from Princeton,” Stameshkin said in an interview. “In fact, the joke on campus was it was ‘Princeton on the Otter.’ That’s what they used to call Middlebury during the ’60s because Armstrong kept bringing people there.”
Another Princeton man, Dennis O’Brien was previously an assistant dean there before arriving at Middlebury in September 1965 to serve as the Dean of Men. His experience with the honor system at Princeton impacted his view of a potential Honor Code at Middlebury.
“Because myself and Jim came from Princeton, we had lived with it and we found it comfortable,” O’Brien told the Campus in a recent interview. “It seemed to establish a different relationship between faculty and students. Faculty were not always snooping over students’ shoulders to make sure they weren’t cheating; we were more like mentors. To suddenly switch over from being the person who is teaching someone to someone who is monitoring your honest behavior seemed not to be the image the faculty wanted to have.”
On top of a Princetonian as president, Middlebury’s stature as an institution was on the rise during the ’60s. O’Brien believes the Honor Code was part of the improvements.
“I think there was clearly a kind of an upgrade in terms of the quality of the students and the quality of the faculty that we were able to attract at that time,” he said, “and so it seemed like a much more senior, adult institution than one having proctored exams.”
The desire for an upgrade to Middlebury came from both above, with the administration, and also below, from students of the ’60s, particularly those who were tired of the fraternities’ hold on campus life.
“There was a genuine feeling that there should be more seriousness at the College intellectually,” Stameshkin said. “And the same thing was happening at Williams and other schools. This idea that there should be more intellectualism and more feeling of scholarship was also happening in the early to mid-60s.”
Nonetheless, the vocal support of Armstrong and O’Brien did not help the Honor Code at the ballot box at first. The proposed code failed in May 1964 to clear the 85 percent hurdle of students voting in favor, and the referendum did not receive even half of the student body’s participation. The result was devastating for those students who had worked tirelessly on behalf of a code.
“After two full years of preparation, an academic honor code was put before the student body Monday via a yes-or-no ballot – and failed to gain the needed support,” said a front-page article in the Campus. The measure received 69 percent “yes” votes from the 45 percent of the student body that voted. The rejected code included “that the test-taker pledge that he had neither given nor received aid” and that students report those they suspected of cheating within 48 hours.
The aforementioned Honor Code Committee displayed dogged, even stubborn, persistence to pass the measure. McCann told this newspaper, “This year’s balloting was far more encouraging than last year’s and there will be another honor committee next year trying to get this thing through.”
Victory, at a Cost
Despite McCann’s optimism, the outlook was grim: two votes and two defeats for an Honor Code within three years. But finally, in March 1965, the Honor Code was approved in a landslide. With 1,000 “yes” votes to 313 “no” votes, it was a marked improvement from the previous two tries in the fall of 1962 and the spring of 1964.
However, the code approved by students contained no compulsory peer-reporting clause such as that of Princeton, due to the fact that the committee viewed the clause as the reason for previous defeats. The Middlebury code stated that students with knowledge of an infraction should confront the student and if he or she does not report themselves to the honor board within 24 hours, the observer should. In O’Brien’s words, it was a passive reporting clause, with no teeth to punish a student who observes cheating and does not report it. The code that passed, unlike the previous versions, said students “should” report those they observed cheating, not “must” or “shall” of previous drafts.
The compulsory reporting clause had also been under fire in the opinions pages of this newspaper. In a Letter to the Editor on Feb. 25, 1965, William Michaels ’66 wrote: “Under the present system of exam proctoring, the College denies us the privilege of attempting to live up to the ideals of moral responsibility … this would also be the case if an honor code were passed which possessed a mandatory student reporting clause, since the student is not thus delegated the responsibility of looking after his own morality: it is merely shifted from the proctors to the other students.”
It was also a significant change that the threshold for victory was lowered to 75 percent from a lofty 85 percent, what it had been in 1962 and 1964. Some students grumbled about the idea of voting for an Honor Code for a third time, suggesting that other factors may have been at play in its success. A joke printed in the Campus poked fun at the code’s long-awaited victory. “Did you favor the Honor System at the recent election?” a student asks. His friend replies, “I sure did. I voted for it five times.”
President Armstrong was understandably pleased following the successful vote, as it was an initiative he had supported since the past spring, and he immediately set to work assigning administrators to it. In an October 1965 letter to the four members of the new subcommittee of the Faculty Administration Committee on the Honor Code, including Dean of Men O’Brien, Armstrong said, “Although I do not think you will be called upon for heavy duty quantitatively, I know you understand how important I believe the Honor Code is for the College and that a guiding hand from the faculty will be important and possibly crucial.”
Armstrong also probably worried that a lack of faculty support might end the last chance for the Honor Code to become a reality. He was present in a meeting of the Faculty Educational Policy Committee (EPC) in March 1965, after the code had been approved by the referendum.
“The honor code statement worked out by the students and brought to us with a large supporting student vote … was discussed,” states the meeting’s minutes. “It was felt best not to subject the statement to the scrupulous kind of inspection the EPC would normally employ in surveying a faculty document, but vote on it yea or nay as it stood; some felt that return of the document for a second student consideration and vote would defeat the proposal. Vote was a unanimous pro.”
It appears the EPC’s worries about the Honor Code failing in the student body led them to streamline its approval process, despite reservations that undoubtedly existed among the faculty.
The faculty also approved a key word choice in the code in April 1965. During the faculty meeting in which they approved the code, according to the article in the Campus, the faculty “did not demand a change to ‘must’” in the reporting clause.
Students Not Sold
There is a small piece of evidence that the College may have enacted an honor code regardless of the student vote. Dean of the College Thomas H. Reynolds wrote in his annual report dated July 1, 1964:
“There is an excellent chance that an almost unanimous student vote will be achieved next year. In the event that this kind of a program does not succeed next year, I recommend the College take some action towards bringing an academic honor system into effect.”
While Reynolds never ended up having to make that recommendation, O’Brien disagreed with his premise.
“I don’t think you should impose it without a successful student vote. I think that would have been a mistake to try to do that,” O’Brien told this reporter. “I think the whole idea of an honor code, to a certain extent, is to get away from the high school syndrome of, ‘You have to be proctored and not entirely trusted.’”
The following year, as new Dean of Men, Dennis O’Brien’s first annual report was pessimistic, illuminating the reasons why Reynolds or others might have pursued an Honor Code if the student body would not.
“By the time the student reaches the last half of his college career we have pretty much either got him involved intellectually or we have lost him for good … they may be active in fraternity life, extracurricular life, athletics, they may be valuable citizens in other ways, but academically they run along on minimal requirements seeking the gut courses and paying only lip service, if that, to the intellectual community,” wrote O’Brien in his annual report in June 1965.
He went on in that report to comment on the lackluster implementation of the Honor Code.
“The Honor Code was approved by students in early March,” O’Brien wrote. “I may have missed something, but I think no further initiative toward its implementation came from students until practically exam time, if then.”
O’Brien also observed how the administration was involved from the very beginning and that students were not yet invested in the code:
“Many students are far from ‘sold’ on the Honor Code. They feel that the Administration has been determined to have an Honor Code here no matter what and that the students finally let the Administration have its way. These students have a sort of uninvolved, ‘play it cool’ attitude. They intend to wait and see how ‘they’ will work it out. If students who felt that way could see the minutes of the Ad Hoc Committee on Honor Code for May 27, 1965 they would feel that their perception was largely confirmed. These minutes make it clear that the Honor Code Committee, chaired by the Dean of the College, consists of several professors and administrators and that to the meeting of this committee were ‘invited’ several specified undergraduates.”
O’Brien also cited a study from Columbia University that said for honor codes to be effective, the motivation should come from students and should appear to be coming from students. The difference between the honor codes at Princeton and Middlebury, he told this newspaper in October 1965, was not Princeton’s “obligatory clause for reporting, but a strong and firm belief in the system by faculty and students.”
Of the code, “it was held with a great deal of pride,” O’Brien said. “Most complaints of the new Middlebury system that I have heard have not been substantive, but procedural. And I think there are some false expectations about the system by a few students.”
A Reversal in Student Perception
Two years later in another report, O’Brien suggested that the honor code might have already backfired soon after its implementation.
“The Honor Code seems to be functioning well although there is still a certain amount of feeling against signing the pledge,” he wrote. “I personally feel that the distaste for the pledge grows out of a hypersensitivity on the part of students today that they are not trusted. As they are not trusted to close their dorm doors during parietal hours, so they feel they are not trusted in the matter of honor in examinations.”
This reversal in opinion was extraordinary. The push for the Honor Code, at least from students, was based on the idea that it would give the students more responsibility and was in the same spirit as a move away from parietal hours. Based on O’Brien’s report, the code had the opposite effect, making students feel like the administration trusted them less than before.
Whether the code was truly being followed is difficult to assess based on available records, but O’Brien writes that “a student was convicted of a violation of the Honor Code this year and suspended for a semester,” a low number of convictions by any standard.
Although during the 1960s the social rules at colleges and universities like Middlebury were being chipped away from all sides, it still took a great deal of effort on the part of members of the SA to pass an honor code via a student vote. Additionally, the faculty minutes and annual reports of the College show that at least one top member of the administration was ready to intervene to institute an honor code and held back probably because of concerns of its effectiveness if instated and operated by Old Chapel.
O’Brien’s 1967 assessment is revealing. There had been two unsuccessful votes from students amid vocal support from the administration and faculty; as a result, many students identified the Honor Code as an administrative device. A corollary explanation is that the social changes in the 1960s cut both ways on an honor system: while these sweeping changes helped make the code a possibility, they also changed the way a code was viewed in the years afterward. Increased freedom for students allowed them to pass the code; however, the perception of the code after 1965 was that it was an administrative measure — not a student-owned freedom.
“It’s very important that the students read the honor code as an administrative imposition as opposed to something that boiled up from the students,” Stameshkin said. “The students felt often as if the administration was kind of the enemy. They wanted to be adults and they felt the administration was treating them like children—you have to be in at this hour and all that — it wasn’t paranoia, but the students felt that way about a lot of things.”
The Campus reported in March 1968, three years after the code passed, that the student Honor Board was worried about the new system’s efficacy. The board had only heard six cases since 1965, and three of those were in the 1967-68 year. Two cases resulted in convictions, and only one of the six cases was because of a report submitted by another student. “This the board felt suggests either that only two students have cheated in the last three years, or that students have not accepted the responsibilities implicit in the system,” reported this newspaper.
The Honor Board, as a result, began to consider changing the constitution of the new Honor Code from passive acceptance of the code to hold responsible a student who did not report a violation.
A decade later, in January 1976, the student body approved by a landslide the revisions proposed by a committee on the honor system. There were dual changes: students now had a moral obligation to report cheating, moving away from the ambiguous language of the original code, and also proctors would be allowed in some cases with the specific authorization of the Judicial Review Board. Even under the best of circumstances, O’Brien said in a recent interview, getting students to report their peers may be asking too much.
“My guess is that [peer-reporting] never works terribly well, unless you’re in a highly codified organization like the military academy,” O’Brien said. “I’m not even so sure how well it worked at Princeton … it’s a nice thing to have: there’s a certain moral responsibility, and I love the idea of going up to somebody else and saying, ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’ But I suspect it doesn’t happen very often.”
It is difficult to assess whether the code cut down on cheating, as suggested by research that shows colleges with an honor code have less self-reported cheating by students. On that front, Emeritus Dean of Advising and Assistant Professor of American Studies Karl Lindholm ’67 said the Honor Code did not hurt and probably helped.
“I remember thinking it was a great idea. I don’t think there was any greater level of cheating than when the exams were tightly proctored,” Lindholm said. “It was almost a challenge to see if you could beat the system then,” with stories of notes written on hands and crib sheets hidden during an exam. “With unproctored exams, I don’t recall any greater level of cheating,” he said.
Approaching Another Vote
In a January survey by the SGA, 33 percent of the student body said they support the Honor Code in principle but that there need to be changes. 59 percent of the 1438 survey respondents said they support it in its current form and about 7 percent said they don’t support it.
Additionally, the Campus published (“Cheating: Hardly a Secret,” Oct. 30, 2013) the results of a survey by Craig Thompson ’14 for the course Economics of Sin where 35 percent of 377 students surveyed admitted to violating the Honor Code at least once in the 2012-13 academic year. 97 percent were not punished.
On Sunday, the discussion came to a head when the SGA Senate approved, in a nearly unanimous vote, the decision to move ahead with a bill that would subject the Honor Code to a biennial student referendum. Per the Honor System's Constitution, 2/3 of the student body must vote, and 2/3 vote in favor, for the change to take effect. The amendment would then need to be ratified by the faculty at large. If the amendment passes, a spring 2016 referendum would give students three options: to vote to maintain the honor code as it stands, to eliminate it or to revise it. A majority in favor of revision would cause the Honor Code committee to survey opinions during a two-week revision process. Students would then vote on the revised Honor Code to either approve it, to maintain the original code, or to eliminate the code.
Student Co-Chair of Community Council Ben Bogin ’15 was an impetus behind the SGA proposal and said fighting atrophy was a goal. “The idea behind our method is to encourage people to continue talking about the Honor Code after they sign it as a first-year,” Bogin wrote in an email. “The Honor Code only works if it’s a living, breathing document that people cherish and take seriously. We’re trying to breathe a little more life into it.”
SGA Director of Academic Affairs Cate Costley ’15 added that the idea is to reclaim the Honor Code as a document students care about and take ownership of.
“Through conversations and debates, we settled on a schoolwide vote to try to solicit the voices of our peers and to see what they think,” Costley said. “And having an edge to it with the possibility of eliminating the Honor Code is to say to people, ‘Let’s not take this document for granted.’”
Vice President for Student Affairs, Dean of the College and Assistant Professor of the History of Art and Architecture Katy Smith Abbott said she believes discussion has also been sparked by the decision in the Economics Department to proctor exams in introductory classes starting last spring.
“It’s not that proctoring hasn’t been an option for faculty — it has been — but it’s required a certain kind of approval process that most people thought was not necessary or wasn’t in the spirit of the Honor Code,” Smith Abbott said. “And I think when that decision was made (thoughtfully, and at great length) by the Economics Department, it meant that a larger number of students were being exposed to the question of whether the Honor Code is working.”
Smith Abbott also said that the code could possibly fail in a referendum, based on what she has heard from students.
“I think some of my lack of a firm sense of how it would go is based on the variety of opinions out there right now about whether or not the Honor Code is working,” she said. “I think if we have entered into a period where more students, through their own experience or inherited wisdom, think the Honor Code isn’t working, we could see it fail.”
Several on Community Council, according to Smith Abbott, have raised doubts about the wisdom of a biennial survey in which the Honor Code could be eliminated.
“I think a lot of folks on Community Council — and I have mixed feelings about this — felt that those are insurmountable odds that, if two years later, you have two classes of students who have never lived with an Honor Code,” Smith Abbott said. “What’s their investment in bringing it back? Why are we putting that on them by saying, ‘[An honor code] worked for some people and didn’t work for others, but it’s on you to decide to overwhelmingly vote it back into existence?’”
Bogin, however, said that that he is not worried about failure and that the discussion of the code’s relevance is worth having through a referendum.
“I think that it’s incredibly unlikely that the Honor Code would fail in a vote. According to our most recent student survey, in which about 60 percent of the student body voted, 92 percent supported the continued existence of the Honor Code,” Bogin wrote. “I also think that it’s important to say that if something isn’t working, and everybody agrees, we should be able to get rid of it. It’s hard to say that the Honor Code is student owned if students don’t have the power to get rid of it.”
Hawley, who was at Middlebury during the Honor Code debate, said renewed attention to the code is not a bad thing.
“I think the cycle of concern is probably the best thing, whatever the outcome, because it’s heightening student awareness of how it’s my responsibility to do my own work. I don’t think there’s anything that would prove that a certain kind of honor code produces more honor,” Hawley said. “It’s sort of what Jefferson said about the American Constitution: it should be revisited; there should be at least a thread of revolution every 20 years to keep attention fresh on what the values are. I think raising the climate of concern about it is probably the most important thing with respect to honor, not necessarily what code you have written down.”
(03/11/15 11:23pm)
Middlebury may have lost control over its investments. In his Report On The Recent Board Of Trustees Meeting, President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz wrote that our current investment strategy “raises questions about sharing authority with more institutions and therefore having less say in how, where, and with whom Investure invests.” The review of our investment manager that Liebowitz proposes is the first step towards regaining control over our investments, and with that control the ability to divest.
For the past ten years, Middlebury has outsourced our investment office to Investure, a company that manages our billion-dollar endowment along with those of a dozen other institutions. Because this structure responds to so many different institutional interests, those who hold responsibility for the College’s long-term success have little direct say over where our endowment is invested (go/endowment101). Over the past three years of campaigning for Middlebury to divest our endowment from fossil fuels, Divest Middlebury succeeded in raising the President’s concern over this shortcoming of Investure’s structure.
Divest Middlebury is part of the global movement to divest from fossil fuel companies, because we believe we should invest in the future we believe in, not contradict our efforts of carbon neutrality. We are asking for Middlebury to immediately stop buying new positions in the top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel companies and get out of any current investments in these companies within five years. Because of Investure’s current model, however, we can’t do that.
Whether or not the College can keep Investure and divest from fossil fuels is unknown. Last November, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund left Investure in order to divest its $860 million endowment from fossil fuels. Their departure suggests that the probability of divesting within Investure is slim.
“It is paradoxical for environmental grant makers to fund climate solutions while investing in companies that are accelerating climate change,” states DivestInvest’s mission statement, an organization of divested institutions that includes the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. “We can get good, safe returns while helping to build a new energy system.”
It’s also possible that Investure might adapt to give us more control. In 2010, Investure created a way to dedicate some of our investments to renewable energy. Investure launched the Sustainable Investments Initiative with funds from Middlebury, Dickinson College, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. At the time of its launching, Middlebury committed one fifth a percent of our endowment to these “green” investments. After Divest Middlebury’s first year of campaigning, the College agreed to up our position to five percent of our college’s investments. Clearly sometimes Investure can customize their offerings, and then in some ways we can have a say over where our endowment is invested.
Whether we stay with Investure or leave, we can collaborate with other investors who share our values. If Investure creates a “fossil fuel free” option for Middlebury, Dickinson College and other like-minded clients can join it. Otherwise, Middlebury and our peers should form a new investment-consortium with a manager who has expertise in environmentally and socially responsible investing.
The consortium model of investing has worked well for Middlebury, financially. As Liebowitz said in his February 2nd email, “Investure... continues to generate excellent endowment returns that place Middlebury in the top quartile of colleges and universities.” Of course, as students who appreciate all that this College offers us – from financial aid and top-notch academics to Real Food and biomass energy – we don’t want to see the College get lower returns on investments. But we believe that fossil-fuel-free investing can make equally good returns, and that, in fact, investments in fossil fuels may pose an investment liability in the form of stranded assets. Our belief is founded on well-documented research, solid numbers and resounding expert opinion. go/endowment; go/rbf; go/divestment
When the College concludes the review of Investure, how will we know whether we have enough “say” in our investments? What are the particular questions this review will ask, and what do the answers mean for us? Divest Middlebury knows one question this review should ask: Through Investure, do we have the power to screen certain sectors or companies from our portfolio? If yes, we might stay. If no, we’re out.
Let’s start customizing our investments to match our mission, beginning with fossil fuel divestment.
(03/11/15 11:18pm)
If you ask most Middlebury students what they think of the College’s recent effort to rebrand the school, the odds are that most responses will be in regards to the logo. Small petitions to stop the change came and went in the fall, and the closest thing to a result that we got was the Campus publishing a front-page pie chart showing how a large majority of students opposed the new logo.
However, Middlebury’s logo is only a very small piece of the much larger rebranding pie. Our school is about to welcome a new president, we have significant turnover in the administration, we just finished an addition to our athletics center; and we are expanding our language program and our programs in California into online classrooms. Middlebury has realized that if we want to compete with schools like Williams, Amherst, and others, we must embrace growth and change.
Growth, change and rebranding are excellent buzzwords, but in reality, they don’t mean much on their own. The rebranding-type changes Middlebury is undergoing are largely to boost our school’s reputation and prestige – in the rankings, amongst high school students and amongst the employers who go on to hire our graduates. All of this is, in concept, a great thing. Our degrees that we earn here are expensive. Even for those on financial aid, going to Middlebury represents a huge investment of time, energy and money, all to earn a diploma. The higher the opinions of our school, the more valuable that diploma will be to us in the future – hypothetically.
The problem I have with this is that it seems like Middlebury is doing the right thing with one hand, and shooting itself in the foot with the other. While to the outside world, it may appear as though Middlebury is changing for the better, here on campus, some change is most definitely for the worse – namely our social scene. Over the course of my first year here, I have seen firsthand how Public Safety has stepped up their enforcement of alcohol, marijuana, parking and other policies. The rules haven’t changed much, (except for our recent hard alcohol ban), but the rigor of enforcement seems to have increased dramatically.
The party scene on campus is dying. By and large, every week seems more boring than the last, and the difference between the party scene now and the scene when I first arrived is night and day. Upperclassmen friends have told me that this trend is nothing new – it’s something that has been going on here for the past few years. Aside from the fact that my weekends are less fun than they potentially could be, I fear that Middlebury, in the process of rebranding, is turning its back on its roots, and as such counteracting it’s efforts to garnish its reputation.
Let me explain what I mean. In regards to our rankings, which have a huge impact on how our school is regarded as a whole, one of the most important factors, in addition to acceptance rate, is yield rate – or what percentage of accepted students actually decide to enroll. When applying to a school, but even more so when actually deciding to attend a school, one of students’ most important deciding factors is if they like it. Does it seem like a place where they want to spend the next 4 years of their life?
In Middlebury’s case, our school has long been advertised as a “work hard play hard” school. Many students, myself included, came here after being sold on that idea by parents, parents’ friends, college counselors and countless other adult sources. In high school I personally saw people choose not to apply to schools like University of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon and instead look toward schools like Duke and Northwestern (or in my case, Middlebury) because we were told that the former were for people whose idea of a fun Friday night revolved around the library – which ours did not.
The issue is not that I’m a bro who just cares about drinking – I’ve been there to see the library close on Saturday nights before – but that our school is becoming less fun for people who don’t find that fun, and given time, it will hurt our acceptance and yield rates, the same way it has for schools like MIT and Chicago relative to their peers like Princeton and Yale.
The other, debatably more important side of the issue is our reputation amongst employers. At the moment, Middlebury punches above its weight in recruiting for top-notch jobs. A large part of the reason firms prefer Midd Kids to our colleagues at schools like MIT or Chicago is because we “integrate” better. In the real world, in DC, and New York, and most other major cities, when the work day ends, the office moves to the bars, or clubs or social scene in the area. At a law firm, a bank, or other prestigious workplaces, your performance outside of work socially and amongst your colleagues is almost, if not equally, as important to your performance in the office.
While Middlebury’s academic rigor is excellent preparation for a real-life workload, a college education is about more than just academics. One of our school’s edges over our competitors is that we have long been known for our education outside of the classroom – in Atwater, Tavern and the like – which has historically prepared our graduates for social life after leaving the office. However, from what I saw of DC’s social scene as a political intern last summer, Middlebury no longer provides an adequate education in how to go out on a Saturday night. It is a question of when, and not if, the recruiters who hire our students for the prestigious jobs that form one of the cornerstones of our school’s reputation figure that out, and when they do, no one, students or administrators, will like the result.
(03/05/15 1:00am)
The Middlebury squash season officially ended last Saturday in Princeton, N.J., where Andrew Jung ’16, Charlotte Dewey ’15 and Saskia Pownall-Grey ’16 competed in the College Squash Association Individual Championships. Jung competed in the men’s “B” bracket for the Molloy Cup in which he advanced to the consolation finals. Dewey and Pownall-Grey competed in the women’s “B” bracket for the Holleran Cup.
The most success was enjoyed by Jung, but Dewey also had a good sending off as she played her last match in a Middlebury uniform Saturday afternoon. Jung posted three wins against two losses and advanced to the consolation final, while Dewey posted two wins against two losses and advanced to the second round consolation quarterfinals. Pownall-Grey lost both of her matches after receiving a bye. She lost in the round of 32 in four sets (11-9, 11-1, 12-14 and 11-3) and then in straight sets in the consolation bracket (13-111, 11-8 and 11-5).
Dewey dominated her first opponent, sandwiching an 11-0 victory in the second set with 11-1 wins. She proceeded to fall in a close, four-set second match (12-10, 11-4, 3-11 and 11-9), sending her to the second round consolation pool. In her first match on Saturday, Dewey made easy work of her opponent (11-5, 11-1 and 11-0), sending her to the quarterfinals. Although the quarterfinals would be the last match she would play in, she gave Dartmouth’s Lydie McKenzie a run for her money in a four-set thriller. They traded 11-9 sets to open the match and then McKenzie took the third set 11-5. The fourth and decisive set, however, saw an epic duel. Dewey fought tooth and nail but came up just short in a 15-13 loss.
Before entering last weekend, knowing it would be her last playing competitive squash, Dewey said, “I just want to have fun in my last real squash tournament.” She added, “I have nothing to lose at this point and everything to gain from playing my last weekend of competitive squash. I want to try and just play my best and keep in mind that why I’m out here in the first place is my love for this sport.”
Jung’s successful weekend started off on a sour note Friday morning when he lost in five sets to Darrius Campbell of Bates. Jung narrowly dropped a closely contested first set 12-10, before he rebounded to dominate the second set 11-4. He traded 11-3 victories with Campbell in the third and fourth sets before falling 11-5 in the final set.
Despite being sent to the consolation pool before Friday afternoon had rolled around, Jung furiously fought back in his next three matches without dropping a set. A quick turnaround could not even derail him as he won his match on Friday afternoon decisively, taking the first two sets 11-5 and then sealing the deal in the third set 11-2. Saturday Jung swept his way through the consolation quarterfinals (11-3, 11-5 and 11-4) and semifinals (a trio of 11-5 victories).
By the time he reached the finals on Sunday, Jung was out of gas.
“Unfortunately my body broke down pretty fast and I was just out of energy,” Jung said.
Although low on energy, Jung took William McBrian of Colby to five sets. The pair’s previous meeting on Jan. 10 went to McBrian in four sets. After trading 11-9 scores in the first two sets against McBrian, Jung won the third set 11-5 to gain an edge of two sets to one. The close fourth set loss 11-8 is where the fatigue of playing five matches in two days began to set in for Jung and he dropped the final set 11-5.
Exhausted and disappointed, Jung praised McBrian saying, “He’s a tough competitor.” But he added, “McBrian was someone I thought I should have beaten looking back on the regular season, so I was really looking forward to having an opportunity to play him. I think going into the fifth game I was trying to leave that larger perspective out of my head and just focus on what had worked for me in the games I won.”
(03/05/15 12:49am)
Despite leading by two goals at the start of the second half, the Middlebury men’s Lacrosse team fell to first-ranked Tufts by a score of 17-10 after the defending national champions staged a 13-4 run to earn a victory in the season opener. The result on Saturday, Feb. 28 stands as an improvement on last year’s opening matchup with the Jumbos in which the Panthers lost by a greater margin of 24-6.
For the second consecutive year, Middlebury opened season play against Tufts, who now defend a NCAA title after posting a 21-2 record on their way to a national championship in the 2014 season. The Jumbos found success in the previous season as a result of their high-powered offense, which was led by John Uppgren ’16 and Cole Bailey ’15, who combined for ten points (7G, 3A) against Middlebury on Saturday. However, the Panthers relied on strong defense in the first half and were able to limit the powerful Tufts offense to only four goals in the first 30 minutes of play.
John Broome ’16 struck first for Middlebury, scoring unassisted twice in the first quarter while Tim Giarrusso ’16 added a single tally off a Joel Blockowicz ’15 feed. Tufts managed to find the back of the net for the first time with 1:13 remaining in the first, and converted again with 0:02 on the clock to end play with the scoreboard reading 3-2 in favor of the Panthers.
The second quarter saw Middlebury hold onto their lead, with Blockowicz, Broome and John Simms ’17 adding to the scoring effort. Penalties were held to a minimum for both sides during the first half, keeping both teams at even strength throughout much of the opening 30 minutes of play. The Jumbos added two more tallies in the second quarter, leaving the score at 6-4 as both teams left the field for halftime. As they headed to the locker room, the Middlebury squad looked like they might be poised for an upset victory to open their season.
The feeling would not last long after the break. The second half brought a significant change of momentum, with the Jumbos outscoring the visiting Panthers by a wide margin of 13-4. The home team opened the third quarter with three consecutive goals, including one by Connor Bilby while Tufts had a man advantage. Broome was able to add back-to-back goals for the Panthers in the third quarter, rounding out his scoring performance at five on the day. In similar fashion to the start of the quarter, Tufts added another three consecutive goals before the whistle sounded to end play and send the game into the fourth quarter.
For the first time in the game, Middlebury opened the final quarter with a one-goal deficit. Tufts then proceeded to score seven straight, with Middlebury adding its lone goal of the quarter off a Jack Rautiola ’16 shot with 3:10 remaining. The Tufts attack duo of Uppgren and Bailey added two apiece in the fourth, and Uppgren also recorded an assist. In addition, midfielder Garrett Clarke contributed three goals for the Jumbos in the victory, while Austin Carbone racked up three points on two goals and an assist.
Tufts asserted dominance at the faceoff-X, taking a 20-30 advantage throughout the course of the game. Tufts also exceeded Middlebury’s ground ball effort, scooping up 37 to the Panthers’ 22. Consistent with Tufts’ reputation as an offensively talented squad, the Jumbos released 64 shots on the day, almost doubling Middlebury’s shot total of 36.
Both teams displayed competent goaltending at the hands of Will Ernst ’17 for the Panthers and Alex Salazar for the Jumbos. The two goalies recorded almost identical save percentages, 43.3 percent and 44.4 percent, respectively. However, tasked with offsetting Tufts’ notoriously effective offense, Ernst faced 30 shots while Salazar saw only 18. Also on the defensive end of the field, Middlebury players Cal Williams ’15 and Jack DeFrino ’17 each caused three turnovers, while DeFrino recorded six of the ten faceoff wins for the Panthers.
The final score is deceiving, however, because Middlebury stuck with the Tufts team for the majority of the contest.
“Even though we didn’t win, we proved that we can compete with anyone,” said Broome. “We had great possessions and played solid defense in the first half, which is definitely something we can build on.”
The Jumbo’s prolific scoring ability in the fourth quarter allowed them to differentiate themselves and capture the win, yet they trailed Middlebury for much of the game.
“Tufts outworked us on ground balls in the second half and capitalized on our mistakes, like any good team would do,” Broome said. “[If we can] string together a full game of good lacrosse, we have the potential to be a top team in the NESCAC and in D3.”
Middlebury returns to action on the road on Saturday, March 7 against NESCAC rival Connecticut College. Tufts looks to improve upon its undefeated record as they face out-of-conference opponent Stevens Tech over the weekend.
(03/04/15 6:58pm)
Before we jump into this week’s NARP activity, we just wanted to use this column as a platform to get a date. We still have not seen 50 Shades of Grey, and after the teen who buttered our popcorn for the Spongebob movie thought we were dating, we decided we should branch out and bring new people (boys). Plus, are we the only ones wondering how the burritos they serve compare to the almighty king, Chipotle?
Anyway, enough about our romantic life. This week, our NARP activity came to us by pure fate. We all know the feeling of entering the grand (ridiculously heavy?) doors of Proctor at peak dinner hours and having the slight smell of B.O., the aroma of pickled veggies, and the gazes of six people who you have been actively avoiding hitting you as soon as you walk in. Naturally, a panic attack ensues. Especially when your best friend (Maddie) is always late, even though she claimed to be “crossing College Street” 8 minutes ago. Proctor anxiety made Izzy run for the hills, aka our designated “safe room:” Proctor basement. On one fateful Monday evening, Izzy ran (speed walked) for cover and found that the dance room was in use by beautiful women dancing to exotic beats! With Maddie’s stalker skills, we soon discovered that it was the school’s South Asian dance troupe — Midd Masti!
We felt that Midd Masti might be easier to follow than the quickly-paced Riddim hip-hop class that we tried out earlier this year. Midd Masti’s slogan is “Bringing Bollywood to Middlebury,” so watching Slumdog Millionaire was obviously way more important than starting that 10-page research paper on our to-do lists. We thought attempting to master the final dance at the end of the movie would leave us well-prepared for the dance class, but then we got sidetracked by the Pussycat Dolls’ vocals and found ourselves singing karaoke to “Don’t Cha.” Then, we decided to watch the music video to Selena Gomez’s “Come and Get It” to stay away from culturally-insensitive music videos.
When Monday rolled around, Maddie and Izzy were both very excited to see what Bollywood had in store for them. At 5 p.m., we strolled in ready to shimmy and shake in Pussycat Doll-inspired outfits, and we discovered that we would be practicing the art of bharatnatyam, a classical South Asian dance taught by the College’s own Akhila Khanna ’17. According to Akhila, this style is significantly more nuanced and traditional than Bollywood dancing. For sixty minutes, we struggled to achieve each move with the same precision as our classmates. There were a lot of delicate finger and hand formations that left us feeling like we were coming down with carpal tunnel. Unable to obtain a close view of our instructor’s finger positioning, we decided to make that weird hand gesture everyone was obsessed with in 5th grade that spells out the word “blood” and hoped for the best. Nobody questioned us so we kept rollin’ with it.
By the end of the hour, we surprisingly kind of got the hang of our newly learned choreography. As a matter of fact, Akhila told us that she was “really impressed” withhow quickly we picked up the dance moves. Perhaps our Slumdog Millionaire binge-watching paid off after all! Now, if only Dev Patel and Freida Pinto were still dating…
Although our experience with bharatnatyam was slightly clumsy and graceless, we have to emphasize how beautiful and delicate the actual execution was by the women in the class. They hit their turns and completed their wrist flicks with such deliberation and finesse that, combined with the music, it was mesmerizing to watch. Fortunately for us (and the rest of campus), their Spring Showcase is coming up! On April 18, Midd Masti will perform more than ten different types of South Asian dance. We promise it will be the best two hours you ever spent. However, we cannot promise we won’t turn into Regina’s mom from Mean Girls and act out the choreography in the aisles. Tune in next week for when we learn to kick some serious a** at capoeira!
(02/26/15 1:48am)
Taken aback I was when I read all the hullabaloo regarding the benefits of being an athlete on campus. I find the apparent miscommunication between athletes and non-athletes to be particularly shameful, considering how moderate and levelheaded Middlebury students tend to be when discussing social issues. Regardless of the extent to which we participate in athletics, a substantial majority of Middlebury students are Non-A cappella Regular People (NARPs).
As a two sport athlete with close ties to the a cappella community, I am constantly reminded about the benefits a cappella students enjoy – benefits of which most athletes can only dream. One of Middlebury’s premier a cappella groups, Dissipated 8, recently travelled around the Northeast to perform dozens of live concerts. What makes me so irate is that this school organization can profit by selling compact discs (i.e. CDs) to their adoring fans. The double standard is nauseating; if I as an athlete tried to sell my autograph or jersey to any of the 30 student fans at a football game, or even if I tried to profit from my likeness being used as part of Middlebury’s promotional material, I would be severely disciplined.
Tis the plight of a NARP, both for athletes and non-athletes – athletes cannot profit from playing their sport and non-athletes cannot profit from anything (what would they sell? Art? Literature? HA!) These a cappella students, supposedly on equal footing with other students, clearly rise above the rest. The puppets (a.k.a. Middlebury students) venerate a cappella people to absurd degrees. We pack Mead Chapel for their “Jambos,” we attend every show they casually offer to appease the masses, we vie for their love and attention. I so often hear women swooning for Zach Weiss ’15, a member of the Dissipated 8, that when I tried to keep track of how many times it happened I lost count in the low triple digits. Athletes certainly do not enjoy these luxuries (except the men’s basketball team, but whatever).
Comments made by Will Fleming ’17, also in Dissipated 8, affirm my thoughts about the social privileges enjoyed by a cappella groups. “Yeah we throw parties and stuff,” Fleming describes, “girls love you for it, guys love you for it.” As a NARP, I could not imagine throwing a party with my athlete friends and having people ‘love me for it.’ I truly admire the a cappella culture where one is able to have social gatherings with friends yet not have others deem your culture toxic and exclusive. When asked a carefully worded follow-up question about this very point, Fleming responded, “both.”
Next, I asked Fleming about the bonds of friendship formed in a cappella. He explained that, upon his entering into the a cappella world, he “immediately had a group of brothers,” denoting the friendships formed with his singing mates. As Hannah Bristol ’14.5 and Isaac Baker ’14.5 rightfully acknowledge, it is unfair for these people to gain friends based on shared group membership while “the [non-athletes] are hunting for their own community, building friendships around any other shared interest.” We might as well make some big NARP group just so everyone can say they are included in something, our inability to sing well uniting us all.
Last week, Harry Zieve-Cohen ’15 wrote an Op-Ed exploring if Middlebury leaves us with better values than when we entered. The answer, Harry, is no – Middlebury as an institution is failing us. “We are paying into a system that fetishizes” a cappella. How can we let our students graduate into a world that does not share the same fetishization of a cappella that we do? It will rip apart the fragile minds of all but the mentally toughest Middlebury alumni.
To conclude, I’ll again invoke the words of Bristol and Baker (with a slight twist):
“We are a DIII school. Very few, if any, of our current [singers] will ever seriously [sing in an a cappella group] again after college. And yet for these four years, they are disproportionately valorized and require a tremendous time commitment [sic]. Students get tremendous enjoyment out of [a cappella]. They have learned teamwork and leadership, made their best friends and love their [singing] experience. But let’s be honest. You can reap these benefits without dedicating most of your time to your [a cappella group].”
Bristol and Baker are correct in recognizing that NARPs can have experiences rivaling or surpassing those of a cappella people. Do not feel intimidated by the social reverence the sheeple grant to a cappella groups. Whether you’re a NARP or a singer, your Middlebury experience is what you make of it.
(02/25/15 11:38pm)
Due to the deficit of available professors and the overwhelming popularity of the major, the Economics Department has been unable to accommodate many students trying to register for classes at all levels at the beginning of this spring term. While limited capacity has always been an issue for this department, the problem has increased in severity, with many accounts of students forced to sit on the floor during the first week of classes.
The severity of the issue has been attributed to a number of different reasons. Charles A. Dana Professor of Economics Peter Matthews wrote in an email, “At the risk of oversimplification, over a prolonged period, the student/faculty ratio has increased to the point where it is no longer sustainable or, for that matter, equitable.”
He continued, “On the one hand, whether one counts enrolled students or majors, the numerator has increased. There are, for example, about 370 economics majors at Middlebury, more than double the number of the next largest department or program, and more than several whole academic divisions whose combined resources dwarf ours. On the other hand, the number of ‘full time equivalent’ economists on campus has not kept pace and, in some cases, even fallen: we have lost colleagues to retirement and, this semester, unexpected death, but we have also ‘lost’ FTEs to College initiatives like MiddCORE, MCSE and Liberal Arts Plus.”
These issues have culminated in the over-enrollment by as many as twelve extra students in some classes, leaving many other students unable to access these classes.
Hayley Howard ’17, an Economics major, attended both Economic Statistics classes offered this semester with the hopes of adding one. “One of my [economics] classes already had to move classrooms to make room for more students, but we still have too many,” she said.
Assistant Professor of Economics Erick Gong, noted that he, too, was unable to accommodate everyone in his statistics class.
He said, “I think there is a lot of interest in economics on campus, which I attribute to many of my colleagues in the department who convey a passion for their areas of expertise.”
Therein lies the challenge for professors who want to enroll interested students but then are forced to teach a greater amount of larger classes with less one-on-one time with students.
Matthews said, “In a word, it diminishes and dilutes what is otherwise one of the best available liberal arts educations in economics. I have remarkable scholar-teachers as colleagues, and we attract remarkable students, but there aren’t enough of the former to engage the latter as much as either group wants or deserves. Furthermore, the consequences manifest themselves throughout the curriculum, from overcrowded first level courses to insufficient opportunities to engage in ‘research-based learning’ for seniors, a centerpiece of the department’s pedagogical philosophy.”
Paige-Wright Professor of Economics Paul Sommers pointed out that the number of negative seats available on Bannerweb underscores the magnitude of the problem that the department is facing. He has faced overcrowding in his Economic Statistics lab class, where many enrolled students were without seats.
Some short-term solutions to the issue of overcrowding in these classes include switching classrooms, opening new sections, reshuffling professors, and increasing enrollment caps. Matthews also noted that a greater flexibility has been given toward transferring credit as another way to ameliorate some of the problems the department is facing. However, these tactics work more as quick fixes rather than sustainable long-term solutions that address structural issues within the department itself.
The Economics Department has consequently hired three new faculty members and extended an offer to a fourth as a potentially more durable response to the high demand of economics classes.
Sommers said, “We are actively working to increase the number of faculty in economics so that our majors can actually enroll in core courses and that classes can be smaller.”
Matthews commented on the department’s recent growth and its future. “The last two years brought us the remarkable quartet of Professors Racha Moussa, Tanya Byker, Leila Davis and Emiliano Huet-Vaughn,” he said. “Next fall, we shall add Professor Amanda Gregg from Yale, an economic historian with a focus on late imperial Russia, Professor Julia Berazneva from Cornell, who works at the intersection of environment and development economics, and Professor Marquise McGraw of Berkeley, who researches local economic development and will allow us to expand our urban studies curriculum. I am certain that students will love learning from, and working with, all of them. And we’re not done.”
(02/25/15 7:11pm)
In the world of architecture, three alumni of the College see things differently.
“When most people think about virtual reality goggles, they imagine the technology from the ’90s. Back then if you put those on you’d be immobile, dizzy, and eventually start puking. IrisVR is ten thousand steps above that,” explains Amr Thameen ’14, a 3D artist/designer at IrisVR, a Burlington-based company that is revolutionizing architecture design.
Founded by Shane Scranton ’13 and Nate Beatty ’14.5 in 2014, IrisVR uses virtual reality goggles intended for video games to allow architects to see and explore models of their work.
Starting the operation involved making connections, bonding with mentors and raising money until a major donor gave them thousands of dollars to begin their project. About a year ago, Scranton and Beatty got their hands on the Oculus Rift, the technology that would be to their entire operation. Valued at around $350, this goggle-like gadget allows Scranton’s computer program skills and Beatty’s designs to come to life: the wearer is actually able to view things true-to-size and virtually experience walking through the building. The viewer is visually transported to another place.
Using lenses in the screen that warp the image as it is projected, Oculus Rift provides the viewer a constant stream of vision into another world. The immersive technology is now much safer, cheaper and technologically-advanced than the version from the 1990s that made users physically ill and cost over $40,000.
“The first virtual reality model that I made was a model of the house I grew up in, and [I] thought: ‘Let me make a little video game out of the Oculus Rift and out of this model,’” said Beatty while showcasing the black and white footage during a TED Talk at the College in November 2014. “It tracked my head movements as I walked through the space. It is the inside of my house. It’s untextured, the lighting is pretty bad, it’s pixilated, and everything’s essentially horrible about it, except for the fact that when I was in the goggles walking around the place, I really felt like I was standing in my house. I couldn’t believe it! I was holding these goggles up to my face and I felt like I was home.”
Although the virtual reality model of Beatty’s house was relatively rough, others who viewed the house spoke of the “snow” outside of the house. Beatty and Scranton had not perfected the program to include existing weather patterns, but the white plane of nothingness outside of the house resembled a bed of fallen snow: the alternate reality was that convincing.
As of April 2014, the most recent version of Oculus Rift is now owned by Facebook, after the popular social media company bought the rights for $2 billion. It has only been redesigned once fully, meaning that as the virtual reality technology grows and changes, so does IrisVR.
“The challenge is developing a software for a hardware that’s not finished yet, so being prepared to pivot, change, and build on new information is a harsh reality,” says Thameen.
The existing technology involves a lot of time-consuming importing and exporting of files, essentially creating a small video game out of each file. This process usually crashes a computer before it is even finished. Seeing huge opportunities in creating new software to fix a problem both gamers and architects could benefit from, Beatty and Scranton set out across the country to prove that they had what everyone needed. Huge architecture firms like Gensler and Perkins+Will met their enthusiasm with doubt, but that doubt turned into awe once the Oculus Rift goggles were put on. To match the demand for their virtual reality software from the most powerful architecture companies in the world, Beatty and Scranton created a team to give the people what they wanted: the ability to virtually inhabit a space.
Now that they have a good amount of their software created, IrisVR has left the developing stage and entered the pacing stage, described by Scranton as “wondering when this company is going to take off and become the company instead of a company.”
Scranton sees IrisVR being able to help in the film, education and theater industries, but as of now its impact on the world of architecture is more than enough. The alumni plan to use a perfectly sleek and easy-to-use iPhone headset to match their existing app, but their main goal is to improve the virtual reality technology. Beatty and Scranton’s understanding of space and design has allowed them to create an innovative way of building, and in a society that is becoming rapidly more technology-reliant and technology-efficient, this can only mean good news.
“This company is always changing and shifting, so the future is really uncertain,” Thameen said. “Will I even be here in four years? The industry is growing so fast!”
Thameen says that if he decides to leave IrisVR, he will certainly continue to pursue problem solving through design, and is still very much interested in the user experience. No other company in the world uses all three of those aspects in a more helpful or efficient way, so Thameen is likely to stay with the Burlington-based group unless another one comes along with something better. There is no way to predict IrisVR’s success or failure; however, this company that is re-envisioning reality seems to have a lot of excitement to look forward to.
(02/25/15 2:05pm)
William F. Brooks, Jr., the Executive Director of the Henry Sheldon Museum, radiates passion for his work. Since he was appointed in 2012, Brooks has worked extensively to foster a cohesive relationship between the town and the museum.
(02/19/15 12:37am)
Not so long ago, colleges made a promise that sounds a bit strange today. Administrators and faculty promised not just to teach students knowledge and skills, but to make them better people. Our communications department might like to highlight the good Middlebury students do, but few students enter Middlebury thinking they will leave with better values.
Part of this shift is the result of Middlebury’s secularization. We are no longer a religious institution with a clear moral purpose. Students and teachers surely seek to learn about issues related to social justice, but we rarely think about our time at college as focused on moral betterment.
What if we did? I have been asking myself that question recently, trying to figure out if I am a better person than I was when I arrived. Do I care more about the Good than I did freshman fall? Has my understanding of the Good deepened since I arrived at college? Am I a better person? In order, my answers to these questions are 1) no, 2) maybe and 3) yes, I think so. I have always cared deeply about the Good, but my understanding of it (and of the best means of pursuing it) has changed since I arrived here.
In 2011, I would have translated questions about the Good into an important but simplistic political question: Do I care about helping the downtrodden?
I am no longer sure that answers to this question necessarily indicate everything about one’s moral character. You see, when I arrived at Middlebury, I was a staunch leftist. Marxist, very nearly. I cared almost exclusively about helping the oppressed. But I was not a particularly pleasant person. My characteristic intolerance and obnoxiousness had, I submit, roots in my purely political view of morality. I do not mean to suggest a link between any political position and ungraciousness, but if one sees morality as mere ideology, that will affect how one treats people. Primarily, this is a matter of open-mindedness. Let your political assumptions become totalizing, and you will unfairly dismiss thoughtful classmates simply because they do not share your worldview. Strictly adhere to an unaccommodating ethical code, and you will find it difficult to make friends.
It does not so much matter if this code is liberal or conservative. Before the question of what one believes comes the question of how one thinks, and how one thinks is reflected in one’s relationships with others. I am more moral today because I am more open to the idea that I may be wrong. Recognizing my own fallibility makes me more accepting of others’ faults.
I should reassure you that I do believe there are moral positions and immoral positions. The belief that it is right to execute rape victims is an immoral position. If a student at Middlebury justified such a punishment, he would be deservedly ostracized. But I’d venture to guess that most of us are not stoning advocates. Most of the moral disputes at Middlebury are rather more complicated. Thus, they deserve a more generous treatment.
A primary indicator of one’s character is the way one thinks about other people. Are you better at developing and maintaining meaningful relationships than you were when you got here? Are you better at listening to opinions that make you want to punch something? Do you find that new information sometimes causes you to relinquish opinions you had previously considered unimpeachable?
If so, then you are probably a more moral person now than you were then. An affirmative answer to those questions means that you take other people, and their ideas, very seriously. It means you treat others as full human beings.
There is an important corollary point to be made here. Recognizing each other as full human beings means weighing and responding to each other’s opinions. It means challenging each other. It means calling each other out. It means forthright displays of emotions and intellect. It means not deferring to another’s argument for the sake of comity. Respect is ensured by intense argument. A more moral campus is a friendlier campus, but also a more demanding campus.
Those old religious founders of liberal arts institutions were onto something. An academic community which is more interested in the moral character, not the ideological bent, of its members turns out to be a much better place to learn. Something, perhaps, to keep in mind as the dark clouds of political correctness continue to condense overhead.
(02/19/15 12:34am)
In his last piece, Phil – to use an expression picked up over Feb Orientation – “yucked my yum.” He took us through what he painted to be President Obama’s “harmful budget,” paying special attention to the tax increases, ending of sequestration and community college plan. While I won’t address all of these issues because each subject deserves its own article entirely, I will say this: President Obama’s new budget proposal is a step in the right direction. Though it is not perfect, it cuts America’s deficit and decreases our debt, all while increasing funding to programs that desperately need it.
For starters, let us establish that, thanks to tax increases and, therefore, more revenue, the proposal would flatten deficits out to around two and a half percent of gross domestic product (GDP.). This is significant because under current policies the deficit would actually increase beginning in 2018. Furthermore, the proposal cuts our debt back to 73 percent of G.D.P. rather than the 79 percent it was estimated to reach by 2025.
You may be thinking (especially if you lean right like Phil), “OK, that’s great that the deficit and national debt would decrease, but do we have to do that through tax increases? Why not just cut spending?” The answer to that question is that we cannot afford to. Let’s zoom in on the issue of infrastructure.
America used to have the best infrastructure in the world. Our bridges, our rails, our electrical grids, et cetera were better than the rest of ‘em. This is no longer the case. Because of insufficient funding, 77,373 of our 604,493 bridges have become functionally obsolete and 69,517 have become structurally deficient. They are, on average, 42 years old. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ACSE) gave U.S. infrastructure the letter grade, “D+.” In a 2013 study, the ASCE estimated that we needed around $3.6 trillion by 2020 to bring all U.S. facilities back up to par.
So, yes, Obama might be asking for a whopping $4 trillion in this new budget plan, but just $478 billion of that is going to public works programs. In other words, of the $3.6 trillion the ASCE recommended for infrastructure, Obama has tightened the purse strings so much that not only is he giving them less than a quarter of what they asked for, but he is also spending the amount that one department needs on the entire federal budget. It might be easy to say that Democrats are the party of big spenders; however, the new budget proposal illustrates that while Democrats indeed want to spend more than Republicans, they are spending (get this) conservatively and with purpose.
You should know what this increase in government spending is getting us. According to a report by the Congressional Budget Office in 2014, for every dollar invested in infrastructure, the economy grows by $1.15 to $1.25. Additionally, Standard & Poor’s Rating Services released a report in 2014 stating that an immediate $1.3 billion infrastructure investment could add 29,000 jobs to the construction sector and even more jobs to other infrastructure-related industries. The study also found that this investment could boost economic growth by $2 billion and reduce American deficit by $200 million for 2015.
I think we can all agree that no one wants to spend extra money if they don’t have to, but so many programs in the U.S. -— infrastructure, Medicaid, Medicare, et cetera — necessitate the additional spending. The benefits of paying up far outweigh the costs.
Therefore, while it would be great to take the Republican way out — cut spending and leave taxes alone, or even lower them to solve the deficit/debt problems — that plan is infeasible. Our country needs the increased spending and, unfortunately, that may mean raising taxes.
That is why it is all the more important for Republicans to work with the President – so that they have a say in how the taxes will work, and can quit complaining about them. Obama has some pretty palatable ideas. For example, to fund the $478 billion public works program, he has asked Congress to approve a one-time 14 percent tax on profits that American companies have amassed overseas, lower than the standard 35 percent corporate tax rate.
We may all whine and moan about the sad reality that sometimes we have to cough up a little extra dough, but I expect all policy makers in Washington to step up to the plate. Therefore, I hope Phil’s prediction that Republicans will not let this budget go unaltered is incorrect. Furthermore, I hope that the general opinion on Obama’s budget plan will not be tainted with false notions of overspending. For if this article has done nothing else, ideally it has shown you that there are a lot of naysayers or “yuckers” out there, but there is unquestionable “yum” to be gained from President Obama’s new budget proposal.
(02/12/15 3:20am)
A discovery by a group of Stanford University students could bring an unprecedented level of transparency to the college admissions process, after an anonymous Stanford campus publication released the finding that the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) stipulates that students have the right to see their educational records, including admissions files and comments on students’ applications.
Upon a Campus inquiry, Dean of Admissions Greg Buckles confirmed that FERPA does ensure this right for all students and that this discovery could change the admission process.
“I’m talking to the deans at our peer schools and we are all asking each other, ‘What are you going to do? What are you going to do?’” Buckles said.
Though FERPA has always protected this right, requests for access to educational records have snowballed in the past six weeks after the group of students printed their discovery in a campus newsletter, The Fountain Hopper.
Though each campus has witnessed different reactions, Buckles confirmed that the Middlebury College Admissions Office has received five requests to view educational records, three from current students and two from alumni.
“What we are trying to do is fully abide by and cooperate with those laws, but also make sure we are protecting privacy and understanding exactly what privacy means,” said Buckles.
The College policy is to keep admissions files for matriculating students during all four years and shred them after graduation. Files of students who are rejected or who do not matriculate are only kept for two years.
Therefore, the two alumni requests could not be catered to, but the three current students received an email from Buckles confirming that they could come in and view their file.
Sarah Sicular ’16 was one of those students. After reading the BuzzFeed article on the Stanford students, she decided to contact Admissions and see if this assertion was in fact true.
“I feel like admissions is such a non-transparent process, and I am curious about how their decision making happens. I feel like by seeing my own information, I could gain insight into how it works,” Sicular said.
The Stanford students suggest language to use when asking for your files and admissions should comply within 45 days.
On Jan. 20, Sicular wrote to Admissions: “Hello! This is a FERPA access request. I am requesting access to all documents held by the Middlebury Office of Undergraduate Admission, including without limitation a complete copy of any admissions records kept in my name in any and all university offices, including the Undergraduate Admission Workcard and all associated content (including without limitation the qualitative and quantitative assessments of any ‘readers,’ demographics data, interview records); any e-mails, notes, memoranda, video, audio, or other documentary material maintained by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. I look forward to receiving access to these documents within 45 calendar days. Thank you!”
By Feb. 9, she had an answer, where Admissions stated that she could make an appointment to come in and view the files online.
It seems perfectly simple, but there have been a number of concerns and legal complications. One of several concerns has been the ability to honor all of these requests. Buckles has indicated that if the number stays small, it is easy to comply with requests; however, if hundreds of students suddenly want to see files, then this could become a fulltime job.
Likewise, the files often are coded and abbreviated in a way that would be hard for a non-admissions counselor to differentiate. FERPA protects students who wish to see their files, but it doesn’t explicitly state that the files have to be read or explained to students. And taking the time to translate the files to each student who requests could be resource intensive.
However, that may not stop the requests.
As it stands now, students will be able to see their two reader comments, which is often a paragraph detailing the overall impression the candidate has left. Students would also see the 1-7 rating they received for academic strength, extracurricular contribution and personal quality and the recommended decision: accept, deny, defer or wait list.
Technically, high school teacher recommendations are in the file as well, but most students waived their right to view said recommendations in the Common Application.
However, Buckles has indicated that he is much more worried about the communication of sensitive information than he is about the numeric ratings students are given.
“What I’m more concerned about is us trying to take into account much more personal and sensitive information like someone’s ability to flourish here or other very sensitive issues that could be of concern, like of one’s ability to have a roommate or function in a demanding environment. We have all kinds of considerations legally about that.”
In the coming weeks, Admissions will meet with the Presidential cabinet and the Board of Trustees’ Committee on Risk to manage the risk associated with making these files public. The coming weeks will demonstrate where this law is going and how it can influence college admissions.
“The issue comes down to how much is too much knowledge,” said Thilan Tudor ’16, a student employee in the Admissions Office.
“While obtaining information on our strengths and weaknesses seems appealing, having this information presented in the context of an admissions decision can be tough. College applications are comprehensive snapshots of one’s high school years and having a holistic admission process means that every aspect of an application is rigorously evaluated in a candid straightforward manner,” he concluded.
Leaving the choice to view these records in the hands of individuals could have long-term ramifications, especially surrounding the future legitimacy of the admission process.
“The potential downside is this could neutralize one’s ability to write candidly and sensitively about an applicant,” said Buckles.
“It could it have a chilling effect, even more so than there is already, on a teachers willingness to write frank and honest and helpful evaluations,” Buckles said.
(02/12/15 3:19am)
When the op-ed “It’s Actually Just a Game” was published in the Campus on Jan. 22, what followed was an explosion of conversation about athletics on campus. With almost 60 comments online and multiple responses to the opinion piece, the topic dominated conversations until the end of Winter Term.
In light of this, the College has been forced to consider a divide between the athletes and non-athletes on campus. This divide has given rise to a number of questions surrounding the role of athletics at a school like Middlebury and the existence of athletic privileges.
As a member of the NCAA and NESCAC divisions, the College athletic department abides by two sets of rules, both of which strive to create an athletic environment consistent with a commitment to academics. However, as the College and so many other institutions have discovered, finding the right balance between athletics and higher education can be difficult.
The NESCAC established itself as a conference in 1999 and currently sponsors 26 conference championships for 11 institutions. NESCAC member schools offer an average of 30 varsity sports programs. The College offers 31 varsity programs and 15 Club programs, putting it near the top of that list. The decision to offer certain sports as varsity programs versus Club programs at the College was made in collaboration with the other members of the NESCAC years ago.
Because 28% of the student body is involved in the varsity sports program, the College has committed itself to supporting the varsity sports program on many different levels. These commitments must work in harmony with the College’s dedication to academics and a diverse and engaged student body.
Financial
Each year, the College budget reflects a number of different needs. According to the College’s budget office, “Budget decisions reflect the College’s mission and core values. Our top priorities are our academic program and our need-blind admissions policy for U.S. students.”
In the 2014 fiscal year, the College’s budget was $292 million. Of this, approximately $5 million (or 1.7%) is allocated to the athletics department on a yearly basis.
According to Athletics Director Erin Quinn, budgets are constructed to pay for the essential elements of each varsity program, including items such as food, lodging, travel and the basic equipment. This process is the same across all varsity sports at the College, including the Alpine and Nordic ski teams and the Squash teams, all of which are not traditional Division III sports but instead compete with only one division. In these sports, the College and other DIII institutions compete against DI institutions, while retaining the DIII classification and following DIII rules.
Specialized equipment is not anticipated in these budgets but can be applied for through the same process as any other department of the College.
“Some of the stuff that students might say that they paid for themselves might be the choices of those students to buy those things…Things that go beyond what a normal budget might cover, that a team arguably could do without, shouldn’t necessarily be covered by the budget,” Quinn said. He added that if the budget does not provide the entire cost of an item, teams may raise money and then families often contribute the difference; for example, spring trips are not fully funded by the budget. (see spread in Features)
Other organizations on campus are not included in the College’s budget. They rely on the comprehensive Student Activities fee, which was $407 per student for 2014. This money is pooled together and allocated to student organizations through the SGA Finance Committee.
Between last spring and this fall, approximately 140 clubs came in for both budget and new money requests, including a number of Club sports programs. Club sports rely on the Student Activities fee for all expenses except that of any coaches.
According to Katie Linder ’15, captain of the Women’s Rugby Club team and SGA Athletic Affairs Committee chair, figuring out finances is a large part of Club sports. “Staying in hotels the night before versus driving up at five in the morning is something that we would love but we make it work, it’s the only way we know how to operate. It’s a process, but we get as much money as we need… I can’t say that I wouldn’t like more money, but it’s manageable,” she said.
SGA Treasurer Ilana Gratch ’16.5 said, “It’s not that we run out of money, it’s that we have to discern which requests are going to have the widest reach and be the most beneficial to the most students because, at the end of the day, it’s coming from the Students Activities fee which we all paid for. It is a finite amount of money so we can’t fund everything.”
Because athletic facilities are open to the College and town communities, a separate section of the College budget provides for these facilities. However, the construction of the new Virtue Field House and the Squash Courts was not included in these numbers. The $46 million project was the first of its size completely funded by donors, many who have previously given to the College’s financial aid, to academic programs, or to other College initiatives outside of Athletics.
Although College fundraising efforts are not directed towards athletics, research shows that often athletics are a source of inspiration for alumni donations. In 2006, Professor of Economics Jessica Holmes published a paper using 15 years of data from the College which concluded that alumni, regardless of whether they were involved with athletics or not, tend to donate to the College when athletics are doing well or when academics are doing poorly. Although the data is not recent, these results remain relevant to the College according to David K. Smith ‘42 Professor of Applied Economics Phani Wunnava.
Tim Spears, Vice President for Academic Development and a leader in fundraising efforts at the College, said, “In the larger world of intercollegiate athletics, one of the reasons why booster clubs exist at universities and the like is because through successful athletics programs, you raise awareness for the school and build loyalty. There may be merit to this approach, but that’s not the strategy that’s at work at a place like Middlebury.”
Admissions
Under NESCAC guidelines, the College may not admit recruited athletes until they have gone through the same process as any other applicant. However, coaches can get feedback from Admissions about where to prioritize their recruiting and, according to Dean of Admissions Greg Buckles, “The boundaries of that get pushed a lot.”
Recruited athletes are often given extra and earlier advance notice as to their viability as a candidate for the College based on criteria set by the NESCAC, which can often lead athletes to premature assumptions about their admittance. Instances have occurred where students in the recruitment process have claimed a “commitment” to the College similar to those allowed at Division 1 institutions. As a matter of protocol and process, Buckles said, Admissions will track down these claims to correct them when they see them.
“[The NESCAC recruiting process] is at the same time the most confounding but also the most noble undertaking of any athletic conference I know of,” said Buckles. “In other words, it’s complicated, it can be confusing, frustrating, and sometimes it will seem like it’s hypocritical but, in the end, it works well. We keep a lid on the appropriate amount of emphasis on athletics and at the same time we’re very successful.”
Recruitment success is a significant part of assessing the performance of Coaches, and so they are part of the admissions conversation. However, the same process exists for the Arts department. Through the same evaluative system as the Athletics department, members of the Arts may convey to admissions which candidates they would like to see admitted. Furthermore, any department or any faculty member can oversee potential candidates in whom they have an interest and may open a conversation with Admissions.
In the Athletics department, the ability to evaluate applicants has proven beneficial to the overall application process. In any given year, about 25 percent of the incoming class is recruited athletes. This number has remained constant while the total number of recruited athletes who apply has been shrinking (see graphic on front page).
The recruiting process also encourages more athletes to apply Early Decision. In 2014, 44 percent of Early Decision 1 applicants who enrolled were recruited athletes. “The upside of that is that interestingly leaves room for more non-athletes because it’s typically one-for-one…That leaves us, in some sense, with more room to consider a whole host of other needs and goals for the class,” said Buckles.
The recruiting process at the College across all varsity sports is consistent with those of the ten other NESCAC institutions. This process is one of the most restrictive in the country and has caused a lack of diversity in athletics. Between these restrictions and a lack of resources to travel extensively or reach out to athletes, Coaches are often limited to those athletes who have the ability and the connection to NESCAC institutions to approach coaches themselves.
“Almost everywhere else, a lot of times athletic conferences and athletic teams will support more diversity…As we’ve made great progress and strides in the overall student body…that has not been reflected in the athletic teams as much,” Buckles said.
“A coach puts together the class holistically just the way the College does,” Quinn said. “We try to be very consistent and we try to have the athletic department be representative of the College. We have some limitations on our ability to recruit as broadly due to practical, financial considerations as well as NESCAC restrictions on recruiting. The NESCAC has looked carefully at some of these practices as well. How can we create the most diverse pool as possible? Are there league restrictions that prohibit us from doing so?”
One way a lack of diversity in athletics might be addressed is by looking at athlete GPAs or how financial aid is allocated to athletes and non-athletes on campus. According to Quinn, athlete GPAs are tracked internally by the Athletics Department periodically to evaluate the academic success of student-athletes, but these numbers are not open to the public, just as GPA numbers are not available for any other campus constituencies.
Additionally, because of the College’s need-blind policy, financial aid numbers for specific groups are not tracked except through annual audits on the Student Financial Aid office, of which the results are not shared unless an issue becomes apparent.
Time Commitment
Students’ commitment to athletics is often seen as a diversion from the College’s commitment to academics. Although the College outlines specific procedures for students, coaches, and professors, it is often left to the discretion of those involved how to balance athletics and academics.
“One of the things that we think about a lot as faculty is student time and whether or not students have the time that they need to devote to their academics,” said Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty Andi Lloyd. “What’s the right amount of time to devote to academics relative to extracurricular activities? It’s a question about time as a scarce resource.”
Lloyd also commented on claims that student-athletes are given access to easier classes. Although unaware of any specific practices concerning this she said, “The kinds of things I hear—and the kinds of conversations I have with my advisees—have more to do with time management than with taking easier classes… I think people are making choices about classes based on any number of different factors, including athletics and other extra-curricular commitments. I would not define it as an issue of athletic privilege in the sense that it is playing out at other schools.”
By College and NESCAC regulations, varsity athletes are limited in the amount of time they are allowed to practice, how long their season is, and how many games they may compete in, among other things. However, the time commitment to a varsity sport is still substantial and, for many students, a deciding factor for participation.
“I came in and I picked rugby because I wanted to learn the sport but also because I didn’t want to try to play a varsity sport,” Linder said.
She added, “We have a lot of girls who played sports in high school and didn’t want the commitment of a varsity sport because it’s a huge time commitment and we’re sort of looking for a middle ground where it was a structure, a team, but wasn’t that much of a high competitiveness level.”
Lloyd added that this conversation extends beyond athletics. “Having been here for almost 20 years, I have seen that students find any number of different pathways through this place, they distinguish themselves in any number of different ways, they find a range of things outside of the classroom in order to stretch themselves and challenge themselves, and athletics is one of those things but, it’s not the only thing,” she said.
Social Life
The divide between athletes and non-athletes on campus goes beyond areas in the budget, admissions and time commitments. The op-ed published in The Campus, a response by basketball player Jake Nidenberg ’16, and another published on Middbeat by Lizzy Weiss ’17 and Aleck Silva-Pinto ’16 are all part of the ongoing conversation around this divide.
Many have pointed to freshman orientation as the origin of this separation between athletes and non-athletes. In the 2015 SGA student life survey, participants were asked if they think the staggered arrival of fall athletes, international and non-athlete domestic students during orientation impacts relationships between different groups. Results showed that 16.13 percent of participants saw a positive impact, 59.04 percent saw a negative impact, and 24.83 percent saw no impact.
In their column “NARPs” in the Campus, Maddie Webb ’17 and Izzy Fleming ’17 have explored how non-athletes at the College can get involved with both athletics and other activities on campus. “‘NARPs’ is a term I had never heard before I came to Middlebury,” Webb said. “Most people use it as a term of endearment but there are also people who use it to put other people down.”
She added, “There are so many people on this campus who think that sports are everything and you are nothing without athletic ability and so a point of our column is to not only take back the term NARPs but to show people all the opportunities there are on campus to get involved that they might not have known about.”
As head of the SGA Athletic Committee, Linder works to bridge this gap. “A lot of what we do is how to get more people to come to games and support the team and school spirit…I think we run into issues less with privilege and more with the disconnect between athletes and non-athletes and trying to find ways to make a connection between those two sides,” she said.
Whether athletics are seen as an outlet for extra privileges or a source of diversity and connection on campus can be attributed to how students at the College embrace the divide. “This is college, and we love to refer to Middlebury as a bubble, and that’s not a bad thing—to an extent, it should be a bubble,” Spears said. “This place, of all places, of all moments in students’ lives, should be where people are crossing those boundaries and getting to know people who are different from one another.”
(02/11/15 11:59pm)
The end of this year’s whirlwind J-term brought in the highly-anticipated Ragtime musical, a co-production by Town Hall Theater (THT) and the Middlebury College Department of Music. Dealing with the turmoil, tensions and triumphs of early twentieth-century America, Ragtime follows the lives of Harlem musician Coalhouse Walker Jr., played by Steven Kasparek ’16, a white upper-class family in New Rochelle, New York, and Tateh, a Jewish immigrant, played by Jack DesBois ’15, who leaves Latvia to make a life for himself and his young daughter in the Lower East Side. The cast performed to sold-out audiences at THT every night from Jan. 22 to 26.
As per J-term musical tradition, the entire production was put together during intensive rehearsals over a span of three weeks. The cast came in knowing all the music and lines, but worked long hours to build the set and piece the entire 38-number show together. Likewise, the orchestra had only two weeks to rehearse the score.
Of the 33 actors, some were experiencing their first taste of theater, others were seasoned members of the department and four were hired professionals.
“In order to do Ragtime properly, you really need to balance the three ensembles, and we didn’t get enough for a turnout for the African-American Harlem ensemble, so we had to hire out some people,” stage manager Alex Williamson ’17 said.
Despite the wide range of acting experience within the cast, Ragtime proved to be a seamless and vibrant production, particularly through its smooth transitions and careful choreography. Leaving no more than ten or so seconds between acts, the cast expertly navigated the stage to create scenes of drastically different setups – from the slums of New York to a baseball stadium to a lush Victorian estate.
“Since Ragtime is all musical numbers, it’s important for it to flow like a dance,” Williamson said. “One thing leads nicely into another.”
A flurry of changing developments within the United States marks the first act of the play. Riots against the ravages of American capitalism pop up across the country, waves of immigrants arrive at Ellis Island with hope in their hearts and nothing but the clothes on their backs and many white Americans with long-established roots in the United States grapple with their growing distaste toward all outsiders. Indeed, the wealthy residents of New Rochelle reminisce joyously in the opening number of the musical, singing, “Ladies with parasols/Fellows with tennis balls/There were no negroes/And there were no immigrants,” only to be interrupted by the shouts of Eastern Europeans boarding a ship for Ellis Island.
From a meticulously-built Model T car prop to the appearance of legendary stunt artist Harry Houdini, played by David Fine ’17, the musical was filled with historical references that set a rich context for the three interlinking narratives of Tateh, Coalhouse and the wealthy white family. This traditional household is headed by the doting Mother, performed by Hannah Johnston ’15.5 and the strong-willed Father, played by Michael McCann ’15. The role of Evelyn Nesbit, the dazzling, real-life vaudeville personality, played brilliantly by Caitlin Duffy ’15.5, further contributed to the realism of the production. Her flamboyant ways and extravagant, shimmering costumes served as a delightful tribute to popular entertainment of the times.
During Act I, Mother discovers an abandoned Negro baby in the front yard of their Victorian estate, and decides to provide refuge for both him and the mother, Sarah, played by professional Diana Thompson. The story escalates quickly from there, as Sarah’s ex-lover, Coalhouse, attempts to court her, eventually wins her over and then tragically loses her when she is beaten to death at a campaign rally in New Rochelle. Her death leaves him a bitter and angry man. As a result, Act II carries a much darker tone, with Coalhouse seeking to find justice within a radically flawed social system. Meanwhile, the growing rift between Mother and Father, who don’t see eye to eye on the racially-charged turmoil of the times, as well as the rising success of the exuberant and hardworking Tateh offer alternative perspectives on the multi-faceted, fast-paced nature of 1920s America.
Amidst the heavy material of the play, Little Boy, the young son of the white upper-class family, provides a refreshing and innocent presence. Portrayed by Emilie Seavey ’18, who donned a cap over her short blonde hair, Little Boy easily breaks the tension in the room when Coalhouse comes to the family’s posh house in search of his ex-lover, Sarah.
“This is Sarah’s baby,” Little Boy tells him, gesturing toward a crib in the corner. He then asks brightly, “You want a cookie?” — an absurdly innocent inquiry that drew laughs from the crowd. His childish obliviousness and endearing eagerness help to lighten the mood in scenes that brim with tension, fear and uncertainty.
Alongside astounding vocals by the entire cast, the visual effects of the production added a lavish charm that appealed greatly to the audience. One particularly awe-inspiring display featured Tateh flipping through a book of moving sketches with his daughter. As they gaze at the pages, a woman, played by Duffy, dances gracefully behind a transparent curtain at the back of the stage. Strobe lights flash upon her flowing figure, creating choppy movements that gorgeously mimic the effect of paging through a continuous sequence of sketches.
Meanwhile, the upper-class white family — particularly the females — don extravagant clothing that beautifully reflects the fashions of the times, from skirts that flared out at the bottom to high lace collars to pigeon-breasted blouses. Only one element was missing — most women of money wore dresses with lace trains; but seeing as such extensive costumes likely would’ve caused the actresses to stumble onstage, costume designer Annie Ulrich ’13 added ruffles at the bottoms of their dresses instead. Nevertheless, the juxtaposition between the upper-class family’s fancy white outfits — complete with delicate parasols and thin lace gloves — and the immigrants’ dark, tattered rags created a striking visual display of privilege and disparity.
Despite the old-fashioned outfits and radically different culture of ragtime and vaudeville entertainment, the timeless themes of race, oppression and injustice that underlie this stunning musical resonated deeply with the Middlebury community.
“This play is incredibly pertinent to the current atmosphere and the events that happened in the fall, between Ferguson and the New York cases of police brutality,” Ulrich said. “Racism is on everyone’s mind these days.”
Though the final scenes were scattered with tragedy, the story ultimately ended on a heartwarming note, ringing with messages of optimism and new beginnings. Connor Pisano ’17, who played the crotchety, racist grandfather of the upper-class family, encapsulated the juxtapositions inherent in the piece.
“The original author wrote the play for a Broadway audience,” Pisano said. “People go to the theater for an uplifting message or some kind of hope. But [Ragtime] is too tragic for most of the show to have some kind of random happy ending.”
Indeed, there’s no denying that in all of its lavish charm, the musical was strategically marketed to a broad audience. The sweeping score and poignant performances of the Middlebury production are bound to linger in the minds of anyone who was lucky enough to experience this magnificent feat of artistry. And ultimately, whether or not the epilogue accurately reflects the nature of reality, Ragtime serves as not only a rich insight on America’s troubled past but also a meaningful outlook on the turbulence that has continued into modern times.
