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(11/13/13 7:09pm)
Last week in Oslo, Marius Holm of the ZERO Foundation presented a report that I co-wrote this summer along with a number of environmental and financial professionals making the case for fossil fuel divestment in Norway’s government pension fund, a portfolio so large that it dwarfs the size of all American university endowments combined. Many of the arguments were specific to Norway, which, as one of the largest producers of oil and gas in the world, is ill-advised to double down on its exposure to shifts within the fossil energy industry. As a fund that already has in place the type of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria for investment missing from Middlebury’s endowment, the debate in Norway is not over whether divestment is an appropriate tool for creating change, but rather how far that tool should be extended. While Middlebury would be well advised to lead the way by creating similar investment screens, even in the absence of concerns about endowment ethics the arguments for divestment in Norway can inform the ongoing debate on this campus.
Over the past six months, many market analysts have revised their predictions for future oil prices from around $110 per barrel to down into the $80 to $90 range. A number of factors are driving this downward trend — increased efficiency of automobiles, uncertainty over future regulations and a Chinese economy far more overleveraged than that of the United States prior to the financial crisis. All of these factors contribute to falling oil demand, which in a world of abundant oil supply means that prices must soon begin to fall.
At lower prices, many of the types of tar sands, ultra-deepwater and shale oil projects currently under development would fail to earn back their investment capital. Any regulatory action that limits carbon dioxide emissions will inevitably require some of these reserves — which have already been factored into the share value of oil companies — to remain in the ground. Expectations about reserves have a significant effect on the share price of fossil fuel companies. When Shell reduced its estimated reserves by 20 percent in January 2004, its share price plunged by 10 percent in a single week. These concerns recently led a large group of investors representing over $100 billion in assets managed by companies that include Boston Common Asset Management and Storebrand Asset Management to issue a call that Norwegian Oil Company Statoil withdraw from tar sands extraction.
World Financial Markets – and, by proxy, the Middlebury College Endowment – are being inflated by a looming Carbon bubble. If you accept that there is a scant one-in-four chance that the world will meet the IEA’s targets to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius, the expected value of the endowment’s position in fossil energy equities is already ten percent inflated. The loss of value if climate change is defeated would be forty percent, which would affect the College’s ability to pay employees, undergo capital projects and award financial aid to deserving students.
The College Administration and Trustees no doubt have faith that, as professional investment managers, Investure will be able to anticipate the shift in fossil energy share prices before they actually arrive. But that poses a significant risk to the endowment – a risk that we would do well to avoid. When financial markets adjust to reflect the changing reality of fossil fuel use, the adjustment will not be smooth or gradual. It will come suddenly and leave those too slow to act with heavy losses. For some of the market, it already has. After an energy speech by President Obama that pledged increased regulation of power plants and an end to international development aid for non-Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) coal plants, the shares of coal companies including Peabody Energy and Walter Energy took dives of 3.4 and 10.4 percent respectively, adding to a year in which Peabody Energy has lost half its value and Walter Energy has lost three quarters. The Stowe Global Coal index, which lists coal-producing companies, fell the same day to its lowest level since the 2009 financial crisis. Utilities across Europe have similarly plunged unexpectedly in response to competition from renewable energy.
To be bullish on the future of the fossil fuel industry is the rough equivalent of a bullish outlook on the nuclear industry sometime after the alarm bells went off at Three Mile Island or after the wave headed for Fukushima. It is comparable to a bet on CFC-producing companies sometime between the discovery of the massive hole in the Ozone layer and the ratification of the Montreal protocol, or a bet on fax machines after the invention of the Internet. Coal and oil powered the 19th and 20th centuries. Their glory days are past. To bet on their future is to bet either against the future of humanity or against the overwhelming judgment of science.
(11/13/13 6:54pm)
“I love Middlebury College because it is in Vermont: everything seems to work here, I feel like I’m far away from those sad things that we see in the news!” That was one of the first things I heard from a Middlebury student, back when I was applying to the College. Indeed, on a campus that abounds with rich food and intense academic opportunities, it is easy to generalize our reality and think our surroundings are the same way.
But I want to tell another story, one that could be compatible with “the sad things we see in the news” the student referred to — except it is happening only a few miles away from our end-of-history campus. This is the story of the Mexican migrant workers in Vermont.
Back in 1994, Mexico, Canada and the U.S. implemented a trade liberalization agreement named the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Mexico approved this treaty under the promises of expanded and globalized trade that would bring more foreign direct investment, and a greater number of high paying jobs, which would increase the standard of living in the country as a whole. After almost 20 years, we see that the reality is the opposite: while the standard of living grew within historical Mexican oligarchies, the country in total suffered from severe levels of unemployment and underemployment while millions of jobs were lost and many farmers went bankrupt as heavily subsidized American products flooded Mexican markets.
A 2008 report by Agence Global stated that every hour Mexico imported $1.5 million worth of food; in that same hour, 30 farmers migrated to the U.S. This phenomenon brought many of those farmers to the United States, some to places like Vermont.
Those who managed to get here, after a risky and dangerous border crossing, integrate into Vermont’s dairy farms’ workforce. Most of these workers are undocumented and typically work 60-80 hours per week enduring extreme isolation in Vermont’s rural areas. This situation leaves the migrant community in a vulnerable position in one of the whitest and most rural states in the U.S. Workers have reported being subject to racial profiling, highly precarious living and labor environments, and are overly dependent on employers to meet their basic needs.
Some of the Migrant Workers also report facing poor living and working conditions. They mention living in improvised, insect-infested shelters that once were barns. Others mention living in trailers overcrowded with other workers. And while most of them have developed solid working relationships with their employers, some workers report having gone months without getting paid for their labor.
Could the farmers not simply give better conditions to the workers? Ironically, some of the nasty effects of globalization have also hit Vermont’s dairy farmers.
“Globalized competition has led to unstable and oddly low prices. We have seen times when the price paid to a farmer for a gallon of the milk produced was $2 lower than the actual price of production,” said Clark Hinsdale III, President of the Vermont Farm Bureau.
Indeed, with fierce, and often times unfair, competition from businesses as far away as New Zealand, many local dairy farmers have been struggling to provide for their own families. Thus, it often becomes complicated to also provide good living conditions for their employees.
And here is where I believe the student with whom I spoke before coming to Middlebury was awfully wrong. In this globalized world, there is no way poverty, poor living conditions and other issues can be limited to the places “we see in the news.” These issues happen here, now, and they deserve our attention.
I believe this issue deserves Middlebury College students’ attention. How many times do we seek places abroad to work on high-impact community projects, while there are big issues just around the corner?
Fortunately, several people in Vermont (including Middlebury students) are starting to take notice of the 1,500 Migrant Farm Workers in the state and are getting involved in their communities. Through grassroots advocacy and the effort of many workers and volunteers, the state government just approved a law that allows the migrant population to get drivers licenses without providing full documentation that could be implemented as soon as next year. This is a big victory — one that may help remedy some of the problems these people face in accessing other regions.
However, there is a lot more that we can do. The Middlebury student-run organization JUNTOS approaches this issue on many different levels: under policy and advocacy, it seeks to influence Vermont policymaking towards harmonizing and stimulating fair relationships between the Migrant Workers community, employers and the state community as a whole.
JUNTOS also has the compañeros program, in which the students reach out to local migrant workers and start friendships with them, learning from them and helping whenever possible. This way the members involved learn how to better help the community. “Who better understands what they need than they themselves?” questions Guadalupe Daniela.
Want to get involved? Get in touch!
email: juntos@middlebury.edu
phone: (832) 889-5798
MARCOS BARROZO FILHO ’17 is from Uberlandia, Brazil
(11/07/13 10:53pm)
Snake Pit with Adeline Cleveland ’13.5 & Alan Sanders ’13.5
Middlebury Campus (MC): How did you form?
Addy: Both of us came together at the beginning of this semester. We’ve been friends for a while and we’ve each had different shows all four years. We’re in our last semester, and our former partners graduated last year, so we were just chatting one day and decided to do a story together.
MC: How did you come up with the name?
Alan: I came over to Addy’s house one day, and her friend from high school was there, and he works in a reptile house.
Addy: He makes snakes, like he alters different parts of their DNA.
Alan: It was a wild experience. And the next day we were supposed to fill out the application. So we came up with SnakePit.
MC: How would you describe the sound of your show?
Alan: We are a hip-hop show, but we also play a lot of new electronic and electronic-pop acts.
Addy: It’s not really a theme every show, but sometimes a common thread will appear as the show goes on and we kind of just go from there, depending on the flow of the show.
Alan: We try to play new music as much as possible – we play what came out each week.
MC: Three adjectives.
Alan: Slithery
Addy: Dangerous
Alan: Venomous
MC: Why should listeners tune in?
Addy: We generally play songs that flow well into each other so it’s nice to listen not only for one song, but the show is pretty coherent as a whole, and our banter is pretty on point. It’s intentional and informative. Alan is pretty knowledgeable and up-to-date on the artists and albums we’re playing, and I don’t know that stuff. So we’re not both talking at people, we’re both conversing.
Alan: It’s a good way for listeners to get to know new music and new artists. Also, our show is on a Thursday night, so people can listen when they’re in the library studying or in their dorm rooms, not studying. Eighty percent of our listeners are from town, not on campus. Our listeners vary between lots of different age groups.
MC: How do you broadcast to listeners across different age groups?
Addy: Making a conscious effort to not just have our conversation center around stuff that happens at the College. We definitely bring things that are happening on campus, but I think by keeping our conversation centered around current pop events and music, that’s easier to relate to than two students talking about Proctor dining hall.
Second Hand Groove Machine with Jebb Norton ‘13.5 and Eric Benepe ‘13.5
MC: How did you form?
Jebb: Destiny.
Erik: We went to the first meeting our second semester, and we had known each other before. We had very similar musical taste and decided to do a show together.
MC: How would you describe your musical style?
Erik: We do a different genre every week, we have different themes. Sometimes we’ll pick a genre, sometimes we’ll pick a period in musical history, sometimes we’ll play instrumental beats with different speeches we’ve gotten by famous people.
Jebb: We did a show for Shel Silverstein a month ago. We played a bunch of his poetry and songs that he wrote and stuff by his friends. We have fun with it.
Erik: Basically, we both listen to a lot of music and on our show we try to play things that we’re interested in and use it as a way to find out more about the music we like.
MC: Three adjectives.
Jebb: I’d say funky. More than most people would think of, I think funk music is about doing what you want to do, and we definitely bring the funk.
Erik: Goofy. We get kind of ridiculous sometimes. We’ve got a solid core of fans, but sometimes we get callers and we have no idea who they are.
Jebb: I like it because every week, we have a two hour period where we never do work. It’s just a period where we can listen to music and talk, or just think. It’s just a separate mind space from normal time at Middlebury.
MC: Do you think that vibe is communicated to your listeners?
Jebb: Yeah totally, I hope so. If we were doing homework, I think they would know. It would change, we wouldn’t be as engaged.
MC: Do you plan ahead?
Erik: We’ve gotten to a point where we don’t know how to plan that much. We know each other’s music style well enough and we have good chemistry. We sort of improvise what sounds good.
MC: Why should listeners tune in to your show?
Erik: Because we emphasize playing good music, and we don’t talk too much. When we do talk, we try to contribute things to teach people about the music.
Jebb: We don’t ask each other what we had for lunch, and then talk about it for fifteen minutes. People should listen to us because everyone needs an escape. And that’s what we give.
Rock in Rio with Fabiana Benediini ‘15 and Jess Parker ‘16
MC: What is Rock and Rio?
Benedini: So Rock in Rio is actually not a world show, it’s Brazilian music – Brazilian country and rock. Brazilian rock says a lot about Brazilian history so most of the bands complain about the government and how corrupt it is. There are a lot of songs about disillusionment and anger and those are really good. And Brazilian country is about Brazilian daily culture, so heartbreak, drinking a lot and women.
MC: How did the show start?
Benedini: Jess and I were having dinner at Proctor. She wants to learn Portuguese so I said okay, let’s have a show so you can practice by listening to music and you can talk in Portuguese. Her mom’s Brazilian and she wants to learn Portuguese so she knows a little bit and she’s taking Portuguese for Spanish speakers right now.
MC: Do you speak Portuguese on the air?
Benedini: We do speak in Portuguese to each other when she asks about the lyrics.
MC: Are the songs from growing up in Brazil or are they more modern?
Benedini: It’s hard to find modern songs but I can usually message my friends in Brazil and they can tell me what good music is going on right now. So I get input from Brazilians.
MC: When does the show air?
Benedini: It airs Wednesdays from 7 AM to 8 AM. It’s super early. It feels like it’s super early. It’s so fun to see Jess there and hang out with her. And it’s a good way to start our morning, especially because it’s music about heartbreak or anger – it’s hilarious.
MC: What you might hear:
Capital Inicial, “It is usually about corruption or disillusionment and it is rock.”
Ivete Sangalo, “It’s pump up music. It’s a style that is very typical of Brazil.”
MC: Any callers?
Benedini: Jess’s mom called once.
Almost Famous with Ben Goldberg ’14 and Maddie Dai ’14
MC: As the General Manger, what is your role at WRMC?
Goldberg: I kind of do a little bit of everything. I am learning as I go. The official description of my position is I’m the student president [of WRMC], I’m responsible for budget and the money side of things. We have a business director for that as well but I’m very much involved. I’m also a link between us and the administration, student activities and probably most significantly, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission). On a day-to-day basis, making sure everyone else is doing what they need to be doing. So, it’s a full time job.
MC: What would be your pitch to listen to WRMC?
Goldberg: It’s nothing like anything else you have on the air in Addison County – commercial free radio, tastefully picked music. We’re not catering to a certain audience, we’re not playing just top 40 hits.
Dai: There’s a lot of banter, there’s a joke a minute.
Goldberg: It’s nice to hear a range of student voices giving input. It’s a surprisingly personal experience to listen to someone’s show and what they’re up to and what they’re listening to.
Dai: If you’re driving a car, what else are you going to do?
Goldberg: All the shows are pretty different. We are predominately music, alternative music (whatever that means), but it’s at least diverse to some degree. We try to make it as diverse as possible but the fact that you’re listening to peers or even to someone you don’t know playing music they care about, have something to say about and want to share that with you, that’s a way to connect with other people. It’s so much more fulfilling than just putting on your iPod or putting on a CD when you have someone crafting a playlist for you.
MC: Almost Famous’ description says, “From boy bands to mental breakdowns.” What does that mean?
Dai: We go through all those iterations. One day we’ll be a boy band and the next we’ll have a mental breakdown. It’s actually our third show together and it’s been the evolution of us. We started in Oxford, we went abroad there.
Goldberg: Oxcide student radio.
Dai: There’s not many things Middlebury does better than Oxford but radio would be one of them. They have more Nobel prize winners in general but we have a good radio station. So we went there and then we had a show last semester called Zig-a-Zig-Ah which was a Nineties tribute show and now we do pop.
Goldberg: It was sort of a natural evolution. On our first show, Back to the Boombox, we would pick a different era of music but focusing on some sort of pop era, more or less.
Dai: We relive a lot of our childhood memories. But at a time when we were extremely awkward probably and it’s not necessarily overly sentimental, at an exciting time of middle school dances.
Goldberg: Maddie and I come from wildly different places but strangely enough we are able to connect through Nineties pop culture. That was the foundation of Zig-a-Zig-Ah and we didn’t want to have to be stuck playing just nineties music and the nineties music we were listening to for the most part was pop or some variation thereof. So now on Almost Famous we’ll do each week a different phenomenon in pop music.
Dai: Not to intellectualize it but it is interesting to look at pop as industrialized, very attuned to different cultural fads and movements and the movement from boy bands to girl bands.
Goldberg: We’re taking a stab at sociology.
Dai: Via Wikipedia.
Goldberg: Neither of us are trained sociologists. I still haven’t taken a sociology class but we can speak at length about Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake or Beyoncé and it’s nice because everyone who’s listening knows what we’re talking about.
MC: What are some typical songs or artists on Almost Famous?
Goldberg: Lately there’s been a lot of Lorde.
Dai: And also because I’m a New Zealander so I’m shamelessly promoting her.
Goldberg: And also her album is just objectively pretty good.
Dai: Britney is often the epicenter from which we like to compare other artists, in terms of her career that’s gone through so many evolutions, rising and falling, so there is some Britney but we talk about her more than we play her.
Goldberg: I don’t feel like there is a pattern in the artists we play but I guess as far as pop goes we play a lot of Beyoncé, Rihanna here and there, Justin Timberlake. Music we respect, whether as individuals we respect them or we respect their music.
Soul Food with Josh Swartz ’14.5 and Alia Khalil ’14.5
MC: Tell me about the formation of Soul Food.
Swartz: I spent part of the summer in New Orleans and inspired by the music culture down there and going to see live music down there and pretty much everyday thing that people do. That’s something that I loved. It’s also just the time of our show from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. when ppl are just finishing up classes, getting a burger at Proctor and getting ready for the weekend. It’s easy to listen to, puts you in a good mood, old and new. This is the first semester that SF has been in existence. Alia and I have a good rapport. We have a good time.
MC: Explain what Soul Food is.
Khalil: It’s two friends sharing their music with all their other friends. In every set, there’s definitely one song you can fit your taste to. We play a lot of different types of music, but even within the soul genre, there are older and recent songs.
Swartz: A big part of the show is us bantering about Halloween costumes and favorite animals, community events, and things that happen at Middlebury. Our last guest has a particularly good Norah Jones impression. Our conversation focuses on light-hearted fun things, like talking about Halloween or movies. The tone of our conversation is very upbeat and easy to listen to. It is something we’re conscious of: everything we do is geared toward a universal audience.
Khalil: Regardless of if you’re in Middlebury or not, you’re able to understand our conversations. A lot of radio shows have inside jokes, but that is not us.
MC: What does the music do to you?
Khalil: It energizes you. We always say it is music that feeds your soul so it’s not limited. Our generation doesn’t realize how versatile soul music can be which can include lyrical ballads or some songs with strong beats.
Swartz: One tradition is that we always end every show with the same song: “September” by Earth Wind and Fire. That song really legitimizes what our show is about. Everyone recognizes it; it’s a happy song. It used to make more sense because it used to be September. Now we just use it to feed people’s souls.
MC: What is the best show moment to go down in Soul Food history?
Swartz: We got a call from Vergennes, who I think calls in to WRMC a lot — so this might not have been that special — but he said, “Wow, I really loved the show” and was super supportive. I actually think that he is someone who calls in pretty frequently, but I like to pretend that he just called in our show.
Khalil: My favorite moment was when we introduced “September” for the first time and we were just kind of joking about autumn activities and announced that we were going to. Closes the show.
Swartz: From that moment, we could both feel it was the start of a very powerful tradition. It happened in our very first show; it happened so organically.
MC: What can you guarantee that your listener will hear when they tune into the show?
Khalil: You will hear Josh’s awesome radio voice, which a is a bit of an alter ego from his normal voice. He sounds like a radio DJ who plays soul music.
Swartz: We always talk about a concert that is happening or happened at Middlebury. We do talk about local music scenes. In our last show, we played Apenglow to promote that concert on Higher Ground on Sunday. There’s a local consciousness to our show. That’s being part of the Middlebury community and the Vermont community — that’s an important part of being a radio show.
Khalil: We both have different taste in music and we both complement each other in new bands we’ve heard of and introduce each other. Even in my own radio show, I’m always finding new songs.
The Campus Voice with Greta Neubauer ’14.5 and Ian Stewart ’14
MC: Explain to a 5th grader what the Campus Voice is.
Neubauer: The Campus Voice is a way to bring the work of the Middlebury Campus and its writers into broader dialogue with the members of the community who are commenters on the story written in the Campus. They relate to those issues and we make that vocal and in a dialogue, where people can interact beyond the pages.
MC: What is the difference between the dialogue on the Campus Voice and one with your friends?
Stewart: It seems in most conversations with your friends, you kind of try to get to an agreement on an issue. Whereas with the show, no one has to leave agreeing. Part of what we do is to try to tease out the distinct arguments that are being made at different sides of the issue. When you’re with your friends you’re less likely to push your friends that we can be with our host hats on.
Neubauer: The differences among people who go on the show are greater differences than those in our groups of friends. A lot of the friends that I have these conversations with — we all sort of have the same opinions about this issue. The Campus Voice brings the dialogue out of niches on campus.
MC: Why should someone who reads the newspaper want to tune into the show 4 days later?
Stewart: Issues are changing constantly on the campus. The dialogue is changing, new events are coming out, absurd emails are being sent out and are not being sent out and so the story, as with any story, evolves. This is a nice chance to check in a few days later. There’s not that pressure of the 500 or 600 words [in print]. Just tell the straight facts. Get your three quotes in. Tell it in this neat, closed story. Another thing is that it’s different to hear someone’s voice and to hear their pauses and their inflections and their emotions, their excitement. That’s something that no amount of adjectives and adverbs on print will be able to recreate. You’re taking out a layer and so you’re closer to the people and story than you might be with a story on the page.
Neubauer: I also think that we’re taking an issue that’s come up on campus and bringing it back to the broader conversation. Whether it’s homophobia on this campus or the topic of dialogue.
Kyle Finck: Also, moving forward the point is not only to read the news but to interact with the news, so in terms of submitting questions, getting them answered, whether it’s having Dean Collado on or a student provoked by Collado’s blog. This is about interacting with the news.
MC: What is the best moment captured on your show?
Stewart: The one I keep thinking about is when we did a show on spoken word artists and hip-hop rap artists on campus. To see their art on campus and the way they talked about it was almost seamless. I was so blown away by their articulateness in the Q&A part of the interview that I felt like it was an extension of the rhymes and language in their art.
Neubauer: That too was my favorite moment of the show. There was something really special about seeing the performance and the question. I always love when I go to an art museum and I want to hear the whole description of the painting on an audio guide or docent and so I really like to hear interpretation. That was cool to hear them in spoken terms give us that description. Similarly, talking about the interpretation of Chance’s lyrics. I come to a different place on the issue having engaged with people who talking about it a lot.
Stewart: The idea that you can change our opinion in a conversation in the same way it had naturally is unique to the radio. You’re just selecting snapshots in newspaper — that’s what is going to represent what you felt at that moment and that’s valuable, but we have the chance to change someone’s mind over the course of the show and see the evolution the same way it happens to us sitting there and listening.
MC: What’s one thing you can promise listener in every show?
Stewart: Almost everytime when someone says something, they were sincere about it. You will hear a true sincere moment that is not a sound byte. It’s something they thought about or believed.
Neubauer: You think you understand Middlebury, you talk in classes but it’s not the same as hearing people’s perspectives. It’s surprising. I have this idea that I understand Middlebury and its student body, and it’s not true.
(11/06/13 11:13pm)
Old Chapel released a comprehensive report of student policy violations via a new webpage on the College’s site unveiled Monday, Nov. 4. The page details incidents and consequences of student conduct violations and disciplinary actions since 2007, and its release marks a new commitment to transparency in the College’s judicial affairs process.
While the administration has released limited information surrounding judicial affairs in the past, the new reporting system entails a much more transparent and detailed annual report available to all students, faculty and staff on the full range of student conduct violations and subsequent disciplinary actions.
Last year’s report included 447 reported policy violations that resulted in some form of official sanctions during the 2012-2013 academic year. Of these violations, 105 were alcohol citations, and 27 constituted cheating, plagiarizing or some other form of academic dishonesty. The report also included five incidents of sexual misconduct, three of which were met with sanctions by the Sexual Misconduct Review Panel.
Compared with national statistics of incidents of sexual assault on college campus, the number of incidents that received sanctions at the College last year is relatively low.
“[National] statistics indicate that one in 36 college women are sexually assaulted within any seven month period,” Ian Thomas ’13.5, student co-chair of the Academic Judicial Board, said. “Applying that math to Middlebury, that works out to be approximately 34 sexual assaults per one academic year. Looking at last year’s numbers, there were five reported instances of sexual misconduct. I do believe that sexual misconduct is under-reported on our campus, and everything must be done to counteract that. If survivors see that their school has an effective judicial process for them, then perhaps they would be more likely to report what happened.”
Dean of the College Shirley Collado said in an all-school email on Nov. 4 that it is disheartening to not live up to community expectations.
“Only by being honest with ourselves about where we struggle, as individuals and as a community, can we chart an effective course for progress,” she said.
The report found that alcohol played a key role in the majority of policy violations resulting in sanctions. While many alcohol citations are met with a warning, alcohol played a key role in more severe cases of policy violations and discipline: 67 percent of violations that resulted in expulsion involved alcohol.
“I don’t think it would surprise anybody in the country familiar with alcohol use on college campuses to find that policy violations are often, though not always, tied to alcohol use,” said Katy Smith Abbott, dean of students and co-chair of the Task Force on Alcohol and Social Life. “But I think the thing that’s hard about alcohol, to be honest, and one of the things that’s so discouraging, is that when you are working with students who have violated college policy at a level such that they are looking at a CJB [Community Judicial Board] hearing, or are staring down the possibility of official college discipline, or suspension, or expulsion — most of the time, had the student been sober, they never would have acted in such a way that would leave them facing that kind of disciplinary action.”
Smith added that the students who receive such disciplinary action rarely think that they would have been the ones to be in their positions.
“They think they have control over their drinking, but they actually don’t always have the ability to determine what their actions are or control their impulses,” she said. “And that’s part of what is difficult to address about this problem.”
Associate Dean for Judicial Affairs and Student Life Karen Guttentag said that the increased transparency was meant to educate students on all parts of the judicial affairs system.
“Our goal is not only to educate the community about conduct outcomes, but about the disciplinary system itself,” she said. “It’s important for students to understand the guiding philosophy we bring to conduct concerns, the various systems we have that address them and the range of outcomes that can result.”
Thomas said that the release of the data is an important step forward.
“I am very pleased to see these reports,” he said. “The previous method of posting judicial outcomes left much to be desired. These reports are an important part of the judicial process’s transparency, and they reinforce the Judicial Board’s accountability to the community.”
(11/06/13 10:57pm)
At first the decision looks simple — Middlebury’s town offices are outdated and something needs to be done. Renovation? Relocation? As it turns out, the problem is not so simple, nor is the solution.
The town offices are currently located across the street from Alexander Twilight Hall and are, essentially, the burned-out remains of the old high school, which raises many complications.
One problem is that the building is drafty and drains money in the winter as the heat seeps through the windows and walls and into the icy Vermont air. A second problem is that the building isn’t entirely wheelchair accessible. There is an elevator but it is faulty and unreliable.
In 2011, the town of Middlebury hired Vermont Integrated Architecture (VIA) to conduct a study estimating how much it would cost to replace the current Town Hall structures. VIA came back with estimates and proposals that ranged in cost from $6 million to $10 million — a high price to pay, especially because it would require the support of a bond and an increase in local property taxes.
Even though the proposed projects were expensive and the funds were not there, leaving the town offices as they are isn’t viewed as a feasible option because of their serious disrepair. Therefore, the town of Middlebury started talking to the College to find a mutually beneficial plan.
After discussing the situation, the current plan stands as such: the town and the College would do a land swap. The new municipal buildings, which would include offices and a recreation center, would be built on a piece of land currently owned by the College, near Mary Hogan Elementary School.
The College would then be given ownership of the strip of land on which the town offices are currently located, demolish the building and create a park — incidentally opening up a sweeping vista of the College that is otherwise obstructed by the current buildings.
Chairman of the Town Center Steering Committee Selectman Victor Nuovo along with Selectboard Chairman Dean George initially requested funding from the College. A press release issued this past June on behalf of the College announced the College’s intent to fund the request.
“We are committed to the view that what is good for the town is good for the college and vice versa,” President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz said.
While the College agreed to assist in this project should it be approved by the steering committee, not all involved share in this exclusively positive response. Some concerns were raised at a public hearing in Middlebury in July, during which more than a dozen local residents introduced worries about handing more land over to the College, as well as the lack of parking that would exist at the new town center.
The most specific-to-date plans, with a totaled budget of $6.5 million, were presented at an ID-4 school board meeting on Oct. 16, as well as at a public gathering on Oct. 17 at the municipal gym.
Attendees expressed many concerns, several of which related to parking space issues. Jason Duquette-Hoffman, an ID-4 board member, spoke out against some reassurance from organizers that there are around 30 spaces available when the recreation center is being used as it currently stands.
“Thirty spaces is your traffic management plan? I’m sorry, I don’t find that convincing, and I don’t think that’s a very thoughtful approach to this plan,” said Duquette-Hoffman.
Others expressed similar concerns, many of which shared the common thread that the plans were not fleshed out well enough. As a result of the many concerns raised with the proposed plan, the steering committee strongly recommended that the town postpone voting on the proposal from December to March.
Their justification was that further time is needed for the projects to be more clearly explained and delivered to community members. Such a delay, however, has the potential to raise expenditures by $350,000.
The Middlebury select board met on Tuesday, Nov. 5 and revisited the proposed project. Look for follow-up coverage in next week’s issue.
ILANA GRATCH contributed to this report.
(11/06/13 8:31pm)
During one of my first weeks in college, I did what every self-respecting Middlebury freshman did: I signed up for every and any club I thought I might find even remotely interesting. Although I naturally cut most of the clubs off my list, one standout was Socially Responsible Investing Club.
The club looks to invest Middlebury’s endowment in more sustainable companies — not just for idealistic reasons but because the SRI argues it is more financially stable as well as socially responsible. One subgroup of the club concerns itself with ESG criteria, that is, the Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria that would classify a company as sustainable. Since Middlebury College has recently pledged to substantially increase the part of its endowment that is invested sustainably, the dominant question at SRI meetings has become: what does it mean for a company to be sustainable and whom can we invest in? ESG criteria seek to define this question more concretely.
At Middlebury, it seems everyone wants to see our investments line up with our values. But, judging on how difficult fossil fuel divestment appears to be for the administration, it is unlikely that Middlebury, a business itself which needs to turn a profit, can pull out industry by industry according to what we deem in-line with our values. ESG criteria can be a practical tool for our investors to use as they assess future investments not only their sustainability, but also their profitability. The SRI will be conducting a survey this week to ask students which of the ESG criteria they value most highly in Middlebury’s investments so that future investments can be more in-line with community values.
The first criterion is environmental. Many people think that while being environmentally conscious is a positive, it does not actually affect a business directly. Often, however, environmentally conscious companies employ business strategies that will be more effective in a long-term perspective.
In order to understand how environmental factors affect businesses, I have used two principles we have been studying in my Intro to Macroeconomics class. The first is that to most companies pollution is an externality, and, although pollution is an inefficiency (in that it damages the environment thus spoiling resources), it may not affect the company directly so the company has no reason to factor it in to their operations. Governments, however, can internalize pollution by implementing carbon taxes, environmental regulations, and fines for excessive pollution. As governments begin to employ these tactics, environmental sustainability starts to have a direct impact on profits.
The second principle is that markets are directly affected by expectations and opinions. With more public awareness of global warming in social media, and journalists calling out companies left and right for negative environmental impacts, businesses’ environmental performance is already directly affecting their profits. In an article written by Dinah Koehler in the Deloitte Review, she asserts that negative environmental news concerning any given company has resulted in an average of a 1.12 percent decline in stock returns over the past decade, whereas positive environmental news has resulted in an average 0.84 percent increase.
Because they are easier to quantify, environmental factors are often the main focus of ESG. However, Social and Governance issues also have profound impacts. The social element consists of equal rights employment and human rights issues. In her article, Koehler also claims that human rights issues in the form of boycotts, protests, or simply a bad public reputation “have triggered an average $892 million drop in market value.” While non-publicized social practices cannot be directly linked to profit, for Middlebury’s purposes it is still important. Middlebury markets itself as a forward-thinking, environmentally aware, international school; for it to invest without consideration of the effect its money is having on the world would be hypocritical.
Governance has also proven to be correlated with good financial results. Treating workers well with preventative safety measures and quality management can lead to better crisis control and publicity, both of which leading to more reliable profits. A more stable company is less likely to go under after a crisis, making it a safer investment.
Middlebury cannot just leave its money sitting around. It is a business, and, like any business, it must invest its endowment so that it can earn money and continue to operate. That is why ESG is such an ideal tool for Middlebury investors to use. It provides the opportunity to assess sustainable and profitable investments that are also in-line with our community values. The survey will play the critical role of letting the administration know where students stand. It can be found at the go/ESGsurvey.
EDWARD O’BRIEN ’17 is from Lincoln, M.A.
(11/06/13 8:17pm)
In a classroom packed with people sitting on the windowsills, students, faculty and administrators gathered on Monday to engage in an honest dialogue unpacking the controversy surrounding Chance the Rapper’s performance Saturday night.
This discussion, which has dominated campus debate for the past few weeks, provided a space to voice many issues we face here, from racism and homophobia to censorship and the administration’s role. These concerns were broader than just the presence of Chance the Rapper. They reflected building frustration on a myriad of events that have occurred since the beginning of the school year and throughout people’s time at Middlebury.
For the dozen Campus editors who attended the forum provided an opportunity to listen and reflect as others spoke of their experiences and concerns that proved invaluable in broadening our understanding of the different social issues at play. Nevertheless, many of the people in the room were the usual crowd, the people who have these conversations time and time again. This trend in such spaces leads students to feel like they are trapped in a silo. Their opinions circle around, but never leave a confined space.
A good turnout to this forum still left the majority of voices unheard and ears untouched. This absence shows a need on campus for deeper listening. Part of the value of the liberal arts education, and a point emphasized heavily on Monday, is the need to confront discomfort. Discussions of privilege are particularly challenging, and we must push ourselves to embrace that discomfort and think deeply about what our fellow classmates are saying.
Even within the dialogue, people sometimes failed to truly listen, constantly focusing on their own feelings on the issue without responding to the points of others. Because the tension on these issues has been building for so long, people rushed to assert their ideas without full critical engagement with others. Provocative questions were posed only to be greeted by, “this is unrelated to that point, but…”
A truly productive dialogue necessitates thought and weighted response. We must hear out the opinions of others, for they are deeply routed in their experiences and identities. This is the responsibility not only of the students present at the forum, but also the students who were not able to attend. Though we are unable to do full justice to the diverse range of opinions expressed, some key questions arose that could help open the silo:
How do we listen to and support students of marginalized identities without placing undue burden on them to represent the minority? How can students in positions of privilege support marginalized students without tokenizing them?
How do we work towards a community where students of all identities feel safe? How do we support students struggling with multiple marginalized identities who often feel conflicted in discussions like this forum?
Where can we embrace the intersection of different identities to build a cohesive and inclusive campus?
What is the difference between our community standards and our standards as individuals?
Why did this conversation spark when a black male rapper came to campus, while we stay quiet when other speakers or performers whose words threaten members of our community come? Why do we use racially loaded language when describing the debate about Chance and how can we acknowledge and combat this?
What makes some art free from censorship, even when it includes offensive material, while rap sparks outrage? What role does the social acceptability of certain art forms play in this?
How does the administration react to controversy on campus? Why was the 9/11 incident so strongly condemned by President Liebowitz while the threatening homophobic note saw delayed action? What is the administration’s role in fostering the proactive dialogue necessary to move the campus forward?
If you don’t know that these questions are being asked, then you are out of touch with the issues that are relevant to our college at the moment. If you don’t care about any of these questions, you don’t care about Middlebury. It is your responsibility as a member of this community to listen deeply and think critically to the voices of others on this campus. It is easy to hear but not listen, letting the words of others flow in one ear and out the other as you think of what to say next. Actively listening to what someone says is hard takes practice.
But this kind of listening is the first step towards building a safe community where people are not afraid to be fully and unabashedly who they are. And while this listening is critical, just listening is not enough. We cannot just pat ourselves on the back for having attended a forum and for planning to attend the next one. We must spur this engagement into action. It is easy to push responsibility for such tasks onto groups like Queers and Allies (Q&A) or the African-American Alliance (AAA), but the majority identities have a duty to respect and protect other members of this community. Do away with the phrase “that’s not my issue” and realize that none of us are truly safe until every marginalized group feels their views are listened to and respected.
We as an editorial board have tried vigorously to make our editorials this year solution-based. Complaining about an issue is no use to our community if we can’t provide viable alternatives or recommendations for change. But there is no easy answer or quick fix to making marginalized groups feel safe here. Chance did not create these issues, and they didn’t leave on his tour bus. It’s time to push back the comforts of privilege and actively listen to the concerns of our peers.
(11/06/13 8:08pm)
13 miles of sidewalk. Over 300 acres. Even for a 14-year Landscape Services veteran like John Quelch, these numbers are daunting. Nevertheless, Quelch has an eye for detail when mowing and holds his team to a high standard.
“Maybe it would surprise [students] if they saw what we didn’t do or if they saw someone who didn’t care how it looked,” said Quelch. “For me in particular, no matter what it is, I look for the end result – what it looks like when you’re done. When you start off, it’s not pretty, but you chug away and get it done.”
Landscape Services Supervisor Clinton Snyder pulls out a map of campus full of little Sharpie markings that divide the campus like a battlefield; a commander keeping track of troops on the battlefield. “We have an average of 12 to 18 guys working in landscaping and it’s broken up into three groups,” said Snyder.
North, Central and Athletic are the three zones in which Landscaping operates.North encompasses everything from College Street toward Bicentennial Hall, Central covers the areas around Old Chapel and Athletic demarcates the athletic fields to the south. Quelch is the crew chief in charge of Central and is responsible for 5 or 6 staff members who run the landscaping from Old Chapel to the CFA.
“He makes sure everything is looking good,” Snyder said. “This is a high-profile area of the College and he works with his guys making sure everything is mowed and it looks primo.”
The mowing happens on a schedule. “The North crew mows on Monday and Tuesday, and we mow Central on Wednesday and Thursday,” said Quelch. “Usually it takes us a little over a day and a half to mow our section and then we have to string trim it, all around the trees and any objects that you can’t get to with a mower. That’s quite a bit of work just doing that. In the summer it’s pretty much mowing and weed whacking.”
The team has a Toro lawnmower with wings on it that drop down and can mow 10 to 12 feet on either side which they use to mow large fields and open areas. As the weather turns colder, Landscaping has been preparing for the first snowfall with an eye to keeping the exits of buildings free from snow.
“We were working on it yesterday. We have to distribute shovels to every building and the custodians,” said Quelch. “The custodians will sometimes take care of the front and they’ll just shovel 6 or 7 feet out for us just to help out because we’re sometimes short-handed in that department.”
Landscaping also has to work with the Facilities auto shop to prepare the tractors and trucks for moving snow.
“We have plow trucks that we are responsible for maintaining and guys out in plow trucks. Then we have tractors to do all the sidewalks and the larger equipment (the backhoe and the payloader) doing the parking lots and removing the snow,” said Snyder. “They just started doing it now, right into Thanksgiving, getting every piece of equipment ready so when the snow falls, we’re ready with the trucks, the tractors and the snow blowers. This is the rotation we start now – taking out winter stuff and putting away the summer stuff.”
Once heavy snow begins falling, the real work begins.
“Bicentennial Hall has to be shoveled on the roof – the entire top,” continued Snyder. “We have 200 plus buildings and over 300 acres that we’re taking care of, so every building has an entrance and an exit, everything has to be shoveled, usually six feet wide out to a walk or out to a drive.” The wear and tear on machines and tools is evident after only a few years. “Brand new shovels get worn right down,” added Snyder.
Quelch also has his share of snowstorm horror stories.
“We had a really big storm on Valentine’s day 7 or 8 years ago,” said Quelch. “It was brutal; lots and lots of snow. I called up here and told people if they didn’t have to travel not to do it,” said Quelch. “People stayed here that night and the College paid for however many hours you worked in that storm, they gave you double your hours. They had cots out for people to stay in.”
On the Gator, Quelch does hesitate to do some clean up at a moment’s notice.
“I’m going to pick up this branch while I’m here,” said Quelch, stopping the vehicle to grab a large branch that had fallen down in from of the Emma Willard House. Right now, however, the main target is fallen leaves.
“We have a lot of leaves and a lot of them are still on the trees now. Oaks always hold them,” Quelch said. “We are constantly after leaves, as long as we can do it before the snow hits.”
All the leaves are collected via vacuum devices that are attached to either a box on a Gator or a separate truck.
“We have a leaf vacuum – a vacuum that goes in a straight shot and sucks them up,” Quelch said. “And then we have another one that we are experimenting with this year. The auto shop people built a box on the back of it. It has an engine on it and it has knives and it chops the leaves up and blows them into the box on the back of a Gator.”
“They also like to mulch as much as they can with the mowers,” said Snyder, a tactic used to get as much organic matter as possible back into the ground. “But at some point they have to stop doing it because you get so many leaves you’re basically just plowing because there are so many leaves so they need to start picking it up.”
The leaves are first brought to the Facilities services building but eventually they go to a site off of the TAM which Landscaping calls the ‘stump dump’. Quelch pointed out this site while on the Gator, where Landscaping keeps gravel, brush, woodchips, and manure from the Morgan Horse Farm. Leaves are piled next to the manure and food compost from the dining halls is mixed in. “We turn that into topsoil so we have fresh topsoil,” said Snyder.
A little-known part of Landscaping’s duties are R-25 forms, a variation of a work order which lists events all over the College that require the department’s attention.
“It’s our responsibility to read that and see what is going on each day,” said Snyder. “It says in each event to see if it’s something we need to do. It could be as little as getting garbage cans out there or roping something off.”
Landscaping also takes care of the brunt of Monday morning’s trash pickup.
“I get sick of that but to keep it looking nice it’s got to be done because there’s always beer cans, broken glass, napkins. We start our day out Monday morning with campus pickup,” said Quelch. “Usually it takes about 2 hours with 4 people.
“We’ll get a call like, ‘At FIC there’s broken glass across the whole parking lot.’ You have to stop what you’re doing and take care of it,” said Snyder. “They stood by that parking lot and drank and every time they drank a bottle they threw it. By the end of the night there was broken glass across the whole parking lot.”
The ridgeline houses and the mods are reportedly the worst spots for garbage in the campus. Despite incidents like this, Quelch is nonplussed.
“It is our job, but sometimes it’s frustrating if you go down there three or four times, but it’s in our job description,” said Quelch. “Most of them are very respectful like when we are cleaning off a sidewalk. A lot of students come by and say thank you. That’s pretty nice to hear that they appreciate what you are doing for them.”
The importance of being alert is obvious on a Gator. While driving the Gator around campus on Friday, Quelch made a point to veer off whenever pedestrians were near, an unspoken rule of landscaping.
“When we are mowing and students come by we idle down, shut our blades off, and let them come by,” said Quelch. Quelch also said his crew is mindful of keeping the noise down around lecture halls and other classrooms.
Quelch grew up in Vermont and started work at 12 years old as a butcher and meat cutter. “That’s pretty much what I’ve done for most of my life until I cam here,” said Quelch.
“You learn a lot about blood and guts, that’s for sure. But I can do the whole job.”
Quelch pulls up at 468 McKinley, a College house near the athletics center and points to a group of three facilities crew members. The three all wear the backpack-style leafblowers and use them to drive leaves into a pile, fighting gusts of wind.
“We definitely play the wind and we couldn’t really suck the leaves up today because they don’t suck up when they’re wet and it clogs a lot,” said Quelch, referencing a rainy morning.
Despite the monotony of mowing, Quelch says he enjoys his work.
“Mowing up the leaves and chopping them up with the smell of the fresh air is awesome,” said Quelch.
(10/31/13 12:18am)
An unusually high number of students at the College have decided to take a voluntary leave of absence this semester, leaving administrators with more questions than answers about the significant change.
59 sophomores, juniors and seniors are currently taking a voluntary leave of absence. The number does not include students who declared a leave of absence after the start of the fall semester for medical, family-related or other personal reasons. The data, compiled by the five Commons Deans, notes the reason for a student’s leave of absence, but does not display any noticeable trend in terms of reasons or motivations for taking time off.
“There is no pattern, and that’s what’s so interesting,” said Dean of Students Katy Smith Abbott, who has been working with Commons Deans and fellow administrators to analyze the data. “We thought we might see a lot of students citing academic stress, needing time away, or financial pressures, or needing to work. I don’t know what we thought we’d see exactly, but we thought we’d seem more of a trend and it’s really all over the place.”
While the specific information about voluntary leaves of absence is confidential under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Smith Abbott cited training with an Olympic team, extending a study abroad program, international students spending time with family in a home country, medical withdrawal for surgery and working on a farm in an unusual location as among the reasons why students have chosen to take time off.
The administration believes that further investigation into the spike is necessary for a better understanding of the change. The majority of instances of students taking time off, however, can be divided into two groups: a need for personal recuperation due to academic pressures, and a desire to pursue opportunities related to post-graduate plans.
Both President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz and Dean of the College Shirley Collado cited burnout as possibly influencing the spike.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if, in some ways, what we’re seeing is a reaction to how difficult it is to get here,” Liebowitz said. “Another thing is that we’d like to look into what the reasons are. Is the workload excessive? Is the atmosphere in some way not what students thought? We want to be open-minded about what the causes are.”
After taking a leave of absence last spring to work in Burlington, Lucy Whipps, admitted to the class of 2014, decided to extend her leave of absence into the fall semester.
“I needed a break to get my bearings about what I’m doing in college in the first place, and I was feeling less and less like Middlebury is a place where I want to be in general,” Whipps said, noting that she is unsure whether she will re-enroll in February.
While Smith Abbott acknowledged that academic pressure can contribute to a student’s decision to take time off, she cited the College’s recent emphasis on experiential learning and entrepreneurship through programs such as MiddCORE and the Center for Social Entrepreneurship as additional influencing factors.
“As our language as an institution becomes more about student innovation, students charting their own course and developing ways of mapping their education [in a way] that really resonates with them and supports who they want to become … is there something about that ethos that we’re creating at Middlebury that means we’re going to see more of this?” Smith Abbott mused, citing the unlikelihood of a school adhering to a more traditional definition of the liberal arts as experiencing a similar spike.
Collado echoed Smith Abbott’s feelings, citing students’ diverse ideas and desires as pushing them to explore relevant work and life experiences before returning to the College.
“The thing about college is that you’re kind of just going along this course and trying to figure things out, and sometimes students need space to figure things out,” Collado said. “I see that as a life skill.”
Unresolved medical issues led Madie Hubbell ’14.5 to take a leave of absence in the middle of her Junior fall semester, and while she wasn’t initially planning to take time off, she has returned to campus with a different outlook on her college experience.
“Coming here, I actually think I have learned more about myself ... than I have academically. The environment at Middlebury is like nothing else I have ever experienced. It’s intense academically, socially and athletically, and it’s filled with really intense people,” Hubbell wrote in an email, adding that time off allowed her to realize that “there is life outside of college, and while school is important, so is your health and your well-being.”
Smith Abbott went so far as to call the sudden spike a “new version of the gap year,” allowing students to take the time to enrich their college experience, take ownership of their education and chart new territory with once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.
“I think Middlebury is a place that encourages students to think creatively and expansively about how they’re putting their education together, and I think we’re just starting to get better at that,” Smith Abbott said, citing the College as being especially encouraging and accommodating in such situations.
Lander Karath ’14.5 took a leave of absence during the fall semester of his Junior year to work on the Obama presidential campaign, but his decision was not without hesitation and a fear of missing out on life at the College.
“I had felt extremely bogged down with academia in my first two years here and I was craving hands-on, practical experience,” Karath said. “The campaign work provided that for me and more. Even though I had moved from one high-stress environment to another, I felt like I was doing something that enriched my life, which was a feeling I never had at Middlebury,” adding that the campaign led him to realize the career path he wants to pursue.
The College’s openness with regard to individualized experience is reflected in the Feb program and rising number of admitted first-years taking gap years.
“We have an entire Feb class, we have the term super senior, which students use affectionately and with pride,” Collado said. “It’s something you don’t usually see at top liberal arts colleges. Usually there’s a pathology associated with taking extra time, taking a semester off or starting college late. But for us, it’s something that we generally celebrate. I’m proud of the fact that we have the room, and even a language and a culture, around people coming in later.”
A student’s decision to take a leave of absence is collaborative and requires meetings with the student’s Commons Dean and academic advisor, along with family members. However, there exist possible negative implications of taking a voluntary leave of absence, particularly regarding financial aid.
If a student who has been granted aid takes a voluntary leave of absence, he or she remains entitled to eight semesters of aid. Problems arise, however, if a student takes more than eight semesters to graduate or if the decision to withdraw is made after the official start of the semester. In such situations, students must petition the College for a ninth semester of financial aid approval, as outlined in the Student Handbook. Financial aid is very rarely granted to a student for more than nine semesters.
With regard to a student’s ninth semester, however, Director of Financial Aid Operations Michael McLaughlin said that, upon being approved, the College will meet 100 percent of a students’ demonstrated need.
Smith Abbott, who views the voluntary leave of absence spike in a mostly favorable light, noted that if this semester’s spike continues and becomes a noticeable trend, the College will need to change planning for housing, enrollment and other facets of student and academic life.
“I think we can manage it and I think understanding it is important, but that’s going to be a matter of looking at the numbers over a number of years,” she said.
(10/30/13 10:54pm)
At the age of 20, most people are still thinking about what they want to do when they “grow up.” This is not the case with up-and-coming musician Chancelor Bennett, who is by no definition ‘most people.’ Better known by his stage name Chance the Rapper, the Chicago born hip-hop artist is riding his growing momentum on The Social Experiment Tour, which stops at the College on Nov. 2.
But the concert created as much controversy as excitement, centering around an initial lack of tickets and an ongoing uproar over perceived misogyny and homophobia in his lyrics. In response, the administration asked Chance not to sing the controversial lyric “slap-happy faggot slapper” of "Favorite Song" or use any homophobic terms during his entire performance. According to Dean of the College Shirley Collado, Chance agreed to these terms.
Releasing his first mixtape, 10 Day, after a ten day suspension during his senior year of high school, Chance soon garnered 80,000 downloads and the attention of Forbes magazine, which featured 10 Day in their ‘Cheap Tunes’ column. This growing recognition landed Chance a spot opening for fellow rapper Childish Gambino on tour, and spurred further collaborations with rappers Hoodie Allen and Joey Bada$$. Acid Rap, Chance’s second mixtape released in April of this year, has already achieved 250,000 downloads and catapulted the rapper into wider national recognition. Featuring other artists such as Twista, Vic Mensa and Action Bronson, Acid Rap received critical acclaim and a BET Hip Hop Award nomination for best mixtape, landing him a spot on the famous Lollapalooza festival.
Will Brennan ’16 grew up in Chicago and attended school just a few train stops away from Chance’s school, Jones College Prep, learning of the rapper’s huge ambitions through mutual musical friends.
“He and other rappers on the Save Money label like Vic Mensa were making singles and dropping mixtapes left and right,” Brennan said. “But when I left Chicago I had no idea that Chance would make it as big as he has in recent months.”
The Middlebury College Activities Board, or MCAB, chose the fall concert because of demonstrated student interest in more rap and hip-hop and Chance’s up-and-coming potential, according to MCAB President Elizabeth Fouhey. Chance’s music was relatively well known on campus before his appearance was announced, discovered through the internet or on WRMC. Will Brennan started playing Chance on his own WRMC show because of the home connection, but became a much bigger fan after the release of Acid Rap.
“His jazz harmonies and electronic beats made a really interesting combination that I had never heard before,” Brennan said. “I didn't know what to think of his squawkish noises at first, but I realized it was a part of his playful nature as a musician. I think Chance makes music that is ultimately true to himself and more importantly true to the environment in which he surrounds himself in Chicago.”
Brennan was not the only student impressed by Chance’s distinctive sound. Adam Benay ’13.5 is a huge fan of Chance, listening to Acid Rap every day this past summer.
“I was getting so into him,” Benay said. “I heard a rumor the first or second day of school that he would be coming, and I was thrilled. Kid Cudi came my first semester and this was a nice capstone.”
When MCAB announced Chance the Rapper as the fall concert, needless to say, many people on campus were extremely excited. In an all-student email on Sep. 23, MCAB revealed the Nov. 2 concert date, announcing “Tickets on sale soon,” and directing people to look to Twitter and Facebook for more information. MCAB decided to advertise the event solely through their Facebook page and on the Middlebury Box office website, leaving many students without tickets. Late in the day on Oct. 14, the campus buzzed with news that the tickets to the concert had sold out, leaving many scrambling and willing to pay well above the $12 ticket charge to obtain a highly sought after ticket.
Fouhey explained that the organization decided how to advertise the event at MCAB executive board meetings, brainstorming for electronic advertising alternatives to the all-student email, which has in recent years experienced a push for limited use.
“MCAB made an online status which was shared by dozens of students on MCAB in the hopes that it would reach all corners of campus,” Fouhey said. “We thought that with the excitement on campus and word of mouth, the ticket release information would spread throughout the student body. Our standard procedure is to release the tickets and then do an advertising push once they have been put on sale.”
Benay, who had not ‘liked’ MCAB on Facebook, was one of the students shocked to discover that he had missed his opportunity to purchase a ticket.
“There was a huge portion of people who fell through the cracks,” Benay said. “I found person after person who said ‘What are you talking about? When did the tickets go on sale?’”
Due to uncertainties regarding the Memorial Field House construction, MCAB booked the concert in the McCullough Social Space, which only allowed for 600 tickets to be sold. In addition, the event was limited to students only and each ID holder could only purchase two tickets.
Many students may not be aware of the multi-step process involved in bringing an artist to Middlebury, including the important role of a middle agent to assist in communicating with MCAB which artists fit the desired genre, dates and price range. According to Associate Dean of Students JJ Boggs, bringing a desirable artist to rural Vermont for the right price is no easy task, and the MCAB committee decides which of the suggested acts fits the College.
“[MCAB has] a challenging job, and they have been criticized in the past for hosting unpopular shows,” Boggs said. “They are simultaneously trying to meet student interest, manage their budget responsibly, offer a variety of programming, and at the same time, consider ‘what might the social ramifications be for Middlebury College?’”
The problem with MCAB’s marketing strategy, according to many students, is that not every student is on Facebook, and even those who are may not check their accounts on a regular basis. At the time of the sale, MCAB had a little over 1,100 followers in a student body of 2,500, many of which were alumni. The organization had previously used posters and emails to advertise concerts and many criticized the decision to publicize through social media accounts that students had to join and actively use to be notified.
Fouhey acknowledged that the ticket release issue is a learning experience for MCAB and that the organization never meant to cause the dissatisfaction resulting from the social media marketing idea.
“We understand the frustrations of students about ticket sales,” she said. “It was never our intention to limit or restrict who would know about the ticket release information. We fully acknowledge that we could have done a better job navigating this ticket release. We will certainly learn from this mistake, and in the future we will look to broader methods of communication.”
Boggs reacted to an impassioned letter from Benay, first published on middbeat, and other general student concerns over the way the ticket sales were handled, quickly taking action. On Friday, Oct. 25, Boggs sent out an all-student email announcing that the College was able to secure Nelson Arena, and that more tickets would be made available for purchase soon due to the larger venue. The move to Nelson was motivated by safety concerns, as administrators realized that McCullough did not have the capacity for the crowd or the extensive set and entourage that travels with Chance.
“The real hero of this story is JJ Boggs,” said Benay, pleased with this outcome. “People are reasonable here and it’s very reassuring to know that things can get done.”
Lyric Controversy
In the email, Boggs also referenced student concerns expressed over the perceived misogynistic and homophobic language in Chance the Rapper’s lyrics. But for students like Luke Carroll Brown ’14, Co-Chair of the Community Council, limiting the lyrics and song choice was not enough.
“I think we can all agree that violent homophobia and misogyny are clearly out of bounds and have no place on this campus,” Brown said. “Multiple songs on Acid Rap depict actions that are in clear violation of our community standards, a reality that should prohibit Chance's presence on campus. This performance is especially upsetting in light of the recent hate-letter that managed to combine homophobia with the threat of rape against a student at this college; at a time in which our community should be finding ways of making maligned groups feel safer, we instead chose to hire an unabashedly homophobic singer to perform a concert.”
“The Concert Committee co-chairs and I were completely unaware of the content in question when we booked Chance,” Fouhey said. “The concerns over some of the lyrics were brought to our attention last Monday, Oct. 22. I do sincerely apologize. We never intended to hurt anyone.”
Besides Brown, the controversy has sparked a debate from a variety of other opinions about discussing homophobia on campus and applying community standards to artists visiting the College.
SGA President Rachel Liddell ‘15 said that Chance’s content is disrespectful and offensive to many students on campus, but worries that talk about completely canceling the concert would have crossed a line from concern to censorship.
“I find the content offensive, yet I respect the right of others to tell me things with which I don't agree,” Liddell said. “I don’t want people to be censored. I think that saying ‘bringing Chance to campus condones homophobia’ is an overstatement.”
Liddell further explained that if the concert had been canceled, Middlebury still would have been obligated to pay Chance for a show that never happened. She also believes that the debate resulting from the controversy is a positive outcome, asserting that, “the concert will spark the conversations people wanted to have.”
Boggs added that a complicated conversation took place when considering what to do about the concert.
“Right now we don’t have criteria for evaluating these kinds of decisions. Our struggle was to figure out how to be compassionate and effective allies amid all the complexity in a short period of time. We have a lot to learn from this situation, and we need to figure this out together,” Boggs said.
Collado personally spoke with Chance’s management, requesting that the artist leave homophobic lyrics out of his performance.
“[Chance] is aware of our concerns and our plans for an engaging and honest community forum,” wrote Collado in an email. “[Chance’s manager] said he understood and respected our request and that he was looking forward to being on campus and performing for us.”
Cailey Cron ’14 appreciated the censorship of the lyric, but feels that the controversy should be channeled to discuss a larger campus issue.
“If a lyric is missing, it’s not going to matter unless we seize the opportunity to have a conversation about homophobia on this campus,” Cron said. “Chance will come on Saturday and then on Sunday he will leave. This is not about Chance the Rapper. What we need to fight is blissful ignorance. Chances to address homophobia have come up twice in the past few weeks, and as a campus we need to talk. I’d like to see the administration take a strong, public stand against homophobia. I’m at a loss as to why that’s controversial.”
Benay disagrees with the idea of canceling the concert.
“Of all rappers, Chance’s stuff is way more about drugs and how hopeful he is about his future, and he has lyrics about anti-violence.”
While Benay disagrees with Chance’s use of the word ‘faggot’, he thinks that the compromise between Chance and Collado is reasonable.
“It sort of bums me out that he uses that word, but the idea that he would not come just because of that is sad especially because MCAB hit it out of the park in terms of choosing an act this time.”
To address this issue, Boggs announced that at 7 p.m. on Monday, November 4 in Axinn 229, Student Activities and MCAB will be hosting an open forum to discuss how decisions are made about all kinds of possibly offensive art forms at the College. The forum aims to allow candid conversation about the application of community standards to artistic expression and how they should affect choices about who is invited to campus. MCAB also hopes that this conversation will help to better inform the student group’s decision making in the future.
Forum
Cron does not think that the controversy should revolve around two groups of students pulled to join one extreme opinion or the other. “We’ve created a false choice between having performers violate community standards and censoring all dissenting opinion,” Cron said. “I hope we can use the concept as an entry point to a far more important conversation that has to do with us as a community and the relationship between the student body and administration. It is a hard conversation to approach if the administration hasn’t publicly stated its commitment to protecting and welcoming the queer community and concerns.”
Boggs has high expectations regarding the potential impact of the forum.
“I hope that while we wrestle with these issues, we can commit to listening carefully, act in ways that foster inclusivity, and bridge the divide that’s happening right now,” she said. “Knowing that this is just an initial conversation, I’m hopeful we can both show support for students who feel marginalized and influence MCAB’s work in positive ways.”
[CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article, as well as that in print, stated that "the administration asked Chance not to sing Favorite Song." This was incorrect; they asked Chance not to sing the lyric “slap-happy faggot slapper” or use any homophobic terms during his entire performance. ]
(10/30/13 10:09pm)
Midway through a semester of routine cheating, an economics professor told Billy – whose name has been changed to protect his identity – and his friends to write down their names and where they sat in the examination room. The professor’s unvarnished command plunged Billy into an emotional apocalypse.
“We had been going overboard with the cheating. That whole week we were freaking out – what are we going to tell our parents? What are we going to do?”
Billy and three other friends had sat in a line together, the smarter of his friend passing solutions down the line. In a class of 25 students in Warner Science Building and no proctor, Billy would copy the answers from his friend to the left and down the line the answers went, with little effort to conceal their shifting eyes.
Even as he was in crisis, the thought of self-reporting never crossed his mind.
“We were absolutely sure it was 100 percent us,” he recalled. “There was no good reason to report it. If it was coming out we’ll hear about it within the next few days. I thought about telling my parents, just because I couldn’t keep it to myself, but I had my friends.”
But the twists just keep coming. They overheard later that week that it was, in fact, another group of guys in that same exam room that got caught cheating—not Billy and his friends. “My guess is that someone pointed them out. It shows the prevalence of cheating on campus. In a class of about 25 students, pretty much half the class cheated in that exam room.”
“It was a huge wake-up call,” Billy said, throwing his hands down in one of the few statements he made without stumbling through words like pretty much or I guess. “We were saying to each other that we will never cheat again and that we’ll just take the F.” But even after nearly getting derailed, he admits that the experience “didn’t completely reverse” his cheating habit.
What makes Billy’s story so compelling is that he is emblematic of a larger trend.
According to a survey last spring conducted by Craig Thompson ’14 for his Economics of Sin class, 35 percent of the 377 surveyed students admitted to violating the Honor Code at least once in the past academic year (2012-13), the latest volley of cheating allegations landing on Associate Dean for Judicial Affairs Karen Guttentag’s desk just last week. But 97 percent of the self-admitted Honor Code violators in his survey went uncaught.
“If I were to take those numbers at face value, I’d be very concerned about what it means for us and what it means for the student body,” said President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz, who admitted to bringing cheating charges against students as a professor. “I’ve been here for 30 years and I’ve always been concerned about the veracity of honor codes like the one we have.”
Even though the percentage of self-reported cheaters last year was only slighter higher than those in 2008, the number of convictions for cheating – excluding plagiarism, which is less cut-and-dry – is climbing. According to the Honor Code Review Committee report published last spring, the number of instances in which a student was found guilty of cheating increased four-folds over the course of just three academic years.
But it’s tricky business figuring out why cheating convictions and cases of self-reported cheating are on the rise. Dean of Judicial Affairs Karen Guttentag said there are only theories right now and no definitive answers to the why questions.
“Maybe it’s a reflection of an increase in comfort in admitting to cheating,” she said. “But sadly, my sense is the taboo on cheating seems to be weaker, so students are less inhibited about acknowledging their unethical actions. All of which is to say – bad news.”
But from talking to numerous student leaders, administrators, faculty members and national research experts, there is a clear shift in the academic culture that is threatening to hollow out the Honor Code.
A Close Call
“It seemed easier to cheat, because cheating was more acceptable than a C-,” said Billy. “I was scared, coming into freshmen year and worried about my GPA and potential for the future.”
Since his close call in the first-year microeconomics course, Billy claimed he swore off the large-scale cheating. But he hasn’t been totally clean. When asked when the last time he cheated was, Billy sighed. He had a look like he was finding his footing into more honesty and before leaving self-preservation, but decided to sidestep the question entirely: “Well, the best way I can put it is that I’ve gotten a lot more self-conscious – well, not self-conscious – but I have a lot more integrity from the work,” he said. “But I couldn’t say that I haven’t glanced over a person’s test and taken an answer.”
“I am in something that genuinely feels like a passion and not in economics trying to get into a high-paying finance job,” he said. “Personally, I would take the lessons I learned and take them with me into the real world, but I could see how someone who, after having abided by the honor code for four years and then getting into the real world where there is no honor code, could get back into cheating in many ways.”
When asked whether every cheater gets what is coming to them, he let out a smile. “I don’t think so.”
Billy’s story is something of a failed morality tale, one driven by a desire to survive, scarred by the threat of losing everything, and changed — maybe only slightly — by the College’s culture of academic integrity central to the Honor Code. But whether he was changed by it, even he didn’t seem to know.
“After that experience, it was more about the integrity of the work. It’s a good feeling to know that I don’t need anyone else’s answer and I can accept it.”
By the end of our conversation, it was clear that he was scarred, but not transformed.
“I couldn’t promise you that if a person’s answer was right in front of me, and all I needed was just one more question, I wouldn’t say there’s a 100 percent chance that I wouldn’t look at that person’s paper,” he explained. “But I haven’t done that in a while. I wouldn’t say that I would never cheat on anything in my life.”
Here and Now
Associate Professor of History Amy Morsman was struck by the cynicism in academic integrity from students in the first-year seminar she taught last fall. She passed out an article about the recent cheating scandal at Harvard University, thinking this was a chance to impart to her students what life means with an Honor Code.
“I expected them to be shocked and outraged by this breach in ethics,” she said. “I was mystified by the sort of ho-hum response my first-year students gave.”
Some of her first-years embraced an attitude of “well, in the world of today, to get ahead you might have to do this,” Morsman recounted. “Some of my students already seemed so jaded by the world.”
As it stands, the Code requires students to report witnessed cheating. But students who fail to, face a punishment that even the Chair of the Student Honor Code Committee (SHCC) Alison Maxwell ’15 couldn’t articulate.
“I don’t know what the specific punishment is [for a witness who failed to report cheating], because it’s not common for the judicial board,” she said. “We can’t actually know when someone has broken the honor code in that way.”
All the assets that an Honor Code offers — an unique trust between student and professor, the freedom to take an exam without suspicion in the room — gets no play at Middlebury, if integrity is lost on students in that same room. This failure has sent the SHCC to reevaluate the sustainability of peer-proctored exams.
But the chronicity of cheating and rising number in cases of apprehended cheaters is not a sure-fire sign that the community’s morality is hemorrhaging red. Approximately one in four allegations, usually in the context of plagiarism, are cases, in which the students are confused, “the result of insufficient instruction on the part of the College, [but more likely] a failure on the part of the student to internalize that information,” according to Guttentag.
The flurry of information sharing has also led to more confusion where the Internet has colored gray an area in plagiarism. Constant information juggling obscures our original ideas from the ideas we read and, as a result, the lines on plagiarism blur.
“Notions of originality have transformed today, because things are so easily copy-able,” Film and Media Culture Professor and Academic Judicial Board (AJB) member Jason Mittell said. “So much of what people are reading are re-blogs of other people’s works or references to other people’s creativity — with or without citation. We live in a culture of quoting and of remix and reference.
“I think traditional citation guidelines are hard to wrap your head around if you’ve been brought up in this generation of — I don’t want to say loose standards, but different types of practices where citing is not relevant. Precise referencing or asking permission to quote someone just doesn’t make as much intuitive sense to many students today. And sometimes that doesn’t make sense to me either.”
And SGA President Rachel Liddell hinges on Mittell’s point about the clash of tradition and today. For her, the Honor Code has a different meaning when its tradition, over a breadth of time, is worked into today’s context, a state of academic honesty she is “dissatisfied with at Middlebury.”
“The Honor Code has a beautiful history, where students got together and worked really hard to write it and pass it,” she said. “We don’t own it anymore. And if we don’t want to own it, then we have to figure out what else we want to own.”
Dean of the College Shirley Collado, suggest that the pressure to succeed doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
“We’re seeing a trend not just in Middlebury but at a number of selective colleges – and I’ve talked to many colleagues around the country about this – that students are really feeling the pressure: what it’s going to be like to be part of a global job market and exceling and being an excellent student at Middlebury,” she said. “So I don’t know how much of a role that plays in stress or academic dishonesty. It’s a question I raise.”
Beyond the Bubble
But cheating is not a Middlebury-centric issue. In fact, cheating happens less in schools with an Honor Code, according to the research.
The College’s cheating statistic runs consistent with similar schools with honor codes like Duke University, which identified in 2006 that 29 percent of students admitted to unauthorized collaboration. But in larger schools without an honor code, like Harvard University, more than 40 percent of freshmen admitted to cheating on homework, according to a survey conducted by the The Harvard Crimson earlier this year.
“Schools with honor codes are better off,” said Donald McCabe, professor at the Rutgers Business School and leading researcher in cheating. “Overall, honor codes work reasonably well though not perfect. The smaller the community, like at Middlebury, the easier it is to do. It creates a sense of community in which students realize that when they cheat, they’re cheating their fellow classmates. Large schools like Penn State and Rutgers are trying to increase the level of integrity among students and finding it very difficult.”
But compare Middlebury to the University of California, Berkeley, with nearly 36,000 students, where there is more anonymity and less noticeable impact.
“Cheating is no big deal, because it happens all the time,” Jasmin Soltani, a chemical-engineering student at UC Berkeley said. “It is ridiculously easy at a school this big with understaffed faculty in test-taking rooms.”
When explained the intention behind the Honor Code — that there is supposed to be ethical temptation, Soltani was skeptical. [1]
“The kind of unproctored exams at Middlebury would not work at all in Cal. 500 students taking the same exam in an unsupervised room? That sounds like a joke,” she said. “The academic environment (at Cal) is very cut throat and people would not pass up a chance to get ahead of the curve.”
Other students offer a more nuanced take on the cheating culture at UC Berkeley.
“Honestly, I saw very little cheating during my four years at Cal,” said Emma Vadapalas, a history and economics major who graduated UC Berkeley this year in May. “Most of the instances I recall involve minor infractions, such as students copying problem sets from each other or getting a friend more versed in the material to do a problem set for them. I call these minor infractions because if caught cheating, the student would get a zero on the assignment but not flunk the class.”
McCabe warns against this kind of lowered standards that qualify cheating. “The number of general cheating have gone down, but at the same time, there are a number of students who dismiss low levels of cheating and feel okay justifying it. I see it as a danger,” a slippery slope toward rationalizing severe acts of cheating.
Unlike UC Berkeley, Middlebury’s judicial process reviews cheating cases by the case.
Even if the College does have a lower prevalence of cheating than its larger counterparts, Liddell said that especially at a small community, there is a real cost to dishonesty – and we all pay it.
“The truth is, if I were to cheat, I hurt myself, but I also hurt professors and my fellow students,” Liddell said. “If I were to cheat and I get a 98, and then the professor looks at you, who got an 82, and you look worse. Cheating of all forms damages all students.
The Future of the Honor Code
That does not mean improvements are not in order. But even with great strides taken to address problems of the Honor Code in last year’s review – the HCRC redesigned go/citations and developed field-specific responses to ethical dilemmas – this semester, nine professors are currently piloting Turnitin.com, a plagiarism detection service. After this semester’s trial run, there will be talk of Turnitin’s expansion, the implications of which could severely shake the trust built into the Honor Code.
But students and professors staked out different views on the introduction of Turnitin.com.
“The point of using Turnitin.com is not to catch and haul students into the AJB room on charges of plagiarism, but to fix the problem before it becomes a habit,” said Morsman, one of the nine professors experimenting with Turnitin.com.
“We do ask professors to check for plagiarism when they read our papers and Turnitin provides a more efficient method of the same process,” Liddell said. “But though not a violation of student rights, Turnitin is not congruent with the idea of the Honor Code, because it does not rely on trust and it does not rely on mutual respect.”
The introduction of Turnitin might be a prelude to the far greater changes the Honor Code could suffer if cheating continues.
Indeed, at a time when cheating reports are climbing, strides are being made to tackle the problem from all directions: top-down — through Turnitin — as well as ground-up. A main focus of the recently formed SHCC is to fix the system of peer proctoring, which Maxwell says is a broken part of the Honor Code.
“I feel like we are forcing students to break the honor code when we ask them to proctor each other,” Maxwell said. “Everyone we’ve talked to said ‘I will never tattle on a fellow student,’ so it’s very clear it doesn’t work. We’re coming up with a solution, but I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. Only time will tell.”
But Associate Professor of Economics Jessica Holmes, who teaches Economics of Sin, too, concedes that peer-proctoring empirically does not work, but offers a quick solution.
“The fix is simple: proctoring. It is too small of a community and no one wants to be viewed as the ‘rat.’ Proctoring [would] reduce both cheating and the pressure on students to report on each other,” she said. “How can I ensure the academic integrity of the exam environment if I am not in the room?”
But even professors who have not brought students up on charges are aware of the shifts.
“I’ve been teaching here for 12 years and I’ve never brought a student up on charges,” Morsman said. “But I hear about cheating more from students and I hear it more from staff and the people bringing cases to the judicial board. I’m aware that it exists, that it’s getting worse, and the College is responding to it.”
Members of the community are slowly backing away from the original vision of the Honor Code. Doubtless, students and professors hope to see the Honor Code hold its own in an increasingly competitive society and succeed. But there are signs that things are about to be different. In the midst of the decisive failure of peer proctoring, the formation of the SHCC and the fortification of preventative measures like Turnitin, it is entirely possible that perhaps a decade from now will look entirely different — a proctor in every exam room and a website reading each paper.
[1] With regard to this article's definition of the Honor Code: "When explained the intention behind the Honor Code — that there is supposed to be ethical temptation, Soltani was skeptical" was adapted not from the Middlebury Handbook, but from a New York Times piece about the general Honor Code: "The intention of honor codes is to generate the very situation you describe as precarious: they’re supposed to create ethical temptation."
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article, as well as that in print, quoted Professor of Media Studies Jason Mittell of saying, "Precise referencing or asking permission to quote someone just doesn’t make intuitive sense to students today. And it doesn’t make sense to me either sometimes.” There was a missing qualifying statement; it should be "Precise referencing or asking permission to quote someone just doesn't make as much intuitive sense to students today."
(10/10/13 12:34am)
Over the last three years, enrollment in Computer Science courses at the College has tripled. The growth is the largest in any department in recent history, and is in keeping with nationwide enrollment trends, spurred by job opportunities and the glamorization of start-ups, entrepreneurship and new technologies.
Enrollment in Computer Science courses was tallied at 451 for the 2012-2013 academic year, up from 164 in 2008-2009. The number of students majoring in Computer Science has increased significantly as well, with 10 declared majors in the class of 2014 and 20 in the class of 2015 — the most that the Computer Science department has ever experienced.
This growth is in keeping with national trends, as a report by the Computing Research Association published in March 2013 revealed that the number of undergraduate students studying computer science had risen by double digits for the third consecutive year. Earlier this fall, Harvard University announced that enrollment in its introductory computer science course had grown 590 percent in a decade, from 112 in 2004 to 771 in 2013.
Founded in the mid-1980s, the Computer Science major was originally housed within the department of Mathematics and Computer Science. Computer Science courses were taught initially led by mathematics professors and Library Information Services (LIS) faculty members. However the College gradually expanded the department and hired more full-time faculty including Computer Science Department Chair Matthew Dickerson, hired in 1989 as the College’s first professor with a doctorate in Computer Science.
Dickerson noted the early challenges for liberal arts colleges seeking to establish Computer Science departments in he 1980s, as larger universities offered greater research opportunities and more competitive salaries. By the time Computer Science became a freestanding department in the early 2000s, the discipline had seen substantial growth and development.
“By that time, we had our own critical mass,” Dickerson said. “We had five computer science professors, we had our entirely own curriculum, we had our entirely own major.”
Student interest in Computer Science has grown steadily since then, with more students enrolling in 100-level courses than ever before.
“Next year, for the first time ever, there will be [all five Computer Science professors] on campus teaching all at once. In the past, someone has always been on leave,” Dickerson said. “That will enable us to offer a lot of 100-level sections so that everyone who wants to get into a 100-level class will be able to. And we’re also doubling the number of sections of our 200-level classes.”
Dickerson said that the increased enrollment became especially noticeable three years ago, and subsequent growth has been accommodated with and aided by the addition of two new 100-level courses, as opposed to a single one-size-fits-all introductory course.
“I think that helped students to see how interesting the discipline was and how it related to other disciplines,” Dickerson said, noting that the new courses cater to the multiple problem solving strategies taught in Computer Science, with emphasis on experimentation, deductive reasoning and engineering.
Such is the reason that Bryan Holtzman ’14 decided to enroll in CSCI 150: Computing for the Sciences.
“It’s a growing field with many applications to areas beyond computer science. As such, I decided to enroll to see what all the fuss was about, and I hope to learn the ways in which computer scientists think,” he said.
Increased demand for computer programmers, website and app developers and a general knowledge of coding languages in the post-graduate realm has also contributed to increased enrollment.
While no other department at the College has experienced a change as extreme as Computer Science, enrollment statistics over the past five years have displayed growth in Biology, Economics, Education Studies, Mathematics and Women’s and Gender Studies. By contrast, enrollment in English and American Literatures and Religion courses has decreased slightly.
“Over a five-year period, you get a lot of up and down and it’s hard to see what’s just fluctuating and what’s really changing,” said Dean of Faculty and Philip Battell/Sarah Stewart Professor of Biology Andrea Lloyd. “It’s striking to see how much enrollment can change from year to year because of what people happen to be interested in.”
Lloyd noted that the College’s enrollment shifts are mostly consistent with nationwide trends.
“The thing we’re seeing in the longer-term data is an increase in the sciences and interdisciplinary programs, and declining enrollment in some, but not all, of the humanities,” she said.
“The Computer Science [enrollment trend] is an unbelievably striking pattern,” Lloyd said. “Though I’m actually less surprised that the numbers are high now than I am that they were low back then,” citing the growing emphasis on new technologies as a major influencing factor.
(10/10/13 12:33am)
Fall is my favorite season. I love how the brightly colored trees pop against the blue skies. I love the sound of leaves rustling beneath my feet. I love the excitement of a new school year juxtaposed with the shortening days and the threat of winter. My favorite part of fall, however, is the apples. Their sweetness cannot be compared; their crunch cannot be characterized. They are perfect. Perhaps the most impressive attribute, however, is their source. The apples served in our dining halls are local, grown in our very own state of Vermont.
Middlebury College Dining Services is committed to serving local food to students, and items such as applesauce and dairy products, are locally sourced. One-fifth of the dining budget is currently spent on buying food that is grown or processed in Vermont and one-third is spent on “local” food, or food that comes from within a 250-mile radius. However, many students desire more. Last year, nearly 75 percent of you said that you would support the College increasing its dining budget in order to provide more locally-sourced foods. The local food movement is growing exponentially on this campus, and the SGA is committed to bringing more local food into our dining halls, but there are some important questions we must ask first.
As a campus, we need to think about what we’re trying to accomplish through this goal. Are we trying to care for the environment? Stimulate the local economy? Protect producers of food from poverty? Do the phrases ‘just food,’ ‘sustainable food,’ or ‘organic food’ better achieve these goals? Do we value fair-trade coffee as much as getting milk from down the road? What are we willing to sacrifice in exchange for sustainable food? Do we want less red meat in the dining halls? Should we commit to only serving local meat? Do we want to trade vegetal variety for Vermont-grown produce? We all want to be good stewards of the environment, but at what cost? Are we willing to change our meal plan in order to afford more sustainable food? Let’s take time to consider these questions, strengthen the food movement as a whole and educate ourselves about these different issues. We must be informed in order to make these difficult decisions.
In the coming weeks, the SGA will be conducting a comprehensive survey on everything food-related to help us answer some of those questions. We aim to ask more questions, develop pragmatic goals, and create a practical plan of action to achieve them.
But we need your help. Let us know what’s important to you. Email us at sga@middlebury.edu, write on our Facebook, tweet us @Midd_SGA.
(10/10/13 12:29am)
Whether you eat there once a week, or just enjoy a sub from time to time, we can all agree that Costello’s Market is a staple of Middlebury.
Many students of the College frequent this Italian market in the Marble Works Many move in and out quickly, rushing to class or to a club meeting, just picking up a sandwich and leaving. As a result, many of us have yet to meet the faces behind it all.
Meet Carolyn Costello. She has lived in Middlebury her entire life and co-owns the market, located at 2 Maple St., with her husband John Costello.
The couple has worked in the restaurant business for their entire lives, but as John began to approach his sixties, he chose to leave the stress of working on-the-line after 40 years.
The couple then decided to open Costello’s market in 2007, which Carolyn describes as a daunting leap of faith. They were uncertain whether the Restaurant’s business could support them both. Costello’s, however, has since earned a loyal customer base.
Costello’s boasts an extensive menu of unique sandwiches, salads, pasta and seafood. It occupies a cozy storefront with authentic Italian products covering every inch of it.
The couple purchases vegetables from local growers but are influenced primarily by their almost yearly travels to Italy. According to Carolyn, however, John has an open mind and believes that he can learn about cooking from anybody.
She attributes a great deal of the business’s success to her husband’s culinary skills and speaks about him with admiration.
“John is extremely talented, I believe,” Carolyn said. “That is my opinion. He is very humble, so he would never say that. I think he is very creative.”
A long past with the community has also aided Costello’s success. Carolyn comes from a long line of successful Middlebury business owners; her uncle ran a bakery here, and her grandfather owned a gas station where the Otter Creek bakery currently is.
“That is another plus when you’re opening a business,” said Carolyn, “for people to know who you are and a little bit of your history.”
The couple works tirelessly around the clock, sometimes seventy hours a week.
“But it’s ok,” said Carolyn, “because all this hard work is paying off. We have this great business.”
For those of us who spend only four years here in Middlebury, it is hard to imagine the connection that Carolyn feels with the town.
“When I go shopping it takes me an hour to get one thing because I know everybody at the grocery store,” Carolyn said. “I just love the people. Everyone knows everyone.”
She believes that Middlebury has changed noticeably throughout her time here, growing in size and developing new commercial centers. Still, she believes that it retains its distinct charm and intimacy.
“It is nice to have that small feel even though I know it isn’t as small as it used to be,” said Carolyn.
She chats with nearly all her customers, extending her small town friendliness to Middlebury students.
“A lot of times, I feel they are my own kids,” said Carolyn.
To her, meeting new customers and connecting with old ones is her favorite part of going to work. The couple lack any grand ambitions of expanding but hope to maintain their pattern of consistent growth.
“We just want to keep on going like we have been going,” said Carolyn. “We feel quite lucky to have what we have.”
And the Middlebury community feels lucky to have Costello’s as well.
(10/09/13 4:00am)
Wes Doner climbs into the driver’s seat of the truck and pulls on a pair of plastic gloves. “Are you guys ready?” he asks with a grin. It’s 12:30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon and Doner, a waste and recycling handler with facilities services, is about to start the third leg of his daily route collecting garbage from around campus.
The massive vehicle revs its engines and throttles up the hill from the Recycling Center. “We’ve got to hit Hillcrest Road, grab all the bags on toss them on the truck,” Doner said.
Doner has worked for the College for four years but this is his first week as Recycling Handler.
“Before, I was a floater and before I was a floater I was on crew, so I used to clean carpets and buff floors,” he said.
The first stop is behind Proctor Dining Hall, where a garbage truck is lifting bins of food waste into the back of the truck using a mechanized arm. Mounds of uneaten food pour from the upside-down containers into the truck, en route to be turned into compost.
Around the corner at Stewart Hall is the visible sign of student waste, with around 30 plastic bags piled at the corner. According to Doner, today’s amount of garbage is typical.
“If it’s real nasty then we’ll toss it but if it’s alright we’ll go through it a little bit,” Doner said, referring to the sorting that happens at the Recycling Center. A CD with “Mumford & Sons” written on it in Sharpie is visible in one of the garbage bags before Doner grabs it and tosses it in the truck.
Grabbing several bags at a time and throwing them into the truck, Doner said, “One thing that frustrates me is a lot of them aren’t tied and we have to tie them.”
Dorms like Stewart generate much of the garbage Doner takes down the hill in the truck. When asked which dorms are the biggest garbage-generators, Doner responds, “Battell and Allen (because they are together), or over in Atwater.”
At the Davis Family Library, Doner pulls around to the back and opens a sliding garage door. Although the Library is not a site one would think of as generating heaps of trash, Doner immediately begins hauling bags filled with Coke cans into the truck. A cardboard box filled with dirty dishes and cups sits on the ground next to the containers.
“We’ll gather them up after a while and bring them back to the dining hall,” Doner said.
Some of the plastic bags Doner is loading into the truck are practically bursting with the refuse of studious individuals. The truck is already almost a third full of plastic bags. Doner says the truck — the size of two minivans — can sometimes get completely filled with garbage bags.
“Some Mondays it can get like that. We just open it up and start grabbing and then get up into the truck,” he said.
Doner, who used to box at the Boys’ and Girls’ Club of Connecticut, goes after the garbage bags with the same tenacity as a prizefighter in the ring. The nature of Doner’s job is it can never be completely finished — every day, more trash fills the containers in dorms and academic buildings, and in turn ends up on the corner for him to grab. When asked if it gets frustrating, Doner is nonplussed.
“I just go with the flow – it’s work, you know,” he says.
Most of the time Doner unloads all the bags himself, as he was doing on Friday. He says he would not have it any other way.
“Usually I would rather do it myself anyways so I can get it done and get back on the route again,” he said.
Doner is no slouch when it comes to completing the route. “We usually have break about two o’ clock but I don’t take break; I just go back there and unload and go back out,” he says.
Mondays bring a titanic amount of garbage to pick up, Doner said, but that Friday presents it own challenges.
“Friday I have to make sure I get everything” he said. “we can’t leave anything out over the weekend.”
The route seems like it should take two people; Doner single-handedly drives the truck, parks it, jumps out, opens whatever gate is in the way, grabs the bags and hurls them into the truck.
Glancing into some of the bags by Meeker, Doner explains one of his frustrations with the job.
“There is one thing that gets me. When the students don’t take the time to throw the can into the recycling bin, when they throw it right in the garbage, that pretty much sucks right there,” said Doner. “Some days it is mixed and it gets the guys at the Recycling Center a little aggravated. And it’s hard for me to sort it and it’s frustrating.”
Melissa Beckwith, assistant director of support services in facilities services, dispelled the fustrating myth about Waste Management.
“One thing we hear frequently is, ‘Well, we don’t have to sort it because they’re going to sort it.’ That’s totally the wrong attitude. We would like people to sort it so we don’t have to because it makes the whole system much more efficient.”
When asked if the lack of sorting happens a lot, Doner said some stops are worse than others.
“I usually throw the garbage on the right side of the truck, and when I get down there I’ll look through to make sure there isn’t spaghetti sauce all over or something,” he said.
Doner has his share of horror stories – finding bottles filled with urine is not out of the question, he says incredulously.
“Come on, are students too lazy to go to the bathroom?” he asks.
While there were no encounters with wildlife on Friday, Doner has had to tangle with squirrels hoping to access the garbage.
“There was sometimes when I’ve had to move a bag around so they can get out. But now they’ll hear the truck and get right out of there,” he said.
The nature of the work at the Recycling Center can be constant. In 2012, Waste Management processed 2,485,000 pounds of recycling, compost, universal wastes and hazardous waste.
“If you empty a couple carts, within an hour they’re full again,” Beckwith said. “It’s kind of like the research paper you can never finish.”
(10/03/13 1:00am)
How heavily is our style influenced by our surroundings? Jack Supple ’14 went to Berlin, Germany last fall with one self-identity and left with a new, improved and slightly more European one.
Before leaving to go abroad Supple didn’t necessarily consider style among his top priorities, although he was constantly searching to add new, unique items to his repertoire.
“I basically wore sweats and basketball shoes in bright colors,” commented Supple. Supple credits the College for initially pushing him to try out new styles and become more free in his wardrobe choices.
“Before coming to Middlebury I only wore the clothing that my mother and father bought me or that I picked up in college gift shops,” said Supple. Initially in shock in his first weeks abroad, he realized that he had never been exposed to such a vibrant, evolving culture of street style. He’s also from Boston, Mass.
“I got to Berlin and thought why do all these people look 10,000 times more cool than me? I know I have it in me to look as good as them.”
When asked if one article of clothing in particular spawned his new style he responded with an anecdote about his first experience thrift store shopping in Berlin.
“It’s just a bunch of really cool, really old clothes,” said Supple. He described his encounter with one man who owned an upcycling store (a store that takes old clothes and essentially refurbishes them) who sold him a pair of sweatpants made from an old sweater.
“I basically lost my mind when I saw those pants. It’s a great feeling when you realize something was literally made for you,” he laughingly said.
Supple, after hours of contemplating German street style and the European aesthetic decided to put a more conscious effort into his dress.
“Now I like to surprise someone or put something where it doesn’t belong and have it still look really cool,” he said.
In addition, Supple has a new-found penchant for cutting his shirts into different shapes and sizes.
“Just wearing a t-shirt is boring. You can do so much with just a pair of scissors and an old tee,” he said, adding that it is also a good incentive to layer your clothing when your t-shirt is not covering much.
In his Sociology of Gender class Supple learned about Judith Butler’s theory that dress is a performance.
“I think that really applies to me. I enjoy spending time in clothes that I feel good in,” said Supple. He also commented that one of the advantages of having so many cool clothes is that it allows you to try on new identities.
“One of my favorite pieces of clothing was formerly a woman’s blouse and it’s amazing to wear on flowery summer days in the wind.”
The flexibility of Supple’s wardrobe choices demonstrates his wiliness to try on new identities and be constantly involved in the creation of his ever-evolving self-identity.
When asked if he could describe his style in three words Supple struggled to respond. After a couple minutes of thought he finally blurted three words out.
“Adventurous. Disheveled. Dank.”
(10/03/13 12:42am)
Before the school year began, Dean of International Studies Professor Jeffrey Cason decided to close the College’s school abroad in Egypt based at the University of Alexandria due to the political turmoil that continues to rock the country.
After the removal of President Mohamed Morsi, Egypt erupted into a state of chaos. After June 30, protests became violent and to date more than 600 people have been killed. Andrew Pochter, a 21-year-old American student from the Washington, D.C. area, was stabbed to death during a protest in Alexandria. Pochter was teaching English to 7 and 8 year-old children while studying Arabic.
Tragedies like the one involving Pochter are exactly why the college decided to postpone the program in Egypt.
“Our main concern is the safety of the students,” said Cason, “Alexandria has seen its fare share of protests and clashes.”
The current situation is not unfamiliar either to Hileil or to Cason. The College evacuated all of the students out of Alexandria in February 2011, but reopened the Alexandria program once again for the 2012-2013 academic year.
Nihad Hileil, the director of the program in Egypt, agrees that the decision was a logical one.
“(Cancellation) for the Fall was a more natural decision,” said Hileil. “A regime had been toppled and people were in the streets. Strife was inevitable.”
The closure was initially only meant for the Fall, but it became clear to both Hileil and Cason that the school should remain closed through the spring. A resident of Alexandria herself, Hileil noted that “While things are relatively calm now, there has still been sporadic violence, and there is this overwhelming uncertainty. It has only been two months since the situation became truly bad.”
For students of the College and other universities who applied to study in Alexandria, this means spending either the semester or the entire year in Amman, Jordan instead. However, not all students have been driven away by the danger in Egypt. Jeremy Kallan ’14 spent the summer in Cairo after having studied in Alexandria during the first semester of his junior year.
“When it comes to politics in Egypt, it is impossible to predict what is going to happen”, said Kallan. “But I know that I got a lot out of being there, despite the unrest.”
Even before the closure, the Alexandria program maintained strict rules for the American students. Often, students were prohibited from leaving campus due to protests in the city. Both Kallan and Hileil agreed that these restrictions can be stifling to the learning process, but are necessary concessions to student safety.
The program has a variety of other safeguards in place to keep students safe and to expedite an evacuation, if and when the program returns. The College maintains a contract with Global Rescue, a firm that facilitates evacuation from any location in the world, along with a detailed contingency plan.
“In the end it will be a 24-hour job,” said Hileil of considerations to re-open the Egypt program in fall 2014. “We will have to be constantly aware of the constantly changing nature of the situation”.
Although Hileil and Cason are hopeful that the program will return for the 2014-2015 school year, they remain unsure as to whether or not that will be possible.
(10/03/13 12:21am)
We often discuss the need for more community engagement as a student body. We’ve devoted barrels of ink and hours of our time to panels, papers, and symposia. Yet all of that leaves us with little more than a general agreement that something needs to be done differently. We would like to suggest a concrete solution to this problem: the implementation of a Community Education (C.E.) credit to be completed by every student before graduation.
The Weigh the Waste initiative launched by Molly Shane ’13.5 and Cailey Cron ’13.5 this year takes a look at the food waste produced in our dining halls by getting volunteers to scrape the extra food from student plates before putting them on the conveyer belt to the dish room. That this is not a step performed by students themselves on a daily basis speaks volumes about life here at Middlebury. In this community, we are divorced from much – if not all – of the work that keeps our lives comfortable. When we put food on our plates, we don’t consider the work required to cook it. When we finish eating, our dishes become somebody else’s problem. We don’t cut the grass outside our houses or trim the trees along our paths. Staff members mop up after our parties and take away the beer cans overflowing from every receptacle. Breaking a glass in the dining hall is met with mocking applause and a blue-uniformed staff member rushing to sweep up the shards while the student who dropped it continues on to their meal. At Middlebury, the only responsibility that many students have is their classes and their laundry, and some don’t even do the latter themselves.
We do not intend to ignore the many students who do have campus jobs, but few of those fall into the category of maintenance, grounds work, or cleaning. This should feel strange to us. This should feel uncomfortable. At home, we play a part in these essential tasks, and we will once again find ourselves thrust into them after graduation. That labor is what gives us ownership in our living space and pride – or shame – in its state of repair. That labor is the difference between a home and a hotel.
Although for students, Middlebury is a transitory space, it should feel like a home for our short time here. The implementation of a C.E. credit that would replace the second required Physical Education credit would endow students with an extra appreciation for this campus. While physical fitness is an important life skill – and one at which Middlebury students excel – it is no less important than an awareness of the work that goes into maintaining a habitable space. If golf, tennis or sailing are pastimes that can last a lifetime, the tasks performed by Middlebury staff members are no less critically important and often more physically demanding.
The C.E. credit would allow students to participate in one of these many tasks, whether gardening, scraping plates, or changing light bulbs. Like the P.E. credit that it would replace, it would require a minimum of eight hours of commitment – hardly a crippling burden to a chronically overcommitted student body. Seven colleges around the country currently form a consortium of institutions that require students to work at least ten to 15 hours per week, regardless of financial need. While a change to the working college model would be drastic, a lighter work requirement would serve to increase student ownership in their living space and to allow them to gain an appreciation for the hard work done by our many staff members without threatening their jobs.
A C.E. credit would also help to abate many of the challenges that we often blame on a lack of respect by the student body. A sense of ownership provides a better incentive to preventing vandalism than offers of free pizza. Students tasked with trimming the trees could watch them climb upwards over four years and feel the same anger as Landscape Horticulturist Tim Parsons when their branches are stripped in careless drunken shenanigans. Students who roll up their sleeves and wash dishes in Proctor might better appreciate the pressure created by cups that disappear faster than they can be returned to use. Students who help mop the floors of Atwater suites on Sunday mornings would feel disgust and contempt at the messes left by their peers.
These problems will never be fixed by abstract calls for dialogue and community without investment. Ownership creates respect, and respect creates change. We call on the SGA to petition the administration to implement a Community Education credit requirement that would help to create a community that feels like home rather than a well-manicured holding tank. This requirement would represent a major leap forward to a Middlebury College that truly integrates students into their community.
[audio mp3="http://middleburycampus.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Zach-Editorial-Podcast.mp3"][/audio]
Listen to Opinions Editor ZACH DRENNEN read this editorial.
(10/02/13 11:44pm)
John Wetzel, founder of Stone Leaf Teahouse in downtown Middlebury views tea as more than just a drink. Rather, it is a way of connecting people.
“It’s history, it’s culture, it’s modern society,” Wetzel said.
Wetzel had not truly tasted tea until he worked on a fishing boat after he graduated college. Sure, he had drank “tea” before in his life, but the ship’s captain informed him that his mass-produced bagged tea was not real tea. It was an imposter.
He introduced Wetzel to an Oolong variety of the rural Yunan region, China. Its sweet scent inspired Wetzel’s career.
Wetzel worked a series of jobs in construction and outdoor education, maintaining a fervent curiosity with tea all the while.
Years later, Wetzel rode a motor-scooter across the Central Highlands of Taiwan, visiting various tea growers. It was this experience that prompted him to open his very own tea shop.
“The hardest thing is buying the plane ticket,” said Wetzel, “That’s the analogy, taking that one leap when you’re not coming back,” referencing his signing the shop’s lease in 2009.
He remembers customers asking him behind the counter, during the store’s infant stages, whether he believed it could succeed. 2009, a year after the recession’s height, was a difficult time to open a business. Wetzel attributes his success to perseverance and to doing his homework.
He has traveled to India, China, Taiwan, Japan and elsewhere, finding suppliers for the shop. Two specific experiences he recalls with great joy include visiting the traditional Dai tribesmen in China harvesting tea leaves, as well as exploring an industrial tea complex in Japan.
To Wetzel, the economic component comes second to honing his craft.
“Making money is not the focal point,” said Wetzel “It’s my study, so that’s the focal point.”
The Stone Leaf Teahouse provides sustainably grown teas from China, Japan, Taiwan, India and Nepal. Each tea’s detailed description demonstrates an exceptional expertise, yet Wetzel humbly insists that making tasty tea requires no special knowledge.
Wetzel tells his customers, “The right way to make tea is how you like it.”
He sees his role bringing teas from across the globe to Middlebury as part of a larger operation.
“The reality of the world is we are connected,” said Wetzel. “We’re still breathing the same air and seeing the same moon and this is our way of sharing that connection.”
(10/02/13 11:39pm)
On every test and paper turned in by Middlebury College students, the honor code is scrawled across the bottom of the page. But outside of the Middlebury bubble, students may encounter a slightly different kind of honor code: ones that exist at meat and dairy farm roadside stalls in the local area.
A mile down Weybridge Road, at Scholten Family Farm, is a tiny cube-shaped structure painted red and marked by a neat white sign advertising the “Farm Stand.” It is an experiment in trust. Anyone can drop in and peruse the fridges full of whole chickens and ground beef sausage while eying a smaller selection of eggs, as well as the Scholten family’s “Weybridge” cheese.
If one finds produce to his or her liking, he or she can consult with a whiteboard hanging on the wall for the price, leave money in a jar while taking the proper change, and head home, purchases in hand.
Patti Scholten, who produces her cheese in a building not 20 feet from the stand, quotes her husband Roger on the logic of the honor system farm stand:
“Our consumers trust us to put up high-quality food, so we should trust them too,” said Scholten.
The Farm Stand isn’t a unique entity in the township of Weybridge, however. Just one mile north of Scholten Farm lies Duclos and Thompson Farm, home to what Middlebury students have nicknamed, “The Meat Shack.” The operation is comparable to the Farm Stand in the way that it is run, but Lisa Thompson, who manages the farm with her husband Tom Duclos, is hesitant to publicly label her store any which way.
“We don’t try to hide the fact that there’s a store, but there’s a reason we don’t have a sign out and that we don’t advertise,” Thompson said. “Because you know, the wrong people learn [how it works] and it gets abused and we have no business left.”
Despite Thompson’s reservations, neither farm has encountered major problems.
“I had a New York plate stop in here once and they took what was in [the cash box],” Scholten said.
Thompson too had the cash box stolen one night seven or eight years ago, but she suspects that it was high school students.
“It wasn’t what they took, it was just feeling violated. In general people are very appreciative of the way we do it and they want the meat … and they’re willing to respect that,” said Thompson
Students at the College rave about the services provided by these two farms. In fact, if you were at Weybridge House on Sept. 28 for the Weybridge Feast, you probably consumed Duclos and Thompson bacon. At 10 p.m. the previous night, Isaac Baker ’14 and a cohort of Weybridge House members ventured out to purchase the bacon. Baker and his friends gathered the meat they needed, left over fifty dollars in the cash box and went home.
If you were one of the lucky ones in attendance at Jordan Collins’s ’15.5 “Local Bacon” themed Dolci shift last spring, you enjoyed the very same bacon. Or, if you managed to make it to Brooker last spring for the Pig Roast, again you would have tasted a Duclos and Thompson raised hog.
Both Collins and Myles Kamischer-Koch, ’15, who helped to plan the Pig Roast, are frequent customers at the “Meat Shack” and can attest to the high quality of Duclos and Thompson bacon and other meats.
For Kamischer-Koch, it is the variety of the meats. He attests that it is a quality that you often can’t find at the store, which brings him back to the Meat Shack again and again.
When Baker wants chicken he skips the Meat Shack and goes to the Farm Stand, which he has also visited about fifteen times.
The Meat Shack and the Farm Stand are, on the whole, profitable enterprises for their owners. Scholten estimates the profits of the Farm Stand to account for only one to two percent of the farm’s yearly income, taking in approximately $600-900 a month. The Meat Shack brings in $4,500-5,500 in business most months, one-third of Duclos and Thompson’s annual income.
Thompson explained that for many years her farm’s focal point was the “hot-house lamb” or “roaster lamb” market, meaning that most of the lambs were sold at Easter and Greek Easter to be consumed for holiday dinners.
“The economy tanked after 9/11 and the people in the cities weren’t ready to celebrate [and as a result business] slowed down significantly. It came to a point where we had been planning on the income from those lambs going and when they didn’t go we had to do something because we had to market the animals. So we built the store,” Thompson said.
Thompson also explained that the Meat Shack is unstaffed, partly to save the cost of labor and partly because the farming schedule keeps them in the fields. And of course, there is the aspect of convenience.
“People come all times of the day and night, because it doesn’t have hours,” Thompson said.
Five years after the Meat Shack opened, the Farm Stand arrived up the road at Scholten Farm with a slightly different origin. Roger Scholten, intent upon producing organic milk and selling his family’s farmstead cheese, started visiting farms to gain a better sense of the industry. What he found was that many of the farms he visited had farm stands, derivative of their inclination towards a local customer base.
Scholten estimates that on average, the Farm Stand will attract six customers a day. An exceptional day might bring twenty.
“Even on our worst days we get someone. It’s a very diverse group,” Scholten said.
At the Meat Shack, Thompson describes a similar situation.
“There is never a day that people don’t come and sometimes there is never a week when we don’t have new customers,” she said. Citing the invoice papers left in the Meat Shack for customers to fill out as her source, Thompson estimates that the Meat Shack sees 300 customers a month.
Customer-producer relationships are a potential subject of debate with the honor system service. For the Scholtens, said relationship was the “inspiration” for the Farm Stand.
“When you’re just shipping fluid milk, milk drivers pick up and leave,” said Scholten. These days, she enjoys receiving notes from the Farm Stand’s customers, many of whom she has gotten to know over the years.
Not everyone is convinced that this kind of connection between consumer and producer exists with such shacks and sheds, however. Meat Shack customer Rebecca Roe ’15 is torn in terms of how she feels about the business model.
“I love that the Meat Shack operates [the way that it does] — but that means that I’ve never met or talked to the people who raise the animals,” Roe said. “I’ve only read profiles of the farmers online, so I’ve lost a key part of the consumer-producer relationship.”
But Nicholas Frazier, ’16.5, a Meat Shack regular disagrees.
“Half the times I’ve been there, [Tom and Lisa] walk in and say hello,” he said. “I think they do make an effort to try to meet as many of their customers as possible.”
Frazier’s testimony is consistent with Thompson’s admission that while there are times during the summer when she and Duclos are “gone on tractors all day long . . . there [are other] times we’re around here a lot, and if I come home and there’s a customer there I always go check and see if I can help.”
Thompson’s check-ins at Meat Shack have given birth to friendships, not only with Middlebury students, but with visiting families as well. Thompson recounted the story of a certain Middlebury graduate of 2012.5 whom she came to know.
Though the student was from the Keene Valley in New York, an hour and 45 minute drive from Middlebury, she had introduced her parents to the Meat Shack on a visit.
“It got to the point that her folks were here almost every week. And even though she’s graduated they’re still here on a pretty regular basis getting their meat,” Thompson said.
“Sometimes it’s the parents, the grandparents, a stray uncle,” said Thompson. “Parents weekend, homecoming, whatever, your folks are visiting, a huge number of kids bring their parents out and say ‘you’ve gotta see this,’ and then the parents say ‘you couldn’t do this where we live!’”
