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(04/09/14 4:39pm)
In light of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the calamitous threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s regime to the global order, we cannot lose sight of what an overreaction would do to America. If we allow Neo-Cold War ideology to drive American foreign policy and reshape our domestic economic and political institutions towards serving military purposes — the so called “Military Industrial Complex” — we will put at risk not only our international authority, but we, the United States, may pose a threat to global stability rivaling that of Putin. In the words of the esteemed English historian A.J.P. Taylor, “The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.”
Paul Ryan’s newly released budget proposal would represent a return to Bush-era military funding, reversing the military spending cuts initiated by the sequestration. It seeks to revive the U.S. war machine in a time of peace. In order to avoid escalation with Russia, it may be more important for the world that the U.S. elects “doves” than Democrats in the 2014 and 2016 elections.
Russia’s recent acts of aggression are not only concerning in themselves, but provide rhetorical ammunition for war-mongers to call into question the timing of the military drawbacks initiated by the sequestration. These facts will likely be spun by pundits and “hawk” politicians into the simplistic narrative that while Moscow grows stronger, we cannot be seen as weak and therefore we must ramp up military funding. We, the educated public, should be deeply skeptical of such claims.
The truth is our military already has the capacity to defeat any state. Increasing military spending will not make us more secure and should be a policy of last resort. Harsh economic sanctions, energy diplomacy and multilateral cooperation with allies remain our best strategies for deterring Russian aggression and avoiding conflict.
We must be aware of the risks posed by our own state, over which the public has little control in times of war. Since World War II our government has covertly overthrown countless regimes, fueled war by supplying weapons to states around the world and unilaterally initiated conflict. This, in turn, fed a negative feedback cycle of increased military funding. U.S. militarization represents an existential threat to international peace and the health of our democracy.
The recent overhaul of Russian offensive capabilities, despite Russian economic stagnation, suggests a new vision for Russian foreign policy in which its offensive military capacity will play a defining role. In light of Putin’s apparent belief in Russia’s manifest destiny to reclaim the territories lost during the collapse of the U.S.S.R., these developments are very concerning to states around the world, especially the former U.S.S.R., whose independence we should defend. Nonetheless, building allegiances with non-aligned states may be the best deterrence to Moscow’s aggression. If we are to make new allies, our authority in countering Russian aggression must be based on trust, soft power and democratic accountability, not just military strength.
The risks associated with increasing military spending are largely internal: increasing the influence of private military contractors could threaten our commitment to institutionalized conflict resolution and pacifism, thereby undermining our moral high ground over Russia. The recent Supreme Court ruling McCutcheon v. F.E.C. has gone beyond Citizens United in liberalizing campaign spending, expanding the latitude of defense contractors to lobby government efforts. We are likely to see a flood of campaign funding intended to move the political needle, among both Democrats and Republicans, towards increasing defense spending.
We must beware the influence of these glorified mercenaries, whose interests are not aligned with those of America. The empowerment of our increasingly privatized defense sector, who will profit greatly from conflict, represents the greatest potential accelerant to escalation with Russia — or any other enemy.
Russian coercion of the Ukrainian state by raising energy prices foreshadows an era of global energy diplomacy in which the expansion of domestic fracking and other energy infrastructure investments, like Keystone XL, may be increasingly justified if the U.S. is to compete with Russian oil reserves. Though liquefied natural gas is years away from being export-ready, the ability of the U.S. to offer subsidized energy to Russia’s neighbors to withstand a potential oil embargo or balance our budget may prove more valuable than an extra fleet of F-16s and, to some, justify the catastrophic climate impact of increasing fossil fuel extraction. We should expect to be faced with no good options; we must weigh accelerating climate change by expanding our energy capacity against the long-term impact on health of the planet. We need to foster open, thoughtful, public debate about the trade-offs of these looming, painful decisions. It only stands to reason that those most vulnerable to climate change, fracking and pipeline construction will be forced to shoulder the costs of an energy arms race. We must keep them — and the health of our planet as a whole — in mind. Seeking alliances with energy-rich countries like Venezuela, Azerbaijan and even Iran, despite the unsavory and corrupt regimes in power, may be necessary. On a brighter note, investments in promising innovations in renewable energy may become increasingly important for national security. Bearing in mind the strategic importance of such decisions, we must hold our government accountable lest we lose our national character in the fog of war.
Projections about what may happen in the coming years are purely speculative. Indeed, I hope that fears of Russian aggression are overblown. Nonetheless, pacifism, the development of alliances and the institutional resolution of disputes must triumph over military escalation if we are to avoid the worst.
It is not Putin, but the fear of our own weakness, that poses the greatest threat to American democracy, to the environment and to the stable and prosperous international status quo. We must stand up against war until the United States is left with no other option but to respond with force. In the words of the French philosopher and activist Simone Weil, “The great error of nearly all studies of war... has been to consider war as an episode in foreign policies, when it is an act of interior politics.” If the will of the American people is tested with the temptation of false security and the fleeting glory of war, we must steadfastly demand peace.
(04/09/14 4:36pm)
Today, the College will launch its annual Spring Student Symposium with an inaugural keynote presentation by San Francisco-based novelist Vendela Vida ’93 in the Mahaney Center for the Arts. Since graduating from the College with a degree in English and American Literatures with a Creative Writing focus, Vida has gone on to publish four novels, including a non-fiction work entitled Girls on the Verge: Debutante Dips, Drive-bys, and Other Initiations inspired by a class in women’s studies.
One of the organizers of the symposium and the Associate Dean for Fellowships and Research Lisa Gates believes the symposium will give students a rare taste of the diverse academic work done by their peers. The student presentations are intentionally “not organized by academic field so that a thematic thread can connect independent research projects across academic sectors in an interesting and interdisciplinary way,” Gates said.
“One of the most empowering features of Vendela’s experience is the way in which her faculty instructors helped her believe in herself,” she said. “As young adults, students have ideas of what they want to pursue, but grapple with large and intimidating ideas in the process of reaching their goals.”
As an undergraduate who had no intention of becoming an English major, Vida cites Julia Alvarez and David Bain of the English and American Literatures department as the professors who first opened up her mind to the possibility of pursuing a career in writing fiction and non-fiction.
“I wrote a lot of short stories during my time at Middlebury and it was Julia Alvarez who encouraged me to write a novel,” Vida said. “She told me what I was trying to do was write a novel, which at the time was a prospect I found really exciting, but also very intimidating. It was inspiring that she thought I had the capacity to write a novel.”
Currently, Vida is working on a novel that finds its genesis in a piece she authored for the “Lives” section of the New York Times Magazine, of which deals with her mother’s experience of growing up in Sweden.
“I always tell people that when they are starting projects, the idea they have in mind cannot be sort of interesting – or even potentially interesting – but rather all consuming,” Vida said. “I think the famous saying — write what you know — is often misunderstood by novelists. I encourage aspiring writers to not just write what they know, but to go out and experience the world. I am a big advocate of travel and placing oneself in different situations. Ultimately, five years down the line, we can draw upon the emotions of the experience and observations of other cultures.”
Students will have the opportunity to introduce themselves to Vida during the keynote reception on Thursday. A full day of student independent research presentations will kick off tomorrow at 9 a.m. in the Great Hall. Vida will also moderate “The Creative Process” panel.
In the grand scheme of the upcoming symposium, Gates urges students to embrace the spirit of the intellectual curiosity and to explore a range of independent research across a multitude of academic spheres.
“I encourage students to view the symposium as special place in which different lines of investigation can fit together in a dynamic, and ultimately inspiring way.”
(03/19/14 5:41pm)
As students, we live our lives in proximity to our peers, and thus have the opportunity to see them not only in an intellectual environment, but also in the social sphere. We see our friends on dining hall dates, at Atwater parties, on long walks to the organic farm, and “studying” in the library — our curiosity is satiated by observation and gossip. But faculty and staff remain an enigma: though we may get to know our faculty and staff we hardly ever see their personal lives. The Campus sat down with many of these couples individually this week to find out if they know each other as well as they know their subject matter.
Director of Sciences Support Services Tim Wickland and Director of Student Fellowships & Health Arlinda Wickland by Emilie Munson
Middlebury Campus (MC): How did you meet?
Tim Wickland (TW): We went to high school together in Chicago, but moved in different circles. Arlinda was a socialite and I was a nerd. (Our high school actually had more students than Middlebury College does.)
MC: What was your first date?
TW: Arlinda sought me out when she was part of a group planning our 10th year high school reunion. We went out to a little creperie in Hyde Park, near the University of Chicago, and after that, we pretty much never looked back.
MC: How long have you been married?
Arlinda Wickland (AC): A lot of good years -- who’s counting!
MC: What is one of your spouses quirks?
AW: Tim likes sugar: brown sugar on Greek yogurt; chocolate Quick (powder) on vanilla ice cream; a packet of raw sugar in a pinch.
TW: After so many years, quirks become such a part of the normal fabric of things that you hardly notice them anymore. I guess one thing would be that she can’t tolerate any red decor in the house after the end of February.
MC: What is your favorite quality of your spouse?
AW: Tim is incredibly intelligent and well-read, but at the same time is handy around the house; for example, he services all our cars, built personalized bookcases for each of our sons, and rewired the electrical system in our house by reading a manual.
TW: Arlinda has just about the perfect blend of caring and feistiness. That, and she is an absolutely fabulous culinary artist.
MC: What is their most annoying habit?
TW: Cutting the time too close for my comfort when we have a performance to go to. That being said, we’ve never missed an opening curtain that I can recall (though I don’t always get a chance to read the program before the lights go down).
AW: He often is doing something else (crosswords, sudoku, reading magazines) when I am talking to him! Then when I ask him what I just said, he tries to fake his way through, but it’s clear he wasn’t listening.
MC: What is your spouse’s favorite book?
AW: The Taylor Branch Series on Civil Rights is probably his all time favorite, but he just read Don Mitchell’s new book and had great things to say about it. I just re-read a trilogy that was incredible, but I would never admit what it is.
TW: I think her favorite author has been Rosamunde Pilcher, particularly The Shell Seekers. I think probably the most memorable and compelling at this point in my life would be Taylor Branch’s great trilogy on Dr. King and the civil rights movement.
Professor of Mathematics Steve Abbott and Dean of Students/Professor of The History of Art & Architecture Katy Smith Abbott by Isabelle Stillman
MC: How did you meet?
Steve Abbott (SA): We met at New Faculty Orientation at St. Olaf College. I think we were the only two single people in the room, so it felt like a trick.
Katy Abbott (KA): Steve was wearing rag wool socks and Tevas, so that was the sign that he hadn’t needed to care what he looked like in a while.
MC: What was your first date?
SA: Some early weekend that fall, we ended up downtown. They had a town celebration to honor the defeat of Jesse James at a bank in town. They have a midway carnival.
KA: With fried food on a stick.
SA: Very Midwestern carnival, and we were there with a bunch of faculty.
KA: We rode the tilt-a-whirl together, and Steve almost threw up. [laughs]
SA: And we got to the end of the evening, and Katie’s house was on one side of town, and everybody else lived somewhere else, and she was going to walk home. So I offered to give her a ride on my bike.
KA: Your Harley.
SA: My bicycle. And she accepted. And she got on the back of my mountain bike.
KA: I sat down on the seat, and he stood up on the pedals.
SA: I was stuck, because I didn’t take any art history in college, so I didn’t have any tools. But that summer I was working in D.C., and [in the National Gallery] there was a specific exhibit about one painting. And I said I saw this exhibit this summer with this painting. And Katie said, “I saw that exhibit too, I love that painting.”
MC: How long have you been married?
KA: Eighteen?
SA: Nineteen?
KA: Nineteen, yeah.
MC: What is one of your spouse’s quirks?
KA: There are so many! So much material to work with…Hmm…Steve has never worn a watch and never kept a calendar.
SA: She has probably fifteen different mechanisms for making coffee. And they’re all perfect for about four days. And then it’s not quite right. The French press, the drip thing, the foamer that doesn’t foam, it just spins it really fast. We haven’t done the thousand dollar espresso machine.
KA: That’s the destiny.
MC: One thing you love about your spouse.
SA: Just one, sweetie, you can only do one.
KA: Steve is an incredible parent. He’s always one hundred percent all in, so it’s always been fifty-fifty.
SA: If somebody comes up with an idea, you need Katie around to make it happen. She’s an instigator. The wall between concept and implementation is very thin. Like, “we should get a dog”—she was afraid of dogs when we first met. I went away for a week, and I came back, and we had a dog. We didn’t even have plans to get a dog.
MC: What is it like working at the same college?
SA: Well. When we were Commons Heads, for six years—that was the first time we collaborated. Saying yes to the job was partly inspired by the desire to do something together.
KA: Spending six years together thinking about connecting intellectual life outside the classroom, that was such a rich time for both of us. But in general, I can’t think of any downsides we’ve ever felt.
SA: It’s always funny when students figure it out.
KA: One of the things that’s great about it, is we definitely have a lot of interest in the institution as an institution, and what we’re doing for students here.
John G. McCullough Professor of Chemistry Sunhee Choi and William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Chemistry Jim Larrabee by Emilie Munson
MC: How did you meet?
Sunhee Choi (SC): In the chemistry research lab at Princeton Grad School.
MC: What was your first date?
Jim Larrabee (JL): Sunhee cooked a Korean dinner for me and we watched the Academy Awards ceremony on TV (it was early 1978).
MC: How long have you been married?
SC: 33 years.
MC: What is one of your spouses quirks?
JL: She is very demanding and does not tolerate any effort other than your best effort.
SC: Be[ing] ready for everything 1000 hours ahead.
MC: What is your favorite quality of your spouse?
JL: She is very demanding and does not tolerate any effort other than your best effort.
SC: Devotion.
MC: What is their most annoying habit?
JL: She is very demanding and does not tolerate any effort other than your best effort.
SC: Seeing and questioning unnecessary details to my amazing ideas.
MC: How do you take your coffee?
SC: [I take mine] Black and strong. [He takes his] Black and stronger.
JL: [We] Both take it black, no sugar.
Fulton Professor of Humanities Stephen Donadio and Associate Director and Chief Curator of the Museum of Art Emmie Donadio by Emilie Munson
MC: How did you meet?
Stephen Donadio (SD): Emmie and I met at a party in New York (Upper West Side).
MC: What was your first date?
Emmie Donadio (ED): After the party we went to the West End Cafe, near Columbia University, and talked about everything.
MC: How long have you been married?
ED: Since before our children were born.
SD: We have been married since before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
MC: What is one of your spouse’s quirks?
SD: Unusual enthusiasm for foreign travel (i.e., to places beyond Middlebury town limits).
ED: Just one?
MC: What is your favorite quality of your spouse?
ED: Sense of humor!
SD: Capacity for lasting friendship with others, near and far.
MC: What is their most annoying habit?
ED: Resistance to time away from work.
SD: See above.
MC: What is your favorite movie?
ED: [I] couldn’t say [mine]. [His is] Citizen Kane, without a doubt.
SD: My favorite movie: Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise), an old French film. Her favorite: Dirty Harry (starring Clint Eastwood).
Visiting Assistant Professor of American Studies Deb Evans and Professor of American Studies and English & American Literature Will Nash by Emilie Munson
MC: How did you meet?
Will Nash (WN): We met in an Emerson seminar in graduate school.
Deb Evans (DE): But we really met in the mailroom of our grad school program; I was working in the office and we started up a conversation. He had recently shaved a full Grizzly Adams-esque beard, so I had no idea it was the same guy from class I was talking to. It kept rolling after that.
MC: What was your first date?
DE: For our first date, he came to my house for dinner. One of the most memorable parts of the evening was that after we brought dinner out to the porch, I sat down and the wicker chair collapsed – completely! – underneath me. I cracked up; so did he. I think that was when we knew we had a future.
MC: How long have we been married?
WN: It will be 21 years in August.
MC: What is your favorite quality of your spouse?
DE: Will is a very genuine person. When he cares about something – an issue, a person – it is for keeps. And it may be a cliche, but he is a tremendous father, and I love to see him with our three kids.
WN: She is very compassionate and very thoughtful. And she is smart and funny.
MC: What is their favorite color?
DE: His: Red, maybe blue. Mine: green, maybe turquoise.
WN: Her favorite color is blue. That’s my favorite color.
Associate Chaplain Rabbi Ira Schiffer and Commons Coordinator Linda Schiffer by Jiya Pandya
Middlebury Campus (MC): How did you meet?
Ira Schiffer (IS): Our common friends Hank and Roxanne lived in Wilmington, Delaware, and we met at their housewarming party. As we sat talking at the party, I asked her how she knew them. I found out that she had worked on a political campaign with them, and we hit it off ever since. Our friends still claim that they are responsible for introducing us.
Linda Schiffer (LS): Oh that’s a fun story! We met at a party in Wilmington, Delaware, that friends of ours were throwing as a sort of housewarming occasion. I asked him how he knew them. “I married them,” he said. I was taken aback for a moment, and then I realized he was a Rabbi, but I didn’t want to ask outright. We spoke for a bit, and then I broke my cardinal rule of meeting men, letting him have a cup of coffee and driving me home the first time we met each other. I didn’t hear from him for over a month after that, but then he called, a month later, and we started dating!
MC: What was your first date?
IS: It was Christmas Eve, and we went to the restaurant open on Christmas Eve: a Chinese place, with our friends ‘who introduced us’, Hank and Roxanne. After that, we went to Midnight Mass together at the Episcopal Cathedral of Wilmington. We both found it fascinating.
MC: How long have you been married?
LS: We got married in November 1981. He proposed 3 months after we started dating, but we decided to keep the whole thing quiet until he finished his degree. We announced our marriage at his ordination.
MC: What’s one of your spouse’s quirks?
IS: She always makes sure I wipe up all the water around the sink in the bathroom, keep it clean and dry. She’s very particular about things like that.
LS: He’ll do things like feed the cat, which is lovely, but then he’ll leave the empty can of food on the counter. He’ll start something, finish it, but then leave things behind.
MC: What you love about him/her?
IS: Her energy. She just embraces life. She has a motorcycle, she built a sports car when our daughter was a baby, almost 25 years ago, and she still uses it. She ski races on Fridays (we spend a lot of time outdoors), and she ice fishes, one of the activities I don’t join her for.
LS: We lived in Israel for 5 years. We loved everything about our life there. But I had an Uncle in Philadelphia who I was very close with. He was ailing, and I wanted to be with him. I decided to shift back for a little while, to be closer to him, and told Ira I would travel back and forth. Even though he really loved Israel and we were very happy, he decided to move back to the US with me. He said, “No, we’re family and that’s not the way to do it. If one of us goes, we all go.” That’s what I love about him. He understands the importance of family.
MC: What annoys you about him/her?
IS: I don’t hate anything about her. We’ve made life a fun adventure together.
LS: Sometimes he nags. It drives me crazy. I’m like, I get it Ira. But after 33 years of being together, you get used to it.
Associate Professor of English and American Literatures Antonia Losano and Associate Professor of English and American Literatures Daniel Brayton by Julia John
MC: How did you meet?
Daniel Brayton (DB): We met in my first class at graduate school, in her second year.
Antonio Losano (AL): Dan and I met in a grad school class – Victorian Non-Fiction Literature – in August 1992 at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill where we were getting our M.A.s. We moved from Chapel Hill two years later to Ithaca, NY to get our Ph.D.s at Cornell University.
MC: When was and where did you go on your first date?
DB: We went to a Halloween party together. She was Nefertiti and I was a mendicant friar.
AL: We were friends for a while before we started dating, so I can’t really remember a “first” date.
MC: How long have you been married?
DB: We’ve been married since May of 2001.
AL: We got married in 2001, at Mead Chapel on campus.
MC: What is one of your spouse’s quirks?
DB: Antonia is a great disco dancer, but she likes to lead.
AL: Dan has no quirks. He’s perfect!
MC: What do you love about him/her?
DB: I love absolutely everything about her, including all her foibles, neuroses, quirks, and bad habits.
AL: See above.
Chair of the Math Department Frank Swenton and Assistant Professor of German Florence Feireisen by Emma MacDonald
MC: How did you meet?
Frank Swenton (FS): We met when Florence moved into the apartment beneath mine when she started at Middlebury—I think our first actual meeting was when she came up to ask about paying something since she was using my wireless (I told her not to worry about it).
Florence Feireisen (FF): We met “through the internet”, but not online. When I moved from Western Mass to Vermont, I moved into the apartment underneath Frank’s and used his wireless connection for a few days until I decided to go upstairs, introduce myself and offer to chip in for the wireless connection.
MC: What was your first date?
FS: It’s hard to identify a first date as such. She invited me to watch the whole series Six Feet Under through Netflix (actual DVD’s, not online)...I think that initially she was looking for a group, but it ended up being just the two of us watching the series from start to finish over the course of some number of months.
FF: Never really had a first date. We were friends and all of a sudden realized that we had been living in both apartments together for a while. I’d say it’s pretty typical for Germans to be friends and then have that develop into something more.
MC: How long have you been married?
FS: It’ll be five years in August.
FF: 4.5 years.
MC: What is one of your spouse’s quirks?
FS: Well, being German, the strangest thing about her is that she really doesn’t have a German accent (most people ask her if she’s Canadian or something, just because she tends to over-enunciate relative to an American).
FF: Frank has a schizophrenic palate: he loves kids’ things like orange Kraft’s mac and cheese and fruit snacks, but he also appreciates elaborate fancy dinners with grown up ingredients. When we eat out, he often takes risks by trying something completely new. But then he also eats pop tarts.
MC: What is one thing you love about your spouse?
FS: That she’s smart and nice are a little trite, so I’ll say I’m impressed with her hockey skills.
FF: Obviously many things, but you asked about one thing? Ok. I love that this semester Frank is taking an unpaid leave from teaching to be [our son] Max’s primary care giver (Max is 5 months old). He still has chair duties and some advising to do, so he just scoops up Max and takes him to Warner Hall. Max has been called the co-chair of math! He has his own travel bed in Frank’s office. Anyways, I love this about Frank: he did not have to do this, Max could have easily gone to daycare once my maternity leave was over, but it was really important to him to be with both of his boys when they were little.
MC: What is one thing you don’t particularly like about your spouse?
FS: Related to the above, she sort of plays down when she plays hockey, rather than pushing herself and playing with groups that are nearer her potential skill level...she’s just not that competitive in hockey, which is sort of a shame!
FF: Not a big fan of Frank competing in programming contests when we are on vacation.
Associate Professor of Spanish Juana Gamero de Coca and Visiting Lecturer in Spanish Ricardo Chavez-Castenada by Emilie Munson
MC: How did you meet?
Juana Gamero de Coca (JG): In New Mexico State University.
MC: What was your first date?
Ricardo Chavez-Castenada (RC): We never really had a first date.
JG: Many years after we first met, in Mexico City.
MC: What is one of your spouses quirks?
JG: He lives out of this world. Always inside the worlds in his novels.
RC: Her extreme empathy with everything around her.
MC: What is your favorite quality of your spouse?
RC: The world that comes out of her eyes, her mouth, her heart. It is really the world in which I live.
JG: He is a very good person.
MC: What is their most annoying habit?
JG: He does not know how to stop working.
RC: She takes too, too long cleaning her teeth before going to bed.
MC: What is your spouse’s favorite food?
JG: He loves rice and beans. I love shrimps and all kinds of seafood.
RC: Her favorite food is seafood. For me [it] is earth food.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater Andrew Smith and Visiting Lecturer in Theater Lisa Velten-Smith by Emilie Munson.
MC: How did you meet?
Andrew Smith (AS): We first met as we entered an MFA Acting Program at the University of California, San Diego in 2002. It was my first night in San Diego, having arrived with my Uhaul that day with my girlfriend at the time. Lisa knocked on my door because she was meeting my roommate to go see a show at the La Jolla Playhouse. We all met and introduced ourselves as members of the same acting class. I remember thinking: “Cool! She seems great.” But my girlfriend at the time, once Lisa left the room, immediately turned to me and said: “Wow. Good luck with that one.”
MC: What was your first date?
Lisa Velten-Smith (LV): Thinking. Thinking. Yep, no idea.
AS: As members of the same acting class of nine in a very intensive program, neither Lisa nor I came to graduate school to date our classmates. We came there for the work and to learn. So, we denied for a bit the mutual attraction that was developing, even though the directors in the program saw the chemistry, and immediately began casting us together in classwork and productions. We have played opposite each other on stage many, many times. Eventually it became more of a distraction to deny what was so evident to all around us, so we started dating. We didn’t have the normal “let’s go on a date” kind of start.
MC: How long have you been married?
AS: We got married on July 3, 2006.
MC: What is one of your spouse's quirks?
LV: He is really obsessed with making sure the keys are put back on the key holder.
AS: When Lisa gets really excited about something, especially an intellectual idea, her diction becomes pronounced.
MC: What is your favorite quality of your spouse?
AS: She is relentless in pursuit of truth. It is inspiring.
LV: His humility and generosity. Sorry that’s two but he has a lot of favorable qualities. S’why I married the guy.
MC: What is their most annoying habit?
AS: I get annoyed at myself when I get annoyed at her. She is free to have her habits without me judging her.
LV: Leaving the wet bath towel on the bed. Though, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen it happen so perhaps we are experiencing a breakthrough.
MC: What is your spouse’s favorite local restaurant?
AS: My favorite local restaurant: the grill on my front porch. If not that, then maybe Fire and Ice? She likes Fire and Ice too. Any place that has a boat for a salad bar deserves our business.
LV: I don’t necessarily favor one restaurant over another, but I will say the salmon from Costello’s or the chicken from Misty Knoll’s on the grill is outstanding. He might say Fire and Ice because we always seem to have a good time there, but when he sees my answer, he’ll go “oh, yeah, no —what Lisa said.”
(03/19/14 3:16pm)
The stories we tell ourselves about our own past are the result of hundreds of voices — both named and otherwise — coming together to paint a picture. Each voice has its own volume and each listener comes with their own biases, so these pictures of our past are just that: only pictures. As time marches on, the quieter or disenfranchised voices fall to the side, and it falls on our shoulders to seek out these stories in order to better understand the past.
On April 9, Middlebury students will put on “Voices of the People’s History of the United States,” reading passages from historian Howard Zinn’s book filled with letters and speeches by people intimately involved in the social movement history of the United States.
The event is co-produced by Assistant Professor of Sociology Jamie McCallum and Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater Dana Yeaton and is co-sponsored by the history, sociology, political science and English departments and The Oratory Society. It will open with a lecture by Francis Fox Piven, world-renowned sociologist and political scientist of social movements and a longtime friend of Zinn.
“She was invoked by Glenn Beck a few years ago for developing a plan to try and undermine American capitalism,” McCallum said. “He did a multi-part series about it. But her “plot,” so to speak, was actually quite old by that time. She was well-known in the ’60s and ’70s and now she’s famous again, largely because of [Beck] in some weird way.”
While McCallum comes to this event from the stand point of a sociologist, Yeaton hopes to emphasize the performance aspect.
“Last spring, [McCallum] and I worked together on a reading of MLK’s ‘Letter from the Birmingham Jail,’” Yeaton said in an email. “So I was excited when he proposed a follow up project. And because of The Oratory Society, I knew we had students who could bring the speeches to life. These speeches are the definition of theatrical: each one was calibrated, not just to capture and hold attention, but to provoke its audience into action. And of course, it’s a live solo performance, which is always a high-wire act.”
Students will read different stories from the Howard Zinn piece in order to frame the history of American social activism in a way that uses the voices of those directly involved. The book was the primary source companion to Zinn’s book “The People’s History of the United States,” which was written in 1980 to tell the story of the United States through the voices of the common people, not the economic and political elites that often dominate textbooks.
“Because that book ends in the early 21st-century,” McCallum said, “we’ll find a few more things from the last ten years to fill in the gaps. We may add something from Occupy Wall Street such as a speech that was given there.” McCallum added that the program for the event has not been finalized, and that what will be added is not fully known yet.
“There was a student-ran course over J-term called the People’s History of Middlebury that culminated in a panel discussion with two ’70s radicals who were Middlebury students,” he said. “We may have something read from that as well.”
The show is not unique to Middlebury and has been performed countless times throughout the country.
“The reason this show is done so often is that these words — spoken well, with full understanding — have enormous intellectual and emotional power,” Yeaton said. “They rattle us. They remind us of our ideals and our hypocrisies. So I’m excited to be in the room and watch these words hit home.”
The hosts of the event hope, just as Zinn did, to give a voice to those who may not always be heard in a retelling of American history. While history books may focus on the romanticized stories of our Founding Fathers, they often glance over the blood and strife that went into this country’s founding and the fact that many of them were slave-owners. Stories about the struggles of labor movements and civil rights activism often become clouded by the political leanings of those telling them. This event aims to give voices to all involved. The book itself includes selections by people such as Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau, Malcolm X and Allen Ginsberg.
“It’s history from below,” McCallum said. “You could do a people’s sociology of the United States if you wanted to. The benefit of getting those voices is not just that they’re diverse, but people tell truths from their own perspectives and unless you’re getting all of them, you’re not getting the full story.”
The event will take place on April 9 from 7 – 10 p.m. in the Abernethy Room.
(03/13/14 1:31am)
On Monday Mar. 10, Community Council met to discuss the proposal of the new Chromatic Social House, continuing last week’s discussion. During the meeting, the Council passed the motion to recommend the approval of the house to Ronald Liebowitz, President of the College. This new organization will reside in Prescott House, the former location of Delta.
After the disbandment of Delta last spring, the Residential Life Committee decided to offer it as either a social house or a superblock for the 2014-2015 academic year, and reviewed applications for both. Doug Adams, Associate Dean of Students for Residential and Student Life, discussed the process through which the committee reviewed the applications.
“The final debate process took place overlapping the social house applications and the superblock applications in determining what the best fit is for the campus, what will add to the social scene of the campus and what will diversify the social scene of the campus,” Adams said.
The new Chromatic House will focus on promoting student arts. It will provide more practice and performance space for music students as well as a space to display student artwork. The organization had already been approved by the Student Government Association and the Residential Life Committee when the Community Council meeting took place.
Many members of the Council thought that the house would enrich the social and especially art scene at Middlebury.
“One thing I really see at Middlebury is this desire to create a dichotomy between ‘this is me and this is my resume and this is what I do after class’ and the party scene, which looks so disparate,” said President of the Student Government Association Rachel Liddell ’15. “I think it’s a good message to say your interest as a person can be connected to how you spend a Friday night. […] It’s nice to recognize that this type of socialization is social.”
Luke Carroll Brown ’14, Co-Chair of Community Council, holds a similar view.
“When I came to Middlebury, and for many of my friends, there is this understanding that social houses represent that college scene we saw in movies like Animal House,” Brown said. “That is not at all what it is when you ask the house members, but it is an anticipated understanding of how you act in these circumstances and places … I see broadening our understanding of social houses to be a very good thing, something that might help current social houses that have a more of a fraternal feel and for those that don’t.”
A few members of the Council, however, felt that making the house a social house would not work so well.
“I think this house is a great idea […] but calling it a social house would, in my view, be a real loss,” said Professor of American Studies and English and American Literatures Will Nash. “There is a special interest here, which is tied to the curriculum, and that is not what the social house scene is about. […] There is a mechanism for us on campus for us to have people who want to live together who have a common interest that the curriculum serves, and that mechanism is the special interest house.”
Chris Thompson from the Department of Public Safety also voiced his concerns.
“How many nights are you going to have live bands playing down there where people are going to be strolling in with alcohol?” Thompson asked. “Then you have all these artworks on display … The last thing you want is getting someone’s artwork getting destroyed because there are a bunch of kids going down there with alcohol to listen to live music.”
The Council moved to vote on the motion to recommend the approval of Chromatic House as a new social house to President Liebowitz. The motion passed with sixteen in support and one abstention. If President Liebowitz approves the house, it will gain social house status in the fall.
(03/06/14 2:05am)
Heartbeat — a collective of young Israeli and Palestinian musicians — performed in the McCullough Social Space on Feb. 27 as a part of their 2014 U.S. tour. Through music, the group shared with audience members a message of mutual peace and understanding.
“I believe deeply that music holds incredible power to bring people together, to open us up to each other and to express ourselves in a powerful way,” said Heartbeat Founder and Executive Director Aaron Schneyer.
Heartbeat is based in Israel and was created by Schneyer in 2007 after he received a Fulbright-mtvU award. Since its inception, the organization has expanded into three chapters and worked with over a hundred musicians.
Heartbeat’s visit to the College was organized by Shelby Friedman ’16, who serves as the Israel Chair for Middlebury Hillel.
“I first heard about Heartbeat through [Associate Chaplain] Rabbi Ira Schiffer,” Friedman said in an interview. “From there, I reached out to them, and it turned out they were already planning a tour in New England.”
Friedman had been seeking a way to bring people together and create a more cooperative tone in conversations about Israel and Palestine — Heartbeat, she realized, could provide that.
“I think this show appeals to a lot of people,” Friedman said. “To Jewish students on campus, music lovers, people who are into conflict, people who are into music.”
The concert featured original songs performed in English, Arabic, and Hebrew. The group criticized the construction of the Israeli West Bank Barrier in “The Wall.” In “City Rising,” Heartbeat members sang, “Governments are like building walls while corporations take control.”
Throughout the show, band members shared messages about the current situation in Israel and Palestine.
“[Heartbeat] is dealing with this conflict in a way our elected officials are not,” said guitarist and vocalist Guy Gefen. “We are understanding together that this is conflict is for both [Israelis and Palestinians] to solve. It is for both of us to create peace together.”
Gefen is one of Heartbeat’s oldest members and joined when he was sixteen years old. A firm believer in peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Gefen was imprisoned for seven months after refusing to be a combat soldier in the Israeli Army.
“A lot of Israelis will attack me for standing up with the Palestinians,” Gefen said. “People think I’m a traitor for being with the enemy.”
On performing with “the enemy” for the first time, Gefen said, “It was empowering to use music to communicate with someone I don’t even share a language with.”
Music is Heartbeat’s tool for uniting people together and transforming conflict. The organization hopes to create a better, safer, and more just future not only for Israel and Palestine but also for the entire world.
“We try to make our instruments louder than the guns,” Shneyer said.
(03/05/14 10:17pm)
The conference room of Robert A. Jones ’59 House now hosts an exhibit by student Levi Westerveld ’15.5. Entitled “New Spaces, Same Identities”, the series of 12 portraits reveals the often-unseen faces of migrant workers in China. Having previously exhibited portrait series of the Quw’ustun native people of Vancouver Island, Canada, and of traditional farmers of the Valley of the Dordogne in France, this recent series continues and expands a process and aesthetic of sensitive humanity and tenderness.
Ross Commons Co-Head and Professor of Religion Maria Hatjigeorgiou has followed Westerveld’s work since his first exhibition at the M Gallery in Fall 2012.
“I sense that Levi is on track to articulate a very personal visual medium: through his deep empathetic listening, the stories of his subjects, and revealing their ontological defiance against the dehumanization of capitalist development, which seeks to destroy the human soul,” Hatjigeorgiou said. “Levi manages to capture something archaic, almost primordial in the gazes of his subjects, and his art becomes the vehicle that conveys it to us, in a way that almost shocks us, because it evokes the mystery of human existence. This aspect of humanity can never be captured by the culture of the endless photographic narcissism of our ‘selfies’; it can only be accomplished by art. In fact, this is the power of true art: by commenting on the human experience, it reminds us of what is true and enduring.”
A sincere respect for people quickly became evident as he reflected on how he approaches each person.
“All the people that we see are people I know well and have interviewed several times before starting the project,” Westerveld said. “On one hand because I was doing research with a professor on migrant workers; on the other hand because it takes time to get to the point where they are willing to have their picture taken and where you feel confident that you’re not rushing through the process. You need to feel honesty and respect for the person. If you’re just ‘using’ them, it doesn’t feel comfortable when you’re drawing them. You certainly need to have a connection with the people and that takes conversation and time. It’s very pleasurable to get to know all the people. Each person has a very particular story. I can look at all the drawings and have a lot of memories and connections that come back.”
Working with charcoal and dry pastel, Westerveld seemingly captures in two dimensions the seasoned reality of his subjects. This exhibit, much like his previous work, focuses on giving a face and a voice to people whose stories and existence often remains unknown. The captivating gaze of the portraits seems to communicate a fourth dimension of time and a fifth dimension of human experience and emotion, beyond the three dimensions of length, width, and height. Many of the portraits shift from a tea-stained negative space to a striking sense of photorealism and character. One might find this shift analogous to the transition and contrast between rural and urban landscapes.
“I was trying to understand how the identity of these people, their perception of their own identity was changing as they move from the rural landscape to the urban landscape, which in China are extremely different spaces,” Westerveld said. “I was going with the idea that the people, as they move between those different spaces, were going to have very different changes and perceptions of their own identity, in the same way that, for me, moving from France to the United States has changed a lot of things about myself.”
Westerveld talked extensively of the relationship between his portraits and his major, Geography. A class on campus led Levi to research Chinese migrant workers before studying abroad in Kunming in Fall 2013. He was able to pursue his research further with a Ph. D. student who focuses on ethnic minorities among Chinese migrant workers.
He pointed out one woman’s portrait, pointing out the form of her safety helmet underneath her hijab. The question of how people’s identities change as they move between different landscapes is central to the exhibition.
“I realized that many migrant workers still perceive themselves as farmers, because there is such a division in Chinese society between the people who come from rural China and urban China,” Westerveld said. “There are spaces in the urban landscape with a real division between people who belong and people who don’t belong. Migrant workers are living in new spaces, but their identity is not changing or adapting to the space. The Chinese city is not adapting to their identify and not accepting them.”
In 2011, the number of migrant workers in China hit 230, and 17 percent of China’s population floats between urban and rural landscapes. These workers are only allowed in urban regions on a temporary, contractual basis. After one contract expires, they have to find another job or return to their rural homes. A global economy’s momentary want for labor seemingly governs migrant workers’ mobility inside their country’s borders, and their legal existence within a city depends entirely on their labor output.
“There is a real focus on their not belonging to the space,” he said. “And so wherever you look, from the cultural, economic or the social perspective, migrant workers are alienated by the city. There are specific spaces where migrant workers work, sleep and eat together. They don’t really interact with the local people.”
Westerveld described how various linguistic constructions further mark migrant workers as outsiders within urban landscapes.
“I really see the art as a bridge between the people who live in [two very] different places,” Westerveld said. “I think people across the world are getting more and more connected: globalization, the Internet, you buy something that’s made somewhere else in the world. But at the same time people are more disconnected and so this is a way, through the art, to create an opportunity to connect with different people. In the same way it’s about giving a voice to people who might not always have a voice in society. Chinese migrant workers are working daily, every day of the week, long hours, and they do not go to school, they don’t speak English and often times don’t speak Mandarin Chinese, so they don’t really have a way to reach out to other people.”
Certainly, the process of developing these series of portraits seemed to develop and uncover Westerveld’s process and his chosen role to himself.
“It is mainly about the migrant workers and the connection I create between them and the audience, but it is about me too,” Westerveld said. “It’s not a straight line between the migrant workers and the audience; it’s more like a curve and I’m the one curving the line and deciding how people are getting represented here. Even though I try my best to grasp my unconscious and not to think too much when I do the art, it’s very much about me as well. I see myself involved in very different ways. The colors I choose, the expressions I try to choose to put on the face, the lines I’m drawing, the lines I’m not drawing, are mostly unconscious choices. I’m not thinking too much when I do the piece — I just go for it.”
Westerveld will discuss “New Spaces, Same Identities” at an opening reception Friday, March 7, at 8:00 p.m. in the Robert. A Jones ’59 conference room. All are welcome to attend.
(03/05/14 5:01pm)
We need to change the way we interact with each other. Words are disconnected from speech, and the subsequent loss of emotion, rationality, and intent that comes with them has harmed all of our relationships.
But everyone has heard the prophecies of the end of all meaningful interaction, how society has become so far removed from any physical connection is lost in the hollowness of words. Or, as some say so eloquently: the internet is terrible, get off your phone.
I’m not writing this to say that. I’m a child of the internet age as much as anyone in my generation. I love it and everything it enables me to do. If anything, I would recommend that we use the internet more. Contribute to it, make it a better place and expand our online “personality”.
What I argue now, though, is that we need to find a way to eliminate those quotation marks around “personality”. A presence on the internet must become fully fleshed-out and dynamic. A digital personality should have just as many facets and shades as a physical one. The internet problem is not one of overuse, but of misuse. It is not that we are too entrenched in online interaction, but that those interactions are static and flat.
This is an understandable product of the rapid integration of the internet into our lives, but it is certainly not permanent. When we gained the capability of ubiquitous digital conversation, we lost a crucial element of vocal speech: the ability to be lazy. When we speak out loud, our vocabularies can be limited, but our words can still carry countless different meanings. An incomprehensible grunt can convey dozens of different emotions. Based on intonation, the same sentence can be sincere, insulting, sarcastic, self-deprecating, joyful, melancholic, or whatever else. The rise and fall of pitch is what truly defines our meaning when we talk. Words are often secondary.
But when we write, intonation does not exist. Nothing matters but the words. As a result, it becomes much more difficult to illustrate emotion. What a sentence sounds like in a mind is not a representation of what it sounds like typed.
No one would disagree that authors can often evoke emotion purely from the words they use. Anyone who has ever taken an English class and analyzed a poem knows that a single word can have several different definitions and a dozen different connotations. A phrase on a page can objectively mean the same thing but carry an entirely different weight depending on the synonyms chosen.
If we were to deliberately choose our words, then it is reasonable to assume that textual conversations could become much more deep and expressive. We need to play with words and the structure of our sentences, experiment with the punctuation and expand our vocabularies so that the feelings ingrained in each word, and not just the definition, convey our meaning.
The verbal carelessness we have right now is why our online personalities are so superficial. So much of our individuality comes from our physical presence. Our facial expressions, movements and quirks cannot be replicated on a computer screen. An online personality is therefore fated to be a crude shadow of the self.
Words can change this. Just as a character in a novel can feel lifelike and real, so too can a person seem alive and true online. Choosing the words to describe something shapes characteristics. The more varied a vocabulary, the deeper the person appears. As a personality develops, it is far easier to view him or her as a real person, and not just a line of text. The real danger in online interaction is anonymity. People feel like they can get away with saying anything and often do not fully comprehend that there is a human behind the name and picture on the screen. This separation of online name and real-world person happens subconsciously all the time, and few are able to avoid it. But when one diversifies and expands one’s online personal to better reflect oneself, it does not matter if the screen name is real or not. The myth of anonymity is gone. A person will generally act more like himself and will treat others in a way more indicative of who they are.
Each line of text we type is meant to express something. But so much evocative power is lost by removing intonation and pitch that that expression is often ineffective. In the ease of online communication we forget how dynamic words are. A sentence typed flippantly can be perceived seriously. Someone attempting to make a joke can just as easily insult their audience. But just as authors are able to control their meaning through their word choice, we can control them online. When we choose our words deliberately, we bring more of ourselves into our interactions.
Artwork by JENA RITCHEY.
(02/26/14 6:44pm)
In the fall of senior year at my high school, the question people were constantly asking each other was not ‘where are you applying ED?’ but rather ‘to which Ivy are you applying ED?’ Given this attitude of my classmates, I hope that none of you will judge me on the following dilemma I faced.
I visited Middlebury on March 31st, 2010 (I remember the day because it was the first time I had ever truly fallen in love with a place). The beauty of the campus, with its trees starting to bloom and the backdrop of snow-peaked mountains, struck me immediately as a sign of a tranquil environment, exactly what I was seeking in a college. As I went on the tour and my tour guide elaborated on the academics, extracurricular and social opportunities, I became more and more convinced that I absolutely had to spend four years in this place.
Come the next fall, however, I was trying to convince myself that I loved Dartmouth (the Ivy I thought was most similar to Midd) because of the Ivy-obsessed culture of my high school. Dartmouth is obviously a great school, but it had none of the attributes I wanted in a college. In fact, I hated it; the classes I sat in on, the appearance of the campus, the prominence of the frats, basically everything. Essentially, the only thing Dartmouth had that Middlebury didn’t was the prestige of being an Ivy League school, which, not to sound totally superficial, I truly craved. Today, I thank my lucky stars that I came to my senses and sent in my application to Middlebury rather than Dartmouth in October of 2010 (though I do feel bad about making my best friend write me a peer recommendation. But hey, sunk costs, amirite fellow econ majors?).
With the recent brand re-evaluation (which is covered extensively in this issue), I have several concerns about the future of the Middlebury undergraduate experience. First and foremost, (and this might read as greedy, selfish and/or entitled, attitudes I don’t intend and for which I apologize) with diversifying our image to emphasize the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS), the C.V.-Starr Middlebury Schools Abroad, and the Bread Loaf School of English more, I worry about the diverting of funds from the undergraduate institution into these graduate and abroad programs. I want to ensure, as people say, that we ‘maintain the campus’ current lifestyle’. I want to ensure that we still have the funds, for example, to bring the Dalai Lama to campus, to host speakers such as Wade Davis (a follow-up to whose discussion is taking place this week and should definitely be attended!), and ensure that MCAB is able to host as many activities as it currently does. I will seriously drop out of this school if funding for the biweekly trivia night at Crossroads is cut (shoutout to the Ron Liebowitz Search Committee!).
One purpose of this rebranding, it seems, is to increase our presence on the national and international stage of colleges. As I previously mentioned, the only thing Dartmouth had going for it, in my mind, was its preeminence. So shouldn’t I be happy that Middlebury is looking to increase its prestige, since that was the only reason I didn’t want to apply early here was its lack of prestige, at least relative to Dartmouth? My short answer, at least now, is no, because I have come to realize that prestige often comes at the expense of the undergraduate experience. For example, many universities’ research labs overlook undergraduate students when seeking out research assistants, and I worry that if our brand is reconfigured such that our graduate institutions begin to share center stage with our Vermont undergraduate campus, then we will fall into the same trap.
In short, although we are repackaging our brand to play up our other campuses, both domestic and international, I truly hope that the focus of the entity (or whatever you may call it) of Middlebury remains squarely on the eponymous campus and the undergraduate students. It would be a real shame if years from now, when my kids inevitably matriculate to my Alma Mater, they’ll be attending ‘Middlebury University’.
(02/20/14 4:18am)
In order to study the influence and perceptions of the Middlebury brand, the College sought the advice of Baltimore-based consultant Mark Neustadt. After interviewing students, faculty, alumni and prospective students alike, he presented his observations and suggestions to the faculty last spring.
“The core of my project, this project I’m talking about today, is what is that elevator speech, what is that narrative that takes into account all of Middlebury’s various program centers and areas of expertise?” said Neustadt to begin his presentation.
In Neustadt’s perspective, marketing is about tailoring one’s messages and activities in the context of audience priorities. He emphasized that the goal is not to conform to the audience’s priorities, but to design marketing in regards to those priorities.
Neustadt observed that there is no basic disconnect among the many Middlebury-affiliated programs, which include the Summer Language School, the C. V. Starr Schools Abroad, the Bread Loaf School of English, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Monterey Institute of International Studies. The challenges facing Middlebury aren’t what he calls profound or philosophical issues, but rather tactical issues such as graphic standards. He mentioned the necessity of a robust logo system and the redesign of the website information architecture as two such examples of tactical issues to be addressed.
Since last year, the College has been considering ways of putting into action the suggestions made by Neustadt and is working to create a new logo that will be used as a common mark for Middlebury and all of its affiliate programs.
To involve members of the College community in the rebranding effort, six discussions — two for faculty, two for students and two for staff — have been held to unveil the new logo and gain feedback on the marketing efforts.
Vice President of Communications Bill Burger, who is part of the team working to create the new logo, led these discussions.
“I want to hear if people like the new logos we are working on or if they don’t like them, why?” he said. “If they have specific ideas we want to hear them and try to incorporate them. I want to be as inclusive as we can be in the early stages. I think if we do this well we will have a successful end result and avoid the mistakes that some others have made working on logos in the past.”
The discussions, open to anyone in the College community, revealed the different options presented during the brainstorming process for a new logo. Burger explained the design approaches taken regarding details such as structure, typeface and the most effective means of including all educational entities within the a new logo.
Jackson Adams ’17 attended one of the student discussions and said of the work being done on the logo, “I’m not a big fan of change, especially for Middlebury as a campus rooted in so much tradition and despite my distrust in ad agencies trying to embody everything, I think that this work has managed to capture the basic vibe of Middlebury accurately … it seems to give the right information and idea about Middlebury as a whole.”
Those working on the new logo will present their work and the feedback from these discussions to the Board of Trustees on Friday, Feb. 21 and Saturday, Feb. 22. The Board will then indicate whether the project of creating a new logo should continue.
“We are presenting to the [Board of Trustees] looking for their reactions and looking for similar feedback to what we have in these sessions,” Burger said. “We expect some direction from the board on how to move forward on the project,” adding that positive feedback has been received in “every instance that people have seen the work.”
Neustadt also suggested that the College redesign its website so that its different entities were more distinct and easily searchable.
“The website should have an architecture that a little more sufficiently supports the affiliated program and their goals,” he said.
In other words, a student searching for information on the German summer language school shouldn’t easily end up at the College’s German department page.
“What is needed at Middlebury now, more than I think the institution acknowledges, is segmentation between the programs, so that the programs and each talk about themselves without mushing everything together into a narrative about the bigger Middlebury,” Neustadt said.
“This issue is most critical for the College … If the College will optimally continue to advance, what the College also needs is a segmented boundary space where it can talk about its own goals because the college’s goals are not identical to the goals of this greater, you know, collection of programs.”
He emphasized that the general brand narrative should not be the first priority for the majority of the members of the college community and its distinct affiliated programs, adding that the College, in particular, needs to be much more clearly demarcated instead of presented as the base for the affiliated programs.
Neustadt concluded his presentation with a proposal of two brand-theme narrative recommendations to straddle the College and its various affiliated programs. In presenting the College and its affiliated programs, he suggested that Middlebury focus on the strong sense of community fostered by its rural Vermont campus, as well as preparation for what he calls an increasingly globally interconnected world.
Additional Reporting by ELLIE REINHARDT
(02/13/14 12:25am)
In an effort to cut costs and reduce waste, the College will be reorganizing top-level management positions and introducing a one-card swipe system within Dining Services. The restructuring comes after discussions with consulting firm Sodexo in the fall.
According to Vice President for Finance and Treasurer Patrick Norton, Sodexo was brought in because he and others “identified that there were issues around systems and general management that needed to be corrected.” Sodexo is a major player in the food service field that also offers management services. The firm is present among many local institutions, including University of Vermont, Chaplain College and Saint Michael’s College.
Though at the conclusion of Sodexo’s stay, the College decided not to employ the firm’s outside management, the company’s findings still proved to be valuable.
“[The Sodexo report] validated our thoughts,” Norton said. “You have a hypothesis and you test it. And the hypothesis was that we had issues around some systems and some general management and that’s what came back to us.”
Implementing A Swipe System
As one of the only colleges in the nation without a swipe-based meal plan, the College does not have a concrete method of determining the number of students who eat in the dining halls. Norton said that down the road, the College will likely implement a one-card system.
Discussions regarding the one-card system are still in preliminary stages. Norton clarified that introducing a one-card swipe system does not necessarily mean that the College is moving to a meal plan system, and there will be no limit to a student’s number of daily swipes.
“What the swipe card does is that it eliminates folks who aren’t students from going into our dining halls and eating,” Norton said. “That’s an issue. It’s hard to determine how pervasive the issue is, but it’s an issue. We’ve heard anecdotally that there are folks from outside who go into our dining halls and eat, and when you have an open system, that’s what happens.”
Initially, the swipe system will allow Dining Services to ensure that those eating in the dining halls are members of the College community and that guests pay the rarely-enforced five dollar breakfast, seven dollar lunch and nine dollar dinner fees.
While dining hall swipes are likely to be unlimited when the one-card system is introduced, students can have the option of putting points on their card and using it for purchases at the bookstore or at on-campus retail operations such as the Grille or Crossroads. Such a system is widely employed at schools across the nation and was once used at the College too.
A decade ago, the College employed a home-grown credit system, much like a credit card, that was used in the dining halls and food retail operations. Students were able to purchase items at The Grille and the cost was added to the end-of-semester bill. Additionally, the College issued faculty and staff members credit cards, the charges of which were deducted from their paychecks.
According to Norton, the College eliminated the system in 2004 because “it was more credit, public credit, and why are we a credit card company?”
“For employees, it was easy to just take it out of the paycheck,” Norton said. “But for students, you have to bill them and you have to collect, and so the overhead and the time and effort just didn’t make a lot of sense.”
After a decade of virtually free-for-all dining, the College will be shifting to a more controlled, but not restrictive, system. The one-card system will be developed slowly, with careful evaluation of data and much student input.
“We do not have to go down the road of a meal plan,” Norton said. “If one of the big issues we have is around systems and practices, we get that fixed with an executive director, and if one of our other issues is that we want to restrict our dining halls to people who are actually part of the community, then that could be solved by hiring an executive director and adding a one-card. You don’t need a meal plan for that. So that’s the other issue — do we really need one?”
The College’s retail operations are largely underused. Putting points on a one-card system could allow students to eat at 51 Main or The Grille without having cash on-hand, making it easier to dine outside of the dining halls and increase retail operation traffic.
Norton does not see any downside to the one-card system because, he argues, it will not prove to be restricting and it has the potential to increase variety both in terms of where students choose to eat and what Dining Services is capable of purchasing.
“When the business is aware of how many are coming in, they know the income from those guests, it is much easier to define your purchasing needs,” wrote Director of Dining Services Matthew Biette in an email.
Just as the Weigh The Waste campaign in the fall sought to reduce food waste and refine Dining Services spending, tracking the number of students in the dining halls will allow for more accurate budgeting. This could potentially open doors for more local food in the dining halls, increased variety and further accommodations for those with dietary restrictions.
Seeking Out New Management
Dining Services at the College is unique as Middlebury operates as a 12-month campus, rather than the nine-months for which most other schools operate. During the normal academic year, Dining Services operates three dining halls on campus, catering services and transaction-based retail operations such as The Grille, Crossroads and 51 Main. During the summer, Dining Services provides food for language schools and the Bread Loaf School of English over 10 miles away in Ripton.
The frequently changing number of students who use the dining halls, evolving dietary needs and the complexity of operations has led the College to seek restructuring within Dining Services and hire an Executive Director of Dining in the near future.
“Our systems are behind the times a bit and we need to improve them, certainly for an institution of Middlebury’s caliber … and complexity of operations,” Norton said. “We have to up our game on how we’re managing the overall operations.”
In recent years, budget cuts have led the College to reduce catering operations, eliminate juice at lunch and dinner and only offer breakfast meats on weekends.
According to Norton, the Executive Director of Dining will be responsible for the College’s three pillars of dining: retail, which encompasses The Grille, Crossroads, Wilson Café and 51 Main; catering functions; and board, or Proctor, Ross and Atwater dining halls.
“[In lieu of an outsourced general management model] we need an executive director to come in who … can actually bring in the systems and the practice that we need to get from, say, a Sodexo,” Norton said.
“But the idea is to do it ourselves, to remain self-operating, and there are a number of reasons for that. One is cost. We would contain our costs by selecting an internal hire. Number two is that we want connections to new food, curriculums being developed, we want more of a connection to local markets and we think it would be best served if we had that talent in-house to do it.”
(02/13/14 12:15am)
The Middlebury School of the Environment will open its doors to students for the first time this summer. The intensive six-week program promises to give students not only a rigorous interdisciplinary training in environmental studies but also invaluable leadership and entrepreneurial skills necessary to promote social change.
While the program will be inaugurated for the first time this summer, faculty members have been working to develop it for several years. In 1994, President John McCardell identified the study of the environment as one of five peaks of excellence of the college and a 1995 taskforce suggested the creation of a summer school of the environment. The College’s environmental studies program, founded in 1965, is the oldest of such programs in the US.
“For the last eighteen years we have worked to see how such a program could be offered, where it would be offered, what the pros and cons were and what the curriculum might look like,” said Professor of Environmental and Biosphere Studies and the Director of the Middlebury School of the Environment Stephen Trobulak. “It all finally all came together last year and the trustees approved our proposal last May.”
The College has been holding summer courses for a long time. The School of German was established almost a century ago in 1915 and the Bread Loaf School of English has been in session every summer since 1920. By accepting students from around the country, the summer programs expand the College’s educational reach.
“It seemed like a natural fit to develop a Bread Loaf and Language School-like summer program that focused on the environment,” Trombulak said.
Students in the program will take three interdisciplinary courses. All students will enroll in a Sustainability Practicum and a course titled Interdisciplinary Understanding of Place: Lake Champlain. In addition to the two required courses, each student is free to choose a Global Perspectives elective with topics such as international environmental negotiation and conservation planning.
“The goal of the program is to offer students a high quality education that focuses on cutting-edge curricula related to understanding the relationship between the humans and the environment,” Trombulak said.
The curriculum is set up to combine the knowledge base of environmental studies with the practical leadership and entrepreneurial skills necessary to promote social change after the completion of the program.
“We want the curriculum to reflect not just the knowledge base necessary to be effective at addressing environmental issues in the twenty-first century but also the skills base for doing it so the kinds of leadership and communication and project management skills,” Trombulak said.
“The goal isn’t to produce activists … What it is about is giving students the skills they need to succeed professionally in whatever domain they choose to pursue whether it is business, government, education or non-profit organizations.”
The blend of academics and practical skills is an attraction of the program.
“I am hoping to get the opportunity to get to know some folks from other schools who are also interested in environmental studies and about to jump off into the world to try and make it a better place,” wrote Isaac Baker ’15, an environmental studies non-fiction major who has applied to the program, in an email. “I [hope to] explore the MiddCORE-like personal development that the program is said to offer — I don’t fully know what that will look like but I am curious to find out.”
The curriculum also represents a combination of science and the humanities, which the environmental studies program at the College emphasizes during the school year. All environmental studies majors must take a core course titled Nature’s Meanings: American Experiences, which includes readings of authors like Emerson, Thoreau and Muir. Those who major in environmental studies must also take their cognates, or electives, outside of the natural sciences. This emphasis on the humanities stems from the realization that environmental issues have to do with mankind’s relationship with the environment.
The course about Lake Champlain, in particular, embodies the interdisciplinarity nature of the study of the environment.
“The sources of environmental challenges and the solutions inherently have both cultural and ecological roots and constraints it is unavoidably and inarguably true that to be able to chart an environmental future that works for humans and non-humans alike you have to be able to understand both the cultural narrative and the ecological narrative of a place,” said Trombulak. “It doesn’t make any sense to talk about water pollution control or fisheries management in Lake Champlain if you don’t understand both the human story and the ecological story.”
The priority deadline for School of the Environment applications is Feb. 15 and the program officially begins on June 20.
“It’s going to be an intensive experience in and out of the classroom,” wrote Baker, “I’m looking forward to diving in deep.”
(02/13/14 12:10am)
On February 14, the Center for Careers & Internships (CCI) will unveil the inaugural UpNext speakers series, a faculty-moderated career panel that brings Middlebury alumni from different industries to campus to share their work experience with students. This week’s event focuses on media and entertainment.
Jeff Sawyer, CCI Director of Employer Outreach and Development, says the series is unlike any other in that it “brings three constituencies together, as students, faculty and employers converse about topics and common interests within a single industry.”
The panel on Friday will be moderated by Professor of English and American Literatures Timothy Billings and will feature a diverse lineup of alumni panelists, including Katherine Davis ’87, a Political Science and French major and current 60 Minutes producer; Rick Holzman ’87, a Political Science major and Executive Vice President of Programming and Strategy at Animal Planet; Richard Coolidge ’87, a Political Science/French double major, and ABC News producer; Beth Levison ’91, a Geography/Italian major and documentary filmmaker; and recent alumna, Christine Schozer ’13, an Economics major and production assistant at Peacock Productions, an NBCUniversal production company.
Although the first UpNext event centers on careers in media and entertainment, Sawyer wants Middlebury students to look beyond the common perceptions of the industry.
“The series – and Friday’s panel – is intended to build awareness in students so they have a nuanced understanding of the various components of the career paths they might pursue,” Sawyer said. “I want students to envision the breadth of jobs in the media industry: there are careers beyond the two obvious jobs of production and journalism.”
Similarly, Schozer ’13 – a production assistant for Peacock Productions in New York – notes the importance of keeping an open mind when searching for internships and eventually jobs.
“I started off as an Economics major with an interest in finance, but chose not to travel that path,” Schozer said. “I began to consider marketing and production, given that many of the jobs intertwine my organization and planning strengths. After reaching out to alumni through MiddNet, I found an internship at NBC during my junior year, which really sparked my interest in production. To me, the “UpNext” series is a great opportunity for students to realize the opportunities that exist and create interest networks within media and entertainment companies.”
Recently, Schozer has worked on variety of projects including NBC’s “The Making of the Sound of Music Live!,” and “Skywire Live!,” a Discovery Channel live event covering Nik Wallenda’s walk across the Grand Canyon on a tightrope. Gretchen Eisele ’90 was executive producer of “Skywire Live!,” which had 21 million viewers and won a 2013 Emmy for Best Live Performance.
“During The Sound of Music documentary, I got the opportunity to interact and listen to people who truly excel in their industry, such as with Neil Meron, the executive producer, David Chase, a top musical director on Broadway, Beth McCarthy Miller, a Saturday Night Live television director, and Rob Ashford, a renowned broadway director,” Schozer said.
When asked what advice she would give students interested in pursuing internships and career paths, Schozer encourages students to identify their strengths and interests. “If you don’t know what you want to do, try something that fits your skill set. If you don’t try, you don’t know.”
Susan Walker, Associate Director of Career Services at the CCI, urges students to use the UpNext series as a comfortable setting “to put themselves forward to alumni as a means of motivating the career discovery process.”
Similarly, Sawyer encourages students to question what exactly employers are looking for in order to effectively apply for and take advantage of opportunities.
Friday’s signature UpNext event will be held at 5 p.m. in Axinn 229. Students are also welcome to attend additional information sessions about working at NBC Peacock Productions and Discovery and an informal lunch – by RSVP on MOJO – with the alumni panelists on Saturday in Ross’ Fireside Lounge.
“[Future UpNext sessions will likely be] a robust cross-section of industries that touches all corners of the student body,” Sawyer said. “With a focus on industries such as social and human services, the scientific aspect of healthcare services, government, and education.”
(02/12/14 9:31pm)
The Town Hall Theater presented its eighth J-term musical, the legendary Les Miserables, to four packed crowds Jan. 23-26. This collaboration between the Town Hall Theater and the College Department of Music showcases well-known vocal and theatrical talents as well as student actors and singers from a variety of other academic disciplines. The intensive nature of J-term allows students from any department the opportunity to focus their undivided attention on the production of a fully staged musical in just three weeks. The results have proved wildly popular, with tickets to all four performances of Les Mis selling out on the first day of sales.
Full disclosure: as a musical junkie, Les Mis is one of my top five favorites. After countless hours spent listening to various cast recordings, one attempt to read the English translation of Victor Hugo’s original 1,500 page novel (currently paused at page 372) and a viewing of the 1998 dramatic adaptation with Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush, the music and story of Les Mis are extremely familiar to me.
The musical is one of the longest running in history and has been seen live by an estimated 65 million people in 42 countries, not to mention the millions of new viewers first exposed by the highly-publicized 2012 Hollywood production featuring Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway. Following the life story of Jean Valjean, an ex-convict who finds redemption through faith, honesty and hard work, Les Mis discusses heavy themes plaguing revolutionary France, such as prostitution, rampant crime, political unrest and poverty. The over 20 major and minor characters and extended timeline surely present any creative team with a unique challenge when adapting Les Mis.
As I took my place in the audience, I was excited and a bit nervous to see how the College would contribute to the long list of productions.
There is a brief, electric moment in a theater when the lights dim as the murmur of the crowd makes way for the tuning of the orchestra. Violins and violas play their final practice notes before the conductor raises her arms, and the audience takes a collective breath, waiting for the first measure to prompt the opening scene. In Les Mis, this anticipation of the unknown made way for the male members of the ensemble singing the first notes of ‘Look Down’, each sporting a prison uniform as they worked together to pull an off-stage ship. This scene also introduced the tense relationship between the main character, Jean Valjean, and Javert, the strict and intimidating police inspector who spends his life searching for the escaped Valjean in order to exact the justice he thinks is deserved.
The nine principal characters were excellently cast, with Quinn Bernegger ’13.5 tackling his last role at the College with nuance and determination. As the lead, Bernegger was required to be on stage for almost every scene, and his clear, powerful tenor was extremely well-suited for the wide range and emotion of song necessary to play the ex-convict turned honest man. The intensely emotional ‘Bring Him Home’ and ‘Who Am I’ were understandably met by rousing applause. Bernegger conveyed the heartbreak and morality of Jean Valjean through his advanced ability to shape words and music into an expression of complex character.
An imposing Javert appeared in the form of Mike McCann ’15, his height and black inspector costume combining beautifully with his strong vocals to create a believable antagonist to Valjean’s reformation. Especially powerful was ‘Javert’s Soliloquy,’ when McCann conveyed the inner turmoil of a man who realizes that his unfailing reliance on the morals of the law is no match for the genuine compassion and honesty of Valjean.
A few key props cleverly positioned on the grid of metal pipes at the back of the stage addressed the issue of conveying the many scenes and locations of Les Mis, allowing for the illusion of even more action off stage. A stained glass cross and a clock were just a few of the many props placed on the grid to indicate a change of time or place, and old doors were positioned in the second act to build the battle barricade between the on-stage revolutionaries and the off-stage French soldiers. Risers remained in the same U-shaped position throughout, allowing more opportunities for depth and travel without additional scenery. At times, the stage seemed incredibly sparse, sometimes only sporting one or two objects, but the smart blocking and captivating, colorful costumes allowed for the minimalist set design.
Evann Normandin ’14.5 played Fantine, a factory worker shunned by society and forced into prostitution to raise funds for her daughter’s care. Eventually selling her luscious locks for money, Fantine’s tragic downfall is captured in the iconic ‘I Dreamed a Dream,’ a song that reflects on the hopes of youth erased by the harsh realities of single motherhood and working class life in 1860s France. Fantine’s death and request of Valjean to care for her young daughter, Cosette, dictate the direction of the plot for the rest of the musical. A fan of Les Mis since she was 11, Normandin said that playing Fantine was a dream come true.
“She is such a complex and tragic character, and I enjoyed the process of pushing myself and being pushed and directed by Doug to find ways to let go of myself more in each rehearsal,” she said. “It was emotionally draining to play a character who falls so deeply into despair, and to access those emotions every night in rehearsal and then eventually performance definitely took a toll. She’s a character who is very much a victim and reacts to the often abusive treatment she receives, but the challenge for me was finding moments of strength, especially in ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ which is much more interesting for me when it doesn’t stay on one emotional note.”
Indeed, Normandin brought the sorrow and despair of Fantine alive in her short time on stage before her character’s death, her skilled voice cracking appropriately with emotion as her character declined physically and emotionally.
Costume designers Danielle Nieves ’10 and Krista Duke ’15 crafted exquisitely detailed, visually stunning costumes that provided an excellent complement to the powerful music of Les Mis. From the silver buckles on Javert’s police uniform to the garish floral print on Thenardier’s pants to the intricate rouching and layering on the prostitutes’ dresses, details propelled the costumes from good to phenomenal.
Adam Milano ’15 used his experience as a member of the Otter Nonsense Players comedy group to inject laughter into the occasionally somber themes of the musical, prancing onto the stage as the crooked innkeeper in ‘Master of the House,’ and delivering the complicated, quick lyrics of the song with ease.
Dana Tripp ’14 proved the perfect pairing as the innkeeper’s wife, showcasing strong vocals and comedic timing as she proved her wit and intelligence while lamenting her position as the partner of a lousy criminal. Together, Tripp and Milano formed a well-loved pair, garnering a rousing cheer from the audience as they took their final bow.
The 24 members of the ensemble added immensely to the work of the principal characters, contributing to the gorgeous harmonies of ensemble songs such as ‘Lovely Ladies,’ the whimsically choreographed ‘At the End of the Day,’ and the central ‘One Day More.’ The high quality performances were telling of the exceptional talents of each cast member.
Adding even more to the polished product was the subtle presence of the orchestra, comprised of twelve student and community musicians and conducted by Hannah Rose Rommer ’08.5. The sweeping, enchanting melodies of Les Mis are the backbone of the piece, some themes repeating many times throughout the show to tie specific events or characters together. The orchestra was relatively small but powerful, adding a captivating layer of dimension.
As the second act progresses, Fantine’s daughter, Cosette, grows into a beautiful, refined young woman under the protection of Valjean, and her innocence and foray into first love were captured by Julianne Wieboldt ’14, whose high soprano voice easily met the challenges of the score. Cosette falls for a brave young revolutionary, Marius, played by Thomas Scott ’15. Scott’s understated, soothing voice matched well with his character, who must grapple with the death of his fellow revolutionaries after finding his ‘one true love.’
Watching the young lovers from the sideline is Eponine, daughter of the low-class Thenardiers who has known and loved Marius for some time. Alyssa Dillon ’15.5’s smooth, wide-ranging voice portrayed the heartbreak of unrequited love beautifully; love and regret combined in songs ‘On My Own’ and ‘A Little Fall of Rain,’ in which Eponine dies in the arms of her beloved, comforted in her last moments by Marius’ proclamation of platonic affection.
Not to be left out is Mohan Fitzgerald ’14, whose powerful vocals and expressions lent themselves nicely to Enjolras, Marius’ best friend and brave proponent of the revolution.
Eryn Diehl, Lillea Isham and Tyler Giorgio were excellent as young Cosette, young Eponine and Gavroche, the three children’s roles in the musical. All three displayed high levels of professionalism and talent as they sang of hopes for better days and showed maturity beyond their years.
Normandin, who is a double major in Theatre and English, notes that the J-term production experience is distinct from a typical semester-long schedule.
“I’ve been exposed to theatre that makes me think deeply and critically for an entire semester in faculty shows,” she said. “The J-term musical has been an entirely different experience in terms of the somewhat universal appeal of Les Mis and the expedited work schedule. We work so quickly that sometimes you’re still finding important moments in dress rehearsal, and that freshness can be exhilarating.”
Director Doug Anderson, Music Director Carol Christensen and the over 60 involved students presented a fresh, engaging adaptation that proved equally accessible to long-time fans and first-time viewers of the 25-year-old musical. Les Miserables is full of death and despair, but ultimately has grown in popularity because of its messages of hope and strength in the face of adversity. Middlebury’s adaptation was ambitious, powerful and ultimately, a huge success. In my mind, there is no question as to why the J-term musicals have proven so popular after watching Les Mis.
(01/16/14 4:54am)
On Thursday, Jan. 16 in Mead Chapel, The Sweet Remains — a folk-rock group led by Middlebury College alumni Rich Price ’99.5 and Greg Naughton ’90 — will perform in Mead Chapel. The concert in sponsored in part by both Brainerd and Wonnacott Commons, as well as the MCAB Small Concerts Initiative.
“We’ve been slowly working on bringing the band to campus since September,” said Winson Law ’16 of the Brainerd Commons Council in an email. “We’re also excited that this event is sponsored by three different campus organizations, and hope that the concert will help different people come together.”
The Middlebury Campus had a chance to chat with Naughton and to learn a little bit more about the band’s history and their plans for the upcoming Mead Chapel show.
Middlebury Campus (MC): When did you guys start playing music and how did the band first come together?
Greg Naughton (GN): Well— Rich and I are both Midd grads and although we weren’t there at same time, we became aware of each other in New York City for this reason, since we were both solo singer-songwriters at the time. I would go to his shows and he would come to mine. We became friendly then ultimately started writing, playing and touring together about ten years ago. But being fans of some of the old super groups, like CSN, we had this idea that we really wanted to hear a third harmony on the stuff we were writing. About 5 years ago, he called me from a co-bill tour he was doing with this fella, Brian Chartrand, he’d just met and said ‘I think I found the guy.’
So when their tour reached the east coast I met up with them in a hotel room in Rhode Island somewhere and we had a little jam session. I think we knew that day we had a new band...
MC: What are your biggest musical influences, both for you personally and for the band as a whole?
GN: We all bring different influences to the group, which I think gives it some dynamism it wouldn’t otherwise have if we all were coming from exactly the same place. I feed heavily on Motown and soul. Brian’s a fan of alternative bands and R&B. Rich loves some Paul Simon, James Taylor and John Mayer. But we kind of meet up on a mutual affection for the singer-songwriter super-groups of the 70s like CSN, The Eagles and such. And that’s easiest comparison to draw with our music, 3 part harmonies and singer-songwriter folk-rock.
MC: You say you and Rich were Midd students. What did you guys study here at Middlebury and did you play any music while you were students at the College?
GN: Yeah, I was very active musically at Midd in bands and the Dissipated Eight, which was great education for the harmony singing and arranging we do with the Sweet Remains. But I did a joint major in English and Theater. Rich and I were both really involved in Midd Theater (he did a joint History/Theater major). It’s a great theater department you’ve got there.
MC: What sort of music and touring experience do you and the other band members have outside of The Sweet Remains?
GN: As I said, Rich and I used to tour together promoting our solo stuff. He then got a deal with Geffen Records (for which we wrote a couple songs together) and then they put him out on the road really heavily for a couple years. Though we do solo and other projects on the side, these days Rich and I pretty much only tour with the Sweet Remains. Brian however is gigging pretty much every night of the year — if we’re not out, it’s his solo deal or other side projects.
MC: Tell me a bit about your writing process, do you pull from personal experience? Play off of music that influences you?
GN: I think all three of us have pretty different processes and different themes that we favor, though there’s definitely a common thread. For the most part the Sweet Remains is about having a good time hanging out with friends on the back porch, if you will. So there’s a good number of those types of songs. Most of the darker stuff gets saved for our solo projects. Most frequently one of us will bring something to the table once it’s mostly been written, then we’ll polish it up together and arrange harmonies and such, a process we call “RGB-ifying” it (Rich/Greg/Brian). But we also write some of the stuff together.
MC: What has been your toughest experience touring with The Sweet Remains?
GN: Geography. Brian lives in Phoenix, Rich in Vermont, and I’m in New York City, so we’re probably one of the most geographically challenged indie bands you’ll find. Every tour starts off with some hefty transportation bills that need to get paid. Otherwise the middle of the country is hard, it’s much easier to tour the Northeast and the West Coast. But in the middle the drives between cities can make it really difficult.
MC: If you could play with any musician in history, who would it be?
GN: For me it’s definitely Stevie Wonder (I got to meet him last year, and that was pretty cool for me…). Rich I’m pretty sure would say Paul Simon or maybe the Beatles. That would be awesome, I’d go to that show! And Brian, Steely Dan.
MC: Anything else you’d like to add about the upcoming show?
GN: We’re pretty psyched to be playing in Mead Chapel this time. We’ve played McCollough Social Space the last few times, which is great, but the chapel is such a unique space to hear music. Its got is own great vibe and acoustics. Also, we’ll be joined by a great backing band, including Midd grad Peter Day (of VTs own The Grift) on Bass, and Brad Wentworth on Percussion.
(01/16/14 1:31am)
On Tuesday, Jan. 18, Community Council met to continue brainstorming agenda topics for the spring semester and began conversations concerning the implementation of surveillance cameras on campus.
This week, after hearing from members of the Council who were not present last week, the Council broached the topic of surveillance cameras. Dean of the College and Community Council Co-Chair Shirley Collado explained the context in which the topic emerged. Toward the end of last year, as Community Council discussed “dorm damage, tree damages and thefts that have gone on… [there] was a question about whether or not cameras in any shape of form in any major location on campus would be something we should think about,” according to Collado.
Members of the Council had mixed feelings about the subject. Although contending that the members of the College community generally self-police and are trusting toward others, Tim Parsons, campus horticulturist, spoke about the reality of the world outside of our community.
“While we live in a tight-knit community, we are part of a larger scary world,” Parsons said.
He believed that surveillance cameras could be “another tool in the tool box” that can improve campus security.
Professor of American Studies and English & American Literatures Will Nash, brought up the question of how the surveillance would be used, especially if it would be used against students who engage in underage drinking.
“There is a gradation of how these tapes can be used,” Nash said, “If [the cameras] were to make things more secretive…I think there may be some blowbacks from that and would increase some of our problems.”
Student Government Association President Rachel Liddell ’15 was also concerned about the potential usage of these video tapes.
“I am really nervous about having control of my own image and [positively] portraying myself … I would really prefer if there were not images of me walking into dorms with alcohol on my hands. ”
Implementing surveillance cameras, however, would not be unprecedented in terms of controversial measures taken to increase campus security.
“Years ago, [when the card access system] was introduced, students were very distressed about having cards to access [buildings] and that the college would be able to read when people were going in and out,” Collado said. “But it is a huge advantage to us when something goes very wrong … It was a big decision when we [implemented the card access system], but now it is a pretty normal thing.”
Dean of Students Doug Adams compared the surveillance cameras with the card access system that has now become normal.
“[In public places] you expect to be on camera […] and it is a normal thing,” Adams said. “One of the things we proved with card access is that there is no intent to track [a student’s] behavior on a regular basis. [Having surveillance cameras] helps the community; it is there as a positive tool.”
Ben Bogin ’15 opposed the additional ways by which students can be monitored.
“You can be really tracked everywhere,” Bogin said, referencing cyber security and public video cameras. “But I don’t think that necessarily justifies adding one more place that people can track us.”
Collado concluded the discussion of surveillance cameras by stating that “it is a huge luxury for us to be having this conversation around the kind of parameters we want to look at as a community,” calling the discussion “important work for Community Council.”
The Community Council previously met last Monday to voice concerns and draft a list of discussion topics for the coming year. New topics include crosswalk safety at night, dorm cleanout and weapon and ammunition storage on campus.
(01/16/14 12:56am)
The start of J-term is one of the happiest times of the year for Middlebury students. Unless you are one of those masochistic types who has opted to take J-Orgo or a CW, most Middkids have plenty of free time to ski, sleep, and relax. For me, J-term has always been a good time for soul-searching and some of the best possible soul-searching can be done with the aid of graduation speeches. Think about it: some of the world’s most successful people are asked to summarize the most valuable things they have learned in life in twenty minutes or less. Every year, scores of speakers across the US take up this challenge and his or her words are ingrained forever in the immortal walls of the internet. Here are ten of my favorite graduation speeches. I bet you a Dr. Feel-Good that you will find yourself inspired by at least one of them.
1. Cyma Zarghami (UVM, 2012)
This UVM alumna and president of Nickelodeon gives graduates reasons not to despair as they enter a tough job market. Warning: be prepared to listen to Spongebob diss Middlebury at the end of the speech.
2. Bill Watterson (Kenyon College, 1990)
The legendary cartoonist of Calvin and Hobbes describes how he took procrastination to a whole new level by recreating Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” from the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling of his dorm room. He also gives a lot of great advice on how to live a good life.
3. Oprah Winfrey (Spelman College, 2012)
Oprah shares three valuable pieces of advice with graduates of one of America’s oldest historically black colleges for women.
4. Steve Jobs (Stanford, 2005)
Ever wonder if that class you’re taking will be of any use to you in the future? Jobs describes how if he hadn’t taken a calligraphy class while he was at Reed, computers probably wouldn’t have the wide array of typefaces and fonts that they have today.
5. JK Rowling (Harvard, 2008)
Rowling, who with the success of Harry Potter became wealthier than the Queen of England, tells graduates that she herself was the biggest failure she knew seven years after her college graduation. She ends her speech by describing the power that imagination has to change the world.
6. Salman Khan (MIT, 2012).
The founder of the revolutionary educational website Khan Academy takes graduates through a powerful and entertaining thought experiment that has allowed him to live a life with minimal regrets.
7. Michelle Obama (Virginia Tech, 2012)
The First Lady takes a unique approach of giving a commencement speech by focusing on the lessons that the Hokie Nation has taught her in the wake of their 2007 school shooting rather than imparting her own advice to graduates.
8. Jonathan Safran Foer (Middlebury College, 2013).
In this speech, Foer makes the best argument that I have heard against the pursuit of human immortality. After listening to this speech, you will also find yourself spending more time taking in the scenery as you walk across campus and less time staring at your phone.
9. Ellen DeGeneres (Tulane, 2009)
Addressing the “Katrina Class,” DeGeneres details how she does not regret for a second her decision to come out publicly as a lesbian, even though it resulted in the canceling of her sitcom. Staying true to herself allowed her to make a return to television with an extremely successful talk show.
10. David McCullough, Jr. (Wellesley High School, 2012)
In this controversial, yet amazing, graduation speech, a high school English teacher tells his former students point-blank that none of them is special. A good reminder for most of us Middkids as well.
JONATHAN BRACH '13.5 is from Melrose, MA
(12/05/13 3:15am)
The Department of Theatre and Dance presented an ambitious, large scale production of David Edgar’s Pentecost, an enviably clever play combining high art and international relations in an exhilarating exploration of culture and the past and present value of art on Nov. 21-23.
Edgar, one of the most prolific playwrights of the post-1960s British generation, wrote Pentecost in 1994 as part of a trilogy of plays discussing negotiation in Eastern Europe.
“I wanted to posit a different way of looking at culture, a model which acknowledged that all cultures are fundamentally hybrids, which grow and develop in response not just to the urge for continuity but the exigencies of change,” Edgar is quoted as saying in the program.
In the first act, the audience was welcomed into an unidentified Eastern European country, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, as national art curator Gabrielle Pecs, played by Tosca Giustini ’15, and proper British art historian Dr. Oliver Davenport, portrayed by professional actor Jeffries Thaiss, discussed Pecs’ belief that she had discovered a piece of art that could elevate her small, unnoticed country onto the world stage and completely alter European art history.
The painting was gradually revealed through a series of complex and masterful set manipulations; at first only visible through the removal of a few bricks, it was then completely covered for most of the first act as it was prepared for removal and restoration.
Edgar established the multiplicity of language from the start with Pecs and Davenport discussing colloquialisms alone before being joined by a confident and often humorous cast of supporting characters who revealed – in multiple, sometimes overlapping languages – their own, often selfish, reasons for wanting the painting’s preservation or removal.
Thaiss and Giustini set the tone of the play from their first enigmatic lines, Giustini overflowing with energy as she masterfully delivered copious amounts of dialogue in an Eastern European accent.
Halfway through the first act, Assistant Professor of Theatre Alex Draper lit up the stage as stereotypical ‘arrogant American’ art historian Leo Katz, carrying an equal amount of confidence and assumption to ferociously deny that a work of any importance could be found in such an ‘insignificant’ country. What ensued in the remainder of the act was an engaging battle about the painting’s identity, removal from the church and final destination.
Professor of Theatre and director Richard Romagnoli explained that the investigation and exploration of the painting was his main reason for choosing the play.
“The significance of the painting is very moving and cathartic for me,” he said. “I’m hoping that audiences found one way or another into the play, but I think the weight of the painting itself is one way that could be useful for everyone.”
Throughout the play, 12 languages were spoken, giving the audience a true sense of what it feels like not to fully understand, often having to guess from body language, just like the English-speakers on stage, what a character was saying.
Draper noted that the dialogue proved to be one of the most difficult parts of the play.
“There’s a script, but just like in music, not all of it is played at the same volume or focus,” Draper said. “We had to figure out, if four people are talking at once, which happens a lot, what dialogue the audience needed to hear as the featured solo and what was backup.”
Just as the audience started to feel comfortable with the complex debate surrounding the painting, Edgar hit the audience with a shocker at the end of the first act. Katz, Pecs and Davenport were suddenly taken hostage as a multi-cultural group of refugees seeking political asylum burst into the church and demanded entrance into the countries of their choice.
Draper beautifully portrayed Katz’s remarkable and subtle personal transformation, ultimately handling the stressful situation much better than the usually calm and understanding Davenport, who nervously requests insulin for his diabetes and only intensifies the situation by infuriating Yasmin, the refugee leader played by Mari Vial-Golden ’14.
As the refugees realized that the painting on the wall may be even more valuable than their human prisoners, their individual stories came out. Full of pain, misery and in some cases, hope, the stories sparked sympathy in the hostages and the audience, despite constant threats of violence and ever present weaponry. The refugees interpreted each other’s folk tales and made music, showing that they were really not that different from their hostages, even as they threatened the painting and their prisoners.
Draper was moved both by the actors around him and the transformation of his character.
“The last ten days of the rehearsal and through the performance, somebody else would just floor me at a different time in the play,” Draper said. “In the performance, the actual stories of individual refugees for me, Leo Katz, became a whole lot more substantial and weighty than I had originally realized.”
Indeed, each actor embodied their character so strongly that I honestly forgot I was watching a play.
“Those who auditioned were just the best – they were curious, they were eager, questioning, tentative and reticent,” said Romagnoli. “They began to embrace the work so thoroughly and entirely while not losing the sense of reticence, but having enough confidence as a company that they were doing the right thing as an individual in the context of the collective. The student’s capacity to rise to the challenge and meet it so totally is what it’s really about.”
Part of what made Pentecost so impressive was the sheer size of the cast. The group, one of the largest companies in theatre department history, consisted of 28 students, professors and professional actors, as well as many professional crew members including a fight director and scenic painter.
Romagnoli and Draper sang the praises of the collaboration between professional and student actors.
“It’s a great combination,” Romagnoli said. “The professional actors are a great influence by example because they are the embodiment, with respect to their talent and their career journey, of where many of the students who wish to pursue acting can be. It’s one thing to be taught by a professional actor in an acting class, but that same person in a production teaches very differently and the whole educational process is much more intuitive and inductive.”
Draper agreed that the rehearsal process is an invaluable tool to all involved.
“The students will try our suggestions right away, and in that way, the adults need to remain students,” Draper said. “At the same time, the students need to be always learning to be proactive and at certain times to fight for what they think is the right thing to be doing in that moment because there comes a time when the actor knows more about their character than the director.”
Unlike many other theatre department productions, Pentecost boasted a heavy representation of the abundant international community on campus, and only two of the characters in the play are native English speakers.
Anis Mebarki ’15, who played Raif, an Azeri refugee, is from Algeria and speaks seven languages. Mebarki chose to act in Pentecost because it spoke to a part of his religious identity in practice and theory.
“The idea of the politics of asylum and migration and civil war is a very significant part of my family’s identity,” Mebarki said.
Mebarki went on to say that Pentecost holds a unique relevance with political and historical education for the whole community.
“One of the students at the lunch preview said ‘So, how was it for you to be part of a play that exhibits a sort of reality that is so distant from what we as Middlebury students know and do and experience?’ and I said, ‘No, there are a lot of people at the College, including myself, who did witness a sort of post-Socialist transition, at the end of the Cold War a transition into civil wars and the like, and I know for a fact that there are others,’” Mebarki said. “I think Pentecost helps make it a more pertinent reality for the audience members, and I was frankly just surprised that people assumed that we all come from this shared, safe, sheltered experience which is not the background we all had.”
The problem, as the play escalated to its finish, was that only four of the refugees were eventually given offers of freedom. The hostages were clearly moved by this denial of the refugees, and by this point, the audience was too, watching on the edge of their seats as the refugees became understandably angry.
The truly moving scene in the play came as a shock. Yasmin moved to torch the painting when suddenly, loud sirens sounded and three commandos broke through the wall of the church, forever destroying the painting, then opening fire as the theater got pitch dark. Each shot of the machine guns pierced through the dark, sparks illuminating tiny spaces on stage as screams rang out and the loud sounds of violence echoed heavily through the space.
As the lights turned back on, Pecs, Katz and the audience had to swallow the fact that the refugees were subject to unspeakable violence when they, despite their threats, never harmed anyone or anything.
Part of Pentecost’s complex message is that so much can be lost in translation, whether it be in a simple conversation, the verification of a painting’s identity or a life-or-death hostage situation. Katz and Davenport must learn how to survive in a situation where English is not the primary language, and Edgar uses his own artistic expression to convey that art has a unique and profound power to unite and divide.
Starting with a fascinating script, Romagnoli, Draper and every other member of the cast and crew crafted a thought-provoking, riveting production through strong individual efforts and a rare collective cohesion, creating a play that will last in the minds of the audience well into the future.
(12/05/13 1:41am)
This week our paper looks a little different because we have a few new writers — high school students!
Two weeks ago, middbeat posted a video made by an English class at Middlebury Union High. Although the video was made a few years ago, it is still relevant and highlighted an issue we, as the College community, don’t talk about very often — town-College relations. As an editor for the local section, I wanted to find a positive way to explore town-College relations through The Campus. Rather than an article, we decided on a different method — The Campus has partnered with Middlebury Union High School’s journalism class to bring you this issue and insight into Middlebury Union High.
The partnership, which we hope will be ongoing, is mutually beneficial — the high schoolers will give our readers valuable insights they don’t normally have the privilege to see about the town we live in. We can give them by-lines (good for college applications!) and insight into our lives. I imagine only good can come from something like this, right? In the end, my goal is selfish — I want to learn from these students and see what their lives are like since, in the end, I don’t know very much about the town and people that have generously hosted me for the past four years.
My mom’s side of the family has lived on the same piece of land for nearly a century, so my sense of home and belonging is strong. As a super senior feb, technically I’ve lived in Vermont for four years, but I would never say that — somehow that feels false, especially when I think about my personal feelings regarding my home and my family. Even after being the local section editor on and off for several semesters and making every effort to pop the Middlebury bubble, I got swept up in school, lost touch with Vermont and began obsessively counting the days, hours and minutes before I could go home.
Looking back on my four years here, I’m saddened by this disconnect and by the fact that, by the end of the year I was too frazzled and homesick to stay in Vermont. Hopefully, in my last month and a half here, a little can be salvaged and my sense of place heightened. This is one attempt to do so.
Even though it can be difficult, it is important to make an effort to reach out. The town of Middlebury hosts each college student for four years and then most of us leave without a trace or an idea of this place. Ideally, I would love for this partnership between The Campus and Middlebury Union High School to continue while I’m gone, but it depends on the interest and free time of the high school students — they’re awesome but it’s hard to fit it all in!
Regardless, I hope the Middlebury Union High School students know that they always have a voice in our paper and advocates in our office. It is a small effort to make, but important to me and The Campus.
(12/05/13 12:17am)
Some time ago, two of my close friends in a long distance relationship broke up due to an ‘irreconcilable cultural difference,’ despite both of them being brought up in Hong Kong.
So where is Hong Kong positioned in the cultural spectrum really?
There are many groups of people in Hong Kong. There is the typical, local student. But there are also the minorities: there’s the ABCs (American Born Chinese) who refuse to speak Chinese and gabber loudly in public in English and for this reason are despised by many; the Pakistanis and Indians born and raised in Chung King Mansion who speak perfect Cantonese; the Chinese immigrants with their distinctive mannerisms and habits, both rich and poor.
I don’t think you can deny their Hong Kong identity — they live here. There are quintessenntial aspects of Hong Kong culture that have an undeniable exclusiveness built by common experiences — TVB shows, Korean dramas, a common education system, popular songs, movies and venues, the SARs outbreak and watching our food slaughtered before our eyes as a guarantee of freshness.
The main difference between an ‘insider’ and an ‘outsider’ is that the insider has naturally acquired the tastes that are expected of a typical Hong Konger. An outsider, such as an academic, can have an equal understanding of tastes, but his motives stem from curiosity, instead of a natural affinity for heritage.
And yet how are tastes defined? Is there really someone who knows every single TV show down to the detail? If each fragment of pop culture constitutes Hong Kong’s identity, is it possible that we induct ourselves entirely to its body of values, or in other words, brainwash ourselves with it? Moreover, there can’t be one unified experience of a place, regardless of whether or not it is shared.
Despite there being an overarching ‘mainstream’ culture, it is impossible that we can identify with it completely and unreservedly. Everyone is entitled to their own viewpoints and experiences because in the end we are still individuals in a collective. While a dishwasher in a restaurant may not subscribe to the newly invented jargon from universities, his experience of the place is still authentic. It applies to the underclass and also to the expats and ABCs. Cantonese colloquialisms of Hong Kong should not inhibit someone’s claim to their identity.
And yet, Hong Kongers are very sensitive to anything perceived as foreign. Once I posted a link of a series of artistic photos of Hong Kong on facebook, which was then reposted by a friend who captioned it with ‘Hong Kong in a foreigner’s eyes’. Neither Chinese nor British, Hong Kong is unique in itself, resisting other labels of definition. And yet, with such a short history, how can its culture command a sense of belonging, as much as the long-established culture of China? I believe this is one of the reasons why it is not easy to feel a sense of belonging in Hong Kong.
Recalling a conversation I had with a friend in Middlebury, he told me that Hong Kong was “dying” because we are becoming more and more stagnant. Indeed, Hong Kong seems to pride on itself so much that it has lost sight of the fact that it is a small port on the coast of China. Leung Man-Tao, a famous Chinese commentator, envisioned that Hong Kong’s literature would one day identify itself as a part of the Chinese repertoire instead of its own. While Hong Kong has a growing independent arts culture very much influenced by Europe, is Hong Kong culture itself going nowhere?
Perhaps Hong Kong should take inspiration from the various Chinese provinces and American states. While retaining its own culture, it should also address larger issues on both national and global levels. Since Hong Kong’s identity could only be categorized by the ‘others’ checkbox, instead of allowing itself to be diluted by foreign influences, it should position and identify itself uniquely against other cultures.
