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(10/06/05 12:00am)
Author: May Chan For all enthusiastic theater majors and Shakespeare lovers on campus, London Theater Exchange (LTE) has been providing a cross-cultural experience on the techniques of voice and movement in Shakespearean and Jacobean text through an intensive three-week workshop which began on Sept. 18 and will run until Oct. 8. The program is headed by Chris Hayes, whose theater skills have strengthened over the years through experience at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. Hayes is here at Middlebury with his colleagues, voice specialist William Richards and movement specialist Vanessa Mildenberg. Mildenberg is also acting as dance choreographer for the College's upcoming performance of the British playwright Peter Barnes' "The Bewitched." "We introduce actors to a different way of looking at things so they can add a few more things to their tool bank," said Hayes. "Our purpose is not to turn people into Shakespeare actors, but to use Shakespeare as a tool to train their acting - by stretching their imagination, stretching them physically and vocally because Shakespeare demands more from actors than other playwrights." LTE was founded in 1991, formed by actors, directors, and teachers from The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Royal National Theatre, The RADA and London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA). Hayes' efforts to make American theater more accessible to British audiences and to facilitate "the exchange of culture" inspired the development of LTE.Attending intense workshops in the Center for the Arts, students have been working on exercises dealing Shakespearean sonnets and excerpts from "Richard III" and "Macbeth." Though this may imply a similar experience for participants, Hayes emphasizes the personal nature of the work"Everyone may be working on the same piece," he said, "but we work on exploring that piece vocally and physically." LTE's sessions are based on British perfomance traditions, and therefore these actors are getting a taste of something quite different from their regular coursework. "Every country has a different way of doing acting," said Hayes, "We're here to offer actors a glimpse of how it works and how the British classic tradition works by giving the students different tools and new alternatives." Laura Harris '07, a participant of the workshop, is grateful for this dynamic training. "I'm learning how to marry movement, line study, word study, emotion and prep exercises into a unified character, and that is a study that I'll be using and referencing for the rest of my life," said Harris.Rishabh Kashyap '08 was just as enthusiastic about learning from these experts."I was excited about the workshops from the get-go," he said. "The program brought in a lot of new techniques and guided us to integrate all of them and helped us with our acting immensely." For Harris, too, the experience has been "intense, but extremely gratifying." She also praised the teachers, saying, "Chris, Vanessa and William are such a big part of my enjoyment of the process. Every session, I sit there in awe of the three of them because their expertise is so evident in every observation they make, every piece of advice they give, and every exercise they lead. We're extremely lucky to be able to experience such a unique workshop."LTE is also doing work with Middlebury's Teacher Education Program, the Creative Writing Program and the local Bridge School. The company is not a permanent organization, but comes together three or four times a year to travel and work with theater students around the United States. They have previously worked with programs in Nashville, Atlanta, New York City and Michigan. Hayes has also previously directed for the Middlebury affliated Potomac Theatre Project. This is the second time the company has held the workshop and, as Hayes said, "Both times, the quality of students here has been very high." "The overall enthusiasm, the appetite - they have a high caliber and they're very responsive and stimulating to work with," he said. "Unlike working with English acting students, who tend to be a little more narrow-minded, they're more open. In the groups, there is a generosity of spirit from one participant to another. It's a joy to be here."
(10/06/05 12:00am)
Author: Dina Magaril Most students have heard about Middlebury College's renowned Summer Language Schools long before they even set foot on campus. Rumors of the intense seven-to-nine-week programs flood the campus at the beginning of each school year, and students who participated in the schools over the summer have much to say to prove those rumors of work and play - without English, of course - true. Middlebury currently offers instruction in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and the newly added Portuguese. Upon entering language school in June, students take the infamous "No English Spoken Here" Language School oath. This stays with both students and faculty throughout their program. The students eat meals, study, play sports, sing, dance and sometimes even dream in their language of study. According to Michael Geisler, dean of the Language Schools, the program is successful chiefly because of the total immersion into a language. "[At language school] the students swim in Russian and hike in Chinese," Geisler joked. Class sizes vary, said Geisler: The smaller ones have around five students and larger classes, typically in Spanish, have as many as 16. In addition to the undergraduate program, Middlebury offers graduate and doctorate programs of instruction. "Language School was actually started as a graduate non-Middlebury program," Geisler said. The original goal was to provide courses for those who couldn't physically go to their target country of study. "It was World War One [when Language School started] and sometimes it was just not a possibility because of economic constraints," said Geisler. He added that he believes those students in Language School often come out with a better grasp of the language than those that go abroad. "When you go to Europe you're bound to run into Americans, and you will probably speak English at one time or another," Geisler said. At Language School, with the English language banned, such an occurrence is nearly impossible. A typical language day consists of three to five hours of language instruction and all meals are eaten with students from each particular language. Each department sets up various cultural activities to incorporate the language outside of the classroom. The Arabic School strongly emphasizes Arabic culture in their curriculum, and students even immerse themselves in the text of the Qu'ran. The Chinese School students practice Tai Chi and Chinese chess in addition to their strong commitment to instruction in Mandarin. After giving their engagement d'honneur, the French School students enjoy the pleasures of French cinema, the French choir and even a cabaret.The oldest of the schools, the German Language School, was the first of its kind, established in 1915 and held in Pearson's Hall. The German school recently introduced German for Singers, a program that combines musical performance training with language instruction. The Italian School students often frequent the Italian-style café that serves up delicious gelatos and espressos.The newest addition to the language schools, formed in 2003, is the Portuguese School. One unique aspect of this program is the Portuguese class for Spanish speakers that is offered. This past summer the Spanish School had its own soccer team on top of offering dance instruction in salsa, meringue and tango. Jeff Olson, a junior who attended the Spanish school last summer and plans to go to Buenos Aires in the spring, was very happy with his experience. He attended film classes almost every night and played on the Spanish School soccer team. He often frequented "Señor Arriba's" (Mr. Ups) with his professors. Olson made friends in the Spanish School but could not communicate with his friends from other language schools. "I waved to them but that was about it," he said. Olson mentioned the pronunciation workshops as particularly helpful to him."We were really close with the faculty. We lived with them and even went out to bars with them," said Olson. Chris Bohorquez, another Middlebury junior who attended the Spanish Language School this past summer, agreed with Olson's sentiments. "Even though I knew Spanish prior to enrolling, I needed to improve on my grammar," he said when asked why he chose to attend the program. As for phone calls home, Bohorquez said he lucked out: "My father speaks Spanish so I wasn't breaking any rules." When asked what was particularly memorable about Language School this past summer, Bohorquez mentioned Carnival Day and the dance parties the school threw for its students. "There was sangria at the grill," Bohorquez recalled fondly. Not all the Language School students shared Bohorquez and Olson's sentiments. Alison Damick, a senior who studied at the Italian school said, "Language School is definitely what you make of it." Though she complimented her knowledgeable professors, she was disturbed by the "artificial environment" created by language schools. "As a Middlebury student it's very strange to be in your normal Middlebury context but under these imposed pretenses," Damick said.Russian Language School students were able to balance out their intense schedules through a typically Russian spirit. "There was definitely a lot of drinking going on in fifth-floor Gifford," said Lelia Yerxa, a senior who attended language school in the summer of 2003. Karaoke nights were another memorable experience that Yerxa recalled from her summer. Though students of different languages were not supposed to communicate, one Middlebury junior noted that relationships did form outside of the language confines. "There were some Italian/Spanish and Spanish/French dating going on. It was mostly in the romance languages," commented the student. Perhaps one of the most intense programs offered at the language school was that of Beginning Arabic. "I worked every day for nine weeks," said James Gorski '07.5. In the end Gorski said the hard work paid off. "It was definitely an intense experience," he said, "but [you] can expect to speak Arabic proficiently by the end of the summer.'
(09/29/05 12:00am)
Author: [no author name found] A Statement with a MissionSince Middlebury College's Mission Statement was last revised five years ago, the administration has changed hands and College facilities have expanded worldwide. Now is indeed an appropriate time to take another look at the College's written statement of purpose. The words "diverse and inclusive residential community" in the current draft of the Mission Statement are a significant addition to the first sentence. The phrase dually reflects a pre-existing drive to increase in all manners the diversity of Middlebury's student body and the recent incidents that have negatively brought diversity tensions to the forefront of the College's attention.Furthermore, the addition of environmental studies to the list of the College's "traditional strengths," which include "international studies, languages and literature" is long overdue.Finally, the fact that the College's undergraduate program is and "long has been complemented by graduate and specialized programs" is certainly worth inserting into the Mission Statement. However, it must be remembered that Middlebury is first and foremost an undergraduate institution. In just two months the College has affiliated with the Monterey Institute in California and added an Ashville, N.C. branch to its Bread Loaf School of English. While this growth will likely benefit the school as a whole, efforts should be made so that the undergraduate population also benefits from the new facilities - and the College's new mission statement.The most recent Draft Mission Statement can be viewed at:http://www.middlebury.edu/administration/planning/update/september_2005.htmProud to be green, room to grow cleanerMiddlebury College has been fortunate enough to consistently be ahead of its time on environmental issues in a state that supports such undertakings.When the College's Environmental Studies program was formed 40 years ago, it was the first of its kind at an undergraduate institution. The College celebrated the landmark by devoting all of last weekend to discussing environmental issues in a series of events known as the Clifford Symposium. During the weekend, the College launched a Wind Turbine that allows the Recycling Center to run entirely off wind power. Students have also proven themselves environmentally conscious. Back when gas prices still hovered around two dollars per gallon, a group of Middlebury students recognized the importance of searching for alternative fuel sources. Members of the BioBus project demonstrated that automobiles can run on renewable resources by crossing the United States in a school bus run on vegetable oil. Another group of Middlebury students, known as the Sunday Night Group, meets each week to discuss environmental issues, and the Carbon Reduction Initiative group has proposed strategies for the College to lower carbon emissions to 10 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2020.The College's reputation holds Middlebury students to a comparatively high environmental standard, but even with support and initiative, there are ways that Middlebury could be even more environmentally sound. The caravan of cars often seen leaving Ridgeline parking lot to drive to Proctor and Ross Dining Halls on a comfortably cool fall evening is somewhat absurd. Middlebury is laid out to be a pedestrian campus and there is generally little reason for it to be anything else. The fact that SUVs are still the prevailing choice on campus despite their appalling gas mileage is also lamentable. For those in too much of a hurry to walk, remember the yellow bike program. Carpooling via MiddRides is also an option when the weather makes the pedestrian route uncomfortable. Each day piles of unwanted papers collect by the library printers. Students should concentrate on only printing what they need, and professors should work to curb the amount of electronic reserves that must be printed.Middlebury students should be proud of their College's environmental efforts, but they should also act on suggestions such as those from renowned environmentalist and Scholar in Residence Bill McKibben's lecture last Thursday to make conscious decisions to protect an increasingly damaged planet.
(09/29/05 12:00am)
Author: Abigail Mitchell Senior Charles Logan's interest in writing first materialized in fifth grade when he fell into an "unhealthy obsession" with the Civil War. Naturally, Logan was drawn towards his local group of Civil War re-enactors, "The 55th Illinois." Logan said, recalling his memories, "I was Orion Hatch, drummer boy extraordinaire. Though I never saw actual combat." Years later, Logan chanced upon an old notebook filled with poems he'd composed about the dramatic and premature deaths of soldiers in combat - "All very sentimental and achy."Staying true to his days of maudlin war poetry, Logan has continued to write ever since (though, thankfully, his subject matter has evolved). This year, he will undertake a creative thesis with the famous Rob Cohen associate professor of English at Middlebury, award-winning novelist and Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, as an advisor. Logan is planning on writing a collection of short stories based in his home-town suburb of Chicago. When asked how much of his own life will figure into his writing, Logan replies, "My own life plays a rather large role in my writing, which is a good and bad thing. I remember reading somewhere that an author's first work is often a thinly veiled autobiography. Well, some of that's true of my current work. How could it not? I write from what I know best." However, one of the benefits of writing is that it allows us to vicariously live out lives, or moments even, that we could not otherwise. Logan plans to capitalize on this fact in his thesis by letting his characters venture into "the perverse and startling places [he's] too afraid or too limited to venture." If Logan had to characterize his writing, he would say "It functions in a slightly sick, domestic world." Like the many cynical and sardonic writers in this day, Logan will focus on the undercurrents and facades that flourish in the jaded world of suburbia. He said, "I'm interested in what Lily Briscoe called 'the extreme obscurity of human relationships'" (Lily Briscoe is a character in Virginia Wolfe's "To the Lighthouse"). The stories tackle the subtleties of hope, failure, expectation and multiplicity, while satisfying our urge for perversity, violence and voyeurism. Right now, Logan is trying to establish a pattern of writing. On some days, two hours produce one paragraph - on other days, a whole page. "I suppose it's all up to the Muse's temperament," he concedes. Fortunately, Logan has a collection of muses. Tacked up on the wall above Logan's desk are three old photographs purchased in Prague of anonymous people. Standing on his desk are three figurines: a carving of a village elder from Malawi, a sea captain and Senor Misterioso. Of the last, Logan says, "He wears a fedora and glows in the dark. Plus, he's an excellent listener."
(09/29/05 12:00am)
Author: Zach Hecht-Leavitt This summer the Bread Loaf School of English will open a fifth campus in North Carolina, President Ronald D. Liebowitz announced last Wednesday. The campus will be located at the University of North Carolina at Asheville (UNCA) and will be the sixth to open since Bread Loaf's beginnings in 1920. The new campus will add to existing programs in Alaska, Santa Fe, Oxford and Vermont. "Truly a national institution, with the opening of its fifth campus in North Carolina the Bread Loaf School of English will have sites in all four quadrants of the country. The curricula of all the non-Vermont Bread Loaf campuses reflect the uniqueness of the campuses' locations," wrote Liebowitz.James Maddox, director of the Bread Loaf School of English, said he had long wanted to open a campus in the Southeast. When William Spellman, UNCA's associate vice chancellor for humanities, called Maddox asking for advice on developing the school's summer graduate programs, Maddox offered him a better deal - hosting the next Bread Loaf program. A few site visits and conversations later, the Asheville campus was born.According to Maddox, the new location excites him for a number of reasons. For one, he says, the heat and humidity associated with southern summers are less of a problem in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Asheville has also been named one of the "Top 10 Best Places to Live in the U.S.A" by Money, the "Top 25 Arts Destinations in the U.S" by American Style and ranked as the third most livable city in America by Outside. But beyond the university's natural and cultural attractions is its status as a window on the world of Southern literature, including African American and Appalachian literature. Maddox hopes that its location will increase the number of southern teachers and black students applying to the Bread Loaf program. The University of North Carolina at Asheville is the only designated liberal arts university in the North Carolina system, and one of only six public universities in the country classified as national liberal arts universities. It has garnered national recognition for its integrative approach to the liberal arts, specifically its undergraduate research and humanities programs. With about 3,200 students, the compact, scenic and academically rigorous university offers one of the best values in a liberal arts education in the country. Spellman notes, "During the summer months we offer a wide range of undergraduate classes, and we are hoping that there will be opportunities for Bread Loaf faculty and students to visit some of these classes. All UNCA summer events - lectures, concerts and cultural events - will be open to Bread Loaf participants."Most of Bread Loaf's 550 students complete their Master of Arts or Master of Letters in English in four or five summers, so many will spend at least one of those summers at the new campus. Each campus offers a core curriculum involving courses in literature, literary theory, creative writing and the teaching of writing. Additionally, each campus offers unique content, such as the literature of the Pacific Northwest and indigenous cultures in Alaska, American Indian and American Hispanic literature in Santa Fe, English literature in Oxford, Theater Arts in Vermont, and, beginning next summer, Southern and African American Literature in North Carolina.
(09/29/05 12:00am)
Author: Annie Onishi With the Planning Committee for Middlebury's Future nearing the final quarter of its yearlong strategic planning process, Dean of Planning and Secretary of the College John Emerson said early this week that parts of the strategic plan may be released as soon as next month.While the greater Middlebury College community was absent over the summer recess, the Strategic Planning committees established by President Ronald D. Liebowitz and led by Emerson worked to follow the strategic planning road map laid out in January of this year. According to a September update from Emerson, the Planning Steering Committee and the President's staff met "on 19 occasions for a total of 46 hours" this summer in order to further advance the progress of the Strategic Planning process. The Committee recently released a draft of the College's new mission statement. The revised statement reads, "Middlebury College seeks to offer undergraduate students an excellent education in the liberal arts and sciences, and to do so within a diverse and inclusive residential community that vigorously engages the world beyond our campus." The statement goes on to note the importance of the Language Schools, Schools Abroad, Bread Loaf School of English and Bread Loaf Writers' Conference to the undergraduate College. The mention of these schools is an addition to the current mission statement, which focuses exclusively on the undergraduate College. Although the Committee was honing the College's Mission Statement all summer, it has not yet completed a full draft of the Committee's strategic plan. Emerson cannot confirm the release date of the final plan, but said, "My best guess now is that we will release parts of the plan and invite commentary on those. I believe that some sections, perhaps half of the plan, may be released during October." According to Emerson, members of the Middlebury community will then have a chance to offer input and provide suggestions for any revisions. "In October, President Liebowitz and the planning group will have open meetings to discuss various parts of the plan, certainly including the area of mission. One of these meetings will be a town meeting and it will be an early evening meeting so as to make it accessible to students."This revision process is ongoing between the five working groups of the Planning Steering Committee. Emerson compared the process to "writing a senior thesis, except that it is a group project." He added, "The process will continue as we respond to the reactions and advice we get from members of the College community."Originally, the entire process was supposed to have been completed by now. Of the delay, Emerson said, "[It] has to do with the difficulties in carrying out the very important tasks of prioritizing major and expensive initiatives. We need solid data in order to do that well, and it takes considerable time to pull it all together. Many people in the College's financial offices and the facilities office are hard at work helping us do that."While the bulk of the work of the Strategic Planning Process will be over after the final plan is released, organization and implementation of the plan will take coordination and time, and will be monitored by Liebowitz and his staff. According to Emerson, certain parties including the Board of Trustees and the Budget Office must approve most proposed changes before the College acts on the suggestions.The Strategic Planning Process is one of long-term significance to the College, and though many changes will take effect in the near future, most of the larger, more thematic changes will probably not have a direct impact on the lives of current Middlebury students. Emerson said, "Frankly, few of the biggest changes are likely to affect current juniors and seniors. Our entering first-year students will probably feel the impact of some of the changes. Other changes will only come, say, 10 years down the road. That seems to be the nature of strategic planning."Despite the longer term-significance of this process, a few changes are already being made. Of the more immediate changes, Emerson said, "We are working on a plan to provide stronger support for student research and to help identify exciting research opportunities for students. As another example, we are identifying ways to give Middlebury's dedicated staff members a clearer voice in processes that affect their work environment, their benefit programs and other policies that affect them."The Strategic Planning Process officially began last January and is scheduled to end this December. The timeframe of the plans will guide the agenda of Middlebury from 2006 until 2012. In order to fully address every issue, several task forces were created to examine specific "charges," and to generate ideas and suggestions. Each task force had a liaison to the Planning Steering Committee, which, in turn, worked with Liebowitz and members of the senior administration to pool information, produce a plan to consider the issues raised by the task force and then prioritize them.At the outset of the process last year, Liebowitz made it clear that his Strategic Planning Process would be more focused on the people of the Middlebury community, as opposed to the planning of his predecessor, President John McCardell, Jr., which focused on infrastructure and the "physical plant."With that theme in mind, Emerson commented on what he thinks will be the most progressive change to come out of this process. "I suspect [it] will either be changes to enhance the socio-economic diversity, and other forms of diversity, in the student body, or else it will be the changes made to enhance the close and intense relationships between Middlebury students and faculty."
(09/22/05 12:00am)
Author: ABIGAIL MITCHELL As I embarked on my venture to explore the niches of the creative-writing network at Middlebury College, the renowned Breadloaf School of English seemed the logical starting point. Benjamin Dimiero '06, an English major awarded a scholarship to Breadloaf for poetry, gave me an insider's view. At first glance, Dimiero personifies the ranks of coffeehouse-goers flocking the streets of Williamsburg or the Bowery. You know the ones: New Yorker in one hand, cigarette in the other. Dimiero looks at me from behind his black, rectangular glasses and tells me he is also a film minor with screenplay aspirations. Of his future, Dimiero says, "I can say the catch-all, 'I want to be a writer,' but what does that really mean anyway, to be a 'writer'?" Good question. Dimiero admits to feeling intimidated before the conference began at the prospect of working alongside older and more experienced writers. However, by the end, these feelings had completely dissipated. He realized, as he said, that "there's not such a huge gap between myself and, say, Charles Baxter." The seeming chasm is mostly a result of years more practice and experience. There is definitely the talent component, too, but it is not the whole story. The quality and experience of the writers at Breadloaf meant that they had an incredible wealth of knowledge to offer young undergrads like Dimiero. "The atmosphere was pretty unbeatable," he says. "Where else can you strike up a conversation with an award-winning author over a cafeteria table?" Breadloaf taught him about craft. "There are so many aspects to consider when writing a story," said Dimiero, "It is so much more than getting yourself from point A to point B. There is the architecture to think about, the structure, the syntax, the development." Dimiero also learned the value of practice and discipline, describing to me the existence of a "writing muscle" that, like any other muscle, requires regular exercise so as not to atrophy. When asked how the Breadloaf workshops compared with those at Middlebury, Dimiero said, "Previously, I had been complacent about my writing [because] people were too hesitant to criticize." At Breadloaf, however, diplomacy was not the main concern. "One of my poems got shredded," he admits. And as for whether Breadloaf live up to its reputation as "Bed Loaf," as a den of debauchery and mayhem and the perfect break for an artist stifled by his 9-5, Dimiero said the nickname was a bit of a stretch. However, he adds, "The dances were hilarious... no matter how accomplished you are, you can still get wasted and grind to cheesy hip-hop!"
(09/22/05 12:00am)
Author: Alexxa Gotthardt Peter Plagens - painter, educator and novelist - is a visting professor of Contemporary Art and Criticism for the semester and was a Newsweek senior writer for fine arts for over 15 years. The Middlebury Campus: You have your hand in many aspects of the art world. What do you consider yourself ? PP: I'm a painter who happens to have done all these other things as artists are sometimes wont to do. They're avid this's or that's and there's a lot of history of artists writing art criticism, but they are always artists first. On the other hand, a byline, especially for the popular press, travels a lot farther than the artist's identity unless, say, you're Jasper Johns or Robert Rauschenburg. So I accept the fact that if you would ask anyone else but me they would probably say, "Oh he's a critic and he also paints." Fair. But really, I'm an artist. The Campus: How did you get involved in the arts? What was your inspiration? Did you always know you wanted to be a painter?Plagens: Kind of. I went to college. I went to an art department at a big university, the University of Southern California. It was a biggish art department, but still I went to college to go to college. Actually, I thought I would be an English major, but that's what everybody said you were until you figured out something else, right? But USC had ceramics, photography and graphic design. I really liked the painting class, so I switched gears and decided to become an art major. Before that, though, my first influence was my father. He was an unsuccessful commercial artist and a good man and very philosophical. He taught me a whole lot of stuff [and to] get into oddball little things. He could draw really well, so I grew up with him always bringing home drawing paper. But I went to college and I got a degree in painting, and then I just kept going. At USC, I realized I liked school a lot, so I kept going and went onto Syracuse and got an MFA. By that point, I knew I was an artist. The Campus: Would you say your college experience really shaped you into the artist you are today? PP: Oh yeah. First of all I went to college and not an art school. I didn't go to RISD or the Museum School in Boston or CalArts. It wasn't a deliberate choice - I was lucky to even go to college. I got a scholarship from USC, so I went, and I'm very indebted to my alma mater. They done me well. And by the time I got out of college I was a painter, and the fat was in the fire. I've been doing it for 40 years and I haven't ever stopped doing it. I was a college art teacher for about 20 years and then I was the art critic for Newsweek for about 15. I always did something else, but kept the fine-art vein through it all.The Campus: How do you balance being both an artist and an art critic? Did you ever encounter resentment from either side?PP: Well, there are different reactions. One is, yes, it distorts your place in the art world and skews your views. If you write art criticism, which is to say, in essence, if you publish your opinions about other people's work, you're going to be considered politically. Every artist I know practices art criticism, only they practice it at Puffy's Tavern over a pitcher. I don't do that - I get it out in the open, and I don't know whether it's brave or compulsive or egotistical, or just happenstance. Being both an artist and a critic does skew your opinions. If you're a kind of liberal, democratic, progressive person you believe that conflicts of interest should be avoided. So here's a case where you're playing both sides of the street. Do you recuse yourself? Do you say I can't review that show at that gallery because I'm a painter and that's the next step-up gallery I'd like to get into? Well I didn't do that, but when some other artist shows and I write a favorable review, it's tainted because I kind of play both sides. The Campus: Do you feel that a fine artist would have a better perspective as a critic than, let's say, an art historian?PP: I wouldn't say better, but sociologically, on the political people front, as an artist you know what it's like to show work, what it's like to be criticized and what it's like to deal with galleries from the other end as a seeker. There are some dangers. For instance, part of your business as an artist is to be biased in terms of aesthetics and art theory because that's what gives you your configuration. But, as a critic, you want to be fair, and fair doesn't play with your artist temperament. When you go into the studio you're under no obligation to be fair to your tubes of paint. You do whatever you can with them to get what you want. The other thing is that as an abstract painter, I am much harder on abstract painting than I am on other stuff. So it's surprised me that I don't let my fellow embattled abstract painters have a free pass because I'm one of them. On the other hand, if I go to something that has projected video that has a kind of Hollywood power (Matthew Barney-like), I tend to be less critical because it's so groovy and I couldn't do it. The Campus: How would you describe your personal artistic style? You said "abstract" before.PP: Well yes, I paint abstract paintings. I'll use sort of hyper-colloquial terms for a minute. They're a combination of messy and neat. You could say expressionist or cerebral, but literally, when the paint goes on, there's a lot of chance and messiness involved, especially in the beginning. This messiness has also combined with very neat, even-a, hard-edged, masked-off, taped shape in almost all of my stuff for awhile now. This creates a kind of compositional uneasiness. They're not harmonic. I don't necessarily go down easy, and I don't mean that in the sugary sense at all. My paintings are just more jarring and less optimistic, there's less harmony in them. The Campus: Do you have any new projects in the works? PP: Well I have this retrospective exhibition that is now at its third and final venue. I do have another show in December at my dealer in New York that I've had for 30 odd years, Nancy Hoffman. Everything's done for the exhibit except there's this one really weird, maybe one-step beyond, painting. It could be really good and it could be a bridge too far and I'm trying to work on it and get it resolved and get it done and see whether it will be in the show or not. The Campus: Are you trying to get a certain message across with your new work?PP: Since I have gotten to a certain age and a certain stage in things, I have gotten to be progressively more self-indulgent - something that I really would have worried about more when I was younger. I don't worry about "What's the message the painting is trying to get across?" anymore. The old theatre critic, Jack Kroll, now passed away, used to refer to T.S. Eliot's objective correlative: "It is the thing outside something that correlates with something." The painting is the objective correlative of my interior state. And the first question any reasonable reader or viewer would ask is "what the hell is so important about his interior state?" And I would say, "You know, you've got a point there." But I have beaten mine into a sort of artistic configuration over the years and now I feel I can fully indulge myself. Actually, I'll tell you what it's like. It was a T-shirt I saw in Vermont when I did this gig as a visiting artist at an art colony. My oldest daughter came up to visit and she liked this T-shirt of a rather nice drawing of a kind of lumberjack guy. Overalls, plaid shirt, stocking cap, looked French-Canadian, but an American version, holding an ax and the caption on the shirt said "I'm from Vermont and I do what I want." Well, lately, when I ask myself what is
it that's driving what I'm doing, I come to the conclusion that it's that idea of "I'm from Vermont and I do what I want." I've finally gone over the edge. - By Alexxa Gotthardt
(09/22/05 12:00am)
Author: Dina Magaril GRACE CHO Assistant Professor of Psychology Assistant Professor of Psychology Grace Cho, known simply to students as Grace - she prefers that they address her informally - is one of Middlebury's newest professors. A Los Angeles native and former Bay Area resident, Cho received her undergraduate degree at the University of California at Santa Cruz and then took a year off to travel. Though Cho says she was always interested in psychology, she didn't choose it as a profession until long after college. In fact, she started out studying dentistry and then moved on to interior design before opting to specialize in developmental psychology. Cho described her brief experience working as a clinical psychologist as "eye opening." "I think it takes a certain kind of personality to work in those clinics and a lot of emotional strength," said Cho of her time spent at the clinic. "I would just feel so drained and sad after work." From there, Cho enrolled at the University of Illinois, where she acquired most of her teaching experience. There she taught courses on child psychology and social development, in addition to working in various psychological labs. So how did this California girl end up in the hills of Vermont? "I wanted to be at a school that was supportive of research but that would also encourage me to be a better teacher," Cho said. She currently teaches an introductory psychology class as well as one on social and personality development. Cho said she's adjusting surprisingly well to her surroundings even though she did have a few misunderstandings on campus. "People thought I was a student," she laughed. "I went into Old Chapel to deliver some papers and they told me students weren't allowed in that building." Despite being mistaken for an undergrad, Cho said her transition has been relatively smooth. In fact, she was surprised at how many students stopped by her room - she lives on campus in faculty housing - just to say hello. "I thought they were students in my class who wanted to say hi," she said, " but it turns out they were just your regular Middlebury students." KELLY COLEVisiting Assistant Professor of American Civilization Visiting Professor of American Civilization Kelly Cole '94 had little trouble finding her way around campus the first day of classes. Cole, who previously taught an American Civilization course at Middlebury in 2001, actually attended Middlebury 11 years ago. "Everyone wants to come back here," she said, "and I was lucky enough to have that opportunity." Cole received her graduate degree from the University of Wisconsin in Media and Cultural studies. The new professor currently teaches two courses at Middlebury: "TV and American Culture" and "The Cultural History of Advertising." Since Cole's energy in the classroom is infectious, one would never guess that she actually commutes to campus every weekend and has good reason to be tired when she gets here. "I live in D.C. and take a plane every weekend," she said. "It's really not that bad. I stay up late and I'm kind of nocturnal so I find the time to do what I need to get done." Though Cole was a student only a little over a decade ago, she doesn't believe all that much has changed. "The buildings are a whole lot nicer," she joked, "but the students are the same. They're active and interesting and everyone does so much." She herself was very active while studying at Middlebury. Cole sang with the Mischords and was one of the founding members of Otter Nonsense, Middlebury's improv comedy group. Asked if she had any bad memories of Middlebury, Cole shook her head. "I guess we all tend to romanticize a school once we leave it." Cole especially likes spending time with professors she had when she was a student and feels lucky that she has the opportunity to get to know some of her favorite teachers outside of the classroom. "I got to see a whole new side to my old teachers. They don't just lecture, they have families, they're real people," she said.And for those of you that have lost all hope of finding true love at Middlebury, look no further than Cole for inspiration. "My husband was in the year before mine at Middlebury," she said. "But we had nothing in common, I was an English major, he majored in Chinese and Political Science." Though she plans to leave after teaching a J-Term class on horror films, Cole says she wants to continue teaching, probably in the D.C. area. "I love teaching," she said "and I'll definitely stick to it." JILL COLEMAN Visting Instructor in Psychology Another new young face in the Psychology Department is that of Visiting Instructor in Psychology Jill Coleman. Like Cho, Coleman received her graduate education at the University of Illinois. "I knew of Grace through mutual friends," she said "but it's a total coincidence that we both ended up working here." Coleman grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and received her undergraduate degree from Loyola University. Coleman received her doctorate in social psychology and is interested in the topic of social identity - "basically how people think of themselves when they are in social groups," she said. Coleman has also done research on gender differences, and is currently doing research on people's perceptions of stay-at-home dads versus working fathers. "It's a new thing that hasn't been done a lot before," she said. Like Cho, Coleman began her teaching career at the University of Illinois. I was 22 and teaching courses," she said, "and even though I'm a shy person, I really liked it." Coleman heard about Middlebury through a friend and was intrigued by the focus on teaching at the College. Coming from a big research institution, she was excited about the community at Middlebury. "Everyone here is so amazingly friendly,"she said, "and I am just constantly amazed by the view." Although Coleman was quick to adjust to Middlebury, some of her city habits stayed with her. "I always lock my door," she says. Asked if Middlebury was lacking in anything Coleman thought a moment and then replied, "there's no real Chicago deep dish pizza here, the closest place is in Burlington!"Coleman also had a run-in with mistaken identity her first week on campus. "I was walking around with my camera and taking pictures to send to my friends when an administrator asked me if I was a perspective student," she joked. "Grace [Cho] was mistaken for a college student but they thought I was still in high school!"Coleman has a three-year appointment at the College and is teaching an introductory psychology course as well as a senior seminar on social identity. Since she has a lighter schedule this semester she hopes she will be able to continue with her research work. Coleman said she always heard that Middlebury students were demanding and so far, they have not proven her wrong. "The students here are always challenging me," she said.
(09/15/05 12:00am)
Author: Jason Siegel On Wednesday, June 22, available members of the Middlebury College community gathered in Dana Auditorium to hear President Ronald D. Liebowitz formally announce his recommendation for the Board of Trustees to sign a letter of intent establishing an affiliation between Middlebury and the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS).The Board signed the next day and the MIIS Board of Trustees approved the letter of intent on June 24. The Institute, which is located in southern California, consists of the Graduate School of International Policy Studies, the Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, the Fisher Graduate School of International Business and the Graduate School of Language and Educational Linguistics. Informal discussions pertaining to a potential Middlebury acquisition of MIIS began in mid-2003 when a representative from MIIS spoke with a College Trustee, but formal discussions did not begin until December 2004."Knowing Monterey as a former worthy competitor with our Middlebury Language Schools, I was aware of the Institute's year-round graduate programs and saw the programmatic fit between the two institutions, based on the commitment to proficiency in the foreign languages," Liebowitz said in his address.Opposition to acquisition and affiliationLast week's decision came after months of speculation, debate and negotiation. Opposition to the proposed acquisition was strong within the College community throughout the past academic year: the Faculty Council voted 80-21 against Middlebury's acquisition of MIIS on April 1 and on April 16 the Student Government Association passed a resolution opposing any acquisition that would require funds otherwise intended for undergraduate programs. Liebowitz said that faculty reservations based on financial risk, administrative reach and potential tarnishing of the Middlebury name "were issues that I viewed as serious and in need of resolution in order to offer a positive recommendation to the Board for us to pursue a relationship with Monterey."The College tackled these issues via an investigative due diligence process and by consulting several outside professional leaders in higher education.Liebowitz stressed that the final arrangement agreed upon is not an acquisition but an affiliation. Although Middlebury will gain administrative control of the Institute, it will not be responsible for any financial shortcomings that MIIS, which recently emerged from financial probation from its accrediting body, might face.Some members of the College community have expressed concern about whether or not the decision was a wise one. Professor of Mathematics Priscilla Bremser's principal objection was the effect that the pursuit of this relationship has had and will continue to have on the President's ability to concentrate on the issues of the undergraduate programs in Vermont."I honestly can't see any benefits to our undergraduate program [from] this affiliation," Bremser said. Liebowitz said he disagreed with the notion that Monterey is an incompatible addition to Middlebury, citing the fact that Middlebury already awards 250 advanced degrees each year through the Language Schools, the Schools Abroad and the Bread Loaf School of English, the largest graduate English program in the country. Liebowitz also noted that the College's renowned Language Schools started out as graduate programs and have gradually evolved into programs that accept undergraduates. Furthermore, the Monterey decision echoes the recommendations from the Bread Loaf and Language Schools Task Force assembled as part of the Strategic Planning Process.Liebowitz distinguished the faculty's April vote on an acquisition of Monterey from the Board of Trustees' recent agreement on an affiliation. It is impossible to know whether some opponents of the acquisition might have been in favor of an affiliation, though Bremser maintains that faculty opposition to any kind of Monterey connection was "deep as well as broad."The Trustees' decision was the second in a row to run contrary to the resolutions passed by the main governing bodies on campus. On Feb. 14, the Faculty Council voted to eliminate a clause from the College's Handbook that permits discriminating employers to recruit on campus after giving a presentation explaining why the offending policy exists. The Community Council subsequently passed a similar recommendation on March 15, but the Board of Trustees voted to maintain the policy as it stood at its May meeting.Benefits of the affiliationThe College will make an initial investment in the Institute to help the MIIS meet Middlebury operating standards, but Liebowitz says the investment will have "no impact on the College's operating budget or endowment." The College will not be liable for the institution's debts as it would have been if Middlebury had acquired the Institute.Middlebury will have other responsibilities to the MIIS, however. The College's Board of Trustees will appoint the president of the Monterey Institute as well as direct its programs. President Liebowitz has already recommended Professor of Chinese Clara Yu, former vice president for Languages and head of the Language Schools and Schools Abroad, as the next MIIS President.The letter of intent marks the first step in a negotiation process expected to last three to five months. This time frame will allow specific details of the arrangement to be worked out. For example, Monterey currently offers intensive, non-immersion summer language programs in most of the same languages Middlebury teaches. The College will therefore work to prevent curricular redundancies at the two schools. Other fine points include basic environmental inspections of MIIS buildings.MIIS, in turn, receives other benefits. According to Yu, Monterey "retains its 'sovereignty,' keeps its name and its organizational structure. It also gets a shot in the arm in financial resources, human resources, networks and relationships." In other words, alumni and staff networks are opened up to one another, though not combined. Speaking to the Alumni College at Bread Loaf, Liebowitz mentioned that West Coast alumni had strongly expressed a desire to increase Middlebury's name recognition in that part of the country. With opportunities to co-brand, both institutions theoretically stand to increase awareness in parts of the country that are traditionally under-reached. One of the possible benefits Liebowitz named for affiliating with the institute was an increased Middlebury presence in Asia. Thirty-five percent of MIIS's students are international, and the majority of these students are Asian. Though Middlebury recently opened a school abroad in China, it has no such connection to Japan, despite being a very active member in the Kyoto Exchange program.Liebowitz also said that in the future, joint degree programs between Middlebury and Monterey, not unlike the dual degree programs Middlebury already offers with Washington University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, could be possible. "The real exciting thing ... is the possibilities" that this affiliation would engender, according to the President. Liebowitz noted that several students and faculty have already expressed interest to him about working and studying with the faculty in Monterey.Looking toward the FutureThe future of MIIS rests largely in the hands of many people connected with Middlebury. Clara Yu has been and will be working closely with the former president of Monterey, Steven J. Baker, to smooth over the transition process. Her position at the Center for Educational Technology, the last position she held at the College, had reached a logical conclusion and future work in that department will be headed by Jo Ellen Parker. She has no plans to return to Middlebury.There have been, however, some significant hitches. Concerns have been raised by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), the accrediting body of West Coast Schools. WASC has expressed concerns about Monterey's autonomy, noting that it is a stretch to talk about the autonomy of a school whose president and trustees are hand-selected by another institution. To dispel these worries and to conform with California law, Middlebury changed its original plan to have a board of five trustees to one of about 13 and finally up to 17. A large majority have been heavily involved with Middlebury, and about four are longtime members of the MIIS community.Financial issues are also under discussion. According to Yu, Executive Vice President and Treasurer Bob Huth has managed to secure lower interest rates from Monterey's debtor. Enrollment rates in MIIS have exceeded not only this year's projections, but also next year's as well, a huge boon to an enrollment-driven budget. This means that the Institute has over one million extra dollars to include in its budget, since its budget is derived exclusively from enrollment. Liebowitz credited the spike in part to the affiliation announcement.Nearing the one-year anniversary of his tenure as president, Liebowitz asserted that the Monterey affiliation and the on-going Strategic Planning Process were the two major achievements of his first year in office."Though this proposed affiliation would not affect our undergraduate curriculum, at least in the near term," Liebowitz said in his recent address, "adding the graduate programs in international studies as affiliates to our current graduate offerings would strengthen the College's reputation in the area of international education, thereby allowing us to play on a larger and more visible national and international stage."
(09/15/05 12:00am)
Faculty Garner Summer Accolades
Several members of the Middlebury College faculty received grants and awards this summer. Professor of Geology Pat Manley was awarded a grant by the U.S. Geological Survey to further her research on Lake Champlain for a project about "Abrupt Climate Change in the Eastern United States." Assistant Professor of Economics William Pyle will be a Teaching Fellow with the Eurasia Program of the Social Science Research Council in order to develop a course on "Legal Institutions and Post-Soviet Economic Development."
In the physics department, Associate Professor Susan Watson was awarded supplemental funding from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates program in order to support expenses for her undergraduate students participating in an NSF program at Harvard with researchers from Middlebury, Harvard and the University of Minnesota.
Professor of Spanish Chela Andreu-Sprigg will travel to Spain to research Corin Tellado, the most well-known female Spanish writer of the twentieth century, with a grant from the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain's Ministry of Culture and American universities. Finally, Associate Professor of English Timothy Billings received a grant from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation to publish a translation and critical analysis of "Steles," which is a collection of French and Chinese poetry by Victor Segalen.
College Named Climate Champion
Middlebury College was recently award a 2005 Climate Champion Award for the College's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat global warming. The award was issued by Clean Air-Cool Planet (CA-CP), a Portsmouth, N.H., non-profit organization dedicated to fighting global warming and greenhouse gas emissions.
Middlebury's Carbon Reduction Working Group, "Path to Carbon Neutrality" and "Building the New Climate Movement," J-Term courses and a spring course in "Environmental Economics" were all cited as evidence of the institutional commitment to reducing heat-trapping gases and solving the climate change problem that we would like all colleges and universities to emulate," according to CA-CP Executive Director Adam Markham. "They have worked to reduce greenhouse gases and educate people in every aspect of their mission, from the trustees to faculty and staff, to students and alumni."
Accepting the award on behalf of the College were Middlebury College Trustee Linda Whitton, Assistant Professor of Economics Jon Isham, Jacob Whitcomb '06, Andrew Rossmeissl '05, John Hanley '05, Lindsey Corbin '05 and Michael DiRaimondo '05.
Additional awards were given to Governors John Maldacci of Maine and George Pataki of New York, the Bank of America, the Timberland Company and the City of Stamford, Conn.
College Wins Mass Spectrometer with a Liquid Chromatograph
Students majoring in the physical sciences will have access to new equipment and research funding this year, thanks to grants several Middlebury professors received from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NSF awarded a Major Research Instrumentation grant for the purchase of an LC/MS System and will support research of four faculty members and 10 students in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry each year.
In addition, the NIH announced that Middlebury will be one of the baccalaureate partners of the University of Vermont on a five-year research project entitled Vermont IDeA Networks of Biomedical Excellence. Among the faculty receiving one-year research grants from the program is Assistant Professor of Biology Jeremy Ward, who will study the identification and characterization of the Mammalian Meiotic Mutation mei4.
In the Chemistry and Biochemistry department, Associate Professor Roger Sandwick received a grand to study the Maillard Reaction between Ribose 5-Phosphate and Cellular Amines, in order to determine whether the natural system is capable of producing chemical poisons or cancer initiators. Professor Robert Cluss will study Lyme disease, specifically whether the two proteins produced by the Lyme disease spirochete are able to damage target cells.
Finally in that department, Professor Sunhee Choi will advance anticancer drug research through her work on Mechanism and Kinetics of Oxidation of Guanosine Derivatives by Pt(IV) Complexes, in order to understand how platinum anticancer drugs interact with DNA.
Written by KATE DOORLEY
(07/01/05 12:00am)
Author: Ben Salkowe In a vote at Monday's Faculty Council meeting, the faculty voted overwhelmingly against Middlebury College's possible acquisition of the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in Monterey, Calif. The vote was for a resolution expressing the sense of the faculty. According to Allison Byerly, vice president for academic affairs, the faculty voted 80 - 21 to oppose the acquisition with 15 abstentions.A final decision on the acquisition will be made by President Ronald D. Liebowitz."Faculty Council was asked, by a number of faculty, to hold a vote that would give a sense of the faculty resolution on the possibility of acquiring the Monterey Institute, and we formulated a resolution to gauge faculty opinion on this issue," said Jeff Cason, chair of the Faculty Council and associate professor of Political Science. Both Cason and Byerly are part of the Monterey Program Steering Committee that has investigated acquisition.A report released to the College Community in February explained the possible acquisition. "The Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS), a graduate institution well respected for its international programs and focus on foreign language fluency, is located in Monterey, California," said the report composed by the faculty serving as the Coordination Group. "MIIS is currently on financial probation from its accrediting body, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, and is looking to be acquired by a stronger educational partner in order to enhance the quality of its programs and ensure long term survival."If the College were to acquire MIIS, the institute would remain a separate entity and, according to the report, have a relationship with the College similar to those of the Language Schools and Breadloaf School of English. Liebowitz made opening remarks at the meeting, where Ana Martinez-Lage and Peter Matthews, associate professors of Spanish and Economics, respectively, spoke out against plans being considered by the College to acquire the Monterey Institute. Michael Kraus, Frederick C. Dirks professor of Political Science, spoke in favor of acquisition. Kraus is also a member of the Steering Committee."I thought that the discussion at the faculty meeting was thoughtful and wide-ranging, in the end," said Cason.In addition to Byerly, Cason and Kraus, the Coordination Group consists of Christian A. Johnson istinguished Professor of Economics David Colander, Dean of Language Schools and Schools Abroad and Professor of German Michael Geisler and Director of the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs Allison Stanger.
(07/01/05 12:00am)
Author: Jason Siegel, News editor On Wednesday, June 22, available members of the Middlebury College community gathered in Dana Auditorium to hear President Ronald D. Liebowitz formally announce his recommendation for the Board of Trustees to sign a letter of intent establishing an affiliation between Middlebury and the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS).The Board signed the letter the next day and the MIIS Board of Trustees approved the letter of intent on June 24. The Institute, which is located in southern California, consists of the Graduate School of International Policy Studies, the Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, the Fisher Graduate School of International Business and the Graduate School of Language and Educational Linguistics. Informal discussions pertaining to a potential Middlebury acquisition of MIIS began in mid-2003 when a representative from MIIS spoke with a College Trustee, but formal discussions did not begin until December 2004."Knowing Monterey as a former worthy competitor with our Middlebury Language Schools, I was aware of the Institute's year-round graduate programs and saw the programmatic fit between the two institutions, based on the commitment to proficiency in the foreign languages," Liebowitz said in his address.Last week's decision came after months of speculation, debate and negotiation. Opposition to the proposed acquisition was strong within the College community throughout the past academic year: the Faculty Council voted 80-21 against Middlebury's acquisition of MIIS on April 1 and on April 16 the Student Government Association passed a resolution opposing any acquisition that would require funds otherwise intended for undergraduate programs. Liebowitz said that faculty reservations based on financial risk, administrative reach and potential tarnishing of the Middlebury name "were issues that I viewed as serious and in need of resolution in order to offer a positive recommendation to the Board for us to pursue a relationship with Monterey." The College tackled these issues via an investigative due diligence process and by consulting several outside professional leaders in higher education.Liebowitz pointed out that the final arrangement agreed upon is not an acquisition but an affiliation. The principal distinction is that although Middlebury will gain administrative control of the Institute, it will not be responsible for any financial shortcomings that MIIS, which recently emerged from financial probation from its accrediting body, might face.The College will make an initial investment in the Institute to help the MIIS meet Middlebury operating standards, but Liebowitz says the investment will have "no impact on the College's operating budget or endowment." The College will not be liable for the institution's debts as it would have been if Middlebury had acquired the Institute.Middlebury will have other responsibilities to the MIIS, however. The College's Board of Trustees will appoint the president of the Monterey Institute as well as direct its programs. President Liebowitz has already recommended Professor of Chinese Clara Yu, former vice president for Languages and head of the Language Schools and Schools Abroad, as the next MIIS President.The letter of intent marks the first step in a negotiation process expected to last three to five months. This time frame will allow specific details of the arrangement to be worked out. For example, Monterey currently offers intensive, non-immersion summer language programs in most of the same languages as Middlebury. The College will therefore work to prevent curricular redundancies at the two schools. Other fine points include basic environmental inspections of MIIS buildings.Division still exists within the College community about whether or not the decision was a wise one. Professor of Mathematics Priscilla Bremser's principal objection was the effect that the pursuit of this relationship has had and will continue to have on the President's ability to concentrate on the issues of the undergraduate programs in Vermont."I honestly can't see any benefits to our undergraduate program [from] this affiliation," Bremser said. "The [potential benefits] offered by the President seem vague or questionable: how would our reputation be strengthened by affiliating with an institution on the verge of collapse, and what happens to our reputation if it does collapse?"Liebowitz said he disagreed with the notion that Monterey is an incompatible addition to Middlebury, citing the fact that Middlebury already awards 250 advanced degrees each year through the Language Schools, the Schools Abroad and the Bread Loaf School of English. Liebowitz also noted that the College's renowned Language Schools started out as graduate programs and eventually evolved into programs that involve undergraduates as well. Furthermore, the Monterey decision echoes the recommendations from the Bread Loaf and Language Schools Task Force assembled as part of the Strategic Planning Process, another major Liebowitz initiative.Liebowitz distinguished the faculty's April vote on an acquisition of Monterey from the Board of Trustees recent agreement on an affiliation. It is impossible to know whether some opponents of the acquisition might have been in favor of an affiliation, though Bremser maintains that faculty opposition to any kind of Monterey connection was "deep as well as broad."One of the possible benefits Liebowitz named for affiliating with the institute was an increased Middlebury presence in Asia. Thirty-five percent of MIIS's students are international, and the majority of these students are Asian. Though Middlebury recently opened a school abroad in China, it has no such connection to Japan.Liebowitz also said that in the future, joint degree programs between Middlebury and Monterey, not unlike the dual degree programs Middlebury already offers with Washington University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, could be possible. Such arrangements would only materialize if the initiatives passed through the proper channels, including the Faculty Council and the Board of Trustees.The Trustees' decision is the second in a row to run contrary to the resolutions passed by the main governing bodies on campus. On Feb. 14, the Faculty Council voted to eliminate a clause that permits discriminating employers to recruit on campus after giving a presentation explaining why the offending policy exists from the College's Handbook. The Community Council subsequently passed a similar recommendation on March 15, but the Board of Trustees voted to maintain the policy as it stood at its May meeting.Noting the upcoming one-year anniversary of his tenure as President, Liebowitz asserted that the Monterey affiliation and the on-going Strategic Planning Process were the two major achievements of his first year in office."Though this proposed affiliation would not affect our undergraduate curriculum, at least in the near term," Liebowitz said in his recent address, "adding the graduate programs in international studies as affiliates to our current graduate offerings would strengthen the College's reputation in the area of international education, thereby allowing us to play on a larger and more visible national and international stage."
(07/01/05 12:00am)
Author: Dina Magrill President Ronald D. Liebowitz has not ruled out Middlebury College's acquisition of the graduate programs of the Monterey Institute for International Studies (MIIS), though the faculty voted not to support a resolution recommending such an acquisition in a paper ballot vote at the Faculty Council meeting on April 1. The final count was 80 to 21. Of the 207 faculty members eligible to vote, 116 actually cast a ballot. The vote was an advisory procedure, and the final decision will be made by the Board of Trustees before the end of the year.As expressed by the recent vote, many faculty members have doubts about the acquisition. Those who voted against it were concerned that another graduate program would take away from the undergraduate liberal arts experience at Middlebury."[Frederick C. Dirks Professor of Political Science] Michael Kraus, in suggesting potential benefits of this acquisition, mentioned that his department recently had an applicant for a teaching position who asked if there were opportunities to teach graduate students," recalled Professor of Mathematics Priscilla Bremser. "If an applicant for a position in my department expressed a desire to teach graduate students, we would say, 'You're applying for the wrong job.'"Kraus responded to some of the faculty's reservations. "I believe the main explanation for the negative vote is that an acquisition of another institution is a difficult proposition to contemplate under the best of circumstances," he said. "It is far easier to point to the potential and opportunity costs involved than it is to identify the long-term benefits that might accrue to us in terms of recruiting, networks or academic reputation," Kraus said. In response to some faculty members' uneasiness about the acquisition of another graduate program by a strictly undergraduate college like Middlebury, Kraus noted, "If we as faculty were asked today to vote on whether to launch the Bread Loaf programs or our Summer Language Schools, we would vote them down too. Yet these programs are now highly successful, enhance our academic reputation and generate funding, all of which benefit our undergraduate college as well, without involving our undergraduate faculty in any significant way."Bremser saw a contradiction in the proposed acquisition. "We are told that acquiring MIIS would have no effect on our undergraduate program, that 'firewalls' would be in place and that because the two institutions are thousands of miles apart, there would be little day-to-day contact," she noted. "On the other hand, we hear that if we acquire MIIS, we will have to fix its recruiting practices, fix its development office, fix its Web site, fix its management and improve language instruction to meet our standards."There are financial concerns associated with acquiring the Monterey program as well. MIIS is currently on financial probation from its accrediting body, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Although Middlebury would not make a cash purchase or payment for the institute, the College would be responsible for assuming responsibility for Monterey's programs as well as its debts. "James Jermain Professor of Political Economy and International Law Russ Leng pointed out that stabilizing and improving MIIS would require a large infusion of funds," Bremser recalled from the meeting. "I suggest that it would also require large infusion of time and energy and expertise, presumably from here."Liebowitz commented that the operational budget of the school is enrollment driven, meaning the cost of running the school, as well as paying faculty, is covered by tuition, as well as gifts and grants to the school. "As we consider an acquisition, one must consider the costs to sustain a program as well as to raise the program to an expected level of excellence," Liebowitz said. One way of doing this requires the school to have the most up-to-date technology, like new computer labs. In such cases, Liebowitz said, the school needs to see if these costs can be covered by surplus such as fundraising. The University of California Los Angeles system was looking to acquire the institute, but was forced to withdraw because of a cut in its budget. Another financial factor to be considered is the high cost of real estate in the Monterey area. Many of Middlebury's now-renowned scholastic programs actually started as graduate programs. The Language Schools, established in 1915 and Middlebury's Schools Abroad were initially limited to graduate enrollment. Between 175 and 200 students currently receive their master degrees from the Middlebury Language Schools, and if MIIS were acquired, it could offer an alternative to these masters programs. Though Liebowitz is looking to acquire the institute on a strictly graduate level, he believes that it could have many benefits for Middlebury undergraduate students. "If we do acquire the Monterey institute, it can provide for much bigger networks for Middlebury students," Liebowitz said. Although Middlebury is widely recognized on the east coast, Liebowitz has pointed out that Middlebury has much less recognition on the west coast. By considering the acquisition of a graduate program in California, Middlebury seeks to expand its reputation westward. The possibility of Winter Term courses offered to Middlebury students at Monterey could also exist. Currently, 700 students are enrolled at MIIS, an institute known for its international graduate programs and focus in foreign languages. About 40 percent of the enrolled students come from outside the United States. MIIS consists of several distinctive programs. The Graduate School of International Policy Studies requires fluency in a foreign language and has the largest enrollment of all the schools. The School of Translation and Interpretation is currently recognized as the best of its kind in the country and also has a prestigious reputation abroad. Many graduates of this school have gone on to work for the United Nations as translators. Despite the entire faculty's overwhelming vote against the MIIS acquisition, many individual faculty members remain outspoken advocates of the proposition. According to Michael Geisler, dean of Language Schools and Schools Abroad, there are two programs offered at Monterey that Middlebury will never be able to offer its Language School students a school of translation and teaching English as a second language. "As long as our mantra, during the summer, is 'No English Spoken Here!' it will be very difficult to add either one of those components to our Language Schools curriculum. Yet both translation and interpretation and English as a Second Language are a logical corollary of a fully developed curriculum in foreign language education," Geisler said.MIIS also boasts a program in applied linguistics that could possibly offer an opportunity to expand the College's Doctor of Modern Languages degree that is currently granted in conjunction with the summer Language Programs. In addition to the Fisher School of International Business, MIIS offers one of the largest non-governmental organizations devoted to non-proliferation research and training. It is the Institute's Center for East Asian Studies, however, that Liebowitz believes could be most beneficial to the College. "As we move into the 21st century," Liebowitz said, "we cannot underestimate the importance of our ties with Asia." Many of the graduate students at Monterey are themselves from Korea, Japan and China. Liebowitz sees this program as having tremendous potential for its students.Allison Stanger, director of the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs, was on the Monterey Program Steering Committee that was able to visit the institute along with Kraus, Vice President for Academic Affairs Alyson Byerly, Associate Professor of Political Science Jeff Caso
n, Christian A. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Economics Dave Colander and Geisler. Stanger is optimistic about the opportunity, and commented that if Middlebury "were to build a graduate school from scratch, [it] would build something very similar, at least in terms of core values, to what Monterey already has in place.""That's what makes this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity demanding serious consideration," she said.David Macey, director of Off-Campus Study, believes the acquisition has potential to enhance Middlebury's reputation. With "our unique commitment to language study, international studies, study abroad and the summer Language Schools, the possibility of associating ourselves with a series of professional schools with similar commitments to language and internationalization, will only further distinguish Middlebury from other four-year residential liberal arts institutions," Macey said.Although Liebowitz respects the faculty's decision, he remains enthusiastic about the possible benefits of acquiring Monterey. Liebowitz believes the institute would help forward Middlebury's mission. He emphasized the importance of collaboration in future Middlebury programs. Liebowitz also briefly mentioned another possible College collaboration, this time with a focus towards the Geology and Environmental Studies departments. He mentioned a new proposal from the Maritime Museum in Lake Champlain which has an interest in collaborating with Middlebury College programs. Although the faculty has already voiced its opinion, the final decision on MIIS will be made by the administration and the Board of Trustees sometime in May.
(07/01/05 12:00am)
Author: Charlie Chapin '04 As a recent graduate and lifelong Californian, I strongly urge the faculty to reconsider their votes against the acquisition of Monterey Institute for International Studies (MIIS). Acquiring MIIS represents a significant step in building opportunities for educations and careers and it certainly does not dilute Middlebury's focus on the undergraduate.Through its language departments in the College and its summer Language Schools, Middlebury has earned a reputation as a leading institution in the field of languages, a reputation that is relatively unknown on the West Coast. In my experience, the best way to describe to Californians my experience at the Language Schools has been to compare it to the summer intensive language programs at MIIS. They recognize the prestige of MIIS, but have not heard of Middlebury. Imagine if all the regional recognition of MIIS was joined to Middlebury. Linking the two would spread both the reputations of both schools and their alumni networks. For students and alumni, academic prestige can prove an important ally when applying for internships, jobs and graduate schools. Wide alumni networks can also provide career advice and job leads. Adding the MIIS alumni base to Middlebury's thus creates an additional geographic hub for West Coast and Pacific Rim opportunities. Next, consider the intensive English programs. It is undeniable that English is the current lingua franca of the international community and it would be remiss to overlook MIIS's offerings in English as a Second Language (ESL) and Translation/Interpretation in considering Middlebury's future as a first-rate school for International Studies. Many consider English to be the most important second language worth learning, yet international students cannot attend Middlebury to study English without prior achievement of near-native proficiency. MIIS's English programs also represent a unique demographic currently missing from Middlebury. Most students at the Middlebury Language Schools aim to use their languages among corresponding cultures. Students of MIIS's ESL and Translation/Interpretation programs, however, are focused on bringing English to these cultures. As the language spreads, these students will be building trans-cultural, trans-linguistic bridges to the international community. Second, the array of unique graduate programs at MIIS is impressive. They have a Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, a Graduate School of Language and Educational Linguistics (focusing on teaching ESL and foreign languages and including Peace Corps Master's International Programs), a Graduate School of International Policy Studies (including a three-year Bachelor's/Master's combo program and certificates in Nonproliferation Studies and Development Project Management) and The Fisher Graduate School of International Business. ALL programs require study of a foreign language.The similarities between MIIS's and Middlebury's summer language programs may raise questions of superfluous programs. Actually, the existence of a second campus would prove a boon - it would also allow for instruction in more languages and consolidation of programs with low enrollment. For example, Portuguese is only offered at Middlebury, while MIIS is beginning programs in Farsi and Korean this summer. These separate pursuits could be developed into a trend - new languages or languages with fewer students can be offered at just one of the campuses and languages of high demand can be taught at both. As enrollment shrinks or grows in each language, the availability of two campuses allows for more flexibility and more possibilities. The final question is whether or not the students at the College would feel like their position as the heart of Middlebury were being compromised by the acquisition. The answer is no. MIIS would continue as a separate entity, distinct from the College - just as the Language Schools, Breadloaf and the Starr Schools Abroad are today. It is and would remain devoted to graduate students (until summer) while the College is and will remain devoted to undergraduates.Consider also the size - there are approximately 780 students enrolled at MIIS and about 2,350 students at the College, according to their Web sites. The undergraduates would remain the vast majority. If anything, the spirit of community at the College would gain more visibility. Think of any other fine American liberal arts college that expanded into a nationally and internationally name-recognized school. It would not have lasted this long without its consistent grounding in undergraduate education. While the College must always remain the heart of Middlebury, it can and it should secure itself a place in the future by broadening its offerings to include Monterey. The mission of Middlebury College, according to the current handbook, is, partially, "to [maintain] conspicuous excellence in those areas of its traditional strengths such as language, literature and an international perspective." Just as the faculty seek to ground students "in an understanding of the Western intellectual tradition," I ask that they continue to look to the west. For our sakes as students and alumni and for the sake of a Middlebury education, I ask you to look to the west.
(05/05/05 12:00am)
Author: ANDREW CARNABUCI ’06 "Thus we will be incomprehensible," wrote Jacques Derrida, on the current direction of language in academia. Sadly enough, I believe that Middlebury College will soon prove Derrida's words prophetic. In our dogmatic kow-towing to idol of political correctness, we are also destroying the English language. The other day, I learned that the Parton Health Center can perform for students something they refer to as a "Substance Use Assessment." This phrase means so little that it is useless. I like to eat my hamburgers and french fries with ketchup. Perhaps I might require a "Substance Use Assessment" to determine my Heinz intake. What they mean to say, clearly, is an "Alcohol Abuse Test," but is this sort doublespeak really the way we want to use our language? Does vagueness reduce our words to absurdities? Next up, we have the now-famous "holiday tree." To what holiday does this tree correspond? Well, it's certainly not Chanukah, Ramadan or Kwanzaa, as none of them feature decorated trees prominently in their iconography. It is a Christmas tree. Why would one ever choose a vaguer descriptor over a more specific one? As a means not to not offend those members of the community not of the Christian faith? I am still waiting to meet the non-Christian among our community who was seriously and truly offended back when it was called the Christmas tree, but feels thoroughly at peace with the "holiday tree."At a school that emphasizes its literature curriculum and hosts the most famous writers' conference in the world, one would think that our institutional literature might be up to snuff, but no such luck. A quick flip - or rather, Web-surf - through the College handbook will attest to this. Constantly it uses the most prominent - and most ugly - trope of the institutional newspeak, the dreaded "he or she." "If I student wishes to appeal the fine, he or she may...." Allow me to present: synecdoche. Shakespeare used it a lot. As any high school student could tell you, it is a literary device allowing a part to stand for the whole. Thusly, the masculine pronoun - or the feminine for that matter - may stand in for both genders. Synecdoche allows us to say "Mankind" to refer to what many - sadly - now call "Man- and Womankind." As English expert William F. Buckley points out, "If you can't see what's wrong with that, I can't explain it to you." This is not the only linguistic abomination in our handbook however. Business-writing nonsense-isms abound, we are told to "utilize" things instead of "using" them. People do not "help," they "facilitate." This is a College which prides itself on producing good writers, yet its written materials sound like a legal brief.Our conversational skills aren't great either. Just the other day, I heard someone refer to a "Non-Same-Sex Marriage." According to one friend of mine, we didn't "disagree," we were "differently-minded." This is absurd.Some - probably those who will grow up to become those teachers who spend their free time blacking the swears out of Catcher in the Rye and Huckleberry Finn - will condemn me and my argument as insensitive and prejudiced, but that simply speaks to the lack of respect for the educational dialectic on this campus. Middlebury is a school where it is impossible to make a fundamentally conservative point without being heckled, ostracized and universally reviled by the belligerently hyper-sensitive community. The fundamental principle behind both democracy and academia is a free exchange amidst the marketplace of ideas and that exchange is made impossible by both anti-conservative dogmatism and the fundamental inability to communicate clearly in our primary language, both of which run rampant on this campus. It is time to reclaim our language. Jorge Luis Borges, a native Spanish speaker, wrote the vast majority of his works in English precisely because he felt it possessed a precision and depth of expression which Spanish lacked. We can, like Borges, revel in the richness of English or we can keep diluting and destroying it, spiraling ever inward to a vacuum of our own self-imposed ignorance. I, for one, will never surrender the English of Shakespeare, Milton and Keats for sacrifice upon the altar of academic tweediness, to the god of political correctness.
(05/05/05 12:00am)
Author: KATE DOORLEY PARIS - Before leaving for Paris I glanced through the handbook that the Study Abroad Office sent me, which talks a lot about cultural differences and how I needed to prepare myself for a totally different value system. "Alright," I said to myself, "I'm going to Paris, the so-called capital of culture and a Western European city. Other than their comforting disdain for President Bush, how much different can it be?" In fact, what I have found is that the French indeed have a way of thinking very different from the one with which I have been raised - especially as far as race issues are concerned. Paris is, beyond argument, extremely diverse. This has not brought the same political correctness that "melting pot" status has brought to the States. Paris is perhaps one of the least politically correct and least racially sensitive places I have ever visited, in the American sense at least. For example, the city is full of small convenience stores called alimentations generales, most of which are owned by North African immigrants. Ask any Parisian what these stores are called and they will tell you that they're les petits arabes. Go check Babelfish.com if you need a translation.A few weeks ago I was sitting in a café with a friend having a nightcap. A few minutes after our drinks arrived we noticed that the police had pulled over a car with four young black men inside. The police proceeded to keep them there for the next two hours, finally taking the driver away in their mini-van and taking the car away as well, leaving the other three young men on the street. I've been in Paris since January, and I've seen all sorts of traffic stops like this. Never once have the people I have seen being stopped been white. Even the French admit this "profiling" exists. My host mother mentioned being "controlled," when the police demand your ID, which everyone here must always carry, but also that it will probably never happen to me as I'm white.Racism in France is even a joke on TV. One of the most popular shows among young people in France is a show called Les Guignols de l'Info, a satire a la "The Daily Show" with Claymation puppets. One night the broadcaster announced that, "We talk about how the blacks are dirty blacks and the Jews are dirty Jews, but we also need to remember that the Arabs are dirty little mustached men, that Americans are loud and fat, that the Swiss are wusses, that the Belgians are stupid, that the English are arrogant and have bad teeth and the Germans are drunks. In fact no one is any good at all except the French ... although they are a little racist." While this might have been a joke on TV, the stereotypes discussed are quite widespread. Political correctness does not exist in France. People all over the world talk about French culture as being highly refined and sophisticated, but their racial attitudes are also part of their culture. For the French this really isn't a problem, regardless of what we at Middlebury, who are quick to defend diversity and the acceptance of and sensitivity to all differences, might think about it. So not to sound insensitive, but I have to ask myself how the students who were so outraged by party themes and governmental policies would react to France.
(05/05/05 12:00am)
Author: — By Lauren Smith and Jodie Zhang The Middlebury Campus: Tell us about your film.Dan Smarg: I started a film here at Midd sophomore year, but we didn't get to finish it because the two leads went abroad. I ended up going abroad to England the following year. At York University, I didn't plan to shoot a film, but I decided to refocus on a picture once the opportunity presented itself. In my efforts to get acquainted with some of the other students there, I went to the York Cinema Society. There were about 40 people sitting around this big, round table - I was the only "Yank," so to speak. The timing was perfect because people were pitching scripts for spring film projects. It was a Thursday and Monday was the deadline. That night, I went home intending on writing a 10 page script, but after three all-nighters in a row, I submitted a 90 page feature. Out of 20 scripts, five were selected. The head of the club said, "We love your script, but we're concerned about the length. We'll lend you a camera for two weeks tops," and I said I need it for three months! They said, "We'll see what we can do." Just another adventure from there. I had two months from that point on to do preproduction like open auditions and shot/blocking lists. So I spent the five week Easter break in Southern France traveling around, drinking a lot of red wine and preparing an elaborate battle plan, a rotating schedule, for 30 people. As long as I personally worked seven days a week for three months, I could keep the cast and crew working on a rotating schedule so they wouldn't get stressed. The Campus: What is "The Bike Thief" about?Dan: The story is about a young man, Jack, who is running through the Yorkshire countryside when he gets chased by a German Shepherd. He comes across a bike and steals it to get away from the dog. Returning the bike is easier said than done. It's really a series of farcical conflicts that build exponentially, one upon the other. The film is showing May 8 in Dana Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. On June 19, I'm premiering the film in York, England as well. At this point, the rest remains to be seen. I'm looking for future commissions with independent studios, or managers that are willing to work with me. I will also put the film in student film festivals.The Campus: What was the production of "The Bike Thief" like?Dan: In American dollars, it probably cost me about $5,000. I funded the picture through my film company, Maverick Filmworks, Inc. which I incorporated in the summer I came to Middlebury because I got tired of working for other people doing jobs like caddying. Every dollar I make, I put into fictional projects. The guys on the crew and I joke around a lot, saying, "This film was made for a load of pints!" which is true. The Campus: Do you have any funny anecdotes from the making of "The Bike Thief"?Dan: Yeah, there are lots. There's an elderly lady, one of the ancillary characters in the film, and she has a shotgun that she uses to defend her farm from marauding hooligans who are looking to steal from her garden. But in England, it is illegal to own firearms, so I went to the local military base, police stations, antique dealers, pawn shops to find this gun. I even looked behind the counter in the pubs all over the city, but I couldn't find one anywhere. The day of the shoot, we still didn't have the shotgun. I only had access to the farmhouse location for one day. The owner of the house said, "I'll give you eight hours. You can do whatever you want, just don't tell me." The English kick ass! Our unit turned the house upside down for the shoot. And as it turns out, the owner's son had a 18th century, blue steel, antique shotgun that was worth about 30,000 quid - that's about $60,000 US dollars, like the ones seen in "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels." The first thing he says to me: "How do I know you're not going to steal this thing?" I looked him in the eye: "Because if I do, you can shoot me." So Gwen got her gun. The Campus: How did you learn to make films?Dan: I don't like to take classes, so I taught myself everything. I saved up for four years and bought all the equipment myself... read manuals. [laughs] They're a blast to read. I'm obsessed with cameras - it's my passion.The Campus: What was the most challenging aspect of making this film?Dan: I had 30 people working on the project, so I had 30 different schedules for working adults, business owners, community theatre actors and students alike at any given moment to coordinate for three months. I'd shoot for about six hours a day, then watch the dailies (footage) before I let myself sleep, which would be about an average of three hours per night. To be honest, I still can't believe we finished it. But for my first shot, I couldn't have imagined a better experience. The Campus: What are your plans for the future?Dan: I'm already drafting a screenplay adaptation of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." I wanted to wait until later on in my career to start it, but there's an indie studio in Hollywood right now that just commissioned a pro screenwriter to do it, so it's my job to build a better motor. John Galt would expect no less for those of you who know of him.The Campus: Do you have a particular "style"?Dan: It's my own. In terms of shooting, I refuse to use tripods. I built this apparatus called the "F-16" that looks like a crossbow to stabilize. It doubles as a tracking device and a car mount. So my style is very organic. Immediate. For the most part, I like to just let it fly. In terms of directing, my ambition is to make good epics, not like "Troy." More like "The Godfather" and "The Last of the Mohicans" - films that combine classic epic plots and Dante Spinotti-style photography. The plan is to make "kickass movie magic." The Campus: What inspires you to be a filmmaker?Dan: The amazing thing about filmmaking is that it's completely unstructured. Direction is personal. I like that. I can put in 20 hours everyday for three weeks straight, and still get up each morning and I don't even think about anything but what comes next. There are those moments when you're about to pass out from exhaustion, but I just stay out of the driver's seat then! This might sound cheesy when I say it, but when I arrived in England, this project began as a way to meet new people. But now, I have made connections there that I will keep for the rest of my life. The Campus: Who's your favorite director?Dan: Francis Ford Coppola. And Michael Mann. They're ideal to me. Technicians. Naturally, the French New-Wave dudes like Jean-Luc Goddard and François Truffaut, too. I'm also a big fan of the Italian director, Bernardo Bertolucci.The Campus: So what is your favorite film?Dan: My favorite film, bar none, is "Top Gun." It is the most kickass film ever made.The Campus: How did you become interested in filmmaking?Dan: The moment that I realized that this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life was when I was standing on the stage winning the New York National High School Film Festival for an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The film was called "Bluepocalypse Now." At that moment, my buddy Charlie and I looked at each other and thought, "We can do better work." From that point on, I realized that I wanted to put all my energy into making good films.
(04/27/05 12:00am)
Author: Eliza Hulme "This is what we want to show you. An exploration." So went the production notes in the program of this past weekend's Zoo offering, "Culture Shock." The show, encompassing the senior work of Liz Hammett, investigated themes of language, isolation and connection using material that focused primarily on Chinese and American cultural exchange. Having spent half of her junior year abroad in Taiwan, Hammett explained that she felt herself to be divided between a crass, loud "English-speaking self" and a more respectful, demure "Chinese-speaking self." In assembling the piece, Hammett chose to examine this dichotomy through words and movement in a series of scenes, some of which were written by professional playwrights and others of which were the result of the cast's collaboration.In all, the result was a moving piece of theater that succeeded in provoking thought without being oppressively didactic. Longer scenes were interspersed with shorter monologues that catalogued Hammett's experience abroad, and occasional dance pieces served to keep the evening moving along smoothly. Though the professionally written material was compelling and well chosen, however, it was the scenes on which the cast had collaborated that proved the most interesting. The cast did a comedic take on the idea of the divided self in "Fighting Selves," one of the later scenes of the evening. Hammett played a girl whose American self (Matty Van Meter) and Taiwanese self (Magdalena Widjaja) both came to life and proceeded to fight with each other. Hammett's sense of helplessness and confusion was palpable as a very heated argument took place on either side of her. The effect was both hilarious and poignant.Certain scenes were slightly less successful, perhaps because some had been removed from the context of larger works. "Breaking Glass" in particular was confusing and seemed to suffer from a lack of exposition. It depicted a brother and sister discussing their family life, but, though the emotional intensity of the scene ran very high, it remained too obscure to latch onto. On the other hand, it did showcase a fine bit of acting on the part of Hammett who threw herself into the desperation of the role with an impressive intensity.The evening's performances were generally solid, and Hammett was backed by an ensemble of first-time performers and more experienced actors. The diversity of the ensemble became especially apparent through the use of multiple languages thoughout the evening. The cast's multiplicity was especially apparant in the scene from "The B File" that closed the evening in which Hindi, Hungarian and Spanish were spoken as the actresses playing the Bs and the interpreter hurtled around the set in a desperate attempt to understand each other.The actors were assisted throughout the performance by the gorgeous set and lights, courtesy of perennial and endlessly talented designers Katie Polebaum and Haylee Freeman, both '06. The costumes were also beautiful in their Asian simplicity, and the color choices made by costumer Cassandra Guild '07 were gorgeous without being distracting.Ultimately, "Culture Shock" succeeded in providing an enjoyable evening of theatre while posing questions that many of us, encased in our Middlebury bubble, fail to consider. Communicating her own struggles with identity in the face of the unfamiliar, Hammett and her company not only explored the problems of communication, they surmounted them and entertained their audience in the process, regardless of which language they spoke.
(04/21/05 12:00am)
Author: Elspeth Pierson Don Mitchell, lecturer in English and Film and Media Culture, announced to our lecture hall on the first day of Nature's Meanings (EL 215) that we would each be required to spend an April night in his barn birthing lambs. We were all a bit surprised, perhaps, but in the cold of February, April was still a long way off and we were too preoccupied with trips to the Snow Bowl and Spring Break plans to worry about the off-beat assignment too much. Last week, however, as lambing season approached in earnest and we were each asked to sign up for a night on watch, our interest (and our apprehension) grew. A note on the blackboard instructed us to "think bell curve" as we picked our night, meaning that we should base our decision on the fact that the most births were likely to occur during the middle of the month-long season. Fearing the promise of a night filled with bleating lambs and possible complications, I chose one of the earliest dates and marked the fateful day warily in my assignment notebook. We covered the basics of delivery and emergency protocol during discussion on Friday, and Monday night at 9 p.m. sharp I met my trusty partner, Patrick Leibach '06, at Adirondack Circle to make the trip to Mitchell's farm. We arrived around 9:30 p.m., in time to get the tour of the house and the barn from Mitchell's wife Cheryl. After being shown to our "office" - a windowed loft overlooking the barn floor - and given a few basic instructions, we were left on our own with the flock. We quickly discovered that there had already been numerous births, and checked on each ewe and her lambs in the make-shift wooden pens that lined the barn walls. Recalling what we had learned in discussion, we noted that several of the newborn lambs needed to have their umbilical cords cut, and set about carrying out this first task. As Patrick held the first lamb and I readied the scissors, my anxiety mounted and I prepared myself for the resentful screams of an animal in pain. I snipped the shriveled black cord away and was amazed to see that the lamb did not even flinch, let alone cry out. After this initial success, my fear was mitigated and the night proceeded with relative calm. Patrick and I managed to collect the recently birthed placenta (it often does not come out until several hours after the birth of the lambs) from the barn floor and place it in the well-loved "placenta bucket" that Cheryl had pointed out to us earlier. We then resigned ourselves to waiting and watching from the office, where a futon, an armchair and a space heater offered some relief from the chilly barn air. After about an hour of attentive watchfulness, I began to have difficulty staying awake. Patrick offered to take over the watch for a while, so I allowed myself to doze off for an hour or so. Around 2 a.m. we went down to check on the barn again - all was well - and I took a turn on watch while Patrick napped. At 3 a.m. we noticed an ewe in distress, pawing at the barn floor and circling uncomfortably, and my uneasiness quickly returned. We went down to corral the other ewes away from her, and stepped back to watch her from a careful distance. I was expecting to witness a long, painful labor, but before 20 minutes were up, the ewe was licking lovingly away at her newborn lamb. Her contractions appeared to be continuing, however, and we remembered Mitchell's warning that the ewes in his flock had been selected for high fertility, and that therefore the births usually occurred in twos or threes. Twenty easy minutes later, another lamb joined its sibling on the barn floor, and within an half hour both were on their feet and searching for milk. The mother-child bond was solidified quickly and soon they were all three licking each other and the two siblings were playing at falling into adorable little heaps in the hay. The night continued without too much more ado - although the excitement of the births made sleep a bit more difficult - and when Mitchell came to retrieve us at dawn we were no worse for the wear. After morning chores and a hearty breakfast in the Mitchell kitchen, I was tired but smiling and ready to return to campus with a story of success and high spirits.
