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(01/24/19 10:59am)
Results from a 2017 faculty and staff survey reveal that Middlebury lags well behind its peers in almost all measures of employee satisfaction. Most notably, faculty and staff gave low marks to communication within and between departments as well as confidence in senior leadership.
The consulting firm ModernThink, which has administered similar surveys for colleges and universities across the country, conducted the Middlebury survey in October 2017. 1,046 faculty and staff members across both the Vermont and Monterey campuses took part in the survey — a response rate of 68 percent.
The survey comprised 60 core belief statements included in all ModernThink surveys and seven custom statements provided by the college itself. Faculty and staff responded to each statement expressing their level of agreement on a spectrum from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree,” creating 67 distinct indicators. For example, one indicator asked respondents to react to the statement: “Our review process accurately measures my job performance.” Grouping responses to each statement into positive, neutral and negative categories, the report — if taken at face value — conveys an overall positive image of job satisfaction at Middlebury.
The Campus obtained the complete survey results, significant portions of which have not previously been released to the student body and general public. In particular, these fuller results include a benchmark that allows for comparison between Middlebury and other baccalaureate colleges that have been surveyed by ModernThink.
Administrators delivered key survey findings at a staff meeting in Dana Auditorium in January 2018, led by then-Interim Provost Jeff Cason, Vice President for Human Resources Karen Miller and ModernThink representative Richard Boyer. While the presentation disclosed Middlebury’s low-performing areas, including perceptions of senior leadership and the effectiveness of communication structures, it juxtaposed Middlebury’s results only with ModernThink’s 2017 Honor Roll of small colleges and not with the national average for baccalaureate colleges.
The honor roll benchmark includes only the highest-performing schools surveyed by ModernThink, numbering nine total in 2017, including institutions such as Mississippi University for Women and New York Chiropractic College. In other words, the presentation exclusively contrasted Middlebury’s performance with those institutions with the very highest levels of staff satisfaction in the country while failing to disclose that Middlebury also consistently performed below the national average for colleges of its kind. Middlebury did not simply fail to reach the highest standard, it also fell short of the average benchmark.
Only five of the 60 core belief indicators met or exceeded Middlebury’s peer group average, with 27 falling into the “Red Flag” and “Acute” classifications defined by ModernThink. “Acute” is a category of performance below “Red Flag,” denoting positive response rates lower than 45%.
A college news release published several weeks after last year’s presentation begins by stating that “a majority of faculty and staff have a positive overall working experience, value the sense of community engendered by Middlebury, enjoy a high degree of ‘job fit,’ and appreciate the flexibility and autonomy their jobs afford.’” The release does not discuss how Middlebury’s results compare to the national averages.
Responding to the survey, the college has developed a four-pronged action plan that addresses the onboarding process for new hires, compensation, the Annual Performance Summary tool and performance management. It includes timelines for each of these areas, hoping to complete all of them by the fall of 2020.
According to Bill Burger, Middlebury’s vice president for communications and chief marketing officer, the survey results have also informed how the administration has conducted the workforce planning process.
“It has certainly underscored the importance of communication on this, and I think we’ve made an effort to communicate more,” he said. “Although my guess is you can never be sufficient in that — there will always be some people who feel they haven’t been communicated to enough.”
Burger said that Middlebury is also looking more closely at compensation rewards and incentives, in response to low scores in those categories.
“A lot of staff didn’t feel there was appropriate recognition for work well-done and that work well-done wasn’t rewarded appropriately in terms of compensation,” Burger said. “So we hope that through this (workforce planning) process we will emerge so that we can be not locked into the annual 2 percent or 2.25 percent increase that goes to virtually everyone, but that we’ll have more flexibility to reward people for a really exceptional performance.”
Still, only 45 percent of respondents expressed confidence when asked if they expected senior leadership to take action based on the results of the survey.
“The administration does not seem to want to listen and they do not seem to care. If you say something, it is held against you,” said one staff member who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. “You are underappreciated no matter what you do.”
By the numbers
A total of 1046 respondents took the survey, with the response rate standing at 68 percent. The majority of respondents work in Vermont and are staff (either exempt or non-exempt).
In the Overall Survey Average, Middlebury performs below the average for Baccalaureate Colleges. 57 percent of responses were positive, 25 percent were neutral, and 14 percent were negative. The percentages do not total to 100 percent because of a “not applicable” option in the survey.
The survey also groups statements into categories. In each sectional average, Middlebury consistently falls below both its peer group and the Honor Roll benchmark.
Breaking down the data into specific statements, the college also fails to meet the national benchmark in each of the individual indicators. Each indicator is plotted with the benchmark score on the x-axis and the Middleburry score on the y-axis. Thus, the 45 degree line represents any point that reaches the benchmark value. Any point below the line represents an indicator not meeting the Baccalaureate average.
There is a stark contrast between perceptions of supervisors/academic leaders and senior leadership. Senior Leadership was amongst one of the three poorest-performing categories — the other two being Communication and Faculty, Administration & Staff Relations.
Faculty and staff expressed a uniform lack of confidence in senior leadership. Only 45 percent of respondents gave positive feedback when asked if they expect senior leadership to take action based on the results of the survey.
Looking forward, morale remains low with workforce planning looming on the horizon. Only 39 percent of respondents expressed confidence in the institution moving forward as a whole.
Graphics by Bochu Ding, using data from ModernThink.
Nick Garber contributed reporting.
For full staff issue coverage, click here.
(01/24/19 10:55am)
I hope everyone’s J-Term is going well! Through the snow, negative degrees, and Sabai Sabai being delivered, it has definitely been a memorable one.
I don’t have many updates since J-term is usually the slow part of the year, but I do want to share some ideas I have been thinking about.
1. Events for students who don’t want to drink or go out. Choosing not to go out should not mean a lonely night in—which sometimes it does. If you have any ideas to improve the quantity or quality of events, feel free to reach out!
2. Ways to convince, incentivize, or even beg students to bring back their dining hall dishes. Dining spends so much money on the collection, cleaning, and throwing out of dining hall dishes every semester. That’s money that can improve the quality of foods and even increase the types of foods we have access to in the dining halls.
3. Accessibility in the classroom. Whether it how books are purchased or how students experience lectures, we can continue to make strides in making sure all students have equal access to their education.
The past several months serving as you SGA president has definitely been rewarding, and I can’t wait to see what next semester has to offer! As always, let me know if you have an questions or concerns.
(11/15/18 10:55am)
This past Friday evening, I had the great pleasure of hearing Music and History major Gareth Cordery ’20 perform piano pieces by Ludwig van Beethoven, Frederic Chopin, Leos Janacek and Aaron Copland in Robison Hall. Beginning with Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata No. 18 in E-Flat Major” (commonly referred to as “The Hunt”), moving on to Chopin’s “Ballade No. 1 in G Minor,” continuing with Janacek’s suite “In the Mists,” and finishing with Copland’s “Piano Variations,” this concert provided a diverse array of pieces running the gamut from classical to romantic to modern. From the beginning, Cordery showed himself to be in complete control of these pieces, performing with a rare zeal, the apparent ease of which belied his intimate familiarity with the music.
Perhaps one of the most wonderful aspects of a student concert is that the performers are far more likely to comment on their work for The Campus! I first asked Cordery about how he went about designing the program.
This concert was notable for the differences between each piece, whereas most concert programs, including one he is preparing for a future recital, try to note the thematic similarities between pieces. For example, the last article I wrote featured an all-Bach program, and the upcoming concert by the Jupiter Quartet on November 30 will feature string quartets by French modernists Ravel, Debussy and Dutilleux.
The Beethoven piece, though it has some formal features which put it on the edge of the classical piano sonata tradition, including four fast movements and some thematic instability in the first movement, sounds far different from the Chopin piece, and both of these 19th-century works felt tame in comparison to the rhythmic anomalies in “In the Mists” and the grating dissonances in Copland’s variations.
I also asked about the program notes, which I found detailed and intelligent, for they balanced historical details with formal characteristics. Especially for the Janacek and Copland, pieces with which I was unfamiliar, I found the written notes helpful for understanding the musical notes. Cordery wrote the program notes himself, abridged from his longer research papers on the pieces.
The performance itself was impressive for the creative choices Cordery made in preparation for the concert: he performed without notes. When I asked what led to this decision, he replied that not only is it expected that a musician would have the music memorized before the concert, but that performances with sheet music inhibit his musicality because the act of turning them over distracts the audience from the sound.
The Copland variations exhibited the most powerful playing of the night, and, especially in the final chords, showed why it is valuable to play pieces people may not have heard before. These variations are a loud, angry set which take a certain degree of careful control to manage properly. The dissonances create a foreboding sense of dread, a feeling compounded by the contrast of the overlapping overtones of low notes and the sharpness of the high notes.
Cordery’s notes include some information on the mix of influences Copland used in the piece: Schoenberg’s 12-tone methods, Stravinsky’s neoclassicism and the American contribution of jazz. One of the most interesting parts of hearing a piece like this, and reading about its sources, is the idea that someone like Copland knew these sources and knew to combine them into something unique. The influences affecting Beethoven and Chopin were limited to what they heard and saw in their lives, just like those that inspired Copland, but the latter’s experiences translated into a piece that sounds completely different than his predecessors’, showing how he received the great diversity of inspiration which makes his music great.
Cordery was concerned about putting this piece on the program. “I will admit to worrying about the Copland; it’s relentless in its modernity, but the “Piano Variations” are an important and consequential piece,” he said. “I think it’s important that everyone gets a chance to hear it at least once.”
I wholeheartedly agree with him; it was a bold choice to program this rarely heard piece and I count myself lucky to be able to hear it in a place like Robison Hall.
The final part of the variations, a coda consisting of the repetitive drone of dissonant chords, gives way to one special moment at the end. Cordery played the final chord more loudly than he had all night, and his use of the pedal combined with the spectacular acoustics of the hall allowed the overtones of the deepest keys to play uninterrupted for more than 30 seconds. Usually, like in the Beethoven for example, the final cadence lasts for 2-3 seconds, if that. Having just heard a Beethoven piece, the radical change between the two provoked a meditative state for the duration of that final chord, one where I felt I could focus on hearing the notes and just the notes, just like one hears the final ringing of the carillon bells in the late evening.
(11/01/18 10:00am)
After a decisive victory on Saturday, the field hockey team advances to the NESCAC semifinals, where they take on fifth-ranked Trinity at home.
Middlebury got off to a great start against Colby, scoring three goals in the first half. Less than four minutes into the game, senior Grace Jennings intercepted a pass and charged up the field, blowing by her opponents before finding the back of the net to make the score 1-0. The Mules retaliated shortly after to tie it up, but Meg Fearey ’21 buried a pass from teammate Erin Nicholas ’21 on a penalty corner to regain the lead. About ten minutes later, Marissa Baker ’20 marked her seventh goal of the season to put the score at 3-1 going into halftime.
Colby struck first in the second half, cutting Middlebury’s lead to one goal, but the teams were called off the field immediately afterward due to a weather delay.
“During the rain delay, we talked over the game like we would at halftime,” said Baker. “But the radar wasn’t looking good and we knew were going to have a lot of time to kill, so for an hour and a half we blasted the speakers and had a dance party. On our team, dancing is our way of staying loose and amped.”
Down the hallway, Colby’s speakers died, which led the team to ask the Bowdoin women’s soccer team to join their dance party. The resulting locker-room dance battle made it onto the NESCAC barstool Instagram and now has almost 10,000 views. “I think that’s a really special moment,” continued Baker. “What more can you ask for out of sports?”
Back out on the field, still 35 degrees and raining, Erin Nicholas ’21 marked her 12th goal of the season and Jennings scored for the second time in the match to stretch Middlebury’s lead to 5-2. Meg Collins ’19.5 finished with three saves, while Middlebury dominated shots 19-7 and corners 10-3.
“We were very excited for the start of postseason and the opportunity to play Colby again,” Nicholas said. “Earlier in the season, we played on their home field, a slower field turf, so it was nice to get the chance to play them on our faster AstroTurf. Everyone stepped up and was focused on our team strategy in order to help secure the win.”
Playoffs bring an added level of excitement to the field, when every game could mean elimination. But the approach remains the same. “We knew that on any given day, any team in the NESCAC can win, so we focused on playing our game and maintaining our structure and intensity throughout,” Nicholas said.
If all goes well on Saturday, the Panthers will compete for the NESCAC Championship on their home field on Sunday. In preparation, the team will continue to develop its game in order to be ready for anything. “Our goal is to improve our own game so that we can execute and perform no matter which team we face out on the field,” said Assistant Coach Lauren Schweppe.
Come out to support the defending national champions on Saturday at 11 a.m.!
(10/11/18 10:00am)
“A little irresponsible” is how Film and Media Culture Professor Ioana Uricaru describes her decision to move to the U.S. in 2001 to study film and television production at the University of Southern California. She did not have any friends or family in the U.S., and naively she thought the university would provide housing for her. Moreover, she did not have the money to pay for the expensive program.
Luckily, she found a room to rent online while she was still in Romania, her home country. She became friends with the landlady Tracey, who picked her up at the airport three days before school started, and stayed with her for a couple of years.
During her first year in Los Angeles, Uricaru sometimes found herself in a far from ideal situation. At some point, Tracey told her that she had to make lemonade, because “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”
That is where the name of Uricaru’s debut feature film comes from. “Lemonade” centers on Mara, a 30 year-old Romanian immigrant and single mother working on a temporary visa in the U.S. who marries an American man. When she applies for a green card, things start to become difficult, and she is forced to confront various obstacles.
“I wanted to make a film about a Romanian woman who immigrates to America, because that’s what I know,” Uricaru said. “That’s what I lived through.”
When she heard the overly-optimistic American expression that seems to suggest any trouble can be turned into something positive, she was puzzled and found it “really stupid and almost offensive.”
Later, she started to realize that the idea behind the saying is one deeply rooted in American culture — the belief that one can always find a way around hardships as long as one makes the effort. Yet that may not be totally aligned with reality, as the challenges faced by Mara in the film show.
Uricaru’s own story as a filmmaker and an immigrant perhaps can be seen as one of making lemonade out of lemons. Her father is a writer, her mother teaches Romanian, and Uricaru grew up in Cluj, a city in Transylvania, in a house full of books and a love of literature and fiction. At the same time, she grew up under the Communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Control over media is just one of the many repressive aspects of the totalitarian regime, and going to the cinema to watch movies became one of the very few things that Uricaru enjoyed and needed in order “to escape the bleakness of everyday life.”
The reality of the dictatorship also influenced Uricaru’s choice in what to study in university, and she considered the range of options to be very narrow.
“A lot of possibilities were just out of the question, because many of the humanities were not just ideologically influenced, but [also] ideologically controlled,” she said. “You couldn’t do literature, or history, or philosophy — anything like that — and have a good feeling about it.”
The sciences were what remained. For young Uricaru, going to a large city after university to work was also important. A degree in science and a potentially high-level research job in laboratories seemed to be the way to achieve success in Communist Romania, where the government would assign graduates their jobs.
Uricaru graduated from University of Bucharest in the Romanian capital with a Masters of Science in Biochemistry. The degree, however, did not land her a job in a lab. When she was still a student at the university, violent demonstrations against the totalitarian regime led to the overthrow of the government and the execution of Ceaușescu, ending the 42 years of Communist rule of Romania. What followed was a painful transition to capitalism and democracy.
“Although I was a student in biochemistry, I felt that this is the last chance that I have to maybe do something else,” she said. “So I started thinking about it, and I realized that I still wanted to do film.”
The only film school in Romania, National University of Theatre and Film, was harder to get in than one might imagine. The school would only accept about seven students each year for the directing track, and there was a rumor that only those with private ties could get in.
Despite not knowing anything about film production, Uricaru believed it was the last chance that she had to pursue her passion. She took the admissions test twice, first when she was still in her fourth year of the biochemistry program, then when she had finished her science degree.
She compared the test to the kind of reality television show in which people try to survive on an island. It was probably a little less dramatic, but there were multiple rounds of stressful competition over the course of one week that eliminated the number of applicants from 120 to seven.
“I thought … if I don’t get in the second time, then forget it, I’m just going to become a scientist,” she said. “But I did get in the second time.”
The offer was not something she could turn away, and she started her journey toward becoming a filmmaker. Later, she continued her studies at USC and paid for the tuition herself through — unexpectedly but perhaps not surprisingly — a teaching assistantship in the university’s biology department.
“So in the end, it was good that I did the degree in biology. It was useful,” she said, laughing.
It was also useful in the sense that filmmaking is as much a process of artistic creation as analytic, scientific organization. Uricaru possessed skills and experiences for both, and the duality of their combination resonates with both “Lemonade” and her identity.
“Lemonade” is a Romanian film and is mainly produced by a Romanian company, while it is also set in the U.S. and focuses on this country of immigrants, making it somewhat similar to an American indie film.
“I’m now a permanent resident, so I’m kind of an American now too. And if I ever get an American citizenship, I will keep my Romanian citizenship,” Uricaru said. “So I’m going to always be both. I like the film to also be both.”
The film depicts the struggle of balancing two identities as an immigrant in the U.S., and the events in it all came from real-life stories that Uricaru gathered through extensive interviews with young Romanian immigrants with children. They told her different stories, but all of them expressed a similar sense of “ambivalence between what they left behind and the new country.” Uricaru found that they somehow saw themselves as “the sacrificial generation,” and that they were doing everything for their children, who were either born in the U.S. or came here early on.
The immigrants she interviewed had some discoveries of their own, too. When she told them that she was looking for a little boy about eight or nine years old, who speaks Romanian to play Mara’s son character in the film, they all responded that their children could speak Romanian, which turned out to not be the case when she met the children.
“The parents lived in this kind of illusion almost, because they spoke Romanian around the house, [and] the child seemed to understand, but actually the child didn’t speak it,” Uricaru explained, adding that many parents had since told her they started to try encouraging their kids to speak the language more.
Uricaru was interested in this feeling of not fully belonging in either place and the constant self-questioning of whether the decision to emigrate was a good one. As for herself, she found it difficult to tell if that is something she still wonders about. What was more important was that she make a “very conscious effort” to spend time in Romania and do work there so that she stays in touch.
If the style of her film can be an indicator of whether or not she has stayed in touch, it seems that Uricaru has. According to media production specialist Ethan Murphy, “Lemonade” is “very much in the style of new wave Romanian [cinema].” One of the film’s producers is Cristian Mungiu, an established Romanian filmmaker whose achievements include a Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival.
Mungiu is among a group of new Romanian filmmakers who have been exceptionally well-received in the last 15 years.
To show me the Romanian films she considers to be masterpieces during our interview, Uricaru stood up from her office chair and reached for a few DVDs, including “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu” (2005) and Mungiu’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” (2007). The films have come to represent what people call “Romanian minimalism” — the idea that the individual story and detail of everyday life are emphasized, as opposed to the focus on the national and the collective under the Communist regime.
“It’s really a contagion,” she said, referring to the filmmakers who continue to produce excellent films. “So I’m very proud to be a Romanian filmmaker at this time, I think it’s great.”
In the one-hour talk with Uricaru in her office in Axinn, the fact that she is a professor dedicating a lot of of her time teaching two classes in one semester almost faded into the background.
Finne Murphy ’19 is an English major taking Uricaru’s screenwriting class, and she appreciates how hard she pushes students to make their screenplays even better. Murphy, not unlike Uricaru, grew up with a writer father.
“[My father] has a MFA in screenwriting, so my whole life he has been writing scripts. I grew up learning it, but I’ve always wanted to write fiction,” Murphy said. “But since being in this class, I kind of wish I was a Film and English double major, or that I had started this sooner.”
This is now Uricaru’s seventh year at Middlebury — producing “Lemonade” took eight. She shot the film in Canada during her year on sabbatical and completed the post-production while teaching, flying to Europe during one semester, Thanksgiving and winter breaks.
After its Canadian premiere in Montreal (where it was also shot) this week and before its Romanian premiere next week, “Lemonade” will reach Middlebury audiences as well. The film will be screened this Saturday as part of the Hirschfield International Film Series. Uricaru and Mălina Manovici, who plays the film’s protagonist, will be in attendance for discussion after each screening. The film will also be shown in Burlington on Oct. 18 at the Vermont International Film Festival.
Editor’s note: Finne Murphy is an Arts & Academics editor.
(05/09/18 6:56pm)
Respect. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Written on the chalkboards of kindergarten classrooms, in gymnasiums and in doctor’s offices. From a young age, we are told that the respect we give is the respect we get. As a young adult lady today, I have not found this to be true.
(01/17/18 11:08pm)
Our society is confronting a difficult moment in which the values of liberty that we have always defended conflict with the values of inclusivity, equality and mutual respect. The best example of this conflict is the debate surrounding freedom of speech: should we allow speech in society that directly attacks the core values upon which our democracy is built? Middlebury College had to ask itself this hard question by dealing with the issue of which speakers should be brought in to speak at the college, and, unfortunately, the college has not been able to reconcile these two opposing opinions. Until we see eye to eye on this issue, the different points of view will feel neglected and the rhetoric surrounding the matter will only further divide our community.
I do not claim to provide any clear solution to the matter, yet I would like to address one small aspect of the issue in order to, hopefully, move the debate forward. We must draw a very clear distinction between the measures that we would like to encourage and those which we will encode into government legislation. By this I mean that, for example, even though we should value “respect,” it would be absurd to encode this value into the legal system and demand criminal punishment for those who do not follow it. Likewise, we must keep this in mind when discussing what ought to be done to resolve the debate between freedom of speech and values of equality and “inclusivity” (the rallying chant for one of the protests here this semester). I will deal solely with the legal issue on a national level; however, I do acknowledge that the non-legal, community building aspect of the issue is far more complex and requires sensibility to deal with. For this reason, even though the college should follow the federal legislation and not impose punitive measures on speech which is protected by law, it still can promote measures of cultural and social education.
The law serves the function of ensuring that people are able to coexist in society with a certain degree of safety while still ensuring that everyone’s rights are protected. Therefore, ideally, it should both protect each individual’s rights while ensuring that human dignity is upheld by being sensible to context, intention, and take into account the harm of certain actions. However, the law also has the extra burden of trying to be as objective as possible in order to ensure that we can apply its principle to different situations and have a certain degree of clarity concerning what we are allowed to do. (1) Different courts must be able to interpret the law in order to rule in a similar manner on similar cases. (2) Different legislatures must understand what the overarching laws are in order to be able to create new rules that do not conflict with the overarching principles. (3) Finally, and most importantly, as an individual I must know what my legal protections are and what I am allowed to do/say in society in order to make conscious decisions.
What form would legal restriction on freedom of speech take? The European countries that have instituted some form of restriction have all found that a considerable degree of power must be given to courts in order for those decisions to take into account the context and intent of speech. However, creating this precedent would be problematic if the judicial system can be corrupted, and there are far too many instances in which countries violate the free speech of their citizens for us to be so optimistic. In the United States the historical restrictions of speech have always been used to further oppress minorities, and the current judicial system continues to oppress minorities through the intermittent application of laws — i.e., the enforcement of drug laws unjustly targets the black population of the U.S. Is it really worth taking this risk and giving the courts such corruptible power?
Even if we assume the best intentions of judges and politicians, the effectiveness of enacting legislation that limits speech is very complex, and there is no evidence that proves society as a whole benefits from prohibiting hateful ideas. Banning hate speech could have a great impact on our society and ensure these outdated ideals die off. On the other hand, banning certain speech could bring more visibility to the opinions banned, and give them strength as more people fight the government’s oppression by taking on the position that was banned. It would be naive and arrogant to assume that any individual has even a fleeting grasp of the future, and therefore can judge what ought to be done.
There is no way to justly limit freedom of speech and retain the objectivity that we demand of the law. Therefore, the solution to dealing with speech we find distasteful, offensive, disrespectful or uncivil cannot be found in speech restrictions nor legal punishments for speech acts.
(11/16/17 1:25am)
As Republicans in Congress move forward with tax reform legislation, administrators at Middlebury and at colleges across the country have expressed concerns about several provisions that could significantly alter the federal government’s role in higher education.
Most significant is a proposal to impose a 1.4 percent excise tax on the investment income of private schools with endowments worth over $250,000 per full-time student. Middlebury enrolls over 2,500 undergraduate students, with an endowment of $1.1 billion — or about $440,000 per student. It therefore ranks among the 60 to 70 colleges that would face new tax burdens if the legislation passes.
Republican leaders in the House introduced their tax reform bill on Nov. 2; the Senate rolled out its own version on Nov. 9. The endowment tax exists in both bills, along with other provisions that could impact alumni donations, student loans and tuition discounts for college employees.
“There’s a lot in this bill that attacks higher ed,” said David Provost, the college’s treasurer. “It’s clear that they’re coming after us.”
Bill Burger, the college’s spokesman, articulated the college’s opposition to the endowment tax.
“Middlebury’s endowment, like the endowments of other schools, sustain generous financial aid programs that make a high-quality education available to admitted students regardless of their ability to pay,” he said. “The perverse consequence of an endowment tax would be to shift the burden of the cost of higher education to the families that are least able to afford it.”
Provost estimates that a tax of 1.4 percent could have reduced the college’s investment income by up to $600,000 in the past year.
“Our average financial aid package is $45,000,” he said. “That’s 12 or 13 students where we wouldn’t have money to give financial aid.”
Beyond this immediate impact, the college is concerned that passing an endowment tax could embolden Congress to levy additional taxes against private colleges in the future, or to simply raise the endowment tax rate far above 1.4 percent.
“If it starts at 1.4 percent, what’s to say that they won’t make it 5 or 10 percent?” Provost said. “Once it’s in place, where does it stop?”
The endowment tax is not the only provision that has drawn the college’s attention. Both the House and Senate plans call for a significant increase in taxpayers’ standard deduction, which would reduce the incentive to make tax-deductible charitable contributions, such as donations to Middlebury.
“We have a high participation rate of alumni that give,” Provost said. While this provision would not severely harm the college’s finances, “in the context of keeping alumni engaged, it could sting.”
Next, the House bill would eliminate the student loan interest deduction, which currently allows student borrowers to reduce their yearly tax burden by up to $2,500. The Senate bill leaves this deduction intact.
Finally, the House bill would repeal tax breaks for employer-funded educational assistance. Currently, faculty and staff can receive tax-exempt tuition assistance from the college, helping them, or a dependent, take college classes or pursue a degree. This provision, like the student loan deductions, would not impact Middlebury as an institution, but could negatively impact college employees who benefit from the deduction.
Provost, who spent the past weekend at Swarthmore College discussing the tax plan with financial officers from other small liberal arts colleges, said that Middlebury’s senior administrators would meet this week to develop an official response to the legislation. Options could include releasing a joint statement of opposition alongside other selective liberal arts colleges.
Republicans in Congress, anxious for a legislative victory, hope to pass tax reform before the mid-December recess. The House could vote on its bill this week, and is expected to pass it; the Senate is still finalizing details on its own plan, which will likely encounter more opposition. If both bills pass, GOP leaders from both houses would then need to collaborate on a final bill to send to President Trump’s desk.
“I think it’s fair to say that higher education’s view of these tax proposals is well understood in the halls of Congress,” Burger said. “It’s sad that this issue has become so politicized. We hope that the Senate, in particular, will be a place where sound public policy can emerge on this issue.”
(11/16/17 1:20am)
Tax proposals recently released separately by Republicans in the House and Senate could reshape the financial lives of thousands of Vermonters if passed. Peter Welch, a Democrat who is Vermont’s lone representative in the House, articulated his opposition to the House plan in particular in a wide-ranging interview with The Campus.
Welch said he was especially struck by the discrepancy between the Republicans’ claims about the tax plan — namely, how it would impact the middle class — and the reality. “If the tax bill accomplished what [House Speaker] Paul Ryan says is the goal, I’d be for it,” Welch said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “The reality of the bill is 180 degrees different than what he’s talking about.”
In assessing the tax bills, Welch said he considered two main components: how the proposed tax plan would affect the budget deficit and whether the proposal would benefit the middle class. The proposed House bill is projected to add $2.3 billion to the budget deficit and strip a range of popular itemized deductions that taxpayers rely on each year.
One of the dubious justifications made by Republicans for the tax plan, Welch said, is that by lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, firms will reap new profits and eventually increase wages. “There’s literally no empirical support for that claim,” he said. “There’s no indication that this tax bill, with a corporate tax cut, would somehow result in pay raises from the workers, and that’s a big claim that Ryan and the Republicans are making.”
Welch notes that, across the board, 80 percent of the benefits from the tax plan would accrue to the wealthiest one percent of Americans. “You’re going to have 99 percent of taxpayers fighting for the crumbs,” Welch said. “They’re saying it’s going to benefit the middle class, but they can’t prove that.”
The elimination of the estate tax would play a major role in that disparity. Doing away with the estate tax would only impact two in 1,000 Americans, providing a significant tax break to estates worth more than $1 million. Welch said that although these properties are appreciating in value over time, the capital gains are never taxed as the inheritors would receive the market value for the estate at the time of death.
Itemized deductions — eligible expenses that taxpayers can claim in order to reduce their taxable income — have also been slashed under the House proposal. Medical costs, nursing home expenses, school supplies purchased by teachers out of pocket, student loan interest, state and local income tax— all of which were previously deductible on federal income taxes — have been collectively removed in the most recent House bill.
The bill also contains certain provisions that disproportionately affect certain regions of the country. In the House plan, for example, damage caused by wildfires and earthquakes would no longer be deductible from taxable income, although wreckage from most hurricanes would be.
“If you lost your home in the California fires, you can’t deduct your loss,” Welch said. “And that feels very much like an attack on a ‘blue state.’ Flood or fire, you still lost your house, so why can you deduct the loss in one case and not the other?”
Another striking aspect of the House’s tax proposal is a lack of transparency in its drafting process, Welch asserted. Although most legislation is crafted following a series of open hearings to allow for public input, this tax bill was drafted entirely in secret in the Speaker’s office. Most House members, including many Republicans and members of the Ways and Means Committee, were unaware of the plan until it was formally proposed in the House.
“The problem with a bill written in secret is that you can’t have public input into the whole process,” Welch said. “It creates a situation where you’re not focusing as much on the policy as you are on chasing votes to get to the magic number of 218 in the House.”
Using a procedure called the “closed rule,” Republican leaders have denied the opportunity for any member to oppose an amendment to the existing bill, he said. As a result, Welch, along with Vermont Senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy, have tried to raise public awareness to combat what they call a disastrous bill.
“Our effort is to get as much public awareness of what’s in the bill and how bad it is so that there’s a reaction of how the bill increases inequality, adds to the debt and fails to promote economic growth,” Welch said.
Welch suspects that Republicans are determined, and willing, to pass any tax bill in order to claim success following months of failed and stalled legislative efforts.
In summarizing his greatest concerns about the bill, Welch highlighted the trend between both tax bills: an attempt to compensate for losses stemming from the elimination of the estate tax by hurting the middle class.
“These eliminations are a direct take-away from the middle class and it’s hard to justify that under any circumstances,” Welch said. “And most egregiously for taking away these benefits to pay for the elimination of the estate tax for billionaires.”
Welfare programs will feel the most immediate repercussion from the cuts, Welch contended. In the long-term, however, he noted that the bills’ effect on the federal deficit could negatively impact future generations.
“We’re borrowing money to pay for the tax cuts, and the people benefiting from it won’t be paying for it,” Welch said. “By driving up the deficit, it’s going to put enormous pressure on Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security programs.”
(11/14/17 7:19pm)
College president Laurie Patton sent a school wide email on Wed., Nov. 8, inviting students, faculty and staff, to a town hall the following day, Nov. 9.
“It is clear to me and, I believe, to many of you, that the essential bond of trust and assumption of good intentions that should unite us is broken,” she wrote. You can access the email here.
Co-sponsored by the Black Student Union and the Student Government Association, the audience filled Wilson Hall to capacity, causing event organizers to move the event to Mead Chapel. At the event, which was monitored by SGA and BSU members, students had the opportunity to ask administrators direct questions.
Below is a full transcript of the meeting, which has been edited for clarity. Please look for further analysis of the event in our issue after Thanksgiving Break. This transcription was done by features editors Sarah Asch and James Finn. Editor-at-large Elizabeth Zhou and managing editor Will DiGravio helped edit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO6XMI8V1oI&t=1749s
Jin Sohn (’18, SGA President): "SGA would like to acknowledge the presence of everyone in this room, and to thank you for taking the time to join us, together, as a community for an imperative conversation on respect and inclusivity. Over the past week, members of the SGA student cabinet have been working to support the student body in light of the recent painful and alienating events and dialogues. Likewise, many cultural orgs including BSU and other student activists have been working overtime to support students. We want to recognize those efforts especially because they were led by students from marginalized backgrounds. Today's conversation is not a solution in itself. But it can and must lead to transformations on our campus. We are here today because, in whatever way, we care. We care about our friends, we care about our peers, we care about our community. Please let us join together in that shared core value in order to foster change on our campus. In order to make this discourse constructive, active, and supportive of everyone, we are requesting that all comments, observations, and questions be respectful. We would like to encourage individuals to acknowledge their own identities and privileges when speaking. Please acknowledge the role and position with which you inherently enter this conversation. Further, while this event is crucial in providing a voice for students who are affected by the actions of others on this campus, it is important to remember that active listening is meaningful and important to engage with others in this room. Please listen and wait until someone finishes speaking before wanting to speak so that we can be respectful of all that is being said. To encourage collaboration and abolish any hierarchies present today, we will be limiting questions and answers to two minutes each. Additionally, to be conscious of everyone's time, we will be ending this event promptly at 6 pm. Ultimately, for the SGA, the goal of this meeting today is both to facilitate learning and listening in our community and to work toward establishing active next steps that students, faculty, staff, and administrators can collaborate on and be held accountable for. This is not the first conversation. It likely will not be the last. The point is that we all, all of us, are trying, and by simply being here today are actively working to change. Thank you, and I will now hand over the mic to President Patton for her to speak on her hopes for this event and then Wengel Kifle will provide some background and context on the current campus climate. Once the floor has been opened for conversation, Ishrak Alam, the SGA chief of staff, Annie Cowan, the SGA deputy chief of staff, and Rae Aaron, the SGA speaker, will ensure that a single voice is heard at a time by distributing a microphone. Finally, we recognize that these are really difficult issues, and if anyone needs to step out of the room or take care of themselves, please do so."
Patton: "Thank you so much. I'm really, really pleased to see everyone here. Thank you for being here, thank you for hanging in and staying in the difficult conversation. I want, particularly, to thank student leadership, particularly BSU and SGA for hosting this event, and we really look forward to hearing the voices of the members of all of our communities. We are in new territory at Middlebury, where we need to begin building a new kind of community, one that includes voices that we either have not heard or only partially heard. There are so many ways that such communities need to be built and the first is to give voice to experience. We want to pay attention to structures that cannot give voice to that experience, the economic, social and status hierarchies that limit us. Because of acts of racial bias on this campus and in this town, many students, faculty and staff have called us to account and are hurting. And while we are in new territory of trying to build a new kind of community, we are also in very old, unacknowledged territory. Part of Middlebury's unspoken story includes our acting according to racial stereotypes, acting in ways that serve to alienate. We have not acknowledged that enough. I want to acknowledge that hurt. I am deeply sorry that members of our community are in pain, and that people feel they have not been heard by the administration. It is our job to make better structures and more equitable relationships where voices can be heard and where people feel that they belong. It is our job to make a more inclusive public square where not just individual acts of bias but structural racism can be addressed and challenged. Middlebury can and should be a challenging place where we experience intellectual discomfort, and part of that discomfort includes listening to unheard voices better. For students who live here at Middlebury for only four years, this can take on a particular sense of urgency. We are working on many ways to address this and look forward to sharing those with you, but most importantly, today we need your help and creativity and thoughts. We also look forward, as Jin said, to follow up conversations from this one, to continue to visit student groups in dining halls, commons houses and other meeting spaces such as AFC, and to continue to move forward with concrete actions and timelines where we can work together both what our community is and what our community means to us. Together, I do believe with all the hard work we can build a new Middlebury. Thank you for bringing your voices to help begin that task today."
Charles Rainey (’19): "Hello everyone, thank you guys so much for coming today. I really appreciate and it really warms my heart to see this many people in this building to come and talk about some of the hard issues that are affecting racial minorities, particularly black students, on our campus. My name is Charles Rainey. I serve as president of the BSU this year, and what we hope to create through this conversation is a way for black students and racial minorities and other marginalized groups to be able to voice concerns about things that have really been festering on this campus for a long time. A lot of students have been jaded and have been really, really scared, really frightened and upset and we hope that this space is allowed not only for solution oriented steps to prevent a lot of the things that have been happening on campus, but also to serve as a forum where people can express their truest and deepest feelings about a lot of those things as well. We want to center this conversation by bringing up Wengel Kifle, who has prepared some remarks to share with you guys today. Thank you.
Wengel Kifle (’20): "Thank you so much for coming. When we discuss the current state of our campus, it's important to keep in mind what happened this past spring. Many students voiced deep and urgent pleas to Middlebury concerning not only Charles Murray, but also the deeply ingrained institutional and social aspects of Middlebury that do not make it a welcoming and inclusive space for students of color. After the start of this semester, there have been more events that have made students of color feel uncomfortable and unsafe. These events include the racial profiling of Addis; violent and explicit images and messages on chalkboards in Munroe directed toward Addis, racial profiling of a black female professor, harassment of black women on campus, faculty and students alike, and daily incidents, big or small, that students have to deal with in and out of the classroom in such white spaces. Personally, this semester has taken an extreme toll on me and my mental health. I found it impossible to have the motivation to survive my schedule and everything else Middlebury threw my way. And the lack of action by the greater community and the school in general to say 'we see you and we will fight for you' was all the more crippling. And I couldn't help but ask myself: why am I expected to give my best to a school and a community that was clearly not giving me its best? I hope that after today, that people that share my narrative can go away with seeing that administration and this school is recognizing them and is finally going to address these issues. Thank you.
Ishrak Alam (’18): "Thank you, Wengel, for your comments. We are going to open it up now to everyone -- we're going to have two mics upstairs and one down here."
Sohn: "If everyone can just be respectful of the two-minute rule. And also, faculty, administrators, students, everyone in this community, please feel free to weigh in and speak. If you could raise your hand if you'd like the mic, we can come to you."
Madeleine Bazemore (’19): "Hi, my name is Madeleine Bazemore and I'm a junior at Middlebury. I was in a meeting yesterday with some students activists...members here of the SGA, President Patton and some other administrators. We talked a lot about moving forward on campus, and something really concerning happened in that meeting. Our Title IX coordinator said that she didn't believe that white supremacy existed, was in her office or in the decision that was made regarding Addis in racial profiling. And I think the refusal of this campus and this administration to admit that white supremacy is present is very concerning. And I think that -- I don't even know how to address that, to have to take the time to explain what white supremacy is to a white woman felt like such a waste of time. Like, why are we having this meeting if I have to explain something so basic? Now, I don't know how to move forward with that, with the refusal that white supremacy exists, and because of that refusal that Addis will not receive an apology for being racially profiled."
Patton: "Yeah, thank you, Maddie. I did say that white supremacy existed, so I just want to make sure that there is a correct narrative. I would say, the really important thing that is true, structural racism exists and it exists at Middlebury. White supremacy, a way of being in the world, where the heritage is that white people have built something where they are unconscious of their own perspectives and unconscious of the way that they take up space, those are absolutely present at Middlebury. So that's a really important thing that I want to make sure I say, and that I said yesterday. And the other thing, in terms of the question, if we mean conduct that is based on or motivated by someone's personal characteristic that creates a hostile work environment, Middlebury is absolutely a place where that happens. Racism exists at Middlebury. Structural racism exists at Middlebury, and we have to work together to move forward to change that. And in our system, there is that conduct...or any other violation of our non-discrimination policies, we will act upon it and we have acted upon it. And we have a well-developed system in place to deal with those situations. The hard part of this conversation is that we can't apologize based on a narrative that wasn't supported by an investigation. I myself as a president have no part of that investigation. I want to make sure that's clear to everybody. So I don't know.... I didn't know that this investigation was going on. The reason why that office is independent is because they could investigate me, and that's really important for everyone to know. I want to say very clearly here, we are moving towards restorative practices as a culture, particularly in student life. And I and other members, individual members of SLG, are willing to sit with anyone -- anyone -- in a restorative practices circle, with trained facilitators, that acknowledges harm. I will sit with anyone [for] as long as it takes, in as many restorative practice circles as it takes, to change this community. And I would welcome any request to do that."
Sohn: "This is a quick announcement. We're also aware that some people might not be comfortable speaking up on a microphone, so we're gonna pass around some index cards if you'd rather pose a question that way. And then one of the students here can help ask that question. Thanks."
Liz Dunn (’18): "Going along with the point that President Patton just made, if there is white supremacy and structural racism at Middlebury, and if that is present in the Title IX Office, and if the investigation found that there was no evidence that Addis was racially profiled, does that not draw into question the investigative practices that Middlebury uses, and the standards that are currently in place? And is there any direct way to address that and to change that?
Patton: "Is our Title IX person here? I think there are a couple of things that probably should get clarified. The first is — and thank you, Liz, for your question — the fact that we need to always think about structural racism that we have, that doesn't mean that we don't stand by the integrity of the work that we've done, and that's the hard piece of this. And I need, as a president, and I do, as a president, stand by the integrity of the work that was done... Again, standing in restorative practice circles is part of acknowledging all of the different impacts for all of us here. But it's really important that even if there is a constant need for us to look at making the systems better, we still have to abide by the integrity of the process that exists here now."
Sue Ritter, Title IX Coordinator: "So I'm in a difficult position here because I can't discuss much of what I did in terms of the investigation that we did. I also completely reject the characterization that was just given of my office, and will continue to reject that. I have spent since 2008 here working really hard to make sure that the investigations that we do are free of bias, that they're fair, that they are full and fair investigations done by trained experts. My job is to be the guardian of our anti-discrimination policy. If I thought that this operation that I'm overseeing was grounded in white supremacist principles, I wouldn't be here. So people are going to have their opinions. I understand that. And I know I'm going to get blasted for everything that I'm about to say, but I am very confident in the people that conducted this investigation and worked extremely hard to make sure that all of the evidence was being considered in a careful and thorough and fair way. I don't know what else to say about that. And to get the response that I'm getting, that I don't have an understanding of what white supremacy is, in this context, is insulting. I didn't speak in that meeting yesterday because I was too flabbergasted to speak. I understand that people are entitled to their opinions. I have offered and will continue to offer to talk to anyone about the language of our policy and the process that we follow and will always be open to suggestions about how we can make it better. I never want to exclude somebody from coming into my office and saying, 'hey, this is language I think you ought to include,' 'this is language that I think you should take out.' I welcome anyone to look at the anti-harassment policy at any time and tell me what they think and I'm probably over my time speaking. But it's hard for me to stand here and speak without looking defensive, but I'm very confident in the work that we do, the work that we've been doing for ten years and the office that we've built. And that's all I have to say."
Rainey: "Hi, I'm Charles Rainey. I have a question. Sue, thank you so much for the contribution to the conversation. I am personally curious about how many people of color were involved in the investigation process and making this determination that came out of your office. And I think that that's a very important question to get us to understand what influences and what overwhelming perspectives may be in the office that may impact what the perception of the reality of the situation is in this regard... and creating definitions of what racial profiling is when there are no people — racial minorities in the room. And that may not be the case, but I just want to know — specifically, the question is: how many people of color were involved with this determination?"
Ritter: "Charles, I just want to make sure I understand the question. Are you saying how many people of color were interviewed in connection with the investigation? Is that what you're asking?"
Rainey: "So I think my question is not necessarily interviewed -- in terms of the process, the members of the administration who made the decision on what the determination is, how many, if any, were people of color?"
Ritter: "I have two people that work for me; they're both white. Is that what you're asking me?"
Rainey: "Yes."
Ritter: "Yes, so one was the investigator and one was the adjudicator. Correct."
Rainey: "Right. And I don't want to go over my time and I don't want to take up too much space in this conversation -- but I think my point in making this is that -- you know, what effect does the overwhelming whiteness in terms of the people who were involved in the determination have on the conclusion? And do you think personally that that may have affected what is going on here in terms of what the determination is?"
Ritter: "If I personally thought that, we would be having a different conversation. So I don't think it had an effect, no."
Shatavia Knight (’20): "On the idea that there are three white people in the Title IX office, I want to talk about the idea of administration. And one thing that I learned in my high school is that you can't be what you can't see. And there are very, very few professors of color here on campus. And so as a black female here, it's very hard for me to be in an environment where everyone says 'you can go on, you can be successful, you can learn a lot from your Middlebury experience' when I don't have many examples of, you know, black professors here on campus. And I wanted to know what Middlebury is trying to do about that, because I know that if I was to go into academia, Middlebury wouldn't be one of the schools that was on my list to get hired to. And I want to know what the administration is doing about that, to get more professors of color here so that students like myself don't feel like they're learning about race from white professors, and they're not learning about problems in society that they probably haven't actually experienced themselves."
Miguel Fernández (Chief Diversity Officer): "Thank you, Shatavia. That's an excellent question. You're absolutely right. Our diversity efforts within the student body over the last 20 years have been quite successful. I was a student here in the early '80s and I look out across this room and I see lots of diversity present here, and that was definitely not the case in the '80s. Some people feel as though we have a long way to go, and I won't disagree with that, but there has been significant change in the student body. That process has not been nearly as quick in the faculty -- you're absolutely right. We have been working on that hard lately — let me explain a couple of things that we've been doing. Over the last two years, we've been working with outside consultants who have been coming in, and it's mandatory now for all the search committees that are searching to go through a series of four workshops to work on how to diversify their pool, how to learn about bias in the evaluation system, et cetera, how we are going to present ourselves in interviews, the kinds of questions we're asking and the kinds of signaling we're doing in our advertising, and working with all the departments in that way. We're producing data for the search committees and working very hard. This year was the first cohort that came from having worked with them, and it was possibly the most diverse entering class of faculty in recent memory that we've seen, and we hope that this will continue. One of the frustrations is that faculty turns over a lot slower than students and so it's a slower process, but we're really working hard there. Some of you are aware of the C3 program — that's the idea of bringing in post-docs. We're part of a consortium of liberal arts colleges. The diversity officers are working to bring post docs in, folks from underrepresented groups and first generation, and also working on different topics to bring some diversity to give them exposure to what a liberal arts college is like. We visit the research universities to talk to the the graduate students about what a career is like, because oftentimes advisors in grad school advise their advisees not to go to a liberal arts college. They have this misconception that it's only teaching, and they don't maintain their research. So we go to break those myths and try to get folks -- and we take colleagues from the faculty to go talk to them about what that experience is like, what it's like to teach at a liberal arts college to try to get them into the pipeline. So those are a couple of the efforts we're doing, a lot of efforts in that way to try to address that. But you're absolutely right."
Student, Unknown: "So I thought it was great that you talked about some of the training that certain administrators get, and I was wondering if that training — if the faculty, as well as the people in Title IX, also get that training?"
Fernández: "Yes, so that's a good question, too. So the search process — there isn't mandatory training right now, and that is something that we have been talking about that's been made very present. And I think that is something the discussions are going toward, to make it for faculty, staff, students and the administration. There is currently for staff and faculty a -- I would say a minor training... there's a bigger thing around sexual harassment and other things that also talks about bias and discrimination. And everybody has to go through that. It's not enough. And that's exactly the kinds of discussions we're in right now. What we've done is we've had a lot of opt-in types of things, and we also do sessions with the new faculty as they come in. But that is part of the ongoing conversation."
Jeff Holland (’19): "I have a question directed generally at the administration. I understand that there's a desire, even possibly a requirement, an obligation, to stand behind the integrity of the judicial process and also to maintain confidentiality about any processes that may be undergone. But also there has been a very blatant contradiction in the judicial process involving Addis that was pointed out in The Campus, which is the most widely read student-run media outlet we have. So I don't think that there's any way that it could be more widespread that there was a contradiction between the judicial officer who said there was no need to move the investigation further, and then later came the guilty verdict after that. And at the same time, that same article pointed out that there was an ample amount of evidence that Addis was not present at that event. So I'm just wondering -- I know you want to uphold the integrity of your judicial process, but at what point does that break down, when there's evidence in the most widely read student publication there is, pointing that there's been a contradiction and pointing out that there's evidence to the contrary of what the judicial officer said? Thanks."
Hannah Ross (General Counsel): "I am a lawyer and I am responsible for Middlebury's compliance with laws. We did a full, fair and thorough investigation over the summer in response to a student's complaint that an employee acted wrongly. We looked very seriously at the question of whether our employee had engaged in a violation of our anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policy. Commencing an investigation about employee misconduct does not start a student conduct case. There is no student conduct case that can be brought against a person who's not a student of Middlebury. The investigation came to a conclusion following our policy and our process. The facts, as we understand them, do not support the narrative. That's where we are. It's not a guilty verdict. There is no proceeding that remains pending, and as I said, there is no process that Middlebury engages in that relates to a student's behavior when that person is no longer enrolled at Middlebury. That doesn't happen."
Sam (’18): "My name is Sam and I'm a senior here. Uh, what if you were wrong? I didn't mean that in a rude way, but seriously, what if you were wrong? Because you're talking about this as if, since Addis doesn't go here anymore there's nothing more you can do, it's not your problem. But I don't think that's even the point of it because the public safety officer who racially profiled her is still here. That person is still here. People say that the same public safety officer racially profiled a professor on campus this fall, which is something that the administration has also not addressed in particular, except for some rhetoric. So my question is, where's the process -- is it in Title IX? Is it in the judicial office? Is it through legal counsel? -- that would actually seek to respond to the allegations made against that officer who's still employed."
Ross: "I certainly didn't mean my comments about the fact that there's no student conduct process that gets started against a person who's not enrolled as a student at Middlebury to suggest that because a student has graduated, we don't care about our alumni. That's not at all a reflection of what I said. What I was trying to say is, there is no action that Middlebury takes that can impose a guilty verdict on a person who's not a student of Middlebury. And the investigation's conclusion, as I assume a number of you have read in the statement that we posted on Monday in the newsroom, the investigation concluded based on a wide array of evidence, including 22 interviews of members of our community. That investigation concluded that our public safety officer told the truth and acted within our policies. That's where we are."
Zeke (’21): "I realize that as a white male coming from an upper-class background, I hope a different perspective in this conversation. But at the same time -- I haven't suffered any racial biases here and I don't mean to detract from the Addis conversation going on -- but in my short time here I've also noticed that there are some serious institutional barriers preventing diversity from growing on campus. I find that we've touted our Posse and First at Midd programs ant stuff like that, but those don't actually account for a great deal of diversity percentage-wise in the student body. So I have a question for the administration as a whole. How can we make this a safer and less homogenous environment for future students? Could we, say, make Middlebury test-optional in the admissions office or perhaps look at tuition prices, as we clearly need a certain percentage of the student body to pay full price to account for the financial aid that we offer to other students?"
Patton: "Thanks, Zeke. That's a great question. I should just say that I'm a white woman who comes from a privileged background. So, in terms of financial aid, financial aid is the number one priority for this administration, to create more financial aid for students of all backgrounds. And it really, really matters to me that we do that. The other part of the balance that we have to make all the time is around questions of — we are required by law to balance our budget, so we kind of have to do both things. We are now, in any given year, we are between 42 and 48 percent of students on financial aid. The average grant is about 45 or 46 thousand dollars. And so we are in the top 40 or 50 schools in terms of giving financial aid. That doesn't mean that we can't and should do better, which is why this past meeting of the trustees -- the number one thing we did on a retreat with the trustees is to say, we want in the next 10 years to get to a much, much higher percentage of students on financial aid. Just so you all are aware, it would take us raising 360 million dollars to get to 55 percentage of financial aid endowed so we could just give that to folks. We haven't set a goal yet. One of my first jobs is to push the trustees, my 36 bosses, to set a goal, and that's we are now pushing to do. The last campaign, in terms of raising money, was 500 million dollars, and it took about 10 years to raise that, and a lot of it went to different kinds of things. So there needs to be a real concerted effort. That's what it's going to take to do that, and that is my number priority. So that is where we want to go and I hope we can get there. I hope that -- one of the things that would be really great to hear from people about is thinking about this larger question of, how do we get the word out about where we are and who we are without folks feeling like all we're doing is PR or touting a rhetoric or that kind of stuff. If there's a more real way that we could communicate both where we've come but also how much farther we need to go, that would be greatly appreciated, because we need help on making sure that we communicate in a genuine way. I hope that answered your question. I would love your help in making this a reality over the next 10 years. Is Andi Lloyd here, by the way? Can you address the faculty issue that was raised?"
Andrea Lloyd (Vice President for Academic Affairs/Dean of Faculty): "About diversity?"
Patton: "No, about the faculty member."
Lloyd: "So there was an allegation of racial profiling made by a faculty member. That case was also investigated. There was a determination that there was not racial profiling in that case. Um, what else?
Sohn: So, we just want to be conscious of people who don't feel comfortable speaking up on the mic, so we have collected some notecards. If we can just read one, so that we can be fair in that way, that would be great. So, one of the questions, is: isn't it important to address specific incidents of racism on campus quickly? What do you mean by inclusivity? Oh, so those are two questions. Just a blanket statement to avoid talking specifics of people's experiences."
Karla Nuez (’19): "My question was, in the email sent out to students regarding this event, it was stated that the community was broken. My question is why is there a constant need to describe the Middlebury community as a homogenous one, when that in turn avoids that there are people on this campus that struggle. By calling it homogenous, you're completely disregarding those struggles. And I feel like that makes it seem like the administration doesn't know the students that can pay the 60k-plus to attend this college. And when I was at the board of trustees meeting dinner, I told the chair about the racial profiling cases, and she looked at me, baffled. I think that is a clear indication that the administration and the board of trustees do not know their students, do not know what is happening on campus, and if their job is to protect us I feel like they're not doing the greatest job."
Weston Uram (’18): "I grew up at Kenyon College, where my mother is a faculty member, and one of the things I admire most about Kenyon is the president. Shawn Decatur, also known as D-Cat among the students, is a fun, approachable president who loves to talk with the students about any topic they bring up. One of his best qualities is his ability to find an autonomous voice. He was never afraid to say what he thought even if it differed from the public stance of the college. I hope to ask a few questions that Laurie, as the person and not as the institution, could answer. I want to know if you think Addis was at the Charles Murray talk. I'm not asking what the college has said or what they have not said. I want to know what you believe. I want to know what you believe because I want to know why you call Addis a friend. I want to know why you and your administration would take the time to mail a framed photo of you and Addis together to her personal residence, but don't seem to take the time to acknowledge the pain and suffering you have caused her. I want to know why the administration has refused to mention Addis's name in relation to the racial profiling or in response to the violent imagery found on the chalkboards in Munroe. I want to know why a photo of Addis walking at commencement, cane in hand, is repeatedly being used as promotional material for graduation. And I want to know when the administration will stop using black bodies as simply props and advertisements, and when they will recognize them as real people who have real feelings, who have real struggles, and who deserve real apologies."
Toni Cross (’18): "I have a mic up here, but I would love to hear President Patton's response to those questions."
Patton: "So, first of all, the comment about Middlebury communities, I absolutely agree. And I think that we should be continuing to talk about different communities. And if we haven't done so enough, I apologize for that. It's really important that we think through those questions of acknowledging different communities and acknowledging specifics about pain that you all have felt. One of the things that I really, really want to hear about, and I know we want to continue to think about, is particularly in classroom environments where people of color are not feeling that they can speak up. Or that they feel if they do speak up, that they will be misunderstood. Those are an incredibly important place for us, and I hope that as faculty and staff we can work together to change those experiences. So I think that that's absolutely right and that's really important to do. I also want to say that what Dean Loyd was talking about, I actually sat with that professor and apologized for her experience. And it's a very important thing that she was in pain, and that was acknowledged. So I think it's an unfair characterization of me to say that acknowledgement doesn't happen. It was important to reach out and engage. When I -- I don't know what the images are that are being used. I think it's really important in a conversation that we're all trying to do better, that we're all doing a lot of work every day to raise inclusivity where it's really hard. If we could find a way -- I don't know, I can't supervise every single thing that goes out. If that image that goes out is there, I'm sure that that was painful for people to see. I am willing to sit with anyone in the community in a restorative practices circle, including Addis, to hear the pain that she has experienced. I will do that with anyone in this community. And I think it's really important that we continue to think about those specific experiences. And that's why restorative practices matters. Part of what is hard in presidential speech, and I wish I could answer you as a person -- I can't right now, I'm here as a president. And so, I would be happy to walk with you and talk with you, but my role at this moment is to uphold all of the hardworking people. And so -- I do spend a lot of time with students and tell them what I think all the time in the luncheon halls, I'm in classrooms, I'm walking throughout the campus every day. And so, I'm more than happy to sit and talk to you. I'm sure the president of Kenyon also wouldn't be able to speak about a case in this way, but I will say again, those images were very, very disturbing. And perhaps, yes, we should have used Addis's name. I will sit with Addis, I will sit with any of you in restorative practices and talk about harm any time. That is me both as a person and as a president. I hope that answers your question, and let's go for a walk."
Jasmine Crane (’18): "It really hurt my heart to hear Wengel's struggle, because her struggle is my struggle and as a black women in science, there's only one black female teacher in all of BiHall. And I really look up to her. She's a shinning example for me who contemplates going far and taking the extra mile, but when I'm with some of my colleagues I don't feel like I'm very far, I don't feel like I'm their colleague. I just feel like I am a black face here. And I feel like as a black, African-American woman here, I feel like community which is being thrown around so carelessly I feel it's just a word it's not a feeling. I feel like it's just a structure like a church. We come in here and do we really do anything pertinent? I don't seem to feel that. I feel that I see Latinos coming together, from different countries, I see South Asian, East Asian people coming together, and I feel like they have to do that on their own because there is no place even for them. And especially for black Americans here, I feel like that's a diaspora, there is no place for us on this campus. I feel like African's stick together, that's great to hear, but I feel like as an American black woman I have no place here. No voice. And I don't know how to change this, honestly, because it doesn't start with the people of color. We have to start all together as one body, as Middlebury. We have created this iconic self-image of being woke, of being liberal, of knowing more than ourselves. But do we even really know ourselves? And so I ask not only students to look in their heart and think about oppression. But I want the administration to look at themselves and how they conduct themselves in their everyday lives. And how they treat not only the students but each other.
Cross: "I just had a couple of questions: is there a timeline for fixing this broken Middlebury community? I know when I visited here for preview days in 2014 at least six people told me: do not come to this school, it will crush you and I don't know that I could in good conscious tell a black senior in high school to come here. It's been four years. Is there a timeline for making it better. And also I would like to ask the administration who have spoken here today how they would grade themselves in presentation and the image that they are giving to us? With the defensiveness that we constantly see, with the willingness to label actions, or to call themselves victims or point out unfairness towards themselves but not necessarily extend that same courtesy to the students. So I'm asking how would you grade yourselves? What kind of message do you think you're putting forward?
Treasure Brooks (’21): "I haven't been here very long but earlier Charles mentioned the overwhelming whiteness at this school and I just want to bring attention to the overwhelming blackness that doesn't come in the form of bodies. I live in Battel and I can't walk to the bathroom or back to my room without hearing trap music. And there is an overwhelming amount of black culture here but it's not represented in the population, in the student body. We've had CupcakKe come here last week, we're having Elle Varner come, and before that we had Noname Gypsy, she came here as well. And I think that how can we allow for the student body to be consuming black culture at such an alarming rate when we don't even value the black women that are walking around on this campus? I think that is remarkably grotesque, honestly, and if you really want to show support, if you want to show a greater cultural sensitivity towards black students then maybe we should make those events exclusive until we can show a general respect for all of the black diaspora, all of the black faculty, of the black students, and not just black culture. And additionally, to respond to something you said, President Patton, I would hope that you did not see your presidency and personhood as mutually exclusive because in the event that you do I think there needs to be a greater consideration for what leadership is."
James Sanchez (Assistant Professor of Writing): "I want to say a couple of things. I haven't heard anyone from faculty speak yet and I don't want to absolve us from any of these issues because this is just as important for students and administrators as it is for faculty. A couple of things I want to mention is one I feel like faculty needs to do a better job of modeling anti-racist behavior for our students in the classroom. I say that because when I did my interview here I spoke with a Latina student and this was before Charles Murray and she was telling me with issues that she had with white professors in the classroom and how as a Latina student she often felt that racist, bigoted viewpoints were held on equal playing field as anti-racist viewpoints and I think that's something that I challenge all faculty to really consider when having classroom discussions. I also want to say that faculty have a lot of agency in creating change on campus environments and that's something we all need to remember as faculty members when conducting our classes, creating new courses, interactions with students, we have agency in creating change. So I really want to challenge my colleagues here to on campus to really consider that in the future.
Sha (’19): "This is more a clarifying question. I understand a lot of time when it comes to the judicial process there's need for privacy but I also I feel there has been a lack of transparency with a lot of things that go on at this college. And I would like to be informed or educated in possible: is a student assumed guilty until proven otherwise? Or is a student assumed innocent until proven guilty? Why is it that when there is a sexual assault case reported, the victim is often the one asked to prove that there was actually assault, when in this case a student was accused and she was actually asked to find evidence to prove that she was not there?"
Ross: "Under all our policies individuals going through any kind of discipline are innocent until proven guilty. And the obligation is not on them to provide evidence. That's why we employ people and pay their salaries to gather evidence but people are free to offer evidence if they chose to offer evidence. If you want to learn more about how our policies work or want to learn more about our processes Dean Baishaki Taylor has solicited volunteers to serve on a policy advisory group. I'll be working with that policy advisory group to get feedback from students on policies that are of importance to you. We welcome other folks joining that committee
Júlia Athayde: (’19): "I want to raise attention to something that I found very troubling last semester and that was the fact that Bill Burger, who is the vice president of communications here, was personally involved in the Charles Murray incident and also very involved in writing all the articles and the communication that is written to alumni, articles in the New York Times, in the aftermath of the incident. First something I wanted to say, I work for the Office of Investment so after Charles Murray I actually had to talk to alumni and explain to them what was happening on campus so I'm very sympathetic to the fact that it was a very hard conversation and I know how difficult it was for administrators to deal with all of that. Since then, I've been thinking about the fact that [Burger] was personally involved and I'm not sure if he's here or not, this is not a personal attack, I just wanted to raise awareness for that. He was there, and he was also writing the communication for the college. And this latest article in the newsroom talking about racial profiling, I was wondering if that was the first time that we addressed that to the outer community and our alumni? And who wrote that article, because there was actually no author? And the last paragraph of that article actually talks about his involvement and that he was found not guilty. And I was wondering if that process involved the same kind of investigation that Addis had to go through? Why was he found not guilty, and why was that written in an article in the newsroom this week?"
Ross: "I was one of the folks who helped write that statement and the final paragraph addresses the fact that there were two separate investigations about what went on March 2. One was the Middlebury Police Department Investigation. The Middlebury Police are of course responsible for investigating criminal behavior, driving a car dangerously would be criminal behavior. The police did not find any evidence that caused them to have concern about that. They did not investigate that, they did not bring charges. The independent investigators concluded based on unanimous testimony from all the witnesses to the event that Mr. Burger drove carefully. Those are the facts in that case found by two different investigations."
Esteban Arenas-Pino (’18): “I would like the administration to expand on their stance on activism on campus. It feels like after last spring activism has become a dirty word and is often vilified. Is the administration willing and ready to accept activism as a part of the campus culture, and is the administration willing to foster this as a value? After many years witnessing activism especially by women of color on this campus I would like to see this fermented as a stronger value? We will leave Middlebury to be organizers and activists in our communities. Shouldn't Middlebury foster these skills?”
Sedge Lucas (’19): "I have a quick question for President Patton. I saw online that you and Professor Stanger are going to be having a talk this coming February titled "Campus Speech: when protest turned violent" at the Cronkite School of Journalism in Arizona. Can you explain what the goal of this talk is? What do you think other schools or academia as a whole can learn about how Middlebury handled the situation last spring?
Patton: "Thanks for the question. Lots of different thoughts there. There are so many ways in which we could have done better. We have been slow to respond to graffiti incidents. I would just ask people to understand that we are living in the world where immediate response and the fact that we have to get the facts right is we want to make sure we get the facts right before we actually make a statement and so sometimes if we can't do it in 12 hours it's because we're wanting to make sure we have all the facts right. That being said it's really important that that slowness of response is something that we can do better on. And we want to do better on. Secondly, the things that I have learned as a leader and a person here at Middlebury, number one, I was hoping that all the work that we've done in the last two years about inclusivity and scholarships raised and C3 developed and AIM, and the alliance on disability, the bias response team, the more funds raised for financial aid, the restorative practices, all of these are things that have happened since 2015, since I got here. My mistake was in thinking that all those things and inviting everyone to do more of those things and invite us into those conversations would heal the hurt and it didn't. I did not understand the degree of hurt in this community and again I want to say how deeply sorry I am for that. So in response to that, part of what I push on in everywhere that I go is that inclusivity has to be part of any conversation around freedom of expression but we have to do both in the 21st century. And that we do not become more free unless we focus on inclusivity and all the ways that we've been talking about. And we do not become more inclusive if we can't have that freedom of expression as the basis of who we are. And so that is a very powerful message that we want to send in as many different places as possible. So I hope that gives you as sense of both what I have learned personally as well as the kind of push I want to make on creating both inclusivity and freedom of expression as a balance, as well as the only way we can become more free in the 21st century is to become more inclusive. I also want to say that in our conversation yesterday, Liz [Dunn] said something really powerful. And I want to make sure that we say that and say something about that and talk more about it. And that is "What do you need and how can we help?" was a question that one of her common's deans asked her and how powerful that was. And I think that even as we have to uphold policies and procedures, I think that having student advisory groups as well as the faculty motion that was really fantastic that I publicly endorsed and was thrilled to publicly endorse last week, where we are going to be doing an external review of our diversity practices. Again the big learning that I had last semester is clearly all the stuff that we've done since 2015 is not enough, and it's not effective enough, and that's really powerful so we are developing an advisory group on diversity for faculty and for building faculty I have been really powerfully advocating and only faculty can build a black studies program but we are really excited because faculty are moving to create that and I want to say here how important it is that we create that black studies program. So, lot's more to say, and I know I need to hand over the mic.
Hannah Pustejovksy (’18): "I wanted to bring it back a little bit to the point about financial aid. So I am a white student, I'm also on almost full financial aid, and I am pretty lucky being a student who is white having had a lot family who have gone to college and have dealt with this system. But if having difficulty with the financial aid system here I cannot even imagine what other students, of color, are having on this campus because I have been here for four years and I have yet to understand what happens in the financial aid office. I was incredibly hurt by an email that came out last week or the week before encourage students to consider if they actually could take on the loans that they were being given because I have no choice. I don't know what I'm supposed to do if I can't personally take those loans on, am I just supposed to drop out? I also think that financial aid is one of the most important things to making sure that students here also feel welcome because we do have only 48 percent of students here on campus who have financial aid and if students of color are on campus and we are not making it easy for them to be here including the huge financial responsibility we are putting on them, how are we even supposed to start and feel like equals? Every day I am aware that I have so much less money than people here. And how is the financial aid office going to make that easier?"
Nia Robinson (’19): "I don't really have a question, more so a comment. Looking around this room most of the people in here are people I expected to be here. There are some surprises, like good surprises but nonetheless a surprise. And I think that it's really important when we're talking about community we claim who we are talking about. Because for example, the people who have called me the n-word are not found in this room. And I understand that people have commitments, I understand that people have other things going on, but everyone in this room ahs something else going on and so I think we need to make at who is making sacrifices for global community. A lot of people in this room are part of my community and I respect and love them a lot. But I think there are people who are not found in this room who have no stake in building a community and that's okay whereas if I take a step back then suddenly it's a problem. So that's not really question, just more so a call for everyone in here to talk to your friends, talk to your commons, talk to your professors, because if we are building a community we need to make sure we're reaching everyone and not just the people who self select to be here."
Kifle: "To touch upon the faculty member who spoke about faculty responsibility and accountability as well as Nia's comment about community, and also Treasury's comment. So we do consume a lot of black culture here and it's amazing how much we consume it and then don't acknowledge black people. I'm also in the classroom I'm so sick for having to stand up for something problematic that arises. If my professor is here, I'm sorry, I meant to have a private conversation with you, but this going to happen. So here we are talking about [solar] power in Africa and then the professor says 'There's 40 countries in Africa" and I said, 'no.' And then my art history professor was talking about Western Art and then mentioned Egyptian art and I questioned why that is because it's African art. The thing that surprised me is not the fact that it happened but in both of those classes where there's a huge amount of people in there I was the only one that had a problem with this and I was the only one that was expected to speak out, and of course I did because nobody else was doing it. But I'm so tired of taking on that mental labor. If you call yourself an ally, if you say you care about us, this movement, please speak up because I am tired. I am so tired and if you say you support this community and if you say you support these conversations and whatever Midd needs to progress on then take your part. And it's not just on the administration and it's not just on the faculty, it's on students as well. Show us that you care."
Sandra Luo (’18): "I really want to appreciate all of you for offering to have conversations with us but we're really tired of just talking. When is the administration going to show that they care beyond just sitting in a circle and talking and continuing to exploit the vulnerability and emotions of students? When are we going to see some sort of tangible, concrete action that comes from these conversations. And if you want to talk about helping us maybe address the list of demands here that we've been passing out. Apologize to Addis and provide reparations for all the trauma the school put her through, actually investigate Bill Burger and take anonymous sources seriously because that's the way of providing safety for people who are willing to come forward and share their experiences, fix the judicial system instead of just telling us that it's flawed but that's just how it's always going to be. And I want to recommend that a lot of people have been talking for years and a lot of work has been put towards inclusivity and diversity for years, long before March 2. It would be great if they could do something more than just conversations. It's one thing to acknowledge pain and flaws it's another to actually address the flaws so that current and future students won't continue to experience pain. I know a lot of people around me really want to listen to answers from the administration so I'm just going to hold on to this mic until we get an answer from the administration. I really want to hear about a concrete action plan that is something beyond a conversation."
Fernández: "Where to start. So in regards to the demands that you referenced, I think you heard in regards to the judicial piece I think Hannah made the invitation to serve on a policy committee there. That's a very direct way of impacting judicial change. The second one is about the mandatory training for everyone and I hope I addressed that earlier but that's in the process. It's not going to happen tomorrow but there are things in process and more to come, can't be more specific about that because that part to come is still being worked on and I don't have the details. I did share details for things that are ongoing. More things that are happening that are on the ground that we are doing: I did mention that we're working hard at diversifying the faculty, I think we had a good example and make some comments and probably just fill his spring courses. The bias incident thing was a new effort by the community bias response team, I will grant you it is imperfect, and if you will continue to work on it it's been an effort to try to address a lot of the issues we've been talking about. It is imperfect, it is new, we're going through that rocky start that many things do. I expect communications to improve and we will continue to work on that. Concrete things that are going on other things, more things we've been working on: we've been trying to work a lot around the support o DACA and undocumented students, putting a lot of effort on resources there, supporting them in many different ways. The first generation programs, those kinds of things. Opportunities to engage, one of the things a lot of folks have been talking about today is the administration, how it acts and why it doesn't change and one of the things we heard yesterday and I think this is valid is more student input in decision making, and that's been heard. And the SGA has had a proposal to create student advisory boards that will meet with the different VPs, so there you've got advisory boards that will meet with different folks to learn about the process how decisions get made how does the process work and to have a direct influence on that so for instance with finance, with a lot of the different areas. There's much to talk about, but there's a lot more to do, too."
Rainey: "I have a really quick question. There's been a lot of talk about this in the black community and many other communities especially in the after math of Charles Murray. We all know how many of us feel the complete community embarrassment of how interrogating and punishing students for protesting on campus. And as we more forward in terms of restorative practices from the administration, going back to what Toni and others have said providing a timeline with that but also after we put in these new restorative practices and these new restorative justice measures, are they going to be retroactively implemented and have retroactive application regarding people who have gone through unfair processes in the past and students who have gone through extremely unsettling and unfair disciplinary procedures here at Middlebury, for case by case basis? If anyone in the administration could speak to that?"
Katie Smith Abbott (Vice President of Student Affairs): "I have been charged with leading our exploration of how to bring restorative practice to Middlebury. We are partnering with a firm called the Consortium for Equity and Inclusion and the two anchors for that are a woman named Stacy Miller who is the associate provost of inclusivity at Valparaiso and Dennis DePaul who is from the Dean of Students Office at UVM which has had real success for a very long period of time with restorative practices, grounded in Residential Life at UVM. So they came to explain the basic concepts of what is referred to as RP to the SLG in June, the Senior Leadership Group which is the Presidents and all the Vice Presidents. They came back for a subsequent training because we didn't fit everything in, they came back in September, they have met for an introductory session with a broad range of faculty and staff who work in student life. And they're coming back for a three-day training December 18, 19, and 20 and if there are folks in this room who want to participate in that training I'd be happy to talk to you. The only requirements are that you're able to fully commit for the three full days. It's 8:30-5, it's three full days, and you're willing to be part of the ongoing implementation conversations. It is not a fast process to implement but we're fully committed to it. The other thing I would just note is that restorative justice and restorative practices are kind of getting used interchangeably, and I do want to be honest about the fact that I'm learning, this is not something I knew about before I started on this journey working with Stacy and Dennis, being part of a group that's being doing some deep diving into this work. But what I will offer is that they have explained to us very clearly that restorative justice is a small subsection of restorative practices, and the reason we're drawn to restorative practices is because they can be used proactively not just reactively so that a moment like this one wouldn't be appropriate for a restorative circle, like President Patton was referencing earlier, but something called a conference that's very intentionally facilitated. Although I've got to say that I think the student leaders of this session are doing a pretty amazing job. So that's the timeline, we're moving into this training in December with an eye towards hopefully grounding it in student life and residential life by next fall."
Vee Duong (’19): "I had a question: so something kind of disturbing that I have been noticing this year being involved in more cultural orgs is that a lot of students say "Oh wow I didn't know that existed, when do y'all have meetings?" And then we're like oh well we had a booth at activities and we have a mailing list that's been open, we operate out of the AFC which is always open, and to have these open discussions that we have been having about race, to have people who do not identify as that come into that space, that is acceptable and that's fine and we encourage you to do that but to have people come in and not be aware of the space they're taking up is very frustrating. So this is a point for faculty and staff and/or administrators, in that what are you all doing to provide real educational resources for students, incoming students especially, so that the burden doesn't fall on cultural orgs where we are already working really hard to provide a space to take care of our members mentally and emotionally to support each other so we don't have to take on the additional burden of educating people because all the educational resources I have seen have been put together laboriously through hours of our personal time.
Baishakhi Taylor (Dean of Students): "Vee I hear your question and I agree that we also need to do more. We have added sessions during the MiddView. President Patton has now made JusTalks mandatory for the entire class. We have also added more training in our reslife program and among colleagues who are in the reslife group and that's obviously not adequate so on top of having all these sessions that introduce with the incoming class this year we'll continue to build on that and I also acknowledge that having those sessions only during MiddView and JusTalks is not sufficient so we need to build on it throughout the year so the responsibility is not on the Anderson Freeman Center and thank you for doing the work that you're doing and raising the question."
Anonymous question (read by Rainey): "It seems like both Alison Stanger and Laurie Patton have been taking a lot of public, national opportunities to speak about the events of the spring, including at a congressional hearing on C-SPAN, the Free Speech Conference Laurie spoke at. For the purpose of transparency, are President Patton or Alison Stanger being financially compensated for these talks? Are they profiting off the terrible situation the administration has put us in?"
Patton: "I was not paid to go to the University of Chicago and I have no interest in profiting any situation that happened at Middlebury. I am very clear that any conversation that's part of the national discourse where Middlebury is mentioned we need to create balance so at the Chicago conference part of what we pushed on with many, many people there is where is our inclusivity? Where are our inclusivity efforts? We've always got to balance those two things no matter what happens. I had no intentions of profiting in any way my intent is to work on moving a national conversation where people who are constantly talking about free speech also talk about inclusivity. So both of those things are balanced and fair and appropriate, so that's the very direct answer. I had a couple more responses to questions I didn’t get a chance to answer but if there’s time later [I’ll answer].”
Victor Filpo (admissions counselor, class of '16): "I hope I really speaking for myself here rather than any hat of student, alumn, or staff member here on campus. Something that is frustrating, honestly, about this conversation is that we've really been centering around the case that happened with Addis or the case that happened with the professor. And that's completely legitimate because they are people who've been struggling a lot and they've been carrying a lot of the heaviness of what's going on. But I would like to say that the reality is that a lot of people of color deal with this. It is not surprising. We are tokenizing them right now by only brining up those instances. When I was freshman, when I was walking with my Posse member in Battell, a public safety office stopped us and told us, 'I haven't seen you on campus can you show us your IDs?' When we were first years here at Middlebury. He still works here. I have also gotten accused by other Public Safety officers for other things. It turns out completely fine because my dean loves me, obviously. And all the deans here do an amazing job at really caring for their students and really trying to look out emotionally for everyone. But this continues happening on the daily. Just this last summer I was crossing with two other students, and I'm glad this stuff happens to me when I'm with other people because I would not be able to believe that it happens to me on this level, weekly or biweekly, it's insane. Crossing the street, people start accelerating and then they stop and they yell the n-word at you. You are walking to your house or walking to your dorm and someone stops in a car and just yells at you, 'that looks stolen,' yells a rap lyric at you, choses another slur. It really does baffle me that this happens so often and I was just here as a senior two years ago and we had the same conversation about a sombrero right here. And every year we will continue to have this conversation right here. And yet I still have to walk home and have this experience all over again. And the only time I will be taken seriously isn't even when I'm with another person of color but rather when I have the kind, woke, white lady who is willing to represent me and say whoa he's going through some pain let's do something about it. I don't want someone to have a voice for me. I want to be able to talk for myself to be able to talk for myself, to be believed, for something to happen when I ask for it. When a person of color is going through a lot they don't have means to be able to express it. Do we really understand the amount of people of color who haven't said anything about their experiences. And when you sit with someone and they say, 'that baffles me,' does it really? Does it really? It shouldn't because it honestly happens on such a daily level. And you yourself you're all very smart people. We know that this happens. We ignore it. We choose to ignore it because it makes us feel comfortable. And I wonder when we're going to stop with this comfort because we just sit here every single year and have this conversation all over again in this comfort and I hope that in future instances when the next one comes up it's not Shatavia, it's not Victor, it's not the professor. It's a collective group of people who are going through a lot."
Student, unknown: "You said something about conversation and us being free and all that. There's a lot of dark forces in general on this campus and beyond this campus and a lot of what was just talked about were references to instances where students are facing racism from other white students on this campus that I'm sure a lot of people don't know about. If we look we have Donald Trump as our president and there's just crazy things going on while we're sitting here having restorative conversations, there's evil things going on and this stuff that we're talking about is just a small sample of something that's going on. It comes to a point where people have to decide whether they're going to actually be on the side of what's right or what's wrong and everyone has to make their own choice. I hope that especially the white people here will make that choice and not hide behind good sounding rhetoric or kind words, because those things are good and genuine kindness is good but a lot of people here feel like unless the school addresses the issues that are going on at the institutional level how are we going to be able to talk about what's going on in the world?"
Patton: "I wanted to mention that we're working with public safety, public safety has gone through a mandatory de-escalation training as well as diversity training this fall and will continue to do so. Concrete action. Concrete action: we created a seizing the opportunity fund for any student at Middlebury who wants to and needs to do something different, whether they need their parents to come here, or whether they need to go to MiddCore, whether they need more money for something they need more access to at Middlebury. We have raised that money so that every student has access to all educational opportunities. We started that last year, it's available, talk to Katy Smith Abbott, another concrete action. Third, one of the things we're really excited about is, I really appreciate what you said about facing racism and acknowledging and the everyday racism that happens on this campus that I acknowledged in the beginning. I think that if we could create an archive to create news stories of what is happening to people that would make it even more powerful for us so we need to get those kinds of stories on the books. We need to do a lot more mandatory training, that concrete action is happening in the next year, and in the back there are about 15 more concrete actions, none of them are enough. We need your advice on how to make it more effective and again I want to acknowledge the hurt that people are feeling and we are going to create a lot of student advisory committees to be better and more effective. And I am so proud of this community for being here tonight. Thank you very much."
Sohn: "We also know that tonight not all of your questions have been answered and we want to thank everyone for raising those question."
Anonymous notecard (read by Sohn): "Hoping on Wengel and Mia's point on allyship, please understand that these may be very sensitive times for POCs, QTPOCs on campus and on that note if you find yourself going to the AFC I hope you take the responsibility to learn about what it means to the POC/QTPOC community. You could speak to the directors and student staff in the space, and it's very central to understand what it means to take up space in times as sensitive as this one. On that note please come feel free to come learn more about the positive impact the AFC is making on this institution."
(11/08/17 5:33pm)
On November 1, 2017, the Houston Astros of the American League defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers of the National League 5–1 in Game 7 of the World Series, capping off a captivating championship matchup that featured some of the most exciting playoff baseball that fans of the game have seen in years. Here, we’d like to look back on a few of the factors that made this hard-fought battle so uniquely exciting.
—2017 marked the first time in the free agent era (i.e. from 1976 onward) that two 100+ win teams faced off in the World Series. The last such meeting took place in 1970 between the Baltimore Orioles and the Cincinnati Reds.
—Coincidentally, Los Angeles and Houston are arguably the two Major League teams that rely most heavily on advanced analytics to run their teams. The Dodgers, for example, distributed cards to each of their outfielders that not only told them where to stand for each different batter in the Astros’ lineup, but also factored in for the different pitchers that the Dodgers were using as well.
—Los Angeles had only lost one playoff game coming into the World Series, a 3–2 defeat at the hands of Jake Arrieta and the Chicago Cubs in Game 4 of the NLCS (the Dodgers won Game 5 to take the series four games to one). They won the rest of their playoff games by two runs or more.
The Astros, on the other hand, had faced a bit of a tougher road: three of their seven playoff wins prior to the World Series were decided by only one run, and they had to climb back from a 3–2 deficit in the ALCS to defeat the New York Yankees in seven games.
—That being said, both teams had at least one thing in common: neither had lost a home game in the playoffs thus far. But when it came to the World Series, the Astros would take wins on the road from the Dodgers — Games 2 and 7 — and Los Angeles would win game 4 on Houston’s home turf.
—On October 24, the recorded temperature for the first pitch of Game 1 was 103 degrees Fahrenheit. The hottest World Series game on record before that? October 27, Game 1 of the 2001 World Series, New York Yankees at the Arizona Diamondbacks: 94 degrees.
—Before Game 2 of this season, the Dodgers were 98–0 when in the lead at the top of the 9th inning. A big part of that equation was their closer, Kenley Jensen: he had converted 41 of 42 save opportunities, sported a 1.32 ERA and a 15.57 strikeout/walk ratio, and held opposing batters to a .177 average. However, Jansen blew the lead in Game 2 by giving up a solo Marwin Gonzalez home run in the ninth inning, allowing the Astros to knot the score at 3–3.
—But, Game 2 was remarkable for reasons beyond that as well. The Dodgers and Astros combined to hit eight home runs over the course of the game, a World Series record. What’s more, five of those home runs came in extra innings: Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa of the Astros hit back-to-back shots in the top of the tenth, to which Yasiel Puig responded with one of his own in the bottom of the inning. George Springer responded for Houston with a two-run bomb in the top of the 11th, and although Charlie Culberson tried to bring the Dodgers back with a solo blast in the bottom of the 11th, it ultimately wasn’t enough as Los Angeles fell, 7–6.
—Game 5, a ten-inning, 25-run affair, saw the Dodgers slip from the lead on three separate occasions, defy expectations by coming back from a three-run deficit in the top of the ninth inning to tie the game, and ultimately to blow it in the bottom of the 10th. The losing pitcher? Kenley Jansen.
—Down 3–2 in the series, Los Angeles looked to be down for the count: the Astros had won every single game that Justin Verlander (their Game 6 pitcher) had started since they added him to the roster on August 31. Verlander took a 1–0 lead into the sixth inning, having only allowed one hit to that point. However, he gave up two runs on the inning and the Astros went on to lose, 3–1.
—Game 7 was undoubtedly the most boring matchup of the series. After scoring two runs in the first inning and three in the second, the Astros more or less cruised to a 5–1 victory to seal the first World Series title since the club’s foundation in 1962.
The only other game that had been decided by more than two runs was Game 4, a 6–2 Dodger victory. Even so, that one was tied 1–1 before Los Angeles scored five runs in the top of the ninth inning.
—The Astros and Dodgers combined to hit 25 home runs in the 2017 World Series, shattering the old record of 21. George Springer, the World Series MVP, accounted for five of those home runs by himself, also a World Series record.
—Brandon Morrow of the Dodgers quietly became just the second pitcher to appear in all seven games of a World Series. But he wasn’t the only member of the Los Angeles bullpen to see heavy usage: head coach Dave Roberts made a record 32 pitching changes over the seven-game series.
—Cody Bellinger, the likely NL Rookie of the Year, struck out a record 17 times — almost 2.5 per game — in the World Series, blowing past the old World Series record of 13 and the playoff series record of 16 set by Aaron Judge in the ALCS.
—Both teams smelled something fishy about the World Series, sort of. Pitchers for the Dodgers and the Astros alike (most notably Los Angeles’ Clayton Kershaw and Yu Darvish and Houston’s Verlander), as well as their pitching coaches, claimed that the baseballs used in the 2017 World Series were slicker than those employed during the regular season. This allegedly gave them the most amount of trouble with their sliders: conspiracy theorists point to the fact that Kershaw, Darvish, and Verlander all used that pitch with much less success than usual in the series.
(09/28/17 3:30am)
The men’s tennis team demonstrated its dominance at the top of the lineup as well as its impressive depth by taking three of the six flights at its own invitational on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 23 and 24. In its first tournament of the fall season, Middlebury hosted Bates, Hamilton, Tufts, Brandeis, RPI and Skidmore in a tune-up for the ITA Regional Championships coming up this weekend.
“Because the Midd Invite is always our first tournament, we know it will be hard to play our best right off the bat,” said team captain Timo van der Geest ’18. “We know we always have a good shot at winning a couple of flights but it is mainly about getting in some good competition and learn more about where your game is at the moment.”
In the A-singles flight, Lubo Cuba ’19 was able to get his feet under himself rather quickly and continue his dominance from last season, defeating Ben Rosen of Bates 6–3, 4–6, 10–8 in the championship match after winning three matches to get there. Cuba extended his winning streak to nine matches, dating back to the beginning of the NCAA singles tournament last spring when he won five straight matches en route to the championship.
Along with Cuba, Will de Quant ’18 and Noah Farrell ’18 advanced to the semifinals, where de Quant fell to his teammate Cuba 6–2, 6–7 (5–7), 10–5, and Farrell fell to Rosen 6–1, 6–4.
These three, along with Kyle Schlanger ’18 who also won his first match in the A flight before falling in the next round, proved that the top of Middlebury’s singles lineup has the potential to be devastating this year.
The B-singles flight featured an all-Middlebury final between Timo van der Geest ’18 and Alex Vanezis ’20. Vanezis took it to van der Geest in the first set 6–0, but van der Geest showed some grit in the 80-degree weather by coming from behind to take the second set and the superbreaker to win the championship 0–6, 6–2, 11–9. The Panthers also had three semifinalists in this flight because Andre Xiao ’21 won the first two matches of career, before falling to van der Geest on Sunday morning 6–4, 6–2.
“Singles was fun seeing three out of the four semifinalists in my flight being Midd guys, resulting in me playing a teammate both in the semis and the final,” van der Geest said.
The Panthers’ success in the B-flight pointed to the depth they have throughout their team, considering the three Panther semifinalists were their fifth, sixth and seventh players in the lineup.
In other singles action, Weston Brach ’20 won his first match in the C-singles flight before falling in the quarterfinals, while Peter Martin ’19 won his first match in the D flight before doing the same in the quarterfinals.
Defending NCAA doubles national champions Cuba and de Quant were denied in the A-doubles flight by their fellow Panther pair of van der Geest and Kyle Schlanger ’18. Van der Geest and Schlanger knocked off their national championship teammates in the semifinals 8–6, and then captured the championship by defeating David Aizenberg and Anupreeth Coramutla 8–6 in the final. Van der Geest completed a perfect 8–0 weekend for the second straight year at the Middlebury Invitational, although this year he won the A-doubles flight and defeated the defending national champions with Schlanger.
“It was really exciting for me to win both my singles and doubles flight,” van der Geest said. “Kyle and I competed very well this weekend. In both our matches on Sunday there was a point where we weren’t playing very well but we managed to find ways to swing the matches.”
In the B-flight, the first-year pair of Xiao and Adam Guo ’21 reached the semifinals along with the Vanezis and Nate Eazor ’21 pairing, where they fell.
With one tournament under their belt in the fall season, the Panthers now turn to the ITA Regional Championships which they will host from Friday through Sunday, Sept. 29 to Oct. 1. Middlebury boasts the past two champions, Farrell who won two years ago and Cuba last year.
“I think everyone learned a lot on a personal level about where they are regarding their game at the moment,” van der Geest said, as he looks forward to this weekend. “We are hosting the biggest tournament of the fall this weekend, so we will use the information from the matches we played last weekend to try to prepare as best we can for the ITA.”
As van der Geest acknowledges, the fall season is an opportunity for the Panthers to face some good competition, grow as players and come together as a team. The team’s bigger goals lie ahead in the spring, when they will compete for the Nescac and NCAA team championships.
(09/28/17 12:17am)
In response to threats of violence following student protests of Charles Murray’s lecture last spring, as well as recent hostilities at the University of Virginia, administrators moved to revise the college’s policies on events and invited speakers.
Provost Susan Baldridge first announced the changes in an email on Sept. 15, which outlined “interim procedures for scheduling events and invited speakers.” These new policies, Baldridge wrote, were the result of “work by members of the administration, Public Safety/Campus Security, and local and state law enforcement.”
Under these interim policies, those seeking to schedule an event will be required to submit a request three weeks in advance, and outline any potential safety risks. Proposed events will then be subject to review by the Student Activities, Event Management and Communications staff.
If that review finds that an event is “likely to be the target of threats or violence,” it will be subject to additional reviews by Public Safety and by the administration’s Risk Management team, to determine adequate safety measures. In “exceptional cases” in which the review finds “significant risk to the community,” the president and senior administrators reserve the right to cancel events.
STUDENTS TARGETED
Senior administrators began to discuss revising the event policies at the beginning of the summer. Karen Miller, vice president for human resources and risk, told The Campus that the Charles Murray protests were a motivating factor, along with related threats that ensued.
“The events of March 2 coupled with the subsequent threats against students, faculty and administrators, did create a new awareness of the risks we face,” Miller said. She added that the discussions “took on a new urgency” following the violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, which were partially centered on the University of Virginia campus.
Senior Senator Hannah Pustejovsky ’18, who also served last year in the Student Government Association (SGA), is among the community members who received threats and hateful messages last semester.
“I wrote a bill trying to create an appeals process for speakers to give students an institutional way to file a complaint,” Pustejovsky said. “It must have gotten shared in some alt-right Facebook groups, because I got an influx of Facebook messages from white Texan males and my name began showing up on conservative online articles all within a three day period.”
Pustejovsky’s name, and the bill she wrote, were mentioned on a multitude of conservative internet sites, including The DailyWire, CampusReform, and The Federalist.
“It was more frustrating than anything, because it was as if these people were coming in and didn’t really know what we were talking about,” Pustejovsky said. “I couldn’t understand why these people had such a high stake in [our affairs] but didn’t take the time to research things or truly read the bill.”
According to Miller, the threats leveled against Pustejovsky were part of a larger pattern. In addition to the individual students who were targeted, the institution itself also received threats from outside sources.
One such threat emerged at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In June, a student there received a letter denouncing “mobs” and “rioters” at schools including Middlebury. The letter urged readers to put “holes in the bodies of such thugs.”
After learning of the Wisconsin incident, a college spokesman told The Campus in June they were aware of the threat.
“In the months after the protests of March 2 we became aware of a number of vague threats made against our community,” Miller said this week. “None proved to be credible.”
The college hopes these interim policies will better prepare the campus for more serious threats, should they arise, in the future.
MIDDLEBURY COMMUNITY RESPONDS
The college’s decision to implement these interim procedures generated both positive and negative responses, on and off campus.
Kyle Wright ’19.5, Co-Chair of Community Council, and no fan of Charles Murray’s, hopes that the interim procedures will foster community-building.
“There is, reflected in these interim procedures, a great degree of hope for a renewed and compassionate conversation surrounding the community we are hoping to build here at Middlebury,” said Wright, an avid defender of student protesters. “We all have an opportunity to engage in the conversations that will now follow, wherein we will seek to define guidelines that foster inclusive discourse — prior to, during, and after events — and protect the members of our community who are most historically vulnerable to violence and exclusion.”
Some conservatives, however, have criticized the procedures’ cancellation provision, which they suggest will allow protesters to shut down events pre-emptively.
Ari Fleischer ’82, a former press secretary for President George W. Bush, voiced his displeasure on Twitter, claiming that the cancellation provision “rewards the heckler's veto.”
“Speakers will not be allowed on campus if groups on campus say they will shut down the speaker,” Fleischer wrote.
Phil Hoxie ’17.5, head of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) club, voiced a similar sentiment.
“This policy falsely equates speech with violence and wrongly punishes speakers for the potential violence of others who reject the principle of free expression,” Hoxie said. “I would hope that the administration would rethink their policies to promote the rights and viewpoints of all members of our community.”
Former SGA President Karina Toy ’17 expressed concern regarding the policy’s mandate for a three-week advanced notice for future events.
“For well-planned events this should not be a problem, as reservations usually occur months in advance,” Toy said. “[But] it will force staff, students, and faculty to plan ahead of time and [could] prevent spontaneous, potentially really awesome, events from happening.”
After sending the Sept. 15 email, Baldridge said administrators have responded to “about a dozen questions” from community members relating to the interim policies. Moving forward, she plans to communicate with community groups to devise a plan for crafting permanent procedures.
“This week I’ll be reaching out to the leaders of the governance groups on campus here and in Monterey to ask how they would like to approach the process of moving to a more permanent approach,” Baldridge said on Monday. “Once we have arrived at an agreed-upon process, I’ll be letting the campus know.”
(09/21/17 12:25am)
This week The Campus sat down with Kyle Wright ’19.5, Student Co-Chair of Community Council for the fall semester. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Middlebury Campus (MC): What are your main goals for the upcoming year as co-chair?
Kyle Wright (KW): The biggest things that I focused on in the platform were inclusivity and community building as an umbrella to be able to discuss and tackle various issues prevalent on campus right now. A lot of that includes financial sustainability, transparency and accountability. Environmental sustainability is also a big factor.
With the events that happened last spring, there are conversations that need to be addressed. This year, I’m finally seeing that platform become more tangible. A complicated discussion has also fallen onto my plate: the administration is hoping Community Council will do a comprehensive review of the commons system, how effective it’s been, whether it’s been realized in the way the original establishers of that system thought it would be implemented and whether it makes sense to go forward with any emendations to the system.
MC: What do you view as Community Council’s main strengths as a body? Where has it failed?
KW: My understanding is that Community Council has been an ambiguous body for a long time and has had strong suits based on the co-chair and the student, faculty and staff members that are involved. Those typically tend to lean towards this recommendation process that has been increasingly solidified over the past year, and having Community Council be less of a legislative body and more of a community forum, able to deliberate over issues in a way that SGA, staff council and faculty council don’t.
MC: What role do you envision for Community Council in the ongoing aftermath of the Charles Murray event?
KW: I think a lot of people are looking to Community Council as the only forum that can tackle the discussion of not just what happened on March 2, but why it happened, because a lot of people appreciate that it wasn’t just about Murray. So how do we engage people in conversation to get to the root of not only the how, but the why surrounding the feelings, tensions, emotions and opinions of a variety of community members who need to be brought into that conversation? What created that environment, what went unsaid prior to that explosive demonstration on March 2, and how do we find ways to be vulnerable surrounding our individual roles in that?
How do we find ways to engage each other in dialogue after we were involved in events and actions that hurt other members of this community? How do we implement restorative practices across the institution, and support the administration in doing that? That’s the first step, which means reaching out to groups who aren’t necessarily active on campus, or who probably wouldn’t apply for Community Council. We’re going to have uncomfortable and at times extremely unproductive conversations. Whether people like it or not, that needs to be done, because we need to get to a place of understanding before moving forward.
Step two is to figure out a concrete series of mechanisms through which we can move forward and get to a place where this won’t happen again. That looks like hosting more events and bringing different groups together in spaces that will create a better sense of social community. In my opinion, a lot of the divides that resulted in the demonstration in March stemmed from the fact that we don’t interact enough, so events like that are the primary focus. Working with different clubs and groups on campus to understand their needs is also extremely important. I’m toying around with the idea of assigning community councilors to be liaisons to groups on campus and bring those voices to the table without having to fill our room with 40 or 50 people at a time, which isn’t feasible.
MC: In the Campus article that ran after your election win in the spring, you stressed your desire to promote “micro-conversation and critical self-reflection” as approaches to community building, as opposed to “rhetoric and confrontational free speech.” How do you hope to create spaces for these types of interactions?
KW: The majority of my work is going to be reaching out to constituencies and making sure there are lines of communication to get people there in the first place. The majority of the work implementing those events and mechanisms will go to Tina Brook in the spring.
That said, there are some integral mechanisms. I’d love to put together a series of reports that focus on issues that people want to know about. I want to work with people who are invested in this community and people who are not necessarily invested. I don’t want to put an idea out there that is just coming out of my head. I want to see what’s relevant for groups on campus and what’s going to help them participate more fully in these conversations.
A big part of this is coalitional resilience, which I’ve talked about relatively constantly since March 2. It’s the idea that rhetorical resilience isn’t necessarily enough. It’s a great theory and Laurie Patton put a lot of work, passion and time into her theorizations and conversations surrounding it. But if March 2 showed us one thing it’s that rhetorical resilience doesn’t take into account the lived experiences and traumas that can be dredged up by rhetoric. So for me it’s about allowing people to have hard conversations and then step back into safe spaces in order to recharge.
MC: Moving from SGA to CC, you’ve gone from working separately from administrators to working alongside them. How do you feel about that new collaboration?
KW: I have a terrific working relationship with Laurie Patton, Katy Smith Abbott, Baishakhi Taylor and [Associate Dean of Students] Doug Adams, so it’s easier for me to step into those spaces. Other students don’t necessarily have that luxury, so making sure that they do is a big focus. A huge part of that includes the administration owning up to things that a lot of us don’t want to talk about. That includes the fact that a lot of the student protesters sanctioned after March 2 were [sanctioned] in a way that was deeply isolating and targeting to those students. Many of them only had a few weeks left on campus and left Middlebury with memories of being, in essence, prosecuted by investigators, and having to prove themselves innocent prior to being assumed so. An entire other degree of damage was done in those weeks following the Murray protest.
Being able to own what we participated in so long as that’s safe to do, not going at each other’s throats for our political leanings or individual beliefs and stepping into a space where we can seek to understand and not critique is key. I think the most important thing we can do is reach out in ways that are uncomfortable. People need to have safe spaces. They allow participation in difficult discussions. But I think this community still has the power to have transformative conversations. This is a hard time for our college community, but I have faith that we’re going to be able to come out of it better than when we went in.
(05/04/17 3:55am)
Starting in the fall of 2017, a swipe system in Proctor, Ross, and Atwater will track when and where Middlebury students eat. This system will provide accurate counts for dining services in terms of preparing food as well as reducing waste. The system will also prevent guests not on the meal plan from eating without paying in the dining halls, which will save the College money. A portion of the money saved will go back to the students, and each student will receive $50 on their Middcard to spend at Middlebury dining retail locations each semester.
The College will continue to offer one, unlimited meal plan in the fall of 2017, though that might change in the spring or fall of 2018, depending on the verdict of the SGA appointed student Dining Committee. Multiple meal plans would give students the option of using their official dining plans to frequent other dining, retail locations like The Grille, 51 Main, or Rehearsals Café. Regardless of any new meal plans offered, though, Middlebury will continue to have one comprehensive fee for every student on a plan, according to Dan Detora, Executive Director of Food Services Operations at Middlebury.
Whether students choose the unlimited plan in the dining halls or another plan that includes retail options, they would pay the same fee. This would ensure students never feel forced to choose a dining plan for financial reasons. Students have expressed their desire not to limit access to Middlebury dining based on cost. “I value the fact that the current dining meal plan system puts everyone on an equal playing field,” Deborah Leedy ’18 said.
In terms of swipe systems, Middlebury is the only school in the NESCAC currently without one. Also, out of the many dining operations in The National Association of College & University Food Services, Middlebury stands apart. “We’re the only ones that don’t have someone there to swipe cards or don’t require students to swipe cards that I know of,” Detora said.
As a result, Middlebury has less access to data for the purpose of running dining services than any other school in the NESCAC – and far less than the majority of those in the country. This data could inform food purchasing, preparation, and waste management, attached to the $3.2 million that Middlebury spends on food annually.
“From a food waste standpoint, it’s difficult to determine how many people we’re going to feed at a particular time,” Detora said. “[Adding a swipe system] will allow us to get accurate counts, accurate production records, really minimize our ordering and our waste to the fullest.”
Chris Laframboise, commons chef in Ross Dining Hall, noted how accurate data would help dining hall staff with food preparation. “With that count we will be able to forecast with a great degree of accuracy for future meals,” he said. “This will help us control what and how much we prep and how much we cook, and that will help to control waste at the end of the day. We will also be able to look at certain timeframes to see how many students are coming in and when and how much we should be cooking at that time.”
Currently, Ross Dining Hall has a laser beam counter on the door to track student dining. “Right now our counter system is very basic,” said Brent Simons, Ross Commons’ dining room manager. “Whenever a customer goes through it breaks the beam, and we get a number....The system adds a count if a student walks in or out of the entrance to Ross – regardless if it’s their first or second or fifth time eating for any given meal. In addition, the system cannot determine at what time a student dined in Ross. Proctor and Atwater dining also have such laser systems.”
There’s also the problem of non-students eating for free in the dining halls, without a system to determine who’s entering at the door. At the moment, dining services offers full access to the dining halls for guests with a $5 price tag attached to breakfast, $7 to lunch, and $9 to dinner for the academic year. “We have a duty to the student body to make sure that people who are eating here are somehow related to the college,” Simons said. “We have sports teams that pop in on the weekend and eat for free. All that does is take money away and food away from the students that are here.”
During homecoming weekend this past fall, for example, alumni ate an estimated 400 free meals. Under this system, students end up paying for guests to eat without charge, a cost that amounts to thousands of dollars per year in expenses that could otherwise go back into the system and benefit students. With the implementation of the swipe, guests would pay at the door via the new electronic system, according to Keith Piper from Ross Dining. The open invitation to faculty for dining with a student (without personal charge) would remain open.
Both the swipe system and the advent of meal plans are designed to resolve ongoing challenges for dining services, including traffic in the dining halls. Ross dining hall can seat 340 at a time, and Proctor has room for 520 not including Redfield, according to Detora. Usually, for this sort of dining operation, the dining hall should turn over just one time per meal (so Ross would seat 680 students at a given meal and Proctor 1,040 students). However, “Every night we do well over 1,200” in Ross, Detora said. “This is our biggest challenge,” Simons said. “With Atwater being closed, I think they did 1,400 people in there last night.”
Detora explained, “[The Dining halls] were designed when the commons houses were just getting going. There were supposed to be five dining halls.” However, given the expense of three dining halls, the building stopped. “With that, storage is an issue in all three dining halls,” Detora continued regarding the location of storage rooms and freezers. “They’re downstairs and around the corner” in Atwater Dining and downstairs below the dining hall in both Ross and Proctor. “We have a lot of strains, accidents because of the way we’re storing and bringing food from one location to the other.” The dishwashing room in Ross is also small relative to the amount of dishes it must clean daily.
In every dining hall, preparation and cooking space is limited. The prep room in Ross, just off the dining hall, is smaller than many classrooms – hence, the cooking stations out in the servery area at Ross. In Proctor, a challenge is the location of cooking facilities under the dining hall. Staff must transport prepared food up to the servery via an elevator.
In the end, the dining hall’s long lines, lack of seating and pressure on dining staff, have led up to the consideration of future meal plans. The gist of the idea is to provide alternative spaces for students to dine around campus without spending their own money out of pocket, Detora said. If students could dine at Rehearsals Café, The Grille or 51 Main via their meal plan, these spaces may seem more appealing.
“We’re hopefully going to renovate Rehearsals and Wilsons this summer,” Detora said. Considerations include a wrap shop with high quality deli meats for Rehearsals Café. Detora also described the possibility of “really fresh bagels from a local bake shop, and an assortment of kinds of cream cheeses” as an alternative breakfast option for students.
During the upcoming school year, the student Dining Committee will vote on the decision of introducing new meal plans as well as the specifics of what those plans would include.
Committee Chair Elisa Gan ’20 said, “We define the kind of meal plans that the swiping system could offer. The committee has decided to offer an unlimited-only meal plan with fifty dollars credit for a transition period in the fall of 2017. We are hoping to gauge students’ responses and review the meal plan options for the spring.” The SGA will also vote on the implementation of new meal plans before any are put in place.
Examples of plans for Middlebury include the unlimited plan, a 14-meal plan, or a 10-meal plan. Each plan, except the unlimited one, would include an amount of money to spend at other Middlebury retail locations, like the Grille and 51 Main. Every meal plan would also include a specific number of guest passes per semester for students to invite family, friends, or alumni into Middlebury dining.
With alterations to the system approaching, dining operations looks to provide the ideal experience for students and staff. “Hopefully we can calm people’s fears about the change,” Simon said.
(05/04/17 1:34am)
The context in which we do our work in higher education has changed dramatically in recent decades and these changes have an impact on our specific experience at Middlebury. Institutions such as Georgetown, Brown, Harvard, Princeton and others have publicly shared how they historically and systematically excluded particular bodies and minds from participating in the free exchange of ideas on their campuses. This process has been part of a larger recognition that the 19th century idea that higher education can exist in a value-free void in which we are objective scientists investigating our particular fields is deeply flawed. There is no void within which one can undertake objective inquiry or in which ‘free speech’ occurs. As President Drew Gilpin Faust of Harvard has argued, “there have to be certain commitments within which knowledge is pursued and transmitted and that we have to, as institutions, commit ourselves to undertaking our work and forming young people within sets of commitments to justice, to truth, to values that matter to us as a society.”
I would argue that this is precisely the case that many students have been trying to make for many years and the events of March 2017 are the most recent efforts to wake us up. Many of you have seen, “Abroad at Home,” a video by Tim Garcia, Middlebury class of 2014, in which students from traditionally underrepresented groups speak about what it is like to be a student at Middlebury. During the 2015-16 academic year, protests erupted at Middlebury and on campuses across the country, not because of a single incident or racial epithet; but because students were fed up with duplicitous campus cultures that tout diversity while tolerating pervasive racist and sexist practices, symbols and policies. We held three town forums last year, two in Dana and one in Mead Chapel. They were all packed and students wanted to talk, share, and listen to each other. And, still, our response is to imagine how to create more support groups for those of us who find the Whiteness of Middlebury exhausting and intolerable and to lament that if only everyone were more rational we could solve the ‘problem’ some are having.
Yet, as any of us who were at last week’s Spring Symposium witnessed, there is no absence of intellectual or rational capacity on the part of Middlebury students. What I hear many students asking the faculty and administration to do is to direct our cherished ability for critical inquiry towards our own practices and our own assumptions:
1. Who is Middlebury assumed to be for and who is considered a supporting cast who needs support?
2. What are the ontological and epistemological assumptions that I embody and that underlie my teaching practices as a professor?
3. How might I interrogate, in class, the cultural/political context in which I choose my objective scientific questions, how those questions are funded, and how they are evaluated during professional reviews? How might such an inquiry open up previously ignored lines of investigation for my students?
4. Whose perspectives and lived experiences are validated in my professional understanding of what matters, and whose are ignored?
This work will require faculty to enter into deeply uncomfortable terrain, but the work is essential for the education of our students—those from historically overrepresented groups as much as, if not more so, than for students from historically underrepresented groups. After all, as Ta Nahesi Coates argued two years ago in his address in Mead Chapel, it is the “Dreamers” who have some serious work to do.
At this moment and in the months ahead, we have a unique opportunity as an unrealized, potential community of faculty, staff and students to engage in a fearless interrogation of who we are and to what degree our website rhetoric mocks the reality of what it is like for many of us to live and learn on this campus. Our responsibility to undertake this work will be relentlessly disruptive and worth the confusion in our Outlook Calendars that will necessarily follow.
Jonathan Miller-Lane, Associate Professor of Education Studies and Faculty Head of Wonnacott Commons writes in about the faculty’s duty to reflect following the Murray protests.
(03/03/17 2:39am)
The American Enterprise Institute has been joined by the Political Science department in co-sponsoring Charles Murray. Murray is most well-known for arguing that societal hierarchy is based on intelligence. The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled him a “white nationalist” who misuses statistics to support scientific racism. He belongs to a long American tradition of justifying white supremacy through pseudoscience, a tradition which also includes those who justified the slave trade on the basis of mental illness and those who claimed slavery benefited people of color.
Yet as a department, you chose to sponsor him.
At the time of this writing, the sponsorship had not been rescinded. Even if it has been by the time of publication, your argument remains stated and your existing policy in effect. Your argument in support of such sponsorships seems credible, at first glance. Our campus is an open forum for debate, and should be exposed to different views. You’re not a “partisan” department. You can bring other speakers to campus to refute him, and challenge him through “civic discourse.” You say that bringing controversial and non-credible speakers to campus is a long tradition in Political Science.
Your argument is flawed at every point.
Firstly, while Charles Murray may wield significant influence, he does not deserve to be granted yet another platform to speak from. Scientific racism is not a partisan position, nor a credible minority opinion. It has been the status quo through most of this nation’s history. Voices like Murray’s enabled the oppression and massacre of people of color in plantation fields and working class factories. Those voices not only have been heard in the ivy towers of prestigious institutions like Middlebury but also originate in the intellectual communities of our privileged institutions. Only through active writings and marches that forced the privileged to deny scientific racism the claim of legitimacy was such intellectual bigotry ever defeated. By sponsoring Charles Murray, the political science department has decided to use its privilege to enable scientific racism. More people will hear his voice, and more people will be convinced by his illusion of factual opinion.
Secondly, your concept for “civic discourse” is exceptionally limited. Civic discourse relies on the free exchange of ideas, but ideas cannot be freely exchanged if one side is bound and gagged with the chains and bloody cloths of history. Opinions are not all made equal. Some must shout twice as loud to get the same volume. By providing an equal platform for Murray, you do not take into account the profound inequities that already plague civic discourse. Civic discourse must not only promote a truly free exchange of ideas, by elevating the opinions of those unheard, but also embrace fact. Murray’s opinions have been discredited and thrown into the trash can of alternative facts. The claim that Murray is credible just because he went to Harvard is frankly laughable. An Ivy degree does not make you a credible voice. Donald Trump, for example, is not the image of credible “civic discourse.”
Thirdly, your affirmation of the department’s history in “objectively” sponsoring talks is no excuse. Your claim is indeed correct, however. As Professor Allison Stanger pointed out in one class, the Political Science department did invite Charles Murray after the publication of his book, The Bell Curve, to campus to speak. But tradition is not sacred. By arguing that tradition justifies the talk, the Political Science department has chosen to embrace the same logic that conservatism has employed to prevent the end of slavery, the passage of civil rights and the liberation of women. If anything, tradition illustrates the need for a much wider condemnation of departmental policy. Even if the department rescinds the sponsorship of Charles Murray, that is only one instance of what is apparently many.
So that is exactly what we will move toward. The Political Science department’s history of enabling scientific racism and alternative facts requires a broad-based community movement that forces the department to change its policy in sponsoring talks. As a body, Community Council approved an official recommendation that the Political Science department rescind the co-sponsorship of Charles Murray during our Tuesday meeting. However, we will also move to drafting more long-term recommendations to ensure nothing like this happens again. In my capacity as a member of our community, I also encourage students to take a stand to force the department towards a new policy. If the Political Science department does not apologize publicly and announce a revised policy wherein no widely-discredited supremacist speakers will be sponsored, members of our community who feel strongly about inclusivity will move to occupy the Political Science department in a sit-in. All students, staff and faculty that stand in solidarity with an effort for real inclusion on campus are invited.
Travis Sanderson ‘19 writes in about Charles Murray’s 3/2 talk.
(12/08/16 5:11pm)
Panther Athletics Middlebury College has made unprecedented efforts to develop a more diverse student body in recent years and those efforts are highlighted by the many faces in classrooms, dining halls and on campus in general, especially in the last ten years. The numbers have soared and the College continues to build its resume of racial diversity. T
his year, the general student body has a total of 2,532 students and of that number, 24 percent identified as a U.S. person of color, which is 628 students who identify as American-Indian, Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino or Mixed. Ten years ago, there were 2,455 students in the general body and of that number, only 361 students identified as a U.S. person of color, a mere 14 percent.
Despite these advances, the College’s athletic program has not reached nearly the same levels of diversification. In an effort to better understand how membership on sports teams where diversity is low shapes the lives of players, the Campus interviewed several student-athletes of color about their experiences on their team and at the College.
Athletes at the College are often balancing a number of different social spheres: their team, who they interact with generally on a daily basis; those involved in their academic commitments; and those friends they have outside of either of these. For athletes of color, another sphere exists: relationships with non-athlete students of color.
The following accounts come from students with different backgrounds and a variety of experiences before coming to the College. However, each decided to apply and for that reason, each shares a similar appreciation for and commitment to the College.
The Experience
“One of the places we’ve achieved great diversity is through prep schools; like Middlebury, they are investing and changing with the times,” Dean of Admissions Greg Buckles said. Many private schools, including boarding schools and Catholic schools, send their athletes of color to colleges such as Middlebury.
Many athletes of color, especially those from these top-ranked high schools, come to the College to succeed both academically and athletically, regardless of a lack of diversity on the sports teams.
Diego Meritus ’19, who identifies as African American and is a running back for the football team, described coming to the College despite the lack of diversity as almost a no-brainer.
“I chose to attend Middlebury because the opportunities this school has to offer outweighed any other factor,” Meritus said. “I would have regretted the decision to turn down four years at a top-ranked liberal arts school and the potential doors it could open for me.”
Meritus was not shocked after his arrival on campus, because he had grown accustomed to the majority-white campus and locker rooms at his high school.
“Coming from a private catholic high school in Massachusetts, the dynamic with regards to diversity was very similar to Middlebury. There were very few minorities and students of color in comparison to the general student body,” Meritus said. “At times this situation presents challenges for me, but being exposed to this phenomena early on, I was prepared for what was to come at Middlebury. At the same time, just because I am used to being a minority does not mean I am content with the lack of representation of students of color in the student body.”
Jourdon Delerme-Brown ’20, who plays alongside Meritus on the football team, identifies as AfricanAmerican of Jamaican and Haitian descent and attended a private school in Greenwich, Conn. Delerme-Brown, like Meritus, said that the opportunities that come with a degree from Middlebury College far outweigh a lack of diversity. He said his time here at the College so far reminds him of his high school.
“It’s virtually the same dynamic here compared to Brunswick, with respect to diversity,” Delerme-Brown said. “In the past, I’ve learned how to find solidarity between myself and other students of color, while not secluding myself from making friends and being around people who do not share my same ethnic background. This was a crucial lesson before coming to Middlebury because in college, no one will coach you to branch out, you have to take those steps on your own.”
Like Meritus and Delerme-Brown, Griffin Price ’20, who also identifies as African-American, has constantly found himself as the minority on his soccer teams. He said that it is sometimes a challenge, however “you learn that getting along in the locker room is crucial if you want to succeed out on the field. Sometimes you have to ignore the outside noise and come together as a group.” Price, a first-year goalkeeper for the men’s soccer team, attended the Westminster School, a private boarding school in Simsbury, Conn. He and his brother were the only two students of color on the predominately-white team and by his senior year, his brother having graduated, he was the only one.
“I thought about going to a historically Black college or university (HBCU) like Howard and exploring that type of learning experience in an environment dominated by African Americans. But ultimately I fell in love with what Middlebury had to offer,” Price said. “I had never had it easy in my life when it came to race, especially in my sport. Similar to a quarterback in football, the goalkeeper position is typically dominated by white athletes, so I am used to being an anomaly in a sport dominated by white privilege.”
Meritus, Delerme-Brown and Price have all had previous experiences in a predominately-white environments that have helped them transition smoothly from high school to college.
Alex Huffman ’19 and Olivia Bravo ’20 are two students of color who attended public high schools but, like their peers who came from private high s c h o o l s , t h e y had experiences that prepared them for the predominantly-white culture of the College’s athletic department.
Huffman, who identifies as African-American and half-Caucasian, is a guard on the women’s basketball team and went to a charter public school in Massachusetts. Her school furnished the opportunity to attend a camp in Colchester, VT, every summer between ages 11 and 17. Here, she met people who attended Middlebury and surrounded herself with people aware of the College’s academic and athletic esteem.
“I was not shocked at the lack of diversity on the women’s basketball team,” Huffman said. “Throughout my life, the teams I’ve been on, whether it was basketball or soccer, have been predominantly white. There have been few exceptions, but for the most part, being one of few persons of color is normal for me.”
In addition, Huffman spoke of how her bi-racial upbringing helped her maneuver the environment she has encountered at the College.
“Under the conditions of my parents and growing up with two different cultures, I feel that I’ve gotten more experienced at weaving in and out of the two worlds,” she said. “Some people are just learning that when they come here. All of my cross-cultural experiences have proven that my bi-racial identity is not a burden.”
Bravo, who is of Mexican descent and a freshman on the softball team, attended a public high school in northern Virginia. Bravo also recognized the academic and career benefits of coming to Middlebury as opposed to another liberal-arts school. In Bravo’s case, she too experienced an environment dominated by white culture.
“The public high school I attended was in one of the most affluent areas in northern Virginia and there was very little diversity there,” Bravo said. “So the lack of diversity here at Middlebury was not surprising or upsetting. When I applied I knew of the lack of diversity and was prepared to be in the same environment I had been in for most of my life.”
When applying to the College, Meritus, Huffman, Bravo, Price and Delerme-Brown were all prepared for the lack of diversity they would face on their teams. But not all athletes of color experience the same easy transition.
Another Look
Chellsa Ferdinand ’20, a first-year on the volleyball team who self-identifies as an African-American, and Emilio Ovalles-Misterman ’19, a former football player who identifies as Dominican and Caucasian are two athletes of color whose experiences have differed from their peers.
Ferdinand attended Brooklyn Technical High School — a public high school in Brooklyn, New York, with 5,500 students. There, most students were of Asian descent, however a significant portion of those students identified as African-American and/or as a person of color, she said. Ferdi - nand is also a member of the POSSE program, which is a college access and youth development program that identifies, recruits and selects students from public high schools and sends groups of these students to top universities and colleges across the country.
Throughout high school, Ferdinand was surrounded by people of similar experiences of growing up in the urban metropolis of New York. Within her POSSE group, she found solace with friends who not only shared her skin color but the experiences that have come along with it. Now at the College, she struggles to find the people who have had the same experiences as her and can truly understand the differences she’s faced throughout her career.
“Students of color often exist in two communities, one where they lend themselves to assimilating to those around them and another where they can be their true cultural selves,” Ferdinand said. “You have to constantly be aware of things you say and who you say them to. I think many athletes of color have to battle with those two worlds in this predominately-white school.”
She went on to articulate her experience of being the only of person of color on the volleyball team both in high school and in college and the difference in camaraderie among her teammates then and now.
“Being the only Black person on the team is a weird experience, but I’ve known it before,” she said. “On my high school team I was the only Black student, but looking back it didn’t feel like that, and I think in part that had to do with the fact that those girls were used to being around other students of color all the time. At Middlebury, it is not the same. On one hand, I love my team so much. I am able to share jokes, bond with them and train with them all the time. But on the other hand, my teammates share something that I do not: being white.”
Ovalles-Misterman attended St. Francis High School for four years, a private catholic high school with a graduating class of less than 10 people of color out of 120 students. However, after missing his junior year of football due to a severe tear in his patellar tendons, he opted to take a post-graduate fifth year of high school at Phillips Academy Andover in Massachusetts. It was at this prestigious boarding school that Ovalles-Misterman first learned about the College.
“Prior to Andover, I didn’t know a single thing about Middlebury or any other prestigious universities outside of the Ivy League and Patriot League schools, and I only [found out] about them because there were a few kids that ended up going to those places,” he said. “I was never made aware of these schools at St. Francis, partially because I only thought about football and partially because my counselors only tried to sell local schools to me despite the fact I had grades to go further.”
It was his time at Andover that ultimately led Ovalles-Misterman to seek out the College. However, he struggled to see the College as the place he truly wanted to be and as he spoke of his experience, the uncertainty of the College’s white-dominated environment came forth.
“Middlebury wasn’t my favorite place when I came to visit — it was cold, in the middle of nowhere and I don’t think I saw one person of color the entire time I visited, which really scared me,” he said. “The thought I could be going to an institution that was whiter than the places that I had come from was pretty daunting. But fast forwarding, my decision to come to Middlebury was mainly dependent on my financial aid package.”
Ovalles-Misterman’s experience with the football team parallels Ferdinand’s sentiments toward her team and the difficulty that arises in dealing with a team that is predominantly white.
“I don’t in any way regret playing ball at Middlebury and I am forever grateful to the staff and to the team because I knew they would always have my back. I always have a lot of love for those guys, ” Ovalles-Misterman said. “But the thing that affected me about the lack of color was the team culture was dominated by whiteness — it was a different vibe and I found it difficult to find my niche within the team. It just wasn’t a place I felt like I could go to forget about all my other issues.”
Limitations to Diversity
A op-ed piece published in the Campus last February titled “Deconstructing College Athletics,” explored how the NESCAC has limited coaches who try to recruit students to certain forms of communication, setting budget reservations for travel and lodging expenses and setting an extremely high bar for academic standings.
These policies, which aim to ensure academics take precedence before athletics, are a major factor in consistently homogenous sports teams. The majority of students of color who come to the College to play sports have either gone to a prep or private school where they have already adjusted to academic life where they are in the minority, or they have learned of the College through a leadership program such as POSSE. For students without a prestigious high school experience or the support of a leadership program, the culture at the College can come as a shock.
Although the Admissions office is able to pick and choose students based on a number of factors, the Athletics department is prevented by NESCAC policy from approaching potential student athletes who might not otherwise apply to the College, as is common practice in sports recruiting in other divisions across the country.
“At a NESCAC level, we’ve had diversity task forces working for the past ten years that I have been here,” Director of Athletics Erin Quinn said. “However, as a conference we have struggled over the years to balance the core principles of the NESCAC with the need for greater diversity among our teams.”
The NESAC mandates that a coach cannot come up to any player, without previously being contacted first, and pitch the College to them. This puts the College’s diversity initiatives at odds with the goals of the admissions office because of the lack of information that many students of color have regarding the College.
Buckles also noted the problems of the NESCAC policies that hinder the College’s ability to truly diversify their athletics, while the numbers of the general student body have gone up.
“If you look back historically, athletics have provided a very significant portion of the number of students of color represented at the college,” Buckles said. “Now the numbers have flipped as the College has made great structures in the general student body, but athletically, the numbers have not kept up.”
Chief Diversity Officer Miguel Fernandez spoke of the struggles of expanding diversity initiatives when NESCAC recruiting politics are so strict. “Our coaches recognized the lack of diversity and tried to work on it, but the numbers don’t show it,” he said. “The limitations put on NESCAC teams with respect to recruiting makes it very difficult to reach out to athletes who are not aware of NESCAC schools.” Many of the athletes of color that are recruited to Middlebury often enter without the help of a leadership or mentoring program such as Prep-for-Prep, Jack & Jill or POSSE. Often, those students who have the benefit of being a POSSE member and an athlete form tight bonds that their peers miss out on. Fernandez explained how administrators viewed the phenomenon of athletes of color and how the NESCAC has increasingly shaped one kind of athlete of color to come to Middlebury.
“The athletes we recruit have been at predominantly white high schools. They have kind of been through this before — not to say that it eliminates all problems — but they have lived through it and they know what they are up against. It is not a shock when they get here,” Fernandez said. “On the other hand, when we get the rare student of color who comes to one of the College’s teams from a predominately minority school, we, as administrators, are really just shocked.” Moving forward Each minority athlete who was interviewed agreed that an environment with more people of color teaches people how to interact with different cultures and is a positive experience, not only throughout the athletics program but also in the general student body. Ferdinand says her experience has been pleasant but, “Middlebury is just not as diverse as it says it is. There needs to be more students of color, plain and simple. Without having a group here such as POSSE or even your sports team, it is definitely more difficult to find your place here.”
Delerme-Brown also agreed with Ferdinand’s sentiments and reflected on what a more diverse Middlebury would look like. He said that an increase in culture can positively affect the experiences of others around him and hopes that the College notes the importance of expanding their diversity initiatives.
“Personally, I would never say no to more students of color, period,” Delerme-Brown said. “From an athletic standpoint, a more diverse locker room can be an improvement for everyone on the team. By having more people of color other students and fellow athletes can become more cultured, which is something I find important and somewhat of an unappreciated gift. Let’s bring more culture and diversity to our teams and to our school because we can bring new levels of ideas and experiences.”
Price also expressed his thoughts about the benefits of engaging with more people of color. He respects the challenges that any person of color has to face in college and in the real world, especially a person of color who is also an athlete. Price wants to see more of those people come to the College.
“Making an effort to attract and accept more students of color, not just athletes, benefits those students but also benefits our student body as a whole,” Price said. “What is unique about being a student-athlete is that you are expected to uphold the same academic standards as your peers while participating in our sports. When a minority applicant shows that level of determination to fight against the inherent inequalities that persist in their daily lives, to work hard not only in the classroom but on the sports field, it should be accepted that those people have what it takes to survive at Middlebury and we need more of those people here.”
(03/03/16 12:03am)
In the mind of bandleader Michael League, Snarky Puppy was born out of a passion for jazz. League studied the form and started the band of like-minded musicians at the University of North Texas. The band later transplanted to a base of operations in Brooklyn, N. Y., and has grown in both members and musical dynamism since its debut album in 2006. Lovingly known as “the Fam” to their fans as well as to one another, the rotating 24 plus member group consistently charts unprecedented pathways through funk, with welcome detours into jazz, soul and every turn of music they can handle.
Recorded live, as most of their albums are, in New Orleans, Family Dinner Vol. 2 is a direct descendant of the group’s 2013 album Family Dinner Vol. 1. Assembling a flock of virtuosic musicians and performers, League and company deliver a genre-defying set of music that incorporates both original pieces written by “the Fam” and their guests, as well as inventive takes on already recorded music brought to the table by the visiting performers. Family Dinner is an apt name for the album, for it has the feel of a meal prepared by many hands that somehow manages to hit each distinct flavor of music without spoiling your appetite for the next course.
The album begins with “I Asked,” which features American folk and jazz singer Becca Stevens, as well as members of the Swedish folk band Väsen. It begins as a chiefly acoustic track that features Stevens’ voice, but after four minutes it evolves into an atmospheric bit of prog rock, with a sparse electronic and percussive instrumentation overlaid with vocals that border on chants. It is arguably the weakest installment on the album, but if nothing else it reinforces the risk-taking tendencies of a group that is willing to do anything, as long as they have never done it before.
Latin rock and salsa infused “Molino Molero” follows this up, and with guest turns by legendary singer-songwriter Susana Baca and guitarist Charlie Hunter, the song is infectiously good-natured. Baca’s voice is perfectly backed by the instrumentalists, and when she cedes the floor to Hunter the arrangement puts his playing on full display. Hunter dances through a nearly two-minute solo that feels right out of any of Carlos Santana’s best work, which crescendos to bring back Baca and the rest of the band for the end of the song. It works as an ideal segway into the upbeat tone of the majority of the album.
With another 180-degree twist, “Liquid Love” is an overhauling of guest singer Chris Turner’s soulful rocker. “The Fam” gives center stage to Turner and his back-up singers, but also serves as a proper introduction to the stellar horns sections Snarky Puppy is blessed with. Turner turns in a vocal performance that is dripping with sultry tone, and even though the song goes on a bit too long when all is said and done, the song builds well on the energy and fun of “Molino Molero.”
Not content to settle into soul and stay there, “Soro (Afriki)” provides a dramatic shift in tone from the closing notes of “Liquid Love.” It features guest vocals from Salif Keita, a singer-songwriter from Mali known as “the Golden Voice of Africa,” as well as solos from South American musicians Bernardo Aguiar on drums, and Carlos Malta on flute. Snarky Puppy delves further into the world music genre. It opens with Malta’s solo, and gives way to Keita and a contingent of back-up singers who blend traditional African music with the jazz provided by “the Fam.” The piece as a whole possesses a highly cinematic quality. It moves through different tones and modes in a narrative fashion, presenting distinct segments of sound that would not be out of place backing a Quentin Tarantino movie.
“Sing to the Moon” harkens back to the soul of “Liquid Love,” but while Turner focused on a sexy soul, Laura Mvula, who here provides a powerhouse vocal on a reinterpretation of her song, settles into a slow build performance that is haunting in its beauty. As the song progresses, it builds from minimal instrumentation that evokes the quiet moonlit that Mvula sings of, and bursts forth into a passionate crescendo with all hands on deck. It is easily a highlight of the album that shows how much can be done with so little when a song is in the hands of master craft musicians.
The last three songs of the album, “Don’t You Know,” “I Remember” and “Somebody Home” are a trio of pieces that bring the musical works full circle. “Don’t You Know” features English prodigy Jacob Collier on a piano part that ebbs back and forth equal parts Duke Ellington and Maurice Ravel. “I Remember” sees American electronic duo KNOWER channeling their inner Michael Jackson with saxophonist Jeff Coffin bringing out the best in the horns section with his animated playing. After these two pieces centered on crackling performances of pure musical energy and camaraderie, “Somebody Home” revisits the folk introduced on the first track, but this time in a much quieter fashion celebrating a man who has been in the business for decades: David Crosby.
“Somebody Home” is Crosby’s, and he takes a minute to introduce the song, joking with the audience and talking with the band. What follows is the most reserved performance on the album. Much of the song is solely Crosby on acoustic guitar. When Snarky Puppy does join, they do so with a tenderness that showcases their ability to go from bombastic to gentle seamlessly. While many bands may be tempted to send an album out on an energetic piece, “the Fam” sees an opportunity to slow down and enjoy a performance with another legend.
As a whole piece of art, Family Dinner Vol. 2 displays a group that celebrates musicians of the past and future that all bring a distinct and celebratory tone of creation to a group devoted to the exploration of the craft. The sprawling instrumental sections may not be the most accessible music on the market, but for those who will take the time to sink into it, there are many rewarding moments.
(01/28/16 12:59am)
Just as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men playing company once toured England over 400 years ago to perform the plays of William Shakespeare, the First Folios of the man regarded as the most influential writer of the English language are about to embark on a grand tour of their own. As part of this yearlong, nation-wide tour, one of them will pause for display at the Middlebury College Museum of Art from Feb. 2 to 28 in the exhibit “First Folio! The Book that Gave us Shakespeare, on Tour from the Folger Shakespeare Library.”
Shakespeare’s First Folio, published in 1623 – seven years after his death – is, to our knowledge, the first book ever to record the complete collection of his plays. Of the 750 editions published, an estimated 233 survive. 82 of these are held in a special vault at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C., according to the Folger website. It is the largest collection of First Folios in the world.
This year, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, the Folger Library is taking 18 of its editions out of the vault for public viewing. A copy will pass through each of the 50 states of the US, as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. Middlebury College will serve as the only host site in Vermont.
While the application process to be a host site involved countless people collaborating over the course of a year — notably, community partners, the Ilsley Library, the Town Hall Theater and the Vermont Humanities Council — two figures on campus were particularly involved: Professor of English and American Literatures Timothy Billings, who wrote the grant application, and the Director of Special Collections, Rebekah Irwin, who coordinated logistical and event planning.
Billings admits to being “in love with Shakespeare for over 40 years.” His admiration began from a viewing of Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, which he saw with his mother at the age of six or seven. Growing up, his parents regularly took him to Shakespeare productions, often at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival at the Angus Bowmer Theater in Seattle, which Billings’s architect father helped design. Billings went on to study Shakespeare during and after college, and got the rare chance to see Folger’s collection of First Folios during a summer fellowship.
“There’s a special vault inside the vault — which is where the very, very precious things are held,” Billings said. “Most researchers never get to see that. They lay them on their sides because setting them upright puts pressure on the bindings, so the safest way is to have them all horizontal on each shelf. You see all these bindings, all different, some of them are gorgeous and ornate, some of them are really just dark and simple. All 82 of them. It’s a stunning thing to see.”
Each First Folio is unique, both in its binding and its interior, due to the printing and publishing practices of the time each was made. Billings explained that in Shakespeare’s time vendors sold books as interiors; the customer would buy the pages of one or several texts sewn together and take them to a binder, who would then create a cover for the pages, as simple or ornate as the customer could afford. Because of the stop-press correction process used by printers at the time, each Folio contains pages with features exclusive to that version.
“And so the particular one that we get has its own history and carries with it the lives — in this very tangential way, this kind of aura of the lives — it has touched along the way,” Billings said.
Irwin shared that paper produced for the Folios further distinguishes the editions and their histories. “Paper during that time and the early renaissance was made using rags. Rag pickers was a medieval term for the very poor members of a social class who would gather rags and those rags would be made into paper. So the paper from books that are really old is actually quite beautiful and in very good condition compared to the paper that was made, let’s say, in the 1870s. The paper that the First Folio’s made out of is beautiful paper and in wonderful shape,” said Irwin.
While each Folio boasts its own physical features and personal history, all of them together have contributed to the legacy of Shakespeare. Each Folio contains 36 plays. Of those, 18, including Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night and even Macbeth had never been formally recorded and would have been lost had they not been printed in the Folios. The fact that the Folios were published at all, and preserved so well, has also played a role in forming Shakespeare’s place as an emblem of Western culture.
And then there is the unspoken, obvious reason why the Folios are so valuable: the stories inside are really, really good. “Even when I re-read Shakespeare I’m continually taken aback and even surprised at how good some parts are,” Billings said. “Just when I’m starting to feel blasé with overfamiliarity something smacks me, and I think, ‘This is just so damn good!’”
Because of the rarity and value of these Folios, security and safety are major priorities during this tour. Not even Irwin, who has coordinated so much of the project, knows how the book is getting to Middlebury or where it is coming from. She asked. They haven’t told her. According to Irwin, it’s coming in a sensitive, specially made box, equipped with temperature, light and humidity controls.
Once on campus, the Folio will remain in the box for about 12 hours before being handled. The museum will maintain proper temperature and light conditions, as well as humidity levels right at 50 percent, ideal for book preservation.
“Paper is like skin,” Irwin said. “Our conservation manager will often say that all of our books are organic, and they’re dying, rotting, like anything else. And so we just do everything that we can to slow the decay process. With this special book, we have to not just slow the process, but try to get as close to stopping it as we can.”
She added, “For every day that a book is kept in bad conditions, it reduces the life cycle by years. There have been scientific equations that can show that the paper will degrade faster for every temperature degree below its ideal set-point.”
The exhibit taking place at the Museum will include multi-panel displays provided by the Folger Library, in addition to digital content and activities. “The scholars at the Folger are first rate, so the material we’re getting from them is going to be superb, I have no doubt,” Billings said.
The College has collaborated with the greater Vermont community to provide as much free programming to as much of the public as possible surrounding the Folio, including visiting and resident speakers, workshops, theater performances, film screenings, a folio festival featuring live Renaissance music and more.
While none of us will ever know what it was like to hear Hamlet’s famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy from the mouth of Richard Burbage, who played him in the work’s original productions on the Elizabethan stage, the upcoming exhibit will give college students and Vermonters alike the rare chance to read the words of that very speech on a page almost as old as Burbage himself. It’s the closest thing to time travel we’ve got.
