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(10/31/12 8:38pm)
The outspoken and oft-controversial University of Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma made headlines again last week advocating that the NCAA should lower the rims in women’s college basketball in order to make the game more popular. Auriemma’s comments created a firestorm of responses on both sides of the issue ranging from open support to fiery opposition that went as far as to call his comments sexist.
Auriemma argued that his idea is consistent with other discrepancies in men’s and women’s sports. The net in women’s volleyball is shorter than the net in the men’s game; tee boxes in women’s golf are closer to the hole; and the women’s basketball is smaller and lighter than the men’s ball. Auriemma also cited the difference in height between the average men’s player and the average women’s player, which he estimated to be about six inches. Mustering all the political skill he could, the winningest male coach in women’s basketball suggested that the rims should be lowered 7.2 inches in honor of Title IX, which was passed in 1972 and is celebrating its 40th anniversary.
While Auriemma can use whatever rhetoric he wishes, many, including junior guard Sarah Marcus ’14, believe that lowering the rims would hurt the women’s game.
“Trying to popularize a sport to the degree of its male counterpart would perpetuate the male-dominated power structure that exists within society,” said Marcus. “By lowering the rims, the NCAA would be telling women that men are inherently better at the sport.”
“To [improve] the level of play in women’s basketball we need not further the separation that exists between the men’s and women’s game, but rather encourage a union between the two games,” she continued. “The women’s game will only get more exciting when girls become less afraid to play basketball with the guys, not when it is made more difficult.”
Perhaps it is impossible to look beyond the immediate juxtaposition between men’s and women’s basketball, but I believe that Auriemma’s suggestion has merit. Pushing aside, for a moment, the differences between women’s and men’s abilities — an argument certain to draw strong, polarized views — Auriemma’s is most convincing when you look at women’s basketball through the lens of sports in America more broadly.
Athletics, college and professional, men’s and women’s, is about making money. And in the 21st century, the demand for more scoring and greater pace of play has driven every league in the United States to change the way the game is played and officiated.
Long before player safety became one of the NFL’s top priorities, the league rewrote the rulebook limiting what is considered legal contact, thereby incentivizing more passing and ultimately creating the up-tempo, high-scoring game we watch today. In the MLB, multiple teams have opted to move their fences closer to home plate, heeding the cries of fans and players who want to see more runs scored and fewer pitching duels — once considered the pinnacle of the sport. The emphasis on allowing greater scoring is most blatant in the NBA where defenders are not allowed to spend three straight seconds in the key, traveling is like an infomercial — often seen, but rarely called — and the continuation rule allows players to make “and-one” plays seconds after the foul takes place. Even college basketball has followed suit. Last year the NCAA implemented the cylinder area underneath the basket, outlining where players are restricted from taking charges — a rule dissuading good help defense and encouraging more NBA-style finishes.
Auriemma’s idea, therefore, should not be dismissed summarily because it creates a greater distinction between the men’s and women’s game. If Auriemma’s idea is struck down, it should be on the basis that it would drastically alter the shooting mechanics of women players — something that Marcus noted as well — or because having different sized hoops for men and women is infeasible.
I cannot agree, however, that different sized hoops creates greater gender inequality.We will achieve total gender equality not when we eliminate the differences between genders, but rather when we fully understand and accept those differences. Arguing for lower rims is no more an indictment of women than calling for smaller ballpark dimensions is of men. Auriemma’s idea should be considered on its merits, not dismissed on its assumptions.
Written by DAMON HATHEWAY ’13.5, a sports editor of London, UK
(10/10/12 4:50pm)
On Sept. 17, the Middlebury Area Land Trust (MALT) hired a new executive director, Carl Robinson, to oversee all of the current and future projects in store for the organization.
The land trust was incorporated in 1987 with a mission to preserve green space in the town of Middlebury. Since then, they’ve expanded their reach to the surrounding towns and have preserved over 2,000 acres of land. In addition, MALT created and continues to maintain the well-used, 16-mile Trail Around Middlebury (TAM).
Just a few weeks ago, MALT held its ninth annual fundraiser “TAM trek” to raise money for ongoing repairs to the trail over the course of the next year.
One of the organizers for the event was intern Emma Loizeax ’13 who spent this past summer maintaining the MALT trails and working on a mapping project for the TAM.
“The TAM Trek was great — good turnout,” said Loizeax.
Loizeax noted with appreciation the sizable turnout of Middlebury students, representing a large portion of the 100 people who went.
“The entire women’s cross country team showed up, [which was] probably half of the number of people that were there,” said Loizeaux. “The Middlebury Mountain Club was [also] out there.”
President of the Mountain Club Tess Sneeringer ’14 said she really enjoyed the event.
“I guess my main take-away,” said Sneeringer, “was how much of a tradition the TAM Trek itself really is and how enthusiastic the organizers and long-time participants were.”
Looking ahead, Robinson said that MALT will do things a little differently to drum up even greater support and interest in the TAM Trek event.
“Next year’s going to be our 10th,” said Robinson, “and we’re going to try and bump that up a little bit. As far as the activities we do, we’re still having conversations about what [those] will be. If it will be more of a running event like a 5k or run the whole trail. We have some participants who do that now, but we [might] make it timed, [adding] a little bit of a competitive nature.”
In addition to maintaining the TAM, MALT is also working on a few other projects in conjunction with other state and national groups to provide green spaces and particularly trails as ways for people to get out and enjoy nature.
One of the big projects MALT has been working on is a new stretch of trail that will connect the TAM to the trailhead at Snake Mountain, providing hikers with access to the mountain’s trails and beyond.
“That trail has been laid out by a couple people,” said Robinson, “Emma [Loizeaux] and then John Derrick, who is our trail expert. They’re very excited to be working with the National Parks service, adding another ‘spur.’”
While this additional spur, or section of trail, will open up walking access to Snake Mountain for Middlebury hikers, the project also has a national scope as well.
“One project that we’re working on,” said Robinson, “is the North Country Trail. It’s a national scenic trail which currently goes from North Dakota and ends in Crown Point, N.Y. The national parks service is looking to continue that trail and connect it to the Appalachian Trail. It’s a pretty exciting project.”
Crown Point is a mere 15 miles away from Middlebury and the goal of the project is to build out the trail so that it extends through to Middlebury, joining with the TAM briefly, and then runs south to connect with other larger trails.
“The idea is,” added Loizeaux, “that you [can] hike from the Dakotas across the mid-west through New York state to Crown Point and then across … through Addison County to the Long Trail, then south on the Long Trail to the Appalachian Trail.”
Thus, the small five or six mile stretch between the TAM and Snake Mountain has become more significant in conjunction with these larger efforts.
“They’re just about to officially open the trail that I helped build this summer,” said Loizeaux. “We’ll be inaugurating that with a hike that I will be leading on Oct. 20.”
With reference to this project and others, Robinson expressed his happiness to be involved with a group organizing volunteers for public good, much like organizations he had worked with in Arizona before settling in Middlebury with his wife seven years ago.
“I’m happy to be part of MALT and doing a little more for the community,” said Robinson, as well as “being back into [a] volunteer organization to help enhance Middlebury.”
Back in Arizona where he earned his bachelors degree in parks and recreation, Robinson worked for groups like the Coconino County Parks and Recreation Department and the Flagstaff Biking Organization, bringing together volunteers to maintain, develop and appreciate trails and parks in that region.
After seven years of working part-time at different jobs in the area and providing primary care for his kids, Robinson felt ready to step into this larger role with MALT.
“It’s exciting,” said Robinson. “I’m glad to be part of the organization.”
For more information on the Oct. 20 unveiling of the new section of trail marked out by Loizeaux, call the MALT office at 802-388-1007.
(04/14/11 4:04am)
A native of Sydney, Australia, former resident of New York City, and current reverend at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Middlebury, Terence Gleeson is gearing up for his next big move: future Rector of All Saints in Palo Alto, Calif.
“Palo Alto is one of the most exciting and creative zip codes in the US and really in the world,” said Gleeson, who noted its connection to the high-tech industry of Silicon Valley, and to Stanford University, located within the parish.
Still, Gleeson finds it hard to leave Middlebury, as he has lived here since 2005 when he was elected rector of St. Stephen’s. For six years, he has worked hard to uphold the church’s outreach programs, “a very, very strong tradition here.” At the international level, the church works with an orphanage in Mexico, and with a group of parishioners also traveled on a mission trip three years ago to an orphanage in Honduras. Gleeson has kept in close contact with the organization and hopes the group will return next year to continue its charitable work. Last year, the church also donated clothing and diapers for 32 AIDS orphans in Zambia.
He also deeply values the St. Stephen’s local outreach programs. In 2010, the church provided nearly 3,400 pounds of food to local food shelves, prepared and served over 1,500 community lunches and volunteered at the Charter House shelter and HOPE food shelf, among numerous other endeavors. Every year, the church holds the Peasant Market, which takes place in July and is usually followed by the town’s Festival on the Green. It brings together parishioners and other community members who sell anything from clothing to books to household items in order to raise funds for charities in the state and abroad. Last year, the church raised $25,000.
Gleeson, who was ordained 30 years ago, can appreciate life in a small rural town particularly well, as he compares it to his experiences in New York City. Working as a priest in the city, Gleeson became involved with the not-for-profit agency PSCH (Professional Service Centers for the Handicapped), and he worked with developmentally disabled and mentally ill people. After being promoted numerous times, Gleeson found himself director of the agency, the fourth largest agency in the city. Throughout his years in various parishes in NY, Gleeson remained dedicated to charitable programs.
“The parish I was in had a major feeding program,” said Gleeson. “We do the same thing at St. Stephen’s, but obviously on a smaller scale.”
Gleeson said that another difference between working in New York City and in Middlebury was the relationship to the community.
“In a small town you are much more connected not only to your whole parish, but to your whole community,” he said. “There are just as many people from the community of Middlebury that are contacting us and wishing us well as [people from] our own parish.”
Still, Gleeson said that, “some things are always the same: you’re always preaching, you’re always celebrating sacraments, always visiting the sick.”
Another thing that has remained constant in Gleeson’s life has been his desire to become a priest.
“There was never really anything else I wanted to do,” he said. “It was easy. I did not have a huge drama, no great decision making.”
Gleeson spent a third of his priesthood in Australia, before he came to the U.S. about 20 years ago. He worked in parishes and served as University Chaplain for students at what is now called University of Wollongong. In addition to “celebrating liturgy on campus, leading bible study [and] being available for students for counseling,” Gleeson also received his graduate degree in education, “just for fun, to keep me busy.”
Having grown up in a Roman Catholic household, Gleeson was ordained a Catholic priest in Australia. He said that the switch to the Episcopal Church was relatively easy.
“They have almost identical liturgy and ceremonial aspects,” said Gleeson. “The faith is the same, but the role and use of authority is different.”
While undoubtedly excited for his new position in California, Gleeson and his partner, who got married in Vermont and adopted a daughter together, are finding it difficult to leave the Middlebury community.
“I will miss that human contact to people that I have grown to know and love, people that have been very encouraging and supportive and delightful,” he said.
The church’s connection to the College is clearly strong, as many parishioners are members of the faculty and staff, and John McCardell, president emeritus of the College, was a senior warden at St. Stephen’s before he became president of Sewanee, an Episcopal college in Tennessee. Similarly, Gleeson has fostered many valued relationships within the College community.
“For a small town it [Middlebury] has such a concentration of talent and creativity and intelligence. That is pretty amazing,” he said. “I had dinner with two New York Times best-selling authors last night, which is more unusual in N.Y.”
Not having grown up near mountains, Gleeson is also constantly amazed at “the sheer beauty of this state,” which he will miss dearly.
Still, Palo Alto offers an appealing next location.
“It has high energy, imagination and creativity,” said Gleeson. “And it doesn’t snow. For a boy from Sydney it does not get much better.”
(02/24/11 5:04am)
On Jan. 7, 2010, Vermont Yankee, a nuclear power plant located in Vernon, Vt., discovered tritium leaking from one of its groundwater monitoring wells. More than a year later, some, like Governor Peter Shumlin, hope the plant will shut down, as they believe it poses a risk to the state. Opposition remains fierce, however; a group led by Patricia O’Donnell, who represented Windham County, where the plant is located, as a member of the Vermont legislature for 12 years, maintains that Vermont Yankee is a vital necessity. O’Donnell’s group works to inform Vermonters about the realities of the situation.
Rachel Pagano ’11 and Dunja Jovici ’13, presidents of College Republicans, coordinated with O’Donnell, who has already appeared on four access television programs and spoken at seven different forums across the state, to organize her visit to the College on Feb. 17.
“My goal is to make people know the truth,” said O’Donnell. “People need to make decisions based on fact and not fiction.”
After the initial detection of tritium, a form of radioactive hydrogen, Vermont Yankee began investigations on Jan. 11, 2010 before finding on Feb. 14, 2010 that two steam pipes in the advanced off-gas pipe tunnel were corroded. The pipes’ failing joints caused the leakage, and mud and cluttered waste that remained in the pipe also prevented movement of materials, like tritium, which then flowed out.
George Crowley, a member of O’Donnell’s coalition, is an employee at Vermont Yankee. He oversees industrial waste management, but calls himself the “chemistry computer geek” of the lot. The plant’s most recent reading of tritium was 1,200 picocuries. To put this figure into perspective and highlight how little tritium was actually found at the plant, Crowley said that an average banana has 2,100 picocuries. Luminescent exit signs often found in public settings may contain 15 curies, which is equivalent to 150 quadrillion picocuries.
Though the plant’s May 14, 2010 reading showed decreasing amounts of tritium, studies proved that the radioactive chemical was traveling west to east through the soil from Vermont Yankee into the Connecticut River. On May 29, 2010 another leak was detected, and in June the Vermont Department of Health began its own independent investigation, which is ongoing.
“All we are asking is to keep an open mind,” said O’Donnell.
The Vermont Department of Health’s published investigation from Feb. 14, 2011 stated that yet another leak was discovered between wells GZ-24S and GZ-6, but Vermont Yankee said the January 2010 tritium incident was worse than the recent leak. The study also found that the plant’s five underground pipes can only hold 1,000 gallons of water, so very little tritium leaked into the groundwater monitoring wells, while in 2010 about 75,000 gallons of groundwater were suspected of contamination. In addition, the groundwater moves through the soil at a rate of 20 to 30 feet per year, so it will take a considerable amount of time for the contamination to affect individuals. Nonetheless, all pipes will be retested with a hydrostatic pressure test, as the Health Department’s investigation found 11 of the 31 groundwater monitoring wells to test positively for tritium. The Nuclear Regulator Commission (NRC) has scheduled a review of the power plant in mid-April.
Vermont Yankee’s mission statement asserts that the power plant attempts to take full safety measures at all times: “We take pride in operating safely, it is the most important job we do. Vermont Yankee has a strong safety culture and a proven 38 year record of safe operations.”
Sheldon Shippie, a member of the plant’s operations crew who monitors the plant’s activity from a control room and operates the valves and pumps, went to school for 18 months before he was certified to work at Vermont Yankee.
“It’s an engineering degree in three months,” he said. “That is by far the easiest part, too. It ramps up from there.”
Every sixth week, Shippie is required to complete both a written and a simulator exam. He is trained for emergency situations and “off-normal” circumstances. If an individual fails the test, he or she is taken out of the plant and must go through 30 to 40 hours of remediation and retake the test.
“It is stressful, but it works,” said Shippie. “Safety is ingrained in how we do business.”
Lynn Dewald, who works in the plant’s non-radioactive department, addressing topics like drinking water, air pollution and sewage, shies away from using coal or gas energy, as they produce more environmental outputs than does nuclear energy.
Pagano agrees.
“Our dependence on oil is expensive, polluting and makes us dependent upon very fragile parts of the world,” she said. “I think nuclear power is one of the ways that America can combat all these problems in the future.”
Vermont Yankee also employs two full-time inspectors, equating to 7,000 additional hours of inspection per year. Larry Cummings, a Vermont Yankee management employee, said having the inspectors present at the plant parallels the experience of “driving with a state trooper.” He believes their presence makes the nuclear power industry the safest.
Of the 104 power plants in the U.S., Vermont Yankee consistently ranks in the top 10 percent for safety. It was also named number one in reliability for several months. However, after the plant was shut down for 570 days due to a pin-hole steam leak, it lost reliability and now is in the top 25 percent.
“We couldn’t quantify how bad the [pin-hole] leak was, but we found out we shouldn’t have shut down,” said Shippie. “It could have been fixed online, but we weren’t 100 percent sure. We had to take the safe route.”
A 2009 comprehensive reliability audit stated, “Vermont Yankee is operated reliably and can be a reliable station beyond its current operating license.” This report, however, was issued before the tritium leak.
O’Donnell also points to the economic losses that will result if the plant closes. Six hundred and fifty Vermonters will lose high-paying jobs. Another 650 area jobs will be lost, in addition to $100 million in economic benefits. Other companies like IMB in Chittenden, Vt. that employs 6,000 and General Electric in Rutland, Vt. have threatened to follow suit and close if Vermont Yankee is shut down. Vermont would also lose 80 percent of its state power generation capacity, thus disturbing the balanced New England Grid, an energy system between Vermont, New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
“There is predicted instability in Southern Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and possible brown-outs of electricity,” said Cummings.
It will cost $80 million to restructure the grid, which means Vermonters will pay more taxes, as well as face a 30 percent increase in their electricity bills.
“Vermont Yankee is good for Vermont, good for the consumer and good for the environment, but none of this would matter without safe operations,” said O’Donnell. “Without Vermont Yankee, our green footprint is gone.”
Shumlin is currently negotiating an energy partnership with Canada, but Crowley questions why Vermonters should send money to another country to support their workers and taxpayers.
“None of us are happy to have had this [the leak] happen,” said Dewald. “It was unfortunate, but handled expertly.”
The Vermont Department of Health and the NRC will continue investigating the leak and will make decisions about the plant’s future in the spring.
(02/17/11 5:01am)
Growing up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Assistant Professor of Economics Leticia Arroyo Abad experienced the vibrant culture of a city with 2,891,082 inhabitants.
Currently, she is enjoying a quieter environment as a professor in the Economics department at Middlebury.
It was the location of her upbringing, though, which first attracted Arroyo Abad to economics.
“Argentina is famous for defaulting on its debt almost every other year,” she said. “Growing up, there was high inflation. Argentina did not have coins as a part of its currency. When I traveled as a child, I realized that there were coins elsewhere. That caught my attention. It was this realization that made me start thinking about economics.”
Arroyo Abad pursued a degree in economics from Argentine Catholic University and, after graduating, chose to pursue a P.h.D in economics, focusing on Latin America.
First, though, she earned a degree in Latin American Studies from the University of Kansas.
“I chose to study Latin America before seeking my P.h.D because, at my university, there was really no such thing as the liberal arts,” Arroyo Abad said. “I realized that I knew a lot about economics, but I didn’t know enough about Latin America as a whole. I wanted to diversify my knowledge before beginning my P.h.D.”
After finishing her work at the University of Kansas, Arroyo Abad moved to California to work on her P.h.D at the University of California, at Davis (UC-Davis). There, she specialized in Latin American Economic History.
While working on her P.h.D, Arroyo Abad traveled extensively around Latin America to research economic conditions.
“Traveling opens your mind,” she said. “When I left Argentina to come to the United States, I learned so much. In an academic sense, I learned about the US economy. I could compare the economy of the US to the economy of Argentina. The more places I visited, the more comparisons I could make.
Through traveling in Latin America I learned to see divergent economic outcomes between countries with similar colonial beginnings.”
Upon graduating from UC-Davis in 2009, Arroyo Abad started teaching at Middlebury.
“I feel so lucky to have ended up here,” Arroyo Abad said. “I knew that I wanted to teach smart students, and the environment here is absolutely beautiful. My colleagues here are wonderful. Also, being a professor here allows me to conduct serious research, which is something I’ve always wanted to do.”
Her favorite part of teaching?
“Definitely not grading,” she said. “In seriousness though, I do really enjoy the moment when, as I’m explaining a difficult concept, I see the students begin to understand. The light bulbs in their heads go off.”
“I also like getting to know my students,” she continued. “Students at this school are very inquisitive, and they keep me on my toes. That’s something that’s different between here and UC-Davis. Here, students take an active part in their learning. They’re smart and they’re driven. They won’t accept mediocre answers.”
While she enjoys teaching each of her classes, Political Economy of Development, which she taught over Winter Term with Assistant Professor of Political Science Jessica Teets, has been her favorite thus far.
“It was a great experience,” Arroyo Abad said. “We will hopefully teach it again next spring.”
Her ideal course to teach, however, would be economic development of Latin America.
“I love economic history, and I hope to teach a course on it this fall,” she said.
As for a philosophy of teaching, Arroyo Abad thinks that developing one is a continual process.
“I’m constantly developing my teaching philosophy,” she said. “I want to challenge my students, and I want them to remember my course as something that made them think. Students should have to think outside of the box. I also want to get to know my students. I don’t just want to lecture at them. I think that that interaction is very important.”
Teaching is, for Arroyo Abad, a deeply rewarding experience.
“I wanted to teach because I want to make a difference. Here at Middlebury, I know I can contribute to this community,” she said. “Because I am both a minority and a woman, I feel that I have a different perspective from many people here.”
It is because of this that Arroyo Abad wants to work more closely with minority students on campus.
“I want to make more of a difference beyond the classroom. I’d love to see the Middlebury campus become more diverse.”
And as for her future, Arroyo Abad sees a continuation of the present.
“I want to be a professor forever,” she said. “I think that sometimes students forget that we professors are just human. We are doing this because we love it. We want to eliminate ignorance in our students. We’re passionate about creating individuals who are passionate about our subjects.
She continued, “I’ve tried other jobs in the past, and there’s nothing better than this. I love teaching and I love researching. This is absolutely where I want to be.”
(02/17/11 5:01am)
The discomfort of trudging through endless snow is tempered only by one important consideration: at least we didn’t have to shovel it.
Keeping the paths clear of snow and ice has occupied facilities this winter to a degree that Lanscape Supervisor Bob Cameron has not seen in his four years at his job.
“This is the worst I’ve seen since I’ve been around,” Cameron said. “We normally would do more tree pruning and dead-wooding and stuff like that [during the winter], but we have spent the majority of our time dealing with snow removal [this year].”
Assistant Director of Facilities Services Luther Tenny said in an e-mail that he estimated the school had already spent 30 percent more on snow removal than last year due to the harshness of the winter. The increased cost of this year’s maintenance results from the enormous amount of man-powered equipment needed to cope with a Vermont winter. At Middlebury there are 57 people now enlisted in the snow-removal crew and these members hail from every department in facilities, including but not limited to landscape, carpentry, plumbing, and custodial.
“These folks are fantastic, and they do a fantastic job of snow removal,” Cameron said. “If this year hasn’t proven that to everybody, then it’ll never get proven, because this has been a horrific year.”
Depending on whether or not an employee is part of a shovel crew, or operates a plow truck, sidewalk tractor, or some of the much larger equipment, they may arrive at Middlebury at 2, 4 or 6 a.m. during or after a snowstorm to begin clearing the way for students and faculty.
“An amazing amount of coordination [is required], not just for snow removal, but for everything,” Cameron said. “We watch the weather forecast constantly.”
In Vermont, most predicted snowstorms deliver snowfall, so when facilities sees a predicted storm, they plan to arrive at work the next day in the middle of the night. Even if the storm does not materialize, most of the 57 snow removal crew members will show up anyway, just in case.
Although the group has not found itself too overworked this year — even if workers come in at two in the morning, they still only work an eight-hour day, allowing them to go home by 10 a.m. — the manpower required for the clearing has still strained the department.
“We just do what we can,” Cameron said. “Sometimes we may not get out as quickly as we used to but we just don’t have the manpower.”
The pure physicality of the job has also made this winter a particularly exhausting one.
“[The job is] very physical,” Cameron said. “That’s why I have the utmost respect for these people, especially the shovellers. We’re fortunate not to have more injuries than we have had; it’s a physical challenge.”
Facilities has worked to improve the sidewalks this year by experimenting with the use of salt instead of sand. After the administration asked facilities to recommend a better way to clear paths last year, facilities did some reserach and ended up recommending something called “magic salt.” Magic salt is like regular salt, but has been sprayed with another product called Ice Ban, which is a liquid made from beer wasteproducts. Unlike regular salt, which breaks the bonds between the pavement and condensation, the Ice Ban helps magic salt prevent the bond between the ice and the sidewalks from forming in the first place. This magic salt has allowed facilities to cut the amount of salt they would have had to use this winter by a third. But there are drawbacks:
“Salt is better than sand but isn’t really good for the environment, especially when I consider my trees,” said Landscape Horticulturist Tim Parsons. “There is a real cost to trees with way excessive salt use.”
Parsons gave the example of the University of Vermont campus, where there are large patches of bare ground on each side of the pathways because of years of heavy salt use. Middlebury facilities, which has always used sand and thus has been able to maintain healthier grass, hopes that the reduced quantity of magic salt required will offset the negative effects of using the salt.
The use of salt also has another important impact on facilities: it has reduced the need for manpower and machinery. Because sand does not stick in one place, it has to be reapplied constantly. With salt, fewer applications are necessary.
“We’re not using as much equipment time as we have been, which means less noise, less fumes, less carbon dioxide,” Parsons said.
Students have already had the opportunity to enjoy increasingly clear paths this winter, and facilities hopes salt will continue to be a mainstay in the future. Ultimately, it is the ability to coordinate and work together that has allowed the department to get through the extreme weather this year;
“We’re a pretty close-knit group,” Cameron said. “Things run pretty smoothly.”
(02/10/11 5:02am)
Watch Parks and Recreation. Seriously, do it. I know; you saw an episode in the first season and it wasn’t for you. Try again. Generally, in today’s age of serialized television, people feel the need to watch a show from its first episode to get to know the entire story, the character nuances, the inside jokes. This show is an exception to that; this is a very different show now then it was during its wavering infancy of season one. Were you put off because it was too similar to The Office and you were “over” cringe-comedy? Well Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope is trying to be Michael Scott no more. She is a far more positive character than that. If Michael is pathetic because he’s bumbling, malicious and self-centered, then Leslie is pathetic because she is selfless, over-qualified and over-committed. The takeaway point here is that Parks and Recreation has fast become my favorite show on NBC’s loaded Thursday night of comedy and now would be the perfect time to hop on the bandwagon.
Now three episodes in, season three is proving to be just as strong as season two was. You would be hard pressed to find a half-hour comedy that has had this strong of a run since Arrested Development season two; it’s that good. Already surrounded by an impressive supporting cast, Parks and Rec added TV veteran Rob Lowe and cult favorite Party Down star Adam Scott to the show this year as state auditors looking into the failing Pawnee Parks Department. Having only been in five episodes so far, the two have enmeshed themselves into Pawnee so well that it’s now hard to imagine the show without them in it. Additionally, some of deeper supporting characters have been given more to work with and have risen to the occasion, particularly Andy Dwyer, played brilliantly by Chris Pratt. Andy gives new meaning to “loveable idiot.” Not particularly intelligent or ambitious, but always happy and willing to try to help, the writers and Pratt have made it okay to like the simple guy. In stark contrast to the shows surrounding it where cool and likeable means disaffected (see: Liz Lemon, Jim Halpert, Jeff Winger), Parks and Rec has made it okay to root for the genuine and unironic.
Just being able to take such an interest in Andy, the 8th billed actor on the show, proves what good shape this show is in. The show has created such an interesting world for these talented comedic actors to play in that at this point I’d be willing to watch a full episode on almost any subplot they offer. Whether it be Aziz Ansari’s one-liners as Tom, Nick Offerman’s musings on manhood as Ron, Aubrey Plaza’s deadpan delivery of anything as April, or Rashida Jones’ constantly charming Ann, all of the show’s secondary characters and their actors prove to have more dimensions, comedic timing, and acting ability than their somewhat comparable counterparts in Scranton.
No show has ever done such a complete 180-degree turn in quality that to compare the current state of Parks and Rec to season one is like talking about another show. It’s a shame NBC bumped it from the fall lineup for the at best clichéd and at worst racist mess, Outsourced, but this just proves that if you don’t start watching now, you might miss your opportunity. Seriously, starting watching Parks and Rec tonight, knowing nothing about it; just turn it on. Do yourself that favor so in two years when it becomes the most popular show on DVD once it’s cancelled, you can say that you watched it when it was on. You won’t regret it. The future of this show relies on you, Campus reader. Thank you. Or should I say, you’re welcome.
More about Parks and Recreation:
Show Homepage at nbc.com
Highlights: Season 3 Premiere
Entertainment Weekly Review
(01/20/11 5:03am)
10) Menomena — Mines
Menomena’s third proper album is one of the year’s most underrated, and it finds the Portland trio really hitting their stride, marrying their patchwork experimentalism with great hooks and an overall newfound pop sensibility. This yields their most varied and accessible set of songs to date, one filled with a dark, textured sense of space and some striking pileups of baritone saxophone, thundering drums, tinkling piano and catchy melodies sung effectively by all three members of the group. It holds up especially well to repeated listens and reveals a deep sense of melancholy over time.
9) Deerhunter — Halcyon Digest
The fourth LP by Atlanta’s Deerhunter reaffirms them as one of our foremost synthesizers of countless disparate strains of underground music—punk, garage, shoegaze, ambient, art-rock, lo-fi bedroom pop—and generally one of the most innovative, exciting bands in the current indie landscape. Throughout this stunning record (arguably their best), angular rhythms collide with walls of shimmering guitar and the intimate, pensive aesthetic of frontman Bradford Cox’s work in his solo side project Atlas Sound. From the opening tremors of “Earthquake” to the abrupt ending to “He Would Have Laughed,” Halcyon Digest is a jaw-dropping aural experience.
8) Big Boi — Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
Anyone still wasting their time declaring “hip hop is dead” would have to be deaf or insane to keep saying so after 2010. The sheer disparity been all of 2010’s best hip-hop albums — Big Boi, Kanye, Drake, Rick Ross, Das Racist, The Roots, Curren$y, Yelawolf — is a pretty good argument against lumping all this music together under one umbrella anyway. Even amidst this population of eccentric and distinct personalities, Big Boi stood out as one of the most singular. On SLLF, a selection of fantastic, forward-looking beats is tied together by Big Boi’s bouncy, playful, flexible, and unflappably rhythmic flow.
7) The Radio Dept. — Clinging To A Scheme
The third album by this Swedish trio lacks the sweeping grandiosity of some of my other favorite albums from 2010, but it is nearly perfect in its concise, modest intimacy. As on their previous records, wistful Scandinavian pop is coated with a patina of perfectly-employed low fidelity haze. At its best, lo-fi recording doesn’t obscure the music so much as give it a tangible feeling of longing, nostalgia, melancholy — a sepia tint. The Radio Dept. are the purveyors of these feelings par excellence. Drum machines have never sounded so emotional.
6) Robyn — Body Talk
Some may argue that the line between indie darlings like Robyn and electro-pop megastars like Lady Gaga is very thin, or nonexistent. But however good a singles artist you think Gaga is, no one fills their album with as deep a bench of danceable pop as Robyn did this year on Body Talk. She expertly combines sterile, almost-too-perfect electro-pop beats with vocal performances that exhibit an astonishing range of emotional expressivity considering the catchy simplicity of the lyrics. Fembots have feelings too.
5) The National — High Violet
How often do you come across a band that releases albums as good as Alligator and Boxer, and then has the patience, integrity, and creative ambition to refine their aesthetic further and release an even better album? The National is one of those rare groups. Here, they take existential weariness, musical and cognitive dissonance, and the occasional bit of rage and wrap it all up in 11 ornate, majestic, sometimes-epic, always-eminently-listenable songs. Every track is distinct but they live together here in perfect harmony.
4) LCD Soundsystem — This Is Happening
With each album, James Murphy gets better at recombining both the sounds and the sentiments of rock and dance music past. On what may be the last LCD Soundsystem album, heart-wrenching songs (“All I Want,” “I Can Change,” “Home”) find their place alongside his trademark music-nerd rants (“You Wanted A Hit,” “Pow Pow”) and deceptive songs like “Dance Yrself Clean” and “Drunk Girls,” which masquerade as paeans to gettin’ yo stupid on but are desperate for emotional and romantic connection. Cramming so much human emotion into songs that move bodies so effectively made This some of the most rewarding music of the year.
3) Titus Andronicus — The Monitor
Is this a melodic hardcore record inflected with classic rock? Is it an indie rock record inflected with punk? Is it a punk record that infuses punk’s worst enemy, prog rock, into its structure, with its tempo-changing song-suites? Who cares! It’s the best rock ‘n roll record of 2010 — or maybe of 1977, your pick — and it couldn’t care less about “what it is.” They also use “Civil War concept album” as an excuse to throw in a bunch of surprisingly badass Lincoln quotes. If I sound oddly dismissive of the #3 record on my list, it’s because it feels sort of wrong to do a heady analysis of The Monitor, even though it’s positively bursting at the seams with stuff. Just throw it on the stereo, pound a Natty, and scream along with Patrick Stickles’ lovably pissed-off screeds.
2) Arcade Fire — The Suburbs
A lot of the people who hate on this record (and Arcade Fire in general) claim that it’s ham-fisted and preachy. But as Zach pointed out, Win Butler’s relationship with the suburbs is much more complex and nuanced than said haters would give him credit for. There’s a bit of that preachy stuff, but it’s mixed in with a whole lot of melancholy, nostalgia, hope, fear, defiance, regret, and fondness. Maybe I’m being hyperbolic, sue me, but I think when you really dig into the lyrics of this album, you’re presented with a whole range of human emotion — making the words perfectly suited to Arcade Fire’s trademark musical style, which has been incredibly exuberant and emotionally expressive from the get-go, mixing positive and negative feelings masterfully.
1) Kanye West — My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Move over, Mark Zuckerberg and Julian Assange: 2010 was the Year of Kanye West. He didn’t go to jail or have a movie made about him, but he dominated the press in my neck of the internet far more than any other entity. But that maelstrom of jabber all seemed distant and irrelevant once his most symphonic, jaw-dropping (and proving to be his least radio-friendly) album dropped. Few records have ever been met with the degree of universal acclaim that MBDTF has been, which means pretty much everything there is to say about it has been said. So I’ll just say this: if you haven’t heard it in full, go listen to it. From start to finish. And if you have and were left on the fence, go listen to it again. And again. And again.
(11/11/10 4:59am)
The Independent Scholar is a rare breed at Middlebury. Each is passionate about a specific field that does not fit within one of the established majors and therefore has opted to design his or her own. If this sounds like an easy way out of unappealing classes, do not be fooled — blazing one’s own academic trail is no small feat. Without the stability of an existing department, hopeful independent scholars are required to construct support systems of multiple academic advisors to help plan and execute complex programs of study. After an interview with the Dean of Curriculum, each proposal, which includes a list of courses, ideas for an independent senior project and “the aim of the program” (including potential post-graduation plans) must be presented to the Curriculum Committee for approval. According to the College Handbook, “A successful proposal must articulate a fully developed program of study, and will demonstrate compellingly that the student’s academic goals cannot be met through existing majors.” For the few determined students who successfully design majors of their own, the rewards are plentiful. Here, four students — two of whom have been approved as independent scholars and two still in the process — weigh in on what it is like to be four in 2,400.
April Dodd '13: Linguistics
When it comes to her self-designed major, April Dodd ’13 is determination, personified.
“Whatever it takes, I’m going to graduate with a Linguistics degree,” she said matter-of-factly in an interview.
Her journey began serendipitously, as she arrived at Middlebury intending to study Spanish and playwriting. In choosing to pick up French, she stumbled upon a fundamental self-discovery.
“I realized it wasn’t just the Spanish language that I loved,” she said. “It was learning languages.”
Meanwhile, despite her love of theater, she was not particularly drawn to the courses required for a theater major with a playwriting focus and so decided to explore other possibilities. In what she described as “kind of a fluke,” her roommate suggested that she explore interdepartmental courses, and it was there that she found Introduction to Romance Linguistics.
“It was one of those things where everyone else knew what I should be doing, but I didn’t,” she said.
She quickly found linguistics to be not only fascinating but also complementary with her passion for languages (which would soon include Russian as well). Once she expressed interest in the subject, she discovered more support than she had anticipated.
“A lot of language professors also have linguistics backgrounds,” she said. “Now they’re coming out of the woodwork.”
Still, as she works through the details of her proposal, “seeing the forest through the trees” is both an inspiration and a challenge.
“When I think about the fields, the careers, the doors that linguistics will open … I get so excited,” she said, “but right now it’s a matter of editing sentences to convince the committee to approve my proposal.”
Dodd believes that Middlebury’s emphasis on languages and studying abroad makes it the ideal setting for a linguistics department.
“The study of specific languages informs your knowledge of language as a concept, and the study of linguistics informs your speaking of languages,” she said. “While they’re not one and the same, they are so related.”
While a select few have pursued Linguistics majors at Middlebury, as with any Independent Scholar program, “it’s a little unnerving to not have a department,” Dodd said. “If we had a department, it would open it up to people.”
She was sure to avoid defining herself entirely by her current academic focus. “I’m a linguistics major, but I’m also a writer and a member of my family, and I want to keep being in plays,” she said.
“It’s hard to put all of that into a proposal.”
Her post-graduation plans — possibilities, rather — are appropriately diverse. Fields discussed included translation for nonprofit organizations, treatment of neurolinguistic disorders, comparative research in sociolinguistics and teaching English as a second language, for which she is already certified. Dodd’s current undertakings include a children’s book and a role in Marisol, which opens tonight.
“I want to be a linguistics major,” she said, “but — quoting poet Elizabeth Alexander — ‘many things are true at once.’”
Carlisle Overbey '11: War and Peace Studies
“When you look at all the conflict we have in the world, what are the causes and remedies?” It is a daunting question, to be sure, but it is also the reason Carlisle Overbey ’11 decided to design a War and Peace Studies major at Middlebury.
“My view is that if you understand conflict, you understand how to get peace,” she said.
Initially, Overbey anticipated a major in political science or international studies. Unfortunately, she said, “both disciplines really limited what I wanted to take.” She then began collaborating with professors to develop her own program of study.
The result was an exercise in versatility.
“When you take courses along a broad spectrum of disciplines, your writing style and learning style isn’t always going to match up with every course and professor, and it’s difficult at times to adjust,” she said.
Overbey feels strongly that such an interdisciplinary major could suit a vast array of students.
“There’s room for people who are interested in so many different things,” she said, comparing her “conflict-centered” approach to possible literary, economic and philosophical angles. During her time at Middlebury, she has noticed more and more student interest in the study of conflict and anticipates further enthusiasm for the major.
“To be the first one approved and to realize that there are all these seniors, juniors and [first-years] who are so interested — that gets me really excited,” she said.
After graduation, Overbey plans to go to law school, where she will study international and national security law. Her senior thesis focuses on the latter.
“My thesis is on pirates, the international legal framework surrounding pirates and how that ties into the conception of terrorists as illegal enemy combatants,” she said. She is particularly interested in how the U.S. has referenced pirates as part of the legal justification for the torturing of terrorists.
“My goal is to break that down,” she said. “It seems problematic to say that there are people who don’t have any rights.”
While she would love to see students follow in her footsteps, she reminds them that the Independent Scholar program is not to be approached casually.
“It’s not as easy as it seems on the surface,” she said. “I think that there’s a perception that Independent Scholars are taking the easy way out.”
On the contrary, “You have to take it really seriously…but if you’re passionate about something, that’s what you should be learning about.”
Bianca Giaever '12.5 : Narrative Studies
For Bianca Giaever ’12.5, stories are an indispensable part of life.
“I always knew I wanted to do journalism,” she said.
After gaining acceptance to a variety of colleges, some of which are especially known for strong journalism programs, she chose Middlebury for the liberal arts experience and soon found herself wandering down a unique academic path.
“I was constantly choosing classes that were very narrative-oriented,” she said; these courses, from Nature Writing to Cultural Geography, spanned several departments. Giaever pointed out the pervasiveness of narratives in the media as well as in the academic curriculum, citing podcasts and The Moth as examples.
“I think people really respond to stories,” she said.
She realized that what she truly wanted to study (and the way she wanted to study it) would require a great deal of extra initiative and began developing a proposal for a major in Narrative Studies.
“I couldn’t get it from any other department,” she said. “That’s why I could do it — because it was so interdisciplinary.”
Giaever warns anyone considering becoming an Independent Scholar that it requires an intense level of commitment.
“You’re going to have to jump through a lot of hoops, really want it and work hard,” she said. “Often the hardest part can be finding an advisor who can be there for you.”
However, positive relationships with her professors greatly aided the process.
“My professors knew me and knew that I was passionate about it,” she said.
Even after finding a support system and developing an academic plan, Giaever still experiences occasional bouts of uncertainty.
“It’s kind of scary having your own major, in a way,” she said. “I don’t know if I trust myself to take classes I’ll be happy I took later.”
With four full semesters left at Middlebury, Giaever’s career plans are understandably up in the air.
“[The major]’s been really useful,” she said. “Hopefully I can get paid for it later.”
Fortunately, the combination of a versatile focus and an open-minded attitude gives her a wide array of options.
“I’d do anything in journalism, radio, marketing,” she said. “Stories can be used for fundraising, raising awareness about causes … they can just be used for so much.”
She currently works for the Communications Office, which, as she said, “uses true stories for fundraising.” Despite the obstacles, Giaever is proud of her unique place in the academic community.
“It’s been kind of fun,” she said. “I like to refer to myself as the Narrative Studies department.”
Elias Alexander '12: Bardic Arts
If you had asked the high school version of Elias Alexander ’12 where he would be today, “majoring in Bardic Arts at Middlebury” would have been an unlikely answer. In fact, the Oregon native enrolled at Northwestern for his freshman year. Despite being “super dedicated” to theater, he soon realized that he wanted to broaden his academic pursuits. After a year of traveling in the United Kingdom, he came to Middlebury and began to consider a major in Environmental Science. Finally, however, “I managed to admit that I wanted to be a creative artist.” From his lifelong background in Scottish folk culture to his more recent travels, the major was a natural choice.
Alexander defines Bardic Arts as “the performance of myth and folk culture.” To elaborate, “it’s based on the ancient Irish triad of things that make a bard: playing the harp, knowledge of ancient lore and poetic power.”
Through the Independent Scholar program, he is constructing his own set of related courses in music, literature, anthropology, poetry and theater. Though he was initially discouraged from applying to be an Independent Scholar, his stubborn resolve eventually gained him the faculty support he needed.
“Once I indicated that I would do it no matter what, then they got behind it,” he said.
In order to take the opportunity seriously, he said, being passionate about a specific topic is crucial.
“You shouldn’t do it just because there’s no major that attracts you,” he said. “You should do it because you have a concept that you really want to explore.”
His homeschooling prepared him well for the initiative required for this undertaking.
“I was used to controlling my own education,” he said.
He is confident that the Independent Scholar opportunity will help him to maximize his “short, precious few years” at Middlebury.
“There are so many opportunities here. It’s amazing,” he said. “I want to use this time to take classes that will prepare me for what I want to do afterwards.”
Middlebury has already helped him to implement his passion in a real-world setting. Last spring, as one of four winners of the College’s Stonehenge Idea Competition, he was granted $3,000 to produce a performance of traditional folk tales and songs in his hometown. “Long Way Home: Traditional Stories and Songs of Our Ancestors and the Rogue Valley” allowed him to demonstrate the power of music in raising environmental awareness. The program finished with “Land on Shore,” a traditional American song with verses composed by Alexander.
And we’re coming home now…
We’re going to teach our children…
We’re gonna love this valley…
(11/10/10 10:31pm)
During his Ultraman Competition, a three-day event in Hawaii that includes a 6.2-mile swim, a 261.4-mile bike ride and a 52.4-mile run, Steve Hare listened to Yes, Rush, Def Leopard and Styx. Races like this are standard for Hare, who owns Vermont Sun Fitness Center with his wife Shelly. He continues to compete today, but warns that he does much of his training indoors because he will not run or bike outside if it is less than 45 degrees.
With about 1,300 members (and approximately 100 more at Vermont Sun’s new location in Vergennes), the Middlebury fitness center has been open since 1985. Hare and his brother Peter grew up in Philadelphia, and were raised in an active household. Their father was a coach during the school year and the owner and director of Keewaydin Camp on Lake Dunmore in the summer. Hare considered the camp his second home, and he and his wife actually met as counselors. Peter owns the camp today, which is affiliated with two others, Camp Songadeewin, also on Lake Dunmore, and Camp Temagami in Ontario, Canada. All three are tripping camps, and Hare used to take one “wilderness trip,” lasting as long as six weeks, each summer.
A Physical Education, Recreation and Heath major, Hare gradated from Florida Southern College before moving to San Diego in 1980. He began working for Jack LaLanne, a bodybuilder and fitness pro, and discovered his own passion for fitness and training. When he moved back to Vermont, he and Shelly opened Vermont Sun and operated out of a 1,000 square foot room before expanding the space in 1989.
“When we first opened, everyone was confused,” said Hare. “A fitness center in Middlebury, Vt. was a foreign concept.”
But Hare remained passionate about bringing his personal fitness ideals to others on the East coast, even if he calls California the “Mecca of triathlons.” Living on the West coast lured Hare into the world of swimming, biking and running competitions. While Shelly loves to workout, she tells her husband she is not a competitor, and even he says it is not as exciting to race anymore.
“My best time was about nine hours and 45 minutes,” said Hare of his Hawaiian Iron Man, a 2.4-mile swim and a 112-mile bike race, followed by a full marathon.
“My strength in triathlons was my lack of injuries,” said Hare, who may have cursed his luck.
Due to a hamstring injury, Hare has been running less frequently, but his favorite route, an eight-mile loop, weaves behind the College, past the horse farms and up Rt. 23.
Vermont Sun, situated at 812 Exchange Street, has 15 to 20 different instructors and six personal trainers. The teachers lead classes that include zumba, spinning, yoga, ballet, aqua aerobics and body pump, a new exercise involving barbells. Spinning workouts take place on the second-floor of Vermont Sun in a large open space. Hare said a curtain closes off the area, and aside from the string of Christmas lights above the mirror, there is no other light source, which Hare believes gives the room an “ambient feel.” He said a group of about 30 Middlebury students come to spinning class on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 5:30 to 6:30 and each gets gym credit for the class. The Middlebury women’s varsity hockey team has also been taking classes in preparation for the season.
“It gets spiced up when the college students come because they bring so much energy,” Hare said.
The fitness center actually runs its own triathlon, which started in 1986. In 1991, the event expanded, and now includes a sprint triathlon (a 600-yard swim, a 14-mile bike-ride and a threemile run) and an Olympic distance triathalon (a 0.9-mile swim, a 25-mile bike-ride and a 6.2 mile run). Hare also organizes a Half Ironman competition, but he thinks he is going to stop this particular event.
“People love us and they love the area, but this is not going to be a world-class triathlon competitor’s big race of the year, even though the route is so pretty,” he said.
The series attracts people from across New England, Canada, New York and some “odd balls” from Florida or California, who vacation here for the summer.
In addition to the fitness center and the multi-purpose room with a climbing wall and punching bags, Vermont Sun also has an Olympic-sized and a kiddie pool. There are racquetball courts, where many also play soccer, basketball and volleyball. In addition, there is a physical therapy center, childcare and men’s, women’s and family locker rooms. Air hockey, foosball and ping-pong tables are also available for all to use, as is the sun tan booth. Hare believes that tanning in moderation is fine. Massage appointments can also be made.
“I love coaching and being part of this community,” said Hare. “It’s great to come in here and have everyone know each other’s names.”
Hare feels strange “selling fitness” because he wants to help everyone, and it took him some time to understand that there was a business and managing part to the fitness world, too. Costs for student and adult membership, personal training sessions, day passes and classes can all be found online at the gym’s website at http://vermontsun.com.
“Family is a huge commitment around here,” said Hare. “[Vermont Sun] is like the YMCA because activities are fun for the whole community from grandparents to week-old babies.”
Hare, along with his wife and their three children, values the community concept and believes that it is why people make the decision to buy a gym membership over a treadmill for their basement.
“The members become your family,” he said.
(09/22/10 3:52am)
BUENOS AIRES — I seem to understand my host family a little better every day. Sometimes they come to me with English questions, and they have even asked me about things on eBay. I have been to some unforgettable places here in Argentina, and I’ve eaten at some stellar restaurants, but most of my favorite memories so far are of sitting around the TV with my family eating Chinese take-out and watching soccer highlights or the Simpsons dubbed in Spanish. (Side note: the Simpsons are very popular in Latin America.) And now, a couple of lists:
Things that are in Buenos Aires/Argentina that aren’t in Middlebury/the U.S.:
People standing on the corner handing out pamphlets/ads/sales, etc. And a surprising number of people take them and look, and drop them on the ground.
The light changes to yellow after the red light to warn you green is coming next. Still haven’t figured out the benefits to this.
Good money. I strictly mean the physical paper. Bills from the U.S. government stay crispy for longer. Most of the bills down here are crumply and ripped. I now appreciate crisp.
A love for mayonnaise. I mean a serious countrywide love affair. Everyone eats mayo with everything. Mayo and ketchup is simply known as “Salsa golf.”
Dog crap. Everywhere. All over the sidewalks. At least half of it has been stepped on a few times. On warmer days the smell just permeates. I don’t wear my white Nikes anymore.
Constant ’80s music. In taxis, clubs, bars, restaurants, and McDonalds. They simply love their ’80s here. Pop, rock, it doesn’t matter as long as it had great hair and spandex.
Mate. Argentines love their mate — a kind of tea. They drink it all the time. Mate is usually a social drink with its own ritual and etiquette.
Night owls. Most clubs don’t even open until 2 or 3 a.m. and late-night food places are packed after sunrise. Someone should suggest this to the Grille.
Empanadas. Delicious. Really good.
Cigarettes. It’s very different to be in a place where a large portion of the citizens regularly smoke.
Military time. Why? Not sure. The only good thing is that you don’t accidentally set your alarm for p.m. Otherwise it only confuses me.
Ham. See mayo and ’80s music.
Strikes. Almost every day, local students take over a street with loud drums, chants and signs. Bus drivers don’t even blink an eye as they go around them.
Things that aren’t in Buenos Aires:
Hot food. Mexican, Thai, you name it, they don’t like it. It took me a few weeks to find some “hot” sauce down here. For whatever reason, Argentines don’t like much spice in their food. It’s a shame.
Street signs. Okay not really true, but a lot of corners in Buenos Aires don’t have both street signs up which makes being lost so much worse.
Cold winters. But that doesn’t stop locals from dressing like it’s Vermont in January. I’m serious. Full-length down jackets, scarves, hats, mittens on 40 degree days. They just don’t get it.
XXX vitamin water. I could list foods I miss, but I don’t want to be that kid. I do love XXX though.
Lax bros. Thank God.
(03/18/10 4:59am)
Bob Buckeye has the memory one would expect of a trivia buff.
“Jimi Hendrix was the answer,” said Buckeye, remembering a correct response from a past trivia challenge.
The former College archivist, who moved to Middlebury in 1971, moonlighted as an avid member on his bar trivia team, “The End of The Road.” Bob and the team used to frequent Two Brothers Tavern for its Wednesday trivia night. He still remembers being asked which famous rock singer was a paratrooper, and immediately knowing the answer: Hendrix.
His interest in competitive trivia began about five years ago, when Buckeye was up late writing and, needing to see people and take a break from his work, he ventured to Two Brothers, despite the negative 15-degree temperature. Although he had never played and knew nothing of the game, Buckeye joined a team that night and since then has been hooked. Two Brothers no longer has a trivia night because teams have lost interest, but Buckeye is hosting a trivial pursuit fundraiser for HOPE, a poverty agency he is involved with, on April 26 at Two Brothers and he is encouraging college students to attend.
Buckeye accumulated a collection of trivia throughout a long and winding career path that began with his role as a professor in the 1960s. Buckeye taught contemporary American literature at the University of Connecticut, the University of Puerto Rico and Wayne State University in Michigan. After a few years of teaching, Buckeye came to a crossroads; he either needed to get his doctorate or he needed to begin teaching at the high school level. Instead, he received a library degree, and was hired by the College as an archivist.
With a responsibility to be aware of and to preserve the history of the school, Buckeye learned much about the College in his 32 years as archivist.
“I also ran a speaker series, the Abernethy Series,” he said. “I gave about 270 introductions.”
His series featured a wide array of individuals. Many had not attended college and had achieved success in other ways. Understanding that these individuals were not subjects the College would normally ask to speak, Buckeye maintained that his speakers each had an important voice to be heard.
Through his work as archivist and through the presentations of the speakers, Buckeye accumulated a wealth of knowledge. These connections to the College’s history and to the greater Middlebury community inspired him to start the Quarry Book Series. The writing highlights the lives of 10 Middlebury students or Vermont residents, and illustrates what it means to be a Vermonter. The College’s historical documents aided in his search for information.
“One of the books in the series is about Edwin James, who graduated from Middlebury in 1816,” Buckeye said. “James was a doctor, a botanist, a geologist and an Indian translator, and he was the first white man to climb Pike’s Peak.”
Outside the realm of Middlebury College, the 1960s Kent State shooting had a big impact on Buckeye personally, and he recently published a book on the subject. There is no central character in his novel, but instead, a number of people whose lives intersect to create a composite story. Buckeye examined how the event affected and changed individuals’ lives.
Buckeye also owns a publishing company, Amandla Publishing. The name means “power” in Zulu.
“The authors in my collection deserve attention,” Buckeye said. “I select important works by experimental writers that otherwise would not be read.”
Raised in Lakewood, Ohio, Buckeye was the youngest of three boys. His mother received a third-grade education and his father continued through sixth grade. His parents’ lack of opportunities as children inspired Buckeye to get involved with HOPE, the county poverty agency. He feels he can give back to the community because he now sits in a position of privilege.
“People are responsible for one another and we need to learn how to live together as a community,” he said.
HOPE attempts to curb the effects of poverty through housing, food and fuel assistance. Buckeye is the chair of the HOPE board this year, after holding other positions in the past. He said the organization has a five-year plan to educate people and help them progress forward. There is special emphasis on food assistance, and Buckeye said people are learning about healthier food choices and many are attending cooking classes as well.
Besides playing trivia, writing, publishing, and helping to develop outreach efforts to local community members, Buckeye also travels. He enjoys sitting at a sidewalk café with a cup of coffee in hand, watching life pass by.
“This is the fourth summer I am renting an apartment in Bratislava,” said Buckeye. “I was charmed the first time I visited the old city because it complements the small-town life of Middlebury.”
Bratislava is a city in Slovakia, the country in which Buckeye’s mother was born. Buckeye believes Europe has a different view of the world. According to Buckeye, Europeans see life less naively because many have been controlled by an oppressor, and know what it feels like to live without power. However, Buckeye is not ready to give up his home in Middlebury because he finally feels he knows the town and the people after living here for 39 years.
Part of his life in Middlebury, now habitual after so many years, is writing. Buckeye writes every morning, even if he is tired or does not feel well because once he starts he feels engaged and involved in his work. He calls himself a “late life writer” because he was not published until he was 38 years old. Buckeye writes because he wants to; he has a “vision.”
“I write for those who have no voice to express themselves,” he said. “And my writing is a search for the love to fulfill one’s life.”
(03/04/10 5:00am)
One of the aspects of my newfound collegiate life that I most clearly remember describing excitedly to my parents on the phone my first week at Middlebury was that I had discovered that my childhood differed from my classmates’. For all of you who hail from “just outside of Boston” or one of the popular New England prep schools, this reaction may not have been so strong, but you may have felt the result of my realization all the same: after moving away from your hometown, you possess a sudden sense of pride in and connection to that place that you were so eager to leave.
Don’t get me wrong; I was happy to escape Canton, Ohio, and apparently, almost everyone else there wants to do the same. Over the past 15 years, Canton has experienced an exodus, with a net population loss every year. Still, when Forbes.com ranked Canton as the ninth most miserable city in the United States on Feb. 18, my heart went out to the place that, for a long time, was home. Four other Ohio cities rounded out the list of 20: Youngstown, Akron, Toledo … and Cleveland was number one! Upon reading the rankings, I began to question how I came to be at Middlebury. How could the Buckeye State possibly have prepared me for an elite NESCAC school? But then, I took a moment to consider the value of my life before Middlebury. In doing so, I have compiled a short (keep in mind, only 18 percent of Cantonians have a college degree) list of Ohio, and specifically Canton, characteristics that Middlebury lacks. Don’t be afraid to embrace a little Midwestern flair.
1. School spirit. No, the plethora of navy Middlebury hoodies dotting the sidewalks doesn’t count. I miss the Friday high school pep rallies in which students, regardless of their athletic affiliation, donned obscene amounts of purple and gold and yelled and sang cheers together. Believe it or not, coordinated face paint and feather boas can create an indestructible community bond.
2. A coffee shop culture. Canton may not be a cultural mecca, but its teenage residents love nothing more than caffeinated conversation. With little else to do, we would sit around for hours sipping Starbucks and sharing stories. All judgments about Starbucks aside, these extensive hangout sessions fostered closer friendships and more meaningful, open debate than our frantic Proctor lunches en route to our next class or activity.
3. Dating. Of course, I had to say it. Maybe it’s a symptom of the coffee shop culture, but Ohioans enjoy a good first date in which you can learn about someone one-on-one. The only downside to all of this dating, combined with our abstinence-only education, is that my neighboring high school Canton McKinley made national news in 2005 for 13 percent of its female students being pregnant.
4. No school ‘cold’ days. Even if there is only a dusting of snow on the ground, some days it is simply too cold to go outside. My high school recognized this and would give us a snow day of sorts. Only the seniors were around for Middlebury’s first snow day in nearly 10 years in February 2007 (half-days don’t count!), but maybe the first-years can still convince the administration that we should not have class on those days it hits 30-below.
5. Dollar movies. Okay, so maybe I was struggling to round out the list of Canton’s perks, but I really would like to be able to choose from 10 recently released movies and only pay $1 admittance. (Although, I recently heard that they have upped the price to a whopping $1.50. Damn inflation.)
I will gladly admit to being a member of the Canton exodus, and whether or not you are particularly proud of your hometown, the point remains the same. It is important to carry a piece of your former life with you to Middlebury. This way, we can learn from each other. After all, how else would I have discovered that “pop” was actually called “soda?”
(02/25/10 4:59am)
Professor arrested for murder of colleagues
Details continue to surface in the case of the recent shootings of biology professors at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Authorities arrested Biology professor Amy Bishop after her shooting spree at a biology department meeting on Feb. 12 left three faculty members dead and three more in critical condition.
Bishop’s motive for the shooting was likely because the university had recently turned down her appeal for tenure. Acquaintances say Bishop told them that she blamed specific faculty members for blocking the tenure that she believed she deserved. Bishop was an accomplished Harvard-educated biologist, and gained prominence for having invented an innovative portable cell growth incubator with her husband.
But authorities have recently uncovered another side of Bishop’s history — she shot her 18-year-old brother in 1986, but was never charged because she claimed that it had been an accident. The murders have left students and faculty alike in a state of shock and sent the close-knit science community of Huntsville reeling.
— The New York Times
Boulder tops Sierra Club list for “Cool Schools”
The University of Colorado at Boulder topped the Sierra Club’s third annual list of “Cool Schools,” which ranks universities according to their degree of “eco-enlightenment.” College admissions experts say that rankings like these are becoming ever more important as students increasingly evaluate schools based not only on academics, location, and social life, but also on their degree of social and environmental consciousness.
“Ten years ago, I don’t remember any students asking me about green campuses,” said Steven Roy Goodman, a college admissions strategist. “Now, it’s quite common for students to be keenly interested in how environmentally responsible colleges are.”
Middlebury tied with the University of Washington in Seattle for the number- two slot on the list, scoring 98 points to The University of Colorado at Boulder’s 100.
— www.sierraclub.org
Ohio schools integrate digital technology
The Five Colleges of Ohio consortium — which consists of Denison University, Kenyon College, Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University and the College of Wooster — has received a two-year, $600,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in order to integrate digital technology into their libraries and curriculum.
“The grant will provide free and open access to digital documents that were once only available on our individual campuses, sometimes to a very limited number of people,” said Mark Christel, project director and director of libraries at the College of Wooster.
In addition, the grant will help faculty integrate digital collections into their courses by working with librarians, create professional development in library technology for library staff, and help develop a portal through which students and faculty can access digital collections.
— collegenews.org
(02/18/10 5:02am)
On Dec. 29, 2009, the New York Times ran an article by Kate Zernike titled “Career U: Making College ‘Relevant.’” The article outlined the changes that liberal arts schools across the country are making, seeking to prepare graduates for careers and to eliminate seemingly “irrelevant” or “inapplicable” majors such as philosophy. The author ultimately comes down in favor of the liberal arts, arguing that one’s major is far less important than one’s degree, but not before she details many applicable and appealing alternatives. If you have the time and the energy to seriously question your last four years and your parents’ $200,000, I suggest skimming the myriad of comments left in response. The respondents range from the bitter and jobless to the defensive and idealistic.
With graduation in sight, I have been having a similar liberal arts crisis. My friends and I have started playing the “what would you have done differently?” game, and sometimes I am surprised by the dubious reviews that come out of my mouth. Feeling the pressures of the job hunt, I often respond, “I would have studied something more pertinent.”
But then, I look at my cover letters and I bite my tongue. I want to spend the rest of my life reading, writing, editing, speaking and teaching, all pillars of the liberal arts. At Middlebury, I have learned the value of conversation over canned responses, and I would argue that this knack for liberal arts discussion makes us all more interesting people, regardless of our starting salaries. Here, I have met economics majors who also care about the environment, math majors whose true passion is cooking and ENAM majors who double as varsity football players. Despite the difficulty of judging a person by his or her major, you can always count on the fact that he or she will chat your ear off about what he or she cares about. And it is this fact that makes me proud to wave a liberal arts degree. As a publisher recently advised me, “All we really look for is passion and a commitment. The rest is teachable.”
Still, this crisis of confidence is understandable. It is intimidating to stand in an applicant pool next to someone who is “professionally trained,” especially when that “professional” is also well-dressed and well-spoken. Yet, I think we liberal-arts kids can bring something unique to the table. We can talk about paintings and world hunger in the same conversation, recall sports stats and census reports on request and, perhaps most importantly, we know that a full life exists in a delicate balance between work and play, right brain and left, old and new, applicable and just plain interesting.
So, Kate Zernike, I feel you on this one. I make bitter sarcastic comments about my education all the time — my favorite of which is asking relatives if they would like to donate to the “H.Kay majored in English and religion fund” — but I would never trade my experience here for a tech degree or a B.A. in journalism. Call me irrelevant, but I think that the comments and the conversation that the article inspired proves that the liberal arts tradition still stands strong, even if our classics department represents less than one percent of the student body.
(02/18/10 4:59am)
My wife and I are writers and though I have enjoyed what some might term more professional success (my work has appeared in a number of prestigious publications with sophisticated readership including, in autumn 2006, a letter to the editor of the New York Review of Books), Suzy is a talented woman in her own right.
We share an office in our converted Canadian farmhouse on the non-existant border between Maine and Vermont. For some time, my wife and I have been receiving alumni calendars from our respective alma maters and this led to some friction when I noticed that Suzy was consigning my calendar to the laundry room wall (partially hidden behind an ungainly wardrobe) while placing hers prominently above our desks.
Suzy is a graduate of Bowdoin and I attended Middlebury. At first glance, these institutions strike one as rather similar. Each is a liberal arts college in northern New England with approximately 2,000 undergraduates who tend to hail from the Boston area. Each was founded near the turn of the 19th century, has a student/faculty ratio of roughly 9:1 and boasts an endowment of approximately $700 million.
In point of fact, the two colleges are radically different. I have spread before me the current Middlebury alumni calendar, opened to February. A group of Middlebury Panthers (members of our nationally-ranked ski team) are enjoying mugs of alcohol-free yule grog around a roaring fire (I think I recognize the hearth of the Emma Willard House, a National Historic Landmark which serves as the admissions office).
Further perusal indicates that Chinese New Year falls on Valentine’s Day this year and that the intriguing celebration of Mawlid al Nabi occurs on Feb. 26.
The featured February image for Bowdoin is a hockey rink (empty). That the Bowdoin College mascot is a polar bear may explain, in part, the absence of any athletes from the photo. Though Suzy is defensive on this score, I think most fair-minded folk will concur that such a creature is faintly ridiculous.
I do know that when we met for the first time on Nantucket, Suzy was ecstatic about my sleek, Panther-like physique and I wondered if her frail, puny Bowdoin boyfriend was representative of that college as a whole.
Of course, attractive individuals attend Bowdoin (Suzy is one such), but I can’t help but note the absence of humans in the Bowdoin calendar. I guess what makes Middlebury so special, beyond being rated #4 in the current U.S.News and World Report list of liberal arts colleges (Bowdoin is 6th), beyond Old Stone Row (consisting of the three oldest buildings on campus: Old Chapel, Painter Hall and Starr Hall, which are displayed on the May and July pages of this year’s calendar), beyond the fact that such diverse luminaries as Frost and Marquand taught at the College’s renowned Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, is the people.
My brother, who matriculated at Bates and ultimately graduated from Colby, asks, “Aren’t the affluent, smiling blond people at Middlebury the same as those at Bowdoin?” No, Timothy, they’re not. It’s the very quality of Middlebury laughter, vivacity, and joie de vivre that sets the College apart.
It goes without saying that Middlebury’s setting is also nonpareil. I was therefore understandably taken aback to hear Suzy recently venture that “Bowdoin is far prettier in the winter.” Since that particular season lasts ten-and-a-half months on each campus, I took her comment to mean that Bowdoin is perpetually more beautiful than Middlebury. Thus ensued the most protracted spat of our marriage.
As we entered our fifth week of mutually-enforced silent treatment, my wife and I agreed to objectively evaluate each month from both calendars and to display in our office the most striking image of the two.
Unsurprisingly, Suzy found eleven months of this year’s Bowdoin calendar superior to Middlebury’s (she ceded me August, which features a Bowdoin food service worker wearing a hearing aid).
Timothy says Suzy and I should just be grateful we graduated debt-free from costly colleges, that we had the privilege of attending small classes in gorgeous surroundings, and that our degrees helped us land jobs directly after commencement. Suzy says we should just be grateful Timothy visits once every four years. I’m inclined to agree.
I know all this sounds silly to some, but the 90 percent of you who attended institutions like ours and still live within 125 miles of your campus know how important such matters are. Even the remaining 10 percent who are foreign or come from California (and are, therefore, essentially foreign) realize it’s the small things in life that count.
Wasn’t it Mies van der Rohe who said: “God is in the details?” Perhaps he was even behind a lectern at Bread Loaf when he uttered the words.
The following images all grace Middlebury alumni calendars from the past three years: stone walls, maple syrup, sleigh bells, fields of wildflowers and white picket fences. All of these resonate. But a deserted hockey rink north of Portland? Please.
(02/18/10 4:59am)
In a heavily attended speech in Mead Chapel on Feb. 12, President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz unveiled a bold new financial model that would rely more heavily on alternative funding sources like the summer Language Schools and the Monterey Institute for International Studies (MIIS) to support the College’s annual operating budget.
The proposal aims to limit the annual increase of the student comprehensive fee to one percent over inflation. Liebowitz’s remarks reflect growing fears in the liberal arts community that the existing financial model is, in his words, “no longer sustainable.” The Board of Trustees is expected to approve the proposal at its coming meetings this weekend.
The announcements made in last week’s address have garnered attention from several national media outlets, including the New York Times and Inside Higher Ed.
Historically, the College relied upon the annual growth of its endowment, along with generous alumni gifts and the tuition of students to fund a large amount of its annual budget.
But high expectations for gifts and endowment performance, along with little preparation for an economic disaster, left the College unprepared.
Strategic shift in financial model
Under the new plan, the College will downgrade its expected returns for interest on the endowment from 9 percent to 5 percent annually. Additionally, the College will reduce its goals for the current fundraising initiatives by 15 percent over the next four years.
In order to make up for the decrease in revenue from traditional sources, Liebowitz will lead the College in exploring alternative funding sources like the summer Language Schools, a potential language software partnership with an online company and the MIIS.
Liebowitz and President of MIIS Sunder Ramaswamy expressed optimism about the potential expansion of the graduate school when it legally joins Middlebury in July 2010 during an open meeting on Feb. 15.
When the College acquired Monterey in 2005, the California school was on shaky financial ground.
Since then, the school has continually remained in the black and generated $10.4 million in surpluses.
In the coming years, the College hopes to promote a “4+1” joint degree program between the two institutions, increased faculty exchanges, study away programs for Middlebury undergraduates that would send them to Monterey for a semester and MIIS collaboration with Middlebury schools abroad.
Monterey has over 800 graduate students, an operating budget of $39 million for the coming year and real estate holdings valued at $43 million. Ramaswamy emphasized the desire to create a community between the undergraduate college and MIIS.
As evidenced by top-ranking programs at Monterey and in Vermont, Liebowitz hailed the College’s superiority in language education over all peer institutions and challenged the community to utilize these assets.
“The idea that we could find a way to take advantage of this strength is not the corporatization of Middlebury College,” he said. “It’s a smart use of our developed strengths and advantages.”
Though he cautioned that the College might not see the benefits of these alternative funding sources for three or four years, Liebowitz stressed the community’s history of taking risks.
“The College has always been willing to take risks,” he said. “People can get complacent and take for granted where the institution historically has been and how it has overcome adversity. It has done a lot to preserve of itself what is most important and to overcome financial challenges that threatened its very existence several times.”
Chief Financial Officer Patrick Norton acknowledged that the administration now looks at auxiliary operations from a business point of view.
“We are known for languages,” he said.
“We are peerless. It’s very important that we use that asset in different ways to make our business model sustainable in the long-term. We’re looking at [alternative funding sources] in a more of a business-type way. [Language software] could add to the bottom line in the long term as well.”
Complementing an increased emphasis on auxiliary operations for their financial potential, the new financial model would attempt to ease the burden of tuition on students and their families.
He explained the need for change during the address.
“We need to recognize that the demand for a four-year liberal arts degree, while still great, is not inelastic,” he said. “There will be a price point at which even the most affluent of families will question their investment. The sooner we are able to reduce our fee increases, the better.”
Although the comprehensive fee does not cover the estimated costs of $80,000 per student for education, Provost of the College Alison Byerly said that linking the fee to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows that the administration recognizes that parents and students hold it accountable for the price of the College.
“Even families that can afford to pay full tuition still feel like it’s a lot of money,” Byerly said.
“The message [the change] sends is that our fee increases will reflect actual increased costs of what we do, not expanded programs or new initiatives. That doesn’t mean that we won’t have new programs or initiatives — it means that new priorities have to replace old priorities and fit within the existing cost structure.”
Norton acknowledged that historical comprehensive fee increases outpaced levels of inflation and called the College’s new financial approach potentially “unique” among its peer group.
“Tuition increases have been outstripping inflation and I think that’s the main issue,” he said. “We need to somehow keep the comprehensive fee at a reasonable level that at least tracks inflation or at least [stays] close to inflation.”
In addition to the sweeping philosophic shift to College financial policy, Liebowitz announced a series of more immediate policy decisions.
Barring an economic disaster, no additional staff layoffs will occur.
Student enrollment will increase to 2,450, but the student-faculty ratio of 9:1 will remain.
The current financial aid policy that is need-blind for domestic applicants and need-aware for international students will continue.
Finally, the salary freeze on employees earning more than $50,000 will end next year.
Evolution of unsustainable model
Liebowitz said the old financial model evolved and flourished because of an ongoing “arms race” between liberal arts colleges. The model forced colleges to create expectations that did not allow for economic crises and led many schools to engage in lengthy periods of continual construction of new infrastructure.
“The prior financial models relied on some exceedingly optimistic, never-go-down-projections,” he said.
“It was like the old Soviet five-year plans — rising expectations no matter what.”
Though forced to participate in the system to remain competitive with peers, Liebowitz said he harbored concerns about the current model for years.
“The old financial model we had used for a long time was always a bit screwy to me,” he said.
“I had always wondered why one would not spend one’s endowment to build a building instead of taking on added debt, meaning wasn’t it better to use existing wealth for some projects than to saddle the institution with long-term debt? This was viewed as a naïve question back in the 1990s, but I don’t know how many people would consider it so naïve today.”
Norton said the College acted quickly in the early months of the recent economic crisis to analyze its business model.
“The changes have been in the works for 18 months to two years,” said Norton.
“We can’t state enough the shock that the economy has had on all colleges. It really did give us a wake-up call as to the sustainability of the business model. We did act very quickly to do different planning models and scenarios to not only get our short-term deficits under control but to look long-term for a sustainable model. You will only survive if you ensure that you have a model that is sustainable.”
Both Liebowitz and Norton emphasized the incredible progress made by the College in combating the economic crisis. Over the past two years the College has eradicated more than $30 million in projected deficits and eliminated more than 100 staff positions, with an additional 50 to come.
Liebowitz attributed the College’s success to its quick reaction to the initial crisis.
“We were just about the first ones out of the gate, and were recognized as such,” he said.
“There are many peer institutions that are now considering or offering voluntary separation programs to reduce faculty and staff. I’m glad that we were there more than a year ago. I’m a little surprised that some schools waited this long.”
Norton emphasized that the College could not return to the past financial model even after the economic climate improved.
“The key is that we can’t go back to business as usual,” he said.
“If we see the endowment increase, and it will this year, you can’t start handing those positions back. We’re looking at the model differently now. The whole boom-bust era of the financial situation at the College needs to come to an end. The boom was good, but you don’t want to go through the bust.”
With the budget balanced through 2015, Liebowitz believes the College can begin to grow and thrive once again.
“I hope we can now look forward and close this chapter in our history,” he said.
“I hope people can have some fun now.”
(02/18/10 4:59am)
The College plans to increase the student body by 50 students, lower the annual increase of the comprehensive fee and retain the current financial aid structure, according to an address given by President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz on Feb. 12.
If the Board of Trustees approves Liebowitz’s recommendations, the size of the student body will increase to 2,450. Although Liebowitz stated in his address that he has “been an advocate of reducing the size of the student body,” the increase “will bring more benefits than problems.”
According to Dean of Admissions Bob Clagett, the increase will take place over the next two years, and that “it actually will be a fairly easy thing to accomplish.”
The College had originally planned to admit a smaller class next year because of the larger size of the Class of 2011, but it will now admit the standard amount of students — about 600 for September and 90 for February.
More transfer students will also be admitted in the sophomore and junior classes in order to reach the target student body, according to Clagett.
“We certainly have more than enough highly-qualified applicants to admit a few more each year and bring us to our projected enrollment,” said Clagett.
Liebowitz is confident that Clagett has the situation under control, and the transition can be made smoothly.
“Clagett has been thinking about this,” said Liebowitz. “He has all these levers he can pull.”
The current approach to financial aid — by which the College is need-blind for domestic students and need aware for international students — would remain the same.
Clagett supports Liebowitz’s decision, and wishes the College could be need-blind for all students, but insisted that the need-aware policy for international students is the “financially prudent course for Middlebury to take right now.”
Assistant Vice President of Student Financial Services Kim Downs think the recommendations made by Liebowitz are impressive, especially considering the extra aid needed by current students due to the economic downturn.
“I believe it is significant that Middlebury is committed to retaining a need-blind admission policy and a financial aid policy that will ensure the full demonstrated need of every admitted student is met,” wrote Downs in an e-mail.
“President Liebowitz mentioned in his address on Friday that we did face a considerable increase in our financial aid budget with much of that being attributed to returning student appeals and first time aid recipients.”
The College community also supports keeping the current approach to financial aid, according to a survey given at the end of last year.
“Students [found] financial aid the least preferable thing by far to cut,” said Liebowitz in an interview with “The Campus.”
“It was the highest priority for students. Faculty were more willing to have salaries slide than financial aid. I think that’s pretty selfless.
They believe that financial aid means greater diversity in the classroom, which means more interesting discussions and better educational opportunities. Faculty are very supportive of the financial aid program. Staff had other interests. For faculty and students, it hits home.”
“It is important to remember that as a proportion of our student body, at around 10 percent, Middlebury still has one of the highest enrollments of international students among liberal arts colleges in the country,” said Clagett, “and our financial commitment is still very substantial, at around $8 million in financial aid for currently-enrolled international students. Having a broad international enrollment will always be a big part of what Middlebury is all about.”
Liebowitz also recommended that the College strive to keep the annual increase in the comprehensive fee at one percentage point above the annual Consumer Price Index (CPI). In the past, the comprehensive fee increases were often more than two percentage points, and sometimes as high as four percentage points, higher than the CPI, according to Liebowitz.
Even last year, with the lowest increase in the comprehensive fee in 37 years — 3.2 percent — the increase was still three percentage points above the CPI.
“We need to recognize that the demand for a four-year liberal arts degree, while still great, is not inelastic,” said Liebowitz in his address.
“There will be a price point at which even the most affluent of families will question their investment; the sooner we are able to reduce our fee increases the better.”
Hannah Burnett ’10, who works at the admissions office as a senior admissions fellow, is not sure how much this decision will influence the decisions of prospective students, but she thinks it sends a strong message about the College’s priorities.
“I’m not certain that this decision will make a big difference in applicants choosing Middlebury,” wrote Burnett in an e-mail, “since the students looking at Midd are already prepared to deal with a $50,000 yearly tuition, but it sends a message that we are genuinely concerned with the future of the College and how if tuition hikes are not controlled they may influence admissions later on.”
Dan Johnston ’14.5 thinks that these changes should be good for the College, and is glad he is going to start at Middlebury under more auspicious conditions next February.
“These changes make education more affordable for more people, which is really good,” said Johnston. “This decision definitely makes things better for the general public. It will be interesting to see what it does to Middlebury’s financial situation.”
(04/30/09 12:00am)
Author: Ted Silberman John Illig's love of the mountains blossomed out of his childhood summers at camp in the Adirondacks. Coaching collegiate squash gave him free summers to pursue this love and complete the hiker's "Triple Crown." During three summers spaced six years apart, Illig hiked America's three premier mountain-range distance paths - the Appalachian, Pacific Crest and Continental Divide Trails. The trilogy of books he wrote tells the stories of these hikes and the personal valleys and peaks that he encountered along the way.As "Trail Ways, Path Wise" begins, the first in the series, begins, "The hardest thing about through-hiking the Appalachian Trail is getting to the start." Walking a 2,146-mile trail is a serious undertaking and requires months of free time to trek through the woods, forgoing a paycheck.Illig's three books, "Trail Ways, Path Wise," "Pacific Dream" and "Man in the Middle" take the reader along on his northbound journeys across the country. The introspective narratives describe such tribulations as seeing a man killed by a car in Virginia and the strains on his relationship with his new wife, who accompanied him for the beginning of his trek up the Pacific Crest. Of course, there were many high points to his travels and the books also recount the joys he experienced along the way."The Appalachian Trail is hilarious because there are so many people of different ages and walks of life," said Illig. "Everyone has his or her own 'trail name' - a pseudonym that largely determines your trail ego.""Sneakers" - the moniker Illig got from his unusual choice of hiking footwear - encountered many people on his hikes. When asked if he made any friendships that lasted beyond the trail, he said, "I made many lifelong friends, but they only exist in my memory.""The hardest part is getting there," said Illig. "At times, there is some discomfort, but when it comes down to it, this is just walking. Coaching squash during the winters meant I had no firm commitments during the summer. At six-year intervals, I asked the director of athletics for special permission to take a mini-sabbatical and hike the trails."After earning his degree in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Rochester, Illig moved to Maine and coached squash at Colby College for five years before moving on to Bates College for the next 11. While he loved the outdoorsy feel of the Maine schools, he jumped at the chance to come to Middlebury."Bates and Colby are great, but they aren't actually close to the mountains," said Illig. "When this position at Middlebury opened up I was eager to make the switch. This is my dream job - to be able to look out any window and see the mountains," said Illig.Through-hiking the three trails was a great way for Illig to surround himself with the wilderness he so enjoys. "I love mountains," said Illig. "It's a great feeling to reach the top and have the views. I like walking more now that I'm older. The hikes were a great opportunity to be out in nature."For Illig, being out in the wilderness was always the most exciting part. "I spent my whole life in New England, so it was pretty thrilling to be out West. The landscapes out there are otherworldly beautiful."Illig is currently promoting his books at various college outdoors clubs and marketing them on TripleCrownTrilogy.com, where the first two chapters of each book are available online. When not promoting or coaching he is working on a new novel - his first professional foray into fiction.When asked if there is another trail to conquer or if he plans to go back and rehike the first three, he laughed and quipped, "No, that's it. It's just potato chips and TV for me now!"Of course, he spends much of his time in the great outdoors, but now he focuses more on his writing. Stop by the Vermont Book Shop in town or check out Amazon.com to get your own copy and experience the writing and the mountains that Illig loves.
(03/12/09 12:00am)
Author: Andrew Piccirillo Last week's article on Power Shift reminded me of the complex relationship between science and politics, between knowledge and action. I believe that prevailing assumptions on campus about the severity of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and how we should respond need critical reexamination. While Al Gore has declared the debate over, debates over scientific theories, by their very definition, should never be over. In the past two years, I have become increasingly aware of complexities related to global temperature forecasts made in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report. Let me begin by saying I have believed in AGW for as long as I can remember. I have always been committed to preserving the environment for both its beauty and utility. This predisposition has caused me to make some false assumptions which I have recently begun to question.The 2007 IPCC report gives a best estimate of 2.8 degrees Celsius (C) of warming by 2100. This is in contrast to about 0.7 degrees C of warming for the last 110 years. A quick calculation tells me that the next 90 years will require a rate of warming 4-5 times that of the last 110 years to meet the IPCC best estimate.These predictions become even more remarkable when current trends and predictions are accounted for. The trend line in global climate since 1998 has been flat or slightly negative. Warming has halted. A number of meteorologists have been predicting cooling to occur for another 10-20 years. Last year the earth's climate cooled an astronomical 0.23 degrees C which finally got the attention of the mainstream media. The longer this halt in warming continues, the faster future warming will need to be to reach the IPCC prediction.Nothing in IPCC models can explain an 11-plus year cooling trend. It is likely that much of this cooling can be explained by changes in the El-Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) state (1998 was a strong El Ni
