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(03/25/21 9:58am)
Sabrina Templeton
We hear time and time again that Middlebury is a “bubble.” It’s a liberal bubble, a student bubble, a cultural bubble. All of this talk pushes us into believing that we really are protected; that we live in a campus that can hold us in and push danger out.
A bubble implies that the global pandemic that has taken 500,000 lives in the U.S. — and counting — could not possibly affect a Middlebury student, or that the coinciding mental health epidemic could not have driven any of our loved ones to take their own lives, or that loss by any other means could never touch a person who appears so wrapped up in this perfect, tight, safe bubble.
This is not true. Obviously. But if you look through any of our welcome-back emails it sure seems like it.
Before diving into my frustrations it is important to note that the administration and staff deserve a ton of credit for their handling of campus life during the pandemic. Our testing process is seamless, the incredible staff members have made the dining halls accessible and welcoming and our maintenance and facilities staff have made sure that this campus feels safe and clean.
However, even with all of these efforts, the existence of grieving students on this campus feels almost entirely washed over. When we returned I expected, at the very least, a school wide email acknowledging the certainly higher than usual amount of grief on this campus. That didn’t happen. I believed we would receive some information on who to reach out to if we’re experiencing grief. That didn’t happen. I thought that the school, with all of its mental health expansion efforts, would make a more visible effort to hire grief-specific counselors. To my knowledge, this hasn’t happened either.
There has been positive growth in discussing mental health crises on this campus in the past four years, and that has not gone unnoticed. However, grief is a different beast altogether, and to try to lump it in with other types of suffering is short-sighted and misinformed.
Not only is grief emotionally debilitating — contrary to outdated beliefs, you can’t just skip through some stages until you reach blissful acceptance — but it is also cognitively altering.
A study out of the NIH found that individuals suffering from “complicated grief” — which can be caused by having little time to process or no social support following the loss, essentially the experience of every loss during this pandemic — have lower memory and attention capabilities, perform worse on tests and display mild defects in global cognitive functioning.
If the school is not ready to send out mental health kits that consist of more than just a fidget spinner, I would at least expect Middlebury — as an academic institution — to understand that grieving students do not currently possess the same neurological capacities that they did prior to their loss.
This is to say: Middlebury, many of your students are not only grieving; our brains’ capacities have changed.
And yet, when it comes to grief on campus, we’ve heard nothing from our college.
After four years at Middlebury, I am lucky in that I feel comfortable enough telling many of my professors what I am going through right now. I also have the love and support of the Hillel community and the wonderful Rabbi Danielle. But, even as a second semester senior I did not know that I should have told my dean about my struggles until another staff member suggested it to me.
If I had no clue I should reach out to him, how on earth could younger students be expected to know, especially, again, after receiving no guidance whatsoever from the school? I am also very fortunate that I have a good relationship with my commons dean. I can’t say the same for other students, especially students who’ve never met their dean in person due to the pandemic.
I empathize deeply with students who feel utterly lost in the dark, not knowing who to reach out to, or how to navigate grief. I also feel for the friends of grieving students who have no idea how to be a supportive friend during this traumatic and delicate time.
This is because, despite a global pandemic raging outside, the college has proliferated little to no grief resources on campus, has not given any public recognition of grieving students, has not given any guidance on who to reach out to if grieving students are struggling with workloads, and has not made a noticeable effort to hire grief-specific counselors on campus or on Midd Telehealth. And, before you suggest we organize these things ourselves, please refer to the above paragraph about our brains not working.
This lack of recognition from our institution is not only frustrating but is actively compounding the pain. Grief is an agonizing ordeal, with one of its worst qualities being loneliness. And, although the college has been trying much harder this year to ensure access to mental health professionals, its failure to address the campus-wide issue of grieving head-on makes those of us suffering feel like an afterthought; like we have to cope with it alone.
Of course, there have always been grieving students on this campus, but for the college to act publicly as if nobody here has lost someone during a pandemic is a whole new level of ignorance — an ignorance that comes with more than a tinge of classism and racism, as we all know Covid has disproportionately affected lower income and BIPOC communities.
So, what can be done?
Professors can send out anonymous surveys asking whether their students are experiencing loss and how they can reconfigure their schedule to allow for students to get the most out of the class without feeling overwhelmed.
Midd Telehealth can hire specific grief counselors trained to aid students in working through loss and trauma. It can also expand its free sessions from 12 per year to 20, allowing for students who cannot afford counseling to have access to as many sessions as possible.
The administration can send resources to grieving students as well as to their friends on how best to be a support system at this time.
And, since I only just found out about this, grieving students reading this article — do not be afraid to reach out to your student life deans. They are here to help you and can be wonderful resources and advocates for you during this time.
Middlebury has done a remarkable job this year given the circumstances, but seemingly ignoring the existence and struggles of grieving students is an enormous blindspot that will only continue to grow if it is not recognized. For the school to be able to truly celebrate its accomplishments during the pandemic with any integrity, they have to make sure that the college remains a place where its students can genuinely learn, engage and grow. Too many students can’t do that right now.
We may be back on campus, but we are not back in the “bubble.” The outside world caught up to us, and we need you to meet us where we are.
Author’s note: These opinions stem from my personal experience as well as from anecdotal conversations with peers. I don’t pretend to know the experience of every grieving student on campus.
Sophie Clark is a member of the class of 2021.
(09/24/20 10:00am)
I got lucky with Covid. I only lost my senses of taste and smell for a month. Last week when I told this to a friend, her first reaction was, “Did you lose weight? If I couldn’t taste anything, I simply wouldn’t eat.” And — as much as I wanted to respond with, “I was more preoccupied with the terror of having the coronavirus” — I couldn’t because, well, she was right. No senses meant no appetite, and I thought that was great.
Please do not take that paragraph as a lesson. It is SO messed up that my first reaction to having a potentially deadly illness was that I could lose a few pounds. It also reflects the brutal influence of growing up for 22 years in a culture fixated on the false pretense that size equals success.
Now that we’re back on campus, this fixation on weight is even more glaring. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had this conversation at least 10 times now:
“Hey, how was your quarantine?”
“It was fine but ugh, I totally gained so much weight.”
“Me too, yikes. The Covid Fifteen, am I right?”
It’s understandable, of course. We’ve been stuck inside with our bodies, trapped in an inescapable mental and physical hell with only our own reflections for comfort and ire for the last six months. Of course we’re going to fixate on what we look like. But do we have nothing else to say to our friends? Nothing?
Are we, the so-called “liberal-arts-outside-the-box-thinkers,” so stuck in this obsession with our physical forms that we can’t imagine a world outside of our bodies? There must be a way that we can take everything this school has taught us about reimagining the world around us and apply it to our friends and to ourselves.
Let’s have conversations about how we’re actually doing. Some of us got sick. Some of us lost loved ones. Some of us were living in the epicenter of a social revolution. We need our friends now more than ever, and being a good friend includes stanching the flow of conversations steeped in societally ingrained self-hatred, even if it’s much easier to talk about a few pounds than our current mental state.
This sentiment isn’t unique to Covid-19 times. Last year Quinn Boyle’s op-ed “The Skinniest College in America” was one of the most widely circulated articles in The Campus’ history. This was not only because she brilliantly shed light on the college’s failures around mental health resources but also because her struggles with disordered eating were far too relatable to far too many people.
This college — and country — has pandemic-level rates of disordered eating. It’s an intrinsic part of our moral code, with people far too casually tying “good” and “bad” to food groups and exercise.
In a time when we are surrounded by genuine evil, why are we pretending that our standards of good and bad are based on how many leaves we consume, and why are we wasting our time applying these fake moral standards to ourselves? Nobody is winning a Nobel Prize for going on a jog, just as nobody is going to a grand jury for having an extra slice of cake.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]And yet, we spend a lifetime being our own judges and executioners. It’s exhausting. [/pullquote]
I recognize that saying “don’t talk about weight” will probably result in a lot more people talking about weight… but if we do have to talk about it, can we at least shift the conversation away from attacking ourselves and onto attacking the culture that has invaded our self-worth?
We do not need to “bottle this all up” — I think we do enough of that on this campus already. But we desperately need to reevaluate our value systems for ourselves and each other before it’s too late. Before we have to pack everything up again and regret missing out on that Flatbread dinner with friends because we equated “healthier” with a salad instead of with a friendship — or regret sleeping through an entire day when we didn’t eat before drinking because we thought that calories counted more than hours on this campus.
This is not to minimize the reality of those struggling with eating disorders here on campus. This semester’s limited food options and strict dining hall hours may be frustrating to some, but they are borderline cataclysmic to others who need control over their meals in order to satisfy the crippling conditions of a mental illness. Eating disorder recovery is slow and nonlinear, and being thrown out of a routine during a larger crisis is terrifying. If you or a friend is struggling with this, please call Midd TeleHealth and/or the National Eating Disorders Crisis Hotline at 800-931-2237.
We have been through a lot this year. Our bodies are surviving a pandemic. Our bodies are sitting in the library taking in information that will help us lead the world out of this mess. Our bodies are hosting dance parties (six feet apart) and holding our friends close (soon). We need our bodies now more than ever, so can we please, please, stop talking about our weight?
Sophie Clark is a member of the class of 2021.
(01/17/19 10:58am)
I was shocked by the college’s proposed new protest and demonstration policy released in November because I fundamentally disagree with the idea of protest regulations and, more importantly, because these particular policies are frankly insulting to the student body.
In my opinion, protest policies are inherently unjust. Liberal arts schools exist to teach students how to think and express themselves. Dictating how to engage in debate undermines the entire point of our education. Furthermore, protest policies raise the question, “If protest rules are put in place to protect freedom of speech, does protesting not count as free speech?”
Regardless of whether you believe colleges should have protest policies or not, this particular policy is damaging for two reasons.
First, section 10 states, “Non-disruptive expressive activity is permitted at Middlebury, subject to the Demonstration Regulations regarding time, place and manner of the activity, and the Policy on Scheduling Space for Middlebury Events.” Forcing students to schedule a place in which to protest (which is also present in sections 6 and 8 of our current protest policy) is an endorsement of the physical marginalization of already marginalized students on campus. Protests occur when people feel that their voices are not being heard. Physically moving less-heard voices to places where they will not disturb invited speakers creates an extra barrier to freedom of expression on a campus where those voices are already underrepresented.
Second, this policy is insulting to the students of Middlebury College. It implies that we have learned nothing from events two years ago, and that the majority of the current student body (who were not even present for Charles Murray’s visit) should bear the consequences of the actions of a few.
Most strikingly, this policy is a gross infantilization of the student body. Setting up such definitive rules and regulations for protests is assuming that we cannot make our own critical decisions, and instead must be dictated to like children. We chose to come to Middlebury College to grow into thoughtful members of society, and top-down decrees are offensive to students who are creative, critical and free-thinking.
If the college wants to retain its reputation as a true liberal arts school, a place where students can learn how to critique their world and freely express themselves non-violently, I urge administrators to rethink these new proposed protest policies.