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(02/13/20 10:59am)
A two-thirds senate majority voted to eliminate the five “commons senator” position beginning in the 2020–2021 school year at the last Student Government Association (SGA) meeting of J-Term. The impending dissolution of the Commons System next fall prompted the proposal.
The vote for the removal of the commons senator positions comes with a vote in favor of changing the names of the members from “senators” to “representatives.” Although two-thirds of the senate voted in favor of this measure, the two proposals require a referendum before they can be implemented because they necessitate amending the SGA Constitution. This means that the student body will have the opportunity to vote for or against the amendments in the spring election cycle.
The elimination of the commons senator position was not the only option proposed to address the future termination of the Commons System. Myles Maxie ’22, the current Wonnacott Senator, suggested an alternative that would maintain the size of the senate by adding an additional senator per class year. The body discussed several other options, including adding the president of the International Students Organization (ISO) to the senate or adding a senator position for each dean.
The potential inclusion of the ISO President was meant to address the concern that a smaller senate might reduce diversity of voice, but the SGA eventually decided the change would be unfair to other student organizations, according to Maxie. Senators eventually voted to either reduce the size of the senate body through the removal of the commons senator positions, or to maintain its size by adding another senator per class year.
Maxie said he has been communicating with members of his commons about the restructuring of SGA for months.
“In speaking to my constituents, the vast majority supported having three class representatives instead of two per class year,” Maxie said.
Other senators, however, favored the possible opportunities afforded by a smaller senate.
“By having a smaller senate, we would hopefully merge cabinet and senate into one longer meeting where senators and cabinet can hear about the projects and work that is going on,” said Community Council Co-Chair Roni Lezama ’22. “Hopefully it could be a space where increased communication between the two are fostered and collaboration will naturally occur.”
SGA’s cabinet and senate currently have separate weekly meetings. SGA President Varsha Vijayakumar ’20 also voted to reduce the size of the senate.
“Over the nearly four years that I have been involved in SGA, I’ve been able to observe and identify what works and what doesn’t,” Vijayakumar said. “One thing we can all agree on — regardless of experience level, class year, or position — is that our body can always be more effective and efficient than it currently is.”
Vijayakumar explained how the senate has faced uncontested elections due to a dearth of candidates in the past. She hopes that a decrease in size will aid in increasing competition and encourage candidates to establish clearer visions and ideas on which to build their campaigns.
“The most successful senators are those who commit to developing a strong platform, receive the student mandate in their favor and then set out to enact that platform over the course of their tenure,” she said.
Before students vote on the matter, the Elections Council will send out information about the referendum, as well as yes-or-no-questions that will allow students to indicate if they support removing the commons senator position and changing the “senator” title to “representative.” The amendments will pass if they receive a majority vote from the student body. If they fail to meet this level of support, they will go back to the senate so that members can edit them.
The last referendum took place in spring of 2018 and addressed the college’s divestment from fossil fuels. The vote was concurrent with the general elections, and SGA saw an uptick in voter turnout, according to Vijayakumar: 68.3% of the student body voted in the spring 2018 election, compared with about 41% in spring 2017 and under 37% in spring 2019.
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(01/23/20 11:00am)
Speakers probed themes of settler colonialism and its impact in three different regions during a student-organized conference titled “Bodies at Borders: The Lived Effects of Settler Colonialism.” The annual Student-Organized Global Affairs Conference took place in Wilson Hall on Jan. 13.
The three speakers included Dr. Marie Cruz Soto, a professor at the NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study, who explained the process and impact of settler colonialism in the Puerto Rican archipelago; Dr. Thomas Abowd, who teaches at Tufts University and discussed the colonization faced by Palestinians; and Miwok journalist, activist and media producer Desiree Kane, who talked about the colonization of Native American land and the intersectionality of the issues faced by American indigenous communities.
Conveners Kamli Faour ’21, Cara Levine ’20 and Mari Odoy ’20 started the approval process for the conference in October and began planning in November. Levine found all three speakers who attended the conference.
She reached out to the author of a relevant article on JSTOR, who referred her to Cruz Soto, and heard about Abowd through a friend at Tufts. She found Kane listed among the speakers at a Princeton University conference.
“The huge emphasis of this conference is that it’s global,” Faour said. “What we were doing was we were looking to fill three different regions as best we could.”
This year’s conference took place earlier than usual as the organizers wanted to ensure that Faour could attend the event prior to her departure for a semester abroad.
Attendees of the event sat at eight tables arranged in front of a podium in Wilson Hall. These tables later became the location of seven different break-out discussions, facilitated by a Middlebury professor or conference speaker. Students, faculty and Middlebury residents participated in the discussions, drawing on personal experience as well as information they had encountered in the classroom.
Cruz Soto, the first speaker, gave a talk entitled “Strategic Spaces, Disposable People.” Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, she dove into the history of colonialism in Puerto Rico, beginning with Spanish colonialism in the 16th century and progressing to its present-day status as an unincorporated U.S. territory.
Soto explained the U.S. Navy’s expropriation of the island, which facilitated the forced relocation of the original residents to the island’s center. She displayed maps and pictures of this relocation while highlighting the role persistent civil disobedience played in the U.S. decision to recall the Navy from the island in 2003.
“Civil disobedience is not just protesting. It’s making things unworkable, not letting the status quo be the status quo,” she said.
Abowd, the Tufts professor, spoke about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and addressed how identifying the conflict as settler colonialism is an approach often met with surprise and hostility. Abowd discussed how the Palestinians were pushed off their land, referencing specific cases such as the destruction of the Palestinian enclave near the Western Wall in Jerusalem, and showing maps and images to further illustrate his point.
The final speaker of the conference, Kane, played pieces of the documentary she had worked on, which follows Native American protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline. She spoke about many of the challenges faced by women in Native American communities and attested to the intersectionality of many social justice issues. Kane called on her audience to fight against class systems in a speech that addressed both physical and non-physical borders, and called attention to the borders that divide different movements for change.
Kane also mentioned that she had reached out to the Abenaki tribe, whose land Middlebury College rests on, before coming to the summit.
At one table, attendees discussed the Mexico-United States border and their relationship with it, as well as redlining, non-physical borders and white privilege. For the most part, those seated at the table shared their own experiences with borders in the context of the topic “Border as Method: The Proliferation and Power of Borders.”
One of the students at the table, Rand Jibril ’20, described the presence of borders growing up in Palestine. She explained how the border impacts certain aspects of everyday life.
“Simple stuff like sleepovers that you can’t do when you’re a child, you don’t think, ‘This is because of the border,’ she said.
Jibril explained how she does not feel there is enough discussion about the border and settler colonialism on campus.
“That’s why I applaud the organizers of this event. I think we need to talk about it more,” she said. “I don’t think it comes up enough, whether it’s in classes or between students.”
(12/05/19 11:03am)
The college is offering a new health insurance plan option to employees that will take effect on January 1, 2020.
Employees had the chance to either enroll in this new option or stick with their old insurance plans during a two-week insurance enrollment period earlier this month. A total of 113 Middlebury and Monterey employees enrolled in the new plan.
The new plan — called the Panther Plan — is a high deductible health plan (HDHP), which means the plan costs less per month but has higher deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums. It also includes a health savings account (HSA), an untaxed pool of money to which the enrollee and school contribute that can be used to cover eligible health expenses. This sets it apart from the existing option, which the informational materials distributed to employees refer to as a preferred provider organization (PPO) plan. The PPO plan has a lower deductible and a higher monthly premium and does not include a health savings account.
Lower upfront costs, higher deductibles
The Panther Plan offers enrollees an in-network deductible of $2,000, nearly seven times the equivalent deductible for the PPO plan. A deductible is a set amount of money an enrollee must spend on their health expenses before their health insurance starts covering a percentage of those expenses. This means that individuals enrolled in the new plan would have to pay for up to $2,000 of their non-preventative medical care before the insurance plan would cover a portion of the remaining expenses.
For in-network preventative care like immunizations, on the other hand, insurers pay the entirety of costs regardless of the deductible because of a federal regulation under the Affordable Care Act. This provision did not change from the old plan to the new one.
The new plan also has much higher out-of-pocket maximums than the old plan. An out-of-pocket maximum is the total amount enrollees can cumulatively spend on all their health expenses within the year before insurers pay for 100% of the remaining covered expenses. The higher out-of-pocket maximums for the Panther Plan mean that enrollees will need to pay more of their medical expenses in a given year before the maximums kick in and they are insured for the rest of the year.
Cheryl Mullins, the college’s director of human resources, explained that the school added the Panther Plan in an effort to provide interested employees with more health insurance options.
“From the employer’s perspective, such plans are a little less expensive and tend to have lower increases over time,” she said. “We think the plan is a win-win for the college and certain employee demographics.”
The college also introduced the new Panther Plan in part because of the potential benefits of a health savings account.
“HDHPs with HSAs are really attractive to various employee subsets, in particular because of the triple tax savings available under the HSA,” Mullins said.
The school intends to contribute $1,000 to individual and $2,000 to family HSAs under the Panther Plan. For this past November enrollment cycle only, the school will incentivize employees to choose the new plan by contributing an additional $400 to individual HSAs and $600 to HSAs for employees covering themselves and one or more dependents. This sum, and any money enrolled employees choose to put into their accounts, is not taxed when it is deposited or withdrawn, and can be used to pay certain medical expenses tax-free.
“The new plan is certainly not for everyone, but for those individuals who are looking to maximize tax qualified savings it’s a great option,” Mullins said. “The plan is also great for employees who are relatively low utilizers of the health plan as they have the opportunity to amass a nice nest egg that can be used for medical expenses in the future, as needed.”
Overall cost remains a concern
However, other school employees expressed concern that the risks of a plan with a higher deductible might not be worth the lower premiums and potential tax benefits. Katie Gillespie, associate director for research compliance and member of the compensations and benefits committee of the staff council, decided to re-enroll in the school’s old PPO plan.
“I can see how the HDHP with HSA may provide cost savings for some, but it’s also kind of a gamble,” Gillespie said. “Of course we all hope to be healthy in the coming year, but if you end up having unforeseen medical expenses, you might end up paying more in the end.”
Gillespie also mentioned that a few people she had spoken to were worried the school might eventually take away the PPO plan option.
“While we don’t currently have an indication that will happen, changes in the name of cost savings can always put people a little on edge,” she said.
Randall Ganiban, a professor of classics, also opted to stick with the PPO plan. He explained that it appeared to him the new plan benefitted younger, single employees rather than families. He agreed with Gillespie that the PPO plan seemed worth the higher monthly premiums for many of the employees he spoke to.
“It seemed that most people I spoke to preferred the PPO plan,” Ganiban said. “Its coverage seemed to be broader and, even though the cost was a little bit higher, it seemed to offer more benefits in the long run.”
The school incentivized enrollment in the Panther Plan by making premiums, the charge for enrollment in a health insurance plan that participants incur every two weeks, more sensitive of employees’ different incomes. Panther Plan premiums, which are already lower than that of the PPO plan, will be based on a percent-of-income approach, while the PPO plan will continue using the tiered premium system the school has employed in the past. The tiered system places employees into groups based on $10,000 salary increments, and those in the same coverage category — for example, all those enrolled as families — have the same premium. This means that an employee making $20,000 and an employee making $29,000 pay the same premium, as long as they are both in the same coverage category.
As Mullins explained in a September email to her colleagues, this system is not always as sensitive as it needs to be.
“It does not respond automatically to pay variations — up or down,” she wrote. “And due to its tier basis, a small change in pay, from, say $39,000 to $40,000, will tip an employee into a new tier, which can result in a sizeable increase in employee contributions, rather than a small incremental change.”
The switch to a percent-of-income approach for the Panther Plan would therefore be a factor in deciding which plan to enroll in, as the new plan offers a mechanism for determining employee premium contribution more tailored to their specific income.
An employee’s decision to choose one plan or the other is also impacted by their tax bracket, given the potential tax benefits of the HSA, and the size of their household.
There are several other major differences between the two plans, including how they handle in- and out-of-network expenses, preventive and non-preventive care and copays.
For the PPO plan, the out-of-pocket maximums are the same for providers in- and out-of-network. However, the Panther Plan’s out-of-network maximums are double that of their in-network maximums, which would make seeing an out-of-network provider significantly more expensive. The two plans the school offers are through Cigna, a multinational health service corporation based in the U.S. and operating in more than 30 countries, according to the company’s website. In order to avoid the higher maximums for out-of-network care, Panther Plan enrollees would need to find health care providers exclusively within Cigna’s national network.
The old PPO plan pays for at least 80% of non-preventative costs both in- and out-of-network, and some types of covered care do not require that enrollees meet their deductible before insurance pays for them. The Panther Plan also pays for 80% of non-preventative in-network costs, but only 70% of both preventive and non-preventive out-of-network costs, and those enrolled must have met their deductible before receiving this coverage. Non-preventative medical procedures can include a large variety of care, with anything from allergy treatment and acupuncture to emergency care and organ transplants.
The old plan also has fixed copay amounts, with a $10 copay for generic brand drugs, $25 for preferred brand, and $40 for non-preferred brand. Panther Plan copays are a percentage of the cost of the drugs, with 10%, 30%, and 40% copays for generic, preferred brand and non-preferred brand respectively. This means that enrollees in the Panther Plan have to pay more in copays than enrollees in the PPO plan if the medication they are purchasing costs more than $100, but less if it is less than $100.
The Panther Plan provides school employees with lower premiums than the PPO plan and potential tax savings. During a healthy year, an enrollee might save on health insurance expenses and benefit from the health savings account, but during an unhealthy year, the higher deductible and out-of-pocket maximum could mean a greater financial burden.
“For some folks, myself included, paying a little extra in premiums is worth it for the peace of mind,” Gillespie said.
(11/07/19 11:00am)
The college is moving the May 2020 Commencement ceremony from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to allow college community members to observe the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr. Services for the holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan, conflicted with the graduation ceremony’s previous morning time.
Muslim Chaplain and Interfaith Adviser Saifa Hussain said the college has been aware of commencement potentially conflicting with Eid al-Fitr for the last few years. As Hussain explained, the actual date of Eid al-Fitr varies because Muslim holidays rely on a lunar calendar. Observers celebrate Eid al-Fitr during the new moon after 29 to 30 days of fasting from sunrise to sunset during the month of Ramadan.
While some Muslims rely on scientific calculations of the moon cycle to determine the date of Eid al-Fitr, others, according to Hussain, may not know its date until the day before, as they rely on their own observations of the moon phase each night to determine the arrival of the holiday. This can lead to different countries and communities celebrating the holiday on different days during the same year.
Soyibou Sylla ’20, the co-president of the Muslim Student Association, said he was grateful to hear that the commencement ceremony would be moved for the holiday.
“Growing up in Senegal, I always looked forward to Eid al-fitr. I was always excited to get a new outfit, visit my relatives, and have a feast,” he said. “I have only celebrated Eid al-fitr once at home over the last five years and it’s true that there is nothing comparable to celebrating it in Senegal, but I always have that spark of excitement and joy on the days leading to Eid and on Eid. The mere fact of going to the mosque in the morning is a tradition that I still deeply cherish.”
Sylla said learning that Middlebury would change the graduation time to accommodate the Muslim students was a relief.
“I felt heard, considered and included,” he said.
Discussions about the rescheduling of commencement to better accommodate Eid al-Fitr observers included members of the president’s office, the college calendar committee and the Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life.
“Our role at the Scott Center, our main concern, is facilitating religious observance, so of course that’s our first priority if something like this comes up,” Hussain said.
Those involved with adjusting commencement suggested a few different possibilities, including switching the ceremony to a date as early as May 21 or as late as May 26, but ultimately decided that pushing the event a few hours would minimize disruption to senior events and reunion weekend, which follows soon after graduation. The rescheduling of commencement should allow Muslim community members to observe both ceremonies, as services for the holiday typically occur in the morning.
The process of rescheduling the college calendar due to conflicts with religious holidays is not new. Last year, Rosh Hashanah services took place in part on Monday, Sept. 10, on what would have been the first day of school during the fall semester. To accommodate Jewish students, faculty and staff, the college delayed the first day of classes until Tuesday, Sept. 11.
To Hussain, these adjustments represent a step in the right direction.
“Hopefully, long term, we are heading in a direction where our whole year, our whole calendar, is fully aware and understanding that there are students that have different ways of being and different cultures, and that is part of the fabric of the way we do things here,” she said.
(10/10/19 10:02am)
With preparation for midterm assessments dominating students’ schedules, many may find opportunities for reflecting on their values and choices few and far between. In recognition of this absence, the Center for Creativity, Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship, better known as the Innovation Hub, hosts Reflection Fridays, parts of a series that occurs several times per semester.
Through the series, which began a few years ago, participants have found a way to tap into Middlebury community members’ experiences, bringing together a collection of interviews throughout the semester that engage with the question “What matters to you, and why?”
Each Reflection Friday installment features an interview-style talk in front of an audience that allows guest speakers to discuss their academic and career paths in the context of their core values.
“We often are in this very formal learning environment at Middlebury, and the series also is intended to allow members of the Middlebury community to perhaps share aspects of their identity or their life or their interests that may not have surfaced in a more professional context,” said Charlotte Sullivan, an associate of the Social Entrepreneurship Program and coordinator for the series.
This year, the coordinators of the series are partnering with the Charles P. Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life.
“Being creative and being innovative really requires a depth of thought and feeling that is often very spiritual,” Sullivan said.
The Innovation Hub has been working with Mark Orten, the director of the Scott Center, to design a set of fall semester interviews focusing on beginnings and endings. Interviewees include members of the Middlebury community both new and old. The upcoming weeks will feature interviews with David Gibson, the new vice president for communications and marketing, and Nan Jenks-Jay, dean of environmental affairs and director of the Franklin Environmental Center, who is retiring this year.
The Reflection Friday series began after a suggestion from Tiffany Sargent, director of the Center for Community Engagement. Sargent was inspired by a similar program at Yale University that proposed the question: “What matters to me and why?”
Coincidentally, Jonathan Isham, an economics and environmental studies professor who helped found the series, was already asking this question in his classroom. Isham had his students break up into groups of three, with one person posing the question to another and the third observing. After two minutes, every group paused to debrief before switching roles.
“It’s such an important question and it’s embedded in questions about your identity and agency, how you see yourself, and how you go through the world,” Isham said.
One of Isham’s advisees, Alyssa Brown ’20, was the first person to be interviewed for the series this semester. Brown spoke about forgiveness, both of herself and others, as well as where she is from and matters of identity, race and inclusivity.
“I didn’t think I would have a lot to say, but after the interview, I found that people were actually interested in my thoughts and words,” Brown said. “My most powerful takeaway is that most people are interested in what others have to say — I love hearing people speak, and the same goes for others who listen to me.”
Reflection Friday interviewees are able to select their own interviewers, giving the discussions a comfortable atmosphere. Brown was interviewed by Isham.
Gibson has yet to select his interviewer, but Jenks-Jay will be interviewed by longtime colleague Steve Trombulak, a recent retiree from the Biology Department. Generally, speakers can choose anyone to interview them, even those without a direct connection to the college. As Sullivan said, “It can be your mom. It can be your little brother. That would be so fun.”
In addition to the college faculty, staff, students and friends of interviewees who often attend, residents of the town of Middlebury may attend Reflection Friday installments. This has proved difficult, however, as the discussions are held in the Chateau, which is inacessible for those without a Middlebury ID.
The series’ hosts hope to provide a time for Middlebury community members to examine how each interviewee’s values have shaped their experiences. However, the series seems particularly applicable to the students in the audience, who are in the process of developing their own principles and interests, especially while selecting a major or looking for a job.
“There’s so much pressure to have the thing that you’re doing be from external pressures or from fear or from money or from all this noise that doesn’t necessarily have to do with the interior or personal values,” Sullivan said, “So to hear about that aspect of making choices even with all the noise is also really valuable to complete the picture.”