(10/24/12 5:30pm)
The Community Council met on Monday Oct. 22 to outline an ambitious list of tasks for the 2012-2013 academic year.
Issues on the preliminary agenda for the council include: communication methods between faculty, students and staff; restricting first-year on-campus parking; access to health services on campus; sexual assault on campus; public spaces and dorm damage; social house membership; stress culture; student participation in MCAB and other college sponsored events; and implementing recommendations from the Alcohol Task Force.
A large part of the meeting was spent discussing the relative urgency of each of these issues, and their relevancy to the interests of students, faculty and staff.
The first issue addressed was membership in social houses. School policy on the issue dictates that students may not join social houses until the second semester of sophomore year; however the council has proposed considering more lenient membership guidelines. This discussion could affect the membership as early as this spring, when the five social houses are up for review.
The Community Council is hoping to initiate an ongoing conversation with the social houses on this issue.
“I want to bring in the social houses and give them a chance to say this is who we are and this is our mission, explained Community Council Co-Chair Barret Smith ’13. “That way we are building an understanding and not just seeing them for the first time during the social house review process.”
The council also discussed campus communication methods during the Oct. 22 meeting. Council members are seeking a way to increase student participation and attendance of College-sponsored events through more effective communication.
“There is a stigma on campus to not go to MCAB events or go to college sponsored events, and a lot of that can be changed just by the way we communicate,” member Zach Marlette ’13 explained.
In an effort to increase on-campus communication, the Community Council is working with the Student Government Association and the Dean of the College’s office to start an “open-mic” initiative as a time used to discuss issues on campus.
“My hope is to create an open time for anybody who wants to share something with the student body that there would be topics that are of enough interest to students,” said Dean of the College and Council Co-Chair Shirley Collado. “It is really to promote face-to-face dialogue and to really engage one another without relying on email. We just don’t know how to get people there.”
In light of the recent editorial published in the Amherst Student on on-campus rape, sexual assault was a pertinent topic at Monday’s meeting. The council discussed inviting staff from Parton Health Center and from the Sexual Assault Overview Committee (SAOC) to give a presentation of this issue to the committee and how to initiate an ongoing conversation around this issue.
“The Amherst sexual assault case has gotten a lot of attention and so if we are going to work with the SAOC on sexual assault, we should do it sooner while people are talking about and concerned with the issue,” said Isabelle Dietz ’13.
The council also raised the idea of adding residents of Middlebury as members of the College’s Community Council. Opinions were divided on this matter — some felt that it was a way to bridge the gap between the College and the town on certain issues, while others felt that the council focused on issues that were too unique to the College and would be of little interest to the town.
Lastly, the council discussed the formation of a Residential Life Committee whose mission is to act as an advisory group and discussion forum on residential life, as well as review social houses and special interest houses each year. The committee will be comprised of one staff member, one faculty member and two student members.
(10/03/12 8:36pm)
The start of the academic year has brought two new and unexpected additions available for students — an ambulance and a boat — allowing pre-med, geology and other interested students to gain hands-on learning experience.
The acquistion of the ambulance, a deal nearly two years in the making, was arranged between the College and the Middlebury Volunteer Ambulance Association, according to Ed Sullivan, environmental health and safety coordinator. A donation from local medical services to the College, the ambulance was given as a way to provide more medical assistance to the town of Middlebury.
Currently, Middlebury runs two ambulances at night, one of which travels back and forth to Burlington. Therefore, if a major incident were to occur in Middlebury, there might be only one on-call ambulance in the area.
The new addition gives EMT-certified students the opportunity to run the ambulance and respond to calls in the area when local services do not have enough staff to handle the situation. Student EMTs will also respond to the College’s night calls. This new program will provide a unique opportunity to the 45 student EMTs, which consist of about 60 percent on the pre-med track.
“We are providing a program that will give our students clinical experience before medical school and a program that gives them the opportunity to ensure that this is what they want to do with their lives,” said Sullivan.
Before, student EMTs could respond to student calls at night, but with the acquisition of the local ambulance comes unfounded territory as well as responsibility. Students who have been trained extensively could be dealing with situations ranging from minor cuts to major automobile accidents, under the supervision of other paramedics.
“We are going to the next step, and it’s a huge step, really, because it’s run by the students for the students,” added Sullivan.
Rachel Percelay ’14, a junior on the pre-med track and a member of the Student Emergency Response Team, is excited about having access to hands-on experience that most students do not get until medical school.
“Students get to have actual experience in an ambulance,” said Percelay. “We will be dealing with a lot of drunk kids, which is inevitable, but we will also get a lot of exposure when dealing with doctors and it is great for medical school applications. The most important part of it all is the opportunity for students to ensure this is what they want to do with their lives. And this is valuable knowledge to have, especially before paying for medical school.”
In addition to the new ambulance, the College recently finished building a research vessel, the R/V David Folger, after receiving a grant from the National Science Foundation. The construction of the state-of-the art boat began in the fall of 2010 and ended May 2012. Professor of Geology Pat Manley’s marine biology students had the opportunity to board the boat last week.
The College is working to get certification from the Coast Guard in order for larger classes to go out in the future. For now, the group size allowed on the boat is limited to seven students. Prior to the construction of the R/V David Folger, Middlebury had the R/V Baldwin, an older research vessel on Lake Champlain. It was thirty years old and could no longer be renovated. Manley believes that the new boat provides a much-needed upgrade that will allow for tremendous research opportunities in many disciplines.
“This is a state of the art research vessel,” said Manley. “It is the premier ocean vessel on Lake Champlain ... It is a lake studies research vessel and is meant to be for all students, and can be expanded to much more than just a science research vessel,” added Manley.
Manley hopes that classes from all different areas of study will utilize the boat. She would like to take her first-year seminar class out in the near future and notes that dance and music classes have already expressed interest in using the boat. The boat will be officially dedicated on Oct. 20, homecoming weekend, at Basin Harbor Club.