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(01/16/14 1:35am)
The College’s divestment debate took a break from being in the spotlight during the Fall semester, but a new initiative from the Socially Responsible Investment Club (SRI) may reinvigorate the movement. SRI has created a new sub-group, the Research and Investment in Social Equity (RISE) fund, that will focus on investing $150,000 of the College’s endowment in companies that demonstrate strength in sustainability and social responsibility in addition to considering traditional financial indicators.
The RISE fund will determine who to invest in by evaluating companies using Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors. To inform their investing, the RISE fund will use a unique data set produced by Morgan Stanley Capital International (MCSI), which rates businesses in different industries based on ESG factors such as clean energy use and investment and racial and gender diversity among company executives.
SRI co-chairs Ben Chute ’13.5 and Nate Cleveland ’16.5 hope the fund will prove that considering factors like sustainability when investing is beneficial to individuals and institutions in the long-term.
“The thesis behind ESG investing is all these criteria are indicators of a strong company and a company that is well positioned to do well long into the future and further than the traditional investment horizon usually forecasts,” Chute said, adding that research has shown that “using these risk-factors to enhance your investing doesn’t hurt you at all and actually helps you invest in more sustainable companies and that puts pressure on these companies to be better.”
If the RISE fund proves to be successful, this kind of investing could be translated to the college’s entire billion-dollar endowment.
Cleveland added that the fund seeks to promote embracing what is known as the Triple Bottom Line: people, planet and profit.
“There doesn’t necessarily need to be trade-offs between making profits and supporting companies that are doing the best they can to impact society … and diminish their environmental impacts,” he said.
The fund came to life with surprising alacrity during the Fall 2013 semester as Chute used his position as the first-ever Student Liaison to the Board of Trustees to advocate for it. He noted that at first, the RISE fund was “jokingly floated around previously” but was surprised to find that many board members approved of the idea nearly immediately.
“[I’ve] been able to see the growing acceptance of this [sustainable investing] as a viable and actually advantageous strategy within the Board of Trustees,” Chute said.
SRI members working on the RISE fund are currently trying to produce a charter to outline the fund’s structure and process and are researching companies that they might want to invest in. They plan to make their first investments come February.
Both Chute and Cleveland have acknowledged the RISE fund’s position as a unique learning and teaching tool.
“There are very few other places where college kids get to manage this kind of money,” Cleveland said.
He hopes that through the fund, students can learn the vocabulary and skills required for responsible investing and the benefits of integrating ESG criteria into the evaluation of investments.
Additionally, the purchase of the MSCI data set will provide an educational opportunity for all students.
“Purchasing this data set will be really, really cool because it will shift our school’s focus,” Virginia Wiltshire-Gordon ’16, co-president of SRI, said.
“If everybody has this resource, then it is possible for … for students to start using it, for professors to start using it, for it to get integrated into the school’s curriculum,” she said. “It will increase everybody’s involvement in ESG research.”
Chute reiterated Wiltshire-Gordon’s excitement for the potential of the data set and what it means for the student body.
“I think this is something that is very consistent with Middlebury as a whole right now. Students here seem to have this immense capacity to integrate sustainability and interdisciplinary thinking into so many different things: look at the food movement, look at Solar Decathalon. Those [types of] students, … we need as many of them as possible.”
Students interest in participating in the RISE fund should attend meetings on Mondays at 5:30 in Hillcrest 103 or email Nate Cleveland at ncleveland@middlebury.edu.
(12/05/13 2:51am)
It Happens Here (IHH), a student group that raises awareness of sexual assault at the College, announced that it will be holding its third annual storytelling event on Jan. 20 in the McCullough Social Space.
Founded by Luke Carroll Brown ’14 and Margo Cramer ’12 in 2011, IHH works to promote conversations about sexual violence on college campuses and to empower survivors of sexual violence as educators by providing a forum for them to share their stories. Since its inception, IHH has hosted speakers and alternate discussion forums on the issue of sexual violence on college campuses.
“Certain experiences with friends made clear to me just how enormous this problem was, both in prevalence and emotional impact on an individual,” Brown said. “This prevalence is due in large part to our collective inability to acknowledge this problem.”
Brown hopes that continued IHH programming will help reduce the stigma attached to sexual violence so that students can discuss the issue more openly.
“If one in three women on this campus were being mugged over the course of a year, we would have a response,” he said. “Sexual violence, because of the stigmas attached to coming forward about an experience, creates a really unique problem in that we can’t speak about it, and survivors have every reason in the world not to want to speak about it. So this faceless problem persists.”
Like the April 2012 IHH event, the storytelling event in January will feature stories submitted by students affected by sexual violence, read by the survivors themselves or their peers.
Nearly a quarter of the student body attended the event last April, according to Brown, who argued that such strong attendance indicates student eagerness to address this issue. Brown hopes for similar attendance at this year’s event to further IHH’s goal of “shatter[ing] the silence” about sexual violence on college campuses.
Katie Preston ’17, a member of IHH, joined the organization “to bring these conversations [about sexual violence] to people who may not seek out these experiences — who are often the people who most need to hear this.”
Jordan Seman ’16, who attended the April event, is excited for the return of IHH and echoed Preston’s wish for diverse and increased attendance.
“I remember being shocked by how easily ‘consent’ can be blurred on college campuses,” Seman said. “It forced me to reflect on my experiences in a way I hadn’t before. I really hope that this year there are a higher number of male attendees because I remember thinking that it could have made a bigger impact if more guys had been there to listen.”
After the Jan. 20 event, IHH hopes to direct the interest in the storytelling event into follow-up conversations as well as a bystander intervention campaign. In the future, IHH hopes to bring sexual violence activists to campus as speakers and expand its group.
Brown and Cramer are also working to expand It Happens Here into a national movement with the College chapter serving as only one campus within a broader network. IHH is currently working to establish programming at six other colleges across the U.S.
(10/17/13 12:50am)
This year, the College’s numerous student organizations focusing on food consciousness have joined forces to create a Food Cluster group. Led by College Food and Farm Educator Sophie Esser Calvi ’03, the Food Cluster is a coalition that seeks to promote cooperation among groups such as EatReal, the Middlebury College Organic Farm, Weigh the Waste, Dolci and Weybridge House.
The groups have diverse ideas on how the student body and the College can focus their efforts on improving food culture, ranging from reducing meat consumption, increasing composting and encouraging creative cuisine. Most groups, however, do have a significant amount of overlap, particularly on the subject of local foods.
Jordan Collins ’16, co-president of EatReal and a member of Weybridge House, elaborated on this overlap, explaining that EatReal encourages the administration to promote local, sustainable food while Weybridge House shapes lifestyles around local and sustainable food philosophies.
The goal of the Food Cluster, according to Calvi, is to help student groups recognize their commonalities and join forces in order to make greater change.
Natalie Valentin ’15, a Campus Sustainability Coordinator (CSC) and liaison to dining services, has been working on developing, promoting and expanding the Food Cluster.
“Up until this year, there have been a lot of different food conversations happening across campus, but people have been working on the same things,” Valentin said. “Having the Food Cluster allows us to look at what our mutual goals are and also look at what each individual group’s best capacity [for creating change] is.”
Thus far, groups such as EatReal and the Middlebury College Organic Farm, in conjunction with the CSC’s food focus group, have united to encourage participation in the Real Food Challenge. The Real Food Challenge is a movement that strives for colleges and universities to pledge to buy at least 20 percent “real food” — defined by the organization as local, fair, humane or ecological — by 2020.
Members of the Environmental Council Food Committee, CSCs and EatReal, united through the Food Cluster, are working with Dining Services to create a Winter Term internship to use the challenge’s “Real Food Calculator” to audit dining purchases and find areas where the College can bring in more local foods.
In spite of the change they seek, both Valentin and Esser Calvi applaud Dining Services’ efforts to bring local foods to the College.
“Dining Services has had a commitment to local and responsible purchasing for a long time,” Valentin said. “That is something they have already been doing, and now with the growing student interest, they are looking to do more.”
Executive Chef of Dining Services Robert Cleveland offered insight into the complex decisions that Dining Services faces in choosing where to purchase foods.
“We don’t need to be convinced [of the benefits of buying locally]; we are trying to figure out how to navigate in a complex food supply system that must weigh in the balance our wants and needs with our fiscal and ethical responsibilities,” he said.
Dining Services has been working with vendors for as long as 65 years to bring foods grown or processed from within a 250-mile radius to the College. Currently, 47 Vermont food producers, including Monument Farms, Vermont Highland Beef, Champlain Orchards and Middlebury College Organic Farm, provide goods to the College. Approximately 20 percent of the food served in the dining halls is local.
Buying local reduces the distance food must be transported, thereby reducing fossil fuel consumption and working to support the College’s mission to be carbon neutral by 2016, a benefit that Dining Services recognizes and aims to expand upon. Additionally, local foods support regional economies and maximize the freshness and nutritional value of food.
Cleveland has seen how the College’s efforts to buy local have helped the community first-hand.
“We regularly host matchmaker events that bring together local farmers with local buyers beside ourselves, and we have seen them increase production in some instances when they know that we will buy large quantities of product at competitive prices,” Cleveland said. “Due to our volume purchasing position, we have been able to take the balance of a farmer’s entire crop that might not have lasted at their farm stand.”
Cleveland and other Dining Services administrators welcome the increased student dialogue, input and feedback surrounding their buying practices, but face difficulties in balancing the dining budget, student needs and a desire to buy local.
Dining Services must serve approximately 7,000 meals per day to students with diverse dietary needs, restrictions and preferences. Local vendors, constrained by the scale of their operations and the Vermont growing season, cannot always meet the College’s high-volume demand. Furthermore, the price of local products is often higher than that of conventional products because supply is smaller.
The Student Government Association (SGA) Environmental Affairs Committee seeks to help Dining Services find balance between the student body and Food Cluster, ensuring that all voices are heard despite the limitations of the budget.
To gauge student opinion, the SGA plans to conduct a survey to determine why students want local food and what they might be willing to sacrifice for more sustainable foods.
The SGA, in collaboration with the Food Cluster, will use the data in combination with an evaluation of Dining Services’ spending to produce a series of specific recommendations on how Dining Services can find room in its budget to bring in more local food.
“If we send out a recommendation that says we want 70 percent of the food to be sustainable, organic and ethically-sourced by next year, that’s not possible,” SGA Director of Environmental Affairs Jake Nonweiler ’14 said. “We want to find out what is possible.”
(10/03/13 12:46am)
A reduction in parking ticket fees this year from $50 to $10 marked a concession of Public Safety to the demands of the Student Government Association (SGA).
In February 2013, Public Safety raised the price of a parking ticket from $10, the cost that has been imposed for the past 10 years, to $50, in an effort to deter students from violating parking regulations and to minimize the discrepancy between the cost of a parking ticket and the cost of towing, which costs $175. In considering the SGA’s request to reverse the raised price of parking tickets, Public Safety found that the increased fee did not result in a significant decrease in the number of parking violations.
As a result, Public Safety decided to compromise with the SGA, returning to a $10 general fine for parking violations, but instating a $25 fine for illegal parking in spaces reserved for Faculty and Staff.
“We realized that we wanted to meet [the SGA] halfway because we’re not about making money,” Associate Dean of the College and Director of Public Safety Lisa Burchard said. “We really just want people to park where they need to park and understand the rules.”
Ticketing students for parking violations is necessary because, at times, improperly parked cars can disrupt the regular functions of the College by inhibiting snow plowing and preventing faculty from finding parking. The College promises that faculty members are given parking spaces within a five to seven minute walk to the academic building in which they teach.
“In order for us to complete the more important aspects of our work, we need parking to work,” Burchard said.
Parking during the 2013-2014 academic year has been further complicated by the construction of the new field house, which removed parking spaces previously reserved for students.
As a result, some students have resorted to driving less.
“I don’t drive around campus because there are very few places to park, and it’s just not practical to drive,” Luke Carpinello ’16 said.
The number of parking tickets issued during September 2013 is not significantly different from tickets issued in September 2012, however, with 391 tickets issued in 2013 and 49 in 2012, with violations occurring primarily in the same areas.
Burchard justified the peripheral locations and limited the number of student parking lots by citing the College campus as “a pedestrian campus.” Public Safety has added additional spaces in the Ridgeline parking area to compensate for the reduction in student parking at the athletic complex. Burchard noted that due to confusion and concerns surrounding parking spaces, Public Safety may conduct its first major evaluation of on-campus parking in 12 years.
Some students believe that changing the parking system would be the best way to reduce the number of parking regulations and violations.
“Students should be able to park freely as long as they are reasonable and obtain the proper permits for long term parking,” Leila Schochet ’16 said.
SGA President Rachel Liddell ’15 believes that systematic change to the parking policy could make a difference, outlining plans to work with Public Safety to improve parking in the coming months with the goal of reassessing the parking lots for designated faculty and staff and proposing that students be billed directly for tickets, instead of adding tickets on to the annual tuition bill.
One of Liddell’s primary goals is to clarify the gray areas surrounding appropriate student parking locations.
“I want people to feel they aren’t victims of a system,” Liddell said, adding that students should appreciate the privilege to have a car on campus that the College grants them.
(09/19/13 12:16am)
In concession to strong student demand, the College has agreed to continue offering a finance course this academic year in a last-minute addition to the course catalog.
When the Alan R. Holmes Professor of Monetary Economics Scott Pardee, the College’s only finance professor, announced his intention to leave the economics department at the end of the last academic year, many students were concerned that finance courses would no longer be available at the College.
The economics department received several emails, letters and course evaluations voicing this concern. In response to students’ demands, the faculty has reinstated a finance course within the Interdepartmental category. Corporate Finance and Accounting (INTD 306) was a last-minute addition to the course catalog for the fall semester, and will be co-taught by Professor David Colander and newly-named Center for Careers and Internships (CCI) Emeritus Faculty Fellow Scott Pardee.
INTD 306 will be the only finance and accounting course offered this semester, a reduction from previous semesters when Pardee taught four courses devoted to the subject.
Following the College’s announcement of the course, 48 students enrolled in the class and 80 more were added to the waitlist, in spite of its last-minute appearance in the course catalog.
The demonstrated popularity of this course, in addition to the reduction of finance courses from four to one, has edged out some students hoping to prepare themselves for a career in finance.
“The Economics program at Middlebury is outstanding and I have benefitted immensely from it,” said Jake Feury ’16. “However, I strongly believe that adding more finance courses into Middlebury’s curriculum will help us perform better in job interviews and succeed in a career in finance after college. It would certainly make me feel more comfortable applying for jobs if I had the opportunity to take more finance courses here at Middlebury.”
Even Middlebury alumni are speaking out on the subject.
“As an alum who works in finance and took all of Prof. Pardee’s classes, I can definitely say that my experience looking for a job in finance would not have been the same without the knowledge that I gained in Prof. Pardee’s classes and more importantly, his real world experience in the field,” an online commenter to The Campus’ article titled “College Drops Finance Courses,” published last spring wrote. “When a MiddKid is out there competing with a Finance major from Yale, Dartmouth, it is better for the company to hire someone who needs less training.”
Both Colander and Pardee expressed a desire to spend the fall developing a curriculum of several new finance courses to supplement the current single offering.
Pardee emphasized the importance of these finance classes in giving students a competitive edge in the job search, as well as to the College’s standing.
“If you don’t have somebody here who is teaching that stuff then we lose,” said Pardee. “These schools that we are in deadly competition with have these courses so we have to have them to even maintain the position that we have.”
The debate over whether finance courses belong at the College represents a much larger discussion happening across departments about the role of specialized courses at a liberal arts college based on the current job market.
Christian A. Johnson Professor of Economics and Head of the Economics Department Peter Matthews disagreed, responding that the “out-of-the-box” thinking that a liberal arts education generates will make any Middlebury student marketable.
“The liberal arts experience … prepares students for all pursuits, not individual jobs, [and] for a lifetime of engagement with the world, not specific job interviews,” said Matthews. “I believe that the current Economics Department, with its renewed commitment to ‘research-based learning,’ embodies this experience, and I’m confident that our students are well prepared to excel in the world. I also know, however, that there are more opportunities than ever at the College to acquire marketable skills.”
Many students question if this is enough, however.
“Middlebury needs to reconsider what it means to be a liberal arts college in the 21st century and offering finance courses is part of this,” said Max Kagan ’14. “Students need job skills in order succeed in an increasingly competitive job market. The world is changing; the oft-repeated refrains that a liberal arts degree is a degree in ‘learning how to think’ and that ‘you can do anything with a liberal arts degree’ are under threat.”
(05/01/13 2:43pm)
Inspired by the fervor for educational reform among members of the college community, Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB) has invited Mike Feinberg, co-founder of Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) schools, to be the 2013 spring speaker. KIPP is a nationwide group of free charter schools aimed at preparing students in underprivileged communities for college.
Feinberg will give a lecture called “KIPP to Z: Lessons Learned to Help All Children Succeed in School and Life” at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, May 7 in Mead Chapel, followed by a question and answer session. No tickets are necessary for the talk, and all students, faculty, staff and community members are welcome.
Feinberg started KIPP in 1994 with co-founder Dave Levin just three years after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania. While working for Teach for America in Houston, Texas, Feinberg and Levin were frustrated when they noticed that even the most successful students in their fifth grade classrooms lost their good habits — not skipping class, not smoking — when they moved on to other grades. The determination to make a long-term educational impact on students gave Feinberg and Levin the idea for the KIPP program, and in 1995, they founded KIPP Academy in Houston.
Unlike private schools, admission to KIPP schools, which run fifth grade to twelfth grade, is determined by lottery. They are similar to private schools in their rigor and demanded level of commitment. Students have class from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., for four hours on Saturday and must come to school for an extra month in the summer. Students, parents and teachers are all required to sign a learning pledge called a “Commitment to Excellence” in which all three parties promise to take every action to promote the child’s learning.
Monica Moua ’15, a graduate of the KIPP Summit Academy in San Lorenzo, Calif., believes that it was this cooperation that separated her educational experience from those at other schools.
“We stress the value of a team and family, because KIPP becomes our second home,” reflected Moua. “We work hard at breaking down walls and barriers that typically separate individuals to create a space where everyone is given an equal opportunity to thrive.”
Kit Tse ’16, who attended a KIPP school for high school, believes her teachers were the most influential part of her KIPP experience.
“They hold an immense amount of passion and enthusiasm for teaching and have high standards for their students,” said Tse. “It is incredible how much they care about their students personally and academically.”
Moua credits her KIPP experience for keeping her on the path towards college.
“They always said, ‘Climb the mountain to college,’” said Moua. “If I had never made the decision to enter a KIPP school, I do not believe I would have taken the opportunities that allowed me to get where I am today.”
There are currently 125 KIPP schools in 20 states, educating more than 41,000 students. Feinberg now works on regional and global development for the KIPP foundation and serves on the board for KIPP Houston. Among many prizes and recognitions, Feinberg and Levin received the Presidential Citizen’s Medal for their inspiring work, the United State’s second highest presidential award for private citizens.
Christian Schoning ’13 and Ellie Alldredge ’15 of the MCAB Speakers Committee thought Feinberg would be “a timely pick” for the spring speaker because of the widespread interest in education issues at the College.
This fall’s panels on affirmative action generated much discourse on campus, and the waitlist for the class Education in America is one of the longest at the College. Furthermore, approximately one quarter of the class of 2012 is presently employed in education, a higher percentage than any other occupation.
Alldredge explained how Feinberg’s youth paired with his amazing accomplishments was a main draw for MCAB.
“He’s a social entrepreneur who really manifested his dream and his goal within 10 years of leaving college,” said Alldredge. “Who could be a better role model to bring to our campus?”
There are presently several KIPP school graduates who attend Middlebury College and a few alums of the College teach at KIPP schools. The College has had applicants from KIPP schools in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, North Carolina and Arkansas and hopes to enroll more KIPP students in the future.
As part of the event, MCAB will host a dinner in partnership with Atwater Commons for students of the College who are KIPP graduates to meet with Feinberg.
MCAB will also host a small-scale discussion before the talk for students to speak with Feinberg, in addition to the question and answer session following the lecture. Students who are interested in this discussion, which will focus on the role of charter school and other reforms in promoting educational change, should email MCAB at mcabspeak@middlebury.edu explaining their interest in the discussion.
(04/24/13 4:38pm)
Today, April 25 eminent scholar of Russian literature and history, author and translator Rosamund Bartlett will visit the College. Bartlett most recently published a biography called Tolstoy: A Russian Life, which was long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize — the UK’s most prestigious non-fiction award. Her next book release, scheduled for 2014, will be an important, new translation of Anna Karenina. Eagerly awaited by the literary studies and Russian departments, Bartlett will present a lecture titled “Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina in Context: The Cultural and Political Dimensions” at 4:30 p.m. in Robert A. Jones ’59 Conference Room.
Fulton Professor of Humanities and Director of the Department of the Program in Literary Studies Stephen Donadio, who is responsible for inviting Bartlett to Middlebury, described Bartlett’s future presence at the College as “an extraordinary opportunity.”
Bartlett is a life member of Wolfson College, Oxford, in England and a Fellow of the European Humanities Research Center at Oxford. She was awarded the Chekhov 150th Anniversary Prize in 2010 by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. She has written biographies of other important 19th century authors such as Anton Chekhov, and also translated other notable works, like a collection of Chekhov’s letters, into English. Oxford’s new edition of World Classics will feature Bartlett’s translation of Anna Karenina and the translation has already been named a selection of the Oprah Winfrey Book Club.
In her lecture at the College, Bartlett will discuss some of the challenges of translating Tolstoy’s masterpiece into English. Furthermore, she will describe the influences of Tolstoy’s life, which she researched for her new biography, and Russian history on Anna Karenina.
“I’m certain that what she will have to say to us about the larger implications of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina — and the difficulties that that work presents to the English translator — will be fresh and memorable,” said Donadio.
Literary studies major Brita Fisher ’15 is excited about learning of the implications of translation on meaning in Anna Karenina.
“Since I cannot speak the language, I have to read all Russian works in translation, which of course removes some of their power, since language and meaning are often intertwined,” Fisher said. “I love hearing [such] scholarship on literature, especially since it always opens up new ways to see texts.”
There have been many past translations of Tolstoy’s famous Anna Karenina, including the current translation of choice by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Donadio predicts, however, that Bartlett’s translation will bring something new to the table.
“My expectation is that Bartlett’s new translation will effectively demand a thorough reconsideration of that of Pevear and Volokhonsky,” explained Donadio. “It’s not likely that Bartlett would have taken on a project of this scale unless she thought that a new translation of the work was called for, a translation that would take into account aspects of Tolstoy’s writing that are not adequately reflected in that other translation.”
On this trip to the United States, Bartlett will also speak at the Hillwood Museum in Washington D.C., on the Culture of Imperial Russia. Her next book will be on the cultural history of opera in Russia.
(04/17/13 4:23pm)
Though most of us overlook it, the College, one of the wealthiest institutions in the state, is located in one of the poorest counties in Vermont: Addison County. In the three counties surrounding Middlebury, 30,000 people have inadequate access to healthy food and frequently go hungry. A quarter of these people are youth.
Inspired by their varying backgrounds with food and a similar project in Chicago, Ill., this summer, seven sophomores will be seeking to tackle this pervasive issue of hunger and malnourishment in the local area.
Meet Middlebury Foods, the brainchild of Jack Cookson ’15, Eduardo Dañino-Beck ’15, Elias Gilman ’15, Chris Kennedy ’15, Oliver Mayers ’15, Nathan Weil ’15 and Harry Zieve Cohen ’15. Together, these students worked with another winner of this year’s MiddChallenge, Share the Surplus, a program which funds student projects to solve societal problems.
Middlebury Foods seeks to sell supermarket quality foods at fast food prices, providing access to healthier food options to more people. Middlebury Foods will obtain high quality meats and produce by ordering through Middlebury Dining, the Organic Garden and other local vendors. The students and other volunteers will then package a week’s worth of food into boxes and distribute these at various community organizations, such as local churches and shelters. The boxes will be sold for about $27-30 to thirty dollars a box, meaning that each meal contained in the box will cost a family about $1.50 per person.
“It’s a savings of about 40 percent per week on dinners, and it’s also going to be better quality food than you’d get at Shaw’s,” said Cookson.
To get off the ground, Middlebury Foods received a grant of $3,000 from the College’s Center for Social Entrepreneurship for winning MiddsChallenge.
Middlebury Foods will operate as a non-profit organization, using the profits from each sale of food boxes to increase production and target more people. Additionally, Middlebury Foods will donate five percent of its profits to the community groups with which it partners.
Cookson and Zieve Cohen explained that by delivering the food boxes to convenient community locations, Middlebury Foods can greatly increase the customer base it serves.
“You don’t have to go to the grocery store or deal with the lines anymore; it’s there,” said Zieve Cohen.
“[This system] also addresses the problem of people who don’t have cars and actually have trouble accessing groceries,” said Cookson. “Not only is it convenient but it makes it possible to get food without having to depend on somebody else.”
Weil views this delivery system as a key to eradicating malnourishment in an agrarian state like Vermont.
“Housing is so spread among the rural state that it’s often hard for people to go to a (…) healthy grocery store, as opposed to the gas station down the street that has some produce but mostly just packaged goods,” said Weil. “We’re really targeting the root causes of the issue as opposed to just the symptoms.”
Middlebury Foods is also unique in the educational aspect of its enterprise. Each food box will contain an informational packet with recipes on how to prepare the food in nutritious ways, generated by local nutritionists, a doctor and chefs in the area. The group hopes that in this way Middlebury Foods can teach its clientele about making healthy food choices.
Zieve Cohen noted that this method of hunger relief helps foster a family-oriented atmosphere in addition to its other services.
Adding recipes “encourages people to eat at home and to sit around a dinner table and have a meal that they can feel proud of having prepared themselves,” said Zieve Cohen.
After hearing of the project, James Jermain Professor Emeritus of Political Economics and International Law Russ Leng, offered his support. When asked what he views to be the most promising aspect of the project, he replied, “I like the idea of doing something local, that helps people who could use a hand, but does so without just giving them a hand-out. Most Vermonters are self-reliant, and do not like to ask for help. This is an idea that gives them a good deal, but one that they pay for themselves.”
Middlebury Foods hopes to work with other food-related efforts at the College and continue their work with Share the Surplus to generate momentum for its project.
“There’s a lot of energy around the issues of food on campus, whether its sustainability and environmentalism or nutrition and health; they’re all interrelated,” said Weil. “There’s a really big and strong base for us to all work together on campus going forwards.”
If they succeed this summer, the Middlebury Foods group members hope to continue this project for the rest of their college careers.
Students can get involved by volunteering to help package and sort food this summer or in the following semesters, or by donating on MiddStart, Middlebury’s online fundraising hub, at go/middstart.
(04/10/13 8:19pm)
On April 4, 2013, the Perkins Award for Excellence in Teaching was presented to Assistant Professor of Biology Catherine Combelles in recognition of her exemplary teaching in the classroom and her pioneering work in oocyte development. On a sunny afternoon, students and faculty gathered in a sunlit lecture room of McCardell Bicentennial Hall to celebrate this recognition, which Dean of Faculty Andrea Lloyd described as the “synergy (…) between teaching and scholarship.”
This year marked the 20th anniversary of the Perkins Award, one of the College’s most prestigious faculty honors. It is presented to mathematics and computer science professors in odd-numbered years and natural science professors in even-numbered years. Recipients are nominated by their department for their outstanding teaching and personal scholarship. The award includes a grant for scholarship, a citation and recognition on two plaques.
The Perkins Award is provided by founder of the mathematics department, Professor Emenitus Llewellyn R. Perkins and his wife, Middlebury College alumna, Ruth M.H. Perkins ’32.
With the assistance of several students, Combelles is currently studying the effect of antioxidants on oocyte development with the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In the past, alongside several students, she has frozen oocyte cells to preserve cancer victims’ fertility. Later this year Combelles will submit a proposal to the National Institutes of Health to study the effect of obesity on fertilized oocytes.
Before arriving at Middlebury in 2004, Combelles received her B.S. in biology from the College of Charleston, her M.S. in zoology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and her Ph.D. in cell, molecular and developmental biology from Tufts University. Combelles, a Toulouse, France native, was also a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Brigham and William’s Hospital in Boston, Mass. She has been published extensively, including many articles co-authored by Middlebury students. Recently, Combelles was promoted to associate professor of biology effective as of July 1, 2013.
In the biology department, Combelles teaches courses such as “Organelles and Cells, Developmental Biology” and the first year seminar “Making Babies in a Brave New World.”
At the ceremony, Combelles’s student research assistants raved about her care for her students and passion for her subject.
“She has an amazing infectious enthusiasm for everything she does,” said Ryan Brewster ’14. “For me, to observe a professional in her niche doing what she loves has been truly inspiring.”
In her acceptance speech, Combelles said that exciting and inspiring others is the most rewarding part of teaching.
“This will never be a boring profession,” said Combelles, who compared teaching to “an exercise in frustration.” She elaborated, likening teaching to research because of its experimental nature. “I was a professional student for so long and I feel now that I am still a student because in teaching, I am constantly learning.”
Combelles hopes that by teaching she can cast a broader net of influence by helping students and the future generation achieve great things.
(03/13/13 4:49pm)
On Monday, March 13, the Student Government Association (SGA) invited students, staff and faculty to discuss a question of central importance to the college community: how can the Middlebury College honor code be improved to truly maintain academic integrity? The SGA hoped that the forum would bring the issue of improving the honor code into the limelight; this is a timely discussion given that the Honor Code Review Committee will review the document this year, three years following the last review.
During the most recent review in 2009, the Honor Code Review Committee discovered that faculty members and students nearly unanimously felt that the College’s proctoring system was ineffective. According to their research, honor codes which require students to proctor each other do not work — both at Middlebury and other institutions.
To address this problem, the Honor Code Review Committee altered the language of the honor code to indicate that professors could proctor exams if they felt is was necessary and received the approval of the Dean of the College.
Since 2009, fewer than five professors have used this option. Yet, at Monday’s meeting, attendees indicated that they believed cheating still occurs in the community.
Students and faculty shared various stories of when the honor code has worked optimally and others when it failed to stop cheating. Most participants agreed, however, that the honor code allows students many important privileges.
SGA President Charlie Arnowitz ’13 said that the College’s honor code was a feature that attracted him to the College when he was applying, but that it has fallen short of his expectations. Arnowitz believes that, in part, students misunderstand the honor code.
“The honor code is not a permanent fixture of Middlebury College,” said Arnowitz.
He wondered if students understood what the College would look like without an honor code, and reiterated the privileges that the honor code affords, such as no proctoring and take-home exams.
Students and faculty agreed that the honor code promotes invaluable collaboration, especially in courses like Geographic Information Systems (GIS). They agreed that recognition of the honor code’s benefits would promote adherence to it.
Dean of the College Shirley Collado concurred that ultimately the evolution of the honor code will depend on the student body.
“The culture has to be defined by the people who have tremendous stake in what we have around us and students seem to me to be central to that,” said Collado. “I like to believe our students can be adults with tremendous integrity, and I know that there are enough students here who are bothered by the lack of a sense of agency among their peers.”
Collado and other forum participants brainstormed various ways to promote further respect for the honor code.
SGA Chief of Staff Anna Esten ’13 suggested that promotion of the honor code should fall more heavily on the College’s Residential Life staff. In particular, she offered that first-year counselors could be held responsible for holding more hall meetings in which they discuss issues like the honor code.
While forum participants agreed that the beginning of students’ first year at the College is the time when they will be most impressionable in regards to the honor code, the forum hoped to continue the discussion of its importance throughout students’ college careers.
Associate Dean of Judicial Affairs and Student Life Karen Guttentag, who is spearheading this year’s Honor Code Review Committee, thinks that sharing stories of students courageously upholding the honor code could inspire more respect for it.
Professor of Mathematics Steve Abbott, a member of the Honor Code Review Committee, believes that the place to encourage adherence to the honor code is in the classroom.
“Faculty could make this a more default component of how they introduce their courses,” said Abbott. “It’s [currently] very uneven.”
The forum also discussed how the language of the honor code, and especially the pledge that students write on their papers, may affect whether or not individuals cheat. Studies have shown that honor code pledges that address a student’s identity (for example, “I will not be a cheater” versus “I will not cheat”) are more effective at dissuading cheating. For this reason, the committee is considering revising the language of the honor code pledge.
Similarly, many schools, such as Haverford College, have had success in linking a social honor code to their academic one.
“I think that what we are talking about with the honor code is symptomatic of other ways that students aren’t looking out for each other,” said Collado.
She hopes that a social honor code would serve the dual function of improving student life and discouraging cheating by stressing the importance of integrity in all areas of campus life.
Whether or not any of these changes will be implemented will be decided by a new council established by the SGA, called the Honor Code Student Committee. The main function of the Honor Code Student Committee will be to evaluate the functionality of the honor code and decide on ways to improve it. Applications for this committee are due Friday, March 15.
Information regarding the honor code and judicial review is available at go/judicial.
(03/07/13 5:00am)
On Friday March 1, 54 current Middlebury Posse scholars and 76 of their student, faculty and staff guests, called “plussers,” traveled to Silver Bay, N.Y. for the nationwide PossePlus Retreat. The PossePlus Retreat is an annual program in which the Posse Scholars of all 44 participating colleges and universities gather in various locations with guests of their choice. Over the course of a weekend, the scholars and their invitees discuss a topic that Posse scholars name as one of importance to them. This year’s topic was “What’s Your Worth? Class, Power & Privilege in America.”
Jennifer Herrera, retreat organizer and special assistant to the dean of the College, described the purpose of the retreat as promoting diverse discussion and interactions among community members in regards to a significant subject.
“The PossePlus Retreat is a dynamic way of bringing together students, faculty and staff in an effort to create critical dialogue about an important issue,” explained Herrera. “We hear all the time that this retreat can be life-changing and that it often creates social networks, dialogue and activity that may not have been there before.”
Scholars and their plussers and mentors departed from the College Friday afternoon for a weekend which Tara Affolter, Posse mentor and visiting professor of education studies, described as “grueling.”
After arriving in Silver Bay, participants took part in emotionally-charged activities until nearly 11 p.m., and then awoke early on Saturday for a complete day of discussions and activities until late Saturday night. On Sunday morning, participants completed a final round of activities before departing for campus around noon.
The weekend’s activities centered around the ideas of revealing the functions of wealth and power in today’s society and identifying the misconceptions and stereotypes which accompany them.
Posse-plusser Jordan Seman ’16 felt enlightened by the weekend’s activities, especially one in which participants identified various locations on campus that can be associated with class.
“The activity was incredibly eye-opening for me because it revealed many of the stereotypes and social-stratifiers that occur in our college community daily,” explained Seman. “It led to very worthwhile discussions about class associations and privilege and how they play out at Middlebury.”
To Posse scholar Ashley Guzman ’13, exploring the rapport between one’s home life and life in college was most elucidated by the retreat.
“By being at Middlebury, I’m afforded a certain amount of power and privilege,” said Guzman. “But in hearing everyone’s stories about where they come from and being [a senior] who’s leaving, it’s very interesting to think about what it means to come to Middlebury and then go back to where you came from and how that can play a role in your experience at Middlebury.”
The message of the significance of one’s background resonated with Posse plusser Ian Rhee ’15 as well. “The most meaningful part was seeing how different a life I lead from the majority of the people on the retreat,” reflected Rhee. “I really got to see how privileged and fortunate I am, and it really made me grateful for my parents and how hard they’ve worked to provide me with everything that I have.”
Student Activities, Programs and Events Manager Dave Kloepfer who attended the retreat as a Posse faculty guest believes the topic of class, power and privilege is universal. “This topic hits home with everyone on some level,” said Kloepfer.
Many participants, both Posse scholars and guests, identified the retreat’s comforting atmosphere as beneficial to poignant, meaningful conversation. “The most meaningful part of the retreat was having the ability to share personal experiences and opinions in a very safe and open space,” said Seman. “We participated in many activities that allowed us to step out of our comfort zones and express ourselves in ways that we normally might not.”
Guzman attributes her increased vocalization about social issues to the atmosphere that the retreat promotes. “I’ve become more confident through these safe spaces that the retreat promotes in calling things out and expecting more of people,” she said.
Furthermore, Guzman hopes that these safe spaces can be brought back to campus through the sense of community generated at the retreat. “You immediately feel this comfort [at the retreat] that I don’t immediately feel on this campus,” said Guzman. “I just would really hope that the plussers and everyone who was invited just felt so included that they might now transfer that sense of community to [the College].”
Affolter entrusts this community of PossePlus participants, in particular the Posse scholars, with the task of increasing such powerful social dialogue as that which occurred on the retreat at the College.
“It’s important to do these focused moments,” said Affolter. “But these conversations really need to be threaded across our educational experiences and not just this isolated conversation. […] That’s the hope.”
(02/20/13 6:26pm)
On Sunday Feb. 17, over 50 students and Schumann Distinguished Scholar Bill McKibben attended the “Forward On Climate” rally in Washington, D.C. The rally, sponsored by 350.org, the Sierra Club and the Hip-Hop Caucus, was the largest climate rally in American history, with approximately 40,000 participants.
“It was really cool to be a part of [the rally] and to just look back and see [thousands of] people behind you, all there for climate change,” explained Hannah Bristol ’14.5 who attended the rally. “It felt like we were really making ourselves heard.”
The goal of the rally was primarily to protest the Keystone XL pipeline project, which seeks to build a pipeline to transport crude oil from Canada to various locations in the western United States. President of the United States Barack Obama is currently faced with the decision of whether or not to approve the project.
During the rally and their march around the White House, the students held a collection of signs which, when viewed together from above, created the image of a pipeline and when flipped, looked like solar panels.
McKibben, who gave a speech at the rally praising the group gathered and urging them to continue their fight for climate change, views Obama’s decision about the Keystone pipeline project as pivotal to environmental activism.
“If Obama rejects it, he’ll be the first leader to turn down a project on climate grounds — that’s a legacy and also a way to convince other countries to do the right thing,” said McKibben.
“We hope that the rally showed President Obama that he does have a huge amount of support from his constituents for him to take executive action on environmental issues, starting with the official denial of the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline,” added Laura Berry ’16, who was the student organizer for the trip to the rally.
Bristol emphasized that this rally was not an attempt to “bash” Obama, but merely to hold him to promises he previously made.
“For Obama, climate change is an issue he always says he is going to put as a priority, but we have yet to see action,” said Bristol. “In the State of the Union, he said that if Congress does not take action on climate change, he would, and we need to hold him to that promise.”
Prior to the rally, the group attended the Youth Convergence on Sunday morning, organized by the Sierra Student Coalition. Students had the opportunity to meet with other college students to discuss steps they are taking to address environmental issues, as well as hear from speakers from 350.org and the Sierra Club.
“[There are] a lot of good lessons to learn about things you can do on your college campus,” said Bristol.
Additionally, students working on the College’s divestment campaign had the chance to meet with other student leaders from schools in the Investure consortium — Dickinson, Smith and Barnard — to plan future efforts.
Divestment is the issue area where McKibben suggests that Middlebury students concerned about climate change should “work like crazy.”
“Midd students have a lot of leverage right now to help with this crisis, if we can persuade our leaders on campus to do the right thing,” he said.
Bristol believes students should work on promoting more nationwide movements like the “Forward On Climate” rally to generate political pressure for environmental issues.
“It will only be salient for our representatives if it’s salient for the people,” urged Bristol. “I think the best thing Middlebury College students can do is build that kind of movement, build that kind of pressure and do whatever they can do to stop what’s happening.”
Laura Berry '16 challenges the student body to pay attention.
“There is no longer an excuse for individuals to remain silent and complacent when it comes to environmental issues," wrote Berry in an email. "Take just a moment to think about your own plans for the future, and realize that if we as individuals continue to do nothing, there very well may not be a habitable planet to live on by the time we are our parents’ age. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.”
(02/13/13 10:39pm)
On Tuesday, Feb. 12, international freelance journalist and Middlebury alumnus Dimiter Kenarov ’03.5 spoke to students and community members in a lecture titled “Shale Gas: from Poland to Pennsylvania.” Recently, Kenarov spent six weeks traveling Eastern Europe and the United States researching fracking as a global phenomenon — the first report of this scale on fracking.
Kenarov particularly focused on Pennsylvania and Poland, where mineral rights to approximately one-third of the country have been sold to gas companies that use fracking. He started his project seeking to explore the social, environmental and economic costs of fracking.
Kenarov explained how today’s energy crisis and fracking are some of the most controversial issues in the public sphere today.
“It’s so polarizing,” said Kenarov. “It’s a real madness. A real war actually.”
Kenarov became interested in the issue in January 2012, after the arrival of fracking caused thousands of people in 12 cities to take to the streets in protest in his native country of Bulgaria.
“My first interest […] had to do mainly with the growth of environmental movements in Eastern Europe and how they were revitalizing civil society,” explained Kenarov. “After the end of the Cold War, people became politically apathetic […] and it seems like in the last couple of years that common space has become important once again.”
The issue of fracking has caused environmentalists around the global to protest. Fracking requires the use of thousands of gallons of fresh water in order to create the pressure to break the rock that separates the underground gas reserves from wells. This water will later flow back out of the wells as waste but contaminated with gas and chemicals that often make it radioactive. Additionally, six percent of the casings — intended to contain oil and chemicals within the well — of all new wells fail, resulting in contaminated groundwater for the area.
Other issues resulting from fracking wells include occasional methane emissions, which dangerously pollute the air, and the disruption of natural habitats — an inevitable side effect of the large clusters of wells and immense pipelines necessary to make fracking lucrative.
Economic arguments often favor fracking. Farmers in Pennsylvania can sell the mineral rights to their land to interested gas companies often for significant profits. Yet Kenarov is hesitant to place too much emphasis on fracking’s economic benefits.
“On one hand, there is no doubt that this has really given an economic boost to [regions of Pennsylvania],” said Kenarov. “Fossil fuels are a fluctuating commodity: it goes through booms and busts,” he said. “It is very dangerous, I think, to build up an economy around a commodity, a resource, that is so unstable.”
Kenarov does not believe, however, that fracking is the solution to countries’ energy and economic problems. He explained that the industry does provide revenue, but is already declining. Companies are leaving Pennsylvania in search of other gas sources. Additionally, no one knows when the supply of gas will be used up.
“Some people say 100 years of supply, some say seven years,” Kenarov noted.
Charlie Koch ’13, an environmental studies major who attended the lecture, was surprised by the instability inherent in the fracking industry.
“I had not previously considered the vulnerability of many of the new businesses and communities reliant on fracking to price fluctuations,” said Koch.
Both the economic instability and destructive environmental impact of fossil fuels have been influential factors in the College’s recent considerations of divesting its endowment from fossil fuel companies.
Kenarov, though hesitant to state an opinion on a would-be divestment initiative, said he did not think divestment would be effective in stopping a large-scale issue such as fracking. Rather, Kenarov advocates pushing large gas companies to improve their green divisions in order to develop alternate energy options. Students, however, are moving forward with their promotion of divestment — several student groups are set to pitch divestment initiatives to the College’s Board of Trustees this Saturday, Feb. 16.
(12/08/12 5:47pm)
Visiting Assistant Professor of Education Studies Tara Affolter addressed the entangled issues of race and education in her lecture on Thursday, Dec. 6 entitled “Tell Them You Saw Me: Invisibility, Race and Racism in the Liberal Arts Classroom.” Affolter is applying for a tenure-track position in Education Studies at the College, and this lecture was part of her evaluation as a candidate.
Affolter has a Ph.D. in education studies and taught secondary school for fifteen years before becoming a professor at the College. She became interested in the links between race and education after working with the Head Start program and teaching children from low-income families.
Recently, she conducted a study regarding race and education in which she interviewed forty students of color who attended American “elite liberal arts colleges” on their experiences in the classroom. This study is not yet published.
Affolter concluded that there is an unhealthy atmosphere for students of color at predominantly white colleges.
“Students of color experience patterns of exclusion [and] alienation,” explained Affolter.
Affolter attributed this campus climate to problems with campus discourse and curriculum.
Survey data collected from 2,042 students at 141 liberal arts colleges revealed that non-white students felt scared to talk in the classroom at double the rate of white students.
Students of color often feel like they need to watch their tone or that what they say is interpreted by white students as speaking for their entire race, said Affolter. Students in her study revealed that they often feel like “a nobody or a nation” when they speak; they are either invisible or hyper-visible to their classmates.
“Part of white privilege is what we say will be heard [and understood],” said Affolter.
Another flaw to campus discourse, Affolter discussed, is that white students may unintentionally make racist comments which go unacknowledged by students and professors.
“Comments like that take students out of the classroom, silences them, marginalizes them,” explained Affolter. Additionally, if racist comments go unchallenged, she added, they may be accepted as fact.
Students of color in Affolter’s study reported that professors often lead very controlled and cautious discussions in regards to race that only serve to skim the surface of the issues at hand. Race issues are frequently discussed only as historical fact and not as problems wracking today’s society.
By not tackling issues of race in the classroom effectively, students are missing educational opportunities, suggested Affolter. She believes that the curriculum is the area the College most needs to address in order to produce a healthy and diverse campus climate.
On the whole, Affolter challenged all the College’s professors to lead in their classrooms conversations in which race is discussed productively.
“I really do believe that the classroom is the place where we need to make the change,” said Affolter.
Maya Doig-Acuna ’16, whose poem about "the influence of black poets and writers on her own growth" was read by Affolter during her lecture, has been moved by Affolter’s message on campus.
“As a student of color, there were things that she said […] that resonated with me from other students’ experiences that I didn’t really realize were even there, kind of tensions that I had felt in classrooms before that I didn’t know how to identify or how to explain,” said Doig-Acuna about Affolter’s lecture. “[Her lecture] made me feel better about this school because I realized so many people cared.”
Doig-Acuna also shares Affolter’s belief that much could be done to improve the state of racial diversity at the College.
“I didn’t expect to feel such a segregated community,” reflected Doig-Acuna. “I wish that everybody had more of an interest in going beyond what’s familiar, and talking to new people, and engaging in the dialogue about diversity.”
Doig-Acuna and Affolter share the belief that “issues of race and identity are issues that belong to everyone and everyone should care about.”
Jay Saper ’13, who recently wrote a satirical editorial for the Campus entitled “Fire Tara,” believes that Affolter plays an extremely important role in the College community.
“Who she is and what she has to say really resonate with many people on campus who feel that in her work she challenges a lot of what is marginalizing various identities at this place,” said Saper, who has taken a class with Affolter every semester that she has taught at the College. In 2011, he ran a campaign called “Keep Affolter” advocating that Affolter remain as a professor on campus.
“She […] is not just someone who participates in fifty minute lectures and publishes so as to lengthen her CV. [She] is someone who is really a member of our community and a support for so many students,” Saper added.
Affolter wishes to remain at the College because of the flexibility in course design and offering in her department, and because she feels she makes an impact at the College.
She will learn if she received the tenure-track position in the Education Studies department in the coming weeks.
(12/05/12 11:25pm)
On Tuesday, Nov. 27 at 7 PM., the Student Government Association (SGA) sponsored an Affirmative Action panel in the McCullough Social Space. The panel, which consisted of Dean of the College Shirley Collado, Dean of Admissions Greg Buckles, Charles A. Dana Professor of Political Science Murray Dry and students Kim Banford ’15 and Andrew Snow ’15, met to discuss the implications of affirmative action in collegiate institutions, particularly at the College, in the light of the Fisher v. University of Texas case currently before the Supreme Court.
The College supports affirmative action as a way to create a more diverse student body. In cooperation with 36 other colleges and universities, the College produced the amici curiae briefs, which were presented to the Supreme Court in favor of affirmative action.
“Highly selective institutions cannot obtain the diversity they seek except by seeking it directly,” argued the brief.
Yet, as Collado explained at the panel, the current language and processes of affirmative action are unsophisticated, and oftentimes this language lends itself to promoting “cosmetic diversity,” or simply creating a critical mass of students who may be considered “diverse”.
Dry and Buckles offered two future alternatives to affirmative action during the panel. Dry, an opponent of affirmative action, suggested that affirmative action does not have a place in college admissions and instead the focus ought to be on the educational disparity among different races. Buckles proposed that colleges could use socioeconomic class as a factor in the admissions decision, in place of race, as part of the attempt to obtain a diverse student body.
Buckles went on to explain that the College has no caps or quotas in regards to race, and instead uses a holistic admissions approach that considers race as one factor among many when considering applicants.
The College has undertaken efforts to not only increase diversity among its student body, but also among its applicant pool. In order to foster a heterogeneous body of applicants from which to select accepted students, the College created the Discover Middlebury program, which flies high school students to Middlebury for an overnight visit in an attempt to make the campus accessible to a greater number of people. In addition, the College also works with the Posse Foundation to add diversity to campus.
Banford suggested that the Posse Foundation is one of the main reasons the College has a diverse student body.
“If you took away all of the Posse scholars, Middlebury would look drastically different,” said Banford.
Despite the holistic attempts at achieving diversity, many in attendance at the panel agreed that a stereotype of a typical student continues to exist on campus.
“My idea of the Midd Kid is that they are basically good-looking and they are very studious,” said Dry. “And it doesn’t matter if they are students of color or not.”
Still, as Alan Sutton ’14 pointed out, that stereotype, while not related to race, is nonetheless formed through superficial observation.
“Good-looking, that’s a concept that still [uses] visual language,” said Sutton.
In dialogue between audience members and panelists, students and faculty audience members agreed that the stereotypical qualities of embodied by a so-called “typical” student must be re-imagined before true diversity can be achieved among the student body.
Professor of Dance Christal Brown, the only African American female faculty member at the College, explained at the panel that the concept of diversity is closely linked with the goals of a liberal arts education.
“[A liberal arts education] is about unearthing all types of stereotypes,” Brown reminded the audience.
Anthony Perez ’14 felt, however, that the College falls short of its attempts to diversify the student body.
“Middlebury could do a little bit more to break down that stereotype that only one type of student comes here,” said Perez.
Numbers suggest that more than one type of student do come to the College. Buckles said that of the current first-year class, students who self-identified as students of color on their applications make up 20 percent of the student body. Additionally, international students comprise about 11 percent of first-years, a number which is far greater than that at many of the College’s peer institutions.
The audience and panelists agreed, however, that the College must make a conscious effort to create an atmosphere within the student body which truly embraces diversity.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Education Studies Tara Affolter expressed her opinion that such an atmosphere does not currently exist.
“There is not necessarily the climate for all students to thrive,” said Affolter, who is holding a talk on Thursday, Dec. 11 at 4:30 p.m. titled “Tell them you saw me: Invisibility, Race and Racism in Liberal Arts Classrooms.”
Collado similarly iterated that the College needs to provide students from all backgrounds with thoughtful reasons to be here.
“My wish is that there is not a single student who feels like they are a visitor,” said Collado.
Collado urged students to continue discussing affirmative action in order to improve the campus climate regarding diversity.
“I hope we can keep this conversation going,” she implored, “because it really does matter.”
(11/05/12 4:39pm)
During his lecture “Who Will Win the 2012 Election?” on Oct. 31, Professor of Political Science Matt Dickinson tentatively predicted that Barack Obama will win the 2012 presidential election. However, Obama’s lead in the polls falls within the margin of error, pointing to a presidential race that Dickinson says is “too close to call.”
Dickinson models his predictions based on the median forecast of various political scientists. His model predicts that Obama will win 50.6 percent of the popular vote, but maintains that the winner is not evident given the margin of error of 1.5 percentage points.
According to Dickinson, it appears that Obama will most likely win the electoral college; however, Romney could still secure the popular vote, creating conflicting signals about the outcome of the presidency.
As of Oct. 31, Obama led by roughly 1 to 2 percentage points in swing state polls. In his lecture, Dickinson cited Drew Linzer, an assistant professor of political science at Emory University, who attributes seven to eight of the eleven swing states to Obama — an outcome which would lead to a certain Democratic victory.
Anna Esten ’13, research assistant to Professor Dickinson, asserts an electoral college win for Obama.
“In my opinion, Obama will be able to pull out a win in Ohio, which should propel him to an electoral college victory,” said Esten.
Many political scientists predicting this election believe that the national tracking polls indicate that Romney will win the popular vote because of his lead with independent voters and overall GOP enthusiasm.
Mitchell Young Perry ’16, cohost of WRMC’s “No More MN Nice,” a radio talk show that discusses politics, is convinced of Dickinson’s prediction that Obama will win.
“Romney needs to pull a lot more upsets [than Obama] it seems,” says Perry.
“The key — and as yet unanswered — question is whether Mitt can, through a combination of winning over undecided voters and gaining a turnout advantage, rope in the one to two percent more support he needs to flip Ohio, or some other combination of swing states, ” wrote Dickinson in a blog post on Oct. 19.
Dickinson explained in his lecture that although low war casualties and Obama’s status as a first term incumbent favor a Democratic victory, these factors are counterbalanced by mediocre approval ratings and the floundering economy.
Dickinson points to the economy as the central issue to this year’s presidential race.
“Obama’s strongest point is to say ‘I have inherited a mess, a fiscal crisis, and I’ve begun to turn it around,’” said Dickinson. “[Romney] will look at that (…) and say it’s not good enough. Yes, Obama inherited a mess but it’s still a mess.”
Perry echoed Dickinson’s observations.
“Republicans had such a great chance with the economy the way it is,” says Perry.
Regardless of campaign tactics and policies, Dickinson stressed that the majority of voters will vote according to their partisanship. This increases the importance of undecided voters who, in this close election, could make the difference in the popular vote.
Dickinson said undecided voters, about five percent of registered voters and those who are generally uneducated about or uninterested in politics are most likely to be influenced by “Get Out the Vote” campaigns.
“Whoever is better at knocking on more doors and getting these people to the polls may determine who wins the race more than a gaff, more than a campaign advertisement, more than anything,” he added.
Both candidates have been running comparable “Get Out the Vote” efforts.
Hurricane Sandy may also be an influential factor for undecided voters in the days leading up to the election. Many pundits believe that Sandy provides Obama the opportunity to show himself in a positive presidential light by correctly motivating governmental organizations like FEMA and appearing above politics.
Hurricane Sandy could also affect voter turnout. Voters in snow-blasted states like West Virginia or flooded regions like Long Island could be prevented from making it to the polls because of the conditions. Additionally, studies have shown that Democrats are less likely to vote in a storm than Republicans, although this generally applied to less-contested elections.
Dickinson said of the closely contested election, “I’ve made these predictions before and they are usually pretty easy. This election literally is too close to call.”
“[Political scientists] think he’s right on the knife edge,” said Dickinson of Obama’s chances of victory.
(10/24/12 7:43pm)
On Oct. 1, Public Safety released the Middlebury College Annual Security and Crime Report. This report, emailed to all students in compliance with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, was a compilation of statistics about crime at the College in the year 2011 as compared to the two previous years.
According to the report, in 2011, there was a significant increase in the number of referrals for disciplinary action for liquor law violations in comparison to 2010 and 2009. Furthermore, in 2011, incidents of burglary and referrals for disciplinary action for liquor law violations occurred on public property for the first time. Finally, no hate crimes were reported in 2011 unlike in previous years. These statistics, however, only represent reported incidents.
Director of Public Safety Lisa Burchard attributes some of the changes in the crime statistics to new policy and institutions.
“The increase in alcohol citations along with other issues resulted in the Task Force on Alcohol and Social Life on campus,” said Burchard. “It’s very possible that the decrease from one to zero [of hate crimes] is a result of the information and mandatory training involved with the Anti-Harassment Policy.”
Burchard also pointed out that crime occurring on public property could be located on the various public roads that cross campus.
Wonnacott Commons Dean Matt Longman highlighted that a number of students, particularly seniors, live off-campus and that this may be a factor in the statistics.
The Middlebury College Annual Security and Crime Report does not reflect instances of vandalism on campus; however, statistics provided by Facilities Services suggest that student vandalism is on the rise. In the 2006-2007 school year, only $54,418.69 worth of student damage was accrued whereas in the 2010-2011 school year, students caused $140,623.45 worth of damage, representing the highest grossing student vandalism year in the range provided. Furthermore, the statistics indicated that last year, Atwater perpetrated the most vandalism of the five commons, and seniors in Atwater were found responsible for damage in most instances.
Longman cautioned that these statistics may not accurately reflect trends in instances of vandalism because they are based on the money spent on student vandalism in a given year.
“[The figures] might not necessarily reflect that there are twice as many incidents of vandalism or damage, but it might just be that there were one or two huge ticket items that created a bloom in the dollar figure,” explained Longman.
Nevertheless, any figures related to needless vandalism are of great concern to the commons deans and the administration.
Assistant Director of Facilities Linda Ross said she feels that vandalism is a concern on campus.
“I do think vandalism is an issue when it takes time away from the departments that already have a concern about the … care of routine maintenance and operations by adding an extra burden to the work load,” said Ross.
To reduce crime, Public Safety takes many steps at the beginning of each year, like testing all emergency phones on campus, posting important contact phone numbers in visible locations and encouraging students to lock their doors.
Throughout the year, they provide foot and cruiser patrol of campus, respond to emergencies and offer MiddRides 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
In addition to Public Safety, the College maintains a strong relationship with the Middlebury police.
To ameliorate campus security, the key-card system was implemented within the past five years.
Also important in minimizing crime and vandalism at the College has been the implementation of the commons system. Longman described the reduction of crime and the increased attention to community concerns as “one of the quieter successes of the commons system.”
The Middlebury College Annual Security and Crime Report was emailed to all students. Burchard said the purpose of this was “to remind everyone crime can and does occur even at [the] College.”
The College’s reported crime statistics are similar to peer institutions.
“Every NESCAC school has similar concerns as we do,” said Longman.
“We benefit from being a small campus, in a small town in the state of Vermont,” added Burchard. “But crime can still occur here, and whenever crime occurs, it’s a problem.”
Still, Burchard described the College as “a relatively safe environment.”
Sam Hage ’16 said he feels safe on campus.
“I don’t really hear about anything bad happening to students,” said Hage. “Not that things don’t happen. And also, I think Pub Safe does a good job looking out for us.”
Longman pointed to students not locking their doors as an example of students’ confidence in campus safety, and said he has met a number of students who have said to him that “even if there is theft here, I’m not going to lock my door because I would rather assert that I view this as a safe space.”
(10/03/12 4:40pm)
On October 27th, WRMC, the College’s student-run radio station, is hosting its annual fall concert in the McCullough Social Space. Starting at 8 p.m., students, encouraged to wear costumes, can kick off their Halloween weekend with the music of YAWN, opening for the rising electro-beat band, Vacationer.
YAWN is a Chicago-based electro-pop band that recently grabbed much attention at SXSW, a music festival held annually in Austin, Texas. The members of YAWN, Adam Gil on vocal, keys and guitar, Daniel Perzan on guitar and bass, Jorge Perez on drums and Sam Wolf on bass, keyboards and secondary vocals, describe themselves on their Facebook page as “four young riff-raffs with a taste for musical adventure (and Nhu Lan sandwiches).”
Grant Swanson of StaticMusic.com explains the Feel Trip/Englophile Records group as “a cross between HelloGoodbye and Local Natives.”
The night’s main feature, Vacationer, recently toured with The Naked and Famous to rave reviews. This fall, the band, led by singer/songwriter Kenny Vasoli, will be travelling everywhere from Vancouver to Atlanta to share their particular brand of “psych and sampledelic indie-pop,” as described by Matt Collar of AllMusic.com.
The Downtown Record band says of their music, “The audio program … was designed with the sole purpose of relaxing the listener and sending their mind on a well-deserved trip.”
Diane Martin ’13, a co-chair on WRMC’s concerts committee, thinks the two groups will present a great live show.
“I think they have really complementary experimental rock sounds,” said Martin. “Both are young bands who are gaining more and more attention for their high energy stage performances, so I know that together they'll put on a great show here.”
Tickets for the event will be sold through the Middlebury Box Office for five dollars. Stay tuned for when tickets will go on sale.
For those unable to attend the concert, WRMC will broadcast the concert to the entire Champlain Valley on their station, 91.1 FM.