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(11/18/15 9:20pm)
At their plenary session on Nov. 6, faculty introduced a motion to reinstate the Pass/D/Fail option for Middlebury undergraduates. The Pass/D/Fail (P/D/F) option, which was approved by the faculty in May 2012 under a six-semester trial period, will expire on Dec. 31, 2015. Faculty members will meet in small groups on Dec. 14 to discuss the measure, and then will formally vote on the motion at their next plenary session on Jan. 15. If the motion passes, the option will go into effect immediately, so that students can invoke it as soon as the spring 2016 term.
Faculty rules state that a proposal to change major educational policy cannot be voted on at the same faculty meeting in which it is presented. According to Suzanne Gurland, Dean of Curriculum, the motion is considered to be major educational policy.
“The idea behind that is to ensure the faculty have time to fully discuss and consider thoughtfully what the proposal is rather than voting in the moment without proper consideration,” she said.
For the current semester, students taking a course under the P/D/F option who receive a grade of C- or higher will have a pass (P) grade recorded on their transcripts. Students who receive a grade of D or F will have that respective grade recorded on their transcripts. A grade of D or F will count in the GPA. A grade of P will not.
The student handbook currently limits students to taking one P/D/F course per semester and they must be enrolled in at least three other courses with standard grading to take an additional course P/D/F. Students may only take a maximum of two courses under P/D/F in their undergraduate career. Classes taken with the option may not be used to satisfy distribution, college writing or cultures and civilization requirements and do not count towards a major or minor.
BannerWeb allows professors to see which of their students have invoked the option, but not by default. Some may choose to view this, but others may not. Faculty will be required to enter a letter grade for all students, but behind the scenes letter grades of C- through A will be converted to a grade of “P” (Pass), while a grade of D or F will remain.
The largest point of contention at the Nov. 6 plenary session was the deadline for invoking the P/D/F option. Currently that deadline is the end of the second week of classes. Students may elect the P/D/F option for a course in which they are already registered during the add period (i.e., within the first two weeks of the semester). The deadline for changing a course from P/D/F to standard grading is the drop deadline, or the end of the fifth week of the semester.
Some faculty spoke about shifting the deadline back in the semester so that it coincides with the drop deadline, which is the end of the fifth week of classes. They indicated that extending the timeline would reduce the stress scheduling among students. Many courses are structured so that graded work is not returned until well into the semester, some faculty said, so that it may be difficult for students to gauge their standing in a course by the second week of classes. Moving the P/D/F deadline to the fifth week might allow for more informed decisions by students as to whether they feel they should invoke the option.
At the most recent meeting of the Commons deans, Natasha Chang, Dean of Brainerd Commons, proposed pushing all deadlines related to P/D/F, as well as the Add/Drop deadline, back to the end of the eighth week of classes. Tiffany Chang ’17, student co-chair of Community Council, has been in communication with Chang and initiated a response in the SGA senate. She and Senator Reshma Gogineni ’16 drafted two bills regarding the Add/Drop deadline and along with Senator Madeleine Raber ’17 are hoping to get those bills merged with amendments to the faculty proposal in time for January’s formal vote.
According to Gurland, the faculty Educational Affairs Committee (EAC) has introduced the motion with the same wording as the current P/D/F option. The only difference, she said, is that the proposed motion has no expiration date, or sunset clause. When approved in May 2012, the original language specified a six-semester trial run after which the option would expire.
“I think in general there was some sense that we should be cautious about this; it was a brand new thing that Middlebury had never done before,” said Gurland. “Since all handbook language can be changed over time, the act of putting a sunset clause in the language was a way of explicitly identifying it as a trial run. Some faculty felt like we should try it out for a period of time and then evaluate how it is working—whether it would be doing what it was intended to do.”
Jason Arndt, professor of psychology and a member of the Educational Affairs Committee who presented the motion, said that this proposal to shift the deadline for invoking the option might be considered an amendment to the motion. He also said the EAC’s opinion on the matter is very much in flux.
“Since this is a major academic policy, we are operating according to standard procedures, which is to allow faculty to discuss the motion, provide feedback, and then use the data and suggestions to help us refine the proposal, if necessary,” Arndt said. “However, the ultimate decision on Pass/D/Fail rests with the faculty in the January faculty meeting—the EAC’s role is to propose educational policy for the faculty to vote on. We will have a better sense for how the faculty feel about the fifth-week proposal after we hold small group meetings, and when it comes up for debate and discussion in the January faculty meeting.”
In preparation for introducing the original motion at the Nov. 6 faculty plenary session, EAC requested data about students’ use of P/D/F from the Office of the Registrar. Of the 514 individual grades given under P/D/F between spring 2013 and spring 2015, there were no grades of D, one grade of F, and one grade marked incomplete. The most commonly awarded grade was B. In every semester since spring 2013, more than half of the students who invoked the option were seniors.
At the plenary session on Nov. 6, several faculty members presented mixed interpretations about the data, which were sent to all faculty in a document prior to the meeting. Some questioned whether the data gathered by the registrar accurately portrayed students’ tendencies in invoking the P/D/F option. According to Gurland, the data was not conclusive on the efficacy of the option in encouraging students to go outside their academic comfort zones.
“The hope in passing the option in 2012 with a sunset clause was that by the time six semesters had passed we would know if it’s working,” she said. “Ideally, by now we would be able to see concrete results showing whether the option was achieving what it set out to do—which is to encourage students to explore the curriculum beyond their comfort zone. Yet the results are not concrete either way, so we can’t draw definite conclusions.”
The current system of distribution requirements for the baccalaureate degree gives students the option of taking courses in seven of the possible eight academic categories. A student can neglect to take a course in one of the eight academic categories and still graduate. The two most common categories for students to skip are foreign language (LNG) and physical and natural sciences (SCI).
“One way to think about P/D/F is to say, if it’s succeeding in encouraging students to branch out where they otherwise wouldn’t, then probably we should see many students using P/D/F in courses that have a LNG or SCI tag,” Gurland said. The data do not show any significant increase in students who invoked P/D/F for these courses, she said.
The discussion about distribution requirements at the faculty meeting prompted some faculty to speak about P/D/F’s implications on grade inflation at the College. An alternative interpretation to the proposal came at the faculty session, when Charles A. Dana Professor of Political Science Murray Dry expressed his worries about high-achieving students gaming the system. He spoke about two students who took his course PSCI 0102 American Political Regime under P/D/F. Both students got an A-, which converted to a grade of P, and both graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He suggested that the students might have taken his course P/D/F because an A- might have prevented them from being elected to PBK.
Election to Middlebury’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter is determined on a percentile basis, rather than by a raw GPA cutoff, as is the case for academic honors. There is no absolute GPA cutoff for eligibility, and since the basis for election is no more than 10% of the graduating class, the College cannot stipulate in advance what the minimum GPA needed for election to Phi Beta Kappa will be in any given year.
Dry said that relegating PBK qualification to GPA in the context of the class prevents any consideration of the rigor and comprehensiveness of the transcript. “This is just inference,” he added. “The point of this option was to encourage students to take courses outside their comfort zones. But as perhaps an unintended consequence, I report that some students might be gaming the system. They’re good students—but I’m suggesting they might see the difference between an A- and an A in their GPA as the primary factor in deciding to take a class Pass/D/Fail.”
During the trial period, about one percent of all individual grades assigned to Middlebury undergraduates were under P/D/F, while about six percent of all grades were eligible to be taken under the option. Students invoked the option for about 17 percent of eligible courses. “Since only a tiny proportion of all grades at the College are given under Pass/D/Fail it would be hard to argue that some massive harm is being done to the integrity of the curriculum,” said Kathryn Morse, Professor of History and John C. Elder Professor in Environmental Studies.
She suggested that both faculty and students gather more data in order to see exactly how students perceive and use the option. “I remain curious,” she said. “The data are as yet inconclusive, but we should keep the experiments going further and see what the data show us.”
Morse expressed excitement for the discussions leading up to the January vote, informally polling students in many of her classes about their feelings on P/D/F.
“It seems to me to be used more often as a tool for workload management than as a vehicle for intellectual curiosity. But I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.”
(11/13/15 4:34am)
At an Atwater dinner hosted by Architecture Table, a design interest club, on Wednesday, Nov. 4, Douglas Brooks of Vergennes presented a proposal to build a traditional Japanese teahouse on The College’s campus. The teahouse would be built by students over multiple academic semesters and could service classrooms and student groups year-round.
Brooks is a boatbuilder who traveled to Japan in 1990 and has since used the Japanese apprentice model of building in his work. He will teach a course in Japanese boatbuilding for the third time this upcoming winter term. At the dinner, he said that the overarching theme of the project, like his boatbuilding class, is contemplation, and that this permeates through all stages of the design and construction process.
“The teahouse will be a partnership with students and faculty from across the curriculum,” he said. “The goal of the project would be two-fold: to construct a space that could be used for instruction and contemplation; and to use the construction and implementation of that space as a model for project-based learning and an interdisciplinary, interactive pedagogical tool for the immediate future and for years to come.”
In Fall 2011, the College invited Akira Takemoto, a tea master at Whitman College in Washington, to demonstrate the traditional Japanese tea ceremony of chanoyu. Stephen Snyder, Dean of the Language Schools and Kawashima Professor of Japanese Studies, was one of several faculty members who began to think about the possibility of students designing, building and studying in a teahouse on the College’s campus.
“I was struck by the demonstration in 2012 and had soon talked with Mr. Brooks about the idea of building a teahouse on campus,” said Snyder. “It seemed ideally suited for learning about a range of topics in Japanese culture, from carpentry and traditional pedagogy to Buddhism and ceramics. With Douglas, I assembled a group of faculty to begin conversations.”
The discussions among faculty resulted in an intermediate studio course in the Department of History of Art and Architecture in spring 2013. Taught by a visiting assistant professor, Wendy Cox, the course, titled Time for Tea, had students propose teahouse designs and sites on the College’s campus.
Six of the thirteen students in the course proposed siting the teahouse at the pond east of the Mahaney Center for the Arts plaza. One student proposed sitting it in the winter garden at the Axinn Center at Starr Library, and another pro- posed siting it west of the Chateau by the existing grove of spruce trees.
The project lost momentum after the architecture studio, said Snyder, as the College decided not to address new con- struction of permanent buildings for the time being. After hearing about the presentation on Nov. 4, he is excited that the proposal has come back to students’ attention.
Snyder said, “I’m thrilled for all the educational opportunities because of the building and programming of a teahouse. This cultural contemplative space dove- tails so beautifully with a cluster of new campus priorities. I am also hoping the the building process can span the undergraduate College and the Language Schools in the summer, where interest in both Japanese culture and contemplative practice are high.”
On Nov. 5, President of the College Laurie L. Patton, spoke at the Henry Sheldon Museum for a members dinner, at which Brooks was in attendance. In her remarks, she spoke about the teahouse idea, and an audience member compared it to program she pioneered at Duke University in which a single intellectual theme was cultivated to engage the en- tire college community. Brooks, as well as other core members of the proposal team, said that the teahouse project would fol- low a similar trajectory.
In a statement shared with Patton on Nov. 9, Brooks, students and faculty shared their vision for the project: “We are committed to realizing this project with the broadest possible collaborations across the curriculum. We wish to invite all faculty to use the project in their class- es, and we hope all members of the college community not directly involved in the creation of a teahouse will nevertheless be inspired by it.”
Prasanna Vankina ’18, a student organizer for the project, held a meeting with President Patton that same day to discuss the teahouse proposal. She said that Patton was very receptive to the idea and ex- pressed wholehearted support. According to Vankina, Patton said that the teahouse will have to be considered within the master plan of the College, which also involves the town, but that she would help in any way she can to make this happen.
Pieter Broucke, Architecture Studies Track Head, Professor of History of Art and Architecture and Director of the Arts, also said that the master plan would be a factor. He said that the siting of the building should be part of a student-run study in which alternatives are explored and presented, and the view provided by the teahouse will be an important parameter.
Broucke said, “Before this goes anywhere, a much more detailed proposal needs to be formulated, and that will take time. That proposal would need to explore several sites, be in line with the master plan, be up to codes of fire, accessibility, safety, budget and also funding. Only then could we consider actually building a teahouse.”
Broucke has also been a key player in this proposal since Takemoto’s visit to Middlebury in 2011. He applauded the project for its relevance to many departments and academic disciplines. He said, “On the intersection between architectural design, architectural history, Japanese history and culture, and, as a ‘public’ work, it would visibly underscore the global identity of Middlebury.”
Vankina said one of the most defining features of the proposal is the traditional Japanese process of construction, which uses a master–apprentice dynamic and emphasizes ways of learning. Brooks implemented this style of teaching in his Japanese boatbuilding course, which she took in Winter 2015. Reflecting on the ex- perience, she noted the most important thing she learned was observation.
“It is such an intentional way to learn. We are so quick to ask questions in our lives — whether it’s through Google or consulting a professor,” said Vankina. “This class reminded me to slow down, and simply observe. I think that’s the essence of this teahouse as well. How can we be more mindful of not only our learn- ing, but also our being?”
(11/05/15 4:01am)
I am disappointed by this paper’s recent coverage of the endowment return for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2015. Let’s get one thing straight: Middlebury’s endowment had a terrible showing this year.
The return on investment was 6.9 percent, which equates to a $19.1 million increase from 2014. Just last year, the return was 16.5 percent, a $113 million increase from 2013. In the span of one year, the gross annual return dropped to one-tenth of the 2014 dollar amount. I call that stagnation.
I don’t understand the positive rhetoric in The Campus’ and the News Room’s coverage of these results. We ought to be in a state of distress: our endowment is floundering in its place, unable to keep up with its flourishing peers producing returns upwards of 20 percent.
Middlebury’s endowment currently stands at $1.10 billion. But that is pocket change compared to what our peer schools have: Williams with $2.45 billion, Amherst with $2.15 billion, and both have fewer students than Middlebury.
This paper quoted Patrick Norton, Treasurer of the College, as calling the 6.9 percent return a “strong annual return given the performance of the global markets” and a “substantial outperformance” of the passive benchmark. I would hesitate to applaud this showing, seeing as Bowdoin posted a return of 14.4 percent—nearly double what Middlebury posted in terms of percentage—in the same fiscal year. Bowdoin’s endowment is still larger than ours at $1.39 billion, even though they have nearly 700 fewer students and proportionally fewer living alumni.
If Bowdoin can post such a tremendous return, why can’t we? Because the way we handle our endowment is ridiculous: a firm in Virginia managing the endowments of twelve other entities, including Trinity College and Barnard College. Investure, based in Charlottesville, is ill-equipped to cater to the individual needs of a newly complex institution nearly 600 miles away.
Interestingly, Investure has become the biggest argument against fossil fuel divestment. In this paper’s coverage of the endowment posting, Mr. Norton insisted that the main obstacle to divestment for Middlebury is that Investure would have to reinvest more than half of its portfolio. “It would have to gain the agreement of the other twelve institutions it represents to do so,” he said.
With this excuse, something becomes clear to me: Investure is not keeping up with the Joneses. Middlebury, it is time to cut the cord on Investure and manage our endowment for ourselves so that at last we can get the monetary returns that the College’s hopes of internal improvement necessitate. It is time to take ownership of our fiduciary future. The only way to survive in this rapidly changing time of higher education is to make wise financial decisions on our own accord. Bowdoin sure has caught on; will we?
(11/05/15 12:38am)
A petition has circulated among students, parents and alumni urging the Board of Trustees to pause construction on the new residence halls west of Adirondack View. The petition, which had 458 signatories as of Nov. 1, asserts that the current designs of the residences are not universally accessible.
As approved by the Middlebury Select Board, the construction plans for the townhouses do not include elevators, so that only the first floor in each building will be wheelchair accessible. In a letter to the editor, Director of Residential Life Douglas Adams said that four of the sixteen townhouse units and three of the sixteen suites in the residence hall will be wheelchair accessible. In each accessible unit or suite, he said, at least one bedroom will be fully accessible. All other suites are designed to be “visitable,” as defined by the State of Vermont’s Act 88, a fire code for residential housing.
The petition states that providing only the minimum number of accessible spaces required by law is inadequate. “Middlebury’s new buildings should model innovative, inclusive designs that enable all our members to be in them,” it reads. “We can choose to demonstrate in word and in deed our values of diversity and inclusion.”
The petition originated when Barbara Ofosu-Somuah ’13, who now works in Washington, D.C., became concerned with the project.
“When I was at Middlebury, I worked at the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity in Carr Hall for four years.” Ofusu-Somuah said. “I was active in finding ways to create spaces of inclusion for all students. Reading this was disappointing: Middlebury, you say so much and you want to be inclusive, but that’s not what this is.”
Ofosu-Somuah, with the help of Lauren Kelly ’13 and Dan Egol ’13, wrote a formal petition. They used Google Drive so that people could suggest changes to the wording.
“We didn’t want it to be an indictment or aggressive campaign, but rather a way to spark a conversation,” Ofosu-Somuah said.
She was struck by how quickly the petition spread: it garnered 100 signatures on the first day. “It was just amazing,” she said. “People began reaching out, asking how to become more involved. It was never my intention to be the figurehead on this, just the person who began the conversation,” she said. “It was a question of how do I, as a person who loves her alma mater, help it to be the best version of itself?”
Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of the College Katy Smith Abbott and Professor of Spanish & Chief Diversity Officer Miguel Fernández said that members of the core leadership team have discussed the issues raised in the petition, most recently at a meeting on Friday, Oct. 13.
“A number of students, faculty, staff and alumni have raised important questions about what accessibility policies we should have in place for new construction or major renovations of existing buildings,” said Bill Burger, Vice President for Communications and Marketing.
“They have challenged us to raise the bar and to operate to a higher standard of accessibility,” he said. “We welcome that discussion. It’s an important one for our community and it’s overdue. We long have operated under a policy of being in compliance with national and state standards.”
“What we’ve learned in the last several weeks is that our community wants more than compliance,” he said. “As Patton said, ‘diversity is an everyday ethic to be cultivated.’ That principle applies in this case as it does in so many areas of our shared experience at Middlebury.”
Burger noted that the College held two open meetings and heard no objections to the designs as presented. In a 2014 email, Adams invited all students to a presentation the developer to discuss the preliminary design and layout of the new residences. The event took place on Tuesday, Feb. 10, and representatives from Residential Life and Facilities Services were present.
Students were also invited to an informal conversation with the design group and staff on Wednesday, Feb. 11, in the Ross Fireplace Lounge. In its May 2015 meeting, the Board of Trustees approved the design for the Ridgeline complex, and Burger said the plan met the College’s current accessibility standards.
Burger noted that stopping the project would have tremendous costs. “Site work is complete and most of the foundations are in place,” he said. We also have signed agreements with contractors and with our partner on the project who, in turn, has agreements with its lenders. But we are investigating what changes are possible with the current building footprint.”
Project Manager for the Residences Tom McGinn declined to state how much KCP is spending on their construction. He said that the College’s share is about $1.5 million, which is to bring utilities such as water and sewage to the site. The completion date of the project, which broke ground on Sept. 23, is still set for Sept. 2016. McGinn estimated that it is probably 15 or 20 percent complete. Concrete foundations are in, floor slabs are being poured, framing has started, and utility infrastructure is up. Their plan is to complete the concrete by the end of November and get the buildings enclosed so the interiors can be worked on during the winter.
When asked the cost of installing elevators into the buildings at this stage in construction, McGinn estimated in the millions. “In the several millions, at a minimum, and probably at least a year of redesigning and reworking and redoing,” he said. “To do so, we would have to either extensively remake the work that’s in place, or just tear it out completely. The footprint gets bigger, the framing plans change, the wood trusses and the roof trusses that are ordered and already stacked up on the site, they all wouldn’t work anymore. The buildings might not even fit on the footprint—so then we would have to re-permit and redesign. And stop, essentially. Just stop. And what you have would go away.”
Representatives from the College have estimated that it will cost five million to make the three townhouses visitable on all floors and up to an additional three million in fees for breaking the contract. Patton has indicated that this expense is too great.
“With great regret, given all the other educational obligations we have and our limited resources, I cannot see how we can justify such a large expense,” she said.
(10/21/15 8:25pm)
Middlebury has joined 83 other colleges and universities in forming the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success, a new application system that was created in hopes of making the college application process easier for disadvantaged high school students.
The coalition—which includes all eight Ivy League schools, all NESCAC schools save Trinity College, and many prominent state universities—requires that its members meet the full financial need of accepted students and have a six-year graduation rate of at least 70 percent.
The initial version of the program will be available to freshmen, sophomores and juniors in high school beginning in April 2016. The coalition application will open in summer 2016. However, Middlebury is considering to delay its rollout until 2017, following the University of North Carolina’s decision to do so.
Dean of Admissions Greg Buckles said that the coalition formed from informal talks among admissions deans about an alternative to the Common Application.
“We joined first from a pragmatic standpoint: we needed to have a backup plan for the failure of one system,” he said. “Soon, deans began to see it as something more than a simple alternative—they had the hope of achieving a nobler set of goals like access and equity.”
Buckles said that his office had been in discussion with the original group of organizers, and that Middlebury had indicated its interest in participating early on.
The online application will include a ‘virtual college locker,’ in which students can securely and privately store classwork, awards, journals, and notes for their application. Admissions officers will not have access to a student’s locker unless the student asks for help and advice with specific elements. The locker was designed as an optional tool to help students, especially under-resourced students who do not have access to college counseling or college planning tools, prepare and organize for the college admissions process.
Students could opt to share (privately, if they desired) some or all of their portfolio with people who might provide advice. Colleges could, at students’ invitations, provide feedback as early as freshman year of high school.
The coalition has partnered with CollegeNET to produce their platform of tools, which are designed to be used on tablets and mobile phones. CollegeNET is a Portland-based technology developer with expertise in creating dependable, student-oriented programs and applications.
The coalition application will not replace the Common Application. Colleges and universities using the new application will neither expect nor require the use of other coalition tools, either as part of the Coalition Application or other application systems accepted by that institution.
In the wake of Common Application glitches that prevented students from applying on deadline days, many administrators have become critical of it. Technical failure is especially problematic for the any schools that completely rely on the Common App. Each year, about 860,000 students use it to submit more than 3.5 million applications.
According to Aba Blankson, director of communications for the Common Application, 32 percent of the 860,000 applicants who used the Common Application last year were first-generation students. Many of these students enroll at colleges that, in part because they serve many disadvantaged students, don’t have the graduation rates to be eligible for the coalition, she said.
Currently about 13 percent of Middlebury students receive federal Pell grants, which are given to low-income students. The New York Times ranked Middlebury 51st based on college access index in a list released in November 2014. As of that same month, 43 percent of the student body received any amount of financial aid. The average aid package to those students was $41,870, including subsidized and unsubsidized loans. The average per-undergraduate-borrower cumulative principal borrowed was $17,975. On the other hand, 57 percent of the student body pays full tuition, which increased by 3.9 percent from last year to $61,046.
The coalition has described its efforts to improve the admission process as being grounded in research that shows that many talented low-income and first-generation students do not aspire to college or get hung up in the complexity of the process. The coalition intends to get these students thinking about college earlier in order to create the expectation “that college is for them” and affordable, and that the “top schools in the country want students like them.” Many of these students, the coalition’s website reads, do not get access to sufficient information in high school and they may even be actively discouraged from aiming for college.
“The coalition, in my opinion, paves the way for students to spread out the stress of a one year application process across four years of high school,” said Natalie Figueroa ’18, an International and Global Studies major withLatin American focus. “I see this as a tool to become more inclusive and effective in widening the applicant pool to include multiple ethnicities and people who identify as first-generation college students who otherwise would be discouraged about the stress of a one-year application process.”
“My experience as a first-generation college student revolved around my old brother’s disadvantages that he wish he knew about pre-college process. He went to a great state school, but he reflects on how if he knew now then maybe he could have achieved more and been able to strive for more,” she said.
While the coalition aims to help disadvantaged students, many of the high schools it is intended to help have not been deeply involved in its development. Many counselors at low-income schools could not afford to attend the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), the yearly conference of admissions deans and high school counselors. Held from October 1st to 4th in San Diego, members of the coalition’s core group announced the program’s rollout. According to Buckles, by not reaching high school counselors in underprivileged districts the coalition may not be as effective as intended.
Though Buckles noted valid concerns among some admissions deans about the coalition, he applauded its overall goal of access.
“I’m excited out the potential of this. It’s a huge undertaking, but it’s one of those rare opportunities to serve the needs of the greater good and not just Middlebury,” said Dean Buckles. “That’s a worthy thing to do in higher education.”
(10/14/15 10:04pm)
On Sunday, Oct. 11, the College inaugurated Laurie L. Patton as its 17th president in a historic ceremony on McCullough Lawn to an audience of over 1,000. Patton is the first woman to hold the office of president in the College’s 215-year history and previously served at Duke University as the Dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and the Robert F. Durden Professor of Religion. She arrived at Middlebury on July 1, 2015, after the Board’s announcement of her selection as president on November 18, 2014.
The ceremony commenced with a formal academic procession of faculty, administrators, the Trustees and delegates from 63 colleges, universities and learned societies. Patton’s undergraduate alma mater, Harvard University, and her graduate alma mater, the University of Chicago, were both represented in the delegation.
Marna C. Whittington, Chair of the Board of Trustees, conducted the investiture by presenting Gamaliel Painter’s original cane to Patton. President Emeritus John M. McCardell, Jr., returned to Middlebury to present the traditional pewter medallion worn by Middlebury presidents at all formal occasions. Patton received a standing ovation from the crowd before she delivered a 35-minute address. She spoke of the vital role that the Green and Adirondack Mountains play in shaping the community. She also gave five thoughts about a vision for the future, with a focus on making “arguments for the sake of heaven,” a philosophical principle in Judaism.
“I hope we are all thinking about that, because I believe that Middlebury’s collective genius of warmth, optimism, rigor and compassion can make us some of the best arguers in higher education — arguers who can think together with deeper respect, stronger resilience and greater wisdom,” said Patton.
Patton noted Middlebury’s heritage of open mindedness, high aspirations and innovative leadership in higher education as qualities that make it unique among its peer schools. “We have a love and care for languages and writing and sciences and society and arts and athletics all at the same time.”
Patton received a second standing ovation at the conclusion of her address.
The ceremony was preceded on Saturday by a series of academic panels in celebration of learning called to order by the new president. The first panel, moderated by Tara Affolter, Assistant Professor of Education Studies, was titled “Race, Gender, and Inequality.” The second, moderated by Eilat Glickman, Assistant Professor of Physics, was titled “Scientific Exploration and the Boundaries of Life.” The final panel, moderated by Timothy Billings, Professor of English and American Literatures, was titled “The Ethical Dimensions of Reading Classical Literature.” This panel featured Wendy Doniger, a Sanskrit scholar and President Patton’s thesis advisor in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. After a public concert on McCullough Lawn featuring Dispatch (headed by Brad Corrigan ’96), the tradition of inauguration weekend continued with a fireworks show behind the Peterson Athletics Complex.
“It was very important to us and to President Patton that the inauguration weekend bring together Middlebury’s many and overlapping communities,” said Caitlin Myers, Associate Professor of Economics and a member of the inaugural committee. “We worked hard to plan events that students, faculty, staff, townspeople and friends of the College would be excited to attend.”
On Oct. 10, 2004, Middlebury inaugurated Ronald D. Liebowitz as its 16th president and simultaneously dedicated the new Davis Family Library. In his address, Liebowitz spoke of the beauty and remoteness of the Champlain Valley as an “ideal environment for contemplation and creativity.” He spoke of innovation in the College, which created the nation’s first undergraduate Environmental Studies program in 1965, created the Language Schools in 1915 and began the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences after Joseph Battell bequeathed 30,000 acres of his farm on Bread Loaf Mountain in Ripton to the College in 1915. “Middlebury is a college of experiments,” he said. “We must preserve these parts of the Middlebury culture that encourage creativity and innovation.” He and his wife, Jessica, started the Ron and Jessica Liebowitz Fund for Innovation to give financial support to innovative projects proposed by members of the Middlebury community.
Presidents Emeriti Armstrong, Robison and McCardell were in attendance at Liebowitz’s inaugural ceremony. At Patton’s inauguration on Sunday, McCardell attended, and the wives of Robison, who is in ill health, and Armstrong, who passed away, attended Sunday’s ceremony in place of their husbands. Liebowitz was not present at Sunday’s exercises.
Donna Donahue, a member of the Town of Middlebury Select Board, gave words of welcome and thanks. She acknowledged the many contributions the College has made to the town. She cited the completed Cross Street bridge, the current construction of a carbon-neutral town office building, planned construction of a gymnasium and recreation facility, a planned public park where the current town offices stand and development of commercial space behind Ilsley Library as examples of this constructive relationship.
Former Vermont governor Jim Douglas ’72, the Executive in Residence at Middlebury, spoke of the “demographic crisis” facing Vermont. Vermont high school graduates, he said, leave their home state for college at a higher rate than anywhere else. “Higher education allows Vermonters to expand their opportunities, increase their marketability, demand higher wages and gain personal fulfillment. I hope Middlebury will find ways to attract more Vermont students; we need to persuade them that there’s a higher education jewel right here in their own backyard.”
Richard Brodhead, president of Duke University and an honored speaker at the ceremony, praised Patton, with whom he worked at Duke. “Laurie actively listens, takes your ideas in and allows them to release thoughts of her own, in a free-form synthesis that’s always opening new vistas. Couple this with her endless energy, her endless interest in others, her passion for teaching and learning and her sheer joy in the drama of education, and Middlebury, you have met your match.”
In all, the inaugural ceremony lasted two hours. Provost Susan Baldridge gave several announcements in between welcome messages by representatives from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, the Bread Loaf Schools, the Language Schools, the Alumni Association and Staff Council. Students at the College read original passages from texts in several religious traditions: Hanna Nowicki ’16 from Zen teachings, Trisha Singh ’18 from the Bhagavad Gita, Gioia Pappalardo ’16.5 from the New Testament, Hasher Nisar ’16.5 from the Qur’an and Josh Goldenberg ’18 from the Hebrew Bible. Natasha Trethewey, the United States Poet Laureate, read pieces of poetry in English, including a poem on learning sacred language in childhood written by Patton.
“The hardest part was the detail,” said David Donahue ’91, special assistant to the president and Secretary of the Corporation. “Luckily, we have amazingly talented staff who take great pride in these kinds of events and who think of everything. Making sure everyone knows where they are going, who’s doing what, shuttles, childcare, housing. Which to me was a thoughtful, thought-provoking, warm and welcoming experience.”
The ceremony ended with the singing of the alma mater, “Walls of Ivy,” and an academic recessional to a bagpipe tune played by Timothy Cummings, an affiliate artist at the College. Following the ceremony, students, faculty, staff and the new president walked up the hill toward Mead Chapel to join in a campus-wide picnic — the breaking of bread.
(09/30/15 8:58pm)
The College’s plan to build a new residential complex on the western edge of campus has been approved by the Town of Middlebury’s Development Review Board (DRB). Workers began logging and clearing the site on Wednesday, Sept. 23. They plan to install foundations for all four buildings and have vertical construction underway by Nov. 15. The residences, which will house 158 students, are scheduled to be completed and ready to use by the 2016 fall semester.
The site lies on a four-acre parcel of Ridgeline Woods, west of Adirondack View and north of Ridgeline Road. Three of the buildings will be townhouse units along Adirondack View, and the fourth will be a suite- style apartment further down the Ridgeline slope.
Associate Dean of Students for Residential and Student Life Douglas Adams said that completing the residences, which are intended for seniors, will allow the College to raze the modular complex (“The Mods”) below Ridgeline. By doing so, the College hopes to reduce the number of students living off-campus. Currently, four percent of the student body currently resides in housing not associated with the College.
The three townhouse complexes will each include four townhouse units. Each unit will have three levels of living space with eight single bedrooms that contain full-size beds.
The current plans for the townhouses do not include elevators. As such, only the first floor in each building will be wheelchair accessible. The suite- style apartment has a small common space that, per fire code, cannot accommodate all of the apartment’s residents at one time.
“The townhouse design, while charming, is frankly irresponsible,” said Eliza Margolin ’15.5, an architectural studies major. “When I asked last year why only the first floor will be wheelchair accessible, project representatives said that the ‘charm’ of the townhouses lies in the fact that they are separate from their next-door neighbors, and that adding elevators would sacrifice this ‘charm.’ Middlebury already faces a lack of physical access to residences. Adding more housing with the same accessibility restrictions is not only impractical, but irresponsible and inappropriate.” The architectural design firm for the project, Union Studio, is based in Providence, Rhode Island. Kirchhoff Campus Properties, the company to whom the College has leased the parcel and will construct the residences, is based in Pleasant Valley, New York, near New York City. In establishing the terms of this project, the College has outsourced the majority of human capital involved in design and construction to beyond Vermont’s borders. The town of Middlebury is home to several design firms, including Vermont Integrated Architecture and McLeod Kredell Architects, as well as contractors, including Battell Building Company and Mill Bridge Construction, which the College employed in 2014 to build the maintenance and storage facility at the Snow Bowl in Ripton. “I think outsourcing this project to out-of-state companies is neglecting our exceptional economic position in the state of Vermont,” said Colin Boyle ’18, an economics major. “It seems to go against the values of students and of the institution itself. It is disappointing that we didn’t take this opportunity to support the local economy given that we’ve worked with Vermont-based companies in the past.”
Furthermore, the College’s agreement with Kirchhoff Campus Properties specifies that the land be leased by the College. As a result, the buildings will be owned exclusively by Kirchhoff. Also under the agreement, the College will not require the developer to seek LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for the buildings.
“This was a much discussed decision for both the College and the developer, and it was mainly based on the cost to the developer—which, in the final analysis, is a cost to the College,” said Tom McGinn, the project manager for the Ridgeline residences.
There is precedent at Middlebury for sustainable building: the Franklin Environmental Center and the College’s squash center currently hold LEED Platinum status, and Virtue Field House holds LEED Gold. Nonetheless, Kirchhoff Campus Properties, with consent from the College, will not need to seek LEED certification of any level for the complex.
In April 2006, President Emeritus Ronald Liebowitz commissioned a committee to develop a master strategic plan for the College, which was the first of its
kind in the College’s history. The committee hired an urban planning firm, Michael Dennis & Associates, based in Boston, to assist in devising the comprehensive document. The plan was approved in July 2008 by the Board of Trustees, and charged future leaders of the College with responsible design and construction practices. The plan recommends the adoption of the LEED MC-Plus guidelines system for all renovation and new construction projects, of which the Ridge- line project would be one. The plan also calls for future residential construction to “create a cohesive vision for a universally accessible campus for people of all ages and abilities.”
“The current construction on Ridgeline seems ad hoc, ill-advised, and inconsistent with the explicit protocol of the master plan,” said Miles Tyner ’18, a member of Architecture Table. “If our current leaders are not going to follow the plan, what’s the use of having devised it?”
“Overall, the way the College has gone about this project seems like one missed opportunity after another,” said Margolin. “Most of all, by leasing out the land to another company, they sacrificed the opportunity for student input in the design process.”
(04/15/15 6:06pm)
The College held its ninth annual Spring Student Symposium last weekend from Thursday, April 9 to Friday, April 10, with over three hundred students presenting on their academic and creative endeavors. Many students gave oral or poster presentations on their independent work in Bicentennial Hall, while others performed or presented elsewhere throughout campus.
The event began Friday evening in the concert hall at the Mahaney Center for the Arts with a keynote address from Kevin Murungi ’01. Murungi spoke to his experience as Director of Human Rights and Foreign Policy Programs at Global Kids, a nonprofit educational organization for global learning and youth development.
“I look forward to seeing and hearing about all of your amazing, innovative research over the next few days,” he told the audience of students, faculty, and community members.
“Even after this symposium, I encourage you to use your unique skills and talents to serve your communities and to be the best global citizens you can possibly be.”
On Friday morning, Vice President for Academic Affairs Andi Lloyd welcomed the student presenters in Bicentennial Hall’s Great Hall. “When I looked through the catalog of talks last night, I couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer breadth of your collective endeavors,” she told them.
Following Lloyd’s welcoming, Great Hall was abuzz with conversation, with presentations and posters ranging in topic from youth unemployment in the U.S. to the effects of testosterone on spatial memory in male rats.
Katie Hill ’15, in her talk “A Violent Line: Migrant Death in the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands,” focused on how domestic projects to build fences along the border have actually pushed people into more environmentally destructive paths of immigration to America. She presented a chilling story about a man who, unassisted by border police, tried to recover the body of his daughter who had died trying to cross the border. He ended up, however, finding five other bodies, not one of which was his daughter’s.
Lisa Gates, Associate Dean for Fellowships and Research, expressed her excitement during the event. “I am always so impressed by the incredible work our students do. The Spring Student Symposium is the one event where you can really see the impressive research and creativity that happens on this campus. Even with miserable weather on Friday, BiHall was full of people and energy all day. Every session I attended was full, and many of my colleagues felt attendance was up over last year.”
She continued, “One shift this year was working with Studio Art to strongly encourage greater participation from Studio Art students in the Friday presentations in BiHall. Students discussed their work in the oral presentations and set it up as part of the poster sessions, which really added to the experience.”
Colin Boyle ’18, one of the many students who attended the day’s events, said, “I think the diversity of topics and the indecisiveness of a lot of students deciding between presentations really spoke to the breadth of learning going on.”
He spoke to one of his favorite presentations, whch was given by the J-term Japanese boatbuilding class.
“The students talked about how this particular boat design is losing ground in its native land of Japan,” Boyle said.
“It’s crazy to think that the art form isn’t being taught anymore to Japanese teenagers and young adults, yet we have a group of students here who are exploring it,” he said.
After a full day of presentations, the presenters and guest attendees gathered for a reception in the Great Hall on Friday evening to mark the close of the ninth annual Spring Student Symposium. Another symposium will be convened next fall, once again to be sponsored by the Center for Teaching Learning and Research.
(03/11/15 7:16pm)
On March 1, the College notified all students that it will conduct a survey about alcohol use and drinking culture at the College in conjunction with other NESCAC institutions. The confidential NESCAC alcohol survey was first administered in Spring 2012 and was coordinated by Bowdin’s Dean of the College. This year marks the second time the survey will be administered and will now be coordinated by the Dean of the College at Tufts.
The common survey aims to assess the current state of the College campus individually and in the context of its peer schools. According to an e-mail sent to all the College’s students, the deans at the eleven NESCAC schools hope that the survey will allow them to develop and implement better services, programs and policies to meet their students’ needs.
In Fall 2010, the College created a small task force headed by Gus Jordan, director of the Parton Center for Health and Wellness. The task force devised a Middlebury-only alcohol survey to try to identify trends and pinpoint problematic drinking behaviors in the hope of creating a healthier environment regarding drinking culture. The survey garnered a high rate of participation among students.
According to Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of the College Katy Smith Abbott, administrators at other NESCAC schools quickly became interested in this survey. The NESCAC deans, who meet regularly several times a year, decided it would be beneficial to look at the same questions across all NESCAC institutions in order to compare data among a group of peer schools. The College survey in Fall 2010 was a basis for the first NESCAC survey, which was administered in Spring 2012. The deans agreed to conduct the common survey every three years.
After the survey is concluded, each school can view only the data pertaining to its own students and the NESCAC averages for all schools. All data will be presented in aggregate form only. This summer, the NESCAC deans of the colleges plan to discuss what they have learned about their own institutions vis-a-vis the results of the 2012 survey.
Depending on what the data reveal, Dean Abbott suggested that she and her fellow deans may entertain a conversation about NESCAC-wide policies or other initiatives to affect positive change across all institutions.
“If, for example, all eleven schools should report high levels of underage drinking among first-year students, we might ask ourselves what we want to shift,” said Abbott. “Is there something not working in the way we bring first-years in, or supporting them, or making social life options available to them?”
But unsurprisingly, NESCAC-wide changes may be hard to institute.
“It is complicated in part because the culture of each institution is distinct,” Abbott said. “The way each of us does orientation, or first-year programming, or even how we organize residential life differs among our peer schools. These all play into whether an action will be feasible or impact positive change in the context of a particular campus culture and practices,” she concluded.
The College also draws data from national surveys, including a survey in the Fall by the National College Health Association in which the College participated. In 2010, the task force concluded that drinking at the College occurs on campus, but at most larger institutions, drinking happens off campus, in town or at fraternities and sororities.
“When we look at national statistics, which encompass larger colleges and universities, we have to keep in mind what the culture is like specific to Middlebury,” Abbott said.
“I am excited to gauge what students are saying on the survey vis-a-vis what we are feeling in terms of student voices on campus. From social life frustrations to concerns about the relationship between students and Public Safety, we are curious to see how these compare to the actual data that we retrieve from the survey,” she continued.
Abbott indicated that she is looking forward to receiving new information to work with.
“We implemented many of the recommendations from the task force in 2010—not all, but many of the 40 that were offered. Some of those have worked, and some haven’t. I keep thinking what new information we might get, and how we might respond with changes and enhancements to social life that would actually make a positive difference to students,” Abbott concluded.
(02/25/15 11:42pm)
Last week, the College announced the inauguration of its Summer Study program for this coming summer. The program was approved by faculty last year and is designed to provide students with opportunities to participate in experiential, field-based courses that would otherwise be difficult to accommodate during the regular academic year.
“The idea originated with students who were interested in summer internships for credit and who approached the Educational Affairs Committee asking for such an option,” Dean of Curriculum Suzanne Gurland said.
She continued, “The committee thought that some curricular structure for the summer might be desirable, but last year the faculty voted down the possibility of credit-bearing internships. What remained was a piece of legislation allowing for the possibility of creating an academic program for the summertime.”
Gurland stressed the intensity of the committee’s efforts in spearheading the program. She and other administrators needed to consult with about 40 offices on campus, including Student Accessibility Services, Student Financial Services, the Office of the Registrar, and representatives for the Language Schools.
Once instructors began submitting applications for potential courses, the Curriculum Committee reviewed each proposal and determined whether the proposed course could grant credit. Administrative offices then assessed the feasibility of each course, both logistically and financially, incorporating the costs of housing and food in setting tuition fees (for which financial aid will be available).
Every summer, the College’s campus is fully occupied by students and faculty participating in the Middlebury Language Schools, posing a logistical constraint on possible locations for Summer Study courses. Gurland said that this limitation forced the committee to incorporate off-campus study into the plan and helped to solidify the idea of experiential, wholesome learning as the program’s main intention.
“I think a successful liberal arts education is one that gives students habits of mind that apply in virtually any situation they might encounter,” Gurland said.
She added, “The thing I love about experiential learning is that it puts students in some novel situation—say, a new country or culture—where they can demonstrate to themselves that those habits of mind and critical thinking skills can serve them in all kinds of arenas.”
Professor of Computer Science and Head of Cook Commons Matthew Dickerson will be teaching a summer course in Anchorage, Alaska, called “Essay Writing on Nature.” Dickerson, a scholar on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and an avid fly fisherman and beekeeper, has been interested in nature-writing for many years.
Dickerson said, “In Alaska, the wilderness happens at a much grander scale. So a big part of the course will be observations. After a guest presentation from a fisheries biologist or a reading about some environmental issue, we might then take a six mile hike into some remote watershed and experience firsthand what it looks like—observing, writing about, and discussing what we are learning. There will be a lot of hours of class each day.”
Gurland hopes prospective students do not view the Summer Study program as a vacation or an academically light experience.
She said, “There is a substantial academic component, these are rigorous courses. I really think that it’s experiential learning and that the ‘learning’ part is right there, front and center.”
Summer Study courses are required to meet for a minimum of four weeks with 32 hours of instruction. A maximum of two Summer Study credits are permitted to count toward the College’s 36-credit graduation requirement. Additionally, students may only count a maximum of four credits from Winter Term and Summer Study courses combined. Summer Study courses can fulfill distribution requirements as determined by the Curriculum Committee.
Gurland stated that the inaugural run of the Summer Study program will be somewhat experimental.
She said, “We’ll probably learn things from this experience that will help us figure out where the program is going to go in the future. There’s a lot of thinking going on about what we want Summer Study to be, but at the same time it’s going to show us what it can become.”
(01/15/15 1:20am)
The College has offered admission to 280 students for the Class of 2019 under its Early Decision I plan. Decisions were released on Saturday, Dec. 6, via an online portal, and physical copies were mailed to applicants’ homes a day prior. The admitted students will represent about 40 percent of the class, which is expected to total around 690 students.
The College recieved 8,864 applicants in total, an 8 percent increase from last year’s pool of 8,196. This year marks the second largest applicant pool in Middlebury’s history.
Gregory Buckles, Dean of Admissions, said that 667 students applied under the Early Decision I plan, a three percent decrease from last year’s Early Decision I applicant total. The College deferred 80 applicants, who will be considered in the regular admission pool, and denied admission to 307 applicants.
Last year’s admissions process exhibited similar trends. Of the 686 Early Decision I applicants for the Class of 2018, 287 were admitted, 96 were deferred and 303 denied. Over the past three years, the acceptance rate for Early Decision I applicants has consistently hovered around 42 percent.
Buckles said that the 280 accepted students are from 32 states, the District of Columbia, and 13 countries. These statistics are lower than those for the Class of 2018, whose early decision applicants hailed from 35 states, D.C., and 19 countries.
The College has allotted $4.2 million in need-based financial aid to award to early admits. 42 percent of the Early Decision I class will be awarded financial aid, marking a significant increase from last year. Middlebury’s early decision program binds applicants to commit to attending if accepted.
Furthermore, Middlebury has expanded its partnership with the Posse Foundation, which pairs minority students in urban areas with participating colleges across the country.
As a part of this program, thirty students in the Class of 2019 will receive full-tuition scholarships as they pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Middlebury has hosted a new Posse group of ten students from New York each year since 1999 and added a second Posse of ten students from Chicago in the fall of 2012. The third and newest Posse group of ten hails from Los Angeles as part of an initiative by the White House to improve the presence of minorities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers.
Several faculty members at the College will visit the Posse Foundation’s Los Angeles office in the spring to meet the students and to hold science workshops and classes.
“I’m particularly excited about the addition of our third STEM Posse,” said Buckles. “Our science faculty are looking forward to working with the group.”
The deadline for regular admission applications was January 1, with notification in late March. Applicants admitted via the Regular Decision plan will have until May 1 to decide whether or not to attend.
(11/19/14 9:41pm)
Middlebury was ranked 7th overall in The Daily Beast’s list of the “25 Most Rigorous Colleges,” ahead of Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. Middlebury is the highest-ranked NESCAC school on the list; Amherst is the only other to make the list, at spot 14.
According to The Daily Beast’s website, the ranking is determined by the quality both of the student body and of their instructors. Each college’s acceptance rate, as reported by the National Center for Education Statistics, is weighted 50 percent. Student surveys provided by Niche regarding workload manageability are weighted 30 percent. Lastly, the amount of time students are likely to spend with the “best instructors” is weighted 20 percent—a combination of Niche surveys on schools with the smartest professors and class size data provided by National Center for Education Statistics.
Middlebury’s workload manageability score, according to The Daily Beast’s formula, is the fourth lowest on the list—a lower score indicates a less manageable workload. Only Wake Forest, Davidson, Swarthmore and Columbia sported lower workload manageability scores than Middlebury.
Professor of Political Science Murray Dry wasn’t surprised by Middlebury’s high overall ranking. “This is a school where most faculty expect the students to do some work. If students don’t do the work, they’re not going to pass. But most students understand that.”
“Comparatively speaking, this is an academically demanding place,” said Professor Dry, who has taught at Yeshiva College and Harvard in the past.
He noted the heavy emphasis on acceptance rate in The Daily Beast’s formula. Selectivity, he said, translates generally into an overall measure of the student body’s intelligence and achievement. At the same time, he stressed that even at Columbia, ranked first overall, the most intelligent students do not necessarily have the most rigorous workload. “At top universities—even here, I guess—if a student want to coast, it’s a matter of what courses he or she chooses.”
Dry insisted that the best way to compare the rigor of curricula is to read honors theses submitted for comparable departments at colleges and universities. Though time-consuming, this method would directly examine the work being assigned rather than basing calculations on proxies, which can only indirectly assess certain aspects of the workload.
Andrea Lloyd, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty, also wasn’t surprised by Middlebury’s ranking. “One could debate whether The Daily Beast’s index is really measuring rigor, but I would not argue with the assumption that wonderful things will happen if you mix together extremely bright and motivated students, excellent faculty, and small class size.”
Most students, Dean Lloyd believes, meet the high expectations of their professors. “Honestly, that is one of the things that makes teaching here such a joy: students have an unbelievable appetite for learning,” she said. “They’ll rise to just about any challenge that is put in front of them.”
Indeed, Middlebury’s selectivity and admissions data can lead to a rough conclusion that the students here are motivated and inquisitive. The Daily Beast’s methodology in this list poses an important question, though: can there ever be an objective, direct measure of curricular rigor in its truest sense?
Dean Lloyd noted the challenge this question presents. “It would really require taking a careful look at the work we assign and the standards by which we evaluate it, and assessing whether those things have changed over time.”
(10/29/14 10:06pm)
When Megan Grassell ’18.5 went with her younger sister to shop for bras, she was disturbed by the limited and sexualized selection she found. She found polar opposites: either low quality, boring bras in beige or, more commonly, padded, wired push-up bras in cup sizes far too large for her 13-year-old sister. What her young sister needed was an appealing yet non-sexual bra that would ease her transition into the awkward realm of puberty. Unable to find any such option, Grassell founded her own company called Yellowberry.
The name comes from the natural colors through which a ripening fruit progresses. “The berry first is green, and as it grows and ages it becomes closer to its final stage of red, purple, orange, or pink,” Grassell said. “First, however, it passes through several shades of yellow that take time. Those yellow stages happen naturally, often awkwardly, and shouldn’t be rushed. That is the essence of Yellowberry.”
Yellowberry’s bras offer an alternative to the overly sexual selection on most shelves. The product line includes comfortable, colorful training bras with names like Junebug and Sugar Cookie. The bras are designed without padded cups or underwires. The company’s main goal is to instill empowerment and confidence in preteen girls, who would otherwise be deluded into thinking that bodily sexualization is the only means to their expression.
The first bra buying experience, said Grassell, is something that every single girl goes through. It is often awkward and leaves a negative impression. “Based on the responses from many of our customers though, their daughters’ same first bra experience with Yellowberry is almost always positive,” Grassell said.
Grassell wants to share her story and her business with others who she thinks are also interested in empowering young women. “What better message can a girl receive than ‘You have the potential to do anything in the world, if you just go out and do it?’”
Through Kickstarter, a funding platform for creative projects, Grassell, working alongside four others initially raised $42,000 — well above the $25,000 goal she set for herself — and now runs an online retailer. All of Yellowberry’s products are currently available through its website, yellowberrycompany.com, and Grassell is working with several department stores to introduce YBC lines in time for the 2015 back-to-school shopping season. The company finalized its first licensing agreement with Aerie, a brand of American Eagle Outfitters, in October.
For her work with Yellowberry, Time Magazine listed Grassell in its List of Most Influential Teens of 2014, an accomplishment that certainly stuck out to Dean of Admissions Greg Buckles. “Megan’s application stood out immediately for us in our admissions committee deliberations. She presented as a grounded, mature, compassionate young person with an entrepreneurial streak. She had Middlebury written all over her.”
During her Febmester, Grassell has been working full-time in marketing and branding for her company. She plans to continue working in some capacity when she arrives to Middlebury in February, but intends to hire an in-house employee to manage Yellowberry’s social media presence and to launch other projects Grassell currently has in mind. “Although I am not at liberty to reveal everything, I will say that you’ll be able to see a new line of Aerie for Yellowberry bras coming this spring,” she said.
(10/09/14 2:49am)
The Middlebury Language Schools, in celebration of the centennial anniversary of their founding, will launch the School of Korean for the summer of 2015. The school will run at Middlebury’s affiliate campus at Mills College in Oakland, California, where the Arabic and Italian Schools are already housed.
Unlike the population of people studying Romance languages, many of those who choose to learn Korean are heritage learners—people who have cultural or ancestral ties to Korea yet who have some or perhaps no experience in the language. Most of these heritage populations are concentrated on the west coast, not the east.
“As such, there seems to be a consensus among the Korean language teaching community that a school would be more successful on the west coast,” said Dean of Language Schools Stephen Snyder in an interview with The Campus.
During the 2012 Winter Term, Korean was offered to undergraduate students as a workshop given by the Korean American Student Association. Neither undergraduate nor graduate students at Middlebury’s schools, however, had access to any official academic course in Korean.
“We feel responsible for providing as many of the most important world languages as we can on a regular basis to anyone who needs them,” said Michael Geisler, vice president of the Language Schools. “And between economic and security concerns and the fact that more and more students nationally and internationally seem to be interested in studying Korean, we felt that for our centennial career Korean would be the next logical language to launch.”
Middlebury’s intensive immersion programs guarantee improvement to some degree, and often result in fluency on both a technical and human level.
“That is where somebody speaking the language can make a tremendous difference,” Geisler said. “Because with the language comes the culture, and with the culture one can interact with people in ways that people who speak only English can’t.”
Unlike a lot of programs that start with first- or second-year Korean, the Middlebury Language Schools house a complete community of learners. Each language school comprises four levels of language teaching, and all levels must be rolled out at once.
“One challenge, therefore, is attracting enough students in one summer to populate the four levels and co-curricular activities, and having enough students to create a critical enough mass that the same six people aren’t talking to each other the whole time,” Snyder said. “This was one of the reasons we identified Korean as the next language to institute: we think there’s sufficient demand for students to learn it.”
In logistically preparing for the school’s opening, director Sahie Kang has sought the help of academic colleagues and native Koreans. Kang oversaw the development of an online “hybrid” program for novice learners to use before they arrive at the eight-week intensive, teaching Korean characters and simple syntax structures. She is still in the process of recruiting teachers from a pool of applicants. Kang’s teaching staff, when selected and assigned to each of the four levels, will then devise curricula for each level.
Fittingly with the Middlebury’s initiative to solidify its identity, Mr. Geisler has begun to unify the College’s various language programs, which include the famous Bread Loaf Conference and the newly-launched Bread Loaf Orion Environmental Writers’ Conference. Michael Collier, director of the Writers’ Conference, joined Geisler in devising the new Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference, which will be held at Middlebury’s campus in Ripton, Vermont, this June and will model the original Bread Loaf Conference.
Likewise, the Language Schools have sought and will continue to seek to expand their offerings. “Politically critical languages like Turkish, Vietnamese, Persian, and Swahili stood out in the formative phases of this process,” Geisler said. “We had a long discussion about Swahili; we would still like to start that soon, if we can.”
(09/24/14 8:43pm)
Most fans of literature associate Leo Tolstoy with his almost universally identifiable War and Peace and regard him as one of the greatest authors of the modern era. One of Tolstoy’s later works, however, The Kreutzer Sonata, had been cast far out of the spotlight for what was, at the time, perceived to be a radical, almost crazed presentation of sexual abstinence and jealous fury-a presentation that illuminated the rather silent marital distress between Tolstoy and his wife.
Recently, Michael Katz, the C.V. Starr Professor Emeritus of Russian and Eastern European Studies added his own name to the list of those interested in this curious, mysterious aspect of Tolstoy’s life. In an unprecedented exploration of the other half of the story behind Tolstoy’s 1889 Kreutzer Sonata, Katz has translated into English the previously neglected counter-stories written in direct response to Tolstoy’s novella.
Presented from the point of view of a middle-aged man who, in a rage of jealousy and disgust of his teenage wife, murders her, The Kreutzer Sonata is taken to present Tolstoy’s own views about sexual abstinence and marriage.
Katz’s journey began at a conference he went to at Tolstoy’s estate just outside of Moscow. There he heard about two unpublished stories written by Tolstoy’s wife, Sophie, and was instantly intrigued.
“She thought that her own marriage was being described by The Kreutzer Sonata, or rather that everyone who read it would think so,” Katz said.
Her fears were not unfounded: she was half of Tolstoy’s age when she married him, and other parallels between Tolstoy’s characters and his own friends and family existed. So she wrote her own variation of her husband’s novella, following its structure with a wife who, half the age of her husband, is murdered by him.
In the manuscript of Sophia’s first story, Whose Fault?, located in the archives in Moscow, Sophia wrote in the margins quotations from her husband’s story that she was simultaneously disagreeing with in the text itself. In response to his mother, Tolstoy’s son then wrote his own version of the original story, in effect polemicizing both his mother and father.
Katz first translated Sophia’s two stories and then Tolstoy’s son’s story.
“I didn’t know I was going to translate the original Kreutzer Sonata when I started, but it was terrific to struggle with a text by Leo Tolstoy, a text that was famous, controversial, and provocative. That was the last one that I did-I saved up,” Katz said.
He also stressed the interconnectedness of the Tolstoy family’s stories.
“My argument is that all of these stories are in dialogue; the wife and the son are replying to the things that the father says,” he said.
The preliminary title for Katz’s translation, therefore, is “The Tolstoy Family Story Contest”.
“The publisher didn’t think that was very funny,” Katz said.
Other Russian scholars have translated Tolstoy’s original story before, but Katz was the first to undertake the wife’s and son’s stories.
“It was very exciting. It was the first project I did after retirement, and this was a wonderful way to start that,” Katz said. “It gave me the opportunity to go to Russia twice. And the support-for a research assistant, for going to conferences, for buying books that I needed in order to conduct the research-the College gave me a great deal of support.”
Katz was also nominated by the College to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and received a Mellon Emeritus Fellowship to support his work, allowing him to travel to Russia and research in archives and museums. Part of the fellowship is also financing Katz’s attendance at a conference in Russia in which he will present his findings throughout the process to his colleagues there. The response from Katz’s colleagues so far, he says, has been excellent.
When asked what he thought was the most significant aspect of The Kreutzer Sonata is, he stressed the dissent of Tolstoy’s wife.
“I think it establishes Sophia Tolstoy as a figure in her own right. She writes well-she’s not a great writer like Tolstoy himself or like Dostoevsky-but she’s clear, she has her own ideas, she defends the right of a woman to seek happiness within a marriage and not just be an instrument of man’s sexual desire. She’s taking on a big fish; you don’t disagree with Tolstoy-easily, at least. He was by then probably the world’s best-known writer. He was an incredible figure. And she takes him on.”