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(11/19/14 11:57pm)
One of the most beautiful and terrifying aspects of college life is the perpetual change. These four years are some of the least constant of our lives. We build our days around dorms and classes and teachers and friends that will inevitably shift in a few months. Academically, we immerse ourselves in four often startlingly specific topics for ten weeks, and then choose four more. It’s liberating and expansive and good, but it lacks preparation.
Constant change requires constant choice, but in the rapidity of Middlebury life our choices can be easily misinformed. For me, first-semester registration was based on a whirl of rumors, casual gossip and guesswork. Second semester wasn’t much better.
As students, we know the courses we’ve taken intimately. We know the professors, the requirements, the frustrations. We know that real analysis and cell biology should not be taken at the same time, that some amazing lecturers have limited office hours, that every political science major should take a class with Murray Dry. As an academic community, we owe it to ourselves to collect and share this information. Informing students’ academic choices can only bring a more engaged, prepared and enthusiastic student body. SGA’s newest project, a website called Middcourses, was developed to better inform students on their academic options. The website shares student reviews of the classes and teachers we’ve had here at Middlebury. We encourage you to make an account, log on, share your thoughts and benefit from the advice of others.
On behalf of the SGA Publicity Committee
(11/19/14 11:49pm)
To the Faculty,
We write to you as the student leaders of the group MiddIncluded. We are spearheading the campaign to change Middlebury’s current cultures and civilizations requirements. This letter is an effort to clarify what our campaign stands for, to explain why these changes are necessary and to ask for your support.
We are not the first to find the cultures and civilizations requirements problematic. In 2007, the category “Other” was officially changed to “AAL.” While this is a step forward, it is not the end of the journey to create a more egalitarian and rigorous curriculum. We consider our proposal another necessary step towards making Middlebury what it should be, what it claims to be and what we want it to be: an institution that provides a thorough education for global citizens who come from many walks of life and will become world-class leaders.
Under the current requirements, every student must take one class in Comparative (CMP), North America (NOR — excluding Mexico), one class in Europe (EUR) and one class in the rest of the world: Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and the Caribbean (AAL). We suggest that instead students should be required to take one class in CMP, one class in NOR (including Mexico) and a choice of two classes from any two of the following regions: Africa (AFR), Asia (ASI), Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), the Middle East (MDE), Europe (EUR), or Oceania (OCE). In our proposal, Europe becomes an option rather than a requirement, North America expands to include Mexico and AAL is divided. While these eight categories cannot fully capture the complexity of our world, we think it is a legitimate, attainable and positive adjustment.
Middlebury’s mission statement says that the college will “strive to engage students’ capacity for rigorous analysis and independent thought within a wide range of disciplines and endeavors, and to cultivate the intellectual, creative, physical, ethical, and social qualities essential for leadership in a rapidly changing global community.” The college’s handbook says that “students should have a broad educational exposure to the variety of the world’s cultures and civilizations.” However, the current cultures and civilizations requirements do not reflect these goals and values. If Middlebury as an institution aspires to produce conscientious global citizens after their four years here, it must reconsider the structural shortcomings of its curriculum. Reforming the cultures and civilizations requirements will better prepare students to explore avenues across cultures and will add an element of academic rigor yielding graduates who are both more competitive in a global setting, and are more aware of the nuances of that setting.
A reform in the cultures and civilizations requirements will affect more than students’ academic lives on campus. Middlebury is making increasing (and appreciated) efforts to diversify. This reform is a logical addition to the initiatives that Middlebury has taken thus far. Students and faculty need to see themselves and their cultures valued in their curriculum. A community which sees itself — all of itself — represented in the curriculum is an engaged and empowered group. The current requirements prioritize Europe, the United States, and Canada, while delegating the rest of the world to a simple three letters. Together, we can implement a reform, which challenges Middlebury students and faculty to think in more complex, interconnected ways and enables Middlebury to become a more complete community.
We ask you to think about this issue in depth, to talk to your colleagues, administrators and students about it, and to reflect on these conversations. We need your help to make Middlebury the institution it claims to be. You have the power to help us bring this to fruition. Middlebury has seen change in the right direction before, and with your support, we can make it happen again.
Thank you for your time,
Adriana Ortiz-Burnham ’17, Daniela Barajas ’14.5, David Ollin Pesqueira ’17, and Jiya Pandya ’17.
To learn more visit go/aal, or feel free to reach out to any of the four of us with any questions or concerns. Students, please keep an eye out for information about how you can get involved, beginning this weekend.
(11/12/14 7:18pm)
Three weeks ago I found my bike in a bush. I had locked the wheel to the frame, but not the bike rack. Someone had thrown my bike into a bush. This wasn’t an isolated incident. Two other friends have had their bikes thrown into bushes. Now when I walk by all of the bikes are locked to the rack. I would love to live in a community where that wasn’t necessary. I would love to live in a place where I could leave my bike locked to itself, or better yet, leave it unlocked. I believe that’s a possibility.
To most people, the Honor Code means “I won’t cheat.” That’s a pretty low standard for honor. I’d like to raise that bar. And let me start by saying that I hope I don’t come across as the holier-than-thou, honorable Ben Bogin. I am not. But I think that for students who aspire to a high standard (as we Middkids usually do), the Honor Code falls woefully short. I want our Honor Code to mean, “I will live with integrity at Middlebury, and treat all people with respect.” Then maybe people would stop throwing bikes into bushes.
Some have said we should give up on the Honor Code. We could go back to proctored tests and leaving our backpacks at the door. But I would be incredibly disappointed to give up honor as a value at Middlebury. I’d like to keep working on the Honor Code so that we don’t have to admit defeat. After discussing the issues and researching what other schools do, I’d like to propose the following ideas.
First, I’d like the Judicial Board to publish summaries of hearings online for the Middlebury Community. The names of students and professors would be redacted, and any participant in a hearing could request that the summary be delayed. One goal is to provide transparency to the judicial process for both students and professors. I also want students to feel connected to the Honor Code hearings on a personal level. I recently read Judicial Board files from a peer institution, and the experience caused me to reflect on my own experiences and actions. I want our whole community to experience the same thing. I want people to talk about the Honor Code as much as they wax poetic about chicken parm.
Second, I want to change the Honor Code statement to “I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this assignment, nor have I seen dishonest work.” Not that students should let their vigilance detract from their test. But every time we sign the honor code, we’ll remember that witnessing a violation makes it our responsibility to report it. I understand that this situation feels uncomfortable, and it is. But this discomfort is the price we pay for the privilege of self-proctored exams. And isn’t that what we’re doing here? Stretching our comfort zones, thinking about ethical problems and finding who we really are?
Third, I want to add the Community Standards to the Honor Code. Right now we have a de facto Academic Honor Code. The word “Academic” isn’t technically at the front, but the code only applies when taking a test. I think that the Honor Code should apply everywhere, all the time. And I want to add a section with the following language: “Anyone witnessing a violation of the Community Standards is morally obligated to confront that person.” And notice that I’m not saying we should all be turning each other in to Pub Safe. I just want to live in a community where if people saw someone throwing a bike into a bush, they would take the time to ask if the bush had offended that person in some way.
I want to elevate the Honor Code so that it means more than don’t cheat. I want it to force students to think about what it means to live here in a community, and what it means to work and play with integrity and respect. These ideas are going to take your support. I’d love to know what you think. Let me know as I wander through Proctor looking for friends, or as I stumble, bleary-eyed, out of my many 8am classes (I know, they’re rough). Or send me an email at bbogin@middlebury.edu.
Artwork by RUBI SAAVEDRA
BEN BOGIN '15 is from Larkspur, Calif.
(11/12/14 7:14pm)
As registration for spring semester approached during my first year at Middlebury, I remember the stress and excitement that came with it. And, like any enterprising first year with nearly a semester of experience under his belt, I immediately began trying to figure out all the important course information not listed in the catalog’s surprisingly brief course descriptions. How did students like the professors teaching these courses? How demanding would the workload be for each of them? Was I going to be writing papers, completing problems sets, or taking tests all semester? First, of course, I sought advice from the handful of upperclassmen I had managed to befriend during my first few weeks on campus. While helpful, only one of them had actually had any of the professors on my list of potential classes. They did, however, point me to what I thought was the holy grail of course information — middkid.com.
Initially, I thought I had found all the information I needed. By reading through these reviews written by actual Middlebury students, I could figure out how much time others spent on the class each week, what they thought about the professor’s teaching ability and whether they would recommend taking the class. Slowly, however, I became increasingly disillusioned with the value of the information middkid.com provided in helping me make informed decisions about my classes. For starters, many of the reviews felt dated, with newer faculty having few if any reviews at all — an important gap, given they often teach introductory level courses. In addition, the organization of the site made it difficult to find courses and professors. Multiple pages containing different reviews referred to the same professor, sometimes with different spellings of his or her name. Finally, while I found many of my fellow classmates at Middlebury to be thoughtful students, they did not seem to be the ones writing the reviews on middkid.com. Rather than a general review of how most students felt about the course, the middkid.com reviews were frequently of the “loved it” or “hated it” variety.
Last spring, to improve upon all of these shortcomings, the SGA launched MiddCourses, a student-run course evaluation site. MiddCourses makes sure all the most recent courses are accurately listed by pulling that information directly from the College’s course catalog. More importantly, though, it limits access only to those with a middlebury.edu e-mail address and requires users to complete two new reviews each semester to view the existing database of over 1,500 reviews. This keeps our reviews up-to-date and makes them far more representative of general student opinion than those found on middkid.com. Rather than continuing to sing the praise MiddCourses, however, I’ll stop here and just recommend that you simply visit both and compare. I’m confident you’ll find MiddCourses the better option.
Even if you find the two comparable in quality, however, I think there remains a compelling reason to spend your time on MiddCourses — the student body owns it. We can, quite literally, change anything we want about the site. Middkid.com, by contrast, is a for-profit enterprise over which we have no control. We have already incorporated student feedback into MiddCourses so that it better serves students, and we are currently in the process of adding more features. That level of student ownership makes the future of MiddCourses far brighter than middkid.com. Students will always be in the best position to know how to improve and update the site so that it continues to be a helpful tool prior to registration. In addition, writing a review on MiddCourses increases the likelihood that future Middlebury students will be more informed when making decisions about which courses they should take. I have yet to meet anyone who has actually spent their own time reviewing courses on middkid.com. MiddCourses, on the other hand, creates the right incentives to encourage students to thoughtfully review their courses.
The reflections we have on our academic experience at Middlebury are incredibly valuable, and we ought to share them with one another. While those reflections obviously extend beyond merely reviewing a course or a professor, MiddCourses gives us an opportunity to capture at least one element of our academic experience and pass on that information to future students. The site offers an invaluable opportunity to reduce the confusion and stress many feel when trying to figure out which classes to take. It is a unique platform through which we can institutionalize the type of information we all try to figure out by word of mouth before we register each year. Since we created it, MiddCourses can ultimately make sure that future students benefit from a large reservoir of past students’ experiences — and, quite frankly, that is something middkid.com will never to be able to offer.
TAYLOR CUSTER '15 is the SGA President and is from West Brookfield, Mass.
(10/29/14 6:07pm)
In my last column, I discussed three important responsibilities of the SGA on campus: 1) allocating the student activities fee, 2) managing student organizations and 3) serving as a vehicle for students to change institutional policy. It was on the third front, I noted, where there is much room for improvement. I believe recent events have further evinced the need for the student body to discuss how we want to shape our campus.
As recent issues related to social life on campus have demonstrated, there is a general concern amongst the student body that we are not being heard during the college’s official decision-making process. Whether justified or not, such a belief proves corrosive to our community and runs contrary to the principles we stand for as a liberal arts college. In my view, the SGA and Community Council should provide the forums through which student concerns are heard and acted upon by administrators and faculty. Clearly, however, there is at least the perception on campus that these bodies are not adequately fulfilling that function.
One of the problems, I think, is that the structure of the SGA has neither been changed nor reviewed in the past 30 years. The Board of Trustees, cognizant of the need to modify governing structures to meet changing realities, recently convened a working group and completely re-organized the College’s administrative structure. The faculty, seeing the wisdom of that course, is also in the process of reviewing its own governance structure. Likewise, I think the student body would benefit greatly from a similar course of action. To that end, I am forming an SGA Reform Working Group to examine the efficacy of the current structure of student governance on campus.
While the group is currently comprised of a number of SGA members, it is crucial that the greater student body actively participate in this process. We plan to encourage greater participation by hosting a number of open forums to hear what students think about the way SGA currently operates. For those interested in taking a more active role, though, we encourage you to apply to join the working group. You can do so by filling out the application I sent out in an all-student e-mail earlier this week.
The working group is intended to address two main issues. First, it will examine the internal effectiveness of the SGA. We will start by determining whether students currently believe that the SGA is a meaningful forum through which to express their ideas. Rather than merely diagnose problems, we will propose specific recommendations about how to make the SGA more responsive to the student body’s ideas and concerns. Second, we will investigate how best to increase the level of communication between students and the administration. As noted earlier, one of the SGA’s main tasks is to serve as a facilitator of that dialogue. As a result, we will examine how the SGA can better represent the student voice to administrators in an institutionalized way. For example, perhaps the SGA should have the power to appoint student representatives to specific administrative and faculty committees, as it currently does for the Board of Trustees Investment Committee.
Our underlying goal will be to improve student life on campus by addressing the issue of how best we, as students, can voice our opinion to administrators and faculty members before changes are made to College policy. Thanks to its long history and institutional memory, I am inclined to believe that the SGA offers a strong foundation for increased communication and greater transparency. Perhaps, however, it will require serious revisions to fulfill its role as a facilitator successfully. Given the current level of campus interest in issues of transparency and student activism, there is clearly a demand for this type of change on campus. As the Board of Trustees and faculty are currently undergoing a similar process, moreover, we find ourselves in a unique position to address this issue right now. There is currently the need, the will, and the opportunity to make the student body better heard by its government, the administration, and the faculty — we should not let the opportunity slip through our fingers.
TAYLOR CUSTER '15 is the SGA President and is from West Brookfield, Mass.
(10/29/14 5:54pm)
It is a joy to live in a home rather than a dorm. Whether coming back from the library to find your friends catching up in the living room or simply returning after a hectic day to water your plants, off-campus life is a source of strength and often tranquility in the craziness of life at Middlebury College. It is also a place where we can enjoy parties with friends and do so responsibly; balancing community awareness and personal happiness at home is one of the main reasons that it feels like preparation for that nebulous thing lurking out there in the future called “real life.”
Whether selecting a college major, renting a house or deciding whether or not to wear underwear to class, we are at an age where we want to be treated as adults, to be given agency and to be allowed to make our own choices for better or for worse, even if that means suffering the consequences. At Middlebury, it can feel like opportunities to do so are few and far between. So when more students were allowed to live in town this year, it seemed like a nod from the administration, a tentative step toward autonomy for a few more students.
But after the past few weekends, with bumping bass, smashed pumpkins and yelling students on the loose, it’s looking like offering such agency was a mistake. Our administrators, but more importantly, our neighbors in town, see the increase in off-campus parties as a failure on the students’ part to act responsibly.
Dear neighbors and community members: you are right. This behavior is disruptive, disrespectful and completely inappropriate.
Dear College: what has not been discussed thus far is that partying off-campus is a direct result of certain policy decisions that have been made on-campus. Not to beat a dead horse, but it is no coincidence that the ban on alcohol at tailgates coincided with a number of disruptive, destructive and alcohol-laden gatherings in the town over Homecoming weekend. More hoops for would-be partiers on-campus means that off-campus houses look more and more appealing as potential sites for the kind of gatherings that should be held on college grounds.
We wanted to move off-campus to have a more meaningful relationship with the community, get away from dining hall food, avoid the indignity of unexpected “fire inspections” and clean our own kitchens. Recently, it appears as if some of the other students seeking to live off-campus are doing so because they want to throw big parties and feel suffocated in attempts to do so in college spaces.
This is not to say that massive ragers are ideal. But dumping the “problem” of parties into the community’s lap is unfair to the townspeople and the students, and remarkably short-sighted: it perpetuates what the Res Life staff has referred to as the “Whack-A-Mole” approach to social life policy by making the prospect and the reality of hosting a party on-campus so frustrating that students feel forced to look to off-campus friends and acquaintances to play host. Do we want to be associated with an institution that views the social scene on its own campus as a game of Whack-A-Mole, squashing social interactions as soon as they occur?
Recently, the College has placed the blame on students for acting predictably (albeit inappropriately) in a situation that the administration has created. The conversation is currently centered on student irresponsibility, rather than the push factors that are causing such behavior.
We’d like to argue that the logic for keeping — nay, encouraging — student parties on-campus is obvious and plentiful. First and foremost is the matter of student safety. We can all agree that drunk driving or even walking around on busy streets after having enjoyed a few drinks is dangerous. Also, there is a well-established support system on-campus, in the form of residential life, peer support and services at the health center. If you find yourself a few blocks away without your friends, there is unlikely to be a familiar face that knows how to get you back to Gifford.
Furthermore, Middlebury police respond to noise complaints and other issues in town, whereas playing music too loudly in a dorm is likely to result in nothing more than a chat with a Public Safety officer. One of the most frustrating aspects of this situation is that an increasing number of students would rather interact with the Middlebury police, who are consistently reasonable and respectful, than with Public Safety. To be clear, Public Safety officers are generally polite and courteous, but the policies they enforce undermine any sense of community and encourage an “us versus them” mentality. Regardless, having the members of the town police force responding to calls about college students does not look good for the college.
The institution is currently undergoing a process of rebranding, and policy changes regarding alcohol and partying are aimed at polishing our image. But shouldn’t we be more focused on the content of our identity, rather than our appearance? If we move forward with integrity to make informed policy decisions, focusing on who we are rather than who we appear to be, then our image will take care of itself.
Failure by the Administration to recognize the fact that imposing increasingly stringent drinking policies won’t stop students from doing so has now begun to affect those outside of our sphere. It is high time the administration reflected on the social life culture that Middlebury’s policies foster and considered the ways in which we might change our perspective and our goals to support a healthier, more respectful drinking culture.
LAURA STROM '14.5 is from Lopez Island, Wash.
MADISON STEBBINS '14.5 is from Silver Spring, Md.
(10/22/14 7:35pm)
It was 8 o’clock on a Thursday morning when I heard a knock at my front door. The sky was blue, the birds were chirping, and … nobody I knew in my three years of college existence would be knocking on my door right now.
“… Carolyn! Do you want to … come in?”
That was the first moment I ever hated environmentalism. My landlord was bright eyed and ready to make the world a greener place: starting with us. In one hand was a recycling quiz she had made for my housemates and me. In the other was a bag of seven non-recyclable items she had found while periodically combing through our recycling bin over the last two weeks. The fifty minutes that followed brought an in-person quiz on the beer bottles we should have been reusing and plastic bags we should have been refusing. As an environmentalist myself, I should have been a fan of this. Education combats ignorance, right? But something felt discreetly annoying. As she modeled her canvas tote bag and passionately denounced the evil sheet of Styrofoam, it occurred to me:
Could we, as environmentalists, be turning people off to environmentalism?
My first clue that the answer is a resounding “yes” was the gradient of reactions my friends and family had to this story. Their reactions generally corresponded with whether or not they were already environmentalists.
“Well, I guess it’s good that you’re more aware now,” a table of my enviro-friends seemed to conclude, not quite picking up on the ridiculous punch line of a grown woman burrowing through my trash can while I was in class. Meanwhile, my aunt and uncle, very mild conservatives and environmentally impartial, couldn’t escape their anger for long enough to laugh the story off as an amusing incident.
Anger? Anger had never occurred to me. I asked my uncle to expand.
“You aren’t their houseguests. If you lease a car from Ford, you do not expect the CEO to show up for a ride-along and tell you what music you should be listening to while you drive.”
Underneath the example I found his answer. To him, the idea of a recycling intervention threatens the value he holds most deep: autonomy. He thought he was mad about recycling. He wasn’t. He was mad that my landlord short-circuited my personal freedom for the sake of recycling.
“Yes, that’s unfortunate, but this is too important!” I hear chambers of fellow activists exclaiming. ‘This is the future of humanity! If we don’t intervene, they won’t change.’ Isn’t this how we go about environmentalism in general? More regulation and oversight to limit bad behavior? When you really think about it, the EPA is a glorified Carolyn-the-landlord.
I couldn’t agree more! —in theory. In theory, the ends should justify the means of saving the planet.
But then again, in theory, everyone in this country should be eagerly embracing environmentalism. And yet they aren’t. I think we need to ask ourselves why. We intervene because we think we have active opponents, but maybe we have so many active opponents because of the way we intervene. Instead of dragging them through the streets for the sake of our cause, perhaps we should inspire them to follow us willingly.
Artwork by EUNICE KIM
ALEXA BEYER '15.5 is from Los Angeles, Calif.
(10/22/14 7:32pm)
We have all seen them: the placards on every table in our dining halls hawking EatReal, a student-run organization seeking to advocate for more socially and environmentally responsible food at the College. The idea is to move toward a food system that is local/community-based, humane, fair and ecologically sound. This is in keeping with the socially and environmentally conscious student body we are fortunate to have here at Middlebury. As someone who cares about the health and wellness of our food system, I applaud the students raising awareness of where the College’s food comes from, how it is grown/raised, etc. However, I do not believe that the EatReal movement captures all that is necessary when it comes to what is important about dining hall food. The sources of our food and the methods used to get it to our plates are certainly very important, but what EatReal has thus far failed to address is what is actually IN the food we eat.
On a number of occasions while at Middlebury, I have walked into the dining halls and looked at the ingredient list for items on the menu, only to be disappointed in what I saw: ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup, cornstarch and corn paste, as well as compounds that utilize seemingly every letter of the alphabet, and require several read-throughs to pronounce. Even items whose ingredient lists are not made available, but which you can tell just by noticing their color, are comprised of unnatural ingredients: things like brightly colored ice cream, nacho cheese, neon desserts, fruit juices (especially that fluorescent Passion Orange Guava juice), sodas and sports drinks. Now, I enjoy sipping an ice cold Gatorade as much as the next guy, but is ingesting the color additives it contains (Blue 1, Red 40 and Yellow 5 are the color additives in the two flavors served in our dining halls, according to Gatorade’s website) really worth it, when their effects on our health are unknown?
Of course, a logical solution to what I have said thus far is to simply not eat anything that contains artificial ingredients: avoid ice cream, desserts, nacho cheese, fruit juices, sports drinks, and the like. But upon closer examination, eliminating everything in the dining halls with artificial dyes/colors and corn-derived additives would leave a scarce selection. While a healthy diet is of the utmost importance, a diet that has variety is important if for no other reason than keeping one’s sanity.
So, why is it even important that we make an effort to eliminate ingredients such as corn-derived additives from the College dining halls? According to Michael Pollan, acclaimed food activist and author of the award winning book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, artificial sugars such as high fructose corn syrup contribute heavily to type II diabetes, obesity, heart disease and diet-related cancers, all growing problems in America. The average American gets one fifth of their daily caloric intake from high fructose corn syrup. According to the CDC, one in three Americans born after the year 2000 will have type II diabetes. Not only do these additives impose serious health risks, they also quietly contribute substantially to climate change. Ten calories of fossil fuel energy are required for every single calorie of food energy when producing foods whose bases are comprised of corn and soy. Eliminating highly processed, artificial foods from the dining halls will not only benefit the health of the College community, but also will further our cause of combating climate change.
I am not calling for a paradigm shift in how the College selects what foods to present in the dining halls. Rather, I am advocating for a subtle, but significant, change of thought, from “local” to “simple.” Changing our dining hall menus to eliminate artificial dyes/colors, artificial sweeteners, and nutritionally devoid additives like high fructose corn syrup and corn starch need not involve extensive campaigns, placards on tables, or go-slash webpages. On the contrary, all it would take to eliminate these fake foods from the Middlebury diet is a quick check by the folks at Food Services to see if these substances exist in what we currently buy, and if they do, simply buy other products that do not contain them. My hope is that some day, Middlebury students will be able to walk into our dining halls and peruse the ingredient lists for any menu item without seeing “high fructose” this, or “artificial” that, or any additive whose composition only a Chemistry major would understand. And let’s face it: if you can’t pronounce it, you probably don’t want it on your plate.
Artwork by JENA RITCHEY
ETHAN SIVULICH '16 is from New Gloucester, Maine.
(10/22/14 7:28pm)
We are writing in response to the article Oct. 8 Campus article “Report Shows that Sexual Assault Numbers Tripled.” While we think it is important that the topic of sexual assault is covered in the Campus, we were disappointed by the ways that the article misrepresented the issue. First of all, the title was simply inaccurate. Sexual assault numbers did not triple. Reported incidents of sexual assault did triple. The title, accompanied by a graph showing the rapid rise in reported cases, misled readers to believe that there was an unprecedented and mysterious spike in the number of incidents of sexual assault on this campus. This is disrespectful to survivors and to the campus community as a whole. First of all, it suggests that there were only 5 sexual assaults in 2011 and 2012, which is untrue. Based on a study by the National Institute of Justice, five percent of college women are sexually assaulted during any given calendar year; in other words, it is estimated that for every 1,000 women attending a college or university, there are 35 incidents of rape. Most importantly, “less than five percent of completed or attempted rapes against college women were reported to law enforcement.” There is no reason to believe that Middlebury’s numbers would diverge from the national average.
Therefore the only conclusion that can be inferred from the announcement that reported incidents of sexual assault jumped from five to seventeen in one year is simply that more people reported than usual. This is a fairly safe assumption, as reports of sexual assault at colleges have increased nationally. There are many possible reasons for this. The Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized in 2013, creating new standards of compliance for schools. The White House has established a task force focused on preventing and responding to sexual violence on college campuses. Students at colleges and universities across the country have rallied and pressed charges against their institutions, so the U.S. Department of Education is now investigating over 70 schools for Title IX violations. The stories of survivors such as Emma Sulkowicz from Columbia University and Lena Sclove from Brown University have received widespread media attention.
Another important point of clarification is that the statistic of 17 reports does not refer to the number of students who pursued a judicial process. It refers to the number of students who told a Campus Security Authority (a Dean, Professor, coach, Public Safety officer, CRA/CA/RA/FYC, etc.) that they were sexually assaulted. If they become aware that a student has been assaulted, these members of the community are required to inform Public Safety. Public Safety then adds the incident to the numbers for the Clery Report, which is published October 1st of every year. Just because an assault is reported does not mean that a student must pursue a judicial process. Karen Guttentag, the Dean of Judicial Affairs, states: “Our work with students … is guided by our understanding of the importance of allowing students to make their own choices and to restore their sense of control over their own path after an experience that may have profoundly violated that sense of control. We are always extremely concerned when we hear of events that may involve sexual violence, and we would always prefer to investigate. However, in some cases, the involved student expresses to us very clearly the preference that we do not investigate, and we feel a strong commitment to honoring their wishes.”
Instances of sexual assault have not tripled on Middlebury’s campus: they are already high, as they are at colleges across the country. Using the Department of Justice’s statistics, we can estimate that around 43 Middlebury students were assaulted in the past academic year. We hope that future Campus articles will represent the issue accurately so that students can be informed about sexual assault at Middlebury and think about their role in stopping it.
REBECCA COATES-FINK '16.5 is from Northampton, Mass.
KATE MURRAY ' 15 is from Milton, Mass.
(10/08/14 6:17pm)
Shortly after the administration announced its controversial change to the tailgating policy, many students asked me why I, as the President of the SGA, had no knowledge of the impending change. Their concern highlights a question I imagine many of you have pondered at one point or another while at Middlebury: Why do we have SGA and Community Council? The fact that most students do not have a clear answer to that question highlights a major problem. Given my role in the SGA, I feel compelled to offer you an answer to at least the first part of that question.
In my view, the SGA fulfills three crucial roles on campus. First, it is responsible for managing and spending the Student Activities Fee (SAF) in a way that makes our non-academic lives here a little better. Second, it oversees all of the student organizations on campus. Third, it is supposed to be, in the words of the College Handbook, “the vehicle through which students can participate in the formulation of institutional policy.”
With respect to the first two roles, we actually do a good job. Most student organizations are funded well and run effectively, but of course there is always room for improvement. Ensuring that this continues to happen takes a significant amount of work by the members of both the SGA Finance Committee and the SGA Constitution Committee. In addition, the SGA operates a number of services for which it rarely receives credit. These include the free daily newspapers in the dining halls, the break bus program, and MiddCourses.
It is on the third count, I believe, where we have more work to do. Frankly, the SGA needs to serve as a better conduit between the student body and the administration. We currently fail to communicate sufficiently with both parties. First, let’s tackle the SGA’s relationship with the student body. Only a handful of students know what SGA does, and fewer still view it as the best way to “participate in the formulation of institutional policy.” The SGA tends to attract students primarily interested in changing policy, while MCAB and other student organizations tend to attract those interested in event planning and publicity. As a result, we as a group often fail to adequately communicate what it is we are doing. Having been in the SGA for two years now, I am personally guilty of not communicating my work well enough. Given recent events, though, it is clear we need to better publicize our work. To that end, we have taken a number of steps this year to better communicate with you. These initiatives include creating a new website, updating the SGA bulletin boards in McCullough, establishing a Director of Publicity position in my Cabinet, and setting up weekly office hours for each of our elected members. Hopefully, these small initial steps will serve as a solid foundation for a better level of communication between the SGA and the student body.
In terms of our relationship with the administration, most of our influence currently takes the form of me and other elected SGA members meeting with administrators to express students’ ideas and concerns. Although this system fosters trust, it lacks transparency and limits the flow of information. A better approach would be for the SGA to secure greater student representation on administrative and faculty committees. In this manner, we can more consistently convey our ideas during the early stages of the policy-making process. We may not get a vote, but we should get a voice. Progress in this area would increase the amount and transparency of communication between students, administrators, and faculty.
You may still be asking, why should SGA in particular do these things? Why not leave individual groups of students to push for change? We are, after all, a fairly small campus with easy access to administrators. I would respond that much of the value of the SGA stems from its institutional presence. The question is not one of existence, but one of strength. It is in the best interest of the student body to have a consistent advocate voicing the student body’s ideas to administrators. As a source of institutional memory, the SGA can protect the progress we make each year. Although change may come more slowly than we would like and perhaps not at all on some issues, a more effective SGA could, at the very least, secure us a consistent voice at the table.
From reforming the trustees’ governance structure to hiring a new president, change is in the air at Middlebury. I have tried to articulate how the SGA needs to change as well as the ways in which it can enhance student life on campus. Regardless of whether you find my argument convincing, it is important that you make your voice heard on this issue. I look forward to hearing your ideas, and would be happy to discuss them with you in person or over e-mail. You can reach me at sga@middlebury.edu.
TAYLOR CUSTER '15 is the SGA President and is from West Brookfield, Mass.
(10/08/14 6:12pm)
As of 2012, the estimated population of Americans belonging to the so-called “millennial” or Generation Y numbered around 80 million, making those born between the mid-1980’s and late 1990’s approach one-third of the total population. Of these 80 million, only 41.2 percent that were of voting age bothered to cast a ballot in the 2012 national elections, according to the Census Bureau’s 2012 Voting Report. As a member of this generation and a friend or colleague of many who abstained, I can hardly blame them.
I am extremely doubtful that anyone of my age could view a Congress comprised almost entirely of rich old white men (and one that is seemingly incapable of functioning as a legitimate governmental organ, no less) and genuinely believe that they understand our interests, let alone have them at mind. The fact of the matter is that these Exxon-bankrolled octogenarians will not for long continue to inhabit the nation that they are currently (mis)shaping — sometimes I wonder if Dick Cheney was even alive in the first place. However, while our deceased lawmakers sip celestial piña coladas and gaze down at us from that Great Big Corporate Consulting Agency in the Sky, we millennials will be frantically attempting to pick up the pieces of the Republic for which they supposedly stood.
Or at least we would, if any of us could be bothered to do anything beyond the occasional agitated Facebook post or impassioned student newspaper article. No one should care more about the precarious state of the Earth’s environmental, political and economic systems, yet most of us are content to conveniently ignore all of them. And why not? Unmitigated consumer capitalism, a gargantuan national security apparatus and climate change are all terrifyingly large and difficult problems ideally solved by someone else.
This collective political shrug is reflected in our voting patterns mentioned above. Although polarization between Democrats and Republicans has never been higher, they are far from representing the entirety of political opinion in America; other than a few new pieces of large legislation (e.g the Affordable Care Act and 2009 stimulus), Democrats spend much of their time attempting to protect what’s left of government regulatory systems and the social safety net while Republicans try to eviscerate them in a bloody, Randian fervor. What’s more, both parties are nearly unanimous in their support for hundreds of billions of dollars in annual military spending, fossil fuel subsidies and other means of corporate welfare. Coupled with district gerrymandering, suppressive voter ID laws and continuous wars under both Republican and Democratic administrations, it’s really no wonder that so many have become jaded.
All this being said, I remain quite hopeful. Generation Y was not born with an inherent sense of political apathy; rather, the main channels through which we can express our opinions and sentiments have become terribly inefficient and uninspiring. There has been a pervasive sense of smallness that causes many (including myself) to believe that even if we did attempt to mitigate our nation’s ills, it would be to little or no effect. However consider this: only 126 million out of nearly 206 million eligible Americans voted in the last national election, meaning a block of 80 million millennials carries incredibly significant and underutilized electoral weight.
Millennials have an energetic and better-suited approach to a world that is now considerably different from when our parents came of age — in only two decades, our tastes, habits and innovations have largely reshaped how the world communicates. Our exposure to world cultures, knowledge and beliefs through global connectivity has produced one of the least insular and open-minded groups of people to ever exist. Regardless of the myriad complaints and analyses written by most news/culture outlets, I remain truly inspired by what I’ve witnessed my peers being capable of. We have been unfairly dropped into a flawed system not of our making, but have the opportunity to change it, through both national and local actions.
Consider the impact of 80 million voters on progressive third parties — 60 percent of my generation didn’t vote because they believed the act futile, their views unrepresented. 2,500 ballots from the Middlebury student body may seem like a pittance nationally, but oftentimes local election margins are in the hundreds of votes. Research your state’s elections; request an absentee ballot; attend meetings or contact campaigns. The aforementioned establishment politicians continue to win because they count on our disillusionment. Yet however cynical we may be about the seemingly rigged nature of US politics, it is still a democracy and can be shaped by the actions of voters. The Populist and Progressive movements of the early 20th century began as largely a localized movement, one that came about from a similarly disenchanted base yet went on to completely revolutionize the country. We are now overdue for a new wave of organized change, one that is in tune with the real existential threats our society faces and led by those with the unique mindset and emotional investment necessary to see it out.
TEVAN GOLDBERG '18 is from Astoria, Ore.
(10/01/14 6:11pm)
While I don’t agree with the manner in which the College administration revised the tailgating policy, I understand it. Especially with the advent of social media, we have the need to play up our college experiences. There’s the constant pressure to make our normal college experiences align with those from the University of Miami while on spring break. Every one of us wants to go out on a Saturday night and find a room packed with hundreds of people rhythmically beating their arms in the air while subject to a laser show, loud trap music and a fog machine. And, while I’m not offering this as an excuse for our behavior, I am acknowledging the pressure arising from beyond the Middlebury bubble.
Clearly, if the students who are in an uproar about the change in policy were present during the meetings, the policy change would have been more moderate or wouldn’t have happened at all. There are two problems with this, however. One, the College would have had to involve the students, which logistically wouldn’t have been difficult — it’s been done it before. And two, here’s the big one, the students who care about their tailgates would have had to attend the discussions. I find that, with the exception of a select few, the right people who have the most to contribute to the conversation are the most absent in the college’s proceedings (task force on alcohol). It’s not without invitation either. The president and dean of students hold office hours, we have student representatives and we are flat out extended an invitation to attend discussions on specific issues by our president over email.
I argue that we need to take more responsibility. Traditionally, social change arises from student movements. How can we be taken seriously when we only communicate with one another when we are five-deep? The privilege wouldn’t have been taken away from us had our peers taken-it-to-the-face in moderation. The privilege might be re-granted if we could speak our minds appropriately and devote more time to a cause than being angry for a week and forgetting about it. As far as I can tell, conversation has declined due to our receiving a couple of carefully worded emails.
People need to speak up. I’m talking about more than just the tailgating policy. I’m talking about the poster outside Ross that I’ll admit I was infuriated by at first for belittling something that is very important to us as a student body — democracy. Then I realized it was a call to action. It’s literally begging us to ask ourselves what we believe in and so far it’s been up for a week and is still 50 percent blank. We are allowing things to happen to us rather than, as the future leaders of this country, the ones making things happen. Through and through, I have to disagree with Barstool Sports on this one. If we want to be treated as adults, we should begin acting like them.
TAYLOR SHORTSLEEVE '15 is from Medfield, Mass.
(10/01/14 6:09pm)
You may already know about my campaign to get Heinz ketchup in all of our dining halls. Between the WeTheMiddKids petition, the go/heinzforall posters, and my somewhat unconventional ketchup solicitation in Atwater last week, I feel as though “Heinz Girl” has become something of a campus character. For those of you who remain unaware of my motivations, you may rest assured that my Pittsburgher passion is wholly in earnest. After three years of avoiding the vinegary Hunt’s tomato concoction in Ross and Proctor and then discovering this year that the Heinz containers in Atwater didn’t have Heinz in them at all, I decided to act.
Am I, as WeTheMiddKids commentator Smylez so eloquently put it, just an “overzealous yinzer?” I’ve never believed in doing anything halfway, but this nascent insurgency has so far cost me a whopping $6 on posters, $3 on a bottle of ketchup, and three hours walking around Atwater and talking to some very wonderful people in my effort to convince you of Heinz’s superiority. In the sad event that you missed the Heinz giveaways last week, I’ve got some fun facts for you. Almost 1.2 million people like Heinz Ketchup on Facebook. Compare that to the paltry 105 who like Hunt’s Ketchup. Yep. More people live in Battell than like Hunt’s Ketchup on Facebook. More people work for Hunt’s than like Hunt’s Ketchup on Facebook. They probably even secretly stock their pantries with Heinz!
Social media popularity contests aside — and it is difficult to ignore a difference to that degree of magnitude — even the experts agree that Heinz is the best. In a 2004 New Yorker article, Malcolm Gladwell wrote, “the taste of Heinz’s ketchup began at the tip of the tongue, where our receptors for sweet and salty first appear, moved along the sides, where sour notes seem the strongest, then hit the back of the tongue, for umami and bitter, in one long crescendo.” Wouldn’t you like to experience such gastronomic perfection every time you have a French fry in the dining hall?
There are so many things I care about more than ketchup — improving maternal health outcomes, formulating better language curricula for children in American public schools, the plight of Syrian and Iraqi refugees and IDPs, the social and academic wellbeing of my Middviewers, and whether the Steelers will recover from this 2-2 start to the season. But now that I’m in my final year here, I’ve come to realize that we often take ourselves far too seriously, and that the little things can affect us just as much as grand issues. Wherever ketchup falls on your list of priorities, if seeing my posters or watching me administer impromptu taste tests has made you crack a smile or even laugh, I absolutely count that as a victory. Whether or not I achieve the ultimate victory in this campaign, however, depends on your support. Vote now for Heinz ketchup, that king of the condiments, at go/heinzforall.
Artwork by NOLAN ELLSWORTH
KATHARINE REINEMAN '15 is from Pittsburgh, Pa.
(10/01/14 6:04pm)
So where were you over the summer?
Well, you know, I was back at home in Palestine-Israel.
Oh, wow, how was it? Umm, I mean, if you wanna talk about it…
Ah, yeah, I mean, I guess it’s important to talk about it. But it’s not the casual response.
What do you mean?
I mean, you might not enjoy the answer, and it might take up our whole lunch break.
Try me.
Okay then. Sorry if I’ll ruin your day, but you’re asking for it. You know I’m involved with, like, Jewish occupation-resistance groups right?
Yep.
Yeah, so, normally, each summer when I come back, I plug back in to proactive anti-apartheid activities, like accompanying Palestinian shepherds to their land using our Jewish privilege to make sure that soldiers and settlers don’t attack and kick them out illegally, and going to Palestinian demonstrations against the apartheid wall once again using our Jewish presence to ensure that the military abides by its own shooting regulations, and helping villagers get water access by digging wells and repairing water cisterns, and other kinds of direct action-ish type of things geared towards the alleviation of human suffering in the face of a legal system that treats people differently according to their ethnic background, as well as public resistance to this system. And then there are other co-existence aspects of our work that are enabled by the joint resistance stuff, like attending weddings and holidays of comrades from the other side of the wall, et cetera.
That’s a lot, but I think I get it. Resistance by existence. Sounds very rewarding.
It can be, but the point is that this summer we couldn’t really do much of that, at least until the military operation was over.
Ah, because resistance to the war kinda took over everything else?
Not only. We’ve also seen new kinds of repression from the government and nationalists. Nationalist — or you may call them simply fascist, or Jewish supremacist — organizations got hundreds of young men out to the streets of West Jerusalem to try to lynch Palestinians that work in the Jewish side, you know, dish-washers, cleaners, cooks etc. So we had to run after enthralled masses chanting “death to all Arabs” and “the women of Israel for the people of Israel” (yeah…) that were trying to lynch people, and we were finding ourselves, absurdly enough, calling the police to try to make them do their job and stop the violence.
Holy cow, and did they actually lynch people?
Yes. Many people were hospitalized. In one case, a more organized group of nationalists kidnapped a Palestinian boy, Muhammad Abu Khdeir, forced him to drink gasoline, and burned him alive.
Oh my God, that’s horrific.
Yes, and it was widely condemned also on the Israeli media, relegating that kind of violence to extremist, marginal, mentally ill groups. But the thing is, the state was doing the same thing — mediated by a lot more weapons and firepower — times 600 in Gaza. They killed around 600 kids in Gaza over the summer, 300 women, 2,200 people in total, and counting, since people are still dying of their wounds as we speak.
And what about the Israeli side?
Four Israeli citizens were killed by rockets and about 60 others were Israeli soldiers. It’s not exactly numerically comparable. But I don’t like to talk about this in terms of symmetrical “sides” in a conflict. Israel is occupying Gaza, in control of the movement of people and resources in and out of it. Many people consider Gaza the largest open-air prison in the world. When prisoners throw stuff at their guards, even if this may be unpleasant for the guards and perhaps put them at actual risk, you wouldn’t really call it a war, perhaps a prison revolt, right?
I guess so. You know, I was following the Ferguson riots around here and it seemed connected to the Israel-Palestine stuff in weird ways. Like, they were using on black folks the same weapons that Israel uses on Palestinians in the West Bank, and the Ferguson Police actually went through training in Israel.
Yeah, these are similar struggles. We talked about this in the Ferguson teach-in the other day. The police are like an occupying force in Ferguson, policing the people with immunity in a similar way to which Israel is a policing force in Palestine, invading all aspects of life. It seems like it’s all about money. Most of Israeli industry is military industry, and Israel has been going on military operations every one to three years in the past decade and a half, followed by large revenues to the Israeli economy that sells weapons that were tested successfully on Palestinians to practically every state in the world. The U.S. taxpayer subsidizes that industry in return, giving $10 billion in military aid to Israel per year.
Yeah … that’s all pretty grim. What keeps you going?
Actually, it really helps me to think about the Palestinian struggle as part of a much larger and older ongoing global struggle against colonialism and capitalism. In the face of the genocide and slave economy that you guys have been leading under the American flag around here, Israel doesn’t seem so horrible and certainly not as difficult to resist. Apartheid is not as popular as it has been, and I think grassroots resistance movements can make a difference. We can even make a difference from Vermont.
Really?
For instance, we can plug into the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement. Josh Ruebner will come give a talk about it in Middlebury on Oct. 19, keep your eyes open for that.
Cool.
Yeah, and if you’re interested in continuing this conversation and maybe joining our efforts come to a Justice for Palestine (JFP) meeting. We meet every Friday at 5:30 p.m. in the Carr Hall Lounge.
Awesome. Alright, I guess I’ll see you there.
AMITAI BEN-ABBA '15.5 is from Jerusalem.
(10/01/14 6:02pm)
A large majority of you reading this letter will not recognize my name, so as a way of introduction, I was the football coach at Middlebury from 1973 to 2000. With that experience, I would like to add my thoughts to the continuing dialogue expressed by some students and alumni regarding the administration’s alcohol-free policy regarding tailgating at football games.
Speaking from an historical perspective, this is not a new issue. I still have vivid memories of the first football game that I coached in 1973, where I observed a massive group of what I assumed were student fans tailgating in the parking lot outside of Porter Field, the football field at the time. To my dismay, a large percentage of those students never entered the field, and tailgating as I had previously experienced it — as a social gathering of fans whose purpose in being there was to support their team — obviously meant something else to a good number of students at Middlebury. I was soon to learn that this mindset was to be replicated when large numbers of alums returned to tailgate at homecoming and would never see the inside of the stadium.
Unfortunately, from my perspective (I continue to go to all Middlebury games), not much has changed in the course of the last forty years, nor have administrative policies, up until now, even though the College’s legal responsibilities have been vastly expanded with the raising of the legal drinking age. As is so often the case in our society today, the irresponsible actions of a relatively small number of individuals bring with it laws not deemed necessary by the majority -— think texting while driving.
I don’t think there is any question, as President Liebowitz has written, that the rollout of this policy could have been handled in a different manner. However, I believe it is naïve thinking on anyone’s part to assume that the issue of alcohol abuse while tailgating at football games has not been repeatedly addressed by administrators and students in the past. Indeed, policies adopted in 2013 limiting tailgating hours were ignored by a significant group of intoxicated students exhibiting acts of vandalism and disrespect to other fans. This was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back, and placed College administrators in a position of having to justify how the drunken actions of these students could be permitted in any venue, much less an athletic contest. A tough case to defend, indeed.
The coach in me is compelled to speak out as to why we play varsity sports at all in a place like Middlebury, but I passionately believe they are justified because of the unique educational growth opportunities afforded to the participating athletes. But sports also can provide a tremendous opportunity to unite and create a positive school spirit and aid in uniting a school and local community. It would be a shame to see this latter aspect diminished because some students, alums and parents are not permitted to drink for a few hours in the course of late morning and early afternoon and take it as a personal affront of their liberties. There are many things in life demanding our concerns and actions that make the outrage of protesting this regulation laughable. As the popular, modern saying goes, “Give me a break.”
While understanding the sense of frustration cited by responsible acting students and alums who have always acted as mature and supportive fans, the simple fact remains that for many, many years, a small portion of students and alums have come to football games not to support the team, but to party. For those of you who are truly fans, and are attending games to support your team, I would suggest that attending an alcohol free tailgate for a period of three or four hours at a collegiate athletic venue, in which a college assumes a myriad of legal responsibilities for its student-body, realistically should not be a burdensome task.
For the alums who will shortly be returning to Middlebury for Homecoming Weekend who really do not care about attending the football game with its attendant tailgate restrictions, I would suggest that you petition the college to set up an area disassociated from any athletic venues, which would allow for responsible consumption of alcohol and the socializing opportunities for which many will be returning. However, very simply, it is time to stop using a football game as the reason to party, when the game has no relevance for those folks.
I would like to congratulate all the students and fans who attended the opening football game, many of whom were probably disgruntled about the new regulations, but nevertheless, acted in a mature and responsible way while supporting their team. It was a different and, dare I say, positive experience in the parking lot. Go Panthers. Beat Amherst.
Artwork by NOLAN ELLSWORTH
MICKEY HEINECKEN is an Associate Professor Emeritus and a Retired Football and Tennis Coach.
(09/25/14 3:06am)
Religion has been crucial to human cultures for millennia, but it appears to have been dwindling in importance for the about the last century. Although God does not change, our culture has been rapidly transforming since the Industrial Revolution. It seems that our desire for happiness and accumulating wealth has replaced our passion for finding meaning in a world that was previously filled with suffering. As our culture becomes more and more secular, we should ask the question if religion and our contemporary consumer culture can coexist. Have our current passions replaced our passion for the truth? Can we be independent of God if all our basic needs have been met? Do the creature comforts that we so enjoy fulfill us or corrupt us?
For many religions, a critical element of their philosophy is to find an answer to the meaning of suffering. If there is a just God then why must we suffer? In Christianity, the answer can be found in the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus. His suffering was the means by which eternal life was attained. Most other major religions such as Buddhism, Islam and Judaism all use some form of suffering as a means to achieve self-transcendence or a greater good. From a more secular point of view, the psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl, in his magnum opus, Man’s Search for Meaning, states that love is the answer to suffering. He realized this concept as a Holocaust prisoner while he contemplated the daily tortures he faced at the Auschwitz concentration camp. He was convinced that his seemingly unimaginable suffering was worthwhile for the chance of even a minute of seeing his wife if he were to be released.
The meaning of suffering is an essential idea when trying to find meaning in one’s own life, but what if there is little to no suffering? Humans have often used religion as an answer to suffering. If there is no suffering, do we need religion? For a majority of people from developed countries, true suffering is not an issue. Most of us are well-fed, clean water is basically free, heating and air conditioning protect us from nature’s elements and we are seemingly never alone as social media and cell phones create a constant connection between us.
Humans across cultures and throughout history have used God as an answer to their problems, but now our culture has shifted from relying on God to relying on money and technology as panaceas for our troubles. Unfortunately, in a way it does allow us to be independent of God, although I believe it is a short term and insufficient answer. Our creature comforts definitely bring us happiness, but they are too superficial and fleeting in nature. Being overly enveloped in our industrial civilization does not seem like a legitimate reason to deny the importance of religion in one’s life. Although I do not think that this is the conscious reason for many people, it is likely an underlying root cause of this phenomenon. Having wealth and security does not change the existence of God or the importance of religion; it just changes our perspective on life. I think that if we created a less materialistic culture, we would be more inclined to contemplate the deep, philosophical issues that humanity has historically been trying to answer. This dilemma brings to mind an old Scottish tune:
Will the space that you’re so rich in
Light a fire in the kitchen,
Or the little god of space turn the spit, spit, spit?
We can only perpetuate this state of satiety for so long until our morals and ethics begin to be compromised.
Regardless of whether abandoning our materialistic culture will lead to a religious life or belief in God, it will undoubtedly lead to a more meaningful way of living where we can appreciate many of the things that we often take for granted. Maybe we will begin to think more about the consequences that our economic habits have on the globe. Questioning the purchase of goods that are produced by laborers working in unjust working conditions and contemplating the effect that our investments have on the environment are significant strides in the right direction. Whatever direction you choose, the end goal should not be to accumulate the most wealth or produce the most goods but instead, to do the most good.
DYLAN SINNICKSON '15 is from Sands Point, N.Y.
(09/25/14 3:00am)
Ever since the new tailgating policy was announced, we’ve been outraged. Outraged at the outrage. In MiddBeat’s coverage and subsequent online comments and Jack Dolan’s op-ed on the Campus’ website, there are several troubling trends that demand discussion.
The more dangerous of these tendencies is the way in which the ban’s opponents have appropriated the language of social movements, social justice and human rights. Middbeat’s unabashedly slanted reporting (paragraph three kicks off with “‘What. The. F***?’”) barely avoids using the words “right” and “liberty” to describe what’s at stake. A commenter, “Jenny”, wrote: “I’m starting to feel like I’m living in a police state in Middlebury.”
The subsequent calls-to-action—which were soon echoed by countless current and former students in the comments section underneath—included suggestions of withholding donations and signing petitions. Of protesting, in other words, an injustice. To use this language when what’s at stake is being able to binge drink at a particular time on a patch of privately-owned grass is to dilute the potency of words and ideas that are needed to fight real injustice — some of which is alive and well at Middlebury.
If Middlebury were a place free from significant social issues, the current attempts to reverse the new tailgating restrictions could be seen as clumsy beginners’ attempt to make change. In the presence of true inequity, however, the vocabulary of social change and resisting institutional power deserves to be used with discretion and only after deep consideration. What are these real issues? Middbeat jogs our weak institutional memory in a poll it recently posted on its site: “What’s the most pressing issue on Middlebury’s campus right now?” “The new tailgating policy” tops the recorded responses, with more than double the votes of any other option. Ranked lower in the poll are many of the most pressing and significant issues that the College has faced since we matriculated in 2010: the distressingly ethnocentric AAL requirement, administrative resistance to divestment and the hate crime constituted by the specific threat of sexual violence against a queer student. Those are the issues that demand action, that merit dozens upon dozens of online comments, that might justify civil disobedience. Those are “What Middlebury Should Never Forget,” as Celeste Allen reminded us in her op-ed last week.
Should the administration have engaged students and/or the SGA before instituting the ban? Yes. Are there questions about social life and alcohol that need discussion? Certainly. But it is distressing to watch (granted, from afar, as recent alumni) students rally behind their “right” to tailgate while so many more critical movements — ones regarding students’ physical safety, even — have struggled to get traction. So should it make us think about our priorities? Yes. And Dolan’s final exhortation — “Fight for your right to party”? Partying is not a right. It should be one of the last things we fight for.
When acts reeking of entitlement (thousands of missing dishes, public intoxication, underage drinking, property destruction) are met with administrative response, students have reacted as if a slap on the wrist was a slap in the face, as if students are entitled to do whatever they want, wherever they want.
Students with various minority identities have long described their inability to feel comfortable or “at home” at Middlebury. Now, we’re seeing one of the rare times where the “traditional” — as in, “of the majority,” not as in “rightfully revered” — MiddKid feels threatened; this issue has hit at the heart of the most comfortable and comforted segment of the student body: an athletic, mostly-white, predominantly upper-class group.
When “David” comments on Middbeat, “Tailgates are one of the only places where everyone at the school is invited to come together and have a good time,” he’s both wrong and missing the point. Certainly, there’s no de jure segregation, no entry fees, no secret invitations. But to say that a relatively small, “kind of fratty” (as I heard someone describe it), drunken crowd is representative of the Middlebury community has dangerous implications.
To think that the tailgate really is a safe and comfortable space for anyone is myopic. There are certainly students at Middlebury who like to party and want to attend a tailgate, but do not feel like it is a space for “people like them” because they do not meet the identity-based requirements to be “traditional” MiddKid. There’s a difference between being “invited” and feeling welcome.
Perhaps what concerns us most is the dangerously skewed perspective made evident in that comment from “David.” If tailgating students look around at their fellow revelers and think they’re seeing the full spectrum of Middlebury’s diversity, then they are blind to the presence and, consequently, the struggles of many other non-“traditional” groups of students at Middlebury.
How convenient, then, that narrow-minded perspective is. For if we’re all just part of the tailgate crowd, then our “right to party” is indeed the only “right” that demands our indignation. So how might current students move forward? Learn about the social justice movements happening on campus and don’t just speak up when you feel attacked, be an ally to those who are less comfortable than you at Midd. Fellow alumni: our voices are powerful. Don’t go hoarse over beers in a parking lot.
IAN STEWART '14 lives in Washington, D.C.
CAILEY CRON '13.5 lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
(09/25/14 2:52am)
To the Editor,
Along with many of my fellow alumni, I read with dismay that alcohol and music have been banned from tailgating at Middlebury athletic events, including Homecoming. It’s part of a broader pattern that we have observed with disappointment from afar since graduation, as officials at the College sanitize and red-tape the campus social scene into virtual non-existence. It now seems that this needless urge to regulate every aspect of life at the College will also extend to alumni during our return visits.
This is exactly the sort of action that will negatively impact alumni views of the way our alma mater is being run and will make us feel disconnected from the institution we knew. I sincerely hope the College’s administration reconsiders this move.
Sincerely,
Derek Schlickeisen ’09
DEREK SCHLICKEISEN '09 lives in Washington, D.C.
(09/17/14 9:19pm)
Dear Middlebury College Community,
I know some of you have taken exception to our decision to ban alcohol at football game tailgate events. Let me tell you in the plainest terms why we have done this. For some time, we have been dealing with issues arising from incidents of overuse of alcohol by some attendees. We have tried to address these issues through various steps, including increasing staffing levels and limiting the times during which alcohol can be consumed.
But none of these steps we have taken has worked. Over the past three to four years in particular, there have been numerous incidents of inappropriate, embarrassing and often unsafe behavior in the tailgate area and, as a consequence, in the stadium. In every instance, excessive alcohol was involved. Last year’s home football game against Trinity was a case in point. It was one of the best games in Middlebury football history. The players from both teams exemplified what it means to be a NESCAC athlete. However, the behavior of the crowd in the tailgate area was an absolute disgrace, and it turned what should have been a proud day for Middlebury football into an embarrassing episode for the College, the Athletics Department and the football program. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident.
After last season, I felt compelled to ask myself what we should do to address this situation. In the end, I believe the issue is one of integrity and safety. It is our responsibility to provide a safe, and hospitable environment to our fans, to opposing teams and to their fans. Moreover, given everything Middlebury and its Athletics program stands for, and the commitment we have to our fellow NESCAC members, I concluded that the only responsible step was to remove alcohol from the equation. We do not allow alcohol at any of our other athletic venues or parking areas, and it is time we do the same at football.
I thank you in advance for your support in the upcoming season. I am looking forward to the year with confidence at how Middlebury will be represented on AND off the field. This policy allows us to go into the season with the integrity we say we have, the integrity we demand of our students and coaches, and to be secure in the knowledge that we have provided an appropriate and safe venue to enjoy DIII college football.
Best,
Erin
ERIN QUINN is the Director of Athletics.
(09/17/14 9:17pm)
When Erin first approached me about writing this column I had some…reservations. I just couldn’t help but feel I had been down the path of being a vocal Republican in a very liberal environment. Well, that would be because I have been down that exact path many times, and I have come to embrace it.
Much like Erin, I grew up in the Bay Area, in Orinda, California. Orinda may be richer than most areas around it (the median household income was $153,945 in 2012), but it is still very Democratic (66 percent of residents voted for Obama in 2012). However I was first introduced to politics while I was attending middle school over the hill in (the Peoples’ Republic of) Berkeley.
When I was in seventh grade, the 2008 primaries were heating up, and many of my friends (who had just discovered the Daily Show and Colbert Report) were interested in either Hilary Clinton or Barack Obama. So, just as Erin did, I went home and talked to my parents about whom they preferred. However, my household is politically split. My mother is a Democrat. She was born in Berkeley and preferred Hillary Clinton. My dad was born in Concord, New Hampshire and grew up in Barre, Vermont. He was torn between John McCain and Mitt Romney. My parents proceeded to explain to me the basics about each of the candidates and about politics in general. However, the only specific I remember from that conversation (my parents are both lawyers, so it was a long conversation for a 13-year-old) was that Mitt Romney was a Mormon, and therefore a religious minority. This was particularly intriguing to me because I am Jewish. The one thing my parents could 100 percent agree on was that it was sad that Mitt may be counted out because many people don’t like Mormons. So the next day at school I told my friends I liked Mitt.
That was a bit of a rough day. Many of my friends were raised with an irrational fear of Republicans. This prompted many questions from classmates, many of which I did not quite know how to field. The one that sticks out the most is “how can you call yourself a real Jew and like Republicans?” If you know me at all, you should understand that this did not prompt me to switch my party affiliation. In fact, I would later wear a “Jewish Americans for McCain” shirt to counterbalance all the “hope and change” paraphernalia.
After the 2008 debacle, I remained a Republican — although a confused one. It wouldn’t be until the 2012 cycle that I would really investigate my early political leanings.
At the end of my junior year, there were two elections that concerned me: the GOP presidential primary and my own campaign for Senior Class President. I had transferred back into the Orinda Public School district after Middle School and attended Miramonte High School. After winning a three-way race for Senior Class President, I had caught the campaign bug — I loved it. Naturally, I closely followed the 2012 presidential election and supported Mitt. It was this campaign that prompted me to watch probably the most influential video on my political ideology, I.O.U.S.A (it’s on Youtube, it’s only 30 minutes long and it’s a great way to put off your reading). This video originally aired on CNN and made the economy and the national debt my #1 issue, and Mitt Romney was my #1 candidate.
To my dismay, I would miss voting in the election by a number of weeks (the struggles of having a December birthday). This left a bitter taste in my mouth — I should have done more to help Mitt. Alas, California was far from competitive that year. Little did I know that in the next few months I would have yet another important discussion with my parents: what to do with my Febmester.
Naturally, my mother thought I should travel around Europe or go to Africa and “save the elephants”. With 2012 in the back of my mind, I decided to go “save the elephants” — just not in Africa. I then soon began my six month (total) tenure at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and I dove head first into politics.
My mother still (jokingly) ponders “where she went wrong.”
PHIL HOXIE ' is from Orinda, Calif.