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(10/27/22 10:00am)
For rural communities like Ripton, Bristol and Middlebury, Vt., town centers and more densely populated neighborhoods become a trick-or-treater’s paradise. Since many houses are farther apart, parents often direct their children to a central area where they can celebrate safely. Some rural communities have established different traditions altogether.
(09/22/22 10:00am)
The 19th annual TAM — Trail Around Middlebury — Trek was held this past Sunday, Sept. 18.
(09/15/22 10:00am)
Cindie Webb has been employed by the college as a custodian for over eleven years. Webb spent the 2021–22 academic year cleaning all of HMKL — Hadley, Milliken, Kelly and Lang Hall — a job meant for five custodians. Webb and a colleague bore the impacts of understaffing, covering all 49 public bathrooms, five sets of stairs, kitchens and lounges — just between the two of them.
(05/12/22 11:00am)
A bronze statue celebrating a sport that supposedly began at Middlebury was reinstalled this past week outside of Forest Hall.
(05/12/22 10:00am)
A mental health services provider for Addison County raised its pay rate for employees on April 4. In an effort to make wages more competitive with other jobs in the community, Counseling Services of Addison County (CSAC) increased its wages to $17 per hour for direct entry staff, and between $51,000 and $59,000 for clinicians annually.
(05/05/22 9:58am)
A grant aimed at bringing vibrant businesses to Main Street has re-opened for a second round of applications, which will close on May 13.
(04/21/22 10:00am)
A club that pairs Middlebury students with kids at Addison County schools has seen an uptick in participation as a result of increased mental and social struggles among local elementary schoolers, likely caused by the pandemic.
(04/14/22 11:29am)
A motion urging the administration to raise faculty and staff wages by 10% across the board passed during the college’s monthly faculty meeting on Friday, April 8.
(03/03/22 11:00am)
Forced to find second jobs in town to make ends meet, college staff members say that lack of opportunity for wage increase causes both motivation and morale to suffer.
(02/24/22 11:00am)
A Middlebury student and owner of a local coffee-roasting company recently purchased another Middlebury-based coffee business.
(11/18/21 10:58am)
A local juice shop recently moved locations from Route 7 South to the centrally located Merchant’s Row in downtown Middlebury. On Oct. 15, Juice Amour opened its doors at the new location. The Route 7 South location had been open since 2016.
(11/04/21 9:58am)
For the past twelve years, The Knoll has been growing produce for a Middlebury-based nonprofit that aims to improve the lives of low-income Addison County residents. Helping Overcome Poverty’s Effects, or HOPE, accepts donations from the Knoll and other local farms for their food shelf located at 282 Boardman St. in the town of Middlebury.
(10/07/21 9:58am)
Molly Grazioso ’23.5 spent the final months of this past summer renovating a room in The Annex to become a makerspace for sewing and clothing upcycling projects. The space opened for the first time this past Saturday, Oct. 2.
Grazioso got the idea for The Studio, as she is calling the room, when she began taking classes in the art and architecture departments at Middlebury.
“I felt like I wasn’t getting exactly what I wanted, which was to study clothing,” she said.
In the fall of 2020, Grazioso applied for the Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship through the Innovation Hub.
“On my application [I] explained that I wanted to pursue sustainable fashion very generally,” Grazioso said. “[I wanted to create a space for] upcycling or other sustainable fashion projects.”
Later that fall, Grazioso, along with eight to 10 other sophomores and sophomore Febs, was awarded the $7,000 fellowship, to be used over the next three years. It was not until this past June, though, that Grazioso began serious conversations with the Innovation Hub about possible locations to house her makerspace.
The Innovation Hub’s Old Stone Mill Program is an initiative where Middlebury students can become tenants of The Annex (located across from the townhouses) or 82 Weybridge Street to pursue their projects. Grazioso was able to tour one of the upstairs rooms in The Annex this summer. “It was exactly what I was looking for,” she said.
After Grazioso had selected the room in The Annex for the upcycling studio, she set an ambitious opening goal: the beginning of the fall 2021 semester. In order to reach that goal, she began working extra hours around her CCE Privilege and Poverty Internship to clean up and paint the space. “When I came in, [the] space hadn’t been utilized for a long time, so there was a lot of work to do,” she said.
Along with preparing the space for students to sew and embroider in, Grazioso had to work on setting up the machines and placing fabric orders. Though she is still in the process of acquiring supplies, Grazioso said she has gotten most of her materials from second hand stores, estate sales and donations from Middlebury residents.
“The space is open, but I definitely wouldn’t consider it finished,” Grazioso added. “The easiest thing to work on right now is a ‘slow fashion project,’ like embroidering jeans you already have.”
In addition to the advice she received from staff members at the Innovation Hub, Grazioso was guided by the experiences of Kelly Hickey, a Middlebury resident and owner of Edie & Glo, a line of reused textiles and clothing.
“Molly approached me about her idea of opening a repurposing lab,” Hickey said. “I definitely supported it because I feel that people need to have hands-on experience to understand the problem [with the fast-fashion industry].”
Hickey advised Grazioso on the necessary supplies and best fabric sources for upcycling.
Grazioso also recently brought on seven student-volunteer monitors, who will supervise The Studio. Emma Barrett ’24.5 said they were drawn to being a monitor for the opportunity to both work on their own personal sewing projects and help other people with projects.
“I really like doing sewing-related projects,” Barrett said. “There’s not really a space for that here, so when I heard about the studio, I thought that was perfect.”
Megan Mahoney ’22.5, another monitor, said she is looking forward to meeting other students who also have an interest in sewing. “Molly has put so much work into [The Studio], and it’s such a cool space to have for students because there really isn’t anything like it,” Mahoney said.
One monitor will be present in The Studio at all times, and two students can work in the space at once. Students can book the space using the link in The Studio’s Instagram biography: @studioatmidd.
The space’s current hours are 7-9 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday; 3-5 p.m. Friday; and 12-2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The Annex also houses the Tea Club and the ceramics studio, so The Studio is not open on Tuesdays because of the Tea Club’s meeting.
Grazioso said she was pleasantly surprised by the overwhelmingly positive feedback she has received about the make space over the past few months since she announced its opening on Instagram at the end of June.
“My very long-term goal is that in the future I could get a new space, because I was kind of overwhelmed this summer by positive feedback and demand for this space,” she said. “I’m not sure if this space is effectively going to meet the needs or wants of so many students who are interested.”
Though it has been a demanding process to prepare the space for students, Grazioso said she feels a lot of excitement and relief now that it is open. “A lot of times it’s really easy to have an idea for something, but that follow-through is always really hard to achieve. It feels so real now that students can come into [the space],” she said.
While her enthusiasm and passion for a space on campus for students to pursue sewing and slow-fashion projects has not waned, Grazioso clarified that The Studio is not an all-encompassing solution to the issues with the fast-fashion industry.
“[The Studio is] a way to start the conversation about sustainability and fashion, but ultimately, I think that actual policy change and change within the fashion industry is necessary to combat the damaging effects of the fast-fashion industry,” she said.
(09/23/21 10:00am)
A local restaurant served its final meal this past Saturday, September 18, and entered a period of indefinite closure.
The Arcadian, located at 7 Bakery Lane in Middlebury, announced via Facebook on Aug. 26 that it would be closing its doors due to a severe staffing shortage.
“Having successfully navigated the darkest days of Covid, we thought the hardest part was behind us,” the Facebook post read. “As it turns out, the staffing crisis that has gripped our industry on every level was ultimately an insurmountable challenge to our operational goals at night.”
According to Matt Corrente, co-owner of the Arcadian, it was initially a struggle to find enough staff to open the restaurant for normal hours during the summer.
“Heading into the summer, [we were] looking to staff up and replace some of the positions lost due to downsizing,” he said.
Matt Corrente said that the restaurant was ultimately able to put together a patchwork team of part-time employees, which mainly consisted of college students from Castleton University and the University of Vermont for the summer months. However, many of these employees had to move on toward the end of August as they graduated or returned to a full-time class schedule.
“The return to school season hit us pretty hard,” Matt Corrente said. “That was just too much of a loss to rebuild and expect to stay open.”
According to Matt Corrente, despite the reluctance of many to return to indoor dining during parts of the pandemic, the Arcadian did not struggle to attract customers this past summer. Rather, the limiting factor all summer was their dwindling number of staff members.
“We had a surplus of demand all summer,” he said. “[It was a] bummer not to be able to handle it head on with a robust team.”
During the first wave of the pandemic in March 2020, Matt Corrente had to furlough nearly his entire team, he said, downsizing from 30 employees to four. This summer, the Arcadian got back up to 21 employees, but the difference of nine staff members from pre-pandemic times put a lot of stress on the team.
“It is hard to hold up the same amount of weight in terms of the customer demand with a skeleton crew,” Matt Corrente said.
As a result of the smaller staff this summer, the restaurant had to switch to just serving dinner Wednesday through Saturday, rather than Tuesday through Saturday dinner and Sunday brunch, as they did in pre-pandemic times. In recent weeks, they were forced to reduce the hours further to just Friday and Saturday dinner.
Though the Arcadian is closing, the breakfast and lunch spot Haymaker Bun Company, which shares the same space, will remain open. Haymaker Buns opened at the same time as the Arcadian in November 2018 and is owned by Corrente’s wife, Caroline Corrente. Caroline Corrente is also a co-owner of the Arcadian.
Though Haymaker also experienced some struggles with finding employees over the summer, they have mostly been able to retain staff heading into the fall and maintain their pre-pandemic hours of operation.
Caroline Corrente said that she has noticed that now people are often shying away from working night jobs at restaurants. “My theory is that people in general are more apt to want to work during the day,” she said. “Our hours are a little more forgiving.”
Though the closure of the Arcadian dismays both Matt and Caroline Corrente, Caroline Corrente said she is looking forward to focusing all of her energy toward growing Haymaker.
According to Caroline Corrente, as a result of the closure of the Arcadian, Haymaker will no longer have to stop serving lunch at 3 p.m. In addition, Haymaker may add an extra day of service, lengthen hours of operations and expand into catering or the wholesale distribution of frozen products.
“[We are] listening to the customers and hearing what they want more of,” Caroline Corrente said.
After experiencing firsthand the impacts of labor shortages in the restaurant industry on the Arcadian, Corrente said she and her husband are urging the Middlebury community to support Haymaker in any way possible.
“We’ve hired a lot of excellent Middlebury students in the past, and it’s been a good place for people to learn,” she said. “[We are] encouraging students to come out and show their support both as employees and as patrons.”
(09/23/21 9:59am)
A week into the semester, the excitement of being back on campus is still palpable. Dining halls have been buzzing with talk of summer plans as friends reconnect after the three-month break.
But time away from campus was far longer than three months for some students. While many Middlebury students chose to return to campus last fall in the midst of pandemic social distancing and quarantine requirements, a number of others elected to take a semester or full year off, pursuing other opportunities instead.
According to Brett Perlmutter ’24, fewer chances to socialize and meet new people deterred him from returning to campus for the fall semester.
“I love to interact with people,” Perlmutter said. “And with that taken away, [returning to campus] didn’t feel like the right choice, so I opted to do something that was slightly different.”
Julianna Haensly ’23.5 and Caroline Haggerty ’24.5, on the other hand, were on campus for the fall of 2020. However, after experiencing online classes, room capacity limits and close contacts, both Haensly and Haggerty elected to take the spring semester off.
“I wanted more out of my college experience,” Haensly said. “It wasn’t worth it to me to come back and feel like I wasn’t getting that whole college experience.”
After coming to the conclusion that taking time off was the best choice, these students were tasked with finding fulfilling ways to spend it.
“I had a lot of plans and goals, and it ended up being a lot of randomness,” said Haensly.
That “randomness” included interning with a Boulder-based nonprofit that provides cultural integration to immigrants, teaching a weekly remedial math class to middle schoolers via Zoom, coaching for a local swim club and volunteering at a food bank.
Through a farm work exchange program World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF), Haggerty was able to split her three months between a farm in Hawaii and a farm in Wisconsin. While living on the farms, she was exposed to different political beliefs and lifestyles, did manual labor and learned about the value of the agricultural industry.
“I wouldn’t have done it without Covid, but I am so glad that I did it. I gained a different perspective on a lot of things, and I am definitely grateful that I was able to have that experience,” she said.
Scott Li ’23.5 had the choice between taking the fall semester off or studying remotely, as he could not travel to Vermont from his home in China. It was pretty clear to him, though, that the best option was to take the semester off.
“One of the most important things for college is the college experience,” Li said. “If you can’t see your friends — eat and hang out with them — go to classes, and see your professors face to face, there’s no point.”
Although he is a STEM student, Li ended up working on a film crew in Hengdian, China — a place well known for movie making, he said. Despite having no prior experience in the world of film, Li said he learned a lot in a short period of time, as he took on the role of directing the extras on when to enter a scene.
After his adventures on the movie crew, Li feels like a new person returning to campus. “To live this simple, pure kind of life after experiencing what I’ve experienced [on] the movie crew, it feels really good,” he said.
Like Li, Perlmutter found himself gaining real-world experiences different from anything he could have done at Middlebury on his year off. Perlmutter worked two internships — with a private equity firm and a podcast — while living on the island of Kauai, Hawaii with a friend from another college.
“Within a week, our two best friends on the island were two 31-year-old guys,” Perlmutter said. “We created this community [in Hawaii] that I didn’t want to walk away from.”
Perlmutter shared similar sentiments about the impact his time away had on his perspective of life at Middlebury. “I have a very different perspective of what my college experience is now going to look like in a great way,” he said. “Middlebury is a great place to teach you how to think.”
Zev York ’23.5 also spent his time off in places very different from rural Vermont. After working on a political campaign leading up to the November elections, he road-tripped across the country to Santa Fe and then worked as a beekeeper in the south of France.
“I found a lot of spiritual meaning in the experience of road tripping,” he said.
Though all five students found themselves bringing a new, refreshed outlook to life at Middlebury this fall, it was nerve-wracking to step back into the campus environment after taking time off.
“I was really nervous about having a disconnect, but it feels like I haven’t missed a beat,” Haensly said. “I’m getting back into my groove, and it feels right and normal.”
“It’s really cool to come back and have everyone be in the same place,” York said. “It feels like the chance of a lifetime to be around people I really care about.”
(06/06/21 4:45pm)
A vigil for lives lost to the 11-day war between Israel and Hamas was canceled after pushback from students about the event’s stated ban on anti-Zionist speech and concerns from organizers about the effectiveness of the event.
Several Jewish students organized the “Vigil for Lives Lost to Israel-Palestine Violence” in light of escalating conflict between Israel and Palestine in late May, but the organizers elected to cancel the gathering — originally planned for Tuesday, May 18 at 8:30 p.m. — amid rising tensions on campus about the conflict and nature of the planned event.
Max Shulman-Litwin ’22, one of the primary organizers of the event, said the vigil was canceled because of concerns about the climate on campus. Shulman-Litwin also said that some of the posters advertising the vigil were vandalized.
“We decided that the environment was becoming hostile, and it was necessary to take steps to make sure it wouldn’t just be a screaming match. We were hearing that a night march might not actually get the point across,” Shulman-Litwin said.
Other organizers declined to comment because, according to Shulman-Litwin, they wished to remain anonymous after students responded negatively to the planned vigil.
Throughout the last weeks of the spring semester, campus sidewalks were chalked with statements referencing the conflict. Around the same time, many students took to social media to post about the conflict, the campus environment or the then-upcoming vigil.
The Israel-Palestine conflict was at the forefront of campus discourse in March when the Middlebury chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) created a website about the conflict at the go-link go/apartheid. Another student responded with the go-links go/palestine, go/palestinian and go/sjp, linking to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs “Palestinian terror and incitement” page. In an all-school email on April 17, the Community Bias Response Team (CBRT) said that Public Safety was investigating multiple indirect threats made toward a student associated with SJP.
On May 5, Palestine Legal — an organization dedicated to providing legal advice and other support to activists who advocate for justice for Palestine — sent an 18-page letter to the Middlebury administration detailing incidents of anti-Palestinian harrassment at the college and asking administrators to condemn such harrassment. A post by Palestine Legal about the letter was widely shared on social media.
Prior to making the decision to cancel the vigil, Shulman-Litwin and other organizers met with Dean of Students Derek Doucet and Religious and Spiritual Life staff to discuss the benefits and risks of moving forward with the event.
“The decision wasn’t an administrative one, but rather one they as the prospective organizers made. I always try to make myself available to students interested in planning political or demonstration events. Free expression is an essential part of our community,” Doucet said in an email to The Campus.
A number of students on social media questioned the vigil’s advertised prohibition on anti-Zionist speech. Posters for the event read, “Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, Islamophobia, and Anti-Palestinian Hate will not be tolerated.”
Matt Martignoni ’21.5, a leader of Students for Justice in Palestine, criticized the planned vigil and the rhetoric on the posters.
“The event’s prohibition on anti-Zionism and anti-Palestinian hate is an oxymoron. Zionism, no matter how one feels about it, is predicated upon the erasure of Palestine. Enough said,” Martignoni wrote in an Instagram story.
“I refuse to accept an ‘All Lives Matter’ (white supremacist) narrative,” Martignoni wrote in the same story. “It makes utterly false equivalencies between the intensifying ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and resistance to colonization. I in no way say that to condone the death of Israelis, but rather what I take issue with is the rhetoric of this vigil.”
Shulman-Litwin explained the choice to bar anti-Zionism.
“I and a few other Jewish students hoped to organize this vigil to help everyone understand that it was necessary to mourn all lives lost and not just the lives of some,” Shulman-Litwin said. He explained that he and the organizers knew that they must “put something to tell Jews it is a safe space for them,” and to prevent the vigil from becoming dominated by a “free Palestine rhetoric.”
“What I want to emphasize is striving for Israeli and Jewish and Palestinian activism. It is not mutually exclusive,” he said. “As long as we acknowledge that, anyone who says Israel should be eradicated is wrong.”
On May 19, one day after the originally planned date for the vigil, Chief Diversity Officer Miguel Fernández authored an email to all students, faculty and staff with Doucet and Provost Jeff Cason to address the tensions on campus and violence abroad. The email, titled “Reactions to Recent Events in Middle East,” called the violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “agonizing to witness” and said that the situation had “caused tensions on our campus and beyond, opened long-festering wounds and painful memories, and prompted incendiary remarks.”
“Our campus commitment to open expression is intended to create space for us to talk about what is going on in the world, what's at stake for the communities involved, who is being harmed, and how we understand and view these events,” the email read. “Being able to have these political conversations and to talk about the implications for people's lives and safety is essential within a community that aspires to understand and advocate for justice.”
Doucet told The Campus that the school will attempt to mitigate possible future conflicts by “continuing to offer support to students and responding to any reports of bias of all kinds, including antisemitic, anti-Islamic or anti-Palestinian bias.”
(05/13/21 9:57am)
Tucked away on Bakery Lane, below the Cross Street bridge crossing Otter Creek, is a Middlebury landmark: Mister Up’s. Founded in 1970 by Middlebury native Ronald Mainelli, Mister Up’s has been a longtime gathering spot for college students and the greater Middlebury community. The restaurant celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
According to current Mister Up’s owner and manager Rick Buck, Mainelli named the restaurant after his favorite restaurant in New York City, Mrs. Down’s. Mister Up’s has had four owners throughout its past 50 years of business, but Buck and his partner have owned the pub since 2012.
Today, the restaurant typically accommodates a mix of Middlebury locals, parents and students attending college functions, such as Fall Family Weekend, according to Buck. With a dining room capacity of about 200 people and an 80-person outdoor deck, Mister Up’s is spacious enough to host large groups for sports teams, anniversaries or other events. “Homecoming is a big event, along with annual basketball team, hockey team and swim team dinners,” Buck said.
In the past, Mister Up’s was a popular weekend spot for students. Alumni who attended Middlebury in the late ’80s shared memories of enjoying their times at the restaurant because of its welcoming atmosphere, food and drink selection and affordability.
Heather Bohr ’89 described the restaurant’s versatility as a reason Mister Up’s was a favorite of hers. “We used to go there for après-ski in the late 80s after cross country skiing at Breadloaf. It was so much fun to sit at the bar, get to know the bartenders and drink warm alcoholic coffee drinks,” she said. As the year progressed and ski season ended, Mister Up’s remained one of Bohr’s top choices for off-campus dining with friends: “It was always such a happy moment when the deck opened in the spring and we could sit by the river.”
Kristen Homer ’90 recalled Mister Up’s as a common pregame spot. “I think we mostly went for appetizers and a drink before heading out to parties on campus,” she said.
In the late ’80s, students benefited from the “grandfather clause” of Vermont’s 1986 law that raised the drinking age from 18 to 21 years. The clause allowed anyone who was legally allowed to drink at the time the law passed to be exempt from the higher age requirement. In other words, any student who turned 18 before the law went into effect in 1986 retained their legal right to purchase alcohol.
Tom Crowell ’90 recalled the grandfather clause as particularly exciting for Middlebury students in the late ’80s coming from areas of the country that did not offer the same exception. “For many of us, the drinking age was still 18 [in Vermont] unlike our home states, so this was a new thing adding to the college experience,” he said.
Mister Up’s was able to capitalize on the large proportion of the student body still allowed to legally drink. Crowell noted the restaurant offered “an extensive cocktail list of frozen blender drinks and mixed drinks like $2 long island ice teas and tap beer.”
In addition to being a fun drinking spot, Mister Up’s was chosen by some students as a good place to share a meal with a professor. Sarah Evans ’89 recalled a fond memory of going to Mister Up’s for dinner with a friend and one of their favorite biology professors, Steve Trombulak. “I remember thinking about seeing him in a different light — a person — not a professor. It was fun to have a chance to know him in a different setting and relate on a different level,” she said.
Bohr also noted that the restaurant was ideal for a more romantic outing. “The salad and bread bar made dates easy because there was something to do. You could get up, get more bread, walk around. It was definitely the favorite spot for a date,” she said.
In addition to the salad and bread bar, Bohr enjoyed the offer of a unique dessert selection: “I remember their gigantic alcoholic ice cream drinks: White Russians and Grasshoppers.”
The salad and bread bar and spiked ice cream floats are no longer offered on the Mister Up’s menu, but the pub food selection remains intact. One of Buck’s favorite recent introductions is an appetizer he named “Thumbs and Toes.” These boneless chicken tenders, fried and tossed in signature sauces or rubs, are one of the restaurant’s most popular items, according to Buck.
This type of pub food was especially enticing compared to the regular dining hall offerings. Evans commented,“Back when I was in school, the food on campus was unremarkable and uninspired, so dinner out was a real treat.”
Covid-19 has disrupted many of the events that alumni fondly remember and current students still hope to enjoy. Buck was disappointed that Mister Up’s could not have a large 50 year anniversary celebration as originally hoped. However, he feels fortunate that they were able to reopen indoor dining under Vermont state guidelines in June 2020, and they have been able to keep indoor dining open for the past 11 months. “Take-out [and catering] are typically a large part of Mister Up’s’ sales,” he explains, so the restaurant was well-positioned to continue generating business throughout the pandemic.
Shifts in owners, menu adjustments and cultural changes are inevitable over the years, but Mister Up’s has maintained many of the qualities that cause alumni to remember their time there so fondly to reach the milestone of 50 years of business.
(05/06/21 9:59am)
In typical years, it is tradition for seniors to cover the bulletin board at the entrance to Proctor Dining Hall with the names of the crushes they have had over their four years at Middlebury. The so-called “Proc Crush List” was initiated by a graduating senior, Jason Lockhart, in 2005. For Thomas Tarantino ’21 and David Gikoshvili ’21, this year has provided the perfect opportunity for their capstone Computer Science project: a virtual form of crush lists.
Despite its name, the original crush list tradition began in Ross Dining Hall, followed by a few nomadic years, before the lists finally found a permanent home in Proctor.
Unsurprisingly, amid the drama of such a public crush list, issues of privacy and respect have come up over the years. Students have raised concerns about the predatory undertones of seniors including underclassmen on their lists, and the fact that students are unable to consent to having their names displayed publicly on the bulletin board.
Tarantino and Gikoshvili saw the perfect opportunity to reimagine the “Proc Crush List” in a new format that kept those ethical concerns in mind. Their crush list website, The Panther Crush, allows all seniors to participate and tries to solve the privacy issues of the previous “Proc Crush List.” The crush lists will not be listed publicly — seniors will only be able to list the names of other seniors, and students will be notified when someone who is on their crush list also lists them.
Tarantino and Gikoshvili’s website will launch on May 10 at go/crush.
“The Panther Crush is built by students to enhance two simple aspects of traditional crush lists: privacy and respect,” the platform reads. “We don’t share your list with anyone, so no one sees your list and you don’t see anyone else’s. This relieves the pressure of putting up a crush list in a public space.”
With the added benefit of allowing participation by remote seniors who might be returning for in-person graduation, Tarantino and Gikoshvili are hoping that the timeline they have constructed will foster new connections in students’ final days at Middlebury. After the Panther Crush launches on May 10, students will have one week to fill out their crush list and will be notified of any matches by May 18. This will give students 11 days to reach out before graduation on May 29.
In addition to conversations with other seniors, one source of inspiration for Tarantino and Gikoshvili’s Panther Crush List was the virtual crush lists of peer colleges. According to Tarantino, incorporating ideas from the “Bowdoin Loop,” Tufts’ “Jumbo Smash” and Williams’ “Ephmatch” was helpful in imagining the Panther Crush List. And for Gikoshvili, a key difference between the Panther Crush List and other schools’ lists is the Panther Crush List’s emphasis on romantic crushes or friend crushes.
“We’re trying to have people connect with all those people they’ve admired from afar,” he said.
Designing and coding the crush list algorithm from start to finish has not come without its challenges. Tarantino says many small problems and logistical considerations have come up along the way, such as whether it is better for students to submit their crushes’ first and last names, or just their email address.
For Gikoshvili and Tarantino, the Panther Crush list feels like a fitting way to wrap up their Middlebury academic careers. “There is no better way to finish the [computer science] major,” Gikoshvili said.
(04/15/21 9:57am)
Much like everyone else in 2020, former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama added “podcaster” to their already-lengthy resumes. Take a look at what two students have to say about these new presidential projects.
(04/15/21 9:55am)
As president, Bill Clinton was known for repeating the rhetorical question “Why am I telling you this?” in speeches. It makes sense that Clinton, a notoriously talkative and sociable person, used the pandemic as a time to begin a podcast. In “Why Am I Telling You This,” Clinton channels the feelings and memories evoked from his childhood experiences gathered around the radio with his family.
With episodes ranging in length from 30 minutes to an hour, Clinton delves into topics like jazz in democracy, the implications of the 2020 presidential election and Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s appointment to the Supreme Court. Each week, he also hosts a celebrity or expert on the episode’s topic to foster conversation and bring in a different perspective. Some guests include Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Magic Johnson and Stacey Abrams.
In the episode “How Facts Can Fight a Pandemic,” Clinton and Gupta discuss the politicization of the pandemic and the potential decrease in respect for healthcare workers as the pandemic continues. They also speak about Gupta’s new book “Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age,” which explores the process of neurogenesis and the idea that the deterioration of cerebral health is not inevitable with age. Clinton strikes a nice balance between asking interesting questions and adding his own thoughts, though Gupta spends far more time speaking than Clinton. Clinton effectively blends topics of politics and science in the episode, discussing Gupta’s research in neural function and his knowledge of Covid-19.
To reflect on the 2020 Presidential Election and January 6 insurrectionist attacks, Clinton hosted political commentator and Rice Professor of History Douglas Brinkley for an episode titled “How History Will View the 2020 Election.” Though there are certainly many overlaps between science and politics, especially amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, the discussion about the implications of the last election cycle is in Clinton’s wheelhouse. Brinkley brings up the symbol of the mask as a key component of Biden’s campaign message, especially in contrast with Trump’s symbolic MAGA hat, and the idea that moving forward, “the only way out of this mess politically is to work our way through [it].”
Part of Clinton’s aim for the podcast is to provide a platform for storytelling and discussion with people whom he views as having relevance to current happenings. However, especially in this episode, it would have been nice to hear more from Clinton himself. As a former president and long-standing political figure in Washington, Clinton certainly has a unique perspective surrounding this past election cycle.
The podcast also touches on voter suppression and the importance of voters’ rights legislation in the episode, “How to be a Changemaker,” with Stacey Abrams. Considering the important role Abrams has played in the outcome of the recent election, and how much she has fought for guaranteed voter enfranchisement, her appearance on the podcast is exciting. The conversation between Clinton and Abrams flows well, particularly because they have a well-established relationship, and he is able to provide an effective platform for her to speak about the voting rights legislation for which she is advocating.
The content of Bill Clinton’s podcast is overall varied, engaging and relevant. The big-name figures that Clinton has been able to have on the podcast since its debut show Clinton’s continued relevance in the political sphere and encourage a variety of listeners to be interested in the podcast. In our world of exponentially increasing podcast options, “Why Am I Telling You This?” is a quality podcast for listeners interested in hearing from important figures about current topics hand-picked by former president Bill Clinton.