1000 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(05/05/11 1:35pm)
I don’t do goodbyes well. So, I’m just going to skip that part. I may be sarcastic and cold on the outside, but I have a secretly squee core that I expose to no one. Kind of like Snape. Except like Snape in the Order of the Phoenix, not the end of the Deathly Hallows — I’m not ready to tell my secrets yet, and I’m definitely not ready to acknowledge that I’m leaving Middlebury. So, I’m going to just ignore that and get on to my Strategic Plan. Not like the one formulated in May 2006 that contains lots of dense administrationese (which I hear is a language that may enter the Language School curriculum in 2013, along with legalese, Na’vi and English (Pirate) ... you heard it here first), but one that has lots of bad jokes and will improve Middlebury in far more tangible ways. Since this column is my last, I figured I should share my recommendations in one fell swoop. The heart of my Strategic Plan is something I addressed briefly in a column last September: Liebowitz’s Army. If this idea could be incepted (are we allowed to use this word anymore?) fully realized as I picture it, this College would be #1 on The Princeton Review’s “Colleges that run like butter” list instead of #4.
To recap, Liebowitz’s Army combines “the best features of the scholastic dark arts fighting brigade of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the Civilian Conservation Corps, created as part of the New Deal legislation passed during the Great Depression.” Such a venture would not only provide much-needed jobs to unemployed seniors, the members of the army would be able to fill roles in the College community which have sadly become a thing of the past. For example, there could be a contingent of Ron’s Platoon completely devoted to making pumpkin bread. There could be a black-ops mission to find bowls. They could fix broken windows and spirits. They could be sober friends. They could answer emails for administrators. They could increase diversity on campus with sheer brute force. They could run the Bunker. It’s a great idea, I know.
The feasibility of such an idea has been questioned. So, I’ve been thinking since I first proposed this idea last year, and I think I have a practical idea of how to mobilize students. Students are simple creatures. The administration just needs to promise that it’ll open Atwater if you get 5,000 alums (or participation in the Old Chapel militia could earn work/study) to sign up for your army. Actually, this offer works for anything you want to happen at the College. If you return 1,000 bowls, we’ll re-open Atwater.
If you stop setting things on fire, we will open Atwater. However, your window of opportunity is small. This carrot will only work until the class of 2012 graduates. It’s like the word communism — it scared people until 1989, but now it’s too abstract to have any power. Cheesy hearth bread is about to lose its meaning. Torture is also an option. For example, playing “Friday” every Friday on the Mead Chapel carillon. Or effective propaganda. I’m picturing Aunt Des in Rosie the Riveter posters, and Karl Lindholm as Uncle Sam.
Recommendation # 36: Encourage cynicism, subjectivity and lies in college media. I think all of the media outlets on campus should adopt strong ideological stances. The Campus could be like MSNBC, Midd Blog could be like Fox News. Middlebury Magazine could be like Mother Jones. The Gadfly, The National Review. Not only would this change make the dissemination of information at Middlebury far more interesting, and make all the content we produce more compulsively readable, but it would also better prepare all students, consumers and journalists, for the real world. Objectivity is dead, so we should shuck off our liberal arts college idealism as soon as possible and learn how to filter the truth from the bull.
Recommendation #67: Demolish Battell, but have a paintball war inside before you blow it up.
Recommendation #13: Establish a Carol’s Hungry Mind satellite location on campus in order to improve town/gown relations.
Recommendation #42: Increase diversity by recruiting more rednecks. I feel like we are a forgotten minority. I think I blend in well — except when someone notices that I don’t pronounce “t”s — but it does get lonely sometimes.
Recommendation #30: Encourage spontaneous dance parties to foster community.
If anyone wants a copy of my entire Strategic Plan, with all 86 recommendations and all-color illustrations courtesy of John Birnbaum, feel free to email me at my exceptionally nerdy email address, ratherdashing27@gmail.com. You can also email me if you just get bored too. Especially after I graduate, when I will miss you all so. I appreciate pithy subject headings and good grammar, and promise to respond in an email that aims for wit, but descends into Anchorman and West Wing references and Ernest Hemingway quotes.
P.S. – I’m still waiting to hear about the whole Dean of Sarcasm and Snarkiness thing. I am as of yet unemployed, so I would still gladly accept such an offer, if it were to materialize in the next two weeks.
(05/05/11 1:34pm)
Hello, Ladies. Look at the picture in this column. Now back to your man. Now back at the picture. Now back to… actually just keep looking at the picture. At this moment, you are looking at your future, nay, your destiny. You see the man your man could be. Not bad, huh?
Before you respond, let me just preface that question by saying that I’ve been working really hard to reach my current form. At the beginning of the year, I perfectly fit the model of an inconsequential ginger: I did research in Bihall all day, procrastinated all night, played video games the weekends and got sunburn when it snowed. I also wrote the ‘Awkward BJ’, a column about awkwardness and people seemed to know why. But these days are over.
If you want success at Middlebury, you have to be the best. Want to pass biology? You have to suck up to the teacher and spend 15 hours before every lab class painstakingly doing a pre-lab. Want to be in an a cappella group? You have to be an American idol finalist. Want to play tennis on the college team? You have to not suck at playing tennis. You want a girl? You’ve gotta be the most baller, badass stud to set foot in the Champlain Valley. As a senior, I have finally seen the light on this subject and decided to start winning.
Ben 2.0 (pronounced “two point bro”) has come. I’ve been pumping mad iron and sporting some super bronze not characteristic of your average ginger (as you can see from the portrait you’ve been fixated on since you started reading). My whole life is a gym. I greet people with “Hello there…” instead of “Hey,” and I say things like “I can make you happy, baby” and “I’m in the zone!” I walk around in the same way that I smell — fresh, cocky and covered in hair gel. The party literally don’t start till I walk in. I have ceased to be the Awkward BJ. I am now the Best BJ.
The only thing missing is someone else. Luckily, I’ve already scoped out the scene. Here is the list of (mostly) girls I am a fan of (in extremely random order):
Emma Robson: Cross Country Crush
Rachel Schrier: Biochemistry Crush
Heather Pynne: Suggestive Drapery Crush
Jessi Stevens: Olinick Crush
Lizzie Roberts: 2 a.m. in Central Park Crush
Nora Lamm: Northern Lights Crush
Jaime Fuller: Presidential Slut Crush
Evan Charles Giardina-Masseau: Dirty as Denny’s on a Tuesday Night Slut Crush
Anna McNally: Science Class (Almost) Every Se
mester Crush
Cori Hundt: Doctor-Patient Confidentiality Crush
Sarah Simonds: Boner Crush
Cailey Condit: Beertuesday/Cow Crush
Sara Woodworth: Le Abroad Crush
Julianne Wieboldt: Cladwell Wouldn’t Approve of This Crush
Prof. Roger Sandwick: Protein (Brotein) Crush
Prof. Florence Feireisen: Deutschprofessorin Crush
Erin Toner: Tub of Cheese Fondue Crush
Jess Spar: Running Out of Breath Crush
Laura Williams: Crap I Forgot About Our Dinner Crush
Kelsey Ferguson: All-Purpose Shenanigans Crush
So there we go…ladies (mostly). I’m into all yall in one way or another, and I’d love to show you girls firsthand my power shower and my amoral pectorals. I can make you happy, baby. Also check out my new haircut. I’ll be free anytime I’m not at the gym, benching whales and chugging my brotein. Gosh, I am just the Best.
Now, some crazy conspiracy theorists might claim that my entire transformation into such an appealing creature is a hoax; that I am just “claiming to look like the Old Spice man and act like certain characters on the Jersey Shore in a misguided ploy to pick up girls.” I just want to say that, in the purely hypothetical case that I don’t smell like hair product and victory all the time, or say everything in a sexy low voice, or go to the gym five times a day, the crush list still applies. If the ‘Awkward BJ’ really hasn’t gone anywhere, I would still love to chill with the people above that I know really well and don’t know really well. I’ll be around.
On that note: Peace, Middlebury College. It’s been real.
(05/05/11 1:27pm)
September 11, 2001 is hardly a blur. I vividly remember the confusion and the chaos that ensued after school was released early and our mosque shut down. The subsequent days were the most trying of our lives. The pain of losing a dear friend of our family, our “Uncle” Tariq Amanullah (Allah Yarhamhu/May God Bless Him), in the World Trade Center attacks was trying for the community. Little did we know the following years would only mount the pressure even higher.
At 10 years old, I couldn’t comprehend why my private Islamic school shut down for days. I didn’t understand why people were attacking my neighborhood mosque. I didn’t know why people slandered my hijab-clad mother on the street, why a gang of teenage boys egged me or why a strange girl tried to tear my headscarf off. The smiling neighbor that once waved at us from her driveway now peeked through her curtains, wondering if our house party was really an underground Al-Qaeda operation.
All I could glean was that because of this man, this furry Osama bin Laden fellow, nothing was the same.
I have not forgiven him. I cannot forgive him. He killed a beloved and respected member of our family. He condoned the murder of thousands. He maligned the name of Islam. He damned every Muslim in America to a life of suspicion … a routine of ‘random’ checks at the airport, wire-tapping in our phones, sneers in the mall, bigotry in the workplace, violence in schools, crimes against our mosques, FBI interrogations in our homes and regular slurs of ‘raghead’, terrorist and ninja.
In his death, there is closure for many. I am glad for them. I wish I could attain that closure. I wish that this one man’s death could provide that for me. Just as it did for many Americans who had been wanting to hear these words for nine and a half years. However, as an American-Muslim, Osama bin Laden’s legacy will haunt me forever. My own people will forever label me as an outcast and my own government will eternally perceive me as a suspect.
If only what Osama bin Laden started could also end with his life. It has, however, only begun. Islamophobia is on the rise and hate speech at its peak; anti-Muslim prejudice has not diminished. Forget not that we, American-Muslims, have to deal daily with the vilification. We have not been vindicated. Osama bin Laden’s death is not the conclusion of this chapter of our lives. Nay, it is but a reminder that although the man is dead, Islamophobia is still very much alive.
Islamophobia is as much a product of Osama bin Laden as is anti-Western terrorism. The only difference is that American-Muslims are the victims of both. All Americans, including American-Muslims, hung flags on their doors and sang the national anthem after 9/11, not just the families of victims. All other identities were abandoned amidst the stampede towards patriotism. We were united in this War on Terror.
But what about the War on Islamophobia? No. Rather, hordes of people thronged to clamber upon the Islamophobia bandwagon. Where was our unity then? We were American, too. We are American, too. So I beg of you, once more … While the hot blood of Americanism may be coursing through our veins, let not your guard slip. To champion Islamophobia would only be a victory for Osama bin Laden. And let us not, in his death, award him that conquest.
(05/05/11 1:26pm)
As a junior at Middlebury College — as a sister, daughter, peer and friend — who has seen the negative consequences of alcohol abuse on families and friendships, I have many mixed feelings about drinking. Because this week has raised reaction of all colors to both the Campus’ coverage of the Alcohol Survey and the ‘invitation’ to the Alcohol Forum, I would like to give voice to a position not often voiced (and I unfortunately had class during the Forum).
I would like to address some of the problems I believe this notion of a “dry” campus (which clearly is not the solution) and ensuing reaction to alcohol policy brings up. First, let me be clear, while I rarely if ever drink on campus, it is not a choice that should define someone, on either side of the spectrum. In the same way someone chooses to not drink soda or eat grapefruits, I choose not to put a particular substance in my body. And just like non-grapefruit eaters, I have friends who frankly could care less about that choice because after all, if consumed safely or not at all (as with all substances) it really is not a big deal.
Most people I know do not and would never drink to the point suggested in the Forum ‘invitation’ email, of being disruptive and causing damage, which unfairly stigmatizes a large part of the student body that I feel generally does drink responsibly. However, alcoholic beverages can be dangerous when misused, which is where problems arise. This potential risk is why I feel the polarizing nature of the advertisements for the alcohol forum is especially dangerous. Calling for a dry campus seems to have elicited student support for the exact opposite, a Middlebury that is entirely lax about the alcohol policy. First, this is not only inappropriate and dangerous, but illegal. The plain fact is that drinking under 21 is against the law (agree or disagree, a matter for another time).
Second, while some think the College just accepting and allowing drinking will improve the ‘dangerous drinking culture’ by bringing it into the open from behind closed doors, I fail to understand how this makes sense. A lax policy would perhaps bring more ‘social drinkers’ out to the open, but there is no evidence that this would stop the dangerous drinking that would still happen behind closed doors (by those who could just as easily choose to consume safely behind closed doors now). Allowing students to drink in the open, without consequence, could very well serve to make gatherings even more disruptive and dangerous because now students would not have to worry about consequences (or have someone there to look out for the health and safety of both themselves and others).
Frankly, the need for change that I see is the need to change the culture that many Middlebury students and the tag-line of this forum invitation continue to propagate: that drinking and extreme drinking are the norm. It is clear from the statistics the Campus published that disruptive drinking is visible and prevalent on campus. But it is also clear that non-drinkers and responsible, safe drinkers are absolutely the majority. Let’s stop acting like drinking to extremes is ‘normal,’ and let’s change the dialogue about alcohol from swinging to these impossible extremes of “dry” versus “Rule-less.”
To those who want more or less regulation: I say let’s start acting like adults who are not in need of regulation. Let’s stop acting like its normal to live every weekend like the MiddKid Rap; like it’s normal to drink to the point of puking and normal to find urine in the elevator. It is unsustainable and unrealistic. Let’s have the courage to give support by just our mere presence (a concept Brad Corrigan ’96 spoke of) for those who feel like they ‘have to drink to excess to have fun’ to not. For those like they feel like they ‘have to binge to be normal’ to stop. Let’s have the courage to treat each other like adults, and stand up with support, compassion, and caring in whatever conviction you may have, which for the most part (even if not the most visible) is drinking safely or not at all.
College is a place to learn, flourish, explore, and go out into the adult world armed and ready to do whatever it is we can dream of. In the adult world, we need to make adult decisions, which include being held responsible and ready for consequences, good or bad of our actions. Public Safety cannot just stand idly by, and neither can the administration.
So as a community, let us have the courage bring our adult voices to the conversation, and try not to go to either extreme, and let’s stop ‘norming’ disruptive drinking. A discussion on alcohol and its impact on college life, both good and bad, is worth having, and I hope you will join me in adding your voice.
(05/05/11 1:24pm)
Imagine you’re a parent, and you want to make sure your daughter never burns herself on a stove. Do you: 1) Try to hide every stove in the United States; 2) Teach your child that a stove can be used responsibly, or it can burn down the house and kill everyone in it. Do you want to raise a Julia Child, as opposed to a Sylvia Plath, or would you rather let the kid figure it out through trial and error?
This sure doesn’t seem like a particularly tough question to me. And yet, our college has put most of its faith in choice #1. Here are the consequences of that decision:
1) Binge drinking. To avoid getting a citation, students huddle silently in their rooms, and knock back shots in rapid-fire succession, trying to get their BAC high enough before Public Safety arrives.
2) Infantilization. By acting like overprotective parents, Public Safety encourages students to develop a child-like relationship with alcohol — a disposition that is fundamentally different from that of a mature adult drinker. When was the last time you saw an adult at a dinner party down 18 shots and vomit all over the furniture? Would that seem strange to you? How come it wouldn’t seem strange at all if that adult was a student at Middlebury College? Maybe it’s because the closed-door drinking policy encourages students to believe that drinking always has to be swift, secretive, and sloppy.
3) First-year Misery. While it may suck to be a freshman anywhere, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that it sucks particularly badly at Middlebury. You live in constant fear of Public Safety, and the drinking policy leads directly to the cliquishness that corrodes Middlebury’s social scene. When a freshman walks into a hallway of locked doors (lest an open door expose the drinkers to patrolling officers), there are immediate barriers to meeting new people. Many students form 5-6 person drinking teams their freshmen year, and stick with this clique till they graduate. The result of all this is morose freshmen. And do you think sad students drink more responsibly than happy students? I sure don’t. Do you think it’s the happy students who destroy the dorms and use dishes to play catch with the walls? As someone who lived in the Dungeon of Allen freshman year, let me assure you — it’s not.
Binge drinking is an international epidemic, of course, but our current policy actively promotes it by making casual drinking impossible and destabilizing moods. I have no doubt at all that Public Safety officers have the best of intentions, and I don’t mean to blame them individually. The problem is that they’re enforcing a disastrous policy.
The solution seems obvious to me: treat Public Safety like vampires, and forbid them from entering dormitories unless they are invited inside. If you think this is an impossibly crazy idea, I recommend you visit a school like Wash U. At Wash U, freshmen must leave their doors open, so that RAs can make sure they are drinking safely. Now what sounds like a more progressive policy to you: let’s make sure no one is drinking themselves into a coma, or let’s make sure no one is drinking in the hallway? Whose safety is being protected by giving me a citation for drinking a beer in the hallway? The carpet’s?
The problem with debating drug policies is that you always have to confront anecdotal evidence that plucks at your heartstrings. Pragmatism falls victim to emotionalism. Sadly, I’m no longer intimidated by anecdotes. My freshman year, my best friend Nick Garza drank 18 shots, stepped outside, and vanished off the face of the Earth. My friends and I waited four long months for him to come back, but he never did, and the police found his body under the logs in Otter Creek.
I know who is ultimately responsible for what happened — Nick himself. But do I in any way hold Middlebury’s policies accountable? I’d be lying if I said that I don’t.
Nick was one of these miserable freshmen. It wasn’t the workload or the cold that got to him, it was that no matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to have fun here. The system seemed to be rigged against him. We will never know why Nick walked off aimlessly into the woods in a drunken stupor. But we do know that he was treated like a fugitive every time he tried to drink a beer. And we know that for Nick, and for many freshmen who come here from sunny, happy lives, Middlebury seemed unexpectedly more restrictive and less enjoyable than life in high school.
I understand why so many people want to use coercive methods to stop kids from drinking. If alcohol had never existed, or if punitive policies had actually stopped Nick from being able to drink, maybe he would be alive today. These prohibitionists just can’t understand why so many of us need to drink to have fun. It’s a good question, and I don’t have any answers. But even though I understand the prohibitionists, I also know that they are wrong. There is no real “debate” here.
On the one side are the people who want to hide all the stoves in the United States to save their children from burns. On the other side are the people who want to teach young adults how to play with fire, either through gloomy cautionary tales, or by extolling the virtues of moderation. It is a debate between the deluded and the informed.
Prohibition has never worked, and it never will, and this college should be on the right side of the battle, fighting it tooth and nail instead of surrendering to a mindless and repressive attitude that stands in opposition to all the brawny intelligence and imagination that rules Middlebury classrooms.
Keep the doors open.
(05/05/11 1:22pm)
The open dialogue introduced by administrative leaders at Tuesday’s alcohol forum made it clear that a “dry campus” is not the only answer (let alone any). But no matter its intended interpretation, it’s troubling to initiate a conversation about collaborative action and personal accountability through shock-value. Though as a result hundreds of students filled McCullough and continue to debate beyond its doors, it evokes a larger stigma of how we address social change: the administration contemplates legitimate issues of concern; students must be aggravated to action. But beyond Old Chapel, this campus is characterized by a culture in which a glass bottle can shatter our code of community.
Alcohol has increasingly become something solely attributed to as a source of abuse. This is apparent not only in the subtitle of the forum invitation sent out last week, or the powerpoint of poignant statistics of “high risk” drinking and damage, but also the lack of communication carried throughout weekend events.
In the event of mere noise complaints, regardless of levels of intoxification or degrees of debauchery, officers stand in doorways long before midnight vacating social spaces. It is crucial to respect the wider community and adhere to state laws, but such action inflates the ranks of soon-to-be-shut-down parties and encourages under-age students to congregate behind closed doors “pre-loading” (gaming is so over) to dangerous extremes.
Rather than collaborate with party hosts to subdue their gatherings, flashlights are waved, voices are raised and that free spirit in the corner is sternly told to put on more clothes. An aspect of shameful chastisement saturates organized social events on this campus. When a hundred students are evicted from their chosen gathering, joining still hundreds more congregating in parking lots due to limited capacity (oh Modapoolaza!), the response is exacerbated still. The dissolution of respect between students and College officials has become our weekly werewolf; by Friday social spaces are governed by more distrust than Children of the Corn.
In a response to 98 percent of surveyed students that reported a negative experience due to another’s drinking, a student solicited laughter when he estimated 100 percent might have had a negative experience in any interaction with another. The laugher is disconcerting when we so readily accept disrespect within our selective community. Despite my gripes with administrative agenda, we are responsible for socializing each other into the assumption that unconscientious behavior is inevitable. Whether or not the community bears the burden of drunk disregard and dorm damage, we are the ones who emerge from this place without any deliberate confrontation of inadequate social codes or personal sense of responsibility to do so.
I look forward to seeing how the solutions proposed at the forum are incorporated. It is already clear that Public Safety needs to reform their policies. We need to amend the process to register parties; incentify social houses to create events prioritizing responsible drinking in communal spaces; include education on dorm damage and subsequent tuition hikes in first year orientation. The effect of academic intensity on drinking habits must be taken into account. This institution is accelerating in its scholastic achievements and the social scene changes radically with each first-year class. Surely the rising rates of first-year drinking correlates to the decreasing percentage of applicants we accept. Required courses could be offered earlier in the week and later in the day to alleviate the pressure of a two-day weekend. Those who commit violence or damage under the influence should be punished for committing violence and damage, not for drinking.
The forum was a crucial step to collective action, but community cannot be boiled down to top-down reform nor bottled up in student malaise.
(05/05/11 1:21pm)
In a recent study about race relations at Middlebury, many students reported that the majority of prejudiced, racist or stereotypical actions of Middlebury students were primarily the result of ignorance. One student noted that when ignorance is involved, it means, “just not really knowing, and not really being sensitive.” Students make assumptions because they do not know better. The number of Middlebury students who simply do not know better is an issue the school as a whole must begin to address.
I believe that implementing a Social Justice distribution requirement would broaden students’ perspectives and encourage respect for all people in our diverse community. Through conversations about the experiences of others we can develop tools for understanding, social engagement and action for change.
What a Social Justice Distribution Requirement Would Look Like
SOJ: Courses that focus on social justice as a lens. These courses should address, but are not limited to, multicultural understanding, prejudice, privilege, oppression, inequality and injustice. These courses should include a component directing efforts towards political, cultural, social and personal change.
A primary aim of professors should be fostering a willingness in students to reflect critically and self-critically on perceived versus actual differences. In this way Middlebury students can begin to recognize the ills of complacently ignoring or being blind to segregation, develop a desire to acquire cultural understanding of other students at Middlebury and ultimately lay the groundwork for life-long dedication to social justice and engagement with diverse cultures and peoples.
Why Middlebury Needs a Social Justice Distribution Requirement
Many students can spend their four years at Middlebury without ever meaningfully interacting with individuals different from themselves. As one black student described, “I’ve been in conversations where people have no way of fathoming what it means to be a minority.” Such a lack of understanding directly counters Middlebury’s mission statement to cultivate the “social qualities essential for leadership in a rapidly changing global community.”
Without a cultural understanding of what it means to be perceived as different, Middlebury students are not prepared for engagement in cross-cultural encounters. While Middlebury holds discussions, cultural events and hosts speakers who talk about issues regarding diversity and social justice, the same crowd continues to show up at these campus events. The diversity initiatives at present are clearly not effective.
The truth is that issues of race and difference do not affect the majority of students at Middlebury, and since they do not have to think about it, they do not.
Another student said, “that’s where the problem comes in — breaking down that wall where you have to get them to think about this on a daily scale. Like this is the life I lead, this is the life you lead, now think about what I go through every day because I am aware of what you go through everyday.”
But for the most part, white students often slip through Middlebury’s ‘diverse’ environment and supposedly “open” campus without ever realizing that their ways of life are not the norm, that other people’s daily interactions are tainted by different realities.
Why the Comparative (CMP) Requirement Does Not Cut It
When I read that the College offers “a rich array of undergraduate and graduate programs that connect our community to other places, countries and cultures” I feel somewhat betrayed by Middlebury. Simply learning about another cultural group is not enough when teachers and students study from “a distance,” maintaining a sense of disconnect and dissociation. This disconnect is why the current comparative requirement simply is not enough. Not many classes or events at Middlebury pushed me towards an awareness of my own misunderstandings, stereotypes or limited perspectives. I cannot confidently say that enough students at Middlebury engage in such discussions in any of their classes.
Students need classes that include explicit and critical self-reflection on the ways groups interact with and challenge each other. Students need classes in which they can openly talk about their own differences. Students need classes in which they feel as though they can relate the knowledge gained in class to their own lives.
For a community that claims to “challenge students to participate fully in a vibrant and diverse academic community,” Middlebury needs to institutionally push students out of their comfort zones in the classrooms.
How a Social Justice Distribution Requirement Will Help
Middlebury students, being friendly, do not engage in outright racism, but many do exhibit misunderstanding. In order for a profound shift in the culture of student life to occur, Middlebury must set in place institutional initiatives to make students aware of the importance of informal interactions between students of different groups.
Psychologists Gurin, Dey and Hurtando say “educators must intentionally structure opportunities for students to leave the comfort of their homogenous peer groups and build relationships across racially/ethnically diverse student communities.” If such opportunities are not introduced to students, problematic automatic thinking will continue to dominate. Accordingly, “one of our tasks as educators is to interrupt these automatic processes and facilitate active thinking in our students.”
A new distribution requirement would disturb the reflexive thinking of students at Middlebury and encourage effortful, conscious thinking about issues of social justice. Once students become aware of these issues, discussions sparked in classrooms will provide the clarity and encouragement for students to break out of their comfort zones and continue with conversations outside of the classrooms, eventually translating awareness and conversation into action.
(05/05/11 4:07am)
Roughly 800 runners gathered at the Middlebury Volunteer Ambulance Association on Sunday, May 1 in preparation for the 13.1-mile challenge before them — the 2011 Middlebury Maple Run. The event, which is now in its third year, drew a crowd from across New England. About 40 percent of the participants live outside the state of Vermont, and some even traveled from California and the state of Washington.
Sue Hoxie, co-director of the marathon, also called “The Sweetest Half,” was immensely pleased with the day. A resident of Brandon, Vt., Hoxie works for the Addison County Chamber of Commerce, and she has been involved in the half-marathon since the get-go.
“No one is hurt, there is good weather and everybody seems to be happy,” she said. “It is a great community event.”
All funds generated from registration fees are donated to charity organizations: 75 percent of the proceeds are given to local groups, including the Girls on the Run programs in Middlebury, Vt. and Brandon, Vt., HOPE and the Open Door Clinic. The other 25 percent is donated to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, as the disease has affected residents of Middlebury. While the specific amount to be donated is still uncertain, the bills from the event had not come in at oress time, a set donation of $1,000 will be contributed to cystic fibrosis.
Andrea Solomon, donor relations event manager at the College and the other co-director of the Maple Run, and said the inclusion of a national organization was done in an effort to attract people from different regions of the country.
“The half-marathon was phenomenal,” she said. “People were psyched to run and the route is really, really beautiful. The fact that it raises money for charities and everyone here is a volunteer is really unique.”
Solomon stressed the importance of the preparation needed to ensure the event ran smoothly. She said the planning process takes an entire year and each month there is a comprehensive list of things to accomplish. A planning committee of eight members, each specializing in a different aspect of race organization, helped Hoxie and Solomon run the event with ease.
“I just feel so lucky to be able to show people the beautiful place we live and raise money at the same time, which is great,” said Solomon.
Several students from the College volunteered at the Maple Run. The track and cross-country teams were especially influential in the successful execution of the day. Terry Aldrich, former track and cross-country coach, is in charge of recruiting volunteers, who worked at the finish line and at the water stations along the course.
“The best part of volunteering is getting to see all the other runners in the area kicking it,” said Cailey Condit ’11, who runs track and cross-country at the College, in an email.
Teammate Sarah O’Brien ’13 agreed.
“It’s fun for us to get to support and cheer on the efforts of other runners,” she said in an email. “The atmosphere of road races is always so positive and it was equally nice to get a lot of thanks from the participants for volunteering.”
Participation has increased each year, and the Maple Run’s popularity continues to grow. In 2009, the event’s first year, there were 250 runners; last year, 500 individuals participated; this year, 800 runners registered. Solomon believes there were an additional 2,000 people watching the race as well.
Angelo Lynn, editor of the Addison Independent and a resident of Middlebury, Vt., is on the organizing committee for the half-marathon and also ran the course, which twists and turns through the town and College campus and past UVM’s Morgan Horse Farm. He believes the team is getting better at planning the event each year and is pleased with the improvements implemented for this year’s race. For the first time, several roads were shut down to vehicular traffic, ensuring a more pleasant running environment. Lynn acknowledged and appreciated greatly the cooperation from the town.
“In my opinion, this is a must do running event,” said Gale Parmelee, who works at WVTK radio, on the Maple Run’s website. “The energy and spirit of the organizers and participants is very positive. As you run through the majestic Middlebury and Weybridge scenery you can’t help but smile and feel great.”
“It’s a great sense of community that showcases very well what life in rural New England, especially Addison County, is all about,” Parmelee said.
It brings people from all corners of New England together. It’s good for the whole town.
-Kim Cook, Weybridge, Vt.
I ran the last mile in conversation with a coffee roaster from across the Green Mountains.
-Misha Gerschel ’13
I’m wiped out, I didn’t train enough.
-John Lyons, West Rutland, Vt.
I know many runners weren’t from Middlebury, but I felt a nice sense of community at the event.
-Grady Trela ’13
Our trainer talked us into it; that’s a nice way of putting it.
-Deb Rathburn, Plainfield, Vt.
I also really appreciated all of the town and College supporters that were cheering us on - they definitely made me smile and reminded me why I was running.
-Lauren Sanchez ’11
I remember looking at this sea of people in front of me and this sea of people behind me as we all moved in a big pack through the heart of Middlebury.
-Emily Mathews, athletic trainer
I just totally love Middlebury and I feel really strongly about HOPE and giving back to the
community.
-Andrea Solomon, donor relations event manager
We liked it so much we came back.
-Dot Martin, Montpelier, Vt.
(05/05/11 4:06am)
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the longest serving independent member of Congress in American history, represents something different in politics. For many Vermonters in the Middlebury community and in Addison County, Sanders understands local needs better than anyone else.
“We have just one congressman and he has a lot of influence in Washington because of his position on things,” said Becky Dayton, owner of Vermont Book Shop. “He’s so different.”
Sanders was forced to cancel a book signing event at the store scheduled for Thursday, April 28, as he was not able to leave Washington, D.C. due to storms on the East coast. Though disappointed, Dayton was still happy she was able to help the senator sell his recently published book, The Speech: A Historic Filibuster on Corporate Greed and the Decline of the Middle Class. Sanders seeks to call the store and get the names and addresses of those who planned to attend the book signing, so he can send each a signed bookplate. Dayton said Sanders had intended to speak for a few minutes at the store before signing copies of his book. At 6 p.m. he was to go to the Middlebury Union High School for a town hall meeting about children and family in current economic hardships; Sanders was able to hold the meeting and take questions from locals over the phone.
“We know that the senator understands these issues probably more than most other congressmen and senators,” said Donna Bailey, co-director of the Addison County Parent Child Center, which was to co-sponsor the town meeting with the Senator.
Bailey, who has been director for the past 11 years, stressed that Sanders connects with his constituents across the state. Here, the Parent Child Center has been working hard to provide all with child-care from an early age.
“Here in Addison County, we have a long history of high quality early childhood education, as well as working with parents,” said Bailey.
Compared to most other counties in Vermont, Bailey said that Addison County boasted the lowest teen pregnancy rate, the lowest youth adjudication rate and scored high in indicators of well-being.
“That’s not an accident,” said Bailey, who believes the center and other local programs have saved the state and federal governments money by working on prevention. “We have incredible resources in terms of how we all work together.”
An unwavering supporter of the center’s efforts is Sanders.
“The hardest working person I know other than single working moms is Bernie,” said Bailey. “He works really hard making sure we have a safety net for folks who are trying to get by.”
Paul Behrman, director of Champlain Valley Head Start (CVHS), also participated in the town meeting. As Head Start and Early Head Start are federally funded, national programs that provide a range of education, health and social services for low-income families, Behrman understands the need to help those struggling in difficult economic times. He values the importance of providing early quality care for all children.
“These programs are absolutely critical for the populations we serve,” said Behrman, who runs programs for Franklin, Grandile, Chittenden and Addison counties. “It’s really just a function of there isn’t adequate funding.”
Behrman is keenly aware of the ongoing budget debate in Washington, D.C., and thinks it is “pretty unconscionable” that plans include significant cuts to programs for low and middle-income populations. Like Sanders, Behrman strongly opposes tax cuts for the “ultra-rich” in exchange for diminished funding for programs like Head Start and Early Head Start. He appreciates the Vermont senator’s understanding on these issues.
“[Sanders] is a champion for our population of communities generally, whether it is education, health, infrastructure or jobs,” said Behrman. “He is very invested in the well being of our population and our communities. He wants to see the program being expanded, not being cut.”
Behrman notes that as cuts have been proposed in Congress, Sanders has remained connected to his constituents, often asking Behrman for information and statistics about the program to “get the word out.”
“I think one of the important things with respect to the way Bernie goes about his role as a senator is really connecting with communities and really listening to citizens and representing their needs and really advocating within the Senate in terms of the needs of our population,” said Behrman.
Though he would have liked the senator to have attended the meeting in person, Behrman said the fact that he was able to speak with constituents over the phone was beneficial.
Even those not involved with programs being hotly debated in the capital, like Dayton, feel a connection to the senator.
“Vermont is a very small state and our representatives are very willing to talk to people,” said Dayton, who has spoken with Sanders on a variety of occasions. “Bernie especially makes himself very available.”
In perhaps the most notable demonstration of Sanders’ commitment to the average citizen, the senator spoke on December 10 for over eight and a half hours on the Senate floor in opposition to President Obama’s tax deal with the Republicans, which sought to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for all classes, including the wealthy. Sanders’ speech — expressing his firm belief that the middle class is declining at the expense of the rich few and that the country needs to take action — was so popular that the Senate’s server crashed. Many began to follow the senator on Twitter after this speech.
Sanders, who did not know how long he would be talking before he launched into his speech, said the response was “very positive in Vermont and throughout the country.”
“It’s something people care about deeply,” he said.
Sanders’ book is a re-print of the speech he gave that day with an added introduction. Given the overwhelming response to the speech, Sanders felt it necessary for the book to be published relatively quickly.
“We worked hard because we thought it was important to get it out as quickly as possible,” said Sanders, who noted that his publisher, Nation Books, did a particularly good job at getting the book out in an expeditious manner.
Despite the eventual passage of the tax bill that the senator vehemently opposed, Sanders remains confident that change is to come, especially with the help of younger generations.
“It is very important for young people in general to be active in the political process,” said Sanders. “If they’re concerned about women’s rights, if they’re concerned about getting decent jobs, if they’re concerned about the environment, they have to be concerned about politics.”
Sanders’ message also extends to students at the College, whom he hopes will read and enjoy the book.
“Whether they stay in Vermont or go back to their home towns they need to be politically active,” he said.
He stressed that the issues addressed deserve attention, not only in the capital.
“In all modesty it’s a good book,” said Sanders. “There is a lot of information in that book that is not talked about terribly much in the media or in the classrooms, a lot to do with growing income and wealth inequality in America.”
Bailey, who has worked at the center for 13 years, sees the reality of social and economic inequities on a daily basis.
“Vermont is a small state in a big county whose priorities really aren’t in favor of poor people and working families,” she said. “We should be ashamed to live in a land of plenty and not have everyone have at least healthcare.”
The director also stressed how much she appreciates Sanders’ support.
“The senator has been an integral part of understanding the needs of common people,” said Bailey. “He is a standout in the Senate and in the country, and for calling things for how they are. Thank goodness for Bernie; I wish we could clone him.”
(05/05/11 4:04am)
Clementine, located at 58 Main Street, resembles a European, dreamy, old-world artisanal shop. It is easy to get lost amidst the leather journals, antique spoons, peacock feathers and lavender sachets.
When designing the store, Emily Blistein, the storeowner, sought to evoke “an old haberdashery, full of ribbons and buttons and lace.”
“This store is a play on the fantastical, that let’s you escape just a little,” she said.
Specializing in a mix of vintage, new and handmade items for the home, Clementine opened in November 2010, when Blistein quit her job to start her own business. While lobbying for women’s health, she began sewing as a hobby, and fell in love with textiles.
“I had always felt like something was missing,” she said.
And now she has found this missing piece, reasoning,
“I believe you should really, really, really love what you do,” she said.
Emily sews small items for the store when she is not selecting and selling products from traditional vendors and the online craft community, Etsy. She also enjoys searching for antiques that match the store’s growing collection.
The shop is loosely divided into themes, including bath and beauty, rugs for all rooms of the house, kitchenware, baby and wedding. These last two categories in particular help shoppers find presents for pregnant friends and brides-to-be, a task Emily found frustrating herself as a young woman and a soon-to-be-mother.
In the back room, there are materials for sewing and crafting, including hard-to-find vintage European linens, so customers can select certain draperies, bedding or window curtains. This past winter, community members gathered at Clementine once a month for a craft night.
Although Ben Franklin offers basic materials for school projects, Clementine provides high-end goods that can be turned into long-lasting decorative housewares and accessories. Blistein hopes her vintage goods will attract a young crowd, too.
Women at the College, especially, may find certain items useful, such as woven rugs to liven up a dorm room, decals for wall decorations and silver enameled jewelry. But necessity is not the point at Clementine.
“I want it to be a place that inspires people, where someone will come here, maybe to take a break from writing, and get transported somewhere else through visuals and fragrances,” Blistein said. “Maybe they’ll bring home something small that will spark more ideas.”
Blistein hopes to draw the College’s students to Clementine, so she chose a youthful, vibrant name to replace the space that once was home to The Gilded Cage. When her husband sat down next to her at the beach, and called her ‘darling,’ she thought “That’s it!”
The old western tune recalled a different Clementine song by Sarah Jaffe. This is Blistein’s favorite song and it puts her in a good mood.
“It’s [Clementine is] where to go when you think, ‘I might not need this, but it makes me happy,”’ she said.
Clementine is open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Call the store at (802) 388-4442 or check out the website at http://www.clementinestore.com.
(05/05/11 4:03am)
On Sunday, May 1, 13 AAU boys basketball teams participated in the first annual basketball event to raise money for the United Way of Addison County. Four teams from Middlebury participated in the event, in addition to three other teams from Addison County. The rest of the groups traveled from across Vermont to join in the festivities. The event, hosted by the Middlebury Wolverines, which is the local boys basketball club, was held in Pepin Gym. The club, now in its third year, was excited to participate in the tournament, as it was its first time playing at home.
The College, too, was thrilled to host the event, especially since proceeds were donated to a local cause. Erin Quinn, the director of athletics, and his wife Pam, the field house manager, are co-chairs of the United Way’s fundraising campaign this year, so it seemed the ideal place to donate money. The Quinn’s son, Connor, is also an 8th grader on the Wolverine team.
Teams were required to pay an entry fee, and this money, in combination with the profits from concessions, t-shirts sold, the 50/50 raffle and pledges for points scored, yielded a $1,168 donation to the United Way of Addison County. Local businesses, including Green Peppers Pizza and Middlebury Bagel Deli, donated food.
Katharine DeLorenzo, the field hockey and assistant lacrosse coach at the College, organized the event, with help from her husband, Gene DeLorenzo, a night watchman at the College, and Pam.
“It certainly was an “all hands on deck” kind of day and put a smile on my face to see it all come together,” said Katharine, who was especially appreciative of the help from the men’s and women’s basketball teams, in an email.
The two teams worked the games, and Nolan Thompson ’13 and Ryan Sharry ’12 coached Middlebury’s 7th grade team.
“Our Wolverine boys really follow the College guys team closely and this was a thrill for them,” said Katharine in an email.
After the success of the first event, Katharine, Gene and Quinn hope to organize two more similar ones next spring.
(05/05/11 4:02am)
On Saturday, April 30th and Sunday, May 1st, Special Olympics Vermont hosted its Spring Sports Basketball Tournament at the University of Vermont’s Patrick Gymnasium. In addition to basketball games, there were also several skills competitions offered for the athletes. Five members of the men’s hockey team, Nick Resor ’12, Mike Griffin ’12, Chris Steele ’13, Chris Brown ’13 and Mike Longo ’14, drove to Burlington for the event.
“It was a great opportunity to show support for a group of fans who regulary attend our hockey games,” said Steele in an email.
Longo agreed.
“The best part was walking in and seeing their reaction when they saw us,” he said in an email. “The group is a ton of fun and they kept us smiling the whole day.”
Individual competitions during the weekend included passing, shooting and dribbling. Griffin was amazed at the level of dedication and commitment from the athletes.
“I really think that their enthusiasm is something that we all can learn from,” he said in an email. “It is also humbling to see the patience and resilience of the men and women who take care of these athletes.”
The boys felt they took away much from the day, as well.
“Seeing them [the athletes] play basketball and enjoy it so much also reminded us of how lucky we are to be able to play sports,” Resor said in an email. “It reminded us that we play sports for the fun and love of the game.”
(05/05/11 4:01am)
Once upon a time there was a boy in the Bronx. He kept his hair trimmed low and his shirts crisp. His pants resembled nothing of the skinny jeans style he would come to marry a few years later. He had two liberal families headed by artist parents. He often broke out into dance, but he had yet to discover sunglasses that would make him feel like he was “staring through Gaga’s legs,” as he puts it.
Ladies and Gentlemen: Christian Morel ’11 was not always a hipster. Actually, Christian Morel emphatically declares that he is not a hipster except where the term’s historical connotation defines those who would go to underground clubs to listen to jazz music during the Harlem Renaissance when jazz was still taboo.
“I love me some jazz, so if that makes me a hipster then yes,” said Morel. “However, in the contemporary sense of a hipster which is someone who is mean and smokes cigarettes and blah blah blah, that’s just something that people saw and people told them that’s what a hipster is so now they call it a hipster, so they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Morel says the Mill, to which he belongs, has lost their hipster-isms over the years because the population that comes to the College is changing and who the house attracts has changed accordingly.
“In the jazz sense they’re not hipsters whatsoever, [and in the contemporary sense,] nobody smokes anymore, I’m pretty much the only one who wears all black in the house, and everyone is real accepting,” he said. “When I first got here the Mill was very exclusive, but now we invite everybody in.”
Overall Morel is happy to have watched the campus climate move toward greater awareness of sexual orientation during his time here, but he worries about the vanishing of other diverse voices that he has noticed since the economic downturn, particularly international and minority voices.
Talking about the air of exclusivity that follows him from the old days of the Mill, Morel says, “Sometimes people are distracted by the Christian Morel that they think they know and people put up walls when I’m just trying to hang out with people. I can feel the tension in their bodies. I’m not going to bite. People find me to be very intimidating as a character. I don’t think people know what to think about me, to be honest. Therefore they just find me to be this mysterious character that they need to watch and not really talk to. When people meet me then they find out I’m really just the nicest person in the world.”
Whether it’s his air or his physique that distances people, Morel‘s style is definitely part of his image on campus.
“Since I came from a Catholic school I was so used to wearing the same thing and having a more restricted sense of style,” said Morel. “Once I got here I came to the realization that there were no more rules in the Catholic school sense, so I just went crazy. Sometimes I would change clothes twice a day.”
Readers, do not be fooled by Christian’s lies. He finally admitted through a fit of laughter that estimates of three to four costume changes per day more accurately describe his transition to fashionista. Furthermore, legend has it that when his dad first dropped him off at college it took two cars to get him here: one for his shoes and clothes and another for everything else.
“That’s one thing that’s changed over the years,” he said. “I don’t change as much during the day. I’m a one style-a-day dude nowadays. Unless there’s an event that night, then I have to change.”
Morel was always a dancer.
“Ever since I was really young I was always the kid in the family who would get up and dance” said Morel. “Not to say that I knew what we call technique. Either way I was always a mover. My mom had to sit on my hands and feet while doing homework because I just couldn’t sit still. People know I love to dance. It’s my thing.”
Already a member of the College’s dance department and Riddim, next on the agenda for Morel is a foray into the world of music videos, either as a dancer or choreographer. Eventually Morel hopes to open his own dance school and form a dance company where he envisions hip hop producers will compose original scores for his dance pieces. That is the plan for the next three years.
“Gaga did it in three. I can do it in three and a half,” said Morel.
Though he loves our current popstars, according to Morel, he would never be one of them.
“I would be something else,” he said.
He would be Christian Morel, and this phenomenon would be]Casanova Cosmos — the stage name and persona that he invented this winter.
“It’s kind of my alternate ego in the performance sense,” he said. “I was inspired by Nicki Minaj because she has so many alternate personas. Casanova Cosmos is from an alternate universe and she is a she; she’s a girl. She doesn’t take it from anyone and she’s really really attractive and she knows it. It’s me as a woman, kind of, with a really cool name.
“However, I will say though that when I am performing I do get into an alternate mindset. This is just a name. This is a way to package it. It’s a way to identify a separate being on stage. That’s not necessarily Christian on stage. Christian is the creator of all you see on stage, but me on stage is someone different. I’m an entertainer for you and everything that I do is for the sake of the artwork. It’s not really indicative of who I am as a person necessarily. I might be an asshole or look like and dance like someone promiscuous on stage, but that’s not who I really am. I do it for entertainment’s sake. I do it because I think that it’s funny. I think that people laugh at it and I think people enjoy it. I’ll do whatever I have to do to entertain people.”
The alter ego is part of Morel’s larger plan to nurture a pop artist persona that will help him to “turn [his] hobby into a career. This summer Morel will attend the American Dance Festival intensive at Duke University Dance and begin auditioning for professional gigs.
“If I don’t get anything there I’ll just move to California with my partner while he goes to school and make connections there.”
That’s right: take note crush list hopefuls, male and female alike — Christian Morel is taken. And it is more than serious.
While at Middlebury, Morel feeds his pop side through his role as lead hype man and dancer for Ignite the Sound, an independent production company started by Emmanuelle Saliba ’11.5, who has been an inspiration to Morel for four years. The production company was born of the radio show that Saliba DJ-ed during her freshman year and parties at Red Door on Shannon Street during the 2008-2009 academic year. It has since grown to be a huge force on campus with a nearly a dozen members on campus who DJ large weekend dance parties and pay to bring other artists to campus.
Through all of his adventures Morel has always stayed true to himself by making sure to keep it crazy and embracing the belief that one should.
“Just be. Just be a human being — like a human being a human,” he said.
He advises everyone to “stop apologizing” for being who they are and to talk to each other. Criticizing the underlying silence that prevails on this campus around issues such as social class, Morel said, “People are who they are because of the circumstances of their birth and their lives. Let’s talk about that because what’s going on here is that no one wants to talk to anybody because everyone feels so different and feels like they can’t relate, but we all should hang out. Don’t feel separate or different. Don’t feel separate from the different. Embrace the different.”
(05/05/11 4:01am)
Every year, Middlebury students hold their breath for the announcement of the spring concert performer. They hope to hear that a well-known artist is coming to rock their Saturday night. This year three DJs, Drop the Lime, White Panda and Savoy will be the putting on the big show.
“According to survey data, people want big-name bands,” said Hannah Wilson ’11 co-chair of the Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB) Concerts Committee. “I think it’s very hard to provide that, because we have to toe a very delicate line between bringing in an artist that’s both affordable but also has name recognition and will put on a long enough set and a good enough show to warrant the amount of money that we’re paying them.”
The MCAB Concert Committee is in charge of planning this event. But this year the committee did not use up their entire budget. Furthermore, before the students heard who was coming on May 7, dining halls were not buzzing with rumors of an all-star performer, like last year’s Kid Cudi, making his or her way to campus. And the announcement came a week later than it did last year; students were curious.
But the late announcement of the spring concert performer and the club’s inability to use their full budget does not reflect the MCAB Concert Committee’s hard work in coordinating this show.
The committee issued five official offers and looked into over 70 different artists across genres. During this process, they were in search of a performer that was not of the hip-hop genre.
“I want the student body to know that we haven’t been sitting around not trying,” said Catherine Ahearn ’11, the other co-chair of the MCAB concerts committee who has been on the committee since fall 2007. “We’ve been working really hard.”
“Tours didn’t line up; various things just didn’t go our way,” added Wilson.
The first offer went out in November 2010. The performer, who will to remain unnamed, sat on the offer for a long time. But even before this offer went out, the MCAB Concerts Committee went through training, which was overseen by David Kloepfer, MCAB concert committee adviser and technical coordinator of the Center for Campus Activities and Leadership (CCAL). He explained that the committee was provided with a two-week long pre-training session in May 2010 and in September 2010 in order to understand everything that went into planning the concert.
“It’s a very complex process in general, and a performer has to want to play here,” Kloepfer said in an email. “Not all of them do.”
Everyone involved in the process agreed that finding a performer who is popular, interesting and within MCAB’s budget is not easy.
“We first throw around ideas with our committee to see what artists might be appealing to the Middlebury community,” said Wilson. “Then we investigate their availability, contact their agent and see what inclusive offers (their fee) may be.”
The MCAB Concert Committee receives all of their funding from the SGA. Just like any other club on campus, the committee acts autonomously throughout the year and only sees the SGA Finance Committee when they ask for funding.
Members of the SGA Finance Committee explained that they are in charge of making sure that the money they allocate to MCAB Concert Committee is spent efficiently and appropriately. This is because the money comes straight from the Student Activityies Fee, which is built into each student’s tuition. But the actual amount that the Finance Committee gives to the MCAB Concert Committee is not revealed to the student body.
“The Finance Committee has a policy of not disclosing the details of budgets given to groups, although I will tell you that MCAB receives a significant portion of funding from the Finance Committee,” said Will McConaughy ’11, the SGA treasurer and chair of the Finance committee, explained in an email.
The process of allocating funds is not completely transparent to the student body. Some students are weary of this reality. However, while this policy is not likely to change, MCAB has plans to revamp the process of planning the spring concert. There will now be a member of MCAB who sits on the Finance Committee.
“I can definitely say the Finance Committee will play a greater role in ensuring that each and every dollar allocated is spent with the maximum efficiency,” said member of the SGA Finance Committee Vincent Recca ’12. Recca believes that there needs to be more oversight and cracking down on how the MCAB Concert Committee spends its money since not all of the money was spent this year.
The MCAB Concert Committee’s budget will not change next year, despite heated discussions amongst finance committee members. Some members wanted to see the budget decrease due to the fact that it was not all used this year but others thought that decreasing the budget would be detrimental to the student body as a whole.
The reality is that it is not easy to please everyone.
“I really liked being a part of the Regina Spektor concert, Fall 2007 maybe because it was my first show, but the concert also had a very different vibe from shows we’ve put on since,” said Ahearn. “It was a seated show and she had such a great presence.”
But many other students, such as SGA President Riley O’Rourke ’12, say that the Spring 2010 Kid Cudi performance was their most memorable spring concert. This concert was held in the Nelson Arena and it was open to students’ guests.
It is unlikely that the administration will allow another show like Kid Cudi to happen again, since the show presented logistical and security problems. As a result, the maximum capacity for the Kenyon Arena, O’Rourke noted, has been decreased for the show this year.
The good news is that a big-name show could be in the works for next year.
“The MCAB Concert Committee may be very different next year as far as membership and musical interests go. The chair next year is the one that brought in Kid Cudi last year,” said O’Rourke.
(05/05/11 4:01am)
Maxine Atkins Smith, civil rights activist
She knew Martin Luther King, Jr. when they were both undergraduates and she was with him on the night that he was assassinated. But if you ask Maxine Atkins Smith about the Middlebury portion of her college years, the first thing that comes to mind is, “It was cold.” Just 19 years old with a fresh college diploma in hand from Spelman College, Smith came to Vermont to attend language school in 1949, and completed a Masters in French from Middlebury in 1951. An honorary degree recipient for Middlebury’s upcoming 2011 Commencement, Smith was previously awarded with an outstanding alumnae award from the College.
Smith is best known for her career as a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) civil rights activist, which spans the earliest rumblings of the Civil Rights Movement to the present. Throughout all she has been a champion for education, with 24 years of service to the Memphis Board of Education. Until a friend encouraged her to run for a seat on the board, Smith “had never been interested in politics on the individual level, but thought of this as education,” as something different. Before Smith the school board had never had a black member, yet despite the fact that only one-third of the voting public was Black, Smith was elected.
Smith was present at all the major movements in the Civil Rights Movement, but it is something that she only lightly takes credit for.
“I’m blessed to have been born when I was born and in the thrust of all the movements of the 50s and the 60s and to be put in a place to do something about those issues,” said Smith. “I got so much more from the movement than I had to give. When I came out of Spelman and Middlebury I was not yet wise to the ways of the world, but both liberal arts educations had taught me about living.”
When she graduated from Spelman with a degree in biology, an interest in dentistry and the love of languages that led her to Middlebury, activism had yet to show itself as part of Smith’s journey. However, if you look carefully enough, you can see earlier moments of revolutionary dissent. Smith’s first experience with racism came when she was eight years old and was reprimanded by a White hospital worker for addressing her father by the term mister when she asked to be shown to his room. During that era blacks were not privileged to salutations.
When prompted, Smith will rattle off stories of every year of her life in perfect chronological fashion. In 1951 she graduated from Middlebury and began teaching French at black colleges in the South. In 1953 she married and continued teaching until 1955. In 1956 she gave birth to her only son. And it was not until 1957 that her work with the NAACP fell into her lap. At that time Smith already held a Masters from Middlebury, but a dear friend who had graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wellesley encouraged her to return to school with her at the University of Memphis. They were both rejected.
“We were not good enough for Memphis and that was solely based on race,” said Smith.
That news went public and the next thing Smith knew, the NAACP had called the two young women to serve on their board. She joined as a volunteer.
“I think they asked us because really they needed some rejuvenating and they didn’t have any women on the board. The NAACP was a group of old men and it was a solid passion developed from me to them. I saw the passion in their eyes and I was honored to sit at their feet and feel their thirst. I couldn’t get away from it,” said Smith. “I’m very hands on, you could say. I never got away from the NACCP until I retired in 1996 and I’m still not truly away from it.”
Smith’s first project with the NACCP was to boost black voter registration in Memphis and greater Shelby County. When she began fewer than 10,000 blacks were registered to vote there. She brought that number to over 50,000 in the next couple of years. Throughout 1960 and 1961 she coordinated sit-ins and boycotts. During the summer of 1961 the NAACP got its first 13 black students into first grade classes in Memphis’ formerly white-only public schools. Each day, she literally took three of those students to their school and walked them into their classrooms and picked them up at the end of the day, supported by a police chief whom she credits with “protecting those children though he did not believe in desegregation.”
In 1962 she became the executive secretary of the NAACP and in the coming years helped to “bring Memphis to its feet and change state laws. [By the end of the decade,] we had broken down the legal barriers of segregation.”
Last year the University of Memphis finally accepted Smith by awarding her an honorary degree.
“I had no malice in my heart because I can joke about it now,” she quipped.
When accepting the award Smith “jovially told them that it took me 57 years to get this degree. I’m not quite that bad of a student.”
She sees the award as a measure of progress. Ironically, she had long since overseen the establishment in an institutional capacity through her work with the county’s education board.
“It takes a different sort of push from the individual to make things better for not only himself but also for the world. They have to look at the society they live in, not only at home,” said Smith. “You have to have compassion for others. There remain a lot of less-fortunates in our world. It’s not hard to find. We just need to be aware of the needs that surround us, locally, nationwide and worldwide and make it a point to do something.
“We have to make the very best with what we have. We still have a lot of inequities in our country. Whatever area, at whatever level — we need some of you to go rid our world of problems that are man-made, because those are the only ones that we can fix,” continued Smith. “We come from different worlds, but we’re still all people and we all have an obligation to repay a little bit of our rent in this universe that we haven’t paid.”
Smith says she paid her dues by fighting for equal access to education and civil rights for all, but she encourages every student to find a way to do something that fits with their talents and ideals. “Do something for somebody to the best of your individual ability,” she said. “Your gift may be different than your neighbor’s but we all have a gift. Use yours to heal the harm that still exists."
Chris Waddell ’91, paralympian and philantrohpist
Sometimes, life does not go the way we plan. Sometimes, the universe throws us a curve ball. But that does not mean we have to give up what we love, give up on our dreams. There is no better example than Chris Waddell ’91.
In 1987, Waddell entered Middlebury as a first-year on the Division I ski team.
“Obviously I wanted a good school,” said Waddell. “But I also wanted the ability to ski Division I. Skiing is sort of my first love.”
Waddell has been skiing for as long as he can remember.
“I grew up in New England and have a lot of energy, and I just wanted to ski,” said Waddell, “There are pictures of me and our family dog outside in the front yard and I’m skiing. I don’t remember any of it, but my parents said I wanted to do it. And it was freezing cold out and that didn’t seem to bother me.”
He never lost that passion for the winter sport, even after tragedy occurred.
It was the first day of Christmas break of Waddell’s sophomore year at Middlebury. Waddell was skiing with his brother at his home mountain preparing for that day’s training.
“I wasn’t going very fast,” said Waddell. “I wasn’t doing anything very interesting.”
But there was the unexpected turn of events: Waddell fell and his ski popped off in an unconventional manner. He broke his back, making him a paraplegic and putting him in a wheelchair. One would think such a horrible disaster would put an end to Waddell’s skiing career, but that was not the case.
“I started to ski again two days short of a year during the middle of exams,” said Waddell. “I started skiing for the first time again at the Snow Bowl. Friends of Middlebury Skiing actually bought my first monoski.”
Waddell continued to be a part of the Middlebury Ski team through his senior year when he was captain.
After Middlebury, Waddell went on to compete for 15 years in both alpine skiing and wheelchair racing, joining the U.S. Paralympic team, where he found great success. After competing in seven Olympic games — four winter and three summer — Waddell became the most decorated male Paralympic skier, winning 12 medals in his four winter games.
Now, Waddell has concentrated his efforts on running his foundation, One Revolution.
“We want to turn the way the world sees people with disabilities by approaching it from a very universal way,” said Waddell. “Show them we’re more similar than different. We’re aiming at maintaining a quality of life.
“Our opportunity and talent is in trying to change public perception,” Waddell continued. “I feel that there’s a lot of presumptions [about the disabled] that persist as presumptions, and if they persist long enough they become fact. I want to be able to present stories in such a way so people don’t see the person on the screen as different, but see themselves different. The idea is that hopefully we get closer and closer.”
One Revolution attempts to alter public perception in two ways. One is through videos that show how disabled persons can become accomplished despite their difficulties.
What better story than Waddell’s own? In addition to his skiing achievements, in 2009 Waddell became the first paraplegic to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro unassisted. Waddell has just finished a documentary on his climb, One Revolution; its tagline is as follows: “It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you.”
The second is through an educational program called “Nametags,” which addresses social labels.
“How much of our time at school do we spend trying to fit in?” asked Waddell. “It’s a risk we run in missing out on the thing we do really well, our potential genius, by trying to be like everyone else.”
Possibly the reason Waddell believes so strongly in a strong school community is because of his experience at Middlebury.
“I had my skiing accident when I was at Midd and came back in a chair the spring of my sophomore year,” said Waddell. “Ultimately the transition was significantly easier than it should have been because of the way the school conducted itself. The school pretty much took a vast campus on the top of a hill and made it accessible which is pretty amazing.
“Some of what I didn’t know at that point was I was a freshman in college and I didn’t think I mattered to the school and it would have been very easy for them to say that this isn’t an accessible school, and they didn’t. They said, ‘You’re part of our family,’ and that was really amazing for me.”
After his accident Waddell received support from both students and faculty.
“There was a huge outpouring of the community which made it really easy for me,” said Waddell. “What the school didn’t do my friends did. I had a great time at Midd and still have great friends from there, members of faculty, deans and obviously classmates.”
Now, 20 years after graduating, Middlebury is reaching out to Waddell once again. He will not only receive an honorary degree, but will also be this year’s commencement speaker. When asked how he felt about being given this position, Waddell responded: “Honored, humbled, and a little bit nervous.”
Edward Rubin, geneticist
Edward Rubin does not have a long commute to work. From his home in Berkley, Calif., he simply rides his bike up a hill to his job: his laboratory.
Rubin is a geneticist whose lab works on the well-known Human Genome Project, sequencing the genomes not only of humans but now of plants, microbes and animals that have relevance to energy and greenhouse gasses.
“We are interested in organisms that take CO2 out of the atmosphere,” said Rubin. “There are plants and microbes that live in the ocean that are very efficient.
“My background was as a human geneticist taking care of patients with genetic diseases,” said Rubin. “Those are people who have freaky mutations in their DNA that leads to diseases. Then I became involved in the Human Genome Project.”
Rubin always had a passion for science. He attended UC San Diego to study physics.
“[But] then I took a course, Bio for Physicists, when I was a college student,” said Rubin. “I had a charismatic professor and became interested in DNA and was really fascinated by it. And it’s continued through my scientific career. […] It’s a bit like joining the mob, joining the mafia. I got hooked by DNA when I was a college student and that hook never came out. I sort of had a passion for DNA which I never lost.”
Although Rubin did not attend Middlebury, he is still connected with the College. Rubin will receive his Middlebury honorary degree at this year’s graduation as his son, Ben Rubin ’11, receives his own Middlebury diploma.
“I like to be able to make fun of Ben,” said Rubin. “He worked so hard over four years, and all I had to do was show up and get my degree.”
Rubin also has a daughter, Rachel, who is currently getting a graduate degree in public policy and public relations at George Washington University.
“I think Middlebury’s a great place,” said Rubin. “It’s a wonderful place to study science, as well as learn languages, and I did visit and give a lecture and I was enormously impressed by the quality of the faculty and their commitment to training the next generation of scientists.
“I went to a big university,” continued Rubin. “I’m jealous of the science education that Ben got at Middlebury. It’s much more. The teachers cared much more about his education.”
Size was not really a consideration in Rubin’s college search. In fact, he admits that it was really one thing that drew him to UC San Diego.
“I went to UC San Diego purely because I was interested in surfing,” said Rubin. “I grew up in New York City and I learned how to surf, and I read a surfing magazine that talked about the beaches in San Diego. I went to surf. My parents thought I was lost.”
And just as his passion for DNA has stayed with him through the years, he has never lost his love for catching a good wave.
“I’m an avid surfer,” said Rubin. “I surf a lot, I take lots of surfing trips. I surf a couple days a week.”
(05/05/11 4:01am)
On a misty April afternoon, a class of 14 Middlebury students, dressed in hiking gear and carrying day packs, are spread out in groups of two or three throught a forest. It looks similar to most forests, except for the fact that most trees are so large that you cannot get your arms around them; they dwarf the trees commonly seen on the Middlebury campus. Members of each group are kneeling on the forest floor, using compasses to create North-South transects, or lines of yellow measuring tape to study the sunlight patterns in the canopy. It is quiet, except for the sound of measurements being called out and the occasional question posed to Assistant Professor of Biology Andrea Lloyd, who is monitoring the proceedings, about what type of younger trees they are identifying. In this “Plant Community Ecology” biology class, as part of labs students had the chance to explore one of Middlebury’s lesser-known properties (at least to those not involved in the natural sciences): Battell Research Forest — one of the oldest and the largest forest of its type in Vermont.
“It’s extremely rare to find an old-growth forest,” said Plant Community and Ecology student Ford Van Fossan ’13,
A forest categorized as “old growth,” meaning it has never been logged, is the perfect place to conduct research on lots of very old trees. Given this trait, the forest’s, “primary function is research and education,” said Lloyd.
Old growth forests are useful for research because they can host different varieties of plants and animals than other types of forests.
“It’s a very different setting than a new forest,” said Plant Community and Ecology student Avery Shawler ’13. “It’s a completely different habitat.”
According to a research paper published on Fire History and Tree Recruitment by a former professor at the University of Vermont (UVM), another benefit of uncut forests is the fact that “uncut forests provide a rare opportunity to discern the natural dynamics of vegetation in a landscape otherwise dominated by human disturbance.”
In addition to taking her plant ecology class to the forest for labs, Lloyd teaches a senior seminar where students conduct research for their theses. Recent work has focused on forest succession, which looks at the changes in a forest over time. A thesis by Emerson Tuttle ’10 studied the two species of flying squirrels that live in Vermont — one of the few places where the two species overlap.
Researchers outside of Middlebury also utilize the grounds; a professor at UVM studied the trees, and a graduate student at UVM plans to do some work with wildlife biology starting in the summer.
Joseph Battell, who was the largest landowner in Vermont upon his death, intended all of his donated land to be untouched. In 1911, he gave the state of Vermont its first tract of public land: 1,200 acres, including today’s research forest, which he intended to dedicate to nature preservation and restoration. It was the first tract of land of its type. Four years later, Battell bequeathed over 30,000 acres of mountain forests in trust forests as “wild lands.” However, although some areas, like the research forest, remain preserved, some of the acreage under the management of the Green Mountain National Forest has been logged, developed for ski areas and clear cut, a practice in which all trees, regardless of type, are cut down.
One of the reasons the Battell Research Forest may have escaped this fate initially was purely practical.
“Really this forest is lucky because it’s on such a steep slope, which is one of the reasons it wasn’t logged,” said Shawler. “It’s very steep and rocky.”
In addition, the College decided to continue the status quo in 1999 by committing to maintain its own segment of Battell’s forest as pristine when a group of Environmental Studies students pushed for a resolution. The resolution promised:
“[The] undeveloped lands within the Bread Loaf Campus area […] pursuant to the Last Will and Testament of Joseph Battell be preserved and protected.”
This kind of commitment to the College forests means quite a bit of land is protected. Associate in Science Instruction in Environmental Studies Marc Lapin recently completed an evaluation of College lands which concluded that 884 of the 2,918 acres of college-owned mountain lands are forested.
The forest, composed mostly of hemlock trees, also hosts a small population of red pine, which is what Lloyd’s Plant Community and biology class is studying. Although the forest used to be under a fire regimen until about 150 years ago, the end of these regular, natural fires due to human interference meant that the red pine population declined precipitously. Now, instead of a hemlock and red pine forest “it’s hemlock and white pine, and a kind of trivial population of red pine,” said Van Fossan.
After gathering data about tree diameters over large swaths of land, the class will construct a matrix involving tree growth rates and life expectancies to predict the future of the red pine population. Ultimately, they will find out “whether the population is doomed or whether it will persist,” said Van Fossan.
The forest affords students dealing with the wilderness the opportunity to engage in more practical and real-world research projects.
“It’s a significant field research project that will produce real and tangible results,” Van Fossan said. “It’s the most serious research project I’ve ever done in a natural science setting.”
Lloyd’s senior seminar is studying land management practices of the College in how they relate to our goal of carbon neutrality by 2016. They monitored carbon uptake in the forest, and proposed ideas for “how to implement an ongoing carbon monitoring protocol on College-owned forest lands,” according to the project’s MiddLab webpage.
With the copious amount of research focused on the forest, it might seem intuitive that the forest would be more on the radar of Middlebury students.
When asked whether he thinks more students should know more about the forest, Van Fossan replied, “I think so, but that’s because I like trees,” continuing, “I think it’s really cool. You don’t really get places like that too often in the world, or at least in the Eastern United States.”
In the end, although much of Battell’s forestland has not been dealt with in the manner in which Battell intended, the research forest, at least, fulfills his goal. Battel wrote, in Father Went to College: The Story of Middlebury:
“Some folks pay $10,000 for a painting and hang it on the wall where their friends can see it, while I buy a whole mountain for that much money and it is hung up by nature where everybody can see it and it is infinitely more handsome than any picture ever painted.”
(05/05/11 4:01am)
For Yoni Ackerman and Noah Isaacson, seniors at Bowdoin and creators of AddSeven.com, the premise of their project was simple.
“We wanted to create a site that people wanted to use and that was actually useful to them,” the pair wrote in an email.
According to the Middlebury site’s “About” page, “AddSeven is based on the belief that within small communities, such as small colleges like Middlebury, people tend to have interests in other community members that they will, for one reason or another, never get a chance to act upon.”
A user can enter a list of up to seven “people in their community who they are interested in.” If the interest is mutual (e.g., two users list one another), each is notified the following Friday. As of Monday, 727 Bowdoin students and 1,285 Middlebury students were registered on the site. At Bowdoin there have been 110 matches so far; at Middlebury, 312.
In their email, Ackerman and Isaacson explained the system from a behind-the-scenes standpoint.
“When the user logs into the site and enters his or her choices, those names and the name of the user are encrypted and stored in a database of all current ‘choices’ in the form (user, choice),” they wrote. “On Friday we run a script which searches this database and pulls any (user choice) pairs that indicate a match, that is, pairs of entries where (user A, user B) and (user B, user A) both exist in our database. If the user has a match when he or she logs in on Friday, this information is decrypted and displayed on their page.”
AddSeven was inspired by a preexisting tradition at Bowdoin known as the Bowdoin Senior Seven. Somewhat like the Middlebury Senior Crush list but on an online platform, the Senior Seven works the same way AddSeven does. However, it is limited to seniors during their final week at Bowdoin.
“We thought it would be interesting to create a similar service but make it for everyone and make it available all the time,” the founders wrote.
Based on the response at Bowdoin, they decided to try it out at other small New England colleges. So far, AddSeven is available to students at Bowdoin, Colby, Bates and Middlebury.When asked how the reality of the site compared to their expectations, the pair wrote, “We expected that, if nothing else, AddSeven would inspire some debate.”
Indeed, the site has elicited mixed reactions from Middlebury students. While the idea of an anonymous confession combined with a lowered risk of rejection has a certain allure, some find it a problematic approach to making connections.
“I call it a cop-out,” Allison MacKay ’13 said flatly.
Dana Callahan ’13 finds the system lacking, as it eliminates the possibility of “matches” that are not mutual from the get-go.
“In a lot of relationships, one person initiates, and then mutual interest builds from there,” she said.
It is important to note that Ackerman and Isaacson never intended AddSeven to be a comprehensive dating service and in fact were fairly unconcerned with how the controversies would play out.
“We wanted to make a site students enjoyed,” they wrote, “so we figured that if people didn’t like it then we’d just take it down and walk away with some applicable new skills at our disposal.”
Though the founders make no guarantees, they assert that “regardless of the outcome [of a match], it is better that such mutual interests do not remain unrealized.”
The pair did not indicate any definitive plans for the future of AddSeven but would “like to find a way to keep the site going” after they have graduated. Though they initially intended to limit the service to schools of 3,000 or fewer students, they are “curious” as to how it would play out at a large university. Additionally, a Bowdoin professor suggested that they create a faculty version, which they are currently “considering (but with some modifications).”
Nicholas Hemerling ’14.5 has not noticed any significant change as a result of the site so far but can appreciate the effort behind it.
“It hasn’t been big news to me whether anyone actually got together Friday evening and hung out,” he said. “It’s kind of cool that they’re trying to address this non-dating issue. I don’t know that it’s the ideal way, but at least they’re doing something.”
(05/05/11 4:01am)
Free tai chi
May 13, 10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
AmeriCorps members will host a class on the Vergennes city green. The tai chi lesson is especially directed at those who struggle with arthritis. The event will be moved indoors, weather permitting. Benefits of tai chi include relaxation, fall prevention, flexibility and pain relief, and the instructors hope to teach seniors ways to incorporate such movement into their lives. For more information, call (802) 642-5119.
Lincoln 5L/10K run/walk
May 14, 9 a.m. - 12:30 a.m.
Join others at the Lincoln Community School for the Lincoln Mountain Magic 5K run and walk, 10K run and walk and the 1-mile Fun Run. Registration runs from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., followed by the races at 9 a.m. Contact Mary Wood or Jennifer Nault at beachgirlatheart99@yahoo.com for additional details. The cost to run is $30 for adults, but children aged 12 and under, as well as seniors over 65 years of age, will be charged $25.
Lake Champlain Maritime Museum opening
May 26, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Located in Vergennes, Vt., the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum is celebrating its grand opening. The museum examines Vermont’s waterways, land and people, as well as the historic role of the lake. There are replica vessels, in addition to unique exhibits and interactive lake activities. Email Chris McClain at chrism@lcmm.org for information and admission prices.
Vermont Adult Learning’s Big Truck Day,
June 4, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
The Big Truck Day will features a variety of big and small trucks, as well as a raffle, bake sale and face painting station. Local celebrity and WVTK radio host Bruce Zeman will greet guests This family event takes place at the Middlebury American Legion on Boardman St. For more information, contact Linda Daybell or Robin Karov at (802) 388-4392.
Middlebury Arts Walk
June 10, 5 p.m. - 7 p.m.
Take a trip into downtown Middlebury for an evening of art, music and food. The Middlebury Arts Walk takes place on the second Friday of every month from May through October. Stores will be transformed into galleries, and art will also be featured in restaurants and on the town green. For more information, visit http://middleburyartswalk.com.
Opera at the Town Hall Theater
June 10, 8 p.m.
Now in its eighth season, the Opera Company of Middlebury will offer an entertaining performance of La Rondine by Giacomo Puccini at the Town Hall Theater (THT). Executive Director of the THT Doug Anderson will direct the performances. To secure tickets ($40 and $45), contact the THT’s box office at (802) 382-9222.
Boat festival
July 9, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum is offering a boat festival on Lake Champlain. In addition to guest speakers, individuals will also teach safety classes. Professional boat builders will be on hand for conversation.Children are invited to participate in a regatta on Saturday, followed by the Lake Champlain Challenge Race on Sunday.
French Heritage Day
July 15, 6 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Music, dancing and food will clutter Main Street in Vergennes, Vt. Veillee, or French Heritage Day, will be celebrated with a French Canadian dinner and music from individuals, like Pete and Karen Sutherland and Jeremiah McLane. Quebec native Pierre Chartrand will lead groups in his step dancing routine. Contact Marguerite Senecal of the Addison County Chamber of Commerce at marguerite@addisoncounty.com to register.
Maplerama
July 28 - 30
The Addison County Fair and Field Day Grounds will be transformed into a world of maple from Thursday evening through Saturday until 4 p.m. Call Barbara Rainville at (802) 453-5797 for details. Registration for the three-day extravaganza is required. Visit the event’s website, http://vermontmaple.org/maplerama, to preview the full schedule of events. Bring your sweet tooth and be prepared to enter a world of maple.
Pie and ice cream social
August 14, 1 p.m. - 4 p.m.
Who wouldn’t want to enjoy an August day with loads of homemade pie and ice cream? At the Rokeby Museum, located at 4334 on Rte. 7 in Ferrisburgh, Vt., a pie and ice cream social will be held. The Vergennes City Band will provide music as attendees taste-test the treats. All proceeds will support the Rokeby Museum; visit http://www.rokeby.org for more information on what is sure to be a sweet day!
Middlebury summer festival
August 12-13
Enjoy the ultimate summer festival at the Memorial and East Parks in downtown Middlebury. In addition to boasting the area’s largest small town parade, the festival also features live music, a variety of food, crafts and children’s activities. For more information, contact festival chairs Mike and Alberta Ridenour at (574) 825-5980 or email albertar@rocketemail.com.
Vergennes Day
August 27, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
The fourth annual Vergennes day includes a pancake breakfast, a 5K walk and 10K race, horse-drawn wagon rides and face painting. There will also be a car show, rubber ducky race, live music, chicken barbeque and more! Taking place at the Vergennes City Park and five other venues, the celebration offers free transportation for all attendees. A kick-off dance will take place at 7 p.m. on Aug. 26 on Main St. in Vergennes.
(05/05/11 4:00am)
Seventeen students. Twelve weeks. One 17th-century French comedy. L’Avare, a five-act satire by French playwright Molière, ran in the Chateau Theatre on April 29 and April 30. Translated as The Miser, the play was performed (entirely in French!) by the students of the French 306 course, “Study and Production of a Play.” The Chateau Theatre’s intimate seating arrangement allowed for around 50 guests per showing, and audience members sitting in the front row got an up-close-and-personal view of the performers, who were but a foot away. Even though the play premiered in 1668, its humor truly transcends time; the performance had the audience laughing throughout each act.
The play revolves around Harpagon (Robbie MacDonald ’13, Garron Sanchez ’13 and Cordon Smart ’11), an elderly, wealthy miser who rules his household with penny-pinching severity. Harpagon’s two children, Élise (Katherine Burdine ’11 and Grace Gohlke ’13) and Cléante (Todd Langstaff ’13 and Miles Abadilla ’12) are prisoners of their cheapskate father. He holds dominion over their lives, depriving them of independence and denying them his money as well as the freedom to choose their own spouses. Instead of letting them marry for love, Harpagon arranges for Élise and Cléante to be married to wealthy suitors, so that Harpagon’s own wealth can grow. Hypocritically, Harpagon falls in lust with a girl, Mariane (Shannon Muscatello ’13), who turns out to be Cléante’s true lover. Now that father and son have their eyes on the same woman, a bitter rivalry develops. Yet Harpagon has a dark secret: he has a large sum of money hidden underground on his property, and he is paranoid about people coming in and stealing it. Through a staged robbery of his father’s hidden money, Cléante is able to force his father to give up the plans for his and Élise’s staged weddings. In return for reuniting Harpagon with his stolen money, Cléonte and Élise are allowed to marry their true lovers.
Because most characters had multiple actors, it was interesting to see the differences between the same characters with each act change. As the hunchbacked Harpagon in Acts I and II, MacDonald stole the show right off the bat. His facial expressions, manic mannerisms and vile cackles of laughter perfectly captured the mindset of an elderly, slightly demented miser. In Acts III and IV, Sanchez put a suave, villainous spin on the character, which was an interesting and welcome change from MacDonald’s intense portrayal of the miser. Sanchez’s Harpagon was easily the most amusing of the three; his over-the-top, melodramatic moments had the audience in stitches. Though only for the last act, Smart’s portrayal of the villainous old man was a throwback to MacDonald’s angry and deranged character, and his performance brought the play to a satisfying close.
Langstaff’s Cléonte was a suave portrayal of the starcrossed son of the miser. He performed the role with the grace and savoir-faire of a French nobleman, and his triumphant return in Act V was greeted with wild applause from the audience as he reclaimed Mariane. Another outstanding character was Frosine (Nora Fiore ’12 and Paula Bogutyn ’13). As Harpagon’s confidante and matchmaker, she arranges his marriage to Mariane — his own son’s lover. Fiore, who played Frosine in Act II, started the character off with a vibrant, infectious quirkiness, which Bogutyn followed up in Acts II, IV and V, albeit to a calmer degree.
However, the character who had the audience in an uproar was La Flèche, played by Alex Geller ’12. She played the role of Harpagon’s bumbling servant; dressed in striped pants and sporting a signature goofy gait, Geller provided most of the comic relief for most of the play, but her character also had an important role later on in the stealing of Harpagon’s money, helping Cléonte reclaim his rightful lover.
In addition to the superb acting, the costuming (directed by Leslie Crawford, Paula Bogutyn and Claire Spacher) was stunning and very accurate to the time period. Highlights were Frosine’s lavish violet dresses, the men’s period costumes and Harpagon’s distinct black robe. The lighting was also very impressive for such an intimate performance; effects such as a flashing “lightning bolt” put a modern touch on Molière’s classic piece.
Practicing for an entire semester to put on a play was both challenging and rewarding for the members of the class. Geller quickly realized the obstacles of performing in another language.
“I’ve never been involved with theater, so for me the class felt more like an introduction to the performing arts than it did a French class,” said Geller. “Memorizing lines — and doing so in another language — was a lot more challenging than expected. I found that my normal grammatical slip-ups in conversational French resurfaced when I was reciting lines in rehearsal. I mixed up masculine and feminine adjectives, and my use of articles was sort of scattered — so those were all things I had to be especially aware of.”
Geller also noted that being in a performance as a class really brought the students together.
“The context of the course forced us to get a lot more comfortable with our classmates than we normally would in a Middlebury class, which was great. I also found that “my homework” was pretty portable. I went over lines while walking to class, or I would mutter them to myself in the dining hall — unfortunately I think I freaked a lot of people out though. I would accidentally get really in character and make distorted faces while speaking nonsensical things in French.”
Geller commented that memorizing lines was a bonding experience for the class, and quickly evolved into a campus-wide phenomenon.
“I know some of us went over lines in the shower, which I imagine was a funny experience for anyone else in the bathroom,” she said. “Once Robbie [MacDonald] and I met in the library group study rooms, and while we were yelling at each other in French, someone came by to let us know that the room was not, in fact, sound proof. Once I walked by the lounge in Forest and heard people speaking French really enthusiastically in the lounge. I opened up the door only to see other classmates running over lines. We sort of infested the College — in all of our French nonsense.”
To put on such a professional and comical play was a great accomplishment, especially in the short span of less than 12 weeks. L’Avare was truly a testament to the performers’ abilities both as students and actors.
(05/05/11 3:59am)
The 17th century meets the world of the contemporary in Howard Barker’s Victory: Choices in Reaction. This past weekend, the College’s theatre department put on a fantastic rendition of this play, set in England around 1660, after the restoration of the English monarchy and eradication of the Republican rule of the Puritans. The plot follows a beheaded John Bradshaw’s wife (Lucy Van Atta ’12) as she searches for the stolen remains of her late husband, all the while undergoing a journey of self-discovery and a search for a future, fighting against her limited opportunities.
As I sat in the audience of Seeler Studio Theater, the chamber-like, almost oppressive feel of the stage set the tone for the rest of the play. The first act opens with a greatly distressed Scrope (Noah Berman ’13), begging both the audience and himself for mercy as the peons of the recently reinstated Charles II dig up the body of his old master, John Bradshaw. Though set in the 17th century, Barker’s play deals with quite contemporary themes and uses an archaic political setting as an allegory for the modern world. The art direction in the performance flawlessly encompassed both a historical narrative and modern feel. The scene transitions were chaotic and vibrant, highlighted by music from The Sex Pistols and Nine Inch Nails, and they established an energy that ran throughout the entire production.
There existed no epochal standard for the costumes in Victory. Of course, many characters were garmented in dress typical of the 17th century monarchy (though with a bit of a modern twist), but some came on stage with a much more modern feel and others still had the feel of neither contemporary nor monarchal dress; the king’s soldiers seemed more like they had come from a World War II battlefield than from King Charles’ royal guard. This confusion only added to the timeless feel of the performance, reminding us that the emotions and struggles of the characters were reflections of tribulations that unite people of all generations. The set was beautifully designed — minimal yet forceful. The simple ground design was highly dynamic, warping during the scene transitions to reflect the individual emotion and force of each scene. The ceilings were lined with large mirrors that, as the characters turned their eyes to God, reflected the flaws and struggles of humanity.
As the first act progressed, an impressively strong dynamic was established between King Charles (Matt Ball ’14) and Devonshire (Lilli Stein ’11). King Charles was, in many ways, twisted and without morals; he defiled Devonshire in the midst of a royal party. And yet, Ball’s portrayal of the King helped evoke a sense of pity towards his character, even leading the audience to “love the bone and blood of Charlie.” There existed in Victory no truly good or virtuous characters. Even the play’s protagonist, a woman who is mourning the loss of her husband and with him, her sense of remorse, is a character with whom I found myself struggling to sympathize. The entire cast had phenomenal performances but another personal accolade must go out to Christo Grabowski ’12. Grabowski captivated his audience as the comically perverse Ball with both wit and charisma and he managed to pull off the vulgarity of his character without coming off as tacky or forced.
The second act was a bit slower and shorter than the first, yet it felt much more dragged out. In no way did this take away from the overall strength of the piece. The ending scene brought the play full circle, with Bradshaw returning home. The scene was quiet in appearance, but carried the weight of the entire play and proved to be a powerful close to the piece.
In the director’s notes, it says that the production was intended to be “energetic, youthful, brash, impulsive and rude.” These goals were achieved with immense success. The energy was palpable even in the play’s quietest moments and each character acted as a strong part of an even stronger force that exploded on stage with both vulgarity and beauty.