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(04/28/11 4:20am)
This year Middlebury students joined over a billion people in celebrating Earth Day, what, according to the Earth Day Network, is the “largest civic observance in the world.” In an effort to do more than celebrate the planet, the SGA Environmental Affairs Committee organized a week’s worth of events to promote support and awareness of environmental issues. This year’s theme was “There Is No Planet B.”
Katie Romanov ’12, this semester’s SGA Environmental Council director, said that the theme was designed to “remind people that this is our one chance to protect our planet by living sustainably and responsibly.”
While the week was organized by the SGA, various student organizations contributed to the schedule. From lectures on climate change to a giant cake wishing everyone a happy Earth Day, students found diverse ways to celebrate.
Olivia French ’14, co-founder of “Hike a Trail, Save a Forest,” planned a hike on April 17 up Snake Mountain to raise money for the Plant a Billion Trees organization.
“My brother and I founded [Hike a Trail, Save a Forest] together, because we just realized that so much of our western lifestyle is dependent on rainforests,” said French. “Forests are so important to reducing global warming, and the Plant a Billion Trees program is so great because for every dollar you give, they plant a tree.”
French hopes to hold a hike each year to raise money for the organization.
“Other colleges joined with us this year and hiked where they were, and I hope that it keeps expanding each year,” said French.
Another of this year’s events was the screening of a new film about carbon neutrality, “Carbon Nation.”
“It was uplifting to finally see an environmental documentary that showcases real solutions, as opposed to the doom and gloom scenario often portrayed in the media,” said Romanov. “I highly recommend it.”
On April 23, the Residential Sustainability Coordinators (RSCs) of Cook Commons hosted an RSC Festival. Many local businesses, farmers and student organizations participated.
Head of the Cook Commons RSCs Jak Knelman ’12 organized the event along with the help of Cook RSCs French, Leslie Reed ’14, Vincent Mariano ’14 and Suzanne Calhoun ’14.
“We wanted to bring the whole school together,” said Knelman. “With Cook commons RSCs heading [the RSC Festival] up, we knew we could bring the campus together. It’s usually held in town, but we wanted to bring it up here so it could be more accessible for students.”
After deciding to hold a festival on campus, each of the RSCs did their part to invite local businesses and student organizations to attend.
“[Knelman] emailed the Farmer’s Market at Middlebury Marbleworks,” said Calhoun. “And we got quite a few from there. Each RSC went around and contacted student organizations.”
“A big part of this is how you can access this stuff on campus and around this area,” said Knelman.
And, ultimately, that’s what Earth Week was about.
“Earth Week lets students know of all the resources — both on campus and in the local community — that they can tap into to participate in environmental initiatives during their time at the College,” said Romanov. “It is really important, for underclassmen especially, to know that there is lots going on, and there are many ways to get involved.”
(04/28/11 4:20am)
Each time I have tried to start this column, I have begun with generalizations, enigmatic attempts at profundity, and lines that I am pretty sure have been said before, perhaps by Hallmark or maybe Thoreau.
After four years, we’ve learned a lot of facts, a thousand names, how to pump a keg properly, how to avoid lines in the gym, how to get over a cold, a funk, a person. And we have learned a lot together. So, instead of trying to piece together my own understandings, I’ve asked my friends and fellow seniors for their thoughts. Here it is — all of the things we wish we had known sooner:
• The most important education happens outside of the classroom.
• Cook meals with friends — they will always taste better and be more memorable than those nights of chicken parm in the dining hall.
• Stop putting things off until “next semester.” It never gets “easier.”
• College is a time as well as a place.
• It doesn’t really matter what you did in high school, or what you are doing after, really — what matters is that you feel like your time here was well spent.
• When looking up classes to register for DURING the registration period, you can just check that little box next to the class you want and then scroll down and click “register.” And then boom! You’re done!
• Study abroad isn’t filled entirely with fun, and it isn’t always easy — but that’s what makes it so much more valuable.
• Take the professor, not the course.
• Go to lectures and talks! They are worth an all-nighter or even the reading you will not finish for class.
• The drama department shows are amazing — really amazing. Go to as many shows as possible.
• Use go/papercut. You can print things FROM YOUR LAPTOP.
• Study more during the daytime — between classes, right before class, at six in the morning. When you look back, you don’t reminisce about all those nights burning the midnight oil in the library; you think about the times you got dominated by science majors at trivia night at The Grille or stayed up all night with your buddies.
• In Ross, almond milk is in the fridge in the back.
• You don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on books every semester —you can check them all out on ILL and renew them for the entire semester!
• Get outside your comfort zone. Challenge. Question. Fight for what matters to you.
• Armstrong library closes at 6 p.m. — but Public Safety will come to help you get your backpack out.
• Write for yourself. Find meaning in the routine.
• Move forward with confidence. Walk with confidence — literally.
• It is so important to just stay positive — enthusiasm is infectious. Even if what you care about most is organic chemistry, your passion will engage the people around you.
• Don’t take yourself too seriously.
On a Monday night, as I let my five-hour-energy drink settle, staring into a poetry project and a research paper-in-the-works, I get a text from my friend asking me if I want to meet up at Two Brothers for beers and an appetizer. I almost respond that I am going to be at the library all night, but I catch myself. I decide to go join her.
Though I have learned immense and powerful things from books, I’ve learned the most from people, not pages. Listen to each other, lay down your book, learn more, love well, leap higher, use alliteration when possible and never give up on anything that is worth it to you.
(04/28/11 4:20am)
When I started this column at the beginning of my fourth semester, I had just come out of a series of non-relationships and random hook-ups. I possessed a bright-eyed determination to show this campus the evils of not committing, the perils of casually hooking up without emotional investment.
For someone who has very few prejudices about how/with whom/where/when people decide to sex it up, I was surprisingly convinced our generation was going down a dangerous route. I thought the strongest tethers we wanted to form to each other were late-night sexts and maybe the occasional morning-after spoon. We were sloppily making out in McCullough and having drunken sex without talking about it. We were playing all sorts of games when it came to expressing our feelings: you can’t ask him to come over every night because then he might suspect you actually like him, etc. I heard the same stories over and over in the dining hall and from my friends about potential love interests that culminated in a couple weeks of sleeping together, nothing more.
I grew despondent. Where were all of the feelings?! Where were the dates and the romance, the secret love notes and less secret dining hall serenades? I browsed the Proctor crushes thread on Middlebury Confessional with hope, but I left frustrated — is it really that hard to say “I like you” in person?
I wanted people first to have deep feelings, then to share them and then to put them on the line every chance they got. Essentially, I wanted everyone to do things the way I do them. And then I realized that everyone would be a crazy (albeit cuddly) emotional train wreck half the time, and around here people have to get sh*t done. There just isn’t enough time and people don’t have enough energy to go around constantly pouring our hearts out. As reluctant (and terrible at it) as I was to compartmentalize my feelings occasionally to do my work, I think there comes a time when every MiddKid has to sacrifice a little bit of our essentiality in the pursuit of productivity. It’s something I still don’t like about the Middlebury experience, but I can recognize that I knew what I was signing up for. I can also recognize that, in little bursts, we get our essentiality back, and just because we sometimes sacrifice it doesn’t mean we’re not consciously trying to reclaim it.
I think casual sex is one of those sacrifices. We need to take shortcuts sometimes, and a lot of important interactions — romantic or otherwise — can feel like distractions when we have seven nights’ worth of work ahead of us. I used to look around and see only those shortcuts. I thought efforts to understand each other were missing; I thought we weren’t really connecting if we were just boning. But in the two years of increasing responsibilities and workload since I started this column, I’ve begun to see how our shortcuts might actually mean we do understand each other. We’re making space for each other’s productive selves by dropping a lot of the rituals and formalities around sex and dating; it’s easier to be close to someone if you take the casual route. In all my clamoring for compassion and recognition of each other’s humanity around sex, I missed the attempts at exactly those things.
People don’t necessarily go out to the bar or the Bunker thinking, “I am going to make as real a connection with someone as I can.” I don’t think we always actively appreciate that we’re interacting on a level that fits our abilities, and I definitely don’t think that everyone consciously wants a “meaningful connection” — on the surface, we want sexy time and simple relief from our everyday stresses. But my grand point is that where I used to think we were missing something as a generation, I now see that, like most generations, we just approach things differently. We have to reframe tradition to fit our needs and goals, and we are.
And if the shortcut gets us there, I still hold out hope for the scenic route taking us back.
(04/28/11 4:15am)
There is a whole new category of celebrities these days: The YouTube Sensation. Some become quotable classics, like Kittens Inspired by Kittens (I want beef jerky!) or Marcel the Shell (Some people say my head’s too big for my body, but I say, compared to what?). Sometimes it’s just an incident of ‘kid’s say the darndest things,’ like “Charlie bit my finger” or “I like turtles.” YouTube stars are born and remembered, but they’re not all inacessible.
Middlebury has its own faculty YouTube star: Enrique Garcia, assistant professor of Spanish. Garcia uses his YouTube account, “El profesor quijotesco,” to teach his classes on visual culture and cinema.
“I teach the scenes in my class,” said Garcia of his YouTube uploads. “I want to give them perspective. They feel that Middlebury is in the middle of nowhere and think they cannot have a narrative here, so I want to prove them wrong.”
His most recent video centered on a vampire contingent in town.
“I think the future is [the] web being used,” said Garcia. “Students enjoy these more than a three-hour movie.”
Possibly his most viewed video is his Avatar parody, where Garcia himself dresses as a Naavi avatar. It was his Halloween special, and it is a remake of the movie set in Middlebury, Vt. Garcia’s video starts exactly as the movie does and includes key features from the film such as the video diary and intricate costumes. Garcia even paints himself blue though he had some initial reservations about whether this would be politically correct.
“Blue-face,” he called it. “It’s not racial because it’s not a real ethnicity,” said Garcia, “but it’s the same principle.”
Garcia used the political and racial issues brought up in his Avatar Parody as topics for discussion in his class.
“In Latin America, a lot of people were Naavi for Halloween,” Garcia said. “I read that in Puerto Rico stores were charging $300 to make you a Naavi. But they wouldn’t dare dress as a real native because of their lower class.”
Garcia felt that students really appreciated his use of alternative media as a teaching tool.
“Students had a blast,” said Garcia. “I want to show students they don’t have to be stuck-up with their presentations. Our society is obsessed with formality, but I’m saying, ‘Look, I’m putting me in as an Avatar! And there’s no shame in it!’ “Even something as silly as karaoke,” Garcia said. “I go to a party, and I stop caring about shame. It’s nothing bad. I think being fun is sometimes better than being stuck-up.”
Garcia stressed the importance of having fun, especially in schoolwork. For example, the seminar class he teaches is on Latin American comic books.
“It’s my greatest creation,” he said. “I think it’s the only class on Latin American comic books in the United States. I’ve googled it and found nothing.”
After earning a graduate degree in comparative literature Garcia began researching comic books, especially those published in Spanish America.
“I probably have the biggest collection of comic books from Spanish America,” said Garcia. His office is filled with comics of all different styles and types; he has two large filing cabinets full of them as well as a bookcase, and there are various others scattered around the room.“I found them on eBay,” he said. “In Latin America, stuff published in the 60s and 70s is not republished and there’s no way of finding it.”
Of all his various books, Garcia does have a favorite: a comic called “Memín.” Originating in Mexico “Memín” focuses on poor people in the 40s and 50s. It was groundbreaking but also very controversial because the main character is a 1940s minstrel, which is defined as a “member of a troupe of performers in blackface typically giving a comic program of Negro songs and jokes.”
“It’s a great work, so it brings [up] the question: do you make it disappear because of racial issues? … It’s different than minstrels in the U.S. because in the U.S. the minstrel was used to back-up racial thoughts by the government,” said Garcia. “The other thing is that in a weird way, [the minstrel] is not like even a real character. There’s no African population in Mexico, so [the character is] almost like Mickey Mouse.”
Garcia wants to write a book questioning whether a minstrel narrative can be positive and planned to interview Manelick de la Parra, the son of the creator of “Memín.” However, as he began planning a trip to Mexico, he realized that de la Parra has a house in none other than Stowe, VT.
“It was ironic,” said Garcia. “You think Vermont is so isolated, but here he is.”
De la Parra is coming to Garcia’s class this Friday to discuss the controversies of the main character of his mother’s comic book. He has also donated a collection of “Memín” books to Middlebury so students can further investigate.
“Another thing I like about “Memín” is that it’s written by a woman,” said Garcia. “The comic book world is very male-centric, which adds to the controversy.”
Garcia’s class for next spring fits in with his theme of “fun”: a class on Hispanic musicals. Every week the class will study a different country, study its music and then watch a film from a country that highlights the music.
“Students listen to more Spanish music than read the literature,” said Garcia. “It’s practical for them to know about the music they listen to.”
According to Garcia, his classes are only possible because Middlebury is so open.
“At Harvard, they probably would tell me that’s not literature,” Garcia said. “I love literature, my degree is in comparative literature, but we need to show the different aspects of literature to students.
“People ask me if I would go to a different place,” Garcia said. “Well, no, because I don’t know if they’d allow me to do this.”
Check out Garcia’s YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Elprofesorquijotesco
(04/28/11 4:10am)
Pragmatism and optimism abound — and sometimes clash — in this year’s elections SGA and Community Council elections. For each of the posts, run-off elections begin today and run until Friday at noon. The Campus endorses Riley O’Rourke ’12 for SGA President and Kevin Broussard ’12 for Student Co-Chair of Community Council.
Serving as SGA President this year, O’Rourke has made good on many of his campaign pledges from the 2010 election season in implementing a more convenient airport shuttle system effective last fall and providing funding for additional break buses to transport students to New York City, Boston and, in the future, Montreal. The SGA’s notable achievements this year, including funding a small gym in Ross Commons, pushing a successful initiative to add an additional reading day during finals, to fund and reinstitute Outdoor Introduction for New Kids (OINK) and a trough of other notable achievements are a testament to O’Rourke’s ability to effectively translate the concerns of the student body into action. The relationships he has established with College administrators and the familiarity with administrative proceedings he developed during 2010-2011 will also serve his presidency well in 2011-2012. With the unique opportunity to re-elect the SGA President for a second term, the student body can expect continuity and maximum efficiency effective immediately upon O’Rourke’s re-election.
Broussard has demonstrated that he is the right person for the position of SCOCC for 2011-2012. His platform is extensive; his plans to try to include students on the College’s Board of Trustees and the Educational Affairs Committee — policies that currently exist at Middlebury’s peer institutions — reflect his overall commitment to more meaningful student government. Reforming the judicial appeals committee, which currently excludes some members from voting on appeals cases, also ranks among his most important initiatives. Additionally, the emphasis on punishment in the current judicial process, Broussard believes, results in recidivism rather than a learning experience for individuals and the College community following Honor Code infractions.
Broussard’s platform for Community Council is quite ambitious. We do not necessarily recommend that he narrow his goals for the next year, only that he assess which of his objectives he can reasonably achieve. His opponent, Janet Rodrigues ’12, seemed to have a better grasp of what the SCOCC can actually accomplish, but she provided a less detailed platform, favoring a more open-ended approach to the position. The goals Rodrigues did mention focused on an accountable student body, and our main concern was that though she emphasized her willingness to talk to students, she identified the administration as her main gauge of student interest. Broussard mentioned several discussions he had already had with different sub-sets of the student population, and his goals, though numerous, seem to engage more actively with students’ interests.
While we do not endorse O’Rourke’s opponent, Dane Verret ’12, for SGA President we absolutely endorse his platform, and we think that his goals might be better accomplished in tandem with the SGA, but not contained within the SGA. Verret aspires to a campus unified and empowered; his speech to the editorial board was moving and his call for mutual understanding among students of all backgrounds and identities resonated with every member. His goals are larger and arguably more important than O’Rourke’s, but we believe the SGA presidency would not provide the outlet or forum Verret needs to launch what would essentially be a school-wide social movement. We feel the position of SGA President, while one of leadership, is also one of service to the student body, and following up on the needs of students might ultimately get in the way of Verret’s mission to make his vision of student unity a reality.
We endorse O’Rourke and Broussard primarily because of the former’s experience and the latter’s breadth of knowledge regarding those agenda items he proposes. In the end, only one person may occupy each office, but all members of this community can contribute to forming a stronger, more unified and diverse environment. You can begin, simply enough, by voting.
(04/28/11 4:09am)
(04/28/11 4:09am)
It’s no secret that Middlebury is a politically liberal institution. From the students to the faculty and even to the staff, an overwhelming majority of people here consider themselves progressive, liberal, leftist — or even a budding Socialist. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing — countless students involve themselves in social justice initiatives on campus, combining their studies and political beliefs to enact real change. But when this left-leaning outlook dominates the classroom, we blur the lines between an academic and a political institution.
When we come into class with our own personal biases towards an idea, we eliminate the possibility for true academic inquiry, one that fairly considers all possibilities first, then comes to a conclusion based on a rational discussion of the issues. For example, outside of the classroom, many of us — myself in included — may be opposed to free trade. But when we walk into the classroom, sporting our fair trade coffee and locally grown apple, indignant to evils of corporate America, we eliminate the possibility for an honest discussion of international commerce. People joke about how Middlebury is a bubble, but why not embrace it? For four years, we have the opportunity to set aside our politics and prejudices, shelter ourselves from the politically charged nature of public debate in the “real world” and discuss the facts as we see them.
The same goes for our professors. Some attempt to move the discussion in a particular direction by subtly favoring one side of an issue over another, often times by assigning reading that explores just one side of the debate. Even if his or her personal research directly contradicts that of another scholar, that professor has a duty to his or her students to provide a wide range of opinions. If the opposing viewpoint is so unsubstantiated, then why not give students the opportunity to critique it at face value? Returning to the free trade example, why not let the WTO defend itself, in its own words?
When we jump to what we think are the answers — and ultimately we may be right — we take out the most important step in education: analysis. After our finals in May, most of us will forget the content from our classes. What we won’t forget, though, is the process we took get to our conclusions, a process that is bypassed when readings, discussions and reflections do not include a variety of points of view.
Though we should try to keep ideology out of our classes, in the end we must recognize that being entirely apolitical is impossible. Instead, we can attempt the opposite; we can be “omnipartisan.” We can read WTO publications as we read critiques of free trade. We can follow Professor Dry’s example and read the Anti-Federalist Papers side by side with the Federalist Papers. And we can even consider the arguments of climate change critics as we build the — hopefully winning — Solar Decathlon house. But what we shouldn’t do is allow ourselves, or our professors, to limit our point of view, especially when the topic is as personal as gay marriage or as political as international development.
The possibilities extend to how we treat other students, as well. We can encourage people with points of view alien to our own (read: conservative) to speak up in class more often. We can treat them and their ideas with respect, instead of automatically assuming that they believe in big business because they hate poor people.
In my International Law class last week, a lone conservative soul spoke up in class, noting that maybe, just maybe, the Bush administration was right in redefining the legitimate use of force because international terrorism is a threat never before seen. While not everyone agreed, this comment greatly enlivened the discussion, leading us to question whether new circumstances required new rules.
So let’s not jump to the back of the book and peek at the answers, eliminating the critical thinking that is at the very essence of a liberal arts education. Let’s shed our prejudices and actually consider alternative points of view, not merely disregard them as inherently flawed and unworthy of a fair analysis. If the political right is so wrong, it won’t need us targeting it; it will fall on its own as we give it a fair trial — and a fair defense.
(04/28/11 4:09am)
In the New Yorker last week, there was a great “Shouts & Murmurs” titled the “Wisdom of Children.” There were three segments that described certain seminal moments of everyday life through the innocent eyes of children. For example, “A Conversation at the Grownup Table, as Imagined at the Kid’s Table” featured a Mom who said “Pass the wine please, I want to become crazy,” and “I’m angry! I’m angry all of a sudden!” to which the Dad responds, “I’m angry too! We’re angry at each other!” If life at the big kids table were actually this entertaining, I would always get really excited about family dinner parties. There is also a segment about how college kids envision the United States government, which seems heavily influenced by the West Wing and Schoolhouse Rock.
This was one of the best things I have read in a long time, and I felt that this format needed to be borrowed and used in a Middlebury context. Hence, “The Wisdom of Children: Middlebury Edition.” Maybe David Remnick will see this and realize my potential. That would be nice.
I. The Bunker, as Subtitled by Fifth Graders
First-year 1: Oh wow, they are playing my favorite song from Glee.
First-year 2: Laugh out loud. Let’s dance crazy!
First-year 1: Ok! Gosh, look at that boy he looks like Robert Pattinson.
First-year 2: You are right. Laugh out loud. Oh em gee. He is coming over here.
First-year 1: Oh em gee.
Senior: Hey I am a vampire.
First-year 1: Oh em gee. I love you.
Senior: Just kidding.
First-year 1: Oh. I don’t like real boys. They have cooties.
Senior: I was double just kidding.
First-year 1: Oh em gee. I love vampires. They are my favorite.
Senior: Super Smash Brothers is my favorite, but I like girls after I drink crazy juice.
First-year 1: Let’s dance sandwich.
II. Old Chapel Meetings, as Imagined by College Kids.
Liebowitz: What is on the agenda for today?
Spears: The students are not complaining enough. We must find something to take away.
Biette: What else can we take away? We have taken away their bowls. We have taken away their juice. We have taken away Atwater. What else could they possibly care about?
Liebowitz: They must care about more than food Matthew.
Biette: No. If we take away their food, we take away their spirit.
Collado: No. They also care about parties.
Igor: Ah yes, the parties! Take away the parties and they have nothing!
Daniere: Yes! The parties! We must squelch them!
Liebowitz: We cannot do this haphazardly. We need a strategic plan.
Igor: Yes, a plan.
Spears: We should enlist the help of our puppets.
Collado: The SGA and the Campus?
Spears: Yes. They have never let us down.
Liebowitz: We should have Riley pass a bill creating a nine o’clock curfew for Friday and Saturday.
Igor: Yes!
Liebowitz: And the Campus must write an editorial about the evils of partying, College Shorts about awful partying at other schools and an especially unpleasant Public Safety Log.
Boudah: I will make sure Officer Chris is particularly nasty with citations this weekend.
Liebowitz: Perfect.
Spears: Once again, we will show the students who is boss.
All: Liebowitz is boss!
Liebowitz: No. We are all boss. We all have the power to make the students unhappy. That is what we are here to do.
(04/28/11 4:09am)
Coincidentally, several friends of mine have gone into the perfumery business. They all just developed new scents and are in the process of marketing them. I mentioned that they might take out an advertisement in the Campus, but they didn’t want to pay top dollar for a spot. Instead, they convinced me to run their product descriptions through my column, sort of like a freebie.
To learn more about any of these fragrances, or to request a press packet, please contact do_not_reply@aol.com.
“Perception”
Just say the word aloud and let it ring in your ears, slide off the tip of your tongue: Perception. Why? It’s sophisticated: not shallow or tacky, insubstantial or trite. It hints at something beneath the surface, something that endures but is not old and does not smell like mothballs. But there is a deceptively sexual air to the word: the hiss of the “c”-sound in Perception, the snap of that second “p”. Perception. It makes girls cry, but it also makes them interested, makes them want to know more — makes them intrigued and mystified. Dare I say: It makes girls intrystified.
“Charity”
It is pronounced with a very soft “Ch”, the “arity” slowly rolling along afterwards. It is named after a darling of a lady of the night — God bless her soul — who was willing to give her body not just for money, but for a smile, to men of all ages. The idea is that the word charity, along with the actual fragrance, will put women, ladies, girls, etc., in the giving mood. They will hear “Charity” and feel safe and wholesome. They will then have the desire to give themselves to a man, only asking for a smile or acknowledgement in return. It’s a flawless name of a fragrance. It might even usurp the dog’s claim as “man’s best friend.”
Unfortunately, I am having trouble getting the product FDA approved. So if you could ask all of your friends to join my facebook group (Charity, what the world needs) I, along with every man, will be grateful.
“Yankee-Doodle”
Yankee-Doodle is a paradoxically intoxicating man’s cologne. It is sexy yet casual. Clean yet complex. Brisk, yet inviting. Its incongruence stems from an intriguing blend of scents such as bergamot, lavendar-grass, sandalwood, Polish sausage, lime-oil and celery juice. One catches sly hints of mandarin cedar wood and full notes of beans. From this ingenious layering of disparate aromas, Yankee-Doodle comes across as a delightfully visceral fragrance. Any true man looking for a cologne with the ironic ability to be both sophisticated and relaxed will find this cologne a more than viable option. Its bottle is seductive and sleek. Press your finger deep into its hole and the atomized liquid kisses your neck softly, or wherever else you might choose to spray. One squirt for work. Two for play.
“Quiver”
I think the sexual charge that “quiver” contains is obvious, but truss’ me, there’s more than meets the eye. Do you recall the scent as you pressed your nose deep in the middle of your father’s old hunting saddle? Do you recall the smell of elk meat pickling in the sod lodge? Do you recall the aroma of dusty marigolds, folded in between the pages of a diary found in a stranger’s beside drawer? Yes, and they are potent in my “Quiver.” “Quiver” is a surreptitious and mature scent. This is certainly NOT the cologne either of your stuffy dads would have worn. “Quiver” sets every nerve ending alight with anticipation of conquests to come and sense-memory of victories past. It’s sexual, but knowing, and strong. This cologne, like the very arrows that are in lodged in Cupid’s “quiver” will drive any man, woman and most marine mammals into the most fevered of love-making.
FDA approval still pending due to the high quantities of flunitrazepam present in the cologne, but my lobbyists in D.C. assure me that with the new balance of power “quiver” should be on the shelves in time for Christmas.
Turn off all of the lights in the New Meadowlands stadium if you have any questions.
(04/28/11 4:08am)
With this semester’s end, spring flowers and warm days comes the 20th anniversary of the infamous Middlebury College staff firings of 1991.
A decade ago, when we noted the 10th anniversary of this shameful chapter in the College’s history, some asked why we were dredging up these unpleasant memories. Probably they will ask again. The answer then and now is that many people have forgotten and many more, who arrived after the firings, have never heard of them. Out of respect to the innocent victims who suffered and are still suffering and in hopes that nothing similar will happen again, we believe that the community should keep this event in its collective memory.
On a beautiful May morning 20 years ago, College supervisors and administrators forced 17 loyal and unsuspecting employees out of their offices, preventing some even from retrieving their sweaters and purses. On the advice of the notorious outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, the disoriented staff members were herded into waiting vans and driven to the Hadley Barn on the golf course. There they were told that their positions had been eliminated and that they would remain on the College payroll for some brief, unspecified time only if they complied minutely with the instructions of the outplacers.
The College justified the firings by claiming that the institution was in dire financial straits. It said that the jobs of the expelled employees were non-essential and had been cut with no consideration as to what individuals occupied them and no evaluation of the quality of their work. The College promised that the outplacement firm would help the terminated staff members find new jobs within a few months and explained that it had resorted to this corporate execution style of firing because it lacked experience and “didn’t know how” to dismiss 17 employees.
It soon became clear that every statement but the last was a lie. There was no financial emergency. Of the 17 fired employees, most were woman and over the age of 50. Some had been working at the college more than 30 years. Several of the “unnecessary” positions were immediately filled again and the outplacement firm had scant useful advice to offer anyone.
Ugly nation-wide coverage eventually forced the college to issue meager severance packages to the fired staff members. Over the years some have been hired into other college positions (without the benefit of their earned seniority) some found jobs with other area employers, some retired and some have died. Some of the psychological wounds have scabbed over, but it is unlikely they will ever heal completely. The frequently-invoked image of a “family” of Middlebury College faculty, staff, students and alumni became a bitter joke and the open, trusting, community spirit vanished forever.
The College’s ill-starred new president, Timothy Light, was forced to resign in the aftermath of the firings. But his subordinate accomplices rose to the top ranks of the administration and faculty, the chief among them being President Emeritus John McCardell. Not one publicly dissented at the time of the firings and not one has since apologized or acknowledged that the college gravely wronged innocent people. If John McCardell felt any twinge of remorse, he gave no sign of it at his accolade-laden departure for Tennessee last year.
Many terrible things have happened in the past 20 years: the nightmare of 9/11, the interminable wars the US is pursuing in Iraq and Afghanistan, natural and man-made environmental disasters and the national and world-wide economic crisis. With millions losing their jobs across the country, Middlebury’s layoffs may appear as a little, long-ago problem in a small town in a tiny state. But concern for others everywhere must begin with concern for our friends, neighbors and co-workers at home. As Vermont poet Martha Zweig says, “Who’ll say boo to get a penny’s worth of anybody’s little life back?” Fortunately, many people did at the time, and we must always be ready to do so again.
Written by MICHAEL and JUDY OLINICK
(04/28/11 4:08am)
Race is an issue that deeply interests me, but not because I feel like I have a huge personal stake in it. I think of myself as more of an ethnic tourist. It’s not that I don’t feel a distinct connection with an ethnic heritage: I never felt it more than when I left home and realized how special my experiences were. It’s just that in Hawaii, where I’m from, my multicultural background is the norm, not the exception and in a way that had always made it seem like a non-issue. Despite what some skeptics might say, I come from a place where the issue of race is handled very, very differently than it is in Middlebury — and by extension, New England and much of the Mainland, I would venture to say.
In Hawaii, no one race constitutes majority, making it a unique case in America. Caucasians are one of the smaller ethnic groups and perhaps even more extraordinary is the fact that the two largest minority groups on the mainland (African Americans and Latinos) are almost non-existent there, and yet for the most part Hawaii isn’t a fractured place. On the contrary, it has acculturated to an “American” way of life in a big way since it became a state half a century ago. My little brother and I played Pokémon in elementary school like everyone else, and watched Static Shock when we got home in the afternoon. We grew up with Jon Stewart and Bernie Mac, and even if we didn’t understand the specifics of the song “White Christmas” in Hawaii, we listened to our dad sing it around the house just as much as any snow-covered family in Vermont, I’m sure. Hawaii is an exception among exceptions. And I always find myself thinking back to home when I hear discussions about race here at Middlebury, how different things are and how intriguing those differences are: the sensitivity, the baggage, the self-selection and especially the power of experience and language.
At Middlebury I learned what it meant to be multiracial — to appear one way to some and another to others, and maybe to feel entirely different from how I looked. Although in Hawaii I would most definitely be considered “white,” that label really doesn’t do much work in Vermont, where my Japanese grandmother, my local grandpa and my culturally Asian upbringing are all dramatic departures from my Mainland white friends’ experiences. Coming to a place like Middlebury where identity (how and what one identifies himself as) is so important to social behavior, it’s been strange, unsettling and liberating to live in a sort of interstitial world, detached from the considerations that bog down others: I’ve listened to Julia Alvarez talk to a rousing crowd at Cafécito hour, I took my blond-haired girlfriend to the Black Pearl ball last year and I was one of the several dozen people who dined at Alianza’s Valentine’s Day banquet, which had set tables for at least twice that number (I even — awkwardly but earnestly — danced with the Mariachi band they hired), and yet my last name (Brady) doesn’t reflect those particular aspects of my life.
I’m intrigued by the things we think divide us and the many ways in which we find reflections of our own humanity in the lives of others. And far from being black and white, if one can excuse such trite turns of phrase, race is complicated, even in Hawaii where longstanding colonial attitudes converge with the stereotypes of military residents, and the curious demographic effects of Asian and American tourism. Racial dynamics at Middlebury can foster a sense of inclusion just as often as it engenders anxiety and isolation. After all, what other East Coast school sponsors an Asian cooking house, let alone one that can fill to capacity in the first fifteen minutes of opening its doors on Ramen Night? What Middlebury may lack in racial diversity it almost certainly makes up for in cultural curiosity, as anyone who’s been to a Katsuhama feast day or a Cafécito salon or a Distinguished Men of Color event can attest to. I can’t help but wonder if that’s because we’re given a unique opportunity here to step outside limiting labels, to cross boundaries, to transcend self-made taboos and be ethnic tourists.
(04/28/11 4:07am)
Middlebury has some of the best facilities and resources of any small liberal arts college in America, but not by chance. As our academic standing improved in the last decade, we invested heavily in our infrastructure. Our once modest campus was transformed through the large-scale building projects including Atwater suites, Atwater dining hall, the Davis Family Library, Bi Hall and the Axinn Center; not to mention the extensive renovations of the athletic complex, McCullough and Proctor to name just a few. But unlike many colleges, we did not mandate complete financing prior to starting a building project and therefore we took on hundreds of millions in debt to finance this construction.
Middlebury currently holds approximately $290 million in long-term debt (almost $400 million of total liabilities) and an endowment of only $840 million. Our fiscal year 2011 operating budget (the amount of money we plan to spend this year) is $230 million, which is financed through a number of means — 55 percent is generated by undergraduate admission fees, 11 percent from Bread Loaf /Language school/ Middlebury Schools Abroad and a whopping 21 percent is financed from our endowment. This is substantially greater than other comparable colleges such as Williams or Amherst that only finance approximately 5 percent of their operating budget through their endowment.
Middlebury has developed an irresponsible and unsustainable habit of dipping into the endowment to fund current operations, effectively subsidizing the total cost of a Middlebury College education. With so much debt on our balance sheet, we spend seven percent ($16 million) of our annual operating budget servicing our debt. Coincidently, we finance seven percent of our operating budget through “gifts and campaigning” meaning our “gift” donors are essentially paying the interest costs of our lavish spending during the early and mid 2000s.
Despite the historic global recession, Middlebury has increased its operating budget every year on record with a total increase of 29 percent since 2005. You may question this considering the aggressive budget cuts, such as the reduction in financial aid, closing of Atwater dining hall or even the temporarily unkempt lawn surrounding the Bi Hall quad. But think about the new fleet of public safety vehicles (The ’04 Ford Escape just didn’t cut it) or Middlebury’s taste for expensive art. Since 1994 Middlebury has followed a ‘one percent policy’ that “sets aside one percent of the cost of any renovation or new construction at the college for the purchase, installation, maintenance and interpretation of works of art publicly displayed on campus” — Axinn alone would mandate $500,000 to be spent on public art. The arts are an integral aspect of a liberal arts education; however, we are spending money we do not have to follow an outdated policy in the midst of a historic economic downturn.
Middlebury has found itself in an unfortunate situation. We are attempting to preserve the quality of a top liberal arts education while maintaining the resources of a university without economies of scale; hence our pricy tuition that is, as incredible as it seems, heavily subsidized through the endowment draw down. This pattern of spending is of concern and is simply unsustainable without generous and continuous alumni support. There is no doubt that Middlebury is financially dependent on donations and yet, they have frankly failed to make me want to donate.
I have grown increasingly frustrated with Middlebury’s arbitrary institutional policies, underfunded Career Services Office, power hunger, rude public safety officers and a set of parking rules that just don’t make sense. With an operational model clearly dependent upon donations to fund current/future operations, it is unclear why the administration has not made a better effort to promote an amicable relationship with the student body.
The quality of the student body, professors and the overall experience at Middlebury is unparalleled but the petty administrative policies are bound to frustrate any well-educated young adult. Given their donation dependent financial model, they need to reform their approach to administrative policies because they risk alienating the potential donors upon whom they depend.
(04/28/11 4:06am)
April 7 marked the second anniversary of the passing of the Marriage Equity Act that legalized same-sex marriage in Vermont. The group that spearheaded the movement, Vermont Freedom to Marry, continues to fight for universal equality today. Madeleine Winterfalcon, assistant in academic administration, has worked for the organization for several years and after the legislation was passed, she sought to preserve the stories and voices of the movement. She recorded the stories of local people, each of whom were connected to Vermont Freedom to Marry’s mission. These tales are now available to the public, as Winterfalcon has partnered with the Vermont Folklife Center, located on Main Street, to craft her project, “Voices of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Movement.”
Winterfalcon has worked at the College since 2007. She enjoys oral history and believes that recording first-hand stories is priceless.
“It’s so important that the stories are preserved,” she said. “Who we are, where we’re from and where we’re going are all in those stories.”
When she moved to Vermont and got involved in the Freedom to Marry Movement, she knew that “all the stories and voices shouldn’t be lost.”
“They were amazing, exciting and needed to be recorded,” she said.
Winterfalcon began recording these stories in July 2009 and completed her interviews by the end of the summer. It took another full year to edit the work.
“You just don’t know how these things are going to affect your environment,” she said. “It’s not limited and I don’t feel total ownership of the project.”
Although the project was her idea, she feels it does not belong to her. She recorded the stories so other people could listen to them and appreciate their rich histories.
“The widest possible dispersal of this project is great,” she said. “So often people say, ‘I don’t know anybody gay,’ but once you hear someone’s story in their own voice it breaks all that down.”
She hopes people will begin to relate on a personal level to the people she interviewed.
“Theory is one thing, but practice makes it break down,” she said.
Judy Olinick, the Russian/German department coordinator, was one of the individuals to speak with Winterfalcon, and she is included in the project. She and her husband, Michael, participated in the interview because they have been involved in the Freedom to Marry Movement since it began. Olinick, who has lived in the town since 1970, was excited to help Winterfalcon.
“I think documenting the stories orally is very important so that in the future not only the details of what happened will be clear, but also the thinking, motivation and hopes of everyone involved in the equality effort,” said Olinick.
Winterfalcon was careful to get stories from a wide range of people, including “the couples themselves, their families and straight allies.”
“It’s important to realize that there are many different perspectives on the topic of marriage equality,” said Olinick.
For her, the passage of the Marriage Equality Act defined a movement towards equality and she believes the legislation “set the process in motion in a direction that cannot be stopped.”
Winterfalcon’s project is available online, thanks to the help of the Folklife Center. Winterfalcon contacted Andy Kolovos, the archivist at the center, and they organized a plan to best execute her project. Her five-minute interview clips have been edited and starting on April 7 and running until July 7, each Thursday, one of her 15 clips is posted on the center’s tumblr.com account for the public to access. The audio segments were compiled from 17 interviews.
“It seemed like an important thing not to just have on the server, but to get it out somehow,” said Kolovos.
Greg Sharrow, the director of education at the center, is also invested in both Winterfalcon’s project and the movement.
“I’m wildly enthusiastic about her project. The legislation is important but it’s also incredibly important to have context, to hear from people of how it plays out in their lives and how it has meaning and significance for people,” he said.
This project also fits the center’s general mission.
“People tend to associate us with history,” said Sharrow. “We’re a cultural research organization. We’re interested in helping communities achieve cultural goals and increase public awareness and understanding.”
Winterfalcon’s work will be archived at the center.
“We are now framing our work around a new concept: cultural sustainability. It’s a developing idea,” said Kolovos.
Caroline Grego ’11 is a geography major who works with both Kolovos and Sharrow. She studies Franco-American and Quebecois songbooks, but is passionate about what the folklife center does for the state.
“Student on campus aren’t aware enough of all the resources available on Vermont history,” she said. “The folklife center has real interviews, primary source first-hand accounts.”
Although the center documents many recordings, like Winterfalcon’s, it feels honored to have Winterfalcon’s work in particular.
“She is offering us the opportunity to know this experience,” said Sharrow.
The hope is that through its easy access online, many people will come to know and study her work.
Sheryl Rapée-Adams of Rutland, Vt. is currently a volunteer for the Vermont Freedom to Marry Movement, where she began working in 2007.
“My husband and I read some articles in the newspaper about the fact that gay and lesbian couples who were committed to each other did not have the same rights to protect their families,” she said.
This inspired Rapée-Adams to write a letter to the editor, which then prompted the Freedom to Marry organization to offer her a position as a volunteer. She was the deputy field director when the 2009 legislation was passed.
Rapée-Adams knows Winterfalcon, as they have worked together in the past.
“I am very proud of Madeleine’s work,” she said. “She was a fantastic Vermont Freedom to Marry volunteer. She was part of us, and I’m very glad Madeleine is bringing her expertise in oral history to continue Vermont’s journey to marriage equality.”
Currently, the Freedom to Marry Movement works at a federal level, but it also provides advice to individual couples.
“The most frequent phone calls and emails I get are couples and individuals who want to know what they need to do to get married and other legal pieces around marriage and family,” said Rapée-Adams.
The Freedom to Marry Movement knows it still has a lot of work ahead.
“There is always something to work out,” said Winterfalcon. “I don’t see everything being solved in my lifetime.”
Winterfalcon said that there is still a ways to go until there is universal equality, but she and others involved in the movement are hopeful that equality will catch on.
“It would be terrific if we could get young kids listening and learning from it,” said Winterfalcon. “Being open helps, and small steps help a lot.”
She believes the best way to understand is to listen.
“If you have friends, parents, grandparents; everyone has stories,” she said, “Get those stories down. Real people’s lives are the true history of our culture.”
(04/28/11 4:05am)
Over 100 people gathered from across the county to learn about plans for the upcoming year at the Addison County Relocalization Network’s (ACoRN) annual meeting on April 14. Lincoln Peak Vineyard, located at 142 River Road in New Haven, Vt., hosted the event. Ben Hewitt, author of The Town that Food Saved, spoke about the local food system in Hardwick, Vt., the main focus of his book. Chris Granstrom, owner of Lincoln Peak Vineyard, and Jonathan Corcoran, president and co-founder of ACoRN, were both pleased with the evening.
“We had never done a party as the annual meeting,” said Corcoran, who noted that only 15 people showed up to the discussions in the past, and there was neither advertising nor a speaker invited before this year. “It was our first big splash at a really great venue that spoke to the local food movement. People felt very at home; it was a lot of fun.”
Granstrom felt the same.
“ACoRN is a great organization. We [Lincoln Peak Vineyard] really believe in the mission and we wanted to do whatever we could to help them out,” he said. “We are always looking for ways to get people who haven’t been here out to our place.”
Corcoran cited five innovations ACoRN has for the coming 2011-2012 year. The first, he said, is the “development of an online market platform to facilitate online market growth.”
Annie Harlow, marketing consultant for ACoRN, is spearheading the project. The main goal, said Corcoran, is to “complement the virtual side with the face to face relationships.” He believes his organization fosters connectivity, and he wants growers and buyers to become familiar with one another’s businesses and farms.
Corcoran’s desire to bring these groups together led ACoRN to hold its first matchmaker event, an informal conversation between growers and buyers, on March 30 at the College. All participants benefitted from the meeting, which was the first regional event of its kind in the state. In the past, only buyers from out of state were invited to meet Vermont growers, but ACoRN’s initiative tied buyers and growers from Addison County together.
“It was a tremendous success,” said Corcoran, who believes when a grower and/or buyer walk away from such an event with two to three new business leads, the day has proved successful. “To have a geographic area defined for this event was very effective. ”
Matthew Biette, director of dining services at the College and member of ACoRN’s advisory board on “local produce/production/sales/usage,” voluntarily hosted the discussion in the Proctor dining hall, and will do so again for the next meeting in October.
“The matchmaker event helps everyone in the food continuum,” said Biette in an email. “It opens up markets, helps others realize a market and connects growers with buyers — kind of a one-stop shop.”
Corcoran, too, is excited about the opportunities that arise for both buyers and growers. Many individuals could not attend the meeting in March, so there was much interest to have another matchmaker event in the fall.
“It’s really all about the conversations that happen. People who don’t know each other meet each other,” he said. “Those connections are what we [ACoRN] are all about. You would be surprised at how many people don’t know each other because they run in their own circles.”
Biette agreed and said, “This is an extremely efficient way to use people’s time as growers and buyers are in the same room. The competition is lessened as it is more of a level playing field or a ‘neutral territory.’”
At the vineyard, the organization also announced it would begin fundraising to hire a full-time coordinator. ACoRN organizes several events and programs, including Tour de Farms, the Addison County guide to local food and the Stone Soup conference, among others. Corcoran said the organization has reached a point in development where a dedicated person is needed to plan and execute these events.
“We are kind of the hub for the local food system,” he said. “We are the networker for the food system and so are approached by all kinds of people with events about what’s happening around the state, conferences, speakers and farm and food safety lectures. We need somebody to coordinate this fulltime.”
ACoRN is also hoping to host a slow-money conference in the late fall. When the organization was founded in 2005, the directors realized that the third leg of relocalization was local money, in addition to energy and local food. In 2008, the ACoRN Energy Co-op, separate from ACoRN, adopted the energy work for the program. Corcoran said the organization was left with the “food work,” and it has been developing this aspect over the years.
“We put money on hold because it was much more complicated,” he said. “Food is basic, everyone eats. Money was too challenging to pick up at the time.”
Corcoran believes his group is now ready to tackle the issue and that this conference will examine how ACoRN might service money in Addison County. There are four key steps to achieve the organization’s goal: identify the types of funds to develop, identify sources of capital, create an infrastructure to evaluate projects and disperse the funds. Corcoran believes his plan is fairly complicated and he will ensure professionals are managing all the necessary steps.
“This is not a project ACoRN is looking to take on itself,” he said. “We are a catalyst. We are putting the flag up the pole to signal to the community to have the people interested in this come together.”
The conference is tentatively set for this November at the College.
“Their [ACoRN’s] plans all look really good,” said Granstrom. “We [Lincoln Peak Vineyard] are sort of limited in matching [with buyers] because we are producing an alcoholic beverage, so we are not working with the elementary school, but the general trend of what ACoRN is doing is wonderful.”
Corcoran also wants to plan a board retreat with the ACoRN directors to further develop the plans for the 2011-2012 year.
Another one of the big projects ACoRN has taken on is the ACoRN Wholesale Collaborative. Corcoran described it as “grant funding to explore feasibility of a wholesale brokerage for produce between Addison County produce growers and institutions.” The College figures prominently into the discussion, as it serves 7,000 of the 10,000 daily meals in Addison County. The final report, which was constructed by a 12-member advisory board of all the lead growers and buyers in the county, will be published at the end of May. Board members include individuals from Porter Hospital, Biette, Kathy Alexander, president of the Vermont School Nutrition Association, Bart Litvin, owner of Greg’s Meat Market in the town and general manager of the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op Glenn Lower.
The matchmaker event resulted from this planning study, which analyzed supply and demand, and worked directly with data from the buyers and growers.
“This is not theoretical data, but based on surveys and interviews,” said Corcoran.
Hewitt’s lecture at the vineyard tied together many of the projects ACoRN has planned. Described as an entertaining speaker by both Corcoran and Granstrom, Hewitt continues to struggle with the notion of what a healthy food system with affordable prices should look like. He spoke much about Hardwick, Vt. and how the area was able to work collaboratively to build a strategy that created employment opportunities for the community and brought prosperity to the town. Hewitt also shared what he feels are the dilemmas surrounding local food and why the system is currently unable, in many places, to feed all people.
“The industrial food system is a flat system and should be contrasted with the local food system, which ideally is more of a circular system,” said Corcoran. “Inputs are sourced locally and waste streams go back into the food system, closing the loop.”
Annie Rowell ’12, a resident of Craftsbury, Vt., which is located in the Hardwick area, attended the meeting, too.
“Vermont’s small size can be such a strength for expanding food markets and local food accessibility, especially in the realm of idea sharing,” she said in an email. “There is so much to be learned from this statewide community of innovative thinkers. They have created a network of engaged problem-solvers who are equally committed to the success of each others’ projects.”
Corcoran echoed her thoughts and said it is time to stop waiting for our problems to “magically” be solved.
“Hewitt’s philosophy is that it is all about us, let’s get on with the work, and this very much ducktails with our philosophy at ACoRN,” he said. “What are we waiting for? It has always been up to us.”
On April 28, Ellen Kahler, executive director of the Vermont Sustainable Funds, will speak to the College on the 10-year strategic plan for food in Vermont. Her lecture, “Farm-to-Plate: What does it mean for Addison County growers and businesses,” will be held in Bicentennial Hall 216 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Corcoran encourages all to attend, as he feels the talk is a “snapshot of what is happening in the state and locally [with food]” and believes it is especially important to engage the College in the conversation.
(04/28/11 4:04am)
Though he did not know it at the time, Richard Cole’s decision to join a scout group as a freshman at Middlebury Union High School (MUHS) would have meaningful implications long after his days as a student. His involvement in the organization, which worked with the town’s fire department, eventually led him to a career in firefighting. Chief of the Middlebury Fire Department for the past 14 years, Cole remains fully committed to the community.
“I never had any thoughts of being chief,” said Cole, who has 36 years of experience as a fire fighter.
When the fire departments of East Middlebury and Middlebury merged and the chief at that time retired, Cole was persuaded by others to take the job himself.
“I have not regretted it,” he said. “I have actually enjoyed it.”
After graduating from MUHS in 1963, Cole left the area to pursue his interest in photography. He attended Germain School of Photography in New York City for a year before working for a photographer in Rutland for an additional two years. He decided to return to his hometown to work at his family’s business, Cole’s Flowers and Frames, which his grandfather started in 1937. It was then that Cole became adviser of the same scout group to which he belonged in high school. From this position, his fate was essentially sealed: he became a member of the department, receiving his training at the Middlebury Fire Station.
“I think the fire service in general tends to be a family,” said Cole. “There are times when your life depends on the other guy, so you become pretty close.”
Cole knows and trusts each of his fellow members, some of whom have been working nearly as long as he has.
“If any member ever needs help there is always a member there that is willing to give them a hand,” he said.
As all who work at the fire department are volunteers who are paid on call, many hold other jobs. For years, Cole worked for his father at Cole’s Flowers and Frames, a business he eventually took over and ran himself. Though he closed it five years ago, it only took a month for his daughter to re-open the store, which is still in business today. Currently, Cole works for a mail-order pharmacy, though he is planning to retire in three weeks so he can spend more time with his family. He is looking forward to driving across the country to visit his son, a firefighter who works with a paramedic in the state of Washington.
“Usually we fly, but we have always said we would like to drive it,” said Cole, who is planning a five-week driving adventure so he has “enough time to see some sights.” He plans to drive out west along a southern route, and return to Vermont on a northern path.
Though excited for more free time, Cole remains dedicated to his work at the fire department, and he intends to devote more hours to the station and the administrative aspects of his job. His retirement from position of fire chief is “probably not too long down the road,” but for now Cole is more than content to continue his work in Middlebury — despite the harsh climate.
“Winters, as you get older, they get longer,” he said. “I think of other places, but I still do not see myself going anywhere else.”
As fire chief, Cole has been called to a vast array of scenes. Though volunteers may not fight fires often, they respond to calls related to faulty smoke detectors or carbon monoxide alarms. They also deal with “car accidents, fuel spills from automobiles or home heating systems.” Just last week, Cole’s team responded to a call about high winds that left live wires down on Rte. 116. On average, the department receives three calls per week.
“We get quite involved in the community,” said Cole, whose most memorable call resulted in a three-day, around-the-clock effort to clean up gasoline that spilled out of 11 cars on a train passing through Middlebury. His team also had to put out a small fire that started after the crash.
“Fortunately, [the train] was going slow and they rolled over slowly,” said Cole. “That was a big challenge and a very time-consuming event.”
His decades of experience in the field of firefighting prove a strong foundation for his leadership in the department. The chief is always up for any task, as his favorite part of his job is directing a scene.
“I find it a challenge to determine what needs to be done to get the job done,” he said. “Each one is different.”
In addition, Cole prides himself on maintaining a strong connection to the College. He enjoys seeing interaction between student volunteers and older members of the department, and is also confident that his team works well with authorities on campus.
“Our working relationship with the College is really good, and it has improved tremendously over the last 10 years,” said Cole. “If we have to go up there for some kind of a call, they are always extremely cooperative and willing to work with us to get the job done.”
Throughout his years living in Middlebury, Cole has seen the town change in numerous ways. Growing up, he could have bought anything he needed on Main St., as there were then two grocery stores. With the expansion of services farther from downtown Middlebury, such a convenience no longer exists, yet Cole has liked seeing the town develop in new ways.
“The town has changed a lot, but I guess I want to look at changes as good,” he said.
There is little doubt in Cole’s mind that Middlebury is the place for him.
“It has been a good sized town to fill this role and I have enjoyed it a lot,” he said.
(04/28/11 4:03am)
Upon entering Middlebury Sweets in East Middlebury, one immediately notices the colors — from the bright yellow, red and purple walls to the gumball displays on the tables. The shelves are lined with Pez dispensers, M&M paraphernalia and themed monopoly boards, which Blanca Jenne, who owns the store with her husband, Brad Jenne, has been collecting for the last 13 years.
The store first started in 2004 as a scrapbooking store with a small candy section called Scrapbook & Rubber Stamp Paradise. In 2007, it became a candy store named Sweet Surprises Down Candy Lane. The Jennes changed the name to Middlebury Sweets in 2010, and they have since been operating a successful business, spreading sugary goodness to all customers.
“Because of the recession, we’ve become more of a candy store than a scrapbooking store, but we keep the scrapbooking supplies for our regular customers,” said Blanca.
Middlebury Sweets, located at 12 Ossie Rd., just five miles South of campus, is truly a family venture, as is evident from the Jennes’ daughter and her grandmother playing behind the counter. The family chose to open a candy store mostly “because it’s fun,” said Blanca. The store’s playful ambiance exudes this love for fun and candy.
Prior to owning the candy store, Blanca owned a gift basket business and made candy buffets for weddings, and this experience has given her a flair for tasteful and eye-catching displays. Currently, Brad also runs a U-Haul and storage business on the store’s property.
Recent renovations have made Middlebury Sweets the largest candy store in Vermont, and although not quite finished, the store boasts an impressive collection of options, from the Haribo gummies to dispensers of jellybeans to quarter pound chocolate turtles, which Blanca cites as a best seller. Her personal favorite, however, is the almond butter crunch.
Blanca recently began making her own chocolate, starting with chocolate bunnies for Easter. She attended seminars to learn how to make and mold the chocolate, and now has designs ranging from the classic bunny to bunnies riding on motorcycles made of white, milk and dark chocolate.
Starting this summer, the Jennes also plan to start selling Wilcox ice cream.
“The ice cream is a response to requests from people in East Middlebury,” said Blanca. “There aren’t many places to buy hard ice cream nearby.”
If the ice cream business goes well this summer, they will install a serving window in the front.
Middlebury Sweets offers free delivery to the Middlebury campus on orders of $10 or more. The Jeenes also cater fundraisers and other events with candy buffets.
Orders can be placed at the website, http://www.middleburysweets.com. It is open Monday and Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Sunday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
(04/28/11 3:59am)
This week the MCAB concerts committee announced its annual spring concert event, “Triptych,” a three-DJ lineup that will feature DJs Drop the Lime, White Panda and Savoy. The three groups will perform Saturday, May 7 in Chip Kenyon ’85 Arena. Doors open at 9:30 p.m.
Drop the Lime hails from New York City and is known for bass-heavy sets that often feature original vocals. White Panda, a mashup duo from Chicago, has all of their music available as free downloads on their website. Brooklyn-based Savoy will play a full-band set of remixes with a light show.
“We decided to do a DJ event because we thought the campus would be more into that kind of music — especially because it could be like a dance party, something they could have fun at — rather than a band that people would feel they had to know the music to attend,” said MCAB concerts committee co-chair Catherine Ahearn ’11. “We were looking to make the greatest amount of people happy.”
“For the spring show, we were trying to look at [something in the] rock [genre] or a band and not just a performer, because we feel like that’s really what’s been lacking at Middlebury,” added co-chair Hannah Wilson ’11
Ahearn reflected on the extended process of attempting to book a spring concert.
“It’s been a really long process — really exhausting and frustrating — and ultimately we’re just happy to bring something we think a lot of people would want to go to,” said Ahearn.
When asked why skeptical students should attend the show, Wilson responded:
“You should go to this show because there will be lots of people there dancing and having a good time,” said Wilson.
“It’s like going to a giant party,” she added.
The co-chairs plan to set the stage within the arena to make the dance floor smaller than the hockey rink itself. MCAB will also decorate the space in order to mask the hockey-rink atmosphere.
Ticket prices were deliberately kept low for the event to compensate for the lack of name recognition.
Tickets are currently on sale at the Box Office or online at go/boxoffice. Tickets are $5 until Friday, $7 until the day of the show and $10 at the door.
(04/28/11 3:58am)
The Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB) has appointed the executive board members for the 2011-2012 academic year.
Nadia Schreiber ’12, who will serve as president of the Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB) in the coming academic year, hopes to boost attendance for traditional events while simultaneously trying out new ideas.
“I hope to encourage the development of new and unique programming, so that we get away from doing the same events over and over again,” wrote Schreiber in an email. “I think there is also an expectation that we do certain events — such as Fall Frenzy and [the Homecoming formal] — and I would like to make attendance at these events better, and find out why maybe people haven't attended in the past.”
Schreiber’s goals include working to continue this year’s trend of increased attendance at events, using new venues for events and revitalizing the Inter-Commons Council and encouraging the commons to collaborate on more programming.
Schrieber believes that her experience on both sides of the board will help create unity among MCAB executives.
“I think that having been both a committee chair and a commons chair gives me a unique perspective into the challenges of each position,” wrote Scrieber in an email. “I hope that I can both make the commons chairs feel that they serve more of a purpose in the larger MCAB community, as well as ensure that the rest of the Execs know that commons programming is equally important.”
The MCAB executive board is comprised of the chairs of the five MCAB committees: concerts committee, marketing committee, social committee, speakers committee and traditions committee. Chairs from each residential commons also hold voting power on the executive board. The executive board members — in addition to individual responsibilities pertaining to their own committees or commons — vote on any MCAB event that requires $10,000 or more in funding.
Applicants for the executive board can come from any student on campus, although Perille explained that preference is given to those with experience on the MCAB committees. The board is chosen by a selection committee comprised of current board members who will not be returning the following year, Associate Dean of Students Doug Adams and David Kloepfer technical coordinator for the Center for Campus Activities and Leadership (CCAL).
Maria Perille ’11, current MCAB president, believes that the next board’s strength comes from its diversity of perspectives.
“We had an emphasis during the selection committee interviews for the executive board on mixing things up,” said Perille. [For example,] not just taking people on concert committee to be concert committee chairs. Although people usually feel that it’s logical to just apply to the committee they’re already on, we actually encourage movement between the committees because that’s how good ideas get spread and [it creates] more collaboration between the committees.”
Selection for commons chairs is determined individually by each commons.
Students who serve on MCAB committees, known as the General Board, can submit applications at the beginning of the academic year and in February. All students are eligible to apply. Each committee is comprised of approximately 10 students.
Perille hopes that next year’s executive board will build off of the successes from this year.
“We had an emphasis on trying new things this year. Concerts [committee] came up with the Bunker series and brought different types of acts, like Dean and Britta,” said Perille. “Even marketing [committee] tried new things by painting on dining hall windows. There was an emphasis on trying new things, taking risks and hoping it would pay off, and I think it has.”
Perille explained how MCAB expanded its programming timeframe by hosting dinners if Atwater Dining Hall and Sunday evening Zumba sessions.
“We usually focus on programming Thursday through Saturday, but it’s also nice to have events during the week,” said Perille.
Perille hopes that MCAB will continue to strengthen its ties to the Student Government Association (SGA). Current SGA President Riley O’Rourke ’12 presently sits on the speakers committee, but Perille hopes MCAB can reinstate a more permanent connection.
MCAB has traditionally had a treasurer who is appointed by the head of the SGA Finance Committee.
A treasurer, according to Perille, “would make sure there’s communication between SGA and MCAB, so they [the SGA] know how we’re using our budget.”
Perille explained how this year’s board benefited from feedback provided by the all-student survey released last fall.
“The results were a little bit surprising to us because [many people] said that the music they prefer is alternative music. It’s always difficult appealing to what kind of music people want, and with our small, medium and large-scale shows we’ve been trying to appeal to everyone.”
“We learned that people really value the small events — like MAD [Music and Drinks] every Thursday and Trivia night,” added Perille.
(04/28/11 3:57am)
The College Alcohol Study found that 98.5 percent of participating students reported at least one negative experience due to someone else’s drinking.
The survey was conducted through the Office of the Dean of the College in November 2010, and it asked about the views and experiences of 766 students, roughly a third of the student body, on everything from how much and where students drink to what students think about the College’s alcohol policies.
“I think the data are concerning,” said Dean of the College and Chief Diversity Officer Shirley Collado. “Similar to other campuses, [alcohol use] is a challenge that I think has an impact not only on issues related to what it means to be living in a respectful and open community, but also the health and wellness of our students.”
Four hundred students in each class were invited to participate in the survey; 47 percent of those invited chose to participate, a response rate Collado appreciates.
“We were very pleased that over 700 students completed the survey, that this was something students wanted to share their input about,” said Collado. “I take that as a good sign. Rather than having the data sit, we wanted to share it.”
To present an extensive summary of the data and hear student feedback, President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz and Collado will host an open forum on issues related to alcohol use at the College at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 3 in the McCullough Social Space. Executive Director of Health and Counseling Services Gus Jordan, Assistant Professor of Psychology Matt Kimble and Associate Professor of Psychology Carlos Velez have analyzed the survey data and put together a slideshow, which Jordan will present at the forum. Student life staff and members of Public Safety will also participate, and Assistant Director of Custodial Services Linda Ross will present the most updated dorm damage data.
“I can’t think of a better way to look at all of the data than to start early-on with student input,” said Collado. “The President and I are not going into this meeting with some kind of agenda or solution in mind. We’re both pretty concerned about the fact that no one institution has figured out the solution to alcohol use and abuse on college campuses … this is for me personally a call to action because I don’t think the administration can solve this problem alone. This cannot be a top-down approach.”
Liebowitz expressed similar thoughts.
“It’s good to have these conversations — we should probably have them more often,” he said. “But the ultimate aim is to hear from students how we can approach what is obviously a challenging issue — the use of alcohol and the disruptive behavior resulting from it. We want to really look to the students for potential solutions … I’m hoping students are going to be a lot smarter than we are about this.”
Some students have already been charged with the task of considering alcohol use at the College. Resident Advisers (RAs) and First-Year Counselors (FYCs) receive training around issues of illegal and excessive alcohol use and play an active role in ensuring the safety of their peers. Some commons held a Residential Life staff meeting for their RAs and FYCs to preview the survey results and give the administration preliminary feedback.
“We talked about how we have a weird role because we’re supposed to be there for the kids and have this good open relationship with then, and once you ask an FYC to start sniffing around and catch them drinking it messes up the other half of our job,” said Matt Yaggy ’12, an FYC for Atwater Commons who previewed the survey results. “It’s a really difficult thing to negotiate. The problem is students aren’t supposed to drink, but we know they do, and we want to educate them, but we have to police them.”
Yaggy felt the survey summary cast Residential Life staff members in a negative light by reporting their efforts to curb underage drinking and unsafe drinking as “ineffective.”
“I agree for the most part FYCs are not effective, but that’s not something that is our fault,” said Yaggy. “To do it more effectively would ask us to cross a boundary we shouldn’t cross, or wouldn’t create the sort of atmosphere an FYC needs to have with their first-years. There’s no way to stop [first-years] from drinking, especially in an environment where there are people who can drink and buy them alcohol. There’s no easy solution.”
Liebowitz stressed the importance of the forum in the face of such a complex issue as underage drinking.
“[Underage drinking] is going to happen; it’s happening now,” said Liebowitz. “The question is how to make it safer and more responsible and abide by the law. I’m all for education, but I’d love to hear from students what type of education might we consider.”
Matt Hedgpeth ’12, the RA and president of Omega Alpha (Tavern), plays a frequent witness to the drinking scene on campus as the leader of a social house, and he believes most of the biggest issues involving alcohol come down to stress.
“I think a lot of people feel like they need to drink either to meet new people, to go to party environments, to go out and put themselves out there after constantly living under the pressure of deadlines and handing in quality work — just living up to your own standards and living up to the school’s standards,” said Hedgpeth. “Not that the bad things that can result from that alcohol use [in response to the pressure] are excusable, but at the same time I don’t really know what other solutions there are … The amount of work we have isn’t really conducive to the kind of unstructured social time people are looking for here.”
Liebowitz said he was “sympathetic” to the notion of stress-related drinking habits, and he called the issue a “fair question.”
“It’s easy to dismiss academic pressure as a component of this issue, but over the last five years I’ve come to believe that that’s a contributor to some of this issue,” said Liebowitz.” “I don’t know how to address that … maybe students will.”
Hedgpeth worries perceptions that the administration is “unwilling to take the steps to actually change things” will discourage students from coming to the open forum, or that students will not speak honestly at the forum because they think their drinking habits are “shameful.” In general, however, he agrees with Collado and Liebowitz that an attempt at open discussion is necessary.
“I think it’s easier for some people to not worry about the consequences of their actions as much, and not worry about what they do and how that has an effect on other people and their academic or social experience, but that’s just because this isn’t really talked about,” said Hedgpeth. “I guess we should talk about it.”
Brittany Gendron ’12, an FYC in Ross Commons for the second year in a row, feels the forum is a great step to opening a dialogue about alcohol, especially as a way of shifting perceptions of alcohol use on campus. Gendron describes herself as a “non-drinker,” an identity she describes as frequently “difficult” or “uncomfortable” as a social student whose friends are of age, and herself is merely months away from being to drink. After seeing the preview presentation of the alcohol survey results, Gendron learned that almost a quarter of the respondents said they did not drink, or drank infrequently, but drinking culture is “much more noticeable.”
“Sustaining a culture of perceived leniency through the policy focusing on health and safety makes people think that drinking is something everyone does,” said Gendron. “I think it’s a delicate line to toe. We want to be focused on the health and safety and leave people to have their privacy of course, but in this perceived culture of leniency it makes it seem like it is expected that college students will drink, and many don’t, and it should not be expected that they will.”
Gendron hopes that open conversation will help foster greater understanding between seemingly separate factions of the student body.
“I think people don’t need to feel alienated on either side, drinking or non-drinking,” said Gendron. “I think people just need to be understanding about everyone’s preferences, and I think for the most part people are — but not always when they’re drunk, which I think is the problem.”
Liebowitz emphasized the large numbers of factors at play in formulating the College’s alcohol policy, including working within the law, being in a rural area with few off-campus opportunities to drink socially and dealing with the reasons he feels students might choose to drink: stress, pursuing social life, simply being 18 to 22 and being alone for the first time.
“All of these things could be dealt with in ways that are more effective than we do now, perhaps,” said Liebowitz. “We’re always learning.”
His main hope for the forum next week is that students will show up, and that those who do will represent a broad range of opinions.
“I hope we get a mix [of perspectives on drinking],” said Liebowitz. “I hope people are willing to be civil to one another and to exchange ideas and share real issues that come up surrounding alcohol.”
(04/28/11 3:56am)
In the 2010 fiscal year, the Grille lost $200,000, while 51 Main lost an additional $90,000. Improvements in profitability, the opening of Crossroads Café and the continued needs of the College for social spaces are all informing the ongoing conversation over dining at the College.
According to Patrick Norton, treasurer and vice-president of the College, these losses were an improvement compared to previous years. He predicts similar or slightly decreased losses this year, though he emphasized that dining services should be profitable.
“In the long run, losses are unacceptable,” he wrote in an email. “We are working to achieve at least break-even.”
Since its opening in 2008, losses at 51 Main have been offset by a donor, thus not affecting the College’s finances. This support extends through next year, and may be renewed, said President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz
The student-run Crossroads Café, which started just last March, may set an example for the older dining services in terms of financial success.
“The directive was not to lose money,” said Crossroads Manager David Dolifka ’13. “In the end we can’t lose money for the College. It’s not our money to lose and I think we understand that.”
Dolifka and Norton agree that it’s too early to discuss Crossroads’ profitability. However, Dolifka’s earliest estimates show that student labor and food costs add up to only 75 percent or revenue. In other words, aside from costs outside of labor and food, they could potentially post a 25 percent profit.
“I guess that means on the surface that we’re not losing money and it means that our model is … sustainable,” he said.
Possible profits from Crossroads Café would not return to the College, and could not offset losses at the Grille or 51 Main.
“We’re not at the stage yet where we can talk about giving money away, [but] any money that we make will go to charities and student organizations,” said Dolifka.
But Crossroads may even help the Grille by bringing more customers into the building. Dolifka sees this expanding in the future.
“We really want to have events here like a continuation of the socioeconomics at Middlebury discussion, or coffee houses like they have on Tuesday night,” he said. “That’s something that we haven’t really been able to pursue heavily yet, because we need to make sure that the cash register is working and that the food is hot. But I would say, next semester, be on the lookout for a lot of things going on downstairs in the space.
David Cannistra, the College’s general manager of retail operations, agrees that Crossroads is bringing business to the Grille.
“[Service cuts] have helped our bottom line, but I don’t know if they’ve helped make this the center of the school. I’m trying to find out where the Grille fits in. I want to create an atmosphere … and I think that Crossroads helps create that atmosphere,” he said.
Both Cannistra and Dolifka agree that more concerts, fundraising and other social events should come to McCullough.
In November 2009, Liebowitz raised the issue of 51 Main’s profitability on his blog, prompting a near-unanimous outcry of support in the online comments. He announced in January 2010 that 51 Main would remain open.
“The kind of programming that goes on at 51 Main differs from what is available on campus and in town,” Liebowitz wrote in an email. If the College wants to create a truly diverse community, he added, the social outlets must be equally diverse.
Day Williams ’14.5 echoed Liebowitz’s comments, emphasizing the value 51 Main adds to the College’s social scene.
“We need places like 51 Main, because we don’t have a city nearby. It’s nice because it is off campus but its close. That is important,” she said.
Liebowitz made a similar argument in favor of continuing to support the Grille.
“It would be hard to imagine the College without a place like the Grille,” he wrote in an email. “Faculty and staff just can’t go downtown and to eat, and so having a place on campus is very important.”
The lack of profitability at these operations, though, are not a simple result of poor management. Liebowitz sees the current dining model and the auxiliary dining services’ financial woes as linked.
“[The three retail operations] are at a competitive disadvantage because [they] operate fully outside the meal plan,” he wrote. “[At most schools] students can use their meal plan payment [points] to eat at the equivalent of the Grille, 51 Main and the [Crossroads Cafe] instead of dining halls.”
Liebowitz said that he plans to collect more student feedback on the meal plan issue.
“We need to follow up and see what students finding most important about our current plan and what they would like to see … including not changing our present plan.”