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(04/21/11 4:04am)
Need a spruce up for the spring? Ready to “shed your winter coat?” A campus staff writer explores the town options for a new spring ‘do.
Texture Salon
(802) 388 – 9449
34 North Pleasant Street
Hours: Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Hair Cuts: $20-$25 for men, $35-$55 for women
Texture Salon, located on Route 7 North, is unique in its approach to hair care. The studio is a mostly organic one and uses organic color, as well as products that are ammonia free. The salon has started using a new green treatment for hair that infuses products with necessary proteins to make hair especially healthy. The hair studio also offers facials and manicures.
BIMINI BILLS
(802) 388- 2350
57 Main Street
Hours: Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m., Saturday from 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Hair Cuts: $20-$30 for men, $25-$40 for women
Bimini Bills has been a member of the Middlebury business community for over 50 years. The salon offers full service cuts for men, women and children. Located less than a mile away from campus, next to Ben Franklin, the studio offers customers cuts, color, highlights and waxing, in addition to manicures and pedicures.
BUD’S BARBER SHOP
(802) 388- 6887
44 Merchants Row
Hours: Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. (the staff takes lunch break from 12 p.m. - 1 p.m.)
Hair Cuts: $12 for men, $15 for women
A family barbershop next to Carol’s Hungry Mind Café, Bud’s Barbershop takes pride in the family environment and old-fashioned atmosphere of its salon. No appointments are necessary; walk-ins are encouraged. The shop promises quick, quality service.
SUPERCUTS
(802) 388- 5400
260 Court Street
Hours: Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. - 7 p.m., Saturday from 9 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sunday from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Hair Cuts: $15.95 for men and women, $39.95 for partial color
At Supercuts, situated near Hannaford’s, walk-in appointments are welcome. There is also a bus route that stops in front of the salon. A low wait time and affordable cuts are guaranteed. The hair studio is a chain of internationally recognized ones and is known for its quality cuts.
JOE’S BARBER SHOP
(802) 388 – 2741
10 Washington Street
Hours: Monday from 8 a.m. - 3 p.m., Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. - 5:30 p.m., Saturday from 8 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Hair Cuts: $11 for men, $14 for women
Joe’s Barber Shop guarantees it has the best haircuts in town. The studio is clean and friendly staff greets all customers. A television makes the cut go quickly. The service is affordable and quick, and walk-ins are welcome.
(04/21/11 4:03am)
The Middlebury Panthers faced a tough 11-10 loss against the Trinity Bantams this past Saturday on Kohn Field. The third-ranked Bantams improve to an undefeated 11-0 season and 7-0 in the NESCAC league. The eighth-ranked Panthers now stand at 7-4 overall and 4-3 in NESCAC play. Lucy Jackson ’12 recognizes the highly competitive nature of the NESCAC league.
“Every year there is more and more parity in our league, and as every team’s level of play continues to rise, every NESCAC match up is really about who shows up on game day, for all 60 minutes, and does the little things right.”
It was certainly a battle between the two teams as there were seven lead changes throughout the contest. Jackson commented, “a couple more possessions and it would have been a different game.” The Panthers were trailing 3-2, but retaliated with three straight goals in order to take a 5-3 lead. The Bantams fired back with two more goals before Margaret Souther ’13 netted her second goal of the game with 4:42 left in the game to put the score at 6-5 going into half time. The Bantams came out strong in the second half, scoring four out of the five first goals.
Steph Gill ‘12 commented ,“They came out really strong after the half, but we were ready to fight back.”
Captain Chase Delano ’11 put the Panthers on the board with a free position goal at the 24:10 mark putting the score at 7-7. The Bantams retaliated with two more goals before Ellen Hall ’13 scored a pair of goals of her own in under two minutes.
Trinity put in two goals giving them an 11-9 lead with 9:32 left in the game. Souther dodged a defender to score her third goal of the game at 8:36 making it a one-goal game.
Trinity capitalized on Middlebury’s three yellow cards in the last four minutes to secure their victory.
“The game was ours to take but we couldn’t pull it out in the end,” said Struthers. “We put together two decent halves, but in the end we made some little mistakes that had big consequences,” said Halle.
Halle and Souther each scored three goals for the Panthers, while Sally Ryan ’11 added a pair of their own. Halle and Delano earned two assists apiece, while Ryan caused five turnovers. Lily Nguyen ’12 finished the game with seven saves for the Panthers.
“It definitely wasn’t for a lack of effort that we lost,” said Halle. “We will be working hard to tie up the loose ends of our game this week.” The Panthers will face Skidmore and Tufts later this week hoping to finish the season with a winning streak.
The team will play Skidmore today at home at 5 pm. They then play Tufts on Saturday and WIlliams next friday on the road to completel their regular sesason play before the start of NESCAC Championship play. Last year, the team had a similar record finishing off the year 8-7. Despite beating out Williams in the last game of the season, the Panthers were beaten out of the NESCAC tournament by third-seeded Colby in the quarterfinals. Their season ended in a close 9-8 loss to the Mules on their home court. This time around, Middlebury will look to finish off the regular season in a stronger position in order to get a more favorable playoff-seed, and in doing so hope to advance deeper into the postseason and make good on their dissapointing first-round exit from last year.
(04/21/11 4:03am)
On June 23, 2010, Cacklin’ Hens: Vermont Yarn, Beads and Gift Emporium made its Middlebury debut. The store, located at 383 Exchange Street, opened soon after Main Street’s Vermont Beads and Fibers closed for business. Cacklin’ Hens’ owner, Cheryl Burnham, who is also the theatre department coordinator at the College, seized the opportunity to open her shop, as it catered to the audience that once frequented Vermont Bead and Fibers. Cheryl actually purchased the “remaining inventory and fixtures” from Vermont Bead and Fibers during its closeout sale. With help from her daughter-in-law Amanda Burnham and her friend Amy Quesnel, Cheryl, who has a degree in buying and merchandising from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, is enjoying the success of the store’s first year.
“Amy and I had been trying for many years to turn one of our hobbies into a business because we’ve always felt it was so important to enjoy what you were doing, so you might as well be making money at it,” she said in an email. “That way, you don’t feel like work is ‘work’; it’s a pleasure and fun.”
Amanda, who was working in Colorado as a benefit analyst at a children’s hospital, said she and her husband chose to move back to the east, as they both sought to be closer to their families. Her relatives reside in Pennsylvania. She is enjoying Middlebury so far and said her favorite spot in town is Costello’s, where she is still getting through the menu and experimenting with sandwich options.
“I have always been crafty and into art,” said Amanda, who graduated from Penn State University with a masters in health. “I also semi knew how to knit and croquet when I started working, but am now much better.”
She credits “good timing” as the reason why she now works at Cacklin’ Hens, as the store’s opening coincided with her move to Vermont. Now a resident of Addison, Vt., Amanda plans to buy a home in Cornwall, Vt. with her husband, Jake, an architecture and engineering teacher at the Hannaford Career Center.
The store, which sells a variety of craft goods, also offers knitting and beading classes. A full schedule of these classes are available online at http://www.vermontybge.com or on the store’s Facebook page. Amanda said “other creative people, who wanted to share their craft” have taught groups how to felt and basket weave too. The current classes at Cacklin’ Hens include “Learn-to-Knit,” “Basic Beading,” “Crochet Basics,” “Knitted Beaded Necklace,” and “Knitted Placemats.” Employees at the store, including Cheryl, Amanda and Quesnel, teach the classes, but each picks those that best suit her specialty. The cost per class is $20, and those enrolled enjoy a 20 percent discount off of the supplies needed to make their knitted or beaded masterpieces.
“The place just evolved; we [Cheryl and Quesnel] both love antiques which is how we decided to incorporate antiques as our main display pieces so the store would feel more like a living room,” said Cheryl in an email. “The customers would be comfortable and happy and feel at home.”
Amanda said Quesnel, who works full-time at Cacklin’ Hens too, has been beading and knitting since she was 12 years old, and the store is “her little brain child.” She describes Quesnel as the “mastermind” of beading knowledge. Beading magazines also keep the employees inspired.
“Our goal is to go to the large bead show in Arizona,” said Amanda. There storeowners can choose from endless quantities of jewels, and can also work with vendors to create novel bead combinations.
Amanda and Cheryl also travel to various tradeshows for yarn suppliers, as well as to product shows, where they buy much of the store’s inventory. The two drive to New York City every August and visit the New England Product Show in Maine each year, where they buy many items to bring back to Middlebury. Representatives from yarn companies also come to Cacklin’ Hens four times a year, so Cheryl can purchase needed quantities of yarn then too.
In addition to the seemingly endless supply of beads and yarn, the store also sells a variety of gift items, including rugs, purses and bags, ready-made jewelry and Allen Design clocks.
“We want people to think of us when they need not only yarn or beads, but for that unique birthday gift, or holiday gift,” said Cheryl in an email.
Ashlee Bourque, who holds an art degree and has a background in knitting and beading, does much of the croqueting at the store. She is the crafter of many of the store’s samples; her favorite yarn company is Noro, which sells “a colorful, bright yarn.” Bourque, who said she always made earrings as a child, recently brought home four boxes of beads, as she especially enjoys beading during the summer.
“Everyone has a great time working here,” she said. “You get to be creative and make stuff all day, and the other employees are awesome.”
Cacklin’ Hens has also started hosting birthday parties, mostly for eight to ten-year-old girls. The large classroom area to hold the celebration is also where the weekly classes meet.
“They [the party-goers] bead and have cake,” said Amanda. “The parents love it and the kids have a lot of fun.”
The store is now a member of the Better Middlebury Partnership and the Chamber of Commerce, but Amanda said the hardest part of any small business is “building the awareness that we exist.”
“We would love to see more Middlebury students at the store,” she said. “I see College students trickle in, but we want to see more of them and partner with them on projects.”
Over Winter Term, Cacklin’ Hens offered a basic beading class to students from the College. Three girls signed up, and the store hopes to teach the class again next January. For now, Amanda encourages students to attend the free, open knit-in on Wednesdays from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. About five to 10 women from the community, some of whom have experience and others of whom are beginners, gather to knit and help one another improve their techniques.
“They [the women] are happy to share their tips because they have a passion for knitting,” said Amanda.
Cacklin’ Hens has several plans for the future. The store aims to begin making custom bridal jewelry, so the bride “becomes part of the process,” said Amanda. A class to make reusable market totes for the Farmers Market on Saturdays is also in the works.
“Picking out beads and yarn is a process,” said Amanda, whose favorite yarn company, Misti Alpaca, offers a “chunky, soft, warm” product. She believes the yarn’s “quick, fun patterns” liven up the winter months.
The store is open Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and on Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information or for specific details about the classes call (802) 388-2221.
“When I first told my son, Jake, about the plans for the store, he asked about the name and I said we didn’t really have one yet, so he said ‘Two Ole Hens,’ of course meaning Amy and I, and then laughed,” said Cheryl, who also noted that the store’s name evolved into its current one, in an email. “To this day when first timers walk in the door, there’s an exclamation of ‘Wow, this is awesome.’ It’s so big and fun.”
(04/21/11 4:02am)
On a chilly, windy Saturday in Vermont, the Middlebury College baseball team saw their postseason hopes take a severe hit at the hands of the Wesleyan Cardinals, who took both games of a double-header to win the overall series two games to three. The loss dropped the Panthers to 5-4 in NESCAC play, and 8-9 overall on the year.
The series had started off optimistically enough for Middlebury, who scored six runs in their half of the first inning to take a 6-2 lead early in the contest. In the second inning, the Panthers were able to add to the lead thanks to a Joe Conway ’13 homer to left field and a Michael Morris ’13 RBI single. After Wesleyan chased Middlebury starter Nick Angstman ’11 in the top of the fourth with the score at 10-7, Andy Dittrich took the mound and calmed things down, going two and a third innings without allowing a run. Captain Donnie McKillop ’11 and Zach Roeder ’12 both added RBIs in the bottom of the sixth, rounding out the scoring for the Panthers. Tyler Buckingham ’13 and John Popkowski ’13 finished the game off for Middlebury, refusing to allow a run between the two of them.
Poised to make some serious noise in the NESCAC west standings with a good performance Saturday, the Panthers instead saw their early-season momentum slip through their gloves, as they dropped both ends of a Saturday double-header in very different but similarly frustrating fashion.
In game one, the Panthers struggled in all phases of the game en route to a 6-0 loss. Wesleyan starter Brett Yasuri dominated the game, striking out two and walking only one in a complete-game shutout of Middlebury. The Cardinals scored methodically, adding two runs apiece in the second, fourth, and seventh innings, and were helped at times by Panther fielding errors, which might have been the deciding factors in the game were Middlebury able to muster any runs of their own. Roeder, Thomas Driscoll ’13, and Alex Kelly ’14 were the only Middlebury batsmen to muster hits in the game, while Michael Joseph ’13 went seven tough innings and took the complete game loss, his second on the year.
The second game of the double-feature was much more interesting, but equally demoralizing for the Panthers, as they squandered a 10-6 lead in the ninth inning to allow Wesleyan to take the game 11-10. The game started as though it would be another dominating Cardinal performance, as the visitors were able to plate four runs in their half of the first. However, this time Middlebury was able to strike back, scoring once in the bottom of the first and then six times in the home half of the second. This time around the Cardinals were helping the Panthers, as Middlebury used two errors and a walk along with a Roeder two-run single for their scoring opportunities. Middlebury added two more in the fourth and another in the sixth while allowing Wesleyan to score twice more in the middle innings to take a 10-6 lead going into the ninth inning. That’s when things went downhill quicker than a Dirk van Duym ’12 fastball.
Starter John Wiet ’13, who had settled down after the rough first inning, started the inning for Middlebury, looking to post the complete-game victory. However, after he allowed three consecutive singles, he was pulled in favor of Scooter Scott ’11. Scott struck out the first batter he faced, but allowed a single to the next, making the score 10-7 and keeping the bases loaded with only one out. Then, the Panthers were unable to turn a game-ending double play, committing an error and allowing the Cardinals to cut the lead to 10-8. Popkowski then took over on the mound, looking to record the save and end the game, but fared no better than Scott. The next Wesleyan batter struck a two-RBI single, and a fielder’s choice gave the Cardinals the late-game lead. Middlebury was unable to rally the next inning, and Wesleyan walked away with a series that they very well might have lost if not for some crucial Panther mistakes.
Middlebury will look to improve their NESCAC-record this weekend against perennial conference cellar-dweller Hamilton. If the Panthers can follow the softball team’s lead and sweep the Continentals, they still have a decent shot of making the postseason this year.
(04/21/11 4:01am)
Middlebury Murmur, which officially launched last week, allows students, faculty, staff and alumni to record stories about their Middlebury experiences specific to a place on campus. By calling 802-443-2600 and typing in the number in the orange blurb specific to each building on campus, you can hear recorded stories about that place. Typing in the number for Bi Hall, for instance, will allow you to hear Barbara Wilkinson ’12 recount her first-year experience of sliding in socks around the upper floors of the building with her friend as they avoided studying for a Chemistry exam. Pushing the three numbers for Battell will give you a story from Pat Cronin ’86 in which he describes the rooms that were just “a notch above jail cells” and the friendships he made that have lasted far beyond his first year.
While Murmur is an international program that began in Toronto’s Kensington market neighborhood in 2003 as a network of short recordings that tell personal stories about buildings and sites in an area, Middlebury Murmur aims to make experiencing the college more personal.
“[It aims] to convey the Middlebury experience through narrated stories,” said Design Director Pamela Fogg. “In the fall, we will roll out a web component that will allow people from all over the world to hear what Middlebury is like, narrated by the people who had that experience.”
Last week, Murmur set up a display in the library, complete with a map on the floor detailing locations about which stories have been recorded (which include Bi-Hall, Proctor, the library, Munroe and Johnson). On Thursday, April 14, Murmur provided a recording booth in the library for students, faculty, alumni and staff to make recordings.
According to Fogg, about 60 stories have been recorded thus far.
“Because [the stories] are unrehearsed and not recorded in a studio, it takes time to edit them,” said Fogg. “For this launch, we tried to pick 20 to edit. We hope to get more up for the fall and web launch. New stories were collected last week at the library exhibit and we will also be recording at this year’s reunion.”
Currently, the communications staff records all stories but Murmur hopes to eventually have a system that will allow people to simply call in and submit their stories. Fogg believes the program has been successful.
“I think [the community’s response] is positive,” said Fogg.
While the program was introduced mainly for visitors on campus, it may offer a larger commentary on storytelling as a whole.
“The way we tell stories is changing,” said Jasmine Lee ’14. “A lot of it is spoken now, and it’s becoming more indirect. Instead of telling someone a story one on one, there are other mediums thorough which people are getting these stories, like the phone or the Internet. I think this is good, because it’s a product of how we grew up.”
(04/21/11 4:01am)
Day 1, Friday:
Throughout the day, Powershifters bid Middlebury, Vermont adieu and boarded buses to head down the coast. It was D.C. or bust — and 11 hours later, sitting in gridlock on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and missing Al Gore’s keynote speech, it was almost bust. Luckily, we tumbled off the buses into the Walter E. Washington Convention Center just in time to register and hear Van Jones, famed environmental advocate, speak for a rousing welcome to the capital. The speakers went on, but I left for bed, deliriously tired after the long day on the road.
Day 2, Saturday:
The 10,000-or-so souls reconvened bright and early for the day with triple-shot Venti-sized Starbucks coffees in hand (the mark of becoming a city android for the weekend). The morning was devoted to movement training sessions that covered how to organize and structure an environmental movement in one’s community. At Middlebury, with an organic garden, biomass plant and ultra-vocal Sunday Night Group, it’s hard to remember that not all schools have the same amount of environmental enthusiasm. West Virginia University, for example, is still trying to set up meetings with their president to discuss a carbon neutrality plan. These schools undoubtedly benefited from the training sessions and were able to collect materials and models on how to set up activist groups. The Middlebury contingency, however, might have benefited from more advanced training.
The convention center was just a short walk away to Chinatown, which provided access to enough good ethnic food to satisfy our culture-starved palates for at least another month. After a lunch break, we had three blocks of time to fill with panel, training or workshop sessions of our choice — and we could choose from nearly a hundred options. The sessions discussed everything from fracking (a method of natural gas drilling) to how to succinctly counter-argue the claims of a climate-change-denier.
That night was another gathering at the main stage to listen to a lineup of speakers, both famous and pulled-from-the-crowd. Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), promised to do all she could to advance progress of climate regulations. Tim de Christopher cautioned the masses to remember the hard truth — we have already gone too far, destroyed too much and our world will never be the same, but he encouraged us to continue the fight. Hands down, the best treat was to see our own Bill McKibben take the stage to eardrum-shattering cheers. We forget how privileged we are here to be able to chat face-to-face with this environmental activism rockstar. Speeches were followed by a concert of several sweet-voiced musicians and an always sweet, longed-for bedtime.
Day 3, Sunday:
More movement training sessions kick-started Sunday and were followed by some downtime. Scores of buzzing students unwound energy and soaked up some sun on the green lawn of the square in front of the convention center. Most of our group departed on Sunday afternoon, but the ones who were sticking it out until Monday attended a state breakout session with their home state or the always-welcoming Vermont to learn what environmental organizations and programs were happening in that state and how one could get involved. I stopped by the Vermont room before heading to the West Virginia room to get my name on both sign-up lists and was able to see some troubling differences in state activities. Vermont was as high-energy and well-organized as you would expect with packets for its kids, a comprehensively-built email list and SNG-leaders keeping everything running smoothly.
The West Virginia room, on the other hand, lacked a facilitator or any sort of leadership personages. The miniscule, aimlessly rambling students seemed unable to articulate any movements I would put any confidence into and failed spectacularly to communicate with each other. My heart sank after my home-state breakout and nearly stopped when I attended the consecutive Lobby Day training session in preparation for the lobbying that we would be participating in with our state representative on Monday. Only one other guy and I made up the lobby team for West Virginia, with other states like Iowa boasting at least a twenty-person team, others with much more. It was disheartening to see how some states really were not up to par in the movement and have even more complex relationships with big energetic and economic problems. West Virginia is so bound up with the coal industry that its two Democratic senators must disregard environmental regulation to support the existing source of economy in the state, and dare not consider alternative energies in the face of the huge coal corporations.
Day 4, Monday:
The last day of Powershift was certainly the best experience of the trip because it was the most deliberate use of our powers as citizens of a democratic government. The participators met in Lafayette Square in front of the White House to march and display support for investment in clean energy and ending coal and oil dependence through passing the Clean Air Act, one of the most effective pieces of legislation for the slowing of emissions and resulting climate change. Being a part of such a huge march on Washington was exciting and empowering. People chanted, “Oh! It’s hot in here, there’s too much carbon in the atmosphere!” and “This is what democracy looks like!” as they marched to the Capitol building to lobby. The other half of the crowd marched on the Chamber of Commerce to protest corporate handouts. Stopping traffic, making a scene — it was like getting attention as a two-year-old by having a tantrum, but it was also getting to directly use our first amendment rights. Then we lobbied. This involved meeting with staff members who worked for our representatives in the Senate and the House and, as constituents, asking them to support the Clean Air Act and our climate concerns. With my little West Virginia voice, I didn’t feel as though I had made a difference, but I did feel like an American, if that makes sense. I would recommend a lobbying experience to everyone, just to put your toe in the torrential waters/sluggish swamp of the process of Congress for a moment. After a whirlwind trip, we booked it to Union Station to catch our bus to return north, pulling into Adirondack Circle at 2 a.m., fully Powershifted, with stories to tell and new thoughts to share.
(04/21/11 4:01am)
Last week, 270 Middlebury students across disciplines and class years came together to present the culmination of months of research in what has become an annual celebration of academic exploration at Middlebury — the student spring symposium.
Now in its first year as a multi-day event, the symposium began Thurday with what Center for Teaching, Learning and Research (CTLR) Director and Symposium Committee Co-Chair Kathy Skubikowski described as “a festival for the arts,” including music and dance performances as well as film and theater pieces. The decision to schedule these performances on a separate day was made with the hope of increasing attendance — according to Skubikowski, last year’s symposium lasted until 6:15 p.m., and the audience dwindled as the night went on. In addition, Bicentennial Hall was not at all conducive to music — with its lackluster acoustics — or dancing, with its hard, wooden floors.
“This year the arts department [was] really intent on there not being any distinction between the morning and evening presentations,” explained Carla Cevasco ’11, student project manager for the symposium. “They want the arts to be taken seriously and seen as an academic thing.”
To accompany this homage to art academia, the committee selected Brad Corrigan ’96, a member of the bands Dispatch and Braddigan, as keynote speaker. This was a rather unconventional choice, given that in the past two years, the speakers have been academics; Gruia Badescu ’07, who did work for National Geographic and the United Nations, spoke last year, and the year before, marine scientist Cinda Scott ’99 gave the keynote address. Skubikowski, however, felt Corrigan was a good fit for the position.
“We saw how well Midd had prepped him for what he later did in founding three or four charitable foundations — he put together his music major, environmental ethics minor, lacrosse, french — to help other people,” said Skubikowski. “It struck us that he took the skills and passion he acquired here and put them together in interesting ways.”
“He showed there’s more to a Middlebury education than what you learn in the classroom or what you write or what you learn in the lab,” said Cevasco.
While some were unimpressed with Corrigan’s speech, others were moved by the work he has done since leaving school.
“He showed that what he learned at Middlebury, he was able to apply to the rest of his life and that’s what a lot of people are insecure about with the liberal arts. They go to college and they do something [t]here and they don’t know how to apply it necessarily later on,” said Cevasco. “So the fact that a music major could go on and do something beyond music … I think it was a really good thing for students to see.”
The Friday presentations featured poster representations of research as well as short lectures given by students on their findings. The lectures were organized into themed groups, giving each speaker 15 minutes to share what they learned through their research. Attendees were able to move among groups to enjoy individual presentations, allowing them to hear about a wide variety of topics and not be confined to one grouping if, for example, “Intersections and Evolutions of Identity Politics” was being presented at the same time as “American Travel Writing Projects.”
Presentation topics within each category were loosely related, to “allow viewers to look at one topic from a variety of directions,” said Skubikowski.
“A lot of the presentation groups are trying to find connections that even the presenters hadn’t thought of initially,” said Cevasco. “I think it can be illuminating even for presenters to see their work being interpreted just by these groupings.”
In what seemed a stroke of good luck, the symposium coincided with preview days for prospective students. However, this setup was not entirely a coincidence. According to Skubikowski, after last year’s symposium, Dean of Admissions Bob Clagett requested that some of the student research posters be placed in the admissions office for preview days. But what he really wanted was for “students and parents to experience the buzz” — that is to say, the high-energy excitement of academia that was tangible throughout the day. So preview days and the symposium were organized for the same weekend, allowing prospective students to experience the opportunities Middlebury can offer them.
“I think its important that prospective students see — especially if they’re deciding between a place like Middlebury and a bigger university — that here at a liberal arts college you have more of a change to do these kinds of things, to do research directly with professors instead of having grad students,” said Cevasco.
While student participation is growing every year, the question as to whether canceling Friday classes increased attendance is still up for debate. Even with a successful turnout, it seemed as though many of students present were seniors watching their friends present and other presenters moving around between presentations.
“Because there are so many seniors presenting senior work it’s harder to get underclassmen to come for example because they don’t personally know people who are presenting,” said Cevasco. “They’d have to come there out of pure academic interest, which not everyone is going to do. But we’re a pretty nerdy campus and there were a lot of people there who were genuinely interested.”
Others felt a strong student interest present in all years, and not just among the senior class.
“I’m so glad they canceled classes so students who were not presenting could see the amazing amount of original research that students do on this campus,” said Assistant Professor of Political Science Quinn Mecham. “I had a number of students come up to me afterwards and say how the symposium inspired them to make sure they do an independent research project while they are here.”
The symposium was, all in all, a resounding success, received very well by presenters, attendees and moderators alike. For seniors, it was a chance to show the fruits of their labors as well as to see the result of their classmates four years at Middlebury.
“I think the symposium was a tremendous success for the College, exhibiting its encouragement of student activity over and above classroom performance,” said Evan Masseau ’11. “I enjoyed seeing culminating projects in many disciplines that really displayed just how diverse Midd Kids’ interests are.”
For underclassman, it encouraged and inspired future participation and promoted independent research projects as an academic avenue.
“Overall I was really impressed with the students’ knowledge of their topics. Obviously they had all done significant amounts of research for their subject, and it showed,” said Leslie Reed ’14. “During several of the presentations I felt like I was hearing from a guest speaker or professor more than a student. For me, it was motivating to see that all of the hard work really does pay off.”
For underclassmen it was an opportunity to revitalize their interests through research and student interactions.
“I did the symposium because I want to let people in Middlebury be more exposed to the art of porcelain as well as Chinese history,” said Wenbo Zhang ’13, a first-time presenter. “I really appreciated the amount of freedom the symposium gave me so I didn’t feel pressur[ed] in any way … I had fun talking to people about my poster and sharing some stories about the emperors.”
The symposium offers a brief moment for students, so focused on their own work and their own classes, to take a step back to appreciate and celebrate the successes of our student body in independent research.
“Remember that the people you see around every day in the dining hall — we’re all academics,” said Cevasco.
(04/21/11 4:01am)
The Lady Panthers flattened Hamilton, scoring 30 runs with only 27 hits on Saturday. The Middlebury Women’s Softball team record now stands at 17-4 overall, and 8-1 for NESCAC West. They have been on a winning streak, winning nine games in the past few weeks.
Against the Continentals, the Panthers score 14-2 in their first game, and then 16-0 in the second. The Panthers’ prowess on the field cut both games short at five innings because of an eight-run mercy rule. The wins against Hamilton this weekend puts Middlebury Softball on top of the NESCAC West Division, and in the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
Jessa Hoffman ’13 started the first inning of the first game for the Panthers, hitting a single down the left side, followed by Leslie Crawford ’11 with a groundball to third base, allowing Hoffman take second. Megan Margel ’11 hit a double down center field, allowing Hoffman to cross home plate, scoring the first of many runs for the Panthers this past weekend.
Geena Constantin ‘11 and Emma Katz ’13 also got hits in the first inning. Hamilton College answered with a run of it’s own, but was quickly shut down in the second inning by Emily Burbridge’s ’11 homer, allowing Sarah Boylan ’13 to come home.
In the third inning, Middlebury pulled away from Hamilton with three runs on four hits, with Crawford, Margel, Constantin and Burbridge each putting runners on the bases. The Panthers slowed down in the fourth inning, with no runs and no hits, but really brought it home in the fifth and final inning, with an incredible nine runs on six hits and three errors.
The Panthers came on strong in the second game, with Jessa Hoffman ’13 smacking a home run right off the bat. Constantin ’11 followed that up with a double, sophomore Jessica Poracky hit a single, and senior Kelsey Chisholm rounded out the inning with a single as well.
The Panthers continued to gain momentum, scoring seven runs on four hits and two errors in the second inning, three in the fourth, and two in the fifth.
Sophomore Jessa Hoffman was named NESCAC player of the week this week for her achievements against Hamilton and throughout the season. She hit .526, and slugged .947. This week alone, she hit five doubles and a home run for the Panthers. She scored nine runs, drove in four and had an on-base mark of .591. She scored 8 runs and hit three doubles this weekend against the Continentals.
With this hot start, Middlebury softball is poised to make noise on the national stage as they have never before. At the very least, they will be able to put themselves in excellent position to make a run deep into the postseason. It’s not just that softball is winning, it’s the way they are winning — with a level of dominance in all phases of the game that leaves their opponents scratching their heads week in and week out.
Up next for the Lady Panthers is a home game against Lyndon State at 3:30 pm and again at 5:30 pm on April 19, followed by a double header at Union on April 20, three home games against Amherst (at 5:00 pm on April 22, 12:00 pm on April 23 and again at 2:00 pm on the 23rd), a double header at home against Plymouth State on April 25 at 3:30 pm and 5:30 pm,and a double header at home against Skidmore on April 27 at 3:30 pm and 5:30 pm.
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Each year, 60 percent of Middlebury juniors study abroad, but Lisa Luna ’13 and Ethan Galiette ’13 are switching things up. Both are currently spending the spring semester of their sophomore year abroad. Luna is studying geology and ecology at the Universidad Austral de Chile through Middlebury’s C.V. Starr School located in Valdivia, Chile. Luna is also interning with the Chilean forest service, Corporacion Nacional Forestal de Chile (CONAF) to design a field guide for a new national park. While most Middlebury students study abroad during their junior year, Luna felt like it was time.
“I was ready to do something different,” Luna wrote in an email. “I think that the desire to fly away occurs at different times for different people, and it’s good to embrace that urge when it happens.
“Early is only a relative term,” said Luna, “and I know that I was ready to go when I did, and that I’m going to appreciate my next semesters at Midd far more than I would have otherwise.”
Galiette, too, felt unconstrained by the tradition of studying abroad junior year. He is studying economics at University College in London and taking two history classes that focus on London.
“It was a great decision for me to study abroad my sophomore year,” he wrote in an email. “I decided to study abroad now for a couple of reasons. Since I play soccer, my only option was to study abroad in the spring term, and I don’t see much of a difference between going sophomore spring versus junior spring. Either way I’d miss a spring term at Midd.
“That being said,” he continued, “it is more important to land a summer internship for the summer after junior year than after sophomore year and I did not want to have to deal with applications, interviews and even flying back and forth to the States for face-to-face interviews while I’d be studying abroad.”
Chile and London are two vastly different places but they do share one thing in common: they are both big changes from Middlebury, Vt.
“I think that the biggest benefit for me has been gaining some perspective from outside of the Middlebury bubble earlier on than most students,” said Luna. “Being here in Chile has helped clarify some of my goals for the rest of my time at Midd and for my time after Midd.
“It’s also shown me just how much I have learned from my time at Midd so far,” said Luna, “which is often hard to grasp when you’re desperately typing away in Bi Hall at 3 a.m.”
Galiette agreed that exposure to a different culture has been one of the biggest benefits of studying abroad.
“Studying in one of the biggest cities in the world is a great change from the pace at Middlebury,” said Galiette. “I live in a dorm with British students as well as international students, including Americans. Being in London has made it easy to travel through Europe as well. And I’ve been to the Emirates to see Arsenal play — one of the greatest experiences possible.
But Luna reminds us that although studying abroad is an immersion into another society, it’s still another college term.
“It’s just like normal life, but in a different place,” she said. “I think the thing to remember about this being an ‘experience’ is that yes, it is an experience, but so is every single day of every person’s life. What I mean by that is that this isn’t a game, and it’s not a break from ‘normal life,’ but rather a really awesome part of normal life that happens to be lived in a different place and a different language.”
While it is normal life, it cannot be denied that the different place and the different language are influential components of a term abroad.
“The best part about studying abroad for me so far has probably been the language,” said Luna. “I absolutely love speaking Spanish all the time. I’ve also had an excellent time at my internship.”
Since Galiette is studying in London, the language barrier has not been an aspect of his term there. But the European culture has been a change from which he feels he has greatly benefited.
“The best part of being abroad is meeting new people from all over the world and living in a new culture,” said Galiette. “Traveling through Europe goes along with that point as I have seen many different areas and cultures. I don’t have too many negatives about being abroad. The one that jumps out to me is missing friends back at Midd.”
Both Luna and Galiette stress that study abroad is not something students should feel has to be confined to junior year and that the decision to study abroad should happen when it works best for students.
“I would definitely recommend studying abroad when you feel ready,” said Luna. “If that’s earlier than most people go, that’s okay. If it’s later, that’s good too.
“Study abroad isn’t just something that you do as part of your education,” said Luna. “It’s part of your life. So choosing when to do it is really important, and I think that going at the time that feels right makes the experience so much better. It’s not about age or ‘preparedness’ in a numerical sense. It’s a personal choice, just like everything else in life.”
(04/21/11 4:01am)
Midd alum Mike Bender ’97 has just announced that his much-loved website, Awkward Family Photos (AFP), has been nominated for a Webby Award. Awkward Family Photos is exactly what its name suggests: a collection of photos featuring highly amusing and amazingly awkward families. Bender launched this site about a year and a half ago after realizing that the awkward family photos his family had were something relatable that everyone could enjoy together. The site has been featured in the New Yorker, GQ and Entertainment Weekly among other press outlets.
For Bender, being nominated for a Webby Award is a great honor. A Webby Award is an award presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Science (IADAS) for excellence on the Internet with categories in websites, interactive advertising online, film and video and mobile content. For each category, there are two winners selected: one by members of the IADAS, and one by the public who cast their votes during Webby People’s Voice voting.
“It feels great to be nominated. For a website, the Webbys are the equivalent to the Emmys for TV or the Oscars for film, so it’s a big deal for us. We are nominated in the ‘weird category’ and of course we can consider AFP’s oddness a badge of honor.”
Some of the other websites in the “weird category” include thedailywh.at, whatthef*ckshouldimakefordinner.com, rathergood.com and mostawesomestthingever.com.
So why should you vote for AFP over the other “weird” websites?
“Awkward Family Photos deserves to win because … our site consistently surprises people and make them think, ‘Now, how the hell did that happen?’” said Bender. “But most importantly, we do it lovingly and never assume that we are any less weird or awkward than the next person. And let’s face it — is there anything stranger than family? No, and we like it that way.”
Bender encourages all Midd Kids to vote for his website to support a fellow Middlebury graduate and to help “spread the awkwardness,” as the site’s tagline suggests.
“I spent four gloriously awkward years at Middlebury and hope everyone will support us and vote for Awkward Family Photos by April 28,” said Bender. “To win, we’ll need every vote we can get.”
(04/21/11 4:01am)
On Monday, April 16, Otter Creek Bakery celebrated its 25th anniversary. Two and a half decades after co-owners Ben and Sarah Wood began their business, the bakery is still going strong.
“It is a real milestone,” said Sarah, a resident of Cornwall, Vt. “We feel lucky to be where we are and still be a business and still a couple.”
As a large banner and a slew of silver balloons marked the anniversary to locals passing by, the bakery offered special items in honor of the occasion. Otter Creek does not have a liquor license, so it got creative and put a new spin on a celebratory toast to its many years in business: the bakery served complimentary toasted baguettes with a maple fudge spread. The spread was organic, and with the exception of the Peruvian chocolate, other ingredients, such as the sugar and cream, were locally sourced. The Woods processed the spread, and customers can now buy the sweet treat in jars to bring home. The bakery also served merengues made especially for the occasion.
After years of working in the culinary world in all corners of the country, the Woods purchased an old Esso Station and opened Otter Creek Bakery in 1986. To the delight of local residents, students from the College and tourists passing through Middlebury, Otter Creek offers a variety of baked goods, sandwiches and more. The Woods are incredibly grateful for the sustained community support.
“Basically today is just a big thank you to the community and to our customers for being there for us,” said Sarah.
Throughout the Woods’ journey, they have kept their business and family closely aligned.
“It is a real family operation, and it is just quite an accomplishment to be in business and successful and still a thriving family for 25 years,” said Sarah.
Otter Creek Bakery is open Monday through Saturday, from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and on Sundays from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
(04/21/11 4:01am)
Dottie Neuberger ’58, community activist
When Dottie Neuberger ’58 graduated from Middlebury, she had no intention of settling in town, but over 50 years later she’s still here. Neuberger remembers her time at Middlebury fondly. She was a sorority girl, an athlete and mixed and matched various other activities during her time at the college.
If there is anyone who knows Middlebury, it’s Neuberger; few have served the community as thoroughly as she has. Many students have lent a hand with Neuberger at the free community suppers that she organizes at the Congregational Church in Middlebury. Through the supper program, Neuberger also provides nourishment to the community by serving lunch four days a week and handing out breakfast cereals at the weekly dinners. In addition to her volunteer work with the community suppers, Neuberger has worked in schools all throughout Addison County, including the Bridport elementary schools in which she now works, and she has taught at the local community college for the last 20 years. One of the reasons Neuberger may have remained in Middlebury after graduation is her warm memories of school.
“It was great fun,” Neuberger said. “My college friends are still some of my best friends 50 years later. I know that’s corny, but it’s true. When I was a student, I’m not sure if I realized what value my friends at Middlebury would be to me for the rest of my life.”
In fact, Neuberger cites being able to see so many friends and classmates when they return to the college as one of the greatest perks of staying in Middlebury.
“Most of us grow up at college,” she said. “When you go to college there are a lot of people with similar interests and similar goals and you’re living together — growing up together for four years so you get very close. When you go out in the work world that cohort won’t always be there anymore.”
Like many other Midd Kids who hail from just outside of Boston, Neuberger moved back to Boston after graduation to work for a few years while making plans for law school. Her first job out of college was in a merchandising training program run by Filene’s. Through the program young employees rotated through different positions and when Neuberger got to the research department she stayed on in an open position. After Filene’s, Neuberger returned to Middlebury to work as the first ever Assistant Director of Admissions for Women. Soon after her return to Midd, plans for law school in Cambridge, Mass. were set.
“I was off to Harvard, but I met my husband and got married instead,” said Neuberger.
Neuberger began building her adult life in the town of Middlebury and has remained here since her initial return in 1960. During her early years back in Vermont, Neuberger stayed at home to raise her children and then eased back into the workforce, moving people from mental hospitals into the community during the initial phases of deinstitutionalization. Later, she became a school-based clinician, which she still does to this day.
“There’s lots of part-time work in Vermont which is great for when your family is your main focus,” Neuberger said, adding, “Middlebury is a great place to raise a family.”
When it comes to looking for work after school, Neuberger urges grads to, “Get a job. You don’t have to get the job, but get a job that you’re interested in,” said Neuberg. “Find something where you can learn. That’ll keep you young for as long as you live as far as I’m concerned.”
In her eyes, Middlebury has not changed more than anywhere else over the years.
“The population has grown. It was a much freer community, but that was everywhere.”
Modernity has stripped even Middlebury of the luxury of ignoring problems in its midst but the important qualities of the town still remain.
“[Though] there are more stores down on Route 7 now, there is [still] a sense of community in Middlebury and that’s one thing that hasn’t changed. The College adds so much to it. I don’t think the college kids realize what role models they are for the kids in the community and how important they are to the kids here,” said Neuberger. “They do a great job of doing that just by being who they are.”
Neuberger considers her upcoming honorary degree from Middlebury and other awards that have been conferred upon her great surprises that were not on her radar.
“I look at the other recipients and I’m truly in awe of them,” she said. “They’ve worked in a macrocosm and I’ve worked in a microcosm — that’s something anyone can do.”
Neuberger’s life is an exemplar of how one can continue working with the community in which one finds him or herself to help that community.
“I don’t solve many problems,” she said. But, “We solve a lot of problems together. Making change is about working with other people and persevering."
Padma Desai, expert in Russian economics
“Go out in the world. Live how people live for a dollar a day and after that life-transforming experience, come back to America,” said Padma Desai.
The world renowned scholar of Russian economics and professor of economics at Columbia University came of age in India and has since made the United States her home, a logical step since when Desai was growing up, “the destination was always America,” she said.
In those days it was the wealthy Indian boys who studied at Oxford and Cambridge on their fathers’ dimes who were able to go West, but as the daughter of a professor, Desai simply could not afford to make her way to the West along the same route as her male counterparts. Instead, she applied for merit-based awards and landed a fellowship in the American Association of University Women, which brought her to Harvard in 1955 to complete a Ph.D. in economics. At Harvard she began pursuing her life’s work.
“As soon as I started reading and going to school, even primary school, I just wanted to be a teacher,” she said. “I always wanted to teach and change ideas. At one point my dad suggested that I be a doctor, but I said no.”
Though Desai always knew that she wanted to teach, deciding just what she would teach was little more than a random decision.
“[Economics] was almost a default option,” she said. “My eldest sister studied English literature so I wanted to do something different. Looking back I think it was the wisest decision of my life. [Economics] gives me the analytical rigor that I love.”
She may have taken up economics on a whim, but Desai found her calling in the discipline. Her work in Russian economics has brought her countless academic distinctions and awards, research and teaching posts, publications, grants and conferences in which she has been both a participant and guest of honor. Her 13th book, which focuses on the recent financial crisis, is set to be released in the coming weeks. Her memoirs will be on shelves in 2012.
“Harvard was totally liberating and exhilarating. That’s where my American roots are. After fifty years in this country, temperamentally, I feel that I belong here,” says Desai.
Having now lived more years of her life in the U.S. than in India, Desai reports feeling disoriented when she returns to her homeland.
In the initial transition, Desai experienced many differences between the two cultures. Just as few of us will remember Middlebury solely for its academics, Harvard brought Desai more than just intellectual surprise, given the fact that Harvard provides a different setting from her conservative Indian childhood.
“I was quite attractive, to put it mildly, and I wore a sari and I attracted a lot of attention. I felt very special,” said Desai.
Fifty years of teaching undergraduates — from her time as a teaching fellow at Harvard up through her present professorship at Columbia — has put Desai in a unique position to comment on the undergraduates alongside whom she will be receiving her honorary degree. Years of experience have led her to worry about the lack of interest that native-born Americans seem to show toward math, science and engineering and wonder if this has something to do with using a calculator too young.
“At all stages American education has to be entertaining,” she said. “The worst evaluation a professor can get is ‘this teacher is boring.’ In other cultures, people value education. You get down to it. It’s a serious business. You want to master it. This whole conception that young people should be entertained while learning is problematic.”
Desai cautions against the American tendency to go overboard and create massive problems, like the financial crisis of 2009, although she notes that, “Americans are also great problem solvers and it’s the same drive that leads us to go overboard that leads to innovation.”
Desai’s favorite aspect of Americans, though, is our temperament.
“Americans, by temperament, are very optimistic,” she said. “My young students are so idealistic. I’ve never seen young people in any country who are so driven by idealism. They should go out and see the wide world. They may want to change some things they see and can get fulfillment that way. Americans like to do something different. They want to do things that help people.
“There are always people who want to make money too, but the instinct to do good is a very American thing. Never have I ever heard so many people say, ‘I want to give something back to the community.’ It’s such an American calling especially meaning the community around you, maybe not the world, but people want to help the community that they are in. I find it a very exceptional quality amongst the young in this country.”
(04/21/11 4:01am)
“I guess I’ve always had this kind of independent streak,” Zach Schuetz ’11 said halfway through our interview, as though that was not evident from the moment he strolled into the Grille. The bearded New Hampshire native had chosen to accent his hoodie and jeans with a plaid bathrobe, tweed cap, fingerless leather gloves and orange patterned socks with sandals. The backdrop of the Grille, usually warm and inviting, felt pathetically generic in comparison.
Perhaps a stage would have been more appropriate. A theatre and music enthusiast, homeschooled from first to eighth grade, Schuetz quickly found himself on a different wavelength from many of his peers.
“I was involved in theatre and band and a bunch of different groups that weren’t ‘cool’ according to the majority,” he said.
Even his shoulder-length hair and beard — which he stopped shaving senior year — elicit strong reactions.
“People would comment on it and just be like, ‘Wow, it’s so weird that there’s a guy with a beard here,’” he said. “I would just be like, ‘Well, it’s actually sort of the natural state of things for most guys.’”
This matter-of-fact attitude served him well in his transition to Middlebury.
“When I got to college,” he said, “I was like, ‘Wait a minute. There’s no one stopping me from doing whatever I want, wearing whatever I want, spending my time how I choose.’ It’s been a lot of fun.”
With a newfound sense of empowerment and more leisure time than he had to work with in high school, he began to explore a wide range of opportunities. Over the past four years, he has sung with a cappella groups of the Renaissance, Christian and anime varieties; played Quidditch; joined Xenia, the substance-free social house; and played percussion in both the pep band and the pit for the Middlebury College Musical Players. He also enjoys Dungeons and Dragons (a fantasy role-playing game), anime, video games and science fiction stories.
The line between Schuetz’s leisure activity and academic work is blurred when it comes to languages. In total, the Japanese major and linguistics minor has studied five at Middlebury: Japanese, Spanish, German, Sanskrit and Ancient Greek.
“I like to hang out and talk with people about different languages they’re learning and try and compare different structures. I get really excited when you find some obscure word that turns out to be related to … some language that you wouldn’t think.”
Along the same lines, he truly appreciates his classmates’ intellectual drive, both inside and outside of classes.
“I love the academic environment here, but also the sense that you can’t learn everything you need to know from being in class…The liberal arts experience is about educating the total individual, and I really appreciate that.”
Among those who inspire him the most are his academic advisers and the friends he has met here: “really amazing, intelligent, creative people and just good people.”
It seems reasonable to wonder: as one of the College’s biggest fans, how does he think he has contributed to it? In addition to “providing [his] voice” to various musical endeavors, Schuetz is proud of his involvement in the fledgling linguistics program, as a member of the first graduating class with the option of the minor.
“So those are the more tangible things,” he said by way of summary, adding a thoughtful stroke of his mustache. (Something good just had to follow.) On the other hand, “From a personal standpoint, I’d like to think just by walking down the street that I like to shake up people’s expectations.”
And shake he does, often spotted around campus in eccentric combinations of accessories and/or bright colors. Schuetz does not intend these to be taken as mere expressions of self, but as encouragement to follow suit (no pun intended).
“We have a lot of freedom here,” he said, “and I think some people don’t take advantage of that, to say, ‘Hey, you know I’m just going to wear pajamas to class and dress in neon colors today or do something crazy like just get together and find a hill and roll down it.’
Even in small ways, he hopes that his clothing adds whimsy to life on campus.
“The difference between laughing at somebody and laughing with them is not as big as you might think,” he said. “As long as I make people’s days a little more interesting, then I’m definitely happy with that.”
While studying Japanese at Middlebury’s language school, he made an effort to wear costumes to class on Fridays.
“You know,” he said casually, as though it were obvious, “dress up like a wizard or Robin Hood or whatever.”
One Friday, the day of a major test, was particularly memorable.
“I walked into class [in costume], and people started giggling, and I had someone tell me right after the class — in Japanese, of course, because it was Japanese school — ‘I’m so glad that you wore that today because I was really nervous before the test.’”
He hopes that by setting his example, he can remind his peers to take a step back and gain some perspective.
“Yes, there’s a test,” he said of that summer day, “but it’s still Friday, and you can still relax and go a little crazy. That one day, it was all worth it.”
This summer, Schuetz will be doing Java programming for a software company in California. Though all of his previous jobs have related to computer software, there remains “a total disconnect” between his work experience and academic focus.
“I’ve never actually taken a computer course,” he said flatly. “I’ve just sort of picked it up on the side.”
In the fall, he will return to Japan to work for a community outreach program affiliated with His Call Church, which he attended during his semester abroad in Nagoya. He looks forward to coordinating and leading the youth groups that so inspired him during his visit.
“When I went there, it was amazing, seeing the energy they have and the passion,” he said. “I just thought to myself, … it’s music, and it’s languages, and it’s talking to people and it’s something that I would love to be a part of.”
After “at least a year, hopefully two” in Japan, he hopes to return to the States, attend graduate school and teach Japanese.
“I just love the language so much,” he said. “I would love to have the opportunity to share that with others ... even maybe at Middlebury, if that’s possible.”
As he plans for life after Middlebury, Schuetz advises new students to spend the first year exploring their options, academic and otherwise. “
Just stop,” he said, “take some time, get your bearings, find what interests you, do something you never thought you would do and see how you like it.”
And if an email signoff is any indication, this is certainly a man to be trusted.
“Peace and nifty hats, Zach Schuetz.”
(04/21/11 4:00am)
I go to a show to be convinced. It doesn’t have anything to do with good faith, or believing that something has meaning because I paid six bucks to watch it. It’s the respect for a performer’s ability to do their job: to make me think, not tell me what to think. In return, I don’t pretend it’s my job to tell them what they’re saying. My job is to respond.
The choreography of Synergy didn’t bother stopping to invite response — instead, response was demanded, over and over. In a year, if the audience doesn’t remember individual moments of movement, what will remain impossible to forget was the laughter. Of course the humor of “A Generation Gap” — referred to affectionately by the dancers as “The Bad Dance” — was obvious: Alena Giesche ’11, Cat Miller ’11, Christian Morel ’11 and Heather Pynne ’11 dedicated their considerable talents to ecstatic hip thrusts, classic Madonna voguing, the Macarena and other laughably mainstream caricatures, set appropriately to Akon’s “Sexy B*tch” and under the cover of black pleather and more glitter than any self-respecting drag queen could hide in his bottom drawer. But more than a successful act of performative comedy, this dance betrayed an awareness of the act of dance: the audience was allowed to see that dance is and should be hard work, but it can also be fun. Well-executed does not necessarily mean sober-as-Swan-Lake, and funny doesn’t necessitate making passion a joke.
This mindset of uninhibited self-awareness was among the strongest ever-present themes of Synergy. For this, an impressive amount of credit is due to Heather Pynne, whose lighting design proved innovative in the most transformative sense of the word: I had not realized how embarrassingly little attention I had paid to lighting until I realized how much Pynne’s work deserved. It is difficult to do justice to how thoroughly her design betrayed a deep understanding of both the choreography and how to highlight it. Most pointedly, for Miller’s heartwrenching solo “Breaking,” Pynne chose to suspend two ceramic lamps; which, in harmony with the sound of rainfall and strings, recalled industrial alleys after midnight. The restriction implied by their halos underscored Miller’s intuitive embodiment of torturous self-containment. Pynne taught the audience that the best lighting makes the dancer’s message clearer — with that support, Miller’s fluid articulation had me feeling the question, “What’s wrong with me?” instead of asking it.
If Miller left me suspended in the poignancy of emotion, Morel’s piece shook down all existential perches and left me in a very corporeal nest of sensation. Morel’s choreography opens in the body of Alexandra Vasquez ’12: her tank-top and petal-skirted costuming allowed for the clear articulation of each muscle, showcasing Morel’s remarkable intuition in the beauty of opposites. Constantly, we are made to reconcile the seamless with the serrated, maddening tik-tok precision with organic evolution of motion. Morel took full advantage of dancer Julianna Mauriello’s ’13 faultless articulation and softened James Moore’s ’12 angular fluidity to create a quartet that could at times be both chilling and romantic, and left the viewer feeling like they went out for a night in the red light district and ended up falling in love. Morel understands how the body was made to move.
In terms of surprise, Giesche’s work takes the cake — both “and in the end we laugh” and “I view you” showed huge change when considered in the context of her past work. What remained was her trademark sensibility of how one body relates to another, highlighted in her duets co-choreographed with Jeremy Cline ’11.5; in her choreography, his body finds a way to effortlessly tread the line between strength and grace that leaves you breathless after lifts. Her own dancing has the quality of a catalyst: her motion seems to be always in transition, even in pause, that allows a piece to move forward — and facilitates its audience’s release into that motion. Part of that seamlessness is what makes “I view you” stunning. Focusing on self-image as defined and constricted by social fear, Giesche used voice-over of interviews with her dancers and lighting projected onto her dancers’ bodies to create a decidedly audience-involving piece. As the dancers enter in nude-colored leotards, their skin seems to take on the lighting of the projections. Later, as they dress in outfits brought onto stage, it feels almost as if the audience is dressing them. We are left to wonder how arbitrary those dressings are. Here again we find humor and revelation in what’s not expected–something Giesche should be commended for.
In addition to her paired solos, “Breaking” and “Restoration,” Cat Miller choreographed a third piece, “Cluttered Ships.” Dancers Davis Anderson ’13, Alex Siega ’12, Moore and Alicia Evancho ’12 showcased one of Miller’s choreographic strengths, which integrates practices of dance movement therapy: the way an individual body expresses an emotion. What was perfectly communicated was the poignant and often painful consequence of human interaction; Siega’s dynamic execution played well with Evancho’s gymnastic elegance. Moore and Anderson’s duet, wracked with the tenderness of intimacy and fear thereof, proved unforgettable.
The greatest of dance performances leave you wanting to dance. The Middlebury seniors have done this with Synergy, bypassing convincing and becoming a dialogue that both enriches and astounds.
(04/21/11 3:59am)
Low Level Panic ran in the Hepburn Zoo from Apr. 14-16. The senior 700 work of Ele Woods ’11, Jess Spar ’11 and Lindsey Messmore ’11, the piece was written by Clare McIntyre during the decline of the feminist movement in 1987 Britain, and explored the tenuous dynamic between women, sex and objectification. Panic was both a simplistic and hugely complex performance: though the play was set in a small bathroom populated with sparse props and featured only three actresses, the messages carried within the piece stood out against the minimalist backdrop and resonated deeply within the audience through the powerful acting and starkness of the stage. The Hepburn Zoo, with its intimate seating arrangements, was the perfect venue for the performance; it was almost as if the audience was sitting in the bathroom with the performers.
Panic tells the stories of three women — Jo, Mary and Celia — who are housemates relegated to sharing a single bathroom in London’s East End. It is in this room where they can express themselves honestly, share their most intimate dreams and fears, and ultimately, try to discover what it means to be a beautiful woman. Like the bathroom in which it takes place, Panic is oftentimes bright and warm, and at other times wet and messy as it explores female fears of both sexual fantasy and assault, and the idea of the “perfectly beautiful woman.”
Woods played Jo, a woman who outwardly expresses her sexuality through clothing and fantasies, and who constantly urges Mary to cut loose as well. Her character begins the play lounging nude in a bathtub, ranting about yet another romantic fantasy concerning her “perfect man.” Jo appears at first to be the loudmouth of the play — the confident counterpart to the demure Mary. Yet underneath her confidence and bravado, Jo is overwhelmingly insecure about both her body and her sexuality. She is constantly checking herself in the mirror and has dark sexual fantasies about being “watched” by other men, or having sex with multiple partners in rapid succession. One particularly striking scene finds Jo standing in front of the bathroom mirror, haunted by the weight of these fantasies and her desperation. The audience hears a voice-over of Jo imagining a particularly vivid and grotesque fantasy, and as her thoughts escalate to scenes of sexual violence and degradation, she jolts back from the mirror, halting the voiceover. Disgusted with herself, she flees the bathroom. The audience learns that her bawdy personality is just a façade for her deepest fears — she often wonders if she will ever find a partner, or if she is simply doomed to a life of crawling around parties in glittery outfits looking for a perfect man. Woods’ proficiency at both comedy and drama shone through in this role; it seemed natural for her to play the spunky Jo, with her outrageous dreams and snarky commentary. But as the play continued and Jo’s duality began to emerge, so too did Woods’ dramatic acting, and she slowly drew out the fears buried deep within her character’s psyche.
Spar’s portrayal of Mary serves as a jolting foil to Jo’s bawdy character. Mary is logical and inquisitive, and uncomfortable with dressing up to impress men at parties. The audience is introduced to her character as she reads a pornographic magazine to Jo, mocking the nude models and the crude sexual language used in the publication. Though she attempts to act logical, there is something dark lurking behind her façade, much like in Jo’s character: she seems to be always on the verge of a breakdown, especially when she gets riled up about her gender and identity. A flashback halfway through the play alerts us to the reason behind this —Mary was sexually assaulted coming home from work one night. In a jarring solo scene highlighting Spar’s command over her character, Mary converses with two male voiceovers that see her unlocking her bike and ask in perverse tones to “go for a ride”. When Mary refuses their advances, she is assaulted and enacts the brutal crime using her own hands; when the men “leave” the scene, the horrific spectacle ends with Mary’s guttural scream of shame and rage. Since she was wearing a skirt that night and perhaps looked “more attractive” than usual, Mary tries to rationalize what happened by saying, “Maybe if I was wearing trousers, it wouldn’t have happened.” The incident haunts her throughout the play, and it influences her to become the speaker of truths among the three protagonists. For instance, when the girls are preparing for a party, Mary refuses to wear a revealing dress Jo bought for her, and in a fit of determination and fury, decides to dye the dress in the middle of the night to make it less attractive and “more to her style,” declaring that it is unnecessary to dress up if you are uncomfortable and cannot be yourself.
Celia, played by Sara Lusche ’13, does not get as much stage-time as Mary and Jo. Not much is known about her character; she begins as a poised and confident woman, though we learn later that she is actually very quick-tempered and is angry about sharing the bathroom, so she releases her anger and frustration on Jo. Conversely, Jo is jealous of the fact that Celia always seems to find men to take home.
Though it carried shades of feminism, Panic was able to relate to both men and women alike by introducing its heavy themes slowly through Jo’s humor and Mary’s rationalism. Though they were hard-hitting and brutally honest, the messages were not didactic or shoved in the audience’s face, and McIntyre’s delicately written dialogue was both sensitive and gripping.
Messmore did not intend to direct a “feminist” piece for her 700 thesis, but she became hooked on McIntyre’s authenticity and edgy writing. As a result of this admiration and dedication to McIntyre’s art, her direction was spot-on to what the playwright intended for the piece. The lighting design was also a noteworthy aspect of the play — the brightness of the bathroom was an indicator of the piece’s current mood, and made it seem as though the bathroom itself were a fourth character complete with moods and a personality. Nighttime scenes bathed the stage in cool blues, setting the stage for the characters’ honest discussions, while a gentle light outside the bathroom’s “window” heralded a beautiful sunny morning. Notably, the flashback to Mary’s sexual assault was a dim, sinister yellow as though the incident occurred underneath a streetlamp.
It has been 24 years since Panic was written, but the themes presented still remain relevant to this day, especially in light of the relationship/hookup dichotomy on college campuses and how college girls view themselves in these situations. At Panic’s end, the question still remained whether or not the three women would overcome their darkness and embrace their beauty. However, through the performance’s superb acting and direction, McIntyre’s message rung out strongly: be yourself, be comfortable in your body and no matter what fears or insecurities you may hold in your heart, life goes on, and there is no need to panic.
(04/21/11 3:59am)
Anna Gallagher ’12, Alex Geller ’12, Maya Goldberg-Safir ’12, Mori Rothman ’11 and Bella Tudisco ’13.5 didn’t have high expectations when they traveled to Yale University on the first weekend of spring break for the northeast regional poetry slam qualifying tournament. They had heard about the tournament at the last minute from Special Assistant to the Dean of the College and Senior Advisor for Diversity Jennifer Herrera and they had just barely managed to scrape together their team. Not many of them had performed spoken word poetry on stage more than a few times, if at all, and none of them had ever competed in a collegiate poetry slam.
They found themselves there because Gallagher and Tudisco, after seeing the Verbal Onslaught-sponsored performance by traveling poetry trio Night Kite Revival (featuring Taylor Mali) earlier this year, had decided to form a spoken word poetry group that would have regular meetings and, ideally, might someday cohere into a team that could travel and represent Middlebury College in competitive poetry slams.
The tournament at Yale found that idea becoming reality sooner than they may have thought. To their surprise and excitement, they upset Wesleyan and advanced to the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI), the national collegiate spoken word poetry competition being held this year at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Enthused by their unexpected success at the Yale tournament, and excited to gather with 38 teams of people who love poetry as much as they do, the team quickly made arrangements to attend CUPSI, which took place April 6-9.
At the tournament, they found themselves living up to their impromptu name choice — “Poor Form Poetry” (if you say it fast, it sounds like “perform poetry”) — in a pleasantly surprising way; judges, not to mention other teams, admired their scrappiness. It was clear that they were there out of a love of poetry, not of competition, and that their inexperience with the collegiate poetry slam “scene” led them to do things their own way and brought a certain honesty and genuineness to their performance.
Now that they’re seasoned veterans, they’ll tell you that honesty plays an interesting role in these competitions — a poem’s emotional honesty might win the performance some extra points from the judge, so it will sometimes seem like a team is forcing honesty or exploiting a tragic memory in order to score points. Such are the odd predicaments that arise in the strange world of “competitive art.”
As exciting as the competition is, they insisted, the real magic of these tournaments is the extreme bonding that occurs despite these competitive conditions. If a poet on stage delivered a great line, even if they were a member of an opposing team, audience members were extremely vocal in showing their admiration. Many rounds concluded with a massive beatbox/freestyle rap circle in the hallway, the team added. And at the end of the day, many teams went out together and all ended up in a hotel room, standing on beds and chairs spitting poems in an informal “third round.”
The bonding, Gallagher explained, is due to the fact that most poets are up on stage revealing extremely personal details about their life in the course of three minutes. Before you’ve even talked to another poet, you may know things about them that people they’ve known for years don’t even know.
Most importantly, it’s about “being around a bunch of people who are excited about writing,” said Goldberg-Safir. Such people are in no short supply at Middlebury, but there aren’t many exisiting ways for them to come together outside the classroom, and that’s why they want to continue Poor Form poetry next year, choosing a team to represent the College for the year and inviting other colleges for slams. Keep your eyes and ears peeled.
(04/21/11 3:59am)
On April 15-18, over 200 students traveled to Washington, D.C. to attend the climate conference Powershift 2011. The conference — which attracted over 10,000 students from across the country — presented a diverse line-up of events and culminated in a march on Capitol Hill calling for a permanent legislation to address climate change.
The conference opened on Friday, April 15 with keynote speeches by former Vice President Al Gore and former Special Advisor to the White House for Green Jobs Van Jones. Although some Middlebury students missed Gore’s speech due to traffic, students arrived in time to hear Jones and several other leaders in the field address the crowd in the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
Students arrived at the convention center Saturday morning to participate in movement-building training and planning sessions. These sessions were designed to address issues that universities face in mobilizing both students and administrators to take climate action.
Saturday evening, students attended another line-up of keynote speakers. 350.org Founder and Scholar-in-Residence Bill McKibben spoke at the convention center along with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson.
According to Ben Johnston ’11, McKibben’s speech was “definitely the climax of the keynote ceremony. Looking at him and talking to him beforehand, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy to move a crowd, but he really took the cake."
On Sunday, students continued their work on movement-building in the morning and then broke off into groups organized by state in the afternoon. The evening’s programming featured a film series and additional training sessions for activists.
Although some students left D.C. on Sunday afternoon, others remained in the capital through Monday to march to Capitol Hill. Over 5,000 students gathered at LaFayette Square in the morning and walked to the Capitol building. According to the Powershift website, students “demand[ed] that the President and Congress stand up to Big Polluters, protect the Clean Air Act and make corporate polluters like BP pay for their pollution.”
(04/21/11 3:58am)
Though Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now was written in 2004, it remains one of my favorite books of all time. This book is so powerful because of the unassuming voice of the narrator, fifteen-year-old Daisy, and the casual but poignant observations that she makes. Because of Daisy’s candid way of speaking, the reader is immediately able to relate, on some level, to the internal and external struggles that the characters overcome.
The story takes place in the near future — far enough ahead to make the setting believable yet contemporary enough so that we recognize our world. Daisy, a straight-talking New Yorker, has flown to England to spend the summer with her cousins, whom she has never met. Although Daisy comes from a background of upper-middle class privilege, she had a difficult childhood and has a chip on her shoulder because of that. Her mother died when she was born and her father remarried a few years later to a woman Daisy despises. Now her stepmother, Davina, is pregnant and Daisy feels that her father is shipping her off to her distant relatives (on her mother’s side) so that he can start his life over — with Daisy out of the way.
When Daisy arrives in England, the world is on the brink of war. Her Aunt Penn is a politician working desperately to steer the world away from disaster. Aunt Penn is often not at home, leaving Daisy and her cousins to live on their own on their farm in the country. This world without adults gives the book that dream-like quality of childhood. Even when the war starts and Aunt Penn goes missing and all of the cell towers and internet go down, Daisy and her cousins feel safe and insulated from the rest of the world.
Yet war has a way of creeping in and finding them. As the story progresses, Daisy grows beyond childhood and becomes an adult. Little by little, Daisy takes control of what she can and becomes a mother figure for her youngest cousin, Piper, a sister to her cousin, Isaac and a lover to her cousin, Edward. The roles that Daisy takes may seem strange and even perverse (two fifteen-year-old cousins falling in love with each other, for example), but Rosoff writes with such beauty and Daisy’s voice is so straightforward that the reader is not repulsed at all — the progression of the events makes perfect sense.
Besides the power of the story, I loved the book’s voice, which is told through a continuous stream of thought in Daisy’s head. It takes a little getting used to, but this style is very striking at crucial times. As a fifteen-year-old, Daisy is caught in that strange time between childhood and adolescence. She sounds very childish at times, yet at other times, her maturity is astounding. For example, when describing her stepmother, Daisy says very bluntly, “Davina the Diabolical, who sucked my father’s soul out through his you-know-what.” But Daisy also has a very sweet side and looks out for her ‘family.’ She protects Piper and believes in her head that “the thought made me fierce and strong like a mother wildebeest and all of a sudden I knew where people got the strength to pick up cars with babies lying under them which I always thought was made up.”
The combination of the voice and the haunting essence of the story leaves the reader enthralled. Save this book for the summer — you won’t be disappointed. It won’t take long for the magical quality pervading throughout the novel to capture your imagination.
(04/21/11 3:58am)
An Earth Day celebration at the Town Hall Theater on April 16 explored how writers and songwriters throughout the centuries have thought about our relationship to the planet. Natural Selections: An Earth Day Celebration in Prose and Song featured folksinger Geoff Kaufman ’69 alongside Assistant Professor of English and American Literature Dan Brayon’s Spring ’11 “Nature’s Meanings” class as they read excerpts from writers such as Thoreau, Henry Beston, Aldo Leopold, Annie Dillard, Gretel Ehrlich, Farley Mowat and N. Scott Momaday. The dialogue was broken up by traditional songs chosen by Kaufman to compliment the writings. Each song and each snippet of writing praised the beauty and majesty of planet Earth, both from a historical and personal point of view. Songs included “Just a Little Rain” by Malvina Reynolds, “Last Leviathan” by Andy Barnes and an original piece by Kaufman entitled “Gold to Silver.” The highlight of the show, however, was not any particular song, but a short impersonation of Mark Twain by Kaufman. The monologue had Twain comparing an anaconda to an Earl, commenting on the Earl’s brutality and the anaconda’s decency when it came time to kill another living being for food.
In addition to Kaufman, the performance featured Nora Daly ’13, Zach Doleac ’12, Stu Fram ’13, Will Ford ’12, Fielding Jenks ’13, Juliana Kay ’13, Liia Koiv-Haus ’13, Claire Lewandowski ’13, Rachel Madding ’13, Molly Rose-Williams ’13 and Annika Silverman ’13. Each student read excerpts or notable quotes from famous writings. Lewandowski served as the performance’s “narrator,” helping intertwine Kaufman’s songs with the students’ orations.
Kaufman turned to folk music in 1975 after completing graduate studies at Rutgers. He became a founding member of Stout, a quartet that sang in downtown Manhattan during the 1976 bicentennial celebration. Soon afterward, Kaufman discovered the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, built by Pete Seeger and friends to draw attention to environmental issues and by 1977 Geoff was a member of the Sloop Singers, performing with Pete and an inspiring collection of activist musicians. This Clearwater experience led to Kaufman’s acclaimed 1992 live recording, Tree of Life. Kaufman’s maritime music brought him to Mystic Seaport where he became Director of Music Programs for 15 years. It was there that he met Brayton, who at the time was teaching maritime literature for the Williams/Mystic Program. For five years, Kaufman has been returning to Middlebury to sing for Brayton’s classes as well as in concerts.
Three years ago when Brayton offered his “Nature’s Meanings” class, Kaufman was inspired by the readings required for the class, and chose to base the performance’s repertoire off of the class’ syllabus. On Saturday night, he tapped into an awe-inspiring synergy between the class’ prose and his own lyrics — it was evident that his heart was deeply invested in this undertaking. As a result, the audience came away with a deeper, enduring understanding of their relationship with Earth, which, in the end, was one of Kaufman’s goals.
(04/21/11 3:58am)
On April 24 from 2:30-4:30 p.m. in the Gamut Room, Be H.I.P. (Highly Informed People) and Get H.I. (Highly Informed) will host an event featuring discussions on the current situation in the Middle East. The featured student panel, organized by student leaders Toby Israel ’14 and Mariam Boxwala ’13, will include 10-minute presentations focused on politics, geography, religion, history, economics and women’s and gender studies concerning the Middle East. The panel will be followed by an open question and answer discussion along with a more informal discussion.
Israel began the “Be H.I.P.” event series during Winter Term with a daylong discussion on different current events going on in the world. The idea for a student panel-led discussion came to her after she attended the J-street Youth rally in New York in November.
“We were driving back up to campus at one in the morning,” she said, “and we were all exhausted and we found ourselves talking about the Israel and Palestine conflict.”
The organic dialogue between students who had a wide range of experience and knowledge about the conflict sparked her interest immediately.
“At the time, I didn’t see the event turning into a series,” Israel added. But with the new and recent developments in the Middle East, she found herself seeing the current events as a new opportunity for a Be H.I.P. panel to be beneficial and necessary. Be H.I.P., as Toby envisions it, will provide an open forum in which current events can be discussed among students.
The forum, Boxwala said, will be unique to the other educational events at the College.
“We have several opportunities on campus to attend lectures by professors, authors and researchers who are experts in their field,” she said. “However, these lectures can be daunting and often difficult to understand for those of us who have very little experience in the subject area.”
Be H.I.P. instead seeks to provide accessibility for students presented by students. The presentations are created with the assumption that the audience has basic knowledge at best in such areas.
“I think be H.I.P. is filling a void in the Middlebury community and getting students to interact and expand their knowledge with regard to current events,” Boxwala added. “I want people to be able to pick up a newspaper and be able to discuss the significance of the events.”
Israel established two “pillars” to guide the presentations and ensure they are as productive and informative as possible.
First, despite the politically-charged nature of many of the topics, Israel asked the presenters to minimize bias and personal opinion as much as possible. Second, she wants the information must be presented in an “accessible manner” so that everyone can participate and feel comfortable asking questions.
The panelists on Sunday will include Charlie Arnowitz ’13, Peter Kaplan ’13, Mia Benjamin ’13, Anil Menon ’13 and Anna Mysliwiec ’11. The panelists either have a long-term interest in their area or are currently studying in the prescribed disciplines.
“As the women and gender studies panelist,” Mysliwiec said, “I’ll be speaking about where women fit into everything that’s been going on in the Middle East lately, exploring their participation and leadership in the revolutions and whether that involvement has transformed gender relations.”
Mysliwiec sees these events as important because “as enriching as it is to hear professors talk about these current events, it’s really cool to be able to learn from our peers … [who] have such a wealth of knowledge and experience.”
Israel hopes that the potential future H.I.P. events that can evolve into a series regarding current event topics from around the world and that the event will enjoy a similar popularity to that experienced during Winter Term.