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(04/21/11 3:57am)
Musically speaking, 2009 was a dying year. But thanks to a team of indie superheroes including Animal Collective, Passion Pit and The Dirty Projectors, humanity was saved from the soul-sucking clutches of Susan Boyle and auto-tune. Although no definitive list of music’s heroes exists, one thing’s for certain: no indie Justice League would be complete without the hot and fuzzy eponymous debut of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.
Two years later, the Pains are back with their sophomore effort, Belong. Just as loud and twee as their debut, Belong exhibits the same indebtedness to 90s dream pop and shoegaze that the band has always worn on its sleeve. Of course, this comes as no surprise, especially considering their collaboration with British producers Flood and Alan Moulder (acclaimed for their work with The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and The Smashing Pumpkins). In other words, you can expect this album to be chock-full of ear-splitting guitars, wispy vocals and infectious melodies.
And that’s exactly what you get. After 15 seconds of mock delicacy, the title track explodes into a whir of distortion and breathy intimations of adolescent love. Refusing to settle down, the album races from the rumbling bass and cheesy synths of highlight “Heart in Your Heartbreak” to the groovy swirl and breakneck beat of “The Body.” But halfway through the album, the Pains offer a bit of respite from all the thunder. The jangly guitars and swelling chorus of “Anne With an E” begin the soft descent, while “Even In Dreams,” at once confident and vulnerable, sounds like a hard rock cover of a slow-dance scene from some mid-80s Molly Ringwald movie.
One of the distinguishing features about The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is lead singer Kip Berman’s boyish innocence and shrouded delivery. Ever faithful to his shoegaze roots, Berman views his voice as yet another texture in the mix, and although he has unearthed his vocals from the reverb-soaked trenches of their debut, he’s still nearly indecipherable. When you finally figure out what he’s saying, you notice how his childlike croon often belies his dark, melancholic subject matter. Sex, drugs and adolescent fears and desires pervade his lyrics, as heard on “Girl of 1,000 Dreams,” another of Belong’s highlights: “Held my breath, thought of death and things I’d like to do ’til then: See my friends, lose my head, wake up with you in my bed.” Thanks to Berman’s earnest and youthful delivery, these emotionally charged lyrics never cross over into over-sentimental babble.
So how exactly have the Pains progressed over the past two years? And what’s the difference between Belong and their debut, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, anyway? Well, for one, Belong is a more mature album, leaving the band more streamlined and polished without having sold its soul. Their more profound dynamic shifts, for example, allow for subtler verses and more arresting choruses. But for the most part, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are still the same old twee-pop band that saved the day in 2009. Mighty guitar riffs and saccharine hooks still abound, and their albums still deserve to be cranked up to 11. Let’s hope those aspects never change.
(04/21/11 3:57am)
On April 10, the Sexual Assault Oversight Committee (SAOC) presented a new sexual misconduct policy to the Student Government Association (SGA). This presentation was part of SAOC’s attempt to get student feedback on the policies they hope to implement in Fall 2011.
“There is no question that the small number of cases that are officially reported each year does not tell the whole story,” said Karen Guttentag, associate dean of the College and chair of the SAOC.
SAOC members believe it is important to work transparently to create policies that are sensitive towards the anxiety students feel when involved in sexual assault cases. Thus, there are many changes on the docket.
A major change will be the disposal of required in-person hearings before a board of eight people. This situation can be unsettling for students who do not feel comfortable sharing their story with a large group of strangers.
Instead of eight-person hearings, a professional investigator will meet with the complainant, respondent and witnesses in one-on-one meetings. The investigator will be trained in sexual assault issues and will present the case to the board members of SAOC who will request further investigation or make a decision on the case. If they wish, those involved will be able speak to the board members but they will not be required to do so.
“What we do not want is a re-victimization of a person who has already experienced an incredibly traumatic sexual assault, and I think the new process will help prevent this,” said Sophie Morse ’11, an unofficial member of SAOC who has been deeply involved with the issue of sexual assault at the College.
Another important change would be the disposal of sexual assault categories. Currently, if the sexual assault involved penetration it is in a different category than assault which did not. Getting rid of these categories would assure that other sexually violating actions, such as filming without the knowledge of the sexual partner, would be reviewed with equal importance as those assaults involving penetration.
Furthermore, a subcommittee of SAOC is proposing that the College create a 24-hour emergency hotline for students. This hotline would be run by a trained confidential group of students. This line would be open for both crises and non-crises.
“Our hope is that with streamlined and improved advocacy, students will know exactly where to turn for immediate support,” said Elizabeth Karnes Keefe, the assistant dean of the Language Schools and member of the SAOC.
Because sexual assault at the College is under-reported, it is hard to determine the prevalence on the campus. The members of SAOC agree that the College is not disengaged from sexual assault, as it is a worldwide problem.
In a national study, the Department of Justice found that one in five women and one in 16 men would experience, attempt or complete sexual assault during their college years. Guttentag believes that these rates are applicable to Middlebury students.
With these policy changes, the members of SAOC hope that students will be more apt to report sexual violations.
In the weeks to come SAOC will meet with other student organizations to implement an effective new sexual assault misconduct policy. But their work, which started two years ago, is not yet done and no policies are set in stone.
“I think that the apathy of the students in regard to this issue is the biggest problem,” said Morse. “I encourage students to give feedback and participate. One way to do so is through their SGA members, who are familiar with the new policy.”
(04/21/11 3:55am)
In an all-campus email sent last Thursday, the College announced the addition of one reading day to the exam schedule, effective beginning with the fall exam schedule of 2011.
“The change is designed to provide more flex in what feels like a very compressed week of exams,” explained Vice President for Administration Tim Spears.
The additional day will fall on a Thursday, allowing for a one day break in the middle of the exam period.
In addition to relieving students’ stress, the policy also aims to create a better schedule for the release of fall term grades.
“Students were receiving their fall grades at the beginning of Winter Term, which meant that students who earned failing grades and were required to take time off had to turn around and go home,” wrote Spears in an email.
Under the new calendar, faculty will be required to submit grades earlier and students will receive them before returning to campus for the winter term.
Faculty members hope that the added day will give students a more adequate time frame to work on assignments and study for exams.
“Some faculty feel that the quality of student work has diminished since the College shortened the exam period a couple years ago,” wrote Spears in an email.
Faculty Council voted to shorten the exam period from nine to six days in February 2009, and the policy took effect during the fall semester of 2009.
Spears also commented that the addition of an extra day in the academic calendar will have a “negligible” effect on College finances.
The decision was made with the input of the Student Government Association (SGA) and Faculty Council. Spears explained that after a discussion within these bodies and the academic administration, the proposition was sent to the Calendar Committee.
“By the time the matter got to the Calendar Committee, it had the support of all who had discussed it,” wrote Spears. “The question for the Calendar Committee was whether revising the calendar in this way was logistically possible. It was, and so we made the change.”
(04/21/11 3:54am)
Over the years, Wikipedia has remained one of the most used and controversial sources available to students at the College.
In 2007, the history department attracted national attention and controversy by banning Wikipedia as a credible source in papers. The department-issued statement also mandated that the policy be printed on all syllabi and senior thesis instructions.
“Wikipedia is not an acceptable citation,” said the statement. “Students are responsible for the accuracy of information they provide, and they cannot point to Wikipedia or any similar source that may appear in the future to escape the consequences of errors.”
Neil Waters, Kawashima professor of Japanese studies, proposed the policy after catching the same historical error in six final papers for his “History of Early Japan” class. He says all of the mistakes were easily traced back to Wikipedia.
But according to Waters, most of the controversy over the policy was unwarranted, based on the misconception that the history department was banning Wikipedia.
He says he received both hatemail and fanmail.
“People said I was the dinosaur trying to kill Wikipedia,” he said. “This was not a war on Wikipedia … This was a ban on a particular use — citation of Wikipedia in research papers. That distinction often got lost.”
Provost and Executive Vice President and Professor of English and American Literatures Alison Byerly says that Wikipedia is only a starting place.
“Students have access to an enormous range of resources on the internet,” she said in an email. “We hope that at Middlebury, they will learn to distinguish between sites like Wikipedia, that may provide a useful general introduction to a subject, and scholarly resources that offer a more detailed, informed perspective.
At the time of the ban, the site had 1.6 million entries in its English edition. Today, it has more than 3.6 million English entries.
“I normally try to avoid Wikipedia in general,” said history major Andrew Lind ’13 in an email. “But sometimes I use it to just get an overview of the whole topic and give me a place to start at.”
Lind says that while most history classes do not explicitly give the department’s Wikipedia rule, they don’t have to.
“I haven’t seen the department’s Wikipedia code on any syllabi and none have addressed it in any classes I have been in so far,” he said in an email. “I think it is something that teachers feel doesn’t need to be stated out loud and can just be assumed by the students.”
Waters says that while Wikipedia’s historical entries have improved, they are still unreliable. He says the fact that anyone can edit entries without giving their name creates an inherent lack of accountability.
“Entries are subject to various degrees of editing, depending on the field and on the popularity of the entry,” he said. “And you still don’t know who the editors are. In my field of Japanese history, mistakes come up frequently.”
But Jason Mittell, associate professor of American studies and chair of film and media culture, says that the amount of editorial revisions is one thing that makes Wikipedia great.
“I’m really skeptical of this default assumption that if it’s online, it hasn’t gone through standard editorial process and must be inaccurate,” he said. “I have a wall full of books here … I’m sure there are inaccuracies in them that slipped through the process.”
Mittell says that while an entry could be 100 percent wrong in theory, there are safeguards against such vandalism. Mittell says there are “bots” which scan the site for obviously flawed revisions to entries.
“If there’s something that, for example takes a 10,000 word article and turns it into a 50 word article, the bot will automatically revert the article back to the original,” he said. “They also scan for certain words that may be potential acts of vandalism.”
In addition, Mittell says that editors tie their usernames to a “watch list” of entries, and are alerted when any changes occur.
“You have people who are shepherd to given articles,” he said. “There are so many dedicated editors that it prevents most vandalism.”
But Waters says he still favors traditional encyclopedias — like Britannica — over Wikipedia for general reliability.
“I admit I do have a built in bias towards them [traditional encyclopedias] because there is a vetting process and nobody is putting in a false name and everybody is responsible for what they write,” he said.
Mittell says the traditional academic vetting system of "filter then publish" is too slow because it must go through numerous hurdles before publication.
“It’s counter-intuitive to most people, especially academics who have been trained to perfect everything until you submit it for publication,” he said. “It’s very uncomfortable for people who don’t understand how the system works.”
He says Wikipedia’s “publish then filter” policy keeps information up to date and encourages more people to participate.
“A publish then filter model allows people to choose different roles: either ‘I want to write material’ or ‘I want to edit and make the material better.’”
Mittell says that while it may be hard to accept Wikipedia’s role in academia, it’s important for faculty to integrate the site at the College.
“We have an environment of information that’s radically different from when most of us [faculty members] were in school, ranging from email communication to Wikipedia to texting to YouTube,” he said. “But I think it’s really important as an educator to stay abreast of those [changes].”
(04/21/11 3:50am)
Voting for the Student Government Association (SGA) elections will run from April 210 at noon until April 22 at noon at go/sgavote. Results of the election will be released at the earliest via an all-campus email April 24.
Before the end of the academic year, the SGA will continue work on two major issues: the establishment of a small gym in Ross Commons and a resolution on offering pass/fail classes.
The SGA plans to vote on the bill proposing the funding for the creation and maintenance of a Ross annex gym within the next two weeks. The SGA would fund up to $30,000 in gym equipment for the space. Additional costs associated with this transformation include necessary renovations, such as the establishment of a key-card access system and funding for a student monitor.
The decision has received generally positive support from the Ross Commons community. Results from a recent poll of Ross Commons indicated that 93 percent of the students supported the transformation of the space in question into a gym.
The SGA hopes this gym will be both convenient for students, and also help to solve the problem of overcrowding that currently exists in the main gym.
If the gym in Ross Commons proves to be both successful and is fiscally sustainable, the SGA will discuss establishing a similar one in Atwater Commons in the space that currently serves as the Atwater Library.
Under the proposed pass/fail system students will be able to take a maximum of two classes for a credit that would count towards graduation, yet would not be factored into a student’s GPA.
The decision to take a class for pass/fail credit would have to have to be established with professors before the class had started, and the pass/fail option could not apply to classes that filled either major or distribution requirements. Supporters of the resolution hope the change would encourage students to take classes across a wider range of disciplines and course levels.
(04/20/11 4:27pm)
The amuse-bouche: a mini nibble of delectable quality, intended to stimulate the appetite and alert the stomach to the approaching meal. Literally meaning “mouth amuser” in French, the high-quality appetizer is a single bite often served at gourmet restaurants to complement the upcoming feast and prepare the diner for the approaching flavors. The scrumptious omen can come in many shapes, textures, and pack enormous flavor and prestige. And, while the amuse-bouche may sound like a scary term straight from a culinary school textbook, it is a tradition that shouldn’t just be found at exclusive restaurants with exorbitant prices. Because, really, who doesn’t want a special little treat to start off their dining experience?
The traditional amuse-bouche may be a bit fancier than you prefer all the time, however we can marvel at its simple and tiny brilliance. Originating during the 1800’s and belonging to the “Nouvelle Cuisine” faction (a French culinary term describing the movement to serve lighter, more delicate dishes with an emphasis on presentation), the amuse-bouche is often characterized by two things. First, the snack must be edible in one or two bites. Second, it is often uniform for every diner at the table – providing a preview or an expression of the upcoming meal. As famous chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten states, "The amuse-bouche is the best way for a great chef to express his big ideas in small bites.” While the appetizer began as an unexpected bonus at a few eateries, it has now become an anticipated offering at almost all Michelin-starred restaurants.
An amuse bouche can be sweet, salty, savory, sour, or anything that the chef desires. Think cheddar scallion risotto on a mini toast, fingerling potato chip with goat cheese mousse, duck confit and red onion crème fraiche, miso and ginger soup shooter, caviar blini, or a mini lamb burger with fig aioli. They are flavorful, delectable, and pleasing, reminding all tasters that good things really do come in small packages. And indeed, studies have shown that the diner is most affected by taste during the first two bites of a dish, after which the taste buds begin to adapt to the flavors of the meal and thus the eater finds the dish less novel and stimulating. Therefore, the amuse-bouche is the perfect package: managing to pack a culinary experience into a single bite while simultaneously invigorating the taste buds.
And so, how can we recreate the scrumptious snacks without the unlimited budget and remarkable skills of gourmet chefs? It’s quite easy really…even simple ingredients can create a glorious amuse-bouche. Breakfast time? Sit down to a nibble of pancake topped with a smidge of peanut butter, a thin slice of apple, and a sprinkle of granola to excite your taste buds for the upcoming morning feast. For lunch try wrapping a slice of salami in spinach and drizzling with balsamic. And for dinner? Be creative – combine the flavors of the meal in a surprise package that amuses you. Enjoy the blend of flavors of a single bite. The amuse-bouche is a reminder in our overindulgent society that not everything has to come in a large portion; in fact often the best tastes are savored in the smallest nibbles. The amuse-bouche, the pinnacle of flavor, skill, and experience, may just be the future of the culinary movement.
(04/17/11 5:20pm)
So, I don’t really know the journalistic ethics behind using the publication that you work for as a platform for self-promotion, and even though ignorance is not a defense that will hold up in court, I’m going to do it anyway.
Guys, there’s this really cool thing happening on Friday nights. It’s called Ally Tea and it’s a social hour with (you guess it) tea and also (maybe you didn’t guess this one) cookies! It’s in the Spanish House at 8:30. Let me explain to you all of the reasons that this is awesome.
1) The Spanish House is right behind Proctor. Finish your relaxed, “beginning of the weekend and I’m no longer in a hurry to do anything so I am going to sit here as long as I want” dinner and saunter over. We welcome early guests.
2) The “we” in this situation is myself, sophomore Bronwyn Oatley, and junior Gemma Collins. If you don’t know us, you should.
3) We are all familiar with that awkward, after dinner, before party period on Friday nights. Do you do work? Do you try to squeeze in some TV? A nap? No, you get your butt down to Ally Tea, hang out with friends, and talk about really interesting things.
4) The really interesting things in question are: gender, sexuality, issues concerning gender and sexuality, identifying as an Ally, what that means, why Middlebury is awesome, how it could be more awesome, how to hit on that hot girl in your Orgo class, popular culture (most prevalently, Lady Gaga), politics, and thousands of other scintillating topics.
Pretty much #4 is the most important bullet point in this scenario, and begins to get at the whole point of Ally Tea. Ally Tea is meant to fill that niche on campus. You know the one I’m talking about. The niche for all students who are straight, gay, undecided, whatever, but totally interested in showing the gay community some love in a non-committal, unintimidating setting. Whether you have an LGBTQ friend or family member, were involved in your high school’s Gay Straight Alliance, want to meet new people with similar interests, or just love glitter, you should totally come. It’s a pressure-free, safe space, and we held one before break that was a wild success. So gather your posse and your favorite L Word episodes, bring a coffee mug and a smile, and attend your first Ally Tea. Consider it added to “The Anther’s” official list of clubs to immediately join.
(04/14/11 5:53pm)
This past weekend, the Panthers traveled to Clinton, New York to take on the Hamilton Continentals. Going into the match, they had lost only one of their six games thus far this season, dropping a match 6-3 to Emory on the first stop of their Spring Break tour.
Facing only their second NESCAC opponent of the season, the Panthers improved to 2-0 in NESCAC play with their 9-0 win over the Continentals. Ranked 10th in the country, Middlebury has easily dominated the courts this spring.
The Panthers did not drop a single match to Hamilton, winning every one of their singles matches in straight sets.
Tri-captain Tori Aiello ’12, playing in the number one singles spot, defeated her Continental opponent Deborah Barany 6-2, 6-3, while Leah Kepping ’13 took her match 6-1, 6-1.
Sally Wilkey ’12, one of Aiello’s fellow tri-captains handily beat Hamilton’s Melissa Mann 6-1, 6-2, while number four singles player Brittney Faber ’13 dropped only one game to Alex Arenson, winning 6-0, 6-1.
Anna Burke ’12, playing in the number five singles spot, was the only singles player to win every game, handily beating her challenger 6-0, 6-0. Rounding out the singles matches in the sixth spot, Lauren Kelly ’13 won the closest match of the day 6-4, 6-1.
The Panthers were equally successful in doubles play, with five singles players doubling as doubles players. Kepping teamed up with Faber to take down the Continental team of Barany and Mann 8-0, while Aiello and Burke matched up against Hamilton’s Arenson and Vrinda Khanna, dropping one game for an 8-1 win.
DeeDee Myers ’13, the only one of the six doubles players to not also play singles on the day, played to an 8-2 win over the Continentals with teammate Kelly.
With the win, the Panthers go to 6-1 on the season, 2-0 in the NESCAC. On an impressive roll thus far, the 10th-ranked Panthers have some tough NESCAC competition coming up.
The Panthers take on 12th-ranked Bowdoin and Bates away this weekend
(04/14/11 5:52pm)
While the NFL mires in the early stages of a lockout, the NBA and MLB are also in the last years of their collective bargaining agreements. Each league will need to come to a new agreement at the conclusion of its respective season or we could be headed for sports apocalypse. Could you imagine the 2011-2012 year if the NFL, NBA and MLB seasons were all suspended? The Mayans may have been right about this 2012-end-of-the-world-thing after all.
While it’s unlikely all three leagues will become locked out after the summer, with the current state of the NFL lockout and a summer of bitter negotiations that will take place between NBA commissioner David Stern and Billy Hunter, the head of the NBA Player’s Association, the odds are high that at least one of the labor disputes will culminate in a substantial lockout. And it’s not too hard to imagine both the NBA and NFL seasons being cut short or canceled for the 2011-2012 season.
The National Football League averages nine billion dollars annually in profit. Under the recently expired CBA, one billion dollars automatically goes to the owners of the 32 teams. Now, however, the owners are claiming that inflated operating costs (see: greed) mandate that they receive another billion dollars. This second billion dollars would come directly out of the money that goes to pay the league’s nearly two thousand players. And while the league’s best players can eclipse the nine-figure mark in total salary, the average career length for an NFL player lasts around three to five years. With players more concerned about their financial security than ever, I think an extended lockout is probable but that a resolution will be made in time for a shortened season.
The risk of a lockout in the NBA appears high. Billy Hunter and the Player’s Association are ready to fight tooth and nail with David Stern over the substantial changes to player contracts that the Commissioner wants to make. I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t an NBA season at all next year.
Of the three leagues, the one with the most problems, the weakest commissioner and the one most negatively affected by the economic downturn is the league least likely headed towards a major labor dispute. Major League Baseball is unlikely to experience major turbulence as it pursues a new collective bargaining deal. In a league where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer MLB will continue to say “Play Ball!” instead of adequately solving its litany of problems. More than likely, Bud Selig will continue to push his problems under the rug for the remainder of his tenure as the commissioner.
In doing so he will probably save us from sports apocalypse in 2012.
(04/14/11 5:51pm)
Both the women and men’s golf teams kicked off their spring season this past weekend traveling to Vassar and Manhattanville Colleges respectively. For the women, this tournament marked the first of three weekend long tournaments which will determine NCAA qualifications for the golfers. The men traveled to Manhattanville to compete in the first of three tournaments before the NESCAC Championships, which are to be held at Middlebury’s golf course the weekend of April 30.
The women’s team came out of this tournament in fifth place. Williams won the 12-team tournament with a two-day total of 686 while the Panther finished with 717 points. Flora Weeks ’12, a golfer who attended nationals last year, took second place overall with a two-day score of 165 just two strokes behind Kimberly Eaton of Wellesley College.
Keely Levins ’13 was the next highest finisher for the Panthers, coming in 20th place with a score of 178. She was followed by Caroline Kenter ’14 in 29th place with 185 points, and Jessica Bluestein ’11 in 34th place with 189 points. According to Kenter, the long winter had a serious affect on the quality of play in this past weekend’s tournament.
“It was most team’s first match of the season so everyone is still warming up,” said Kenter. “Once our course opens up this weekend we’ll be able to hit outside. Hopefully that will improve scoring next week at Amherst.”
The men opened up their spring season in New York by finishing third out of 10 teams competing. Only Skidmore and SUNY Delhi were able to outplay the Panthers who finished out the fall season by winning the NESCAC Qualifying tournament.
Andrew Emerson ’13 finished first out of the Middlebury players in eighth place with a two-day total of 153 points. In 12th place, just one stroke behind Emerson was Jim Levins ’11 and Brian Cady ’11 both with scores of 154. Finishing up for the Panthers was Max Alley ’14, shooting 171 and finishing in 51st place.
“There were certainly some shots that could have been improved upon, but we have a few weeks to work on those aspects to be ready for the NESCAC championships,” said Levins
Like the women, the men’s team was a little rusty as this was the first time they have competed outside. Golf is one of the few sports that relies so much on the weather in order to practice. It is also more difficult for Middlebury to compete because the school is located so far north and the winters are much longer.
“Our team needs to get outside and start experiencing some pressure,” said Cady. “We only have two more events before the NESCAC championships, so we are going to need to make practices very focused as to not let the big event sneak up on us. The team vibe is very good after our spring break trip down to Pinehurst and we are all on the same page as to our dedication to golf this spring.”
The team has only three weekends left in the season before the NESCAC championships. According to Cady, the team’s goal for the tournament is to come away with the championship.
“This will by no means be an easy feat, but currently the team is on the right track to be in a position where we are the best prepared team we can be,” said Cady. “While still a pipe dream, the next step after NESCAC’s would be to make statement at nationals. We qualified for nationals two years ago on our home course, and I would be very excited if we could do it again.”
(04/14/11 5:50pm)
The Panther women dominated Williams last weekend winning both games in a double header, and a game against the Ephs on Friday. They defeated the Ephs 5-0, then 13-2 and 5-1 respectively, bringing their overall record to 12-4 and their NESCAC record to 5-1. Middlebury scored in every inning of their first game, with Megan Margel ’11 breaking the school’s six-year-old hit record with her 143rd hit. She took down the record of 142 hits set by Lauren Guza ’05.
In the first game, Middlebury was up from the start, leading 2-0 in the second inning on only one hit. Aly Downing ’12, aided Margel in crossing the plate with an RBI single. Constantin pitched the first 6 innings, retiring 11 Williams batters, striking out five of them. Seniors Leslie Crawford and Emily Burbridge hit another singles each, with sophomore Jessa Hoffman tying up the win with a RBI double in the sixth. Elizabeth Morris ’14 pitched the last three innings.
In the second game, Middlebury did significant damage in the first three innings, scoring 11 of their 13 home runs. Burbridge and Sarah Boylan ’13 helped with the homeruns in the first inning, with two singles. Kimber Sable ‘14, hitting a double, and Hoffman with a triple helped increase the Panther lead to 6-1 in the second. In the third inning, Middlebury secured the win with hits from Margel hitting a single and Burbridge with a two-run homer. In the top of the fourth inning Williams scored a run with a triple hit by Carley Ameen, but Middlebury came back with two more runs from a groundout hit by Margel and a single by Emma Katz ’13. Senior Ali McAnaney pitched for four innings, improving to 4-1 for the season. Williams had a scoreless inning when Elizabeth Morris ’14 relieved McAnaney for an inning.
In the third game, Williams took the lead in the first inning, scoring a run right off the bat. The Panthers caught up to them in the third inning, however, scoring two runs with a few wild pitches from the Williams pitcher, two errors and Nellie Wood ’11 hitting an RBI single. Middlebury really got going after that, scoring a run in the fourth inning and two in the sixth. Aly Downing ’12 hit an RBI double, allowing Lesenskyj to score a run from third base. Downing got the next run with an RBI single from first-year Alex Scibetta, and she also secured the last run for Middlebury, hitting an RBI double. Geena Constantin ’11, who was recently named NESCAC pitcher of the week, pitched the second game, along with Lesenskyj ’14, who pitched 3.2 innings. Morris relieved Lesenskyj in the seventh inning.
The Panthers were also supposed to play Skidmore in a doubleheader, but the game was canceled due to rain and thunderstorms on Monday, April 11. Coming up for the Lady Panthers are a double header against Castleton on the April 13 and three games against Hamilton on April 15 and 16. Both are away games.
(04/14/11 5:49pm)
Following their annual spring training trip to San Diego, the Middlebury track and field team returned to East Coast competition this weekend in the Springfield Invitational. The team came in second overall at the meet, in which Bowdoin also competed. The team scored important wins in several races, but most notably, Jack Davies ’13 qualified for the NCAAs in the 3000m steeplechase. Davies won the race with a time of 9:21.44, and was selected NESCAC Male Performer of the Week for his impressive showing.
The men also scored an impressive first place finished in 4x400 relay, with a team of Jason Jan ’12, Peter Hetzler ’14 and tri-captains Addison Godine ’11.5 and Connor Wood ’11. Sophomore Stuart Fram ’13 won the 110m hurdles, and Patrick Hebble ’13 picked up a first place finish in the 800. Junior Jason Jan ’12 also had an impressive individual race, coming in first in the 400m. Tri-captain Godine also made sure to point out Jack Terrett ’11’s impressive performance in the 5k.
Five members of the women’s team won their events at Springfield, including junior Margo Cramer ’12 in the 800m with a time of 2:14.52. Grace Doering ’13 continued her impressive streak in the high jump, picking up a win with a jump of 5’5.25’.” Senior Kaitlynn Saldanha ’11 turned in another skillful performance, this time winning the 400m hurdles; tri-captain Christina Kunycky ’11 noted that Saldanha is now second in the NESCAC in the 400m hurdles. Junior Claire McIlvennie ’12 also ran an impressive race, winning the 5k with a time of 17:52.98, and rookie Katie Rominger ’14 won the 1500m.
Tri-captain Kunycky was enthusiastic about the team’s overall performance, saying, “We’ve been training hard since September and are coming off a strong spring break training trip. We have an immensely deep team with strength in almost every event, with that strength coming from everyone from seniors to freshmen.”
The team is already looking ahead to the NESCAC title in three weeks; Kunycky believes that “the team should be very competitive with Williams and Tufts this year.” She also noted that “we’re trying to qualify as many individuals for the DIII New England championships and the NCAAs as we can.”
With such confidence coming from the team’s leader and a chance to really make an impact on a national stage, look out for more impressive performances from the track team in the weeks to come.
(04/14/11 5:48pm)
The Middlebury Panthers defeated Bowdoin Polar Bears this past Saturday at Kohn Field in a definitive 16-12 final. The ninth ranked Panthers (7-2, 4-1) had nine different scorers, leading by as many as 10 in the second half before the Polar Bears (8-2, 4-2) scored seven of their final eight goals during the last 12:38.
Middlebury set the tone for the game, scoring six goals in the first 14:55. Captain Chase Delano ’11 assisted the first and netted three more during this opening run. Bowdoin put their first goal on the board 12:42 into the campaign, but Middlebury quickly retaliated as Liz Garry ’12 scored a goal off of a nice pass by Ellen Halle ‘13. Emma Kramer ‘12 had the next Panther tally, scoring her first career goal for Middlebury at the 5:25 mark.
The half ended with the teams exchanging goals, as Stephanie Gill ’12 capitalized on a pass from Kramer making the score 9-2 in favor of the Panthers entering the intermission. When asked about their quick offensive success, Halle ’13 attributed it to “being able to capitalize on Bowdoin’s defensive play by moving the ball quickly and working together on attack.”
The visiting Polar Bears started the second half off strong netting the first two goals. However, the Panthers regained the momentum by scoring six of the next seven goals, making the score 15-5 with 17:36 remaining in the tilt. The run started with Delano netting her fourth goal of the game while Michaela Colbert ’13 and Heather Marrison ’13 put in the next two.
The Panthers came back with an offensive vengeance after a tough showing at Hamilton, and their determination showed.
As Halle noted, “It was a great to get another chance to overcome the challenge the offense faced in the Hamilton game.”
Bowdoin retaliated to the Panther attack before Liz Garry ’12 netted a pair of goals. The Polar Bears answered with two unassisted goals of their own before Margaret Souther ’13 buried the last Panther goal of the campaign off a behind the net pass from Dani Demarco ’13 at the 9:15 mark.
Bowdoin put in the final five goals of the game, but their efforts fell short, seeing the Panthers walk off the field with a 16-12 win. For the home team, Stephanie Gill ’12 earned four draw controls while Lily Nguyen ’12 was solid in net, making twelve saves before being relieved by Alyssa Palomba ’14 at the 6:45 mark.
Delano was proud of the team’s ability to put together a full game as a unit, saying, “We came out fighting and didn’t stop until the last whistle blew.” The team worked hard to learn from the losses against Colby and Hamilton and channeled these games as motivation to practice hard.
Later, Halle agreed, claiming “After we lost last week, we came out to practice very motivated and the level of play rose dramatically.” The Panthers will continue to keep up the intensity throughout practices this week before hosting Trinity College Saturday at 2:00pm on Kohn Field.
(04/14/11 5:46pm)
The top-ranked men’s tennis team improved to 12-1 for the season Saturday after defeating number 13 Trinity 7-2. Senior captain and 10th-ranked singles player Andy Peters ’11 led the Panthers with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Anson McCook of Trinity in the number one singles match. With the win, Peters improved to 7-2 at the top singles spot for the season.
First-year Brantner Jones ’14, who defeated DJ Patrick 6-1, 6-1 in the number six singles match, was equally impressive. Jones and Peters also teamed up to form the number one doubles team. The first-year and the senior captain, who make up the 21st-ranked doubles team nationally, remained unbeaten over the weekend, running their record to 6-0 for the season, downing Anson McCook and Charles McConnell of Trinity 8-2.
The Panthers took two of three doubles matches while dropping just two singles sets on route to a dominant 5-1 singles record on the day. Derrick Angle ’12, Alec Parower ’13 and Spencer Lunghino ’13 all recorded wins in their singles matches in addition to the stellar performances of Jones and Peters. On the doubles side Spencer Lunghino and David Farah ’12 defeated Kayong Lee and Matthew Mackin of Trinity 8-4 to give the Panthers their second doubles win.
“Our win over 13th-ranked Trinity was a solid team performance over a quality team,” said head coach Rob Barr.
“Senior Andy Peters, Brantner Jones and Spencer Lunghino led the team winning both singles and doubles in dominant fashion. Alec Parower’s win at number four singles was very impressive as well.”
The Panthers have gone 2-0 since returning from a trip to California over the spring recess where the team posted a 7-1 record with its lone loss coming at the hands of Azusa Pacific, who also accounted for one of Middlebury’s two losses during their national championship season last year. The Panthers swept Hamilton 9-0 in their first match after the break last Sunday.
The trip to the West Coast also gave the Panthers their first opportunity to play outside since the fall.
“Playing in California allowed us to transition to playing outdoors again,” Barr said. “The team gained valuable match experience and confidence in winning seven of eight matches against some of the top teams in the country.”
The Panthers travel to Maine this weekend to play at Bates and Bowdoin. On Saturday they play the 21st-ranked Bobcats of Bates and then on Sunday they face Bowdoin, the 14th-ranked team in the country. As it stands, each of the five remaining matches the Panthers play is against a team currently ranked in the top 30 including a season-ending showdown at fourth-ranked Amherst, who the Panthers defeated in the National Championship match last year.
To say that this Panthers team has been dominant in the NESCAC is an understatement. Coming off last year’s national championship win, the top-ranked Panthers have now won 14 consecutive matches against NESCAC opponents including the postseason and have won 22 straight league matches.
Perhaps the most outstanding statistic about this team is its home winning streak. The Panthers last home loss came on April 5 – of 2002. Over the past nine plus years, the Middlebury men’s tennis team has won 65 straight home matches. And they do not appear to be slowing down anytime soon.
Despite such an outstanding streak and the pressure of the number one ranking in the country, head coac
h Rob Barr insists that the expectations don’t affect his team’s play.
“The team doesn’t worry about the rankings,” he said. “We are motivated by improvement and playing our best each time out.”
Barr also added that his team will continue to get better heading into the postseason. “Each week, the men have raised their level of play, but our best tennis is yet to come.”
(04/14/11 5:42pm)
This past week was a week of firsts for the Middlebury men’s lacrosse team, not all of them positive. Last Wednesday saw the seventh-ranked Panthers, 6-2, 4-2 in NESCAC, break a 22 game winning streak against 12th-ranked Amherst College, 8-1, 4-1 in NESCAC, that dated back to 1989. Following the disappointing loss, however, Middlebury traveled to Bowdoin College and defeated the Polar Bears, 3-6, 1-5 in NESCAC, on Saturday to get back on the winning track with their first road win of the year.
The rare loss at Amherst may cause some concern, but according to Quinn Cronan ’14, living up to the history of the match-up was not at the forefront of the team’s agenda.
“We had all heard about the history between the two teams, but I don’t think we were thinking about it going into the game,” said Cronan. “We try to enter every game with the same mentality, and Amherst was a good team with some good athletes and they proved to be a worthy opponent.”
The match up against the Lord Jeffs proved to be a back and forth affair, with Middlebury holding a 7-6 lead with around eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, after Alex Englert ’12 scored off a feed from Mike Giordano ’13, the team leader in number of assists. However, a quick three-goal scoring spree that lasted just over a minute put Amherst ahead 9-7 with 3:30 left in the game, which proved to be the final. Perhaps one of the most glaring problems was the absence of David Hild ’11 on the score sheet. Says Cronan, the development of the attack force has been an important part of the team’s success.
“Hild and Giordano together are a great combination. Mike has great vision and he can create a lot of plays, and this combined with the scoring abilities of Hild and Tim Cahill ’12 is essential to our offense,” said Cronan.
The 16-goal outburst by the Panthers in Brunswick on Saturday may have much to do with Hild getting back in the offensive act. Hild led the way with five goals and a career-high three assists as Middlebury opened up a sizeable lead in the second-half and never looked back. Alongside Hild’s performance, the team was also helped out by Giordano, one goal, three assists; Cahill, five goals; and Andrew Conner ’11, three goals, one assist, en route to a 16-12 win.
In addition to superb offensive talent, the team has also been bolstered in goal by Ryan Deane ’11, considered by many to be the top goalie in the NESCAC.
“Deane has been incredible for us thus far. He is an extremely talented goalie and he has come up with some huge saves for us this year,” said Cronan. “His goaltending play and his role as a captain are crucial parts of our team.”
Over spring break the Panthers played in three games, all of which they won. They kicked off these games with a 11-6 win against Colby. The team continued on to beat Wash. & Lee, 6-5 and Colby 11-6.
The Panthers play two more games on the road this week against Skidmore, Tuesday and Trinity, Saturday. They will then return home to play Rennselaer and undefeated NESCAC rival Tufts to just about close up the regular season of play.
(04/14/11 5:38pm)
Despite dropping two of three games to Amherst last weekend, the Middlebury baseball team is still off to their best NESCAC start in years thanks to a three-game sweep of bitter rival Williams during the team’s annual spring break trip to Chandler, Arizona. Through their first 13 games, the Panthers are 7-6, including 4-2 in conference play.
Middlebury made their cross-country trip to the desert immediately before Spring break started, opening their 2011 season by splitting a doubleheader with Oberlin College. After playing additional games against Thomas and Gustavus Adolphus, the Panthers played the first contests of their all-important NESCAC west schedule against what turned out to be a much overmatched Williams squad. Middlebury won all three games, injecting an early shot of confidence into their metaphorical (and in some cases literal) arms.
The Panthers rode a magnificent pitching performance from staff ace Nick Angstman ’11 in their first game against the Ephs, an eventual 10-3 victory. In a great all-around performance by the squad, Middlebury notched 18 hits while Angstman went seven innings, allowing just two earned runs and striking out four. John Popkowski ’13 tossed the final two innings to record his first save on the season.
The second game of the series was a much-more hotly contested affair, as the Panthers and the Ephs traded leads, leading to a final score of 17-8 for Middlebury that was nowhere near indicative of how close the game actually was. Williams, who had trailed for much of the game, was able to bring home three runs in their half of the seventh, which is the final inning for college doubleheaders. After the Ephs forced the extra frames, Middlebury exploded for nine runs in the top of the ninth, all but ensuring the Panthers victory. Designated hitter Joe Conway ’11 and team captain and right fielder Donnie McKillop ’11 both had three RBIs in the game, and Scooter Scott ’11 entered the game in the seventh inning to pick up his first win of the season.
Game three of the series was all Middlebury, as the Panthers scored three runs in the top of the first and never looked back en route to a 9-0 shutout win. John Wiet ’13 turned in the performance of the season so far for the Middlebury pitching staff, recording the complete game shutout by allowing just six hits over seven innings of work and striking out four. Shortstop Will Baine ’12 had three RBIs in the game to go along with two triples.
“Sweeping Williams not only puts us in a good position for the playoffs, but also lets this team believe that we can hang with the big dogs,” said Thomas Rafferty ’13. “Our bats came alive and everybody was mashing the ball. We have an exciting team this year.”
After returning from Arizona, Middlebury dismantled Southern Vermont in their home opener 19-4 before hitting the road again, this time heading to Amherst for another crucial NESCAC west series against the Lord Jeffs. Fortune did not favor the Panthers so well this time around, as the visiting nine were only able to take one game from their opposition.
Game one of the three-game series was a heartbreaker, as a walk-off single sealed the 7-6 Amherst win in the bottom of the ninth. Middlebury had trailed the game 3-1 until the top of the fifth, when Tyler Wark ’12 singled home a run to cut the lead to two. In the following inning, the Panthers put three more runs on the board to take the lead thanks to a Rafferty double, a Wark walk and a McKillop sacrifice. When Amherst again took the lead in the bottom of the seventh, McKillop was able to deliver a clutch RBI single in the top of the eighth to tie the game at six. However, just when the game seemed destined to be extended for extra innings, Amherst’s Alex Hero singled into left field to deliver the last-second victory for the Lord Jeffs. Popkowski took the loss for Middlebury, his second on the season.
The Panthers struck back in game two, the first of a Saturday doubleheader. Behind three hit days from both Baine and Zach Roeder ’12 and a complete-game, three run performance from pitcher Michael Joseph ’13, Middlebury was able to cruise to an easy 8-3 victory over the Lord Jeffs. However, Amherst sealed the series win in the rubber match that afternoon, issuing the Panthers their worst loss of the season with a 12-2 walloping. Wiet took the loss for Middlebury despite only allowing two earned runs in nearly six innings of work- fielding errors contributed to the loss more than poor pitching.
“We played solid but we didn’t get enough timely hits or plays,” said Rafferty of the Amherst.
Middlebury takes on Wesleyan at home this weekend for another important three-game conference series. The Panthers have shown that they can hit, and they’ve also shown that the pitching has the potential to be dominant, if not consistent. If Middlebury can put it all together on the diamond, this will be a special season for the Panthers.
(04/14/11 5:01am)
Najla Said presented “Palestine,” her one-woman show, to an intimate audience April 11 at the Chateau Theater. The performance was the first in a series of guest-lectures that comprise the Women’s and Gender Studies Program’s focus on Palestine, with additional support from the Arabic department, etc.
Said provides a unique perspective on the Arab-American identity; she has a Lebanese mother and a Palestinian father raised in Egypt and educated in the United States, while she herself was raised in privilege in New York, a self proclaimed “Upper West Side princess” who remained staunchly apolitical and whose favorite pastimes in high school included kissing Jewish boys.
Said might be better known for her famous father, Edward Said, the Columbia professor in comparative literature who vaulted into academic stardom with the publication of his book, Orientalism, and became an advocate for Palestinian rights and peace in the Middle East. Orientalism remains a college staple; you might recognize him as the guy who talked about “the Other.
Said developed the show from a journal entry she wrote soon after her father’s death from leukemia in 2003. Along with the rest of her family, he is brought to vivid life as the quintessential academic, the professor who favored three-piece suits, drove a Volvo and smoked pipes. Said recalls solidifying her friendship with her father over discussions of Jane Eyre and shopping sprees in middle school. It becomes clear that the show is both a tribute to and a declaration of independence from her father, a man who never fully understood her love of theater and, for all his brilliance, could be said to have a one-track mind — sometimes with humorous results.
“He and I had some arguments when I was in college,” Said said in a question-and-answer session following the performance. “I did this production of Othello, and Othello was cast as this African American kid. My Dad came and was like, ‘Othello was an Arab. He was a moor!’ Everything was always, ‘Where were the Arabs?’ Dad would read Jane Austen and come out of it like, ‘the colonies!’ and I would be like, ‘Mr. Darcy?’”
Still, the figure of Said’s father is almost dwarfed in the narrative by Said’s portrayal of her mother, a successful career woman in her own right, who rekindled her father’s interest in the Middle East and stood as a pillar of strength throughout her childhood.
“It’s interesting, in my first college reading a professor said that I’d done a post-modern feminist reading of my father’s work,” Said said. “I wrote the piece initially because people were always referring to me as my father’s daughter, but instead I found my mom. Mom was one of the first women to go to the American University in Lebanon, and she really instilled an assertive quality in me. She was comfortable in the Middle East being my father’s wife, but if she was not happy about something she would speak up.”
The show finds its heart as it maps out the complex terrain that makes up Said’s Arab identity. It begins the summer after her senior year of high school, on the eve of the family’s first trip to Israel, the first time her father has gone back to his early childhood home in Jerusalem, and the first time her mother has returned to Lebanon since the war. Said is unenthusiastic and anorexic, both appalled and repelled by the poverty and humiliation she discovers in Gaza – the Palestinians are her people, but they are far removed from her New York existence.
From this beginning we are catapulted from scene to scene as Said maneuvers the fine line between her dual identity as both an Arab and an American. Caught in the early bombings that marked the start of both of Lebanon’s recent wars, Said manages to retain an effusive love for Middle Eastern culture. In rapid glimpses into her family life, we see her early confusion and reticence about her Arab background fall away, until she is able to allow it to come into the spotlight following 9/11.
With a memoir in the works and the popularity of her show, Said remains grateful just to share her story — a personal glimpse into an array of complex issues often drowned in the political.
“If I’d written this as a fictional play — people always find fault with fiction,” Said said. “No one would believe this girl in a work of fiction could come out of such a family and remain apolitical, but my incongruities are a reality. This is my story, and they listen.”
(04/14/11 4:34am)
Almost as soon as we arrive at Middlebury, we learn to be thankful that we report to Public Safety, not the police. We know punishments are different, but why, and how? The Campus talks to members of the Middlebury Police Department and the College’s Public Safety force to hash out the differences between the two different agents of law enforcement that Middlebury students might encounter.
In a town this small, officers of the Middlebury College Public Safety Department and the Middlebury Police Department are hard to miss. However, if you’ve never been involved in a criminal investigation on campus, the way they work together might be a bit of a question mark.
“It’s a fairly close working relationship,” said Sergeant Jason Covey of the Middlebury Police. “The College exists very much in its own entity … We don’t repeatedly patrol the campus; we have the rest of the town to patrol.”
Still, because Public Safety officers do not have the power to arrest students, they occasionally call upon the Middlebury police if the crime is more serious or if a student refuses to comply.
Covey was sure to emphasize the mutually beneficial nature of the relationship. When the police have reason to be on campus, Public Safety’s direct involvement with the college community proves invaluable.
“We exchange information routinely about issues that may affect the campus,” Covey said. “If we do have a criminal investigation that we’re conducting on campus, they would help track down people for us and provide information and assistance to us.”
Citing the forces’ independent yet integrated areas of jurisdiction, Covey finds the system to be quite effective.
“I would say the relationship works well because the College … is a self-contained society that’s able to handle most everything that happens there,” Covey said. “Very serious things do happen that of course require the police to come in and, if you will, take over, or assume responsibility for what’s happening, but those are few and far between. … We have different roles to play, but the two seem to mesh together quite well.”
Sergeant Chris Thompson of Public Safety also expressed satisfaction with the current system.
“I feel that the Middlebury Police Department and the Middlebury College Public Safety Department share a common goal, which is to keep the Middlebury community safe,” he wrote in an email. “There is mutual respect, and communication is strong between the two departments.”
According to Middlebury Chief of Police Tom Hanley, having a college within his area of jurisdiction does not make his job particularly different from one in another, comparable town.
“While the small college community may have a different dynamic than some of the other ‘micro communities’ we find interspersed within a community, it is still a part of the greater community,’ Hanley wrote in an email. “The big difference is that in the college community there is a ‘government’ of sorts and an organization that is missing in other neighborhoods and population centers.’”
Hanley added that this type of relationship is not exclusive to college towns.
“In larger communities that have gated neighborhoods with their own associations, fine systems and regulations, the police face the same dynamic,” he wrote. “Understanding that dynamic and working cooperatively with those organizations are the big differences between communities where they don’t exist and communities where they do.”
He also emphasized that the two communities are not mutually exclusive, referring specifically to staff and faculty members who are part of both. The close proximity of the College and surrounding town, an advantage in many ways, can sometimes lead to clashes; student activity sometimes leads to noise complaints from local residents, for example. In such cases, according to Covey, the students’ location is the deciding factor when it comes to jurisdiction: if the students are on campus, police will refer the complaint to Public Safety, and if not, they will address the problem, “start to finish,” as they would with any other town resident.
In other cases, the dividing line is not so clear. If a student is the victim of a crime, he or she can choose to report it to Public Safety, the Middlebury Police or both.
“When Public Safety responds, our staff informs students that the police can be contacted as well,” Associate Director of Public Safety Dan Gaiotti wrote in an e-mail. “Public Safety may also help students with reporting incidents to the Middlebury Police, when necessary.”
Depending on the situation, a variety of factors can go into this decision. With a college judicial system at their disposal, Covey said, many students may be more comfortable avoiding police involvement altogether, particularly if the perpetrator is another student.
“My assumption is that a lot of people don’t want to face the criminal justice system,” Covey said. “It is time-consuming. It’s adversarial. It can be very difficult on people. It’s very trying.”
On the other hand, the limitations of the College’s power can be persuasive.
“The College can impose sanctions,” Covey said, “but the criminal justice system has a very wide variety of sanctions that can be imposed.”
In sum, “it’s in the eye of the beholder what the advantages and disadvantages would be,” Covey said.
If the police are called upon for any reason, according to Covey, “the process for any crime is pretty much the same.” If an investigation leads to probable cause, the police charge the individual with the crime. At that point, the course of action can vary.
Take a student found in possession of drugs, for example.
“The average person — whether it be a Middlebury College student or whomever — who we encounter who’s in possession of a small amount of marijuana, if we find them with marijuana, most of the time, we will arrest them then and there,” Covey said.
The police will then bring the student to the police department to be fingerprinted, photographed and released with a citation to appear in court, usually about six weeks later. Only in extreme cases do the police choose to hold someone in jail until he or she appears in court.
While theft on campus — which “happens virtually every day” — is regularly reported, it is rare for the police to receive reports of serious crimes from students. According to Covey, serious crimes mount to “generally less than five to 10 things a year, on average.”
The police do not, however, receive reports regarding most infractions.
“For example, say they find an underage student in possession of alcohol,” Covey said. “We would not be notified of that unless there were some extenuating circumstances that they think they need assistance from the police … We have no knowledge, no information, no access to the College disciplinary procedure as a process.”
To become a police officer in Vermont requires 16 to 19 weeks of full-time basic training at a Basic Training Academy. Among other requirements, hopeful officers must first pass a written examination and undergo physical testing. Once admitted, according to the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council, “The curriculum includes Criminal Law, Defensive Tactics, Conflict Management/Crisis Intervention Training, Community Policing, Investigative Procedures, Motor Vehicle Law, Patrol Procedures and much more.”
In contrast, “Middlebury College Public Safety officers receive most of their training in the form of on-the-job training here at the College,” Associate Dean of the College and Director of Public Safety Lisa Boudah wrote in an email. “The training covers department policies and procedures, the College handbook, specialized training topics such as hazing, hate crimes, diversity awareness, Training the Eye to See and training on local ordinances and pertinent state laws.”
The officers are also certified in first aid, CPR and AED in addition to attending a training course specifically geared toward college security officers.
Boudah, who was a police officer in Burlington before becoming a college security officer, believes this transition to be easier than the reverse might have been, given the respective job descriptions. In addition to leaving behind the various responsibilities exclusive to the police, including arrests and traffic stops, “All of our work is here on the campus and the majority of our contacts are with College community members … many of whom we know on a first name basis,” she wrote. “As a police officer, many contacts are with strangers or people whom we’d never see again.”
Thompson feels that the department’s relationship with the student body is strong.
“I believe that students feel like they can rely on Public Safety officers to help them resolve issues, and trust the Public Safety Department with reporting any issues on campus,” he wrote in an email.
While the forces work jointly to address issues that arise, Covey also addressed the advantage of living and working somewhere as safe as Middlebury.
“Middlebury College is a relatively safe place with few violent crimes — very few that are reported to us, at the least,” Covey said. “I assume there probably aren’t many to begin with.”
-----------------------------------
KNOW YOUR JURISDICTION
Essentially, things that take place off-campus are under police jurisdiction, and if they are on campus, it is up to public safety to handle it unless:
1.
They are very serious crimes (e.g., assault).
2.
Public safety decides they need to bring in
reinforcement because students are not cooperating.
3.
A student victim wants to report it to the police.
------------------------------------
KNOW YOUR PUNISHMENT
Drug possession (various types)
Incident report submitted to Commons Dean. Large quantities indicating distribution: contact police.
Intoxication
Medical assistance (if necessary) and/or locate a sober friend.
Possession of alcohol
Alcohol citation issued if underage.
Open containers
Open container violation form issued.
Property damage / vandalism
Investigation, incident report submitted to Commons Dean, police may be contacted.
Driving drunk
Contact police / incident report submitted to Commons Dean.
Public urination
Incident report submitted to Commons Dean.
Noise complaints
Incident report submitted to Commons Dean.
Parking tickets
Fine administered.
(04/14/11 4:29am)
For Assistant Professor of Political Science Nadia Horning, life has been anything but predictable. Horning hails from Madagascar, but she spent her early life traveling between Africa and France since her father was
Madagascar’s military attaché to the embassy in France. Although she spent much of her childhood in France and spoke French fluently, Horning was still shocked when, at 12 years old, her parents surprised her by enrolling her and her older sister in a boarding school in Paris.
Her parents made the decision to send their daughters away because there was, “nothing good” going on in Madagascar at the time.
“The dictatorship was in full steam, and the economy had collapsed,” Horning said. “People began to starve.”
Her parents, predicting that the quality of the children’s education might go down, found a Parisian boarding school open to daughters of recipients of the French equivalent of the Purple Heart. Luckily, Horning’s father had received this honor.
The experience would ultimately be the one that would help prompt Horning’s interest in political science.
“There was the pain of leaving my country and my family at age 12, looked for some justification,” Horning said. “I had to explain why I had to go through this experience and it led me to be curious about the context in which my parents found themselves forced to make the decision to send their children overseas. Now as a mother, I realize how difficult that must have been, and frankly I don’t know if I’d have the courage to do that.”
When visiting Madagascar on school vacations, Horning was consistently struck by the harsh realities of life in Madagascar under the dictatorship.
“It’s not just those who end up starving and suffering; pain comes in different forms,” Horning said. “Even if you’re among the privileged, you’re not spared.”
In many other ways, the polarization of Madagashi society hit Horning hard.
“What really drew me to political science was my observation of inequalities within Madagashi society,” Horning said. “It was the dominated versus dominators, rich versus the poor.”
But before she found her way to politics, she went to Cottey College in Missouri, a small liberal arts school to which she earned a scholarship the year after her graduation from high school in France. Horning relished the opportunity to study overseas because of her interest in language — she planned to attend a university, either one in Geneva or one in Paris, that was specifically set up to instruct potential translators and interpreters.
However, instead of just improving her language skills, the experience had a dramatic effect on the trajectory of Horning’s life.
Horning remembers arriving on campus and receiving confused looks after her first interaction with American students in which she inquired in British English as to where the “loo” was.
“Essentially what happened is I discovered America and Americans and very quickly realized that I didn’t understand them, so I became curious,” said Horning.
This interest, combined with the occurrence of student riots in France following her year at Cottey College made, “the situation in France very unattractive at the time,” and encouraged Horning to attend university in the United States.
She chose George Mason University in Washington, D.C., an ideal option because its location was at the nexus of American politics. She began studying political science, convinced by a recent technological innovation that her previous career idea path of translation would soon be rendered obsolete by the introduction of an automated translating system in Japan.
“I believed in it and I thought, ‘this might not be a good idea if machines are going to replace us,’” Horning said. “It was new and promising and also kind of threatening.”
Although the technology did not end up working, Horning continued on her newfound path of political science, which eventually led her to graduate school and to an international development firm in Burlington (“I come from a poor county so [development] was always a preoccupation.”), where she did consulting work on local governance capabilities and resource management in Madagascar.
“What I learned was that there were fascinating things going on in resource management, and state/society relations in Madagascar that I had become very curious about but didn’t have time to look into,” Horning said.
In order to spend more time researching resource management, Horning returned to school for a PhD. from Cornell. There, she both discovered a love for teaching — while other graduate students preferred research, “I was running to teaching,” Horning said — and was able to continue her research.
“I was intrigued as to why some farmers where complying with the legislation [about deforestation] and why some others were not,” Horning said. “Lo and behold, that became the topic of my dissertation.”
Horning continues to study resource management; although she hesitates to make the joke that she’s “branched out” in conservation research, she has expanded her research to Africa, “essentially to debunk the myth that Madagascar is ‘exceptional,’ that Madagascar is different, and really isn’t when it comes to the politics of resource management. Modern politics and economics are very similar across the ocean, and we are absolutely African.”
While the book she is currently working on focuses on conservation politics, Horning hopes to dive into work on the political history of Madagascar after she finishes work on this current book.
She continues to be interested in Madagascar because, “We can’t even seem to do the wrong thing right — our coups are not real coups, our referenda are not referenda … we just don’t seem to do anything according to texts.”
Although Horning said she, “never imagined I would do this — teaching was not on the radar,” and had expected to return to her consulting job after earning her PhD., she found that her background in Madagascar helped her in teaching her political science classes, especially the African Politics course she currently teaches at Middlebury.
“My knowledge doesn’t necessarily come from textbooks, but from real-world experiences,” Horning said. “It makes a big difference when you’re lecturing. I could be telling you guys so many stories, but I’m careful not to turn the course into ‘me, me, me, me, me.’ “
Horning says her greatest challenges at Middlebury lie in her ability to, “[keep] up with students’ interests and passions as I teach,” although, “it’s an exciting challenge, not a daunting one.
“Also, how to connect knowledge I think I need to impart on my students in ways that they find exciting and relevant and ways they can relate to, and the question becomes more challenging,” Horning said.
Though her current home of Ripton, Vt. is one of the smallest towns she has lived in, Horning has found that teaching at Middlebury still allows her the feeling of living in a cosmopolitan environment.
“The contrast between being a small town and being very international [is one of the best aspects of Middlebury],” Horning said. “I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak and hear different languages and know that there are people with different nationalities and different experiences. It’s very reassuring to me. Completely removes the, ‘Oh it’s a small rural town in Vermont.’”
And as far as Middlebury students go, Horning says: “I tap energy and I’m just sucking all that energy.” As she looked at me, a student in one of her classes, she said, “You give me a reason to get going.”
(04/14/11 4:25am)
For Olivia French ’14, environmental conservation has been a lifelong passion. This interest began when an enthusiastic science teacher introduced the topic of greenhouse gases to her middle-school class. Once educated about the importance of conservation, it stuck with her.
In her second year of high school, French decided to raise awareness of environmental issues by researching mountaintop removal, a type of mining most often done in the Appalachian Mountains where coal seams are removed from the summit of a mountain. She then traveled to West Virginia to photograph the mines and created a photojournalism exhibit that hung at her high school, Loomis Chaffee, and at Brown University. She called it, “Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining: A Legacy of Human Suffering and Environmental Devastation.”
Gradually, though, French honed on one issue of special importance to her: rainforest conservation.
“I became interested in rainforest conservation after realizing that so much of our western lifestyle depends on the health of our rainforests,” French wrote in an email.
After realizing that hundreds of fruits, vegetables, ingredients for prescription drugs and species of wildlife exist in rainforests and that rainforests are of utmost importance in the reduction of greenhouse gas, French decided to start a new project aimed at the issue.
This most recent project was to found an organization called “Hike a Trail — Save a Forest” last March with her brother Wyatt, now a sophomore at Loomis Chaffee. The Frenches worked with a website designer to create a webpage for their group and contacted outing clubs and environmental groups from area colleges and high schools to garner support for the fledgling organization.
On April 17, Hike a Trail — Save a Forest will launch its first fundraising event for the Nature Conservancy’s Plant a Billion Trees Program: a hike of Snake Mountain in which each participant donates $10. French hopes that the fact that the mountain is close to campus and easy to hike will make it an attractive venue for potential participants.
“I know everyone has busy schedules,” French said, “so I wanted to make sure the hike wasn’t an all day event, but more of a break in the day to get fresh air and celebrate nature.”
It’s French’s first “big-scale event,” and the organization hopes to raise $6,000, of which $1,070 has already been raised through other fundraising efforts.
French finds the recipient of these donations, the Plant a Billion Trees Program, an especially worthy one. The organization appeared to be “dedicated to making a significant, tangible difference in our environment” through working to plant a billion trees and restore one million acres of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil by 2015.
The project is especially pressing given the fact that only seven percent of the Atlantic Forest remains. The program hopes that the fact that one hectare of a rainforest like the Atlantic Forest can absorb approximately six tons of carbon dioxide every year will provide dramatic environmental benefits, and the program specifically aims to help expel four million tons of carbon dioxide from the earth’s atmosphere every year. Each dollar raised by the organization goes towards one tree planted.
“When I donate to the Plant a Billion Trees program, I know exactly where my money is going,” French said. “Plus, I’ll be able to see powerful, lasting changes because of the program … I think that’s so cool.”
Middlebury students are not the only ones participating in the event — students from 17 others schools plan to hike trails near their own campuses, including students from Williams, Yale, The University of Ohio, Wake Forest, Bentley and Elon. Even if schools have events planned for the April 17, the students also plan to raise donations for the Plant a Billion Trees Program.
French has high hopes for the organization’s future. She aims to increase the success of fundraising efforts in the future through continued donations from supporters who do not necessarily attend the hiking event.
“This is our first year of Hike a Trail-Save a Forest, so we’re still figuring out how to best to gather support and raise awareness,” said French, “but we hope that next year Hike a Trail — Save a Forest will continue to grow and that even more schools will join us.”
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To hike with Midd students on April 17 or donate to the Plant a Billion Trees Program, contact Olivia French at ofrench@middlebury.edu or visit:
hikeatrailsaveaforest.org!
And if you can’t make the hike but would like to make a donation, or just want to learn more about Hike a Trail — Save a Forest, visit the siblings’ website.
To learn more about the Nature Conservancy’s Plant a Billion Project, visit www.plantabillion.org.