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(10/14/10 3:52am)
American Poverty in Context, a fall symposium exploring issues of poverty and hunger in the U.S., will run from Oct. 21 to Oct. 29 and feature lecturers from the College community as well as nationally-recognized speakers.
“We really hope that students will come away from the symposium with a more complicated understanding of the issues at hand,” said Dan Murphy ’11, who is organizing the event along with Veronica Muoio ’11 and Yuan Lim ’12.
“Poverty can exert a pervasive influence on a person's life, affecting everything from health to housing to children's educational outcomes. It's important for Middlebury students to know what's at stake, and for whom,” added Murphy.
The symposium will begin the Thursday after midterm recess with guest lecturer Joel Berg. Berg is a former USDA Coordinator of Community Food Security and head of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. His lecture is entitled “Yes, We Can End Hunger and Poverty in the United States” and will discuss topics covered in his new book, All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America? Berg’s book presents a policy plan for the Obama administration to end child hunger in the U.S. by 2015. Berg will speak at 7 p.m. in Dana Auditorium.
A community supper will be held on Oct. 22 from 4-8 p.m. at the Congregational Church.
The following week kicks off on Monday Oct. 25 with keynote speaker Harlan Beckley at 4:30 p.m. in the McCullough Social Space. Beckley has taught in the Religion department at Washington and Lee University since 1974 and is the director of the Shepherd Program for the Interdisciplinary Study of Poverty and Human Capability at Washington and Lee. Following his lecture, Beckley will speak with Tom and Nancy Shepherd, Washington and Lee alumni whose financial support makes the program possible, in an information session on the Shepherd program at 7 p.m. in the Davis Family Library room 201.
On Tuesday Oct. 26, Middlebury Professor of Economics Rober Prasch will give a lecture entitled “Poverty, Gender Politics, and the Origin of Labor Legislation in the United States” at 12:30 p.m. in Le Chateau 108.
Program Manager of Project Health Samantha Marder and Project Health volunteer Hannah Nichols will give a lecture entitled “Understanding Social Determinants of Health: Breaking the Link between Poverty and Poor Health” at 4:30 p.m. in McCardell Bicentential Hall 220 on Wednesday Oct. 27. Project Health trains undergraduate volunteers to operate Family Help Desks in clinics in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New York, Providence and Washington, D.C. These help desks connect low-income families with resources to find food, fuel assistance, housing or other resources.
Founder and Director of Good News Garage (GNG) Hal Colston will give a lecture on Thursday Oct. 28 at 12:30 p.m. in McCardell Bicentential Hall 220 discussing community action in New England. In addition to directing GNG, which repairs donated cars and gives them to low-income families in New England, Colston also teaches a community service course at Champlain College.
Also on Thursday, Ingrid Pixley and Doug Sinclair will discuss “Housing Issues, Homelessness and Community Action in Vermont” in the Davis Family Library room 201. Pixley is the Property Manager for the local nonprofit Addison County Community Trust, which provides affordable housing to Addison County Residents. Sinclair is the co-founder of the Middlebury Community Care Coalition, which helps provide housing and food assistance to the local community.
The symposium will close on Oct. 29 with a student panel on summer anti-poverty internship experiences.
(10/14/10 3:51am)
Falling leaves, shorter days and chilly nights. Summer in Vermont, sadly, has definitely come to a close. But in the Harris Farmhouse, things are still heating up for the Solar Decathlon as we plan out the coming year. That’s right: one more year (11 months, to be more exact), and the Middlebury team will be taking the National Mall by storm.
When I first got involved with the project at Middlebury last fall, it was a few students meeting at the Old Stone Mill talking about ideas, working on the proposal and calculating how low our chances really seemed at getting into the competition. I left to go abroad in December, kind of forgetting, to be honest, that the Solar Decathlon was a part of my life at all. Now, just nine months later, there are organized committees and sub-committees, detailed designs and the hope that we have a good chance at doing well next fall. Addison Godine ’11.5 and the rest of the team have taken the project from humble beginnings to an impressively professional design that continues to impress me.
So where does the Midd Solar Decathlon team go from here? What can it do to make this year as successful as the past one has been?
Now that the conceptual house design has been finalized, we’re looking ahead to what will help us bring that house from the drawing board to reality. As our team’s Solar Decathlon website says, “Middlebury is the first ever undergraduate college to enter the U.S. Solar Decathlon without partnering with another institution.” It’s our biggest achievement and our biggest challenge at the same time. Luckily, we have been fortunate enough to receive glowing and enthusiastic support from within the administration. Obviously, with Middlebury’s concentrated effort on creating a niche for itself in the “Green” world, the Solar Decathlon is the perfect opportunity to bring the Middlebury name to the environmental forefront. And far from the vague notices placed around dining halls last year telling us “not to drive to the gym” and the “Please Recycle” signs in strategic printing locations, this competition highlights the myriad skills of Middlebury students, combining them in a tangible, visible representation of what we can do for our school and for the environment as a whole. With the right motivation (side note: Addison Godine ’11.5 won Outstanding Encourager of Leadership in Others at last spring’s Student Leadership Awards Ceremony), different majors, interests and people have come together to bring their A game to DC.
In the coming weeks and months, fundraising will be key. The fundraising team has around $500,000 left to raise from alumni, corporations and local businesses. From grants to the smallest of donations, it’s of the utmost importance that we hit this number. The team has begun drafting letters and presentations, and all Middlebury alums have now received a letter not only explaining our mission, but asking for their help. We’re also looking to reach as a wide a network of people as possible. With a website and blog up and running and an open house over Parent’s Weekend, we hope that students will start to become more aware of what we’re doing and how amazing it will be for our school. Beyond money, it’s also great to just raise awareness. If word spreads, it will make a huge difference.
Look for more updates from us; I’ll be filling you in every other week in The Campus. And be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter at MiddSD.
(10/14/10 3:48am)
Dining Services will expand the operating hours of the Grille to 5 p.m. to 12 a.m. on Sundays and until 12 a.m. on Mondays beginning this month.
Old Chapel has been privy to many complaints from students about the lack of dining options on campus this semester, particularly on Sundays and Mondays. Vice President for Administration Tim Spears noted the important role such student input played in the making of this decision.
“It’s certainly helpful to hear from students more clearly about … what an inconvenience it is for them not to be able to get a hold of food and drink on Sunday and Monday nights,” he said. “But it’s also the case that it’s taken us a while to work towards a certain staffing model.”
In order to do expand hours at the Grille, Dining Services needs to hire additional staff, a process that Spears reports will begin this week. It could take up to two weeks to hire new staff, so the plan is to expand Grille hours by the end of the month. If the hiring process is particularly quick, however, this could occur sooner.
“Let’s face it: you can’t open these places until you have the adequate staff,” Spears said. “It’s taken time to figure out what sort of staff is going to be necessary for running the Grille, MiddXpress and Wilson Café together at a particular time. We’ve been working through a lot of different staffing issues, and it’s long and complicated, but I think we’ve got a handle on it now.”
Spears announced the plans at the Oct. 11 meeting of the Community Council.
Out of concern for what has become a hotly debated issue, on Oct. 10 the Student Government Association (SGA) passed a resolution to examine the Grille hours and their reduction’s negative impact on student life. According to SGA President Riley O’Rourke ’12, before Spears’ announcement the following day, the SGA was willing to take definitive action to address the situation.
“If they do not change it soon we will pass something else, and if we have to we will pay a student to stay in the space so we can at least get the room open for people to work in,” O’Rourke wrote in an e-mail. “It is embarrassing that a school like Middlebury does not have a [dining operation] open on Sunday or Monday. Also, it is ridiculous that there is no place to get food in this town after 9 p.m. on those days.”
O’Rourke gives voice to widespread student concern, which Spears hopes the new plan for the Grille will “remedy.”
In another development affecting the College’s retail operations, Spears and Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Patrick Norton have definitively moved to open the Juice Bar in January 2011 as a student-run organization.
In an all-student e-mail sent out this week, Spears outlined the process whereby the contract for managing the Juice Bar will be awarded. Interested students will submit their proposals as part of a competitive bidding process, with the strongest application receiving the contract. In December, the winner will be announced, and in January the Juice Bar will commence operations as a student-run organization.
“It’s an effort to try and get the Juice Bar up and running, and give an opportunity to some students to do something interesting,” Spears said.
Spears likened this idea to what occurs at the Bunker: another “student-managed space that operates within [Freeman International Center], a licensed building, with students working for the College.”
In addition, Spears indicated that such an approach may be used in the future to harness student innovation in other areas of campus.
“We have these challenges and issues on campus — why not bring students into the equation, tap into their talents and introduce these professional and entrepreneurial opportunities?” he said.
(10/14/10 3:47am)
In the upcoming weeks, senator Anne Runkel ’11 will present a resolution before SGA urging the administration to help promptly restore MiddView (OINK, MOO et al.) to our community and future peers. This initiative expects to receive full SGA support, and should garner our backing as well.
Outdoor orientation programs at Middlebury have, since their founding in 1988, enjoyed healthy and enth¬usiastic support from administrators, students and alumni. Introducing thousands of first-years to Middlebury over the years, MiddView and its other manifestations have provided new students a superb environment for social integration and support.
When SGA pledged financial support of the Mountain Club OINK program, we knew full well that despite the Mountain Club’s boundless energy and enthusiasm, OINK would not sustainable in the long run. From the outset, neither the Mountain Club nor SGA intended OINK to be a permanent institution. Runkel’s resolution reflects our initial intention and represents an appropriate transition toward restoring stewardship to the administration.
While the College maintains that the financial deficit forces them to keep MiddView in mothballs, recall that not one of our peer schools nor any of the Ivy League chose to shut down their outdoor orientation programs. Kalamazoo College kept theirs, and Harvard doesn’t even serve hot breakfast anymore. The question of maintaining our orientation program, therefore, is not merely one of what numbers to crunch and cut. MiddView should instead be regarded as a cornerstone in our first-years’ inauguration.
In a survey submitted to the student population last year asking whether students would be willing to support orientation programs through their own student activities’ fee, results were unmistakably positive. On a scale of one to five, with five as the most positive, a total of 529 participants responded, with an average of 4.08 and a standard deviation of 1.32. And not to delve into the statistics too technically, but while acknowledging survey bias, having 529 Middlebury students respond to any kind of questionnaire is, in and of itself, remarkable (cf. SGA election turnouts).
Though the specifics of Runkel’s resolution remain undisclosed till the Senate reconvenes after fall break, it will likely build upon the initiatives that garnered such strong polling support, along with Mountain Club recommendations, and push the administration to quickly review MiddView’s financials for reinstatement. Moreover, the administration should be reminded of the lasting impacts of social integration: the students of today become tomorrow’s donating alumni.
It is important that administrators recognize the value of sustaining one of Middlebury’s enduring traits. Our character as a school and what differentiates us from our competitors is not merely our particular jumble of students and faculty, but also the environment fostered around our community. Members of the College alike should thus support SGA in preserving one of our lasting traditions.
(10/07/10 4:15am)
The College hosted its first TEDx event, “TEDx Middlebury,” this past Saturday, Oct. 2. The event lasted the whole day, featuring 16 speakers presenting on an enormous variety of topics.
President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz gave the opening remarks.
“What makes Middlebury distinct is the way in which students share what they learn with each other and how they support one another,” he said. “We share the common belief that we have to deepen and strengthen that.”
TEDx Middlebury is an innovative way to deepen the connections in our community. With the help of local sponsors, a team of students and faculty spearheaded by Cloe Shasha ’11 brought 16 speakers and 100 listeners to McCardell Bicentennial Hall for a day of thought-provoking discussion.
TED (Technology, Information, Design) is a nonprofit organization with a simple mission: bring people with great ideas together to share them with the world. Every year, speakers gather in Long Beach and Oxford to present 18-minute bursts of innovation and inspiration, and their talks are posted online for free viewing.
The TEDx program presents the principles of TED on a smaller scale. While the TED organization provides the framework, TEDx events are largely driven by the local organizers and community. The vast array of TEDx Middlebury speakers, for example, included alumni, professors and parents of current students.
In an introductory video clip, TED curator Chris Anderson expressed his admiration for those who have taken it upon themselves to host TEDx events. “We’re truly in awe of the passion and dedication they’ve shown to make something like this work,” he said.
Though ticket availability for the event was limited to 100 seats, a live video feed in BiHall allowed ticket-less students, faculty, staff and community members to listen in.
Check out this year's talks:
Hello Avatar: Your Networked Life — Beth Coleman
Authentic Patriotism: How They Found It, and Restored a Nation Adrift — Stephen Kiernan '82
It's All in the Story — Frank Sesno '77
Thinking Like an Island — Philip Conkling
Rise of the Amateur Organizers — Michael Silberman '02
On Being Human — Sierra Crane-Murdoch ’02
Writing with Julia — Alex Prud’homme ’84
Time for Schools to go to Work — Chris Maxey
Synthetic Sea, Synthetic Me: Plastic in the World’s Oceans — Anna Cummins
The Place of Wonder: A Giant Pod of Potential — Jessica Riley ’98
Lattice as Lifestyle — Yelizavetta Kofman ’07 and Astri von Arvin Ahlander ’07
Getting Here From There — Sunny Bates
(10/07/10 4:15am)
MOVIE | Holy Rollers
DIRECTOR | Kevin Asch
Holy Rollers can’t seem to decide if it’s a coming-of-age character drama, a cautionary parable about two cultural extremes or a straightforward crime drama. I suppose it’s more the first than anything, but I also suspect that it is ambitious enough to aim for all three. Such a blend would require real subtlety and finesse, and it does not deliver on all counts, but it creates a number of moving and indelible moments over the course of its 89 minutes.
The film — which was written by Antonio Macia ’99, and screened in Dana Auditorium on Thursday (co-sponsored by Hillel and the Center for the Comparative Study of Race & Ethnicity) — recounts the story (based on a true one) of teenager Sam Gold’s involvement in a drug-running operation in the 90s that recruited Hasidic Jews to smuggle ecstasy pills into America. Sam, played by Jesse Eisenberg (currently invading your world as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network) comes from a Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood himself, and is on the fast track to becoming a community mensch (studying to be a Rabbi, arranged marriage, etc.). But when his future wife’s family rescinds their wedding offer, possibly because of Sam’s father’s prideful scorn for money and luxury, a sudden bout of angst and greed drives Sam to get involved with Israeli drug smuggler Jackie by way of skeevy neighbor Yosef (Justin Bartha).
In his extremely honest and humble Q&A session following the film, Macia mentioned that turning the Hasidic way of life into a caricature was one of his main concerns when writing the film. On this note, he succeeds; there are a few cheap jokes about a culturally isolated Jewish teenager being exposed to new things, but Sam’s nuclear family is portrayed with real care and empathy. We can see how Sam would be frustrated, considering their poverty, with his father’s stubborn insistence that Sam work only in their family’s fabric shop. But it’s clear that his father is fundamentally a good man, and the film portrays this conflict quite well, showing us both the pros and the cons of their lifestyle.
Eisenberg’s strong acting also brings out the essential conflict in Sam’s character, causing us to root for him even though we see him indulge most of his bad tendencies over the course of the story. We root for him to end up with Rachel (played well by Ari Graynor) despite the immaturity of their relationship, and some of the film’s sweetest moments come with watching them struggle to interact in a world that neither of them really belongs in.
In general, the really great moments in Holy Rollers come when it dials back on dialogue and relies on mood, as in the pulsing club scenes made hazy by ecstasy. The film is an intimate one, filled with small moments despite taking place in big cities. But in spite of many wonderful, small character moments, the ending feels abrupt and leaves the impression that many of its themes — namely Sam’s conflicted psychology and his underlying vulnerability — were not explored deeply enough. But Holy Rollers is by no means a failure, as its well-humanized characters and many intimate moments create a lovely lingering mood that stuck with me after I left the theater.
(10/07/10 4:14am)
Game|Dead Rising 2
Platform|Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Rating|Mature
“Why did mommy bite me, daddy?” asks Katey, one of the main characters of Capcom’s zombie series, Dead Rising.
Chuck Green, the protagonist, responds to his daughter with obvious hurt in his voice: “That wasn’t mommy, sweetheart, that was just a monster that looked like mommy.”
The game starts the player off as Chuck, a motorcross champion who finds himself in Fortune City (the city built as a replacement for Las Vegas, which was lost in a zombie outbreak). He is a contestant on a reality TV show called “Terror is Reality,” which makes people compete with each other to see who can kill the most zombies to win a cash prize. Chuck needs this cash to buy his daughter’s daily dose of “Zombrex,” a prescription drug that stops those who have been bitten by zombies from turning into a full-fledged undead.
However, an accident causes all the captive zombies to break free from their containment, and as zombies are wont to do, they start eating everyone left and right.
Chuck makes it to a safe house, only to find out that the media has accused him of starting this outbreak. Now Chuck must clear his name, make sure his daughter gets her Zombrex and survive for three days before the military shows up.
If you played the first Dead Rising, you’ll know that the game presents certain time limits for missions to be completed. As you only have 72 hours, all the plot-driven missions occur during specific times of the day. Luckily the game gives you a handy, easy-to-access digital watch. But once the mission begins, there is also a time limit on completing all the objective within said mission, and the game also throws at you side mission (each with its own time limit) so the game creates a tense time management aspect which may sound stressful, but is actually very immersive.
Now, obviously there are zombies in the game. Over 50,000 zombies to be a little more specific. The player can pick up almost anything to be used as a weapon. Trash can? Sure! Toy Helicopters? Wouldn’t recommend it, but go for it! Even better, certain items can be duct- taped to other items to create combo weapons, which give substantially more experience points with each kill.
The shotgun with a pitchfork creates a “Boomstick,” grenades taped to a football creates a “Hail Mary,” and — my personal favorite — a pair of boxing gloves with six bowie knives creates a pair of ridiculous-look Wolverine claws.
One also gains experience through the finding and saving of other survivors around Fortune City, who unlike the last game, aren’t completely useless. They can fend for themselves, will avoid running through large groups of zombies and will always be close behind you. (Unless you have to carry them, which complicates things).
By far the best aspects of the game are the bosses, known only as the “psychopaths.” Psychopaths are survivors who have gone crazy, and offer some amazing dialogue and fights (and not to mention amazing rewards if you choose to defeat them).
Special mention must go to “Slappy,” a psychopath in a giant toy store mascot costume with roller-skates who blames you for losing his love. His weapon of choice? Two super-soakers with gas cans strapped to them creating makeshift, albeit colorful flamethrowers.
The game is designed for the player to not be able to complete every side mission. That and the fact there are five different endings allows for maximum replayability. Couple this with the fact that Capcom allows you to transfer your current character to a new story, and the player is pretty much set.
If you’ve played the first Dead Rising, you already own this game. If you haven’t, I highly recommend at least giving the demo a try. Its a lot of fun, but the time crunching may turn some people off, who are looking for a more laid-back experience.
Dead Rising 2 gets an 8/10.
Santiago Azpurua-Borras is a sophomore from Phoenix, AZ.
(10/07/10 4:10am)
“There’s nothing quite like having a coal train in your front yard to make you feel powerless,” said Sierra Crane-Murdoch '02, a Middlebury graduate whose clean energy research and advocacy earned her the Brower Youth Award and the Middlebury Fellowship in Environmental Journalism. In interviewing an executive largely responsible for leveling the mountain near her home for its coal, she was reminded that even those with irreconcilably different points of view must resist the urge to “dehumanize” one another.
Where others in her position might have turned a deaf ear after hearing progress defined as the development of box stores, Crane-Murdoch made a genuine effort to understand his context as an individual. Watching him walk away and knowing the impact that her published words could have on his job, she saw him not as a faceless adversary, but a fellow person trying to make it in the world. “At that point, he was just a man with a family,” she said. “He honestly believed what he was doing was honorable and good.”
She especially emphasized the importance of patience when it comes to any kind of negotiations, pointing out that current methods of communication place an unrealistic emphasis on instant gratification. “This is going to take a long time, and I know that,” she of her environmental efforts. “Whatever I do next is going to be a little more deliberate and a little slower and definitely more human.”
(10/07/10 4:10am)
According to Beth Coleman, professor of writing and new media at MIT, the virtual identity, while a source of entertainment for gamers and movie viewers, is also an incredibly powerful tool. The ability to dive into alternate realities, she said, provides us with opportunities for widespread influence and change.
The concept of the avatar originates from the Sanskrit word meaning “to cross over, to descend, to go from a high spirit into a bodily form,” Coleman said. Indeed, gamers immersed in the interactive online game “Second Life” take godlike control over their virtual circumstances. “In this virtual world,” she said, “you could literally make castles, you could fly, you could have dance parties, you could make a feast,” she said. “Because it was virtual, there were no material limitations. And that’s a magic moment.”
The problem arises when people stop there, not fulfilling these platforms’ potential for purposes. “It’s not good enough to bury yourself deep in a box and get lost in a virtual world,” she said. She urged people to use their “ubiquitous” and “pervasive” technology to spread ideas that could better society.
“You can scatter your bits across the world, and somehow you, the things that you believe in and you’re passionate about — somehow they emerge.”
(10/07/10 4:10am)
Author, professor, renowned speaker and Middlebury graduate Stephen Kiernan '82 kicked off the series by reminding attendees of what it means to be part of a nation.
Citing some alarming economic statistics (the average age of U.S. citizens below the poverty line, for example, is nine), Kiernan emphasized collective responsibility and the need for real patriotism in spite of a largely individualistic society. “We are less connected just when we need to be more so,” he said.
While the numbers were striking, Kiernan’s presentation was grounded in real stories of personal initiative. One featured Jack McConnell, a retired physician in Hilton Head, South Carolina, who started a free clinic staffed by fellow medical retirees, which eventually led to a nationwide phenomenon.
“The biggest payoff was not in dollars,” Kiernan said of the program that treated 16,000 patients and saved the Hilton Head health system $500,000 every year. “It was in the people’s experience.”
To help others find ways to get involved, Kiernan started the B1 Campaign. Visitors to the website, B1campaign.com, need only enter a location and field of interest in order to be matched with 15 nearby volunteer opportunities.
Kiernan urged those in attendance to look to people like McConnell for inspiration. “We need every one of you,” he said. “If you admire authentic patriots, then be one.”
(10/07/10 4:10am)
Jessica Riley '98 recalls when, in a sculpture class in Paris, her instructor came up and smashed to pieces a beautiful sculpture she had just completed.
“That was good, now do better,” he told her.
She remembered this experience years later, when she lost her job in screenwriting and stopped speed skating after 22 years — she realized she needed to start over, and to “find [her] place of wonder.” In this place of wonder, Riley tells us, we learn to play like children. We realize that the outside world has less power over us, and that “playing” is the best way to express ourselves.
Riley wants to see a world in which adults have lost their fear, and this will allow them to build the best world for the future generation.
In essence: “Become your own pioneer,” she told the audience. “See who you are after all on the outside goes away.” And remember to play.
(10/07/10 4:10am)
Frank Sesno '77, whose resume includes but is not limited to “Director of School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University,” “CNN White House correspondent” and “Middlebury graduate,” introduced a theme that would come to pervade many of the presentations to follow: the power of the story.
“I think the four most important words in the English language are ‘once upon a time,’” he said. With 30 years of experience in journalism behind him, Sesno has learned about the potential impact of the story on both a widespread and personal level.
However, the media’s potential often goes unfulfilled. Sesno pointed out that while YouTube sensations such as “Charlie Bit My Finger” often attract more attention than coverage of natural disasters does.
Sesno challenged audience members to do better. “I’ve had the unbelievable pleasure to see stories, to listen to stories, to write stories and here’s what I’ve realized: I’m in a story,” he said. He encouraged people to use their own stories — those lived and retold — to reshape the world. “Through that story, others will follow you and be inspired by you, and you truly can change things.”
(10/07/10 4:10am)
Michael Silberman '02 knows a lot about the power of technology to connect people. As a Howard Dean staffer, he saw the launch of the “Meet Up” program, which attracted 189,000 people in 1,200 neighborhoods at its peak. He’s seen a student organize a march to Washington, D.C. for immigration rights, the first lobby day in D.C. about Darfur, and the growth of Middlebury’s own “350 Day” events. What is not unique is that people are meeting up. What is unique, Silberman said, is that ordinary people can organize these things with technology and social networking.
“Before, trained organizers had done this type of thing,” Silberman said. And what does it mean, he asked his audience, when anyone can be an organizer?
“The power of all this to us right now … versus what was going on when I was involved in [policy work]: its’ just no longer in the hands of an establishment,” Silberman said. “Any of us now have the power to lead social change movements.”
(10/07/10 4:10am)
Philip Conkling can trace the beginning of his career back to the discovery of an ancient cellar hole on Flint Island in Maine. The history seemed fascinating. “I couldn’t get it out of my head,” he said. “Who were these people?”
Thus began a lifelong interest in island culture, which he’s become devoted to saving. He realized that island communities were dying; although a century ago, there were 300 year-round island communities, there are only 15 today. He embarked on a mission to save them.
First, he interviewed island fisherman to learn more about the community.
“We could provide high-quality ecological information to empower local policy,” Conkling said.
They aimed to “lead from behind,” or put local leaders in charge of saving their communities.
Conkling found that investing in island schools was the most important aspect to saving the island communities; without schools, there were no women and children, and without women and children, the economy would fall apart. So Conkling founded The Island Institute, through which he inaugurated the Island Fellows Program in 2001, which paired young people with local mentors on islands. Fellows, who are college or graduate school graduates, work with schools and communities to help build sustainability and economic development. There have been 70 Fellows since 2001.
“Maine’s greatest export from its islands was its youth,” Conkling said.
But with the Island Institute’s help, the islands will not die out.
(10/07/10 4:10am)
Sunny Bates is all about networking. Adrift after college, with a degree in Middle Eastern Studies and Energy Economics but, perhaps counterintuitively, no desire to work “for an oil company in Saudi Arabia,” Bates found herself in a series of jobs that yielded no apparent career advancement. Except for one fact: she had built a network. Every job she had, Bates realized she was building connections. What’s more, she found that she enjoyed putting people together. She had seen how ideas had come from unlikely sources in her life, and wanted to connect people in her life in the same way.
“Don’t make divisions over where things are going to come from,” Bates said, “because you don’t know.”
Bates found that there was a “give and a get” in every encounter, and that everyone benefitted from increased connectivity. Her advice to college students and graduates was to start building their networks, and to take chances.
She ended with, “Just get started. Just do it.”
(10/07/10 4:10am)
“The last five years of my life have been profoundly influenced by trash,” Cummins began her talk.
Specifically, the plastic trash that is filling our ocean. Plastic is was that “miracle material” that we could just throw away, Cummins said. But, she asked, “Where is away?” She flashed pictures of trash-covered coastlines in Alaska, Los Angeles and Hawaii. “Here is away.”
Cummins was especially fascinated by the Pacific Gyre (a gyre is a large system of rotating currents; there are five main ones in the world), dubbed the “great pacific garbage patch.” In research expeditions here and around the world, the team would skim the ocean’s surface and analyze findings. Every time, the film on the ocean’s surface seemed to be covered with a soup of tiny plastic debris and fish, filled with the same debris. She showed photos of albatross carcasses, filled 50 to 60 percent with plastic they had eaten. Because plastic already absorbs pollutants in the ocean, fish eating this plastic makes them even sicker. And people eating this fish cannot be good, she said.
Cummins and her husband now run the 5 Gyres Institute, which runs frequent research expeditions to study pollution. Although Cummins says there is, “no way to completely redesign this ‘throwaway’ culture,” the best way to combat the problem is through better legislation, education and reusable design for products. Until then, the next voyage leaves for Cape Town on Nov. 8.
(10/07/10 4:10am)
When the author of five books whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair and Time comes back to his alma mater, students might be curious to know what life advice he has to offer. Alex Prud’homme '84, who helped his aunt, Julia Child, write her memoir, provided those in attendance with guidance from Child herself: “You must have the courage of your convictions.”
Prud’homme’s anecdotes paint the culinary icon as a spunky heroine whose affable and daring nature served her career quite well. “She would charm her way into the kitchen and ask, ‘How did you make that wonderful beurre blanc?’” he said.
When it came to the United States, however, it seemed that the appeal of her techniques could be lost in translation. “Cooking in France is a combination of high art and competitive sport,” he said. American publishers, on the other hand, told Child that what American housewives were looking for was “something quick with a mix.” Eventually, however, Mastering the Art of French Cooking hit shelves in the States and initiated a revolution. As it turned out, 1960s Americans were craving more than just efficiency.
“We wanted a delicious meal carefully prepared with love,” he said. At Child’s recommendations, people were using copper pots, sharper knives and an approach that valued quality and variety over volume and promptness.
To conclude, Prud’homme wheeled a miniature stove onstage and commenced the preparation of a crêpe. “It’s a bit like writing a book,” he said. Each requires some time, some care, and some commitment. It can fail miserably, but if it succeeds, it can be nourishing.” A successful flip and burst of applause followed shortly thereafter. Et voilà.
(10/07/10 4:10am)
Chris Maxey’s mother believed that her children should be thrown in the ocean before they could walk … people frequently tried to come to the children’s rescue. Maybe it worked: Maxey grew up loving the water. He joined the Navy because of it, and became committed to environmental stewardship for the same reason. Eventually, Maxey realized that, “the only way to save the planet [was] through education.” That’s what led him to found The Island School in Cape Eleuthera, Bahamas. The school offers a semester-long program to high school students in which traditional curriculum is infused with environmental lessons, research projects, and sustainability initiatives. The school aims to send young people back into their communities to affect change. The campus itself is built to practice the sustainability the school teaches; it even has installed wind turbines for power. Even the septic tanks of The Island School nourish a flourishing garden in the center of campus.
“We always say,” Maxey said, ‘Every time we flush a toilet at The Island School, a flower blooms.’”
(10/07/10 4:10am)
We’ve all heard of the “career ladder,” but Yelizavetta Kofman '07 and Astri von Arvin Ahlander '07 advocate another model: the more flexible “career lattice.”
The ladder, Kofman and von Arvin argue, is set up for “the ideal worker”: the worker who can work year-round and overtime, and who has little or no home responsibilities.
“The ideal worker is a man,” Kofman said. And although over 70 percent of households see both parents working, “people still expect an ideal worker to show up to work.”
These self-proclaimed work/life-balance advocates and founders of a nonprofit called The Lattice Group compare the U.S. to other countries in terms of their work policies.
The U.S. is one of four countries in the world that doesn’t offer paid parental leave. The others are Lethoso, Swaziland and Papua New Guinea. (In contrast, in Ashlander’s native Sweden, a couple receives 16 months of paid parental leave, with at least two months used by each parent.) There is no guarantee of paid vacation or sick leave in the U.S..
“Does this seem outdated?” Ashlander asked. “Because it really is.”
And what does taking time off for work mean for working women? A year and a half off work means a 16 percent average drop in salary for those in the medical field, representing the smallest loss in any field; in the financial and consulting fields, the statistic rises to a 41 percent salary loss.
While the situation may seem dire in the U.S., Kofman maintains that, “whole industries can change. Whole cultures can change.”
With a career lattice model, Kofman and Ahlander hope that couples can find a way to continue their careers outside of a rigid path, and that employers will realize that more flexibility means more commitment, and a more equitable society. In the end, this change will take women, especially, being firm with their employers and discussing these issues with their partners. After all,
Ahlander quipped, “If you can’t talk about, don’t do it.”
(10/07/10 4:09am)
As Middlebury turned to face autumn this weekend, Paul Asbell delivered a concert full of summer warmth to a campus audience. The acoustic guitarist, described as “one of the best kept secrets in American music,” delighted ears with a wide range of styles and the occasional anecdote revealing his deep connection to his musical role models.
Among the artists whose words and melodies he brought back to life were Duke Ellington, Hogie Carmichael and Henry Ragtime Texas Thomas, and a number of other southern blues players from the 1920’s and 30’s. Asbell’s music left no foot in the CFA free from tapping. Though the audience drew little from the student body, there was an energetic and youthful ambience due to the lively tunes and Asbell’s clear enthusiasm for this music.
Perhaps the most memorable piece in the performance was his fusion of two traditional spirituals. Describing them as something one might hear on a drive through the South on a Sunday morning in days gone by, the number began with a traditional Anglo-Saxon melody of slow-moving chords, transcribed for guitar. Asbell was aiming to mimic the experience of travelling between the different communities of the Old South. The first melody hung in the air, recalling a vastly different place than the South we had just come from. One could almost hear its original counter-part being played on bagpipes or another traditional instrument, on a frosty morning, far from where their descendents now lived. This change of style was an important break in a largely blues-based concert.
But a seamless transition soon occurred between this sobriety, and a typical up-beat melody was restored. Indeed, this melody seemed as much a conversation between Asbell’s two rapidly working hands as a musical piece. This moment highlighted Asbell’s dizzying technique by letting the guitar take centre stage, exploring its possibility for simplicity as well as intense ornamentation and swing. Taking advantage of the acoustics of the concert hall, there was minimal equipment on stage, bringing out the natural sound of the instrument to full effect. This is not to say that vocal numbers were less effective. Indeed, true to a traditional “blues star” — a title on which Asbell educated the audience — his lively lyrics and warm tone enlivened other performances significantly.
Yet Asbell does not consider life as a performing musician as easygoing as his stage demeanor may suggest. Although he opened the evening with a casual apology (his concert of two weeks ago was cancelled) while tuning up on stage, and his general attitude was informal, below the surface he can admit to the difficulty of this line of work. He dubbed the “magic moment” of connection with an audience as the true highlight of his job, as opposed to the complications of being a performing musician. The audience was lucky enough to experience a rarity of the music world so defined by industry and record-sales: a true performer and “musicians’ musician” who is not beyond sacrificing for his art.
Asbell has been a Vermont local since the 70s, after previously playing in Chicago’s South Side. Northern Vermont has afforded his much deserved success as a musician; he has played at venues as diverse as the Atlanta and Montreal Jazz festivals, and has released two award-winning albums.