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(04/27/17 2:43am)
The Service Cluster Board (SCB) is a collective made up of 17 student service organizations on campus. The board includes Kristina Frye ’17 and Jin Son ’18, the two student coordinators, and advisor Ashley Laux from the Center for Community Engagement. The SCB is currently celebrating Volunteer Week, and encourages students to go into the local community and participate in volunteer projects.
According to Frye, the SCB helps manage volunteer organizations on campus. She said, “The Service Cluster Board supports individual service organizations by helping them meet their missions and responsibly use their funds. The SCB oversees the budgets of the individual service organizations, hosts monthly leadership trainings and manages the Flex Fund.”
The SCB sets aside the Flex Fund in their budget to promote service projects in the Middlebury community.
“Projects range from one-time events to programs that run over the course of a few weeks,” Frye said. “In the past, Flex Fund money has been awarded to groups hosting community suppers, volunteering at Wild Roots Farm and organizing arts and crafts sessions at Addison Central Teens.” The Student Government Association funds the SBC and the Flex Fund.
The Flex Fund helps support service projects orchestrated by students, including community suppers. Arturo Simental ’20 participated a community supper with his Posse last January and said that he enjoyed the experience of working with the SBC and helping with the dinner.
“We prepared weeks before by finalizing our menu, grocery shopping and baking sweet desserts. On the day of the supper we set the tables before cooking and serving,” Simental said.
Simertal says he looks forward to participating in future community suppers. “I’d recommend the Flex Fund to anyone looking for community engagement possibilities. Students interested in volunteering shouldn’t be turned away because of financial costs,” he said.
Katie Merrick ‘17 put on a community super with the Cross Country Team. “I’m one of the co-captains of the Middlebury Cross Country Team, and every season we try to do a Community Supper,” she said. “This year, I was the one to apply for the funding for this Community Supper through the Flex Fund. For anyone looking to put on a Community Supper—they have the process down pat, so I would highly encourage it.”
Merrick believes it is valuable for students to engage with the wider community. “It’s very important for Midd students to connect with town locals by volunteering,” she said. “Moreover, engaging with community members showed us the tremendous diversity in Vermont experiences and a better understanding of Addison County.”
Mikayla Hyman ’20 has multiple experiences working with the Flex Fund. She applied to fund an arts and crafts class at the local Addison County teen center. She also used the fund to create MiddROC, a more permanent program to match refugee and immigrant students with mentors. Hyman agrees that volunteering is important.
“Volunteer work is essential to a healthy, functioning society,” Hyman said. “Volunteering facilitates empathetic connections between isolated groups and increases understanding between all individuals involved. Through these emotional and intellectual bonds, both individuals and communities can grow and develop.”
Hyman found it very easy to apply for funding. “The process for applying for funding was incredibly accessible and very reasonable. The application was easy to find and I thought the directions were clear. All of the questions on the application were incredibly pertinent, and some even helped me to develop a more comprehensive program,” she said. “I would definitely recommend that others apply for funding through the Flex Fund. It’s a great resource on campus that allows individuals to make a meaningful impact on the community through direct service. Its flexible nature encourages creativity and allows students to engage in activities that they genuinely enjoy. Also the committee granted me funding incredibly quickly.”
According to Frye, interested applicants need only fill out a short application and explain their project and budget. The Flex Fund Review Committee then provides feedback and determines whether the project falls under the guidelines of direct sevice. The commitee tries to respond to applicants within two weeks.
Frye also recommended students explore all available opportunities through the CCE. “If there is any advice we could give, it’s that any student that is even remotely interested should stop by the Center for Community Engagement and discuss their ideas with us or any other CCE staff member. The CCE staff is incredibly welcoming and will likely be able to find a way to support your service project even if it doesn’t fall within the guidelines of the Flex Fund.”
Flex Fund applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, and any students, ad-hoc student groups or official student organizations interested in applying can reach out to the SBC at scboard@middlebury.edu with questions. Students are also welcome to apply at any time over the course of the academic year at go/flexfund.
(03/16/16 8:38pm)
The fourth annual International and Interdisciplinary Conference, titled “Food Insecurity in a Globalized World: The Politics and Culture of Food Systems” was hosted at the College’s Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs on March 10-12. The conference explored the politics, economics and history of food insecurity and included presentations by Middlebury professors and guest lecturers from around the world. According to Tamar Mayer, the Robert R. Churchill Professor of Geosciences who directs both the Rohatyn Center and the International and Global Studies Program, the conference organizing committee selected the 17 papers presented out of 54 submissions.
The topic of global food insecurity was chosen in 2013 when Mayer and the Rohatyn Center Steering Committee planned conference topics until 2020.
“Food insecurity is probably one of the most important social problems of our time,” Mayer said. “Students need to understand that food insecurity is constructed. It’s not natural. A lot of it is political – it’s the economic systems that created it, it’s the neoliberal policies that created it. And our students are either going to challenge those, or going to participate in them, or both.”
Lee Schlenker ’16 attended the conference and enjoyed the variety of perspectives. “It was nice to have professors who came to Middlebury who had very different purposes or missions with their research,” Schlenker said. “Even if I don’t really agree with all of the things that were said I think it’s nice to have that interdisciplinary perspective.”
Jessie Mazer, a graduate student at the University of Vermont, gave a presentation on local issues of food insecurity. Her talk focused on how undocumented migrant dairy farmworkers in Vermont struggle to feed their families. Mazer highlighted the difficulties Mexican farmworkers face in Vermont, which she identified as the second whitest state in the nation. Mazer posited that government surveys do not capture the full extent of food insecurity among migrants because people often say they can afford certain foods that they cannot access.
“[The migrant workers are] saying that ‘Yes, we have enough money to access food but we can’t go to the grocery store because we don’t have transportation and when we go to the grocery store we’re at risk for deportation,’” Mazer said.
On Saturday the conference turned to discussing solutions to food insecurity. The College’s William R. Kenan Professor of Food Studies Molly Anderson argued in her presentation that changes to the food system must start with grassroots movements to inspire the public interest needed to push reform onto the political agenda.
“As this permeates through society—this awareness of impacts and the influence of these legislators—then cultural values and beliefs start changing,” Anderson said.
David Cleveland, an environmental studies professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, presented his work looking at the intersection between food justice and climate justice. His research focused on the medical and environmental benefits of healthier diets. The alternative diets had less red and processed meats and less processed grain than the average American diet. They included more vegetables, beans and fruits. By adopting healthier diets Cleveland suggested Americans could save billions on healthcare costs and reduce green house emissions related to food production.
The conference ended with Angélica Segura ’16 and Francesca Conde ’17 providing a summary in which they identified six overarching themes. The first theme was individual choice versus broader food safety.
“A lot of the topics highlighted the problematic trade off that has often occurred when the rights of the citizens are sacrificed in order to eradicate food insecurity,” Segura said.
Next, they discussed the way food insecurity relates to class and gender. The third topic explored how food insecurity is the product of systematic disinvestment in low-income communities and lack of institutional state support. The fourth theme they outlined was the need to identify dominant actors in the food discussion. “In the past few years we have witnessed a seismic shift in farming driven by new technologies and the nature of such technologies means that not all of us have the scientific understanding that is often necessary to participate in the conversation,” Segura said.
The fifth theme looked at food as cultural capital by noting the importance of social networks in food insecure communities. Lastly, the pair explored the tensions between producers and consumers and between industry efficiency and the nutritional value of food.
“Over the past few days ideas have been put forward that have shattered a traditional understanding of food insecurity and have exposed it for what it really is,” Segura said. “[It is] a phenomenological experience, a historical product and often the result of trade policies and power interest.”
For a full list of presenters, presentation topics and to see videos of the panels visit the Rohatyn Center website.