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(04/29/21 10:00am)
After suffering two losses last week, the Panthers women’s tennis team (3–3) won back-to-back matches against Amherst and Skidmore this weekend, a performance largely spearheaded by the rookie class.
On Saturday, women’s tennis hosted Amherst (2–2), a NESCAC West Division foe. In doubles play, first-year tandem Kavina Amin ’24 and Gena Huang ’24 won, 8–5, while Amherst triumphed in the other two matches. In singles play, Amin and Huang again clinched victories, while Emily Bian ’21 and Sami Remis ’24 also chipped in wins.
The following day, the Panthers hosted the undefeated Skidmore Thoroughbreds (4–1), handing them their first loss of the season. Once again, Amin and Huang won in doubles play, marking their second collective win of the weekend. In singles play, Caitlin Neal ’23 got in the win column, while Remis, Amin and Huang all won for a second straight day.
“Our freshmen have really stepped up and handled the pressure wonderfully,” senior captain Ann-Martin Skelly ’21 said. “All four of them have worked so hard this entire year and it's great getting to see that pay off on the court. They each bring big energy to the court and I know this is just the beginning of what will be a great college career for them.”
“For never playing college matches before, they’ve done a great job with handling nerves and pressure,” head coach Rachel Kahan added of the rookie class. “Whether singles or doubles, the first-year class has done a great job of staying strong and focused.”
Question marks still circle NESCAC championships and NCAA tournament play, so the Panthers are taking things day by day. Next Sunday, Middlebury hosts Williams (1–2) at 1 p.m.
(04/15/21 9:59am)
(04/15/21 9:58am)
In their first weekend of spring action, men’s baseball (0–2) dropped both games against Williams College (5–0) in a doubleheader.
In the first game, the teams traded runs early on, including a three-run homerun from Lucas Flemming ’24. The contest remained close until the fifth inning, when Williams took advantage of several Middlebury errors and scored seven runs en route to a 17–6 victory.
First-year Henry Gustavson ’24 made his season and career debut in the first game, tallying two strikeouts.
“It was exciting knowing that I was going to be pitching the first game as a freshman,” Gustavson said. “That level of trust and confidence from the coaching staff was really nice to see.”
In the second contest, the Panthers struggled from the mound, allowing 20 total runs (14 earned runs). Andrew Ashley ’24 homered and drove in four RBIs in the effort and Sammy Smith ’24 smacked an RBI triple, but the Panthers ultimately lost, 20–7.
Despite losing both games, the Panthers hit the ball well in their opening weekend, and many first-year players notched their first hits and extra-base hits of their career.
“Everyone contributed, everyone stepped up to the plate,” Ashley claimed. “If we are able to do that in our first game, it gives us confidence knowing that we can compete in the NESCAC despite being mostly first-years.”
Middlebury will look to steady the ship when they host Wesleyan University for another doubleheader next Saturday, April 17. The action begins at Forbes Field at 1:30 p.m.
(04/15/21 9:57am)
Women’s tennis opened their five-match spring season with a victory against Hamilton on April 10, winning 7–2.
Emily Bian ’21 and Ann Martin Skelly ’21, senior co-captains, were one of three tandems to win in doubles play for the Panthers. Amy Delman ’24 and Sami Remis ’24 also won in doubles, as well as Kavina Amin ’24 and Gena Huang ’24.
The Panthers also tallied four victories in singles play, including a 6–0, 6–1 victory by Caitlin Neal ’23. Bian, Amin and Huang also recorded solo wins.
“We have a really young team right now and I was super impressed with how they played,” head coach Rachel Kahan said. “They played well and were confident.”
Next Saturday, the Panthers will look to build off their victory in an away tilt against Wesleyan.
(04/15/21 9:56am)
The Panthers (1–4) played three games against Williams this past weekend, losing all three and extending their losing streak to four games. On Saturday, the team hosted Williams and fell, 3–0 and 4–0 respectively. The next day, the Panthers traveled to Williamstown, where they battled to a 4–3 loss.
Sophie Bolinger ’22, Sophia Marlino ’22, and Jen McGann ’22 all scored for the Panthers in the weekend’s final contest, and Melanie Mandell ’21 also tallied three RBIs. Pitcher Jewel Ashbrook ’23 impressed from the mound, striking out the Ephs three times.
Despite the Panthers’ tough weekend, their strong performance on Sunday inspires confidence ahead of their upcoming three-game weekend against Wesleyan. They will take the field in Connecticut for a double-header on Saturday, April 17 and then return home to play the weekend’s final match on Sunday, April 18.
(04/15/21 9:55am)
Men’s golf made their first competitive appearance since late 2019 this past weekend, recording a third place finish out of six teams at the Hamilton Spring Invitational. The invitational was hosted at the Yahnundasis Golf Club in New Hartford, NY on Saturday, April 10.
Hamilton fielded three full teams for the event, with their top two teams placing first and second. Middlebury rounded out the top three with a combined score of 313, finishing four points off second, but a comfortable nine strokes ahead of fourth-placed Williams College. Hamilton’s “C” team came in fifth while Amherst College ended in last with a combined score of 350.
Colin McCaigue ’24 was a standout performer for the Panthers in Saturday’s action, placing fourth individually with a score of 75, just three strokes over par. Hogan Beazley ’23 finished one stroke behind, while captains Jordan Bessalel ’24 and John Mikus ’24 rounded out the scoring for the Panthers. Derek Ban ’24 was also included in the Panthers’ five man squad on Saturday, notching an 83.
Middlebury’s Porter Bowman ’21.5 competed unattached as an individual, scoring an 85.
“This weekend was a decent start to the season,” Bessalel commented. “Everyone took away some good things as well as some things to work on.”
The Panthers will be back in action this Saturday at the Williams Spring Invitational, where they will face the familiar competition of Hamilton, Williams and Amherst — but with the addition of Wesleyan. The event will tee off at 12:30 p.m. at the Taconic Golf Club in Williamstown, Mass.
Editor’s Note: Porter Bowman ’21.5 is the senior opinion editor.
(12/03/20 10:58am)
For some Addison County farms, there has been a silver lining to the pandemic.
Fears about grocery shopping and meat shortages drove Addison County residents to avoid grocery stores, and many turned instead to local farms and businesses that would deliver produce and other foods to them. Many also started growing their own gardens at home.
Golden Russet Farm has been growing vegetables in Shoreham for 30 years. In early spring, owners Judy and Will Stevens invited shoppers to come into their greenhouse and choose plants to transfer into their gardens back at home. These sales continued through the end of June. While swaths of people couldn’t cram into the greenhouse like they had in years past, Golden Russet was able to get creative and profit off the growth in demand they were seeing.
“There was a lot of talk in the spring about food scarcity and so people wanted to take charge of their own access, so we had many people buy plants from us who were either new gardeners or who had gardened in the past but who wanted to expand their gardens,” Pauline Stevens, the owners’ daughter, said.
As spring turned to summer, Golden Russet saw continued enthusiasm for their Certified Organic vegetables. Their produce can be found at the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op and a handful of Burlington grocery stores, and it is also served at local restaurants like The Arcadian and American Flatbread. The farm stand was constantly in need of replenishing, and the demand for community-supported agriculture (CSA) subscriptions this fall was higher than ever before.
Scuttleship Farm, owned by couple Annie Hopper ’14.5 and Sean Willerford ’14, has also benefited from pandemic-induced shifts in shopping habits. The pair raise lamb, beef and chicken in Panton, a small town on the shores of Lake Champlain, nestled between Addison and Vergennes.
Since its inception, the farm has relied heavily on direct-to-consumer sales, both through its online store and its Barn-Store, which has allowed the farm to be flexible and creative these past eight months. Scuttleship’s team is made up of just three people, including Hopper and Willerford, so they also had the ability to continue farm operations without many protocol changes by podding together and keeping all other social interactions to a minimum.
Throughout spring and summer, hoards of new customers visited Scuttleship’s online butcher shop and the Barn-Shop, which was sanitized regularly. Many of these customers were worried about national food supplies and looked to buy food with as few intermediaries as possible. “We were really lucky in that we weren’t depending on distributors or restaurants,” Hopper said, as both of those channels saw drastic declines in sales.
By early summer, Scuttleship had sold all the meat that was expected to last them through the summer and into the fall. “We weren’t cashing in on the increase in demand for freezer-ready meat because we couldn’t make more of it,” Hopper said.
This summer, Scuttleship introduced chickens, which take just eight weeks to raise, into their offerings, allowing the farm to smooth out the lumps in cash flow that are inherent in the business.
In reflecting on the large numbers of new customers who turned to Scuttleship, Hopper said “I just hope they remember us in a year.”
Not all farms have gotten these boosts — for some, instead, “the pandemic was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Chris Hodges, who owns Cornwall’s Sunrise Orchards with her husband Barney Hodges ’91.
Statewide shutdowns of restaurants and bars created a domino effect and Sunrise was hit hard. “Without bars and restaurants to sell to, our customers who make hard cider weren’t able to pay us,” Hodges explains.
In a normal year, Sunrise Orchards would have packaged half of their harvest to sell at Shaw’s and Price Choppers in New England, as well as local stores such as the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op. However, between stagnant prices for already low priced goods and the incredibly high start-up cost of packing, it wasn’t feasible to do so.
As Sunrise works to return to the stability and profitability they have experienced in years past, Hodges remains positive. This fall, the orchard was able to hire eight workers from Jamaica to pick apples through the H-2A temporary foreign agricultural worker visa program, a partnership between the Jamaican and American governments.
The men, all of whom have years of experience working this eight-week job at Sunrise, harvest alongside a few of Sunrise’s longer term workers.
All three farms noted how lucky they were in that almost all their work is done outside, thus decreasing the risk involved for employees and allowing day-to-day operations to stay primarily unchanged.
While the three farms had very different experiences these past eight months, the owners of each of them share both gratitude and hope.
“People have been really supportive,” Hodges said. While neighbors don’t buy apples in the same quantities as hard cider producers, and therefore can’t make up for the lost business, “they have been really kind in their words.”
While they might not be Scuttleship’s ideal freezer-ready meat customer, Middlebury students — especially those taking semesters off — have played a huge role in helping other local farms.
“During a normal year, we struggle to find help,” Stevens explained. “We always end up pulling it together but it’s usually piecing it together between part- and full-time.” This year however, Golden Russet received a huge surge in applicants from Middlebury College, both in the summer and the fall.
Kate Peterson ’22.5 took her fall semester off of classes and worked for Stevens at Golden Russet, getting her hands dirty each and every day — and loving it. Jack Brown ’23 worked for Sunrise Orchards all summer and through October, also taking the fall semester off. He plans to work at the orchard both this spring and summer.
(05/14/20 10:01am)
With less than a week left in their college careers, seniors are looking for ways to demonstrate the culmination of their studies. For arts majors, the complications introduced by the Covid-19 pandemic are more challenging than in other disciplines. Lacking the equipment, space and actors, seniors majoring in the arts are thinking creatively to adapt their theses before the curtain falls.
“I never pictured spending my senior spring sitting in my mom’s basement carving a tiny piano out of cardboard,” said Jackie Atkins ’20, an independent scholar in narrative studies. Atkins is pursuing a thesis in the film department, and she was supposed to make a mockumentary about two graduate students working on stop motion films.
The film was supposed to include improvisations from other actors that would be formed through workshops and meetings with the department’s students and faculty.
Instead, she has spent the second half of her senior spring working alone on creating a new mockumentary centered around a person making a biopic about Carole King. This project is written, directed, acted and filmed all by herself. This new film shifts from live-action to stop-motion during the last couple of minutes of the film, paying homage to the main characters in her original thesis.
Atkins is one of many seniors studying arts whose original thesis plan was interrupted by this pandemic as the college shifts to remote learning. Like her, many others are also actively adapting to the evolving situation.
Gabby Valdivieso ’20 is a theatre and film joint major, with concentrations in acting and production, respectively. When the school announced the cancellation of in-person classes, she was just two weeks away from performing her final project, which consisted of four 10-minute plays accompanied by films she created.
Instead of acting on the stage for one last time, Valdivieso is now working on writing a process paper about her experience planning and preparing for her thesis. Like many college students across the country, Valdivieso has been having trouble getting schoolwork done from home, where she lives with four siblings, pets and parents, all of which fuel procrastination.
Similarly, Coralie Tyler ’20, a theatre and film joint major, also spoke to the challenges that accompany working at home. On campus, Tyler could fit a lot of writing into a short period of time, motivated by internal and external pressure. When she writes from home, like Valdivieso, she notices herself procrastinating more often.
“I think writing on campus brings out a really imaginative side of myself,” she said. However, she noted that being at home also allowed her to be more reflective, as she has been able to find more clarity in solitude.
Her original thesis was to write a screenplay for a television pilot as well as a one-act play. Instead of a live reading of the pilot like she had planned, Tyler explained that she will most likely record herself presenting it.
Instead of trying to adapt a play into a virtual format, some have decided to cancel their performances completely. Steph Miller ’20, a theatre and neuroscience double major, was disappointed that she lost an opportunity to develop and showcase her directing skills in her rendition of Alice Birch’s “Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.”
Miller decided against adapting the play as a virtual performance because it would be difficult to ask actors to juggle the added pressure from the play, and it would be nearly impossible to readapt the intensely physical play.
This play, according to Miller, is a collage of short scenes that truly examines how language and power dynamics intertwine. It has no named characters — instead, dashes are used to indicate a change in speaker. The play was a complex work to prepare for the stage and challenged Miller.
Instead of spending hours in Hepburn Zoo, where the show was supposed to take place, Miller now writes a process paper to include the standard reflection on the experience of planning and rehearsing as well as a literature review style discussion of academic theories on directing, specifically feminist directing.
This new focus has presented a welcome challenge as well as a new set of standards. Since the format of her work has changed, she is no longer able to experience the magical chemistry between the audience and those on the stage. “Everyone who does theatre will tell you that one of their favorite parts about it is that you see what happens when you take a bunch of people and put them in a room.”
(12/05/19 11:00am)
Perhaps you follow @MiddleburyCollege on Instagram where you’re sure to find photos and videos of our picturesque campus in the fall, winter, spring and summer as well as photos of teams and the trophies they win and appreciation for community members who have passed. Or maybe you follow @MiddAthletics which reposts pictures of Middlebury athletes who have received honors such as NESCAC Player of the Week and NCAA All American titles. At the same time, student organizations such as MiddSafe and the SGA maintain accounts that spread the word about their work.
Alongside these more official accounts is its own niche of student-run microblogs. Whether it be in the dining hall or on the way to class, students are working to document the daily joys and personal stories of their peers through each their own styles of images and captions.
Take @MeetMidd, for example.
Before I had even applied to Middlebury, I stumbled on a friend’s MeetMidd feature, which she had reposted on Instagram. I started to scroll through the account’s posts, of which there are currently 772. The stories caught my attention as they ranged in vulnerability, humor, style and topic, but all were told thoughtfully and helped me get a much better sense of what my classmates would be like if I were to go to Middlebury.
John Schurer ’21 started the account shortly after arriving at Middlebury in the fall of 2017. In reflection on his original intentions for the account, Schurer explains that the account came out of an “an effort to expand our circles and unite our community” and that he “wanted to create a way for us to forge authentic, meaningful relationships with others.”
“I thought that if each of us shared a piece of who we are, it could be the catalyst that would lead to these kinds of relationships,” Schurer said. He says that Middlebury students often fall into natural circles based on academic interests, extracurricular activities, jobs and many other factors that to some extent keep us from getting to know many of our classmates.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B1jTQbxB6Q9/
While other Midd Instagram accounts have very different goals, they nonetheless share aspects of life as a Middlebury student that may not make their way into more formal Instagram accounts or get mentioned during admissions tours.
One such account is @RealHumansofProc, started by Ella Nassi ’22.5 and Cecilia Needham ’22.5, two devout Proctor Dining Hall fans who noticed that meal after meal, their fellow Proc-goers were sitting down to eat creative meals they started calling “conProctions” and “ProcCreations”.
What’s so special about making a meal out of food from the salad bar, hot meal section and alternate protein section? Needham explained that this individualized approach helps students feel more connected to the food they eat, and thus less likely to toss it after a bite or two. Nassi echoed this sentiment. “We love that by featuring students who make out of the ordinary, and often quite quirky ‘creations’ in Proc, we are giving other students ideas for how to make the food they want to eat, thus decreasing food waste,” she said.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B4iW3DLgI80/
“This account has brought me so much joy,” Nassi said. “It opens people up to the possibility of getting excited about the mundane because it sparks enthusiasm for meals, which are so much more than just a time to refuel, but an opportunity to get to know your peers, to eat food that is both healthy and delicious and take a break from our busy lives here at school.”
Looking for another account that celebrates daily joys? Look no further than @MiddFits, an account founded by Laz Galvez ’23 as a way to recognize and document fashion on campus. Galvez, a New York native, grew up surrounded by street style and has always had a keen awareness of the many rules which governed getting dressed growing up. Galvez explained that running the account has helped him connect with other students and he hopes it helps inspire students to “pop off” when it comes to their outfits. “Here, I feel like I can take more risks,” Galvez said, before adding that he hopes the account will help others find the same confidence through fashion as he does.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2M7-DKj12X/
There you have it — a non-exhaustive lowdown on Middlebury-based Instagram accounts. If you’re ever looking to procrastinate on that final paper and find yourself short on content to browse, you know where to go.
(11/14/19 11:03am)
This November marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Wall, which separated East Germany and West Germany, stood for 28 years and served as a divider between the two countries both ideologically and physically, separating families and friends who once called the same country home. On Nov. 9, 1989, citizens took it upon themselves, hammers in hand, to demolish the barrier that had separated them from their family and friends on the other side.
The German Department, with the assistance from the German House as well as many other Language Departments, commemorated the momentous event in history this past week. Outside of Atwater Dining Hall, students of the German Department, residents of the German House and a handful of faculty members worked to construct a replica of the wall which stood for the entirety of last week. Ten years ago, a similar replica of the wall stood outside of Proctor Dining Hall.
Liz Sheedy ’22 and Ryan Kirby ’22 participated in the building of the wall. While the group was working to build something that would be torn down after just a week, the process was nonetheless a team building experience. The replica was constructed primarily of wood and drywall and was thus a challenge to carry from the German House, which is located next to Shafer’s Deli, to Atwater Dining Hall.
“Building the wall was such an intimate time together even though we were building something that is otherwise, especially historically, so much of a barrier,” Sheedy said.
Throughout the course of the week, students heeded the instructions posted on the wall by painting graffiti on it — the first of which to appear were the words “free palestine” — just as West Germans did along the wall throughout its existence.
The wall was not as covered in graffiti this year as it had been 10 years ago, perhaps due to the fact that the previous replica had been directly blocking entry into Proctor, thus forcing students to engage with it more. However, students still got involved with the project, through graffitti, as well as through daily speeches which were given in front of the installation, both by individuals, and representatives of both the College Democrats and College Republicans Clubs. These speeches worked to contextualize the project, as well as to reflect more deeply on the significance of the fall of the Wall and its enduring impact worldwide.
The idea for the project originated from the German Embassy eleven years ago to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Mauerfall. In order to commemorate this anniversary, it was important for the organizers to host a party during which students and faculty could tear down the wall in similarly joyous ways in which they did 30 years ago.
“The building of the Wall and the tearing down of it, they go together,” said Bettina Matthias, Maurice C. Greenberg Professor of Language & Linguistics, who grew up outside of Berlin in then West Germany.
On Saturday night, those involved with the project invited the college community to this celebration, which was complete with food, a photobooth, drinks and music. Like West Germans in 1989, they took hammers and chisels to the Wall, slowly whittling the wall down until just beams stood along the border.
Matthias recalls a particularly vivid memory of this process, “for months, you could hear, day and night, the sound of metal on concrete as people chiseled away at the Wall, keeping pieces of it for themselves,” she said.
Matthias holds the fall of the Berlin Wall as one of the most memorable events in her life. Just as many Americans can tell you exactly where they were when they heard the news of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, most Germans can tell you exactly where they were when the border between the two countries was opened and the chipping away at the Wall began.
For her parents, who had lived through Hitler’s rise to power, had fled Germany during World War II, and who then saw the building of the Wall, its collapse was “one of the most surreal and joyful things in their entire lives,” Matthias said. While the end of the war restored some semblance of peace to Germany, the period following it was one of great change, of intense rebuilding as a country and in many ways the birth of a whole new world.
“Today, Berlin is such an epicenter in terms of democratization and industrialization and a lot of people think that it’s a great representation of what we are trying to be,” Kirby said. “It’s insane to think that just 30 years ago, just 10 years before a lot of us were born, the city was walled.”
On the same subject, Sheedy added, “Walls, like the Berlin Wall, not only block the movement of people but also the ability to learn or to understand, open our minds to things we refuse to think about or to broach.”
The “free palestine” motif was spray painted on the installation within hours of it being put up, challenging viewers to ponder the ways in which we can prevent history from repeating itself.
“There are still plenty of ‘Berlin Walls’ that still exist,” Sheedy said.
(10/31/19 10:03am)
One of the only places on campus I’ve felt my gender is in the weightroom.
It’s not just that I’m overwhelmed by the omnipresent groups of five or six male athletes from any given sports team who always seem to be lifting at the exact same time as me, that I don’t feel confident in my lifting form. Nor is it that I am often one of the only women in the gym. It’s the fact that all of this reminds me that I don’t have a support system in the form of teammates or coaching staff, anybody to spot my form and remind me that the weights I am lifting are often half the size of those others are using.
Gyms should be where you go to feel stronger and more confident. Instead, when I am in the gym on my own, I end up feeling weaker and more insecure.
Salma Nakhlawi ’19 is working to help women feel confident, strong and empowered both in and out of the weightroom as a coach and personal trainer.
Nakhlawi fills every role at StrongHER Girls™, from founder and business manager to coach and head of social media. Her days are full, but the majority of her work days are spent coaching. StrongHER Girls describes itself as a “movement dedicated to teaching girls, womxn, and folx of marginalized identities how to empower themselves to be strong, from the inside-out.” Most of the training Nakhlawi does is remote, which means that she spends a significant amount of time on daily FaceTime calls or texts with her clients to whom she provides 24/7 support. While a majority of her clients identify as women, she also works with a handful of male or gender non-conforming clients.
[pullquote speaker="Salma Nakhlawi" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Training should be fun, and it's my goal to help women and gender non-conforming people enjoy their time in the gym.[/pullquote]
When discussing her own start to powerlifting, Nakhlawi is quite open, sharing that powerlifting was introduced to her during a time when her life was very dark and unhealthy. A stressed out student during her first year of college, she found herself losing the structure she had previously found in physical activity throughout her childhood and had settled into a routine that relied on food to relieve stress instead of providing nourishment and enjoyment.
“Training should be fun,” Nakhlawi said, “and it’s my goal to help women and gender non-conforming people enjoy their time in the gym and help them achieve their goals. My goal is to help clients work towards a life that is happy, healthy and injury free through weight training.”
Unlike the cardio section of the gym which she found boring and tedious, Nakhlawi began to enjoy her time in the weight room where it wasn’t about how much an individual weighed, but about how well and how much they could lift.
Nakhlawi continued to work on her powerlifting skills as she made the transition from the first college she attended to Middlebury for her second year.
During her time at Middlebury, Nakhlawi continued to expand her knowledge of powerlifting and the importance of wellness. As a member of the women’s rugby team, she found herself leading team lifts and teaching a lot of the women on the team about the basics of lifting. While a rugby-related injury sidelined her for months, she was cleared to return to the weight room at the end of her healing process.
No longer able to play rugby, Nakhlawi looked for a similarly supportive community of women to lift with, but couldn’t find any. She returned to the weightroom and began to make conversation with other women who were lifting at similar times as she was. She wound up asking fellow female-lifters if they could spot her on a lift, then returned the favor when they needed a spotter.
Encouraged by relationships she built with other women she met in the weightroom, Nakhlawi started to teach lifting classes at the college, encouraging women to give lifting a shot with a group that created an environment less intimidating than the everyday weight room.
Nakhlawi also took many courses within the Middlebury Dance Department, which introduced her to mindful meditation, something she practices daily and recommends to her clients to include in their routines.
“Life is always going to be stressful. Things are always going to come up,” Nakhlawi explains, but mindful meditation, she has noticed, can play a huge role in helping clients get the most out of their hard work in the gym both physically and emotionally. Visualizing a lift before walking into the gym, for example, helps boost confidence and therefore move through a room where they may be the only woman with intention and determination.
Nakhlawi’s goal is to support her clients on their journeys as they “take a couple hours a week for yourself to feed your body in a way that’s going to help develop your training.”
While planning her next steps post-graduation, Nakhlawi realized that her previous interest in consulting would not provide her with the balanced lifestyle she had worked so hard to build or the fulfillment she felt after sharing her passion for lifting with other women.
As a neuroscience major, Nakhlawi had learned about anatomy, kinesthesiology, nutrition and the systems of the human body in many of her courses at the college. At MiddCORE, she learned about the big picture concepts of entrepreneurship, and at the Tuck Bridge Program at Dartmouth College, she learned about the nitty gritty details of running a business. To take on clients, however, she still needed to add to her coaching knowledge.
Nakhlawi got in touch with successful powerlifting coaches and asked them to share their knowledge and expertise with her by mentoring her. She read books, attended conferences and took in all the information she could.
“It wasn’t easy to make the choice to go into an untraditional business, but I took the leap of faith,” Nakhlawi said. “I am very fortunate to have an amazing support system behind me who have encouraged me every step of the way.”
While Nakhlawi may not be working in BiHall labs any more, she still faces many of her challenges as a coach with a scientific and data-driven approach.
“When it comes to powerlifting and the progress clients are making week by week and session by session, there’s a huge amount of data that can be collected and then analyzed,” she said. Instead of falling victim to the temptation to give up when progress plateaus, Nakhlawi sees this as an opportunity to reevaluate training plans, often transitioning clients from beginner programs to intermediate ones. This process, she explains, isn’t unlike reevaluating a hypothesis after the first couple of rounds of experimentation.
This isn’t the only part of StrongHER that is informed by scientific reasoning.
“Weight training helps fight osteoporosis by building stronger bones, it releases endorphins or ‘happy hormones’ and it boosts self confidence and positive body image,” Nakhlawi said. “Oh, and the next time you’re on a plane, you probably won’t need to ask someone to help you put your suitcase in the overhead bin.”
Check out StrongHER Girls™ for some great workout inspiration, empowering words and a pretty enthusiastic and supportive comment section.
(09/26/19 10:03am)
Some say comedy is a boy’s club ... but the joke’s on them!
Last Friday and Saturday evenings, Sept. 20–21, Middlebury students gathered in Coltrane Lounge to learn about sketch comedy from some leading comics on campus.
The workshop, led by female-identifying members of the student-run sketch comedy group Middlebury Discount Comedy (MDC), was part of a larger program this past weekend called the Funny Femme Fest. The Femme Fest was a celebration of women in comedy and comprised of four workshops over the course of two days meant to encourage diverse voices in comedy.
In addition to MDC’s Friday session, the festival included a stand-up workshop led by American Studies Professor J. Finley. The women of Middlebury’s satirical newspaper, The Local Noodle, and members of various on-campus improv groups led workshops on satirical news writing and improv.
The MDC sketch lesson began, quite aptly, with a bizarre getting-to-know-you question. The attendees were asked to share not their majors or hometowns, but rather their most serial killer-like trait, setting the playful yet open-minded tone for the workshop.
After settling into the workshop with the serial killers among us, we were brought through an introduction to the ins and outs of sketch comedy, which usually consists of a series of short, few minute-long scenes known as “sketches.” The session’s leaders, Amy Conaway ’20, Em Ballou ’21 and Laurel Rand-Lewis ’20, provided us with the vocabulary to discuss sketches, as well as some of the basic structures we could use to craft them ourselves.
One of the fundamentals we learned was the idea of “The Game,” which is a bit of a catch-all term to describe what is truly funny or interesting about a scene. We also discussed the importance of creating a cast of characters that is balanced to include both traditionally funny or bizarre characters and what is known as a “straight character.” This character, unlike the other characters (but similar to the audience), is able to recognize the eccentricity of the situation. We then touched on practical elements to take into account when writing sketches to be performed, like including stage directions, sound cues and descriptions of physicality.
After going over the background of the discipline of sketch comedy writing, we dove deeper into feminist comedy writing and how intersections of gender and other identities inform the meaning of a joke or sketch.
When revising drafts of sketches, writers will often look at assumptions made about the gender or other identity markers of a character, asking themselves, “Does this character really need to be ______?” In other words, does the gender of a character matter in order for the joke to work? If not, assigning a gender through a character’s name or physical description may be unnecessary or limiting. One way the writers work around this is by assigning gender neutral names or even referring to characters as “Character no. 1.” After all, Conaway pointed out, we rarely define character by other specific aspects of their identity, such as their religion, favorite sports team or astrological sign.
With regards to addressing controversial subjects in sketches, the session’s leaders highlighted the importance of working honestly and openly with those around you. Sketch comedy, like other works of art, either theatrical or material, can be a powerful tool when it comes to examining societal norms and systems of oppression. But, if poorly executed, jokes can quickly become harmful reinforcements of structural inequalities.
A general rule of thumb, the leaders suggested, is known as “punching up,” wherein jokes remain aware of positionality. The rule enables the critique of power structures, rather than perpetuating them through stereotypes that continue to disempower different groups.
“The world of comedy is still presented with internalized sexism,” Ballou said. “It’s possible for women to be funny not because they play into stereotypes or misogynistic views for laughs, but because they themselves are humorous.”
According to Ballou, there is a general lack of diverse and inclusive comedy. “We need more comedians of color. We need more queer, disabled and working-class comedians.”