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(04/11/18 3:35pm)
SEXUAL ASSAULT AWARENESS AND PREVENTION MONTH
The college is observing Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month (SAAPM) throughout the month of April. The goal of SAAPM is to increase awareness surrounding sexual assault and to engage students in discussions about preventing violence and supporting survivors.
Director of health and wellness Barbara McCall explained that while the events planned for the month used to focus on awareness, they have increasingly begun to address prevention.
“An increased level of base awareness has paved the way for the month to highlight action-oriented themes like violence prevention,” McCall said.
Throughout the month of April, there will be a weekly “Self-Care for Survivors” workshop on Wednesday afternoons. The workshop is aimed at survivors but is open to all.
The month will end with two events hosted by Karen B.K. Chan. Chan is a sex and emotional literacy educator from Toronto, Canada who uses stories, metaphors and diagrams to facilitate productive dialogue and work through difficult conversations about challenging topics. Chan is also known for her accessible style of education and her ability to make people laugh.
On April 17, Chan will host “Sexy Bingo” which will test participants’ sexual health knowledge. The following night, April 18, she will co-lead an event with student activists entitled “Empowerment, Allyship, & Calling In: A Workshop for Activists.” The event will discuss concrete ways in which individuals can work to combat sexual assault.
SAAPM is sponsored by the Office of Health and Wellness Education, Green Dot, the SGA Committee on Sexual and Relationship Respect, Sex Positive Education College Style (SPECS), and the Title IX team.
A complete calendar of events can be found at go/saapm18/.
- Caroline Kapp
SGA PASSES STUDENT TRUSTEE BILL
The Students-Trustees Representation and Engagement Bill passed in the SGA Senate on Sunday with one senator opposed. The bill recommends to the administration that an additional student constituent be added to the College Board of Overseers, that the terms of the student constituents be increased to two years, and that the student constituents be given voting power in the board.
A proposed bylaw amendment which would make Commons Senator positions semester long position passed with three senators opposed and two abstaining. The change will allow students who are studying abroad for part of the year able to participate in SGA.
Opponents to the amendment pointed out that it would be logistically difficult to implement, and that the transition would create confusion. The amendment passed with three opposed and two abstaining. One of the amendment’s cosponsors, Wonnacott Commons Senator Anthony Salas, plans to study abroad next spring.
However, the change will not take effect for another week, since changes to the SGA’s bylaws require that they be revealed to the student body prior to approval.
- Eric Kapner
ALUMNUS AND PROFESSOR NOMINATED FOR PEABODYS
Two members of the Middlebury community — an alumnus and a current professor — were nominated for Peabody Awards on Monday, April 10.
Andrew Ackerman ’13, served as co-producer and cinematographer for Chasing Coral, a Netflix documentary that followed a team of divers, photographers, and scientists as they documented the demise of the world’s coral reefs.
David Miranda Hardy, a professor in the Film & Media Culture department, received a nomination for his Chilean television series Bala Loca, which he co-created, wrote, and produced.
The Peabody Awards are among the most prestigious awards in storytelling, and “represent the most compelling and empowering stories released in electronic media during 2017.” The winners will be announced on Saturday, May 19 in New York.
- Will DiGravio
(04/04/18 8:25pm)
COLLEGE RELEASES CLASS OF 2022 DECISIONS
The college accepted 17.2 percent of its regular decision applicants for the class of 2022. Decisions were released March 27 and offered admission to 1,297 students from a pool of 9,230 total applicants. This is the largest number of applicants in the college’s history and includes a record number of international and domestic students of color.
These accepted students will join the 399 admitted through Middlebury’s early decision processes in December and February. The total 1,696 students represent a slight drop from the 1,753 students accepted last year to the class of 2021. Factoring in early decision admissions, this year’s overall acceptance rate was 18.4 percent, compared with last year’s acceptance rate of 19.7 percent.
Students accepted to the class of 2022 hail from 71 countries and all 50 states, most commonly New York, California, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Illinois. Middlebury plans to award around $13.5 million in need-based financial aid to 45 percent of the class. The $1 million increase in aid from last year’s allocation of $12.5 million will boost the number of incoming students the College expects to assist by 5 percent.
According to a press release, the college hopes to enroll approximately 610 students in September 2018, followed by 100 in February 2019. The projected class size of about 710 for the classes of 2022 and 2022.5 is consistent with that of previous years. Last year’s combined enrollment of 751 for the classes of 2021 and 2021.5 was larger than expected.
Admitted students are invited to come to campus and learn more about Middlebury during preview days from April 16 to 18.
Regular decision applicants have until May 1 to accept Middlebury’s offer. - Nicole Pollack
PATTON & SGA TO HOST DINNERS WITH STUDENTS
The college’s Senior Leadership Group and Student Government Association will cohost two dinners with President Laurie L. Patton as part of their Common Agenda. The dinners, which are open to students, will be held on Thursday, April 12 and Monday, April 16 at 6:00 p.m. in Redfield Proctor.
Seating is limited to 100 per dinner and students are asked to bring food from Proctor up to the Redfield Room prior to the discussion.
“The goal is transparency and fostering a stronger sense of the shared work,” said Baishakhi Taylor, the dean of students and interim vice president for academic affairs.
Students can sign up for the dinner at go/pattonconversation. At that go/link, students can also submit topics and questions they would like Patton to discuss and answer. A group of students will sort through the most common suggestions beforehand.
Patton will begin each discussion with comments on the topics submitted. Then members of the Commons and Dean of Students Office teams will facilitate discussions about those topics.
Questions can be sent to sga@middlebury.edu or dos@middlebury.edu. - Will DiGravio
STARBUCKS COFFEE COMES TO WILSON CAFE
Dining services introduced Starbucks coffee to Wilson Cafe over spring break. Starbucks replaced Vermont Coffee Company, which is located in Middlebury. Vermont Coffee Company will continue to supply coffee to Midd Express, Crossroads Cafe, and the dining halls.
The addition is part of the college’s ongoing initiative to improve the retail food locations on campus. As reported in the last issue of The Campus, the college is reinvesting money saved from the swipe system back into other on campus dining options. Students are able to purchase Starbucks coffee with the $25 declining balance they receive on their ID card each semester.
The Campus spoke with students about the implementation. It is still unclear how students will respond to the changes, though many students are excited by the change. But, three students regretted the fact that the college would be moving away from a locally owned company in favor of a national brand. - Elaine Velie
(03/21/18 8:46pm)
The implementation of a swipe system in all three of the college’s dining halls has resulted in more than $300, 000 in savings since last September, according to David Provost, the college’s treasurer.
That figure, comprised of savings through February of this year, includes $100,000 in revenue made through selling individual meals to visitors and off-campus students, as well as specialized plans to faculty and staff. It also reflects a reduction in food costs, which are a byproduct of now having accurate data to show the number of students who actually eat at the dining halls during a given day.
As reported in The Campus last fall, one of the major reasons for implementing the swipe system was to ensure people did not enter the dining halls and eat for free. Visiting sports teams and students who lived off-campus and opted not to pay for a meal plan were large abusers of the former system, but the college has been able to capitalize on those losses since implementing the swipe system. Now, those not on meals plans pay when they want to eat in the dining hall.
“For example, UVM track just tried to get into the dining hall a couple months ago, so now we capture those people who come into the dining halls, so it’s actually increased our revenue quite a bit. It’s not that we turn those people away, but we hold them accountable and make them pay,” said Dan Detora, who heads food operations for the college.
Though in other areas the college is cutting costs in order to decrease deficits, the savings and revenue that have come with the implementation of the swipe system have been reinvested back into the college’s dining system, resulting in a net savings of around $3,000.
“In the old plan of not having swipe cards, we were feeding a lot of people who weren’t paying, and students were paying for that,” said Provost, who emphasized that money will now go back to the students, instead of the other way around. “Because we’re trying to take the savings from dining and invest them back into dining, it won’t have a big impact on deficit reduction.”
This revenue has been reinvested into dining services in a number of ways. More grass-fed beef, dairy free and vegan options have been introduced. Upon request from the Student Government Association, Nutella is now available in dining halls, which costs $20,000 per year. Each student has also received $25 in declining balance per semester, which they can then use at on-campus vendors such as the Grille and Crossroads Café.
When the swipe system was first announced, it was met with widespread skepticism from the student body. However, since then, it has become widely accepted. Provost acknowledged students’ initial resentment toward the swipe system and said the college needed to do a better job in announcing new changes in the future. “We have to find a way to communicate better so that the hysteria goes away,” he said.
In the near future, there is no plan to offer meal plans other than unlimited. But, dining services is working to expand retail food services on campus and will examine offering multiple meal plans in the future, should students approve.
Detora said that Starbucks coffee will be sold in Wilson Cafe by next fall, and he is currently working on plans to expand food offerings in the athletic center beyond game-time concessions.
Provost said improving the McCullough Student Center is also a focus area for him in the future.
“I would like to see us make McCullough more of a student center, I don’t believe it reflects what most student centers on college campuses look like,” he said. Detora said the college is already having architects coming to look at The Grille and find ways to improve the space.
There is also the potential of creating a new student store. In light of the bookstore’s recent decision to no longer sells books, the store could find its way to McCullough and merge with MiddExpress. “Isn’t there a student store experience in the student center that can meet all those needs?” Provost asked.
With additional retail spaces, Detora and Provost expect that students will want different meal plan options.
“As we build those retail spaces, students might want to consider less meals in the dining hall and more declining balance on their card,” Detora said. “That will definitely be a student decision. We have a food committee and students will decide that, [along with] the SGA.”
“As these retail units grow, we’ll see what happens, but as of right now, there’s no plan of changing the meal plan for next year,” he added.
Dining services will cut costs further after spring break, when reusable to-go containers replace disposable ones. In a school-wide email, Detora explained that dining services purchases more than 180,000 to-go containers per year, costing more than $27,000. The SGA worked with dining services to develop this plan.
Beginning April 9, the dining halls will no longer have disposable to-go boxes. Instead, students now have the option to participate in a new reusable to-go program until the end of the spring semester. Students can provide feedback at go.middlebury.edu/to-go.
“After this time, dining will assess the program to improve it,” Detora wrote. “We are so excited to implement this project and hope you will be a part of it!”
(03/16/18 4:35pm)
Spring Break is almost here! To celebrate, here's the best work produced by our paper during February 2018!
P.S. If you read our paper regularly, you will have noticed this note by Ethan Brady, our editor in chief, announcing a change to both the Features and Opinion sections. Please read it. Also, our Cartoons section is now online, check our their work!
Disclaimer: It is my hope that our readers will use this monthly post to both rediscover old stories and find new ones they may have missed. Of course, most months I will probably leave out a piece that should have been included. It is important to note that I will be selecting stories more or less from memory, so I apologize in advance if I leave anyone out! I’m open to suggestions both before and after the post is published. Feel free to comment or email me at wdigravio@middlebury.edu. Also, there may be times when stories by me appear in this post. In those instances, I will have already reached out to another editor(s) to confirm that they belong. If you disagree, also feel free to email me or comment! Also, the selection of a piece does not constitute an endorsement.
News
Applicant Pool Reaches Record High Despite Murray Controversy - By Bochu Ding
Applicants Have Right to Protest, College Says - By Elaine Velie
Interview with President Patton by Ethan Brady, Amelia Pollard, and Elizabeth Zhou:
Edited Transcript
Article By Ethan Brady
Marijuana Policy Unchanged Despite New Vermont Law - By Elizabeth Sawyer
College Disciplines Dunn - By Catherine Pollack
Local
Vermont Furthers Equal Pay Act - By Joel Lyons
Career Center Hosts Maker’s Faire - By Sadie Housberg
UVM Students Protest Racism, Demanding President's Resignation - By Ally Murphy
Opinion
Why You Should Pick Up That Copy of New England Review Lying Around the Library - By Ellie Eberlee
Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby & You Are Not Alone - By Ivey Noojin
The Mammies of Middlebury - By Treasure Brooks
Study Abroad: The Hardest Four Months of My Life - By Laura Dillon
Gun Violence Is a Product of Social Illness, Not Mental Illness - By Elizabeth Zhou
Administrators Should Follow His Lead - By The Editorial Board
Redefining ‘Inclusivity’ as ‘Freedoms’ - By Shawna Shapiro and Michael Sheridan
Why Hate Crime Laws Shouldn't Exist - By Brendan Philbin
In Defense of Our Hate Crime Laws - By Kai Wiggins
We Need to Confront Civil War Falsehoods - By Joey Lyons
Arts & Sciences
Grace Kelly Charms - By Monique Santoso
The Big Sip Laps up Success - By Nate Obbard
Alum Talks Changing Environmental Markets - By Sarah Holmes
Feminism, Science Commingle - By Caroline Jaschke
Cabaret Captivates Campus - By David Gossens
Sports
Eagles Fans at Middlebury Rejoice - By Rob Erickson
Cavs GM Altman ’05 Tries to Save Sinking Ship - By Andrew Rigas
Women’s Swimming & Diving Takes Seventh at NESCACs - Lauren Boyd
Women Finish Third, Martinez Wins 400 - By Jordan Howell
Women's Squash Takes Down Amherst, Finishes 15th at Nationals - By Emily Bian
Men’s Basketball Earns NCAA Bid, Readies for Regionals - By Andrew Rigas
Men’s Lacrosse Committed to Overcoming Playoff Heartbreak - By Imran Ganda
Features
A Change to Features - By Ethan Brady
Professor Provides Local and Global Context to #MeToo - By Emma Patch
Dining Hall Staff Innovates with Dairy-Free Ice Cream - By James Finn
Speaker Defends Sandusky, Discussing Malleability of Memory - By Nicole Pollack
Professor Teaches Winter Term Class at Local Correctional Facility - By Kacey Hertan
MAlt Trips Culminate with Reflection Dinner and Presentations - By Benjy Renton
(03/08/18 3:59pm)
College chaplain Laurel Macaulay Jordan ’79 will retire from her position at the end of this June, the college announced on Monday.
Jordan, who goes by “Laurie,” first entered into her current role 22 years ago. She returned to the college after receiving her M.Div. from Notre Dame, and after working in churches in New York State.
Though Jordan has been in her current role for 22 years, and an alum for 39 years, her connection and journey to Middlebury began much earlier.
“Originally from the town of Oneida, N.Y., Jordan was in eighth grade on a family camping trip when she first set eyes on Middlebury College. In a social studies class one year later, she had to select three career paths and choose where she might attend college to pursue those goals. Naturally, she picked Middlebury,” writes the college news room. “Jordan requested a catalog and received a bonus, the college calendar that has adorned her wall ever since.”
Since then, she has left her mark on the college. In her second year as chaplain, Jordan implemented the Religious Life Council, which “brings together the leaders of all student religious groups on campus for shared programming, conversation, and friendship.”
It was Jordan who first proposed the hiring of a rabbi to serve as an associate chaplain at the college in 2001. She also helped champion the hiring of the college’s first Muslim chaplain in 2014.
In 2012, after a two-year effort by Jordan and others, the Dalai Lama visited Middlebury, where he delivered two lectures in Nelson Arena and gathered in Mead Chapel with about 200 members of Vermont’s Tibetan community.
Jordan was also involved in the planning of service trips, including a three-week trip to flood-stricken areas of Mozambique and Zimbabwe to deliver clothing and medical supplies. She also taught a winter-term course entitled Voices of Nonviolence, during which she taught the works of authors like Tolstoy, Gandhi, Ghaffar Khan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr., César Chavez and Thich Nhat Hanh.
“Laurie has a unique ability to deeply sense and respond to people’s needs,” Devon Parish ’05 told the college news room. “She knows when something isn’t right, and she listens well and makes space for those around her to open their hearts and confront life’s challenges.”
In their announcement of Jordan’s retirement, the news room collected several quotes from alumni and colleagues.
“My mom and I went to the local Methodist church on Sunday morning. After the service, Laurie scooped us up and took us home for Easter lunch,” said Hallie Gammon ’10. “That experience went a long way toward making my mom comfortable with sending her daughter [from Texas] all the way across the country… The study group Laurie hosted was the first time I felt comfortable asking tough questions about sexuality, sin, and the existence of heaven and hell.”
“Laurie has shaped spiritual and religious life at Middlebury since her appointment in 1996,” said Mark Orten, the director of the Scott Center and dean of spiritual and religious life. “Our community has benefited from her calming presence in times of stress, her rich command of language during grand events such as Commencement and Convocation, and her dedication to supporting others in the quiet of her office.”
(02/24/18 6:50pm)
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(02/22/18 2:24am)
Isn’t it funny how often we tend to view historical figures in ways they most certainly would not have approved?
I think about that a lot these days, since political leaders seem to grow more and more certain that they know the answers the Founding Fathers would provide to Wolf Blitzer and Rachel Maddow in the wake of each mass killing.
Like, I assume, even the most casual lover of American history, I too have a fascination with the Founding Fathers, more specifically, the men who gathered in Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress, and, in particular, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Over this past winter break, I read Christopher Hitchens’ brief biography of Jefferson (it’s more like fan nonfiction), and I am currently making my way through “Friends Divided,” Gordon Wood’s 2017 examination of the Jefferson-Adams relationship.
Though I can offer no insight into the lives of these two men, much less what they would say about “gun control” and amendement number two, I can, with some degree of confidence, say that they would find these perpetual debates over what they and their contemporaries thought/would think if they were alive to be quite, to keep this column G-rated, silly.
Have we forgotten what our third grade teachers taught us about the American Revolution, about the struggle between ancient regimes and Enlightenment values? The Founding Fathers disagreed on much, but they were, above all, free thinkers, committed to the idea that governments, should they fail to serve the interests of the people, must be changed.
In a 1789 letter to James Madison, Jefferson writes “that the Earth belongs in usufruct [I had to look it up too] to the living: that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.” I first encountered Jefferson’s observation on screen, during a conversation between him, Adams and Benjamin Franklin in the HBO miniseries “John Adams.” It’s something I think about a lot, and an idea that has informed how I think about government.
Now, I’m sure there are Jefferson/history experts who could find reason to say the aforementioned quote is not indicative of Jefferson’s beliefs. As Hitchens and Wood both point out, Jefferson contradicted himself and changed his mind constantly. In fact, by quoting Jefferson, I have just contradicted myself, and what I said at the beginning of this column about the endless quoting of the Founding Fathers in debates over contemporary issues.
The Founding Fathers were, of course, students of history, of laws, governments and everything else. And, yes, they constantly turned to the past for guidance in an attempt to understand the present and construct the future. Yet, they, clearly, did not see themselves as beholden to the ways, laws, or ideas of old. Though they admired and learned from the men of the past, they did did not, as is the case today, deify them. That is obvious, and something we, in 2018, should remember.
(02/03/18 7:32am)
This week marks the end of the Winter Term, during which we published two issues of The Campus. January is a time of transition for the paper, where we say goodbye to old editors who are heading abroad/graduating, welcome back editors from abroad, and invite new editors to join our board. This month we added seven new editors across four sections, and had other editors transfer over to different sections. We have a great team and are incredibly excited to return from February break and have a strong Spring semester. For now, here's our best work from January:
Disclaimer: It is my hope that our readership will use this monthly post to both rediscover old stories and find new ones they may have missed. Of course, most months I will probably leave out a piece that should have been included. It is important to note that I will be selecting stories more or less from memory, so I apologize in advance if I leave anyone out! I’m open to suggestions both before and after the post is published. Feel free to comment or email me at wdigravio@middlebury.edu. Also, there may be times when stories by me appear in this post. In those instances, I will have already reached out to another editor(s) to confirm that they belong. If you disagree, also feel free to email me or comment! Also, the selection of any piece does not constitute an endorsement.
News
Middlebury Dodge GOP Bill's Endowment Tax - By Bochu Ding
Panel Reopens Murray Debate with Legal Perspective - By Catherine Pollack
Residential Life Negotiations Reach SGA - By Elizabeth Sawyer
Student Who Posted 'The List' Faces Discipline - By Catherine Pollack & Elaine Velie
Local
Carol's Nears Closing - By Amelia Pollard
Vermont Sugarmakers Reflect on New Challenges - By Sadie Housberg
Vt. Lawmakers Legalize Recreational Marijuana Use - By Amelia Pollard and Andres Velazquez
Vt. Guard Proposes Waived College Tuition - By Kenshin Cho
Opinion
A New Presidential Tradition Is Needed - By The Editorial Board
Middlebury: Where White Supremacists, but not Survivors, are Worthy of Free Speech - By It Happens Here Past & Present
Grappling with 'The List' - By Members of the Distinguished Men of Color Board
The Law Should Not Restrict Speech - By Lukas Carvalho
Arts & Sciences
Five Hot Albums for a Cold Day - By Nate Obbard
Reel Critic: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - By Devin McGrath-Conwell
Esteemed Pianist Serenades College - By Bilal Khan
Features
Snow Removal Staff Tackles Winter Weather - By James Finn
'TIME' Editor Keynotes Women Leaders Summit - By Kayla Lichtman
Founder of Moscow Times Discusses Media in Russia - By Miguel Espinosa
Sports
Ski Squads Have Historic Weekend on Slopes - By Jake Turtel
Women's Hockey Sweeps Bowdoin - Sebastian Sanchez
McCluskey Sets School Record in 200 Meter - By Jordan Howell
Men's Basketball Climbs Atop NESCAC - By Andrew Rigas
(01/30/18 9:58pm)
The Campus Voice is a weekly radio show hosted on WRMC 91.1 FM, Middlebury College's radio station. Each week, editors from the Campus will tackle relevant news stories as well as community conversations with guests from the paper's staff as well as the college. Archives and recordings from the radio show are posted on the Campus's SoundCloud account linked below.
[embed]http://soundcloud.com/campusvoice[/embed]
(12/16/17 4:53am)
We are done! (For now.)
Last week, we published our final issue of the semester and I could not be more proud of our team and their work. Since our first issue of the semester, members of our editorial board and writing staff have worked hard to make our paper better each week. I am grateful for their hard work. I would specifically like to thank the members of our editorial board who will be leaving us next semester: local editors Rebecca Walker and Bridget Colliton, features editor Sarah Asch, and news editors Nick Garber and Kyle Naughton. Best of luck as you go abroad! We will see you next fall!
Now, please enjoy some fabulous work by our team! (Since we only publish once in Dec., I have included that issue as part of this post.)
Preface: It is my hope that our readership will use this monthly post to both rediscover old stories and find new ones they may have missed. Of course, most months I will probably leave out a piece that should have been included. It is important to note that I will be selecting stories more or less from memory, so I apologize in advance if I leave anyone out! I'm open to suggestions both before and after the post is published. Feel free to comment or email me at wdigravio@middlebury.edu. Also, there may be times when stories by me appear in this post. In those instances, I will have already reached out to another editor(s) to confirm that it belongs. If you disagree, also feel free to email me or comment! Also, a selection of an opinion piece does not imply endorsement of said piece.
NEWS:
“Proctor Performance Satirizes Patton Administration”
By SABINE POUX
“Before Leaving the Administration, Katy Smith Abbott Looks Back”
By ELIZABETH SAWYER and NICK GARBER
“Cryptic Email Invites Community to Off Campus Speech”
By WILL DIGRAVIO
“Faculty Question Investigation & Diversity Practices”
By ELIZABETH SAWYER
“Pulitzer Winner Walter Mears ’56 Discusses Career, Journalism in Trump Era”
By NICK GARBER
“Allison Stanger Opines in Hearing on C-SPAN”
By ELAINE VELIE
“Violent Imagery Drawn on Classroom Chalkboard”
By ETHAN BRADY
“SGA and President Patton Develop Common Agenda”
By KYLE NAUGHTON
LOCAL:
“Congressman Peter Welch Discuss GOP Tax Plan”
By AMELIA POLLARD
“Burlington Telecom Deal Near Joint Venture”
By AMELIA POLLARD
“Vermont Tackles Shortage of Addiction Treatment Specialists”
By SADIE HOUSBERG
“Chili Fest Suspended, Citing Construction & Fatigue”
By REBECCA WALKER
“Werner Christmas Tree Farm Gears up For Holidays”
By AMELIA POLLARD
“Vergennes Boys and Girls Club Undergoes Major Renovations”
By ALLY MURPHY
OPINION:
“Middlebury Dies in Darkness”
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
“Don’t Be Fake”
By NIA ROBINSON
“Letter: Katy Smith Abbott’s Deanship”
By VINCENT RECCA
“Pregnant in Middlebury, Vt.: Fake Abortion Clinics and the Right to Accurate Information”
By TORIA ISQUITH
“Observations of an Outsider”
By LINH MUELLER
“Sharp Left: When Dissent Is Distracting Hypocrisy”
By TEVAN GOLDBERG
“Open Letter to President Patton”
By MATT GILLIS
“For the Culture: On Misogyny”
By JOSH CLAXTON
“I Cover the Waterfront: On Finding Bibles”
By WILL DIGRAVIO
ARTS & SCIENCES:
“NPR’s Siegel Talks Trump, Role of Media”
By CONNOR SLOAN
“Perspectives on Student-Led Public Art on Campus”
By APRIL QIAN
“Professor Examines Generation of Consciousness”
By CAROLINE JASCHKE
“Guest Lecturer Talks About Maternal Attitudes”
By JORDAN HOWELL
“A Cappella Group Sings for Global Unity”
By SARAH BOYLE
FEATURES:
“Special Feature: Mindfulness Efforts on Campus”
By ELIZABETH ZHOU
“Amor y Memoria: Celebrating the Life of Juana Gamero de Coca”
By SARAH ASCH
“Students Question Administrators at Tense Town Hall”
A transcription and video of the event.
A follow up article by Sarah Asch and James Finn.
“Poetic Justice, 10 Years Later: Parini Reflects on the Destruction”
By BEN FREEDMAN
“Dead Parents Society Offers Students Support”
By BENJY RENTON
“Women Leaders Club Hosts Mentorship Luncheon”
By EMMA PATCH
SPORTS:
“Field Hockey: The Exit Interview”
By ROB ERICKSON
“Inside Midd Football Players’ Decision to Kneel During Anthem”
By WILL DIGRAVIO
“Field Hockey Wins Third National Championship”
By HEATHER BOEHM
“Women’s Squash Returns Strong Core, Adds New Faces”
By EMILY BIAN
“Women’s Basketball 7–0 for First Time in 16 Seasons”
By IMRAN GANDA
“From Midd to Cleveland, Koby Altman ’05 Rises to GM of Cavs”
By ANDREW RIGAS
“Men’s Basketball Wins Middlebury Tournament”
By ANDREW RIGAS
“Women’s Hockey Wants to Host Final Four”
By SEBASTIAN SANCHEZ
“Cross Country Teams move onto NCAA Championships”
By JORDAN HOWELL
(12/07/17 12:39am)
It was not until “The Star-Spangled Banner” began to play that Ian Blow ’19 decided to take a knee. Of course, he had thought about it before — a lot, ever since Colin Kaepernick first did so in August of last year.
After almost kneeling at the Middlebury football team’s Oct. 7 game at Amherst, Blow, who is black, planned to protest the following week. Before doing so, he wanted first to share his plan with his teammates. However, in the midst of a hectic, midterm-filled week leading up to their Oct. 14 game against Williams, the chance to open up a conversation never came. As he sat in the locker room prior to kickoff, Blow, a defensive end, decided to wait another week.
“I didn’t go through the steps beforehand to be respectful of my teammates, so I decided I wasn’t going to take a knee,” Blow said in an interview with The Campus.
But as he stood on the sideline just before kickoff and the national anthem came over the loudspeakers, something changed. Blow caught sight of a banner promoting Green Dot, a program that trains members of the community in bystander intervention to help prevent instances of power-based personal violence. That day, Blow and his teammates were wearing green dots on their helmets to show support for the program. He said Green Dot has been incredibly important to him and, in that moment, the banner served as a reminder of the need to take action.
“In that situation, I thought, ‘nobody is a bystander,’ ” he said. “You are either part of the solution, or you’re not. I saw that Green Dot banner and I thought, ‘I have the option here to either be part of the solution today, or not be part of the solution today.’”
After that realization, he got down on one knee, ignored his surroundings, and focused his eyes on the woman singing the anthem.
“Going in, my focus was on playing and winning the game, but for that moment I was also making that stand and I wasn’t worried in that moment," he said. "I was sure of what I was doing as I did it.”
Blow was then joined by one of the team’s running backs, Diego Meritus ’19, who is also black. The two had been linking arms during the anthem throughout the season, and had previously discussed the possibility of taking a knee.
Meritus did not respond to an interview request.
As the two players knelt on the sidelines, first-year running back Charlie Ferguson ’21 stood beside Blow and placed a hand on his teammate’s shoulder.
“Diego and Ian are standout guys. I have a great amount of respect for them both,” Ferguson said. “When they took a knee I fully supported the statement they were making and wanted to show my support. In the moment I figured the best way for me to do this was [by putting] my hand on their shoulder.”
From there, they took to the field and focused on football. After the game, Blow and Meritus discussed their decision with coach Bob Ritter, who, according to Blow, supported their right to express themselves in this way, but wished they had let him know prior to kick-off.
“I definitely agree with him there. The best way to have gone about it would have been to have a conversation first and then done the protest,” Blow said. “I didn’t apologize for kneeling. I admitted that I could have done it in a better way, but I did what I thought was right.”
“I respect their decision to kneel during the national anthem,” Coach Ritter told The Campus. “They wanted to make a statement about race and inequality, and they made it clear to their coaches and teammates that they weren’t protesting the military, our country, or the national anthem.”
According to Blow, his teammates were understanding of his and Meritus’ decision, and even those who disagreed did so in a way that did not tarnish friendships, or affect the team. Ritter agreed.
“We have always tried to foster an atmosphere of respect and inclusivity on our team. Although some of our players expressed various viewpoints on this subject, our discussions were thoughtful and respectful, and our players were supportive of each other,” he said.
Earlier in the year, during the team’s preseason, the coaching staff asked the players to gather in small groups and answer the question, “What do you think of when you listen to the national anthem?” Blow used that time to reflect.
“I feel incredibly proud to be a part of a nation that gives us so many opportunities and freedoms that we take for granted every single day. At the same time, I acknowledge that we also live in a flawed nation, where there is a lot of injustice,” Blow said. “And that’s why I felt sure I was doing the right thing because that’s what I think every time I hear the anthem. And I feel like taking a knee is part of that progress towards a better United States.”
Blow emphasized his deep respect for members of the military, and that his decision to protest is meant to highlight systemic, racial injustice, not disrespect those who serve.
For the rest of the season, Blow and Meritus continued to protest. The following week, they played and protested at Bates without incident. However, the following week, at an Oct. 28 home game against Trinity, someone in the stands began heckling Blow and Meritus, telling them to stand up and respect the flag. The tirade ended with the man using a racial slur.
“He yelled, ‘n–gger.’ Initially, when he started heckling, I was a little flustered,” Blow said. “But as soon as he said, ‘n–gger,’ I was immediately sure of what I was doing.”
For Blow, the incident showcased the kind of bigotry that he and others who protest are trying to expose.
“Racial hatred and discrimination [exist]. And it’s in our community,” he said. “That’s what taking a knee is all about — facilitating a discussion and making you see that there is a racial undertone to our politics and our policing that negatively affects black people.”
The team’s final game against Tufts took place on Nov. 11, Veterans Day. As he prepared for the game, Blow grappled with how to protest in a way that could not be perceived as disrespecting those who served. After researching how to properly salute a member of the military, he came up with his plan. On game-day, as the national anthem played, Blow did not face the flag, opting instead to stand and salute a member of the military who was in attendance.
Blow said he does not tend to seek the spotlight, which is why he waited more than a month to talk on the record for this article. But he is interested in engaging in conversations with members of the Middlebury community about issues related to race.
His and Meritus’ decision to protest comes at a time when issues of race have dominated not only national discussions, but also those on campus. Events like a student’s alleged incident of racial profiling, racially charged vandalism and the aftermath of the student-led protests of Charles Murray have sparked campus-wide conversations about race and class, and systemic problems that many feel the college has failed to address.
“I see problems happen on campus and I look at them through a societal lens,” he said. “I see things happen and I’m not upset with Middlebury or the Middlebury community, I’m just recognizing even more that there are problems in our society that we have to deal with.”
“In a way, me kneeling for those societal issues, is me kneeling for those problems we face at Middlebury,” he said.
(11/28/17 8:31pm)
At half past three on Tuesday afternoon, the Middlebury community received a widespread email invitation to attend an event featuring a “renowned conservative activist” and hosted by The Preservation Society, a group whose origin and membership remain unclear.
The event, which as of Tuesday evening is scheduled to be held on Thursday, Nov. 30, is a speech by James O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, an organization that aims to undermine the work of mainstream media organizations and left-leaning groups. It will be held at the Marriott Courtyard hotel in Middlebury and is not affiliated with the college or any official student group on campus.
Though The Preservation Society, which is “committed to bringing freedom of speech back to Middlebury College,” claimed to be comprised of Middlebury students, no such group exists in any official capacity at the college.
“We are unaware of any student group called The Preservation Society, which was named in the email as a host for the event,” said College Spokesman Bill Burger in an email to the community Tuesday evening. “No one claiming to represent such an organization has approached the college with a request for recognition as a student organization.”
“It is unfortunate that this email made it through the college’s spam filters,” Burger said. “Middlebury College has nothing to do with this event. Mr. O’Keefe has chosen to travel to town to pursue his own political and personal agenda.”
O’Keefe began the week in national headlines. On Monday, the Washington Post exposed a failed attempt by O’Keefe’s organization to feed a false story to the newspaper in order to discredit women who have accused Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for Alabama’s vacant Senate seat, of sexual misconduct. A woman employed by Project Veritas approached the Post and falsely claimed that Moore impregnated her when she was 15 and talked her into having an abortion.
Last month, the Leadership Institute, a national organization that “teaches conservatives of all ages how to succeed in politics, government, and the media,” reached out to several Middlebury students about potentially bringing O’Keefe to speak at the college this month. The students discussed the possibility with the Leadership Institute and with college administrators. Per interim college policies introduced last month, those wishing to host an event must submit a request three weeks prior to the date of the event. Because the group failed to meet that deadline, the college said they could not accommodate the event until January of next year.
But, shortly after missing that deadline, the group of students that had been contemplating whether to bring O’Keefe to campus decided to dissociate themselves from the event completely and not go through with having him speak here in January.
Multiple students involved in those discussions declined to comment on the record for this article, citing a desire not to be associated with Thursday’s event.
According to those students, the Leadership Institute decided to fund O’Keefe’s trip to Middlebury anyway, and have him speak at the Marriott to interested students and community members.
In an email to their membership, the executive council of the college’s American Enterprise Institute (AEI) club said they did not support the event and that it was “likely an attempt to embarrass students.” It was the college’s AEI club that invited Charles Murray to speak at the college in March of this year. Murray’s lecture was heavily protested by students and received media coverage nationwide.
“Project Veritas is known for using hidden cameras and other underhanded tactics to create videos for their donors and taking down institutions. This individual was brought in by the Leadership Institute,” the executive council said in the email.
Their email also urged students to “proceed with extreme caution” if they are contacted by Emily Faulkner, the Northeast regional field representative for the Leadership Institute
“She is a paid staff member of the Leadership Institute who has tried to set up a fake student org called ‘The Preservation Society,’” the email said. “This org has no Middlebury Student members and no index to reserve space on campus."
"AEI does not support and is not involved with any of their events or actions. Please report any incidents involving individuals claiming to be part of the Preservation Society operating on college property to Public Safety," the email said.
Burger told The Campus that the college was contacted by Faulkner about the event. Faulkner, according to her biography on the Leadership Institute website, works “as a full-time paid activist that identifies, recruits, and mobilizes students on college campuses to promote the ideals of a free society.”
According to Burger, Faulkner told him on Tuesday that students involved with The Preservation Society plan to request official recognition as a student organization after the upcoming holiday break. He said he did not know the names of any students involved and that they did not yet appear to have an advisor, a requirement for all student organizations. Faulkner told Burger she is helping recruit members for the new organization.
Faulkner did not return a request for comment.
The email announcing O’Keefe’s speech included a link to The Preservation Society’s website, which, as of Tuesday evening, is comprised only of a single form urging students to join.
Also included on the web page is a link to Facebook and Twitter pages. It is unclear when the Facebook page was made, but as of Tuesday evening it had zero likes. A profile picture and cover photo were added on Monday, Nov. 27. The Twitter page was created this month, and as of Tuesday evening had no tweets or followers and was following no other accounts.
A Campus reporter filled out a form on the organization’s webpage requesting comment for this article, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
(11/16/17 12:44am)
In a class last week, I co-led a discussion on “Travesties,” Tom Stoppard’s play partly inspired by “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Being the studious student I am, I brought with me “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde” in case I needed to reference his work and/or pretend to be more well-read than I am.
As I pulled the book out of my backpack and threw it on the table, without thinking I said, “I brought the Bible!” One classmate half-chuckled.
Though my remark was made in jest, the more I thought about it, the more it felt like the truth. Having been raised without religion, for me, the Bible is just another book. So, my self-proclaimed joke about Wilde got me thinking, “What is my Bible?”
It could be Wilde’s collected works. His essays and novel have informed my view of art more than any other, and “The Importance of Being Earnest” is more or less the reason I study drama. But what else could it be?
Perhaps it is “United States: Essays 1952–1992,” Gore Vidal’s gargantuan collection of essays, which, to my mind, is the gold standard for U.S. political commentary. Whether you agree with Vidal’s views doesn’t matter, he is a master craftsman and the first writer I turn to for perspective on the 20th century. As much as I admire Vidal and treasure his body of work, his essays can’t be my Bible, can they?
If I were to answer the question ironically, I suppose my Bible could be “God Is Not Great” by Christopher Hitchens, the writer whose words first made me feel comfortable in my lifelong disbelief.
Maybe it’s “Harry Potter,” the series to which I have the strongest emotional connection, the books that first taught me about friendship, perseverance and loss.
Last week, as part of an internship application, I was asked to name my favorite book. I went with my gut reaction: “In Cold Blood.” It’s one I discovered after a rough first semester at Middlebury, when I ordered a stack of books from Amazon. Truman Capote’s seminal piece of new journalism was packaged on top, so I read it. I now have a personal connection to the novel because it came at a time when I needed to temporarily leave our world for a different one.
And that’s the one thing all these books, and others, and some I have yet to find, have in common: They’ve been there for me when I needed them, when I needed guidance, reaffirmation or to escape. They’re my Bibles.
(11/03/17 8:01pm)
It's hard to believe that the month of October is already behind us. As I enter my third November as a member of this paper (my first as managing editor), I've come to realize just how easy it is to forget all the great work produced by our staff. Between classes, personal commitments, extracurriculars, and putting out The Campus every Thursday, we don't often take the time to reflect on some of the great reporting and commentary that appears on our pages each week. That's why I've decided that on the first Friday of each month, I will publish a selection of what I consider to be our paper's best and most important work from the previous month. It is my hope that our readership will use this monthly post to both rediscover old stories and find new ones they may have missed.
Of course, most months I will probably leave out a piece that should be included. It is important to note that I will be selecting stories more or less from memory, so I apologize in advance if I leave anyone out! I'm open to suggestions both before and after the post is published. Feel free to comment or email me at wdigravio@middlebury.edu. Also, there may be times when stories by me appear in this post, as is the case this month. In those instances, I will have already reached out to another editor(s) to confirm that it belongs. If you disagree, also feel free to email me or comment!
Now, please enjoy some fabulous work, in no particular order, by our team:
NEWS:
Late-Night Alarm Jolts Atwater Residents From Saturday Slumber
By Elizabeth Sawyer
Students, Admin Confer at Open Forum
By Nick Garber and Dom Tanoh
Campus Is Vandalized, With College Labeled Racist
By Will DiGravio
Patton to Attend Free Speech Conference
By Ethan Brady
Barney Frank, John Sununu Discuss Campus Free Speech, Political Climate
By Nick Garber and Will DiGravio
Students Talk Study-Abroad During Trump Era
By Bochu Ding
Discussing Free Speech, Attorney General Implicates Middlebury
By Nick Garber
LOCAL:
Student Teachers Connect College and Community
By Rebecca Walker
He's 13 Years Old and He's Running For Governor
By Bridget Colliton
Pennies for WomenSafe
By Ally Murphy
OPINION:
Letter: Racial Profiling By Public Safety
By Michael Olinick
Racism and Responsibility
By Laurie Patton
Student Reflects on Surviving Sexual Assault
By David Vargas
For the Culture: Savage
By Josh Claxton
Sharp Left: When the ‘Common Ground’ Is a Swamp
By Tevan Goldberg
I Cover the Waterfront: On the Alt-Weekly
By Will DiGravio
ARTS & SCIENCES:
Women Safe Presents “I Rise”
By Sarah Boyle
Cocoon Storytellers Share Pain and Love
By April Qian
Teach-In Examines Recent Hurricanes
By Asher Lantz
Professor Researches Acid Mine Runoff
By Caroline Jaschke
FEATURES:
Students Navigate Misconceptions and Challenges of Veganism
By Elizabeth Zhou
Professor Delivers Talk on Trauma and (Post)memory
By Benjy Renton
AFC Hosts Dinner in Honor of Hispanic Heritage Month
By Haoyang Yu
Annual Security Report Shows Increases in Crime, Sexual Assault
By Sarah Asch
Student Spreads Joy Through Nonprofit Organization
By Eric Masinter
SPORTS:
Activism in the NFL: Two Takes on One Issue
By Rob Erickson
Field Hockey Forges Ahead
By Claire Messersmith
Men’s and Women’s Tennis Holds Own in Cambridge
By Nick Nonnenmacher
Men’s Soccer Sinks Trinity
By Riley Smith
A (Re)Defining Moment for the Quidditch Club
By Emily Bustard
(11/01/17 10:24pm)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99NaRJQzXiM
I am embarrassed to admit that I had not heard of Joan Didion until May of this year, when Sue Halpern (the college’s favorite scholar-in-residence) gave me a copy of her essay collection, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem.”
As I made my way through Didion’s masterpiece, I was reminded of what Christopher Hitchens once said about Nabokov: great writers make us want to write, yet simultaneously think, “perhaps I shouldn’t be in the writing business.” Over the weekend I borrowed another of her essay collections, “The White Album,” from the library and experienced that feeling once again.
Didion, now 82, is the subject of a new Netflix documentary entitled, “Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold.” The film falls into one of my favorite genres: documentaries about writers. In recent years we have seen the lives of folks like Gore Vidal, Roger Ebert, James Baldwin and Fran Lebowitz explored on the big screen. These documentaries have enriched our understanding of their influence on American culture, and “The Center Will Not Hold” is no exception.
Like Didion’s more prolific essays, the film is strung together by vignettes that don’t seem to be related until we near its conclusion. It is directed by Didion’s nephew, Griffin Dunne, who is perceptive enough to realize that we are not interested in a videographic biography. After all, it would be impossible to cram a life as full as Didion’s into 90 minutes.
Nor are we interested in hearing from a neverending stream of interviewees. This is the problem I had with “Everything is Copy,” the 2015 documentary about Nora Ephron. The film included an interview with, I think, every celebrity Ephron had ever met, and paid little attention to whether the interview was actually interesting or informative. I wanted to hear more about Nora, not banal anecdotes from Steven Spielberg.
This is not the case in “The Center Will Not Hold.” As director, Dunne is far more economical with interviews. Yes, there are stars in the film — Harrison Ford, Anna Wintour, Tom Brokaw — but their screen time is kept to a minimum, and their insights actually enhance and advance the story being told.
The film’s best moment comes when Didion is asked about the time she encountered a five-year-old girl who was tripping on LSD, which she records in her 1967 essay, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem.” When Dunne asks his aunt to elaborate on what that discovery was like, she pauses. In the coming seconds we expect Didion to talk about how sad or angry she was to find a child in such a condition. But, instead, she leans in and says, “Let me tell you, it was gold. That’s the long and the short of it, is you live for moments like that if you are doing a piece. Good or bad.”
It is through moments like these that we see what made Didion such a beloved and influential writer: intellectual honesty, a disdain for cliche, and a kind of detachment from society that allowed her to so brilliantly capture the culture of whichever decade she was/is writing in.
As Fran Lebowitz says in her 2009 documentary, “Public Speaking,” it is the goal of writers to influence the culture, and Didion has certainly done that. In the film, the late Robert Silvers, the founding editor of the New York Review of Books, summed up her role in American society in one sentence, “I wanted to know, as a matter of my own curiosity, as an editor and as a friend, what she thought.”
And there it is. About how many of today’s writers could the same be said? I’m not sure, but I know I could list their names on a Post-it note with room to spare.
Like Hitchens’ observation about Nabokov, “The Center Will Not Hold” delivers two irreconcilable reminders: how badly we need writers like Joan Didion and how unlikely we are to find them.
Will DiGravio is the managing editor of this paper.
(10/19/17 1:05am)
Last week, former Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) and former Governor John Sununu (R-NH) and chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush, came to campus for a conversation entitled, “Finding Common Ground for Economic Opportunity in the Trump Era.” (For coverage of the event, click here). Following the event, Frank and Sununu sat down with The Campus for an interview, which has been lightly edited for clarity.
Middlebury Campus (MC): Last March, in the room we were just in, students here protested a speech by Charles Murray, preventing him from speaking. This is something we've seen around the country—what are your general thoughts on college campuses shutting down speakers?
John Sununu (JS): The biggest problem in America today.
Barney Frank (BF): I don’t think it’s the biggest problem in America, but it’s outrageous. First, from a standpoint of individual rights and civil liberties, it’s wrong, morally wrong—that’s not the way you want a democracy. Secondly, it is particularly disturbing because it intrudes on the function of a university, which should be where people learn. Third, it bothers me politically. I don’t want to make that an important reason, because it’s wrong whether it’s helpful [politically] or not, but it’s totally counterproductive. These are people on the left who could not be giving the right a bigger gift; they could not be doing more to empower right-wingers.
This is an argument I’ve been having with a lot of people for 50 years. In the ‘60s when there was excessive violence in African-American communities and in Vietnam, Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew made great hay off of that, so it’s politically counterproductive in that sense. Finally, it’s very shortsighted for people who are members of vulnerable minorities. Yeah, on campus the pro-LGBT position and the pro-African American position might be in the majority. But in the broader society that isn’t always gonna be the case. For LGBT people in particular, to reaffirm the principle that if a conversation upsets people you shouldn’t have it, is an attitude I’ve been fighting all my life about my rights.
JS: The reason I think it’s the biggest problem, or one of the biggest problems, is because it’s producing a generation of young people who are on campus and who will be leaving campus who, in my opinion, are being encouraged by a lot of faculty members to feel that the First Amendment is not an appropriate right in this country. To me, none of the other rights work without First Amendment rights.
MC: What might be the causes of this phenomenon? Is it reflected in our political climate, as exhibited in Congress?
BF: I don’t know. Some of it is because of economic disadvantage, but that’s not the case here—these are not people, on the whole, who are economically disadvantaged. I’m skeptical of my ability to explain why it happened, because if I knew why it happened, maybe I would’ve known it was gonna happen. But I suppose there is one argument that I’ve heard that I totally reject—I’ve heard it from those Antifa people, who are especially obnoxious and who are themselves dangerous—that there is a danger that fascism is gonna take over. That isn’t remotely the case and even if it was, the [proper] targets are not the ones they deal with. So I do not know why we have this outbreak.
JS: I’m not sure I understand it either. Some of it is related to the point I tried to make [during the event]: that technology has permitted people to isolate themselves with others that are completely in accord with them, and give them a feeling that they don’t have to hand shouldn’t exchange ideas with other. We’ll have to see how far this thing does, but I would really urge conservatives, liberals, progressives, everybody of every philosophy, to understand the point the congressman made upstairs: that constructive discourse is necessary in a democracy.
BF: It bothers me too, because I want to make change. I want people to go out and vote and throw out the bad people and put in better people and then put pressure on them to do the right thing. The problem in part is people think, having done that, that they’ve done something for the cause. “Hey, I made America better for LGBT people by shouting down a bigot!” That doesn’t do me a goddamn bit of good. It’s an easy way out. If you really don’t like these people, get out there. Write letters, call talk shows, get on social media and make your arguments with people.
MC: This is a very liberal institution, and a lot of people here come from very liberal places. When you come to an institution that reaffirms the beliefs you’ve held all your life, how do you go about challenging yourself? How do you, as lifelong members of one political party, keep challenging yourself?
JS: Read, read, read. There’s some great authors out there. Read both sides.
BF: Find some people, go listen to them speaking, even if it’s not on campus. I wouldn’t recommend watching TV—with rare exceptions, TV people promote fighting and squabbling.
MC: Here at the college, many folks with conservative views feel silenced, as though if they express their viewpoints, other students will attack them. What would your advice be to young conservative students?
BF: Get over it. Do people still say, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me?” Call me a name, so what? Sununu and I have been getting called names for a living for a very long time. I would say just don’t take it to heart, don’t take these people seriously.
JS: It’s hard to do that, especially if you’re afraid of retribution from faculty. But Barney’s right—either believe in what you believe in enough to not hide it, or go somewhere else. If enough go somewhere else, maybe the institution will learn something’s wrong. Institutions have a responsibility, and in a constructive way, [students should] urge more of the kind of stuff we had tonight.
MC: Congressman Frank, during the talk, you referenced the lack of political participation in the U.S., especially in primaries. This plagues the Democratic Party in particular. Aside from reminding people of the value of voting, what kind of role does the party have in maximizing turnout?
BF: [The party] can’t take sides, but what it can do and has done is fight very hard against voter suppression. There’s a task force headed by Eric Holder, to fight at the local level against restrictive rules.
JS: Obviously I don’t agree with the congressman on that. To answer your question about what the party can do: it’s hard for the party in primaries because it doesn’t want to be perceived as favoring somebody and it doesn’t take much of a nuance or slip for that to happen. But there are ways it can fund phonebooks saying to go out and vote; door-knocking, dropping off literature about every candidate in the party. That’s what the party can do. But in primaries it’s really up to the candidates—they’re the ones receiving the contributions, they’re the ones urging people to get out, and it’s up to them to get support.
BF: You can have much more influence with your peers than we can, when you’re of that age. There are advocacy groups—part of their work is to make a list of everyone and tell them to go vote. People should not exaggerate the role of the parties. I’ve had people complain to me that “The Democratic National Committee rigged the nomination for Hillary Clinton.” My answer is, the Democratic National Committee couldn’t put out a fire in a bathtub. They just don’t have that kind of power.
MC: You talked about the role of the party; do you think there’s a need for a 3rd, 4th, 5th party?
BF: You know that story, there’s a guy next to a girl, he has his hands around her, and he says, “I wish I was an octopus so I could put 8 arms around you.” And she says, “You ain’t using the two you got!” You’re not doing what you want with what you have! The parties are not monoliths.
JS: You don’t want to get European, where you give leverage to some group that—
BF: And why would you want to start a new party? If you have enough votes to win in a new party, go vote in primaries and take over an existing one. The parties are not monoliths. And a third party, what would it be for?
MC: Well, thinking of the divide between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton—
BF: So you think it would be better to have two parties? In terms of what is achievable in the U.S. Congress in the foreseeable future, there’s no practical difference. Neither one of them could give you all of what you want; people are fighting about unrealism. So let me put it this way: if people want to start a third party to the left, the Republicans would be delighted; if the Republicans wanted to start one to the right, the Democrats would be delighted.
JS: I just think a two-party system serves the country well. You may think it’s broke, but it ain’t broke.
(10/19/17 12:04am)
The Middlebury community woke up to widespread vandalism last Saturday, Oct. 14, after an unknown individual(s) spray-painted condemnations of the college at eight locations on campus.
One of the more notable examples occurred at Mead Chapel, where the word “racist” was spelled out across the six pillars at the building’s entrance. Outside Old Chapel, where the offices of senior college administrators are located, the vandal(s) spray-painted the word “shame” and a sad face. The phrase “F-ck Middlebury” was found spray-painted on the lawn in front of Hepburn Hall, and “I Hate Midd [sad face]” was found outside the college bookstore.
“At this point, we haven’t identified who is responsible for the vandalism,” college spokesman Bill Burger told The Campus. “We are in touch with the Middlebury Police Department and they have agreed to help in the investigation.”
The vandalism comes during one of the more turbulent times in recent college history, and at a time when community members have expressed disappointment in the college’s handling of issues related to race and class.
“The graffiti that was left, presumably, by members of our community on various buildings and public spaces this past weekend sends a clear and important message: We, as a community, have not done a good enough job in making people who feel marginalized and excluded welcome at Middlebury,” said Kyle Wright ’19.5, who co-chairs the Community Council.
In March, protesters here prevented Charles Murray from delivering a lecture after labeling him a racist and white nationalist. Last month, The Campus reported that Addis Fouche-Channer ’17 filed an official complaint with the college alleging she was racially profiled in the wake of the protest. The college disputes her account, even though a judicial officer had cleared her of any wrongdoing last spring.
After The Campus report, Middlebury Faculty for an Inclusive Community, a coalition that formed in the wake of the Murray protest, called on the administration to do more.
“It is not just about taking responsibility in a broad and general sense, which President Patton has done repeatedly,” the faculty members wrote. “It is about demonstrating the humble learning that comes from admitting specific mistakes, and highlighting how we can and will do better for our students going forward.”
On Friday, The Campus published a letter to the editor written by math professor Michael Olinick that said a professor of color was racially profiled while attempting to enter her office earlier this year. That letter is reprinted on page three of this week’s issue of The Campus.
“It is especially distressing that although this incident was reported promptly, the professor states that the college administration has been slow to respond, and while it regards the office’s behavior as ‘unacceptable,’ it refuses to recognize it as racial profiling,” Olinick said.
According to Nia Robinson ’19, who served last year as co-president of the Black Student Union, these problems are institutional.
“From my perspective, it seems like the administration ignores those issues until they can't anymore. That’s why I think things like graffiti and protests happen. Maybe they do pay attention, but don’t think there is anything they can do,” she said.
“I think it takes looking at Midd as an institution first, realizing it was made for and by rich white people, and will continue to be that way, no matter how many students of color we pump through here.”
In an op-ed submission published in this week’s issue of The Campus, College President Laurie L. Patton acknowledged that the administration needs to do more.
“Racism is present at Middlebury, and it will not be tolerated. We must come together as a community to address it,” Patton said. “We also need a comprehensive approach to this problem, at all levels, beginning with the administration.”
Regarding the graffiti, Wright said it is important to note the burden it places on other members of the college community.
“This graffiti does not affect our college administration in the way it does members of Facilities Services, for example, who are the staff responsible for cleaning graffiti off of our buildings,” Wright said. “Indeed, it impacts those groups very inequitably, which I’m sure was not among the intentions of the community members who performed the graffiti.”
According to Burger, fourteen members of the facilities staff cleaned the graffiti from 7:30 to 10:30 a.m. on Saturday. Additional work had to be done on Monday. Four members of the facilities staff came in to work despite it being their day off.
On that same day, a memorial service for Juana Gamero de Coca, a Spanish professor, was scheduled to take place in Mead Chapel. Burger said the staff prioritized cleaning that location first.
“We’re deeply appreciative for the efforts and skill of the members of our staff who worked that morning — some on their day off — to remove the work of the vandals,” Burger said.
Going forward, Wright said the administration should use this as an opportunity to address these issues.
“A comprehensive response on behalf of the administration regarding the concerns raised by this graffiti is overdue" he said.
(10/11/17 11:10pm)
Juana Gamero de Coca, an associate professor of Spanish, died unexpectedly last Friday, Oct. 6.
A native of Alburquerque (Badajoz), Spain, Gamero de Coca joined the Middlebury faculty in 2004. She was appointed to a tenure track position in 2006 and received tenure in 2012.
She is survived by two daughters, Izzy Fleming and Carmen Fleming, both Middlebury alumni, and her partner Ricardo Chávez Castañeda, a visiting professor in the Spanish & Portuguese Department.
A memorial service will be held this Saturday, Oct. 14, in Mead Chapel. As of Tuesday evening, a start time has not yet been announced.
Gamero de Coca earned her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2004. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh and a master’s degree from New Mexico State University. She authored three books: “Nación y género en la invención de Extremadura: Soñando fronteras de cielo y barro” (Mirabel, 2005), “La mirada monstruosa de la memoria” (Libertarias, 2009), and “Sexualidad, violencia y cultura” (Desde Abajo, 2013).
At the college, she taught courses in literature, film and culture. Her faculty profile says she was “interested in the connection between literature, her field of interest and discipline, and the different social realities that the literary texts intend to grasp.”
This semester, she was teaching a 300-level course entitled, “Spain in the Globalized World,” and a senior seminar entitled, “Culture and Mental Illness.”
In a statement announcing Gamero de Coca’s death, the college included reflections from her colleagues.
“Above all we will miss her warmth: her grand entrances as she greeted colleagues, students, friends. Her radiant smile. Her lovely home, which she opened to so many friends. Her unrelenting support of students and colleagues, no matter if this sometimes placed her in a vulnerable position,” said Gloria Estela González Zenteno, professor of Spanish.
“Her students responded in kind to her authenticity and ethical commitment. She will be deeply missed, and never forgotten.”
“Juana had a particular talent in welcoming our new colleagues in the department, easing their nervousness, making them comfortable, and helping them achieve confidence in their teaching. She loved mentoring her younger colleagues and did so with a personal touch,” said Miguel Fernández, professor of Spanish.
“I recall reflecting after sitting in on one of Juana’s seminars and asking myself how she created such a comfortable environment for her students. It felt like a fireside chat with students digging deeper and deeper into the texts they had read with mutual appreciation and respect. Her students loved sharing in her passion for literature and culture.”
The Campus will publish a more detailed remembrance of Professor Gamero de Coca in the coming weeks. If you have any stories, reflections, or memories you would like to share, please email campus@middlebury.edu.
(10/11/17 10:14pm)
Three weeks ago I touched on the importance of original reporting in this column, and argued that the blogosphere would never replace traditional media because the very existence of news relies on reporters immersing themselves in their respective beats.
In that column, I mentioned newspapers like The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe, but failed to discuss the role of alternative newspapers like The Village Voice, the Washington City Paper and Vermont’s own Seven Days, cofounded by Paula Routly ’82.
Given their independence and weekly print schedule, alt-weeklies historically have been able to produce some of the country’s finest investigative reporting. Take, for example, last month, when a pair of journalists at the Phoenix New Times, an alt-weekly based in Phoenix, Az., published a story that unveiled how local Motel 6 chains were handing over guest lists to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency commonly referred to as ICE.
One of the story’s coauthors was Joseph Flaherty ’15, who headed The Campus during the 2014-2015 academic year. The report came after Flaherty and his colleague Antonia Noori Farzan received a tip that ICE agents were raiding local Motel 6 locations on a regular basis.
“All we knew was there was talk of undocumented guests being picked up frequently at area motels, and that immigration attorneys were concerned. But we didn’t know the chain of events that led to undocumented guests being arrested after check-in,” Flaherty told me.
“Was it a lone front-desk clerk who was racially profiling guests, placing a call to ICE based on someone’s I.D. or surname? Were the arrests a product of regular police activity at the motels? Or — as it eventually turned out — was it a routine process where the guest list was sent directly to ICE on a nightly basis?”
After New Times published the story, Motel 6 said the practice had taken place unbeknownst to senior management and would be discontinued.
Flaherty believes he and Farzan received the tip because they had experience covering immigration and ICE-related stories in Phoenix.
“From the source’s perspective, my guess is that we seemed like reporters with a proven track record who could cast a critical eye on motel practices related to ICE,” he said. “It probably goes to show that as you report on a subject and establish yourself, sources start to come to you.”
Unlike daily papers, alt-weeklies are not obligated to churn out copy and report news as it breaks. Instead, they are able to focus on important stories we don’t yet know we need to know. With this flexibility, reporters at alt-weeklies can immerse themselves in stories in ways that reporters at daily newspapers or websites may not be able to do.
“In order to track down which Motel 6 locations were responsible, we had to do a deep dive into court records — making note of the motel addresses where arrests occurred, calling attorneys to verify details, and so on. This isn’t to say that a daily couldn’t report this story, and we certainly had to do our fair share of juggling other stories while reporting it,” Flaherty said.
“But cities need publications that are willing to report aggressively and invest time where other news outlets might not. From my perspective, that’s the definition of an alt-weekly.”
Deep dives into local stories with a national twist are a staple of the alt-weekly, and part of what makes them a central piece of American life and journalism. However, this importance does not make them immune to the financial woes that have beleaguered the newspaper business for, well, practically my entire life.
In August, The Village Voice, the country’s foremost alt-weekly, announced the end of its print edition and the beginning of a new, online-only platform. When the decision was made, many Voice devotees deemed it the end of an era.
Though he was sad to see the print edition end, Flaherty is optimistic that alt-weeklies can thrive in the digital age. Last month, after New Times published his piece, it garnered significant attention online, especially on Twitter, which is where I found it.
“Watching a story like this one get picked up and shared everywhere is thrilling and definitely doesn’t happen everyday,” he said.
For Flaherty, online news is the future, in part because it has the unique ability to bring together readers from different locales, and allows for a greater back-and-forth between reporters and their readership. At the end of the day, what’s worth protecting is not the print edition, but the dogged, pavement pounding reporting itself.
“There will always be a place for alt-weeklies and magazines in the digital age,” Flaherty said. “Readers are still going to want the incisive writing and feature-length reporting that these publications offer, whether they’re paging through a physical copy at a newsstand or clicking on the latest story that everyone on Twitter is talking about.”
Will DiGravio is the managing editor of this paper.
(10/04/17 11:15pm)
In last week’s issue of this paper, we published an op-ed entitled, “Faculty Support Wrongly Accused Student.” As the byline indicated, that piece was written and submitted by “Middlebury Faculty for an Inclusive Community,” a coalition of faculty members that formed in the wake of the Charles Murray protests.
Several of our readers have asked why we did not include the names of the aforementioned faculty members in the body or byline of their op-ed. Allow me to explain.
In the weeks and months following the Murray protests, this paper received several op-ed submissions that contained hundreds of coauthors and signatories. Due to spatial limitations, we made the decision to stop printing long lists of names. Instead, we decided to include a URL at the end of every submission that directed readers to an online list of authors and signatories.
At the end of last week’s op-ed by the aforementioned faculty members, a URL was provided. However, it was not explicitly stated that the URL led to a list of names. For this confusion, we apologize. In future op-eds, this will be made more explicit.
If any readers have questions, comments, or concerns about this policy, please feel free to contact me at wdigravio@middlebury.edu.
Will DiGravio is the managing editor of this paper.