Community plea to expand the arts
By Emily Knapp And Adrian Kerester | September 17, 2020We are writing out of deep concern over the state of the humanities at Middlebury College and the absence of BIPOC voices both on campus and in our curriculum.
We are writing out of deep concern over the state of the humanities at Middlebury College and the absence of BIPOC voices both on campus and in our curriculum.
This is simultaneously the year to recreate our community support system and to rely on that system more than any of us have before.
Now that human connection is spatially inconvenient, even on our small Vermont campus, I wonder if the pandemic has given us a rare gift.
While we certainly don’t have all the answers, we want to acknowledge how we all got here, validate what you may be feeling and give you some things to look forward to.
If they don’t hear you the first time, then speak up some more. You have a right to hold them accountable, and most importantly you all have a strength in numbers that I could never have even dreamed of a year ago.
However, through the years, I have learned that attracting the people you desire, whether that’s a short-term or committed connection, hinges on being honest with yourself and others.
But doesn’t the value of a college degree make up for the cost of the loans? This question requires a two-fold answer.
So when I arrived at this institution, I was shocked. I quickly came to see that there was a sort of problematic, yet normalized, expectation for environmentalists at Middlebury College.
My campus experience these past four years have given me so much wisdom, and I want to give that back to the students.
By August 29, all but one member of the on-campus student body had tested negative upon arrival for Covid-19. As results trickled in Sunday afternoon, cheers echoed down residence halls as students, who had been confined to their room for nearly two days, rushed outside to join their friends ...
I recently traveled back to my parents’ home in Alabama. While there, I visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the country’s first memorial dedicated to Black victims of slavery and lynching. The memorial is an emotionally powerful and visually stunning history lesson. It is a small ...
The following statement was previously published in the Addison County Independent on August 13, 2020 and signed by current and previous faculty and staff. More individuals have signed since its original publication. The piece has been lightly edited in accordance with The Campus’ style guidelines. As ...
We all know this semester will be different from previous ones in almost every way imaginable — online classes, mandatory face masks, constraints on the size of social gatherings and limited, if any, access to the town of Middlebury itself. Even the ways in which we are preparing for this semester ...
"It’s been endlessly repeated that we will be returning to a Middlebury unlike one we have ever known," writes Jake Gaughan '22. "The home that we left is no longer there; we cannot return to it."
Summer of 2020 is a time of national soul searching. After the horrific killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and countless other Black Americans, Black Lives Matter has become a rallying cry for a sizable number of American citizens and residents. It is sadly telling that just when many programs ...
On Sunday evening of June 28, the entire Middlebury College community — faculty, staff, current students, alumni, retirees and more — received an email from Professor Marissel Hernández-Romero. In it, she details her experiences with racism at the college. She goes on to name specific incidents ...
"As the summer carries on, it’s inevitable that the news cycles will change. But this is not a passing moment. It is and should be a turning point. To look away now would be to perpetuate centuries of systemic violence, to further marginalize our nation’s most vulnerable."
"[Some White people] will shout, 'ALL LIVES MATTER,' avoid eye contact or keep their mouths shut in tacit support of police brutality," writes Martin Williams '20. "However, they don’t stop to think about the mother, father, son, daughter, friend or mentor killed by the cops’ 'fear' or 'mistake.' ...
"It is an expectation that groups will evolve over time," wrote Niyafa Boucher '22. "However, the evolution of Riddim continues a larger societal trend of White people co-opting and erasing the humanity of people of color."
We know and appreciate that the administration has worked tirelessly to assess various situations and balance many factors, both known and unknown. However, we believe that bringing back a significant number of students to campus risks a devastating health crisis, and thus there is only one path forward ...