Last December hopes were high, and expectations soared as 197 countries sent representatives to the city of Copenhagen to take part in the United Nations sponsored talks on greenhouse emissions and global climate change. Despite President Obama’s comment that these talks were “meaningful,” these ...
This past week, we once again awoke in the early hours of the morning to stare at the lifeless blue screen of BannerWeb. Typing in those CRNs we made choices — we chose the shape of our spring semester, our possible majors and perhaps our future careers. Some of us registered for classes like The ...
I was excited to get an email in my inbox with the words: “You are the 2010-2011 recipient of the Anonymous Scholarship, a donor-funded scholarship that supports your financial aid. Congratulations on this special honor!” But when I looked at my new financial aid balance, my joyful bubble popped: ...
The Vermont winter makes a solid argument against the existence of global warming, especially when gusts of icy snow get involved. Admittedly, this time of year provides some evidence for climate change — from chilly to colder to Winter Term — but except for a few strangely sunny days, Middlebury ...
When the woman in the most significant position of international climate policy power says that she does “not believe we will have a final agreement on climate change … in [her] lifetime,” one would approach work in this sphere with precious little hope. The woman is Christina Figueres — a 53-year-old ...
To the Middlebury Campus, My family drove from New Hampshire to New York City this weekend to attend the Fourth Annual Quidditch World Cup. This was our third cup. Our son is a senior at Middlebury and has played quidditch all four years. In fact, he saw someone in a Middlebury Quidditch t-shirt on ...
In the HBO series, Bored to Death, Ted Danson’s magazine-editing character hears that the board of his publication has voted to cut his column — to which he responds, “I am my column. I mean, I’m writing it in my mind, all the time.” Similarly, I too write my column in my mind, all the time. ...
Last fall I had the tremendous benefit of arriving on this campus and beginning my Middlebury journey in the classroom of Visiting Assistant Professor of Education Studies Tara Affolter. I was immediately challenged in numerous ways to critically analyze the complexities of systems of oppression and ...
Technically speaking, Jeff Klein ’09 and I were co-editors of The Campus Sports section for three semesters in 2008, but that distinction doesn’t do justice to either our friendship or the weekly lessons he gave me in sports reporting. A small and somewhat sterilized office, the Hepburn basement ...
How many times have you had your laundry in the washer and ready to go, having snagged a precious available washer on a busy Sunday afternoon, only to find that the balance on every one of the five MacGray laundry cards you had lying around your room is a quarter short of the price of a wash? Or had ...
To the Middlebury Campus, The article published in the most recent issue of the Campus, entitled “Students debate course credits,” struck a nerve with me and many other non-natural science majors on campus. The issue itself is definitely worth consideration, but solely on the basis of hours spent ...
My dream is to find a career where I can be a hybrid of Tina Fey, Jon Stewart and Sam Seaborn. So far, I am found wanting in embodying the characteristics of all my role models. My shortcomings thus far haven’t caused my enthusiasm to wane, and I continue to prove my worth by studying my heroes in ...
This world has its ups and downs, but parts of it really suck. Airlines that decide it’s OK to strand me in a dirty motel on New Year’s Eve fall into this category. I could also do without hangovers, Proctor tempeh dishes and sadness, all of which are arguably the same thing. But by far the worst, ...
College students get a bad rap. Among any population there will be a few misbehaved deviants scattered among many upstanding individuals; but at Middlebury, it seems that some faculty and administrators overestimate the prevalence of these malcontents. My friend Charlie and I recently walked through ...
Last Tuesday was not a good day for any American outside of the top one percent of wage earners. Democrats lost 65 seats in the House, bestowing the GOP with their biggest majority in, well, over half a century and now cling to power in the Senate by a narrow margin. The next two years will likely be ...
Midterm elections do not inspire quite as much media buzz and public interest as its quadrennial counterpart, the presidential election. And in some regards, they should not — there is not any one race on the ballot which everyone in the nation votes on, nor are we determining anything as important ...
At 12:30 a.m. this past Saturday, a friend and I decided to hit up the Bunker, host of the annual VACA-sponsored Halloween party, featuring DJs from New York and Montreal. (VACA stands for “Vitality of the Artistic Community Association” in case you were wondering.) As we neared FIC, we saw streams ...
It is rare that we think of Middlebury, both town and college, as a mighty, unified force. It is more common that we equate the area with its New England quaintness, seemingly slowed pace of life and picturesque pastoral beauty. But the opening of the Cross Street Bridge this past Saturday was a show ...