I’m sorry if I’ve scared you
By Gage Schrier | March 9, 2023Multiple times over the past year, one of my friends has told me they felt scared of me before they got to know me.
Opinion
An ode to going to school with your older brother
By Ginger Hanlon | March 2, 2023“I’m definitely not going to Middlebury — that’s Joe’s school.” I made this bold claim over a year ago as I began applying to colleges. My brother and I have always been close, but I was so opposed to going to a tiny school with him that I didn’t want to look any further into Middlebury. ...
Middlebury College Climate Action and the Fall 2022 Climate Attitudes Survey
By Cole Helgaas and Kelly Ferrero | March 2, 2023In fall of 2022, Professor Julia Berazneva’s Climate Change Economics class (ECON 0365) put out a survey about attitudes on campus towards climate change and potential policies the school could adopt. The survey had 1,265 total respondents including 350 faculty and staff members.
The case for compensating student organization leaders
By Editorial Board | March 2, 2023The Middlebury College experience is marketed to prospective students as a place full of extracurricular possibilities and opportunities. We’ve all seen the brochures and heard the classic line about student organizations at Middlebury: If you don’t see a club that interests you, start one.
Introducing Closet Magazine: Queering the Campus
By Sophia Cole | March 2, 2023What would it look like to create a centralized platform to engage in boundary-defying artwork, critical conversation and innovative content for the Middlebury community? Do we have a space that’s diverse and disruptive, a community that touches on the tension between tradition and (trans)formation? ...
How to navigate college when you have baggage
By Rach Peck | March 2, 2023The start of the semester is always an incredibly busy time in all realms of college life. In particular, I find the social scene to be especially hectic as I meet new people through classes and other activities. In this vein, the first few days of this semester were the busiest I’ve experienced so ...
The “real world” is not prepared for us
By Nimaya Lemal | February 23, 2023But as a young person, I have a more pressing question: Is the real world prepared to work with us and the realities we learned about in school?
Over-enrollment is still affecting our learning experience
By Editorial Board | February 23, 2023Over the past few years, Middlebury community members have become accustomed to the impacts of having a larger-than-typical number of students enrolled at the college — a housing crunch, packed classes and stressful course registration processes. Historically, around 2,500 students have called Middlebury ...
Why we say "CFA"
By Asa Skinder, Phoebe Brown, Rose Robinson and Birch Banks | February 23, 2023In 2007, the CFA was dubbed the "Kevin P. Mahaney Center for the Arts" and was known as the CFA (Center for the Arts) for 12 years thereafter. In spring 2019, the administration put up posters, made stickers and asked faculty to enforce a name change from CFA to MAC (Mahaney Arts Center).
Middlebury & the independent artist: An examination
By Gavin Richards | February 23, 2023Despite all its setbacks during the pandemic, Middlebury currently enjoys a lively and expansive artistic landscape, especially as it relates to the performing and visual arts — in part due to the diligence of its faculty, but more importantly, because of the student body’s perseverance and sustained ...
Notes from the Desk: New schedules mean new problems
February 23, 2023The lunchtime rush was a notorious disaster during the dreaded post-12:15 rush. Thankfully, this semester, the school has reorganized and staggered classes around lunch differently. However, as the first week of classes unfolds, this new scheduling appears to have added some other potential problems. ...
We are not used to tragedy
By Mars Etgu | February 23, 2023Since Feb. 6, I have been navigating two starkly different worlds: images of death and destruction from my friends in Turkey, and the blissful ignorance that defines life in the U.S. Chaos is ever-present, with news of dead bodies and desperate, shivering survivors constantly making headlines.
I’m broke. I shouldn’t be: The reality of delayed pay
By Rach Peck | January 26, 2023Deep breath. I turn on my phone and go to open my least favorite app — Bank of America. Face ID scans my face, immediately confirming that the worry lines and bitten lip staring in anticipation at the white screen do in fact belong to me. The number appears, and I wince — $76.
Afghanistan, an “elephant in the room”
By Sajia Yaqouby | January 26, 2023On Jan. 1, among other visitors and groups of advocates in front of the White House, a large group of Afghans was immediately noticeable. “LetAfghanGirlsLearn…”
Investing in social life
By Editorial Board | January 26, 2023With few Covid-19 guidelines still in place, many parts of campus life are starting to return to pre-pandemic routines. Students are once again able to eat in the dining halls, attend most classes without masks and go out to parties or other gatherings on the weekends.
On the Record: An introduction
By Abigail Chang | January 26, 2023This J-Term, I’m working my way through a few thousand Campus articles as part of an independent study, looking through old coverage to get a sense of what we’re doing well, where we have room to improve and how our paper has evolved over the past four years. So, I thought, now that I’m more steeped ...
Let’s bring panthers back to Vermont
By Michael Closson | January 26, 2023The Jan. 14 issue of The New York Times contains an interesting op-ed entitled: “Cougars Are Heading East. Welcome Them.” Its author, Mark Elbroch, describes the gradual return of big American cats (also known as cougars, mountain lions, pumas or panthers) to their former habitats east of the Mississippi ...
Stoke is high, but the climbing wall budget is not
By Katherine Michaelson and David Goldsmith | January 26, 2023Hidden in a small loft above the indoor tennis courts, the Middlebury climbing wall is an unassuming and homely place. The loft is crowded — covered in climbing pads, equipment and furniture that the students who manage the space have scavenged from the recycling center. But at 4 p.m., the wall comes ...
What are the bricks in our walls?
By Ryan Ulen | January 19, 2023“All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.” Sung by Pink Floyd, these are the words I hear while walking through the rear entrance of my first-year residential hall, Stewart. I’m welcomed by a can-liner box full of dirty dishes, trashed at the windowsill next to the door. Beneath this ...
Equal credit representation for STEM students in lab classes
By Clara Sandberg and Raymond Grocela | January 19, 2023A six-hour total lab-lecture class only counts for one credit, which is the same number of credits that any other three-hour per week class at Middlebury counts for. To demand this much work and time from STEM students and give the same amount of credits to non-STEM students is not a fair practice.