It’s time to change how we think about grading
By Jason Mittell | April 1, 2020"Increasing transparency and student agency improves learning."
Opinion
Optional Pass/D/Fail is community failure
By Lily Colón | April 1, 2020"What drives the pushback against universal pass/fail is the unwillingness of privileged Middlebury students to forego the unmerited benefits they receive from said privilege."
Notes from the desk: In support of universal Pass/D/Fail
By Bochu Ding | March 28, 2020"The current opt-in Pass/D/Fail system presents an illusion of choice."
Universal pass/fail puts grades before learning
By Tim Hua | March 28, 2020"We should not ask ourselves how we can make sure everyone receives the same on-paper outcome, but rather how we can help those who need support."
Current grading options are an equitable compromise
By Tommy Eastman | March 28, 2020"In these difficult times, we have to be honest with ourselves about our goals and the effort we’re planning on putting into our work."
Students need grades, and we can have grades without sacrificing equitability
By Tianzhi (Lambus) Li | March 28, 2020"Despite imperfections, the letter grading system is the last guardian of fairness in an inherently unfair society."
Circumstance is not choice, but community is
By Arthur Martins, Daleelah Saleh and Jackson Tham | March 28, 2020"We cannot choose the circumstances we live in, but we still have a choice about the kind community we want to create."
Make all courses pass/fail now
By Allison Stanger | March 28, 2020Students aren’t having a real college experience. We shouldn’t pretend that they are.
What happens now that we’re all in long-distance friendships?
By Genevieve Herron | March 24, 2020Genevieve Herron '23 proposes a solution to the difficulty of long-distance friendships: letter writing.
Online dating in the era of Covid-19
By Sex Panther | March 22, 2020Our Sex Panther has compiled all the best coronavirus references from the dating apps she's been scanning while sheltering in place at home.
Please don't take a vacation in the middle of a global pandemic
By Jake Gaughan | March 21, 2020"Right now, your decisions as a traveler, as a tourist, are bound to have unintended consequences."
Onward: How The Campus is continuing its coverage
By Sabine Poux, Bochu Ding and James Finn | March 19, 2020The show must go on.
Prompt for contributors: March 19
By Sabine Poux | March 19, 2020We want to hear about the litany of feelings that characterized many students’ last few days on campus.
A plea for international students
By Monique Santoso, Claire Moy, Arthur Martins, Masud Tyree Lewis, Kelly Zhou, Hussam Alzubaidy and Ariana Popa | March 19, 2020As the International Students’ Organization Executive Board, we are distressed about the impact the administration’s decision to evacuate campus.
On crisis and community
By Lynn Travnikova | March 19, 2020It’s taken a pandemic for me to feel it, but real community can happen at Middlebury.
What we talk about when we talk about coronavirus
By Editorial Board | March 12, 2020We hear you: this wasn’t how the spring semester was supposed to go. In the wake of President Patton’s email Tuesday, announcing the shift to remote learning following an early, extended spring break, to say that things are “uncertain” feels like an understatement. Talk to anyone on campus: ...
Take “Wellness” off your to-do list
By Zoe Harris | March 12, 2020Yesterday I received an email from the New York Times that said: Day 5. Refresh. Take a Self-Compassion Break. The email suggested that I take a moment to close my eyes and soothe myself by wrapping my arms around my body. I was then given the option to press a button to “mark this task complete.” Five ...
Midd missed the mark: Calling for a humane sustainability
By Alex Cobb, Hannah Ennis, Olivia Pintair, Jaden Hill and Connor Wertz | March 12, 2020Imagine this: a local farm uses food waste and manure from 900 cows to produce renewable natural gas. This gas is funneled through a 5.6 mile-long pipeline from the farm to Middlebury College. The school then uses the gas to produce 500kW of renewable electricity that powers 50% of the campus. College ...
Re “Coronavirus in N.Y.: Manhattan Woman Is First Confirmed Case in State”
By Bochu Ding | March 12, 2020The following was submitted to the NYT as a Letter to the Editor. To the Editor: Words cannot express the disappointment I felt when I saw that The Times chose to feature an image of Chinatown in Flushing, New York alongside its breaking story about a Manhattan woman who contracted the coronavirus ...
Notes from the desk: engagement is a two-way street
By Elsa Korpi | March 5, 2020It only takes a minute on Twitter to read that a liberal arts education is too coddling.