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 ...
"For many of us, our relationships with faculty and staff remain our strongest continued connections to the College," wrote several alumni. "We trust the College will honor its commitments to Middlebury’s mission, and to the staff and faculty who uphold it."
We recognize that the trauma of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade and too many others is felt deeply by all — and disproportionately by Black students, faculty and staff in our community.
George Floyd was killed at 46, which is only a few years older than me. With any luck, I’ll keep going for decades more yet. But George Floyd will forever be 46. When I think about it, I can’t breathe.
We recognize that Middlebury will not be able to immediately fix all of these disparities. Nevertheless, we ask that this outreach be considered as a starting point for reparations.
The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers and the other acts of cruelty and merciless killing we have seen are but a sliver of the full scope of the systemic and constant violence that Black Americans face — and have faced throughout history. Black Americans continue to ...
Right now in America, we all are witnesses to the horrific murder of George Floyd, one tragic event in an irrefutable pattern of systemic abuse of power enacted along racial lines that has gone unchecked and unaccountable in this country for a long time.
"Trying times call for trying new measures," writes Editor in Chief Bochu Ding '21. "As we all embark on an 'unprecedented' summer, we at The Campus are looking forward to navigating these uncharted territories alongside you."
In this crisis, we expect Middlebury’s most intrinsic and consequential values will be decisively highlighted.
I think all my people on The Campus know exactly how I feel about them because I tell them, often, in a way that sometimes makes me feel like an overbearing grandma who can’t stop pinching her grandchildren’s cheeks.
Two weeks ago, we witnessed the faculty vote to maintain the opt-in credit/no credit grading system for this semester. The vote proved that even in a time of crisis, Middlebury College continues to conduct itself in a neoliberal manner, emphasizing “financial-sustainability” over the well-being ...