There’s this scene in “Page One: Inside The New York Times,” a 2011 documentary film about the paper of record, that I can’t stop thinking about. It features David Carr, The Times’ media columnist who became the paper's de facto spokesman before his death in 2015. In the scene, Carr debates ...
For those less familiar with the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, here’s a brief summary: The program began in 2012 with an executive order issued by President Obama. It allows for individuals brought to the United States as children to receive deferred action from ...
The word “community” is a trite word on this campus — in classes, in club meetings, in glossy admission materials. Since the beginning of her tenure, President Laurie Patton has stressed the importance of “rhetorical resilience” in strengthening the communal ethos of Middlebury. But when it ...
Take a course with John Bertolini, and you will undoubtedly encounter the T. S. Eliot phrase, “mature poets steal.” Though I am certainly not a poet, and hardly mature, I had Eliot’s observation on my mind when I chose the title of this (hopefully) weekly column. I spent the summer trying to ...
The week before heading back to college tends to be a bit frenetic for our students, tying up loose ends from the summer, going through the long list of mom’s to-dos, wrapping up a job or even a romance. Combined with the excitement, there is usually some stress in this process: What have I forgotten ...
Welcome back to college. As the school year ramps up, we would like to share with you an upcoming project we are really excited about. One of our many goals this year is to write long-term, in-depth pieces that look at student life on campus, in addition to our weekly coverage. In that spirit, we have ...
This year, The Campus will launch a conservative column. Hopefully, this will become a space in which contributors can challenge their peers with thoughtful opinions less commonly found on liberal college campuses like Middlebury. This column serves students looking to serve the community with intellectually ...
Accepting that we can be less than perfect is something that we must teach ourselves. Getting a C on your transcript should be a badge of honor.
This document represents an initial statement on the principles of inclusivity, civil freedoms and community, drafted by a group of more than 40 faculty members at Middlebury, which formed in the wake of March 2nd. We share it with all members of the Middlebury community in the hope that it will initiate ...
On April 20, 2017, Professor Bert Johnson wrote in to this paper with an apology. This doesn’t happen frequently; we were surprised and moved. Professor Johnson, chair of the Political Science Department, wrote that he regretted the manner in which department co-sponsorship was issued to Charles Murray’s ...
On November 8, 2016, perhaps you did not sleep from disbelief, joy or rage. In Havana, the nomenklatura of the communist party also lost sleep; a new situation emerged that broke the plans of a diplomatic approach prepared secretly and meticulously. The new tenant of the White House was a piece on the ...
There has been a lot of talk since Trump was elected about leveraging one’s privilege to do good. That is exactly what the Moving Money Campaign is about. It’s all too common to hear liberal college students complain about how powerless they feel; but the truth is that we are not powerless. The ...
Editor’s note: This column is excerpted from remarks President Laurie L. Patton gave to the Middlebury College faculty in early April. It also appeared in a slightly different form in the spring issue of Middlebury Magazine. The events of March 2 and the ensuing debate about the value of public discourse ...
I support the goals of the dining hall meat-reduction proposal with enthusiasm. The methods, however, are all wrong.
Dear Dr. Patton: We write to protest the Middlebury administration’s punitive response to students involved in the events surrounding the Charles Murray lecture on March 2, 2017. Middlebury students have reported being placed on probation and having disciplinary letters added to their files for protesting ...
I would’ve liked to know more about staff members’ personal interests, hobbies and opinions about the College. Questions that were more critical of the way students treat staff would’ve been more valuable (and interesting) to read, than simply a list of “memorable interactions.” Instead of ...
Racial and economic oppressions recently have been thrown at each other in Trump era politics as if one contradicts the other. In part, the white poor have started claiming oppression as their own, claiming that policies like affirmative action or individual prejudices amount to “reverse racism” ...
Last week we published an op-ed by Esme Valette ’16 illuminating “predatory pack behavior” on campus. She pointed to a “Hunters and Hunted Party” thrown by a group of senior boys in the spring of 2014 as an example of the perpetuation of a social culture on our campus that fosters predatory ...
The remarkable series of events that followed the announcement of Charles Murray’s visit to campus contains more than a few lessons for both the community and the individuals. The debate of free speech and Murray’s legitimacy in Middlebury’s liberal academic setting will, and should, continue. ...
The context in which we do our work in higher education has changed dramatically in recent decades and these changes have an impact on our specific experience at Middlebury. Institutions such as Georgetown, Brown, Harvard, Princeton and others have publicly shared how they historically and systematically ...