This year, I have not gone to a single party. I have not been involved in any of the party culture, I have only once even seen alcohol, and I go to sleep early on the weekends. Small gatherings of friends have supplanted loud, raucous parties. Video games, reading for fun and playing cards occupy my ...
Dear Middlebury community, Last spring, a friend encouraged me to download the app Yik Yak. “It’s like an anonymous twitter for Midd people, it’s hilarious,” she said. I hadn’t spent much time reading it, until one day at lunch when I scrolled through the message board and saw: “If I could ...
From time to time, the editorial board simply cannot come to a consensus around an issue — banning anonymous posting on forums like Yik Yak is one of them. We as two members of the editorial board would like to present a dissenting recommendation for the Administration as the College thinks about ...
Editor’s Note: The following text contains vulgarity. It seems innocuous. An app where you can post something witty, watch it get up-voted and monitor your karma score changing as people respond. But this seemingly harmless “fun” often comes at the expense of members of our community. When ...
Last week Erin, in support of the “People’s Climate March,” argued for policies called “cap-and-trade” which essentially set emission caps on companies and then allow them to buy and sell these emission permits with each other. However good or bad this program may be, it is not the only “pro-climate” ...
While I don’t agree with the manner in which the College administration revised the tailgating policy, I understand it. Especially with the advent of social media, we have the need to play up our college experiences. There’s the constant pressure to make our normal college experiences align with ...
You may already know about my campaign to get Heinz ketchup in all of our dining halls. Between the WeTheMiddKids petition, the go/heinzforall posters, and my somewhat unconventional ketchup solicitation in Atwater last week, I feel as though “Heinz Girl” has become something of a campus character. ...
So where were you over the summer? Well, you know, I was back at home in Palestine-Israel. Oh, wow, how was it? Umm, I mean, if you wanna talk about it… Ah, yeah, I mean, I guess it’s important to talk about it. But it’s not the casual response. What do you mean? I mean, you might not enjoy ...
A large majority of you reading this letter will not recognize my name, so as a way of introduction, I was the football coach at Middlebury from 1973 to 2000. With that experience, I would like to add my thoughts to the continuing dialogue expressed by some students and alumni regarding the administration’s ...
Over the last 10 years, accessibility and diversity have become buzzwords in higher education. They are the benchmarks for admissions — signs that elite colleges and universities are doing more than simply securing a future for the already privileged in an era of diminishing social mobility and growing ...
Over the last few weeks, an internet blog has been making the rounds throughout Middlebury students. At this point, you’ve probably heard of it. Called the Middlebury College Disorientation Guide, the blog contains several posts outlining some of the problems with Middlebury’s approach to environmentalism ...
Everyone knows that as soon as you create an account anywhere online, there’s a danger of having everything in your life taken from you by a teenager in an internet café somewhere. Somehow, that fear isn’t enough for me to take an active, defensive stand when it comes to my cyber-privacy. Perhaps ...
Religion has been crucial to human cultures for millennia, but it appears to have been dwindling in importance for the about the last century. Although God does not change, our culture has been rapidly transforming since the Industrial Revolution. It seems that our desire for happiness and accumulating ...
What seems like a long time ago, I made a choice I proceeded to doubt. It was not until a few years had gone by that I understood why coming to Middlebury was one of the most important and best decisions I have made. However, I am sure by this point that sounds cliché. Lately it seems our institution ...
The 2014 midterm election approaches and there is one issue around which I hope every one can rally: the environment. It feels like we have been talking about the problem for a while. You know it as “global warming,” or maybe “climate change” if you are trying to appease the old geezer who ...
Ever since the new tailgating policy was announced, we’ve been outraged. Outraged at the outrage. In MiddBeat’s coverage and subsequent online comments and Jack Dolan’s op-ed on the Campus’ website, there are several troubling trends that demand discussion. The more dangerous of these tendencies ...
I’m writing this op-ed to express my support for the recently announced tailgating policy, but I’m going to start with a slightly different chord: I love tailgating. Don’t believe me? I once drove from D.C. to New Orleans to attend a tailgate (it was awesome). I have tailgated at schools up ...
To the Editor, Along with many of my fellow alumni, I read with dismay that alcohol and music have been banned from tailgating at Middlebury athletic events, including Homecoming. It’s part of a broader pattern that we have observed with disappointment from afar since graduation, as officials at ...
From SGA to Community Council, we have a system of student liaisons to the administration whose key purpose is to keep the two groups on the same page. Yet last week we were all surprised to receive an email announcing that alcohol would no longer be allowed at tailgating events. Though students are ...
In response to the changes in the tailgate policy effective this Tuesday, there have already emerged a number of great arguments against this new policy, and some weaker ones for it. I am impressed by the initiative and zeal displayed by my schoolmates, and am equally disappointed by the actions and ...