Cheating at a competitive place like Middlebury will never go away, but it is possible to change the incentives that currently allow its tolerance. Beyond being lazy and counter-productive to education, cheating is a collective action problem. The best way to prevent cheating — in addition to investing ...
Double-tap. Explosion. Dust. Blood. Celebrations. It reads like a resume of a more traditional military confrontation but in these modern instances no one has to touch a gun or even look their enemy in the face. Welcome to the world of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Many governments, private firms and individuals ...
8,446 miles. That is how far it is from Middlebury to Tacloban City, Philippines. When the Earth suffers, we suffer with it, but not everyone suffers equally. Today, the Philippines is bearing much of the burden. Since our community often tends to feel apathetic towards the people and communities that ...
Unpaid internships have become a nearly ubiquitous feature of the modern economy. For many students, they offer the opportunity to explore their field of interest before later attempting to find a paid job. While the prevalence of unpaid work opportunities creates a number of problems for those who ...
Dear friends, Today, on Nov. 14, I am going to voluntarily fast for a whole day in solidarity with the Filipino delegate to the UN COP19 climate talk, Mr. Yeb Sano. I chose this day because on the same day, Divest Middlebury is holding a candlelight vigil to commemorate the lives that have been lost, ...
As we once again gripe and groan about the inadequacy of BannerWeb, it’s easy to lose sight of other registration frustrations many students face as we choose how to spend the chilly month of January. Instead of enrolling beachside at some Southern Californian college or braving the hustle and bustle ...
If anyone has ventured down to the CFA recently, they will see a bizarre looking sculpture perched on top of the hill by the pond. With its door open, one can look inside Vito Acconci’s “Way Station,” which had been previously displayed outside of Bihall starting in 1983. The piece was open to ...
Last week in Oslo, Marius Holm of the ZERO Foundation presented a report that I co-wrote this summer along with a number of environmental and financial professionals making the case for fossil fuel divestment in Norway’s government pension fund, a portfolio so large that it dwarfs the size of all ...
Four Fridays ago, for the first time since I’ve been a student here at Middlebury, I felt truly invisible. I don’t mean that my presence caused some trickery of the eye triggering an inability to see, but rather that something about me caused people not to acknowledge my presence. I wasn’t a student ...
In all our high level seminars, hours in the library and dusty tomes on our bookshelves, have we missed something? Has our education here left something out? Something, perhaps, more elusive than a GPA or a thesis? Does Middlebury create smarter people or better people? This is a somewhat melancholy ...
As we approach a month since the troubling and startling suicide of 16-year-old Olivia Scott of Bristol, Vt., the newspapers, media and other news outlets are noticeably absent of any content related to teen suicide, bullying or harassment. This is a common pattern after tragic events such as this occur. ...
“I love Middlebury College because it is in Vermont: everything seems to work here, I feel like I’m far away from those sad things that we see in the news!” That was one of the first things I heard from a Middlebury student, back when I was applying to the College. Indeed, on a campus that abounds ...
We’ve become largely desensitized to words like ‘10,000 likely dead.’ It’s not our family, our friends. But can we stop for a minute and recognize that people have died and will continue to die, as Typhoon Haiyan razes Southeast Asia because of a storm greatly exacerbated by climate change. ...
For any of my readers, the next time you see me, I expect consistency in the way you approach me and others on this campus. If you are going to make an effort to greet someone once, why not make the effort to greet the person in the same manner for the other times you shall surely come across them on ...
Editors' Note: The following article contains offensive language. 1: Is the word “faggot” a homophobic slur? 2: That’s an easy question. Yes, it is. 1: Is it homophobic if a Caucasian says it? 2: Yes, it is. 1: Is it homophobic if an African-American says it? 2: Yes, it is. 1: So why, then, ...
Like many other students on this campus, I went to the Chance the Rapper over the weekend. I danced and yelled and had a great time. I even listened to him perform the controversial lyric in his performance of “Favorite Song.” And so, now that Chance has come and gone, let us assess: what has changed? ...
We know that preservation of the South American rain forests is a necessary step in ensuring our future a stable climate. Why, then, is illegal logging in the Amazon still so prevalent? Two weeks ago, the New York Times published a story explaining a recent chapter of Peru’s struggle to combat the ...
A friend of mine once described “fun” as looking forward to an event and reminiscing about that event. Anticipation and nostalgia, he thought, were more important to explaining our experience of fun that the actual experience. Daniel Kahnman’s research, including his most recent book Thinking ...
All across America, Conservative commentators are jumping up and down, waving their hands in the air, pointing at glitches in the month-old roll-out of Obamacare and yelling “I told you so!” Republicans are so eager to turn attention away from their destructive shenanigans in the budget and debt ...
Part of our fascination with innovative people is the almost palpable buzz of potential that surrounds them. Every insight that slips out is valuable in and of itself, but each nugget of wisdom’s true value is as a clue to the thought process that shaped it. These bright people have diverse identities, ...