As Middlebury faculty and staff, we hope our trustees will commit to fossil-fuel divestment and a new kind of investment, investment that yields high returns and embodies the promise of this challenging age. Health technologies designed to perform miracles; clean-energy electricity for the world’s ...
This weekend, the Middlebury College board of trustees may decide whether or not to divest our endowment of holdings in fossil fuels and arms manufacturing. This community has engaged in conversations about divestment since September. Questions have been raised about the potential financial impact ...
Student government at Middlebury is currently based on the principle of representative government; we elect a handful of senators with whom we entrust our decision-making power. Beyond voting every spring, the average Middlebury student does not participate at all in the process of student government. ...
I’ve been writing this column for the whole of this school year. During that entire time there has been one conflict of major international importance which somehow has never been quite topical enough for me to discuss in depth. I refer, of course, to the civil conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic. ...
May 2012, I was elected to be a new Middlebury Open Queer Alliance (MOQA) President, or “President of the gays” as one of my exchange friends used to call me in her strong Russian accent. It was a very random decision of mine and I accepted the role with a lot of excitement; over the summer I designed ...
Our chosen school is pretty big on tradition. Every year, graduating Febs ski down the Snow Bowl in their gowns. Every year, when springtime hits full bloom the Adirondack chairs come out. Every year, the homecoming football game tailgate blows up, DKE throws a righteous party and everybody wins. But ...
News of the new Vermont Gas pipeline and the College’s announced endorsement of the project has created quite the stir among the community – and rightfully so. For a quick summary of the debate, see the dialogue that has taken shape between Zach Drennen‘13.5 and Cailey Cron‘13.5 and Anna Shireman-Grabowski‘15.5 ...
This week, President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz released a statement reiterating the College’s support for the Vermont Gas pipeline. This comes in the face of motivated and organized student and community opposition that has made its presence well known over the last few weeks. This decision ...
Professors have a unique and important place in a student’s life. We should never underestimate the deep and at times life-long impact of the student-teacher relationship. Yet although the role of professors exists both in the classroom and in an advisory capacity, it seems that many are unaware of ...
Each academic year at Middlebury is slightly different from the previous one. While the College could not run without the hard work of faculty, staff and administrators, it is the student body that ultimately sets the agenda and tone for each year. In other words, students define Middlebury. At liberal ...
On April 17, after America’s 113th Congress rejected a series of proposed gun-control measures, Barack Obama asked a teary-eyed, red faced crowd in the White House’s Rose Garden, “how can something have 90 percent support and yet not happen?” Americans have debated the answer endlessly. The ...
Recently, an independent fact-finding mission of the United Nations (UN) presented a report about the Israeli settlement policy. The report confirms what was assumed for a while: the settlement project cannot be differentiated from the Apartheid system that was once applied in South Africa. The assignment ...
In his recent op-ed about abortion, Kenneth Burchfiel ’13 claims to “support life.” He equates abortion with the Nazi genocide of Jews and other non-Aryan groups and he implies, with an infantile reference to Disney movies, that those who are involved in providing abortions and those who choose ...
Last week’s op-ed by Kenneth Burchfiel ’13 regarding abortion has (unsurprisingly) already been met with vitriolic attacks on the Campus website, and will no doubt be the subject of even more criticism in this week’s issue. As someone who cares deeply about the issue, I’m glad Kenneth was willing ...
This op-ed goes out to everyone who is thinking about writing an opinion piece in a published medium that circles in a community (ie. newspapers, magazine, other public media). Think before you write. Sharing your opinions and thoughts on a certain topic is necessary to varying degrees. It helps the ...
Like most people watching stories unfold at the “It Happens Here” event I was disturbed. I was angry. I was sad. I felt things I could not describe but warranted taking a walk halfway through. At the end of it all though, I was faced with the question, how do I react? Part of me wants to continue ...
Jeannie Bartlett ’15 There were a number of things I wanted to add to my comments at the Student Divestment Panel that I didn’t get to, so I’ll add them here. I’m surprised to feel the need for this first clarification: the shift off of reliance on fossil fuels is not just a nice goal to ...
We wish to address serious factual inaccuracies in Zach Drennen ’13.5’s April 25 column “Middlebury Finds a New Pipeline to Protest.” First, a clarification of terms: Zach, you mislead readers by describing the product transported by this pipeline as “natural gas.” Conventionally drilled ...
Just after midnight, exactly two years ago today, U.S. Navy SEALs stormed a small private compound outside of Abbottabad, Pakistan and ended the world’s most expensive manhunt with a couple of well-aimed bullets. After nearly 10 years of relentless intelligence work, many Americans felt that they ...
People on Syrian streets are dying horrible deaths, asphyxiated as the air around them gives way to clouds of toxic gas released upon them by their government. Last week, blood samples of the victims confirmed that the regime of Bashar al-Assad has used weapons of mass destruction in the form of Sarin ...