The Campus has taken a lot of heat in the last week over our coverage of hazing among members of the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams. As the editor-in-chief, I feel I should respond to misinformed readers who think we did not cover it at all, to readers who wanted coverage sooner and ...
I’ve written many times on Middlebury’s traditions, and I’ve exhausted the subject. However, the sub-zero temperatures have slowed my usually enormous imagination. Furthermore, the cold front coincides with Middlebury’s recent cold shoulder to the housing wants of our students. It’s with some ...
This week, I plan to use my column in a rather self-serving manner. First, some context. Last week I was fact-checking an article in the Campus office, or as I fondly call it, Hepburninhell, when I came across a list of all the deans at our fine institution. Apparently, there are 25 of them! Who knew? ...
What is this place we call Middlebury? We exalt our college as a place of intellectual inquiry that shapes well-rounded students who lead balanced lives; however that description glosses over too much. From the minute I entered Dana Auditorium for the packed screening of “Race to Nowhere”, I knew ...
I’ll never forget the day I saw democracy at work. It was June 26, 2009 — Michael Jackson had just died and the House of Representatives was voting on a massive climate and energy bill. I was working for 1Sky — a campaign devoted to the very principles that the bill embodied: reductions in carbon ...
It is natural for human beings to look towards the future, to dream of what tomorrow, or twenty years from now may bring. We work for the future, save for the future and plan for the future. It is impossible to conceptualize life without an assumption of a future, and having been born with the ability ...
Yalla ya Misr! My heart is with the Egyptian people! Smiles, confidence, thiqa, reason, passion, righteousness, strength, pride, unbroken honor, respect, unyielding passions that resonate through all the fiber optic cables and all the air waves of the world. And what a world it is! And Egypt the mother ...
This question plagues my mind almost every time I sit down to write an article for The Campus. This past week I went to one of The Campus’ editors with a story. A good story… at least I thought so. The story was interesting and thought provoking; it was a story that had depth and that asked questions. ...
It is an exciting time for young entrepreneurs at Middlebury College — and consequently, for everyone else as well. With the impending opening of the new student-run Juice Bar, the recent opening of the on-campus thrift store The Trunk, the new micro financing group MiddStart and the grocery-delivery ...
In the fall of 2008, I arrived on Middlebury College campus to learn, with some disappointment, that I would be living on an all-male hall for the duration of the year. My friends at other schools expressed sympathy for me, as I bemoaned the constant “sausage-fest” that would surely comprise my ...
They’re here. They’ve come. Amidst a campus of jaded liberal arts zombies, morosely trudging to class while praying for global warming to kick in, they enter the Middlebury community. I am, of course, referring to those little rays of sunshine we call “Febs” (aka Feblets, Febbies, Fmunchkins, ...
Recently retired Governor of Vermont Jim Douglas is not a man to sit idle. First elected to the Vermont legislature the same year he graduated from Middlebury with a degree in Russian studies, he rose rapidly through the state’s elected offices despite his unenviable status as a Republican in the ...
Winter Term is over and spring semester has begun. And somehow, we have more snow now than we did during the entire month of January. So Middlebury. Anyway, dear Campus readers, since this semester shall be my last in the land of bovine, I aim to please you as much as possible. And obviously, the best ...
A few weeks ago, I had a wonderful back and forth with a student and it came to both of us that perhaps the e-mail should be put in the paper. It asks a simple question but it is laced with tongue in cheek humor. I took that lead and gave more back. In the answers and fun, there is truth to how the ...
We are losing the fight with carbon usage. Since the summer of 2009, climate and energy legislation has gone from passing the House of Representatives with bipartisan support to worse than dead on arrival in the Senate. Climate change has evolved — according to President Obama — from an “epochal ...
Musical Chairs is an incredibly stressful game. I have few fond memories of this birthday party favorite. As I recall, manic kiddie music was featured prominently. Perhaps when we were a bit older and I was a bit luckier, we’d get to take a stroll around to Aaron Carter’s “Dream Street.” This ...
The uprisings in Egypt, along with similar demonstrations in Tunisia, Jordan and Yemen, have shaken the sociopolitical status quo in the Middle East. These revolts are, ostensibly, calls for reform and change in certain ‘corrupt’ governments; but the protests often become violent in nature. The ...
Jon Isham is an associate professor of economics This Winter Term, 21 students and I have learned a lot about social entrepreneurship. First, the idea is not new. For three decades, leading champions of social change have promoted social entrepreneurship. Bill Drayton founded the Ashoka Foundation ...