Student Groups Encourage Reflection

On Friday, Dec. 6, a coalition of student activist groups on campus will host a day of reflection and resolution. Representatives from the various student groups will set up stations in each of the three dining halls during lunchtime with posters for students to write on: one will be a timeline intended to help students reflect upon and identify important events on campus over the past year and the other will be titled “Middlebury’s New Year Resolutions,” which the student organizers hope will be a place for fellow students to write their wishes for the College’s future.

Student participants running the stations include members of Divest Middlebury, the Socially Responsible Investing club, It Happens Here, MiddSafe, Arabesque and the Sunday Night Group. The event marks a renewed effort on the part of student organizers to foster more collaboration among student activists on campus, and to improve communication and align the actions of the separate groups to spur social change on campus.

The objective of the awareness initiative is to push the student body to consider the time sensitivity of the issues many of the student activist groups have been organizing around.

“How much longer are we going to wait until we will act?” Adrian Leong ’16, a member of Divest Middlebury, said. “How many more natural disasters and years of extreme droughts and record floods can we stand before we will divest from companies that are contributing significantly to this global warming crisis? How many more episodes of homophobia, racial discrimination, and sexual harassment do we need to see on campus before we will stand up and say, ‘enough is enough?’”

“Before we transition to the new year of 2014, we want to take this chance to reflect on past events that happened this semester and make wishes for the new,” he added.

The stations will be set up in Proctor, Ross and Atwater Dining Halls from 12:00 to 2:00 p.m.

“The College administration, as well as the student body at large, have a responsibility to listen to the voices of this coalition of student groups, and rethink the College’s priorities in this coming year,” Leong added.