McCabe Responds to Criticism

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Well, let me first take this moment to thank everyone who read my article about Middining, and those of you who became so belabored with its flagrant injustice that you wrote in to The Campus.
I would like to respond to each of the articles personally, but let's clarify a few things here. For starters, I am certainly very aware of the hunger and poverty that plagues our world today. I think that truly is what's atrocious. I highly doubt, however that The Campus would like to entertain weekly articles from students complaining that there are people starving in some places and that there are very unfortunate people everywhere and we should be sad about it. Those topics, I feel, cannot even be justifiably put into strong enough words to even touch on the pain that people everywhere must feel. So I won't. We all know what problems there are outside the "Middlebury bubble," and we volunteer and donate and work to assuage those things frequently. While many seemed bitter in their editorials about the selfishness of Middlebury students (e.g. parking and dining), I know and believe that there are many thoughtful students here who put more than enough effort into helping the needy.
So being an enthusiastic and (overly) dramatic writer, I decided to tackle a big issue on campus: the dining situation. Now I know many people could have written a much more "politically correct" article, stressing what we do have and how we're so thankful and so forth.
But I saw the opportunity to embrace an issue that I knew people were bothered by and turn it into a colorful editorial. Little did I know what I was getting myself into! The outpouring of feedback — many agreeing, many disagreeing and many indifferent — was truly interesting. So let me personally reflect on some of the editorials sent in about Middining.
Richard Saunders, director of the Middlebury Museum of Art, wrote a strikingly powerful, articulate piece on the perceived shallowness and depravity of the students on campus, namely those like me. He struck back against those embittered by parking and dining, and noted, "It's time to get an education and, in so doing, grow up. That's why you came here, remember?"
I appreciate the thought Saunders put into his article, but am somewhat bothered by the way he stereotyped many Middlebury students as a group of insatiable children. I am not going to spend time picking apart the article, because it's his well-written opinion which he is entitled to and he is a professor at our school deserving much respect — but I will simply note this.
We did come here for an education, you are right. But we can get a very good education at a state school. We can get a superb education for half of what we pay at Middlebury. And I feel, as a student whose parents are both educators who will be and have been taking out enormous loans to pay for my education here, that I may expect something extra in terms of lifestyle. Parents pay what they pay for their children to attend Middlebury because they want the best for them. To me, that's the best education (which we get), the best kinds of people (and people here are awesome) and the best living arrangements (satisfactory dorms, not-so-satisfactory dining).
Perhaps I'm overstepping my boundaries here, I'm no gourmet chef, but in terms of healthy food, one cannot announce with confidence that there is always an ample supply of healthy non-Vegalene soaked entrees at Middlebury.
And so, I perhaps very dramatically turned my annoyance at the lack of food that is intrinsically good for the body into a passionate article demanding change. And it was fun!
In reaction to Caitlin Prentice's '05 article — I totally agree. Our dining staff is awesome. They work their behinds off, and we know it. You'll notice that in my past article I noted this on several occasions. I criticized because I believe that Middlebury had promised with last year's construction improvements in dining. The environment has improved, but the food hasn't. And I felt empowered to voice these discrepancies because so many other students agreed with me.
Bob Wainwright's '03 article was extremely funny, and I encourage everyone to read it. While it does shut me down, pretty bad — I believe it offers a great opposing view to my first Middining article in the same sarcastic and overdramatic style I wrote my own. I bow down!
To the last article, written by Christian Holt '06, that seemed to be about Middining. But, I thought it was just a freshman's attempt to glorify freshman drinking and confuse the reader with irrelevant banter about caviar and "vegans in the wild" — I simply have no comment. If you think that "not having to pick bones out of the macaroni" defines fine dining for an expensive liberal arts college, then put your delicate palette to use and eat out of the trash so that there's more good food for everyone else.

Sarah McCabe is a sophomore from New York.