Midd8 symposium attracts global attention

Author: Liz Campbell

In response to a growing deficiency of student awareness and activism on the Middlebury College campus, a group of students is organizing the Midd8 Global Spring Symposium in order to increase student participation in global affairs and to enhance the role of young people in the future of the world. The symposium will take place from April 20 to April 22 and will be modeled on the Live 8 concerts, held in July 2005 to create awareness of poverty, and will seek to address the Millennium 8 Goals set out by the United Nations.

The idea for Midd8 originated after several College students attended a conference sponsored by Americans for Informed Democracy at Yale University over the summer. The conference aimed to bring together active students across the country for a day of workshops, guest speakers and discussions focused on techniques for raising global awareness in the United States.

Upon arrival at Middlebury in the fall, these students, led by Co-Directors Courtney Matson '06.5 and Divya Khosla '06, began planning an event that would increase activism on campus and throughout the College community.

"We were all really inspired by the conference, so we ended up meeting, and we all had the same thought - let's do something like this at Middlebury," said Matson. "We wanted to have the same sort of event, so we started out on a small scale. Since then, it's become this massive symposium."

The eight Millennium Development Goals - which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 - form a blueprint agreed to by all the world's countries and all the world's leading development institutions.

Focused directly on these eight goals, the symposium will include a first panel discussion on Thursday, April 20, that will discuss the actual goals, a second panel discussion that will investigate their implementation and a keynote speaker who will talk about their global importance.

"Our philosophy is that if we create a symposium that has enough breadth, we can impact 95 percent of the College community," said Matson. "We picked the Millennium Goals to create a framework to get more people involved. With these eight goals, everyone can find something that they are interested in, whether it's sustainable development, global partnerships or promoting women's rights."

The group organizing the symposium is not only seeking to involve students and the College community, however. It has developed three different target levels of involvement - campus, local and global - and has been successful thus far in achieving recognition across the country. The three choices for keynote speaker of the symposium, who will address the College community on Friday, April 21, are former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley and current Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and students from five different schools - Harvard, Connecticut College, Stanford, Yale and Columbia - who also attended the AID conference have expressed significant interest in organizing the same event at the same time next year on their respective campuses. Furthermore, the BBC and CNN have both contacted the College to broadcast the event.

Matson remarked, "One of the big strengths of the symposium is that it is generating a lot of attention for Middlebury. In that sense, we have really lucked out. And hopefully now we can get all of the students involved in something that's really good for both the local and global community. This has the potential to be great for Middlebury students and for college students across the United States."

Also working with the group organizing the symposium are several other organizations on campus, such as the Student Government Association, Middlebury College Activities Board and the Environmental Council. The group is aiming to incorporate as many organizations, departments and administrative offices as possible in order to increase cooperation and awareness throughout the community.

Matson emphasized, "It is so important to connect student interests because otherwise, it's hard to accomplish anything. This is a great way to get student groups working together."

"Student awareness and activism is so important now," said Matson. "We are the next generation of leaders, and we can really impact not only our own future but also that of other generations and other countries."