Students stunned by loss of Vaughn '10

Author: Ben Salkowe

Last August, just a month before Todd Swisher '10 was to begin his Middlebury career as a first-year, he received an e-mail from another soon-to-be MiddKid from Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. They were going to be roommates, the friendly e-mail said. Swisher had not found the site to check housing assignments, so he took the guy's word for it and wrote back.

That is how Swisher met Norbert Vaughn '10, his roommate for the first five weeks of the semester. And that eagerness to meet others and hear their stories is how smiley, 18-year-old Vaughn began endearing himself to the Middlebury community over the short time he was able to spend here.

"He seemed extremely friendly right off the bat, and he had a way of being sincere in all forms," said Swisher about Vaughn's letters, conversations and even his freestyle rap.

"He really liked conversation and talking to people. I remember being amazed at his ability to engage others," said Swisher. "A lot of my memories are when we both were going to sleep, but we couldn't do it because we kept talking."

Catharine Wright, lecturer and tutor in writing, said her first introduction to Vaughn was his arriving late to her first-year seminar because he had been out in the hall talking to a young woman.

"He was a funny figure," said Wright. "He was a little of this and a little of that, a little bit of the 'Got to keep your eye on him 'cause he might pull something over on you' and on the other hand, just absolutely right there in discussion, seeing into something or through something."

Academically, Vaughn's friends and educators said he was a standout student. Coming from a math and science background at Pope John Paul II High School in Hendersonville, Tenn., Vaughn took Middlebury as an opportunity for new studies. He enrolled in an Arabic course he came to love, as well as Wright's first-year seminar on stories and rituals.

"His parents said one of the reasons he went to Middlebury was that he had a goal to challenge himself and not jump straight into the science stuff that he had been doing," said Sam Shoutis '08, Vaughn's junior counselor on first floor Stewart. "He wanted to explore and broaden his horizons."

Vaughn's intelligence and humor made him a witty contributor to his classes.

"His initial presence walking into a room was quiet, but he had a strong voice in the class and he always spoke, and he spoke whether he had done the reading or not!" said Wright with a smile. "He was sometimes the one who would come in, and I knew he hadn't read something, and yet he would often pick up on something we were talking about and say something really useful to the class discussion. He was very, very smart."

Wright remembered that Vaughn would casually suggest creative research projects and papers in class when an interesting question was raised.

"I was always saying 'Yes, Norbert, that would be a good research project,' and everyone in the room would look like, 'Oh, Norbert, thanks a lot for coming up with another research project which we're not going to do because we already have a ton of work!'" said Wright.

But even more than academics, Vaughn loved meeting his peers, hearing their stories and getting to know them outside class.

"He really met so many people in the time he was here," said Swisher. Swisher said Vaughn was a creative person who went so far as to write rhymes and songs for people and even freestyle "pretty well."

"He was very into the 80s dance, and I saw him walk into my hall wearing the shortest shorts that I could imagine," said Shoutis. "They were girls' shorts he'd borrowed from a girl upstairs, and the first thing he said was, 'You gotta have balls to wear these shorts.'"

Although friends say he did not complain of headaches in the beginning of the semester, during fall break Vaughn went to the health center with severe migraines. College staff sent him to Porter where CAT scans found a brain tumor was causing his symptoms. Vaughn next went to Fletcher Allen in Burlington for a procedure that drained fluid from his skull so he could travel. Vaughn withdrew from Middlebury and his parents took him back home for surgery to remove the tumor at Vanderbilt Medical Center.

All the while, friends said, he remained optimistic and planned to come back to Middlebury in January.

"Even when he had to go home he was trying to keep up with Arabic," said Shoutis. "He was attending a class at Vanderbilt just to sit in and try to keep up with the Arabic."

At Middlebury, Swisher said students did not realize the risks of the surgery Vaughn needed to receive.

"I don't think anyone really considered what the implications of the surgery were," said Swisher. Immediately after the procedure, Swisher said, students heard the operation had been successful.

But several days after the surgery, Vaughn died from complications related to the procedure. He passed just before 11 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 15, with his mother, father, sister and priest at his side.

When his friends back at Middlebury found out, the news was devastating.

"It was a shock," said Shoutis. "Everyone was really just a little bit off for a few days and didn't know how to handle everything right away. There was a gathering for all of Stewart the night we found out that he had passed away. I think that helped everyone but for the next couple days, everyone was stressed out and having trouble focusing."

"I just went for a jog to clear my head and tire myself out," said Swisher.

President Liebowitz sent an e-mail to the community to report Vaughn's death, and the College paid for Shoutis, Swisher and two other students to travel to Tennessee for the service.

"It was really good for us to be there, and it meant a lot to the family," said Swisher.

Vaughn is survived by his mother, father, grandfather and an older sister who graduated last year from Harvard.

However brief his time at Middlebury was, students remembered Vaughn as someone who both shaped and was shaped by Middlebury College.

"He was interested in what people had to say and getting to know them as a person no matter what," said Shoutis. "And he was always an enthusiastic person, he always had a smile on his face and was fun to be around."

"He was very happy and he loved Midd," said Swisher. "He came back to our room every day just exhausted because he did so much."


-Editor in Chief Ben Salkowe can be reached at bsalkowe@middlebury.edu