SGA week to examine financial spectrum

Author: Adam Dede

Next week will be the first Middlebury Privilege Week. Sponsored by the SGA Institutional Diversity Committee (IDC), the week will focus on issues of socioeconomic diversity and the attainability of the American Dream, culminating in an open conference on Nov. 17.

"Were focusing on socioeconomic diversity because I think it's sort of the silent thing that we don't really talk about because Middlebury is so affluent," IDC Chair Angelica Towne '08 said.

The genesis for the idea came from Max Kanter '10.5, member of the IDC.

"There's such a wide range of just socioeconomic backgrounds, and it's really important and crucial to understand the Middlebury community," Kanter said.

He said that one thing which really inspired him was how little anyone seemed to talk about the socioeconomic issues he saw around him.

"One thing that inspired the idea was that a few of my friends couldn't do anything over spring break, because basically they couldn't afford it," Kanter said.

The week will kick off on Nov. 12 with three shopping cart instillations, which will be put up around campus to represent the issue of poverty and privilege. One of these displays will be a shanty, situated in front of the New Library, and the IDC has hopes that they will be able to get student volunteers to live in the shanty throughout the week as a demonstration of poverty issues.

"Since we're in such an affluent culture it's hard to even think about poverty here so we thought the visual instillations would really bring that home." Towne said.

Besides poverty, the IDC also wants to foster discussion around the attainability of the American Dream. They will screen "The Pursuit of Happyness" in the library on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. Following the screening, students can discuss the attainability of the dream in the movie and what possibilities members of the lower class have for improving their situations.

In an e-mail, Kanter outlined the plan for the discussion, "MIDDialogue will lead a discussion on the accessibility of the American dream as represented in the film. Does hard work usually lead to such a pay-off? How do we understand poverty if not in terms of a personal failure to succeed?"

Towards the end of the week the IDC hopes to make the discussion more personal. On Nov. 15 they will hold a student panel discussion in the library entitled "When Financial Aid Is Your Only Friend..." The panel will be made up of students comprising a range of backgrounds and will help raise awareness on campus.

"We're trying to start a discussion about financial insecurity," Towne, one of the panelists for the discussion, said.

Privilege Week will culminate in an open conference in Coltrane Lounge. Towne stressed that the conference is going to be the most important part of the week. The format will be somewhat unorthodox. Anyone who wants to start a discussion to start one, and the space will be open to anyone who wants to get on a soapbox about an issue. Towne described her vision, saying that students will just talk about what interests them in a very organic way. She has registered several campus groups to come to the conference already, but she made clear that registered or not, anyone could come.

"If during the actual day of the forum you want to start a conversation you can go ahead and start it right there. It's very organic - it's the people you get in the room," Towne said.