middbriefs

Author: H.Kay Merriman

Springsteen visits Midd with son on college tour

Bruce Springsteen, his wife Patti Scialfa and their 17-year-old son Evan visited Middlebury on Dec. 6, 2007. Evan, the eldest son of the famous musician, interviewed with Assistant Director of Admissions Scott Atherton. Student tour guide Hannah Burnett '10 led the "Born in the U.S.A." family on a tour of the College, but would not reveal details of the visit.

"I feel like choosing colleges is one of those things that is about family and less about fame," said Burnett. "His son probably would want to be admitted not as Springsteen's son but as an individual."

While in Vermont, Springsteen and his family also toured the University of Vermont. According to Buff Lindau spokesman for St. Michael's College. they were also planning on visiting the Colchester, Vt.-based college but ran out of time on their visit.


Language academy receives first grant

The Leon Lowenstein Foundation, a New York-based organization interested in supporting educational- and health care- related programs, provided a $100,000 grant to the Middlebur-Monterey Language Academy (MMLA), based in Atherton, Calif., and Colchester, Vt., that will allow the MMLA to offer need-based financial aid to students wishing to attend the program. The grant will also fund a "lending library" that loans iPods, laptops, software and other expensive technology to students who need to use it during the program.

Middlebury College and the Monterey Institute of International Studies will open the MMLA on June 28, which will run a series of four-week language immersion programs, similar to the summer language schools at the College, for seventh- through 12th grade students. This summer, the school will teach Arabic, Chinese, Spanish and French, with the hopes of adding more languages as the program grows and receives more funding.

The Leon Lowenstein Grant is the first to be received by the MMLA, but MMLA Director of Pre-College Programming David Toorney is hopeful that more will follow.

"The generosity of the Lowenstein Foundation will help us offer a unique language immersion experience to young learners who, without financial aid, could not attend the Middlebury-Monterey Language Academy," Toorney said.


New England Review on sale in bookstore now

The Winter 2007 edition of the New England Review (NER) has been published and is currently being sold in the College Bookstore. NER is a national quarterly publication that has been produced at Middlebury for 30 years. This issue (Vol. 28, No. 4) is the first to be published on 100-percent post consumer waste (PCW) recycled paper and represents the College's efforts to "Leave a Smaller Footprint."

The magazine's commitment to publishing a variety of pieces, from experimental fiction to prose and poetry translations to arts and literature reviews, is apparent in the Winter 2007 issue. Never-before-published letters by Aldous Huxley, Rebecca Purdum's thoughts on abstract painting and James Longenbach's analysis of the "poetic line" headline the issue.

In the past, writers published in the NER have been noted in the "Best American" series, "The O. Henry Prize Stories," "Best American Nonrequired Writing," "New Stories from the South: The Year's Best" and have received the Pushcart Prize.