Letters to the editor

Author: [no author name found]

To the Editor:

I found out this week that I have been reappointed to the Middlebury faculty. We won! Don't you just love it when the good guys win? It makes you feel like we really can change our lives and the lives of those around us and make this community and, yes, the world a better place. And who were the good guys? Each and every one of you who took the time to care about Middlebury and change something that just didn't seem right. Each and every one of you who wrote letters, signed petitions, joined the Facebook campaign on my behalf and talked to everyone and anyone that would listen about my case. Each and every one of you who sent me e-mails, called me, stopped by to express your support, cooked me a meal, told me a joke, lent me a cheesy novel to read. You gave me the strength and perspective to keep working on staying at Middlebury, a place that matters to me, a place in which I belong because you said so.

How will I ever express my gratitude to the hundreds of people in this community who stood up and said that I matter, that the sort of teaching I do here matters, and that Middlebury matters enough to work on creating a thriving intellectual community of diverse teaching styles and teachers and students? You are the good guys, the ones who can make the world a better place, just by insisting that you are heard and that people listen. And people did listen, and they're good guys too - the Appeals Committee for working so hard to figure out how the process might work better with more information, President Liebowitz for his willingness to talk to me and you throughout this process and the Reappointments Committee for actually being willing to reconsider the situation with new information and for reversing themselves.

We are all good guys and I wish we could ride off into the sunset. But now we have to roll up our sleeves and ask a lot of difficult questions about the review and promotion process and whether it's good enough for us, the good guys, or whether we deserve something more codified, more transparent and ultimately, more just. Here's to making Middlebury the best place it can be. You all deserve that because you are my heroes. Thank you again and again and again.

Sincerely,

Laurie Essig

Assistant Professor
Sociology/Anthropology and Women and Gender Studies


To the Editor:

From $40,400 in 2004-05 to $49,210 is stunning. And demoralizing to those families not at the top, or highly buffered via subsidization by the College at the bottom.

Where else in the economy (except for the oil cartel) has there been a 20 percent increase over four years? Certainly not in wages or cost of living indices. Physicians like me, for example, have been handed actual decreases in Medicare reimbursements. The country is headed into a recession. These fee increases impact students' access to graduate school and parents' ability to retire decently. The annual increases exceed what most students can earn in a summer.

I am appalled that the College marches to this tune. Gorgeous new copper-clad buildings, millions to the town for a rebuilt bridge, tens of thousands for a rejected modern logo, junkets for the 100 elite recruits, and - last year's justification - the fig-leaf of so-called carbon neutrality. How many millions for sports? I can only guess.

The College seems to have embraced a manifest destiny of opulence. Why not hew to its Yankee iconoclast roots? Reject gratifying the narcissism of wealthy donors with the allure of a showcase and instead focus on the core mission: education. Rather than dismissing the vaunted rankings in words, lead by doing so in deeds by providing fine, affordable education.

Sincerely,

David Rosmarin
Harvard, Mass.

To the Editor:

When I sent my son off to college one and a half years ago my parting words were "Work hard but don't forget to have fun."
I am so proud and thrilled to say that he has certainly heeded my advice. As I write this letter, my son Justin Bogart and 16 of his fellow Middlebury Quidditch enthusiasts are having the trip of a lifetime. For spring break, they (and all of their equipment) piled into three vans. The back of each van held two signs, one stating, "Honk if you love Harry Potter," and the other stating, "Honk if you don't love Harry Potter." As you might imagine this created quite a stir from the other cars on the road. On Friday, March 21, I opened up The New York Post and saw that one of the items on the "infamous" Page Six was the Middlebury Quidditch team's visit to Columbia University which was planned for the following Tuesday. Sitting in the stands and watching that game, I was one of many who showed up to enjoy the show. And what a show it was. At one point they even coached a whole group of children 10 years and under! But the excitement didn't end there. This morning, turning on my television set, it was quite a thrill once again to see the Middlebury Quidditch team, this time on "CBS Morning News" playing students from Princeton and Amherst. As a parent bringing up young adults in this volatile world, what a great thing it is to see these students acting as ambassadors of fun and good will.

Sincerely,

Robin Bogart
Brooklyn, N.Y.


To the Editor:

Your article on the "Singing for Peace" event held on Sunday, March 16 suggested that the event was sponsored entirely by the Champlain Valley Unitarian-Universalist Society ("Church 'Sings Out' for peaceful tomorro," March 20). It further indicated that the peace vigils held every Saturday morning in Middlebury were also a project of CVUUS. In fact, both the March 16 songfest and the weekly vigils are broadly based, ecumenical and have arisen largely out of the efforts of the Addison County Peace Coalition. The wonderful crowd present on March 16 included many members of CVUUS, but also a large number of Quakers, Methodists, members of United Church of Christ congregations and doubtless folks from other faith communities, and others from no faith community. The leaders of the songfest included Heidi Willis, a United Church of Christ member from Weybridge, and Ann Rowell, a Methodist from Middlebury. It is great to have coverage of community events in The Campus, but a bit more accuracy in your reporting would be appreciated!

Sincerely,

Reverend David Andrews
Middlebury, Vt.


To the Editor:

I am writing to ask you to clarify for your readers a couple of misrepresentations in the March 20 article "Church 'Sings Out' for peaceful tomorrow."

Let me say first that the Addison County Peace Coalition is pleased to have received the notice Nicole Lam's article gave to its presence in the Middlebury community. Its weekly Saturday morning vigil is made up of people from a number of area churches as well as people with no particular church affiliation. College students would be very welcome.

Among the people who organized the Sing Out for Peace on behalf of the Peace Coalition, and certainly among those who attended, were local citizens of several faith communities, various religious persuasions and the unchurched. The event was held at the Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Society (CVUUS) meeting house. Beyond the use of its space, CVUUS had no greater involvement than other churches in the community.

It is accurate to have identified me as "one of the organizers" but I would point out that the person who initiated the idea for the Sing Out was Carol Spooner of the Weybridge Congregational Church. Carol's husband Reg heard from a fellow member of Veterans for Peace the story of the woman who wrote a song titled "Making Peace" after she was confronted by someone asking if she didn't have anything better to do than stand in a peace vigil. Relating that story at a Saturday morning vigil, Carol suggested a Middlebury community s
ing-along of peace songs and the idea caught fire! Carol contacted the songwriter (in California) for permission to include the song in a public sing-along and then organized the Palm Sunday Sing Out for Peace.

Nicole's article reflects her conversation with the minister of the CVUUS congregation and quotes the CVUUS Choir Director who was one of three song leaders for the event. This may have suggested, erroneously, extra credit due CVUUS for the very gratifying success of the Sing Out. I hope this letter will dispel that impression.

Ecumenical events like the Sing Out for Peace are an expression of the deep yearnings of all people for an end to violence in solving conflicts.

Sincerely,

Ann M. Ross


To the Editor:

We are delighted that the President and the Reappointments Committee have decided to renew Professor Laurie Essig's appointment to the College. Professor Essig is a gifted and talented teacher as well as a leading scholar. We are glad that the review process has allowed us to retain her. The students and our community will benefit from her contributions within and without the classroom.



Sincerely,

Holly Allen, Program in American Studies

Cheryl Faraone, Theatre Department and Program in Women's and Gender Studies

Juana Gamero de Coca, Spanish and Portuguese Department

Gloria Gonzalez-Zenteno, Spanish and Portuguese Department

Roman Graf, German Department

Bill Hart, History Department

Barbara Hofer, Psychology Department

Jon Isham, Economics Department

Antonia Losano, English Department

Ana Martinez-Lage, Spanish and Portuguese Department

Timi Mayer, Geography Department

Claudio Medeiros, Theatre Department

Sujata Moorti, Program in Women's and Gender Studies

Kevin Moss, Russian Department

Kamakshi Murti, German Department

Peggy Nelson, Sociology-Anthropology

Department and Program in Women's and Gender Studies

Ellen Oxfeld, Sociology-Anthropology Department

William Poulin-Deltour, French Department

Burke Rochford, Sociology-Anthropology Department

Patricia Saldarriaga, Spanish and Portuguese Department

Paula Schwartz, French Department

Michael Sheridan, Sociology-Anthropology Department

Yumna Siddiqi, English Department

Hector Vila, Writing Program

Susan Watson, Physics Department

Marion Wells, English Department

Linda White, East Asian Studies Department

Martha Woodruff, Philosophy Department

Catharine Wright, Writing Program