SGA update - 1/14/10

The Student Government Association (SGA) has decided to pass a bill funding the MiddView program for the next three years. This bill will cover the program’s costs for the next three years and make it need-blind to all incoming students, giving them a chance to experience a version of the widely praised program that has long been a staple of freshman orientation at the College.

The funds were eliminated last year as part of campus-wide budget cuts to combat the economic crisis. Though a small group of dedicated students associated with the Middlebury Mountain Club (MMC) were able to develop and enact an outdoor orientation program for freshmen this past fall, called OINK, the program was much smaller than in the past.

MMC and the Middlebury Outdoor Programs have been key advocates of reinstating MiddView. Pier LaFarge ’10.5, an MMC board member, explained students’ enthusiastic support of restoring the MiddView program based on comments on the MiddView survey given last November.

The program “provided a healthy social context within an academic orientation,” he said, which includes a group-based social format that provides teamwork and cooperation.

Because of the College’s rural environment and the tendency for students to stay within the Middlebury campus bubble, “the MiddView program [helps] connect Middlebury students to their landscape immediately and broadens their sense of place.”

Additionally, the program would give “younger students the opportunity to interact with older students, who can provide their experience and have the ability to promote a culture within their groups.”

LaFarge said that in his years as an orientation leader, “I’ve got around the campfire and was being peppered by questions for hours and hours. After a long hike in the woods, everyone is sharing their common fears and it feels like the transition to Middlebury is suddenly easy.”

The initiative will cost $50,000 per year over the next three years, and will cover half of the MiddView programs, with the other half coming from participant fees.

Though the bill itself was controversial in the context of the numerous budget cuts, the SGA will fund this program from their own budget and will not have to decrease funding for other clubs and organizations. SGA members have decided to forego their annual SGA retreat along with other unnecessary expenses in order to fund programs like this.

They hope that a strong positive student response to the MiddView program in the next three years will inspire the administration to find a way to fund it for the long-term.

The SGA also set goals for the coming semester. Cook Commons Senator Riley O’Rourke ’12 pushed for improving transportation to and from Middlebury. He recommended that SGA examine the possibility of hiring student drivers to drive student passenger vans to and from Burlington and other locations over breaks.

This would enable students to get to and from the Burlington airport at a price much more reasonable price than those offered by Middlebury Transit and Jessica’s Vital Transit currently.

Another goal set by the SGA was to provide steady wireless internet service across campus, a project taken on by Library Information Services (LIS) in the fall but one that has shown little tangible results.

SGA also wants to simplify party registration on campus. There would be comprehensive workshops for students on safety and liability issues. Ad-hoc committees were formed for all three goals, all of which the SGA plans to accomplish by the end of the current school year.