Under the Raydar

When I’m at home — which is to say, my other home in Pennsylvania — I don’t usually find myself hoarding all of the dishes from the kitchen in my room, leaving trash all over the floor, drunkenly shouting something derogatory at my neighbor while she minds her own business taking out the garbage or vomiting in the bathroom that I share with my family. Generally, I don’t spill all over the floor and then complain that it is too dirty, yell “f*ck the police” when they have come to check out a neighborhood party and I have never — at least not yet — slammed a chair through a window, left the broken glass and pretended that the dog did it the next morning.

Why then, is this behavior, to a degree, excusable and excused here at our other home? Why don’t we stop to consider the others around us?
The College is a place where we live, work, relax, party and spend a considerable amount of our time during four years of our lives. Why don’t we respect the buildings, the campus and the people here as we do in our homes away from Middlebury?

The most immediate contributing theory is generalized and clichéd — and though it is very specific to this campus, this is not to say that these patterns do not exist elsewhere — but we live in “Club Midd,” where everything we need is handed to us on a heavily endowed platter. While most of our peers in the country are working, or attend schools where they live off campus, grocery shop, cook and clean up their spaces, we get as much food as we want, laundry services, an understanding and friendly team of Public Safety officers and a custodial team in each dorm with individuals who work hard to keep our living environments safe and healthy. We have it more than pretty good here, and though we have smart, engaging and thoughtful people in our midst, we don’t always treat Middlebury the way she treats us.

The difference between the College and a hotel and country club is that we are a constant and lasting community. When I am having a bad day, and I run into one of the members of my dorm’s custodial team, a funny comment or a quick conversation can always cheer me up, calm me down and put me in a better mood. I’ve had professors ignore their piles of work to help me with mine, when I hadn’t been paying attention during class. We are surrounded by people who work hard and who share a space with us — literally and academically — and I believe that we owe more respect to those with whom we share it.

Another problem comes from the anonymous nature of behavior: a comment hurled to a stranger at a party, a post on Midd Confessional, a disrespectful jot on a bulletin board. There is a strange and severe anonymity that can emerge in a place as small as this, so why is it so easy for some to act with little or no regard for the complex people who are direct or indirect subjects of disrespect or entitlement? Where is the sense of accountability?

At our other homes, we have to face consequences from our loved ones when we do something inconsiderate or damaging. I think we need to more actively take ownership of what we do here, and consider how it affects the others on our halls, in our community and across campus. We look for accountability in companies, leaders and friends, so why not look for it more in ourselves? Why not think about how when we leave here, not everything will be excused?

I confess that I have stolen a dish from the dining hall. I am sorry for contributing to a larger campus problem with that action.

But I will be sorrier to see members of this community continue to walk away from mistakes that we all can make, without so much as an apology, nod or thank you in the right direction.