Dottie Neuberger ’58, community activist
When Dottie Neuberger ’58 graduated from Middlebury, she had no intention of settling in town, but over 50 years later she’s still here. Neuberger remembers her time at Middlebury fondly. She was a sorority girl, an athlete and mixed and matched various other activities during her time at the college.
If there is anyone who knows Middlebury, it’s Neuberger; few have served the community as thoroughly as she has. Many students have lent a hand with Neuberger at the free community suppers that she organizes at the Congregational Church in Middlebury. Through the supper program, Neuberger also provides nourishment to the community by serving lunch four days a week and handing out breakfast cereals at the weekly dinners. In addition to her volunteer work with the community suppers, Neuberger has worked in schools all throughout Addison County, including the Bridport elementary schools in which she now works, and she has taught at the local community college for the last 20 years. One of the reasons Neuberger may have remained in Middlebury after graduation is her warm memories of school.
“It was great fun,” Neuberger said. “My college friends are still some of my best friends 50 years later. I know that’s corny, but it’s true. When I was a student, I’m not sure if I realized what value my friends at Middlebury would be to me for the rest of my life.”
In fact, Neuberger cites being able to see so many friends and classmates when they return to the college as one of the greatest perks of staying in Middlebury.
“Most of us grow up at college,” she said. “When you go to college there are a lot of people with similar interests and similar goals and you’re living together — growing up together for four years so you get very close. When you go out in the work world that cohort won’t always be there anymore.”
Like many other Midd Kids who hail from just outside of Boston, Neuberger moved back to Boston after graduation to work for a few years while making plans for law school. Her first job out of college was in a merchandising training program run by Filene’s. Through the program young employees rotated through different positions and when Neuberger got to the research department she stayed on in an open position. After Filene’s, Neuberger returned to Middlebury to work as the first ever Assistant Director of Admissions for Women. Soon after her return to Midd, plans for law school in Cambridge, Mass. were set.
“I was off to Harvard, but I met my husband and got married instead,” said Neuberger.
Neuberger began building her adult life in the town of Middlebury and has remained here since her initial return in 1960. During her early years back in Vermont, Neuberger stayed at home to raise her children and then eased back into the workforce, moving people from mental hospitals into the community during the initial phases of deinstitutionalization. Later, she became a school-based clinician, which she still does to this day.
“There’s lots of part-time work in Vermont which is great for when your family is your main focus,” Neuberger said, adding, “Middlebury is a great place to raise a family.”
When it comes to looking for work after school, Neuberger urges grads to, “Get a job. You don’t have to get the job, but get a job that you’re interested in,” said Neuberg. “Find something where you can learn. That’ll keep you young for as long as you live as far as I’m concerned.”
In her eyes, Middlebury has not changed more than anywhere else over the years.
“The population has grown. It was a much freer community, but that was everywhere.”
Modernity has stripped even Middlebury of the luxury of ignoring problems in its midst but the important qualities of the town still remain.
“[Though] there are more stores down on Route 7 now, there is [still] a sense of community in Middlebury and that’s one thing that hasn’t changed. The College adds so much to it. I don’t think the college kids realize what role models they are for the kids in the community and how important they are to the kids here,” said Neuberger. “They do a great job of doing that just by being who they are.”
Neuberger considers her upcoming honorary degree from Middlebury and other awards that have been conferred upon her great surprises that were not on her radar.
“I look at the other recipients and I’m truly in awe of them,” she said. “They’ve worked in a macrocosm and I’ve worked in a microcosm — that’s something anyone can do.”
Neuberger’s life is an exemplar of how one can continue working with the community in which one finds him or herself to help that community.
“I don’t solve many problems,” she said. But, “We solve a lot of problems together. Making change is about working with other people and persevering."
Padma Desai, expert in Russian economics
“Go out in the world. Live how people live for a dollar a day and after that life-transforming experience, come back to America,” said Padma Desai.
The world renowned scholar of Russian economics and professor of economics at Columbia University came of age in India and has since made the United States her home, a logical step since when Desai was growing up, “the destination was always America,” she said.
In those days it was the wealthy Indian boys who studied at Oxford and Cambridge on their fathers’ dimes who were able to go West, but as the daughter of a professor, Desai simply could not afford to make her way to the West along the same route as her male counterparts. Instead, she applied for merit-based awards and landed a fellowship in the American Association of University Women, which brought her to Harvard in 1955 to complete a Ph.D. in economics. At Harvard she began pursuing her life’s work.
“As soon as I started reading and going to school, even primary school, I just wanted to be a teacher,” she said. “I always wanted to teach and change ideas. At one point my dad suggested that I be a doctor, but I said no.”
Though Desai always knew that she wanted to teach, deciding just what she would teach was little more than a random decision.
“[Economics] was almost a default option,” she said. “My eldest sister studied English literature so I wanted to do something different. Looking back I think it was the wisest decision of my life. [Economics] gives me the analytical rigor that I love.”
She may have taken up economics on a whim, but Desai found her calling in the discipline. Her work in Russian economics has brought her countless academic distinctions and awards, research and teaching posts, publications, grants and conferences in which she has been both a participant and guest of honor. Her 13th book, which focuses on the recent financial crisis, is set to be released in the coming weeks. Her memoirs will be on shelves in 2012.
“Harvard was totally liberating and exhilarating. That’s where my American roots are. After fifty years in this country, temperamentally, I feel that I belong here,” says Desai.
Having now lived more years of her life in the U.S. than in India, Desai reports feeling disoriented when she returns to her homeland.
In the initial transition, Desai experienced many differences between the two cultures. Just as few of us will remember Middlebury solely for its academics, Harvard brought Desai more than just intellectual surprise, given the fact that Harvard provides a different setting from her conservative Indian childhood.
“I was quite attractive, to put it mildly, and I wore a sari and I attracted a lot of attention. I felt very special,” said Desai.
Fifty years of teaching undergraduates — from her time as a teaching fellow at Harvard up through her present professorship at Columbia — has put Desai in a unique position to comment on the undergraduates alongside whom she will be receiving her honorary degree. Years of experience have led her to worry about the lack of interest that native-born Americans seem to show toward math, science and engineering and wonder if this has something to do with using a calculator too young.
“At all stages American education has to be entertaining,” she said. “The worst evaluation a professor can get is ‘this teacher is boring.’ In other cultures, people value education. You get down to it. It’s a serious business. You want to master it. This whole conception that young people should be entertained while learning is problematic.”
Desai cautions against the American tendency to go overboard and create massive problems, like the financial crisis of 2009, although she notes that, “Americans are also great problem solvers and it’s the same drive that leads us to go overboard that leads to innovation.”
Desai’s favorite aspect of Americans, though, is our temperament.
“Americans, by temperament, are very optimistic,” she said. “My young students are so idealistic. I’ve never seen young people in any country who are so driven by idealism. They should go out and see the wide world. They may want to change some things they see and can get fulfillment that way. Americans like to do something different. They want to do things that help people.
“There are always people who want to make money too, but the instinct to do good is a very American thing. Never have I ever heard so many people say, ‘I want to give something back to the community.’ It’s such an American calling especially meaning the community around you, maybe not the world, but people want to help the community that they are in. I find it a very exceptional quality amongst the young in this country.”
Honorary degree recipients share their stories
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