Midd Murmurs collects stories

Middlebury Murmur, which officially launched last week, allows students, faculty, staff and alumni to record stories about their Middlebury experiences specific to a place on campus. By calling 802-443-2600 and typing in the number in the orange blurb specific to each building on campus, you can hear recorded stories about that place. Typing in the number for Bi Hall, for instance, will allow you to hear Barbara Wilkinson ’12 recount her first-year experience of sliding in socks around the upper floors of the building with her friend as they avoided studying for a Chemistry exam. Pushing the three numbers for Battell will give you a story from Pat Cronin ’86 in which he describes the rooms that were just “a notch above jail cells” and the friendships he made that have lasted far beyond his first year.

While Murmur is an international program that began in Toronto’s Kensington market neighborhood in 2003 as a network of short recordings that tell personal stories about buildings and sites in an area, Middlebury Murmur aims to make experiencing the college more personal.

“[It aims] to convey the Middlebury experience through narrated stories,” said Design Director Pamela Fogg. “In the fall, we will roll out a web component that will allow people from all over the world to hear what Middlebury is like, narrated by the people who had that experience.”

Last week, Murmur set up a display in the library, complete with a map on the floor detailing locations about which stories have been recorded (which include Bi-Hall, Proctor, the library, Munroe and Johnson). On Thursday, April 14, Murmur provided a recording booth in the library for students, faculty, alumni and staff to make recordings.

According to Fogg, about 60 stories have been recorded thus far.

“Because [the stories] are unrehearsed and not recorded in a studio, it takes time to edit them,” said Fogg. “For this launch, we tried to pick 20 to edit. We hope to get more up for the fall and web launch. New stories were collected last week at the library exhibit and we will also be recording at this year’s reunion.”

Currently, the communications staff records all stories but Murmur hopes to eventually have a system that will allow people to simply call in and submit their stories. Fogg believes the program has been successful.

“I think [the community’s response] is positive,” said Fogg.

While the program was introduced mainly for visitors on campus, it may offer a larger commentary on storytelling as a whole.

“The way we tell stories is changing,” said Jasmine Lee ’14. “A lot of it is spoken now, and it’s becoming more indirect. Instead of telling someone a story one on one, there are other mediums thorough which people are getting these stories, like the phone or the Internet. I think this is good, because it’s a product of how we grew up.”