At this year’s Clifford Symposium from Sept. 19–21, titled “Home: Housing and Belonging in Middlebury and Beyond”, organizers and speakers engaged in discussions on how to support Vermont communities through the lens of the ongoing housing crises.
The annual Clifford Symposium, named after Professor of History Emeritus Nicholas Clifford, invites members of the college community and local area to explore a different topic at the beginning of each academic year. This year’s symposium focused on the idea of “home,” especially in relation to the housing shortage in Addison County and Vermont as a whole.
Events ranged from a panel on the history of housing crises with professors from Princeton University and Trinity College to a “Dinner and Discussion” on how we build narratives around home and belonging. There was also a film screening for “Just Getting By,” a documentary film by Bess O’Brien about struggling Vermonters, and an early “Brunch for Action” on Saturday.
The idea for this year’s theme was inspired in part by symposium student organizers Ellie Cady ’25.5 and Freddi Mitchell ’25 and their experiences as summer interns with local nonprofit Addison Housing Works. Mitchell described how conversations from her internship shaped the idea for the symposium.
“I was working with two of their board members, Anna Burns and David Hamilton, and they mentioned how they feel like there's sort of a disconnect between the college community and the town community, and over the ideas of housing and home… So we sort of formulated this idea, let's have a big event,” Mitchell said in an interview with The Campus.
The organizers envisioned a big event to match a big problem: The housing shortage is putting a squeeze on Vermont; five in every 1000 Vermonters are currently experiencing homelessness — the second highest per capita rate in the country. Vermont will need to accelerate the construction of new homes in order to meet growing demands.
“The Vermont Housing Finance Agency said that we need at least 24,000 more homes by 2030, which is not a pace that can be kept up,” Mitchell said, referencing data from the Vermont 2025–2029 Statewide Housing Needs Assessment published on Sept. 5, 2024.
The problems addressed last week were personally relevant for some members of the college community. Many staff members at the college face challenges with finding housing in Addison County or even Vermont itself; only 39.5% of employees live in the town of Middlebury, and 21.7% of staff live further than 15 miles away from campus, according to Human Resources data previously shared with The Campus last spring.
Mitchell also shared her hope that students will come to better understand the topic through the numerous events hosted by the Clifford Symposium.
“I think it should allow students to understand that there are basic solutions like building more affordable housing,” Mitchell said.
The Charter House Coalition hosted a brunch on Thursday at its location in downtown Middlebury, with food prepared by student volunteers for the guests and visitors as they learned more about barriers to affordable housing in Middlebury. Keegan Gilsenan ’25, president of the Charter House Club spoke to the importance of this personal touch to the weekend’s numerous panels and addresses.
“I think we often get lost in the statistics, analysis, and arguments, feeling as though they tell the entire story. It is the responsibility of the college and students to remember the individual,” Gilsenan wrote in an email to The Campus. “The Charter House Coalition Student Organization revolves around the individual. Our goal is to establish a better connection between the town and college through conversations over food — one at a time.”
Gilsenan also highlighted the work of Mitchell and Cady as essential to this year’s symposium and its successful weekend of events.
“The housing crisis in Vermont is of utmost importance, and we see its effect in Middlebury on a daily basis. Ellie and Freddi did an incredible job highlighting the individual's experience in the housing crisis,” Gilsenan wrote.
A presentation by the development company Summit Properties that took place on Friday morning highlighted the college’s direct efforts to create housing. Middlebury College is currently preparing to break ground on a sizable affordable housing project named “Stonecrop Meadows,” which will consist of about 250 units dedicated to both low and middle-income individuals, in addition to other units for market rate townhouses.
Middlebury President Laurie Patton, addressing the discussion through a pre-recorded video, discussed the Stonecrop Meadows project at length, framing the need to create more housing as a moral imperative for the college.
Architectural Studies major Annika Milliman ’25.5 attended Summit Properties’ presentation and the panel discussion “Housing Crises in Context.”
“I found these talks so fascinating,” Milliman wrote to The Campus. “While I think Stonecrop Meadows is a great concept and will make a difference in the community, I didn’t leave the talk feeling particularly hopeful about the future of affordable housing — I think the presentations I went to were a real wake-up call for me in terms of the change that needs to happen and how that change might happen.”
Home building projects almost always run into a thicket of regulation, environmental reviews, traffic studies and a number of other considerations that slow down or cancel the proposed project. This is especially true in Vermont, according to Mitchell. She explained how decentralized zoning policy makes local resistance the main impediment to construction.
So how did the Clifford symposium hope to overcome this cultural aversion?
Queue Erica Heilman.
Heilman is the host of the critically-acclaimed podcast Rumble Strip Vermont and was the keynote speaker for the symposium. Her podcast focuses on the lives of everyday Vermonters, often interviewing them in their home or on their job.
Incorporating personal stories of Vermonters with whom she has spoken for the podcast throughout her address, Heilman passionately advocated for greater community strength across Vermont and to prioritize social capital, pointing to community-wide efforts to respond to recent flooding in the state, where people came together to clear debris, fill out FEMA forms and help those in need, as evidence of the power of social capital in Vermont towns.
Yet she fears these bonds may be loosening. Heilman lamented the growing aversion to town meetings as a troubling sign. She explained how she felt the state government wasn’t understanding of community level problems and how the “calendar Vermont” image of “covered bridges and skiing” was obscuring the lives of Vermonters.
The stress these issues create led Heilman to say that Vermont’s communities “are running on fumes.” Her call to action asked for the audience to embrace small interactions with strangers and build a community of trust.
The speech was followed by a Q&A session with questions focused on how to achieve Heilman’s lofty vision, in addition to comments praising her work.
While Heilman’s speech centered mostly on a call for greater social cohesion and trust, not housing, the themes she shared clearly connected to the symposium’s topic this year, leaving attendees with much to think about after the conclusion of events last Saturday.
“The main thing that I hope people take away is that the housing market and home and belonging, they affect us all,” Mitchell said. “I think that seeing this can show people that despite our differences and how we experience these topics, we share similar experiences as well, and it can get people reflecting on the people around them.”
Editor’s Note: Editor in Chief Ryan McElroy ’25 and Managing Editor Madeleine Kaptein ’25.5 contributed reporting to this article.
