While only seven percent of Middlebury graduates go on to pursue careers in government, law and policy, those who do have a considerable influence on the direction of federal, state and local policymaking.
Alumni of one of the college’s most popular departments lead Supreme Court confirmation battles, lobby legislators in Montpelier and run political campaigns in the tightest of battleground districts. Some are political junkies; others are avowedly apolitical. This week, The Campus spoke with 10 former Panthers who are shaping the course of American politics and government in the 21st century.
“An Inside Game on the Hill”
White House Communications Director and Senior Adviser to President Joe Biden Ben LaBolt ’03 has worked in politics for over 20 years after getting his start through summer internships on the Hill, followed by working on Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004. In his current position, he advises the president on major strategy while ensuring the executive branch connects with over 300 million Americans.
“Communications is constantly shifting, that’s what makes it exciting. And digital transformation has been at the heart of that,” LaBolt said in an interview with The Campus. He leads the communications team at the White House to schedule interviews for the president, whether it be with social media influencers, late-night talk show hosts or podcasters.
LaBolt also deals with managing major crises — his job entails anything that arises in the world and demands the White House’s attention. He was recently promoted to senior adviser to the president in August, but previously played a key role in running communications for Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation in 2022.
It was not his first rodeo: LaBolt had previously worked on the Senate confirmations of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan under the Obama administration. He emphasized that targeting senators during these confirmation efforts is inherently political.
“It’s really an inside game on the Hill and in the D.C. media to convince the senators who need to vote to confirm the nominee,” he added.
After a tumultuous summer that saw President Biden suspend his presidential bid and Vice President Kamala Harris assume a breakneck 100-day campaign, LaBolt said the work the communications team prepared for the election has played an important role in allowing a smooth transition.
“When President Biden was the candidate, obviously, I was very intimately involved and there every step of the way. And when he endorsed the Vice President, she became the nominee,” he explained. “She's got her own team and an infrastructure, but we had really built the campaign apparatus that was ready for her, and that had a big impact.”
Since Biden suspended his campaign, the nature of working in the White House has shifted towards ensuring the executive branch continues to function in the face of major international issues and domestic crises, such as recent hurricanes.
“Now my role is to make sure we're doing everything we can in government and on the official side to make sure things are running smoothly here in order to give the Vice President the space that she needs to go out and make her case politically,” LaBolt said.
When it comes to making a case for the Democratic party, Katie Gladstone ’13.5 and Elana Schrager ’17 may be the experts. Both currently work at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) as regional political directors covering the “Frontiers” — Alaska, Colorado and much of the Midwest — and the Northeast, respectively.
This cycle they have built campaign operations in House districts across the country, first recruiting candidates and training staff, and now tracking them through the home stretch.
“By the end, we have full functioning campaigns, what we're doing is making sure that everybody has the resources that they need to be successful and go take back the House,” Gladstone explained.
Both DCCC directors have been battle-tested by working on campaigns in previous elections straight out of Middlebury: Gladstone fundraised for Sen. Jackie Rosen in 2018 and frontline candidate Rep. Susan Wild in Penn., while Schrager most recently managed a successful campaign in Colorado’s eighth congressional district in 2022.
“I think what a campaign manager does is you essentially narrow down the things you can control, and do really, really well at the things you control,” Schrager said, referring to the race which elected Rep. Yadira Caraveo by under 2,000 votes.
“If I was in my senior year talking to myself right now, I would literally be cracking up at the idea of working at the [DCCC] because I never, ever, ever imagined working in electoral politics,” Schrager said.
Reflecting upon their time at the college a few years ago, Gladstone emphasized the unique level of political engagement at Middlebury.
“I think it was just a privilege to be part of such an engaged student body,” Gladstone explained. “My advice to you as a current student would be to really appreciate that before you leave.”
Some alumni who work in Washington, D.C. have carried over the international perspective from their time at Middlebury to their work now. Terry Crouch, who graduated from the Middlebury Language Schools in 2007, now works as the Government Liaison & Consular Affairs to Monaco.
“Half my day is in French,” Crouch said, adding that his masters in French from Middlebury has proved essential to coordinating diplomatic efforts with citizens of Monaco.
“The diversity of the student body and the faculty in terms of their languages was a nice template for how to work with people in the government and across the various agencies here in the U.S.,” he said.
Luke Kauth ’21 works as a legislative assistant focused on energy and climate for Sen. Peter Welch, whose office is currently in recess as the final weeks of campaigning heat up.
“One of my favorite parts of the job is developing ideas and working with experts on drafting legislation to address climate change, protect environmental rights and other issues,” Kauth said. “The nice thing is we’re in the official office, so we can’t do any campaign work. We focus on policy,” he added.
He emphasized the role his studies in Political Science and especially the English department play now in analysis and writing legislation. “I wouldn’t trade my English major for anything,” Kauth said.
A Statewide State of Mind
Not every political science major joins the ‘D-triple-C’ or runs national strategy out of the West Wing, however. Some graduates work in nonpartisan roles at the state and local level where they are instrumental to shaping legislation and running advocacy campaigns.
Daniel Dietz ’03 works for the Oregon Legislature as a senior analyst for healthcare policy in the nonpartisan legislative policy and research office. Originally inspired by his work under Professor of Moral Science Heidi Grasswick and time spent in the Peace Corps in Peru, Dietz pursues analytical work in his home state that has a real policy impact.
“I see my role as demystifying government and policies so that people who are elected to make decisions about how policies work have access to the levers and the tools to operate the functions of state government,” he explained.
Dietz said he draws on his liberal arts education when coordinating with lawyers and PhDs in the legislature or evaluating new healthcare policy proposals.
“The ability to think critically across those disciplines is something I do every day,” Dietz said. “I think that comes from the liberal arts perspective — to know a little bit about a lot of different things.”
Anika Heilweil ’21.5 echoed his same point on the liberal arts perspective, although she applies that lens to a different state capitol much closer to her alma mater. Heilweil works as a campaign manager for the Public Assets Institute in Montpelier, Vt., where she lobbies state legislators about increasing state revenue.
“The liberal arts framework that Middlebury utilizes, I think, has been really helpful as far as recognizing the interconnectivity between issues,” Heilweil said, elaborating that when lobbying state legislators, her organization weighs a variety of issues such as affordability, childcare, access to housing and other priorities for Vermonters.
“There is a lot of really interesting and really important policy making happening at the state level,” she added.
Some Panthers are just embarking on their endeavors into state government. Nikki Sadat ’23.5 began working as an intake coordinator for the Civil Rights Division of the Massachusetts State Attorney General’s office last month, where she processes civil rights complaints. Having just graduated, she is glad for the opportunity to work on human rights at the state level.
“I was stoked to be employed and it felt like a good first step for figuring out if I’m interested in law school and exploring human rights,” Sadat explained. She added that learning to work with a range of people who submit complaints to the office has given her firsthand experience with the issues she learned about at Middlebury.
“Here I’m on the ground working with real people and their real issues,” Sadat said, adding that her coursework does still play a role in her day-to-day work. “Middlebury prepares you more than you think.”
The Not-For-Profit Panthers
Not every Middlebury student felt as impacted by their political science coursework, however. Ruby Edlin ’19.5 shared that her current work as an advocacy campaign manager focused on elections and government at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York was inspired by her experience protesting controversial guest speaker Charles Murray in 2017.
“A lot of professors in the political science department were disdainful of student protestors at the time, and I totally disagreed with some of their views. I don’t think I felt a community in the Poli Sci department,” Edlin explained.
She initially worked on political campaigns following her graduation but soon switched to the Brennan Center to gain a role in protecting U.S. elections beyond each race.
“It has been interesting to see the niche issues I worked on now be front-page issues,” she said, citing election certification and tabulating votes by hand as two examples that have received extensive coverage recently.
Another nonprofit working in the months leading up to Election Day is the ACLU of Florida, where Nick Warren ’15 works as a staff attorney on various initiatives, including the upcoming vote to codify access to abortion by amending the state constitution.
“The initiative has involved a lot of legal issues. We’ve been in and out of court since the start of the year to counter the illegal actions taken by the state of Florida in their campaign against the amendment,” Warren explained.
Warren works with a legal team at the ACLU that recently successfully argued in front of the Florida Supreme Court to defend the reproductive rights amendment, which was co-sponsored by the organization following the Dobbs v. Jackson decision in 2022.
“Part of my role was workshopping and brainstorming language for the amendment to see what could pass and what could get popular support,” he added.
Warren said he still refers back to what he learned a decade ago at Middlebury as an American Studies major.
“The course ‘American Public Policy’ still provides the framework for how I think of legislation and how lawmaking happens,” Warren said.
Whether they felt inspired by Professor of Political Science Matthew Dickinson — who was namedropped by several alumni — or found the liberal arts formative to their conception of politics, the college’s graduates will play an important role in the Nov. 5 election.
Their work does not stop at the ballot box, however: In state capitals, battleground districts and the halls of Washington, D.C., the college’s graduates are hard at work every day shaping the course of U.S. government.
Ryan McElroy '25 (he/him) is the Editor in Chief.
Ryan has previously served as a Managing Editor, News Editor and Staff Writer. He is majoring in history with a minor in art history. Outside of The Campus, he is co-captain of Middlebury Mock Trial and previously worked as Head Advising Fellow for Matriculate and a research assistant in the History department. Last summer Ryan interned as a global risk analyst at a bank in Charlotte, North Carolina.
