Middlebury, as told from the victory lap

Author: TREVOR SHOLLY '05 '06

A wise friend once told me that leaving college in four years was like leaving the party at 10 - it's just getting started. I spent this past year testing his hypothesis as a 5-year senior here at Middlebury College. I am what the Administration labels a "special student" meaning that I have two or less credits left for my Bachelor of Arts degree (ES with an Economics Focus) and that I am required to live off campus. I suspect the latter stipulation is intended to keep me from corrupting you younger Midd-Kids with crazy ideas from the 'bad old days.' While this effectively removes me from the general student

population, I can still talk about the good old days like the sketchy old man that wanders the park in his boxers talking to anyone who will listen. The following is an attempt to counter this speculative stipulation and to instill such 'corruptness' into those of you whom I have not yet done so.

When a dynamically populated institution, such as Middlebury, goes through widespread change, it only takes four years for the current student population to accept these changes as common law. In September of 2001, I was an unjaded, freewheelin' first-year and have seen many changes evolve. Since I know everything that has gone on inside these walls over the past five years, I will do my best to give you - the younger generation of Midd Kids - my opinion of these changes.

#1 - Regardless of its future intentions to bring smaller groups of students closer together and to encourage common's specified donations from alumni, the commons system is a forced school policy that really grinds my gears. Middlebury is already small enough with its 2,300 students and does not need to be further divided into smaller subgroups. I don't like being forced to live with my freshman hall mates just because I will get a better room draw. Personally, I like to reserve the option of living with people who I like for who they are and not have to factor in price of living with friends solely based on how many commons points they have acquired. Ironically, Middlebury's own Tragedy of the Commons is the commons system itself and this is sad.

#2 - I am one of few students left on this campus who can still recall not needing key cards to enter buildings and, in general, we felt safe on campus. Then one night in the fall of '01 something changed that would affect this campus's feel forever. Two thug friends tipped off by a former Middlebury student went into a drug dealers room in the Ross Complex - referred to as the 'new dorms' back then - held him at gun point, hit him over the head with a tire iron, and robbed him. According to student sources and headline news articles, the two culprits came away with $2,000 and 1/2 lb. of marijuana and drove back to R.I. that night. Two days later amidst concern from the College's administration, Middlebury went into a 'temporary' 24/7 lock down mode where kids were required to use their resident hall keys, giving them access to only their building. Over the next few months, disregarding countless pleas from the current students who recognized that this incident was rare and isolated, Middlebury's campus gradually advanced to the key-carded big brother monitoring system as we know it today. When I read about the continual rising crime patterns in this paper every week with no suspects and no due justice coupled with the need to increase more blue lights on campus, I question the administration's true intentions on such a constricting policy every time I rub my ass on that black reader and watch the red light turn to green. At least I can feel like I work for the CIA or Pentagon; so I got that going for me, which is nice.

#3 - Where did all the fun places go? This includes but is not limited to: the Shag Room, A-Frames, Mr. Up's and Zoo. I don't have the room in this letter to get into the particulars of each but what I will say is that we are taking ourselves a little too seriously and becoming another Amherst/Ivy wannabe. I think a good compromise to aim for would be a mixture between Amherst and Hamilton with a little Midd Granola sprinkling on the top - 100 percent organic and fair trade of course.

I would like to think that the SGA could poll the current student body and make the according changes to the afforementioned policies, but sadly this is not the case. The students, the current customers and the common men and women of this school, do not have any say or sway. We need a representative on the Board of Trustees - someone who has graduated from Middlebury College recently and can only be appointed for four years. Only then can we make legit changes.

I do not want to come across as a burnt-out, cynical, super senior so here's a list of good things that are still around (trust me, I know what it takes to be cool): those old school white telephones, 98.6 percent of the faculty, 100 percent of the staff, Career Services, respecting strangers, disrespecting your friends sometimes and authentic Nick Janerisms.

The administration (aka the Man) or any follower of this Beast may disregard the following and label it as 'conspiracy theories' or 'ungrounded poppy-cock.' You call it whatever gives you piece-of-mind.

Good Luck with exams and keep in mind that you can always fail a class and become 'special' like me. The victory lap is sweet.