What is this place we call Middlebury? We exalt our college as a place of intellectual inquiry that shapes well-rounded students who lead balanced lives; however that description glosses over too much. From the minute I entered Dana Auditorium for the packed screening of “Race to Nowhere”, I knew that we had hit on something important. Middlebury students do not pack the house in the middle of the week for anything that fails to resonate with them. What hit home on Wednesday night? Stress and pressure. As it is subtitled, the movie focuses on “the dark side of America’s achievement culture.” It profiles students, parents and educators’ negative experiences within the success-at-all-costs mentality that prevails in our country.
The movie was followed by an open discussion of achievement culture at Middlebury led by faculty and staff. Frustratingly though, despite the huge number of members of our community who recognize that operating within achievement culture is counterproductive, if not detrimental to the goals that we claim to hold dearest, little was said that promises to bring about a change. As was oft pointed out, we do not act within a vacuum, but when it comes to encouraging balance Middlebury is lagging behind other schools that we claim to be influenced by. Most glaringly, reading periods have disappeared from the end of the semester calendar and Winter Term classes have become increasingly academic, in the most traditional senses of the word. Of late it seems as if the balance is tipping from a view of Middlebury students as community members to mere students who are meant to take classes and blindly achieve. We seem to fear not appearing rigorous enough so we pile on requirements and raise expectations, but maybe what would propel us forward is asking less of ourselves for once.
Middlebury is not a bad place, but too often we recognize problems on our campus and fail to act. Combating the damaging effects of achievement culture on learning, creativity and self-esteem that plague both individuals and communities at large should not be a retroactive process. It is not enough to offer optional stress-management workshops to manage stress in place of seeking to reduce the culture of stress at Middlebury. The problem with achievement culture is that once it is instilled in students it is hard to correct for. It is unrealistic to imagine that students will spend their educational careers up until college in a mad dash to be accepted to a place like Middlebury and then completely change their mentalities once they arrive here. You cannot tell students that they must live like this to get to the next level and then tell them to call it quits all of a sudden. If we want Middlebury to transform students’ relationships with achievement culture we must create an environment that can be as transformative on this issue as Middlebury can be on so many others.
Perhaps we need to endorse the pass/fail option that will hopefully come up for a vote within the next academic year. Maybe the classes that students take abroad need not count toward overall GPAs, but should instead be a separate GPA that is included on the student’s transcript. Maybe 36 credits to graduate are just too many. A Middlebury degree means something in part because of the requirements that must be fulfilled to attain it. But though we say that the College wants students who are passionate rather than necessarily buffing up their transcripts with AP scores, we don’t allow any buffer room for students without AP and IB credits from high school to ever take three classes or fail a course. Lastly we need to find ways to harness the power of the community to embrace a more balanced lifestyle rather than creating the expectation that we keep ourselves busy at all times. Additionally the façade of perfection that shrouds everything here must be deconstructed if Middlebury is to grow into a place where mistakes are okay again. There are no simple solutions, but these are suggestions.
Students came out and nodded their heads along because they felt the race to nowhere at some point or another. Many probably felt it as they watched the movie, or as they decided not to stay for the discussion because a couple of hours off from work in the middle of the week are just too many. The film’s portraits of overworked students popping Adderall to maximize a 24-hour day are not foreign to this campus. Neither is the students streaming into counseling sessions as a result of academic pressure. Middlebury can bring yoga teachers, meditation experts and poignant films to campus, but until the culture of this place changes all of these measures will only be steps in the right direction.
Race to where?
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