Solar Decathlon wins Senior Gift vote

On Nov. 1, the Senior Committee unveiled this year’s senior class gift. After deliberating between three possible candidates, the class voted to donate the $100,000 gift to the Solar Decathlon project.

The other two potential recipients for this year’s class gift were the organic garden and student internships. According to Assistant Director of Annual Giving Jennifer Conetta, had the money gone to the Middlebury College Organic Garden, it would have funded the “construction and establishment of a building that would house equipment and contain a produce packing and washing area and a refrigerated
cooler.”

Conetta also said that the money that would have gone to support student internships would have established “an endowed Class of 2011 fund to support unpaid student internship stipends.

“The fund would have provided student stipends of varying amounts to students participating in an unpaid internship,” she said.

According to Conetta, the process of selecting the recipient of the gift remains the same from year to year. Each year, she said, “the Senior Committee brainstorms possible gift ideas”, which they generate by speaking to their friends and peers about their own personal interests and what they believe would be in the best interest of the class as a whole. Then, after researching these ideas, students present each idea to the Committee as a whole for discussion, and then vote on which three ideas should be presented to the senior class. Finally, the three gifts are put to an anonymous class-wide vote.

This year’s gift will be dedicated to the memory of three classmates: Nick Garza ’11, Pavlo Kevkiv ’11 and Ben Wieler ’11. Later in the year, the senior class will vote on which aspect of the project will be dedicated to these students. The Class will announce its decision about the gift at the 200 Days party this Saturday, Nov. 6.
The College’s Solar Decathlon team is the first liberal arts college team to compete in the United States Solar Decathlon, a competition that has been held by the Department of Energy (DOE) since 2002.  According to the DOE website, every two years the department “challenges 20 collegiate teams to design, build and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient and attractive.” The houses must “be affordable, attractive and easy to live in; maintain comfortable and healthy indoor environmental conditions; [supply] energy to household appliances for cooking, cleaning and entertainment; [provide] adequate hot water; [and produce] as much or more energy” than they consume. Teams spend about two years creating houses to show in the competition, which is held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The Solar Decathlon team has been selected as a finalist in the 2011 competition. It is currently in the process of designing and building a New England farmhouse for the 21st century — one that is made “for the Vermont climate” and “combines the best aspects of a traditional New England farmhouse with the efficient technologies of today,” according to the group’s website.  The group says that, while its long-term goal for the farmhouse is to “inspire people to adopt a comfortable, healthy, green lifestyle,” for its home to have real meaning, it “needs to inspire changes in how everyone makes, uses, and transports energy.”

Ultimately, the project will cost about $500,000; prior to receiving the class gift, the team managed to raise almost $55,000 through donations from members of the community.