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(04/17/20 2:59pm)
Faculty voted down the motion that would change Middlebury’s current grading policy to a universal credit/no credit system, with 35% voting in favor (94 faculty) and 65% voting against (175) during Friday morning’s meeting.
Immediately after, Professor of Mathematics Peter Schumer submitted a proposal suggesting an opt-in credit/no credit grading policy for spring 2020. This proposal was passed by the faculty, 95% in favor (295) and 5% against (14). Since faculty has final jurisdiction over academic policies, the 2020 grading policy will be opt-in credit/no credit, which bears some similarities with the current opt-in Pass/D/Fail system.
The difference between this proposal and the system proposed by the ad hoc academic continuity group is that a “no credit” mark does not factor into one’s GPA, and that any grade of D or higher will convert to a “credit.” Further, this proposal gives students until May 19 to revoke credit/no credit. By then, students would have finished all their exams and final assignments.
Schumer disapproved of Bremser’s proposal, citing that faculty should have complete control over their classes and evaluations of students. He also argued that students will lose their motivation to continue working on their courses if they do not have the option to receive grades. He worries students would demand a partial refund for their tuition if letter grades are canceled “since they will have nothing to show for what they have learned and accomplished,” Schumer said in an email to The Campus.
Both votes were conducted anonymously over Zoom using the app's polling function.
Friday’s faculty meeting began in an executive session while faculty had a conversation with a lawyer on an unspecified issue. According to the college handbook, the faculty may at any point in its proceedings declare itself in executive session, thereby limiting the meeting to voting members only. Campus reporters were let into the meeting following that discussion.
A lengthy discussion
After Professor of Mathematics Priscilla Bremser introduced the mandatory credit/no credit proposal last Friday, a series of discussions ensued. The Student Government Association (SGA) and The Campus’s editorial board both endorsed the universal credit/no credit system in a resolution and an editorial, respectively. Further, students emailed their professors asking them to support one system or the other. One such email, written by Quinn Boyle ’21.5, Jack Brown ’22 and Rati Saini ’22 against the proposal, was published in The Campus as an op-ed and as of Friday morning had garnered almost 20 comments on The Campus website.
On Tuesday, Professor of Film & Media Culture Jason Mittell, among other proponents of the motion, organized an open meeting for faculty. The meeting was closed to all non-faculty members.
Professor of German Florence Feiereisen, who signed Bremser’s proposal and spoke in favor of that proposal at the initial meeting, said that a mandatory credit/no credit policy would allow more equity for both students and untenured faculty. Feiereisen argued that junior faculty face more stress because they are expected to be continuously productive scholars and exceptional professors while taking care of young children or family members.
“‘Flexibility’ and ‘choice’ sound good at first, but if you think about it, there are many stakeholders out there who do not have the luxury of choice,” Feiereisen wrote in an email to The Campus.
Professor of Religion Ata Anzali opposed Bremser’s proposal because it takes away all agency, he argued, and that an opt-in system allows faculty and students more choices.
Professor of Religion Justin Doran signed the proposal. He explained that his commitment to the proposal was deepened after reading the email sent to all faculty. “Covid-19 might have broken our grading tools for normal use, but with Professor Bremser's proposal they can help us with one more lesson: you are not your letter grades,” he said. “And don't let the world tell you otherwise.”
“Grades — as imperfect as they are — are less rife with privilege-based biases than other metrics by which college students compete for jobs, scholarships, and graduate school spots,” Professor of Political Science Gary Winslett wrote in an email to The Campus, expressing his support for the opt-in system.
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Kyoko Davis voted in favor of Bremser’s proposal, arguing that the purpose of this semester should not be proving that faculty can teach well enough for students to get high grades.
“I strongly believe that the ultimate goal of learning will be attained throughout this unconventional semester with [a mandatory] credit/no credit grading system,” she wrote in an email to The Campus.
Other items
In addition to proposals regarding grading policies, faculty also voted overwhelmingly in favor of another motion submitted by the ad hoc academic continuity group. According to this motion, the college will waive the requirement that transfer credits must be taken in person on college campuses, and that those courses must be letter-graded.
Professor of Mathematics Frank Swenton briefly presented his proposal on letting go of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) toward the end of the meeting. Faculty agreed to table the proposal after voting down the calling the question motion (which brings the proposal to an immediate vote).
Editor’s note: Professor Jason Mittell is The Campus’s faculty adviser. Any questions may be directed to campus@middlebury.edu.
Update: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that the faculty votes were anonymous, conducted via a Zoom poll.
We also added the entire passed motion in full, below:
"For Spring 2020 only, students will have the option to take as many of their current courses as they wish on a credit/no-credit basis. Faculty will still report letter grades for all students, and if a student requests credit/no-credit for a course, the grade for that course will automatically be converted to a credit for grades of D or higher and will be recorded as no-credit if the grade is an F. Students will be allowed to invoke credit/no-credit grading for any course—including courses that count toward all college requirements—and will have until May 8 to do so.
The Registrar’s Office will make available an electronic form that students can use to invoke credit/no-credit for one or more courses if they wish. Students will have a window of time from May 9 to 19 in which they can revoke credit/no-credit for one or more courses if they choose to. There will be a notation on the Spring 2020 section of all transcripts that will convey to outside audiences that a "credit" should be interpreted as a reasonable response to these extraordinary circumstances, and not as indicating diminished rigor."
(04/16/20 10:02am)
Professor of Mathematics Frank Swenton submitted a Sense of the Faculty Motion prior to the faculty meeting last Friday, recommending that Middlebury release the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) from the college. In it, he alleges the college has been forced to cut down on health benefits and staff positions to balance the deficit caused by the institute. Swenton claims that the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the financial situation.
An earlier version of Swenton’s motion alleged that around half of the college’s current deficit “stems directly from MIIS.” However, after a Campus reporter asked him about this point, Swenton said he suspects the current deficit estimates do not account for losses from Monterey, and removed that sentence from his motion. Swenton also pointed out that MIIS costs accounted for $5.3 million of the college’s total $10.5 million deficit in 2018, information that can be found in the minutes record of a Special Faculty Plenary meeting held in November of that year.
“The College will fail to meet its budget this year by an estimated $17 million, and severe cuts are unavoidable,” reads the new version. College Treasurer David Provost said in an April 7 email to faculty that the college would see “a total revenue shortfall related to COVID-19 of $17.3 million” in the 2020 fiscal year.
Swenton connected his claims about cutting down on health benefits to the new insurance plans that were offered this fall, but Provost did not not mention anything about cuts in benefits. Provost has said that the college’s budget advisory committee will meet to discuss potential recommendations to ameliorate losses — for example, the administration will ask department heads to consider expense reductions and has already implemented a hiring freeze for all staff positions. These efforts come a year after the college wrapped up its year-long workforce planning effort, which was spearheaded to reduce the college’s then-shrinking deficit. That process saw staff at both the college and the institute take voluntary buyouts.
Due to time restraints, the motion was not formally introduced last Friday. It is likely that it will be discussed at the upcoming faculty meeting this Friday as unfinished business, following the vote on the mandatory credit/no credit grading policy proposal.
Faculty of the college opposed affiliation with the institute from the outset. A vote in April 2005 to acquire the institute was met with strong opposition — 80 faculty opposed the acquisition, 21 endorsed it and 15 abstained from voting. Despite faculty protests, Middlebury formally acquired the institute in 2010, after a five-year affiliation agreement.
“In my dream world, the Trustees and Administration would take a long, hard look at MIIS and finally do something about it,” Swenton wrote in an email to The Campus. However, he is aware that the proposal might not be enough to change their minds, since he said the numbers and statistics he presents are already known by the administration.
The Sense of the Faculty Motion does not have any binding effects — Dean of Faculty Sujata Moorti said such a motion is instead meant to"register faculty sentiment about a particular topic." But Swenton said he still hopes that the proposal can demonstrate to the administration Middlebury professors are paying attention.
“The faculty technically have no power in these decisions, yet we're the ones having to shoulder the consequent burden via cuts in benefits, staff, ” he wrote.
While this is the first time Swenton has submitted a formal proposal on this issue, the relationship between the institute and the college has been on his mind for a while. At the November 2018 faculty meeting, Swenton questioned whether the allocations as presented are a true representation of the situation. According to the minutes record, he said, “Isn’t that money that would have been for Middlebury?”
(04/10/20 4:30pm)
Update as of Sunday, April 12: This article has been updated to include an embedded version of the faculty proposal, which was shared with The Campus this weekend. The faculty who are organizing the proposal have also created an FAQ, which can be found here.
Faculty members motioned to change Middlebury’s current grading policy to a mandatory credit/no-credit system this morning at the first faculty meeting since the college suspended in-person classes. Faculty will vote to either approve or deny the motion at a meeting next Friday, April 17.
If the faculty votes to approve the proposal in a majority vote, a mandatory credit/no credit grading policy will be put in place for the spring term, according to Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty Sujata Moorti.
The meeting, which was held over Zoom, saw roughly 250 members of the faculty in attendance. Professor of Mathematics Priscilla Bremser submitted the motion to enact the credit/no credit grading system, which was co-written by Professor of Film & Media Culture Jason Mittell and co-signed by 19 other faculty members.
The grading system proposed in Bremser’s motion bears similarities to the “Universal Pass/Fail” model adopted by other universities and advocated for by some students at Middlebury, but deviates from that system in that it would not factor a “0” into students’ GPAs in the event they earn “no credit.” Dartmouth College and Carleton College have adopted similar credit/no-credit models for this semester, the latter of which followed an endorsement of the model by its school’s student government.
Under the system outlined by Bremser’s motion, courses this semester would not count toward the registrar’s limit of two non-traditionally graded courses per student, and would still be counted for major and distribution requirements. “No credit” grades would not factor into students’ academic probation status.
“We have no idea how Covid-19 will directly affect specific students and their families, but it will do so unevenly,” Bremser wrote in her motion. The motion explains that a mandatory “binary grading system” will be equitable for all students.
She pointed out that faculty members are also subject to the stress brought on by Covid-19, emphasizing the greater impact this may have on junior professors who might feel pressure from students to maintain high grades and from their colleagues to maintain a certain rigor in the classroom.
“I am grateful to the administration for taking the Covid-19 pandemic seriously early on, at the same time, a fundamental principle of college governance is that the faculty has responsibility for academic policy,” Bremser wrote in an an email to The Campus, reflecting on the administration’s earlier announcement that the college will maintain its current opt-in grading policy.
That announcement came in the wake of widespread student conversations regarding the college’s original decision about grading policy, which it announced the week after most students were sent home. The ad hoc academic continuity group, comprising five faculty members and five faculty administrators, made the decision.
The Faculty Council determined that Bremser’s proposal is considered major academic policy. Thus, according to faculty meeting rules, this proposal must be introduced at one meeting and voted on at a later date.
Faculty will have an open meeting next Tuesday for further discussion on the topic, and the vote will be held next Friday.
Bremser is confident that this proposal will be deliberated by her colleagues, both professors and administrators, with the educational mission of the college at heart. “One great thing about teaching at Middlebury is that student learning is central to what we do,” she wrote.
At the meeting, attendees also ratified other academic decisions the administration has made for this semester, on the basis that academic jurisdiction usually falls to the faculty. This motion included shortening the semester by a week and moving all instruction online, and was ratified with 98% of voting faculty in favor.
Editor’s note: Professor Jason Mittell is the The Campus’s faculty adviser. Any questions may be directed to campus@middlebury.edu.
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(03/29/20 11:00pm)
How can you take part in a lab experiment virtually? Will you be able to direct a show using Zoom? Are class discussions going to look the same?
After the frenzy of packing, waving goodbyes and booking flights subsided earlier this month, questions related to how classes would continue remotely began to emerge, especially for those taking classes in different time zones or in places with compromised internet connections.
On March 10, President Laurie Patton announced that classes would resume remotely after spring break. In her email, Patton pointed to the Office of Digital Learning & Inquiry (DLINQ) as an important resource for faculty as the college transitions to remote instructions. DLINQ is a subset of the provost’s office, staffed by 10 members in Vermont and at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Its mission is to look for ways to advance incorporating the digital in the advancement of student lives and education — previous projects include the annual Digital Detox.
Amy Collier, associate provost for digital learning, told The Campus that the office has worked with around 100 faculty members across the college and in Monterey, which has also suspended in-person classes, since the announcement. Many faculty members on the Vermont campus took advantage of drop-in sessions, and around 30 faculty members scheduled individual meetings with the office.
“A typical session with a faculty member involves talking through the types of activities they usually do in class, the learning outcomes for those activities — what they expect students will know or be able to do as an outcome of the activities,” Collier said. “Then, we talk about how we might meet those learning outcomes using the available technology tools.”
Beyond this type of support, the office also launched a series of workshops on topics including “Screencasting 101 with Panopto,” “Using Zoom for Synchronous Learning Activities,” and “Managing Quizzes & Assessments in Canvas.”
During these meetings, the office actively encouraged faculty to plan asynchronous interactions with students to get around hurdles such as time differences. On the other hand, College Provost Jeff Cason and Dean of Faculty Sujata Moorti also emphasized the importance of “scheduling synchronous course meetings" in a March 16 email to faculty.
DLINQ has encouraged faculty to use a variety of online tools, including the now-ubiquitous conferencing platform Zoom for live video calls and Panopto for posted lectures.
Starting March 30, Tao You ’22.5, a math major, might take classes from Beijing, which is 12 hours ahead of EDT. He said he estimates most of his classes will be taught synchronously.
“I don’t think STEM will be affected as much as humanities. The only compromise for STEM [classes] is that we can’t ask questions during lectures,” he said. “But for discussion-heavy humanities and social sciences, asynchronous teaching will be a different story — I think the quality will be severely curtailed.”
To get a better sense of how ready students feel about remote instruction, Cason and Moorti sent out an email to all students on March 23 asking students to provide feedback on the challenges they might face, including issues related to internet accessibility.
Students at the institute have been learning remotely since March 17. Michael Carboy MIIS ’20, who studies environmental policy and corporate sustainability, is in the institute’s master’s program.
Carboy is not a fan of remote learning, and said his “Northeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Policy” class is affected most significantly by the remote changes. On an average, in-person day, the class debates declassified government documents in detail. Now, the professor mostly lectures, and students can comment via the chat bar.
“Lack of in-class dialogue with other students, garbled online audio, limitations on being able to have multiple screens displaying different things and the general inability to get up, walk to the whiteboard, and mark up things are all major detriments to the currently necessary on-line arrangements,” he said.
From MAC to MacBook
Alex Draper, professor of theatre and the department chair, said that the Theatre Department is brainstorming ideas for moving forward with colleagues around the country. The department is investigating how much synchronous teaching can occur without overwhelming people’s schedules and is trying to figure out how much professors can alter the arcs of their classes, Draper said.
Despite the inherent difficulties, Draper is optimistic. “There is room for creative experimentation and who knows what unforeseen gifts will come of that,” he said.
Specifically speaking, for studio classes such as “Acting I: Beginning Acting,” Draper said he is trying to “to recalibrate course content in a way that folds in practices that are already happening remotely (auditions, self-taping, online rehearsing, one-on-one monologue coaching, character research).”
[pullquote speaker="Alex Draper" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]There is room for creative experimentation and who knows what unforeseen gifts will come of that.[/pullquote]
For classes that culminate in a show, such as this spring’s planned performance of “Julius Caesar,” the department hopes to continue rehearsals and is looking for ways to present to the public virtually.
“Since we can’t block a show virtually, I think it makes sense to focus on what we can do,” said Assistant Stage Manager Devon Hunt ’23. “We should work on other related things to fill in the gaps and still make this a complete class as best as we can in these given circumstances.”
The transition to online learning will also affect STEM students who take classes with a lab component. Lucia Snyderman ’23, a student in Chemistry 103, is worried about how the lab portion of class will transfer online. She and many other lab students are still waiting on further clarification about what to expect.
“I do not think that virtual labs will create the same learning experience as conducting in-person labs,” she said. “The fact is it’s just not the same as holding the real tools in your hand and setting up the experiment and observing the reaction first-hand.”
Echoing this sentiment, Chemistry 104 student Amaya David ’23 said, “the lab component of chemistry really helps with the application of different processes so I’m afraid that it will be more difficult for me to retain information without a tangible lab [component].”
[pullquote speaker="Tim Hua" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]I am worried about classes that are moving to more recorded lectures since then there’s less interaction with other students and the professor.[/pullquote]
Glen Ernstrom, professor of biology & neuroscience, teaches “Cell Biology and Genetics,” a class with three hours of lab each week this term. He told The Campus he is aware of how remote learning may affect some of his students, and is constantly reconsidering how to best teach the class without adding stress for his students. He remains hopeful that he and his students will be able to find the best way as they move forward, even though mistakes might be inevitable.
The transition has also made some first-year Febs wonder how they might take full advantage of their First Year Seminars. The program’s goal is to “use intensive engagement between professors and students to facilitate the transition from high school to college,” according to the program’s website. It is currently unclear how that “intensive engagement” might be replicated remotely.
“I am worried about classes that are moving to more recorded lectures since then there’s less interaction with other students and the professor,” said Tim Hua ’23.5, whose First Year Seminar is called “Cities in Crisis.”
The First Year Seminar department met on March 20 to discuss options going forward, but could not be reached for comment by press time.
(03/05/20 11:02am)
If the two thumb-size polyhedral gold beads didn’t have an accompanying museum tag explaining their origin, many would not recognize them as Han dynasty (25-220 CE) adornments from China. Indeed, when most people think of Chinese antiques, their minds go immediately to beautiful Qinghua porcelain. Little attention has been paid to Chinese gold — until now. Curated by Assistant Professor of History of Art & Architecture Sarah Laursen and now on exhibit at the Museum of Art, “Lost Luxuries: Ancient Chinese Gold” is an attempt to showcase these ancient Chinese gold artifacts.
Laursen became fascinated with Chinese gold when she was completing her dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania, where she worked with ancient Chinese gold artifacts from Liaoning, a province in northeast China. After completing her doctorate, she broadened her research to look at Chinese gold across the country as new archeological sites emerged. That’s when she met conservator Donna Strahan, with whom she explored the technology behind the Chinese Gold Cicada Plaque, named after its shape.
The Cicada plaque inspired more curiosity in other potentially forgotten gold objects that American museums have in their collections. “There was so much [information on Chinese gold artifacts] in the US collection that nobody knew that was there,” said Laursen. In order to meet international standards, all antiquities purchased by the museum must have left the country of origin before 1970. To learn where qualified antiques are located today, she and her students went through domestic historical records, including the study of 20,000 records of the Caro Archive at Institute of Fine Arts of New York University.
Laursen was surprised by some of her findings. “I found out that the person behind that the single largest collection [of Chinese gold] in the United States was really a woman who never gets any credit,” she said. “She was referred to as Mrs. Charles Stinson instead of her actual name, which was Helen Pendelton Winston. That is tragic to me.”
Ms. Stinson donated numerous gold objects to the Minneapolis Institute of Art after the passing of her husband, who was a Minneapolis native and traveled extensively in Europe.
After preparatory work, Laursen visited the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Arts, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017 to look at objects in person. Many objects of this exhibit, such as a Zhou dynasty necklace, a Han dynasty gold box, a Sui/Tang dynasty Buddhist sutras and a Tang dynasty Rosette, are on loan from these respective museums.
When Laursen thought she had a full checklist for the exhibition, unexpected news struck: Christie’s would hold an auction titled “Masterpieces of Early Chinese Gold and Silver” in September 2019. After viewing its catalogue, she was immediately drawn to two polyhedral gold beads, originally from Dr. Johan Carl Kempe’s collection in Sweden. “I would do anything to have those,” she recalled herself thinking. True to her words, the museum had the winning bid on a Xianbei gold plaque and two polyhedral gold beads from the auction. The museum did not disclose the objects’ price to The Campus, but according to Christie’s public records, the museum paid $37,500 for the plaque and $60,000 for the beads.
The exhibition not only highlights the beauty of the showcased objects, but also zeroes in on goldsmith techniques and recent archaeological discoveries to create a comprehensive learning experience for its visitors with different technologies such as Esri StoryMaps and a Holosonics Audio Spotlight.
The use of technology in exhibitions stemmed from 2020 Vision: Seeing the World Through Technology, an initiative under Andrea Rosen, curator of the Fleming Museum of Art in 2016. Laursen explained that the curators decided on the strategy because technology can be adapted to fit a variety of museum types, science institutes, history museums, art galleries and many more.
The curation of the exhibition has been extremely gratifying, according to Laursen. She said that this exhibition, in addition to raising public awareness, also sparked other museum curators’ interest in Chinese gold.
“The most rewarding is knowing that I’ve changed the fate of those objects,” she said.
“Lost Luxuries: Ancient Chinese Gold” will remain on display at the Middlebury College Museum of Art until April 19.
(02/27/20 10:54am)
The Green New Deal, a legislative proposal seen by many as a radical answer to the question of climate change, went up for debate in Dana Auditorium last Thursday. The Alexander Hamilton Forum and the Political Science Department co-sponsored the debate.
Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Robert Pollin argued in favor of the Green New Deal, while Oren Cass, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, argued against it. Christopher Klyza, Middlebury’s Stafford professor of public policy, political science and environmental studies, moderated the debate, which came during an election year when Democratic voters are more worried about climate change than ever before.
“We thought the topic was especially timely, as the Green New Deal is an issue in the Democratic primary and is likely to be an issue in the general election,” said Associate Political Science professor Keegan Callanan, who serves as director of the Alexander Hamilton Forum.
The Green New Deal, sponsored by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), mandates a transition to clean energy in order to reduce greenhouse gas emission, offers a program to support those who are impacted and creates a variety of job and entrepreneurial opportunities.
Pollin first spoke to defend the Green New Deal on the grounds of its absolute necessity, and centered his definition of the Green New Deal around a zero-emissions deadline for the year 2050.
“If you believe in mainstream climate science, we are looking at a world that could be calamitous over the next couple of decades,” he said. “My version of the Green New Deal is to get to net zero emissions in a way that also creates more opportunities, raises living standards [and] expands job opportunities.”
He then proposed a multi-step course of action to achieve his vision of a Green New Deal globally. He suggested that governments begin by placing massive investments into energy sufficiency, including into operations of buildings, industrial machineries, transportation and more. Next, he advised investment in solar and wind power in order to reduce fossil fuel infrastructure down to zero.
He expressed belief that his Green New Deal, although costly upfront, is economically responsible in the long run. According to his research, investing in building the green economy generates about three times more jobs per million dollars than investing in the fossil fuel economy.
“Let’s understand that investment in energy efficiency, by definition, saves money,” Pollin said. “Yes, there are costs, but over time, those costs will get covered by the savings that are engendered by delivering this new energy system.”
Cass spoke second, voicing his objection to the Green New Deal on three fronts: feasibility, high-cost and poor outcomes.
“With the existing technologies we have, there are tremendous disputes over whether wind and solar [power] have any capability to actually solve the problem,” he said. “To the extent we put all of our eggs in the wind and solar basket, we are actually distracting ourselves from the kind of innovation we are actually going to need.”
He offered the example of Germany, where despite the government’s 30-year long project, the country failed to meet its goal of decarbonizing its economy. While the state of Vermont is politically progressive, it has not developed any wind projects for five years and has seen a rise in emissions in comparison with past decades.
Cass also emphasized the high price tag of the Green New Deal, then criticized Pollin’s claim that the Green New Deal generates jobs.
“The jobs that it [the deal] would destroy are particularly good ones: fossil fuel economy jobs are among the best for blue collar workers that we have,” Cass said. “[They are] the highest paying and they in turn support our manufacturing sector.”
Additionally, countries in the developing world have no incentive to join such a deal, he said, and the effort from the United States alone will not be enough to reduce emissions globally. He pointed to how the developing world pledged “no useful contribution” in the Paris Agreement, a United Nations agreement on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.
The assumption that the rest of the world would follow America’s lead is, according to Cass, “an extremely condescending and colonial point of view, as it suggests that the leaders of other countries do not know what is good for themselves.”
He proposed to invest in innovation to find an alternative energy source that is both cheaper than fossil fuel and reliable, so that people will have incentive to adapt.
“I believe that some version of a Green New Deal — or a project to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions and stabilize the climate — will be implemented soon, for the simple reason that we truly have no alternative,” he said. “Mr. Cass is not reading the overwhelming body of evidence accurately.”
Students cited myriad reasons for attending the debate. Evelyn Lane ’23 chose to attend because writer and climate activist Naomi Klein’s Feb. 13 talk deepened her interest in the topic of climate change.
Elizabeth Kroger ’22.5, a conservation biology major, feels that she is often surrounded by people who hold the same opinion as she does, so she attended the lecture to learn about any potential downfalls of the plan.
“I am curious as to what opponents of the Green New Deal would propose in place of it,” Kroger said. “Cass did not speak of any specific policies or programs to replace the deal.”
Other students, concerned with the Alexander Hamilton Forum’s funding, held another climate-focused event at the same time. Organizers wrote about that event, “What Does it Mean to be a Student at Middlebury in the Age of Climate Catastrophe?: A Koch-Free Conversation,” in an op-ed published in The Campus on Feb. 13.
(02/20/20 11:51am)
On Feb. 14, Middlebury women’s basketball team challenged the top-ranked Tufts, which holds an undefeated record. The teams had back-and-forths during the first period, with Lily Kuntz ’20 and Betsy Knox ’20 as lead scorers. The first quarter ended with 15–14. During the second and third stanza, Middlebury continued impressive plays such as a layup from Knox, a three from Kira Waldman ’20 and a jump shot from Michaela Sullivan ’22. However, during the last quarter, the Jumbos rendered the Panthers scoreless during the first four minutes, leading the scoreboard at 57–42. Although Middlebury tried to come back, the game ended with 77–54.
The team finished their season on Feb. 15 with a tight contest against Bates College. During the first two stanzas, Middlebury trailed behind Bates closely. The Panthers were able to cut the score deficit to three points during the third period. The Bobcats and the Panthers fought a close game during the last stanza, as both teams tied at 61—61 with a minute left in the game. The game was forced into overtime because neither could seize an advantage. Unfortunately, Middlebury lost 71–67 after losing possession of the ball with nine seconds left. During the game, Maya Davis ’20 scored an impressive 26 points and became the 10th player in the school history to reach 1000 career points
This season, the team acquired a 12–12 record.
(02/20/20 10:59am)
I’ve never been too popular anywhere. But recently, more people have — as some like to call it — slid into my DMs to send me funny memes. What’s the secret to my newfound social status? The coronavirus. A virus which has inspired so many derogatory and inappropriate memes that people on and off Middlebury’s campus can’t resist sharing a moment of laughter with their dearest Chinese friend: me.
I’m no stranger to racism. After all, it is my fifth year living in the United States. However, the amount of blatant xenophobia emerged since the outbreak is simply impossible for me to process. Besides the number of derogatory jokes I’ve heard this week alone, my friends all over the world have been impacted in different shapes or forms. Jane, who is French-born Chinese, had her Airbnb reservation canceled in Switzerland simply because her host saw her profile picture. Fourteen days ago, “Wuhan virus quarantine zone — keep off” was written in Chinese on a blackboard at Columbia University’s Butler Library while my friend, Jojo (a Wuhan native), was studying in the very same place. Most absurd of all, a SiriusXM radio show host steered people away from Panda Express. Now, let’s be clear: Panda Express has never been and will never become authentic Chinese food. Next time a flu breaks out in Italy, you should cancel your Green Peppers order. You never know.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Racism under the disguise of humor is still racism.[/pullquote]
Now that I’ve sufficiently trashed Panda Express (and potentially contributed to a decline in pizza consumption), let’s talk about why these memes and jokes are especially offensive. Back in the late 19th century, white labor unions in the U.S. promulgated the idea that Chinese bodies were disease carriers. In particular, they used this kind of xenophobic rhetoric to promote nativist fears of Asian migration. And their agenda worked: the 47th U.S. Congress passed the infamous 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, prohibiting immigration of Chinese workers. Almost 120 years ago, Chinese were perceived by many Americans as filthy and revolting. In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, similar disturbing attitudes of apathy, discrimination and ridicule can be observed across the U.S., and beyond. Fashion goes in cycles; so, it seems, does racism.
Racism under the disguise of humor is still racism. People only feel comfortable laughing at xenophobic coronavirus memes because of intrinsic power dynamics stemming back hundreds of years. It is okay to make fun of the Chinese for eating revolting food, but obviously casu cundídu is a delicacy.
Funny or harmless though they may seem, these jokes inflict emotional anxiety and pain on me and other members of the Middlebury community. When I’m hit with a corona beer joke or meme, I don’t laugh, or think of fun Saturday party scenes; instead, faces of my family, friends and loved ones flood me all at once. My anxiety spikes every morning as I check my phone for the latest updates on the number of people affected. Often, these numbers represent names to me. They are tangible and all-too real.
I urge the Middlebury College community to refrain from and stand up against offensive jokes targeted at marginalized groups. Nothing too dramatic (no need to “cancel” anyone just because they send you an inappropriate meme). Simply let them know what’s problematic and, if you can, why.
Starting this week, I pray for less social media popularity.
Rain Ji '23 is an Arts & Academics editor for The Campus.
(02/13/20 9:17pm)
The Panthers hosted the Conn College on Saturday, Feb. 1. Middlebury held a 16–8 advantage over the Camels during the first ten minutes of the game, thanks to impressive play from Reagan McDonald ’23 and Maya Davis ’20. During the second quarter, however, the Camels secured 18 out of the first 24 points, which brought the game to a stalemate 34–34 at half time. The two teams had intense exchanges during the third quarter, and Davis and Michaela Sullivan ’22 collaborated to score points. During the last quarter, with less than 7 minutes remaining, Middlebury was able to catch up to the Camels after seven straight points. Unfortunately, the Panthers could not turn the tide and lost the game 87–80.
Sullivan performed outstandingly in this game, scoring a career-high 25 points. In regards to the game, she said, “Losing to Connecticut wasn’t an easy pill to swallow. Despite the loss, we outscored them in the fourth quarter, which shows how unwilling we were to give up, and I’m really proud of the way we fought until the end. At the end of the day, it’s about working hard, becoming better basketball players, enjoying each other’s company, and having fun.”
On Feb. 6, Middlebury traveled to Massachusetts to compete against Emmanuel College. The Saints opened the game with a 6-point edge over the Panthers, and in 10 minutes, they had a 25–17 lead. Middlebury fought hard to come back during the second quarter. Claire Miller ’23 and McDonald shot impressive back-to-back threes, and two teams scored evenly during the second quarter. Regrettably, the Panthers had a tough time during the third quarter, even after incredible plays from Alana Kornaker ’22. With a mere 4 minutes remaining on the clock, Middlebury continued to work to shrink the difference, but lost to Emmanuel 82–89.
The Panthers had a bumpy start in their game against Wesleyan on Feb. 9, as the Cardinals led a steady 10-point advantage during the first quarter. Middlebury was able to reduce the point difference somewhat during the second stanza, but Wesleyan persisted in their attacks. Thankfully, McDonald was able to cut the disadvantage for Middlebury as she scored back-to-back. During the last quarter, the Panthers cut the deficit to 76–66 with a minute remaining. Betsy Knox ’20 tallied up six points, while Kira Waldman ’20 scored consecutive layups. The Cardinals overpowered the Panthers 84–70.
Recounting the week McDonald said, “Although the past few games have not gone on our way, we are remaining positive and keeping our team morale high. As a team, we are focusing on working together and celebrating both individual and team success.”
The Panthers will challenge the Jumbos at Tufts on Friday, Feb. 14.
(01/23/20 11:10am)
On Tuesday, Jan. 14, the Panthers and the Engineers fought an exciting and tightly-contested game. Middlebury led Worcester Polytechnic Institute with a 21–11 advantage with only a minute left on the clock in the first quarter. However, the Engineers showed no signs of backing down in the second and third quarters, the teams were neck and neck with Middlebury holding only a one point advantage in both quarters. Kamryn You Mak ’23 helped the Panthers gain a higher margin when she first defended a three and then connected from long range. As a walk-on athlete, You Mak felt welcomed by everyone on the team. “We played well together as a team — moving and sharing the ball, talking on defense, and helping each other out,” she said.
Middlebury’s record suffered a blow from a loss to Colby on Friday, Jan. 17. The game remained a tie during the first two quarters until the Mules topped the Panthers by one point heading into the last quarter. During the fourth quarter, the Mules stepped up and tallied 16 out of 18 of the first points of the period. Although Middlebury tried to come back, the Panthers ultimately fell 48–62. Betsy Knox ’20 broke the blocked shots record held by Catherine Harrison ’19 and became the school’s all-time leader with 109.
The Panthers were unable to bounce back from the loss as they also fell to Bowdoin the following day, Jan. 18. The team had a hard-fought battle with the second-ranked Polar Bears. Bowdoin had a six point advantage over Middlebury at the end of the first quarter, and its advantage grew larger as the second quarter was closed out with a score of 32–25. In the third quarter, Middlebury worked tirelessly to close the gap from 44–27 with five minutes left on the clock to 46–32. Unfortunately, Polar Bears eventually secured a 80–61 win over Middlebury. Maya Davis ’20 led the scoreboard with 21 points, followed by Kira Waldman ’20 with 13, Reagan McDonald ’23 with 11, and Knox who put up 10.
Middlebury will face Williams on the road on Saturday, Jan. 25, before returning home Friday, Jan. 31 to host Trinity.
(01/23/20 11:04am)
Every winter, Middlebury attracts visiting scholars and professionals who bring innovative J-Term classes to campus that not only challenge students in all disciplines, but often extend beyond the constraints of normal lectures. This year, visiting instructors discuss Vermont’s food system, build Japanese tea houses and uncover the workings of Vermont’s Supreme Court.
Visiting instructors undertake a rigorous vetting process led by the Curriculum Committees headed by Dean of Curriculum and Professor of Psychology Suzanne Gurland. The committee balances a variety of high quality classes that can satisfy the student body’s general interest. (Read about how the college picks its J-Term professors here)
Some of this year’s winter courses share the theme of political advocacy, storytelling and social activism through different prisms.
Eleni Schirmer, a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and former co-president of the Teaching Assistants’ Association, teaches “Educational Change and Teachers Strike.” The class begins with a discussion of major issues currently faced by teachers’ unions while considering today’s economic and political context. Key questions the class explores throughout the month include whether teachers’ unions improve or undermine democracy, the relationship between teachers and the working class, and the history of teachers’ unions.
After outlining the major themes, Schirmer dives deeper into each topic using specific case studies, such as teachers’ strikes in Chicago and Los Angeles. Since teachers’ strikes garnered much national attention in 2019, Schirmer notes that students in this year’s course are more fluent in basic concepts related to unions. Ultimately, Schirmer wants to share with students the complexity behind bringing democracy to workplaces and schools. “I have personal activist experience and a certain amount of academic expertise, and I try to bring both into the classroom because I think they’re both valuable,” she said.
She designs the classroom dynamic to resemble an employer-employee relationship rather than that of professor and student. From the first day, students collectively bargain with her to set up a contract. This teaching method is highly regarded by her students. “[Professor Schirmer] employs so many interesting teaching techniques and activities, and facilitates discussion really wonderfully,” said Caitlin Barr ’22.5. Schirmer’s unique experience as both activist and scholar brings valuable perspectives to the issue of teachers’ unions and educational change in America.
While Schirmer’s class focuses on a specific cause in the grand scheme of political activism, Phil Aroneanu ’06.5 and Deborah Moore explore how to conduct successful campaigns in broader terms in their class “Waging Winning Campaigns: How to Advocate for Change.”
[pullquote speaker="Phil Aroneanu '06.5" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]I think it’s important for students at Middlebury to understand how power works in the world, and in particular, at a college.[/pullquote]
Aroneanu wants to reconnect with the Middlebury community and teach a class on campaigns because he feels “there is a lot of student activism but not a ton of investment from nonprofits that provides the nuts and bolts of how to run a campaign.”
“There is a hunger for applied skills to make real changes in the world,” Moore, parent of a Middlebury alumna, said. They decided to co-teach the class after a mutual acquaintance introduced them to each other.
Throughout the class, students design and implement a campaign strategy using tactics they learn in the class, such as writing press releases and op-eds. Additionally, the class has an opportunity to travel to the Vermont State Legislature to meet with elected officials and advocate for their issues.
Instead of solely focusing on one type of activism, they look at issues ranging from civil rights, to healthcare, to immigration rights. They also discuss causes across the political spectrum.
“I think it’s important for students at Middlebury to understand how power works in the world, and in particular, at a college,” said Aroneanu. “I hope to see students integrate civic engagement into their lives, because that’s what democracy requires,” said Moore.
In a similar vein, Kim Gagne teaches a class on advocacy and story-telling. He was previously a MiddCORE mentor and jumped at the opportunity to teach a course this winter. Gagne’s career is equal parts nonlinear and impressive: from a high school teacher in Texas, to an attorney in D.C., to foreign service officer in Haiti and Saudi Arabia and to policy campaign manager in Europe. Because of his own experience, he wants students to realize that the critical thinking and writing skills they acquire from their liberal arts education will be of immense value to them for the rest of their lives. In “Controlling the Narrative: Legal, Diplomatic, and Political Advocacy,” Gagne explains that advocacy entails something completely different in today’s political landscape. “We used to think of Clark Gifford when we think of advocacy in the old time.” However, good advocacy includes elements such as “direct outreach” and “influencer outreach.” In order to help students better understand each element, he invites many speakers who, according to Gagne, are “people at the absolute top of the discipline.”
For their final project, students examine what happens behind the scenes of a chosen advocacy project and analyze the tactics that it used. Gagne hopes that after his class, students will be able to look at campaigns happening around them and understand them on a deeper level. Essentially, advocacy is about how to properly present your story when adversarial narratives exist, according to Gagne. “Life is about storytelling,” Gagne said. “That’s how you persuade people.”
Similar to Gagne’s course, Joel Fendelman, an award-winning producer, aspires to tell socially-conscious stories in his professional career. This winter term, he teaches “Voice Through Documentary” after being encouraged to do so by his co-producer, Assistant Professor of Writing and Rhetoric James Chase Sanchez.
[pullquote speaker="Kim Gagne" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Life is about storytelling. That's how you persuade people.[/pullquote]
Fendelman hopes to teach this course as an opportunity to share with students what it means to find their own voice. “There could be something that spans the artistic spectrum that you may not even think of as documentary,” he said. In order to help students move past their preconceived notions about documentaries, he assigned a variety of documentaries in the first week.
From there, an intensive three-week preparation period begins, during which Fendelman works alongside his students to provide them with guidance. Since students come from different backgrounds, the technical aspect of filmmaking is the most challenging. To combat this, he assigns students LinkedIn video-making tutorials, and even inexperienced students can quickly reach a basic level of proficiency.
Fendelman hopes students can plow through the plethora of techniques and find the one that they truly connect with. He emphasizes that a person must first recognize their own individuality in order to tell a unique story.
Following a year of widespread activism in Hong Kong, Paris and Algiers, among others, these classes show an urge from visiting professors and students to study and scrutinize political advocacy and storytelling techniques together.
(12/05/19 11:03am)
What happens when an epidemic challenges traditional societal structure? “One Flea Spare,” which ran each night from Nov. 21 to Nov. 23 at Wright Memorial Theatre, explored precisely that.
Written by Naomi Wallace, the play “One Flea Spare” is set in London during the Great Plague of 1665. Morse (Emily Ma ’21), the 12-year-old daughter of a servant, and Bunce (Will Koch ’21), a transient sailor, sneak into the wealthy household of Darcy (Katie Marshall ’21) and William Snelgrave (local actor Gary Smith). As the house becomes quarantined, the four are forced to live together in the same space, guarded by Kabe (James Peacock ’21), who occasionally delivers news and supplies to the bunch. From there, the rigid class divisions, traditional power dynamics and normative gender relations that separate them quickly fall apart.
Wallace’s poetic language was a challenging element of the play’s production, yet actors did a marvelous job unfolding their characters in engaging and convincing ways. The success can be attributed to the conscientious effort actors put into each character and the astounding collaboration between the cast and Director and Associate Professor of Theatre Claudio Medeiros ’90. In a play with only a few characters, each one must add a level of complexity to tell a cogent story.
The character of Darcy solicited much sympathy from the audience. Dressed up meticulously in a multilayered dress with her neck and hands perfectly covered, Darcy appears initially to simply be an upper-class woman with maternal tendencies, yet as the story develops, the audience slowly finds out about the trauma that she has experienced. “Darcy is curious, youthful, and intelligent. To me, Darcy’s scars and trauma are what make her so beautiful and interesting as a character. That’s why it’s so heartbreaking when she talks about her life before the fire and what it felt like to actually be loved,” Marshall said.
In order to best play this character, whose life differed significantly from Marshall’s, she tried her best to “find linkages between our lives and then add in the layers of age and trauma.” In addition, to best resemble the character with historical accuracy, she “developed specific physical vocabulary for the ways that she would carry herself on stage and react to her surroundings.” Marshall portrayed Darcy, who possesses intense sexual desires hidden under her appropriate facade, exceptionally well.
Gary Smith passionately played the role of William Snelgrave. The character’s arrogance and pretentiousness conveyed such overwhelming condescendence that it was at times repulsive. Medeiros was thrilled that a professional actor joined the cast, and he commended the way Smith carried himself during rehearsals. “[Smith] modeled in a very quiet, unassuming and unobtrusive way,” Medeiros said. The character left people wondering what could possibly be beneath a self-proclaimed righteous facade.
The play began and ended with Morse. Within seconds of her appearance on stage, the audience’s attention was tightly gripped by her monologue. Her role, according to Ma, is “the driving force in upending power dynamics throughout the play, symbolizing the flea during the time of the plague.” Morse is no easy character to take on, and the significant age and intellectual gap between Morse and Ma made the character tricky. “Although Morse has gone through more than most have in a lifetime, she sees the world through a child’s eyes,” Ma said. “Once I approached the play through her perspective, the poetic language slowly made sense and the difficult emotional content sang even clearer.”
Bunce was an exciting character to say the least. In the beginning, he was made an interim servant by the Snelgraves. But after getting a taste of what an upper-class gentleman has — socks, shoes and cane — it became impossible for Bunce to return complacently to his place on the social ladder. Playing such a dynamic character posed its difficulties for Koch. “One of the challenging parts about working through this character has been his intimacy with death, and finding the humor and the joy in the character despite the hardship that he’s endured up to this point in his life,” Koch said. “It’s something that’s not immediately evident when going through the text, and it was so fun to uncover this aspect of the character as the process developed.”
Kabe garnered the most laughter from the audience. Indeed, when he sucked Morse’s toe and kissed her feet, audiences gasped audibly. Kabe has a mildly ribald sense of humor that felt simple and authentic. The exchanges between Kabe and Morse highlight volatile gender relations through acts of seduction. Peacock’s way of calling out of the death tolls was shockingly casual, brilliantly casting him as an indecent character — yet what is decency in a time of widespread epidemic?
[pullquote speaker="Claudio Medeiros" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]I hope Wallace’s vision is a warning, not just a dream.[/pullquote]
Tackling the play’s difficult poetic language required endless patience and hard work from the actors and Medeiros, and fostered a close relationship among the cast and director. Medeiros congratulated the professionalism and dedication student actors showed towards the play. “It always felt to me as if I was dealing with a company of professional actors,” he said.
Reciprocally, cast members appreciated the relationships they developed with Medeiros. “Claudio has been really good about giving us agency during this process at finding out what the language means, while also engaging us in incredibly thought provoking discussions to find the answers,” Koch said.
What makes the play shockingly relevant is its political subtext. As an American playwright, Wallace purposely sets the play in a foreign place and time to allow detached observances and reflections. The play was originally inspired partly by the 1992 Los Angeles riots yet parallels are still clear today.
“When considering how the play resonates today, we might think of the widening gap between the rich and the poor in the United States of America, or the various uprisings happening around the world – whether against police brutality, totalitarianism, or the ravages of neoliberal capitalism,” Medeiros said. “I hope Wallace’s vision is a warning, not just a dream.”
Both Koch and Ma spoke to the significance of the play in today’s world. “The student social climate at Middlebury tackles these issues all the time,” Koch said, “and I think people who care about fighting social inequality and injustice will see this play as a relevant commentary on what’s going right now.”
Ma echoed this sentiment, saying that “I think this show confronts power structures that we often accept as irrevocable truths and how previously oppressed people behave when they are suddenly thrust into positions of power.”
After the show, audience members spoke highly of the play.
“What a weird show,” Will Napper ’23 said. “I loved it!”
(12/05/19 10:51am)
They say don’t let rejection get to you because you will face a lot more rejections than acceptances in life. That was true during my college application process, but that was even more true when I sat at the Atwater, Ross and Proctor dining halls a few weeks ago, asking people to take the Zeitgeist for The Campus. In this case, “rejection” didn’t mean polite “no”s, or “sorry I’m in a rush”s; instead, it meant indifferent and churlish responses ranging from rolled-eyes, harsh “I don’t care at all”s, to robbery of all available chocolate and sweets on the table without any acknowledgement of me or my partner. These rejections were not a rejection of the survey, but rather a rejection of my presence, of me.
What’s worse about these rejections is that, unlike my college application decisions, they did not come with statements like “after careful consideration,” “we regret to inform you”, or “we wish you the best,” nor did they come from complete strangers. These rejections came from people I share classes with, people that live down the hall; people that I share this campus with. As a first-year, it is particularly anxiety-inducing to sit (sometimes alone) and face crowds of people. Had I just sat quietly, I would have expected to be ignored. But I was actively approaching people, as respectfully as I possibly could — and yet I was still subjected to the ridicule which comes from being treated with ignorance, contempt and apathy.
People are busy. Especially on this campus. Even as a first-year, I recognize the amount of effort it takes to keep up with academics, work, athletics and other commitments at Middlebury. Not everyone has time for a five-minute survey, and I respect that. It sure can be annoying to be stopped by a random person and asked, “Have you taken the all-student survey sent out by The Campus?” at lunch time. Still, the simplest and best thing to do if you are indeed in a rush is to say “Sorry, I’m busy” and go on about your day. I would not and will never be offended by how busy you are, or if you don’t want to take a survey. That is totally understandable. But I was deeply offended by the blatant indifference and disrespect that people self-justify because they believe they have more important tasks to complete. Perhaps you do not have time to answer a survey, but everyone has the time to acknowledge someone’s existence. Saying “Sorry, I’ve got to run” takes less than three seconds. And those three seconds make someone feel seen and respected.
I have made this mistake myself. Often, when I am asked by someone outside of Ross if I’d like to learn about their projects, I pretend to not notice and go about my day, comforting myself that my behavior is justified because I had to go to class. I learned my lesson the hard way, as with tabling for The Campus survey I was subjected to the same attitude of indifference and carelessness.
This type of indifferent attitude is not just adopted towards people who promote various kinds of activities by tabling outside of dining halls. In fact, it is a lot more prevalent than we might think. While rushing about our day, we slam the door on the person right behind us, or we don’t acknowledge the dining hall staff when they greet us. We do many other discourteous things in the name of being busy, while, in reality, we still have the time to at least show basic decency through treating those that approach us with good intentions and respect.
Perhaps you will never have to promote something, ask someone for a favor, or otherwise need help. If that’s the case, then I congratulate you on your incredible ability to accomplish everything by yourself (though you should still consider treating others humanely). And just in case you have the slightest chance of someday needing someone’s assistance, then I advise you to avoid displays of disregard, disrespect and disdain, especially to your peers.
Middlebury is a small place and one that I, like many others, take pride in. When we all do our best, it is a supportive and loving community, filled with talented, diverse and amazing people. Let’s re-examine how we treat others who are simply trying to help build that community. Let’s treat each other with civility and courtesy.
Rain Ji is a member of the class of 2023 and a layout editor for The Campus.
(11/21/19 11:00am)
(11/21/19 11:00am)
Roughly 25 students participated in a peaceful protest on Thurs., Nov. 14, during a lecture by Ishmael Khaldi, Israel’s first Bedouin diplomat and a former soldier in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Khaldi spoke at the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs about his experience facilitating conversations between Bedouins and Jews in Israel.
The event was co-sponsored by the Modern Hebrew Department, the Middle Eastern Studies Department and the Israel Institute, a D.C.-based non-advocacy organization that “enhances knowledge about modern Israel through the expansion of accessible, innovative learning opportunities, on and beyond campus,” according to its website.
Tamar Mayer, who invited Khaldi in her capacity as the director of the Modern Hebrew Department, felt he had a valuable perspective about the minority experience in Israel.
“Inviting an Israeli Bedouin Palestinian to tell his story and to provide an analysis of what it means to be a minority in Israel would be of interest to our community, especially since such perspective has not yet been heard in Middlebury,” she said.
Khaldi has experience speaking about this topic — he started a project called Hike and Learn with Bedouins in the Galilee to start conversations between Bedouins and Jews, and he is the author of “A Shepherd’s Journey: the story of Israel’s first Bedouin diplomat.”
However, protest organizers wanted to use Khaldi’s lecture as a platform to bring attention to human rights violations in Palestine. Organizers felt that, as a former diplomat, Khaldi represented the Israeli government and spread misinformation about Palestine on its behalf.
“Khaldi fails to acknowledge the severe human rights violations of the Palestinian people at the hands of Israel,” said Kamli Faour ’21, one of the organizers. “Most recently, his retweets have demonized the Palestinians who are imprisoned within the Gaza Strip without basic human necessities, instead, glorifying the IDF which has brutalized the Palestinian people for decades.”
Another organizer, who asked to remain anonymous due to extenuating family circumstances, said they believed that the timing of the invitation of Khaldi was insensitive. Khaldi has served in the IDF, which has engaged in heightened conflict in Gaza recently, including attacks that killed 34 Palestinians in Gaza last week.
Before the protest started, students gathered in the basement of Forest Hall to prepare. Organizers Faour, Emily Romero Rodriguez ’20 and the anonymous student organizer first briefly discussed the purpose of the protest and shared with the group what they considered problematic about Khaldi. They distributed black and white posters that read “End the Occupation,” “Apartheid is illegal,” “Stop bombing Gaza” and “Free Palestine.”
Participants were encouraged to take posters that resonated with them. The majority of protestors taped on their backs and under their jackets images of Handala, a figure created by Palestinian political cartoonist Naji Al-Ali as a symbol of Palestinian resistance.
As posters and images of Handala were being distributed, the leaders also shared the college’s protest policy with the group. They told participants that SGA President Varsha Vijayakumar ’20 had given them guidelines to ensure the protest did not violate policy. They repeatedly stated that it would be a silent protest, to best follow the policy that prohibits “noise or action that disrupts the ability of the audience to hear” an event in section C. 4.(2).
The organizers also said the group consciously chose the modality of the silent protest to symbolize the voicelessness of the Palestinian people.
Participants left Forest Hall and split up at Franklin Environmental Center before proceeding to Rohatyn Center in separate groups and entering the lecture hall. After the welcome address at the lecture had concluded, three protestors stood up with a Palestinian flag, while other participants subsequently stood with different signs. Organizers hoped the diversity of the group would show that it was not only Palestinian students demonstrating.
After about a minute, the group followed Faour’s signal to leave the space and gathered outside the center.
After the protestors left, about 25 people remained for the lecture. Khaldi did not engage with the protestors, and he kept talking during and after their demonstration.
When asked what she thought of the protest, Mayer said that “Khaldi’s critique of Israeli policies regarding land appropriation, unequal rights, etc. was informative and important and I am saddened that those who demonstrated did not stay to listen.”
Dan Golstein, a junior and exchange student from the United Kingdom, shared a similar sentiment.
“I have seen walkouts happen before in this context,” he said. “They’re completely antithetical to progress. People are less informed because they haven’t listened to the other side, which is the fundamental element to finding a solution. This speaker was someone who represents a significant Arab minority in Israel, and so has valuable insight to share on the potential for cooperation.”
Despite critiques, the protestors deemed the protest successful.
“A number of us have felt anxious about voicing our pro-Palestinian voices on this campus for some time,” Faour said.“The reality is that we receive a lot of resistance from those who do not recognize that Palestine has been brutally occupied for 70 years. It is time for us to reclaim our space.”
She added, “Seeing so many students standing with Palestine was remarkable and beautiful. It is was time that we, students on Middlebury’s campus, publicly acknowledge and resist the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and recognize it for the violent violation of Palestinian human rights and dignity that it is.”
Marisa Edmondson ’20, who participated in the protest, has visited Ramallah, Palestine before, which she said has helped her understand the weight of the issue.
“You can not turn a blind eye to injustices because then you’re being complicit,” she said.
This is not the first time that Khaldi has faced various kinds of resistance on college campuses in the United States. In 2011, at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, a group of approximately 60 students also staged a silent walkout. In the same year, during Khaldi’s visit to Kent State University, former Associate Professor of History Julio Pino shouted “death to Israel!” at Khaldi’s lecture.
Khaldi has also spoken at Amherst College and Tufts University, in public and private settings, respectively, without incident.
After the walkout, Romero Rordriguez expressed a desire to stage a successful protest at Middlebury to show that protest can be a positive contribution to public discourse.
“A successfully-executed peaceful demonstration could make protest a less taboo topic at Middlebury,” she said.
Romero Rodriguez also spoke about wanting to be an ally in support of Palestinian rights.
“I came to Middlebury to become a more global citizen, to understand the nuances of things and to be able to connect with people from different backgrounds,” she said.
The anonymous organizer felt the protest was a positive example of solidarity across different groups for a common cause.
“What’s so beautiful about this protest is that those who identify [as] Americans, Arabs, Jews, Christians and Muslims all came together,” they said. “The Israeli-Palestine conflict has always been modeled as ‘Muslims vs. Jews’ or ‘Arabs vs. Israelis,’ but regardless of our different backgrounds, we all stood with human rights.”
Correction: A former version of this article reported that the Jewish Studies Department also co-sponsored the talk. This information was incorrect, and has since been amended.
(11/14/19 11:02am)
After months of anticipation, The Stone Mill had its grand opening on Saturday, Nov. 9. By 10 a.m., Stacey Rainey and Mary Cullinane, owners of The Stone Mill, were ready to welcome customers from Middlebury and nearby towns. According to the Community Barn Ventures website, the building now has five floors, featuring a public market with the Lost Monarch Coffee, a co-working space, four lodging units and The Mad Taco restaurant. Rainey was excited about the Stone Mill’s soft opening two weeks ago, and that the space is now ready to welcome more people from the community. “The co-working space upstairs is going well,” she said, “and the [AirBnB] rooms will be available starting Sunday.”
Lost Monarch Coffee was many people’s first stop as they entered the public market. Head Brewer Daniel Gutierrez ’23 has been in the coffee industry for over five years. As he began his academic life at Middlebury this year, he hoped to continue his passion for coffee nearby. Luckily, he was offered an opportunity by Aless and Matt Delia-Lôbo, owners of Royal Oak Coffee, the sister brand of Lost Monarch Coffee. He hopes that the coffee shop can become a community hub. “So many beautiful relationships and connections take place at a cafe,” Gutierrez said. “There is so much value to a common space in town.”
Residents welcomed this addition to Middlebury. “I love the idea of having a good coffee shop in town,” said Susan James, a Middlebury resident, “especially when it’s open on the weekends.” Dan Golstein, a Middlebury College exchange student from the UK, was very pleased with his latte. “The milk wasn’t overly fluffy and it was perfectly smooth,” he said. “The strength of the coffee hits just right.”
Nina Ng ’23 enjoyed her Gibraltar coffee, too. “It’s a smooth light blend,” she said. “The undertone of sourness freshens up the coffee.”
The public market is divided into individual spaces dedicated for Slate Home, Vermont Book Shop, The Stone Mill Collection and Dedalus Wine Shop. “We wanted to make the space flexible for everyone,” Rainey said. Cullinane envisioned the place to be a destination for the community. “Visitors can come to celebrate everything that is great about Vermont,” she said. Slate Home features a variety of beautiful products ranging from blankets, earrings to wallets. The Stone Mill Collection has a variety of Rainey and Cullinane’s favorite things that are made available now for community members or visitors to shop. Notably, the public market sells products of Skida, a brand created by Corinne Prevot ’13 in high school, which she expanded during her years at Middlebury College. Rainey intentionally chose to introduce the cashmere Skida line to decrease competition with other local businesses that sell the traditional line.
The Stone Mill terrace, although icy and bare on Saturday, was noticed by many. “It would be a great space for a cup of coffee with a book during spring time,” Rainey said. Many customers look forward to stepping outside and enjoying the view of Otter Creek once the weather gets warmer. Derek Fallon and Ali Dwienll from Vergennes, Vermont visited on Saturday. “We’ve been to Mad Taco a couple of times, it’s really good. We’re excited for this new place because it’s always nice to have more things that bring people into town.”
At 11 a.m., as more people filled the space, Ingrid gave customers a tour of the space upstairs. The co-working space is delicately decorated with wall art, and the view outside of the windows is simply breath-taking. There is an after-hour staircase and elevator designated for the co-working space as well as the lodge units. As of now, there are two private phone booths, two private offices, a conference room, a kitchen and an open working space. The rent is set at $125 per month, and the space has attracted 18 individuals to sign up so far.
The lodge area was put together by Slate Home. The decoration is thoughtful, consistent and elegant. With carefully chosen rugs to make the place home-like, many visitors expressed their wishes to spend special occasions there. “This is totally exciting,” said Jolene Newton, academic coordinator of the French Department at Middlebury. “I think the mixed use of the space is very smart.”
Stepping out of the public market, many were attracted to The Mad Taco. By noon, the space was packed with eager customers. Nina Ng said the Yam taco was exceptionally good. “Layers of black beans, roasted yam, sweet potato, and shredded pickled cabbage create a very hearty taco,” she said. “The coriander adds an element of freshness to lighten up the entire taco with more richness.” Amina Matavia ’23 enjoyed an Al Pastor taco. She said, “I’m no food critic, but I really enjoyed the taco. The meat was shredded finely and it was very flavorful.”
The Old Stone Mill really has it all: a place to work, spend the night, drink coffee, shop Vermont products and enjoy tacos. Cullinane hopes that the multi-dimensional space will expand and grow to be another social hub for the local community and beyond.
“It’s a collection of wonderful people doing wonderful things,” she said.
(11/14/19 11:02am)
“Hey guys, my name is Destini.”
“And my name is Megan.”
“And we are two black girls, at a predominantly white institution; trying to survive, at a predominantly white institution; and here’s the latest tea, at a predominantly white institution.”
This is how each and every episode of BLCKGRLMGC, a podcast started by Destini Armstrong ’21 and Megan Job ’21, begins. The podcast has a light-hearted tone, often filled with laughter and relatable commentary from Job and Armstrong. Alienation, inclusivity and sense of belonging — issues common to women of color at a predominately white institution (PWI) like Middlebury — are among the important themes of the podcast.
The two hosts started the podcast two years ago, during the spring of their first year on campus. Both hail from New York City, making the transition to rural, predominantly white Middlebury a uniquely challenging experience.
The podcast originated from an idea that Job’s friend had, and eventually the two decided to use podcasts as a platform to tell their stories at the college. Job believed that the value of the podcast lies in using storytelling to show the potential challenges that students of color face at a PWI. “What does it come down to? I want to talk about those tiny things that people don’t mention, such as how intimidating a group project may be and how it makes you feel so small.” Armstrong shared a similar sentiment in an interview. “I think it’s nice to know that we can put something out there that can help other people because we have heard that a lot of people are relating, that is all we want to do.” Job was glad that people find their podcast helpful. “Giving comfort to other women of color in similar situations is such a good feeling,” she said.
Armstrong and Job pick their topic through a variety of means. Sometimes topics arise from the hosts’ personal experiences. “Megan might come back and be like, ‘oh my god this made me so frustrated [and] I can’t accept it’,” Armstrong said. Other times they hope to use the platform to address underclassmen specifically because they may need more advice and help to feel more at ease on campus.
The majority of the podcast’s audience is Middlebury students, including people who are abroad. Other listeners include Armstrong and Job’s friends from home. Armstrong initially presumed that there are more people of color listening because the themes seemed more immediately relevant. She added, however, that “a lot of white students come up to us and they’re like ‘we listened to your podcast, it’s such an eye-opener.’” Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric Hector Vila sometimes suggests topics, and many others also pitch topics to Armstrong and Job directly.
They are open to anything as long as the topic is related to the general theme of their podcast. Some of the interesting topics the podcast has covered include interracial dating culture on campus (“Episode 5 — White is Right?”), how professors teaching to the majority of classroom leaves students from underprivileged high schools at disadvantages (“Episode 25 — Mind The Gap”) and struggles with natural hair (“Episode 12 — Hair’s the Latest Scoop”).
Their hard work has garnered much recognition. After two years, they have produced 38 episodes, and on Apple Podcast, 71 ratings give them 5/5. Further, in April 2019, Armstrong and Job were awarded The Angels Award, which honors a sophomore woman of color who demonstrates leadership, scholarship and activism. To both, it was a recognition of their excellent podcast project. “It was exciting and humbling to know that people actually listen. We went in not knowing who is going to listen but people can actually relate which we found awesome,” Armstrong said.
The production process of the podcast has changed very little over the course of the past two years. When they first started, Armstrong and Job recorded every episode with GarageBand in either person’s room and took turns editing the recording. Armstrong is currently in a class about podcasting and is learning about new methods and techniques that could improve the quality of the podcast. “But it’s always been just talking into a laptop or mic and see what comes out of that,” she said.
[pullquote speaker="Destini Armstrong" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]When you first come to college you have this idea of what college is. You are very much hopeful that you’re going to be part of that imagination. And then it became clear that we weren’t. It was very hard to transition out of that mentality.[/pullquote]
The breadth and depth of the podcast has developed. Topics grew to cover more diverse narratives by including the voices of individuals of different races and genders, and the tone, though still passionate, comes with more sangfroid, and demonstrates their composure under circumstances and topics that can often be emotionally trying. “When you first come to college you have this idea of what college is. You are very much hopeful that you’re going to be part of that imagination. And then it became clear that we weren’t. It was very hard to transition out of that mentality,” Armstrong said when asked about the reason behind this shift in tone.
Indeed, underneath the surface of jokes and anecdotes in the first few episodes there was embedded frustration. “When we first made it in spring of freshman year, we hated it here,” Armstrong continued, “But as semesters go on, you begin to adapt to the environment and you become more accepting. As I got older, I’m handling a lot better. Acceptance gets stronger.”
As the podcast went on, the hosts took a step back to look at the bigger picture, and invited their friends to speak about their experiences. While the show is still centered on the experiences of women of color, it expanded its discussion of the themes encountered in these experiences by including a wider variety of perspectives. Specifically, they invited their white friend who transferred from Dartmouth to Columbia because of the unbearable frat culture at the former to tell her story, which raised the important question of the true meaning of fitting in (“Episode 30 — It’s Not Just Us”). “Once you realize that this is just a foundation you have and you can do so much more [beyond college], you start to really develop,” Armstrong said.
This year, as Job is studying abroad in Brazil, the traditional dynamic of the production is challenged for the first time. When asked about the future of the podcast, Armstrong and Job seemed unsure. “I think it’s definitely one step at a time,” Armstrong said, “like Meg being abroad was definitely a transition, and I will be studying abroad in China in the spring, so we don’t really know the bigger picture yet.” However, they are open to leaving the podcast to the college as a platform for people to utilize and develop upon.
“I definitely have anxiety so I can’t look at the future like that,” Job said. “But I feel like Destini and I are becoming older and we are getting more and more preoccupied with our careers. I definitely would love to keep it going, because it’s a journey that is very important.”
(11/07/19 11:03am)
Throat singing, multilingual monologues, aerial dance, hyperfemininity, hypermasculinity, Max Ernst aesthetics, blood, violence, sexual references and many more contrasting and disparate elements came together last weekend at the Mahaney Arts Center. The 90 minutes of Director and Assistant Professor of Theatre Michole Biancosino’s interpretation of “The Bacchae 2.1” ran from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2 at Seeler Studio Theatre. The production starred Kevin Collins ’20 (as Pentheus) and Marci Urban ’22.5 , Cecelia Scheuer ’21 and Zachary Varricchione ’21 (all three as Dionysus), with music by visiting artist Neel Murgai and Ronnie Romano ’20. Murgai looked to Hindu Shiva for inspiration while adopting different ragas and improvising throughout the show.
“Bacchae” was written by Euripides in the fifth century B.C. as a perplexing and disturbing study of the clash and struggle between wilderness and civilization. This Greek tragedy, along with other pre-existing texts, were appropriated and adapted into a new creation by Charles Mee in 1993. Mee’s version incorporated much more violence and sexual reference while also adding layers to the discussion of the complexity of human nature. Gender relations, suppression, identity, dialectics and plurality all became subjects of interest to Mee.
Yet Biancosino made the play into, as she says, “a Bacchae 2.1a or 3.1.” When she began working with the company on this rather messy play with “jarring juxtapositions,” as she phrased it, Biancosino took it as a creative challenge to sort out how far they can go with some of the ideas dealt with in the play. She and the actors worked hard to fill the play with humanity while preserving its poetic nature. After all the creative and artistic additions to the play, the core of the show still lies in its discussion of otherness, which gives it relevance in any historical context.
The significance of putting on a show that discusses modernity, civilization and otherness is not trivial at the college. Biancosino believed that “The Bacchae 2.1” is inherently an acknowledgement to the people who don’t fit in and to the otherness that barely has space at a “white institution that’s known as a ‘pillar of civilization.’”
The tone of Biancosino’s “The Bacchae” was exactly that: She was careful, conscientious and creative with how to present otherness at the college in 2019. She started with tossing out the inflammatory parts in Mee’s version and bringing in other voices, including works of queer writers and writers of color. These elements created a poetic and more comprehensive understanding of the world. Further, Biancosino purposefully made the connotation of the color orange ambiguous: A tainted and deceptive orange downplays its symbolism as the “Eastern color” used in Mee’s interpretation.
The representation of otherness is detail-oriented, evident through how makeup was a means to showcase and discern various groups of characters. Stern blue suits with minimal makeup made Pentheus look “strict and conservative,” while the women in the mountains have “whimsical and outgoing” looks to help establish their characters, said makeup artist Devon Hunt ’23.
Further, Biancosino pondered how to bring otherness on stage in novel ways. Her most daring redesign was to use a multilingual approach including German, Spanish, Mandarin, Bengali, ASL and others. Indeed, what’s a more Middlebury thing to do than showcasing students’ linguistic talents? This was at times disorienting. As the Lavender Woman (Nuasheen Chowdhury ’22) began speaking Bengali, evident gasps among audiences reveal how some felt utterly lost. But the value of this approach lies in its ability to force audiences to move pass literal meanings, and propel the audience to look at otherness in a uniquely Middlebury way.
The actors were able to bring this complicated show together in a short seven weeks, and they each contributed their unique understanding of its message to the performance. Director Biancosino allowed a great deal of freedom for actors when exploring their characters.
“As an actor, I had to let go of my dependence on rationality and logic in order to fully engage with and find meaning in this play’s poetic and visceral language,” Gabby Valdivieso ’20 (tattoo artist) said. In order to develop her character, she “explored the history of how women with tattoos have been perceived — from tattooed women put on display as sideshow attractions to tattoos not aligning with conventional ideas of femininity to feminist beliefs in empowerment and body ownership.” In a similar way, Madeline Ciocci ’20 (Agave) said her character “has a complete shift at the end of the play, where she gets primal and animalistic, and afterwards, she seems like a totally different person. She is much more real and raw at the end." In order to best present such a drastic shift, she is conscious of her postures, language and how she interacts with other characters.
The actors’ diligent inputs led to commends among audiences. The intensity of the play left many in awe as they leave the studio. There was so much to grab the audience’s attention and people were invariably drawn to different things: as some focused on the image of blossoming rose on the backdrop, some looked at the chatty Bacchae aside and others stared at the musician.
Bair Lambert ’22, who played a supporting role in the play, said days before the play that he hoped audiences would walk out thinking “What the f**k!” I certainly felt that way, and many around me concurred. “The Bacchae 2.1” was not a narrative, nor a story, but an experience, an utterly intense one that impels deep reflections about otherness.
