Advanced Search - The Middlebury Campus (2025)

Students and faculty debate the merits of A.I. in classrooms

(04/03/25 10:00am)

Middlebury does not currently have an institutional policy dictating how artificial intelligence (A.I.) should be used in the classroom, which leaves the decision up to individual professors. In an attempt to encourage intentional A.I. use in academic instruction, the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Research (CTLR) and the Office of Digital Learning & Inquiry (DLINQ) recently hosted a series of workshops for professors and peer writing tutors that focused on strategies and techniques for implementing A.I. as a tool for learning.

MacKenzie Scott donates $20 million to Champlain Housing Trust, aiding Vermont’s housing crisis

(10/12/23 10:01am)

The Champlain Housing Trust — the largest community land trust in the U.S. — received a $20 million donation from MacKenzie Scott through her philanthropist fund, Yield Giving. The contribution marks the largest donation the trust has received in its nearly 40 years of work towards providing affordable homes and related community assets in northwest Vermont, a region facing an ongoing housing crisis amidst a broader state-wide shortage.

Thinking outside the box: Mail center adapts to mailbox shortage, plans new system

(09/21/23 10:01am)

Back-to-school is always a busy time of year, especially at the mail center. It’s a guarantee that students will order larger items directly to school during move-in or have to place last-minute orders when they realize which dorm decorations they are missing. This year, however, on top of the typical early semester mail center commotion, there is a shortage of available mailboxes.

JP Morgan Chase Bank Funds the Climate Crisis. Is It Time for Middlebury to Dump Chase?

(12/08/22 11:03am)

Sunday Night Environmental Group (SNEG) has asked Middlebury College to re-evaluate its relationship with JP Morgan Chase Bank, the world’s largest funder of fossil fuels. Chase continues to fund new fossil fuel investment at a time when the global climate crisis is worsening. As student activists, we question the college’s reliance on Chase Bank in the wake of the principled commitments made to renewable energy in Energy 2028. Middlebury College relies on JP Morgan Chase for a sector of its day-to-day financial operations and utilizes Chase for its purchasing cards (p-cards), a form of payment hardware intended to facilitate transactions for large institutions. SNEG is actively exploring sustainable finance courses of action that align with the college’s environmental values.

Barbara Harding: I Bought A Bookstore and Quit My Job

(10/14/21 10:00am)

Otter Creek Used Books looks and smells exactly like what one would expect of a secondhand bookstore in rural Vermont. Hidden behind the main highway that cuts through the town, the store had a sign that announced the weekday hours and a cheeky “Sundays by chance.” Next door, a deli played jovial jazz tunes, and customers at a nearby teahouse chatted out in the sun.

A beginner’s guide to Apple TV+ originals

(04/15/21 9:59am)

Netflix and Amazon may reign over original streaming programming, but there is a new kid on the block: Apple TV+. The new platform offers a variety of original programming, from feel-good comedies to psychological thrillers. Here’s a rundown of their four most popular and exciting projects.“Servant”From the dark mind of M. Night Shyamalan (of “The Sixth Sense” fame) comes “Servant,” a psychological thriller and one of my favorite new shows. Recipe-developer Sean (Toby Kebbell) and news reporter Dorothy (Lauren Ambrose) seem like a picture-perfect couple, happily married and living in a beautiful Philadelphia home with their newborn son, Jericho. However, the arrival of a mysterious new nanny, Leanne (Nell Tiger Free), brings frightening events and shocking revelations about the couple’s past to light.Its plot unfolds slowly in a series of mysterious twists. One of the most unique aspects of “Servant” is its cinematography; the camera often drifts through rooms, peering into windows, zooming in on characters’ faces and letting viewers see dark corners. From Dorothy’s jewel-toned wardrobe to the disturbing wallpaper patterning Leanne’s room, production details are far from neglected. Beyond providing gripping entertainment, “Servant” raises interesting questions about religion, family and motherhood. The show’s plot also ponders its representations of madness and secrecy, as characters often go to extreme lengths to conceal their secrets from each other. With two seasons out now, and more in the works, there is much more to explore in this universe. “Servant” is a thrilling television show that finds its way under your skin in chilling ways, lingering with you long after the credits roll.“Ted Lasso”Jason Sudeikis plays Ted Lasso, a successful Division II American football coach from Kansas who is hired to coach AFC Richmond, a English Premier League football team, despite having no experience with the sport. An ocean away from home and utterly clueless about soccer, Ted seems set up to fail. The show follows Lasso in his attempts to lead his team to victory and win over new friends along the way.Brimming with heart and optimism, “Ted Lasso” is a joy to watch. The plot is not the most inventive, but its characters are beautifully nuanced. It’s fun to see Ted’s earnest Midwestern attitude clash with English traditions, especially in relation to his boss Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), a seemingly cold and reserved woman. The show hits an easy stride of workplace antics with a dash of soapy romance, all set against the highs and lows of competitive soccer. “Ted Lasso,” already renewed for a second and third season, may not be the funniest show on television, but it is full of campy, heart-warming fun.“The Morning Show”What happens behind the scenes at a news studio after the cameras cut and the lights fade? “The Morning Show” is a snappy drama following a news studio and its staff in the wake of a sexual assault scandal (á la Matt Lauer and “The Today Show”). After 15 years on the air, Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell) loses his job at “The Morning Show,” a highly successful news program he had hosted with Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston). Tenacious young journalist Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) steps onto the scene as Mitch’s replacement, but her fiery personality and prying attitudes continue to uncover controversy.In the wake of the #MeToo movement’s initial virality, this story remains relevant, and it is interesting to see the drama unfold through so many different perspectives. It is exhilarating and frustrating to watch Witherspoon’s fresh-faced character encounter obstacles and secrecy deeply embedded in the news network. The star-studded cast does not disappoint, and the supporting actors are equally as impressive. Although it can occasionally be exhausting to watch these characters constantly gossip and march around Manhattan on a warpath, there’s always juicy payoff in the end. “The Morning Show” is slick and stylish, and the shocking season finale sets itself up well for an upcoming season two. Ultimately, it’s always a treat to watch veteran talents like Aniston and Witherspoon really bring their all to a project.“Home Before Dark”“Home Before Dark” has all the elements of a classic mystery story: a bubbly new girl, a longstanding cold case and plenty of tight-lipped residents in a tight-knit small town.“Home Before Dark” features a young protagonist, Hilde Lisko (Brooklynn Prince), who moves from Brooklyn to her dad’s hometown in Washington state. Despite only being nine years old, she is already following in her dad’s footsteps as a budding journalist. She confronts her biggest case yet:the strange disappearance of her dad’s best friend decades ago.“Home Before Dark,” reminiscent of other Pacific Northwest murder mysteries like “Twin Peaks,” is an entertaining story elevated by its charming lead. The Washington town has a beautiful and haunting atmosphere that is perfect for the show. Prince, who rose to fame in the acclaimed film “The Florida Project,” is dazzling in this role and gives a very impressive and emotional performance. While the show can be confusing at times, “Home Before Dark” maintains solid performances and a twisty plot, making it a worthwhile watch.

Direct Your Attention: Fleabag’s unreliable narration

(03/04/21 10:56am)

Upon hearing the news that Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Donald Glover – two of my absolute favorite writer-actors – would be co-creating a series for Amazon Prime, I immediately thought I should revisit some of their earlier projects, namely Waller-Bridge’s kinetic TV show “Fleabag.” There has never been anything before or since “Fleabag” that is similar enough for it to be compared to; it stands alone as a monolith of frenetic, deeply captivating storytelling. During the opening days of the spring semester, as room quarantine bled into campus quarantine, I binged the show in its entirety — something I would normally recommend against, but for this show it felt appropriate.“Fleabag” is intensely immersive. It draws you in like a whirlpool, encircling you with a charmingly witty yet unapologetically unhinged protagonist who is never given a name. In fact, very few characters are named; instead, they are credited by either their relationship to Waller-Bridge’s character (who is dubbed online as the titular Fleabag) or by their distinguishing feature: the godmother, the arsehole man, dad and the priest, to name a few. It is in this that “Fleabag” reveals its true nature: an intentionally biased show with a fixed point of view.The show’s opening shots depict Fleabag looking at and speaking directly to the camera, talking to us as though offering advice; we are meant to see her as a coolly confident woman. ‘She’s been through this before,’ we think in these opening moments. She stands just beyond her apartment door, precisely disheveled with her jacket still on. She is waiting for someone, a man, to knock on the door and see her as if she has only just arrived home and has forgotten about their midnight rendezvous — though in actuality, she has been waiting at the door for 15 minutes or more. As the night continues, she describes to us different moments just before they happen, seeming both as though she were willing them into existence and emitting a sense of control. Yet, as the show progresses, this initial impression of Fleabag as our guide through this story slowly unravels.It is not entirely uncommon for a television character to break the fourth wall, yet “Fleabag” does it not as a cheap trick but as a key filmmaking technique. Fleabag’s interaction with the camera is fantastically complex — at times making us her friend, her confidant, her crutch, her witness, her everything and occasionally her only. She speaks to us, looks at us, relies on us, eludes us, lies to us, boasts to us and confides in us. We are her best friend and her diary, following her closely yet always under her control. We inhabit the camera, seeing through its lens as we would our own eyes. Its movement becomes our movement and when Fleabag stares into it, it is as though she is speaking directly to us.The editing follows suit, often cutting on a punchline so that Fleabag can give us her “I told you so” smirk. Each scene feels like a journal entry, offering us little to no transition as we jump headfirst into a moment. It can be initially jarring, yet to watch “Fleabag” is to relinquish control over to its protagonist, and soon the storytelling is maneuvered with ease. That is not to say, however, that this show has any sense of normalcy or routine, for each episode is entirely unique and never are we lulled into a sense of contentment. Moments fly by at 200 miles per hour, and just when you are able to grab a stable footing, she whisks you off to a new situation with new problems and a new code of discourse. We get only the information that is truly essential, and at times we are intentionally left in the dark. In one brilliant moment, Fleabag tilts the camera down towards the floor as if to say “this moment is just for me.”Because the show neglects to name so many characters, I have come to the understanding that this show is not about its characters themselves but rather about their relationship to Fleabag. Her dad (Bill Paterson) is very plainly called “Dad,” because that is how she understands him in her life. This is where “Fleabag” becomes devilishly clever. If her dad is referred to only as “Dad” (and as “darling” by his fiancée), then why would someone like her sister (Sia Clifford) not be called “sister?” But instead, the sister does have a name, Claire. It’s choices like this that pull into question the nature of their relationship, and decoding its complexities becomes an essential part of the show.“Fleabag” is a truly unique viewing experience, so wholly unlike its peers that I find myself marveling in its genius. The experience of watching “Fleabag” is what inspired me to create this column in the first place. Works of art like “Fleabag” send a rush to my heart and cause me to – literally – jump in the air in excitement about the prospect of what art can be. I got a similar feeling at the end of “Parasite,” when at its final fade to black I stood, hands on my head, mouth agape, in a dark theater in pure joy. “Fleabag” is surely one of the greatest television shows ever created, and to me there is nothing more exciting than watching a master at work.

LBJ-Courtesy-of-Amazon

(10/29/20 9:58am)

LBJ-Courtesy-of-Amazon-475x452

(10/29/20 9:58am)

“Years of Lyndon Johnson” — is not only one of the most stylishly written accounts of a modern U.S. election but is also an electrifying thriller.COURTESY OF AMAZON

A case for Evelyn Waugh: Humanity and absurdity

(09/24/20 9:58am)

As a young “​​Daily Express” correspondent, Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) once explained to a colleague the secret to success in the newspaper business. “The correct procedure [when assigned a story], is to jump to your feet, seize your hat and umbrella and dart out of the office with every appearance of haste to the nearest cinema,” Waugh said.During what is hopefully the last few months of the Trump era, recommending Evelyn Waugh can seem like a daunting task. Both Waugh's brand of Catholicism and his political views bend towards the uber-conservative, and the novels of his later years increasingly include storylines and jokes that give way to theological tirades and overwrought language.But when he stays away from untenable beliefs, Waugh’s novels reign supreme in their painstaking style and dark humor. The word “satire” almost doesn’t apply to his books; Waugh’s jokes don’t just strike the reader with their barbed venom but simply induce sheer (if at times uncomfortable) laughter.Captain Grimes in Waugh’s novel “Decline and Fall,” for instance, has taught at a number of public boys’ schools in the UK for years but is always getting fired for getting “in the soup.” Grimes remains an optimist, though, because he always gets job transfers thanks to his social class. “Besides, you see, I’m a public school man,” Grimes says. “That means everything.” Waugh deftly savages “old boy” networks here, even as he blends the tricky line between satirizing classism and trivializing the horrors of sex abuse. That same cold hilarity is found in his novels “Vile Bodies” and “Scoop,” where characters often shrug at human folly and their own emotions.For readers interested in more thoughtful literature, I still recommend Waugh for the overwhelming humanity of his two masterpieces “A Handful of Dust” and “Brideshead Revisited.” “Dust,” which recounts the fall of country aristocrat Tony Last after his wife Brenda leaves him for a younger man, has perhaps the meanest scene from any twentieth-century novel. When Brenda’s son John dies in a riding accident, for a moment, she thinks that her lover — also named John — has perished instead. Upon hearing that her boyfriend is alive, the now childless Brenda sighs, “Thank God.” It’s definitely an over-the-top scene, but we’ve all at one time or another met those wantonly self-centered beasts like Brenda Last, and few novelists capture the special banality of their narcissism more acutely than Waugh.The structure of “Dust” also allows us to — barely — digest such heinousness by balancing genuine darkness with slapstick doom. Shortly after the cuckolded Tony Last flees to the Amazon, he gets abducted by a certain Mr. Todd, a Colonel Kurtz-esque hermit who captures Tony and forces him to eternally read aloud Charles Dickens at gunpoint. I can see an icier satirist like J.M. Coetzee constructing the “Thank God” scene, and perhaps Flannery O’Connor at her weirdest might employ “Nicholas Nickleby” à la Mr. Todd. But in my mind, only one writer adeptly combines these two types of gallows humor, laughing at evil in all its pain ​and all its absurdity.And as for the sunnier anomaly of “Brideshead Revisited?” Well, a good deal of the novel’s last 200 pages play out a tad ham-fisted, particularly when Lord Marchmain — an avowed atheist and philanderer — suddenly takes Holy Communion in his last minutes, dying only after making the sign of the cross. But the book’s first 100 pages have an unvarnished sentimentality which has aged well. When the novel’s narrator Charles Ryder reflects on his college years, his comments on the features of Oxford wistfully transition into an ode to being young with one's friends. ​Charles especially misses “[Oxford’s] autumnal mists, her grey springtime, and the rare glory of her summer days — such as that day — when the chestnut was in flower and the bells rang out high and clear ... It was this cloistral hush which gave our laughter its resonance, and carried it still, joyously, over the intervening clamour.”Rereading this passage, I find myself forgetting the shock humor of “Decline and Fall” and Waugh’s later persona, that cigar-chomping right-winger outraged over the dawn of a British welfare state and the Great Scandal of the Catholic Church (its 1964 cessation of the Latin Mass). Instead, this is Waugh at his most ornate and sincere. And Charles Ryder’s ruminations about Oxford definitely echo my own joys about returning to campus for this weird, masked, and somehow beautiful semester.

Quarantine streaming recommendations

(04/16/20 10:01am)

Time is now, for many of us, no longer a luxury; it is something we possess in abundance. If you, like me, have found yourself searching for something to occupy your time at home in between a 10 a.m. wake-up and a 2 a.m. bedtime, look no further. While I may be biased, I think there is no better way to spend your time during this quarantine than by watching and rediscovering the golden age of streaming we live in. There are far too many shows and movies available online for any single person to see in a few months, and because of that, there is no shortage of critics and news outlets releasing their own streaming guide. I have read all these lists and still find them insufficient, so I have, with the help of my good friend Gabe Gilleland, devised a list of movies and television worthy of your time. They will be divided by streaming platform, so feel free to skip ahead to whichever you subscribe to, but I would also consider reading others and possibly picking up a new streaming service that suits your fancy.NetflixNetflix is a streaming behemoth, though with options aplenty, it can be even more difficult to make a decision — I personally have a list of over 75 shows and movies. I will limit my choices to just three: one film, one television show and one more suggestion that could fall into either category.Movie: “Good Time”The Safdie Brothers’ “Good Time” (2017) is, like their 2019 release “Uncut Gems,” an exploration into chaos. After a poorly executed bank robbery finds Connie Nikas’s (Robert Pattinson) brother Nick (Benny Safdie) arrested and thrown in prison at Rikers Island, Connie must come up with $10,000 in bail money. To watch “Good Time” is to ride a roller coaster without the price of admission; a roller coaster with no chest bar, screws missing and no brakes. It is a release of oneself into the chaotic world the Nikas brothers inhabit.Television: “Sherlock”Though my favorite show on Netflix is far and away “Bojack Horseman,” I have already written a slew of Reel Critic reviews on the subject and I would be remiss if I didn’t look beyond it for another recommendation. The 2010 BBC adaptation of Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle’s original works stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as investigative duo Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in a modern 21st century London. Though many of Doyle’s stories are well known, “Sherlock” reinvents them for a modern setting. The writing is incredibly complex, with some of the finest acting I’ve seen from either Cumberbatch or Freeman and an undeniably engrossing chemistry between the two. Each episode of this show is a short film in its own right and invites viewers to watch in a single sitting, but I would urge this one to be taken slow. It really rewards a viewer who takes his or her time with each episode before continuing to the next.Wildcard: “Demetri Martin The Overthinker”Demetri Martin’s 2018 stand-up special is an hour long buffet of one-liners served up in polished silver dishes. Martin’s style of comedy is not for everyone and very much unlike many of his contemporaries, but I find myself completely stitched in laughter from the pure silliness of his humor. “The Overthinker” also includes a sort of meta-commentary from Martin over his stand-up in a way that draws attention to the medium in which he is performing and only extends the reach of this special. It is well worth the watch.HuluThough only valued at 10% of Netflix’s net worth, Hulu has surprised me recently with its consistent release of acclaimed films as well as fantastic and original television shows. If you don’t have a subscription to Hulu, I would highly recommend it for its FX television shows and steady release of smaller, less popular but nevertheless great films.Movie: “Shoplifters”"Shoplifters" was my favorite film of 2018. It centers around the Tokyo-based Shibata family as they maneuver the streets of Japan stealing and scamming for their survival. Even in their destitute state, the family adopts a young girl (Miyu Sasaki) who they find locked out in the cold night. With meager resources and a misguided moral compass, “Shoplifters” asks audiences to consider the ethics of doing bad things for good reasons. How far does empathy allow us to go to understand one another and the decisions we make?Television: “Nathan For You”Nathan Fielder graduated from one of Canada’s top business schools with really good grades. The premise of the show is quite simple: Nathan is hired by failing businesses as a consultant to revamp their declining sales. Nathan Fielder, the show’s creator and star, is an odd person who excels in filling the awkward silences between strangers with even more awkwardness. His solutions, while not always perfect, are most certainly unconventional. The show thrives in presenting people with an absurdist reality through which it generates a certain honesty in their reactions. There is a nonfiction humanity in “Nathan For You” that a room full of writers would never think about. The show’s final episode “Finding Francis” is a beautiful combination of quirky honesty and an impossible search wrapped up into a 90 minute documentary. Even if you don’t watch the show, make sure to check out “Finding Francis;” it’s more than worth your time.Wildcard: “DAVE”“DAVE” is a semi-fictional autobiographical depiction of Dave Burd’s transformation into his ironic and comedic rap alter ego Lil Dicky. Created and starred in by Dave Burd himself, “DAVE” throws audiences into the struggle of trying to be the greatest rapper of all time whilst also being Dave, a normal suburbanite who’s entire existence is in antithesis to rap culture. “DAVE” finds comedy in the mundane, in Dave’s awkward mannerisms, and in being a musical braggadocio rapping about sex and drugs whilst also trying to be polite and have a stable relationship. The line between Dave Burd and Lil Dicky is distinct, almost like a superhero donning their costume, but the show explores the times in Burd’s life when the line isn’t so clear. This show is without a doubt hilarious and the cast of characters Burd surrounds himself with are incredibly unique and undoubtedly comedic in their own right.Make sure to look out for a part two coming soon with recommendations for Amazon Prime and HBO with additional updates for Netflix and Hulu based on my current viewing. I’ve only just started watching season one of “You” on Netflix and it’s sent my head into a tailspin, so lookout for a possible Reel Critic on that as well.

We are in a global crisis, with or without Covid-19

(04/09/20 9:59am)

Two weeks ago, Middlebury College joined thousands of other schools when it was forced to shut down on-campus operations due to the novel coronavirus. Suddenly, what seemed like an overseas crisis became our reality. Many of us were left without a safe home to return to as we packed up our lives indefinitely. Scrambling to say our goodbyes, we were gravely aware of our time lost at Middlebury and the difficult months ahead. Taking shelter across the country, we have helplessly watched this crisis disrupt our world while taking thousands of lives.As we are writing this, the United States has the highest prevalence of Covid-19 in the world with 431,838 confirmed cases (likely a drastic underestimate due to a shortage of testing kits, healthcare disparities and asymptomatic carriers). We have seen mass layoffs disproportionately affecting low-wage workers, small businesses and at least 27.5 million uninsured Americans; nearly 40% of New Yorkers of New Yorkers are unable to pay rent and almost 10 million Americans have filed for unemployment insurance. Government officials across the country have scrambled to take action. Seattle has enacted a rent moratorium, New York state temporarily waived foreclosures and Congress has approved a two trillion dollar economic stimulus package.While this unprecedented resource mobilization to fight the coronavirus is certainly warranted, it is shocking compared to our inaction tackling the climate crisis. The economic restructuring and dramatic lifestyle changes we have seen in the past weeks prove the kind of large-scale action needed to address climate change has been possible this whole time. We were in a global crisis even before this pandemic. In the past year we witnessed large parts of California, the Amazon and Australia burn, and floods devastated the central United States, Brazil and Ecuador. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations reached 415 parts per million, far above scientifically accepted safe levels needed to maintain a livable planet. Globally, black, brown and low-income people are disproportionately impacted by toxic drinking water, industrial waste, and other forms of environmental degradation. And climate change promises a future of more pandemics, more fires, more floods and more frequent and devastating events of every kind. These crises will shut down our country (and the world) time and time again, just like Covid-19 has. Without a concerted effort, the fear, sadness and destabilization we are currently experiencing as a result of Covid-19 will define life for generations to come.But we also cannot ignore that coronavirus is part of climate change; both are symptoms of the same capitalist system that values profit over lives. The U.S. government's response to the mounting economic crisis is to bail out airline companies and fossil fuel corporations instead of reaching out to those most vulnerable — especially undocumented and migrant workers whose needs and essential contributions are consistently overlooked. Whether it be our overwhelmed healthcare sector or the lack of supportive infrastructure for at-risk populations, this crisis has and continues to reveal the cruel inadequacies of our social and economic structures.Right now, we have the opportunity to radically rebuild our country. And many are already trying: workers at Amazon and Instacart, for instance, are striking to demand just labor standards. General Electric employees are protesting to shift production to medical equipment. Tenants struggling to pay rent are threatening rent strikes. Politicians like Stacy Abrams are advocating for bailing out people who have been hit the hardest by the crisis, rather than large corporations. College students all around the world are building mutual aid networks to help classmates and community members facing sudden displacement. All around us, people are beginning to imagine and enact a world in which they want to live. And so as Covid-19 continues to take and change lives we have a choice: do we allow governments and corporations to profit off of the increased vulnerability of people and devastate our planet, or do we learn from this crisis and replace the broken systems that got us here? Please, choose consciously.Sophie Chalfin-Jacobs ’22, Claire Contreras ’22.5, Divya Gudur ’21, Jaden Hill ’22, Hannah Laga Abram ’23, and Asa Skinder ’22.5 are all members of Middlebury Sunday Night Environmental Group.

You’ve got (so, so much) mail

(03/05/20 11:10am)

The Middlebury Student Mail Center received an award for efficiency in distribution from technology company Neopost in October after delivering over 89,000 packages in the 2018-19 school year. In comparison, Miami University, a public research university with around 24,000 students, received the same efficiency award for colleges and universities with more than 7,000 students. The university, in the 2018–19 school year, received 91,000 packages — only 2,000 more than Middlebury.To Jacki Galenkamp, mail center supervisor, the award signals what she had already noticed in the mail room.“We’ve been receiving over 1,000 packages a day,” she said last week, adding that the Mail Center processed 99,600 packages in the 2019 calendar year. “We receive staff and faculty packages, but the majority of packages are student [packages].” Galenkamp added that she believes the rurality of the college has everything to do with the abundance of packages.“We don’t have a lot of shopping [in town],” she said. “The options here are more limited than even [those in] Burlington, or those of any college in New Jersey or Connecticut.”In accordance with reporting from fall 2018, Galenkamp said she does not believe that the increased package volume is a result of the online bookstore, alone.“I don’t really see a huge increase [in books] since the college bookstore stopped carrying books and inventory—that’s been a question that’s been posed to us quite a bit,” Galenkamp said.The months that mark the start of each semester — February and September — are the busiest months in the mailroom, according to data from the Mail Center. Despite this observation, Galenkamp’s claim that the online bookstore is not the only factor in higher delivery rates is substantiated: the data shows a 4,000-package difference between the months of February and September, suggesting that the increase in packages may also be the result of students moving in and returning to campus.Feb. 2019 saw the second-most packages by a narrow margin, the third-busiest month being Oct. 2019. Assuming students have ordered and received their books by the second month of the term, the idea that the online bookstore is solely responsible for the increase in packages seems unlikely.Though the mail center staffis unsure which factors have led to this influx of packages, Galenkamp says that Neopost — the company that presented the Mail Center with the efficiency award — has been key in the expedient nature of the mailroom.The cloud-based system enables package tracking within the College. It emails students an hour after their package is processed in a message that states the package’s type, tracking number and recipient’s name. When processed, this information is logged into the mailroom’s searchable database. This system allows packages to be tracked within the system, provided they have been processed.Before Neopost, Galenkamp said that students received paper slips in their mailboxes upon a package’s arrival.“[The paper slips] were really inefficient because many college students don’t ever even check their mailbox,” she said. “With the electronic system, they get an email as soon as the package is processed.”Galenkamp told The Campus that this processing is something some students still do not understand. She said that many students arrive at the Mail Center as soon as they receive notification from the package’s sender that a package has been delivered. This, she said, causes problems — even with a system as slick as Neopost.“Frequently, we get students coming down and saying, ‘Amazon said my package is here.’ That’s great, but so are 1100 other [packages],” she said. “If you come down looking for a package before you’ve gotten an email saying it’s been processed, it makes processing come to a screeching halt and it takes longer for you to get your package.”In a mailroom that often processes and delivers over a thousand packages in a single day, Galenkamp said that patience is important.“As soon as it’s processed, you’ll get an email,” she said.Note: Ariadne Will is a mail clerk at the Middlebury College Mail Center.

McKibben talks arrest, upcoming mass action

(02/20/20 10:59am)

This election season, Bill McKibben is turning the spotlight to big banks.He was arrested last month during a sit-in at a Chase Bank in Washington D.C. that served as a trial run for the national mass action, “Stop the Money Pipeline,” set to take on the financial sector this April.“I think it’s worth remembering that there are two levers of power on our planet,” said McKibben, a writer, activist and scholar-in-residence at Middlebury, in an interview with The Campus. “One of them is political and the other is financial.”McKibben published a piece in The New Yorker last September calling climate change a timed test. He described political change as usually involving slow compromise even in a working system, something not seen in what he called a “dysfunctional gridlock” in Washington.“Even if everything went great in the election in November, it’s still not like our government’s going to turn on a dime and do all the things we need,” McKibben told The Campus. He sees rapid political transformation as unlikely at best, especially on a global scale.But Wall Street, McKibben said, remains the money capital of the world. With swift action needed worldwide, he said it should come from the financial sector as well as the political one.“When Wall Street moves, it moves quickly,” McKibben said. “If Chase did make some announcement that they weren’t going to be, say, loaning for expansionary fossil fuel projects, then 45 minutes later, the stock market would have reflected that in powerful ways.”McKibben identifies the money held by Chase and similar banks as a primary driver of the climate crisis in both The New Yorker piece and a New York Times op-ed he co-authored this January, .“Chase is by far the biggest lender to the fossil fuel industry and they lend the most to all the most aggressive expansionary projects.” McKibben told The Campus. Chase Bank has lent more than $195 billion to oil and gas companies over the last three years — more than the market value of BP oil — to fund projects such as oil drilling in the deep ocean and the Arctic, according to McKibben’s piece in The New Yorker.The January protest coincided with the last day of Jane Fonda’s Fire Drill Fridays, weekly climate demonstrations in D.C. during which Fonda has repeatedly been arrested. “While Jane and Joaquin Phoenix and Martin Sheen were up on Capitol Hill, about 25 of us went into the nearest Chase branch and had a nice chat with the manager, and just sat down,” McKibben said.Fonda later led protesters down to the bank, where they rallied out front. Inside, McKibben said, the atmosphere was pleasant and low-key. “We were very, very clear to tell the people working there that we had not the slightest beef with them,” he said. The goal of the sit-in was to reach the bank’s higher-ups in New York — and to give people an idea of what the national day of action might look like in April.“We’re hoping that there will be demonstrations at hundreds or thousands of bank branches across America,” he said. Among the top targets are Chase, BlackRock and Liberty Mutual, listed on the Stop the Money Pipeline website as three of the world’s biggest funders of fossil fuels.Because there are no Chase branches in Vermont, McKibben expects that some Vermonters will travel out of state to protest. He said others will get together to cut up Chase credit cards, which include the Amazon credit card, the Southwest and United Airlines mileage cards, the Starbucks rewards card, and others.Two of the most important things Middlebury students can do, McKibben said, are to let Chase know that they’re not going to ever take out a Chase credit card, and to make it clear that they’re not ever going to go to work at Chase.McKibben cited Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America as three other major funders of the fossil fuel industry, cautioning that people shouldn’t just cut up their Chase credit card and get a Bank of America one. Better alternatives, he said, include fully-divested Amalgamated Bank on the East Coast, Beneficial State Bank on the West Coast, and Aspirations online.“Most people don’t have a coal mine in their backyard,” McKibben said. “Most people don’t have a pipeline that runs through their neighborhood. But a lot of people, tens of millions of people, have a credit card in their pocket from Chase and a pair of scissors in the kitchen drawer.”

Empty bookstore shelves make room for Amazon

(02/20/20 10:54am)

When the Middlebury College Bookstore stopped stocking physical books in 2018 — some say the ensuing collective groan still echoes in the hills — a large part of its rationale was students’ increasing use of Amazon. As a result, the bookstore replaced its concrete, in-person services with an online supplier called MBS Direct; Amazon orders swelled. While students have always scrambled to get their school books in time for the start of classes each semester, the Middlebury College Bookstore once provided the most convenient on-the-spot option that guaranteed timely access. By removing this source, the college has created space for Amazon’s fast delivery and low prices to occupy an even greater portion of schoolbook sales than it once did. Whereas students once used Amazon in take-as-needed doses, the college has now essentially written the campus an open prescription to mainline it, leaving the hazardous side effects to fall on the book industry.Many already revile Amazon for its laundry list of legal and ethical vices, though few are aware that the company had its not-so-humble beginning in book sales. CEO Jeff Bezos chose books as a jumping-off point because they were a uniquely exploitable commodity due to vast variety, worldwide demand and low unit price. The company has been dealing despotic blows to publishing houses and their authors ever since. After significantly expanding its merchandise, Amazon now relies on book sales for just a sliver of its revenue. However, the website is responsible for more than half of all books sold worldwide. So, while Amazon doesn’t rely on books, the company enjoys unparalleled leverage over book sales, including the ability to manipulate publishing houses and authors and abuse supply chains.An example might help. As a student studying English and American literature and political science, I was required to order a total of 16 books for the spring semester — mostly novels and nonfiction titles published by single authors through conventional publishing houses. One item on my list is “Caucasia” by Danzy Senna, a phenomenal contemporary novel published in 1999 by Riverhead books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. A used copy, ordered through MBS Direct, costs $12; a brand-new copy of the same edition costs $5.88 from Amazon via a third-party supplier.On paper, ordering “Caucasia” in better condition for half the price may seem like a no-brainer. But what does “third-party supplier” mean? Amazon intentionally leaves the answer murky. Oftentimes, these books are promotional copies circulated without permission; others are simply counterfeited. One thing that every purchase of a book from a third-party supplier has in common is that the publisher and author do not see a single penny of profit. Despite countless complaints, Amazon has excused itself from the responsibility of vetting these sources for such infractions, claiming that it is the suppliers’ responsibility to “ensure that [their] content doesn’t violate laws or copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity or other rights.”[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Whereas students once used Amazon in take-as-needed doses, the college has now essentially written the campus an open prescription to mainline it, leaving the hazardous side effects to fall on the book industry. [/pullquote]Beyond the problem of third-party suppliers, the scope of Amazon’s business model allows it to routinely take intentional losses in book sales, often pricing books lower than the wholesale price it paid the publisher and making up for the profits elsewhere. The company then uses the sheer quantity of customers to strongarm publishing companies into agreeing to disadvantageous wholesale and royalty contracts. A notable example is a dispute between Amazon and major publishing house Hachette that occurred in 2014, during which Amazon raised listed prices of Hachette books and delayed delivery times by weeks — all the while advertising cheaper and faster-shipping books from other houses — to injure Hachette’s sales until the house was willing to renegotiate.Publishing houses rely on the revenue generated by big-selling titles. In turn, these revenues provide publishers room to experiment with content, diversify their repertoires, take on new authors and publish the higher-quality, medium-to-low-selling content. These are the works that often win prestigious awards like the Pulitzer, Booker and Nobel Prize in Literature (and that we are often assigned at Middlebury). When Amazon uses its leverage to skimp publishing houses on profits or sells new copies from third-party suppliers, not only are these houses less able to produce high-quality, wide-ranging content, but new and diverse authors are dissuaded from entering the field at all due to lower financial rewards.I am aware that, for many students, the cheapest option is the only viable option. Whether the bookstore is online or on campus, Amazon often fills this role, and I do not intend to shame students who use it for this purpose in any way. The problem is that, though the old Middlebury College Bookstore was not necessarily the most affordable, it was frequently the most convenient. By transitioning to an online supplier, the college makes room for Amazon to occupy this role as well. Thus, in the wake of the bookstore’s digitization, the student pivot to Amazon is unfortunately reasonable, as it is often the only service that can deliver books as quickly and cheaply as required by Middlebury’s quick-moving academic calendar and rigorous homework schedule — in one of my literature classes, for instance, my professor told students not to bother attending class until they have the book in hand.By clearing the bookstore’s shelves and ushering students to the internet, Middlebury has raised a de facto white flag to Amazon’s literary abuses, inviting the company into our classrooms at the expense of the very books we study.Hattie LeFavour ’21 is a Local editor for The Campus.

Planapalooza stimulates community conversation

(11/14/19 11:00am)

This past weekend, members of the Middlebury community had the opportunity to express their hopes and concerns for downtown development during the Town’s “Planapalooza.” Over the course of four days, Planapalooza held several events to bring public input into the development of the new Middlebury Downtown Master Plan. “Planapalooza” is a distinct strategy of Town Planning and Urban Design Collaborative (TPUDC), the firm leading the project.TPUDC is the lead consultant working to develop the master plan with the Middlebury Planning Commission led by Town Planner Jennifer Murray. Brian Wright, principal and founder of the firm, said that Middlebury is receiving grants from the Vermont Agency of Transportation and the Vermont Clean Water Initiative Fund.The firm is employing charette, a style of planning characterized by intense periods of design and planning activity that stresses collaboration and conversation, to emphasize transparency and public participation. TPUDC has used this process in several other college towns including Lewiston, Maine and Manchester, N.H.Planapalooza events included focus group sessions on Saturday morning, and a pin-up presentation Saturday evening. In addition to meetings, TPUDC held Open Studio hours in their temporary office on 51 Main St., encouraging community participation and input for this long-term project.Emily Wright has been with the firm for 14 years and mentions how she specifically enjoys working with Vermont towns because it is wonderful to see people who “love and care for the surrounding nature.” On Saturday, Nov. 10, the planning group held a Sustainability and Resiliency meeting open to the public; one of the main topics discussed was how Middlebury should confront the current climate crisis.Steve Maeir, a concerned citizen, said Middlebury needs a vision. “We need to set enforceable goals to meet the requirements of Paris climate accord and support a transition to an economy that is no longer based on fossil fuels,” he said. Maeir acknowledged, however, that this transition may put economic, political and social pressures on communities, and it may even “compromise certain aspects of business and ways of life.”Maeir thinks the college is taking steps in the right direction with its Middlebury Energy2028 plan, the college’s commitment to transitioning to using only renewable energy to power and heat its central campus. The college should “continue to be more aggressive in its footprint” and keep setting examples for the entire town, he said.Another focal point of the weekend was transportation and mobility. TPUDC’s data review found that 81% of downtown customers drive to the downtown area, which citizens acknowledged heightens parking concerns and highlights the need to improve transportation. Eli Madden, a Middlebury resident of 36 years, believes safe pedestrian and biking infrastructure is important for environmental safety reasons, but also for social justice and community development. “Our most vulnerable community members often have to walk or ride bikes, not by choice, and often at busy, dark times of day,” he said, mentioning missed opportunities for modern infrastructure like a bike lane on the Cross Street Bridge, which was completed in 2010 and partially funded by the college. Madden also discussed inadequate sidewalk clearance and visibility. Several citizens mentioned poor snow plowing that endangered pedestrians and cyclists.Madden believes that students at the college “have an opportunity here to help get some good results and make some real change.” He said that students, many of who have bikes, can pressure the town and college to adopt modern guidelines for all future projects, and can vote in selectboard elections.Charlotte Tate, associate director at the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs, has worked in Middlebury since 1992 and walks from the college to the Co-op four times a week. Tate echoed similar concerns to Madden, saying a “pedestrian friendly downtown” is necessary if the town wants to attract more students, families and residents shopping and eating locally.Residents were divided as to what types of stores should comprise the downtown area. Catherine Nichols said the loss of Ben Franklin is felt by the community and that the general store was well-loved. According to focus group participants, having an affordable, successful shop like the general store downtown could be another way to increase student and resident traffic through the town. In the public pin-up and review presentation on Saturday night, TPUDC recapped the concerns citizens expressed over the past few days and presented potential areas for improvement. Attendees were also part of a visual preference survey, where consultants presented pictures of houses and residents were asked if they liked a particular style in the context of Middlebury. Later in the evening, John Stover, the economic developer from Washington, DC hired by Wright, proposed possible solutions and plans of action to address these concerns.As part of their process, TPUDC spoke with the owners of dozens of downtown stores like the Marquis Theater, and were surprised to hear that students rarely were their customers. In order to address this issue, Stover spoke with college representatives about the potential for students’ declining balance to be accepted at downtown stores or even finding a way to include restaurant meals in our meal plan. After speaking with both parties, Stover said both “Middlebury store owners and the college did not seem opposed to the idea.”Amazon has had an impact on downtown businesses, as many students prefer to shop online out of convenience. As Amazon continues to dominate and grow e-commerce, downtown businesses have lost a large portion of their student customer base. One proposal mentioned in the Saturday night pin-up was to have college Amazon deliveries be sent directly to Amazon lockers in town instead, requiring students go downtown to pick up their Amazon packages.When Becca Brownstein ’23 was asked what she thought about extending the swipe system to downtown restaurants, she said, “I definitely think that will encourage students to go into downtown more as budgeting is often a concern and declining balances make it easy to track spending on food.” Becca said Amazon Lockers could be an inconvenience for students, especially during winter months. However, she said that “if the circumstances of this shift are explained to students in the larger context” of supporting and growing local businesses, “then people would be more likely to be receptive of the idea.”The firm is prioritizing housing density downtown, riverfront development and stormwater improvements in its plan. Community members applauded the firm’s intent to incorporate green infrastructure to better manage runoff for pedestrians and drivers. In terms of riverfront development, Wright saw Bakery Lane as a point of major potential with the possibility of developing a mixed-use area and a more scenic river walk.Multiple longtime residents expressed their belief that Middlebury has a history of projecting its commitment to sustainability without following through on these ideals. The new plan, therefore, presents a new opportunity to prioritize sustainability in future developments.Resident Leslie Caer Amadora agreed with the fact that Middlebury needs some structural and strategic renovations. However, she stressed the importance of maintaining the town’s character throughout this process by “creating an infrastructure that holds the webbing to connect and diversify our town.”Following Planapalooza, community members will have more opportunities to voice their ideas. A closing presentation, previously scheduled for Monday, Nov. 11 will now take place on Friday, Nov. 15 due to snow. The firm’s data will be refined during the winter and a draft plan will be delivered in the spring, with a targeted delivery date of July 2020. More information on the creation of the Town Master Plan can be found at townofmiddlebury.org.

The Librarian is in

(10/17/19 10:01am)

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062194268/what-is-the-bible/, 2017 by Rob BellMediocre. Self-indulgent. Willfully evasive.I was very excited when I initially paged through this book and eyed the story of “The Good Samaritan.” Do you know it? It tells the story of a man who is robbed, beaten and left for dead. And his perceived “enemy” shows him mercy. The author of this work, “What is the Bible?,” Rob Bell, attempted to provide a greater sociocultural context for the animosity between two biblical, neighboring groups and why their contact and a demonstration of mercy would be so unthinkable in Jesus’ time. I was moved.So when I saw that the Green Mountain Library Consortium (go/gmlc/) owned the work as an audiobook, I was pretty pleased. The Davis Family Library, by the way, owns the print copy. It was on the recording, read by the author, that I learned that Rob Bell is/was a pastor. Amazon revealed that he is the author of over 10 books. He claimed to have no particular evangelizing mission to forward with this publication, but I remain unconvinced. Overall, I found the work to be a weakly cited collection of his impressions of rather randomly selected passages of the Bible — a broadly popular approach I’ve seen towards engagement with scripture from the pulpit across the United States (all shade intended). Let me be clear: the work is accessible and highly readable. Sometimes it’s interesting as it offers newish deductions from biblical stories. But it’s also wildly unthorough, paltry in its feminism and not infrequently self-indulgent. It’s “cute;” it’s popular; it’s certainly not academic.I think this is part of the reason I stopped attending church: because the presentation of scripture needed to fit the audience’s tastes and what it wanted to hear. And it held little regard for what needed to be heard in our capitalistic, misogynistic, racist patriarchy. Yes, I said it. The messages in the church needed to coincide with the holidays of the year and the sales at department stores. It needed to be palatable and appetizing even when it wasn’t spiritually nutritious. Rob Bell’s book keeps a passive audience in mind and pushes only to the limit of comfort. In that respect, it’s lazy. Or maybe... I’m just not the right audience.Here are some things the book asserts that I’m way into and deeply for:The Bible is an edited text, compiled and recompiled over centuries.The Bible should be read with a vision for the sociocultural context from which it sprang.Sometimes the interpreted meaning of biblical stories supersedes their credibility.The Bible is a library: a compilation of genealogies, laws, oral traditions, letters and more.Religious mythologies can be inspired and incited by the anxieties — political, agricultural, socioeconomic, et al — of the people writing them.Cool.Here’s what I’m not into, that the book suggests:It is not necessary to provide a timeline for The Bible’s evolution, tracing texts that have been suppressed and excluded or to mention what entities sliced, diced and appended the Bible(s) over time.Citing sources is an unnecessary and inconvenient hassle in forwarding one’s beliefs.Being thorough is overrated.Excluding major and minor characters and significant plot points from biblical narratives are subject to the author’s whims: e.g. Sara, Ruth, Esther, Vashti and other women of the Old Testament are easily ignored.There’s no point in exploring the incest that appears in the [collection of] book[s].There’s no point in meaningfully engaging the rich tradition of songs and praise in Psalms.There’s no point in spending time talking about wisdom literature like Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job.As a white man who has founded a “successful” church, the author automatically has the authority to impose his viewpoints on others.Bell assumes his readers do not care to engage with actual studies of the Bible but prefer a charismatic white man to parse out small doses and selected spoonfuls. And he’s not wrong! This compilation of thoughts will make this man millions of dollars. He’s a good performer and the Christianity he practices has been very profitable. But for a more balanced and less excessively confident work, see Peter Enns’ “How The Bible Actually Works: In Which I Explain How An Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers — and Why That’s Great News.”

(04/25/19 9:57am)

In celebration of Earth Day, The Sunday Night Environmental Group (SNEG) and Sunrise Middlebury hosted an Eco Fair last Friday in Wilson Hall, followed by a Town Hall Meeting on the Green New Deal in Mead Chapel.Eco FairRepresentatives from an array of environmentally conscious on-campus and local organizations sat at rows of tables at the Eco Fair, describing their forms of activism to interested students and community members.Several of the groups that attended specialize in encouraging more sustainable dietary practices. MiddVegan, a club that started in the fall, promoted their monthly vegan dinners at their table. Weybridge House, the local foods interest house, explained their emphasis on sustainable eating; they purchase all of their food, except oil and spices, from within 70 miles of the college. The Environmental Affairs Committee (EAC) displayed a possible version of the reusable, fully recyclable and compostable to-go cups they plan to introduce in the near future.Other organizations highlighted the less-obvious connections between their work and environmental issues. Members of Feminist Action at Middlebury, representing Planned Parenthood, emphasized the disproportionate effect climate change has on female and minority communities. Juntos talked about the impacts of of environmental threats on migrant farmworkers.Some displays were more interactive. Students painted flower pots at a table labeled, “Plant a friend.” Luke Bazemore ’21 piled the Mountain Club table with sticks and challenged passerby to try starting a fire by rubbing the sticks together. Fortunately, nobody succeeded.Haley Goodman ’21 ran a waste-sorting game at the Sustainability Solutions Lab table, asking students to determine which bins frequently-misplaced waste products really belonged in. “All of the disposable containers that you get from the Grille and Wilson Cafe, and our to-go cups, are all compostable, so that includes even things that look like plastic,” Goodman said. She said that plastic Amazon packages and bags are newly recyclable.SNEG, Divest and Sunrise Middlebury, the college’s chapter of a national youth coalition combating climate change, shared a table with 350.org, the international climate organization founded at Middlebury in 2007. Across the aisle, the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) discussed their effort to ban single-use plastic bags in Vermont.Margie Bickoff from Huddlebury, a new Addison County group that also advocates for a ban on single-use plastic bags and sews reusable cloth bags from repurposed fabrics to donate to food shelves and businesses, said the project grew from its founders’ shared desire to make change after the Women’s March.“We call them re-bags for ‘reduce waste, reuse and recycle,’ and the fabric that’s being used is recycled,” she said. “In fact, some people have brought in their old curtains.”Town HallSunrise Middlebury organized the Town Hall as part of a series of similar events hosted by affiliated groups nationwide to resolve misrepresentations and spark community conversations about the proposed Green New Deal.Each of the six student presenters — Molly Babbin ’22, Phoebe Brown ’22.5, Katie Concannon ’21, Leif Taranta ’20.5, Emily Thompson ’22 and Olivia Sommers ’21 — began with their own reasons for joining the Sunrise Movement and organizing the Town Hall.For Taranta, it was the devastating impact of fossil fuels on the air, water and people in their hometown of Philadelphia. For Babbin, it was witnessing the effects of rising sea levels at home in Connecticut. For Concannon, it was overwhelming climate grief following the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. For Brown, it was the impending loss of winter as it exists now.They started the presentation with a brief history of the climate crisis and the influence of the wealthy on climate denial. A slide on ExxonMobil read, “They knew. They denied. They deflected responsibility.”“I personally think money speaks louder than words,” Concannon said.But unlike fossil fuel companies, young people have numbers, and “this system can’t stay up if we don’t let it,” Taranta said.Over the next decade, the presenters said, the Green New Deal, aimed at combating climate change and economic inequality, will facilitate a just transition to a livable future through a national mobilization for all.Using an interactive format that asked audience members to reflect on their own communities’ needs and to share those ideas with the people around them, the presenters introduced the three pillars of the Green New Deal — good jobs for all, a democratic economy and a good life for all — and described its plan to expand the lowest-carbon parts of the US economy to form an energy democracy and put wind and solar in the hands of the people.“Green jobs,” they said, “have to be good jobs.”They ran through a few frequently asked questions: “How will it become concrete?” Through future legislation. “Is it technologically feasible?” Yes. “How will we pay for it?” In response, Babbin read a quote from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to resounding applause “Why is it that these questions arise only in connection with useful ideas, not wasteful ideas? Where were the ‘pay-fors’ for Bush’s $5 trillion wars and tax cuts, or for last year’s $2 trillion tax giveaway to billionaires? Why wasn’t financing those massive throwaways as scary as financing the rescue of our planet and middle class now seems to be to these naysayers?”“In some places, I wouldn’t just get cheered when I read the quote,” Babbin later told The Campus, referencing the cynicism many outspoken opponents of the Green New Deal have already expressed. “In other states, maybe they’re skeptical, but here people were so on board.”During the Town Hall, Taranta emphasized the importance of talking about the Green New Deal and combating the widespread misinformation that it is not economically, technologically socially or politically possible. “The idea that this will never happen is a propaganda campaign used against us to discourage us,” they said. It can happen — it has to.Members of Sunrise Middlebury and SNEG are also drafting a Vermont Green New Deal, which they plan to present to the state legislature in January, nearly a year before the national proposal makes its way through Congress.The six students concluded the presentation portion of the Town Hall by inviting local organizers, many of whom presented at the Eco Fair, to join them at the front and sing, “Social Justice Song 2019,” composed by Bickoff, the Huddlebury representative from the Eco Fair.Gabe Desmond ’20.5 was the first audience member to speak. “Raise your hand if you’ve ever been affected by climate change,” he said. Every hand in the room went up. Desmond talked about a time last summer when he was unable to finish a hike in Seattle, Washington, because smoke from wildfires to the north, east and south had caused Seattle’s air quality to be the worst in the world.“I think the really scary thing about climate change, to me, is that it’s hidden,” Desmond said. “When something like Irene happens, you don’t always think about climate change as being the thing that floods your home, right? It’s the water. When I can’t breathe, ‘Oh, it’s the fires. It’s not climate change.’ But it is climate change.”One community member, who said he graduated from college more than 50 years ago, said politicians are cowardly, and their constituents need to push them to do greater things.Another said that people do things for two reasons: out of fear of loss and out of desire for gain.“We keep living in the fear of loss,” he said. “We need to change our minds. We need to change our hearts.”A self-identified baby Feb asked about the best way to reach a Representative. An email? A phone call? A letter?Fran Putnam, a local resident closely involved with SNEG, answered, “All of the above.”“In 11 years,” said a girl at the front of the room, “I will be 24 years old. And I am completely terrified and overwhelmed by that, because I will only have lived a quarter of my life, hopefully, at that time. And if this doesn’t work out—though I’m hoping that it will—that’s it for me.” Describing the renewed hope she gained while participating in the Next Steps Climate Walk earlier this month, she started to cry. Her comment received one of the longest rounds of applause of the evening.“I was anticipating more questions,” Concannon told The Campus. “I was ready to answer questions about how to pay for it. I was ready to answer questions about, ‘Why do you need to include the social aspect with the environmental aspect?’”“We thought we were gonna get drilled on the details, because generally when I have a conversation with a friend or a parent, they drill me on the details,” Babbin added. “But it seemed like the people who showed up there were already very much wanting large change.”“I have struggled a lot with ecological despair, to the point where sometimes it just feels like there’s nothing to do about anything, and everything’s hopeless, and I just get in my head, like, why even try,” Sommers told The Campus. “Which I think is a more common thought pattern than we let people know. And I found that channeling that into activism and planning and this town hall, where I’m bringing awareness about the Green New Deal, and bringing people into that, is a way to deal with my climate anxiety, and hopefully make it productive.”“Climate change isn’t always associated with strong emotions and grief,” Babbin said.“But it is,” Concannon said. “It’s loss of life. It’s loss of place. It’s loss of home.”

The case for veganism

(04/11/19 9:54am)

I’m vegan and I went abroad for my febmester. Sometimes I struggle figuring out which of these to tell someone first when I meet them. At this point, I’ve decided to just go with both and berate people with my amazing cultural experiences and moral superiority.I’ve been vegan for a year and a half. When I jumped in cold tofurkey last year, the only thing I thought I knew about veganism was that vegans are loud, annoying and can’t stop talking about veganism. I decided it would be fun to play up that character and jokingly be the annoying vegan around my friends. But as most things go in my life, what started as ironic is now entirely unironic. This is because over the past year I’ve learned that veganism is way more important than I thought. It blew my mind how little I or the average person knows about the impact of dietary choices. I want to share a few of the mind-blowing facts I’ve learned about the three tenants of veganism (environment, health, and ethics) and describe why I’m not afraid to be an annoying vegan.[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Veganism is way more important than I thought.[/pullquote]A vegan diet is by far the diet with the smallest impact on the environment. If we all consume animal products at the rate we are now, we will never see our world overcome the climate change crisis. Scientific studies have shown for years that the most effective way to benefit the environment (besides not having kids) is to cut back on animal products in your diet. This is because production of all types of animal products is incredibly less efficient than plant products. If we took all of the land that is being used to raise animals or grow crops for those animals and instead used it to grow crops for human consumption, we could meet the food requirements of the entire world multiple times over. The animal agriculture industry is responsible for 18% (some say upwards of 51%) of all greenhouse gas emissions, more than all cars, trains, planes and every other vehicle in the transportation industry combined.However, environmental impact goes well beyond just carbon footprint. It’s commonly stated that our oceans are dying, but it’s a little known fact that the majority of the trash in the ocean is fishing nets and equipment. Overfishing is destroying coral reefs and vital ocean ecosystems. Animal agriculture is responsible for up to 91% of Amazon deforestation. The animal waste runoff from factory farms pollutes rivers and is destroying ecosystems. It takes 56 gallons of water to produce a single egg and 1,000 gallons of water to produce a gallon of milk. It’s time for Middlebury to stop blindly thinking that our animal product consumption is in line with our environmental ideals.There are huge health benefits from switching to a healthy vegan diet even from a healthier standard American diet. A vegan diet helps prevent thirteen of the fifteen leading causes of death in the United States, including cancer, diabetes, stroke and especially heart disease. That’s not vegan propaganda; there are a multitude of studies to support this claim. The American Dietetic Association states that a plant-based diet is appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy and childhood. In other words, according to nutritional experts, you will not get any deficiencies with a well-planned vegan diet. Additionally, you can easily get your protein needs on a vegan diet. Fifteen members of the Tennessee Titans NFL team are vegan. There are many vegan super athletes and many super athletes going vegan.[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]It’s time for Middlebury to stop blindly thinking that our animal product consumption is in line with our environmental ideals.[/pullquote]Animals in the agriculture industry are subject to the most brutal pain and suffering you can imagine being inflicted on a living being. The phrase “humane slaughter” is an obvious oxymoron, and the entire concept is a myth. Due to the demands for efficiency in the butchering process, slaughtering methods are almost always performed sloppily, leading to excruciating pain and immense fear in the animal. The footage of factory farming that you’ve hopefully seen (if not, watch the film Dominion), is not the extreme footage. It’s the industry standard. Over 90% of farm animals in the United States live on factory farms with these brutal practices. Local farms are also far from being cruelty-free. The production of dairy requires the non consensual impregnation of cows and for calves to be taken from mothers immediately at birth. Hens have been bred to lay eggs twenty times more than what is biologically normal for them, leading to painful health complications. In the vast majority of cases, male chicks that are born in the egg industry are immediately (like moments after birth) tossed into a meat grinder. If you’re against animal abuse, you’re against the animal agriculture industry.These facts are only the tip of the iceberg. Most people say that they’re fine with people being vegan as long as they’re not annoying about it, because diet is a personal choice. But diet is not a personal choice. You’re literally choosing the fate of other living beings and the fate of the environment. So I’m not going to be shy about telling you to be vegan. Every day we are destroying the environment a little more. Every day people are being killed or crippled by preventable diseases. Every day millions of sentient, feeling animals are being born into a life of pain and misery. There’s no time to be shy.Please contact me if you have comments or questions. I’m always willing to talk about these issues.Editor’s Note: This op-ed was previously published with the headline: “Why I’m an Annoying Vegan."

Hundreds Strike for National Climate Action at Town Park

(03/21/19 10:36am)

MIDDLEBURY - Hundreds gathered at College Park in downtown Middlebury last Friday, March 15, to strike against government inaction on climate change. Middlebury Union High School students and college students alike walked out of class at noon, flocking to the Town Green. They were met by members of Addison County’s Interfaith Climate Action Network and other local climate activists including Bill McKibben, the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and founder of 350.org.Strike organizers Cora Kircher ’20, Connor Wertz ’22 and Katie Concannon ’22 planned the event in solidarity with the hundreds of other Youth Climate Strikes happening across the globe that day. In the midst of busy mid-day traffic, event organizers spoke through a blaring microphone while strikers held cardboard signs with phrases like, “Keep fossil fuels in the ground,” “Oceans are rising, so are we” and “Stop burning our future.” Many in attendance wore green and intermittently cheered throughout the event.“I see a shift in how people are talking about [climate change],” said Warren Galloway ’21, who walked out of class that morning. “There’s more pressure against governments and bureaucracy, and holding people accountable, rather than just starting grassroot movements. I think people are starting to panic.”Speakers included organizers Connor Wertz and Cora Kircher, Asa Skinder ’22.5 and Middlebury Union Alumna Greta Hardy-Mittell.Wertz was the first to speak, citing the U.S. Youth Climate Strike Organization and pleading support for the Green New Deal, an immediate halt to fossil fuel infrastructure, and mandatory inclusion of climate change in U.S. education systems.“This is more of a prayer than anything else,” said Wertz, urging local leaders and government officials to listen and act on the cries from America’s youth. “We are asking for your actions. We are asking for your vote, your body, your tongue, your arms and wrists and your will. That’s what we need to make the change that needs to happen.” Cora Kircher spoke next, framing climate change as a present threat.“This can’t be a future-centered movement alone because [climate change] is happening right now,” she said. Kircher hosted a minute of silence for people currently experiencing the effects of climate change, as well as for the Abenaki people, “whose land we are occupying.”Asa Skinder ’22.5 spoke third, informing protesters about the State Government’s hesitance to confirm the ESSEX Plan, a state initiative to produce low-cost clean energy to Vermonters. In a state that spends 8% of its GDP on fossil fuels, Skinder believes Vermont isn’t doing nearly enough to limit its use of these resources.“In Vermont, we often feel like we are in an environmentally responsible place, but if you look at the actions of our leaders in the House and Senate, that’s not true,” Skinder said. “They may not be climate change deniers, but they are climate delayers.”Middlebury Union High School Alumna Greta Hardy-Mittell broke up the largely political discourse by reading an anecdote of her time in the Amazon Rainforest in December of last year.“The suffocating fear of climate change followed me even to the most remote and pristine location on earth,” she said. “I could only think about how it is all going to fade away.”Kircher capped the event by fiercely arguing that climate change is a complex issue, comprised of matters of social prejudice and conservative economic policy. “In order to fight the climate crisis, we have to pursue a radical politics that recognizes that climate change isn’t separate from white supremacy, capitalism and an extractive economy and culture based on commodity accumulation and the exploitation of natural resources and other human beings,” she said.The crowd dispersed around 12:30 p.m. after a last applause for all four speakers. Many felt satisfied with the event.“There was a great turn out,” said Cat La Roche ’21. “I really didn’t expect this many people.”To learn more about The Youth Climate Strike Organization, visit youthclimatestrikeus.org.