Seven Days: Ask Hiba! How Facebook spawned a maverick Ann Landers at Middlebury: “If you’re about to start school as a freshman at Middlebury College, and you have questions about your dorm room or class schedule, where do you turn? To the college Web site? To the admissions office? This year, thanks to the social networking site Facebook, you can ask Hiba Fakhoury ’09 for advice. “
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2007.
American Campuses Get Greener Than Ever – MSNBC.com: “As vigorously as colleges are encouraging students to research environmental problems, students are prodding colleges to purchase renewable energy and set ambitious carbon targets. In part because of student lobbying, Middlebury College in Vermont adopted a goal of carbon neutrality by 2016, says Nan Jenks-Jay, dean of environmental affairs. ‘Students were telling us, ‘You’re not doing enough’,’ she says. Undergrads at dozens of schools have gone so far as to vote for increases in their activities fees to help finance green initiatives.”
Debate on lower drinking age bubbling up – MSNBC.com: “Over the strong objection of federal safety officials, a quiet movement to lower the legal drinking age to 18 is taking root as advocates argue that teenagers who are allowed to vote and fight for their country should also be able to enjoy a beer or two.
“Libertarian groups and some conservative economic foundations, seeing the age limits as having been extorted by Washington, have long championed lowering the drinking age. But in recent years, many academics and non-partisan policy groups have joined their cause for a different reason: The age restriction does not work, they say. Drinking has gone on behind closed doors and underground, where responsible adults cannot keep an eye on it.
“It does not reduce drinking. It has simply put young adults at greater risk,” said John M. McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont, who this year set up a non-profit organization called Choose Responsibility to push for a lower drinking age.
Middlebury College acquires archival materials of Ernest Hemingway and the Hemingway family: “The Middlebury College Julian W. Abernethy Collection of American Literature has acquired the Ernest Hemingway and Hemingway Family Collection. The archive includes family correspondence, journals, more than 1400 original letters and 151 scans of Hemingway’s letters. The material dates from the mid-19th century to the author’s death in 1961.”
Bill McKibben appears in Leonardo DiCaprio documentary, The 11th Hour: “The 11th Hour’ is the last moment when change is possible. The film explores how we’ve arrived at this moment — how we live, how we impact the earth’s ecosystems, and what we can do to change our course. Featuring ongoing dialogues of experts from all over the world, including Bill McKibben, scholar in residence at Middlebury College, former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA R. James Woolsey and sustainable design experts William McDonough and Bruce Mau in addition to more than 50 leading scientists, thinkers and leaders who discuss the most important issues that face our planet and people.”
John Elder gives Bread Loaf School of English commencement address: “On August 11 at Middlebury’s Bread Loaf campus, the Bread Loaf School of English completed its 88th summer with commencement ceremonies, during which 49 students received master’s degrees.
The speaker at the Saturday night event — selected as always by the “seniors,” as the students who are completing their degrees call themselves — was John Elder, a long time member of both the Bread Loaf and the Middlebury College faculty. Introduced on Saturday night by Bread Loaf School of English Director Jim Maddox, Elder holds a joint appointment in English and Environmental Studies at Middlebury and his courses at Bread Loaf reflect his wide-ranging interests in both fields.”
Two Middlebury graduates receive Fulbright scholarships for study abroad: “Two recent Middlebury College graduates, Jennifer L. Higgins and Amber L. Rydberg, have received Fulbright U.S. Student Scholarships to work, study, and travel abroad in 2007-2008. … Higgins, of Rochester, N.Y., who graduated in February 2007, will travel to the Darhad Valley of Mongolia to study the traditional animal care and veterinary practices of nomadic herders. … Rydberg, from North Easton, Mass., and also a February 2007 graduate, will travel to South Korea to undertake an English teaching assistantship with local children.”
Grist includes Middlebury on list of 15 green colleges and universities: “This Vermont college is a hotbed of climate activism. Student group MiddShift pushed the board of trustees to approve a plan to make the school carbon-neutral by 2016. Students have also led the charge to host energy-saving contests in residence halls, increase use of public transportation to and from campus, and turn down campus thermostats. A handful of students and recent alums, along with scholar-in-residence Bill McKibben, helped organize the Step It Up 2007 campaign demanding action to fight climate change, and now a Middlebury delegation has joined up with the Climate Summer campaign in New Hampshire.”
The power of Green has been unleashed | Opinion: “The race is on to see who can become the most facile in moving to carbon neutrality. Which state better to lead than Vermont? What better place to begin than our universities? Who better to lead than students? The University of Vermont has plunged ahead with its wide-ranging effort to make the campus the core of a drive toward green economics. But leaping ahead on the front to reduce carbon footprints is fleet-footed Middlebury College, not to be outdone by colleagues in Burlington.”
Living in a virtual world: Second Life at Middlebury | Addison Independent: “Kiyup Ingraham was all set to lead a group of Middlebury College staff and students through the virtual world of Second Life recently, when the teleportation system crashed, leaving him stranded on a dance floor in Vienna. This happens sometimes, he said. Pretty soon, they’d be up and flying again. In real life, Ingraham goes by the name Joe Antonioli and is an educational technology specialist at the college. Since last week he has been running a series of workshops to train students and tech staff in Second Life, an Internet-based virtual world where users can socialize, share digital creations and even buy and sell things for real money.”
NPR : Latina Girls Festively Come of Age: “More than 350,000 Latina girls will turn 15 this year, and for many of them that means a big bash. The ‘quinceanera’ is celebrated across Latin America and the United States. It’s a rite of passage, and a growing industry, in the United States. The average quinceanera dress can cost hundreds of dollars. Middlebury College’s Julia Alvarez has written a lot about what it means to come to this country, something she did at 10 years old when she and her family fled the Dominican Republic. She’s well known for the novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. And in her first nonfiction book, Once Upon a Quinceanera: Coming of Age in the USA, she takes on the cultural celebration she missed as an adolescent.”
Alvarez also took part in a discussion on the NPR show “On Point.”
ESPN – Sustained success requires different approach for NCAA D-II, D-III level – College Sports: “Unlike their Division I contemporaries, schools like Grand Valley State, Williams, University of California at San Diego (runner-up in last year’s Division II Directors’ Cup standings) and Middlebury (Vt.) College (Division III runner-up in ‘06-07) must sustain excellence out of the public eye. There are no multibillion dollar television contracts in Divisions II and III, and most athletes at those levels of competition will not make it to the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball or the Olympics.
” ‘There’s not necessarily a magic formula,’ Middlebury athletic director Erin Quinn explains. ‘For starters, we have an attractive school, and that’s helped our athletic programs get better. Plus, our physical location attracts the active, outdoorsy student, so you don’t have to change the student body to attract a certain kind of student-athlete. You don’t have to make some sort of compromise.’ “
Also at ESPN: In another part of the series on college athletics, Erin Quinn is quoted in a story on the relatively minor impact of boosters on Division III athletic programs.
Global warming activists wrap 5-day march through N.H. – Boston.com: “Tired, but exhilarated, hundreds of climate change activists on Sunday capped a 5-day walk through New Hampshire to raise awareness for their cause with a rally and street fair at the Statehouse. A core group of activists, most of them recent college graduates [including several from Middlebury], walked more than 40 miles from Nashua to Concord during a week of hot, humid weather when temperatures at times reached 100 degrees. They were joined along the way by New Hampshire residents of all ages, like Lisa Beaudoin, of Temple, N.H., who runs a bed and breakfast and small farm. Beaudoin walked with her two sons, aged 8 and 11, and drew cheers from the crowd when she urged activists to “demand nothing less than a clean plant to give to all of our children.”
College eyes Eat Good Food space | Addison Independent: “Middlebury College may soon rent the former Eat Good Food restaurant space in the Battell Block on Middlebury’s Main Street for an as-yet-undefined venture that officials said would be designed to draw students into the downtown area and stimulate the local economy. ‘We’re headed in the direction of some sort of agreement where the college would have control of the space while it sorts out its plans,’ said Bruce Hiland, a co-owner of the Battell Block. ‘I’m optimistic.’ “
Middlebury team raises money in Mongol Rally | Addison Independent: “About a week into the 2007 Mongol Rally, an annual extreme car race from London to Mongolia, recent Middlebury College graduates Tommy Heitkamp of Orwell and Joya Taft-Dick, and their friend Alex Switzer, a.k.a. Team Ironsides, stumbled upon a country they didn’t know existed. Driving “Diana,” their 1995 Fiat Uno — the rally requires participants to drive a beat-up car — the trio had zipped hundreds of miles since the race began July 21, booking through France and Germany and then easing into Eastern Europe via the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.”