April 2008

More than 100 volunteers help mother search for missing Middlebury College student : “More than 100 volunteers turned out [Saturday, April 26] for a search organized by the mother of missing Middlebury College student Nicholas Garza, who disappeared three months ago without a trace.

“Under overcast skies, scores of people combed soggy fields while kayakers traversed Otter Creek and K-9 units prowled the river’s banks.

“The search, spearheaded by Natalie Garza, Nicholas’ mother, began with an orientation at the college’s Kenyon Arena by Gary Peterson, a Midwest forensics investigator and consultant. Peterson organized the searchers and gave them their marching orders. Annette Spaulding of Rockingham, who specializes in underwater searches and rescues, also assisted.”

‘Dear Idiot, we regret to inform you …’ Mark Patinkin ‘74 in The Providence Journal: “My first choice was Oberlin College, in Ohio. My whole world depended on getting accepted there.

“Decades later, I barely remember why.

“But at the time, my senior year in high school, it was all I cared about. Part of it was that my best friend planned to go there. Some other friends had gone there the previous year, including this girl I liked.

“What kind of idiot picks a college because a past semi-girlfriend went there? Me, I guess. I was an imbecile.

“But in truth, most high school students are.”

A force to be reckoned with: Bill McKibben – Los Angeles Times: “Bill McKibben’s writing — part art, part essay, part journalism with more than a smidgen of harangue — has framed the thinking on environmental issues for more than a generation. Two new books out this spring, ‘The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces From an Active Life’ (Henry Holt: 446 pp., $18 paper) and ‘American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau’ (Library of America: 1,050 pp., $40), will impress on the reader how calmly, if not always quietly, he has illuminated paths to the future, thinking alongside us about what might be possible, even as information hurtles toward us, technology blinds us and being human seems to mean something entirely different than what any of us would consciously want.”

A Divided Nation, United in ‘Idol’ Worship : NPR: “American Idol isn’t just the most-watched show on television. In the Nielsen Top 10 from last week, it was the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 shows. The ratings may have softened (a little), but the show still pulls in about 27 million viewers. Which means that, in its seventh season, American Idol can be regarded only as a phenomenon.

“… What do the experts think? Jason Mittel is a professor of media studies at Middlebury College. One big component of American Idol’s appeal? Hormones, he says. Mittel calls it “old-school swooning in front of a pop star.”

Voodoo Logic: So Who Cursed Whom With Jersey? – New York Times: “When a construction worker buried a Red Sox jersey at the new Yankee Stadium two weeks ago, he fancied himself a hero of Red Sox Nation.

“There he was, a Red Sox fan charged with erecting his enemies’ new fortress, about to curse the Yankees by embedding a David Ortiz jersey deep within the concrete of their new home. And when the Yankees foiled his plan Sunday, digging up the jersey in what they called an “excavation ceremony,” the club thought it had earned the last word.

“But according to Paul Monod, a professor of early modern European history at Middlebury College who has written extensively on the occult, the Yankees might have been better off leaving the jersey where it was.”

Five graduates earn research fellowships from National Science Foundation: “The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Graduate Research Fellowships to five recent graduates of Middlebury College: Lydia Beaudrot ’05, Anna Blasiak ’07, Brooke Gardner ’06, Laura Helft ’06, and Tyler Williams ’06.

“Arlinda Ardister Wickland, the director of student fellowships and health professions at Middlebury, said five NSF fellowships in one year are the most that Middlebury graduates have received in recent history. Wickland declared it ‘a salute to the hard work of these five students and a tribute to the dedication of their faculty mentors and advisors.’ “

Burlington Free Press.com Colleges Court Prospective Students: “MIDDLEBURY — You want to go to the college of your choice, so you work like a dog: You labor to keep up your grades and your extracurriculars as you do all the admissions essays and the interviews and the paperwork for Colleges A, B and C.

“Then you are accepted and the tables turn.

“Now the admissions officers have to work like dogs to get you to choose their school. For months, you were doing your best to please them. Now, they’re courting you. So it goes in April, as colleges in Vermont and across the country vie to match themselves up with prospective students by May 1, the deadline for admittees to declare where they’ll enroll.

“For Jesse Mirotznik, of the Brooklyn borough of New York, it will be either Middlebury College or Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He’ll check out Hopkins next week and won’t commit until he does, but Middlebury seemed to have made a good impression: ‘It’s a really nice campus,’ he said. ‘People seem very friendly.’ “

It’s Easy Being Green: Sustainable Learning: “The fight against global warming on college campuses is continuing to generate steam. There are now 514 signatories for the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, almost 600 U.S. and Canadian schools organizing around clean-energy solutions as part of the Campus Climate Challenge, and competitions such as RecycleMania challenging schools to see who can reduce the most waste. . . .”

“Middlebury College: The board of trustees at Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT approved a student-driven proposal to make the school carbon neutral by 2016, which is only one of the school’s many eco-efforts. Students, along with scholar and climate crusader Bill McKibben, organized the national Step It Up 2007 campaign to protest global warming, which led to hundreds of rallies in all 50 states. The school is currently building an $11 million biomass plant and has exchanged more than 2,000 incandescent light bulbs for energy-efficient equivalents.”