John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College, appeared on March 19 on the Comedy Central show The Colbert Report, during which he discussed his initiative to lower the drinking age, Choose Responsibility, with host Stephen Colbert.
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ADDISON COUNTY — This time a week ago, Cornwall residents Jon Isham and Tracy Himmel Isham were facing arrest — or, at least, potential arrest.
And the Ishams weren’t alone. They were joined by a few thousand other environmental activists who marched on the coal plant that powers Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Their goal? To shut down the plant for a day — and to convince legislators to shut down the coal-powered plant for good.
“We all lined up and marched 2,500 strong to the coal-fired plant,” Isham said. Hundreds of police looked on as the protestors circled the plant, and eventually around 400 individuals stood up to block entrance to the plant — a form of civil disobedience that warranted arrest.
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The Middlebury College men’s basketball team was defeated in round two of the NCAA tournament this weekend. VPR’s Jane Lindholm has the details:
(Lindholm) It was a heartbreaking defeat for the Panthers, who were ranked ninth in the nation in Division III. The sold-out crowd at Middlebury’s Pepin Gymnasium was ecstatic throughout most of the game as Middlebury led against Massachusetts’ Bridgewater State.
With just 40 seconds left to play the Panthers were up by five: 74-69. Then Bridgewater hit a three and took a time out.
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – With the sun shining on a rare, warm winter day, Thomas Corbin stands in a snow-covered field of willow shrubs. The stalks, some more than 10 feet high, jab like slender fingers into the blue sky.
If all goes well, in two years, a modified corn harvester will chop through these fast-growing shrubs. The crop will then be hauled a mile or so to feed the new biomass gasification plant at Middlebury College, where Mr. Corbin is assistant treasurer. The college hopes that the willow will provide 12,000 tons of fuel each year, about half of the fuel the facility is expected to burn.
The Middlebury plant, which opened earlier this year, provides both heat and electricity to the campus. It runs on wood chips that come from within a 75-mile radius of this campus of 2,400 students in northwestern Vermont.
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Like many liberal-arts institutions, Middlebury College, where I teach, has a problem: Too many students want to be economics majors. Economics enrollments keep growing, and adding more faculty members to the department seems to only increase the demand. The rumor on the campus is that if the college actually provided enough professors to meet the demand for economics courses, it would have to change its name to the Middlebury School of Economics.
Professors at other liberal-arts colleges confirm that the phenomenon is widespread and has been for some time. But what makes the economics major so appealing?
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