MiddNews
Tragic news hit the Middlebury campus early this month when four first-year students died in an automobile accident just north of the U.S. border in Canada. Returning from Montreal on the morning of April 1, the car they were traveling in left the road and crashed into a concrete culvert, killing three of the students. The fourth passenger in the car died of her injuries the following day. The students were, Anisa Gamble, from St. Croix; Tiffany Holmes, from New York City; Iniko Johnson, from Washington, D.C.; and Maika Prewitt, from Florissant, Mo. A memorial service for the four women was held in Mead Chapel on April 5. Over 1000 people attended the two-and-half-hour service.
The Middlebury College women's ice hockey team has made history. In a twogame tournament against Minnesota's Augsburg College, the Panthers captured the Women's Hockey Division III National Championship, which is the first national title in women's hockey ever awarded to a Division III school. The Panther women won convincingly, posting an 8-1 win over Augsburg in game two after a 5-1 win in game one. The national championship is the ninth for Middlebury in a team sport in the last five years.
When they returned to campus, the Panthers were paraded through town courtesy of WFAD Radio-which offered its old-fashioned fire truck for the occasion-and then feted by the College community at a reception at the Grille. Later in the week, they traveled to the Vermont Statehouse where they met with Governor Dean and received a standing ovation during a legislative session-a resolution honoring their achievement was read and adopted by the lawmakers.
Former president of Poland and founder of Solidarity Lech Walesa will speak at Middlebury's commencement ceremonies on May 21. Other distinguished individuals who will receive honorary degrees at the ceremony are: Irena Anna Dyrcz-Freeman, who provided aid to Jews in her Polish homeland during the Nazi occupation of World War II; Dixie Goswami, professor emerita at Clemson, who manages outreach programs for the Bread Loaf School of English; Gwen Ifill, correspondent for PBS's Jim Lehrer NewsHour and host of Washington Week in Review; Michael Mone, Middlebury class of '64 and president of the American Association of Trial Lawyers; Olin Robison, head of the Salzburg Seminar, and former president of Middlebury College; and Sylvia Robison, who worked on key College projects when her husband was president of Middlebury College.
International students who graduate from colleges that comprise the United World Colleges (UWC) organization and enroll at Middlebury or any of four other U.S. colleges will receive need-based financial aid from a program established by Shelby M.C. Davis and the Davis Foundation. The United World Colleges are pre-university-level schools located on five continents. Some 2,000 students from 16 to 19 years of age from all corners of the globe live and study together at the schools in challenging academic programs designed to promote international peace and cooperation. Also participating in the Davis/UWC scholarships are Colby, Wellesley, College of the Atlantic, and Princeton.
Bicentennial Hall has been named Laboratory of the Year for the year 2000 by R&D Magazine. This is a first for an undergraduate facility. In its 34'x' year, the prestigious award considers new and renovated laboratory buildings used by commercial and educational organizations. R&D Magazine was founded in 1959 to serve research scientists, engineers, and technical staff members at laboratories around the world, and is circulated monthly to over 100,000 readers worldwide.
In faculty funding news
Priscilla Bremser (mathematics & computer science) has received support for her academic leave next year from the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, California. She will participate in a program on algorithmic number theory.
Robert Prigo (physics) has received a grant from the Vermont Department of Education to fund the Fourth Annual Science Institute for local K-12 teachers this coming summer. The topic of the two-week institute and follow-up sessions is the ecology of the Vermont landscape and the physics of light and heat. Other faculty involved in this collaborative effort are Mary Gaudette (environmental studies) and Gregg Humphrey (teacher education).
Caroline Schaumann (German) has been accepted for the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies Seminar for Faculty Teaching Holocaust Courses. This opportunity will facilitate development of a course on the Holocaust in art and literature.
Thomas Manley (geology) has received a grant from the Lintilhac Foundation to help fund a feasibility study for documenting circulation patterns within Lake Champlain using acoustic techniques that have been successful on oceans but have not yet been used in lake environments. Knowledge of lake circulation is critical to predicting the movement and eventual disposition of contaminants within the lake.
Richard Wolfson (physics) has received a grant from the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) to continue solar physics research involving large-scale disruptions of the solar corona, which can affect communications on Earth.
The College's Career Services Office (CSO) reports that 230 employers have looked at almost 2,500 Middlebury student resumes since October 1999. Organizations interviewing on campus completed more than 500 student interviews. Middlebury participates in the Liberal Arts Career Network, a cluster of 24 highly-selective liberal arts schools contributing to a database of 9,800 winter term and summer internships housed online at Monster.com. Three hundred of those are available just to Middlebury students. During 2000 winter term, 146 Middlebury students completed internships for credit. MiddNet Online is a web-based database of some 5,000 career volunteers who are Middlebury alumni and parents. Since its inception in October 1998, well over 30,000 searches have been completed.
Broadening the view from Middlebury College to the greater region, the New England Board of Higher Education reports that the percentage of the nation's college students enrolled in New England colleges and universities has declined from 6.4 percent in the mid-1980s to 5.5 percent in 1997. According to a recent Boston Globe report, there are nearly 280 colleges in the region, with some 795,317 students enrolled in 1997. In 1992, New England college enrollment was 827,293. Sluggish population growth and relatively higher college costs in the region contribute to the decline, said the Globe.