MiddNews
When the war in Iraq began on March 19, the College launched a communications effort to provide information to the College community. A working group of administrators identified specific emergency procedures. A College Web site at http://www.middlebury.edu/campusprep has been established to provide information, advisories, updates, and links to other relevant sites. President McCardell sent a message to the community that noted the College's commitment to preserving the safety of those on campus and in programs abroad. A choir tour to Greece was cancelled amid concerns that its proximity to the Middle East might endanger students involved.
Three Middlebury seniors, Robert Chisholm, Kaitlin Gregg, and Alexandra Wang, have been chosen to receive highly competitive Watson Fellowships from among 1,000 students who study at the 50 colleges that participate in the program. For the past six years, three students from each Middlebury senior class have been chosen to receive the fellowships.
Fellowship winners each receive a stipend of $22,000 to pursue interests that could span multiple continents over the course of one year.
Chisholm, an environmental studies major, will travel to the Philippines, Costa Rica, Australia, and Kenya for a project titled "Fishing Places, Fishing People: Inshore Community-based Fisheries Management." Gregg, an environmental studies major, will travel to Australia, Costa Rica, and Italy for her project "Harnessing Hope: Sustainable Cities and the Earth Charter." Wang, a joint major in environmental studies and East Asian studies, will go to China, Mongolia, Turkey, and Austria for a project titled "The Role of the Violin and its Indigenous Variations from East to West."
Middlebury's Rohatyn Center for International Affairs has awarded research travel grants to fund overseas research to five students working on senior theses or projects. The grants will fund research abroad during the summer of 2003. All recipients will be named Undergraduate Research Associates of the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs during their senior year.
This year's grant winners are Lila Buckley '04, who received $3,219 for travel to Yunnan Province to research Chinese midwifery and birthing practices; Brian Hoyer '04, who received $3,500 for travel to Tanzania to study the distribution of food aid among Congolese refugees; Rituraj Mathur '04, who received a $2,645 grant for travel to India to research its development under the threat of violence; Kristina Rudd '04, who received $3,500 for travel to Uganda to study the effects of resettlement efforts on access to medicine; and Andrei Takhteyev '03, whose grant of $844 will enable him to travel to Germany to research German immigration policy and the integration of Russian Germans.
The College has established the Robert and Helen Stafford Professorship in Public Policy. The position is named for former Vermont Senator Robert T. Stafford and his wife, who are members of the Middlebury College classes of 1935 and 1938 respectively. Christopher McGrory Klyza, professor of political science and environmental studies, will be the first to serve as Stafford Professor. Faculty members whose teaching and research fall into the area of public policy, broadly defined, will be eligible for appointment to the Stafford Professorship.
Stafford served Vermont as lieutenant governor, and then governor in 1959. He became Vermont's lone member of the United States House of Representatives in 1960 and in 1971 became a member of the U.S. Senate, where he served until January 1989.
President McCardell, said, "The creation of this chair recognizes the distinguished public career of Robert Stafford and the loyalty of the Stafford family over the years and across the generations to Middlebury College."
Four students from Middlebury and their faculty mentors will head for Capitol Hill next month to participate in "Posters on the Hill," an annual event sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research. The students will be part of a group of 71 teams who will gather to present their research to members of Congress. The event shows off undergraduate research, and educates members of Congress on the importance of funding undergraduate science education.
The Middlebury students and their mentors are Brad Alexander '03 and Jeff Byers (chemistry and biochemistry); Doug Dagan '03 and Lori Delnegro (chemistry and biochemistry); Amber Young '03 and Frank Winkler (physics); and Andrew Savage '04 and Chris Klyza (political science and environmental studies).
A team of astronomers led by Middlebury's Frank Winkler has combined precise digital observations with simple mathematics to estimate the apparent brightness of an exploding star whose light reached Earth nearly 1,000 years ago, when it produced a display that was probably the brightest stellar event witnessed in recorded human history. An article describing these results was published in the March 1, 2003, issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
On May 1, 1006 A.D., a spectacularly bright star appeared suddenly in the southern sky in the constellation Lupus, the wolf. Observers from many parts of the globe recorded observations of the star. All agree that the star was spectacularly bright, but, until now, it has not been understood just how bright.
Through observations with telescopes in Chile, Winkler and his team, including former Middlebury College undergraduate Gaurav Gupta '01 (now a graduate student at Cornell University), located and photographed the remnants of the explosion. Using this information, the team was able to calculate how bright the star appeared to 11th century observers.
The recent death of Fred Rogers, the host of public broadcasting's "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," saddened the Middlebury College community as it did millions of others. One of Rogers' many honorary degrees was awarded by Middlebury College in 2001, when he gave the commencement address. No one there on that slightly rainy spring day will forget the experience of the outdoor ceremony, a light rain falling, while he led the audience in a verse of "It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood." His speech was a simple but eloquent message of caring-the same message he delivered year after year to millions of children who watched his program.
Throughout that weekend, as he made his way from place to place on campus, he was repeatedly stopped by admirers and fans. He listened carefully and intently to each person, giving the impression to all that nothing in the world he could be doing at that moment could be more important than listening to that person.
Looking back on his short visit to Middlebury College evokes something like enchantment. For that May weekend, Middlebury College became a neighborhood where the voice and manner of Fred Rogers found its gentle way through the competing hubbub and charmed us all unforgettably.