MiddNews
A monthly update of news and events on the Middlebury campus
Middlebury College Public Affairs Phone: 802-443-5629 Fax: 802-443 2110
Erwin Konesni '05 and Stephanie Morales '05 have received Watson Fellowships for 2005. The fellowship program, founded in 1968, awards one-year grants for independent study outside the United States to graduating college seniors nominated by their institutions.
Konesni, who is from Appleton, Maine, and a double major in environmental studies and music, will conduct research for a project called "Haul Away, Joe: Exploring Musical Labor of the Land and Sea." He will travel to the Netherlands, Germany, Ghana, Tanzania, Vietnam, Switzerland and Mongolia. Morales, a Rego Park, N.Y., resident, whose major is women's and gender studies, will travel to Spain, Argentina and Venezuela for her project titled "Women on the Reel: An Intergenerational Redefinition of Leadership through Film." The roster of fellows, listing colleges and project titles, is available at www.watsonfellowship.org.
The Watson Foundation reports that nearly 1,000 students from up to 50 selective private liberal arts colleges and universities apply for this award each year. This year, 184 students competed on the national level as nominees; 50 students were awarded fellowships.
Former Mayor of New York City and Time magazine 2001 Person of the Year Rudolph Giuliani will deliver the commencement address at the Middlebury College graduation ceremony on May 22. Giuliani will also receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.
During Giuliani's eight years as mayor, New York City's crime rate fell by 57 percent, and the FBI designated New York as America's safest large city.
Following the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Giuliani took charge of the emergency efforts, repeatedly taking to the airwaves to reassure the nation and provide information about the ongoing rescue effort.
Giuliani left office at the end of 2001, and is now the president of Giuliani Partners, a New York-based consulting firm specializing in security, preparedness and crisis management.
The other honorary degree recipients will be Charles Houston, emeritus professor of epidemiology and environmental medicine at the University of Vermont, and one of the world's foremost authorities on high altitude medicine; Mary Patterson McPherson, vice president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and president emerita of Bryn Mawr College; Robert P. Moses, 1960s civil rights organizer and founder and president of the Cambridge, Mass.-based Algebra Project, which helps students in inner city and rural areas to achieve mathematics literacy; and actor Donald Sutherland, who portrayed Dr. Hawkeye Pierce in the 1970 film "M*A*S*H," and has made more than 100 other films, including "National Lampoon's Animal House," ""The Dirty Dozen," "Klute," "Ordinary People," "Cold Mountain" and "Pride and Prejudice." He is the father of Angus Sutherland, who is a member of the graduating class.
Leda Smith '02, from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., has been awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. She is the first student from Middlebury to be named a Gates Scholar. Gates Scholars come from all over the world and pursue studies in the arts, science, humanities, social science, technology and medicine at Cambridge University in England.
The Gates Cambridge Scholarship program was established in 2001 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Over the past four years, 428 students have used their scholarships at Cambridge, 186 of them from the U.S.
Smith will study for a master's degree at Cambridge in Quaternary science, the study of the geology of the Quaternary period of Earth's history. For more information about the Gates Scholarship program, see www.gates.scholarships.cam.ac.uk.
Once again, the Middlebury men's and women's ice hockey teams have brought home national championship trophies. See the details at /athletics/.
Middlebury is one of 81 institutions in 33 states chosen for inclusion in The Princeton Review's forthcoming book, "Colleges With a Conscience: 81 Great Schools with Outstanding Community Involvement." Published by Random House/Princeton Review Books, the book will be available in bookstores on June 21.
"A college with a conscience," says Robert Franek, Princeton Review vice president for admission services, "has both an administration committed to social responsibility and a student body actively engaged in serving society."
Selection criteria included the college's support for service-learning programs, student activism, student voice in school governance and level of social engagement of its student body.
According to a March 3 New York Times story, contributions to colleges and universities increased by $800 million last year, to $24.4 billion. Based on a report from the Council for Aid to Education, the Times story noted that among liberal arts colleges, Middlebury ranked fourth, with a total giving figure of $37 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2004. Other top-10 liberal arts colleges listed are Wellesley College, $55 million; Smith, $42 million; Williams, $41 million; Davidson, $34 million; Amherst, $33 million; Vassar, $31 million; Mount Holyoke, $29 million; Wesleyan University, $29 million; and Gettysburg College, $27 million.
Eli Menaker '08 received a Spirit of Youth award from the Teen Action Council in Alaska for his "Planet Walk" project. He received a trophy, a cash award and recognition at a banquet held this month in his hometown of Anchorage, Alaska. According to a story in the Anchorage Daily News, Menaker designed a scale model of the solar system spanning 15 kilometers in downtown Anchorage.
Keith Williams, a sophomore at Middlebury College and a resident of Manchester Center, Vt., returned to "Jeopardy!" in a March 4 broadcast of the national television game show's "Ultimate Tournament of Champions." Williams qualified for the tournament by winning the "Jeopardy!" college championship in November of 2003. Williams lost in his bid to win the round and move ahead in the tournament, but he was happy about returning.
"I didn't think I would have another shot from behind the 'Jeopardy!' podium," said Williams, who as the "Jeopardy!" college champion in 2003, won a $50,000 cash prize, a specially designed trophy, a brand new Volvo S60R, and garnered a $50,000 contribution to the College's scholarship fund. Williams made his second appearance on the program last September in the 2004 "Tournament of Champions."
Congressman Bernie Sanders was the keynote speaker when representatives from state government, volunteer organizations, local employers and the general public gathered at a community summit to discuss poverty in Addison County on March 4. The Middlebury College Alliance for Civic Engagement, United Way of Addison County, and the People of Addison County Together sponsored the event. The summit preceded a weeklong symposium at the College titled "The Many Faces of Poverty: Local, National and Global Perspectives."