You Say Tomato …
After seeing Chantelle Cooper's ('07) first-year dorm room in the fall 2003 MiddleburyMagazine("Slice of Dorm Life"), I was amused by the contrast with my senior-year interpretation of a dorm room. This sculpture (see photo at right) was part of the collection of my work which was considered when I was awarded the Middlebury College Friends of the Art Museum Award for a College senior.
—Andy Lynch '03
New York, New York
The Total Package
With respect to the article on Bob Buckeye ("The Book Keeper," summer 2003), as a past invited lecturer to the Abernethy Series, an "ex-patriot" resident of the Middlebury area, and a friend of Bob's, I read this overdue recognition happily.
Might I add that his hard work is reflected not only by three decades of service in his field of arts and letters, but is also by his toiling as a writer of distinctive fiction and commentary.
Not only that, he was a heck of a best man at my wedding, a stellar teammate in the outfield of many a softball contest played behind the field house, and an energizing conversationalist. And, above all, Bob remains a warm and dear friend.
He is, as humans go, the total package.
—Stephen Calhoun
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Lively Profs
Your article detailing the Princeton Review's ranking of Middlebury as first in the category "professors bring material to life" ("Survey Says," fall 2003) came as no surprise to me.
At one of Professor Arthur Healy's ('24) History of Art classes in 1954, he picked up a chair and threw it across the classroom into a wall. This was to demonstrate a type of art that he was speaking about at the time. Fortunately, or unfortunately, no student was asleep at the time as the crash would have surely caused an embarrassing awakening. His classes were so interesting that you would never doze off, even though it was late in the day.
—Hugh van Zelm '56
Wilmington, North Carolina
This One's Going to Overtime
While it is heartening to have President McCardell write about what has been called "The Bowen Report" ("Reclaiming Games," fall 2003), he will have to deal with the issues raised in that report in future columns, as he leaves many questions dangling. But to be fair, Middlebury cannot deal with these issues alone or our teams will suffer on the field, unnecessarily.
Currently living near Hanover, New Hampshire, I see occasional Dartmouth games. When I attended a Harvard-Dartmouth hockey preseason game, over two-thirds of the players of both teams listed as their previous team, not a secondary school, but a variety of development teams, and Dartmouth boasted of three NHL drafted players. Ivy League schools as farm teams for the NHL?
But on to Division III. Just because Middlebury's incoming athletes have test scores at the same level as other freshmen does not mean they will perform at that level, due to pressures to perform on the field and to broadly held expectations in the community, Mayo Fujii's ('05) uplifting story in the same issue notwithstanding ("Being Mayo Fujii").
What is the distribution of majors of Middlebury's "rated" athletes? That courageous disclosure by the Middlebury administration would show great leadership in the NESCAC and would greatly advance this real debate.
Incidentally I am not against a high level of athletic achievement in itself. Middlebury's nationally ranked ski team, RPI's and Colorado College's hockey teams, and Johns Hopkins lacrosse team all compete at the highest levels, but they only involve 20–30 students or 1–2% of the enrollment, and they provide a good focus for the students and the alumni. But trying to compete nationally, across the board, hurts Ivies and near-Ivies, and that is the issue.
—Charles Buell '64
Plainfield, New Hampshire
Misplaced Priorities
President McCardell raises some interesting points in his column "Reclaiming Games" (fall 2003) concerning admittance of athletes to Division III schools. I have read and many times reread the athletic philosophy that Middlebury College publishes, and it is one that I heartily support. Middlebury has a reputation as a "jock school," not just for the number of students participating in varsity athletics, but also because of the number of students involved in athletics outside of varsity sports, including skiers, kayakers, rock climbers, ultimate Frisbee players, and many other unorganized athletic activities.
I believe, however, that President McCardell may be missing the reality beyond the Admissions Office. In my student days, and now in the student days of my daughter, a significant number of upperclassmen drop out of varsity athletics. My observation is that academics are indeed the first priority of these students, but athletics take priority for their coaches. Students are penalized by the coaches for putting academics first. If the NESCAC philosophy is to flourish, coaches will need to take that philosophy to heart and allow their athletes the leeway to be academic achievers, perhaps by sacrificing some practice timeand even some winning.
—Gail Davidson '70, P'04
Fairbanks, Alaska
The Military Constituency
I was struck by the ironic juxtaposition of the first and last pages of the fall issue, which opened with a letter critiquing Middlebury's contributions to the military ("Midd's Regrettable Path") and closed with a final obituary—of a Middlebury French School alumnus, a U.S. Marine who was the first soldier killed in combat in the latest Iraq war.
I have learned that since the hostilities began, there are innumerable members of the extended Middlebury community serving in the military. My own stepson, a Marine who signed up after 9/11, is among them, and he wrote eloquent letters home from Baghdad filled with his hopes to finish college after his stint. In recent years, Middlebury has welcomed former Navy SEALS and Marines as students. Just last month a fellow staff member in the reserves left his family and job for a year in Afghanistan, and the son of one of our trustees is a long-serving Marine Corps officer.
While perhaps we cannot expect students to be attracted to the difficult life of the service after four years in pastoral Vermont, in our continuing efforts at true diversity, we might want to encourage more former members of the military to come to Middlebury. They would add a large measure of life experience, maturity, and commitment to our student body and to our pool of Middlebury alumni-veterans.
—Elizabeth Karnes Keefe
Cornwall, Vermont
Open Forum
Michael K. Heaney '64 raises profound issues ("Midd's Regrettable Path," fall 2003) regarding the aversion to the military that pervades Middlebury and other elite educational institutions. While the military may be taboo at your campus, your Letters to the Editor department seems admirably uncensored.
—F. Barry Nelson, P '00
Cold Spring Harbor, New York
Silence in Academia
I found Michael Heaney's letter on Midd veterans ("Midd's Regrettable Path," fall 2003) extremely thought provoking.
It has been two years and almost two months since 9/11, yet American academia remains silent. For four decades, the Vietnam experience shaped their view of the military and national security. Those old views really do not apply now. Osama is not Ho Chi Minh, but have they told their students that?
Academia's old nemesis, the Department of Defense, is grappling with the new threat and changing in the process before our eyes. Shouldn't we expect the same from our universities?
This new war on terrorism does, after all, inherently imply a "war of education." Foreign language ability and cultural understanding really do play very key roles in this war. If institutions like Middlebury are not prepared to offer their renowned expertise in such areas, will the "educational" institutions of Osama—as symbolized by the bobbing heads of those boys engaged in the rote memorizing of their Qur'an—win out in the long run?
—Don Ullmann,M.A. German '72
Colonel, U. S. Army (Retired)
Conway, South Carolina
Seeking a Few Good Midds
Michael Heaney's letter in the fall issue of Middlebury Magazine("Midd's Regrettable Path") strikes at the heart of the role of higher education in the viability of our armed forces, our nation, and the very planet that on which we live. Mike and I organized the Middlebury veterans' reunions held in 2000 and this year to honor the "citizen soldiers" of all services who served in all wars since 1800. Middlebury's veterans—living and dead—took the same oath to serve and defend our nation with the implicit assumption that our country would be doing the right thing and that sacrifices they were willing to make would not be in vain.
The debate about the reasons for the Bush Administration to engage in the war in Iraq raises the question of whether those reasons were "the right thing." The rationale—which sold Congress to commit our troops to combat resulting in numerous dead and wounded, widespread anguish from losses, and further devastation of our economy—has not been reconciled. It is becoming increasingly evident that policy makers at the top of our government intended to use Iraq as a stepping stone toward creation of a "global American empire" and intentionally deceived the American people, including Congress, to achieve this aim.
The American military, which includes several Middlebury graduates, has served with great honor and effectiveness in a very difficult and unfamiliar battlefield, and in fulfilling its military mission, its members have not made their sacrifices in vain. However, the Bush Administration's neoconservative mission of world domination by force and deceit is inconsistent with the moral uprightness upon which this nation was founded, and accordingly, viewed from this perspective, makes all such sacrifices fruitless.
Significant damage has been done, eroding domestic and international confidence in the wealth and capabilities of our great nation. Higher education must embrace a goal of providing our country with its share of citizens who possess the intelligence, values, and ethical backbone to fill the ranks of government with military, career, and elected officials who will support and promote the foundations on which this nation was created.
Middlebury College has the opportunity to lead higher education in pursuit of restoring self-respect and honor to America by encouraging its high-quality students to explore service in the military and government at all levels.
—Richard E. Powell '56
Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired)
Gainesville, Virginia
A Call to Arms
In respect to Michael Heaney's fall 2003 letter, "Midd's Regrettable Path": Throughout history, American citizen soldiers have avoided service until pressed upon them by public need. This is a strength of our democracy, because no one signs up until and unless there is a period of true national emergency—and then reluctantly. Such a national emergency accompanied by a Congressional declaration of war should be the only circumstances when service men and women are committed to combat.
—Jon Berger '67
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Two Roads Diverged in a Wood
This letter is in response to the gentleman who wrote in your last issue regarding Middlebury's regrettable path ("Midd's Regrettable Path,"fall 2003). While I honor the gentleman as a veteran, never having been one myself, though I registered for the draft, I must take issue with his portrayal of Middlebury as an institution that does not honor the military traditions of its history.
I also must take issue with the obvious attempt by the gentleman to speak for everyone. I have a son who is a sophomore at Middlebury this year, and I am very proud that Middlebury is more concerned with my son's education and well-being than his recruitment for warfare. Especially now, when the U.S. occupation of Iraq is as unjust and unprincipled as are the aggressors the U.S. has defended the world against. Providing cannon fodder (or shoulder-fired missile fodder) for the people the Bush Administration sees as enemies, is not a choice my son, as an eligible young man, or I, as his father, want to make. It would be one thing if the undeclared war in Iraq had any point other than to line the pockets of the executives of the companies which W. covets as sponsors. It has no other point that I can see. Moreover, George Bush has lied about this action in Iraq so many times, has changed his story so often, that I cannot even conceive of any child of mine backing such a man or his wars.
Middlebury's only regrettable path, as I can see it, is that it must, of necessity, stand against those of its illustrious alumni who can't seem to see beyond the end of their noses or the eagle decorations on their flagpoles. I must commend the institution for exercising its basic American right of freedom of speech and equal time by printing the Mr. Heaney's letter, as offensive as it is. I would rather have the College in trouble with people like Mr. Heaney than have my son facing the business end of a shoulder-fired missile, while George W. Bush and his ilk sit back and count the money (read, the Oil) that they are stealing from the Iraqi people. I would also have the College follow James Baldwin's dictum: "My country right or wrong: when right to be kept right, when wrong to be put right," rather than blindly follow where misguided, underhanded, unprincipled, cowardly, greedy, unscrupulous politicians want us to follow.
I thank the gentleman for his letter, the College for the courage in printing it, and my country for encouraging lively debate. But to have institutions of higher learning used as incubators of lambs-to-the-slaughter is unjust, immoral, and just plain wrong.
—Calvin H. Johnson, P '06
Ukiah, California