Swapping Cheese for Chaucer
Thank you for the story “17 Things Every Alum Should Know about Bread Loaf” in the summer issue of Middlebury Magazine. True, the latter number of the “17 Things” were familiar to me and serve as a deserved publicity for the School. But everything pertaining to the history of Bread Loaf fascinated me and, yes, put me to shame. Having spent three summers at Bread Loaf and having graduated there in the early 1970s, I did that with a vague notion that Robert Frost, sweaty and tired, collapsed there under a tree one day and said: “But I have promises to keep, let there be a School of English.” Never heard of Battell, his poor health, his way of swapping excellent cheese for Chaucer, i.e., choosing a road less traveled by much earlier than the bard.
Very endearing! Very Vermont-ish! And for a die-hard number of us foreigners, USA at its very best!
Duro Ganotzi, M.A. English ’72
Dillenburg , Germany
A Point Not Well Taken
I enjoyed reading about the Bread Loaf campus in the summer 2006 edition of the alumni magazine. However, I must take issue with point number 11 regarding the statement, “In an era when less than half of secondary school teachers have a degree in the field they teach—most hold their degrees in education ...”
I am a public school teacher with three degrees in the fields I teach (French and Spanish): two from Middlebury and one from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. At my high school, more than 85 percent of the teachers hold a degree in their field; teachers in the English department who have a degree in journalism are considered to hold a degree “out of their field.” This high percentage, significantly above half, is not at all unusual, at least in Colorado. The schools are required to report this very number on a yearly basis.
Please do not think that teachers are not knowledgeable or educated in what they teach. We are very much so!
Charlotte Lindsay Maybury ’86,
M.A. Spanish ’96, MIIS MATFL ’89
Golden, Colorado
Two More Things ...
... every alum should know about Bread Loaf (“17 Things Every Alum Should Know about Bread Loaf,” summer 2006).
Number 18. By virtue of the way it is assembled, the Bread Loaf faculty is among the most distinguished grad school English faculties in the world. Because Bread Loaf draws most of its faculty from other colleges and universities throughout the U.S. and the U.K., the faculty usually includes many academic luminaries. In the past, the faculty has included Harold Bloom, Bart Giamatti, and, of course, Robert Frost. Recently, it has featured Paul Muldoon, Christopher Ricks, and Robert Steptoe. My own Bread Loaf professors included Michael Wood and Kate Flint, then chairs of English at Princeton and Oxford, respectively.
Number 19. Bread Loaf’s list of great literary figures who have come to the mountain campus is nearly unparalleled at any college or university. During my five summers there, I heard readings and lectures by Julia Alvarez, David Henry Hwang, Tony Kushner, and N. Scott Momaday, to name a few. Past visitors have included Saul Bellow, Willa Cather, Seamus Heaney, Sinclair Lewis, Archibald McLeish, Howard Nemerov, Dorothy Parker, Carl Sandberg, Richard Wilbur, William Carlos Williams, and, again of course, Robert Frost.
Frank Betkowski, M.A. English ’00
Mercersburg , Pennsylvania
The writer is the associate director of college counseling at Mercersburg Academy.
Making Payroll on the Farm
The carping by several professors against Commencement speaker Ann Veneman (Letters, summer 2006)—for example, use of “scare quotes” in describing Veneman’s family farm—is profoundly elitist and shows how embedded they are in a populist, agrarian view of agriculture far more suited to the 19th century than the 21st. Their criticism ought not to represent the values (their term) of Middlebury or any other school.
Americans have been eating substantial quantities of genetically modified foods for half a generation. Were there the slightest health impact, trial lawyers and neo-Luddites would have ridden that pony hard and fast. They didn’t, because there’s no there, there. So why is Veneman criticized for supporting a technology proven safe and backed by crushing majorities of both scientists and farmers?
Agricultural GMO technology is of preponderant environmental benefit, allowing farmers to save energy, improve soil structure, use fewer herbicides, and reduce insecticide use. Farmers have not been shy about abandoning GMO technology when it provides few net benefits, such as the “New Leaf” potato, but those decisions should be made by individual farmers across America, not some feverish clot of professors, few of whom have ever had to make payroll.
Veneman was appointed to head UNICEF by Kofi Annan, not exactly a corporate stooge or card-carrying Republican, and she is an inspiring example of what intelligent, competent women can do when barriers are removed. The pettiness of the writers, in contrast, is of no credit to the College.
I make my living as an ecological farmer. It’s a challenge to deal with weather, markets, balky equipment, assorted pests, highly seasonal cash flow, getting shafted by buyers, and making payroll. For all that, it’s a stimulating, profitable, enjoyable career, and the 15-second commute is hard to beat. What I don’t need—what none of us in farming need—are well-paid, well-fed academics telling us what’s right or wrong for our businesses.
Globalized, industrialized, commoditized production of the world’s most essential energy and protein foodstuffs has opened countless profitable niche opportunities for small farmers around the world, some of which are illustrated in “Who’s Hungry?” (same issue). There are two effective business models: high volume at low margin (commodities) and low volume at high margin (specialties). The two are complementary, not competitive, and if you try anything else, at least in agriculture, you’re toast. Commodities can survive just fine without the specialties, but not the other way around.
What’s galling about agrarians, especially academic agrarians, is that their beliefs and putative policies are not only stale, but work against farmers’ successes and well-being in an industry already difficult enough on its own. I have an edition of American Agriculturalist magazine in which academics bemoan the impact of new technology on family farms. They meant “Mr. McCormick’s reaper, of late developed in Virginia and already exerting an unhealthy downward pressure on the price of grain.” In 1844.
The professors’ letter is just as badly out-of-time, and demonstrates negligible understanding of agricultural realities. If they could have their way, I suspect we farmers would eventually be reduced to little more than exhibits in some sort of private agrarian petting zoo. No thank you. Not interested.
Bart Hall ’71
De Soto , Kansas
Intellectual Diversity?
What a relief to read a proposal by 12 Middlebury professors that the College select only Commencement speakers who have been vetted by Planned Parenthood and The Nation. This will surely save the College much of the time and energy it now wastes searching for a variety of speakers. It has been long apparent that the goal of intellectual diversity in higher education is a crock. Congratulations to these professors for doing their part to persuade Middlebury College to abandon it.
Josh Levy ’97
Charlottesville , Virginia
A Marketplace of Ideas?
Middlebury College is committed, in its own words, to “maintaining a diverse community committed to broadened educational opportunities within an atmosphere of respect for others.” This vow serves as a very interesting backdrop to the letter signed by 12 professors in the summer 2006 edition arguing that former Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman should have been disqualified from speaking at Commencement.
The professors’ letter leads with an assertion that choosing Veneman to speak was “inconsistent with the values of the College and with the values of most Vermonters.” The group supports this claim by suggesting that Veneman’s positions on trade, land-use, and abortion run counter to Middlebury’s preferred position on such matters.
My suspicion, however, is that Middlebury College doesn’t actually have a position on regulatory actions taken by the Clinton administration, or any of the other things mentioned by the professors. I certainly couldn’t find any when I searched the Handbook and other official sources. Nonetheless, the authors are certainly entitled to their opinions on political matters—evidence of which is abundant in the group’s decision to cite left-wing standard-bearers Planned Parenthood and The Nation as the primary sources supporting its argument.
I happen to share some of the policy concerns expressed by the professors, and I concede that a great many Vermonters would likely say the same. My objection to the group’s argument is simply that it makes a very dangerous assumption about which values Middlebury College really holds dear. If speakers whose views challenge the dominant on-campus political outlook are not welcome at Middlebury, how diverse of a community can the College really be? Is Middlebury really willing to close its doors to differing ideas only to have “other colleges and universities,” as the authors suggest, take up the cause of diversity?
I am proud to know that Middlebury College found the will to feature Ann Veneman as its Commencement speaker. Such a choice strengthens Middlebury’s reputation as a place where the marketplace of ideas can truly thrive, and where leaders of all political stripes—Rudy Giuliani, Jim Jeffords, and Ari Fleischer included—are greeted with open arms. Adhering to the course of action advocated by the professors, on the other hand, would have put the school in the shameful position of proclaiming a dedication to diversity that it has, in reality, no intention of following through on.
Kevin F. King ’02
Washington , District of Columbia
Reducing Emissions 101
I read with interest the interview with New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert on the subject of climate change (“Q&A,” summer 2006) and noted, in particular, her hopeful response to the question of how programs like Middlebury’s environmental studies program furthers the journey towards solutions to the problem of climate change. Ms. Kolbert noted that such programs “inspire kids to take this issue seriously, and once you take it seriously, when you really do the numbers, what you see is needed are really serious actions.”
Indeed. But let’s “walk the walk” if we “talk the talk.” As I noted to an environmental studies faculty member a few years ago, having no more than a one-child family is an absolute imperative if we are going to make any headway in reducing carbon emissions. Let’s face it: the equation boils down to: people = greenhouse gas emissions. An increase in the former equals an increase in the latter. Denial of that reality, however, knows no academic bounds.
While I would never suggest that having a one-child family be a litmus test for appointment to the ES faculty at Middlebury, I would certainly be less willing, as a student, to find credibility for the global crisis, knowing that such an imperative did not necessarily translate to the personal choices made by those faculty members.
James Close ’74
Mechanicville , New York
A Life Intensely Lived
Diane and I have been moved to tears by the sensitive remembrances so many in the Middlebury family have shared with us in the year since Kimberly’s tragic accident on September 25, 2005 (“In Memoriam,” summer 2006). We have been reminded time and again how beautifully Kim touched so many lives.
Kim arrived at Middlebury in the fall of 1992 with an independence of mind and an inquisitive spirit. The superb education she absorbed empowered her to transform her love of life and travel into most meaningful accomplishments. Her life may have been short, but its intensity left behind a beautiful legacy.
She called her homestead at the foot of Snake Mountain Bella Vista. Her gardens and the simple but spectacular site she developed there continue to provide us solace. It is also a reminder, like her friends and her midwifery clients who continue to share their memories with us, that her spirit lives on in those she loved and nurtured.
We thank the Middlebury community for your part in helping us along our pathway to understanding. Being touched by her immortal spirit has been a privilege that we share with all of you.
Jeff and Diane Garver Krans P’96
Keuka Park , New York
Botanically Speaking
Re: the photograph on the contents page of the summer issue of Middlebury Magazine, specifically the band that identifies the tree.
Listing the species as “R. pseudo-acacia” is incorrect in two ways. First, the specific epithet is not hyphenated. It is “pseudoacacia.” Second, it is not correct to use the short cut for the genus, in this case, “Robinia,”when it is out of context. Using the first letter is done only in a list when the first name in the list fully spells out the genus. Listing the family is meaningless to the reader when one doesn’t know the full botanical name. Hopefully, all the other labels spell out fully the correct botanical name.
Corliss Knapp Engle ’57
Chestnut Hill , Massachusetts
Letters Policy
Letters addressing topics discussed in the magazine are given priority, though they may be edited for brevity or clarity. On any given subject we will print letters that address that subject, and then in the next issue, letters that respond to the first letters. After that, we will move on to new subjects.
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