Of Kido and Values
When I first read the story about Kido Kidolezi ’05 (“The Education of Yohanne Kidolezi,” summer 2007), I was so deeply touched that I couldn’t help writing an e-mail to my host parents to tell them how inspired I was. And when I read it again, it felt just as stimulating; it was beyond the power of words to describe what the feeling was about.
Having the opportunity of first attending a UWC and then coming to Middlebury, many of us have stories way beyond what a résumé can possibly show, yet sometimes when we immerse ourselves in the endless fight with assignments and papers, somehow the long journey we took to come to this place fades away in our heart. However, occasions like reading Kido’s story would totally bring back every detail—major or minor—back to our lives. We have achieved a lot in this process, but at the same time, we owe so much to so many people that we will never be able to repay fully. We owe support from our families and help from our friends. Moreover, without the outstanding education we received at UWC and the generous financial support from Shelby Davis, we wouldn’t be able to breathe the fresh air in the Green Mountain State.
And receiving itself is not the end. The UWC values and the philanthropic spirit of Shelby Davis encourage us to give back to society and to people who may need our help. Kido courageously went back to Tanzania to interview 300 child laborers, an action that broke cultural barriers in his home country. And he wants to return to Tanzania to help reform the educational system; I firmly believe this will happen. That is also why I devoted most of the summer volunteering in various parts of China, my home land, to do what I can for the people in need, whether they are underprivileged high school students or poverty-stricken villagers. The overall experience was positive and productive, although some parts of it were filled with frustration and dissatisfaction. Nevertheless, I don’t feel regretful since I did all I could to help and to make a difference.
When I returned to the States and read Kido’s story, the strong sense of resonance touched the bottom of my heart. We may not know each other, but we share the same values. And whenever we have a chance, we will give back to society, to which we owe so much, just as Shelby Davis kindly gives the full scholarship to each of us.
I would recommend here for those who haven’t had a chance to read Kido’s story, please take five minutes to do so. Middlebury has so many amazing alumni and current students whose stories are enough to influence us a lifetime. I can guarantee that Kido, along with his story, is among this category of excellence.
Mi Sun ’10
Middlebury, Vermont
Revisiting Skeptics’ Corner
It was wonderful to read all the touching remembrances of Pardon Tillinghast (“Remembering Pardon Tillinghast,” summer 2007). I have my own: Professor Tillinghast used to host the “Skeptics’ Corner,” where those few of us who questioned religion were encouraged to meet and discuss our reasons for disbelief. The believer who wished to change our mind would occasionally join us. Once, an atheist showed up with two anxious women in tow. He had shocked them with the suggestion that it was the devil who was really in charge of everything. This fellow passionately argued that there was no rational basis for believing in the existence of God. Tillinghast listened patiently, his attention fixed on the ceiling.
When the young man had finished, Tillinghast continued to stare at the ceiling before asking, “So if God does not exist, then nothing exists? If so, what is the rational basis for believing nothing exists?”
While he was speaking, he began to shift his gaze from the middle of the ceiling to a corner of the room, where two walls and the ceiling all met. It struck me that he saw that corner as a metaphor for the Trinity—three flat surfaces uniting to form a whole different shape. The young women looked relieved, and the atheist sputtered something about everything being a play on words. I became an agnostic.
Dave Corkran ’57
Portland, Oregon
Pardon’s Deep Influence
Pardon Tillinghast exemplified—as well as any teacher I ever had—Henry Adams’s words: “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”
Pardon E. Tillinghast (we affectionately would, in private, say “Pardon Me, Pardon E,” but always with reverence) was a student’s ideal teacher: thorough, reliable, clear, committed, available, and, most of all, imaginative. He made history come alive, even in large-group lectures. Always the teacher, he instituted “small-group” classes to “digest” lecture material. In these sessions, popes, kings, and queens took a human form. One would think that Pardon knew them intimately.
I was privileged to enroll in History 12, a yearlong course; there, I was one of 15 or so chosen for his now famous “Intellectual History of Europe,” where we read original texts (e.g., Magna Carta), analyzed them, and discussed the readings weekly—always refreshing!
Not a history major or teacher of history, I nevertheless have been greatly influenced by Pardon. His Anglo-Catholic background and my Roman Catholicism became a common basis for discussion of such saints as St. Anthony of Padua.
In short, I was touched by his greatness. May he rest in peace.
Anthony Roy Mangione ’55
Flushing, New York
A Precious Gift
Let me add a note of even older Middlebury history to the letters honoring our dearly remembered Pardon Tillinghast.
For those of us who arrived at Middlebury or returned there as World War II veterans in the fall of 1947 when Pardon was beginning his Middlebury teaching career, we found him to be a sparkplug for intellectual life, unlike any other I can remember on the campus. While we respected our older teachers, they were like all the teachers we had been learning from since we had been in kindergarten. They were older, perhaps wiser, and more like our parents than like ourselves. Yet some of us had seen far corners of the world. Some had faced ultimate challenges of life and death. All of us had been part of the awesome mobilization of raw American power that had won the war. The senior faculty at Middlebury, however learned and admirable, was not of our cohort. Pardon was.
He had been an enlisted man and had served just as ignominiously as most of us. What claims of glory could there be for a vet who had ridden patrols as a coast watcher in the Navy, mounted on a donkey, guarding the placid shores of the Panama Canal Zone? Yet he had lived the military life we had lived, and that made an initial bond that gave him a tremendous advantage in impressing us with the depth and the value of his learning. We could see parts of ourselves in him and parts of him in us.
When Pardon cracked slightly bawdy jokes about Eleanor of Aquitaine and England’s King Henry II, we were getting messages about the rich rewards and the deep entertainment value of the educated mind and the intellectual life. These were lessons we had never received before from a guy like ourselves—who just happened to know a whole lot more than we did. We admired his head, so packed full of things worth knowing. We respected what he could teach us. And perhaps most important of all, we cherished his way of showing us that the life of the mind was a precious gift to have and to share, and it wasn’t the exclusive property of our elders. We could get there too.
Bernard Friedlander ’50
Madison, Wisconsin
A Lasting Influence
Mr. Tillinghast—and then, for so many years, Pardon—had been the person I considered the main influence on my life and way of thinking, an opinion I arrived at while I was still at Middlebury and, indeed, during my freshman year.
The College was so different then, but somehow my faculty adviser, Doc Cook, knew that Pardon’s history courses were important to me and encouraged this American literature major to take every course Pardon taught.
Of course, there were also meals with Ellen and the girls at Adirondack View; trips to the Trapp family house; discussions on the use of the organ in the Gregorian chant; and winter snowshoe hikes, when Pardon joined Mountain Club members in climbing Camel’s Hump. This was followed after graduation by letters, his visits when my husband and I lived in Europe, my visits when we were in the U.S., then sitting next to him at his retirement dinner, then letters and more letters. I remember when, years ago, he was voted the best college teacher in New England, and I knew he deserved the accolade unreservedly.
To know and learn from this brilliant man has been a major pleasure to me and who knows how many other students were influenced by him. He leaves a gap that can be filled by no one.
Barbara Blaha Farnsworth ’55
West Cornwall, Connecticut
The Value of Discomfort, Indeed
I’d like to respond to President Liebowitz’s excellent baccalaureate address to the Class of 2007 (“Diversity: The Value of Discomfort,” summer 2007). While praising Middlebury’s success in becoming truly more diverse and the benefits realized by its students, he was forthright in discussing some of the discomfort and challenges facing a more diverse group. I was encouraged by his thoughtful discussion and the effort to face up to the problems, difficult and “messy” as they might be.
I am particularly disturbed by reports of homophobic incidents on campus and am glad that bigotry is exposed and that those accused of contributing to homophobia did indeed feel some “discomfort” while it was being discussed.
Jessie Woodwell Bush ’45
Sun City Center, Florida
Service Is an Honor
My sincere thanks go to George Logan ’61, for his thoughtful and compassionate remarks in the letters section of the last Middlebury Magazine (“The Next Great Generation,” summer 2007). Not only did he address the present, regarding the 3,500 flags, but also addressed obvious past attitudes that have been expressed/ manifested in this magazine and by the College. The majority of us who have served in the military, whether briefly or for a career, consider that service to be an honor and privilege.
William F. Geenty Jr, ’58
Puyallup, Washington
What’s Wrong with Simple and Quiet?
I concur with Jerry Gross’s take on the decision of the College to feature former United States president Bill Clinton as a commencement speaker and compound it by awarding him an honorary (?) degree (“Shocked and Shamed,” summer 2007). The College administration and whoever else had a hand in making the choice to include Clinton certainly earned my reproach for what smacks of pandering, audacity, and bad taste.
Yet this is but one more example of the questionable administrative behavior at Middlebury that has kept me estranged from the College since the tenure of Timothy Light and the subsequent era of McCardellism. Apparently, the present hierarchy is bent on continuing this trend, as it has further aroused my doubts about its judgment with its seemingly exaggerated focus on diversity. Why a new and specific office of such and the additional bureaucracy? Why all the recent citing of percentages and numbers? Is the College now flirting with quotas? Can’t Middlebury undertake a simple, quiet, effective pursuit of top collegiate prospects whatever their color, nationality, or background and do so with no fanfare and foreboding? Or is this but another exercise in currying favor with those of a particular political persuasion?
Admittedly, my view of the game is from afar. I can only draw inferences concerning the College from what I read. Perhaps a lot of people would be better served, however, if Middlebury spent less time fretting about what’s purportedly to be most liberal and correct and placed greater public emphasis on both its ethical standards and its liberal arts.
Richard D. Attwill ’52
West Hills, California
Community of Support
Editors’ note: We received a number of e-mails and telephone calls relating to Dirk Nakazawa’s courageous class note entry and letter (“Community of Support”) in the summer issue. The response was overwhelmingly in support of creating a forum in the magazine for alumni to share news of hard times, struggles, and affliction. Our magazine staff is still brainstorming ways to do this, and we are open to suggestion.
In addition, we received a letter to the editor in which the writer requested anonymity. It is our policy to only print signed letters, but we felt that this was a special case. In submitting a letter, the writer was expressing him/herself in the magazine in a way that he/she had never felt comfortable before. Because of Dirk’s words, this person felt empowered to join the conversation. We certainly were not going to stand in the way of that:
Thank you for printing Dirk Nakazawa’s letter in Middlebury Magazine (“Community of Support,” summer 2007). I always enjoy reading about the accomplishments of my fellow classmates, but I often feel despondent afterward, as I have not achieved success in certain areas of my life that I had hoped to attain upon graduation. When I can read about the obstacles various alumni have had to face in their journeys after Middlebury, it helps me put in perspective that many of us are going through similar experiences in our lives.
I was diagnosed about 11 years ago with depression and anxiety, which have been a constant struggle for me to deal with in my daily life. I feel like I have an invisible disability that some people can’t understand, and I become frustrated when I cannot always reach the potential I know I’m capable of achieving.
Whenever I run into classmates from Middlebury, there is always an instant connection to a special time and place in our lives. With Dirk’s initiation, I hope that bond among us can grow stronger as alumni begin to make the effort to come together as a community to help each other through our good times and bad."
Name and class year withheld upon request
Speaking Out
I was disappointed that your magazine chose to publish the letter “Gender Correction” penned by T. Louise Wiebe (summer 2007). From the mean spirited, glib tone of the correction, it seems as though the intent of the author was less about correcting an error in German grammar, and more about humiliating a student of Dr. Sparks, one who had chosen to honor a professor whom she clearly cherished.
Hannah B. Benz
Middlebury, Vermont
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. Send letters to:
Middlebury Magazine
5 Court Street
Middlebury College
Middlebury, VT 05753
E-mail: middmag@middlebury.edu