College Street

Hail to the Chief

At around 7:00 on the evening of October 24, students—with the occasional faculty, staff, and community member mixed in—began a slow, steady procession into Mead Chapel that didn’t stop until the 750-capacity building was full thirty minutes later. Those fortunate enough to gain entry had been standing outside the Chapel for hours, braving a cold, constant drizzle—the first student arrived outside the doors at 4:30, and by 6:30 a line five across stretched three-quarters of the way down Storrs Walk to Old Chapel Road. (Viewing sites had been set up in Dana Auditorium and Bicentennial Hall to accommodate the overflow crowd.)


With 45 minutes or so still to go until the night’s main event—the John Hamilton Fulton Lecture in the Liberal Arts—was to begin, undergrads began to pull books (God on the Quad, The Odyssey) from their backpacks and settled as comfortably as they could into Mead’s wooden pews. A few people noodled over crossword puzzles, and a number of students plugged into their iPods. One young woman sitting in the balcony picked up a program for the lecture and upon seeing a picture of the speaker on the cover said to no one in particular, “What a babe.”


Now, in the 218 years since the United States Supreme Court was established, it’s probably safe to say that not many people have said such things about the Chief Justice of the United States, but John G. Roberts Jr. is the youngest chief justice in 200 years. He also has a great sense of humor, appears rather approachable, and exudes a normalcy that one doesn’t expect coming from the highest judicial officer in the land.

All of the above traits were on display that October evening as Roberts delivered the Fulton Lecture—reading from hand-written notes on white, lined paper—a speech he described as a tribute to his predecessor on the court, William H. Rehnquist. (Before Roberts took the dais, it was announced that Middlebury had established an endowed faculty chair named in Rehnquist’s honor.)

Roberts is a natural storyteller, and his history lesson on the 16th chief justice was peppered with humorous anecdotes, citations from the likes of Emerson, and a closing exhortation that “these times demand a greater emphasis on the study of American history and culture.”

With his prepared remarks finished, Roberts opened the floor to questions (with the caveat that he wouldn’t comment on cases that either were before the court or might come before the court). For about 25 minutes, he touched on the impact of modern technology on established legal rules (“perhaps the most important issue the Supreme Court will have to decide in five years”), legal precedent (“a reflection of the challenge of the job”), and universal jurisdiction for heinous crimes (“Whose rule of law would ascend to become the global rule of law? I understand the concept. I don’t know how it would be implemented”).

To close, one student approached the standing microphone placed in the middle of the center aisle and pulled a recent issue of The Atlantic from his back pocket and began to read excerpts from a somewhat tongue-in-cheek piece written by a pair of writers (from the National Journal and Washington Post) that asserted that few jobs were as cushy as that of Supreme Court justices. “So, has it gotten too cushy for justices?” the student asked, while somehow managing to arch one eyebrow.

“I like my job a lot,” Roberts responded with a chuckle, “but I don’t know if I’d call it cushy.”

— Matt Jennings

Judging Rehnquist

In the fall, Middlebury President Ronald D. Liebowitz announced the establishment of an endowed professorship named in honor of Justice William H. Rehnquist, the late chief justice of the United States. The professorship—funded by an anonymous donor to honor the legacy of the nation’s 16th chief justice—is devoted to furthering the study of American history, literature, and culture, and the first holder of the chair is history professor James R. Ralph ’82, a teacher and scholar of American history whose research focuses on the civil rights movement.

“Jim Ralph’s book, Northern Protest: Martin Luther King Jr., Chicago, and the Civil Rights Movement, made an important contribution to our understanding of a critical period in the nation’s history,” Liebowitz said. “I can think of no more fitting holder of the inaugural Rehnquist professorship.”

The naming of a chair in honor of Rehnquist was not without controversy. A few weeks after the announcement, nearly 30 students and faculty members converged on Old Chapel to protest the naming. “Many see Rehnquist as a scholar of the Constitution,” said junior Louis Lobel ’08. “I respect [him] for his scholarly works, but a number of his views are immoral.” Op-eds and letters to the editor of the Middlebury Campus —both supporting and decrying the naming—followed and it was reported that the administration would work with student leaders to create an endowed professorship that would be named after a figure of the students’ choosing.

At the December faculty meeting, roughly one-third of eligible voting members cast a ballot on a “sense of the faculty” motion stating that the faculty “wish[ed] to reaffirm our commitment to diversity at Middlebury College,” as the recent naming of an endowed chair for William H. Rehnquist “undermines Middlebury College’s ability to promote diversity among its faculty, students, and staff.” The motion cited “the documented pattern of hostility Judge Rehnquist demonstrated toward historically underrepresented groups and the negative effects his judicial decisions continue to have on the individual members of these groups, namely people of color, women, gays, and lesbians.

“According to [the College’s] mission statement,” the motion continued, “diversity includes ‘the integration of [these] historically underrepresented groups into the campus community.” The motion passed with 52 in favor, 43 opposed.

In a January letter to the Campus, Liebowitz expressed disappointment in the contents of the resolution, writing that it “diminishes, quite ironically, the very thing it seeks—the institution commitment to ‘diversity.’”

Allowing that the chief justice’s political leanings differed from his own, Liebowitz argued that a political litmus test should not be used when accepting a gift honoring an individual. “To do otherwise narrows the range of ideas and perspectives a campus like ours is willing to entertain and debate.

Hail to the Chief, Part 2

All Gather ‘Round

On a glorious Saturday in early October, the Middlebury College Classics Department staged an experience in education that harked back to the early days of ancient Greece and Rome. Beginning on Friday evening and extending through the day Saturday, a dozen or so students and faculty took turns donning a garland of faux laurel leaves to read—in English—Virgil’s Aeneid from the first page to the last.

For those who skipped those lectures in Classical Literature 101, The Aeneid is Virgil’s account of the adventures of Aeneas, who survived the destruction of Troy by the Greeks and set sail with his men, seeking a new home. In the spirit of Odysseus, he endured all manner of natural and man-made disasters in his seven years before the mast, settling finally near the site of what would later become Rome.

The setting for the modern reading seemed fitting. The listeners sat on the steps of the College library while the readers stood in the shadow of the huge marble walls that demarcate the library’s grand entry, not unlike the walls of an ancient marble temple where Greeks might have gathered to listen to a reading of The Iliad or The Odyssey.The event was refreshingly low-tech. There were no modern accouterments—no PowerPoint slides, no multi-media presentations, not even a microphone.

On the other hand, it should be noted that lack of technology can be a handicap in these noisy times. Spanish Professor Roberto Veguez was forced to rely on his voice to do audio battle with a cranked-up boom box, whooping sports fans at the stadium down the road, a helicopter hovering overhead for a time, and a seemingly endless parade of parents and prospective students. He struggled mightily to make himself heard as he importuned the gods to show favor to poor Aeneas as he attempted to arrange a sacrificial feast in honor of the bones of his ancestors. (At least I think that’s what Aeneas was doing. It was hard to hear.)

Admittedly, it is tempting to poke fun at such an enterprise as the last stand of the Luddites. Tempting but unworthy. After all, the fact there exists a sizable branch of the publishing industry dedicated to “talking books” strongly suggests a significant resurgence of public interest in the oral tradition.

The audience never numbered more than a dozen or so at any given time, including at the two-hour Friday evening session that kicked off the marathon. Some of those in the audience were signed up to read; some appeared to be friends and roommates of the upcoming readers or perhaps students hoping to boost their grade point average in a classics class. Still others cast furtive glances this way and that, then sidled up to the plates of luscious Italian pastries that had been set out, grabbed a handful and were soon gone. Last but not least were the parents of prospective students, smiling and nodding encouragingly at their offspring, imagining in some misguided moment that Joey Jr. might prefer to spend his Saturdays listening to Virgil instead of sucking down brewskis at the football game. As fantasies go, this one is harmless.

Roberto Veguez was followed by Pavlos Sfyroeras of the Classics Department (a Cuban succeeded by a Greek), who took his turn at wearing the laurel garland. At noon, student Sara Helmers ’09 was scheduled to take over the podium. The marathon was planned to last until dinnertime.

In the end, of course, what the Aeneid proves yet again is that old adage about there being nothing new under the sun. Replace Trojans and Greeks with Sunnis and Shias or Palestinians and Israelis, or Catholics and Protestants—it all amounts to the same thing: war, political strife, treachery, wandering refugees, and ultimately the making of history. Is it a plague or blessing to know that several thousand years later, plus ca change ...                                     
                                              —Sally West Johnson '72

Half a World Away

In the fall of 1976, 11 students became the first to study the Chinese language at Middlebury. The chaos of China’s 10-year-long Cultural Revolution was only beginning to abate, and the country had been closed to most Americans for more than a quarter century; studying Chinese seemed a strange choice, worthy at least of a raised eyebrow.

Today, China is a hybrid of Western capitalism and socialist ideology, and while the Communist Party remains in firm control of the country’s political apparatus, a liberalized economy is changing the face of the world’s most populous nation. And half a world away, Middlebury’s Chinese department has grown during the past 30 years—like China itself—in leaps and bounds.

The program’s accomplishments were cause for celebration during the course of a weekend in October, when graduates living in Beijing, New York, and many spots in between returned to Vermont for the department’s 30th anniversary reunion and conference.

“I think it’s fair to say we do represent something of a success story,” a beaming John Berninghausen, the department’s co-founder and Truscott Professor of Chinese, told a packed crowd of alums at the start of the event.

Modest words.

Today, more than 50 students are enrolled in first-year Chinese, while 43 others are in their second year. And the department’s signs of growth are visible elsewhere.

When Berninghausen and the late Gregory Kuei-ke Chiang launched the department in 1976, the only courses offered were first- and second-year Chinese and Chinese literature in translation. Today, more than a dozen courses make up a curriculum rich in Chinese culture and linguistics, and 13 students take classes at Middlebury’s Chinese school in Hangzhou, China, a bustling city some 100 miles south of Shanghai—and more than 7,200 miles from the department’s home in Voter Hall.

At the reunion, people marveled at the growth of the department and compared experiences—both as students and as professionals. Of course, there were panel discussions and freewheeling conversations about China and Chinese (from conducting business in the People’s Republic to teaching the country’s language and history in the United States), and, as such events always do, the gathering also provided opportunities to reminisce: about late nights practicing characters for an upcoming tingxie (literally, “listen and write”) quiz; of Januarys spent not on the slopes, but inside cramming for class (Berninghausen decided to make Chinese study in the one-month winter term mandatory in 1979; other departments soon followed suit).

“In our Chinese language courses, from the beginning level to our most advanced senior seminars, all seven faculty members in this department work hard to provide our students with dynamic and intensive instruction,” Berninghausen says, when asked to explain the program’s strength. “That is all in the service of a clear goal: to help each individual student thoroughly and rapidly attain strong proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, writing, and cultural background.”

Tim McCahill ’03 is writer at Men’s Journal in New York City and a former Chinese major.

Sunday Night Live

“Keep Vermonters Warm will be back in this corner,” someone shouts, gesturing toward a spot near the fireplace in the Grand Salon of the Château. “Biodiesel will be out in the hall,” someone else bellows.

It’s Sunday evening, and 50 Middlebury students—give or take a few—have descended on the Château for the weekly gathering of the Sunday Night Group (SNG), a student collective working in various ways to combat climate change. It’s raining outside and mid-terms are looming, which may explain the lower-than-normal turnout (70-plus students usually attend each meeting), but those who are in attendance are diligently breaking into groups of eight or nine to discuss issues they want to tackle or initiatives they want to launch. (Last spring, one such SNG brainstorming session culminated in the formation of a 130-student delegation that traveled to Montreal for the UN Climate Change Negotiations.)

SNG has the feel of something that’s been part of campus life for a while, yet it’s only two years old. Founded in January 2005, SNG had a simple beginning: a group of students in a Winter Term course on global warming began meeting independently outside of class on Sunday evenings, a time when little else was scheduled. They’ve been meeting every Sunday evening since, often drawing faculty, staff, and interested townspeople into their activities.

“I’ve spoken on hundreds of college campuses in the last decade, and there is no question that SNG represents the most active and engaged college environmentalists in the country,” says author, environmentalist, and Scholar-in-Residence Bill McKibben. “They have a dozen good ideas at any given moment, they push them hard, and they learn from successes and failures. It is a self-taught school of environmental activism.”

One of those good ideas has been commanding a lot of attention on campus lately: SNG’s Carbon Neutrality Initiative (CNI). The term ‘carbon neutral’ has been receiving a lot of buzz—it will be added to the New Oxford American Dictionary in 2007—and it essentially means that an entity’s net carbon emissions must be zero. “First and foremost, that means increasing energy efficiency and developing innovative ways to produce or purchase clean power from local sources,” explains Jamie Henn, a senior history major and co-founder of SNG. “Second, the College would purchase ‘carbon offsets,’ meaning investments in emissions cutting programs elsewhere that compensate for the remaining emissions on campus.”

Last fall, CNI launched an innovative pr campaign, blanketing the campus with its hip, eye-catching logo, middSHIFT (and its accompanying slogan, “Shift into carbon neutrality”). Then they followed that up with an educational session, all in the hopes of gaining crucial campus support for their cause—that the College will commit to being carbon neutral by 2017. (The group will make a formal presentation to the Board of Trustees at its next meeting in February. The students are hoping that the trustees will be as receptive as they were in early October when a small group pitched the idea and the board agreed to endorse CNI.) If the initiative is successful, Middlebury could become the first college to achieve carbon neutrality.

“If Middlebury wants to remain an environmental leader, we need to be out there making bold steps,” Henn says. “The College has a real opportunity here to walk the talk. Biomass is a huge step in the right direction.”

“SNG has the image of a bunch of crazy, environmental hippies,” says Chester Harvey, a sophomore geography major, “but we want CNI to be feasible from a business perspective, to have the support of the suits and ties.”

To that end, the group has used brainstorming sessions to fine tune business language and develop branding concepts. And while these activists don’t exactly work within the system—they prefer to be “dynamic and quick, not stuck in the bureaucracy,” as Henn says—they recognize the need for coordination with the “key players” on campus, from the manager of the Snow Bowl up to the treasurer of the College.

Sierra Murdoch, a sophomore environmental studies major who has been involved with the group since she arrived on campus, has been instrumental in bringing together these key players. Their insights and those of some outside consultants will all contribute to the final plan that is presented to the Board, she says, but “in the end, the Initiative will involve the input of everyone on campus because everyone contributes to our carbon footprint.”

Clearly they have impressed those at the top and have earned their support and praise. “I admire and appreciate how they pursue what is important to them, and do so in such an effective manner,” says President Ron Liebowitz. “They have built something from the ground up without existing infrastructure, but smartly identified resources around them who assist them in thinking through how to get from A to B. This is a skill they will use all their lives, and is something we should be inculcating in all Middlebury students: identify what is important to you; pursue those interests and passions; take intellectual risks to achieve what you seek to accomplish; know your strengths and limitations; reach out to all available resources; and go for it.”

Perhaps it’s this “go for it” mentality that has led them be called the most influential student group on campus, despite the fact that “we’re not even an official student group,” as Harvey says. “We’re not recognized as one and we receive no funding from the College. We don’t want to be official. Then we’d have to follow the rules.”

                                                    — Sheila McGrory-Klyza

Go Figure

741
New items received by the Middlebury College libraries in October

574
Number of books received

19
Number of musical scores received

3
Number of libraries at Middlebury

25,444
Number of items checked out in October

20,715
Number of items checked out at the main library

3,072
Number of items checked out at the music library

1,657
Number of items checked out at the Armstrong (science) library

Observed

John G. Roberts Jr., the chief justice of the United States, delivered the 2006 John Hamilton Fulton Lecture in the Liberal Arts before a standing-room-only crowd in Mead Chapel on October 24. Despite the cold, raw day, students began lining up outside the chapel at 4:30 for the 8:00 lecture (doors opened at 7:00), and those unable to get into the chapel were able to watch the lecture remotely. ... That same evening, President Ronald D. Liebowitz announced the establishment of an endowed faculty chair named in honor of William H. Rehnquist, Roberts’s predecessor as chief on the court. History professor James Ralph ’82 was named the first holder of the Rehnquist chair. In the subsequent days and weeks following the announcement of the named professorship—a position named and funded by an anonymous donor—a contingent of students and faculty voiced their displeasure that a chair had been named in Rehnquist’s honor. ... Bill McKibben, a Middlebury scholar-in-residence and recognized authority on environmental affairs, was tapped to direct a fellowship program in environmental journalism, which will be based at the College. Each year, the program will select ten journalists—two of whom will be Middlebury seniors—and will work with them to produce news stories for print, the Internet, and radi0. ... Also on the environmental front, Nan Jenks-Jay, the College’s director of environmental affairs since 1997, was named the dean of environmental affairs in December. ... The Middlebury alpine ski team raised more than $56,000 in a benefit bicycle ride for teammate Kelly Brush ’08, who was paralyzed from the waist down in a ski racing accident last year. Brush participated in the grueling 100-mile loop through Addison County, completing more than eight miles on a hand-cycle. ... In other ski news, the College announced that the Snow Bowl will be a carbon neutral facility this winter. To achieve carbon neutrality, Middlebury purchased carbon offsets from a privately held renewable energy company to compensate for a total of 679.9 tons of carbon dioxide emissions produced by the ski area this winter. The energy company then uses money raised through the purchase of offsets to fund wind turbine farms and farm methane projects. The Snow Bowl’s carbon reduction initiative received a fair amount of national attention, including write-ups in the New York Times and U.S. News & World Report. ... The J.K. Rowling-inspired game quidditch—the sport of choice in the Harry Potter series—has surfaced at Middlebury. This fall, a group of students launched an intramural version of the game—think polo, only instead of horses, participants “ride” broomsticks—and for their efforts they landed on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. ... In November, the student organization Incarceration in Question hosted a four-day symposium titled “Double-Standards of Justice: A Weekend Workshop on Race, Class, and the Death Penalty.” The event concluded with a candlelight vigil on the steps of Mead Chapel. ... November was Religious Life Awareness Month at Middlebury, the first time the event has unfolded over an entire month rather than one week. More than 1,000 people participated in the myriad events, which included a symposium on social justice sponsored by the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. ... During exam week, three students spent 72 hours living in the library, an “event” covered by the Middlebury Campus. No word on how cozy the accommodations were. ... The women’s cross-country team captured its fourth national title, edging NESCAC rival Amherst, 144-143, at the NCAA championships in November. The championship was the College’s 27th since its teams began taking part in NCAA post-season competition in 1995. ... Thirty-four Middlebury students were named 2006 NESCAC Fall All-Academic selections. ... Tragedy befell the Middlebury campus with the death of a first-year student, Norbert Vaughn ’10. Vaughn withdrew from the College in mid-October when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He died in mid-November due to complications from brain surgery. ... A pair of longtime Middlebury professors—Kim Sparks and D.K. Smith—passed away this fall. Their obituaries can be found in the print edition of the magazine. They will be greatly missed.