“One thing that led to this response was the deep suspicion that Putin harbors about these protests that toppled the pro-Moscow government in Ukraine,” said Middlebury political science professor Michael Kraus in a Yahoo! News story about the turmoil in Crimea. “He sees a Western hand in that, and also he fears that kind of movement in Russia itself.”

“Russians don’t look at this as annexation. For them Crimea has been part of Russian history, first of all a part of Russian mythology, part of understanding the heroic legacy of World War II. They also look at Crimea as being given to Ukraine without any particular legal pretext or reason.” — Anna Vassilieva, Monterey Institute of International Studies, in an interview on Al Jazeera America.

Students “might mistake an exotic or unique-sounding opportunity for helping them stand out,” but “a student can just as easily have a job scooping ice cream, as long as they’re able to talk about why that experience was important,” said Middlebury Dean of Enrollment Greg Buckles in an NBC News story about high school students taking on internships.

“The Keystone XL decision lies in Obama’s hands. If he doesn’t stop the pipeline, we’ll look for avenues other than the ballot box to make our voices heard,” said Middlebury senior Hannah Bristol in an opinion piece for the Boston Globe.

.

“On any given Sunday, while I’m sitting in church, many of my neighbors are out walking in the woods, skiing, or reading a book by the woodstove (it’s what we do in Vermont),” said author and Middlebury professor Jay Parini in an opinion piece titled “Why Vermont is Not Godless” for CNN Online