Middlebury Voices in the News: Democrats and Obamacare, Unionizing Adjuncts

“In the end, despite the undeniably high political cost his party has paid for passing Obamacare, he might yet conclude it was a fight well worth making. And the verdict of history might well agree with that assessment,” said Matt Dickinson, professor of political science, in an op-ed piece for U.S. News. Dickinson was writing about the ongoing debate among Democrats about the political costs and benefits of the president’s signature healthcare legislation. Read “Was Obamacare a Mistake for Democrats?”

“The face of education has changed drastically in the past half century,” said Peter Matthews, professor of economics, in an interview with Vermont Public Radio about the higher education trend to hire more adjunct faculty and fewer full-time faculty. “Fifty years ago, 70 percent of all academics were tenured or tenure tracked. At this point … 19 to 20 percent are tenured or tenure tracked. The rest are adjuncts who work under a variety of conditions, often not particularly hospitable,” said Matthews. Read and listen: “Unionizing Vermont Adjuncts Reflect A National Trend.”

“FEMA took a while with a lot of different cases to repay the cleanup,” said Piper Underbrink ’15 to the Barre Montpelier Times Argus. Underbrink was one of five Middlebury students who conducted research on the lingering emotional impact of Tropical Storm Irene, which caused severe damage to Vermont in 2011. “That anxiety, in terms of monetarily, is still impacting a lot of people,” noted Underbrink. Read ”Irene Impact Researched Three Years Later.“  

“There is no universe where this is a safe and ecologically appropriate way to dispose of chemical weapons,” said Jeffrey Lewis of the Monterey Institute’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told the New York Times in response to a new report about destruction of chemical weapons in Iraq from 2004-2009. Lewis said the Pentagon failed American troops by not better preparing them for the task. Read “Thousands of Iraq Chemical Weapons Destroyed in Open Air, Watchdog Says.“ 

“They had an inexperienced candidate who didn’t really have a clear message and yet he almost beat Shumlin,” said Bert Johnson, associate professor of political science in an article for Governing regarding Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin’s surprisingly close re-election bid in November. Read “The Governor’s Race That Still Isn’t Over.”