Peggy Nelson, professor of sociology, talks about her new book, Parents Out of Control, which looks at technology and other emerging issues in parenting.
Jeremy Ward (Biology) and Elizabeth Morrison (Religion) have been promoted to the rank of associate professor.
Courtesy of the president's office, a look at recent publications and other accomplishments by Middlebury's faculty.
Some of the sights and sounds from the check-in desk as the summer Language Schools get under way.
Middlebury's 35th Alumni College, open to alumni, parents and friends, takes place from August 26-29 at Bread Loaf.
Ross Dining, al fresco.
Spring tulips peek over a stone wall in front of the Old Stone Mill.
Spring vista behind the Mahaney Center for the Arts.
Midd Magazine: Tal Birdsey '87 and the making of the North Branch School in Ripton, Vermont.
Monterey Institute's Anna Vassilieva talks on PBS Newshour about the effect of spy charges on U.S.-Russia relationship.
A song by the student vocal group Stuck in the Middle is featured in a compilation of the best in college a cappella performances.
In an era of rampant federal contracting, where does the state end and the private sector begin? Political scientist Allison Stanger raises a red flag.
Born July 27, 1874, Anderson became, in 1899, the first woman of color to graduate from Middlebury. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the valedictorian.
Invest in Middlebury students: Make a gift by June 30!
These Middlebury people know what it means to count on the Middlebury people who came before them.
Shanta Lindo '10: "Everyone has something unique to bring to this environment. One person really does matter."
Catarina Campbell '11: "What I believe in most is that you can't inherently write people off."
Geena Constantin '11: "Financial aid goes to people from every walk of life."
Muchadei Zvoma '07: "The benefit for you is knowing you helped someone get the great education you got."
Shane Scranton '12.5: "Receiving financial aid from an alum is like having another kind of family--the Middlebury family."
Mike Schoenfeld '73: "Giving so people can come to a place you love--how do you beat that?"
Andrew Powers '11: "When I think of my friends on financial aid--I don't know what this community would look like without them."
Karl Lindholm '67: "Now it's even more important for Middlebury to step up and retain this commitment to financial aid."
Coach Bob Ritter '82: "The longer I've been here, the more I appreciate our need-blind policy."
Dallas Moody '10: "I've been able to see Vermont, New York, Boston; to study for a year in Italy--places I'd heard about but never been."
Chris Lam '10: "The different backgrounds and opinions people bring--that's what I cherish most about Middlebury."
Laurel Gray '10: "Everything I do here is a result of someone else's generosity."
The members of the Class of 2010 receive their degrees under sunny skies, and hear from authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Photo by Brett Simison.
Alden Harwood expected to find junk in the dark corners of the old barn. Instead he found a long-lost Middlebury treasure.
Dana Yeaton '79: "Middlebury is being put through a difficult time--all schools are--and that's when you find out who you really are."
Make a gift for financial aid by May 31 and it will be matched by an anonymous donor! Learn more or give now.
Midd football players spend time each week with local school kids.
Middlebury Magazine feature examines race, ethnicity, and identity.
With impressive showings in Europe, Ted King '05 has captured the attention of the cycling world.
An alumna reflects on an enduring symbol.
From Middlebury Magazine: A behind-the-scenes look at an art historian's improbable four-year adventure.
Student researchers showcase big ideas at the 2010 Spring Symposium.
School pride is the secret ingredient in Middlebury granola, produced on campus by student bakers.
Celebrate by listening to Frost read his poem 'Birches' at Bread Loaf or learn about his long association with Middlebury.
Middlebury dedicated a new chairlift at the Snow Bowl on February 18.
Ice-covered branches and a bluebird sky frame Old Chapel on a cold winter day. Photograph: Dennis Curran
A quiet winter morning on campus. Photo by Brett Simison
Commitment to making math more accessible helps Steve Abbott earn annual award for excellence in teaching.
Professor Allison Stanger's new book focuses on the government's use of private contractors.
Students collected photos and interviews for a Vermont Folklife Center exhibition.
Sparks fly during a carnival bonfire. The 87th edition of Middlebury's Winter Carnival wrapped up on February 28.
Hedda Berntsen, Class of '99, grabbed a silver medal in ski cross for her native Norway.
For the Panther ski team, it's on to the NCAAs after a third-place finish during the Middlebury Winter Carnival.
Men's basketball, after picking up first-ever NCAA tournament win, loses in regional final to Rhode Island College.
The men's hockey team fell to Plattsburgh State in overtime in an NCAA quarterfinal game on March 13.
Five Middlebury alpine racers and a pair of cross country skiers competed in the NCAA Skiing Championships in Colorado, March 10-13.
Ten Middlebury swimmers are competing at the 2010 NCAA championships. Follow the action live!
Head-first slides down Mead Chapel hill. The 87th edition of Middlebury's Winter Carnival wrapped up on February 28.
Pulling through in the tug-of-war. The 87th edition of Middlebury's Winter Carnival wrapped up on February 28.
The 1000-meter short-track snowshoe event. The 87th edition of Middlebury's Winter Carnival wrapped up on February 28.
Winter term students build a TV show on the environment, and blog about it.
French School Blog
French School radio broadcasts.
French School Weekly Newsletters Back to 2006
French School Photos (good quality) Plus Middlebury at Mills Photos
French School Videos: dances, concerts, ceremonies, etc.
Selected Italian School students tell poignant stories as part of classwork.
Italian School blog for summer 2009. In Italian.
Italian School photos from 2008 and 2009. Parties, soccer, and theater.
Italian School has newsletters each week during the summer outlining the events and announcements for the school.
Allison Coyne Carroll (staff, MCFA) spends her free time advocating for simpler immigration and taxation policies for foreign national visiting artists. Allison attended Arts Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill in March 2009, and met with Senator Leahy (who is also Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations) to champion for improved visa processing, and ensure Middlebury can continue to present premiere performers from around the globe. (Picture here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsmaple/3796111640/ )
Liz Kofman & Astri von Arbin Ahlander both '07 pen a blog on work-life issues for young people. They also are more well known at Midd for their other project: The Lattice Group.
LOVE MONEY was written by Thompson Davis, Lucas Kavner, and Willie Orbison. Judith Dry, Lucas, Willie, and Ali Kresch are acting in it. Thompson, Chris Rominger, and Nick Barone foot the band. Maegan Mishico produces, and Aaron Gensler directs. Almost all Middkids put on a show at NYC Fringe Theater Festival.
The Middlebury Career Services Office (CSO) creates a new blog highlighting the internship experience. They feature a number of student essays on specific internships as well as advice for students applying to be interns.
Summer language school student shows off his excellent nature photography of Middlebury's flowers.
Follow Elizabeth Scarinci '12.5's journeys to Chile and Peru. Elizabeth's blog is both personal and wolrdly at the same time. She has video entries, photos, and extensive writing.
Ginny Faust spends her time preserving... no, not fruits and veggies from the organic garden, she works in the library with both the commonly used books from the circulating collection and the rare and valuable materials in Special Collections.
In a truly collaborative effort, students, alumni, faculty and staff joined together in a unique hands-on project. In the Spring of 2008, Henry the Hydro-Tractor was born. Mark Benz '54 and Dick Catlin '54 presented the physics department with a project to convert their Ford 8N tractor from running on gasoline to running on hydrogen. Through current hydrogen developments and research and hands-on tinkering with the tractor, Maggie Bale '10, Matt Vaughan '09, Jenny Erwin '10 and Marty Schnure '10 reconstructed the old Ford to burn hydrogen, a renewable resource, instead of gasoline. With help from physics faculty and the mechanical genius of Middlebury staff, this project became what a liberal arts education should be: collaboration, hands-on learning, independence, and ground-breaking projects. (submitted by Maggie Bale)
Radio Arts Middlebury is a completely student-written and -produced radio program dedicated to reporting the events, people, and ideas that comprise the arts community at the College. In the fall of 2008, the show sprang fully-formed from the mind of Colin Foss ('10, LITS). Foss hosted RAM until the spring of 2009, when John Patrick Allen ('11, PSCI) took over during Foss's time abroad. RAM has interviewed Middlebury professors, visiting artists (including Girl Talk and Anaîs Mitchell), students, and staff -- people who find themselves creating or promoting art on campus. RAM's "Middlebury Story" is one of finding other stories.
Recent graduate Stefan Claypool '09 has collaborated with other alumni and current students to launch Escape Pod X, a radio theater podcast and serialized anthology about a character traveling the galaxy. The project was born out of the Middlebury Radio Theater of Thrills and Suspense (Mr|Tots), a popular radio theater program hosted by WRMC 91.1FM, the college radio station, and syndicated by other college radio stations around the country. Radio Theater at Middlebury started in 2005 with the class of 2009.
Michael Luby '10 pens a blog that chronicles a nearly day-by-day account of his year abroad studying Japanese in Tokyo. He shares his thoughts and adventures from climbing Mt. Fuji to playing Japanese video games. He usually marks his posts with the day of the week in Japanese.
George Altshuler '10 blogs about his experience studying abroad in France. Expect thoughts on museums, politics, education, and history.
Larry Hamberlin had an essay included in a book of Schubert studies published by Ashgate Press in the fall.
In the spring, Hamberlin presented papers at the Experience Music Project's pop music conference in Seattle and at the conference Feminist Music and Theory in Greensboro, North Carolina.
He is active on the editorial board of the Journal of the Society for American Music, and he's on the program committee for the society's 2010 annual meeting, as well as chair of the selection committee for the society's award for the year's best book about American music.
Professor Cynthia Packert reports:
Zmira Zilkha, Class of 2009 and a February graduate, is an intern now at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy. http://www.guggenheim-venice.it/inglese/default.html
And Nicole Macmillan, also 2009, has been awarded an intership at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. http://www.phillipscollection.org/
Temperatures in Middlebury, Vermont, are expected to dip well below zero in the next few days. But students at Middlebury College should be cozy and warm — thanks in part to wood chips.
As part of a carbon-reduction initiative on campus, the college on Thursday expects to push the start button on its $12 million biomass gasification boiler. The facility, which sits in the middle of the campus, is projected to reduce the college’s heating oil consumption by a million gallons each year.
Getting a wood-chip boiler up and running is not easy. For Middlebury, there were three main concerns: the location of the plant, cost, and the availability of a fuel supply.
As senior Alexa Warburton opens the door to the cephalopod lab, a pungent smell escapes into the third-floor hallway of Middlebury College’s McCardell Bicentennial Hall. “It smells like the ocean,” she comments. And it should. Warburton, a senior biology major from Hopkinton, N.H., is spending her summer studying a member of the cephalopod family, Octopus bimaculoides . Her goal is to study the way these saltwater creatures learn, thereby furthering the already-extensive body of research on invertebrate intelligence.
Aaron Smith, Class of 2009 and a Film & Media Culture major, has posted online a discussable version of his senior thesis, "Transmedia Storytelling in Television 2.0," in which he explores how contemporary television has embraced new narrative strategies and digital media to encourage participation in expansive storyworlds. In this online version, he invites readers to comment in the margins of his project to further the dialogue about these new developments.
Students in Helen Young's plant biology class participate in community service projects, ranging from providing information about produce for the Middlebury Natural Food Coop, creating a species list of the plants at Sycamore Park for the Conservation Commission of the town of Bristol, surveying the plants on the green-roof of Atwater Dining Hall to determine which species survive best under these conditions, assessing the health of trees on campus to assist the College horticulturist, plan pruning schedules, assisting a local vintner in harvesting grapes, and doing a forest assessment of The Waterworks Center for their forest management plan. These projects, and more, will be incorporated into the fall 2009 offering of the course.
Helen Young (Biology) and her students have recently been exploring the effects of landscape on pollinator: How does the presence of forest around a field affect the number and diversity of bee pollinators? What about corn fields? Or roads and rivers and cities? This work has strong relevance in Addison County, an area heavily reliant on agriculture for its well-being. Once the researchers know what influences pollinator abundance, they will be able to include this information in city and county planning, and help farmers maintain (or even increase) their crop yield for insect pollinated crops.
Maria Perille, Class of 2011, is blogging this summer on the intersection of economics and psychology. Her first post is on "The Bachelorette" TV show and choice availability.
Peter Hamlin, Class of 1973 and chair of the Music Department at Middlebury, served as on-air host and interviewer for live television broadcasts of the Quad City Symphony and Dubuque Symphony on Iowa Public Television (fall, 2008).
Hamilin also was the emcee for the Vermont Symphony's youth concerts, performing in five different school locations throughout the state (spring 2009). The program included three movements from an orchestra piece of Hamlin's called Green Mountain Variations.
Hamlin's electronic music ensemble Data Stream, with Scot Schwestka, Sandy Nordahl, and Hamlin, created and performed music for a CD last summer. The CD, Flow, was released in March 2009.
Also, Hamlin composed "Grand Theft Flauto" for fellow music faculty member Su Tan. This is a piece for solo flute and live computer processing that was performed at Tufts University, Bennington and Middlebury (fall, 2009).
He has just completed a choral piece called "Chaoufarou," a setting of an excerpt from Samuel de Champlain's diary. The piece will be performed this summer, as part of the 400th anniversary celebration of Champlain's voyage, by a choir of students from France, Quebec and New England.
Alison Maggart, Class of 2008, has been working as harpist with and assistant to the renowned Indian film composer A.R. Rahman. Rahman is known as the "John Williams of India" -- with "Slumdog Millionaire" just one of the recent films for which he has composed music. Maggart's duties include orchestrating, arranging and preparing Rahman's scores for his films.
The College Choir embarked on a highly successful tour of Connecticut, Boston and New York City over spring break, April 21-26, 2009. The tour included concerts at the phenomenal Trinity Church in the City of Boston, St. Michael's Church on 99th Street in Manhattan, and the New York Society for Ethical Culture on Central Park. The choir sang contemporary choral music, madrigals, and folk music, and a short choral drama featured several Middlebury student soloists. The trip also included a visit to an alum's high school chorus, and joint concerts with Saengerfest Men's Chorus in Boston, the United Nations International School Chamber Ensemble, and Philip Hamilton '82 and his a cappella project, Voices. The choir gave a home concert of the tour program on March 30 at Middlebury.
2008-2009 marks the successful establishment of two new Music Department ensembles, the Men's and Women's Glee Clubs. The men's group offers a department ensemble singing group for men to learn vocal technique and a variety of repertoire, as well as ensemble singing. The women's group grew to 15 members this year and performed selections from "Gloria" by the 17th century master Antonio Vivaldi, with chamber orchestra, as well as several modern pieces and adaptations of international folk music. The Women's Glee Club is conducted by Jessica Allen. With the addition of the Glees, the Middlebury Music Department now has more students singing in ensembles than in the past several years, mostly students who have little or no contact with the department outside of those ensembles.
In May the College Choir performed five Ukrainian Romani songs, with several Middlebury student soloists and a student guitarist. The songs arrangements are the result of field research by Director of Choral Activities Jeffrey Buettner, who returns to Ukraine in June to share the recordings of the College Choir with Romani musicians there. Also on the program were three songs for chorus and piano by Johannes Brahms.
The Sound Investment Jazz Ensemble completed its third full year under Dick Forman’s direction, and its second year as a Music Department performance ensemble. Twenty one students participated. The band offered five performances this year, including a town-gown dance at the Town Hall Theater in April.
Fifteen students performed in the Spring Jazz Showcase. Combos that formed in the Jazz Workshop performed regularly at the Grille, and occasionally at 51 Main.
The jazz program is growing. About 50 applicants for the Class of ’13 submitted jazz recordings with their applications. This is about a 30 percent increase from last year.
Seven graduating seniors in the Class of 2009 – Alex Benepe, Mary Chiles, Sonia Epstein, Pujan Gandhi, Kelsey Nelson, Ramona Richards, and Jennifer Yamane – recently concluded either their second or third year of participation in the Museum Assistants Program (MAP) at the Middlebury College Museum of Art.
As museum assistants, they volunteered for several hours a week, learning about behind-the-scenes operations of the museum, leading school tours, and assisting with family programs. In addition to their volunteer work, five of the assistants were museum interns and one worked as a museum receptionist. We hope that each of them will take skills that they learned from teaching in the galleries and working in the office to new opportunities.
Andrew Throdahl, Class of 2009, studied piano with Music Department affiliate artist Diana Fanning, an internationally renowned musician. Throdahl has played the piano for more than a dozen years, and recently gave his senior recital in the Mahaney Center for the Arts Concert Hall. He has a special perspective on playing in Concert Hall, having worked as page-turner for many of the chamber musicians who visit as part of Middlebury’s Performing Arts Series. He has been able to sit at the elbows of some of the greats—and had the best seat in the house to observe their technique. Throdahl is also a classical music reviewer for The Campus, the student newspaper. So while he’s been earning a paycheck turning pages, he’s also had an insider’s eye for evaluating professional artists’ work.
Added Diana Fanning, "Andrew started off his time at Middlebury by winning the College Concerto Competition and playing a Prokofiev Piano Concerto with the College Orchestra. He ended his time at Middlebury performing a Prokofiev Sonata, as well as works by Beethoven, Chopin, Bach and Scriabin, at his Senior Recital. In the meantime, he also won the Chamber Music Competition, studied music composition in Paris, had an internship with an early music ensemble in NYC, was Arts Editor for The Campus, wrote insightful music reviews for The Campus and for the Addison Independent, and played in a benefit concert to help raise money for the Town Hall Theater.
Dance professor Penny Campbell reports:
Our graduating seniors in Dance are Simon Thomas-Train and Yina Ng. Together they represented the New England region of the American College Dance Festival Association at the National Dance Gala in New York City in the spring of 2008 with their duet, "It needs what we don’t want." In addition to their choreographic work, both received senior work fund grants to support their video work, which both presented in their joint senior concert in April 2009. Both also performed in the debut tour of Artist in Residence Tiffany Rhynard’s professional dance ensemble, Big Action Performance Ensemble, here at Middlebury and at other venues in New England. Simon continued to perform with "Big APE" in March at Town Hall Theatre.
Both Simon and Yina have received merit scholarships to attend the American Dance Festival (not to be confused with ACDFA mentioned above) this coming summer. ADF is the six-week summer dance event that began in 1934 at Bennington College, migrated to Mills and then to Connecticut College for many years before settling at Duke University in North Carolina. It is a premier meeting place for professionals dance in the country and the world.
These two graduating seniors in the Class of 2009, who participated in the Student Research Symposium both by showing excerpts from their duet in McCardell Bicentennial Hall moments before heading down to the Mahaney Center for the Arts for their senior concert, have had a fascinating trajectory together. Both are choreographers and videographers, each with a unique vision and aesthetic. And they are compelling, sparkling performers together. They should be performing their duet right there at graduation!
Because these two have been enormously close, both personally and artistically, it’s fitting that they will split the Mahlingaiah Family Dance Prize this year. Their paired trajectories just keep on trajecting!
Pujan Gandhi, Class of 2009, recently served as the Reiff Intern at the Middlebury College Museum of Art. While there, he researched Enrique Chagoya, Robert Gober, and Glenn Ligon, and and contributed to the publication that accompanied the exhibition "Confronting History: Contemporary Artists Envision the Past," which was on view February 13 through April 29, 2009.
Professor James Morrison (Political Science) has begun podcasting all of his lectures. These lectures are available online and through iTunes. More information is available at Morrison's Web site.
The Web site SouthChinaSea.org was started in 1998 by David Rosenberg, a professor of Political Science at Middlebury, as a student-faculty collaborative research project. It has developed into a five-star online resource for students, scholars and policy-makers interested in South China Sea regional economic, environmental, and security issues.
Middlebury's Stuck in the Middle men's a cappella group traveled to Japan this spring. They sang at a number of Japanese schools as part of a tour of Tokyo. You'll find stories and photos about the trip on the SIMnews blog.
In the summer of 2003, Miguel Fernandez, Middlebury Class of 1985 and a professor of Spanish at the College, ran into Mark Del Mastro with whom he had studied at Middlebury in Madrid, in the master's program in 1988. Del Mastro, a professor at The Citadel, was teaching at the Language School. There they met Juan Pablo Spicer-Escalant, who teaches at Utah State and was the designated director for the new Middlebury program in Guadalajara. Discussions among the three led to the development and launching of "Decimononica," an online, international, refereed journal on nineteenth-century Hispanic cultural production. The journal has had more than 25,000 visitors and has become one of the leading journals in its field.
Steve Abbott has been selected as co-editor (with Bruce Torrence of Randolph-Macon College) of "Math Horizons." This lively journal, published quarterly by the Mathematical Association of America, is dedicated to exposing current undergraduates to the history, culture, and personalities of mathematics, as well as to the latest results in the field. The publication features writing by some of the leading mathematical expositors, but also works with a student advisory board to include student writing on topics where their perspective may be the most insightful one.