First Year Seminar 2022-23 Annual Theme

The FYS Program aims to help first-year students explore on-campus opportunities for intellectual, cultural, and social growth. We believe it is important for even busy students to take advantage periodically of the diverse events and activities that the College sponsors, and so we spotlight here some select events appropriate for first-year students that connect to a common theme. We encourage all first-year students to attend as many of these events as possible, finding connections in them to their coursework, to each other, and to this year’s theme: Bridges (Bridging Cultures & Perspectives)

FYS Annual Theme 2022 – “Bridges”

September Events

1) Movement Matters: Miguel Alejandro Castillo – Learn to dance and appreciate salsa!

Sept. 20 – Tuesday, 4:30 PM in Mahaney Arts Center, Dance Theatre

Invite your Proctor crush to a crash course on the basics of Salsa dance. Don’t have a Proctor crush? No worries, self-love is honestly the ultimate crush. So take yourself on a date and come out to dance.

In this Movement Matters class, we will warm up the body to an array of Latin rhythms (Bad Bunny will be on the playlist). We will learn the basics steps of salsa and create a dance combination which we will practice and refine as a group. Be ready to sweat and learn some moves with an encouraging community.

2) Clifford Symposium

Sept 22-24 Thursday – Saturday (There are many elements to the symposium; we highlight here just two. Please explore all the interesting offerings on the symposium website.)

a) Keynote Lecture - “Conflict Transformation: The Challenge and Promise of this Century” by John Paul Lederach

Sept. 22 – Thursday, 7:30 PM in Dana Auditorium

b) Linda White & Aikido – “Practicing Embodied Responses to Conflict”

Sept. 24 – Saturday, 9:30 AM in MAC 109

Professor White, Associate Professor of Japanese Studies, brings her own deep expertise in Aikido to one of the “Concurrent Practice Sampling Sessions” being offered in conjunction with the Conflict Transformation Clifford Symposium. (see the whole list of sampling sessions offered on Saturday morning.)



By practicing aikido moves called kata we engage the central principles of this Japanese martial art, namely, breathing to engage the full body, responding to an attack with a centered, calm body, resolving others’ aggression with movement, breath, and redirection, and protecting attackers from themselves. The workshop will include basic breathing practice, simple movements to train the body to respond to attacks, and demonstration of more advanced techniques. Please wear comfortable clothes without tight belts or jewelry.  There will be time for Q and A at the end. Aikido is for Every Body—please feel welcome to participate at your level of comfort. 

3) Taiko Drummers Parade & Performance

Sept. 30 – Friday, 3:30 PM (Parade in Campus Center) & Performances 4:30 & 5:30 (Mahaney Arts Center)

Join Burlington Taiko as they mesmerize audiences with the powerful, spellbinding and propulsive sounds of the Taiko drums. To kick off the Mahaney Arts Center’s 30th anniversary, Burlington Taiko leads a parade of Taiko music and a Japanese Lion Dance, starting at the center of campus and leading the crowd to the MAC’s back lawn for free, outdoor performances at 4:30 and 5:30 PM. All ages. Rain or shine. This is FREE and open to the public.

Mahaney Arts Center 30th Anniversary Celebration: Burlington Taiko Parade

October Events

1)Young Adult author Jason Reynolds speaks about “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, & You”

Oct. 3 – Monday, 7:00 PM in Wilson Hall, McCullough

Jason Reynolds is an internationally celebrated author of young adult books, including Ghost, When I was the Greatest, Long Way Down, and Miles Morales. He comes to Middlebury as part of the Vermont Humanities Council’s First Wednesdays Speaker Series and in partnership with the Engaged Listening Project.

https://www.vermonthumanities.org/event/stamped-racism-antiracism-and-you/

2)Middlebury Museum Exhibit Opening: “No Ocean Between Us”

 Oct. 4 – Tuesday, 5:00 PM in Mahaney Arts Center Lower Lobby

3) Fuocammare (“Fire at Sea”, 2016), Documentary

Oct. 19 – Wednesday, 7:30 PM in Twilight Auditorium

Fuocammare (“Fire at Sea”, 2016), is Gianfranco Rosi’s award-winning documentary on the arrival of migrants in Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost island and a tourist location. Screened with English subtitles.

4)Alumni Visit : UpNext: Tech, Space, and Satellite Solutions Product Management is for History Majors Too

Oct. 21 – Friday, 4:00 PM in Hillcrest 103, Franklin Environmental Cnter.

Meghan Weber ’07 (History), Senior Space Product Manager, Amazon Web Services, will speak to her experience working as a product manager at Amazon Web Services (spoiler: you don’t need to be an engineer to become a product manager!). She will share more about what her day to day looks like, how liberal arts prepared her to be successful in the technology field as a non-engineer, what skill sets are important for the product manager role, tips on how to get started in the field, and how to prepare for an interview.

November Events

1)Dia do los Muertos – Day of the Dead celebration – campus and community event (details coming soon)

Nov. 1 - Tuesday

2) Faculty Lecture - Metafication: Towards a Theory of Absence and Presence in Global Forensics and Investigations of Mass Atrocity Violence

Nov. 3 – Thursday, 7:00 PM in Robert A. Jones ’59 Conference Room

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs program on Global Health and Medicine presents Professor Karmari Clarke, who will discuss the use of new digital technologies in international, medical forensics and evidentiary processes and what that means for global human rights.

3) Middlebury Afropop Band Concert

Nov. 15 – Tuesday, 7:00 PM in Wilson Hall, McCullough  

This concert opens with the Middlebury African Music and Dance Ensemble performing repertoire that showcases the stylistic and instrumental diversity of traditional East African musical cultures. In the second half of the concert, the Middlebury Afropop Band performs original compositions and arrangements of classic and contemporary popular songs from all over Africa. The band uses pop and rock instrumentation as well as styles that blend traditional African with Western and/or Afro-diasporic musical idioms.