My name is Kira Waldman. I’m class of 2020. So Covid graduation. and I’m from San Francisco, California, and I’m now back in my home state of California working on a PhD in hydrology, so studying California water.
It’s wonderful. I mean, I loved my four years in Vermont, but I’m not a huge fan of the cold. So being back in California is great. And I think in my adult life, my experience and I get to explore totally new nooks and crannies, California is huge.
What is it like being back in Vermont to teach a J-Term Course?
It feels like returning home in a different sense. I think Middlebury is a very special place where exactly like you said, you see the same faces. You have a lot of the same experiences but with a little more perspective. And then you do it sort of from a different angle. So it’s been wonderful to be back and teaching Middlebury students it’s, like nothing else, it’s a really special, engaged group.
How did your time at Middlebury and involvement with Community Friends inform what you are doing now?
So at Middlebury, I was a geology major. Now, I think they expanded the departments to Earth and Climate Science, but that’s the department I graduated from. and a lot of my work in the geology department and my work was set up for community engagement. Community Friends sort of oscillated between hard science and also environmental justice and society impacts and sort of trying to create that bridge between the two.
So my senior thesis was looking at groundwater contamination, in Costa Rica and now my PhD dissertation is also focused on water quality issues but in a place a little closer to home and in California, the overarching theme being there needs to be a chemist or a geologist who’s going to do the science so that it can inform policy and change, and make sure that there’s, you know, simply a human right to drinking water.
Did you feel prepared for your PhD program coming from Middlebury?
Absolutely. Yeah. I think, primarily the senior thesis focus is really a unique experience. It’s like basically a master’s thesis. You work for, like, over a year on a project, and you’re advised by a faculty member, but it’s student-driven and, research and fieldwork and lab work and questions and all those. So I think that really set me up. And then also like knowing sort of what pockets of campus to go to for resource accumulation, especially at Middlebury when there are so many wonderful things available. I think that’s a really powerful tool in grad school.
Did you know what you wanted to study when you started college or did you figure it out once you were here?
Absolutely I figured it out in my time there. Yeah, I think I came here with the goal of being a chemistry major, which is in line with the STEM science side of things. But I took Natural Hazards my first year, which is sort of like the intro level geology class, with Professor Kristina Walowski, who showed me a really cool way to look at science through the human perspective.
So, yeah, thinking about hazards, you know, they’re caused from Earth’s natural earth cycles. But they impact people on an everyday basis. And I think that bridge, sort of swayed me away from chemistry, which I couldn’t quite see as [being as]impactful… [I] just fell in love with the geology department. Yeah, I sort of went from there… And you get to go hiking for labs and things like that. So that was a really cool way to explore Vermont.
How did you get involved with the CCE and Community Friends?
So I had always worked with kids in high school. I was a varsity coach in the summers and, before college I worked at a summer camp. And I just like I’ve always said, my favorite job in life is being a summer camp counselor. Yeah, like, that’s where I’m the happiest. That’s where I think I’m the best. I do bring that a little bit down to the professor. My freshman year in campus, one of my teammates lived with a swimmer who was named Melissa D’Annunzio, who was another community friends, student coordinator alum. And she just told me about community friends. And it was this program she does, and I was like, oh, that’s really cool because I was looking to connect more, with, yeah, young people in the community.
So I just, I started off as like, I’ll go to the info session and see what it’s about, and then quickly sort of got roped in and, fell for it, fell in love with community friends and was a mentor for a year. And then, jumped on the board. I think pretty soon after my first year. And then the spot opened up to be a collegian coordinator, when Alyssa left. So she actually the person who pulled me in initially kind of also was my, leader.
In that transition to especially as an athlete on campus. I sort of felt like my main social in time, sphere was in the gym athletic department and in geology and doing school stuff. But I was sort of looking for that third kind of connection to Middlebury as a town, outside of sports and school. And I think Alyssa exemplified how to do that really beautifully with community friends.
I think a lot of it was I loved the individuality of my relationship with Maggie, who was my community friend. And, you know, we were so each other every week for two hours, like, we were so good. It was so great. But I think, I love community and I, you know, community friends was like, bigger than just the one on one relationship for me. And so maybe I saw a little bit of opportunity in how I thought community friends could actually change. And so the pull was like, desire that, like, this is the best thing ever. And I’m, it’s serving me so much, but, like, we can do more. Yeah. And so I think that was like my first pull. and Megan briefly, who was the head of the at the time, was just really wonderful to and I think, a really fun person to get to know and work with. That relationship, I think she was like, well, this part’s open. And, this felt like a natural transition. I was a sophomore also, and, all the juniors were going abroad. So there was also sort of a natural sea opening up. and. Yeah, so grateful for that.
I think they were like, paramount to my, happiness and success and engagement in Middlebury. I think now, like I said, I had this, like, sports world in this really focused school world where, I loved it all, but, like, it just I wanted and I think I said this in the beginning of just chatting like that, coming back to home, I think many friends.
It actually helped Middlebury feel like home because it was a little bigger than yourself. You kind of got to, not worry about yourself for a couple hours a week or for me, you know, several hours a week with everyone else. But, you have to focus on something that was going to continue on, I think, like even coming back and seeing it now, you get to see the longevity of that, throughout time and also, I think college students, we take ourselves so seriously, as you know, at MIDD. Especially at Middlebury, like in basketball too. It’s like, you know, my body was exhausted and my brain was exhausted. But like, I got an opportunity to be a 17 year old kid for two hours a week, which I think was, looking back, one of the most important things in terms of maintaining a sense of, self-assurance. And just like an okay, this is a time to just kind of forget about the school and the sports. And just like, relax and be a kid. And also, you build this new appreciation of, like, the mundane things of Middlebury, like. Yeah. You know, for me, by Hall was a place they work every day for class and studying. But for Maggie, it was a place you would run up the stairs and throw paper airplanes and run back down and try and catch them. And just like you, you looked at physical spaces really differently, too.
Or like she found this room. And I think McCullough students in her that had like curtains everywhere and I think was like a room for a specific purpose, but we had no idea what it was and would play there for hours every week. So I think that, like, you got to experience this and nowhere to feel small. Yeah, I but you got to sort of like put a different filter over it when you’re with them, so
I think, yeah, I said this before, but I think that, like, balance of college is, really difficult and really tricky, and it can burden people out really, really fast. And, well, multiple reasons, I think, for the college student, passionate because it’s an opportunity to get outside your body, get outside your mind, engage in a totally different way that I think is like we should all be doing regardless of if we’re hanging out with a kid or not, but we don’t necessarily think we have the time or it’s a waste of time. But I think like building it into your daily schedule is really important for mental health and physical health. And, so that’s one of the reasons I’m passionate for the students life. And then we haven’t even talked about really the mental side of things, which is like such a unique relationship and experience for so many kids. And Addison County to get to experience, like, you know, what could be seen as this prestigious college on the Hill, but sort of debunk that myth a little bit, because when they’re when they come on the campus and they’re eating in the dining halls with all the other students, it’s just like the most fun, cool place ever. So taking the veil off of what, like the liberal arts college in their town has maybe over it, I think is really important. Yeah. And to build that trust between the college and the community, is, is an important part of part of. Yeah. Why? I’m passionate about it.
And I’m not from Vermont, so like and most of my friends in Middlebury were at Middlebury College, weren’t from Vermont either. I think I had one close friend from Vermont. And so I’m kind of an outsider moving to this place that I don’t really know. So I got to learn a lot about the place that I now call, you know, a second home from a seven year old. Because it is her home and it is where she, it’s from and continues to live. So yeah, that’s a cool. yeah. Just a way to see a new but familiar place. Kind of a few pockets. The first would be as a mentor and that one on one relationship, I think, like the simple joy of like, maybe childish or like young activities like now, in my I think they teach Intro to Water science class and like we do like a fill in the like, color by bubble thing of like the water cycle and like, just does like a first day introductory.
But these are 20, 22 year olds. But there’s something really inviting about, like returning to like, elementary activities. Yeah. at any age. So I think that skill I like bring with me, like, okay, it was actually really fun for me to do those, like, I can’t remember the name, but like the beads that you iron on for like hours on end and like, just because we grow up, we don’t necessarily lose the joy.
And now we just, like, get a little like maybe just. Yeah, so would be one thing. And then on the leadership side of things, I think, I learned so, so many skills I brought with me, for people management. I think being on the board and then being a leader of the board, I learned, yeah, from a pretty young age on how to, like, actually, like, manage people. I worked with Kylie, very closely. But then I sort of was like responsible for this group of ten people, some of which were older than me, some were younger than me, that were then responsible, you know, for 30 people themselves. But we I developed a way of, learning how to work with people, how to work with different kinds of people.
knowing that board meetings weren’t the place for everybody to share their ideas. and so the power of those one on one relationships, and in the organizational broader picture, and then the last thing I’d say also on the leadership team is that if you have an idea, just try it out. Yeah. And if it doesn’t work, you’ll deal with that later and obviously think through. You know, always talk to someone who’s more knowledgeable than is. So for me, that would be the, the faculty or the staff leader of your new friends. But like, we can’t. Kylie and I just came up with match day because we were like, there’s too many matches we don’t know what to do with. Yeah. and we tried it off and it worked.
It was awesome. I think that was sort of a skill I learned is like, if you’re in a leadership role, like be willing to shake things up, you willing to like go with the flow. And if there’s a lot of numbers, do something with the numbers. If there’s not a lot of numbers, you can go back or whatever it is.
So that sort of like, managerial, organizational, freedom, I think was a cool skill to learn from. My experience was, I was invited back by, Pete Ryan in the Earth and Climate Sciences department to co-teach a month long term class called the Geo Hazards of Costa Rica. and we. Yeah, dove in. It just ended yesterday. So we dove into, all the different hazards related to from the rich tectonic and geologic environment of Costa Rica and earthquakes and volcanoes and, tsunamis and coastal erosion and all the sort of things I don’t have to get into.
But, we worked in Middlebury for about a week, sort of doing student led discussion, and then got to travel to Costa Rica for almost two weeks, which was incredible. and then just returned back a couple days ago. So, yeah, I mean, so many, so many lessons learned and skills brought with me. I think the main one that stands out is actually what I just said. And response to your last question is sort of like, if you have an idea like, give it a shot. and so Pete and I worked really closely on designing this class, but he also gave me a sort of a young new, teacher a lot of freedom in designing the syllabus and and designing sort of the arc of the class. I think those are definitely skills I learned from time, community friends. And I’m just tired of Middlebury. Yeah. so that would be one thing. And then, yes, tying into community friends, too, I think just the power of experiential education. yeah. Is, you know, you can’t learn about rocks without being with rocks, or you can’t learn about a volcano without being on top of volcanoes.
So I think I got to see that really come to fruition and to see it in the evolution of the students understanding to which was one of the first times I got to witness that sort of firsthand, from the other side, like, see, you know, like geothermal energy, really click for a student. When we were standing under a huge 2000 meter deep. Well, so I think it was like, yeah, the you need to see it to believe it is sort of the the outcome, which I think ties into community friends in terms of just like, having those experiences, even talking about young kids coming to campus and have experiencing something for themselves, to be able to be like, oh, I could be a college student one day, or I could go to Middlebury and sort of that, that like experiential education.
Whether it’s community friends or not, there’s so many programs and wonderful organizations that are housed at the center for Community Engagement that, and that staff is so awesome that, like, if you have an idea or like, I’m interested in this, like there’s a way to figure out something that’s already going on or, support students and, you know, independent explorations outside of the organizations already in place. So like my first step would be on down to the CC.
Then beyond that, I think something I learned and yeah, it’s I said earlier, like I came from California to Vermont, I didn’t really know how this community work. They didn’t have a ton of experience in a small town from a big city. so just being willing to ask questions and whether that’s of the staff that you’re working with or of the kid you’re working with. Maggie taught me more about Vermont probably than like, any class I could have taken or about Ripton or Middlebury than any class or field trip.I think like being willing to be really curious and maybe like reverting back to the like I’m in a new place and I just want to connect sort of simplicity, I think is, is a powerful tool.
My third piece of advice would be do it with your friends. Do, something you’re interested in and recruit your friends to come along, because that always makes things more fun. Yeah. and I remember, like, by my senior year, I had gone, like, half the basketball team to be community friends. So then, like, at our big games, there was like, five kids there with their parents and cheering us on.
And, finding community within community is a is a cool thing that Middlebury splits up.
It was very abrupt. You know, we had you guys for 48 hours get off campus. So everything sort of happened very quickly. I don’t think I ever got, like, a full, like, a goodbye session with my mentee. I think we talked on the phone once.
I went back to California, but, and just emails and stuff, and she would tell me about what she was doing in class and things like that. But a lot of that magic and a lot of that closure sort of had to, yeah. And abruptly, which was which was really sad. I think, you know, it was a relationship.
I was super invested in for four years. So to not have like a final garage was that was a bummer. But, now she’s like almost 15, so we’ll see. but what else? I think, there was so much going on that community, friends, was such an important time for so many of us, and also because it was such a strong foundation, we could, like, set it aside a little bit.
So I don’t know exactly, but this is like the right answer. But like we we knew that community friends wasn’t going anywhere. Yeah, in the pandemic, we knew it would come back, whether that be in a different form, which I think it did. When you guys return to campus, or a few years later, which, like I see on campus now, it’s bigger and better than ever. That’s because of the 60 plus years of work people have put into it. Yeah. So unfortunately for, you know, six months, a year, maybe two years, it sort of had to be set aside. But once we return back to it and once, Maddie McKean and others, came back around, it just got bigger and better and stronger.
So much greater than me, it’s and that’s I think the first thing about community friends, it’s never one person. but it’s the board. It’s the staff at the CC, which really is the, the glue, keeps it all together. but yeah, that’s a that’s an analogy. I was going to use earlier is like the board is the glue.
And yeah, all the mentors are sort of the glitter and the, the part that makes it shiny and awesome. but for four years, you know, you get to work on building, you know, just building, you know, the library of community friends, bigger and bigger and bigger. some of the changes we made during my time here was introducing Match Day, which was really awesome.
And I will be honest, I came from a place of being overwhelmed. Our board was a little smaller. There was I was the only lead student, student coordinator, and Kylee was brand new to, I think that was a huge part of why Kylee and I sort of got to be a little bit visionary, because we were both like, you don’t really know what you’re doing.
I don’t really know what I’m doing. So let’s just do it the way we can, you know, within bounds. And Kylie gave me a lot of freedom and we just work together to drop these big ideas and really relied on the board to help follow through. and so, yeah, that match day, we increased our community friends, the team into our relationship almost double, I think in our first year together, and match day, I came back to what I said earlier around finding community within community.
One of our big goals, which I, I like to think was the legacy of the board that I was on, was actually creating a community of mentors, rather than just slipping these individual relationships. But like, look, there’s 150 or whatever other number of mentors on campus, who might have similar difficulties, but their mentees might have great ideas for how to work with a kid that hit sports, or a kid that hates eating in the dining halls and like there’s actually so much knowledge that can be shared and fun that can be shared, within the community of mentors itself.
So we tried to do that through the match day and just like some visibility around, here’s other people working with other people. Yeah. we tried to, encourage like we have like, dinners. And I lived in one of the big houses on campus, so got to kind of use the downstairs basement as, like, parties and dinners and, events and things like that.
So, yeah, create more of that relationship. Yeah. and then I think we also the other thing on more of the like logistical fundamental side, we, we started to include like identity based or affinity based matches in, our questionnaire. And I think that in the end that proved to be really powerful for a lot of, young kids, that is a, pretty homogenous place in terms of identity.
So the few kiddos that maybe, didn’t fit into that were able to come to us and say, we’re looking for someone with this identity or who has this experience or is from this place. and we made several matches within the first year, on identity and affinity based relationships. And I remember seeing that as a really powerful, sort of next step to community friends as you’re not matched with just a random person, but the kid in the family actually get a little more agency in who it is.
And not only comes because Middlebury students, they’re so awesome and from all over the place, they, we had enough of a, sample size to pick from. Yeah, to make that up. Yeah.
And I think it actually made for relationships that spoke longer. you know, there was a lot of times and this is early on in my maybe freshman and sophomore year when we had to redo so many matches because we hadn’t done enough pre work, preview work. and I think that, yeah, it required more from the board and required more from Kylee and I, but I ended up, you know, requiring less after the fact because we had matches that stuck for 3 or 4 years.
Right. just a semester. Just a year. So yeah, I think that would that would be my other piece of advice, going back a little bit and just be more intentional about the match making process.
Yeah. Besides, keep doing what you’re doing. It seems like. Yeah, I got to chat with you a little bit, just like the program is expanding. that continues to expand, which, you know, can be hard. Yeah, but is really a beautiful opportunity. for. Yeah, it comes back to this connection with the college and the community that is so important for all of us. You know, the college wouldn’t exist without the community. and I think that it’s not just giving back. It’s not just the generosity of students, but it’s really like thinking of it more as this bridge and of this relationship where it’s the generosity of the kids and the families in the community and of the students on campus sort of coming together. and I think, yeah, thinking about it more as, maybe less of charity, but more of, community work or not service. And I think that there’s a wonderful, future of community friends. We’re just every Middlebury student is inside a mentee when they mentor, nation grows, and then on the yeah, mentee mentors side, I think, like, you know, you can meet with your mentee, you know, ten times in a semester and you might run out of ideas. but know that the kid just wants to be with you.
At the end of the day, if you bring a Frisbee or a piece of paper and a pen, like, that’s good enough or nothing. Yeah, you know, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel and how to hang out with an eight year old. You can just go for a walk on the team or use the resources that the season already has.
Yeah, I think just, you know, learn from this experience and don’t take yourself too seriously. I think, you know, even now in the role of like, talking to college students and not being the college student, the more you can just really even kind of revert back to that childlike or kid like self and, engage in that sort of silliness. And fun is a really powerful tool that I definitely learned from working at Community Friends. Yeah, bring that, bring that with you for forever. But yeah, my advice.