Educational Integration, Justice
This past Saturday, Vermont hosted its annual Green Up Day, a statewide effort to clean up Vermont’s roadways and natural spaces. The tradition first started in 1970 after being formalized by the state legislature. Since then, Vermonters have banded together every year on the first Saturday of May to ensure that the state remains as beautiful and green as possible.
On Monday, April 13, more than 25 students braved a damp Vermont evening to help salamanders safely cross the road. Donning jackets and mud boots, participants searched the underbrush for salamanders, frogs and other amphibians, carefully guiding them across Morgan Road in Salisbury.
Insurance companies have begun to pull out of entire states. Homeowners in Florida, Louisiana and California have found themselves uninsurable through no fault of their own. Climate-related disasters meant that the actuarial math no longer worked, and the people pricing this risk were not environmental scientists, but insurance analysts and financial modelers — people who might be sitting next to you in Econ class.
We, the members of the Student Government Association (SGA) Environmental Sustainability Committee, want to challenge the assumption that sustainability belongs to one corner of campus. Sustainability is not a specialty: It is the defining context of the world we will be adults in.
100% Renewable Energy, Campus Energy Conservation, Divestment from Fossil Fuels, Educational Integration, Justice
On March 17, the student-led Sunday Night Environmental Group (SNEG), partnering with the Climate Action Program (CAP), hosted a talk by Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Policy Alex Barron of Smith College, who discussed climate action in higher education institutions (HEIs).
Kim Stanley Robinson, an award-winning American science fiction writer, will deliver the 2026 commencement address.
Robinson is best known as the author of the internationally bestselling “Mars” trilogy, a series that explores the terraforming of Mars and the political, scientific and ethical challenges of building a new society. His broader body of work — often described as “humanist” or “literary” science fiction — examines climate change, ecological sustainability and the role of technology in shaping collective futures.
Educational Integration, Justice
Dozens of alumni who helped launch Middlebury’s Sunday Night Environmental Group (originally known as the “Sunday Night Group”) returned to campus recently for SNEG’s 20-year reunion and a two-day conference exploring the question, “What Works Now?”
We asked a few of them to reflect on their time as Middlebury students and to offer some advice for today’s generation of college climate activists.
100% Renewable Energy, Educational Integration
Alex Barron, associate professor of Environmental Science and Policy from Smith College, will speak at Middlebury College on Tuesday about what colleges and universities can do, and are doing, about climate change.
The talk titled, “Beyond Buzz Words: Higher Ed Climate Action Lessons,” will take place Tuesday, March 17, 7 p.m., at Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest, Room 103. Barron will talk about his research, which focuses on the design of climate policies to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and avoid catastrophic climate change.
100% Renewable Energy, Campus Energy Conservation, Divestment from Fossil Fuels, Educational Integration, Justice
As Vermont communities confront increasingly costly climate-related disasters, state officials are seeking ways to reduce future impacts. Among them is State Treasurer Mike Pieciak, who recently turned to four Middlebury students researching how a statewide revolving loan fund could help reduce climate risks across the state.
100% Renewable Energy, Campus Energy Conservation, Divestment from Fossil Fuels, Educational Integration, Justice
How can Middlebury make the most of its signature Energy2028 climate initiative as it enters the home stretch of the campaign? Students in a winter-term course led by Kim Gagne considered this question as they listened to and spoke with Middlebury faculty and staff, and experts from the outside to generate ideas about how best to engage the campus community through advocacy and communications. In their culminating presentation, the students synthesized their research into a series of recommendations based on information they gathered over the four-week term.
