2023-24 Events and Programs

10:00 am — Reunion Christian Chapel Service, led by Dean of Spiritual and Religious Life Mark R. Orten, with the Reunion Choir led by Emory Fanning, Emeritus Professor of Music.

10:00-11:30 — Hillel Bagel Brunch at the Jewish Center in Freeman International Center. 

Please join us for a festive Guatemalan catered vegetarian dinner to celebrate the successes of the year, Scott Center Leadership Award winners, and our departing seniors.  We’ll enjoy tacos, tostadas, and traditional Guatemalan desserts courtesy of La Chapina Catering.  

We’ll hope the weather cooperates and we can relax in our lovely backyard with some lawn games.  RSVP’s encouraged though not required. We hope you can make it!

Join us for 15 minutes of silent meditation every weekday morning, led by various staff, faculty, and students.

Join Dean of Spiritual & Religious Life Mark R. Orten in the Crest Room for 20 minutes of quiet contemplation with readings and music.

Come enjoy homemade chai and homemade cookies with members of The Scott Center staff as we slow down our pace for a bit of socializing and crafting.  Watercolors, polymer clay, collaging, grown-up coloring books, puzzles and beading materials provided!

Described as spiritual, joyful, powerful, and raucous, Shape Note (or Sacred Harp) singing is a traditional American style of four-part, a capella, community singing popular in the United States before the Civil War. This style still thrives across the US and in the UK, with strongholds in the American South and New England. It is called Shape-Note because the notes of the scale are indicated by distinctive shapes and names: Fa – triangle, Sol – circle, La – square, and Mi – diamond.

Facilitated by Prof. Emeritus David Rosenberg every second Sunday.

On this day of remembering the Holocaust in the Jewish Calendar, we will come together for a ceremony of reflection and remembrance through music, poetry and family stories from members of our Middlebury community. All are welcome.

We are thrilled to be screening the 1996 documentary film My Knees Were Jumping: Remembering the Kindertransports, in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day. Even more thrilling, film director Melissa Hacker will join us in person for the screening and a discussion afterward. 

The film tells the story of the Kindertransport movement which brought nearly 10,000 children to Great Britain from Nazi Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, before the advent of World War II, saving many of their lives.  The story is told through memories and interviews of Melissa’s own mother as well as many others who were rescued on the transport. Please join us for this special event.

Run time 76 minutes.

With appreciation to the Holocaust Remembrance Film Fund for making this event possible.

Interested exploring themes of grief and loss together?  Help build a community of peer support.  Arts and crafts supplies, warm beverages and light refreshments are available. Drop in any Thursday in the Crest Room.   Co-sponsored by The Scott Center and Middlebury Counseling.  For more information contact nparrish@middlebury.edu.

Join Chaplain/Imam Amir Duric from Syracuse University, for an interactive conversation about love, relationships and marriage in Islam. 

Dinner is provided.  Please RSVP to zmoeini@middlebury.edu.

Amir Duric is a Social Science Ph.D. student with a background in Muslim community leadership, chaplaincy, and religious studies focusing on Islamic studies and Christian-Muslim relations. He serves as the full-time Muslim Chaplain at Syracuse University, and an On-Call Chaplain at Crouse Health, NYS Office of Mental Health, and Upstate Medical University. 

Please join us at a Passover seder for the first night of Passover as we retell the ancient story of the Exodus and engage in rich conversation about its relevance to us today. This will be a celebratory night of asking questions, eating ritual and festive foods, and welcoming spring.
 

You must rsvp for the seder by Sunday, April 14th using this form.
https://forms.gle/umEnsVcNkjLnquLE6

Come learn the ancient techniques and symbolism of traditional Ukrainian Easter Egg decorating from two Ukrainian student experts!  Make your own traditional Easter egg using food coloring, beeswax, and a special writing tool.  Space is limited; RSVP here!

All are welcome at this ecumenical Easter Sunrise Service at the football stadium. Local clergy will share the leadership of the service. Pancake breakfast to follow at the Weybridge Congregational Church.  In case of inclement weather, the service will be moved to Kirk Alumni Center. 

Join us for a presentation on the month of Ramadan and the famous Persian spiritual poet, Rumi.  In this talk, Chaplain Zahra Moeini will speak about the ways in which Rumi celebrates one of the most central practices of Islam, fasting, in the month of Ramadan as a site of connection with the Divine. Celebrate the arrival of Ramadan and Nowruz - originally a Zoroastrian tradition, that marks the New Year/Spring Equinox for many Persian speakers around the world. 

A delicious Persian dinner/iftar will be provided.

No other creature walks like humans. Our feet shaped our pelvises, our hands, and our brains. We walk the way we do, therefore we are human beings.

This is the first of a spring term series co-sponsored by The Scott Center and New Perennials to explore the meditative, spiritual, community-building power of walking. The series expands on Affiliate Humanist Chaplain Prof. Bill Vitek’s popular J-term walking class “Walking Body, Walking Mind.”  Light refreshments will be served.

Original artwork: “Internal and External Walking” by Amanda Suejin Lee ‘27, member of the 2024 J-term class Walking Body, Walking Mind.

In commemoration of Black History Month and Valentine’s Day, join Muslim Chaplain and Interfaith Advisor Zahra Moeini in a reading of the Chapter on Love in Black Liturgies by Cole Arthur Riley. Riley’s writing uniquely combines the language for collective and individual liberation with a tongue of prayer, and a memorable meditation on love in its many layers and shades. Light refreshments will be served.

Come take part in a half-day mindfulness retreat for students, led by Professor Emily Proctor.  We will learn and practice a variety of mindfulness activities tuned toward helping the mind connect with the body, all with the intention of deepening a sense of relaxed connection and relationship with the people and world around us.

Nourishing snacks and warm drinks will be provided through the morning.  Register by January 25 at go/mindwithbody/.

The Islamic tradition and the Arabic language seem to be inseparable. Muslims recite their daily prayers in Arabic, read in the Qur’an in Arabic, and many of the phrases they use in daily conversations, like “InshaAllah” and “Alhamdulilah,” find their origins in the Qur’an - Islam’s sacred book. In this talk, Maryait Khader (Arabic Dept.) and Zahra Moeini (Scott Center) will discuss how this came to be, with a close look at early Islamic history and the Qur’an. How does the Qur’an refer to the Arabic language? And, why does it consistently challenge the Arabs at the time, who were known for their eloquence and poetry, to bring a text like it? We will also explore what these questions mean for the formation of religious and social identity of many young Muslim speakers and non-speakers of Arabic today. 

Accompanied by a halal Palestinian dinner!  Co-sponsored by the Arabic Department.

The Global Body in Conflict: Movement Matters series welcomes SLMDances’ six Creative Partners and Artistic Director Sydnie Mosley.  The Scott Center is pleased to co-sponsor, along with the Department of Dance and several other campus partners, this special dance workshop to commemorate MLK Day.  Open to all Middlebury College card holders.

Sydnie L. Mosley Dances (SLMDances) is a New York City-based dance-theater collective that works in communities to organize for gender and racial justice through experiential dance performance.  Learn more here.

This is hands-on learning (not a dance class). All bodies, abilities and backgrounds welcome! Bring your class, attend with colleagues, join by yourself.  Registration is required; please sign up here.

A joyous annual celebration of traditional Christmas music and biblical texts of the season, with gorgeous music by the Middlebury College Choir, evergreens and candlelight. 

Led by Dean of Spiritual and Religious Life Mark R. Orten, and Middlebury College Choir Conductor Jeffrey Buettner.  See the full printed program here.

Two services, at 4:00 and 7:00 pm. Donations will be accepted for local charities.  

Large print programs available. American Sign Language interpretation at the 4:00 service only.

Artwork courtesy of Katie Runde Sanchez.

Join Associate Muslim Chaplain and Interfaith Advisor Zahra Moeini Meybodi to discuss themes that cover introductory questions about Islamic worldview, beliefs, practices and cultural heritage.
Topics include:

Nov. 16:  From Pain to Presence: Islamic Practices in Healing

Nov. 2: What is the Qur’an?
October 19: Prophetic Resilience
Oct. 26: Who is The Prophet?

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the #blacklivesmatter movement. The hashtag first appeared amidst national coverage of the killing of Black people with impunity. It became a rallying call for grassroots movements against racial violence and the carceral state. Today’s struggle builds on past grassroots coalitions against state repression of Black communities. A critical part of that effort came from Muslim organizers who laid the groundwork for the contemporary prison abolition movement. 

This talk by Khuram Hussain, Middlebury’s VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, explores the little-known history of the bold and ingenious efforts of Muslim Americans to forward Black liberation in the civil rights era. Their vision and actions offer lessons to students, scholars and activists today.

Light refreshments from Taste of India will be served.

Join some of your favorite chaplains and others as they explore different worldviews’ and religions’ relationship to the powerful themes of compassion, justice and nonviolence. 

Panel members include Rabbi Danielle Stillman, Muslim Advisor Zahra Moeini, Affiliate Christian Chaplain Katie Runde Sanchez, Affiliate Humanist Chaplain Prof. Bill Vitek, and Prof. Marc Lapin from the Environmental Studies Department, who will bring a Buddhist perspective.  Moderated by Professor Rebecca Gould.

This is the first in a series of interfaith panel conversations on different topics, and will touch on the current war in Gaza and Israel.

This week, the panel replaces The SlowDown during the 4:30 Wednesday timeslot, and we’ll serve your favorite SlowDown homemade cookies and chai.

Co-sponsored by The Davis Collaborative in Conflict Transformation, and New Perennials.

Curious about spirituality? Join us for tea and exploration! Gather weekly to practice mindfulness and have conversation, facilitated by staff from The Scott Center and the Office of Sustainability and Environmental Affairs.

Gather is a community for the progressive Christian, Christian-curious, Christian-conflicted, agnostic, and generally bewildered. Join Affiliate Christian Chaplain Katie Runde Sanchez for conversations; the topic on Oct. 19 is Jesus and Non-Violence.

MiddHumanists: The Virtues of Idleness

Join The Scott Center’s Affiliate Humanist Chaplain, Prof. Bill Vitek, for a conversation about the value of embracing idleness. We’ll be discussing a short (3-page) article by Arthur Brooks, “How to Embrace Doing Nothing,” that appeared in The Atlantic.  Light refreshments will be served.  All are welcome.

Midd Humanists is a community supported by the Scott Center forSpiritual & Religious Life for non-theistic, inquiry-based, and action-centered conversation and celebration.

See the entire High Holidays schedule here!

Take a look at all the ways you can connect with The Scott Center at this fall’s Orientation events!