2022-2023 Events and Programs

10:00 am — Reunion Chapel Service, with Alumni Choir directed by Emory Fanning, Emeritus Professor of Music.

10:00-11:30 — Hillel Bagel Brunch at the Jewish Center in Freeman International Center, hosted by current Hillel students.

Join us for an all-vegetarian catered dinner to celebrate the year in spiritual and religious life at Middlebury.  We will encourage graduating seniors to share some words of wisdom, and enjoy our beautiful back yard with lawn games and outside dining if the weather is nice.  No RSVP required.

Funded by a generous Interfaith Excellence grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.

Join us for a morning of silent togetherness, led by Professor Emliy Proctor, at the Scott Center.  This retreat, which will be held in silence, will consist of a series of meditation sits interspersed with breaks for rest or walking meditation.  This simple structure, carried out together, allows for a collective quieting of mind and body, from which can emerge a subtle but deep sense of community.  If you are new to meditation and curious about the retreat experience or if you are an experienced practitioner and would like a quiet morning to settle into your practice, this retreat is for you. 
 
The retreat is open to all students, staff, and faculty.  A brief, optional instruction period will be offered 8:30-9am, immediately preceding the retreat. Warm drinks and nourishing snacks will be provided during the break periods throughout the morning.

Register by May 10 at go/silentretreat/

(Click here for a full video recording of this talk, and here for a list of resources related to the speakers and their work.)  Join us for a discussion on the role of Islam in promoting environmental stewardship and how it can inspire individuals to take action towards a more sustainable future.  Meet the speakers at a pre-talk reception at 4:00 pm at the Scott Center (46 South St.).

With special guest speakers: Rhamis Kent  (author of “Saving Truth and Beauty), and Ibrahim Abdul Matin (author of “Green Deen: What Islam Teaches About Protecting the Planet”).  Read more here.

Co-sponsored by the Climate Action Capacity Project, The Scott Center and the Muslim Students Association.

Join us at the Scott Center for a dinner dialogue with cultural ecologist and geophilosopher David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World, and Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology.

He is currently the Visiting Scholar in Ecology and Natural Philosophyat Harvard Divinity School (and the father of the joyfully unhinged Middlebury senior Hannah Laga Abram ‘23). 

Part 3 of the Interfaith Dialogue Series.  Space is limited and RSVP’s are required; go/abramdinner/

Funded by a generous Interfaith Excellence grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.

Join Humanist Chaplain Bill Vitek for a discussion and walkabout to consider how enthusiasm in all its forms can nourish happiness, even in times of uncertainty and anxiety. Snacks will be served.

Please access and read a short essay by Arthur Brooks beforehand.

Midd Humanists is a community gathering sponsored by the Scott Center for Spiritual & Religious Life for non-theistic, inquiry-based, and action-centered conversation and celebration. All are welcome!

Funded by a generous Interfaith Excellence grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.
 

Inspired by adrienne maree brown’s book Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, this collaboration between the Dance Department and the Scott Center’s Interfaith Fellows explores the principles of emergence, interdependence, resilience, collaboration and communication through movement in the context of interfaith dialogue. Through improvisational practices, we will learn how small, adaptive changes can connect us across our differences and evolve over time. Together we will investigate how our actions have an impact on others and how our bodies can be instruments for social and political transformation. 

All bodies, backgrounds, and abilities welcome!  Led by Lida Winfield of the Dance Dept.  Light refreshments and discussion to follow the workshop.

Funded by a generous Interfaith Excellence grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.

Facilitated by Leila McVeigh ‘98 (Counseling Service staff), Here and Now is a mindfulness resource that will focus on how we relate to the stress in our lives. We will explore mindfulness concepts that include cultivating a sense of ease, being present, staying with what is difficult, and working with thoughts and emotions. We will practice brief guided mindfulness exercises to encourage calm awareness.

There is no need to register or attend every session. Students may drop in when they are able. Questions can be directed to Leila at lmcveigh@middlebury.edu.

Join the Counseling Center and the Scott Center for a workshop series on grief.  We will be journaling, working on art projects and sharing our experiences around grief. 

Thursday, March 9 — collaging
Thursday, April 6 — journaling
Thursday, May 4 — coloring (location tbd)

Come to one or come to all!  Led by Nick Parrish, LICSW, and Rabbi Yitz Nates.  Please RSVP to nparrish@middlebury.edu. 

Every weekday morning at 8:30 am in the McCullough Reflection Space (take a left after leaving the door to The Grille, and then up the stairs).  Come as you are!  No experience necessary.

Take a breath, slow it down, and use your creative mind!
 
Each week we’ll have materials for different projects — beading, embroidery floss for making bracelets, collaging on notebook covers and containers, origami, watercolors for illustrating poetry, etc.
 
We’ll be serving hot homemade chai and homemade cookies. 

Join Spiritual and Religious Life Dean Mark R. Orten for 20 minutes of quiet contemplation with reading and music for our times. Intentional silence and guided meditation will be interspersed with music and readings from secular worldviews and sacred traditions to open our awareness and to find strength and perspective for living during personal, political, racial, ecological and other upheavals.
 

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. 

No training or musical ability is necessary; the tradition emphasizes participation, not performance.  Led by Professor Emeritus David Rosenberg of the Middlebury Shape Note Singers.