Midd Blog

Last year, I outlined the “Top Students to Watch in 2007-2008.” And I’m continuing the tradition with this year’s list of student power players of Middlebury College for this upcoming year. Unlike the rankings, this list of movers and shakers in our small community is very unscientific.

Pooja Shahani ‘09: Winner of last year’s Roger S. and Mary Vail Baldwin Prize, Pooja is about hard-working and positive as they come. Last year, she organized the very first year of the MCAB Speaker Committee which put on a slimmed-down-in-quantity but bulked-up-in-quality slate of symposia. This upcoming year, Pooja will be the Manager of Peer Writing Tutors. While she tends to stay modest in her goals, anything is possible when you have a rockstar like Pooja on your side.

Bobby Joe Smith ‘09: Despite winning his SGA President seat by the slimmest of margins, Bobby has it all going for him. He hopes to carry a sudden surge of student interest in the SGA over into the next year, in the face of the general norm of apathy for student government. He’s already enlisted A-lister Hiba Fakhoury ‘09, of AskHiba! fame. Chances are Bobby can build a strong coalition which has good connections with the administration.

Sam Lazarus ‘09: Fresh off a stint in China, Sam (we hope) can still talk the talk (in English) and get things done musically on campus. He represents the Middlebury Musicians Guild (MMG) and he’ll be working with Hank Rosen ‘09, Patch Culbertson ‘08.5, and Megan Mishler ‘11 of MCAB to arrange the Midd music scene from the Grille to Kenyon. See if he can build a strong team to steer clear of the music controversy that plagued last year’s MCAB and pack the Midd schedule with a mix of student and big-name bands.

Jimmy Wong ‘09: He appears anywhere and everywhere on the Middlebury entertainment circuit. A band, theater appearances, improv, acappella, radio, and the list goes on. And Jimmy’s Middlebury media empire won’t stop any time soon. His creativity and daring means that he’s bound to come up with something incredibly innovative for the ‘08-’09 school year. And yes, check out his handsome facebook profile picture. Put your bets on Jimmy for a movie-star year.

There you have it. This year’s top five students. MiddBlog wants to know: what other students will be moving and shaking Middlebury next year?

Choose Responsibility, an organization founded by Middlebury College President Emeritus John McCardell whose goal is to lower the nation’s drinking age, launched the Amethyst Initiative last month.

The Amethyst Initiative seeks to bring college and university leaders together to take a stand against legal age 21. Participating administrators have signed a statement saying:

In 1984 Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which imposed a penalty of 10% of a state’s federal highway appropriation on any state setting its drinking age lower than 21.

Twenty-four years later, our experience as college and university presidents convinces us that…

A culture of dangerous, clandestine “binge-drinking”—often conducted off-campus—has developed.

Alcohol education that mandates abstinence as the only legal option has not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students.

Adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer.

By choosing to use fake IDs, students make ethical compromises that erode respect for the law.

The approximately 120 signatories include President Rebecca S. Chopp (Colgate University), President James E. Wright (Dartmouth College), President Richard Brodhead (Duke University), President William Brody (Johns Hopkins University), President Lawrence S. Bacow (Tufts University), and Middlebury’s own President Ronald D. Liebowitz. 

In case you are as puzzled as I was about the meaning behind the name of the initiative, its website explains:

The word Amethyst is derived from the Ancient Greek words meaning “not” (a-) and “intoxicated” (methustos). …

In Ancient Greece, drinking vessels and jewelry were often made of amethyst and used during feasts and celebrations to ward off drunkenness and to promote moderation.

The amethyst is thus a meaningful symbol for this initiative, which aims to encourage moderation and responsibility as an alternative to the drunkenness and reckless decisions about alcohol that mark the experience of many young Americans.

MiddBlog wants to know: Do you agree with the aims of the Amethyst Initiative? What are your thoughts on President Liebowitz having signed the statement?

Late last week, 51 Main Street, Midd’s own in-town social space, announced that it was abandoning its Facebook group in favor of a Facebook fan page. La ristorante e mobile! With a click of a mouse, you, too, can become a fan of 51 Main. Presently, the alleged chocolate bar boasts 71 fans and rising.

In other news, 51 Main has also launched its own website. There, you can find the menu, a schedule of past and upcoming entertainment, and photos of the staff donning aviator gear. And in case you’re counting, the menu features a mere 3 items containing chocolate, let alone sexy chocolate! Sucre bleu!

Although MiddBlog first heard about Dean of Library and Information Services (LIS) Michael Roy’s “First One Hundred Days in Office” write-up a good month ago, we didn’t get our hands on the actual document until Mike himself did a post over on One Acting Provost’s View.

Yes, we at MiddBlog are blushing slightly for making Mike’s “Documents to Read” list. While MiddBlog isn’t a document, we certainly are happy to be on the list with other must-reads such as the Middlebury Strategic Plan and The College Handbook.

Here are some other highlights from Mike’s list:
- People to Meet: Students (need list)
- Services to try out: Bannerweb
- Projects to (maybe) intitiate: David Allen/GTD Workshop
- Personal Stuff: find a running partner (3-6 miles at 7-8:30 minute miles), find a dance class for my six year old boy, find a bass or guitar teacher for my 15 year old boy, find a piano teacher for my 15 year old boy, find and/or start a pick-up soccer game

MiddBlog wants to know: What needs work at LIS? Who does Mike need to meet?

On the heels of Princeton Review’s rankings, Forbes.com has released its “America’s Best Colleges” list.

Middlebury college was named the 17th best college in America and the 15th best private college in America. Of our peer schools, Williams, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Bowdoin, and Amherst placed higher.

Lest you think that these are THE rankings (the U.S. News and Report version), Forbes makes sure to differentiate itself by ranking all college/universities together instead of breaking them into categories as U.S. News does. Last year’s U.S News number five ranking is within the “liberal arts schools” category.

Rankings continue to be a guide for prospective students, despite a recent effort to downplay the reliability and criteria for rankings. We at MiddBlog encourage prospective students to check things out for themselves!

Update: the IvyGateBlog sounds off on the poor performance of Ivy League colleges in the Forbes rankings. They cite the Forbes article, “Small liberal arts schools shine in our rankings, probably due to both the quality of their faculty and the personal attention they can provide. Williams and Swarthmore both rank in the top five, while Pomona, Smith, Middlebury and Amherst all come in the top 20, ahead of such schools as Stanford (23rd) and Brown (27th).”

Last summer, Hiba Fakhoury ‘09 used the social networking power of Facebook to reach out the Class of 2011. She joined the Middlebury Class of 2011 Facebook group and invited the incoming first-years to ask her anything about Middlebury. This initiative proved to be an overwhelming success. Not only that, but it caught the attention of uber-cool Seven Days Vermont.

Now, Hiba has found her own little niche in the interwebs: she launched her very own website, Ask Hiba! There, she has posted pictures of Middlebury College–including a suspiciously neat double in Stewart Hall– and she has arranged all of the questions and answers from last summer by topic. That, my friends, is dedication!

So, hop on over to Ask Hiba! especially if you’re a first year. She’s still accepting questions at askhiba [at] gmail [dot] com.

Latest word on the street is that Middlebury at Mills is slated to open next summer with all of the Arabic School and part of the Spanish School in Oakland, CA at Mills College. A branch of the Hebrew School may also open there with a joint program with Brandeis University, but that is unconfirmed.

Spanish is a logical choice for a California campus because of the opportunities to explore the rich cultural heritage of Spanish speakers in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Arabic School, on the other hand, seems like a purely practical move since it is the program that is in highest demand and needs the most room to grow enrollment. The plan appears to be that by moving the Arabic School, the Chinese School (the second highest in demand) would be able to expand into the space left behind on the Middlebury campus.

It’s curious that the Chinese program was not selected to move to Mills because the San Francisco Bay Area has a very high population of both Chinese immigrants and people of Chinese heritage. Although much of the Chinese population in the Bay Area speaks Catonese and not the Middlebury-taught Mandarin, the cultural and language-based opportunities are numerous. An Arabic and Hebrew School combo is a good idea in theory. In practice, however, the language pledge would prevent the two schools from holding meaningful dialogue.

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This morning’s 2-3 inches of heavy rain, acting in consort with a summer’s worth of wet weather, have led to closed roads and evacuations in Middlebury.

According to WCAX-TV in Burlington, Route 53 along Lake Dunmore and Route 125 between Route 116 in East Middlebury and Route 100 in Hancock are closed due to flooding. The Burlington Free Press also reports that water is in the road on Route 7 in East Middlebury, but did not report a precise location. Residents of Lower Plains Road and Tucker Hill Road have been evacuated to an emergency shelter set up by the Red Cross.

Be sure to check out the WCAX site for some wild photos of the East Middlebury River overflowing its banks onto Route 125.

In an e-mail to the college community this afternoon, President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz announced that Pavlo Levkiv ‘11 drowned while swimming off the coast of New Jersey on Friday.

Of Pav, President Liebowitz wrote,

“He came to Middlebury in September 2007 and immediately immersed himself in the community with equal enthusiasm for both his studies and his friendships. He loved outdoor activities such as hiking and swimming, and was often seen riding his bike around campus. His advisor called him a brilliant student, and a delight. Other professors agreed that he was an exceptional student of physics. … Pav loved Middlebury and had great hopes to contribute to its future in so many ways. He was working to found a wrestling club, and was involved with the College’s rugby team. He approached all challenges in life with courage, tenacity, and self-assurance. He will be greatly missed.”

President Liebowitz also noted,

“… Services for Pavlo will be held this Tuesday evening at Tuttle Funeral Home (272 Route 10, Randolph Twp, NJ 07869, tel. 973-366-7400). Calling hours will be held from 6:00-7:00 p.m., followed by a farewell tribute and remembrance from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m., at which the family hopes people will share their thoughts of Pavlo. This will be followed by a reception at the Levkov home for those who can join them (66 White Meadow Road, Rockaway, NJ, 07866).

For the time being, please do not send flowers in Pavlo’s memory. The family will announce at a later date the establishment of a “modest memorial fund.”

MiddBlog’s thoughts are with Pav’s family and friends and the members of the Class of 2011, who lost another friend, Nick Garza ‘11 in February.

Update (Aug. 5, 2:30 p.m.): A friend of Pavlo has created a Facebook group in his memory: We Will Miss You Pavlo.

It looks like Middlebury isn’t the only college or university trying to re-brand itself with a new logo.  Recent graduate Dave Campbell just informed Middblog of a similar “graphic identity” crisis over at Washington and Lee.  From the facebook group “W&L’s New Graphic Identity Sucks” it looks like students there have similar complaints to the ones from Middlebury students last summer.  The groups creator, Jonathan Wright is concerned about the amount of money that was spent on a “generic symbol” when the school already has “wonderful symbols that reflect the school’s tradition and identity.”  

For those of you who don’t remember last summer’s logo debacle, or weren’t members of the Middlebury or Middblog communities at the time.  

Some of Middblog’s coverage can be found here and the major facebook group run by our own Sarah Franco can still be found here.