Ron on the Middlebury Minotaurs

A few weeks ago Tim Spears wrote on his blog that he was hoping to take his posts in a new direction. Recently the first in a new series of 5 Questions for Faculty and Colleagues has appeared on the website.

Spears intends to ask a different colleague each week to answer 5 random questions (a la Times 10 Questions piece). Ron Liebowitz is fittingly the first interviewee, and I appreciate the series’ attempt to blur the distinction between authoratative figure and community participant. The size and location of Middlebury provides the perfect opportunity to create an institution of higher education that no longer divorces the professor from the student, and I completely support all measures intended to create a more vibrant exchange on campus.

Fellow Middblog Editor Cody Gohl ’13 and I sent Spears a list of questions, and I think that Ron’s answers prove that the most critical answers today are ones that aren’t so serious. Tom Robbins once said that “Our great human adventure is the evolution of consciousness. We are in this life to enlarge the soul, to liberate the spirit, and light up the brain.” I believe the intent of the student is no different; Middlebury needs to become a community of individuals who are collectively trying to challenge the assumption that all study must be of a serious nature; that all knowledge comes from the classroom.

While the piece addresses Ron’s view on art/athletics Vs academics, and his favorite US President (JFK), my favorites include which roof he would most like to picnic upon (Mead Chapel) as well as which mythological beast he would change the Middlebury mascot into: “Middlebury Minotaurs has a nice ring to it (and the our uniforms would be something to see)”

What a Middlebury soccer game will look like in 2011

To read on further: http://blogs.middlebury.edu/acrosscampus/2010/11/04/five-questions-for-ronald-d-liebowitz/