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Posts by Olivia Noble

May 2

SGA Presidential Forum

Sorry for the barrage of SGA-related posts, but it is that time of the year… In any case, I attended the SGA Presidential Forum this Sunday and videotaped the majority of the debate.  If you are interested in hearing what the candidates had to say, I uploaded both candidates’ responses and rebuttals to several of the questions posed by both the moderators and audience.

Why are you running for SGA President?

How do you feel you represent the student body as a whole?

If you could only implement one initiative next year, what would it be?

Evaluate your future relationship with the administration and your ability to push back.

Ask any question of your fellow candidate- Charlie

Ask any question of your fellow candidate- Ryan

Where do you see the SGA in the next 5 years?

Also, visit both candidates pages at go/charlie (or here for his facebook page) and go/ryankim4prez to get informed and go/vote Thursday at noon.

Apr 20

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Spring Student Research Symposium Begins

flashmob

Midd Students perform a Flashmob at last year's Symposium

If the endless number of events at prospie days wasn’t enough, last night marked the start of Middlebury’s annual student research symposium.  The keynote address featured Brian Deese ’00, special assistant to the president for economic policy.  Today, with over 200 presenters in roughly 27 disciplines, you are almost guaranteed to find something you are interested in.  While many seniors present on their thesis or senior work, anyone with a project can share their work.  The presentations, each lasting roughly 15 minutes, are grouped in thematic categories and staggered throughout the day, mostly occurring in Bi Hall.

For the timeline of events, head over here.  The full schedule is a good 16 pages long, so look it over and learn something new today!

P.S. Middblog will be covering a number of the talks, but given the enormous volume of presentations, we can’t be everywhere at once.  If you are tweeting, use our hashtag #middsym and we’ll compile a post over the weekend of student responses.

Mar 18

Sunday Reading: St. Patty’s Edition

Hey everyone, to celebrate the end of an insanely gorgeous and holiday-filled weekend, here is your Sunday Reading of the week.  Enjoy!

ST. PATTYS DAY: I’ve always wondered why/how the Chicago river is dyed green each year.  Turns out, the tradition began as an accident roughly 40 years ago when some plumbers used fluorescein dye to trace sources of illegal pollution discharges.  Today, upwards of 40 pounds of vegetable dye are used to dye the river green each St. Patrick’s Day.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Check out these long-exposure photos of gold fireflies in Japan as they come together to mate. It doesn’t look real.

RADIO: Several months ago, This American Life, and NPR program, broadcasted an episode devoted to Mike Daisey’s one-man show “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” in which Daisey recounts his visit to a factory in China where Apple products including the iPhone are manufactured.  This week, however, Ira Glass and TAL are retracting the story as they have recently discovered many elements of Daisey’s moving story are fabricated.  Instead they have published an episode on their investigations into the validity of the story and Daisey’s reaction.  It is some of the most captivating and awkward radio I have ever heard.

ENTERTAINMENT: If you’re looking to briefly procrastinate, I recently stumbled across this funny Tumblr that collects weird/incorrect/awkward excerpts from textbooks and comments on them.  The things Tumblr has brought to my life…

SCIENCE: In a study investigating the linkages between alcohol and stress, researchers discovered that male fruit flies self medicate similarly to humans.  Male flies subjected to mating stress and rejection preferred food spiked with alcohol far more than male flies who were able to mate easily.

And your video of the week:

 

Mar 15

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The Middlebury Endowment: Where is our Money Going?

Ever wondered where our money is invested? Middlebury has an endowment of roughly $871 million dollars, composed of hundreds of gifts from donors.  This money, invested in companies around the world, creates returns goes back to the college to support college spending.

Tuesday evening, in response to many student requests after the most recent Trustee’s meeting for more information on how our endowment is invested, Vice President and Treasurer of the college Patrick Norton hosted a meeting in Dana Auditorium that was attended by roughly 200 students.  He was joined by Derek Hammel, who works as Director of Investments in the Treasurer’s Office, and Oliver Platts-Miller, an analyst at Investure LLC, the firm that works with the college to manage the endowment.

There’s a decent amount of literature available online about the college’s endowment through the Socially Responsible Investment Club (SRI) and the college’s website here and here .  In short, the college has a yearly operating budget of $272 million dollars.  $48 million (18% of total budget) of that comes from returns on our endowment.   Norton emphasized, in a point he returned to many times throughout the meeting, that our endowment philosophy is to maintain budget stability and predictability.  Norton also continually mentioned several points about Middlebury’s commitment to its students: Middlebury is committed to need blind admission and the promise to meet full need of each admitted student, small classes with a 9:1 professor to student ratio, and “A+” facilities.  All of these things require a budget that is stable and predictable.

To give you a breakdown of how the money is invested, while the college investment committee decides what and where we invest our funds, they have hired Investure LLC, an investment firm to manage the funds for us.  Investure, which also manages the assests for 5 other colleges and 6 foundations, then invests in a number of other managers who themselves invest in 15 to 30 companies.  Complicated, I know.

Beyond that, we don’t actually know much about where our money goes.  $4 million of the $871 is committed to a fund known as the “Sustainable Investments Initiative” which invests in socially responsible and sustainable companies.  After the jump, the Q and A session…

Read more

Mar 13

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Dalai Lama to come to Middlebury in fall 2012

President Liebowitz announced via email that His Holiness the Dalai Lama will be visiting the Middlebury campus next fall to deliver two lectures, one to the campus on October 12 and another to the public October 13th.

From the email:

“The theme of his visit will be ‘Cultivating Hope, Wisdom, and Compassion,’ qualities that the Dalai Lama embodies. His remarks will help our community explore resources for optimism and cooperation, while challenging us to lead lives of courage and engagement. The problems that face humankind today, and that the current generation of students will be called upon to address, will necessitate not only knowledge and technological ingenuity, but also compassion, determination, and sacrifice.”

This will mark the Dalai Lama’s third visit to Middlebury.  Tickets will be available in May for Middlebury students and in June for the public talk. More information about the visit is available here.

Bill Moyers did a documentary of the last time the Dalai Lama was here in late summer 1990. Click the video below to hear a little bit more about what that conference was about (see if you can spot your favorite professors and community members in the video too).

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