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Posts tagged ‘alumni’

Nov 12

Marty Schnure ’10.5 Sets Out to Map Patagonia National Park

Marty Schnure ’10.5 (left) and project partner Ross Donihue (right)

Marty Schnure, a geography major from the class of 2010.5, recently received a National Geographic Young Explorers Grant which she is using to kick off a cartographic expedition to create a map-based visual portal for exploring the future Patagonia National Park from anywhere in the world.

Beginning this January, Schnure and her partner Ross Donihue will be working to tell the unusual story of the future Patagonia park through compelling cartography integrated with rich multimedia and spoonfuls of educational information. Using the content they collect in the field, combined with open-source data and crowd-sourced content, they will create a print map and guide to the park and an interactive web map complete with rich visual and educational content. Through their work, they’re exploring the future of new-media cartography for conservation, communication, and education.From the field, they’ll be blogging to give followers a behind-the-scenes view of the expedition from start to finish. They’ll also be blogging on the National Geographic News Watch and Explorers Journal. And thanks to an Ambassador sponsorship from SPOT Adventures, they’ll have a live map on the blog showing their location in the park at all times. Upon returning home, they will spend roughly four months integrating that content into their custom cartography to create a bilingual print visitors guide to the park and a bilingual interactive web map to engage a global audience.

Although the grant from National Geographic is covering half of the project, the team is leveraging the remaining support needed on Kickstarter — you can check out the project and watch an awesome short video here.

Nov 8

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Update: Moriel Rothman ’11 sentenced to 10 more days in jail for protesting IDF

Rothman with friends and family before going into the army draft location

Update 11/08/2012: Mori Rothman is back in Israeli prison after refusing to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces for a second time. He was sentenced on November 4, 2012 and his jail time, like before, is 10 days.

Rothman’s actions, and the publicity of his refusal, have prompted an intense online discussion in both the Israeli press and on US news sites. Most notably, read this open letter to Rothman from Yoav Schaefer, a former IDF soldier. A response on the Daily Beast written by Jesse Rothman, Mori Rothman’s brother, is also worth checking out.

Read more

Oct 10

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Midd alumnus in media spotlight for gaffe…again

Bain analyst Mike Griffin

For the second time this year, the media has called out a Midd alumnus for an embarrassing gaffe–both times connected to Mitt Romney.

This morning, Gawker–a media news and gossip blog–posted an email that a Bain Capital analyst sent Gawker creator Nick Denton expressing interest in investing in their company. This employee unfortunately didn’t realize that late this summer Gawker released thousands of Bain’s confidential documents to expose the potential illegal tax dodging of the private equity company that presidential hopeful Mitt Romney founded…awkward.

Here’s where it gets good: That clueless Bain analyst happened to have graduated with a degree in American Studies and Economics from the prestigious institution of Middlebury College in 2011. Mike Griffin was also lacrosse and hockey player at Middlebury before entering the financial sector after graduating.

This follows another incident involving a Midd grad, which occurred after the Republican National Convention in late August. Many people blamed Mitt Romney’s top campaign strategist and apparent Midd alumni Stuart Stevens for bad decisions that led to the disastrous end of the Republication Convention, which included Clint Eastwood ranting to an empty chair and a vague speech by Romney that Stuart apparently wrote. An article about Stevens featured in on Politico says,

“Viewed warily by conservatives, known for his impulsiveness and described by a colleague as a “tortured artist,” Stevens has become the leading staff scapegoat for a campaign that suddenly is behind in a race that had been expected to stay neck and neck through Nov. 6.”

MiddBlog hasn’t been able to find exactly when Stevens graduated from Middlebury, but on his Wikipedia page and elsewhere online Midd is listed as one of his alma maters. We speculate he may have graduated from Middlebury’s Breadloaf School of English as he is listed as a Breadloaf donor and also apparently worked as a travel writer.

To leave things on a better note,  Middlebury Professor of Political Science Matt Dickinson apparently published an article in the Economist this morning about Obama slipping in the polls and Romney coming back after the first debate (it only says “by M.D.; Middlebury, VT” but we think Professor Dickinson is a safe guess). Legit! Follow him and Midd Political Science Professor Bert Johnson on Middlebury Magazine’s series “Professor Pundits.”

Sep 19

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Frank Sweeney ’11 Returns to MTV

Frank Sweeney ’11 returns to television tonight in MTV’s The Challenge: Battle of the Seasons! This year the Challenge will take place in Bodrum, Turkey and Namibia. Former cast members from select seasons of MTV’s The Real World, including a team from The Real World: San Diego as well as Fresh Meat, Fresh Meat II and the Spring Break Challenge will be competing, with the hope of winning a piece of the $250,000 grand prize.

Tune in tonight at 10 pm for what is sure to be another dose of craziness from one of our favorite Midd alums.

Aug 15

Lea Davison ’05 Competes in Olympic Cross-Country Mountain Bike Race

It turns out that Sarah Groff wasn’t the only Middlebury alum repping Team USA in London for the Olympics — Lea Davison ’05 competed in the cross-country mountain bike race, finishing 11th overall.

Photo via Ben Freeman/Flickr

Davison, who hails from Jericho, VT, was a celebrated member of the College’s alpine skiing and cross-country running teams. Her Little Bellas mentoring program aims to “help young women realize their potential through cycling,” encouraging camaraderie among bikers and introducing the sport she loves to potential future Olympians. Lea committed herself to mountain biking a mere eight years ago and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. With a very impressive resume that’s on a noticeably upward trajectory, we’re hoping this isn’t the last we see of Davison. Rio, anyone?

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