MiddShow Episode 3
This time, President Liebowitz gets in on some TV action… check it out…
Posts tagged ‘liebowitz’
Oct 17
Oct 15
Is Turning Off the Lights Enough?
In 2006, Middlebury College collected $122,491,000 in tuition and fees. To put it in student terms, that is 24,498,200 Love-me-Tenders (or Dr. Feelgoods).
In 2006, the golf-shop, Snow Bowl, and the Bookstore made $812,910 in business income combined. To put it in student terms, that is 2,623 Prof. Colander Economics textbooks priced at $122 a pop.
Students have a hard time grasping the sense of financial scale when we hardly ever spend a dime outside an occasional Grille run or a night out at Two Brothers in town. And so President Liebowitz’s recent email to students about the Financial Crisis may mean very little to students. That said, Ron did a fantastic job of laying it out in simple terms. His main message: the College needs to tighten our belt but we’re still in a better position than most.
He even made a suggestion box! How very 5th-grade student council of him. OK, it’s a good concept to solicit feedback but I don’t think students are chomping at the bit to submit proposals to get rid of all dryers and printers on campus.
But that said, why do we not care about the school? Maybe it’s because we think of this Financial Crisis in terms of whether we can afford tuition next semester or whether we will get real jobs when graduate. We have a hard time bringing it back to the dorm room. The numbers at the top of this post mean nothing when it’s departments and offices around campus that have to do the cutting. The numbers mean nothing when we don’t really know how much an Axinn center or Hillcrest costs in terms of donation money. How will we feel the pinch and will we even notice until we’re out looking for a job?
UPDATE: Compare Ron’s message with that of Wesleyan University President Michael Roth who posted on his blog some feelings about moving forward in the Financial Crisis. Personally, I’d opt for the details that Liebowitz provides in his FAQ letter over the Roth’s generalities in his blog post. Then again, over the several months I’ve checked Roth’s blog, Roth certainly is quite in-tune with the undergrad student body to an extent Liebowitz has yet to achieve.
