Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘news’

Apr 19

6 Comments

The Dish on Dishes

This is a guest post by sophomore Nathan LaBarba, an SGA Senator.

This Tuesday you may have noticed Proctor’s (and Ross’s?) rather provocative display. 30 or so stacks of cup racks, with no cups. Attached to the stacks was a sign that read something along the lines of, “These were full when you guys left for Spring Break. Where have all our cups gone?”

Then, around 7 pm that evening, one of you, whose name I will not point out, wrote in reply, “Where did my $50,000 go?” This person believes that because of this person’s $50,000 tuition, the College should have purchased new cups for us all. This person is completely wrong in so many ways, which I will not take the time to point out. This person’s friends all laughed at his antics while others who read this person’s contribution to the sign walked away in disgust. Frankly, I don’t know where this person’s sense of entitlement has come from, but I hope (and am pretty certain) that most of you don’t believe the college should baby us by buying us new dishes when we take them or throw them away.

I had a conversation with Virginia on the Proctor dining staff that night. Because students are constantly looking for and asking for more cups and dishes during dining hours, often hostilely, she has taken to visiting the recycling center on her own time, without pay, and filling boxes with dishes and cups that students have thrown away. Her frustration almost moved her to tears. She took me back to the dish wash station and introduced me to the people who wash our dirty, disgusting dishes (without ever asking for a thank you), and they shared her sentiments.

The thing about this is that there is a really simple solution to this problem. If you take a dish out of the dining hall (which is fine), bring it back. Don’t put it in the box on your hall that says “please return to dining” because we all know that those just sit there.

Every one of us is at fault here, even those of us who don’t take dishes out of the dining hall. We all walk past those boxes and say to ourselves, “Nahh, I didn’t put anything in here, so I don’t need to take it back.” In a perfect world, we would be right. Unfortunately there are many people on this campus who think that they can put stuff there and that, for some reason, they are entitled to something we are not, which is an exemption from being responsible for their own mess. Until this changes, the rest of us have to do our part and carry those boxes back to the dining halls.

I wouldn’t have written this if I didn’t talk to Virginia in Proctor, who is impassioned beyond belief about this issue. If any of you had heard her, you would have been moved to do the same thing, trust me.

So let’s just all do our part and help out our outstanding dining staff, which serves each and every one of us for $3.17 per day, by bringing them back the dishes we have taken. I’m sick of drinking ginger ale out of a mug.

Mar 23

1 Comment

Doing Well, Doing Good: Katie Romanov ‘11.5 named “America’s Next EcoStar”

Doing Well, Doing Good is a new Middblog series written by Rebekah Wilson ‘14 that will highlight those making a difference for the better in the Middlebury community and beyond. Stay tuned for further coverage of good/well-doers.

Katie and teammates react to winning the communications contest at the Solar Decathlon this fall.

Katie Romanov ‘11.5 was named America’s Next EcoStar on March 5 as part of a nationwide contest by SmartPower and the U.S. Department of Energy to honor the accomplishments of an exceptional student leader committed to the renewable energy movement. Katie was selected for the prize by over 10,000 voters, beating out students from over 100 schools across the country.

SmartPower, a non-profit marketing firm that promotes renewable energy and energy efficiency, first took notice of Katie during the Solar Decathlon competition this fall when she directed communications for Middlebury’s team, Self-Reliance, which won the communications contest (placing 4th overall). Katie was nominated for the prize based on her successful work with Solar Decathlon, as well as her student leadership. During her time at Middlebury, Katie was active in environmental organizations, helping to found Sprout, an organization that advocates for environmental education in local schools.

As part of her title, Katie will complete a fellowship with SmartPower in Washington, D.C. this summer and travel to the Sustainable Futures Academy at the Salzburg Global Seminar. In addition, she was awarded a $1,000 grant to be presented to Middlebury’s sustainability office. According to a statement by SmartPower president Brian F. Keane on the organization’s blog, SmartPower was deeply impressed by her skills as a leader, saying, “[Katie] represents a new type of activist — one who combines energy and enthusiasm with a true understanding of what engages people.”

Check out SmartPower’s profile of Katie here.

Mar 11

1 Comment

SGA Sound-Off: Freedom of the Press, MiddView Final Amendments, Pass/Fail Updates & More

Good evening folks! After a brief discussion regarding last week’s meeting, the Senate got right down to business with several new bills and updates on the table.

The Campus Freedom of the Press Bill: passed unanimously, this bill ensures that the funding The Campus receives (awarded by the SGA) cannot be altered due to the nature of opinions of The Campus’ coverage regarding the SGA, SGA affiliated groups, or the SGA’s Executive Cabinet members. Appeals in this matter, instead of going to the SGA appeals committee, would directly go to the Student Activities Office.

MiddView Amendment Bill: After a long process of bringing the MiddView bill to fruition and debates over the funding split between the SGA & College Administration for the program — this amendment provides for the SGA to lock-in paying 50% of the trips cost for the first three years (previously passed up to 50%), with an agreement that after three years, the administration will fully cover the cost of the trips. While concerns were raised as to whether the verbal agreement with the College Administration described in the bill would be a binding commitment, the Senate was assured that in Vermont (only state that has this, apparently?) verbal agreements are binding. This bill passed with one dissenting vote.

Lamberti Faculty Appreciation Committee: While Staff awards are chosen by the SGA Senate, the Faculty award is chosen by a committee of five juniors and seniors of diverse academic fields of study along with the Dean of Faculty. If interested on serving on this committee, lookout for an email from President Recca in the near future asking for applicants.

Pass/Fail Update: Since the SGA passed the Pass/Fail resolution, the Resolution has been working its way through the Student Academic Affairs Committee, who then passed it promptly to the Educational Affairs Committee (EAC). As President Recca explained is within the EAC’s purview, the EAC has made some changes to the version passed by the Senate. The major changes are three-fold. First, the resolution passed by the SGA allowed for a student to take 2-4 class pass-fail over the duration of their study. This new version more holistically combines the idea of pass/fail with AP & Internship credits to create the space for a more tailored individual educational experience. The new version proposed would allow for student to apply at most 6 of 36 credits needed to graduate through the following: 6 APs, 6 Pass/Fail courses, 6 Internship credits, or some combination of the three.

Secondly, the version passed by the SGA passed a resolution mandating that professors would be blind to who is taking their class pass/fail. The EAC has altered this part of the proposal so it is not a blind situation, professors would know which students taking courses pass/fail (as some faculty felt it was unfair for them to not know, as they would not be able to allocate time to students with that in mind). Lastly, the EAC verision allows for pass/fail to fulfill distribution requirements, as lnog as they are not in one’s major or minor — something the version previously passed by the SGA prohibited. The EAC is presenting the results and findings of their open meetings in a Faculty Meeting this week. Following that, the EAC will formally present the resolution to the Faculty Meeting in April, whereupon it will most likely be voted on in the May meeting. Once the EAC formally presents their resolution, the SGA will examine the revised version and vote on the support of the new measure.

YouPower Midd Bike-Room/FIC Gym Update: After some administrative delays, the bike room is expected to be up and running hopefully a few weeks after spring break.

Until next week, enjoy your Sunday evening! And as always — email your senators if you want to know more about this, or any other legislation. We’re here to serve you, so be sure to share your voices.

Mar 2

Young Prince and Eric Hutchinson to Perform at Middlebury

Two up-and-coming rap and alternative rock artists will be coming to Middlebury in the coming weeks to perform for students and are supported by MCAB’s Small Concerts Initiative, which aims to diversify the college’s concert scene and offer alternatives to the larger Fall and Spring concerts.

 

 

Young Prince, a rising rap star from Washington, D.C. will be performing at the Bunker on March 10 (more info here). Slated to perform at the SXSW music festival this year, Young Prince is undoubtedly one to keep an eye on. He has performed alongside Nelly, Chiddy Bang and Spring concert headliner Wale. With a handful of good friends who are students at Middlebury, you can bet that Young Prince’s performance will be high-energy and a generally good time.

Read more

Jan 22

1 Comment

Life Skills: Lean Forward And Participate In The News

This post is part of the “Life Skills” series by former MiddBlog editors.

Creative Commons / Jessamyn

My two previous posts addressed the problem of keeping up with the news from a traditional perspective.  I described what to look for in the news and how to get the news to come to you.

If you only do what I describe in my first two posts, you’re engaging with the news in a way that is fundamentally similar to the way people have consumed news for centuries — you’re literally and figuratively sitting back and receiving information.

But this is the digital era and the Internet allows people to lean forward and participate. As citizens, we can now be active in analyzing, distributing and reporting the news.

This doesn’t mean starting a blog if you don’t want one.  And it doesn’t mean always aspiring for the standards of professional journalism if you decide to produce stories.

Instead, it’s important that we overcome the belief that there is a theatrical fourth wall separating producers and consumers of news.  This means participating in news decimation and creation as you consume it.

Recommend while you read  

The newspaper industry used to be based on bundling together content.  Newspaper front pages organized the day’s stories and all the paper’s content was held together by a rubber band.

Today, one of the many reasons the newspaper industry’s financial model is falling apart is the news has been unbundled.  Stories are viewed haphazardly online and there is no easy way to sell all of a newspaper’s content as one product. Read more

« Older Entries
%d bloggers like this: