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Volleyball Mashes Maine Schools in Prep for NESCAC Tournament; Secure Sixth Seed

(11/06/13 10:23pm)

The Middlebury volleyball team ended the regular season on a positive note, winning both of its last home games to finish with a solid record of 18-6. On Friday, Nov. 1 they bested Bowdoin 3-1, then followed up by beating Bates by the same score on Saturday, Nov. 2. The Panthers improved to 5-5 in NESCAC play to tie for 6th place along with Trinity.Friday’s win against Bowdoin was an especially important victory, as it demonstrated Middlebury could keep up with the best of NESCAC volleyball. Before facing off against the Panthers, the Polar Bears were 8-1 in conference play, losing only to powerhouse Williams in a close game.The first set was disheartening for Middlebury, as they couldn’t keep up with a close 17-25 loss. Despite only committing five errors, Middlebury seemed listless on offense through the first set, mustering up only five kills on 33 touch attempts. However, Middlebury was able to turn it around in the second, notching 13 kills to win 25-18. Despite a close third set (25-23), Bowdoin was unable to keep up the fight. Middlebury punctuated its proud performance with a final set score of 25-17, including a 7-0 run, mirroring Bowdoin’s first set dominance. Lizzy Reed ’15 came up with 21 digs on the game, committing zero errors.Saturday’s matchup against Bates provided an opportunity for the Panthers to consolidate their place in the NESCAC tournament. Bates has suffered within conference play this season, and came into the game sitting at a lowly 2-7 record.Middlebury commanded the first set with a 25-13 win, letting the Bobcats know who was in charge early on. However, Bates wasn’t ready to concede keeping up in the second set, only losing 25-21. In the third set, Bates escaped with a 25-23 win, capitalizing on eight Middlebury errors. However, the Panthers weren’t going to allow a comeback on their own court, and put the game away with a 25-19 victory in the fourth and final set.Captains Megan Jarchow ’14 and Amy Hart ’14 both put up 18 kills, ending their impressive offensive seasons without skipping a beat. Olivia Kolodka ’15 matched their offensive output with a defensive outing of 18 digs.With positive end to the season, the Panthers are optimistic of their chances in the NESCAC tournament.“Doing so successfully during the last weekend of the regular season gives us a lot of confidence going into the tournament,” Gabi Rosenfeld ’17 said. “Hopefully we can carry our success against Amherst. I think our offense will be able to match any others in the NESCAC.”Middlebury looks ahead to its first match of the NESCAC tournament and postseason on Friday, Nov. 8. They face Amherst, who they lost to on their first meeting of the season, but defeated the second time around.

Field-Hockey_Paul-Gerard_Color-13-of-20

(11/06/13 10:17pm)

Williams Downs Men’s Soccer With Second Half Surge

(11/06/13 10:14pm)

Middlebury saw its season end in a frenetic final few minutes at Cole Field at Williams in the NESCAC quarterfinal, as the third-seeded Ephs bested the sixth-seeded Panthers 3-2 on Saturday, Nov. 2.After Harper Williams ’15 blasted a penalty into the lower left-hand corner of the net in the 84th minute to bring Middlebury within one goal, both teams scrambled to gain possession with Middlebury ultimately failing to equalize.The match pitted two veteran head coaches against one another. Middlebury’s David Saward, in his 29th year at the helm, appears a novice when compared to William’s head coach Mike Russo, who led the Ephs’ to their 31st consecutive winning season this year in his 35th year as head coach. Combined the two men have secured over 700 victories.Saward said he admires Russo’s track record.“There are very few coaches who compare to Mike Russo,” he said. “His consistent production of first class teams is second to none.”No one told the Panthers that they were supposed to lie down for Russo and his higher-seeded squad, as just over two minutes into the contest Greg Conrad ’17 gave Middlebury the lead. Adam Glaser ’17 started the attack, finding Sam Peisch ’13.5 on the right side who beautifully crossed the ball to Conrad’s left boot for his fifth goal of the season.Middlebury outplayed the Ephs for the first quarter of the game, who seemed to be disorganized early. Captain Dan Lima was playing out of position on Saturday, which may have caused some initial confusion, but would soon pay off for Williams.Middlebury kept the pressure on and played strong defense early, forcing Williams to try some long passes and take ambitious shots. Peisch continued to wreak havoc on the offensive side of the ball, and the defense locked down on the Ephs forwards, particularly 2012 NESCAC Rookie of the Year Mohammed Rashid. Despite Rashid’s brilliant footwork and impressive speed, the defense refused to let him take over early. Tyler Smith ’14 and Deklan Robinson ’16 both used their physicality to frustrate Rashid, sending him to the turf more than once on loose balls and headers.In the 29th minute it appeared that Middlebury might extend the lead. Glaser, Middlebury’s top scorer, did as he has done all year and created a scoring opportunity with his speed, sending a cross into the box that was deflected right of the net. As Peisch chased down the loose ball, Williams keeper Peter Morrell ambitiously pursued the Middlebury forward. Morrell’s dive prevented Peisch from getting to the ball and sent him flying to the ground, but no call was made, to Peisch’s dismay.“I was definitely taken down in the box,” Peisch said. “The referee unfortunately didn’t make the call, but at the end of the day teams win games, not referees.”Saward’s take was slightly more diplomatic.“The decision did not surprise me,” Saward said. “What I thought the referee might have called is a foul just outside the penalty area, however, in his eyes I suspect he felt that Peisch went down too easily.”Minutes later Williams nearly earned their own penalty kick as Rashid finally showed off the jets and caused problems for the Panthers. Off of a long outlet pass from Morrell along the left side, Rashid took the ball from the midfield all the way into the box where he was muscled to the ground on a clean but physical tackle that rightly was not whistled.After Rashid’s attack, momentum seemed to swing to the Williams side. In the 26th minute Malcolm Moutenot found Rashid on a two on one off of a change of possession and Rashid easily buried the equalizer past a diving Ethan Collins ’14.“Quality players like [Rashid] only need a half yard and they make you pay,” Saward said. “That is exactly what happened on the first goal, he got a yard start and was able to finish off a quick counter.”The Panthers had a few chances to pull ahead again before halftime, but a long shot from Andres Rodlauer ’16 was tipped just high and a cross from Glaser who was behind the Williams back line failed to find a friendly boot.The second half began at a frenzied pace, which favored the Ephs. In the 50th minute, Lima, usually at the back for the Ephs, curved a ball into the left side of the net well out of the reach of Collins for his first point of the season.Less than a minute after the goal, Glaser found Peisch in the middle of the box on a low cross that Peisch sent just high of the net. Moments later Peisch redeemed himself by earning a free kick from just outside the box. The kick was knocked out of bounds for a Middlebury corner, but the effort was gobbled up by the keeper.The Panthers’ outlook would only get bleaker in the 57th minute when Rashid again got the better of the Panthers’ usually unbreakable back line. Using his speed, Rashid surpassed the Middlebury defenders and beat Collins in the left side of the net, giving the Ephs a 3-1 lead.The Ephs looked for the dagger as the Panthers were beaten and bruised. Conrad suffered a lower body injury and was forced to leave the game, and Graham Knisley ’14 appeared to be suffering from leg cramps. But the Panthers gamely pushed on, playing a freelance game and moving the ball upfield as quickly as possible.As the final 15 minutes ticked on, Williams milked the clock with every possession and packed the box with defenders. Unfortunately for the Ephs, one such defender got a hand in the way of a shot from Noah Goss-Wolliner ’15 in the 84th minute. Morrell guessed correctly, diving to the right in an attempt to stop Williams’ penalty blast, but the ball found the net and reduced the deficit to one.The last few minutes were predictably chaotic, as Williams sent long ball after long ball into Middlebury territory and the Panthers tried to put shots on net. However, Middlebury was unable to create any clear scoring opportunities, and the buzzer sounded, sending the Ephs into the semifinals to be played on Saturday, Nov. 9.This game was the last for seven Panther seniors, who should be credited with vastly improving upon last year’s sub-.500 record, and finishing the 2013 season at 9-5-1, and whom Saward lauded for their efforts.“This senior class has done a remarkable job,” he said. “They have left a legacy of hard work and dedication that I think will be continued by the underclassmen.”Peisch reflected favorably on this season.“This group is a truly a special one,” Peisch said. “I believe I speak for all the seniors in saying it has been an honor and a privilege to be a member of this team.”

Vinegar Tom Disturbs, Bewitches

(11/06/13 9:42pm)

The Department of Theatre and Dance celebrated Halloween with a presentation of Caryl Churchill’s Vinegar Tom, a subversive tale of witchcraft and female power running from Thursday, Oct. 31 through Saturday, Nov. 2.Audience members entered the Seeler Studio Theatre in the Kevin P. Mahaney Center for the Arts to find they would be sitting “in the round,” a wooden circle in the center of the stage with seating on all sides. Quotations projected onto two walls of the theatre exemplified harsh opinions from throughout history about the weaknesses of the female sex, thought to be naturally wicked simply because of differences in biology. Though the play follows behaviors that lead to accusations of witchcraft in one rural town, show director and Professor of Theatre and Gender, Sexuality and Feminine Studies Cheryl Faraone noted that the play grapples with a much larger issue.“It’s a play about the control of an assault on women,” Faraone said. “I think that unfortunately this is an issue that has come to the forefront today.”“History has not moved on; the removal of the gibbet is merely cosmetic,” she added in the show’s program.Churchill’s play follows the loose young woman Alice, played by Christina Fox ’13.5, and her mother Joan, acted by Erica Furgiuele ’15, two unfortunate victims of the times, falsely accused of witchcraft by a middle class couple after things start to go wrong on the couple’s farm. Though there are only four minor male characters, they hold the power over the women they encounter. Margery, portrayed by Meghan Leathers ’13.5, thinks she is driven mad by the women she knows, not acknowledging that her abusive husband may be the one pushing her over the emotional ledge. Susan, a friend of Alice played by Chelsea Melone ’15, is wracked with guilt and eventually also accused of witchcraft after she aborts her baby with a potion, impregnated by a man and forced to explore the extent of her control over her body. Betty, acted by Shannon Fiedler ’14, runs from the possibility of marrying a wealthy man she does not love, only to be convinced and brainwashed that she will only be safe from accusations if she submits to the life she so despises.Faraone was also enthused about her dedicated ensemble.“This is a very strong group. Some are seniors, some are brand new to me,” Faraone said. “I’ve been incredibly fortunate with these students. Their commitment to the play and its ideas has been absolute, and they take what Churchill has to say seriously. There is a lot of talent and a lot of smarts on that stage.”Interspersed throughout the show were six songs composed by musical director and Affiliate Artist Carol Christensen, performed in three part harmony by singers Caitlin Rose Duffy ’15.5, Joelle Mendoza-Etchart ’15 and Dana Tripp ’14. The singers offered a stark visual and audial juxtaposition to the 17th century dress and speech of the play’s primary story, confidently strutting around the stage in modern day black cocktail dresses and colored tights and presenting intricately arranged, upbeat jazzy tunes. Despite this contrast, the lyrics of the songs soon proved to correlate with the themes of the main plot, discussing everything from the struggles of being a wife supporting a family to aging to a woman’s medical control over her body. Faraone, who has previously collaborated with Christensen, was extremely pleased with the musical director’s vision.“She absolutely gets the juxtaposition of music and lyrics that shows the narrow lenses through which women are viewed,” Faraone said. “The songs are entertaining and a big contrast to the rest of the show.Fielder worked as an actor, choreographer and dramaturge for Vinegar Tom for her senior work, drawing on previous dance experience to bring the harmonies alive.“I think my favorite aspect of Vinegar Tom might actually be the singers,” Fiedler said. “The music is absolutely beautiful, and the stark contrast between the upbeat melody and the dark lyrics forces the audience to really confront the issues at hand. Because the singers are contemporary, it also makes the audience acknowledge that the issues raised in the show are not just problems they had back then, but, unfortunately, issues that we are still dealing with today.”Near the end of the play, in a particularly uncomfortable scene, Matt Ball ’14 entered the stage as Packer, an accomplished witch hunter known for his ruthless treatment of witches. As Packer laid each suspected witch on an elevated platform and viciously prodded them for a sign of the devil, the intensity of the piece heightened to an extremely uncomfortable level, many in the audience forced to look away as the women’s legs were opened. Indeed, the scene should be unsettling, showing the subordination of Packer’s female accomplice as she justifies his actions and raises him to the level of a saint.Faraone’s decision to stage the production in the round was brilliant, allowing for a range and depth of motion impossible to achieve with a typical 180-degree view. Characters emerged from all four corners of the stage, cleverly moving around the circle to give each audience member a unique view of the action. Actors and singers communicated directly to the psyche of the audience, hugging the edge of the circle and making eye contact with spectators. A ladder leading to the balcony seating area of the theatre maximized the spatial possibilities of the show, allowing the actors to move horizontally and vertically to present the tale.Fielder, besides acting as Betty and Kramer in the play, performed all necessary research about the time period, treatment of women and witchcraft, communicating to the cast how each of their characters may have actually behaved or felt at the time.In the end, it is not the actual hanging of the witches or the emotional torment coursing through the women’s minds that is the most disturbing. In the final scene, two females appear as Kramer and Sprenger, two real men who wrote The Malleus Maleficarum, or “The Hammer of Witches,” in 1486. This text, one of the most famous treatises on witches, challenges arguments against witchcraft’s existence and instructs magistrates on how to identify, question and convict suspected witches. The statements in this text came to be widely recognized as truth at the time. Fielder read the text in preparation for the play.“It was a crazy experience to read it and find out what people really thought of women back then – their fear and the circular logic of finding out a woman as a witch,” Fielder said. “For example, if a woman has a spot on her she is a witch, but if she doesn’t have a spot she can still be a witch. They basically made up the rules so that anyone accused of witchcraft could be hung for a witch.”The actors, wearing tails and top hats, boldly asserted the reasons why women were more likely to be witches, listing the flaws of the sex and blaming women for all the wrongs in the world. They insisted that “cunning women are worst of all,” capable of greater wrongs.This scene, coupled with the projected quotes from the beginning of the play, drove home the notion that prejudice against women has been all too real throughout history.In the trio’s final song, “Lament for the Witches,” the singers hauntingly ask “Where are the witches?” before tauntingly answering, “Here we are, here we are.” Many characteristics of witchcraft in the play, such as heightened sensitivities, independence from men or individual intelligence, are very much present in women today, forcing women in the audience to ask if they would have been considered a witch just a few centuries ago. Faraone points out that women accused of witchcraft were generally those on the edges of society, displaying some fatal sign of difference.“These were mostly single women struggling with poverty and age who found a scapegoat through witchcraft,” Faraone said.Many left the theater having enjoyed the production, but feeling deeply unsettled by the theme. The entire ensemble did an excellent job of grappling with the difficult ideas of Churchill’s work, each actor sporting a British accent and a clear determination to make the play all it could be. In the end, they presented a cleverly designed, well-acted spectacle that left the audience with as many questions as answers, and oftentimes, those are the best plays of all.

Science Spotlight: Alchemistry pHun!

(11/06/13 9:39pm)

The fact that each chemical equation scribbled on a blackboard often translates into a spectacular, real life occurrence is easily underappreciated. For instance, eyes may glaze over when they see the equation 2H2O2 -> 2H2O + O2, and one would not expect to be amazed to witness the reaction. But when chemistry student Cece Burkey ’15 demonstrated the experiment by filling a carved pumpkin with hydrogen peroxide and a catalyst, the chemicals expanded rapidly into hissing colored foam called elephant toothpaste, which burst out from the eyes and mouth of the pumpkin.On Wednesday, Nov. 13, Burkey, along with students Alex Scibetta ’14, Peter Hetzler ’14, Shannon Reinhart ’15, David Stillman ’14, and Associate Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry Roger Sandwick are holding an event called Alchemistry pHun to bring this chemical reaction and many others alive for local kids and College students.The five students will act as different famous scientists, don a costume, and perform a variety of interesting chemistry experiments, such as the above elephant toothpaste experiment.“[The five students are] organizing and handling everything, which is a bit different from previous years,” Sandwick said.Each of the students is selecting two or three chemistry reactions to perform, which they are going to weave into a story.Sandwick explains that they are choosing “experiments and reactions we know happen and we’ve always wanted to do but we’ve never had a chance to do. A few are things past professors have done for us.”The students were still finalizing the reactions, and a few are trade secrets, but the ones they revealed promise to be exciting. One student joked that “we sent out a brainstorming email and next to my name was just the word explosives.” The group mentioned using liquid nitrogen, creating a methane canon, exploding a piñata and lighting a hydrogen balloon on fire.“[The goal is] to get elementary and middle school kids interested, show them how cool chemistry can be, and get them to question what is happening,” Sandwick said.This year’s Alchemistry pHun event is the latest in a series of chemistry outreach events held by the College’s chemistry department.“In my general chemistry class we went out to the elementary schools and split up and went into different classrooms,” Burkey said. “So if you count each [of those] as a show there have been a lot of them.”The group believes chemistry demonstrations are important in encouraging kids’ interest in science.“A lot of these little kids have no idea about the science behind what is happening,” said Reinhart. “But if you just ask them what they think is happening, they will start thinking about it, and asking questions. I think that this is one of the most important things in terms of getting kids excited about learning.”In the past the chemistry demonstrations in McCardell Bicentennial Hall have attracted a large amount of interest from the community.“In BiHall at night this will be the fifth show,” Sandwick said. “The very first show filled the room and people couldn’t get in. People were mostly from the community and there weren’t many college kids. But I think these guys will attract more.”The event targets local kids and the community, but this year the team also hopes to draw more students from the College.“We’ve advertised in the Addison papers, and we’ve contacted all sorts of schools. But the advertisement is also focused more on campus than the previous times,” Sandwick said.The event is likely to fill up quickly, so on Nov. 13 at 6:30 p.m. come early to Lecture Hall 216 in McCardell Bicentennial Hall to enjoy the ingenuity of these students as they demonstrate chemistry at its most interesting.

Behind the Vest: Fall Foliage Is No Match for Landscaping

(11/06/13 8:08pm)

13 miles of sidewalk. Over 300 acres. Even for a 14-year Landscape Services veteran like John Quelch, these numbers are daunting. Nevertheless, Quelch has an eye for detail when mowing and holds his team to a high standard.“Maybe it would surprise [students] if they saw what we didn’t do or if they saw someone who didn’t care how it looked,” said Quelch. “For me in particular, no matter what it is, I look for the end result – what it looks like when you’re done. When you start off, it’s not pretty, but you chug away and get it done.”Landscape Services Supervisor Clinton Snyder pulls out a map of campus full of little Sharpie markings that divide the campus like a battlefield; a commander keeping track of troops on the battlefield. “We have an average of 12 to 18 guys working in landscaping and it’s broken up into three groups,” said Snyder.North, Central and Athletic are the three zones in which Landscaping operates.North encompasses everything from College Street toward Bicentennial Hall, Central covers the areas around Old Chapel and Athletic demarcates the athletic fields to the south. Quelch is the crew chief in charge of Central and is responsible for 5 or 6 staff members who run the landscaping from Old Chapel to the CFA.“He makes sure everything is looking good,” Snyder said. “This is a high-profile area of the College and he works with his guys making sure everything is mowed and it looks primo.”The mowing happens on a schedule. “The North crew mows on Monday and Tuesday, and we mow Central on Wednesday and Thursday,” said Quelch. “Usually it takes us a little over a day and a half to mow our section and then we have to string trim it, all around the trees and any objects that you can’t get to with a mower. That’s quite a bit of work just doing that. In the summer it’s pretty much mowing and weed whacking.”The team has a Toro lawnmower with wings on it that drop down and can mow 10 to 12 feet on either side which they use to mow large fields and open areas. As the weather turns colder, Landscaping has been preparing for the first snowfall with an eye to keeping the exits of buildings free from snow.“We were working on it yesterday. We have to distribute shovels to every building and the custodians,” said Quelch. “The custodians will sometimes take care of the front and they’ll just shovel 6 or 7 feet out for us just to help out because we’re sometimes short-handed in that department.”Landscaping also has to work with the Facilities auto shop to prepare the tractors and trucks for moving snow.“We have plow trucks that we are responsible for maintaining and guys out in plow trucks. Then we have tractors to do all the sidewalks and the larger equipment (the backhoe and the payloader) doing the parking lots and removing the snow,” said Snyder. “They just started doing it now, right into Thanksgiving, getting every piece of equipment ready so when the snow falls, we’re ready with the trucks, the tractors and the snow blowers. This is the rotation we start now – taking out winter stuff and putting away the summer stuff.”Once heavy snow begins falling, the real work begins.“Bicentennial Hall has to be shoveled on the roof – the entire top,” continued Snyder. “We have 200 plus buildings and over 300 acres that we’re taking care of, so every building has an entrance and an exit, everything has to be shoveled, usually six feet wide out to a walk or out to a drive.” The wear and tear on machines and tools is evident after only a few years. “Brand new shovels get worn right down,” added Snyder.Quelch also has his share of snowstorm horror stories.“We had a really big storm on Valentine’s day 7 or 8 years ago,” said Quelch. “It was brutal; lots and lots of snow. I called up here and told people if they didn’t have to travel not to do it,” said Quelch. “People stayed here that night and the College paid for however many hours you worked in that storm, they gave you double your hours. They had cots out for people to stay in.”On the Gator, Quelch does hesitate to do some clean up at a moment’s notice.“I’m going to pick up this branch while I’m here,” said Quelch, stopping the vehicle to grab a large branch that had fallen down in from of the Emma Willard House. Right now, however, the main target is fallen leaves.“We have a lot of leaves and a lot of them are still on the trees now. Oaks always hold them,” Quelch said. “We are constantly after leaves, as long as we can do it before the snow hits.”All the leaves are collected via vacuum devices that are attached to either a box on a Gator or a separate truck.“We have a leaf vacuum – a vacuum that goes in a straight shot and sucks them up,” Quelch said. “And then we have another one that we are experimenting with this year. The auto shop people built a box on the back of it. It has an engine on it and it has knives and it chops the leaves up and blows them into the box on the back of a Gator.”“They also like to mulch as much as they can with the mowers,” said Snyder, a tactic used to get as much organic matter as possible back into the ground. “But at some point they have to stop doing it because you get so many leaves you’re basically just plowing because there are so many leaves so they need to start picking it up.”The leaves are first brought to the Facilities services building but eventually they go to a site off of the TAM which Landscaping calls the ‘stump dump’. Quelch pointed out this site while on the Gator, where Landscaping keeps gravel, brush, woodchips, and manure from the Morgan Horse Farm. Leaves are piled next to the manure and food compost from the dining halls is mixed in. “We turn that into topsoil so we have fresh topsoil,” said Snyder.A little-known part of Landscaping’s duties are R-25 forms, a variation of a work order which lists events all over the College that require the department’s attention.“It’s our responsibility to read that and see what is going on each day,” said Snyder. “It says in each event to see if it’s something we need to do. It could be as little as getting garbage cans out there or roping something off.”Landscaping also takes care of the brunt of Monday morning’s trash pickup.“I get sick of that but to keep it looking nice it’s got to be done because there’s always beer cans, broken glass, napkins. We start our day out Monday morning with campus pickup,” said Quelch. “Usually it takes about 2 hours with 4 people.“We’ll get a call like, ‘At FIC there’s broken glass across the whole parking lot.’ You have to stop what you’re doing and take care of it,” said Snyder. “They stood by that parking lot and drank and every time they drank a bottle they threw it. By the end of the night there was broken glass across the whole parking lot.”The ridgeline houses and the mods are reportedly the worst spots for garbage in the campus. Despite incidents like this, Quelch is nonplussed.“It is our job, but sometimes it’s frustrating if you go down there three or four times, but it’s in our job description,” said Quelch. “Most of them are very respectful like when we are cleaning off a sidewalk. A lot of students come by and say thank you. That’s pretty nice to hear that they appreciate what you are doing for them.”The importance of being alert is obvious on a Gator. While driving the Gator around campus on Friday, Quelch made a point to veer off whenever pedestrians were near, an unspoken rule of landscaping.“When we are mowing and students come by we idle down, shut our blades off, and let them come by,” said Quelch. Quelch also said his crew is mindful of keeping the noise down around lecture halls and other classrooms.Quelch grew up in Vermont and started work at 12 years old as a butcher and meat cutter. “That’s pretty much what I’ve done for most of my life until I cam here,” said Quelch.“You learn a lot about blood and guts, that’s for sure. But I can do the whole job.”Quelch pulls up at 468 McKinley, a College house near the athletics center and points to a group of three facilities crew members. The three all wear the backpack-style leafblowers and use them to drive leaves into a pile, fighting gusts of wind.“We definitely play the wind and we couldn’t really suck the leaves up today because they don’t suck up when they’re wet and it clogs a lot,” said Quelch, referencing a rainy morning.Despite the monotony of mowing, Quelch says he enjoys his work.“Mowing up the leaves and chopping them up with the smell of the fresh air is awesome,” said Quelch.

Chance Lyrics Spark Student Animosity

(10/30/13 10:54pm)

At the age of 20, most people are still thinking about what they want to do when they “grow up.” This is not the case with up-and-coming musician Chancelor Bennett, who is by no definition ‘most people.’ Better known by his stage name Chance the Rapper, the Chicago born hip-hop artist is riding his growing momentum on The Social Experiment Tour, which stops at the College on Nov. 2.But the concert created as much controversy as excitement, centering around an initial lack of tickets and an ongoing uproar over perceived misogyny and homophobia in his lyrics. In response, the administration asked Chance not to sing the controversial lyric “slap-happy faggot slapper” of "Favorite Song" or use any homophobic terms during his entire performance.According to Dean of the College Shirley Collado, Chance agreed to these terms.Releasing his first mixtape, 10 Day, after a ten day suspension during his senior year of high school, Chance soon garnered 80,000 downloads and the attention of Forbes magazine, which featured 10 Day in their ‘Cheap Tunes’ column. This growing recognition landed Chance a spot opening for fellow rapper Childish Gambino on tour, and spurred further collaborations with rappers Hoodie Allen and Joey Bada$$. Acid Rap, Chance’s second mixtape released in April of this year, has already achieved 250,000 downloads and catapulted the rapper into wider national recognition. Featuring other artists such as Twista, Vic Mensa and Action Bronson, Acid Rap received critical acclaim and a BET Hip Hop Award nomination for best mixtape, landing him a spot on the famous Lollapalooza festival.Will Brennan ’16 grew up in Chicago and attended school just a few train stops away from Chance’s school, Jones College Prep, learning of the rapper’s huge ambitions through mutual musical friends.“He and other rappers on the Save Money label like Vic Mensa were making singles and dropping mixtapes left and right,” Brennan said. “But when I left Chicago I had no idea that Chance would make it as big as he has in recent months.”The Middlebury College Activities Board, or MCAB, chose the fall concert because of demonstrated student interest in more rap and hip-hop and Chance’s up-and-coming potential, according to MCAB President Elizabeth Fouhey. Chance’s music was relatively well known on campus before his appearance was announced, discovered through the internet or on WRMC. Will Brennan started playing Chance on his own WRMC show because of the home connection, but became a much bigger fan after the release of Acid Rap.“His jazz harmonies and electronic beats made a really interesting combination that I had never heard before,” Brennan said. “I didn't know what to think of his squawkish noises at first, but I realized it was a part of his playful nature as a musician. I think Chance makes music that is ultimately true to himself and more importantly true to the environment in which he surrounds himself in Chicago.”Brennan was not the only student impressed by Chance’s distinctive sound. Adam Benay ’13.5 is a huge fan of Chance, listening to Acid Rap every day this past summer.“I was getting so into him,” Benay said. “I heard a rumor the first or second day of school that he would be coming, and I was thrilled. Kid Cudi came my first semester and this was a nice capstone.”When MCAB announced Chance the Rapper as the fall concert, needless to say, many people on campus were extremely excited. In an all-student email on Sep. 23, MCAB revealed the Nov. 2 concert date, announcing “Tickets on sale soon,” and directing people to look to Twitter and Facebook for more information. MCAB decided to advertise the event solely through their Facebook page and on the Middlebury Box office website, leaving many students without tickets. Late in the day on Oct. 14, the campus buzzed with news that the tickets to the concert had sold out, leaving many scrambling and willing to pay well above the $12 ticket charge to obtain a highly sought after ticket.Fouhey explained that the organization decided how to advertise the event at MCAB executive board meetings, brainstorming for electronic advertising alternatives to the all-student email, which has in recent years experienced a push for limited use.“MCAB made an online status which was shared by dozens of students on MCAB in the hopes that it would reach all corners of campus,” Fouhey said. “We thought that with the excitement on campus and word of mouth, the ticket release information would spread throughout the student body. Our standard procedure is to release the tickets and then do an advertising push once they have been put on sale.”Benay, who had not ‘liked’ MCAB on Facebook, was one of the students shocked to discover that he had missed his opportunity to purchase a ticket.“There was a huge portion of people who fell through the cracks,” Benay said. “I found person after person who said ‘What are you talking about? When did the tickets go on sale?’”Due to uncertainties regarding the Memorial Field House construction, MCAB booked the concert in the McCullough Social Space, which only allowed for 600 tickets to be sold. In addition, the event was limited to students only and each ID holder could only purchase two tickets.Many students may not be aware of the multi-step process involved in bringing an artist to Middlebury, including the important role of a middle agent to assist in communicating with MCAB which artists fit the desired genre, dates and price range. According to Associate Dean of Students JJ Boggs, bringing a desirable artist to rural Vermont for the right price is no easy task, and the MCAB committee decides which of the suggested acts fits the College.“[MCAB has] a challenging job, and they have been criticized in the past for hosting unpopular shows,” Boggs said. “They are simultaneously trying to meet student interest, manage their budget responsibly, offer a variety of programming, and at the same time, consider ‘what might the social ramifications be for Middlebury College?’”The problem with MCAB’s marketing strategy, according to many students, is that not every student is on Facebook, and even those who are may not check their accounts on a regular basis. At the time of the sale, MCAB had a little over 1,100 followers in a student body of 2,500, many of which were alumni. The organization had previously used posters and emails to advertise concerts and many criticized the decision to publicize through social media accounts that students had to join and actively use to be notified.Fouhey acknowledged that the ticket release issue is a learning experience for MCAB and that the organization never meant to cause the dissatisfaction resulting from the social media marketing idea.“We understand the frustrations of students about ticket sales,” she said. “It was never our intention to limit or restrict who would know about the ticket release information. We fully acknowledge that we could have done a better job navigating this ticket release. We will certainly learn from this mistake, and in the future we will look to broader methods of communication.”Boggs reacted to an impassioned letter from Benay, first published on middbeat, and other general student concerns over the way the ticket sales were handled, quickly taking action. On Friday, Oct. 25, Boggs sent out an all-student email announcing that the College was able to secure Nelson Arena, and that more tickets would be made available for purchase soon due to the larger venue. The move to Nelson was motivated by safety concerns, as administrators realized that McCullough did not have the capacity for the crowd or the extensive set and entourage that travels with Chance.“The real hero of this story is JJ Boggs,” said Benay, pleased with this outcome. “People are reasonable here and it’s very reassuring to know that things can get done.”Lyric ControversyIn the email, Boggs also referenced student concerns expressed over the perceived misogynistic and homophobic language in Chance the Rapper’s lyrics. But for students like Luke Carroll Brown ’14, Co-Chair of the Community Council, limiting the lyrics and song choice was not enough.“I think we can all agree that violent homophobia and misogyny are clearly out of bounds and have no place on this campus,” Brown said. “Multiple songs on Acid Rap depict actions that are in clear violation of our community standards, a reality that should prohibit Chance's presence on campus. This performance is especially upsetting in light of the recent hate-letter that managed to combine homophobia with the threat of rape against a student at this college; at a time in which our community should be finding ways of making maligned groups feel safer, we instead chose to hire an unabashedly homophobic singer to perform a concert.”“The Concert Committee co-chairs and I were completely unaware of the content in question when we booked Chance,” Fouhey said. “The concerns over some of the lyrics were brought to our attention last Monday, Oct. 22. I do sincerely apologize. We never intended to hurt anyone.”Besides Brown, the controversy has sparked a debate from a variety of other opinions about discussing homophobia on campus and applying community standards to artists visiting the College.SGA President Rachel Liddell ‘15 said that Chance’s content is disrespectful and offensive to many students on campus, but worries that talk about completely canceling the concert would have crossed a line from concern to censorship.“I find the content offensive, yet I respect the right of others to tell me things with which I don't agree,” Liddell said. “I don’t want people to be censored. I think that saying ‘bringing Chance to campus condones homophobia’ is an overstatement.”Liddell further explained that if the concert had been canceled, Middlebury still would have been obligated to pay Chance for a show that never happened. She also believes that the debate resulting from the controversy is a positive outcome, asserting that, “the concert will spark the conversations people wanted to have.”Boggs added that a complicated conversation took place when considering what to do about the concert.“Right now we don’t have criteria for evaluating these kinds of decisions. Our struggle was to figure out how to be compassionate and effective allies amid all the complexity in a short period of time. We have a lot to learn from this situation, and we need to figure this out together,” Boggs said.Collado personally spoke with Chance’s management, requesting that the artist leave homophobic lyrics out of his performance.“[Chance] is aware of our concerns and our plans for an engaging and honest community forum,” wrote Collado in an email. “[Chance’s manager] said he understood and respected our request and that he was looking forward to being on campus and performing for us.”Cailey Cron ’14 appreciated the censorship of the lyric, but feels that the controversy should be channeled to discuss a larger campus issue.“If a lyric is missing, it’s not going to matter unless we seize the opportunity to have a conversation about homophobia on this campus,” Cron said. “Chance will come on Saturday and then on Sunday he will leave. This is not about Chance the Rapper. What we need to fight is blissful ignorance. Chances to address homophobia have come up twice in the past few weeks, and as a campus we need to talk. I’d like to see the administration take a strong, public stand against homophobia. I’m at a loss as to why that’s controversial.”Benay disagrees with the idea of canceling the concert.“Of all rappers, Chance’s stuff is way more about drugs and how hopeful he is about his future, and he has lyrics about anti-violence.”While Benay disagrees with Chance’s use of the word ‘faggot’, he thinks that the compromise between Chance and Collado is reasonable.“It sort of bums me out that he uses that word, but the idea that he would not come just because of that is sad especially because MCAB hit it out of the park in terms of choosing an act this time.”To address this issue, Boggs announced that at 7 p.m. on Monday, November 4 in Axinn 229, Student Activities and MCAB will be hosting an open forum to discuss how decisions are made about all kinds of possibly offensive art forms at the College. The forum aims to allow candid conversation about the application of community standards to artistic expression and how they should affect choices about who is invited to campus. MCAB also hopes that this conversation will help to better inform the student group’s decision making in the future.ForumCron does not think that the controversy should revolve around two groups of students pulled to join one extreme opinion or the other. “We’ve created a false choice between having performers violate community standards and censoring all dissenting opinion,” Cron said. “I hope we can use the concept as an entry point to a far more important conversation that has to do with us as a community and the relationship between the student body and administration. It is a hard conversation to approach if the administration hasn’t publicly stated its commitment to protecting and welcoming the queer community and concerns.”Boggs has high expectations regarding the potential impact of the forum.“I hope that while we wrestle with these issues, we can commit to listening carefully, act in ways that foster inclusivity, and bridge the divide that’s happening right now,” she said. “Knowing that this is just an initial conversation, I’m hopeful we can both show support for students who feel marginalized and influence MCAB’s work in positive ways.”[CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article, as well as that in print, stated that "the administration asked Chance not to sing Favorite Song." This was incorrect; they asked Chance not to sing the lyric “slap-happy faggot slapper” or use any homophobic terms during his entire performance. ]

Cheating: Hardly A Secret

(10/30/13 10:09pm)

Midway through a semester of routine cheating, an economics professor told Billy – whose name has been changed to protect his identity – and his friends to write down their names and where they sat in the examination room. The professor’s unvarnished command plunged Billy into an emotional apocalypse.“We had been going overboard with the cheating. That whole week we were freaking out – what are we going to tell our parents? What are we going to do?”Billy and three other friends had sat in a line together, the smarter of his friend passing solutions down the line. In a class of 25 students in Warner Science Building and no proctor, Billy would copy the answers from his friend to the left and down the line the answers went, with little effort to conceal their shifting eyes.Even as he was in crisis, the thought of self-reporting never crossed his mind.“We were absolutely sure it was 100 percent us,” he recalled. “There was no good reason to report it. If it was coming out we’ll hear about it within the next few days. I thought about telling my parents, just because I couldn’t keep it to myself, but I had my friends.”But the twists just keep coming. They overheard later that week that it was, in fact, another group of guys in that same exam room that got caught cheating—not Billy and his friends. “My guess is that someone pointed them out. It shows the prevalence of cheating on campus. In a class of about 25 students, pretty much half the class cheated in that exam room.”“It was a huge wake-up call,” Billy said, throwing his hands down in one of the few statements he made without stumbling through words like pretty much or I guess. “We were saying to each other that we will never cheat again and that we’ll just take the F.” But even after nearly getting derailed, he admits that the experience “didn’t completely reverse” his cheating habit.What makes Billy’s story so compelling is that he is emblematic of a larger trend.According to a survey last spring conducted by Craig Thompson ’14 for his Economics of Sin class, 35 percent of the 377 surveyed students admitted to violating the Honor Code at least once in the past academic year (2012-13), the latest volley of cheating allegations landing on Associate Dean for Judicial Affairs Karen Guttentag’s desk just last week. But 97 percent of the self-admitted Honor Code violators in his survey went uncaught.“If I were to take those numbers at face value, I’d be very concerned about what it means for us and what it means for the student body,” said President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz, who admitted to bringing cheating charges against students as a professor. “I’ve been here for 30 years and I’ve always been concerned about the veracity of honor codes like the one we have.”Even though the percentage of self-reported cheaters last year was only slighter higher than those in 2008, the number of convictions for cheating – excluding plagiarism, which is less cut-and-dry – is climbing. According to the Honor Code Review Committee report published last spring, the number of instances in which a student was found guilty of cheating increased four-folds over the course of just three academic years.But it’s tricky business figuring out why cheating convictions and cases of self-reported cheating are on the rise. Dean of Judicial Affairs Karen Guttentag said there are only theories right now and no definitive answers to the why questions.“Maybe it’s a reflection of an increase in comfort in admitting to cheating,” she said. “But sadly, my sense is the taboo on cheating seems to be weaker, so students are less inhibited about acknowledging their unethical actions. All of which is to say – bad news.”But from talking to numerous student leaders, administrators, faculty members and national research experts, there is a clear shift in the academic culture that is threatening to hollow out the Honor Code.A Close Call“It seemed easier to cheat, because cheating was more acceptable than a C-,” said Billy. “I was scared, coming into freshmen year and worried about my GPA and potential for the future.”Since his close call in the first-year microeconomics course, Billy claimed he swore off the large-scale cheating. But he hasn’t been totally clean. When asked when the last time he cheated was, Billy sighed. He had a look like he was finding his footing into more honesty and before leaving self-preservation, but decided to sidestep the question entirely: “Well, the best way I can put it is that I’ve gotten a lot more self-conscious – well, not self-conscious – but I have a lot more integrity from the work,” he said. “But I couldn’t say that I haven’t glanced over a person’s test and taken an answer.”“I am in something that genuinely feels like a passion and not in economics trying to get into a high-paying finance job,” he said. “Personally, I would take the lessons I learned and take them with me into the real world, but I could see how someone who, after having abided by the honor code for four years and then getting into the real world where there is no honor code, could get back into cheating in many ways.”When asked whether every cheater gets what is coming to them, he let out a smile. “I don’t think so.”Billy’s story is something of a failed morality tale, one driven by a desire to survive, scarred by the threat of losing everything, and changed — maybe only slightly — by the College’s culture of academic integrity central to the Honor Code. But whether he was changed by it, even he didn’t seem to know.“After that experience, it was more about the integrity of the work. It’s a good feeling to know that I don’t need anyone else’s answer and I can accept it.”By the end of our conversation, it was clear that he was scarred, but not transformed.“I couldn’t promise you that if a person’s answer was right in front of me, and all I needed was just one more question, I wouldn’t say there’s a 100 percent chance that I wouldn’t look at that person’s paper,” he explained. “But I haven’t done that in a while. I wouldn’t say that I would never cheat on anything in my life.”Here and NowAssociate Professor of History Amy Morsman was struck by the cynicism in academic integrity from students in the first-year seminar she taught last fall. She passed out an article about the recent cheating scandal at Harvard University, thinking this was a chance to impart to her students what life means with an Honor Code.“I expected them to be shocked and outraged by this breach in ethics,” she said. “I was mystified by the sort of ho-hum response my first-year students gave.”Some of her first-years embraced an attitude of “well, in the world of today, to get ahead you might have to do this,” Morsman recounted. “Some of my students already seemed so jaded by the world.”As it stands, the Code requires students to report witnessed cheating. But students who fail to, face a punishment that even the Chair of the Student Honor Code Committee (SHCC) Alison Maxwell ’15 couldn’t articulate.“I don’t know what the specific punishment is [for a witness who failed to report cheating], because it’s not common for the judicial board,” she said. “We can’t actually know when someone has broken the honor code in that way.”All the assets that an Honor Code offers — an unique trust between student and professor, the freedom to take an exam without suspicion in the room — gets no play at Middlebury, if integrity is lost on students in that same room. This failure has sent the SHCC to reevaluate the sustainability of peer-proctored exams.But the chronicity of cheating and rising number in cases of apprehended cheaters is not a sure-fire sign that the community’s morality is hemorrhaging red. Approximately one in four allegations, usually in the context of plagiarism, are cases, in which the students are confused, “the result of insufficient instruction on the part of the College, [but more likely] a failure on the part of the student to internalize that information,” according to Guttentag.The flurry of information sharing has also led to more confusion where the Internet has colored gray an area in plagiarism. Constant information juggling obscures our original ideas from the ideas we read and, as a result, the lines on plagiarism blur.“Notions of originality have transformed today, because things are so easily copy-able,” Film and Media Culture Professor and Academic Judicial Board (AJB) member Jason Mittell said. “So much of what people are reading are re-blogs of other people’s works or references to other people’s creativity — with or without citation. We live in a culture of quoting and of remix and reference.“I think traditional citation guidelines are hard to wrap your head around if you’ve been brought up in this generation of — I don’t want to say loose standards, but different types of practices where citing is not relevant. Precise referencing or asking permission to quote someone just doesn’t make as much intuitive sense to many students today. And sometimes that doesn’t make sense to me either.”And SGA President Rachel Liddell hinges on Mittell’s point about the clash of tradition and today. For her, the Honor Code has a different meaning when its tradition, over a breadth of time, is worked into today’s context, a state of academic honesty she is “dissatisfied with at Middlebury.”“The Honor Code has a beautiful history, where students got together and worked really hard to write it and pass it,” she said. “We don’t own it anymore. And if we don’t want to own it, then we have to figure out what else we want to own.”Dean of the College Shirley Collado, suggest that the pressure to succeed doesn’t happen in a vacuum.“We’re seeing a trend not just in Middlebury but at a number of selective colleges – and I’ve talked to many colleagues around the country about this – that students are really feeling the pressure: what it’s going to be like to be part of a global job market and exceling and being an excellent student at Middlebury,” she said. “So I don’t know how much of a role that plays in stress or academic dishonesty. It’s a question I raise.”Beyond the BubbleBut cheating is not a Middlebury-centric issue. In fact, cheating happens less in schools with an Honor Code, according to the research.The College’s cheating statistic runs consistent with similar schools with honor codes like Duke University, which identified in 2006 that 29 percent of students admitted to unauthorized collaboration. But in larger schools without an honor code, like Harvard University, more than 40 percent of freshmen admitted to cheating on homework, according to a survey conducted by the The Harvard Crimson earlier this year.“Schools with honor codes are better off,” said Donald McCabe, professor at the Rutgers Business School and leading researcher in cheating. “Overall, honor codes work reasonably well though not perfect. The smaller the community, like at Middlebury, the easier it is to do. It creates a sense of community in which students realize that when they cheat, they’re cheating their fellow classmates. Large schools like Penn State and Rutgers are trying to increase the level of integrity among students and finding it very difficult.”But compare Middlebury to the University of California, Berkeley, with nearly 36,000 students, where there is more anonymity and less noticeable impact.“Cheating is no big deal, because it happens all the time,” Jasmin Soltani, a chemical-engineering student at UC Berkeley said. “It is ridiculously easy at a school this big with understaffed faculty in test-taking rooms.”When explained the intention behind the Honor Code — that there is supposed to be ethical temptation, Soltani was skeptical. [1]“The kind of unproctored exams at Middlebury would not work at all in Cal. 500 students taking the same exam in an unsupervised room? That sounds like a joke,” she said. “The academic environment (at Cal) is very cut throat and people would not pass up a chance to get ahead of the curve.”Other students offer a more nuanced take on the cheating culture at UC Berkeley.“Honestly, I saw very little cheating during my four years at Cal,” said Emma Vadapalas, a history and economics major who graduated UC Berkeley this year in May. “Most of the instances I recall involve minor infractions, such as students copying problem sets from each other or getting a friend more versed in the material to do a problem set for them. I call these minor infractions because if caught cheating, the student would get a zero on the assignment but not flunk the class.”McCabe warns against this kind of lowered standards that qualify cheating. “The number of general cheating have gone down, but at the same time, there are a number of students who dismiss low levels of cheating and feel okay justifying it. I see it as a danger,” a slippery slope toward rationalizing severe acts of cheating.Unlike UC Berkeley, Middlebury’s judicial process reviews cheating cases by the case.Even if the College does have a lower prevalence of cheating than its larger counterparts, Liddell said that especially at a small community, there is a real cost to dishonesty – and we all pay it.“The truth is, if I were to cheat, I hurt myself, but I also hurt professors and my fellow students,” Liddell said. “If I were to cheat and I get a 98, and then the professor looks at you, who got an 82, and you look worse. Cheating of all forms damages all students.The Future of the Honor CodeThat does not mean improvements are not in order. But even with great strides taken to address problems of the Honor Code in last year’s review – the HCRC redesigned go/citations and developed field-specific responses to ethical dilemmas – this semester, nine professors are currently piloting Turnitin.com, a plagiarism detection service. After this semester’s trial run, there will be talk of Turnitin’s expansion, the implications of which could severely shake the trust built into the Honor Code.But students and professors staked out different views on the introduction of Turnitin.com.“The point of using Turnitin.com is not to catch and haul students into the AJB room on charges of plagiarism, but to fix the problem before it becomes a habit,” said Morsman, one of the nine professors experimenting with Turnitin.com.“We do ask professors to check for plagiarism when they read our papers and Turnitin provides a more efficient method of the same process,” Liddell said. “But though not a violation of student rights, Turnitin is not congruent with the idea of the Honor Code, because it does not rely on trust and it does not rely on mutual respect.”The introduction of Turnitin might be a prelude to the far greater changes the Honor Code could suffer if cheating continues.Indeed, at a time when cheating reports are climbing, strides are being made to tackle the problem from all directions: top-down — through Turnitin — as well as ground-up. A main focus of the recently formed SHCC is to fix the system of peer proctoring, which Maxwell says is a broken part of the Honor Code.“I feel like we are forcing students to break the honor code when we ask them to proctor each other,” Maxwell said. “Everyone we’ve talked to said ‘I will never tattle on a fellow student,’ so it’s very clear it doesn’t work. We’re coming up with a solution, but I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. Only time will tell.”But Associate Professor of Economics Jessica Holmes, who teaches Economics of Sin, too, concedes that peer-proctoring empirically does not work, but offers a quick solution.“The fix is simple: proctoring. It is too small of a community and no one wants to be viewed as the ‘rat.’ Proctoring [would] reduce both cheating and the pressure on students to report on each other,” she said. “How can I ensure the academic integrity of the exam environment if I am not in the room?”But even professors who have not brought students up on charges are aware of the shifts.“I’ve been teaching here for 12 years and I’ve never brought a student up on charges,” Morsman said. “But I hear about cheating more from students and I hear it more from staff and the people bringing cases to the judicial board. I’m aware that it exists, that it’s getting worse, and the College is responding to it.”Members of the community are slowly backing away from the original vision of the Honor Code. Doubtless, students and professors hope to see the Honor Code hold its own in an increasingly competitive society and succeed. But there are signs that things are about to be different. In the midst of the decisive failure of peer proctoring, the formation of the SHCC and the fortification of preventative measures like Turnitin, it is entirely possible that perhaps a decade from now will look entirely different — a proctor in every exam room and a website reading each paper.[1] With regard to this article's definition of the Honor Code: "When explained the intention behind the Honor Code — that there is supposed to be ethical temptation, Soltani was skeptical" was adapted not from the Middlebury Handbook, but from aNew York Times pieceabout the general Honor Code: "The intention of honor codes is to generate the very situation you describe as precarious: they’re supposed to create ethical temptation."CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article, as well as that in print, quoted Professor of Media Studies Jason Mittell of saying, "Precise referencing or asking permission to quote someone just doesn’t make intuitive sense to students today. And it doesn’t make sense to me either sometimes.” There was a missing qualifying statement; it should be "Precise referencing or asking permission to quote someone just doesn't make as much intuitive sense to students today."

Take a Chance, MCAB

(10/30/13 5:58pm)

A friend on the MCAB Concert Committee wrote to me after middbeat had posted my email, “I love to mess around as much as you do, but saying ‘let’s get these fascists’ doesn’t really allow for an honest discourse that could make the entire process better, rather than immediately trying to make people defensive.”First of all, no, my friend from MCAB, you do not love to mess around as much as I do. Secondly, making people defensive is in fact the only way this “New Deal” (the term future historians will use to refer to the movement of Chance to Nelson) got made. The Concert Committee — I won’t generalize by calling them MCAB; I got no beef with the rest of that organization — only cared about this situation after the brave folks at middbeat put them on the defensive.And they were right to be defensive — only advertising the ticket sale date on Facebook was irresponsible and selfish. 53 of my friends on Facebook “like” MCAB. About half of those friends have graduated from this institution. I would really hope those recent alums have better things to do with their time than tell me about seeing the one post the Committee made about the sale date of the Chance tickets. Other friends who “like” MCAB on Facebook include my ex-girlfriend and Public Safety Officer Christopher Thompson. I’m afraid I don’t talk to either of them as much as I should.I was never going to find out about the Chance tickets from Facebook. I am not alone in that realization. The MCAB Concert Committee’s idea of “honest discourse” was a curt, dismissive, condescending email to a single student who criticized them. They were defensive from jump street. The Committee got Lawrence Taylor-level defensive when middbeat proved that their inaction pissed off more than a single super senior Feb who happens to be taking the Creative Process and has a lot of time on his hands.The Committee had a problem: due to the show’s placement in McCullough, there were not a ton of tickets. Their solution was to sweep it under the rug by only advertising on Facebook. That wasn’t the action of people who cared about students seeing this show.The Committee suggested I use “proactivity” next time around. That was right after admitting that they chose to only advertise on Facebook. I hope the anonymous meanie-face who wrote the email — I learned recently it was not written or even approved by the entire Committee — is not an English major, because that is some ass-chapping irony.Proactivity would have been to advertise the hell out of the sale date (posters, emails, announcements on WRMC), and then to help kids get tickets. To avoid the box-office website overloading, encourage students to line up outside McCullough the morning the tickets went on sale. Hand out hot cocoa. Make a whole thing out of it. The Concert Committee scored huge in getting Chance to come to Middlebury. Then they copped out. They didn’t wait through the 30 seconds of silence in “Pusha Man” to get to “Paranoia;” they just skipped to the next track.Why did they do this? I’ve noticed a tendency in my peers towards passive aggression. It’s understandable — we all have to live together, so we avoid conflict at all costs. The Concert Committee exemplified this behavior at every turn. We can’t have that in our leaders. Stepping on toes is an unintended consequence of progress. You should be able to get over the pain of a stubbed toe quickly. When that happens, you can get to work resolving the conflict. I’m not sure if the Concert Committee shrugged off their boo-boo to help overcome the ticket situation. In my eyes, we got the concert moved to Nelson because of an incredible effort by JJ Boggs.For those not familiar with Ms. Boggs, she is the Dean of Students for Student Activities & Orientation. To begin with, you’ve got to be a saint to work orientation every year. What’s more stressful than trying to convince hundreds of terrified/horny 18-year olds that they will feel at home for the next four years of their lives? JJ is able to make us comfortable during orientation because she knows she will never stop working to make this place our home. That home happens to have semiannual rap concerts.Hopefully this ordeal will open up a greater degree of transparency and communication between MCAB and the students it represents. Were that to happen, we could get to the bigger issue, which is, of course, people cheating at Grille Trivia Night. That needs to stop. You’re seriously ruining it for everyone.ADAM BENAY '13.5 is from Fairfax, V.T.

Foote Sets Touchdown Record in Victory

(10/30/13 5:26pm)

To hear the players' post-game reactions click on their names below.With Middlebury trailing 24-20 and facing fourth-and-goal from the Trinity seven-yard line with less than 90 seconds remaining in the game, quarterback McCallum Foote’14 connected with wide receiver Matt Minno'16 in the end zone to give the Panthers the lead. 1:12 later, first-year cornerback Nate Leedy’17 sealed Middlebury’s 27-24 victory with a leaping interception at the goal line as time expired, sending a capacity Homecoming crowd into delirium.The victory improved the Panthers to 5-1, giving Middlebury an outside shot at a NESCAC title, while knocking the Bantams (5-1) off their undefeated pedestal and ending Trinity’s 14-game winning streak. Entering Saturday’s game, Trinity had won nine of the past 11 meetings between the two teams, including the past two by a combined score of 87-14.Undeterred by past performances, Middlebury drove the length of the field on its first drive, as Foote completed five of seven attempts for 49 yards, culminating in a seven-yard touchdown pass to Minno — a play call the Panthers would return to on the game-winning score.The touchdown pass was Foote’s 12th of the season and 63rd of his career, breaking the previous program record of 62 set by Donnie McKillop ’11.“Mac really deserves it,” said Minno the NESCAC Co-Offensive Player of the Week, who caught nine passes for 110 yards and two touchdowns. “He’s the one who makes the offense tick, and he’s played at such an unbelievable level for so long for this program.”Defensively, the Panthers limited Trinity to just 67-first quarter yards on three, futile possessions as the Bantams struggled to move the ball against a stiff wind and a stingier Middlebury defense that held the Bantam offense, which entered the game averaging over 230 rushing yards per game, to just 3.3 yards per carry and 148 total rushing yards.“We had guys making plays all over the field,” Matt Benedict’15 said. “We were more physical with them this year than last year. I thought last year we kind of shied away. This year we punched them in the mouth and gave it right back to them and they didn’t like it.”Benedict led the way from his free safety position, racking up 19 tackles over the course of the game and winning NESCAC Defensive Player of the Week for his efforts.“Matt’s just a smart, smart player — maybe the most coachable player I’ve ever coached,” said defensive coordinator Doug Mandigo. “He’s not the most gifted athlete, but he’s an incredibly sharp kid. You can give information [on what the opposing offense is going to do] and he takes advantage of it and that’s why he makes plays.”Turnovers and missed opportunities, however, threatened to derail Middlebury following the opening-drive touchdown. On their second drive of the game, the Panthers appeared to stall at their own 28-yard line as a personal foul forced Middlebury to punt on fourth-and-21. What could have been disastrous for Middlebury turned into the miraculous as a high snap forced punter Mike Dola ’15 to pull the ball back from an oncoming Trinity rusher and, with a convoy of blockers in front of him, the 6’2’’, 210-pound specialist rumbled for a 23-yard gain and a first down. The Panthers failed to capitalize on the special teams swing, however, as Dola pulled a 24-yard field goal attempt wide left later in the drive.The game became more precarious from there as Foote threw a pair of interceptions inside Middlebury territory on consecutive possessions that led to 10 Trinity points in the form of a four-yard Ben Crick touchdown run and a 37-yard Ben Rosenblatt field goal.Trailing for the first time in the game, Foote and the offense responded with an 11-play, 71-yard touchdown drive that culminated with a 17-yard strike from Foote to his tight end Billy Sadik-Khan ’14. The drive started with a 17-yard carry from running back Ryan Hislop ’15, who started in place of injured teammates Matt Rea ’14 and Joey Zelkowitz ’17. Hislop, who entered the game with just 39 career rushing yards, carried the ball 19 times for 68 yards and provided crucial pass protection for Foote.“He upped his game for that day,” said head coach Bob Ritter. “Once he had some contact and was in the moment he ran really hard with his shoulders perpendicular to the sideline, to get north-south to get everything he could and always fell forward.”Middlebury’s lead was short-lived, however. Trinity enjoyed its first sustained drive of the half with 5:24 remaining, as Crick found pay dirt for the second time in the game, this time from 15 yards out after a 12-play drive that chewed up 4:46 of clock and giving Trinity a 17-14 halftime lead.Middlebury took the opening drive of the second half and marched deep into Trinity territory, Foote notably keeping the drive alive with a 17-yard completion to wide receiver Grant Luna ’17 on fourth-and-six from the Bantams’ 19-yard line. However, two negative plays forced the Panthers to settle for a 28-yard Dola field goal that tied the game at 17 apiece.Playing against the wind in the third quarter, the Panthers managed to outgain Trinity 123-13, blanking the Bantams and sending the game into the final frame tied at 17.17 seconds in the fourth quarter, Dola broke the tie, splitting the uprights on a 37-yard field goal — now kicking with the wind at his back — to give Middlebury a 20-17 lead.On the ensuing drive, Trinity threatened to take the lead as quarterback Sonny Puzzo and Evan Bunker, the conference’s leading rusher, orchestrated a 27-yard screen pass that nearly went the distance. Bunker appeared to be stopped short of midfield after he was upended by a pair of Middlebury defenders, but managed to land on his feet and regain his momentum. Alertly, first-year linebacker Addison Pierce ’17 dragged him down from behind at the 50-yard line to save a touchdown. Pierce finished the game with 10 tackles, none bigger than the play on Bunker.On the subsequent series, Jake Clapp ’16 chased down Puzzo from the blindside, sacking him for a loss of six yards and forcing Trinity to punt. The Middlebury offense managed just one first down, however, before Dola came on to the field to punt for just the second time, downing Trinity inside its 20-yard line with a 43-yard boot.The Bantams, who had just two plays longer than 15 yards through the first three quarters, finally found a rhythm in the passing game. Facing second-and-15 from the 10-yard line, Puzzo connected on a 34-yard pass to Chris Ragone — the NESCAC leader in yards per reception. The two hooked up five plays later as Ragone got behind the Middlebury defense and Ragone arced the ball over the coverage for a 39-yard throw and catch, giving Trinity a 24-20 lead with 4:52 remaining and silencing the Homecoming crowd.The Panthers began the following drive with a pair of Hislop runs, good 21 yards, followed by a Foote five-yard scramble for another first down to the Trinity 35-yard line. Again, however, the Middlebury offense, which had managed just two second half field goals, stalled, turning the ball over on downs with 2:50 left in the game.“Even though we didn’t score, when Trinity played prevent Hislop ripped off a couple of 10-yard runs and it kept them out of prevent in the next series,” Ritter said.Needing to force a three-and-out to give the offense the ball back with a chance to win the game, the Middlebury defense stuffed Bunker on three straight carries and preserved the clock by burning all three timeouts.“Ultimately for them to win the game, they had to run the ball to get a first down, and our guys stepped up,” Ritter said.Following a 40-yard Kyle Pulek punt, Foote and the offense took the field at their own 25-yard line, needing to drive 75 yards in 2:21 to win the game. The Middlebury receivers won on their routes immediately and the offense quickly moved the ball into Trinity territory. Ritter then dialed up an out-and-go route for wide receiver Brendan Rankowitz ’15 who hauled in Foote’s touch throw in between the corner and the safety for a 40-yard reception down to the Trinity seven-yard line.The Panthers, who had converted less than 54 percent of previous red zone drives into touchdowns, failed to find the end zone on three straight plays, setting up a decisive fourth-and-goal play from the seven-yard line.“We have our call sheet and the plays that you run from the seven-yard line and in, but it’s a tough place for us, given our offense,” Ritter said. “We had a couple of things that didn’t work and then on fourth down it ended up being the same play and the same pattern that we scored our first touchdown on.”With time in the pocket, Foote surveyed the defense, held the defense on one side of the field with his eyes and connected with Minno, his intended target pre-snap, on a crossing route between the corner and the linebacker.“They brought both safeties over to the front side and the quick look I had to the front side was really just looking away — I knew I was coming back to Matt,” he said. “Their linebackers split and he made an unbelievable catch going down to the ground and holding onto the ball.”Now trailing by four with 1:12 remaining, Trinity moved the ball to the Middlebury 33-yard line on 12 plays, setting up the final play of the game with 6.5 seconds left. Leedy, playing the deep third to the boundary side of the field kept his eyes in the backfield, broke on the throw and intercepted the football at the goal line — the first takeaway of his career providing an emphatic finish to the game.“They hadn’t thrown the ball to my side all game, so I figured they’d try to take a shot and right before the play Tim Patricia ’16 said, ‘Here you go, they’re coming right at you,’” Leedy said. “The receiver did a double move to try to get me to bite on something, but I knew they were going to the end zone and I saw the ball in the air before the receiver and I made a play on the ball.”The Panthers, who need to win out for a shot at a NESCAC title, play their final home game of the season on Saturday, Nov. 2 against Hamilton (0-6).

Women's Soccer Extends Unbeaten Streak

(10/30/13 5:24pm)

The Middlebury women’s soccer team finished the regular season at the top of the NESCAC, remaining unbeaten in its past 13 games. The Panthers capped off a successful fall break with a 1-0 win over Bates on Saturday, Oct. 19 before besting Williams in a thriller on Tuesday, Oct. 22 and finishing off with a tie against Wesleyan on Saturday, Oct. 26.Middlebury cruised to a comfortable victory against Bates, with Julia Favorito ’14 scoring the only goal of the game in the 53rd minute for her fourth tally of the season. On the play, Jamie Soroka ’16 originally fired a shot at goal that was parried away by Bates goalkeeper Anabel Schmelz. As the ball remained loose in the box, the rebound found Favorito who slotted the ball into the bottom right corner.The visitors kept the pressure on after the goal, as Scarlett Kirk ’14 recorded three of her game-high eight shots in a five-minute period, underlining a bigger trend of the game of being unable to capitalize on numerous created chances.Bates almost found an equalizer in the 86th minute after Lily Peterson nodded in a cross from Leah Humes, but the Bobcat was deemed offside.The Panthers carried the momentum from the win against Bates into a season-defining game against Williams. At the start of the first half, both teams failed to establish a dominant presence, with much of the battle being fought in the midfield. Williams failed to capitalise on three straight corner kicks while Kirk saw her powerful strike just graze over the crossbar in the 38th minute to leave the score goalless at the half.The second half again provided few scoring chances, as the game looked like it was proceeding into overtime. However, with just 50 seconds left on the clock, Carter Talgo ’15 played a ball up the left side to Kirk who ran onto the ball just inside the box. The striker coolly chipped a shot over the oncoming Williams’ keeper to claim a last minute victory for her team. The win ensured the Panthers the top spot in the NESCAC and a quarterfinal on home turf.“It felt good [to score the winning goal], mostly because I was just relieved that we wouldn’t have to go into overtime,” Kirk said. “It was a very hard fought game and we were all getting tired by the end of the game. Carter took the ball all the way up the field and her perfect pass made it a very easy finish for me.”Middlebury held a 13-4 shot advantage in the game as Elizabeth Foody ’14 made three stops in goals for her seventh shutout of the season.Middlebury was unable to add another win to its record and had to settle for a 1-1 tie at Wesleyan. The Cardinals controlled the play for much of the first half and were especially boosted by an early penalty miss by the Panthers. Moria Sloan ’14 was unable to find a way past Wesleyan keeper Jessica Tollman who assertively knocked her shot away. The Cardinals used the momentum to score less than five minutes later. Sarah Sylla took a hard crossing pass from Hannah Stone and banged it low to the right of Foody.The Panthers came out of the break unshaken from Wesleyan’s goal, and scored less than six minutes into the second half. Soroka beat the Cardinal defense and slid a shot past Tollman. Soroka continued to dominate the Wesleyan defense, but both teams were unable to break the deadlock in the final minutes. Middlebury had only two shots in overtime with neither team able to mount a sustained attack.Head coach Peter Kim is looking for his team to continue doing the little things right such as playing as a unit and solid defense, while learning from mistakes made in the previous games.“Looking ahead to Saturday, we want to play beautifully while generating more quality goal scoring opportunities,” Kim said. “Every team we could face has a strong back line and excellent goalkeeping, so we’ll need to up our attacking game in order to earn the win.”The Panthers return to action on Saturday, Oct. 2 in the NESCAC quarterfinal against the eighth seed. Despite claiming the top seed, Kim is cautious of expectations.“It’s always nice to earn the regular season title,” Kim said. “However, we’ve been here before and know that our seeding doesn’t mean anything. “We’re in it to win it, and will have a very strong opponent in the first round of the NESCAC tournament, regardless of who takes the eighth seed.”The conference tournament opens up this weekend, with NESCAC quarterfinals slated for this coming Saturday, Nov. 2.

BC Blowout Clinches MCRC Perfect Season

(10/30/13 5:23pm)

On the final week of its regular season schedule, the Middlebury College Rugby Club (MCRC) traveled to Boston College on Saturday, Oct. 26 with the hopes of securing an unbeaten record and knocking off the only side to beat the Panthers last season. In yet another dominant display in the club’s impressive season, MCRC battled gusty conditions to down the Eagles 35-15 and to cement a 6-0 regular season record.Despite the win against BC, the Panthers had already secured their second straight East Coast Rugby Conference championship following a 78-22 thrashing of the University of Albany the previous week on October 19. By virtue of the club securing a “bonus point” – or an additional point in the conference standings by scoring four tries in a win – in each of its first five wins of the season, MCRC distanced itself enough from second-place American International College through only five games.For co-captain Ben Stasiuk ’13.5, the title-clinching win against Albany offered little distraction to the team as it prepared for BC.“We didn’t even really mention winning the conference at all in our practices or meeting leading up to the game,” he said. “Actually winning the conference last week was kind of anticlimactic – we just checked Twitter feeds online of another game and realized that we won. I think everyone, after losing to BC last year, was 100 percent focused on that game. Last year was a devastating loss and, in terms of preparation, winning the conference didn’t faze us. I think we all felt like we would not have won unless we beat BC and had a perfect season, which we did.”Assistant Coach Junior Tuiqere also touched on the importance of the BC contest to the side.“The current seniors had never beaten BC, so they had this urgent drive to beat them for the first time,” Tuiqere said. “Their sense of urgency and desire to [beat BC] pushed the whole team to accomplish this goal.”Last November, the Eagles handed the Panthers a 13-11 loss and derailed MCRC’s potent offense in the process. On Saturday, however, Stasiuk pointed to several factors that allowed Middlebury to dominate the contest.“Overall our team is better this year than we were last year especially in our forwards, where we are bigger, stronger and well-disciplined compared to last year,” Stasiuk said. “Similar to last year, we got railed pretty hard with 15 penalties in the first half. Last year we got really frustrated, and we didn’t make the changes necessary to adapt to the ref to change the game around. This year in the second half, especially in the scrum, we adjusted to stop getting the penalties and allow ourselves to score some points. We also didn’t anticipate the change of pace in last year’s game. BC is a very ‘crash ball,’ attacking team and we weren’t as ready for it last year as we were this year. The week before the game we practiced defending forwards game oriented rugby and we played well.”Tuiqere also pointed to penalties as a decisive trend in this year’s game.“We started out the game by allowing BC to dictate the pace of the game as we were ‘trying too hard’,” he said. “As a result we made some silly errors and infringements that led to penalties. During half time we adjusted our game plan to go back to basics and do all of the little things correctly. This showed in our second half performance.”Co-captain Allan Stafford ’13.5 offered another explanation for the change in results.“I don’t think BC’s team was as good this year as they were last year,” Stafford said. “Their tackling last year was amazing while this year we broke through a lot of tackles. This year we are just a better team overall, all the way through.”That assertion is highlighted in the team’s point differential on the season, far and away the most lopsided in the conference. The Panthers, with 305 points in six games on season and only 74 points against, boasted both the league’s most potent offense and stingiest defense. By comparison AIC, the league’s next highest-scoring side, put up 170 points.Furthermore last year’s team, while finishing as 5-1 conference champs, played a number of games decided by two points or less. This year, MCRC never won by less than 16 points.A quick glance at the ECRC’s individual scoring leaders tells part of the story, as the top three scorers in the conference come from Middlebury. Jake Feury ’16 finished with a whopping 110 points (including 13 tries), while Adam Schreiber’s ’14 43 points and Stafford’s 40 round out the leaderboard.As the team shifts its focus to a the national tournament that kicks off on November 16, Assistant Coach Ben Wells reflected on the undefeated regular season and its implications for MCRC’s place in D1-AA.“I think that two straight ECRC championships, which means back-to-back trips to the National playoffs, shows that we belong in this division, which a lot of people disagreed with when we made the move in 2011,” said Wells. “Every time we participate in a national tournament it helps with our recruiting as many high school rugby players have never heard of Middlebury.”“The trajectory for the club is straight up,” Stasiuk said. “Some great young leaders on the team have us on a path of greatness for a while.”

Greetings to the Board

(10/17/13 3:53am)

To the Middlebury Community,On Friday midday, we, the undersigned, will gather outside of Old Chapel to greet the Middlebury College Board of Trustees as it prepares to make decisions about Middlebury’s future. We will be holding “Student Office Hours” as members of the Divest Middlebury campaign. As a community, we have a moral obligation to continue the conversation about removing fossil fuel holdings from our endowment. Our primary goal is to address the remaining concerns of Board members and communicate to them the urgency of our cause.As students at Middlebury College, we have a stake in the decisions the Board will make on Friday. The bottom line is that divestment discussions are about more than the $970 million of our endowment; they are about the future of life on this earth. We are not willing to sacrifice the most vulnerable populations and future generations for short-term convenience.We would like to invite members of the Middlebury community hoping to voice concerns about any issue to join us from 11-12:30 P.M. on Friday. We look forward to engaging the Board of Trustees in meaningful conversation.Submitted by SARA BACHMAN '13.5, JEANNIE BARTLETT '15, KYLER BLODGETT '17, MAEVE GRADY '16.5, ADRIAN LEONG '16, HANNA MAHON '13.5, GRETA NEUBAUER '14.5, ELLIE NG '14, TEDDY SMYTH '15, VIRGINIA WILTSHIRE-GORDON '16

InSite takes Eighth in Solar Decathlon

(10/17/13 12:54am)

InSite, the College’s entry in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon, finished eighth overall in the 2013 competition. Nineteen collegiate teams were selected to compete in the challenge, which required two years of planning, designing and building, culminating in Irvine, Calif. on Oct. 12.InSite finished with a score of 920.262 out of a possible 1,000. Judging was divided into 10 categories with a total of 100 possible points per section. InSite earned a perfect score in the Energy Balance and Hot Water contests, ranked third in Communications, Affordability and Home Entertainment and finished in the top 10 in all rounds of judging.In comparison, the College’s entry into the 2011 Solar Decathlon, Self Reliance, earned 914.809 points but finished in fourth place overall.InSite began its journey to California in September, when it was broken down into 50 panels and hundreds of smaller parts and shipped to Los Angeles by train, and then transported by truck to Irvine.Solar Decathlon faculty adviser Andrea Kerz-Murray said that reconstructing the house in fewer than nine days was a challenge, as the College’s construction teams had to ensure that all electrical and structural connections were fully-functioning and secure.With regards to scoring, Kerz-Murray wrote in an email that “overall goals for sustainability were less important” in the case of InSite, which incorporated a number of energy factors that did not directly fit into a particular judging category.“Our team proposed a project that promotes urban density and local sourcing of food and goods,” she said. “This kind of thing does not get judged.Another example is affordability. While we did quite well in this contest [earning third place], we made material decisions based on embodied energy, local sourcing, durability and longevity as well as up-front cost. The contest only looks at cost, not lifecycle.”This big-picture approach to the Solar Decathlon, looking and thinking beyond contest categories, is a reflection of the College’s interdisciplinary approach to design and construction.“Coming from our Liberal Arts background we are proud to be able to compete with the rest of the teams which are coming from architecture and engineering graduate programs,” InSite Team Manager Gwen Cook ’13 told Middlebury Magazine.When the InSite house returns to the College it will be rebuilt and used as student housing, placed next to the duplex located at 107 Shannon Street, across from Saint Mary’s School.The next Solar Decathlon competition will be held in 2015, and while it is too early to know whether the College will apply for entry into the competition, Kerz-Murray predicts that future Decathlons will become increasingly competitive.“I believe that the design excellence and innovation in the homes represented continues to get better and much more interesting and innovative. The competition is getting harder,” she said, noting that many teams scored within fractions of a point of each other, in both individual contests and overall.

Set Design Balances Aesthetics and Environment

(10/16/13 10:33pm)

If you walk onto the stage in Wright Theater between now and late November, you will see black and gray floor panels attached in a grid-like pattern to form the foundation for the upcoming production of “Pentecost.” What you may not realize is that the exact same flooring travelled to Atlantic Stage in New York City twice and adorned Seeler Studio Theater the spring before that, recycled for a total of seven productions in three years.Behind the flooring rest shelves full of used materials like these panels, ready to be resized and remade into the next scenic creation. These resources come from even more expansive storage barns packed with saved set pieces from as long as 13 years ago.The practice of the set designers and technical directors in the Department of Theatre is to reuse and recycle during every step of the production process. Professor of Theatre Mark Evancho, who is designing the demanding set for “Pentecost,” explained that due to budget limitations and the College’s remote location, recycling begins as early as in the conceptual stage.“I am always looking in the trash, in the environment,” said Evancho. “I’ll go down to the recycling center, see something and think, ‘Hey I can use that.’ And I’ll grab it.”“That’s the nature of theater,” he added. “You start realizing what you can do with [the materials]. You remake them.”During the construction process, the opportunity to make environmentally conscious decisions heightens. Associate Technical Director Jim Dougherty explained that taking advantage of these opportunities serves a large role financially as well as environmentally, citing the dual benefit of mulching all plain wood under a foot long.Other practices the department follows that fall into this category include using wood chipped off of younger trees instead of cut from taken-down trees, using digital projections to cut back on actual set pieces and lining the floor with Celotex, a fiberboard used to deaden sound that is highly decomposable and made partly from recycled sources, such as recycled waste glass and aluminum.Celotex is one of the three primary fiberboard products that the department uses, along with Homasote, which uses recycled consumer paper to make a board that is both recycled and recyclable, and Masonite, which serves as a green alternative to plywood. These materials serve as efficient replacements for plywood and other less decomposable options when possible so that the sturdier materials can be preserved and used for a longer period of time.Despite the practice of reusing, the department will not keep using materials if they are discovered to be harmful.This was true for the dry pigment paint they used ten years ago, which they boxed up when it was shown to be carcinogenic. They now use water-based paint for almost all of the their projects. The only oil-based paint used in productions is spray paint, which has not been replaced because its visual effect cannot be created using a water-based option.While the production team recycles and uses a range of environmentally friendly materials, they recognize that there are restrictions that do not allow them to take advantage of every green option. PVC lumber, for example, is made to last longer and therefore waste less wood, but it is too expensive to be practical for the College. Foam, on the other hand, is not green, but it is light and easy to carve, so it is a valuable resource that the team cannot afford to replace.Evancho explained that the Theatre Department looked into replacing the lights in Wright Theater with light emitting diode (LED) lights but found that this idea would have jeopardized the aesthetic success of the lighting because the light quality of LED bulbs is “harsh” and the lights vibrate if they are dimmed.“LED isn’t at a point technologically as an art form for us to take advantage of it,” added Dougherty.Evancho also noted that the actual set construction is separate from the conceptual design knowledge students are exposed to in Scenic Design I (THEA0111).“We very rarely talk about the materials,” he said. “We talk about the thinking that goes behind them.”Evancho added that a basic understanding of the materials available and their advantages and disadvantages would benefit students as they progress in the department and tackle productions of their own.“It would be a great thing if students became aware of what they are using,” he said.Emily Sarich ’16, who took THEA0111 last fall and is currently stage managing the upcoming student production of Cock, agreed that a knowledge of the materials behind the idea would help her have a more complete understanding of set design.“We focused more on the conceptual aspects of scenic design than the practical aspects,” said Sarich. “I think its important to learn about the materials we would use because knowing what you can make things out of really affects what you can make. It affects the aesthetics.”“Figuring out the materials that we can and should use both to save money and be environmentally friendly is definitely an important part of that,” she added.Both Evancho and Dougherty stressed that, while they try to stay conscious of the environment when considering supplies, the aesthetic value is their primary concern.“We’re trying to get ourselves into the green world,” said Evancho. “But it always becomes going green versus doing what we need to do to enhance the play.”“Sometimes it works out, but sometimes we have to choose the aesthetics”, added Dougherty.The primary role of the setting and the lighting in a theater production is to provide a visual depiction of the world of the play, and sometimes this image does not lend itself to the greenest design option. However, through the increase in digital technology, the budget constraints and the ideology to create through reconstruction, theater design at the College lends itself in a grand sense to an environmentally friendly product.“If you had the million dollar budget, you would lean on it,” said Evancho. “By not having all that money, you use the mind and creativity to make it work. And that’s inherently green.”

Men's Soccer Legs Out Trinity, Hamilton

(10/16/13 6:07pm)

The Middlebury men’s team stopped a two game slide this weekend with convincing victories over Trinity on Saturday, Oct. 12 and Hamilton on Sunday, Oct. 13 at home during Fall Family Weekend. The crowd full of friends and family witnessed what could be a turning point in the Panthers season.On Saturday, the Panthers (5-3-1, 4-3-1) outmuscled the Trinity Bantams (7-2-2, 3-2-2) in a 3-1 victory. Coach Dave Saward credited the Panthers’ physicality for the victory.“Our physical presence was a challenge for Trinity,” Saward said. “The strength of the Trinity team is that they have a very dynamic front six that attack from all angles, thus it was important that we worked hard to deny service from their mid-field up to their strikers.”The Panthers’ back line played well despite some nagging injuries to Deklan Robinson ’16 and Graham Knisley ’14 in the center. The Bantams only mustered five shots all game, and just three on net. Including Sunday’s game, the Panthers have been outshot only once this season, in the season opening overtime defeat at Amherst.Middlebury’s first goal started at the back when Robinson fed the ball down the right side to Tom Bean ’17 who quickly led a streaking Adam Glaser ’17 with a nice pass.“Glaser had a step on the Trinity defender and from such an advantage he rarely relinquishes the lead,” Saward said. “This proved to be the case as he rushed clear of the Bantam back line and calmly chipped the ball over the desperate dive of the goalkeeper.”Only six minutes later, Robinson claimed some glory of his own. After Trinity failed to clear a corner kick effectively, Harper Williams ’15 played the ball toward the back post where Robinson finished with an emphatic header.Trinity then got one back at the 38:34 mark, when a long clearance found a sprinting Trinity winger behind the Middlebury back line. Trinity player Fernando Torello slid the ball past keeper Ethan Collins ’14 to equalize within one at halftime.Not to be outdone, Glaser’s hard work earned him a second goal on the day. Glaser chased down the Trinity defender and caused some confusion between him and the Bantam keeper. Glaser stole the ball, turned and shot in one motion for the goal.Glaser now leads the team with five goals on the season and 11 points.“Even though Glaser is a freshman, he is a mature and skilled player on the ball who always seems to be in the right place and can create space between defenders to quickly shoot the ball,” teammate Tyler Bonini ’16 said.On Sunday, the Panthers looked to sweep the weekend against the visiting Hamilton Continentals (2-5-3, 1-3-3). Middlebury took an early lead in the 12th minute when Sam Peisch ’14.5 cleaned up a rebound off of Noah Goss-Wolliner’s ’15 blocked shot for his first goal of the season.For the remainder of the first half the Panthers controlled possession, but it did not come easily. Around 15 minutes in, Knisley hit the turf twice while defending Hamilton’s attacks. Moments later, Philip Skayne ’17 leapt for a header and went end over end when a Hamilton player took out his legs. With three minutes remaining in the half, Bonini played a set piece into the box that Bean was nearly able to finish but for some contact, leaving Bean with his hands in the air and staring at the official.Middlebury had a handful of close scoring chances in the second half. In the 67th minute a long set piece resulted in the ball being redirected and glancing off the outside of the post. The Panthers produced a flurry of attacks in the final 15 minutes of the half. In the 79th minute Williams’ corner was snagged by the leaping Hamilton keeper. Middlebury recovered the ball quickly and mounted a counter attack led by Bonini. Streaking down the right side, Bonini cut back nicely and tried to finish with the left foot but was denied by a diving save.The Panthers were still not done. Off of a long throw Bean had a decent look at the net, but was unable to get a shot off and the ball was cleared from danger.Hamilton continued to throw its weight around in the second half, but to no avail. In the 61st minute Collins made an easy catch off of a free kick and took what was clearly a deliberate shoulder from Hamilton’s Buck Reynolds.Hamilton’s best scoring chance came with 22 minutes remaining in the game. John McGuinnis crossed a beautiful ball Daniel Kraynak, who desperately laid out for the ball. Kraynak beat Collins but went wide of the net.Middlebury tried to put the game away in the 78th minute. A Hamilton defender took down Robinson outside the 18 resulting in a free kick. Off the set piece, Williams found the back of the net with a header, but was called for a foul, negating the goal.With just two minutes remaining a shoving match halted play when Hamilton’s keeper slid to take out Glaser as his shot went high over the net. Some Hamilton defenders took offense to Glaser’s aggressive run, enough so that one shoved Glaser to the ground as he tried to get up. Officials put a stop to the confusion, and Middlebury iced the game less than a minute later when Glaser crossed it low to Skayne for the goal.Saward took some positives from last week’s loss at Tufts and believed that if the team brought the same level of commitment to the weekend they would have success.“From my perspective, the team did all of that and more,” Saward said. “They were rewarded for their hard work and positive attitude with two very good wins and 6 points. Now we need to sustain our effort for every minute of every game left and we shall see where that takes us. Nothing is guaranteed.”Middlebury rose to second in the NESCAC over the weekend, though still a distant second to table-setting Amherst. They will return to action on Saturday, Oct. 19 at Bates.

Paul-Gerard_Color-2-of-13

(10/16/13 5:56pm)

Paul-Gerard_Color-1-of-13

(10/16/13 5:56pm)

Facilities Aim For Gold LEED Rating

(10/16/13 5:56pm)

As construction continues on the new squash center and field house set to transform Peterson Athletics complex into a top-level NESCAC facility, a large amount of emphasis on the sparkling new, $46 million project has been placed on energy efficiency and sustainability.The nine-court squash center, opening next Saturday, Oct. 26 and the 110,000 square-foot field house boasting a 200 meter six-lane track and turf practice field, set for its unveiling in October 2014, both are on target for LEED gold-level certification from the U.S. Green Building Council – making them the only other buildings on campus besides Hillcrest environmental center to attempt the rigorous classification.While certain trade-offs were made in the planning and development stages between low impact, locally sourced materials and ones that satisfied quality requirements to host athletic events, College project manager Mark Gleason said that every product was vetted for environmental sustainability, within reason.“We look at a couple things: environmental impact and maintenance,” said Gleason. “We want to find materials that are low impact on the environment but that also don’t require a whole lot of maintenance.”“Both of the projects are registered with LEED, and that guides a lot of the decisions in terms of materials,” he added. “We try to stay local within reason, but in general that’s what we’re trying to do: meet the 500-mile radius. For concrete and steel that’s easy to do. For siding, sometimes not as easy to do.”The two spaces will feature numerous energy efficiency features, including natural light (or day lighting) through a skylight and windows in the squash center, two “clear stories” and glazing on the entire western concourse of the new field house. The new buildings will provide enough light during the day making electric lighting unnecessary.Other materials, from an eventual green roof on the squash center to insulation and high-efficiency LED lights in both buildings point to a decision-making process focused on low impact materials.One caveat, Gleason said, was that the Athletics department demanded the use of ASB squash courts – a product only manufactured in Germany.“The squash courts come from Germany and there’s no way around that,” he said. “Given that, we have to find other things that are sourced closer to Middlebury.”“Your squash court options are very limited,” Quinn said. “That’s not a real challenging decision — it’s not a huge list and you feel like you’re making a huge sacrifice.”Gleason also pointed out the largest achievement in terms of energy efficiency for the project: taking down the Bubble – an inefficient heat and resource drain, not to mention an aesthetic eyesore. The new field house set to replace it, according to Gleason, will use half the energy of the Bubble despite being twice the space.The footprint of the new facility was also intended to save green space at the College, something Gleason said was a priority for the committee who ultimately made the site decision.“The College’s master plan showed that anyways, but it was good practice to look at its impact in a different location, from aesthetics to an environmental standpoint,” he said. “Putting it where it is now, from an environmental standpoint, is probably best because that area was not a green area before.”Another, perhaps unintended, consequence of the new projects will be the removal of student parking from the Kenyon area. The spaces will become Faculty/Staff or event spaces. This will divert athletes who used to park in the lot to use other means of transport or become creative with their parking decisions.“Right now there is no assigned parking in that lot – there wont be any student assigned parking out there,” said Gleason. “A lot of athletes used to drive to practices, but I think we are trying to discourage that now as part of the ‘Greening Athletics.’ Now people park in the tailgate area behind the stadium, but I think that’s still a long walk to the building.”“There wasn’t an intentional decision to limit parking, but I have been trying for several years now, along with others to change the culture with driving down here,” Quinn said. “It’s not congruous with what you’re coming down here to do, whether you’re a varsity athlete, faculty, staff or student. I would like most of our parking to be event and visitor parking, just culturally.”Gleason said that he is happy with how the project turned out, but also pointed to the fact that the LEED certification is not the “be all end all” for sustainability.“It’s hard to say when you’re talking about your buildings to other schools and athletes that have interests in green buildings,” Gleason said. “It’s hard to say that your building is ‘green.’ You can say that, but prove it. Prove the building is LEED certified – only a third-party can certify that. We will be able to say we have a LEED gold squash center for what it’s worth. Some people will completely discount it but others think it’s really important.”The new squash facility has a soft opening early next week and a firm opening scheduled for Oct. 26. Shortly after the firm opening, the courts and an adjacent spinning room should be available for student, faculty and staff use.Additional reporting by DAMON HATHEWAY '13.5

Women’s Soccer Strikes Again, Clips Bantams, Detains Hamilton

(10/16/13 5:44pm)

The Middlebury women’s soccer team established its place at the top of the NESCAC with a 2-0 victory over Trinity on Saturday, Oct. 12 and a 1-0 overtime win against Hamilton on Sunday, Oct. 13.The Panthers went into the double header with cautious optimism.“Going into the weekend we were tied for first place in the NESCAC with Trinity, and we knew that both games were really important and neither team would be easy to beat,“ co-captain Moria Sloan ’15 said.Saturday’s game started as an unsettled affair with neither team able to string passes together. The Panthers soon grew into the game, dominating the majority of forward possession and keeping good pressure when Trinity had the ball.Middlebury’s dominance was rewarded in the 18th minute when Julia Favorito ’14 scored the first goal of the game. Favorito found herself with time and space to take a touch before unleashing a 25-yard screamer over Bantam keeper Monica DiFoiri’s head. After the first goal, as neither team was able to string together enough possession for a while.Trinity had a good chance to equalize after turning a Panthers defender inside the box, but could only watch as the ball bounced off the crossbar. However, Middlebury continued to run the show after powerful attempts on goal from Hannah Robinson ’16 and Jamie Soroka ’16, who managed to weave through three defenders and get off a shot despite losing her balance.The Panthers kept the pressure on Trinity at the start of the second half with instant rewards. Just two minutes in, after good build-up around the box, Sloan launched a rocket into the top right corner, leaving DiFiori helpless.Middlebury grew in confidence after the second goal, refusing to sit back but rather continuing to attack. The Panthers frustrated Trinity with clean and precise passing, limiting the Bantams to just two shots on goal in the second half.Scarlett Kirk ’14, the NESCAC’s leading scorer, was denied a goal in the final moments of the game after a last ditch tackle from a defender sent the ball out for a corner.After such dramatic victories, a comfortable win soothed some Panther nerves.“While pulling out those tough wins is a crucial strength for a team to have, I believe our focus will be on finding our rhythm up top so that we are able to confidently to put away games early rather than waiting until the last few moments of the game to score,” Favorito said.The young team showed discipline to hang on for the win against one of its biggest competitors in the NESCAC.“I was impressed by the entire team’s performance,” head coach Peter Kim said. “They defended extremely well, and moved the ball sharply all over the field. The goals were pure class. Both Favorito and Sloan spend extra time perfecting different types of shots, and it was nice to see them reward themselves for their hard work.”The Panthers weren’t able to replicate such a comfortable win on Sunday, as Hamilton forced them into overtime.Kirk had instant opportunity to put the Panthers ahead after beating the last defender, but after mistiming her run, Continentals goalie Liza Gergenti made up for the mistake with a crucial tackle to divert the ball away.The game proceeded with a good pace, as Middlebury looked to open up space on the field by constantly reserving the ball and angling passes. Hamilton meanwhile predominantly relied on long balls, using a resilient defense as a source of attack.In the 20th minute, Hamilton nearly scored against the run of play after confusion in the Middlebury box from a poor clearance allowed Kendall Daly to latch onto a loose ball. But Panther keeper Kate Reinmuth ’17 produced strong hands.Minutes later, Sarah Noble ’14 nearly converted a corner kick from Ali Omsberg ’15, but the shot went over the net. The last real chance of the half came after Soroka cut back the ball with her left foot just ahead to an oncoming Omsberg.The second half was an extremely quiet affair, as both teams were unable to break down the respective defenses. Kirk yet again had a “nearly,” but her shot hit the inside of the right post before bouncing out. Favorito was also unable to break the deadlock, ast her blast from 25 yards out was tipped over the crossbar by Gergenti.Middlebury finally showed its dominance in overtime, as the Panthers overwhelmed the Continentals with an attacking onslaught. Gergenti made a point-blank save from Adrianna Gildner’s ’17 shot, before the post saved the Hamilton keeper once again after Robinson’s shot hit frame before bouncing away.The Panthers finally found the back of the net in 98th minute. Gildner found herself in space 15 yards out after a pace from Robinson, and coolly slotted the ball into the net after help from a bounce off the post.“I was impressed by the team’s determination,” Kim said. “Our back line held strong despite playing a lot of minutes the day before, and we were bolstered by solid play from many of our substitutes. Both matches were great team efforts.”Despite clinching a spot in the playoffs, co-captain Lindsay Kingston ’14 is making sure her team doesn’t get ahead of itself.“Although we are incredibly excited for the post-season tournament, we are focused on taking it a game at a time and not overlooking any team,” Kingston said. “We are looking to continue to utilize as many players as possible and improve our connectivity with each other on the field. Most importantly we want to play our style of game against all of our competitors, even the most disruptive teams.The Panthers move into the final stages of conference play with games against Bates on Saturday, Oct. 19 and Williams on Tuesday, Oct. 22.