Middlebury Magazine

Old Chapel

Wired for Service

Examining the myriad ways Middlebury students and alumni continue to engage in an enduring tradition: giving back to others.

By Laurie L. Patton
Illustration by Montse BernalNovember 11, 2021

Greetings from a Middlebury November. With the twin holidays of Veterans Day and Thanksgiving, I think of November as a time of both reaching out to help others and gratitude for those who have helped us.

As I write this, I’m on my way to our Monterey campus, and I just received the most inspiring news—particularly relevant for those November themes. I’ve just learned the results of the ALL IN Campus Democracy Athletic Challenge—where NESCAC schools compete on voter participation, just as they would in an athletic contest. I’m thrilled to announce that Middlebury won in three major categories—receiving awards for the highest voter registration, highest voter turnout, and most improved voter turnout in the 2020 presidential election (compared to 2016’s election). While we are already recognized for our high rate of student voting, and as leaders in the NESCAC Votes coalition, even in this competition we substantially expanded our student voting rate—up 23.4 percent from the 2016 election, to 85.7 percent of eligible students voting.

By the time you read this, Middlebury will have been recognized as the winner of all three of the awards at a November 10 awards ceremony of the “All IN Campus Democracy Challenge’s NESCAC Votes Athletic Challenges.” The director of our Center for Community Engagement, Ashley Laux, says it plainly: “More than winning the awards, though, I am buoyed by Middlebury College students’ commitment to participating in our democracy through voting.”

Ashley’s news is wonderful for so many reasons. To meet this challenge, our students were engaged in a sustained effort to pay it forward. They partnered with the MiddVotes student organization leaders, with cultural organizations on campus, and with liaisons in Athletics who, Ashley tells us, worked with every single athletic team to register athletes and help them make plans to vote as part of our “Middlebury Does Democracy” challenge. And the students came from a variety of political persuasions.

These results were possible because of a shared commitment, not just to democracy but to an old-fashioned idea—that of service. As a noun, service means both “an act of helping or doing work for someone,” or “a system supplying a public need.” Both ideas have long been Middlebury traditions—whether that is international volunteer service, military service, or volunteer service at home. In the 21st century, we’re working on new definitions of service that indicate the power of helping or doing work with someone, not just for them. But this November, even as it is shaped by our contemporary needs, the strength of the classical idea of service is real.

In fact, I would go so far as to say Middlebury’s alumni body is wired for service. Throughout our two centuries, we’ve often called ourselves the college that educates “teachers and preachers.” That phrase was coined at another time in Middlebury’s history, and today’s diverse students may not necessarily identify with an exclusively Christian perspective. But their focus on giving back to others through education, nonprofit leadership, governmental service, and volunteer work remains paramount.

In today’s Middlebury, every year approximately 15 to 20 percent of the students in our graduating classes go on to serve in a social impact field, with national service organizations, social services, government (health and human services), education, advocacy, and the military. If we include health care, we can add another 5 to 7 percent. In other words, about a quarter of the members of our graduating class go on to work for others each year.

And even while they’re at Midd, more than 80 percent of our students volunteer in the community on their own time. Most recently, that work included creating mutual aid organizations and offering online tutoring for primary school students during the pandemic. In their response to pandemic surveys, Middlebury students rated taking care of others’ health above taking care of their own. There are a myriad of examples, and I wish I had the space to tell all the stories of our students’ work in the world.

Social impact is only one of a number of ways to think about Middlebury’s commitment to service—to helping others and making systems better. Middlebury’s history is also deeply impacted by military service. Middlebury students have served and sacrificed in the military—some giving their lives—throughout American history, through times of peace and times of war. Middlebury’s student population was heavily influenced by those choosing ROTC in the mid-20th century. Many alums were profoundly affected by their military service in Vietnam and Iraq. As my visits with them every June at Reunion time attest, Middlebury vets’ reflections on service are moving and powerful. And, since its beginning in the mid-20th century, the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS) has hosted a large number of post- or mid-service veterans in every class.

And not all military service looks the same in Middlebury’s history: not only did he help lead Middlebury through the 1918 pandemic (something I can relate to!), but President John Martin Thomas made a request to the trustees to leave Middlebury for a time to serve as a chaplain during the First World War. And then there’s Emily Núñez Cavness ’12, CEO of Sword and Plough and a former U.S. Army captain, who continues the awesome project of giving back to her community by repurposing military-issue materials and making them into high-fashion wearable goods.

International service is yet another proud Middlebury tradition. Among colleges, our population of Peace Corps volunteers, both going to and returning from their service, has often been one of the highest in the nation. MIIS regularly welcomes back volunteers who, through the transformative nature of their experience, have decided to devote their careers to public service and study at MIIS. In fact, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, the late Peter Grothe, actually created the name “Peace Corps.” And MIIS has its own fellowship program for Peace Corps volunteers, called the Paul D. Coverdell Program, founded by Beryl Levinger, herself a Peace Corps volunteer.

Through the efforts of a Peace Corps cohort of over 100 faculty, staff, and students on campus, you can watch online discussions of many of their volunteer experiences here.

Not everyone today is comfortable with the idea of service. Not everyone agrees with the idea of the Peace Corps. Or of the military. Or of Teach for America. Some argue that the term service is lopsided, and that service organizations small and large can easily turn into patronizing forms of volunteerism that only perpetuate the status quo of wealth inequity, racial tension, and climate damage, in the United States and globally. In some cases, that critique may be true. And in those cases, we can and should change those systems and create more equitable systems of help and care, systems of mutual benefit where human dignity is enhanced in both directions. That work of improvement is in itself a form of service. That’s the idea, for example, behind “tandem language learning” in Monterey. In this tandem learning program, instructors in a morning session teach English to Spanish-speaking citizens in Salinas. They then switch roles and themselves learn Spanish from those same students, who become their teachers in the afternoon. Service can be mutual, and we should make our service opportunities work to create that mutual benefit wherever we can.

Indeed, many argue today that wide-scale service opportunities are the way out of our nation’s polarization. Wherever you land in the debate about a mandatory national civil service, everyone agrees that working on a team on behalf of others has powerful bonding effects. Social science backs this up, from high school and college onward. We need those effects today—not only in higher education but in the halls of our nation’s Capitol, in the town hall meetings of our rural communities, on municipal boards, and in corporate governance.

So even with our long-held Middlebury traditions of service, and our wonderful “Middlebury Does Democracy” victories of the past week, we could do even more. We could create even more reflection opportunities about international and national service in our alumni bodies. We’re working to get to 100 percent volunteer activity for our undergraduates. We’re working to connect more Midd Vets in Vermont to our vets in California. And so much more.  We’re excited to continue these projects.

I’ll leave you with one final thought: the old-fashioned idea of service, updated to the 21st century, can speak across the generations. My guess is that an alum from the Class of 1950 would be proud of our MiddVotes student organization leaders from the Class of 2025, regardless of political or religious persuasion or socioeconomic status. And those 2025 volunteers, typically eager to learn from others’ examples, would in turn be curious about our older alums’ experience of service and society in the mid-20th century. That’s mutual pride across deeply different cultures. That’s the way we build a better Middlebury.

The Magnitude of Systemic Racism

Acknowledging a national scourge and examining the work that must be done at Middlebury— individually and collectively—to combat it.

By Laurie L. Patton
Illustration by Montse BernalJune 9, 2020

Once again, we are bearing witness to unconscionable acts of violence, rooted in racism, directed at Black people in the United States.

Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Sean Reed, George Floyd, and countless other Black people have been murdered. For their family, friends, and the Black community, here and around the world, grief and loss have been exacerbated by a literal witness to their death in media—something none of us needs or wants to see, but also knowing that without it, once again, justice would not be rendered.

And still, justice has not been rendered.

These acts of violence are heartbreaking and inexcusable, individually and collectively, but they are also not isolated. They are the result of centuries of entrenched racism in a nation built on and maintained by unjust and inequitable systems of power, including the policies and practices of law enforcement. The Black community, in particular, has been on the receiving end of this historical and ongoing oppression and violence. We must stand up and state clearly that Black Lives Matter.

As I call on all of us to state that clearly—because our silence speaks just as loudly as our words—I also acknowledge that how we say it matters as well. I have received thoughtful and powerful feedback from many members of our community about the message I sent out last Sunday, including—and most important—from a collective of students who together voiced their concerns. I want to acknowledge those concerns and note that my letter failed to adequately address the magnitude of the situation. At a time when the Black community is experiencing profound pain, my letter did not focus enough on the root cause and specific harm. I apologize for not placing that front and center in my letter. I needed to name the specific and systemic violence experienced by Black people. I now understand that members of our community needed to hear that.

Many people of color experience systemic racism. At the same time, we must specifically name the ongoing oppression and violence directed at Black people, underscoring the need to center our work on the anti-Black racism that permeates our lives.

I also want to acknowledge that Middlebury is a microcosm of the culture in which we live, which means that racism happens here. It happens in our residence halls and in our classrooms, at the tables of our dining halls and in our locker rooms, on our sidewalks, within the offices where we work, and in our town. It is simultaneously difficult, important, and necessary to acknowledge this truth, because until we acknowledge the extent of the work that needs to be done, we will always fall short of the change we must make happen to transform the daily, lived experiences of Black students, staff, and faculty, and our community at large. We have begun this effort and we will continue it.

In my commitment to ensuring that this moves forward, let me speak directly to the members of our community:

To our Black students, staff, faculty, and alumni, I hear and recognize your anger, fear, and grief. I also acknowledge that while Middlebury has worked hard on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, it has not been immune to systemic racism or white supremacy. We are far from our goal of being an antiracist institution. We have a great deal to do. We are committed to that work and we understand that this must engage the entire institution. The effort to combat anti-Black racism on our campuses has long been done by Black students, faculty, and staff, but needs to be shouldered by the non-Black members of our community.

To the non-Black members of our community, I ask that you join me as true allies in developing deeper knowledge about racism, inequality, and the way oppression operates within our culture, within our institutions, and within ourselves. We must all take responsibility for this if we are to really change our institution. I realize that we are all at different stages of our learning process. For those who are not sure where to begin and for those who are looking for new ways to engage in this urgently needed work, we will follow up early next week with resources, activities, and next steps to help us move forward as individuals and as an institution.

I want to close by returning to the feedback voiced by students, in particular the proposals they have put forward as action steps to help further our efforts on our campuses. I think the proposals are excellent. I am eager to put them in place, and more as well, as we work together. First, the Senior Leadership Group will be open to meeting three times a semester with representatives from Black student organizations and their allies from cultural organizations who joined in solidarity to voice their concerns. Second, we will collaborate with student representatives on the College Board of Advisors to ensure that their voices and concerns are featured prominently and regularly in every agenda.

I welcome your open and honest feedback and I pledge to continue the work that I, and the Senior Leadership Team, need to do to advance antiracism at Middlebury. I ask all students, staff, faculty, and alumni to join me as well.

This column is adapted from President Patton’s message to the community sent on Friday, June 5. President Patton can be reached at lpatton@middlebury.edu.

Two Stories of Plague

On Covid and Racism

By Laurie L. Patton
Illustration by Montse BernalMay 31, 2020

I have just listened to a recent interview with Albert Camus’s daughter, Catherine Camus. She reports that she only started to read and understand the implications of her father’s classic work, The Plague, after he had died in a car accident. Written from the perspective of a doctor in a small town, The Plague portrays how the pestilence strips away the relentless focus on material wealth and success and lays bare what really matters: human relationships, care, connection. Like many of us who have recently returned to that classic, Catherine Camus was struck by its relevance today. Anything can become the plague, she observed. Anything can prevent us from being open to the deeper realities of life.

As others have observed, we are listening to two stories of plague this week. The first, a searing account of a black man, George Floyd, killed by a police officer who kneeled on his neck for eight minutes while George Floyd died. Like Eric Garner before him, George Floyd said these words as he pleaded for his life, “I can’t breathe.” In light of this recent death and others (Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor), our country is again engulfed in anger and protest as the plague of racism infects the early days of our American summer.

The second plague is the one still taking place all over the country in nursing homes, in hospitals, in cities and rural communities. Young and old, people have trouble breathing as they are struck by COVID-19. We are learning about new techniques to help them breathe, whether it is a simple motion of turning face down to give the lungs more room, or a new kind of ventilator that allows more oxygen to flow.

These plagues have put into sharp relief the acute reality of life: People of color in our country walk daily with deep vulnerability to the threats of institutionalized violence. They face greater risk of death in the time of coronavirus, greater risk of death on the streets and in their homes.

Education and action are the two forms of oxygen that can heal. Wherever you are in the world, use your Middlebury education to challenge bigotry and hatred. Call your congressman or senator. Get involved in local groups. And when you return to Middlebury’s campuses, collaborate with all members of our community to act against racism and become accountable for the work that needs to be done—in our classrooms, in our living rooms, in our workplaces, in our communities.

In a world beset by two plagues, we are gasping for air. Just as coronavirus strips us of our capacity to remain connected, racism strips people of an opportunity to live in a just world that protects and supports all citizens. I ask each of us, as members of the entire Middlebury community, to circulate that air so all of us can breathe it in, and live.

This column is adapted from President Patton’s message to the community sent on Sunday, May 31. President Patton can be reached at lpatton@middlebury.edu.

Epic Fetch

What we can learn from our canine companions.

By Laurie L. Patton
February 25, 2020

One beautiful summer night, I was walking my two Great Pyrenees, Padma and Suka, near the golf course when I met two students from the Language Schools who were speaking Japanese.

When they saw me, they greeted me in English. Because I am an administrator, that was appropriate. The Language Pledge doesn’t apply when talking to members of the administration.

When they went to hug and pet my dogs, however, I reminded them to love my dogs in Japanese, not English. And so they did—switching immediately. Padma and Suka were, of course, delighted to be loved in any language. Their happy wags let the students know they were fully understood.

That experience stayed with me, first because it’s a quintessential Middlebury tale about how two American students, speaking Japanese in Vermont, switched to English to talk to me but then easily went back to Japanese to speak to my dogs. It’s also a story about how dogs can be a powerful facilitator of social, and even intellectual, life. The dogs helped those students be in a space with me that would not have existed had I been walking alone.

Dogs don’t judge. In fact, they can enable open, emotional communication, and also inspire a certain kind of joy. My brother and niece are involved in a library program where kids practice reading while dogs listen to them. These programs have been shown to improve reading skills and interest. When I was learning to chant Hebrew at age 40, I did the same!

I’ve always had at least one dog. I find dogs make wonderful company and are central to my everyday life. I am not alone in this view—where there are humans, there are dogs, from tropical forests to the Arctic Circle. Research reveals how dogs’ rich understanding of the world makes them not only remarkably well- suited companions, but also flexible problem solvers with deductive skills similar to those of young children. From an evolutionary scientist’s perspective, dogs and humans literally created each other—forming each other’s temperaments and habits, helping each other hunt, eat, and solve the problems of living.

Flexible problem solvers—that’s what we want Middlebury students to be. Middlebury can be intense—upbeat, and curious, and focused, yes, but also intense. A few years ago, after much consultation, we changed Middlebury policy to become more dog friendly, allowing faculty and staff in many areas of campus (not all) to bring their dogs to work. We did so to promote the kind of curiosity, joy, and compassion toward one another that dogs inspire.

I see how we are reaping the benefits of canine colleagues. Whether they’re being pet students during finals, or walking across campus, greeting passersby with pleasure; or taking a nap on an office floor while student and professor discuss a thesis, it’s clear that the presence of dogs can make it easier for humans to connect.

Dogs also teach us discernment: learning our limitations and inspiring us to meet challenges.  When I was growing up, Charlie the golden retriever was part of our family. He was a wonderful dog with a wonderful enthusiasm for what might be possible. When he could, he chased trucks with abandon. Mostly, he focused on trees. Yes, trees. When he wanted us to throw something, he wouldn’t bring just a stick or branch. He would find a small fallen tree, drag it to the porch, and wait for us to throw it.

Often we broke it down into sticks that we could actually throw. But some of the time, we’d just say, “Too big, Charlie!” when we knew, despite his excitement, what Charlie was asking for was just not physically achievable.

That phrase, “Too big, Charlie!” (otherwise known as “TBC”), became shorthand for what to say when you’re asked to do the impossible. It’s a phrase I introduced here at Middlebury when there was just too much for one person or team to accomplish. TBC is a familiar acronym around Old Chapel.

But there’s also a flip side of TBC: Epic Fetch. The Internet meme shows a dog carrying a branch in its mouth that’s attached to an entire tree trunk. Epic Fetch is the way that so often at Middlebury, a seemingly impossible task becomes possible given the right circumstances and the right determination.

Those Language Schools students were engaged in an Epic Fetch, committing to live for a time in a language not their own. The expert analysis our MIIS faculty and colleagues at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies have provided in the wake of the Iranian missile strike in January? The launch of a School of Abenaki pilot program with the Language Schools, helping to expand understanding of this endangered Eastern Algonquin language? The new class of Febs?

You are part of the Middlebury community, and the Epic Fetches that have built us and sustain us, whether or not you are a dog person. (And even if you are not, Padma and Suka will still love you, in any language.)

Your Moment of Midd

What does Middlebury sound like? We think we have an idea.

By Laurie L. Patton
November 8, 2019

Several years ago, Middlebury met with groups of alumni to get a better understanding of how graduates from across our programs connected with the institution.

One of the first things they were asked was to “draw Middlebury.” They were given paper and colored pencils and a few minutes to create an image that they felt represented Middlebury.

The result: almost universally, they drew a physical setting—mostly mountains, especially for College and Bread Loaf alumni. Not surprising, because Middlebury’s places in the world, in Vermont, California, abroad, are striking and inspiring and unique to the institution. Those who didn’t draw mountains drew flags, representing the world, or they drew the world itself. Middlebury is local. Middlebury is global.

But if they had been asked the question of what Middlebury sounds like, the answers would probably have varied widely.

Answers could depend on the season. Right now, in Vermont, our soundscape includes the crunch of autumn leaves under our feet and cheers from Dragone Field and the murmur of collaboration in the group study spaces in Davis Family Library as midterms approach. In winter, it could be the sound of the wind across Monterey Bay, the hush that comes when snow falls in Vermont, the relaxed and curious conversations of J-term.

Answers could also depend on where we are. A conversation in Portuguese, heard over the summer while the Language Schools are in session. A lecture about North Korea’s weapons arsenal at the Institute. A performance of Shakespeare at Bread Loaf. Voices rising together during a workshop with Oratory Now, or in spirited discourse when the Debate Team gets together. A cappella groups. Meditation circles. Improv performances.

But regardless of when or where, Middlebury sounds like questions and answers, challenges and rewards, creativity and critical examination.

For some time, I’ve been thinking about how to best communicate what Middlebury sounds like right now: what we are talking about and hearing at Middlebury today, the diversity of voices, the ways that we’re building and growing community, how we are coming together in new and innovative ways to lead, locally and globally.

This fall Middlebury Magazine has launched a new podcast, Midd Moment; as host, I will be sharing some of those conversations with you. We’ve put together a first season in which you can meet some of the Middlebury faculty, alumni, and friends who are creating powerful change.

Our conversations in the podcast episodes are all very different. However, in each there are moments where everything comes together in a particularly Middlebury way. Those are what I call Midd Moments—and I encountered them when talking to the young Adul Samon, the Thai boy whose proficiency in languages allowed him to interpret for the rescuers who found him and his teammates when they were trapped in a cave; and to Dr. Jill Seaman ’74, who has spent her career improving care for those suffering from infectious diseases in southern Sudan; and to Faris Nasr ’15, an activist who uses dance to promote peace. Again and again in the podcast, you’ll hear themes arise that are quintessentially Middlebury: integrity, respect, curiosity, connectedness, and openness. You’ll hear moments when you’ll say, “Only at Middlebury.”

I know I did, over and over again, in each of these conversations.

So I’m eager to bring Midd Moment to you. We’re making the series available on most of the popular podcast platforms, including Apple, Stitcher, and Spotify. If you don’t know the first thing about listening to podcasts, that’s okay. We’re also making them available at middleburymagazine.com, and we’ll include instructions on how to get started listening.

Creating this podcast has been enjoyable for me, and I hope, when you listen, it’s enjoyable for you too. But beyond the enjoyment, I hope you will also feel inspired to create some Midd Moments of your own. I don’t mean podcast episodes—although I welcome ideas for people we should feature in season two—but ways that you can have similar conversations with people in your life, or people you admire or who inspire you who share those values that define Middlebury.

Take some time to enjoy the season and let us know what you think. I’ll be listening for your feedback, and your ideas. After all, of all the different ways that Middlebury sounds, probably the most Middlebury sounds of all are when one conversation leads to another, building on a thought and drawing that thought out in new and inspired ways, and creating even more inspiration to share.

A Global Connection

How a Thai teenager, the school that is educating him, and Middlebury have further defined what it means to be a citizen of the world.

By Laurie L. Patton
Illustration by Montse BernalJuly 26, 2019

Last summer, many of us at Middlebury were transfixed by the story of a group of young boys halfway around the world. These were the Wild Boars, 12 members of a Thai boys’ soccer team and their young coach, who were trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand’s Chiang Rai Province who were trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand’s Chiang Rai Province for more than two weeks until a team of international divers found them and brought them safely back aboveground in a dramatic rescue operation.

There were many heroic moments in that story. One that stood out for me was that of Adul Samon, a 13-year-old student from Wa, an unrecognized state within Myanmar. Using the basic English that he had learned, Adul politely greeted the divers who discovered the team and was then able to communicate with the rescuers on behalf of the other boys and their coach.

His actions stayed with me long after the story receded off the top of the news feed. How did this young stateless boy from a rural school possess the courage to step into this unexpected leadership role? He seemed much like a quintessential Midd Kid to me: poised, thoughtful, doing the right thing at the right moment, and having a real impact.

In May, we had the privilege of talking to Adul Samon and the director of his school, Phunawhit Thepsurin, about the importance of language study and the Ban Wiang Phan School’s emphasis on learning multiple languages. The two were our guests at Commencement, where Adul was awarded our inaugural Global Citizen’s Award. This award is a newly created annual honor that recognizes people who, through their communication skills and compassion, enact meaningful change in the world.

Adul studies three languages and is able to communicate in five: his native Wa, then Burmese, Thai, English, and Mandarin. Thepsurin emphasizes language in his school’s curriculum because he believes—appropriately so—that for his students, understanding multiple languages is critical for social, economic, practical, and communal reasons. The school sits near the border of three countries—the “Golden Triangle” of Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos—with Vietnam and China close by. Thepsurin wants to take advantage of that location to create a new kind of language learner, even at the high school level.

We have a very different perspective on language learning in the U.S. With English as the world’s lingua franca, our educational system, in general, doesn’t emphasize the importance of acquiring a second language, let alone a third, fourth, or fifth. When I see the transformation each summer with our Language Schools students, who are completely immersed in their language of study during their time here, I see what we gain when we live in a language other than our native tongue. For one thing, hidden parts of ourselves are often revealed. I’ll talk with our students about what they discover about themselves—how they find out they’re funnier, perhaps, in another language, or more thoughtful, or more outspoken. In the case of Adul Samon, he discovered that, in English, he had the capacity to help save his friends and be the bridge between the rescuers and those waiting in the dark to be rescued.

When we established our Global Citizen’s Award, we underscored that facility in global languages and cultures is an essential part of today’s Middlebury. Our strategic framework states our intention to be an internationally networked changemaker, and we’re well positioned to achieve that because of our unique expertise and capacity in the global preparation of students. As we move into the future, we plan to leverage our leadership to increase opportunities for our students to learn from and contribute to communities and programs around the world—much like how, in its own way, the Ban Wiang Phan School is doing.

We also believe that a global education should rest on the principle of the equal exchange of knowledge. To that end, we will be engaging in a long-term, sustainable exchange with Ban Wiang Phan School, its students, and its director. For the next three years, we are funding a summer internship program at the school. After a period of training, Middlebury students will teach English to the students. We hope to utilize the resources of our TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey to build a lasting partnership between us—a transformational, rather than transactional, connection that will provide everyone involved with the opportunity to connect the dots between language learning and the larger societies in which we live.

As for Adul, he told me he’s still playing soccer (when he does, he speaks Thai and sometimes Chinese); he’s still studying English; and he still speaks Wa with this family, and Thai and Chinese with his friends. You can hear one of our conversations yourself: it will be an episode of my new podcast series, Midd Moments, which will debut this fall. The podcast will focus on independent thinkers who create community—and Adul and his colleagues are certainly great examples of that distinctly Middlebury strength.

I look forward to sharing my conversation with Adul and other conversations about how Middlebury and its people build community. We have great stories to tell—and many languages to tell them in.

A Collective Will

Middlebury launches a bold plan in response to a pressing challenge.

By Laurie L Patton
Illustration by Montse BernalMay 14, 2019

Institutions of higher education are “in the crosshairs and at the crossroads” of polarized public debates.

That’s the phrase that Robert Orr, dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, used in an article I read recently—and it struck a chord with me.

The stories in the crosshairs are easy to relate: student debt, rising tuition, and freedom of expression, to name a few. But the stories in the crosshairs are harder to predict and harder to address. What kinds of changes are possible? Do we at Middlebury—and in higher education in general—have the collective will to make them?

We know of one crossroads that is here: climate change and the opportunity we have to turn the corner in addressing the challenges before us. It’s not only because so many reputable scientific organizations have issued reports that demonstrate the seriousness and economic impact of current climate change trends. It’s also because, as a college, we have two major advantages. First, we have a greater degree of consensus around climate change issues than exists in the wider public. Second, we possess governance structures that can achieve manageable, locally defined environmental goals.

We put those two advantages into practice in January when we launched Energy2028, Middlebury’s new bold energy plan for the next 10 years. It promises we will reach 100 percent renewable energy sources on our core campus, significantly lessen our energy consumption, reduce and eventually eliminate our investment in fossil fuels while protecting our endowment, and mount a large educational initiative addressing climate change.

Here’s how we did it.

First, we used basic consensus to stay at the table, no matter how long it took. Middlebury has the oldest environmental studies program in the nation, and a long-standing “green” ethos. But we were uncertain about our next steps—and that uncertainty created an impasse. While most leaders would have prioritized a “winnable battle” and moved on (and I was tempted), I noticed that our stakeholders—the environmental council of students and faculty members, the student environmental group, and the trustees—kept meeting through the uncertainty.

Why do they keep meeting, I wondered, if they never come to consensus? Because they shared an unspoken bond of pride in our environmental education, and that pride kept them coming together.

Next, we used basic consensus to imagine change. Our students asked us one thing: How were we going to educate them, as Middlebury’s mission statement promises, “to address the world’s most challenging problems”? That simple question focused our work on the educational aspects of these issues, rather than the political ones.

United by our common educational mission, we started to imagine things together. What about an internal carbon tax related to a commitment to reducing energy consumption? What about a gradual divestment model related to our commitment to 100 percent renewables? What about faculty leading an educational program that allowed us to think through the advantages as well as the trade-offs in all of these decisions?

Then we used governance structures to build on local collaborations and successes. Academic governance at Middlebury—and at most colleges and universities—can be time-consuming and unwieldy, but as momentum began to gather in our conversations, small and large forms of governance began to coalesce into something like organizational power.

There was a new openness in conversations with the administration and the trustees. Buildings and grounds personnel identified the need for new infrastructure to measure energy consumption. The students held a referendum. The faculty began to imagine new curricula. The trustees talked to our endowment manager about new tracking technologies.

Finally, we used Middlebury’s governance structures to create interdependent leadership. When we designed the final plan, we focused on interdependence. No single part of the plan was going to work without the other, and no part of the plan could be approved without the other. This insistence on interdependence reduced the potential for direct competition while preserving the collaborative competition that will increase our common purpose.

On the day we announced Energy2028, Chicago was experiencing record low temperatures while Melbourne, Australia, was experiencing record highs. It is a deep 21st-century irony that the experience of weather extremes has become increasingly “normal.”

Higher education has enough local wisdom and local practices to fight the new normal. We have traditions of scientific and humanistic inquiry that can create a baseline for climate change conversations.

In this most crucial of environmental ages, educational institutions have the distinct capacity to persevere in pursuing local change. Middlebury is leading the way—and I invite other campuses to follow our lead.

Good for Middlebury, Good for the World

The work of inclusivity doesn't always move in a straight line.

By Laurie L. Patton
Illustration by Montse BernalFebruary 14, 2019

In this issue, we read a unique story about a chapter in Middlebury’s history—the admission of women and the subsequent life of women students at the College. In 1880, President Cyrus Hamlin arrived at Middlebury to build enrollments, which had dwindled to dangerously low levels. He turned to women, who were eager to join Middlebury to advance their educations.

There was ambiguity in the conversation of Middlebury leaders as to what exactly was being granted—full enrollment? Only certain rights and privileges?

Then May Belle Chellis graduated at the top of her class. The matter seemed settled.

The work of inclusivity doesn’t always move in a straight line, however, and the entry of women into the College did not mean that all was well. In the early 1900s, Middlebury was almost denied Carnegie funding for being “in danger” of becoming a college for women. One president cited the presence of women as the reason for the smaller growth in the endowment compared to some New England all-male schools.

Should the College then build a separate campus for women? Leaders pondered that question through the 1910s, ’20s, and ’30s. The debate ended with a whimper; because of the Second World War, a separate college campus could not be funded, and the issue was not raised again. Middlebury became fully coeducational almost without thinking about it.

This Middlebury chapter should be more well known, because it teaches us something about the nature of institutional change. In my own area of research in India, I see similar themes. I have conducted over 90 life histories of women who have taken up the teaching of Sanskrit—a sacred language in India that had been prohibited to women in ritual situations for several millennia. Yet because such a large number of men have entered the global workforce in science, technology, and engineering in recent decades, the study of Sanskrit has become open to women, particularly in urban universities. This is a sea change in the Indian educational landscape.

This change has occurred for two reasons that, combined, make a powerful force indeed: a perceived need and an openness to change.

Let’s begin with perceived need. In Maharashtra, one of the Indian states where I do my research, the saying goes, “If it’s good for business, it’s good for Maharashtra.” It’s meant partly humorously, but there’s a wisdom there. In American education, the business of the open exchange of ideas depends upon more and more people entering the circle of exchange. There is now a solid body of evidence showing that the more diverse a society is, the more excellent it becomes—in its cultural and intellectual life, in its social life, and in its economy. As America’s demographic changes, we know that our democracy will thrive as more people are included and welcomed as contributing citizens. (That is true for Middlebury’s demographic, too.)

Then let’s consider openness to change. Two of the states where women began to teach Sanskrit openly in the early years after Indian independence were Bengal and Maharashtra, states that had the longest and richest histories of women’s reform movements. That’s also instructive for us today. Sometimes that openness takes decades to build. But as educators, the more we can call on our local and national histories of reform and examples of inclusiveness, flawed as they might have been, the more we can gain the energy and insight into an inclusive educational practice today.

We also need to remember and document the patterns of exclusion; that will keep us honest and aware of the pitfalls of how we are thinking today.

The history of women’s inclusion at Middlebury is one of painful as well as exciting moments. But in the end, women’s contributions were simply good for Middlebury. And for a variety of reasons, Middlebury was open to change. We just got on with the business of becoming more inclusive because it was the right thing for Middlebury and the right thing to do.

That’s a lesson I’m reminded of every day.

An Unexpected Path

In preparing our students broadly, we prepare them for the twists and turns that define most every life.

By Laurie L. Patton
Illustration by Montse BernalNovember 1, 2018

There is no script.

That may be exactly how one Middlebury student found himself writing one.

“My majoring in film at Middlebury wasn’t what my parents expected,” he told me. “When I came to Middlebury, I planned to major in computer science. It’s what I thought I wanted. It’s what I told them I was interested in. But then I took a course on film history because it seemed interesting. I never looked back. Here I am, a senior, a film and media studies major. I’ve found my calling.”

I believe he’s right. I’ve seen his work—it’s beautiful and inspired—and I’ve seen his passion for his field of study. I see how happy and rewarded he is as he satisfies the requirements of his major—all because he chose to take a chance and explore a subject away from his planned focus.

This student’s story is one of dozens I’ve heard from current students. I’ve heard often about how before Middlebury, they believed their lives were on certain paths—a major, a career, a destination—and how a deviation from those paths took them into lives more surprising and more rewarding than they’d expected.

It’s also a story I hear again and again from the Middlebury alumni I meet, and the lives I read about in these pages and so many others. Many of these lives bear little resemblance to the plans that existed at the start of college, or its end. A lawyer becomes an artist. An artist becomes a lawyer. An academic becomes an administrator. An apolitical person becomes an activist. A guidance counselor becomes a financial planner. A teacher becomes a novelist. A musician takes a chance to go live abroad, and a new career as a translator emerges.

What allows for this kind of flexibility, resilience, openness to opportunity? In large part, I believe, it is the kind of liberal arts education offered at Middlebury. As our understanding of the world expands, that education expands, too. With participation from our students, as well as our faculty, we continue to examine and update our liberal arts curriculum to ensure that it is best preparing our students for the world that they’re living in. This includes broadening the curriculum to encourage and prompt students to diversify their interests and deepen their understanding of the world.

In preparing our students broadly, we prepare them for the unexpected paths, the twists and turns (both sharp and gentle) that define most every life. Our response to those unexpected opportunities depends on what we know about ourselves and the world around us. A Middlebury education does not make the path easy—it’s preparation for the tough path ahead.

Sometimes it’s a matter of choice. You choose a major after finding a course, or a professor, that delights you, and you find you keep going back for more. You choose to study abroad in another language, not your first, and in an unexpected region—Yaoundé, Cameroon, rather than Poitiers, France; or Montevideo, Uruguay, rather than Madrid, Spain.

Other times, it’s a lack of choice—a class you have to take because the course you want is closed. The room, or roommate, you have to choose because your plans fell apart. The job you accept after you’re turned down for the one you want.

Often, it’s about the work you think and feel you are ready for, rather than the position or title or even identity that you might be taking on. When people ask me, “How did a scholar of early Indian history and culture become an educational leader?” I respond that, at every moment of decision in my career, I asked myself what kind of work I could do that would be the most service to the world. Then I knew I was authentically responding to the opportunities the world was offering, rather than simply fulfilling a role or holding a title.

I’ve turned down leadership roles because, even though the role might have been attractive, I knew someone else would be better for the job, and I wouldn’t be authentically responding to an opportunity for service. Viewed in that light, the script and the journey both unfold in unexpected ways.

I make it a point to emphasize to all students—new and returning—how important it is to be willing to go down the unexpected path when opportunities arise—even if it leads to what one might perceive as failure.

It’s important—necessary—to move toward the uncertainty, rather than demand what we expected, to follow the script that we believe was written for us—even if, in truth, that’s not how the script goes.

Because there is no script.