Middlebury Magazine

  • Recent Stories
  • Menu
    • Features
    • Pursuits
    • Q&A
    • Editor’s Note
    • Old Chapel
    • Road Taken
    • Review
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • How Did You Get Here Series
    • About
    • Advertising
    • Contact
    • Support
    • Writers’ Guidelines
  • Search

Dispatches

Catching Up With Chellsa Ferdinand

Our colleagues in Athletic Communications talk to the recent graduate about her experience on the volleyball team, her leadership of the Black Student Union, her thoughts on the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, and more.

By Ali Paquette
Photograph by Will Costello
July 15, 2020
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • Email icon

Chellsa Ferdinand graduated from Middlebury in May. She majored in political science, played volleyball for four years, was an opinion editor for the Campus, and served on the board of the Black Student Union.

Our colleagues in Athletic Communications recently caught up with Chellsa—she is now working as a corporate paralegal for Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton based out of New York City—and we’re thrilled to cross-post the Q&A here.

Can you talk about your time on the board of the Black Student Union (BSU)?

It was one of the most fulfilling experiences of my time at Middlebury.

A group of friends and I joined the BSU because we felt the organization had fallen into a state of disrepair. We found its leadership as well as its direction to be muddied; student engagement with the organization was at an all-time low. And we wanted to revamp it.

As a coalition of students with vested interests in our community, my friends and I took it upon ourselves to generate interest in the BSU once again. That meant pushing for a new round of elections to usher in a board of BSU leaders the Middlebury student community felt represented by. It also meant creating a sense of pride among Black students.

As one of the board members, I oversaw the creation of countless events, from movie screenings at the Middlebury Marquis of Black Panther, for example, to the installation of the “Night of Black Culture”––an evening dedicated to showcasing the amazingly talented Black students who make Middlebury so great. My close friend and I ended up doing a stand-up skit, integrating the tips and tricks we had acquired in our Black Comic Cultures class with Professor J Finley. Moments like these, I will cherish the most. We made the BSU an organization that students could take pride in. As I say at the outset, it was one of the most fulfilling experiences of my time at Middlebury College.

Since the Black Lives Matter movement has gained national traction, what has that been like for you? Are there things you are doing to participate in the movement? 

Black lives have not historically mattered in this country. But the advent of the cell phone has proven to be a catalyst of change. With video recording, Black people now have the ability to document the general racism and apathy with which our Black lives are regarded. No more. COVID-19 has thrown the entire world into a freefall. Americans are hurting right now. Especially Black Americans at the hands of police officers. We are a nation in pain. The onset of COVID-19 has exposed the flaws of our system that many claim to just now comprehend.

The Black Lives Matter movement has gained such traction because we, as a country, are flailing. If you are lucky, you are sitting at home, perhaps even working from home, left to the distractions only offered by your smartphone. Before COVID-19, it was much easier to be complicit in racism—life in capitalist society has a way of pulling one away from activities that aren’t directly related to either economic gain or economic consumption so that we can enjoy the capital provided by our toiling. COVID-19 has completely changed the way the average American lives. We are home now; most families will have spent more time together during this quarantine than they have in past years. The horrors of systemic racism are circulating over the web, being viewed from phone to phone, and for once Americans cannot escape the grueling realities that Black people face every day in this country for having the audacity to exist.

And so, to participate in the Black Lives Matter movement, I am simply existing. It is exhausting to realize that in 2020, Americans are just now bearing witness to the racism Black Americans have experienced over the last 400 years. I have donated to various GoFundMe campaigns to support the lives and deaths of the countless number of Black Americans who fall victim to police brutality and violence. I have also signed various petitions to arrest the police officers responsible for the racist murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Sean Reed, and others. But most importantly, I have been focusing on enjoying my life. My existence is revolutionary; my success an act of God. There are so many incentives for the Black person to fail, to become yet another statistic. I refuse to let my story end there. In fact, it is just beginning.

You mentioned you were the only person of color on the volleyball team. What was that experience like?

Being one of the few people of color on a volleyball team was not a particularly uncommon experience for me. Volleyball is a historically white sport; on most of my high school volleyball teams, I was one of either two or three other athletes of color. At Middlebury, however, I was the only one. It didn’t serve to isolate me as much as it served as a reminder of my difference. It was this difference that often made me wonder just how disparate my experience on the Middlebury College’s women’s volleyball team would have been if I was situated in this world differently. If I were poor, for example, or if I hadn’t grown accustomed to operating in predominantly white spaces, perhaps my experience on the volleyball team would have been completely reimagined. But I was fortunate enough to have the necessary “tools” to fit in with my team. I had the economic capital to splurge at the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op or purchase the latest pair of designer athletic wear, and I believe that made the difference between being viewed as “other” and being viewed as “normal.”

Although I am different from my teammates because I am Black, I often didn’t feel that way. This can be partially chalked up to me being a lighter-skinned Black person. By that, I mean to say that my adjacency to whiteness worked somewhat in my benefit. I’m not sure if I would have been viewed as favorably or even held in the same regard if I were of a darker skin color. Before my teammates met my parents (who are both light-skinned Black people themselves), I could tell there was a bit of curiosity surrounding my skin color. Was my mother white and my father Black, or was my mother the Black one and my dad the white guy? One teammate remarked that my hair appeared to be too “kinky” for me to be a mixed-race child. The colonial fixation on exoticism, on being mixed race, is strange—but I know that being this iteration of myself worked in my favor.

Nonetheless, being a part of the Middlebury women’s volleyball team was one of the most enriching experiences I had in college. I got to play the sport that I loved with women I’d come to call my friends. My team was an outlet for me; I accepted them and they accepted me. I learned a great deal about life from these ladies. I learned how to manage conflict and drama; I learned how to motivate others to bring out only the best in each other, I learned that all those hours training together, on the court and off the court, had amounted to something. In many ways, being a part of my team was a lesson in how to navigate life. I am so grateful for my teammates and the times we shared together. I don’t think I could have survived college without them.

Talk about your experience as an opinion editor for the Middlebury Campus. Do you have a favorite piece you wrote?

Working as an opinion editor for the Campus was an activity I genuinely enjoyed during my time at Middlebury. Every meeting was an opportunity to learn something new, to stay current with the political climate, to meet and work with so many driven and like-minded individuals.

In many ways, it was also a lesson in life. There, I learned that my experience at Middlebury was just one of many competing and complex lived experiences. The purpose of my position was to bring to light the very voices that made Middlebury the place that some of us had come to know and love. Oftentimes that meant looking outside of the scope of the student body; it meant collaborating with staff members and with local Middlebury residents.

Working in this role deepened my connection to the external Middlebury community. I am proud to say that members of the Campus worked tirelessly this past semester to support and cover the distress many workers felt over the yearlong workforce planning cuts. As an editorial board of equally invested community members, we felt compelled to support the local Middlebury community. We recognized, nonetheless, that our investments were not entirely equal to those who depended on the College for their livelihood. In our unique position, we thought we could serve as the platform that elevated the voices of those afraid to speak publicly.

If I had to choose one piece, I suppose it would be one of the first editorials I wrote for the Campus. That week, as a board, we decided to write about the importance of supporting small businesses––businesses not too different from the many mom-and-pop stores found in Middlebury, Vermont. At the time of the article’s publication, two stores in town had recently closed due to the competitive fierceness of e-commerce. The article was a call for the Middlebury student population to bolster the community that would become their own over the next four years. It was then that I realized that billion-dollar corporations like Amazon completely decimate local towns, pressuring them to sell the businesses that have intrinsically been a part of the local town infrastructure and replace them with the next no-name corporation. That, among many other lessons, was just one of the many things I will take away from my time at the Campus.

There are so many incentives for the Black person to fail, to become yet another statistic. I refuse to let my story end there. In fact, it is just beginning."

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent Stories

Features

The Road(s)

A little over a year ago, a writing student headed south to Florida for no other reason than J-Term was forced to go remote. She soon found herself reporting on an environmental justice battle that was roiling the state.

By Alexandra Burns '21.5
Illustrations by Yevgenia Nayberg
March 2, 2022

Reverberations

A transcontinental move, a career discovered, a landmark speech studied and translated—and an identity reshaped.

By Clara Clymer, MA Translation '22
Illustration by Anna Gusella
March 2, 2022

Cult Fiction

With absurdist, yet endearing dramedies dominating popular culture, a couple of recent Midd grads have added a new title to the canon with the wonderful Youtube series The Deli People.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Photographs courtesy of L.T. Stenello Productions
February 4, 2022
Abstract illustration of a person with correspondence letters floating in the wind surrounding them.

Dear Friends . . .

On writing through grief.

By Bianca Giaever ’12.5
Illustration by Nicole Xu. Photographs by Paul Dahm
May 11, 2021

Dispatches

Sonic Art

What began as an attempt by Matthew Evan Taylor to collaborate with fellow musicians during the isolation of the pandemic ended up being a yearlong project that culminated in an evening performance at the Met.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Photograph by Josiah Bania
April 15, 2022

Poetry, In Exile

After fleeing civil unrest in her native Venezuela, a Middlebury Institute graduate student turned to poetry to help make sense of it all.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Illustrations by Anonymous
January 21, 2022

Inside the Ant Chamber

A visit to a Bi Hall lab affords an up-close encounter with an extremely social cohort of insects.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Clint Penick
November 12, 2021

Twenty Minutes, Twenty Years

Reflections on 9/11 as a New Yorker and Muslim American.

By Daleelah Saleh '23
Illustration by Davide Bonazzi
September 23, 2021

It’s in the Wash

Moyara Ruehsen separates fact from creative fiction in the world of criminal finance.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Elena Zhukova
September 9, 2021

From Stage to Screen

Doug Anderson has plenty of experience directing opera. But with his latest production, he faced new and unusual challenges.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Photograph by Erica Furgiuele
September 2, 2021

Film Feast

The seventh season of the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival includes films from talented members of the Middlebury College community.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Photo by Mia Fichman ’19
August 19, 2021

Rock On

NASA has grand plans to collect rock samples on Mars and eventually return the material to Earth. And Drew Gorin '16 is part of a team tasked with figuring out where to collect the bounty.

By Andrew Cassel
Illustration by James Yang
July 15, 2021

A Close Study

How an art history course dedicated to an 11th-century masterpiece concluded with an unusual assignment.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Andrew Cassel
June 30, 2021
View All

Pursuits

Public Defender

On becoming one of the country's foremost cybersecurity experts.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Illustration by Neil Webb
April 14, 2022

Q&A

The Making of a Teacher

Hebrew Professor Michal Strier reflects on her life an education—in Israel and the States—a journey that led the Language School instructor to the undergraduate College for the first time this year.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Paul Dahm
May 19, 2022

Editor’s Note

A Brilliant Fogg

Saying goodbye to a dear colleague and friend.

By Matt Jennings
Illustration by Jody Hewgill
February 25, 2020

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 Bernal
November 11, 2021

Road Taken

What to Wear Now

Through accrued life experiences, a writer discovers that a common question has become a statement of identity.

By Samantha Hubbard Shanley ’99
Illustration by Naomi Clarke
March 11, 2021

Quotation

A summer immersed in a language can do wonders, as veterans of Middlebury College’s famous language-learning program can attest. The lockdown is clearly going to amount to the equivalent of about two summers, and there are mini-Middleburys happening in millions of houses worldwide.”

—John McWhorter, writing “The Coronavirus Generation Will Use Language Differently” in the Atlantic.

Podcasts

Alone Together, Ep. 9 with Jessica St. Clair ’98 and Dan O’Brien ’96

Dan O'Brien ’96, a playwright and poet, and Jessica St. Clair ’98, a comedian and writer, join President Patton for our final check in with the community during COVID-19 self-isolation. Dan and Jessica are a true power couple in the arts that met in a Middlebury improv group. They discuss Dan's magazine essay "Life Shrinks: Lessons from Chemo Quarantine," how reopening the country feels a lot like remission, and how their art is evolving to reflect the pandemic.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
June 15, 2020

Alone Together, Ep. 8 with Dick Clay, Covid-19 Survivor

In this episode, Dick Clay, a student at the Bread Loaf School of English, shares his story of recovering from COVID-19. Dick discusses when the seriousness of the virus hit him, the "wilderness path to recovery," and how he will process this experience through writing.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
June 8, 2020

Alone Together, Ep. 7 with Jodie Keith and Jacque Bergevin, Essential Workers

In this episode, we hear from Jodie Keith and Jacque Bergevin, who have been working with custodial services to keep our Vermont campus safe and clean. Jodie and Jacque share what campus has been like since the students left: what it's like to schedule hourly sanitation of buildings, how every day feels like an empty Saturday morning, and that the infamous Middlebury squirrels have lost a bit of weight.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
Photography by Bob Handelman
June 1, 2020

Review

Editors’ Picks for March and April

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
April 4, 2022

How Did You Get Here?

Megan Job

By Alexandra Burns '21
February 15, 2021

Leif Taranta

By Alexandra Burns '21
February 15, 2021

Mikayla Haefele

By Alexandra Burns '21
February 15, 2021

Videos

Pomp and Unusual Circumstances

As viewed from above.

By Chris Spencer
June 1, 2021

Davis the Owl Returns Home

Having recovered from life-threatening injuries, a beautiful winged creature is released to its natural habitat.

By Andrew Cassell
April 22, 2021

In the Blink of an Eye

Gone in less than a minute—the middle of June 2019 to the middle of June 2020, as viewed from the rooftop of the Mittelman Observatory.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
Video by Jonathan Kemp/Mittelman Observatory
June 10, 2020
Middlebury College
  • Alumni
  • Newsroom
  • Contact Us
  • icon-instagram

The views presented are not necessarily those of the editors or the official policies of the College.

© 2022 Middlebury College Publications.