Opinion: Administrative malaise

Published in the Mountainview

Two recent, seemingly separate actions by Middlebury College, one internal, and one public, have drawn attention to the changes planned for the future of the College. There is significant concern among students, alumni, staff, faculty, and local residents about these changes; these concerns are well-founded and deserve clear, direct responses from College administration officials.

The first, an internal event, is the termination of the Sig Ep social house. The circumstances surrounding this event are serious, and demonstrate tremendous culpability on the part of all involved, including potential negligence by College officials. Over the years, single-sex fraternities have been driven off-campus and underground; now it appears that co-ed social houses will face the same fate. Current students complain that the specter of the Commons system as the only source of social events is bleak. The major criticism of the Commons system, and indeed of recent changes in the social house system, is that small, specialized groups are forced into all-inclusiveness. This ruins a sense of common identity which first fraternities, and then social houses, felt within themselves and used to distinguish themselves from the other houses on campus.

I am not suggesting that we return to the days of discrimination, sexual harassment, and worse. I am, however, suggesting that the opposite of discrimination, all-inclusiveness, has clearly not solved the deeper social problems of sexual politics and intoxicated misconduct. The College's attempt at a "quick fix" has failed. Social houses, Commons, and academic interest houses will always have deeper societal problems until the College takes them on directly.

This in no way absolves students of responsibility or accountability; it does, however, place the College in its proper role: a model of behavior and community participation and improvement. At this time, the College has abdicated that role.

The second event, the College's master plan, recently conditionally approved by the town Planning Commission, further indicates College abandonment of responsibility. The first major blemish on the plan is the priority given to renovation of Starr Library: in the third tier, to begin within five years. For a College with almost an entire top administration made up of faculty members, this is a tragic flaw. The library is in drastic need of renovation immediately; the mold on the first floor in 1994-1995 was only the beginning of the end for a building which still lacks a proper ventilation/climate control system.

The administration has forgotten what, above all else, makes Middlebury attractive to students: academics. President McCardell has declared that this will be the "college of choice" in the twenty-first century. By deciding that the library will not be renovated until two years into that century, he has doomed that goal to ignominious failure. He has taken a decisive action to decrease the value of every Middlebury degree ever granted, including those to be conferred this weekend, and in May.

President McCardell and his administration are the employees of every student and every graduate. We employ them to keep the value of a Middlebury degree at its peak. He asks, "What does it mean to have gone to Middlebury?" The answer, all too soon, will be, "A very large tuition bill and a meaningless piece of parchment from an institution whose reputation is at its nadir."

Executive Vice President and College Treasurer David Ginevan has written of the College's fiduciary duty towards its land. He and his colleagues have neglected to consider its fiduciary duty towards its alumni and to its students.

Administrative neglect is rampant at Middlebury. It is a time when it is difficult for the trustees to make significant changes in the administration: we are halfway through a major $100 million capital campaign for the College's bicentennial. Yet the trustees must see that the damage being done to the College at present will be almost impossible to reverse. Action must be taken now, before our degree values plummet at the same time as tuition and enrollment skyrocket. Students must refuse to acknowledge an administration which is doing them nothing but disservice. Students must demand that change occur immediately. Alumni must support the students in their efforts, and contact their friends and colleagues to ensure the success of this initiative.

Opinion: Reconciliation begins

Published in the Mountainview

Middlebury College has run afoul of town officials and residents many times in the past two years. These were outlined in a Burlington Free Press editorial on Sunday 12 January 1997. That editorial outlined a plan for Middlebury College to again become the town's college, and for the town to again resume the role of the college's town. This entailed, in large part, slowing the pace of initiatives coming down the hill from the College and into town offices. The Free Press also argued that the College should open dialogue with town residents and officials, and return to a policy of harmony with the town, rather than its current policy of harming the town.

Last Tuesday night, 7 January 1997, evidence, however slight, appeared that the College is willing to open the dialogue again. At developer Myron Hunt's request, the College sponsored an open forum for dialogue about the use of the Maple Manor property. Residents were asked specifically to come with ideas for its use and development. This was not to be, and was not, a free-for-all against Mr. Hunt, the College, or development in general.

Numerous speakers discussed their own ideas, or those of others. Suggestions were brought up which Mr. Hunt no doubt found instructive. One can only hope that the College, by far the largest developer in town, was also listening. President McCardell was in attendance, as were David Ginevan, Ron Liebowitz, Don Wyatt, College Forester Steve Weber, Director of Public Affairs Philip Benoit, and numerous faculty and staff. Sadly, there were no students to be seen.

Principles discussed by town residents included the advice to "think small. It's time for a change after two hundred years." A conference center was suggested, which the College could certainly use as well as other local businesses and organizations. A park, suggested by several residents, would adhere to the intention Mr. Ginevan claimed in a letter to faculty and staff in August 1996, to "contribute to the greenway around Middlebury." A sporting field, also suggested as a complement to the MUJHS campus, would serve as a greenspace as well as a resource for all town residents.

Guiding principles requested by speakers included conformance with the Town Plan (not only a nicety, but required by law), "asking not what the town can do for the College, but what the College can do for the town," and enhancing the character and quality of the Rt. 7 South area in the vicinity of Key Bank. Mixed uses were suggested, based not only in thoughtful ideas but also in the mixed-use zoning criterion of the Village Residential-Commercial zoning desigation of the Maple Manor and adjoining property.

Criticism was voiced by several people, who complained that though the meeting was billed as a forum and introduced by President McCardell as a dialogue, there was no response from either Mr. Hunt or the College. This request was left unfulfilled. The next issue of the Addison Independent indicated that there would not be a continuation of dialogue from the College's point of view. President McCardell expressed his satisfaction that the College was no longer involved with the controversial issue, and could move on.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Middlebury College owns the land; the College must choose to sell the land or to develop it on its own. The College has decided to sell, but even in the act of selling may not shirk its fiduciary duties.

Now is the time to take advantage of positive momentum, the first positive momentum the College has had with the town public in two years. Now is the time for President McCardell and other officers of the College to walk down from the hill, as George Bush walked from Capitol Hill to the White House after his inauguration, to show that they are humble and human and trustworthy. The College has a unique window of opportunity, as the College Bicentennial approaches, to make town-College relations stronger than ever. To miss that opportunity would surely color the next two hundred years of the College's history. John McCardell is an historian. He would not want to be remembered as the man who forgot history. He has a chance today to change history for the better. We must encourage and support him in that effort.