Several recent events on the Institute campus touched on the theme of inclusion—an important value across Middlebury programs:
- Allies at MIIS, a student group dedicated to understanding racism and privilege and promoting a more racially equitable campus, have hosted two sessions of their discussion series “disMIISing prejudice,” on September 13 and October 25. They will hold the third session on December 8.
- On November 3 and 4, Professor Pushpa Iyer’s Center for Conflict Studies hosted its annual conference entitled “Breaking Through Shades of Color: Transforming Race Relations and Conflict.” As always, this conference brought us compelling guest speakers with powerful messages, showcased student research, and sparked substantive conversation on challenging issues. A highlight was the keynote address by Peggy McIntosh on white privilege.
- Also on November 3, the Graduate School of Translation, Interpretation and Language Education hosted a talk by Stanford linguistic anthropologist Jonathan Rosa entitled “Toward a Raciolinguistic Approach to Language, Identity, and Inequality.”
- On November 9, in response to the election news, VPAA and Dean of the Institute Jeff Dayton-Johnson invited members of the MIIS community to a Student Council sponsored gathering to share thoughts and feelings, support each other, and affirm our commitment to inclusion in the face of the divisiveness and bigotry that have characterized the presidential campaign and election.
- On November 10, MIIS faculty staff and students joined a Community-Initiated Conversation on an Inclusive Middlebury, organized by Baishakhi Taylor and Roberto Lint Sagarena. Small breakout groups discussed two questions: what does inclusivity really look like for a newly complex institution? Think big M; and how can we make everyone feel like an equal stake holder? Reports from each breakout group, and the general discussion that followed, are being compiled to share with the Envisioning Middlebury Steering Committee. Thanks to Pushpa Iyer and Ryan Kasmier for helping to assemble a thoughtful and eloquent group of MIIS community members to contribute to the conversation.
- Finally, on November 15, MIIS alumni Aaron Ebner and Adam Stieglitz, co-directors of the Andean Alliance for Sustainable Development, gave a presentation, co-hosted by the Center for Social Impact Learning and the Digital Learning Commons, on their development process, which takes an inclusive approach drawing upon the resilience of their client communities, and the practices that have evolved locally.
