Tag Archives: library

Mental Health Awareness Month

Literatures and Cultures Librarian Katrina Spencer interviews Madeline “Maddie” Hope, the Assistant Director of Health & Wellness Education, for Mental Health Awareness Month. Visit the Davis Family Library to engage with a thematic display on this topic. Credits go to Dr. Raquel Albarrán of the Department of Luso-Hispanic Studies and students Jayla Johnson, Class of 2021, and Myles Maxie, Class of 2022, for the display’s design. Special thanks to Barbara Walter, Kat Cyr, Laura Kearley and Joseph Watson.

Professor Raquel Albarrán, Myles Maxie and Librarian Katrina Spencer pose with the Mental Health Awareness Month Display.
Professor Raquel Albarrán, Myles Maxie, Class of 2022, and Literatures & Cultures Librarian Katrina Spencer set up the Mental Health Awareness Month Display in the Davis Family Library lobby.

Katrina Spencer (KS): Hi, who are you? How long have you been here? What do you do on campus?

Maddie Hope (MH): Hi! I’m Maddie Hope. I’ve worked at Middlebury since July of 2018. I am a Health Educator, which means I provide trainings, one-on-one discussions and programs about topics related to health and wellness for students. My areas of focus are mental health, alcohol use and cannabis use. Come visit me in the Health and Wellness Education Office on the second floor of the Service Building. We have a massage chair!

Assistant Director of Health & Wellness Education Maddie Hope provides answers to important questions.

KS: What do you know about the display in the Davis Family Library?

MH: I know the display is focused on decreasing stigma related to discussing mental health challenges and providing different resources that can be accessed for support.

KS: Why is it important to reduce stigma surrounding mental health and illness?

MH: So often when people are struggling with mental health, they are also having a hard time connecting to themselves or others and stigma, or judgment, can make this problem worse. Stigma about mental health and mental illness is often the largest barrier to seeking support and feeling understood. These are two of the most important curative factors for mental health challenges. When we seek to understand the challenges others are facing rather than meeting them with judgment, we pave the way for healing.

KS: What resources are available on campus? To students? Staff? Faculty?

MH: For students, there is the Parton Center for Health and Wellness. Students can choose to speak to a counselor or a health care provider for mental health support. To make an appointment with a counselor, students can call 802-443-5141, or visit their office on the third floor of Centeno House. You can also read about counseling staff on campus at go/counseling/. If students are interested in meeting with a health care provider, they can call 802-443-3290, or visit their office on the first floor of Centeno House to make an appointment.

For staff and faculty, Human Resources provides a confidential service called Employee and Family Assistance Program (EFAP) which can provide short-term counseling services on a variety of topics and serve as a referral source for more long term services. More information can be found at go/EFAP/ or by inquiring with Human Resources.

KS: Are there any mental health counselors of color? And if not, what can community members do when they are seeking cultural familiarity and competency in their mental health care services?

MH: The Counseling staff at Middlebury is predominantly white-identified, but the counseling center is commiting to actively recruiting counselors of a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds.

This can certainly be a challenge. Community members have a few options here. It might be valuable to consider beginning an online counseling relationship. It may be helpful to search for a clinician in your home community or in Burlington, VT. Some counselors may be open to meeting completely online, or have a few sessions in person and then offer online appointments.

A few resources for finding a therapist who can provide cultural familiarity include:

a screenshot of Therapy for Black Girls
A screenshot from the online directory Therapy for Black Girls

For additional reading and listening about how mental health challenges can be different for people of color consider the following:

KS: Thank you for those resources above. How might the Health and Wellness Education Office and the Libraries collaborate in reducing the stigma surrounding mental health?

MH: Often the library can be a place students experience many overwhelming emotions (e.g. feeling fatigued from studying, experiencing frustration or hopelessness about assignments or workload). I can see some exciting potential to explore having consistent stress management events in the library for students, faculty and staff to enjoy. Providing opportunities to explore strategies to address overwhelming emotions together helps to show support for those who may have a hard time discussing mental health challenges with others.

KS: Brilliant. Thank you for your time. Students, keep a look out for the Health & Wellness Education’s Stressbusters Calendar out May 6th!

ILLiad scheduled upgrade and down-time

The ILLiad Web pages will be down at 9:00 am on Tuesday 1/8/19 while we upgrade the ILLiad software.  The ILL web site should be inaccessible for only a short time, assuming all goes well with the update.

If anyone has problems after 2:00 pm please contact Rachel Manning at x5498 or rmanning@middlebury.edu for assistance.

100 Years And Counting!

The Spanish School, one of Middlebury’s 11 Language Schools, celebrates its 100th year. Here are a few words from current affiliated staff who have witnessed some of its evolutions.

Professor Joseph Casillas of the Spanish School (MA, Class of 2010) poses for a photo.

Names:      

JC: Joseph Casillas

LC: Laura Cabrera

KS: Katrina Spencer

Bilingual Assistant Laura Cabrera of the Spanish School is pictured here, in Middlebury gear.

Hometowns:

JC: Phoenix, Arizona

LC: Salamanca, Spain

KS: Los Angeles, California

Roles:

Middlebury’s Literatures & Cultures Librarian Katrina Spencer poses at the Research Desk in the Davis Family Library. Having obtained a master degree from the Spanish School in 2010, she now serves the school as the Language Schools’ library liaison.

JC: Professor.

LC: I’m a bilingual assistant in the Spanish School.

KS: Library liaison.

When did you first encounter the Spanish School?

JC: My first experience in Middlebury was in 2007 as an MA student in the Spanish school.

LC: I arrived to Middlebury in 1998 when I was a little girl because my dad [Carlos Cabrera] was a teacher in the Spanish School.

KS: I arrived to Middlebury in 2009 and graduated from the master program in 2010. I’d been looking for a school that would allow me to complete my degree overseas and this was one of the two I found.

Has your role always been the same?

JC: No. I spent two summers in the Spanish school finishing my MA. Afterwards I spent two consecutive summers in the French school, as a pure beginner in level 1 and the following summer in level 4. The following two years I returned to the Spanish school to work as a bilingual assistant, and the past 3 years I have worked as a professor in the undergraduate 7-week program.

LC: First I came as a dependent with my parents but since 2007 I’ve been working as a bilingual assistant at the Spanish School.

KS: No. At first I was a master student, then a non-degree seeking student in the Portuguese program and now I’m a librarian.

Over the summer, the Spanish School placed several banners in the atrium of the Davis Family Library to commemorate its centennial. This one documents its beginnings in 1917.

Tell us about the diversity of the program.

JC: The Spanish school program is rather diverse. In any given summer there are professors and students from most of the Spanish speaking countries in the world. The students are particularly diverse in many different ways. In terms of age, in my classes I have had students that just finished high school, all the way up to retirees that decided to learn Spanish for fun. But the student body at Middlebury is diverse in other ways as well. For example, I have had students that work as government agents, and other military special forces, as well as high school teachers of other languages.

LC: Faculty and staff come from different places around the world: Spain, Mexico, Cuba, United States, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, etc. And we have some students that are from different parts of the United States and other countries like India and China, so the Spanish School is culturally diverse.

KS: In terms of the faculty, without having to do much mental exercise at all, I know that Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Spain, and the United States are all represented. In terms of the student body, you find students aged 19-50+. That’s always something that has quite impressed me. During my first summer, we had a nun in our program and at least one student completing the doctorate of modern languages. People come to Middlebury for a wide array of reasons and from a variety of backgrounds. This year they have a lawyer who’s engaged in immigration law.

This banner reflects some of the most recent developments and cultural celebrations led by the Spanish School.

Over the years, what changes within the school and what remains the same?

JC: There are many things that stay the same. Middlebury, itself doesn’t change much. In the ten years that I have been around, the faculty hasn’t changed too much. Certain aspects of the program that we do every year typically stay the same, but every summer is unique in its own way because of the students. Sometimes there are students who repeat, and the graduate students typically spend multiple summers in the program, but the majority of the undergraduate students are new. It is always fun to see how diverse and talented they are. I’ve also seen many of the professors children grow up over the course of several summers. It truly is a unique experience.

LC: In my opinion, almost everything is the same as my first time here. Some people come back and some people don’t, but the main spirit of the “Spanish school family” is the same, summer after summer. Middlebury is like a bubble, no matter how you spent the whole year, if you go back for another summer, you’ll feel the last summer was yesterday instead of a year ago.

KS: Much of the professoriate remains the same! The Spanish School attracts and retains excellent instructors. Some have been teaching in the program more than 15 years. Mariluz Gutiérrez Araus and Mercedes Fernández-Isla are two of them. One change that I’ve noted is that program now has a website where students can follow its activities. It’s very colorful and up-to-date, reflecting the technology use of our time. Also, I believe we have a school site in Argentina now. Formerly students were able to complete a summer of study in Mexico, which I did, and now you can do it in South America. Oh, and the Literary Analysis students join together and receive a library orientation session in Spanish!

Literatures & Cultures Librarian Katrina Spencer poses with an “abanico,” a fan, designed for the centennial. Other accouterments for the 100th year celebration included buttons and “pañuelos,” scarves or handkerchiefs, all marked with the letter “ñ“.

How do you and your community within the Language Schools use the libraries and our resources?

JC: I used the library much more for research as an MA student. Since then, I mainly use the library for preparing classes and meeting with students.

LC: As an office manager at the Spanish School, I don’t use the library so often. We usually borrow some films to show and some tech devices we need for the events. I think the students use the library more often, like a studying place and using the resources: books, movies, etc.

KS: When I was a student, we graduate students used JSTOR quite heavily to find academic articles of literary criticism. This database is still popular among Language School students in general. The Spanish-language browsing collection that includes readings like Manolito Gafotas and music by flamenco-style singer Buika is also popular. In the instruction sessions I give, I really try to plug Lexis Nexis for finding news articles,  Kanopy for online film streaming and our Alexander Street vendor for listening to music online. There are also special carrels/study spaces in the library assigned to each language school.

What do you envision for the Spanish School’s future?

The Spanish School hosted a special dance party with live music to which all the Language Schools on the Vermont campus were invited to fete the centennial occasion.

JC: I think one of the big changes facing the program in the upcoming years is related to heritage speakers. Every summer we get more and more students with this profile, which makes sense because of the changing demographics in the US, and I hope to see explicit attention given to these students in the program’s curriculum moving forward.

LC: I don’t know what will will be the future of the Spanish School, but I’m sure it depends on the students because they are a different group every summer. So, like Joseph said, I think the heritage speakers will be a very important part of the program in the next years.

KS: Changes in the school will likely mirror changes in society, ¿no es cierto? Perhaps there will be more demand for courses representing Central America and indigenous populations as we have more people within the United States that represent that region. I imagine the school will become even more diverse as more people realize the importance of speaking Spanish merely as residents in the Western hemisphere. And I hope that more classes will request library instruction sessions so students can navigate our spaces with even greater confidence. 

 

Tibetan Peace Flag-Making at Middlebury College Library, Oct. 1-14

 

Students and the whole Middlebury community are invited to the Davis Family Library to make Tibetan Peace Flags that will decorate the building for the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. This is a chance to share your message of peace, thanksgiving and good will with the Dalai Lama and our whole community. Come and write your wishes, thoughts and prayers, or express your feelings by drawing or decorating your flag.

Tables with flag-making supplies will be set up in the library lobby from Oct. 1-14.  Flags will be on display in the library throughout October.

Search Everything!

New! Whether you want books, or newspaper articles, or images, you now can start in just one place. Summon is our newest and most effective tool for searching many resources at once, so we’ve put it right at the center of the library home page (look for the “Summon” tab in the “Library Quick Search” box). Summon searches just about everything we own. Try it out!

Library Quick Search

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Middlebury joins the Center for Research Libraries

The library is pleased to announce that Middlebury College has just become a member of the Center For Research Libraries (CRL) (http://www.crl.edu/).  CRL is a partnership of over 240 university, college, and independent research libraries.  Continue reading

Welcome, Bread Loaf and Language School Students!

We’re glad to have you here this summer.  Library and Information Services (LIS) offers a variety of research resources and technical support.
You’ll find starting points for our services online:
Let us know if you have any questions! For library assistance, ask a librarian (see Ask Us). For technical support, contact the HelpDesk (helpdesk@middlebury.edu, 802.443.2100, or the Walk-in Center on the Main Level of the Davis Family Library).