I also want to applaud your willingness to open yourself to comments and reflections. Students trust you and are inspired by your work (see the comments above both the challenges and praise) to attest to this.

I say it as much as I can, but I am really happy you are here.

Tara

If administrators like you truly want students to understand that it is acceptable for us to challenge the status quo you have to demonstrate that you respect our efforts for change on a school level. If you do not want students to feel discouraged by bureaucracy and by administrators working to maintain the status quo, you need to create a space for students to enact change right here and right now.

Thanks for addressing this issue, it means so much.

Hanna

I’d love to hear more not only on the questions you ask “What’s your internal drive? Where do you hesitate to go, intellectually, socially, and culturally? What would happen if you just decided to do it?” but also on WHY people don’t just do it – are there obstacles here that make others hesitate or shy away from their internal drives? Or do they just need to see some others succeed prior to taking their own first steps?

To teach and to live among 18 – 24 year olds is a challenge to one’s imagination and will — I feel it this week given my exhaustion. Both Twilight and Willard, as we note their respective accomplishments, did very simple things, small things: educate themselves and others by being grounded in the moment; they occupied this moment by imagining something else, something different.

Given our state of affairs, now thinking globally, the biggest challenge I see is to imagine. I find that this is a place we’ve yet to inhabit.

Thank you for your work, Shirley!

Although Alexander Twilight was certainly part black, he was actually, as we can see from his picture, very white looking, which could have contributed greatly to why he was able to get through Middlebury. From what I have been able to find and what I have been told in the past is that the majority of his direct ancestors were actually white: his mother was white was his father was mixed race. This revelation, in addition to his Caucasian appearance makes the claim that he was the first black man to graduate college a little misleading. This is in no means a moral comment on his “iron will,” by all accounts he came up from poverty and went on to live a very successful life, however, his life arc was probably influenced by the fact that in many contexts he could pass for white.

While I believe we should proudly embrace the historical figures associated with us, I believe we at Middlebury are much less defined by tradition than by our vision of the future. Our institutional strength is that we are constantly evolving so, despite our association with important historical figures, we are defined by those who have yet to make an impact. The only status quo I believe our community should embrace is critical awareness of ourselves and our global environment and a commitment to self-improvement.