Our regular recap of goings on at the College and a look ahead to events on the horizon. As always, we hope to call your attention to items that captured ours and alert you to events that you won’t want to miss. If you have a news item that you think we’d be interested in, drop us a line at middmag@middlebury.edu.
- As if on cue, the snow started falling last Friday just in time for the 89th annual Winter Carnival. Sadly, it was too little too late for the Nordic teams, who headed for snowier trails in Stowe, while the alpine events took place at the Snow Bowl as planned. The Middlebury ski teams had a final score of 724 to tie with UNH for third overall.
- On Sunday, men’s basketball lost the oh-so-close NESCAC title to Amherst but will be making their fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance this weekend here at home when they take on Morrisville at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. Albertus Magnus and St. Joseph’s of Long Island play at 5:30 p.m., and the winners of both games will meet Saturday at 7 p.m. for the final showdown.
- Writing for the CNN blog “The Global Public Square,” political science professor Allison Stanger questions not just the sheer violence of the U.S. military burning Qurans at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan but why on earth Americans are burning books of any kind at all.
- Hoping to work the green fields on green “fuel,” a group of physics students—with the guidance of two alums from the class of 1956—are rebuilding a 1948 tractor engine to run on hydrogen. WCAX covered the story on Monday.
- On Thursday, catch an Axinn Center screening of the documentary “Little House in the Big House,” produced by dance department artist in residence Tiffany Rhynard and her sister, Kim Brittenham. The film follows inmates of the Vermont state women’s prison as they build a modular home as part of a work program and discuss the challenges of incarceration and re-entering society.
- The Performing Arts Series welcomes another gem on Friday at 8 p.m. in the Mahaney Center for the Arts Concert Hall. Pianist Steven Osborne, whose most recent recordings of the complete Ravel works are world renowned, will play an all-Ravel program.
- Don’t miss the women’s hockey team as they take the ice to host the 2012 NESCAC Championship in Kenyon Arena, playing Trinity on Saturday at 1 p.m. while Amherst meets Bowdoin at 4 p.m. The winners play the title game on Sunday at 2 p.m.
- Listen up for some Latina wisdom as writer in residence Julia Alvarez , Dean of the College Shirley Collado, and Aya Gallego ’13 share a cross-generational discussion on Latin Americans, migration, and coming-of-age on Monday evening at 7 p.m. in the Crossroads Café.