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.
- First African American to receive a degree from an American college or university (Middlebury, in 1823); first black man to serve in a state legislature. He was duly recognized as a distinguished citizen, but did Alexander Twilight’s contemporaries even know he was black? History professor Bill Hart shared surprising insights on VPR’s Vermont Edition.
- In a joint wake-up call, seven students got up early last Saturday to present to the Board of Trustees their case for Middlebury’s divestment from fossil fuel companies. Student-run Middblog.com talked to the students about the experience.
- Winter Carnival! Swimming! Diving! Hockey! Hoops! Check out recent Panther action.
- Never mind the beltway intrigue on House of Cards. Students Anna Esten ’14 and Luke Carroll Brown ’14.5 have interned at the White House and worked on Elizabeth Warren’s hard-fought Massachusetts campaign. Spend lunchtime this Thursday with their tales of the power-hungry and learn if there’s a seat for women at the grown-ups’ table.
- Mark Tercek, President and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, visits this week as Middlebury’s 2013 Global Environmentalist-in-Residence. He’ll work with students, visit classes, and give a talk Thursday afternoon about preserving “green infrastructure,” Nature’s Fortune: How Business and Society Thrive by Investing in Nature.
- Get your slam on Friday night as two forces for poetry performance converge in Dana at 8:00. Buddy Wakefield is a two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champion (is there a belt?) and The Striver’s Row is a group of young performers (and high-end grad students) who’ve played both the Apollo Theater and the White House.
- You think Mondays are hard for you? At least you’re not in a Russian prison, like Pussy Riot. Russia’s premier rock critic and fearless oppositionist Artemy Troitsky returns to Middlebury Monday, February 25, for a talk, “Enemies of the State: Pussy Riot and the New Russian Protest Rock.