Gary Margolis is Executive Director of Counseling and Associate Professor of English. Karl Lindholm is Dean of Cook Commons and Assistant Professor of American Studies. Both are Middlebury graduates from the class of 1967.
1. You have worked with literally thousands of students over the years. Is there one student experience in particular that stands out for you?
Gary: How often our students, with support, humor and goodwill, can move from despair to resiliency.
Karl: It’s a tie between (1) the night of Winter Carnival in the 80s when I went to the Slug barn to help Public Safety (then Campus Security) close down a frat party at 2:00 a.m. that was infuriating its neighbors and when the house president said over the band’s microphone that the Dean was here and he says the music has to stop all in attendance chanted, “F___ the Dean!” and poured beer on the Campus Security officer- and (2) the occasion on a cold snowy Saturday morning of another Winter Carnival weekend when Dean of the College John Spencer and I called in an enormous earth mover (from a nearby construction site) to destroy the obscene snow sculptures (anatomically perfect) in front of the DU house first and then the Chi Psi house next, the earth mover rumbling up Main Street amid the cheers of the frat boys bedecked in bathrobes and u-trou. Ah the good old days. Then there was the raft race on Otter Creek, and the demo derby in front of one of the frat houses, and, oh yeah, the time Erica Wonnacott and I . . . .
2. What is your all time favorite Middlebury College sports memory?
Gary: If memory affords me: beating Plattsburgh in triple-overtime on their rink and driving home in a snow storm; winning our first lacrosse national championship at the University of Maryland and driving back to Midd with Mickey Heinecken; bus rides with my basketball teammates; seeing Karl on the mound.
Karl: April, 1965, Middlebury 5 – RPI 1, in baseball, the one good game I pitched in three years. Went the route, all nine innings. After the game, my new college girlfriend Anne and I went with friends down to Green Mountain Park in southern VT and enjoyed the thoroughbred races at that time – that was a good day.
3. In one sentence, what advice would you give a newly arriving first year student?
Gary: Asking questions of your professors and deans is a strength; keep the phrase, “progress not perfection” close to your heart.
Karl: Work hard; have fun; enjoy your friends; make new ones; don’t drink too much; spread out; grow; relax; take a deep breath; enjoy your surroundings (love those semi-colons – one sentence!).
4. What influence have students had on your style as an advisor and counselor?
Gary: To listen carefully for what is said and unsaid. To being open to the unique experience of each student and the wisdom they bring.
Karl: Are you kidding – a short answer? My job(s) has been about students. I have enjoyed my constituencies. My limitations have been in administering systems. I like it when students talk to me. I try to listen and respond honestly. At the outset, I remember what I felt as a student and what I needed so I have tried to be someone that I might have been able to talk to then, who I might have listened to, who didn’t condescend, but who leveled with me, and seemed to enjoy students, and life, who had some enthusiasm for the enterprise.
5. What is the most significant positive change you have seen at Middlebury since you graduated from the College in 1967?
Gary: That as the “Strength is in Our Hills,” it is also in the changing landscape of our contemporary students, from across the country and around the world, and in the ways they urge, require us to take each background and way of life into account.
Karl: The increased diversity in the student body, which has been the hallmark of the school’s effort and concern in all the years I’ve been here.