One Dean’s View

It was a pleasure meeting many of you yesterday when I saw you during Voices of the Class in Mead Chapel and addressing you last night. I was struck by the high energy and enthusiasm of your class, and I look forward to getting to know you over the next four years. As you settle in to Middlebury’s life and pace, I hope you will soon feel at home here.

One of the most rewarding aspects of my job is having the opportunity to learn more about our incredible students—the personal stories that make up their lives, what they hoped for before they arrived here and hope for in the future, what their families have sacrificed in order for them to attend Middlebury. By the time our seniors graduate, they have become so much more to me than names on a list or faces passing by on campus. They are friends and colleagues—people for whom I have a great deal of respect and admiration.

This month marks the conclusion of my third year blogging for One Dean’s View. It seems like a good time to assess the blog’s future. Where should it go from here? I would like your opinion.

The blog has had very good readership over the last three years, with people visiting from off and on campus. But my hope that One Dean’s View would become a dynamic forum for open discussion hasn’t materialized the way I’d hoped. Over the last many months, readers have stopped commenting publically, using e-mail instead. I know of one instance where the discussion took place on a social media site.

This week, my guest blogger is Leah Fessler ’15. As a Narrative Journalism Fellow and contributor to middbeat.org and the Campus, she’s learned a thing or two about interacting face-to-face. Please join in the discussion; your comments are always welcome. —Shirley M. Collado
 

“I’m actually not on Facebook anymore.”

Not too long ago, I’d roll my eyes upon hearing this statement, instinctively dismissing the speaker: their loss. When I entered high school in 2007, Facebook was a rite of passage, a patiently awaited privilege. I undeniably associated my acceptance to “the Wellesley High School Facebook network” with maturity and social opportunity.

On April 17-19, the students who have been admitted to the Class of 2017 and their families will be visiting Middlebury to see if our community is where they would like to spend the next four years. They will be trying to “experience Middlebury,” and I hope we can all make them feel at home.

I want to welcome all of our visitors to campus and invite them to ask any of us for help, directions, or for answers to any questions they may have—we are here to help. I also want to encourage Middlebury students to participate in those activities that offer opportunities for our guests to mingle with current students, faculty, and staff. The Preview Days schedule is available online.

The visiting students receive a Preview Days booklet, which includes among its pages a list of sample questions to ask while here, such as: Tell me about your favorite professor. What did you take for J-term? Or, what’s your favorite Middlebury tradition?

Every spring semester, I shake off the winter routine by taking a short, weekly “break” from my role as dean to teach a class. It’s one of my favorite things to do as a teacher, clinical psychologist, and college administrator.

Several weeks ago, I invited students interested in writing guest posts for this blog to contact me. Happily, one of them was Zane Anthony ’16.5, who writes today about his gap semester. —Shirley M. Collado

By 12th grade, I developed a senioritis so bleak and merciless that I felt like a crayon in a crayon box, trapped in darkness and ill fated to an existence of ambiguous pigeonholing and childhood neglect. Flustered and thundering inside, I felt exceedingly tired, wondering whether the few months of summer would be enough for me to recharge and “sort things out.” Too soon, I would find myself once again submersed in gray classroom grinds, committed to a near future in the progressive locale of Addison County, Vermont.

Anyone who pays attention to the news gets a regular dose of misery, as media outlets, and the people they quote, seem to vie for more alarming ways to recount the gridlock, stonewalling, and infighting of our nation’s leaders.

This week, my guest blogger is Rachel Sider ’14.  Rachel is a tireless advocate for many causes, and she encourages students to work together on behalf of issues that matter to them. She has worked with such groups as the national student organization J Street U, Community Council, Somali-Bantu ESL Tutoring Group, Juntos, and the Judicial Board Selection Committee.

I always enjoy hearing students’ viewpoints about issues they are concerned about, and would like to encourage any students who are interested in being considered as guest bloggers to contact Jennifer Herrera or me.

—Shirley M. Collado

Growing up reading the newspaper over breakfast each morning and hearing stories about far-off lands from my journalist grandfather cultivated in me a yearning to address global problems. That is ultimately why I chose to attend Middlebury. Despite its rural location, the curriculum, student body, and campus initiatives focus far beyond the surrounding sheep farms and rolling pastures—they aim to address the international community and its challenges.

Welcome back!  I hope you had a rejuvenating holiday break and that you are looking forward to an exciting J-term.n One of the things I love about this time of year is the snow. Many of us longed for it last winter because it was in short supply. This is why I was delighted to return from being away for the holidays to so much of it. In the past two weeks alone we received more snow than we did all last year. I find that the snow-covered ground offers a sparkling brightness to the darkness of winter.