Nial Rele writes in to MiddBlog on the annual ISO show. Epic indeed:

Around late morning today, Michael Roy, the Dean of LIS announced by e-mail to the student body the total elimination of … (drum roll, please) telephone services in residence halls! In an effort to save some extra dollars – in fact, tens of thousands of dollars – the College pronounced the extinction of telephone services in all residence hall dorm rooms as of January 1, 2010.

The rationale? Simple: students that are unable to fulfill their social needs with a home phone go out and purchase prefer mobile phones to stationary ones. Home phones sit around doing nothing, wasting the College’s money and the phone company’s electricity (landlines require some to operate). To put our tuition money to better use during these rough times, the College decides to remove “active lines and phones [in] every student room.”

The LIS reports that “on a typical day, only around 300 incoming calls and just 120 outgoing calls are placed to or from student phones across campus.” However, in case there might be an “exceptional need” for a student to retain their dorm phone, the e-mail asks to fill out a form at this website by Sunday, November 15. The College promises to implement at least one public phone per floor in each residence hall this winter.

Frankly, that’s not a lot of calls made/received. I will bet you my cell phone winter coat that every year, more than half of the students in Middlebury College never even touch their dorm phones. All in all, the LIS is right about “the impact of this change [being] minimal,” unless you’re me last semester when I didn’t have a cell. I used my dorm phone for socializing to … a good amount of success.

Middblog wants to know: How have you used your dorm room phones, if ever? How do you think it will impact your life and the College experience? How would parents react to this? Will your friends be able to give you morning calls anymore?

Earlier this week, the SGA Finance Committee (FC) and the Middlebury Mountain Club (MMC) sent out a joint survey to students regarding the Middlebury Outdoor Orientation (MOO), a program cut last year by the school in an effort to save money. They asked students on a scale of one (opposed) to five (support), do they  ”support reviving the MOO program with partial funding from the Student Activities fee?”

As of Sunday, 525 responses were received — 54% (286) said they strongly support reviving the program (a five vote). 7% (37) said they were strongly opposed with 38% voting in between (see chart left).

The FC indicated that reinstating the program requires $20 per student, per year which is 5% of the $380 Student Activity Fee (SAF). On top of that, students participating would pay half of the cost of the trips (with financial aid already covered).

MOO would be able to accommodate all incoming students that wish to participate and would use the MiddView model of also having community service and more local options for activities.

Don’t get me wrong, I think MOO is a great thing, but I argue that a survey is not how we should be making decisions like this. An email survey seems logical and democratic as a way to gauge student sentiment but it gives students a false sense that they are voting on this decision. They are not. The FC will vote on this decision with the survey data in hand and they could easily say no, despite the survey results above.

The survey data is probably not the most representative even though 500+ people responded. Why? The framing of the discussion is that students need to respond to the survey to “save MOO!” There clearly is no one who is willing to be “anti-MOO.” Only those people who feel strongly about MOO will vote/take the survey and the indifferent rest probably won’t respond.

The reality is that reinstating MOO means taking money away from someone else. This survey doesn’t do enough to make that trade-off clear. Most students don’t realize that this is their student activities fee (SAF) dollars which also go to support the likes of Quidditch, the Commons, Yearbook, ISO, MCAB Concerts, etc. The $40-50,000 required for MOO should be framed as a trade off for similarly priced activities like the entire budget of WRMC or MCAB Speakers. Frame it this way: would you rather have MOO or a radio station? would you rather have speakers come to campus or MOO? It’s true that this money might come out of the FC reserves for now, but what happens in three years when it has to come out of the SAF?

The FC should take particular care in this decision. Once the FC takes on this program, it is permanently their responsibility to fund it each year. Do not expect the administration to pick up the costs once the economy improves. Dean Spears’ calls this “the new normal.” Furthermore, the FC would find it hard to ever cut the program back once it is in place.

I am a fan of keeping the OINK model, pioneered this year. All students who wanted to participate were accepted and they went on trips in the first two weekends of school. MMC worked expertly under a new normal to form these abbreviated trips. These trips are short and sweet, preserving the spirit of MOO within new budget constraints.

Those of you at Global Rhythms on Saturday heard Middlebury’s latest sensation: two girls with ukuleles. Their band F.U.C.Kanye may be unfortunately named but their sound makes for a satisfying breath of fresh air to Middlebury’s PowerOwl-heavy music scene. Vid below:

Takes after the uke-sensation Zee Avi:

It’s been a big-event-news-worthy-week-in-not-always-a-good-way. Check it out:

• BASEBALL: The Yankees won the World Series. There’s a lot of people at Midd pretendeing baseball doesn’t exist right now.
• ARMY: The U.S. Army is kind of maybe now going to have to do something about the fact that it doesn’t have enough psychiatrists now that one has killed 13 people in Texas. And, no, you cannot pass this off as terrorism.
• WALLS: 20 years ago tomorrow, the Berlin Wall came down. (Insert moment of silence.)
• POLITICS: On Tuesday the Republican Party won back America won two gubernatorial races. Bloomberg doesn’t really count but he still has problems of his own.
• JOBS: Unemployment in America reached 10.2% in October and yet retail sales were better than they have been since April 2008. America, you are watching to much Sex and the City. You can’t shop away your sorrows.
• WALL STREET: Good news for liberal arts kids in finance — the more Harvard MBA’s there are in finance, the worse the market does. Not really what we need right now.
• HEALTHCARE: At a ridiculously late hour on Saturday night, the House passed its health care reform bill, 220-215, with only one Republican vote. Obama called it historic. Some Republicans think it will help them get re-elected. Others ask: what happens if the public actually likes it?

Website of the Week: You AUGHT to Remember. I know the year isn’t over yet, but it’s not too early to start taking stock of how the 21st century has gone so far. That’s why You AUGHT to Remember is counting down the most memborable moments so far.

This Week in The Campus

• Rambunctious crowd forces early party end: Another take that adds in the more riotous/drunk elements of last weekend’s Atwater Halloween debacle that MiddBlog covered here. Some good quotes all around but pretty level headed. Does this event warrant a admin response?
• SGA considers reinstating MOO: In the Finance Committee’s first big decision of the year, they are considered using reserve money to fund the pre-orientation outdoor trips that the administration cut last year. OINK, this year, took place during the first two weekend of school.
• Spears’ blog posts sparks controversy: None of us like change, but the administration is tasked with thinking long term about generating revenue. Spears’ post and the MiddBlog’s “Getting to Global Midd” companion post break down some distinct possibilities that revolve around changes to study abroad and enrollment.
• Davis ‘11 injured in Egypt: As first reported here, Austin Davis ‘11 lost both his legs after a tram accident at the Middlebury program in Alexandria, Egypt. This does nothing to sooth fears that the class of 2011 is cursed.
• LIS reverses exam week cuts: While I’m unsure about the “…substantial criticism from both the Student Government Association (SGA) and students” to reverse the 1AM close of the library during exam week, it finally has come out that the original decision was more about mental health than financials. Students get to hang on to our safety-blankets of 24-hour library access during finals. No one laments the loss of reading day (the dead day before finals start)? But hey, Midnight Breakfast is coming back.
• Tourterelle: A new restaurant in our midst? Because there’s only so many times you can go to Black Sheep or Cafe Provence.
• Editorial on Winter Term’s nebulous purpose: Danger alert — no purpose? no J-term. But look here for guide to choosing J-term classes, which you’ve already registered for.
• Prof. Susan Burch and the emergence of the CCSRE at Carr Hall:

The recipients of November’s Series of Middlebury Improbable Awards are….

Aiden Arata ’12.5 and Bianca Giaever ’12.5 for organizing a Halloween Choose-Your Own Adventure Hike down the Tam. Along the way adventure-goers were confronted with unforeseen challenges (like damsels tied to trees), Zombie Werewolf Prom Dance Contests, Mind boggling Riddles, Trolls (who kidnapped adventurers along the way), and a Musical-Chairs Tea Party.



The second recipient is an anonymous Middkid who goes by the The Maroon Squire for his deviant stand against the man. Until This week, The Maroon Squire was UNCATCHABLE. He  had been parking his car unauthorized, unregistered and unpermitted in an attempt to shake Middkids out of their comfortable assumption of bureaucratic laws, and in a deviant stand against the man.

An Exclusive Interview on the Plight of the Common Man: “A parking pass is $125. My car cost $400. Just because I don’t have a BMW and mom and dad wont fork up the money, Midd wants me out. This is the first year they’re charging you to register a car on campus. Do you charge me to posses my shoes? Do you charge me to place my backpack in the classroom? Any free citizen who comes to Middlebury can park wherever they want, but they try to charge me. Middlebury as a school was created under the idea that we’re accepting people from the entire world, in every level of the social strata, why should I pay money to park really really far away?” -The Maroon Squire

As of Monday the Maroon Squire was caught by local authorities, and forced to register his car. Don’t worry though! They gave it to him for free. Courage prevails!

Post your thoughts/nominations for the next series of Improbable Awards below!

Sunday brunch chatter this past weekend was more than just a recap of costuming and antics of Halloween the night before. Instead: Baile Terror in Atwater Dining. What happened?

From various accounts both inside and outside both confirmed and unconfirmed:

• Beginning: The doors for Baile Terror began at 11PM. Within 45 minutes, the dance filled to capacity. The standing capacity of Atwater dining is the 500 range. For this event, Atwater dining was enclosed with curtains to keep folks out of the kitchen and capacity went down to 300 range.
• One way in, one way out: There was one door stationed with Green Mountain Security, hired to ensure the safety of the event. As with most events, 5-6 Green Mountain Security workers attend. They are responsible for counting capacity of the venue, making sure drunk students don’t get in, making sure alcohol is not brought in, and ensuring that things stay under control. Rumor has it that some students tried to get in back and side doors of Atwater. No, there were no successful attempts to get in to Atwater from the green roof. Some people were continuing to smuggle in alcohol.
• “The mob”: Because the dance filled to capacity (and over) quickly, a mass of people started to congregate outside waiting to get in. This is not uncommon. Just think about the days of waiting in line to get into the Bunker. By some estimates there were an additional several hundred people outside waiting to get in. After waiting awhile, the crowd began to become restless partially because they did not know the reason for not being able to get inside.
• The “assault”: This is where things get hazy. In waiting, apparently someone broke a glass bottle (on purpose or not) and a girl ended up being pushed into the broken glass area. This is not confirmed.
• The fireworks: Fireworks near Chateau went off. These are illegal fireworks, enough said.
• Music Off: At some point, Public Safety shut down the DJs of the event for ten minutes, likely as a way to disperse the crowd. Instead of leaving the event, people inside just milled until the music returned.
• The liquor inspector: There’s a rumor that the liquor inspector showed up and had a confrontation with Public Safety about the running of the event.
• Officer Chris: At some point, Officer Chris took two steps of action. 1) He shut down the event and 2) He got in the middle of the crowd and made an announcement to the mob.
• Exit: People inside were asked to leave.
• Outside: Students continued milling around the Atwater area, moving primarily to the suites and suite stairwells.

People didn’t have anywhere to go — and that’s when things get crazy. Of particular note, it seems the communication broke down repeatedly. Mass groups of people need information: why is no one getting in the party? how long will it be before they get in? should they leave or stay? what’s going on inside? MCAB needs information: if they party is shut down, why? if the DJs music is shut off, why? as the organizers of the event, how can they help? what options do they have?

Public Safety and Green Mountain need to provide information and communicate frequently both the event-goers and event organizers. Just as PSafe has a relationship (however superficial) with ResLife staff in dorms, they need to know the people running the party and communicate with them. If PSafe comes to a party in a room, who do they ask for? The person who lives in the room. The same should apply for bigger events — talk to the event organizers. Also, PSafe needs a blowhorn to communicate with crowds a la Alex Benepe and Quidditch. Green Mountain seemed downright useless in these situations.

It’s interesting that there wasn’t another event going on that night. It’s not MCAB’s fault — they don’t own social life on campus. They have every other Thurs-Sat night of the semester to plan too. But perhaps an additional event would act as a escape valve for situations like this. Ultimately, that responsibility fell to the Atwater suites collectively. No, the Animal House movie in McCullough does not count.

Did we survive? Yes. Learning experiences all around.

With a blog post, President (of the College) Ron Liebowitz re-opened the debate on the future of 51 Main, a nightlife venue in downtown Middlebury run by the school. September and October were the critical months to see if the venue could break even, financially. Ron says, “as of November 1, it looks like 51 Main is very close to meeting its two month break-even requirement, and so feedback from community members on the existence and possible continuance of the establishment will be helpful as we assess our options.”

He wants feedback, give it to him. Email him, write a blog comment, go to his office hours in Old Chapel, call x 5400, or inter-campus mail (write: “President’s Office”).

It’s no skin off my back since I’m graduating shortly, but I stand as a strong supporter of 51 Main. Why? 51 Main teaches college students the culture of drinking in a safe way. No one ever goes to 51 Main and gets trashed even though they serve hard alcohol. Student behavior is dictated by the environment and 51 Main is too classy for the likes of students drinking in stairwells of Atwater or slurring students getting a 2AM Dr. Feelgood in the Grille. 51 Main is what The Grille should have been. 51 Main promotes responsible and inclusive drinking out in the open. It’s good for the town, students, and administration.

It doesn’t outright solve “drinking” on campus, but it is a creative way of addressing the heart of that issue. 51 Main remains one of the most innovative things the school has done for its undergraduates in the last several years. And if this school cares as much as it says it does about drinking and social life, then 51 Main should stay open. Of course it also addresses town/gown relations and maybe, as Ron indicates in his post, an indirect path to diversity (not as far of a stretch as you’d think). If 51 Main stays at break even, it deserves the resources of this school

MiddBlog wants to know: Should 51 Main stay open? Why?

We gained an hour last night. Awesome. Despite rumors to the contrary, Hulu will (basically) not start charging in 2010. Even Better. Now if only newspapers and magazines would either stop dying or revolutionize ASAP. That would be a marvel. Here are a few others.

• MODERN LOVE: In this age of online dating and Facebook statuses, love is really quite inexplicable. I contend that (500) Days of Summer is one of the best representations of how twenty-somethings love in the 21st century, but it is only a piece of the puzzle, a puzzle that includes NY Mag’s Sex Diaries as well as NYT Magazine’s stunning portrait today of how the Obama’s have amazingly managed to keep their love central to the presidency.
• FACEBOOK: The popular social networking site went from elitist to common, from trendy to trashy, from useful to, finally, academic. Someday, it may actually be a true reflection of who we are and not just a projection of who we want to be.
• MUSIC: As if Google hasn’t invaded our lives enough, it now is going to have a music service. Once it begins offering a grocery store, I will have no need to go anywhere else and small business will die. Great.
• MAPS: Throughout history, maps have been some of the most dangerous tools mankind has ever possessed because futures of entire civilizations rest on basic visual interpretations of the physical world.
• VIDEOS: Since the fate of music videos may be paralleling the fate of newspapers, (RIP, VH1 Pop-Up Video), here’s 100 of them to kill some time on this beautiful November Sunday.
• RULES: I frequently ask myself at restaurants, do I really need my server’s name written in crayon next to my plate? Short answer, no. And, finally, wonderfully, someone has come up with a rulebook for that.
• WSJ: I’m a religious reader of the WSJ, but I’m not a fan of Rupert Murdoch, mostly because he has chosen to adopt certain phrasing in his papers. However, the new effort between Unigo and the WSJ, WSJ on Campus, could be a game changer…as long as desperate high school seniors actually read it.
• EVOLUTION: You might not see it, but humans are still evolving as a species, apparently at a speed fast enough that, soon, the ultra-rich will in fact be their own species, thanks to medical accessibility and hatred of Bernie Madoff.

Video of the Week: For many of us now, Guitar Hero is not impossible. Football hero on the other hand? Good luck.