Middlebury College
EN-3: Student Life

Middlebury has many active student-governed groups focusing on various aspects of sustainability, from environmental activism to food issues. The groups are described below. Campus Sustainability Coordinators are a group of students dedicated to promoting sustainable living habits in the dorms and on campus. The Solar Decathlon Team worked over the past two years to design and construct a solar powered home that placed 8th overall in the 2013 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Competition. During the school year, interdepartmental courses were organized for students working on the project. The Middlebury Mountain Club regularly organizes weekend outdoor trips for Middlebury students. Students, faculty, and staff can rent equipment from the MMC. Weybridge House is the Sustainable Food Studies House. Weybridge residents preserve food from within a 100 miles of the house. Food is eaten by residents and served to the campus community at several open dinners and events each week. The Middlebury Bike Shop provides free help fixing, taking apart, and building bicycles of all kinds. At the beginning of every year, the Bike Shop organizes a used bike sale for the campus community. The SGA Environmental Affairs Committee works on environmental issues relevant to students, faculty, and staff on campus. The Sunday Night Group is an open-space forum for students to express their ideas and find support for initiatives concerning political, social, and environmental activism. Eat Real is a group of students committed to conscientious eating and the cultivation of a more sustainable food system at Middlebury. The MEAT club aims to teach and explain the importance of eating local meats instead of those produced in factory farms. The Middlebury Socially Responsible Investment Club promotes social and environmental justice through Middlebury’s endowment. The Green Engineers work to develop innovative environmentally-friendly technologies. The Middlebury Fermenters Guild teaches fermentation workshops while expanding their library of fermentation recipes. The group aims to create a culture where students are more connected with their food.

The Middlebury College Organic Farm (MCOF) is a student organization that maintains a 3-acre plot of fruits and vegetables. The produce grown at the garden reflects a balance between efficient, profitable crops and more labor intensive, less productive crops grown for educational purposes. The MCOF also has a full-time Manager and Educator who works with students during the growing season to plan, plant, maintain, and harvest garden products during the growing season. During the off-season, she advises student groups related to food. She also manages the College FoodWorks program and serves as a focal point for the Vermont location of FoodWorks.

There is a student-run bike shop for which students fix abandoned bikes and earn revenue by selling them at a bike sale every semester. 5 students each year live in 2 solar decathlon houses on campus and provide free programming to the campus community about sustainable living and solar energy.

In August of 2013, President Ron Liebowitz issued a statement on divestment and shared the following actions on which the college will focus: First, the Investment Committee of the board, including its student members, will work to develop a set of stronger ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance) principles that we can apply to our investment portfolio, both to identify those companies and managers who invest with certain principles in mind and those who consistently do not. As part of this effort, we will intensify our ongoing review of the College’s investment portfolio. Second, we will create ESG guidelines to help monitor investments and operations at our own campus in Vermont. We will issue periodic reports on our performance. And third, we will increase significantly the amount of the endowment directed toward ESG investments, including those focused on clean energy, green building projects, and other efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and benefit the environment. The student run, Socially Responsible Investment club announced in January 2014 that is has created a new sub-group, the Research and Investment in Social Equity (RISE) fund, that will focus on investing $150,000 of the College’s endowment in companies that demonstrate strength in sustainability and social responsibility in addition to considering traditional financial indicators.

Environmental Studies hosts the Howard E. Woodin Colloquium Series every Thursday during the school year. Students, faculty, staff, and community members come together over lunch to hear from a broad range of speakers — faculty, alumni, environmental professionals, and students — as they cover a variety of conservation and environmental topics. Another sustainability event is the Scott A. Margolin Lecture in Environmental Affairs, an annual lecture with an interdisciplinary approach to the natural environment and human interaction with it. Environmental Affairs also hosts various sustainability-related speakers and film screenings throughout the year. Students who receive Sustainable Study Abroad Grants report on their projects at a symposium every semester.

Visiting artists from the Shua Group created installations dealing with issues of resource management and climate change. These included a large pit filled with plastic bottles that students were invited to interact with, as well as an indoor "igloo" that played the sounds of melting ice caps to visitors who ventured inside. "Environmental Observations: Land, Light, and Weather of Autumn" was exhibited in the Fall of 2013. The exhibit consisted of student art from the class "The Landscape Re-Imagined." This exhibition’s art works depicting the natural environment and the climate that causes it. In the Spring of 2015, the Mahaney Center for the Arts and the Music Department presented "The Nile Project," a performance project with music from the 11 countries touching the Nile river, bookended by panel discussions, workshops, and other related events concerning water resources, commerce, and international rights and relations. http://www.nileproject.org/ Many of Middlebury's Art in Public Places artworks have a sustainability connection and are visible throughout campus. http://www.middlebury.edu/arts/campus

The Middlebury Outdoors Program and the Middlebury Mountain Club both offer numerous opportunities for students to appreciate nature, develop skills in a wide range of outdoor activities and how to practice Leave No Trace principles. The Outdoors program offers: Outdoor Skills Courses - PE credit-bearing courses in a wide variety of outdoor activities. Canoeing and kayaking, rock and ice climbing, telemark skiing, backpacking, and winter camping are among the courses offered. Wilderness First Aid Courses - essential knowledge for all outdoor leaders, as well as those interested in personal adventures. MOP sponsors both Wilderness First Aid (WFA) and Wilderness First Responder (WFR) courses taught by SOLO. February Outdoor Orientation- introduces incoming February first-years to their new home here in Vermont. Small groups of first years and upper class leaders venture into the mountains surrounding campus on skis and snowshoe for overnight trips. FOO! provides a wonderful opportunity to get to know other first years and establish relationships that can help ease the transition to life at Middlebury. Expeditions - periodic trips venturing beyond our typical programming areas in New England and New York. These trips typically occur during the various recesses in our academic calendar. Commons-Based Outdoor Excursions - aimed at building community within the Commons, and providing healthy and invigorating recreational opportunities, these day-long adventures help small groups of commons residents explore our natural surroundings. Faculty Support - for faculty interested in integrating outdoor experiences into their curriculum. MOP helps plan logistics, choose sites, and coordinate outdoor leaders. The Middlebury Mountain Club (MMC) is Middlebury’s largest and oldest student organization. The club is entirely organized and operated by students. The MMC sponsors and encourages Middlebury students to experience and enjoy the out-of-doors responsibly (using Leave No Trace principles), offering year-round activities throughout Vermont, the Adirondacks, and beyond. The Mountain Club's commitment to expanding access to outdoor adventure includes trips for all abilities, free equipment rental, and skill-building workshops. Additionally, the club hosts annual community events, sponsors environmentally-themed presentations and symposia, and screens films.

For the academic year 2015-16, the Office of Sustainability Integration chose the theme of 'carbon neutrality by 2016'. The office developed and printed a graphic novel about sustainability at Middlebury that was provided to every incoming freshman and infused orientation week with numerous sustainability/carbon neutrality related activities.

The Weybridge Environmental House is home to students who seek to inform themselves and the College community about pressing environmental issues. House members form a community of supportive peers with a shared interest in examining our role as humans within greater natural systems. They also seek to minimize their negative impact on the environment. Through faculty discussion dinners, lectures, hikes, letter-writing campaigns, and networking with other college environmental houses, Weybridgers strive to live responsibly. Weybridge has a unique meal plan. Instead of going to the college dining halls, residents order food in bulk from the main dining hall and cook for themselves as a community. They also supplement their vegetarian diet with a harvest from the house's organic vegetable and herb garden. Weybridge houses approximately 10 students each year.

The Office of Sustainability Integration employs at least one summer intern and several interns throughout the year depending on projects, needs, and student interest. Every summer an intern completes the Greenhouse Gas Inventory. Other recent intern projects include developing a sustainability themed graphic novel, researching alternative transportation options around Middlebury and ways of promoting them, helping launch Middlebury's pilot energy literacy campaign, contributing to the collection of STARS data, and researching sustainability strategies and methods of accounting for transportation GHG emissions.

Leading up to graduation, students are asked to sign and online pledge stating “I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work.” When students pick up their graduation robes, there are green ribbons available for those who have signed the pledge to wear at commencement.

Representatives from athletic teams choose to be sustainability liaisons as part of the Green Panther Challenge. This group of athletes is working with the Director of Athletics and Office of Sustainability Integration to develop a green certification program for athletic teams at Middlebury.