volume 29 Number 14 April 15, 2011 Stately Kitchel House, built in 1867, A Note to Our Readers is back in College hands This will be the final issue of MiddPoints in its current format. ravelers approaching the College from Middlebury village are greeted From now on, content that had today by two grand structures that were built in 1867 and sit across from been appearing in the monthly each other on College Street (Route 125). To the south is Twilight Hall, issue of MiddPoints will be posted Tthe brick three-story build- at Middlebury’s new “News & ing that served the town as Announcements” blog, which will the College Street School also take on the MiddPoints name. until the College purchased it in 1984. And to the Instead of submitting items to north, on the corner with Human Resources for MiddPoints, Weybridge Street, is Kitchel we ask that you now use the blog House – the new home to for any announcements you have for the Communications Office. faculty and staff. You can find the blog at go/announcements The building was named (if you’re not hooked up to the by the board of trustees to College network, it’s http:// honor its original owner go.middlebury.edu/announcements). and first inhabitant, Harvey And you can post your news items at Denison Kitchel, Class of go/announce (http://go.middlebury. 1835. Kitchel was the fifth edu/announce), after logging in with president of Middlebury your Middlebury user name and College (1866-1873) and password. Items will be approved the first alumnus to serve in daily and made public on the blog. that office. Originally from Once a week, on Monday mornings, Whitehall, N.Y., he was a we will e-mail faculty and staff a Congregational minister “digest” version of the content that for nearly 30 years before has been added in the past week. returning to Middlebury Please note that this new iteration of to assume the presidency in MiddPoints will not include 1866. Then and Now - Top photo shows Kitchel House in 1885; classified ads. bottom shows the house now after restoration. Seven years later Kitchel We hope this shift will make resigned informing the trustees that his “health and strength” were “unequal to information available in a more the cares and particular solicitudes of the presidency.” He later served six years on timely fashion, while also help- the Middlebury board of trustees and ing to cut down on all-faculty, all- lived until 1895 when, at the age of 83, he staff e-mail messages. If you have In this Issue died in the western New York hamlet of questions, please send them to Dansville. [email protected]. Thank you. ● Earth Day plant giveaway Friday, April 22 In 1873 Joseph Battell, Class of 1860, gave the College the funds to purchase ● Human Resources contacts the house from Kitchel. Middlebury was without a chief executive for two years ● Enhanced college website (1873-1875) until the board of trustees with CBA Blue elected Calvin Butler Hulbert as the College’s sixth president. Both Hulbert ● New Employees (1875-1880) and the seventh president, (Article continues on pg. 3) “Take Me to Your Office” Plant Italian School Giveaway April 22 to offer Italian All faculty and staff are invited to stop by the McCardell Bicentennial Hall lessons for Greenhouse (6th floor) on Earth Day, Friday, April 22, any time between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. to pick out a free plant. children This summer, the Italian School There will be spider plants, strawberry begonias, ivy, purple hearts, cape primrose will offer Italian lessons for chil- and more — all raised in the Greenhouse for this Earth Day event. dren ages 6 – 12. The lessons are open to children of faculty, staff, And if you know any students who would like a plant, tell them to be patient: and the community. The program there will be a “Take Me to Your (Dorm) Room” plant giveaway for students in will be directed by Nicole Librandi September. and Caterina Pierattini assisted by students of the Italian School. The project is made possible through a grant from the Environmental Council. If you have any questions, contact Robert Keren in the Communications Office. The program runs July 11–August 11, Monday through Thursday, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. and will be limited to 10 students. The cost is $50. For more information or to reg- ister, contact Kara Gennarelli, Faculty Grants Italian School Coordinator, [email protected] or Frank Winkler (Physics) has received funding from the National Aeronautics 443.5727. and Space Administration’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory General Observer Program for a project that involves collaborators from the Space Telescope Science Institute, Johns Hopkins University, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the University of New South Wales, Australia. A long Chandra observation will be done to detect and measure properties of X-ray sources in the spiral galaxy M83, located 16 million light years away--a galaxy in which the rates of star formation, and destruction via supernovae, is unusually high. The goal is to study the life cycle of stars, and how they interact with the interstellar Automatic openers on medium to produce X-ray emission. handicap accessible doors Three Middlebury faculty members have been awarded fellowships by the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation, which this year awarded only 21 fel- The *ADA-compliant automatic door lowships. These fellowships support faculty travel to expand their horizons and openers on campus are intended to assist improve their teaching. those with physical limitations. Doors are timed to remain open long enough Patricia Manley (Geology) will travel through the northwest United States, where to allow wheelchairs to pass through she will experience and photograph active volcanoes in the region’s national safely; therefore the doors remain open parks and the Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. These visits will inform longer than when opened manually. and enhance her teaching in three introductory-level Geology courses. Overuse can shorten the service life of Roberto Pareja (Spanish) will visit archives in Bolivia and Peru, where he will very specialized and costly mechani- collect print and photographic materials for a new interdisciplinary seminar titled cal components. If you have no physi- National Culture and Space: Art, Narrative, and Travel in 19th-Century Bolivia cal limitations, please open the doors and Peru. manually to reduce heat loss and power consumption. Thank you for your Michael Sheridan (Sociology/Anthropology) will travel to three Caribbean cooperation. islands and visit botanical gardens, sugar plantations, and farming communi- ties there to develop a unit on African diasporic landscapes for his class Africa: *Americans with Disabilities Act Continuity and Change. (Faculty Grants are continued on page 4) 2 Kitchel House, continued from page 1 Cyrus Hamlin (1880-1885), lived in the home. It was during Hamlin’s tenure, in 1883, that the College admitted its first women, a decision that turned out to be momentous for the house. Ezra Brainerd, Class of 1864, was Middlebury’s next president. A professor of rhet- oric, English literature, mathematics, and physics, Brainerd served 23 years in the presidency (1885-1908) and 16 more as a trustee (1908-1924). Enhanced Middlebury Brainerd in 1891 recommended that the College “should own a suitable building in College website with which the young ladies who came from out of town could room and board under CBA Blue the charge of a competent matron.” Accordingly, the trustees voted to convert Kitchel’s house on College Street (then known as Green Street) into the College’s first dormitory for women. The cost of the alterations that summer, including the Human Resources is pleased to installation of a steam furnace in the basement, was $1,187. announce that effective April 15, 2011 we will launch an enhanced The College enrolled 16 women on the first day of the 1891 fall term, and those Middlebury College website with from out of town moved into the former president’s house that the trustees had CBA Blue. Here Middlebury renamed Battell Hall, in honor of its benefactor. (To Middlebury, Joseph Battell College members will find was the Gamaliel Painter of his era; he was proprietor of the Bread Loaf Inn, a resources that allow them to College trustee for 34 years, a state legislator for eight terms, a breeder of Morgan manage their Health, Dental, and horses, and the donor of some 25,000 acres of land to the College.) Flexible Spending Plans. This enhanced website is designed to be One of the early inhabitants of Battell Hall, Laura Ellah Jarvis, Class of 1901, more user-friendly and to have scratched her name, class year, and sorority (Alpha Chi) in the glass window of a central sites that link to other sites room on the second floor of the building. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Jarvis mar- to manage your care. ried, gave birth to a child, and died in 1904, but her imprint lives on for all to see in the Kitchel House studio of the Communications design team. • View medical and dental claims • Review flexible spending claims By 1908 the College was accepting more women (43) than men (32), and in 1909 and account balances for the first time in College history women outnumbered men. Since Battell Hall • Locate network providers and was not large enough to accommodate the College’s female student population, pharmacies ground was broken for Pearsons Hall on land acquired for the College by Joseph • Take advantage of our mail order Battell. The new dorm for women opened in 1911.