CSM Spring 2022 Semester Recap and Fall 2022 Plans
Thursday September 21, 2022
Community Standards
Over the summer we met with the Orientation team to discuss how educating First-years on our community standards can be implemented during orientation or their first year. We plan to continue this conversation and look for other ways to educate the student body on our community standards.
Accessibility and Advocating with and for Students with Disabilities
Our collaboration with the SGA Junior Committee on a campus wide accessibility needs assessment gained a lot of progress in the spring. The survey was written, received IRB approval, and went live for students to fill out. We received many responses and plan to analyze them and present our findings to the SLG and Community Council. We also plan to use our findings to continue to advocate for students with disabilities and enact concrete changes to make our community more accessible.. In addition, also in collaboration with the SGA Junior Committee, we filmed a module on event accessibility that was included in online student leader training and worked with the SAO to add an accessibility section to the Presence event registration form for orgs to specifically state the measures they are taking to increase access in inclusion and their events.
Senior Leadership Group Meetings
We continue to meet with the Senior Leadership Group monthly to discuss underrepresented student concerns and collaborate on ways to address them. We make them aware of our projects and student concerns to gain their perspectives and collaborate. SLG members also invite us to collaborate on their projects and ask for our input on ideas. All CSM members are invited to these meetings, so if you would like an audience with the SLG, join us!
Compensating Student Organization Leaders
Our efforts to get student organization leaders paid made great progress in the spring! We were able to get students working with non-academic departments (ex. Orientation, Health and Wellness, etc) paid a stipend. for their labor. We are looking to find or establish a sustainable funding source and increase these stipends for next year. We are also interested in expanding this payment to all student organization leaders.
Mental Health and Wellbeing
In our conversations with administrators, we continued to advocate for student mental health and well being. This included conversations about work load and academic rigor, the new care model implemented in the spring, and advocating for specially trained counselors for students with eating disorders or who struggle with substance abuse, We plan to continue this advocacy this year.
First-Year Forum
In the spring we hosted our first annual First-year forum! We hosted a space for First-years to talk about their experiences on campus, changes they would like to see, and enjoy the ice cream we provided :) We want to run this event again in the upcoming spring semester.
Ending Campus Sexual Violence
This summer, the Every Voice Coalition reached out to us to help spread the word about a grassroots movement. The Every Voice Coalition is a national non-profit that works toward passing student written, survivor centered legislation to end campus sexual violence. Here is their website with more information about the legislation they are trying to pass: The Every Voice Coalition are building a movement of passionate students all across Vermont. We would like to help EVC in any we we can to get their proposed legislation passed in the VT Senate and encourage students to join the movement.
Website and Social Media
We continue to update our website (go/csm/) to improve its accessibility for screen readers. Feel free to look it over to meet our executive board and look over our goals. Also, follow our instagram (@concernedatmidd) to stay up to date on future events and small updates.
CSM Fall 2021 Semester Recap
Friday, February 18, 2022
Hi everyone,
This morning, an all-student email was sent with our progress on our 2021-2022 school year goals, which included the following:
Community Standards
Last semester, we worked closely with Dean of Students Derek Doucet and Vice President of Student Affairs Smita Ruzicka to think of ways to improve recognition of our institution’s community standards. We are continuing to work with Dean Doucet in analyzing conduct and community standards data to ensure equity in these processes for underrepresented students. We are now largely focusing on how to improve community responsibility for others collective wellbeing during the pandemic and will continue this project this semester.
Accessibility and Advocating with and for Students with Disabilities
A large focus of our work last fall was increasing Middlebury’s accessibility and inclusion for all students, especially those with disabilities. In collaboration with the SGA Junior Committee, we are developing a campus wide accessibility needs assessment. We are also working with the Student Activities Office to improve event accessibility by updating the Presence event registration form, student handbook, and student leader training. Another important project has been beginning the conversation with administrators around increasing accessibility to courses through a hybrid model for students who face less barriers to their education in a virtual space.
We have also committed to tackling ableism and including access practices through each of our actions and projects. All of our meetings have been hybrid to increase accessibility and we aim to include this lens in all our conversations with administrators.
Mental Health
Mental health and wellbeing were a large area of focus for our entire community last semester. We focused our work on listening to student needs surrounding mental health services and our rigorous academic culture. We advocated these needs to administrators and ensured mental health was a top priority in their work. This will continue to be an area of focus this spring, especially with national counseling shortages and adjusting to the Center of Health and Wellness’ new flexible care model.
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism was a large focus of our activist work this semester. We had many meetings with Dean Doucet and President Patton to discuss this pervasive issue in our community and make them aware of the student concern around observed anti-semitic behavior by students and faculty.
Nominations
Through our appointments committee, CSM nominated students to the Search Committee for a new Vice President of Equity and Inclusion and Search Committee for our new Director of Public Safety. We already have requests for more appointments this semester for special committees in the Office of the Dean of Students. If you would be interested in potentially serving on a college committee or taskforce, please respond to this email so we can keep you in the loop.
Senior Leadership Group Meetings
We continue to meet with the Senior Leadership Group monthly to discuss underrepresented student concerns and collaborate on ways to address them. We make them aware of our projects and student concerns to gain their perspectives and collaborate. SLG members also invite us to collaborate on their projects and ask for our input on ideas. All CSM members are invited to these meetings, so if you would like an audience with the SLG, join us!
Website and Social Media
We continue to update our website (go/csm/) to improve its accessibility for screen readers. Feel free to look it over to meet our executive board and look over our goals. Also, follow our instagram (@concernedatmidd) to stay up to date on future events and small updates.
CSM Summer Updates: CSM Student Advisory Board Representatives
Sunday, June 20, 2021
Hi everyone,
We are reaching out with an opportunity to participate in CSM as a representative to the Concerned Students of Middlebury on our Student Advisory Board. In this role, you would help to ensure we are being held accountable in representing the needs to the broader community. Additionally, a subsection of this group would serve as representatives to the Senior Leadership Group of the College. In this capacity, this group works to represent the needs of various marginalized campus constituencies in monthly meetings with what is considered to be our primary college administrative body. You can find more information on the role here.
If any of this interests you, please fill out this application by Wednesday, June 30th, 2021 at 11:59 PM ET. Also, feel free to reach out with any questions or forward this message to anyone you feel may be interested in the role.
CSM Summer Updates: CSM Constitution and Code of Conduct Updates, CSM Committee Leaders, Openings on the CSM Appointments Committee
Sunday, June 6th, 2021
Hello everyone,
We hope your summer is off to a great start! We wanted to provide some updates for everyone as we voyage into the summer and planning for the 2021-22 school year. We are super excited to be continuing our mission of making Middlebury a campus that can benefit everyone and will be working in various capacities over the next couple of months to make this mission a reality. Check out some updates below:
CSM Constitution & Code of Conduct
CSM has updated our Constitution and Code of Conduct to optimize our work on campus with a committee structure and ensure that we are remaining true to our original organizational goals/ values as we continue to grow. You can access them via our Presence page or this link!
CSM Committee Leaders
After receiving over 50 applications and an in-depth interview process, we are excited to welcome this wonderful team of committee leaders to CSM for the next school year. We are certain that these committees will serve as an excellent way to create change within the community and provide resources and support for marginalized communities at Middlebury. Congratulations to the following committee leaders:
Appointments Committee:
- Miriam Weathers (Full year)
- Norma Leyva (Full year)
- Aylin Atzin (Full year)
- Christine Nabung (Full year)
- Arlo Fleischer (Fall & J-Term)
- Bakari Moitt (Full year)
- Maria Romero (Spring)
- Aubrianna Wilson (Full year)
- Ciara Carlson-Healy (Full year)
- Evelyn Magdaleno (Full year)
- Maddie Tango (Fall & J-Term)
- Maria Romero (J-Term & Spring)
- Evan Kelly (Full year)
- Zack Abrams (Fall & J-Term)
- Naja Irvin-Conyers (Full year)
- Remi Welbel (Full year)
- Maddison McKnight (Full Year)
- Kayla Richards (Full Year)
CSM Appointments Committee Openings
The CSM Appointments committee has a few vacancies currently and it would be great to have those filled as soon as possible. This committee is tasked with convening as needed to make decisions on CSM nominations and appointments for positions internally and from the organization to the broader campus community. This is sometimes in the form of application/ nominee review process or other times a recruitment and ratification of selection process. The committee is composed of the Membership Coordinator and 6 general members as voting members of the committee. The two CSM Co-Presidents will serve as ex-officio non-voting members. The position is outlined in detail in the CSM Constitution.
This position is not a large time commitment so please don't feel intimidated by that! It is, however, a great way to be involved in a very important process that can impact the college community! We are currently looking for five (5) additional people for this committee. If interested, please respond to this email. Thank you!
That is it for updates from us! If you have any questions or comments, as always feel free to reach out.