Mission

We are an alternative voice on Middlebury’s campus, a group of students who feel marginalized and silenced by the mainstream platforms available, including the student newspaper, The Middlebury Campus, and the online alternative paper, Middbeat. We want to be proactive, not reactive, and use writing as a way to support and ultimately achieve structural and institutional change. We feel as though individually, our voices are often ignored in the face of the hegemonic Middlebury discourse, but collectively we will be able to engage with the Middlebury community more effectively. We are a radical, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-classist, anti-ableist, and anti-homophobic (as well as strongly opposed to all forms of oppression) group that rejects the structurally conservative “liberal” paradigm that exists at Middlebury. The reasons behind our formation are many, but the predominate one is a feeling of alienation within the campus dialogue– the so-called “free market of ideas” on campus is an illusion, one which exists only to support one strong ideology. We may not always agree, and we want to allow space to challenge each other. However, ultimately we share the same principles and intentions, and are committed to moving forward with solidarity and purpose. Moreover, we acknowledge the potential and probability that the articles we publish may be messy and emotional because the things we write about will be so close to our lived experiences. Rather than espousing the idea that all written work in the public eye must be dispassionate, we welcome the fact that our articles will be written with passion, with love, with anger, and overall, with purpose. We are tired of having to engage with those who repeatedly devalue our experiences and values– by creating our own platform, we are unifying in the face of this intentional disregard, and rejecting the idea that we must conform to the dominant Middlebury narrative.