<p>Ceruleanne, as a current Kenyon student, I have to admit that I am completely unfamiliar with your account. Although I am only a rising sophomore, Kenyon has enough institutional history that a two-year case like the one you detailed would still be mentioned – especially in the conversations about reforming the judicial board that occured this year. </p>
<p>Also, I find it strange that you consider the victim in question a “friend” since you admit in a separate forum that you are also a rising sophomore. (Your comment can be found in the unofficial transfer NYU thread where you posted: " I’ll be a sophomore next year.") This means that you didn’t attend Kenyon two years ago when the incident in question would have happened. Quite frankly, the lack of evidence and your contradictory remarks make the story pretty weak. I’d like to assume that you wouldn’t “create” a story about Kenyon. I know that you are trying to transfer, and I wish you the best of luck finding a place you truly enjoy – four years is too long and too expensive for misery. I’d like to believe that you would not intentionally misrepresent facts.</p>
<p>The incidents I have been involved with have been local-and have been several over the years- not that I was involved per se, but I knew enough of the people involved with the various cases enough to know background information that was ignored or skewed in the media that substansilly changed the focus of their articles to make it more DRAMATIC.</p>
<p>Now that this incident has been taken to a legitimate court of law, I don’t doubt that the whole story will come out. Middlebury’s administration claims that there is compelling evidence that Mr. Walker is indeed guilty of the offence for which he was suspended. The hearings were “closed”, but is it possible that even the accused was not apprised of the “evidence” the college claims proves his guilt? How does one defend oneself if he does not even know the full extent of the case being brought against him? O’Neil Walker clearly believes that Middlebury has no legitimate case against him. Is that because he is indeed innocent, or does he just not know the full depth of the evidence? I certainly hope that this young man is not lying about his innocence. By the same token, I would hate to think that such a revered institution as Middlebury would pertetrate what seems, at least on the surface, to be a terrible injustice. The potential damage from such negative PR could prove quite large. If they have compelling evidence against O’Neil Walker, they had best be publicly forcoming with it. I will be watching this case with great interest.</p>
<p>As an aside, I will comment on the number of posts about Middlebury on StudentReview.Com, which indicate that there is a prevailing undercurrent of racism at the school among its student population. I read these comments over two months ago, when I was conducting a general web search on the various small liberal arts schools on the east coast. My son is a high school freshman, and I’ve come to understand from my tenure on this site the importance of gathering information, and planning well in advance of application season. No other school that I researched on StudentReview had so many comments about apparent racial problems. It certainly gave me pause. At this point, I definitely would not be inclined to encourage my African American son to apply to Middlebury.</p>
<p>“Any given Saturday you have similar instances (of) people entering rooms and getting into bed with them,” said senior Erin Amico. “A lot more drastic things than what O’Neil is being accused of, so I think the fact that the extremity of which it was taken is where race factors into it.”</p>
<p>Also according to the TSA the grandma with the bread knife was not fined nor put on a terrorist watch list. She was warned that she could have been and to be more careful. They accused her of seeking 15 minutes of fame.</p>
<p>Poetsheart: Far be it from me to discourage “information gathering,” but I’d be loathe to eliminate schools based on StudentReview.Com, a site I confess to never having heard of before reading your post. I took a look at the site though this morning. Among other things I noted that only 21 (alleged Middlebury) students reviewed the school. I say “alleged” because based on the comments I read, I would seriously question whether these reviews actually were written by Middlebury students. In any case, I’d also question why someone would rely on reviews that contain such meaningful comments as “the chicks are not hot at Middlebury” (yes, that’s a direct quote from Student.Review), “Middlebury is where wealthy parents send their mentally ill children,” and “the Middlebury student body en masse reaches to the level of a Nazi prison guard standing alert in a tower” (I don’t even begin to understand what that’s supposed to mean, nor would I want to waste any time trying to figure it out). Bottom line: grain of salt, grain of salt!</p>
<p>I personally take the studentreview opinions quite seriously.I use many sources to gauge my impression of a school, but in my experience the reviews of the schools I am quite familar with are right on.
Additonally, I know several of the reviewers at my daughters school, their opinion was quite identifiable, and I confirmed my impressions with them. So while I wouldn’t recommend anyone rely soley on one or two sources of information, no matter how much or how little they cost, I think that the student review is at least as reliable as encylopediac tomes which are obviously not updated but perhaps every 10 years. Student review cites the students class, major and you can email many to get further info. I think it is very valuable.</p>
<p>Middlebury has a student body that consist of 3% african americans, 7% asians, 5% hispancic and 75% white (according t U.S. News 2005 America’s Best Colleges online edition). </p>
<p>The fact is that it has had a hard time recruiting african americans to its campus and fact that incidents like those reported in the VV does not help it’s situation nor does it make AA parents remotely amenable to wanting to send their sons/daughters there. </p>
<p>The sad truth is for as evolved as we think we are and for institutions that are educating some of the best and brightest in the country racism is still alive and well in 2005. Oten we think of someone living in trailer ark who has never been exposed to anything as being a racist. However, we have a hard time wrapping around our mind that racism could be stemming from our nice middle class suburban neighborhoods and heaven forbid being ingrained the very children that we are raising. (Do a search and see how quickly a discussion on blacks and Affirmative Action on the CC boards descintergrates) </p>
<p>what students say about Middlebury in princeton review is as follows:</p>
<p>Student Body
“Students here come from every corner of the world and every New England prep school,” jokes a first-year on the subject of Middlebury’s fairly homogenous student body (69 percent of its undergrads self-identify as “Caucasian”). A junior gives his take on the situation: “They’re cool but the same. This is what I heard before I got here, and this is definitely true [M]ost are rich and white” and from somewhere “just outside of Boston.” Still, it’s the people that most students say make the Middlebury experience what it is. Take it from this sophomore: “The main reason I fell in love with Midd was the students. At no other school did I see so many happy, outgoing students.” Concludes a classmate, “The majority of the students are really smart and really cool, which makes a small school not feel that way.” </p>
<p>I do believe that it is important to get information from a variety of sources because the reality is often very different from what is presented in the glossy brochures that would have you thing that every one is holding hands singing the happy happy joy joy song. </p>
<p>Posters who give their opinions on live Journal , studentreview and other websites are basically reporting things based on their view of the school and is probably closer to the truth than the talk track you hear from an adcom. If you do look at a variety of sources and see a prevailing theme represented you need to take more than a grain of salt approach to looking at things. You know what they say if it walks like a duck.</p>
<p>The low number of minority students at schools like Middlebury has less to do with the purpored “hostile” climate towards such students on campus, but is rather due to the fact that these schools are located in rural locations, in mostly white states (do states get much “whiter” then Vermont?), and are expensive, thereby discouraging many less affluent students from applying. Will discouraging minority students from applying to Middlebury improve the situation? No, it will make it worse. The college knows that this case is attention grabbing and will spark controversy, yet they are refusing to stray from their protocol that is used to ensure that all students receive the same treatment.</p>
<p>I wanted to add that while some of the reviews on studentreview obviously have an axe to grind- the ones I have read are grounded in truth.
Not all schools are going to be a good fit for all kids. If you really had your heart set on a well known school, you may be quite disappointed to be attending Southern Oregon University. But context is a lot. I can get a lot of information from resource guides put out by left wing or right wing writers if I keep reference points in mind.</p>
<p>The same could be said about Amherst, Williams and Dartmouth all which have over double the percentage of African Americans than Middlebury and less drama associated with them.</p>
<p>As noted above, Williams has had its share of “drama” recently, and more than its share over the past two years.</p>
<p>Speaking as a former New Yorker, though not AA, my parents were barely able to get their heads around my going to W. - it seemed awfully far, both geographically and culturally. But M. was beyond the pale - as I have written elsewhere, the guidance counselor used to joke that if we didn’t buckle down, that’s where we would end up. Nowadays, though, I’ve always though of W, M. (and to a lesser extent D, only because it is larger) as pretty much demographically interchangeable. A. as well, except that in the past decade under Anthony Marks, “the times they are a-changing”.</p>
<p>“The same could be said about Amherst, Williams and Dartmouth all which have over double the percentage of African Americans than Middlebury and less drama associated with them.”</p>
<p>Keep in mind that these schools overlap considerably when it comes to applicants, both minority and otherwise. A black student who is offered a full ride at Dartmouth will almost certainly choose the same over Middlebury. The same holds true (in 3/4 of the cases) for Williams. Kids will generally go to the “best” school they get into. What you’re seeing is a demagraphic response to revealed preference more than anything.</p>
<p>"About a week later, in the same dorm, another student reported waking up after a night of partying to find a strange man “rubbing his *****.” </p>
<p>“The first night in his new room was January 30, according to documents, and Hawkins had had “six or seven” drinkshe originally told investigators that he had had only two drinksbefore he crashed in his room at 2:30.”</p>
<p>“That might have been the end of it, but two weeks later Hawkins spied Walker and his friends on a beer run. Hawkins later told campus police, according to records, that he was “95 percent sure” Walker was the intruder.”</p>
<p>Perhaps more interesting was that Hawkins argued face-to-face with the intruder for 5-7 minutes, and then the intruder smashed the phone, and Hawkins still couldn’t identify him.</p>