<p>I strongly recommend all prospective students and their parents to read all 5 pages carefully before committing or applying. This might dissuade some while encouraging others. Knowledge is good. </p>
<p>---- (Taken from the article) -----</p>
<p>Greg Buckles, the Middlebury dean of admissions and longtime hunting and fishing guide,… </p>
<p>“Cort (a student) recalls a time when he returned to his suite with four dead geese in plastic garbage bags, and the reaction from his roommates was “wow, that’s a lot of dead birds.” </p>
<p>“When you shoot a migratory goose,… I think that [the goose] was pretty happy right up to the end, and that feels good.” -</p>
<p>… says Dean of Admissions Buckles, …“We have a much stronger hunting and great-outdoors heritage and history than other comparable liberal arts colleges in the East,” </p>
<p>… Vermont Field Sports on Route 7 in Middlebury, where a bright orange sign on the door reads Big Game Reporting Station. Lined with Browning shotguns and rifles, bows, Johnson Woolens, and boxes upon boxes of ammo, it’s the starting and ending point for many a Middlebury hunting expedition. </p>
<hr>
<p>As I said above, this might dissuade some while encouraging others.
At least now we know.</p>
<p>Honestly, this entire discussion is stupid. If you don’t like Midd because of such a minuscule detail, you should honestly look elsewhere and Voila! Your problem is solved.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity though, if the director of admissions loved to play baseball, would that “set a tone” or encourage people to play baseball? No. What he does in his spare time is his business and by no means reflects the entire institution. To make such an assumption is immature. Nonetheless, if it bothers you so much, then don’t apply. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. And why does it matter that he’s from Ohio? You keep mentioning that in your argument as if it adds any value/validity to what you have to say…</p>
No, actually this is about your hypocrisy. You eat meat and are ok w it as long as the animals are processed out of your field of view so u can be in sanctimonious denial about the fact it involves killing and blood.</p>
<p>You have a totally wacked idea about hunting in the US. In case u haven’t noticed, the US is not the African savannah. People don’t go on safari here and hunt for the joy of acquiring trophys. In the US people eat what they hunt. Show me a hunter in the US, and I’ll show you a freezer full of venison steaks and duck andouille sausage.</p>
<p>You mentioned that Buckles had 4 dead geese in a bag-- big whoop, there’s nothing sinister there. If he just wanted to blow them out of the sky for sadistic shooting entertainment, he certainly wouldn’t have gone to the trouble to recover the birds. </p>
<p>You shd try to get out of your sheltered, suburban glossy supermarket-sanitized lifestyle sometime.</p>
That’s kind of down-market. More like Orvis, maybe.</p>
<p>I can see a student not wanting to attend a college where “hunting culture” was a significant element of campus culture. Maybe that is the case at Midd, although I doubt it. I would not recommend that a person who cared a lot about this apply to, say, Hampden-Sydney college, where (as I understand) it’s pretty widespread. But as several people are trying to point out, there isn’t really any evidence here that Midd is more influenced by hunting culture than are other LACs in rural environments. The fact that an admissions officer is a hunter is really not sufficient evidence of this–I don’t think that hobby would disqualify him from a job at any college in the land.</p>
<p>This seems like a wacky thread, but here are my thoughts:</p>
<p>Of course there is hunting in Vermont, and there are hunters among the ranks of students, administration, faculty and staff at every college. Fiorucci76 - I really hope you attend a college that makes you more tolerant of the 13+ million Americans who hunt, an activity that has been around since the beginning of human existence. </p>
<p>And it IS pertinent whether you eat meat. You can’t hide behind the “This isn’t about me” curtain. If you consume chunks of dead animals, then you have to admit that they were alive at some point. It is arguably a LOT more humane to animals to allow them to live in the wild and hunt them for food rather than have them born into captivity, shot up with all kinds of hormones and medicine, kept in cramped spaces and slaughtered without any chance for escape. </p>
<p>This looks more like some kind of weird vendetta. </p>
<p>Well put, @flyoverctry. Perhaps the OP should read Food Inc or the Omnivore’s dilemma to get a broader sense of the consequences of industrialized animal rearing (CAFOs). Can’t help but agree with you that this is a personal vendetta against Middlebury and Mr. Buckles!</p>
<p>Once more, this is NOT about me, NOT about Greg Buckles—the longtime hunting guide who is now dean of admissions at Middlebury. It is about Middlebury and Middlebury only.
Truth should be out. So parents and prospective students can decide if they want to have roommates dump dead Canada geese in the dorm, if they want their meals to include wildlife, and if the want to have an armory with guns on the school grounds.</p>
<p>You’ve made your point, OP. You don’t need to repost it over and over. You also tried to make some other points that didn’t go over very well. The best way to recover from that experience is to stop posting on this thread. If you don’t keep bumping it, eventually it will die on its own.</p>
<p>I despise smoking. It has been proven to be unhealthy, not only to smokers, but to those around them. But it is legal. If I find a school that S is looking at employs an administrator who smokes, and has a student cigar club, guess what? I’ll still let him apply if the school is a good fit. Now, if the school required a class in Cigar Appreciation 101 as a graduation requirement, then I’d think twice.</p>
<p>What’s wrong with a meal including wildlife? At least then you’ll know that it was raised free-range, wasn’t force-fed, and is anti-biotic free. People pay top dollar for that kind of meat at Whole Foods.</p>
<p>Any school that has target shooting as a club will have guns on campus. Would you please provide a comprehensive list so we can all make sure our kids don’t apply there?</p>
<p>This vendetta is ridiculous. Good luck to you @Fiorucci72, I hope you find a better outlet for your misdirected anger.</p>
<p>@InigoMontoya Middlebury has student Hunting Expeditions, which is collective shooting wildlife, steps beyond "target practice’.</p>
<p>All I do is repeat what Midd boasts:
"… says Dean of Admissions Buckles, …“We have a much stronger hunting and great-outdoors heritage and history than other comparable liberal arts colleges in the East,”</p>
<p>Many of Fiorucci76’s previous posts are about cats and dogs. I appreciate that you’re an animal lover–so am I. But I’m telling you that you’re coming across as being simpleminded, intolerant, and–frankly–immature. I’d take InigoMontoya’s cue and let this die. </p>
<p>Only if chauvinistic drum-beating that smacks of a negative SEO campaign against an individual (cf. “Santorum”) counts as making a point.</p>
<p>I sincerely hope college will indeed teach OP to actually make points in a cogent, logical and reasonable manner. Unfortunately this thread is intended to inflame, not to invite discussion and debate. OP does a disservice to their cause by representing an otherwise reasonable concern for some students with stubborn jingoism.</p>
<p>How come the truth hurts? What is Midd afraid of? Should it be proud of its stance on shooting wildlife? </p>
<p>All I do is repeat what Midd boasts:
"… says Dean of Admissions Buckles, …“We have a much stronger hunting and great-outdoors heritage and history than other comparable liberal arts colleges in the East,”</p>
<p>Dear Middlebury Admissions, if I can prove I bagged a trophy Bull moose and 50 Canada geese do I get automatic admission or do I still need to graduate from high school?</p>
<p>“Midd as a whole has an ex hunting guide (from Ohio)* as director of admissions. This sets the tone of the school which is further demonstrated by its support of student hunting.”</p>
<p>The personal hobbies of an admissions director do not “set the tone” for anything. </p>
<p>What if this thread had begun with something like: “Look at this article. Is it true that hunting is a big deal at Middlebury? I’m strongly anti-hunting and would not like to attend a college where it is widely accepted as a student activity.” Perhaps there might have been some discussion–from present or former Middlebury students–about whether hunting is, in fact, a big deal on campus. That suggests something about the right way to set the tone for a discussion.</p>
<p>Notice, for example, that the article doesn’t actually tell you how many students at Middlebury hunt, although it suggests that there aren’t very many, and that there are fewer than there used to be.</p>