BRATTLEBORO — Beginning with this week's paper, Commons readers will see some new bylines in stories about Marlboro College's affiliation with - and proposed assimilation into - Emerson College in Boston.
Our newspaper will bring you work from the young journalists at Emerson's student newspaper, The Berkeley Beacon (berkeleybeacon.com), who are covering this story with clarity, resolve, thoughtfulness, and compassion.
“Immediately, we knew as a paper that we needed to hear from the students and faculty of Marlboro, and that a phone interview would not suffice,” the paper's photo editor, Jakob Menendez, posted on Nov. 6, the day the two colleges made the negotiations public.
Menendez and a group of his colleagues drove to Vermont immediately to visit Marlboro College.
“Initially, I expected an air of hostility, or at least resentment,” he wrote. “But instead, what I experienced was an overwhelming sense of community. The students who came to sit with us made me realize that while we are worlds apart; one campus residing upon a mountain top and the other situated in the middle of downtown Boston, we are united through our commonalities.”
This empathy extended to an editorial, in which the Beacon editorial board observed that “Emerson students took to the internet to ridicule the administration for acquiring a college that shares a name with a popular cigarette brand. They devised memes about the hilarity of our school 'buying' another school just for fun. They capitalized on the college's seemingly unquenchable thirst for real estate.” (As kids do.)
“While Emerson students got caught up in the humor of a situation that benefits us, we failed to account for the other side of the story. While we laughed, hundreds of students faced the grim outlook of the institute they chose to attend for four years-the school that was supposed to be their alma mater,” the editors wrote. “Making fun of the drastic change Marlboro students are facing is an ignorant move that reveals the lack of effort Emerson students invested in researching the situation in Vermont before taking to the internet. Going forward, Marlboro College's students, property, and legacy deserve our utmost respect.”
In just a few days, the students have covered the history of Marlboro College and the anxieties of the student body. They have interviewed its president, Kevin Quigley, and they have checked in with local businesses. They have debunked misconceptions and rumors, and they have covered the college community's town meeting.
They've posted on their website, dropped a podcast, and published a multi-page special section in their print edition.
They are not only covering this story - they are crushing it.
In other words, their instincts, their clarity, their thoroughness, and their values are completely aligned with what we are trying to do here. That's why I asked them if they'd like to work with us, and that's why I'm thrilled that they agreed - enthusiastically - to do so.
The Beacon will also use Commons reporting related to Marlboro, and its staff will be welcome to make use of our newsroom while they are reporting from Vermont. We are thrilled to offer them any professional guidance and resources at our disposal.
Both newsrooms are looking forward to reporting this story - so important in different ways to two respective communities - more strongly together.
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From its founding in 2004, Vermont Independent Media, the publisher of this newspaper, has had an educational component to its nonprofit mission.
We believe this collaboration with the Beacon is in the service of our mission, and we hope this collaboration might be a model for other local schools and colleges to join us for similar projects.
One final note: These students have their feet on the ground, and they have been driving to Marlboro regularly to cover this story, despite the 120 miles between the two campuses.
If you would like to support their work, you can do so with a special donation to The Commons at donate.commonsnews.org. Please be sure to choose “Apply My Donation To” in the menu and select “Expenses for student journalists covering Marlboro story.” All proceeds earmarked as such will go to these students once a month.
In the meantime, please join me in welcoming these writers to the pages of The Commons and into the Marlboro community - both college and town.