Dick Clay, COVID Survivor

Food waste is a major issue not only in the United States, but around the world. Whether it's the mass waste that gets dumped by restaurants and grocery stores or the bag of lettuce that was never opened, rotting away in the back of your refrigerator, it touches each of us daily. 

Nick Whitman is the co-founder and COO of Divert, an impact technology company on a mission to Protect the Value of Food. Fueled by the vision of a waste-free future, Nick co-founded Divert in 2007 to prevent wasted food through the creation of advanced technology and sustainable infrastructure. 

He sits down with host and Middlebury President Laurie Patton to chat about his time at Middlebury as a Poli sci major, his ADHD diagnosis and his understanding of the value of neurodiversity, and his work with Divert to tackle the human and environmental crises caused by wasted food. 

MiddMoment is a production of Middlebury College and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

How did Nick develop the love for sustainability?

[04:38] I think my 20s were, in some ways, the opportunity for me to figure out what I wanted to be. And I spent a lot of time trying different roles and trying on different roles. And it wasn't until later on, when I went back to business school, that, for me, marrying the love of sustainability and the love of the environment with my love of entrepreneurship really started to bring out Divert and how we created Divert and how it started. But sitting at the intersection of those two parts—entrepreneurship and the environment—is, for me, a formative experience.

The power of technology is to give data

[34:15] The power of technology is not to sell more technology or products; the power is to give you data and to shed light on what is happening on the ground level so that you can make meaningful changes.

On embracing the power of thinking differently

[16:01] I'm a huge believer of neurodiversity. I'm a huge believer that, in some cases, it's a little bit underrepresented on the diversity spectrum because it brings people together who think differently. It's such an important part of that, and people's brains look at problems, right? They may not be the most organized; I'll never be the most organized person, but I can approach problems and come up with solutions that other folks can't. and I think that's a really important skill.

Stop throwing away data

[38:19] We have to get away from the idea of calling it waste. We have to get away from the concept of just throwing it away because we're really throwing away data. We're throwing away insights and have to figure out how to take that, digitize that information so we understand what it is. And then, tell us, let's figure out what that tells us about the operations, the performance, and society as a whole.

Show Links:

• Nick Whitman LinkedIn
• Divert
• Driven to Distraction by Edward Hallowell 

Carolyn Finney, PhD is a storyteller, author, cultural geographer, and a self-described accidental environmentalist whose work explores the intersection of identity, privilege, and our natural surroundings.

She's the author of Black Faces White Spaces: Re-Imagining the Relationship of African-Americans to the Great Outdoors. And lately she's been workshopping a performance piece titled The N Word Nature Revisited in which she interrogates our collective relationship with the land, an interrogation that includes a spirited conversation with the ghost of John Muir.

Carolyn teaches undergraduates at Middlebury as an artist in Residence and environmental Affairs, and last summer served on the faculty of the Breadloaf Environmental Writers Conference.

In the second part of this 2 part interview, Carolyn & President of Middlebury Laurie Patton continue their conversation on the intersections of creativity and race in our natural landscapes, the need to look beyond environmental justice, her most notable “Midd Moment,” and new ways of thinking about ancestry. 

MiddMoment is a production of Middlebury College and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

On Carolyn's role as an educator

09:02: I wanted to build my knowledge base, my own confidence, and my ability to talk about a wide variety of things. I love learning in the broadest sense. So whether I was living in a village in Nepal for a year and a half or back and getting my master's in Utah, it didn't matter. I was looking to add it all as an opportunity to build something because I wanted the opportunity to have a public platform to do this work. As an educator, I just wanted to have my own independence and freedom to think more broadly and expansively and be my whole self within that process.

Understanding your intention and choices

15:42: You're always going to be faced with choices. Sometimes they're limited, sometimes they're not. But the responsibility is yours to make the choice that's going to be in service to the intention. So you can be authentic in relationships the way that you want and ultimately upright.

Environmental justice and everything else

04:33: The question of justice is also about relationships. Our ability to lean into that tension and show up to it both externally and internally it's about who and how we are. And to think about it as a geographer, it's about human-environment relationships; it's about people and place. We don't exist separately.

Show Links:

• Carolyn Finney
• Carolyn Finney - Middlebury Profile
• Carolyn Finney Instagram
• Franklin Environmental Center at Middlebury
• Black Faces, White Spaces Book
• Zora Neale Hurston
• Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. 

Carolyn Finney, PhD, is a storyteller, author, cultural geographer, and self-described “accidental environmentalist” whose work explores the intersection of identity, privilege, and our natural surroundings.

She's the author of Black Faces White Spaces: Re-Imagining the Relationship of African-Americans to the Great Outdoors. And lately she's been workshopping a performance piece titled The N Word: Nature Revisited in which she interrogates our collective relationship with the land, an interrogation that includes a spirited conversation with the ghost of John Muir.

Carolyn teaches undergraduates at Middlebury as an artist in residence in environmental Affairs, and last summer served on the faculty of the Breadloaf Environmental Writers’ Conference.

In part one of this two-part interview, Carolyn joins host and president of Middlebury, Laurie Patton, to discuss how her upbringing and family history in Westchester County, New York became the foundation of her life’s work. 

And don’t forget to join us next week for part 2 of this engaging and dynamic interview with Carolyn Finney.

MiddMoment is a production of Middlebury College and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

Perspectives on conservation easements and the complexity of understanding

16:28: A lot of people I've met who are in the work of placing conservation easement are generally very thoughtful, caring folks who love the land and the landscape and have also been educated similarly to the way I've been educated in the world about how to think about it right now. I think the nuance begins depending on who you are. Like it's going to look different if you live in a certain skin and experience. And having said that, I think there's a lot of not knowing, right? About our past. I also think, and this is just my opinion, you know, look to read and look at stories and what's going on daily in this country and oftentimes, the resistance, and I say it very gently but clearly, to wanting to understand the complexity.

Did we lose the shared American narrative?

17:41: There's an assumption about that shared American narrative that it was never shared. You know, it depends on who you ask. The opportunity is how we develop the skill set to look at that textured history and where and how we see ourselves.

Our personal experiences are part of a larger story

22:44: We all have our family stories or our personal experiences, but actually, it's part of a larger story. The textural piece is all of ours. And so we are all accountable and responsible for it differently, but what happens if we all become responsible for it? It's amazing.

The damaging experience is only one piece

27:58: We all live a damaging experience as human beings on this earth because part of the legacy of the past is a lot of the hard and painful things that are there for all of us that we all carry. Whether or not we pay attention to it or not is perhaps our individual choice, or, you know, our circumstance. But there is what I would like to say: that brokenness that's always there, along with intense joy, love, and resilience.

Show Links:

• Carolyn Finney
• Carolyn Finney - Middlebury Profile
• Carolyn Finney Instagram
• Franklin Environmental Center at Middlebury
• Black Faces, White Spaces Book

For some, finding your career, life, and purpose can be a lifelong task. But Rebecca Makkai knew she wanted to be a writer since she was 7 years old. But it wasn't until graduate school that her journey took her to Middlebury.

Rebecca Makkai is the Chicago-based author of the novels I Have Some Questions for You, The Great Believers, The Hundred-Year House, and The Borrower, as well as the short story collection Music for Wartime. The Great Believers was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and received the ALA Carnegie Medal and the LA Times Book Prize, among other honors. Makkai is on the MFA faculties of Sierra Nevada College and Northwestern University, and she is the Artistic Director of StoryStudio Chicago.

She joins host & President of Middlebury Laurie Patton to discuss her teaching career, overcoming writer's block, her time at Bread Loaf, dabbling in other genres or mediums for inspiration, and her deep personal roots to Vermont. 

MiddMoment is a production of Middlebury College and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

On building a character

20:57: I know a lot of writers who start with character. They start with a vibe on a certain character, and then the work early on that they have to do is figuring out how to push that character into action. What is this character going to do? What will they get up to? For me, I start almost always with plot. I start with the main things that I want to have happen. I don't have it all worked out necessarily, and then I need to work backwards from there to reverse engineer a character. I need to think about who is the character, who would be the most susceptible to these circumstances, who would be the most vulnerable to this, or the most changed by the events of the novel.

A skill that any artist should have

10:38: One of the best skills any artist can have is the ability to distinguish between being stuck for reasons of craft and being stuck for psychological reasons.

The similarity between painting and writing a short story

18:20: When you write a short story, it's like painting a picture on the head of a pin to get everything in there. And when you write a novel, it's like painting this giant mural; when you're working on it, you're too close to see the whole thing.

Show Links:

• Rebecca Makkai website (https://rebeccamakkai.com)

A fearless virus hunter. That’s how many describe today’s guest, who has been on the front lines researching emerging infectious disease for nearly three decades. 

Anne Rimoin is an epidemiologist who is an internationally recognized expert on global health, disease, surveillance, and immunization.

Anne is a 1992 graduate of Middlebury College and earned a Master's in Public Health from UCLA and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins. Currently, she holds the Gordon Levin and Dow Chair in infectious diseases and public health at UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health, where she directs the Center for Global and Immigrant Health.

She sits down with host & President of Middlebury Laurie Patton, to discuss her time in the PeaceCorps, white savior complex & parachute science in the global health space, vaccine hesitancy, and finding the joy in this work despite the white hot glare of polarized debates.

MiddMoment is a production of Middlebury College and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

The core of the DRC program

19:26: The basis of my program in DRC is this deep, fundamental connection with the people there and my interest in trying to understand, well, what do you need? What do you want? What can we do to make your life better? And I think that training from being a student at Middlebury and having this just very different kind of approach as opposed to a completely science-based approach has made all of the difference in the world.

The importance of applying methods to health situations

15:14: What I tell people all the time is don't focus on what the disease is; focus on what the methods are and be able to apply them to any health situation.

Show Links: 

• Anne Rimoin - UCLA
• Anne Rimoin - NIH Bibliography
• Anne Rimoin - Twitter
• Guinea Worm Eradication Program in Benin in West Africa
• World Heath Organization
• APLA Aids Project
• John Spencer
• Spencer Prize in Oratory

Hi, this is Laurie Patton, President of Middlebury, Professor of Religion, and host of this podcast, MiddMoment. Though there is still about a foot of snow on the ground here in Vermont, my thoughts are on spring and the return of this podcast, my conversations with Middlebury folks that tackle ideas of the day. I'm so excited for this season, season 3.

Among our guests will be an epidemiologist, colloquially known as a virus hunter, a critically acclaimed novelist, a filmmaker, a cultural geographer, and much more. I hope you'll join me for the upcoming season of MiddMoment. 

If you're not already a subscriber, you can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Talk to you soon!

"MiddMoment Podcast is a production of Middlebury College and is produced by University FM."

24 Hour Plays Viral Monologues series, "Unknown Caller" by Dan O'Brien starring Jessica St. Clair. 

Life Shrinks by Dan O'Brien

Without Evidence by Dan O'Brien

Jessica’s latest space comedy, "Space Force," premiered Friday 05/29 on Netflix. 

Music credits:

• Slimheart by Bitters via Blue Dot Sessions
• Waterbourne by Algae Fields via Blue Dot Sessions

Music credits:

• Slimheart by Bitters via Blue Dot Sessions
• SuzyB via Blue Dot Sessions 

 Music credits:

• Slimheart by Bitters via Blue Dot Sessions
• Ghost Byzantine by Blue Dot Sessions 
• Mom Stuck Inside by Alyssa Limperis

GO Pats!!! by Alyssa Limperis