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By the way for April 5; Controversial speaker at college met with politeness

Roughly a year after a visit by “Bell Curve” coauthor Charles Murray to Middlebury College was met with violent protests, the school’s College Republicans on Tuesday hosted UCLA law professor Richard Sander, whose 2012 book, “Mismatch,” criticizes college affirmative action policies. The event at the Kirk Alumni Center, which was closed to the public and heavily guarded by campus police, began with a reading from the college handbook about campus protest policies, then proceeded without incident. Sander presented his research to a full room, then took questions from an engaged and polite audience of possibly close to 200.
 
We took down the comments feature on addisonindependent.com about two months ago. The free service that we used — it’s called Disqus — changed the way it delivered the comments so that on each and every Addison Independent story it posted also teases links to stories on other websites, and the teases included what we deemed to be unsavory pictures (one person called them “trashy.”) It didn’t look like the Addison Independent, and it detracted from what we work so hard to provide to our readers. Weighing the choice of having third-party content on addisonindependent.com that we thought devalued the website vs. not having any reader comments with our stories, we opted to get rid of the trashy content and forego the comments. We hated to take away the reader input, but given that we were only getting as few as three to five comments some weeks, we went in that direction. We’re looking for other ways to add back reader comments to our online stories, but in a way that won’t turn over a prominent part of our website to something outside our control. We’re still looking. In the meantime, we are getting plenty of comments on our Facebook page.
 
Our own Miss Vermont 2017, Erin Connor of Bridport, will work with other pageant participants this Saturday to take part in Miss America Serves day. Connor and the other Miss Vermont contestants, along with other volunteers, will prepare boxed meals for Vermonters in need at the Rutland Farmer’s Food Market. Rutland-area vendors and their products will be featured in the meals prepared on Saturday. Activities for the children designed to promote community service and healthy meal choices will also be offered. “Food insecurity is a pressing problem across Vermont,” Connor said in a press release. “Too many Vermonters struggle to feed their families and make ends meet. The Rutland Farmer’s Food Market and BROC Community Action of Southwestern Vermont do excellent work in the Rutland community addressing hunger and food insecurity. I’m excited to bring the Miss Vermont contestants and volunteers to the Rutland community to partner with them for Miss America Serves day. Giving back is what Miss America Serves is all about.”
 
Each year at this time the Middlebury selectboard makes its annual appointments to volunteer positions required by state statute. Residents who are interested in any of the following positions are invited to submit a letter of interest to the Town Manager’s Office at 77 Main St. or send an e-mail to [email protected], no later than Friday, April 6. The volunteer positions (with number of openings in parentheses) are: Three-year terms, Planning Commission (2), Design Advisory Committee (2), Development Review Board (3), Downtown Improvement District Committee (2) and Energy Committee (2); one-year term, Addison County Regional Planning Commission Delegate (3), Addison County Regional Planning Commission Alternate (2), Addison County Regional Planning Commission Transportation Advisory Committee (1), Fence Viewer (3), First Constable (1), Middlebury Community Television Board (1), Sports Commission (3), Town Agent (1), Town Grand Juror (1), Town Service Officer (1) and Tree Warden (1)

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