Hector Vila: The Mentor

One day, a young first-year student comes up to me and says, “Yo, brotha Hector, why can’t you take me under your wing?”

There is a wide boundary between the teacher and the student, found most profoundly in colleges and universities. It is thick with emotional distance.

If we are to consider the place of love in our work and world, we need to be able to respond to what is coming at us, what affects us, what vies for our very being.

In the two culminating courses of the recent fall term, where the focus was on delving into profound and demanding experiences to foster expressive exploration, I deliberately opted to center my final discussion on love.

In his column today, Middlebury College Professor Hector Vila writes a probing piece about how the humanities might be an antidote to the anxieties of today’s era; how love and the concern for each other might counter our society’s obsession with the ills … (read more)

Premature deaths produce an intense, unyielding force of overwhelming sadness. This is where we find ourselves at Middlebury College.

At Middlebury College, students in my courses “Writing to Heal” and “The Rhetorics of Death” grapple with a profound incredulity: we couldn’t have anticipated the world’s swift descent into such darkness.

The Women Deliver Conference has a powerful history, though in many places in the world, not least of which is the U.S., women’s rights are being challenged. 

Fifth in a series I took a walk away from Kagugu, best known for its large, gated houses, a pleasant area in the quiet of early morning, and headed towards the other extreme — mud houses, dank alleys, women along the red dirt street selling small green pe … (read more)

I’ve never sidestepped the realities of students’ lives, no teacher can, and shouldn’t — I could, however, work alongside students to locate their lived experiences in an academic setting, exposing them to the language of exile, and thus initiate an explo … (read more)

My favorite times to wander the streets of Kigali, Rwanda are during the fleeting early morning serenity when the air is light and the sun is yet not fully upon us, less buses and trucks spew diesel clouds, and Rwandans are heading for work at a lively pa … (read more)

Samimah tells us that “I have finally developed the ability to embrace whatever changes life throws my way. I have learned not to tie my happiness to one thing, person, or place. I do not tie the sense of home to one physical location, one thing or one pe … (read more)

As I write this, I’m on my way to Kigali, Rwanda, where I will be among young, exiled Afghans attending the SOLA School (School of Leadership, Afghanistan) for seven weeks, teaching two three-week courses in Writing, first for seniors and then for ninth t … (read more)