University as citizen

While University students may have protested in the name of spreading love at Middletown’s Army recruitment office on Valentine’s Day, there may soon be a much larger audience to serenade in town.

The United States Army has expressed its intent to create a training base in Middletown. The proposed site is in the rural area of Maromas, a nature reserve by the Connecticut River. Local environmentalists reacted immediately, and University student groups such as WesPeace have been vocal in their opposition to the training base. Along with the numerous demonstrations in front of the Army recruitment center on Main Street, an anti-Army sentiment has swept the campus this semester.

Interestingly, the proposal has made unlikely bedfellows of the University and Middletown Mayor Sebastian N. Giuliano. During his campaign for election in November 2005, Guiliano spoke explicitly about his frustrations with the University’s sense of entitlement in the town. Since his election, though, Guiliano has been working more with the University, attending Freshman Orientation and President Roth’s inauguration. At the invitation of the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA), Guiliano came to this past Sunday’s weekly meeting to speak with students about the training base and hear the assembly’s resolution against it.

The University and Middletown are not new to town collaboration: the Middletown Inn, Green Street Arts Center and Traverse Square after-school program are just three of several institutions created from joint efforts. Now, however, the University must enact its civic duty as a member of Middletown’s citizenship and seriously consider the impact that the army base would have on the city. Potential political divisions counter potential economic benefits. How would the University fare as one of three main features in a small city, alongside a mental health facility and an Army training base?

As members of both the University community and the Middletown community, it is imperative for us to consider the impact that an Army base would have on the landscape, politics and culture of both. While we open our arms to the military veterans who may attend the University as scholarship students in the upcoming academic year, an Army base and its influence on Middletown warrants a more careful inspection.