Middlebury College

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Middlebury College
Image:Midd_160.jpg
Latin: Collegium Medioburiense Viridis Mons
 "Middlebury College in the Green Mountains"
Motto Scientia et Virtus
"Knowledge and Virtue"
Established 1800
Type Private coeducational
Endowment $887 million (as of February 2007)
President Ronald D. Liebowitz
Undergraduates 2,350
Location Middlebury, Vermont, United States
Campus Rural, 350 acres (1.4 km²) (main campus)
1,800 acres (7.3 km²) (mountain campus)
Mascot Panther
Website www.middlebury.edu
The Middlebury College Logo

Coordinates: 44.009247° N 73.177344° W

Middlebury College is a small liberal arts college located in the rural New England shire town of Middlebury, Vermont, United States. Drawing 2,350 undergraduates from all 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and over 70 foreign countries, the College is particularly well known for the strength of its foreign language, writing, environmental, and international studies programs. Today, several magazines rank Middlebury among the top liberal arts colleges in the nation, and it is often referred to as one of the "Little Ivies."

Contents

[edit] Background

Mead Chapel sits atop the highest point on campus, overlooking the main quadrangle
Mead Chapel sits atop the highest point on campus, overlooking the main quadrangle

Founded as the Addison County Grammar School in 1797 before receiving its charter on November 1, 1800, the College has a long history of distinguished scholarship. In addition to its undergraduate program, the College offers graduate study in foreign languages and in literature and creative writing.

The 350-acre (1.4 km²) main campus is located in the Champlain Valley between Vermont's Green Mountains to the east and New York's Adirondack Mountains to the west; the nearby 1,800-acre (7.3 km²) mountain campus hosts the college's Bread Loaf School of English and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference every summer. The Conference was founded on an idea first born of poet Robert Frost.

Founded in 1915, the Middlebury Language Schools take over the campus during the summer, teaching about 1,200 students Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. The C.V. Starr - Middlebury Schools Abroad host students at 21 sites in Argentina, China, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Uruguay.

Alexander Twilight, class of 1823, was the first black graduate of any college or university in the United States; he also became the first African American elected to public office, being elected to the Vermont House of Representatives in 1856. In 1883, the trustees voted to accept women as students in the College, making Middlebury one of the first formerly all-male liberal arts colleges in New England to become a coeducational institution.

In May 2004, an anonymous benefactor made a $50 million donation to Middlebury. It was the largest cash gift the school has ever received. The donor asked only that Middlebury name its recently built science building, Bicentennial Hall, after outgoing President John McCardell Jr. In February 2007, Middlebury's endowment stood at approximately $887 million. [1] In 2005, Middlebury signed an affiliation agreement with the Monterey Institute of International Studies, a graduate school located in Monterey, California. While the Monterey Institute will remain a separate institution, the affiliation will enable both schools to further their programs in international studies and foreign languages. Middlebury is also part of the SAT optional movement for undergraduate admission.

In the August 2006 edition of U.S. News and World Report's America's Best Colleges, Middlebury was ranked as the nation's fifth best liberal arts college.

[edit] The campus

Old Chapel, completed in 1836, served as Middlebury's primary academic building for a century. Today it houses seminar classrooms and administrative offices.
Old Chapel, completed in 1836, served as Middlebury's primary academic building for a century. Today it houses seminar classrooms and administrative offices.

Middlebury's campus is characterized by quads and open spaces, views of the Green Mountains and the Adirondacks, and historic granite, marble and limestone buildings. Old Stone Row, consisting of the three oldest buildings on campus - Old Chapel, Painter Hall, and Starr Hall - is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Painter Hall, constructed in 1815, is the oldest extant college building in Vermont. Of the campus, famous postmodern architect Robert Venturi said, "If anyone had told me that gray stone boxes set in lawns could be so beautiful, I would have said they were crazy. Middlebury looks like what everyone thinks an American campus should be but seldom is." [2] The campus is situated on a hill to the west of the village of Middlebury, a traditional New England village centered around Otter Creek Falls.

Since the mid-1990s, student housing has been grouped into five residential Commons: Atwater, Brainerd, Cook, Ross, and Wonnacott. All are named for illustrious college figures. The creation of the Commons accompanied an increase in the size of the student body and an ambitious building campaign. Recently completed building projects include the 220,000 sq. ft. McCardell Bicentennial Hall (1999), a 135,000 sq. ft. library (2004), two Atwater Commons Residence Halls (2004), and a new Atwater Dining Hall (2005). Hillcrest Hall, an Italianate-styled farmhouse constructed around 1874, is currently being renovated to provide a home for the environmental studies program according to LEED standards. Starr Library, a Beaux-Arts edifice completed in 1900, is set to become The Donald Everett Axinn '51 Center for Literary and Cultural Studies at Starr Library pending restoration of interior spaces and addition of two wings for faculty offices. It will house various academic departments and will add lecture halls, screening rooms, and a television production studio for the film studies department.[3]

[edit] The Bread Loaf School of English

The Inn at the Bread Loaf Mountain Campus
The Inn at the Bread Loaf Mountain Campus

The Bread Loaf School of English is based at the College's mountain campus (43.953784° N 72.992971° W) in Ripton, just outside Middlebury, in sight of Bread Loaf Mountain and the main ridge of Green Mountains. As noted earlier, the poet Robert Frost is credited as a major influence on the school. Frost "first came to the School on the invitation of Dean Wilfred Davison in 1921. Friend and neighbor to Bread Loaf, (he) returned to the School every summer with but three exceptions for 42 years." [4] Every summer since 1920, Bread Loaf has offered students from around the United States and the world intensive courses in literature, creative writing, the teaching of writing, and theater. Prominent faculty and staff have included George K. Anderson, William Carlos Williams, Herschel Brickell, Bernard DeVoto, Edward Weismiller, Theodore Roethke, John Crowe Ransom, Elizabeth Drew, A. Bartlett Giamatti, Lawrence B. Holland, Nancy Martin, Perry Miller, Catherine Drinker Bowen, Carlos Baker, Harold Bloom, James Britton, Cleanth Brooks, Reuben Brower, Martin Price, Donald Stauffer, Charles Edward Eaton, Richard Ellman, Cedric Whitman, Paul Muldoon, William Sloane, John Ciardi, John P. Marquand, and Wylie Sypher.[5] [6]

The Bread Loaf School presently has campuses at five locations: Vermont, Oxford (England), North Carolina, New Mexico, and Alaska. The primary campus, near Middlebury, enrolls some 250 students every summer. The Oxford campus (at Lincoln College) enrolls 90 students. The fledgling North Carolina campus, near the Blue Ridge Mountains, is affiliated with the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and will enroll its first class of 50 students in 2006. The New Mexico campus at St. John's College, Santa Fe, enrolls 80 students every summer. The Alaska campus, at the University of Alaska Southeast near Juneau, also enrolls 80 students.

Students at Bread Loaf can either attend for one or two summers as continuing graduate students, or work toward a Master of Arts (M.A.) or Master of Letters (M.Litt.) degree over the course of four or five summers spread over different campuses.

In addition to the six-week summer program, Middlebury College's Bread Loaf campus is also the site of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference for established authors. "Two weeks of intensive workshops, lectures, classes and readings present writers with rigorous practical and theoretical approaches to their craft, and offer a model of literary instruction." [7] Past participants have included John Gardner, Charles Baxter, John Irving, Toni Morrison, and Barry Lopez. The conference takes place in late August, after the School of English summer session has ended. Additionally, The New England Young Writers' Conference brings together emerging writers every May for workshops and readings.

[edit] Language study, summer language schools, and schools abroad

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[edit] General language study

Middlebury presently teaches Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. (Some students are also currently lobbying for Korean.) The college provides students with extensive opportunities to speak their target language.

The general method of language study - and particularly summer language study - is properly characterized as "immersion," i.e. extensive use of the target language both in and outside the classroom. The isolated, residential nature of the college allows budding speakers to study, eat, and live with fellow speakers, and to minimize the use of English and other languages. Each language has a House associated with it, where speakers and teaching assistants lodge to create distinct linguistic communities. Students and faculty may attend lunch daily at "language tables;" during the meals, students and faculty speak only in their target language, and are served food by fluent student workers.

Professors with primary appointments in other departments have been known to offer natural science and social science courses in foreign languages.

[edit] Summer language schools

Middlebury’s summer programs enable students to undergo the equivalent of a year of college-level language study in seven- or nine-week summer sessions. Five of Middlebury's summer schools - French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish - also offer graduate programs. These are completed during six-week summer sessions, with an option of combining the sessions with overseas study. The graduate degree most often conferred is the Master of Arts. Middlebury also offers a Doctor of Modern Languages degree. Beginning in summer 2007, Middlebury will offer a sixth graduate program in Chinese.

All Language School students agree to abide by the "Language Pledge" (tm), a formal commitment to speak, listen, read, and write the language of study as the only means of communication for the entire summer session. The Pledge helps students focus their energies on the acquisition of language skills and to internalize the patterns of communication and cultural perspective associated with the target language.

[edit] Study abroad and the C.V. Starr schools

Middlebury College has designed C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools Abroad to offer graduate and undergraduate language students the chance to enrich and expand their skills in a setting where they can fully live the language.

The college has schools abroad at 21 foreign locations including Argentina (Buenos Aires and Tucumán), Brazil (Belo Horizonte and Niteroi), Chile (Concepcion, La Serena, Santiago, Tumuco, Valdivia, and Valparaiso), China (Hangzhou), France (Paris, Poitiers and Bordeaux), Germany (Berlin and Mainz), Italy (Ferrara and Florence), Mexico (Guadalajara and Xalapa), Russia (Irkutsk, Moscow, and Yaroslavl), Spain (Getafe, Logroño, Madrid, and Segovia), and Uruguay (Montevideo).

In January 2007, the college announced that it had established the C.V. Starr-Middlebury School Abroad in the Middle East, the first of the Middlebury Schools Abroad in this region. Located in Alexandria, Egypt, and affiliated with Alexandria University, the school will begin offering classes in the fall of 2007.

The C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools Abroad are designed to immerse every student as completely as possible in both the language and the culture of the host nation. All course work is taught in the target language. Students often have the opportunity to enroll directly in the local university, where their classmates will be from the host country, or to take courses designed exclusively for program participants.

Many of the newer sites abroad give students the opportunity to live and study in a provincial setting, where they will have less interaction with other Americans, and with tourists in general. Students looking for a more international city can still choose the programs in Berlin, Buenos Aires, Florence, Madrid, Moscow, and Paris. Each of the Schools Abroad has a resident director and other support staff.

[edit] The Rohatyn Center For International Affairs

Middlebury College is home to the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs[8], founded by Felix Rohatyn, a Middlebury alum, former U.S. Ambassador, and founder of Rohatyn Associates. Located at the Robert A. Jones House, the Center combines Middlebury's noted strengths in linguistic, cultural, and political studies to offer a packed schedule of internationally focused symposia, lectures, and presentations. In addition, the Center regularly publishes working papers by prominent international scholars and offers several grants for faculty and student research. A growing collection of online documentary and video archives preserves some of the events recently hosted by the Center.

Most events at the Center take a broad interdisciplinary approach and are divided evenly between contemporary political problems and historical topics. Students regularly propose, create, and moderate symposia with the Center's assistance. A sampling of recent conferences and presentations is as follows: The Idea of Jerusalem, The Privatization of American National Security, Genocide in Africa: The Method behind the Madness, The Infrastructure of American Democracy Promotion, The International Relations of the South China Sea, Islam and Globalization, Rebuilding Afghanistan, The Confucian Conception of Proper Humor, Cervantes and Italian Renaissance Art, The Oral Transmission of Cultural Traditions, etc.

[edit] Environmental studies and college environmentalism

The new Atwater Dining Hall (2004) features a living roof
The new Atwater Dining Hall (2004) features a living roof

The Environmental Studies major at Middlebury College was established in 1965, making it the first undergraduate major of its kind in the nation. The Program is an interdisciplinary, nondepartmental major that draws upon 52 faculty members from 26 departments.

Middlebury has a reputation as an environmentally conscious campus. The student population is considered active in environmental issues, with several activist groups operating on campus and organizing frequent trips to the state capitol and beyond. Students recently retrofitted a bus to run on biodiesel and drove it to Detroit in summer 2005 to protest the auto industry's environmental practices. This was based on the successful Project Biobus initiative, an educational cross-country tour of 13 Middlebury students promoting biofuel use in local communities.

In January 2005, the Sunday Night Group (SNG) was formed by several student activists to assist other students in coordinating various environmental campaigns, especially those concerning global warming. SNG was responsible for January 2006's Get Outside Week,[9] the Two Degree Campaign,[10] and a current effort towards carbon neutrality[11] of all Middlebury College operations. SNG pushes its activism beyond the campus, including co-organizing a rally in support of clean-energy legislation, called Fossil Fool's Day (April 1st), at the Vermont State House in Montpelier[12]. Over 130 student activists attended the December 2005 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal where some served as official observer delgates. Internationally-renowned environmentalist Bill McKibben serves as an informal advisor to the organization. The organization and its members have received positive recognition from on-campus offices and from statewide media sources[13].

The college is also a leader in sustainable agriculture and recycling programs. Local farmers and the student-run organic garden supply more than a quarter of the food consumed in the dining halls, and the campus-wide recycling program has a 60% diversion rate. Moreover, the college has steadfastly used "green" building techniques in its recent construction. The college is committed to environmental sustainability and stewardship, both in its academic programs and in practice.[citation needed]

[edit] Policy on Wikipedia

In February, 2007, Middlebury made news headlines when the school's History department issued a policy stating that although Wikipedia is useful as a starting point for research, it cannot itself be cited as an authoritative source in the creation of academic papers.[1] The genesis for this policy, according to a New York Times article, stems from an instance in which six Middlebury College students taking a Japanese history course wrote on a test that Jesuits supported the Shimabara Rebellion. This is false, but according to the then publicly displayed version of the Wikipedia article, it was correct. Nevertheless, a student editorial written in The Middlebury Campus described the new policy as “the beginnings of censorship.”[2] Assistant Professor Jason Mittell defended Wikipedia in The New York Times: “The message that is being sent is that ultimately they see it as a threat to traditional [institutions of] knowledge.”[3]

On February 26, the college hosted a lively forum on this topic with audio and video available online. [4][5]

[edit] Athletics

View of Bread Loaf Campus and the Champlain Valley from the summit of the Middlebury College Snow Bowl
View of Bread Loaf Campus and the Champlain Valley from the summit of the Middlebury College Snow Bowl

Middlebury competes in the New England Small College Athletic Conference. Middlebury leads the conference in total number of National Championships, having won 27 individual titles since the NESCAC lifted its ban on NCAA play. Middlebury enjoys national success in tennis, cross country running, lacrosse, hockey, and skiing, and fields 30 varsity NCAA teams and over 10 competitive club teams. Middlebury's success in intercollegiate sports is evidenced by the college's third place ranking in the 2006 National Sports Academy Directors' Cup standings. From 2004 to 2006, both the men's and women's ice hockey teams won three consecutive NCAA Division III National Championships, an unprecedented feat for a college at any level. The baseball program is also on the rise, winning their first NESCAC championship in 2006, while finishing fourth in New England. Middlebury's athletic facilities include a state-of-the-art 50-meter by 25-yard swimming pool, 3,500-seat football/lacrosse stadium, a 2,600 spectator hockey arena, a downhill ski area, a regulation rugby pitch, the Middlebury College Snow Bowl (43.938516° N 72.957826° W), the 18-hole Ralph Myhre golf course, and the Carroll and Jane Rikert Ski Touring Center at the Bread Loaf mountain campus. The college mascot is the panther.

[edit] Presidents

  1. Jeremiah Atwater, 1800-1809
  2. Henry Davis, 1809-1818
  3. Joshua Bates, 1818-1840
  4. Benjamin Labaree, 1840-1866
  5. Harvey Denison Kitchel, 1866-1875
  6. Calvin Butler Hulbert, 1875-1880
  7. Cyrus Hamlin, 1880-1885
  8. Ezra Brainerd, 1885-1908
  9. John Martin Thomas, 1908-1921
  10. Paul Dwight Moody, 1921-1943
  11. Samuel Somerville Stratton, 1943-1963
  12. James Isbell Armstrong, 1963-1975
  13. Olin Clyde Robison, 1975-1990
  14. Timothy Light, 1990-1991
  15. John Malcolm McCardell, Jr., 1991-2004
  16. Ronald D. Liebowitz. 2004-

[edit] Commencement speakers

[edit] Prominent alumni

[edit] Politics

Ari Fleischer '82 conducts a White House press conference
Ari Fleischer '82 conducts a White House press conference
Ronald Harmon Brown '62, former Secretary of Commerce
Ronald Harmon Brown '62, former Secretary of Commerce
Eve Ensler, writer of the Vagina Monologues
Eve Ensler, writer of the Vagina Monologues
  • Samuel Nelson - Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice
  • Ron Brown - Former Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and Secretary of Commerce.
  • Silas Wright - Former Chairman of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, Democratic Senator, and Governor of New York [14]
  • Solomon Foot - Former U.S. Senator and President pro tempore during the Civil War
  • Edward John Phelps - Lawyer and diplomat; a founding member and president of the American Bar Association.
  • Robert Stafford - Former Governor of Vermont and United States Senator from Vermont
  • Jim Douglas - Governor of Vermont
  • Justin Smith Morrill - Former U.S. Senator from Vermont; Author of the Land Grant College Act
  • Bill Delahunt- United States Congressman from Massachusetts
  • Alexander W. Buel - Former United States Congressman from Michigan
  • Frank Pallone - United States Congressman from New Jersey
  • Ari Fleischer - Former White House Press Secretary
  • William K. Sessions III - Chief Judge, United States District Court of Vermont
  • Georgia Maxine Atkins Smith - Civil Rights activist
  • John Wallach - Founder of Seeds for Peace
  • Roswell M. Field - Prominent antebellum lawyer who represented Dred Scott

[edit] Education, media, art, and literature

[edit] Business and entrepreneurship

[edit] Others

  • Dispatch - Prominent American indie jam band comprising Chad Urmston, Brad Corrigan, and Pete Heimbold.
  • Hall J. Kelley - Explorer, settler, and settling advocate west of the Rocky Mountains.
  • Dana Reeve - Philanthropist and actress; chairperson of the Christopher Reeve Foundation.
  • Eileen Rockefeller Growald - Philanthropist; founder of the Institute for the Advancement of Health and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

[edit] Fictional alumni

  • Snake Jailbird - Fictional character and criminal on animated television series The Simpsons who repaid his Middlebury College student loans after robbing Springfield landmark Moe's Tavern. Voiced by Hank Azaria.
  • Brenda Cushman, Elise Elliot, and Annie Paradis - The three main characters in Olivia Goldsmith's first novel The First Wives Club (1992). The women, who in the novel met while students at Middlebury College (class of 1969), were portrayed by Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, and Diane Keaton in the 1996 film adaptation.
  • Mr. Wolfe - A teacher in George Lucas' 1973 film American Graffiti. The character, played by Terry McGovern, is a confidant of Curt Henderson's, played by Richard Dreyfuss. In their one conversation together, Mr. Wolfe tells Curt that he "got drunk as hell the night before" going to college, and that he "barfed on the train all next day." When Curt asks him where he went to school, Mr. Wolfe replies, "Middlebury, Vermont...On a scholarship...[I stayed only] one semester. After all that, I came back here...I guess I just wasn't the competitive type."

[edit] Points of interest

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Brian Fung (January 24, 2007). Wikipedia distresses History Department. The Middlebury Campus.
  2. ^ Chandler Koglmeier (February 14, 2007). Op-Ed: Wikipedia ban is a slippery slope. The Middlebury Campus.
  3. ^ Noam Cohen (February 21, 2007). A History Department Bans Citing Wikipedia As a Research Source. The New York Times.
  4. ^ Jason Mittell (February 26, 2007). Post-debate Wiki-blogging. JustTV.
  5. ^ Wikipedia in academia: Open forum at Middlebury tackles the issue. Middlebury College (March 2, 2007).

[edit] External links

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