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Revision as of 18:20, 6 June 2006

Middlebury College
Latin: Collegium Medioburiense Viridis Mons
MottoScientia et Virtus
(Rough translation: "Knowledge and Virtue") Collegium Medioburiense Viridis Montanis
(Rough translation: "Middlebury College in the Green Mountains")
TypePrivate coeducational
Established1800
PresidentRonald D. Liebowitz
Undergraduates2,350
Location
Middlebury
,
Vermont
,
United States
CampusRural, 350 acres (1.4 km²) (main campus)
1,800 acres (7.3 km²) (mountain campus)
MascotPanther
Websitehttp://www.middlebury.edu
Mead Chapel - Middlebury College

Middlebury College is a small, selective liberal arts college located in the rural New England town of Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800, the college has a long history of distinguished scholarship, and is particularly well known for the strength of its foreign language, writing, environmental, and international studies programs. Today, Middlebury consistently ranks among the top liberal arts colleges in the nation. 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.

Approximately 2,300 students attend Middlebury during the regular academic year, representing all 50 United States and over 70 foreign countries. 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 in the United States. 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 donation brought Middlebury's total endowment to more than $700 million. The donor asked only that Middlebury name its recently built science building, Bicentennial Hall, after outgoing President John McCardell Jr. In 2005, Middlebury signed an affiliation agreement with the Monterey Institute of International Studies, a graduate school located in Monterey, California.

The Campus

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, "You have here what everyone thinks an American campus should look like — only they almost never do." [1] The campus is situated on a hill to the west of the village of Middlebury, a traditional New England town 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).

The Bread Loaf School of English

File:DSCN0109.JPG
Bread Loaf Inn - Middlebury College Mountain Campus

The renowned Bread Loaf School of English has its central campus just outside Middlebury, in sight of Bread Loaf and the 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." [2] 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 Giametti, 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, William Sloane, John Ciardi, John P. Marquand, and Wylie Sypher.[3] [4]

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 Unviersity 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 five or six summers spread over different campuses.

In addition to the six week summer program, the Vermont Bread Loaf School also hosts the highly-regarded Bread Loaf Writers' Conference for established authors and The New England Young Writers' Conference for upcoming writers every summer. "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." [5] Past participants have included John Gardner, Charles Baxter, John Irving, Toni Morrison, and Barry Lopez.

Language Study, Summer Language Schools, and Schools Abroad

General Language Study

Middlebury has long been preeminent in the teaching of languages. Presently, the school teaches Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. The college has created a unique linguistic environment, which 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. The college also holds special meals every week, where speakers sit at "language tables" or dining areas divided up by language. During the meals, students and community members speak only in their target language, and are waited on by fluent student workers.

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

Summer Language Schools

Middlebury’s summer programs are internationally renowned for excellence in language instruction. These intensive 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, six weeks in length, leading to the Master of Arts or to Middlebury's unique Doctor of Modern Languages degree.

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.

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 and Poitiers), 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).

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.

The Rohatyn Center For International Affairs

Middlebury College is home to the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs[6], 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.

Environmental Studies and College Environmentalism

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. It has had remarkable success in bringing together a broad range of diciplines, from Biology, to English, to Architecture. The Environmental Studies major is a popular and vibrant one at Middlebury College, ranking among the five most popular majors at the College over the last five years. The program both evinces and contributes to the environmentalism of the Middlebury community.

Middlebury has a strong reputation as an environmentally conscious campus. The student population is very active in environmental issues, with several activist groups operating on campus and organizing frequent trips to the state capitol and beyond. In a noteworthy gesture, students recently retrofitted a bus to run on biodiesel and drove it to Detroit in order to protest the auto industry's environmental practices.

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. The campus-wide recycling program has a 60% diversion rate. Moreover, the college has steadfastly used "green" building techniques in its recent buildings. The college is committed to environmental sustainability and stewardship, both in its academic programs and in practice.

Athletics

Middlebury competes in the New England Small College Athletic Conference. 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 second place ranking in the 2005 National Sports Academy Directors' Cup standings after six NESCAC Championships, two NCAA titles, four NCAA individual championships and 33 All-Americans for 2004-2005. 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. 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, the Middlebury College Snow Bowl, 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.

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-

Commencement Speakers

Prominent Alumni

Politics

Education, Media, and Literature

Business and Entrepreneurship

Others

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.

Points of interest

See also

External links

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