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Middlebury College
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Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, United States. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Middlebury was the first American institution of higher education to grant a bachelor's degree to an African-American, graduating Alexander Twilight in the class of 1823. Middlebury was also one of the first formerly all-male liberal arts colleges in New England to become a coeducational institution, following the trustees' decision in 1883 to accept women.
Drawing 2,350 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts, humanities, literature, foreign languages, social sciences, and natural sciences. Middlebury follows a 4-1-4 academic schedule, with two four-course semesters and a one course January term called "J-term." In addition to its core undergraduate program, the college organizes summer undergraduate and graduate programs in modern languages. The College also offers a graduate program in English literature and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference at its Bread Loaf Mountain campus. In December 2005, the Monterey Institute of International Studies, located in Monterey, California became an affiliate of Middlebury College. Middlebury's 31 varsity teams are known as the Middlebury Panthers and compete in the Division III NESCAC conference. The school's colors are blue and white. Middlebury is one of the "Little Ivies." HistoryA sketch of "East College", Middlebury's first building, a simple wood-framed structure completed in 1798 and razed in 1867. Twilight Hall now sits adjacent to the site. Old Stone Row is pictured in the background. Founding and 19th CenturyMiddlebury received its founding charter on November 1, 1800 as an outgrowth of the Addison County Grammar School, which had been founded three years earlier in 1797.Its founding religious affiliation was loosely Congregationalist. Yet the idea for a college was that of town fathers rather than clergymen, and Middlebury was clearly "the Town's College" rather than the Church's. Chief among its founders were Seth Storrs and Gamaliel Painter, the former credited with the idea for a college and the latter as its greatest early benefactor. In addition to receiving a diploma upon graduation, Middlebury graduates also receive a replica of Gameliel Painter's cane. Painter bequeathed his original cane to the College and it is carried by the College President at official occasions including first-year convocation and graduation. 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 1836. 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. 20th CenturyThe national fraternity Kappa Delta Rho was founded in Painter Hall on May 17, 1905. Middlebury College abolished fraternities in the early 1990s, but the organization continued on campus in the less ritualized form of a social house. Due to a policy at the school against single-sex organizations, the house was forced to coeducate during the same period as well.The German Language School, founded in 1915, began the tradition of the Middlebury Language Schools. These Schools, which take place on the Middlebury campus during the summer, enroll about 1,350 students in the Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish Language Schools. The C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools Abroad, begun in 1949 with the school in Paris, host students at thirty-two sites in Argentina, China, Uzbekistan, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Paraguay, Mexico, Russia, Spain, and Uruguay. Recent DevelopmentsIn 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 June 2008, Middlebury's endowment stood at approximately $885 million.In 2005, Middlebury signed an affiliation agreement with the Monterey Institute of International Studies, a graduate school in Monterey, California. While the Monterey Institute will remain a separate institution, the affiliation saved Monterey from financial difficulties. It will allow Middlebury to offer additional programs in international studies and foreign languages. On October 6, 2007, President Ronald D. Liebowitz announced that the college is launching a five-year campaign to raise $500 million. Liebowitz also said that during the planning phases $234 million has already been raised. The campaign, which the college is calling the Middlebury Initiative, will extend and expand the range of opportunities available to students, focusing its efforts on financial aid and hiring more faculty. In the spring of 2008, the Board of Trustees approved renovations to the Proctor Dining Hall and the McCullough Student Center's social space, mail room, and convenience store to be undertaken during the summer and the 2008–2009 academic year. On January 15, 2009, Middlebury College announced that plans to cut $10 million from its 2009-2010 operating budget, due to the economic recession's effect on Middlebury's endowment and fund-raising efforts. As part of the cost-cutting measures, Middlebury announced at the same time that it plans to reduce staff by 100 employees through attrition and a voluntary early retirement program. Presidents of Middlebury College
AcademicsThe spire of Mead Memorial Chapel, completed in 1916, rises on the highest elevation of the campus. Over the chapel's portal are carved the words from Psalm 95:4, "The Strength of the Hills is His Also." The CollegeFounded in 1800, the College enrolls approximately 2,350 undergraduates from all 50 states and 70 countries. The College offers 40 undergraduate departments and programs. The most popular majors at Middlebury by number of recent graduates are economics, psychology, English, political science, international studies, environmental studies, and history. Middlebury was the first institution of higher education in the United States to offer an environmental studies major, establishing the major in 1965. Close to 40 percent of graduating seniors choose a single major in a traditional academic discipline, and about 30 percent of students complete a double or joint major combining two disciplines. Another 30 percent of students major in one of the College's interdisciplinary programs.4-1-4 CalendarThe academic year follows a 4-1-4 schedule of two four-course semesters plus a one-course "J-term" term in January.Research Centers and InstitutesThe Monterey Institute of International StudiesThe Monterey Institute of International Studies, in Monterey, California became an affiliate of Middlebury following the signing of an affiliation agreement between the two in December 2005. In Summer 2010, the Institute will formally be designated as “a graduate school of Middlebury College.” The Institute currently enrolls 790 graduate students in the fields of international relations, international business, language teaching, and translation and interpretation.The Institute is the only school in the Western Hemisphere offering graduate degrees in conference interpretation and in translation and interpretation between English-Chinese, English-Japanese and English-Korean. It is also one of the few schools with a bilingual requirement upon enrollment for all students. English is required for non-native speakers and two years of university-level language classes in either Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin), Russian, or Arabic for native English speakers. The Rohatyn Center for International AffairsMiddlebury College is home to the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs,, founded by Felix Rohatyn '49, investment banker, former U.S. Ambassador to France, and founder of Rohatyn Associates. Located at the Robert A. Jones '59 House, the center combines Middlebury's noted strengths in cultural, political, and linguistic 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.Summer Language Schoolsleft|thumb|300px|Le Chateau, constructed in 1925, is the home to the College's French department, and serves as a residential hall for students in Atwater Commons.Middlebury’s famous summer language programs enable undergraduate students to undergo the equivalent of a year of college-level language study in seven- or nine-week summer sessions. As of 2008, with the opening of the School of Hebrew, there are summer programs in ten languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.All Language School students agree to abide by the Language Pledge, 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. Each language school is allocated specific residence halls, where students, teaching assistants, and professors live to further aid in the immersion. Students and faculty of specific languages eat lunch and dinner at separate times during the day to maintain the exclusivity of the target languages. Six of Middlebury's summer schools — Chinese, 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 (D.M.L.) degree. Currently, the D.M.L. degree is unique to Middlebury. The degree prepares teacher-scholars in two modern languages, with additional focus on their respective literatures and cultures. It is a flexible degree that encourages depth of research, but differs from the Ph.D. in the variety of subject matter studied as part of the doctoral thesis. Middlebury-Monterey Language AcademyMiddlebury also offers summer language immersion programs in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, and Spanish to middle and high school students through the Middlebury-Monterey Language Academy. MMLA builds on the expertise of both Middlebury College and the Monterey Institute of International Studies and adapts the renowned Middlebury Language Schools immersion with a curriculum and activities developed specifically for students entering grades 7-12.C.V. Starr-Middlebury schools abroadMiddlebury 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. These schools have been endowed by Cornelius Vander Starr's Starr Foundation.The college operates schools abroad at 32 locations including Argentina (Buenos Aires and Tucumán), Brazil (Belo Horizonte, Florianópolis, and Niteroi), Chile (Concepción, La Serena, Santiago, Temuco, Valdivia, and Valparaíso), China (Beijing, Hangzhou, and Kunming), Egypt (Alexandria), France (Paris, Poitiers, and Bordeaux), Germany (Berlin and Mainz), Italy (Ferrara and Florence), Mexico (Guadalajara and Xalapa), Russia (Irkutsk, Moscow, and Yaroslavl), Spain (Cordoba, Getafe, Logroño, and Madrid), 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. In addition to the C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools, students have the opportunity to pursue other study abroad opportunities. During the 2007-2008 academic year, more than 400 Middlebury students studied abroad in more than 40 countries at more than 90 different programs and universities. This accounts for nearly 60% of the junior class studying abroad. Bread Loaf School of EnglishOne of the distinctive yellow buildings of Middlebury's Bread Loaf Campus, home every summer to the Bread Loaf School of English The Bread Loaf School has campuses at four locations: Vermont, Oxford (England), North Carolina, and New Mexico. The primary campus, near Middlebury, enrolls some 250 students every summer. The Oxford campus (at Lincoln College) enrolls 90 students. The North Carolina campus, near the Blue Ridge Mountains, is affiliated with the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and enrolled its first class of 50 students in 2006. The New Mexico campus at St. John's College, Santa Fe, enrolls 80 students every summer. 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. Bread Loaf Writers' ConferenceIn 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, founded in 1926. It was called by The New Yorker, "the oldest and most prestigious writers' conference in the country." "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." 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.ProfileAdmissions and Financial AidThe Emma Willard House, Middlebury's Admission Office. Middlebury is part of the SAT optional movement for undergraduate admission. Applicants to Middlebury must submit standardized test scores, but are given the option of submitting either the SAT I, the ACT, or three SAT II subject tests in different areas of study. Middlebury is a need-blind institution, meaning it does not consider an applicant's financial situation when making an admission decision. In addition, the college meets 100% of all admitted students' demonstrated financial need. As a result of the recent economic crisis, Middlebury has altered its need-blind policy for international students. Beginning with the 2008-2009 academic year, the College will admit international students on a need-blind basis only to the extent that resources permit. The College continues to meet the full demonstrated need of all admitted international students. RankingsU.S. News and World Report ranks Middlebury as the 4th-best liberal arts college in the U.S., tied with Wellesley.According to the Wall Street Journal, Middlebury is one of the top "feeder schools" to elite graduate business, medical, and law schools. Middlebury is ranked third among all colleges and universities in the nation according to the sixth annual report by the National Collegiate Scouting Association which ranks colleges based on student-athlete graduation rates, academic strength, and athletic prowess. The 2009 Princeton Review ranks the College #1 for "professors get high marks;" #4 for "school runs like butter;" #8 for "quality of life," "best classroom experience," and "students study the most;" #14 for "best campus food," #16 for "best career/job placement services." The Princeton Review includes Middlebury on its "colleges with a conscience" list. Middlebury InitiativeBegun in 2007 by President Ronald D. Liebowitz, the Middlebury Initiative is Middlebury's biggest capital campaign to date. The goal of the initiative is to raise $500 million with for the purpose of making Middlebury the first truly global liberal arts college. The goals of the Initiative are:
CampusOld Chapel, completed in 1836, served as Middlebury's primary academic building for a century. Today it houses seminar classrooms and administrative offices. Main CampusThe 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 campus is situated on a hill to the west of the village of Middlebury, a traditional New England village centered on Otter Creek Falls.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. Emma Willard House, a National Historic Landmark, hosts the admissions office. Of the campus, celebrated 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." Recently completed building projects include:
The campus is known affectionately to students, faculty, and alumni as "Club Midd" because of its bucolic setting and the quality of its academic and athletic facilities. Commons SystemSince 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, which remains controversial among students, accompanied an increase in the size of the student body and an ambitious building campaign.Bread Loaf Mountain CampusThe 1,800 acre (7.3 km²) Bread Loaf Mountain campus hosts the college's Bread Loaf School of English and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference every summer. The mountain campus is also the site of the Middlebury College Snow Bowl, the College-owned ski mountain, and the Carroll and Jane Rikert Ski Touring Center.SustainabilityThe newly renovated Hillcrest Environmental Center, a platinum LEED-certified building The college is a signatory to the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment and the Talloires Declaration. Additionally, the college has committed to be carbon neutral by 2016. Middlebury was one of only six universities to receive a grade of “A-” from the Sustainable Endowments Institute on its College Sustainability Report Card 2008, the highest grade awarded. In the 2008-2009 academic year, Middlebury College opened a new state-of-the-art biomass plant on campus that is estimated to cut the College's carbon dioxide output by 40 percent and reduce its use of fuel oil by 50 percent. New England ReviewThe New England Review (NER) is a quarterly literary journal published by Middlebury College. Founded in New Hampshire in 1978 by poet, novelist, editor and professor Sydney Lea and poet Jay Parini, it was published as New England Review & Bread Loaf Quarterly from 1982 (when it moved to Middlebury College), until 1991 as a formal division of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. In 1991, the magazine reverted to its original name, New England Review, and opted to have only informal ties with the Writers' Conference.NER publishes poetry, fiction, translations, and a wide variety of non-fiction in each issue. NER consistently publishes work from established writers as well as work from up-and-coming new writers. It has published work by many who have gone on to win major awards such as the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It is currently edited by Stephen Donadio, C. Dale Young (Poetry), and Carolyn Kuebler (Managing Editor). AthleticsThe Middlebury Panther, a bronze sculpture commissioned from American sculptor Lorenzo Ghiglieri in 1997 overlooks the entrance to Youngman Field at Alumni Stadium Middlebury's traditional athletic rival is Norwich University. However, since NESCAC no longer allows out of conference football competition, Middlebury's football rival is Hamilton College. Since 1980, the annual game between Hamilton and Middlebury is designated the Rocking Chair Classic, with the winning team keeping the Mac-Jack Rocking Chair for the following year. Notable AchievementsMiddlebury's success in intercollegiate sports is evidenced by the college's second place ranking in the 2007 National Sports Academy Directors' Cup standings.National Championship Teams: Men’s Hockey-8 (‘95-99, '04-'06), Women’s Lacrosse-5 ('97, ’99, ’01, ‘02, '04), Women’s Hockey-5 (‘00, ’01, '04-'06), Women’s Cross Country-5 (’00, ’01, '03, '06, '08), Men’s Lacrosse-3 (‘00, ’01, ’02), Men's Soccer ('07), Field Hockey (’98), Men's Tennis ('04).
FacilitiesYoungman Field at Alumni Stadium, with the Ralph Myhre 18-hole golf course in the background
Notable alumniNames and achievements of notable Middlebury alums in all fields can be found at the List of Middlebury College alumni.Notable Middlebury alumni include US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Nelson (1813), first African American college graduate Alexander Twilight (1823), Managing Director of Lazard Freres and former US Ambassador to France Felix Rohatyn (1949), US Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown (1962), Vermont Governor Jim Douglas (1972), The Vagina Monologues creator Eve Ensler (1975), White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer (1982), philanthropist Dana Reeve (1984), and professional cyclist Ted King (2005). Middlebury in Popular Culture
Commencement speakers
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Used under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License; additional terms may apply.
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