Middlebury College

Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, in the United States. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,500 undergraduates from all 50 states and more than 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts, humanities, literature, foreign languages, social sciences, and natural sciences. Middlebury follows a 4â€"1â€"4 academic calendar, with two four-course semesters and a one-course January term.

Middlebury is the first American institution of higher education to have granted 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. Middlebury has an acceptance rate of 17% and was listed as the seventh-best liberal arts college in the U.S. in the 2015 U.S. News & World Report rankings.

In addition to its core undergraduate program, the College organizes undergraduate and graduate programs in modern languages, English literature, and writing. The Middlebury College Language Schools offer instruction in 11 languages. The Bread Loaf School of English is a summer graduate program in English literature, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is one of the oldest writers' conferences in the country. The College also operates 38 C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools Abroad in 17 countries across 5 continents. The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey is a graduate school of Middlebury College. The Institute enrolls graduate students in the fields of international environmental policy, international relations, international business, language teaching, and language translation and interpretation.

Middlebury's 31 varsity teams are known as the Middlebury Panthers and compete in the Division III NESCAC conference.

History

Founding and 19th century

Middlebury 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. The College's first presidentâ€"Jeremiah Atwaterâ€"began classes a few days later, making Middlebury the first operating college or university in Vermont. One student named Aaron Petty graduated at the first commencement held in August 1802.

The College's 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 Gamaliel 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, joining the Vermont House of Representatives in 1836. At its second commencement in 1804, Middlebury granted Lemuel Haynes an honorary master's degree, the first advanced degree ever bestowed upon an African American.

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. The first female graduateâ€"May Belle Chellisâ€"received her degree in 1886. As valedictorian of the class of 1899, Mary Annette Anderson became the first African American woman elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

20th century

The College’s centennial in 1900 began a century of physical expansion beyond the three buildings of Old Stone Row. York and Sawyer designed the Egbert Starr Library (1900), a Beaux-Arts edifice later expanded and renamed the Axinn Center, and Warner Hall (1901). Growth in enrollment and the endowment led to continued expansion westward. McCullough Hall (1912) and Voter Hall (1913) featured gymnasium and laboratories, respectively, adopting Georgian Revival styling while confirming the campus standard of grey Vermont limestone, granite, and marble.

The 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 under the supervision of then-President John Martin Thomas, began the tradition of the Middlebury College 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.

Middlebury President Paul Dwight Moody began the American tradition of a National Christmas Tree in 1923 when the College donated a 48-foot balsam fir for use at the White House. The tree was illuminated when Calvin Coolidge, a Vermont-native in the first year of his presidency, flipped an electric switch.

The Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury's graduate school of English, was established at the College's Bread Loaf Mountain campus in 1920. The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference was established in 1926. In 1978, the Bread Loaf School of English expanded to include a campus at Lincoln College, Oxford University. In 1991, the School expanded to include a campus at St. John's College in New Mexico, and to the University of North Carolina, Asheville, in 2006.

The C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools Abroad began in 1949 with the school in Paris; they now host students at 38 sites in Argentina, Brazil, China, Cameroon, Chile, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Italy, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Russia, Spain, and Uruguay.

The second half of the 20th Century accelerated Middlebury’s transition from a small, regional institution to a top-tier liberal arts college with an international presence. Campus growth continued. In 1965, Middlebury established its Environmental Studies program, creating the first undergraduate Environmental Studies program in the U.S. Nationally affiliated fraternities were abolished in 1990; some chose to become co-educational social houses which continue today.

21st century

In May 2004, an anonymous benefactor made a $50 million donation to Middlebury. It remains 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. As of July 2014, Middlebury's endowment stood at approximately $1 billion. Campus expansion has continued and recently completed projects have included new libraries, dorms, academic buildings, and athletic facilities.

In 2005, Middlebury signed an affiliation agreement with the Monterey Institute of International Studies, a graduate school in Monterey, California. On June 30, 2010, the Monterey Institute was officially designated as a graduate school of Middlebury College.

In the summer of 2008, Middlebury and the Monterey Institute of International Studies launched a collaborative program to offer summer language immersion programs in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish to middle and high school students through the Middlebury-Monterey Language Academy (MMLA). In January 2014, as part of a new brand identity system, Middlebury announced that the Monterey Institute of International Studies would be renamed the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

In June 2010, Middlebury announced that it had a 40% stake in a joint-venture with K12 Inc. to build online language software to be marketed under the brand "Middlebury Interactive Languages." The initial release will cover basic Spanish and French and be aimed at high school students.

By 2013, the French language was available online to schools for $12,000 annually. Elementary schools were eligible, starting at the third grade. Students proceed at their own pace with a local teacher giving individual guidance.

Middlebury has a pledge to attain carbon neutrality by 2016. As part of this, a biomass gasification plant was built on college land as well as solar and wind installations to reduce reliance on traditional fuel sources and cut carbon emissions.

Academics

Undergraduate college

Overview

Founded in 1800, the college enrolls approximately 2,500 undergraduates from all 50 states and 70 countries. The college offers 40 undergraduate departments and programs. Middlebury was the first institution of higher education in the United States to offer an environmental studies major, establishing the major in 1965.

The most popular majors at Middlebury by number of recent graduates are: economics, international studies, English and American literatures, political science, psychology, and environmental studies. 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.

4â€"1â€"4 calendar

The academic year follows a 4â€"1â€"4 schedule of two four-course semesters in the autumn and spring plus a Winter Term session in January. The Winter Term, often called "J-Term" for January Term, allows students to enroll in one intensive course, pursue independent research, or complete an off-campus internship. Winter Term courses are taught by a mix of traditional faculty and special instructors.

Summer language schools

The Middlebury College Language Schools, which began with the establishment of the School of German in 1915, offer intensive instruction in 10 languages during six-, seven-, or eight-week summer sessions. The schools enroll about 1,350 students every summer. The Schools all use an immersion-based approach to language instruction and acquisition. All students in the Language Schools must sign and abide by Middlebury's "Language Pledge," a pledge to use their target language exclusively during the duration of their time at the School.

Undergraduate instruction, available to undergraduate students, government employees and individuals from professional backgrounds, is offered in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

Middlebury's Language Schools have historically been conducted at the College's campus in Vermont. In the summer of 2009 the college opened a satellite campus at Mills College in Oakland, California to accommodate a growth in enrollment. For the summer of 2011, Middlebury at Mills will offer Arabic, French, Japanese, and Spanish instruction. Students in French and Spanish may opt to study at either the Middlebury or Mills campuses.

Graduate programs

Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey

The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, 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 was formally 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.

Summer language schools and Doctor of Modern Languages (D.M.L.)

Six of Middlebury's summer schools â€" Chinese, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish â€" offer graduate programs in addition to the undergraduate component. 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. The MA in German requires one summer on the Middlebury campus. A second summer is required for the MA in Russian, Chinese, and Mediterranean Studies; it is optional for the MA in French, Italian, and Spanish.

Middlebury offers a Doctor of Modern Languages (D.M.L.) degree. Unique to Middlebury, the D.M.L. prepares teacher-scholars in two modern foreign languages, helping them develop as teachers of second-language acquisition, literature, linguistics, and language pedagogy.

Bread Loaf School of English

The Bread Loaf School of English is based at the college's Bread Loaf Mountain campus in Ripton, just outside Middlebury, in sight of the main ridge of the Green Mountains. 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." 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 William Carlos Williams, Bernard DeVoto, Edward Weismiller, Theodore Roethke, John Crowe Ransom, Elizabeth Drew, A. Bartlett Giamatti, Perry Miller, Catherine Drinker Bowen, Carlos Baker, Harold Bloom, Cleanth Brooks, Charles Edward Eaton, Richard Ellman, Paul Muldoon, William Sloane, John Ciardi, John P. Marquand, Wylie Sypher, and Dixie Goswami.

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 University campus (hosted at Lincoln College during Oxford's summer vacation) 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.

C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools Abroad

The C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools Abroad, operated by Middlebury College in 17 countries across 5 continents, offer overseas academic programs for undergraduates from various U.S. institutions, as well as graduate-level programs for students from Middlebury College’s Language Schools and the Monterey Institute of International Studies. The first School was the School in Paris, opened in 1949. The C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools have been endowed by the C.V. Starr Foundation.

The C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools have an immersion-based approach to language and cultural acquisition. All students must sign Middlebury's "Language Pledge," agreeing to exclusively use their target language for the duration of the program.

The 2011 Princeton Review ranked Middlebury's study abroad programs as the #6 most popular in the United States.

The college operates schools abroad at 38 locations, including: Argentina (Buenos Aires and Tucumán); Brazil (Belo Horizonte, Florianópolis, and Niteroi); Cameroon (Yaoundé); 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); India (Delhi); Italy (Ferrara, Florence, and Rome); Israel (Beer Sheva); Japan (Tokyo); Jordan (Amman); Mexico (Guadalajara and Xalapa); Russia (Irkutsk, Moscow, and Yaroslavl); Spain (Cordoba, Getafe, Logroño, and Madrid); and Uruguay (Montevideo).[2]

Research centers

Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs, was 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 strengths in political, linguistic, and cultural studies to offer internationally focused symposia, lectures, and presentations. An internationally oriented resource and research center, the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs (RCGA) supports the College's goal of advancing global understanding that radiates from a core linguistic and cultural competency. The center also offers grants for faculty and student research.

Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE)

The Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity, engages in interdisciplinary and comparative approaches for understanding formations of race and ethnicity and their effects on human relations. It supports scholarship that considers race and ethnicity as intersecting with class, gender, sexuality, religion, age, disability, language, communication, migration and the environment. Work supported by the Center situates these discussions in local, regional, global, and transnational contexts. The CCSRE draws on Middlebury College's expertise in international studies, environmental studies, and language and communication to support critical inquiry on race, ethnicity and diversity.

Bread Loaf Writers' Conference

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, founded in 1926. It was called by The New Yorker "the oldest and most prestigious writers' conference in the country."

Noted authors who have been associated with the conference over the years include James Brown, John Ciardi, Bernard DeVoto, Robert Frost, John Gardner, Richard Gehman, Donald Hall, John Irving, Shirley Jackson, Barry Lopez, Robie Macauley, Carson McCullers, Norman Mailer, Toni Morrison, Linda Pastan, May Sarton, Anne Sexton, Eudora Welty, and Richard Yates.

Recent faculty have included Julia Alvarez, Andrea Barrett, Charles Baxter, Linda Bierds, Robert Boswell, Lan Samantha Chang, Ted Conover, Mark Doty, Percival Everett, Lynn Freed, Linda Gregerson, Patricia Hampl, Edward Hirsch, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, William Kittredge, Antonya Nelson, Carl Phillips, Natasha Trethewey, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Daniel Wallace, and Dean Young.

The conference is administered by director Michael Collier and assistant director Jennifer Grotz.

Recent Fellows at the Conference have included Christopher Castellani, Geri Doran, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Ilya Kaminsky, Suji Kwock Kim, Naeem Murr, Peter Orner, Eric Puchner, Richard Siken, Monique Truong, Vendela Vida, and C. Dale Young.

High school programs

Middlebury Interactive Languages (MIL)

In June 2010, Middlebury announced that it had a 40% stake in a joint-venture with K12 Inc. to build online language software. Middlebury Interactive Languages offers a full suite of digital language courses in Spanish, French, Chinese, German and Latinâ€"from elementary through high school, including Advanced Placementâ€"with flexible implementation models. Courses can be delivered fully online, used in a blended learning environment or as supplemental materials to bring authenticity and culture to the classroom setting. All courses are based on Middlebury College’s immersion teaching pedagogy and teaching methodology and align with the National Standards developed by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL).

Middlebury-Monterey Language Academy (MMLA)

Middlebury 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 international expertise of both Middlebury College and the Monterey Institute of International Studies and adapts the Middlebury College Language Schools immersion-based learning with a curriculum and activities developed specifically for students entering grades 8â€"12. The MMLA has sites at Green Mountain College, Pomona College, and Swarthmore College, as well as two locations abroad in Beijing, China, and Comillas, Spain.

Profile

Admissions

Middlebury is one of America's most selective institutions. The Carnegie Foundation classifies Middlebury as one of the "most selective" institutions whose first-year students’ test scores places these institutions in roughly the top fifth of baccalaureate institutions.

For the class entering in 2013â€"2014, Middlebury received a total of 9,109 applicants for the 600 September enrollment and 100 February enrollment spots. A total of 1,595 students were offered September admission, resulting in a fall admission rate of 17.5%. An additional 201 students were offered February enrollment, resulting in a total of 1,796 admitted students and an overall admission rate of 19%. For the class of 2017, the mid-50% range for the SAT I was 1940â€"2240 and the mid-50% range for the ACT was 30â€"33.

September and February admissions programs

Middlebury enrolls around 600 students to begin in the fall semester and an additional 100 to begin in the spring. Those accepted for the fall admissions program begin the academic year in September and are referred to as "Regs." Those accepted for the spring admissions program begin the academic year in February and are referred to as "Febs." Students accepted to the Feb program use the fall semester to travel, volunteer, enroll at other universities, or work. Febs graduate in the annual mid-year commencement at the Middlebury College Snow Bowl.

Financial aid

Middlebury combines tuition, room, and board into one comprehensive fee which is $57,075 for the 2013â€"2014 academic year. For the class entering in 2013-2014, the average financial aid grant award is $38,314.

Kiplinger's Personal Finance places Middlebury at #12 in its 2015 ranking of best value liberal arts colleges in the United States.

Rankings

U.S. News & World Report ranked Middlebury as the 4th-best liberal arts college in the U.S. in 2013 and classifies it as "most selective." U.S. News and World Report also named Middlebury 7th in the nation for "colleges most beloved by their alumni," measured by the percentage of alumni who donate to their school, in 2012.

The 2014 Princeton Review ranks the college 5th for "Students Study the Most," 6th for "Best Science Lab Facilities," 10th for "Professors Get High Marks," 11th for "Best Classroom Experience," 13th for "Best College Library," and 20th for "Best Quality of Life."

The 2015 Parchment student choice college ranking, which tracks 441,822 college acceptances of thousands of students who have been accepted to multiple schools in order to reveal their preference for their chosen school compared to the other schools that admitted the student, ranks Middlebury as 9th nationally and 2nd for liberal arts colleges for student preference.

Middlebury ranked 16th nationally in 2013 according to the National Collegiate Scouting Association's annual report, which ranks colleges based on student-athlete graduation rates, academic strength, and athletic prowess.

In the 2014 Forbes "America's Top Colleges," Middlebury ranks 30th nationally overall.

In 2012, Alumni Factor, which measures alumni success, ranked Middlebury 7th nationally. The college ranked 23rd nationally in a 2004 Wall Street Journal survey of the top feeder schools to elite medical, law, and business schools in America.

Campus

Main campus

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 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 â€" Old Chapel, Painter Hall, and Starr Hall â€" 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.

Commons system

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 projects

Recently completed building projects include:

• 220,000 sq ft (20,000 m²) John McCardell, Jr. Bicentennial Hall, a multidisciplinary science facility built to house the Biology, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Computer Science, Geography, Geology, Physics, and Psychology departments as well as the Environmental Studies, Neuroscience, and Molecular Biology programs (1999)
• 135,000 sq ft (12,500 m²) Davis Family Library (2004)
• Two Atwater Commons Residence Halls (2004)
• Atwater Dining Hall (2005)
• Hillcrest Environmental Center, an Italianate-style farmhouse constructed around 1874, has been renovated to provide a home for the environmental studies program according to LEED standards (2007)
• Starr Library, a Beaux-Arts edifice completed in 1900, now hosts the Donald Everett Axinn '51 Center for Literary and Cultural Studies at Starr Library after significant restoration of interior spaces and the addition of two wings for faculty offices, lecture halls, and a video production studio (2008)

Public art on campus

In the fall of 1994 the President and Board of Trustees of Middlebury College adopted a “One Percent for Art” policy. This decision set aside one percent of the cost of any renovation or new construction at the College for the purchase, installation, maintenance, and interpretation of works of art publicly displayed on campus. There are 19 works in Middlebury's campus public art collection, including Frisbee, George Rickey's Two Open Rectangles, Excentric, Variation VI, Tony Smith's Smog, and a version of Robert Indiana's Love series. The collection also includes works by Dan Graham, Scott Burton, Jules Olitski, Joseph Bueys, Matt Mullican, Jenny Holzer, Christian Petersen, Buky Schwartz, George Rickey, Clement Meadmore, and Jonathan Borofsky.

Athletic facilities

The Princeton Review ranks Middlebury's athletic facilities as #18 best in the United States.

Middlebury's athletic facilities include:

• 3,500-seat Youngman Field at Alumni Stadium for football and lacrosse
• 2,600-seat hockey arena
• Pepin gymnasium, home of the men's and women's' basketball and volleyball teams
• 75,000 square foot Field House (funded by Ted Virtue), including a 200-meter indoor track and 180-foot by 130-foot artificial-turf infield
• 50-meter by 25-yard (23 m) Olympic-size swimming pool
• 18,000 square foot nine-court Squash Center
• 18-hole Ralph Myhre golf course
• Middlebury College Snow Bowl, the college-owned ski mountain
• Carroll and Jane Rikert Ski Touring Center at the Bread Loaf Mountain campus
• Allan Dragone Track and Field Complex
• Regulation rugby pitch
• Field Turf men's soccer field
• Fitness center
• Rock climbing wall

Middlebury College Museum of Art

The museum opened in its current building in 1992, designed by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer architectural firm. In 2005, it was accredited in by the American Association of Museums in 2005. The small encyclopedic collection contains Ancient, Asian, European and American art. The 20th century and contemporary collection is particularly strong in prints and photographs.

Bread Loaf Mountain Campus

The 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.

Middlebury owns the Robert Frost Farm, where American poet Robert Frost lived and wrote in the summer and fall months from 1939 until his death in 1963. This National Historic Landmark occupies 150 acres (0.61 km²) adjacent to the Bread Loaf campus.

Middlebury College Snow Bowl

The mountain campus is the site of the Middlebury College Snow Bowl, the College-owned ski mountain, and the Carroll and Jane Rikert Ski Touring Center. Along with the Dartmouth Skiway, the Snow Bowl is one of two remaining college-owned ski areas in the eastern United States. A volunteer ski patrol, staffed by students, provides on-mountain medical services. Members are certified as Outdoor Emergency Care technicians and trained in first aid, chairlift evacuation, and toboggan handling.

The Middlebury College Snow Bowl is host to ski races during the annual Middlebury Winter Carnival as well as the February mid-year graduation.

Sustainability

Middlebury recently incorporated environmental stewardship into its new mission statement. 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 2008â€"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.

In 2010, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Middlebury College announced the creation of the Sustainable Investments Initiative, a co-mingled fiscal vehicle seeking investments that generate long-term social, environmental, and economic value. The Initiative will seek investments focused specifically on sustainability issues such as clean energy, water, climate science, and green building projects, in an effort to identify businesses positioned to become a part of the worldwide shift to improve energy efficiency, decrease dependence on fossil fuels, and mitigate the effects of global climate change.

Also in 2010, Middlebury College and Integrated Energy Solutions, a Vermont developer of farm-based methane energy, agreed to explore a bio-methane gas collection and delivery system that could help Middlebury further reduce its use of fossil fuels. Middlebury has agreed to purchase bio-methane gas from IES over a 10-year period, with the agreement contingent on the college raising money to build storage facilities for the gas on campus and retrofit its current heating plant to burn the new fuel.

Student life

The 2013 Princeton Review ranks Middlebury as one of the top 20 schools in the US for "best quality of life."

Student organizations

There are over 140 registered student organizations at Middlebury. Students register for organizations of interest during the Fall Activities Fair in September.

The Middlebury Campus is the student weekly of Middlebury College. The Campus was founded in 1900, and employs a 100% student staff.

WRMC-FM 91.1 is the student-volunteer-run radio station of Middlebury. WRMC broadcasts a variety of content types, including talk, news, and radio drama, although the majority of the schedule is music.

Traditions

Middlebury's Winter Carnival is the oldest student-run winter carnival in the country, started in 1923. The Winter Carnival is a weekend-long event and traditionally includes a bonfire and fireworks on the opening night, ski races at the Middlebury College Snow Bowl on Friday and Saturday, and the Winter Ball on Saturday night.

Middlebury offers a mid-year graduation for those students who complete coursework at the end of January. These students are usually "Febs," students who began their Middlebury careers as February first-years. The mid-year graduation tradition is for all graduating seniors to ski down the Middlebury College Snow Bowl in their caps and gowns to receive their diplomas.

Middlebury Outdoor Programs organizes outdoor orientations for incoming students in September and February. These orientations involve several days of hiking, rock climbing, kayaking, snowshoeing, and other activities in the wilderness around Middlebury.

New England Review

The 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.

Athletics

Middlebury competes in the New England Small College Athletic Conference. The Panthers lead the NESCAC in total number of National Championships, having won 33 team championships since the conference lifted its ban on NCAA play in 1994. Middlebury enjoys national success in soccer, tennis, cross country running, lacrosse, ice hockey, field hockey, and skiing, and fields 31 varsity NCAA teams and several competitive club teams. Since 2000, Middlebury's varsity squads have won 54 NESCAC titles. Currently, 28% of students participate in varsity sports.

Middlebury ranked #12 nationally in 2012 according to the National Collegiate Scouting Association's annual report, which ranks colleges based on student-athlete graduation rates, academic strength, and athletic prowess.

In the early 20th century, Middlebury's traditional athletic rivals included the University of Vermont and Norwich University. Today, rivalries vary by sport.

Middlebury people

Notable alumni

Notable Middlebury alumni include:

• Hedge fund manager Louis Bacon (1979)
• Actress Vanessa Branch, known as the spokesperson for Orbit Gum (1994)
• US Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown (1962)
• Chairman of New Balance and co-founder of Major League Lacrosse Jim Davis (1966)
• Principal inventor of the GPS Roger L. Easton (1943)
• The Vagina Monologues creator Eve Ensler (1975)
• White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer (1982)
• Seattle Seahawks placekicker & Super Bowl XLVIII champion Steven Hauschka (2007)
• Author, former editor-in-chief of Crawdaddy magazine Peter Knobler (1968)
• Author of the Dexter series Jeff Lindsay (1975)
• Actor, writer and comedian Jason Mantzoukas (1995)
• Singer-songwriter and composer Anaïs Mitchell (2004)
• US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Nelson (1813)
• Managing Director of Lazard Freres & US Ambassador to France Felix Rohatyn (1949)
• The Shield creator Shawn Ryan (1988)
• Former Goldman Sachs partner and co-founder and principal at Tormar Associates, John Tormondsen is also a member of Middlebury's Board of Trustees
• First African American college graduate Alexander Twilight (1823)
• Actor, musician, and filmmaker Jimmy Wong

Notable faculty

Notable Middlebury faculty include:

• Author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents Julia Alvarez
• Executive in Residence and 80th Governor of Vermont Jim Douglas
• Constitutional scholar Murray Dry
• Poet Robert Frost
• Environmentalist Bill McKibben
• Author of The Last Station Jay Parini.

Presidents of Middlebury College

1. Jeremiah Atwater, 1800â€"1809
2. Henry Davis, 1809â€"1818
3. Joshua Bates, 1818â€"1840
4. Benjamin Labaree, 1840â€"1866
5. Harvey Denison Kitchel, 1866â€"1875
6. Calvin Butler Hulbert, 1875â€"1880
7. Cyrus Hamlin, 1880â€"1885
8. Ezra Brainerd, 1885â€"1908
9. John Martin Thomas, 1908â€"1921
10. Paul Dwight Moody, 1921â€"1943
11. Samuel Somerville Stratton, 1943â€"1963
12. James Isbell Armstrong, 1963â€"1975
13. Olin Clyde Robison, 1975â€"1990
14. Timothy Light, 1990â€"1991
15. John Malcolm McCardell, Jr., 1991â€"2004
16. Ronald D. Liebowitz, 2004â€"2015 (Expected)
17. Laurie L. Patton (President-elect)

Middlebury in popular culture

• Jeopardy! â€" the April 12, 2010, episode of the quiz show Jeopardy! featured the College in the Final Jeopardy clue: "In 2008, Middlebury College in Vermont won its 2nd straight championship in this sport introduced in a 1997 novel." The correct response was Quidditch.

See also

• Bread Loaf Mountain
• Bread Loaf School of English
• Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
• C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools Abroad
• Dispatch
• Dissipated Eight, a cappella ensemble
• Doctor of Modern Languages (D.M.L.)
• Emma Willard House
• Frisbee (sculpture)
• List of Middlebury College alumni
• List of Middlebury College faculty
• Middlebury College Language Schools
• Middlebury College Panthers
• Middlebury College Rugby Club
• Middlebury College Snow Bowl
• Middlebury-Monterey Language Academy
• Monterey Institute of International Studies
• New England Review
• Robert Frost Farm
• Shelby Davis Scholarship
• WRMC, student-run Middlebury radio
• Youngman Field at Alumni Stadium

References

External links

• Official website
• Official athletics website
• Middlebury College Museum of Art