All Campus Address

All Campus Address to Middlebury College

I welcome you this afternoon, and thank you for coming. On such a nice day one is never quite sure what kind of a turnout to expect. I'm very gratified that you are able to take some of your valuable time this noon to come and hear a little bit about, at least where one person thinks we are and where we're headed, and I very much hope that today will serve principally to help remind us of where we've been and to try to put before us as a community what at least some of the items of our agenda for the coming year look like.

As many of you know, each year, for the past seven now it's been, I've opened the academic year sometime during the first week of class with a public presentation that is designed to share with the College Community my sense of the coming year's agenda. This year, and today, that goal is the same. At the same time, last year's campus-wide and wide-ranging discussion on what we have called the "residential initiative" serves to focus many of these comments today, and I believe also serves to focus much of the College's agenda in the year to come.

Now with more than thirty new faculty on campus, thirty more faculty returning from leave, an equal number of new staff colleagues, 575 first-year students, plus almost half again as many seniors returning from study abroad, I hope that our continuing discussion of our residential system, which speaks, I believe, directly to the heart of the College's mission, doesn't seem, for too many, as if they have entered the theater mid-way through the main feature. I would direct those who were not a part of the campus discussions last year to the College's web homepage, where you will find a record of last year's deliberations, including the final report on a program to enhance residential life, which was submitted by the Residential Life Committee in May. That report will be made fully public next week, and will be the basis of discussions continuing over the next five weeks or so. More on that in a moment. I would also urge those of you who are new or who are returning after some time away to join the discussions that will resume this fall.

Last year, 1997-98 was quite remarkable. The College broke ground on the largest capital project in its history, Bicentennial Hall, and the symbolism of that building and the symbolism of that building's name shouldn't be lost as we near the College's two hundredth year and the beginning of its third century. Bicentennial Hall, as the signature building of the College's Bicentennial Celebration, reflects both continuity and a new-found sense of purpose and commitment for the College. And so I choose that as a symbol, as a metaphor for the College of where we are at present.

For the past 198 years, Middlebury College has expanded its horizons to include, sometimes albeit a bit cautiously, new academic fields of study and new facilities to meet its mission of educating young men and women for leadership. In this context, Bicentennial Hall, and the courses of instruction that will be taught in its new labs and classrooms, follows other once-state-of-the-art facilities: Old Chapel, built in 1836, once an all-purpose building that housed the College's chapel, its library, classrooms, and faculty offices and that over the years has been adapted to other purposes; Starr Library, with its two additions; our language labs--among the first in the country; our current Science Center, which replaced rather modest science facilities in Warner and Voter Halls, but can now no longer contain our goals and aspirations in the sciences; our high-speed campus network, which five short years ago was neither high-speed nor a true network; our interactive classrooms; and our Center for Educational Technology.

All of these, I think, create the tradition and form the context both for this latest addition to our facilities, and to the College of 1998.

At the same time, Bicentennial Hall is symbolic of the College's commitment to a new level of excellence in academic areas never before associated with our traditional strengths. No institution of higher education can turn its back on science education as we enter the 21st century. The complexity of modern life is such that no one can be considered well-educated, nor claim to be a leader in society, if he or she is ignorant of science. Bicentennial Hall will, I hope, attract future undergraduate National Science Foundation scholars and help to produce leaders in scientific fields in the next century.

But, as learning continues to change and the interdependence of disciplines hitherto thought to be separate and distinct becomes ever more evident to us, Bicentennial Hall will also play a large role in the College's commitment to the study of the environment and to the general education of all our students. In this context, the College is making an important statement about the future place of science in higher education in general, and at Middlebury College in particular.

Last year's discussions on residential life, and what I hope those discussions have produced, mirror, in many ways, the continuity and the forward-looking represented by Bicentennial Hall. Those discussions focused our community on the most fundamental issues of what it means to be a residential liberal arts college. What does the "residential" in residential liberal arts college mean in the late 1990s? What is the role of faculty, staff, and students in such a specific teaching and learning environment? What is the relationship between the "academic" component of a residential liberal arts education and the non-academic components? And how has the evolution of the liberal arts college in general, and Middlebury in particular, served our students given changes that have taken place in society at large?

These questions carry a particular urgency as alternative forms of education are becoming more common and certainly more affordable each year. The very relevance of the residential liberal arts experience needs to be articulated, even defended, as never before, and more vigorously than ever before. Our discussions last year forced us to ask "what, beyond the 36-course baccalaureate program, do we offer, should we offer, our students that makes their educational experience worthwhile?" What advantages will students who graduate from Middlebury have over those who pay only half or even a tenth of what our students will pay for the undergraduate degree?

Supporters of residential colleges, more often than not, sneer at internet-based education, but the increasing ease of access to all kinds of information will erode, indeed have already begun to erode, the comparative advantages residential colleges have enjoyed with 18 to 22 year olds for generations. A large part of the undergraduate experience used to comprise simply the knowledge presented in class, taught by a faculty who, at least to the average 18 to 22 year old, had what appeared to be a monopoly on the information that was needed to understand history or science or mathematics or literature or any subject matter in depth.

Now, of course, there were libraries and source materials that enhanced what was taught by the professor in class, but the bulk of learning, or at least the impetus and boundaries for learning, appeared to be overwhelmingly faculty-centered. And thus the faculty, individually and collectively, had a monopoly on defining--and then presenting--our educational program. The residential setting offered by places such as Middlebury was crucial in the learning process, because it enabled the student to engage the primary and virtually sole font of knowledge--the faculty member--in ways that ensured a better understanding of a field.

Today, however, much of the information conveyed by faculty is accessible almost instantaneously in one's doom room, study, or office, and, alas, it is available without paying tuition, or at least without paying a comprehensive fee of $30,000. The perception, at least, is that one can learn almost anything at home that was formerly the purview of the college classroom. And to a considerable degree, one can, and at one-tenth the cost. Survey the list of courses available on-line from the University of Phoenix, perhaps the most conspicuous of these examples, now the largest single education provider in the United States, or the many new educational ventures now competing for adult learners. Missing, of course, we residential liberal arts college advocates point out, often smugly, is the "human element," the inspiration that comes from a dedicated faculty member, working closely with students, face-to-face, which translates for the student into a learning experience that simply can't travel through high-speed ether-net wires. But is that all that "residential" means in tomorrow's residential liberal arts college? Is that all that "residential" means in the college of the future? Will simply having faculty available to "motivate" 18 to 22 year olds and provide the human element to the presentation of information now available to those not in the professoriat make the residential liberal arts college experience worthwhile? I, for one, wouldn't want to make that argument. At one time, for a very long time, the campus was the place to go, virtually the only place to go, to receive the information and knowledge necessary to become educated. Those days, whether we like it or not, are gone.

The future of the residential college involves, indeed requires, an evolution of roles on campus that parallels changes taking place outside the academy. We may chafe at the need to provide a "career services office," "real world experiences," "internships," "pre-professional programs," and other things that formerly were never the part of a four-year undergraduate liberal arts education as professionally-trained faculty defined it. We now accept these aspects of the residential liberal arts experience as the norm, because changes in society at-large make these seeming amenities necessary if colleges wish to continue operations. The expectations of those sending their sons and daughters--and those of the sons and daughters themselves--will only increase as the "in-class" component of one's education becomes more widely available in alternative venues. Our discussions about residential life last year, and the impetus behind the proposal for an enhanced residential life plan, have everything to do with what I've just described. These things recognize the need to go beyond what has become, quite unfortunately, perhaps, a smaller part of the overall experience colleges are expected to offer their students.

The cornerstones of the enhanced residential plan seek to strengthen the core academic mission--no matter how crowded that mission may have become--by making connections among the many pieces of our students' experience here that have, traditionally, been more independent than they have been linked. As the faculty's monopoly on teaching and learning has been undermined, we have come necessarily to recognize the need to bring to bear interdependent expertises in order to education our students. A "team" approach, which recognizes that education, broadly defined, takes place around the clock and in all venues, and which thus recognizes student deans, coaches, staff, as well as faculty, as valued members of the educating team, each offering added value to our students' educational experience. Creating greater opportunities for meaningful communities to develop, providing leadership roles for more students, involving faculty and staff more fully in the out-of-class experiences of students, and re-thinking how we provide advising and "deaning" to students all fall outside what we have come to think of as the core mission of the College. At the same time, each of these things will be instrumental in advancing our academic mission and the more general "educational" mission of the residential liberal arts college.

During our discussion of what, in many ways, was our local version of beginning to deal with a rapidly changing educational landscape, faculty and staff voiced appropriate concerns over the concept of, what at first blush might have appeared to be, a return to in loco parentis. It is important for us to recognize that the changes envisioned in the enhanced residential plan are less about in loco parentis than about leadership and expanding one's role in the educational environment as we enter a new century. The faculty (and I include myself here) need to make some of our own links as we continue the discussion of improving the atmosphere for teaching and learning here. Critics of the academic tone of an academic institution must begin by looking in the mirror. Where else ought the responsibility for setting that tone to lie? We all want the best environment in which to teach students that is possible, but what are we as the heart and soul of this academic institution willing and ready to do to make that possible?

A reconsideration of roles at residential liberal arts colleges is essential if the residential college experience is to survive and prosper. At the same time, changes in society at-large will continue to influence the shape and the scope of the residential liberal arts college. Ironically, but not surprisingly, the discussions generated by the enhanced residential plan last spring, and particularly the notion of building more meaningful communities, brought to the surface many of the challenges our students, and particularly our minority students, face while studying and living at Middlebury.

Our campus at-large, and our residential system in particular, must be able to address the challenges and the richness that come from an increasingly diverse student body and community. We have a lot on our agenda for the coming year in this area, and its an agenda that will continue to grow.

We will expand our relationship with NCBI (The National Coalition Building Institute), which will result in a number of training sessions across campus for faculty, students, and staff. These sessions will increase our collective awareness of and sensitivity to the issues facing our minority population and will educate us all on how to function better and with greater understanding, as we become more diverse.

The Human Relations Committee will assess the climate on campus for minorities and submit recommendations to me in February.

We begin participation in the Posse Foundation program that will bring the first posse of minority students to campus in the fall of 1999--students from New York who are high academic achievers, and who will have undergone thirty weeks of training intended to prepare them to live and study in an academically highly competitive world and a community that is culturally very different from their own.

And the College will pursue more aggressively programs that expand the opportunities for increasing the presence and contributions of minority performers, artists, and scholars on campus and for Middlebury faculty and students to teach and study at historically black colleges and universities. Through discussions initiated by Leroy Nesbitt and Dean Michael Katz, the College is in the process now of establishing exchanges with historically black colleges and universities that will enable students from those institutions to study at Middlebury and our students to study at those institutions. In addition, faculty exchanges will allow us to host faculty whose areas of expertise will complement our curriculum and for us to send faculty to those institutions to enable them similarly to enrich themselves and expand their own expertise by working with other faculty.

It's obvious that the residential life initiative, more than 15 months in discussion, involves far more, however, than any specific undertaking and much of what I've just described represents only a part of the larger effort we must institutionally undertake in the coming year and in the coming years. That initiative involves far more than creating better dormitories for students, shorter lines at dining halls, creating more work for faculty and staff, or trying to limit the "freedoms" of our students. In fact, the discussion last year, a discussion, by the way, that most institutions have yet to engage, but will soon need to commence, is more about the very essence of the residential liberal arts college, the future of such an institution, and the changing roles and attitudes we need to understand and act on as we approach our 21st century.

At the same time, we, as an institution, continue our plans to develop our infrastructure and to grow our student body and faculty. Nevertheless, we have reached approximately the halfway point in the evolution of our strategic plan, first defined in 1991 and revised and updated in 1994. As you know, among the many provisions in that strategic plan, we defined the peaks of conspicuous excellence to which this College would aspire, and we looked to putting in place an infrastructure, including buildings and square footage, additional faculty and additional staff, to meet the needs of a student body whose number would ultimately total 2,350. We said at the time we commenced that initiative that we would pause at the halfway point to take stock, and we've now reached that halfway point.

For this reason, we are going to be holding enrollment constant for the next several years as we engage in that process of stock taking, and the vehicle for this study will be our up-coming reaccreditation exercise through which every academic institution in the country must go every ten years. Our reaccreditation review will take place in October of 1999. As part of the preparation for such a review, every institution is required by the New England Association of Schools of Colleges, the accrediting agency in our region, to prepare an institution-wide self-study. We are further required, as a part of that self-study, to show the ways in which our College is living up to the twelve prescribed standards for accreditation that the Association has set forth. Make no mistake about it, our reaccreditation is not at issue or at risk. Rather, this is an opportunity for us to take advantage of a moment in our history that occurs only once every ten years, to take a close, careful, and full look at ourselves.

And so in addition to a self-study that addresses the twelve required standards set forth by the New England Association, we will, as well, explore a special topic and do our best to assess the progress we have made in the time our strategic plan was drafted. We will go back and look at principles and goals and assumptions in every area defined in that plan. We will give ourselves a progress report. I believe we will surprise ourselves by how many of the things we set forth in that plan years ago we have attained, and we'll have an opportunity to consider, or perhaps to reconsider, the degree to which that agenda needs to be modified. While we're doing that, we will continue to work on infrastructural improvements to the College so that at such time as additional students or faculty may come here, there will be places for them to live and to eat, to teach and to study, and to engage in the essential work of our college. Eric Davis will be chairing the Self-Study Committee, and through a series of task forces that will involve many, many members of this community--faculty, staff, students, alumni--the self-study exercise will be a significant part of the work of the coming year.

As a part of that as well, we will have the opportunity further to discuss the residential initiative, but that initiative will be coming to the Board of Trustees for decision at the Board's meeting at the end of October. The Board will be on campus at that time and the current chapter, which is only the first chapter of our discussion of residential life, will come to a close. My hope is that the community will come to view that discussion, and discussions thereafter, as far more than conversations about "a system" of how we house and feed our students. The plan itself, and the motivations behind the plan, speak to those issues I raised here: the very essence of our mission; the future of the residential liberal arts college as an institution; the ability for us to change to meet the evolving needs of our learners; the need to understand a more diverse community; and the leadership required to ensure the quality and the relevance of the educational experience we provide for our students.

Only an institution with an extraordinary degree of self-confidence and an equally extraordinary degree of external support could dare to pursue the ambitious agenda this College has before it. I conclude with examples of each, which I find, and I hope you will find, utterly bracing.

First, self-confidence. Last spring, as many of you know, safety issues presented themselves to us in a series of incidents that reminded us all that our campus world is an extension of the "real world" beyond our gates and reminded us also that no environment can ever be wholly risk-free. Thus reminded, we went to work, and over the summer took action. We added two security officers. We added a new security vehicle. We're in the process of installing safety phones in parking lots.

And we have, I believe, quickly, swiftly, and appropriately addressed the concerns those incidents raised.

A second example, involves our ongoing engagement with the issue of alcohol use and abuse on our campus. A national report was recently issued on the subject of "binge drinking" and the rather too central presence of alcohol in college social life. This is a national, not simply a local, problem, and it is a community, not just a student, or a College, concern. It is not, in other words, somebody else's problem, nor is it a problem that can be solved by simple solutions or telling someone else what he or she ought to do. Our community--broadly defined - meaning Town as well as College - faculty, staff, and parents as well as students--needs to engage this issue in all its complexity. And, this fall, we will. Thanks to the efforts of Yonna McShane and Ann Hanson an ongoing symposium on alcohol use has been scheduled. It begins later this month and will involve, indeed, must involve, all of us.

We have thus chosen to engage difficult questions; to engage them, not to duck them, and not simply to pronounce upon them. I believe, therefore, our self-confidence as an institution is well-founded.

And finally, briefly, I speak of external support. This weekend more than 100 of our most devoted alumni volunteers will come to Bread Loaf for our annual Alumni Leadership Conference. These loyal graduates are the core of an audacious effort, publicly launched a year ago, to raise by June 30, 2001, the sum of $200 million. As of this date, we have secured commitments of $105 million. In other words, we are more than halfway there. I will be announcing at Bread Loaf tomorrow a new Campaign initiative which was announced to the faculty at its meeting a week ago. A group of donors--parents, alumni, and friends--has agreed to commit their gifts, totaling $10 million, to a challenge fund, in the hope and expectation that a second $10 million in new commitments can be raised for student financial aid endowment, resulting in a $20 million financial aid endowment fund over and above what we now have. This challenge gives added substance to our commitment to maintain need-blind admissions, to meet the full need of every admitted student, and to remain competitive at a time where the very strongest and most self-confident institutions are also revisiting their financial aid policies. Middlebury is doing the same and means to keep itself competitive. It also offers ample evidence of the breadth and the depth of support for this special place.

That place approaches the venerable age of 200 with vigor, with purpose, with confidence. As we take up our tasks for the year ahead, we are reminded of our goodly inheritance that has made us what we are, and we are inspired by that example to take an institution that we cherish and that has been so conspicuously successful and bring it to loftier places still.

I conclude as I do each year. There's work to be done. Let's get on with it. Thanks for coming.