Continuing Graduate Education
The School allows students not seeking a degree to enroll for a summer in a nondegree status in continuing graduate education. Upon the student's successful completion of a summer's study, Middlebury College will issue the student a Certificate in Continuing Graduate Education.
Undergraduate Honors Program
Exceptionally able undergraduates with strong backgrounds in literary study may be admitted to graduate study at Bread Loaf after the completion of three years toward their bachelor's degree and may take up to two units of course work. Their courses may be transferred to their home institutions, or they may serve as the initial credits leading to the M.A. degree at the Bread Loaf School of English.
Independent Reading Projects
With the approval of the associate director and an appropriate member of the faculty, qualified students may undertake an Independent Reading Project, a project of reading, research, and writing that students carry out independently during the academic year and bring to completion the summer they return to Bread Loaf. Students must have taken a course at Bread Loaf in the area of their proposed reading project and have demonstrated their competence by securing a grade of A- or higher in that course.
Arrangements must be completed during the summer session before the academic year in which the reading project is to be undertaken.
Each reading project culminates in a long essay, a draft of which is submitted in early April following the academic year of reading and research. Students then work closely with a faculty member in revising and bringing this essay to completion over the course of the summer. A reading project successfully completed is the equivalent of a regular Bread Loaf course and students doing an IRP will be charged the cost of one Bread Loaf course.
For more information, or to see a sample of a successful IRP proposal, contact Sandy LeGault in the Bread Loaf office.
Independent Summer Reading Projects
Under exceptional circumstances, when the format of the normal Independent Reading Project is not appropriate (for example, in acting or directing projects), students may design an Independent Summer Reading Project, which counts as the equivalent of a regular Bread Loaf course. Students have the responsibility for establishing the subject matter of the summer project and for submitting a well-conceived prospectus for the summer's work; students should submit the prospectus when they register for courses, no later than February 15. For M.A. and M.Litt. candidates, the summer project must be in an area in which the student has previously taken a course at Bread Loaf and received a grade of A- or better.
Oxford Independent Tutorials
Students attending Bread Loaf at Lincoln College, Oxford, may propose a course of study for a tutorial to be taken in addition to their regular Bread Loaf course. These tutorial projects receive one unit of credit and should involve approximately the amount of reading and writing contained within a one-unit Bread Loaf course at one of the other four campuses. Project proposals must be approved by both the director and a member of the Bread Loaf/Oxford faculty, who will supervise the student's work during the ensuing summer. Students must submit proposals no later than February 15. A Bread Loaf student must be enrolled in one of the regular Bread Loaf/Oxford courses in order to be eligible to take one of these extra tutorials. A tuition fee of $2,013 will be charged for each tutorial in 2008.