"Students who come to Middlebury learn to engage the world."
A key goal of a Middlebury College education is for graduates “to be thoughtful and ethical leaders able to meet the challenges of informed citizenship both in their communities and as world citizens…independent thinkers, committed to service, with the courage to follow their convictions and to accept responsibility for their actions.” The Alliance for Civic Engagement (ACE) supports the College in advancing its mission—most especially its commitment to students as they “learn to engage the world.” As set forth in the College’s strategic plan, Middlebury seeks to develop a sense of balance and personal responsibility in students’ lives that helps to cultivate a sense of civic responsibility and stewardship in relation to the world beyond. These qualities will be increasingly important in the world community that our students will enter when they leave Middlebury.
The initiatives of the ACE office in this area are many-faceted—curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular—and include advising, funding, promoting, and networking. Click here to read highlights that reflect our efforts in advancing global civic engagement on and off campus.
Recent Programs and Events
Alumni Spotlight 
Midd alum Mark Bisanzo '98 traveled to Nyakibale Hospital in a poverty stricken region of southwest Uganda in 2005 as part of a Mission Doctors Association trip. Since then he has continued his work with the hospital by returning twice a year and co-founding the Global Emergency Care Collaborative in 2006, a non-profit organization designed to recruit doctors to work internationally and support the care of patients abroad.
Funded Student Initiatives
Thanks to gifts from individual donors, here are just some of the student initiatives the ACE office has been able to help support:
- Melissa Espert '09 will served as an intern during J-Term with the Vermont Institute on the Caribbean.
- Xintong Le '12 volunteered with New York Cares based on an interest in the Bronx he developed during a writing course with Professor Hector Vila.
- Emily May '10, Jonathan Campbell '11, Daniel Kane '09, and Rosalind Chaplin '09 attended the Terra Madre Slow Food conference in Torino, Italy.
- During his year abroad in Japan Mi Sun '10 participated in the United Nations University Global Seminar “Challenges to Sustainable Development: Working Towards Poverty Reduction.”
- Ben Wessel '11 participated as part of the American youth delegation from SustainUS in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 14th Conference of Parties.