December 2004

MiddNews
A Monthly Update of News and Events on the Middlebury Campus  Middlebury College Public Affairs, Middlebury, VT  05753 phone:  802-443-5198  fax:  802-443-2110

Aliza Watters '05 is one of 43 American students to be awarded Marshall Scholarships to study at a university in Britain next year.  Watters, an English major with a concentration in literary nonfiction creative writing, attended the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in the summer of 2002, and spent January to May 2003 in the Czech Republic, where she studied Central and Eastern European literature.

She plans to use her Marshall Scholarship to tackle two consecutive one-year master's programs in English at Oxford, the first in 20th-century English literature and the second in European literature.

More than a thousand students have been awarded Marshall Scholarships since the program's inception in 1953.  They were established as a British gesture of thanks to the people of the United States for the assistance received after the Second World War under the Marshall Plan.  Financed by the British government, the highly competitive scholarships provide an opportunity for American students who have demonstrated academic excellence to continue their studies for two to three years at the British university of their choice.  The scholarships are worth about $60,000 each.

A documentary titled "America Drinks: Sesno Reports" will air on PBS stations around the country over the next several weeks.  Produced by veteran journalist Frank Sesno '77, the program is a comprehensive look at the use and abuse of alcohol in America.  Middlebury President Emeritus and College Professor John McCardell will appear on the program to provide his perspective on the topic.  McCardell recently advocated lowering the legal drinking age to 18 in an op-ed essay in The New York Times.  For more information about the program, including air dates on PBS stations around the country, see http://www.weta.org/sesno/#airdates.

Robert O'Hara, who teaches biology at Middlebury, is also an advocate for residential college systems.  His Web site www.collegiateway.org  describes the lack of decentralized residential structures as a crisis in today's higher education.  In addition to being a valuable in-house resource for the development of Middlebury's commons-based residential system, O'Hara is in demand as a speaker at institutions worldwide. 

He spoke at the University of Durham in England in November, and consulted with the Durham faculty and administration on the further development of their system of residential colleges.  He was a guest of St. Aidan's College, where he attended a number of meetings and receptions.  He also cut the ceremonial ribbon to mark the opening of a new Middle Common Room for graduate students in Grey College. 

On Friday and Saturday, Nov. 12 and 13, approximately 100 Jewish alumni, students, parents and faculty gathered for a celebration marking the 50-year anniversary of Middlebury's chapter of the Jewish campus organization Hillel (http://community.middlebury.edu/~hillel/).  The group attended a religious service together at the college's Jewish Center, shared meals, listened to a lecture on "The Vanishing Center: American Judaism Present and Future," and watched a play, "The Melting Pot," about early 20th-century Jewish immigration. 

Rabbi Ira Schiffer, Middlebury College associate chaplain and Hillel advisor since 2001, organized the anniversary celebration, which also commemorated the 350th anniversary of Jewish life in North America.

"There is a real understanding that students in the past had taken risks from which students today benefit," said Schiffer.  "There is a growing sense of responsibility and understanding that what Hillel members do today can have a profound impact on generations of students yet to come," he said.

In December, Schiffer and Robert Schine, the Curt C. and Else Silberman Professor in Jewish Studies, appeared at a Middlebury alumni event in Washington, D.C. in honor of Hillel's anniversary.  Schiffer provided an overview of Jewish culture on campus and Schine gave a lecture on a topic related to Judaism.

A new program in Middle East studies joins four other areas of focus in the international studies curriculum this year.  Four new faculty members have been recruited for the program, two in Arabic, the others in the history and the politics of the Middle East, supplementing existing offerings in languages, political science, history, religion, geography, and history of art and architecture, which also support the program.  Five students have declared themselves international studies majors with a Middle East area focus.

In 2003-04 Arabic language was offered for the first time at Middlebury as an undergraduate course.  With the addition, this year, of a second faculty member in Arabic language, students may now take Arabic language in three levels of courses.  Students in Middle East studies courses have also benefited from public lectures and colloquia on Middle East topics, and a film series in Arabic with English subtitles.  The College plans eventually to establish an Arabic house, and locations for a Middlebury study abroad program are being evaluated. 

President Ronald D. Liebowitz has initiated a planning process that will begin in January and continue through December 2005.  According to an overview of planning provided to the faculty and staff of the college by Charles A. Dana Professor of Mathematics John Emerson, who will coordinate the planning process, the plan will cover a six-year period—2006-2012.  Among the assumptions on which the plan rests are maintaining an undergraduate enrollment of 2,350 students, maintaining need-blind admissions for domestic students, continuing to enroll 10 percent international students, maintaining diversity as a priority and organizing residential life around the commons.

Other elements of the planning process include consideration of finances, articulating strategic goals, such as further strengthening the academic reputation of the College so that the public perception reflects the level of quality Middlebury has attained, and focusing on student-faculty interactions.  Goals also include improving financial aid awards and providing aid to more needy students, helping faculty to focus their energies on scholarship and teaching, and examining the role of science in the 21st century liberal arts curriculum.  The international curriculum and language studies will be reviewed and strengthened, interdisciplinary programs will be augmented, and there will a focus on collaboration with the Town of Middlebury.

Booz Allen Hamilton, the global strategy and technology consulting firm, recently sponsored a 90th anniversary project that asked distinguished scholars from respected colleges and universities across the United States to identify 10 of the world's most enduring institutions over the past century.  Michael Kraus and Allison Stanger, Middlebury professors of political science were selected to write the section on government institutions, selecting the American Constitution and the International Telecommunication Union.  See www.boozallen.com.