Just as the shape and quality of the student body are essential to the mission of Middlebury College, so too is the quality of human interaction in the College community. Relationships on our campus are generally positive, strong, and mutually supportive, but we believe that they can be further improved by several measures identified below. We believe that these steps will support a community characterized by responsibility, commitment, integrity, encouragement, and trust.
The Role of the Commons
The Commons system was initiated in 1992-93 and articulated more fully through a 1998 Board resolution, with the purpose of creating a closer community of students, faculty, and staff, and to enrich the cultural and intellectual environment on campus. There are five Commons or groups of residence halls. Each Commons has a Commons "team" that includes a Commons Head(s), a Dean, a Coordinator, and several residential advisors. The Commons Head is a faculty member who works with students to develop a social and intellectual program for their Commons. Students generally appreciate the frequent access to, and personal interaction with, their Deans, Coordinators, and Commons Heads that the decentralized organization has provided.
The major goal of the Commons is to create a more seamless educational environment for our students—a residential system that supports more completely the academic, social, and intellectual development of students. The Commons strive to create more intimate communities within the larger College campus—communities in which students assume greater responsibility for their social and residential experiences on campus, and in which they receive more guidance from on-site deans and from faculty and staff who participate in the life of the Commons in a variety of ways.
The Commons system is based on three governing principles: continuing student membership, decentralized dining, and proximate faculty residence. In developing a decentralized residential and dining system, our goal has been to establish five Commons communities that complement and reinforce the traditions and values that have long distinguished Middlebury College. Further, the Commons provide an ideal setting in which members of the College community can explore questions about values and about issues that challenge the larger society.
The Commons is still a work in progress, and at this stage in the system's evolution, the pressing question is how best to combine the values of curricular enrichment and social coherence in deepening the Commons' role at Middlebury. Our committee has four main recommendations in this regard, which are described below. In advancing these proposals, we also underscore the importance of all-campus events like the Clifford Symposium picnic that was held last fall. These gatherings promote collegiality and pride in the institution, and make being part of the College community fun and enjoyable. We encourage the College to sustain and develop these all-campus traditions even as it works to develop the smaller communities represented by the Commons.
Recommendation #14: Cultivate leadership qualities that address societal needs.
The Commons system provides a variety of opportunities for student leadership, mobilizing interests that are social, academic, cultural, and political in nature. Commons Councils and Commons-initiated events offer occasions for taking initiative and responsibility that students would not otherwise have. The Student Government Association now elects many of its representatives through the Commons, and members of the Middlebury College Activities Board are also exploring ways of collaborating more fully with Commons leaders. Students likewise have the chance to mentor peers and set the tone of Commons life by serving as Junior Counselors and Residential Advisors. These opportunities are consistent with one of the Commons' founding tenets, which is to give students a greater role in governing their residential lives.
Looking ahead to the Commons' continued growth—as the central organizing principle of student life—we urge the Commons to expand their view of leadership to include qualities that will be especially important to students after they leave Middlebury. National and international events of the past few years point to a special need for cultivating the ethical dimensions of leadership, while the College's tradition of volunteer service and the emergence of service learning as a pedagogical model dramatize the social benefits achieved through local action. We see the Commons as natural gathering places for the entire Middlebury community, and later in this section we describe their role in supporting a College-wide convocation program that would bring together students, faculty, and staff for discussion and reflection. But we also see the Commons as a gateway for civic engagement, communities where students have the opportunity to turn their liberal arts education to larger purposes. We encourage the Commons leadership to keep these aspirations in mind as we continue the system's development.
Recommendation #15: Clarify and enhance the status of the Commons Heads.
As outlined in their letters of appointment, the faculty members serving as Commons Heads are meant to provide "primary leadership for fostering the intellectual and cultural development of [their] Commons." This charge speaks to one of the Commons' most important goals, which is to reinforce the educational mission of the College and provide additional opportunities outside the classroom for students to learn. The cultivation of intellectual life in the Commons is inevitably complicated by the encompassing nature of residential life, which can be marked by a variety of personal, social, cultural, and intellectual dramas. It is precisely because of this welter of activity that we need to underscore the status of Commons Heads as the principal leaders of the Commons and grant them the authority to develop the intellectual, cultural, and civic dimensions of residential life. To this end, we recommend that they serve as the leaders of the Commons community and as the final administrative authority within the Commons. This recommendation assumes that the Commons Dean would work closely with both the Dean of the College—who would continue to oversee the sensitive, specialized work that Commons Deans undertake with individual students—and the Commons Head, who would supervise/direct/guide the Dean's work within the Commons as a whole. We likewise support the idea of providing the Commons Deans more time for meaningful contact with students and other residential staff—a goal that could be accomplished by reconfiguring some of the Commons Deans' current tasks and/or reconfiguring the overall staffing within the Commons (JCs, CRAs, Coordinators, etc.).
We note that the titles used for those in leadership positions have symbolic meaning, and thus suggest that "Commons Head" or simply "Head of [name] Commons" could help convey that the Heads are central to their leadership and the direction of the Commons.
Recommendation #16: Further integrate the Commons system and the curriculum.
The most important goal of the Commons system, and the reason the College has devoted considerable resources to its development, is to enhance the overall educational experience of our students by focusing on their experiences outside the classroom. This concept was central to the vision of Commons endorsed by the Board of Trustees in 1998. Since the Commons system is the "central organizing principle" of residential life at Middlebury, it should be linked in meaningful ways to the curriculum. The Commons-based first-year seminar program, which houses members of first-year seminars in the same residence hall (and Commons), has been especially successful in integrating residential and academic life. During the fall of 2005, 75 percent of the first-years participated in this program, although in the spring, housing logistics make it very difficult to offer the program to students who matriculate in February. We would like to see the Commons-based first-year seminar program extended to as many entering students as possible. This will bring even more faculty into the Commons and their participation is valued and meaningful.
These two recommendations—the reinforcement of the leadership role of the Commons Heads and the linkage of Commons to curriculum—could also be promoted by the development of a program of courses offered by Commons Heads within their Commons. Faculty members help define and lead the Commons. More faculty participation through Commons-based courses strengthens the Commons. We offer specific recommendations for such a program in Chapter Three.
Recommendation #17: Expand opportunities for staff involvement in the Commons.
The Commons system has the potential to be an important resource for the entire campus, and we want to affirm the educational power of an inclusive residential system that gives staff as well as faculty a place to learn alongside students. In particular, we urge the Commons to create regular opportunities for faculty, staff, and students to meet in small groups to discuss specific readings and issues that are of importance to the larger community. It is especially important that these gatherings take place on a regular basis and become part of the rhythms of campus life. It is also important that the College provide more opportunities for staff members to participate in Commons' activities, for by doing so we add breadth and depth to our intellectual communities.
A Social Life that Encourages Student Responsibility and Leadership
The College's newly adopted Mission Statement identifies ambitious goals for the education we offer, including our aim "to cultivate the intellectual, creative, physical, ethical, and social qualities essential for leadership in a rapidly changing global community." Middlebury's success in achieving this goal for our students relies in part upon the interactions of faculty and staff with students, but equally on students' own initiatives and leadership.
The Commons system should be enhanced to serve these complementary aims and to support the creation of a learning community that encourages students to act constructively and responsibly. Yet, as important as the Commons can and should be in developing the values of informed citizenship and leadership, every faculty and staff member of the Middlebury College community is engaged in some fashion in the process of cultivating among students a more acute awareness of our shared humanity. Faculty and staff who work closely with students, and who know them as individuals, can influence them in making good choices about how they live their lives and how they serve the needs of their communities.
We must acknowledge that a particular problem in the social life at Middlebury, as at other colleges and universities, is the abuse of alcohol. The College responds firmly to problems of substance abuse when they arise, and it provides educational programming and takes other specific measures to discourage such problems from occurring in the first place. But this institutional role can lead students to view the administration as either an adversary or a hapless denier of the real world. We thus urge students, faculty, and staff to move past these stereotypical positions and to talk frankly about the challenge of fostering a more vibrant social life on campus. We are convinced that students themselves must assume a primary responsibility for identifying and addressing the problems of their own social lives.
As one step in this process, the College recently created a student Task Force on Social Life whose charge is to find ways to improve social life on campus and to address problems that pose threats to good health and to a safe environment. We believe that existing institutions at Middlebury—for example, the Commons, student government, student organizations, and athletic teams—can and should support and encourage student leadership to improve the experiences students have at Middlebury. We look forward to the recommendations generated by this Task Force, not simply because they have the potential to improve student social life but also because they reflect the kind of initiative we want to encourage in our students.
A College-Wide Convocation
Recommendation #18: Initiate a weekly College-wide convocation.
We should reserve an hour each week free from classes and set aside as a shared time of exploration and reflection. Further consideration of the details is necessary, but we offer the following possibilities to illustrate how a College-wide convocation might work.
The convocation would be held on a weekday at the same hour each week. Each month's convocation would introduce a broad theme, to which conversation would return in different formats. In the first week an all-community convocation with a major outside speaker would introduce the theme; in the second week Commons-based discussions would engage the convocation topic; in the third week a faculty, staff, or student speaker, or perhaps a panel, could address the theme in another all-community event; and the fourth week could remain open for reflection on the topic as small groups choose.
Lecture funds already exist to support such a series, but planning the program will require a significant commitment of time. Several members of the community have already expressed a willingness to help organize and plan a convocation program. We envision that an appointed committee of faculty, staff, and students would plan the convocations for the following year and also coordinate them with events of a related nature, such as the Clifford Symposium and the Fulton Lecture.
To encourage staff participation, supervisors will need to be supportive and flexible. In offices where staff work-schedules are harder to rearrange, a rotation might be developed so that those who are interested can still attend some of the presentations. Staff participation will support our intellectual mission and foster shared experiences among all segments of the community.
Staff Contributions to Intellectual Community
Members of the staff of Middlebury College contribute in vital and varied ways to the education of our students. The entire College is enriched by including staff members as full participants in our intellectual community. We endorse the following recommendations that speak to enhancing staff educational opportunities. Staff as well as faculty can model for our students the benefits of lifelong learning and intellectual growth.
Recommendation #19: Enhance educational opportunities for staff.
We recommend that the College increase the level of funding for staff continuing education in order to make this program available to more employees. The Continuing Education Fund currently supports eligible employees by providing tuition reimbursement for courses at accredited, degree- or certificate-granting programs. The program of study must be related to the individual's professional development. We also recommend that the Office of Human Resources communicate to supervisors the College's support for existing policies that permit staff to take courses at Middlebury if space is available, and that Human Resources work with department supervisors to find ways to accommodate such requests.
Recommendation #20: Support staff matriculation at Middlebury College.
Staff members can currently audit courses or take courses for credit at the College, and then transfer earned credits to other institutions of higher education. We believe that the ability to matriculate at Middlebury and work toward a degree here could be an important opportunity for members of the Middlebury staff. We support the recommendation that qualified staff members have the opportunity to matriculate at Middlebury College.
Recommendation #21: Increase professional development opportunities for staff.
Professional achievements of the Middlebury College staff are valued contributions to the College. Some members of the staff are active at the national level in their respective fields; they are invited to present at conferences, participate in professional networks or organizations, and attend other work-related off-campus events. We should increase the availability and level of support in the Staff Development Fund to enable more staff members to participate in professional organizations and attend work-related programs.
Recommendation #22: Create a staff professional development leave program.
We support the creation of a professional development leave program that would allow staff members to apply for a leave of absence to engage in educational or developmental activities consistent with the mission of the College and beneficial to the employee in his or her professional development. Such a program would provide staff members opportunities to develop further job-related knowledge and skills and return to campus with new ideas and energy.
Recommendation #23: Encourage staff participation in intellectual community.
We support the creation of structures that would allow staff members to participate in more educational events on campus, for example, a flextime or other cooperative arrangement within a department that would allow some individuals to attend an occasional lecture, or work with faculty, other staff, or students on committees or shared projects. Such collaborations can be very rewarding and contribute to our effectiveness and success as an institution. We ask that the Office of Human Resources initiate dialogue with supervisors about how best to encourage the staff to attend public events, affiliate with the Commons, and participate in discussions about important College agendas.
Leadership and Innovation
Recommendation #24: Strengthen supervisory training programs.
Middlebury College aims to support its employees by providing them with the information, tools, and assistance they need to maximize their success in their roles at the College. Managers and supervisors must understand and comply with many different management principles, employment laws, and College policies and procedures. To minimize the unintended application of policies in ways that are inconsistent, and to ensure equitable treatment of our employees, we recommend that the College require every new manager and supervisor to participate in a review of expectations for the new position. The employee should receive training and guidance in areas important to the new role, and this training should be administered in a timely way so that the employee can effectively assume his or her new responsibilities right away. In order to strengthen management practices across the College, each employee who is already in a supervisory or managerial role will also participate in a review and training process specific to his or her position.
Recommendation #25: Promote greater work-life balance.
As programs at Middlebury evolve, greater demands are sometimes placed on faculty and staff members who are deeply committed to the welfare of students—academically, physically, and emotionally. This dedication can lead to over-extension, stress, and diminished morale. A healthy balance between employees' professional and personal commitments, "work-life balance," will contribute to job satisfaction and good performance, improved relationships, and a sense of community. We recommend that the College explore ways to enhance work-life balance and to recognize ever-evolving life roles and responsibilities.
Recommendation #26: Encourage a culture of collaboration.
All employees at Middlebury College share a common goal of meeting the College's needs. For example, when we have a snowstorm, many employees from Facilities Services work together to quickly make buildings and facilities accessible to the College community; these dedicated employees take pride in "getting the job done well." We recommend promoting a team-work approach in all areas of the College, characterized by an ongoing willingness to support our coworkers both within and across departments. To enable this, Human Resources might establish a clearing house of information about areas and times of particular needs, so that willing employees can step in with help when that is needed. Some staff members might be cross-trained in the work of other departments.
A culture of collaboration should also extend to the College's professional staff and faculty. For example, new technologies present great opportunities to further our educational mission and to develop high quality campus resources. In order to benefit from these innovations, new collaborative relationships should be formed among the various departments and stakeholders—faculty and administration, library, instructional technology, and media services staff, computing and network support staff, museum and visual resources curators, and other collection managers and content providers. All levels of management should embrace an institutional ethos that recognizes and rewards interdepartmental collaboration.
Recommendation #27: Cultivate and support creativity and innovation.
We recommend that College leaders strive to provide for all employees an environment that encourages innovation and creative approaches to working more effectively. The people who know an area best should be encouraged to suggest innovations that can lead to improvement. We suggest that Human Resources include this goal within its program for orienting and training new managers. The area of technology can serve as one illustration; we should value technologies that allow us to do our jobs more efficiently, and such technologies extend beyond the academic realm.
Recommendation #28: Increase recognition of employees' accomplishments.
We recommend developing a mechanism to solicit information about significant staff and faculty accomplishments and milestones, and finding opportunities to publicly acknowledge these achievements. We should foster and encourage a culture in which successes in one area of the College are viewed as successes for the entire community.
Recommendation #29: Expand the ways we engage alumni in the life of the College.
We value the involvement of alumni from all Middlebury College programs. The College should move beyond its traditional methods of engaging alumni, and it must expand its efforts to engage alumni of the Language Schools and Bread Loaf.
The College should
• Expand communications to and programming for alumni of the Language Schools and Bread Loaf. Use both of these tools to help undergraduate alumni view the graduate programs as integral parts of the College.
• Take advantage of the new online community to create a virtual alumni community, providing new ways for the alumni to connect with each other and with Middlebury.
• Tailor communications and programming to target audiences by demographics such as age and special interests. For example, we could take greater advantage of broadcast e-mail and other technologies to provide information that is relevant for particular groups of alumni. Gatherings of alumni with shared experiences as undergraduates—for example, competing on an athletic team or participating in a music ensemble—are events that can lead to friendships across the generations.
• Involve greater numbers of alumni in providing career counseling to students and alumni, increasing the number of advisers in MiddNet, the online career network, creating more opportunities for networking in cities with substantial numbers of alumni, bringing more alumni to campus as speakers, and providing other opportunities for alumni to share their knowledge and expertise with one another.
• Broaden our ongoing alumni recruiting efforts through the Alumni Admissions Program (AAP) to strengthen our outreach to underrepresented groups. This could include more focused participation by Middlebury alumni of color. We should consider using recent graduates in early awareness efforts for middle school students in targeted urban areas, perhaps in conjunction with alumni of other colleges. We should also increase the involvement of alumni of the Language Schools and Bread Loaf in identifying strong applicants; many of those alumni are teachers in secondary schools.
• Provide opportunities for lifelong learning, expanding Alumni College and making faculty interaction the focus of more alumni events. We should continue to increase the numbers of courses offered to our alumni and taught by Middlebury faculty members; a course in Marine Biology offered by a Middlebury scientist in collaboration with colleagues at the Monterey Institute of International Studies is one current model. We should also consider including alumni in off-campus winter term courses, where possible, so that alumni and current students and faculty have common educational experiences.
• Use emerging technologies to provide lectures and courses to alumni through streaming audio and video and podcasts. We should find ways to provide information to alumni that is relevant to their work; one example that has proven effective over many years is BreadNet, which links Bread Loaf school teachers and their classrooms electronically.
Recommendation #30: Re-examine and strengthen our communications both within and beyond our campuses.
All institutions take steps to build and manage their reputation, so that prospective students, other academic institutions, potential supporters, and the general public are aware of the institution's achievements and aspirations. Middlebury should remain committed to an active, deliberate communications program with a goal of conveying to the world: the excellence of our faculty, staff, students, and alumni; the outstanding quality of our academic programs; and the vibrancy of our residential learning community. To this end, Middlebury should
• Strengthen its reputation for institutional leadership through outreach at the state and national level.
• Demonstrate the school's unique differences, and societal relevance, and take an active role in placing stories about faculty research and expertise to support those points.
• Increase alumni and parent engagement through targeted communications. This effort should not only include the undergraduate college, but all schools in the Middlebury family.
• Strengthen internal communication, and make sure that all constituents within the Middlebury community feel connected and aware of the matters that affect them.
• Continue concerted efforts to raise Middlebury's visibility externally and develop an approach to its own publications and communications tools that consistently reflect the objectives of its various constituencies.
Supporting Diversity
Recommendation #31: Expand and support diversity in the staff and faculty.
Middlebury's success in attracting an increasingly diverse student body points to a need for greater racial and ethnic diversity in the faculty and staff. A more diverse workforce at Middlebury will not only support our student population but will also bring a richer variety of experiences and perspectives into the conversations that help define the core of our intellectual community. The College should identify strategies for increasing the diversity in the groups of new employees that we bring to the faculty and staff. The 2005-2006 Human Relations Committee released its report this spring, and the recommendations in the report will guide Middlebury's continuing efforts to strengthen and support diversity in our community.
As illustration, we identify some steps that the College should consider in its efforts to recruit and retain a more diverse staff and faculty:
• Advertise and recruit applicants for staff positions from a wider geographic area.
• Consider carefully the application materials from the strongest minority applicants along with the materials from other finalists in a search.
• Continue to identify the recruiting and retention of diverse faculty members as an important part of the portfolio of a senior administrator.
• Ensure that the administrative responsibility for supporting efforts to attract a more diverse staff and faculty is clearly understood by all managers who recruit.
• Include diversity as an even stronger focus in our expanded training programs for all managers.
Diversity is not limited to race and ethnicity, and Middlebury College should continue to embrace diversity of many kinds. We should assist all members of the community in understanding what it means to be welcoming and inclusive. We recommend the incorporation of both role-modeling and diversity training in management strategies at all levels. We also recommend that the College identify opportunities through which all in our community can learn more about each other's diverse experiences and backgrounds.
The College and the Town
Recommendation #32: Recognize "Community Partners."
We have many friends in the community who contribute in various venues to the College, our students, and our faculty and staff. We recommend that the College acknowledge our long-term community partners with annual recognition, which could be in the form of a letter, announcement, or public event. This initiative would not replace the Citizens' Medals; rather it would acknowledge the organizations and individuals who year after year make significant contributions to College programs. We believe that such recognition would help the College strengthen its positive and productive relations with individuals and businesses in the local community.