The Doctor of Modern Languages degree, established in 1927, is unique to Middlebury College and differs from the more traditional Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in several important respects.

The purpose of the DML is to prepare teacher-scholars in two modern foreign languages, providing them with the skills and resources that will help them develop as teachers of second language acquisition, literature, linguistics and language pedagogy.

Middlebury's intent in the design of the DML program is to provide an alternative to the Ph.D. that retains the traditional focus on depth in research while meeting the special needs of language teachers and administrators for competence in the areas of language pedagogy and cultural studies. The DML curriculum incorporates pedagogical and cultural elements and is sufficiently flexible to accommodate the professional commitments of in-service teachers. All of the course requirements for the DML can be met by attending summer sessions of the Middlebury Language Schools.

A list of DML dissertation titles may be found here.