August 3, 2001
Contact:
Sarah Ray
802-443-5794
sray@middlebury.edu
Posted: August 3, 2001
MIDDLEBURY,
VT - The Middlebury College Language Schools will
conduct commencement exercises on Friday, Aug. 10, at 8 p.m.
in Mead Memorial Chapel on Hepburn Road off College Street
(Route 125). The public is cordially invited to
attend.
President
John M. McCardell, Jr. and Dean of the Language Schools and
Schools Abroad Michael R. Katz will award degrees to 140
Master of Arts candidates in French, German, Italian,
Russian and Spanish. They also will award degrees to three
doctor of modern languages candidates. The ceremony will
include the presentation of outstanding achievement awards
in the study of Arabic, Chinese and Japanese languages, and
for French literary studies.
The
commencement address will be delivered by the Hon. Madeleine
M. Kunin, former United States ambassador to Switzerland
(1996-1999) and three-term governor of Vermont (1985-1991).
Most recently she served as Bicentennial fellow-in-residence
at Middlebury College. An author of books, publications and
articles, the Zurich-born Kunin also served as deputy
secretary of education for three years during the Clinton
administration.
An
honorary Doctor of Laws degree will be conferred upon Hans
G. Hachmann, president of the Max Kade Foundation and an
advocate for German language education in the United States.
Hachmann is an avid supporter of the Middlebury College
German School and German department.
A
second honored guest, Vladimir N. Voinovich, will receive an
honorary Doctor of Letters degree. He is a hero of the
Russian dissident movement and author of “The Life and
Extraordinary Times of Private Chonkin” and “Pretender to
the Throne.” Exiled in 1980, Voinovich continues to champion
human rights throughout the West, most recently as
writer-in-residence at the current session of the Middlebury
College Russian School.
Middlebury
College Professor Emeritus of Music Emory M. Fanning will
accompany the commencement procession and recession on the
Mead Chapel organ.
Middlebury
College’s first language school, the German School, was
founded in 1915, followed by the French and Spanish Schools
in 1916 and 1917, respectively. Subsequently, programs were
added in Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic. At
the heart of the Language Schools’ immersion programs is the
Language Pledge, a formal commitment to speak the language
of study and no other for the entire summer
session.
Middlebury
also offers language programs at the C.V. Starr-Middlebury
Schools Abroad located in France (Paris), Germany (Mainz),
Italy (Ferrara and Florence), Russia (Irkutsk, Moscow,
Voronezh, and Yaroslavl), and Spain (Getafe, Logroño,
Madrid, and Segovia). In the fall of 2002 Middlebury plans
to open new sites in Berlin, Germany, and Poitier,
France.
More
than 36,000 students have attended the Language Schools
since 1915, of which over 11,000 have obtained advanced
degrees in one or more of the eight foreign languages
offered at Middlebury College.