Community Living
The residential undergraduate college experience creates an opportunity for community that often comes along only once in a lifetime. The enormously supportive and engaged faculty and staff at Middlebury College work hard every day to help students make the most of it for themselves and those around them.
Middlebury attracts students from diverse backgrounds, and our system must nurture the educational and personal development—and personal responsibility—of all students.
Dean of Students
The Office of the Dean of Students encompasses key components of campus life, including orientation, judicial affairs, and residential life, as well as student activities, governance, and organizations. Within these areas, staff members work to build and maintain a diverse and inclusive community, bound by common experiences and adhering to shared values. Collaborating with colleagues from other departments and offices, they help students explore the rich intersections of academic, cocurricular, and residential life, providing opportunities for leadership development, personal growth, creativity, and community problem solving. Dean of Students staff lead by example, demonstrating the highest standards of integrity, equity, and concern for others.
Class Deans
The Class Deans oversee the educational experience and provide academic and personal support, assist in resolving conflict, and help enforce College policy. The deans help bridge academic and residential experiences, playing a crucial role in supporting Middlebury’s goal of a seamless educational environment. All students are connected to a dean upon arrival on campus and remain connected to them throughout their time at Middlebury.
Community Standards
The ability of Middlebury to achieve its purposes depends on members of the campus community upholding our commonly accepted standards of conduct, which enable the highest quality of teaching and learning. Broadly, these are referred to as our Community Standards.
Residential Life
Middlebury’s residential life embodies Middlebury’s conviction that an excellent liberal arts education takes place around the clock—as easily over dinner as in the classroom.
There are 60 buildings for student housing on campus, and all first-year students are assigned to first-year communities. Sophomores live together in sophomore buildings, and juniors and seniors can choose from many housing options across campus. First-year students are placed into their first-year communities based on their first-year seminar assignments. Feb students live in first-year communities, sophomore communities, and a Feb community. This is the start of a student’s experience in our living-learning environment.
Public Safety
The Department of Public Safety provides services to the campus community 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The department includes uniformed security officers and telecommunications staff. Officers conduct patrols of campus properties and buildings, respond to campus emergencies, and enforce College rules and policies, including those related to parking. Public Safety officers do not have power of arrest but work closely with local law enforcement agencies. For emergency services, students should call 443-5911 or 911.
ID Cards: The MiddCard is your official form of identification at Middlebury. Students are required to carry the cards at all times. It qualifies students for certain privileges and gives appropriate access to residence halls equipped with enhanced access.
Emergency Phones and Call Boxes: Emergency phones are located at the entrances of residence halls equipped with enhanced access, in parking lots, and along some walkways.
Safety Escorts: Public Safety officers will provide safety escorts to and from on-campus locations during the hours of darkness when personal safety is a concern.
Dining Services
Dining Services provides breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days a week in dining halls as part of the meal plan included in the comprehensive fee. There are no restrictions on the number of times you can enter a dining hall during each meal period—eat dinner at one dining hall and enjoy coffee and dessert with friends at another. Ingredient lists are posted for all main entrees and many other foods, and we maintain a green-dining approach to campus food practices—buying local and organic foods, composting, using biodegradable products, and partnering with the Knoll, Middlebury’s organic farm, for produce, among other initiatives.
Community Council
The Community Council serves as a forum in which all segments of the College community have a voice on nonacademic issues on campus. With a membership that includes students, faculty, and staff, its deliberations and recommendations consider the interests and concerns of the whole community.
Community Council regularly receives matters for consideration from the president and from members of the College’s Senior Leadership Group. In this consultative capacity, the council will offer direct feedback to the president and SLG, and will frequently reach out to others for input before forwarding the opinion(s) of the council.
All members of the College community are invited and encouraged to attend and to gather feedback, brainstorm solutions to a problem, and present their own concerns, questions, or recommendations. If you cannot attend a meeting, contact CCouncil@middlebury.edu to send in a statement to be read and/or receive a copy of the minutes.