Learning From the Local:
Middlebury's Hillcrest Environmental Center
Anyone who has walked Middlebury's campus knows that our Vermont landscape is, in itself, a wise teacher. The mountain ranges that form our horizons, the lake, farms, and forests inspire a sense of belonging, of beauty, and of purpose. For more than two centuries the College has drawn on that landscape in preparing young people to contribute to society.
Hillcrest Hall, before the beginning of renovation work
Since 1965, preparing young scholars to understand and protect the natural world we all share has been a Middlebury hallmark. Middlebury's environmental studies program, the oldest undergraduate environmental program in the country, has from the beginning fostered a holistic outlook. Here, "ES" doesn't begin and end with the sciences, although field and lab work in geology, biology, chemistry, and geography form a core element and one possible focus. ES at Middlebury includes sciences and environmental policy as well as literature, architecture, religion, dance, economics, psychology, international studies—the full spectrum of our planet's human endeavor.
The new Hillcrest Environmental Center will give this preeminent program its first real home. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of Middlebury's ES program, at least 40 professors teach courses and supervise projects, and at least 90 students major in this highly popular program area each year. These ES partners are scattered across campus, with no suitable space in which to build a sense of community and shared purpose. In addition, books, data, films, and equipment lack a central location. Starting in fall 2007, the Center will gather these students, faculty, staff, and resources in the kind of collaborative spaces so essential to capturing both the "facts" and the "feelings" of environmental awareness and translating them into action.
Reimagining a Vermont tradition
"Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever's going. Not against: with."
—Robert Frost
Instead of raising a new building for its environmental studies program, the College will create a model of resource and energy efficiency by retrofitting Hillcrest, an 1875 Italianate-style Vermont farmhouse. Before it was expanded for College use, this historic farmhouse marked the gateway to the rural world beyond campus and village. Now Hillcrest will mark a new gateway in bringing vernacular, even historic buildings, up to the sustainability standards so critical to our future. In renovating Hillcrest, Middlebury will for the first time test the feasibility of third-party certification for its sustainable building practices by registering for LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).
A model of the renovated Hillcrest, as seen from Hepburn Road
The College will publicly document the methods and materials used to renovate Hillcrest, and the costs for using them. In this way, Middlebury will share with architects, builders, and homeowners the innovations that can conserve resources while preserving the charm and history of older houses.
"This building is a powerful example that green architecture doesn't demand a cleared site and a new foundation—that we know tricks enough these days to make any building work both for its users and for the planet."
—Bill McKibben, Scholar in Residence in Environmental Studies
The new Hillcrest Center spaces will include:
- 14 offices for members of the core ES and visiting faculty and for environmental program staff.
- A 100-seat "smart" classroom. This classroom will also be the home to the weekly Howard E. Woodin ES Colloquium Series, where students, faculty, staff, and community members gather over lunch to hear from a broad range of speakers—students, faculty, alumni, and environmental professionals.
- A student lounge area and meeting rooms.
- An exterior porch and outdoor areas for classes and informal meetings.
- A studio designed for ES 401 projects, which involve service-learning and work with community members. To view titles of ES 401 projects, click here.
"With the new ES center, it will be exciting to have a central watering hole on campus for daily gatherings of the extended ES community."
— Jonathan Isham
Luce Professor of International Environmental Economics
The Architects and Construction Team
Smith, Alvarez, and Sienkiewycz of Burlington, Vermont, are the chosen architects for the project and have designed all the existing LEED-certified buildings in the state, including the recently opened ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center on Burlington's waterfront. In addition, Cumming Engineering, who have experience working on other campus buildings, including Le Chateau, have also worked on LEED projects in Vermont.
Investing in Middlebury,
Investing in our Environment
"We still do not know one-thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us."
—Albert Einstein
This rural campus in a small northern state has become synonymous with environmental education, awareness, and action. It is no exaggeration to say that every year, our ES graduates, and those in other programs, leave the College to make a real difference in the health of our planet, its living systems, and all its inhabitants. See a short list of representative alumni.
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| A view of the model, looking north. |
Gifts to the LEED-certified renovation of Hillcrest as the new home of this internationally known environmental program provide a guaranteed educational return on many fronts. They support an energy-efficient future for an historic building, as well as a timely and critical teaching opportunity for the College, the community, and far beyond.
In supporting the Center, gifts will stimulate new creativity and collaboration among ES students, faculty, staff, and involved community members; they give Middlebury the opportunity to "walk the walk" by officially certifying its sustainable building practices; they will teach every person who enters or learns about the building that conservation can take place every day, in every kind of structure; and they will model to Middlebury students that seeking new ways to live harmoniously with nature is one of the responsibilities of an educated person.