Frequently Asked Questions

The GC provides notary services, as do several other notaries on the Middlebury campus:

The GC provides legal advice and representation to Middlebury, including all its schools and programs. This includes providing advice and counsel to Middlebury’s trustees, officers, administrators, faculty, and staff acting in their official capacities on a variety of issues affecting Middlebury. 

The office does not and cannot represent individual faculty, staff members, or students in personal legal matters. For example, the GC does not represent individuals with personal immigration issues.

The GC provides a range of legal services to Middlebury in a variety of fields, including labor and employment, student and faculty issues, real estate, corporate governance, contracts, intellectual property, and tax, among others.

If you are sued in your official capacity as a Middlebury employee, the GC will represent you directly or through counsel engaged by Middlebury. The GC cannot provide legal advice or representation on personal matters to students, employees, or others. 

Individuals should not contact outside counsel concerning a new Middlebury legal matter without first consulting the GC. The GC retains and pays outside counsel on behalf of Middlebury. If you believe outside counsel is needed for a matter, you should contact the GC. The GC will evaluate the matter and determine whether outside counsel is necessary or appropriate, and if so, which counsel to use.

Please see Outside Counsel on this site for more information.

Vermont staff and faculty cannot accept service of legal documents on behalf of Middlebury. If a process server attempts to serve you with documents, you should politely decline and direct him or her to the Office of the General Counsel. If you are served documents that name you personally in your official capacity, notify the GC immediately and forward the documents to this office (Old Chapel 402). You may wish to keep a copy for your records. The GC will review the documents, determine what steps are necessary, and discuss your involvement with you, if any. If you are served with a subpoena or other legal document addressed to you concerning a non-Middlebury matter, you should seek the advice of personal counsel. California staff and faculty should direct process servers or others attempting to serve subpoenas to the vice president’s office.

Most communications with the GC are protected from disclosure to third parties by the attorney-client privilege. However, information may be shared with Middlebury officials to serve Middlebury’s interests. We will make every effort to keep communications confidential to the extent possible. If you have any questions or concerns about the confidentiality of a particular conversation, you should ask the GC as the conversation begins.

• Ask questions, stay involved: you are entitled to understand what the outside counsel is doing.
• Speak freely/frankly about the case to outside counsel—your experience and understanding of nuance matter.
• Prepare for phone calls with outside counsel in advance. Middlebury is billed for every minute that a lawyer spends on our matter, including the time spent on personal conversation.
• Gathering and collating documents can generally be done more quickly and efficiently in-house, with guidance from the GC.
• When responding to a draft document, collect comments internally and send them to the GC for communicating to the outside attorney for efficiency.
• Ask about new or additional attorneys or law firm staff who join calls or meetings. We ordinarily engage a limited number of lawyers for specific tasks.
• If outside counsel offers to provide a service, check with the General Counsel’s office before accepting. Presume that Middlebury will be billed for all services.

See our information on Ethical Reporting to provide you with a simple and confidential way to report concerns that may involve possible noncompliance with government or external agency regulations, related Middlebury policies, errors or irregularities in Middlebury’s financial accounting practices, and unethical behavior. 

All faculty, staff and students who suspect abuse or neglect of a child are required to make a report in accordance with Vermont law within 24 hours of the time information regarding the suspected abuse or neglect was first received or observed.

If you suspect a child is being abused or neglected, please call Vermont’s Child Protection Line to report it (24 hours a day, seven days a week) at (800) 649-5285. If a child is in immediate danger, dial 911 or the local police first. More information about Reporting Child Abuse in Vermont.

If you are contacted by an attorney in connection with Middlebury business, or your work for Middlebury, notify the GC immediately. The GC will work with you to determine what steps are necessary. Please do not speak or correspond directly with an attorney representing someone outside Middlebury who is engaged in or threatening a lawsuit.

If an employee learns of facts that may lead to a claim or lawsuit being filed against Middlebury, the employee should immediately report the matter to the GC.

There are a number of course sharing websites that specialize in the uploading, sharing and selling of academic works and teaching materials. Examples of such websites include Course Hero, StudyBlue or OneClass. As an instructor, the teaching-related intellectual property you create for your class belongs to you. Some examples of teaching materials that are protected by copyright include but are not limited to: course packs, lecture notes, PowerPoint presentations, syllabi, lab manuals or tests you create. Materials such as these can be distributed outside the class or posted on publicly accessible internet sites only if you have given copyright permission. Student created, non-verbatim notes of course lectures are acceptable to share because they are created by students in their own words. Instructors are encouraged to remind students that course materials created by you are protected under copyright laws and require your permission to redistribute or to post online.  

If you find your teaching materials on a course sharing website, you must notify the internet service provider (ISP) in writing that content on their website is in violation of copyright (an ISP is the company that hosts the website, such as Comcast or Verizon). Course Hero provides information on how you can submit a request to have materials taken down on their website. The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) also provides a process for copyright owners to send a “take down notice” to ISP’s to formally request that their intellectual property be removed from the website. Once a DMCA request has been submitted, the ISP is required by law to take the content down. As long as they do, and in a timely manner, ISPs are generally free from legal consequences. If the course sharing website is located in another country, such as OneClass, which is hosted on a Canadian server, they are not required to take down the materials without a court order, though they may choose to do so without one. 

To have your course materials taken down from a U.S. server, DMCA Section 512(c)(3)(i)-(vi) provides six “elements of notification” that must be included in your take down notice, which are summarized below. You should refer to Section 512(c)(3) to make sure that you have included sufficient detail in all six pieces of information to ensure your request will be enforceable. 

The six elements required in a DMCA take down notice include:

1. A written notification signed by the copyright owner. If you send it by email, include a digital signature by typing “/s/” and then your name at the end of the notice.
2. Your full name and contact information (email, address and/or phone number).
3. A description, name, or title of the copyrighted materials. A DMCA request only applies to material you created and are the copyright owner. It does not apply to third party materials that are part of your course.
4. A link to the website(s) where you want your materials taken down - the specific URL(s) that are using your content. Attach copies of images (screenshots) or text to assist the ISP in locating your material.
5. A statement of ownership of the content (how it belongs to you and how it was stolen).
6. A statement under penalty of perjury that you are telling the truth, that the information provided is accurate to the best of your knowledge, and that you are in fact the authorized copyright owner or authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.  

If the material is not removed after a DMCA take down notice has been sent, you could follow up with a Cease and Desist letter, or contact the Office of the General Counsel for advice on other avenues of relief.

The Office of General Counsel is located in Old Chapel, fourth floor. We can be reached at (802) 443-5004 or gc@middlebury.edu.

The Risk Management (RM) office assists the Middlebury community—faculty, staff, and students—in their ongoing endeavors and in their pursuit of new initiatives and opportunities, while limiting risks to the institution and keeping our resources on mission.

Our risk philosophy is to create a risk-aware culture, permitting the institution to ensure an effective means to identify, measure, control, and assign responsibility to manage risks, while encouraging the acceptance of reasonable opportunities.

The RM mitigation process is the framework for risk management at Middlebury. The process is the general approach of how Middlebury continues to identify, assess, manage, and monitor risk. Middlebury has developed several training tools to help managers assess and prioritize risk: the risk assessment tree, risk registry tool, risk bowtie tool, etc. The ERM mitigation process is the cornerstone of the ERM office and our training, and is the process to successful risk mitigation.

A heat map is a tool that the RM office uses to assess the likelihood of occurrence and possible impact of each potential risk.

At Middlebury, our institutional-wide heat map is reviewed annually and is supported with input from senior leaders and managers across the organization. The heat map provides the RM office with a better understanding of where to support risk mitigation efforts and where to help manage risk more effectively. Examples of enterprise risk may include risks that are financial, operational, strategic, reputational, and/or safety related.

The RM office focuses on risks that have impacts or present opportunities across the institution. An example of enterprise risk is financial sustainability. We manage financial sustainability as a risk and as an opportunity on how it impacts the institution. Departmental risks are those that are typically identified at the department level and are more effectively managed at the department level where the risk or opportunity resides.

Everyone at Middlebury is a risk manager. It takes a collective approach to recognize potential risk across the institution. Within every risk there is opportunity, and within every opportunity there is risk. Risk and uncertainty are everywhere. You can help influence the impact of risk across Middlebury by recognizing it, understanding its impact, taking steps to manage risk and opportunity, and knowing who to go to for help. You can learn more about managing risk at Middlebury by reviewing our training and the other resources on the website. If you suspect there is a current unattended risk that needs immediate attention, please contact your manager.

RM is focused on risks that may have a high likelihood and high impact on the institution. Violations of the Middlebury handbooks, a surprising safety condition, an insurance issue, etc., should be addressed to the appropriate department such as Facilities, Public Safety, the Title IX Office, Business Services, etc. The Middlebury community can also submit anonymous reports to Ethical Reporting for issues related to finance, human resources, and workplace safety.

The risk bowtie online tutorial allows members of our community to work through a risk assessment (“things that keep you up at night”) to include identification, assessment, management, and monitoring of risks. The RM office recommends that every department review this online exercise. Departments can reach out to the RM office for consultation or with questions.

Across the institution we must assume a certain level of risk in whatever we do, as it is the nature of business and innovation to accept a healthy level of risk. The RM office does not expect that every risk will be eliminated. Through careful assessment, management, and monitoring, stakeholders will begin to see how some levels of risk can be lowered and, in other instances, how certain levels of risk remain flat. Our community must consider how risks can be minimized while balancing the expectation to meet their goals and objectives.

We recommend that risks be assessed and discussed within the group where the risk occurs because often that is where the experts reside who can help mitigate the risk. Managers can use RM assessment tools to help identify a potential risk’s likelihood and impact. If you believe you have identified a risk that cannot be mitigated further and has a high likelihood of occurrence and a high impact, please contact your manager.

No, not all risk is bad. The RM office looks at risk as both adverse impact and opportunity. There is risk all around us and it is inherent to the work we do and the place where students learn and live. We help mitigate potential risks by putting controls in place to reduce their likelihood and impact. We are also aware that many potential risks have opportunity that helps support our mission. At the end of the day, it is finding the balance between impact and likelihood of risk and its potential opportunity to support our mission.

The Board of Trustees Standing Risk Committee meets three times a year during the Board of Trustees meeting. The chief risk officer is the senior administrative officer (SAO) of the Standing Risk Committee. The committee is responsible for “evaluating, monitoring, and addressing all matters of institutional risk.” For further information, please see our Middlebury Bylaws, Article IV.

Middlebury’s Risk Outreach Committee is led by the chief risk officer and includes the Title IX coordinator, a member of Student Activities and Organizations, a member of Business Services, the RM outreach specialist, and a member of the emergency management team. The Risk Outreach Committee meets monthly to discuss current and potential issues across the institution.

The RM office does not manage the approval of special events; however, when a small program or initiative (e.g., Fund for Innovation) is funded by Middlebury, risks related to travel, food, alcohol, event space, inclusion of minors, ADA compliance, etc., should be given consideration. The risk assessment decision tree can help you understand these risks. We strongly encourage program leads, students, etc., to complete this assessment tool to better understand the potential risks and how they can be addressed.