A CLOSER LOOK College planning makes progress

Author: Liz Campbell

With the release of the Strategic Planning Report on Jan. 4, Middlebury College is entering a significant new phase of development. Over the course of J-Term, the Planning Steering Committee has opened discussion to students, faculty, staff and town members to encourage greater participation from the College community in the planning of the College. With 62 pages and over 80 recommendations, the report has generated both criticism and concern regarding Middlebury's future.

The Committee and the President's Staff hosted three open meetings last week to encourage the community to voice questions, criticism and approval regarding the report. Despite high attendance and participation from faculty and staff, very few students attended the meetings.

"We had over 50 people at the first open meeting, over 40 at the second oneand under 20 at the evening session," said Dean of Planning and Secretary of the College John Emerson. "The level and quality of the conversations were superb - everything that we had hoped for. Student attendance was low, [but] those present attributed that to Winter Term."

The most substantial recommendations in the report include increasing socio-economic diversity within the student body, reducing the number of students admitted for spring enrollment, consolidating distribution requirements and completing commons infrastructure. These significant changes to the admissions, academic and social aspects of the College have led some faculty members and students to wonder if the College is fundamentally changing its identity and outlook.

"As far as the whole plan is concerned, we are trying to be more competitive, and I think that's great," commented Eli Berman '07.5, president of the SGA and member of the Task Force on Commons and Student Life. "But hopefully that competitiveness won't come at the expense of our individuality. Sure, we've all heard arguments about why the Feb program is no longer necessary at Middlebury, but the success of it makes us special. I would hate to see the desire to make Middlebury number one in U.S. News and World Report eclipse the desire to keep Middlebury unique."

However, most members of the Planning Steering Committee and many faculty members supporting the report are emphasizing that the essential and unique direction of the College remains the same, but that the Strategic Report provides an opportunity to build upon Middlebury's unique identity and strong academic reputation.

"Overall, my sense is that the College is not necessarily headed in new directions with these recommendations, but that the report recommends specific ways that we can do better at achieving the commitments we have already made," said Associate Professor of Psychology Barbara Hofer, who attended two open meetings.

Emerson added, "In many ways Middlebury will still be Middlebury, with its unique identity. It will retain and build upon what our community, including alumni, parentsand trustees, most value about the College."

Another main focus of the Planning Report has been to complete the infrastructure of the commons system. Specifically, the Committee has sought to further integrate it into the curriculum with initiatives like the Commons-based first-year seminar program and to better involve faculty and staff in the system.

But while most faculty members regard the commons system as an essential bridge between the academic and social lives of Middlebury students and a means of enhancing the cultural and intellectual quality of residential life, many students claim that it has unequal housing and separates them from their friends.

Hiba Fakhoury '09 said, "Unless the commons system has facilities of equal quality, then it doesn't make much sense. Plus, I feel connected to people in my dorm just because we live in the same building, while those who live in my commons but in a different building don't feel like part of a close community. There isn't much that we do separately as a commons, so it seems to be a division by name only."

However, echoing Hofer and Emerson, JS Woodward '06, Student Co-Chair of Community Council and member of the Planning Steering Committee, maintained that finishing the commons system would not fundamentally change the College. "I actually don't believe that the completion of the commons infrastructure will have that great of an effect on campus." Addressing Fakhoury's concern of unequal housing, he said, "It does certainly mean that quality of available housing should be brought to a more equal level. I don't think that, aside from the fact that on the north side of campus students now eat at Atwater instead of Freeman, much has changed since Atwater has come online."

Increasing faculty resources to enhance interaction between faculty and students is another central goal of the planning process. Faculty members have consistently expressed frustration at the College's lack of attention to the reducing the size of classes and to their need of adequate time to pursue their own research.

"From the faculty perspective, I think the largest concern is the inadequate attention paid to reducing our teaching load so that it is more comparable to our peer schools and to acknowledging the role of research," said Hofer. "But I was impressed at the two open meetings I attended by the receptiveness of the Committee and the administration to considering revisions of the document to be more explicit in this regard. We need to consider the quality of interactions with students, not just the quantity, and I think we need to seriously consider how faculty teaching loads and large classes work against this."

However, while many have applauded the ambitious goals of the Strategic Planning Report and receptiveness of the Committee, others have questioned its financial plausibility. According to the final chapter of the plan, the endowment must increase by $392 million in order to fully implement the most important recommendations -- financial aid, faculty enlargement and eventual completion of the commons infrastructure.

Mike Schoenfeld '73, Planning Steering Committee member and Vice President for College Advancement, remarked, "Implementing the plan will be expensive and we will need to raise a great deal of new money to do everything that we want to do. The goal of raising $392 million in endowment is aggressive, but it is not impossible. We will be able to raise this amount of money eventually, and if we have to move more slowly on some of the goals of the strategic plan, then that is what we will have to do."

The Planning Steering Committee has formulated a special fund-raising campaign that specifically communicates the goals of the strategic plan. Planning this campaign will take approximately 18 months, hopefully starting in 2007 and lasting five years.

Emerson commented, "There is no question that finding the needed resources will be a very big stretch. But our core goals of strengthening student financial aid and enhancing the student-faculty interactions that distinguish Middlebury even from the excellent universities with whom we increasingly compete are the right goals for Middlebury. I am optimistic because I know of the great generosity of the College's alumni body, parentsand friends."

The Planning Steering Committee is working now to include feedback and advice from faculty, staff and students that has been received since the release of the Report. A new draft is expected to be issued at the end of J-Term.