Reaction to Feb scaleback mixed

Author: Tom Brant

When Dean of Admissions Robert Clagett took the floor for questions at last week's faculty meeting, one professor raised his hand to ask about the scaleback of the College's February (Feb) admissions program. Specifically, the professor asked, is the program being scaled back to zero?

While administrators have insisted that the Feb program will continue to operate with fewer students in coming years, faculty members have expressed skepticism over whether it could or should be preserved.

"I'm really of two minds about the program,'' said Kevin Moss, chair of the Russian Department. "On one hand, Febs who want to be Russian majors are really screwed, since they can't start Russian until the fall semester. The only good solution is for a Feb to take not one, but two summers of Russian School, which even I think is excessive."

Stephen Snyder, chair of the Japanese Department, also noted that starting in February can be difficult for students who want to study language.

"Virtually no one starts Japanese off term," he said.

By offering Febs a choice, those who want to study languages with beginning courses offered only in the fall would have an easier time of learning the language.

At the same time, Moss thinks that the Feb program offers students a unique advantage.

"I appreciate students who have taken some kind of break before college and done something interesting, as opposed to just falling into the lockstep sequence of high school, college, grad school, etc.," he said. "We don't have many non-traditional students at Middlebury, and Febs are kind of non-traditional because of that semester."

Following the recommendations outlined in the Strategic Plan, the College will make the February admissions program optional for first-year students, a move already visible in this year's Feb Class and one that will help lower the number of Febs over a three or four-year period.

The change means that potential Febs who were not offered the choice of when to matriculate in the past will now have to make a decision: should they wait six months and use the opportunity to take a semester off, or should they matriculate in the fall, when they can more easily take courses in the sequence required for a particular major?

According to Alison Byerly, vice president for academic affairs, the main goal of the change was to offer Febs the choice, though it will also mean a reduction in the size of the Feb class.

"I think the recommendation in the Strategic Plan that we work towards reducing the Feb program reflects a desire to make it completely voluntary," she wrote in an e-mail. "Students who would like to defer a semester can begin midyear, but students who might otherwise have to wait until February [can be] admitted as part of the class entering in September."

The administration hopes that once offered a choice, most prospective students who would have been admitted as Febs will opt to matriculate in the fall, because the program "no longer offers a structural benefit to the College, though it may offer personal benefit to individual students," according to the Strategic Plan. Eventually, the number of Febs is expected to fall to between 60 and 70 students, down from around 110 in the past five years.

Other faculty members, including those in some foreign language departments, expressed their equivocation about offering Febs a choice.

With the Feb program becoming optional, Byerly pointed out that the college may seek to make a distinction between students who started in February and those who started in September.

"I suppose it's possible that over time, if the number of February admits becomes smaller, we might stop describing it as a distinctive program, and might eventually have a process for midyear admission that is not very different from the way in which transfer students are handled here and at other institutions," she wrote.

For now, though, those who chose to start in February will continue to be called Febs. The College hopes that after having chosen this option instead of simply being notified by the Office of Admissions of their Feb status, February matriculants will be more content, according to Associate Dean of Admissions Karen Guttentag.

"Only designating as Febs those students who deliberately select that experience should make for a high level of Feb satisfaction," she said.