Trustees Approve $292.4 Million Budget

At their second annual meeting, held in May, the College Board of Trustees approved a $292.4 million budget for fiscal year 2014, and also approved plans to establish a new School of the Environment and a Hebrew Language Institute.

The budget for the 2014 fiscal year was increased 2.1 percent over the previous year’s budget.

The establishment of the two new organizations represents continued diversification of the College’s educational offerings; the College has steadily increased its educational menu through the creation of a number of for-profit programs, including the MiddCORE Immersion at Sierra Nevada College, the 2010 acquisition of the Monterey Institute of International Studies as a graduate school of the College and the opening of the Brandeis University-Middlebury College School of Hebrew in 2008.

The new School of the Environment, directed by Professor of Environmental and Biosphere Studies Stephen Trombulak, will launch in the summer of 2014. The six-week program’s curriculum will combine field study and hands-on learning opportunities, placing an emphasis on global awareness.

“The curriculum will focus on the facts and methods and help provide the tools so that students, armed with that information, will be better equipped to do something to make positive change in the world,” wrote Trombulak in an email.

Trombulak played an integral role in the conception of the School of the Environment and has been working to found the program since 1995. The development of the school was tabled in 1998 due to challenges in finding an acceptable location for the program.

Trombulak wrote that by 2010, the College’s greater willingness to consider new programs provided a more receptive atmosphere for the program, and the idea moved forward until it was ultimately approved by the Trustees in May.

According to the College’s press release, the School of the Environment will initially be located on the College’s Vermont campus, but Trombulak envisions holding the program in a variety areas, such as in a city or on a coast, in order to accommodate and facilitate a more varied curriculum.

The news release produced by the College after the Trustees’ meeting also described a new partnership between the College and Hebrew at the Center (HATC), a nonprofit organization located in Newton, MA that provides professional development opportunities to teachers of the Hebrew language.

The organization will be called the Middlebury-HATC Institute for the Advancement of Hebrew Language and will be led by Director Vardit Ringvald, Ph.D., who was the first director of the Brandeis University-Middlebury School of Hebrew.

In the College’s press release, Ringvald said of the center, “We envision it as a hub for the study of the Hebrew language that combines scholarship and practice.” Ringvald wrote in an email that the negotiation and creation of the new Institute took place over the span of two years.

In the press release, Ringvald cited a lack of professional development opportunities for Hebrew instructors as a primary reason for the establishment of the Institute. She also noted that “‘The new organization will combine Middlebury’s experience as the foremost school of language learning with Hebrew at the Center’s expertise in professional development for pre-college Hebrew language teachers.”

Ringvald wrote in an email that in the long term, the new joint Institute hopes to offer a Ph.D. program in Hebrew language-related studies, and that consideration of a program on translation in collaboration with the Monterey Institute of International Studies is underway.

The Board of Trustees also approved two new capital projects: the renovation of the Bread Loaf Inn and the modification of the College’s central heating plant to use more environmentally-friendly fuels at costs of $7.5 million and $1.7 million, respectively.