Last Thursday, students applying to study abroad in the 2016 Spring semester were asked to consider changing their program and go during the Fall 2015 semester through an email sent by Jeffrey Cason, Dean of International Programs and Knox Professor of International Studies and Politics.
In the email, Cason explained to students that the International Programs office tries to have a rough balance between their fall and spring student enrollments while students are studying off-campus.
He acknowledged the primary reason for this as housing. Having an imbalance of students studying off and on campus makes for a lack of available rooms during one semester, followed by too many empty beds in the semester when more students are off-campus.
In previous semesters, there has generally been an even distribution amongst students who decide to study off-campus in the fall and in the spring.
Currently, the study abroad office is projecting 181 students to be away next fall, and 251 to be away in the spring. This year, 234 students studied abroad in the fall, and 203 are currently abroad.
In the email, Cason requests that students consider studying abroad in the fall instead. As of now, only 3 people have agreed to change their plans, which is not nearly enough to strike the balance that the College is aiming for.
The study abroad office hopes that enough students will opt to study in the fall so that they will not have to resort to making other accommodations for the surplus of students in the fall.
If not enough students offer to change their plans, there is very little that the College can do, accoding to Cason.
He said in an email to the Campus, “We hope to encourage more students to switch semesters. The problem would not be solved by rejecting spring study abroad applicants; those students would still be planning to be on campus in the fall, when we would have the housing crunch.”
He added, “Our goal is to encourage study abroad, and not to put up obstacles for students when it comes to studying abroad, so I don’t envision any change in requirements.”
Cason is uncertain as to why programs for next spring in particular have been popular with students. He cited instances in the past where departments or programs made changes in requirements that prevented students from studying abroad for a particular semester. However, no such changes have been made this year.
A similar situation of imbalance occurred in the 2010-11 academic year which prompted the abroad office to ask students to change their plans. Approximately six students agreed to switch voluntarily. Although a small number, this change still helped to alleviate the problem slightly.
Cason wrote that some students have contacted their staff, saying that they would like to switch semesters, but cannot because of courses the have to take in the fall.
Nika Fehmiu ’17 applied to study abroad next spring and does not plan on changing semesters.
“First, because I will not have completed my requirements by the fall. Second, I have to go abroad for my major (IP&E)…they can’t make people switch or not go abroad,” she said. “[The Study abroad program] is one of Middlebury’s major selling points. Our international population and the opportunity to study abroad are some of the main facets that our institution prides itself on.”
