It’s time to rethink how we organize our social life. For decades, Middlebury’s social fabric was held together by structured environments — first by fraternities, until 1991, and then by the commons system, until 2019. Much of the fragmentation within the student body can be traced back to the evolution — or, more accurately, the erosion — of residential life and social houses.
Under the commons system, students lived with the same handful of people during their first two years here, including with a professor who served as the head of each commons. As such, students were far more likely to create long-lasting relationships from dorm life. Commons groups celebrated their smaller communities on campus with special mascots — Cook Commons was a flying pig, while Atwater repped a frog — and events unique to each commons group.
Since their dissolution, nothing has emerged to replace these two defining structures of the modern Middlebury experience. The loss of these overarching fixtures of Middlebury life has left first year students untethered on campus, an issue which compounds as they progress through the college.
The value of the commons system lay in the tight-knit residential communities and closer relationships between students and professors it fostered. While we do not call for its full revival — the commons system was unpopular at the time of its demise five years ago — the lack of a replacement has negatively impacted the college experiences of thousands of students at the college. We call for the creation of intentional community at Middlebury; the college should create more opportunities for students to bond and build relationships through their dorms and student organizations, which are not currently essential elements of most student’s social life.
We think clubs have more potential to build community and a social culture of spontaneity than they are currently able to exercise. Part of the issue is that student organizations are bound by rules on events and funding imposed by the college and enforced by the Student Activities Office (SAO). Clubs are unable to host last-minute, free-style social events without far-advanced approval, which is often complicated to navigate.
Middlebury advertises hundreds of student organizations to prospective students as the clearest path to meeting friends with common interests and a guarantee of a robust and active social life. For this vision to become reality, we must streamline the process for spending club funding and approving events. Not every moment of a club’s life needs to be registered with the SAO in Presence, and the rules are opaque and unclear for anyone unfamiliar with the student organization system.
If club leaders are expected to run hundreds of free, open meetings, events and trips each month — work that benefits both current students and appeals to prospective students — the college should recognize more flexibility in what is allowed and provide a faster timeline for approval. Students should be able to host a dorm game night in their lounge or bring people together for a club without navigating a bureaucratic approval process.
At the heart of forming intentional communities at Middlebury is the first year experience. A once-formative element of Middlebury’s first year orientation that have dissipated in recent years are orientation trips. Replaced by smaller, half-day options at the end of orientation week, these trips once offered new students hours devoted solely toward group bonding, exploration, and new experiences. Now, with those multi-day trips exchanged for hours-long (and sometimes hastily led) smaller excursions, that intimate component of bonding has been lost.
First years living amongst their entire first year seminar group could provide a stronger, more immediate sense of community. As a first year, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the amount of different social groups in one’s orbit: hallmates, classmates and a student’s orientation group are just a few examples. Condensing some of these groups could increase opportunities to form deeper bonds that last throughout a student’s entire four years here. The best way to make and keep friends is through shared experiences, and Middlebury’s programming should strive to provide those as often as possible. Aim for depth in relationships, not breadth.
Middlebury’s recurring trend of over-enrollment of first year students presents a challenge to reinstituting a culture of strong social bonds on campus. The mounting number of students in need of housing has forced makeshift living spaces to be created in lounges and common rooms, removing areas where students used to spend time working, hanging out and getting to know one another.
This reconfiguration of residential space to accommodate more students has also been felt in specialty housing, which has become a dumping ground for students whom the college is unable to accommodate in normal dorms. The indiscriminate placement of students erodes the unique status of these houses and the central themes which motivate people to join them. For students looking to live in a particular language house, or students in need of substance-free housing, Special interest houses should remain available to meet those interests.
It may not be an easy or short-term task, but reimagining the limitations on Middlebury’s social life is a vital project that requires ambitious thinking. The college’s silence on this matter worries us — that Middlebury may have removed part of its core in 2019 without a way to reinvent itself in the five years that followed.
We have laid out a clear vision for Middlebury in which future generations of students can form stronger relationships with one another, uphold Middlebury’s strong sense of community, and ensure no one is left behind. We call on the senior leadership of the college and Residential Life to consider the gaps left unfilled by the removal of the commons system, if not for us, for the class of 2029 and beyond.
