Does This Pass The Smell Test?

Have you ever wondered how the College makes its money? It seems straightforward: students in Middlebury and Monterey pay, the College provides education and the transaction is complete. What is missing is another revenue stream that we have recently added, which currently has the potential to either promote our language programs and generate much needed revenue or seriously undermine our image as an inclusive and forward-thinking institution for the sake of profit.

The initiative is called Middlebury Interactive Languages (MIL), an online learning program created by K12, Inc. that offers rigorous language prep to grade school students while promoting the College’s summer language programs. In 2010, Middlebury invested $4 million in cash, the summer Middle/High School Summer Academies (MMLA) and the Middlebury mark in exchange for 40 percent ownership of the company. The College hopes to see a return on its investment in the years to come that will help supplement shrinking alumni gifts and support.

On paper, the investment is a smart one — we are promoting our brand, advertising our programs and joining our competitors in the growing and lucrative field of online education. President Liebowitz and the Board of Trustees are smart in realizing that we need to find additional sources of revenue for the College as we move into the future.

However, we know several issues about K12, Inc. have come up over the past few months.

First, we know that there were numerous errors in one of the Latin courses marketed and sold by MIL earlier this year. The courses were created prior to the joint venture and grandfathered in. It is alarming that there were products being used by consumers who thought they were purchasing a Middlebury product when in fact they were not. Our name was on something that was not up to the College’s standards because we did not help create it. While the College says that these errors were investigated, confirmed and fixed in a timely manner, it is troubling that there were multiple linguistic inaccuracies in programs branded with the Middlebury seal. In an age where brand recognition is crucial, we need to be careful that anything we decide to brand as Middlebury — especially languages — is sterling. Moreover, putting our name on a product that is not ours is not only lying to the consumer, but also contrary to the integrity we are trying to perpetuate through our Honor Code.

Additionally, faculty members have brought up serious allegations about K12, Inc. altering content in MIL videos, specifically LGBTQ references, so that these videos could be used by more conservative school boards in Texas. The Administration and MIL vehemently deny all of these claims. During the course of our investigation, we could neither find any evidence confirming or denying this censorship. Short of going through every MIL video for all five languages offered, there is no way to know for sure. In this case, because of the lack of evidence, MIL and the Administration need to be given the benefit of the doubt. But even without the censoring controversy, our arrangement with K12, Inc. does not pass the smell test.

What we do know is that many faculty members — not just a few fringe radicals — feel strongly that MIL has the potential to indelibly hurt the Middlebury brand name. Next week, they are voting on a motion to sever our relationship with K12, Inc. because their practices “are at odds with the integrity, reputation, and educational mission of the College.” Whether or not the vote this coming week is only symbolic — the faculty has no power to cut ties with K12, Inc. —  we cannot discount this reaction.

At the end of the day, we need to be extremely careful about what we put our name on. We only get one shot at this, and one mistake could not only irreversibly hurt MIL’s image, but also the College as a whole. We have worked hard to become one of the worldwide leaders in language education, and to think that it could be compromised by a company who does not necessarily reflect our values or our commitment to excellence is troublesome.

Unlike many faculty members, we do not think that pulling out of the for-profit education sector altogether or even cutting all ties with K12, Inc. is the right move. What we need is a change of attitude from both the Faculty and the Administration. Faculty, it is time to realize that for-profit, interactive languages is a crucial part of our future at Middlebury. Administration, it is time to stop jamming MIL down the faculty’s throats and to take a second to have frank conversation about mistakes that have been made and future plans. At the end of the day, MIL will be better if the faculty is 100 percent behind MIL. We need a united front in order to get this right.

When the faculty and administrators return to campus next fall, we expect them to put aside their difference and move beyond in-fighting. We are facing big decisions, from changing the AAL requirement to revisiting internships for credit, and we expect those in power to rise to the tasks at hand and work to fix the issues that we as a student body are facing.