WHY WE PROTEST TODAY

[click here to see HOW we will proceed]

On April 2nd, 2025, Middlebury’s senior leadership announced cuts in compensation for its 600+ most senior employees, reneging on long-standing commitments to its faculty and staff. In the same message, they announced an enrollment increase without a parallel increase in our workforce.

This is merely the latest in a long line of austerity measures imposed on college employees by an administration and board of trustees fixated on a bi-coastal fantasy—maintaining two campuses thousands of miles apart.

The AAUP has recently sponsored two motions demanding a clear course correction, and both garnered near unanimous approval among faculty. MIISINFORMATION

But neither the administration, incoming president Ian Baucom or the Board of Trustees seem willing to listen. Not to faculty, not to staff, and not to the students – they won’t even allow them to select their own speaker for their graduating ceremony.

Instead, they want to place two decades of fiduciary malpractice on the backs of faculty and staff.

The results of their approach are dire:

  • Our rankings are tanking:
  • Students are struggling to enroll in the courses they need
  • Our dining halls have been understaffed for years, creating long lines for students to get food in time to go to classes
  • Shortages in academic support staff means students frequently cannot access librarians trained in their area of study
  • Student housing is in short supply, limiting flexibility and options
  • Spaces of interaction and community-building have been disappearing, from student lounges to the commons’ houses to the only restaurant on campus.
  • There is a chronic shortage of cleaning staff: faculty have been cleaning their own offices for years and spaces like the study areas at the library are regularly messy and unkempt
  • Faculty and staff morale is at its lowest in memory

Middlebury leadership has made these choices at the cost of employees and students.

OUR WORKING CONDITIONS = THE STUDENTS EXPERIENCE

We are a coalition of faculty, students and staff with a common purpose:

DEFEND MIDDLEBURY | RESTORE TRUST

WANT TO BE PART OF AAUP?

Join our mailing list by sending a message to aaup@middlebury.edu