Dear Middlebury Students, Faculty, and Staff,

I write to fill you in on the trustee meetings that took place on campus this past weekend.

As has become our custom, we began the weekend with a retreat for trustees. Held Thursday, October 20, in the McCullough Social Space, this fall’s retreat focused on the life cycle of a Middlebury student, from the application process through preparing for life after Middlebury.

To begin the retreat, Dean of Admissions Greg Buckles and Director of Admissions Manuel Carballo ran a small-scale simulation of what the Admissions Office goes through in selecting a class. They shared folders that mirrored those of actual applicants, and walked the trustees through the difficult choices that are made each year. (As it happens, the trustees wound up choosing the same students as the Admissions Office.)

The rest of the day was filled with presentations by panels of students, along with a couple of recent graduates, on a range of topics, from our orientation program and being a first-year, to student social life, to study abroad (or not), to senior year, and beyond.  I think it is fair to say that the trustees were very impressed by our students, all of whom were poised and articulate and spoke candidly about their experiences at Middlebury—the good, the bad, and, let’s just say the challenging.  The trustees also heard a presentation on “Struggles at Middlebury” from Matt Longman, dean of Wonnacott Commons, and Natasha Chang, dean of Brainerd Commons, who talked about the personal challenges some students face at Middlebury, the issues they sometimes bring with them from home, and how the College tries to address them.

Music and refreshments followed the full-day retreat at Crossroads Café, featuring Middlebury Music Union organizers Mike Gadomski and Parker Woodworth, both ’13.5. At the reception and dinner that evening in Atwater dining hall, the music was provided by “Yuki Takeda ’14 & Friends.” A day that began at 8:15 a.m. ended 12 hours later when Dining staff had to tell a hardy group of trustees, faculty, staff, and students that it really was time to stop talking and go home. Some conversations that started that day will continue, we are sure, for the foreseeable future.

Friday’s sessions began with the introduction of our two newest trustees—Cathy Lee, class of 1992, and Carol Levitch, attendee of the German summer Language School.  Our opening session included a report from Investure, the company that manages much of the College’s investment portfolio. The College earned a very respectable 18.1 percent return on its endowment in the 2011 fiscal year (July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011), but the current the global financial landscape continues to present challenges; the endowment has lost slightly less than 4 percent during the first quarter of this fiscal year (July through September).  The rest of that day was taken up by committee meetings.

On Saturday morning, during the full board meeting, the trustees:

• Approved the recommendation of the Graduate and Special Programs Committee to establish a new C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools Abroad program in Cameroon starting in 2012, where instruction will take place in French.
• Approved a Graduate and Special Programs Committee recommendation to establish a program to teach English as a second language to college-age students at Salve Regina University, located in Newport, Rhode Island. This five-week summer program, called Middlebury-Monterey Summer Intensive College English, will be run by the Monterey Institute of International Studies, the College’s graduate school in California.
• Decided that the new field house, construction of which was approved at the last meeting in May, will be placed where the “Bubble” lives now, on the north side of Kenyon Arena. A building to house squash courts, and perhaps tennis courts, will be added on the south side of Kenyon.  Construction is contingent upon funding to come from gifts.
• Accepted the recommendation that our School in Alexandria, Egypt, remain closed for the spring 2012 semester. The School in the Middle East will continue to operate in Amman, Jordan, and a program in Israel, approved last year, will start with the 2012 academic year.
• Discussed the results of the recent staff survey, which had been presented at the Conference Committee meeting on Friday, along with the administration’s proposed follow-up to the survey.

All in all, the weekend was successful, informative, and productive for everyone involved.  If you have questions or comments about the meetings, please let me know. For now, there is little time for reflection before the next big event, a visit October 31-November 2 by the review team from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), working on Middlebury’s reaccreditation. We hope to see many of you at the open meetings next week for students, faculty, and staff.

Best,
Ron