When I launched One Dean’s View in September of 2007 I wanted to open up “a more direct line of communication with students.” My belief then—and now—is that blogs such as this one give administrators and students a forum for discussing issues that get often sidetracked or shortchanged in more conventional forms of communication, [...]
My leave is over. It ended on July 1, and the fact that I’ve waited this long to post anything here could be taken to mean that I wish I were still on leave. But that’s not entirely true since I made good headway on my project—good meaning that I now have a finished manuscript [...]
Ok, this is pretty cool, so I have to break my vow of blogger’s silence to mention that Doc Martens, the British shoe company that has been in step (couldn’t resist) with so many pop music trends in the UK, and sometimes the States, is celebrating its fiftieth birthday by commissioning contemporary bands to record [...]
Yes, as the title indicates, I am on leave this spring term and therefore will not be posting to this blog as regularly as I have in the past—at least not for the next six months. In fact, I was so focused on completing this or that administrative task during the last month that I [...]
The wires have been silent here since the holidays for reasons I will explain in my next post—in the next week or so. But the point of this post is to engage the The Campus‘ ill-informed editorializing on the recent decision not to include the MiddView program in next year’s first-year Orientation. To get a [...]
We are getting to that time of the year when media outlets start to post “best of” lists—best films of the year, best albums, and so forth. For instance, Metacritic, one of my favorite sites on the web has already posted its list of top-reviewed albums. I read these lists with great interest and a [...]
As everyone on campus should know, Middlebury will soon launch a new website. The new site, designed by an outfit called White Whale, will support videos, slide shows, enhanced search features, and other bells and whistles. I won’t try to explain the significance of these enhancements—why this build out will be better than our current [...]
My post on study abroad generated some good discussion about the liberal arts, and its importance to a Middlebury education. In order to gain some historical perspective on the College’s commitment to the liberal arts, let’s take a quick tour through the history of the Middlebury curriculum. Anyone interested in learning more about these factoids [...]
To provide some context for my previous post on study abroad, here are some observations taken from an article that appeared yesterday in the online edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education. There is a lot press out there these days on the adjustments that colleges and universities have had to make in the wake of the recession, but this one [...]
Every other year or so, the Board of Trustees holds a retreat to discuss issues of broad importance to the College. This year—last week, in fact—the Board met to consider the “new normal,” which is the phrase now being used to describe the conditions brought about by the economic downturn. The idea is that because [...]
