How did I miss this post? Terrific overview of both external and internal challenges and opportunities. Will you be posting updates on the ongoing conversations and committees? In particular, it would be interesting to hear more about Middlebury’s thinking around the topic of MOOCs and hybrid courses, as well as ongoing questions of affordability and the tipping point that Greg Buckles referenced.

Thank you for sharing,
Kristy

Thank you so much for publicly posting this thoughtful letter– I think it’s wise to encourage the entire community to participate in such an important discussion. I’m sure many members of the student body are reassured by the knowledge that our administration is putting so much time into questioning the unsustainable status quos that challenge our industry, and we are excited to see this questioning translate into action. Here are some comments on what I feel are your most critical points.

You outlined a number of issues early on in your post concerning our relevance and cost:

“In some idealized world, we would have 4% (or higher) salary increases every year; richer financial aid packages to attract the brightest students;…”

“Admissions is likely to be the first place we would notice changes, as the cost of being need blind (for U.S. students) and meeting the full demonstrated need of all admitted students has grown faster than any other expenditure in our budget.”

“…$200,000 for a degree that provides few guarantees of a job out of college”
“It would be easy to believe … the demand for a Middlebury education is strong, highly inelastic … It would be foolish, however, to ignore these criticisms and the wide range of student choices within higher education; both suggest a far greater elasticity of demand than our application numbers would suggest.”

On cost: It seems that Middlebury should begin an aggressive effort to partner with entrepreneurial organizations tackling the student debt issue. Social Finance is one that comes to mind (https://www.sofi.com/), a group that gives students access to low-interest loans by pairing them with wealthy alumni who are willing to help finance their education. With our accomplished and highly involved alumni base, we are well-positioned to take advantage of such a program.

On priorities: I am glad to hear you and others agree that stabilizing the skyrocketing comprehensive fee and preserving need-blind admissions policy should absolutely be top priorities for the college. Failure to do either of these would inevitably broaden socioeconomic polarity among the student body, and in doing so, jeopardize our community’s culture.

“I am not suggesting we stray from our core mission—educating students in the liberal arts tradition.”

“…that we must adapt to those changes in some fundamental ways if we wish to sustain the quality of the education we offer our students, retain an excellent faculty, and continue to attract a diverse and talented student body.”

On the dialogue of change: I understand why your language here has to be somewhat diplomatic, but I think our community’s dialogue (and subsequent action) needs to be far more aggressive. As you have alluded to, the reality is that given the unprecedented pace of change in the private sector, and therefore the increasingly higher floor for what is a “marketable” employee in the workforce, we would be irresponsible to do anything less than rapidly accelerate institutional innovation at Middlebury–in the way we teach and in what we offer outside of the classroom.

Diversifying value: To be clear, you are absolutely right: we shouldn’t “stray” from what we do well in any sense. But we have a responsibility to diversify our value proposition, both as champions of a “liberal arts education for the 21st century,” and as an institution closing in on a $60k/year sticker price. I hope that faculty, administrators, staff, and students alike are prepared to acknowledge that diversifying of our value proposition AND continuing to excel at what we do very well are not mutually exclusive agendas. In fact, quite the opposite. I will try to support that case throughout the rest of this response.

Naturally, there is immense cultural inertia in our way. For better or for worse, (no… for worse) in higher education we build incrementally on tradition. But from the perspective of students and families investing large amounts of money in a top-shelf education, the idea of somehow “preserving tradition” (read: not innovating) at the expense of progressive industry leadership would seem reckless.

A number of students I’ve spoken with and I feel that an immediate investment in broader curricular programming for entrepreneurship would be a powerful first step. Middlebury would be wise to establish and host a summer school for entrepreneurship. There are a number of good reasons; here are just a few:

1) A strong proof of demand in the success of budding programs currently at Middlebury (Middlebury Entrepreneurs, MiddCore, CSE, Middstart)
2) The popularity of the Tuck bridge program as a benchmark. A competitive Middlebury program devoted exclusively to entrepreneurship could fill a niche in desperate need of being filled. (Q: what do people still in school do who are serious about entrepreneurship A: they leave)
3) This would be a new source of revenue for the college–a need that the people of Old Chapel discuss regularly. Entrepreneurial skills are always in high demand, and “demand” for entrepreneurship historically has been resistant to macroeconomic instability.
4) The race for leadership in entrepreneurship among the liberal arts is wide open. This is great news for Middlebury; we have a ripe opportunity and are in position to take the lead if we so choose. We have already have the infrastructure, the demand, and the people. The marriage between the liberal arts and entrepreneurship is natural, but liberal arts leaders either see brand-related disincentives in making the first move (unfortunately, and wrongly, I believe), or are blind to its enormous value. I suspect it is more of the former. Middlebury should not follow industry suit. Students and alumni want this; it’s highly compatible with our existing mission; it’s an untapped gold mine for the college; …it’s high time to act.
5) In fact, this would actually be an exceptional branding opportunity for the college. Look at how the summer language schools have been largely responsible for Middlebury’s current, highly justifiable perception as THE global leader in language learning. It is these nuances of institutional identity that often determine a prospective student’s entire college decision. I am sure that many of Middlebury’s tri-lingual students would be happy to attest to this. We could easily mirror the success of the dual HS and undergraduate language programs; we are hardly new to the world of creative program expansion. What HS parents wouldn’t see the value in paying for their child to be stimulated entrepreneurially at a young age? Such a program would easily turn a profit, and Middlebury could capture huge market share on the East Coast by being (one of, if not the) first mover(s). To boot, we’d lure prospective applicants who are big thinkers, creators, and builders.
6) Stanford recently completed the most successful fundraising campaign in the history of higher education. It is staggering. More than $6b, if I remember correctly. Who are the benefactors? Largely entrepreneurs, of course. Investments in entrepreneurship and constant innovation are the best long-term insurance policies against both institutional “[ir]relevance” and financial insecurity.

I’ve been lucky to have some excellent conversations with a number of faculty members about the obstacles of cultural inertia that keep such programs from happening. Surprisingly, I’ve found that they are very receptive to the idea of diversifying the value of a Middlebury education with entrepreneurship, as they are keenly aware of what it costs to sit in their classes. They understand that we can no longer justify “one dimensional” learning given the cost of the comprehensive fee. (I don’t mean for “one dimensional” to be pejorative, but just mean to emphasize that our existing pedagogy isn’t nearly as broad as it could be–and should be–for the price). So what will it take to get going? It’s time to turn from discussion to action. The liberal arts and entrepreneurship could make for a powerful symbiosis. Everybody wins. Rest assured, Stanford will have no trouble competing for the best theater, English, and history faculty in the world throughout the next few decades, and these professors will indeed enjoy “consistent annual pay increase.”

On E-Learning: The stakeholders in this effort have been quick to seduce cash-keepers of higher education with language like “the future” and “revolutionary.” I am skeptical. Wider distribution of course content is clearly valuable, but it isn’t the solution to higher education’s biggest problems. It is merely the “low-hanging fruit,” the output of inevitable market forces, the inputs of which are 1) plummeting costs to support web video and live streams, and 2) the general, cross-industry momentum of “open information” in the last 15 years.

(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460.html)

To be clear: e-learning websites, consortiums, and MOOC’s are branding gold for the universities that participate in them. Middlebury should certainly consider them for this reason. But they have a limited place in the curriculum at Middlebury, FOR NOW, until they evolve (and they will, which is why this discussion should continue). The challenge is that they are currently at the exact opposite end of the spectrum from what we’re doing in VT. Buying access to the best teachers in education is increasingly dichotomous as e-learning proliferates: if you want to get great professors, you can either have immense luxury and be spoon-fed your learning on a lush campus for $240k (a la Middlebury), or pay nothing (or close to it) to access similar caliber teachers on your computer, but forfeit literally every amenity.

(For what it’s worth, innovation will happen when somebody transforms the middle of this spectrum by figuring out how to make a Middlebury-caliber education cost $25k by eliminating the luxuries that account for the high comprehensive fee. This will take much longer. And it will require some serious cultural mountain-moving.)

“But many believe these attributes of a liberal arts education alone no longer adequately prepare students for the world they will face upon graduation.”

On relevance and curriculum: This is fair; we offer only a foundation. (And a great foundation, to be sure.) The good news is most students realize it’s a foundation and voluntarily seek out programs like MEMS and MiddCore, or least take the time to learn excel or watch finance videos on Khan Academy. It’s my opinion that the college has a responsibility to look at the outside world and realize it ought to make MiddCore/Mems, basic computer science, Excel competency, et al mandatory, or at the very least part of the distribution requirements. Our consequentialist student body already shows a clear willingness to put the nose to the grindstone with the expectation that it will pay come job applications. Shouldn’t we give some formal direction as well?

In our curriculum and in the way we teach, what do we stand for if we cling to “tradition?” The private sector lives and dies in an arena predicated upon constant disruption. Higher education, meanwhile, prefers to take it’s time. At what cost? A great one: zero chance of innovation, and therefore guaranteed inadequacy as a training ground for the private sector, always in one way or another. This is a generalization, of course, and Middlebury is well ahead of the curve. But we can and we absolutely should improve. Even excellent “adapt[ation]” (this is a regrettably common word in higher ed) is never enough. Adaptation is, in principle, antithetical to leadership. This is the great institutional challenge: what will it take to be more than reactionary? The solution is to start thinking much more progressively about the brand risk/reward and fiscal cost/benefit of constant experimentation in value-adding programs outside of what we currently see as our “core” or “traditional” identity. Think Amazon, Google, and Stanford, institutions built to last because they have internalized constant change. Think innovation…

…think prosperity.

Hope these comments are helpful, and thanks so much for publicizing your post. I look forward to more of them.

Brian

Last year’s faculty council suggested a particular template for the budget committee that needs to be discussed in more detail with this year’s faculty council, and that will happen very soon. I will report back on the blog when that discussion has taken place.

RL

I also thank you for your frequent acknowledgment of staff, their importance to the function of the college, and for expressing so clearly how the number of staff has returned to the staffing level of 2005, while the numbers of faculty and students have increased at the same time that technological and other service expectations have soared.

One thing troubles me and others that I represent on Staff Council. In the section on reaccreditation and faculty governance, you describe having asked Faculty Council to select a budget committee template, and you emphasize the need for faculty to participate in the budgeting process. In this particular section, the mention of staff is startling by its absence. I am hoping there is no mention of staff with regard to ‘helping develop the annual budget’ because a) the original intended audience of this report was the faculty, and b) there is already a role for staff in that process and there will continue to be. I would hope at a minimum that staff members who oversee significant budgets (such as LIS, Facilities Services, Dining Services, among others) will have an active role in budget development. It would be helpful if, at some point in the appropriate venue, you can describe the Faculty Council’s chosen budget committee template and how its composition does (or does not?) include staff.

Ron

To add to your comments: Undergraduates, who are if not the primary stakeholders at least represent the raison d’être for the College, should have a voice in this process as well. The desire of Middlebury student to influence the direction of their alma mater in both the short and long term shouldn’t be underestimated. You referenced a potential role for students in college governance: I hope we can realize your goal of involving students in the “effective and inclusive governing structure” you describe.

Student priorities (above all financial aid, the academic program, etc.) sometimes overlap with and sometimes are distinct from the priorities of other constituencies on campus. It is therefore vital for student voices to be involved, whatever the vehicle.

As you say in your letter to faculty, it’s important for faculty to have broad conversations about this. I agree, but would add that it’s just as important for students to have those conversations as well. The questions of cost and relevance that you raise, after all, are ultimately questions posed to potential students and their families.

In any case, thank you for the questions you raised. I look forward to a vibrant and healthy discussion around these institutional issues over the course of the next year.

Steven R Inglis, MD
(Father of a rising senior, visiting Middlebury 9/1/12)
Singlis@jhmc.org

Nowhere in the report (and I encourage you to read it more carefully, perhaps) are there “discussions of cutting these policies.” Rather, the report is a call for us all to begin conversations about how to ensure the things we cherish most can be preserved.

Thank you for reading (and commenting).