The following Sense of Faculty was passed by slightly over 87% of the Middlebury Faculty. It was brought to the floor by the AAUP and co-sponsored by Faculty Council, Faculty Strategy and the Resources Committees.

Sense of Faculty Motion April 2021

We the Middlebury faculty are grateful that the Middlebury leadership has navigated the global pandemic to date, both in keeping our college community safe and in addressing the financial shock with wage continuity as a priority. We avoided the layoffs, furloughs, and benefit cuts so prevalent in higher education. Our community has been kept whole thanks to their significant efforts and resolve.

However, we were extremely disappointed by the recent Board of Trustee’s decision to put a 5 percent cap on the draw from the Endowment. The timing and manner of the announcement of this major budgetary policy seemed to contradict our shared commitment to faculty governance and transparency. We understand that the Board of Trustees passed this principle in an effort to avoid repeating fiscal mistakes of the past, but we believe it will imprudently constrain Middlebury’s ongoing navigation of the global pandemic and jeopardize Middlebury’s future as an elite liberal arts college.

We the Middlebury faculty believe deeply in intergenerational equity, economic justice, and faculty governance. The financial principles endorsed by 94% of the faculty in Spring 2020 represent a powerful affirmation of these beliefs. Middlebury should be an employer that pays every worker a livable wage. Middlebury should be an employer that pays its faculty a competitive wage, without reneging on pension and health care promises it made when each of us was hired. Middlebury should provide excellent research opportunities; a fully resourced library is a critical element to the education of our students, as well as critical to faculty meeting promotion and tenure requirements in research and teaching excellence. The proposed caps on endowment draws embody a flawed notion of sustainability: short run financial savings that make Middlebury a much less prestigious and less inclusive site of learning in the long run, by creating false choices between library resources and salaries, or financial aid and health and pension benefits, will jeopardize our common future.

We believe that there is a path forward that honors both our values and aspirations and intergenerational equity. Faculty views, values, and expertise should inform Middlebury’s financial policies as we respond to the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and plan for the future. We ask the Board to consult with relevant faculty bodies like the AAUP, Faculty Strategy and Resources Committees, and Faculty Council to reconsider the cap of 5% on draw from the endowment. We ask that Middlebury leaders work with faculty and staff to discover innovative ways of maintaining both fiscal rectitude and educational quality that also honor the budgetary principles endorsed by the faculty last year.

Signed,

Laurie Essig, Professor GSFS
Peter Hans Matthews, Dana Professor of Economics
Jamie McCallum, Associate Professor of Sociology
Jeffrey Carpenter, James B. Jermain Professor of Political Economy & International Law
Brandon Baird, Associate Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies & Linguistics
Kevin Moss, Jean Thomson Fulton Professor of Modern Languages & Literature
Linus Owens, Associate Professor of Sociology
Hemangini Gupta, Visiting Assistant Professor GSFS
Akhil Rao, Assistant Professor of Economics
Jenn Ortegren, Assistant Professor of Religion
Carly Thomsen, Assistant Professor of GSFS
Jacob Tropp, Professor of History and John Spencer Professor of African Studies
Shawna Shapiro, Associate Professor of Writing and Linguistics
Genie Giaimo, Assistant Professor of Writing and Rhetoric
Gloria Estela González Zenteno, Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies and Director of International and Global Studies
Erin Sassin, Associate Professor of the History of Art and Architecture
Sam Liebhaber, Associate Professor of Arabic
Enrique García, Associate Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies and member of the Resources Committee.
Patricia Saldarriaga, Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies
Justin Doran, Assistant Professor of Religion
Andrew Fieldhouse, Assistant Professor of Economics
Catharine Wright, Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric and GSFS
Tara L. Affolter, Associate Professor and Director Education Studies Program
Eilat Glikman, Associate Professor of Physics
Eliza Garrison, Professor, Department of History of Art & Architecture
Laura Lesta García, Assistant Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies
Greg Pask, Assistant Professor of Biology
Michole Biancosino, Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre
Rachael Joo, Associate Professor, American Studies
Priscilla Bremser, Nathan Beman Professor of Mathematics
Nicolas Poppe, Associate Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies
Andrea Robbett, Associate Professor of Economics
Luis Hernán Castañeda, Associate Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies
Shelby Kimmel, Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Marion Wells, Henry N. Hudson Professor of English and American Literatures
Michael Olinick, Professor of Mathematics
Otilia Milutin, Assistant Professor of Japanese Studies
Louisa Burnham, Professor, Department of History
Julia Berazneva, Assistant Professor of Economics
Olga Sanchez Saltveit, Assistant Professor of Theatre
Alex Draper, Associate Professor of Theatre
Marta Manrique, Associate Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies
Irina Alexandra Feldman, Associate Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies
James Calvin Davis, George Adams Ellis Professor of Liberal Arts and Religion
Ellen Oxfeld, Professor of Anthropology
William Waldron, Professor of Religion
Elizabeth Morrison, Associate Professor of Religion
Ellery Foutch, Assistant Professor, American Studies
Florence Feiereisen, Associate Professor of German
Michael Sheridan, Professor of Anthropology and African Studies
Robert Cohen, Professor of English and American Literatures
Antonia Losano, Professor of English and American Literatures
Lana Povitz, Visiting Assistant Professor of History and Jewish Studies
Hedya Klein, Fletcher Professor of the Arts, Program in Studio Art
Guntram Herb, Professor and Chair, Department of Geography
Kristina Sargent, Assistant Professor of Economics
Martin Abel, Assistant Professor of Economics
James E. Berg, Associate Professor of English and American Literatures
Christian Keathley, Professor of Film & Media Culture
James L. Fitzsimmons, Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology
David Miranda Hardy, Assistant Professor of Film and Media Culture
Molly S. Costanza-Robinson, Anderson Chair of Biosphere and Environmental Studies
Kirsten K. Coe, Assistant Professor of Biology
Frank Swenton, Professor of Mathematics
Erin Eggleston, Assistant Professor of Biology
Ioana Uricaru, Associate Professor of Film and Media Culture
Max Ward, Associate Professor of History
Carolyn Craven, Associate Professor of Economics
Carrie Anderson, Assistant Professor, History of Art & Architecture
Matthew Walker, Assistant Professor of Russian
Chris Herdman, Assistant Professor of Physics
William Poulin-Deltour, Associate Professor of French & Francophone Studies
Martha K. Woodruff, Associate Professor of Philosophy
Deborah M. Evans, Associate Professor (non-tenure), American Studies
Patricia Zupan, Dana Professor of Italian
Erik Bleich, Charles A. Dana Professor of Political Science
William Nash, Professor of American Studies and English and American Literatures
Héctor J Vila, Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric
Erin Wolcott, Assistant Professor of Economics
Marybeth Eleanor Nevins, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Linguistics Director
Linda White, Associate Professor of Japanese Studies
Amy Briggs, Professor of Computer Science
Cynthia Packert, Christian A. Johnson Professor, History of Art and Architecture
Sarah Rogers, Visiting Assistant Professor, History of Art and Architecture
Rebecca Kneale Gould, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies
Holly Allen, Associate Professor of American Studies (non-tenure)
Michael Newbury, Professor of American Studies and English & American Literatures
John Spackman, Associate Professor of Philosophy; Director, Neuroscience Program
Jason Mittell, Professor of Film & Media Culture and American Studies
Yumna Siddiqi, Associate Professor of English and American Literature