Dear colleagues—it is that time of year when students (mostly sophomores) will be coming to their faculty advisors to discuss their study abroad plans, and to get advisor approval for these plans. I wanted to bring to your attention some changes we have made to the application process as a consequence of our going to an online application system.

Those of you who have done this before will remember that in the past we had 2 deadlines—one early in jterm for students to get their paper study abroad applications to their advisors, and one on February 1 for students to hand in completed applications to the International Programs office. This staggered deadline was made to encourage students to meet with advisors about their study abroad plans, which we still hope and expect to happen. However, instead of having the early jterm deadline for advisors and recommenders, there will be a single deadline of February 1 for all study abroad applications to be completed electronically.

I will be sending out a message to students shortly reminding them of this deadline and how the online application system works, and letting them know that they should be in touch with their faculty advisors about their plans if they have not already done so. For faculty, there are two forms for which you may receive an email, with a prompt to complete an online form: the faculty advisor approval form and the language assessment form. In both cases, if a student lists you as their advisor or their most recent language professor on their online form, you will receive an email from the International Programs mailbox. In this email will be a link to a webpage where you log in with your Middlebury username and password to complete the form. The email with the link to the major advisor approval will also indicate which courses the student proposes to take while abroad. You are also able to print out a paper form, which will be attached to the email, and deliver it to our office in Sunderland, though we hope most of you will use the online system.

For the major advisor approval form, we will be asking the same questions we have asked on our paper form, though in a somewhat different format. You will be asked to approve of the student’s tentative list of courses, indicate that the student will be able to complete the major on time, etc. There will also be a place for you to include additional comments, as is the case on the current paper form. The language assessment form will also be similar to the current form, and should be straightforward to fill out, as well.

If you have any questions, either about advising or about the new online system, please do not hesitate to contact me or any of our staff (x5745). For further information about student options and program information, the contact people in our office are:

Middlebury Schools Abroad (Brazil, Cameroon, Japan, Russia, and Spain): Nicole Chance

Middlebury Schools Abroad (China, Germany, and Italy): Meghan Mason

Middlebury Schools Abroad (Chile, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Mexico): Bill Mayers

Middlebury Schools Abroad (Argentina, France, and Uruguay): Susan Parsons

All external, non-Middlebury Programs (both study abroad and domestic): Stacey Thebodo

Study at the Monterey Institute: Charlotte Tate (x5795)

By involving faculty in the application process, we seek to assure the academic integrity of study abroad and other off-campus study. If you are new to this process, you may want to check with your department chair or program director regarding your department or program’s requirements for study abroad and how they intersect with major requirements.

Best,

Jeff

********

Jeffrey Cason
Dean of International Programs
Director, Rohatyn Center for International Affairs
Edward C. Knox Professor of International Studies and Political Science
Middlebury College
Middlebury, VT 05753