On April 17-19, the students who have been admitted to the Class of 2017 and their families will be visiting Middlebury to see if our community is where they would like to spend the next four years. They will be trying to “experience Middlebury,” and I hope we can all make them feel at home.
I want to welcome all of our visitors to campus and invite them to ask any of us for help, directions, or for answers to any questions they may have—we are here to help. I also want to encourage Middlebury students to participate in those activities that offer opportunities for our guests to mingle with current students, faculty, and staff. The Preview Days schedule is available online.
The visiting students receive a Preview Days booklet, which includes among its pages a list of sample questions to ask while here, such as: Tell me about your favorite professor. What did you take for J-term? Or, what’s your favorite Middlebury tradition?
In that vein, I’d like to offer some of my favorite, slightly obscure, facts about Middlebury.
- Our campus encompasses 350 acres—which makes it large enough to feel spacious yet small enough to walk from one end to the other in about 15 minutes.
- According to Tim Parsons, our resident horticulturalist, one of the first signs of spring at Middlebury is when the forsythia bloom. But for me, it’s when I hear the peepers singing. Their chorus began just a few days ago! Listen in the evening and early morning.
- Although newcomers to Vermont often feel that winters are very cold, we can take heart: Vermont is closer to the equator than it is to the North Pole.
- While it is well known that Alexander Twilight, Class of 1823, was the first African American to graduate from a U.S. college, it is not as well known that Martin Henry Freeman, Class of 1849, was America’s first black college president. He was named president of Allegheny Institute (later Avery College) in 1856.
- Middlebury students used to be required to attend chapel at 5:00 each morning. Today, Middlebury students are required to recycle.
- It is believed that Middlebury students invented the game of Frisbee in 1939, when five students on a road trip were changing a tire and took time out to throw a Frisbie Co. pie tin.
- The Panther sculpture overlooking Youngman Field rests atop a boulder weighing 63 tons. The boulder is hundreds of millions years old and was moved to campus from a Mendon quarry.
- If you’ve ever wondered why Middlebury has a French chateau on campus: In the early 1920s, the director of the French School dreamed of having a real French chateau here, and one of his students wanted to make his dream come true. She made a large donation to the College, which helped build Le Château, modeled after the 17th-century Pavilion Henri IV at the Palace of Fontainebleau in France.
- Drivers in Middlebury stop for pedestrians. It’s the law, and it’s also a very nice, friendly gesture. That said, one should look carefully before stepping into the street since not everyone who drives here knows about this rule.
Please chime in: What are your favorite facts about Middlebury? Or do you have a question you’d like to ask here?