Dear Colleagues,

This past week, the sunny tables on Pierce Street were filled with visitors from Vermont and across the country, including the Middlebury College Board of Trustees. The full board meets in Monterey every three years and they always leave energized after spending time with our students.

On Thursday, I updated the Institute Board of Advisors (IBA) – a part of the larger Trustees group – on the business plan, focusing on the initiatives that I outlined to you in my email last week.

The urgency and importance of our work to launch new programs was underscored by our latest enrollment update. Total (new and returning students) enrollment in fall 2022 was down 10% year-over-year (YoY), our lowest enrollment in over 30 years. We provided the detailed memo, which outlines the many different factors driving this.

The IBA was very supportive of our direction and initiatives for this year. We will be developing and sharing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track our progress, with a shared understanding that launching new online programs requires significant investment and will take years to become profitable.

The IBA also heard updates on:

• CoLab’s latest work with Netta Avineri and student Maria Zaharatos
• The growth of our Translation and Localization Management degree with David Mohr and students Linka Wade and Lai Lai who shared recent projects
• Institute fundraising progress

They also had sessions to hear directly from staff and students and were joined for lunch by several faculty members representing all of our programs. The full board met on Friday and Saturday, during which time they heard from researchers and graduate research assistants at CNS and CTEC, as well as a short film featuring recent graduates with experience working with CBE. 

I’ll close with some words that MPA student Maria Zaharatosshared with the board:

“My goal in coming to MIIS is to make meaningful change, not just performative change.”

Have wonderful week –

JDJ