One Dean’s View

As everyone on campus should know, Middlebury will soon launch a new website.  The new site, designed by an outfit called White Whale, will support videos, slide shows, enhanced search features, and other bells and whistles.  I won’t try to explain the significance of these enhancements—why this build out will be better than our current web—since people who know far more about the design than I do have already done so (for instance, check out the web makeover discussion or MiddBlog).

But I do want to engage some of the assumptions that have guided the development of the new website, and ask some questions.

Assumption #1:  as we transfer more and more content from print to the web—an inevitability, given the ever-increasing importance of the internet—the ways in which we communicate as an institution may change.

Conventional wisdom has it that writing on the web should be more concise than writing in print since reading big chunks of prose on a screen is difficult and peoples’ attention spans are more limited.  On the other hand, the web is an ideal platform for video and audio, which means that much of the storytelling on the new site will take shape as pictures and sound.   This shift is already evident in the press releases that our Communications office sends to external news agencies.  While these news releases were once pure prose, and perhaps some pictures, they are now likely to include video.  For instance, check out the story that recently appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education; the video in this story was made by Stephen Diehl.

The implications of this shift are interesting to consider.   How would students like to receive an email from the President that contains a video message rather than a written memo?    To what extent should administrators and college offices experiment with multi-media in communicating with the campus?  As our web evolves to accommodate new forms of media, how should our internal forms of communication change?  This is a real question, but please, no Twitter.

Assumption #2: more interactivity is better, and everyone likes a blog.

Okay, I am exaggerating a little, but it is true that the new website will give more attention to blogs that currently exist and new blogs that have yet to emerge.  The idea here is that blogs are great forums for debate and discussion, and a more “authentic” (read “less institutional”) vehicle for enabling people (especially prospective students) to learn about the College.  And, yes, they can also be important forums for students, faculty, and staff.

A number of community members already run blogs, and some of them are very good.  For a partial survey of Middlebury blogs, see this list and follow the sidebar links on MiddBlog (MiddBlog, by the way, deserves kudos for leading the way on this front).   However, the College blogosphere is not especially thick; some would say we are not really a blogging community.   Is this a problem, a drawback, a good thing, or just the way it is?  I am not asking for a referendum on any particular blog—my own included—but wondering about the concept in general.  If blogging is a good thing for Middlebury, how should we foster its development?

Assumption #3: we can use the web to build community at Middlebury.

The word “community” is heavily loaded, and deserves more discussion than I can give it now, but one promise of the internet—often debated by specialists—is that the internet can foster democratic forms of communication and action (political and otherwise).   This promise is worth bearing in mind as we move forward with the new website.   While on the one hand, the content on the web, especially the front page, will be subject to editorial control, with the Communications office managing the main pages, on other hand, there will be more opportunities for people to upload and post content.  For instance, there is already a process in place for people to submit stories that might be posted on the site.  Theoretically, as this new website evolves, it could become more “wiki”-like in its function, and community members could play a significant role in building the site.  In order for this to happen, however, people will need to be committed to making the web a live and vital site.   Assuming this is a good thing—and maybe I shouldn’t make this assumption—how can the College foster this sort of involvement?

Comments, as always, are welcome.

My post on study abroad generated some good discussion about the liberal arts, and its importance to a Middlebury education.  In order to gain some historical perspective on the College’s commitment to the liberal arts, let’s take a quick tour through the history of the Middlebury curriculum.   Anyone interested in learning more about these factoids can review the College’s course catalogs and David Stameshkin’s two-volume history of Middlebury College (as I did).

• In 1818, freshmen studied the first books of Livy; Blair’s Lectures Abridged; English Grammar; Sallust; Cicero de Officiis, deSenectute, de Amicitia; Priestley’s Lectures; Collectanea Graeca Majora.  Sophomores, juniors, and seniors likewise took a set curriculum focused on classical subjects.

• In 1883, the trustees voted to admit women, leading to the following language in the 1883-84 course catalog: “By recent action of the Trustees the College offers the same privileges to young ladies as to young gentlemen.”

• In 1900, freshmen were still required to take a “classical course” (as were sophomores), but juniors and seniors could now supplement required classes with electives.

• By 1940, the elective system was firmly entrenched, and Middlebury students were majoring in particular subject areas or disciplines.  Freshmen had the option of electing introductory courses in several subject areas, including Home Economics.

• In 1955, Home Economics was still in the course catalog, and first-year students were required to take Physical Education.  First-year men also took basic R.O.T.C.   In 1975, R.O.T.C was an elective, and the program included a class in Military Science.

• In the 1970s, the College expanded its schools abroad program to include undergrads (it had previously served graduate students alone), and by the mid 1980s roughly 40% of the junior class chose to study abroad, making Middlebury a leader in this area.

• Also during the 1970s and 80s, the College expanded the number of interdisciplinary programs to include classical studies, Jewish studies, the international major, and Northern studies (which no longer exists), a trend that continued through the 1990s and remains a distinguishing feature in our curriculum to this day.

How to describe this brief and incomplete history of curricular change?  What does it tell us about the evolution of the liberal arts at Middlebury?    Few would argue that military science, home economics, or a required classical course—the mainstay of nineteenth-century college education—should return to Middlebury’s curriculum.   But at certain points in the College’s history, these classes were indeed a part of our educational tradition.

In Cultivating Humanity (1997), University of Chicago professor Martha Nussbaum defines liberal education as the “cultivation of the whole human being for the functions of citizenship and life generally.”  As Nussbaum and other scholars have shown, the idea of liberal learning, or the “examined life,” can be traced back to Greek and Roman philosophy.   However, the history suggests that how colleges and universities have gone about realizing this ideal has varied according the educational needs of the moment—and the future.

So, philosophically (which is to say pragmatically) speaking, how should the College evolve to meet the needs of the future?  Given the possibility of a stingier economy, what aspects of a Middlebury education should be preserved at all costs?  Where should we pull back?  How might we build on our historic strengths to prepare students to meet the realities of this century—globalization, environmental challenges, etc?

To provide some context for my previous post on study abroad, here are some observations taken from an article that appeared yesterday in the online edition of  The Chronicle of Higher Education.   There is a lot press out there these days on the adjustments that colleges and universities have had to make in the wake of the recession, but this one pays particular attention to the need for future change.  The authors write:

It may also be a sign that the full effect of the economic fallout has yet to hit home on many campuses, a perception reflected in numerous interviews with anxious higher-education leaders and in the sobering findings of a new Chronicle survey. In the survey sent to chief finance officers at four-year colleges in September, 62 percent of the respondents said they did not think the worst of the financial pressures on their institutions had passed. Nearly two-thirds of them worry that 2010, 2011, or 2012 or later, will be even tougher.

“In some respects, people are doing what they should be doing in an economic downturn,” says Paul E. Lingenfelter, president of the State Higher Education Executive Officers organization. They are aiming cuts at “soft spots” and protecting core academic programs and student aid. But as Mr. Lingenfelter and countless other observers of the sector note, even when the economy rebounds, the pressures on colleges will be greater and all the usual sources of support—states, donors, and students and their families—are likely to be less able to provide resources.

The challenge, says Mr. Lingenfelter, is for higher education’s leadership to recognize that aiming to get back to pre-crash levels of financing or educational effectiveness is not enough. “We come across to the public as totally insatiable and resistant to change,” he says. “We’ve got to improve productivity.”

For most college leaders, managing in this new era of uncertainty has meant hunkering down. But observers say the coming months and years could require far more openness to change.

The full text of the Chronicle article is available here.  I will address the subject of institutional change in my next post, but from a different, specifically Middlebury perspective.

Every other year or so, the Board of Trustees holds a retreat to discuss issues of broad importance to the College.  This year—last week, in fact—the Board met to consider the “new normal,” which is the phrase now being used to describe the conditions brought about by the economic downturn.  The idea is that because economic resources will be scarcer in the future than they have been in the last decade, academic institutions must think creatively about what they want to maintain and how they might operate differently.

To prompt discussion, several individuals or groups gave brief presentations on what the new normal might look like.  I was part of the lineup, and proposed that the College push forward on its ambition to be the “global liberal arts college” by boosting enrollment and requiring all students to study abroad.  This initiative, I argued, would allow Middlebury to build upon its curricular strengths and generate additional revenue.

An outline of this plan appears below.  Keep in mind that there is nothing official about this scheme, and that its chief purpose is to spark discussion about future possibilities.  That said, I am interested in what people think of it.

Enrollment

• All juniors would study away for the entire year, and the College would simultaneously boost enrollment to 3200 students, or four classes of 800.
• This arrangement would hold the current number of students on campus to 2400, with only three classes living in Vermont.
• Currently—and this is on a prorated basis since many students go abroad for just a semester—175 students study abroad in Middlebury programs for the entire year.
• The economic goal of this plan would be to gradually push this number up to 625 so that all students study in Middlebury programs.  This last point is important since students who go outside the Middlebury system take their tuition dollars with them.
• To accommodate an additional 625 in its study abroad programs, the College would need to establish between 15 to 20 additional schools abroad (we currently operate 34 sites in 12 countries).
• Our schools abroad include little overhead or infrastructure since we partner with local universities and residents/institutions for instruction and housing.  Our model allows for flexible and nimble growth, with few sunk costs.
• To maintain flexibility and choice, we should consider adding English-speaking programs in Africa, South Asia, UK, and elsewhere.  We should also consider a study away program in Monterey.
• We should involve Middlebury faculty in the development of these programs, and we should provide opportunities for our faculty to teach in them.
• According to back-of the-envelope calculations, this plan could net $3.12 to 6.25 million in additional revenue.
• Assuming we include non-Middlebury undergrads and grad students in these 20 new sites abroad, the annual net revenue could be as much as $8.25 million.

So that’s a general economic or logistical overview of the scheme.  Given the increased importance of international education and the excellence of our study abroad programs, I believe this plan also makes good educational sense.

But as I considered the merits of studying abroad, I got to wondering if there are other ways of mounting our program.  That thinking brought me to this question: suppose sophomores, instead of juniors, went abroad?   Here is a quick sketch of what that might look like:

Sophomores Abroad

• We would reinvent the first-year curriculum to emphasize intensive liberal arts learning as well as writing skills.  Language study would be required, as would an interdisciplinary course on cultural difference and global citizenship.  There would be room for a limited number of electives.
• Students would develop linguistic competence through a combination of language-study during the academic year, immersion programs (the Language Schools), and online education.  Students could pursue these supplemental programs before and/or after their first year at Middlebury.
• Sophomore year abroad would be a time of personal discovery, of expanding intellectual and persons horizons before settling down to the second half of a Middlebury education.
• Junior and senior years would devoted to the major.
• The chief goal of this plan would be to frontload the transformation that comes from studying abroad.  Students would be able to build on their experiences abroad instead of readjusting to campus life their senior year and then preparing to graduate.  Their perspectives could truly internationalize the classroom and our campus.

Of course, there are good reasons not to require students to study abroad—for instance, athletes would have to take a year off from intercollegiate competition—but there are corresponding advantages as well.  And, as I suggest in the sophomore scheme, these advantages are educational as well as economic.

Thoughts?

Last week, the Trenton Times published an article describing budget cuts at Princeton, where the endowment dropped 24% in fiscal year 2009—a significant loss, especially since 48% of Princeton’s operating budget comes from the endowment.

The piece makes a couple of interesting points.  For one, while the budget cuts that Princeton has made thus far—closing a dining hall, imposing print quotas on college printers—haven’t significantly affected the student experience there, the cuts are not simply short-term measures.  According to Princeton’s provost, they are meant to be permanent.  That is, they are signs of the “new normal.”

The article also suggests that students are not following these budget conversations very closely.  For instance, only a handful of students showed up at a town meeting that the Princeton administration sponsored to discuss the budget-cutting process.   A similar situation has unfolded here.  While President Liebowitz has hosted several meetings for students to discuss the economic crisis, few have shown up.

Any thoughts as to why?  Or have I already answered my own question by implying—via the Princeton article—that the reductions we have made so far really aren’t worth discussing?  Or are we going about this conversation the wrong way?

I am kind of surprised that neither The Campus nor MiddBlog has commented on this story, but I think it’s worth a mention and it beats the heck out of reflecting (some more) on the CORE survey results.

The story concerns a new policy, now in place at Tufts, that “prohibits any sex act in a dorm room while one’s roommate is present.”  That’s a quotation from a story in The Tufts Daily, but other college newspapers have weighed in as well.  The Harvard Crimson condemned the policy earlier this week, and the Swarthmore Phoenix likewise expressed reservations. The policy has also prompted stories in US News and World Report and The New York Times.

Which leads me to wonder what Middlebury students make of this policy and whether they believe it would be a welcome addition to our campus.  Needless to say, comments are welcome.

I am confused by the CAMPUS these days.

Take, for instance, its recent editorial (in the Sept 24 issue) on the CORE survey that the office of Health Education and Wellness administered last year.  After questioning the validity of the survey data—suggesting that Middlebury students drink less than some might imagine—the editors say they are troubled that the administration is using the data to “shape” (does that mean “spin”?) “changing alcohol policies on campus.”  They continue in high dudgeon to declare that the “fact that Old Chapel seems to be making crucial decisions on the basis of such flimsy data is nothing if not irresponsible and illogical.”  Much depends here on the word “seems,” as it allows the editors to hypothesize a claim that they never substantiate—it MIGHT be a “fact,” right?—and then roundly condemn the administration’s alleged decision-making.

The news story on the subject treats this “fact” with more caution, noting that the CORE survey “supports an administrative position that while alcohol plays a major role in campus situations, a larger portion of the student body does not use it, or uses it in a limited quantity.”  That’s okay, but what’s troubling is that while the article begins on the front page with the headline “Survey questions drinking habits,” it continues on the third page under the heading, “Athletes face greater scrutiny after survey.”  The problem here is that the article says nothing about there being a link between the survey and the conduct of athletes; what’s more, the CORE survey, doesn’t even address the supposed connection.  But there is that headline, reinforcing the editorial’s conspiratorial claim that the CORE survey is being used to shape alcohol policy on campus.

The CAMPUS editors complain that administrators “cannot seem to make up their minds about whether or not Middlebury has an alcohol problem,” and accuse them—well, us—of cynically parsing the realities of campus life:  “Depending on what suits their particular agenda at a given time, our campus is alternately seen as either a buculoic haven for those seeking to break free from the traditional, alcohol-centric college setting or a cesspool or irresponsible, dangerous and immature binge drinking.”

What puzzles me about this critique is its assumption that only one reality can describe social life at Middlebury, and that we must be of a single mind about how students drink or don’t drink at the College.  The editors don’t explain why the characterizations mentioned above can’t coexist.  Stuck on their own agenda, they return to their obsession with the survey’s “ultmate impact” on College alcohol policies.  But it seems to me that their insistence on one truth denies both the complexity of student life and limits our ability to talk about problems on our campus, and the possible solutions.

Do we have problems with alcohol at Middlebury?  Yes, we do—as do many other colleges and universities—and President Liebowitz and I and Dean Jordan have spent much of the last two or three years talking with students about these problems and how we might address them (we’ve also blogged on these issues here and there).  One thing is clear from these discussions: policies and rules alone will not solve the problem.  Students must step up and take responsibility for looking after one another and governing their own social lives.  Which is why the CAMPUS’ latest effort to spin the CORE survey and politicize the alcohol issues is so misguided.  To make progress on this important issue, we really do need to be on the same page.

So how do we get there?

You’ve read the press release, and now you can see the drama.  Dean James Ralph holds aloft the crystal bowl the College was given for winning an ACE/Sloan accelerator grant to expand faculty career flexibility.

As we all know but sometimes hate to admit, colleges and universities must market themselves to prospective students in order to fill classes and educate the public about their mission.  Even the most selective institutions do this, and it’s not easy.  For how can an advertisement, viewbook, or video capture the essence of a college, or represent the identities of the students who go there?

But click on the link below, and check out the video that MIT produced.  It’s pretty remarkable, as both a marketing tool and portrait of the passions and aspiration that bring some students to college.   Thanks to Xander Manshel for sharing this with me.

Here it is: The Human Factor.

As always, comments welcome.

One effect of this economic downturn is that commentators have turned their view to the future of higher education, sometimes with startling effect.   There has been no shortage of such writing in the past, but with endowments down and resources scarce this seems like a particularly opportune moment to imagine what college education will be like in the not too distant future.   In fact, we devoted the Bread Loaf Faculty meeting—held just before classes started—to a discussion of questions focused on the relevance of liberal arts education, and how our current “business model” (a term usually off limits in faculty discussions) may now be under threat.

Here are five articles aimed to spur thinking about where we may be headed.  Reactions?  How do you think colleges like Middlebury will change in the next decade?

• “End the University as We Know It’

• “What Colleges Should Learn from Newspapers’ Decline”

• “How Web-Savvy Edupunks Are Transforming American Higher Education”

• “Endowment Losses Threaten No-Loan Policies as Guarantees Vanish”

• “Financial Aid News 155: Amherst College Faculty Asking for Financial Aid Reductions”