Old Chapel

One beautiful summer night, I was walking my two Great Pyrenees, Padma and Suka, near the golf course when I met two students from the Language Schools who were speaking Japanese.

When they saw me, they greeted me in English. Because I am an administrator, that was appropriate. The Language Pledge doesn’t apply when talking to members of the administration.

When they went to hug and pet my dogs, however, I reminded them to love my dogs in Japanese, not English. And so they did—switching immediately. Padma and Suka were, of course, delighted to be loved in any language. Their happy wags let the students know they were fully understood.

That experience stayed with me, first because it’s a quintessential Middlebury tale about how two American students, speaking Japanese in Vermont, switched to English to talk to me but then easily went back to Japanese to speak to my dogs. It’s also a story about how dogs can be a powerful facilitator of social, and even intellectual, life. The dogs helped those students be in a space with me that would not have existed had I been walking alone.

Dogs don’t judge. In fact, they can enable open, emotional communication, and also inspire a certain kind of joy. My brother and niece are involved in a library program where kids practice reading while dogs listen to them. These programs have been shown to improve reading skills and interest. When I was learning to chant Hebrew at age 40, I did the same!

I’ve always had at least one dog. I find dogs make wonderful company and are central to my everyday life. I am not alone in this view—where there are humans, there are dogs, from tropical forests to the Arctic Circle. Research reveals how dogs’ rich understanding of the world makes them not only remarkably well- suited companions, but also flexible problem solvers with deductive skills similar to those of young children. From an evolutionary scientist’s perspective, dogs and humans literally created each other—forming each other’s temperaments and habits, helping each other hunt, eat, and solve the problems of living.

Flexible problem solvers—that’s what we want Middlebury students to be. Middlebury can be intense—upbeat, and curious, and focused, yes, but also intense. A few years ago, after much consultation, we changed Middlebury policy to become more dog friendly, allowing faculty and staff in many areas of campus (not all) to bring their dogs to work. We did so to promote the kind of curiosity, joy, and compassion toward one another that dogs inspire.

I see how we are reaping the benefits of canine colleagues. Whether they’re being pet students during finals, or walking across campus, greeting passersby with pleasure; or taking a nap on an office floor while student and professor discuss a thesis, it’s clear that the presence of dogs can make it easier for humans to connect.

Dogs also teach us discernment: learning our limitations and inspiring us to meet challenges.  When I was growing up, Charlie the golden retriever was part of our family. He was a wonderful dog with a wonderful enthusiasm for what might be possible. When he could, he chased trucks with abandon. Mostly, he focused on trees. Yes, trees. When he wanted us to throw something, he wouldn’t bring just a stick or branch. He would find a small fallen tree, drag it to the porch, and wait for us to throw it.

Often we broke it down into sticks that we could actually throw. But some of the time, we’d just say, “Too big, Charlie!” when we knew, despite his excitement, what Charlie was asking for was just not physically achievable.

That phrase, “Too big, Charlie!” (otherwise known as “TBC”), became shorthand for what to say when you’re asked to do the impossible. It’s a phrase I introduced here at Middlebury when there was just too much for one person or team to accomplish. TBC is a familiar acronym around Old Chapel.

But there’s also a flip side of TBC: Epic Fetch. The Internet meme shows a dog carrying a branch in its mouth that’s attached to an entire tree trunk. Epic Fetch is the way that so often at Middlebury, a seemingly impossible task becomes possible given the right circumstances and the right determination.

Those Language Schools students were engaged in an Epic Fetch, committing to live for a time in a language not their own. The expert analysis our MIIS faculty and colleagues at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies have provided in the wake of the Iranian missile strike in January? The launch of a School of Abenaki pilot program with the Language Schools, helping to expand understanding of this endangered Eastern Algonquin language? The new class of Febs?

You are part of the Middlebury community, and the Epic Fetches that have built us and sustain us, whether or not you are a dog person. (And even if you are not, Padma and Suka will still love you, in any language.)

In this issue, we read a unique story about a chapter in Middlebury’s history—the admission of women and the subsequent life of women students at the College. In 1880, President Cyrus Hamlin arrived at Middlebury to build enrollments, which had dwindled to dangerously low levels. He turned to women, who were eager to join Middlebury to advance their educations.

There was ambiguity in the conversation of Middlebury leaders as to what exactly was being granted—full enrollment? Only certain rights and privileges?

Then May Belle Chellis graduated at the top of her class. The matter seemed settled.

The work of inclusivity doesn’t always move in a straight line, however, and the entry of women into the College did not mean that all was well. In the early 1900s, Middlebury was almost denied Carnegie funding for being “in danger” of becoming a college for women. One president cited the presence of women as the reason for the smaller growth in the endowment compared to some New England all-male schools.

Should the College then build a separate campus for women? Leaders pondered that question through the 1910s, ’20s, and ’30s. The debate ended with a whimper; because of the Second World War, a separate college campus could not be funded, and the issue was not raised again. Middlebury became fully coeducational almost without thinking about it.

This Middlebury chapter should be more well known, because it teaches us something about the nature of institutional change. In my own area of research in India, I see similar themes. I have conducted over 90 life histories of women who have taken up the teaching of Sanskrit—a sacred language in India that had been prohibited to women in ritual situations for several millennia. Yet because such a large number of men have entered the global workforce in science, technology, and engineering in recent decades, the study of Sanskrit has become open to women, particularly in urban universities. This is a sea change in the Indian educational landscape.

This change has occurred for two reasons that, combined, make a powerful force indeed: a perceived need and an openness to change.

Let’s begin with perceived need. In Maharashtra, one of the Indian states where I do my research, the saying goes, “If it’s good for business, it’s good for Maharashtra.” It’s meant partly humorously, but there’s a wisdom there. In American education, the business of the open exchange of ideas depends upon more and more people entering the circle of exchange. There is now a solid body of evidence showing that the more diverse a society is, the more excellent it becomes—in its cultural and intellectual life, in its social life, and in its economy. As America’s demographic changes, we know that our democracy will thrive as more people are included and welcomed as contributing citizens. (That is true for Middlebury’s demographic, too.)

Then let’s consider openness to change. Two of the states where women began to teach Sanskrit openly in the early years after Indian independence were Bengal and Maharashtra, states that had the longest and richest histories of women’s reform movements. That’s also instructive for us today. Sometimes that openness takes decades to build. But as educators, the more we can call on our local and national histories of reform and examples of inclusiveness, flawed as they might have been, the more we can gain the energy and insight into an inclusive educational practice today.

We also need to remember and document the patterns of exclusion; that will keep us honest and aware of the pitfalls of how we are thinking today.

The history of women’s inclusion at Middlebury is one of painful as well as exciting moments. But in the end, women’s contributions were simply good for Middlebury. And for a variety of reasons, Middlebury was open to change. We just got on with the business of becoming more inclusive because it was the right thing for Middlebury and the right thing to do.

That’s a lesson I’m reminded of every day.

At a crossroads.

That was where I saw Middlebury when I arrived as its new president in 2015. More precisely, I saw it at an exciting crossroads, with Middlebury as a newly complex institution, with the liberal arts college as our oldest and largest unit, and with the Language Schools, Schools Abroad, Bread Loaf (both the School of English and the Writers’ Conferences), and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey all playing increasingly important roles. We were at a point, I decided, where we needed to take a new look at ourselves and learn (and relearn, in some cases) who and what Middlebury is at present—and what it might become.

We called that learning process Envisioning Middlebury, and through that process we set out to discern what our vision should be for the Middlebury of today, and tomorrow. Envisioning Middlebury began in early 2016, expertly led by Provost Susan Baldridge and supported by our Steering and Advisory Committees. We took a ground-up approach, gathering as much data as we could about Middlebury. We created dozens of ad hoc groups and conducted surveys and focused conversations, all of which zeroed in on three important questions about Middlebury: Who are we and what are our deepest values? What is the future? And where do we want to go?

Those explorations were fruitful, and they gave us great insights and rich material that grew into the strategic framework that we introduced in the fall and that the trustees approved on October 21. It is explored in much detail here.

It’s important for me to emphasize that what we’ve created is not, strictly speaking, a strategic plan, but rather a strategic framework—an outline, with lots of room to build, define, and refine. The framework represents a powerful vision for the future, a guide rather than a dictate. It is not a checklist of things to do over the next decade—it is a challenge to us to act strategically every day.

Envisioning Middlebury delivers a new way to define Middlebury: a mission statement, a vision statement, four areas of distinction, six strategic directions, and four principles.

Our mission statement is the first that encompasses the entirety of the Middlebury enterprise: “Through a commitment to immersive learning, we prepare students to lead engaged, consequential, and creative lives, contribute to their communities, and address the world’s most challenging problems.”

Our vision statement, a first for Middlebury, calls us to be aspirational and clear about the world that we are trying to create: “A world with a robust and inclusive public sphere where ethical citizens work across intellectual, geographical, and cultural borders.”

Our four areas of distinction are our areas of strength, which we don’t just celebrate, but also recommit to and ask how to better leverage. For example, we distinguish ourselves in our global network of educational programs and opportunities. But if we excel in intercultural communication as we travel to different countries, how can we communicate even better across the cultures of our own academic units?

Our six strategic directions are a guiding compass that points us toward where we need to focus our attention. One of these directions is a globally networked curriculum, so that our students can take advantage of all we have to offer, in all of the locations where they can be educated.

Rather than building new campuses all over the globe, we intend to be more effective leaders by building and maintaining the exciting global partnerships that we’ve already begun (some of which we’ve maintained for decades).

As we move forward, we must always keep in mind that we have created this strategic framework not just to add to Middlebury’s scope but to think differently about Middlebury’s scope. We will steward our resources wisely, with the intention that some of the major strategic initiatives that are built around this framework may come without a financial cost, but will instead involve reorganization and rethinking.

In 2015, I considered Middlebury to be at a crossroads. At the beginning of 2018, I ask this: if we succeed in implementing the ideas that will come from defining our mission, vision, areas of distinction, directions, and principles, then where will Middlebury be in 2028?

Here is what I envision: that Middlebury will have leveraged its strengths differently. That we will offer a curriculum that takes students around the globe and gives them a better sense of place, and commitment to place, with each educational endeavor. That we are shaping leaders who know what it means to lead because they have embraced the experiential component of learning that will be part of all their classroom environments. And that Middlebury will be a place where students participate in public discourse with both intellectual rigor and generosity of spirit.

This vision comes from what all of us—faculty, staff, trustees, alumni, students—envisioned for Middlebury. I invite you to engage with us and to share your own visions with me at president@middlebury.edu.