The Middlebury Campus

Issue date: 1/13/05 Section: News

Media Credit: Ari Joseph [Click to enlarge]

Middlebury College is ringing in the New Year with resolutions of an especially bold sort, led by a new president eager to chart the College's course for coming years. Just days after the end of the Fall 2004 term, President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz announced his comprehensive Planning Committee for Middlebury's Future in a memorandum to the College community. According to Liebowitz, this long-term planning process "will focus renewed attention on Middlebury's core mission: to provide the strongest learning environment for the talented young people who choose to study here."

The last major planning initiative for the College culminated in the 1992 Long-Range Plan, a plan formulated under the guidance of Liebowitz's predecessor, John McCardell. McCardell's plan focused primarily on the infrastructure of the College, fostering the construction of the Center for the Arts, Chip Kenyon Arena and the Natatorium, new Ross and Atwater Commons buildings, McCardell Bicentennial Hall and, most recently, the new library.

Following the completion of many of the objectives outlined in the 1992 Plan - and, perhaps most notably, following Liebowitz's inauguration - administrators began meeting last fall to discuss the structure and direction of the new planning committee. According to convention, it is hardly extraordinary that Liebowitz should, at this point in his administration, introduce a new planning process. Said Dean of Planning John Emerson, "planning periods generally occur near the beginning of a new Presidency at a College."

Emerson is adamant that Liebowitz's plan will differ in focus and direction from McCardell's Long-Range assessment. "Our present planning process is likely to differ from the 1992 planning in that this one will focus more on people and their needs, and less on building projects, the physical plant and infrastructure," said Emerson.

While meetings last fall entertained discussion of the planning process and format, the President's plan was announced to the College community officially on Dec. 23. The actual strategic planning will begin during Winter Term and continue through the Fall 2005 semester.

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