Middlebury Expands Study Abroad Horizons

Author: Tim McCahill

In light of recent efforts to create new language programs in China and Latin America, it appears that Middlebury College expansion is not exclusively limited to the confines of its Vermont campus.

The past four years have been somewhat of a watershed era for development of the College's schools abroad, and the prospects for an increased Middlebury presence in both Latin America and China seem — for the moment, at least — quite positive.



College on a Lake?

The China Initiative



Dean of Language Schools and Schools Abroad Michael Katz, along with Associate Professor of Chinese Thomas Moran and Director of the Chinese Summer Language School Richard Chi of Princeton University, traveled over February break to the Chinese coastal city of Hangzhou. The visit was the most recent in a series of explorations to find a suitable location for a Middlebury Chinese language program in China, a voyage that began in March 2000.

"We went to re-visit three institutions in the city of Hangzhou where a larger group of Middlebury faculty and administrators had been in March 2000," Katz explained. "At that point we were looking at several cities and several institutions within each of those cities — and we had not eliminated other cities."

Between that visit and the February trip a process of selection and elimination took place within the Chinese department and a host of other related offices, including summer administrators and Katz's office. The result was a gradual narrowing down to one city, Hangzhou, and three separate institutions within that city.

"[We] went to re-visit those three schools and meet with higher-level administrators in those schools and to talk turkey," Katz said. "The visits were very interesting, and right now we're bringing the results of those meetings back for discussion within the department and what is now called the Faculty Advisory Board for the School in China [a formal consolidation of Middlebury groups that had visited China and other interested faculty parties]."

Creating a new language school is not necessarily an easy process, and Katz explained that in this particular instance these initial discussions would by necessity beget more conversations inside and outside the College. The ball is rolling, however, and Katz mentioned that more deliberations still need to occur in the Chinese department, the Faculty Advisory Board and the Academic Affairs Committee before a final choice can be made on which Hangzhou institution the College should affiliate itself with.

"[At that point] we would pursue it with proposals, cost estimates, timetables — we're still a ways away," Katz admitted. "We could conceivably have students in the fall of 2003 if everything went according to my plan. This is not a change we make lightly. I'm cautiously optimistic."

While both the Chinese department and the College have had ambitions to create a program in the country since the 1980s, obstacles can sometimes be formidable. Some of these revolve around how independent Middlebury's program can be within the larger institutional framework of the host university, both in terms of hiring practices and the kinds of textbooks educators use.

"We thought we would be able to achieve our aims in a smaller city, where there would be less control from the center," Katz continued.

Moran, who has been involved in deliberations since March 2000, voiced similar sentiments. "They're a lot of things in Hangzhou that I like," Moran said. "We have at least a half dozen graduates working there. It's a lot easier to pick up Hangzhou dialect than it is the dialects of Suzhou, Shanghai and Ningbo [other cities in the region]."

As a coastal city, Hangzhou is known for its abundance of lakes and canals — a potential aesthetic attraction for Middlebury students who want to study Chinese. "It's a very pleasant city to be in," Moran said. "It has that relaxed feel to it down by the lake."



A Model for Latin America



While brokering a final deal with academics at the Hangzhou institutions might prove challenging, faculty in the College's Spanish department is no stranger to complicated negotiations. Before embarking on expanding Middlebury's Spanish language programs in Latin America, faculty members first had to define what — and where — Latin America was.

Assistant Professor of Spanish Miguel Fernandez remembers the initial deliberations well. "Latin America is complicated and so totally different," he said. Each faculty member had "legitimate reasons" to advocate creating programs in different countries, he continued.

"We looked at where students were voting with their feet," Katz said, "and what we found was a large number of Middlebury students participating in the SUNY [State University of New York] Plattsburgh Southern Cones program."

Shortly after assuming his current position four years ago, Katz traveled to SUNY Plattsburgh with Director of Off-Campus Study David Macey to investigate a possible partnership with that institution's Southern Cones program. At the time, the SUNY school had a variety of programs in Chile and elsewhere throughout Latin America. More importantly, Katz explained, the Southern Cones program shared goals that were the same or similar to Middlebury's principal study abroad objectives — total immersion in the language and culture, for instance, and a well-developed infrastructure.

After Macey and Katz presented their findings to the College's Spanish department, the two organized more discussions with SUNY Plattsburgh as well as site visits for department faculty. From this relationship a formal partnership drew closer to a reality, and earlier this year Middlebury joined SUNY Plattsburgh under the formal title "Southern Cones Programs of SUNY Plattsburgh and Middlebury College."

According to Katz, SUNY Plattsburgh would continue to operate its program in Chile, while Middlebury would run a similar one based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. From there the joint program could grow in Argentina and Chile and extend to Uruguay.



Bread Loaf in Mexico



The other half of the College's expansion strategy in Latin America is the prospect of three programs in Mexico. This portion of the initiative, however, is actually a combined effort among the College's Schools Abroad program, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Spanish Summer Language School.

Assistant Professor of Spanish Gloria Gonzalez-Zenteno, Director of the Bread Loaf School of English Jim Maddox and Katz will travel to Mexico at the end of March to identify institutions that could serve as potential hosts to Middlebury's three programs. They plan to visit four cities, to select the one in which Middlebury's schools will be located.

Maddox originally approached Katz with the idea of creating a new Bread Loaf campus in Mexico, to add to the four current programs around the world. The notion appealed to Katz who, like Maddox, was dealing with "full to overflowing" enrollment at the Spanish summer program at Middlebury. If all goes according to plan, the Mexico summer language program would run simultaneously with the one on Middlebury's Vermont campus.

Gonzalez-Zenteno explained that the same standards in Latin America would be used in Mexico. These standards include complete immersion in the language and culture as well as internships opportunities.

"My role there would be to represent the undergraduate faculty," Gonzalez-Zenteno said, which includes not only the Spanish Department faculty but also interested parties in International Studies and Environmental Studies. "The idea would be to bring this information back to my colleagues and share it with them, so eventually there would be decisions made," she continued.

"In terms of academics we want our st
udents to enroll directly, not in [the Mexican institutions'] programs for foreigners," Gonzalez-Zenteno explained.