Editorial

The last year of a student’s time at Middlebury is distinct in many ways from his or her first three. Socially, seniors are given access to the best housing on campus, and can apply to live off-campus. Academically, they get priority registration and set out to complete work on a degree that has been three difficult years in the making. For many, completing senior work of some type, either in the form of a thesis, year-long research project or senior essay, represents an intensive capstone to three years of hard work and dedication to the mastery of an academic domain.

At the Campus, however, we question the administration’s decision, beginning with the Class of 2013, to make the completion of senior work mandatory for graduation. We do not debate that writing a thesis can be an incredibly rewarding achievement and provide the rigorous, self-driven academic experience that we work up to during our first three years at Middlebury. As anyone who attended the recent student symposium could tell, the products of our peers’ year-long dedication and effort are often extraordinary and inspiring. The chance to work independently under the guidance of a faculty adviser on a project that stirs one’s academic and personal passions is one of the most valuable opportunities we have as students at Middlebury College.

But the gravitas of completing senior work has always seemed to be part and parcel of the fact that it is a self-selecting distinction. Certain majors, of course, already require theses of all its students; others leave it open as an option only to those above a certain GPA. As it stands, each department has its own requirements and set of rules regarding senior work. We do not believe that Old Chapel needs to enforce a unilateral academic policy — aren’t the faculty of a particular department be best suited to determine the parameters surrounding senior work in their own subject area?

Additionally, we are concerned about the strain on the faculty that will come with an increased number of seniors doing senior work. Many professors take a hands off approach to thesis advising, and in some cases this may be appropriate. But many students are not fully prepared for the task of writing a thesis or completing a senior research project, and they need strong guidance to help them through the year. Of course, this is nothing to be ashamed of — senior work is a huge undertaking, and academic advisers are meant to help and guide over the course of the year. By mandating that all students must complete senior work, we are concerned that professors will feel a greater time strain and therefore will be able to spend less time with each student, including their first-year advisees.

There are many students in the next two graduating classes who will not complete senior work, but would undoubtedly have produced something impressive and fascinating if forced to do so. However, we question whether senior work is the capstone that all students are seeking for their final year at Middlebury. A student may well decide he or she can get more from taking a traditional course in place of doing senior work — if that’s the case, that should be the individual student’s prerogative. Forcing all students to do senior work may increase the amount of independent projects the College is able to tout, but it will come at the expense of denying some students the chance to take the academic path that suits them best.