I am a first year at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey pursuing a degree in Environmental Policy and Management (EPM). I may not be a student here for much longer.
When the news of the Institute’s closure in June of 2027 — the month of my supposed graduation from the EPM program — was announced, students, faculty, and staff alike seemed blindsided. After completing my undergraduate degree in 2022 at Tufts University, I was eager to further my education at MIIS. The Institute was the best option available to me to continue my career in coastal studies and policy, and was recommended to me by several of my mentors at Tufts. I arrived in sunny Monterey just a few days before Welcome Week — new student orientation — began, feeling lucky to have a year-long lease in hand in such a competitive market that rivaled my experiences of finding housing in the Boston metro area.
While we were aware of the rising tensions between Middlebury’s Vermont and Monterey campuses, as well as the significant financial strain MIIS places on the College, the consensus seems to be that we did not expect a complete closure would be announced just two years out. Several of my professors expressed surprise at the decision in messages sent to students on Thursday.
According to MIIS staff I have spoken to, layoffs began by Friday — just one day after the announcement. In the email sent to the MIIS community, President Ian Baucom wrote that “[Middlebury is] committed to supporting our currently enrolled students, including those starting this fall, so that they may successfully complete their degrees by June 2027, with a full array of on-campus resources.” This first round of layoffs lets me know that a “full array of on-campus resources” will certainly not be available to us. Additionally, as professors are not tenured here at MIIS, it is impossible to know whether the faculty I expected to work with will even remain here at MIIS for the duration of my two-year program.
Like me, many of my classmates also moved here from far away. Others are here on student visas. We feel captive. Without an active MIIS enrollment, many students will not be able to stay here in Monterey or in the U.S. For those of us who do have the ability to remain in Monterey, withdrawing from the program would leave us seeking full-time jobs in this small metropolitan area in this time of national economic turmoil. And one of the local county’s major employers (MIIS) is shutting down. This will only further strain our local economy and make it more difficult for students who choose to withdraw from MIIS to find employment.
The decision to inform incoming students after we had already arrived in Monterey, many of us with year-long residential leases, feels exploitative; if I had known earlier, I would not have enrolled nor come across the continent to Monterey. But now I am here, bound by a lease, and faced with a choice: maintain my enrollment but with markedly fewer resources available to me during my two years while still paying the same amount for my graduate degree, or take a leap of faith into applying for full-time work in the area.
For many students, myself included, the scholarships we were awarded to offset our tuition offer security that cannot be guaranteed if we choose to withdraw. MIIS knows this. They know that it is likely in our best interest to remain enrolled, which ensures more tuition dollars for them. And we have until Sept. 15, just over two weeks from the announcement date, to decide. While I certainly understand that decisions are multifaceted and take time to finalize, Middlebury should have either given us more than two years notice (meaning, alerting us to the closure of MIIS but with a final graduation date of sometime beyond June 2027), or alerted us at the beginning of the summer — before most of us arrived here in Monterey — with the same option to withdraw from the Institute.
Middlebury’s behavior has been opportunistic and deceitful, and I am extremely disappointed by my first impressions. As a member of the Middlebury community, I certainly understand that the Institute is not a sustainable satellite for the college to maintain, and I understand the ultimate decision to close the Institute. But, as a member of the Middlebury community, I would have expected to have been granted the courtesy of foresight in this life-altering news.
