In some Middlebury classrooms, a few seats are filled not by degree-seeking students but by local residents who have chosen to audit a course.
Since 2008, the college has allowed community members to audit most classes free of charge, in addition to welcoming residents to public lectures and events. Unlike student auditors, community auditors are not enrolled in the college’s records and are not bound by formal attendance or grading requirements. The majority are retirees, as class schedules often overlap with traditional work hours.
To audit a class, community members must obtain approval from both the course instructor and the dean of curriculum before submitting a form to the registrar’s office. As with student auditors, expectations for participation depend on the instructor. If space is available, professors generally welcome auditors.
“I participated like any other student,” Tobi Andrews, who audited Associate Professor of Education Johnathan Miller-Lane’s Education in the USA class in the fall semester, said. “He told me, ‘I want to hear your voice. You bring something to the class from your experience.’”
According to Dean of Curriculum Grace Spetafora, last year there were 26 community auditors: 12 in the fall, three during J-Term, and 11 in the spring. This year’s auditors hover at around the same amount: 11 in the fall, three in J-term, and six in the spring – 19 total. Before signing off on a community auditor’s request, Spetafora double-checks enrollment, making sure a potential auditor doesn’t prevent a registered undergraduate student from enrolling in the course.
Community auditors are also frequent attendees at department events – particularly the weekly politics luncheons, according to Political Science Professor Matthew Dickinson.
For Bruce Andrews, a recent retiree who moved to Middlebury in 2022, his experience attempting to audit a class was welcoming but rocky. He decided to audit Intro to American Politics with Professor Matthew Dickinson in the fall semester.
“[Dickinson] could not have been more open and welcoming,” Andrews said. “But the interesting part is, he had no idea how this worked.”
Although the opportunity for auditing as a non-student is publicized on the Middlebury website, many instructors aren’t aware of the process. Andrews and his wife, Tobi, were referred to the registrar’s office to gain the necessary approvals.
“We sort of had to bounce around a little bit to find someone who knew the process to get us in there,” Andrews said.
Once in the class, auditors can participate as much as they’d like. Among younger students with GPA pressures, community auditors bring a different approach to education, of interest in the class itself rather than its applicability in a potential career.
“Being in a class like Education in the USA, where I wasn’t in a degree track, wasn’t there for a grade, was a completely different educational experience for me,” Tobi Andrews said. “It was fascinating to be back in a classroom with people who are living in a completely different set of world circumstances.”
Middlebury’s auditing program offers Middlebury residents an entry point into an otherwise selective institution, something Political Science Professor Daniel Fram, who audited classes at Boston College before graduate school, finds valuable.
“Professors have sort of a mission to engage with the curious,” Fram said. “I think it’s good to make some space for the activity of learning as a human activity, something for its own sake.”
For Dickinson, auditors create a symbiotic relationship between professors, registered students, and themselves, bringing new perspectives to a relatively homogenous, 18-22-year-old student body.
“Because they have experiences that my undergraduates have obviously not yet undergone, the auditors often provide useful insights and much needed corrections to things my undergraduates think they understand,” Dickinson wrote in an email to The Campus. “I think everyone benefits from having them in a class – particularly me!”
Amid growing tensions over grade inflation and career pressures, community auditors represent a small, but persistent, group interested in classes in and of themselves.
