International students make up an integral part of Middlebury’s student body. The college has a long and proud history of welcoming international students. It was a founding member of the United World College Davis Scholars program, which has become the largest private scholarship for international students in the United States, and partners with organisations such as KenSAP and SOLA, to bring high-achieving international students to Vermont. However, amid continued uncertainty from the Trump administration, faculty, students, and administrators alike must make immediate and long-term efforts to consider the burdens our international students face.
Middlebury itself depends on these students to maintain its image as a “globally engaged” institution, and as such must recognize its responsibility for their care while they are away from home. When one travels to a foreign country to attend school, there is a necessary degree of independence required to tackle the responsibilities of adulthood. An impossible-to-end list: taxes, visa applications, phone calls home to check in on family, must be taken care of in addition to homework and job applications.
For its part, Middlebury College has taken steps to support its international cohort amid the Trump-era visa bans. One member of the Board strongly commented on the success of Middlebury Admissions in supporting its prospective and enrolled international students. The office recently hired over 10 dedicated current international students to support prospective applicants, further demystifying the US college experience, while maintaining high levels of contact with its enrolled students. Additionally, in recent years, the school has worked with students to help them find campus housing and employment when returning home over breaks or during the summer is not an option.
Middlebury’s ISSS office helps students pay for SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Program) application fees, a preliminary step in applying for a student visa. ISSS also runs programming during orientation week to help new students become accustomed to the United States. They also assist students in obtaining summer and post-graduation work permits and continue to follow up with students years after graduation. Additionally, President Baucom's 10-year plan included the “Define Global Mission and Strategy” working group, which discussed how to support these students.
Still, the opacity of the Trump administration’s recent restrictions seems to have left the college administration and ISSS at a loss for ways to meaningfully defend its enrolled students against encroachments on their opportunity in this country. We ask the administration directly: Why have you not opened a forum for international students to come together to seek support? Why is it business as usual, as their whole lives have been upended?
We reflected on the obligation of friends to carry their immigration documentation with them at all times. We discussed that, for 13% of this campus, a trip to Montreal (considered an extension of campus on some weekends) is quite simply impossible.
While the liberal arts encourage students to choose majors based on their individual interests, many visas make it easier to stay in the U.S. if their course of study aligns with specific career paths. Non-STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) degrees allow students to stay in the United States for just one year after graduation. This limits the flexibility with which international students can comfortably explore their true range of academic interests.
Majors such as International Politics and Economics (IP&E), which require students to study abroad, are no longer viable options because leaving the U.S. might mean they cannot return. The Board did comment that, in this regard, the college has an advantage: Economics is considered a STEM degree at Middlebury, allowing econ majors to remain in the United States for up to 3 years if employed in a STEM-related field.
What can we do? To our domestic peers, we encourage you to empathize. Simply taking an extra moment to ask how someone is really doing, if they need help running an errand or refraining from asking if they are going home for break can help make friends on visas feel a little bit less alone as they are being told from the top down that their presence is not wanted in this country.
While the demands of the Middlebury curriculum can certainly feel like a burden at times for domestic students, for international counterparts, this workload is only one component of a web of often more tangible stressors.
Trump’s student visa bans are hurting America’s reputation as a center for global learning. We do not expect the college to reverse these bans. Instead, we want the college to reaffirm its commitment to the global community. Middlebury students study abroad, participate in short courses, and vacation in countries on the student visa ban list. Just one example, Middlebury students can study abroad in Tanzania. Tanzania is on the student visa ban list: Tanzanians at Middlebury cannot return home.
Middlebury College consistently positions itself as an internationally oriented, globally connected institution. Now more than ever, as students, we must cultivate empathy and consideration for each other. We speak the languages of our international peers, attend their cultural events, and learn about the politics and histories of their countries. This is not a partisan issue; these are our friends and classmates.
