Archived Edition: February 15, 2005 | Back to Current	Jul 31, 2010

Spotlight on Middlebury commons; Midd-way between old and new

Residential changes at Middlebury have not come easy. The liberal arts college, Williams’ Vermont peer, implemented what it calls a “commons” system of residential life in 1992, years before current students arrived on campus.

Despite an ambitious construction program and reorganization of residential life along academic lines, some students still see the commons years later “as an administrative attempt at social engineering,” Tim Spears, dean of the college, said last month. “For students,” Spears said, “‘commons’ is a loaded word.”

While most at Middlebury tend to agree with the premises of the system, frustration remains with the fashion in which the commons have progressed. Spears said, “Some students ask, why do we have this?”

“There’s not a great sense of commons pride,” said Amanda Goodwin, a sophomore and member of the Student Government Association’s finance committee.

There is consensus among all students and staff members that the commons continue to evolve. Goodwin said, “There is a sense at Middlebury that the commons are still in a development stage.”

The initial decision to adopt the system came out of a decade-long effort to enhance the relationship between intellectual and academic life, which began with the recommendation by a campus committee in 1989 to abolish the fraternity system and replace it with commons and social houses.

Middlebury implemented the Enhanced Commons System, a model that decentralized the campus into five clusters in 1999. The system, controversial since its conception, called for the decentralization of the dean’s office, the creation of five dining halls and the construction of several residence halls in order to create smaller communities within the college.

One of the first strategies for making the college feel smaller was to shrink the size of the student body to under 2000. “[Middlebury] had outgrown its status as a small college,” Spears said. “We needed a new structure to have small communities.”

Middlebury ultimately decided that making several smaller communities would allow the college to expand its size to 2400.

Middlebury established the first generation of the commons system in 1992. Spears said that some believed at the time that the commons were a conspiracy to kill social houses, the last vestiges of the fraternity system. Spears called the first implementation “a loose confederation of would-be communities of various dorms on campus.”

By 1997, after administrative review, it was clear that the commons needed more energy. “They were not doing what we wanted them to do,” Spears said.

The committee developed a recommendation for a more “fully-Enhanced Commons system.” Middlebury’s president at the time, John McCardell, gave a taped speech in 1997 to the board of trustees at their summer retreat.

At that retreat, the board voted to begin a new commons system based on the three pillars of proximate faculty housing, decentralized dining and continuing membership (that students would stay in the same commons for four years.) McCardell’s speech circulated around campus following the meeting on what became known as the “Secret Tape.”

The tape incited students who viewed the board’s decision to implement a commons system as a top-down regulation of their social lives. The entire 1997-98 school year became a community-wide discussion of the commons, with forums held and an online survey that resulted in considerable response. The final report of the Residential Life planning group was accepted by the board of trustees in May 1998. The college spent the following year ironing out the logistics of full-scale decentralization.

Objections at the time were plentiful. Some professors objected to the use of so much money going to “student amenities” instead of academic use. Others argued that Middlebury was too small to need smaller communities. Others said the commons system was better suited to urban environments and that the building spree would make Middlebury’s rural campus ugly.

The text of the Enhanced Residential Plan recognized the polarized environment into which it was released. “Students in particular have been upset by the prospect of changing the school they know and love,” the plan said. “Despite the many good things that happen on this campus, the Middlebury experience is not uniformly excellent.” It urged the community to use its imagination to meet the challenge of closing the gaps between various campus constituencies.



Academic Advising



One of the primary focuses of the commons system was to improve the advising experience at Middlebury. Most students, faculty and staff agree that this has been the most successful aspect of the system.

Today, incoming students select a first-year seminar. Most often this selection determines the commons they enter, though the students do not know beforehand which seminar corresponds with which commons. The commons are balanced by academic interest, meaning that science seminars and humanities seminars are evenly distributed among commons.

The faculty member who teaches the first-year seminar is the academic advisor to the students in his class until they pick a major advisor at the end of their sophomore year.

In addition to the faculty advisor, students have a close relationship with the dean of their commons. As a result of the report, the residential life office and the dean’s office ceased to exist, as their functions are now wrapped into the administration of each of the five commons.

Spears said, “Students have come to appreciate [the advising]; it’s the most popular part of the commons system.” Goodwin said that first-year seminars bring the conversation from classrooms back to the dorms.

Students who spoke with the Record were unanimously supportive of the decentralized dean’s office. Goodwin agreed that the commons work well for advising, saying that students feel comfortable talking informally with their dean in addition to going to him or her for academic reasons.

Spears, who is also a professor of American literature, said the faculty sees a clear benefit to being part of the commons. The symbolic faculty heads of each commons live in college housing near their commons. They often invite students to come to their homes for dinner and conversation following lectures, sometimes several times each week.

“The commons help integrate faculty with students in a non-evaluative way,” said Nick Campofranco, a junior and co-chair of Wonnacott Commons. While faculty members are present at commons events, Spears said that professors “are not woven into students’ everyday lives – that hasn’t happened.”

White also said that other commons employees have developed closer relationships with students, including custodians, who now have a much better rapport with students. When first-years arrive on campus, deans, residential staff, advisors and custodians for their commons greet them and help them move in.



Housing and Dining



Along with the establishment of the commons, the Enhanced Residential Plan called for the construction of new residence halls and associated dining halls. The original plan was to build the commons one by one. Ross Commons was completed first; Atwater came online this year, with its dining component opening just two weeks ago.

The residential requirements of the commons system have been among its most divisive components. When the Enchanced Commons idea surfaced in 1997, students were “very much against it,” said David Edleson, dean of Cook Commons. There are still “very mixed feelings” about the commons, Edleson said, though “each year it gets better.”

“One strength of the commons system is to live with some people for a long time,” he said. “Not necessarily with friends; that’s not the point. The point is [students become] more respectful and get to know each other well.”

“Students resent limitations on where they can live,” Edleson said. “Some students feel [the college is] small enough already.”

Eli Berman, a sophomore member of the Task Force for Commons and Student Life and a senator from Wonnacott Commons, said that “right now people see [the commons] as a separator, as the inability to live with friends.”

Berman disagreed with the assertion of some students that the commons over-compartmentalize the campus: “There’s no chain or boundary separating each commons,” he said.

The inequality of upperclass housing among the commons has been a source of frustration for students since the implementation of the system. “With students, the principle concern is housing,” Spears said.

Students in the unfinished commons have little desirable housing. “Right now, there’s nothing to look forwards to,” Spears said. In the past, students have changed commons on a yearly basis to get better housing.

Campofranco said the experience of students living in completed commons is not different from the experience of those living in uncompleted commons. “Facilities is only a piece of it,” he said. According to Campofranco, the oldest completed commons, Ross, has the highest percentage of people leaving it each year.

When the commons were not part of the room draw system, students switched commons annually for the best housing. That meant that some commons did not have enough beds after to accommodate first-years who wished to continue in the same commons. In Cook Commons, there were 170 first-years and only 12 spaces for rising sophomores.

The college has revised room draw several times to enable continuing membership in the commons. “The [old] room draw was defeating the purpose of continuity,” Campofranco said.

Goodwin said, “This is the first year where room draw has supported the commons.”

As it stands now, Middlebury has a multi-tiered room draw. First, students are assigned random numbers within their commons to choose single or double rooms. If students wish to leave their commons, they must wait for the all-campus room draw, which takes place after all the commons draws occur. The system is based on seniority. Students who switch commons pick at the end of their class.

Some rooms at Middlebury are reserved in groups as pseudo-suites for another round called Block Draw. In this round, each participant is assigned points. A student receives a point for every semester he has spent at Middlebury and a point for every semester he has spent in his current commons. This system rewards students based on seniority and continuing membership of a commons.

Within each commons system are academic interest and substance-free housing. When a student moves into a language house, he changes his commons affiliation.

According to Kelly Bevere, residential systems coordinator, “More times than not, [juniors returning from abroad] do have to live in a different commons.” These students are not penalized and receive the points they would have received in their own commons.

Spears said there is “de facto segregation” by class year, even within the commons. He said that study abroad and separate first-year housing account for students living primarily with their classes in the commons.

Some students “dislike [fewer] residential choices,” Spears said. On the flip side, there has been an increase in student demand to stay within the same commons from year to year. Edleson also said there are 50 percent fewer students who want to live off-campus for 2005-06. Only 65 students applied.

Spears said the college is reassessing its plan to proceed with building and may consider completing the housing across campus before building additional dining halls. This will save the college money, as well, as dining is the most “economically challenging” part of the commons system. The continuing costs of operating multiple facilities is greater than the cost of operating the existing three, Spears said.

Students may greet that development favorably, as the decentralization of the dining facility has been the most contentious issue for them as of late. “People don’t want to be separated that much,” Goodwin said. “It’s our one time together.”

Edleson agreed that communal spaces were important but questioned whether dining halls were ultimately worth the cost. As an alternative, he suggested that the commons build open spaces to hold catered dinners once a week for commons residents.

Berman strongly supported the dining component of the commons system. “If you’re alone for dinner one night, you should be able to go to your commons dining hall and it’s not weird to sit down with anyone there.” He envisioned the dining hall as a community-building facility.

There is also a perception among the students that the commons have detracted from the faculty resources of the college. “If you really want to push something, do you want new buildings or do you want to increase salaries and hire more faculty?” asked Goodwin, who serves on the student committee charged with advising the board of trustees on tuition. The Special Initiatives Fund is a proposed system by which representatives from the commons and major student organizations like MCAB would meet to decide co-sponsorship. They would pool the commons current resources to give out money.

The problem now is that students can go to every commons to get co-sponsorship money. In addition to the communication gap, “[the commons] are not aware of how much they’ve given out. They’re not finance people,” Goodwin said.

Berman disagreed with the centralized funding pool. “Ideally, you would just go to your commons [for sponsorship],” he said.

Unlike MCAB, which brings in campus-wide events, “The commons’ focus is smaller,” Campofranco said.

The purpose of each commons council, which co-chairs like him run, is to allocate money to other students.

In his commons, Wonnacott, the commons distributes Wonnagrants to help pay students for community-based internships.

Campofranco said the atmosphere of the commons differed from the social houses, “[The commons have] more wholesome events.”

Berman hoped that the college would give more than $10,000 to $12,000 per year to each commons in the future, a level of funding that he believed was unacceptably low.

Most commons events are under-attended, Goodwin said.

According to Berman, Junior Counselors (JCs) take freshmen to events. But as students get older, they become “more concerned about housing,” he said.

Campofranco agreed: “The commons is more geared towards freshmen and sophomores. Older students are busy with work.” He said that because “upperclassmen are less involved,” they are critical of the commons “from an outside perspective.”



Looking Forward



Though the current residential system has been in place for six years, it has been two years that the campus has been free of classes exposed to the previous residential system.

“Six years isn’t as much time as it would seem,” Edleson said.

The answer remains largely the same as when the system was introduced: Middlebury must continue to build upon its academic reputation and provide a comprehensive, seamless education.

Looking back, Spears said that the key to successful residential reform is to “get students involved early on.”

He stressed that reforms must be a “collaborative enterprise.”

“Often [student] reaction is against the process itself,” he said. “Change can seem revolutionary; issue the challenge in optimistic terms.”