Middlebury College is a private
liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800, it is one
of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,526
undergraduates from all 50 states and 74 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors
in the arts, humanities, literature, foreign languages, social sciences, and
natural sciences. Middlebury follows a 4–1–4 academic calendar, with two
four-course semesters and a one-course January term.
Middlebury is the first American
institution of higher education to have granted a bachelor's degree to an
African-American, graduating Alexander Twilight in the class of 1823.
Middlebury was also one of the first formerly all-male liberal arts colleges in
New England to become a coeducational institution, following the trustees'
decision in 1883 to accept women. Middlebury has an acceptance rate of 17.0%
and was listed as tied for the fourth-best liberal arts college in the U.S. in
the 2016 U.S. News & World Report rankings.
Middlebury received its founding
charter on November 1, 1800, as an outgrowth of the Addison County Grammar
School, which had been founded three years earlier in 1797. The College's first
president—Jeremiah Atwater—began classes a few days later, making Middlebury
the first operating college or university in Vermont. One student named Aaron
Petty graduated at the first commencement held in August 1802.
The College's founding religious
affiliation was loosely Congregationalist. Yet the idea for a college was that
of town fathers rather than clergymen, and Middlebury was clearly "the
Town's College" rather than the Church's. Chief among its founders were
Seth Storrs and Gamaliel Painter, the former credited with the idea for a
college[8] and the latter as its greatest early benefactor. In addition to
receiving a diploma upon graduation, Middlebury graduates also receive a
replica of Gamaliel Painter's cane. Painter bequeathed his original cane to the
College and it is carried by the College President at official occasions
including first-year convocation and graduation.
Alexander Twilight, class of 1823,
was the first black graduate of any college or university in the United States;
he also became the first African American elected to public office, joining the
Vermont House of Representatives in 1836. At its second commencement in 1804,
Middlebury granted Lemuel Haynes an honorary master's degree, the first
advanced degree ever bestowed upon an African American.
In 1883, the trustees voted to
accept women as students in the college, making Middlebury one of the first
formerly all-male liberal arts colleges in New England to become a
coeducational institution. The first female graduate—May Belle Chellis—received
her degree in 1886.As valedictorian of the class of 1899, Mary Annette Anderson
became the first African American woman elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
The College’s centennial in 1900
began a century of physical expansion beyond the three buildings of Old Stone
Row. York and Sawyer designed the Egbert Starr Library (1900), a Beaux-Arts
edifice later expanded and renamed the Axinn Center, and Warner Hall (1901).
Growth in enrollment and the endowment led to continued expansion westward.
McCullough Hall (1912) and Voter Hall (1913) featured gymnasium and laboratories,
respectively, adopting Georgian Revival styling while confirming the campus
standard of grey Vermont limestone, granite, and marble.The national fraternity
Kappa Delta Rho was founded in Painter Hall on May 17, 1905. Middlebury College
abolished fraternities in the early 1990s, but the organization continued on
campus in the less ritualized form of a social house. Due to a policy at the
school against single-sex organizations, the house was forced to coeducate
during the same period as well.
The German Language School, founded
in 1915 under the supervision of then-President John Martin Thomas, began the
tradition of the Middlebury College Language Schools. These Schools, which take
place on the Middlebury campus during the summer, enroll about 1,350 students
in the Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese,
Russian, and Spanish Language Schools.
Middlebury President Paul Dwight
Moody began the American tradition of a National Christmas Tree in 1923 when
the College donated a 48-foot balsam fir for use at the White House.The tree
was illuminated when Calvin Coolidge, a Vermont-native in the first year of his
presidency, flipped an electric switch.
The Bread Loaf School of English,
Middlebury's graduate school of English, was established at the College's Bread
Loaf Mountain campus in 1920. The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference was
established in 1926. In 1978, the Bread Loaf School of English expanded to
include a campus at Lincoln College, Oxford University. In 1991, the School
expanded to include a campus at St. John's College in New Mexico, and to
theUniversity of North Carolina, Asheville, in 2006.
The C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools
Abroad began in 1949 with the school in Paris; they now host students at 38
sites in Argentina, Brazil, China, Cameroon, Chile, Egypt, France, Germany,
India, Italy, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Russia, Spain, andUruguay.
The second half of the 20th Century
accelerated Middlebury’s transition from a small, regional institution to a
top-tier liberal arts college with an international presence.Campus growth
continued. In 1965, Middlebury established its Environmental Studies program,
creating the first undergraduate Environmental Studies program in the U.S.[18]
Nationally affiliated fraternities were abolished in 1990; some chose to become
co-educational social houses which continue today.