Middlebury College

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.