MIDDLEBURY, VT: The Middle-bury campus is surrounded by mountains on all sides. Along with this, the pure air and immense open spaces were the most impressive part of Middlebury for me. Middlebury claims to be the only college to have its own 18-hole golf course. Almost every year, Middlebury renovates one of its buildings; the dorms, therefore, are in very good shape and have a modern ski-lodge quality about them. In fact, Middlebury owns and runs the Snow Bowl, a nearby ski area, for which students can buy season tickets for fifty dollars.

The town of Middlebury is dominated by college life. A row of shops lines Main Street ( a river flows beneath) including all of the necessities (drug store, clothes shop, ice cream parlor). Several people on my tour reconvened at a restaurant called Woody's, which apparently was recommended by every person asked (the food is great and almost every night groups play live music).

The dormitory system seems to work well. Freshman must live in an assigned dorm for the first semester, but upperclassmen can choose a group of friends to live with, called block housing. The seven fraternities on campus were forced to drop their national status last year because the system does not allow female members. Students can also live in a language house where one language is spoken throughout the dorm at all times. Although Middlebury has extensive programs abroad, it is not just a language school as it is known to be. Actually, English and the sciences top the most popular majors list, and languages are the sixth most popular. In addition, a 19 million dollar Arts Center will be completeed in 1991 for Middlebury's 1950 students.

My tour guide, who was from Kashmir, was entertaining and enthusiastic (if a bit long-winded). From him I heard that Middlebury prints four student newspapers, and that each of the six dining halls serves Ben and Jerry's ice cream.




Reviewed in 1990