[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6165-6166]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     RECOGNIZING MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I speak often about the excellent higher 
education opportunities that are available in Vermont. Today, I want to 
honor Middlebury College for a new business venture that builds upon 
its academic reputation in foreign languages.
  A small, liberal arts school of 2,400 students, located in Addison 
County, Middlebury is a campus that is rooted in Vermont's rich 
culture, while charting the way forward to the future. From using wood 
chips to heat and cool buildings across the campus, to local food 
initiatives, to recycling building materials, students, faculty and 
staff use creativity and build on a tradition of excellence in helping 
to take the college to the next level.
  This week, Middlebury College was hailed as one of the Nation's top 
``green colleges'' in a new ranking by the Princeton Review. And a 
recent article in the New York Times described the college's new and 
innovative business partnership to develop an online language program 
for precollege students. Already well known for its intensive summer 
language programs, Middlebury will be able to broaden its reach and 
impact by bringing a language program directly into the homes of 
American students wanting to learn new languages.
  The Internet has emerged as a significant learning tool, and 
connecting students with language instruction on the Web is a wonderful 
academic idea as well as an innovative business initiative.
  I know that Middlebury College will continue to be a leader in 
academic innovation, and I wish them the best in their new endeavor.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the New York Times 
article, ``Middlebury to Develop Online Language Venture,'' be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Apr. 13, 2010]

             Middlebury To Develop Online Language Venture

                            (By Tamar Lewin)

       Middlebury College, a small Vermont college known for its 
     rigorous foreign-language programs, is forming a venture with 
     a commercial entity to develop online language programs for 
     pre-college students. The college plans to invest $4 million 
     for a 40 percent stake in what will become Middlebury 
     Interactive Languages.
       The partnership, with the technology-based education 
     company K12 Inc., will allow Middlebury to achieve two goals, 
     said Ronald D. Liebowitz, the president of the college: It 
     will help more American students learn foreign languages, an 
     area in which they lag far behind Europeans; and it will give 
     Middlebury another source of revenue.
       ``We wanted to do something about the fact that not enough 
     American students are learning other languages, and it's 
     harder for students if they don't learn language until 
     college,'' Mr. Liebowitz said. ``It is also my belief, and I 
     think our board's belief, that finding potential new sources 
     of revenue is not a bad thing. By doing what we're doing with 
     this venture, we hope to take some stress off our three 
     traditional sources of revenue--fees, endowment and 
     donations.''
       Middlebury, a 2,400-student liberal-arts college with an 
     endowment of more than $800 million, has offered summer 
     immersion language classes for almost a century, and now 
     teaches 10 languages in those programs at its campus and, as 
     of last year, some at Mills College in Oakland, Calif.
       Partnerships between universities and commercial entities 
     have become increasingly common in recent years, but the 
     Middlebury venture is unusual in that it ties the college's 
     academic reputation in foreign languages to a third-party 
     vendor. Moving into such an uncharted area carries risks, 
     education experts said.
       ``These partnerships are starting as ways for colleges, 
     which may feel themselves cash-strapped, to make some 
     bucks,'' said Philip G. Altbach, the Monan professor of 
     higher education at Boston College. ``I have problems with 
     the whole thing, particularly for a place like Middlebury, 
     which has a reputation as one of the best liberal-arts 
     colleges in the country, and for doing a very good job with 
     languages. They should protect that brand. They are not known 
     for online programs, and to jump in to the deep end of the 
     swimming pool, with a for-profit, is in my view dangerous.''
       Mr. Liebowitz said that although the move carried risks, 
     so, too, does inaction. ``The way I see it, to retain our 
     leadership in the teaching of foreign language, we have to 
     evolve with the times,'' he said. ``And where things are 
     going, in terms of access and education, is online.''
       In 2008, Middlebury joined with the Monterey Institute of 
     International Studies, a California graduate school, to start 
     the Middlebury-Monterey Language Academy, an intensive 
     language-immersion summer program for students in grades 8 
     through 12. That program, which will expand to new sites in 
     the new venture, offers four-week residential sessions at 
     Green Mountain College in Vermont, Oberlin College in Ohio, 
     Pomona College in California, and Bard College at Simon's 
     Rock in Massachusetts.
       Middlebury has also expanded its academic-year study-abroad 
     sites, the C. V. Starr-Middlebury Schools Abroad, to 35 
     cities across 14 countries. Almost half the students at those 
     sites now come from other colleges.
       A hallmark of Middlebury's language schools has been a 
     formal pledge to speak only the language of study during the 
     session.
       Of course, online programs cannot replicate the immersion 
     experience.
       The online expertise for the venture will come from K12, a 
     publicly traded company

[[Page 6166]]

     based in Herndon, Va. In partnership with charter schools and 
     school districts, K12 operates online public-school programs 
     in 25 states and Washington. K12 also operates the K12 
     International Academy, an accredited, diploma-granting online 
     private school serving students in more than 40 countries.
       ``We plan to make the courses available to individual kids, 
     home-school kids, charter virtual schools, and teachers who 
     might want them as supplements,'' Mr. Liebowitz said. ``I 
     think the price point will be somewhere in the vicinity of 
     $100.''

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