Middlebury College on Friday announced that it would not be bringing thousands of students to its campuses in Middlebury, Ripton and Monterey, Calif., this summer because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but would instead offer some of its summer academic programs only online. The college will completely cancel others of its programs.
Middlebury College Provost Jeff Cason sent out this letter to the community on April 17:
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Dear Faculty, Staff, and Students,
With academic continuity underway through remote instruction for the remainder of the spring semester for both our Vermont and California campuses, as well as the Schools Abroad, we have now turned our attention to plans for Middlebury’s summer academic programs. Our summer schools and programs provide our undergraduate and graduate students with expansive opportunities, and we want to continue as many of them as we can for the 2,000-plus who typically take advantage of them.
That said, health and safety remain at the front of our minds as we decide what to do this summer. As a consequence, most of our major programs will not take place in person this summer.
Many, however, will take place through remote instruction. In particular, the Language Schools and the Bread Loaf School of English will be mounting versions of their programs remotely, recognizing that our students want to gain further proficiency in the languages they are learning, make progress toward their MA degrees, and engage with their faculty and fellow students. The Bread Loaf School of English, for example, will offer new credit-bearing opportunities that fulfill degree requirements and allow students and faculty to work together at close range, even though at a distance—building in unique ways on their collective talents.
We are facing an unusual summer, and we want to engage as much as we possibly can with our students and help them make academic progress. Our faculty colleagues will miss the in-person, face-to-face community that empowers and inspires us. But, as we come together remotely, we’re excited by what we can learn and do.
In addition to the Language Schools and the Bread Loaf School of English, several other programs will move forward this summer, remotely. These include the Institute’s English Preparation for Graduate Studies program and the Institute’s Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia, the latter fully funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. We will also offer MiddCORE remotely.
At the same time, a number of summer programs will be cancelled this summer. As announced two months ago, the School of the Environment’s China program will not take place. The Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences in June—the Translators’ conference and the Environmental Writers’ conference—will be cancelled (we will make a decision about the August Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in June). The Center for Social Entrepreneurship’s June Forum will be cancelled. Several other undergraduate programs will not run, including the Museum Studies program run through our School Abroad in Oxford, and the summer study program on Performing Arts and Community Engagement that was slated to run in Uganda. Finally, there are a number of Institute summer programs that will be cancelled or postponed, while some others will run remotely. Students scheduled to take those programs will be contacted separately.
We are in an extraordinary moment. We are adapting our academic programs as well as we can. The leaders of our various summer programs will be communicating to their students and faculty and staff colleagues in upcoming days about how the summer will play out. I ask for your patience as we work through our next steps.
Best regards,
 
Jeff Cason
Provost