THE FRONT PAGE of the Addison Independent on Nov. 9, 2023

How does an esteemed educational institution continue to prepare its students for life after graduation in an ever-changing, complex world?

It evolves. 

This year, Middlebury College sought to update its offerings, providing students with more accessible educational opportunities and experiences that would ready them for a 21st-century world and workforce. The institution also in 2023 launched a $600 million fundraising campaign to support those efforts.  

College officials kicked off the public phase of the “For Every Future” campaign in October. The fundraising campaign is the largest in the school’s 223-year history and is aimed at supporting a variety of initiatives intended to enrich students’ experiences at the institution and help prepare them to navigate the world that awaits them after graduation. 

Funds raised through the campaign will support projects in five priority areas: access, academic excellence, experience, annual giving and capital improvements. More than a third of the funds will increase financial aid that could diversify the student body. The campaign also targets an expansion of key academics, particularly interdisciplinary programs and funding of internships and experiential learning (including athletics). Another 20% of the funds will be earmarked for building projects, including at the Snowbowl.

The college launched the campaign in July of 2021 and hopes to reach its $600 million fundraising goal by June 2028. By the end of the year, the institution was a little more than halfway toward meeting that target, with $389,088,126 raised. 

Included in that total was $7 million in gifts the institution secured through a partnership with two charitable organizations — Erol, a philanthropic foundation, and Next World Philanthropies — to expand the college’s Climate Action Program. The Climate Action Program, or CAP, supports students in their efforts to tackle climate change through paid fellowships, connections with Middlebury alumni and a variety of other offerings.

During the next 10 years, Erol’s pledge of $3 million will be used to support current CAP programming and to create additional opportunities for students to pursue climate action work at Middlebury and beyond. For its part, NextWorld pledged $4 million to endow CAP. 

In addition to planning new offerings for students, this year Middlebury College continued its work with the Kathryn Wasserman Davis Collaborative in Conflict Transformation, providing opportunities for members of the college and broader Middlebury community to explore different types of conflict and how they approach that friction.

The various programming was supported by a $25 million grant the college received from an anonymous donor in March of 2022 to fund the creation of a new conflict transformation initiative. Through the initiative, the college has supported existing institution-wide work in the area of conflict transformation and developed new programming. 

This year, the initiative supported students in internships at Addison County social service organizations, events at the Middlebury campus covering topics like restorative justice practices in schools and politics and persuasion in American politics, and opportunities for individuals to explore conflict-related goals through community workshops and other events as part of The Global Body in Conflict: Movement Matters series.

As the year came to a close, college officials encouraged community members to take part in upcoming programs related to the conflict transformation initiative.