[lg policy] Middlebury to Develop Online Language Venture

[Harold Schiffman]

April 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 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.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/education/14middlebury.html?ref=education
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