Middlebury Handbook

Your Employment

Middlebury Language School faculty and staff are considered "at will" employees. No employment contract is expressed or implied. Language Schools' faculty and staff are governed by the Middlebury College Handbook (https://handbook.middlebury.edu).

Salary Payments

Summer faculty and staff are paid in bi-weekly installments. The final payment will not be issued until all obligations to the College have been met.

Language Schools Employee and Dependent Auditor Benefit

With permission of the School Director, Language School faculty/staff with more than one year of service and their dependents may be eligible to audit Language Schools classes at no charge, however there may be charges for room and board depending on auditor status.

All auditor requests must be approved by the Director of the School in which the class(es) will be audited. Schools may individually determine requirements or restrictions (age, number of courses taken, pledge, residence, etc.).

Academic Policies

Information about Yourself and Your Courses

Each faculty member must submit a syllabus, including a description of how the final grade is determined, an outline of material to be covered—and all course requirements, including exams and deadlines—for each course offered during the summer session, as well as a curriculum vitae (CV/résumé) to the School's Assistant Director at the start of the session. In addition, supply your Assistant Director with a photograph and brief biography (200–250 words) to be posted on the Language Schools' website. Please give these documents to your School Assistant Director by the end of the first week of classes, or earlier if possible.

Classes

Classes meet five days a week, Monday through Friday. No holidays are observed during the summer session. Please refer any questions about class schedules and classrooms to the Assistant Director of your School.

In Middlebury's highly-intensive summer program, great importance is placed on regular attendance and participation. It is expected that students will miss class only for illness or the most compelling of reasons. Normally students are not permitted to miss more than three days of class. Missing more than three days will likely result in removal from the program and failing grades. Please report to the director of your School any student who is frequently absent from class.

Advising Students

Please refer students who seem to be experiencing difficulty (handling stress, adjusting to language immersion, etc.) to the Director of their school, dean of the Language Schools, or a counselor via TimelyCare. Please reassure students that the Language Pledge is suspended when dealing with all health and counseling personnel.

We urge you to refer students who seem to be experiencing trouble adjusting to the Director of their school, dean of the Language Schools, or a counselor via TimelyCare. Please reassure students that the Language Pledge is suspended when dealing with all health and counseling personnel.

Student Records

In accordance with FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974), students or former students of Middlebury College have the right to inspect all educational records placed in their files after January 1975. Note: For additional information, contact the Registrar's Office at ext. 5770.

Class Lists

Please check class lists carefully for accuracy, and report any discrepancies to your School Director or Assistant Director. If there are students in your class whose names do not appear on your class list, request that they clarify their status immediately with the School office. Note: Auditors are not included on class lists, and may not take an active part in class.

Class lists will be available at the beginning of the session. Please keep your list up-to-date during the add/drop period and communicate changes with your School office.

Once you receive the revised lists, please check to ensure that adds and drops have been properly entered. It is important that this be done carefully, as these lists are used for both final grades and for billing when extra courses are taken.

Course Changes

Add/drop procedures are handled by each School office. Students should obtain the approvals of the instructors involved in the added and dropped courses, as well as approval of the Director or Associate Director of the School. The director or associate director of your School must also sign the cards. Please note the add/drop deadlines for Middlebury campus programs and Bennington campus programs.

Plagiarism

Please review Middlebury College's policies on Academic Honesty, as U.S. institutions are very strict about these matters. In particular, please emphasize to your students how sources are to be cited, and what, if any, consultation about work may take place among students.

Grades and Evaluations

Please conform carefully to the grading system used at Middlebury College. If this system differs from that of your home institution, or if you are unfamiliar with U.S. grading practices, please discuss the matter with the director of your School.

Changes in grades are permitted only to correct clerical errors or to ensure fairness to a student. If you find it necessary to change a grade, you must obtain a grade change form from your School office and submit the completed form to the director of your School.

Faculty members will be asked to evaluate graduate students who hope to be admitted to one of the Language Schools abroad. We appreciate your taking the time to make a careful and specific evaluation.

NOTE: The A+ grade is available only at the graduate level and represents an extraordinary level of achievement. Please meet with your director to complete a special form before assigning this grade. Also, please be aware that a failure report form must be completed and returned with your grade roster if you assign a student a failing grade.

Use of Electronic Resources at the Language Schools

All work submitted by students must be their own. It is unacceptable for students to have a native speaker of the language write their work. It is unacceptable to copy language from any source without quotation marks and proper reference. Use of any translation program to create work that is then turned in as the student's own, unless the assignment explicitly calls for the use of such programs, is considered plagiarism, serious offense and can result in punishment up to and including expulsion from the Language Schools.

The use of online dictionaries is acceptable because students are responsible for using the provided words or short phrases, choosing the most appropriate one, putting it in the proper grammatical context, and providing all necessary punctuation. A translation program, on the other hand, provides a complete phrase or longer piece of text; here a student has only to copy the provided words. Therefore, anything created by a translation program cannot be considered the student's own work and, such work will be considered academic misconduct, which is a serious offense and can result in punishment up to and including expulsion from the Language Schools.

Middlebury Language Schools students are bound by the Middlebury Honor Code. 

Grade Rosters

Your director or associate director will notify you when the online grading window is open. Please make sure you complete and submit all grade rosters in BannerWeb before leaving campus. Do not issue the final grades to your individual students. All grades are reported to students through BannerWeb.

Survey Policy

All surveys or questionnaires, of any kind, involving faculty, students, or staff, must be registered in advance with the office of the Dean of the Language Schools. The Dean's office will contact the director of the School (or Schools) involved for their permission. No surveys may be conducted without permission from both the dean and director(s) of the School(s). Each proposed survey needs to state in clear and unequivocal terms that participation by faculty or students is entirely voluntary and in no way related to course requirements or grades. If students are involved, the survey also must be approved by Middlebury's Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines

U.S. law provides protection to authors, creators, and publishers of works of literature or art. The law also enumerates specific uses that do not infringe on copyright for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research (e.g. fair use). Middlebury College values and respects intellectual property rights, even as it recognizes an equal responsibility to advance the needs of scholarship and teaching within the framework of the law.
Please review the Intellectual Property Policy.