MIDDLEBURY — Middlebury College faculty, staff and students staged a schoolwide walkout and teach-in on the Old Chapel green on Thursday morning in response to the college’s plan for making budget cuts to address a projected $14.1 million deficit this fiscal year.
“Our working conditions are your learning experience,” David Miranda-Hardy, a member of the faculty, said at the demonstration. “That’s why we are here today to urge our trustees and administrators to change course.”
The budget plan announced April 2 included a reduction in matching contributions to the retirement benefit from 15% to 11% for faculty and staff, starting in January of 2026. This would impact staff hired before 2017 as the retirement match was already reduced to 11% for new employees in 2017. The match begins when college employees reach the age of 45.
Another aspect of the administration’s budget stabilization plan is maintaining the student body at the small private liberal arts college at 2,650, heightened from the pre-pandemic norm of 2,500. The college increased enrollment to more than 2,800 in 2020, according to the budget announcement.
Other cost-saving measures in the plan include offering an early retirement incentive for staff and consolidating at Middlebury the college’s summer language schools that are currently hosted by Bennington College. The plan also mentioned reevaluating employee contributions and deductibles to health insurance plans for potential changes in the coming year.
An 11% retirement match may seem generous, said Peter Matthews, a professor of economics, but salaries at Middlebury College tend to be lower than those at similar institutions. The overall compensation package with the higher retirement match was a draw for faculty and staff and encouraged them to stay. He said changing those benefits now feels like a “betrayal” for many.
Matthews told the crowd at the demonstration that a conservative estimate of the 4% reduction in the retirement match amounts to a $100,000 to $250,000 loss with compound interest by the time faculty and staff retire. He explained that the financial hit is more significant for younger employees who have been waiting for the retirement match benefit to take effect when they turn 45.
“It’s the equivalent of the college saying, ‘We’re not going to give you a rocking chair when you retire. We’re going to burn down your house.’ That’s the economic equivalent of what’s going on, and not surprisingly, people are upset,” Matthews said in an interview.
Following Thursday’s demonstration — which the administration said drew roughly 250 people — Middlebury College spokesperson Jon Reidel said in a written statement that the school has continued to provide updates on budgetary matters since the announcement.
“We value the perspectives of all of our faculty, staff, and students and are actively engaged in conversations with our constituents across Middlebury,” Reidel wrote.
Miranda-Hardy — an associate professor in the Film and Media Culture Department and among the leaders of the Middlebury Chapter of the American Association of University Professors — said the announced budget plan was a “unilateral” decision that was not made in collaboration with students, faculty and staff.
Jason Mittell, professor of film and media and the chair of the Faculty Council, said not only is the retirement match reduction a financial loss, but it comes after Middlebury College froze salaries for the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Mittell said most employees’ salaries, when adjusted for inflation, are less than those of 2019.
While Middlebury College is taking austerity measures, Miranda-Hardy said the endowment and student tuition fees continue to increase. He pointed to figures showing Middlebury’s endowment has grown from $1.1 billion in 2015 to $1.6 billion last June and student yearly tuition and fees grew from $61,000 in the 2015-16 school year to $90,000 this school year.
“Our compensation still lags way behind and now we are seeing a compensation cut. That is a breach of trust that is bringing morale even lower,” Miranda-Hardy said in an interview.
An ‘Albatross’
In the budget plan announcement, the leadership wrote that $8.7 million of the total deficit was the result of low enrollment at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, a satellite campus in California housing various graduate, joint-degree and certificate programs focused on multilingual and cross-cultural education.
Mittell said Middlebury College has invested large sums into the institute over 20 years since acquiring the campus in 2005. He called it an “albatross” for Middlebury College that is sinking finances and morale.
The rest of the deficit, amounting to $5.4 million, was tethered to decreased tuition revenue at the summer language schools, the Bread Loaf school and study abroad schools, as well as health care costs, “increased costs for some budgetary items unrelated to salaries or employee benefits, as well as interest and depreciation.”
Miranda-Hardy said the deficit is not the result of instructional costs or faculty and staff benefits, but that is the area the administration aims to trim. He said he thinks the college should work to centralize educational programming and bring jobs to Vermont rather than continue to invest in the institute in California.
Laurie Essig, a professor of gender, sexuality and feminist studies and a leader of the Middlebury chapter of the Association of University Professors, said Middlebury College’s deficit is a “self-imposed crisis,” that is separate from the federal funding threats to higher education happening nationally. She said the deficit is due in part to lack of financial oversight in investing in the institute at Monterey.
Growing frustration, fear of precedent
Thursday’s demonstration was the latest in a series of actions faculty, staff and students have taken in the past month to express frustration with the budget decisions.
On April 18 with a vote of 94%, faculty members approved a motion sponsored by the Faculty Council and the Middlebury Chapter of the American Association of University Professors urging the college’s leadership to cancel the benefit cuts and higher student enrollment and to begin again by discussing solutions with faculty, students and staff.
The faculty motion also called on the incoming president Ian Baucom to weigh in on the budget decisions, which he did a week later during a speech at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in California on April 25.
Baucom said that he supports the current leadership’s “truly difficult decision,” and will work with faculty, staff and students to build financial stability for the college in the future, according to the posted remarks.
A circulating online petition in support of maintaining faculty and staff retirement benefits has garnered around 800 signatures by faculty, staff, students, students’ family members and community members, according to Matthews. The physical copy of the petition was delivered to Middlebury College’s Provost Michelle McCauley at the close of the demonstration.
The majority of the economics faculty also signed onto a letter urging the administration to reconsider the financial plan, pledging to boycott commencement and other school events until “the decision has been reversed or a plan to mitigate the damage has been implemented.”
Essig said the budget announcement would set a concerning precedent if the college is able to renege on compensation promises without consulting faculty and staff. The college could continue to reduce salaries and benefits and employees would have no recourse, she said.
The Director of Discovery and Access at the Middlebury College library, Terry Simpkins, said he views the budget proposal as a product of a “failure of imagination” by college leaders to devise creative ways to address the deficit.
Along with the retirement match cut, Simpkins said library staff and other workers at the college will have to take on a larger burden to support more students and help facilitate the language school’s relocation to the Middlebury College campus.
“The administration’s response is always to solve whatever budget problems they are facing on the backs of staff,” Simpkins said. “There’s no real understanding or acknowledgement of the additional work that it causes for the existing staff to carry out these decisions.”
Media Production Specialist Ethan Murphy, a 17-year staff member, said at the protest that he was less than a year into earning the retirement match benefit before the college announced the reduction. He said the work of all staff is integral to the function of Middlebury College.
“This decision sets a precedent — a new Middlebury Way if you will — where no benefits are safe and where the very idea of a total compensation package is meaningless,” Murphy said at the demonstration. “It is safe to say that collectively, we are the student experience at Middlebury and we shouldn’t be made to feel guilty about defending long-promised benefits or be made to believe that layoffs are the only alternative.”
Student experience
Daniza Tazabekova, vice president of the Middlebury College Student Government, said she is concerned that continuing with higher enrollment may cause a scarcity of housing and space in classes for students.
Miranda-Hardy said he has already experienced the higher enrollment numbers having a negative impact on the student experience by causing a housing crisis, long cafeteria lines and a loss of community spaces.
At the demonstration, senior Freddi Mitchell said the student experience is tied to the working conditions of faculty and staff, which will both continue to deteriorate under the compensation cuts.
“As seniors at Middlebury, we understand that our experience would not be the same without the faculty and staff that have been with us along this way,” Mitchell said at the demonstration. “Increasing or maintaining the high student enrollment that we’ve experienced these last four years will continue to negatively impact student-faculty relationships and put more pressure on college staff.”
‘Volatile moment’
Miranda-Hardy said faculty, staff and students have not lost sight of the “biggest problem,” namely concerns with federal funding cuts, detention of international students and threats to free speech across college campuses. He called the budget cuts ill-timed, sparking discontent and disunity at the college as it transitions to a new president.
“It’s the worst possible time to breach the trust of your employees, dishonoring your commitments,” Miranda-Hardy said. “This is not the time to create a divided community.”
While budget cuts may be necessary, Tazabekova said decisions should be discussed and implemented in a “fair and transparent manner” with faculty, staff and students.
“When we’re in such a volatile moment and our funding sources from the federal government are being threatened, I can definitely understand why emergency measures need to be taken to just preserve the longstanding nature of the institution,” Tazabekova said. “But, for me personally, I think tough decisions need to be made in collaboration, because there are so many different stakeholders on campus.”
