<p>Keil – purple spotted cow mascot named Ephelia. I rest my case.</p>
<p>And Williams sends more recent grads to Teach America than any other place.</p>
<p>Your perceptions are valid as you pointed out before, but you are looking at a narrow band of circumstances.</p>
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<p>No, the biggest concern is losing Middlebury’s tax-exempt status; why do you think NYU no longer owns Prince Spaghetti or Wesleyan, My Weekly Reader? The latter paid for just about all of Wesleyan’s capital projects from the mid-fifties through the early sixties; weaning itself away from a “guaranteed” stream of business income was one of the major challenges facing Wesleyan when it sold the parent company to Xerox in exchange for publicly traded shares of stock, which was itself deemed slightly scandalous at the time.</p>
<p>I read an interesting book on financing and higher ed over 50+ years. Can’t remember the name right now.</p>
<p>One of the issues it took up was revenue from off shoot programs, most notably correspondences courses packaged by Columbia University. It seems that this strategy yielded mixed results financially and ran the risk of diluting the cache of the brand.</p>
<p>While I certainly can’t speak to any of the specifics of Middlebury’s potential branding of its language programs, one can hardly argue that they are, indeed, a leader (if not the leader) in the field. (unlike say, taking a correspondence course in marketing from Columbia or whatever). As for maintaining an exempt institution, it is my impression, that some type of educational software (and is what they’re talking about) would probably not fall under corporatizing the college, as it would be developed within an educational mission to serve elementary and secondary schools, especially relevant when so many are cutting back on international languages within their curriculum. Like I said… I really have no details or insights, just a little common sense deducing from what the school has put out on the subject.</p>
<p>I certainly hope that Middlebury is evaluating this based on concerns about preserving its “brand” and long-term reputation, because there is no chance it would lose its tax-exempt status.</p>
<p>I am not certain exactly when NYU and Wesleyan divested themselves of their profitable businesses. In the late 60s, that was a very controversial issue, and the IRS may well have tried, or threatened, to attack their non-profit status because of it, and the institutions may have agreed to sell the businesses to stave off that attack. However, the legislative solution that emerged in 1969 would have preserved the overall nonprofit and charitable character of NYU and Wesleyan notwithstanding their ownership of those businesses, and merely subjected the business income to taxation as “UBTI” or unrelated business taxable income. Many nonprofits sold their businesses after that because, once the business income lost its tax exemption, there was no particular reason for the nonprofit to run it anymore.</p>
<p>In the contemporary world, universities own profitable businesses all the time . . . through owning stock in for-profit companies, not by owning the businesses directly. The other thing they do every day is license their intellectual property assets – copyrighted works, patents, trademarks – to for-profit companies in return for a royalty stream. Middlebury could easily do either or both to develop new income streams from its language-instruction brand without endangering its nonprofit status at all.</p>
<p>Wesleyan sold My Weekly Reader in 1965, so it could have been the poster-child for the 1969 change in the law. However, I’m pretty sure NYU sold Prince Spaghetti in the 1980s.</p>
<p>It’s not a question of whether or not Middlebury is a leader in the field or not, the question is whether or not packaged courses/software dilute the mission/reputation of a liberal arts college and I would argue that they potentially could.</p>
<p>This is a battle being fought across the board in higher ed. And to cede that ground has potential disastrous consequences for face-to-face low student/faculty ratios in the future.</p>
<p>On site programs are a bit different, but savvy consumers understand that Middlebury’s summer programs are not the same as receiving Middlebury instruction.</p>
<p>However, Middlebury’s prominence in the field may have enhanced the reputation of the language program at the liberal arts college.</p>
<p>I not not making a normative judgment here for Middlebury; I am saying this has been shown to be slippery slope in the past and will continue to be in the future.</p>
<p>I agree Mythmom… and like I’ve said… the future is to be tread delicately and deliberately.</p>
<p>Modadunn: I know this doesn’t need to be said, but I love Middlebury and wish it only the best future. Just using it as an example.</p>
<p>A friend is sending two sons there and they are very happy campers, indeed.</p>
<p>One of the young women I worked with (as college counselor – pro bono – would never take a penny) ended up there and is thrilled as well.</p>
<p>mythmom - Certainly, some aspects of Williams are quirky. But I think it’s difficult to call “quirky” a defining attribute of the prevailing campus culture. I won’t bother to pull up quotes, but interesteddad recently discussed Williams’ budget cuts to financial aid vs. athletics. To me, the data was telling. (Biased comment: Whereas Swarthmore gets along just fine without a football team.)</p>
<p>So, under current business conditions, Middlebury’s tax-exempt status could conceivably account for Rosetta’s entire margin of profit?</p>
<p>Middlebury is in no way connected to Rosetta Stone (accept that Rosetta wishes it had the Middlebury name).</p>