“I gave up my entire life for the month... but it was worth it”

MiddCORE 2008 is history, and what a ride it was. To a person, mentors and students alike characterized the experience as transformational. Mentors expressed being reengaged with Middlebury College.

Yes, it was an incredible amount of work for all …. a boot camp for sure: five hours in session and group lunches daily; two group dinners with panels weekly; and an avalanche of homework nightly.

Students unanimously characterized MiddCORE as a boot camp experience, rated it as a “5” on a 1-5 scale and want to see it become a regular offering.

Here are some student voices:
"MiddCORE was a mind-blowing experience; totally transformational”
"I gained a better impression of my future opportunities"
"I now get more excited about non-academic activities; feel more inclined to participate"
"I got a better understanding about business, public speaking, networking and working
collaboratively"
"I worked hard, gave full-time commitment and had a steep learning curve"

On to year two: Based on the pilot’s success, MiddCORE has now been designated as a program under the College’s Project on Creativity and Innovation in the Liberal Arts. We are hard at work recruiting mentors and fleshing out the calendar for January 2009.

Participants in our post-MiddCORE retreat made a compelling case for systematizing the recruiting and planning process going forward. They also agreed that our existing tag line and mission statement failed to articulate the experience they (mentors and students alike) had all been through.

The task force we created then has rewritten MiddCORE’s mantra and vision and mission statements:

VISION
Get students to re-think their approach to their education by re-thinking how we educate them.

MANTRA
Confidence for the road ahead

MISSION
MiddCORE enriches the liberal arts, empowers students to pursue their intellectual and academic passions and prepares them for success in their personal and professional lives; and re-engages College alumni, parents and friends by:
• Engaging executive, entrepreneur and innovator mentors to create an intensely interactive
and rich learning experience; and
• Driving students out of their comfort zones as they
- Acquire skills and experience using creativity, opportunity identification, risk-taking and
entrepreneurship;
- Engage in problem-solving and decision-making at levels far beyond any previous
experience; and
- Sharpen their analytical, presentation and writing skills in collaborative and competitive
settings.

We are also benefitting greatly from the new planning tool for MiddCORE 2009 and beyond that the task force created (Attached). It is allowing Brent Sonnek-Schmelz ’98, Nicolas Boillot ’87 an me to approach recruiting our 2009 faculty and building-out next January’s program systematically, rather than relying on fortuity, as was so much the case in the run-up to 2009.

We are also being guided by a set of milestones that issues from the retreat:
June 1
- Revised Mission and Vision statements distributed
- Planning and recruiting grid distributed

July 31
- Set Mentor Faculty
- Marketing Plan Completed

October 1
- Complete Mentor Documentation Web site
- Mentors’ Session Descriptions are In Hand
- Required-attendance Mentor Planning Session in Middlebury (Weekend of October 11)

November 1
- All Documents and Mentor Materials in Hand

Want to be a part of MiddCORE2009? Super! Please contact any one of the three of us and we will be back to you directly.