Plan Your Summer

 Bennington College is located in a rural area, though there are many different ways to access the campus. The closest airport is Albany International Airport (New York), which is about an hour drive from campus. You can also access Albany by train via the Albany/Rensselaer Amtrak Station.  The Vermont Shires Connector bus run daily between Albany and the Bennington Bus station, which is a fifteen minute drive to campus.

If using a taxi, Uber, or other form of transportation requiring an address, the Bennington College main entrance address is 1 College Dr. Bennington , VT 05201.

If you are interested in potential ride shares, you should check the Language Schools Facebook Page.

Click here for directions to the Bennington campus or here for a campus map.

Individual School Arrival Days:

Arabic and Portuguese: June 24

Italian: July 1

Arabic and Italian Graduate: July 8

Please check in with your school in the Commons Building between 11am-8pm on your designated arrival day. There, you will receive housing information and any additional details pertaining to your school. If you cannot arrive during the scheduled Arrival Center hours, you should plan to arrive the day before and book lodging off campus at your own expense, then come to campus on your arrival date for check-in.

After Hour Check Ins: If you arrive after the arrival center has closed, please check in with Public Safety (located at the top of the hill, as you are entering campus), who will also provide housing information. Please make sure to check in with your school’s office as soon as possible.

Please refer to the Covid Essentials and Return to Campus guides for details on arrival, testing, and quarantine procedures.

Information on the Language Pledge is here.

 The Language Schools are intensive and may require that you work harder than you ever have before in an academic setting. In one summer session, you will have completed the equivalent of a full academic year of language study. You will spend full weekday mornings in class, with many additional hours of preparation, homework, and in-language cocurricular activities. When relaxing, you will still be in the company of students, teachers, and staff, where the required means of communication is your language of study.

Language Schools’ students come from a wide variety of institutions and backgrounds both in the United States and abroad, representing a spectrum of ages, interests, and backgrounds as well as varying levels of language proficiency. Middlebury requires all members of the summer community – students, faculty, and staff, whatever their ‘home culture’ –  to demonstrate mutual respect and tolerance for each other regardless of origin or background. This is essential to creating a community of inclusion with bonds of trust in a supportive context both in and out of the classroom, particularly under the stressful envelope of learning and living another language and culture.

Tolerance and mutual respect can help tremendously to establish a sense of community within each individual School and across campus. Middlebury encourages, and even demands, cooperation. Learning represents a communal ef­fort; you should expect to employ your talents to the benefit of fellow students, just as you will benefit from their talents. Middlebury is unique in the opportunity it offers to learn language by speaking it on a daily basis with fellow students and the faculty in a variety of formal and informal contexts.

Southern Vermont is lovely in the summer, and there are many attractions in and around Bennington, but please keep in mind that the Language Schools is not a place for vacationing. Keeping up with the pace requires considerable physical, intellectual, and psychological stamina.

Upon arrival, students sign the Language Pledge, promising to speak exclusively in the target language. By adhering to the Pledge, your grasp of both written and spoken language will develop efficiently and effectively. For this reason, the Pledge is strictly enforced. Any student who consistently and will­fully violates it may be asked to withdraw, forfeiting both course credit and tuition refund.

The Language Schools are dedicated to the creation of a serious program for the serious student. Within that framework, we offer myriad opportunities to socialize, interact, and create long-lasting connections and friendships. We look forward to welcoming you this summer!

Please check with your school Assistant Director in May 2022 for more details.

All members of the Middlebury Language Schools at Bennington will be issued a Bennington ID card, which will be used to access a number of services: Dining Hall, residence halls, fitness center, printing, and library services. Your Bennington Card will be provided to you when you arrive on campus.

There will be a daily free shuttle from the Bennington campus to points around town:

Monday 5pm-9pm

Tuesday 5pm-9pm

Wednesday 5pm-9pm

Thursday 5pm-9pm

Friday 5pm-9pm

Saturday 9am-12pm, 1pm-9pm

Sunday 9am-5pm

The exact route for the campus shuttle is TBA as of 6/6/22, but we hope to include Lake Paran, Super Walmart, and the Bennington downtown). The Green Mountain Express will also have service to campus.

  Schedule coming May or June 2022.

Please note that dining facilities are designed to accommodate the average tastes and needs of students. Alternatives to meat are provided at every meal for vegetarians. If you have food allergies, please fill out the  Special Dietary Request Form  for Bennington Campus.

 As housing assignments are made just before students arrive, we are unable to tell you of your specific rooming assignment before you arrive on campus. You will be informed of your housing assignment the day of your scheduled arrival.

All students live on campus in residence halls organized by language. Once admitted, students complete an “Enrollment Form” to provide information about study, sleep, and lifestyle preferences in order to be appropriately matched with hall-mates or suite-mates. We do not guarantee that we can accommodate your specific housing requests, but the assistant directors for each school work with students on an individual basis to ensure their housing is appropriate to their needs.

The Language Schools do not have facilities to accommodate spouses, domestic partners, dependents, friends, or pets. Dorms are not set up to accommodate families, and no guests are allowed to visit overnight.

Housing on the Bennington campus is not air-conditioned. We recommend bringing a fan.

Most faculty and staff also live in the dorms and all of them dine regularly with students. They are a dedicated team and they are available and eager to be of assistance to you both in and out of class, at work and at play.  At the same time, it would be unfair for any one student to make unreasonable demands of their time.

As you will be living in relatively close quarters, noise can easily become a problem. We ask that you be respectful of your neighbors’ study and sleep habits.  If you know that you are a particularly sensitive sleeper, please bring appropriate items (such as earplugs and/or white noise machines) to help with your adjustment to living in the dorms.  

There are laundry rooms in each dorm on campus which contain both washers and dryers. Laundry is coin operated.

Bennington College Post Office

Hours: TBA

INCOMING MAIL

Middlebury at Bennington students will pick up mail at the Post Office, located in the Commons. A photo ID is required for all mail and package pick-up. Due to the short term of the Middlebury at Bennington session, it is recommended that you notify individual senders of your temporary address, rather than forwarding all of your mail through the United States Postal Service.

Your address at Bennington will be:

Your Name 
[Your Language] School Student
Middlebury at Bennington
1 College Drive
Bennington VT 05201-6003

Please note that Bennington College can not accept packages that arrive before the beginning of the summer session.

After the end of the session, only first-class letters will be forwarded for one month. Magazines, newspapers, and catalogs will be recycled. Packages delivered after the end of the session will be returned to the sender.

OUTGOING MAIL

There is a US Mailbox located in the Commons.

If you require postage, it can be purchased at the Post Office on campus. Likewise the Post Office is also a shipping point for United Parcel Service and Fedex.

Please see our online map for public printer locations. We use a system called Mobility Printing to print; instructions for printing are available online.

Students expecting a refund should use the following instructions to set up direct deposit for their refund. If students do not set up direct deposit, refund checks from Student Financial Services will be sent to the Mail Center. You will need to check your student account in BannerWeb to see when your refund has been issued. You will not be notified either by Student Financial Services or the Mail Center that you have a refund check to pick up.

Language Schools students, faculty and staff will be required to register there vehicle on arrival using a green parking pass which will hang from your rearview mirror. Parking information for the Bennington campus can be found here.

Here is a list of what to bring to campus.

The weather in Vermont during the summer is usually warm and pleasant during the day and cooler in the evening, but we are likely to experience a week or two of temperatures in the nineties accompanied by very high humidity and rain showers. Attire at Bennington tends to be casual, but you may wish to be prepared for a small number of special events requiring nicer clothing. (banquets, special events).  A few items you may consider bringing with you to campus are: tennis racquet, yoga mat, soccer cleats and other sporting equipment.

Please also see “Prepare for your Language School” for additional items by your School office.

Accessing the Bennington network: There are two wireless networks available to you on the Bennington Campus: Bennington Public and Bennington Community. We strongly recommend connecting to the Bennington Community network, and some services, such as printing, will not work unless you are connected to this network. Please see our online instructions on how to connect to the Bennington Community Wifi.

TBA 

Information on Language Schools Commencement, including ordering regalia, for students who will be receiving degrees in summer 2022 is available here. 

Click here for information regarding access to your final grades or here to request a copy of your transcript.