Campus Tour, Digital Style

Middlebury Communications (the department famously behind the Middlebury leaf logo debacle) last week quietly launched a set of YouTube videos showing off the college in all its glory. All the videos were shot last spring with mostly graduating seniors (’07ers), so it’s a throw-back feel for us folks still toiling away at Midd. The goal of these videos is to provide a “tour” of the campus on the internet. These online vids should get major play when it comes to perspective students unable to hop on a couple hundred dollar flight to Middlebury to get a real-life tour. And, in that vein, these videos are a welcome addition to the internets. MiddComm published videos touring the entire campus with Priscilla Sinclair ’07, but more specificaly also the student center, athletic facility, CFA, Bread Loaf, Main Library, and Science Center (more often known at BiHall). See below for a sample.

Overall, these videos are a great step for MiddComm despite being slightly dated (it took a year to edit and publish a youtube video?). Most importantly, though, the feel of the videos is genuine. It’s not polished (read: forced) marketing material like some of the recruiting brochures and catalogs Midd creates. In fact, the video doesn’t give a web URL at the end and has no fancy graphics or over-the-top audio editing. The segments are short and actually don’t have that much information in them. But if we’re to believe Steven Winn’s op-ed , college tours aren’t about information, it’s about “getting a feel” for a place and “if you can see yourself there.” And these short clips do just that with friendly tourguides to boot.

I’d like to see MiddComm go one step further and get gritty by just taking a video camera into a dining hall and doing unplanned interviews. I think they’ll find some nice gems. That sort of authenticity is what succeeds with prospective students who have to differentiate between Midd and every other small liberal arts school in the NorthEast.