Middlebury College is kicking off the new year with a new look and family of names for its schools and programs.

The Vermont-based institution introduced on Wednesday a brand identity system that embraces the full breadth of its educational endeavors by placing the Middlebury name on each of its schools and programs.

While best known for its undergraduate liberal arts college, which was founded in 1800, Middlebury has, over the last 100 years, built itself into a more complex institution that meets the educational needs of many types of students around the world. Today Middlebury educates as many graduate and summer students as it does undergraduates.

"This new system greatly clarifies the relationships among our rich and varied academic entities, while ensuring that each of them retains its unique identity and mission," Middlebury President Ron Liebowitz said in a statement. "Educational institutions do not make these changes lightly, and that certainly was true here. But the need for this was impossible to ignore. Our most recent reaccreditation report noted that few people understood all that Middlebury had become and that the identities of our programs blended together, which created unnecessary confusion. I'm confident the clarity we've achieved with this new system will benefit our individual programs and Middlebury as a whole."

School officials spent more than a year developing, refining, and testing the new brand identity system, which the Board of Trustees unanimously approved last September.

An essential part of the system is a new visual icon in the form of a shield that is built upon a set of elements that are familiar to the Middlebury community: the mountains; a book; a globe, which represents the institution's global focus; the historic and iconic building at the center of the Vermont campus known as Old Chapel; and the founding date of 1800.

All the schools within Middlebury College will use the shield with the exception of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. For the Institute, Middlebury has created a modified design that replaces the Green Mountains of Vermont and Old Chapel with the historic Segal Building from the Monterey campus and the year of the Institute's founding. The traditional Middlebury seal will remain in service for ceremonial uses.

"We took great care with our process," said Middlebury Vice President for Communications and Marketing Bill Burger, who oversaw the project. "In all, we spoke with nearly 400 people --faculty, staff, students, and alumni-over the last year. With that many people, you receive a lot of feedback, and it was indispensable. And in the end, that gives you a better product and greater confidence in the work."

For more information on the system and the process that led to its creation, visit https://identity.middlebury.edu.