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Many MIIS alumni know a “double”—someone who’s attended both MIIS and another Middlebury-affiliated school—but so-called “triples” are definitely less common. Even more unusual is a triple that involves a father-daughter pair!

Tim graduated from MIFS in 1976, and then attended Hastings Law School in San Francisco, earning his J.D. and then passing the California bar exam. After a brief time as a deputy district attorney, he embarked on a fulfilling 24-year career with the U.S. Department of Justice, retiring in 2004.

To further the Mandarin skills that had been developed at MIFS, in the midst of his federal career in 1985, Tim attended the Language Schools at Middlebury College. It was an extraordinary experience. “Because of the language pledge, there was no place to hide,” Tim says. After MIFS became MIIS, and then become a graduate school of Middlebury, Tim became a “double alumnus.”

But the story does not end there. Emily Dwyer, now 17, is Tim and Wendy Dwyer’s youngest daughter. Emily has already seen much of the world, traversing the globe with her parents and her older siblings, brother/sister twins Cameron and Kelly. She spent four years at the American Embassy School New Delhi and then four years in Singapore at the Singapore American School, before returning to San Francisco where she now lives.

And this is where the “double” becomes a “triple”—in the combination of the energy and experiences of father and daughter.

In 2014, Emily joined Tim and family for Reunion 2013 in Monterey. During that visit Emily learned what MIIS and Middlebury are all about—a passion for languages and international learning. The reunion was a success and, as Tim notes, the class of ’75 was still irrepressible and going strong.

Encouraged by her family and also by MIIS alumni and staff friends, Emily applied for the Middlebury Language Schools summer program. Although still in high school, by virtue of her maturity, enthusiasm, keen interest, and existing experience in French from her high school French studies, Emily obtained an age exception that enabled her to attend the college-level program.

Emily completed the summer of ‘14 still smiling, and with her love of languages not just intact, but redoubled. “I formed some incredibly strong relationships with other students in the French school that will be hard to forget,” Emily shares. She is now back to complete her senior year in high school in San Francisco, but her father is now overseas, serving currently as a legal advisor in Afghanistan, in Paktiya Province. Tim is not using his Mandarin much at the moment, but he is practicing Dari/Persian with his Afghan counterparts (judges, prosecutors, and border police) on matters pertaining to Rule of Law.

Emily on the other hand has started a new language course… Chinese! As Tim says, we might not have seen the last of this dynamic duo yet. So far, father and daughter together form a “triple”… perhaps one day to become a “quad”?

MIIS offers two scholarships for incoming and current students seeking to improve their language skills in a summer language program at either campus, the Kathryn Davis Fellowship and the Betty & David Jones Language Scholarship.

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For More Information

Jason Warburg
jwarburg@middlebury.edu
831.647.3156

Eva Gudbergsdottir
eva@middlebury.edu
831.647.6606