Personal History

His vision for Middlebury established, John M. McCardell Jr. prepares to step down from the presidency

Photographs by David Binder

At four o'clock in the morning on what would be a sweltering September day, John M. McCardell Jr. sat down in his Cornwall, Vermont, home, and, while his wife and two young boys slept, began to pen the most important speech of his life.

Just two days before, McCardell, Middlebury's provost, had been tapped to serve as acting president of the College when Timothy Light, a Chinese scholar from Michigan, resigned his post after only 13 months as president—a brief but volatile tenure, marked by a stunning, inflaming decision to lay off 17 employees to address a budget shortfall. So, less than 48 hours after receiving the news, the 42-year-old McCardell, a Harvard Ph.D. and professor of history, found himself thrust into a situation where he would be making history rather than studying it. At noon on September 16, 1991, just hours after he had finished writing his speech, John McCardell addressed a packed Mead Chapel crowd and began to right a listing College.

"I don't need to discover, for I already knew, that this community is vital, resilient, and committed," he began. "And we mustn't, at this hour, forget that Middlebury College is strong. The work of the College goes on."

Self-effacing ("As I prepared these remarks, I felt my historian self peering over my shoulder as I wrote each word, whispering, 'Get it, right'"), confident, conciliatory, and principled, McCardell on that day was most importantly reassuring.

Sitting in the sunroom of the President's House twelve-and-a-half years later, McCardell readily acknowledges that that speech was as much about healing as it was about planning for the future. The College had been seriously wounded by the layoff fiasco—a time described succinctly by former provost, trustee, and professor Nicholas Clifford as "unnerving." The community desperately needed to hear the words, "[We need to] show tolerance, consideration, and, yes, simple good manners in our relations with one another, and to respect one another for those many things each of us brings to this special place."

 McCardell says that the days and months preceding his appointment as acting president fundamentally informed his current tenure in Old Chapel. When asked how, he speaks in emotional and personal terms. "If one has ever doubted how close a community this is, those doubts were dispelled then. The most amazing thing about it is, there was no reason why I should not have been implicated in the layoffs," he begins.

"I was in the administration; I was on the committee. I was not above it or removed from it. But I also know that [the layoffs]

didn't have to happen. We could have found other ways to keep the budget balanced. If I have any regrets, it is that I didn't distance myself from that. By the same token, the community has chosen to overlook that, which it didn't need to do. It's something I'll never forget and will always be grateful for."

Regret is not a word one often associates with John McCardell. During his tenure as Middlebury's 15th president, McCardell has presided over the College's most ambitious fund-raising effort ($213 million raised during the four-year Bicentennial Campaign), a vast expansion in facilities, and a steady growth in faculty size, enrollment, student applications, and academic prestige. This was not by accident. For all his recognized strengths as a scholar, writer, orator, and leader, McCardell set the stage to be remembered most of all as that rare visionary who not only can right a listing vessel and steady the course, but also as one who can, in the process, chart the course for the future.

"In just a dozen years, [McCardell] has taken Middlebury to a position of national and international leadership among liberal arts colleges by continually focusing on what makes Middlebury excellent, never emulating any other college, and by always keeping in mind that it is people, and the interactions among them, that truly distinguish Middlebury," Board of Trustees chair Churchill Franklin '71 said after McCardell announced he was stepping down. "He has made Middlebury the place to be and the college to watch."

* * *

When McCardell was officially named president by the Board of Trustees in April 1992, seven months after his appointment as acting president, the situation at Middlebury remained daunting. Though he had managed to get the College's planning process back on track, myriad problems requiring immediate attention and a deft touch lay before him. The financial picture was still shaky, due to a national recession; student life was turbulent (widespread alcohol abuse, the dissolution of the fraternity system); relations between the town and the College were frayed; diversity in the student body and the faculty remained elusive.

The diversity issue was the first to boil over. Just weeks after McCardell's appointment, students marched on Old Chapel calling for increased diversity in the College community (among their slogans: "No more lip service" and "Old Chapel, move your butt"). A month later, a sit-in of Old Chapel ensued.

McCardell wouldn't meet with the students until the sit-in ended—a midnight phone conversation with one of the leaders, Marc Pina '93, concluded with the instruction, "Marc, the sit-in ends first." The next morning, McCardell arrived at his office not knowing whether the students would still be there. They were not. After meeting with a group of students that afternoon, he issued the following statement: "I here reiterate, on behalf of the College, my commitment in the next three years to the aggressive recruitment and retention of students, faculty, and staff of color; to a diversified curriculum that involves all departments; to a fair and adequate allocation of institutional funds, and to the appointment of a special assistant to the president for multicultural affairs."

The appointment of Leroy Nesbitt '82, now associate provost for Institutional Diversity, followed shortly. By 1998, the percentage of students of color in the graduating class had risen from 7 percent in 1994 to 11 percent; twelve percent of the class of 2003 were students of color.

While the diversity issue at Middlebury was an obvious problem for McCardell to tackle (indeed, it remains a work in progress and a major initiative at the College today), he persisted in taking on more than the obvious challenges. In his September 1992 inauguration speech, he spoke for the first time about the imperative for the College to "stare inertia down." In context, he stated, "Tradition reminds us of our rich history as well as of those things that make time spent here distinctive and meaningful. We forget that history at our peril. We abandon our traditional strengths at great risk. Yet we recognize, at the same time, that an awareness of tradition must not make us prisoners of inertia. Tradition, then, ought not to thwart change... We must remember that change that endures is change that is organic and gradual; change that endures becomes tradition."

At no point was the future addressed more boldly than in the fall of 1994 when McCardell delivered a speech that has come to be known alternately as the Vision or the Peaks Speech. On the heels of a planning exercise that resulted in the College deciding to increase enrollment and expand the faculty, McCardell declared that in 10 years, Middlebury should be seen as "the college of choice" for the very best students.

"If general excellence is our Green Mountain chain, there are, within that chain of mountains, certain conspicuous peaks," he said. "We extend that metaphor of the presidential range to describe that small number of areas for which the College will seek a national reputation and which, if successfully pursued, will make Middlebury the college of choice within the next 10 years."

Ten years have passed, and McCardell believes that Middlebury is closer than ever before to being known as the college of choice. He cites the Class of 2007 admission's yield of 47 percent (the highest in Middlebury history) as evidence, but also admits that by another barometer—head-to-head competition with Amherst, Williams, and Dartmouth—the College hasn't been as successful as he hoped. "We're doing better, but we're still losing out head-to-head," he says, quickly explaining that he doesn't want Middlebury to attract a different kind of student; he wants the College to attract that "Middlebury" student who is choosing to go to Amherst, Williams, or Dartmouth. "We're doing amazingly well," he adds, "against schools we were competing to a draw 10 or 15 years ago."

When reminded of a recent magazine column in which he applied Tennyson's idea of constant evolution to Middlebury—"Places like Middlebury must always think of ourselves as in a state of 'becoming,' as we persist in following the 'gleam'"—McCardell chuckles. "It's like the description of the figures on the Grecian urn," he says. "It is the embrace and the anticipation of the kiss that gives greater pleasure than the moment. The best days lie ahead of us. If you stop believing that," he says with a broadening grin, "then you aren't staring inertia down."

Perhaps John McCardell's boldest initiative, Middlebury's Commons system, remains a work in progress. The residential life system, when complete, will have five communities of "houses," featuring decentralized dining, nearby housing for a faculty associate, and continued membership for students. To date, one Commons, Ross, is fully online, while a second, Atwater, will open a new dining hall and dormitories in the fall.

"The jury's still out," McCardell admits. "I absolutely believe the momentum has shifted among the students and the faculty. And I firmly believe we are speaking to the current generation of students and their families. If there is a lingering fundamental question, it's 'will this model fit for future generations?' My answer is yes, and I base this on the success of the [similar] house systems at Harvard and Yale over many generations."

* * *

"Here we go."

As a Norwich University hockey player takes off on a solo sprint from center ice toward the Middlebury net-minder waiting 80-feet away for a rare penalty shot, McCardell has just uttered what more than 2,000 screaming, partisan fans no doubt must be thinking. A few seconds later, as the black puck settles in the back of the net (momentarily knotting the score at 1–1) and the Norwich players huddle in celebration, Middlebury's president briefly slumps back in his seat, before straightening and saying, "We've got a game."

Described by his Harvard adviser and mentor, Dr. David Herbert Donald, as unflappable, McCardell seems to be keeping any sort of exuberance to a minimum, seeing that he's sitting with a cohort of guests, including the Norwich president and athletic director. (The Panthers' eventual 6–2 win is handled with equally courteous aplomb.)

The role of athletics at a liberal arts institution has been a hot topic at Middlebury (and around the country) during McCardell's presidency. He's served as chair of the NCAA's Division III President's Council and has spoken often about the benefits of an intercollegiate athletic program that is "kept in harmony with the educational purposes of the institution," as stated by the New England Small Colleges Athletic Conference's  "Basic Principles."

On the day of the hockey game, the New York Times published a story about Bowdoin College's undefeated women's basketball team, highlighting the marriage of competitive athletics and educational excellence. McCardell hadn't seen the article yet, but he nods his head vigorously when told about it, saying, "That's exactly it. That sends a wonderful message."

McCardell pops out of his seat at the intermission between the first and second periods, returning several minutes into the second stanza (and missing a Middlebury goal). "You know, a great way to do business is to come to a Middlebury hockey game," he says, settling back into his seat. "All you have to do is walk around between periods, and you manage to see a large number of people you need to talk to."

Moments later, he's scanning the crowd and he adds, "If you look around . . . there's a [town] board selectman . . . you'll have attorneys sitting next to barbers, sitting next to doctors, sitting next to professors. This is the best town-gown outreach we have."

McCardell seems to be making a serious statement when he says this (and there's no doubting the town's love affair with Middlebury hockey), but not even a championship hockey team would satisfy, at least fiscally, the town of Middlebury as much as the College's recent contribution of what could amount to $6.5 million over a 20-year period.

The history of the town's symbiotic relationship with the College certainly does not escape McCardell, and while it's in the best interest of any college or university to allay any tensions with the community in which it resides, one gets the sense that the historic ties between the two Middleburys have been a driving factor in McCardell's efforts to erase any divisions.

Two years after assuming the presidency, McCardell spearheaded an effort that resulted in a 10-year agreement with the town, which included a gift of $1.2 million in recognition of the services provided by the town to the tax-exempt College. With the expiration of that agreement this year, McCardell inked the new accord at the March 2004 Town Meeting, his last as Middlebury president.

A year from now, when another Middlebury winter gives way to mud season, McCardell and his wife, Bonnie, will be relaxing in the Low Country of South Carolina, in the small seaside town of Beaufort.

They bought a house there a few years ago, when the two spent a sabbatical in the area. They both insist they are purposely not doing a lot of planning, aside from becoming involved in the community and visiting with family (son John Malcolm, 22, lives in Columbia, South Carolina; Jamie, 17, will be a senior at Episcopal High School in Virginia next year). Still, McCardell already has several writing projects lined up. He'll be coediting a series on critical American presidential elections, and he hopes to dive back into research on the 19th-century Southern author and poet William Gilmore Simms. Then, after a year's leave, they will come back to Middlebury, where McCardell will return to the history faculty.

He admits it's unusual for a president emeritus to rejoin the faculty at the institution he once led, but suspects that it's another example of Middlebury's boldness. He also says he had it in him to stay on as president for another few years, but noted that the College today needs a president who can give it a longer time commitment, and he decided he didn't have the energy to commit to another major fund-raising campaign or a longer tenure.

In fact, McCardell had planned to step down in 2001. The College's Bicentennial celebration had passed, the capital campaign had ended, and he had served 10 years as president. "But the economic clouds were beginning to gather," he says, "and I wasn't sure there were enough markers down yet." He met with the Board of Trustees and said that while he recognized that change was good, he needed to do the job a little while longer. "If you can give me a little bit of time to go be a historian (referring to his recent South Carolina sabbatical)," he told them, "I can give you two more years." Now, he says, "I think there are enough markers down. We're coming to an end of a chapter."

He's reminded of his words on that sweltering September day nearly 13 years ago: "I am far more accustomed to studying history than to making it. As I prepared these remarks, I felt my historian self peering over my shoulder as I wrote each word, whispering, 'Get it right.'"

What would that historian say about McCardell the president and his tenure at Middlebury?

"I think we mostly got it right," he says. "I'll stand by that."