College Street

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Brand New Day: The Inauguration
of Ronald D. Liebowitz 

On a cool, gray autumn afternoon in early October, Ronald D. Liebowitz was inaugurated the 16th president of Middlebury College, becoming only the third Middlebury faculty member to rise to the top administrative position in the institution's history. Though he had taken over the job on July 1, the geography professor formally joined the pantheon of Middlebury presidents (three of whom—James Armstrong, Olin Robison, and John M. McCardell Jr.—shared the dais with him) on a day rich in fall atmosphere but with a hint of winter, and steeped in tradition but with an eye toward the future.

"I had this thought that a college presidential inauguration is sort of the academic equivalent of Simchat Torah," said guest speaker David Stameshkin, referring to the holiday when Jews read the last words of Deuteronomy and the first words of Genesis. "The College and its constituencies conclude one presidency and joyously begin again with a new leader, who, while standing on the shoulders of those who have come before, sees new ways of proceeding, presents new ideas, opens the College's opportunities to new people, and leads the College to new heights of excellence."

The ceremony got under way around 11:00 a.m. as a procession of Middlebury faculty, administrators, and trustees—along with representatives from many colleges and universities—marched along Old Stone Row and down a freshly paved walkway to the inauguration site in front of the College's new library. Amid red, orange, and yellow leaves that blew through the air and swirled to the ground, representatives from the greater Middlebury community formally welcomed Liebowitz to his new post.

The student-body president recalled an intense conversation in his office; a faculty colleague offered best wishes to one of the faculty's own; alumni and staff representatives, a trustee, directors from Bread Loaf, the Language Schools dean, area dignitaries (including Vermont governor Jim Douglas '72), and the president of Williams College all offered best wishes. Then the directors from the summer Language Schools greeted the president in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, and Portuguese.

David Stameshkin, a former Middlebury professor and the author of a two-volume history of the College, followed with a humorous and insightful speech that placed the inauguration in context. In 20 quick minutes, he took the audience on a wild historical ride, explaining how Middle-bury came to be what it is today.

Starting with the College's founding in 1800, he highlighted the introduction of coeducation 80 years later, the diversification of the student body and the curriculum during the past two centuries, the establishment of the Language Schools and the Bread Loaf School of English, before concluding with warm wishes for the new president.

"Today, as we celebrate the inauguration of a new president, Ronald David Liebowitz, Middlebury, in a sense, begins anew," Stameshkin said. "May President Liebowitz build upon the great work of past administrations and find new ways to engage the College's friends and supporters here and around the world, so that it may remain a strong, independent college. May President Liebowitz find new ways to diversify the College community to ensure an exciting and creative learning environment. And may President Liebowitz find new ways to offer students outstanding educational experiences in languages and in all areas of the curriculum."

The wind had picked up slightly by the time Board of Trustees Chair Frederick M. Fritz '68 officially invested Liebowitz with the Middlebury presidency, but the rain that had been threatening most of the morning kept its distance, as a passel of angry-looking, bruise-colored storm clouds hung over the Green Mountains, miles away. The three former Middlebury presidents then handed, from one to the other, a pewter medallion on a sterling silver chain, which John McCardell placed around the neck of the newest officeholder. With the medallion coming to rest on his robed chest, Liebowitz turned to receive a standing ovation from an audience of several hundred people. And as Middlebury's president took the podium, he acknowledged the warm ovation with a broad smile and several mouthed "thank-yous" before launching into his inaugural address.

"In fact," he continued, "the most enduring and renowned programs at the College have resulted from exceptional human ingenuity and creativity." It was imagination, vision, and persuasiveness—in combination with Middlebury's setting—that led to the creation of the Language Schools, the Bread Loaf School of English and Writers' Conference, and the environmental studies major he said.

"A less obvious lesson that emerges ... is that each of the exceptional programs described here was based on the assumption that intensive human interaction is essential for learning," he added, citing the immersion experience of the Language Schools, mentorship at Bread Loaf, and an approach to undergraduate teaching that fosters intense student-faculty interaction.

Liebowitz spoke from experience as a geographer and faculty member as he examined the history and culture of Middlebury, but his parting message, the action item from his inaugural address, gave a clear indication of what he hopes to achieve as the College's president.

"Our charge is two-fold," he said. "To be true to that impressive history, we must, first, preserve those parts of the Middlebury culture that encourage creativity and foster innovation ... to be true to Middlebury's history and culture, we must also commit ourselves to being very clear about what we do here, and why we've been doing it so well for more than two centuries. What we do best is give students the opportunity to work directly with faculty—dedicated teachers who have mastered specific bodies of knowledge, who are mentors and motivators, and who see their role as participating in a four-year process of opening the hearts and minds of their students and preparing them for a lifetime of learning."

Another standing ovation followed the conclusion of his address, and with storm clouds still hovering over the Greens, the assembled crowd listened respectfully to the Middlebury Chamber singers perform Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, bowed their heads for Associate Chaplain Ira Schiffer's benediction, and proudly sang along to the words of the Alma Mater. On stage, with Gamaliel Painter's cane gripped firmly in his left hand and the presidential medallion dangling from his neck, the College's 16th president, Ronald D. Liebowitz, sang along proudly, too.

—Matt Jennings

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Midd's Think Tank

While the presidential fete unfolded across campus, a more somber meeting of the minds was taking place at the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs. A conference on the privatization of American national security was cohosted by Middlebury's Rohatyn Center and Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs as part of an ongoing project, launched at Princeton last May.

The question at hand was what to do about regulating the growing phenomenon of subcontracting national security services to private companies, a reality that snapped sharply into focus when some private contractors were implicated in the prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. Conference participants ran the gamut from academics and theoreticians to representatives of the private military companies and the nongovernmental organizations, leading inevitably to some disconnect between the high-minded world of theory and the gritty reality of day-to-day operations.

There were, however, some points of consensus, the first being that war as we know it now is not war as we used to know it, and that, more often than not, the role of the U.S. military is to keep the peace among warring factions. The other point of agreement was that the privatization movement, which began in this country as far back as the Hessians' role in the American Revolution, is here to stay and will only grow over time. The question conference participants wrestled with was how to control it so that the ugliness at Abu Ghraib remains a horrifying exception rather than becoming a routine occurrence.

In a nutshell, the issue is this: virtually all American forays into the world involve a triangular effort of the U.S. troops who are empowered to use force, the NGOs that are the recognized experts on humanitarian relief, and the private contractors who are paid to provide a wide array of services—from peeling potatoes and cleaning latrines to guarding prisoners.

But as Deborah Avant, a political scientist at George Washington University, pointed out, this new paradigm of a service triad leaves gaping holes in the system. For instance, if the uniform code of military justice does not apply to private contractors, what rules are they following and who is to enforce them? And if indeed the use of contractors allows governments to undertake military action, at what cost does this reduced transparency come?

As to the problem of accountability, Felix Rohatyn '49, former ambassador to France and president of Rohatyn Associates LLC, argued for the application of business principles, suggesting that the system of rules and sanctions that governs the securities market could be brought to bear on the private military sector.

           
There seemed to be no question in anyone's mind, however, as to the value of private contractors in a world where the need for a speedy response often outpaces the ability of a bureaucracy to keep up. So how is the need reconciled with the problems?

 Allison Stanger, director of the Rohatyn Center, promised that the discussion was not over. The conference hosts plan to publish a report of the findings. Stanger also said that a conference on the privatization of diplomacy and foreign aid, cosponsored by the Brookings Institute, is scheduled for sometime in 2005.

—Sally West Johnson '72

1. How did you end up in Afghanistan?

I had been in the ROTC for four years during college and when we moved to Vermont 11 years ago, I joined the Reserves. Our unit is the only specifically mountain-equipped Reserve unit in the Army, so when the U.S. went into Afghanistan in 2002, we all thought that we were going to go, but we were never called up. When it happened a year later, we were shocked. I went to a normal planning meeting, and I was told to prepare to mobilize. My daughters were seven and eight years old when I left, which was a pretty good age. They were old enough to sort of understand but young enough not to be scared.

2. What was your mission in Afghanistan?

We took over a Special Forces mission, which was great. After the new Afghan army left the training camp, they needed to be trained in the field. We were embedded training teams of 15 guys assigned to 400 Afghan troops. I worked with the signal company and one other American. I got to see the entire country—mountains, valleys, cities—it was a marvelous experience. I kept thinking it was the typical Middlebury study abroad immersion experience—on the Army side. And the history was fantastic! It was kind of lost on some of my colleagues, but I kept saying "This is great!"

3. Did you often feel unsafe?

There were only a half a dozen times when I was very nervous. I saw more dead people due to traffic accidents than just about anything else, and the only time I shot my weapon was on the practice range. But I was in Kabul when four Canadians and a British man were killed. It makes you realize how arbitrary it is. The warlords were mainly fighting each other, though. Everybody over there knows that when you start shooting at the Americans then the planes come in, and nobody wanted our planes after them.

4. What was it like coming back to Middlebury?

The first thing I noticed was how green everything was. I had spent six months in a place with no precipitation at all, but I hadn't realized how brown it was till I got home.

I initially spent a lot of time collapsed on the couch—I had been running on low-grade exhaustion for at least six months. ... It felt weird to come home and not have to worry about always carrying two weapons.

For a long time, so many people would come up to me and thank me. It was touching, but I began to feel like it wasn't deserved. It's sort of a 15-minutes-of-fame feeling; I'm not sure I've done enough to deserve this.

5. Would you do it again?

I have very mixed feelings about this whole "War on Terror." How can you fight a concept? But with Afghanistan, we had an obligation, so I have no real problems with it. It is impossible to take a country that has never known democracy and turn it into a working democracy overnight, but I think we have made a difference. I would be much more ready [to do another tour] if I were 19 and single. It is very different when you have a family.

I feel all my aches and pains now, and I was physically in the best shape I had been in for years when I went, so I think this is probably my swan song. And because of the mission we had—a Special Forces mission—I couldn't top that.

—Lindsey Whitton '05

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Money Matters

Middlebury's endowment has pushed past $700 million, thanks to an impressive 22.7 percent rate of return for the 2004 fiscal year. The one-year return ranks as one of the highest one-year returns among all U.S. endowment funds. According to a 2004 study by the National Association of College and University Business Officers, endowments with a market value between $500 million and $1 billion had returns of 17.9 percent, 4.3 percent, and 4.9 percent for the one, three, and five years ending June 30, 2004. Middlebury's returns for the same periods were 22.7 percent, 6.5 percent, and 6.6 percent.

As welcome as the 2004 rate is, however, Middlebury's treasurer and vice president for administration, Bob Huth, counsels patience and perspective when assessing the impact of the 2004 return on the College's fiscal landscape. During the past five years, the College has averaged a 6.5 percent return, which is good, Huth says, but it's not large enough for the College to rethink its financial plan. Middlebury often draws around 5 percent from the endowment per year. With an average return of 6.5 percent over the past five fiscal years, this has allowed for a net growth of just over 1 percent. 

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Faculty Shelf

Ninth grader Milly Kaufman seems ill at ease in her own skin, not sure where she fits in the world or in her family. Her hands itch when she is uncomfortable, and she's been uncomfortable quite a bit lately—ever since a young refugee named Pablo enrolled in her school. When Pablo and Milly meet for the first time, she notices his interest in her eyes—eyes that resemble others from his home country. This fact plunges Milly into adolescent angst because she is struggling with a secret: she was born in Pablo's country.

 
Writer-in-residence Julia Alvarez '71 sensitively portrays the heart and mind of this complex and lovable teenager in Finding Miracles (Alfred A. Knopf, 2004). Although written for young adult readers, older people will find the book captivating. It serves up a family complete with eccentricities and traces the path to love and acceptance.

During the early decades of the 17th century, many New England colonists starved to death, yet in the epochs that followed, few Americans remembered these hardships.  Instead, the bounteous Thanksgiving harvest became the "reality" that took hold. Why this sort of historical reinvention happened and how it changed New England's cultural identity is the subject of New England's Crises and Cultural Memory (Cambridge University Press, 2004), by John McWilliams. McWilliams, professor of American literature and civilization, explores major crises that occurred in New England over two centuries and discusses how they helped define the region's cultural identity. Among the crises studied are starvation, Indian wars, the Salem witch trials, the Revolution, and slavery. This comprehensive review integrates politics, history, religion, and literature, and considers a range of writings, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Robert Lowell, and George Bancroft.

—Regan Eberhart 

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Go Figure

1

Number of losses by the 2004 Middlebury women's soccer team. The 15-1-3 Panthers were defeated, 2-1, by Wheaton College in the NCAA Sweet 16

2

Consecutive years the Middlebury field hockey team has advanced to the NCAA title game—and lost to Salisbury State University

3

Number of goals scored by the men's soccer team in the final 14:56 of a 4-3 overtime win over Tufts in the NESCAC tournament

4,544

Career passing-yards total for Panther quarterback Mike Keenan '05, a College record

1,974

Career receiving-yards total for Panther receiver Tom Cleaver '05, also a College record

0

Number of losses by the men's and women's ice hockey teams at the conclusion of the fall semester. The men's team entered the winter break with a record of 6-0-1. The women were perfect, sporting an 8-0 record

Course: Ecology

Department:Biology

Instructor: Sallie Sheldon, Professor of Biology

Course Description
How do wood frogs freeze solid and survive? Why do some plants in Vermont create their own heat early in the spring? What determines where species live and whether their populations expand or decrease over time? This course for nonmajors and majors is an introduction to organisms in their environments, including consideration of physiological adaptations, behaviors, and reproductive strategies. We will look at how individuals affect members of their own species and explore the diversity of interactions among species and their role in the organization of communities. We will examine how ecological communities affect and are affected by the physical environment. Why are prairies found in some places and forests in others? Why are natural disasters not always disastrous for ecological communities?

Reading List (Partial)