Video Message to Faculty and Staff from President Baucom
President Ian Baucom
Good morning, Middlebury.
I hope you’ve had a wonderful summer.
With a new semester and the beginning of the academic year approaching, I wanted to take a moment to catch you up on Middlebury’s strategic plan: Excellence. Purpose. Joy.
This past May, the board of trustees unanimously approved our new strategic direction; an affirmation that arrived on the heels of a tremendous amount of work by faculty, staff, students, administrators, alumni, and community members as we asked ourselves: What is Middlebury for?
We are, of course, for many things. Above all, we are for our students, and for our world. Our strategic plan is dedicated to ensuring that we deliver on those commitments. Its ambition is to establish Middlebury as the best liberal arts institution in the world.
Our history tells us we can succeed in that ambition. We have long distinguished ourselves as the most global liberal arts college in the world; the college most alive to the languages and cultures of the world; the college most dedicated to addressing the crisis of climate change. We will continue to be that place. As we will continue to be a place dedicated to the vibrancy of the residential liberal arts across all our fields of study in the sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, and in all our life.
In a moment of profound social, technological, economic, and environmental change, I believe we must also distinguish ourselves as the college most dedicated to demonstrating that liberal arts learning is more urgent than ever and that the students best-prepared for the shifting future are the ones who can combine multiple forms of intelligence: Critical intelligence, creative intelligence, historical intelligence, scientific intelligence, and the forms of ethical, emotional, and civic intelligence necessary for them to thrive in life and in work, and for their communities to flourish.
In a time of civic fracturing, it’s time to distinguish ourselves as a profoundly civic-minded institution: A college for our town, state, nation, world, and planet.
In a time when the value of diversity is being questioned, it’s time to distinguish ourselves in affirming that the future will be more diverse, not less.
In a time when the freedom to think and speak is being challenged by forces across divides, it’s time to distinguish ourselves in defending academic freedom for everyone, advancing the free and rigorous debate of ideas.
In a time when trust in higher education and the value of a college degree is being questioned, it’s time to lead in being affordable, excellent, and open to students from all backgrounds. It is time to lead by demonstrating that a liberal arts education is not a retreat from the world but the best possible preparation for a world that needs liberal arts thinkers more than ever.
If we do so, we will realize our ambitions. At a time when too much of our culture defines itself by what it is against, we will define ourselves by what we are for.
That is what our plan is designed to do. In building it we’ve dedicated ourselves to three linked values: excellence, purpose, and joy. We’ve chosen those words carefully. .
We’ve chosen excellence because our teaching, arts, research, and scholarly mission depends on it, and because we want our students to excel during their time at Middlebury and in their lives ahead.
We’ve chosen excellence with purpose, particularly a sense of public purpose, because that has always guided us. We are a public-minded private institution.
We’ve also named a sense of purpose because I believe our world is hungry for it, and because I believe that young people in particular are aching for it. I see that in every student I meet at Middlebury. Our students seek purpose during their years in college. They seek highly successful and purpose-driven lives after they graduate. We will equip them for both.
Finally, we’ve chosen joy. That is not a word that shows up in most higher education strategic plans. But it should. For our students, college happens once, in the height of their youth. It should be a joy-filled time. For all of us devoted to the life of this place—staff, faculty, alumni, parents—Middlebury should also inspire a joyful sense of purpose, rooted in our lives together, the beauty of our place in the world, and a rediscovery of the wonder of college, the wonder of studying, working, and living together, pursuing purpose-driven lives together.
I believe that the college that can accomplish these things will have earned the right to be known as the best liberal arts institution in the world. That is our ambition and I believe this plan will help us accomplish it.
Now, I know you didn’t spend the summer months ruminating about our strategic plan; and I know it’s almost definitely not the first thing on your mind as your thoughts turn to autumn and all the work of a new year that is about to begin.
But in the days, weeks, and months ahead, I’m going to be asking that we return our energy and imagination to that plan as we continue to chart this course for our future together, and as we begin the process of putting our ambitions into action.
To that end, we’ve created a new website that contains a detailed narrative of the plan; a history of how we’ve gotten to this point; and, soon, an implementation dashboard that will allow you to track, in real time, progress made toward our strategic goals. You can find the link to the website in the body of the email that was sent with this video, as well as on the top navigation bar of Middlebury’s homepage.
I hope you’ll take a look. As you do, you’ll see that we’ve re-iterated three areas of focus:
- Strengthening Our Core
- Serving Our World
- And Preparing for our Future
Within these areas, we’ve identified a range of initiatives to advance our ambitions for excellence in all we do; driven by a deep sense of purpose for our students, our world, and the advance of knowledge; and animated by a spirit of shared community and joy as we take this work on together.
A plan, of course, can be just that—words on paper We want more. We want that plan to live.
Which brings us to now.
In a few days, many of us will come from every corner of Middlebury to gather at Bread Loaf for two days of conversation on what bringing that plan to life will take. We’ll bring our curiosity and commitment to each other to engage in discussions on what it means to be a community of teachers, learners and doers in this urgent time in the history of higher education. We will contemplate our place in Vermont and our civic commitments to the world. We will think about our shared roles in advancing the liberal arts, and the forms of liberal arts intelligence vital to our times. We will convene, converse, and have a chance to build our community together.
And when the weekend is over, and the fall semester begins, we will continue. I can’t wait—both to be with all of you who can join the Breadloaf retreat, and more broadly, for all our collective work as we launch this next moment for Middlebury.
Thank you for everything you are already doing to bring that future into life, and for all our shared work ahead.
Dear Colleagues,
I hope you’ve had a wonderful summer! I’m writing to share a video update about our strategic plan, Excellence. Purpose. Joy., and some of the exciting ways we’ll start bringing it to life in the coming months.
Since we last discussed the strategic plan in May, we’ve launched a redesigned website with a detailed narrative of the plan; a history of how we’ve gotten to this point; and, soon, an implementation dashboard that will allow you to track, in real time, progress made toward our strategic goals. I encourage you to browse through the site to learn more.
We’ll have a great opportunity to dive into the plan this Thursday and Friday at Bread Loaf when we convene the first-ever presidential retreat for faculty and staff. The retreat will be a chance for in-depth discussions of our shared vision to realize Middlebury’s promise for the future.
I look forward to seeing many of you at Bread Loaf.
Sincerely,
Ian
Ian B. Baucom
President