McCardell to Take Semester Sabbatical Liebowitz to Assume Role of Acting President for Spring Term

Author: Ashley Elpern

Following a successful Bicentennial Campaign and the planning for the construction of the new Atwater facilities and the Library and Technology Center (LATC), President John McCardell will be taking a three month sabbatical beginning after the February meeting of the Middlebury College Board of Trustees and ending before the graduation ceremony for the Class of 2002.

Ronald Liebowitz, provost and executive vice president of the College, who was on leave in the fall, will serve as acting president in McCardell's absence.

This spring will be a time of continued focus on the initiatives set forth in the past few years of College planning, such as the new Ross Commons dining and residence halls, the Atwater Commons project and the LATC, now in the final permitting stages and awaiting final approval by the Trustees. Further consolidation of the commons system will also be a priority.

"The agenda is so large at this point that my goal is to stay the course and to move things along," Liebowitz said.

McCardell commented that he hopes the spring will be "an operational and tactical period" rather than "a visionary period," as there are many projects to keep the administration occupied in his absence.

He maintained that he will be paying attention to developments on campus during his leave but that he does not expect that there will be too many difficulties.

"I have complete confidence in Ron and in all other members of the administration," McCardell said. "They know the operations of the College well and are very experienced [in their duties]."

Liebowitz has been on campus since the beginning of Winter Term and has focused on the preparation for the February trustee meeting, developing strategies on how to present the College's building projects, financial decisions and overall goals for the future.

He said he believed that his transition to acting president will be "as seamless as one can imagine," because he and McCardell have been working together in the administration for nine years.

"There is a whole shift in power," Director of Public Affairs Phil Benoit remarked, adding that Acting Provost Alison Byerly, who took over for Liebowitz in the fall, will be a "nice stabilizing force," as she will continue in that capacity through the spring semester.

Byerly served as acting dean of the faculty last year and noted that there are "certainly areas of overlap between the dean of the faculty and provost positions that made serving as dean of faculty useful preparation for this role [as provost]."

She said that as dean of the faculty, she now deals with larger issues more connected to areas outside academic programs, meaning that she now has more interaction with administrators and staff colleagues in other offices than she did in her role as acting dean of the faculty.

Byerly will also be able to give Liebowitz the added perspective of understanding developments at the College during the fall semester. "I'm really enjoyed working with Ron last year and I'm looking forward to working with him in his new role. I hope I am able as provost to support him effectively in his position as acting president this spring," she said.

Benoit commented that since Liebowitz has been involved in planning and implementing all projects, he knows the status of all current projects and the direction in which they are heading. He said that the shared operations at the top level of the administration ensure that all decisions are made collectively.

"I am sure that there will be a slight difference in the style [of leadership], but Ron and John have worked together for many years and know the issues well," he said. "I believe that John's trust in Ron is complete."

While on sabbatical, McCardell expects to complete an edited version of the novella "Castle Dismal," which he began working on in 1980 when he started to write a biography of its author, William Gilmore Simms.

On his last leave in 1995, McCardell was reading through Simms' papers at the University of South Carolina at Columbia's library branch when he came across Simms' manuscript about the writing and research of "Castle Dismal."

His plan for the spring is to edit the original manuscript, add an author's introduction and conclusion and include the story of the writing of the novella.

McCardell said that the University of South Carolina Press has expressed interest in publishing his work in the future. He and his wife Bonnie will be living in Beaufort, S.C., "a quiet place to write in a relatively warm climate," McCardell said.

During his leave, Liebowitz lived in New York City and divided his time between working at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a group that specializes in providing educational grants and services to private colleges and universities, and researching the political geography of Russia and the relationship between Moscow and Russia's outer regions at Columbia University

While more time was spent at Columbia pursuing his passion for political geography, Liebowitz said that his work with the Mellon Foundation allowed him to learn how educational foundations operate and how the College can take advantage of its services. He took part in a project aiding faculty development programs at several elite private colleges, including Middlebury, and also worked with the expansion of the Center for Educational Technology (CET), the first branch of which is in downtown Middlebury.

Additional branches are located in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Austin, Texas.

"The CET began with Project 2001 to help with technology assisted language teaching and offers consulting language workshops for the 81 schools in the Mellon Foundation," said Liebowitz.

While in New York, Liebowitz said he was available to those at the College who needed him, but noted that he had greater contact with Middlebury alumni and trustees who lived in New York. "I had my freedom and time, but McCardell contacted me on some important issues," he said.

He sees his time at the Mellon Foundation as beneficial, as Middlebury sends many grant proposals to the Foundation concerning faculty development for tenured professors. "Working at the Foundation also gave me a good look at our peer institutions. We get so focused on Middlebury, so this was a valuable time to look at how Middlebury compares to other schools," he elucidated.

He added, "One of the more important benefits is the clearing of one's mind," noting that he had gone 10 years without any time off.