Provost Ian Baucom selected as next president of Middlebury College

Executive Vice President and Provost Ian Baucom, who has served the University of Virginia for more than a decade, will be the next president of historic Middlebury College in Vermont, the college announced Wednesday.

Baucom will step down as provost in March, 11 years after his tenure as dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and three years since his promotion to provost, the university’s chief academic officer.

“Our lives have been blessed by being here in Charlottesville,” Baucom said of his family. “And we’re keeping that as we move. But at the same time, I’m also counting the days. I can’t wait to get to Middlebury and get going.”

UVA President Jim Ryan said Baucom’s contributions to the university have been far-reaching.

“Ian has left an indelible mark on UVA, both from his time as dean and his years as provost,” Ryan said. “Our academic environment has been enriched by his wise and steady leadership and a wide range of accomplishments, from curriculum enhancements and consulting to investments in research, faculty hiring, and school leadership. He is someone who is deeply motivated by mission, which made him perfect for UVA and now to Middlebury College.

“Ian will be sorely missed at Grounds, but will remain a dear friend and lifelong champion of higher education.”

In Vermont, Baucom will oversee a campus of 2,900 students that, like Virginia, is deeply enmeshed in the nation’s history. Founded in 1800, Middlebury College was established to train young men to serve the new nation in the ministry and other critical professions. And like UVA, the liberal arts college has since grown to become a leader in national and global education.

The similarities are not accidental for a scholar who has studied history and served at historic schools — including 17 years at Duke University — as they grow into modern educational institutions.

“I am fascinated by the commitment in the future,” Baucom told UVA Today from his office in Madison Hall recently. “The future flows from the present and begins in the past. Both institutions are part of the fabric of American history and, increasingly, world history. It’s powerful, and I love it.”

You must be able to fall in love

Baucom said one of the most important lessons he learned from Ryan is how important it is to fall in love with the institution you serve.

“These are great leadership opportunities that come with a lot of responsibility,” Baucom said from a conversation with the president. “There are many, many good days and there are days that are difficult. What carries you through them is, do you think you can fall in love with the place, with its people?

It rang true for him because Baucom fell in love with UVA a long time ago, and there were many good days and there were hard times.

“Without any doubt it was the loss of our three students and the tragic shooting and wounding of two others,” he said.

In November 2022, a gunman on the Grounds fatally shot football student-athletes D’Sean Perry, Devin Chandler and Lavel Davis Jr. and injured students Mike Hollins and Marlee Morgan. What got Baucom through, he said, was the bottomless love of students and the endless support of faculty and staff.

“Good people can go into the hardest times and go through them,” he said. “And on that front, I want to say that the colleagues I will be working with and the students with whom we are lucky enough to share this place showed courage and resilience. Our students’ compassion carried us even as we knew we had a responsibility to hold them and walk with them.”

Early experiences shaped later research

Baucom was born to missionaries in South Africa. As a child, he began to see the racism and oppression of the nation’s apartheid government, an experience that would later influence his academic research.

Baucom earned a political science degree from Wake Forest University. At Yale University, he earned a master’s degree in African studies and a doctorate in English.

In 2014, Baucom was named dean of the college, overseeing efforts to hire 150 new faculty members and to revise the curriculum to better meet the needs of modern education. He also spearheaded a stronger commitment to research, a focus that has helped UVA become one of the nation’s top research institutions. During his tenure as provost, Baucom has hired five deans and a vice president for research.

Also on his watch:

• Extensive renovations of academic premises

• The growth of the Emmet-Ivy Corridor

• The opening of the School of Data Science’s new building

• A strengthening of academic advising, especially for students before they declare a major

• The creation of the Task Force on Religious Diversity and Affiliation

Along the way, he has written three scholarly books and edited others, largely centered on his research specialties of colonialism and slavery. Still, GoodReads.com, a website dedicated to showcasing literature to readers, had this to say about the author: “Ian Baucom’s most popular book is ‘Through the Skylight,'” a book for young readers.

He hadn’t seen that internet entrance and chuckled.

“If you ask my kids what my most famous work is, that’s the answer they would give you,” Baucom said. “And you know, luckily there are more children in the world than there are English professors.” Hence the popularity.

During a two-month assignment in Venice with his family, Baucom ran out of traditional bedtime stories. So to educate his children about their temporary home, Baucom began writing a story set in Venice and starring characters based on his children.

“We wanted them to understand something about the history of Venice and take them to art museums and take them to churches and piazzas and understand the lagoon,” he said. “And then the city became a bit of a character in the book, and it was a way to hopefully help them get excited about the city because the kids who are the characters in the novel spent a lot of time in museums where pieces of art come to life .”

‘It’s the people’

Before accepting the Middlebury presidency, he talked it over with his wife and six children, now mostly college-age and older. Some of the couple’s children are in Virginia, while others are in North Carolina. “They’re at the age where they’re moving around,” he said.

He wanted this decision to be a family decision, he said. And all supported the move to Middlebury. Still, he knows he’ll be searching for Charlottesville.