Ratios of success
New Middlebury president Ron Liebowitz vows to go head to head with Williams College
Toolbox
Published: October 10, 2004
In the high stakes world of higher education, where endowments run into the millions and perception is everything, Ron Liebowitz is signaling the competition that he's ready to do battle. Barely three months into the job, the new president of Middlebury College has set his sights on Middlebury's historic archrivals, Amherst and Williams, and he intends to come out swinging.
"My interest is in raising the academic profile of Middlebury," says Liebowitz, who talks with the speed of a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle. "My true goal (for his presidency) is to ensure that the strong faculty/student ratio isn't eroded. We're now at an 11-to-1 student/faculty ratio versus 8-to-1 at places like Williams, Dartmouth and Amherst.
"Why do I focus on Amherst and Williams? The best way to assess the competition is by looking at students who have been accepted at, say, Middlebury and Williams to see which one they chose. Amherst and Williams still kill us in that head-to-head competition. I believe the reality of this place exceeds the perception. We have programs here such as environmental studies and international studies that are national models."
Every so often, Liebowitz has to pause to come up for air, but then he's off and running again. He has the go-getter energy and focus of a man on the move whose trajectory is up, always up. He came to Middlebury in 1984 while finishing his doctorate in geography at Columbia University. At Middlebury, he was made an associate professor in 1988 and a full professor in 1993, the same year he began his two-year tenure as dean of the faculty.
In 1995, Liebowitz was appointed vice president of the college; in 1997, he became provost and executive vice president. Sixteen months ago, he married Jessica, a telecommunications expert who sits on the boards of several think tanks, and they now have a 6-month-old. This past July, he took over as president from John McCardell. Liebowitz just turned 47.
"This has been a year — no, two years — of extraordinary change," Liebowitz acknowledges. "It's pretty much off the (stress) charts."
It's not just Liebowitz's age that sets him apart. McCardell, too, was young when he assumed the presidency, but his graying hair and courtly southern manner seemed more in keeping with the legacy of the ordained ministers who preceded him. Liebowitz's youthful, clean-shaven face makes him look more like a new faculty member than the president of a prestigious, 200-year-old liberal arts college. He and his wife are both practicing Jews who were born in New York City – he's from Brooklyn and she's from Queens — and they have installed a kosher kitchen in the upstairs of the president's home on South Street. A competitive swimmer in college, Liebowitz's game of choice now is squash, as opposed to golf, a sport more typically associated with college presidents from New England.
When it comes to doing the job, none of that really matters. This new president has two major tasks ahead of him. One is to complete the infrastructure expansion that began with a bang during McCardell's 13-year tenure. In that time, Middlebury committed to building $220 million worth of dorms, classroom buildings, an enormous science center and the new library that officially opens this weekend.
"One of my jobs is to complete the commons system that John McCardell started," says Liebowitz, referring to the new system of small living/dining/social units that eventually will replace the old dorms. One, Ross Commons, is open now, but there are several more to go, and Liebowitz notes that all the new structures must be built before the commons system can be fully instituted.
His own interests, however, have more to do with human beings than with infrastructure, specifically with the faculty/student ratio that, to his mind, is a significant benchmark of how much time faculty members have to spend with their students. A higher ratio means the faculty is less accessible; a lower ratio indicates that the faculty is more available.
"Places like Middlebury survive because of the faculty/student ratio," he says by way of explaining his intense focus on the issue. "We've done the infrastructure part over the last 10 to 15 years. We've grown from 2,000 to 2,300 students and added 30 faculty positions. But I'm concerned that, with growth, the college has become increasingly bureaucratized. Now, we're turning our attention to the human dimension."
The issue recently drew him into an exchange with his former boss on the op-ed pages of The New York Times – an exchange that some people were calling "testy." McCardell used his platform as president emeritus both to criticize the 21-year-old drinking age and to propose that faculty/student ratio was overrated as a measure of educational quality.
Liebowitz, apparently caught by surprise, fired back a letter to the editor to the effect that Middlebury College still considers the ratio to be of that utmost importance and that McCardell was speaking for himself and not for the college. It was just the sort of exchange that brings out the warrior in Liebowitz and gets his competitive juices flowing.
He alludes to that competitiveness when he explains why he no longer swims, even though he had back surgery in June and swimming would seem to be the therapy of choice for a back injury.
"Once you've been a competitive swimmer and trained for up to four hours a day, you can't get in the pool to swim laps leisurely," says Liebowitz, who swam for Bucknell University, his undergraduate alma mater. "I can't seem to get in the pool to do laps. But I'm going to learn. One of these days, I've promised myself I'm going to learn to swim leisurely."
Sally Johnson is a freelance writer who lives in Middlebury.
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