This story by Katie Futterman, Maggie Reynolds and Ryan Mcelroy was first published by the Middlebury Campus on May 2, 2024.
After almost a decade at the helm of Middlebury College, president Laurie Patton has announced her intention to leave her post in January 2025. As the 17th president and first woman to hold the position, Patton leaves a legacy of leadership and expansion at an institution that has faced unprecedented challenges in recent years.
“I’ve been able to accomplish the dreams that I had, with and for Middlebury,” Patton told The Campus on Thursday.
Patton will leave Middlebury to take on the position of president of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She was elected to the Academy in 2018 in two categories: philosophy/religion, as well as educational and academic leadership.
The college’s announcement comes at a moment of uncertainty at Middlebury and in higher education at large, something that both board of trustees chair Ted Truscott and Patton acknowledged in interviews with The Campus.
“I was and have been all in at Middlebury and would have been happy to stay several more years,” Patton told The Campus. “This opportunity was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so it has nothing really to do with politics of campuses. If anything, these kinds of conversations energize me, and I feel like, even though they’re hard, Middlebury has been dealing with them really constructively, and I’m all in.”
Truscott described Patton’s departure as bittersweet for the college.
“The board is very happy for Laurie, very supportive of Laurie,” Truscott told The Campus on Thursday. “We’re all sad to see her go, quite frankly. It’s a tremendous honor for Laurie, and it reflects well on Middlebury that she’s achieved this honor.”
Truscott said the search committee for the new president hopes to have found a replacement by July 2025, which is the start of the new fiscal year. He added that the process for finding a new president would be expedited in hopes of accomplishing this goal quickly and ensuring continuity with her accomplishments.
“At the end of the day, I think that means we can perform this search probably a little bit more expeditiously than the last search. We’re going to take our time with this, but it’s going to be more expeditious,” Truscott stated.
Truscott distinguished the plans for this upcoming search from the presidential search 10 years ago, which resulted in Patton’s appointment as president. That search process included more of what he described as constituent dialogues about the future of the college.
“So when I think about that, I don’t think we need to have tons of constituent discussions. I think people have been very vocal about what they expect from Middlebury, and I think Laurie has delivered on a lot of that,” he said. “It’s really about continuity.”
Before coming to Middlebury, Patton served as dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences at Duke University, and taught religion at Emory University and Bard College. She was inaugurated as president of Middlebury on October 11, 2015.
As Patton stepped into office, she inherited a structural deficit in Middlebury’s finances. Throughout her term, Patton returned $38 million to the institution’s budget. This past fall, she launched the For Every Future campaign, which has raised $444 million of its $600 million goal thus far. In the past three years, the college has received the largest fundraising totals in Middlebury’s history, according to a press release announcing Patton’s departure.
Patton also made efforts to increase general financial transparency. In 2019, she unveiled Energy2028, in which the college pledged to divest from fossil fuels and put the institution on a path toward renewable energy by 2028.
Another key component of Patton’s presidency was her emphasis on the college’s relationship to the town of Middlebury. During her tenure, the college has subsidized the expansion of Otter Creek Child Care Center, doubling the town of Middlebury’s childcare capacity. In April 2022, the college invested in an affordable housing project with over 200 units, which is set to open in 2025.
Access to the college has also improved under Patton’s tenure. Currently, over 20% of students are the first in their family to attend college, nearly 40% are domestic students of color and almost 50% of Middlebury students receive financial aid, according to the college’s press release.
The college has also faced numerous challenges during Patton’s 10 years as president. In March 2017, Middlebury was rocked by the guest lecture of controversial sociologist Charles Murray, which resulted in national media coverage and disciplinary proceedings for dozens of students who protested his visit on campus. In March 2020, like schools across the country during the Covid-19 pandemic, the college announced it would send students home for the remainder of the semester. It then implemented varying levels of restrictions on gatherings and classes until fall 2022.
While her years here have seen challenges, Patton has remained at the college longer than the leaders of many other universities. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, in 2023 the average tenure of a college president was 5.9 years, down from 6.5 years in 2016 and 8.5 years in 2006. Patton will have been the president of Middlebury for nearly 10 years when she steps down in January 2025.
The college plans to begin the search process for the next president in the coming weeks. According to Truscott, the search committee will consist of members of the board of trustees, as well as members of the college community, including staff, faculty and students.
Truscott said the committee will want the next president to work toward continuing the initiatives Patton began during her tenure. The initiatives Truscott cited include the “For Every Future” campaign, Energy2028, Conflict Transformation and effectively managing the Language Schools, Bread Loaf and the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
“I don’t want to get too far out over my skis on this, but I’d say that the future president of Middlebury College will clearly want to put some of their own stamp on what they do going forward, but we will need that person to be committed to continuing the number of of great initiatives that Laurie has started,” Truscott said.
Truscott affirmed that Patton’s departure is related to the opportunity that presented itself at the Academy, rather than related to current political events.
“The political aspect of the job, which is always difficult, has not been part of this discussion or decision at all,” Truscott said. “Yes, there’s a lot going on out there in the world, but the politics have nothing to do with this.”
The American Academy of Arts & Sciences is a scholarly society in Cambridge, Mass., founded in 1780 by John Hancock and John Adams, among others. The Academy is the second oldest intellectual society in the country, and its current membership includes former President Barack Obama, as well as many other Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners.
“Patton embodies both scholarship and leadership at the highest levels, and we are thrilled that she will lead the Academy as our next president,” Goodwin Liu, chair of the board of directors at the academy and chair of its presidential search committee, wrote in a press release on May 2. “She brings tremendous substance, vision, warmth and energy to the Academy’s work of honoring excellence and advancing the common good.”
Patton will succeed David W. Oxtoby, who stepped down as president of the academy in October 2023 after over five years in the role.
Patton has taught a class in the Religion Department at Middlebury most semesters during her tenure as president. While Patton said she won’t have time to continue teaching each semester when she takes on her new role at the Academy, she hopes to keep teaching in some capacity when time permits.
“I have so many deep friendships and collegial relationships in the community that I plan to stay in really close touch with,” Patton added. “Teaching is so much a part of who I am that I couldn’t really live without and teaching and learning with students.”
Patton and her husband, Pardon Tillinghast Professor of Religion Shalom Goldman, plan to continue living at their current home in Shoreham, and Patton expects to work in Cambridge, Mass., during the week.
The college has begun to bid farewell to Patton (and her beloved dog Suka) and to look towards its unknown 18th president.
“I think a lot about whether institutions have a soul, and I would say Middlebury has an incredible soul,” Patton told the Campus. “I have real confidence and joy, anticipating what it will do around the things that matter most to it in the future.”
