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Executive Vice President and Provost Ian Baucom, who has served the University of Virginia more than a decade, will become 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 hiring as the 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 will hold that as we move. But at the same time, I am 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 long list of accomplishments, from improvements to curriculum and advising to investments in research, faculty hires and school leadership. He is someone who is deeply motivated by mission, which made him a perfect fit for UVA, and now for Middlebury College. 

“Ian will be greatly missed on Grounds but will remain a dear friend and lifelong champion of higher education.”

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

The similarities are not coincidental 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 to 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 Have To Be Able To Fall in Love

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

“These are terrific leadership opportunities that come with a lot of responsibility,” Baucom recounted 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?”

That rang true to him because Baucom fell in love with UVA long ago, and there were many good days, and there were tough times. 

“Without any question whatsoever, 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 Grounds fatally shot football student-athletes D’Sean Perry, Devin Chandler and Lavel Davis Jr., and wounded students Mike Hollins and Marlee Morgan. What got Baucom through, he said, was the bottomless love from students and the unending support from faculty and staff. 

“Good people can walk into the hardest of times, and walk through them,” he said. “And on that front, I would say the colleagues I get to work with, and the students who we are so fortunate to share this place with, showed courage and resilience. The compassion of our students 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 in African studies and a doctorate in English. 

In 2014, Baucom was named dean of the College, where he oversaw efforts to hire 150 new faculty members and to overhaul 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 country’s top research institutions. In his tenure as provost, Baucom has hired five deans and a vice president for research.

Also on his watch:

• Extensive renovations of academic spaces

• The growth of the Emmet-Ivy Corridor

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

• A bolstering of academic advising, particularly for students before they declare majors

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

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

He had not seen that internet entry, and he chuckled.

“If you ask my children what my most famous work is, that’s the answer they would give you,” Baucom said. “And you know, fortunately, 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 started writing a tale set in Venice and starring characters based on his kids.

“We wanted them to understand something about the history of Venice and to take them to art museums and take them to churches and piazzas and to understand the lagoon,” he said. “And so, the city became somewhat of a character in the book, and it was a way of hopefully helping 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 he accepted the Middlebury presidency, he talked it over with his wife and six children, who are now mostly college-age and beyond. Some of the couple’s children are in Virginia, while others are in North Carolina. “They’re at the age where they move 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 pine for Charlottesville.