To Members of the Middlebury College Community:
I write with the sad news of the passing yesterday, August 10, 2008, of our colleague, David A. J. Macey, Professor of History and Russian Studies.
David was a member of the Middlebury faculty for thirty years, having come to the College in 1978 as an Assistant Professor of History. He received his B.A., summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Brooklyn College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He taught a wide array of courses in European and Russian history, Soviet Studies, and international studies.
David’s scholarly interests focused on pre-Revolutionary Russia, and early in his career, he established a reputation as one of world’s leading authorities on agrarian reform in nineteenth-century Russia. His 1987 book, Government and Peasant in Russia, 1861-1906: The Prehistory of the Stolypin Reforms, appeared just as Mikhail Gorbachev’s own reforms were gaining world-wide attention and helped to illuminate the roots of the Soviet Union’s attempts to reorient its economic and political traditions.
David’s international inclinations were formed early. A native of England, David traveled extensively with the British Merchant Navy. He carried with him his passion for the study of history and cultures to the academy in his scholarship, teaching, and in the various administrative posts he held. David co-founded with two colleagues in 1985 the College’s Soviet and East European Studies program (now the Russian and East European Studies program), served as its director, and then was the first director of the College’s program in international studies. In 1993, David was named C.V. Starr Professor of Russian & East European Studies, a position that he held until 2005.
His most consequential administrative post at the College was that of director of Off-Campus Study from 1995 to 2006. During his eleven-year tenure as director, which was a pivotal period in the development of the College’s international orientation, David played an instrumental role in establishing the current model for our C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools Abroad. He led the expansion of our Schools Abroad beyond Europe to Latin America and China, and added multiple sites at every School—23 sites in all—to provide greater academic opportunities for our students.
During his tenure as director, his office also established faculty advisory boards for each School Abroad, which brought faculty from across the disciplines into the development of our programs abroad. Through these boards, faculty colleagues now visit our sites regularly to observe classes, engage our students, and get to know our partner universities and their faculties.
David leaves an enormous legacy in an area for which the College has attained international prominence, and generations of students will benefit from his contributions. To the many who knew him, David was a warm and generous colleague whose penchant to take the contrarian point of view on most issues made for engaging and provocative discussion. It also made so many at the College better teachers and learners.
Please join me in expressing our condolences to David’s wife of 43 years, Phyllis, his two sons Peter and Robert, and his four grandchildren. At the request of the family, there will be no service.
Ronald D. Liebowitz
President, Middlebury College
