Reme
Photo: Bob Handelman
he always treated them as adults because he believed they were genuinely interested in the subject matter and to treat them any other way would undermine our mission as educators. He challenged his students and expected much from them. He treated his colleagues the same way, yet his penchant to take the alternative view to what were near-universally held positions made for rich and always entertaining discussion.
President Ronald Liebowitz, Middlebury College
Article by President Ronald Liebowitz
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COLLEGE LOST A GEM of a colleague and friend on August 10th. David Macey, professor of history and Russian studies, scholar of pre-revolutionary Russian agrarian reform, and architect of the College’s extensive programs abroad, passed away from complications following surgery. HE
At a gathering to remember David earlier this semester, ten speakers provided moving tributes
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to David, and each of them conveyed, in their own way, a similar appreciation and affection for our former colleague. They retold stories of his teaching, of his scholarship, of his administrative contributions to the College, and of his admired personal qualities. To know David as a teacher and scholar, one had to understand his independent, contrarian, and some would say stubborn ways. He never pampered his students; indeed
I had the pleasure of teamteaching with David twice: we taught a winter term course on contemporary Soviet society (1985) and another winter term course in the Soviet Union on Gorbachev’s Reforms (1989). Both were highlights of my teaching career, and each helped to make me a better teacher, courtesy of David’s unique pedagogical style. I also came away from our team-teaching experiences having learned much and having gained new insights on Russian history and culture. David’s scholarly interests focused on agrarian reform in prerevolutionary Russia, and he was the author of numerous publications on the topic, including an influential book titled Government and Peasant in Russia, 18611906: The Prehistory of the Stolypin Reforms. When the Soviet system imploded in the early 1990s, and issues of private property and land