BOSTON — Hundreds of students at Middlebury College in Vermont shouted down a controversial speaker on Thursday night, disrupting a program and confronting the speaker in an encounter that turned violent and left a faculty member injured.

Laurie L. Patton, the president of the college, issued an apology on Friday to all who attended the event and to the speaker, Charles Murray, 74, whose book “The Bell Curve,” published in 1994, linked lower socio-economic status with race and intelligence.

“Today our community begins the process of addressing the deep and troubling divisions that were on display last night,” Ms. Patton said in her statement, adding that the Middlebury community had “failed to live up to our core values.” She said that some of the protesters appeared to be from elsewhere but that Middlebury students had also been involved.

The chaotic scene at the small liberal arts college in Vermont drew sharp criticism from the right. Conservatives said that the students were intolerant, had engaged in mob mentality and were quashing free speech, while those on the left maintained that the speaker was racist and hateful and had no place on their campus.