BOV members spend day on campus
Members of the William and Mary Board of Visitors spent an entire day
on campus Friday listening, learning and answering questions from
students, faculty and staff regarding the recent resignation of
President Gene R. Nichol and how the College community should move
forward and heal together in the coming days and weeks.
Michael K. Powell, Rector of the College, was joined by Board members
Phil Herget, Kathy Hornsby, Suzann Matthews, Jeffrey McWaters, Anita
Poston, John Charles Thomas and Barbara Ukrop as they participated in a
series of collegial, yet frank public meetings at the University Center
with all segments of the campus community. Board members said Friday’s
sessions were important for the College so that the healing process can
begin.
“We want to hear. We want to talk to you and we want to listen,” said
Matthews, who is Secretary of the Board as she opened the session with
students. “This is a conversation we have to have. We are committed to
this College. This is not the end. Everybody comes to this room
thinking first of the love they have for William and Mary.”
Earlier in the day, the Board held a meeting of
the executive committee where they adopted a resolution formally
recognizing W. Taylor Reveley III as interim president of the College.
Reveley, who served the past 10 years as dean of the William and Mary
Law School, said he appreciated the Board’s confidence and that he was
ready to lead the College through a difficult moment in its long
history. In speaking to members of the Board and those attending the
committee meeting, Reveley said the College’s immediate needs are
continuity, healing and renewed progress.
“Continuity – we need to finish this academic year in good order,”
Reveley said. “Healing – we need to come together again in restored
community, all of us, including members of the Board, faculty,
students, staff, alumni and friends. And we need to show new and
vibrant signs of moving powerfully into the 21st century. Along with
you and the rest of the William and Mary community, I’m working hard,
indeed doggedly hard, to move us in these directions. Together, I have
steely confidence we’ll get there.”
All three public meetings – one each for staff, faculty and students --
were well attended, with nearly 400 people packed inside the University
Center’s Commonwealth Auditorium for each session. Dozens more watched
from an overflow area in the Chesapeake Room as Board members answered
questions regarding the Board’s decision not to renew Nichol’s contract
when it expired June 30, his subsequent resignation on February 12 and
the emotional impact this series of events has had on campus the past
two weeks. For more than five hours, Board members discussed everything
from the College’s continued commitment to diversity – including its
commitment to finding the needed funding to cement the future and
success of the Gateway Program; to the review process that led to that
decision regarding the former president; to the circumstances
surrounding the Board’s decision not to renew Nichol’s contract.
Board members said they considered many factors in the review,
including input from the campus gathered through emails, letters and
personal meetings. They also considered an on-campus review, which was
conducted by an independent consultant who interviewed a mutually
agreed upon list of stakeholders between Nichol and the Board, such as
students, faculty, administrators and others who worked directly with
the former president. Board members said their decision regarding
Nichol was the result of a lengthy process. They added it was a
difficult decision that was not based on ideological reasons or outside
pressure from individuals.
“This was not a Board that was trying to do in President Nichol because
of his ideologies or his plans for making this College great,” Hornsby
said.
Powell added they deliberated over many months. The decision, the Board
said, was based on concerns such as management style, administrative
follow-through and efforts to secure the financial future of the
College.
“I’m not going to argue that the College has suffered no damage. We
knew that it would and … that frightened us, it worried us. It caused
us to pause. It caused us to do more, to think more or to try harder to
solve the problem,” Powell told the faculty. “You have to believe that
you think, on balance, that to continue on this path could be, might
be, will be potentially more damaging than the harder choice that you
have to take. Time will tell; we might be wrong. But our judgment was
that we were right.”
During the public sessions at the University Center, Board members
briefly discussed plans for the next presidential search – stating
there was no timetable to begin the search but they did not plan to
begin any part of the process until this summer or later.
“We don’t have anytime timetable here,” Matthews said. “We have no
intention to rush into anything. We understand the great process we
have to go through here.”
Board members also reiterated the importance of reassuring members of
the campus, alumni, friends of the College – as well as the entire
country -- that there will be a continuity of leadership at William and
Mary. That William and Mary will move forward.
“We have a choice to make,”’ Powell said. “The whole world is watching.
They are watching to see whether this community means it when it says
‘Tribe,’ or is that just a slogan? Our action from this day forward
will have a lot more to do with how we are perceived in the United
States and the world than anything else that has happened.”
