A Cross to Bear

As a William & Mary alumna, I have received many of the emails and petitions circulating about the issue of the Wren Cross. For the most part, I have ignored it, hoping that the attentions of higher education reporters and the William & Mary community would turn to, quite frankly, more important issues (like the under representation of low income and minority students). But, after the second time the issue made my Inside Higher Education daily news blast (maybe it was just a slow news day), I figured it was time to post a response.

For those of you not familiar with the issue, William & Mary’s president, Gene Nichol, had a cross removed from the college’s historic Wren Chapel in a move to open the space to students and faculty of all religions. There was a backlash from William & Mary alumni (students, too, but mostly alumni), who felt that the cross was an important part of W&M’s history and community, and should not have been removed. No doubt, the vast majority of the protesters to the cross removal are Christian, and take their faith and its dominance on W&M’s campus for granted. As the article on Inside Higher Education points out, the white, Southern, Christian dominance on campus is fading with the increased diversity of cultures and religions in the United States and Virginia. William and Mary will only be hurt, in its reputation, ability to attract a diversity of students, and ability to educate students on the diversity in this world, if it continues to allow its Christian roots to determine its future course.

If it isn’t clear yet, I support Nichol’s decision to remove the Wren Cross from permanent display, and to open up the Wren chapel, a historic and otherwise neutral space on campus, to students from all religious, and non-religious, backgrounds. I think his decision, as many of his actions as President have, shows a respect for William and Mary as a public college and a desire to create a culture welcoming to the next generation of students. This is, in part, evidenced by the quote from the campus newspaper, the Flat Hat, “It would be hard to find many students who are up in arms… I think you have on both sides of the issue a few students who are very concerned about it, but that’s a minority.” The debate is mostly among alumni, many of whom experienced W&M as a less diverse campus than it is today (although it still has a long way to go to reflect our society’s true diversity in culture, income, and religion).

There are a couple facts that sometimes get buried in the debate, but are important to the issue: first, W&M (despite it's private-sounding name) is a public, Virginia state college and second, while the Wren Chapel was built (and then re-built a few times after fires) in 1695, the cross was placed there much later, in the 20th century and is in no way a permanent fixture. This debate, though, is not about technical details of historical accuracy, it is about whether a college should actively place a religious symbol in what would otherwise be a secular place. Opponents of removing the cross need to realize that W&M is no longer a Christian institution and is evolving into a more diverse, and hopefully welcoming, place. In my view, that spells nothing but success and good fortune for William & Mary.