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The thorn in Nichol’s sideAn in-depth look at one of Gene Nichol’s most outspoken and infamous critics While his memory of it all is now a little fuzzy, Jim Jones ’82 can still recall the time over 25 years ago when he and his fellow College undergrads stopped the football stadium from being expanded. 
Courtesy Photo - Jim Jones. While at the College, Should Nichol Be Renewed spokesperson Jim Jones ’82 was an active protestor, preventing the renovation of the football stadium. Today, he leads the anti-Nichol movement. In true rebellious fashion, Jones and the rest of the protesters did everything they could to stop a new renovation planned for the stadium that would have put the seating capacity at 30,000. “We protested like hell and stopped it,” Jones said. “We scared off the donor …. [Back then] I didn’t care what the alumni thought.” Jones now finds himself in a definitively opposite position — as the spokesperson for ShouldNicholBeRenewed.org, the highly secretive, loosely organized group of alumni and students that is doing everything possible to persuade the BOV not to renew College President Gene Nichol’s contract. Jones came into the position after taking notice of Nichol’s actions when the president made the decision to remove the cross from permanent display in the Wren Chapel. “That was what got me paying attention,” Jones said. “My opposition to the cross removal was based not on religion, but it was based on […] the unilateral nature of the decision and the [wording], which I felt from day one highly politicized the situation.” Jones was not alone in being upset over the cross’s removal. Many alumni disapproved of the decision, and SavetheWrenCross.org was formed. Jones became an active member in this organization, writing op-ed pieces against the removal of the cross, but said he was by no means the leader of the group. In the months following the cross’s removal, and even after a compromise had been reached that returned the cross to the chapel in a glass case, many members of SavetheWrenCross.org began to look more closely into Nichol’s background and actions. This scrutiny led to the creation of ShouldNicholBeRenewed.org. Jones maintains that his new organization is not merely SavetheWrenCross.org under a new name, but rather a group created as a result of the cross decision, a decision that caused him and his fellow group members to pay more attention to Nichol’s leadership. They did not start the group with the intention of getting rid of Nichol, but rather to explore the situation more closely. “In the beginning, we were seriously interested in asking the question of whether he should be renewed,” Jones said. “I initially signed on to be part of what I thought would be kind of an Oxford-style debate. I had some questions, but I wanted to actually ask questions,” Skiles said. “From there I think things began to kind of polarize and a lot of us who were sort of in the middle range started to drop out of the discussion.” This polarization included accusations from the pro-Nichol side that SNBR was largely a conservative group that was politically motivated against the progressive, liberal ideology of Nichol (Jones counters that his organization contains “everybody of every stripe, from violent right wingers to left wing atheists”). Those who opposed Nichol’s renewal fired back that Nichol supporters only stood behind the president because of emotional reasons or their own liberal ideologies (Jones said he believes that the only reason the student body has not yet turned on Nichol is because the majority of students’ political leanings are liberal). One incident that polarized the debate came when SNBR chose to include a link to the Lipscomb Report on its website. The report, authored by journalist Thomas Lipscomb ’61, contained information considered by SNBR to be valuable to the debate, but also contained some personal comments about Nichol, including mentions of his weight. Many deemed this an ad hominem attack against the president that has no relevance in the debate over his job performance. “That’s when I withdrew from the discussion,” Skiles said. “Mr. Lipscomb and I respectfully disagree, to put it politely.” Jones said that he and the other group members grappled with the decision to put the report up on the website. Jones said he even contacted Lipscomb to see if he could edit out the portions of the report that mentioned Nichol’s weight and other personal comments. However, Lipscomb told him he could either display the report in its entirety or not at all, and threatened to sue Jones if he were to edit anything out. Tom Fitzpatrick ’04, a first-year law student and active member in IHeartNichol.com, a website supporting Nichol, has a different opinion on the matter. “I think [keeping the Lipscomb Report on the website] is a clever way to disguise an attack against the President, by claiming that it’s an independent resource or an independent paper and then having it as a fundamental front page of your website,” Fitzpatrick said. “Don’t make an attack and then hide behind an excuse that it is an independent source.” Linda Skladany ’66, a BOV member from 1994 to 1998 and a member of SNBR, has high praise for the way Jones has acted as spokesperson. “I think he has done a magnificent job,” Skladany said. She mentioned that she would like to nominate Jones for the alumni medallion because of the work he has done with SNBR. The group itself consists of approximately 60 members, mostly alumni but also a few students. It operates very loosely — through mailing lists — and features an eight-member advisory board. Membership in the group is largely secretive, as Jones says that people fear being made public for a variety of reasons. Some have children who are current students, some have sensitive jobs and some stay secretive because of attacks they have received in the past regarding their opinions of Nichol. Both Jones and Skladany insist that they are taking active roles in this debate because of their dedication to the school. “We love the College more than anything in the world,” Jones said. “We want the College to be the kind of school that we can all be proud of, that we can all love.” 
The membership of the eight advisory board members is largely secretive as well, although Jones acknowledged that he, Skladany and Andrew McRoberts ’87 are three of its members. Jones became spokesperson for the group with little fanfare. After Skiles launched the website without giving the rest of the organization advanced warning, several members of the press came calling. Jones was selected to speak with them, and thus assumed the role of spokesperson from that point forward. “I’ve been called everything,” Jones said, mentioning that “socially-regressive Neanderthal” is one of the labels he has earned. “It hasn’t been fun, either.” For any of his message board opponents who may be expecting the man to wear attire fitting a caveman, Jones disappoints. He arrives at the interview for this article wearing blue jeans and a burgundy sweater that evokes more of a combination Bob Villa / Mr. Rogers look than it does Fred Flintstone. Quickly nixing the seating accommodations of a wooden table and chairs, he moves the interview over to a pair of plush green armchairs in the corner of a Falls Church, Va. Starbucks, swinging his legs over one of the chair’s arms. “He is just a caring, down-to-earth person,” said Jones’ wife, who asked not to be named due to security issues involving her job. “He’s very loving, very silly at times.” Jones’ wife added that he likes to watch cartoons, “Kim Possible” being his favorite. She also described him as a “phenomenal” piano player. Jones maintains that while he is a moderate Republican, he is hardly a social conservative. Jones and his wife recently sponsored an exhibit on sharks at the Monterey Bay (Calif.) Aquarium last year, and they regularly give money to an AIDS charity in Washington, D.C. Jones, who works as a Vice President for SRA International, a government consulting firm, estimates that he spent hours every day from July through October of last year working on things for SNBR. The added workload has caused him a tremendous amount of stress, he said, and has made things difficult for him at home. “I just feel like anyone else who argues for change feels,” Jones said. “If people don’t like me for it I’m just going to have to live with it.” Jones and SNBR were particularly active in the recent controversy over Nichol’s knowledge of the $12 million pledge revoked by donor James McGlothlin ’62. Jones provided The Flat Hat throughout the controversy with the same information that he had presented to the BOV, choosing not to give the information to professional local newspapers like The Daily Press and The Virginia Gazette. “I felt like it was much more important [for the students] to look into this themselves and to make some kind of a report on what we found out,” Jones said. “I felt like it had to be students who looked into Mr. Nichol, not anybody else.” Jones even went as far as urging The Flat Hat to call for Nichol’s resignation after the College released the e-mail correspondence between former College President Tim Sullivan ’66 and Nichol, revealing, in Jones’ opinion, conclusive evidence that Nichol knowingly misled the College community about what he knew regarding McGlothlin’s revoking of a $12 million pledge. The Flat Hat did not call for Nichol’s resignation. Jones has no doubt that Nichol lied about his knowledge of the pledge. “He knew,” Jones said. “He knew exactly what donation was meant. And he also knew that it had never been closed.” Jones believes that the BOV will not renew Nichol’s contract. He also thinks that the BOV will reach its decision at the February meeting. “If [the BOV does renew Nichol’s contract], I’m done … we’ve simply tried to advise [the BOV] and make the facts known and hope that they make what we believe is the right decision,” Jones said. Skiles believes that in the event that Nichol’s contract is removed, it will not matter whether or not SNBR disbands. “One website may go down, but one website is not [the whole discussion],” Skiles said. “And I think that there are a lot of people out there who dislike [Nichol] so intensely that even if they renew him and they stop fighting, we could actually be facing an even worse situation, which is where people simply disengage and walk away from the College.” Despite having disagreed with Jones’ decision regarding the Lipscomb Report, Skiles has high praise for Jones. “When I walked away from the early formation of the group and said, ‘This is not who I am,’ … Jim supported me,” Skiles said. “He never badmouthed me, he never called me any names for walking away and for taking a number of liberal folks with me. He is a man of great credibility.” Jones is well aware of his and his group’s importance in shaping the Nichol debate into what it is now. He believes that were it not for the information they provided to the BOV, the BOV would have “proceeded to rubber stamp his renewal.” Jones is not about to apologize for this. “People ask me, ‘Don’t you feel guilty about this?’” he said. “And I say no, because I don’t adopt a cause I don’t believe in and I would never have done this if I hadn’t done all this research – if we hadn’t done all this research – and been absolutely convinced that what we were doing was the important thing to do and was the right thing to do.” |
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The Flat Hat The Student Newspaper of the College of William and Mary since 1911 |
Seed Newsvine
An underground conspiracy involving 60 people – all determined to get rid of one man…cowards.
— Anonymous '09 Jan 29, 08:26 AM #
I find it rather peculiar that SNBR was originally started as a ‘neutral’ group that moved against Nichol. Some of you may recall that on the same day (June 12) at the same time (12:57 UTC) that SNBR was launched, a co-website, societyforthecollege.org was launched. Now defunct, the society claimed to be the neutral organization and was going to be soliciting viewpoints from both sides of the argument.
Because the organizations were led by the same people, I believe they probably got confused about which was supposed to be the neutral party. The Society was funded by the DC-based group ACTA, which was founded by Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney.
SNBR has been more secretive of their funding source and membership. Could it be because they are also being funded by conservative Washington groups? Don’t forget that the main agitators during the Wren Chapel situation were cronies of Newt Gingrich at the American Enterprise Institute.
These are the same people over and over again. They take down one website, and throw up another. They create one student ‘newspaper’ and replace it with another. (Remnant to VA informer) In fact, they have reconfigured so many times they can’t keep track of which websites are supposed to be neutral and which are supposed to be attack. It’s truly amazing how a few well organized and well financed alumni can put up such a magnificent smoke and mirrors show.
— Tom '04 Jan 29, 08:33 AM #
As an outsider who supports the efforts and accomplishments of what the SNBR group is doing, I am one of those who stay secretive because of attacks on my name by former alumni and Nichol himself. I am not a conservative, nor do I completely agree with the views of SNBR. However, my concern is for the current lack of adequate leadership of the College displayed by Mr. Nichol. He is an embarrassment (as any English major can tell you from his meandering epistles) to the College and to all of us who love it. I never thought I’d say that I’m extremely delighted that my child chose UVA over W&M
— Alice Jan 29, 10:21 AM #
Even if SNBR had a valid point, the smoke-and-mirrors rhetoric and spooky organizational structure they keep gives them the level of respect and legitimacy of any other group of conservative hacks.
— Tom Jan 29, 11:02 AM #
For the record, I was merely an enthusiastic protester in the stadium protest days. I was never a leader. I wish I could claim to have written the song (it was hilarious) but I can’t. The reasons we opposed the stadium were mostly financial — we felt it would be a huge drain on W&M academics and was the wrong decision for the school to make.
Anonymous,
If you are going to call the anonymous members of SNBR cowards for being anonymous, then post under your name. Good grief.
Tom,
Your conspiracy theories would do credit to the far right crowd! You have also thrown out some inaccurate statements which I need to respond to here.
As you can perhaps read above, the person who started both sites you list was Todd Skiles. His intent was to host the SNBR Web site and also to use the Society page for an Oxford-style debate. There was nothing hidden here. After Todd left SNBR over the Lipscomb paper issue he reached out to Dave Solimini and tried to moderate an Oxford-style debate (like the Oxford debate “societies”) on the other site. It never happened, but that is what Todd wanted to do.
I hate to break it to you, Tom, but SNBR has no funding source at all, conservative or otherwise. Everything that has been done has been done on a volunteer basis by SNBR members. We have no funding at all, from ACTA or anyone else.
Also, we do not “take down one website, and throw up another” and never have. The SNBR site is the same as it was and has NEVER changed. The Society Website isn’t ours, nor do we use it (nor does anyone else, as far as I can tell). There is no other Web site that we use, or have ever used. THE SAME SITE, AND ONLY THE SAME SITE, HAS BEEN THERE SINCE DAY ONE. We have never reconfigured, ever, or changed anything on the site except content, which of course changes over time. We have done our best to correct any inaccuracies we found.
You may bring up the Cross if you like, and try to insist this is what it’s all about, but it’s all about integrity and honesty. Nichol has gotten himself into this mess on his own. All we have done is present the facts that no one else bothered to find about about. What Nichol chose to do is not up to us; we have not manufactured anything, and everything we presented to the BOV is factual.
Tom Lipscomb’s paper has been mentioned a lot by the pro-Nichol crowd. The paper was, in fact, independent, and predated SNBR by months. Tom did it with the intent of sending it to the BOV, and did so. When we posted it, I didn’t even know who he was. Tom was the person who did a lot of the research on Nichol’s background, along with many others, one or two in particular. I also know that Tom Lipscomb is an alumnus who loves W&M first and foremost, and that he is a man extremely careful to document facts. You may be sure that anything in his paper is fully documented. You can see in the article that Tom felt very strongly about keeping the paper intact, as he wrote it, and that is his privilege as the sole author.
Also, we have not created any newspapers, that I know of. I am not sure what you mean. The VA Informer is not a creation of SNBR, and existed well before we did. I believe it is very important to have a wide diversity of intellectual views on campus, so I am happy the Informer is there.
As I hope most of you can read in the above piece, SNBR is NOT well-organized and well-financed. It is loosely organized and “financed” (if you can call it that) only by volunteers who do the work without pay. No person or organization of any political stripe has ever given us so much as a dime.
Also, we do not employ “smoke and mirrors” on our site and I do not employ them in the briefings we have given to the BOV and which we provided to the Flat Hat when they asked to see them. We present facts and ask other people to judge for themselves, as we have asked the BOV to do.
There is nothing “spooky” about our organizational structure either; it is about as simple as it can be, as I have tried to explain.
I have to say, you sound a lot like Dave Solimini in the points you make. I suggest that if you have any proof whatsoever to support any of the allegations you make above, that you provide the material to the Flat Hat so that they can properly report the story.
— Jim Jones Jan 29, 12:30 PM #
Hey Jim,
if and when nichol goes it would be ten times harder to find someone who can and would be willing to be president of this financially strapped university, especially with an alumni faction that has repeatedly demonstrated that they will try to make the president’s tenure a living hell if he doesn’t run the institution like Bob Jones’ University. Thank you for bleeding green and gold but by ragging the president’s backside you make this job seem way less desirable to any future potential candidate. we were fortunate to hire someone as qualified as gene nichol and im sure you would like his job but i dont think thats going to happen anytime soon.
— thanks for nothing Jan 29, 10:41 PM #
Jim J. – thanks for saying what many of us think! As for “thanks for nothing”, he’s right about one thing: Perhaps if the BOV had worked ten times harder looking for a REAL president when they chose Nichol, things wouldn’t be in the mess they are. As for the rest of his points: baloney. Nichol is a small-time, losing politician from Colorado who creates his own hell. The College, unfortunately, is just along for the ride until we find an adult to fill the job. Yes, it’s a difficult task requiring all sorts of things Nichol lacks: diplomacy, impartiality and the ability to keep one’s personal politics in check.
— lord o' zip Jan 30, 11:34 AM #
Dear Mr. Jones,
Could you please explain the illogical reasoning you used to explain why W&M shouldn’t renovate their stadium? Why would you ever “scare away” donors to the school? What is your real motivation behind this? I am a current student and Tribe football fan, and am heartbroken to think what football COULD HAVE BEEN at this school, if it wasn’t for you and your “protesters” back in the 80’s. By the way, schools like Wake Forest, UVA, etc that have big time football never seem to complain about money. Funny, how financial stability and football seem to coincide…
-thanks for nothing.
— Thanks for killing football Jan 30, 12:48 PM #
Since you asked, the situation was much more complex than that.
First, let me reiterate that I was ONLY a supporter of the effort, not an organizer and not a leader. I believed in the validity of the cause, so I supported it. The City of Williamsburg, and then-Mayor Walker, were opposed to the stadium expansion as well and said so. The donor was not attacked at all that I recall but withdrew voluntarily; I would guess he realized that opposition by the City of Williamsburg as well as opposition by students made it a less-attractive proposition for him. I am sure his intentions were only the best. By the way, I do not recall that the College faculty (except the Athletic Department) were AT ALL in favor of it either; I recall that they believed it would have a negative impact on the ability to retract and retain top-notch faculty to W&M. That should all be in the Flat Hat archives. But the protest, I am confident, was not undertaken for illogical reasons.
Money was as tight for the College then as it is now, if not worse. Given that we were, if you agreee with Gene Nichol, “a moderately well thought of state school” with only a bit over 4,000 undergrads, the cost of getting to a Division 1A-type status in football and meeting the NCAA’s requirements was, we thought, inappropriate for a very small state school. UVa and Wake were much larger and much better funded than we were.
It is fine to look at today’s Division 1A football programs and say that we ought to, or could have, been there. The reality of the time is that today’s big money wasn’t the same then. W&M was desperate for money, as always, and if you go back in history, the football program was such a high percentage of our expenses that the College cancelled a number of men’s and women’s sports programs, including programs in which we had real national stature, in order to be able to afford even to keep up the level of football that we had. This provoked a real furor among women’s athletics and many on the men’s side as well. If you have access to the Flat Hat archives, you could pick up a lot of interesting facts about the situation as it then existed. Perhaps the Flat Hat can do us a favor and mine their own archives and those of the Gazette and report the story.
In any case, W&M Football was “big time” in the ’40s and ’50s. If you look back at our players and coaches, they were top drawer. My uncle was one of them, so I have heard a lot about those days. But the program had not been as successful in following years; I am not sure why.
In my student days, we had the same problems. I hate to clue you in, but the school’s facilities today are ten times better than they were then. We had the decrepit Campus Center (whoopee) and Trinkle Hall was full of old furniture. There was no UC, and not even any Zable Stadium. There was tiny, brick-walled Cary Field, and where the UC is now were a bunch of the old fraternity lodges that were torn town for the new construction. It was a small-town, small-school environment if there ever was one. Zable Stadium today is huge compared to the old Cary Field. We had the decrepit Blow Gym (which is now the Business School) for our sports; there was no intramural sports complex at all, nor any of the soccer fields and tennis courts behind W&M Hall.
To be honest, at the time, we had just gotten W&M Hall a couple of years before, and we had a really good basketball team, and many of us thought that was a better use of resources: a strong team with a small number of athletes on full scholarship (10 or so, perhaps) in a world-class arena seemed a better bet than 70+ football players on scholarship, given our program’s stature in those days, and our facilities.
Then, as I have said, we were chronically short of money, and the GA tended to give us less than we deserved. That was a common complaint and Graves, it seemed, was always in search of funds. We had the same problems we still have today, with student aid, faculty salaries, and so on, and they were no better then.
Our conclusion was that in the context of the times, trying to build W&M, a school of 4,000+ undergrads, into a football powerhouse was an expense we could not afford to undertake.
I am not sure of the real link between football and stability; certainly at large state schools (i.e., not W&M) there is plenty of revenue generated. But I would argue that the reason UVa doesn’t have problems like we do is that they are raising money like crazy, a million a day, heading for a billion dollar endowment. I would attribute the success of financially stable schools to a combination of tuition, state support, alumni support, good investment, and the largest endowment possible.
As to whether we could now be in that league, as you say, we can only speculate. The future, however, is infinitely long, and W&M can be anything she wants to be. She will outlast us, and the best we can do now is help shape her future direction.
I really am a powerful guy, it seems, if I killed W&M football. As one protester on campus who neither conceived or led that effort, I am afraid I cannot take all the credit on myself for this. I hope that gives you some idea of our reasoning, and of the circumstances of the times that led us, and the City, to the conclusion we reached.
— Jim Jones Jan 31, 01:20 PM #
Mr. Jones,
I too appreciate your sentiments. Anyone, student, faculty, administrator, or alumni, who truly has the well-being of the school in mind instead of this quasi-religious crusade against social normalcy spearheaded by our dear Nichol. But please, don’t waste your time responding to these children. They are nothing but spoiled little kids who have used their free time espousing what have become trendy ideological considerations.
— BA Jan 31, 02:27 PM #
It is so sad to see such ignorance displayed by my fellow graduates. Nichol displayed strong leadership on a pricipled stand. At W&M of all places we should understand the concept of religious freedom FOR EVERYONE (not just the majority). Jefferson would be very proud on Nichol.
For those of you who dont like how President Nichol acted, I beg you not to be so naive. He is the president and is hired to make decions. Not call a meeting or hold an opinion poll. As Reagan said, Consensus is the negation of leadership.
Stop whining and start helping. The College needs Alumni support now more than ever. If you are not going to be a positive influence at least stop being a negative one.
— 1990 alum Jan 31, 02:52 PM #
Jim,
I find myself in agreement with you overall request with the need to have a serious review of Pres. Nichol and his status. However, I would point out a couple of factual errors about the football program and stadium.
First, I was at the College when Carey Field became Zable Stadium. Then only incremental cost to the change was that of the new lettering. Capacity was unaffected, and Zable still seats the same number today that it did in your day. I would also point out that, other than the financial impact of football which, when exposure and residual revenue is factored into the equation, is probably neutral, football did not cause the re-balancing of men’s and women’s programs. The legal requirements of Title IX at the time required equal funding exclusive of football, which was a concept known as the ‘Football Exception’ (later challenged by Cohen v. Brown University). In other words, an expansion of scholarships would have had no affect on women’s sports.
That said, I thin history has proven the anti-stadium folks right. If W&M had moved up into the ACC or Big East, the academic recruiting restrictions would have proven quite difficult to overcome. We might have even become an annual whipping post for a major conference. Most certainly, we would have never been able to compete with the WVUs and VTs of the world.
In any event, I wanted to clear the record. As a whole, however, I wish you luck with your movement!
— Mike '92 Jan 31, 03:14 PM #
Wow, lots of discussion!
Since people have been e-mailing me about the picture, the picture was taken at a “Dress Like the Tourists” party. My normal attire, even in the bad clothes and hair days of the 1970’s, was NOT a Montgomery Ward leisure suit.
Lord o’ Zip,
I have to put up for the BOV in a way. They were told this was the right guy, and they approved him. The executive search firm did, apparently, almost no due diligence on the candidates that were presented. Also, never before has a W&M Board actually had a president like Nichol. Like him or not, he has indeed been a different sort of president. The BOV can’t just renew him or just remove him — they have to have a plan. If he goes or if he stays, a plan has to be put in place. How will the search take place for a new president, and who will be interim president, if Nichol goes? If Nichol stays, how will the BOV manage the situation? The Board does not have an easy job right now. I am sure this is a lesson learned for the Board, and when the time comes to select a new president, I am sure that they will ensure due diligence is performed. In their defense, never before when W&M selected a president was the infrastructure in place to research someone’s past. It is a different world now in terms of information.
Mike ’92,
Thanks! But in my day they did cut out a number of sports which they said they couldn’t afford to fund. It caused quite a furor. This was well before Zable Stadium, which to my mind is sort of the “right size” for W&M and was nicely done. It may well have not been due to football. I am not the authority. But thanks for your factual analysis on the subject.
1990 Alum,
I will agree that Nichol’s stand was principled, but the stand he took was on his principles, and was made without even a thought for what might happen. As we saw in the Sullivan e-mail, Nichol didn’t even ask his mentor and predecessor what he thought. The political principles of Gene Nichol do not become the political principles of William and Mary by fiat. In Nichol’s Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial just after the story broke about the lost $12M, Nichol said that the “College’s Principles are not for sale.” You will note that he simply decided what the College’s principles were going to be without bothering to ask anyone else (i.e. the BOV) what they thought. Nichol assumed that his political principles were equivalent to the College’s. On that point he encountered a great deal of disagreement.
BA,
Thanks for your support.
But this person has not come out as either pro-Nichol or against Nichol, and he (or she) has a concern and a question. I would like to encourage debate of dissenting ideas, and so I wanted this person to get an answer to their question, whatever its intent, since they asked me. I assume the person wanted an answer. So I have tried to convey something of the situation I believe we were in nearly 30 years ago when this happened, and what we thought at the time, and what the historical context was (when there was no Web, no e-mail, only a very few mobile phones, and basically, not even any PCs yet among the general population). Answering these questions is part of healthy academic debate, as long as people are willing to have that debate.
Also, as another point of interest, I am dimly recalling that the plan for stadium expansion involved tearing down Bryan Complex as well as other buildings to make room, but perhaps my memory is faulty. Anyone remember?
I really hope the FH would search their archives and do a piece on this whole situation. Don’t rely on my “fuzzy memory” for this. Perhaps those who led the movement can be found and interviewed?
Jim
— Jim Jones Jan 31, 05:16 PM #
There is a maxim that states, more or less, “If you’re not liberal when you’re a young man you have no heart; if you’re not conservative when you’re middle-aged you have no brain”
I was pretty liberal as a W&M undergrad but I have become much more conservative with with knowledge, experience, and may I say, maturity.I am not religious but I was hugely offended by the Wren Cross debacle;and I had been known to take in an occasional sex show, off campus of course, in my younger days.
My issue is not the cross or the Sex Show – my issue is Gene Nichol.Nichol does not care one whit about W&M, he cares only about his own personal political agenda.His presidency has done damage to W&M that will take years to repair, if that is even possible.The only way to “get these problems behind us and move forward” is for Nichol to resign or be fired.
— Jeff '62 Feb 2, 01:21 PM #